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Vy || 20s || she/her Fic Recs: @violets-library Main: @obsidianvibranium

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This is just a way for me to search up fics that I’ve reblogged through my tags. Feel free to use it to find new fics to read! 💜

[lunexiax]

𝚌𝚛𝚢𝚋𝚊𝚋𝚢 (𝚋𝚞𝚌𝚔𝚢 𝚋𝚊𝚛𝚗𝚎𝚜)

pairing: brother's best friend!bucky barnes x f!reader, AU setting

summary: It doesn't matter that you're obsessed with your brother's best friend - the one you have had a very complicated relationship with since childhood. It doesn't matter that you fantasise about him, nor does it matter that you keep a diary of all your dirty thoughts because he will never, ever know.

warnings: 18+ mdni!!, smut with minor plot, childhood frenemies to lovers, fingering, unprotected p in v, dumbification, creampie, dacryphilia, mean bucky, size kink, brat taming, bigdick!bucky, tummy bulge, general filth and debauchery, jealousy, use of petnames (sweetheart, baby, angel etc.), reader described having hair bucky can twirl and as being smaller than bucky, no use of y/n, lots of cursing, bucky convinces reader to let him hit it raw (idk if that's a warning lol), moodboard pics do not depict reader

word count: 11.1k

a/n: idk if this is deranged in a hot way or just deranged but i hope you enjoy lmao. bucky is very mean in this and invades reader's privacy so stay away if that's not your thing!!

The abrasive, thrumming buzz of the lawnmower lets you know he’s back. You stop tapping on your phone, pausing for just a moment while you try to resist the urge. You fail. You pull up to your knees and peer out the window beside your bed.

Bucky is in your back garden, driving forward the shabby rusted lawnmower that lives in your shed. The one that has likely never been used by anyone but him. He’s not shirtless like he sometimes is - he’s in a black t-shirt - but you swear you can make out the muscles of his strong back even from this distance. The way they clench and tense with mild exertion. A heat settles low and deep in your stomach. 

He’s waving before you realise you’ve been caught. You roll your eyes - exaggerate it a bit so you know he can see - and slump down on your bed again when he gives you a slanted smile.

The air around you feels damp and raw now in a way that has very little to do with the early summer heat. You force yourself onto your stomach and stuff your face into your pillow.

You can’t keep doing this to yourself. 

Or, rather, he can’t keep doing this to you. However excruciating his presence is when your family is around, it’s so much worse when they’re not.

Most of the time you want to throttle him. It had been that way since you were kids. You can still feel the grovelling embarrassment of being somewhere close to ten years old and begging him and your brother to let you tag along with them to do something stupid like peeking through the dirt-grimed windows of a neighbour’s house or sneaking into a derelict, moss-eaten hotel until someone called the cops. In defiance of all stereotypes, your brother never had a problem with it. He has doted on you since you were in the cradle.

Bucky, though. He was never receptive to it. He would let you make your case, watching you humble yourself with calculating, amused eyes that looked slightly wrong on a boy of only twelve years. You can still remember how he would make a big show of deliberating, before simply handing out a ‘no’, and moving away. Your brother would shoot you a remorseful grin but always followed after him without hesitation.

On the rare occasions he did let you trail after them, he made you regret it. He would poke and prod at you, pulling lightly at your hair or making fun of you until big, fat, brutally-resisted tears would well up in your eyes. Oh, you remember how much he used to enjoy that - the mean smile he wore while he called you a crybaby. It always ended with your brother sternly telling him to lay off, before walking you home.

Your parents refused to hear a bad word about him. They still won’t. 

You’re not really sure what is up with Bucky’s family and his home life. You just know that he had always spent more time at your house than his own. Once summer rolled around, it was like he forgot he even had a house of his own to begin with.

Your parents treat him less like a guest and more like a favourite son. The guest bedroom became Bucky’s room when you were eleven. When he tinkers around and puts together your mom’s overly-complicated coffee machine or fixes the hot water or - the very worst - mows the lawn, your parents treat him like a king. They rave in public and private about how they don’t know what they would do without him. When you had tried to tattle as a kid, the most you would get was a patient rub on the back.

It was a push and pull between the two of you. Always had been. Bucky was either acting bothered at your presence, poking and prodding at you cruelly - or irritating you with his own presence and annoying taunts.

And all of that was annoying. Is annoying. But nothing compares to that feeling. The one you’re experiencing right now.

It started when you were pushing sixteen. You had stopped asking to tag along a few years ago but that summer was different. Bucky was told by your brother, firmly and categorically, that you would be hanging out with them whether he liked it or not. He stared at you with odd fixity but made no protests and suddenly you were part of the friend group. Your brother had a crush on your best friend Wanda, who was also hanging around a lot that summer. That played into it. But you took it as a win regardless.

You spent most of your time that summer hanging out in a clearing in the woods by your house. There was nothing else to do and even if there was, you had no money to do it. Most of the details of the day itself now evade you - they’re blurry around the edges. There was a new addition to the group whose name you cannot now remember. A persistent, uncomfortable pass made for you. Your brother distracted by Wanda. A few coarse comments made, before the new guy began to touch.

What you do remember - what you well and truly cannot forget - is what happened after that touch. The way Bucky propelled up from where he sat on tree branches and lichen. How he grabbed the collar of What’s-his-name and flung him to the ground with one heavy, solid punch. The silence afterwards. The crawling shameful pang of excitement in your gut.

You never looked at him the same. 

It’s not for lack of trying.

God - you try. You try so hard. You have tried for so many years. But every fling you had in college ended up wearing his face when you closed your eyes. 

Thoughts of him run through your mind while you fill your pillow up with gasps. You’re sure that if you wrung out the fabric or pressed down hard, those sighs would have to spill back out, surround the room with breathless cries of his name.

But you have graduated now. You’re back home until you find a full-time job and this childhood crush will no longer do. It’s remarkably inconvenient, the way your knees go weak and wobbly when he walks in the room, even while you paint a snarl on. The way a hot, sticky warmth begins to flood the space between your thighs when you watch him work like he is today. 

And you’ve tried everything there is to try. You’ve tried dating other people - it usually ends sour. You made a trip or two to the counsellor on campus. You had even left stop-sign stickers around your dorm room as a reminder to snap out of it when you are thinking about him.

At Wanda’s recommendation, you have started a diary. Every time you think about him or let yourself get stupidly, fantastically turned on by him, you create a new entry. Not all of the entries are about him - some are flimsy little notes to distract yourself - but they all lead back to him one way or another. Once the book is full, you will burn it. You started it just before you left campus three weeks ago and the book is almost half-way full.

You know it’s a stupid idea. It won’t work, which is why you have already sought out a witch on Etsy for when this fails.

The deep, low tingle at the bottom of your stomach hasn’t ceased, because even while deep in thought, the image of Bucky’s strong back and his bold, lopsided smile are still running behind your eyes. You become suddenly aware that you’re lightly sweating. Your underwear is warm and damp.

You glance over at your diary on your bedside table - most recent entry late last night, courtesy of your traitorous imagination. You sigh and pick it up. 

Bucky sees you in the window to your bedroom. You’re just a little floating head above the window sill. He can’t make out an expression very clearly. He waves and forces back a laugh when he sees your bratty eye-roll, the way you flop away dramatically.

You’re back home. For the summer, at least. Until all those fancy graduate jobs in New York or Boston or Philly start opening up.

He doesn’t need to be here, if he’s being honest. Has no reason to be. The lawn has no need for mowing and there’s not a damned thing left in the house to be fixed. His own apartment isn’t exactly a paradise, but it’s not bad either. 

You won’t be here forever, though. He’ll take what he can get in the meantime.

He likes how it feels to annoy you without a buffer. With no parents to be on his best behaviour in front of, no brother to shoot him warning glances when he pokes too hard. 

He regresses slightly every time he floats back into your orbit. Falls out of adulthood and back into the familiar rhythm. The push and pull. 

His childhood crush has matured into something deeper, but his actions haven’t. He still tugs your pigtails in a metaphorical sense. It’s much too late to get you to see him as anything but an annoying, big brother-type figure now, but he can deal with that. He likes watching you get riled up, anyway.

You regress around him too. He takes great satisfaction in that. You walk into the house after months of being away, haughty and put-together, like you had finally done all your growing up in college. A few grating words from him can make you twitch a little bit while you fight the urge to snap, irritation spilling through the cracks. And you eventually do crack. All the way. Every single time.

He mows until the short tufts of grass turn to clippings. He spares no blade, weed or flower and thinks about you, lying up on your bed. Probably doing something dumb. Probably scrolling on your  phone or flipping through some magazine. He remembers when you were thirteen and he found that stash of teen-pop magazines in your room, the pages with boyband members dog-eared, hearts circled around their pictures. He smiles, thinking about the way you screamed when you caught him red-handed. How you told him to “stop being such a pain in my ass”, pushing him out your bedroom door and slamming it shut behind him while he laughed. You were sulky at dinner afterwards.

He rolls the mower back into the shed, ties the padlock and tugs at it twice before walking into the house through the sliding glass doors.

He’s sweating lightly. He takes a quick swallow of water from the glass on the counter - whether it’s yours or his, he can’t remember - and licks a few beads of moisture from his upper lip. He feels good. 

He flops down on the couch, puts on some show indiscriminately and wonders what you’re doing right now. He wonders if you’re on the phone with your college friends. Or with that Matt guy he had heard about through the grapevine. He wonders if you’re wearing the same tight shorts you had on yesterday.

He considers going upstairs to annoy you but thinks better of it. He will wait a while to see if you come downstairs on your own.

He imagines Matt as some football player. He can’t picture a face - just some obscure blur - but he’s probably handsome. Definitely blonde. Social butterfly. Good grades. He can’t see you going for someone without good grades. 

Bucky’s grades were never great, but you were such a little swot. He used to sit alongside you while you did your homework. When you would tell him to get lost, he would shoot back that he had homework to do too. It’s probably the only reason he graduated high school.

Matt is probably biding his time right now until you both have steady jobs so he can propose. He’s probably boring as shit. Fucks you missionary for thirty seconds before rolling over onto his back. He probably asks you whether you came afterwards, and you probably talk to your stupid college friends about how much he cares and how respected you feel. 

But that’s a dangerous avenue to walk down. Because now he’s thinking about how you would look afterwards, naked and unsatisfied. Would you ever think about shooting him a text when Matt drifts off to sleep after getting his rocks off? See if he could sort you out any better than your boring fuck of a boyfriend? 

Obviously not. But it’s a nice thought.

You probably don’t do any of the things that Bucky would want to do with you - and definitely not with Missionary Matt. You’re too fucking prissy. No way in hell are you letting anyone take you the way Bucky wants to.

He doesn’t even understand why his brain has chosen you of all people to be the star of every daydream he has had since he was old enough to know what a crush was. You’re arrogant and spoiled and you think that just because you attract men like flies to shit that you can bat your eyes and get whatever you want. (You absolutely can. Bucky has tried to be the one exception to that rule, but he’s also just a man.) 

Unfortunately, he knows all of this and still desires you desperately. And the want that pours out of him in waves isn’t strictly sexual - in fact, it’s mostly something else - but he’s not sure how to define it. He likes you, except ’like’ doesn’t seem strong enough to cover all he feels. So it’s easier to focus on the sex. Maybe that way he can convince himself it’s all he wants.

He has run out of patience. You still haven’t come downstairs and he can only deny himself for so long.

He takes the stairs two-at-a-time, but paces himself so you don’t hear his footsteps and think he’s eager. Your bedroom is at the very end of the hall. When he approaches your white door - still adorned with stickers and tags from every phase you ever went through - he thinks about knocking. He doesn’t.

He can’t remember the last time that he was in your room, but it is exactly as it always was. Pink wallpaper. A white desk in the corner armed with perfectly positioned sticky notes and neat, alphabetised folders. Stuffed animals perched in a line atop your bed like marching soldiers. Posters on the walls from films you thought made you seem edgy when you were fifteen, in direct opposition to the frilly pink decor of the room. 

The only thing missing is you, but he can hear the shower going in your ensuite.

He goes to sit down on your bed and focuses deeply on not getting a hard-on while he watches the bathroom door. But he lands on something solid.

Reaching underneath his thigh, he picks up a little pink notebook, turns it over in his hands. More little stickers plastered to the front, hearts scribbled onto it with a pink gel pen. He knows instantaneously that he has gold dust in his goddamn hands. He expects to feel at least a little guilt or shame for what he is about to do and is mildly surprised to find he doesn’t.

This is your diary.

The first entry is from three weeks ago.

22 May I just broke up with Matt. It was awful. He kept asking me why. I had to say that I didn’t want to live in Boston like him. He said he would find a different internship and we could go to New York instead, and then I really had no idea what to say. It’s not like I could tell him the real reason. He cried. I’m just glad it’s over.

I think I should feel at least a little bit sad about it, but I don’t. I’m just relieved and feeling awkward. I don’t think I could let him fuck me one more time without going out of my mind. This really is a curse. I hope he moves on quickly. I think Suzy is into him.

Bucky can’t help the stupid grin that breaks out across his face. Looks like Missionary Matt was too boring, even for prim little you. No engagement on the horizon after all. He shifts around slightly on the bed in the guest bedroom and tries not think about what might have been so lacking in the bedroom with Matt for you.

23 May My family are ditching me. They’re all heading off to the south of France for three weeks, but I won’t be home from college early enough. They fucking suck. I wonder if Bucky will still be hanging around. Three weeks of torture incoming.

He laughs, loud and long, at that. What a spoiled little brat. Still, it’s kind of cute.

Bucky was asked to join your family on their holiday and declined. Partially because he still, after all this time, doesn’t quite believe them when they say it’s not a bother. But it was mostly because of a selfish hankering to be able to hang out with you alone. To not have to check himself when his gaze lingers a little too long or when he presses you a bit too hard to be able to convincingly feign disinterest. He reads on.

23 May Now that I have thought about it, I can’t stop. Bucky is going to be hanging around the house. He always hangs around the house, even when nobody else is there. Dad said he’s going to help him with building a new shed outside. I wonder if he will be doing that while they’re gone. I remember that one time he helped Dad with that old vintage car he bought on a whim. I could see him from my window. He was shirtless and working under the car from a skateboard like something out of a goddamn porno. I think I’ll die if I have to see him do something like that again. 

Bucky’s grin is frozen on his face, skin heating up around his bones. The shed would be a good excuse to stick around now that he’s done everything else - he had forgotten about that. 

He wasn’t aware you had been watching him fix up that car from your window. That must have been, what - two? three? - years ago. Old Pontiac runs like new now. His eyes catch on the word ‘porno’, scribbled in your pink, curly writing. He thinks about you watching him from above.

24 May I might be going insane. I shouldn’t have let myself think of the visual of Bucky under that stupid car last night. I think it’s a good thing I dumped Matt. I would have let him fuck me and felt so guilty afterwards for imagining someone else. I handled it myself but I woke up feeling just as riled up. My fingers aren’t big enough. Maybe I should buy a dildo or something. Bucky’s fingers are huge. One time he put his hand over my mouth because he said I was whining too much and it covered more than half of my face.

The blood rushes to his cock so fast it leaves him lightheaded. He has to read the entry twice to make sure he didn’t black out and invent something out of wishful thinking.

25 May This stupid diary isn’t doing shit. It’s making it worse. Every time I write something down, it just makes me think about it more. I spent all of yesterday thinking about Bucky’s stupid fingers. I hate him so much. I want him to bend me over something and fuck me until I’m an inch from passing out. Maybe that’s all I need to get this out of my system.

26 May Today I thought about that time last summer when we were at the bonfire and I made out with that guy in the Bulls jersey and snapback. I forget his name.

Bucky looked so angry. I think that’s why I did it. I think I wished he was jealous, even though I know he was just pretending he’s my fucking brother or something. It made me think of that time he punched that other guy in the clearing in the woods just for touching me. I forget that guy’s name too. 

Bucky hasn’t forgotten either of their names. The bonehead from the bonfire was Jon and the asshole from the woods was Robby. And he was jealous. He was so fucking jealous. His dick is hard as a rock in his jeans, head spinning.

28 May Yesterday was ok. I kept myself busy. Today has been terrible. Mom sent me a group picture of everyone eating dinner out in the back garden and Bucky was wearing a tight, white t-shirt. He looked so big, even bigger than when I last saw him. I just kept wondering if his cock would be big too. I zoomed in and took a screenshot like some fucking pervert. I got myself off so many times and I still feel like I haven’t gotten it out of my system. I literally fingered myself until my sheets were-

“Fuck,” he grunts, strained even to his own ears. His eyes squeeze shut and his dick throbs violently at the idea of your little fingers pushing themselves into your pussy at the thought of him. He’s not sure how much more of this he can read before jizzing in his pants like some kind of virgin.

Who knew? Who fucking knew? His stuck-up little priss isn’t so prissy after all. He’s a bit dizzy with want and some other unidentifiable sensation. Something warm and gooey in his chest.

He almost likes how ashamed you are of it. It makes it that much more satisfying - like he’s won some game that he didn’t even know he was playing. He’s dimly aware of the fact that he lost the very same game himself, but he ignores it. 

You would be so embarrassed to find out he is reading this. You would yell and scream and throw shit around the room in a tantrum like a toddler. You might never speak to him again. Even so, he can’t help himself but flick over the pages to the most recent entry. It feels like a spoiler to a book he hasn’t finished.

14 June He came around with the lawnmower again. It’s getting harder every day not to get myself off to the thought of him-

He clearly missed that part. He wonders how long ago you made that resolution. He will find out soon enough.

-when he looks that good. I could literally see the fucking muscles in his back through his t-shirt and it was black. I’m so fucking wet. I’m going to have a long, cold shower and tonight I’ll cum to the thought of someone else. Literally anyone else.

Then and there, Bucky decides that won’t be happening.

You feel better after your laborious shower but only for a matter of minutes. You walk into your room wrapped in your bathrobe and notice that you can no longer hear the lawnmower. Bucky must have finished the job. He’s probably in the shower now, washing off the pollen and sweat.

And that does it. You sigh at the stickiness forming between your legs and reach over to your bedside table for your diary.

Except it’s not there. 

You open and close the small drawer underneath. Ruffle around in your sheets and pick up your stuffed animals one-by-one to look make sure they’re not sitting on it. Eventually you get up and remove the duvet from the mattress, pull the bed frame away from the wall, crawl to the floor. You even go to the bathroom to make sure you didn’t carry it in with you. It’s not there. It’s not anywhere.

You must have left it lying out somewhere outside. Your stomach lurches into your throat. Except that’s not possible, because your last entry was written right here on this bed just before you went in for your shower. You had left your room to get a towel and steal some of your mother’s hair stuff - maybe you had inadvertently carried it out with you. You had been severely distracted.

You dress as quickly as you can physically manage, ignoring the way your wet hair is soaking through your cotton sweatshirt, but when you leave your room your footsteps are hesitant and careful. The idea of Bucky picking up your diary somewhere and deciding to give it a browse sends a cold sweat of terror up the knobs of your spine. Oh god, don’t let him find it. Please don’t let him find it. 

You tear the linen closet apart. You even pick up the piles of towels that you know you didn’t touch and shake them out. Nothing. You fold them in a way that would make your mother wince and put them back.

Your parents’ room wields no results either. You run your fingers over the wooden bannister faintly while you walk down the stairs. Bucky isn’t there - thankfully - but neither is your diary. You hadn’t even come downstairs between writing your last entry and going for your shower. That, you’re absolutely certain of. But you’re running out of options.

You have one room left to check, but you will have to play your cards carefully. One wrong move, a bit too much information, and you could find yourself on the receiving end of questions that you would really prefer not to be asked. Or of a bit too much curiosity for your liking.

Your fingers linger over the wood of Bucky’s bedroom door for a whole minute before you can bring yourself to commit to a small, tentative knock. Bucky grunts on the other side and it’s untranslatable but you take it to be an in invite.

He’s lounging on his bed, one ankle hooked over the other, head reclined back to rest lazily on the headboard. He doesn’t move his bored gaze from the television, where some reality television documentary about the daily lives of zoo veterinarians is playing. You’re distracted by it momentarily. You didn’t think this would be his sort of thing.

“What’s up?” he asks you, still not looking your way. He didn’t shower. He’s still sweaty and tense, the smell of grass sticking to his clothes and skin. You try not to look.

“Just saying hi,” you say, shifting feet. You look at the door for a brief moment before deciding to close it awkwardly behind you.

He looks at you then, one eyebrow and one side of his lip quirking upwards in tandem. “Just saying hi.”

You nod. His smile breaks free then, but it’s not altogether a nice one. “Well, hi,” he says.

“Hi,” you mumble back. You continue to look at each other while you fidget, stepping forward cautiously until your knees hit his bed. You look at him expectantly and he rolls his eyes before moving his own legs so you can sit.

“What’s got you all buggy?” he asks sardonically, giving you a light tap on the side with his foot. He’s not wearing his boots anymore, but some grass still rubs off on you somehow. You rub your side and shoot him a look as if it hurt, even though it didn’t. 

“I’m not buggy.”

“Yeah y’are. You got bugs.”

“You got bugs,” you snap. “I’m perfectly fine.”

He laughs. “Alright, you don’t got bugs. I have bugs ‘cause I was out there mowing all day. Now what do you want?”

Your stomach gives an odd jerking motion at the memory of him out there mowing the lawn. You try to keep any guilt from showing on your face. “Maybe I just wanna talk to you.”

“Oh yeah?” He doesn’t seem convinced. You nod.

“Yeah,” you say, picking at a loose thread his bedsheet. “So what have you been up to?”

“Sweetheart, what’s goin’ on?” he chuckles, turning slightly on his side so he can see you. “You know what I’ve been up to. You saw me out there.”

“Duh,” you say. You roll your eyes again and you can feel him laugh more than you can hear it - the minute little vibration through the sheets. His skin is inches away from yours. If you reached out just a little bit, you could touch his hand.

“Duuuhhh,” he mimics you with an exaggerated Valley-girl drawl. “Why’d you ask then, smartass?”

“I meant, like, after that.”

“After I finished the lawn?”

You nod. You are so desperately bad at this.

“Not much. Watched this,” he says, pointing at the TV. He gets distracted by something there and begins to watch it again. “Did a bit of light reading. What about you?”

Your heart is moving up in a slow but steady elevator to the base of your neck. “I’ve been in the shower,” you say casually. “What are you reading?”

“Long shower,” he says.

“Well it was an everything-shower,” you say defensively, forgetting yourself for a moment.

“The hell is an everything shower?”

“Don’t be dense. It’s literally in the name. It’s called an everything shower because you do everything in the shower.”

His gaze flies back to you then, dark and questioning, eyebrows raised slightly. It takes for his lip to twitch into a small smile before you come to your senses.

“A-as in,” you stammer. “You do all your self-care stuff. Like shaving and exfoliating and hair masks. That kind of everything.”

His smile widens and he nods, half sarcastically. “Right. That kind of everything.”

Your face heats up. There’s a brief pause. 

“So what are you reading at the mo-”

“Y’know I think you’d like this,” he says, pointing over to the TV again. You glance over distractedly. A giraffe is giving birth standing up. You can’t help the way your nose twitches slightly as you take in all the blood and goo onscreen.

“Why is that?” you ask.

“There’s this one girl who cries every time an animal dies. She’s been working there five years and she still cries every time. She’s like you.”

“I’m not like that.”

“Yes you are,” he laughs and the sound travels through you. “Remember that one time you cried because your dad asked me to catch and kill that mouse?”

You do. He had been strangely nice about the whole thing. He made a makeshift humane trap and brought it to the old railway line a few miles away instead. 

“I was sixteen-”

“And if you’re tryna tell me you wouldn't react the same way right now, I say you’re full of shit.”

You look at him resentfully. “Like you’re any tougher. You’re the one who saved him.”

“Well you know I can’t help but give you what you want once the waterworks start. You’re a pretty crier, sweetheart.”

You just look at him, feeling a bit dazed and uncomprehending. Saliva floods your mouth and you’re forced to swallow. He just glances over at you for the smallest of instances. You like the handsome, self-satisfied smile he gives himself before turning back to his programme, even though it’s at your expense. You know instinctively that you’ll be failing at your new resolution tonight. 

“Shut up. Don’t be weird,” you say, because you can think of nothing else. He huffs with humour and there’s something in his expression that you don’t like.

“So you said you were reading something?” you say. You’re aiming for a casual tone but you think you might be overselling it.

“Mhm,” he says, nodding once. The programme can’t be that interesting, but he seems absorbed in it.

“I didn’t think you liked reading.”

“I have a newfound appreciation for it.” He smiles at the screen and maybe you’re feeling a little jealous. You snatch the remote out of his hands, careful not to let your fingers brush, and blackness eats the image of a family of monkeys. His eyes snap to you with amused surprise. 

“What are you reading?”

Your heart is pumping while Bucky appraises you for a second, eyes sliding their way around your flustered face. He licks his bottom lip slowly before sucking it into his mouth. He speaks low.

“Don’t worry about it. ’S’too dirty for you, sweetheart.”

You really fucking hope that doesn’t mean what you think it does. He has the book. Oh dear god, don’t let him have the book.

Your voice comes out weak and fractured. “Are you… reading smut?”

He laughs again, face lit up. Eyes still on you. “That what you call it? Sure. Something like that, at least.”

“Bucky,” you say, voice no more than a horrified whisper. There’s a brutal heat curling in your gut - embarrassment and something else. “What are you reading? Please.”

He looks at you for just a second longer before reaching under the blanket beside him. His hand reaches out again, fingers curled around a book that looks incredibly small in his large palm.

You blink at it for just a second, as if concentrating hard enough might make it disappear. Please make it disappear. Please make it nothing at all.

But then you’re rolling forward, hardly aware of what you’re doing until your back is bowed, a low, despairing groan escaping you while your limbs slip away from you. Eventually you’re played across the bottom of the bed, face firmly pressed to the soft memory foam. If you stay here long enough, your face might imprint itself there. A garbled, monotonous litany is spilling from your lips. You’re not even sure what you’re saying.

Your stomach is going haywire. Bucky is laughing like you knew he would - you fucking knew he would be an asshole about this - and you would go running from the room if it didn’t mean that you would have to move your face from the bed and look at him. 

You suppose it’s better that he’s laughing than looking at you with the raw kind of disgust that you had pictured whenever you imagined him finding out about your feelings towards him. Maybe it means that you two can go back to normal at some point, even if the humiliation raging through your body begs to differ.

“Don’t be such a baby,” Bucky says and you hate him. Your face pops up to look at his. Still amused. Still wicked and gleeful. 

“Where did you get that?” you bark.

“Your room,” he says, as if it should be obvious. “Interesting read. You should be a writer with that vivid imagination. What did you call it, smut?”

“Fuck you!” you screech, and Bucky physically recoils at the loud noise, irritation crawling onto his features for the first time in this interaction. “You had no right to go into my room and invade my privacy. What the hell is wrong with you? You are such a piece of shit!”

Bucky rolls his eyes while you make your way up the bed and take a swing for his chest. He catches your wrists in time and your traitorous body pauses at the touch. 

“Like I said,” he says sternly. “Don’t be such a baby. You need me to help you get this out of your system? What was it you said again? Bend you over and fuck you until you’re an inch from passing out?”

You give one last valiant jerk to break free, but he has a death grip with seemingly minimal effort. You go still while the fight leaves you. Hot humiliation and more than a little arousal course through you.

“Fuck you,” you say again with considerably less vitriol.

“I will,” he says, eyes locked on yours punishingly. “If that’s what you want.”

Your breath stutters, heat rising up the length of your face. You’re not sure if he’s messing with you, but the words are having the intended effect regardless. Your thighs press together gently to alleviate some of the pressure that his words and his eye-contact are creating. His eyes flicker down quickly, following the movement, before moving back up to meet your own gaze.

“Got nothing to say now? That’s ok, baby. I saw enough in that little book. Let’s look.”

He lets go of your wrists and you immediately lurch forward to grasp the diary, but he gets there first. He opens it at a random page.

“I came home from college today,” he starts to read, voice low. “Everyone else was gone, but Bucky was here. I don’t know how it’s possible but he’s so much hotter since I last saw him. He wears a bit of stubble now and his muscles were almost bursting out of his t-shirt. We bickered a little bit in the evening, but the whole time I was just wondering what he’s like in bed. I don’t think he would be sweet and soft all the time, like Matt. Maybe sometimes but I think he would be so mean and rough most of the time. He seems like he knows how to make a girl cum.”

He looks up at you. You feel tears prickle behind your eyes, shame steamrolling through you. You reach for the book again but he moves it out of your reach effortlessly.

“You’re goddamn right I do,” he says, smiling as if he’s talking about something totally innocent. “You want me to show you, sweetheart?”

Your brain is scrambled and the only thing escaping your lips is a garbled mess of vowels. You’re still suspicious. It wouldn’t be entirely unlike him to get you to admit to this and then pull the rug out from under you a moment later.

He huffs an impatient sigh. “Don’t go dumb on me already, silly girl.”

He flicks to another page in the book, smiles, and finally hands it over to you. You take it uncertainly.

“Why don’t you read that for me? Out loud. Jog your memory a bit.”

You’re not sure what you’re doing, but at this point it’s easier to follow instructions than to figure out what to do yourself. You look down, take another hesitant glance at an encouraging Bucky and begin to read with a sheepish, shameful tone. Your face is burning.

“I want him so bad. I think I’ll die if I don’t have him. The orgasms I’m giving myself aren’t enough. I need him to fuck me, even just one time. I’ll never ask for anything else again in my life if I can get his cock inside me just once. I’m going so deranged, I actually pictured him choking me yesterday with those huge hands and it made me cum so hard.” 

Your own words have done a number on you. You are stupidly, ridiculously turned on by his eyes on you and your own words echoing around the room. You raise your eyes slowly and sheepishly to meet his and the look on his face is nothing short of starving.

“Fuck it,” he breathes, pulling you forward and into a kiss.

Your unsuspecting mouth meets his with short, stabbing gasps. His right arm moves to the back of your neck, pulling you against him firmly, while the prosthetic arm pulls you onto his lap. His lips move against yours and the only word to describe it is filthy. His lips are still wet from licking them and his tongue is sliding over yours delicately but expertly.

You’re in a state of euphoria. Part of you always wondered whether you had played this up too much in your head. You wondered - if you were given the chance to finally touch him like this, whether it might be a bit disappointing after all you had imagined. 

If possible, it might be the opposite. Your body is shaking with adrenaline. Without thinking too much about it, you grind down on his lap and feel his hard length through his jeans. A bolt shoots up your spine. Has he been hard this whole time?

He grunts at the friction, calloused fingers tightening their hold on you. His hand glides slowly down from your neck, through the valley of your breasts and over your stomach, playing with the waistband of your cotton shorts. You’re already so riled up, it makes you press down on him again, clutching at his shoulders as if you could possibly pull him any closer. You’re high off the feel of him when he pulls away, just a few inches.

“You ready to admit it yet? That you want me?”

“I want you,” you breathe. It’s almost embarrassing how automatic the response is. How little you even have to think about it.

You feel his smile spreading against your own face. “I know, sweetheart. Of course I know. Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of you.”

Bucky is on the warpath, tearing your sweatshirt and his t-shirt off in quick succession. He takes a second to zero in on your breasts and you feel mildly self-conscious about your plain black bra, but he seems adequately distracted by them.

He slows down. Unclips your bra with languor. You shove away the sick, jealous feeling that creeps up when he doesn’t fumble even remotely with the clasp.

Once you’re bared to him, he seems to move slower. His hands go up to fondle them with uncharacteristic gentleness and you suck in a breath. His eyes darken to black, shiny knobs at your reaction and he maintains eye-contact with you while he presses a gentle kiss over your nipple, pulling it into his mouth.

A moan slips out at the sensation. So that’s what that should feel like.

“Wanna know a secret?” he murmurs between kissing and sucking, moving over to your other breast. You nod, uncertain whether or not he can see you. 

“Want you too. Wanted you since we were kids.”

You look down at him. He is seemingly avoiding your eyes. Your brain is a little hazy but still operational for the most part.

“Since when?”

“Just fuckin’ told you,” he says, moving a warm hand up your thigh. It’s a distraction tactic.

“No but when? What age?” Your voice is coming out breathy with the way his thumb is creeping underneath your shorts, stroking the sensitive crease between your thigh and the hem of your underwear. You wonder with some apprehension if his fingers can sense the warmth radiation from you. You’re soaked through.

“Doesn’t matter,” he says, moving back up to kiss you. His thumb strokes over your panties now and you gasp into his mouth.

“Yes it does. Tell me,” you say. Because you’re muddled and jittery and incredibly fucking worked up, but more than all of that - you’re stubborn.

He gives you a hard look for a second, likely deciding whether he will be able to get you to let this go. You’re not.

“Was sweet on you when I was ten,” he says, rubbing you over your underwear harder now. Stars are exploding in your eyes, but the heavy, sluggish machinery that is your brain in its current state still chugs along at its steady, slow rhythm.

“Isn’t that when we first-”

“Yes.”

The shock almost overrides the sensation of his thumb slipping under the waistband of your underwear. But not quite. A loud, whining moan makes Bucky smile, but you still haven’t lost your head completely.

“You’ve liked me since we first met as little kids?”

He makes a loud, frustrated noise that vibrates through you and flips you over so you’re on your back. It happens so quick that it makes you dizzy. He folds himself over you and presses a vigorous kiss to your lips.

“Can you shut the hell up for two seconds?” he grunts, yanking your cotton shorts and underwear over your legs until you’re completely bare underneath him. “Tryna do something here.”

You laugh at him, but it doesn’t last long. He palms your breast briefly before trailing his fingers down, down, down. His fingers just barely graze over your clit and you buck up with a moan. All the humour is gone - you’re struggling to remember what you even found funny in the first place.

He brings his fingers up then to show them to you, glistening with your wetness. “You see how fucking desperate you are?” he asks. “Barely touched you and look how you’re reacting. Nobody’s ever touched you right, have they?”

You shake your head unthinkingly and his smile widens. It’s almost predatory.

“Poor thing,” he says with a smirk, lowering his hand once again to stroke over your clit. “I can tell. All jerky and twitchy. Just wait ‘till I get my cock in you.”

The whine you emit at his words slowly turns itself into a moan as he dips a finger into you. Slow, just feeling. He adds another when he sees how easily you accept the first. You had been right in everything you had ever thought about his fingers and how good they would feel inside you, how much they would stretch you out. Except it didn’t quite cover it.

None of the other college boys you had fucked had fingers like this. Calloused and big and rough. You clench around him when he begins to stroke, expertly curling into the perfect angle to hit that spongey spot inside you. Where the fuck did he learn to do this?

He presses you down with his other hand splayed over your stomach, stopping your hips which are moving down, trying to meet the rhythm of his fingers. The pressure it puts on your lower stomach makes you clench around him.

“Y’feel so fucking tight,” he grunts, eyes on your lips. “This what you wanted, huh? This what you touched yourself thinking about?”

You nod, but it’s not enough. He pauses his ministrations and raises his eyebrows for an answer.

“Yes, I- fuck, yes keep going - I thought about this when I got myself off.”

“For how long?” he demands.

“I- what?” you ask, feeling a bit dumb. His lip twitches impatiently.

“How long have you been thinking about me like this? With my fingers stuffing your tight little pussy?”

Your face heats up with shame, but you know if you don’t answer him, he will stop again. And that’s a lousy deal. 

“A long time,” you say, hoping he will accept it as an answer. Thankfully, he does.

“Fuck, sweetheart. Should’ve told me. Wouldn’t have let you go unsatisfied like all these other assholes. Would’ve kept this pussy so busy, you wouldn’t have had the time to write in that silly little book. Would’ve put you in your place.”

“Put me in my place?” you spit, dragged out of the floaty headspace you had been in. Unfortunately you can’t concentrate too much on your anger and indignation. The pleasure he’s giving you is too much to hold on to anything else but him. It does nothing to stave off your incoming orgasm - if it wasn’t so fucked up, you might admit that it probably brings you closer to the edge. His fingers push into you smooth and hard. He grinds his palm against your clit.

“Yeah, put you in your place. Such a fucking spoiled brat, always throwing tantrums and bitching. Whole time you just needed a good fuck. Well I’ll give you plenty, baby. Sort you right out. Your family can thank me for your good behaviour when they’re home.”

There’s something fucked up about the way his mean - and undoubtedly problematic - words push you over the edge. You clench down and all but explode over his fingers, bright spots in your eyes. You’re not sure if you’ve ever come so fast before, or so intensely. Your head is still spinning while you come down, twitching around his fingers until he draws them back out.

Your vision is still slightly blurred, but you see Bucky sliding his fingers into his mouth. He doesn’t even make a show of it - he’s not even trying to make you watch him. He’s just tasting you for the pleasure of it. Your pussy jumps.

When he kisses you, you can taste yourself on his tongue. You should be spent by now, or at least somewhat less horny but you’re not. Your brain and body have clearly made a pact to make the most of your time with the man who has been driving you crazy for years. You begin to gush again when he bites your bottom lip. He releases a smoky chuckle against your mouth when your hips twitch against him.

He pulls up, standing over the bed to unbutton his jeans.

You’re still a little mad at him over that boorish ‘putting you in your place’ comment, but it does not stop you from getting dizzy when his cock is bared to you.

He’s the biggest you’ve ever seen and it’s not even close. Part of you knew he would be, but you didn’t think it would be this pretty. You didn’t even know a cock could be pretty.

It’s huge and rock hard where it presses up on his stomach. It’s very slightly curved with veins running up the flushed, heavy length. Your arm raises upwards unconsciously just to see how it would look in your hand, but you think better of it and quickly tuck it away again.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” he asks and you realise he has been watching your reaction the whole time. Your face burns. “Feelin’ shy?” 

Your mouth opens and closes. “I don’t know how much…” you trail off, uncharacteristically nervous. You’ve never had a problem butting heads with Bucky before. Why is he so intimidating like this?

“Y’don’t know if it’ll fit?” he asks. You nod lightly and watch his cock give a small, light twitch. He takes it in his hand and gives it one slow pump. It makes your mouth hang open.

“Don’t worry, angel, we’ll take it slow. Don’t want to break you. Not this time, anyway.”

Feeling brave, you reach forward and take his warm, heavy cock in your fingers. It looks so much bigger in your hand than it does in his own and the sight makes your gut curl in both dread and excitement. He throws his head back, eyes half-lidded and dazed.

You give him one small pump and he grabs your wrist, shaking his head at you. You glare up at him.

“What the hell, Bucky? Don’t-”

He leans forward, grabbing your jaw in his hand roughly. “I know you wanna play with it so bad, sweetheart, but you can do that later. I’ll let you play with it as much as you want. But I’ve waited long enough and I’m not wasting another second. Gonna fill that tight cunt now. You hear me?”

You’re back in that floaty headspace, body feeling light, head feeling dreamy. You nod.

He smiles, using his leverage on your jaw to bring you in for a kiss while he climbs on top of you. You can feel the head of his hard cock pressing against your stomach.

“Good girl,” he says, moving away to lather kisses over your neck. His hips move to press the tip of his cock against your clit and you gasp. “My good girl You’re so sweet when you’re doing what I tell you to. Wish I’d known I could shut you up like this.”

You’re trying to be pissed off. You really are. But if you can be completely honest with yourself, it’s just turning you on more.

Your brain is almost gone, but you have one last spark of sentience. “Condom,” you gasp. “In my room.”

Bucky laughs against your neck. “You think I’m wearin’ a rubber with you?”

“Wha- yes?” 

“Don’t fuck with me, sweetheart, I know you’re on the pill. Seen it in your bathroom.”

“What were you doing in my-”

“I’m clean, just got checked. And I’m willing to bet you’ve never let anyone use this prissy little pussy without a condom before.”

You take a second, trying to assess how you feel about this. He really is such a douchebag, but he’s a douchebag you know incredibly well - he wouldn’t lie to you about this. You’re sure you could talk him into wearing a condom, but it might take a lot of back-and-forth. And his cock is teasing your hole now, and you’re squeezing around nothing, trying to suck him in. His cock is fully lubricated, all from the wetness between your thighs. You don’t say anything, but your body goes a bit limp.

“Yeah?” he says, celebrating his victory with a smile. You feel it against your collarbone. “You gonna let me skip the rubber?”

“Yeah,” you breathe. “Just stop fucking around Bucky. Please.”

He laughs lightly and begins to press in, the tight ring of muscle protesting against his size. You seize up while he stretches you out. It’s leaving a tight and uncomfortable sensation in your abdomen and you let out a quiet yelp.

“Such a good girl,” he says, reaching down to stroke your clit. He’s thrusting in slow, giving you just a little bit more with every press. His voice is low, as if he’s trying to comfort you, but it’s still coming across slightly patronising. “Letting me fuck you raw. Gonna take my cum like the good girl you are.”

You’re loosening up with the help of his dirty words and his fingers on your clit, drawing tight circles. It’s starting to feel good - more than good. But he’s still not in all the way. You have no idea how you’re going to take him.

His cock is insistent inside you, pressing in further and further while he whispers filthy praises and encouragements on your sweat-glistening skin. You brain is becoming jumbled with pleasure and the overwhelming sensation of fullness.

“This what you pictured when those other limp-dick assholes used to fuck you?” he grunts, bottoming out. You yelp at the angle he hits, body squirming around him. You thought you knew what getting fucked deep felt like, but you had never felt this. 

He pulls out and presses another punishing thrust into you. You gasp. “Answer.”

“Yes,” you say and you might be on the verge of tears. You can’t wrap your head around what’s happening. Everything feels a little blurry and his finger on your clit is still drawing tight circles. You just know that you need him to move. “Pictured you every time.”

He rewards you by beginning to slowly pull out and in, gently getting you used to his size. You’re filled to the brim with him. “I know. Read all about it in that dirty little book. Made them take you doggy so you could pretend it was me. So fucking desperate.”

Shame and pleasure are amalgamating in your stomach. It’s creating something more powerful than just the feeling of him moving inside you. It’s all becoming a bit too much, but in a way that you can’t help but love.

“It’s okay, angel. I’m no better than you. You turn me into such a fucking creep. Picking up girls who look like you. Leaving the dinner table to jerk it in the bathroom when you get all bratty and whiny.”

Just the thought of that makes you startle, pussy clenching around him. He looks so pretty, blue eyes dark with want, pink lips crushed between his teeth, gaze zeroed in on where you’re taking him, the light imprint in your tummy. The pleasure of it - the culmination of all your want - has you gasping, tears leaking from your eyes and trickling down your cheeks.

He sees it and startles. You can read it all on his face now - the awe and adoration.

“Oh, sweetheart,” he cooes, thumb reaching up to brush a fat tear from the corner of your eye. “Always been such a crybaby. You’re so pretty like this, such a pretty crier.”

It makes the tears puddle faster, the pleasure bordering on too much.

“I know, baby. It’s so much, isn’t it? I know,” he soothes you, while his hips work in direct opposition - fucking into you with brutality. It’s not just the pleasure, but the overwhelming emotion. You can’t work out exactly what you’re feeling, and you know that now isn’t the time to figure it out anyway.

Instead, you just let yourself feel it. The way his hips grind against yours, the feeling of him stretching you out, the crescendo of all that pent-up want finally bursting into song. You can’t stop looking at him, how pretty and fucked-out he is above you, even when he’s still pretending he hasn’t lost an ounce of control. 

“Stop with those fuckin’ eyes,” he grunts, catching your gaze. You’re still teary-eyed and pouty. “Gonna make me lose it early.”

The thought of him spilling inside you does nothing to curb the feeling. Your eyes widen and he grunts, pulling out of you and sitting up with his eyes squeezed shut. He takes a deep, dogged breath.

“Turn around,” he bites out.

With the way his face is pinched, eyes squeezed tight, he might be greatly suffering or experiencing a euphoria of pleasure. You don’t disobey a man at either point.

You spin around, face-down on the bed. You can hear him shuffle around, but seconds pass where you don’t feel his skin on yours. The anticipation makes you shiver.

When you finally do feel his touch, it’s his two hands slowly stroking down your hips. You lean backwards into his touch, whimpering just a little.

“What you whining for now?” he asks from behind you. You hear the smile in his voice.

“Put it back in,” you moan, pushing back on him until you feel his cock prod against your ass. You’re no longer feeling any shame at your desperation. You’re too far gone.

He takes your hip firmly with his prosthetic hand, the other moving down to give your ass a loving pat. “You need it that bad?”

“Don’t be a dick.”

He laughs low. “Still so fucking bratty. Think I can fuck it outta you?”

You can do nothing but nod, head rolling forward while the thick tip prods your entrance, sliding in slowly once more.

“That’s it,” he groans. He feels so much deeper like this. You can feel him all the way up your stomach to your throat. “Knew you’d take my cock like this. Knew you’d feel this good, just didn’t think you’d be this fucking dirty.”

“Fuck, Bucky, I need you,” you moan. You’re obscurely aware of the fact that you’ll probably be cringing at the memory of saying those words later, but it matters very little to you in this moment. “Needed you so bad.”

“Yeah?” he grunts. “Why don’t you tell me what you needed so bad?”

Your brain is moving like slow, heavy machinery again - too slow to come up with anything. “I- no, Bucky, I can’t-”

“Let me help you out.”

His arm reaches out in front of you, pulling out the godforsaken book that started this entire mess in the first place. You’re still a bit dumb, watching him pull open the book and flick to a page he has ear-marked - like a significant page in his favourite book. He slams it in front of you palm pressing it open until you take it from him cautiously. You look down at the book uncomprehending, body still jostling with the force of his thrusts.

“Read.”

Your head spins back, even though you can’t see him from this angle. He can’t be serious. 

One firm pinch to your ass confirms that he is.

Face burning and stomach clawing with shame and arousal, you clear your throat. Your voice comes out breathy and high.

“Matt always wore a condom but I think Bucky would be such a jerk about it. I wouldn't even mind. The thought of him coming inside me turns me on so- ooh!”-

Bucky’s hand reaches down below you, stroking at your clit.

“- so much. I really want him to fill me up. I wonder if he - fuck, Bucky - cums a lot. Whenever I think about him fucking me, I picture him filling me up to the brim until I’m dripping with his…”

You can’t go on any more. It just gets filthier from then on and you’re already on the verge of coming again. Thankfully, that seems to do enough for him.

“Jesus, you have a thing for this shit? That’s real fucking dirty, sweetheart. I promise I got a big fucking load for you. You’re the only one who is gonna take it from now on.”

You want to snap that he clearly has a thing for it too, judging by how riled up he is. He’s panting behind you, losing his rhythm. But you can’t do any such thing. All you can do is moan unintelligibly. You feel the familiar prickle behind your eyes, tears spilling out while you sniffle.

“Aw angel, you know what those tears do to me. Can’t help but give you what you want. You want my cum?”

You nod enthusiastically, spasming around him. You just wish you could see his face right now, but you can picture it.

“Fuck, yeah you do,” he growls. “Such a good girl for me. My good girl, all mine. Gonna give you my cum now, never gonna let you go empty from now on.”

With a firm hand between your neck and shoulder, he drags you upright against him. Your hands reach out to balance yourself against the headboard and he moves your jaw back until your mouth meets his. The kiss is brutal and sloppy, the angle not-quite-right, but just the feeling of his lips on yours and the movement of your tongues against each other makes you tumble off the edge.

A surge of unbridled want courses through you. You cry into his mouth, tears spilling between your lips until you can taste the salt. It’s either the taste of your tears or the sensation of your walls fluttering around him that causes Bucky to grunt, dick twitching once before spilling deep inside.

You had thought about this almost obsessively since you were old enough to understand the possibility. Somehow, you underestimated what it would do to you.

You might be floating or flying or drifting out of consciousness, but you are very conscious of the fact that you had never really known what it means to experience true pleasure until this moment. The noises he makes are filthy while he pumps you full of him, but you’re sure you’re likely giving as good as you’re getting. Not that you have the faintest awareness of what you’re saying.

Bucky wasn’t lying. You can feel his heavy load dripping out of you you, messing your thighs and the sheets. He continues to bounce you on his cock slowly and gently even after you have both come down from your highs. You’re sensitive and sore, but there’s something comforting about small, shallow thrusts, even if the squelching noises it’s making are obscene.

Eventually, he slides himself out of you and wraps himself around you instead. He envelopes you in a sort of gentle tackle, pulling your exhausted body with him deeper into the sheets.

“You still with me, sweetheart?” he asks, brushing a strand of hair away from your face. You can feel his stubble against your temples, his breath on your skin.

“Uh huh” you try. It comes out as more of a garble. He laughs, light and airy.

You open your eyes, take in his tired, happy grin. His blue eyes have gone bright again.

“Thought you said you weren’t gonna break me,” you say sardonically. 

He plays with your hair, twirls it around a finger. “Might have gotten carried away.”

You roll your eyes. He does a poor imitation of you, rolling his eyes all the way back into his skull in mockery. You try to glare but it doesn’t work against your smile. You settle back down against his chest. Feel it vibrate while he laughs.

“You really meant that?” you ask after a moment. You cough away a scratch in your voice. “About wanting me since we were kids?”

“Hell yeah,” he chuckles. Your head bounces against his chest lightly. “I was so crazy about you when we were kids. Can’t believe you didn’t know.”

“How could I know? You were always so mean to me.”

“Don’t tell me you don’t know what that means in kid-language.”

“You still are. Sometimes.”

He raises his head to look down at you, searching your face. “Old habits.”

You nod, but you’re still working through everything in your head. Your post-orgasmic brain is working no faster than it was ten minutes ago. 

“I’m sorry for reading your diary,” he says after a few seconds and you swear you might see the raw edge of panic sitting somewhere there on his face. “It was a shitty thing to do. I don’t regret it, because I don’t know that I would have ever had the balls to make a move otherwise, but I am sorry.”

It’s so bizarre, so completely unexpected, you can only stare. He’s looking back at you with an uncharacteristic nervousness that makes you slightly uncomfortable. Truthfully, you had forgotten you were even mad about the privacy violation in the first place. Maybe it’s the two orgasms.

You still don’t want to have a heart-to-heart with Bucky - that might be pushing things a bit too far, a bit too early. Instead you lean forward to give him a small, chaste kiss. He smiles.

“I’ll make it up to you,” he says, pressing small kisses to your lips, moving down your cheek and on to your neck. “Just wait ‘till I get my tongue on you.”

You tense up, resolutely ignoring the heat pooling low in your stomach. There is no way in hell you can endure another round right now. Your limbs are still shaking.

Whatever expression is on your face makes Bucky laugh. “Don’t look at me like that. I’ll give you a couple hours. We got two long weeks in this house by ourselves.”

a/n: the diary entries are basically just my dms with my moots lmao

🏷 everything taglist: @buckysbbydoll @donuelle @angelryex @kombuchaaaaa @dollfaceglow @vip-hs

🏷 bucky taglist: @dolcesaints @marina468 @avgdestitute @tw1sters @dxnsgrl @thegirlwhowaited5everok @pjo4life1939 @otheliesstuff @domitaylorsversion @simplemind-simplematter @love-stucky @queen-acdc @epiphanyrogers @monicasposh @daddysbitchybaby @yearninglustfully @starr-jazz @las-galletas @thatesqcrush @mathcat345 @openlyluckyartisan @buckmybarnes @atsumubabe @annoyingrebelsoul

°𓏲⋆🌿. Be added to my taglist! .🌿⋆𓏲°

[astreamofcolors]

early seasons!dean x reader (no y/n)

yearning angsty late night with dean blurb (300ish words)

not proof read!!

this is in the same universe as this one bc i’m missing dean again.. maybe one day i’ll make a full length fic about these two <3

“Don’t.” you shook your head gently as your eyes stayed glued to the screen in front of you. Terrified of what would happened if instead they met the achingly familiar green eyes you felt burning a path across your face. “Don’t say it if you won’t mean it in the morning.”

The words sat heavy on his tongue as he fought to keep them from tumbling out. I love you. I love you so much I don’t know who I am without you. I love you so damn much it hurts to breathe when I’m not holding you. I fucking love you so damn much, sweetheart. I love you.

“Okay, sweetheart.” He tips his head to the side and exhales carefully. His thumb slowing slightly where it draws a pattern delicately on your shoulder. His chest tightening in a way he’s become accustomed to— leaning into its itchy uncomfortable warmth while his eyes drift back to the glow of the screen. “I won’t.”

Knowing damned well that he would mean it. Has meant it. For years. Because it’s been the one solitary thing he’s been sure of.

You hum in response as you press yourself further into his side. Seemingly content with his response while the familiar sting settles into your heart pushing on your ribcage uncomfortably.

[wintrynightz]

Dean Winchester teaching you about cars ˙⋆✮

✮ Most people would expect him to be impatient when teaching someone. That he’d get annoyed when they repeat a question or can’t seem to learn. And in most cases yeah he would be, but with you? Never

✮ You could ask him the same question four times and he’d still explain it to you kindly and throughly “yea’ nah sweetheart that’s not where ya put the oil, this is”

✮ Dean will be positioned behind you, his arms coming around you as with one hand points at what he’s talking about while the other is rested on your waist

✮ Radio station playing classical rock can be heard in the background as he explain

✮ Dean loooooves it when you ask questions about what he was explaining

✮ He will suddenly kiss you when you’re all focused because he just thought your concentrated expression was too adorable “ ‘is not my fault you’re all cute”

✮ Lastly will do a lil pop quiz asking you questions about everything he had taught you

[chemicalover]

soft bf!dean who yearns for sweet romance and innocent intimacy ₊⊹

⊹ ࣪ ˖ dean never realized how much he craved sweet intimacy until you spent a whole night laying by his side on the hard matress of a motel bed, bodies facing each other as you whispered heartfelt confessions against the warmth of his skin.

⊹ ࣪ ˖ dean always holds your hand while driving, occasionally placing soft kisses on your knuckles as listens to the soothing sound of your voice.

⊹ ࣪ ˖ whenever he came back to you after a stressful hunt, he often found himself toying with your favorite ring as you held his hand, waiting for him to tell about his day. now, whenever he's away and his mind wanders to you, his fingers wrap around your ring, that is now dangling off his necklace, smiling as if you were with him.

⊹ ࣪ ˖ dean fights sleep just to spend more time with you. even when he's clearly sleepy, he'll find a way to keep you near him. he doesn't mind laying in uncomfortable positions, he'd even ignore the numbness of his arm if that means you will stay awake with him just for a few more minutes.

⊹ ࣪ ˖ dean keeps his hands on you at all times. he loves to caress your cheeks when you look up at him, or even squish them together until your lips form an exaggerated pout, kissing them delicately before fully melting into you.

⊹ ࣪ ˖ if he happens to wake up before you, he will stay there in complete silence, watching your relaxed features as he slowly threads his fingers through your hair. after a few minutes, he'd lean in carefully before peppering soft kisses all over your face to wake you up.

⊹ ࣪ ˖ dean keeps polaroids of you in his car. one of them is a picture of you he'd taken after you forcefully woke him up at 5 a.m to watch the sunrise. it shows you, sitting on the hood of his car with the cutest smile on your face, his jacket wrapped around you.

the second one is a picture of you both at a halloween party that sam took while you were kissing, clearly amused by your sudden display of affection. despite the amount of alcohol you both drank that night, dean was fast enough to cover your faces with his ridiculously big cowboy hat.

he loves those pictures more than anything, and stares at them everytime he misses you.

⊹ ࣪ ˖ dean usually doesn't care much about classic litterature but slowy starts to find an interest in it after he hears you talk about your favorite books. one time, after a hunt, he came back to you with a bag full of books, ones that you have previously mentionned as 'on your tbr'.

you'd sometimes quietly laugh at him as he calls your books boring, before reminding him how he willingly spent an entire evening with his head on your lap, listening to you read out loud as you played with his hair.

[violained]

⌖ sweetest angel set me free.

summary you and dean leave for good.

content gn!reader, established relationship, early twenties!dean, sam has recently left for stanford. use of baby, a kiss on the cheek. vague and very brief mention of verbal abuse (john). light angst and fluff!

masterlist

Dean has smoked once, maybe twice, in all his life. Both cigarettes sent a flare of nausea up his throat, made him woozy, and tasted so horrible he nearly gagged. He's long since decided that alcohol better suits his tongue.

He flips John's pack of Marlboro Reds over his palm.

"Dean," you whisper-shout from the doorway, and a gust of cool, Oklahoma breeze bites his nose when he turns to look. "Come on. He'll wake up if you keep dawdling."

You're so pretty. He feels almost completely free just staring at you, silhouetted by hazy moonlight, holding your bag in a tight grip to your stomach with both hands. Knuckles taut. He swallows final, washing down remnants of anxiety.

Relax, baby, he wants to say. We're almost there.

He shoves a big hand down his pocket and fishes Baby's keys, winces when they clink, and holds them out for you to take. When you do, he catches your wrist gently.

"Start the car and wait for me," he whispers.

You nod. He lets go and stares again at the cigarettes. Walks to the dusty couch where his bag is and ignores John's sleeping form in the armchair, because he might tether permanent to this motel and the next and the one after that if he doesn't. Let the fighting and the tensing and the anger keep him forever.

The Reds fit nicely at the bottom of his duffel, beneath a tin of menthol and a worn leather belt. He tugs the zipper up and slings it over his shoulder, feeling something strange shake in a deep, clogged gutter between his ribs.

Years worth of resentment purging in clumps.

This is so weird, Dean thinks. A low, coaxing purr sounds from the Impala outside. It thrums his entire body and he remembers the nights spent gazing at stained ceilings, feigning sleep, wondering if he'd ever get out.

His jaw works. In that time spent wondering, he'd thought this would be different. Louder, storming off after another fight, probably, with that awful, booming voice ringing in his ears.

Instead, the room is silent. He takes it in and starts for the door. John groans in his sleep.

Walk through the door and don't glace back.

Don't grant him the respect of that.

It shuts quietly behind and frozen air sneezes at his face. He steps over a lip of parking lot cement that's been cracked and eaten by dull grass. Pops open the driver door and throws his duffel towards the back. Sees you, blinking at him proud.

His heart aches pitifully.

"Hey," he breathes and settles, green eyes owlish.

"Hi, De."

He imagines burying his nose to the warm, sugary spot beneath your ear but remembers that priorities are a thing he's got to get together. Drive away from here, far, far away, before his father notices he's left.

"Thanks for starting the car."

You hum. Your arm reaches, fingertips kissing the amber shadow that the night has drawn along his cheekbone. It's the easiest task in the world, leaning into your touch. His lashes flutter, a dark canopy, and he allows two more seconds before sitting straight.

A quick kiss to your cheek, and then he's looking ahead.

The reverse is slow, until his boot presses firm against the gas and the motel quickly becomes a washed, beige speck in the rearview, swallowed by night. It feels like a dream. He can't pinpoint exactly what it is and tries to squeeze the wheel tighter, but his palms are too clammy to grip.

Maybe everything. It can be everything, it is everything, you're everything. Sitting perfect beside him with a new sort of smile curling your mouth; excited, nervous, ready. So, irrevocably ready to go and go and go.

He brings a hand onto your thigh and kneads.

"This is cool," you murmur. "Don't you think?"

"Really cool," he agrees easily. "I'm... he's gonna be pissed."

Your head swivels calm, watching his profile; he can tell from his peripheral. His thumb wears fast adrenaline circles on the seam of your denim.

"So what?" you offer. "You won't have to deal with it."

Dean has absolutely no idea what he'd do without you. Loves you so much, the fact that his organs haven't ruptured from the force is bewildering.

The road stretches before him, for him, thick-spreading tar unrolling like an unusual red carpet. A sudden shed of old skin makes him weightless, light, there's a growing plethora of things he needs to do. Wants to do, finally can.

His lips tug when he glances at you. Beautiful, sweet angel you, showing him all this bravery he wasn't sure he truly had.

"Where are we supposed to go?" he asks.

"Anywhere," you reply. "Everywhere."

the cigarettes i suppose were a very poor and subtle allegory of sorts for john and his abuse. like dean can never fully shake him away and finds a strange sort of comfort in his father because that behavior is so familiar to him. hence taking his cigarettes even though he doesn't enjoy smoking. bleugh whatevers

[monstersandbrothers]

:|

[cheeseanonioncrisps]

“It's not fair.” The little ghost kicks impotently at the chalk lines around her feet. “I ain't done nothing.”

I nod, setting down my chalk and spellbook. “It does sound like there might have been a bit of a misunderstanding.”

“She took against me, that's what happened,” the dead girl says with a scowl. She looks about fourteen, round faced and spotty, with whisps of brown hair peaking out from under her mob-cap. Her face and her crossed arms have a tell-tale bluish tinge to them. A cholera death.

“I been here for don't know how long and never gave any trouble. Nobody ever complained about me 'till her.”

…well, that's not strictly true.

Number 12, Barclay Street has been attracting rumours of haunting since the mid nineteenth century.

Sounds of faint singing and crying in the corridors at night. Cold spots. Doors that open and close by themselves. Animals acting strangely. Harmless, mid to low-level stuff, typical for a bored teenage poltergeist.

Still, pointing that out isn't likely to achieve much, and certainly the most recent complaints of blood running down the walls, screams in the dark and paralysing night terrors seem distinctly out of character.

The ghost toes the chalk again, more tentatively this time. It stays resolutely unbroken.

She could get out if she wanted to. I'm not one of those assholes who brings out their full arsenal of wards and sigils for a first meeting with a level 2 spectre. The summoning circle will keep her in one place for as long as I need her to talk, but it wouldn't hold for a moment if she really fought against it.

I take it as a good sign that she's still here. Pouting or not, she's clearly willing to work with me.

“None of the others could do this,” she says. “None of 'em even saw me.” She looks up. “Are you here to exise me?”

“Exorcise,” I say instinctively, and curse myself when she flinches. “Sorry, no, no! I don't exorcise people from their homes without good reason, not if they're happy where they are.”

“I was happy. Till she started calling in all them ghost hunters.”

Mrs Delaney had been quite persistent in her attempts to 'fix' her haunted house. Most of the people she found were charlatans, of course, but I'd still arranged an appointment as fast as I could once word reached me. It wouldn't have been long before she happened upon somebody with Talent, and unfortunately not everybody in this field knows how to behave like a professional.

“I think we might be able to help each other,” I say, careful to keep my voice calm and level.

“Don't see how. Not unless you can exorcise Her.”

“Not quite what I had in mind.” I pull out my phone and scroll through my photos. “You say that you're not the cause of the most recent incidents of paranormal activity?”

A pause. The ghost gnaws on her lip. I wait, patiently, keeping my body language open and nonthreatening. “I… I knocked her coffee cup over,” she admits at last. “She was being mean and talking on her telephone, saying I done all these things when I never did! So I decided to show her what I could do if I wanted.”

“Hmm.” The ghost eyes me nervously, as if expecting me to pull out a book, bell and candle and banish her on the spot.

“I only tipped it,” she adds. “I didn't break it or nothing!”

“You shouldn't have touched it at all,” I say sternly. “But… I can appreciate that you were frustrated, so let's say no more about it.”

The ghost looks relieved.

“My point is,” I continue, “if you weren't the one making blood rain from the ceiling or tormenting people in their sleep, then what was? There's no other ghosts on the property.” I find the picture I was looking for. “You can get anywhere around the house, right? Including behind the furniture and in the backs of cupboards?”

“Yes'm.”

I hold the phone up so that she can see the picture on the screen. “I'm going to let you go free in a moment, and I need you to see if you can find anything that looks like this.”

The ghost wrinkles her forehead. “What's that when it's at home?”

“Black mould,” I say, reaching out a foot to break the binding circle. “And I'm pretty sure it's the cause of this haunting.”

[crybabycabin]

touch and go - masterlist

✮ synopsis: the soulmate au where touch is everything.

✮ pairing: catws!bucky x soulmate!reader; catws!steve x soulmate!reader

✮ warnings: fem!reader, soulmate au, violence/action sequences, descriptions of torture/memory wiping, PTSD, panic attacks, dissociation, past trauma, hurt/comfort, angst with happy ending, (18+) MDNI: explicit sexual content (marked with a **)

✮ a/n: only ever planned for the one-shot but i'm having too much fun with drabbles so alas. a landing page. (currently taking requests!)

mains:

touch and go (14.3k)—he’s the winter soldier, and you’re just you. but when your skin touches his, he becomes bucky barnes again. (or: the soulmate fic where touch is everything and bucky barnes will fight his way back to you, one broken memory at a time.) bucky x reader, (18+) MDNI  phantom limb (17.2k)—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.) steve x reader, (18+) MDNI

drabbles:

loose threads (2.4k)—two years later. nightmares & healing. bucky x reader, (18+) MDNI overkill (1.5k)—you get hurt. bucky absolutely does not overreact. bucky x reader

[wendichester]

Hiya sweets. So my thought is a little season 15 angst. Dean x Reader. Dean finds out about God manipulating their lives, and starts doubting if reader really cares about him or if they would have gotten together if God hadn't intervened. A little angst, a little fluff? K love you byeeee

⋆｡ ˚ not his to write

summary ˚˖𓍢ִִ໋ after learning god’s been shaping your lives, dean starts to doubt whether your love was ever really yours. pairing ˚˖𓍢ִִ໋ dean winchester x reader ( gn ) wordcount ˚˖𓍢ִִ໋ 2037 genre ˚˖𓍢ִִ໋ hurt / comfort warnings ˚˖𓍢ִִ໋ season 15 spoilers, god/chuck manipulation, existential crisis, relationship insecurity, dean’s self-worth issues, emotional argument, fear of being unloved

notes ˚˖𓍢ִ໋ ִ❀໋ consider supporting my work .ᐟ

dean gets quiet once he learns the truth.

not the usual quiet, either. not the kind where he’s tired from a hunt and needs ten minutes with a beer before he can talk without biting someone’s head off. not the kind where the case got ugly, where the blood took too long to wash from his hands, where the drive back to the bunker stretched out under bad radio static and nobody knew how to make the car feel normal again.

this is different… this is dean sitting at the library table with his hands around a bottle he hasn’t taken a sip from in twenty minutes, staring at the label. this is dean flinching when sam says chuck’s name. this is dean looking at you from across the room and then looking away so fast your stomach twists before you can stop it.

you give him space at first. you hate giving him space. space, with dean, is a dangerous thing. space turns into walls. walls turn into locked doors. locked doors turn into dean making decisions alone because he convinces himself that pain counts as protection.

but you try anyway.

sam disappears somewhere down the hall, probably to read until his eyes burn or call eileen with that terrible softness he tries not to show too much around dean. the bunker settles into its late-night hum, pipes ticking behind concrete, old lamps throwing tired yellow light over books and weapons and half-empty cups of coffee.

you stand in the doorway for a long time before dean speaks.

“you should go to bed.” his voice is low. flat.

you fold your arms. “is that what you’re doing?”

he does not look at you. “eventually.”

“dean.”

his jaw tightens. the warning sign. the little shift in his face that means your voice got too close to something sore. you step into the room anyway.

“don’t do that” he says.

you stop beside the table. “do what?”

“do the thing.”

“the thing where i care about you?”

he laughs once, but there’s no humor in it. only something bitter and worn thin. “yeah. that.”

your chest goes cold. “look at me.”

he doesn’t. you wait. you’re good at waiting when you need to be, even when every part of you wants to reach across the table and drag his face up with both hands.

finally, after what feels like an eternity, dean looks at you. he looks awful. something underneath him has come loose. there’s a crack in his expression you don’t know how to patch, and the worst part’s that he looks embarrassed by it. ashamed to be this shaken. ashamed to need anything after finding out need itself might have been written into him by a cruel little man with a god complex and a writer’s room in his head.

“what’s going on?” you ask, softer now.

dean looks away again. “nothing.”

“don’t insult me.”

his mouth hardens. “i’m not.”

“you are. you think i don’t know when you’re spiraling?”

that gets him, but not enough to make him talk. enough to make his fingers tighten around the beer bottle until his knuckles pale.

you sit across from him. “say it.”

he shakes his head.

“dean.”

“what do you want me to say?” he snaps, sudden and sharp, and the sound of it cracks through the library. “that i’m having a bad night? that finding out every screwed-up thing in my life was some sick bastard’s entertainment doesn’t exactly make me feel great?”

“yes,” you say. “start there.”

he stares at you, breathing a little harder. “fine. i feel great. fantastic. i love knowing my mom burning on the ceiling was a plot point. love knowing sam’s pain was a season arc. love knowing every choice i fought for, every person i lost, every time i thought i was doing something right, chuck was sitting there getting off on it.”

his voice breaks on the last few words.

dean scrubs a hand over his mouth. “and now i keep thinking about you.”

something inside you tightens. “what about me?”

“all of it.” he gives you a look then. wrecked. angry at himself before he even answers. “you showing up when you did. staying when anybody with half a brain would’ve run. loving me.” the word comes out rough, almost resentful. “how am i supposed to know that was real?”

the room seems to tilt. you hear the heater click somewhere in the walls. hear the tiny shift of paper under your elbow. hear your own breath come in too slowly, because if you breathe the way you want to, you’ll start shouting before he finishes digging the grave he apparently plans to throw both of you into.

dean’s eyes drop to the table. “maybe chuck wrote that too,” he says. “maybe he needed me happy for a minute so it’d hurt worse later. maybe he wrote you into this because it made better television. maybe you and me were just—”

“don’t you fucking dare—” the word leaves you quiet.

dean stops.

you stand so abruptly the chair legs scrape against the floor. “do not finish that sentence.”

his face tightens. “i’m just saying—”

“i know what you’re saying.” your hands curl at your sides, shaking now from the effort of not throwing something. “you’re saying he gets to have that too.”

dean blinks.

“you’re saying he gets your childhood. your mother. sam. every awful thing you survived. fine. he took enough. he wrote enough. he poisoned enough.” your voice rises despite the way you try to hold it steady. “but now you’re sitting here trying to hand him me.”

“how dare you,” you say, and it comes out less polished than you meant. too honest. almost ugly with hurt. “seriously, dean, how dare you look me in the face and tell me loving you might be something he made me do.”

his jaw works, but no words come out.

“i chose you when you were unbearable,” you say, stepping around the table because distance suddenly feels insulting. “i chose you when you shut me out. i chose you after hunts where you came back mean because you were scared and didn’t know how to say it. i chose you in motel rooms with bad water pressure and diner booths at three in the morning and in that stupid car when you sang too loud on purpose because you knew i had a headache.”

his eyes flicker.

you keep going, because if you stop now, you might cry, and you’re too angry to cry first.

“i chose you when it was inconvenient. when it hurt. when i had every reason to walk away and could have. don’t you dare make that small. don’t you dare make me into some line in a script because you’re scared there’s no other reason i’d stay.”

that lands. you see it hit him, see the flinch he tries to bury under his usual hard stare. except there’s nothing usual about him right now. he looks younger, almost. not softer, exactly. exposed. standing there in the wreckage of a thought he probably carried alone for hours before you ever came into the room.

“i don’t know how to trust anything,” he says finally.

the anger in you stumbles.

dean’s voice is quieter now, scraped raw at the edges. “i look at you, and i want to believe it’s mine. that this is ours. but then i think about him watching, moving pieces around, putting people in the right place so i’d break the right way, and i can’t—” he stops, swallowing hard. “i can’t tell where his story ends and my life starts.”

your throat tightens. you move closer, slowly this time, until you’re standing in front of him. dean doesn’t reach for you. his hands stay braced on the table, like touching you without certainty would be another kind of sin.

“i can’t prove it,” you hate the truth of that. hate it. there’s no neat answer, no holy stamp you can press onto your heart to make it undeniable. chuck has ruined that, too. certainty. memory. trust in the shape of your own choices.

his eyes lift to yours.

“i can’t prove he didn’t shove us into the same room the first time,” you say. “i can’t prove he didn’t make the road bend or the hunt go bad or whatever else he does when he wants to feel clever. but he didn’t make me sit with you afterward. he didn’t make me learn how you take your coffee. he didn’t make me stay up when you couldn’t sleep, or get pissed when you threw yourself in front of something dangerous again, or love that stupid face you make when you’re trying not to smile.”

dean’s mouth trembles faintly.

“he didn’t make me angry at you right now,” you add, voice breaking a little. “that’s all mine.”

dean looks down.

“and i am angry,” you say, quieter. “because i love you. because you’re scared and you decided the safest thing to do was doubt me before i could disappoint you.”

his eyes shut. the silence after that is heavier than anything either of you has said.

you reach for him, then stop before your fingers touch his sleeve. for once, you let him see the hesitation. let him see that this hurt you too. that love isn’t endless softness, not with him, not with anyone. sometimes love is standing in a cold library at night, furious and scared, trying to pull the truth out from under god’s dirty fingerprints.

“i’m not asking you to be okay,” you say. “i’m not even asking you to believe me all at once. but don’t punish me for what he did.”

dean’s face crumples so briefly you almost miss it. then his hand catches yours. fast. desperate. rougher than he probably means. he holds onto your fingers without looking up, thumb pressed hard against your knuckles as if he needs the bones of you to argue with the thoughts in his head. “i’m sorry.”

you let out a breath you didn’t realize you were holding. “i know…”

he nods once, still staring at your joined hands. “i didn’t mean—”

“i know.”

and you do. that’s the awful part. you know him well enough to understand the wound and still be hurt by where he pointed it.

dean’s grip loosens, giving you the chance to pull away. instead, you step closer until your knees bump his, until he has to tilt his head to look at you. his eyes are red but dry, jaw tight with the kind of restraint that’s ruined him more than once. you lift your free hand and touch his face, careful at first, two fingers against the rough edge of his cheek.

he leans into it.

“you’re not a puppet to me,” you whisper. “you’re not a character. you’re not some doomed thing i was assigned to love.”

dean’s breath shakes.

“you’re my dean,” you say, and it sounds too simple for what you mean. too small for the size of him in your chest. “and i’m here because i want to be.”

his hand rises to your waist then, hesitant, almost asking. the first touch is careful. then firmer. he draws you in by inches, giving you time to refuse even now, even after everything. when your body meets his, his forehead drops to your shoulder, and something in him finally gives. just the slow, heavy exhale of a man who’s been holding himself together with both hands and is too tired to keep pretending he doesn’t need somewhere to put the broken parts.

you thread your fingers through his hair.

dean’s voice comes muffled against your shirt. “i don’t want him to have this.”

“then don’t give it to him.”

his arms tighten around you. for a while, neither of you moves. the bunker keeps humming. somewhere far away, the world remains terrible and watched and written over in ways you don’t know how to undo. but dean’s warm against you, breathing unevenly into the fabric at your shoulder, and his hand is splayed over your back as if he’s trying to memorize something chuck can’t narrate properly.

ꔛ. all works ; writing guidelines ; writing schedule.

[lunexiax]

crushed! (bucky barnes)

pairing: bucky barnes x f!reader

summary: Bucky does not trust you. And don't ask him whether it's just a shoddy attempt to grapple with a crush - because it's most certainly not.

cw: smut (handjob, oral - m receiving, spit, enthusiastic consent, brief masturbation, kinda sub!bucky), cursing, he is a meanie for a while bc poor baby can't process emotions, reader referenced as having hair that can be tied up, gonna be so real i didn't proofread this at all

a/n: this is for @artficlly's moodboard writing event. this was so so fun and i loved my moodboard - bonus points bc it took my least favourite part out of the writing process! thank you art :) also please nobody point out the fact that i have a problem when it comes to sexually repressed bucky. i been knowin

dividers by: @chateaubarnes (jewel toned dividers) word count: 13k

Bucky doesn’t trust you. He doesn’t necessarily have a reason for it - not yet - but all his years of spy-work have to count for something. It’s just an instinct. You put a weird feeling in the pit of his stomach. Something that rattles him without knowing why.

He sees you and suddenly he’s antsy. He has the strange urge to fidget and avoid eye-contact, which he’s not sure he has felt even with the most violent of HYDRA doctors.

What really sets his teeth on edge, though, is how well you seem to get along with the rest of the team. If he has to watch Bob trail after you like some lost puppy one more time, picking up random contraptions and asking you what they do like some sort of toddler, he’s going to lose his shit. You put up with Alexei’s stories about his glory days with perfect patience and occasional interest and even manage to avoid the asshole treatment from Walker. It’s like you were born for the team, the way you slot right in.

But still. Something isn’t right.

It had felt like travelling between seasons rather than states, flying from frosty New York to some military base in the asshole of Arizona. Bucky wasn’t thrilled that you were going to be joining him for the mission, but it was nice to get a break from the cold. And from Walker.

“Remind me why she’s here,” Bucky grumbles to Yelena, gaze fixed on you where you stand scribbling nonsense on a whiteboard across lab. You’re wearing a lab coat which is pretty pretentious considering there are currently no chemicals in the room.

Yelena rolls her eyes like she always does when Bucky dares to say anything remotely negative about you. She and everyone else would much rather he blindly kiss your ass on the daily, just like they do.

“Wah wah, always bitching,” she drawls, accent thickening in her annoyance. “You want to go on mission without quartermaster? Fine. Do that alone. I do not want to get blown up in big fireball with no protection.”

Bucky grunts something about how she’s being dramatic, before he can realise that it’s a mistake.

“Dramatic? You are throwing tantrum like child over quartermaster coming with us on mission, but Bob coming with us for holiday is no problem.”

Bob seems to catch only his name. He looks up from the contraption he had been examining as if coming out of a daze. He waves hesitantly and grins when Yelena waves back, returning to whatever it was he was looking at.

Bucky can’t think of any way to dispute Yelena’s claims, so he just huffs and sits back in his chair. He’s doing nothing to help his case, he realises a little dumbly. 

You are still scribbling on the board, scrawling little graphs and symbols that he doesn’t recognise or understand. Bob pauses for a beat before bringing his contraption over to you, which Bucky can now see is a penknife with various latches and buttons on it. You stop what you’re doing with an infuriatingly pleasant look on your face, so damn pleased to show him what it is and how to use it. Bucky clenches his teeth.

He feels he’s made his feelings pretty clear to you; the way all traces of good humour are wiped from his face the second you walk in the room, the way he mutters under his breath whenever you speak. You shoot him a smile every time you see him, even despite this - as if none of it bothers you in the slightest, as if you’re happy to indulge him. He wonders if that’s your way of trying to make him feel guilty. It makes him distrust you all the more.

“I know what your problem is,” Yelena says eventually. He only now notices how eagerly her eyes are trained on him and he rips his gaze away from you with urgency. 

“And what’s that?”

“You are sexually frustrated. And taking it out on poor quartermaster because she is pretty girl.”

Bucky almost chokes on his spit while he attempts a scoff and he is forced to gasp air back into his lungs; loud and humiliatingly obvious. Yelena smiles coolly to herself, as if his reaction has proven some point.

“I am not… frustrated, not that it’s any of your damn business,” Bucky snaps. “And I’m definitely not- Taking anything out on her, or whatever you said.”

“You need to get laid. Then there will be much relief and you will be happy again and less…” She makes a vague gesture at his frowning face. “Like this.”

He lets out a sarcastic scoff of laughter, but it sounds strangled and uncomfortable even to his own ears. “You’ve lost your damn mind,” he says. 

Yelena just hums absently. It is abundantly clear that the conversation is over.

You’re scrawling again. Bucky wonders if you even notice he’s there with how focused you are on the clear board in front of you. Your neat, boxy handwriting litters the board in black marker; chemical symbols, graphs and clustered charts appearing at every corner, seemingly at random. 

Bucky identifies two figures with blank faces drawn to the right of the board with various lines and notes sprawling from them. One is a large, burly frame with a metal arm as its only defining feature and the other is a shorter, robust female figure. You are designing suits for himself and Yelena. There is another, smaller stick figure scribbled beside them that Bucky can only assume is supposed to be Bob. It puts him in a bad mood to think of him here with you, joking around.

“What’re these for?” Bucky grunts and you jump, your hand jerking up to ruin your little ‘Ti’ symbol. He almost rolls his eyes at your terrible sense of awareness. You should be more careful.

“Hi Bucky,” you chirp, ever-polite. He just blinks back. “I’m coming up with something fireproof for you guys.”

“Why?” Bucky doesn’t mean to be blunt. He just wishes you could get to the point a bit faster.

“I’m not really supposed to say. But you should find out in the next few days, I think- when is that meeting again?” Your expression is apologetic and sheepish. Bucky might actually have thought you were being genuine if that weird, nagging feeling in his gut wasn’t pestering him again as he takes in your smile.

“I’m going to be leading the mission,” he grumbles.

“I know.”

“It’s my mission.”

“Sorry, Bucky.”

He knows that this is just how it works. You need to know the details of the mission earlier than he does so you can prepare the materials, come up with the designs. Letting the agents know the details of the mission too soon can cause confusion if there are any changes. It’s a good process; it works. But he’s rearing for a fight today.

“That doesn’t make any sense,” he says, watching your lips purse slightly. You’re finally getting irritated. Good.

“Maybe you should take it up with Mel.” You smile at him briefly, more strained than before, and go back to your scribbles, effectively dismissing him. He just about hits the roof. He stands for a moment longer, trying to find some way to win back control of the conversation, but nothing is coming to him.

“Actually, while you’re here-” you say, hand reaching out to grab his metal arm. You yank it up until it’s outstretched. “I left my diagram of your arm back in New York. You don’t mind if I take some notes while I have you, do you?”

It’s phrased like a question, but you’re already running your finger up his forearm, brows furrowed as you prod at the sheets of metal there. You are seemingly looking for something specific but he doesn’t care to find out what it is. 

It’s just sensory feedback from the arm - he knows you’re not really touching him, skin-on-skin, but it makes him uncomfortable regardless. His stomach tightens at the heat in your touch, breath stuttering a bit.

“Knock yourself out,” he says, sarcasm bleeding through his tone. 

Bucky watches you twist his arm around, feels your fingertips pad along his arms and fingers, clearly logging things in your head. You quietly hum every now and again, as if confirming something to yourself. He doesn’t like to admit that you look… cute, up close like this. You really are pretty - that’s one thing Yelena did get right. He likes towering over you like this, likes seeing your eyes flicker upwards at him like a little doe.

It doesn’t change how he feels about you, nor does it make the rest of Yelena’s hypothesis correct. In fact, Yelena couldn’t know just how wrong she was. Bucky hadn’t felt interest in anyone in that way since he’d escaped HYDRA’s clutches. 

There were many ways in which Bucky’s life had changed after falling from that train in Austria. His whole life and personality had changed so distinctly that he saw his life only in terms of before the fall and after. Before the fall, he had a fierce sense of optimism - after it, he was left a bored, old cynic. Before the fall, he had exhibited a naive carelessness for his own wellbeing - allowed himself to be flocked like a sheep into any situation that was exciting. Now, he is more careful. He doesn’t regret any of the decisions and sacrifices he made back then, being aware that they were ultimately necessary for the greater good. But the speed at which he made those decisions - the knowledge of all the things he hadn’t even considered - sometimes eats away at him.

Sex is just another one of those before and afters. He had it - a lot of it - before falling from that train. He has not had any since.

It isn’t that he’s a prude or that he can’t get it up, or any other reasons that one might imagine. He just isn’t interested anymore.

Maybe his wires were all crossed wrong in the cryostasis chamber, or maybe new priorities had taken precedence. Bucky isn’t sure. All he knows is that he has not felt the impulse to be with anyone in that way for years. He takes care of himself when he wakes up with a hard on he can no longer ignore, but it’s clinical. Functional, even. He experiences the relief without any of the rush. So no, he’s not sexually frustrated. Whatever the opposite of sexual frustration is - that’s what Bucky is experiencing.

You’re pulling away when he sees your eyes stop on his other bicep, the muscle bulging through a t-shirt he has outgrown. You look back and forth between his metal arm and his flesh one. Bucky likes how it feels when your eyes catch there; he’s not sure why, but he does.

“Have you gotten bigger?”

“Maybe,” he shrugs, though he knows he has. You frown and suddenly he doesn’t like the feeling of your eyes on him very much anymore.

“I don’t have your new measurements. Did you get it taken by Sheila before we left?”

“No.”

Bucky can tell you’re suppressing a sigh when you purse your lips again, skin of your mouth stretching tight. “You’re going to have to get your measurements taken. This suit is mostly metal. If it doesn’t fit right, it’s going to hurt.”

Bucky scowls at you, hot irritation spiking through him at your bossiness. And this usually works to intimidate people, but you just watch him right back, not even flinching.

Your gaze eventually flickers over to where his figure is mapped out on the clear board in front of him. There are about a dozen materials labelled onto the suit; he only recognises the vibranium symbol tagged onto the shoulder pads. With an absent expression, you pick up your marker once again and draw a large speech bubble over his blank face. Inside, you scrawl ‘Ouch. Too small.’

It is so incredibly stupid that Bucky can only continue to glare at you in astounded irritation. You glance back at him once and add a basic frowny face to the figure’s previously blank face.

Bucky speaks, only to stop you from adding any further features. “How’m I supposed to get measured? Thought Sheila would be shipping the stuff in from New York.”

“I’ll do it,” you say casually, popping the cap back on your marker. Something inside of Bucky balks at that idea, chest seizing up.

“You’re not a tailor. Or an armourer,” he says, with a tad too much uncertainty for his liking.

“Yes, I know that,” you retort, and this time you don’t even attempt to suppress your sigh. “But I have a PhD in Engineering Physics. How different can it be? You’re just like a big, fleshy machine.”

You don’t wait for him to respond, just walk over to a cabinet and begin rooting through it. Bucky is left standing in the middle of the room, cold dread spilling over his head while a strange heat pools in his gut.

You find what you’re looking for eventually; a tape measure and a notepad. You examine him closely, looking him up and down.

“I think I just need to do your biceps, chest and thighs. The rest should have enough give to be ok.” 

Bucky nods curtly and watches you fumble around clumsily with the measuring tape. For the first time in this interaction, he sees hesitation creep over your features - like you’re finally feeling as unsure as Bucky always feels around you. But you pack it away and pull his flesh arm outwards, wrapping the tape measure around the large swell of skin there. Bucky tenses instinctively, muscles bulging against your fingertips, but one look from you makes him relax his arm.

You start scribbling - why are you always scribbling? - his measurements onto the sheet in front of you while Bucky tries not to feel your warmth. His stomach is tense and tight.

“Relax,” you breathe and Bucky tries. He really does. But then your hands are spreading across his chest, brushing past his nipples over his t-shirt in a way that makes his skin jump. And that nagging feeling is coming back but stronger, the one that makes him regard you with a little bit more caution. Something is off.

The feeling only grows when you drop down to your knees in front of him, damned doe eyes flicking up at him, regarding him carefully. You’re looking back and forth from his slacks to his face and Bucky wonders for one dreadful second whether you’re about to ask him to remove his pants. You seem to decide against it, rolling the fabric at the bottom of his leg between your fingers to test the thickness.

You slowly roll the tape around his right thigh and Bucky wonders if it’s really necessary for your hands to be splayed that close to his crotch. He can feel every inch of your skin on his, even through the slacks, and the heat in his stomach expands uncomfortably. He has to look away, think about some pointless story Bob told him to try to distract himself - to somehow make it better. But your touch keeps dragging him back to the feeling. He can do nothing other than watch. It’s no better when you move to the other leg, hands running up and down his thigh to find the largest part to measure - his breath feels like it’s stuck somewhere in his lungs.

He’s vaguely aware of how bad this would look if anyone were to walk by the glass wall between the lab and the hall. You must be aware of it too, though it’s hard to read you - that’s part of the reason he distrusts you so much. However, he can tell that you appear to be equally as ill at ease as Bucky is. You have no dumb jokes or little quips when you’re sitting pretty on your knees for him-

Shit.

He’s turned on.

He’s completely, utterly, stupidly turned on.

Bucky jerks his leg out of your grasp with an urgency before you can notice his rapidly rising cock, if you hadn’t already. He almost knocks you over in the process, but he doesn’t bother apologising, just turns his back to you. 

“I don’t have a metal leg. They’re both the same fuckin’ size, doll,” he grumbles, doing his best to think of anything at all to help his situation. He tries to picture the least sexy thing he can - that one time Alexei tried on his old suit for the team - but you keep flashing back, imprinting yourself behind his eyes.

“Actually, there is a…” You stand up and scribble a final figure to your notes. “0.85 centimetre difference in girth.”

Bucky wonders whether it was really necessary for you to use the term ‘girth’. His mind goes to foul places as you back away towards your whiteboard.

He’s almost convinced that you did this on purpose. He hasn’t popped a boner in a public setting like this in decades and he feels like a goddamn hormonal tween again. But it’s a fucking reflex. He’s got a girl touching him up like that for the first time in god only knows how long and his body hasn’t completely forgotten how it’s supposed to respond to that. You’re not exactly ugly, either.

He needs to go somewhere to deal with this. In a clinical, functional way. Same as always.

The orgasm Bucky gives himself is anything but clinical and functional. 

When he begins jerking himself, he expects to be solely focused on the sensation the way he usually is. He instead finds himself thinking of you - the feeling of your fingertips brushing across his chest, your gaze catching on his biceps, the image of you on your knees in front of him.

He shoots his cum against the shower wall in less than a minute. Watches it swirl down the drain with a dull sense of shame.

He’s just grateful Yelena didn’t happen to be present when you took his measurements in the lab. She would have used it as ammunition until the end of time.

For the first time, he admits to himself that her theory might have some credit to it. He must be sexually frustrated - it’s the only way you could have gotten to him the way you did. But it doesn’t change anything, because it won’t be happening again.

Bucky still doesn’t trust you. Trusts you even less now, if possible. 

And his instincts are pretty fucking exceptional so he knows there has to be some reason for it, even if he can’t immediately identify it. You might have the rest of the team deceived, but not him. 

He knew it the first time he looked at you. He took one look into your eyes and knew right off the bat; something’s not right. Now that desire has entered the equation, potent and unbidden, he’s even more convinced.

Rather than feeling any semblance of relief after coming with his hand on his dick and his mind on you, it puts Bucky in a bad mood. He carries that bad mood around with him for the rest of the week, until Bob is giving him skeptical sideways glances and Yelena is complaining about the fact that he is ‘grumpy like dog with chopped balls’.

When he sees you, it gets worse. Much worse.

There is a sort of dreadful anxiety now, along with the usual pit in his stomach. He feels like you’re somehow aware of the thoughts he has been having about you and he’s now starting to interpret those stupid casual smiles you shoot him as mocking. The only way he can think to react to this is by biting. 

He can admit that maybe he’s taken it a bit too far. He makes a show of glaring at you now, just to prove he’s not affected by you. Where previously he would grumble under his breath at your points in meetings, he has now started to scoff aloud so the rest of the room can hear. He almost feels bad when you look over at him, surprised but non-confrontational. As if he’s some ill-behaved child who doesn’t know any better.

Yelena, on the other hand, is most definitely confrontational about the whole thing. She scoffs right back whenever Bucky speaks just to prove that he’s being a dick and targets him after the meeting, demanding explanations and apologies that he will never give. Even Bob has become more distant, giving him wary eyes and wandering over to you immediately whenever you’re present. The way you smile at him, soft and sweet, makes Bucky want to throttle him.

So, yes - he can admit that maybe the whole thing has gotten away from him just a little bit. He’s aware he’s being childish, but there’s something about that nagging feeling in his stomach that tells him he’s not wrong. That there most certainly is just something strange about you. 

It’s all he can think of in the meeting he had waited a whole week for. Mel is briefing a room of about thirty people on the details of the mission and it seems dangerous. It seems complicated. It seems like something Bucky should be damn well paying attention to.

But you’re sitting beside him, twirling a pen around through your fingers. Every so often, you scribble something in your notebook - a mangy, dog-eared thing, bulging with pages and sheets and post-it notes. You keep it close to your chest so Bucky can’t see, even though he cranes his neck to try. You’re not even really trying to be subtle about it either, the way you twist it out of his eye-line. 

He’s trying to focus more on what you’re writing than how you look writing it. Because your brows are slightly scrunched together in concentration and you’re biting your lip and it looks soft - looks soft enough for Bucky to want to bite it himself-

He’s running off course.

He just needs to see what you’re writing.

“Weren’t you pestering me for these details last week?” you whisper, and Bucky doesn’t immediately register that you’re speaking to him because your eyes are still trained on Mel. But then your eyes flicker over to him - he had almost forgotten that he isn’t behind a one-sided mirror, that you can see him too - and all he can do is nod dumbly.

“So maybe you might want to listen? Rather than looking over this way?”

It’s not a bad point. He had bitched at you for not telling him these exact details just before you took his measurements. And now that he’s receiving them, he’s not paying attention. He knows how this must look - but he doesn’t particularly care in this moment.

“What are you writing?” he asks, instead of answering you.

You shoot him an unimpressed frown, lips pressing into a thin line. “I’m taking notes. Obviously.”

It looks like you’re getting fed up with his bad attitude towards you. You would have had much more patience for this sort of behaviour before last week. It’s almost a relief to Bucky - he is so sick of you brushing off all his suspicions and purposefully bad conduct towards you as if it’s insignificant. This is what he wanted from you.

“Can I see them?” he asks, knowing what your reaction will be.

“What are you, twelve? Are we in school right now? Come on, Barnes, you can take your own notes. Mine won’t be any help to you.”

He had known you would reject his request, but actually having it happen stokes a fire in him. The guys in the top two or three floors of the building of his brain - the ones that would usually concern themselves with things like the mission details and whether or not a third coffee would give him the jitters - have suddenly gone off to Martha’s Vineyard on vacation. They won’t be back for a while. The guys in the basement are unfortunately still reeling about how warm your body feels next to his, how pretty your eyes look in this light, how your body would look under his own. Bucky doesn’t want anything to do with those guys - nasty perverts.

Every other part of his brain, however, has focused its attention on how to get into the stupid little notebook. He’s aware it’s probably not likely that the key to understanding why he doesn’t trust you is held within it. It’s not like you would carry that around a military base with you in writing, easily accessible to spies and scientists. But it might give him a glimpse into how you think. He might just end up understanding you just a little better and that could help him work out what it is about you that is off.

You look back at Bucky which makes him realise he had been staring for quite a long time. He coughs and moves his gaze, but when he looks back (because he can’t quite help it), you’re smiling. The guys in the basement groan in ecstasy. Bucky tells them to quit jacking off and get back to work. He needs that notebook.

You head where you always do at the end of the day. To the lab.

Bob follows you just to talk and ask questions. It makes Bucky roll his eyes, but at least you’re distracted. You don’t seem to notice that he’s following quietly. He uses the other bodies as shields until they eventually patter off in different directions. He still follows, until you reach the lab and Bob says he will see you in the canteen for dinner.

What, you two are eating dinner together now? Like… like some sort of married couple? 

The thought makes Bucky want to retch, but he shoves it away quickly. Maybe once he’s done figuring you out, he can warn Bob away from you. He just needs to get to that notebook.

Bucky watches you through the glass wall of the lab. Sees you roll your shoulders and take a deep breath, entire body decompressing the same way Bucky’s does when he’s alone. Your hand reaches up to pull your hair out of its style and Bucky’s stomach lurches painfully as your hair falls loose. You put all the hair paraphernalia on your desk as Bucky grapples with an uncomfortable twinge in his stomach and his dick.

You tear through the room like a tornado. At first you go to your whiteboard again and pick up your marker. You twirl it around for a bit while you assess. Then you start scrawling again, wiping out symbols, replacing them with others. You make more adjustments to Yelena’s suit than Bucky’s, but you seem to be working on something else too. Their weapons, maybe.

Bucky is sure he is almost caught when you spin around. You don’t twist around very quickly, but he is distracted and it makes him move a bit slower. Luckily, your eyes are still buried in that ugly brown book, but he can’t shake off the sinking feeling. He is being sloppy.

Eventually, this time with a lot more stealth, he sees you unlock a cabinet in your desk and put the notebook in. You do it carefully, as if it’s something delicate even though it looks to Bucky as if it had been through more wars than him. You lock it again and Bucky is out of eyesight behind a corner by the time he hears your shoes clacking away in the direction of the communal areas.

He’s quick to punch in the code to the lab. You can easily go through the log and see that he entered soon after you left, but he doesn't think you will unless you have a reason to. He will come up with some story anyway. Just in case. 

It occurs to him that he doesn’t think he’s ever seen the lab empty; neither this one nor the one in New York. You’re like a permanent fixture here. It genuinely unnerves him to not see you up at the board scribbling, or fiddling around with sheets of metal and blowtorches.

He’s strangely jumpy, considering he has every right to be in here. He paces the room for just a second with a panicked urgency, forgetting for the briefest of moments why he is in the lab in the first place. He’s even sweating just a little bit, picturing the look on your face if you were to come back and catch him in the act.

He’s walking straight over to your desk then, roughly tugging at the cabinet he saw you put the notebook into. It’s locked. Of course it’s locked - he saw you lock it, for god’s sake. Sloppy.

He could so easily yank it open, but what wouldn’t be so easy is to put it back together the way it was. He’s sure he could fix it, but it seems likely that you would be back down again to do more work before you go on your romantic date to the canteen with Bob.

Bucky hadn’t even brought anything with him, but he’s sure there must be something to pick a lock here. He roots around in your cabinets, digging through pencil cases and drawers stuffed with disorganised stationery. He stops, eyes shooting over to the spot where your hair tie and bobby pins are lying in a neat pile at the corner of your desk. Walking over and scarcely allowing himself to feel any sort of hope, he picks up two of the bobby pins carefully, balances them in his hands. He can still smell your shampoo on them. 

They will do.

Removing the rubber piece from the bobby pins, he shoves one low in the keyhole as his lever. He bends the other and roots around to try and find the seized pin, but whatever this desk is made of is not cheap. He finds it twice, but both times the bobby pin slips off before he can do much with it. He grunts with frustration, fighting to keep his cool, even though he can feel the bobby pin bending, waiting to break. He must have picked a thousand locks in his life - why is his flesh hand shaking?

Once he finds the first seized lever, he doesn’t have much trouble with the others. The bobby pin almost cracks on the final pin, but it doesn’t matter because he’s in.

He had thought that the book was bound in leather, but it’s not. Now that it’s in his hands, he can feel that the leather is fake. You’re probably too much of a bleeding heart to use real leather anything. His fingers pause over the spine of it for just a second, a seedy feeling of guilt nagging at him for just a second, before he opens it to a random page.

It’s… incomprehensible.

Sure, Bucky had known you would have some sciencey stuff in there, but the whole page is littered with random chemical symbols, graphs, charts. He flicks to another and finds only the same.

He turns over to the front of the book and takes it page by page from there. The more he flicks through the pages, the more frustrated he gets. He really stressed himself out about this? About some dumb blueprints? He eventually reaches the meeting notes which dive deep into detail about heat levels on the mission - you were right as it turns out, your notes really are useless to him.

He’s furious with you for making him think that this was such a big secret, but he’s also self-aware enough to know that he’s just using that to mask the dim shame and embarrassment he’s feeling at making such a big deal of this in his head. He thought he had you.

One of the many sheets stuffed in between the pages slips to the ground. Bucky’s not sure what he’s expecting when he leans down to pick it up - some grand moment of serendipity where the key to your secret finds him, maybe - but it’s just a diagram of his arm with all the measurements to boot. He sighs, folding it back up. He can’t remember where it might have slipped from, so he puts it in the back and hopes you won’t notice that it’s displaced.

But there’s Yelena’s name. Upside down, in a bullet point, alongside the names of the rest of the team. With furrowed eyebrows, Bucky turns the book around to look at the notes you had stuffed in the back. They are mostly unimportant notes on the Yelena and her missions. You have a couple notes about minor injuries she has sustained over the past few months, with little asides like ‘Left shoulder needs more protection - injured!’ and messy notes about her preference in weapons. But you also have little notes about Yelena herself, too. ‘Likes pastrami on rye for lunch’, ‘Always down after coming back from missions involving programmed / indoctrinated - especially kids’, ‘Would probably like Ray Bradbury - to loan her one when back in New York’.

Bucky is perplexed - he certainly is not experiencing a gotcha moment the way he thought he might with any of this information, but what the hell are you doing? Taking notes about Yelena like you’re her therapist? He flicks the page over and sees Walker’s name; the usual notes about injuries, strengths and weapon preferences, weaved in amongst things like ‘Wife’s birthday 17th Jan - gets upset around this date,’ and ‘Sees his kid Thursdays and Fridays’. How do you even know this? Bucky doesn’t and he’s the goddamn leader of the team.

Bob’s page is short, barren of any injuries or battle gear information but with a lot of information about his favourite street food in the city and how he prefers the bus over the subway because going underground makes him nervous. You have noted everything there is to know about Sentry (which is not much, admittedly). He is hit with something unfamiliar when he reads, ‘Needs a friend’.

Suddenly desperate to get to his own page and fuelled by a sort of morbid curiosity that he’s sure won’t end well for anyone, he skips past Ava and Alexei. 

Bucky’s notes are lengthy - they need two pages. It’s stacked with countless injury reports, some relevant information about his background as the Winter Soldier, little details about his arm. But it’s completely void of of the personal touch in the other pages. His is straight-to-the-point, strictly factual. Clinical and functional, even. Bucky doesn’t like that at all.

He understands it. He has never really given you anything to work with, and he’s sure you might think that he would consider it an invasion of privacy in any case. But his chest still seizes inexplicably. He turns back to Bob’s page, looks at the note that says; ‘Likes cats - wants to go to a cat café. Trip for birthday?’. Then he flicks back to his own and reads; ‘Tends to favour left side in fight - dominant arm’. 

He’s hit with a tidal wave of childish loneliness all at once and has to blink a few times to try to dampen the feeling clawing up his chest. Of course you’re not taking personal notes on him - he doesn’t even trust you, doesn’t even like you. 

But some part of him - a part that’s growing larger by the second - knows that it wouldn’t feel like this if he truly didn’t like you.

His mind is working a million miles a minute and he is just about ready to put the notebook back in the drawer and forget any of this ever happened when his eyes catch the last note on the page. The one and only personal bullet you had left on Bucky’s lengthy report.

‘Overly aggressive - has a crush?’

Bucky goes very still on reading the words in your notebook for just a second, and then he is clumsily shoving your notebook back into the desk, removing the bobby-pins from the cabinet in your desk with as much caution as he can afford and bucketing it out the door. His heart is racing and he’s climbing stairs three at a time to get to his room.

He’s not sure what he planned to do in his room - regroup, maybe - but all he can do now is pace. The words kee p flashing into his mind. A crush? Who do you think he is? Some sort of teenage girl? He’s a middle-aged man. He’s a war vet who also happens to be a reformed HYDRA assassin - and you think he has a crush? On you?

He’s not even preoccupied with the egoism of the whole affair. It’s a little conceited for you to assume he has a crush on you based on nothing, but what is taking up the most space in his brain is why you could think Bucky, of all people, is the person to have one. Why not Bob, who practically follows you around with his tongue out?

Because he’s ‘overly aggressive’, apparently. 

He stops mid-pace, shoulders sagging.

Okay - Bucky can admit he hasn’t always been the nicest to you. He doesn’t think it’s fair to say he’s been aggressive, but he can see why it’s something you picked up on. But surely, if anything, you should naturally come to the conclusion that he does not have a crush on you, based on his behaviour towards you. You should assume that he has anything but a crush on you.

He doesn’t even know why he’s panicking this much. His breath is gone and there are pangs of… something, prickling at his sides.

It has to be that day in the lab when you took his measurements. That’s what has you mixed up, he’s sure. You must have noticed him getting turned on before he even noticed himself. And he’s admitted to himself by now that you turn him on. It would be pointless to try to pretend otherwise with those creeps in the basement screaming it up at him ceaselessly. But being attracted to you and having a crush on you are two very different things.

What does a crush mean, anyway? You think he wants to go play fucking house with you? Hold your hand like some middle-schooler?

No - you don’t know him well, but you must know him better than that.

He must have missed something. Maybe you meant something else entirely. Maybe he read it wrong. He doesn’t see how he could have, since the image of those words are imprinted in his brain with permanent ink, but it’s possible. 

He’s starting to regret throwing the book back into the desk so hastily, before he had the chance to thoroughly survey it. Maybe he has the chance to go back down now, while everyone is in the canteen.

But no. He feels no urge to chance his luck any further today - that would be stupid. Sloppy. People will be milling about today. He needs to choose some other time.

He collapses down on his bed. The thud of his body hitting the mattress seems very loud to his ears.

It’s a while before Bucky gets the chance to enter the lab alone again, and he avoids you like a contagion every moment in between.

The timing is pretty inconvenient. The few days before a mission is when the team has most contact with you while they test out weapons and try on their suits. Bucky is considerably less confrontational with you during these assemblies which earns him strange looks from Yelena and Bob, but if you notice, you don’t make it obvious. The simple fact of the matter is that he has lost all interest in antagonising you or exposing whatever secret he had thought you might have - he would much rather avoid you altogether.

You’re not making it easy on him, either. You’re as pleasant as ever, as if his recent bout of bad behaviour is water under the bridge - wiped from your memory. You sound like you’re coaxing a kitten out of a corner when you speak to him. Your pretty eyes and pretty lips are making things hard for him too. He can’t get them out of his head. Can’t stop thinking about how you looked on your knees, head tilted upwards towards him.

‘Overly aggressive - has a crush?’

‘Has a crush? Has a crush?’

‘Has a crush?’

The words are still bleating in his brain days later. He hears you saying them, pictures you whispering them in his ear mockingly with that sweet smile playing on your lips. It puts an uncomfortable sensation in his chest.

He can eventually assess the situation with less indignation and more interest. He wonders what you see when you look at him, what thoughts you think about him when you’re alone. Do you think about him at all? He wants to see into your brain for just a few moments, dig up whatever in there relates to him.

Which, he reminds himself numbly, is insane and sounds exactly like the thoughts of somebody with a crush. 

You’re in the lab at every waking hour in the days leading up to the mission. Bucky glances through the glass wall when he walks by, pretending he’s on his way somewhere else even though there isn’t much else in this wing of the base. Most of the time you’re scribbling on the whiteboard, back to him. Sometimes you catch him and give him a friendly wave. Bucky averts his gaze quickly every time.

His mind is running amok and the mission pays dearly for it.

It’s still a success - Yelena guarantees that - but Bucky’s lack of preparation really shows. He’s bruised and bloody but Yelena gets it worse and she makes sure he hears about it. Both of her eyes are beginning to go yellow with the beginnings of a bruise and she has severe burn marks littered over her arms where even the suit was not enough to stave off the flames. She switches between English and Russian as she curses Bucky out to his face. For better or for worse, he understands every word.

Yeah - he was sloppy.

He’s beaten to a pulp and his adrenaline is still singing in his blood from more than one close call when they reach the base. Yelena is still jabbering on about how she will never be picking up the slack for him again, about how he’s supposed to be the team leader, about how bad she’s going to be hurting in the morning. He’s paying attention to her somewhat until they reach the hallway outside lab.

Because for the first time in days, it looks as if it’s empty.

Bucky comes to a halt and Yelena spins around. The total solid blackness of her stare almost scares him into submission.

“I swear I’m listening to you,” he says, before she can utter a word. “I know I fucked up badly and we can have a proper conversation about this soon. Just- give me a few minutes. I forgot to do something.”

He is fully expecting her to fight him on this, but she must be able to read the desperation in his tone at some level, because she simply gives him a bewildered frown. She looks at him like that for a few beats, then raises her eyebrows to communicate that she is severely unimpressed, and continues on her way to the nurse.

Bucky waits until he can no longer hear her steps echoing down the hall before he steals over to the door of the lab, punching in the code with a sense of determination he hasn’t felt in days. He knows exactly where he’s going this time. 

The cabinet is locked again, but this does not present much difficulty. Your bobby pins are in the same pile as before and he is not half-crazed with nerves this time. The adrenaline from the mission is doing its job. He jimmies the lock in a matter of seconds.

He’s scrambling to open the book on the same page as before, knowing he won’t see anything new but desperate to see those words (has a crush? has a crush? has a cru-) again.

Except he’s wrong, because there is definitely something new. It’s a folded page, tucked into the gutter where the two pages meet. Bucky picks it up and slowly, cautiously unfolds it.

‘Stop looking inside my desk’. Sprawled in big, square letters in the centre of the page.

It’s not addressed to him by name, but it’s been folded neatly into the notes that you wrote up about him which he supposes is enough of a message. He double-checks to see if you edited anything as you clearly knew that he would be looking this time but everything is exactly as he had left it, those dreaded words (has a crush? has a crush? has a-) still lingering at the bottom of the second page.

Humiliation and guilt flood him in no small measure. He is an expert assassin who just got caught out for snooping in a colleague’s journal. He must have tucked one of the papers back into your notebook wrong, or left the bobby pins out. The top floors of his brain are back from Martha’s Vineyard. They’re screaming at him that he’s sloppy. They sound just like Yelena, now that he thinks of it.

The guilt is probably the worst of it. Knowing that you carried around the knowledge that he violated your privacy, but said nothing. You could have gone straight to HR (if HR even exists in a place like this - he has never thought to look into it). But instead you didn’t even try to make him feel bad about it. You had just dealt with it the same way you deal with all the shit he throws at you; with patience, with gentleness, but without letting yourself be stood on. You had let him know that you see through him, but hadn’t backed him into a corner, because that’s not who you are. 

You’re sweet. And Bucky knows it, even if he has always pretended he doesn't.

The realisation doesn’t hit him, doesn’t strike him like a lightning bolt or knock him on his ass. It’s more like something he falls into with overwhelming discomfort and more than a little defeat. Because he’s really known it all along, even if he never admitted it to himself.

(has a crush? has a crush? has a cr-?)

He has a crush.

He doesn’t want to look too far into the fact that he knows where your room is. He wasn’t even aware that he did know, until he started walking with the intention of tracking you down and suddenly found himself outside the door of your room. Had he made a mental note of where you were staying? He must have. He’s coming to an awful lot of awkward realisations today. 

His fist lingers over your door for a full minute before he can bring himself to knock. There’s a moment of silence where you are most likely trying to pretend that you’re not in, but Bucky can hear your shallow breaths, your steady, thumping heartbeat. He knocks again and hears you heave a sigh, followed by a rustling of fabric and your footsteps creeping to the door.

You open the door wearing nothing but an oversized t-shirt - the logo for some band Bucky doesn’t recognise plastered over the front. It’s crumpled and looks like it badly needs to be ironed, but it looks so damn pretty anyway hanging over your delicate thighs - but then anything probably would. His mouth goes dry.

“Hi Bucky,” you say with a tired exhale and only then can he drag his eyes away from your legs and to your face. Your hair is askew, eyes bleary and dull, the soft imprint of bedsheets on your face.

He woke you up. It can hardly be 8pm yet, but you seem to have been out cold since the mission wrapped. Your eyes grow much more alert when they give him a proper once-over.

“Jesus, are you ok? What hap-” You frown, stop short. “Are you just back from the mission? Bucky, you need to go to the nurse. You look like shit.”

Bucky is new to this whole ‘crush’ thing, but he’s fairly sure that being told that you look like shit isn’t the best sign. He can’t look you in the eyes. “I will, I just- I need to talk to you. Please.”

You frown but step aside so he can walk in. There’s a sinking feeling in his gut and he really has no idea what he even wants to say to you - he just knows he has to say something. 

Your room is the exact same as his, from the white linen sheets to the grey cupboards in the small kitchenette, but something about it being yours makes it look different. Less empty.

He looks around, surveying the area as if there’s anything to survey. You’re standing in front of him with an expectant hand propped onto your hip. He tries not to look at it. It sinks into your t-shirt and he can suddenly see your form - the imprint of your side visible through the fabric. He swallows. “I, uh- I got your note.”

Your hand drops, as does your skeptical frown. Your lips twitch into a small smile instead, lips pursed as if you’re trying to stop it from forming. “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

You look at him. Bucky looks back. Blinks. Neither of you say anything for some time. He can hear agents returning to their rooms outside, distant tired voices murmuring. You gesture for him to take a seat on the bed and he does, taking off his shoes and leaning up against the headboard. You join him shortly after, warm thigh almost touching his. He’s glad you don’t have the super-hearing he does, or you would be able to hear his heart thundering under his ribs.

“How did you know?” is all he can manage after a long stretch.

“Know what? That you have a crush on me?” Hearing you say it out loud makes Bucky flinch. You don’t react, just let him settle. He nods. 

“I could tell. From your behaviour towards me.” You’re speaking about this so casually. It’s uncomfortable to hear you talk so upfront about a subject he has dodged, even within his own mind, for so long - but it does help to ease the embarrassment just a bit to hear you speak as if it’s something natural. Not something terrible or embarrassing. 

“But I’m awful to you,” he says. And that’s something that he has had to come to terms with in the last few days too.

“Exactly,” you say, shrugging. You’re not shrinking from his gaze. “You’re not an unreasonable or mean man, Bucky. That behaviour isn’t normal for you. And I have never given you any reason to distrust me - at least, I hope I haven’t - so it was one of my theories.”

“You had theories? Plural?” 

“Well I also thought for a while that it might be possible that you just didn’t like me for no reason in particular. But then your…” you pause, smiling sheepishly, as if you’re giving him an embarrassing diagnosis. “body language convinced me otherwise.”

Bucky’s faces flushes. His entire body flushes. His mind drifts back to when you measured him. He wonders how many other instances like that there were, without him even noticing.

“Why didn’t you-” he stammers, voice strained. “Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

You raise an eyebrow, lips lifting into a teasing grin. “That would have gone really well.”

He thinks about it. How he would have reacted, even a week ago, if you had brought this discovery to him. It certainly would not have gone down well. He physically grimaces, imagining the scenes that might have taken place.

“Why are you still so nice? If I were you, I would have hated myself.”

“I never hated you for it, Bucky,” you say, smiling kindly at him in a way he is so far from deserving that it sets his stomach alight. “I don’t know much about what was done to you before. I never wanted to know anything beyond what was strictly necessary for my job because I figured you wouldn't want me to. But I guess I figured that not everything would be easy after that. Especially not… relationships. Sex.”

Bucky shifts upon hearing you use the word ‘sex’. His mind is racing. “Wh- I don’t-”

You don’t rush him. He almost wishes you would so he could get something out, but instead you sit patiently, waiting for his response. He doesn’t fully understand what’s happening - how you could see right through him when he himself could not. How you could give him this much grace and patience.

Bucky hasn’t experienced much softness in his life. He’s always on the chopping block for things he did do and for things he didn’t. He’s never really taken too much issue with it. He accepted pretty early on in his life that he was dealt a shitty hand. And now he’s being handed softness on a plate - forgiveness, acceptance, kindness. He’s not sure what to do with it.

“I’m sorry,” he say eventually, because that’s really all there is to say. “I wish I didn’t put you through that.”

You roll your eyes, grin never leaving your lips. “I forgive you, Bucky,” you say, as if it’s just that easy. Maybe it is. Maybe it is with you. “It was kind of cute actually. Like when some kid starts tugging on your pigtails in kindergarten because he likes you.”

Bucky truly can’t think of a worse comparison. He is already humiliated at the fact that he’s a middle-aged man being schooled through a crush by his crush. Comparing him to a kid is only confirming to him how embarrassing the situation really is.

“Oh, come on,” you laugh, taking in his horrified expression. “It is cute.”

You look so pretty when you’re laughing and smiling at him. He’s seen this expression on your face with the rest of the team, but he’s so rarely given you cause to give him more than a tight grin as he passes. Now that he has accepted his feelings for you, the guys in the basement of his brain have broken free. They’re running through all the corridors, whooping and hollering. He hadn’t realised how many of the buggers were down there until now. 

He’s overwhelmed with the intense urge to get close to you, to touch your face, your hair, your lips. He needs to go before he can do any of those things and freak you out any further.

“Whatever you say,” he murmurs, face still red. “Regardless, I really am sorry. I wish I could have directed this towards anyone else. You didn’t deserve it.”

He’s got his feet planted, ready to take his leave.

“I don’t,” you say, casually, just looking at him with a blank expression.

He freezes. “You don’t… what?”

“Don’t wish you felt this for someone else.”

He can’t move. Can hardly even breathe. He looks at you with a sort of astounded confusion and you just roll your eyes again, as if he’s taking a great deal of time to figure out something very obvious.

“It would be a pretty shitty situation for me. Y’know, since I have a crush on you too.”

Are you messing with him? Bucky isn’t sure exactly what expression crosses his face, but it must be whatever you were hoping for, because you’re tittering; a lovely, soft sound. And he can do nothing but watch. 

Something isn’t computing. You eventually stop giggling, but your grin doesn’t drop. You’re just smiling sweetly as if you hadn't just said something to tip his whole world on its axis.

It hadn’t ever occurred to Bucky that you could like him back. He had been so preoccupied with denying that he felt anything for you, he hadn’t even really thought about it. And even if he had, there’s no way he could ever expect you to actually reciprocate. Not with the way he has acted to you.

But, somehow, you do. 

And Bucky has that strange, nagging sensation again - the feeling that something isn’t right - but it’s not the same as before because it’s mingled with hope this time. Like he can’t quite believe that this might be true, he’s suspicious that perhaps it’s not, but god - he hopes it is.

“Why?” he chokes out. You don’t laugh at him when his voice cracks.

“Why what?”

“Why do you have a-” He can’t even say it. You don’t make him.

“Don’t fish for compliments, it’s unbecoming,” you say and you’re teasing him but he finds he doesn’t really mind it. 

“It’s just- It doesn’t make-” Bucky tries to stammer, before you finally take pity on him. You reach a hand over slowly and place it in Bucky’s. It’s small and warm and still soft despite the welts and cuts - tokens from your work. His heart flutters once in his chest, heat stirring in his stomach.

“I can’t explain why I like you, Bucky. I just do. I think you’re a good person and I knew that even when you didn't quite know how to act around me. And I love how much you protect the people you care about and you’re funny without trying to be, but it’s more than just that. I just like you.”

He thinks he gets what you mean. If you were to ask him, he would try to explain why he feels the way he does about you. But language is inadequate to express it. It’s uncomfortable and messy and it was almost impossible to understand, let alone communicate what has been happening inside of him - whether to himself or anyone else. He just likes you too. 

But, critically, he doesn’t deserve you. He didn’t deserve you before he met you, didn’t deserve you when he took out his unresolved trauma on you and certainly doesn’t deserve you now, just because the tide has changed.

He knows you can see the cloud falling over his face, but you’re not perturbed. You lean forward with another one of your sweet smiles until your face is just inches from his, but you don’t move further. You’re letting him make the decision.

Bucky glances once at your lips, delicate and swollen from biting, and he accepts that he never really had a choice anyway. He leans down to kiss you as if in a daydream and feels the way he gives himself over to you in an almost absent way - he is spilling over the side of himself when your lips meet his.

Although you had leaned over for this reason alone, you still gasp against his lips - a high, breathy sound that makes his pulse jump. He’s feeling a bit outside himself.

His metal hand goes to the back of your neck to gentle pull you closer. The other goes to your thigh, just to feel his skin on yours. He rubs circles there and tries to fend off a spell of dizziness at how good it feels just to have you against him like this.

He’s thinking about those moments in the middle of the night when he takes a sip of water and suddenly realises that he’s completely parched. How just one sip of it makes him want to sink the whole glass. It’s been so long since he’s kissed someone like this - since he’s felt the desire to - and it almost physically hurts, how much he wants this. How much he wants you.

You’re squirming against him, moving up slowly to straddle him, perching yourself on his large lap. Your movements are careful and considered - like you’re giving him the time to say he doesn’t want this. He wishes he could tell you just how badly he does, but removing his lips from yours doesn’t seem worth it. He moves his hands to your hips instead. Gives them an encouraging squeeze.

The heat of your body is seeping onto his lap and through his chest. He kisses you just for the selfish pleasure of it; not for any design or purpose - just to feel it. He takes your bottom lip into his mouth, clumsy and desperate and feels you sigh against him.

“Bucky,” you say, parting from him. He doesn’t realise that he is following your lips in a daze until you put a hand up to stop him.

“Hm?” he responds mindlessly. His head is swimming.

“Will you let me touch you?”

Through the confused haze of his scrambled brain, he can only think about the fact that you’re already touching him. You have one hand on his chest, the other behind his neck. This is more touch than he has felt in decades.

But gradually he comes to. He blinks the daze out of his eyes and sees that you are sitting still, looking to him for a response. He almost lets the guilt eat away at him again at the kind patience on your face. He nods instead.

You’re still watching him closely when you grab the ends of his t-shirt and peel it over his head. Bucky has almost forgotten that he’s injured. When he looks down, his chest is littered with purple bruises and deep burns. He suppresses the urge to grab his t-shirt back from you, only because you lean forward to press a gentle kiss to his collarbone.

He watches as your hand on his chest slips slowly downwards. He shivers when you trail past his nipples, when you lighten your touch over his injuries. You trace the end of his stomach, before grazing his cock over his black tac pants. He can’t help the deep puff of breath he releases. His heart is thumping with equal doses of anxiety and exhilaration.

He’s breathing heavy and you look at him, eyes glassy and searching to see if he is okay with this. He doesn’t have the words for how okay he is, so he reaches a hand up to run through your hair and presses another ardent kiss to your lips.

When you part from him, you’re smiling. You unbutton his trousers and slowly pull them down along with his underwear, just far enough so his cock springs up against his bare, sweaty stomach. He’s mildly embarrassed by how clearly worked up he is already. He’s rock hard. Precum is smattered around the head of his cock and strings of it are stretching from his cock to his underwear as you peel it back.

You have a bashful look on your face as you take in his size, eyes falling to his lap and mouth parting. He almost feels shy for a moment. He was by no means small before the serum, but he knows his size is totally abnormal now. He has an irrational worry for just a moment that you’re about to pack the whole thing up and tell him to leave, but he can read excitement in your expression too. 

You trail your fingers lightly over the head and Bucky hisses, hips bucking up into your hand. Your eyes snap to his, astonished.

“You’re very sensitive.”

Bucky flushes. “I haven’t uh-” he stammers. “It’s been a while.”

“What’s a while?”

He wonders if it can get any more embarrassing than this. “Few decades. No big deal.”

He expects you to be astonished again, but you have no reaction at all. “I thought that might be the case.”

He wants to ask how you knew, but you clench your fist over his cock, giving him a soft pulse and he can no longer get any words out. He just grunts, watching you move your hand up and down, slowly massaging his length. His dick looks so much bigger in your small, soft hand than it does in his own rough grip. His hands shake as they move to grip your thighs in a futile attempt to find something with which to anchor himself.

“Does that feel good?” you ask. Your eyes are slightly clouded.

“Yeah,” he answers, voice coming out strained. 

You lean forward slightly and Bucky thinks you are about to kiss him. Just as he moves to meet your lips with his own, you open your mouth to purposely spit downwards. The warm liquid meets the tip of his cock and cascades downwards towards your cupped fist.

He can’t help the desperate moan that falls from his lips, his head falling back against the headboard. He thinks that image of you might possibly live in his brain forever.

You use the new lubrication to stripe across his length with your right hand, the other moving down to play with his balls. You keep your hand gentle but tight and his hips jerk forward unintentionally, even as he tries to still them. He’s groaning different versions of your name but he can hardly hear himself over the pulsing in his ears.

You’re not rushing it. There hardly even seems to be an intention with what you’re doing - the way you’re watching him makes him feel like you’re doing this for the simple pleasure of seeing him like this. It’s a far cry from how he does it when he’s alone - clinical, functional - whatever makes him cum the fastest. You’re taking your time and letting him feel what he had convinced himself he no longer wanted.

He can accept that he has been lying to himself about that too, as he watches you now. You can hardly move your eyes from where you’re stroking him, watching your hand move with an almost detached curiosity - as if you’re not in control of your own motions. He has been starved of this - of all physical touch - for the longest time, but it had never seemed in reach so he denied that he had any interest in it at all. It’s almost overwhelming his senses now.

You squeeze his cock and rub small, affectionate circles at the base. The intimacy of it - the tenderness - almost makes him blow his load early. A brief panic takes hold of him at the thought of it. He grips your wrist quickly and your movements halt. You look up at him with alarm. 

“I can’t-” he stammers. “I’m gonna-”

“Oh.” You smile. He flushes. 

You bring your hands to his bare chest and give him a soft, gentle kiss that makes his eyes flutter closed and his breath stutter.

“I want to make you come, Bucky,” you murmur against his lips. “But in my mouth. Is that okay with you?”

“God- fuck-” he breathes, just at the words alone. His face is pinched up with a barely contained restraint while he tries to bring his heart rate down. You wait patiently for his answer and he feels a rush of affection for you that is so strong it almost bowls him over. How could he have thought that he felt anything for you but deep, intense adoration? You know intuitively just by looking at him that this is a big moment and not something he can rush. He finds that he now trusts you so implicitly with this vulnerability, he can’t even imagine a time when he didn’t.

“Yeah,” he manages eventually. “Please. Wanna feel your mouth on me.”

You kiss him again, deep and slow. He chases your lips even as you manoeuvre yourself away and lower yourself so you are level with his cock. Your hand reaches up again to pump him a few times and his chest heaves.

You press a light kiss to the tip and a groan falls from his lips. His head falls back against the headboard but he fights the instinct to close his eyes. He’s too busy watching you.

A pink tongue lolls out of your mouth and then your lips are closing in on him, just wrapping around the tip. His hand reaches out to card through your hair and he doesn’t push you down any further but he is still fighting for control over his body. His body is trying to make him thrust into your mouth, which he’s sure will send him over the edge if he can’t get a grip on himself soon. 

You begin to bob your head, gradually taking more and more of him in each downswing. He feels a bit loose around the edges. The pleasure is bordering on too much, but he finds that he trusts you enough not to panic about it. He doesn't get caught up in how he looks or sounds or whether he’s about to embarrass himself; he just lets it happen because he knows that it’s what you want from him. He thinks he would do anything in the world if he thought you wanted it of him.

You look so pretty with his cock down your throat. You’re glancing up at him teary and doe-eyed while his tip nudges the back of your throat. He feels the ridges of your tight throat squeeze around him. He’s aware he probably looks desperate and needy, but it’s impossible not to while he’s feeding his cock down your throat.

“S-shit, feels good-” he whines. Actually whines. If he was any more lucid, he would be embarrassed. But he likes the way you look up at him afterwards. 

The way you’re reacting to him is sinful. He worries that you won’t be able to take it every time he nudges deeper, but your eyes just roll back, like you can’t get enough. You even whimper around him, as if he’s the one getting you off.

He can’t remember how this used to feel, but he doesn’t think it was ever this good. You do a sliding motion with your tongue, pressing it up against the veins of his dick. He grunts and grips your hair harder, hips giving jerky thrusts into your mouth every now and again when he can’t stop or control it.

“Fuck, I’m gonna-” he strangles out. “Baby, I’m gonna come.”

Baby. That’s a new one. He’ll examine it later.

His voice - the sort of breathless desperation in it - feels foreign in his own mouth but it makes you moan. Bucky feels the vibration it makes against his cock and comes his brains out.

He lets out a strangled groan, spilling himself down your throat. He feels a certain awe as he watches you try to keep up with swallowing, eventually giving up and pulling off to jerk him. His spend spurts up across your face, soils his chest and his thighs. He wonders briefly if you will be annoyed.

“Fuck, thank you,” he sighs, only distantly aware of what he’s saying while he comes down from his high. Weak streams of cum are still spilling from him as your hand slows its pace. “Sorry.”

You level him with a quirked brow, as if he said something funny. “Sorry for what?”

He looks at you, all of his cum dripping from your cheeks and chin. You look so pretty like this - so his. “It’s everywhere,” he says, even as he can’t avert his gaze.

You smirk and dip your finger into a pool of cum gathered on his abdomen.

“It is everywhere,” you agree. He can do nothing but watch entranced as you bring your finger to your mouth, sucking the pearly liquid off it.

His cock has barely had a second of reprieve - he can feel it twitching to life again. Its way of telling him that it has been severely neglected for the last seventy years.

“Let me touch you.” He intends for it to come out sexy and demanding, but it hits his ears as more of a plea.

“Not today,” you say, picking up a corner of the duvet and wiping your face with the sheet. You pull his pants back up for him without much difficulty and hop off his lap. Bucky’s brows furrow with confusion and a hint of dread. Why don’t you want him touching you? Have you decided that you no longer want him? Has he fucked this all up already? He tries to hide the panic that’s hitting him like a semi-truck with a nod and a wavering smile.

You see it. Of course you do. You curl up next to him, popping one leg over his. His cum is spilling from his chest and onto your t-shirt, but you don’t seem to mind. 

“I don’t want you rushing this,” you say, brushing a gentle hand through his hair. He fights the urge to nuzzle into your hand. “I think what we did today is enough of a step.”

He considers your words. It makes him feel like a fucking child to have you talk to him this way, but… you might not be wrong. His heart is still racing uncomfortably in his chest from the novelty of it all and as much as he would kill to touch you, he’s not sure what he’s doing anymore. It’s one thing for him to sit back and let you take care of him. This would be another thing entirely.

You’re right, of course, and it is becoming blatantly obvious you can read him better than he can read himself. Still, he has to make a genuine effort not to mope at the idea of leaving you and your warmth to go back to his cold, empty room.

“Bucky,” you say firmly, using two fingers to nudge his face over to yours. He meets your eyes and finds it a little more difficult to sulk. “I like you and I want to do this right. I want you to touch me so bad, but only when you’re ready to. Will you trust me?”

His eyes go big and wide and an awkwardly vulnerable feeling passes through him. You like him. You want him to touch you.

You’re still waiting for him to answer. You always are. You never speak over him, never assume. Bucky has spent so much of his life being overpowered, his choices ignored or stifled. It’s unfamiliar and uncomfortable but not unpleasant. He nods.

“I like you too,” he stammers clumsily. “So much.”

You laugh. “I know.”

In a brief lapse of silence - your head on his chest, his hand stroking tentative circles on your thigh - he almost feels like the two of you are melting into one. He matches your breathing unconsciously, heart slowing while he holds you close, bodies melding together. You press a small kiss to his pec and he accepts it easily and gratefully. He is struck by the picture of you snuggling up to him - astounded by just how cute he finds it.

“I think you should go to the nurse.” You poke a bruise and he bites back a hiss. You look up at him with a raised eyebrow, like you know that he’s just pretending not to be hurt.

“Later,” he mumbles. Truthfully, the idea of leaving your room sounds awful to him. All that waits for him outside is cold, empty nothingness. He will delay it for as long as you’ll let him.

He tries not to spiral - tries not to think about the fact that telling him to go to the nurse might just be the least awkward way you can think of to get him to leave. 

You like him, he reminds himself with some conviction. You said so.

“Not later. Go take a quick shower and I’ll meet you in your room after you’ve been to the nurse.”

He gives you a surprised glance out of the corner of his eye.

You giggle. “We could stay here but my sheets might need a wash.”

He rolls his eyes but he is considerably less reluctant to leave your presence with the promise of seeing you later. You detach yourself from him. Smart move - he would never move as long as he has you pressed up against him.

He huffs a sigh in protest, but heaves himself up and makes his way into the ensuite and notches on the shower. To his surprise, you totter in after him and take a seat on the closed toilet lid.

With some of his typical confidence returning to him, he leans downward to kiss you while he yanks off his pants. He feels your cheeks round against his face.

“Y’just gonna sit here and watch?”

The way you smile up at him through your lashes almost makes him fall to his knees and beg for you to reconsider his request. You tilt your head innocently. “Well I need something to think about while you’re gone.”

He groans, pushing his forehead against yours - almost pained. He can feel the breath of your laugh against his lips. 

He knows that soon he will get a lecture soon for not reporting to medical immediately. He also knows that he’s well overdue a verbal beating from Yelena. His body is bruised and broken and tired. His nerves are frayed and his adrenaline is still dangerously high. None of it matters - all Bucky can see and hear is you. It’s not so bad, really, having a crush. 

a/n: fun fact i watched a youtube video about lock picking to write this and i think i can pick a lock now!! (i will definitely not be using this for nefarious purposes…)

bucky taglist: @dolcesaints @marina468 @avgdestitute @tw1sters @dxnsgrl @thegirlwhowaited5everok @pjo4life1939 @otheliesstuff @domitaylorsversion @simplemind-simplematter @love-stucky @queen-acdc @epiphanyrogers @monicasposh @daddysbitchybaby

everything taglist: @buckysbbydoll @donuelle

°𓏲⋆🌿. Be added to my taglist! .🌿⋆𓏲°

[lunexiax]

𝑠𝑢𝑏𝑢𝑟𝑏𝑎𝑛 𝑙𝑒𝑔𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑠 (𝑏𝑢𝑐𝑘𝑦 𝑏𝑎𝑟𝑛𝑒𝑠)

𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑤𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑠𝑜 𝑚𝑎𝑔𝑛𝑒𝑡𝑖𝑐, 𝑖𝑡 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑎𝑙𝑚𝑜𝑠𝑡 𝑜𝑏𝑛𝑜𝑥𝑖𝑜𝑢𝑠 𝑓𝑙𝑢𝑠ℎ 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑐𝑢𝑟𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝑐𝑜𝑜𝑙 𝑖 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑎𝑙𝑤𝑎𝑦𝑠 𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑛𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑚𝑦 𝑒𝑚𝑝𝑡𝑦 𝑝𝑜𝑐𝑘𝑒𝑡𝑠 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑖𝑡 𝑐𝑎𝑚𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑦𝑜𝑢

pairing: college!bucky barnes x f! reader

summary: You're harbouring more than just a crush on your best friend - you're completely in love with him. It's too bad that Bucky is too busy entertaining other girls to see you as anything more than a friend. When you make the difficult decision that it's time to move on, does it push him to see what he never has before?

warnings: au, angst, yearning, friends to lovers, miscommunication, idiots in love, jealousy, reader waxes poetic about unrequited love for way too long, angst with a happy ending, no use of y/n, no smut but references to sex

a/n: i promise i’m not part of the forgive men agenda i just love angst with a happy ending :( also i think this might lowkey be buns but we roll! no smut in this one (just melodrama) but the next one will be horny again, promise <3

not proofread - if you see any typos, no u didn't <3

You suppose it’s probably about time that you develop some self-respect. Or at least some fucking boundaries.

Wanda knows it, too - it’s why her eyes are narrowed at you in open disapprobation. She twirls a pen around in her fingers, movements abrupt and irate. You figure the tense hush of the library is the only reason you’re not getting an earful right now.

September is streaming in, dull and cold, through the ceiling windows. There’s something a bit eerie about it at this time of year. Most students won’t make an appearance until exams begin to loom over them in about a month’s time. Right now, however, it is shrouded in a bleak sort of emptiness. A student mills about in search of a particular volume every now and again, but yourself and Wanda have the table to yourselves.

You fix the sleeves of your sweater and try to immerse yourself into the article open in front of you, but you can still feel her stare.

“What the actual fuck is wrong with you?” she snaps, voice low. 

“You promised you wouldn’t be mad.”

“Well, I lied.”

You wince. “I know. Like, I really know. It’s just so hard to say no to him sometimes.”

Wanda’s expression shifts to something like pity and you think that might actually be worse because you can actually picture how pathetic you must look to her - the girl who takes absolutely no shit and never has. The pen falls to the desk as her hands reach forward to grab yours. She pauses until she coaxes your gaze over to her, fingers padding over your cold knuckles affectionately.

“I know, darling. But I want you to listen to me. This is going to be the last time I ever say this, because I’m really not sure that it’s having any effect and, to be honest, I’m tired. Maybe this is a lesson that you’ll only learn after you have been hurt one too many times, but I am going to try one last time anyway.”

Something about the finality in her tone takes you by surprise. Actually - it does more than that, it terrifies you. 

You have probably stretched the limits of what’s socially acceptable when complaining about your situation with Bucky and Wanda has put up with far more than she should have - always giving solid advice that is never taken. And you know that you need to stop talking about it. You have known for a while now.

But you can hear her loud and clear now; if you want to keep torturing yourself, you can do it alone.

“That boy is making a complete fool of you. We’re going into our third year of college and you’ve been on how many dates? You’ve slept with one person and came home crying afterwards because you felt like you betrayed Bucky. Meanwhile, he has a new girl attached to him at every frat party.”

She is gripping your hands tighter now, leaning closer with intense focus.

“And really, your feelings for him are just a symptom of one of the best things about you. You love hard, and I love that about you, darling. The right person will love that about you too - not take advantage of it. I mean, seriously, coming in to cuddle after messing around with another girl? That’s not being just-friends, it’s not normal and it’s not fair.”

Shame floods your stomach and finds its way to your face until you are sure you are the colour of plums. She hesitates, eyes flicking away briefly, before her face steels. 

“And- I’m not sure how to say this without being cruel… it’s getting a bit embarrassing, watching you accept it.”

You feel deflated. Like she had just pricked a hole in your skin and watched all the air hiss out. She look at you as if she had just imparted some words of comfort, eyes sympathetic and brows pinched, while you attempt to blink away tears.

You can’t be mad at her, even if you wanted to. Because she’s right.

You know that Bucky walks all over you. And you know that you let him. He doesn’t even need to ask for the notes for a lecture he has missed anymore - you email them to him before even leaving the theatre. When he pulls you onto his lap, you curl up, head lolling gratefully on his shoulder, even when you know that it’s just because there’s no other girl around that he has an interest in. When he calls you at 2am because he’s leaving a one-night-stand’s house and doesn't want to crash alone in his room, you open the door and the duvet to him with a smile.

But you are ‘just friends’. Always will be.

He kisses you, but never on the lips. He says he loves you, but in that dismissive, buddy-ish way. He stays the night, but never in the way you want him to. He calls you that weirdly affectionate pet name, sounding like your goddamn husband from the 1940s, but it never means what you want it to.

Meanwhile, you tell all your friends that you ‘don’t date’, because going out with anyone else feels wrong. It’s pathetic.

You feel Wanda’s words rattle through your head and you know you will think about them late into the night. But it’s not her words alone that let you know for absolute certainty that things have to change.

It’s a giggle. Sweet and playful. Coming from across the library.

And of course it’s Bucky, because somehow it’s always Bucky. He’s whispering something to a blonde girl you think you recognise from your module on the Byzantines. He’s standing behind where she sits, one hand on her shoulder and the other brushing her hair back so he can speak softly to her in that beautifully tempting way you had seen a million times before.

He catches your eyes for just a beat and you watch surprise flicker over his face before his mouth curls into a smirk and his eye drops into a soft wink.

And that is it. The nail in the coffin.

Your first real act of defiance is a text. It feels rebellious and subversive, even though you know it’s not.

YOU: Sorry, Buck! Was asleep.

You put the phone down, feeling very satisfied with yourself indeed. In truth, you never usually turn Do Not Disturb on and keep your ringer up full volume, just in case Bucky decides to call. And when he does - the feeling of his body against yours as you both drift off to sleep makes each time you had woken up to marketing texts from Dominos worth it. 

Last night, however, you tapped the Do Not Disturb button extra hard, as if proving a point. And, you think smugly, that point was now proven.

BUCK: no problem doll 

BUCK: found another place to crash

Your heart sinks before you can tell it that it is no longer allowed to do that. This new version of you can guess very well where ‘another place’ might be, but she no longer cares. At all. Even a little.

You leave the phone down and amble out of your room, kicking rogue clothing items out of your path. 

The flat is still in chaos from the night before. Beer bottles littered everywhere, a random body splayed unconscious across your sofa and a pouch of cat food open on the table for reasons you don't want to know. You are about ten minutes into clearing up the mess with a trash bag and microfibre cloth when Nat stumbles in, hair sticking up and makeup streaming off her face.

She looks so like something out of a comic that you can’t control your giggles. Nat rolls her eyes but she is smiling as she roots through the cabinet for some ibuprofen. 

“Big night?” you ask, looking warily at what you think might be someone’s underwear in a wet heap on the floor. You pick out a pair of gloves from under the sink.

“Yup. And another one coming up tonight.”

“What’s tonight?”

She raises an eyebrow over the rim of her drinking glass. “Steve’s birthday. You’re coming too.”

“Oh.”

You pause for a second before returning to your task, now much more interested in the various beer bottles than before. You study them intently before tossing them, feeling her eyes burn through your skin.

Actually, you are planning on being sick tonight, but you had forgotten about that. You wonder what illness could suddenly seize you between now and this evening. Telling everyone you have diarrhoea wouldn’t be your preference, but it is starting to look like the obvious choice.

“Wanda told me about the whole Bucky thing. Says you seem to be taking it seriously this time, going on dates.”

Your throat contracts. You can only manage another “Oh.”

“You can’t just ignore him, you know. It won’t work like that.”

Yes, you know this. Of course you do. You met Bucky on the very day you started classes and since Steve and Nat started dating almost two years ago, your life had been inextricably linked with his. Scarcely a day goes by that you don’t see him, whether at lectures, in Steve’s flat or in your own. He is as inevitable in your life as death or taxes and even trickier to avoid. Which has made the last week a living nightmare.

You are aware there’s only so long that you can keep this up. But you’re not quite sure you’re ready to see him again. You’re not sure you won’t fall in hard again, the way you always do.

“You have to trust yourself. I do.”

Nat has a somewhat unnerving but mostly constructive habit of telling you exactly what you need to hear.

When Bucky sees you, it is as if he’s seen the sun after a month of darkness. Moments like this would have made the old you doubt herself, wonder if maybe there was something soft and secret lurking under that libertine exterior. 

The new you keeps her distance.

You walk into the kitchen with Wanda and Nat to pregame the pregame, as instructed by Steve.

Despite the fact that the new you totally, categorically does not care what Bucky thinks of her, you still made a little extra effort with your appearance, fixing up your hair and applying your makeup with a bit more precision than usual. If you can’t get Bucky’s attention in the way you want, you would make damned certain to get someone’s.

You purposely don’t see Bucky making those eyes at you - the ones that demand your complete attention. You can feel them on your skin, but you won’t look. 

Instead, you make idle chat with Sam, who doesn’t try to hide the way he is admiring you, eyes traversing your form leisurely. It makes you feel warm and giddy and pathetic. Because you know that excited feeling is just another symptom of your feelings for Bucky. Your body’s way of screaming, See, Bucky! Someone thinks I’m worth looking at!

You jolt when you feel large, warm hands on your waist, pulling you onto a familiar lap.

“Ignoring me?” he murmurs against your temple, pressing a soft kiss there. “Haven’t seen you in about a week, doll. Where you been?”

You fly into a standing position, perhaps a little too abruptly. Bucky’s chin jerks back in surprise, his arms raising involuntarily into a surrendered gesture.

“Forgot to get a drink!” you stammer out, stumbling away. All eyes are on you, now. The boys are confused, but you can feel pride rolling off Wanda and Nat in waves and it steels you. 

You read the bewilderment on Bucky’s face as he questions whether he did something wrong - but when you shoot him a warm smile for reassurance, he returns it. He leans back in the sofa, probably assuming you will be back on his lap in two minutes flat.

“Don’t take it personally Buck,” Nat says and you can hear the smirk in her voice. “She’s been a busy girl. Barely has time for us anymore since she started going on dates. She’s in high demand.”

“You’re dating? Since when?” Bucky’s voice rings out and you hate that you can hear the hurt festering there. He’s your best friend, up there with Wanda and Nat. He should know that you had made the decision to start dating again. You should have told him. But how could you? You weren’t even sure you could look at him until this morning.

“She’s making it sound like I’m some nympho,” you laugh, but it’s shaky. “I’ve been on one date.”

“Who with?” Bucky isn’t laughing. He isn’t even smiling.

“Tony Stark,” Wanda says, matter-of-fact and cold. “Not that it’s any of your business, Barnes. She can date whoever she wants.”

Bucky usually takes the bait when Wanda taunts him like this and they bicker like siblings for at least ten minutes. Not this time. He has turned around fully on the couch to look at you, eyes blazing. You avoid his gaze, busying yourself with picking out a drinking glass.

“Tony Stark? Jesus Chr- are you being serious, doll? That fuckin’ guy?”

You bristle, defensive. Leave it to Bucky to make you feel shit about the men you choose to help you get over him.

“Yes, I’m serious. I mean, there won’t be a second date… he was a bit of an ass, actually. Had a god complex because of his daddy’s money. But he asked me and I said yes.”

Sam takes over from you to mix your drink. He gives you a wink, smooth as butter. “You should’ve told me you were dating now, angel. Woulda been first in line.”

“Not too late, Wilson,” you say, smiling cheekily.

Bucky is quiet and his arms are crossed. This time, when you sit on the other side of the sofa, he does not try to pull you onto his lap. It lasts about ten minutes.

Wanda is watching you give a masterclass in self-control with a tight, satisfied smile as the hours tick by. You are skilfully dodging Bucky’s approaches like they’re landmine, wounding out of the group conversation when he feels a bit too close for comfort and winding back in when you figure it’s pretty safe.

At the start, he brushes it off. When you wiggle out of his grasp or softly brush his hand from your back, using excuses like needing the loo or topping up your drink or having to speak to Wanda privately, he believes you. But as the flat fills up for the actual pregame, the attractive little line between his brows grows deeper. His attempts grow more desperate. When you announce your third ‘private chat with Wanda’, he sighs, only pulling you tighter to him. 

“What are all these private chats about, huh? Can I not be in on the secrets?”

“Girl stuff,” you say, shooting him an apologetic smile and shooting out from under his arm before he has the chance to stop you. His arms reach out to grab you but they find only air. You are walking away.

Wanda links your arm with her nose in the air and the two of you walk off to an uninhabited corner. She can scarcely wait until you are out of earshot before she’s laughing.

“Stop!” you whine. “This is really hard. I didn’t think pulling away would make him try harder.”

Wanda doesn’t stop laughing, but she brushes a lock of hair behind your ear softly to compensate.

“I’m sorry, darling, but this is just perfect. I mean, look at him. He’s so confused he can’t even focus on the girls in the room.”

It’s true. Bucky had flopped down on the sofa after you left his side. His eyes are downturned and his mouth is set in a hard line. He is the picture of confusion. You can’t help it; you giggle a little bit too.

He clearly doesn’t linger on it very long. By the time you all make it to the bar, Bucky is talking to someone new - this time, a tall, brunette stranger.

You are used to this, but it doesn’t make it sting any less. She is swooning, inching closer to him, and you swallow down the resentment that threatens to spill out of you with an awareness that you would be no different to her, if you were in her place.

You gossip with Wanda, examining those in the room to guess who is getting with each other in secret. You sit down with Bruce and listen to him with genuine wonder as he describes what he is currently working on, even if you can’t fully understand it (science was never your forte). You flirt with Sam and feel a rush of satisfaction when he focuses his undivided attention on you, lighting up your skin with his approving gaze. And you can almost forget about Bucky.

It’s rare these days to have everyone in the group come together on the same night, now that life has become a bit more serious and coursework is no longer a mild suggestion but a real and consequential requirement to unlocking your futures. You feel guilty about the fact that your heart isn’t really in it.

“You’ve been really brave,” Nat murmurs, not looking at you but gripping your hand with a sort of maternal protectiveness. It makes you feel like a child, but you don’t mind it, really. “You don’t need to stick around any longer if you’re not feeling it. Thank you for coming out.”

You don't say anything but give her a grateful smile as you leap up to give Steve a hug and wish him a happy birthday once more. You’re deep in thought when Bucky appears beside you. You jump out of your skin.

“You’re going?” he asks, frowning. He grabs your coat from your hands and opens it in front of you to step into. You do as instructed, turning your back to him and looping your arm into one of the sleeves.

“Jesus, Buck,” you murmur. “Didn’t even see you coming.”

“Sorry.” He flashes you a pretty grin when you turn back around and you melt to liquid. Your insides feel gooey and warm. They always do when he looks at you like that.

“You’re going home?” he repeats and you nod once, attempting to snap yourself out of it. He was just chatting up another girl less than five minutes ago. You could hear Wanda’s voice in your ear, telling you to pick your dignity up off the floor.

“I’ll come with you,” he says, chipper as a kid. “Think Steve won’t be hanging around very long anyway.” He gestures over to Steve, where he is making out with Nat against one of the tables. Your nose wrinkles and Bucky laughs, the sound deep and rich. The sound makes you smile but it doesn’t make you forget your mission.

“Um- actually…” you stammer. “I’m pretty tired tonight, Buck. Think I’ll go home alone.”

Bucky is astonished. Like, he actually blanches. His eyebrows raise up to his hairline and his lips part ever-so-slightly.

And it lights a fire inside you. You know you let him walk all over you, that you had never turned him down before. You have always been over the fucking moon on nights like this, when he would choose to hang out with you instead of taking home another girl. You can’t usually turn him down when he asks for something so prettily. In fact, he didn’t even need to ask. He just… just told you he would come with you, with the reassurance that you wouldn’t deny him.

And now that you have, he’s gobsmacked.

God- are you really this pathetic? Are you so predictably desperate for his attention, that you saying no to him just one time is enough to elicit this reaction? You feel a dull, simmering kind of rage bubbling in your stomach. You know it should be directly mostly at yourself, but instead you find yourself wanting Bucky out of your sight.

“But- doll, I haven’t seen you in a while. Missed you. I thought…”

“Sorry, Buck. Maybe another time.”

Or maybe never. Fuck this guy.

He's looking at you with thinly veiled hurt, but for once in your life, it does little to move you. Even his admission that he missed you doesn’t override your temper.

“At least let me walk you back,” he says reaching out for you.

You give him a tight smile and evade his grip. “No really, I’m okay. You have fun.”

You don’t give him the chance to argue again, spinning on your heel and zipping out of the bar before he has time to react. You can feel his eyes follow you out.

You delete the Instagram app when you get home, unwilling to see Bucky and his latest conquest in the background of some group picture. You finger hovers over his contact for one second of weakness, before you lock your phone and toss it away.

You comfort yourself with whatever you can scavenge from the kitchen. Most of the snacks you had bought for yourself are gone, as they often are, but you manage to find some semi-stale popcorn and figure it will have to do. You flick a 90s romcom on your laptop and lie horizontal, coaxing your thoughts away from Bucky and towards Hugh Grant to the best of your ability.

You hear Wanda stumble through the hallway to her room with an unidentified male who whispers louder than most people shout. Steve and Nat come in not much later. When the first moan rings out, you decide to continue watching your movie with headphones and try not to sulk.

BUCK: hey doll

BUCK: you awake?

You know what Wanda would tell you to do. But there’s some sick part of you that wants to twist the knife.

YOU: Yup. What’s up?

BUCK: you sure i cant come over? 

BUCK: steve and sam are still out

BUCK: house is lonely

You’re mildly surprised that he didn’t go home with someone. You’re not sure if you can remember him striking out before.

YOU: Steve isn't still out, he’s here. Trust me when I say you don’t wanna be here right now.

BUCK: damn that sucks lol theyre like rabbits

BUCK: why dont you come over here then?

You pause for a moment, reading over the last text a few times. He doesn’t usually invite you over there, but then again, you don’t usually turn him down.

YOU: Not feeling it tonight, Buck.

YOU: Sweet dreams <3

BUCK: sweet dreams. love u

You turn your phone off, along with the movie. You can’t focus on anything anyway. 

When you arrive at the boys’ apartment for board game night, you aren’t sure whether you need a drink, a deep tissue massage or a gun to fire at a passerby. 

“Woah,” is all Sam says, immediately stepping aside as if you would steamroll him if he stood in your way. 

Nat winces. “Guessing the date didn’t go well.”

“Understatement of the year,” you say, taking your shoes off and stomping further into the room.

In truth, it wasn’t just the date. You received an email first thing this morning, informing you that you received an about-average grade on an essay you had spent far too many hours on to justify the mark. Then, just as you were about to leave the house, the dishwasher flooded the kitchen with sudsy water. You had to skip two lectures while waiting to let someone in to fix it. You were informed that the company you had been planning to backpack through South-East Asia with this summer went bust, and your summer plans and deposit went swirling down the toilet with it. And, to top it all off, the only person you wanted to vent to about all of this was Bucky… whom you had hardly been speaking to for the last month.

So, overall, the odds of the date going well were probably not great in the first place.

“What happened?” Wanda asks, wrapping a gentle arm around you when you flop down beside her on the sofa. You laid your head on her shoulder and sighed. 

“Literally the first thing he asked was whether I had an Only Fans. Which, like, already super weird.  But whatever. So then we started talking about our families and stuff and when he found out I wasn’t from some super rich family, he accused me of having an Only Fans again to afford school. So I was like, ‘Uh, no, I’m literally on a scholarship, dude’. But by that point I wanted to get the hell out of there. So when the bill came, he asked to split it and I was like, ‘Yeah, totally fine’ and he accused me of having one again because I could afford dinner. So then I was like, ’If I was hot enough to make money on Only Fans, I would not be sitting here on a date with you’, and then he was like-”

“Jesus Christ,” Steve groans. “I can’t listen to any more of this. Where the hell do you find these guys?”

“The market is tough right now, Steve.”

“I can’t believe he asked you to split the bill, but I guess that’s what you get for going out with John Walker,” Bucky says, dripping with superiority. “I would never let a girl even see the bill on a date.”

You feel annoyance prickle at your skin, because of course he would be rubbing this in.

“Yeah, you just leave their beds at 2am instead. Like a real gentleman.”

Any satisfaction you might feel from the laughter that rings out across the room is instantly wiped out by the wounded puppy expression on Bucky’s face. 

The conversation takes off around you. Steve is teasing Wanda for her taste in men and in response, she is mimicking the vulgar noises she hears from Nat’s room, which makes Sam cackle and Steve burn red.

But Bucky is still watching you with pinched brows and a small pout and it makes you feel so guilty that you don’t think you can put up with it much longer.

You leave the room, mumbling something about going to get some water, and you can sense that Bucky will follow before you even see it.

“Everything ok, doll?”

You give him an affirmative hum while you pluck out a drinking glass, hoping to god that Bucky will let you get away with avoiding eye contact. He doesn’t.

He holds your shoulders, grip impossibly gentle, and pauses until you meet his gaze. “You’ve been off with me, recently.” It’s not a question. It’s a cold hard fact and he’s waiting for you to explain why.

“Have I?” you ask. “Sorry. I didn’t notice.” You’re being purposely obtuse and it’s obvious, but you’re just not ready to have this conversation dammit.

“Yeah,” Bucky nods and his eyes are focused on you, glassy and intent. His hair is tousled and his brows are furrowed and god- he doesn’t even look confrontational, just worried. “Is it something I did? You can tell me, doll. Whatever it is, I know you’re right and I know I’m one sorry son of a bitch.”

You sigh, melting into his grip. You wrap him in a hug, mostly because you don’t want him looking at you like that anymore, all dejected and apologetic.

Because Bucky has nothing to be sorry for. Not really.

You are the one who caught feelings. He doesn't know how you feel, you never told him. And even if he might have a sneaking suspicion that you have a crush on him, he can’t possibly know just how deeply it runs. You are sure he never would have played with your feelings if he did. From his perspective, this relationship is no more than a close - and according to Wanda, deeply inappropriate - friendship. Nothing deeper.

He pulls you in tight to his chest, one arm wrapping tight around your shoulders while the prosthetic one brushes through your hair. He presses a kiss to your head and your heart seizes. It would be so easy to fall right back in if you allowed yourself. You can almost feel yourself slipping.

“Sorry, Buck,” you murmur. “Things have just been a lot. I don’t have as much time as I used to and I’ve been really tired. Didn’t mean to be off with you.”

“That’s ok, sweetheart,” he says, practically cooing at you. “It’s all those damn dates you’ve been going on. You should give it a rest.”

You freeze and Bucky notices, the hand in your hair pausing mid-stroke. You look up at him. He’s caught off guard, watching you watch him - searching your face to identify the misstep he knows he must have made.

“Give dating a rest? I’ve been on four dates, Bucky.”

“Yeah but… doll, those guys have sucked.”

“Most men do,” you snapped, pulling fully out of his grip. His face falls completely, hand reaching out for you. “Doesn’t mean I can’t look for one that doesn’t. I’m not gonna just sit around and watch everyone else around me date anymore And don’t act like such a Puritan. You’ve gotten with far more than four people this term.”

“No! That’s not what I was trying to say. I just… I wanted to…”

“Am I interrupting something?” 

Wanda is standing at the door to the kitchen, a hand on her hip as she appraises the two of you, eyes narrow and suspicious. You take another step back from Bucky for good measure.

“No. Nothing at all.”

“Why don’t you let Sam take you out?” Nat asks, swirling a piece of spaghetti around her fork.

The bolognese has gone cold, the evidence of a conversation that is more engrossing than your feeble attempt at cooking. You end up like this with Wanda and Nat very often; letting time slip away unnoticed while you chat and laugh over the kitchen table. This time, you are joined by Steve.

In recent weeks, those laughs have been directed at your pathetic excuse of a dating life. You had just been describing date number six in great detail; Brock, who asked you out at the gym, revealed five minutes in that he was a full-time YouTuber, pedalling incel content. His channel was called Crossbones and it had a grand total of 63 followers. You couldn't decide whether to laugh or cry when relaying it.

Nat bumps your shoulder with hers. “You know he’s been dying to. Put the poor guy out of his misery.”

You scoff. “Sam is not dying to take me out. That’s just an inside joke we have.”

“No, it’s definitely not.” Steve says. “Like, unquestionably. He’s into you.”

Your brain goes for a bit of a spin, face flushing with heat. This can hardly be how you find out that Sam has feelings for you. 

“Relax,” Nat laughs. “He just thinks you’re cute and he’d like to take you out. He’s not, like, in love with you.”

You slacken. This is familiar territory. Because, yeah, you kind of know that.

Sam had never made it a secret that he finds you attractive and recently, with you returning his advances more than ever before, he has stepped it up a bit. He hardly leaves your side at group events and flirts just a little bit more than a joke would call for.

He has asked you out on a date before. Three times, in fact - all in your first year of college. You said no every time, not just because you had tunnel vision on Bucky, but also because you knew that dating his friend was probably the most effective way to make sure that Bucky would never even think about dating you. 

But, as it turns out, Bucky never even thought about dating you anyway. And you still have tunnel vision for him, but maybe one good date with Sam could help fix that. 

But, still. 

“I don’t think I can,” you say, hesitantly. “We’re friends. It’s weird.”

“Well, keep flirting with him the way you are and he’s gonna ask you,” Wanda says. “I think you guys would be good together.”

You fumble for a bit, looking to Nat for help you don’t receive.

“I think he will eventually,” Steve says eventually, stretching back in the iron chair that is ridiculously too small for his giant frame. “But in the meantime, let me set you up with another buddy of mine. I think you’ll like him.

You are going to kill Steve. And bury him. And exhume him. So you can kill him again.

“And then she just… ended it. Out of nowhere.” Scott blubbers over his entree. You watch with mild discomfort as his teardrops slip into the thin soup in front of him. “Well, not out of nowhere, I guess, because I did get arrested. But it was a misunderstanding. It wasn’t, like, a proper gang. Nobody died.”

Steve had promised you Scott was one of the good ones. And it really seemed like he was, at first. He was handsome and polite and just so funny. He had you laughing so hard, you almost forgot about Bucky for a minute.

But you, of course, had to go ahead and ask him about his studies. Which led to him telling you he was taking a gap year due to an arrest half-way through the term. And, hey, you’re all for rehabilitation - who were you to turn someone down for their past mistakes? But the subject moved swiftly to his ex. Which resulted in… well, this.

“I’m really sorry,” you say, shifting awkwardly in your seat. You aren’t sure whether it would be considered insensitive to continue eating your bruschetta. “What’s her name?”

“Hope,” he sniffles.

How fitting. You hope that a semi-truck swerves into this restaurant right now and takes you both out. 

“Why don’t you just text her?” You can’t believe you’re giving your date advice on how to get back with his ex. This must be a new low, but you’re trying not to think about it.

“She blocked me. Like I meant nothing to her.”

Your wish of a semi-truck doesn’t quite come true. But Bucky Barnes, who you consider to be equally as destructive, walks through the doors of the restaurant at that moment.

Maybe it’s because you had been looking wistfully towards the exit, but you sometimes feel like you have a radar for him. Like he could be in a room of one thousand people and your eyes would automatically find him, like magnets. A ridiculous idea occurs to you because you think briefly that he might have the same radar for you. He doesn’t even have to scan the room to find you. 

You sink deeper into your chair, but you know he’s on his way over to your table, no matter what you do to try to prevent it. His eyes are dark and grave until he sees Scott’s miserable state.

“We ok over here? Scott, what did she do to you?”

Seeing him light up at your snivelling date sets you on fire. One side of his lip curls up in thinly veiled amusement and his eyes crinkle. He was laughing at him - and maybe at you too.

“What are you doing here, Bucky?” you ask.

He can’t even pull his eyes away from Scott who hasn’t stopped weeping, smile growing wider by the minute. “I love this place,” he says, distractedly.

That’s a lie. You know it is, because Bucky has never been here before. He goes to the same Thai restaurant every single time unless you force him to expand his horizons.

You’re growing bristles, each whimper from Scott adding fuel to a fire that’s already burning bright. Is he here to witness your car crash of a date? 

You’re furious at the intrusion, but mostly you’re just fucking embarrassed. You’re happy to joke about your failed dates with friends, even with Bucky, but him calling over to witness it with his own eyes is crossing a line. He really wants to bathe in how much of a fucking disaster it is, trying to get over him? You hope he’s enjoying his front row seat.

“She didn’t do anything,” Scott manages eventually. “Sorry, this is so weird of me. I just- we started talking about Hope and I lost it. I was just saying that she blocked me.”

You think it’s a bit inaccurate for him to say that ‘we’ started talking about Hope, but you let it slide.

“Maybe she needs space, man,” Bucky says, sliding into the booth beside you without invitation. “I mean, you fucked up bad. You were interning with her dad before you got arrested, right? Maybe you should go make it right with him first. She would probably appreciate that.”

Scott looks down, mulling over Bucky’s words as if they were a riddle to solve. 

“You’re right,” he says eventually. “You’re so right. I need to speak with Hank. I’ll go do that right now. Thank you, Bucky.”

He’s jumping up and out of the booth then, apologising profusely and throwing down fifty bucks before jogging out. You don’t bother telling him it’s too much - he probably stole it anyway. 

“Good kid,” Bucky laughs, tossing a casual arm around your shoulder. “Guess I’m your new date for the evening.

That is cruel. You shove his arm off with a bit too much force, rage rising its way up your gullet. “No you’re not. I’m leaving.”

“Woah, woah,” Bucky grabs your arms while you struggle to push him out, still chuckling softly. “What’s so bad about me, huh?”

You hadn’t really thought about how difficult it would be to get out of the booth with a mountain of a man sitting in the way. And there is a danger that you end up on his lap. So you stay put, huffing dramatically for good measure.

Bucky says nothing for a moment, doesn’t bait you into a response. He picks at your bruschetta, even though it has now gone cold.

“You give good relationship advice for someone who is chronically single,” you say eventually.

“I could be a good boyfriend for the right girl.”

And god, don’t you know it. It’s what is making this whole thing so much more painful. The way he had been able to read what Scott’s ex needed just by hearing about the situation is so him. You love how thoughtful he is, how he really thinks about things before acting. The way he makes you feel like you’re his first priority, even though you know it’s not true.

“Did Steve tell you I would be here?”

Bucky looks at you, as if weighing up whether or not to tell the truth. “Yeah,” he admits finally.

“And why the hell did you show up?”

The waitress comes to clear your starters then, a tall, pretty girl with a cute uniform. She is sneaking glances at Bucky out of the corner of her eye but he doesn’t see. He’s looking right at you.

“Don’t act like you didn’t need saving from that train wreck.”

“I didn’t,” you snap. “I don’t need you to save me from dates, Bucky. I can handle myself. This date was probably one of the best ones I’ve been on, actually.”

Bucky’s lips twitch, like he isn’t sure whether he’s allowed to laugh at the sad truth you just shared. Your face softens involuntarily, a smile creeping onto your face before you can stop it. And a beat later, you’re both laughing, all the fight dissolving from you. You hate how difficult it is to stay mad at him.

“Why do you keep going on these stupid things? These guys are losers. Scott is a great guy but, doll, I would kill you if you started dating him for real. He doesn’t even come close to deserving you. None of them do.”

“What do you want me to do, Bucky? Stay alone forever?” you ask him, absently ripping up the napkin in front of you. “I just gotta go on enough of these things till I find someone decent.”

Bucky pauses, clearly deliberating his next words. The cold mental of his pinky finger brushes against your hand. “Would you date someone you already know is decent? Like, a friend?”

You sigh. “Steve and Nat already had this conversation with me.”

“Yeah?” Bucky is looking at you seriously now, eyes traversing your features while you twist uncomfortably. 

“Yeah, but… I don’t wanna make it weird.”

“Why would it be weird?” he asks, voice strangely soft. “I think…. I think it could be a good thing.”

Your face is flooding with heat and you mind begins racing, guilt flooding all circuits. You don’t look at Bucky. Even though you have now accepted that there is nothing between the two of you and never will be, you still feel weird talking about other men in front of him - especially Sam. As if you’re cheating on the Bucky that is your boyfriend in all the scenarios you imagine to help you fall asleep.

“Yeah, I mean, maybe. But I dunno. I feel like maybe we’re just friends. Sam’s obviously amazing and I know he wouldn’t be like any of these guys but-”

“Sam?” Bucky has been electrocuted, his eyes wide and concerned. “I thought all of that stuff was just a joke!”

His tone is surprises you for a moment, abrupt and forceful. You don’t take any notice of the waitress quietly putting out the main courses yourself and Scott ordered because Bucky is looking at you like you had just told him you were about to run off and join the travelling circus as one of the monkeys.

“Well, so did I, but Steve says he’s probably going to ask me out for real soon,” you say slowly. “Why? Who were you talking about?”

Bucky doesn’t say anything - just continues to stare with that same urgency, brows pressed together and mouth parted. You’re frowning right back.

“You can’t date Sam,” he says at last.

His voice is laced with such certainty, such finality, it pisses you off. Who the hell does he think he is? You’re aware that you have allowed much more than you should have throughout the years you have been friends with Bucky, but where the hell is he getting the idea that he can tell you who you should or shouldn’t date? In fact, who the hell does he think he is - barging in on your date, telling you that you shouldn’t date at all?

“What the hell are you talking about? I can date whoever I want, Bucky.”

He looks at you for just a second longer, brushing a frustrated hand through his hair.

And then his lips are on yours. 

You almost short circuit. You can’t stop whatshappeningwhatshappeningwhatshappen- from running through your brain. Bucky tugs your frozen body closer to him, as if begging you to respond to him.

And you can’t help it. The way you melt to goo around him.

Your hands reach up frantically. You’re pawing at his neck, tugging at his collar. You need him closer. And far be it from Bucky to deny you what you need.

His lips press softly to yours and his hands grip your hips, pulling you flush against him. You know what it feels like to be close to Bucky - you have fallen asleep with his body wrapped around yours - but kissing him is better than you had ever imagined, like he is moulding himself to you totally and completely. Like he is giving himself to you.

Except, when he starts rubbing absentminded circles on your hips, you go still, your brain conjuring the image of a blonde stranger at a dive bar a few months back. The one he was talking to instead of you. The one he was touching, just like this.

And suddenly you feel sick. You pull away from him and he’s looking at you, eyes bleary and dazed, like he had become drunk off the feel of you. He takes you in for a moment, eyes drifting to your swollen lips, before leaning in again.

Your right hand comes up between the two of you, reaching his chest - like a curtain falling between you. Bucky stops, watching you with some curiosity, an adorable little wrinkle forming between his brows. 

But you don’t move it. Because you’re thinking about the timing of this, putting everything together like puzzle pieces in your head. 

You start dating. And then Bucky kisses you.

Because he is annoyed at your sudden lack of attention to him? Or perhaps because he thinks you’re fair game for a one-night-stand now that you’re dating? You can’t decide which one is worse. Either option makes your stomach curl and your face blanche, because you thought you might have meant more to him. You thought that, despite all the one-night-stands and the manwhore tendencies, there was a place in his heart specifically for you - that you were somehow more important to him than all the other girls he fucked and dumped. Obviously not.

You climb swiftly onto his lap and Bucky gasps, clearly not expecting you to make such a bold move out of nowhere. But before he can react, you are clambering over him and out of the booth. He’s watching you like this is all moving much too fast for him.

“You’re a real asshole, Bucky. Leave me the fuck alone for a while,” you say, and you’re storming out of the restaurant before he has time to catch up.

BUCK: please doll can we talk about this?

You throw your phone back onto your nightstand and, just to stop yourself from replying to him, you gather your things and head over to the bathroom for a shower.

You’re vibrating with anxiety when you turn the dial and step under the warm stream of water, trying to manoeuvre your thoughts away from Bucky but coming up short.

You know you can’t keep avoiding him. The last four days have been hell - you’ve had to decline every group hangout, get your groceries delivered and even steer clear of the fucking library, safe in the knowledge that he was probably hanging around there to catch you.

Your hands are rubbing soap onto your body and massaging the shampoo into your hair a bit too aggressively. Truthfully, you are spiralling. You want so badly for that kiss he gave you to wake you up - snap you out of that sad delusion you have been harbouring since you first met him. But all it really did was make you fall twice as hard. You can’t stop picturing the way his lips felt on yours. You fall asleep to the memory, mind conjuring up the sensation of him sucking softly on your bottom lip and hands caressing your hips. Your subconscious doesn’t care that he had done that to a hundred girls before you, just that it had happened and it was real.

Wanda and Nat are getting worried. You recall the glances they give each other across the table when you tell them that you’re just going to stay in again tonight and study from your room as you let the warm water wipe away any traces of shampoo and replace it with this globs of conditioner. You have been pretending to not notice their concern so you don’t have to acknowledge it, but you know it’s just a matter of time before you’re confronted. 

You hadn’t said a word to Wanda or Nat about what happened in the restaurant. Not to Nat because you know she will just tell Wanda. And not to Wanda because you’re certain she will be so disappointed that you gave in and kissed him back, even if it was just for the briefest of moments. The logical part of you is screaming that she will understand and commend you for sticking up for yourself and leaving, but she had been so clear about what she expected from you that another part of you doubted it.

Mostly, though, you’re just afraid of what her reaction will be towards Bucky. Their relationship is already fraught - in no small part thanks to you. You think this might be the last straw for her. She may never speak to him again. 

You realise dully, as you dry your body and step into fresh pyjamas, that you are still protecting him. No matter how much he hurts you, you’ll still protect him. You’ll still want him.

By the time you leave the bathroom again, you’re feeling pretty refreshed. You still can’t stop that same scene from playing over and over again like a film behind your eyes, as if you’ve lost the remote for your brain. But at least you’ve finally gotten out of bed - your hair is clean, your teeth are brushed and your muscles are relaxed.

Until you take a step inside your room. Because there sits Bucky Barnes on the edge of your bed, fingers laced together and knee bouncing. You stop dead when he looks up at you.

“I did knock,” he says with a bashful grin and you spin on your heel to walk right out.

“No, wait. Sweetheart, please.”

You hesitate for just a moment, but it’s long enough for Bucky to make his way to you and coax you over to the centre of the room, hands gripping your wrists firmly. 

“Who let you in?” you ask, but you already know the answer. Because it sure as hell wasn’t Wanda.

“Nat. Don’t be mad at her, she’s worried about you.”

You keep your mouth shut, but you will so be giving Nat shit later on.

“How have you been?” he asks, shifting his weight to his right foot.

Really?

You give him your best unimpressed glower, looking up at him through your lashes. You don’t respond.

“Doll, I’m sorry for what happened. It was too sudden, I get why you ran off. I should have spoken to you properly first. I’m sorry. But please, just talk to me.” His pretty blues are looking at you nervously for any trace of emotion, but you’re keeping it locked away.

“What do you want to talk about?” you say and even you can hear the frostiness in your tone.

“I want you to tell me why you ran away. Why you’re so angry at me for kissing you.”

Heat blooms in your chest for just a second. There it was - verbal confirmation that he had kissed you, that it wasn’t just another one of your dreams. You breath is stuttering.

“Because it’s wrong, Bucky. It’s not fair.”

“Why?” he presses, hands moving from your wrists to grip your hands. “What’s so wrong about it? Maybe if you just gave it a chance-”

“Give it a chance? Bucky, I’m not gonna be one of those girls. I’m actually really fucking offended that it even crossed your mind.”

“One of what girls?”

“One of your girls!”

Bucky pauses. He’s frowning to himself, as if mulling your words over again and again in his mind. It’s a strange thought, but you wonder briefly if things will ever be the same between you again. Maybe this is when you find out that Bucky never really saw you as more than a conquest. Maybe this is the end of what has been the most beautiful but unkind friendship of your life. 

When he finally speaks, he’s speaking so gently you almost don’t hear him.

“I don’t want you to be one of my girls, doll. I just want you to be… my girl. My only one.”

Your heart begins to gallop, something deep and sweet thrumming through your bloodstream, mixed with a sense of dread you can’t quite describe. Because what the fuck did he just say to you? And what the ever-loving fuck did it mean?

You had thought about this moment so often - every day, nearly. You had pictured every possible scenario, every possible monologue he could have put to you - overflowing with explanations and promises to change. But you had never imagined anything like this; Bucky standing in front of you, hands on your yours, fingers brushing over your knuckles. Eyes brimming with hope and desperation. Knocking your world off its axis with just one sentence.

You relish in this with a hammering heart and a guilty conscience. Because you know something isn’t right here; that this all backwards and wrong. You’re acutely aware that Bucky is acting out of desperation. He has felt you slipping away from him in the last few weeks, has complained about it to you and everyone else who will listen endlessly. This is his way of holding onto you in whatever way he can, even if it doesn't align with his real feelings. And you know you’ll have to acknowledge that once you begin speaking again, so you take liberties. You just watch him, living in this moment where you can still dream that you might say yes to being Bucky’s girl - his only one - for as long as you can.

“Please say something,” he mutters, shy and skittish.

“I’m not going to be your girl, Bucky,” you say and his face collapses. His hands let your own ones go gently and they drop to your sides. You try not to take notice. “You don’t want me to be your girl. You want me to be your friend that happens to do a lot of girlfriend stuff for you.”

“What are you talking about?” Something like frustration is creeping onto his features.

“You’ve had two years to say this, Bucky! Is it a coincidence that you suddenly bring up this shit once I start dating other people? I know you miss having my full attention, but this is a cruel tactic. It really is.”

“I’m not using any fuckin’ tactics, doll,” he fires back. “You really think that low of me?”

“What am I supposed to think? I’ve watched you fuck around with girl after girl for the last two years, Bucky. And now I’m supposed to believe that you’re, what-”

“In love with you, yes.”

He nods like it’s the most natural thing in the world. The annoyance never leaves his expression and there’s a bite to his tone - you think it might actually be fuelling his candidness. The room spins a bit and you feel lightheaded and sick- maybe lovesick-

“Fuck you. I don’t believe you.” You don’t register that you’re close to tears until you hear the sound of your voice - thin and wobbly.

“Doll,” he breathes, softening at the sound of your voice. You want to bury your head in the sand. You hate how frail you must look. You hate that he is making you refuse the thing you want more than anything else in the world. “I don’t know what to tell you. I love you. Always have.”

“That’s such bullshit, Bucky,” you spit and you do your best to ignore the rogue tears that you feel escaping. You watch his fingers twitch, fighting the instinct to wipe them for you, but he knows by the furious look on your face that it is not a good idea. “You don’t make the person you love watch you get with other people, night after night. You don’t only ask them to be yours when you’re scared they might start dating someone else.”

You feel so idiotic and childlike, standing in front of him and letting two years worth of heartbreak ooze out of your voice and eyes and skin. It’s all flooding out and it’s too late to close the gates. It’s so fucking humiliating that it takes you a few beats to even look at him.

When you do, you see that Bucky is frozen to the spot. There’s something uncertain there - in his eyes, in the line between his brows, in the small wrinkle by his lips, which are pressed in a hard line as he watches you. It disappears as soon as your gaze meets his. His jaw slackens, lips parting ever-so-slightly. He puffs out a breath and you know he sees it - sees the way you’ve suffered over the last two years.

And you realise you were right. Because nothing will ever be the same. You can never again pretend to be ok with him sleeping around. You can never again sleep in the same bed and pretend it means nothing. And you think maybe it’s about time - that this is all ridiculously overdue, even. You’re simultaneously mourning the loss of your old relationship with Bucky, while breathing out a sigh of relief. You’ll never have to play the part of yourself - the cool girl who is totally ok with being second priority in his life - ever again.

“I didn’t know!” 

He’s grabbing you again, hands clutching yours as if you’re about to slip away. His eyes are glossy and pleading, voice cracking. His intensity startles you. You don’t know how to think with him this close.

“Stop.”

“I’m so sorry, sweetheart. Fuck- I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“Stop it.”

“If I knew, it would have been so different but I didn’t so it wasn’t! You need to understand.”

But you don’t. He’s speaking too fast and you’re still crying and you think he might be too but you’re not sure. He’s talking and talking and he won’t stop, you can’t even hear him anymore. 

You put your right hand up - a silent signal that you need a moment - and he understands instinctively. The room goes silent. He shepherds you over to the bed with all the gentleness and care in the world, like you’re made of glass, and you hate him because why does that make your heart squeeze?

Your mind is spinning but Bucky doesn't press you - just gives you the time you need to recoup in that annoyingly thoughtful way of his. He is shuffling around nervously, stretching so his t-shirt expands against his skin, leg bouncing. You can feel his eyes - guilty, despondent and oh so pretty. They’re lighting up your skin and you wish they would look somewhere, anywhere else but they never move.

You’re attempting to get a grip on how things stand, fighting to get back just an ounce of control. 

Bucky now knows how you feel about him. He’s still claiming to love you - right? Or is that all out the window now that he knows how you’ve agonised over him? And you have absolutely no idea how you two will ever come back from this with any semblance of a relationship intact.

“Can you tell me I haven’t fucked this all up already?” 

Bucky looks stretched thin. He is looking at you like a man ruined, but still deerlike and hopeful. Like his whole future hedges on the next words to come out of your mouth, but he’s not optimistic.

“None of this makes sense,” you landed on after some deliberation. “I think you’re doing this to not lose me. But that’s not going to work, Buck.”

“But I’m not!” and he’s begging you now, crawling onto his knees in front of where you sit - eyes downcast. You like how he looks down there, you decide.

“I didn’t know, sweetheart. I swear I didn’t.” You can tell he’s avoiding using the words - saying outright that you love him, in case he’s wrong. In case he was mistaken about what he could now read clear as day in your eyes. You decide to remove any doubt. It’s all out on the table, anyway.

“How could I tell you that I loved you when you were with a new girl every night?”

Bucky is destroyed. His throat is bobbing up and down and you think it might have something to do with the past-tense you used. That dreaded word - ‘loved’. It’s a lie - you love him as much as ever, maybe even more. You’re just trying to hold on to the final scrap of your dignity.

“You always said you don’t date, doll. I figured if you felt anything for me, you wouldn’t go ‘round saying that. Was just trying to move on. Couldn’t even go through with it most of the time, was too in my head ‘bout you. Ended up leaving and texting you instead.”

Your mouth fills with marbles. You search his face for any hints of doubt or dishonesty but he looks up at you with that unwavering certainty that you have never seen in anyone else. Could that be true?

He squishes his left cheek against your bare thigh hesitantly, like he’s expecting you to throw him off. You don’t. You’re not really prepared for the wave of relief that washes over you after finding out that he hadn’t really been sleeping with other girls before crawling into your bed. You weren’t aware of just how much it had been weighing on you, but you feel ten tons lighter.

“Been trying to tell you for weeks now. Ever since I found out you started dating,” he admits, sheepishness creeping into his eyes which still have yours on lock. “Figured maybe you might be willing to give me a chance. But you’ve been avoiding me.”

“I started dating because I was fed up waiting for you to see me,” you say, and you can hear your voice softening against your will. 

“I always saw you,” he says, voice hoarse. “Always saw you. Never saw anyone else but you.”

You don’t say anything. What can you say?

“Am I too late?”

You want to say no. You want to trust everything that he’s saying is true - that you can forget all about the mess he made of you. But can you?

“I don’t know, Bucky I need to think.”

He nods, like it’s what he had been expecting. But you know him better than that. You know that he’s trying to mask his disappointment, to save you the guilt. Ironically, it makes you feel worse.

“Of course. Whatever you need.”

He doesn’t move his chin from your thigh immediately. Instead, he drinks you in with his eyes - as if it’s the last time he will ever see you. When he stands, he presses a kiss, deep and sweet, to your hair. He gives you a small, watery smile. You watch his back as he walks out the door.

In the end, it’s Wanda who is Bucky’s biggest defender.

“I hate to give it to him. Like, as in- I really can’t fucking describe how much I hate to give it to him. But his explanation does make sense, when you think about it from his point of view. Which I will not make a habit of doing, but still…”

You lower your eyeliner pencil, only half way through with your right eye. Nat’s hand freezes, until a light burning smell begins to shroud your room, prompting her to lower the hair straightener.

“You’re… on his side?” Nat croaks. You can’t tell whether it’s amusement or genuine shock on her face.

“No, never,” Wanda defends herself, turning to you. “I’m on your side. Always. And in this particular circumstance, I do think he is telling the truth. So as your best friend who wants nothing more than for you to be happy - even if that must be with the biggest idiot this world has ever known - I think maybe you should consider forgiving him.”

You’re still too stunned to speak. Nat is laughing from somewhere behind you.

“I hope you know what it took for me to say that,” she says grumpily, turning back to the mirror.

“I agree,” Nat says, finally. “I mean he’s a dumbass, obviously. But it does make sense.”

You don’t say anything - continue to work on your eyeliner while Nat and Wanda discuss whether or not Hope and Scott would turn up in a couples costume. Rumour has it that they had made amends. Good for them, you guess.

You are sporting a flirty little yellow dress - Belle from Beauty and the Beast, if the hem of her dress was about 25 inches shorter, with cleavage to boot. You are mildly self-conscious, watching the trimming of the skirt where it sways at your upper thigh. Last year, you had been Abraham Lincoln for Halloween. You had been planning on being Gandalf this year, but the thought of having to face Bucky for a serious conversation with a long, grey beard made you change course at the last minute.

And maybe, just maybe, a small part of you wanted to impress him.

It’s been a few days since your conversation in your bedroom, and you still haven’t spoken. Not even a text. Nat has been telling you that he has been asking about you - checking whether you are doing ok - but it doesn’t make it sting any less to pick up your phone in the morning and realise he still hasn’t checked in.

Which is ridiculous. Because you wanted this, right? You’re the one who specifically asked him for space to think - how can you be disappointed now that he is giving you what you want?

But you can’t help it. You’re playing reruns in your head of how he told you he was in love with you, how broken he looked when he realised what you feel for him too, the moment in the restaurant when he kissed you. They’re interrupted only by intrusive thoughts that you have of imagining him with other girls. You wonder if maybe he has already moved on to someone else, if he’s warming someone else’s bed while he waits for your answer.

Realistically, you know that’s not true. You know that’s not him. But it doesn’t stop it from running around unbidden in your mind.

You miss the pregame for the pregame this time, too busy adjusting your makeup, fixing your hair, stressing over your outfit. You almost change multiple times, tempted into a safer black outfit with cat ears, but Nat and Wanda wouldn’t hear of it.

You can hear the noise from the boys’ apartment from across the street and it only gets louder as you approach. The music is so loud, some rap song with a beat so heavy that you can feel it reverberating inside your ribs. You’re sure they’re probably ignoring multiple complaints. Many loud voices are chatting and giggling and shouting - an equal measure of boys and girls, you note against your will.

Nat walks into the apartment without ringing the bell as usual. You almost wish she did so you would have another few seconds to compose yourself. Wanda sends you a reassuring smile, bumping your shoulder with hers lightly, and the two of you follow her in.

The lights are low, retro neon lights flickering off the plastered walls. There’s a styrofoam skeleton hanging from the ceiling and a killer clown statue in the corner that makes you shiver. Hope and Scott pass you by, dressed as two insects, which makes Wanda roll her eyes and fish a $10 note out of her pocket for Nat. Scott shoots you an embarrassed smile which you return. 

Like magnets, your eyes find Bucky instantly when you walk into the open plan kitchen. As if all your worst fears have just materialised in front of you, there is a girl standing in front of him, curling a strand of hair around her finger, and your heart plummets. You rip your gaze away, knees feeling as if they might buckle from under you.

“Look at him,” Wanda whispers. She gives you an encouraging nod and you look back at him, focusing this time on Bucky alone, rather than the girl making love-heart eyes at him. 

He looks out-of-it. He is giving the girl a polite smile, responding to her with short sentences you can’t quite lip-read, but his eyes are flickering away, searching the other faces in the room. He is leaning away, presumably making up some excuse to leave, when his eyes catch yours. 

Wanda whispers something - maybe good luck? - and recedes into the crowd when she notices him walking toward you, clutching his beer with a tight grip, jaw twitching nervously. When he reaches you, you’re greeted with an anxious, tired face. Now that he’s closer, you can see the dark shadow under his eyes.

“You look… wow,” he says sheepishly, straightening his jacket awkwardly while his eyes travel your form.

“High praise from… Jim Halpert?”

“Clark Kent, actually,” he smiles, opening up a button of his shirt to show you the bright red ’S’ underneath. “But I’ll be whoever you want me to be.”

You flush. How the hell does he just do that? You can barely speak.

“I was expecting Gandalf,” he continues. He’s mouth is twitching nervously, and you think maybe he’s trying to prevent you from evaporating like smoke.

“Steve told you about that?”

He nods. “I’m disappointed I didn’t get to see it.”

“Didn’t know you were into that.”

When you’re laughing together again, you can almost swear nothing had passed between you at all. He gets that sparkle back into his eyes - the one he was missing on the walk over to you. The grin dancing on his lips is so pretty and hopeful.

Your laughs taper off, but his smile doesn’t. He is just looking at you like you are something wonderful. And it’s doing strange things to your stomach.

“Was starting to think you weren't coming,” he says quietly, after a moment. “Was thinking about you a lot the last couple days.”

“Me too,” you breathe, legs shaky.

“Are you still mad at me?”

You consider it for a moment. Bucky looks slightly petrified, his chin tucked low and eyes round. His lips are raw from being bitten, but he catches his bottom lip in his teeth anyway, chewing it as you deliberate.

“A little bit,” you say. “But I do believe you now… after thinking about it.”

He nods, and you can see a little bit of relief claim his features.

“And I can probably admit that maybe I should have communicated a bit more,” you continue. “It was wrong for me to assume you knew what was going through my head.”

“No, I’m the one-” He’s shaking his head, and you smile, cutting him off by placing a hand on his chest. He stops dead, his flesh arm instinctively reaching up to cover yours. He swallows hard.

“But I’m going to communicate now. I love you. I have for a long time. And I only want to be yours, nobody else in the picture. If that’s not what you want-”

You don’t get to finish your thought. Bucky’s lips are on yours then, faster than you can blink. One hand is snaking through your hair, ruining the style you spent far too long on, but you can’t bring yourself to care - you’re pressing yourself closer to him, eager to feel every hard plane of his body against yours. Your hands crawl up to his neck, pawing at him and rubbing circles there until he sighs against your lips.

“That’s what I want. It’s all I want.”

You’re smiling at him then and you heart aches so fiercely with love that you can’t speak for a moment, pressing small, giddy kisses to his mouth instead. Bucky can hardly reciprocate, he’s beaming so wide, so you get more teeth than lips, but you don’t care. You feel like two children, giggling with cheesy smiles that can’t be dampened, even by the knowledge that your friends are looking on.

a/n: i don't wanna see anyone up in this bitch complaining that he should have grovelled more bc this fic burnt me the hell out, i almost made her forgive him instantly just to end my suffering lmao

tags: @dolcesaints @m0th3rcal

[lunexiax]

ᴅᴏɢ ʜᴏᴜꜱᴇ (ꜱᴛᴇᴠᴇ ʀᴏɢᴇʀꜱ)

pairing: steve rogers x f!agent!reader

synopsis: Everyone knows that yourself and Steve should never have been put on the same team; you fight like dogs and spark like live-wires. But maybe not all of that tension is hate.

warnings: enemies to lovers, smut smut smut (fingering, oral - f receiving, unprotected p in v, creampie, size kink, mild spitting, rough sex, hate sex but add yearning, slight exhibitionism & public sex & risk of getting caught - fawking in the workplace), canon-typical violence (nothing graphic), description of gunshot, a lot of fighting but they are closeted cutiepies, cursing, steve rogers is a MUNCH and that's canon (to me),

word count: 12.3k words (literally 5k is smut. i wish i was joking. i have no impulse control)

a/n: i tried to do a bit of an inverse on the whole 'steve rogers is a golden retriever' thing in this so there are way too many references to dogs lmao (see: title). i physically cannot write hate sex without yearning bc i am a lover girl. someone release me from these shackles.

Steve has a big fucking issue with you.

You can’t remember exactly when it started but you do know that you liked each other just fine before you joined his team. Back then, you’d thought his unyielding, boy-scout-adjacent sense of duty and honour was kind of cute. He’d hold doors, call you ma’am, talk about doing the right thing as if it was just easy in a job like this. As if it was always clear as day what the right thing to do was.

Now, his virtue is just exhausting.

You’re watching him spar with Sam from the corner of the training floor as dusk descends outside the window and the training room becomes a sort of cave. Dim yellow light is spilling over the room, drowning it in a blurry smog. People are clearing out for the day, but not Steve. Each of his punches are pulled, each strike carefully calculated to inflict just the right amount of force in order to win but not injure. Steve could have Sam pinned in two minutes flat and both of them know it. The frustration in Sam’s expression is tickling you - you recognise it well. 

You used to taunt Steve for this kind of thing during training runs and team building events, and he’d tease you right back. That boyish smile would give way to something a bit more wicked and an unnamed heat would pool low in your stomach at his crack in composure. You had been sure he was only days away from asking you out - some very proper invitation to the pictures with an assurance that he would drop you back by a reasonable hour, most likely. But then you got a promotion and came under his leadership.

He moves through missions like he’s got some do-gooder checklist in his head, and you can feel him watching every corner you cut. He doesn’t have to say a word (though he often does); the disapproval is baked into the air between you. Whatever spark had been building between the two of you got buried somewhere between all his rules and all the ways you’d break them.

A side-mission from Fury here, a refusal to wait for backup there - and suddenly you two are enemies. Or adversaries, at the least

You remind him frequently, in the throes of fiery screaming matches that make the rest of the team avert their eyes, that this is the way SHIELD trained you. He is the one going against the grain, not you. But it doesn’t seem to matter to him because his trusty moral compass never points him wrong, it would seem. 

Things have gotten so bad by now that you think Steve, patient and tolerant as he is, might have even considered requesting that you be transferred if you weren’t so damn good at your job. 

And you are good. That can’t be denied.

But there’s something about working with Steve that makes you great. When you’re not at each other’s throats.

You move around each other on missions as if performing choreography that only you two have rehearsed. You’ve saved his ass more times than he has ever acknowledged or thanked you for, but he has done the same for you. You have a deep understanding of how he works, mind and body. He keeps his moves varied as a rule, but you have learned to read the minute shift in his centre of gravity before he strikes, the smallest drop in his hips that means he’s about to duck, the tightening of his frame before he lunges. Equally, you know when he’s running multiple scenarios behind his eyes, when he’s processing angles before he commits.

It makes you his best possible partner on the field and the biggest pain in his ass in training.

“You’re up,” Steve mutters to you while Sam limps to the corner of the room, grumbling something about how next time Steve needs to stop dragging this shit out before he gets a leg cramp.

You haul yourself up slowly, moving to the centre of the gym with exaggerated languor just to piss him off, rolling your shoulders as you go. His sweat is making his white t-shirt entirely transparent, the thin fabric sticking to his defined pectorals and torso. He shakes his head, spraying sweat over the mat. It should be kind of gross, really, so you’re a bit disgusted by how hot it is. You see his jaw tick with impatience, and you begin to stretch your calves, too.

“You couldn’t have done this while you were waiting?”

“And risk seizing up again while you played with your food?”

“Just because I don’t use full force, it doesn’t mean I’m ‘playing with my food’,” he says, frowning at you in that disappointed-teacher way of his “Every time you all fight a super soldier, it makes you better. I use more force every time.”

You say nothing, only because you’re cautious about baiting him too much ahead of the ass-whooping you’re about to get. You roll your shoulders one more time, looking up at him.

“Let’s go.”

Steve lunges, coming at you hard and fast. A blur of muscle flies past your eye-line, fist cutting into the air where your jaw had been just half a second before. The force of it sends a gust that moves wisps of your hair and the speed of your dodge sends your boots skidding across the mat. You raise an astounded eyebrow at him and he shrugs with a tight smile. 

On days like this, when his restraint is frayed and he is too irritated to be sanctimonious, you are reminded that he can be a little bit fun.

When you slide by his guard again, your eyes catch his for a fraction of a second before he lands a surprise hit to your abdomen that pummels the wind right out of your pipes. You groan but stop yourself from bowling over right into his knee that comes shooting up for you. You see him bear left and you glide away in the opposite direction.

“Testy today,” you say, but you can’t hit the patronising tone you are aiming for. Your voice comes out scratchy from the knock you took. He says nothing but leaps at you again.

You lean back and dodge the hit but go sprawling to the floor. Before he can pin you, you sweep a foot under his. It’s not enough to knock him in itself but he blunders for a bit and with one more kick, you send him to his ass. You get a foot in his side and hear Sam hoot in delight as he clears out of the training room with the remaining agents.

Steve’s on his feet in a flash, but by then, so are you. There’s a glimmer of something on his face, like surprise or maybe excitement. You try not to get too arrogant.

And it’s a good thing you don’t. Because after five minutes of hits and dodges, he has you on the ropes again. You’re giving it as good as you’re getting but you don’t have his stamina or pain tolerance. You can feel your equilibrium slipping, movements getting sloppy. You’re over-balancing, tumbling instead of landing.

There’s something about the current between the two of you today that makes you want to win in a way you never do with Steve. You had never even really seen it as a competition before, safe in the conclusion that he and all his serum-amplified testosterone will have you beat eventually. It was always a matter of if, rather than when.

But Steve is coming at you properly today, not pulling his punches (as much), not giving you the space to recover before he’s on you again like a hound on fresh blood and it’s making a sort of swooping adrenaline sing in your blood. 

You don’t think too much about it, sweeping behind his back and hooking a leg over his. The serum means you don’t have enough strength to bring him down, but the confusion makes him stumble. With two hands on his shoulders, you climb his broad frame, boots digging into flesh, hands ploughing through his hair. He reaches a hand back to peel you off with bruising strength, but you have an iron clasp. His fingers dig into your t-shirt with almost enough force to pull it clean off.

You eventually reach the peak of him with immense difficulty. You are able to lock your thighs around his broad neck and curl your knee around his throat, squeezing hard. It’s not enough. His hands are pulling at your legs, but he’s not tapping out. You can only hold this grip for a matter of seconds, before your muscles loosen, and Steve will have your tired body pinned.

Impulsively, you dive backwards, head swooping down towards the floor. The force of it sends Steve flying back with you and you vaguely feel three taps - a victory - against your thigh before you both hit the floor. 

You crash hard on your back. Your head takes a small bump to the mat and black dots dance behind your eyes for just a second, but your ass and shoulder blades take the brunt of it. It’s far from the worst injury you’ve received in training, but it’s been a while since you’ve received more than a hit. You take a few deep breaths to centre yourself, groaning once air returns to your body. Only then do you realise that Steve’s head is planted firmly on your lower stomach, neck still pressed up between your thighs. You scramble away with what you hope is a collected suavity, all bones and muscles shrieking in opposition to the sudden movement. 

When Steve spins around, you know you’re in for it.

“What the hell was that?” he spits, picking himself up from the floor. His eyes are blazing, hands on his hips while he looks down at you where you are sprawled out on the mat. You close your eyes and let out a long, deliberate sigh - precisely the response you know will drive him crazy.

“That was me winning, Steve,” you say, ignoring your groaning limbs to pull yourself up. He does not offer you a hand up.

“No,” he said, voice strained and thick with irritation. “That was you trying to get yourself killed. Are you insane? You could have a concussion.”

“I know a concussion from a small bump,” you say, brushing him off with a limp hand. You move over to get your water, trying not to stagger. “Don’t be dramatic.”

“This is your problem, you know that? You always think you know best and everyone else is just dramatic or not seeing your vision, or whatever it is. You’re a good agent, but that’s not enough. You’re going to get yourself killed some day and it won’t be some great, heroic gesture like you probably think. It will be something stupid like this.”

His speech might have made a mark on you if it had been the first time you had heard it. As it stands, you just roll your eyes and take a sip from your bottle to look busy. The water mixes with blood from where you had bitten the inside of your cheek. It tastes bitter and metallic going down.

“God, you’re-”

You glance warily at Steve, wondering whether he is about to curse at you for the first time since that mission in Moscow. He swallows it. “You don’t listen.”

You shrug with a smile, watching his face go from a blushing red to a deep crimson. His eyes narrow and he spins around, broad back tensing as he storms out of the gym.

“Steve?”

He stops, twisting ever-so-slightly.

“You not gonna congratulate me on my first ever win?”

You think he might have given you the finger if he was anyone but himself.

You do end up grumbling your way over to the med bay eventually, but only because Steve threatens to suspend you from any further missions. You turn out to not have a concussion so you feel perfectly justified in scowling at him days later from across the quinjet the whole way to the shipyard two states away.

The air is warm despite the February frost splotched on the grass below. The hour is getting late; the setting sun turns the lakes and rivers a deep orangey red.

You hadn’t expected Steve to bow down or apologise, but you did expect him to ignore you. Instead, he’s watching you with a detached curiosity, like you’re some rare lab specimen or an interesting insect. 

“I know you’re not seriously mad at me for sending you to the med bay,” he says. “Because that would be insane.”

“They did a whole medical evaluation, Steve,” you snap at him. “I was in there well over an hour. All for fuckin’ nothing because I’m healthy as a horse, apparently.”

“Well you missed your last mandatory check-up. So you’re welcome,” he says, his lips stretching into a handsome little smirk.

You frown. You are usually the one provoking him and you’re not overly fond of how it feels to be on the receiving end. You can feel Steve’s eyes on you, heady and pleased. He’s leaning back with his arms crossed, lofty thighs spread open with an abnormal arrogance. One that would not be on display if the rest of the team were with you.

You can fully appreciate his size from this angle, the fabric of his t-shirt straining against his biceps, his wide shoulders holding strong like an impenetrable wall of muscle and brawn. He looks particularly good when he smiles - even if it’s at your expense. He could have passed for a Gladiator, or some Greek god in another universe - the kind whose likeness would be captured in marble for future generations to marvel at and admire. It wracks you how unfair it is that he can be so irritating but still look like that. 

Have you thought about him bending you over? Sure. Many a time. But you still can’t stand the guy.

“You still seeing that guy in R&D? Uh- Mark, or whatever.”

You give him a side-glance. Steve doesn’t forget anyone’s name. He is the kind of guy to be introduced to a hundred-man team and be asking Lucy for a debrief and thanking Jim for the coffee the very next day. You think he might be on a first-name basis with everyone he’s ever met. So you know that he knows his name his Mike.

“No,” you mumble. “We broke up last month.”

“Why?”

“None of your business, Rogers,” you say. You’re trying to appear unbothered, but you’re a little rattled. Your teeth are grinding. “What about you? Any dates recently?”

“A couple.”

“And how were they?”

“Good.”

You scoff. “You talk this much with them? Your chattiness might scare them off.”

“The ladies I take on dates might not have the same preferences as you, you know,” he says with a raised eyebrow. Your lips twitch at that term - ‘ladies’. How old-school.

“No, I’m sure they love one-word answers and taciturn grumbles.”

“I’ve had no complaints.”

Your mouth opens and closes stupidly. The shells of your ears prickle with heat as Steve just grins wider, shifting his hips to lean further back. He looks so goddamn cocky, so punchable. You wish you could take a picture and show him to all those trainees you had heard refer to him as a ‘golden retriever’. He seems more like a Mastiff to you; huge, stubborn, impossible to deal with.

You purse your lips together, eyes dropping to his army dog tags. The chain droops down his tanned, fabric-clad chest, the tags sitting neatly in the deep groove between his pectoral muscles. 

“Why did you and Mike break up?”

Your cheek twitches up. “So you do know his name.”

“Tell me.”

You turn your gaze away from him to watch the sun set out the window, even if it makes your retinae burn. “My fault, mostly. I don’t really, uh- know how to do it.”

“What? Relationships?”

“Yeah, I guess. I’m not used to having to let someone know when I’ll be home or making sure I have time for them between back-to-back missions. I blame my career choice.”

“Maybe you just didn’t care enough.”

Your eyes snap back over to him, eyebrows shooting straight to your hairline. “What?”

“I’m just saying. It’s not your career choice. Lots of people in this line of work have relationships that they prioritise.”

“What, you’re suddenly Dr Phil or something? It’s not like you know the ins and outs so don’t-”

“Dr Phil?” A cute little line forms between his brows.

“He was this-” You pause, heaving a frustrated breath out your nose. “You know what? Never mind.”

“My point is,” Steve continues. “I think you would want to do all those things for someone you cared enough about, even when it’s difficult. It wouldn’t be some tick-the-box.”

All traces of arrogance are gone from Steve’s expression, only genuine interest remaining as he scans your face like he’s trying to solve some puzzle. It makes you uncomfortable - you would prefer for him to laugh at you or lecture you.

“I could be dating Brad Pitt and I still would not care enough to answer a text about what’s for dinner when I’m busy.”

He frowns. “Who is Brad Pitt?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

The walk to the shipyard is quiet. Silent, if not for the steady scratch of Steve’s boots grinding against the gravel. The hum of the quinjet dulls the farther you walk.

You may not particularly like Steve, but you appreciate him at times like these. You couldn't be more perfect mission partners for each other if you tried. The way you fall into your posts quickly and seamlessly, giving each other the space and silence to focus on preparing for the mission while also trusting that you will speak up if the situation calls for it. 

Your methods and routines are practically identical. It’s almost a shame that the moment things break open, that quiet alignment shatters.

Steve holds a fist up, signalling you to stop. You do, falling in behind him. You’re not sure what he’s hearing, but you trust him implicitly when he makes the motion for you to duck behind a flatbed truck. You press yourself against the cool metal and Steve plunges in after you, his warm chest and stomach caging you. Hardly a second later, you hear what he had - a door clanging open, boisterous voices spilling out, all speaking over each other in Russian.

Steve meets your eyes, gives you a silent signal and you nod, moving out from behind the truck as silently as a deer and blending into the night. You weave through the shipping containers with practiced alacrity. You don’t need to look to know Steve is right behind you; you can feel him.

You split angles without having to speak. Steve covers the high runways while you sweep the lower lanes between cargo. The night has cooled and the wind is vicious now, needling the hulls of the half-empty freighters and blowing the hook block of the crane overhead until it swings like an unsteady pendulum over the flooded pier. Steve is keeping close. His hot breath feels sharp on your neck against the biting wind. 

You get within five hundred feet of the main electrical substation before you’re spotted. A pair of guards open fire from the building behind you, spraying an uncoordinated bouquet of bullets in your direction. You find cover effortlessly and huff with humour at the sloppy execution. They had just revealed that they are aware of your presence without allowing you to get close enough for a good shot.

“Idiots,” Steve mutters, as if he’s genuinely disappointed. You smile up at him, almost expecting him to say something about how he expected better from them.

You easily dodge their fire as you advance leisurely and safely, winding in and out from behind shipping containers. You decide that you’re not in the mood to go at it with Steve today, so you take his lead even if it’s significantly slower than how you would choose to do this yourself. You don’t worry about the shots that get too close - whatever you can’t dodge, Steve fends off with his shield.

You are out of the gunmen’s range when you make it to the ladder that leads up to the platform you need to get to, but you have no doubt they are headed your way. You go first, taking your gun from its holster, aiming it upwards, and heaving yourself onto the ladder. The iron bars are slick with seawater and heavy fuel oil; you have to grip tight so you don’t slip. 

You’re making careful progress up the ladder with Steve behind you, eyes pointed upwards for any sign of unwanted company. The metal feels slithery beneath your fingers and it takes you an extra few seconds to climb each step. It’s shuddering under each step and you wonder vacantly whether Steve’s weight will make it collapse.

You don’t have much time to prepare for the gunman that approaches above you. Your fingers are still clumsily fidgeting, trying to aim your gun while also grasping the slippy bar of metal. You get your shots off at the same time; yours hits, his does not.

What it does do, though, is make you dodge. Your body bears left, foot skidding on a rung of the ladder and suddenly you’re slipping downward, stomach swooping as your body collides with Steve’s.

He scarcely reacts, catching you with one arm, using little to no exertion. His fingers clamp around your waist, steadying you. For a fraction of a second you both freeze - your breath catching, his jaw tensing, bodies flush together, faces inches apart. Every hard plane of his body is pressed up against you. There is a throbbing warmth low in your stomach.

“You good?” he asks, breathy and deep.

“Move,” you say, voice tight, shaking out of his grasp and climbing up once more. He sighs and mutters something under his breath but you can’t make it out. Your heart is galloping, your pulse thundering in your ears.

You barrel over the platform, and go running towards the tower just as another guard reaches the door, attempting to get to the breaker panel before you have the chance to disable it. He locks the door behind him but Steve kicks it in with a crash. You slide low, sweeping the guard’s legs. Steve disarms him before he can even hit the floor. 

There’s no need for discussion as you both fall into your respective roles. The room is oppressively grey and layered with multiple wires, but you find your way to the breaker panel. You work on planting the shutdown device on the primary switchgear while Steve holds off reinforcements, laying enough suppressive fire to keep three guards pinned behind a forklift.

You’re more aware of his presence than usual while you work. He sits like some nagging instinct in your head, telling you to look. You know if you do, all you will see is his back, a heavy fortification of muscle and hard lines and sweat. You don’t need that kind of distraction. Your nerves are already fried from the uncomfortable consciousness of how his body felt pressed tight against yours.

You step back, watching the disruptor activate and the power shut down around you with a whining drone. The grey space becomes black and for just a split-second, yourself and Steve stand alone in the dark, no sounds pervading the room except your laboured breaths. The street lamps outside have extinguished - the bullets outside pause while the gunmen assess their situation.

Steve moves, shattering the stillness. He grips your wrist and pads quietly out the door, taking full advantage of the blackness to make a discreet getaway. You grab your wrist violently out of his grip but you follow him silently. You can’t see anything very well, but you think he might roll his eyes.

The shipyard is drowned in darkness, the only light the thin silver sheen of rain on metal. You move with Steve between the towering containers, keeping low. Every small sound seems deafening now - the clink of a loose cable swaying in the wind, even your own breaths.

A pair of guards drift close, their flashlights slicing through the blackout. You flatten against the cold steel wall, willing yourself still as the beams skim past, bright enough to catch the rivets beside your cheek. When the voices fade, Steve breaks across an open stretch at a quick, silent sprint. You follow. 

You’re not sure why you do it. It’s usually Steve’s job to scan the high ground. His serum-enhanced eyesight can catch movement long before you can. But Steve is preoccupied with sweeping for guards on ground level, so you do it instead out of pure intuition. And you see it: a sharp, unmoving glint on the crane platform above.

Your pulse spikes.

There’s a shooter. 

You had caught sight of him too late to find cover. You are out in the open. You can’t see the shooter well, but you know who their target will be and it’s not you. Steve is too far ahead to be able to warn him in any sufficient way.

In a moment of complete and utter instinct, and maybe more than a little stupidity, you raise your gun and shoot. You miss. 

The shooter turns their attention to you now. You fire another, miss again. 

The hit slams into your shoulder so hard, it immediately steals your breath. You stagger forward, fingers going numb. The gun drops from your clasp.

You try to breathe, but the pain is sharp and choking. Your vision wavers from blood loss and the sheer, overwhelming burn tearing through you. Steve’s gun cracks somewhere to your left but the sound bends around the pain, distant and warped. You can’t lift your arm. You can’t even unclench your jaw.

You wait to feel the blood clot around your wound but it’s slow and reluctant. You hold on for one more second, and then blackness swallows you.

The only thing that you’re aware of when you open your eyes is the pain. Not the cold, harsh light of the hospital. Not your family and team members that sit around you, looking morosely at the floor and bouncing their legs. Not even that Steve is absent.

For some length of time that feels very long, you exist in that state; slinking in and out of consciousness. But the pain never disappears, not even the bouts of darkness. In those moments of oblivion, the pain goes behind a cloud, but it always returns with a violence. You get to know this in a vague sort of way, feeling dumbly grateful when the pain is at bay but never being so naive as to think yourself free of it.

Although you will later find out it is only two days, it feels like a small eternity before you can clear the film that feels like scum from your throat and croak anything out. You must not be of fully sound mind yet or maybe the painkillers are making you loopy, because the first thing you say to the room, crammed with familiar faces, is; “Steve?”

You’re assured by someone - Maria? Natasha? - that he got you out. That he’s ok.

And then that grey cloud descends once again. The pain and the haze return.

It’s not that you care that Steve doesn’t come to visit. 

It turns out that your wound is just a through-and-through shot to the top of your shoulder. One centimetre in any direction and the bullet might have lodged itself firmly into your neck or paralysed your arm for good. The area is packed densely with muscles and nerves so you are wreaked with pain, but as it stands, it did no permanent damage.

So, really, there is no need for him to visit. And you definitely don’t care. You just think it’s bad leadership is all. You would have showed up for him if the roles were reversed, no matter how much of a pest he is. Would have sent a card. Even a text, at the very fucking least. 

You leave the hospital after the dullest week of your life. You hadn’t, until that point, realised how tangled your life purpose is with your career. You feel rabid after just a day or two of consciousness, restricted to your bed with no files to review, no cases to crack open. Just you, a few beat-up novels you had been meaning to get around to reading, and whoever decides to drop by to see how you were doing.

Maria lets you know that you are required to take another two weeks of leave before returning to work. Standard policy. Your requests to be forwarded files related to your ongoing cases are rejected. You can’t even enter the building to go to the gym.

In the absence of anything better to do, you watch films back-to-back. Try some recipes you had earmarked. Visit the new museum that had opened in the next block over. Wait to hear from family, friends and colleagues. But not Steve. You’re definitely not waiting to hear from Steve. 

You’re not usually great for following orders but you follow the doctor’s instructions closer than you have abided by anything in your entire life. By the time you return to HQ, the pain in your shoulder has flattened to a dull ache and you have formed a resolution to try to find some sort of hobby outside of work. You had no idea your real life is that grim.

Maria meets you with a distant smile at reception.

“Welcome back,” she says pleasantly, turning to walk with you through the building. Quiet conversation, the rustling of paper and the heavy clicks of agents suiting up covers the space you walk through. “We’ll do a mini induction and then I’ll let you get to it.”

Maria’s office is pristine. The door clicks shut behind you, muting all murmured voices outside. Everything looks recently straightened, recently dusted, recently organised. Sticky notes, task lists and cables are perfectly spaced out into their correct positions. The files stacked on the shelves are bound and appear to be in alphabetical order. You picture your home office space with a dim sort of shame as you sit down in front of her.

“How is your shoulder?” she asks without much interest.

“Much better, thank you. Should be able to get back out there now.”

She opens a cabinet in her desk and pulls a bloated yellow file. “That won’t be possible. We have made the decision to transfer you to another team. You’ll need a few weeks to catch up on the ongoing cases.”

“Another- what?”

Your brain is whirring, trying to catch up with what Maria just said. She doesn’t reply, just watches you buffer.

“You’re really taking me off the team on my first day back? Am I being punished for getting shot?”

“Not punished, no,” she assures you patiently. “You’re not being demoted, your day-to-day won’t even change very much but you’ll be working under Romanoff now. It was just decided that you would be a better fit somewhere else.”

“Decided by who?” you ask, even though you know the answer.

“By the leadership team,” she replies diplomatically.

Your gaze narrows on her but she is unperturbed. The sound of the seconds ticking by on the clock are suddenly deafening. You’re engaging in a sort of silent stand-off with her and you’re certainly not winning. 

“Where is he?” you ask at last.

“On assignment.”

“When will he be back?”

She smiles at you tightly and you realise she can no longer tell you. You’re not on his team anymore.

A wild instinct runs through you; you feel you might be a few seconds away from stomping your feet like a child, shouting at her that it’s not fair! and he started it! 

Instead, you huff out a harsh breath and snatch the file up from the desk. 

The hour is late and night is spilling through the windows. Yourself and Nat are the only ones left in the room; maybe the only ones left in the building. She lounges against the opposite row of lockers, boot propped up, grinning like you hadn’t just run a mission that by all rights should’ve ended in a four-page incident report and at least one formal reprimand.

“We are a match made in heaven,” she says with a dreamy sigh.

You snort. “Tell that to the clean-up team.”

“Let them file a complaint,” Nat says, waving a dismissive hand. “Clean exit, no casualties, minimal property damage. Made decent time too.”

“Mm.”

It had gone well. Better than well. Nat works like you do - zippy, instinctive, a little unhinged when the situation calls for it. There had been no questioning glances when you made a split-second decision, no screaming matches in lieu of a debrief. Your third mission back was a big fat success. You should be overjoyed.

But as you wipe the shower-water from your skin and peel your top on, all you can summon is a hot, directionless anger. Or, maybe not entirely directionless.

Because for the most part, you can direct it towards Steve. Your shoulder has mostly recovered with only a mild stiffness left to show for it but you’re still suffering from a wounded pride. The fact that he didn't bother to check up on you and requested a transfer after you quite literally risked your life for him is bad enough. But he’s been a ghost to you in the three weeks since you returned to work. 

That first week, he had been on assignment in Hungary. You had gone on a hunt for him as soon as word got around that he was back, but he was nowhere to be found. All his usual conference rooms were vacant and he had clearly started training elsewhere. You have not been able to track him down in the weeks since and you have no doubt in your mind that his sole intention is to avoid you.

Because he feels guilty for what had happened? Or maybe because he doesn’t want to have to thank you? You’re not sure. But you’re pissed.

And not just at him either. At yourself too. 

Because, alongside that anger, there’s an uncomfortable hollowness tugging at you. You bring it with you everywhere you go. It weighs you down like a chain. He won’t vacate your brain no matter what you do and you can’t quite deny that maybe you might miss him. Just a little.

The anger is not the worst of it; it’s that other thing - the tiny, shameful spark fluttering under your ribs when Natasha lets you rove free instead of testing you, challenging you, making you better. It’s the way your life feels just a bit emptier without someone to tease and provoke.

And it’s humiliating, because - seriously? How original. You really had to go and join the queue of people pining after the tall, hot, golden-boy with perfect manners and stupidly earnest eyes and muscles so perfect that only scientists could have sculpted them. Brilliant. Groundbreaking. As if you don’t already hate him enough without adding that to the mix.

“I was gonna drag you for a drink but the energy you’re giving off right now is rancid,” Nat says, walking towards you with her towel in hand. She snaps it at you but you jump out of the way before she can make contact. “You’re so pissy all the time since you got transferred.”

“I’m not pissy,” you snap, obscurely aware that you’re proving her point.

“Why do you even care? You and Rogers fight like dogs. You never wanted to be part of his team in the first place.”

You’re purposely avoiding her gaze, but you know the exact look that Nat is giving you based on her tone alone and you hate it with a burning passion.

“I don’t care. It’s just not fair, but it’s whatever.”

She sighs, picking up her duffle bag and flinging it over her shoulder. “I’m gonna leave you to whatever this is,” she says, waving her hand vaguely in your direction. “Get eight hours tonight and try to come back less cranky.”

She walks out, hips swinging, and you wait another moment or two before following suit. 

HQ feels different at this time of night. The overhead lights seem a shade too bright without bodies moving through them and your footsteps sound sharper against the floor. The whir of a printer on standby and the buzz of a monitor stand out more. Clean, white light is shining on empty desks. 

There is a weight on you as your make your way through the carpeted corridors, passing empty offices and meeting rooms. Nat is right - you are pissy. You’re so goddamn angry and mortifyingly upset, crucifying yourself with mental images and memories you would do anything to be rid of. You had always been mildly curious about those feelings that you observed in movies, the ones all your friends used to rave about when they met someone they fell head over heels for. You have dated, have even been in a few serious relationships. But you always knew there was a big gap between what you had witnessed and what you had experienced.

You wish someone had told you how stupidly painful and embarrassing it could be. You would have tried harder to steer clear of it.

You almost think that you’re imagining the picture of Steve in the meeting room to your right, framed by the semi-frosted window in the door. For just a split-second, you think it might be another one of those humiliating daydreams. But no - he’s burning the midnight oil; his neck is craned over a file, a small lamp pouring light over his handsome features.

You’re not one to question your instincts. You hurl the door open with an aggression that has Steve’s head snapping up in shock, pen falling from his hand, mouth parting. You listen to the door tumble closed before you realise dimly that you have no idea what to say to him. You’re floundering a little, but you keep your expression steady.

He breaks the silence first.

“You’re here late.”

“Just wrapped an assignment with Nat,” you say, hand on hip. “Turns out we make a pretty solid team. It’s refreshing.”

His jaw ticks, but he gives nothing else away. He looks back to his papers, as if dismissing you. “Glad to hear it.”

That’s it? That’s really all he’s giving you?

You can feel fiery heat crawling up your neck and you try to stop the furious shake in your hands. Composure is becoming more difficult to maintain and you know that you’re about a second away from bursting but his gall is astounding. He really has nothing else to say? After everything?

“You got me kicked off the team.”

“You didn’t get kicked off anything,” he sighs, leaning back in his seat. His eyes are travelling your form warily, like he isn’t quite sure where you’re going with this. “You got transferred.”

“Yeah, transferred out of the team.”

“I thought you would be happy,” he says wryly. “You were always complaining about having to work with me. I think you even said you’d rather work with Natasha a few times.”

“I am happy!” It comes out as a bark. You’re embarrassed by your petulance even though you can’t cork it. You know that you’re acting like a child. Steve’s lips are creaking upwards, his eyes lit up in amusement.

You clear your throat. “I am happy,” you repeat, in a low, controlled voice this time around. “It just feels a bit ungrateful is all.”

The way Steve’s poise breaks, superior grin twisting itself into a snarl, is hugely satisfying. You are self-aware enough to know that you’re being hugely immature, but it just feels so good to drag him down to your level. 

“You think I should be grateful that you almost got yourself killed on a mission?” he snaps, standing up from the meeting room table and walking towards you. You meet him half-way, until you are inches from each other. Your neck stiffens with how it bends up to meet his enraged eyes. Your body is humming with this familiar rhythm, as if fighting with Steve is the only thing that makes you feel alive.

“Well, I got shot saving you, so yes - I would say that’s a pretty good reason to be grateful,” you snap back, eyes narrow.

“Don’t be dense.” His voice is tight and poisonous in a way you have rarely ever heard before. “That was a really fuckin’ stupid decision and you know it. You took a bullet for the super-soldier with accelerated regenerative healing and a vibranium shield. Does that sound like a good decision to you?”

He sounds more furious than you have ever heard him in your life - and you have made him mad more times than you can count. He had cursed at you. He hasn’t done that since Moscow.

“I knew what I was doing,” you spit back with equal fury. “That shooter had all the time in the world to get into position; they would have been aiming for your head and they would have hit their mark, too because you weren’t paying enough attention to raise your shield. I knew that pulling them over in my direction meant that they would shoot me but they would have less time to aim. Just because you think I’m stupid doesn’t mean I am, you jerk.”

He is struck dumb momentarily, brows furrowing and lips pursing in thought. You are close enough to see the twitch of his mouth, to feel his disgruntled puffs of breath against your skin. Contentment slithers up your spine. Seconds tick by in silence; Steve pensive and stoic, you smug and satisfied. You have won this round and decide to go out with a bang.

“But I guess I should be thanking you because I have a new team lead now who trusts my judgement and doesn’t pick a fight every five minutes. So thank you. And go to hell.”

You turn on your heel, already halfway into your stride, and his hand shoots out so fast it must be instinct - large, calloused fingers closing around your arm before you’re even finished the pivot.

There is a second where he just glares hard. His blue eyes eat up every inch of your face. 

And then your body meets his chest and his lips are instantly on yours in a heady explosion of fire - it’s a violent, fervid thing and you surprise yourself with how quickly you return his passion. You had imagined this moment in the last few weeks - in all your dirtiest daydreams, you made him sweat it out a bit, even beg. But maybe you can make him beg later - you had missed him too much to turn him away now.

Your lips move like it’s another one of your fights, faces pressed against each other in a messy battle of lips, tongues and teeth. His hands travel to your hips and pull you flush against him while you fist his crisp blue shirt, folding wrinkles into the perfectly ironed fabric. 

Your feet leave the ground as he lifts you with irritating strength, pushing you onto the meeting room table and settling himself between your legs. His sheer power - the way he can lift you like you’re absolutely nothing - makes heat pool in your tummy, something stirring low. You’re pushing your lips against his fiercely, channeling all the pent up anger from the past number of weeks.

He isn’t gentle. He’s rabid as a stray dog. His fingers grasp harshly onto your hips with bruising strength. Despite the fact that you’re already pressed up against him, he tugs you tighter to his body, like close is not close enough. You can feel the large swell of his cock against your thigh, hard as a rock, and you have to stop yourself from adjusting your position and grinding down on him. You’re eager enough to do it, but he can't know that.

Your hands travel around his chest and shoulders, fingers delving into every curve of muscle there. He feels so big and broad against your touch and it turns you on so much that it almost pisses you off.

“You’re such a dick,” you gasp, the sound muffled against his lips.

“I know,” he says back between kissing, his mouth not moving from yours.

“Didn’t even visit me in the hospital.”

“I know.”

“I hate you,” you say, aiming for a sharp tone. It comes out breathy. He’s still kissing at your mouth, lips moving wildly - out of sync and jumbled.

“Shut up,” he grunts, hand going to your lower back and pushing your pelvis forward so you grind against him. An embarrassing whine rips itself from your throat as pleasure sparks through you, lighting up your body. You grind down again, addicted to the feeling, and Steve groans against your lips, hips jerking up.

It prompts something filthy; the two of you still fully clothed, bucking and grinding against each other like feral animals. There is a delicious throbbing in your core, your entire body crying out for more of him. His left hand is still on your hip, encouraging your body to continue grounding down against his hard cock through layers of cotton, but his right hand moves up to grab your jaw with a possessive force. You are giving it back to him too, hands clutching and grasping at him with a brutality.

He pulls away to lift your top over your head, eyes levelled at you with a burning intensity. His pretty blues are darker now, less earnest.

“Steve, we’re in the office,” you object, fingers reaching out to grab it back. He tosses it to the floor before you can.

“Don’t care,” he says, reattaching his lips to yours, fingers crawling to the waistband of your trousers. “Gonna fuck you right here.”

Your stomach clenches. It’s a strange role reversal. You’re not accustomed to being the one who stops and thinks about things before acting - that’s always Steve’s remit. You should be concerned that his perfectly constructed control has been tossed out the window, but it only makes you more excited. You know that there is something dangerous deep underneath each layer of restraint that Steve exercises. You have always known you’re better at digging it out than anyone else in this world. When you do, it’s a beautiful thing.

How can you do anything but give in?

Steve’s fingers play with the button of your jeans, popping it open with an effortless tug before he slides them down your legs along with your shoes. You’re left in just your underwear, splayed open before a fully-clothed Steve Rogers like you’re some sort of offering. He watches you with dark eyes, something between worship and hunger enveloping his features.

His eyes zero in on your bra-clad breasts. “Take it off,” he says, voice strained, and you reach up with urgency to unclip it, tossing it carelessly somewhere across the table.

“Suddenly so good at taking orders.” His hand reaches up to palm your breast, the other playing with the waistband of your panties. Your body arches to his touch involuntarily. “Should have done this months ago. Might have made you behave.”

He can probably tell you’re about to say something snarky, because his lips meet yours ferociously yet again and what would have been a rude retort turns into a moan when his thumb presses down on you over your panties.

Steve pulls away, eyes catching yours with surprise before dropping down to your core, covered in a thin layer of now-transparent fabric. “You’re soaked through,” he breathes, awe colouring his tone. “See how wet you are for me?”

Hot humiliation floods your face. “Fuck you.”

He gives you a slow smirk, eyes glinting. His tongue pokes out to wet his lips, leaving them glossy and shiny, and you realise he enjoys this as much as you do. His head dips down, lips just brushing over your neck, breath caressing your skin, before he’s lathering kisses there. He hooks his fingers over your underwear and yanks it down aggressively. You watch it cascade down your legs pathetically, chest heaving with the pressure of his lips under your ear and his fingers sliding down your stomach torturously slow. 

His fingers just graze over your wet heat and your blood is singing in your veins. You feel overpowered by him in the most mouth-watering way; his large frame trapping you, caging you in. He presses two fingers in, harsh and sudden, and you gasp.

“You get so turned on fighting with me, don’t you sweetheart? I knew it. Knew you were getting all wet every time I raised my voice at you. You pretend you don’t like me but you love when I boss you around.”

You want to slap him, but he’s right. And you consider that if you do, he will stop. His fingers are so big and calloused inside you and it simply feels too good to ever stop. You’re breaking into a sweat while he pumps in and out of you, your slick spilling onto his perfectly tailored work slacks while your walls clench around him.

When his other hand reaches down to grind down on your clit with vigorous strokes, a burst of white-hot pleasure works its way through you, licking up your spine. You pull hard at his hair, looking for anything to anchor yourself and hear him hiss a moan against your neck. The sound makes you clench around him and his fingers pump into you with renewed roughness in response.

You’re absolutely ruined. He has turned you into a complete wreck. You can no longer deny how badly you want him nor how much you need this; you don’t even try anymore. Your hips are wiggling down, trying to take him deeper. You have lost all semblance of shame, too taken up by the pleasure that his fingers are delivering you.

“Look how desperate you are,” he says, eyes caught where he is filling you. You don’t want to look down, shame working its cruel way through you at his taunting, but he grasps your jaw, tilting your head downwards. His fingers are warm and wet with your slick.

His two fingers are enough to stretch you out - they almost look too big for your hole. You shudder at the sight of them sliding in and out, knowing his cock will stretch you out all the more. Steve’s staring at your pussy like a man who is starving.

His fingers pull out from your heat quite suddenly. You’re hazy and confused until he lowers to his knees on the ground in front of where you are perched on the table. Your eyes connect in a moment of explosive intensity. His pupils are blown wide and when yours begin to flutter shut, he pinches your thigh gently in warning. You are forced to stare while he lowers his face between your thighs, eyes gleaming.

“Gotta taste you,” he says, almost to himself, and then that stupid fucking mouth that pisses you off so much every single day meets your cunt.

The sound that comes out of your mouth is unintentional and would be entirely mortifying if you were thinking straight. Your head falls back, eyes shutting. He pinches your thigh again, harder this time. 

“Eyes on me, sweetheart.”

You eyes spring back open, twitching as you fight the instinct to squeeze them shut. He holds your gaze captive while licking a messy stripe up your folds. You can feel sweat collecting at the top of your forehead at the sensation. He is ravenous and unrelenting, sucking on your clit before soothing it with soft kisses. Exploring your folds with his lips. Dipping his tongue inside and gently nipping, testing your limits. 

He’s eating you out in a way you never have been before; it’s not some repetitive flick of the tongue against the clit, picked up from porn and designed to make you cum as fast as possible so he can get the hell up and get his own rocks off. Steve is learning you, watching your expression closely to see what makes your breath catch. You feel him grin against your pussy as a moan slips out reluctantly when he drags his teeth over the hood of your clit, offsetting the pleasure with the tiniest bit of pain. He groans when you lose control and your eyes roll back in your skull.

He pulls back just a few inches and you watch him spit a thick glob of saliva straight onto your cunt. He’s still holding intense eyee-contact with you when he runs his fingers through your slit, mixing your wetness with his own. It’s sliding down through your ass and onto the table, reminding you exactly where you are. The fact that you are doing this in a meeting room in your place of work makes it seem even dirtier. 

He shoves two fingers back into you without warning and your hips buck. He continues to mouth at your clit in the most beautiful patterns and you truly feel like he is doing this purely for himself, like he’s enjoying it as much as you are.

He sucks hard, sliding your clit into his mouth and you’re not in control of the words or sounds that spill out of you. You’re telling him how amazing you feel and how fucking good he’s eating you, but you realise you might have fucked up because you can just feel his arrogance. It’s pissing you off. You need to remedy it quick.

“Maybe I should keep you down here like this all the time, Steve. What do you think? Can’t bitch at me when your mouth is busy. And you’re just so good at it too.”

You can feel the smug smile melt into something more sinister. His eyes grow darker, but he never moves them from yours. He continues to lap at you, but his mouth is more aggressive now - a stormy sort of warning. You ignore it. 

“Bet you’d let me put you on your knees after every mission if I wanted.” Your voice is coming out a bit too breathy for the sort of control you’re aiming for, but you continue regardless. “Keep you there for hours if I need to.”

Steve is standing up faster than you can register, a rough scowl painting his face. “Fucking brat,” he grunts, voice low. Your pride does not allow you to complain about how close you were to coming on his tongue.

He’s unbuttoning his shirt with rapidity and you get the message, part terrified and part exhilarated by what’s to come. You go to work on his belt in the meantime, clumsy fingers frantically unbuckling so you can yank his trousers down his legs. 

Steve shrugs out of the sleeves of his shirt, you almost groan. It is just so utterly unfair. It’s not like you’ve never seen him in this state before - missions sometimes require you both change clothes in less-than-ideal settings. But seeing him in this context, a thin sheen of sweat coating his pecks, an enormous bulge in his underwear that you know you have inspired; it’s unearthly. It’s only for you. You want him in wicked, sinful ways. And you’re determined to have him.

You try to hide the shake in your hands as you reach towards his underwear. Time slows down as you pull down it down to reveal his cock - what had been a frenzied blur of limbs and clothes patters off into cautious movements, heavy breaths.

You actually groan when you see it; standing tall and fucking huge, slightly curved, subtle veins running lines up to the tip. A pearl of liquid has collected at the tip, smudged on the swollen head. It’s so pretty, you can feel your eyes becoming a bit hazy. The light in the room seems to ripple and bend around it.

Your fingers reach out tentatively, dragging down his length. He hisses, hips jerking up to your touch when you wrap your fingers around him. You can barely wrap your hand around it and you’re startled by how small your hand looks in comparison.

“You think you can take it?” Steve asks you.

“I can,” you confirm with certainty.

“Let’s see about that, sweetheart. I think I might break you,” he returns and you wonder vaguely whether Steve is just baiting you, taking advantage of all your stubbornness to make sure you push yourself past your limit.

His body brackets yours again, leaning over your body to give you a filthy kiss. His mouth is absolutely dripping with the evidence of your arousal and his own spit. You can taste yourself on his tongue, mixed with something that is pleasant and categorically Steve Rogers. His lips move hot and dirty against yours, tongue pressing in on yours while his cock nudges your entrance. You gasp against his lips.

“Yeah?” he murmurs against your lips. “You ready for me?”

You nod furiously and he reaches down to fist his cock. You feel his thick length begin to nudge at your entrance, the head slipping in slowly. Your cunt pulses with anticipation as you feel the sweet ache of him breaching you. You let out a low whine, caught somewhere between pain and pleasure, as he pushes in further, the thickness of him stretching your walls.

It’s a tight fit. He gets just less than half-way, before your pride breaks and your hips jump away from his at the burn. His jaw twitches, blue eyes fluttering closed for just a second.

Steve reaches down to stroke at your clit and the rush of pleasure makes you loosen up just enough for him to notch in a few inches further. “C’mon, sweetheart. Thought you said you could take me.”

“I can,” you say, the words pattering off into a whine. “Just big, is all.”

“Sure is,” he says, pushing in further and smiling wickedly at you. “And I’m gonna make you take it all, baby. Gonna make you feel it here.” His fingers press down hard on your tummy.

His cock is stressing its size inside you, hitting places previously untouched. You can’t quit believe that he still has more to give you but he does. You’ve never felt anything like this before, never had anything this big inside you and it hurts in the most delicious way.

“Fuck,” Steve spits, breathless. “Yeah, okay, I think you can take me all the way. Just a little bit more, sweetheart. Let me in.” 

If he hadn’t eaten you out until you were an inch from nirvana, you’re not sure this would be possible. But as it stands, he bottoms out and you feel like you’re floating. Your hips are twitching, unsure whether to escape or grind down harder.

“Squeezing me so tight, baby. Think you were made for my cock,” he hisses, his face tightening with a primal need. “You okay?”

You’re not sure that your vocal cords are still working so you just nod and listen to his deep breaths. Your back arches when he presses sloppy kisses to your neck while you adjust to him. It feels as if he is moulding you around him.

Your fingertips drag down his back and he shivers, jerking his hips forward involuntarily. “Sorry- ah, fuck-” he groans, face clenched tight.

He withdraws a couple of inches, cock dragging through your walls, before slamming himself back in. He looks down at you like a kicked puppy when he hears your strangled gasp. “Feels too good. Gotta- agh. Can’t help it, sweetheart. I’m sorry.”

You like this side of him, you think idly. You had seen Steve in many different moods, but never like this. Apologetic and pleading. He is a boulder above you; 6 foot something of pure brawn, but begging you so nicely to take his cock. “I know it’s big but you’re such a pretty little thing for me. Have to move.”

You still can’t talk so you nod at him in encouragement and watch relief pour over his face. He kisses you again with intention, bucking his hips into yours with beautiful friction. You are stuffed so full, it feels like he’s everywhere at once. This whole thing is becoming far sweeter than you were expecting.

Steve finds a leisurely, pulsing rhythm as he rocks himself into you, lathering kisses over your lips in a way that is entirely too romantic for the setting. He rubs tantalising circles on your clit, helping your walls to relax into him - helping you let him in until you find your voice, babbling about how much you want him and how good he’s making you feel.

You’re becoming aware that he owns you now; that maybe he always had. He thrusts into you with a beautiful sort of reverence and you know that you are ruined. Sleeping with anyone else would feel like a brutal punishment after you felt him like this. 

A noise from outside - the faint tread of boots on the ground - makes you both stop cold. Steve freezes completely, his dick coming to a stand-still inside of you. They are faint but getting closer by the second. Your eyes meet Steve’s wide ones. He starts looking around the room. at your intertwined bodies. You can see him assessing the situation, working out solutions, but a smug part of you notes that he still doesn’t pull out of you. He dick doesn’t soften; you actually feel it twitch inside you.

Your pussy jumps at the realisation that he’s excited by it. Maybe he doesn't even know it yet, but he is. You know it by the way his hips give involuntary, shallow thrusts. By the way his pupils grow impossibly darker.

So you do what any sane woman would do with Captain America’s cock buried deep inside her. You grind down. 

Steve eyes snap back to yours with astonishment. He looks wild; entirely out of control and somewhat furious. He brings a hand to your hair, tugs it with a warning that you don’t pay any heed to.

You grind down again, this time removing your right hand from his broad shoulders and bringing it slowly down to your clit. You rub and squeeze there, using his cock to get yourself off. The way his eyes are burning as he watches you only makes it so much hotter. You feel yourself approaching your peak. 

The steps get louder until you see a flash of cherry red pass the window and you know it’s Natasha. She’s on her way back to the locker room, perhaps to check if you’re still there. You don’t stop moving on his cock even as she passes by you and the locker room door swings open and shut.

“Are you insane?” Steve spits in a low whisper. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

You just smile back at him because you can see his eyes growing hazy. You not sure he even realises that he himself has begun to thrust into you again. A flush is working its way up his neck and you wonder whether it’s anger or arousal. Maybe both.

You’re halfway through a moan when the door to the locker room swings back open and Natasha begins walking out again with a huff. Steve’s hand goes up to cover your mouth, so large it almost envelopes your entire face. He’s giving you look like he’s disapproving of this development but he doesn’t stop fucking you.

Natasha’s footsteps stop for a split-second. You feel a disinterested sort of confusion, too wrapped up in the way Steve’s cock feels as it drags through your walls. 

Something spasms between your legs and you realise you’re about to cum. Your blood freezes. You feel Steve tense, breath snagging in his throat. You’re sweating now - praying that all those gasps you can’t mute are not audible from outside.

You hear Nat let out a long, irritated sigh from outside, but you’re too far gone to even care about the consequences anymore. You squeeze around Steve’s length once and then your eyes are rolling back into your head while she resumes moving down the hall. As she approaches the glass window of the door, you try to crouch, as if that would prevent her from seeing your and Steve’s very naked bodies as he fucks you through your orgasm. You can see the faint shadow of her figure sliding across the frosted glass. For one horrifying second, you’re sure Nat will glance in.

But she doesn’t. She keeps walking, footsteps fading with distance until the hallway is left silent again and your pussy is squeezing with aftershocks.

“You’re seriously fucked up, you know that?” Steve asks, but there’s more awe in his tone than malice. “You really get off knowing someone could walk in here and see me fucking you?”

You don’t even know how to answer him. He’s given you no time to recover from your orgasm, fucking into you again with a renewed vitality. You’re overly sensitive, the pressure of his massive cock inside you bullying your sensitive hole. It shouldn’t feel good, it should be too much too soon - but it’s not because it’s Steve. And you don’t think you could dislike anything that he chooses to do to you.

“You wanna be fucked like a whore? Fine,” he says, pulling his cock out of you with lightning speed and flipping you around on the table so your ass is arched up for him. He takes a second to look at you, squeezing at the skin of your ass, dragging his thumb all the way up from your clit, past your wet heat and through your ass. He’s mumbling something unintelligible. You clench and shudder, a moan breaking out through your lips.

When he fists his cock and presses into you again, all that slow romanticism from earlier is gone. He is fucking you hard and fast, his thick cock pressing into a heavenly spongey spot that you didn’t even know existed. “Fuck Steve!” you cry out, ass working its way back on him of its own volition.

“Such a fucking brat. Couldn’t even wait patiently for me to fuck you for one minute. Too desperate for my cock.”

You want to argue that he was also fucking you, but your brain is not working fast enough to come up with the words. All you can focus on are his dirty words, the obscene squelching noises of him filling you, and how it feels to be taken by him.

“Maybe I should punish you for that. Always so disobedient. Maybe I’ll leave you high and dry here, fill you up and not let you cum.”

“Try it,” you growl, brain suddenly fully operational. “I’ll make you regret it.”

You hear him huff a laugh from behind you. “You’re adorable. Fucked out on my cock and still think you’re in charge. I’ll make you cum sweetheart, but only because I want to see you fall apart. Next time you won’t get this lucky.”

His cock hits a spot inside you that almost makes you see god. His hands are so tight on your hips as he fucks himself into your body that you’re sure you’ll have bruises tomorrow. You hope you do.

“That’s it, isn’t it baby? That’s your spot. Fuck. Maybe I should reward you, now that I think of it. All my sweet girl wanted was to get caught getting fucked by me. You just wanted to show everyone that you’re mine. Want everyone to see me fucking that attitude right outta you.”

Being called his coils your stomach in a way you’d rather not examine. Instead, you twist your head back and scowl. “Fuck you,” you spit, voice strangled.

He chuckles again, but it’s strained. He’s pounding you with a force that you feel all the way up to your belly, all the way up to your teeth. You know you’re not far from coming again and neither is he.

“Is my pretty girl gonna cum on my cock again?” he asks, patting and squeezing your ass encouragingly. You nod, eyes squeezed shut, not even sure that he can see it from his angle. A desperate whine escapes.

“Good fucking girl. ‘Cause I’m about to come inside you. Want you walking out of here with me dripping out of you. Gonna fill you up so good, keep you topped up for every mission. Make you mine.”

That sends you tumbling over the edge, white-hot pleasure soaring through you. Your cunt clenches down hard on him and you feel him burst, spilling sticky ropes of cum into you. He groans loud, telling you how good you are for him while holding your hips with a bruising power, fucking into you violently. He shudders behind you, and eventually his aggressive thrusts patter out and slow into shallow jerks. 

Dark spots are exploding behind your eyes for a while as you come down, chest heaving as Steve drives his cum back into you slowly. You feel your mixed spend dripping down your thighs, spilling onto the wooden floors below. Steve hisses as he steadily pulls himself from your tight heat. He stops momentarily while he, presumably, watches his cum drip out of your hole. 

And then he reaches down to grab his underwear. He wipes it across your privates and thighs as a makeshift towel. It is decidedly not romantic, but the fact that he’s willing to go home in soggy underwear just to clean you up makes your chest tighten with affection regardless.

Steve begins to dress but it takes you another minute to gather the strength in your limbs to haul yourself up. Your hands are shaking as you yank up your panties and try to buckle your bra. Steve is fully dressed now, watching you intensely, thighs spread out on an office chair.

You’re feeling slightly awkward in a way you never do around Steve. You’ve never been short of quips or insults to throw at him, but the air has changed now and you’re not sure where you stand or how to navigate this.

You have just tugged on your jeans when Steve leans forward to grab your hips, pulling you onto his lap. You hadn’t realised that you were waiting for him to do it until he does. You go with no objection, curling into his chest. It feels strangely natural for how combative you’ve always been with him. He nuzzles his face into your neck with a shy affection. 

“I’m sorry for requesting the transfer. I regretted it immediately after if I’m honest.”

“Why did you? It was kinda fucked up, Steve. And you didn’t even come to visit me when I got shot. It hurt my feelings because I would have been there for you.” You can’t even look at him when you say it. You are vastly uncomfortable being this vulnerable with him, but you suppose if there’s ever a time for venturing into uncharted territory, it’s now. Steve was right about what he said regarding your past relationships - you just never cared enough before. But you do now.

“I stayed there until you were stable,” he says. “I was just so angry that I couldn’t even look at you. The idea that you risked your life for me killed me. I hate the way you risk so much on missions. It makes me feel like I can’t protect you.”

“But sometimes you can’t, Steve. I know I should be less reckless. Being away from you for the last few weeks made me realise that. But I have to be able to make my own decisions too.”

“I know. I know it’s just part of what happens on missions but I can’t deal with you getting hurt for me. Not with you. Because I…”

He swallows hard, eye downturned. He fidgets against your thigh and it makes your heart ache. You’re feeling embarrassingly gushy, watching him be this fragile and open. You’re taken off guard by it.

“Because you want me?”

He gives you a tight, sad sort of smile.

“I want you so bad, I’m not even sure ‘want’ is the right word for it anymore.”

You’re fighting a goofy grin but it’s beaming out of you like sunshine. You kiss him nice and slow, feel his lips move ardently and reverently against your own. Your heart flutters where it presses against his chest, as if trying to fly its way closer to him.

You pour every ounce of your adoration into the kiss and feel Steve's grin against your lips as a response.

You pull away only when your phone buzzes with a text.

NAT: so i see you’re out of the doghouse

NAT: and now i need to find a new partner. goddamn.

a/n: initially this had bucky instead of nat but i kept accidentally creating sexual tension between him and reader lmao i can't help myself with that man

[ssaweetie]

After after with Soldier boy because i fell for the propoganda

𝜗ৎ After cumming inside for what, the third time in a row that night he stays a little longer on top of you. Letting himself soften inside of you before pulling away and resting against the pillows. You lay on your side, face half smushed into your pillow and holding the same pillow. Few centimeters between you two.

𝜗ৎ He reached to grab his cigar, always appreciating a hit after sex. His eyes gazed over your curves as he inhaled once twice. “Planning to cuddle up, or am i on my own, doll?” He muttered, raising an arm for you to curl under. You smiled softly, sitting up a little to plop yourself against his chest. Not bothering with a reply. He instinctively rested a hand on your lower back, gently patting.

𝜗ৎ “was it that good?” He asked cockily, per usual. But there were sincerity in his gaze. He wanted- no, needed to know. You murmured a little mhm and curled a hand around his bicep, your hand warm against his even warmer skin.

𝜗ৎ”’m pretty hungry though..” you said in a quiet voice, as if he would disappear if you spoke to loud. He nodded, stubbing out his cigarette. Then turning to fully wrap you in his arms.

𝜗ৎ”i say we get wings.” He said, in an almost offering voice. Knowing how much you hated choosing, especially when he is there. Good thing you weren’t the one to let down a good meal. “Exxtra spicy, benny..” you murmured, kissing his jaw. It would be extra spicy tonight indeed…

[godmadeaterribleerror]

good people: episode 1 - down the rabbit hole

✦Read on aO3! - Main Masterlist - Series Masterlist - prologue✦

✦summary: TUNE IN AT 12 EST SEE THE ONLY REAL, UNBIASED, PATROTIC COVERAGE OF HOMELANDER'S TRIAL FOR THE TRUTH, ONLY ON VNN.

✦warnings/tags: series rewrite, Soldier Boy x supe!reader, past Homelander x reader and it ain't pretty, enemies to friends to lovers, canon divergence, slow burn, angst, fluff, no ben or reader in this chapter, eventual happy ending, Hughie, Homelander, Butcher, A-Train, Annie, and Kimiko POV

✦wc: 13.2k✦

✦author's note: homelander's pov is too fun to write. i might be going crazy.✦

“And we’re back, live from New York City in the trial of the century, the United States vs. Homelander. Since we last saw you there haven’t been any major updates or sightings of Homelander, but we have word from inside the courtroom that a new witness will be taking the stand soon. Mike, what can you tell us about the energy you’re feeling, from the defense?”

Hughie watched the TV with tired, hooded eyes. It had been droning all morning. It would be droning all night. If he didn’t put it on, Butcher would, and if he didn’t it would be MM, and if no one was around—even though she told the rest of them it was unhealthy and useless to obsess—Annie would pick up the remote and curl up on the couch, hoping for just one casual, meaningless word of hope.

“Well, Amy, it’s not getting better.” Mike, with his hundred-dollar haircut and his pinstripe tie, smiled at the camera like he wasn’t reporting on the doom of America. Hughie ran his fingers through his own hair. He couldn’t remember the last time he had a cut at all. “Vought’s certainly pouring everything they have into this defense, but that’s exactly what we expected. Homelander isn’t just their hero, he’s their money-maker. I mean, over the past fifteen years, have you been able to even hear the word ‘Vought’ without thinking of Homelander right after?” Mike laughed. “I didn’t think so.”

“They got anything new?” MM materialized on the sofa arm, and Hughie yelped.

“Holy- How are you so quiet-“

“I move like the wind, Hughie. I’m one with the sky, sky’s one with me.”

Hughie blinked. “Really?”

“No.” MM jerked his head at the TV. “News?”

“Right, I- Sorry.” Hughie looked back to Amy and Mike, both smiling so wide it must’ve hurt their faces. “Amy, she- She says there are rumors. About a new witness.”

MM’s jaw tightened. “Our side, or theirs?”

“They don’t know yet.”

“Shit,” MM ran a hand over his face, glaring at the TV. “Well, you text me when you know. Our best hope is that it’s just another fuckin’ Homelander fanatic, they discredit him to the jury, just- Getting up on that stand and kissing his ass and being useless.”

Hughie nodded. His chest felt hollow. “Or it doesn’t matter,” he muttered. “Because all of our guys are just- Starlighters. Doing the same thing.” He glanced up nervously, meeting MM’s sharp gaze. “I mean- To them. I don’t think our guys are the same, but- You know.”

For a second, they just started at each other. MM looked back to the TV. His lips pressed in a thin line.

“Yeah. I know.” MM stood back up, giving Hughie that half-smile none of them ever had energy to back up in their voices. “Text me.”

“Yeah, I- I will.” 

MM grunted, and wandered away. Hughie looked back to the TV, but they’d moved on to banter about Amy’s new porch. Her husband was building it for her. Their dog liked the darker wood they’d chosen, for sunbathing. Amy was laughing about it now, but she’d get frustrated with something about the development soon. Just like with the kitchen renovation. Hughie knew the anchors pretty well, by now. It was what happened, when their voices basically lived full-time in his house.

“Amy is talking about her kitchen again?” Frenchie slid next to him, and Hughie bit his tongue. He needed to stop jumping.

“Actually, it’s the porch now.”

“Ah. Are they using a smoothed wood, or a-“

“I- I don’t know. It’s dark.”

“Oak, or cherry, or-“

“Frenchie. I don’t know.”

Frenchie shrugged it off, leaning further back in the couch. Hughie coughed, settling back into the cushions, his hands braced on his knees. Better, he supposed, to lose it a little at Frenchie. He never let it stick anyways.

The TV kept playing. Kimiko moved to sit near Frenchie’s feet, and Annie came out of the bathroom to perch at Hughie’s side. She ran her fingers through his hair in a silent greeting, and Hughie offered her a small smile. She returned it, something that had been heavy over her features softening. He grabbed her hand, and she squeezed it in return.

“Where’s-“

“I don’t know.”

Annie glanced back to the door. “Do you think he’s-“

“Yeah. Probably,” Hughie sighed, and he knew it didn’t matter, but he looked anyway. Save for them at the couch, and MM at his desk, it was all quiet. No press outside, like at their apartment. No Mallory pacing, or blaring phone calls just so Singer could yell at them for being useless.

No Butcher.

They hadn’t seen him in a day or two, but that wasn’t anything new. Not over the past few months. Hughie rolled out of bed, and people were already yelling at him for a comment about the trial. He got to work and MM clapped him on the shoulder and Kimiko smiled at him and gave him coffee and when he asked where Butcher was, everyone went quiet. He went through the day, and people yelled at him about not finding the thing. The one that would bring Homelander down, no space for Vought paying their way around it, no excuses. Just death, or downfall. He got home, another day with nothing in his hands but a phone he was afraid to look at, and the silence yelled at him for not doing more.

“He’s obsessed,” Annie murmured. “I’m worried about him.”

Hughie gave her a half-amused look. “You’re worried? About- Butcher?”

Annie sighed. “It’s- I don’t like him, but- He’s still a person.”

“He is a person,” Frenchie said, not looking away from the TV. “An obsessive, angry, bastard of a person.”

Kimiko gestured something, and Frenchie hummed an agreement.

“She says he is so far into his own arse, he will not see when the answer walks right,” Frenchie whistled, mocking a walk with his fingers. “In front of him. And I agree.”

Hughie gave them an incredulous look, but couldn’t seem to find an agreement that didn’t taste like sandpaper. Butcher had been obsessive, ever since Maeve told him that thing about the supe. She’d claimed—at least to Butcher, who was never the most reliable source—that it wouldn’t be like Soldier Boy. This supe would be stronger than Homelander, more willing to fight him, and easier to control. Hughie, privately, thought Soldier Boy had been all those things, except maybe the stronger than Homelander part. He’d been close, though. Close enough that it didn’t matter. But all they’d had to do was wave some weed and burgers under his nose, and he’d listened. He’d even ended up being so willing to fight Homelander, it was a problem. That’s how they’d lost.

Butcher said this supe—the Anomaly—wouldn’t lose.

“She’s gonna see it like I see it,” he’d said, smiling with teeth and a glint in his eyes. “And we’re gonna kill ‘im, once and for all.”

They’d all looked at each other, worried and silent. Killing Homelander wouldn’t fix everything. Another supe never fixed anything. But that didn’t stop Butcher. They still hadn’t found something that could.

“This just in,” Amy told the camera. “New poll numbers show that 37% of the American public believe Vought, that Homelander acted in self-defense. 43% favor some form of guilty charge, although the split among their answered varied from the death penalty, to a hundred dollar fine. 20% remain unsure, and are waiting to hear more evidence as it’s presented.”

“Thirty-seven.” Hughie breathed. “That’s- There are videos, of him lasering that guy in half! People can’t actually believe this, can they?!”

MM grunted, setting down his gun on the desk. “Yes, they can.”

Hughie swallowed, and Annie’s grip on his hand tightened. This was their last shot. The last way to do it right, clean and easy, before- 

He could still hear the crackle of wires and cracks of bone, from Vought Tower. It was one of the many things, he still heard, when it was a little too quiet. He didn’t want to hear anything like it, for the rest of his life. If this didn’t work, he didn’t see a world where that was the only kind of sound he heard, ever again.

The door cracked open, and their heads all shot up.

“Mornin’ cunts!” Butcher walked into the office, holding a big paper bag that was either bagels, or a bomb. “Anyone put the coffee on yet?”

“It’s 2pm, Butcher,” MM said, hands fisting on the desk. “Where the hell have you been.”

“Out. Around. Under, just a tad. Bagel?”

MM’s face didn’t turn any less sour, but he paused. “You got-“

“Cinnamon raisin and schmear. Fuckin’ disgusting, but only the best for my best.”

MM grunted, and took the bagel. Butcher smiled, smug and pleased with it, and turned to the rest of them on the couch.

“Bloody hell, you lot ain’t moved since I left-“

“We’re watching the trial,” Hughie said, scanning over Butcher for any bullet wound or serration. He always tended to come back with those and not say anything. “What have you been doing?”

“Don’t worry about me,” Butcher waved him off, and Hughie only worried more. “You got any progress, on trackin’ the Anomaly.”

Annie crossed her arms. “No. Because we haven’t been doing that.”

Butcher stiffened. The mock merriment stuttered and twisted on his face. “Why not. I fuckin’ told you-“

“You’re not my boss, Butcher-“

“I am now, sweetheart,” he tossed the bag off to the side, and Kimiko crawled over to poke around inside. “You want to come play cowboy, that’s the deal, though I done made myself clear-“

“You did,” Annie tipped her chin. “That doesn’t mean I have to agree.”

Butcher’s lip curled, and Annie’s hands fisted. Not again.

“We’re just not sure she’s real, Butcher.” Hughie tried, putting a hand on Annie’s knee. Silently begging her not to do anything, to rock the boat. “We’ve been looking- You’ve been looking- I mean, everywhere. There’s nothing. Not a trace.”

Butcher grunted. “Soldier Boy wasn’t supposed to be around and kickin’ either.”

“Well, that was Soldier Boy,” MM muttered. “And I’m glad he ain’t up anymore.”

“Of course you are glad,” Frenchie said, taking the bagel Kimiko passed him. “He killed your family.”

“Yeah. I know.”

“I am just saying, it makes sense that you are sensitive-“

“I am not sensitive, I just don’t like working with coked-up egomaniacs-“

“Did we give him coke?” Hughie frowned. “I don’t think we gave him coke.”

“I mighta given ‘im coke,” Butcher said, waving them off. “But that ain’t the point. This isn’t gonna be another Soldier Boy, MM. It’ll be different, I swear.”

 MM took a deep breath, leaning back in his seat and glaring at Butcher down the bridge of his nose. Hughie was never sure how he did that. The man was sitting down.

“It ain’t ever different, Butcher.”

“But it will be. This time.”

MM shook his head. “We need other options-“

“No- No.” Butcher’s mouth worked, his body getting loose the way Hughie saw predators relax on the Nature channel. Like he was going to pounce. “We ain’t got the time. Homelander’s out there, right now, about to cheat the system in front of the whole world, and no one is liftin’ a damn finger to stop it. They won’t lift a finger when he wins either. It’s us, or nothing.”

“It’s never nothing-“

“It’s always nothin’, Starlight,” Butcher sneered. “So we find the Anomaly, we fuckin’ make her if we have to, but I ain’t walkin’ into the new regime without a weapon to tear it apart.”

None of them had an answer. There was never, really, a good thing to say. Butcher was right, and wrong, and they’d been in this cycle for three years, and Hughie was getting tired. Annie got him the bagel. Plain, with blueberry cream cheese. He looked back to the TV, and Amy was talking about how she was worried her dog was eating the new wood. Nothing changed.

They really needed something to change.

Hughie wished that he had any clue, what the hell that was.

The clerk of court told the room to rise. Homelander stayed seated, his legs crossed and gaze fixed on his gloves. There was something gray there, on the leather, and no matter how he scrubbed at it, it wasn’t just going away. His face pushed down, and a pressure of heat built behind his eyes. It was unprofessional, noticeable, dirty-

“Homelander,” Ashley hissed. “Please stand up.”

Homelander rolled his eyes, but stood at the last second. This judge—balding, thin, wearing glasses for fucks sake—didn’t deserve his attention. None of these people did. Ashley’s little sigh of relief grated into his brain, the scribble of pencil and clack of typewriters made his skin itch, and everyone in this room was breathing so loudly. He could feel their eyes, trying to bore through him. Trying to see something he wasn’t going to offer them.

Guilt. Remorse. All those stupid buzzwords Ashley had been feeding him, since the trial started. He’d gotten out of interviews by just taking off whenever the trial was called for the day, but then there had been the helicopter. Trying to follow him around, a vulture, whirring blades and a grinding engine that he could cut through like butter if he wanted.

“Please,” Ashley begged every morning. “Nothing today.”

She said please too much. Looked at him with those beady little bug eyes and her bald head and always looked seconds from getting on her knees and kissing his boots. Pathetic.

But he didn’t do anything. He was being a good little show dog, smiling at the cameras and grinding his teeth to stop the shoot of lasers. Maybe they’d give him an ugly metal for it. He’d take it with a smile.

He always took everything with a smile.

Homelander sat back down, when the trial started back up again. They had another one of his supporters on the stand—Vought lawyers, good for fucking something—and the testimony was going to be the exact same as the last one. The Starlighter assaulted Ryan. Homelander dealt with it. Self-defense, protecting a little boy from a crazed, anti-American revolutionary. Homelander didn’t bother to listen to it. It was hollow, all of this was fucking hollow. Everyone in this courtroom should be rising for him. He should be the only witness they needed, he should just take the stand and tell the judge he was innocent, and this would all be over. No more trial of the century bullshit. He wasn’t even on real trial, he was playing dollhouse to please the Vought Board, he was a fucking puppet again and this piece of dirt wouldn’t get off his fucking glove-

The gavel banged, cleaving through the ringing in his ears, and Homelander looked up. It was over. The judge was walking off. Finally. That had taken a million years.

He stood up, rolling his shoulders and starting for the exit, and Ashley’s head shot up from her phone.

“Sir- Homelander, just- Sir, please wait-“

“Stop saying please, Ashley,” he called, not looking back. “Follow me or keep making out with your little fucking phone.”

He heard the scramble of boots and fabric. Ashley was shoving away her phone and following him. Homelander rolled his eyes. Kissass.

“Sir, we have a meeting with the lawyers-“

“No, you have a meeting with the lawyers.” He smiled at the reporters, bowing his head. They all started barking and shouting, like starved fucking wolves in a cage. Homelander didn’t let his plastered smile drop from his face. “I am going home. Back to my son.”

“Your- Ryan is at school, sir-“

“Then I’ll take him out of school.”

“Of- Of course, but-“ Ashley tripped over the ledge of the door, boots clacking on the wooden floor. “If you could just- Do the meeting, then take him out of school-“

“I don’t need to do the meeting.”

“I- I know that. But- Sir, the Board would really feel better if I could reassure them that you’re sticking to the plan-“

“The plan?” Homelander spat, whipping in a circle.

Ashley scrambled back, steadying herself on a water fountain. Homelander braced his hands on his hips, taking a deep breath through his nose. He wouldn’t kill her. Not here. The floor was too polished, it would be a waste.

“Ashley,” he said slowly. Controlled. Nicely. “I do not care about the plan.”

“I- I know, but-“

“Shh.” He held a finger up to his lips. “I’m talking right now.”

Ashley nodded, her heart racing so fast it might burst. Homelander’s lip curled. Maybe it would drop right to her stomach, and she’d finally grow something fucking balls.

“I am not going to that meeting. You are going to go for me, and anything actually important, you will tell me about immediately. But anything else, anything stupid or- Or anything? I do not care.”

Ashley swallowed, and nodded. Her jaw worked. Homelander rolled his eyes.

“Speak.”

“The Deep is taking the stand!” She blurted. “Tomorrow. This is a strategy meeting for that, they- They want him to be a character witness-“

“For me?” Homelander scoffed. “Tell them I don’t need a character witness. My character is the only thing keeping this fucking shit-show afloat, Ashley, and- Actually, tell me who thinks it isn’t.” He nodded to himself. “They should know better. You should know better.”

Everyone should know better. He was Vought, the Tower was his tower, this trial was more a test of who he was going to slice in half by the end of it. The people who’d doubted. Who’d thought he could possibly ever fucking lose.

“And tell them I want to testify,” he added, waving a hand at Ashley’s frozen body. “We can just get it over with.”

“O- Over with?” Ashley blinked. “Sir, you- You can’t rush justice- Not that it’s justice you’re going to lose, but- We have to do it the right way-“

“No, you have to do it the right way. I do it whatever fucking way I want.”

He turned again, making his way towards the doors. Ashley followed. She always did. Sometimes, Homelander wondered if one of his powers had secretly always been keeping women on a leash.

It wasn’t. His mouth ticked, a chill pushing through his spine. If it was, you wouldn’t have lost her.

He didn’t lose her. She died. Big difference. He would’ve saved her, if Butcher and his team and Soldier Boy hadn’t been pulling him in fifty different directions. They killed her. They killed her.

“Tell me if we have anything on Butcher, too,” he called back to Ashley, shoving open the courtroom door. “And tell the Deep that if he wants to testify, he better not mention a single fucking tentacle or fish, or I’ll cut off his dick and feed it to his fuckbuddy sharks.”

The crowd roared at the sight of him. Cameras flashed, people reached over the barricade to try and touch him, Starlighters booed but he didn’t let it make anything but his jaw twitch. They’d be set right soon. They’d see. Everyone always fucking saw, that he wasn’t the problem, he was the solution. They’d fucking see.

He glanced at his glove. The smudge was still there. He tucked his arm behind his back.

“Go- Got it- Sharks and- Butcher, and-“ Ashley stopped next to him, panting and sweating and smelling horrible. “Sir, I really would appreciate it if you could just come to this one meeting-“

“It’s not just this one meeting, Ashley! It’s this one, then another, then another,” Homelander said through his toothy smile, waving his clean hand at the crowd. “I’m not doing it.”

“But-“

“But?”

He gave her a sharp look, and she balked immediately. His nose twitched, and he looked back to the crowd.

“Please let us try and handle this,” she whispered. Homelander could fucking taste her fear. “The Deep- I know he’s stupid, but people love him for- some reason.” She took a long inhale, inching closer. Homelander considered swatting her like a fly. “If we get even a whiff that our way isn’t working, I’ll tell them you’re going on the stand, but- But-“

Don’t fucking say it.

“Please,” Ashley breathed. “You’re doing perfect, sir. You have enough on your plate. We can finish this, for you.”

Homelander shot her a look. She was flushed and pale, her wig starting to get askew, her eyes wide and flicking over his face, like he was some bomb she expected to go off.

He did have enough on his plate. He had more than they could possibly imagine. The world was a heavy thing, to carry, even with all his strength.

He didn’t bother to give Ashley an answer. She wasn’t worthy of any more words. He took off into the sky, leaving the roaring crowd behind and getting high enough that they couldn’t be heard.

The world was even bigger, that humans were able to fathom. But he could fathom it. He could see from the ocean to the deep woods, he could look over all of it and understand exactly what it needed. What all those people, smaller than ants, deserved. He was the judge. He was the jury. This trial wouldn’t matter, when they all saw that.

And everyone was going to see it.

And if they didn’t, well.

Ants were quite easy, to be stomped under larger feet.

There it was. That pretty woosh of air, that was William Butcher’s favorite sound in the world. It meant Homelander was out there. Meant he was close, and too stupid and arrogant to think to look down. He was going to cherish it, that last time he heard the sound. When it was a fall right into the ugly mud with the rest of them, and there was nothing to catch him. No one who cared enough to try. Just Butcher, waiting. Ready.

He’d be ready. He was always ready. And if Homelander looked down, he’d see it. Butcher would smile. He always smiled, when he thought of Homelander’s ugly face marred and bloody and twisted in pain.

One day.

One day he’d smile, and Homelander would be too fucking dead to smile back.

“We’re clear,” he jerked his head to MM and Kimiko, waiting behind him in the ally. “Let’s move it, cunts.”

Kimiko rolled her eyes, and marched past him with her tongue sticking out. Butcher made a face at the back of her head, and MM sighed.

“Y’know, maybe if you said please every once in a fuckin’ while-“

“Please is for schoolgirls and alter boys, Mate. You waitin’ for one, be my guest. I hear they got supe patrolin’ the alleys, take your chances with them.”

MM glared at him, and Butcher laughed. He clapped him on the shoulder, spun his crowbar in his hand, and walked after Kimiko. They stuck to the walls, as they slipped past the crowd outside the courthouse. Bunch of braindead sheep, screaming about the glory of their great leader and his fun little cape. Whatever kind of happy pills they were taking, to make them that fucking stupid, Butcher wanted one. What he wouldn’t give, to have an empty head and smile on his face.

“Hughie givin’ you anything on that new witness?” He muttered to MM, sighing when he shook his head. “The fuck’s the point of sittin’ in front of the box all day, if they ain’t gonna figure anythin’ out-“

“They’re worried, Butcher,” MM said flatly. “Hell, I’m worried. There’s no way this trial is clean, and if he wins-“

“He’s gonna win, MM. Don’t worry your pretty head ‘bout that.”

MM scowled, and Butcher held up a hand for silence. They were getting close to the backdoor. If they were going in and out, they had to be quiet. Vought got word they were sneaking around their computers, they’d get their heads mounted in Times Square like it was London fucking Bridge.

“I’m not worried,” MM hissed. “Hughie’s right, there’s video, this should be cut and fucking clean-“

“Never is, though. You know better than to think anythin’ else.” Butcher glanced down the alley to Kimiko, typing some shit on her phone. “Oi!”

She flipped him off, not looking up. Butcher shot MM an exasperated look, and only got a the fuck am I supposed to do about it shrug in return.

“You wanna give us a fuckin’ hand?” He called again, and Kimiko huffed, tucking her phone back in her jacket.

She marched over, kicked the door open, and gave Butcher one of those you’re welcome, dickhead looks. Butcher smirked in return.

“You textin’ Frenchie? Tellin’ him all about you day?”

Kimiko’s nose wrinkled in disgust, and she walked through the door without another look back. She was lucky she was useful, and more amusing than Butcher would ever admit. One of the better ones. A good tool, willing to do what it took.

She’d scored some extra favor, by agreeing to this. Butcher had been sure he was heading in alone, but MM had muttered something about not having the time to attend a funeral, and Kimiko had—according to Frenchie, although Butcher was pretty fucking sure that sometimes the man just lied about what she was saying—been open to looking for the Anomaly.

“She’d like to find someone, stronger than Homelander. And a woman,” Frenchie had smiled. “Girl power, no?”

Kimiko had signed something else, and Frenchie had nodded.

“She is hoping this one isn’t a Nazi.”

Butcher was hoping that too. Stormfront had been a pain in the ass to deal with. Whatever the Anomaly was, she’d have to be easier. Butcher imagined some angry cunt like Maeve, all teeth and sharp smiles and fisted hands. He’d tell her to get Homelander, and she would without blinking. Hell, even if she did have some psycho tendencies, all the better. More willing. Easier to control. 

Soldier Boy had been too far up his own little dick, to listen. That had been Butcher’s mistake, last time. Getting involved with someone who was self-righteous. The Anomaly wouldn’t be.

She better fucking not be. Or Butcher was going to have another Supe to kill, and the Boys were going give him their sad we told you so puppy faces. They were all already running around the city, trying something stupid and soft and downright fucking foolish. Talking about their feelings, thinking if they said please and got on their knees, someone would listen. They should know better by now. No one ever listened. If something was going to change, they had to do it with their own two, doomed, blood-caked hands.

“Butcher,” MM hissed behind him. “You’re tracking mud on the fucking floor-“

“They got maids to clean it up,” Butcher shrugged, and MM sighed, all dramatic and loud.

“You’re leaving tracks, asshole.”

Ah. Butcher looked over his shoulder, and he had, in fact, left a clean map of where he was walking. Oops.

He smiled at MM, though. No weakness. Everything was part of the plan, and when it wasn’t, yes, it was. “Then we better move fuckin’ fast, eh?”

MM looked like he was going to sock him, but he looked like that most days. It hadn’t bothered Butcher in years.

“You wanna kiss me, or keep your eye on the prize?”

MM shook his head, shouldering past him into. “You’re such a fucking dick.”

“Aww. Hurtin’ my feelings, mate. Here I was, thinkin’ we were about to go steady.”

MM ignored him, and Butcher laughed. That had always been something he loved about the man. The mission got done, dicking and twirling around or not.

Vought lawyers were just as arrogant as the people that paid them. They used public Wi-Fi, left their laptops unattended while they got coffee, and didn’t sweep their fancy meeting rooms for bugs. It wasn’t that hard to plant something that—if Hughie had done his job—would let them poke around in some poor cunt’s drive for the files they needed.

“I still think we should just ask Mallory for the Supe records,” MM muttered. “Vought has to register all of them, like guns-“

“And like guns, a few always slip between their tight little cracks.” Butcher examined the table. All it’s leather briefcases and sleek computers and-

He smirked. He was getting lucky today.

“That one,” he nodded to the head of the table. The computer with the Vought logo and ugly striped blazer over the back of the seat. “Put it in that one.”

Kimiko nodded, pulling the drive out of her pocket, and MM frowned.

“Butcher-“

“Vought logo. Ain’t a contractor.” Butcher shoved his hands in his pockets. “More than just a couple fuckin’ emails on that thing.”

MM sighed, but when Kimiko gave him a questioning look, he nodded. “Just- Do it.”

Butcher grinned, leaning out the door. It was quiet. Everyone was still out on the lawn, simpering and fawning over Vought.

“You think you’ll look for Ryan?”

Butcher’s head whipped back around. MM was staring at him, arms crossed over his chest, and Butcher narrowed his eyes. “Fuck you on about.”

“Ryan-“

“What about ‘im?”

MM shrugged, not even blinking. “That computer might have something on him.”

“Something on ‘im?” Butcher scoffed. “What, you think we’re gonna fuckin’ try to off him or something?”

“Jesus, Butcher, no-“

“I ain’t pokin’ around for info on the lad. He wants to talk, he can fly, just like his daddy.”

MM gave him one of those tired, almost pitying looks. Butcher tolerated them, from Hughie. From anyone else, he was seconds from throwing a punch.

“You got something you wanna say to me?” He spat, and MM just shook his head.

“Nope. Not a thing.”

Butcher grunted, looking back to the hall. This wasn’t therapy. Ryan had gone with Homelander. That had been his fucking choice, and Butcher wasn’t about to drag the kid back by his ear. Wasn’t even his fucking kid. It was Becca’s. Becca’s boy. No blood. Nothing to pull him back.

Just his smile. Always looked more like Becca’s than Homelanders. He’d talked like Becca, too. Laughed like Becca. Liked the same cereal and bounced on his feet like she used to.

He’d made a promise. Wasn’t much good, a promise did a dead person. He didn’t even have the means to protect Ryan. The boy wouldn’t be safe until he was away from Homelander. This was what would get Ryan safe. Ending this, once and for all.

Shoes sounded down the hall. MM stiffened, and Butcher looked to Kimiko.

“You think you wanna hurry it up, before we get turned into lawyer chow?”

Kimiko closed the laptop, stuck her tongue out at him, and gave MM a thumbs up.

“Done?” He said, clapping his hands when she nodded. “Alright. Let’s get the fuck outta here.”

 They walked out, but Butcher lingered. He looked at the crowbar in his hands. Heard his heartbeat in his ears, mixing in time with the clack of expensive heels and loafers. They could play spy, or he could just get what he needed out of their big mouths, quick and easy, bloody and fast-

“Butcher.” MM hissed. “Move.”

Butcher grit his jaw, and moved. He’d play nice, until they all realized what he already knew. What he’d known from the start.

This ended one way. This elevator only went down, and Butcher was already at the bottom. Waiting for them to catch up. Ready.

When he finally had his supe, to get Homelander on his knees, he was going to be fucking ready, whether he clawed out of the pit after or not.

Homelander pulled Ryan out of school. It wasn’t really school anyways, just some tutoring thing Vought had arranged. Homelander had thought about pushing against it—he’d never gone to any kind of school, and he’d turned out perfect—but Ryan had asked him not to. Something about liking learning, which was boring, and strange, but Homelander would allow it for now. He’d just spent too much time with his mother speaking Spanish and reading books. He’d grow out of it, once he was shown the better way. The good way.

“I got us ice cream,” he announced, pushing through the doors of his apartment. “And I got you a new ga ming… thingy.”

He swept a hand to the console he’d had marketing drop off. Ryan blinked at it, then Homelander.

“It’s a Voughtbox.” He prompted, when Ryan just kept staring at him. “Voughtbox six. It has more games and- Shiny buttons, and- I don’t fucking know. It’s the new one.”

Ryan nodded slowly, shifting in that nervous way Homelander was trying to work out of him. They weren’t babyish mortals who needed to be nervous. The Sun didn’t get nervous about the Earth. It didn’t even think about the Earth. And when the Earth got to cocky and close, the Sun would just fucking eat it.

Homelander opened his mouth to share that bit of wisdom—he was good at it, maybe he should write book—when Ryan finally managed to remember how to speak.

“Does it have a Kindle function?”

“A- What?!”

“Kindle. Or- Any e-book.” Ryan looked down to his shoes. “All my books are just- Vought stories now. I miss reading.”

“Books.” Homelander muttered, his jaw twitching. “You- You want books. All the things in the world in this tower and you want a book.”

“I- I’m sorry-“

“Don’t.” He pointed at Ryan firmly. “Say sorry. We don’t say sorry. We,” he gestured between them. “Are never sorry for anything. You- You want books, you get books. My son gets whatever he wants, even-“ His nose wrinkled, his voice dropping under his breath. “Weird, nerdy things.”

“Oh- Okay.” Ryan’s ears turned red, but a smile pulled on his face. “Thank you, Dad.”

Homelander’s shoulder relaxed. Dad. That was right. He was a father. He had to be patient, because that’s what parents did. Probably. He was working it out, but whatever his instinct was would end up being the right call. He’d thought about what he’d want from a father his whole life. It had prepared him for this. For being exactly what Ryan needed.

The only thing that was missing was a mother, but he’d tried. He’d really fucking tried, to bring Ryan a good, self-respecting, sweet mother. It would’ve been perfect.  

They’d be fine on their own. Homelander would mourn, and Ryan would never have to know what they’d lost. He still had a father. A good father. Was more than Homelander had ever gotten, so he should be fucking grateful.

“You’re welcome,” he said. “You are very welcome, Ryan. Let’s- Ice cream.”

 He clapped his hands together, and turned for the freezer. Ryan liked ice cream. At least that part of him wasn’t awkward and fucking weird.

“You going to open the Voughtbox?” Homelander asked while they ate. “I heard it has Hero-Fighter 5000.”

Ryan frowned. “What’s Hero-Fighter 5000?”

“I don’t know. I never played it,” Homelander shrugged. “I just remember that they made me do voices, for my character.”

Ryan’s eyes widened. “You have a character? In the game?”

“I have a character in every game.”

“That’s so cool.”

Homelander’s mouth ticked up, and he hummed in approval. Ryan smiled at him, with big, blue eyes. His eyes. Ryan was his son, of course he understood that was cool. Maybe Ryan was finally starting to see, how amazing and perfect their lives were when the ants didn’t get brave and bite at their ankles-

“Dad?” Ryan poked at his ice cream with his spoon. “Can I ask you something? Please?”

Homelander leaned back in his seat. “Of course. Anything, son.”

Ryan smiled again, a little smaller. Homelander returned it, raising his brows in question, and Ryan cleared his throat.

“What was my- My mom like? When you knew her?”

Homelander hand curled into a fist. He kept fucking asking this. Poking around it, trying to get Homelander to reminisce about some sort of love story that had never existed. As a woman, Becca Butcher had been next to nothing. Pretty and feisty and there. As a lover, Homelander had wanted her, and he’d gotten what he wanted, and it hadn’t even been that good. He hadn’t even thought about her again, until Butcher showed up, getting loud and dramatic about everything. As a mother, she’d been annoying, and breeding his son to be weak.

He’d never loved her. Ryan wanted him to have, though, he could see it in that soft, gooey part of the kids face that was still too human. He’d hoped Stormfront would’ve helped him understand that gods loved gods, before she’d been burnt to a crisp. But Homelander hadn’t loved Stormfront either. Not really. She’d been too much like Stillwell. Tricking him. Trying to control him.  

Homelander had only loved one woman. And you were gone.  

“Dad?” Ryan said softly, and Homelander blinked.

“What- Becca?” He laughed, loud and sharp. “Oh, we didn’t really know each other. Not really. I had fun- We both had fun,” he said quickly, at the confused look on Ryan’s face. “And of course she- She meant something to me. She gave me you,” he grabbed Ryan’s hand over the table, smiling wide. “And that is all that really matters.”

Ryan’s throat bobbed. He looked to Homelander’s hand over his, and slowly held it back. Homelander’s smile widened.

Progress-

“So you didn’t- Love her?” Ryan whispers, and Homelander jaw ticked. “Not like- Like Butcher-“

“Butcher doesn’t know how to love anything,” Homelander spat. “Not you, not heroes, certainly not a- a woman. The woman I loved, he never could’ve-“

“The woman you loved?” Ryan cut him off, and Homelander went rigid.

 There was a ringing in his ears. A loud, loud ringing that was turning into slow music. There was a sweet smell and glowing haze, your sharp eyes that fawned and batted and the coyest, prettiest smile he’d ever seen. Hair blowing in the wind and a shy, endearing bow of a slender neck. It fit like it was meant to be in his hand. Your voice blended with the music. You fought him before getting on your knees, then watched him like he was the only star in the sky as he grinned down on you.  

The counter cracked. Homelander’s fist had gone right through it.

Ryan winced and leaned back, but Homelander yanked him forward with their hands locked together.

“Let’s play Hero-Fighter 5000,” he said firmly. “Now.”

Ryan nodded, and Homelander smiled. He guided them to the couch, never letting go of his sons elbow.

He wasn’t going to let anyone else go.

“I’ve known Homelander forever, bro.” The Deep stuck out his chest, grinning around the courtroom. “Give me that Bible back, I’ll swear on it again-“

“That is not how it works, Mr. Moskowitz,” the Judge said. “As we have told you, many times.”

“Well, I’ve told you not to call me that, and you keep doing it anyways-“

“It is your name, in the eyes of the law. Please answer Mr. Goodman’s question.”

“Ugh.” The Deep rolled his eyes, looking back to the seedy, thin Vought lawyer in front of him. “What am I supposed to be answering again?”

A-Train slumped in his seat, fighting the sigh pushing up his throat. “Does Homelander have violent tendencies,” he said under his breath. “The question is does Homelander have violent fucking tendencies-“

“Stop muttering,” Ashley hissed, shoving his arm. “It’s rude.”

A-Train gave her a flat look. She still had that crazed, stiff look of focus, that she wore in meetings about new brand pitches and everyone’s various fuck ups. Like she wanted to tear out her how eyes but couldn’t bring herself to look away from the car crash. Like she thought the train barreling off the cliff might suddenly just grow wings and fly back to the track.

“You can’t seriously think this is working,” A-Train said, and she shot him a tight glare.

“I think he’s doing his best-“

“His best is shit-“

“Well it’s all we fucking have, okay? Unless you want to get up there and talk about how good and generous a person-"

“Ashley.” A-Train sat a little taller, glancing over his shoulder.

He wasn’t here. He’d fucked off to hang out with his kid, and he probably wasn’t going to be back for the day. He hated these things—more than the rest of them, probably, which was a real feat because they were soul-draining and mind numbing—and liked to leave everyone else to suffer through them without him. Even though it was his fault. A-Train hadn’t killed that Starlighter. He hadn’t even been around when it happened, and somehow he was the one stuck in this stupid courthouse, listening to the Deep test the limits of perjury.”

“We’re best friends,” he was telling the jury, that big, white-toothed smile on his face. “Homelander and I, we go way back-“

“We have established,” Goodman muttered, running a hand over his face. “That you and Homelander go way back. Could you please tell me if he has violent tendencies.”

“Right. Sorry, bro, I just-“ He waved a hand at his head. “I keep forgetting. Probably not sleeping enough, you know. I’ve been trying these melatonin gummies, but they might be the ones laced with weed- Not that I smoke weed,” he looked at the judge with wide eyes. “And- If I do- I’m not the one on trial right now-“

“Mr. Moskowitz,” Goodman snapped. “Does Homelander have violent tendencies.”

“Um….”

The Deep looked at Ashley. She shook her head frantically, turning it into fixing her hair when the judge followed the Deep’s gaze.

“No!” The Deep said confidently, and Ashley almost seemed to shudder in relief.

“Nice one,” A-Train muttered, and she flipped him off under the bench.

“Shut up,” she tugged her phone out of her pants pocket, eyeing the bailiff. She’d already been yelled at about phones in the courtroom five times.

“Where’s your blazer?” A-Train frowned. “I’ve never seen you without one, it’s like a- A naked turtle-“

“All turtles are naked, asshole,” she muttered. “I left it in the meeting room, it’s too hot in here, and- Where the fuck is Homelander? He was supposed to be back for this, a character witness doesn’t work if he’s not here, he has to show that they’re actually friends-“’

“They’re not actually friends.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t matter, he doesn’t even have to touch Deep, he just- He said he’d be here-“

“Ashley, it’s fine.” A-Train shrugged. It was actually pretty nice to not have Homelander here. The whole room didn’t feel like a bomb, about to go off. “We’re winning right now-“

“Are we?!” She hissed, voice rising to more than a whisper. “Are you sure we’re winning? Because we have to be sure we’re winning, we- We have to win- You don’t understand what happens if we don’t win-“

A-Train leaned back a little. She was spitting on him again. “Jesus, calm down-“

“No, you calm down-“

“We’re going to win, we always win-“

“Until we don’t,” Ashley hissed. “What the fuck happens when we don’t?”

A-Train blinked. He didn’t think about that, ever. It wasn’t something that needed to be thought about. That was one of the things that kept him here, even when everything felt like chains wrapping around his bones. They had the money, they had the people, they had everything. They always won. A few loud dissenters like Annie and Hughie and their little gang were nothing, compared to the might of the empire.

They had to win. That was just how it worked. So A-Train stayed on the winning side.

“I have to go get him,” Ashley muttered. “I- I have to. Stay here.”

She slipped out of the courtroom, and A-Train slumped back into his seat.

Stay here.

Like he had a fucking choice.

Hughie’s knee was bouncing. Annie put a gentle hand on it, and gave him a smile.

“It’s going to be fine,” she said softly, and Hughie nodded.

“Right- Right. It’s going to be fine.”

Annie wished, in the very delicate fibers of her heart, that either of them sounded convincing at all.

This plan wasn’t their best, but she’d learned after a few months of working with the Boys that when Hughie had sheepishly told her this plan isn’t our best, okay, he’d been a liar. These people didn’t have best and worst plans. They had plans that were either going to get them all killed, or plans that should get them all killed, but somehow didn’t.

Annie really hoped this was one of those last plans. Especially because she’d come up with it, and if she had to go back to Butcher with head down and Hughie’s limp body in her arms, she might as well just turn herself into Homelander.

She’d thought she’d be good at this. She thought that she’d come in and show them the right way to do things, and then they’d do them, and everything would go back to being fine. But everything was in shades of gray that she couldn’t turn white, and it was complicated and difficult and exhausting.

Which didn’t mean she’d give up. But she also wasn’t going to tell Butcher he was right. Giving up would come before that.

No one was worried enough, for Annie’s tastes. About Butcher’s infatuation with the Anomaly. At least with Soldier Boy, Annie had MM in her corner. But now he was off chasing ghosts, and she was stuck with Hughie and Frenchie.

Not stuck with. She loved Hughie, and Frenchie could be fun. She needed them both, if this was going to work. Just like they needed her, if it went sideways. Not that she’d be able to do much. 

“Do you think they’re going to find anything,” Hughie mumbled, eyeing the door. “Or- You know. Another dead end.”

Annie shrugged, letting out a slow breath. “I don’t know. I just- I hope that if she is real, Butcher’s right. And it’s different.”

Hughie gave her a confused look. “Different like…”

“Not like another weapon.”

“Oh.” Hughie nodded slowly. “You think she’ll be like- a pacifist or something? I- I don’t think supes are pacifist - You’re not a pacifist-“

“I’m careful.” Annie said smoothly. “And I don’t hurt people.”

Hughie hummed, and she squeezed his knee.

“It doesn’t matter, Hughie. This is going to work.”

Annie needed to practice her convincing voice in the mirror. She’d been so good at it, when she was lying to a camera. But Hughie, with his big, trusting, puppy eyes and affectionate smile, it was harder. She wondered sometimes, if he was disappointed in how bad a liar she was too. If he’d noticed how quiet and dim she’d been lately, and was getting sick of it. Getting sick of her.

“You’re right,” he squeezed her hand, and she felt a little sick. “It’s a good plan, Annie. It’ll work.”

Annie smiled, and it hurt her cheeks. Hughie had always been a much better liar.

“Any word from Butcher?” Hughie asked Frenchie, who hummed, drumming his fingers on the wheel.

“Non. Which is either very good, or-“

“Very, very bad.” Hughie ran a hand over his face. “Can you text MM? Make sure they haven’t- I don’t know. Been kidnapped?”

Frenchie nodded, pulling out his phone, right as Hughie’s buzzed.

“Oh- Shit,” he glanced up at Annie. “It’s her, I have to-“

“It’s okay. Go.”

Annie scooted back, making room for him to move past. Hughie kissed her cheek before he went, and Annie caught his arm.

“Be careful.”

“I will be.” Hughie smiled tightly. He shifted on his feet. “She won’t hurt me. I- She won’t.”

Annie nodded, and let him go. He was less convincing that time.

“MM says they’re still alive,” Frenchie told her, after a few minutes of the van being empty. Annie nodded, pressing her lips in a tight line.

The silence was sticky. It pressed on her chest and wound in her stomach, tighter than she knew how to handle. Frenchie had lit up a cigarette and opened the window, and she watched the smoke fade into nothing. Careless. Free. Must be nice.

“Why didn’t you go with them?” She asked Frenchie, and he tilted his head, pulling the cigarette out of his mouth. 

“Why didn’t you?”

“I don’t want to use Butcher’s weapon.”

“Ah. Wise.” Frenchie huffed, something close to amusement. “He is not good at controlling them, ever.”

Annie hummed in agreement, looking down at her shoes and pulling at the laces. Hughie was taking too long, maybe she should-

“I’d like less people,” Frenchie said suddenly. “To… Be hurt.” He met her gaze in the mirror, something tired in his voice that reached his eyes. “It is getting hard, isn’t it. To clean up all the blood.”

It was. A lot of things were getting very, very hard. 

“Do you miss it?” Frenchie asked. “Not knowing what a human bone looked like?”

Annie swallowed, and nodded. “Every day.”

Frenchie nodded, putting out his cigarette on the window, and the door swung open. 

“Sorry that took so long- Oh, Jesus.” Hughie pinched his nose, climbing back into the vehicle. “Frenchie, were you smoking in here again?”

“Non?”

“No-“ Hughie huffed, giving Frenchie an exasperated expression—hands on his hips and face loose—that made him look like a disappointed mother. “It’s still in your hand, dude.”

Frenchie flicked it out the window, and gave Hughie a winning smile. Hughie ran a hand through his hair and sighed.

“You know what, whatever.” He stepped to the side. “I found her.”

Victoria Neuman rolled her eyes, stepping past him into the van. “Found me,” she scoffed. “He got lost. I found him.” She smiled at Annie. “Hey. Long time, no see. You guys- You’re always avoiding me. It’s actually pretty rude.”

Annnie returned the smile, and it felt cold on her face. “Sorry, we’ve been busy-“

“No, you haven’t been. You’re afraid, I get it- It’s just-“ She looked between Annie and Hughie with a long sigh. “You two. Of all people. I thought you’d get it.”

“Well, we- We didn’t-“ Hughie shot Annie a nervous look, and she gave him a what am I supposed to do look. She wasn’t friends with Neuman. Hughie was. He was the one who believed she’d be helpful.

Annie wondered sometimes, against her will, if Hughie would still believe in her if she turned into something darker than she was supposed to be. If his kindness and hope would extend to her, if she stopped being the light.

“Oh- We don’t have time for this. I’m on a schedule.” Neuman sat down on the van bench, then froze. She looked down at her hand, horror creeping over her face. “Is this sticky?”

“Um- Yeah.” Hughie grimaced. “Please don’t ask why, because I don’t know.”

Neuman blinked at him for a second, mouth open and brows knit. She looked at Annie, then Frenchie, and let out a sharp breath.

“Jesus,” she glanced over her shoulder, leaning slowly back. “You people- How are you still alive?”

“We’re not sure,” Hughie mumbled, fidgeting with his sleeves. “Listen, Vicki, we really appreciate you meeting with us-“

“Yeah, I know you do. You want to actually tell me what I’m doing here?”

Hughie looked at Annie, and she just nodded. Neuman wasn’t her friend.

“We were hoping,” Hughie said slowly. “That you might have something that could help us? With taking down Homelander?”

Neuman snorted. She grinned at him, then Annie, then paused. Her smile twitched down. She blinked, shook her head, and laughed again. “You- You’re fucking serious.”

“We’re at a dead end,” Annie said, leaning forward. “And we know it’s a big ask, but you know how dangerous he is-“

“Yeah, I know how dangerous he is!” Neuman’s voice raised to something harsh. “Do you think I’m stupid? Do you think I’ve just- Had a way to kill him this whole time and just not used it?”

 Frenchie hummed, giving her a pointed look. “You did work with him, no? To send away your own father-“

“I didn’t have a choice,” Neuman snapped. “He- He was threatening my-“ She held up a hand, as if to physically stop herself. “You know what, no. I don’t have to explain myself to a bunch of- Unemployed idiots-“

“Technically we still work for the CIA-“

“Do you?!” Neuman rolled her eyes. “You could’ve fooled me, with how you’re dressed and- Smell, and-“ She looked around the van. “This.”

Hughie’s ears turned red. “Well, they- They’ve never really paid us a lot.”

“No shit. They must really value your services-“

“Vicki, please,” Annie said, pressing her hands together and trying not to balk under Neuman’s gaze. They were both supes. Annie was no less, than the shaper, cleaner woman across from her.

She needed to get better at lying to herself, too.

“We just need anything,” she tried to keep her voice steady. Like delivering lines. She was just delivering lines. “Anything you can give us at all, no matter how small. If you really want him gone, just- Just this once. Not for us,” she paused, watching Neuman carefully. “For Zoe.”

Neuman sat taller. A strange shadow crossed her face, and her fingers flexed on her phone. She sighed, looked up to the ceiling, and shook her head.

“You people are like- Like fucking ants,” she said. “You just- You keep coming back.”

“Oh,” Frenchie tipped his head. “That is good, I am going to use that-“

“Shut up.”

He swallowed, and nodded quickly. Neuman let out a slow breath, her tongue flicking over her lips, and a taut smile pushed at her lips.

“Tell you what,” she sat up, adjusting her coat. “I’ll give you a little snack to- To fucking choke or whatever, and you leave me alone. You leave my daughter alone, and you don’t tell anyone I told you. Deal?”

Annie’s throat was tight. She exchanged looks with Hughie and Frenchie, and got tiny, reluctant nods in return. What other choice did they have. Annie looked back to Neuman, opened her mouth, and-

“Can we tell Butcher?” Frenchie asked, frowning at the air. “And Kimiko, and-“

“Obviously you can fucking tell your team,” Neuman snapped. “It would be insane if you didn’t.”

Frenchie shrugged, slumping fully over his seat and raising his hands, palms up. “I was only checking. No need to pop any heads.”

Neuman’s eyes narrowed. Annie quickly cleared her throat.

“We won’t tell anyone else. We promise, just- Anything.”

Neuman’s mouth worked. She drummed her fingers, looking around like she was expecting cameras, and for a second, Annie thought she wasn’t going to say anything at all.

When she did speak, it was quiet. Slow. Careful.

“About three years ago,” she murmured. “Stan- He asked me to bury something. And I mean really bury it. Kill even the thought of an investigation, any kind of evidence, any story- All of it. Not a word, even in their own heads. That’s what he said.”

Hughie swallowed, crossing his arms. “What- Was it like flight 37? Or-“ He went pallid, as Neuman’s jaw tightened, her eyes getting almost sad. “What? Worse?”

“I- I don’t know.” Neuman sighed. “When he came to me, I expected that. I- I expected Herogasm, I was ready to clean up a massacre, a disaster, a- a fucking nightmare. But-“ She shook her head, her voice getting quieter. “It was just one girl.”

Silence hung in the van. The lump in Annie’s throat was like a rock, and it was sinking down to her stomach. None of them seemed brave enough to speak, even Frenchie’s mouth in a thin, worried line.

Neuman breathed your name, brows knitting tight. “Twenty-four. Smart girl. PhD candidate, actually. Saw a picture- Pretty. Really pretty.”

The rock hit Annie’s gut, and the bile of her lunch was pushed up her throat.

“Official story- The one Stan gave me, to make official, was that she killed herself. And I- I don’t know what actually happened, he didn’t’ tell me, but-“ Neuman swallowed. “I know the night before she vanished- A few weeks before Stan came to me- She was at a Vought party. A few people- They saw him near her. And they won’t remember now, but if… If there’s anything…”

She trailed off, and Hughie swallowed, his words tight and choked.

“The trial. If Homelander, if- he-“ He looked to Annie. “That’s- If it is that, and we can prove it-“

“But that is what happened with Becca, no?” Frenchie cut in. “We could use Becca-“

“No,” Hughie shook his head. “Ryan. And- Butcher would never let us. But, this girl-“ Hughie’s voice wavered. “Is she dead?”

"Is she dead?”

“Legally? Completely.” Neuman straightened her jacket, moving to her feet. “But that’s all I know. The rest is-“ She smiled between them. “All you. Good luck. Try not to die.”

She smiled at Hughie, before she left. Nodded at Annie. 

But Annie’s head was spinning. Her vision was blurred, and she was still fighting that vomit. A girl. A dead girl. That was all Neuman could offer them. And Annie-

She wasn’t even shocked anymore. Just sick, and tired, and frozen.

She couldn’t bring herself to nod back.

When Butcher was angry, he got loud. Kimiko hated it. It was like the bark of the war dogs, right into her skull.

They’d been in this bathroom for almost two hours. MM was on his phone, watching the trial coverage with the subtitles. He’d turn it to Kimiko, when she leaned closer. Butcher had been ignoring them both, leering at the laptop and slamming on keys. Hughie said that never made computers work faster. Butcher never seemed to care.

“Fuckin’- Fuckin’ hell,” Butcher hissed, slapping the tilted back screen. “They got files on files ‘bout supes who can grow their nails and shit glitter, but not a single mention of a supe stronger than Homelander?”

Kimiko would think that was on purpose. If she had a secret weapon to kill her other weapon, she wouldn’t keep information about it on a laptop. She looked at MM and his pinched expression, and wondered if he thought the same thing. If he did, he wasn’t saying anything. If Kimiko could get words out, she’d be saying so very many things to Butcher all the time. She didn’t understand how the rest of them didn’t, sometimes.

“Maybe she doesn’t exist, Butcher,” MM muttered, and Butcher’s lip curled.

“Nah. That ain’t it.”

MM glanced up, face heavy with exhaustion. “Man, come on-“

“She’s out there,” Butcher snapped, slamming on the laptop again. “Somewhere. Fuckin’- Somewhere, there’s somethin’- They’re just- Hidin’ it-“

“Or we should stop wasting time, and look for other options-“

“I swear to the fuckin’ lord and his sweet little bloody lamb,” Butcher hissed, everything on his face filled with venom. “You mention other options again, I’m smashin’ your precious phone through the wall and flushin’ the pieces down the toilet.”

MM didn’t look impressed. None of them ever were anymore, expect maybe Hughie. But they backed off. They always backed off with sighs and annoyed grunts. Kimiko glared at Butcher. She wouldn’t back off. He was wasting everyone’s time, looking for another supe to try and control, and it made something in her chest burn.

“Don’t gimme that look,” Butcher said, shooting her a smirk. “Frenchie’ll start gettin’ jealous.”

She flipped him off. It was the best thing she’d ever learned how to do. There was a lot of white-hot, atomic fury—the kind that swirled in her chest and tightened her muscles and made it hard to breathe sometimes—that she could put into the gestures. And Butcher never flinched, but his lips twitched and he took the tiniest step back. He thought she didn’t see it. She always did.

“I think they put the Deep on the stand,” MM muttered, peering at his screen. “Either means their floundering, or they’re just- Real fuckin’ confident.”

“That one,” Butcher grunted. “The don’t flounder. Not with their million dollar floaties.”

MM sighed, rubbing his jaw, and Kimiko raised her brows. She didn’t understand how American trials worked. Frenchie had tried to explain it to her, but it had all been very confusing and contradictory. Couldn’t be that good a system anyway, if they had to spend months figuring out that Vought was evil.

Frenchie said it was more complicated than that. Kimiko didn’t think it should be. It was one of those things she found herself agreeing with Butcher about, which was always sticky and crawling on her skin. 

She tapped MM’s shoulder, and nodded to the door. They were on the floor of the big stall of the men’s room, because Butcher said Men didn’t shit in public. Kimiko believed that. She was starting to think men just swallowed all their shit, and then spewed it back out their throat with words.

Maybe she should try that, to speak.

No, too gross.

MM gave her a questioning look, and she sighed, cupping her hands and pretending to drink from them.

“Ah.” He glanced at Butcher, still glowering at the screen. “Be fast.”

Kimiko nodded, and bounced off the toilet. She didn’t really need a drink. The area was just starting to smell like sweat and salt and spit, and it reminded her of wet, toxic gasses that used to sting her nose. She slipped into the women’s room and washed her hands, keeping an ear on the hallway. Everyone should be in the trial. She’d be fine, just stretching a bit. Fixing her hair, her jacket, using the lip gloss Annie gave her.

She liked it. She liked having Annie around—and her lip gloss, and knowledge of reality television, the best thing America had to offer—even if she seemed very concerned every time Kimiko came into the office with blood on her knuckles.

“We don’t have to do it like this, you know,” she’d said last time, touching Kimiko’s shoulder like they were both made of glass. “You don’t have to do it like this.”

Kimiko had smiled, but known those were the words of a woman who had been in the light for so much of her life, it took the shadows creeping over her skin for her to notice the dark. Kimiko would like there to be another way. She’d like to be made of glass, if they didn’t like in a world where anything weaker than concrete broke.

At least the lip gloss made her mouth shiny. That was a little bit of light she’d never been able to have to herself.

Heels clacked in the hallway, and Kimiko’s head shot up. She grabbed the sink, ready to rip it off and throw it and run. The door pushed open.

“I don’t care that you don’t know where he is, I don’t pay you to just- Think about it and give up, you have to find him.” The red-headed Vought lady marched into the bathroom, and Kimiko froze, grip on the sink tightening. “No- No- Don’t guess. Look. I swear to God, Tyler, if you say the Tower one more time-“

The lady’s looked at Kimiko, as if she trying to share the exasperation. Then she looked away. Kimiko blinked. Her grip slacked.

The lady froze. She looked back, eyes slowly getting wider and wider. A strangled sound escaped her throat, and her phone clattered to the tile.

“Holy- Holy- Fuck no-“

She turned back to the door, heels clacking, and Kimiko lunged.

The woman was bigger than her, but felt small in her hands. She went down easy, but screamed and kicked her way into the men’s room. It was pretty rude, in Kimiko’s opinion. She could’ve just killed her, but she was very nice and Hughie said killing was bad.

Butcher and MM stared at her, when she presented the lady. Butcher mouth curved into that crude, kind of ugly smirk. MM grabbed the bar against the wall to stay up right.

“Where the fuck did you find her?”

Kimiko shrugged vaguely. It didn’t really matter. They had her now.

“Motherfuckin’- This means we have to go-“

“Ah, hold on,” Butcher closed the laptop, taking a slow step forward. “Not so fast now. This is a gift, mate. Let’s not be idiot cunts and throw it back.”

MM crossed his arms, giving Butcher a flat look. “How the fuck is this,” he jerked his head at Ashley, who had started to tremble like a baby. “A gift.”

“Good question,” Butcher said, almost alight with glee. “Guess who’s computer I’ve got, livestreamin’ right into ours?”

Ashley went almost limp, a weak sound escaping her throat. MM’s jaw ticked.

“You- Fucker.” He turned to Ashley. “No screaming, alright? Or she snaps your neck. Got it?”

Ashley glanced back at Kimiko, and she tried to give her a reassuring smile. No necks would be snapped. She’d just knock her out a little.

She probably needed to work on her smile more. Ashley made a sound like a cornered animal, and nodded frantically to MM. He nodded at Kimiko, and she let her hand go from Ashley’s mouth.

“Oh- Oh fuck-“ Ashley coughed, glaring around the bathroom stall. She was still shaking in Kimiko’s grip. “You- You psycho’s, you’re going to get us all killed-“

“Awww,” Butcher drawled. “You’re worried about us, ain’t that sweet. We’re worried ‘bout you too.”

 “I- I’m not-“ Ashley swallowed, hands pressing against Kimiko uselessly. “You- You’re going to kill me-“

“Not yet-“

“Butcher,” MM grunted, and Butcher chuckled.

“I’m just bein’ honest with the lass, ain’t my fault she sided herself with the blood suckin’ cunt team-“

“You’re the blood sucker’s,” Ashley spat. “At least I don’t actually hurt people-“

“Yeah, you just get out the fuckin’ Mr. Clean and scrub the street when your moneybags do-“

“Hey,” MM clapped his hands. “Focus. They’ll notice she’d missing, Butcher. Ask her what you want, or we need to start running, now.”

Butcher’s smile tightened—it reminded Kimiko of Kenji, when she told him to stop playing with his toys before dinner—and he sighed, shoving his hands in his pockets. He looked Ashely up and down, titled his head, and took another step forward. Kimiko could smell that fruity vodka he’d always used as perfume. Sickly sweet and stifling.

“Tell us every fuckin’ thing you now,” Butcher hissed. “’Bout a supe called the Anomaly.”

Ashley paused. Her heart stuttered under Kimiko’s hands, and for a second, she thought Butcher might’ve been right the whole time. Ashley was going to tell them where to look. They’d be given the weapon, they’d have the way out, this could be over-

“The what?”

MM sighed. Butcher stiffened.

“The Anomaly,” he spat. “Vought secret, female supe, powers bigger than Homelander-“

Ashley laughed nervously. “Are you crazy? There- There’s no one stronger than Homelander for- For fucks sake, Vought designed him to be unstoppable, he’s unstoppable-“

“Everything is stoppable when you got the machinery, love,” Butcher sneered. “And I don’t know what you think is happenin’ right now, but company secrets ain’t gonna matter when we smash your head through this fuckin’ wall-“

“What secrets!” Ashley shrieked, her heart pounding. Kimiko could almost hear it in her own skull. “There- There are no secrets, there are no secrets-“

“Don’t you fuckin’ lie, you Vought suckin’ little cunt-“

“Butcher,” MM grabbed his shoulder, his grip on his phone making his wrist flex. “Just- Look.”

He shoved his phone under Butcher’s nose, and Butcher paused. His eyes narrowed on the screen. He grabbed the screen, eyes darting back and forth.

“Hm,” Butcher grunted. “You really trust-“

“It’s from Annie.”

Butcher’s jaw ticked. “Well, if it’s real, it ain’t enough-“

“But it’s something. And-“ MM glanced at Ashley. “Even this Anomaly thing is real, they clearly don’t tell her fucking shit.”

Ashley’s face fell,  and Kimiko smiled. She’d laugh if she could.

“They- They tell me things- I’m the CEO-“

“You really think braggin’ about your clearance to us is gonna help you right now?” MM said, and Ashley swallowed. Kimiko didn’t know someone could be that pale, and she hung out with Hughie all the time.

“We’ll- Bloody hell,” Butcher shoved the phone back to MM. “Let’s get eyes on that shit, but- I ain’t givin’ this up-“

“I know you’re not.” MM muttered. “You stubborn fucking bastard.”

Butcher smiled and spread his arms. “Hey, you don’t love me for my pretty face.”

MM rolled his eyes, and jerked his head at Kimiko. “Let her go.”

Butcher stiffened. “Now, hold on-“

Kimiko held Butcher’s gaze as he raised a hand to stop her, and let go of Ashley.

She stumbled forward, right up to Butcher’s chest. His eyes narrowed. He lurched forward, and Kimiko almost dived forward. She didn’t like Ashley, but she liked her clothing and didn’t want to burn it to hide another murder, and she was really trying to murder less overall-

Ashley scrambled back. She hit the sink next to Kimiko, breathing fast and shallow like a deer. Butcher’s sneer curled, eyes glinting, and Ashley made a weak sound. She turned, and sprinted out the door. MM caught Butcher’s arm before he could follow.

“Not worth it.”

Butcher grunted, but didn’t look like he agreed. That dark, predatory look turned to Kimiko, but she didn’t flinch. She’d been on the other side of it too many times to care anymore.

“Let’s move,” MM said, and they did. The laptop got smashed. They slipped out the bathroom window, and took off.

MM gave Kimiko his phone in the car. She pulled her knees up to her chest, and scanned over the screen. Something, MM had called it. But Butcher was right. It didn’t seem like enough.

What was another victim, in a world built on bodies. Not much. Never much. All that usually remained was anger. Anger like hers. Like Butchers. He was still glaring Kimiko her in the mirror, but she didn’t get afraid of things. Not anymore. Not the way Butcher seemed to want her to. The wrath of a war dog scared her as a child. Now it was just an annoying sound, as the anger built and built and built in her own chest. She wouldn’t bite on his word. She wouldn’t do anything on his word. Not when she was made of so much anger it pushed her eyes open at night, and Butcher—filled with so much more wrath, she sometimes saw it simmering off his skin—seemed to be filled with more.

Homelander waited until the sun was down. Ryan had gone to bed, and he was an impossibly obedient child. He was supposed to ask to stay up late, instead of just agreeing. Homelander had even offered another ten minutes—for them to be together, to bond, to make up for all that time Becca Butcher had stolen from them—and Ryan had refused it.

“I- I think I’m tired,” he’d said, yawning wide. Homelander had almost rolled his eyes. The yawn was overkill, as if Ryan didn’t think he’d believe him.

But Homelander hadn’t pushed. He’d have other ways, later, to test if Ryan was still harboring some kind of secret hatred. If he was just waiting for the right moment to stab Homelander in the back, like everyone else had before him. He’d remind Ryan in the morning, that they were family. A real family. Blood. Homelander made Ryan, and they had the same V running through their veins, and there was nothing—fucking nothing—that meant more than that.

He hovered in the air, outside the red-brick building. His cape was supposed to catch the wind, but there wasn’t enough of it. The lights of the city didn’t reach this part of town, and Homelander liked it like that. Everything that glowed was his. His empire, his legacy, his world. Everywhere humans—real, meat and bone humans that bowed like sheep to the wolf—were, was Homelander’s.

This place was all rats and sewage in the streets. Of course, it belonged to Butcher.

A light flicked on in the apartment, and Homelander adjusted his gloved. That goddamn speck still hadn’t come off, but he’d make it. His will wasn’t about to be defeated by a bit of fucking dirt.

He landed on the fire escape, his hands behind his back, and waited. Butcher let his shoulders slump, when he was alone. His features etched in exhaustion, his shirt unbuttoned and hands slower than Homelander ever saw, anywhere else.

Butcher started boiling water, probably for tea.Homelander huffed. British people.

“You waitin’ for me slip into somethin’ for you?” Butcher said, not looking away from the stove. “Or are you comin’ in?”

Homelander’s jaw ticked. He slid open the window and ducked inside, trying to keep his spine as straight as possible. “You look,” he looked Butcher up and down. “Tired.”

Butcher grunted, and didn’t answer. Homelander scowled, bracing his hands on his hips.

“How do I look?”

“Like a cunt.”

Butcher hadn’t even looked up. Homelander shifted on his feet and cleared his throat, and still nothing.

“You know, I haven’t seen you and your little team in a while,” he started. “I’m starting to think you’ve given up on killing me, William. Which isn’t very nice of you, we made each other promises.”

Butcher’s lips twitched. Homelander leaned around, trying to figure out what the fuck that smug, bored expression meant.

“Do you have something for me soon? Is it a surprise? If it’s a surprise, you have to tell me.”

Butcher gave him another strange look, eyes gleaming like coal in the dark. Cold and heavy but—if scratch and sparked right, the way Homelander was fucking trying to do—dangerous and bright.

“If it’s a surprise,” Homelander said. “Don’t say anything-“

“Ah,” Butcher grinned, brows raised, and said your name. “Who’s she?”

Homelander stumbled back. The words settled into his chest like shrapnel, aching and ripping at his heart. He’d never heard her name aloud. Not from another mouth. From Butcher’s mouth. The pain curled. It rubbed against the steel of his ribs and burned.

“What.” Homelander kept his voice slow and cold. All the heat was building in his chest. Behind his eyes. Butcher wasn’t allowed to see it. She’d been too elegant, too holy, too sacred, for Butcher’s dirty fucking hands to touch.”

Butcher repeated your name, crossing his arms and leaning back against the counter. “Young girl. ‘Bout mid-twenties, real fuckin’ knockout, even in just a pervy photo.” Butcher whistled, and Homelander grinded his teeth.

He didn’t know what the fuck he what the fuck he was talking about, he didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about, he didn’t know what the fuck-

“You heard of her?” Butcher asked, and Homelander swallowed. He didn’t let his face twitch, didn’t let his legs move back.

Steam was pouring out of the kettle, fanning around Butcher’s smirk. He was stronger than this. Stronger than Butcher’s mind games. Stronger than the shriek of the kettle in his ears, the ghost in his skull, the sound of her name.

“Who? Nike?” He scoffed. “I don’t know every supe on the planet, Butcher, that’s- It’s very bigoted of you to assume-“

Butcher cut him off with your name again, grabbing a mug from his sink without breaking Homelander’s gaze, and Homelander rolled his eyes.

“Whatever, that’s still- I expected better-“

“Never said she was a supe, either.” Butcher hummed, reaching for the kettle. “What kinda powers she got?”

Homelander took a long, slow breath through his nose. He’d come here to have fun. To distract himself, with something that mattered even less than this stupid trial. And Butcher- Butcher wasn’t playing nice.

But he was still asking. Homelander shoved down the thick, smoldering anger Butcher had dragged from the base of his neck. He stretched it out, nose twitching, and didn’t entertain this. Butcher just knew a name. Anyone could know a name. If he knew everything—if he knew what she’d been, what she’d meant—he’d be saying that. He’d be aiming for Homelander’s heart, not his throat.

“Ryan’s asking about his mother.” Homelander said, and Butcher stopped pouring his tea. “He wants to know if I loved her.”

Butcher looked up slowly, and Homelander smiled.

There it was. That hatred. That burning flame that they shared, that was going to consume the world. And when Homelander stood in the ashes alone, he’d miss it. He’d miss them.

“I tell him the truth, of course. Becca was just- a fling to me. Nothing real. You’re the one she really loved, for-“ His nose wrinkled. “Some reason.”

Butcher wasn’t moving. His heartbeat was slower than a turtle, but that was something Homelander had always admired about him. The anger. How it outweighed the fear, just like him.  

“I think I should be going, before you break your jaw brooding all over me,” he waved, taking a step back to the window. “Don’t wait up for me, tomorrow. And- Remember. I’d like the surprise.”

And Butcher’s lips curled back up. And Homelander froze.

“Trust me,” Butcher said, low enough that only Homelander would ever be able to hear. “We got one.”

Homelander laughed and nodded and waved it off, but he couldn’t hear his own dismissal and mockery. Not over the whistle of the kettle, although the steam had stopped minutes ago. When he stepped out into the fire escape, it wasn’t even drowned out by the wind. And when he flew and flew and flew, it only got louder and louder. Instruments swelled behind it. Strings and the clash of cymbals and the croon of an angel. A glowing angel.

His glowing angel. Higher in the clouds than he could reach, now. Than anyone could.

Homelander landed in a crater of ash, far in the upstate of New York. There wasn’t a living thing for miles, to see him staring with hollow eyes at the wreckage. Any bit of the burned rubble could be her bones. That pressure, that boiling wrath, it pushed up Homelander’s throat. His eyes flickered and his hands curled and uncurled and his breathing turned short.

The roar split the sky, and red beams of light carved into the already dead ground. The world didn’t move. Didn’t care. The ground should be shaking, it should be afraid, Homelander had lost and so the world should be afraid, should be blooming with new offerings, new songbirds, new angels. But it didn’t understand.

It would. Homelander would make sure it did, and then he’d have it. Everything that was left, he’d have it all.  

A bit of ash, floated up and landed on the lapel of his suit. He brushed it off, but didn’t look back to see that it stuck. He flew back to the tower, with it graying into his suit. And the rest of the world was quiet. The daisies and weeds that had been pushing through the ashes of the crater had been missed by the slice of Homelander’s laser, but still been buried in the ash of the aftermath.

There was going to be wind tomorrow. There usually was, after a while. And it would blow away the ash, and something would always, always grow.

✦chapter 2

✦End note: butcher got a single w today with his ragebaiting but guys i dont think it's going to last ✦

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[notmeolive]

⋆｡ ˚ all the ways you come back

lowdown ☆ when the task force pulls you back into meachum’s orbit years after he shattered things, old wounds reopen just as a traitor in your life forces everything to the surface. ride or die ☆ mark meachum x intelligence-analyst!oc ( f ) miles ☆ 4758 ride style ☆ hurt / comfort danger on the trail ☆ canon-typical violence, hostage situation, knife/gun threat, blood/injury, betrayal, jealousy, mark’s brain tumor mentioned, light wound care, kissing, soft-ish ending

liv's log ☆ wrote this for the lovely @no-ordinary-girl (aka loml) and i missed meachum. it might be time to rewatch countdown .ᐟ 𐚁

the conference room is too cold. 

that’s the first thing you notice—it’s not the agents sitting around the table with their folders open and their attention half on you, half on the screen behind agent blythe. it’s not the case photos of burned-out vehicles and murdered informants. it’s not the map of los angeles lit up with red pins and ugly little clusters of dates—it’s the stupid air-conditioning. 

your arms are folded tight under your blazer, finger tucked into the sleeves even though you know it makes you look less composed than you wish to look. you hate that your body betrays you in dumb, ordinary ways. 

the department calls you in because you’re useful; because you can read interagency data trails the way other people read menus; because you know when a procurement log has been doctored and when a seizure report is missing one boring little digit—that turns out not to be boring in the slightest.

still, you’re standing there thinking about how you should’ve brought a cardigan. 

blythe introduces you with the briskness of a man who’s already wasted enough time on manners. “this is audrynne,” he says. “she’s been consulting with doj oversight on cross-agency corruption cases. she’s good at finding the fingerprints people don’t realize they left behind. the case’s slowing down, so she’s here to make us all look less stupid.” 

“high bar,” someone mutters. 

you glance before you can stop yourself. you know that voice. even muttered. even after years. you’d probably recognize it in a loud room without difficulty. 

mark meachum sits near the end of the table, one ankle hooked over the other, paper coffee cup in hand, looking exactly the way memory has been cruel enough to keep him—a little rougher around the edges, sure, but still the same hair mussed in a way that probably came from him dragging a hand throught it too many times; eyes sharper than they have any right to be; that old, maddening lean in his chair.

beside him, amber oliveras taps a pen against her folder and leans close enough to murmur something under her breath. mark grins. nothing too big or obvious. just the corner of his mouth—a tiny reward he used to give you when you said something mean enough to make him proud. 

your stomach does something embarrassing. you turn back to blythe. 

“happy to help,” your voice comes out smooth. thank god for small mercies and professional spite.

the briefing is ugly: three dead informants, one missing customs witness, confidential databases accessed with legitimate credentials from different agencies, each query buried under routine searches. the target keeps moving with too much precision, too much warning. whoever is feeding him knows when raids are coming and which warrants are being drafted before the ink even has the chance to dry. 

“so we’re looking at law enforcement,” agent bell says from the other side of the room. 

“or adjacent,” you add. “analysts, prosecutors, contractors, liaisons. anyone with enough clearance to see fragments from different pipelines.” 

mark looks at you across the table. “you always did love making a party bigger.” 

“only when the guest list is packed with potential criminals,” you don’t miss a beat as your eyes lazily find mark’s. 

“and exes,” amber adds barely under her breath.

your eyes cut to her. she doesn’t look sorry. if anything, she looks entertained. 

mark’s expression changes by half an inch. almost nothing, unless someone has spent a stupid number of years learning him. “oliveras.” 

“what?” amber says. “it’s in the air. i’m just saving everybody the awkward twenty minutes.” 

blythe looks between you and mark with the dead stare of a man who’s led task forces, survived bureaucracy, and still doesn’t believe adults choose to act this way in conference rooms. 

“is this going to be a problem?” he aks. 

“no, sir,” you reply calmly, even when everything in you wants to call out the stupid in his team. 

“nope,” mark says at the exact same time. 

it makes blythe squint harder. he closes his folder. “moving on.” 

you spend the next hour walking them through the access trail the team’s missed so far. you don’t go for the loud pieces. you tap into the quiet ones: a warrant used twice under slightly different timestamps; a vehicle impound report pulled thirteen minutes before a witness turns up dead; a federal badge credential that shouldn’t have touched a lapd gang database but still did at 2:17 in the morning on a sunday. 

you feel mark watching you. not constantly. he’s too good for that. he looks away when he should, asks questions when everyone else gets lost, plays the impatient cowboy only until the room starts underestimating him. that part still annoys you most. how sharp he is underneath the mess. how easy it’d be to hate him if he were actually stupid.

when the meeting breaks, chairs scrape back, phones come out, and blythe starts barking orders before anyone makes it to the door.

you gather your tablet and the stack of copies evan printed for you. 

“audrynne.” mark says your name differently than everyone else. less polished. lived in. it lands somewhere behind your ribs and starts touching things it has no permit to touch.

you don’t turn right away.  you slide the last folder into your bag. “detective.”

he makes a face. “we’re doing that?”

“doing what?”

“the whole title thing.”

“sorry. would you prefer asshole?”

amber coughs into her coffee. evan suddenly becomes fascinated by a laptop cable.

mark takes the hit with a tiny nod, lips pressed together. “fair.”

you look at him then and it’s awful, because he looks tired. there’s a worn-down edge to him that makes your anger stumble for one dumb second before you yank it upright again. he dumped you with a half-packed duffel on your bedroom floor and a tone so flat you kept waiting for the punchline.

you’re better off. 

this isn’t working. 

don’t make it a thing.

as if you’d invented the breaking.

“i need five minutes,” he says now.

“i’ve got work to do. you know, to help ya’ll look less stupid.”

his jaw shifts, but he doesn’t fire back. you can’t tell if he doesn’t have time or choose to shut his trap for the first time ever, because blythe calls from the doorway and leaves the moment broken.

“meachum. oliveras. with me.”

mark’s gaze flicks over your face, quick and frustrated. “later.”

“i can barely contain myself.” the words sound more bitter than sarcastic. 

he leaves with amber, shoulder brushing hers as they move through the hall. she says something that makes him huff a laugh, and you hate how young jealousy makes you feel. small. petty.

not that you’re jealous. you have a boyfriend. joshua texts you at 7:43, right as the bullpen thins and your coffee’s gone cold beside three pages of credential logs.

𝚒'𝚖 𝚘𝚞𝚝𝚜𝚒𝚍𝚎.

you pack up slowly because you refuse to look rushed. your hair catches under your bag strap, and you have to tug it free, the long dark fall of it sliding over your shoulder and down your back. 

amber notices from her desk. “how long does it take to brush that?”

you glance over. “long enough to develop grudges.”

“respect.”

you almost smile. then you decide to be childish one last time to compensate for her being bitchy without even knowing you, and simply nod before leaving. 

when you step outside, the night air is warmer than the building but still not enough. you can feel goosebumps rising along your forearms before you even spot joshua leaning against his car.

he’s handsome in that clean, expensive way. crisp shirt. government haircut. watch that costs more than your rent used to when you were twenty-two and pretending boxed pasta counted as a proper chef-level meal. he works intelligence compliance for homeland, which is less exciting than he makes it sound at parties and more powerful than people realize.

“there’s my girl,” joshua smiles, opening his arms.

you let him pull you in. his cologne sits heavy over the perfume you put on this morning, too sharp at the edges. he kisses your temple first, then your mouth, longer than usual. public. performative. his hand rests at your waist and tightens when footsteps sound behind you.

you already know. you don’t turn.

“meachum,” joshua says, pleasant as a knife wiped clean.

“josh.” mark’s voice is flat. “still wearing shirts a size too small?”

joshua smiles. “still confusing recklessness with charm?”

“only on days ending in y.”

you pull back from joshua, annoyed with both of them and yourself for being aware of mark’s gaze on your mouth.

“we’re leaving,” you say.

“you spying on me?” you can’t help the playfulness slipping into your tone.

“small world.”

mark steps closer by one pace. “not that small.”

oh, and there it is—the primitive little shoulder-square; the male animal nonsense of i was here first wearing a badge and a gun. you’d laugh if it didn’t scrape against all the wrong memories.

joshua kisses you again, shorter this time, his eyes staying open long enough to make sure mark sees. you let him, because you’re angry and tired and self-respect leaves the body at the first sign of unresolved history.

when you glance back before getting into the car, mark’s standing under the harsh lot lights with amber at the door behind him. she says something to him. he doesn’t answer.

the next two days are a war fought in fluorescent light.

you find a pattern in the dead informants’ case files. all three had been flagged in a shared federal-local intelligence portal within forty-eight hours of their deaths. someone with clearance is searching names, waiting for hits, then cleaning up before the task force can move.

mark keeps trying to corner you between updates.

“you skipping lunch now?” he asks once, leaning against the break room counter while you pour coffee you know will taste terrible.

“already ate.”

“cute. vending machine or are you considering coffee food now?”

“i’ve had worse coffee.”

he exhales through his nose, almost amused. “you still do that thing where you don’t eat when you’re stressed?”

you stir powdered creamer with a plastic stick until it bends. “you still do that thing where you pretend to care?”

“audrynne.”

“don’t.” you toss the stirrer into the trash. “you don’t get to remember small things and act like that makes you decent.”

his face closes.

oliveras clocks it from six feet away. later, while you’re pinning access logs to the board, she sidles up beside you with the casual danger of a woman who has spent fourteen years getting people to underestimate her.

“so,” she says. “you and meachum.”

“no.”

“i haven’t even made my point.”

“still no.”

she hums. “you know, for what it’s worth, whatever you think is happening with me and him—”

“i don’t think anything.”

“sure.” amber pins you with a look that’s way too knowing for someone you have no intentions of getting close to. “i like him. he’s a pain in the ass. he gets under my skin. sometimes i want to punch him in the mouth. that’s not the same thing.”

your thumb presses into the pushpin until the plastic bites.

amber’s voice drops. “he told you?”

you look back at her. confusion sinks, but it’s quickly followed by the annoyance of a potential secret. of her knowing more about him than you. 

you swallow once. “told me what?”

amber’s expression changes. regret, fast and real.

mark chooses that exact second to enter with blythe. you turn back to the board before the moment develops. 

twenty minutes later, blythe pairs you with mark, which proves either god has a cruel hobby or blythe does. “warehouse in vernon,” he says, tossing mark the keys. “old evidence transfer site. one of audrynne’s flagged badge pings connects there. go look. don’t start a gunfight unless there’s actually someone to shoot.”

mark catches the keys. “that takes all the romance out of it.”

“good,” blythe says. “i’m not paying you for romance.”

the car ride begins badly and gets worse.

mark drives with one hand low on the wheel, the other resting near the gearshift, knuckles bruised from something he hasn’t bothered explaining. the city slides past in sodium-orange streaks and brake lights. you sit with your knees angled away from him, coat pulled over your lap, trying not to shiver in a car that refuses to heat fast enough.

after six minutes, he reaches forward and turns the temperature up.

you stare at the windshield. “oh, for the love of god.”

“you’re cold.”

“i didn’t ask you to fix the temperature.”

“doesn’t change the fact that you’re cold. funny thing, isn’t it? how two things can be true at the same time.”

you hate him a little. you hate that he knows your body’s habits better than joshua does. you hate that being seen by him still feels dangerous.

“you have no right to act jealous,” you say.

his eyes stay on the road but his cool fades with the weak scoff that tumbles from his lips. “jealous?”

“please. you and joshua looked two seconds away from comparing antlers in the parking lot.”

“guy’s a prick.”

“he’s my boyfriend.”

“yeah, i noticed. he made sure.”

you laugh once, mean and humorless. “you dumped me, mark.”

his grip tightens on the wheel.

“you dumped me,” you repeat, because now that the words are out, they come with teeth. “you stood in my room and looked at me like i was one more situation you had to clear before leaving. you don’t get to show up years later and make faces because another man touches me.”

“i know.”

“do you? because you’re acting confused.”

“i’m not confused.”

“then what are you?”

he pulls into the industrial district, warehouses rising around you in dark blocks, chain-link fences glinting under security lights. for a moment, you think he won’t answer. 

then he says, “pissed off.”

“at me?”

“at him. at myself. plenty to choose from.”

“that must be exhausting.”

“you have no idea.”

you turn toward him. “whose fault is that?”

he looks at you then, quick, and there’s something cracked open in his face before he shuts it down. “you think i don’t know what i did?”

“i think you decided for both of us and still sleep peacefully at night.”

the car rolls to a stop near the curb across from the warehouse. mark kills the engine, and the sudden quiet presses close. 

“i had a tumor,” he says.

you go still.

he looks forward, not at you. “glioblastoma. inoperable. ugly little bastard. doctor gave me a speech about comfort and painkillers and making peace with things. i didn’t want you watching me turn into a hospice project.”

the cold in you changes shape. not gone. not forgiven. just altered, forced to make room for a fact too large to step around. “so you humiliated me instead?”

his mouth tugs in pain. “yeah. turns out dying doesn’t make you smart.”

your eyes burn, and you hate that too. “you should’ve told me.”

“i know.”

“you should’ve let me choose.”

“i know.”

“you made me feel disposable.”

mark drops his head back against the seat and closes his eyes for one second, maybe two. “i have loved you since i was twenty-three years old,” he says, rough and too fast, as if the words got out before he could tackle them. “you think i don’t see every side of you? you think i don’t know when you’re pretending? joshua isn’t—”

he cuts himself off right as your heart punches at your ribs.

mark opens his eyes. “loved,” he corrects, quieter. “i loved you. past tense.”

he looks embarrassed. genuinely. mark meachum, reckless cowboy, professional pain in your ass, staring out at a warehouse wall because his own mouth betrayed him.

“smooth,” you say, because if you say anything honest, you might break apart in his passenger seat.

he huffs. “yeah, well. i’m known for my elegance.”

“you’re known for concussions.”

“also true.”

the radio crackles before either of you can ruin yourselves further. blythe’s voice cuts through, asking for status.

mark answers, all business now. “outside the location. no visible movement. we’re going in.”

the warehouse is supposed to be empty. that’s what the records say. that’s what the property file says. that’s what the utility usage suggests, except for the tiny spike you found buried under a billing correction from three months ago.

mark moves first, gun drawn, body angled in front of yours without discussion. the air outside carries oil, damp concrete, and trash from the alley. 

inside, the warehouse is darker than it should be. rows of old shelving. plastic-wrapped pallets. the buzz of a light struggling somewhere in the back.

you stay close to mark, tablet tucked under one arm, flashlight in your hand.

“anything?” he asks.

“give me a second.”

“take half.”

“keep talking and i’ll take ten.”

“missed this.”

“i didn’t.”

he gives you a look. you ignore it and sweep the light across a stack of crates. your beam catches a partial plate through the far loading door window.

black sedan. government issue. clean. your pulse trips. “mark—”

you move toward the side window before he can stop you, wiping dust with your sleeve to see better. the car is parked crooked behind the building, trunk open. a man stands beside it, dragging something heavy wrapped in tarp.

then he turns his head. even in the bad light, you know his profile. your breath goes thin. 

“that’s joshua’s car,” you whisper.

mark is beside you instantly. “stay here.”

“no.”

“audrynne.”

“that’s his car.”

“which is why you’re staying here.”

the back door slams open before the argument can finish. a man stumbles inside, bloody, one hand pressed to his stomach. 

“help,” he chokes. it’s not joshua. this man looks older. terrified.

mark moves, but the shot comes from outside. the man drops. you flinch hard enough to hit the shelving behind you. mark shoves you down behind a stack of pallets as another bullet punches through metal with a shriek.

“where is he?” mark snaps.

you’re on your knees, palms gritty against the floor, ears ringing.

“audrynne, where is he?”

you force yourself to look. the loading entrance is open. joshua steps through with a gun in his hand. for one impossible second, your brain refuses him. wrong image. wrong file. joshua belongs in clean offices and lunch reservations and texts that show he cares. not here. not with blood on his cuff.

“baby,” he singsongs, and the word makes your skin crawl. “you weren’t supposed to come.”

mark’s gun is up. “drop it.”

joshua smiles at him. “you first.”

another shape moves behind the shelves and mark shifts to cover it. joshua lunges sideways, grabs you by the arm, and yanks you up so hard pain flashes through your shoulder. you slam back against him, his forearm locking across your throat, gun pressed cold beneath your jaw.

mark freezes with calculation held together by pure rage. “let her go,” he demands.

joshua’s arm tightens. “you always had main-character disease, meachum.”

you claw at his sleeve, trying to make space to breathe. his watch digs into your skin. your hair is trapped between your back and his chest, pulling at your scalp.

“josh—” you manage.

“quiet.” his mouth is near your ear. “you had to be clever, didn’t you? you had to follow the numbers.”

mark’s eyes flick over you. throat. hands. gun. joshua’s stance. the distance between them. “look at me.” 

you do.

“good,” mark tells you, voice low. “keep doing that.”

joshua laughs. “touching. really. no wonder she never shut up about you.”

your eyes sting.

mark doesn’t take the bait. “you’re done. blythe already has the logs.”

“blythe has whatever i let him have.”

as if on cue, sirens sound faintly outside. joshua hears them too. the gun presses harder.

mark’s expression changes into something terrifyingly calm. “don’t.”

“she’ll live if you back up.”

“no, she won’t,” mark says. “you’re too scared to leave witnesses.”

joshua’s breathing shifts. you feel it against your back. uneven now, faster, like something inside him has slipped out of control. his grip tightens for a fraction of a second, then loosens just enough for you to drag in a shallow breath that burns all the way down your throat. his pulse hammers where his arm presses against you, erratic and sharp, and you realize—too late, too suddenly—that he’s scared.

mark sees it too. you don’t know how you know, but you do. something in his posture changes, something precise and coiled, like a wire pulled taut to the breaking point. his eyes flick once to your face, joshua’s hand, the angle of the gun, and then settle, locked in.

“think it through,” mark’s eyes don’t move from joshua when he speaks, quieter this time, but it lands heavier, like a warning meant for both of you.

joshua’s breath stutters against your ear. for one suspended second, everything holds. then it breaks.

mark moves in the same second joshua does. it’s chaos—joshua jerking you sideways, his grip slipping as he tries to reposition, your heel catching on the uneven concrete, your balance gone before you can fight for it. mark lunges forward, faster than you’ve ever seen him move, his arm snapping up.

a crack splits the warehouse. the sound is deafening in the enclosed space, ricocheting off metal and concrete until it sinks inside your skull. your ears ring instantly, a high, piercing whine that drowns out everything else.

you hit the ground hard on your side, the impact knocking the air from your lungs. pain flares along your shoulder and hip, but it feels distant compared to the disorientation flooding your senses. the world tilts, spins, refuses to settle.

joshua’s body drops behind you with a heavy, final thud.

you lie there, stunned, your cheek pressed against the gritty concrete, your breath coming in shallow, uneven bursts. your fingers twitch against the floor, searching for something to anchor.

the ringing in your ears swallows the world whole. and then—painfully—sound begins to bleed back in.

for a second, you can’t move. the concrete is cold against your cheek. your hand is wet. blood—yours, his, the dead man’s. your mind refuses to label it.

then mark’s there. “audrynne,” he drops to his knees so fast his gun skids a little when he sets it down. “hey—hey, look at me.”

you try, but everything shakes. your hands. your legs. the awful little muscles in your jaw.

“meachum?!” someone shouts outside. blythe.

mark turns his head and roars back, “in here! i’ve got her!”

mark pulls you into him, one arm firm around your back, the other hand cradling the side of your head so you don’t see what’s behind you. his jacket is rough under your cheek. you grab at it anyway.

“i didn’t know,” the words come out broken. “i didn’t know.”

“i know.” his hand moves over your hair once, careful, smoothing it back from your face. “i know, baby. you’re okay. you’re okay.”

“he was—”

“don’t look. look at me.”

you do, because his voice gives you somewhere to go.

his face is close. too close for the amount of ruin around you. his pupils are blown wide. he keeps scanning you, touching your shoulder, your arm, your throat, stopping himself from doing too much and failing every few seconds.

“meachum,” amber calls from nearby, softer than you expect. “ems is two minutes out.”

“she’s not waiting,” mark says. “i can check the cut.”

“cut?” you ask.

“your shoulder.” he looks back at you. “don’t argue with me for thirty seconds.”

“that’s ambitious.”

his eyes flick up—relief floods his expression, sharp and sudden, because you’re being difficult and difficult means alive.

he tears open a field dressing from amber’s kit and presses gauze to the scrape along your shoulder where the fabric ripped. his hands are steady. you curl your fingers into his sleeve, and he lets you.

blythe steps in, takes one look at joshua, then at you on the floor in mark’s arms. his voice lowers. “audrynne, we’ll need your statement when you’re cleared.”

mark glares. “not now.”

“i said when she’s cleared.”

later becomes a blur of blankets, paramedics, evidence bags, questions, and the metallic taste that won’t leave your mouth. your clothes are taken because blood and trace evidence don’t care about dignity. someone from the building’s lost and found produces replacements which results in you in a sweater twice your size with a cartoon snowman on the front even though it isn’t christmas. mark gets a rainbow-striped t-shirt that says fun run 2016 across the chest.

you stare at him in the precinct hallway, lips already pressed together. 

he stares back. “not one word.”

your mouth trembles.

“audrynne.”

you laugh.

it escapes before you can stop it, small and wrecked and a little hysterical. then you’re crying again, because your body has no sense of pacing. mark looks pained, standing there in that stupid rainbow shirt with dried blood on his forearm and his jacket folded over yours.

“come on,” he says gently. “i’ll drive you home.”

“blythe said—”

“blythe can file a complaint with my rainbow shirt.”

you’re too tired to fight.

the car’s quiet on the way back to your apartment. the heater runs full blast because mark turns it up, and you don’t tell him not to. your hands are tucked into the sweater sleeves. every few streets, his gaze flicks to your throat, then back to the road.

“stop checking,” you say.

“nope.”

you sigh and look out the window. los angeles passes in late-night fragments. neon signs. closed taco stands. a woman walking a tiny dog in pink boots. life having the nerve to continue.

“did you love me?” you ask and his hand tightens on the wheel. “past tense.” 

mark pulls up outside your building and parks, but he doesn’t turn off the engine right away. the dashboard lights paint his face in tired blue.

“i tried,” he says. he drags a hand over his mouth. “to make it past tense. i tried really hard. turns out i’m bad at that too.”

your throat hurts. bruised, yes, but also from holding back every sound you didn’t make in that warehouse.

“i was dying,” he says. “and i was a coward.”

“are you okay now?” you breathe out, shaky. 

he nods and reaches across the console, slow enough that you can move away but you don’t. his fingers close around the end of your oversized sleeve. “i’m sorry.”

it isn’t a pretty speech, but his voice is scraped raw, and he looks angry about needing the words. that helps more than it should.

you should get out of the car.

instead, you look at him in his ridiculous shirt, with his bruised knuckles and tired eyes and all the years sitting between you. you think about every way he’s come back tonight. through a conference room door. through a confession he tried to correct. through the warehouse dark. through a gunshot. through an apology that doesn’t fix everything but finally puts pressure on the wound.

“stay with me tonight,” you say. “not because everything’s fine—it isn’t. i don’t know what tomorrow looks like. i don’t even know what i’m feeling right now.”

“audrynne—”

“i just don’t want to walk inside alone.”

his eyes move over your face, careful now. “then you won’t.”

the engine turns off.

neither of you moves for a second.

then mark leans across the console and kisses you.

the angle’s a little awkward, your seatbelt digs into your hip, and one of your sweater sleeves gets trapped between you. his hand comes up to your cheek, careful of every bruise, and you make a small sound against his mouth that’s been waiting years to exist. he kisses you more, slower, then pulls back just enough to rest his forehead near yours.

“i’m still mad,” you whisper.

“yeah,” his thumb brushes along the edge of your cheek. “i figured.”

“good.”

“good,” he agrees.

you kiss him this time.

outside, the streetlamp hums softly, casting a dull glow across the car’s hood. inside, your fingers are tangled in the fabric of mark’s ridiculous rainbow shirt, your keys lost somewhere in your bag.

he walks beside you up the stairs, his hand resting at your back. not guiding—just there, steady and ready, if you need it.

☆ commission your own personalized story here ᢉ𐭩

[boykingscourt]

2x03 wheel in the sky by journey recap no one will ever love you more than me