Bucky’s Bklyn Doll

He knew his size was a challenge for you, but seeing you beneath him, writhing and moaning in that enchanting, sweet way only fueled his desire and love for you.

“I-I love you, Bucky…” you replied in a trembling voice. “S-Shit…”

The curse had slipped from your lips thanks to his deep, circular movements; his cock had hit that particularly good spot, making you arch your back.

“Do you like it there, doll?”

You bit your lower lip as you nodded, somewhat desperately, feeling the need to grind against him to soothe the heat and itch inside you.

Instead of thrusting, Bucky began to slide his cock with a torturously slow, sensual motion, wanting you to feel every contour of his throbbing cock.

“I could spend all day worshiping you like this.”

You let out a moan that sounded almost like a sob as your toes curled and your sweaty thighs squeezed his hips, trying to push him deeper into you. You wanted to encourage him to pick up the pace.

As he looked into your glassy eyes, he pressed his lips together to stifle a moan and shut his eyes tightly, struggling to maintain the rhythm of his hips, which were beginning to falter.

“J-James…” You moaned his name like a prayer.

You reached out your hand toward his face, gently caressing his cheek and feeling his stubble for a moment before tangling his hair in your fingers.

Your other hand did the same, drawing his face closer to yours to kiss him. His dark hair fell across your cheeks, tickling you as he came back to himself.

“My sweet girl…” he whispered against your lips. “So beautiful and good…”

His metal arm slid under your hip, lifting you just enough so that his pelvis remained pressed against your clitoris while his hips kept grinding and grinding.

Bucky’s lips began to kiss your cheeks and jaw with his mouth open, and you could hear him panting and growling against your skin in that way that left no doubt he was about to come. For your part, you moaned beneath him, your hands exploring his broad back and your pussy throbbing greedily around him.

“Oh, James… I-I…” The words didn’t quite come out as you let out a faint sob.

Your orgasm hit, spreading from your core to the rest of your body. It was like being in a daze, letting the pleasurable heat devour you.

Bucky’s cock throbbed against your sensitive walls, and with a deep, hoarse moan, he let himself come inside you, filling you with his warm, thick seed.

You barely felt Bucky’s weight on top of you.

You closed your eyes as you panted softly and your boyfriend buried his face in your neck, feeling his heavy breath brush against your skin.

“Baby, you’re amazing, ” he murmured against your neck.

It didn’t take long before you felt his kisses on your skin, brushing those spots that made you tremble beneath him and let out little giggles. But you knew his intentions—especially since he couldn’t hide them, given how his cock remained hard inside you.

“Aren’t you tired yet, Sergeant?” you teased, humming playfully into his hair.

Bucky moaned against you, this time a little embarrassed that his super-soldier endurance was keeping him from reaching satisfaction so easily.

“I just need to go to the bathroom to take care of it.”

Before he could pull out of you completely, you wrapped your legs around his hips and your arms around his neck, holding him close to your body.

He barely stifled a moan as he slid deep inside you once more, completely sensitive because he was hard as a rock, with a red tip and dripping with pre-cum inside you.

“That won’t be necessary because I have a tempting offer for you, Sergeant.” You spoke in that playful, seductive tone that Bucky knew so well. “If you stay, I’ll help you with your problem however you want.”

“Honey. If doing it slowly makes you want to cry, I don’t even want to imagine what’ll happen if I lose control…”

He couldn’t finish his sentence as he felt the soft, playful bite on his lower lip.

“How hard can it be to satisfy a super soldier?” you murmured against his lips.

“Honey, I don’t think you can…”

“I can handle it.”

You sounded far too confident—a confidence that was on the verge of shattering.

☆

The creaking of the mattress and the constant thud of the headboard against the wall echoed through the room along with your moans, sobs, and the slapping of skin.

Bucky was fucking you desperately while you moaned helplessly, your face covered in tears and your knees pressed against your shoulders.

He’d never fucked you that wildly and roughly before; he’d really been holding back all this time and was seizing this opportunity to take you exactly as he’d been craving for months.

Bucky’s eyes darted from your tearful face to his cock sliding in and out of you—completely soaked with your fluids and a ring of his own cum around the base from the three previous times he’d climaxed.

“O-Oh, fuck,” he moaned, his voice breaking. “I can feel you.”

The tip of his cock had started to hit your cervix, making you roll your eyes back and sob from the new pressure.

“Do you feel that, baby? It’s my cock kissing you.”

You weakly reached out your arm toward him, trying to push his body away from your hips because of the hypersensitivity, but instead, Bucky let go of your legs to grab your wrist, pulling you to force you to sit up for a second on the mattress while he wrapped your arm and the other one around his neck.

You whimpered as the change in position caused his cock to slide out of you, even if only by a few inches, giving you a little relief from the overwhelming pressure.

Bucky’s strong arms quickly hooked under your knees, and he stood up, lifting you with him with impressive ease.

“I’m so fucking horny for you, baby. Why do you want to run away?” he growled against your cheek as his hips thrust against yours, fucking you deep. “You said you were going to put up with it for me.”

“B-Bucky…” you squealed, your voice breaking.

Your body was trembling, and you couldn’t escape his thrusts as he carried you and held you open to use you.

“Say my name, baby,” he moaned as he planted open-mouthed kisses on your jaw. “Come on, do it.”

Your toes curled as your pussy clenched tightly around him, feeling another orgasm coming.

Bucky moaned as he felt you tighten around him, and that only encouraged him not to stop.

“Say it.”

“J-James…” you screamed. Your fingernails dug into his back.

Your squirt drenched his entire cock and slid down Bucky’s muscular thighs until it reached the floor, which was already splattered with the juices of your orgasm.

“So perfect,” he moaned. “My good girl with a perfect pussy.” His tongue traced your cheek, savoring the saltiness of your tears. “I’m going to cum inside you so you know just how much I love you.”

He thrust hard one last time, staying buried deep inside you with his balls pressed against your ass as he came inside you once more and you clenched tight around him.

A muffled sound escaped you because of the intensity as your body went limp, your arms hanging limply and your back arched backward while you remained deeply united.

Still holding you tightly, he bent over you, pressing his forehead against your collarbone as he breathed heavily and his hips trembled slightly against yours, gasping at how incredibly sensitive he felt after emptying himself inside you so many times.

You both needed a few minutes before moving or speaking.

Bucky was the first to move. His steps were slow as he made his way to the bed, laying you down carefully so he could pull himself out of your swollen pussy. You both moaned at the loss.

“Are you okay, sweetheart?” he asked as he brushed damp strands of hair from your face.

His fingers gently brushed your face, and at times the coolness of the metal felt comforting against your burning body.

Slowly, you turned your gaze toward him, watching as his expression shifted from gentle and slightly concerned to one with a smug smile.

“Was it hard to please a super soldier? You look a little tired.”

You let out a snort and tried to push his face away with the palm of your hand so you wouldn’t have to see him looking so proud of your current state.

“I hate you, James Buchanan Barnes.”

You didn’t mean it, but he knew that hearing his full name meant trouble.

“I’m sorry, my love,” he murmured in that soft, affectionate tone he always used in situations like this.

He took your wrist again, only this time to plant a series of kisses on your skin—almost desperate and full of regret.

“Do you need anything? Water? Food?”

You smiled weakly as you watched him jump to his feet, scanning the mess in the room for the box of tissues to clean up between your legs.

You’d underestimated him.

He’d made you eat every single one of your words, but all it took was for you to say his full name for all that arrogant confidence to vanish as if it had never existed.

Heavy. Possessive. Motionless.

His hand is still there, pressed flat beneath your navel, exactly where he left it last night after cleaning you up and bringing you back to bed. His fingers are spread apart, his thumb caressing your skin in his sleep—a slow, unconscious movement that sends a shiver down your spine. He’s sleeping soundly, breathing slowly and steadily, his hair spread messily across the pillow, his beard pressed against the nape of your neck.

You don’t move. You listen to his breathing. You feel the intense heat of his body pressed against your back, his legs tangled with yours, his limp but still-warm cock pressed against your buttocks. He smells of sex and sleep and something deeply masculine that makes you want to roll over and wake him up with your mouth.

Then you hear the noises coming from the kitchen.

Heavy footsteps. The cupboard opening. The clatter of a spoon against a cup. The radio turning on downstairs to a cheesy jazz station.

Your father is awake.

“James.” You give him a little nudge in the ribs. “Bucky, wake up. ”

He grunts, buries his face deeper into your neck, tightens his arm around your waist like a vise.

“Not now, kid. Go to sleep.”

“My dad’s awake.”

Bucky opens his eyes in a split second. His muscles tense, his arm pulls away, he props himself up on one elbow and stares at the door as if he expects your father to smash it down with an axe.

“Shit.” He runs a hand over his face, rubs his eyes, flips his hair back. “What time is it?”

“Seven-thirty.”

“Does he still get up that early?”

“Always.”

“Damn.”

He lets himself sink back onto the pillow for a second, staring at the ceiling, then turns toward you. His gray eyes are still a little puffy from sleep, his eyelashes clumped together, but he looks at you with an intensity that immediately reminds you of everything that happened last night.

“Does it hurt?”

“A little.”

“Where?”

“Between my legs.”

“That’s normal.” He smiles, a small smile that’s both satisfied and tender. “You took a big dick.”

“You’re proud of yourself, aren’t you?”

“Very.” He leans toward you and kisses your temple. “But I’m sorry you’re in pain.”

“I’ll survive.”

“I know. You’re a tough one, kid. ”

He gets up from the bed, naked, magnificent in the morning light, his cock swinging heavily between his thighs with every step. He grabs his boxers from the floor, slips them on, then freezes.

“My T-shirt’s in my bedroom.”

“You’re going to have to walk down the hall.”

“Shirtless. Past the kitchen.”

“Yeah.”

“And your dad’s in the kitchen.”

“Exactly.”

Bucky runs a hand through his hair, glances at the door, then looks at you.

“I’m going to have to explain to him why I’m walking out of the bathroom shirtless at 7:30. ”

“The bathroom’s next to my room. Not inside it.”

“Shit.” He puts his hands on his hips and takes a long breath. “OK. Here’s the plan. I’ll walk out of here, down the hall, into my room, get dressed, and come back downstairs like nothing happened.”

"Good luck. ”

“Are you kidding me?”

“A little.”

He shakes his head, crosses the room, places his hand on the doorknob, then turns back one last time. His gaze glides over your naked body, half-hidden by the sheet, lingering on your breasts, the curve of your waist, your thighs still marked by his stubble.

“Tonight,” he whispers. “I’ll fuck you again.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

He opens the door, glances down the hallway, and disappears.

You lie there in bed, your heart racing, a smile on your lips. The sheets still smell like him that scent of sweat, sex, and warm skin. Your body aches; your thighs bear the marks of his fingers; your neck is covered in purple hickies that you’ll have to hide under a turtleneck in the middle of summer. And you’re happy. Damn, you’re so happy.

The shower. You need a shower. A cold shower, to cool down the heat between your legs and wash away the traces of his semen that have dried on the inside of your thighs.

You struggle to your feet, your thigh muscles protesting with every step. In the bathroom, you avoid looking at yourself in the mirror,you know what you’d see, and you don’t want to blush all by yourself. The cold water runs over your skin, washing away the dried semen, soothing the redness, and you stand there, your forehead pressed against the tiles, thinking back on that night. On his hoarse voice. On his fingers on your stomach. On the massive, all-encompassing sensation of his cock filling you all the way to the hilt.

When you come down the stairs twenty minutes later, wearing a summer dress and a light cardigan to hide the hickies, Bucky is already sitting at the kitchen table. He’s wearing a clean black T-shirt, jeans, and his hair is tied back. A cup of black coffee sits in front of him. Your dad is standing at the stove, making pancakes.

“Ah, there you are, sweetie!” Your dad turns around with a huge smile. “Did you sleep well?”

“Very well.”

“You look like someone who slept in.”

“A little, yeah.”

Bucky isn't looking at you. He's staring at his coffee cup as if it held the answers to all his problems. His jaw is clenched, his shoulders tense, his fingers clenched around the ceramic handle. You sit across from him, just like last night, and he still doesn't look up.

“Bucky didn’t get much sleep either,” your dad says as he flips a pancake. “He was already awake when I came downstairs. Right, Buck?”

“Insomnia,” Bucky replies in a flat tone.

“Insomnia. Yeah.” Your dad turns to him. “You look even more exhausted than yesterday. ”

“It’s the bed.”

“The bed? This bed is perfect. I bought it three months ago.”

“Too soft.”

“Too soft?” Your father seems almost offended. “This bed is as firm as a board.”

Bucky doesn’t answer. He takes a sip of coffee, his eyes still fixed on the table. You reach for the coffee pot to pour yourself a cup, and your sweater slips slightly off your shoulder, revealing the edge of a purple hickey just above your collarbone.

Bucky sees it.

His eyes finally look up, linger on the mark, and he turns red. Literally. A shade of dark pink that rises from his neck to his cheekbones.

“Here,” your father says, handing you a plate of pancakes. “Eat, you look pale.”

“Thanks, Dad.”

“Bucky, do you want another cup of coffee?”

“No.”

“Are you sure? You look like you could use one. ”

“I said no.”

His tone is sharp. Too sharp. Your father blinks, surprised, then shrugs and goes back to his pancakes. Bucky sets his cup down on the table with a soft clink, runs a hand over his mouth, and finally, for the first time since you came downstairs, he really looks at you.

It’s a dark look. Intense. Filled with everything he can’t say. His eyes glide over your dress, over the cardigan that hides the marks of his mouth, over your lips still slightly swollen from his kisses last night. He says nothing. But that look speaks so loudly that you feel like you can hear every word in your head. You’re so beautiful. I want to rip that dress off you. I want to take you right here, right now, on this table.

“Do you want some maple syrup, sweetie?” your dad asks.

“Yes, please. ”

“Bucky, do you want some syrup?”

“No.”

“Are you sure? It’s good, it’s from Vermont.”

Bucky closes his eyes for a second, takes a breath, then opens them again.

“Steve.”

“Yeah?”

“Stop with the syrup.”

Your father bursts out laughing.

“Okay, okay. You’re grumpy in the morning, aren’t you?”

Breakfast continues in a tense silence that only your father seems not to notice. He talks about his plans for the day,mowing the lawn, fixing the gutter, maybe having a barbecue tonight. Bucky nods, answers in one-word replies, and systematically avoids making eye contact with you. But his fingers drum nervously on the table, and under the table, his knee brushes against yours. A light touch, seemingly accidental. But he doesn’t pull away.

“Well,” your father says, setting down his napkin, “I’m going to mow the lawn before it gets too hot. Bucky, do you want to help me?”

“Let me finish my coffee.”

“OK. I’ll be outside if you need me.”

The kitchen door slams. Through the window, you see your father crossing the lawn toward the garage, already whistling.

Silence.

You’re alone with Bucky in the kitchen. The coffee is getting cold in the cups. The pancakes are drenched in syrup. The fridge hums. And Bucky doesn’t move a millimeter, his eyes fixed on you, his knuckles white around his empty cup.

“You’re wearing a dress,” he says at last.

“Yes.”

“To hide the marks.”

“Yes.”

“He didn’t see them.”

“No.”

“Good.”

He sets down his cup, stands up, and walks around the table.

“Because if your dad sees the hickies I left on your skin, he’s going to kill me. And if I have to die today, I want to have fucked you at least once before I do.”

“I already have. ”

“One more time.”

He steps closer to you, reaches out, gently grabs the collar of your sweater, and pulls it apart. The purple mark appears, clear, shaped like a mouth. His thumb brushes against it.

“I’m the one who did that to you,” he whispers.

“Yes. ”

“And here?” His fingers move down, pulling the cardigan open a little wider, revealing a second hickey, darker, just above your breast. “That was me, too. ”

“Yes.”

“And here?”

His hand slides down your thigh under the table, moves up under your dress, and finds another mark,the imprint of his fingers on your skin from when he held you open. A small bruise, round and dark.

“Me too.”

Bucky closes his eyes.

“Damn it, kid.”

“Bucky…”

“No. Shut up.” He opens his eyes again, leans toward you, and his voice is nothing more than a hoarse whisper. “Your dad’s out there. The window’s open. We can’t make a sound, we can’t touch each other, we can’t do anything. And all I want is to throw you down on this table and fuck you until you scream. ”

“Then let’s go somewhere else.”

“Where?”

“Upstairs. My room.”

“Too far.”

“The bathroom.”

“Too risky.”

“Then stop looking at me like that and go help my dad mow the lawn.”

Bucky stares at you, his eyes wide. Then he bursts out laughing—a real laugh, deep and surprised, that shakes his shoulders.

“Are you giving me orders right now?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t like taking orders. ”

“I know.”

“But coming from you…” He shakes his head, takes a step back, and runs a hand through his hair. “Okay, kid. I’ll mow the lawn. ”

He walks across the kitchen, opens the garden door, and stops in the doorway. The morning light outlines his massive silhouette and makes his hair shine.

“But tonight,” he says without turning around, “you won’t be giving me any more orders.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

The door slams shut. You’re left alone in the kitchen, your heart pounding, your thighs pressed together under the table. That damn guy is going to kill you.

The morning passes in a haze of electric tension. You wash the dishes, tidy up the living room, fold the laundry, but every movement is mechanical, every thought focused on Bucky. Through the window, you see him pushing the lawn mower across the yard, his muscular arms straining against the machine, his T-shirt stuck to his back with sweat. Your father is beside him, trimming the hedge, and he’s talking, talking, talking as usual.

Bucky looks up at the window. Just for a second. Long enough for you to see the hunger in his eyes.

At noon, your father announces that he’s going to take a nap.

“Too hot,” he says, wiping his forehead with a towel. “I’m going to nap for an hour. Bucky, do you want some lunch?”

“Not hungry.”

“You’re never hungry, are you?” Your father shrugs and heads up the stairs. “Well, see you later.”

His bedroom door closes.

Bucky is sitting on the couch, the TV on, the baseball game muted. He isn’t watching the screen. He’s looking at you.

“Come here,” he says softly.

You walk across the living room and stop in front of the couch. He doesn’t move or reach out; he just looks at you.

“Closer.”

You take a step. Your knees touch his.

“Closer still.”

You place a hand on his shoulder. His skin is warm, still damp with sweat.

“Sit down.”

“Where?”

“On me.”

You straddle his thighs, place your knees on either side of his hips, and sit on his lap. His cock is already hard under his jeans.

“There,” he whispers, placing his hands on your hips. “Just like that.”

“My dad…”

“Your dad’s asleep. And you’re going to be quiet. ”

His hands slide up under your dress, grab your buttocks, and squeeze them with his whole palms. He presses you against him, rubbing his hard cock against your pussy through the fabric.

“You spent the whole morning watching me through the window,” he growls. “Did you think I didn’t notice?”

“I wanted you to notice. ”

“Of course you did.” His fingers dig into your buttocks. “You’re a little slut. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Say it.”

“I’m a little slut.”

“For whom?”

“For you.”

His hands move up, grab the back of your neck, pull you toward him. His forehead against yours, his eyes locked with yours.

“Tonight,” he whispers. “Tonight, I’m going to take you in your bed. All night long. Until you can’t walk anymore.”

“And now?”

“Now…”

He suddenly pulls you close against him, his mouth smashing against yours, and he kisses you.

Wildly.

Not a gentle kiss, not a tender kiss, not a cautious kiss. A desperate, violent, deep kiss,his tongue forcing its way between your lips, plunging into your mouth, tasting you as if he’d been dying of thirst for hours. His fingers clench in your hair, his other hand kneading your ass, his nails digging into your flesh through the dress.

You moan into his mouth.

He doesn’t stop. He kisses you harder, deeper; his teeth catch your lower lip and pull, his tongue returns, his hands slide up and almost rip the cardigan off your shoulders to reach your neck.

“James…” You try to push him away, your hands on his chest. “My father… ”

“I know.”

“He might wake up.”

“I know.”

“Then stop.”

Bucky freezes. His lips are a centimeter from your skin; his warm breath brushes your neck. Then he lets go of your hair, lets go of your ass, and rests his hands flat on your thighs.

“You’re right,” he whispers. “You’re right. ”

He steps back, rests his head against the back of the couch, and closes his eyes. His breathing is ragged, his cock throbs against your crotch, his hands tremble slightly on your thighs.

“Damn,” he says without opening his eyes. “You’re driving me crazy.”

“So are you.”

“It’s different. ”

“Why?”

“Because I’m forty-five and I’m supposed to have self-control.” He opens his eyes again and looks at you. “But as soon as I see you, as soon as I touch you, I lose it.”

“That’s good.”

“That’s good?”

“I don’t want you to have any self-control around me.”

Bucky stares at you for a long moment. Then he gently cups your chin between his thumb and index finger.

“Last night,” he says softly, “I told you I loved you. ”

“Yes.”

“I meant it.”

“I know.”

“But this morning, in the light of day, with your father right there, I wondered if you’d changed your mind.”

“I haven’t changed my mind.”

“Are you sure?”

You rest your hands on his cheeks, your palms against his rough stubble.

“I’ve loved you since I was sixteen. I spent nine years waiting for you. You showed up yesterday, and in two days, you’ve given me everything I’ve ever wanted. Why would I change my mind?”

Bucky closes his eyes. His long black lashes flutter against his cheekbones.

“You deserve a guy your own age.”

“I don’t want a guy my own age.”

“A guy without a past.”

“I want your past.”

“A guy your father would approve of. ”

“My dad loves you. He calls you his brother.”

“All the more reason.”

“All the more reason for nothing at all.”

Bucky opens his eyes again. He looks at you with a newfound intensity, something that almost resembles hope.

“What if it doesn’t work out?”

“It’ll work out.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because I’ve been in love with you for nine years, and I’ve never stopped. This isn’t some teenage crush, Bucky. It’s real. It’s you. It’s always been you. ”

He doesn’t answer. But his hands move up, resting on your cheeks, his thumbs caressing your cheekbones. And he kisses you. Gently this time. Tenderly. A kiss that lasts, that asks for nothing, that just gives.

When he pulls away, his forehead remains pressed against yours.

“OK,” he whispers.

“OK? ”

“OK, we’ll give it a try.”

“Really?”

“Really.” He smiles. “But you’re going to have to tell your dad someday.”

“Not today.”

“No.” He laughs softly. “Not today.”

He gets up from the couch, lifts you up with him effortlessly, and gently sets you down on the floor. Then he takes your hand, squeezes it, and lets go.

“Go to your room.”

“Why?”

“Because if you stay here, I’m going to have my way with you right here on this couch. ”

“So what?”

“The problem is that your dad could come downstairs at any moment.”

“What about in my room?”

“In your room, no one will see us.” He leans in, brushing his lips against yours. “So go upstairs. Take off that dress. Lie down on your bed. And wait for me.”

“How long?”

“Ten minutes. Just long enough to make sure your dad’s sound asleep.”

“And then?”

Bucky smiles. That same crooked, dark, dangerous smile.

“Then, kid, I’m going to fuck you until the bed breaks.”

You go up to your room without another word.The dress falls to the floor. So do your panties. You lie down on the bed, naked, your skin still marked by last night’s hickies, and you wait.

Nine minutes later, the door opens.Bucky walks in, closes the door behind him, and slides the bolt.

“Your dad’s snoring,” he says as he takes off his T-shirt. “We’ve got at least an hour.”

“An hour of what?”

He unbuttons his jeans, lets them fall, and straddles the bed. His cock is already hard, heavy, pointing toward you.

“An hour of just you and me.” He lies down on top of you, spreads your thighs with his knees, and rests his hand on your stomach. “An hour where I’m going to fill you up again. ”

“Then fill me.”

He leans down, kisses you deeply, and slides his cock against your entrance.

“With pleasure.”

And he takes you. Again. For the second time in less than twenty-four hours.

And this time, he doesn’t stop after an hour.

This time, he keeps going until the sun begins to sink below the horizon, until your legs are shaking so much you can’t close them anymore, until your belly is full of his cum and his hand never leaves that spot below your belly button.

And when your dad wakes up from his nap at four o’clock and calls from the bottom of the stairs to ask if you guys want a barbecue, Bucky replies in a perfectly calm voice without trembling, without sweating, as if his cock weren’t already going soft inside your pussy:

“Yeah, Steve. We’re coming. Give us five minutes.”

Then he gently pulls out, plants a kiss on your stomach, and whispers:

“Tonight, I’ll do it again.”

And you know he will.

Sunday arrives like a hangover. Too fast. Always too fast.

You’re sitting on the bottom step of the staircase, your knees pulled up to your chest, a mug of cold coffee in your hands. It’s four o’clock, the July sun is beating down hard on the windows, and Bucky is loading his car in the driveway. You can hear him through the open door the thud of his gym bag thrown into the trunk, the slam of the back door, the gravel crunching under his boots. Every sound is a little stab in your chest.

“I’ll be back in an hour,” he said, grabbing his keys. “Say goodbye to Bucky for me if he leaves before I do. ”

He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know anything. He doesn’t know that his daughter has spent nights getting fucked by his best friend, moaning into a pillow while Bucky whispered dirty, possessive things into the nape of her neck, getting filled over and over until cum ran down her thighs and stained the sheets. He doesn’t know that every purple mark under your turtleneck was left by the mouth of the man he calls his brother.

Bucky walks through the front door. He’s wearing black jeans, a tight gray T-shirt, and his leather jacket slung over his shoulder. His hair is tied back haphazardly, with strands escaping around his tired face. Three days of intense fucking and sleepless nights take their toll on a man. But his gray eyes still gleam with that hunger he no longer even tries to hide.

“There,” he said, setting his car keys down on the small table in the entryway. “Everything’s loaded. ”

“Already.”

It’s not a question. It’s a bitter observation.

“Yeah.”

You set your mug down on the step next to you, stand up, and walk over to him. The hardwood floor creaks beneath your bare feet. You’re wearing a simple, light summer dress, and underneath it, his fingerprints are still visible on your hips.

“I’m going to miss you,” you say simply.

Bucky doesn’t answer right away. He looks at you, standing in the entryway of this house he’s been coming to for twenty years, and something flashes in his eyes. Something heavy and dark and final.

“Come here.”

He opens his arms, and you throw yourself into him without thinking. His jacket falls to the floor. His arms close around you like a vise; his right hand runs through your hair, his left hand presses flat against the small of your back. He holds you so tight you can barely breathe, but that’s exactly what you need.

“Damn,” he murmurs against your hair. “Damn.”

“I know.”

“Three days. That’s all we had. Three fucking days.”

“It’s better than nothing. ”

“No.”

He pulls back a little, cups your face in both hands, forces you to look at him.

“It’s not better than nothing. It’s worse. Because now I know what it’s like to have you, and in twenty minutes I’ll be on the highway, alone, wondering how I’m going to last two weeks without touching your body. ”

“Two weeks isn’t that long.”

“For you, maybe.” His thumbs trace your cheekbones, his eyes diving deep into yours. “For me, it’s an eternity.”

“You’ve waited two years. You can wait two weeks.”

He lets out a small, joyless chuckle.

“Exactly. I’ve already waited two years. I’ve run out of patience. I’ve got nothing left.”

His hands leave your face, slide down your body, and come to rest on your hips. He pulls you against him, his hips pressing against yours, and you can feel his cock already swelling in his jeans.

“See?” he says, gently rubbing his erection against your stomach. “Just looking at you gets me hard. Just smelling you makes me ready to take you right here against this door. ”

“Then take me.”

“I don’t have time.” His voice is strained. “I’ve got a four-hour drive ahead of me, and your dad could be back any minute.”

“Then at least kiss me.”

He does it. Without hesitation. His lips press against yours, his tongue forces its way in, and the kiss is desperate,deep and salty and violent, as if he’s trying to store up enough of you to last two weeks. His hands slide down to your buttocks, kneading the flesh through the dress, his fingers digging in so hard that you’ll have new marks tomorrow.

“I can’t,” he growls, pulling away abruptly. “I can’t stop once I start.”

“Then don’t stop.”

“Kid…”

He takes a step back, runs a trembling hand over his mouth, trying to regain control.

“If I keep going, I’m going to take you right here on the entryway floor. If I take you right here on the entryway floor, I won’t want to leave. If I don’t leave, your father is going to find me. And if he finds me…”

“He’ll kill you.”

“Exactly.”

Silence falls. The orange light of the setting sun streams through the window and casts patterns on the hardwood floor. Outside, a blackbird sings in the garden. Bucky’s car is parked in the driveway, trunk open, ready to go.

“I don’t want you to leave,” you finally say, your voice quieter than you’d like.

“I know. ”

“I want to wake up tomorrow with your hand on my stomach.”

Bucky closes his eyes. When he opens them again, they’re moist.

“Me too.”

He takes a step toward you, places both hands on your shoulders, and slowly slides them down your arms.

“But I’ll be back. I promised you. ”

“Two weeks.”

“Maybe less.”

“And then?”

“Then…”

His right hand leaves your arm, slides down your stomach, and comes to rest flat just below your belly button. That gesture. That damn gesture he’s repeated a hundred times in three days, like a ritual, like a prayer, like an obsession that will never let him go. His fingers spread apart, his palm molding to the flat curve of your stomach, his thumb caressing your skin through the thin fabric of the dress.

“After that,” he continues softly, his eyes locked on yours, “I’ll fuck you. Again and again. Every night. Every morning. Every time I get the chance. ”

“What if it’s never enough?”

“It’ll never be enough.”

His hand presses harder against your stomach.

“Don’t you get it? I spent two years holding back. Two years telling myself you were too young, that you were Steve’s daughter, that it was off-limits. And now, in three days, you’ve broken down all my barriers. ”

“Is that a good thing?”

“It’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” He lowers his head, resting his forehead against yours. “And the worst. ”

“Why the worst?”

“Because now I can’t stop.”

His voice is hoarse, almost broken.

“Now that I’ve had you, now that I’ve tasted your pussy and felt your belly under my hand and heard the sounds you make when you come… I can’t. It’s over. I’m done for. ”

“James…”

“No, listen to me.”

He pulls his head back, looks you in the eyes, and his gaze is so intense that you can’t look away.

“Before, I could pretend. But now, that’s not possible anymore. Now I know what your body feels like against mine. I know what you taste like. I know your stomach is soft under my hand and that your pussy squeezes me as if it were made just for me.”

His hand on your belly presses even harder, his fingers sinking into the tender flesh, and he lowers his voice to a whisper.

“And I know that if my cum takes root in that belly, I’ll be the happiest man in the world. ”

The word hangs between you like a truth that’s too heavy, too raw, too real.

“Do you really mean that?” you ask softly.

“I’ve never felt it more strongly.” His hand caresses your belly, moves up a little, then back down, as if he’s already trying to imagine a curve that doesn’t exist yet. “Before you, I had nothing. A career, an empty house, nights alone in a bed that was too big. And now, in three days, you’ve changed everything. You’ve filled all the gaps. You’ve given meaning to things that hadn’t had any for twenty years.”

“You’re making me cry.”

“Don’t cry.”

He smiles that little crooked smile that’s been melting your heart ever since you were sixteen.

“Don’t cry, kid. Because if you cry, I’ll cry too, and I’ve got a tough-guy image to maintain.”

You laugh through the tears that well up despite yourself.

“You’re an idiot.”

“An idiot who loves you. ”

“An idiot I love.”

He kisses you. Gently this time. His lips brush against yours, his stubble grazes your chin, his hand remains pressed against your stomach as if that were its rightful place, as if it had never been meant to be anywhere else.

Then he pulls away. Slowly. Reluctantly. Every centimeter that separates you makes him wince.

“I have to go.”

“I know.”

“Two weeks.”

He picks up his jacket from the floor and throws it over his shoulder.

“Two weeks, and I’ll be here.”

“I’ll be waiting for you.”

“I know.”

He walks toward the door, puts his hand on the doorknob, and stops. He stands there like that, his back turned, his shoulders tense, visibly struggling against the urge to stay.

Then he turns around one last time.

His gray eyes sweep across the room, the entryway, the staircase, the table where his keys lie. Then they return to you. To your face. To your light dress. To your bare feet on the hardwood floor.

And they linger on your stomach.

He crosses the entryway in three steps. He sets his jacket on the table, gently takes your wrist, and presses your hand against his heart. You feel the beats,strong, fast, erratic.

“Can you feel that?”

“Yes.”

“It’s you. You’re the one making it beat like that.”

Then he lets go of your wrist, placing his right hand flat on your stomach,one last time, his palm burning, his fingers spread apart, his thumb caressing your skin through the fabric. He presses gently, as if he wanted to leave his mark on your flesh, as if he wanted you to feel his presence even when he’s a four-hour drive away.

“You’re mine now, kid.”

His voice is deep, hoarse, definitive. Not a question. Not a request. A fact. A verdict. An indisputable truth.

“Yes,” you whisper, placing your hand on top of his. “I’m yours.”

“And I’m yours.Completely. Irrevocably. Fucking definitely.”

He leans in, planting one last kiss at the corner of your lips—a light, almost chaste kiss that clashes with everything he’s just said. Then he pulls his hand away from your stomach, grabs his keys, and opens the door.

“Two weeks.”

“Two weeks.”

He steps over the threshold. The door closes behind him. Through the window, you see him cross the driveway, walk around the car, and get behind the wheel. The engine roars. The windows are tinted, but you know he’s still looking at you.

The car backs up, pulls onto the road, and disappears down the street.

You stand in the entryway, barefoot, your hand resting on your stomach exactly where his had been. The imprint of his palm is still warm on your skin through the dress. His words echo in your head like a promise, a threat, and an oath all at once.

You’re mine now, kid.

Outside, the blackbird has fallen silent. The sun is finishing its descent behind the trees, and in the silence of the empty living room, you smile.

Two weeks.

You can wait two weeks.

You’ve waited nine years.

And Tony.

Your father.

Dad, now.

The word had stopped catching in your throat every time you used it. Not completely – sometimes it still startled you, still made Maria glance up with soft eyes, still made Tony go briefly still like some part of him needed half a second to absorb the gift again – but it had become yours.

You said it in ordinary moments now.

“Dad, have you seen my notebook?”

“Dad, I’m stealing the last coffee.”

“Dad, if you tell me to take a break one more time, I’m citing you as an obstacle in my acknowledgments.”

Tony always pretended to be offended.

Maria always looked like she was trying not to cry.

And slowly, without you noticing at first, the villa became less like a refuge and more like a place where you lived.

Your thesis was finished. Truly finished. Printed, backed up in three different places because Tony had nearly had a cardiac event when you admitted you were relying on only two, and waiting now for your defense like a quiet animal in the corner of your future.

Athens waited too.

October.

A year-long position. A city you had not yet seen but had already begun to imagine in fragments: stone under sun, dry heat, museum archives, narrow streets, ruins that did not apologize for surviving.

Some days, the thought filled you with excitement so sharp it almost frightened you.

Other days, it made you ache.

Because the first person you had wanted to tell had been Bucky.

And now, sometimes, you did tell him things.

Not everything.

Never too much at once.

But enough.

A photo of an article about Athens with one line circled.

A complaint about administrative paperwork.

A message that said, I keep forgetting October is real.

He never pushed.

He never answered too quickly in a way that felt frantic, even if you suspected he wanted to. His replies came thoughtful, careful, stripped of anything that might feel like a hand closing around your wrist.

It made something in you soften.

Not completely.

But enough.

Enough that sometimes, when your phone rang and his name appeared because you had called him first and he was calling back, your stomach did not turn with fear.

Sometimes it only tightened with memory.

Sometimes, impossibly, it warmed.

You talked to Tony about him more often now.

Not like before, when Bucky’s name had been a shard lodged beneath your ribs and every mention of him made you bleed all over again.

Now it was different.

Still painful.

Still complicated.

But not only pain.

You talked about him as someone who existed in your future as a question, not just in your past as a wound.

You told Tony about Bucky as a child – loud, impossible, protective, too brave in the way boys often were when no one had taught them fear properly yet.

You told him about storms and small beds and the first time you understood safety as a person instead of a rule.

You told him about the years of confusion, about Steve, about the ways love had tangled itself into family until none of you had known how to separate one thread from another without pulling the whole thing apart.

Tony listened the way he always did now, with his full attention disguised badly as casualness.

Sometimes he got angry.

Not loudly.

Tony’s anger, when it was for you, went quiet and sharp.

But he never made it simple.

He never said Bucky was only cruel.

He never said you were foolish for still loving him.

One evening, while you sat outside with him, he leaned back in his chair and said, “You know loving someone who hurt you doesn’t mean you approve of the hurt.”

You looked down at your glass of water, watching condensation gather beneath your fingers. “It feels like it should.”

“It doesn’t,” Tony said. “It means people are inconveniently complicated. Which I would personally like to file a complaint about.”

You huffed a small laugh.

Tony’s mouth curved, but his eyes stayed serious.

“You’re allowed to want him,” he said. “And you’re allowed to be angry. And you’re allowed to take your time deciding whether wanting him is enough.”

That stayed with you.

It followed you into the next days, into calls and messages and quiet mornings.

Wanting him was not a command.

Loving him was not surrender.

You could miss him and still protect yourself.

You could ache for his voice and still end the call when your chest became too tight.

You could rebuild the bridge slowly without promising to cross it.

And then Bucky’s birthday came.

You remembered before your phone reminded you.

Of course you did.

The date lived somewhere old in you, folded into childhood memory – cakes your mother had made, loud laughter in the kitchen, Steve and Pietro trying to outdo each other with terrible gifts, Wanda pretending not to care about birthdays and then somehow always choosing the exact right thing.

You woke up with it already sitting in your chest.

Bucky.

His day.

For most of the morning, you did nothing about it.

You worked. Or tried to.

You reread the same paragraph three times and absorbed none of it. You checked a footnote that had been correct for weeks. You opened an email, closed it, opened it again.

Maria noticed by lunch.

“You’re somewhere else today,” she said gently.

You looked up from your plate. “It’s Bucky’s birthday.”

Maria’s expression softened with immediate understanding. She didn’t make the small, sympathetic sound people sometimes made when they wanted to be kind but only succeeded in making pain feel more exposed.

She only nodded.

“Are you going to call him?”

You stared down at your hands.

“I don’t know.”

Later, Tony found you in the library, sitting in the armchair by the window with your phone face-down on your thigh.

He looked at the phone, then at you.

“Is this a birthday-related staring contest?”

You gave him a tired look. “I’m losing.”

“Phones are undefeated,” he said, crossing the room and sitting opposite you. “Vicious little rectangles.”

You smiled despite yourself, but it faded quickly.

“I want to call him,” you admitted.

Tony’s expression didn’t change, but his attention sharpened.

“Then call him.”

You swallowed. “What if it’s too much?”

“Then you hang up.”

“What if it hurts?”

“It might.”

You looked away.

Tony leaned forward slightly, elbows on his knees.

“But you’re not calling because you owe him something,” he said. “Right?”

You shook your head.

“Good. Then ask yourself the better question.”

You glanced back at him.

Tony’s voice softened. “Do you want to hear his voice today?”

The answer was there immediately.

Terrifyingly simple.

“Yes.”

Tony nodded once. “Then that’s enough reason.”

So at eight-forty-seven that evening, after thinking about it for far too long, you sent a message.

Are you available for a call?

You stared at it after sending, your heart beating too fast.

The reply came less than a minute later.

Yes. Always, but yes. Is everything okay?

You closed your eyes briefly.

Everything is okay. I just wanted to call for your birthday. If that’s okay.

The dots appeared.

Disappeared.

Appeared again.

That’s more than okay.

Your thumb hovered over the call button.

Then, because some part of you was braver than you felt, you pressed video instead.

In New York, Bucky nearly dropped his phone.

He had been sitting on his couch, not doing much of anything. The room was dim except for the lamp near the window, the city stretching beyond the glass in scattered lights. He had spent the day carefully not expecting anything from you.

That was the thing therapy had begun to teach him – not cleanly, not comfortably, but steadily.

Wanting was not entitlement.

Missing was not permission.

Hope was not a contract.

He had started the morning with his phone in his hand and your thread open, typing three different birthday-adjacent messages before deleting all of them.

Hope you’re having a good day felt absurd. It was his birthday, not yours.

I’m thinking of you felt too heavy.

I love you felt true, but he had already said it and did not want to lay it at your feet like another weight.

So he had sent nothing.

He had gone to work. Let Clint make a terrible joke about birthdays being “just annual performance reviews for survival.” Let his colleagues shove a cupcake onto his desk. Let Steve text him a simple Happy birthday, jerk, which had made him smile for the first time all day.

He had gone to therapy too, because the date of his birth apparently did not exempt him from emotional accountability.

And then, at night, your name had appeared.

A message first.

Then another.

Then the video call.

For half a second, his body forgot how to function.

The phone buzzed in his hand, your name bright on the screen, the little camera icon making his pulse crash hard against his ribs.

He stared at it.

Once.

Twice.

Then answered before the call could disappear.

Your face filled the screen.

And Bucky went completely still.

Not because he had forgotten what you looked like.

Never that.

Your face lived in him with humiliating precision. The shape of your mouth when you were trying not to smile. The particular lift of your brows when he said something stupid. The softness around your eyes when you were tired but listening anyway.

But memory was cruel in its own way.

Memory flattened.

Memory preserved and distorted.

This was not memory.

This was you.

Alive. Moving. Breathing.

Your hair was loose around your shoulders, softer than he remembered, catching the warm light from somewhere offscreen. You looked healthier than the last time he had seen you in person – still thinner than before, still tired in ways he could read too easily, but present. There was color in your face. Light in your eyes. Something steadier beneath the ache.

You were sitting somewhere neutral, a pale wall behind you, maybe your room, maybe somewhere you had chosen because it did not reveal too much.

You looked nervous.

So did he.

For a moment, neither of you spoke.

Then you gave a small, awkward smile.

“Hi.”

Bucky’s throat tightened so hard it took him a second to answer.

“Hi.”

Another silence.

You let out a breath that turned into a quiet, embarrassed laugh. “This is weird.”

Bucky’s mouth twitched, painfully fond. “Yeah.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t,” he said immediately, then softened his voice when he saw your expression flicker. “Don’t apologize. It’s not bad weird.”

Your eyes lowered for a second, then lifted again.

“Happy birthday,” you said softly.

The words hit him somewhere central.

He had heard them all day. From coworkers. From Steve. From his parents. From Wanda, who had sent a text that was clearly affectionate but still carried the energy of someone who had not decided if she wanted to forgive him on principle.

But from you…

His chest ached.

“Thank you,” he managed.

You shifted slightly, fingers moving near the edge of the frame. He could see only part of your hand, but enough to notice that you were fidgeting.

He wanted to tell you not to be nervous.

He wanted to tell you there was nothing you could do wrong.

But he had learned better than to make declarations that erased the reality of what he had done.

So he only sat there, holding the phone carefully, as if handling something fragile.

“How was your day?” you asked.

Bucky blinked once.

The question was so ordinary it almost hurt.

“It was okay,” he said. “Work. Cupcake. Clint mocked me. Steve called me a jerk.”

Your mouth curved. “So, normal.”

“Pretty much.”

“That sounds nice.”

He nodded slowly. “Yeah. It was.”

He hesitated, then added, “Better now.”

Your eyes flicked to his.

Bucky’s breath caught.

For a second, the old instinct rose – to pull back, to make a joke, to soften what he meant so it could not be rejected.

He did not.

He held your gaze instead.

“This is the best gift I got today,” he said quietly.

Your expression changed.

Not dramatically. You did not gasp or melt or smile in that easy movie way.

But something softened in your face, and something sad passed through it too. Like the words had warmed you and hurt you at once.

“Bucky…”

“I mean it,” he said.

“I know.”

The quiet settled differently after that.

Less awkward.

Still fragile, but no longer empty.

You talked for a few minutes about harmless things. The weather in Miami, which Bucky said sounded fake because “warm nights are suspicious”. The fact that Maria had apparently decided you needed clothes for Athens and had made shopping sound like a tactical operation. The defense, coming closer now, no longer a distant idea but a real point on the calendar.

He asked about the thesis only lightly, because he knew you had finished writing it and that the next step was the defense.

“You still feel good about it?” he asked.

You glanced aside, thoughtful. “Mostly. Some days I think it’s solid. Some days I think I should burn the entire thing and become a florist.”

Bucky huffed a laugh before he could stop himself.

Your eyes warmed at the sound.

And God, he had missed making you look like that.

“Please don’t become a florist,” he said. “You’d judge the historical accuracy of every arrangement.”

“I would not.”

“You absolutely would. ‘These flowers were not culturally available in this region during that century’.”

You narrowed your eyes slightly. “That’s not even how floristry works.”

“I don’t know. I’m not the future doctor.”

The words slipped out naturally.

Future doctor.

You smiled then, small but real, and Bucky felt something in him loosen with such force it was almost painful.

Then the silence came back.

Not bad.

Just full.

You looked at him through the screen, and he could tell you were seeing him too – really seeing him. The faint tiredness under his eyes. The way his hair needed cutting. The way he was trying so hard not to reach through the distance with both hands.

“You look…” he started, then stopped.

Your posture changed immediately. Not a flinch, but a bracing.

Bucky saw it and hated himself for triggering even that small reflex.

He softened everything. His voice. His face. The angle of his shoulders.

“You look beautiful,” he said quietly.

Your breath caught.

The screen flickered slightly with a weak connection, but your face stayed clear enough for him to see the color rise in your cheeks.

Not discomfort exactly.

Not only discomfort.

You looked overwhelmed.

“Thank you,” you whispered.

“I’m not saying it to make you uncomfortable.”

“I know.”

“I just…” He swallowed. “I haven’t seen your face in months.”

Your eyes lowered again.

“I know.”

“And I missed it.”

That one seemed to land deeper.

You pressed your lips together, eyes shining slightly, though no tears fell.

“I missed yours too,” you admitted.

Bucky stopped breathing for a second.

He knew better than to rush into that sentence. Better than to grab it and build a whole future out of it. You had not said I forgive you. You had not said come home. You had not said anything that promised him access.

But you had said it.

You had missed his face.

And for tonight, on his birthday, that was enough to make his chest hurt with gratitude.

He nodded, because he trusted himself less with words.

You both sat in the quiet for a moment.

Then you said, softer, “I’m glad I called.”

Bucky’s eyes burned.

He looked down briefly, blinking hard, then back up at you.

“Me too.”

Your smile trembled a little.

“I wanted to hear your voice today,” you said, and it sounded like a confession.

Bucky’s throat closed.

He had imagined so many things in the weeks since you left. Most of them terrible. Some of them hopeful in ways he refused to indulge.

He had not imagined that.

Not today.

Not like this.

He could feel the words rising in him before he decided to say them. They had been there for years, buried under fear and shame and all the wrong names. He had written them. Texted them. Let them exist on a screen where they could be read without the full danger of his voice behind them.

But he had never given them to you like this.

Out loud.

Face to face.

He took a breath.

Your eyes held his through the screen, wary and warm and scared.

“I love you,” Bucky said.

The words came out quiet.

No drama. No push. No demand.

Just truth.

Your face changed.

For a moment, you looked exactly like you had in childhood when someone offered you something too tender to understand – startled, almost afraid of the shape of it, as if love itself was a bright object placed in your hands.

Bucky did not continue.

He did not add please.

He did not ask you to say it back.

He only let the words stand there between you, steady and bare.

Your eyes filled slowly.

You inhaled once, shaky.

“I know,” you whispered.

Then, after a beat that felt like the whole world balancing on a thread, you added, “I love you too.”

Bucky closed his eyes.

Just for a second.

Because if he kept looking at you, he thought he might break in a way that would make this about him, and he refused to do that.

When he opened them again, you were still there.

Still on the screen.

Still breathing.

Still watching him with tears in your eyes and distance between you and a boundary he would not cross.

“Thank you,” he said, voice rough.

Your brows pulled together faintly. “For what?”

“For calling.”

You looked down, then back up.

“It’s your birthday.”

Bucky smiled, small and wrecked. “Yeah.”

“And I wanted to.”

That was the gift.

Not the call itself.

Not the sight of your face.

Not even the I love you returned in a whisper.

The gift was that you wanted to.

That there was still some part of you that reached for him – carefully, fearfully, on your own terms.

Bucky held that knowledge like something sacred.

The call did not last long after that.

Neither of you had the strength for long.

You told him you should let him sleep. He said he probably would not, but he would try. You gave him a look through the screen, faintly stern, and for half a second it felt so familiar that his heart clenched.

“Goodnight, Bucky,” you said.

“Goodnight,” he answered.

He hesitated.

Then, softly, because he could not help himself but would keep it small, “Thank you for the best birthday.”

Your mouth trembled into something almost like a smile.

“Don’t make it dramatic.”

“I would never.”

“You absolutely would.”

He huffed a quiet laugh.

Then the call ended.

The screen went dark.

Bucky sat there for a long time with the phone still in his hand, staring at his own reflection in the black glass.

He did not feel healed.

He did not feel forgiven.

He did not feel like the damage had vanished because you had called him and let him see your face.

But he felt something.

A thread.

A breath.

A beginning that was not yet safe enough to name.

He pressed the phone lightly against his mouth, closed his eyes, and whispered again into the quiet apartment, softer this time, steadier.

“I love you.”

And this time, somewhere far away, he knew you had heard him.

The rest of the week became practical in the way looming deadlines always made life practical.

Your defense was in a little under three weeks now.

Three weeks.

The number sat in the back of your mind with a strange weight – not panic, exactly, but pressure. A good kind, most of the time. The kind that made you wake up earlier than usual, coffee in hand before the sun had fully warmed the kitchen tiles, laptop open while the rest of the villa still moved quietly around you.

Your thesis itself was finished.

That fact still felt unreal.

The document existed. Complete. Footnotes tightened. Bibliography formatted. Arguments shaped into something that held under scrutiny. Months – years, really – of research, revisions, exhaustion, and stubbornness had become a file sitting neatly on your desktop, waiting to be defended rather than written.

That should have made you feel lighter.

Instead, it made the presentation feel suddenly enormous.

Because now there was no more hiding behind the work.

Now you had to stand in front of people and explain it.

You had done seminars before. Lectures. Discussions. Teaching assistant sections where undergraduates stared at you with varying degrees of panic and boredom. But this was different. This was yours. Your research. Your years. Your voice, carrying all of it into a room where people would listen, question, assess.

The first draft of the slides was competent.

Too competent, maybe.

Clean. Dense. Perfectly structured.

Also, as Tony informed you after staring at the third slide for almost thirty seconds, “academically lethal.”

You looked up from your laptop. “That’s not a real category.”

“It is now,” he said, leaning over the dining table with one hand braced beside your notes. “This slide has nine bullet points.”

“They’re important.”

“They are crimes.”

You narrowed your eyes at him. “You asked to see the presentation.”

“And I’m seeing it,” Tony replied. “I’m seeing death by citation.”

From the opposite side of the table, Pepper Potts – who had somehow become involved after Tony said the words presentation structure within hearing distance – gave him a very calm look.

“Tony.”

“What?” he said, innocent. “I’m helping.”

“You’re heckling.”

“I’m constructively heckling.”

Pepper ignored him and turned the laptop gently toward herself, scrolling back to the beginning. She was precise in a way that immediately settled something in you. Not cold. Not harsh. Just clear. She had the kind of competence that made a room feel less chaotic by existing in it.

“This is strong,” she said first.

You blinked, thrown by the immediate reassurance.

Pepper glanced at you. “It is. Your structure is solid. Your argument builds well. You know what you’re talking about.”

Tony pointed at her. “See? My assistant agrees with me.”

Pepper didn’t look at him. “I agree with myself.”

“You assist me professionally, which means your help is technically my help.”

“That is not how labor works.”

“It’s how ownership of credit works in this family.”

You looked between them, startled into a laugh before you could stop yourself.

Tony’s face softened the instant he heard it, though he tried to hide it by taking a sip of coffee. Pepper saw anyway. Her expression flickered, almost amused.

Then she returned to your slides.

“What you need,” she said, “is breathing room.”

You glanced down at the screen. “Breathing room?”

“Yes.” She clicked to your second slide. “Your audience will not read while you speak. If you give them too much text, they’ll either listen to you and ignore the slide, or read the slide and lose your voice. Neither helps you.”

Tony nodded solemnly. “Exactly. Less wall of text, more devastating intellectual charisma.”

You gave him a look. “Devastating intellectual charisma.”

“You have it,” he said, too quickly to be joking. Then, a beat later, because sincerity still embarrassed him when it came out too naked: “Obviously. Genetics.”

Pepper’s mouth tightened like she was fighting a smile.

You looked down at your hands, warmth spreading through your chest before you could stop it.

Pepper helped you cut.

Not the content. Never that. She never made you feel like your research needed to be smaller. She just helped you decide what belonged on the screen and what belonged in your voice.

A map instead of a paragraph.

A timeline instead of three dates hidden in text.

A single image where you had written an entire explanatory block.

“Let them look at something,” she told you. “Then you tell them what it means.”

Tony leaned back in his chair. “Public speaking rule one: never make the audience do your job for you.”

You arched an eyebrow. “And how many speeches have you derailed in your life?”

“Professionally or emotionally?”

Pepper didn’t even blink. “Both lists are extensive.”

By the end of the afternoon, your presentation looked different.

Cleaner.

Sharper.

Yours, still – but easier to inhabit.

And when Pepper made you stand in the living room and run through the first seven minutes aloud, you expected your voice to shake.

It did, a little, at first.

Then you found the rhythm.

You knew this. You knew the argument. You knew the evidence, the gaps, the choices you had made. You knew why the work mattered. And once you remembered that, your shoulders lowered.

Tony stood near the doorway with his arms crossed, silent in a way that told you he was taking this seriously. No jokes. No interruptions. No theatrical commentary.

Just listening.

Pepper stopped you twice to adjust pacing.

“Slow down after the first major claim.”

You nodded.

“Pause there. Let that sentence land.”

You nodded again.

Tony tilted his head. “And look up more.”

You glanced at him. “I am looking up.”

“You’re checking that we still exist. That’s not the same thing.”

The observation landed too accurately.

Pepper’s expression softened, but she didn’t rescue you from it. “He’s right.”

You exhaled slowly.

Then you tried again.

This time, when you reached the first major transition, you lifted your eyes properly. Held the room. Let the silence exist instead of rushing to fill it.

Tony’s gaze warmed.

“There,” he said quietly. “That.”

You swallowed.

Pepper smiled. “Exactly.”

After that, the presentation stopped feeling like an obstacle and started feeling like something you could carry.

Not easily.

But honestly.

That night, Tony booked the hotel in New York.

He did it while you were sitting at the kitchen island, eating late because Maria had placed a plate in front of you with the expression of a woman who was not asking. Tony had his tablet propped beside his coffee, scrolling through options with increasing irritation.

“This one says ‘boutique’,” he muttered.

You looked over. “What’s wrong with boutique?”

“Boutique is what hotels call themselves when the elevator is haunted and the rooms are the size of a shoebox.”

“I live in New York,” you reminded him. “Everything is the size of a shoebox.”

“Exactly why I’m not sleeping in your apartment.”

You laughed softly. “I wasn’t going to ask you to.”

“I know,” he said, glancing at you. “But I’m preemptively refusing anyway.”

Maria looked up from her tea. “Antony.”

“What? Her apartment is tiny. She has one bedroom, too many books, and probably a kitchen where two people standing at the same time counts as a fire hazard.”

You tried not to smile. “That’s… not inaccurate.”

Tony pointed at you without looking away from the tablet. “See?”

Maria’s eyes softened over the rim of her cup. “He wants to be close enough to hover without admitting he is hovering.”

Tony made a wounded sound. “I am not hovering. I am logistically positioning myself.”

“For two weeks,” you said.

He looked up then, expression shifting into something quieter.

“Yeah,” he said. “Two weeks.”

The humor thinned, but it didn’t vanish. It just made room for the truth underneath.

He wanted time.

Not just the day of your defense. Not just the ceremony of showing up and being proud in the room.

He wanted New York with you.

The places you had lived. The streets you had walked. The bookstores, museums, coffee shops, campus buildings. The childhood corners that had shaped you before he knew you existed. He wanted to see your world not as a visitor passing through, but as someone trying to understand where you had been.

You had offered it tentatively at first.

“I could show you around,” you had said a few days earlier, voice careful. “Not tourist stuff. Just… my places.”

Tony had gone very still.

Then he had said, “I’d like that.”

And now he was booking a hotel not too far from your apartment, far enough not to crowd you, close enough that you could meet without crossing half the city.

A compromise.

A boundary respected before it even had to be named.

You watched him finalize the reservation, something tender and nervous folding itself under your ribs.

“Dad?”

He looked up immediately.

The word still did that to him. Even after a month. Even now that it came easier from your mouth, even now that you didn’t freeze every time you said it.

His face changed every time.

Not dramatically. Not embarrassingly.

Just enough.

Like a light turning on behind his eyes.

“Yeah?”

You pushed a piece of food around your plate, suddenly shy. “You don’t have to stay that long.”

Tony’s expression softened.

“I know,” he said.

“I mean it. The defense is one day. You could come for that and then–”

“I know,” he repeated.

You looked up.

He held your gaze, steady and warm.

“I’m not staying because I have to,” he said. “I’m staying because I want to.”

Your throat tightened.

Maria reached over and covered your hand briefly with hers.

Tony looked back down at the tablet, tapping the final confirmation with exaggerated casualness.

“There,” he announced. “Hotel acquired. No squatting in your tiny apartment. Everyone wins.”

You managed a small smile. “Thank you.”

He glanced at you again.

“You don’t have to thank me for wanting to be there.”

The sentence hit close enough that you had to look away.

You spent the next days organizing people.

That was its own kind of emotional minefield.

Your mother first, of course.

She already knew the date, had known the second you did, but there was a difference between knowing and planning. She wanted to know when to arrive, whether she should bring anything, whether there would be a reception afterward, whether you wanted dinner at home or somewhere quiet.

“Nothing big,” you said immediately.

“I know,” she replied gently.

“And not too many people.”

“I know.”

“And please don’t–”

“Sweetheart,” she interrupted, voice warm with restrained amusement. “I raised you. I know.”

You closed your eyes briefly, smiling despite yourself.

Wanda was next.

She answered your call with, “Tell me where and when, and I will be there looking devastatingly supportive.”

“You don’t even know what I’m asking yet.”

“You’re organizing your defense.” A pause. “Unless this is about hiding a body, in which case I am still available but need different shoes.”

You laughed properly, the sound loosening something in your chest.

When you gave her the date and time, she went quiet for half a second.

Then, softer, “I’m proud of you.”

You swallowed. “You already said that.”

“And I’ll say it again.” Her voice wavered just slightly. “You finished your thesis. You’re defending it. You’re going to stand in that room and be brilliant and probably terrifying, and I get to be there.”

Your eyes stung.

“You’re going to cry, aren’t you?” you asked.

“I’m going to look elegant and emotionally restrained.”

“Wanda.”

“I’m going to sob like a widow in a period drama.”

You smiled through the ache.

Pietro was easier and harder.

Easier because he already knew everything, because there were fewer gaps with him than with anyone else. Harder because he understood too much.

When you told him the schedule, he made a humming sound.

“I’ll clear the day.”

“You don’t have to cancel patients.”

“I said I’ll clear the day.”

“Pietro–”

“You finished a doctorate thesis after emotionally imploding, fleeing the state, finding your secret billionaire father, and rebuilding half your nervous system in Florida,” he said flatly. “I can move appointments.”

You blinked. “That was… a lot in one sentence.”

“It was a very efficient sentence.”

You pressed a hand over your eyes, laughing softly.

Then he asked, quieter, “Are you inviting him?”

You didn’t pretend not to understand.

Bucky.

His name still did something inside you.

Not the same thing it had done a month ago. Not the immediate collapse, not the sharp urge to retreat into silence. It still hurt. It still made old fear brush cold fingers along your spine.

But now there was something else too.

A door cracked open.

A line of messages. A few short calls. A birthday video call where his face had gone stunned and soft when he saw you. The way he had said you were beautiful like the words had slipped out before fear could stop them.

You had not forgiven him.

Not fully.

But you had started letting him exist near the edges of your life again.

“I think I want to,” you admitted.

Pietro was silent for a moment.

Then he said, “Okay.”

You frowned slightly. “Just okay?”

“What do you want me to say?”

“I don’t know. Something protective and emotionally inconvenient.”

He huffed. “I can still do that.”

“Please don’t.”

His voice softened. “Do you want him there because you want him there, or because you feel guilty if he isn’t?”

You looked down at your hand, at the faint crescent marks your nails had left in your palm.

You thought about the room where you would defend your work. Your mother. Wanda. Pietro. Steve. Tony.

And Bucky.

Bucky, who had known since you were small that ruins mattered to you before you had language for why. Bucky, who had watched you become the person who wrote this thesis. Bucky, who had wounded you so deeply you had left your entire life behind for a while – and who had still been part of the road that led to this version of you.

You took a slow breath.

“Because I want him there,” you said. “And because if I don’t invite him, I think I’ll keep wondering what it would have felt like if I had.”

Pietro exhaled.

“Then invite him.”

You swallowed. “Are you okay with that?”

“It’s not about whether I’m okay with it.”

“Pietro.”

His tone gentled. “I’ll be okay. I can stand in the same room as him without committing a felony.”

“That’s reassuring.”

“I’m very mature now.”

“You punched him.”

“One time.”

You laughed under your breath, but your chest still felt tight.

Pietro’s voice softened further. “Invite him if you want him there. Just don’t make yourself responsible for how he feels about being invited.”

You nodded, even though he couldn’t see it.

“I know.”

“Do you?”

You sighed. “I’m learning.”

“That’ll do.”

Steve was the one who made you pause the longest before calling.

Not because you didn’t want him there.

Because Steve would understand the significance before you fully explained it. He always did. And sometimes being understood too quickly made you feel exposed.

Still, when you called, he answered with warmth in his voice.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

The conversation was easy at first. Easier than it had been months ago. You told him the date of the defense, the time, the building, the room number. He repeated it back like he was writing it down immediately.

“I’ll be there,” he said.

You smiled faintly. “You didn’t check your calendar.”

“I’ll move whatever’s there.”

“Steve.”

“You’re defending your thesis,” he said, as if that settled it.

You looked down at your desk, at the open notebook where you’d written a list of names.

“Thank you.”

There was a brief silence.

Then Steve said, lightly, “Is your father coming?”

You froze for half a second.

Not because he said father.

Because the sentence reminded you how carefully divided your life still was.

“My dad,” you said softly. “Yeah. He’s coming.”

Steve was quiet.

You could almost hear him processing the correction – not father as abstract, not biological father as a concept, but dad. Someone real. Someone you had started to claim.

“That’s good,” Steve said gently. “I’m glad.”

You swallowed. “He’s staying for a couple of weeks. I’m going to show him things.”

“Your places?”

“Yeah.”

Steve’s voice warmed. “He’ll like that.”

You smiled a little. “You don’t even know him.”

“No,” Steve said. “But I know you.”

That landed softly.

Then, because Steve had become Steve again in a way that made your chest ache less, he added, “Sharon says congratulations, by the way.”

Your eyebrows lifted. “Sharon knows I exist?”

“She knows I have a friend finishing a doctorate and making everyone else look lazy.”

You laughed. “Is that how you described me?”

“It was implied.”

“And how is Sharon?”

There was a pause.

A very particular pause.

You sat up straighter, instantly interested. “Steve.”

“What?”

“That pause had a face.”

“It did not.”

“It absolutely did.”

Steve sighed.

“She’s driving me crazy,” he admitted.

You grinned slowly. “Oh?”

“She has opinions about everything.”

“How terrible.”

“And she reorganized part of the prep schedule for the exhibit because she said my system was ‘emotionally attached to inefficiency’.”

You had to cover your mouth to keep from laughing too loudly.

Steve continued, with the aggrieved tone of a man who had been personally attacked by competence, “She just walks in, decides something is wrong, fixes it, and then looks at me like I should thank her.”

“Did she fix it?”

“That is not the point.”

“It sounds like it might be the point.”

Steve was silent.

You smiled wider.

“Oh, Steve.”

“Don’t.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You’re thinking loudly.”

“I just think it’s interesting,” you said, voice carefully innocent, “how much energy you’re spending complaining about a woman who is apparently competent, direct, and immune to your stubbornness.”

“She’s not immune.”

“Sure.”

“She’s irritating.”

“Of course.”

“And bossy.”

“Mhm.”

“And she has this way of looking at me like she’s already decided I’m wrong before I’ve even finished talking.”

You leaned back in your chair, delighted despite yourself. “Tragic.”

Steve exhaled through his nose. “You’re enjoying this.”

“A little.”

“You’re terrible.”

“I’m insightful.”

“You’re smug.”

“I’m right.”

There was a beat.

Then Steve laughed, soft and reluctant, and the sound warmed something in you.

You were still smiling when the conversation ended.

And then there was Bucky.

You didn’t call him immediately.

You looked at his thread for a long time instead.

Your conversations had become more frequent over the last month, but still careful. Small bridges rather than open roads. A few texts here and there. A call when you felt steady enough. The video call on his birthday that had left you shaky afterward, but not broken.

You knew the defense mattered.

You knew inviting him mattered more.

Because this was not a coffee. Not five minutes on the phone. Not a controlled exchange where you could stop answering and put the phone down if it became too much.

This would be a room.

A shared space.

His face among the others.

His presence attached to one of the most important days of your life.

You opened the text box.

Closed it.

Opened it again.

Then, before you could overthink yourself into paralysis, you typed.

My thesis defense is in a little under three weeks. I’m starting to organize who’ll be there. I’d like you to come, if you can. No pressure. I know it’s… a lot. But I wanted to ask.

You stared at the message until the words stopped looking like words.

Then you sent it.

The response didn’t come immediately.

That was good, you told yourself.

Good meant he was thinking. Good meant he wasn’t reacting on impulse. Good meant he was doing exactly what he’d been trying to learn.

Still, your stomach twisted.

You set the phone down.

Picked it up again.

Set it down.

Tony found you in the kitchen five minutes later, standing in front of the fridge without opening it.

He took one look at you. “You either sent an important text or forgot why you came in here.”

“Both might be true.”

His gaze sharpened slightly. “Bucky?”

You nodded.

“I invited him to the defense.”

Tony didn’t react the way some part of you had braced for. He didn’t tense. Didn’t scoff. Didn’t ask if you were sure in a tone that meant he thought you weren’t.

He just nodded once.

“How do you feel?”

You exhaled slowly. “Terrified.”

“That tracks.”

“And… okay.”

Tony leaned against the counter. “That tracks too.”

You looked at him. “You’re not going to say anything?”

“I’m saying things.”

“You know what I mean.”

His expression softened.

“I think,” Tony said carefully, “that if you want him there, then asking him is brave.” A pause. “And if he comes, he’d better understand what that invitation costs you.”

You swallowed.

“He will,” you said.

Tony’s eyes held yours.

“Good.”

Your phone buzzed on the counter.

You both looked at it.

Your chest tightened.

Tony didn’t move closer. Didn’t try to read. Didn’t ask.

He just stayed there, present but not intrusive, while you reached for the phone with fingers that were suddenly cold.

Bucky’s name lit the screen.

You opened the message.

I can come. I want to come. Thank you for asking me. I know that isn’t small. I’ll be there, and I’ll follow whatever boundaries you need. If you want me to sit far away, I will. If you don’t want to talk after, I won’t push. I’m proud of you. I’ve been proud of you for a long time. And I’m really honored that you want me there.

You read it once.

Then again.

Your throat tightened so quickly you had to press your lips together.

Tony watched your face, quiet.

You typed with hands that trembled only a little.

Thank you. I don’t know yet what I’ll need that day. But I want you in the room.

His reply came faster this time.

Then I’ll be in the room.

You stared at the words until your vision blurred.

Not forgiveness.

Not resolution.

But something.

A place held open.

A future, cautiously making room for all the people you had been before – and the person you were still becoming.

GENERAL taglist: @mellowfurynight | @castielscaplan | @whatisanniedoin | @barewithme02 | @mathcat345 | @overwintering-soldier | @alpinebarnesworld | @alwaysreenie | @iceyyycapsicle | @karlahan

BUCKY taglist: @greatenthusiasttidalwave | @highhopes1008 | @phoenix-in-writing | @mollyherondale | @sassandscribbles | @alyssinwunderland-blog-blog | @pattiemac1 | @buckysdecaflove | @fantasyfootballchampion | @sebbymybaby-21 | @theoryxwaller | @apenny4thots | @mishkatelwarriorgoddess | @allthingswickedpodcast | @vicmc624 | @strangerthing93 | @galaxygoddess30 | @peachiestevie | @evilplansandstuff | @nicobidd | @i-lie-here-charmed | @sebastians-love | @bennyyion

Here’s the Coney Island pic I used as the background reference. The seats on that damn Ferris wheel are all over the place (cuz they slide around on a track apparently as the wheel spins??? Terrifying.) I redrew them where I think Ferris wheel seats normally go just so it didn’t look fake.

Not that he knew you. That was the cruel logic of it all. To Sergeant James Barnes, you were nobody. Nothing but a nurse he'd been introduced to twice, and forgotten both times. A face in a crowd of pretty faces, but by no means the prettiest.

You had stopped being able to feel your own face somewhere around the third song, no longer pretending to smile.

"You gonna dance, or you gonna be a wallflower all night?"

You turned. One of the girls— Doris, or maybe it it was Lilian, you weren't paying attention— was smiling at you with the social grace that women in this time seemed to possess effortlessly. They belonged in a way you never would. You gave her something that was probably a smile.

"I'm alright watching."

"Watching him, you mean." She followed your gaze to where Bucky stood in his dress uniform, left arm braced against a pillar as he leaned down to murmur something into the ear of a redhead who laughed like he'd hung the moon. "Half the room's watching him. Don't feel bad, sweets. He's real generous with the old charm."

Generous! You laughed to yourself, that was certainly one word for it.

You'd been in 1943 for eleven days. Eleven days since the machine in your lab had done whatever it was that it did. There had been a surge of power, a blinding flash of light and the smell of ozone that still hadn't left your nostrils. You had woken up staring at a strange sky, in an alley between two buildings you didn't recognize.

Eleven days later, you had talked your way into a nursing post with the competence that only came with training from a program that wouldn't exist for another sixty years.

The first time you had seen him, you hadn't been able to move. You almost walked past without a backward glance. The thing that had gotten your attention wasn't how he looked, it was his voice. It hadn't changed. What had changed was how freely he laughed

It was all you could think of as you lay on a narrow rented bed and stared up at the ceiling, thinking: He's here. He's alive and whole and here, and he has no idea who I am.

You'd thought seeing this version of him would be a comfort.

You'd been so stupid.

So there you were, contemplating your existence, a woman out of your own time. And you realized that the thing nobody told you about time travel was that it was mostly waiting.

You had managed to track down a physicist— a nervous, but brilliant scientist who was well ahead of his time and happened to work for Stark Industries and liked to carry out experiments in his basement.

When you'd described the machine, he had gone very pale and very quiet and then become very interested. He offered to help you. He thought it would take weeks. He speculated a great many things, and every one of them required you to stay close to the war effort, close to the base, close— by fate or by accident— to Bucky-freaking-Barnes.

You should have quit, but you needed the money and a place to stay. So you saw him. Constantly. At the mess, in the corridors, at these godforsaken dances the other nurses dragged you to. And every time, the same knife went in.

Because Bucky Barnes flirted with everyone.

You watched him do it like a case study you had a vested interest in. I'm a way, you did.

He flirted with Lilian and Doris and Elizabeth, with Marian and Margaret and even Sandy. He flirted with the girl who sold cigarettes and the middle-aged woman who ran your boarding house who flushed like a school girl every time he tipped his cap.

He flirted with the same energy that other mean breathed— unconsciously, effortlessly and with enthusiasm. With the whole world except you.

With you he was polite. God, the politeness was utterly devastating. Every 'ma'am.' Every 'miss.' Every nod.

Once— and only once— he caught you looking at him for too long across the mess hall and you had noticed a flicker on his face. It wasn't interest, no you knew his expressions well enough, it was something closer to confusion. Almost as though he couldn't quite figure out why this particular nurse kept staring at him like she was drowning.

You'd looked away so fast you'd spilled your coffee.

So here's the thing you could quite wrap your head around. It was the splinter which kept digging it's way deeper. He was still Bucky. Before the fall. Before seventy years of ice and torture. Before his free will had been ripped away. It was still him. The same kind man you loved.

And his man had looked at you and felt nothing.

"You look like you're thinking too hard," Lillian said. "Never a good idea at a dance."

"Sorry." You forced a smile and made yourself relax. "Long shift," you lied with a shrug.

She patted your arm sympathetically and drifted off in the direction of a corporal who had been eyeing her from across the hall. And then you were alone. Again. Listening to Bucky laughing at something across the room, his eyes crinkled and nose scrunched. You had to close your eyes.

In the present, you told yourself, he loves you.

But did he?

This thought was the poison of the past, the reason the past eleven days had hollowed you out and given you reason to doubt. Because you'd met your Bucky broken. You'd met him after— after the Soldier, after the torture, after the long slow work he had done to put himself back together, with therapy and effort and the kind of hard-won stillness that made his rare smiles feel earned. Your Bucky was quiet. He was careful. He loved you the way a man loves the shore after a shipwreck— grateful, fierce, like something he'd been afraid to hope for.

When you thought back, this stillness had always felt like the depth in your relationship. That his quiet devotion was the shape of a man who had survived far too much to be careless with his heart. That when he reached for you in the dark, when he said your name with reverence, when he told you that he loved you, it was the truest thing in him.

Only now you'd seen the before.

Now you'd seen who he was when the world hadn't broken him yet.

And that man— that carefree, radiant, flirtatious man— he wouldn't have looked at you twice. That man had a type, and you were watching him charm her across the dance floor right now, and it most decidedly wasn't you. It was never you.

So what did that make what you had back home?

It was the ugly thought. The one that had been circling your brain in different iterations for the last eleven days.

He's with you because you were there.

Because you'd been kind to him at the worst point of his life.

Because you were willing, and steady, and you'd stayed when staying was hard.

Because a drowning man doesn't check whether the hand pulling him up is the one he'd have chosen.

He grabs what's offered.

You were what was offered. Convenient. Present. Undemanding.

Not chosen. Settled.

You believed it completely, while standing in that dance hall. It sank deep into your bones, like the weight of something you'd always half-known and finally let yourself see.

"You're that nurse."

You startled so badly at his voice that you knocked your purse off the table. Bucky was standing in front of you— right in front of you, close enough that you could smell the pomade and the wool of his uniform. And he was looking at you with that faint, puzzled crease between his brows. He bent down and retrieved your purse without a second thought.

"I— yeah. Sorry. Yes. I'm a nurse."

Brilliant. Very cool. Totally nailed that response. You mentally face palmed yourself.

"You keep looking at me." He said it plainly, without judgement. "All week. At the mess, and now here." He paused, studying your face. "Do I know you? From somewhere? I feel like I oughta, and it's drivin' me half crazy tryna figure it out."

You don't know me yet, was the thought didn't say. You won't know me for another eighty years.

"No," you managed in a flat tone. "You don't know me."

He studied you. And for one horrible, hopeful second you let yourself imagine that something would spark between you. That he would recognize something buried deep inside himself, the one who would one day become the man you loved. That he'd feel it, the way you felt it. The impossible gravity that existed between you.

He didn't. You watched him not feel it. He just gave you a small, courteous, sorry-can't-place-you smile and the last shred of hope shattered in it chest.

"Well," he said. "You alright? You look a little—" he gestured vaguely at all of you, "—pale. Rough night on the ward?"

You laughed dismally. "Something like that."

"You want some air? You look like you want some air."

And there it was. Not attraction. Kindness. The reflexive decency of a good man toward a woman who looked unwell. He'd have offered the same to Doris or Evelyn, to the redhead or the blonde, to anyone really. You knew it, and you took it anyway, because you were weak and you loved him and this was the closest he'd stood to you in eleven days.

Outside, the night was cold and wet and smelled of the harbor. Bucky lit a cigarette, offered you one, seemed unsurprised when you shook your head. For a while neither of you said anything.

"You got somebody?" he asked finally, and your heart lurched dangerously. "Back home, I mean. You got that look. Like half of you is somewhere else."

You laughed and it came out wrecked.

"Yeah," you said. "I've got somebody."

"He treat you right?"

He loves me like a man loves the thing that saved him, you thought. And I don't know anymore if that's the same as loving me for me.

"I don't know," you said honestly. "I used to think so. Now I'm not sure he'd have picked me. If things had been different. If he'd had… options. I think maybe I was just… the one who was there."

Bucky was quiet a moment. When you looked at him he was frowning— not the usual puzzled frown, it was something more thoughtful.

"That's a helluva thing to carry," he said. "You wanna know what I think?"

He looked at you, barely waiting for you to answer before he continued.

"I flirt with every dame in that room. You've seen me, don't pretend you haven't." He gave you a rueful half-smile. "It's easy. Don't cost me a thing. You smile, they smile, everybody has a nice night, nobody gets hurt. It's—" he searched for the right word, "—it's cheap. You understand? It's the cheapest thing I got."

You stared at him.

"You know what's not cheap?" he went on, looking out into the night. "The stuff that costs you something— and that's not the girl you charm across a dance hall. That's the one you'd still want around when there's nothing charming left in you. When you're scared, or sick, or done things you can't take back."

He exhaled smoke. "A fella who's had it easy, he'll flirt with anybody. Don't mean anything. But a fella who's been through the wringer, and he still reaches for one particular person—" he shrugged, "—seems to me that's the only kind that counts. The rest's just… noise."

You couldn't breathe.

He didn't know how deeply what he'd said had resonated with you. He couldn't have. He was just a kind man being kind to a sad woman outside a dance hall, offering the accidental wisdom of someone who'd one day live every word of it. But he'd reached across eighty years and removed the splinter from your heart.

A fella who's been through the wringer, and he still reaches for one particular person.

That was your Bucky. Not a drowning man grabbing for the nearest hand. A man who had been through the absolute worst the world could do. A man who had every reason to be closed and cold and careful with the little warmth he had left. And instead who spent it, deliberately, expensively, on you.

Not because you were convenient. Because when everything cheap had been burned out of him, you were what remained. You were the thing that counted.

The flirtation you'd been grieving wasn't the love you knew. It never had been. It was the noise. And your Bucky had gone silent with everyone else in the world and still turned, in the dark, toward you.

"Thank you," you whispered.

Bucky looked faintly bewildered. "For what? I didn't do anything."

"You'd be surprised," you said, tears slipping down your cheeks before laughing at the way he was hastily patting his pockets for a handkerchief with the flustered gallantry of a man way out of his depth

And for the first time in eleven days the ache in your chest had somewhere to go.

The scientist sent for you nine days later. You had pulled yourself away from the pub, one last glance at the Sergeant before you scurried away under the cover of darkness.

The machine hummed and the basement reeked of ozone. Suddenly your heart was pounding and you were looking back at the strange world you were leaving. At the war that hadn't broken him fully yet. At the still charming boy who would become, through unspeakable years, the quiet man who loved you.

I'm coming home baby, you told him, across the space-time continuum. I finally understand what I'm coming home to.

With that vow, you stepped into the light.

When you opened your eyes it was day and you were back in your lab, surrounded by your things and there— there was already someone crossing the room toward you at a dead run. Someone with a metal arm and a face raw with grief and terror that lasted twenty days. Someone who caught you and held you like the shore holds the shipwreck.

"You're back," Bucky said into your hair, over and over, wrecked and reaching only for you. "You're back, you're back, you're back."

"I'm back," you said. "I know exactly where I am."

“Fuck, princess,” he growled, voice low and rough, laced with that Brooklyn accent that thickened when he was turned on. “Look at you. So wet already. Been thinking about this tight little pussy all damn day.”

You whimpered, pushing back against him, desperate for more. “Bucky… please.”

He chuckled darkly, the sound vibrating through his chest. One hand slid up your spine, fingers tangling in your hair before he gripped your throat from behind. Not enough to hurt, but enough to make you feel owned. His palm was huge, calloused from years of football and gym sessions, wrapping around your neck with perfect pressure. He squeezed just a little as he finally pushed in, slow at first, letting you feel every thick inch stretching you open.

“Oh god-” you gasped, eyes fluttering shut as he filled you completely. The stretch burned so good, his girth splitting you wide. You could feel his heavy balls resting against you, the coarse hair on his thighs brushing your skin.

“That’s it, sweetheart. Take it all.” Bucky’s hips snapped forward, burying himself to the hilt. The wet slap of skin on skin echoed in the room. He didn’t give you time to adjust. He started thrusting, deep powerful strokes that made the bed creak beneath you. Each slam of his hips drove you forward, your breasts bouncing, nipples hard against the sheets.

His hand tightened around your throat, tilting your head back so he could lean down and growl right against your ear. “You feel that, baby? How deep I am? This pussy was made for me. So fucking tight, squeezing my cock like you never wanna let go.”

You were already a mess, moaning loudly with every thrust. “Bucky- fuck- harder-”

He obliged with a grunt, pounding into you harder. The force was relentless. He was stomping the shit out of you, hips slamming forward with bruising intensity, the sound of his pelvis smacking your ass filling the room alongside your broken cries. Sweat slicked your bodies, dripping down your back as he railed you. His free hand reached around to pinch and roll your clit, making you jolt and clench around him.

“Babygirl, you’re creaming all over me already. Such a greedy little thing,” he praised, voice strained with effort. His balls slapped against your clit with every brutal thrust. The pressure on your throat made everything sharper, the pleasure bordering on overwhelming. Stars danced behind your eyelids as he choked you just right, controlling your breath, making you lightheaded in the best way.

You were mewing, actual pathetic little mewls spilling from your lips as he destroyed you. “Ah-ahh- Bucky! I’m- fuck- I’m so close-”

“Not yet, princess,” he snarled, slowing his thrusts just enough to torture you, grinding deep and circling his hips. The head of his cock rubbed against that perfect spot inside you over and over. “You’re gonna cum when I say. Gonna fill this pussy first.”

He kept you right on the edge, choking you tighter when you tried to chase your orgasm, then loosening just enough for you to gasp for air. His body was a wall of muscle behind you, broad chest pressed to your back, abs flexing with every powerful snap of his hips. The scent of sex was thick in the air, your arousal coating his thighs and dripping down yours.

Finally, he let go of your restraint. “Cum for me, baby. Milk my cock like the good little slut you are.”

You shattered. Your walls clamped down around him like a vice, pulsing wildly as your orgasm ripped through you. Bucky groaned loud, hips stuttering before he buried himself deep and came with a guttural roar. Thick ropes of hot cum flooded your pussy, pulse after pulse as he emptied himself inside you. He kept thrusting through it, pushing his seed deeper, making sure you took every drop.

“Fuck yes… good girl. Taking my load so perfectly, princess.”

You stayed locked together for a long moment, both panting. Bucky’s hand loosened on your throat, sliding down to stroke your back almost tenderly. But he wasn’t done. Not even close. He pulled out slowly, watching with dark satisfaction as his cum leaked from your swollen, abused hole.

You collapsed onto your stomach, trembling, trying to catch your breath. But Bucky flipped you onto your back with ease, his massive hands spreading your thighs wide. He settled between them, staring down at your dripping, creamy pussy with hunger in his eyes.

“Wait- Bucky, no,” you protested weakly, cheeks burning as you tried to close your legs. The overstimulation made you sensitive, and the thought of him going down after he’d just finished inside you made you squirm. “That’s… that’s icky.”

Bucky paused, eyebrows shooting up. A wicked grin spread across his face. “What did you just say, babygirl?”

You bit your lip, voice small. “Icky. It’s… it’s nasty, Bucky. You just came in me. You don’t have to-”

“Fuck you mean nasty?” he interrupted, voice dropping to that dangerous, dominant tone that made your stomach flip. He grabbed your thighs harder, shoving them further apart and pinning them down with his broad shoulders. “You think I give a single fuck about that? This pussy is mine. Every fucking inch of it. My cum dripping out of you? That’s the hottest shit I’ve ever seen, baby.”

“Bucky- ah!” Your words cut off in a sharp cry as he dove in without warning.

His mouth latched onto your clit, sucking hard while his tongue swirled around the sensitive bundle of nerves. He groaned against you, the vibration shooting straight through your core. The taste of your combined release didn’t deter him one bit, in fact it seemed to drive him wild. He licked broad stripes up your slit, lapping up his own cum mixed with your juices like it was the best thing he’d ever tasted.

“Fuck, princess. You taste so goddamn good. Sweet and creamy and all mine.” His voice was muffled against your folds, but the words were clear. He devoured you, no mercy. His tongue fucked into your entrance, scooping out more of his cum before he swallowed it down and went back to your clit.

You were thrashing, hands flying to his hair, half trying to push him away, half pulling him closer. “Bucky- oh my god- it’s too much! I can’t- fuck-”

“You can and you will,” he growled, the vibrations making your hips buck. One of his thick fingers pushed inside you, curling right against your g-spot while he sucked your clit relentlessly. His other arm wrapped around your thigh, holding you open as you squirmed. The wet, obscene sounds of him eating you out filled the room, slurping, licking, moaning like a starving man.

Tension coiled tight in your belly again, faster than you expected. The overstimulation blended with fresh pleasure, building higher and higher. He added a second finger, pumping them in and out in time with his tongue.

“Look at you, whining like a little kitten,” he teased between licks, his chin and lips shiny with your mess. “Thought you said this was nasty? Now you’re grinding on my face like you can’t get enough, babygirl.”

“I- I didn’t- Bucky please- ” Your protests dissolved into broken moans. You were a complete mess, thighs shaking around his head, fingers yanking his hair as he stomped you with his mouth the same way he had with his cock, ruthless, relentless, perfect.

He doubled down, sucking your clit hard and curling his fingers just right. “Cum again, princess. Squirt all over my mouth. Give it to me.”

Your whole body seized, back arching off the bed as you screamed his name. Liquid gushed out of you, soaking his face, his tongue, dripping down his chin and onto the sheets. He didn’t stop, didn’t even pull back. He drank it all down, moaning loudly as you squirted again and again, flooding his eager mouth.

“Fuck yes, babygirl. That’s my good girl. So fucking pretty when you squirt for me.”

He kept licking you through the aftershocks, gentler now but still thorough, until you were twitching and whimpering, completely spent. Only then did he crawl up your body, pulling you into his strong arms. His face was slick, lips swollen, but he kissed you deeply, letting you taste yourselves on his tongue.

“You’re never calling my pussy nasty again,” he murmured against your lips, voice full of dark amusement. “Understand, babygirl?”

You nodded weakly, curling into his chest with a shy, satisfied smile. “Yes, Bucky.”

“Good princess.” He stroked your hair, holding you close as your heartbeats slowly synced. “We’re just getting started tonight.”

— yours truly, ѕℓυtdιεr.

You’d met them in New Orleans. Two men who were charming, respectful and had a competitive friendship, and invited you to hang out at the coast with them sometime.

You were four days into your week long stay. At first you had taken to being a regular tourist, visiting sights, going to the beach, until the boys pulled you into their antics.

So, here you were on day four, sat on the docks watching the sunset attempting to drown out the playful bickering of the two next to you.

Sam had noticed the way you looked at Bucky, the lingering glances. The way you always smiled at his his jokes, even the bad ones. Then, the real kicker had been when you’d gone tomato red when he’d complimented your dress, suddenly making you feel like a teenager.

Since then, the newly anointed Captain America had endlessly teased you for it, and even encouraged you. Just a little bit. You had a feeling there was more to it than simple teasing. You’d seen Bucky more than once flirting with Sam’s sister, Sarah, much to his chagrin.

After seeing that yesterday, you’d held your distance, still hanging out with them but keeping your eyes safely in front of you, smiling when socially acceptable.

Sam had picked up on it, giving you concerned glances and mouthing “you okay?” over and over, until you just shook you head as if to say “drop it”.

Now on the docks, you kept your head forward, thinking of where to visit tomorrow that was far enough away they couldn’t follow.

“Sam, that’s ridiculous,” you could hear the low frustrated rumble of Bucky’s voice. “You can’t put fictional characters against us, it’s not realistic.”

“You’re the one with the collection of Tolkien books stashed in the corner!” Sam sounded exacerbated.

“To get way from this shit,” from the corner of your eye, you catch Bucky’s hand flying around in frustration.

They go silent a moment, and you can feel the Sam’s eyes drift to you.

“Alright, humour me Buck,” he says. “Who could you take in a fight?”

“You,” his tone is so nonchalant you have to hold back a laugh.

“Fuck off,” Sam responds, punching him gently on the shoulder.

“I’ve done it twice before,” Bucky remind him, sounding amused.

“The Winter Soldier did, you ain’t him anymore,” he pauses. “What about you, girl? Think you could take Bucky?”

Your head turns, a little stunned at his implication. You could see from the obvious smirk on his face he was teasing you once again, yet you couldn’t bring yourself to ignore it.

“Definitely,” you respond with surprising confidence.

The look of confusion of Bucky’s face was near hysterical. You bite into the sides of your mouth to suppress yourself.

“Really, you could take on a super soldier in a fight?” Sam pressed, his smirk now covered half his face — adding to Bucky’s frustration.

“Oh no,” you shake your head quickly. “Definitely not, have you seen my coordination?”

Sam laughs at that, whilst Bucky looks between the two of you, still dumbfounded.

“What the fuck are you two on about?” He demanded.

“You’re an idiot,” the other man responded. “Steve may have been naïve, but you are just blind.”

Able to sense to tension between them, you get to your feet.

“Goodnight boys,” you begin to turn, carefully stepping across the planks.

“Go after her,” Sam presses Bucky, pushing him in your direction. “She wants you. If you don’t, you’re gonna regret it.”

Bucky’s eyes widen for a second, realisation hitting him in the chest.

“Right,”

You could hear their voices in the distance as you approach your car, but cannot make out the words.

“Hey, wait up!”

Bucky’s voice tears through you, adding another crack to your fragile heart. Yet you find yourself turning to look at him.

“Need something?” You voice is quiet, repressed.

“Yeah,” he stumbles his words for a moment before straightening and looking you in the eye. “Yeah. You— I mean…”

His face twisted in frustration again. “Shit, I’ve lost my touch.” He shook his head and muttered to himself. “Suck it up, Barnes.”

“Do you wanna get a drink with me?”

You blink, frozen to the spot. “Now?”

He seems to consider this. “Yeah. Now.”

“But, why now?”

“Because I’m not going to let a chance like this slip away,” he sounded certain. “I’m over a hundred, sweetheart, I’ve lost enough in my life. I won’t let you be one of them.”

“Bucky,” you begin, he takes a step forward, taking your hands in his.

“You don’t need to say a word,” he promises. “Just have a drink with me.”

You give a single nod, and he pulls you alongside him, the warmth of his right arm around your shoulders as he murmurs in your ear.

The screen flickered with one of those shows she watched. People acting out things that weren't real, to tell stories.

Humans were strange.

In the box, a couple sat across from each other at a small table, candles and glasses between them. The woman laughed at something the man said. He poured her wine. Flowers sat crammed into a glass jar at the center of the table, already dying but arranged to hide it.

Bucky frowned.

"Why are they there?" he asked, chin tipped toward the screen.

He watched the way the man's hand moved, deliberate, not reaching but inviting. The woman's smile shifted, softer. It wasn't the same as what he and she did. When they sat together, it was without ritual. Without this careful performance of interest.

She glanced up, following his gaze. "The dinner? It's a date."

The word meant nothing on its own, but the picture did. Two people, seated face to face, offering each other food and wine, suggestive words and intent body language. He knew of that, in another shape…

"Why?" he pressed.

"Why, what?"

"The purpose." His voice came out more demanding than he meant. "Of sitting like that. The food, the flowers. What are they after? Are they friends or is it a couple’s thing?" he still struggled to understand where the line was drawn between friendship and claim. It irritated him, the way they blurred what his kind made clear.

She laughed, not unkindly, more at the way he'd said it, like he was cross-examining a suspect.

"There's no big purpose, Bucky. It's just... getting to know each other. Spending time together. Showing the other person you care, that you put effort into the moment." She shrugged. "Sometimes it's at the start, when you first begin seeing someone. Sometimes couples keep doing it years later. So they don't lose that."

So they don't lose that.

Lose what? he wanted to ask. But his tongue felt heavy, suddenly too clumsy for the question forming in his mind.

He went quiet, eyes still fixed on the screen, where the fictional man tucked a strand of hair behind the woman's ear and produced a small box with some earrings.

The woman gasped, hands flying to her mouth. Bucky's fingers tightened on her thigh, irritated by the sound -too sharp, too rehearsed- but something else moved beneath his skin, older than annoyance.

Something felt wrong.

They'd shared breakfasts at the kitchen table, dinners, spent entire afternoons pressed together beneath blankets, talking, watching television until she fell asleep against him, but that wasn't the same thing.

Humans seemed to assign meaning to the circumstances rather than the act itself.

His own sought someone apt out once a year, met what the body demanded, and each returned to their own dark after, alone, needing nothing from the other until the next season.

What he felt about her, and her for him, had no name in his tongue. No protocol. No elder to ask how it was done right, how you kept a human who needed things he could not feel the need for.

He thought, suddenly, of the Valentine’s Day situation. The pink foil chocolate. The presents in the market. His own frustration afterward, lying alone beneath cold water while trying to understand gifts, offerings, and fish that carried stones to impress a mate.

He had not given her anything that day.

I could have, he thought bitterly. I could have found something, but I chose not to.

His jaw clenched.

The couple on the screen kissed. The camera pulled back, showing other couples at other tables, a room full of humans performing the same ritual with slight variations.

"We've never had one," he murmured.

She blinked. The hand that had been tracing lazy patterns on his chest stilled. "Never had... what?"

"A date." The word felt foreign, too small for the weight he was giving it. "What they are doing. The ritual. We've never..."

He didn't finish. Couldn't find the words for what they had done instead, afternoons on the beach, in the nest, the occasions when he held her through asthma attacks, and she held him through haunting memories. None of it had been framed. None of it had been for something.

She was quiet for a moment. Then: "Hmm that’s true. We never had one."

It wasn’t a reproach. Just acknowledgment. But he heard reproach anyway, or maybe he heard his own voice saying it for her.

He shifted, uncomfortable, his hand retreating from her thigh to grip the edge of the cushion beneath them. "Would you like to?" The question came out forced, scraped from somewhere low in his throat. "Having… this date thing."

She smiled. That smile that always seemed to know something he didn't. "Bucky, that’s not necessary right now. We are together-"

"But would you like to?" He interrupted her. Hated doing it, but the words not necessary had stuck him like a barb. As if what they had was sufficient, as if she was tolerating his lack of courtship abilities. "Not 'need to.' Like to."

She looked at him. And he saw something shift in her expression, the amusement becoming something more careful, more serious.

“That we go out in a more… human way?" she said, slower.

He nodded once. Rigidly.

She hesitated. Not long -a breath, maybe two- but he noticed it.

"Yes," she said. "I would like to."

He should have felt relief. He felt terror instead.

She must have felt something shift in him -the way his body went still, the way his hand had stopped its lazy path over her leg. She looked up at him, her head tilting slightly.

"Bucky?"

He forced his jaw to unclench. "Yes."

She studied him for a moment, then reached up and touched his cheek, her palm warm against the tension in his jaw.

"We don't have to do anything elaborate," she said softly. "I just... I'd like to do something with you. That's all."

He nodded. Didn't trust his voice.

----

She fell asleep against him eventually, the way she always did, her breathing slowing into the rhythm he knew better than his own heartbeat. He didn't sleep after turning the television off, just stayed awake, staring at nothing, his mind churning.

More human.

The phrase turned like a current, pulling him toward depths he didn't know how to navigate.

What could he offer that wasn't already given? his body, his time, his fierce and unwavering attention?

Money? He had none. Food? He could hunt, but most of the things he could bring her would probably be unfit. Besides, they had eaten together hundreds of times. Was a date simply "eating but with candles"? Was the candle what made the difference?

A restaurant. He'd seen a couple in town when he tagged along with her while shopping for groceries. Lights, tables, people sitting while others served them. The concept had seemed absurd then. It still did. But she had smiled at the screen when the couple entered.

His hand closed into a fist on the cushion.

Objectively -he forced himself to think it, because his kind was nothing if not objective about status- he was a worthy male. The mating mark on his arm proved it, the ink extending past what most achieved. He had survived capture, magic, the war they forced him to wage. He had dealt with those who attacked him while looking for Steve, alone, unarmed, with nothing but what nature had given him.

For his species, that was enough. More than enough, actually. It was superiority.

But she was not his species.

And when she spoke of "effort," of "showing you care," of "putting time into the moment", none of those things required physical traits or abilities. They required something he couldn't name.

Where did he fit in human standards?

He listened for hours while she spoke of things he barely understood: her customers, knitting patterns, shipping policies of some digital platform. He had learned to make toast, to tolerate shoes, to sit in a car that vibrated wrong against his nerves.

The sex was good, that was unquestionable. But she had said once, casually, that for humans sex wasn't enough.

He felt cold suddenly.

Because what else did he do, really? He couldn't buy her things. Couldn't take her to places. Couldn't give her the kind of life that humans built with houses and plans and futures that stretched beyond the next tide. What he could give didn't translate into human currency.

And he had seen what happened to males who couldn't provide in the ways their mates needed in other species. They were left behind.

She stirred against him, murmuring something unintelligible. His hand moved automatically to her hair, caressing it, soothing her back to stillness. The gesture was unconscious now.

That, he thought. That is effort. Learning her. Adapting to her.

But would she see it that way? Would any human?

He looked at the darkened television, then down at his mate sleeping against his chest, completely trusting, her body relaxed in a way no one ever had been with him.

She had chosen him. Was choosing him still, every day she came back to the shore, every night she let him into her house, her nest, her warmth.

I have never shown her that I keep choosing with a gesture. I have simply... stayed.

The thought sat heavy as stone in his chest.

He didn't know if that was enough.

But he knew he couldn't keep asking her to settle for what he didn't understand.

He would learn. He would watch. He would find out what humans needed from each other when they sat across a table with candles and flowers and offered each other their time.

Even if it felt like performing. Even if it made him feel like a creature wearing a skin that didn't fit.

Because she had said yes. And that meant he had to try.

----

A couple of days passed after that.

Not that she noticed anything unusual… not at first. Bucky still came to the cottage, still took up his space on the couch, helped with some things. But his mind was elsewhere, turning like an undertow, circling the same problem from every angle.

She had to sleep, eventually. He didn't always. And those dead hours, when her breathing slowed, and her body went slack against his in the bed, became his window.

The movies.

Not the ones she picked for them to watch together; those had complicated plots and dialogue he couldn't quite track. No. Bucky waited until she was asleep, then took the remote and searched for the ones that seemed to show what people did to impress each other.

The first two nights were frustrating. The movies showed men bringing flowers -he didn't know where to get flowers, or what kind- or reserving tables in places with dim lights – also he had no coin-, or saying things that sounded rehearsed and false.

Is that what she expects? That I pretend to be someone I'm not?

But on the third night, he found a different movie.

A woman walked along a beach at night. Moonlight silvered the water, and then the sea began to glow. Blue. A blue that moved with the waves, that lit up where her feet touched the shore.

Bucky sat up slowly on the couch.

That, he thought. I can do that.

There wasn’t a male there accompanying her, but the woman on screen laughed, spread her arms, spun in the darkness while the water around her flickered like the sea was alive.

He knew where to find that blue. He'd seen it before, floating on the surface like scattered stars.

He would need something to carry it back.

He could already imagine her face. The way her eyes would widen. The sound she'd make, that soft breath she let out when something surprised her in a good way.

He would make her make that sound.

----

The dairy aisle was cold enough to raise goosebumps on her arms, but she lingered there anyway, hand hovering over the butter display.

She grabbed one pack, then paused. Her fingers twitched. She reached for a second pack, then a third, then caught herself and laughed under her breath.

He's going to eat all of this in three days.

She tossed the extra packs into the cart anyway; the butter budget was just part of her life now. She pushed the cart forward, past the yogurts and the cheeses, but her mind had already drifted.

Four days now. She'd noticed a change in him, subtle but unmistakable. He was still there, still present, but something was different.

His silences felt heavier. His eyes would drift to the window when he thought she wasn't looking, and there was a tension in his jaw that hadn't been there before. His hand, which used to find hers instinctively, now rested still on his own thigh. Like he was waiting for something. Or preparing for something.

Four nights, she thought again, he hasn't reached for me first. And coming from him, that was practically a scream.

She'd asked him about it, of course. Twice.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes."

"Are you sure? You seem-"

"I'm fine."

The second time, he'd said it with enough finality that she'd let it drop. But she hadn't stopped noticing.

She turned down the next aisle, grabbing a box of tea, -a new strawberry blend- and put it into the cart.

Maybe she was overthinking it. He wasn't exactly a talker. He showed things through actions, through presence, and sometimes, words didn't come easily to him. They never had.

But this felt different.

It wasn't the closed-off silence of someone hiding pain, or the distant quiet of someone lost in old thoughts. It was more like... he was somewhere else.

She paused at the end of the aisle, leaning on the cart for a moment, staring at a display of crackers without really seeing them.

Maybe it's the sea.

The thought surfaced before she could stop it, and once it was there, it wouldn't leave. She knew -had always known- that the ocean was part of him in ways she couldn't fully understand.

Not just his home, but his blood. His nature.

What if the restlessness she'd been sensing was something biological pulling at him from the deep?

What if he was trying to figure out how to tell her he needed to leave?

To swim far and deep, to follow whatever instinct was whispering to him?

She remembered what he'd told her, months ago, before they'd become anything. My kind doesn't attach; everything has a purpose. And though he'd changed, though he'd chosen to stay, what part of that nature still pulsed beneath his skin?

Her stomach churned.

Stop it, she told herself firmly. You're spiraling. He said he was fine.

She grabbed a box of crackers at random, threw it in the cart, and forced herself to keep moving. The checkout line was short. She paid, bagged her groceries, and walked out into the cold afternoon air.

The ride back to the cottage was quiet. The sky was overcast, the sea a dull grey, and the wind carried the smell of salt and wet stone. She let herself drift, still thinking about him, still turning over the same questions.

She'd asked him, once, if he ever missed the deeps. The places where the sun didn't reach, where the pressure was so great it would crush a human body. He'd said yes, but he'd said it like it didn't matter. Like she was more important than the ocean.

She'd believed him. She still believed him.

But that didn't mean the sea had stopped calling him.

She reached the cottage door and fumbled with her keys, nudging it open with her hip. The house was empty when she stepped inside.

No Bucky sprawled on the couch, no heavy presence in the kitchen eating toast. He'd said something about the sea yesterday. Feeling the pull. Needing to swim.

She'd nodded, not questioning it. She understood that part of him better than he probably realized. The sea was his home. His body needed it the way hers needed air.

But now, standing in the quiet kitchen, she felt the absence more sharply than she expected.

She unpacked the groceries slowly, putting the butter in the fridge, stacking the tea next to the kettle, folding the reusable bags and tucking them under the sink. Her movements were automatic, her mind elsewhere.

What if he's really trying to figure out how to leave?

The thought hit her like cold water, and she had to stop, her hands braced on the counter, breathing through it.

No. That's not who he is. That's not what we are.

But she'd seen the way he looked at the sea sometimes. The longing in his eyes, even when he was holding her. He'd spent decades alone, wandering, surviving. What if that part of him was too deep to change?

She wrapped her hands around the warm mug a few minutes later, staring out the window at the grey sea, and tried to convince herself she was being ridiculous.

He wasn't going anywhere.

He'd told her, in his own way, that she was his home now.

She had to trust that.

----

The dock was quiet the night of the recollection.

He'd swum the distance, moving through the dark water with the efficiency that only came from being in his element, silent and fluid as a shadow.

The swim had been easy. Almost relaxing, compared to what he was about to do.

He surfaced near the pilings, his head breaking the water in a slow, cautious rise. His eyes swept the dock, the fishing boats, the shore beyond. Empty. Good.

The transformation came quickly, quicker every time he did it, a familiar twist of bone and muscle, his limbs retracting and reshaping, his skin pulling tight over a form he'd never quite learned to love.

He bit back the sounds that wanted to escape his lips, the low grunts and hisses that always accompanied the shift.

It hurt.

It always hurt. But he was used to pain, and he didn't have time to dwell on it.

When it was done, he was human again. Naked and cold. The night air bit at his bare skin, raising goosebumps along his arms. Disgraceful.

He'd considered bringing clothes. Briefly. But the swim had been long, and he had quite the feat to perform after leaving the docks.

Besides, he'd assumed the place would be empty.

He pulled himself up onto the wooden planks, his bare feet silent against the damp surface. The wood was rough and splintered beneath his soles, and he moved carefully, scanning the shadows for any sign of movement.

A few fishing boats bobbed at their moorings, dark and empty. The air smelled of fuel and salt and the faint, rotting sweetness of bait left too long in the sun.

His naked body moved carefully, scanning the ground, then froze.

A sharp sting shot up from his foot. He looked down. A piece of broken glass, glinting in the dim light, buried in the pad of his heel.

He hissed through his teeth, pulling his foot up to inspect the damage. Blood welled dark against his skin.

"Fuck," he muttered, the word still foreign on his tongue but satisfying somehow. That was a human word he'd learned well.

He pulled the glass free -a small piece, nothing too deep- and pressed his thumb against the wound until the bleeding slowed. It would heal quickly. It always did.

But the irritation lingered.

This wouldn't have happened in the sea.

He limped forward a few steps, testing the weight on his foot, then dismissed it. He'd had worse. Much worse. A piece of glass was nothing.

He found what he came for near the end of the dock, a stack of discarded plastic barrels, the kind used for storing fish bait or industrial fluids. They were empty, smelled clean enough, with sealed lids that would keep all inside during the journey.

He tested one. It was large. Heavy, even empty. Carrying two would be a challenge.

He dragged them to the water's edge, then paused, looking out at the dark expanse of the sea.

He slipped into the water silently and shifted again, his limbs spreading wide, tasting the currents, orienting himself.

The barrels floated beside him. He wrapped two tentacles around each, securing them against his body, and began to swim.

The current was against him tonight, but he was stronger. The town faded behind him, then the coast, then the shallows, until he was alone in open water, the stars above and the darkness below.

He swam for hours. Past the fishing grounds, past the drop-off where the seabed fell away into nothing. The water grew colder. The current shifted, then stilled.

And then he saw it.

A faint glow on the horizon, spreading across the surface like a slow dawn. Blue. Electric. Alive.

He slowed, letting himself drift, watching it approach. The light was thick here, so dense it seemed to pulse with its own heartbeat. Thousands upon thousands of tiny organisms, each one a point of light, gathering in the warm currents to perform their silent, ancient dance.

He floated among them for a moment, surrounded by blue, and felt something in his chest loosen. This was his world. This was what he could offer.

Carefully, he uncapped one of the barrels and dipped it beneath the surface. The algae flowed in, glowing faintly, swirling like liquid starlight. He waited until the barrel was full, sealed it, and repeated the process with the second.

The weight was immense. Each barrel was heavy with water, and the distance back was just as far. But he'd carried heavier things. Two barrels of glowing water were nothing.

He turned and began the long swim back, the blue light trailing behind him like a phosphorescent wake. For a while, he let himself feel the satisfaction of making an effort.

By the time he reached the cave, his muscles were burning and the sky was beginning to lighten. He dragged the barrels onto the rock, his muscles burning with exhaustion, and looked at the pools where he'd planned to pour the glowing water.

The tide would reach them in a few hours. If he poured the algae now, it would be washed away before nightfall. All that effort, wasted.

He cursed under his breath, a low, frustrated sound.

He thought about the alcove they used in mating season, and with a final surge of effort, he hauled the barrels there.

His arms trembled with the strain, and his limbs ached from swimming for hours and carrying impossible weights.

He was done.

He let himself slide down into the deepest pool, the cool water enveloping his tired body, and he didn't even have the energy to find a comfortable position. His limbs went slack, his eyes closed, and he let the darkness take him.

----

He woke to the sound of water dripping and the soft gray light filtering through the cave's chimney.

His body was stiff, and his muscles protested as he stretched, uncoiling his limbs one by one. The exhaustion from the night before had settled into a dull ache, manageable but persistent.

The light told him it was late afternoon. Almost evening.

He cursed and dragged himself to grab the containers. Then, he uncapped them and began to work.

Once the last remaining of glowing water was poured, he stopped, breathing hard, and let himself look.

It was… beautiful. He'd known it would be.

The pools glowed softly, even with sunrays still entering from the mouth and the vents. The light reflected off the wet stone and danced across the ceiling. The cave was transformed. It wasn't the kind of beauty his kind usually made: functional, purposeful, built for survival. This was something else. Something that existed just to be seen.

He hoped she'd see it the way he did.

He then moved through the cave, gathering what he needed.

From the alcove he pulled the blankets. The ones she'd brought from the cottage, stored in plastic bags. The ones that still smelled like them, and from time to time, they still used.

He carried them to a flat section of rock near the glowing pools, where the surface was smooth enough to be comfortable, and spread them out with clumsy hands.

It wasn't a bed. Not really. But it was soft, and it was theirs.

Also, some things from the cottage that he took before departing for the lights.

The tupperware with the strawberries that he'd seen her pack the other day, rinsing them carefully, patting them dry with paper towels before putting them on the fridge.

He had doubted. They were hers, and he was taking things from her only to give them back as a gesture. It felt... wrong. Like stealing. Like he was pretending to offer something he hadn't earned.

Then he remembered what she'd said, weeks ago, when he'd hesitated to take food from her pantry.

"Bucky, you live here now. Half the time, anyway. You don't have to ask. It's our food."

Ours.

So he took the strawberries. And the wine, too, a bottle of white she'd bought for a dinner she never ended up making, forgotten in the back of the fridge. He didn't know if it was the right kind. He didn't know much about human wine at all.

But he'd seen it in the movies; it seemed important, and he wanted to get this right, so he had snatched a cooler, ice, and the bottle and gone out before she came back from wherever she was.

----

He stepped back and looked at the glowing pools, the blankets, the food.

It looked like something from one of those movies. Something magical. Something that said I thought about you. I planned this. You matter to me.

He felt a flicker of pride. Small, fragile, unfamiliar in this context.

Then he thought about the logistics.

He shouldn’t be just there, waiting for her to appear through the mouth of the cave by inspiration.

He'd have to go get her. Bring her here. And hope that when she saw what he'd done, she'd understand what he was trying to say.

He slid to one of the pools, looking at his work, and waited for the right time.

----

He waited until the sun was low, just before it slipped beneath the horizon, painting the sky in shades of orange and purple that made the sea look as if it were burning.

He climbed the path to the cottage with his heart beating harder than it should have been. Ridiculous. He'd faced a lot of things trying to kill him. Walking up a hill to knock on a door shouldn't make him feel like this.

Once at the door, he took a deep breath and let himself in.

She was wearing something he'd never seen before. A dress -not the comfortable things she wore around the house, not the practical clothes she wore to town. Something softer. Her hair was different, too, in a way that made her look almost like a different person.

He just… stared.

Humans, he thought, do this on purpose. They change their appearance to signal something.

She smiled when she saw him. That was good. Her eyes looked brighter than they had earlier, when he'd left. He'd been gone for almost two days, and she'd clearly been busy preparing for something.

Maybe she expected me to come back.

He hadn't told her he would. He never did. Some days he just... left and came back when the sea had released him. She never complained. Never asked where he'd been. She'd just open the door and let him in, like it was natural. Like she knew he would always come back.

He'd never told her he would.

She has no reason to expect me tonight, he realized. 

But she was dressed like she might meet someone.

"Hey," she said, closing the distance. "You're back."

"I said I would be."

He hadn't. But it felt true anyway.

She chuckled. A small, amused sound. "You didn't, actually. Still, I'm glad you're here." She glanced over her shoulder, into the house, and something in her expression flickered. "But… actually, I was just about to head out."

Something cold went down his spine.

"Head out?"

"Ian, Arthur's friend, the one from the town? He and his girlfriend invited me for drinks at the new pub. They've been trying to get me to go for some weeks now, knowing I don’t go out a lot." She shrugged, a little apologetically. "I figured I'd finally take them up on it. Since I didn't know when you'd be back."

Since I didn't know when you'd be back.

It was fair. Completely fair. He never told her. He never could tell her, because he didn't know himself. She understood that. She'd always understood that.

But right now, the understanding didn't help.

Because he knew that name. He remembered the half-eaten chocolate on her coffee table, the way his chest had twisted when he'd realized another male had given her an offering. On Valentine's Day. On a day meant for courtship.

He'd said nothing then. Had no right to say anything. They weren't anything. He'd told himself that over and over, had let himself drown in that denial for months.

But he remembered.

The one who gave her chocolate. The one who had a girlfriend, supposedly, but still gave offerings to another female. The one who, even now, was taking her out at night.

His jaw clenched.

"You're going out with him," he said. Flat. Controlled. The kind of control he'd learned to use when he was trying not to do something he'd regret.

Her brow furrowed. "With him and his girlfriend, Bucky. Both of them.

"You arranged to go out with him."

"I didn't arrange it. They invited me." She paused, and something in her expression shifted, a hint of wariness. "And I told you, his girlfriend is coming too. It's not-" She stopped, exhaled. "It's not what you think."

What I think.

He didn't know what he thought. Only that the name Ian had lodged itself somewhere in his stomach and was burning.

"The chocolate," he said. "On the human holiday. He gave you chocolate."

She stared at him. For a long moment, she didn't speak.

Then, slowly: "That was months ago, Bucky."

"I remember."

"That was different," she said quietly. "We weren't even-” she sighed. “Ian has a long-term partner," she repeated, firmer this time. "And I'm going out with both of them. Not just him. Both."

The emphasis was deliberate. He heard it.

But his blood didn't care. His blood was already moving, already readying itself for a fight that wasn't there.

He looked at her dress again. The soft fabric. The careful way she'd fixed her hair.

She dressed up for him. The thought came sharp and cruel. She dressed up to go out with the male who gave her an offering. Not for me.

And then, quieter: But I never gave her anything. Not on that day. Not when it mattered.

"You didn't tell me," he mumbled, "That you were going out with him."

"Because I didn't know when you'd be back. You don't have a phone, Bucky. You don't tell me when you're leaving or when you're coming back. I can't just sit here waiting; I have a life."

Again, it was reasonable. He knew it was.

But reason had nothing to do with the way he felt.

He'd been trying so hard to do the human thing. The date thing. The effort thing. He'd spent a day swimming and dragging heavy barrels through the sea, all so he could show her something beautiful, something that proved he'd thought about her, that she mattered.

And she was walking out the door.

The words left his mouth before he could stop them:

"I was going to give you a date," he said. The words came out rough, scraped. "Tonight. In the cave."

She went still.

"A date?"

"Yes." He forced himself to meet her eyes. "The human thing. The one we talked about. I was going to show you. But you are going out with him."

He couldn't say the name.

She stared at him. Her lips parted slightly, and something in her expression shifted. Surprise, then confusion, then something softer.

"You were planning a date for tonight?"

"Yes."

"Oh, Bucky." Her voice came out soft, almost careful. "You didn't have to-"

"Don't." He cut her off, rougher than he meant. "Don't say 'not necessary.' I know it's not necessary. I did it anyway."

----

She blinked.

The words hung in the air between them. His jaw was tight, his eyes fixed somewhere past her shoulder, and she watched the muscle in his temple twitch.

He's nervous, she realized.

Bucky. Nervous.

The man who'd faced down his own kind, who'd swum through dark water with nothing but claws and teeth, who'd looked at her like she was the most fragile thing he'd ever held, was nervous.

Because he planned a date.

She'd spent the last few days watching him drift in and out of the cottage, his silences heavier than usual, his eyes distant. She'd told herself it was the sea calling him. That maybe he was figuring out how to tell her he needed space.

And all along, he was planning a date.

She almost laughed.

Almost.

But the look on his face -the way he was bracing himself, like he expected her to tell him it was stupid, unnecessary, too much- stopped her.

"Bucky," she said with a soft voice. "You planned a date for us in the cave?"

His throat worked. "I- yes."

"And you've been working on this for days."

He didn't answer. But the way his eyes flicked away told her everything.

She stepped closer. "I've been thinking you were pulling away."

His head snapped back to her. "What?"

"The silences. The lost gazes. I thought-" She stopped, shook her head. "I thought maybe the sea was calling you. That you were trying to figure out how to tell me you needed… to go."

Something broke in his expression. His hand came up, not quite touching her, hovering near her elbow like he was afraid to make contact.

"No," he said, and the word came out hoarse. "No. I was-" He stopped, jaw working. "I was trying to give you something. The thing we talked about… when we watched that movie." He gestured vaguely, frustration bleeding into the motion. "I thought you deserved that. With effort. With-" He stopped, swallowed.

His eyes met hers, and for a moment, he looked almost lost.

She didn't think. She just moved.

Her arms came around him, pressing her body against his, and she felt the way he went rigid beneath her touch. Every muscle locked, his breath caught somewhere in his chest, held captive by whatever was still coiled tight inside him.

For a heartbeat, he didn't move at all. Just stood there, frozen, like he'd forgotten how to accept comfort.

Then, slowly, something in him gave way.

His arms came up, and she felt it, the faint shake of his fingers against her back. Then his arms closed around her, tighter than she expected, pulling her into his chest like she was the only solid thing in a world that had been shifting beneath him for days.

She felt the breath leave his lungs in a long, shaky exhale, felt the tension in his shoulders begin to loosen, increment by increment, like a rope slowly being untied.

"Okay," she murmured against his chest.

He didn't answer. Just pressed his face into her hair and breathed.

She stayed there, letting him hold her, letting him collect himself. Her hand found the back of his neck, fingers threading through the strands at his nape, and she felt him shiver. Not from cold.

"Okay," she said again, softer this time. "Let's go then. Show me what you prepared."

He pulled back just enough to look at her, his brow furrowing. "But you were going out-"

She almost smiled at the way he said it, all clipped and reluctant, like the words tasted bad.

"I was," she said. Then she reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone. "And now I'm not."

He blinked, confused, as she unlocked the screen and opened the messaging app. She tapped the voice note icon and held the phone up to her lips, watching his face as she spoke.

"Hey Ian, I’m sorry, but something came up, and I won't be able to make it tonight. Nothing bad, so don’t worry. I’m so sorry for the late notice. Tell Hannah I said hi, and enjoy your drinks!"

She pressed send and slipped the phone back into her pocket.

"There. Done. It’s not like they need me as a third wheel."

"Third wheel?" he asked slowly, brows furrowed in confusion. "What would you do with a wheel in a pub?"

She laughed.

"That means you're the extra person when a couple goes out," she explained, caressing his back. "You're the third one. The one who's not part of the couple. It's a little awkward sometimes, because they're focused on each other and you're just... there."

His frown deepened. "Why a wheel? I don't see why it would be a third thing."

"It's just an expression." She smiled, stepping back just enough to take his hand. "I'll explain more on the way."

He didn't move at first, but then he gave a small nod, barely perceptible.

"Okay," he said.

She grabbed his hand and tugged him gently toward the door. "Lead the way. I want to see this date you planned."

As she followed him out into the cool evening air, she felt his fingers tighten around hers. She noticed, too, as they walked, that the tension in his shoulders had eased. His steps were steadier. His jaw, still set, had lost that sharp edge of worry.

There you are, she thought. There's my Bucky.

----

The path to the cave was familiar by now. She'd walked it enough times, in the golden glow of late afternoon and the gray hush of overcast skies. But tonight, something was different.

A faint glow spilled from the mouth of the cave, soft and blue, pulsing like a slow heartbeat against the darkening sky. She slowed, her hand tightening around his. The light wasn't harsh or artificial; it was gentle.

"What is that?" she whispered.

He didn't answer. Just watched her, waiting.

She stepped forward, drawn by the glow, and when she reached the entrance, she stopped.

The cave was transformed.

The pools that usually sat dark and still were now filled with liquid light. Blue and silver and white, shifting and swirling like captured stars, drifting in slow, hypnotic circles across the water's surface.

The light reflected off the wet stone walls, dancing across the ceiling in rippling patterns that made the rock itself seem alive. It was like standing inside a living constellation, like the night sky had decided to come down and make its home in the dark.

She couldn't speak. Couldn't find the words. Her breath caught somewhere in her chest, and she just stood there, drinking it in, letting the wonder settle into her bones.

Then she started moving, her feet carrying her deeper into the cave without conscious thought. The glow grew brighter as she walked, the light intensifying as she passed each pool.

Some were shallow, barely more than puddles of liquid starlight. Others were deeper, the blue so rich it seemed to have weight, like she could reach in and scoop it up in her hands.

And then she saw them, on a flat section of rock that overlooked the largest pool: a nest of blankets had been spread out. And on top of them, arranged with careful precision: a green Tupperware container, and beside it, a bottle of white wine.

She turned slowly, her heart too full for her chest to hold.

He was watching her. Standing just a few feet away, hands at his sides, his face unreadable but his body tight with tension, like he was bracing himself. Like he was waiting for her to tell him it wasn't enough. That he'd gotten it wrong. That she'd expected something different.

"Bucky," she breathed.

He didn't speak. His throat worked, a swallow he couldn't quite hide.

"It's-" She stopped, shook her head, tried again. "It's beautiful. It's so beautiful."

Something in his expression eased, a crack in the armor he'd been wearing for days. "I thought… you would like it," he said, and his voice was a little unsteady.

She crossed the space between them in three quick steps and wrapped her arms around him, pressing her face into his chest. "I love it. I love it."

His arms came around her, and she felt it, the release of tension, the way his whole body seemed to exhale. The grip of his arms was careful, still testing, but the rigid wall he'd built around himself was finally coming down.

She pulled back just enough to look up at him, a smile spreading across her face. "You're the best mate ever."

He went still.

The words hung in the air between them, and she caught the way his jaw tightened slightly, the way his breath caught for just a fraction of a second. His pupils dilated, just a little, and she saw the muscles in his throat work as he swallowed.

"You're the best mate ever," she repeated, softer this time, and she watched him process the word. Mate. His word. His language.

His hand found hers, his fingers closing around her smaller ones, and she felt the slight tremor in them, barely there, but unmistakable. He squeezed gently, and pulled softly at her hand.

"Come," he managed. "Sit with me."

She hesitated a moment.

"Bucky," she said slowly, "don't you want to shift first?"

He stopped, and she saw the brief flicker of uncertainty cross his face. His mouth opened, then closed. When he spoke, his voice was careful, measured.

"I thought... the idea was a date, as a human thing. I assumed you would prefer-"

She reached up, brushing her fingers along his jaw. "I prefer you. Whatever way you want to be tonight. The date isn't just for me, Bucky. It's supposed to be for us. Both of us. I want you to enjoy it too."

He stared at her, processing, and she watched the conflict play out across his features. Then, slowly, a spark of his usual confidence flickered back to life.

"In that case..."

His hands moved to the waistband of his jeans, his fingers finding the buckle with deliberate ease. His eyes never left hers, and there was something in his gaze now, a hint of the old Bucky, the one who knew exactly what he was worth.

She stepped forward, her own hands reaching for his. "Let me help."

His breath caught, just slightly, when her fingers brushed against his, taking over the task of undoing his belt. Then she worked the button free, tugged the zipper down, and let the denim fall. He stepped out of them, and she pushed the fabric aside with her foot.

"You're not just saying that to see me undress?" he murmured, and his voice was low, amused, a hint of the teasing she'd missed.

She laughed softly, her hands sliding up his chest as she pushed his t-shirt up. "One thing is not mutually exclusive from the other."

He hissed as the fabric cleared his shoulders, and she took the opportunity to press her mouth to the curve of his neck, just below his jaw. He tilted his head back, a low sound rumbling in his chest, and her fingers splayed across the warm skin of his torso, feeling the way his muscles tightened beneath her touch.

Then his hands were in her hair, tilting her face up to meet his, and when his mouth found hers, there was nothing careful about it.

This kiss was hungry, deep, the kind that stole breath and made her forget where she ended and he began. His tongue swept against her lower lip, and she opened for him without hesitation, pulling him closer, her fingers digging into the firm muscles of his back. He tasted like salt and something darker, something that was entirely him, and she let herself drown in it.

His hands slid down her sides, gripping her buttocks, pulling her flush against him, and she felt the heat of his body pressed against her through the thin fabric of her dress.

She whimpered against his mouth, and he answered with a low groan, his teeth grazing her lower lip before he soothed it with his tongue.

When they finally broke apart, both of them breathless, his forehead rested against hers, his eyes still dark and heavy-lidded.

"Turn around," he said, his voice rougher now, quieter. "I don't want you to see."

She nodded, but before letting go, her hands slid down to the waistband of his boxers, her fingers hooking into the fabric. "These too," she murmured, “you aren’t a cartoon, and they are not cheap.”

He let out a low sound, almost a growl of surprise, as she slid them down his hips, working the fabric past his thighs until he stepped out of them. Her eyes dropped for just a moment -she couldn't help it- before he gently turned her, guiding her to face the wall. Then he pressed against her from behind.

His body was warm and solid against her back, one hand bracing against the stone beside her head, the other splayed across her hip. His mouth found her ear, breath hot against her skin.

"Now," he said, low and rough. "Stay like that."

She felt the word vibrate through her, felt the heat of his naked chest pressed against her, and for a moment, her body screamed at her to turn around, forget about the date entirely and just climb him like a tree. The thought made her fingers curl against the stone.

She took a breath, steadying herself.

Focus.

But his hand was still on her hip; he was still warm against her back, and the ghost of his breath still lingered at her ear.

It took everything she had to push those thoughts away, to remember that this moment -the cave, the lights, the blankets- was about more than just her wanting him.

She pressed her palms flat against the cool rock and waited.

Behind her, she heard him take a slow, steadying breath, and then he walked away.

Then the sounds began briefly after that. A sickening crack. Bone shifting, rearranging, finding a shape that wasn't meant to be seen. She flinched at the sound, her fingers pressing harder against the stone, and she heard him suck in a sharp breath through his teeth.

He was trying to be quiet. She could tell. He was holding back the sounds he didn't want her to hear.

Another crack, wetter this time, followed by a low, gritted grunt that he couldn't quite swallow. Her eyes squeezed shut. She focused on the texture of the rock beneath her palms, on the rhythm of her own breathing, on anything but the sounds of his body pulling itself apart and putting itself back together.

Then came the soft, wet splash of his limbs meeting the stone floor. One, then another, and another after that, uncoiling into the water, the sound of suction cups releasing and reattaching as he adjusted to his true form.

"Okay," he said, and his voice was lower now, richer.

She turned slowly.

He was half in the water, his torso rising from the dark surface, and his limbs -black and blue and gleaming- curling around him in familiar, graceful arcs. The bioluminescence cast his features in soft blue light, shadows flickering across the angles of his face.

His chest was still heaving slightly, and she could see the fine sheen of sweat on his skin, the evidence of what the shift had cost him.

But he was looking at her like she was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen, and that look made everything else fall away.

She crossed the space between them, her hand reaching for his. He took it, and she let him guide her to the blankets, settling onto the soft fabric with him beside her.

The moment they were seated, his limbs moved with a quiet, possessive certainty. One curled around her waist, another wrapped loosely around her calf, and a third settled across her thighs, heavy and slightly moving. He pulled her closer without a word, and she felt herself relax into his hold, the tension of the past days finally beginning to ease.

Then his nose brushed against her throat. A slow, deliberate inhale. She felt the subtle graze of his lips against her skin, and a shiver traced down her spine.

Her hands found the Tupperware container, and she opened it, the scent of strawberries rising up between them. She pulled one out, holding it up to his mouth.

"Strawberries," she said softly. "You're so damn thoughtful," she added, and she watched a faint flush creep across his cheeks.

It wasn't obvious. Not like a human blush. But she'd learned to read him, to see the subtle shift in his skin, the way his gaze dropped for just a second. It made her heart squeeze.

He reached for the wine next, his fingers closing around the bottle. He examined it, turning it over once, his claws finding the cork. He pulled, once, and it slipped. A low grunt of frustration. He tried again, angling his claw differently, and this time it came free with a soft, satisfying pop.

He looked at the bottle, then at her, then at the cave around them.

"Didn't think of cups," he admitted, and there was something almost sheepish in his voice. Like he'd studied so hard and still forgotten something essential.

She smiled and pressed a kiss to his jaw. "It doesn't matter. I don't need cups. This-" she gestured at the cave, at the glowing water, at the blankets and the fruit and him, "this is more than I could have asked for. It's perfect."

His eyes searched hers, like he was trying to see if she meant it.

"Seriously," she added, and she let her gaze travel across the cave, watching the way the bioluminescence danced across the wet stone walls. The blue light rippled and shifted, casting moving shadows that made the cave feel alive. "It's beautiful. How did you do this?"

His chest rose and fell with a breath. "I found something I could give you," he said. "Something only I could do."

That was all he offered. No details.

She wanted to ask. She could see it in the slight tension in his limbs, the evidence of what the task had cost him. But if he didn't want to talk about it, she wouldn't push.

Because she knew him. Knew that if he wasn't bragging about the effort, it was because it had been more than he wanted to admit.

So she let it go.

----

He watched her take another strawberry from the box, observed the way her fingers closed around the soft red flesh, and he felt proud. His mate liked it. What he'd made. What he'd done. She'd called it beautiful, called it perfect, said she couldn't have asked for more.

She held the strawberry out to him, and he leaned forward, taking it from her fingers with his mouth. Her skin brushed his lips briefly, accidentally and electric. She smiled at him, with a knowing smile, and he felt the satisfaction washing away the exhaustion.

In his world, you didn't press food into someone's mouth and watch them taste it, didn't wait for their expression to shift with pleasure. Didn’t indulge. It was not necessary. It was, plainly worthless.

She took a sip from the wine bottle, her lips wrapping around the glass rim, and handed it to him. He lifted it to his own mouth, tasting the warmth, the faint sweetness that lingered where her mouth had been.

They talked. Nothing important. She asked about the human form again, about the things he'd learned to tolerate. He told her about shoes -how he still hated them, how they felt like cages for his feet- and she murmured soothingly at him, a sound that made his limbs curl tighter around her.

And beneath all the merriness, he could smell it.

Her arousal.

It was subtle, buried under the sweetness of the wine and the salt of the sea air. But it had been there since they kissed, building as the night wore on, a slow, steady heat that made his skin prickle and his thoughts scatter.

He tried to focus on her words. He really did. But his limbs, traitors that they were, had begun to move on their own. One slid higher up her thigh, the suction cups grazing her skin. Another curled around her waist, pulling her closer. He felt the heat of her body through the thin cloth, felt the way she yielded against him, and his jaw clenched.

This isn't how it goes.

He'd watched the movies. The humans in the restaurants, the candles and the wine and the careful rituals, or the walks in the park, or the theatre.

They didn't do what he wanted to do.

They sat across from each other, kept their hands visible, their bodies apart. They talked. They laughed. And when the male escorted the female to the door, maybe they kissed, and maybe they didn't.

But they didn't -he was fairly certain- get distracted by the taste of their mate's arousal while they were still eating.

He could feel his control slipping. His concentration, sharp and focused moments ago, was fracturing. He tried to pull his limbs back, to give her space, to remember the ritual she deserved.

But she shifted against him, and one of his suction cups brushed her inner thigh, and he couldn't. He couldn't.

His mind was spinning, caught between the Thal'kyr part of him that wanted nothing more than to pin her down and fuck her, and the part that wanted to prove he could do this right.

He opened his mouth, tried to form words, tried to remember what she'd been asking him-

"-ucky. Hey."

Her voice cut through the haze, and he blinked, focusing on her face. She was looking at him, her head tilted slightly, a small crease between her brows.

"Are you okay?" she asked, and the question was gentle, but there was something in her voice... concern?

His jaw worked.

"I..." he started, and stopped.

She shifted again, adjusting her position on the blankets, and the movement pressed her thigh more firmly against the limb that had been creeping upward. A soft, involuntary sound escaped her throat -barely a breath- but he heard it.

Felt it.

The last thread of restraint snapped.

"I want to have sex," he blurted. His eyes met hers, almost obligingly. "But that doesn't… happen on dates." He scowled, frustrated. "In the movies, they don't-"

She started laughing.

It wasn't cruel or mocking, and she pressed her hand to her mouth like she was trying to stop it. "Bucky," she said, and her voice was warm, amused, "maybe you watched a very vanilla catalogue of films. It depends on the movie."

He frowned at her, knitting his brow in confusion. "What do you mean, depends-”

She waved a hand, still smiling. "Let's just say-" She leaned closer, her hand finding his, her fingers curling around his, and she looked at him with a gaze that was anything but innocent. "Not all dates end with sex. But plenty do."

He stared at her. She was looking at him with those eyes, her scent curling around him, her hand warm in his, and he felt the last shred of his careful composure crumble.

"Plenty," he repeated, and the word came out rough, hungry.

"Plenty," she confirmed.

She lifted her free hand, counting on her fingers as she spoke. "You brought me to a beautiful place you prepared with care. We sat down. We ate. We drank. We talked."

Her free hand traced a slow, deliberate path across his chest, leaving a trail of heat in its wake.

"I think the date already hit most of the steps." Her fingers splayed flat against his skin, warm and certain. "Which means we could easily move on to the part you're so interested in."

She leaned closer, her lips brushing the shell of his ear.

"With the added bonus that you don't have to walk me home."

He didn't speak.

Couldn't.

Because she was looking at him like that, her scent thick and sweet in his nostrils, her hand warm on his skin, and every thought he'd been trying to hold onto scattered like fish fleeing a net.

He'd done well. He'd provided. He'd created something beautiful, something she'd loved, and now she was offering herself to him in return.

And he was going to take what she offered.

His instincts took control.

His limbs moved before he could think.

They wrapped around her, lifting her body, arranging her. One curled around her waist, another supported her back, and a third slid beneath her thighs, spreading them apart as he settled her onto his lap. She gasped, and then she was straddling him, her hands finding his shoulders for balance, her eyes dark and wanting.

He didn't need to lie her down. His limbs could hold her exactly where he wanted her, could maneuver her however he pleased, could keep her suspended and open and completely at his mercy.

And he wanted her exactly like this.

"Bucky-" she breathed, and he could feel the way her thighs tightened around him, the way her fingers curled into his shoulders.

He smiled. Slowly.

"I like you here," he murmured, his hands finding her hips, guiding her closer. "Right where I want you."

His limbs shifted beneath her, adjusting her position, spreading her wider. He could feel the heat permeating through the thin fabric of her underwear, and the knowledge that she was already so ready for him made him groan.

But before he could do anything else, her hands slid from his shoulders down his chest, her fingers trailing over his skin slowly. She leaned forward, her mouth finding the curve of his neck, and then she bit down, just enough to make him hiss.

His grip on her hips tightened.

"All night," he said, his voice low and rough, "I've been wanting to touch you like this."

Her teeth grazed his skin again, and she ground down against him, shameless and wanting. "Then stop talking about it."

He gently fisted her hair, throwing back her head.

"Patience, mate."

His mouth found her throat, and he breathed her in, slow and deliberate, letting her scent flood his senses.

"Bucky…" she breathed, and her hands came up to frame his face.

He pulled back just enough to look at her, and the expression on his face was pure, unapologetic satisfaction.

"You smell so good," he said, his lips brushing her jaw. "You've been like this all night. I could smell you while we were eating." A low sound rumbled in his chest. "You wanted me the whole time."

She opened her mouth to respond, but he didn't let her.

His mouth covered hers, deep and possessive, and her hands tangled in his hair, tugging; her hips never stopping the grinding against him. His limbs moved with purpose now, one sliding the hem of her dress higher, another finding the edge of her underwear.

He didn't rush. He savored. Every inch of skin he uncovered, he tasted. Every sound she made, he cataloged.

When his mouth finally left hers, trailing down her throat, she gasped his name.

"Tell me," he murmured as his lips grazed her cleavage. "Tell me what you want."

"You know what I want," she breathed, almost whining. "I want you."

His teeth grazed her skin, just enough to make her gasp. "Good."

One of his limbs found its way under her panties, the suction cups grazing the sensitive skin, and she arched against him with a soft cry. He watched her face, watched the way her eyes fluttered, the way her lips parted as he teased her wet, little pearl. He was in control now. He had her exactly where he wanted her.

His mouth found her ear, his voice low and rough.

"Does this happen on dates?" he asked, and there was amusement in his tone now, a hint of the teasing that had always been there beneath the surface. "Does the male do this-" his limb pressed down in a soft, deliberate stroke against her entrance, and she gasped, "-and the woman still eats?"

He pulled back to look at her face, heated and wanting, and he felt pure, unapologetic, masculine smugness.

"Because I don't remember seeing that," he continued, his teeth grazing her lower lip, "in any of the ones you showed me."

She chuckled, breathless, her hands tugging his hair hard enough to make him groan. "Told you, it depends on the movie."

His limb pressed higher, more insistent now, and she moaned against his mouth, her hips rolling desperately against him. Her hands slid down his chest, across his stomach, and he felt her fingers brush against the slit where his cock was still concealed. He grabbed her wrist and removed her wandering hand, with a hiss.

Not yet

"Then I think," he murmured against her lips, "you're going to have to show me that movie later."

His mouth found hers again, hungrier this time, and the rest of his limbs moved with purpose. One slid her dress higher, bunching the fabric around her hips. Another found the edge of her underwear, and started to tug it down with unhurried precision.

His free hand found the strap of her dress, dragging it down her shoulder with more patience than the rest of him seemed to possess. When her breast came free, he didn't reach for it right away, just looked at it, the way she'd looked at the glowing pools. Then his palm covered it, squeezing as a separate limb, uninvited, curled up along her sides to join it, sliding down the fabric covering her other breast, the ring of suction cups closing gently around her nipple.

She gasped at the double sensation -warm palm, cool pull-  and he made a low sound, pleased with himself.

She was so wet. Of course she was. He'd been smelling it all night, had been tasting it in the air between them. But feeling it -feeling the slick heat of her against his suction cups- made something feral rise up in his chest.

"All night," he murmured against her skin, his lips trailing down her throat again, "you were like this. While you ate. While you talked to me." His teeth grazed her collarbone.

She opened her mouth, but whatever she'd been about to say dissolved into a moan as a suction cup of the limb between her thighs closed over her sensitive pearl and pulled.

"So desperate," he said, and his voice was low, rough. "Even when you were eating strawberries and pretending you weren't thinking about this."

She tried to shake her head, but he wasn't having it.

"Don't lie to me, mate," he murmured. "I can always smell it on you. When you want me to take you. When you want my limbs tasting your body. When you want my heavy seed dripping down your delectable thighs."

His limb teased her, sucking and pushing inside, and he reveled in the way her body arched into his touch, the way her hands found his shoulders, the way she moaned his name.

And then, when she was trembling, when her breath was coming in short, little gasps, almost there-

He stopped.

She made a sound of protest, her eyes flying open, and he smiled at her, knowingly.

"Bucky-"

"I want to feel you come around my cock." he said, and his voice was gentle but firm.

He hadn’t let his shaft free on purpose, forcing himself to wait, so as not to end things too fast even if he craved it. Now it was time, so he finally let his concealing slit relax, and his poor, aching shaft pulsed free against her skin.  

He knew she felt it, heavy and throbbing against her belly, and shamelessly rubbed it up and down, wetting her sensitive skin, his eyes never leaving hers.

"You want it?" he asked, as he lifted her with his limbs, grabbing his cock and teasing her folds.

She just nodded. Couldn't speak.

He pressed his tongue against a fang and pushed into her, slowly as always, and observed her face as she took him. The way her lips parted, the way her eyes widened, the way her body yielded to him inch by inch. When he was fully seated inside her, he paused, letting her adjust.

"Fuck," she breathed.

He pressed his forehead to hers, his breath warm against her skin. "You feel so good."

He pulled back slowly, then pushed in again, and the sound she made -low, desperate- made his jaw clench.

"So perfect," he said, and his voice was rougher now. "My mate. My perfect mate."

She ground her hips against him, trying to take him deeper, to get friction, and he nipped her below her jaw.

"You like it?" he asked, finding a slow, deep rhythm. "You like me inside you?"

She nodded, breathless, and he smiled.

"I would usually ask you for words, mate. But since this is a special occasion, I’m not pushing you tonight," he murmured against her skin.

He started to move faster, harder, his limbs wrapped around her, holding her in place as he thrust up into her, teasing her little bundle of nerves with his limbs.

She was gasping, trembling, her fingers digging into his shoulders, and then he felt her starting to clench around him.

"Bucky-" she gasped.

"I know," he said. "I can feel you. I can feel you getting close."

He shifted the angle, pushing deeper still, and she cried out.

"I've got you, mate. I want to feel it. I want to feel what I do to you." He declared, the tip of a limb rubbing mercilessly against her clit as he fucked her.

She shattered around him with a cry, her body clenching, and he followed her over the edge, thrusting once, twice, before stilling and coming with a low, guttural groan.

For a long moment, he stayed there, buried inside her, his limbs wrapped around her, his face against her throat. His breathing was ragged, and he could feel her heart racing beneath his palm.

"Ok, that was-" she started, but she couldn't finish.

He smiled, satisfied.

"I know," he said.

He pulled out slowly, and she made a soft sound of protest. He felt a surge of warmth at the sound, at the way she still wanted him even now.

He settled behind her, his limbs curling around her, pulling her close. He pressed a kiss to her temple, and she sighed, pressing her back into his chest.

"That was a good date," he said after a moment, and she laughed, soft and tired.

"The best date ever." She conceded.

He felt his chest expand with something he couldn't quite name at the praise. Something deep and old.

"So I did good?" he heard himself ask anyway, his voice quieter now, more vulnerable.

She turned a little in his grasp to face him, her body still pressed against his, her limbs tangled with his. Her hands lifted, finding the line of his jaw, tracing along its edge before sliding down to his throat, that sensitive spot where she knew he loved to be touched.

He shivered, his eyes fluttering half-closed at the sensation.

"What do you think?" she murmured, her thumbs stroking slow circles along the column of his neck.

Her touch was deliberate, knowing, and he felt himself relax into it despite the question still hanging between them.

"I think," she continued, her voice soft, "you brought me to a place you made beautiful. You bring strawberries, the first food we shared. You gave me wine. You talked to me." Her thumb brushed over his pulse point. "You made me feel like I mattered."

He opened his mouth, but one of her hands reached his semi-hard shaft, giving it a playful squeeze, and he groaned, his hips jerking involuntarily into her grip.

"And then," she said, a small smile curving her mouth, "you proceeded to remind me exactly why you're the only one I want."

He felt the damn heat in his cheeks and knew he had blushed like an inexperienced pup. He found himself leaning into her touch like a creature starved for it, his eyes half-lidded, his breath coming in slow, uneven pulls.

"So yes," she said, her voice dropping to a whisper. "You did good. You did so good."

He didn't answer. Couldn't. Instead, his hands and limbs started to wander along her body, fingers tracing the curve of her hip, suction cups grazing the soft skin of her lower back, other limbs curled around her thighs. He pressed his face into her hair, breathing her in, and let himself feel the weight of her words in a language that didn't require saying things aloud.