BadBitchSinceBirth

For the past two hours since leaving your office and slipping back into the ballroom like you hadn't just comprehensively undermined eight months of careful separation, you'd had the party. The party, with its noise and its obligations and its endless, mercifully absorbing requirement that you be on. All of it demanding just enough of your attention to make thinking about anything else logistically impossible. It had been, if nothing else, somewhere to put your face. 

But now the guests are gone, the house has exhaled down to its bones, and the silence left behind is the kind that doesn't stay empty for long. You can already feel the thoughts beginning to squirm back in at the edges, insistently, like they've been waiting all evening with a numbered ticket and now it's finally their turn.

The whole room is still dressed and gleaming for an evening that was, by every external measure, a resounding success. But you are currently conducting a very focused internal audit of every decision you have made since approximately nine o'clock this evening.

The audit is not going well.

Returning to the party with your husband—ex-husband—Bucky, on your arm like you hadn't just left a significant proportion of your dignity scattered on your desk had been one thing. The way the evening had gone after was quite another. 

Bucky had been insufferable, obviously. Warm in the particular way that reads as devoted husband from twelve feet away but as I have won something and we both know it in closer proximity. His arm became a fixed and immovable constant around your waist, metal hand pressing at the small of your back with the patient, territorial certainty of a man who has decided something and seen no reason to discuss it.

Matt had gone. You'd felt his absence around ten minutes in. The particular negative space of someone who has quietly removed themselves without making it anyone's problem. The only remnant of his presence was his champagne flute left half-finished on a windowsill you'd passed on the way to the speeches. You'd stared at it for a moment longer than you should have.

Bucky had noticed your mind drifting, of course. His thumb smoothed over your back - just a small, deliberate pressure that meant I see exactly where you're looking, and I'm still here. Stay. And you had, because the alternative was making a scene at your own event. And also because—well.

Because somewhere between the dinner and the second round of speeches, something had started happening that you hadn't authorised and couldn't entirely stop. You'd caught Bucky's eye over a comment from the Belgian ambassador and he gave you that faint, private smile in return - the shared language you developed years ago. 

At one point he’d dipped his head to your ear to murmur something dry about one of the ministers, and you’d had to bite your cheek to keep from laughing. Bucky had looked down at you with those soft eyes he does when he's not thinking carefully enough about his own expression, and you'd looked away first. You were even finishing each other's sentences again without realising.

And by the time the last round of handshakes came, you'd stopped noticing the weight of his hand on your back and started noticing the absence of it when it left. If you clutched at straws, maybe you could convince yourself that this was just eight months of having nobody to lean into. That, and the fact your body had always been significantly stupider than your brain where Bucky Barnes was concerned. But truth of it was quieter and more inconvenient than any rationalisation you could construct: it had felt, humiliatingly, like home.

The audit is really not going well. 

“Madam Ambassador.”

Thomas, your chief of staff, materialises at the foot of the stairs. Silent, eternal, and entirely too perceptive. A man who has worked in diplomatic residences long enough to have seen everything and professionally forgotten most of it.

“The last of the staff will be finished within the hour,” he offers. “Will there be anything else tonight?”

You open your mouth.

“That'll be all, Thomas, thank you.”

Bucky's voice comes from somewhere behind your left shoulder, easy and warm in the way of a man who has slipped right back into the domestic machinery of your shared life.

Thomas nods, unperturbed. “Very good, Congressman Barnes. Wonderful to have you back, sir. I've had your things brought up.”

Of course he has.

Because why wouldn't he? Congressman Barnes is visiting his wife, and that is a thing that happens, and the residence's household operates on the reasonable assumptions, none of which were consulted past you.

“Great, thanks Thomas.” You reply, and your voice comes out perfectly steady, which feels like a small miracle. “Goodnight.”

Thomas retreats. And then it is just the two of you, on the landing, in this enormous, beautiful house, at the end of the most profoundly strange evening of what has already been a profoundly strange year. Neither of you speaks for just a beat too long.

“Right,” Bucky says finally.

“Right,” you agree.

You head upstairs, and he follows, and the house closes around you both like it was always going to.

── ⟢  ₊ ☁️ ˚・🖋️ ⊹ 

The master bedroom is on the first floor, east wing, overlooking the gardens.

It's your favourite room in the house; twelve foot ceilings, original cornicing, sash windows that rattle faintly when the wind comes off the park. It even has an original, working fireplace and enough space that the four poster doesn't overwhelm it, which is saying something.

You have not, in the past eight months, shared it with anyone

The door closes behind you both with a soft, decisive click.

You set your clutch down on the dressing table. He's already shrugging off his jacket, moving through the room with the ease of a man whose muscle memory never got the memo that he left.

Like a man who has lived here. Like the months of absence were a minor administrative detail rather than anything worth adjusting for. Like a man who has decided - and this is the thing about Bucky, this has always been the thing - that simply resuming works better than discussing. That if he just continues, the awkward conversation about feelings never has to be raised.

He reaches up to loosen his tie, that automatic gesture you have watched a thousand times, and then just… stops.

The pause is small. Almost nothing. His hands still at his collar and there's the briefest flicker of something in his expression that looks almost like recalibration. Like a man who has been operating on instinct for the last several hours and has only just now checked in with his frontal lobe to ask if instinct is advisable right now.

You watch him start to process the situation in real time. The room. The two sides of the turned down bed. His coat already laid on his chair. His suitcase placed next to his left side of the bed, because your chief of staff doesn't forget anything, ever, including what side of the bed the Congressman sleeps on.

Bucky’s tongue drags briefly over his teeth. Then he looks up and meets your eyes in the mirror, and the silence that follows has the particular quality of two people clearly thinking about the same three or four things and not willing to be the first to name any of them.

“I can take the couch,” he offers carefully. Gesturing vaguely at the small sofa by the fireplace that is, objectively, six inches shorter than he is.

“Don't be ridiculous, you'll be folded in half,” you object. “I'll take it.”

“You won't fit either,” he points out.

“At least I'm smaller than you.”

“Well,” Bucky sighs flatly, “I'm not letting my wife sleep on a fucking loveseat.”

There it is again. Wife. The word he keeps wielding like a claim, like it still means what it used to. And it still lands the same. You hate that it does.

You hate the warm, stupid, entirely unwelcome thing it does somewhere behind your sternum. Because he's being impossible - he's been impossible all evening - and yet here he is, immovable on the subject of your comfort even while being the singular architect of your discomfort. 

“Separated wife,” you correct, sharper than you intend, but one of you has to keep score here and it's clearly not going to be him.

He tilts his head, slow and deliberate, his eyes doing that thing where they get very still and very blue and very focused on your face.

“Didn't seem very separated a few hours ago when you were coming on my—”

“Don't.” You hold up a hand. “Do not finish that sentence in my bedroom.”

“Our bedroom,” he replies, and the audacity of it nearly makes you laugh.

“You haven't lived here in eight months,” you scoff.

“Yeah, well.” He looks around the room with something that might be fondness or might be smugness or might be both. “Doesn't seem to have changed much.”

And that's the problem, isn't it? Because he's right. You haven't changed anything. His nightstand is bare but still his; you've never put anything on it, never colonized that space. Even the closet still has the section you'd never quite gotten around to re-purposing, like some part of you had been keeping it warm. Keeping it ready.

The thought makes you feel pathetic and furious in equal measure.

“Well it's my bedroom now, and I'm telling you not to—” You stop yourself, jaw tight, because getting into this right now, at nearly one in the morning with him half-undressed, is absolutely not happening. “You know what? Fine. We're both adults. We can share a bed again without making it a thing.”

“I wasn't making it a thing.”

“You were absolutely making it a thing.”

“I was making an observation—”

“You were being an ass.”

His mouth twitches. Almost a smile. “Yeah, well. You married an ass.”

“Separated from an ass,” you correct sharply, moving toward your dresser with more force than necessary.

The muscle in his jaw strains. Pops, like he's physically holding something back, biting down on whatever else he was about to say.

“Fine.” He reaches up, resuming the work on his tie, fingers pulling the silk loose with deliberate, practised movements. “We'll be adults about it.”

“Fine,” you echo.

You yank open your pyjama drawer with more violence than it deserves, pulling out the silk set you'd bought months ago in a fit of reclamation. Expensive, modest, and nothing like the worn t-shirts you used to steal from him.

“Great.” The tie slides free. He starts on the top button of his shirt, then the next, movements slow and methodical. You catch yourself watching his fingers work the buttons with that same deft precision they had a few hours ago when they were working you open instead. Christ.

“Fine.” And the second it leaves your mouth you know you've made a tactical error, because—

“You already said fine.”

There it is.

“Well I'm saying it again.” You turn toward the bathroom. “Because we're being adults about this. Mature, reasonable adults who can share a sleeping space without any complications,” you finish firmly.

“Right. No complications.” His voice is dry, but not quite enough to hide the edge underneath. Something that sounds dangerously close to hurt. “We're real good at uncomplicated, you and me.”

You don't bother with a response. Just gather your things and head for the bathroom with all the dignity of a woman who is, essentially, fleeing. There's no other word for it. You're running away from your own husband in your own bedroom, and you both know it.

“I'm taking the bathroom first before I smother you with a pillow,” you announce.

“See, that doesn't sound very adu—”

You slam the bathroom door before he can finish that sentence, and the lock clicks with a satisfaction that's entirely petty and entirely warranted. Behind the door, you hear him huff a laugh. Something that might be fondness disguised as frustration and that particular stubborn amusement he gets when you're both being impossible. 

He always claims not to get off on your verbal sparring. You know he's always lying.

Leaning back against the door, you finally let yourself breathe. Your reflection stares back from the mirror, still perfect from three hours of performance.

Except it's not really, is it? Because underneath the dress, you're still wearing the evidence of what you let him do. What you begged him to do.

You reach behind yourself for the zipper, fingers searching low on your back for the tab. The dress is one of those gorgeous, backless nightmares designed by someone who clearly never considered that women might need to undress themselves. Your fingers catch the zip and you pull, but it only moves an inch before jamming.

“Come on,” you mutter, twisting your arm lower. Your shoulder protests. The zip grudges down another half-inch before catching completely on some invisible fold of silk.

You try the other arm. Same failure, different angle.

“Fuck.”

You stare at your reflection. At the reality of your options, which is that you have exactly one and it's terrible. 

“Bucky?” You call, quieter than intended, opening the door just enough to suggest he's being granted entry, however reluctantly.

A pause, and for a moment you're not sure he heard you. “Yeah?”

“I need help with my zip. It's stuck.”

You hear him cross the bedroom before the door opens the rest of the way, but he doesn’t step in immediately. There’s a pause, like he’s giving you the chance to change your mind, and then he crosses the threshold.

“Turn around.” It’s not quite an order, but your body responds to it anyway before your brain has the chance to argue. You pivot, presenting your back to him, fingers braced lightly against the edge of the counter.

You feel him step in behind you, close enough that the heat of him registers before anything else does. Your breath stutters, traitorous, and you fix your eyes on your reflection. His hands come into view in the mirror a second later. One settles lightly at your waist, just enough to still the fabric, the other finding the zipper with careful fingers.

His breath grazes the back of your neck as the zip finally gives and slides down, and every nerve ending along your spine lights up. His hands still for just a moment, a beat that lasts slightly longer than it should, and the bathroom is very quiet. For a second, it feels dangerously like the easiest thing in the world to lean back that last inch. To close the distance without naming it. To let instinct run the show again, just for a moment.

But then his fingers flex, and he lets go. He steps back, and the air between you is breathable again.

“Got it.” He clears his throat.

“Thank you.”

“Yeah, of course.” he replies, slightly unsteady, and then he's gone.

You stare at the closed bathroom door for a moment longer before finally forcing yourself to move.

The shower is too cold once you turn it on and step beneath it. But you linger under the spray anyway, letting it work down your shoulders, washing the evidence of the evening - of him - away until the water runs clear. At least your IUD means this is the extent of the cleanup. But sooner than you'd like what little heat there is fades, the old pipes protesting. Damn old house.

You towel off. Perform your entire nighttime routine with robotic habit, because anything else means thinking, and thinking is dangerous right now. Toner. Serum. Moisturiser. You find a loose thread on your sleeve and fiddle with it. You reorganise nothing on the counter and call it tidying.

Eventually, you run out of tasks.

The bedroom is waiting on the other side of the door.

Bucky's sitting on his side of the bed - when did you start thinking of it as his side again? - in nothing but his boxer briefs, scrolling through his phone with the blank expression of a man who is absolutely not reading anything.

He's kept himself in shape. Of course he has. Super soldier serum aside, Bucky's always been disciplined about training.But there’s more weight on him than last time you saw him - broader through the shoulders, softer in some areas. It suits him unfairly well. Fills him out in a way that makes him look less like a weapon and more like a man who’s taking care of himself. 

The thought makes something warm bloom in your chest, and your gaze lingers long enough to catch on the scars at his left shoulder, where metal meets flesh. The scars there are unchanged, a familiar map you’d once known by touch rather than sight.

He looks up when you emerge, and his gaze tracks over you with an intensity that makes your skin prickle.

“Bathroom's yours,” you manage.

He slips into the bathroom without another word. You climb into bed, trying to stay as far to your side as physically possible. You shift. Adjust the pillow. Shift again. Can't find the position you normally sleep in, and you’re still awake when Bucky reemerges.

The mattress dips under his weight. You do your best impression of a woman who is already asleep, which would be more convincing if he hadn’t spent the better part of three years sleeping next to you. If he didn't know exactly how your breathing changes when sleep actually takes you. He doesn't call you on it. Just settles back against the pillows with a soft exhale that says he knows exactly what you're doing.

The residence settles around you both. The old Georgian silence, where the radiators tick, the pipes groan, and the old timber relaxes. 

You can hear him breathing. Feel the heat radiating off his body across the sheets, your whole right side hyper-aware of it. The bed that felt cavernously large when you slept alone suddenly feels impossibly small. Every nerve insisting on registering his presence with an enthusiasm you find deeply unhelpful.

“We should probably talk,” he states, though there’s not real conviction behind it.

“I'm tired, Bucky.”

A pause. You can practically hear him deciding whether to push.

“Yeah,” he concedes, something resigned in his voice. “Me too.”

He reaches over and turns off his bedside lamp, plunging the room into darkness. The bed shifts as he settles onto his side, facing away from you. And then it's just the sound of his breathing, evening out into an easy slumber.

Which is something. Because for a long time, sleep was a thing Bucky Barnes did badly. You’d learnt that slowly, through observation, the way you did most things about him in the early months. Through the careful cataloguing of details he wouldn't offer freely. The nightmares. The insomnia. The tense stillness that only came from someone forcing themselves to lie motionless, hoping you wouldn’t notice. Which you always did, and pretended you hadn’t. 

Because pressing would've sent him retreating behind walls you were only just beginning to see past. So you'd just held him tighter and let him figure out you weren't going anywhere.

Over time his body learnt yours. Your warmth. Your weight beside him. The rhythm of your heartbeat. Something in him that had been braced for decades finally started to let go. He'd started reaching for you in his sleep without waking. Started sleeping past five a.m., then six. Once, memorably, past nine, and he'd surfaced so bewildered by his own rested state that he’d just stared at you like you’d performed some kind of miracle. 

It's particularly memorable, your heart unhelpfully supplies, because it’s the exact moment you knew you were in love with him.

He used to say you were the only place he didn't have to be on guard.

Used to.

You'd worried about that, those first few months after you separated. Whether he was sleeping at all in that sterile DC apartment. Whether the nightmares had crept back in without you there. Whether he lay awake at three a.m, every muscle held just a little too tight, waiting for something that never quite came. You'd tried not to feel guilty about it. Failed, mostly.

Beside you, Bucky makes a small sound and shifts.

It's drowsy, unconscious, seeking you out in a way his waking self wouldn’t authorize. His body curves toward yours, closing the distance between you with the same inevitability as a plant tipping toward sunlight. It’s like his nervous system runs through a quick inventory - familiar warmth, familiar scent, familiar body - and just defaults back to you like coming home. 

Which is deeply inconvenient knowledge to possess while you're actively trying to remember all the very good reasons you separated in the first place.

His face has even softened in that devastating way where it sheds the mask and just looks like Bucky. The real one. The version that doesn’t belong to the Congressman, or the ex-assassin. The one that you’ve probably spent more time with than anyone else alive.

You are absolutely not thinking about how much you've missed that face. You are not.

Instead, you think about Matt.

The thing is, you don't know exactly what you owe Matt, which is in itself a fairly damning summary of where you'd arrived. Two months. Easy, fun, uncomplicated in the way that things are when neither person is asking too much or offering too much and the arrangement suits them both. You'd liked him. You do like him. He's brilliant and funny and present, in the straightforward way that had felt so startling after months of press releases and assistant-mediated contact.

But he hadn't committed. Neither had you. That had been the point, or at least the operating premise.

So, the question of guilt.

Do you owe Matt anything that would make tonight a transgression? You'd not made promises. The terms, such as they were, had been deliberately unspecified, which had felt like freedom at the time and feels significantly more complicated now.

And, of course, there’s no way he hadn’t heard everything.

That is the part you keep arriving at and then shying away from like a horse refusing a jump, because there is no version of that in which you come off well. Matt Murdock, who can hear a heartbeat from across a room, absolutely heard every single thing that happened in your office tonight. Every word. Every sound. Every moment of two people who were supposed to be separated doing a fairly comprehensive impression of the opposite.

He'd left without saying anything. You don't know whether that makes it better or worse. You suspect worse.

You're going to have to talk to him. You're going to have to talk to him, and you're going to have to figure out what tonight was, and what the past eight months of separation actually mean in practice versus on paper. 

You're going to have to stand in front of Matt and have some version of a conversation you cannot currently outline because every time you try to construct the opening sentence your brain just goes quiet and offers you nothing except a replay of Bucky's mouth hot against your throat, and the rough edge of his voice when he called you his pretty wife.

Next to you, Bucky’s forehead comes to rest against your shoulder - tucked against you like something that simply found its way back to where it was always going to end up. Your chest does something you'd really rather it didn't.

You look at the ceiling for a long time, listening to your husband breathe, and try not to think about how natural this feels.

How terrifying that is. How much you've missed it. How angry you are that you've missed it. 

Eventually, because the ceiling has offered no solutions and your body has been quietly conspiring with Bucky's for the past twenty minutes, you drift off next to him.

── ⟢ ₊ ☁️ ˚・🖋️ ⊹

You reach for him before you're properly awake.

Your hand finds cold sheets, and the humiliation of that is enough to finish the job of waking you up completely.

For a moment you just lie there, staring at the indent in his pillow, at the covers thrown back on his side. Processing the faint sense of abandonment that has absolutely no right to exist given that you spent half the night wishing he'd spontaneously relocate to a different continent.

The shower in the en-suite isn't running. The dressing room is quiet. He's not here. You lie there for a moment, taking stock of the specific variety of idiot you are. Then you get up.

Twenty minutes later you're dressed and heading downstairs with the grim determination of a woman about to reclaim her life and her sanity. The sound of voices reach you before you make it to the breakfast room. Two of them - your aide's quick, efficient register, and underneath it, lower, Bucky's. 

You stop in the doorway.

Bucky's sitting at the table looking unfairly well-rested, already dressed in one of his perfectly tailored suits. Your aide - Caroline - sits across from him, laptop open, notepad beside it, wearing the expression of someone who has been efficiently charmed into full co-operation and hasn't quite noticed yet. Papers are open between them. His handwriting is on some of them.

When you walk into the room, they both look up. Caroline smiles, bright and professional. Bucky's smile is slower, warmer, with an edge of something that makes your spine stiffen on instinct.

“Good morning, sweetheart,” he greets, and you immediately don’t trust his tone. “Sleep well?”

You manage a smile that doesn't reach your eyes. “Fine, thank you.”

“Morning,” your aide adds brightly, already turning the laptop toward you. “Perfect timing actuall—”

“What is all this?” you interject, a little sharper than you intend, crossing to the coffee pot because you need something to do with your hands.

“Just some press co-ordination,” Bucky shrugs, like it’s obvious. Like obviously your time belongs to him whenever he's in town. “We thought it made sense, while I'm here. The Times have been wanting a piece for a while, and with the summit coverage still running there's a window to get some good visibility.”

Your aide nods with the enthusiasm of someone utterly oblivious to the tension crystallizing in the air. “It's perfect actually, I've already reached out to a few contacts. We've got the charity reception Friday, a lunch Thursday that Lord Johnson’s been requesting for months, then the Atlantic Council meeting on Wednesday - that'll be good for photos if you both attend together - then tomorrow—.”

“Wait.” You set your cup down carefully. “Wednesdays I meet with our legal counsel.”

There's a small pause. Your aide's fingers hover over the keyboard. 

“Mr. Murdock?” Caroline glances at her notes. “That’s been pushed back,” she says, slightly carefully. 

You look at her. “To when?”

“These press things have tight windows,” Bucky interjects smoothly, with an expression of such reasonable, considered sympathy that you could scream. “Visibility with the right people, good for both our offices. You know how it is.” The faintest tilt of his head. “I'm sure Murdock will understand that these things take priority.”

There is a very specific register that Bucky uses when he has already made a decision and is presenting it as a collaborative discussion, and this is unmistakably it.

“Especially,” he continues, and you have to bite your cheek so you don’t say something you’ll regret, “given the transatlantic tensions recently. It's important we present a unified front. As husband and wife.”

The words land exactly how he means them to. A reminder. A claim. You know exactly what he’s doing because he’s not even trying to be subtle. 

He's monopolised your entire week, filled every available slot with joint appearances. Between your existing obligations and everything he's just loaded into your schedule, there isn't a single free hour left for the meeting with Matt that you both know isn't really about legal counsel.

“And tomorrow,” Caroline ploughs on, bless her completely oblivious soul, “you'd originally blocked out for paperwork, but the round-table is invitation-only and they specifically requested both of you, so—”

“So you've just... rewritten my entire week.” You hear yourself say. Your smile is so tight it might shatter.

“Optimized.” Bucky corrects gently. 

His eyes meet yours across the table, and the look in them is pure, undiluted victory. And the worst part? He's not even wrong. These are important events. You should attend them together. From any objective standpoint, his logic is flawless. Any attempt at protesting would make you look like you're prioritizing the wrong things.

Which is exactly what makes it so infuriating.

“Will there be anything else?” you ask, voice perfectly professional. “I have a meeting I’m already running late for.”

“I think that covers it,” Caroline says brightly. “Oh, the German Ambassador's office called about scheduling a—”

“Send me the details,” you interrupt. “I'll review them later.”

You pick up a croissant from the breakfast spread. Turn to leave.

“Sweetheart?”

You stop. Take deep breath. Don't turn around. “Yes?”

“I was thinking we could have lunch later. Just the two of us. Prep ourselves for the busy week ahead.”

The audacity. The sheer, breathtaking audacity.

You turn back, smile still in place. “Sounds perfect, why don’t you come by my office later?”

“Absolutely.” His smile widens. “It's a date.”

You leave the residence before you turn your private separation into a very public spectacle involving thrown pastries, taking your fury with you to the embassy where it promptly gets buried under the weight of your actual job.

The morning is a blur of meetings that run long and emails that multiply faster than you can answer them. Trade briefings that should take thirty minutes stretch to fifty. Security updates that require your signature on six different documents. A conference call with State that goes in circles for forty minutes before anyone agrees on anything. Your assistant has brought you coffee twice, and both cups have gone cold on your desk untouched.

You're mid-sentence in a response to the German Ambassador's office when there's a knock at your door.

“Come in,” you call, not looking up, assuming it's another briefing packet or someone from the communications team.

The door opens. You register the footsteps, the soft tap of a cane, before the voice.

“Busy morning?”

Your head snaps up so fast you nearly give yourself whiplash.

Matt's standing in the doorway, one hand on his cane, the other tucked into his pocket. His expression is pleasant and unreadable in that way he does when he's being very deliberate about not showing what he's actually thinking.

Fuck.

This would've been significantly easier with some advance notice. A text, or an email, or a calendar invite titled “Discuss Why You Disappeared Into Your Office With Your Supposed Ex-Husband”. Anything that would've given you more than zero seconds to figure out what the hell you're supposed to say right now. 

You've walked into treaty negotiations with less anxiety. Those at least came with agendas. Preparation time. The basic courtesy of knowing they were happening before you were actively in them.

“Matt.” Your brain scrambles for words, or literally anything useful. “Hi. I didn't—I wasn't expecting—”

“Noticed your calendar got significantly fuller since yesterday,” he observes mildly, tilting his head. There's no accusation in his tone, but you hear the question underneath it anyway. “Lot of joint appearances suddenly.”

Heat crawls up your neck. You're aware, abruptly, of how you must look - harried, distracted, still half-focused on the email you were writing. “Yes,” you manage. “I'm sorry. I wanted to—I meant to call, I just haven't had a second to—”

“It's fine.” He steps into the office properly, and your heart kicks harder in your chest, whether it’s dread or want, you’re not entirely sure. “It's your lunch break now though, isn't it? We could grab something. Talk about last night.”

Oh god. Suddenly the conference call that went in circles for forty minutes seems appealing by comparison.

“Matt,” you start, but you don't even know where that sentence is going. Because what can you even say? My husband is systematically cutting you out of my life and I'm clearly too much of a coward to stop him?

“I'm not—” He stops, and there's a light sigh before his lips press together in that particular way he does when he's choosing his words carefully. “I'm not trying to make this difficult. I just think we should probably talk about where things stand. Clear the air.”

You scramble find words that don't make this exponentially worse. “It's complicated.”

“Is it?” There's an edge to his voice now, however faint. “Or is it actually pretty straightforward and we're both just avoiding saying it out loud?”

You're trying to formulate something that resembles an answer when you hear the distinct cadence of footsteps you’d recognise anywhere, coming down the hall towards your office.

“There you are, sweetheart.”

Your stomach drops straight through the floor and keeps going.

Bucky appears in the doorway, looking between you and Matt with an expression of polite surprise that would be convincing if you didn't know him well enough to see the calculation behind it.

“Oh, Murdock,” he greets, as though he's only just noticed Matt standing there. “Didn't realise you were stopping by.”

“Congressman Barnes,” Matt turns slightly, angling toward Bucky's voice. “Just thought I'd see if the Ambassador was free for lunch, because it seems like her schedule's quite full.”

“Yeah, it's a busy week,” Bucky agrees easily, stepping into the office properly now. Not quite crowding, but definitely occupying space between you both. “We've got lunch plans actually. Lots to catch up on - isn't that right, doll?”

You're still sitting at your desk, frozen, watching this happen like you're observing it from outside your own body. The air in the office has gone thick and uncomfortable, the silence stretching just a beat too long.

Matt's expression hasn't changed, but you can see the slight tension in his jaw. The way his hand tightens fractionally on his cane; he knows exactly what's happening here

“Right,” you manage finally. “Yes. We're—it’s a working lunch. Coordinating the rest of the week.”

“A working lunch,” Matt repeats, and you can't tell if there's an edge to it or if your guilt is adding subtext that isn’t there.

“You know how it is,” Bucky adds. “Just making sure we're aligned before all the joint appearances. Tedious stuff, really.”

Bucky’s still smiling. Matt's still standing there. You're still trying to remember how to breathe normally.

“Of course,” Matt says after a moment. “I should let you both get to it then.”

“We could reschedule,” you start, but the words feel hollow even as you're saying them. “Later this week, maybe—”

“Your calendar looked pretty full,” Matt interrupts. “But sure. Have your people call my people.”

The formality of it stings more than it should. Like he's already pulling back, already creating space between you that wasn't there before.

“Matt—”

“It's fine.” he assures, though it doesn’t sound fine. It sounds like a door closing. Or maybe you're imagining that too - there's nothing in his voice you can parse clearly. “Really, enjoy your lunch.”

You want to say something else. Want to explain, or apologise, or do literally anything to make this less excruciating. But the words stick in your throat, and Matt's already shifting toward the door into the hallway, and Bucky's just standing there, absolutely not trying to hide his satisfaction.

“Ready to go?” Bucky asks.

“I just need to freshen up,” you reply. “Give me two minutes. I'll meet you downstairs.”

It's a transparent excuse and you both know it. But you need air. You need thirty seconds where you're not feeling like you’re being pulled apart at the seams. You grab your bag and slip out after Matt, turning the opposite direction toward the bathrooms, leaving Bucky alone in your office. Which is possibly the worst decision you could have made, you realise, but you can't exactly turn around now.

Behind you, Bucky watches you disappear around the corner. Waits patiently until your heels clicking fades down the corridor. Then he moves. 

Matt's halfway down the corridor when Bucky catches up.

“Murdock.”

Matt stops mid-stride. There's a fractional hesitation where his shoulders stiffen before he turns. His expression has shed whatever careful pleasantness he'd been wearing in your office. What's left is cooler. Bucky stops a respectful distance away, hands loose at his sides. Everything about his posture says this is just two professionals having a friendly discussion.

“I think we should talk,” he begins. “Briefly.”

Matt's expression doesn't change. “About?”

“About boundaries.” Bucky asserts, though his tone is reasonable - almost apologetic, even. Like this is an awkward position he’s been forced into rather than something he’s orchestrating. “Look, I'm going to be direct here. My wife and I are working through things. Trying to figure out what we want going forward. And I think—Well, I think it would be easier if we had some space to do that without other complications.”

Matt tilts his head slightly, and there's something almost amused in the gesture. “And by complications you mean me.”

“I’m not trying to be a dick about this, I'm just asking you to back off for a while. Let us have the space we need as we get back to where we were.” It comes out steady, but Bucky’s heart rate betrays him. That telltale spike that means he’s not being entirely truthful. Matt catalogues the lie for what it is. “It's been a difficult few months, but we're in a good place now.”

“And she's aware of this? The working things out?”

Bucky's jaw tightens. “We're on the same page about what matters.”

“Wow,” Matt scoffs softly, a disbelieving smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. “That’s what you’re telling yourself?”

Bucky goes still, but Matt hears the minute hitch in his breathing anyway. The slight shift in his heartbeat as he re-calibrates, trying to decide whether Matt actually knows something or if he’s bluffing.

When Bucky speaks again, there’s bite to his tone, the pleasantness veneer starting to crack around the edges.

“My relationship with my wife isn't really your concern.” 

“It is when I’ve been sleeping with her the past two months.”

Bucky’s mouth pulls into something mean immediately, his expression hardening as the last scraps of diplomacy finally burn off. Any pretence of this being a civil conversation is entirely gone.

“And yet those two months didn’t seem to mean much last night, did they? I hadn’t even been back three hours, that must sting a little.”

The barb lands. Matt's jaw tightens, but he doesn't take the bait.

“You know, if push her into something she doesn't actually want—”

“I know my wife.”

“Do you?” Matt asks, and there's just enough lift in it to make it a real question but not quite enough warmth to make it a polite one. “Because despite what you think, two months ago she didn't seem like someone who was waiting around for you to come back.”

Bucky's hands flex. “Meaning?”

“Meaning she built a life here without you in it,” Matt states, matter of fact. “And sleeping with her and monopolising her calendar doesn’t undo that, no matter how much you want it to.”

That lands differently. Bucky's mouth presses into a thin line as he tries to find his footing again. Tries to figure out how to wrestle the conversation back under his control. But Matt's already turning away, done with whatever this was.

“Next time you want to have a conversation about boundaries, Congressman,” he tosses back over his shoulder, “maybe try having it with her first.”

Then he's gone, footsteps receding down the hallway, leaving Bucky standing alone with the distinct feeling that he didn't win that exchange nearly as cleanly as he'd intended. 

He stands there for a moment, trying to sort through what just happened. Matt's parting shot sits uncomfortably in his chest, because that’s what he’s trying to fix, isn’t it? Except maybe Murdock has a point about the method.

He straightens his jacket. Rolls his shoulders back. Whatever. He has lunch with his wife, and Matt Murdock can go back to whatever law firm he crawled out of. 

Bucky makes it down to the entrance hall,checking his phone more out of habit than any real interest in the messages accumulating there. When he hears your footsteps on the stairs, he looks up, and something in his chest loosens slightly. At least he has this. This week. That has to count for something.

He straightens as you approach, and there's something careful in the way his eyes track over your face, like he's bracing for whatever mood you're bringing down those stairs with you.

“Ready?” He asks, aiming for casual but it doesn't quite land.

“Do I have a choice?” The question comes with a raised brow. You don’t slow down as you reach him, just brush past toward the door.

“You always have a choice.” He falls into step beside you, hands sliding into his pockets.

“Funny,” you return, pushing through the door without waiting for him to open it. “Doesn't feel like it this week.”

Wisely, he chooses not to argue. Instead, he follows you out into the grey London afternoon, the kind of day where the sky can't decide if it wants to commit to rain or just make everyone miserable with the threat of it. 

The walk is silent - not the comfortable kind. Bucky keeps his hands in his pockets because if he doesn't, they'll instinctively search for your waist or the small of your back or some other familiar place they've been gravitating toward for years. And that Velcro instinct to maintain contact feels entirely unhelpful given the current temperature between you.

The restaurant Bucky chose is one of those discreet places where ministers go to have conversations they'd rather not have overheard. The kind with enough distance from other diners that you could have an argument without making it everyone's business. Not that you're planning to argue. You're planning to get through this lunch, get through this week, and then figure out what the hell your life is supposed to look like when your ex-husband stops playing whatever game this is.

You both settle into your seats. Pick up menus you don't really look at. You order a salad you won't finish, and he gets something with chicken. The waiter retreats, and you're left with the silence again, which is starting to feel like a third presence in your relationship. Bucky's doing that thing where he looks like he's about to say something, then doesn't, his jaw working slightly like he's testing out sentences in his head before committing to them out loud.

“Just say it,” you offer eventually, unfolding your napkin with more attention than the action requires.

His eyes snap up, sheepish. “Say what?”

“Whatever it is you've been composing since we sat down.”

He huffs a breath that might be amusement. Looks down at his water glass, turning it slightly on the table, before looking back up at you through his lashes with that rare, almost boyish uncertainty. When he speaks, his voice is quieter than you're expecting.

“I know you're pissed about the calendar.”

“Observant.” The word comes out flat, edged with sarcasm. “What gave it away? The part where I barely spoke to you on the walk over, or the part where I'm sitting here looking like I'd rather be anywhere else?”

His mouth twitches, but he doesn't smile. “I should've asked first.”

“Yes. You should’ve.”

“I didn't think you'd say yes if I asked.”

The honesty of it catches you off guard. You look up, and he's watching you with an expression you can't quite parse. Like he's trying to gauge how much damage control he needs to do, but it's coming off more hesitant than calculated.

“Would you have?” he presses.

“We'll never know now, will we?”

The waiter arrives with water. You both fall silent until he leaves. Bucky exhales through his nose. His fingers drum once against the table before going still, like he's physically stopping himself from fidgeting.

“Look, I know I've been—” He stops. Starts again. “The past year has been shit. And I know that's on me.”

You weren't expecting that. You were expecting deflection, or charm, or strategic redirection. Not this. 

“I let the distance grow,” he continues, not quite meeting your eyes. “Got buried in DC and the constant fucking politics of it all. And somewhere in there I stopped picking up the phone. Stopped making time. Started letting my assistant filter everything because it was easier than dealing with how far apart we'd gotten.”

“You suggested the separation,” you point out, voice flat. “You're the one who said no strings, no hard feelings.”

“I know.”

“You made it impossible for me to reach you and then acted like the distance was mutual.”

“I know,” he repeats, and there's something tighter in his voice now. “And I'm not saying that was fair. It wasn't. It was cowardly. But I'm here now.”

“For a week.” You lean back in your chair, arms crossing. “And you got here by hijacking my calendar instead of just asking me to talk.”

“We're talking now.”

You sigh, or maybe it's closer to an exhale of pure exasperation. Your gaze lifts to the ceiling for a brief moment like you're asking for divine patience.

“Bucky—”

“Okay,” he concedes, hands lifting briefly in surrender before he shifts forward, elbows coming to rest on the table. “I know monopolizing your schedule was a shit way to go about it, but I miss you.” He looks down at his hands, then back up at you. “I miss us. I miss you being the first person I want to tell things to. And I want to prove that we can still do this. That I can be here, when it matters.”

The words settle in the space between you, complicated and messy and not nearly enough to fix everything that's broken. It's nowhere near enough.

You want to stay angry. Want to hold onto the fury that's been building since this morning, or since last night, or over the past year, really. But there's something in his voice that sounds like actual regret, and you're so tired of being angry all the time. It's more than he's said in months, and that matters more than it should.

“So this is what, exactly?” you ask, trying to stay firm. “An audition? A demonstration?”

“It's me trying.” It’s a simple confession, like he’s run out of polished answers, and this is all he has left.

The food arrives. You both go quiet while the waiter sets down plates and refills water and does all the small choreographed movements of service. Once he's gone, you pick up your fork without any real intention of eating.

“You hijacked my week, Bucky. You coordinated with my staff behind my back and filled my schedule so I couldn't—” You stop yourself before you finish that sentence, but he finishes it anyway.

“So you couldn't see Murdock.”

“So I couldn't make my own choices,” you correct sharply.

He has the grace to look slightly abashed. Slightly. “Fair enough.”

“Is it? Because from where I'm sitting, it looks like the same pattern. You can't just show up and expect—”

“It’s not—“ He stops, looking for the right words. “Okay. Maybe. But just let me show you I can be present. That we still work as a team.” His voice is steady now, certain. “The rest of it, we can figure that out. Just give me this week, please.”

You should say no. You should tell him that orchestrating your life without your consent isn't how you rebuild trust. That half-apologies that don’t actually contain an apology don't undo eight months of distance. That you can't just paper over everything with joint appearances and pretty words.

But he's looking at you so earnestly that it makes you hesitate. And the treacherous truth is that you're tired. Tired of being angry, tired of navigating this alone, tired of lying in that too-big bed and pretending you don't notice the empty space beside you.

And it would be so much easier to just... let this be easy.

“One week,” you hear yourself say.

Something in his face softens. His posture shifts, only slightly, but you catch it. Relief, maybe. Or victory. Hard to tell which. “Yeah?”

“One week of actually showing up. And then we talk. Really talk. About all of it.” You hold his gaze. “And I mean everything, Bucky. The separation, the distance, why we're even doing this. No more avoiding the hard conversations.”

“Deal.”

The silence that follows is different. Still weighted, but less hostile. More like you're both feeling your way toward something that used to be natural and isn't anymore.

“So,” Bucky says, moving food around his plate. “How bad is Lord Johnson actually going to be on Thursday?”

Despite yourself, you almost laugh. “Unbearable. He's going to lecture you about trade policy superiority while asking for concessions.”

“So exactly like last time.”

“Mhm,” you agree, finally taking a bite of your salad. “Except now he's also upset about the tariffs, so add that to his list of grievances. Plus he's developed this tendency to touch people when he talks. Very hands-on.”

Bucky's eyebrow raises, fork pausing halfway to his mouth. “Should I be worried?”

“About Lord Johnson making a move?” You can't quite keep the smirk off your face. “I think your virtue's safe.”

“I meant about him pawing at you for two hours.”

There's an edge of possession in his tone that should irritate you. Instead it does something warm and stupid in your chest. You take another bite, buying yourself a moment. “I can handle Lord Johnson.”

“I know you can.” He pauses. “Doesn't mean you should have to.”

You shrug. “If he tries it with me, I'm elbowing him in the ribs.”

“I'll back you up. You sneezed, he was unfortunately in the blast radius, these things happen.”

You take a sip of water to cover the fact that you're almost smiling. This is the problem. This is exactly the problem. Two minutes of actual honesty and you're already slipping back into familiar patterns, already falling back into the easy rhythm of banter and knowing looks.

“Morrison might be at the Atlantic Council thing tomorrow,” you mention, trying to redirect to safer ground.

Bucky groans. “He's going to corner me about the infrastructure bill again.”

“Probably. He's been insufferable about it since the committee hearing.”

“Well, I've gotten very good at the diplomatic non-answer.” His mouth curves slightly. “Take it under advisement, appreciate the input, look forward to continued dialogue—”

“You learnt that from me.” You point your fork at him accusingly, though there's no real heat in it.

“I learnt most of the useful stuff from you.” He says it like it's simple fact, but something in his expression has gone softer.

The admission sits there between you, heavier than it should be. You look down at your plate, suddenly very focused on rearranging lettuce.

“You really think this will work?” you ask quietly, not looking up. “This week?”

“I think when we're together, we're still good at this. The partnership part. That has to count for something.”

It's not an answer to the bigger question. But maybe it's the only answer either of you has right now.

You eat in silence for a moment, but it's different now. Less hostile. Almost comfortable. Your phone buzzes. You glance down, it’s another email from Caroline about tomorrow's schedule. When you look back up, Bucky's watching you with an expression you can't quite read.

You eye him suspiciously. “What?” 

“Nothing. Just...” He shakes his head slightly, but he's almost smiling. “I missed this.”

“Yeah,” you admit, quieter than you mean to. “Me too.”

And you have, you realise. Not just him - though that's there too, complicated and inconvenient as it is - but this. The ease of being with someone who knows you well enough that you don't have to explain every reference or thought. Who can read your expressions without words. Who makes you laugh even when you're furious with them.

It doesn't fix anything. Doesn't undo the eight months or the separation or the fact that you still haven't actually addressed any of the reasons you split in the first place. But for right now, sitting across from your husband in a quiet corner of a restaurant where nobody's watching, it feels like maybe, just maybe, you can remember why you married him in the first place.

Even if that's exactly the problem.

── ⟢ ₊ ☁️ ˚・🖋️ ⊹

The week unfolds with a momentum you can't quite control, each day bleeding into the next in a blur of meetings that run too smoothly, dinners where the conversations flow too easily, and nights where he sleeps in your bed like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

By Wednesday you're laughing at his jokes again without the bitter edge. By Thursday his hand at your waist feels less like a claim and more like an anchor. The Times runs their profile on your relationship - ‘A Political Partnership That Works’ - pulling photos from the week's events. You're flipping through them absently when the pattern registers. Different events, different rooms, different contexts. But in every frame, Bucky’s eyes are always fixed on you.

Oh.

You save the photos to your phone, which is its own kind of problem.

Matt's name sits in your contacts with no new messages. Of course, you're not keeping score of his silence against Bucky's constant presence. That would imply there’s a competition between them. Which there definitely isn’t.

To be fair, Caroline did mention his office called about rescheduling. You said you'd handle it. You didn’t.

Matt hadn’t chased the issue after that. Which is, objectively, the respectful thing to do. Matt never demands more than you freely offer him, which had once felt refreshingly uncomplicated. Lately, though, you’re starting to wonder if there’s a difference between being understanding and simply never fighting for a place in someone’s life.

Maybe Matt only knows how to want you in situations where wanting you remains easy.

By Friday morning you're walking back from the Canadian delegation breakfast, Bucky's telling some story that has you laughing hard enough that your sides hurt, and for a dangerous moment you forget about the separation. About the ocean's width of distance - literal and otherwise - that usually sits between you. That Sunday he leaves and you have to figure out what any of this actually meant.

But that's fine. You're exceptional at compartmentalizing. You've had years of practice at keeping different parts of your life in separate boxes that never touch. The fact that the boxes are getting harder to keep closed is something you'll worry about later.

Or at least, it should be, because right now you have a meeting that got squeezed into your calendar this morning that you need to prep for. But you can't seem to focus on the sparse notes that Caroline left you because your brain keeps drifting back to the way Bucky’s hand found yours under the table this morning and you let it stay there.

A knock at the door pulls you from the spiral.

“Come in,” you call, straightening slightly in your chair, trying to look like you've been doing something productive instead of staring at the same paragraph for ten minutes.

The door opens, and the distinctive tap of a cane against tile makes your stomach twist before you even look up.

Matt's standing in your doorway. Again. Appearing when you’re utterly unprepared to see him. Again. And you’re going to have to push him away. Again.

If the universe is trying to teach you something by replaying this week until you stop making catastrophically bad decisions, the lesson is lost on you.

“Matt.” You're already half-standing, the words tumbling out before you can stop them. “I'm so sorry, I have a meeting in—” you glance at your screen, at the calendar slot that's starting right now, “—I can't, I have to—”

“I know,” he interrupts, and there's something almost amused in his expression as he steps into the office properly. “I'm your meeting.”

Your eyebrow raises slowly. “You faked a meeting to see me?”

“Well, since your husband's been so thorough about cutting me out of your calendar all week,” he returns smoothly, closing the door behind him with a quiet click, “it seemed like the only way in.”

There's a joke there, light and easy, but underneath it there's definitely an edge. A deserved one, maybe. The guilt that's been sitting low in your stomach all week flares hot and immediate. “Matt, I should have called. I meant to, I just—the week got away from me, and I didn’t mean to disappear—”

“You didn't disappear,” Matt corrects mildly. “You've been very visible, actually. Hard to miss when you're in three different political newsletters looking very much like the devoted political wife.”

The observation lands with enough weight that you have to look away. Matt moves closer, leaning against the edge of your desk with his arms crossed loosely, head tilted in that particular way that means he's cataloguing everything you’re not saying. Your elevated heart rate. The shallow breathing you can't quite control. The tension wound so tight in your shoulders you might snap.

“I know I should've—”

“Should've what?” He interrupts again, but his voices stays gentle. “Called the man you've been sleeping with while your husband's in town making sure everyone knows you're still married?” His mouth quirks slightly. “Can't imagine why that would feel awkward.”

The last part comes with just enough wry humour to take some of the sting out of it. An acknowledgement that yes, this situation is absurd, and yes, you're both aware of it.

“You didn't call either,” you point out, and it comes out more wounded than you intend.

“No, I didn't,” he admits easily. “Didn't want to crowd you when Bucky's been taking up so much real estate in your schedule. Thought maybe you needed space to figure things out.” His mouth curves, voice going warmer. “Besides, seemed only fair to give him a shot, sweetheart. I had you to myself for two months.”

It should feel mature, the way he keeps placing the choice back in your hands. But standing here now, watching him deliberately leave the distance between you intact, you can’t quite ignore the small, ugly part of yourself that wants someone to fight a little harder for you than that.

So you close the distance yourself, drawn by the same gravitational pull that's been there since the first time he walked into your office three months ago. Once again doing the reaching. The pattern recognition occurring here is frankly humiliating.

Your hands find his chest, feel the steady thrum of his heartbeat under his shirt.

“I haven't figured anything out,” you admit quietly, because you suppose he deserves the honesty. “About what this week means, or what I want, or any of it.”

“No?” There's something almost teasing in the question. “The Times seemed pretty convinced you and Barnes are a political power couple for the ages.”

“The Times doesn't know we're separated.”

“Clearly.” His hand comes up, fingers finding your jaw with unerring accuracy, thumb brushing along your cheekbone in a touch that's devastatingly familiar. “Though after this week, I'm starting to wonder if you remember that either.”

The words should sting. Maybe they do. But mostly what you're aware of is his proximity, the heat of his palm against your face, the way your body has started leaning into him without conscious permission.

“Matt—”

“Sorry, I’m not trying to make you feel guilty.” His thumb traces lower, following the line of your jaw. “That’s not what this is.”

“Then what is this?”

“This,” he murmurs, leaning in until his forehead nearly touches yours, “is me reminding you that you have options.”

“I've missed you,” you whisper against his lips.

His free hand comes up to your waist, thumb brushing the curve of your hip through your dress. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

You should stop this. Should step back and have the actual conversation about this week and where you stand and all the things you've been avoiding. Should deal with the compartments that are failing to stay separate instead of making everything more complicated.

But his mouth is right there.

You kiss him before you can think better of it, before the guilt can claw its way up your throat and ruin the moment. He makes a soft sound against your mouth, surprise giving way to hunger as he kisses you back.

It's different than kissing Bucky. Where Bucky takes, Matt asks - the tilt of his head a question, the press of his tongue a request. You grant it. Grant all of it. Pour five days of frustration and confusion into the kiss until you're both breathing hard.

“Missed this too,” you gasp between kisses, and he laughs against your mouth.

“Just this?”

“Missed you being a smartass,” you correct, tugging him closer by his tie. “Missed your hands on me—god, I just missed—”

He lifts you then, strong hands gripping your thighs as he spins you both and sets you on the edge of your desk. Papers scatter. You don't care. Your legs open, allowing him to step into the space between your thighs.

“Missed having a conversation that didn't involve diplomatic immunity,” you continue, breathless, as his mouth trails down your neck. “Missed not being scheduled within an inch of my life.”

His teeth graze your pulse point. “Sounds exhausting.”

“It is.” Your head tips back, fingers threading through his hair. “It's—fuck, Matt—”

His hands slide up your thighs, pushing the hem of your skirt higher. The drag of his palms against your stockings makes you shiver.

Your hands find his lapels, pulling him desperately closer. The kiss deepens, his tongue sliding against yours, and for a moment you forget about Bucky and the separation and every complicated thing you've been avoiding.

“You should've booked a longer meeting,” you manage, and it comes out almost playful despite the heat pooling low in your belly.

Matt's smile is absolutely wicked. “Please,” he murmurs against your mouth. “I don't need long to make you come, sweetheart. Just need your legs open and the door locked.”

Heat floods through you at the promise in his voice, your thighs clenching involuntarily. Before you can even respond, his hands are sliding under your ass, lifting you in one smooth motion. Your legs wrap around his waist automatically, gasping into his mouth as he turns and walks you backward.

You don't break the kiss. Can't. Your fingers are in his hair, tugging probably too hard, and he makes this gorgeous rough sound against your mouth that vibrates straight through you. His mouth is hot and demanding against yours, tongue sliding past your lips to taste you properly, and you make a sound into his mouth that's embarrassingly needy.

Your back hits the door hard enough to knock the breath from your lungs, the solid wood catching you with enough force that you gasp into his mouth. Matt pins you there immediately, hips rolling forward, and you can feel how hard he is already, the thick length of him pressing right where you're aching. Your hand scrabbles blindly behind you for the lock, fingers clumsy with want, and when it finally clicks he groans like the sound itself did something to him.

“Fuck yes,” he breathes against your mouth, and his hand slides up your thigh, pushing your skirt higher. When his fingers brush the inside of your thigh you shudder, hips canting forward, seeking more contact. “Been thinking about this all week. Thinking about getting you alone, getting my hands on you—”

His fingers find the edge of your underwear, slipping just beneath the lace to trace along the seam where it meets your thigh. The touch is light, almost lazy, like he has all the time in the world and knows it's driving you insane. You gasp, hips grinding forward, trying to direct his hand where you actually need it, and your head drops back against the door. He laughs softly against your throat.

“God, you're impatient,” he teases, teeth grazing your pulse point. “Already trying to fuck yourself on my hand.”

“Shut up,” you whine, but there's no heat in it, just desperate need.

“Why?” His mouth trails to your jaw, leave wet kisses behind. “I like knowing you want me. Like hearing your pulse race when I touch you here—” His finger traces up the centre of your underwear, dragging slowly through the damp fabric from your entrance all the way up to your clit. The pressure is perfect and not nearly enough, and you can feel how wet you are, how the lace clings to you. “—and feeling you stop breathing when I—”

His fingers finally slip beneath the lace, and the second he actually touches you, feels how wet and slick you are, he makes this broken sound against your mouth that's half-groan, half-curse. Then he's kissing you again, mouth crashing back to yours. Tongue pushing past your lips deeper, harder, needier. Losing that earlier control. His fingers slide through the mess you've made and your hips jerk forward into his hand.

“Fuck,” he breathes against your lips, fingers parting your folds and sliding through the wetness, spreading it deliberately before finding your clit. He circles it with your own slick, and you can feel how soaked you are, how easily his fingers move, and the wet sound of it makes your face flush hot. “You're fucking soaked for me.”

He's not wrong. You are soaked, aching, need clawing under your skin with an urgency that borders on painful. Whether it's because of him or because you've spent five days with Bucky's hand at your waist and his body in your bed, that constant simmering tension winding you tighter and tighter with nowhere for it to go, you genuinely don't know.

Don't want to know.

Your hips roll forward, trying to get more pressure, more friction, more anything. “Then stop teasing and do something about it.”

He laughs, the sound rough and a little desperate. “Yes ma'am.”

His fingers slide lower, one pressing inside you with a slow, deliberate stretch that makes your head thunk back against the door. You bite down on your lip hard, trying to keep quiet, hyper-aware that you're in your office in the middle of the day with your staff just outside.

“Matt—” His name escapes your lips anyway, louder than you intend.

“Shh,” he breathes against your lips, but he's smiling, adding another finger and curling them just right. “Sweetheart, you're gonna get us caught.”

“Your fault,” you gasp, barely above a whisper, hips rocking to meet the thrust of his fingers.

“Fair point.” His forehead presses to yours, breathing ragged. “But you still need to be quiet for me. Can you do that?”

Nodding, you try to stop the moan building in your throat as his fingers work deeper, finding that spot that makes your thighs shake. Your nails dig into his shoulders through his shirt, breath coming in shallow, restrained gasps. But then he curls them again, harder, and the sound that escapes you is too loud, too obvious. His mouth is on yours immediately, swallowing the moan before it can carry.

He kisses you deep and filthy, tongue sliding against yours as his fingers work faster, his thumb finding your clit. The dual sensation is overwhelming, pleasure building fast and sharp. You're making these small, desperate noises into his mouth that you can't control, and he seems determined to catch every single one, kissing you harder each time his fingers make you gasp.

“Matt—please—I need—” you whisper between kisses, the words breaking apart.

“I know,” he murmurs back, and there's something soft in it even as his fingers work you closer to the edge. “Need to come. Need to stop thinking for five minutes.” His thumb circles your clit with perfect pressure and you gasp into his mouth. “Need it to be easy for once, yeah? Just this. Just us. Nothing complicated.”

Yes. God, yes. That's exactly what you need. To not think. To just feel something that isn't guilt or confusion or the weight of every choice you've made this week.

“More,” you gasp.

“So greedy sweetheart.” His thumb finds your clit, circling in rhythm with the thrust of his fingers. “What am I gonna do with you?”

“Fuck me would be a good start.”

He groans, forehead dropping to your shoulder. “Love when you get bossy.”

His fingers slide out of you and the whimper that escapes you is pathetic, your hips moving forward involuntarily, trying to chase what you just lost.But your hands are already moving, shaking as they reach for his belt. You yank at it, fingers fumbling with the buckle in your desperation to get him undone.

You need him inside you, need it with an urgency that's making your hands clumsy and your breathing erratic.

“Condom?” you gasp out, finally getting his belt undone and working on the button of his slacks.

“Wallet, back pocket.” 

A breath of relief punches out of you. “Fuck—good boy,” you tease, pulling him into a kiss.

Matt makes this wrecked sound into your mouth, somewhere between a moan and a growl, and his hand cracks down on your ass hard enough to make you gasp against his lips.

“Careful,” he warns, but there's no heat in it, just desperate want. “Keep talking like that and this is gonna be over way too fast.”

You reach around, palm sliding over his ass as you fish out his wallet. The leather is warm from his body heat, and your fingers are still trembling as you flip it open and grab the condom. You tear the foil packet open with your teeth, spitting the scrap of wrapper aside, and then your hand is wrapping around his cock. He's thick and hard in your palm, already leaking, and the groan that tears out of him is absolutely obscene.

“Can't have that,” you murmur, rolling the latex down his length slowly despite how badly you're shaking. You stroke him once, twice, feeling every thick inch, and your thumb swipes over the head. He shudders, fingers digging into your thighs hard enough to bruise.

“Sweetheart,” he grits out, and it sounds like a plea. His hips buck forward into your grip. “Please.”

“Please what?” You're being mean now, hand still working him while he's trying to hold himself together.

“Please let me fuck you before I lose my fucking mind.”

You guide the swollen head of his cock to your entrance and you both go still for half a second, just breathing against each other's mouths. Then he's pushing inside you in one long, smooth slide and the stretch steals every thought from your head. It's almost too much, the thick press of him, and you're making these small desperate sounds you can't control.

“Fuck,” Matt breathes, the words vibrating against your throat where his mouth has landed. You can feel him shaking with the effort of holding still as he lets you adjust to the stretch of him. “You feel—god, you're so wet I can feel it dripping down my—”

You cut him off with a kiss, messy and graceless, and start rolling your hips experimentally. His cock drags against that spot inside you that makes your vision blur. The angle is perfect like this, him pinning you to the door, and each roll of your hips takes him deeper. He meets your rhythm, hands gripping your ass to hold you steady as he thrusts up into you, and you have to bite down on his shoulder to muffle the moan that tears out of you.

Your legs tighten around his waist, heels digging into his ass, trying to pull him impossibly closer.

“That's it,” he groans, setting a rhythm that's slow but deep, each thrust deliberate and devastating. “Take what you need, sweetheart.”

You can barely form words, too focused on the stretch of him filling you, the way your needy cunt is already clenching around him, desperate to pull him deeper. The wet, obscene sounds of him fucking you fill your quiet office as you both pant into each other's mouths, drowning in the sensation of each other. The thick drag of his cock inside you, the press of his body against yours, the heat of your skin under his hands. 

Your hand slides between your bodies, seeking more. When your fingers find your clit, it's swollen and sensitive, and just that first brush of contact makes you mewl into his mouth. You're so worked up, so desperate, that even your own touch feels like too much and not enough at the same time. You circle it carefully at first, testing, but the spike of pleasure that shoots through you makes your hips jerk and your walls clench around his cock.

“You sound so pretty like this,” Matt pants against your neck, hips snapping forward. “So fucking pretty when you stop overthinking and just let go.”

Your response is incoherent, something between a moan and his name. The pleasure is building fast, coiling tighter with each thrust, each drag of his cock inside you. Your cunt clenches around him, greedy, desperate, chasing the release that's right there.

“That's it, sweetheart,” he encourages, rhythm getting rougher. “Can feel you getting close. Feel you squeezing my cock. You gonna come for me? Gonna let me feel it?”

You're circling your clit in time with his thrusts and it's almost too much sensation, pleasure coiling tighter in your belly. He shifts slightly and the new angle makes you see stars, a whimper escaping before you can bite it back.

“Yes—fuck—Matt—”

“There?” he asks breathlessly, doing it again, and when you nod frantically he keeps hitting that exact spot. Every thrust drives him deeper and pushes your hand harder against yourself, and you're whimpering with each roll of your hips.

“I can hear it,” Matt groans into your mouth. “Can hear how close you are—your heart's racing, your breathing, you're right there—please, sweetheart, need to feel you—”

It crashes over you sudden and overwhelming, pleasure ripping through you in waves. You come with a broken cry that Matt catches with his mouth, your cunt clamping down on his cock so hard you're practically strangling it. Your whole body locks up, thighs shaking as the pleasure tears through you in brutal waves. Your fingers are still on your clit, working yourself through it, and you're making these high desperate sounds into his mouth that you can't control.

“Fuck—oh fuck—” Matt groans, fucking you through it, prolonging it until you're gasping and oversensitive. “So fucking perfect—”

He buries himself deep with a final hard thrust and comes with a groan of your name, cock pulsing as he spills into the condom. You can feel every throb, every twitch as he empties himself, and it sends another aftershock through you that makes you clench around him all over again.

For a moment you just breathe together, foreheads pressed close, hearts racing in tandem. Your legs are trembling so badly around his waist that you're not sure they'll hold you when he pulls out. When he does, you both make these raw sounds at the loss of contact.

Slowly, carefully, he lowers you to the floor. Your knees wobble slightly as your feet hit the ground, and Matt immediately steadies you.

“Okay?” he asks softly, thumb stroking your hip.

“Yeah,” you manage, because that's about all your brain can produce right now.

He kisses you again, but when he pulls back there's something careful in it. Almost like he’s making sure it stays just the right side of casual. His hand cups your face briefly - thumb brushing rogue strands of hair from your face.

“Told you I didn't need long,” he murmurs, and you can hear the smile in his voice.

“Smug bastard.”

But even as you say it your brain is already pulling away, cataloguing everything that needs to happen in the next ten minutes. Fix your hair. Cover that mark on your neck. Make yourself look like a composed diplomat instead of a woman who just fucked her boyfriend—situationship? god, you refuse to be a grown woman with a situationship—against her office door while her husband is probably working back home.

What the fuck are you doing?

Your heart kicks up, anxiety spiking sharp and sudden. Matt's thumb stills against your cheek, and you realise he can probably hear it. The way your body betrays every thought before you can even process it yourself.

“Hey,” he says, and there's a question in it. “Where'd you go?”

You open your mouth. Then immediately close it. You don't actually have an answer that won't make this worse. 

His head tilts slightly, that listening posture you know so well, and his mouth curves into something small and resigned. Like he's already heard the answer in your pulse, in the shift of your breathing, in all the things your body is telling him that you won't say out loud.

So he steps back, creating space between you, and starts dealing with the condom without another word. He ties it off, wraps it in tissue from your desk, buries it under the papers in your trash bin so it's not the first thing anyone sees. The movements are quick and practised, and somehow that makes it worse.

“I should probably let you get back to it,” he offers, straightening out his clothes. “I'm sure you've got seventeen meetings stacked up this afternoon.”

You stare dumbly, watching him button his shirt, tuck it back in, re-buckle his belt. Everything going back into place like this was just a pleasant interlude in the workday and now it's back to business. He runs a hand through his hair to fix what your fingers messed up, and within two minutes he looks perfectly put together, as though nothing happened.

You catch sight of your reflection in the dark window and you definitely don't look like nothing happened. Your hair is a mess, your lips are swollen, and there's a faint mark on your neck that you're going to have to cover with makeup before your next meeting.

Matt turns away, adjusts his jacket, and something about the ease of it all makes your stomach twist. He's leaving. Of course he's leaving.

He picks up his cane, testing his weight on it, and the gesture is so familiar it hurts. How many times have you watched him do exactly that? Watched him prepare to leave after a late night working at your dining table, after drinks that turned into dinner that turned into more. Always the same smooth transition from intimacy back to separate lives.

He leans in, presses a kiss to your temple that lands somewhere between affectionate and perfunctory. “Don't let Bucky monopolize your entire weekend.”

It's said warmly. Casually, even. Like he's not bothered. Like this is all very uncomplicated and he's very okay with however this plays out.

“Matt—”

“I'll see you later,” he says easily, hand already on the door.

The casualness of it catches you wrong. Hooks into something raw that’s been building this whole week. And that’s what snaps you out of your own head and back into the moment.

“That's it?” The words come out sharper than you intend. “You'll see me later?”

He pauses, hand on the doorknob, shoulders stiffing as he tries to read the edge in your voice. “Are you—is something wrong?”

It’s remarkable, really. The man can hear your pulse spike from three rooms away, can detect the slightest shift in your body chemistry, can read more from your heartbeat than most people get from a full conversation. And yet here he is, still remarkably incapable of reading the room. Superhuman senses, same oblivious male brain.

“You know what, no, nothing's wrong.” You scoff, yanking your skirt down with more force than necessary, already moving towards your desk, trying to put yourself back together. “You're right, I do have a busy afternoon. Thanks for stopping by.”

“Okay, what's actually going on right now?” He asks slowly, like he's genuinely trying to figure this out. “You’re clearly upset.”

“I'm not upset.”

“Your heart rate says differently.”

God, you hate that he can do that. Hate that your body betrays you before your mouth can even form the lie. And if he's going to use those stupidly accurate senses to call you out, fine. You might as well just say it.

“When am I going to see you again?”

The question hangs in the air. Matt's quiet for a moment, and you can see him processing, trying to read the subtext.

“I don't know.” The answer comes after a beat, careful. “When do you want to see me again?”

It's a reasonable question. A fair question. So why does it make you want to scream?

“That's really how you're going to leave this?” You turn to face him, and you know you're being unfair but you can't seem to stop yourself. “I don't know, you tell me, we'll figure it out later?”

His expression shifts, the muscles tightening around his lips even as his posture stays relaxed. “I was trying to make it easy for you.”

“Easy for me or easy for yourself?”

“Both, probably,” he admits, and the ease of his honesty genuinely makes you pause. “You've got a lot going on. Your husband's here, clearly trying to…” The sentence trails off, unfinished, like he doesn’t want to say something he shouldn’t. “I'm trying not to put more pressure on you when Bucky's already doing that.”

“So you're just backing off? Not even going to—” You stop, because fight for me sounds insane and desperate and you're not sure you even want him to fight for you, but the fact that he won't makes you furious anyway.

“What do you want from me here?” Matt asks, and there's the first edge of frustration creeping into his voice. “You want me to demand your time? Tell you to pick me over him? Make this harder for you?”

You open your mouth but nothing comes out, because you don't know. You don't know what you want from him. You don't know what you want from Bucky. You don't know what you want from any of this mess you've created.

“Maybe I just want you to care! ”The words burst out louder than you meant them, and you have to forcibly lower your voice, aware again of where you are, who might hear. “I want you to act like this actually matters instead of just being whatever's convenient when I have a free hour.”

The silence that follows is sharp enough to cut.

“That's not fair,” he says quietly.

“Isn't it? You won't make plans more than a day out. You've never even asked me to stay over.”

“Because I don't know what we are!” His voice spikes, exasperated, and you both freeze for a second, listening for footsteps in the hall. When none come, he continues, quieter but no less intense. “You're still married. He's clearly trying to get you back. You're asking me to push when you've made it pretty clear you don't know what you want, and I'm not going to compete with your husband.”

“There's a difference between not being pushy and not fighting for anything at all!”Your voice cracks slightly on the last word and you hate yourself for it, the vulnerability bleeding through when you're trying to stay angry. You swallow hard, trying to pull it back together. “There's a difference between giving someone space and just letting go without even trying.”

“I'm trying,” he begins, and there's something rawer in his voice now, “to give you space to figure your shit out without making you feel like you owe me something.”

“Maybe I want to owe you something!” You're pacing now, heels clicking sharp against the floor. “Maybe I want you to act like you actually give a damn whether I pick him or not!”

“Of course I give a damn!” It's the closest he's come to raising his voice. “But I'm not going to manipulate you or monopolize your calendar or show up and—” He stops himself. “I'm not him. I'm not going to do what he does.”

“At least he's doing something!”

The words land like a slap. You see it in the way his expression shutters, in the way his hand tightens on his cane.

“Right.” His voice is flat. “Well. At least we know where we stand, then.” He's already turning toward the door. “Clearly I’m not what you need.”

“Matt, I didn’t mean—” You press your palms against your eyes because you can feel the sting of tears starting and you really don’t want to cry right now. “You’re right, I don't know what I need.” Your voice cracks again and you hate it, hate the tears that are threatening, hate how small you sound. “But why does it have to be all or nothing with both of you? He smothers me and you won't even—”

You stop, pressing your hand to your mouth, trying to hold it together. But the tears are coming anyway, hot and frustrated and exhausted, because you've been holding everything in all week and it's too much. It's all too much.

The tap of his cane stops.

For a moment there's just silence, broken only by the humiliating wet sound of you trying not to sob.

“Shit.” Matt's voice softens immediately. “Hey, no—come here.”

“I'm fine.” But your voice does that horrible shaky thing that makes it very clear you are the opposite of fine.

“You're not fine.” He's already moving toward you, and then his hands are on your arms. Warm and solid and gentle in a way that makes your chest hurt worse. “You're crying in your office.”

“Don't—” You try to turn away, humiliation burning hot in your chest because this is mortifying. “I just need a minute. I'm fine, really,” you try again, but it comes out as barely more than a whisper.

“Stop saying that.” His voice has gone impossibly soft, thumb stroking along your forearm. “Come here, please.

You let him pull you in, let yourself press your face against his chest while the tears come properly now. His arms come around you, solid and sure, one hand coming up to cup the back of your head. He doesn't say anything. Just holds you while you shake apart against him, while you soak the front of his shirt with tears that won't stop coming.

“I'm sorry,” you gasp out between sobs. “I'm sorry, I don't—I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know what I want. This whole week has been so fucked up and I can't think straight and I don't—“ Another sob cuts you off.

“Shh. I know.” His hand moves in slow circles on your back, the pressure steady and grounding. “It's okay, just breathe”

“It's not okay.” The words come out muffled against his chest. “This whole week has been—” Your breath hitches. “He's everywhere and you're—and I can't think straight and I keep making everything worse—”

His hand stills on your back for just a moment. “What do you need?”

You pull back slightly, just enough to breathe, and his hands shift to your arms. Steadying but not restraining. His face is tilted toward you with that particular focus he gets when he's listening to everything - your heartbeat, your breathing, the catch in your voice.

“I don't know.” You pull back slightly, wiping at your face with shaking hands. “Maybe I just need a break. From this. From both of you.”

You try to read his reaction, but he doesn’t give anything away. Just keeps stroking your back in those same soothing motions.

“Bucky's going back to DC on Sunday anyway,” you continue, and your voice sounds raw even to your own ears. “Maybe I just need some time. To figure myself out. Figure out what I actually want instead of just—” You gesture helplessly at the general disaster that is currently your life. “This.”

You expect him to argue. To push back. To do something other than what he does, which is nod slowly.

“Okay,” he says quietly, and his thumb comes up to brush away a tear from your cheek. “Yeah. We can do that. You need time, I'll give you time.”

The agreement should feel like relief but instead it just makes you want to cry harder. Because of course he's not fighting this either. Of course he's just agreeing, just stepping back, just giving you exactly what you asked for in a way that somehow feels like losing anyway.

“But—” He hesitates, and something in his tone shifts. Gets more careful. “You might need to explain this all to Bucky too. Since, you know. He thinks you're working things out.”

Your head snaps up, tears still wet on your cheeks. “What?”

Matt's lips purse slightly, like he’s trying to figure out how to phrase it. “He asked me to back off. Said you two were working through things. That you needed space to figure out your marriage without complications.” His mouth twists slightly on the last word. “Meaning me.”

The humiliation of thirty seconds ago transmutes instantly into something else. The tears stop. Everything stops. For a moment you just stare at Matt, trying to process what he's telling you, and then the rage hits like a freight train. “He told you we were getting back together?”

“Not in those exact words, but yes,” he confirms quietly. “He tried to make it seem like he knew where things stood between you. Made it pretty clear he considered me a temporary blip in your relationship.”

“That fucking—” You can't even finish the sentence, fury choking the words in your throat. Your hands are shaking again, but this time with anger.

“We had one lunch,” you say, and your voice has gone cold. “One. Where he apologised for being absent and I agreed to give him one week to prove he could actually show up. That's it. We never—I never said we were working things out.”

Matt's very quiet.

“He told you we were reconciling.” You're not asking. You're clarifying. Making sure you understand the full scope of what Bucky's done. “He told you to back off because we were fixing our marriage.”

“Yeah.”

“And then he filled my entire calendar. And slept in my bed. And touched me like I belonged to him in front of half of diplomatic London.” The pieces are clicking together with horrible clarity. “He decided. Again. He just fucking decided without me that we're working things out and told my—told you to back off like he gets to make those calls for me.”

You're already moving, grabbing your bag, your phone, not even sure what you're doing but you need to move, need to do something with this rage before it burns you alive from the inside.

“Where are you going?” Matt asks carefully.

“Home.” The word comes out sharp and final. “I'm going home and I'm ending this shit right now.”

── ⟢ ₊ ☁️ ˚・🖋️ ⊹

The click of your heels echoes through the residence, each step a punctuation mark to the fury coiling tighter in your chest. You stride through the hallway, past Thomas who takes one look at your face and wisely says nothing, and straight to the study where you know Bucky's working.

He's at the desk - your desk, because apparently he's just moved back into every corner of your life without asking - looking at some papers with a confused scrunch of his nose that would be endearing if you weren't currently fantasizing about throwing something heavy at his head.

The papers hit the mahogany with a slap that makes him jolt upright. For half a second there's just confusion - eyebrows raised, mouth slightly parted on a question that hasn’t formed yet - and then his eyes drop to what you’ve thrown down. ‘Petition for Dissolution of Marriage’ printed across the top in black and white. You watch his face change as he reads the header. Watch the colour drain slightly. Watch his throat work as he swallows.

“What—” He starts to speak, stops to compose himself, and when the words finally come they’re careful, like he already knows the answer and is hoping he's wrong “What’s this?”

“Take a wild fucking guess, Congressman.”

His hand moves slowly toward the papers like they might burn him, fingers hovering before he finally touches them. He flips through, and you know the exact moment he finds the signature page because his whole body goes rigid.

Your finger jabs down at the signature line. “Sign them.”

“What?” He's standing now, the chair scraping back, and there's something raw starting to crack through the careful composure on his face. Something that looks like panic and grief all at once. “Baby—”

“Don't.” You hold up a hand and he actually freezes mid-step. “Don't 'baby' me. Don't use that voice. Don't act like you can smooth this over if you just find the right words.”

“That's not—I'm not—” His hands spread wide in a helpless gesture. “Please, just talk to me. What happened? This morning we were fine, we were—”

“We were what, exactly?” You cut him off, arms crossing over your chest. “Working things out? Getting back together? Reconciling our marriage?”

Bucky's quiet for a moment, and you can practically see him running through possibilities, trying to figure out which particular mine he's stepped on. And then the guilt stats to flicker across his face.

“Oh good,” you say flatly. “You know exactly what I'm talking about.”

His whole posture changes, that familiar stubborn set coming into his jaw that tells you he's not going to back down easy. “If this is about Matt—”

“If this is about Matt?” You actually laugh, and it sounds wrong even to your own ears. “This is about you, Bucky! The fact that you lied and said we were working things out. That you said to back off because apparently we needed space to fix our marriage.”

He's quiet. Won't meet your eyes.

“When exactly were you planning to mention that to me?” Fury makes your voice shake despite your best efforts to keep it steady. “Before or after you finished orchestrating my entire fucking life?”

“I was trying to—”

“I don't care what you were trying to do!” It comes out too loud, echoing off the study walls. “You know, I've had these papers for two months. Two months of looking at them in my drawer, too much of a coward to sign them, because some pathetic part of me still hoped we could fix this.” 

Your voice cracks and you have to stop, have to breathe through the anger and hurt tangling in your throat.

“But we can't. Because you don't know how to be in a partnership. You only know how to run operations and make strategic decisions and manipulate variables, and I'm so fucking tired of being a variable in your life instead of your fucking wife.”

“That's not what you are to me! I swear, please—” He runs a hand through his hair, and he’s scrambling, trying to find the words that will fix this. His gaze drifts back to the papers like they might rearrange themselves into something different if he looks hard enough. “Wait, you drew these up two months ago?”

You watch him do the maths. Watch the realization settle across his features, his jaw going tight.

“When you started seeing him.” It's not a question. 

“Stop making this about Matt! Stop deflecting. Stop trying to make this about jealousy when this is about you making decisions about my life without me!” 

You're pacing before you realise it, unable to stand still. Three steps to the window and back.

“It seems very much to be about him though, doesn't it?” Bucky's voice has gone rough at the edges. He pushes off the desk, takes a step toward you. “You draw up divorce papers the second you start sleeping with him, this whole week goes perfectly fine until you see him again, and now you're in here ready to end our marriage—”

“This week was a lie!” You shout, beyond caring who might hear. “This week was you orchestrating my entire life, filling my calendar, telling people we were reconciling without ever actually asking me if that's what I wanted! Don't you dare act like things were fine when the whole thing was built on you manipulating—”

“—I wasn’t manipulating—”

“—our marriage, making a decision about my relationships without saying word to me!” Your voice rises to stay above his. “I actually had those papers drawn up two months ago because I’d spent the previous six months unable to have a single fucking conversation with my own husband!”

The words are coming faster now, angrier, everything you've been holding in for 8 months spilling out. “Every time I called I got 'he's in a meeting' or 'he'll call you back' and he never, ever did. Because somewhere along the line I stopped being your wife and became an item on your assistant's to-do list that never made it to the top of the pile!”

His head comes up. His eyes are wet with unshed tears when they find yours, jaw locked so tight you can see the muscle jumping. He's trying desperately to hold it together but you watch him start to lose the fight in the way his face crumples, in the painful swallow working down his throat. His hand lifts toward you before he seems to remember himself and lets it drop uselessly back to his side. 

“I’m sorry, sweetheart, I know I fucked up, I know I wasn't there, and I'm trying to fix it now—”

“By doing the same thing! By making decisions without me!” Your nails dig into your palms hard enough to hurt, arms rigid at your sides. “Do you not see that? You’re still doing it, Bucky, you're still shutting me out and deciding what's best for us without ever asking me what I want!”

“So what do you want from me?” His desperation bleeds through every word, but it’s far too little, and far too late. “Tell me what you want and I'll do it.”

For a moment you just stand there, looking at him across the desk that's covered in his work, in this life he built without consulting you. You should feel something. Guilt, maybe. Regret. Some echo of the love that used to live in your chest when you looked at him like this. But you just feel exhausted. 

When you finally speak, the answer comes out quieter than anything else you've said tonight.

“I want you to sign the papers.”

Your words seem to suck the air out of the room, leaving nothing but the thundering of your own heartbeat in your ears.

“No.” He's shaking his head slowly at first, then faster, like he can physically deny what's happening if he just refuses hard enough. “No, I'm not—I can't—”

“You don't get to say no.”

“Just talk to me!” He begs. “Just talk to me instead of throwing divorce papers on my desk and expecting me to—”

“Talk to you?” You can hear the bitter edge bleeding through your voice, feel it scraping against your throat. “Wow, okay. Like you talked to me before telling Matt to back off? Like you talked to me before orchestrating my entire week? Like you talked to me every time I called and got your pretty little assistant instead?”

“I told you I didn’t sleep with her.”

“Oh my fucking god, congratulations!” Your arms fly up in exasperation. “You want a medal for not fucking your assistant? You want me to applaud your restraint? Let’s not act like you were alone, pining away for me this whole time.”

“At least I didn't parade it in front of you!” The accusation explodes out of him like it's been festering, his face flushing with pain and frustration mixing together.

“We were separated! That was the whole fucking point of the agreement!” Even though your throat is becoming raw from shouting, you can’t seem to stop, months of resentment pouring out of you. “Married in public, free to see other people privately - that’s what we agreed to. Except clearly, neither of us can act normally about it!”

Your voice cracks.

“We're just destroying each other. And I can't do it anymore.”

Your words hang in the air between you. You're both breathing hard, and the study feels simultaneously too small and too vast, like the space can't quite contain what's happening. Then something shifts in his expression as he seems to finally hear what he’s been saying, how he sounds. His shoulders sag inward. The voice that comes out next is barely recognisable.

“I'm sorry.” He drags a hand over his face. “You're right. I'm making this worse. I'm making everything worse. But please, don’t do this, just give me a chance too—”

“I've been giving you chances for eight months. I gave you a chance when you became Congressman without talking to me about it. I gave you a chance this week when you showed up and I let you back in even though you were already making decisions for me. And every time you fucked it up!”

Bucky just stands there, breathing hard, staring at you like you’ve gutted him. His eyes are still wet, tears clinging to his lashes but refusing to fall.

“I love you,” he whispers. “And I know you might not have felt it, and i know it’s not enough, but I have loved you through every stupid mistake I've made, including running for Congress.”

He lets out a breath that sounds like it's been trapped in his chest for months.

“I thought… I thought if I could be someone important, someone legitimate, maybe I'd finally be worthy of you. You've spent your whole career saving lives, negotiating peace, actually helping people. And I'm just—” His voice cracks. “I'm still just the Winter Soldier trying to prove I'm more than that. So I ran for Congress because I thought it might fix me, might fill the hole where my humanity used to be. But instead I just broke us and I’m still as damaged as before. And now I can't—”

His voice fractures completely.

“I can't lose you.”

The confession lands entirely wrong, because this is what you've wanted to hear for months - years, maybe. This vulnerability, this honesty, this real version of Bucky you’ve only ever glimpsed in stolen moments. And it’s too late. Your throat tightens. You have to look away from him because seeing him like this, broken open and bleeding out in front of you, makes something in you want to take it all back. Want to cross the room and hold him and tell him he's not damaged, that he's never been unworthy, that you've loved him through every version of himself he hasn’t.

But loving him has never been the problem.

“You already did, Bucky.” The words hurt coming out. “You can't put that on me - your sense of self-worth, your identity, fixing yourself. That was never my job. I loved you. I loved you exactly as you were, and you never believed me. And now you're telling me you destroyed our marriage trying to become someone you thought I wanted, when all I ever wanted was you.”

Somehow his face crumples further. You have to look away again. When you speak next, your voice is barely above a whisper. Tired and sad and so heavy you can barely get the words out.

“So yes, you're right. You did break us. But not because you weren't good enough, Bucky. Because you never let me love the person you actually are.”

For a moment he just stands there, and you watch all the fight drain out of him like someone pulled a plug. His eyes go distant, almost glassy, and his breathing deepens, like he's shutting something down inside himself. The desperation from moments ago has been replaced by something far more terrifying: quiet resignation. He's finally stopped trying to hold on.

He picks up the pen. His hand trembles badly enough that you wonder if he'll even be able to write, but he manages to grip it, staring down at the signature line for what feels like an eternity. When the pen finally touches paper, the scratch of it against the silence is deafening.

He signs his name. Dates it. Slides the papers across the desk toward you without meeting your eyes.

“There.” His voice is completely destroyed. “If that's what you need.”

You pick up the papers with numb fingers. Stare at his signature like you can't quite believe it's real.

“I'm sorry.” He hasn't moved. Just stands there with wet cheeks and empty hands. “I'm so sorry. For every way I failed you. For not being what you needed.”

“Thank you.” It comes out barely audible. “For the apology. For signing.”

You fold the papers slowly, creasing each edge with deliberate precision because if you think about the mechanics of folding paper you don't have to think about what you're holding.

“I want you to catch the next flight back to DC. Tonight, if you can. I'll have Thomas help you pack.”

“Okay.” He looks lost standing there, like he doesn't know what to do with his hands, with his body, with any of this. “Okay, yeah.”

“And Bucky—” Your voice is steadier now, or at least you're doing a better job of faking it. “Don't call. Don't text. Don't send flowers or letters or try to fix anything. We're done. Let it be done.”

He nods, even though it looks like it's killing him. “Okay.”

There should be something else to say. Some final words that would make this less awful, less final. But you can't think of anything that won't make it worse. So you just turn and walk toward the door, papers pressed against your chest like you need the reminder of why you’re doing this.

“For what it's worth,” His voice stops you at the threshold, and it comes out quiet and defeated. “You're the best thing that ever happened to me. The best thing I've ever had and the worst thing I've ever lost, and I know that's my fault. I know I did that.” The silence hangs for a moment. “I'm sorry. For all of it.”

You don't turn around, can't let him see your face right now.

“Goodbye, Bucky.”

Then you walk out, leaving your husband standing alone in the study, and you don't look back.

── ⟢ ₊ ☁️ ˚・🖋️ ⊹

The wind off the Potomac is sharp enough to sting, cutting through your coat. March in Washington hasn't gotten any more pleasant since you left - still grey, still biting, still full of men in expensive suits having conversations that matter to nobody outside this ten-block radius.

You've been back for two days. Meetings, briefings, a reception last night where you smiled until your face hurt and deflected questions about London with the practised ease of someone who's done this too many times to count. It's fine. Exhausting, but fine. You can do this job in your sleep at this point.

What you can't do, apparently, is stop yourself from scanning every room you enter for a familiar face. Your heart has been doing this annoying thing ever since you landed at Dulles where it kicks up at unexpected moments - half anticipation, half dread. Walking past a coffee shop that he used to go to. Hearing someone laugh in a way that's almost but not quite his register. Seeing a tall, dark-haired man in a suit who makes your stupid heart stutter before you realise it's not him.

You're not looking for him. You're absolutely not looking for him. You're just aware. Hyper-aware, maybe. Of the absence. Of the space where he should be and isn't. 

Because Bucky's on Foreign Relations. He should have been at yesterday's hearing. Definitely should have been at the NATO briefing this morning where you spent two hours making small talk with people who absolutely knew you were divorced and were definitely trying not to bring it up.

But he's not here. And the unease that started yesterday has metastasized into something closer to worry, which is absurd because you're divorced and it's none of your business anymore where he is or what he's doing or why he's apparently missing every major political event this week.

Except now it's your last day in DC and you're walking out of your final meeting, and you still haven't seen him. Which is good. That's good. That's what you wanted - to get through this trip without the inevitable awkward encounter, without having to figure out what you're supposed to say to your ex-husband in a professional setting.

He's probably just busy. He's always busy. That's the whole problem, isn't it? Was. Was the whole problem.

You tell yourself it's none of your business. You tell yourself he’s probably had scheduling conflicts, or dozen other reasonable explanations that have nothing to do with you. You tell yourself to get in the car waiting to take you to the hotel and get a good nights sleep before your flight tomorrow morning.

Instead, you hear yourself giving the driver a different address.

You watch DC slide past the window. Familiar streets, familiar monuments, a city you used to know as well as London but feels foreign now. It's been three months since you signed those papers. Six weeks since the divorce was finalised. And he gave you the silence that you asked for, that you needed, that was supposed to make this easier. 

It did make some things easier, in a way. You can think about him now without that sharp twist of anger in your chest. Can acknowledge the good parts of your marriage without immediately cataloguing all the ways it fell apart. You've stopped checking your phone obsessively, stopped writing texts you never sent, stopped having imaginary arguments with him at two in the morning.

You've started sleeping through the night again. Started saying “my ex-husband” without your voice catching. Started believing that maybe you could actually do this - be divorced, be separate, be okay.

But you still can't be in this city without needing to know he's alright. Because Bucky Barnes gets under your skin and doesn’t leave. Not really. Not even after divorce papers and three months of silence and all the ways you've tried to extract him from your chest. He's just there, permanent as a scar, and you've apparently made peace with the fact that he always will be.

His apartment is close enough to the Capitol that he could walk if he wanted to, far enough that it didn't feel like living at the office. You'd picked it out together four years ago, back when you thought his Congressional run was temporary and you'd be back in New York within a term. The doorman doesn't recognise you, but he calls up anyway when you give him your name.

The elevator ride to the eighth floor feels longer than the entire flight from London. Your heart is doing that kicking thing again but worse now, harder, because this is stupid and inappropriate and you have no right to be here. But what if something's wrong? Or maybe nothing's wrong and you're being ridiculous. Both options feel equally terrible.

You walk down the hallway on muscle memory, and before you can overthink it anymore, you’re standing in from of 8F. The door opens before your knuckles even make contact with the wood.

Bucky's standing there in jeans and a Henley that's seen better days, hair slightly too long and falling into his eyes. The permanent tension he used to carry in his shoulders has eased, and there's no tie strangling him, no suit jacket making him look like a politician action figure. He looks comfortable in a way you've never seen him look in DC.

He also looks completely shocked to see you.

His eyes go wide, lips parting on what might be your name but doesn't quite make it out. 

“Hi,” you manage.

For a second he just stares at you like you might be a hallucination, hand still on the doorframe, body frozen mid-breath. “Hi.”

And then silence. Awful, stretching silence where you're both just looking at each other and you're realizing with creeping horror that you came all the way here without any plan for what you were actually going to say. Now you're just standing here like an idiot while he stares at you and oh god you need to say something, anything—

“I'm sorry. I know I shouldn't just show up, I was in town for meetings and I wasn't going to bother you—” And suddenly you're talking too fast, words tumbling over each other in a way that would be mortifying if you could stop long enough to be mortified. “But you weren't at the Foreign Relations hearing yesterday—which isn't my business, obviously, you don't owe me your schedule…” 

Your hand comes up to your neck, fingers pressing against the tension there like that might somehow stop the word vomit. “But then you also weren't at the NATO briefing this morning and I know you're always at those because it's your thing, and I know I have no right to just show up here, and this is probably completely inappropriate—”

Shit, you're babbling. You're fully babbling at your ex-husband who you haven't spoken to in three months while he stands there looking increasingly bewildered. Stop talking. Stop talking right now.

“—but I was getting in the car to go to my hotel and I just kept thinking about how you weren't there and what if something was wrong, and I know I asked for space and this is definitely not space, this is the opposite of space, this is me showing up at your apartment like a complete—”

“I left Congress.”

The words cut through your spiral, stopping you mid-sentence with your mouth still open. Your brain completely flat-lines for a moment and then reboots, and for a second you just stare at him while the information tries to process.

“What?”

“Congress. I left.” He says it simply, like he's commenting on the weather. “About three weeks ago.”

“Oh.”

The word comes out flat and stupid. You blink at him. Process his words. Try to figure out what expression your face is making and whether it's appropriate.

“Oh,” you repeat dumbly, because apparently that's all your brain can produce. “I didn't—I didn't know.”

The silence that follows is excruciating. And you're suddenly extremely aware that you're standing in his hallway, that he's looking at you with an expression you can't parse, and how you've just made a complete fool of yourself by showing up here based on incorrect assumptions about his schedule.

This was a mistake. This was such a mistake.

“Right. Of course.” You take a step back toward the elevator, face hot with embarrassment. “I'm sorry, I shouldn't have—this was inappropriate, I'll just—”

“Do you want to come in?” The question comes out slightly strangled, like it surprised him as much as it surprises you.

It stops you mid-retreat. You look at him and he's watching you with something that might be hope or might be caution or might be both.

“I don't want to intrude…”

“You're not.” He steps back from the doorway, making space. “I mean, you're already here. And I'd like to talk to you, if that's okay.”

You should say no. Should absolutely say no. Should get back in that car and go to your hotel and let this remain a awkward three-minute interaction you can both pretend never happened.

“Okay,” you hear yourself say instead.

You step inside and it hits you how familiar everything still is. Same layout you could navigate blind, same view of the street you used to watch on sleepless nights, same couch you both used to fall asleep on after long nights reading political documents. 

But the congressional briefings that used to bleed across every flat surface are gone. In their place are books on the side table - actual books that look read, spines creased, pages dog-eared. The kitchen looks like someone's actually been using it instead of just microwaving leftovers at midnight. It's still the same apartment, but it feels different. Like someone actually exists here instead of just sleeping between eighteen-hour days.

You're standing there trying to process it when you realise Bucky's closed the door and now you're both just awkwardly existing in the same space, six feet apart, neither of you sure what to do with your hands.

But damn, he looks good. That's the thing you keep getting stuck on. The permanent furrow between his brows has smoothed out. His shoulders sit easier. Even the way he's standing is looser, less like a man braced for impact. And he's looking at you like he's trying very hard to be normal about this and failing completely. Like you're something he's not allowed to want anymore but can't quite help it.

You clear your throat, grasping for something to say that isn't we got divorced and you look good and I don't know what to do with that.

“So… Not Congressman Barnes anymore.”

He actually cringes, then huffs out a surprised laugh. “Yeah. Thank god.”

“What happened?” You're trying to keep your voice neutral, conversational, but it definitely comes out more loaded than you intended. “I mean, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to, I don't have a right to—”

“You have a right,” he interrupts quietly, then seems to reconsider. “Or, I don't know if you have a right, but I want to tell you anyway.”

You nod, not trusting your voice.

He runs a hand through his hair, and you watch him gather his thoughts. That little exhale he does when he's trying to figure out how to be honest about something difficult.

“After the divorce—” He stops on the word, like it physically hurts to say. He swallows, tries again. “I did a lot of thinking. About why I ran for Congress in the first place, what I was trying to prove. And I realised I hated it. Hated the politics, the performance, the constant posturing. I was terrible at it, you know I was terrible at it. The only reason I didn't completely implode was because you were there coaching me through it, and once you weren't...” He trails off, shaking his head. “I kept going anyway because I thought that's what I was supposed to do. That quitting would mean I'd failed, or that I was giving up.”

He's looking at his hands now, the flesh one fidgeting against the metal one.

“But you were right. I was doing it for all the wrong reasons. Trying to be someone I thought deserved you instead of figuring out who I actually am.” He lets out a breath. “Not for you, not to prove anything to anyone. Just for me. I'd never done that before.”

He shifts his weight, suddenly looking uncomfortable with how honest that came out, and you have to swallow past the tightness in your throat because that might be the most vulnerable thing he's ever admitted to you.

“So I quit.” He shrugs like it's no big deal, trying to play it off. “And then I started thinking about what I actually wanted to do if I wasn't trying to prove I was more than what Hydra made me.”

He glances up at you then, and there's something almost hesitant in it, like he's trying to gauge your reaction. Like he can’t help that some part of him still wants you to be proud of him even though he's doing this for himself. “Sam's been building something with the Avengers. A new team—”

And he must catch the concern that flickers across your face because he quickly adds, “I'm not fighting; I'm done with that. But I’m going to help with training programs, support systems, trying to make sure the next generation doesn't get chewed up the way we did. Sam suggested it. And for the first time in years something just... clicked.”

You're staring at him, trying to process all of it. The growth. The self-awareness. The fact that he actually heard you, actually sat with it, actually made changes not to win you back but because he needed to be better for himself.

“That's—” Your voice comes out rough and you have to clear your throat. “That's really good, Bucky. I'm happy for you.”

And you are. You are genuinely happy for him. But there's something bittersweet lodged behind your ribs too, something that tastes like why now and why couldn't you have done this when we were still trying and this is exactly what I wanted from you.

“I'm sorry I didn't tell you,” he adds quietly. “I wasn't sure if it was my place anymore, or if you'd want to know. You asked for silence and I was trying to respect that, trying to give you the peace you deserved after everything I put you through.”

God. He's doing exactly what you asked him to do. Respecting your boundaries, not inserting himself into your life, letting you move on. And apparently getting what you want feels a lot like getting punched in the chest, which seems cosmically unfair.

“You're allowed to tell me things,” you manage. “Just because we're divorced doesn't mean I don't care about what happens to you.”

He nods slowly, but doesn't say anything, and the quiet that settles between you is thick with all the things neither of you knows how to say.

You're both still just standing there and you have no idea what you're supposed to do now. No idea what the protocol is for this situation. No idea how to be around him when he looks this good and this different and this much like what you'd needed him to be.

That's when you hear it. A small, inquiring “mrrp” from somewhere behind the couch. A white cat emerges, one blue eye and one green, tail high and confident as she saunters into the middle of the room and sits down to observe you both with feline judgment.

“You got a cat,” you remark, grateful for a distraction.

“Yeah.” Bucky says, and there's something almost embarrassed in his voice. “Her name's Alpine. I got her about a month after the divorce. The apartment was too quiet and I—” He trails off, one hand coming up to rub the back of his neck. “She was at a shelter and she looked at me like she knew I needed someone around and I guess I did.”

The apartment was too quiet because you weren't in it anymore, is the thing he doesn't say. But it hangs there anyway.

Alpine pads over to you with the confidence of a cat who knows she's in charge, and you crouch down automatically, extending your hand for her to sniff.

“Hi there, sweet girl,” you murmur, and she immediately butts her head against your palm, purring like a small motor. Within seconds she's winding between your legs, tail curling around your calf with clear ownership.

“Well, that's it then,” Bucky teases, small smile tugging at his lips. “She's decided you're hers. Good luck leaving, she's very persistent when she wants something.”

The words hang in the air for a second, and you watch his expression shift as he seems to hear what he just said. Like he's just remembered that you leaving is exactly what's supposed to happen. That you have a life that doesn't include him or his cat.

“So, how are things with....” He clears his throat, and you can practically feel him trying to make his voice sound casual and normal. It doesn't work. “How's the boyfriend?”

Your hand stills on Alpine's fur. You look up to find him studiously examining a spot on the wall like it's the most fascinating piece of architecture he's ever seen.

“Matt moved back to New York a few months ago.” You straighten up slowly, Alpine protesting the loss of attention with a small trill. “We ended things. Wanted different things from the relationship.”

“Oh.” Bucky's eyes finally land on you, and there's something complicated happening in his expression. “I'm sorry.”

“No you're not.”

It comes out before you can stop it, and for a second you think you've made it weird again, but then Bucky laughs. It's surprised out of him, genuine and a little helpless, and god you've missed that sound.

“No,” he admits, smile going crooked. “I'm really not.”

The honesty of it sits between you for a moment. Then something changes in his face, the amusement fading into something more vulnerable.

“But I should be sorry,” he continues quietly. “It shouldn't matter what I think. You deserve to move on, to be happy with someone who—” He cuts himself off, looking down at his hands. “Someone who can actually be what you need. And I'll deal with that eventually. I will. I'm just—” Another pause. “I'm sorry that I played a part in screwing that up for you, with Matt. And I’m sorry if the divorce or the complications or just... me... if any of that made it harder for you to have something good.”

The sincerity in his voice makes your throat tight. Here he is, your ex-husband, apologising for potentially ruining your other relationship while also admitting he's not sorry it ended, and somehow it's the most honest you've been with each other in months.

“It wasn't you,” you hear yourself say. “Not directly, anyway. Matt and I… we wanted different things. He wanted easy and uncomplicated, and I'm apparently incapable of either of those things.”

“That's not true—”

“Bucky.” You raise a brow. “I showed up at my ex-husband's apartment unannounced because I got worried when he didn't show up to committee meetings. I think we can agree that 'easy and uncomplicated' is not really my strong suit.”

His mouth twitches. “Fair point.”

“But,” he adds, “you deserve someone who doesn't want easy. Someone who wants all of it - the complicated, the messy, the hard parts. Someone who wants you exactly as you are. Because you show up. Even when you shouldn't, even when it's inconvenient, even when you have every reason not to. You came here today because you were worried about me, because that's just who you are. You care so completely, so deeply, even when it costs you. And you deserve someone who loves you enough to show up for you the way you've always shown up for everyone else.”

The words land like a physical blow, stealing the air from your lungs. Your eyes start to sting and you have to look away, blinking hard against the sudden heat behind them because you're not going to cry in his apartment, you're not.

Except apparently you are, because your vision's already blurring and there's a tightness in your chest that won't ease and when you try to speak nothing comes out but a slightly choked sound that you immediately wish you could take back.

“Hey,” Bucky moves toward you immediately, concern flooding his face. “Shit, no, I didn't mean to upset you.”

You try and recover the situation, aiming for light, but it cracks halfway through. “No, I’m fine, that’s a very—that's nice, that's a really nice thing to say, thank you for the—”

You stop because you're not making sense, because the whole thing is so mortifying you want to sink through the floor.

“Sweetheart, what’s happening?” His hand comes up immediately, thumb brushing across your cheek with a gentleness that makes it worse. He’s so close now that you can see the flecks of grey starting to thread through his hair at his temples. Close enough that you catch the scent of his cologne - the same one you bought him three years ago for his birthday. Close enough that your body remembers what it feels like to fit against his before your brain can stop it.

And god, he still feels like home. Still looks at you like you're something precious. And it's too much, all of it is too much, and the tears that have been threatening finally spill over.

“Don't call me that,” you choke out, but there's no heat in it. “And don't—you can't just—”

The words are getting tangled up with the crying, which is humiliating, but now that you've started you can't seem to stop.

“You don't get to do this,” you manage, and it comes out accusatory and broken at the same time. “You don't get to make all these changes and become this better version of yourself after we're divorced. You don't get to quit the job you hated and figure out what you actually want and get a cat and look at me like that when we're not—”

You stop, pressing your palms against your eyes because maybe if you can't see him this will be easier.

“You're doing everything right and it's too late. And god, I'm here being pathetic, showing up at your apartment because I couldn't handle not seeing you at a meeting. You've moved on, you're this whole new person, and I'm still—”

“You think I could ever move on from you?”

The question stops you mid-sentence. You lower your hands and look up at him, and his face has gone soft and raw and heartbroken in a way that makes your chest cave in.

“I haven't moved on.” His voice drops to barely more than a whisper. “I couldn't move on from you if I tried. You think I got a cat because I moved on? I got a cat because I was so fucking lonely and every time I tried to date, I couldn’t. I couldn’t let anyone else in here. Couldn't stand the thought of someone in this space who wasn’t you.”

He takes a breath that shudders slightly on the exhale, and you can see him fighting to hold himself together.

“I'm not a better person because I moved on. I'm a better person because losing you destroyed me and I had to either figure out who I actually was without you or let it kill me. So I figured it out, because I owed it to myself to be more than just the wreckage of our marriage.”

His thumb continues to trace slow paths across your cheekbone, catching each tear as it falls. The space between you has shrunk to almost nothing. You don't remember either of you moving but suddenly you can count his eyelashes, can see his eyes are wet too. 

Your eyes drop to his mouth. His lips are slightly parted, close enough that you can feel the warmth of his breath ghosting across your skin, and you watch him notice where you're looking. Watch the way his pupils blow wider, the way his grip on your face tightens just slightly.

“But god, I’m sorry,” he continues, and his forehead drops to rest against yours. “I'm so fucking sorry for all of it. For running for Congress without talking to you first. For shutting you out instead of letting you help me. For making you feel like you weren't enough when you were always everything.”

“Bucky—”

“I'm sorry for manipulating your calendar and lying to Matt and thinking I could orchestrate our marriage back together instead of just talking to you like a fucking adult.” His other hand comes up to cup your face, both palms cradling you as his thumb brushes your bottom lip “I'm sorry for taking you for granted and not fighting for us until it was too late. I'm sorry—”

You kiss him. 

You can't help it. Can't wait another second, can't stand anymore distance between you when he's been standing there saying everything you'd needed to hear for months and he's finally, finally letting you all the way in and you need him closer. Need his mouth on yours more than you need air right now.

He makes this startled sound against your lips, like he didn't dare let himself believe this was actually happening. But then his hands tighten on your face and he's kissing you back, desperate and messy, your face still wet with tears.

“Keep going,” you gasp against his lips between kisses. “Don't stop.”

“I'm sorry for every time I chose my pride over our marriage.” The words tumble out between kisses as he walks you backward, one hand now gripping your waist, the other sliding up to cup the back of your head. “For every time I made you feel small or unimportant or like you were the problem when it was always me.”

You hit the wall with a soft thud, his palm deliberately taking the impact for your head, and his mouth finds your throat immediately, hot and desperate, teeth grazing your pulse point before his lips soothe over it.

“I'm sorry for wasting so much time,” he breathes against your neck, hands finding the hem of your shirt and pulling back just enough to drag it over your head. “For not appreciating every second I had with you. For not telling you every single day that you were the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“Bucky—” You plead, fingers tugging his hair hard enough to make him groan against your skin.

He pulls back just enough to look up at you, chest heaving, lips swollen, eyes blown completely dark, and the desperation on his face mirrors everything coiling tight in your stomach.

“Let me make it up to you,” he pants, mouth already trailing lower, kissing down your throat, your collarbone, your sternum. “Please. Let me get on my knees and show you exactly how sorry I am, sweetheart.”

“Fuck—please, Bucky. Yes!”

His mouth keeps moving lower as he sinks down, lips pressing hot and wet over your stomach. When he reaches the waistband of your skirt his hands slide around to find the zip, tugging it down over your hips. 

He peels it down slowly, mouth following the same path, pressing open kisses down your hip, the outside of your thigh, your knee, helping you step out of it carefully but making absolutely no move to take your heels off. For a moment he just stays there, looking up at you from the floor with blown dark eyes.

The sight of him down there looking at you like that makes your breath come out shaky.

“Missed you so fucking much,” he breathes against your inner thigh, lips dragging higher again. “Missed this.” His fingers find the waistband of your panties, peeling them down slowly, and when they're gone his right hand lingers on your calf, squeezing.

“Missed the way you sound when I do this—” He presses his mouth to your clit, barely anything, just enough to make you whine and your hips jerk forward chasing more. “Missed the way you taste. Been so fucking long, sweetheart, I'm gonna make sure you feel every single apology.”

Then he hooks your leg over his shoulder, spreading you wider, the stiletto of your heel digging into his back. He groans against you like he's been waiting months for exactly this, tongue dragging through your folds, tasting every inch of you, before his mouth closes around your clit and sucks.

You're already soaked, embarrassingly so, slick and swollen and desperate, and the obscene sounds he's making against you make your face flush hot. Like he's enjoying this more than you are, which makes the heat pooling in your stomach coil tighter and more urgent. 

Your fingers bury themselves in his hair, gripping hard, and the moan that rumbles out of him against your folds is immediate, hips shifting like he can't help it. You tug again, twisting tighter, and he groans louder, like he'd let you pull as hard as you wanted as long as you kept him right there.

His tongue curls and your back arches off the wall with a broken, high little sound, thighs trembling against his shoulders. The heel of your stiletto presses harder into his back as your leg tightens around him.

He teases you mercilessly, knows exactly how to make you chase it. Tongue circling your clit until your hips roll forward without shame, grinding against his face, chasing friction with a desperation that would be humiliating if you had any capacity left to feel embarrassed. Every time you get close he pulls back, mouthing at your inner thigh or the crease of your hip, until you whine with frustration.

“Please—” It comes out wrecked, barely recognisable as your own voice. “Bucky, please—”

He makes this low, pleased chuckle against your folds that you feel everywhere, clearly delighted with himself, and the vibration of it makes you desperately clench around nothing and moan so shamelessly that he does it again on purpose. 

His tongue fucks into you and the world goes soft at the edges, thoughts dissolving one by one until there's nothing left but the wet heat of his mouth and the needy little moans you can’t seem to stop making. His nose bumps your clit with every movement, pressure building so deep and overwhelming that you've stopped being capable of anything as complex as forming words. 

Just fingers buried in his hair, back arched, existing entirely at the mercy of his mouth.

Then his left hand closes around your standing thigh, metal fingers wrapping around soft flesh. He pulls his mouth away just far enough to speak, his breath hot and damp against your soaked, swollen folds.

“Up,” he rumbles directly into your cunt, and you hear it somewhere distant and unimportant. 

Your legs aren't really receiving instructions anymore - you're not capable of much of anything right now, every nerve ending in your body shorting out under his mouth. Too far gone already to manage something as complicated as lifting a leg.

The crack of his metal hand against your ass brings the world back in one sharp snap.

“Up, pretty girl. C'mon.” His voice is rough, amused, unbearably fond. “Can't have gone dumb on my tongue already, sweetheart. I’ve barely even started.”

“Fuck,” you manage.

“There we go,” he murmurs, the deep warmth in his voice is devastatingly attractive. “Good girl. Up.”

His hand guides you this time, helping you move your other leg up and over his shoulder so both thighs bracket his head. Before you can process what’s happening, he rises, straightening to his full height with an ease that makes it obvious how little you weigh to him. How effortless this is. How completely in control he is of the situation. And it makes your stomach swoop. 

Your fingers yank his hair on instinct, panic and want tangled together, and the moan that drags out of him reverberates directly against your pussy in a way that makes your whole body shudder.

The wall catches your back. His hands lock around the backs of your thighs, one warm, one cool metal, fingers pressing into your flesh as he pins you exactly where he wants you. His face is buried between your legs and there's nothing below you but six feet of immovable super soldier who has absolutely no intention of letting you go anywhere. The realization of how thoroughly he has you, how completely helpless you are right now, sends a fresh rush of arousal flooding against his mouth that makes him moan his encouragement.

“Fuck— please—Bucky.”

The answering groan he makes against you says he heard it just fine. And then he gets greedy.

His tongue finds your clit and doesn't leave, licking and sucking with a focused relentlessness that has you sobbing. You're soaked, dripping down his chin. Every careful, deliberate stroke of his tongue pulls another helpless mewl from your throat while his hands keep you pinned exactly where he wants you, going nowhere, taking everything he decides to give you.

He learns you all over again like he has all the time in the world. Finds every spot that makes your thighs clench around his head and returns to them, again and again, cataloguing your reactions with the focused intensity of someone who has missed this more than they can articulate and intends to make up for every lost month tonight. 

“Taste so fucking good,” he groans into you, the words vibrating against your clit, hips grinding forward against nothing. “Missed this pussy so much. Missed how wet she gets for me. Could eat her all night and never get enough.”

The knowledge that he's this worked up just from going down on you makes another rush of arousal flood against his tongue. Heat spreads through you in waves, the orgasm building each time he seals his lips around your clit and sucks, each time he groans against your folds like he's the one being taken apart. Your thighs are shaking around his head, his name spilling out of you in a broken, continuous stream that you can't stop.

“That's my girl,” he rasps into you, fingers digging into your thighs. “Feel her getting close. Gonna give me what I want.”

You come with a wail, clenching so hard around his tongue that he groans like it's the best thing he's ever felt. His hands remain steady around your thighs as he licks you through every shuddering wave, greedy for every last pulse of it, not pulling back until you're twitching and whimpering and completely wrecked above him.

He pulls back with one last filthy, open mouthed kiss to your cunt that makes you mewl, and then his hands shift, sliding you down his body until your legs wrap around his waist. You can feel how hard he is through his jeans, thick and insistent against where you're still throbbing, and your hips roll forward instinctively.

“Look at you,” he murmurs against your throat, hands gripping your ass, holding you up effortlessly. “So pretty when you cum for me. Did so good.”

You make some soft, wrecked sound against his neck that might be his name.

Then one hand comes up to grip your jaw, tilting your face up to his. His chin is slick with you, lips swollen and pink and kissable. His thumb presses against your bottom lip, dragging it down. “Open that pretty mouth.”

Dazed and pliant, you open your mouth without thinking, too gone to do anything but comply. He leans in and lets a slow string of spit drop onto your tongue, mixed with the slick mess of you.

“Atta girl,” he rumbles, watching your face with a primal satisfaction. “You taste so fucking good, sweetheart - had to let you have some.”

You swallow and he groans his approval, crashing his mouth back to yours before you can breathe. The taste of yourself on his tongue makes you dizzy, fingers twisting in his Henley. Your brain several steps behind your body as he starts moving, carrying you through the dark hallway without breaking the kiss, navigating entirely on muscle memory.

The bedroom is dark. He lays you out across his bed, stepping back to look at you. Spread across his sheets still in nothing but your heels and bra, chest heaving, thighs slick, eyes blown completely dumb. The look on his face makes your stomach flip all over again.

“Been dreaming about seeing you in this bed again,” he says, crawling over you, caging you in with those unfairly big biceps. “Not done with you yet, pretty girl. Not even close.”

Your hands find the hem of his top immediately, fisting the fabric, and he helps you drag it over his head. His dog tags fall forward as the shirt comes off, swinging between you both as he dips back down to your mouth.

Already your fingers are at his belt, clumsy and impatient, fumbling with the buckle while he kisses down your jaw and unhooks your bra before tossing it aside. His mouth finds your nipple immediately, greedy,tongue curling around it, and your hands stutter.

“Bucky—” You're swearing under your breath, hands shaking as you try and fail to get the buckle undone. “Come on, fuck, come on!”

He grazes his teeth against your nipple and your fingers slip entirely. 

“Shit, please,” you whine, utterly shameless.

Bucky just laughs against your tits, warm and low, not even slightly helpful. Finally, though, the belt gives, button pops, zip drags down, and you're shoving everything down his hips in one desperate motion as his cock springs free. Thick and hard and heavy between his legs, and your mouth goes dry. 

It’s been almost a year since you’ve seen him like this and your eyes drag down his body with a hunger you can't even pretend to hide. You reach for him immediately, needing to touch, needing to feel the weight of him in your hand, but he catches both wrists before you get there, pinning them above your head against the pillow. 

“Patience, pretty girl,” he murmurs, hips settling between your thighs, cock heavy against your folds but not where you need him. “We've got time. Not rushing this.”

You whimper, hips lifting, trying to find friction, finding nothing.

He slides his cock through your folds, dragging through how obscenely wet you are, and the feeling of it pulls a broken noise from both of you simultaneously. Slow and deliberate, he teases the swollen head through your slick, catching your clit on the way, and your whole body jerks underneath him.

“Bucky,” you mewl. Your wrists flex against his grip, not really trying to get free, just needing somewhere to put the desperation flooding through you. He drags his cock back through your heat while you clench desperately around nothing, watching your face fall apart with an expression of filthy satisfaction.

“There it is. Look at that pretty little cunt begging for it.” Another slow roll of his hips, cock dragging through the mess of you. “Gonna give it to you. Just want you to ask nice price.”

“Please,” you manage, and it comes out so small and wrecked and needy that his hips stutter. “Please, Bucky, I need—I can't—please—”

He releases your wrists and your hands fly to his shoulders instantly, nails digging in hard, needing to touch him, needing to anchor yourself to something solid while his cock nudges your entrance, barely breaching, just enough to make you clench desperately around nothing.

“Shh,” he coos, hands gripping your hips hard enough to bruise, holding you exactly where he wants you even as your hips try to roll forward chasing more. “I've got you, baby.” The head of his cock presses a little deeper, teasing, and your nails drag down his shoulders as your back arches off the bed. “Always gonna take care of you. You know that.” 

He pushes in slowly, and the stretch of him makes your whole body go rigid, nails carving lines down his shoulders that make him hiss as you take him inch by inch. Your walls flutter around him, clenching, trying to pull him deeper even as your body relearns the thickness of him, the weight, the specific fullness that you'd spent three months trying to forget and never quite managed.

“Fuck,” he grits out, hips stilling when he's buried completely, forehead dropping to yours, breathing ragged. “Always so fucking tight. Feel that? Feel how well this pretty cunt fits me?” His hips roll, just slightly, and you cry out. “Feel so perfect around my cock, pretty girl.”

You can't form words. Can only moan and dig your nails deeper into his back and breathe through it, through the overwhelming stretch and heat and the fact that it's him, it's Bucky, it's finally Bucky again after everything.

Then he starts to move.

Long, deep strokes that drag against every sensitive place inside you, his cock splitting you open over and over until you can't remember what it felt like to be empty. The cold metal of his dog tags brushes your chest with every thrust. His hand slides between your bodies, thumb finding your clit, and the dual sensation pulls a needy little wail from you, toes curling in your heels

“That's it,” he breathes against your lips. “That's my girl. Take all of it.”

You drag him back down into the kiss, desperate, one hand tangling in his hair and the other still clawing down his back, needing more of him, needing every part of him pressed against every part of you. He gives it to you, kissing you filthy and deep, hips rolling into a rhythm that's making coherent thought impossible.

“Missed you,” you gasp between kisses, and once it starts coming out you can't stop it. “Missed you so much, I missed you every single day, I tried not to but I couldn't stop, I missed you, I missed you—”

“I know.” His voice breaks on it. “Missed you too, baby. I'm here. I've got you.”

“Don't stop,” you sob against his mouth. “Please don't stop.”

“Not stopping.” His thumb keeps circling your clit and his hips snap forward harder, the wet obscene sounds of him fucking into you filling the dark bedroom. “Not going anywhere ever again.”

The pleasure and the grief and the overwhelming relief of having him back crash into each other all at once and the tears come again without warning, spilling hot down your cheeks. You're coming and crying at the same time, clenching so hard around him that he groans like it's the best thing he's ever felt.

Instinctively you hide your face against his neck with a mewling, broken little sound, as the waves keep crashing through you. His hand finds your jaw immediately, fingers gentle but certain, tilting your face back to his.

When he sees you - eyes wet and glassy, tears tracking freely down your cheeks, kiss-bitten bottom lip caught between your teeth - his expression cracks wide open. His thumb drags slowly through the wetness on your cheek, just looking at you, chest heaving, cock still buried deep inside you. 

“Fuck,” he rasps, hips driving deeper, mouth dragging across your wet cheeks, licking away the tears. “Don’t hide from me. Not this. So beautiful when you cry for me like this.” 

Another deep thrust punctuates his words and your sob breaks against his throat. The orgasm is almost too much, pleasure cresting so sharp and overwhelming that you're squirming beneath him, trying to get away from it and chase it at the same time. Your hips buck uselessly as his thumb keeps bullying your swollen clit , wringing every last shuddering wave out of you whether your oversensitive body can handle it or not.

“Made you cry too many times for the wrong reasons.” His mouth moves to your other cheek, kissing the wetness away gently even as his hips keep pounding into you. “Never fucking again. Only time you cry because of me now is when I've got you so full of cock you can't fucking think straight.”

Then he pulls back to look at you, pupils blown, taking in your wet lashes, your ruined expression. “That's the only reason I ever put tears on this pretty face again. On my fucking life.”

You're trying to say his name but it keeps breaking apart every time his hips drive forward, dissolving into breathless, helpless sounds against his mouth. But you can’t stop them, can’t control it, can’t do anything other than moan because he just keeps fucking you through every shuddering wave of your orgasm until you’re trembling under him. 

You whimper, oversensitive and shaking, hips trying to shy away from his thumb even as your walls keep fluttering around him.

“Can feel her gripping me,” Bucky murmurs, almost to himself, hips still rolling slow and deep. “Feel that? Still so greedy even when you're all fucked out.” His thumb lifts and you exhale in relief, but his cock is still thick and heavy inside you, every slight movement magnified by how sensitive you are. “Got one more in there for me, baby. I know you do.”

Turning your face into his neck, you make a sound that's half-protest, half-desperate agreement. 

“C’mon pretty girl,” His voice drops to something low and coaxing, lips brushing your ear. “You gonna give it to me?”

You nod weakly, barely managing it, pliant and soft and entirely his to do whatever he wants with. You'd agree to anything right now. Give him anything. You just want whatever he'll give you, want to stay exactly like this forever, warm and full and completely undone.

The rumble that comes out of him is deep and satisfied. “Good fucking girl.”

The words land low in your stomach even before his hands are moving, even before he pulls out with a groan that you both feel everywhere, even before the cool air hits the slick mess between your thighs. The empty whine that escapes you is involuntary and embarrassing and he hears every second of it.

His hands find your hips, turning you with that easy, devastating strength, flipping you over like you weigh nothing. Your face finds the mattress, and before you can process the change in position his palm is pressing warm between your shoulder blades, urging you down while his other hand slides under your hips, pulling them up to meet him.

You go pliant without resistance, body soft and utterly compliant beneath his hands, brain several steps behind everything. Your cheek presses into his sheets and you can smell him on the fabric, sending a fresh pulse of want through you.

He leans over you, his chest warm against your back for just a moment, and then his hand slides into your hair. Gathers it gently, sweeping it away from your face with a tenderness that's completely at odds with how thoroughly he just fucked you apart. His fingers are careful, unhurried, and you turn your face slightly into his palm like a cat.

“There you are,” he murmurs, low and warm, and you can feel the smile in it. His lips press to the nape of your neck, the top of your spine, each vertebra down between your shoulder blades.

He stays there for a moment, just looking at you. Taking in the slack, cock-drunk softness of your expression. The way your eyes have gone heavy and distant, lashes still wet, lips parted and swollen.

Then the blunt head of his cock presses against your entrance again and you keen into the sheets.

He pushes in slowly, achingly slowly, and the stretch of him at this angle is deeper, fuller, hitting every nerve ending at once. You're so wet and so oversensitive that every inch of him dragging inside you pulls sounds from your throat that you couldn't muffle if you tried.

“Fuck,” he gasps, hands locked around your hips, pulling you back onto him as his last inch disappears inside you. “Look at that. Taking every fucking inch. Good girl.”

He starts to move and your eyes roll back.

It's different like this. Harder, deeper, each thrust rocking you forward into the mattress, his hips snapping against your ass with a sound that fills the dark room, punctuated by his own rough exhales. One hand is splayed across your lower back to keep your hips tilted exactly where he wants them, the other gripping the curve of your hip hard enough you'll have fingerprints tomorrow.

You fist the sheets. It's all you can do. Knuckles white, face pressed into his pillow, breathing in desperate gasps because he keeps knocking the air out of your lungs with every thrust.

“Fuck, baby. Listen to how pretty you are like this.” His voice has gone rough, stripped of everything except want. His cock drags out slow and thrusts back hard, knocking another moan from you. “Hear that?”

You hear it. The wet, filthy sounds of him fucking into you, the slap of skin, the helpless little mewls you can't stop making. His dog tags swing forward with every thrust, cold metal grazing your back. Your face burns hot in the dark.

“C’mon, use your words,” he murmurs, hand smoothing up your spine. “You hear how good this pussy sounds taking me?”

“Yes,” You moan agreement, barely recognizing as your own voice. “Yes, fuck, yes”

His hand snakes around your throat, pulling you back against his chest in one smooth motion like you weigh nothing at all. And god, to him you don't. You’re so light in his hands that he barely has to think about it, and the ease of it sends a sharp pulse through you. You gasp as your back hits his chest, Bucky’s free arm secure around you, while his cock keeps driving up into you, the new angle hitting deeper.

He groans softly against your ear when you clenches hard around him. “Fuck. Knew you’d like that.”

You can’t respond. All that comes out is another needy little sound while your hands scramble desperately for purchase, one gripping his forearm where it rests against your throat, the other reaching back blindly for him. Bucky catches your hand immediately and presses it flat against his lower stomach, holding it there so you can feel every thrust, every flex of muscle as he fucks into you.

“That’s it, good girl. Hold on,” he murmurs approvingly, feeling you squeeze around him again. “Feel what you do to me?”

Then his hand moves from yours and slides down your stomach, over the curve of your hip, fingers finding your clit once more. You jolt at his touch, a high broken sound tearing out of you, hips lurching forward despite yourself.

“Shh.” His lips brush your ear. “I've got you. Stay still for me.”

You try. You genuinely try. But he's fucking up into you and rubbing your swollen clit simultaneously and the combination is devastating, pleasure crashing through you in waves that make it impossible to do anything except squirm against him and make sounds you'll be embarrassed about later. Your fingers dig into his forearm, nails pressing crescents into his skin, and his breath hitches against your neck.

“Fuck, good girl,” he hisses. “Scratch me up, sweetheart. Let me feel it.”

His fingers work faster and your head drops back against his shoulder, completely gone. Everything is his hands, his cock, his voice in your ear saying things that dissolve into heat before you can parse the words. You're making these desperate mewling sounds with every thrust, fingers scrabbling at his arm, his hip, any part of him you can reach, just needing to touch him, needing to feel him everywhere at once.

“Feel how wet she is,” he murmurs, fingers slipping through the absolute mess between your thighs. “Dripping down my hand. Making a mess of me.” His cock drives deeper and you sob. “So fucking perfect.”

His hand shifts from your throat to your jaw, turning your face toward his, and then he's kissing you.

It’s messy and overwhelming, his tongue sliding against yours while he keeps fucking you hard enough to make you moan helplessly into his mouth. Bucky swallows every needy little sound you make, kissing you deeper every time you squirm against him.

You can barely keep up with it. Head fuzzy, heavy with pleasure, especially with the way he’s still rubbing your clit in relentless slow circles that make your whole body shake harder every second.

“Come for me,” he breathes against your lips. “Want to feel that pretty pussy squeeze my cock again, baby. Can you do that for me?”

“Yes, Bucky, please.”

“So fucking good for me.” The hand at your jaw slides back to your throat, tilting your head back against his shoulder, baring your neck. His mouth finds your pulse point immediately. “Best thing I've ever had. Best thing I've ever touched.” His teeth graze your throat and you whimper, thighs shaking. “The only thing I ever want.”

His fingers press harder against your clit, hips rolling forward in a way that make you tremble in his grip, knees threatening to buckle, the only thing keeping you upright the arm locked around you. 

“Fuck—I love you,” he grits out against the back of your neck, and it sounds like it's been tearing at him from the inside for months. “I love you. I love you.” Each repetition punctuated by a thrust that makes you cry out. “Loved you every single day I was without you. Never stopped for a second.”

The words hit somewhere deeper than anything else. Deeper than his hands or his mouth or any of it. Something cracks open in your chest, warm and enormous, and you’re coming again. Harder than before, your whole body seizing as you clench around him so completely that your knees do give out entirely. Just ragdoll weight caught entirely in his arms.

“Bucky,” you cry name in a needy a sob. “I love you too—fuck—I love you so much.”

The confession tears out of you and follows you over with a groan that shakes through his whole body. He buries himself to the hilt, cock pulsing in deep, spilling inside you with your name on his lips.

You’re both breathing in ragged pulls, and if it weren’t for his arms still locked around you, you’d have collapsed onto the bed. His chest heaves against your back, lips pressed somewhere near your temple, and neither of you speaks for a moment.

Eventually, carefully, he lowers you both down to the mattress, turning you over and pulling you against his chest. You lay boneless against him as his hand strokes slowly up your side, over and over, like he can't stop touching you now that he's allowed to again.

“I've got you,” he murmurs into your hair. “I've got you. You're okay. I've got you.”

And for the first time in almost a year, you actually believe it.

You stay like that for a while, neither of you moving, his hand still stroking slowly up your side. The room has gone quiet and warm around you, just his heartbeat under your ear and the city humming distantly outside.

But eventually he shifts, pressing a kiss to your temple. “Stay there.”

A weak sound of protest escapes you when he moves but he's already up, disappearing into the en-suite. You hear water running. When he comes back he sits beside you on the bed, warm cloth in hand.

“I can—” you start.

“I know you can,” he agrees simply, but he does it anyway, cleaning you up with gentle, unhurried hands. Then his free hand strokes down your leg, gently tugging one heel off, then the other, puts them both on the floor.

When he's done he disappears briefly, and then the mattress dips and he's pulling you into him, tucking you against his chest. The duvet settles warm around you both, and his hand starts moving slowly through your hair in soothing strokes.

“Sleep,” he murmurs against your temple, lips barely moving. “I've got you.”

You don't have much choice. Your body is already pulling you under, warm and safe and held in a way you'd spent months trying to convince yourself you didn't miss. His heartbeat is slow and steady under your ear, his chest rising and falling with a deep, even calm that pulls you further under with every breath.

His hand keeps moving through your hair, and the city outside feels very far away, and sleep takes you before you even feel it coming.

── ⟢ ₊ ☁️ ˚・🖋️ ⊹

The blaring of you alarm pulls you up from the deepest sleep you've had in months, and for one blissful, unthinking moment you're just warm. Bucky’s chest rises and falls slowly beneath your cheek. Reality hovers at the edges of your consciousness, waiting to be let in, and you squeeze your eyes shut against it, burrowing deeper into the duvet like that might keep it at bay.

Alpine is curled heavy and purring against the backs of your knees, warm and certain, like she's been there all night. Like you belong here. The thought sits in your chest, complicated and tender.

But your phone doesn’t stop shrilling from the nightstand. 

You reach over and fumble for it, managing to silence before Bucky stirs. His arm tightens around you, pulling you back into him with a sleepy, wordless sound of protest, lips pressing somewhere near your hair. But then he goes still. 

“…Was that your alarm for your flight?” His voice is rough with sleep, and underneath the grogginess you can here the carefulness.

“Yes,” you reply quietly, but make no effort to move.

The city hums distantly outside the window. Somewhere below, DC is already going about its morning. Up here, in the warm dark of his bedroom, time feels suspended, neither of you quite willing to be the one to break it.

You turn over. His eyes scan your face with an intensity that's so nakedly desperate it makes your chest ache. Like he's trying to memorize your face in case this is the last time he's allowed to be this close. Like he hasn't yet let himself believe last night was real.

“Stay.” The word comes out before he can stop it, blurted and slightly wrecked. His jaw tightens immediately afterwards, like he's bracing for it to land wrong. “Could you stay? I want you to stay. Just—a little longer, or—I know we haven't talked about anything properly yet, I just—” He exhales, slightly pained. “Please stay.”

You look at him for a moment. Let him sit with it a moment longer than necessary, watching the soft, desperate hope on his face exist exist without rushing to meet it, because you find you want to keep looking at him like this for just another few seconds. This new version of him that doesn't hide behind composure when something matters. 

It's devastating and wonderful in equal measure, and you want to hold onto the sight of it for a second before you say anything.

“I suppose,” you begin slowly, watching his expression flicker, “I could probably stay a little longer. Get to know this version of you that coaches Avengers and has a cat and apparently owns cookbooks he's actually used.”

The exhale that comes out of him is enormous. Pure relief, pure joy, and the smile that follows it - wide and unguarded and slightly incredulous - is the most beautiful thing you've seen in a very long time. He pulls you in and presses his lips to your forehead, warm and certain.

You let him. Then you pull back gently, hand finding his jaw, tilting his face down to yours.

“But slowly,” you add, and mean it. “We do this slowly. No grand gestures, no orchestrating, no deciding things on my behalf. We actually talk. We work through all of it - the things we broke and the reasons we broke them. We make real effort this time, not just falling back into old patterns because it's easy and it feels good short term.”

He nods. Immediately, earnestly, like every word is being carefully filed away. “Slowly,” he repeats. “Yeah. I can do slowly.”

You raise a brow.

He has the grace to look slightly sheepish. “I can learn slowly.”

You're both quiet for a moment, considering this. You are not, historically, two people who do anything slowly. Your entire relationship has been characterized by intensity and momentum and grand gestures and catastrophic miscommunications. The idea of slow is almost comically foreign to you both.

“I'll come to London more,” he offers after a moment. “My schedule is flexible. I can make it work—I want to make it work. And I know the distance is real, and I know it won't always be easy, but I'd rather figure it out than spend another year without you.”

“And I'll come here too,” you add quietly. “I should've done that more. Made the effort in both directions instead of letting the Atlantic become an excuse.”

“Okay,” he says. “We start there.”

“We start there,” you agree.

And maybe it’s foolish. Maybe you'll look back on this morning and recognise it as just another impulsive decision in a marriage that's always run on chemistry and stubbornness and the particular madness of two people who can't seem to leave each other alone. Maybe the distance will be hard and the conversations will be harder and somewhere down the line you'll hit another wall neither of you knows how to climb.

But when he looks at you like that - open and unhidden in a way he spent years not knowing how to be - it doesn't feel like a mistake. It feels like something you've been working toward through every wrong turn and bad decision and midnight argument. Like the mess of the last year was just the long way round to something you were always going to find your way back to.

“Come here,” he murmurs, and you let him turn you back over, let him pull you into his chest where you fit so perfectly.

The relief of not having a flight to catch settles over you like the duvet itself.

His lips find the curve of your neck, lazy and warm, just the occasional soft press of his mouth against your skin. Just enjoying the fact that he can. That you're here and not leaving and there's nowhere either of you need to be.

Your eyes drift closed, hovering in that soft place between sleep and waking again. Alpine purrs against your feet. You feel more at peace than you have in longer than you can remember. And then, through your sleepy haze, you gradually become aware of his hand.

It's moved without him seeming to notice, fingers drifting down your arm, over your wrist, settling at your left hand. His thumb brushes absently over your ring finger, back and forth, over the bare skin where your ring used to sit. Slow and absent, like he doesn't even know he's doing it.

Your right hand moves to cover his, and he still immediately. A slight tension moving through his chest, like he's been caught at something, like he's about to pull back.

“Ask me again someday,” you murmur into the pillow, half-conscious. “When we're ready.”

The tension bleeds out of him all at once, his whole body exhaling like he's been holding that breath for months. His arms tighten around you and his mouth presses to the back of your neck again.

“I will,” he affirms quietly, against your skin. “I promise you, one day, I will.”

His thumb resumes its slow path over your ring finger, gentle and deliberate now. A quiet promise being made in the dark.

“I love you,” he murmurs into your hair, lips barely moving. “Missed saying that. Missed you hearing it. I love you so much.”

You sink deeper into his arms, into the warmth of him, into the love in his voice, into the particular peace of being somewhere you belong after a very long time of being without it.

You fall back asleep before you can answer. But that's okay, you have time now.

more mads: that's all folks! i really, really hope you enjoyed, like seriously. this fic has both been the bane of my existence and a precious little baby because i do really love these idiots. i hope i gave them a satisfactory ending and that it was worth the wait, and i would absolutely love to know your thoughts via any comments or reblogs! thank you so much for reading :) p.s. i realise the first part was set in december but i couldn't physically write about christmas in april/may so imagine that part one was set in early december and that's why there's no mention of christmas lol

The law has a simpler system still. 

One that decrees who is a man and who is a wanted man. It prints the latter on paper and nails it somewhere decent folk can see. Ink drawings of men with shadowed eyes and a jaw made harsher by the hand that drew it. Beneath that is the list of wrongs they have done, and a number in dollars that someone is willing to pay to see him answer for them.

Fifty dollars for a fool. Five hundred for a danger. Five thousand for a dead man walking.

Women, of course, have their own sorting. Just like bad men, women have a value. Only women are rarely granted the dignity of being weighed by their own choices. Instead, they too are valued by a bad man’s wrongdoings. 

What he has done to her. Or what he is rumoured to have done with her. Or what he wanted badly enough to lie about. That is how a town makes its ladies. That is how it makes its whores, too.

There are no other kinds of women. Not in this town, or anywhere else for that matter. A third kind would require people to admit women have lives beyond the reach of men’s hands, and no one is in any hurry to go inviting that sort of trouble.

By all accounts, the town had decided kindly on you. A credit to the schoolhouse and a blessing to the children you teach. They would say that you are a fine young lady, and that any good man would be lucky to have you.

No good man, so far, has come and asked. Perhaps that should worry you more than it did. After all, a woman could only remain a fine young lady for so long before the title began to sour on her. A woman in your position was expected to want a steady hand, a clean name,and a ring bought with honest wages. A good man, by the town’s binary judgement.

Your heart, unfortunately, had never shown much interest in good men.

So that’s why tonight, like every other night, your walk home is made alone. Save for the company of crickets keeping up their endless racket, and the watchful hum of a town that likes to sleep with one eye open.

Your skirts hush against the dry grass as you walk further beyond the last few houses, where the town thins to prairie. There waits your little house at the edge of it all, porch sunk crooked in the middle and windows dark as shut eyes. Except the window over the washstand that’s still open; it never sits quite right in its frame. It swells in the summer heat, shrinks in the winter cold, and no matter the season, refuses to latch unless you lean your weight against it. 

You’ve been putting off fixing it for months. A respectable man might have fixed it for you by now, had one ever made himself useful.

By the time you step through your front door, the night has drawn close around the house. Moonlight slips through the narrow gap in the curtains, laying a soft glow across the floorboards. Enough to not bother with a lamp.

The schoolbooks go on the table. You set your hat beside them. Your boots are worked off by the bed, left where they fall. Then your fingers find the buttons of your dress.

The first slips free at your throat, then the second follows. The dress loosens by degrees, surrendering the shape of the schoolteacher the town knows so well, until all that remains is the woman beneath it. You drag in a deeper breath, eyes falling shut for a moment as the pressure eases. There is no sweeter mercy than taking off the day. No greater pleasure than unlacing yourself from what the world expected you to be.

With one hand still at your bodice, you turn towards the washstand. 

Your eyes catch on a shadow in the chair by your bed. A shocked gasp leaves your lips before you can stop it, sharp and uselessly small in the dark of your room. 

At first, he is only a shape amongst shapes. 

But the shadow is too still for a drunk, too quiet for a fool, and too comfortable for any man with honest business in a woman’s bedroom after dark. The chair complains beneath the size of him. One boot is planted flat against the floorboards, the other stretches lazily before him. A hand rests on his thigh, and something metallic in it glints in the moonlight.

It points straight at you.

Your breath stalls somewhere high in your chest, trapped behind the open buttons at your throat as your vision adjusts slowly to the dim light. His coat hangs open over a shirt that used to be white, now marked with trail dust and the stain of something you hope is mud.

The gunman tilts his head, and only then does the dark give up the glinting blue of his eyes - fixed on you with the possessive satisfaction of a man finding what he came for. They drop slowly to where your dress has come loose at your throat, exposing the delicate slope beneath your collarbone, and the first soft swell of your chest. Enough skin to make a decent man look away and a worse one very glad he didn’t.

An appreciative rumble hums low from his lips, before his thumb draws back the hammer of his gun with a pointed click.

“Don’t stop on my account, sweetheart.”

For a moment, you’re frozen. Just standing there with your fingers still curled in the loosened front of your dress, breath held tight beneath your ribs. The room narrows to the man in your chair and the gun pointed steady in his hand. He watches you without speaking, patient as a hunter, until he gives an expectant nod of the head.

Slowly, your fingers move again, buttons slipping free beneath your touch. His eyes fixate on the reveal, tongue dipping out the wet his bottom lip in anticipation.

By any measure the town would use, he is a bad man. By the sheriff’s ledger, or by the schoolmaster’s careful catechism about the sorts of men a young lady ought to avoid, the man in your chair is exactly the kind of ruin women are warned against.

You have never much cared for the schoolmaster’s catechism.

Instead your gaze drags over him in return, less innocent than the gasp you might have given. Over the breadth of his shoulders where his shirt pulls tight beneath his open coat. Over the narrowness of his waist and the careless sprawl of his body in your chair, as though he belongs there. Over the powerful thighs spread wide as he sat, revealing the hard, unmistakable bulge pressing against the front of his trousers. Indecent in its honesty and all the more shameless for the way he makes no attempt to hide it.

He watches you notice it, too. Watches your eyes catch and linger, watches your throat work around the breath you have not quite managed to take.

The last button slips free.

Your dress gives way, sliding from your shoulders and falling in a soft heap around your feet. It leaves you in your chemise, though the thin cotton does such a poor job of covering you that the word feels generous. Moonlight passes through it almost cleanly, turning the fabric pale and sheer over the shape of your body: the curve of your waist, the shadow between your thighs, the soft weight of your breasts barely hidden beneath it. 

Your nipples tighten into hard little points against the cloth, visible enough that you know he must see them. The knowledge makes your skin burn hotter than any shame ought to allow.

A deep, pleased groan escapes his chest.

The gun stays steady in his hand, but the other shifts against his thigh, fingers flexing into the worn fabric before his palm slides higher. He presses over himself through his trousers, just enough to ease some of the ache there. Just enough to make no secret of what the sight of you has done to him.

“Good girl,” he drawls, “prettiest damn thing I’ve seen in weeks.”

Your stomach pulls tight at the praise, and your thighs press together beneath the thin fall of your chemise before you can think better of giving him any satisfaction.

But the satisfaction arrives in the slight curve of his mouth before he rises from the chair. God, he’s tall, taller than he looks sitting down. And broader too.

If the dark had made a threat of him, the moonlight makes something worse. It loves him. There’s no other word for the way it lingers on him as he steps closer. 

It slips first over the dirty blond hair that has fallen loose beneath the brim of his hat. Then it catches on his face, and there’s no mercy for you in how gently it treats him. Long lashes cast low shadows under his eyes, and whatever blue hasn’t been swallowed by desire or the dark gleams too bright. His mouth is plusher than it ought to be on a man with a gun in his hand. Soft in a way the beard can’t rough out, though it tries.

It decorates his jaw, dragging a little danger back over a face that might have been too pretty without it.

The kind of face you know.

It’s nailed up outside the mercantile for decent folk to study and condemn. Some sheriff’s artist had done his best to make a villain of him in ink, darkening the eyes, sharpening the jaw, flattening the mouth into something easier to fear. Anything, perhaps, to keep a lady from looking too long and noticing what the moonlight gives away in your bedroom. 

Better, then, to look beneath his name at the hefty four figure sum printed there. And remember what kind of man earns a price like that.

A careful one, you would think.

A man worth that much should know better than to stand so close. And he should definitely know better than to let his defences drop. Most of all, he should know better than to let desire soften the hand with the gun in it. 

You move quickly. A sharp twist, a shift of your weight, and the revolver is in your hand instead of his. Then your palm hits the centre of his chest and you shove your weight against his chest.

He falls a little too easily back onto the bed with a rough laugh, his hat knocked loose and tumbling somewhere behind him. You follow before he can sit up, climbing over him with one knee pressed into the mattress on either side of his hips. The chemise rides high on your thighs as you settle your weight over him, and his hands instantly find a home there. 

You the press barrel up under his jaw with enough pressure to make him tilt his head back against the quilt, exposing the long line of his throat. All that arrogant ease goes still beneath you. Then his Adam's apple bobs beneath the rough gold of his beard, and the ridiculous blue of his eyes go wide.

He looks stunned. Worse, even, he looks delighted, as though some wicked part of him had been hoping all along that you would do exactly this.

You lean down until only inches remain between you, close enough to see the way his pupils dilate further, close enough to feel the warmth of his breath.

“You’re late, Rogers.”

He doesn’t reply straightaway. Instead, his eyes move over your face as though the rest of the room has fallen away, as though the weeks and the miles have all narrowed done to this - to you. Sat above him in the moonlight, furious and half-naked and close enough to touch. There’s something in his expression far too soft for the size of him, too tender for the outlaw laid out beneath you with a revolver pressed to his throat.

Something that looks almost like disbelief, as if he had spent the whole ride dreaming of you and even still, you looked sweeter than his dreams. Like he can’t quite believe the world has been kind enough to put you in front of him again, and now that he’s here, he means to drink down every inch of you before it can change its mind.

Then the tension eases out of him all at once.

His body goes loose beneath yours, the last of the game slipping from his shoulders as his hands slide higher up your thighs. They wrap around your ass, warm and possessive. The corner of his mouth curves, slow and devastatingly boyish beneath the ruggedness of his beard. Entirely too pleased for a man currently pinned beneath his own gun.

“Missed me?” he drawls, already sure of the answer

You press the gun harder into the soft skin beneath his jaw in answer. His fingers tighten on your thighs, as his hips shift beneath yours. It’s only a small, helpless grind, but it’s enough for you to feel the hard line of his cock twitch against the heat between your legs. The satisfaction of feeling his need for you is almost enough to make you forget you’re angry. 

Almost.

“You were supposed to be here three days ago,” you remind him, intending to be stern, but not convinced you achieved it.

“Train was delayed,” Steve replies, his blue eyes bright with the kind of trouble men get hanged for.

Your eyes narrow. He has the decency to look a little sheepish.

“Fine,” he concedes. “Train was delayed ‘cause I robbed it.”

His thumbs trace slow circles over your hipbones, familiar and possessive, like he has any right to soothe you after being the source of your concern. “You worried about me, sweetheart?”

You scoff, “I was debating whether, if the bounty hunters didn’t put a bullet in you, I ought to do it myself.”

It would’ve sounded better if your voice hadn’t come out breathier than you intended. If his body were not so solid and warm beneath you, his thighs hard muscle under your spread legs, his hands moving against your skin as though he had been starving for the feel of it.

“Gun’s not loaded,” His voice goes quieter there, the teasing easing at the edges. “Never is. You think I’d point a loaded gun at you?”

You hate him a little for that. For the empty gun. For the fact that some stubborn, tender part of him had crossed God knows how many miles with a bounty on his head and still remembered to make his filthy little performance safe. 

You hate him more for making you care enough to count the days. For making the nights stretch mean when he doesn’t come when he’s meant to. For making you understand, with an anger that burns too hot to be good, what sort of woman waits on a bad man.

“Don’t mean I’m not angry with you,” you whisper, though there’s no bite in your voice.

His gaze drops to your mouth.

“Yeah?” His hands slide back along your thighs, slow enough to make your stomach tighten, high enough to make the thin cotton of your chemise feel like no barrier at all. “Want to show me how angry?”

Your throat tightens. The revolver drops from your hand onto the quilt beside his head. Steve’s eyes lift to yours, and there he is beneath the outlaw. Tired, alive, and yours for the few hours he has no right to give you.

You kiss him hard, pouring all that fear and anger and need into his mouth.

Steve takes it with a groan, his head dropping back against the quilt again. One hand leaves your thigh to catch the back of your neck and drag you closer. This isn't a careful reunion. He bites your lip and the sound you make against his mouth ruins whatever patience he had left.

His tongue pushes possessively into your mouth, licking into you until your fingers twist in the front of his shirt just to have something to hold. When you rock down against him, grinding the damp heat of your pussy over the hard line of his cock through too much fabric, his answering sound catches high and helpless in his throat.

“I ought to punish you for makin’ me wait,” you breathe against his mouth, though the threat loses some of its dignity when your hips roll down again and your own breath breaks at the friction.

Steve’s hand tightens on your neck, keeping you close enough that his lips brush yours when he answers. “You ought to.”

Your hands shove at his coat, dragging it off his shoulders with more force than grace. Steve only helps enough to get free, too busy chasing your mouth again, greedy and open, his tongue sweeping against yours like he’s trying to taste every desperate sound he’s pulled from you. You tug at the buttons of his shirt next, fingers clumsy on the open collar before patience fails you entirely and you pull hard enough to strain the buttons.

You need skin. Need the warmth of him under your palms and the pulse of him beneath your mouth.

“I ought to send you back out the window you came in.”

His grin returns at that, mischief bright in his eyes despite the way his cock twitches under you. “You ought to get that fixed,” he rumbles, one hand sliding possessive over your waist. “Who knows what kind of bad men could get in?”

You punish him for the clever little comment with another roll of your hips. Steve’s fingers clamp around your waist and the sound he makes is almost a whine, mouth falling open against yours.

His chest rises hard beneath your hands, broad and golden in the moonlight, warm muscle shifting under your palms with every rough breath he takes. Scars litter his skin - some you know the stories of and some he has never given you. You touch them anyway, touch him anyway, needing the proof of him beneath your palms. Then your hips grind down again, and his stomach flexes, abs pulling tight as he lets out a rough groan.

“I ought to make you beg,” you whisper, mouth dragging down over his jaw, his beard rough against your lips as you kiss the place where his heartbeat pounds beneath his skin.

“Yes, ma’am,” Steve breathes, hands holding you tight over the thick, straining shape of him. “You ought to.”

Your chemise has ridden high over your thighs, and every drag of your body over his makes the ache in you sharper.

“Start with sorry,” you instruct.

Steve’s breath catches when you slow the roll of your hips, turning the grind into something almost cruel. His hands flex at your waist, big enough to move you if he wanted, strong enough that he could flip you easily. But instead he lies there beneath you, shirt open and cock hard under your weight, letting you make him wait. Letting you have this dizzying power over him and looking up at you like he would let you ruin him if you asked sweetly enough.

His throat works beneath your mouth.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” he murmurs.

You lift your head just enough to look at him, raising an expectant brow. His thumbs stroke once over your hips, softernow.

Steve’s eyes flick over your face, softening at whatever he finds there. “I’m sorry I worried you.”

Satisfied with his obedience, you lean down to kiss him again in reward. But Steve catches the breath between your mouths, his lips brushing yours when he adds, quieter, “I’m sorry I have to leave again at dawn.”

You still completely. Steve’s eyes find yours beneath his mussed hair, and there is and ache there so open it makes your chest hurt. Too honest for a man who’s worth more dead than most men will ever be alive. You can’t bare it for long. Your mouth finds his again, harder this time, before the feeling can name itself. That foolish hope of keeping a man who only ever comes to you with one foot already out the door.

“Then don’t waste my night, cowboy,” you breathe against his lips, rolling your hips down until his cock jerks beneath you. “You’ve got a lot to make up for.”

Steve answers with his hands. A sudden greed of them at your waist, then sliding further up beneath your chemise. His thumbs brush the underside of your breasts with just enough pressure to make you gasp into his mouth. Then he’s tugging the fabric higher, impatient now, and you lift your arms before he has to ask. 

He drags the cotton over your head, tossing it aside with the rest of your clothes until the night air has you bare above him.

His gaze rakes over you with such naked want that your stomach clenches. Over the tight peaks of your nipples, and lower still till to where you are spread over him in nothing but your drawers and stockings, already damp enough that the fabric clings between your thighs.

Steve’s hands tighten at your hips, his thumbs dragging once over the bare skin above your drawers. 

“You missed me somethin’ awful, didn’t you?” he teases, the corner of his mouth twitching, though his voice comes out rougher than the smile deserves.

You should scold him for that. You mean to, truly. But then his mouth closes over your breast, and the words break apart in your throat.

His beard scrapes over your skin as he sucks your nipple between his lips, tongue dragging over the tight peak before his teeth catch, sharp enough to make you dry out. Your hands fly to his hair, and you tug - meaner than you intend - but Steve groans against your tit, delighted.

“Love it when you’re mean,” he pants against your skin, mouth moving to the other breast, leaving the first wet with his spit in the moonlight.

His head tips beneath your grip, golden hair sliding through your fingers. He lets you guide him, all that size and strength beautiful under your hands. Because for all his sins, Steve is clever enough to know there’s power in obedience when it comes to the right woman.

His hands shove your drawers down over your hips, hurried and clumsy for the first time all night. They catch at your knees before you kick them away, leaving you naked above him, trembling with the kind of want no decent woman was ever supposed to admit by name.

Your fingers go to his trousers, but the buttons take too long. You curse them for it, and Steve gives a breathless little laugh that dies the second your hand slips inside and wraps around him. His cock springs free, slapping heavy against your thigh, already leaking at the tip. Precum smears against your skin as he twitches there, hard enough to make your mouth go dry.

It’s like you forget just how big he is until he’s in your hand again, fat and veined and heavy enough to make you wonder if he’ll still fit. But your cunt clenches desperately around nothing like it already knows the answer.

You sink your teeth into your lower lip and drag yourself over him, sliding the wet heat of your pussy along the length of his cock. He groans at the first slick pass, at the way your folds part around him, coating him in creamy white wetness until every rock of your hips makes an obscene, sticky sound between you.

The fat head catches against your clit with each pass, enough to make your hips stutter and your head tip back with a needy little whine. But Steve’s arms clamp over your hips, muscles flexing as he keeps you humping his cock. His precum mixes with the mess dripping from your needy hole, smearing over his shaft and down onto the golden muscle of his stomach under you.

“Fuck, ‘atta girl,” he rasps, head falling back against the quilt. “Get my cock nice and wet. Make yourself feel good, use me.”

So you grind down harder, slicking his cock with the mess he’s made of you, feeling his abs flex beneath your hands every time his tip nudges your tight entrance.

“Steve,” you whine, nails digging into this skin hard enough to leave marks. “I want it. I want your cock in me.”

“Yeah?” he breathes, and the little edge of a grin he tries for doesn’t last. Not when you reach between you, wrap your hand around the thick, wet length of him. “Then take it, ma’am. It’s yours.”

You push up on your knees, thighs trembling on either side of him, the thick muscle of Steve’s biceps bunching as he holds you steady. His cock pulses with anticipation in your grip, veins standing out beneath your palm as you line him up with your entrance. 

You’re both wet enough that it should be easy, your cream smeared down his shaft, his precum sticky on your fingers. But the first push of the mushroom tip stretches you open with a burn so sweet and full it feels like being split in half. Your mouth falls open the same moment his does, both of you moaning at the sensation after weeks without each other. 

Your pussy flutters around him, tight and greedy, sucking him in with little needy clenches that make his hands dig harder into your hips. 

“Missed this,” he groans, every muscle in him straining with the effort not to thrust up and take more than you give. “Missed your tight cunt so bad I damn near wore out my own fist thinkin’ about it.”

The filthy praise goes straight to your cunt, sending a fresh wave of arousal dripping around him as you sink lower. Your head tips back, his name spilling from your lips in broken little sounds as you take him inch by inch.

Steve’s eyes fix on where you’re joined, watching the slow, wet slide of himself disappearing inside you. His jaw clenches beneath his beard, every muscle in him pulled taut like the sight of your tight pussy struggling around him might make him spill inside you before you’ve even taken all of him. 

When your hips finally meet his, the fat tip of his cock kisses your cervix and it empties your head clean of any coherent though. You feel him twitch inside you as your walls give a wet squeeze around him, your cunt clinging tight like it needs a second to believe it’s taken all of him. 

“Fuck, Steve,” you whine, nails dragging over his chest. “You’re so big.”

You slowly try and find a rhythm, rolling your hips down until the tip of his cock hits deep enough to make your whole body jolt. The first few strokes are messy, your thighs trembling as you lift and sink. But Steve’s palms stay firm at your hips, helping you find the rhythm, holding you steady while you fuck yourself down onto him.

“But you’re takin’ it, sweet girl,” he groans, helping you down harder, pulling you into each stroke until your tits bounce and the room fills with the slick slap of your body meeting his. “Takin’ my cock so pretty. Always do.”

The bed complains beneath you, wood knocking softly against the wall, but it’s nothing compared to the wet, shameless sound of your pussy taking him over and over. 

“Steve—” Your voice breaks into a cry when he hits that deep spot again, “Need—fuck—”

Your pace turns desperate, hips rolling and lifting, chasing the thick slide of him inside you. Every time you sink down, your cunt grips him tighter, cream slicking the base of his cock in a white ring that smears against his skin and drips lower, making a filthy mess of his heavy balls.

Steve’s eye’s darken at the sight. “Pretty cunt’s makin’ such a mess on my cock, can feel her squeezin’ me. Feel you gettin’ close.”

You nod, pathetic and needy. “I need you,” you gasp, “Steve, please, I’m—”

His hand leaves your hip and slips between you, thumb finding your swollen clit. Your rhythm breaks, hips jerking as a needy moan catches in your throat. You try to keep riding him, but it turns sloppy fast, more grinding than bouncing now, your body chasing his hand while his cock stays buried deep inside you.

“That’s what you needed, sweetheart?” Steve rasps, watching you fall apart above him. “Then let me feel that tight pussy come on my cock.”

The pressure snaps tight in your belly, sharp enough to steal the air from you. One more stroke of his thumb, one more dirty grind down on his cock, and your orgasm crashes through you.

Your cunt strangles his cock, pulsing around him in tight, wet flutters. “Fuck,” he grunts out, hands grabbing for hips as his restraint finally snaps. “Fuck, ma’am, can’t—”

One second you’re on top of him, shaking through it, and the next his strength is under you and around you, flipping you onto your back like you weigh nothing at all. Steve settles between your thighs with a groan as he drives back into your soaked cunt in one deep thrust that punches the breath from your lungs.

“Steve!” You sob his name, oversensitive and helpless under him, but your legs hook around his waist anyway. Steve fucks into you harder, deeper, mouth catching yours in a messy kiss.

“There you go,” he grits out, one hand braced beside your head, the other gripping your thigh high against his hip. “‘Atta girl. Fuck, you feel too good, this cunt’s tryin’ to keep me.”

You can’t answer, not properly. Not with him pounding into you like this, all that leashed strength finally let loose, his cock dragging over your oversensitive walls while your legs shake around him. All you can do is cling to him and babble his name, too ruined to do anything but take it.

His thrusts turn rougher as his cock throbs inside you. At the last second, Steve pulls out with a broken groan, his hand wrapping around his slick cock as he spills hot over your stomach. Hot white ropes spill across your skin while his hips jerk into his fist, eyes fixed on the mess he’s making of you like it’s the prettiest thing he’s seen in weeks.

Steve’s strokes slow, his fist still wrapped around himself as the last of his release spills over your belly. His eyes drag from the mess on your skin to your face, and his expression softens instantly. 

“Good girl,” he rumbles, thumb smearing through the mess he’s made before he seems to remember himself. His mouth finds yours once, beards scratching softly over your skin as you make a tired little sound against his mouth. “Took me so good, sweets. So fuckin’ good for me.”

His lips move over your cheek, your jaw, the corner of your mouth, murmuring praise between each kiss, until the words sink under your skin. Then he forces himself away with a rough breath, tugging his shirt the rest of the way off before shoving his trousers down his hips. His boots hit the floor with a dull thud, followed by the rest of his clothes.

Naked, he crosses to the washstand with all that golden muscle and road-worn swagger, shoulders broad in the moonlight, hair mussed from your hands. He comes back with a damp cloth and cleans you himself. 

One big hand rests tenderly at your hip while the other wipes his come from your stomach. His gaze flicks up to yours once when you shiver, mouth curving beneath his beard, but he doesn’t tease. He only drags the cloth lower, gentle between your thighs, cleaning the sticky mess from your skin.

“So perfect,” he whispers, pressing a kiss just beneath your ribs when he’s done. “My best girl.”

Tossing the cloth aside, he climbs into bed beside you, greedy for your warmth. His arm hooks around you waist instantly, dragging you back against him like even the few inches between your bodies are more than he can spare. His chest presses warm against your back, his thigh slides between yours, and his mouth finds your shoulder before you’ve even settled.

For a while, neither of you says anything.

Steve keeps kissing you anyway, and his hand rests heavy over your stomach, fingers spread wide like he means to keep you against him forever. But his thumb moves gently. Back and forth. Back and forth. A quiet apology against your skin. You’re half asleep by the time your voice finds him again.

“Missed you Stevie,” you mumble, so low he might have missed it if he hadn’t been listening for every breath. “Was worried.”

Steve goes still behind you for a moment, then his thumb starts moving again, slow over the bare skin of your stomach like he can soothe the ache he put there. “I know,” he murmurs into your hair. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. Didn’t mean to leave you countin’ days.”

“What really happened?”

Steve exhales slowly behind you, mouth pressing to your shoulder before he answers, like he can feel the tightness gathering there already. “Train job got messy. Payroll car was heavier than we heard, and the guard had more friends than sense. Had to ride south after, lose a posse near the creekbed.” His hand tightens when your brow pinches in worry, though your eyes stay closed. “No, honey. Not like that. They got a shot off, but it only grazed me.”

Your eyes crack open. “Only?”

“I’m here, ain’t I?” he breathes, trying for that crooked little arrogance and not quite managing it. “Takes more than that to put me down.”

You make a sleepy, displeased sound and press back harder into him, grumbling something unkind into the pillow

Steve huffs a quiet laugh and presses his smile to your shoulder. “Mean little thing,” he whispers, but his arm tightens around you, and his lips linger. “I’m alright. Truly. Just took longer than I wanted.”

After that, the room settles around you. His hand stays where it is, warm and broad over your middle, and his breathing slows behind you.You’re almost asleep when the thought slips out of you, small and wounded.

“Don’t wake me when you leave.”

His chest stops moving against your back.

“I mean it,” you add, fingers finding his where they rest over your stomach. “I can’t watch you choose the door.”

That one hurts him. You feel his arm curl tighter around your waist like some selfish part of him wants to promise he won’t go at all. For a second, you think he might argue. But Steve Rogers has never been cruel enough to promise something so foolish.

“Alright,” he whispers, voice rough. “I’ll leave quiet.”

You nod once, already drifting, but your fingers tighten around his. Steve turns his hand beneath yours and holds on. “But I’m here now,” he murmurs, mouth brushing your skin. “Sleep, honey. I’ve got you.”

Morning doesn’t wake you kindly.

One moment you’re warm enough to feel the man behind you, and the next your hand is sliding across the mattress, reaching for a body that is no longer there. Still, you lie with your hand pressed to the place where Steve had been, as if there might still be enough of him left in the sheets to count for something.

The scrape of his beard still burns faintly along your shoulder. Your thighs ache when you shift. Proof everywhere, and still no man beside you.

The day doesn’t care. It waits for no woman, least of all one foolish enough to miss a man with four figures under his name. So you get up.There is no use in grieving a man who is not dead, and no sense in missing a man who warned you he would go.

You go about your morning routine and pull on your dress, fastening every button back into place until the schoolteacher returns piece by piece. Nothing to suggest what an outlaw had done to her in the dark. By the time your books are gathered, your hands have almost stopped shaking.

You check the stove before you leave. The door latch. The chair by the bed, sitting innocent in the morning light, as if it hadn’t held an outlaw the night before. Last, out of habit more than thought, you cross to the window over the washstand.

Your hand is already braced to force it closed when you freeze. The window is shut.

Not forced down, not wedged in crooked, not sitting stubborn in its swollen frame. Shut. Properly shut. The latch sits clean in its catch, holding firm beneath the careful press of your fingers.

It’s silly, really, to stand there with your throat gone tight over a fixed window. But it’s what almost does you in. Your bad man, making sure no worse men can get in.

Weeks pass with no word from your outlaw.

You tell yourself that’s likely for the best. Good news rarely travels fast where men like Steve Rogers are concerned; bad news, however, travels like wildfire. Still, each morning you find yourself scanning the newspaper columns with a sour twist in your stomach, looking for his name with morbid compulsion and praying not to find it. It’s the same grim, self-torturous routine every day, waiting for the one where some column out west reports Steve Rogers and the Winter Kid dead, captured, or hanged.

By night, the worry is worse. It follows you into bed and slips into your dreams, filling up the space Steve left empty. You sleep poorly when sleep comes at all, one ear tuned toward the road like a fool, listening for hoofbeats you’ve no good reason to expect, yet hope for all the same.

But it isn’t hoofbeats that pull you from slumber tonight.

It’s the violent thud of a fist hammering on your front door, hard enough to shake the frame and send you bolting upright with your heat already halfway up your throat.

“Hello?!” a man shouts through the door, breathless and frantic. “Miss! For God’s sake, tell me you’re in there!”

He swears under his breath, his voice comes again, but lower this time. “Goddammit, Rogers, if you gave me the wrong damn house—”

His fist hits the door again, harder now, rattling the latch in its frame.

“Open up! Please, open the door!” he yells. “Name’s Barnes—Bucky Barnes—I’ve got Rogers with me, and he’s shot real bad!”

Steve. Shot badly.

The words make your blood run cold, but fear is not enough to make you foolish. Graveyards are full of women who opened up because they believed bad men with good stories.

“Miss!” Barnes shouts, followed by a strained grunt and the scrape of boots dragging over your porch boards. “Please! I ain’t got time to stand here proper, he’s slippin’!”

Steve had spoken of a Bucky Barnes before, of course he had - Buck, usually, said with the kind of rough fondness he tried to hide and never quite managed - but knowing a name isn’t the same as knowing a voice through the door in the middle of the night.

You move for the shotgun. A lady might have felt shame keeping such a thing so close to her bed. A woman who lives alone knows better.

You cock it loud enough for the sound to carry through the door.

The knocking stops. When you speak, your voice is steadier than the rest of you feels. “If you’re lyin’, Mr. Barnes, you ought to know I’ve got a shotgun pointed at this door.”

“Lady, you can shoot me after if you’re still of a mind to,” he shouts back. “Right now I need you to open the damn door before Rogers bleeds out on your porch!”

Before you can answer, a low groan drags from the other side of the door, followed by Bucky swearing under his breath. Then you recognise Steve’s voice, frailer than you’ve ever heard it, trying to make your name out of what little strength he has left. It makes the shotgun feel useless in your hands.

You flip the latch up before you can think better of it, though you keep one hand on the shotgun as you pull the door open - barrel tipped down but ready. 

Bucky Barnes is braced on your porch, with Steve Rogers sagging against him.

His jaw is clenched from the strain of the weight, one shoulder shoved beneath Steve’s arm, with his own locked tight around Steve’s waist. Steve’s boots scrape uselessly over the boards when Bucky shifts him higher. It is clear, terribly clear, that Steve is only standing because Bucky has decided he will.

He’s bent nearly double, folded into the wound, hanging off Bucky with no strength of his own. His head dips heavy towards his chest, and he might almost look drunk if his skin were not so pale beneath the dirt, or if every breath didn’t seem to pull through him with effort. 

One hand rests low on his abdomen, fingers spread over a blooming red patch that has soaked through his shirt and keeps smearing beneath his palm. But the hand is slack. His arm trembles with the effort of keeping it over the wound, slipping through the blood rather than stopping it. Every breath drags through him shallow and uneven as though his body has begun bargaining over what it can afford.

“Steve!”

The shotgun clatters to the floor in an instant, forgotten in your panic. You reach for him instantly, palms cupping his face because you need to see his eyes. Need some proof behind the boneless sag of him. His skin is damp beneath your hands and it’s too cold for a man sweating so badly. When you lift his head, it comes slowly, with too much weight in it, his neck offering almost no help at all.

He looks worse than any newspaper ever managed to make him.

His mouth hangs open around each thin pull of breath, lips dry and parted beneath the rough gold of his beard. Dirt clings to the sweat along his hairline. There is a smear of blood near his lip, and his jaw has gone loose under your hands, all that stubborn Rogers grit worn down to something frighteningly human.

His eyes slide over you without settling, and that scares you more than the blood.

“Steve,” you repeat, thumb brushing his cheek. “Look at me. Please, look at me.”

Recognition gathers slowly, blue eyes dragging themselves back from somewhere far away. Then the worry comes with it, because even like this, Steve Rogers is sorry. His brows draw together as if he has been carrying one thought all the way to your porch and means to set it down before his body gives out beneath him.

“Told Buck not to wake you,” he slurs, stopping after it to drag in another shallow breath. “Told him you needed sleep.”

Bucky grunts a disbelieving laugh next to you. 

“Alright, Romeo, that’s real touching,” he snaps, shifting Steve’s weight higher with a grunt, “but you’re bleeding on the lady’s porch. Miss, I need him flat, I need light, and I need clean cloths. Now.”

The kitchen table is where Bucky wants him. There’s no time to argue about the indecency of it, or the blood, or how Bucky’s supposed to get him up there without injuring Steve further. 

Bucky pulls Steve through the door with one brutal shift of his weight, dragging him over the threshold whilst Steve’s boots scrape and stumble over your floor. The wound pulls with the movement, wrenching a raw, bitten-off sound deep from his chest.

“Clear it,” Bucky orders, jerking his chin toward the oak table. 

And you move only because your body takes over. A book hits the floor. Then the bowl you left out after supper, shattering somewhere near your feet. You don’t hear it over the rush of blood in your ears.

Bucky gets one hand under Steve’s arm and the other braced hard at his back. “Alright, Stevie,” he mutters, more to himself than to Steve. “Up we go.”

The lift tears a brutal cry out of Steve.

You’ve never heard that sound from him before. Pain has pulled groans from him, curses too, all stubbornly swallowed before anyone could make much of them. But Steve’s too far gone to care about that now.

“I know,” Bucky says at once, voice gone tight as he arranges Steve onto the table. “I know, I know. M’sorry, Stevie. I’m sorry.”

Steve is too far under to hear him properly. His head rolls against the wood, lashes fluttering, mouth open around another broken sound when Bucky drags his legs up after him. The table creaks beneath his weight. Blood smears across the pale grain in a dark, ugly sweep. Then Bucky plants one hand low on Steve’s abdomen and presses down hard.

Steve’s whole body jerks.

“Shit,” Bucky grunts out, leaning his weight into it when Steve tries to curl away from the pressure. “I know, pal. Ain’t got a choice.”

You just stand there, frozen.

That’s the shame in it. You stand there with your hands curled uselessly at your sides and your bare feet near broken crockery, staring at your outlaw bleeding out across your kitchen table. There is some part of you, in the back of your head, that understands the urgency of the scene, begging you to move. But the rest of you is somewhere else entirely, watching from a distance as the biggest, most capable man you have ever known lies pale as linen and fights for the next breath.

“Lady,” Bucky snaps. “I need you with me.”

But you don’t answer, eyes fixed on the slow rile and fall of Steve’s chest. The terrible wait between each shallow pull of air and the next. The horrible stillness after every breath, when your heart seems to stop with his and only starts again when his chest moves.

Bucky’s bloody hand slams against the table. “Miss!”

Your eyes jerk to him, though the rest of you stays frozen in place. He looks furious - terrified too, but masked beneath the practical need to keep moving. His jaw is set, his breathing hard, one hand still pressed down over Steve’s wound while the other points at you like he can drag sense back into you by force.

“You can stare at him dead or you can help me keep him livin’,” he says. “Pick quick.”

The words snap you back to reality. Your throat tightens, and you take a steadying breath, “What do you need?”

You scramble through your own house, trying to remember everything Bucky lists as fast as he names it. 

Lamps first, hands shaking hard enough that the chimney glass knocks against the metal. Then cloths from the press. The clean sheet from your bed, yanked free with one sharp pull and bundled under your arm. Thread from the sewing box. Needle. Whiskey from the cupboard that you only keep in for Steve. You put water on the stove and nearly drop the pot before you get it settled.

Behind you, Bucky cuts Steve’s shirt open. The sound of Steve groaning under the movement turns your stomach, but Bucky only mutters a low apology and keeps working, dragging ruined cloth away from ruined skin before reaching for the whiskey and one of the clean rags you brought him. He wipes around the wound with brisk, careful pressure, until the blood smears thinner and the shape of the damage begins to show.

You wish at once that he hadn’t. 

It looks smaller than it should for all the red it has made, one ugly hole low on Steve’s abdomen, close to his hip, and swollen angry at the edges. Blood keeps welling steadily no matter how quickly Bucky clears it. Steve’s stomach jumps beneath every touch, muscle pulling tight before giving out again.

“Bullet’s still in,” Bucky confirms, mouth grim. “Ain’t deep. That’s the good news. Bad news is you’re takin’ it out and sewin’ him up.”

“No!” You’re shaking your head before the word has even finished leaving your mouth. “You crazy, mister? I can’t do that!”

Steve makes a rough sound, half breath, half pain, and Bucky glances down long enough for something scared to flash over his face.

“Well, little lady, unless you reckon you can hold down two hundred pounds of half-delirious cowboy when he starts thrashin’ while I go fishin’ through his guts, then yes, you can.” Bucky’s hand clamps harder over Steve’s middle when Steve shifts with a broken sound, his shoulders lifting from the table before the strength goes out of him again. “Because if he comes off this table, he’ll tear himself up worse than he already is, and I can’t hold him and dig the bullet out at the same time.”

Your mouth opens, but nothing follows.

The lamp catches the sweat on Steve’s throat and the red glistening on Bucky’s hands. Too much of it. Too much on the table, too much soaked into Steve’s shirt, too much slipping between Bucky’s fingers no matter how hard he presses.

You nod once, firm, forcing the fear down into something more useful. Some of the harshness leaves Bucky’s face, not enough to soften him completely, but enough for you to see the man Steve must have trusted with all the worst parts of himself. 

“Good girl, I’ll talk you through it,” Bucky says, already reaching for the whiskey. “Steady hands is all I need from you”

So you give him steady hands. Or try to.

You wash them until the water in the basin clouds pink from blood. Bucky talks all the while, voice firm enough to keep you moving from one instruction to the next. He pours a splash of whiskey over the wound and Steve flinches from the table with a staggered cry, only for Bucky to catch him hard across the chest and shove him back down.

“I know, I’m sorry, pal,” Bucky murmurs, hands firm at Steve’s shoulders. “But you gotta try and stay still Stevie, please.”

The softness in his voice does nothing to gentle his grip. If anything, that’s what makes it worse: the way he bends close to Steve’s ear and coaxes him like a wounded horse whilst holding him down with enough strength to bruise. He gets the belt from his own waist and folds the leather between Steve’s teeth, fingers careful at his jaw.

“Bite down,” he instructs. “Before you break your damn teeth trying not to make noise.”

Steve’s lashes flutter, eyes too glassy to find either of you properly, but his teeth close around the leather. Bucky’s hand lingers one second at the side of Steve’s face before he reaches into his coat and pulls out a small roll of oilcloth, the kind of thing only carried by men on the wrong side of the law with no doctor waiting.

Inside is a short knife, and a pair of narrow steel forceps. He snatches those up first and presses them into your palm.

You take a steadying breath. It doesn’t help much

The first touch of metal to torn flesh makes Steve cry out around the belt, the sound muffled and awful. His hand slams against the table hard enough to rattle the bowl, but Bucky catches his wrist and pins it down without looking away from the wound. He murmurs something too low for you to catch.

Apology, prayer, curse; with men like them, there may not be much difference.

Under Bucky’s instruction, you search for the bullet, stopping every time Steve’s body bucks beneath Bucky’s hold. It feels endless, a handful of seconds stretched cruel by the sound of Steve’s breathing and the red shining over your fingers. Then the forceps catch on something hard, something that does not belong inside a man, and Bucky’s voice cuts through the room at once.

“That’s it. Easy now. Pull straight.”

The bullet comes free slick with blood and drops into the bowl with a dull little clink. For all the damage it has done, it looks far too small.

Bucky lets out a breath, but he doesn’t let go of Steve. “Good,” he praises, rough. “That’s real good, darlin’. Now stitch him.”

Threading the needle takes three tries and a muttered curse before the thread finally slips through. Cloth never prepared you for this - it stays put under your hands. Flesh has a give to it that turns your stomach, but you swallow it down and focus on the path of the needle, in one side and out the other, the thread slowly drawing the wound closed.

Bucky watches the first one go through, then the second, and whatever he sees must satisfy him enough to turn more of his attention back to Steve.

“Doin’ good, Stevie,” he murmurs. “Stay with me. There you go. Tough bastard like you don’t get to die in a schoolteacher’s kitchen.”

Steve makes a sound around the belt, weak now, worn down by pain and blood loss until even agony seems to cost too much effort. Then the needle catches wrong, just enough to make his body twitch beneath Bucky’s grip.

“Fuck—I’m sorry Steve,” you whisper before you can stop yourself, pulling the stitch through with a shaking hand. “I’m nearly done, promise.”

Bucky glances at you, then back down at him. “Hear that, Rogers? Lady’s apologisin’ to you while saving your sorry hide. You better live long enough to thank her proper.”

By the time you tie off the final stitch, your back aches, your hands are cramped, and your nightdress is ruined past saving. Bucky binds the wound tight with strips torn from your clean sheet, wrapping them firm while you hold Steve’s hand and try not to notice how loosely his fingers curl around yours now.

When Bucky finally steps away, the room seems to take its first full breath since two outlaws crashed into your evening. He wipes his hands on the edge of the sheet, eyes tracking over Steve, watching for any fresh red spilling through the bandage. He nods once to himself when none does.

“Alright,” Bucky says at last. “Now we keep him warm, and thank God he’s a stubborn son of a bitch.”

With the worst of the work done, the night settles into a long, sleepless vigil.

Steve is covered with every blanket you own, and neither of you can tear your eyes away from him long enough to do much beyond tend to him. His body has finally given itself over the exhaustion, sleeping so deeply you watch for his breaths to make sure he’s still alive. You clean what you can from him with a wet cloth - the dirt on his cheek, the sweat from his brow, the blood on his hands.

Bucky stays in the chair by Steve’s head.

He looks half-dead himself, shoulders bowed beneath exhaustion, eyes shadowed, jaw slackening each time sleep nearly takes him before he drags himself back from it. Every time Steve’s breathing changes, Bucky’s head lifts. Every time Steve shifts, Bucky’s hand is already there, soothing him back to stillness. Small, tender brushes of his hand through damp blond strands. He does it without thinking, with the ease of habit, and you get the feeling you’re seeing something usually kept from view.

It’s a strange thing to witness from a man with his name on a wanted poster. It’s a strange thing to witness from a man at all, really.

‘The Winter Kid’ the papers call him - always printed near Steve’s name like one shadow following another. He’s younger than the posters make him look, or maybe just more human. Handsome too, though that thought feels poorly timed and unwelcome. But true all the same.

Maybe he can feel you looking, because his eyes lift to yours a moment later. They’re unfairly blue against the tan of his skin and the dark fall of his hair,and for one strange second you feel caught in them the way you do in Steve’s.

“What?” he asks, tilting his head.

You shrug, a little embarrassed, but you hold his gaze. “You don’t look much like your picture.”

“Yeah, well.” The corner of his mouth twitches, and for the first time you feel that charm Steve warned you about, battered but not dead. “They charge extra for likeness.”

A small laugh slips out of you before you can stop it. Bucky hears it, and the corner of his mouth seems to twitch a fraction further up, pleased with himself. The air between you seems a little lighter after that, still ruled by Steve’s breathing, but less like two strangers keeping watch over a dying man and more like two people bound, against all better judgement, to the same stubborn fool. “I expected you shorter,” you admit, causing Bucky to raise a brow. “You know, from the name.”

Bucky groans like this is a wound all its own, head tipping back against the chair for half a second. “Christ. Not you too.”

“Well, it does give a certain impression,” you add, just to goad.

“It gives me a headache is what it gives me.” He drags a tired hand down his face, though the shape of a smile keeps threatening at his mouth. “You know how hard it is to be taken serious by women when half of ’em start grinnin’ soon as they hear Kid?”

“From what Steve tells me,” you say, glancing down at the man asleep between you, “you seem to manage just fine.”

His expression shifts slightly at that. Surprise first, then something warmer he tries to hide by leaning back in his chair and letting the charm crawl into the corner of his mouth. Worse now you know to look for it.

“Oh yeah?” he drawls, voice smoother than it should be after all his shouting. “And what exactly has Rogers told you about how I treat a lady, darlin’?”

You reach for the damp cloth beside you and wring it out over the basin, refusing to give him the satisfaction of looking flustered. “Careful, Mr. Barnes. I’ve still a mind to pick my shotgun back up.”

Bucky seems more pleased by your threat than scared, but lifts his hands in surrender all the same, “Of course, Miss. I’ll behave.”

After that, the conversation drifts into exchanging stories about Steve. It feels odd to speak of him like this whilst he lies pale beneath your blankets, yet necessary too, as if each foolish little detail sets another small weight on the side of the scale that says living.

Eventually, though, you can’t avoid the question anymore.

“What happened?”

Bucky’s smile disappears instantly, replaced by a grimace. “Rumlow.” 

Just the name is enough to fill the room with dread.

Brock Rumlow has a reputation that travels ahead of him. Bounty hunter, most folk call him. Brutal killer, if folk were feeling honest. But a good man by the town’s measure because he kills with the sheriff’s blessing. 

“He caught our trail two days west,” he explains. “We thought we’d shaken him after the river crossin’. But Steve said the tracks were too clean, and of course he just had to be right.”

His mouth twists, though there’s no humour in it now.

“Rumlow had men waitin’ by the ridge. More than we counted on. First shot took my horse out from under me, and Steve came back for me like the damned fool he is.” Bucky’s hand goes to Steve’s hair again before he seems to notice it, fingers combing once through the damp strands before he pulls away. “I told him to ride. He didn’t.”

Of course he didn’t.

That is what hurts most, perhaps. Not the recklessness - you made your peace with that, or tried to. No, it’s the unfortunate fact that no part of you can imagine him doing anything else because you know by now that Steve has never had much sense when someone he cares for is in danger. He might be a wanted man, but he’s good down to the marrow.

“He drew their fire long enough for me to get my rifle,” Bucky continues. “I managed to drop one man, maybe two. Then Rumlow put a bullet in him from the rocks. Steve stayed in the saddle after, somehow. Long enough to swear at me for fussin’.”

“That sounds like him,” you say quietly, reaching for Steve’s hand beneath the blankets. His fingers are cool when you fold them into yours and loose in a way that makes your throat tighten.

“Yeah.” Bucky huffs through his nose. “Stubborn bastard made it near six miles telling me it was only a graze. Then he went white as flour and damn near pitched off the horse.”

Your hand tightens around Steve’s before you can stop it. Bucky’s eyes catch it - for all his exhaustion, there is very little the man seems to miss.

“Kept off the road after that, muddied the trial in the creek too.” Bucky says. “Lost ’em for tonight, I reckon.”

“For tonight?”

His eyes lift to yours, and they give you the answer before his mouth does. “Rumlow’s still breathin’, ain’t he?”

That answers enough.

Bucky leans forward and peels the edge of the blanket back just far enough to check the bandage. With gentle fingers, he presses near your stitches, watching for fresh blood, and you find yourself holding your breath until he lets the blanket fall back into place.

“Stitches are holding,” he confirms. “You did good, darlin’, real good.”

Then his gaze drops to Steve, hand resting on his shoulder.

“Course,” he adds, murmuring almost to himself. “Rogers always did know how to pick good people.”

That makes you look back up at him, at the two of them together. And for a second you see it all playing out: Steve riding back into gunfire, Bucky dragging him through the dark, the two of them printed side by side on every wanted paper like the world has always known they come together.

“Yeah,” you reply softly, holding his gaze. “He does.”

The corner of Bucky’s mouth lifts without any of the charm from before. This smile is smaller, more honest. Grateful in a way neither of you can bear to acknowledge. 

The next couple of days pass in pieces for Steve.

Pain consumes most of it, sharp enough to drag him sleep sometimes. But he always wakes to company and the cool drag of a cloth over his face when fever leaves him damp and restless. Sometimes the hand at his brow is yours. Sometimes it’s Bucky’s calloused palms, not a soft but no less careful for it.

When he shifts too quickly, one of you is always there to press him back down. Your voice comes sweet near his ear, telling him to to rest and stop being difficult. Bucky has less patience about it, muttering, “Quit bein’ a jackass, Rogers,”but the softness in his voice gives him away.

By the second day, he starts catching more of the world around him. Mostly, he catches the two of you speaking over him like he’s some troublesome piece of work you have mutually agreed to keep alive. He hears you show Bucky how to change the sheets without jostling him, and Bucky grumbling that you’re a bossy little thing. Your quiet snicker follows, easy enough by then to tell Steve you’ve already learnt not to be scared of Bucky’s bark. And it settles him enough to fall back into another slumber.

Yet, when Steve wakes properly, the house is quiet. His mind goes straight trouble - you and Bucky hurt, or worse, taken.Then he sees the fresh cloth waiting on the washstand, the cup of water set near the bed, the plate of food left within reach. Someone has even pulled the blanket back from the edge of his bandage so it won’t catch when he moves.

Still, his gaze flicks back to the empty chair, a little more wounded at being left alone than he’d admit. 

But then he hears voices drift in from the window. Yours first, bright enough to pull his eyes open properly. Bucky answers beneath it, rougher and far too pleased with himself, and Steve rolls his eyes fondly at the ceiling. He knows Bucky in that mood, and exactly the kind of trouble he thinks he’s charming his way out of.

The sound of you both laughing together is too sweet to resist, and it pulls at Steve before he can think better of it. So he presses one hand to his side, grits his teeth and pushes himself upright with a low grunt. 

By the time he makes it to the doorway, he’s sweating through his shirt, and lightheaded enough that he has to lean against the frame for support. But when his vision focuses on the two of you, the pain pulsing from his side seems to subside. 

Bucky’s leaning against the fence with his sleeves rolled to his elbows - an unabashed display of his toned forearms if Steve’s ever seen one - hat tipped back and a loose board braced beneath his boot. He must have been fixing it before he got distracted. Or before you distracted him. Either way, he’s smiling at you like he knows just how handsome he is, which, Steve thinks fondly, he does.

“You call that fixed?” you ask, eyeing the board.

“It’s standin’, ain’t it?”

“It was standin’ before.”

“Well, now it’s standin’ better.”

Your mouth opens in disbelief, and Bucky’s grin widens like he has been waiting all morning to earn that exact look from you. He shifts the hammer in his hand, letting it hang loose at his side. “You this particular with all the men who do chores for you?”

“Only the ones who do half a job and then stand there lookin’ pleased with themselves.” You glance towards the house, mouth curving before you can help it. “Steve never gives me cause to complain.”

Bucky presses a hand to his chest, wounded clean through. “Darlin’, I am beginnin’ to think you don’t appreciate the quality of my help.”

Steve watches your face as you say it, the way your smile tugs despite your best efforts to keep stern. You’re standing closer than you need to. Close enough to swat his arm when he mutters something about schoolteachers being as scary as he remembers. Bucky catches your wrist before your hand drops, letting his thumb skim once across the inside of it before he lets it go.

Too friendly, some part of Steve thinks. He should mind that. He knows himself well enough to expect the old ugly twist, the hard little claim in his chest that has no manners and less patience. His girl. His Buck.

“You remember I have a shotgun, right? Any more excuses from you and I’ll get it back out and see if it motivates you proper,” you warn, though there is too much warmth in it to do much harm.

Bucky looks far too pleased by that. “How could I forget?” He dips his head, absolutely unrepentant. “Pretty thing like you pointin’ a gun at me ain’t a picture a man forgets easy.”

He really should mind that. 

Only the longer he watches, the more it just seems… right. That’s the simple answer. The more complicated one is that there’s a want in him he hasn’t allowed himself to acknowledge until now. 

Then Bucky says something softer, and whatever it is makes your expression change. The teasing slips. You step forward and wrap your arms around him, gentle at first, then tighter when Bucky folds around you in return. His hand spreads over your back, yours presses between his shoulders, and he rests his chin on your head.

Something in Steve’s stomach twists hot, and it’s not the bullet wound. 

Oh.

Well.

That explains a few things.

When you pull back, your fingers drag lightly down Bucky’s sleeve before falling away. And then your eyes catch Steve in the doorway.

The smile drops straight off your face.

“Steve!” you chide. “Good lord, you shouldn’t be standin’ up yet!”

Bucky turns fast, all charm gone in an instant. “You stupid son of a—”

“Why aren’t you in bed?” you demand, already crossing the yard towards him. “You’re meant to be resting. You’ll tear the stitches, you’ll—”

“What’re you doin’?” Steve asks.

His voice is rough from sleep and disuse, but it cuts through your panic all the same. You stop a few feet short of him, caught between scolding him like one of your schoolchildren and reaching for him. Bucky has followed you, but that damn mouth of his curves back into his signature smirk.

“Stealin’ your woman?” he replies.

Steve huffs a laugh at that, breath catching a little in his chest from the pull of it. He shakes his head, looking between the two of you with something warm and wry beneath the exhaustion.

“Take her,” he shrugs, turning back towards the house, pretending with little success that every step doesn’t pull at his side.

You both go quiet behind him. Steve pauses at the doorway just long enough to glance back, tired eyes moving between the two of you.

“What?” he says, mouth twitching as he makes his slow way back to bed. “Take her.”

Bucky watches him go, grin crooked and eyes a little too soft. “Well, you’re a romantic bastard, I’ll give you that.”

You climb into bed that night tentatively, careful to keep your distance from Steve so you can’t accidentally hurt him.

He watches you fuss with tired amusement, flat on his back beneath the blankets. He’s been patient all day because he’s had no choice in the matter, but now, with you so close, what little patience he has left wears thin.

His arm reaches for you beneath the quilt. “C’mere.”

“But you need to be careful—”

He tugs you closer before you can finish, stubborn as always, and though the movement pulls a faint wince from him, it also draws a low, pleased rumble from his chest when you end up pressed along his side.

“Steve,” you hiss, braced on one elbow, already trying to take some of your weight off him. “You’re going’ to hurt yourself.”

“Worth it,” he murmurs.

You open your mouth to argue, but his lips find your shoulder first. He kisses over your skin lazily, as if he has all the time in the world and no bounty hunter breathing down the road. Then moves to side of your throat, where his beard scrapes softly enough to make your breath catch. Any protest thins in your mouth and dies there, useless, and the ease with which you melt for him makes Steve smile against your skin.

“Missed you,” he hums, pleased with himself.

The words catch somewhere tender, and before you can stop it, the fear you’ve been holding back for days slips free. “I thought you were going’ to die.”

Steve’s mouth stills against your skin. For a moment, he says nothing, then his jaw sets with all the stubborn bravado of a man determined to make the thing smaller than it was. “Don’t make a big deal out of it.”

You stare at him, eyes burning, and Steve’s bravado doesn’t survive it. His expression softens before he pulls you closer despite the faint wince it costs him, burying his face against your neck.

“No,” he murmurs, voice rough now. “Make a big deal out of it.”

Your fingers tighten in his shirt. Steve kisses your temple and lets you hold him as hard as you need to, though you can feel the care he takes with every breath. 

“You’re a fool,” you grumble against his chest.

“I know,” he agrees easily.

“And stubborn.”

“I know that too,” he adds, the hint of a smile returning to his voice.

You lift your head enough to glare at him through the last sting behind your eyes. “Don’t sound so smug.”

“Can’t help it.” His hand slides from your waist, broad palm warm through the thin cotton of your nightdress. “You get awful sweet when you forget to be cross with me, ma’am.”

You should scold him. You mean to. Instead your head tips, giving him more room, and Steve’s breath warms where your pulse has already started tripping under his mouth. Then his fingers drift lower, gathering your nightdress up slowly so his hand can hand slip between your thighs, and what comes out of you isn’t an answer at all. It’s too soft, too needy, your hips shifting before your pride can stop them.

Steve only hums, like that tells him everything he needs to know.

“Poor thing,” he murmurs. “You’re soaked already.”

You make a small sound of protest, breath catching as your hips shift against his palm. “You should be resting.”

“I am resting,” he counters. “You’re the one making all that noise.”

Heat rushes straight through you. “Steve.”

He grins, because he knows what that tone means. His fingers drag through your pussy, spreading the slick of you over your skin until you can’t hold back the needy little moan that escapes. “Buck been winding you up all day, huh? Flashing those pretty eyes at you, running that mouth, standing too close every chance he got.”

You bite your lip hard, but Steve knows your body too well by now. The little tremor that goes through you when he presses two fingers to your entrance, and the way your knees loosen when he rubs his thumb over your clit.

“Mm. Saw the way you looked at him.” His thumb presses a little firmer, drawing another helpless sound from you as his voice drops rougher by your ear. “Saw the way he looked at you too. Like he was wondering how sweet you’d sound if somebody got a hand under your skirt.”

You turn your face into his shoulder, scandalised and burning, but the heat pooling low in you stomach tells a different story. “You can’t say things like that.”

“Seems I just did.”

His fingers push into you then, thick enough to make you clutch at his shirt, his name leaving you in a soft, broken sound. Steve goes still for a breath, jaw tightening as your pussy clenches around him, warm and slick and greedy enough to make him curse the wound in his side for keeping his cock out of you.

“Atta girl,” he murmurs, voice rough at your ear. “Open up for me, sweetheart.”

Your thighs part around his hand, your body taking him with a helpless little roll of your hips. His cock twitches heavy against your leg, and the moan that slips out of you is louder than you mean it to be, needy enough to make heat rush to your face.

“That’s my girl,” Steve coos. “Been so good taking care of me, haven’t you? Let me take care of you now.”

“Wait—fuck—Stevie, he’ll hear us.” you protest weakly, eyes flicking toward the door, where Bucky is sleeping on the couch on the other side.

Steve’s fingers slow, but they don’t stop. If anything, his touch turns crueller, pumping in and out of your pussy with an unhurried drag as his thumb circles your clit.

“Good,” he says at last.

Your eyes widen.

Steve curls his fingers inside you, pressing just right, and your whole body jerks against him. “Let him.”

Your pussy tightens around him before you can pretend to be scandalised. Steve feels it and smiles, filthy and pleased, as another moan slips out of you. You try to swallow it down, but his thumb keeps stroking your clit and his fingers keep fucking you open, slow enough to make every wet sound feel obscene in the quiet room.

“S’okay, honey,” he encourages, kissing beneath your ear. “I don’t mind. You make those pretty noises for me and let Buck hear what he’s missin’ out on.”

“Steve,” you whimper into his neck, overwhelmed by the heat of it, by the way he says Buck’s name with no jealousy at all. Like it turns him on too. Like he knows exactly what he is doing to you.

His mouth brushes your jaw. “Poor bastard probably spent all afternoon thinkin’ about what you’d sound like if he got his hands on you,” he rumbles, fingers driving deeper until your breath catches sharp. “Now he’s out there listenin’ to me do it.”

Your fingers curl in the front of his shirt, hips moving against his hand now, chasing more. Steve makes a rough sound like the sight of you fucking yourself on his fingers might kill him faster than any bounty hunter ever could.

Then your hand slides lower before you can think better of it, finding the hard line of his cock through his drawers. He curses under his breath, hips twitching once into your palm before pain catches at him and makes his jaw clench.

You pull back instantly. “Steve—”

“Don’t.” His hand tightens on your thigh, stubborn even now, even with sweat at his temple and breath caught in his chest. “I’m fine, pretty girl, promise. Just need your hand on my cock. Need my girl to make it better.”

Your answering moan is too wanton to stifle, and out on the couch, Bucky hears it. 

He’s been awake for a while, one arm thrown over his eyes, every sore port of him arguing with the hard springs beneath the couch cushion. At first, he told himself he was just listening for Steve - that’s reasonable enough. A man has a right to keep an ear out for his best friend when said friend has nearly bled dry on a kitchen table. And if said friend is in bed with his pretty little woman, well, that’s hardly his fault, is it?

He knows should roll over and try to sleep. Or do literally anything other than listen to the needy catch in your breath when Steve’s fingers must find something good. Heat pulls through him before he can talk sense into himself. It’s been crawling under his skin all day. And now Steve’s voice is torturing him in the dark, coaxing the prettiest noises out of you like he means for Bucky to hear everyone.

His hand slides down over the hard ache in his trousers before he can pretend better of himself. His hips jerk into his palm at the first firm press. 

Bucky shuts his eyes as his lips part around a groan of relief. 

He should feel worse about it, probably. A gentleman might. Then again, he’s never made much of a claim to being one, and there’s nothing gentlemanly about Steve is talking to you through the door. Low and rough, sweet in all the wrong places, telling you how good you are for him whilst you make those soft ruined sounds that go straight to Bucky’s cock.

His fingers work the buttons of his trousers open, and he’s so wound up that the first touch to his throbbing length makes his hips jerk up. He’s already hard enough to hurt, thick and hot in his grip, precum slicking the head as he strokes once from base to tip. He has to force himself slower so he doesn’t spill too fast, listening to the shift of the bed in the next room and the wet sound of Steve’s fingers fucking you.

“Don’t hide from me,” Steve rumbles, voice carrying just enough. “Want him to hear how pretty you get when you come”

The needy moan you cry out in response, makes Bucky’s hand tighten and his eyes squeeze shut. He can picture it all wall for a man who hasn’t a right to see any of it. Your thighs spread under Steve’s hand, nightdress pushed up, tucking your face into Steve’s neck as you try and fail to keep quit. Steve, wounded and recovering, still generous enough to make sure Bucky knows what he’s missing. 

“Stevie,” you gasp, and Bucky’s cock jerks in his fist.

He drags his thumb over the swollen head with enough pressure to make his stomach pull tight. The couch springs creak beneath him when his hips jump into his hand, and he freezes momentarily, listening. But neither of you stop. If anything, Steve laughs, low and filthy, like he heard the sound and knows eaxctly what it means. 

“That’s it, sweetheart,” Steve groans. “Bet Buck’s got his hand around his cock right now, listenin’ to you. Bet he can’t help himself.”

Bucky presses his forearm over his mouth, a helpless grin pulling at him even as pleasure burns through his gut. Bastard. Mean, beautiful bastard. He strokes himself harder, giving up on pacing himself, fist slick and tight around his cock as your moans slip through the thin bedroom door and wrap around every filthy picture Steve puts in his head.

“Wish he could see you right now,” Steve goads, and Bucky nearly spills right there. “So wet for me. Sweet little pussy takin’ my fingers so good. He’d lose his fuckin’ mind.”

His hips buck desperately into his first, breath coming harsh through his nose as Steve keeps talking like he knows every dirty place Bucky’s mind has gone and means to walk you through all of them. Your moans pitcher higher, thinner, more desperate.

“Please Stevie—so close,” you whine, and Bucky doesn’t think he’s ever heard anything more beautiful. 

“I’ve got you, sweet girl,” Steve coos. “Come for me. Let him hear.”

The sound you make as you fall apart under Steve’s hand is obscene. You pleasure spills out into the dark as Steve praises you in that honey-deep register like he’s got his fingers buried in the best thing he’s ever touched. Bucky strokes himself harder, cock slick in his fist, teeth digging into his wrist to keep his own noise down.

Then Steve groans low around a curse, and God, Bucky knows that sound. Learnt on cold nights under open sky when bedrolls were laid a polite distance apart and neither of them ever spoke of what they heard in the dark.

But hearing it now, with you, is enough to finish off what your moans started.

His hand works faster, rougher, chasing it until he spills over his own knuckles. He strokes himself through it, hips jerking up into his fist, hot cum slicking his fingers while the last of Steve’s filthy praise drifts through the door.

Head falling back against the couch, he throws his free hand over his eyes again as if that might make a decent man of him after the fact. But the other is still loose around his sensitive, softening cock. From the bedroom, Steve mutters something too low for him too catch, but you laugh in response, breathless.

Bucky smiles up at the ceiling, completely and utterly fucked. Both of you tucked under his skin, deep as a wound and twice as troublesome. 

“Romantic bastard,” he scoffs into the dark.

 You wake reaching for Steve, hands sliding over the sheets in search of the warmth that’s usually gone by the time daylight finds you. For one awful, familiar second, your heat braces for emptiness, and then your fingers meet his chest. Still there.

The joy it brings is so small and foolish it almost hurts. Steve’s still beside you, warm beneath your palm, alive beneath your hand, his breath moving slow and steady. You don’t mean to smile as hard as you do for something that won’t last, but you feel it happen anyway. 

Steve’s eyes crack open, tired blue finding you through the grey morning light. His mouth curves faintly. 

“Mornin’,” he rasps. 

He lifts a hand with more effort than he lets show and brushes his knuckles along your cheek before drawing you close enough to kiss your forehead. It is gentle. Domestic, almost, in a way that feels absurd given the blood dried somewhere in your kitchen and the wanted posters nailed up in town.

But then Steve starts trying to get up. He looks pale enough that you threaten him twice before he gets both feet on the floor. 

“You are pale enough to haunt this house, Steve Rogers. Sit still.”

His brows lift, innocent as sin. “Jus’ thinkin’ about breakfast is all, ma’am, swear.”

He takes your continued scolding with a faint curve to his mouth, one hand shielding the wound slightly, as you get up to help him dress. He even lets you fuss over him, and you breathe a sigh of relief when you see no red blooming on his bandages. 

By the time you get him into the kitchen, his jaw his set hard enough to make you narrow your eyes. Steve takes your silent warning and lowers himself into the chair before bringing your hand to his mouth and kissing the inside of it. Just a brief, warm brush of his lips, eyes lifting to yours in quiet apology for every minute he’s made your heart suffer these last few days.

The door opens before you can say anything soft enough to embarrass you both. Bucky steps inside with a sack under one arm; he’s been gone since first light, having ridden into town for coffee, cartridges, and whatever else two outlaws and one increasingly compromised schoolteacher might need. You’re expecting some crooked remark as he kicks the door shut behind him. Maybe something about Steve looking less like a corpse, or you running the kitchen like a jailhouse.

Instead, his face is grim.

Steve clocks it immediately, and his shoulders straighten. Pain forgotten under the old readiness that lives dormant in him until needed. “What?”

Bucky sets the sack on the table. “You feel well enough to ride?”

Steve frowns. “If I have to.”

“Good.” Bucky’s eyes flick over you, brows tightening, then back to Steve. “Rumlow’s in town, asking questions at the mercantile. Offered coin for anyone who knew anythin’ about Steve Rogers and The Winter Kid.”

Steve face flattens, jaw setting into that hardened mask he uses to cover whatever else he’s feeling. Nodding once, he pushes up from the chair.

“Steve—” you start at once.

He bends and kisses you before you can finish, once hand gentle at the side of your face. It tastes too close to a goodbye kiss for your heart to bare, and the panic rises in your throat.

“We’ll draw him off, honey,” he murmurs, clearly misinterpreting your worry. “He won’t know you had anything to do with us.”

Then he turns to Bucky. “Get the horses ready. We’ll cut south - maybe this time we stop talking about Mexico and actually head there.”

Mexico?

You look from Steve to Bucky, at the silent communication already passing between them, and the speed with which they become men leaving. Men packing their lives into saddlebags. Men deciding what they can carry and what must be left, including, apparently, you. 

“Take me with you.”

Both of them immediately stop.

Steve turns firs,t protest already written across his face. “Sweetheart, you can’t seriously —”

Bucky interrupts, sharper. “Absolutely not.”

“I wasn’t askin’,” you counter firmly, mustering up the same voice you use in the schoolhouse when a child thinks they might try their luck.

Steve’s brows pull together. “You don’t know what you’re suggestin’.”

“I do.”

“You don’t.” Bucky cuts in, which only makes you angrier. “This life ain’t—”

“Ain’t what?” you return. “For a lady?”

That closes his mouth. For once, Bucky Barnes has no clever answer ready, and Steve looks no better. The two of them stand there, each searching for the combination of words least likely to upset you further and finding none fast enough.

“After last night, I think any claim I had to bein’ a lady has been thoroughly mishandled.”

A flush climbs through the rough gold of Steve’s beard at once, and he drops his eyes to the table as if the wood grain has become a matter of deep interest. Bucky looks toward the window with equal dignity, which is to say very little, given what he had so clearly heard through your bedroom door. But you feel a little wild with it now. Freed by the strange relief of having already stepped over the edge in your own mind.

“I’m a schoolteacher in a town that’s been dyin’ for years,” you continue. “Folk still smile at me like I’m still respectable, but every year I stay unmarried, they look a little closer for the rot. And every night I come back to this house alone, and wait to hear news of Steve’s death.”

Steve’s face falls, and he looks at you with such earnest guilt that you have to look away or you’ll lose the nerve to finish. Your eyes sting badly enough that you have to blink hard and focus on staring at the floorboards.

“I’m no fool,” you say. “I know what I’m sayin’. Long days. Cold nights. Men with guns behind us. I know it won’t be some grand adventure out of a penny paper.” You lift your head again. “But I want a life I choose. I want more than waitin’ in this house for grief to come find me. And I want to be with you.”

Bucky looks at Steve then, and Steve returns it. They do that thing again where a whole conversation seems to pass without either of them opening their mouth, and you can already tell this is a feature of them that will get on your nerves. Still, you stand there and wait. You can see them weighing the right choice. You can also see, with a painful twist of hope, that neither of them likes the thought of leaving you behind.

Steve exhales through his nose. “You’d have to listen.”

“To both of us,” Bucky adds. “When it counts. If Steve says run, you run. If I say stay put, you don’t move a muscle.”

“You’ll ride until you ache,” Steve says, eyes searching your face for the first sign of regret. “Sleep under open sky. Eat beans out of a tin when there’s nothing else. Go without a proper bed more often than you’ll have one.”

Bucky leans his hip against the table, arms folding, his expression hard despite the tired edge of him. “And you’ll keep that shotgun close. Learn a pistol too, whether you like it or not. Pretty face won’t do much good if Rumlow catches up.”

“I’ll do it,” you agree, looking at Steve first, then Bucky, making yourself hold both their gazes long enough for them to see there’s fear in you, plenty of it. Just none useful enough to change your mind. “I’ll do it all, I promise.”

They seem satisfied enough to move again, almost. Steve’s hand twitches toward the supplies, Bucky’s eyes flick to the door. But you stop them before the moment can run away from you.

“The only thing I won’t do,” you continue, quieter, “is watch either of you die. I’ll skip that scene, if you don’t mind.”

Steve’s hand closes around yours before you can busy yourself with anything else, or turn away and pretend the words weren’t all too honest.

“Once we go,” his eyes hold steady on yours, “we go.”

There’s warning in it, but there’s promise too. You squeeze his hand in confirmation. 

“Then let’s go.”

You leave before the town has finished waking, with no grand farewell to your little house. Just five minutes to pack the essentials, and everything else left behind for the town to make stories about two bad men and the lady they corrupted.

For the first couple weeks, you ride with Bucky. At first, Steve enjoys watching the two of you grow closer. But then after a few days pass without your arms around his waist and the man starts acting abandoned. Nothing dramatic, of course. Steve Rogers is far too dignified for that. He only gets quieter, pouts into his coffee, and looks at you from under those ridiculous lashes with his pretty blue eyes, utterly wounded.

But there’s only so much sympathy you can give him when every jolt of his horse leaves his face tight and grey - having you pressed against his side would pull at the wound no matter how carefully you held him, so you sit behind Bucky instead. Your arms wrap around his middle, sometimes resting your cheek between his shoulder blades when the road stretches long.

He’s always warm - despite the nickname - and complains when your cold hands slip under his coat in the mornings, but never makes you move them.

It’s on one such morning that the question slips out before it’s even fully formed in your head. Absent in its curiosity. 

“Bucky?”

He turns his head back slightly, catching your face in the corner of his eye. “Hmm?”

Your chin is hooked over his shoulder, the brim of his hat shading your eyes from the sun. Steve is riding a bit ahead, far enough to pretend he’s not listening and close enough you know he is.

“Do you ever wonder, if I’d met you first, that we’d be the ones the get involved?”

Bucky makes a thoughtful sound, as though this is a matter requiring serious study. “But we are involved, sugar.”

You lift your head. “Are we?”

“You’re ridin’ my horse with me.” His hand covers yours where it rests against his stomach, thumb brushing once over your knuckles. “In some countries, that’s the same as being married.”

Steve glances back over his shoulder. “Name one.”

“Plenty, Stevie,” Bucky shoots back without missing a beat. “Just ‘cause you ain’t a romantic don’t mean it ain’t true.”

“That mean you don’t know any?”

“Means I’m a man of mystery, Rogers. Let me have that.”

You laugh into Bucky’s shoulder, and Steve turns forward again, shaking his head. Even from behind, you can see the curve at the corner of his mouth.

That becomes one of the biggest pleasures of the road, the two of them bickering like an old married couple with loaded guns and a shared talent for pretending they are the sensible one. Steve corrects Bucky’s directions. Bucky mocks Steve’s caution. Steve tells him caution is the reason he’s still alive, and Bucky retorts, “Barely,” with a pointed look at the bandage under his shirt. 

You learn to sit between it and smile into the back of Bucky’s coat, warm with the strange comfort of being folded into something that clearly existed long before you and somehow has made room for you anyway.

The weeks begin to fold into one another after that, measured less by days than by how far Steve can ride before pain makes him stubbornly quiet. He never says when it’s too much - of course he doesn’t. But you both learn the signs, so that when that happens, you or Bucky find an excuse to stop. Steve accepts each excuse with the grateful dignity of a man who knows precisely what you’re doing and lacks the strength to protest.

Some nights you find a town small enough to risk, and the three of you take one room under a false name while Steve lies stiff on the bed and Bucky sleeps in the chair with a gun across his lap. Other nights, there is only open country and the fire between you, Bucky’s coat under your head, Steve’s hand tucked around your waist, pleased now he can finally pull you close.

You learn quickly; you have to. 

How to ride until your thighs ache and keep your complaints mostly to yourself. How to drink bad coffee without making a face. How to keep your hair pinned under a hat when passing through towns where a woman travelling with two men draws more attention than a pair of wanted faces.

Bucky teaches you to shoot a pistol at a row of bottles outside an abandoned line shack, and Steve stands behind you, correcting your grip until Bucky accuses him of distracting you. 

Rumlow stays behind you like bad weather you can’t outride, always somewhere on the edge of the horizon. Some days there’s no sign of him at all. Other days Bucky comes back from a supply run with his jaw tight, or Steve sees something in the dirt that makes both men go quiet. Neither of them likes fear on your face, so you learn how to hide that, too.

By the time Steve’s stitches come out, the three of you have already become a kind of routine.

Steve reads the land ahead. Bucky watches what follows. You keep track of the food, the clean cloth, and all the small human things the two of them would forget in favour of keeping moving. You sleep between them when the nights turn cold, Bucky pressed at your back and Steve careful against your front, one arm laid over your waist like even in sleep he means to keep you safe. Nobody ever says much about it in the morning.

But the trouble with Mexico is that it keeps costing money. By the third week, the coins in Bucky’s purse have started to sound lonely, and Steve has taken to rationing his own portions to make sure you have enough. You always protest that he needs it more, but it falls on deaf ears.

“We need money,” Bucky says one evening, poking at the fire with a stick.

Steve doesn’t look up from the map. “I know.”

“We need quite a bit of money.”

“I know.”

You look between them. “Why do I get the feelin’ neither of you is about to suggest honest work?”

Bucky grins. Steve sighs.

A plan is soon in place, and you quickly realise you aren’t just being given soft work. They aren’t just tucking you safely away and asking you to wait pretty by the horses. No, you’re the distraction. Steve watches your face intently whilst they explain your part, searching for fear, and Bucky watches your hands to see if they shake. They do, a little. You tell him they shake less when people stop staring at them.

“Mean little thing when you’re nervous,” Bucky murmurs.

“You’d know better than to test me, then,” you snap back, much to his delight.

And that’s how you find yourself in your best dress two mornings later, walking into a town that has never heard your name and smiling sweetly at the bank clerk while Steve and Bucky do what Steve Rogers and The Winter Kid apparently do very well.

Soon, there’s a saddle under your hips, stolen money in Steve’s saddle bag and Bucky laughing as the town bell starts clanging behind you. Steve rides quietly beside you, one hand low on his reins, hat pulled low against the flare. He looks more pensive than you’d expect for a man who just planned and executed a successful robbery. 

“You know,” he considers, tilting his head. “When I was a kid, I always figured on bein’ a hero when I grew up.”

“Too late now,” Bucky shoots back instantly.

Steve turns in the saddle, mouth pulled into an exaggerated pout that almost looks genuinely hurt by the insinuation. “You didn’t have to say that—What’d you have to say that for?”

“Because we just robbed a bank and you’re gettin’ wistful about virtue. Felt like someone ought to keep you on track.”

You laugh before you can stop yourself, and Steve looks betrayed for all of half a second before his own mouth gives him away.

“I could still be heroic,” he argues.

“Of course, Stevie,” you soothe, reaching over to squeeze his arm. “And if heroism ever starts includin’ bank robbery, you’ll be the first man I nominate.”

Steve shakes his head, but there’s warmth in it. There’s warmth amongst all three of you now. The money will carry you further south. Rumlow, for the moment, is behind you. And for one bright stretch of road, with the sun high and the horses steady beneath you, the three of you ride easy.

When you reach the next town just before dark, it’s mercifully large enough to have a hotel, though only just. The main building fronts the street, while a handful of squat lodging cabins stand behind it beside the stable yard, each containing little more than a bed, a washstand and a door that locks.

You’ve already separated from Bucky two streets over - two men and a woman trying to book one cabin would draw eyes. A man and his wife, tired from the road and keen to be left alone, draw far fewer.

Bucky will return after dark with supplies and come through the open window like any decent outlaw.

By now, the routine is well worn. Steve keeps his hat low and asks for a room for himself and his wife. Your stomach gives a foolish little turn at the word, which is unhelpful given the circumstances, so you tuck yourself closer into his side and play your part.

The clerk turns the ledger around. “Name?”

Steve takes the pen and writes one of the names agreed between the three of you, this time settling on Mr. and Mrs. Drysdale.

The clerks eyes move over Steve as he writes, a little too closely for your liking. Steve’s hat shadows most of his face, though there is only so much a brim can do against a jaw like his. Then the clerk’s gaze drops to you, lingering on the plain dress, the tired hem, the cheap ring on your finger where your hand rests neatly against Steve’s sleeve.

“Long road?” he asks.

“Long enough,” you answer before Steve can, sweet and harmless. “My husband’s been poor company since noon.”

The clerk’s mouth twitches. “That so?”

“I get hungry,” Steve says.

“He gets sulky,” you correct.

The clerk looks amused now, his suspicion giving way to the easier pleasure of watching a married couple prod at each other. He reaches for a key from the row behind him.

“Cabin four,” he says. “Out and to the right.”

Steve takes the key with a polite nod, your hand still tucked around his arm, and the two of you make your way to the cabin to wait for Bucky and whatever trouble he tends to bring back with him.

But exhaustion claims you before said trouble arrives. You barely manage to loosen your dress before crawling beneath the covers, telling Steve you only mean to close your eyes whilst he checks the room. The bed feels strangely wide after so many nights spent wedged between two warm bodies beneath the open sky. Even when there had only been Steve beside you, his arm always fond your waist before sleep did. 

Tonight, the empty space at your back bothers you more than it ought to, and you drift off feeling faintly abandoned by both outlaws. 

Until finally you stir to the mattress dipping behind you and warmth settling along your back. It’s broad and familiar enough that your half-asleep mind doesn’t ask questions. Instead, you arch back into him, pleased to have your outlaw close, fitting your ass against his hips. 

Impatiently, and a little pointedly, you reach back for the arm that has failed to wrap itself around you. You drag it over your waist and hold is hand beneath yours. 

“Took you long enough,” you mumble into the pillow, a little pout tucked into the words. After all those weeks of Steve looking wounded whenever you rode with Bucky, he might at least have the decency to act pleased now that he can pull you close whenever.

His body goes stiff, and you take the teasing for what it is, grinding back again. Slower this time, rolling your ass over the shape beneath his trousers until his cock begins to harden against you. A strained breath warms the back of your neck. Then another, rougher, when you press closer and keep moving, sleepy need gathering fast between your thighs.

Still, his hand remains where you put it.

Your brows pinch. Steve has never needed this much encouragement where you;re concerned. Usually, one soft sound from you is enough to have him pushing up your skirts and getting greedy with whatever he finds beneath them.

“Stevie,” you whine, catching his wrist again. “Quit makin’ me ask.”

You guide his hand down over your stomach and between your thighs, pressing his palm against the heat gathered beneath your drawers. His fingers flex once. The groan that leaves him is low and delicious beside your ear, and you answer it with a needy little roll of your hips, trying to coax his hand into giving you what you want.

“That’s it, honey.” You hear Steve drawl, but his voice doesn’t come from behind you. “Keep grindin’ that pretty ass over Buck’s cock, he’s been waitin’ weeks to feel how sweet you are.”

Your eyes snap open. 

Steve is sat in the chair near the window, one ankle hooked over the other, watching the two of you through the low lamplight. His hat rests on the table beside him, hair pushed back from his face, and the hard shape beneath his trousers leaves little doubt as to how much he’s been enjoying the view.

Behind you, Bucky has gone completely still. His hand remains trapped between your thighs where you placed it, fingers flexing once against the damp cloth of your drawers before stopping again.

Steve catches the hesitation on your face.

“Easy, pretty girl,” he coos, voice dropping softer. “You’re alright. Ain’t nobody cross with you.”

His gaze stays warm and steady on yours, settling some of the panic before it can take hold. Bucky makes no attempt to claim what you offered him in your sleep, leaving the choice entirely with you now that you’re awake, and the restraint loosens something in your chest.

You sink back against him again, and a quiet, needy “Steve” slips from your mouth. 

“Well, quit teasin’ him then, sweetheart. You dragged Buck’s hand down to that needy pussy yourself.” His eyes stay on yours, smile turning wicked. “You want him to touch you, don’t you?”

You nod, “Yes, Stevie, please.”

Approval rumbles from Steve across the room at the same moment Bucky groans against your shoulder. His hand finally moves, slipping beneath the damp cloth between your thighs and dragging two rough fingers through the slick gathered there.

“Christ,” Bucky breathes, the word warm against your neck. “You’re soaked through darlin’.”

Your hips chase his hand before you can help it, opening wider as his fingers circle your clit. He parts you slowly, gathering the mess of you over his fingertips before circling your clit. And God, does he learn quickly. Taking each broken breath and twitch of your thighs as instruction, until your body is rolling against him with shameless impatience.

“That feel good, darlin’?” he murmurs. “Been wondering how sweet you’d get for me.”

You whine and press back against him, already impatient, already desperate for more than the teasing drag of his fingers. Bucky laughs softly into your neck, pleased by how quickly you come apart for him.

“Yeah, I can feel that.” One finger presses into your pussy, drawing a thin moan from you as he works it deeper. “Taking me so easy. Such a good girl for us.”

Bucky pushes a second finger into your pussy, and the stretch of them pulls a broken moan from you. His hand is rougher than Steve’s, the calluses catching at tender places as he works you open, but he watches every reaction with the same focused attention he gives everything. One curl of his fingers makes your thighs tremble, and he does it again immediately.

Steve watches from the chair with one hand resting over the hard shape in his trousers, his eyes fixed on the way you grind down over Bucky’s knuckles.

“That it?” he asks against your skin. “Right there, sugar?”

“Yes—God, Buck—”

Bucky curses when your walls tighten around him. “She’s so damn sweet, Stevie.”

Steve’s mouth curves.

“If you think she’s sweet around your fingers,” he says, voice low enough to make your stomach clench, “wait till you get a taste of her.”

The thought pulls a desperate sound from you. Bucky answers with a groan of his own, his fingers curling inside you as his gaze drops hungrily between your thighs from over your shoulder. Your hand is already reaching back, fingers tangling in his dark hair as you twist toward him and tug with very little patience left.

Bucky goes willingly, laughing once under his breath as he lets you pull him down the bed, tugging down your drawers as he goes.

“That eager, darlin’?”

“Yes,” you gasp, spreading your thighs wider to accommodate those broad shoulders. “Please.”

Steve leans back in the chair, hand now palming over his cock as he watches.

“Go on, Buck,” he drawls. “Show her that mouth’s good for something besides bein’ a clever jackass.”

The first slow drag of Bucky’s tongue through you tears a cry from your throat. His hands close around your hips at once, holding you open while he tastes you again, deeper this time, mouth working with none of the caution his fingers had shown. He licks through every slick fold, groaning against your pussy.

Then his tongue circles your clit, and your hips jerk sharply into his face.

“There,” Steve rumbles, hand pressing harder over his thick length, still trapped beneath too much fabric. “She likes it right there. Don’t rush her, Buck. Keep your tongue flat and make her grind on it.”

Bucky follows the instruction immediately. He spreads his mouth over you, tongue broad and slow beneath your clit while his grip shifts lower, fingers digging into the soft flesh beneath your thighs to pull you closer. Your back arches, breath breaking into a helpless whine as you begin to move against him, too desperate to stay still and too overwhelmed to find any rhythm beyond chasing whatever his mouth gives you.

“That’s it,” Bucky praises against you. “Good girl. Use me.”

His words vibrate through your pussy and leave you clenching around nothing. He feels it, answers with another hungry groan, then slips two fingers back inside you while his mouth returns to your clit.

The room seems to tilt.

“Buck—Steve—God—”

Their names tangle together as Bucky curls his fingers into the place that makes your thighs shake. Steve keeps talking from across the room, telling Bucky when to press harder, when to keep his mouth where it is, every quiet command proving how well he knows your body and how willingly Bucky is learning it.

Pleasure builds so quickly that instinct has you trying to squirm away from it. Your hips twist even as they buck toward him, hands scrambling over the sheets while Bucky holds you firmly in place and refuses to let the distance grow.

“Easy, darlin’,” he soothes, breathless against you. “I’ve got you. Let me have it.”

But you can’t. You need more. Need both of them.

Your hand reaches blindly toward Steve even though he’s still too far away, fingers stretching uselessly through the space between you as his name leaves you in a broken plea. “Stevie.”

He’s out of the chair before the word has finished. Steve comes to the bedside and catches your reaching hand, pressing it against his chest as he bends over you.

“I’m here, pretty girl,” he coos. “You close?”

You nod frantically, one hand clutching his shirt and dragging him lower because words have abandoned you. Steve lets himself be pulled into the kiss, mouth covering yours just as Bucky’s tongue flicks hard over your clit again.

You moan against Steve’s lips as his hand slides into Bucky’s hair.

“Closer, Buck,” Steve pants into your mouth, pushing him more firmly between your thighs. “She’s trying to run from it. Don’t let her.”

Bucky groans and buries his face deeper, lips and tongue turning greedy while Steve kisses you through every broken sound. The hand in Bucky’s hair holds him just where you need him, and Steve’s other palm cups your jaw, keeping your mouth against his as your body begins to lose all control.

“That’s my best girl,” Steve praises between kisses. “Lettin’ me share this sweet pussy with Buck. Look how greedy you’ve got him.”

Your fingers knot in Steve’s shirt as your hips rise hard against Bucky’s face, chasing the relentless pressure of his tongue. Bucky holds you there and eats you through it, groaning when your thighs close around his head and the first desperate pulse of your orgasm rolls over his mouth.

You come with Steve’s name breaking against his lips and Bucky’s muffled beneath it, your whole body shuddering as slick spills over Bucky’s tongue and chin. Steve kisses every cry from you while Bucky greedily laps at everything you give him, refusing to stop until you are trembling and breathless between them.

Only then does Steve ease his hold in Bucky’s hair.

Bucky lifts his head slowly, mouth shining and eyes dark with satisfaction, looking every bit as wrecked as you feel. He’s knelt between your thighs, one hand warm against your hip, whilst Steve is still leant over you. It leaves them close enough that Steve’s gaze has nowhere else to fall but Bucky’s mouth.

“Fuck Stevie,” he breathes, wiping his thumb beneath his lip only to suck the taste from it. “Can’t believe you kept her to yourself for so long. Greedy bastard.”

But Steve’s gaze is too focused on Bucky’s swollen lips, glistening with your arousal, for his brain to think of a response. His tongue flicks out absently, sweeping over his lower lip as though he can already taste you there. The hunger in his face is so plain that your hand rises almost instinctively, fingers curling around his jaw and drawing him toward Bucky.

Their mouths meet hard enough to pull a startled sound from Bucky, and for one suspended second neither man moves. Steve’s hand stays curled around his jaw. Bucky’s fingers bunch in the front of Steve’s shirt. The rough scrape of stubble and the unfamiliar shape of another man’s mouth seem to catch them both off guard.

But then Bucky pulls him closer.

Steve takes hold of the back of his neck and kisses him properly, tongue pushing into Bucky’s mouth with a low groan, greedy for every trace of you left on his tongue. Bucky answers with all the hunger he had just spent between your thighs, opening for him as though this is something they have been circling for years without ever daring to name.

The sight of them together sends fresh heat curling low in your stomach.

Steve’s tongue pushes deeper into Bucky’s mouth, licking over his lips and teeth as though Bucky has become another place from which Steve can take his fill. Bucky groans, one hand sliding around the back of Steve’s neck while the other tightens possessively on your thigh. Every reckless rescue, every night spent back to back beneath the open sky, every time one of them chose the other without hesitation finally makes sense for what it has always been.

Your slick still glistens on Bucky’s chin. Steve’s mouth smears through it as the kiss deepens, and neither of them seems to care where one taste ends and the other begins. Years of rough affection and stranger devotion turn filthy in front of you, Steve holding Bucky by the jaw while Bucky bites lightly at his lower lip before drawing him back in, as if now they have finally started, neither of them knows how to stop.

Then Bucky’s hand drops between them. His palm settles over Steve’s straining cock, and Steve groans into the kiss. Bucky rubs him slowly through the fabric, swallowing each low moan Steve gives him while Steve keeps one hand firm at the back of his neck. They look made for this, rough hands and parted mouths, years of devotion finding a new language right in front of you, and the thought leaves you aching all over again.

Your thighs shift restlessly beneath them. One hand slips between your legs, fingers finding your swollen clit while you watch Bucky palm Steve’s cock through his trousers. A moan escapes before you can smother it.

Their kiss breaks, both men looking down at you, though their foreheads remain pressed together. Bucky’s mouth is red and wet, Steve’s no better, and neither of them moves for a moment as they watch your fingers circle desperately between your thighs.

“Well, look at her,” Bucky murmurs, his hand still cupped around Steve. “Got herself all worked up watching us.”

You whine softly, pressing harder against your clit.

Steve’s eyes darken. “Poor pretty thing.”

Bucky gives Steve’s cock another slow squeeze, making his jaw tighten. “Reckon we ought to find that mouth something to do besides whine.”

Steve’s smile turns wicked. “Reckon you’re right.”

He shifts farther onto the bed and settles on his knees near the headboard, giving you room to turn beneath him. You move eagerly onto your hands and knees, facing Steve with Bucky still kneeling behind you, close enough that his thighs frame yours and his chest brushes your back when he leans over.

Bucky reaches around you before you can, fingers working open Steve’s trousers slowly at first, then surer when Steve does nothing to stop him. His hand closes around Steve’s cock as it spills free, heavy against his palm, the skin flushed deep at the head and drawn tight over the thick ridge beneath it. The vein you know so well runs dark along the underside, disappearing into Bucky’s fist when he gives one cautious stroke.

Steve’s head tips back on a broken groan.

The sound seems to delight Bucky, eyes dropping to watch his hand move again, slower this time, thumb dragging over the wet slit before sliding back down the length of him. Steve’s broad chest rises sharply beneath his shirt, every muscle in his shoulders pulled tight with the effort of holding still while Bucky learns how easily he can make him come apart.

Something needy catches inside you at the sight. You’ve heard that sound beneath your own hands too many times to let Bucky keep it all to himself.

You lean forward and press your lips to the swollen head, kissing it once before your tongue slips out to taste the slick Bucky has spread there. Steve’s breath breaks again, rougher now, and you follow the thick vein beneath his cock with a slow drag of your tongue, smiling when his hips twitch toward your mouth.

You kiss the tip again, softer this time, letting your lips linger around the crown. Steve’s hand braced against the headboard curls hard enough that the wood gives a quiet complaint beneath his grip.

Behind you, Bucky makes a low sound of disapproval.

“Now that ain’t kind,” he murmurs, gathering your hair away from your face with one hand. “Stevie’s been real good, lettin’ me have my fill of you, and here you are making him suffer for it.”

Steve tries to laugh, but it comes out rough and unsteady when you trace the underside of his cock with the tip of your tongue, following that thick vein until his hips jerk helplessly toward you again. Bucky’s fingers tighten in your hair.

“Think you oughta thank him proper.”

The push is slow but firm, guiding you down Steve’s length before you can tease him again. Your lips stretch around him as inch after inch slides over your tongue, Bucky holding your hair clear while he eases you forward until the swollen tip presses into your throat. You gag softly around him, eyes watering as your hands catch at Steve’s thighs, and the sound Steve makes is loud enough to fill the room.

His forehead drops against Bucky’s.

“Fuck,” he groans straight into Bucky’s mouth, breath breaking between them while your throat works helplessly around his cock. “Sweet girl, always so damn good to me.”

The praise goes straight through you. You moan around him, and Steve curses as the vibration rolls over his cock.

Bucky’s grip settles more firmly in your hair, guiding you back until Steve’s cock slips from your throat and then forward again in one slow, measured stroke. He controls the pace with an ease that makes your stomach tighten, keeping you steady while your lips drag over every inch of Steve. Each pass pulls another sound from Steve, his restraint coming apart piece by piece as the two of you work together to ruin him.

Bucky watches it happen with open satisfaction. His fingers tighten whenever Steve’s hips twitch, holding you in place long enough to make him feel the wet heat of your mouth before easing you back again. When your throat tightens around him and pulls another helpless groan from his chest, Bucky closes the distance and kisses him, swallowing every broken breath you pull from Steve as you bob on his cock.

 Then Steve seems to decide he’s had enough of Bucky being the only one left with any composure. His hand drops between you, fumbling once at Bucky’s trousers before dragging them open. Bucky’s breath breaks into the kiss when Steve wraps a fist around his cock, giving him an experimental stroke.

“Stevie,” Bucky groans against his lips.

Steve’s mouth curves against his. He pumps him again, firmer this time, and the sound Bucky makes rolls straight through you. It leaves you suddenly, painfully aware of the hard weight of him behind you, of how close his cock is to the slick heat between your thighs while his hand remains tangled in your hair.

Your knees edge farther apart without thought.

The movement opens you beneath him, your hips rocking back in a needy little invitation even as your mouth continues working over Steve. Bucky feels it immediately. His free hand slides down your spine and cups your ass, spreading you wider as his thumb traces through the slick already coating your inner thighs.

“Goddamn, sugar, look at you,” he breathes , looking down at the wet heat waiting behind you. “Spread wide and drippin’ all over yourself for my cock.”

Steve follows his gaze.

His fist slows around Bucky’s cock, drawing the swollen head through the mess between your thighs. You whimper around Steve as Bucky’s cock slides over your clit and nudges against your entrance.

Bucky presses forward slowly, teasing you with every inch of his cock. He isn’t as thick as Steve, but he is longer, the stretch different enough to wrench a muffled cry from you around the cock already filling your mouth. Your pussy opens greedily for him, slick walls fluttering as he sinks deeper until the head of him kisses your cervix and leaves you shuddering between them.

“Fuck me, Steve,” Bucky groans, driving in until his hips meet your ass. “You been fillin’ this pussy every chance you get and she’s still tight enough to choke my cock.”

Steve’s cock pulses over your tongue at the words. You barely have enough strength left to hold yourself upright, arms trembling beneath you while Bucky draws back and fills you again, each long stroke knocking the breath from your lungs. Steve’s hips begin to move with him, pushing into your mouth as Bucky fucks into your pussy, and soon there is no rhythm left for you to keep, only the one they make between them.

You let them have you.

Steve’s hands settle on either side of your face, keeping you steady as his cock slips wetly over your tongue. Saliva gathers at the corners of your mouth and spills down your chin. Every thrust from behind rocks you farther onto Steve, leaving you whining and gagging softly around him while Bucky’s cock reaches so deep your legs threaten to give beneath you.

“Look at her, Buck,” Steve rumbles, watching your lips stretch around him. “Can’t decide which cock she wants more, so she’s takin’ both like the greedy little thing she is.”

Bucky groans and drives in deeper, his hips pressing flush to your ass, causing your mouth to jolt forward around Steve. “She loves it, Stevie. Can feel her squeezin’ me every time you push down her throat.”

Your walls clench hard around Bucky at the filth in their words, milking his cock as another broken moan vibrates around Steve’s. 

“Think she likes hearing us talk about her.”

Steve’s gaze drops to you again, dark with affection and something far less gentle.

“Course she does,” he murmurs, thumb brushing through the spit shining on your chin. “Our filthy girl likes knowing she’s got both her outlaws pleased.”

Bucky’s thrusts begin to turn rougher behind you, each one driving you further onto Steve’s cock whilst Steve keeps one hand cradled against your jaw, thumb catching the drool that slips from the corner of your mouth. They feel your orgasm building, your pussy gripping Bucky and your moans breaking around Steve, and they chase it without mercy.

“That’s it, sweetheart,” Steve groans, eyes fixed on yours. “Come for us. Let Buck feel what that greedy pussy does when she gets everything she wants.”

Bucky’s hand tightens in your hair as his hips snap into you again. “Go on, sugar. Come all over my cock while you choke on his. Show us how good we make you feel.”

It’s the words that push you over. Pleasure tears through you so hard your arms nearly buckle beneath it. You come with both of them filling you, Steve thick over your tongue and Bucky buried deep enough to empty every though from your head. It’s both too much and exactly what you need - the two of them wrapped around you, with the truth of what they are to each other finally laid out between you.

Your walls clamp down around Bucky in frantic, pulsing waves. “That’s it darlin’,” Bucky growls as your pussy milks him, hips stuttering against your ass. “Keep choking me like that and I’m gonna paint this pretty back with my come.”

He pulls out just in time. His fist closes around his cock, stroking fast as the first hot spill lands across your lower back, followed by another thick stripe over your ass. Bucky groans your name as he empties himself over you, watching his seed streak your skin while your body still trembles beneath him.

Steve stares at the mess his best friend has made of you, and his cock jerks at the sight of you marked by Bucky’s cum. It’s enough to break him, spilling down your throat with a broken groan, hand tightening against your jaw as pulse after pulse fills your mouth. You swallow greedily around him, taking every drop while Bucky’s palm smooths over your hip.

“Such a sweet little thing,” Bucky murmurs behind you, still breathless. “Think your girl likes being shared, Steve.”

Steve’s thumb strokes tenderly over your cheek as you swallow the last of him, eyes glassy and looking up at him with such devoted affection it pulls his heart.

“Our girl.”

The next morning, you stir to Steve trying to leave the bed without disturbing you. He almost manages it. But the mattress shifts beneath his weight, and the warmth pressed against your front begins to disappear before you make a soft, petulant sound and reach for him beneath the covers. Steve catches your searching hand, pressing a kiss to your knuckles before leaning down to brush another against your forehead.

“Go back to sleep, sweetheart.”

You answer by tightening your fingers around his wrist, unwilling to surrender the place you have spent the night tucked between your two outlaws. Steve’s mouth softens, but Bucky solves the problem without properly waking. He makes a rough, sleepy noise behind you and pulls you firmly into his chest, one arm cinching around your waist until your back is fitted to him and there is no room left to complain about being abandoned.

“There,” Bucky mumbles into your hair. “Quit fussin’.”

You melt into him happily enough, eyes drifting shut again while Steve dresses nearby. Buck’s body is warm and heavy behind yours, his breath slow against your neck, and for a few precious moments the room feels safe enough to forget where you are. 

But then Steve’s curse cuts through the quiet.

“Buck.”

Bucky doesn’t move immediately. “Mm?”

“Get up.”

The tension in Steve’s voice does what the words alone can’t. Bucky’s arm disappears from around your waist as he pushes upright, sleep falling away from him in an instant. You sit up with the blanket clutched to your chest and find Steve beside the window, peering through the narrow gap he has made in the curtain. His gun belt is already fastened. One revolver rests in his hand while he checks the chamber of the other.

“What is it?” Bucky asks, reaching for his trousers.

Steve lets the curtain fall back into place. “We’ve got company.”

Bucky crosses the room barefoot, keeping himself close to the wall as he looks out. His expression hardens. “How many?”

“Too many.”

Your heart begins to pound. You drag the sheet around yourself and slip from the bed, though Steve catches sight of you moving and immediately shakes his head.

“Stay back from the window.”

“What’s happening?”

Neither answers quickly enough.

You look from one man to the other, watching the quick efficiency with which they arm themselves. Bucky pulls on his shirt without bothering to button it before buckling his holster. Steve gathers the ammunition from the table and divides it between them, his movements calm in a way that frightens you more than panic would have.

“Steve,” you push, and when Steve glances back at you, the desperation on your face is enough to make him stop pretending.

“Street’s surrounded,” he finally admits. “Sheriff’s got men covering the front, both ends of the alley and the stable yard. More on the roofs across from us.”

The words make you freeze. “How did they find us?”

Steve looks toward the door, jaw working once. “Maybe the clerk didn’t buy our performance after all.”

Bucky looks through the curtain again, studying the street below. “Back window?”

“Two men in the alley, three more watching the yard. We’d need to draw them round the front first.”

They continue to move through possibilities quickly, cutting each one down almost as soon as it’s spoken. There are too many men. That’s the truth beneath every low exchange, though neither of them says it aloud. Bucky begins loading his rifle. Steve watches him for a moment, then glances toward you. The look passing between them is brief, but you understand it anyway.

“No.”

Steve’s face closes. “Sweetheart—”

“No.”

Bucky sets the rifle down. “Sugar, listen.”

“I know that look.” Your voice shakes despite every effort to steady it. “You’re working out how to get me clear.”

Steve crosses to you, hands finding your cheeks and tilting your face to his. “Buck and I will draw them towards the front, and once they’re focused on us, you slip through the yard and take the first horse you can reach.”

Your eyes burn as you look between them. “And what chance does it give you?”

Neither man answers.

Months ago, when they let you ride away with them, you told them there was only one part of their life you wouldn’t share. You would endure the cold, the hunger, the long days in the saddle and every bullet sent chasing after them, but you wouldn’t stand by and watch either man die. Now they mean to hold you to it.

Bucky comes to stand beside you, one hand settling at the back of your neck. His thumb moves once over your skin, the touch unbearably gentle from a man preparing to walk into gunfire.

“You take the horse south,” he says. “Don’t stop in the next town. Just keep goin’ ‘till you can’t.”

You search their faces for another answer and find none. They’re terrified - you know them well enough now to see it. But they’re simply more frightened for you than they are for themselves. So you nod. 

Steve’s hands linger against your cheeks for another second before he releases you, and Bucky’s thumb brushes the back of your neck once more before both men turn away, returning to plan as they let you dress. 

Your fingers feel clumsy fastening your stays, though you force them through each familiar movement, pulling on yesterday’s dress and tying your hair back with shaking hands. Bucky crouches beside the bed and spreads their remaining cartridges across the floorboards, counting beneath his breath until a thought makes him pause with one round still caught between his fingers.

“Wait a minute - you didn’t see Rumlow out there, did you?”

Steve glances over from the rifle. “Rumlow? No. Why?”

“Thank God for that.” Bucky exhales and drops the cartridge onto the pile. “For a minute there, I thought we were in trouble.”

Steve’s expression flattens while a startled laugh escapes you despite everything, and the crooked grin Bucky sends your way suggests that was precisely what he’d been aiming for.

Steve returns to checking the rifle with a quiet shake of his head. “Idiot.”

Bucky’s smirk lingers only a moment before the boys begin getting ready in earnest. 

Steve fastens the last of the ammunition at his belt and checks both revolvers one final time, while Bucky gathers the remaining cartridges into his pockets and slings the rifle over his shoulder. You stand beside the bed with your coat half-buttoned and look between them, both armed now, both trying to pretend as though this is merely another bad plan they will laugh about by nightfall.

It’s Steve who comes to you first. He cups the back of your neck and kisses you hard, all the tenderness in him sharpened by the knowledge that he cannot afford to linger. You clutch at his shirt anyway, trying to hold him there, but he pulls back just enough to rest his forehead against yours.

“Promise me you’ll run,” Steve begs against your lips.

Before you can respond, Bucky adds “And don’t look back.”

You turn toward him, already crying despite the effort you’ve made not to. Bucky’s expression softens. He reaches up and wipes beneath one of your eyes with his thumb before drawing you against him and kissing you with none of his usual teasing left in it.

“You promise us, sugar,” he murmurs against your mouth. “You hear the gunfire, you run.”

Your bottom lip trembles, tears spilling freely, but you manage to keep you voice steady enough to reply “I promise.”

They lead you to the back window and ease it open just enough for you to slip through when the time comes, before heading back to the front door.

“Sheriff’s moved two more men toward the front,” he observes, peering through the narrow gap in the curtains. “Looks like they’re expecting us to make a grand entrance.”

Steve cocks his gun. “Well, I’d hate to disappoint.”

Bucky turns from the window with a faint smile, and just for a minute, the years between them seem to gather there in the quiet. They stand beside the door with their weapons ready, drawing one steadying breath before looking at each other.

“Till the end of the line,” Steve says.

Bucky’s answer comes without hesitation. “Always.”

Then they burst through the front door.

Gunfire erupts immediately, deafening in the close quarters, answered by the heavy crack of Steve’s revolver and the sharper report of Bucky’s rifle as they force the fight toward the front of the hotel. Every instinct in you screams to turn, to look, to run after them instead of away, but you cling to the promise you made and climb through the rear window once the coast is clear.

Then you run. Across the yard, past the stable wall and toward the first horse you can reach, every step carrying you farther from the two men you love. The law may have their names and faced printed on posters, may call them thieves and bad men, but you know better now.

Wanted men they may be, but they’re the best men you have ever known.

more mads: sooooo, i am so so sorry for how late i am for posting this. half of this was written in a sleep deprived, frantic haze so apologies if any of it gets confusing at any point, especially the ending. i had a different plan for it at first, but then i want to stay more loyal to the film, and i also needed to just get this fic done considering how late i already was to posting it. so this is what i landed on and i'm worried it hasn't quite worked :/ idk, this could be the sleep deprivation talking but i just started to hate this fic as i got closer to the end. hopefully you guys still enjoyed - if you did, please hit like or, even better, please consider leaving a comment/reblog bc it would genuinely make my whole day. my leo moon means i will literally perish without external validation. i’m tinkerbell coded. love u <33

You sat on your floor in an old sweater that smelled faintly like vanilla detergent, highlighter stains painted across your fingers like bruises. Your notes were everywhere — scattered open textbooks, half-empty coffee cups, desperate little reminders scribbled in the margins,like remember ATP — adenosine triphosphate.

You were drowning in mitochondria, cell division, Latin words that curled around your brain.

Right...brain! Cerebrum or whatever.

Your knee bounced anxiously while you reread the same paragraph for the fifth time, lips moving silently.“Ribosomes synthesize proteins…”

Nothing stayed inside your head.You groaned softly, letting your forehead fall against the edge of the mattress beside you.God, you were tired.

A soft knock echoed through the apartment, sudden enough to make you jolt upright.Your pen slipped from your fingers.

For a second, your heart kicked hard against your ribs. You stared at the door, breathing shallowly while the rain tapped against the windows.

Another knock came,but slower this time...and familiar.You frowned, brushing hair out of your face. “It’s open,” you called weakly.

The handle turned and then he stepped inside.Bucky Barnes — loverboy.Tall, broad, impossibly solid in the dim yellow light of your room. His dark red henley clung to his chest from the rain outside, hair damp around his face, metal hand catching the low glow of your desk lamp.God,you loved that henley.

His eyes moved over the disaster surrounding you — biology notes spread across the floor, empty coffee cups, your tense shoulders curled inward like you were trying to survive yourself.

“I should’ve never given you that spare key,you scared me.” you muttered, dropping your face into your hands dramatically.

Bucky closed the door behind him with a soft click.“Nah,” he said quietly, toeing off his boots. “Pretty sure you’d be dead by finals week without me.”

You peeked at him through your fingers.“I’m serious,” you groaned. “I think biology is actually trying to kill me.”

Bucky hummed sympathetically as he crossed the room. The floor creaked beneath his weight.“C’mere, sweetheart.”

Your cheek pressing into the damp cotton of his shirt. His heartbeat was slow and steady. Nothing like yours.

Bucky’s big hand moved up and down your back awkwardly, like he was trying to calm a frightened animal.“It’s just a test,” he murmured.

You pulled back immediately, staring at him in disbelief.“Just a test?” you repeated.Bucky blinked once. “...Yeah?”

A laugh escaped you.“James Buchanan Barnes,” you said slowly, “if I fail this exam, my GPA drops, my scholarship gets reviewed, my future dies, and I end up living in a shoebox apartment surviving on instant noodles.”

His eyebrows lifted slightly.“You already survive on instant noodles.”

You gave him a look“Bucky.”

“Right. Sorry.”He tried again.“You’re smart,” he said carefully, like he was placing glass on a shelf. “Smarter than anyone I know.”

You groaned, dragging both hands down your face. “That doesn’t help either.”

“Right,” he muttered under his breath.The room fell quiet.Bucky looked genuinely distressed now, metal fingers flexing against his knee. You could practically see him trying to fight an invisible enemy and losing horribly because the enemy was your nervous breakdown over molecular biology.

Back in the forties, he probably could’ve fixed things with a cigarette, a kiss to the forehead, and stealing somebody’s car.But this?Biology finals at one-thirty in the morning?This was defeating him.

Bucky sighed, a deep rumble vibrating against his chest. His large, warm hand slid to the back of your neck, his fingers gently kneading the tense muscles at the base of your skull.“That’s enough, sweetheart.Pack it up. Bedtime.”

“No, no, no,” you stammered, pulling your head away and immediately throwing yourself into a defensive position. You slid back down to the floor, grabbing your ATP flashcards with both hands like a shield. “I can’t sleep. If I sleep now, my brain will perform a factory reset. Have you heard of sleep-induced information purging? Because I just made it up, and it feels scientifically accurate.”

His eyes stayed serious. He dropped down onto the floor beside you, stretching his long legs out carefully between the minefield of open textbooks.“You didn’t make up a science rule, you just drank your body weight in espresso,” he pointed out, gesturing with his metal index finger toward the stack of empty mugs in the corner.

“Look at you. It’s past two in the morning. You don’t even know your own name right now, let alone the... what is this? What’s a mitochondria?”

“The powerhouse of the cell!” you blurted out instantly, sounding like a malfunctioning robot.

“See? You know it,” Bucky nodded, nudging his shoulder against yours. His damp hair smelled faintly of the rain outside, but his body was throwing off pure heat. “But if you don’t get at least a few hours of shut-eye, you’re gonna collapse right onto your exam paper tomorrow. Your head won’t be in the game. I know that look. Guys in the trenches used to get it right before—”

“Do not use trench warfare as a metaphor for my biology final, Barnes!” you groaned, burying your face back into your hands. “I won’t be able to sleep anyway. My brain is vibrating. If I close my eyes, I just see chromosomes pulling apart. I’m losing my mind.”

Bucky watched you quietly for a beat, his jaw shifting as he weighed his options. Then, without a single word of warning, he reached out, scooped his arms under your knees and back, and hoisted you right off the floor like you weighed absolutely nothing.“Bucky! What are you doing?! Put me down!”

“Rescue mission,” he muttered shortly. He turned and carried you the two short steps over to your bed, navigating the cluttered floor with terrifyingly perfect balance, making sure not to step on a single notebook.

He dropped you onto the mattress with a soft thud, but the second his hands left your waist, you were already scrambling backward. Your hands gripped the edge of the blanket, your eyes darting back toward the floor where your flashcards lay scattered.“Bucky, I’m serious, I need to look at meiosis one more time—”

“No, you don’t,” he said, his voice dropping an octave. He didn’t follow you onto the bed right away. Instead, he stood at the edge, unlacing his damp boots and tossing them aside. When he looked up, his blue eyes were dark, fixed entirely on you. “I told you to rest. You’re not listening.”

“Because I can’t!” your voice cracked slightly, the sheer exhaustion and caffeine making you desperate. “My brain won’t turn off. I can’t just lie here and stare at the ceiling. I need to study, Bucky, please—”

“Sweetheart,” he interrupted, and there was a new, low vibration in his tone that made the breath catch in your throat. He crawled onto the mattress, his large, heavy frame looming over yours until you were pressed back against your pillows. He trapped you between his arms, his metal hand resting flat against the mattress right next to your head, pulsing cold against the sheets while his human hand gently caught your chin. “I know you can’t turn your brain off. So I’m going to do it for you.”

You blinked up at him, your heart hammering for an entirely different reason now. “What?”

Bucky didn’t answer with words. He leaned down, his damp hair brushing against your cheek as he buried his face in the crook of your neck. He pressed a warm, slow kiss right against your pulse point, inhaling the scent of your vanilla detergent and sweet sweat. A soft, involuntary shiver wrecked through your body, your hands automatically coming up to grip the fabric of his red henley.

“Bucky...” you breathed, but it lacked any of the protest from before.

“Shh,” he murmured against your skin, his thumb caressing your jawline. “Don’t think about the test. Don’t think about biology. Just focus on me.”His human hand slid down your neck, over your collarbone, and down to the hem of your oversized sweater. His touch was burning hot against your bare skin as he slowly slid the fabric up, his eyes never leaving yours.

Before you could even process the shift in the room's atmosphere, Bucky shifted his weight, sliding down your body. His large hands gripped your hips, anchoring you to the bed as he parted your legs, settling himself comfortably between them on his knees.

“Bucky, wait,” you gasped, your fingers knotting into the sheets. “The notes—”

“Forget the notes,” he whispered, his hot breath fanning across your inner thigh, making your toes curl instantly. His metal hand slid up to cup your hip, holding you perfectly still. “Let me take care of you, sweetheart. Just lay back and take it.”

The cool metal of his index finger brushed against your inner thigh, a stark, shocking contrast to the intense heat radiating from the rest of his body. You let out a shaky breath, your fingers tightening into the mattress as he aligned himself. Bucky didn't rush. He watched your face closely, his blue eyes dark and heavy with an intense, protective focus.

Slowly, deliberately, he worked his metal finger inside you.The sensation made you arch off the bed with a sharp gasp, your back curving as a wave of pure pleasure crashed through the exhaustion fogging your brain. The smooth, unyielding surface of his vibranium hand was completely different from anything else—perfectly sculpted, rhythmic, and incredibly precise.

“There you go,” Bucky murmured, his low voice vibrating right through your skin. His human hand remained firmly anchored on your hip, heavy and warm, keeping you grounded while his metal finger slid deeper, finding a rhythm that made your head tilt back into the pillows.

"Bucky, oh god," you whined, your previous anxiety completely evaporating, replaced by the overwhelming feel of him.

He flexed his hand slightly, curling his finger inside you to hit a spot that made your breath catch entirely. Your hips hitched upward instinctively, seeking more of the sensation. A low, dark rumble of satisfaction approved from his chest.

“I told you,” he whispered, leaning up slightly so his warm breath fanned over your stomach, his damp hair framing his face like a shadow. “Just focus on me. Nothing else exists right now, sweetheart.”

He added a second finger, the intricate plates of his hand moving seamlessly together.You reached down blindly, your hands finding the thick muscles of his shoulders, clinging to his red henley like a lifeline as he began to move faster, driving you closer and closer to the edge.

The slick, friction-heated metal of his fingers slid deeper, and your walls tightened around him in a desperate, subconscious reflex. A dark groan tore from Bucky’s throat at the sensation, his broad shoulders tensing as he felt just how tightly you were gripping him.

“God, sweetheart” he rasped, his voice dropping into a rough, gravelly register that sent a shiver straight down your spine.

He leaned over you, his chest pressing against yours, trapping you beneath his heavy warmth. “Look at you.Taking me so good,bet you could take my cock”

Your breath hitched at his words, the blunt weight of them hitting you harder than the pleasure rippling through your core. You looked up at him, eyes wide and heavy-lidded, your hands gripping the damp fabric of his henley even tighter. The sheer size of him looming over you—broad-shouldered, thick-chested, and completely overpowering—made the thought of it feel impossible.

“I can't,” you gasped out, your voice cracking slightly as your hips twitched against his hand. “Bucky, no... you're too big. I couldn't.”

“Is that right?” he murmured, his gravelly voice vibrating against your lips as he leaned down, hovering just inches from your face. “Too big for you, sweetheart?” You nodded frantically against the pillow, a soft whine escaping you as he hit that perfect spot again.

You nodded frantically against the pillow, a soft whine escaping you as he hit that perfect spot again.Bucky’s smirk widened, a wicked, knowing glint flashing in his dark blue eyes. He didn’t slow the relentless, perfect rhythm of his metal fingers, but he leaned in even closer, the heavy heat of his chest pressing flush against yours.

“Don't give me that,” he rumbled, his voice dropping into a low, teasing purr that vibrated right through your collarbone. “I notice how you look at me. Especially lately, since I've grown more muscles. You look at me like you're drooling, sweetheart.”

The heat in the room felt stifling as a mix of embarrassment and realization washed over you. You tried to glance away, but the intensity of the moment held your attention, making it impossible to look anywhere else but into his eyes.

Gathering what little courage you had left, you looked up at him through your eyelashes. “Bucky?” you whispered, your voice trembling, smaller and more fragile than it had been all night.

“Yeah, sweetheart?” he rumbled, his gaze locked onto yours.You bit your lower lip, shifting beneath his heavy weight.

“Can you... can you do something for me?” You hesitated, the next words catching in your throat before coming out very, very shyly. “Could you put your other hand on my neck?”

Bucky’s fingers stilled inside you for a fraction of a second, the sudden pause making your hips hitch in protest. His brow furrowed slightly, his blue eyes searching your face, dark and unreadable.

“Why's that?” he asked, his voice dropping an octave, rough and careful all at once. “Why do you want my hand there?”

“Um... to...” You squeezed your eyes shut for a moment, mortified but desperately craving it. “Just to apply pressure there. Please.”

The request hit him like a physical blow. You opened your eyes just in time to see the exact moment Bucky went completely feral.“Christ, sweetheart,” he rasped, his voice entirely ruined.

In a flash of movement, his large flesh hand came up, his thick fingers wrapping completely around the front of your throat. He didn't squeeze to hurt, but the weight of his palm was heavy, instantly pinning you into the pillows. The sudden, intense pressure against your windpipe sent a shocking jolt of adrenaline straight to your core.

“You want me to choke you?” Bucky growled, leaning down until his lips brushed against your ear, his breath scorching hot. “You want to feel how heavy I am? You think you're too small for me, but you want my hand right here while I make you come?”

You let out a fractured, high-pitched whine, your hands flying up to grip his thick wrist. You weren't trying to pull his hand away from your throat; you were just trying to hold onto something stable while your entire world spun out of control. Your hips hitched upward instinctively, desperate for the friction, your inner muscles squeezing his fingers in tight, frantic pulses.

“Yeah, just like that. Squeeze me,” Bucky ordered, his thumb pressing firmly against your jawline to keep your head tilted back. His dark blue eyes burned down into yours, watching your pupils dilate, tracking every flush of color on your skin. “Take it all, sweetheart. Don't you dare close your eyes.”

The combination of the restricted breath, the heavy, dominant pressure on your neck, and the wicked speed of his hand was too much for your coffee-addled, exhausted brain to handle. The anxiety of your biology final was completely incinerated, replaced by a blinding, white-hot crest of pure pleasure.

Your back arched off the bed, a breathless, choked-off cry catching in your throat as your orgasm crashed over you. Your walls clamped down on his metal fingers in a violent, helpless rhythm, milking him for everything you were worth.

Bucky let out a low, victorious sound, keeping his hand firm on your neck for a few seconds longer, riding out the peak of your climax with you until your hips finally stopped trembling and slumped back into the sheets.Slowly he slid his fingers out of you, the sudden absence leaving you feeling completely breathless and empty.

He released the pressure on your throat, his large flesh hand immediately sliding up to cup your cheek, his thumb gently wiping away a stray tear of pure overstimulation from the corner of your eye.

“Good girl” he whispered, his voice softening, though his chest was still heaving from his own exertion. He crawled further up the bed, pulling your limp, shivering body straight against his chest, tucking your head securely under his chin. “Next time, you're gonna take all of me.”

The Avengers Tower was alive with low music, clinking glasses and the kind of easy laughter that only came after a mission had gone well enough that no one was in a body bag.

Tony had declared it a “victory party,” which really just meant he’d ordered too much Thai food and opened the top-shelf bar. The lights were dim, warm amber and the city sparkled beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows like a promise no one quite believed anymore.

You were curled into Steve’s side on one of the long leather sectionals, your head resting against his chest, his steady heartbeat a quiet rhythm under your ear. His arm was draped across your shoulders, heavy and comforting, fingers tracing slow, absent patterns along the bare skin just above the neckline of your dress, little circles and soft strokes that made you feel safe, cherished. He smelled like cedar and soap, clean and steady, the way he always did after a shower and a long day of saving the world.

Every time he leaned down to murmur something in your ear, “You’re the most beautiful thing in this room, you know that?” or “I’m the luckiest guy here tonight” his breath tickled your skin and made you smile, warm and genuine.

Four months together and he still looked at you like you were something miraculous, like he couldn’t quite believe you’d chosen him. He’d brush his lips against your temple, soft and lingering, or squeeze your hand under the table just because he could.

“You want another drink, sweetheart?” he asked now, voice low and gentle against your hair, lips brushing your forehead.

You tilted your head up to meet his eyes, those clear, earnest blue eyes that always looked at you like you were the only person in the room. “I’m good,” you whispered, pressing a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth. “Just wanna stay right here with you.”

He smiled that small, private smile he saved only for you, the one that crinkled the corners of his eyes and made your chest ache with how much you loved him and tightened his arm around you, pulling you closer.

That was when the elevator chimed.

It wasn’t dramatic. No thunderclap, no record scratch silence. Just a soft ding, doors sliding open, and then the temperature in the room seemed to drop five degrees.

Bucky stepped out.

Black tactical pants, black Henley stretched tight across his chest, leather jacket still dusted with snow from the rooftop he must’ve landed on. His hair was shorter than the last time you’d seen him, pushed back from his face, a few strands falling forward as he scanned the room with that old, soldier’s efficiency. He hadn’t been invited. No one had expected him.

His gaze sliced through the crowd and landed on you instantly.

Locked on Steve’s hand resting gently on your waist, fingers splayed soft and protective over the curve of your hip. Bucky’s eyes lingered there, heavy, possessive then dragged slowly upward until they met yours.

Your stomach flipped. Your knees went weak, even sitting down.

Six months.

Six months since the breakup.

Six months since the screaming matches that left you both raw, since the slammed doors and shattered glass, since the way Bucky had looked at you like you’d reached into his chest and torn something vital out with your bare hands.

You’d cheated on him with Steve.

That was the part that cut deepest. Not the fights, not the way you walked out but the fact that you’d gone to Steve while you were still technically his. While Bucky was still coming home to you, still fucking you like he owned you, still whispering filthy promises against your skin in the dark. You’d let Steve touch you, kiss you, hold you gently in ways Bucky never could… and then you’d let Bucky keep touching you too, until the guilt and the lies finally exploded.

He’d never been soft with you. Never gentle. It had always been rough edges and bruising grips, teeth on your throat, metal fingers digging into your hips hard enough to leave marks for days. He’d fuck you like he was trying to brand you, call you filthy names while he made you come apart, then hold you after like he was afraid you’d disappear if he let go.

And before you, there’d been Steve. The two of them, years ago, tangled up in something fierce and tender that no one else ever really understood. Late nights in safehouses, quiet touches in the dark, Bucky’s head in Steve’s lap while Steve ran fingers through his hair like he could smooth away seventy years of pain.

They’d loved each other hard, soft in ways they never showed the world, until it all burned down in fire and blame and things neither of them ever talked about anymore.

Steve felt you tense. His arm tightened reflexively, protective, comforting. You felt his jaw clench against the side of your head as he followed your gaze.

Bucky’s lips curved, not quite a smile, more like a predator recognizing territory it used to own. He tilted his head slightly, eyes glittering with that familiar snark.

Steve pressed a kiss to your temple, slow and deliberate, his hand sliding a fraction lower on your waist in quiet reassurance. A claim, yes but mostly a promise: I’m here. I’ve got you.

Bucky’s smirk deepened, sharp and knowing. “Cute,” he mouthed from across the room, just loud enough for you to read his lips. He didn’t care. He never had.

The night dragged on after that, but you barely noticed. Conversation blurred. You laughed when Steve whispered something sweet in your ear, nodded at the right times, but every nerve in your body was tuned to Bucky across the room.

He didn’t approach. Didn’t need to. He leaned against the bar, nursing a whiskey, watching you with that lazy, dangerous intensity, like he was remembering exactly how you sounded when he had you pinned beneath him.

Always watching.

Eventually, people started drifting out. You and Steve said your goodbyes, his hand warm and steady at the small of your back as he guided you toward the private elevator, murmuring, “Let’s get you home, sweetheart. You look tired.”

You were almost there when you realized Bucky was already waiting by the doors, one shoulder against the wall, hands in his pockets, that infuriating smirk still in place.

Steve’s steps slowed. His fingers tightened just slightly on your back, protective not possessive.

The three of you reached the elevator at the same time.

No one spoke as Bucky hit the button with deliberate slowness. The doors slid open. You hesitated, heart pounding but Steve’s hand pressed gently, urging you inside with a soft, “It’s okay.”

Bucky followed.

The doors closed.

The silence was brutal.

Eighty floors never felt so endless.

You stood between them, Steve at your back, warm and solid, his chest rising and falling steady against your spine; Bucky in front of you, close enough that you could smell leather and gun oil and that damn cologne he’d worn since Berlin. No one looked at anyone else. The hum of the elevator was deafening.

Then Bucky spoke, voice low and rough, dripping with snark.

“You happy playin’ house with America’s golden boy now, doll? He tuck you in at night? Read you bedtime stories?”

Your breath caught.

Steve’s hand flexed on your hip, gentle but firm. His voice came out tight, controlled, but laced with quiet steel. “She’s happier than she ever was with you, Buck.”

Bucky’s eyes flicked to Steve in the mirrored wall, something old and raw flashing there for just a second before the smirk slid back into place. “That so, Stevie? You holdin’ her hand in the dark when the nightmares come? Or you just real good at the gentle stuff now?”

He took one step closer. The space shrank to nothing.

You swallowed hard. “We’re not doing this, Bucky.”

He tilted his head, studying you with that sharp, mocking glint, voice dropping lower, velvet over broken glass.

“Then why’re you already wet just from me lookin’ at you, huh? Why’re you leanin’ into him like he’s the only thing keepin’ you upright when we both know one word from me and you’d be on your knees?”

The words hit like a slap.

Heat flooded your cheeks, your chest, between your legs. You couldn’t hide it. Couldn’t stop the way your thighs pressed together instinctively, the way your breath hitched.

Steve’s fingers dug in, not painful, just grounding. His breathing had changed, warm against your neck. He didn’t deny it. Didn’t say a word.

Because he could feel it too, the way your body betrayed you, leaning just slightly toward Bucky even as Steve held you close. The way your pulse raced under his palm.

Bucky’s gaze flicked down to where Steve’s hand rested, then back up to your eyes. His smile was slow, sharp, devastating.

“Still the same girl who begged me to ruin her, huh? Golden boy treatin’ you too soft, doll?”

The elevator dinged.

Doors opened onto the residential hallway.

No one moved.

Then Bucky stepped out first, glancing back over his shoulder with that same cocky tilt of his head.

“You comin’?” he asked, voice soft and taunting. “Or you gonna keep pretendin’ you don’t want this as bad as I do?”

Steve’s jaw worked. His eyes met yours in the mirror, dark, conflicted, full of that quiet, aching love that made your heart hurt.

You took one step forward.

Steve followed, hand never leaving your back.

The three of you stood in the narrow residential hallway, dimly lit, the kind of quiet that only comes late at night in a building full of people pretending to sleep. The air felt thick, charged, like the moment before a storm breaks.

Bucky leaned back against the wall opposite the elevator, arms loosely crossed over his chest, that familiar half-smirk tugging at one corner of his mouth. His eyes moved over you first, like he was cataloguing every inch he used to know by heart, then flicked to Steve with lazy, pointed challenge.

“So,” he drawled, voice low and rough around the edges, “we just gonna stand here playin’ statues all night, or are we finally gonna talk about the elephant in the hallway? Namely, how you two couldn’t keep your eyes off me for five damn seconds back there.”

The words landed like a match on dry grass.

You snapped.

All the anger and hurt you’d buried for six months came rushing up your throat at once. You stepped forward before you could think better of it, voice shaking but loud enough to bounce off the walls.

“Talk?” you repeated, incredulous. “You want to talk now? You disappear for half a year, show up uninvited, spend the whole night staring at us like we’re something you misplaced, drop that shit in the elevator and now, now you want to talk?”

Bucky’s smirk flickered, just a fraction but he didn’t look away. If anything, his eyes sharpened, amused and cutting at the same time.

“You don’t get to do this, Bucky,” you pressed on, chest tight. “You don’t get to waltz back in here acting like nothing happened. Like you didn’t scream at me, like you didn’t let me walk out, like you didn’t break everything we had and then just… vanish. We’re not your toys. I’m not yours anymore.”

Your voice cracked hard on the last word. You hated that it did.

Bucky’s jaw flexed. For a second the snark slipped, and something raw flashed across his face, old hurt, maybe regret but he covered it fast, tipping his head with that infuriating little tilt.

“Funny,” he said, voice softer but still edged, “’cause from where I’m standin’, you’re still reactin’ pretty strong for someone who’s supposedly over it.”

Steve, who had been silent the whole time, finally moved.

“Enough,” he said quietly.

It wasn’t loud, wasn’t sharp but it carried the same calm authority he used on missions when everything was going to hell and someone needed to steady the room.

He stepped forward, placing himself not quite between you and Bucky but close enough that his presence filled the space. His hand settled gently on your lower back, warm, grounding, the same way he’d touched you all night.

He looked at Bucky, eyes steady.

“My place is right down the hall,” he said. Not a question. Not an invitation. Just a fact. “If we’re doing this, we do it there. Not out here.”

Bucky held Steve’s gaze for a long beat. Something passed between them, old, complicated, impossible to name. Bucky’s smirk softened into something almost wistful, then sharpened again.

“Yeah,” he murmured, pushing off the wall with lazy grace. “Lead the way, Rogers. Wouldn’t want to keep the happy couple waiting.”

Steve didn’t rise to the bait. He just turned, guiding you forward with that same steady hand on your back, gentle pressure between your shoulder blades saying I’ve got you without needing words. You walked beside him, legs still unsteady, heart still racing.

Bucky followed a few steps behind, boots quiet on the carpet.

No one spoke again until you reached Steve’s door.

Then Bucky’s voice drifted up, low and laced with that familiar snark but quieter than before.

“This conversation’s been a long time coming, doll,” he said. “And I’m not walkin’ away till we’ve had it. All three of us.”

The hallway to Steve’s apartment stretched like it was mocking you tonight. Snow fell heavier outside, fat flakes plastering the lobby windows, and the elevator ride up had been suffocating, three bodies, one shared history, zero words.

Bucky led, shoulders loose under his damp leather jacket, like he’d already mapped every exit. Steve’s hand pressed to the small of your back, warm through your dress but his fingers trembled.

You hadn’t spoken since the bar, since Bucky walked in on you and Steve tangled in a booth, lips locked, hands under clothes. None of you had.

The door shut with soft finality, louder than any slam.

Bucky ignored the lights. Manhattan bled through the windows in cold blue-gold slashes, streetlights flickering, neon buzzing faintly, a distant siren cutting the night. He strode through the living room straight to the open kitchen, boots leaving wet prints that would dry into faint stains.

Steve stopped just inside. “Buck,” he said, voice low, careful, like he was approaching a live wire. “We need to talk. Just… talk. Before anything else.”

Bucky braced both hands on the dark granite island, back to you. He laughed once, short, bitter, echoing off the cabinets. “Talk.” He rolled the word like it tasted like ash. “You always loved talkin’, Stevie. Talked me through every nightmare after the ice. Talked me into believin’ I could be more than a weapon. Hell, you talked me into kissin’ you that first time in the safehouse, remember? When I was still half convinced I’d hurt you.”

He turned slowly, eyes catching the city glow like sharpened steel. “And now you wanna talk? When you’ve got your hands on the one person I thought was still mine?”

Steve’s jaw clenched. He stepped forward. “I’m not pretendin’ that night didn’t gut you. You walked in on us, her and me and yeah, it hurts. It hurts me seein’ you like this too. But we don’t have to make this a war. What we had… what we were… it ended because you walked away. You said you were too broken for me. You left.”

Bucky’s eyes flicked to you, sharp, wounded then back to Steve. “And you waited what, six months? Before you moved on with her? My girl.”

Your stomach twisted. You’d dated Bucky first, wild, intense, healing until the breakup left you both shattered. Then Steve had been there, steady, gentle, pulling you out of the dark. But the lines had always blurred; the three of you had shared too much history for clean breaks.

Bucky moved.

Fast. Silent. His metal hand closed around your wrist, firm, not cruel pulling you against his chest. Cold leather against your bare arms; heat radiated underneath. You inhaled, whiskey, gun oil, winter clinging to him like regret.

Steve’s protest caught in his throat.

Bucky tipped your chin up with two fingers, forcing your gaze to his. Dim light edged his irises silver-blue. “Still so pretty when you’re scared, doll,” he murmured, gravel-rough. Thumb slow across your lower lip. “Still get wet just from me lookin’ at you like you’re mine again. Even after he’s had you.”

A choked sound from Steve, anger, need, guilt.

“Bucky,” Steve said, quieter. “Let her breathe. Please.”

“Don’t.” Bucky’s head snapped toward him. Eyes narrowed. “Don’t you dare, Rogers. Not after you took what was mine while I was still tryin’ to figure out if I deserved to breathe the same air as you.”

Steve froze. Mouth half-open. Words trapped.

Bucky turned back. His grip eased, sliding up your arm, into your hair. He tugged, sharp, possessive. Your head tipped back; a gasp slipped free.

“See that?” he said, voice carrying. “She doesn’t need savin’ right now. She needs to remember who she belonged to first.”

His mouth crashed down, brutal, claiming. Teeth clacked; tongue swept in. You gasped; hands fisted his jacket, pulling closer even as guilt knifed your gut. His flesh hand bunched your dress, dragging it up, calluses scraping thighs.

Steve’s breathing turned ragged, uneven.

Bucky broke the kiss, lips hovering. “Still tastes like mine,” he rasped. “Even after his.”

He spun you, the room blurred until your hips hit the island. Granite chilled your stomach as he bent you over it. Palms slapped down; cold shocked up your arms.

He kicked your feet wider. Metal hand gathered your hair, wrapped it around his fist like a leash, yanked. Your head snapped back; gaze locked across the island to Steve.

Steve stood rooted opposite, hands clamped on the counter, knuckles white. Chest heaving. Thick outline strained his jeans; dark wet spot spreading. His face was wreckage, shame flushing cheeks, hunger darkening eyes, old tenderness cracking through jealousy. He looked torn in half.

Bucky’s flesh hand shoved your dress higher, hooked lace, tore it away. Rip echoed.

You whimpered, thighs trembling.

Fingers found you, slick, swollen. Two metal digits plunged in, cold, curling perfectly. Knees buckled; he pinned you harder, chest to back.

“Fuck, doll,” he groaned against your ear. “So wet for me. Even with him watchin’ like he’s about to break.”

Steve’s voice cracked. “Buck- slow down. She’s-”

“Too much?” Bucky mocked, twisting fingers; you moaned, hips rocking back. “Listen, Stevie. That’s her sayin’ it’s not enough.”

Your voice shook. “Stevie… fuck, it’s too much-”

Steve flinched. Counter creaked. “Bucky. Ease up. Just- give her a second-”

Bucky laughed low, dark. “Ease up? She’s grippin’ like she’s scared I’ll stop.” He withdrew slowly, wet, glistening shoved pants down. Cock pressed hot against your thigh. “You want slow? Watch.”

He thrust in, one long, brutal stroke. Stretch burned; fullness punched air from lungs. You cried out, nails scraping granite.

He set punishing rhythm, deep snaps jolting you forward. Metal hand fisted hair, forcing eyes on Steve. Sweat beaded; dress bunched; hair stuck to damp neck.

“Look at him, sweetheart,” Bucky growled, breath ragged. “Look how hard he is. Hates that he wants this. Bet he’s never taken you rough like I did. Never made you scream like you will tonight.”

Gaze locked Steve’s, glassy, pupils blown, sweat on temple. Destroyed.

“Stevie-” you gasped, voice fracturing. “It’s- fuck- too much-”

Steve hoarse, pleading. “Buck, please. Slow down. She needs-”

Bucky snarled, yanked hair; back arched. “She needs me to fuck her until she forgets how good you felt. Until she remembers why she chose me first.” Lips at ear. “Ain’t that right, doll? Tell him who you really belong to.”

You sobbed, pleasure, overwhelm, tears. “Bucky- please-”

He groaned, hips stuttering. “That’s it. Come for me. Come while he watches me claim what he stole.”

Coil snapped.

You shattered, sobbing his name, walls clamping, thighs quaking. Slick coated thighs; vision whited. Bucky chased, desperate thrusts, buried deep, came with broken groan, spilling hot inside.

Bucky stayed buried inside you for what felt like forever, long after the last hot pulse of his release faded, long after your body stopped clenching in frantic aftershocks and settled into soft, exhausted tremors.

His hips remained locked to yours, heavy and unyielding, like if he pulled away the whole fragile thing between the three of you might shatter. Forehead pressed to your shoulder, metal arm braced beside your head on the island, flesh hand still loosely pinning your wrists above you, not to restrain anymore, but because letting go felt like surrender.

His breathing was uneven against your neck, hot, ragged, almost broken. For one suspended second the cruel edge cracked open, and you felt the raw ache underneath: the way his fingers flexed against your skin, trembling like he was terrified you'd disappear again if he moved.

Like every time he’d lost you, first when he walked away from Steve, then when you followed Steve’s quiet comfort after the dust settled, had carved another hollow in him.

Then he exhaled, slow and shaky, a sound that was half sigh, half sob he tried to swallow. And he pulled out.

The drag was slow, obscene, every ridge and vein etched into oversensitive walls, thick slide of his come following in a warm, shameful rush that dripped down your thigh, pooling sticky at the crease where leg met hip.

The sudden emptiness made you clench around nothing; thighs shook harder, muscles twitching from overuse. Bucky was still hard, flushed dark, glistening with the two of you mixed, veins stark under city light striping the kitchen. He didn’t tuck himself away.

His eyes lifted to Steve.

Steve hadn’t moved, still rooted opposite the island, hands white-knuckled on granite, chest heaving in sharp, uneven bursts. The thick ridge of him strained painfully against denim, dark patch of precome spreading wider, soaking through.

His face was wreckage: cheeks flushed crimson, lips parted on silent pants, eyes glassy and huge and fixed on the place Bucky had just claimed. Shame warred with hunger, fury with grief, old love flickering beneath it all like embers refusing to die.

Bucky’s mouth curved slow, cruel, victorious but the edges cracked like thin ice over pain. He stepped around the island, metal hand sliding under your thighs with surprising gentleness.

“Up you go, doll,” he murmured, voice low, almost tender. Super-soldier strength made it effortless; he lifted you, laid you flat on the cold granite. Your back hit with a shock of chill that made goosebumps race across sweat-slick skin, nipples tightening painfully under the bunched fabric of your dress. Legs dangled off the edge; come leaked slower now, trailing down your ass to the counter in lazy rivulets.

Bucky turned to Steve. Flesh hand tangled in blond strands, not rough. Firm. Guiding. Like muscle memory from nights long ago, when he’d pull Steve close in the dark and whisper promises neither believed anymore. “C’mere, Stevie.”

Steve let himself be pulled forward, knees hitting tile with a dull thud that echoed in the quiet. Hands hovered, trembling, before settling on your thighs, thumbs digging in, opening you wider. His eyes flicked up to yours: glassy, pleading, wrecked then down to the mess between your legs. Guilt twisted his features; he looked like a man staring at everything he’d lost and found again in the worst way.

Bucky cradled the back of Steve’s head, fingers threading through short hair, stroking slow. Almost affectionate. The gesture was so intimate it hurt, like Bucky was remembering every time he’d done this before, in safer moments, when it was just them.

“Go on,” he rasped, voice thick with something that wasn’t just mockery. “Taste what I left in her. Clean her up like you used to clean me up after missions, gentle, careful, like I might break.”

Steve’s breath hitched, chest jerking violently. He leaned in. The first touch of his tongue was devastating: hot, wet stroke lapping at the thick mix of Bucky’s release and your slick. A broken groan ripped from him half sob, half reverence. He licked deeper, nose bumping your clit, tongue pushing inside, scooping, swallowing with filthy wet sounds that bounced off the cabinets. Salt of tears mixed with everything else on his tongue.

You moaned, hips jerking involuntarily. Oversensitive nerves sparked white-hot. Hands fisted Steve’s hair; thighs trembled around his ears. Guilt knifed through the pleasure, Steve’s tears on your skin, Bucky’s quiet breaths above you, the history you were all drowning in.

Bucky watched, still stroking Steve’s head in slow drags. “That’s it, Rogers,” he said, but the taunt cracked halfway. “Eat my come out of your girl. Taste how much she still wants me. Always did, didn’t she? Even when she was tryin’ to love you the way I couldn’t anymore.”

Steve whimpered against you, the vibration shooting straight through. His hips jerked uselessly against air; tears slipped faster down cheeks, mixing with the mess on his chin. He looked up at Bucky for a heartbeat, eyes raw, pleading then dove back in like proving devotion could fix what he’d broken.

Bucky leaned down, lips brushing Steve’s ear. “You’re too soft with her, Stevie,” he whispered, voice fracturing on the old nickname. “Always were. Gentle hands, slow kisses, makin’ love like the world hadn’t already chewed us up. I walked away because I thought you deserved better than a broken thing like me. And you found her, soft like you, steady. But she never needed gentle. She needed taken apart. Owned. Fucked till she forgot the pain. That’s why she’s shakin’ on your tongue right now. Why she screamed mine instead of yours.”

Steve’s tongue faltered, just a heartbeat then redoubled, frantic, desperate. Like he could erase the years of silence, the breakup Bucky forced, the way Steve had let you in to fill the void.

You couldn’t stop the moans. Hands tight in Steve’s hair, hips rocking despite the guilt clawing your chest. The second orgasm coiled vicious and fast, too much sensation, too much emotion.

Bucky kept talking, relentless, but rawer now, armor slipping. “Look at you, Captain fuckin’ America, eatin’ my load like it’s the only way you’ll get a taste of what we had. Bet you never got her this wet. Never made her come this hard. Too busy bein’ the good guy. Holdin’ hands. Whisperin’ I love yous like they’d fix what I broke when I left you.”

Steve groaned muffled, broken. Tears streamed. His cock twitched visibly in his pants, another dark bloom spreading, close, untouched, aching.

You came sharp, shattering cry tearing out. Thighs clamped around Steve’s head, flooding his mouth with fresh slick mixed with Bucky’s release. He drank slower now, softer, almost reverent, like soothing the ache he couldn’t heal.

Bucky pulled him off by the hair, firm but careful. Steve’s face was destroyed: lips swollen and shining, chin dripping, cheeks streaked with tears and come, eyes lost and pleading.

No time to breathe.

Bucky fisted his cock still slick, hard shoved it into Steve’s open mouth.

Steve took him with a choked, grateful moan, eyes fluttering shut. Bucky braced his metal hand on the island beside you, started fucking Steve’s mouth long, deep, possessive strokes. Slow. Like savoring something he'd denied himself for years.

“Fuck, Stevie,” Bucky rasped, staring down, then up at you with something cracked and tender. “Still take it so pretty. Always had the sweetest mouth. Remember that night in the safehouse? After the first wipe wore off? You on your knees, lookin’ up at me like I was still worth somethin’.”

He pulled out, fed himself shallow into your mouth, letting you taste the bitter-salt mix of all three. Then back to Steve. Alternating. Using both throats like he owned them, eyes locking on yours every time he sank into Steve, making sure you saw the way Steve choked, swallowed, took it like it was salvation.

Steve cried openly now, silent tears, spit dripping down chin, hands clutching Bucky’s thighs, pulling him closer even as he gagged. Desperation, love, regret all pouring out.

Bucky’s taunts grew quieter, rougher, more broken. “You treat her like she’ll break, Rogers. I break her every time- she begs for more. Because she knows what it’s like to lose me. To lose us.”

“Bet you never made her choke. Too polite. Too afraid of hurtin’ her like I hurt you.”

“Look at you- gaggin’ on the cock that just bred her. Tears in those pretty eyes. Pathetic. Perfect. Mine.”

Bucky’s rhythm faltered. Breath coming in harsh pants. “Gonna come,” he growled. “But not yet.”

He pulled Steve off, wet pop. Kissed him deep, brutal, desperate. Tongue sweeping in, tasting himself, you, the years of distance. Steve moaned into it, hands clutching Bucky’s jacket like a lifeline, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise.

Bucky broke the kiss, voice wrecked. “Down, both of you.”

He guided you off the island, legs shaky, knees buckling. Helped you to the floor beside Steve. Cold tile bit into skin. Bucky stood over you both, cock hard, leaking, chest heaving.

“Suck,” he ordered soft, commanding, almost pleading.

You and Steve leaned in together. Tongues met on him, licking, sucking, sharing the mess. Steve took the head, you licked the shaft, then switched.

Messy. Filthy.

Hands on Bucky’s thighs, in each other’s hair. Bucky groaned, metal hand cradling Steve’s head, flesh in yours guiding, stroking, holding you both like he was afraid to lose this again.

“Fuck- good,” he panted, voice cracking. “Both of you. Mine. Always were.”

He came hard, thick pulses alternating down throats. You swallowed greedily; Steve too. Bucky held you both there till spent, fingers trembling in your hair, then eased out.

Silence roared, panting, shaking, hearts hammering.

Bucky tucked himself away. Looked down eyes soft, terrible, glistening.

“You always looked prettiest like this,” he whispered to Steve, voice raw, no mockery left. “On your knees for me. Beggin’ without words.”

To you, brittle smirk that didn’t reach his eyes. “Do me a favor, Rogers. Tuck her in gentle tonight. Whisper those sweet lies you’re so good at. Tell her it’ll be okay. She’ll need it after I reminded her what she- what we- actually want.”

His gaze flicked between you, mocking facade crumbling into something heartbroken, possessive, aching.

“Wouldn’t want her gettin’ cold without me, would we, softie? Or you. You never did like sleepin’ alone.”

Steve’s jaw locked. Tears still falling. He didn’t answer, couldn’t.

Bucky’s laugh was hollow, echoing as he turned.

He walked out.

Door clicked shut.

The apartment was too quiet after Bucky left.

The door’s click lingered like a dropped pin in an empty theater, sharp, final, echoing long after it should have faded into the snow-muffled night outside.

City lights sliced through the half-open blinds in thin, merciless stripes: cold blue pooling across the hardwood, gold bleeding over the rumpled sheets of the couch where everything had started to unravel, catching on the damp, darkening spots where sweat and come and tears had soaked through fabric and skin alike.

Everything looked bruised in that light. Everything felt bruised.

You couldn’t move. Your back was still pressed to the island Bucky had pinned you against earlier, cool and slightly rough against your spine where your dress had ridden up and stayed bunched around your waist like a cruel afterthought.

Your thighs throbbed, deep, pulsing soreness from being stretched wide, used hard, left gaping and empty. Sticky trails of him had cooled on your inner thighs, dripping slow and obscene down the creases of your legs, pooling in small, shameful puddles on the floor beneath you. Your throat burned raw; the taste of him lingered, bitter, salty, thick at the back of your tongue, layered now with the faint copper of Steve’s tears and the musky residue of shared desperation.

Steve stayed on his knees in the middle of the room for what felt like forever. Head bowed so low his forehead nearly touched the floor. Shoulders rising and falling in uneven, shuddering jerks. Hands fisted on his thighs, knuckles blanched white, trembling so violently you could see the fine vibration even from across the dim space.

His shirt clung to him in dark, clinging patches, under the arms, across the broad plane of his chest, sweat and shame and the untouched, humiliating release that had soaked through his jeans without a single stroke.

Face still wrecked: your slick shining on his chin and cheeks, Bucky’s come streaked across his lips, his own tears carving silent, glistening tracks through the mess. He looked smaller than you’d ever seen him. Captain America, America’s unyielding symbol reduced to a broken man on his knees, carrying the weight of two hearts he’d loved and lost in the same night.

Finally, he moved.

Not standing. Crawling.

Palms and knees dragging across the floor with soft, scraping sounds that seemed too loud in the silence. His breathing was ragged, wet, half sobs he tried to swallow. When he reached you he paused, palms flat on the floor beside your hips, head hanging low for a long heartbeat, then pushed himself up with careful, shaking effort. Every inch he rose looked like it cost him something vital.

You hadn’t made it fully upright. You were half-slumped against the island, legs splayed awkwardly, dress twisted and useless, arms limp at your sides. Staring at the ceiling. Feeling every ache, every bruise, every ghost touch of metal and flesh and regret.

Steve slid one arm under your knees, the other around your back. “I’ve got you,” he whispered, voice cracked open, hoarse, barely more than breath. “I’ve got you, sweetheart. I’m here.”

He lifted you like you weighed nothing, super-soldier strength made tender, almost hesitant, like he was afraid the wrong pressure would break you both.

Your head fell against his shoulder; you inhaled cedar soap undercut by salt and the faint metallic edge of his own arousal still clinging to his skin. His heartbeat hammered against your cheek: wild, unsteady, stuttering like it couldn’t decide whether to race or stop entirely.

He carried you through the dim living room, past the kitchen island still smeared with fingerprints and slick and the faint metallic sheen of Bucky’s arm, down the short hallway to the bedroom. The door was already ajar; pale city light spilled across the unmade bed in thin, cold stripes. He didn’t turn on the lamp. Just eased you down onto the mattress with excruciating care, like setting something fragile on cracked glass.

You sank into the cool sheets with a soft, broken exhale.

Body heavy.

Aching.

Empty in ways that went bone-deep.

Steve didn’t speak at first. He knelt beside the bed, one large hand resting on your knee, thumb tracing slow, soothing circles over the skin there, round and round, like he could smooth away the soreness with repetition alone. His eyes, red-rimmed, lashes clumped with drying tears searched your face like he was looking for cracks, for permission, for forgiveness he didn’t know how to ask for.

“I’m gonna take care of you,” he said quietly. “Okay? Just… let me.”

You nodded, small, tired. Fresh tears pricked; you let them fall. No point hiding anymore.

He stood, disappeared into the bathroom. Came back with a warm, damp washcloth folded neatly in one hand and a small ceramic bowl of water in the other. The faint scent of lavender soap followed him, something gentle he kept stocked for nights when the nightmares came or when missions left him raw or when the three of you used to collapse together in exhausted heaps and pretend the world outside didn’t exist.

He sat on the edge of the bed. Gently parted your thighs, careful, no pressure, no demand. The washcloth was warm against your skin; he wiped in slow, methodical strokes up the insides of your legs, cleaning the sticky, cooling trails Bucky had left behind.

No rush.

No judgment.

Just quiet, focused tenderness. His other hand rested on your hip, steady anchor, thumb brushing the bone there in small, unconscious circles.

Every pass of the cloth made you shiver, oversensitive nerves sparking, then settling under the gentleness. He cleaned between your legs with the same reverence: soft dabs along the swollen, tender folds, careful around your clit where even the lightest touch made you flinch. When the cloth brushed too close, accidental, feather-light you gasped; he froze instantly, eyes flicking to yours in panic.

“Sorry,” he murmured, voice thick. “Didn’t mean to-”

“It’s okay,” you whispered. Voice rough, scraped raw. “Keep going. Please.”

He did.

Finished between your legs, then moved to your inner thighs, your lower stomach where stray drops had landed, the crease of your hips. The cloth cooled by the end; he set it aside, took a fresh one from the bowl, dampened it again, and wiped your face, cheeks, chin, the corners of your mouth where spit and tears and come had dried into salty crusts. His thumb lingered under your eye, catching the last tear that slipped free.

“You’re safe,” he said, so soft it cracked in half. “With me. Always. I swear it.”

He helped you out of the ruined dress, lifting your arms like you were a child, sliding the fabric over your head with infinite patience, folding it carefully even though it was stained and wrinkled beyond saving. He set it on the chair anyway. Naked now, skin prickling in the cool air. Goosebumps rose; you shivered once.

He pulled the comforter back, guided your legs under the sheets, eased you down fully. The cotton was cool against your overheated body; you sighed as it settled over bare skin.

Steve stood for a long moment, watching you, chest rising and falling unevenly then started to undress himself. Shirt peeled off slowly, revealing the broad planes of his chest, the faint red crescent marks where your nails had dug in during the chaos, the older scars that Bucky used to trace with reverent fingers. Pants and boxers next; he kicked them aside without looking, wiped himself clean with quick, efficient strokes of the cloth, practical, almost mechanical.

Then he climbed in beside you, careful not to jostle the bed too much. Pulled you into his arms immediately. Your back to his chest, his arm wrapped around your waist, hand splayed wide over your stomach like he needed the skin-to-skin contact to believe you were still real. His chin tucked over your shoulder; breath warm and uneven against your neck.

He tugged the comforter higher, tucking it around your shoulders with careful hands, smoothing it down your arms, making sure no part of you was exposed to the chill creeping in from the window. The gesture was so achingly tender it dragged fresh tears from you, silent, hot, soaking into the pillow.

“I love you,” he whispered into your hair, voice breaking on every syllable. “Even the parts of you that still love him. Even the parts of me that still do. I never stopped. Not for a second.”

You turned your head just enough to press your lips to the rough stubble of his jaw. “I love you too,” you said, voice shaking. “And I’m scared. Scared we’ll never figure this out. Scared he walked out for good this time. Scared he’ll come back and we’ll tear each other apart again trying to share what’s left.”

Steve’s arm tightened around you, almost too tight, like he could physically hold the pieces together. “Then we’ll be scared together,” he murmured against your temple. “And we’ll wait. However long it takes. However many nights it takes. I’m not letting go of you. Not again.”

His fingers found yours under the covers, threaded them together, squeezed once. Hard. Like a vow.

You closed your eyes. The city hummed outside, indifferent, endless. Snow tapped softly against the window now, a faint white noise that almost covered the hollow space Bucky’s absence had carved out. The hole was there, in the room, in your chest, in the inches between you and Steve but Steve’s heartbeat against your back was steady now.

Slower.

Stronger.

An anchor in the dark.

He kissed the nape of your neck, soft, lingering, lips trembling just slightly.

“Sleep, sweetheart,” he whispered. “I’ve got you. I’m not going anywhere.”

You believed him.

Just enough.

Tears dried on your cheeks. Breath evened out. The ruin didn’t disappear but it quieted, settled into something you could carry for one more night.

Together.

You drifted off in his arms, tucked in, held, cleaned, not fixed.

But not alone.

And for tonight, with Steve’s warmth wrapped around you and the faint scent of lavender still clinging to the sheets, that was enough to let the darkness take you gently.

The bedroom was dark except for the faint silver glow from the city outside the window, same blinds, same cold stripes of light across the sheets, but everything felt different now.

Softer.

Quieter.

The kind of quiet that settles after you’ve learned to live with scars instead of tearing them open every night.

Steve was finally asleep beside you. Deep, even breaths. One thick arm slung heavy across your waist, anchoring you to him even in sleep; the other tucked under his pillow. His hair was still mussed from your fingers earlier, lips faintly swollen from the slow, thorough kisses you’d traded for hours.

You’d fucked tonight, gentle at first, exploratory, then desperate as the weeks of careful healing cracked open, then gentle again until you both unraveled in each other’s arms. No taunts. No ghosts crowding the room. Just skin on skin, whispered I love yous between gasps, like the words were the only truth still holding weight.

You were still catching your breath, heart rate drifting down, skin cooling, when your phone buzzed on the nightstand.

Once. Sharp. Insistent.

You glanced at Steve, out cold, face slack and peaceful in a way it hadn’t been for weeks and reached over carefully so the mattress wouldn’t dip too much. The screen lit your face in cold blue.

Unknown number.

Your stomach dropped. You knew.

The first message hit like a slap.

Unknown number 2:34am

Still hear you screaming my name while Rogers watched you fall apart. Bet he still jerks off thinking about how wet you got for me. How you begged. Tell me you don’t get soaked every time you remember my cock splitting you open on that island, doll. Tell me you’re not clenching right now just picturing it.

Your breath snagged in your throat.

Another buzz. Immediate. Relentless.

Unknown number 2:33am

I know he’s asleep next to you, playing house like a pathetic little boyfriend. I know he fucks you like you’re made of porcelain now, slow, boring rolls, sweet kisses, whispering how much he loves you while he barely scratches the surface. Pathetic. You need teeth. You need bruises. You need someone who’ll wreck you so hard you forget your own name instead of holding your hand through it like a goddamn therapy session.

Heat flooded low in your belly, traitorous, instant, humiliating. Your thighs pressed together on instinct. You could still feel the ghost of Bucky’s metal grip digging into your hips, the brutal stretch, the way he’d snarled Stevie like it was both a claim and a wound he refused to let heal.

Steve shifted in his sleep. His arm tightened around you reflexively, pulling you flush against his chest. Warm. Safe. Loving. His nose nuzzled the back of your neck, a soft, unconscious sound escaping him.

Another message.

Unknown number 2:34am

You were mine first, doll. Remember that? You were mine before Rogers ever laid a fucking finger on you. Then you went behind my back and cheated on me with him, let Captain America fuck you while you were still coming home to my bed every night. Now it’s his turn. One word and I’ll let you do the exact same thing to him. I’ll fuck you right beside him while he sleeps like the trusting idiot he is. I’ll make you bite the pillow so he doesn’t wake up to the sound of you coming on the cock that had you first. Or maybe I’ll wake him up. Let him watch again. Let him see what you really look like when you’re being properly ruined by the man who owned you before he ever did.

Your pulse thundered in your ears. Fingers shook on the screen.

The three little dots appeared. He was typing again.

Next message landed like a blade.

Unknown number 2:34am

Fair’s fair, sweetheart. You cheated on me with him once. Now come cheat on him with me. You know you want to. You know part of you still belongs to me. Say it. Tell me you’re touching yourself right now thinking about how I’d pin you down and fuck his name right out of your mouth. One word. I’ll be there before he even stirs.

Your free hand clenched the sheet. Shame and want twisted together so tight you couldn’t breathe right.

Steve murmured something soft in his sleep, your name, maybe, or just a sigh of contentment. His lips brushed your shoulder, tender, unconscious. The arm around you flexed again, holding you like you were the center of his world.

You stared at the glowing screen.

Thought about the weeks since that night.

Steve crying into your hair the morning after. Steve kissing every bruise Bucky left like he could erase them with his mouth. Steve fucking you slow and deep last week, eyes locked on yours, whispering how much he loved you, how he’d fight for this, for you, even if it meant sharing pieces of your heart he could never fully touch.

Thought about Bucky.

The way he’d walked out like he was leaving forever, but the door had clicked shut like a promise he’d be back to collect what was his.

The way part of you still ached for the violence of him. The way he broke you open and made it feel like worship.

But right now, in this bed, with Steve’s heartbeat steady and warm against your back, something cold and clear crystallized:

You could want both.

You could love Steve with everything soft and safe and healing in you.

And still crave the ruin Bucky offered like a drug you couldn’t quit.

But you didn’t have to choose tonight.

You didn’t have to answer.

You turned the phone face-down on the nightstand.

Silent. Dark.

Steve shifted again, nuzzling closer, murmuring something sleepy and sweet against your neck, wordless comfort.

You slid your hand over his, lacing your fingers through his bigger ones. Squeezed once. Hard.

Then the phone buzzed one last time.

You didn’t want to look.

But you did.

One final message waited on the screen, colder and sharper than the rest.

Unknown number 2:36am

Run back to me whenever you’re ready, whore. We both know you will. You cheated on me with him once. Now be a good girl and cheat on him with me. I’ll be waiting ;)

— yours truly, ѕℓυtdιεr.

masterlist

You came down to the home gym at the Avengers compound with Bucky, expecting to get a workout in like usual.

But the second he starts his set your attention shifts straight to him.

The room fills with the clank of metal plates and the steady rhythm of his breathing, and somehow you end up just standing there watching instead of doing anything productive.

He’s beneath the bar with more weight loaded onto it than most men would dare attempt, his vibranium arm catching the bright fluorescent light every time he pushes the bar upward.

A thin sheen of sweat coats his skin, tracing the thick muscles of his neck, sliding over the wide expanse of his chest, and disappearing into the defined ridges of his abs.

Each low grunt he lets out as he pushes the bar sends a jolt straight to your core, his biceps bulge like fucking pythons, veins standing out along his forearms like they’ve been drawn there just to ruin your focus.

And God help you, he looks unfairly good—solid, powerful, the kind of man who could crush steel and still have you completely unravelled just by standing there.

You nudge your thighs together, feeling the heat build up.

The way he controls the weight, hips lifting just slightly for leverage, muscles tightening under those black shorts clinging to his thick thighs… it pulls you straight back to that night.

That night in his bedroom when he’d turned all that raw strength on you.

He'd already made you come twice on his tongue, sprawled on the bed with your legs hooked over his shoulders. His metal fingers dug into your thighs, holding you spread wide open as his mouth worked your pussy—lips sucking your clit, tongue plunging deep, lapping up every drop like he had been starving for weeks.

“Fuck, doll,” he’d groaned against you, his voice rough and wrecked. "Taste so goddamn sweet. Gimme one more."

You’d been trembling, oversensitive from the intense pleasure, thighs quivering around his head.

But he didn't relent.

Instead, he slid his flesh arm under your ass to drag you right to the edge of the bed like you weighed nothing at all—pulling you closer as if you weren’t already close enough.

His piercing blues locked on yours, dark with a primal hunger. “C’mon, baby,” he'd growled. “Soak my face again. I know you got it.”

You shouldn’t have been shocked by his strength—super soldier serum and all that—but when he said, “Grab on,” and you clutched his shoulders, fingers sinking into solid muscle, he just… lifted you.

Straight off the bed, you were suspended mid-air in his arms, held up only by his strength as he devoured you like a man possessed.

You gripped his hair with one hand, the other braced on his shoulder, knuckles white as you rode his face, every flick of his tongue sending hot, overwhelming pulses through your entire body.

The thrill of it—the sheer power holding you up while he ravaged your soaked cunt, nose grinding your throbbing clit, tongue curling deep with feral growls vibrating straight through you.

The pleasure overwhelmed you, leaving you lightheaded and on the verge of blacking out.

But you were close, oh so close—muscles burning as you started to slip.

“B-bucky—fuck, I cant,” you’d gasped, your grip faltering. “Gonna f-fall, I—”

He’d just grunted, low and animalistic, not even pausing to set you down.

In one fluid move, he pivoted and slammed your back against the nearest wall, the impact rattling the pictures on the wall and sending one crashing to the floor in pieces.

He paid no mind to it.

His mouth sealed over you again, relentless, tongue thrusting deep as his vibranium hand pinned your thigh high, opening you wider.

"Give it to me, baby," he'd demanded, voice rough between sucks, eyes burning into you. "Give me what’s mine. Come on my tongue. Now."

And you had, shattering harder than before, grinding down onto his greedy mouth as your orgasm ripped through you, thighs quaking around his head, squirting hot and messy over his face while he drank it all down, groaning like it was the best thing he'd ever tasted.

"That's my good fucking girl."

The loud clang of the bar settling into the rack snaps you back to reality, your panties now completely drenched from the memory and your nipples straining hard against your tank top.

Bucky sits up, straightening as he wipes sweat from his brow with a towel, dragging it slowly down the side of his neck before his gaze settles on you.

Heat rushes to your cheeks as his lips tip into that familiar, knowing smirk.

“Like what you see, sweetheart?” he teases, voice low and playful as he stands and begins to walk toward you. "You know, you're not very subtle," he chuckles, stopping just inches away, towering over you.

“You’ve been eye-fuckin’ me for the last ten minutes,” he adds, that smirk deepening. "What’s going on in that pretty little head of yours, huh? Thinkin' about something dirty?"

Your breath hitches, pulse thundering between your legs, and you don't bother lying. "Yeah," you admit, voice steady but tight. "Thinking about how I want to be your next workout."

The smirk is gone. His eyes darken at your words, that playful glint morphing into something far more intense.

Without warning, his hands are on you—vibranium palm firm at the back of your thigh, his other arm wrapping around your waist—as he lifts you up effortlessly.

Your legs instinctively lock around his hips, your back arching as he presses his rock-hard cock right against your soaked core through your thin shorts.

“Lucky for you…" he groans, tilting your face down to his and lightly nibbling your lower lip. "I was barely workin' up a sweat.”

thank you so much for reading! hope you enjoyed! likes, comments and reblogs are so appreciated <3 pls let me know what you think!

But time slows eventually and Steve learns how to exist without waiting for the next mission. Bucky without the next fight, the next hurt. They move to a run down property in the Hudson Valley—stretches of greenery as far as the eye can see, a small house with a porch that needs fixing, stables out the back and a small pond off to the side. There’s a firepit out the front and a white cat sitting on the mailbox like she owns the place, licking her paw.

Bucky feeds her and she becomes his.

He names her Alpine.

Steve fixes the porch first because Bucky’s always wanted one. He remembers him saying it back in the 40s before the war—two rocking chairs and a place to look up at the stars, he’d said—and Steve was more than happy to make Bucky’s dream come true.

He finds Bucky asleep out there one night, Alpine sitting on his lap, shivering slightly from the cold. Steve wraps a blanket around him, kissing his forehead and Bucky smiles in his sleep, stirring only slightly. Steve takes a shaky breath like he can’t believe this is their life now. That they get to have everything they dreamed of 80 years ago.

“I love you Bucky,” he whispers shakily against his skin.

-----------

They have a small wedding right there on their little farm—flower petals spread across the grass, folded chairs lined up on either side of the aisle, an archway Bucky had built himself made of tree branches and flowers Steve had picked by the river. They walk down the aisle together, hand in hand—Bucky shaking when he places Steve’s ring on his finger, kissing his knuckles, eyes teary and full of love.

And when they kiss as husbands, barely able to contain their smiles, laughing into each other’s mouths—it’s like the first time all over again. It’s every moment they had ever been apart, all the pain Bucky had been through. It’s the two boys from Brooklyn barely scraping by, nothing but bruised knuckles and each other. It’s Steve, small and frail, before the serum. It’s Bucky before he fell off the train. It’s Bucky pulling Steve from the river. It’s ‘I’m with you till the end of the line, pal,’ and every other moment in between.

----------

Bucky starts to try new things, something to fill his time, something that isn’t based on survival, simply for him. He discovers he likes gardening—likes working with his hands and watching something grow—something he can share with Steve. When his first strawberries finally make it without any worms or birds picking at them, he runs inside with a handful, presenting them to Steve with a smile.

“Look they finally grew.” He can barely contain his excitement, eyes sparkling and grinning ear to ear. Steve beams, heart squeezing at the sight of Bucky like this—carefree, slightly breathless, dirt behind his nails, hair messy and shirt unbuttoned at the top.

Steve puts down the wooden spoon he’d been holding, turning off the stove, before walking over to Bucky and cupping his face in his hands, kissing his cheek.

“You did it, baby. They for me?” Steve’s thumb brushes over Bucky’s cheekbone.

Bucky nods, biting down on his lip, still in awe of the way Steve can make him nervous after all these years. He turns to place the berries in a bowl before settling into Steve’s arms, placing his hands on Steve’s waist. The air thickens and Bucky takes a trembling breath when Steve’s thumb traces over his bottom lip. He lets the anticipation build, feeling the way Bucky’s grip tightens on his waist, the way his breath gets heavier, eyes full of want.

Steve leans in, brushing his lips over Bucky’s, one hand resting on the back of his neck, the other cupping his jaw. Bucky lets out a soft sound, barely there, and Steve pulls him in, lips parting against his, tasting him. The kiss quickly turns desperate, breathless—hands pulling at clothes until Bucky’s crowded against the foot of the bed. Steve mouths at Bucky’s neck, leaving hot open mouthed kisses down his skin. Bucky moans, the sound rumbling through his chest.

“All this for strawberries?” He teases, voice laced with affection, hands tugging gently at Steve’s hair.

“For you baby. Want to take care of you.”

He pulls Bucky’s shirt off, hands trailing up his stomach, slightly softer now than he used to be—and Steve loves it, pressing his fingers into the flesh, smiling at the soft give of it, at what it represents—Bucky slowly letting go. Bucky sheds his pants and boxers, the hard length of his cock brushing against Steve’s stomach.

Steve takes off his shirt, pushing Bucky down onto the bed until he’s sitting, moving between his legs. His hand reaches for Bucky’s cock—thick and flushed and leaking. He wraps his fingers around the length, stroking slowly as Bucky’s eyes flutter shut, letting out a loud moan.

Steve places a kiss to Bucky’s chest, trailing his mouth down to the junction of his vibranium arm, kissing the scars there.

“Stevie.” Bucky sounds wrecked, voice small and broken, eyes welling at the devotion in his husband’s eyes, his lips—tracing along every scar, murmuring praise into his skin, continuing to stroke his cock, thumb brushing over the tip.

Bucky’s hips jerk up, gasping at the pleasure rolling through him and Steve pins his hips down with one strong hand, rubbing soothing circles into his right hip.

“Easy baby, let me take care of you. I’ve got you sweetheart.” Steve kisses down Bucky’s stomach, kneeling in front of him. He looks up at Bucky—lips parted around a gasp, pupils dilated, almost drowning out the blue.

Steve’s lips close around Bucky’s cock, tongue swirling around the tip, taking him further into his mouth. When Bucky cums, its fast and messy, gasping and pulling at Steve’s hair while he sucks him through it.

Steve pulls back then, lips swollen and glistening with Bucky’s release, standing up and pulling Bucky with him.

Bucky’s breathing heavy, broad chest rising and falling quickly, already seeking out Steve’s touch—his mind gone soft and pliant in that way it only does for his husband.

Steve’s hands trail down Bucky’s sides, leaning in to kiss him, letting him taste himself on his tongue before pulling back.

“Turn around. Bend over for me sweetheart.”

Bucky gulps, obeying immediately, breathing heavy as he bends himself over the bed, feeling so exposed yet so safe all at once. Steve sheds his pants and boxers, hand wrapping around his length, the other resting on Bucky’s hip, admiring the curve of his ass, ready and waiting for him.

“So pretty for me. Look at you, already leaking for me again.” He reaches around and strokes Bucky’s cock once, twice before pulling away.

“Stevie, please.” Bucky whines, head turned over his shoulder, eyes begging for Steve to please, please touch him, fuck him the way he needs.

Steve chuckles, reaching for a bottle of lube, spreading some over his fingers before pressing against Bucky’s ass, fingertip breaching the opening just slightly and Bucky gasps, head falling forward at the sensation.

Steve stretches him slowly, fingers pushing in—slow, controlled—adding another while Bucky fists his hands in the sheets. Steve fucks him then—deep, measured thrusts that have Bucky whining Steve’s name—Steve praising him through it, kissing along his spine, hands digging firmly into Bucky’s hips, keeping him right where he wants him. Bucky almost cries as he comes—the feeling of being so full, so loved, so taken care of, overwhelming in the best way. Steve follows, coming inside him, grunting into Bucky’s neck as he rides out his high.

“Fuck, I love you.” Steve gasps into Bucky’s neck as he slowly pulls himself out.

Bucky turns in Steve’s arms, kissing him soft and sweet, like he hadn’t just been taken apart completely.

“I love you Steve, so beautiful.” He says between kisses.

Steve cups Bucky’s face, kissing him lazily like they have all the time in the world—because they do.

----------

Steve’s sitting on the armchair in the living room, sketch book in his lap, pencils sprawled out next to him, hair still damp from the shower. He traces another line, the soft curve of Bucky’s cheeks before shading over his jaw, adding small lines to the stubble he’s drawing along Bucky’s jaw.

He looks up at Bucky—damp hair sticking to his forehead, the afternoon sunlight hitting his face just right. His brow is furrowed slightly as he reads, completely oblivious to his husband drawing him, one hand resting on Alpine’s head, petting her softly where she’s curled on his lap.

Steve’s heart swells at the sight—Bucky; safe, loved, content, bathed in sunlight like it exists just to frame his beautiful jaw, glinting off the dog tags around his neck.

Bucky looks up then, while Steve is concentrated on a particular spot of his sketch, tongue peeking out between his lips as he angles the book just right. He smiles, wondering how he got this lucky—married to the man he’s loved since he was 13, tucked away in their small home, filled with mismatched furniture and homemade items and so, so much love.

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