Articulations of Aspen

You’d expected a lot of things when you agreed your husband’s oldest friend should come spend the holidays with you, but not this: you naked and splayed open, your back against Bucky’s chest, and Steve knelt between your legs, focus absolute as they took you apart.

Bucky’s lips moved against your neck, not quite kissing, hand sliding to cup one aching breast. “You want to feel for the ridge, the soft roof inside. Feel it?”

Steve nodded, learning by the tremors that rippled through you.

And you? You could only moan as his fingers sought a place only Bucky had touched before tonight.

Steve’s breath ghosted along your thigh, cool in comparison to the heat pooling where his fingertips pressed. “Like this?” he asked, looking up, seeking confirmation from Bucky.

Bucky squeezed you, barely-there pressure, his thumb circling your nipple. “Yeah, there—you’ll feel it through the front wall. Little bump.”

Steve slid his fingers deeper, slow and careful, and you arched back against Bucky’s chest. The pressure inside shifted, molten but sudden, and you gasped at the feel of it when he found it—that ridge, the soft roof, as Bucky had described it. Steve’s big hand trembled just a little as he kept it inside you, gentle but greedy, desperate to get it right. The man was as worshipping as he was determined, brow furrowed, lashes dark against his cheek as he mapped each element of your reactions.

And Bucky watched, grinning against your ear, voice thick. “That’s it, Steve. Watch her face, see how her mouth falls open? Touch her there, a tiny bit harder, that’s it, yeah.”

He kept the pressure steady, calloused thumb skating circles over your clit while his fingers pressed up, learning you, working with the careful tenacity he applied to every complex operation.

Bucky’s own hand drifted lower, his touch rough at your hip, a grounding force. You couldn’t move if you’d wanted to, pinned between them, the air thick with sweat and something like ozone.

You bucked, pulse thumping in your throat, teeth gritty against a whimper. Steve’s eyes flicked up again, shining, hungry, and your swore you might come just on the taste of his focus. With every press against that spot, your vision stuttered out, blinking in firework-bright bursts.

Bucky’s voice pressed into the shell of your ear, low and lazy, but with that hint of command that still managed to thrill you, even after all these years. “She’s real sensitive right there, Steve. Just steady. Keep the rhythm—yeah, just like that.”

“Fuck, Buck—she’s gonna—” Steve’s fingers jittered, the tip of his thumb ghosting over your wet clit.

“Let her,” Bucky hummed, open-mouthed over her shoulder. His other hand covered her thigh, holding her so wide the ache felt like a dare. “Make her feel it.”

Steve’s hand was huge, careful, coaxing, until it wasn’t, until the motion grew greedy, needy. You’d never been shy with Bucky, but with the attention of two lovers you felt nearly too open and exposed, nerves sparking along every limb. Bucky’s thumb toyed with your nipple, drawing it taut, while Steve’s fingers pursued your impending orgasm relentlessly.

And the orgasm came with no warning, just an unbearable pressure and then a bright, skittering release, your vision white-out as you shrieked and clamped around Steve’s hand. He nearly lost his balance but Bucky steadied him—steadied you—bracing your shaking limbs as you rode the aftershocks. Even after the pleasure crested, Steve’s fingers didn’t stop. He worked you through every shudder, sucking a breath through his teeth, awed. His voice was a fervent whisper, “Jesus. You—fuck, you look good like this.”

“She always does,” Bucky replied, mouth slick on your jaw, catching the sweat there. “You wanna see her come again?”

Steve’s hand stilled, then slowly slid free, leaving you embarrassingly empty and sticky. He watched you with dazed awe, pink flush climbing from his collar to cheekbones, as if he couldn’t believe the thing he’d just made happen, for you.

“Yeah, I do. Will you let me?” he asked, eyes meeting yours again.

You nodded, voice gone to wool and cotton, incapable of anything but a whispered, “Please.” The word left your lips desperate, high-pitched, a note of wildness that made Bucky’s hand tighten against your thigh, a subtle anchor to keep you from dissolving completely.

Steve’s smile broke open on his face, that cocky little tilt that always got him his way. He ducked down and pressed his mouth to your thigh, some kind of benediction, before giving Bucky a look, a question you weren’t included in: permission, or maybe the next step in instructions. Bucky’s hand still gripped your thigh, and the pressure from his fingertips went from comfort to proprietary.

“Take your time,” Bucky told him, slow as syrup. “She’s got plenty more in her if you work it up right.”

You whimpered, and Steve’s hand found your knee, thumb brushing circles that didn’t seem to know whether they were meant to calm or tease. He spread you even wider, fingers delving again, but now the touch was softer, coaxing in a new way. He watched your face the whole time, never letting you look away, and the sheer heat of his attention made it impossible to catch your breath, impossible to be anywhere but here, between them, for them.

You let your head loll back on Bucky’s chest, and he inhaled you like a secret. Steve’s mouth ghosted over the inside of your knee, the lightest of touches, as his hand slid slick with you, coaxing you open again. There was awe in his expression, like he couldn’t believe the things your body was capable of. That he couldn’t believe you let him see it.

Bucky’s voice was right in your ear, velvet and wicked. “You love this, don’t you? How he touches you, how he looks at you?” His teeth grazed just below your pulse, almost biting, his metal hand now flat and heavy on your soft stomach.

Steve’s mouth found your clit then, hot and wet, and you bit your lip, trying not to break apart too quickly, but Bucky’s other hand snapped up to your chin, forcing your jaw open. He slid two thick fingers into your mouth, muffling your gasps as Steve reached for that place inside you again, a blunt presence that made your hips twitch uncontrollably, mouth kissing and lapping at your clit.

“Be our good girl,” Bucky murmured, voice a velvet drag along your nerves. “Let me hear you, sweetheart.” He pressed your lips open wider, thumb tight on your cheek. Everything about him said claim, but you felt less like territory and more like treasure—something precious they’d both agreed to share.

You moaned and sucked on Bucky’s fingers, desperate for something to hold onto. Steve’s tongue drew slow, wide circles, alternating with little flicks that made you see stars, and every time his fingers curled inside you, you wanted to shake apart. Bucky’s hand pressed at the base of your throat, a leash without pressure, just a reminder of where you belonged.

Steve’s tongue moved with a rough, hungry precision that made your lashes flutter, the strangeness of his mouth—different than Bucky’s, somehow broader and needier—forcing you up against the edge of your own appetite. He groaned into you, animal, and the vibration made your toes curl as your hips bucked, seeking more, seeking everything.

The sound of you—wet and needy—filled the room, obscene, and Steve was impossibly focused. You could feel the shift as Steve’s mouth grew unabashed, each lap and suckle more confident. He lapped greedily, not just at your clit but at the desperate, shuddering noises you made, feeding on them, letting them escalate him past any feigned self-control.

Bucky murmured filth in your ear. “Such a pretty thing, all open for Steve. He’s a fast learner, isn’t he?” His fingers slipped from your mouth, gliding down to squeeze your breast with proprietary delight. “Sensitive here, too, Steve. She likes it just a little mean when you bite.”

Steve’s lips left your cunt, replaced by the blunt, perfect drag of his teeth—just a graze, but amplified by the velvet heat radiating between your thighs. The wild sound you made told him everything he needed. He grinned, eyes bright, and gave you another drag with his tongue and the barest scrape of teeth. Your legs shook, clamped for a second around his broad shoulders as he tormented you, licking through the slick he’d made.

“She’s right there,” Bucky insists, “but don’t let up.”

You squeezed your eyes shut, chest heaving, as Bucky’s words poured through you, making it impossible not to want to give him everything, even the parts you thought you’d never let anyone else but him see. He tugged his hand from your mouth, and you gasped, “I’m close, I can’t—”

“Yes, you can,” Bucky coaxed, hand splayed again over your breast, pinching and then soothing. “Let him taste it. Let him taste everything.” He nuzzled the space behind your ear, catching the lobe between his teeth, a punctuation to his demand.

Steve’s hand, meanwhile, never stopped mapping you. His thick fingers curling again against that spot inside, a squirming, irresistible pressure, while his mouth closed around your clit and sucked, hard, and the world melted into a soundless scream in your throat. You bucked up, hands grasping at Bucky’s biceps, and came again, hard enough you thought you might black out.

This time Steve didn’t bother with awe, only a growl of triumph and gratitude as he licked you through every convulsion, not stopping until your thighs trembled against his head and Bucky had to murmur, “Enough, big guy, you’ll melt her.”

You didn’t remember the transition—somewhere in the haze of pleasure, Steve had shifted you onto his lap, his cock thick and leaking, pressed impossibly hard against your hip. Bucky sat facing you both on the foot of the bed, blue eyes greedy and soft at the same time, mouth slack with want. Steve held you to his chest, the thrum of his pulse wild and loud beneath your palm.

“Fuck, honey, you alright?” Bucky asked, thumb brushing along your jaw. You only nodded, eyes glassy, limbs a little insubstantial.

“She gets real soft after she comes,” Bucky explained. His metal hand stroked your cheek, thumb scraping your parted lip. “Steve, you ever eat a girl out til she can’t think straight, and then fuck her so good she gets slick again just from the memory?”

Steve’s gaze flicked down to your face, as if he needed to check in, as if the rules of this odd, shared gravity could change at your whim. But you only leaned harder into his chest, the memory of Bucky’s words blooming low in your gut. “Not like this,” Steve said quietly, the confession tumbling out like an apology. “Never had someone so slick and eager and pliant. She’s so fucking sweet.”

“She likes making a mess, especially when she knows someone’s gonna clean it up nice for her.”

It was obscene and beautiful in the same breath, the way your body pulsed and ached for these two men. You knew Bucky intimately, but Steve was still a new entity, it should be unbelievable what you were letting him do to you, and yet you were willing because Bucky said you could be.

“You wear her out, and she lets you do anything you want.” Steve pressed his lips to your temple, the gesture as tender as a prayer, but you could feel the tension in his body—like he was holding himself back as much as he was holding you up.

“Do you want him to fuck you?” It was as blunt as a knife’s edge; Bucky never did like to leave things to implication.

You meant to say yes, steeled and confident, but the only sound you could make was a whimper. Bucky grinned. “Use your words, honey. Steve’s been waiting a long time.”

Steve’s hands tightened on your hips. “Since your wedding,” he confessed, and you gasped.

Bucky nodded, proud, calm, even though this revelation was ricocheting through your mind. Steve had been overseas for years until just recently, and of course he hadn’t missed his best friend’s wedding—had been the best man—but it had also been the first time you’d met him.

You remembered the speech, the toast. Steve smiling at you across a room of strangers, nothing but friendship and pride in his voice, but now you wondered how long he’d been drinking you in, how long he’d been simmering in this kind of want.

You also remembered—vivid as if it bloomed on the backs of your eyelids—the way Steve’s eyes had lingered at the reception, how his hand seemed to swallow yours when he shook it, holding on a beat too long. You’d caught him watching you and Bucky slow dancing, his smile softer than it ought to have been, heavy with yearning. At the time you’d wondered if maybe he was just that kind of romantic, or maybe a little lonely after so much time away.

But now that memory rewrote itself, charged and electric, searing through you as Steve took your chin in his hand and kissed you—soft at first, learning the taste of you. His mouth tasted like you, and you shivered, deep in your bones, at being desired by these two men.

Bucky reached for you, steady hands bracketing your thighs, and you sank back against Steve’s chest. Your husband ducked lower, pressing a line of kisses from your hip bone to the soft, over-sensitive spot at the seam of your thigh.

You shivered as Bucky trailed his tongue through the wetness Steve had left behind, mouth hungry and reverent. He licked slowly, then nosed at your clit, already swollen and sore from Steve’s attention, and the jolt of sensation made you gasp into Steve’s mouth. He devoured your sounds greedily, tongue parting your lips as if he needed to taste how undone you were.

Bucky’s tongue was firmer than Steve’s, more insistent, and when he flattened it against you and sucked, you felt every vibration in your teeth. You whimpered into Steve’s kiss, and he swallowed the noise, hands squeezing your hips as you rolled against the heat of Bucky’s mouth, your body burning, melting, until there was nothing left but sensation.

You weren’t sure Bucky’s mouth could ever be called gentle, but right now it was a new kind of slow, each lap deliberate, stroking the sharp edge of oversensitivity and coaxing pleasure out of it until your eyes watered. Steve’s hand wound into your hair, guiding your head back against his shoulder, and you let him, lost in the heat radiating from both their bodies.

“She’s shaking,” Steve whispered, awe thick in his voice.

“She knows what she likes,” Bucky replied, voice muffled between your legs. His metal hand dug into your thigh, cool and greedy, while the other traced lazy patterns over your ribs, drawing your skin tight with anticipation for what would come next.

Bucky pulled his mouth away with a slick, obscene sound, smirking up at you. “You ready for cock?” he asked, and this wasn’t an idle question. Bucky wanted you to say it, wanted you to beg for it. Steve’s cock pressed up under you, thick and hot, and you could feel how desperate he was for it. You were too.

“Yes,” you said, or maybe just moaned it, letting your knees fall as wide as Steve and Bucky wanted them. “Yes, please.”

“Fuck, she’s polite,” Steve mumbled, hands already guiding you up, shifting you onto your knees, palms bracing the mattress as Bucky moved to the side of you, one hand fisting his own stiff cock, the other smoothing down your back and skimming over your ass. You could feel Steve’s cock, hot and insistent, nudging between your thighs.

“She likes a full feeling,” Bucky told Steve, the statement an offer and a warning both, and you blinked up at him, swallowing. “When you fuck her, you gotta go deep.”

Steve’s hands caught your hips, palms broad enough to span almost from waist to thigh. There was a reverence in his movements, but also the first hints of impatience—the way his fingers flexed, the way his cock jumped when it brushed against you, smearing precum along the seam of your body. He lined himself up and held, not yet pushing in, and the wait felt like another kind of pleasure, anticipation sharp as a blade.

Your chest seized—with anticipation or hesitation, you weren’t sure—as you realized Bucky was going to let Steve fuck you bare.

“He’s a big one, sweetheart,” Bucky warned, and you could hear the grin on his face. He planted a hand at the small of your back, keeping your spine bowed. “Nice and slow. She likes to feel every inch.”

You pressed your face into the pillow, bracing for a stretch that came slow and monumental—Steve’s cock parting you, nudging inside until you couldn’t breathe for the fullness, the hot-dull burn that quickly blurred into something sweeter.

“There you go, sweetheart,” Bucky murmured. “Let him all the way in.”

You were so wet he didn’t even need to force it; the broad head split you open easily. You heard Bucky’s purr, almost proud, as if he had made you this way, greedy for the kind of ache only they could give. Bucky loved to torment you with this kind of fuck when he slid inside you, so his direction for Steve to as well was to be expected.

Steve held, fully sheathing himself, body trembling with restraint. “You okay?” The sound of your name was different in his voice, kinder, stripped of any artifice.

You nodded, eagerly pressing your hips back, and the slide hit something deep, a place that made your toes flex and your mouth fall open. Steve’s hands stroked your hips, grounding you, his breath rough as he held as still as he could manage. Bucky’s voice was syrup-sweet at your ear, “Go on, Steve. She wants it.”

The first thrust was a slow, rolling motion that stole your breath. Steve drew out nearly all the way, then slid back in, the burn giving way to a greedy, clutching pleasure. You held perfectly still, squeezing your eyes shut, learning the new shape of yourself with Steve inside you. You keened, knuckles whitening in the bedsheets. Bucky stayed close, palm at the nape of your neck, his own cock hard and leaking, pressed to your shoulder as he watched Steve fuck you.

“She takes cock so well, doesn’t she?” Bucky crooned, his tone barely above a purr. “Bet you never seen anyone so hungry before.” His metal hand traced your spine, ratcheting the tension higher as he pet you and praised you, the words a molten thread tangled through every harder, deeper thrust. Steve’s hips pistoned slow, but with such force you swore you could feel it in your throat, each time catching a spot Bucky had mapped just for him.

Steve’s rhythm was a miracle of endurance, slow and deep, every thrust measured, watched, almost academic in its hunger. His hands never stopped moving, stroking your waist, your belly, your ribs, learning every inch of you as if he needed to memorize the route. His hips stuttered occasionally, evidence of his own struggle not to lose himself too quickly to the wet heat you offered him.

And he whispered your name between every other breath, like a vow, like he was kneeling in church.

Bucky’s hands grew rougher on you, easing your thighs farther apart, planting dirty encouragements in your head that made you slicker, filthier than before. “You should see her face, Steve. She’s so beautiful right now.”

Bucky coaxed your head up and to the side so Steve could see the exact, filthy pleasure contorting your features. And you felt it, the slide of your own tears, half-joy and half-overwhelm, as Steve picked up the pace, his thrusts deeper, harder.

Bucky wiped a tear from your jaw with his thumb, then sucked it into his mouth. “So beautiful when you’re ruined like this.”

Steve’s fingers dug into your flesh, and you could feel how close he was to letting go of decorum, of caution, of the last rags of self-control. You wanted it. You moaned for it. Your head swam with the ache of being so fucking full, of being seen and used and loved all at once.

“Not gonna last,” Steve groaned, the confession breaking at the seam. “Feels—fuck, Bucky, how do you keep your head—”

“I don’t, punk. That’s why I always make her come first.” Bucky’s laugh was sharp and breathless, the sound of a man profoundly in love with his own wife. He trailed a hand down your front, fingers gliding over the slick mess Steve had made of you. “And always make it up to her after, too. She loves that part too.”

Bucky’s hand found your clit, thumb and forefinger pinching, rolling it just this side of cruel, and you yelped, the sudden spike of pain-pleasure a match to the fullness Steve was feeding you, and your whole body shuddered. Bucky laughed—warm and wicked—and reached down, fingers sliding through the mess of slick and sweat and precum at the seam where Steve’s body split yours, then smeared it over his own cock.

He pumped himself once, twice, eyes locked on where Steve’s body met yours, and you watched, unabashedly.

Bucky leaned forward, mouth hot at your jaw. “You want me to fuck your mouth while Steve fucks you?”

The question, blunt and bright, sliced through your haze. You nodded, desperate, and Bucky grinned, wolfish. He pressed his thumb to your lips, smearing the taste of yourself across them, and then shifted around in front of you, kneeling up so his cock bobbed level with your mouth. It was already slick, the head flushed dark, and you opened for him automatically, tongue out, dutiful and greedy all at once.

“That’s my girl,” Bucky breathed, sliding in slow, letting you feel the heft of him as Steve’s cock ground into your cunt from behind. You could barely spare the coordination to suck and moan at the same time, the boundary between pleasure and humiliation dissolved.

Your throat worked, helpless, as Bucky fucked your mouth in shallow, reverent thrusts, and your jaw burned with the effort of taking him as deep as he wanted. He pulled back every time you gagged, not to spare you, but to watch the string of spit connect your lips to the tip of his cock. You blinked up at your husband, tears streaming freely now, and saw how it undid him—made him thrust a little deeper, fuck your mouth a little harder, hands cradling your jaw, both anchoring and guiding you.

“Pretty thing,” he muttered, almost gentle, “look at you. That’s it. Just like that. God, Steve, you’re going to love fucking her throat.”

“Buck, you can’t just—” Steve had to groan before he could finish his thought. “You can’t just say shit like that and expect me to last.”

You moaned, mouth full of Bucky and body full of Steve, your whole self strung taut between their appetites. The rhythm between Steve’s hips behind you and Bucky’s in front of you a terrifying, perfect sync.

Bucky smirked, thumb wiping spit from your chin, then dragged it down to your throat, pressing lightly so you felt the stretch of yourself inside. “Bet you want him in your mouth right after he fills you up, don’t you?” Bucky’s voice was honey-thick, tugging need like a thread from your cunt all the way up to your brain.

You nodded, desperate, and that was all it took—Steve’s grip on your hips locked down, his pulse a wild thrum against your skin, and he buried himself in you with one last, shuddering thrust. You could feel it, the way he pulsed and spilled hot inside, and the sound he made—it was raw, almost animal. He held inside, grinding so deep you felt it all the way up your spine, filling you so perfectly a whimper broke loose from your lips even with Bucky’s cock still in your mouth.

Bucky eased out of your mouth, palm still warm against your jaw, thumb stroking where his cock had just been. He grinned at you, all sweet-and-mean, then leaned in to press a kiss over your spit-slick lips. “That’s it,” he whispered, reverent, like he was kissing holy ground. “That’s my good girl.” The words landed low in your belly, twisting up with the mess Steve had left in you.

But his cock was still inside you, too, and he collapsed forward, chest to your back, his arms caging you in. You expected him to pull out, to give you a moment to recover, but instead he rocked his hips, slow and greedy, as if he couldn’t bear to lose the feeling of you squeezing around him.

And then, without warning, his hand slid under your belly, fingers finding your clit, already swollen and overstimulated. He drew tight, precise circles with the pads of first two fingers, not letting up, even when you whined and squirmed beneath him. Bucky’s hands held you steady, anchoring you so Steve could play your body like an instrument.

The friction was so good, so dirty, that your cunt clamped around him involuntarily, milked every last drop as Steve’s fingers worked you up again, your body already betraying just how ready it was to be used a second, third, hundredth time.

“Fuck, she’s insatiable, isn’t she?” Steve said, voice almost fond, the sound of it a pressure at the base of your skull.

“She’s always been that way,” Bucky answered, a frayed thread of pride winding through his voice. “After the serum, I never met a partner who could keep up with me until her. Like you were made for a super soldier, sweetheart.”

You laughed, or tried to, but it came out a shaky, desperate gasp as Steve’s fingers wrung another whimper from you. Your knuckles dug into the sheets, the only tether as your overstimulated clit set off sparks behind your eyes. “Bucky,” you croaked, barely audible, “I can’t—”

“You can, honey. You’ll show Steve just how much you can take.” His gaze was intent, and for a moment you remembered every night the two of you had built trust on, every whispered dare and secret need he’d coaxed from you, every time he’d made you shatter and put you back together.

You barely had time to brace—Steve’s closed closed hard and firm around your clit, pinching, sending a lightning bolt through you, and as your body seized, his mouth found the meat of your shoulder and bit down. Not a warning, not a tease—a real goddamn bite. It ricocheted up your spine and detonated any coherence you had left. Your vision went blinding white, then red, and you screamed, nails gouging at the mattress, his hardening cock still buried so deep inside you it felt like you were cleaved in half.

The orgasm hit different—shocking, jagged, beyond pleasure and into a place that was just sensation, raw and total. You were crying, you realized, drool and tears tracking down your chin, but you couldn’t stop, couldn’t get enough, not even when the world blurred and your whole midsection pulsed around Steve’s cock, milking him for everything he had.

Bucky held your gaze the whole time, watching you unravel, watching every second of you coming apart for his best friend.

“Never gets old,” Bucky said, voice ragged with want, “seeing you come apart.” He stroked your hair, gentling you even as Steve’s cock kept you pinned and shuddering.

Steve pulled out, finally, leaving a slick trail down your thigh, and you expected collapse—rest, maybe, or at least a breath of air.

You got part of what you wanted as you were manhandled with a gentle efficiency—Steve lowering you to the mattress and Bucky rolling you over onto your back. The two men bracketed themselves around you. Bucky’s thumb smoothed tears from your cheeks, his lips hovering at your brow. Steve’s palm swept your hair from your face, tucking the wild strands behind your ears, and he smiled at you, dazed and open and deeply, deeply gone himself.

“You okay?” he asked, voice so hoarse you wanted to laugh, if only you didn’t feel so utterly wrung dry.

Bucky’s hands mapped your body, stroking down your arms, your waist, as if to collect every piece of you that had scattered. “She’s perfect. She’s got a thing for being ruined,” Bucky said, rubbing his thumb hard across your jaw, “but it’s more than just the mess. It’s being wanted, isn’t it, sweetheart?”

You trembled, the answer right there but too big for your mouth. All you could manage was a soft, but firm, “It’s both.”

It was. The ache between your legs, the aftershocks twitching in your thighs, crescendoed in the knowledge that you belonged—here, between them—because you were wanted. Not just by Bucky, whose love for you was a still wildfire after the first few years of the life you were building together, but by Steve, the last person you ever expected to want anything at all.

They held you in the perfect kind of silence for a while. Bucky stroked your sternum with two fingers, tracing the rapid pounding of your heart, while Steve drew lazy patterns on your ribs, the gentle touch making your bones melt.

Steve was the one who broke the silence, voice still thick and slow. “I’m sure Bucky’s told you how everything feels amplified for us, after the serum?”

You nodded, not trusting your voice, but Steve caught your chin and made certain you were listening, blue eyes intent on the fall and rise of your chest. He thumbed the corner of your mouth, gentle in a way that didn’t match the bite mark blooming on your shoulder. “It’s true. Everything’s hotter, sharper. Smells, tastes, touch.” His hand wandered down your neck, tracing the chain of your pulse. “It’s like all the dials turned up past what they’re supposed to do.”

Bucky grinned, mouth curving against your temple, proud and a little feral. “It’s why we’re so good at this,” he said, and the “we” wasn’t just the two of them, but you too, looped into their satisfaction by being the one they found satiation with.

You remembered, dimly, what Bucky had once told you—something about how pain and pleasure were just colors in a spectrum for men like them, how sometimes the best you could do was grab hold of the brightest one and hang on until it faded.

You barely noticed when Bucky’s hand slid lower, two fingers sliding along the seam of you, dipping just inside. You’d thought you were emptied out, rung dry, but the dull ache at your entrance proved otherwise—the evidence of Steve inside you, the slow ooze of it, making your lashes flutter in a way that felt almost innocent.

“You want to keep going, honey?” He asked because this—the consent, the agency—was one of the roots of his pleasure. You nodded again, too spent for speech. “Yeah, you do,” he murmured, pressing his own cock flush against your thigh, hot iron against soft flesh. “And you want Steve to watch, don’t you?”

The way Bucky framed it, you didn’t just want to perform, to be seen—you wanted to be worshipped, to be watched while your body proved itself again and again. There was no performance anxiety; there was only the heat of two impossible men zeroed in on every twitch of your muscles. You felt your own slick between your thighs, the slow, filthy trickle of Steve’s cum pooling out of you, the ache where you’d been so thoroughly stretched.

“Sweetheart,” Bucky chuckled. “Words.”

You tried to say, “Yes, please,” but it came out as a sigh, and Bucky’s grin only widened.

Steve cradled your head like a priceless artifact, thumb pressing a sleepy circle against your jaw while his gaze moved between your eyes and the place where Bucky’s fingers cupped your cunt. You felt your hips roll up, wanton, trying to keep contact with Bucky’s hand even as he toyed with your entrance but never quite let you have the friction you needed.

“You want to show Steve how we fuck when it’s just you and me in the dark, how well you take me.” A statement, not a question.

“Mmmhmm,” you groaned, and Bucky pressed a kiss to your shoulder, then knelt up, hands guiding your unresisting legs apart. He knelt back on his haunches and pulled your hips close. You heard Steve’s breath stutter at the sight, and it filled you with a greedy, wild pride. Bucky teased the seam of you with the head of his cock, up and down, up and down, making you whine.

At the last moment, Bucky relented and pushed inside, filling you with a swift, brutal thrust that bottomed out in one motion. There was no slow stretch, no easing in—just the violent, relentless press of his cock, and you arched off the mattress with a helpless, desperate moan. Your body was made to take him, every inch of you was slick and trembling, so the pain blurred seamlessly into pleasure and back again until you weren’t sure which you preferred.

He moved slow at first, kneeling above you like a god, letting you feel the thickness of him as he rocked in and out, but it wasn’t long before he found the rhythm he liked—a rough, demanding piston that left you scrambling for breath, for touch, for anything to keep you from coming apart entirely. You felt every ridge and vein, every rutting pound as he chased his own need, each thrust fusing the two of you back together.

All you could do—wanted to do—was take it. The raw, pounding pleasure, the relentless stretch, the feeling of Bucky’s cock rutting into you deeply. You heard yourself sob—and it was not a neat or pretty thing, but a wrecked, raw sound that only made Bucky groan above you. He caught your thighs in his hands, spreading you wider, and you felt the obscene heat of the stretch, the way your cunt seized around him with each battering drive. The slick noise of it—your body, his cock, the fucking mess Steve had left in you—filled the room, a rhythm and a punctuation to Bucky’s breathing as he drove deeper, harder, faster.

Steve’s hand found yours in the sheets. He laced his thick fingers between yours and squeezed, grounding you, letting you feel the reverent awe rolling off him in slow, steady waves. But there was an unmet hunger still lingering there under the surface. You could feel it in the tense of his body next to yours, and when you turned your face, eyes seeking his, he met your gaze without hesitation.

Steve bent to kiss you, and there was no veiling tenderness or shy request for permission. His tongue pushed into your mouth, greedy and wild, tasting the ghost of Bucky on your lips, tasting the salt of your tears. You kissed back with everything you had, drawing another moan from your throat as Bucky pistoned into you, the force rocking your whole body up into Steve’s chest.

Bucky’s thrusts didn’t slacken—they were still relentless, still merciless—but as you and Steve kissed, the tempo oscillated into something deeper, a series of slower,seismic detonations. Each time Bucky bottomed out inside you, he held there, grinding, spine arched, as if the sight of you kissing Steve was as much a pleasure to him as the feel of your cunt squeezing him.

Steve groaned into your mouth, his hand coming up to cradle your jaw, and Bucky’s grip on your thighs tightened, like he needed to stake a claim even as he offered you up. With every new roll of Bucky’s hips, a different noise tore its way out of your throat—some for the pain, some for the pleasure, some for the blissful humiliation of being made a spectacle for their eyes.

“Fuck her mouth, Steve,” Bucky said, a low, hungry rumble.

Steve didn’t hesitate, and it was only for a fraction of a second before he was shifting up, the broad line of his thigh braced alongside your head. His cock was still half-hard, glazed with your slick and his own release. The sight of it, flushed angry-red and wet, made your cunt clench around Bucky. Steve cupped your chin, thumb curling along the hinge of your jaw, and you sucked him into your mouth, the taste salty and obscene.

You groaned around him, lips stretching, tongue flattening under the thick, salty weight. He barely thrust, just eased forward, but the size of him still made your throat protest. Bucky continued his slow, tortruous pace below, watching intently as Steve’s cock parted your lips, and the sight of it—his best friend fucking your mouth while he still pounded into your cunt—nearly undid him, you could feel it in the grip of his hands on your hips.

“Deeper,” Bucky ordered, and Steve obeyed. He slid in, careful but insistent, filling your mouth until you gagged, until your eyes watered anew. Steve slid in, your throat stretched, and the assault of it made you gasp around him, desperate for air, for mercy, for more. Steve petted your jaw, his other hand cupping the back of your head, and for all the brutality of the act there was infinite patience in how he held you there, letting you adjust, letting you learn the unique shape of his need. Somewhere above, Bucky laughed—a single breath of filthy awe, a marvel at the spectacle of you taking both their cocks at once like this.

The taste of Steve’s cum was thick in your mouth, the smell of sex and sweat and ozone burning in your nostrils. You wanted them both to know how much you liked this, how much you needed every inch of what they gave. So you hollowed your cheeks and sucked, rolling your tongue with just enough pressure to see the effect in Steve’s eyes—head thrown back, spine bowed glorious, hand clenching your jaw with a desperation that made you burn with pride.

Bucky’s cock pounded up into you from below, and Steve’s pushed into your mouth from above, and you—pinned, stretched, used—were nothing but bliss. The sensation was a hinge, your body swinging wild between the two of them. You felt the echo of your own heartbeat in your cunt, in your mouth, in every thrum of the mattress and grind of their hips.

Steve’s thrusts grew bolder, and at each push he eased a little deeper, patience thinning as your mouth softened to his shape. His voice, when it came, was raw and rough, “Fuck, fuck, you feel so good—” your name murmured as its own curse when it fell from his lips in this moment.

He spilled his seed down your throat, but not all of it. He pulled out and shot the rest over your breasts, warm rope after rope of it across your heaving chest as Bucky pistoned in even harder, the thudding slap of his hips the only sound in the world.

Bucky slammed harder, harder, until you felt the actual bruise of him inside you, some deep purple echo of the violence. He reached for your clit, pinched, and your body shuddered into another orgasm, spasms wracking you so hard you thought you’d bite your tongue. You moaned so sweet and so ruined as he flew over the edge.

Bucky’s cock throbbed inside you, a shuddering full-body tremor, and then he was coming, hips jammed flush as he spilled molten and messy into the deepest part of you. His moan was raw, unguarded, and he didn’t let up, kept grinding through every spurt, making sure you took every last drop. The pressure of it set off a chain reaction—your body seized, aftershocks tearing up your thighs and into your belly, squeezing around him in greedy, involuntary pulses.

Bucky’s head dropped back, his jaw flexing as he held your hips pinned. You watched him, glassy-eyed and adoring, as every muscle in his chest locked. “Christ,” he panted, eyes flickering to Steve, “This is unreal.” He pulled halfway out—slow, slow—then pushed in again, a wet, obscene sound marking every inch. “She’s still squeezing me, even after you ruined her.” Bucky’s grin was all teeth, all pride and filth. “Can feel your mess inside her, Steve. So fucking wet she’s dripping down my balls.”

You moaned in the hinge between them, wrung out and wild, as Bucky fucked you through the last quakes and Steve’s hand fanned gently against your throat, thumb pressing the pulse there like he wanted to count your heartbeats—maybe hold them for ransom.

Bucky let out a ragged exhalation and pulled out, the head of his cock dragging on hypersensitive nerves, leaving you gaping and gasping and dripping. Bucky didn’t bother to hide his satisfaction. Instead, he watched the spill with a sick, loving sort of pride, then reached down, scooped his own cum with his fingers and smeared it over your breasts, painting you in it, mixing it with his best friend’s seed until your whole chest was slick with it. He held you there for a moment, painted and panting and caught in the liminal pleasure, before tilting your face up and licking a stripe from your collarbone to your jaw, tongue lazy and flat. Bucky’s mouth found yours, and you tasted the salt of Steve and yourself on his lips. You kissed him like you were dying, and Bucky kissed you back harder, swallowing you whole.

Steve’s voice burrowed into your ear with shocking gravity, arms closing around your limp torso as if to protect you from the world outside this narrow, unrepeatable moment. “You are so fucking beautiful ruined like this,” he said, voice half-reverent.

Bucky’s thumb pressed under your chin, tilting your face: “You want more, don’t you?” You did. That was the devastating truth of it. Even as your body ached and stung from orgasm, you wanted all the ways they touched you, every version of this night.

“Are you sure, Buck?” Steve asked, incredulous.

Bucky’s laugh was a bright, sharp crack in the haze, so full of delight it rang in your bones. “Oh, sweetheart. Steve has no idea what you’re capable of after a few more rounds.”

He bent over you, hands braced by your head, and pressed a kiss to the center of your brow—a benediction at odds with the lazy trail of his hand down your body, cupping your breast, then skimming the mess he and Steve had left there. He rubbed their slick together with an idle curiosity, like a child finger-painting, until Steve’s hand joined his, pinching a nipple between two careful fingers and rolling it until you arched up, spent muscles clenching with electric aftershock.

“We could let her rest,” Bucky said, tongue laving your earlobe as he spoke, “but why waste a perfectly good afterglow when you haven’t even fucked my wife in the shower yet?”

WE ALL KNOW I'M RARELY CAPABLE OF CUTTING SOMETHING DOWN

SO

I HOPE YOU'RE ALL HAPPY/RUINED RIGHT ALONGSIDE ME.

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You are standing on the roof of the White House, above the Truman balcony, wanting to kick your shoes off, but needing to play the host for just a little longer. This is your second Fourth of July in the White House and you thought you knew what to expect, but you are happy to be wrong, because the fireworks are impossibly brighter and more wonderful this year, the celebrations more grand, and you’re shoulder to shoulder with your husband, hands entwined as the dazzling show plays out before you over the South Lawn.

It’s breathtaking.

And so is he. Still. Always.

The grand finale erupts overhead, a cascading symphony of red, white, and blue that paints the night sky in impossible, starburst glory. You can feel the percussion in your chest, reverberating through the soles of your shoes, and you tip your head back to watch the last brilliant volley streak upward and burst into a thousand glittering silver and gold tendrils that drift lazily toward the earth.

Then jubilant cheers and applause and the faint, sweet smell of smoke and the distant roar of the crowd on the lawn below, cheering, waving, singing.

You turn to Steve, a smile already blooming on your lips, ready to say something about how beautiful it was, but he's already looking at you, and his eyes are doing that thing—that thing they've done since the very first kiss you shared, the real one, in Kansas City, that thing where the whole world seems to narrow to the blue of his gaze and the impossible softness of his mouth.

He pulls you close.

One hand slides to the small of your back, warm and certain through the fabric of your dress, and the other rises to cradle your jaw, his thumb brushing the apple of your cheek as if he can't quite believe you're real, as if he needs to check. And you have to admit there are moments you still can’t quite believe yourself that this is your life, these moments, and him. The night air is still thick with the scent of gunpowder and summer heat, and the last of the silver sparks are drifting down behind him like slow, glittering rain, and you have just enough time to think oh before his mouth finds yours.

It's quick. It has to be quick—you're standing on the roof of the White House, surrounded by friends and aides and a few dignitaries, Secret Service agents with their earpieces. But it's enough. It's always enough. His lips are warm and a little dry from the evening air, and he kisses you the way he kisses you when he's happy, which is to say with his whole heart, like there's nothing else in the world worth his attention, like the presidency and the country and the fireworks are all very nice, but they are not this.

You kiss him back. Of course, you kiss him back, placing your hand over his heart.

When he pulls away, it's only an inch, his forehead resting against yours, and you can feel him smiling. You can feel the shape of it against your mouth before you see it, and your own smile is bursting for him, too.

"Happy Fourth, Mrs. Rogers," he murmurs, and his voice is low and rough in that way that it has no business being right at this moment.

"Happy birthday, Mr. President," you whisper back, and he laughs, a quiet, rumble before the two of you break apart and turn to face the small crowd with you on the roof.

And there they are—the faces you've come to know so well, the ones that make this house feel less like a museum and more like a home, or at least as close to one as you can get here. Ambassador Chen from Taiwan, laughing with the German trade minister. Sophia, sharp as ever in her midnight blue, already catching your eye with that knowing, slightly smug look she gets whenever she catches the two of you being soft with each other. Senator Nakamura, who flew in from Honolulu just for this. Colonel Rhodes, grinning like he's about to make a joke he absolutely should not make in mixed company.

You move through them like water, because you've gotten good at this—good at the handshake that lingers just long enough, the murmured thank you for coming that sounds like you mean it, because you do. You mean all of them. Steve is circulating as well, but you’re both being led by your aides toward the exit, aiming to get you into the Residence as quickly as possible because you both have packed days tomorrow (as ever).

Back inside, you kick off your heels in the elevator and breathe, sinking into Steve’s side as your small phalanx of staffers peels away, each murmuring quick good-nights and peeling off down the Residential Corridor, exhausted and slightly tipsy.

He bumps your shoulder with his, sly and crooked in a way that tells you he’s been waiting all night to be alone with you. He reaches for your heels, and you let him take them for the short walk down the hall and into your borrowed home.

The next minutes are a tangle of hands and laughter, breathless and urgent, your dress falling to the carpet with a sound like wings beating, his tie left hanging somewhere between the elevator and the bedroom. You are giddy and graceless, all eager to be together, just the two of you.

He kisses you until your knees go watery, but never letting you falter, guiding you backwards until the back of your thighs catch on the edge of the mattress. You tumble together, the bedspread starched and crisp beneath your palms and knees, and then the world narrows down to calloused hands and the hush of his laughter and the feeling, always, that you are safe. The dim lamplight gilds the curve of his shoulders, the roughness that’s come into his voice as he pulls your name from the space between your mouths. He tastes like bourbon and wild honey from the refreshments at the party, just enough to loosen the lines of his day.

You drag him closer by the lapels, hungry for the taste of him. You pull him down and roll, greedy, pinning him beneath you. His tie is gone; you’re not sure when, but you feel the press of his hands at your waist, guiding you in a slow, grinding circle that makes you gasp. You forget to breathe as you tangle your hands in his hair and let him kiss you dizzy. He’s already undone the buttons of his shirt one-handed, and you help him push it off his shoulders, so you have the skin of his arms beneath your palms. He’s golden and warm, his heart beating under your fingers like a secret. There’s a lightning-bolt thrill each time he murmurs your name. You want to bottle this, this slice of private time in a life where you so rarely get to keep anything for yourselves, and you want to uncork it every time the day-to-day feels a little too heavy.

He traces the line of your jaw, thumbing your chin up and examining you. "You've been different all day," he says, quietly, not accusing, just curious. "Not off, just…something on your mind?"

He’s not wrong. You laugh, because you can’t help it, because how could he possibly have noticed, because you’ve tried to be so careful. But of course he did. “Yes, there’s something.”

He sits up, pulls you into his lap, and you tangle your knees around his waist, greedy for the press of his body. You take a breath, not to arm yourself, but to gather him in. This is a moment you’ve waited for all day, and it’s a moment you know the two of you will remember for the rest of your lives.

“It’s Independence Day and your birthday, and so, so much of today was about everyone else, but I wanted to save one thing for just us.” You run your hands up his chest, and you can feel the way his muscles tense, just a little, the way he always does when he senses something is about to change. His hands go still at your waist. He looks at you the way he looked at you on your wedding day—that same unguarded, ungoverned look, the one that has no presidential composure in it whatsoever.

You swallow, suddenly giddy with nerves, but you try to keep your voice steady as you tell him, “We’re going to have a baby.”

For a moment he’s silent, holding you so tightly you are certain he’s the only thing keeping you from flying off this bed and straight through the window into the dark and dazzling sky now that your stomach is completely aflutter with butterflies - your whole chest really. Steve opens his mouth, then closes it, startled as you’ve ever seen him, caught utterly off guard, and the surge of joy in his eyes is so bright you almost have to look away.

He laughs, choked and astonished, and cups your face with both hands, searching you for the truth even as he repeats your words back to you, as if you’ve cast an unbreakable spell. “We’re—are you—are you sure?” he whispers, and you nod, and in less than a heartbeat he is kissing you everywhere—your forehead, your cheeks, your jaw, the tip of your nose, your lips, your collarbone, drawing your fingers to his lips.

“I wasn’t sure at first. The first test I took was negative. But then I took four more—yesterday being the most recent—and all the rest have been positive. I’ll need to have an official one from our medical team, but this is how normal people try to figure it out, and I wanted to at least start that way.”

“Say it again,” he whispers, and there’s something raw and vulnerable in it that makes your own eyes sting.

You say it again, just for him, and its warmer and easier the second time. “We’re going to have a baby.”

He tugs you close, a long, slow drag of his palms up your spine, and his mouth finds you again, velvet and open and as gentle as if you’re already breakable. You can feel the words he isn’t saying in every touch, every line of his body, every hush of breath against your lips. The rest of the world can wait awhile longer. The future, the headlines, the meetings and luncheons and the never-ending security briefings—they’re so far away. Tonight, it’s just the two of you.

You’re still in his lap and you want to stay there, anchored by his arms, held in place by the gravity of him. Just Steve, the curve of his neck under your hands, the soft light making gold of his hair and blue fire of his eyes and the clean, clean taste of his mouth.

He slides his palms up your thighs, slow and reverent. You feel the calluses catch on the delicate skin behind your knees, then up the slopes of your thighs. Your whole body is tuned to the gentle sweep of his hands, the warmth of his breath against the hollow of your throat.

Steve shifts you in his lap, sliding his cock into your warm and waiting cunt, and your legs find their place around him, heel pressed to the hard muscle of his lower back, hips flush.

You rock together, slow and steady, as if this new knowledge has rewired the both of you, as if every part of Steve that has ever belonged to you is suddenly magnified, gifted back to you in triplicate. He moves inside you as if your bodies are completing unfinished sentences.

You clutch his shoulders and ride him, slow and deep and close, the sounds of your bodies punctuating the quiet as you move together, breath and heartbeat and the little desperate noises you can never hold back from him. His hands travel the length of your back, every unhurried pass softening the landscape of you. The window is open just a crack and summer air pulses in, humid and electric, thick with city sounds and the far-off echo of festivities still unfolding for a thousand strangers. But here, in this room, everything is slow, thick, sweet, nothing but devotion.

He groans, burying his face in your shoulder, and you feel the shape of his smile against your skin, the press of his teeth where he bites back a more urgent moan. You want to laugh, to cry, to collapse and never move again. He moves his hands to your hips, slowing you even more, keeping you close while his mouth traces up along your jaw, kissing the corner of your mouth, your ear.

“I love you,” he says, a promise and a benediction. “I love you so much.”

You clutch him even closer, saying as much back, pouring it into his big heart, and time doubles back on itself, collecting all the nights that led you here: sprawled on a mattress in a St. Louis walk-up, or in Colorado Springs when you were snowed in during the state’s Clean Energy initiative tour, and even sometimes in the backseat of an electric SUV of a Secret Service motor pool. You could have lived a thousand lives and never guessed at this particular happiness, this improbable ending: you and Steve, knotted together in the gleam of a presidential bedroom, a future unspooling inside you, somehow as terrifying and bright as fireworks.

You spend the rest of the night lying together on the sheets, his arm curled around your waist, your hands splayed together with each other over your stomach; his full chest pressed tight to your back, the long, slow breathing of him on a slow, rising tide of emotion you aren’t sure you understand, or ever want to. There’s a secret, quiet sense of being at the exact center of the world that’s only the two of you and the baby on the way. At least for a while.

You drift in and out of sleep, and each time you wake, Steve’s hand is where it left off, thumb brushing circles low on your belly, as if by touch alone he could will the newness of what you told him into the marrow of himself.

As dawn slips in, painting the suite with the faintest gold, you shift slightly, and Steve murmurs, “You awake?” against your neck.

“Mm. Barely.”

He nuzzles in deeper, his beard tickling your neck, and you squirm and turn around to face him. “Did you even sleep?” you ask.

He shakes his head. “Not really,” he admits, voice gone hoarse and quiet. “Kept worrying I’d wake up and it wouldn’t be real. You’re here, though.”

“Mhmm, you’re stuck with me.”

You kiss his brow and let your hand run through the gold of his hair, musing at what a child of his might look like. You picture the bright blue of his eyes, the stubborn set of his jaw, and, despite yourself, the impossible hope that the world you’re building together will be even marginally kind to someone so new and small.

Steve pulls you into his chest, folding your whole body into his, and you melt.

"When I woke up in this century," he begins, his voice low and intimate, "I thought I'd lost my chance at this kind of happiness. I resigned myself to being a man out of time, always looking back at what might have been." His thumb traces gentle over your stomach, soft whispers of his hope.

“I felt untethered, but you are the anchor my soul needed.”

Your throat aches, and you’re not sure what to say because your heart is so full. As much as he’s clear about his devotion to you, it’s reciprocated note for note from your heart. Everything you two have built—the relationship, the purpose, the passion, the drive, the community of people around you—moved your post-blip return from average to a life of vibrancy you also thought you’d never find again.

“I only ever told Bucky I was considering it, but since we figured out time travel to bring everyone back, there was a time I weighed going back to the forties or fifties, but now I thank everything in my bones that I didn’t. I would have missed so much. Even the hard parts, even the hurt, I’d choose all of it to find us.”

It’s a strange, buoyant sadness that washes through you, an ache for the lives you both were supposed to have and the astonishing joy of the one you’re building now, brick by brick, night by night, and dream by dream.

You thread your hand through his, squeezing, letting the gravity of his words swirl through your psyche. “Good, because there’s no one else I would ever want to do this with—not just this,” you gesture to the presidential trappings you live in, “but this,” and you let your hands rest together, gentle on your belly, both of you quietly marveling at the shift in your world.

“I’ll never be able to say it enough, but I love you, Steve. Always.”

Instead of more words, he says it back with another searing kiss.

Once dawn has broken and the two of you are side by side in the bathroom, brushing your teeth, moving through your morning routines, Steve frowns, and you catch the knit of his brow in the mirror. “What’s that consternation for all of a sudden?”

“How did you get not just one, but multiple pregnancy tests smuggled in without a soul finding out?”

You grin. “Sophia.”

Steve scoffs and shakes his head, his scowl turning sarcastic. “She’s supposed to be my personal secretary.”

“And she staffed me on the campaign first,” you remind him. “I’m convinced she only accepted your offer so she could keep you in line and spy on you for me.”

“She doesn’t even pretend to have plausible deniability,” he mutters, rinsing his mouth. “Busted me on a whole security briefing last week when she caught me stashing Reese’s in my desk. I’m the President—” he says this with faux outrage, like he still doesn’t quite believe it, “yet she controls the candy flow and now, apparently, the pharmacy.”

You spit your own minty mouthful. “A First Lady’s job is never done, and I can’t help it if I’ve got the best co-conspirator.” The two of you share a look in the mirror—a look that says God, what have we gotten into—and then there is a knock at the bedroom door, sharp and brisk.

Steve’s head drops with a groan. “Five minutes,” you call, and trade glance with your husband, resignation and amusement in equal measure.

It’s Jake calling into the master suite, “Sir, the British Prime Minister’s advance team just arrived and we have a briefing with the Joint Chiefs at 09:15 but we will need to move your security detail to accommodate the updated press pool, and—”

“Roger that,” Steve calls back.

You holler “Thanks, Jake,” into the hallway, and before you can even turn back to Steve and finish rinsing your mouth, he’s close behind you, arms caging you between the counter and his chest, both of you reflected twice in the gilded mirror.

His chin hooks your shoulder, his lips finding the sensitive skin just below your ear, and you nearly drop your the hairbrush you’ve reached for into the sink. “Come here,” he says, as if you aren’t bodily pressed against him, as if he could ever actually want you closer.

You smile at him in the mirror because you can’t not, and the whole reflection is so absurdly domestic—yesterday’s confetti still in your hair, his shirt unbuttoned just below the collar, the two of you framed by White House marble and gilt. “We are going to be late for your entire country,” you warn, but you let him wrap you up anyway.

“Let them wait,” he says, but he steps aside after a final, scandalous little nuzzle, letting you go. He’s a man who never shirks responsibility, and you know that to be true in every part of his life. You can’t wait to explore a new chapter with him.

I LOVE THEM, I LOVE THEM, I LOVE THEM! So soft and so fluffy here, but I still love this AU so much. 🥹 ❤️🤍💙

↠ Main Masterlist | Aspen's Ask Box | Field Guide to the Forest

"If I win this bet, you owe me a date."

“Uh-huh.” You roll your eyes. If Lloyd Hansen has made an agreement with you once, he’s made it a thousand times: bets, predictions, whether or not he makes a specific mark, terms for anything from a coffee order to the next Nobel Prize winner. And yet, for all Lloyd’s talk, he’s never once tried to collect. Not that you have much to fear—he’s the type who’d rather make you squirm in anticipation. You know he likes the idea of a date more than the date itself.

Scratch that, you know Lloyd is not the dating type. Hates and ridicules the colleagues who do go on dates.

He flashes a smile that should be illegal outside of toothpaste commercials. "I’m serious this time. Put it on the record."

You don’t even look up from your laptop. "You owe me more dates than you can count.”

“Ninety-nine.”

You jerk your head up to look at him. “What?”

“You heard me: ninety-nine dates.”

You open your mouth only to close it again.

“Ninety-nine,” he repeats, smug as ever. “If I win today, that’s one hundred.” He laces his fingers behind his head, elbows angled with showoff laziness, leaning back in his seat on the chartered plane. “At that point, I’m cashing in. No more IOUs. You, me, three uninterrupted days. I take you to my place in the Bahamas, and we see how many times we can fuck before your brain completely short-circuits.”

↠ Main Masterlist | Aspen's Ask Box | Field Guide to the Forest

He's been saving those bet wins so hard for SOOOO long. He nearly cracked SO. MANY. times.

But he stayed strong.

He reminded himself every morning. And every time he showered. And every night as he went to sleep. He kept a countdown in his notes. He's been looking forward to it so much he's half hard at all times. Damn. Do you even know the amount of disappointing pussy he's had since he's started planning this? Every pussy that's not yours is a disappointment.

He's never going to let you wear outdoor clothes again if he can help it.

And he can.

Not just the sex - but OBVIOUSLY THE SEX - but also just how much he likes your company. You're competent, strategic, reliable, don't take shit from anyone - especially not him. You're plucky without being annoying. You're brave and you're bold. You're driven. If he can see building a life with anyone in this world, he's pretty sure it's you and no one else. So why not cut to the chase? Zero to one hundred.

"Are you always this charming?"

Steve laughs—a short, flustered thing that moves through the air between you and is snatched away by the wind. In the orange lamplight, he scratches the back of his neck, a gesture so boyish you’re charmed twice over. “I don’t know about that,” he says. “I mean, I’m not really a—”

He shrugs, letting the rest hang there. Whatever he thinks he isn’t, it doesn’t matter. What matters is how close you’re standing, and how his eyes keep flicking to your mouth and then away, as if he’s daring himself to cross the invisible line.

You tilt your chin up for him.

And that does it. He closes the space, a shy warmth in the way he grips your forearms, as if grounding himself in the sheer fact of your existence.

When he kisses you, it’s hesitant but hungry, the kind of awkward that’s so real it surprises you into smiling mid-way through. He pulls back, a little stunned, and you watch, hardly believing that this man who is Captain freaking America to the world has any doubt about his standing with you, when all you want from him is the man behind the shield. Steven Grant Rogers and his good heart and his nervous hands, and his unguarded laugh.

↠ Main Masterlist | Aspen's Ask Box | Field Guide to the Forest

You are standing on the roof of the White House, above the Truman balcony, wanting to kick your shoes off, but needing to play the host for just a little longer. This is your second Fourth of July in the White House and you thought you knew what to expect, but you are happy to be wrong, because the fireworks are impossibly brighter and more wonderful this year, the celebrations more grand, and you’re shoulder to shoulder with your husband, hands entwined as the dazzling show plays out before you over the South Lawn.

It’s breathtaking.

And so is he. Still. Always.

The grand finale erupts overhead, a cascading symphony of red, white, and blue that paints the night sky in impossible, starburst glory. You can feel the percussion in your chest, reverberating through the soles of your shoes, and you tip your head back to watch the last brilliant volley streak upward and burst into a thousand glittering silver and gold tendrils that drift lazily toward the earth.

Then jubilant cheers and applause and the faint, sweet smell of smoke and the distant roar of the crowd on the lawn below, cheering, waving, singing.

You turn to Steve, a smile already blooming on your lips, ready to say something about how beautiful it was, but he's already looking at you, and his eyes are doing that thing—that thing they've done since the very first kiss you shared, the real one, in Kansas City, that thing where the whole world seems to narrow to the blue of his gaze and the impossible softness of his mouth.

He pulls you close.

One hand slides to the small of your back, warm and certain through the fabric of your dress, and the other rises to cradle your jaw, his thumb brushing the apple of your cheek as if he can't quite believe you're real, as if he needs to check. And you have to admit there are moments you still can’t quite believe yourself that this is your life, these moments, and him. The night air is still thick with the scent of gunpowder and summer heat, and the last of the silver sparks are drifting down behind him like slow, glittering rain, and you have just enough time to think oh before his mouth finds yours.

It's quick. It has to be quick—you're standing on the roof of the White House, surrounded by friends and aides and a few dignitaries, Secret Service agents with their earpieces. But it's enough. It's always enough. His lips are warm and a little dry from the evening air, and he kisses you the way he kisses you when he's happy, which is to say with his whole heart, like there's nothing else in the world worth his attention, like the presidency and the country and the fireworks are all very nice, but they are not this.

You kiss him back. Of course, you kiss him back, placing your hand over his heart.

When he pulls away, it's only an inch, his forehead resting against yours, and you can feel him smiling. You can feel the shape of it against your mouth before you see it, and your own smile is bursting for him, too.

"Happy Fourth, Mrs. Rogers," he murmurs, and his voice is low and rough in that way that it has no business being right at this moment.

"Happy birthday, Mr. President," you whisper back, and he laughs, a quiet, rumble before the two of you break apart and turn to face the small crowd with you on the roof.

And there they are—the faces you've come to know so well, the ones that make this house feel less like a museum and more like a home, or at least as close to one as you can get here. Ambassador Chen from Taiwan, laughing with the German trade minister. Sophia, sharp as ever in her midnight blue, already catching your eye with that knowing, slightly smug look she gets whenever she catches the two of you being soft with each other. Senator Nakamura, who flew in from Honolulu just for this. Colonel Rhodes, grinning like he's about to make a joke he absolutely should not make in mixed company.

You move through them like water, because you've gotten good at this—good at the handshake that lingers just long enough, the murmured thank you for coming that sounds like you mean it, because you do. You mean all of them. Steve is circulating as well, but you’re both being led by your aides toward the exit, aiming to get you into the Residence as quickly as possible because you both have packed days tomorrow (as ever).

Back inside, you kick off your heels in the elevator and breathe, sinking into Steve’s side as your small phalanx of staffers peels away, each murmuring quick good-nights and peeling off down the Residential Corridor, exhausted and slightly tipsy.

He bumps your shoulder with his, sly and crooked in a way that tells you he’s been waiting all night to be alone with you. He reaches for your heels, and you let him take them for the short walk down the hall and into your borrowed home.

The next minutes are a tangle of hands and laughter, breathless and urgent, your dress falling to the carpet with a sound like wings beating, his tie left hanging somewhere between the elevator and the bedroom. You are giddy and graceless, all eager to be together, just the two of you.

He kisses you until your knees go watery, but never letting you falter, guiding you backwards until the back of your thighs catch on the edge of the mattress. You tumble together, the bedspread starched and crisp beneath your palms and knees, and then the world narrows down to calloused hands and the hush of his laughter and the feeling, always, that you are safe. The dim lamplight gilds the curve of his shoulders, the roughness that’s come into his voice as he pulls your name from the space between your mouths. He tastes like bourbon and wild honey from the refreshments at the party, just enough to loosen the lines of his day.

You drag him closer by the lapels, hungry for the taste of him. You pull him down and roll, greedy, pinning him beneath you. His tie is gone; you’re not sure when, but you feel the press of his hands at your waist, guiding you in a slow, grinding circle that makes you gasp. You forget to breathe as you tangle your hands in his hair and let him kiss you dizzy. He’s already undone the buttons of his shirt one-handed, and you help him push it off his shoulders, so you have the skin of his arms beneath your palms. He’s golden and warm, his heart beating under your fingers like a secret. There’s a lightning-bolt thrill each time he murmurs your name. You want to bottle this, this slice of private time in a life where you so rarely get to keep anything for yourselves, and you want to uncork it every time the day-to-day feels a little too heavy.

He traces the line of your jaw, thumbing your chin up and examining you. "You've been different all day," he says, quietly, not accusing, just curious. "Not off, just…something on your mind?"

He’s not wrong. You laugh, because you can’t help it, because how could he possibly have noticed, because you’ve tried to be so careful. But of course he did. “Yes, there’s something.”

He sits up, pulls you into his lap, and you tangle your knees around his waist, greedy for the press of his body. You take a breath, not to arm yourself, but to gather him in. This is a moment you’ve waited for all day, and it’s a moment you know the two of you will remember for the rest of your lives.

“It’s Independence Day and your birthday, and so, so much of today was about everyone else, but I wanted to save one thing for just us.” You run your hands up his chest, and you can feel the way his muscles tense, just a little, the way he always does when he senses something is about to change. His hands go still at your waist. He looks at you the way he looked at you on your wedding day—that same unguarded, ungoverned look, the one that has no presidential composure in it whatsoever.

You swallow, suddenly giddy with nerves, but you try to keep your voice steady as you tell him, “We’re going to have a baby.”

For a moment he’s silent, holding you so tightly you are certain he’s the only thing keeping you from flying off this bed and straight through the window into the dark and dazzling sky now that your stomach is completely aflutter with butterflies - your whole chest really. Steve opens his mouth, then closes it, startled as you’ve ever seen him, caught utterly off guard, and the surge of joy in his eyes is so bright you almost have to look away.

He laughs, choked and astonished, and cups your face with both hands, searching you for the truth even as he repeats your words back to you, as if you’ve cast an unbreakable spell. “We’re—are you—are you sure?” he whispers, and you nod, and in less than a heartbeat he is kissing you everywhere—your forehead, your cheeks, your jaw, the tip of your nose, your lips, your collarbone, drawing your fingers to his lips.

“I wasn’t sure at first. The first test I took was negative. But then I took four more—yesterday being the most recent—and all the rest have been positive. I’ll need to have an official one from our medical team, but this is how normal people try to figure it out, and I wanted to at least start that way.”

“Say it again,” he whispers, and there’s something raw and vulnerable in it that makes your own eyes sting.

You say it again, just for him, and its warmer and easier the second time. “We’re going to have a baby.”

He tugs you close, a long, slow drag of his palms up your spine, and his mouth finds you again, velvet and open and as gentle as if you’re already breakable. You can feel the words he isn’t saying in every touch, every line of his body, every hush of breath against your lips. The rest of the world can wait awhile longer. The future, the headlines, the meetings and luncheons and the never-ending security briefings—they’re so far away. Tonight, it’s just the two of you.

You’re still in his lap and you want to stay there, anchored by his arms, held in place by the gravity of him. Just Steve, the curve of his neck under your hands, the soft light making gold of his hair and blue fire of his eyes and the clean, clean taste of his mouth.

He slides his palms up your thighs, slow and reverent. You feel the calluses catch on the delicate skin behind your knees, then up the slopes of your thighs. Your whole body is tuned to the gentle sweep of his hands, the warmth of his breath against the hollow of your throat.

Steve shifts you in his lap, sliding his cock into your warm and waiting cunt, and your legs find their place around him, heel pressed to the hard muscle of his lower back, hips flush.

You rock together, slow and steady, as if this new knowledge has rewired the both of you, as if every part of Steve that has ever belonged to you is suddenly magnified, gifted back to you in triplicate. He moves inside you as if your bodies are completing unfinished sentences.

You clutch his shoulders and ride him, slow and deep and close, the sounds of your bodies punctuating the quiet as you move together, breath and heartbeat and the little desperate noises you can never hold back from him. His hands travel the length of your back, every unhurried pass softening the landscape of you. The window is open just a crack and summer air pulses in, humid and electric, thick with city sounds and the far-off echo of festivities still unfolding for a thousand strangers. But here, in this room, everything is slow, thick, sweet, nothing but devotion.

He groans, burying his face in your shoulder, and you feel the shape of his smile against your skin, the press of his teeth where he bites back a more urgent moan. You want to laugh, to cry, to collapse and never move again. He moves his hands to your hips, slowing you even more, keeping you close while his mouth traces up along your jaw, kissing the corner of your mouth, your ear.

“I love you,” he says, a promise and a benediction. “I love you so much.”

You clutch him even closer, saying as much back, pouring it into his big heart, and time doubles back on itself, collecting all the nights that led you here: sprawled on a mattress in a St. Louis walk-up, or in Colorado Springs when you were snowed in during the state’s Clean Energy initiative tour, and even sometimes in the backseat of an electric SUV of a Secret Service motor pool. You could have lived a thousand lives and never guessed at this particular happiness, this improbable ending: you and Steve, knotted together in the gleam of a presidential bedroom, a future unspooling inside you, somehow as terrifying and bright as fireworks.

You spend the rest of the night lying together on the sheets, his arm curled around your waist, your hands splayed together with each other over your stomach; his full chest pressed tight to your back, the long, slow breathing of him on a slow, rising tide of emotion you aren’t sure you understand, or ever want to. There’s a secret, quiet sense of being at the exact center of the world that’s only the two of you and the baby on the way. At least for a while.

You drift in and out of sleep, and each time you wake, Steve’s hand is where it left off, thumb brushing circles low on your belly, as if by touch alone he could will the newness of what you told him into the marrow of himself.

As dawn slips in, painting the suite with the faintest gold, you shift slightly, and Steve murmurs, “You awake?” against your neck.

“Mm. Barely.”

He nuzzles in deeper, his beard tickling your neck, and you squirm and turn around to face him. “Did you even sleep?” you ask.

He shakes his head. “Not really,” he admits, voice gone hoarse and quiet. “Kept worrying I’d wake up and it wouldn’t be real. You’re here, though.”

“Mhmm, you’re stuck with me.”

You kiss his brow and let your hand run through the gold of his hair, musing at what a child of his might look like. You picture the bright blue of his eyes, the stubborn set of his jaw, and, despite yourself, the impossible hope that the world you’re building together will be even marginally kind to someone so new and small.

Steve pulls you into his chest, folding your whole body into his, and you melt.

"When I woke up in this century," he begins, his voice low and intimate, "I thought I'd lost my chance at this kind of happiness. I resigned myself to being a man out of time, always looking back at what might have been." His thumb traces gentle over your stomach, soft whispers of his hope.

“I felt untethered, but you are the anchor my soul needed.”

Your throat aches, and you’re not sure what to say because your heart is so full. As much as he’s clear about his devotion to you, it’s reciprocated note for note from your heart. Everything you two have built—the relationship, the purpose, the passion, the drive, the community of people around you—moved your post-blip return from average to a life of vibrancy you also thought you’d never find again.

“I only ever told Bucky I was considering it, but since we figured out time travel to bring everyone back, there was a time I weighed going back to the forties or fifties, but now I thank everything in my bones that I didn’t. I would have missed so much. Even the hard parts, even the hurt, I’d choose all of it to find us.”

It’s a strange, buoyant sadness that washes through you, an ache for the lives you both were supposed to have and the astonishing joy of the one you’re building now, brick by brick, night by night, and dream by dream.

You thread your hand through his, squeezing, letting the gravity of his words swirl through your psyche. “Good, because there’s no one else I would ever want to do this with—not just this,” you gesture to the presidential trappings you live in, “but this,” and you let your hands rest together, gentle on your belly, both of you quietly marveling at the shift in your world.

“I’ll never be able to say it enough, but I love you, Steve. Always.”

Instead of more words, he says it back with another searing kiss.

Once dawn has broken and the two of you are side by side in the bathroom, brushing your teeth, moving through your morning routines, Steve frowns, and you catch the knit of his brow in the mirror. “What’s that consternation for all of a sudden?”

“How did you get not just one, but multiple pregnancy tests smuggled in without a soul finding out?”

You grin. “Sophia.”

Steve scoffs and shakes his head, his scowl turning sarcastic. “She’s supposed to be my personal secretary.”

“And she staffed me on the campaign first,” you remind him. “I’m convinced she only accepted your offer so she could keep you in line and spy on you for me.”

“She doesn’t even pretend to have plausible deniability,” he mutters, rinsing his mouth. “Busted me on a whole security briefing last week when she caught me stashing Reese’s in my desk. I’m the President—” he says this with faux outrage, like he still doesn’t quite believe it, “yet she controls the candy flow and now, apparently, the pharmacy.”

You spit your own minty mouthful. “A First Lady’s job is never done, and I can’t help it if I’ve got the best co-conspirator.” The two of you share a look in the mirror—a look that says God, what have we gotten into—and then there is a knock at the bedroom door, sharp and brisk.

Steve’s head drops with a groan. “Five minutes,” you call, and trade glance with your husband, resignation and amusement in equal measure.

It’s Jake calling into the master suite, “Sir, the British Prime Minister’s advance team just arrived and we have a briefing with the Joint Chiefs at 09:15 but we will need to move your security detail to accommodate the updated press pool, and—”

“Roger that,” Steve calls back.

You holler “Thanks, Jake,” into the hallway, and before you can even turn back to Steve and finish rinsing your mouth, he’s close behind you, arms caging you between the counter and his chest, both of you reflected twice in the gilded mirror.

His chin hooks your shoulder, his lips finding the sensitive skin just below your ear, and you nearly drop your the hairbrush you’ve reached for into the sink. “Come here,” he says, as if you aren’t bodily pressed against him, as if he could ever actually want you closer.

You smile at him in the mirror because you can’t not, and the whole reflection is so absurdly domestic—yesterday’s confetti still in your hair, his shirt unbuttoned just below the collar, the two of you framed by White House marble and gilt. “We are going to be late for your entire country,” you warn, but you let him wrap you up anyway.

“Let them wait,” he says, but he steps aside after a final, scandalous little nuzzle, letting you go. He’s a man who never shirks responsibility, and you know that to be true in every part of his life. You can’t wait to explore a new chapter with him.

I LOVE THEM, I LOVE THEM, I LOVE THEM! So soft and so fluffy here, but I still love this AU so much. 🥹 ❤️🤍💙

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"You always flirt when you're nervous?"

The completely out of pocket breaking of silence between you and Curtis has you sputtering, and you’re unable to string any type of real response together. "That's not—you—I—never flirting," you manage, the sentence falling apart in your mouth. Your face goes hot with embarrassment.

Curtis smiles, soft and warm. "Relax. I know. I just wanted to break the nerves." He nudges your shoulder with his.

The two of you had been sitting in silence in the waiting room before his teasing. In maybe any other circumstance your mind might have been racing with what to say and whether or not flirt with your stoic, thoughtful neighbor—the man you’d slowly begun to call a friend, but who you were painfully aware could ruin your panties with one look. The man you’d been trying to keep things together around for the last year since moving in with your aunt down the hall from him.

You say, “I’m not nervous, just—" and then realize you’re not sure what else to be besides nervous. Afraid? Hopeful? Angry? All of the above? You settle for staring at the scuffed linoleum while Curtis watches you with a look that, if it were on anyone else, would probably be pity, but on Curtis registers closer to loyalty. “Tense. I know she’ll be fine, but I can’t help being tense.”

He leans in, elbows on his knees, and says, “Whatever comes next? I’ll be right here. Okay?”

You blink at him, surprised by the havoc this simple phrase generates in your chest. This is not the kind of comfort you’re used to. People have shown up in your life when they need to, but this isn’t necessarily one of those need to times. It’s just an outpatient surgery—knee replacement for your aunt.

You want to tell him it’s not a big deal, that you’ve done bigger surgeries and worse scares with family before, that stitches and staples and anesthesia are the stuffing of childhood summers and parents, aunts, uncles, and cousins getting older, but for some reason you don’t. Instead, you nod, and murmur a soft, “Thank you.” He leans back against the seat back of the chair next to you, close enough your jackets are flush together, and lets the silence hang again.

Your phone buzzes in your pocket. It’s a group text from the family, a cascade of prayer hands emojis and gifs of cats doing knee bends, as if the artificial cartilage will be charmed into behaving by the cuteness of calico kittens. You smile awkwardly into the glare of your screen and pocket the phone again.

Curtis watches your movements, then turns his gaze to the wall clock. He has this way of looking at things as if they’re always about five minutes away from letting him down, but he’s determined to be charitable until then. You wonder if he’s always been this patient, if there was ever a time where all the anger in him boiled over. You wonder if he feels anything on high intensity, if he ever loses control, because he never seems to crack or shout or stop being so frustratingly (and in this case blessedly) calm.

You’ve analyzed him too much lately, trying to get a bead on where you stand in the whorled grain of his attention, but he doesn’t give up much. He portrays himself as a lone wolf, and yet seems to know about and look after every tenant in your building. He doesn’t say, “You can lean on me,” but he sits here, all more than six feet of him, silent beacon of support.

After another moment, you ask, “Is this the most boring Wednesday you’ve ever had?”

He considers. “Not even the top five,” he says. “But the company helps.”

You snort. “Such a flatterer.”

He glances at you again, evidence of a suppressed smile in the twitch of his cheek. “You don’t have to be tough, you know.”

“But I am tough,” you say, and you mean it, but also the words feel like a dare, a plea, and an apology at the same time. He accepts all three without question or challenge or platitude, which might be the best thing. The only thing.

“Did you eat today?” he asks, which shouldn’t be as cute as it is but, God, he’s always sliding into caretaker mode when you least expect it. He’s nothing if not a fixer.

You want to lie, just to keep up. “Of course,” you say, but your stomach betrays you with a watery gurgle. You both pretend not to hear it.

“Coffee only doesn’t count. Conveniently, the cafeteria here is edible,” Curtis offers, rising in a controlled, economical motion that is all the more impressive for its unselfconsciousness. “I’ll be right back.”

You open your mouth to protest, to insist you’re fine or offer to go yourself, but he’s already two steps away, and you’re left to watch his big, hulking frame disappear around the corner, and you can’t help the small sigh watching him go.

You’re alone in the waiting room again, and the absence of Curtis, which you keep telling yourself should feel like a relief—because then you don’t have to perform, or talk, or keep yourself from staring at his hands—has the opposite effect. You miss the quiet, stabilizing force of him beside you. You count the number of times your phone buzzes. You scroll through the same three news articles, not retaining a single word, and then stare at the hospital’s “Our Mission” poster with a resolve that feels like penance.

This is inconvenient. You’re not supposed to get attached. He’s your neighbor and friend, someone who has been so good to everyone, had practically adopted your aunt as his own.

You’ve survived this long by keeping ties loose and laces untied, but Curtis has a way of making himself necessary without being intrusive, leaving an impression just by existing nearby. The way he leans into you—not quite touching, but always within reach. The way he remembers your Thursday sandwich order, the way he brings up stories from three months ago like they just happened. The way he says your name when it matters. Small things, but dammit, they add up.

Even now, he’s probably making a spreadsheet of hospital food options in his head, for your benefit, and this makes you want to laugh and throw up at the same time because you are not supposed to fall for someone who makes it so easy. You’re not supposed to fall at all, because you are the one who knows how to manage risk, how to keep your heart sheathed in bubble wrap and sarcasm and the practiced art of staying unbothered. You are not supposed to crave the constancy of a man like Curtis, and yet here you are, sitting in this goddamn hospital, waiting for him to get back from the cafeteria like a dog at the front door.

Mostly you’re not supposed to fall because this is just him being nice, the same way he helps Mrs. Noyes from 4B with her recycling and walks the blind dog for the guy on 3 when he works a night shift.

You’re still chewing on this, gnawing at that impossible mental cuticle, when Curtis returns with a paper cup and a small brown bag. He offers them to you like a treaty, or maybe a dare. “They were out of blueberry,” he says, “so you’re getting banana. You’ll live.”

Your hand comes up for the bag, and the tips of his fingers graze yours, almost theatrically gentle, as if he’s afraid you might startle and bolt. You do not, but you do clock the hitch in your own pulse, the way your body catalogues the warmth and weight of his touch in the useless hope of replaying it later.

He sits down next to you again, his knee bumping yours and staying there. It’s such a nothing, such a casual point of contact, but you feel it in your teeth. He’s just big and tall and his legs have to fall where they may. And if you don’t move your leg away, that’s no one’s business whatsoever.

And if this is a prequel to the prologue for the Curtis we met in His Law would any one have any objections? (This then would have happened BEFORE the events that lead to the post-apocalyptic landscape of that entire AU.)

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"If I win this bet, you owe me a date."

“Uh-huh.” You roll your eyes. If Lloyd Hansen has made an agreement with you once, he’s made it a thousand times: bets, predictions, whether or not he makes a specific mark, terms for anything from a coffee order to the next Nobel Prize winner. And yet, for all Lloyd’s talk, he’s never once tried to collect. Not that you have much to fear—he’s the type who’d rather make you squirm in anticipation. You know he likes the idea of a date more than the date itself.

Scratch that, you know Lloyd is not the dating type. Hates and ridicules the colleagues who do go on dates.

He flashes a smile that should be illegal outside of toothpaste commercials. "I’m serious this time. Put it on the record."

You don’t even look up from your laptop. "You owe me more dates than you can count.”

“Ninety-nine.”

You jerk your head up to look at him. “What?”

“You heard me: ninety-nine dates.”

You open your mouth only to close it again.

“Ninety-nine,” he repeats, smug as ever. “If I win today, that’s one hundred.” He laces his fingers behind his head, elbows angled with showoff laziness, leaning back in his seat on the chartered plane. “At that point, I’m cashing in. No more IOUs. You, me, three uninterrupted days. I take you to my place in the Bahamas, and we see how many times we can fuck before your brain completely short-circuits.”

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You are standing on the roof of the White House, above the Truman balcony, wanting to kick your shoes off, but needing to play the host for just a little longer. This is your second Fourth of July in the White House and you thought you knew what to expect, but you are happy to be wrong, because the fireworks are impossibly brighter and more wonderful this year, the celebrations more grand, and you’re shoulder to shoulder with your husband, hands entwined as the dazzling show plays out before you over the South Lawn.

It’s breathtaking.

And so is he. Still. Always.

The grand finale erupts overhead, a cascading symphony of red, white, and blue that paints the night sky in impossible, starburst glory. You can feel the percussion in your chest, reverberating through the soles of your shoes, and you tip your head back to watch the last brilliant volley streak upward and burst into a thousand glittering silver and gold tendrils that drift lazily toward the earth.

Then jubilant cheers and applause and the faint, sweet smell of smoke and the distant roar of the crowd on the lawn below, cheering, waving, singing.

You turn to Steve, a smile already blooming on your lips, ready to say something about how beautiful it was, but he's already looking at you, and his eyes are doing that thing—that thing they've done since the very first kiss you shared, the real one, in Kansas City, that thing where the whole world seems to narrow to the blue of his gaze and the impossible softness of his mouth.

He pulls you close.

One hand slides to the small of your back, warm and certain through the fabric of your dress, and the other rises to cradle your jaw, his thumb brushing the apple of your cheek as if he can't quite believe you're real, as if he needs to check. And you have to admit there are moments you still can’t quite believe yourself that this is your life, these moments, and him. The night air is still thick with the scent of gunpowder and summer heat, and the last of the silver sparks are drifting down behind him like slow, glittering rain, and you have just enough time to think oh before his mouth finds yours.

It's quick. It has to be quick—you're standing on the roof of the White House, surrounded by friends and aides and a few dignitaries, Secret Service agents with their earpieces. But it's enough. It's always enough. His lips are warm and a little dry from the evening air, and he kisses you the way he kisses you when he's happy, which is to say with his whole heart, like there's nothing else in the world worth his attention, like the presidency and the country and the fireworks are all very nice, but they are not this.

You kiss him back. Of course, you kiss him back, placing your hand over his heart.

When he pulls away, it's only an inch, his forehead resting against yours, and you can feel him smiling. You can feel the shape of it against your mouth before you see it, and your own smile is bursting for him, too.

"Happy Fourth, Mrs. Rogers," he murmurs, and his voice is low and rough in that way that it has no business being right at this moment.

"Happy birthday, Mr. President," you whisper back, and he laughs, a quiet, rumble before the two of you break apart and turn to face the small crowd with you on the roof.

And there they are—the faces you've come to know so well, the ones that make this house feel less like a museum and more like a home, or at least as close to one as you can get here. Ambassador Chen from Taiwan, laughing with the German trade minister. Sophia, sharp as ever in her midnight blue, already catching your eye with that knowing, slightly smug look she gets whenever she catches the two of you being soft with each other. Senator Nakamura, who flew in from Honolulu just for this. Colonel Rhodes, grinning like he's about to make a joke he absolutely should not make in mixed company.

You move through them like water, because you've gotten good at this—good at the handshake that lingers just long enough, the murmured thank you for coming that sounds like you mean it, because you do. You mean all of them. Steve is circulating as well, but you’re both being led by your aides toward the exit, aiming to get you into the Residence as quickly as possible because you both have packed days tomorrow (as ever).

Back inside, you kick off your heels in the elevator and breathe, sinking into Steve’s side as your small phalanx of staffers peels away, each murmuring quick good-nights and peeling off down the Residential Corridor, exhausted and slightly tipsy.

He bumps your shoulder with his, sly and crooked in a way that tells you he’s been waiting all night to be alone with you. He reaches for your heels, and you let him take them for the short walk down the hall and into your borrowed home.

The next minutes are a tangle of hands and laughter, breathless and urgent, your dress falling to the carpet with a sound like wings beating, his tie left hanging somewhere between the elevator and the bedroom. You are giddy and graceless, all eager to be together, just the two of you.

He kisses you until your knees go watery, but never letting you falter, guiding you backwards until the back of your thighs catch on the edge of the mattress. You tumble together, the bedspread starched and crisp beneath your palms and knees, and then the world narrows down to calloused hands and the hush of his laughter and the feeling, always, that you are safe. The dim lamplight gilds the curve of his shoulders, the roughness that’s come into his voice as he pulls your name from the space between your mouths. He tastes like bourbon and wild honey from the refreshments at the party, just enough to loosen the lines of his day.

You drag him closer by the lapels, hungry for the taste of him. You pull him down and roll, greedy, pinning him beneath you. His tie is gone; you’re not sure when, but you feel the press of his hands at your waist, guiding you in a slow, grinding circle that makes you gasp. You forget to breathe as you tangle your hands in his hair and let him kiss you dizzy. He’s already undone the buttons of his shirt one-handed, and you help him push it off his shoulders, so you have the skin of his arms beneath your palms. He’s golden and warm, his heart beating under your fingers like a secret. There’s a lightning-bolt thrill each time he murmurs your name. You want to bottle this, this slice of private time in a life where you so rarely get to keep anything for yourselves, and you want to uncork it every time the day-to-day feels a little too heavy.

He traces the line of your jaw, thumbing your chin up and examining you. "You've been different all day," he says, quietly, not accusing, just curious. "Not off, just…something on your mind?"

He’s not wrong. You laugh, because you can’t help it, because how could he possibly have noticed, because you’ve tried to be so careful. But of course he did. “Yes, there’s something.”

He sits up, pulls you into his lap, and you tangle your knees around his waist, greedy for the press of his body. You take a breath, not to arm yourself, but to gather him in. This is a moment you’ve waited for all day, and it’s a moment you know the two of you will remember for the rest of your lives.

“It’s Independence Day and your birthday, and so, so much of today was about everyone else, but I wanted to save one thing for just us.” You run your hands up his chest, and you can feel the way his muscles tense, just a little, the way he always does when he senses something is about to change. His hands go still at your waist. He looks at you the way he looked at you on your wedding day—that same unguarded, ungoverned look, the one that has no presidential composure in it whatsoever.

You swallow, suddenly giddy with nerves, but you try to keep your voice steady as you tell him, “We’re going to have a baby.”

For a moment he’s silent, holding you so tightly you are certain he’s the only thing keeping you from flying off this bed and straight through the window into the dark and dazzling sky now that your stomach is completely aflutter with butterflies - your whole chest really. Steve opens his mouth, then closes it, startled as you’ve ever seen him, caught utterly off guard, and the surge of joy in his eyes is so bright you almost have to look away.

He laughs, choked and astonished, and cups your face with both hands, searching you for the truth even as he repeats your words back to you, as if you’ve cast an unbreakable spell. “We’re—are you—are you sure?” he whispers, and you nod, and in less than a heartbeat he is kissing you everywhere—your forehead, your cheeks, your jaw, the tip of your nose, your lips, your collarbone, drawing your fingers to his lips.

“I wasn’t sure at first. The first test I took was negative. But then I took four more—yesterday being the most recent—and all the rest have been positive. I’ll need to have an official one from our medical team, but this is how normal people try to figure it out, and I wanted to at least start that way.”

“Say it again,” he whispers, and there’s something raw and vulnerable in it that makes your own eyes sting.

You say it again, just for him, and its warmer and easier the second time. “We’re going to have a baby.”

He tugs you close, a long, slow drag of his palms up your spine, and his mouth finds you again, velvet and open and as gentle as if you’re already breakable. You can feel the words he isn’t saying in every touch, every line of his body, every hush of breath against your lips. The rest of the world can wait awhile longer. The future, the headlines, the meetings and luncheons and the never-ending security briefings—they’re so far away. Tonight, it’s just the two of you.

You’re still in his lap and you want to stay there, anchored by his arms, held in place by the gravity of him. Just Steve, the curve of his neck under your hands, the soft light making gold of his hair and blue fire of his eyes and the clean, clean taste of his mouth.

He slides his palms up your thighs, slow and reverent. You feel the calluses catch on the delicate skin behind your knees, then up the slopes of your thighs. Your whole body is tuned to the gentle sweep of his hands, the warmth of his breath against the hollow of your throat.

Steve shifts you in his lap, sliding his cock into your warm and waiting cunt, and your legs find their place around him, heel pressed to the hard muscle of his lower back, hips flush.

You rock together, slow and steady, as if this new knowledge has rewired the both of you, as if every part of Steve that has ever belonged to you is suddenly magnified, gifted back to you in triplicate. He moves inside you as if your bodies are completing unfinished sentences.

You clutch his shoulders and ride him, slow and deep and close, the sounds of your bodies punctuating the quiet as you move together, breath and heartbeat and the little desperate noises you can never hold back from him. His hands travel the length of your back, every unhurried pass softening the landscape of you. The window is open just a crack and summer air pulses in, humid and electric, thick with city sounds and the far-off echo of festivities still unfolding for a thousand strangers. But here, in this room, everything is slow, thick, sweet, nothing but devotion.

He groans, burying his face in your shoulder, and you feel the shape of his smile against your skin, the press of his teeth where he bites back a more urgent moan. You want to laugh, to cry, to collapse and never move again. He moves his hands to your hips, slowing you even more, keeping you close while his mouth traces up along your jaw, kissing the corner of your mouth, your ear.

“I love you,” he says, a promise and a benediction. “I love you so much.”

You clutch him even closer, saying as much back, pouring it into his big heart, and time doubles back on itself, collecting all the nights that led you here: sprawled on a mattress in a St. Louis walk-up, or in Colorado Springs when you were snowed in during the state’s Clean Energy initiative tour, and even sometimes in the backseat of an electric SUV of a Secret Service motor pool. You could have lived a thousand lives and never guessed at this particular happiness, this improbable ending: you and Steve, knotted together in the gleam of a presidential bedroom, a future unspooling inside you, somehow as terrifying and bright as fireworks.

You spend the rest of the night lying together on the sheets, his arm curled around your waist, your hands splayed together with each other over your stomach; his full chest pressed tight to your back, the long, slow breathing of him on a slow, rising tide of emotion you aren’t sure you understand, or ever want to. There’s a secret, quiet sense of being at the exact center of the world that’s only the two of you and the baby on the way. At least for a while.

You drift in and out of sleep, and each time you wake, Steve’s hand is where it left off, thumb brushing circles low on your belly, as if by touch alone he could will the newness of what you told him into the marrow of himself.

As dawn slips in, painting the suite with the faintest gold, you shift slightly, and Steve murmurs, “You awake?” against your neck.

“Mm. Barely.”

He nuzzles in deeper, his beard tickling your neck, and you squirm and turn around to face him. “Did you even sleep?” you ask.

He shakes his head. “Not really,” he admits, voice gone hoarse and quiet. “Kept worrying I’d wake up and it wouldn’t be real. You’re here, though.”

“Mhmm, you’re stuck with me.”

You kiss his brow and let your hand run through the gold of his hair, musing at what a child of his might look like. You picture the bright blue of his eyes, the stubborn set of his jaw, and, despite yourself, the impossible hope that the world you’re building together will be even marginally kind to someone so new and small.

Steve pulls you into his chest, folding your whole body into his, and you melt.

"When I woke up in this century," he begins, his voice low and intimate, "I thought I'd lost my chance at this kind of happiness. I resigned myself to being a man out of time, always looking back at what might have been." His thumb traces gentle over your stomach, soft whispers of his hope.

“I felt untethered, but you are the anchor my soul needed.”

Your throat aches, and you’re not sure what to say because your heart is so full. As much as he’s clear about his devotion to you, it’s reciprocated note for note from your heart. Everything you two have built—the relationship, the purpose, the passion, the drive, the community of people around you—moved your post-blip return from average to a life of vibrancy you also thought you’d never find again.

“I only ever told Bucky I was considering it, but since we figured out time travel to bring everyone back, there was a time I weighed going back to the forties or fifties, but now I thank everything in my bones that I didn’t. I would have missed so much. Even the hard parts, even the hurt, I’d choose all of it to find us.”

It’s a strange, buoyant sadness that washes through you, an ache for the lives you both were supposed to have and the astonishing joy of the one you’re building now, brick by brick, night by night, and dream by dream.

You thread your hand through his, squeezing, letting the gravity of his words swirl through your psyche. “Good, because there’s no one else I would ever want to do this with—not just this,” you gesture to the presidential trappings you live in, “but this,” and you let your hands rest together, gentle on your belly, both of you quietly marveling at the shift in your world.

“I’ll never be able to say it enough, but I love you, Steve. Always.”

Instead of more words, he says it back with another searing kiss.

Once dawn has broken and the two of you are side by side in the bathroom, brushing your teeth, moving through your morning routines, Steve frowns, and you catch the knit of his brow in the mirror. “What’s that consternation for all of a sudden?”

“How did you get not just one, but multiple pregnancy tests smuggled in without a soul finding out?”

You grin. “Sophia.”

Steve scoffs and shakes his head, his scowl turning sarcastic. “She’s supposed to be my personal secretary.”

“And she staffed me on the campaign first,” you remind him. “I’m convinced she only accepted your offer so she could keep you in line and spy on you for me.”

“She doesn’t even pretend to have plausible deniability,” he mutters, rinsing his mouth. “Busted me on a whole security briefing last week when she caught me stashing Reese’s in my desk. I’m the President—” he says this with faux outrage, like he still doesn’t quite believe it, “yet she controls the candy flow and now, apparently, the pharmacy.”

You spit your own minty mouthful. “A First Lady’s job is never done, and I can’t help it if I’ve got the best co-conspirator.” The two of you share a look in the mirror—a look that says God, what have we gotten into—and then there is a knock at the bedroom door, sharp and brisk.

Steve’s head drops with a groan. “Five minutes,” you call, and trade glance with your husband, resignation and amusement in equal measure.

It’s Jake calling into the master suite, “Sir, the British Prime Minister’s advance team just arrived and we have a briefing with the Joint Chiefs at 09:15 but we will need to move your security detail to accommodate the updated press pool, and—”

“Roger that,” Steve calls back.

You holler “Thanks, Jake,” into the hallway, and before you can even turn back to Steve and finish rinsing your mouth, he’s close behind you, arms caging you between the counter and his chest, both of you reflected twice in the gilded mirror.

His chin hooks your shoulder, his lips finding the sensitive skin just below your ear, and you nearly drop your the hairbrush you’ve reached for into the sink. “Come here,” he says, as if you aren’t bodily pressed against him, as if he could ever actually want you closer.

You smile at him in the mirror because you can’t not, and the whole reflection is so absurdly domestic—yesterday’s confetti still in your hair, his shirt unbuttoned just below the collar, the two of you framed by White House marble and gilt. “We are going to be late for your entire country,” you warn, but you let him wrap you up anyway.

“Let them wait,” he says, but he steps aside after a final, scandalous little nuzzle, letting you go. He’s a man who never shirks responsibility, and you know that to be true in every part of his life. You can’t wait to explore a new chapter with him.

I LOVE THEM, I LOVE THEM, I LOVE THEM! So soft and so fluffy here, but I still love this AU so much. 🥹 ❤️🤍💙

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"Are you always this charming?"

Steve laughs—a short, flustered thing that moves through the air between you and is snatched away by the wind. In the orange lamplight, he scratches the back of his neck, a gesture so boyish you’re charmed twice over. “I don’t know about that,” he says. “I mean, I’m not really a—”

He shrugs, letting the rest hang there. Whatever he thinks he isn’t, it doesn’t matter. What matters is how close you’re standing, and how his eyes keep flicking to your mouth and then away, as if he’s daring himself to cross the invisible line.

You tilt your chin up for him.

And that does it. He closes the space, a shy warmth in the way he grips your forearms, as if grounding himself in the sheer fact of your existence.

When he kisses you, it’s hesitant but hungry, the kind of awkward that’s so real it surprises you into smiling mid-way through. He pulls back, a little stunned, and you watch, hardly believing that this man who is Captain freaking America to the world has any doubt about his standing with you, when all you want from him is the man behind the shield. Steven Grant Rogers and his good heart and his nervous hands, and his unguarded laugh.

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