EEE = MC SCARED! AAH-FFIDAVIT!!!

--

Steve is not worried. 

In fact, all things considered, he’s—calm.

A gun jams itself into his back on his way to his next class, rough hands guiding him out of sight where persons unseen can put a bag over his head. 

He isn’t sure what happened to his bodyguard during this process. His normal bodyguard, Danny, has been sick with the flu all week and his replacement is—not Steve’s favorite person. He won’t, Steve decides as he’s stuffed into a trunk, save that one from his Daddy’s wrath. 

The car ride is long but uneventful and when it ends, he’s pulled from the trunk and marched from an outside to an inside. He can hear other people moving around, talking, arguing. He’s slammed roughly into a chair and tied to it, the ropes frayed and too tight. They pinch his skin and rub it raw in seconds.

But as Steve sits there, listening to an unknown number of people move around him, he realizes that he’s not worried. Not as much as he should be.

If someone had asked him even a week ago how he’d react to a kidnapping, this is not what he would’ve imagined at all. He never would’ve thought he could be so calm. He would’ve thought there’d be a fear so great it chattered his teeth and shook his limbs, that he might curl into a ball and cry until he passed out.

Perhaps once, that would’ve happened. No—definitely once, it would’ve happened. But once, the fear had overwhelmed him because he’d never known what safety felt like.

And then there was his Daddy.

His Daddy, who worships him. His Daddy, whose near-daily mantra is: No one hurts my baby boy.

And he is Daddy’s baby boy. He is the one no one can hurt anymore.

They aren’t just words. His Daddy has proven it again and again, has shown that he will not abide any harm coming to him, whether that harm is physical, mental, or emotional. Nothing bad is allowed to touch him anymore; his Daddy has decreed it so.

So, yes, Steve has been kidnapped, and yes, he is scared, but not so much so that it blots out everything else. He’s scared, but he isn’t worried. His Daddy is coming. He knows that with more certainty than he knows his own name.

The only thing he has to do, he realizes, is survive. Daddy will do the rest. Whoever took him, whatever hurt they inflict, his Daddy will take care of it all. His only job is to survive long enough for Daddy to get here.

Someone takes the bag off his head.

Steve finds himself in the living room of a rather quaint-looking farmhouse. At least, he thinks it’s a farmhouse; it’s far too spacious for a house in the city. and that living room is full of people with guns. They’re of varying shapes and sizes, and a variety of ages, with the youngest two being the men standing directly in front of him. They look to be around his own age.

Kids, his Daddy would call them. Steve might be his baby boy, but he’s definitely old enough to know the consequences of his actions, and so are these two.

When one of them sees his face, he flinches hard, pressing the butt of his gun to the side of his head.

“Jesus fuck,” he whispers. “Jesus fuck. What the fuck did you do?”

This sentiment, though not repeated, seems to be shared with at least a handful of his cohorts. It’s interesting to watch the ripple effect, to look into each face and see who recognizes him.

Many don’t. They look at him blankly or tilt their heads curiously, trying to figure out why the young man reacted the way he did over the very sight of Steve; he isn’t, after all, a very intimidating figure.

The ignorance is to be expected, of course. His Daddy keeps him so well protected, so wonderfully sheltered. If Daddy had it his way, no one in his world would ever know about Steve’s existence—he would’ve kept his work and Steve completely separate for the rest of their lives, if he could have. Probably for this exact reason. 

He’d tried his best in the beginning, but Steve couldn’t be parted from his Daddy for too long in those days. Even just an hour or two would feel like his insides were being shredded. Like he was being abandoned for good and left to fend for himself among the wolves.

He doesn’t think that anymore. Here he is, in a den of wolves, and he knows he isn’t abandoned. Far, far from it. The only wolf to truly fear is the one coming to protect him.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” The second young man snaps. “We needed leverage, I got us leverage. I’m not seeing the problem here!”

So, Steve thinks. This is his kidnapper. His Daddy will not be kind to this young man, whether or not he views him as a kid.

“The problem,” says a grizzled voice from the corner, belonging to an older man with a silver beard rolling a toothpick between his lips, “is you use leverage to get what you want, kid, but you have to be alive to enjoy it. When you said you nabbed someone in Barnes’ operation, I didn’t think you’d been this fucking stupid.”

“What are you talking about?” Someone else asks, a young woman with braided hair and gothic makeup. She looks incredulously between the man with the toothpick and the two in front of Steve and then, finally, to Steve himself. “He’s just a kid? He can’t be more than a runner for Barnes, how much leverage could he even be? Does Barnes even know who this kid is?”

Steve doesn’t know whether to frown at the jab toward his age or laugh over her estimation of his importance. She looks around the same age as the young men, maybe a year or two older, which means she’s only a year or two older than him.

Steve clears his throat delicately.

“I don’t work for him, actually,” he tells the woman politely, “but I promise, I’m older than I look.”

His kidnapper sneers.

“Oh, you work for him, alright. On your back.” Like it’s an insult; something to be ashamed of. He looks at the young woman. “This is Barnes’ piece of ass.”

Oh, his Daddy despises that phrase. He hates to hear Steve reduced to such crude, emotionless terms.

“Rumor has it Barnes is fond of him. Fond enough, he’ll bargain for him back. If he’s reasonable, we’ll even give him back unused.”

Someone in the room sucks in a harsh breath. More than someone, even.

Steve doesn’t. Despite himself, despite the situation, Steve—starts to laugh. It’s soft and light, almost a giggle, but it turns every head in the room.

Rumor has it. 

Fond.

Un. Used.

It isn’t funny, not really, but it also very much is. Steve’s shoulders shake as his head falls back to meet his kidnapper’s furious gaze.

“Oh, my Daddy is going to kill you,” he says with relish, smiling up at him, “and then he’s going to fuck me in your blood.”

“Oh,” the young woman says, blinking. “Damn.”

“The fuck did you just say, you little shit—”

“No, no, no—”

The second young man shields Steve from his lunging kidnapper frantically, but not fast enough to prevent the backhand that snaps his head to the side.

That fearful part of his brain—the part of him that’s triggered when someone is violent with him—starts to rise up, take over, but he doesn’t let it. He can’t. There’s no friendly face in this room, no one to protect him if he lets himself fall apart. Once upon a time, he didn’t have that choice. He couldn’t control it or overcome it, but he can now. Thanks to his Daddy, he has the strength.

Squeezing his eyes closed, he takes in a deep, harsh breath, stuffing it back down. He can fall apart later—will fall apart later in the safety of his Daddy’s arms—but not now. Now, he has to be strong. He has to survive. That’s his job.

Steve spits blood onto the ground and finally looks back up. The young woman is in his kidnappers face now, slapping his arms and shoulders as he cowers away. There’s a gun in his hand, but he hasn’t thought to use it to ward her off.

“His sub?” The young woman is shouting, Steve’s words apparently having finally penetrated, the dots finally connected. “You kidnapped his submissive? Have you lost your fucking mind?”

“Not just his sub,” Steve says. His voice is soft, but the woman still whirls to look at him. “I’m his partner, too. He loves me very, very much and I can promise you, he already knows I’m missing. He probably already knows where I am and he’s on his way here right now.”

It’s impossible to know that, but somehow, he’s never been more sure of anything in his life. Somehow, some way, he can feel it, like a living thing in his chest. 

His Daddy knows he’s in danger. He’s on his way. He’s near.

“Don’t lie,” his kidnapper sneers. “Your routine doesn’t have you back at his house for hours.”

“Our house,” Steve corrects. “And it doesn’t matter. He’ll know. He checks in with me throughout the day. If he texts me and I don’t text him back, he’ll know something is wrong.”

“Controlling bastard, ain’t he?”

For the first time since he was grabbed, Steve feels something: anger. Real, white-hot anger flaring big and bright inside him. He glares furiously.

They can say whatever they want about him—do whatever they want to him—he doesn’t care about that. That isn’t his anger to hold; that’s his Daddy’s score to settle. But he’ll hear nothing bad about his Daddy, ever. Not about the man who saved him, healed him. The man that loves him so deeply, so fiercely, that not even Steve’s demons can doubt it anymore.

“Don’t ever talk about him that way,” he snarls, his venom surprising even him. “He’s protective, and only as much as I need him to be. Which is why if any of you hurt me, he’s going to kill you. If any of you stand by and let someone else hurt me, he’s going to kill you. The only way out of this is for you to call him right now and tell him that you didn’t know. Tell him that I’m okay, this was all a mistake, and that you’re letting me go.”

“That’s exactly what we’re going to do,” the young woman says. “I’m not dying because of your stupidity, Benji.”

She nudges the second young man, and he nods frantically, the two of them kneeling in unison beside the chair, one at his feet and the other at his back to untie him. The sound of a gun cocking makes them freeze—it isn’t Benji.

It’s another man, one who’s stayed silent so far.

“We’re definitely not doing that,” he says calmly, shotgun pointed at them. “If what the kid is saying is true, letting him go is the wrong move. We can trade his safety for ours.”

“That’s the wrong move,” someone else says. “Were you even listening?”

The room devolves into chaos, hackles and guns rising on all sides, everyone arguing on what to do. Steve takes note of the ones who want to set him free and those who don’t; unfortunately for them, most of the group is against his freedom. But even those who want to keep him can’t agree on how to best to use him. 

They’re a very divided group, this bunch, and so busy arguing that no one notices the front door silently swinging open or the shadows slipping through.

Steve’s heart soars. His Daddy is here.

He looks at the two still kneeling beside him.

“Stay next to me,” he tells them. “I’ll keep you safe.”

They glance at each other and then at him, utterly confused, but only for a moment. Within seconds, his Daddy’s men descend upon the room. 

His kidnappers fall laughably easy. They’re a small, ragtag group and already divided. There’s no trust among them, no loyalty. Unlike his Daddy’s organization in every way, where loyalty and trust are key to their growth and survival.

Danny, of all people, strides through the chaos toward Steve with a murderous look trained on the two still near him.

“Danny,” Steve says sweetly, stopping him. “They tried to help me.”

Danny pauses, visibly recalibrating. He nods, tucking away his gun and instead pulling out a knife.

“Alright, kid,” he says, his voice uncharacteristically hoarse. “I’ll let him know. Out of the way, you two.”

They scramble out of the way, letting Danny cut away Steve’s bindings. Steve watches him with a frown.

“What are you doing here?” He asks. “You’re still sick.”

And he is. His skin is still sickly pale, his red-rimmed eyes sunken and bruised, and his lips are chapped. He looks haggard, exhausted. Even just this much activity has sapped the energy from him.

“Worry about yourself, kid,” Danny says dryly. “I’m out a few days and you get kidnapped? What’s that about?”

Steve smiles. “Maybe I just missed you. Did you ever think about that?”

“That’s enough outta you.” Danny snorts, cutting the last of the ropes away. “Your Daddy’s not gonna find your flirting cute today, you’re liable to get me killed.”

“Oh,” says a deceptively calm voice at the door, “someone is definitely going to die today.”

Just the sound of his voice warms Steve instantly, from the top of his head all the way down to the tips of his toes. It’s an instant, swelling, tingling kind of warmth that leaves Steve breathless. He looks up, his heart stuttering in his chest when he finally, finally sees his Daddy.

Daddy walks in, surveying the room. His captors have all fallen, held at gunpoint while someone ties them up and their weapons are collected. Daddy looks at each of them, cataloging every face that took his boy. They all flinch when his gaze falls to them. They know theirs is a short, bleak future.

Finally, Daddy turns to him. He starts at the top of Steve’s head, looking him over at a glacial pace, his gaze lingering on Steve’s stinging cheek, his lips, his wrists, his ankles. Every mark he sees makes the storm brewing in his eyes grow darker. 

He kneels in front of Steve, taking his wrists between large, warm hands and kissing the marks there.

“Are you alright, sweetheart?” Daddy asks gently, his thumb caressing along the fine bone in Steve’s wrist.

“I am now, Daddy,” Steve promises.

Daddy kisses his wrists again, turning them over this time to get every inch of the rope marks. Without looking up, he asks, “Is that blood I see on your lip, baby?”

“Yes, Daddy.”

Daddy hums, so very deceptively calm. 

“Tell me what happened,” he orders. “Start at the beginning.”

Steve doesn’t know what makes him do it, but before he obeys, he stands, slipping out of his Daddy’s grasp. Walking across the room to where Benji is held at gunpoint, Steve kneels down in front of him with all the grace of a boy who likes to spend a lot of time on his knees. 

Benji glares back at him mutinously, but Steve sees it—the glimmer of apprehension in his eyes. His gaze jumps over Steve’s shoulder just before a large hand rests atop Steve’s head, stroking his hair.

“Baby?” Daddy prompts.

Steve smiles sweetly, looking right into Benji’s eyes.

“He took me from school between classes,” he recounts obediently, never looking away. “I don’t know what they wanted from you, Daddy, but they needed leverage. The others didn’t know it would be me until we got here. Some of them tried to tell him it was a bad idea. But Benji said I was good leverage. He said I was the piece of ass you were fond of and you’d bargain to get me back.”

The man holding a gun to Benji’s head grimaces. They all know how much his Daddy hates that particular turn of phrase.

What Steve does next is cruel. He knows it’s cruel. He knows before he does it that it will be the single cruelest thing he’s ever done. He shouldn’t, but Benji—well, Benji insulted his Daddy. He still has to answer for that.

Still holding Benji’s gaze, Steve says, “He said if you were reasonable, Daddy, he’d even give me back unused.”

The room stops breathing. The hand in his hair freezes. Somewhere close, Danny swears under his breath. Daddy’s men look at each other uneasily, shifting their weight. The one standing behind Benji is so dumbfounded, he actually lowers his gun.

Rage so black, so potent, it should have its own name rolls off his Daddy in thick, suffocating waves. Steve feels it like an actual, tangible thing pushing against his back, but rather than frighten him, it calms him. That rage settles over him like a comforting blanket, bringing with it a sense of absolute peace.

That rage will never touch him—this, he knows better than his own name. It’s for him. It protects him.

“Is that so?” Daddy asks, his voice a soft, delicate thing.

Whatever Benji sees on his Daddy’s face breaks him. Gone is the mutiny in his eyes, the arrogance, the cocksure way he’d been acting since he pressed a gun into Steve’s back. 

“No,” he bursts out, shaking his head too quickly, “no, no, no—I didn’t—I didn’t mean it, I didn’t mean any of it, I didn’t mean it, I swear—”

Daddy takes a single step around Steve, pulling a gun from underneath his jacket and shoving it between Benji’s lips.

“Don’t lie, kid,” Daddy says, his voice still soft, still so deceptively calm. “Lying will get your tongue cut out. You meant it when you had the power. Now that the power’s been taken away from you, you want it to be different. But truthfully, it doesn’t matter if you meant it. What matters is you said it. The words are violence on their own and I think you know that.”

Benji sobs around the barrel, looking up at Daddy with his wide, frightened eyes, the tears spilling over. Steve can’t quite tell anymore if he’s shaking his head or just shaking.

Daddy squats down to his eye level.

“Is he the one that put that mark on your cheek, baby?” Daddy asks without looking at Steve. “Is he the one that made you bleed?”

“Yes, Daddy. When he said it, I told him you were going to kill him and he hit me.”

Daddy hums, nodding to himself as he looks Benji over. Benji trembles, shaking his head, trying to talk around the gun but there’s no way to make out a single word.

Daddy shushes him softly.

“Do you know what’s made me the man I am today?” He murmurs to Benji. He leans close, like he’s sharing a secret. “Information, kid. You can never put too much importance on it. I’ve never made a single move until I have all the facts. Until I know for sure that what I’ve been told is fact. Your problem—well, you seem to have two of them from where I’m sitting. The first is that you didn’t check your sources. You didn’t verify. Because if you did, kid? You would’ve known better. The most precious thing in my life, the most priceless fucking thing I own, and you put a gun on it? Called it a piece of ass? Hit it, spilled its blood, threatened to fucking—”

Daddy snarls, gritting his teeth, unable to finish the sentence. He’s so enraged, he trembles with it.

He shoves the gun deeper, gagging Benji on it, pulling back the hammer so slowly that every tiny click is heard in the silence. Leaning in close, his voice drops to a low, menacing rumble that sends shivers up and down Steve’s spine when he says, “You would’ve fucking known better.”

Benji sobs so hard he keeps gagging, squeezing his eyes closed. Daddy lets him live in the terror—wondering when the shot will come, when it’ll be over—for long, agonizing seconds before he releases the hammer again.

“You also would’ve known that you’d never get off that easy,” he comments, moving the gun side to side, shaking Benji’s head like he’s reprimanding him. “Which brings us to your second problem: I think you have a habit of pissing off the wrong people, kid. Who you talked to is of no concern to me right now—you’ll give me that name before you die and I think we both know that—but whoever it was, you must’ve pissed ‘em off something fierce. That’s very specific wording you used, calling him a piece of ass.”

He finally pulls the gun back, tapping the barrel against Benji’s lips with each word as he says, “Wording that everyone knows I hate.”

He slips the gun back inside when Benji tries to speak.

“Someone gave it to you on purpose,” Daddy continues, “because they knew we’d end up here. The most interesting part, though, isn’t that they set you up. It’s that I know about it. There’s no hiding that you hit my baby. I see the mark on his cheek, he wouldn’t have been able to give you the mercy of telling me later. But he didn’t have to tell me the other things, not right away. I love my baby, but he’s too fucking sweet. He tries to show mercy where I have none. 

“And yet, there’s no mercy for you tonight, kid. He went out of his way to take it away from you. He made sure to sit right here in front of you when he told me, to watch the hope leave your eyes when you realized just how fucked you truly are. Which begs the fucking question: what the fuck else did you do to my baby to make him do that? What could be worse than what I already know?”

Daddy pulls the gun from his lips again, shoving it under his chin. “Tell me. I want to hear you say it. I’m your God today, kid. Confess your sins before you die.”

“Nothing,” Benji sobs quietly. “N-Nothing, that was it, I swear—I don’t know—nothing—”

Daddy hums, considering. He stands, never taking his eyes from Benji.

“I don’t believe you. But don’t worry, I have some tools that I think will help loosen your tongue. Danny, stay with him.”

He doesn’t mean Benji. Danny’s job would never be anything but Steve.

Daddy is halfway to the door when Danny asks, “Boss? What about the ones who helped him?”

Daddy stops, looking back, his gaze going right to Steve. Steve nods obediently.

“Some of them wanted to give me back as soon as they saw me, Daddy,” he says. “Some of them even tried, but the others put guns on them. I know which ones, I kept track.”

“Of course you did, baby.”

Daddy smiles approvingly, before letting his gaze sweep the rest of the room.

“If you were going to do the right thing, you live,” he says to those bound and kneeling. “If you weren’t, you can sit tight. I’ll get to you. Point them out for the men, sweetheart, we’ll let them go. But let me make this clear to everyone: if I see you near him again, you won’t be shown the same mercy twice. And whatever little job you were planning? It dies today. Stay away from what’s mine if you value your life.”

As Daddy gathers his tools and the men obediently release those that helped, Danny squats down beside Steve.

“You gonna tell me what he did?” He asks, nodding to Benji.

Steve likes Danny. In fact, he likes Danny a lot. He probably would’ve told him, friends that they are, if not for the desperate way Benji looks at him. He wants the answer, too, so that he can save himself the agony he knows is coming.

Steve shakes his head. “Not yet,” he says simply.

The agony does come. Steve watches a safe distance away from the blood spatter, sitting neatly on a table with Danny at his shoulder. 

His Daddy carves into Benji’s body, making him recount the day again and again and again. Somehow, Benji always forgets that one moment—the one comment that damned him. It was so irrelevant, and Steve’s anger toward it so insignificant to him, that even as he reaches for new details each time, he doesn’t recall it.

The price for insulting his Daddy is a very specific amount of pain. Steve doesn’t know precisely what that amount is, but he knows the moment it’s reached. Something in him relaxes, the anger finally melting away.

Poor Benji, he thinks, has suffered enough.

Finally, as he watches Benji struggle to breathe and his Daddy stand back to survey his work, Steve gives the mercy he once denied:

“He insulted you, Daddy.”

Daddy looks up, and the entire room looks with him.

There is a monster that lives inside his Daddy, one that enjoys the blood and gore, enjoys being the god of someone’s suffering. It's a special monster, though, one that only ever seems to make an appearance when Steve is in danger. The monster looks back at him now, dead-eyed and calm, drenched in blood, the knives in his hands still dripping with it.

He should be frightening, but Steve could never be frightened. Not of his Daddy. Not ever.

“What’s that, baby?” Daddy asks, tilting his head, abandoning his task to sidle closer.

“That’s why I did it,” Steve confesses. “Because he insulted you. I told him that you checked on me throughout the day and he called you a controlling bastard. So I told you all the bad things he said, knowing what would happen, because he needed to pay for that.”

Daddy stops in front of him, resting his bloody hands on either side of Steve’s hips. He kisses the corner of Steve’s lips.

“Baby,” he murmurs. “I don’t give a fuck what some moronic little shit says about me.”

Steve frowns delicately, grabbing the open collar of his Daddy’s bloodied shirt to keep him close.

“But I do,” he says plainly. “I love you, Daddy. I hate hearing people say bad things about you. It hurts me.”

He settles a palm on his Daddy’s cheek, leaning up for a kiss.

“No one gets away with hurting your baby, Daddy,” he whispers. “That’s what you said. If no gets to hurt your baby, that means no one gets to insult my Daddy. Ever. I don't like it.”

The look Daddy gives him then is so soft and achingly tender, full of love, devotion, desire. Daddy cups his face, kissing his lips lightly.

“There aren’t fucking words for how much I love you, baby boy,” he murmurs, and then kisses him again, more deeply this time. It’s a slow, sensual kiss that belongs in their lovemaking and not in the middle of a crowded crime scene, but neither of them care. 

“I told him you would fuck me in his blood, Daddy,” Steve whispers when their lips part.

Daddy smiles, kissing his nose sweetly.

I decided that Bucky is a doctor in this universe—mostly because fellow silver fox Dr Jack Abbott showed off his big muscly arms and titties in last week’s episode of The Pitt and that needs to be commemorated somehow—but I can’t decide if I want him to be an ER doctor like Dr Daddy Jack Abbott or something like a surgeon. Either way, for Future Reasons, he has to work in a hospital.

Also, he probably has an evil, gold-digging ex that said a lot of hateful things to him when he left, which is why Bucky can’t see that Steve is actually interested in him.

He’s a confident man in almost every other way, but that relationship did a number on him.

He doesn’t go to the club very often; he’s been a member long enough to know all the players and none of the available boys there want what he wants to give. He rules his domain at work with an iron fist, but when he goes home at the end of the day, he doesn’t want to be the same way with his boy. He wants to dote and coax and tease, he wants to be gentle and sweet.

He can be stern if he needs to, but mostly he just wants a boy to spoil. The boys at his club, they crave a stricter hand than he wants to give. 

But he’ll pop in occasionally, just sit and watch and socialize, because even just being there feels better than being in his huge, empty house all alone.

And then one night, he walks into the club, and there’s an angel sitting at the bar, giggling contagiously with a group of other subs. He’s fucking breathtaking, tousled blonde hair and glimmering blue eyes, tantalizingly red lips that shine with gloss, a cherubic face and porcelain skin, wearing a little skirt that falls over his creamy thighs in the most distracting way.

Bucky falls instantly, embarrassingly in love with the boy. 

“Close your mouth,” one of the other Daddies says, sidling up next to him, “you’ll catch flies.”

Bucky swallows roughly. “Who is that?”

“A friend of Etienne’s from school, apparently,” the Daddy says. “He’s joining our club. Used to go to one across town.”

Bucky thinks he knows the one. He’s gone a time or two, but this club was closer to home and the hospital, so it became his spot.

“God, he’s beautiful,” Bucky breathes, unable to look away.

The Daddy sighs mournfully. “Oh, to be twenty years younger.”

It pops the rosy haze that’s settled over Bucky. He remembers, very suddenly, who he is. Just how fucking old he is, and how young that boy is. 

The boy looks painfully young, but a school friend of Etienne’s would probably put him in his early to mid-20s, which is still far, far too young for Bucky to be watching him with heat swirling low in his gut. But even more importantly, it means that perfect, angelic creature would never want a man like him—aged, wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, his hair more silver than brown these days. He keeps himself as fit as he can, but there’s a comfortable soft layer of fat over his belly that he can’t get rid of anymore, no matter how hard he works out.  

A boy like that—gorgeous enough to have his pick of any partner he wanted, with his whole life ahead of him—would never even look twice at him.

Etienne, because he is a brat, through and through, and has a sixth sense on how to cause as much turmoil for a Dom as possible—even one that isn’t his own—takes it upon himself to introduce his new friend to everyone at the club that night.

“And this,” he says, flouncing up to Bucky just an hour or two later, pulling his friend along behind him by the wrist, “is Daddy James. He hardly comes to the club anymore, because he doesn’t love us. Daddy James, this is my best friend, Steve.”

“No one calls me James, Etienne,” Bucky corrects, exasperated, even as he tries not to stare too long at the angel in front of him. At Steve. His angel’s name is Steve. “I don’t even know how you found out about that.”

“I have my ways.” Etienne preens. “But you should definitely go by Daddy James, it’s a very refined name and you are a refined Daddy. ‘Daddy Bucky’ is not refined.”

“I like it,” Steve pipes up, and oh, his voice is the sweetest thing Bucky’s ever heard. “It sounds playful.”

He’s even prettier up close, all rosy cheeks and long lashes, a slim little thing that only comes up to Bucky’s shoulder. God, how perfectly this boy would fit in his arms.

Steve looks up at Bucky, his blue eyes coy and sparkling with mischief, tilting his head and swaying oh-so-innocently as he asks, “Are you a playful Daddy?”

Bucky’s mouth goes dry. What he wouldn’t give to show this lithe, beautiful boy just how playful he can be.

“Ugh, no,” Etienne says, scrunching up his nose, before Bucky can even begin to figure out how to answer that question. “Doms are always boring, even the Daddies. They all have their stupid rules, none of them know how to have fun.”

Bucky raises an eyebrow. “I’ll be sure to let your Sir know you think that.”

Something sparks in Etienne’s eyes, like he’s gotten exactly what he wanted. Idly, Bucky wonders just how many comments he’s dropped tonight, hoping to earn himself a punishment. He wonders if that’s all this is, this little meet-and-greet of his, just a new way to amuse himself and rile up his Dom.

What a deviant little thing.

“Be sure you do that,” Etienne says primly, taking Steve’s wrist again. “C’mon, Stevie, there’s more people to meet.”

That night in the shower, despite his very best efforts not to, Bucky touches his aching, pulsing cock to thoughts of a beautiful, angelic boy he has no business wanting.

Fantasies of how the night could have gone differently if only that boy were his. Backing him into a dark corner of the club, trapping that lean, lithe body against a wall, shushing him, telling him they have to be very, very quiet, as he unzips his pants, taking his cock out and slipping it underneath that tiny, tiny little skirt. 

That boy in the shower with him now, giving him that sweet smile before he drops to his knees and wraps those tantalizing lips around Bucky’s cock.

What it would be like to see that sweet, angelic face twisted in tormented pleasure, what it would look like crumpled and tearstained. What it sounds when he cries for his Daddy.

It’s those last thoughts that make him come in long, agonizing waves, fucking his fist with a desperation he hasn’t felt in years. That gorgeous face flushed red, tears of pleasure glistening in his blue eyes as he looks up at Bucky and sobs, “Daddy.”

He’s ashamed of himself afterward—ashamed to be lusting after a boy so young, so thoroughly out of his league and his reach—but it also doesn’t stop him from returning to the club more frequently.

He can’t seem to help it, no matter how hard he tries. He just seems to end up there, standing at the entrance, blinking and confused, wondering how he got there in the first place. And then, well—he’s already there, isn’t he? He might as well go in.

Through these frequent trips, he learns that Steve is a wonderfully coy, playful, flirty boy that thrills at having a Daddy’s attention. He loves to flirt with anyone, it seems, but when it’s a Daddy, he comes alive.

He seeks it out shamelessly, throwing himself among the socializing Daddies night after night to soak up their attention like a lamb offering himself up to a pack of wolves. He jokes and smiles and laughs and flirts with them all, which is why Bucky never takes it to heart when it’s his turn, no matter how hard or fast said heart pounds.

Despite his flirtations, to Bucky’s knowledge, he hasn’t played with any of them.

In fact, besides socialize, the most Bucky ever sees him do at the club is one very, very memorable occasion, near to the club’s closing time and far past the time Bucky should’ve gone home, but he kept telling himself just one more look. Just one more glimpse of the boy he can never have.

And then he sees them: a tangle of lithe limbs on the couch.

Etienne hovers over Steve, his trim waist cradled between soft, creamy thighs, their hips moving together in a slow, erotic grind as they exchange long, lazy kisses. Every time they pull back to take a breath, they grin at each other, giggling softly. Just two boys having fun, feeling good together, but they have the attention of everyone left in the club.

Bucky did not need to see this. He did not need to know what Steve looks like flushed with pleasure, what his lips look like after long, deep, wet kisses. And yet he here is, witnessing it, a reluctant but lecherous voyeur, his cock lengthening against his thigh. He can’t look away, no matter how much he knows he should.

Steve lifts his head from the couch, his delicate, pink tongue snaking out to coyly lick Etienne’s top lip. Bucky’s cock fucking pulses.

He turns on his heel, walking out before he does something stupid like kneel beside the couch and take that tongue for his own.

He comes that night to the image of a delicate pink tongue teasing the tip of his cock.

What Bucky doesn’t know is that Steve throws himself among the Daddies night after night just to be close to him. That yes, Steve might like attention—okay, he might really like attention, especially from a Daddy—but the only thing he’s doing while he’s smiling and laughing and flirting with the rest of them is trying to put himself in Bucky’s line of sight. 

The rest of the Daddies catch on pretty quickly. Steve is a lot of things, but he isn’t subtle. While he’s smiling and laughing with them, he keeps sneaking little peeks at one man in particular. Every time he sees that man’s attention on him, his blush turns scarlet.

And when Bucky’s head is turned, his attention taken up by something else, oh, the hunger in that boy’s eyes. The way he chews on his lip, perusing Bucky’s body, undressing him with his eyes so blatantly that everyone witnessing it gets hot under the collar.

“Apparently,” one of the older Daddies mutters to another, early on, “we don’t need to be twenty years younger.”

The other Daddy snorts. “Should we tell him?” He asks, nodding at Bucky.

“No, let’s not spoil the surprise. That tenacious little thing is going to get what he wants, and Bucky deserves to be chased a little, after—”

The Daddy grimaces. “After,” he agrees, and they leave it at that.

The problem, they find, is that Bucky has no idea he’s being chased. No matter what Steve does, no matter how unsubtle he is. The flirting and compliments and little teasing touches, and still, Bucky doesn’t seem to realize that any of it is serious.

It doesn’t stop him from being a lovesick fool, though. 

Steve’s an aspiring artist and has only just recently gotten up the nerve to start posting his works online. Etienne is the one to give out the link, since Steve is too shy to do it himself, but it still makes its way back to Bucky.

The next time they see Steve, he’s bouncing with excitement—he sold his first piece through his new website.

As they watch him gush, one of the Daddies clears his throat, leaning close to Bucky and muttering, “So if I went into your house right now, which room would it be in?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Bucky says without ever taking his eyes off his angel, teeming with happiness.

“Yeah, I might believe you,” the Daddy replies, “except you have the look of a Daddy that just made his boy very, very happy. Which wouldn’t be a problem if you just made him your boy.”

“Will you just let me have this?”

It goes on for months. Bucky, panting desperately after the prettiest boy he’s ever seen and ashamed he can’t seem to stop, trying not to let it show and when that fails, at least making it clear that he knows he doesn’t stand a chance. And poor Steve, trying to figure out why nothing he does seems to work.

“Are you sure he likes guys?” He asks Etienne one night in their apartment, wanting his Daddy and feeling very whiny that he’s being denied.

“I’m very sure,” says Etienne, as patiently as he can for someone who’s had this conversation a dozen times already. “His last relationship was a guy.”

Steve looks down at himself critically. He isn’t ugly, he knows that. He’s a very respectable looking person, he just happens to be vertically challenged, a little skinny, and maybe a little too soft. Maybe a little too soft on purpose, because he likes the way it feels.

“Am I too femme?” He asks, frowning as he picks at the flowery pink satin shorts he has on. That would be a shame; he really likes his soft body and pretty clothes. “Does he like his boys more masculine? I don’t wanna be muscly and boring.”

There’s something so enticing about wearing small, delicate, feminine things. About feeling small and delicate in a big, strong Daddy’s arms. He shivers, unable to stop himself from wondering what it would feel like to feel so delicate and soft and little in Daddy Bucky’s arms.

A strong arm wraps around his shoulders, pulling him out of that thought.

“Then don’t be,” Danny, their third roommate, says. “Don’t change yourself for some man. If he can’t see how amazing you are, that’s on him.”

Steve practically purrs at the touch, wriggling in Danny’s arms until he can press himself right up against Danny’s muscular chest.

“You think I’m amazing?” He asks breathlessly, rocking his hips a little.

Danny’s eyes sparkle. “Behave,” he says simply, reaching under Steve’s little shorts to pinch his bare ass, hard.

Steve lets out a squeal that makes Etienne laugh. 

With a soft, pitiful whine, Steve flops against Danny’s chest, tucking himself underneath his chin. His reward for his obedience is a soft to kiss to the forehead and a hand in his hair.

It’s hard to explain his relationship with his roommates to other people. Etienne is the boy he met at freshman orientation in college, who looked so flamboyant and pretty that Steve had stars in his eyes the whole afternoon. They met Danny-the-upperclassman weeks later at a mixer and through a comedy of errors the likes of which only Etienne and Steve could achieve, eventually stumbled their way into the knowledge that Danny was in fact a Dom.

Etienne opened Steve’s eyes to the wonders of being a pretty, feminine boy, but Danny is the one to open both of their eyes to the world of kink. He took them under his wing rather than let them fumble through it themselves or accidentally find someone who might hurt them. Their kinks didn’t align, but they were attracted to each other, so he patiently explored each new thing they were curious about until both Etienne and Steve were armed with the knowledge of exactly what got them off. 

They’ve had sex, the three of them together, many, many times and while they don’t really do that anymore—not unless Steve and Etienne are sleepy and horny and want to make out and rub off on each other—it’s impossible to lose the intimate knowledge they have of each other’s bodies. 

It’s also hard when Steve really, really likes making out with his roommates, and they love him enough to indulge him. He had a very lonely childhood devoid of touch and now, he’s a hopelessly tactile creature. He doesn’t just want it, he craves it like a drug. He needs to be touched and cuddled and loved on, and thankfully, he’s found at least two people in this world who will give it to him without reservation.

“Oh, Daddy Bucky knows how amazing he is,” Etienne chimes in, once Steve is settled against Danny’s chest. “Steve could crush him beneath his dainty little heel and that man would say thank you. Steve could tell him to lick his boots and Daddy Bucky would do it, no hesitation, just for the chance to touch him.”

“He would not,” Steve says, blushing.

“He so would. The way he looks at you when you’re walking around the club violates public indecency laws, I’m sure of it.”

“If that was true, he’d show more interest, wouldn’t he? He’d flirt back. He’d touch me back when I touch him.” Steve whines softly. “I want him to touch me so bad.”

Danny watches him flop onto his back dramatically, his dark eyes glittering with amusement.

“Why do you want this guy so badly? Are there no other available Daddies at the new club?”

“Oh, there are plenty,” Etienne snorts. “And almost all of them would kill at the chance to take Steve into one of the playrooms. But our finicky little mister over there took one look at Daddy Bucky the night they met and decided that was the Daddy for him.”

“Ugh, you don’t understand,” Steve cries, sitting up. “Neither of you do. He’s like boy catnip. He’s so big and beefy and hairy all over and there’s all that silver in it and his belly is soft and his hands are so big, I wanna cry just thinking about it, and he has that whole buttoned-up Daddy thing going on that tells you he’s going to be so filthy in bed, and he has such a big dick, I just know it—”

“There is absolutely no way you can know that,” Danny interrupts, laughing.

“I so can,” Steve insists.

“Well,” Etienne adds at nearly the same time, “I have heard rumors…”

Steve whines again, knowing he’s being dramatic but unable to help it. 

“I knew it. He has a big dick and I wanna play with it. Make him let me play with it.”

He adds this last part to Danny, pouting as he rubs their thighs together. When that doesn’t feel like enough, he helplessly rocks their hips together, leaning up to nibble at his jaw.

Danny looks down at him with that same fond amusement, like Steve is a favored pet doing something particularly cute.

“You are so horny tonight,” he comments.

Steve make another pitiful noise, nodding. “I want my Daddy, but he won’t play with me. I wanna sit on his massive dick and cry until I can’t come anymore.”

Okay, well, Daddy Bucky isn’t actually his Daddy and Steve knows he shouldn’t claim him that way. It’s just hard. Steve wants him so much he aches with it sometimes and somewhere along the way, he’s grown possessive even though he knows he shouldn’t be. He hates when other boys even look at him at the club anymore, and God, the way jealousy tears at his insides when they actually talk to him.

Daddy Bucky hasn’t ever played with a boy at the club, not as long as Steve’s been there, but he lives in fear of the day it will happen. Because it will happen one day, he knows it will. Daddy Bucky is a single man, after all, and so attractive it’s insane. He’s well within his rights to play with whoever he wants and however often he wants. 

One day, some lucky boy will catch his eye and Daddy Bucky will take him into one of the playrooms—or, in Steve’s worse imaginings, home—and Steve will forever be left to wonder what that boy has that he doesn’t.

“You’re such a little freak,” Etienne taunts.

Steve glares. “Shut up, Etienne, I’ve seen the stuff you let Sir use on you!”

“Boys,” Danny chides calmly. “No kinkshaming.” 

He touches Steve’s chin, turning his attention away from Etienne.

“Have you asked him to play with you?” He asks patiently, once Steve’s eyes are on him again.

Steve squirms, admitting in a small voice, “No. What if he doesn’t like assertive boys?”

Danny raises an imperious eyebrow.

“What if he does? What if he thinks you don’t want to play with him because you haven’t asked? What if your kinks don’t align? What if you’re actually completely sexually incompatible—”

Steve gasps, scandalized by the very notion. “Impossible.”

“—you won’t know anything until you actually talk to him,” Danny finishes, ignoring Steve’s interruption. “You have to actually talk, Steve, not just be cute and flirty and make eyes at him. Tell him what you want. You know better. I taught you better.”

“Don’t be logical, Danny!”

“Steve.”

“I know, okay?” Steve sighs softly. “It’s just—what if he says no? At least right now, I can dream. If I ask and it turns out I’m right and he’s not interested, then that’s it. Or worse, he’ll laugh with his friends that some stupid kid thought he ever stood a chance.”

Etienne snorts. “That is never gonna happen, trust me on that.”

Danny shakes his head, leaning down to kiss the bridge of his nose.

“You are so silly sometimes,” he murmurs. “I’ve seen you bring a whole room of men to their metaphorical knees and know you’re doing it. You know exactly how cute you are and yet the second you think you’re being rejected, you come up with the craziest scenarios.”

“Don’t laugh at me.” Steve pouts, wrapping his arms around Danny’s neck. “And don’t call me cute.”

“No?”

“No. I’m sad, Danny. Tell me I’m pretty and kiss me until I feel better.”

“Oh,” Etienne says, finally bounding over, “me too! Don’t leave me out!”

Whatever kind of doctor Bucky is, he’s in the ER one night—maybe for his shift, maybe he’s a surgeon called down for some sort of assistance—when he turns around and his heart drops.

Seconds before a nurse leaving a room pulls a privacy curtain closed, he catches a glimpse of a hunched figure with a lithe body and tousled blonde hair peeking out from underneath a beanie. It shouldn’t be enough for Bucky to know, but he does. Before he even registers the thought to move, he’s standing outside the curtain.. 

“Steve?” He asks softly.

On the other side, he hears a soft hitching breath, a sniffle.

“Da—um. B-Bucky?”

“Can I come in?”

“Yes.”

The sight on the other side of the curtain breaks his fucking heart. 

Steve is a vibrant soul, glowing and full of life, always energetic, coy, playful. But not today. Today, he’s hunched and shivering, his blue eyes shimmering with unshed tears. He looks so small and lost, hunched on the hospital bed covered in a smattering of small scrapes and bruises.

“Oh,” Steve says meekly, a tear slipping down his cheek as he blinks. “Hi.”

“Christ,” Bucky breathes out.

He pulls a stool to the edge of the bed, sitting down hard. He has one rule for himself when it comes to the angel he can never have: never touch him. Touching him would lead to madness. He isn’t strong enough to stop Steve from touching him, but he can’t reciprocate because if he started, he knows he’d never be able to stop.

That rule means nothing now. He can’t see his little angel in pain—see that lost, hurt, vulnerable look in his eyes—and not touch him. 

But—professionally. He can’t stop himself from touching, but he has to keep it professional. He has to at least try.

“C’mere, sweetheart,” he murmurs, scooting close. “Lemme take a look at you. What happened?”

He cups Steve’s face in his hands, turning his head from side to side to examine him. Slowly, he lets his hands move down, palpating gently and watching carefully for his reactions. 

“Um.” He swallows, his throat working underneath Bucky’s fingers. He sniffles, trying to gather himself even as more tears fall. “I, um. I was—I was in the middle of the crosswalk and some…idiot wasn’t going to stop. They didn’t h-hit me, but I—I tripped getting out of the way. Y-You’re a doctor?”

Bucky smiles softly, his hands sliding down to Steve’s thin shoulders. He squeezes gently, allowing himself a single soft sweep of his thumb over Steve collarbone.

“I am,” he answers softly. He forces himself to move on; he can’t linger in any one place. Can’t focus too long on this beautiful, lithe body and what it feels like underneath his hands. “Did you hit your head when you fell?”

“Yes,” Steve whispers. He touches the side of his hair, behind and above the ear. “H-Here.”

Gently, Bucky removes his beanie. “Did you lose consciousness?”

“No,” Steve answers, obediently turning his head when he’s guided. “No passing out, no dizziness, no confusion. J-Just a headache.”

His breath hitches softly when Bucky’s hand cups his neck to tilt his head toward the light. Bucky swallows roughly, telling himself not to read into it. Of course his breath is unsteady—he’s been through a lot in the past couple of hours, overwhelmed, shaken up and crying. It has nothing to do with him.

Steve’s hair is dark and matted with dried blood, but not as much as Bucky would’ve expected from a head wound.

“Did you Google that,” Bucky asks, parting the hair to see his scalp, “or have they examined you already?”

“B-both.”

The wound is small, no stitches required. It’s already been cleaned, confirming that it has, indeed, already been looked at.

That should put his mind at ease, but it doesn’t. He needs to check for himself. Just to be sure.

Bucky turns Steve’s head back toward him, grabbing his pen light. 

“I’m going to shine a light in your eyes. It’s going to be bright, but it’ll only be for a second.”

Steve allows it, obediently submitting to a second examination for no other reason than because Bucky wants to give it. As Bucky tucks the pen light back into his pocket, satisfied by his pupillary reaction, he has the distinct, tortuous pleasure of watching a lithe hand rub along the swell of his chest.

“You look really handsome in your white coat,” Steve says, his voice uncharacteristically meek. He sniffles softly. “I can’t believe I get to see you like this and I’m not even in the right frame of mind to enjoy it.”

Bucky catches his hand, flattening it against him.

“No flirting, you little minx,” he admonishes. “I’m trying to make sure you’re okay.”

“It’s not flirting, I’m giving you a compliment.” Steve tries to give him a playful little smile, but it’s tremulous at best. A few more tears slip down his cheeks. Watching them fall makes Bucky feel like he’s being stabbed. “Aren’t you going to give me one back? Tell me I look so pretty all bruised up and crying?”

It’s the tears that make him say it. Those fucking tears, and that vulnerable look in Steve’s eyes, shredding every ounce of his self-control.

“Sweetheart, I have no doubt you’d look fucking ethereal covered in the right kind of bruises with the right kind of tears, but not these.”

Bucky reaches up, unable to stop himself from gently wiping them away as he whispers, “These are enough to break a Daddy’s heart.” 

Steve’s breath hitches. “Ethereal? You think I’d be….ethereal?”

I think you already are, Bucky thinks helplessly, but he can’t say that. He’s already said too much. The last thing he wants is to make Steve uncomfortable.

He clears his throat, pulling his hands away.

“Any Daddy would,” he says mechanically.

“Oh.”

Steve’s shoulders slump, his gaze now downcast. It’s the first time since Bucky walked in that Steve hasn’t looked at him and the loss leaves him feeling cold.

Bucky looks around the room, casting for something to say. Belatedly, he realizes that there’s nothing chaotic and colorful enough to suggest Etienne’s presence. 

He frowns.

“How long have you been here?”

Steve shrugs, not looking up as he whispers, “Couple of hours. They did a bunch of tests, I’m just waiting on the results so I can go home.”

“Then where is Etienne?”

He sniffles, scrubbing away a few fresh tears.

“I didn’t call him,” he admits quietly.

“Why not?”

“It’s play night with his Sir. He likes to pamper himself beforehand. I just…didn’t want to interrupt.”

Bucky frowns. “This is the kind of thing he would want to be interrupted for. You were hurt. He’d want to be here for you.”

Another deceptively careless shrug, another agonizing minute of Steve avoiding his gaze.

“It’s just some scrapes and bruises. I…I should be able to handle that on my own, right?”

He’s trying so hard to act like what happened to him is no big deal, that it didn’t scare him, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. He hasn’t stopped crying the entire time Bucky’s been with him, and though he seems a little less lost, that air of fragility hasn’t yet dissipated. He’s shaken. Just some scrapes and bruises or not, he shouldn’t be alone.

Gently, Bucky touches his chin, lifting it back up. Relief floods him when Steve lets himself be guided, those blue eyes finally on him again. God, he looks so vulnerable. So hurt.

“It’s okay if you can’t,” Bucky whispers, caressing his chin. “You don’t have to do this on your own, you can—”

The privacy curtain is pulled back. Steve flinches at the sudden noise, hunching in on himself further.

The doctor on the other side pauses at the sight of Bucky, her sharp gaze taking in the scene with keen interest. 

Bucky winces. Of all the doctors, it had to be her. Dr. Natalia Romanov misses nothing.

“Dr. Barnes,” she says, raising a thin, delicate brow. “I wasn’t aware your expertise was needed on this case.”

“It isn’t,” Bucky replies, sitting back. “I was just checking on a friend.”

“A friend,” Dr. Romanov repeats. She looks between them. “Right.”

Bucky clears his throat. “I’ll leave you to it, shall I?”

He stands, but before he can move any further, Steve makes a loud, panicked noise, scrambling to grab his hand.

“No, don’t leave,” he begs. His gaze is pleading as he looks up at Bucky, fresh tears brewing. “Please don’t leave.”

Despite every part of him knowing it’s a bad idea, Bucky cups Steve’s face again.

“Give me your phone,” he murmurs, caressing his cheek. “I’ll call Etienne while you speak to Dr. Romanov. You’re in good hands, I promise.”

Steve sighs, rubbing his cheek against Bucky’s palm like a particularly needy kitten as he reluctantly reaches for his phone.

“You’ll come back?” He asks morosely.

“I’ll come back,” Bucky promises. “I have to return your phone, at least.”

He squeezes Steve’s cheek, giving it one last caress before he pulls away.

“I’ll be right back.”

Bucky is too busy ignoring Romanov’s intense gaze to notice the blue eyes that follow him out. In a small alcove away from the hustle and bustle, he calls Etienne. It is, perhaps, the bizarre and most frustrating phone call of his life.

Etienne reacts as expected at first—horrified at what happened, annoyed he wasn’t called, worried about his best friend. But the very moment Bucky mentions that Steve shouldn’t be left alone, there is a very long pause and then his tone…shifts.

“Oh,” he says haltingly. “Well, he can’t come back here.”

Bucky blinks, pulling the phone away from his ear to stare at it for a second. “Why the hell not?”

“Our apartment’s being fumigated.”

“The apartment you’re taking a bath in right now?” 

Because he can very clearly hear the splash of water every time Etienne moves.

“Oh, right,” Etienne says, unrepentant. “What I meant to say is that a pipe burst right above his bedroom and his bed is tragically ruined. There’s nowhere for him to convalesce. Trust me, the couch should not be slept on.”

“What about your bed?”

“Forget about the beds,” Etienne sighs dramatically. “Aliens are attacking downtown right now! I can see the battle from my bathroom window. Traffic must be a nightmare, there’s just no way to get to him tonight.”

“Etienne.” Bucky pinches the bridge to his nose, a headache coming on the likes of which only Etienne could ever inspire. “What are you doing?”

“Oh, I thought it was obvious,” Etienne replies brightly. “He’s going home with you, Doctor Daddy. It’s just about how hard you fight it.”

“You don’t even know what time my shift ends, Etienne, he could be here for hours.”

“What time does your shift end?”

Reluctantly, Bucky admits, “Now.”

“Then it’s settled! Take our little gumdrop home with you, since you’re so very worried about him. You’re a doctor, after all, who could take better care of him than you?”

Bucky wants to. God, does he want to. He’d love nothing more than to wrap his little angel up in a warm blanket and cuddle with him all night long, to touch and kiss and coo soft praise until that air of fragility has dissipated. But he doesn’t have that right. He’ll never have that right.

“That would be inappropriate,” Bucky says, “and very ill-advised. And I don’t think he would like it. I think I made him uncomfortable earlier.”

A peal of laughter echoes through the phone. “In his pants, maybe.”

“Etienne.”

“Oh, boo.” He gives another long, dramatic sigh. “Well, if there’s no convincing you, I suppose I can see if Danny can leave work early and go get him. It can’t be me, you know, Steve and I just feed off each other. We’ll both be crying in no time. But Danny, he’ll wrap Steve up in those big strong arms of his and give him the TLC he needs if you won’t do it.”

Bucky twitches at the name. He saw it in Steve’s most recent calls, of course. Besides Etienne, this mysterious Danny is the person Steve calls the most.

He tells himself not to ask—that it’s just feeding right into Etienne’s hand—but he cannot hold the question in.

“Who’s Danny?”

“Our roommate,” Etienne answers sweetly. In a conspiratorial whisper, he adds, “And a Dom. Not a Daddy, sadly, so not quite the whole package for our gumdrop, but don’t you worry, Doctor Daddy, he knows just what Stevie likes. He’ll be able to take care of him just. right.”

For one terrible, gut-wrenching moment, Bucky imagines it. The muscular, attractive, appropriate young man that would walk into the hospital to get his little angel. Having to watch Steve throw himself in that man’s arms, search out comfort and reassurance from someone else and readily find it. Watching them leave and knowing that it’ll be that man taking care of his angel, that Steve will submit himself to that man’s care.

It shouldn’t matter. No matter what, Steve will never look twice at him. Will never want him the way Bucky hopelessly, desperately wants him.

But it does matter. It does.

Bucky lets out a long breath. “Why are you doing this, Etienne?”

“Believe it or not, I’m trying to help.” In this, at least, he sounds sincere. “I’ll admit, the jealousy angle was a gamble. You’re kind of a martyr about him, but you also haven’t had to watch him be with anyone else, so I rolled the dice. Did it work?”

Bucky doesn’t answer. Can’t answer. Because the truth is: it is working, but he’s trying hard not to let it. He has to be reasonable here. What good will come from this?

But his silence must be telling, because Etienne presses his advantage:

“What’ll be, Doctor Daddy? Time’s a’wasting. Do I send Danny in as the white knight for our little damsel in distress or are you gonna give in and do what we both know you want to do, anyway?”

“It’s not about what I want. It’s about what he needs.”

“Aw, what a good Daddy,” Etienne coos. “Luckily, that’s exactly what he needs. But if you’re so concerned, give him the phone. I’ll make sure.”

As Bucky walks back toward Steve’s room, he says, “The next time I see your Sir, I’m going to have a chat with him about your penchant for manipulation.”

“Promises, promises.”

The problem, Bucky finds, with giving Steve his phone back and then giving him privacy to talk to his best friend, is that it also gives Natalia the opportunity to corner him.

“Should I ask?”

“I would really rather you didn’t.”

Natalia hums, looking him over.

“For now,” she concedes. “Be careful, James. We don’t need another situation on our hands.”

With that, she walks away. He watches her go with a wince. 

Situation. It’s what she likes to call his last relationship; the one that began the long, lonely dry spell he hasn’t been able to get himself out of. She never dignifies the man who’s responsible for it by saying his name.

A few minutes later, Steve peeks around the curtain. He doesn’t have to say anything. Bucky can tell just by the blush on his cheeks:

the tape comes in a couple days before the barbecue, and they watch a dozen how-to videos on applying it. as it turns out, everyone does it differently, and when Dennis goes to his room he starts mixing up the steps and gets lost. he’s frustrated and near tears when Trinity knocks, “you good in there, Huckleberry?”

“yep! i just… canyoucomeinhereandhelpme?”

“what was that?” her tone showing genuine concern

“ughhhhhh, i need your help.”

“oh, sure dude.”

she walks in to find him with shreds of tape covering parts of his chest, his hands up overhead and an expression on his face like a child that spilled something on himself and is looking at her for a solution

“okay, let’s see what we can do about this…”

they work at it for almost an hour, but eventually it looks… as best as it’s probably going to get. at some point Trinity made him start writing the steps down as they went so that they would have record of what technique did the best compressing

they look in his mirror together and Trinity watches the moment he truly connects with the tape and starts to feel like himself. his lips curve into a small grin as he turns and twists to fully observe the job done by the tape

“you’re looking more and more human every day Huckleberry, i’m so proud!” she says theatrically, “let me go try this myself.”

she goes to her own room to apply her tape, following the written steps, and hers doesn’t take nearly as long to perfect. she looks in the mirror, and a new feeling starts to bloom in her chest. she isn't trans by any means... but this is a nice change of pace for her. she high fives herself mentally for her great idea to tape with him. she walks out into the living room, chest taped but covered by a shirt, and finds him laying on the couch shirtless

"did you do it-"

"go put a shirt on."

"yes ma'am."

they still have work the day after they taped, but before the barbecue. Trinity tries her best to act normal, but every time Dennis sees her she's sweating and looks like she's about five seconds away from confessing to murder

"i feel like i'm hiding a secret identity."

"imagine how i feel."

"shit, sorry Huck."

he shrugs, "just use this as an empathy building exercise."

mock offended, she replies, "you don't think i'm empathetic enough?"

"that's not what i meant-"

when they arrive to the lake house, six pack in hand, and matching outfits of turquoise swim trunks decorated with flamingos and t-shirts that read "women want me, fish fear me" (Trinity obviously given the final decision on that), they are met by Dana walking out the front door. She takes the six pack from Trinity's hand and says,

"glad you guys could make it, rest of the kids are out back swimming."

they go around the larger than life lake house, and find almost everyone else in the water. Abbot, Robby, McKay, Javadi, Ellis, Donnie, and Langdon are all lounging about in the lake. Mel, Al-Hashimi, and Mohan all sat on towels in grass near the edge, talking amongst themselves for the most part. Princess and Perlah are sat at a picnic table a little further away, not so subtly staring at Donnie, Abbot, and Ellis throwing a football around

when they notice Dennis and Trinity, they all give appropriate greetings, some waves, nods, a couple people shouting "hey!". they respond accordingly, and Trinity turns to Dennis, you good? and Dennis nods.

Whispering low enough so that only he can hear her, Trinity proposes, "i'll go first, so the attention is on me and you won't have to worry about that."

"what makes you so sure that you'll draw so much-"

she takes off her shirt, and sure enough, all eyes are on her. either because of the tape, the inherent shock of seeing your coworker shirtless, or just the fact that she looks good

Princess lets out a much too loud, "damn!" and Perlah lightly smacks the back of her head. Ellis shouts, "looking good, Santos!" with a whistle. Even Al-Hashimi turns her head and lowers her sunglasses. Robby jokingly boos and Trinity flips him off, not even looking in his direction

while they're all distracted, Dennis takes off his own shirt and sneaks into the lake. he settles near Javadi and McKay, when Langdon pipes up, “nice trunks, Whitaker.”

somehow, Trinity hears him from where she’s walking towards the water, and says, “shut up, Frank.” with an eye roll. she comes up closer to Dennis, whispering, “you look great dude, no need to stress.” before she pats him on the shoulder. to avoid having to look into those, no doubt, earnest eyes, she shoves him into the water, dunking him head first