Lu’s Library

The Dreaming’s light is different tonight… softer, as though the realm itself senses that she is leaving and wishes to make her farewell easier. Or perhaps it is only her eyes, heavy with the weight of what has just passed.

She had thought, foolishly, that she might have more time, that she might remain here until she chose to leave of her own accord. But Cluracan had arrived, every inch the charming emissary, speaking for the Queen as if his words did not scrape her raw.

The details of his request… no, his summons, blur in her mind. What she remembers instead are moments: the cold ribbon of dread winding through her chest, the way her brother’s smile faltered when he dared look at her, and the low, measured tone of Lord Morpheus’s voice when he told her she should go.

For her safety… those had been his words, but they had carried a finality that struck deeper than any command. She had seen it in his face: the quiet resignation, the kind that belongs to someone who has already counted his losses and knows his time is short.

And the knowledge had burned in her like ice, because she could not shake the thought that this might be the last time she would stand before him.

Then, almost unexpectedly, he had offered her a boon… a gift of her choosing before she departed the Dreaming. The gesture had caught her off guard, as if for a fleeting moment she could feel some faint pulse of fondness beneath his cool composure. And she knew, that if she let this moment pass, it would haunt her for the rest of her days.

So she had asked: not for freedom, not for protection, not for some political favor to bargain with back in faerie. She had asked for something far more selfish… a single night. One night in which he would act as if he loved her, as if she mattered to him in a way that was not bound by the laws of the Dreaming or the courtesy owed to a guest.

It was foolish, it was dangerous, and was the most honest request she had ever made. And when he had agreed, with that same unreadable stillness, something inside her had twisted tight: hope and sorrow tangled together until she could no longer tell them apart.

He does not come for her immediately. Nuala spends the time waiting in her chambers, pacing the length of the room like a caged bird that knows the bars are closing in. Her gown rustles softly with each turn, the sound seeming too loud in the heavy quiet. She half-expects one of the palace’s dreams to arrive instead, to tell her the Lord of the Dreaming has reconsidered, or to politely suggest she ready herself for departure.

But it is him, the door opens without sound, and the air changes, cooler, richer, as if the room inhales at his arrival. Morpheus stands there, framed by the spill of corridor light, and for a moment she can do nothing but look at him. He wears no crown, no armor of ceremony, just black… simple and severe, the kind of unadorned presence that makes the surrounding world dim.

“Nuala,” he says, and it is not a question or a summons, it is just her name, spoken in a way that feels like a pause in the endless turn of the Dreaming. She dips her head, not trusting her voice. He steps inside, the door whispering shut behind him. “Will you walk with me?”

It is not an order, though they both know she would obey one. There is something in the way he offers his arm, a subtle bend, a slight angle of his wrist, that feels almost courtly. She hesitates, not because she doubts him, but because the gesture makes her heart ache… she takes his arm.

His sleeve is smooth under her fingertips, but it is the warmth of him she notices most, steady and unyielding. They begin to walk, their steps unhurried, the silence between them neither hostile nor entirely easy. She finds herself acutely aware of each point of contact: his forearm beneath her hand, the faint brush of his shoulder when the corridor narrows, the way his stride subtly slows to match hers.

“You are… certain this is the boon you wish?” he asks after a while, his voice quiet enough that it almost seems meant for the stone and shadow rather than her. “Would you rather I asked for something else?” she replies, attempting lightness, though her tone wavers.

His gaze slides to her briefly, unreadable as moonlight. “I would rather you asked for nothing at all.” She swallows. “And yet you offered.” A flicker, barely there, touches his mouth, as if he might almost acknowledge the truth in that. “I did.”

They pass beneath one of the high arches that open onto the Dreaming’s gardens. The scent of night-blooming flowers drifts toward them, and she feels the ghost of a breeze curl around her hair.

He reaches out, without looking, without fanfare, and brushes his fingers lightly through a strand that’s caught against her cheek. It is nothing, really, a casual thing, and yet her pulse trips over itself. “Your hair has grown,” he says. Nuala’s lips curve faintly. “You noticed.”

“I notice more than you think.” She wants to ask what else he notices, she wants to demand why those things are locked away behind his silence… but the words lodge in her throat, and they walk on.

The corridors begin to change, less public now, less gilded. The walls here are darker, warmer, as if the stone remembers the shape of firelight. She realizes where they are going only when they reach the final turn, and the great black doors stand before them like the threshold to another kind of dream: his chambers.

Morpheus pauses, looking down at her as if to grant her one last chance to change her mind, but she only meets his gaze, her chin lifting the barest fraction, and he opens the door.

Inside, the room is a study in shadow and quiet luxury: deep blues and greys, the faint shimmer of starlight spilling in through tall windows, shelves lined with volumes whose spines glow faintly in the dim. A low table is already set with a decanter of dark wine and two glasses, as if the Dreaming itself had anticipated their arrival.

He leads her in with a light touch at the small of her back: steady, grounding, achingly intimate in its restraint. “Sit,” he says softly.

She does, the fabric of her gown whispering against the velvet chair. Her fingers knot together in her lap as he pours the wine, the liquid catching the starlight as it streams into the glass. He hands it to her, his fingers brushing hers in a way that feels almost accidental but lingers a fraction too long.

She takes a sip, it is sweet, just as she likes it. “You remembered,” she murmurs. “I remember everything that matters,” he says. Her chest tightens and she wonders if he hears how easily he could undo her with such a simple truth.

The wine settles on her tongue like liquid dusk, sweet and lingering. She watches him pour his own glass, his long fingers precise even in so small a task. Morpheus takes the chair opposite hers, not the throne-like seat she has seen him use for audiences, but something lower, closer. His knees angle slightly toward her, and the starlight catches in the planes of his face, softening what the shadows can’t quite touch.

They drink in silence at first. It is not awkward, silence with him rarely is, but she feels the edges of it pressing in, as if every unspoken thing between them has taken a seat at the table as well.

“You should know,” he says eventually, his gaze steady on her, “I do not offer boons lightly.” She smiles faintly into her glass. “I imagine not… I wonder what the other dreamers and monarchs of realms past have asked for when you’ve given them one.”

“Many things.” His tone is almost wry. “Immortality, power, riches beyond counting, the undoing of enemies…” “And yet I asked for none of those.”

“Yet you did not ask for nothing.” Her lips quirk in a humorless smile. “No, I suppose I am greedy in my own way.” He studies her over the rim of his glass. “Greed is… not the word I would choose.”

She wants to ask what word he would use, but the thought of hearing it aloud, of what it might mean, makes her hesitate… instead, she lets the wine fill the pause.

Morpheus reaches across the low table, lifting the bottle again, and this time he pours without asking, the faint brush of his fingers against hers as he passes the refilled glass sends a small jolt through her. She tells herself it is the wine.

Another gesture follows, small but deliberate: his hand lifting to adjust the fall of her hair where it has slipped over her shoulder, tucking it back with a touch that lingers a beat too long. The warmth of his palm against the side of her neck sears into her, and she knows she will remember it long after she leaves the Dreaming.

It is sweet, achingly so, and yet every kindness makes something twist in her chest. She begins to second-guess the truth of it. Would he be doing this if she had not asked? If she had not, in her own way, cornered him into playing this role for a night?

Perhaps he is simply… good at this: a skilled actor, performing a part to satisfy the terms of her request. And if that is so, if every soft word, every gentle touch is nothing more than a duty, then she is only deepening the cut she will have to live with after tonight.

Her gaze drops to the dark surface of her wine, her reflection caught and warped in the curve of the glass… he notices, of course he notices…

“Nuala.” His voice draws her back up, and when she meets his eyes there is no trace of offense, only a patient, piercing awareness. “You are thinking something that is not true.” Her fingers tighten on the stem of the glass. “Am I?”

He leans forward slightly, the space between them contracting until it feels as though his presence wraps around her. “Boon or no boon,” he says, each word deliberate, “I would not be here, by your side, if I did not wish to be.”

The sentence is spare, without flourish or poetry, but it feels heavier than anything he has said to her before. And for a heartbeat, the part of her that has doubted all night goes quiet.

Her breath leaves her in a slow exhale, as if the words have loosened something deep in her chest. She sets the glass down, the faint chime of crystal on wood swallowed by the room’s hush.

“Then I will believe you,” she says, and for once she doesn’t lace the words with challenge or humor. A ghost of a smile passes over his face, so slight that if she blinked she might miss it. Then he stands, fluid and unhurried, and extends a hand toward her. “Come,” he murmurs.

She takes it without hesitation, and his fingers close gently around hers, warm and sure, as he guides her away from the table. They cross the chamber to where a long couch rests beneath one of the tall windows, its cushions deep and dark, half in shadow. The starlight beyond spills across the floor, tracing silver over the black weave of the rug.

He does not release her hand until she is seated, and even then, his palm brushes along her knuckles before withdrawing. When he lowers himself beside her, the distance between them feels smaller than it should.

For a time, they simply sit. The Dreaming moves beyond the glass, clouds that curl like ink in water, constellations rearranging themselves in slow, deliberate arcs… but inside, the moment holds still. “You have been… a part of this realm,” he says, his voice quieter now, shaped for her alone. “It will not be the same without you.”

The admission catches her off guard, enough that her lips part without forming a reply. He turns his gaze toward the stars, as if granting her the space to collect herself. His profile is etched in pale light, and she finds herself tracing every line, every shadow.

She wonders how many mortals, how many fae, have sat where she sits now and seen this same face, how many have been allowed this closeness. “I will miss it,” she says finally. “…the Dreaming.” There is a pause, before she adds, softer. “And you.” The last two words hang between them, unflinching.

When he looks at her again, there is a depth in his eyes that she cannot name, something that feels like the echo of a touch not yet given. His hand lifts, slowly, as if giving her every chance to draw away, and he tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. The gesture is simple, almost mundane, but his fingers linger just long enough that it becomes something else entirely.

She leans into it before she can think better of it, her cheek brushing the inside of his palm, and Morpheus does not pull back. His thumb traces once along her cheekbone, feather-light, and then he lets his hand fall, only to take hers again.

This time, he does not merely guide, he folds their fingers together, his grip warm and steady, grounding her as if he could anchor them both against the pull of everything that waits beyond tonight. No part of this feels like performance, no part of it feels like the hollow echo of a request granted. This is him, in whatever way he can be, offering her something unmarked by the weight of the crown or the shadow of his fate.

His voice is quiet when it comes. “Then let us not speak of what comes after.” She nods, grateful. “Just tonight.”

“Just tonight,” he echoes, and somehow, with those two words, the edges of the world seem to blur, the future slipping mercifully out of reach.

They sit like that for a while, her fingers curled loosely between his, the weight of his hand anchoring her in the kind of quiet that doesn’t feel empty. Outside, a star drifts lazily across the sky, bright as a lantern. She watches it trace its slow path and feels the urge to make a wish, ridiculous, when she already has hers for the night.

But the thought sparks something else in her, a desire to fill this stillness with something that will leave a warmer mark in her memory than silence. Her eyes slip from the stars to him. “Dance with me,” she says.

Morpheus’s head tilts slightly, as though the words are in a language he hasn’t heard in centuries. “Dance?”

“Yes.” She smiles faintly, though her pulse is quick. “We have the space… and I’ve heard there is no finer partner in the Dreaming.” That earns her the smallest shift at the corner of his mouth, not quite a smile, not quite denial.

“I am not… in the habit of such things,” he says, but there’s no real dismissal in his tone. “You were not in the habit of granting boons, either,” she points out gently. “And yet here we are.”

He looks away, the faintest hint of a sigh escaping him, though she knows it is not from irritation… more like the soft surrender of someone already halfway convinced.

When his gaze returns to her, it’s caught, held, by the way she’s looking at him. She knows her expression is open, unguarded in a way it rarely is, and she doesn’t try to hide it. She lets him see the hope there, the unashamed longing for this one more thing.

And something in him bends. “Very well,” he says, his voice low. He rises first, his fingers loosening from hers only to offer his hand again, palm up, inviting her into the space between them. She takes it, her own fitting into his with an ease that makes her chest ache.

There is no music at first, only the faint hum of the Dreaming beyond the glass. But then, as if answering his unspoken will, a thread of melody drifts through the chamber: soft, slow, the kind of tune meant for movements that linger rather than hurry.

He draws her close with a care that is almost ceremonial, one hand finding the curve of her waist, the other holding her hand just firmly enough to guide without confining.

They begin to move, and she is surprised at how natural it feels, as though the two of them have done this a hundred times before in some life neither remembers. His steps are measured, but not stiff, each one seems to find its place around her, adjusting to her rhythm without effort.

Her skirts whisper over the rug, brushing his boots with each turn. The starlight shifts across them, catching in his hair, sliding over the line of his jaw when he glances down at her. “You do this well for someone ‘not in the habit,’” she teases softly.

His eyes meet hers, and there is the faintest spark there, as if he takes a certain satisfaction in proving her wrong. “Perhaps,” he murmurs, “I simply required the right partner.” The words settle between them, warm, and she feels herself hold them tighter than she should.

The melody winds around them like a ribbon, thin and silver, as though the Dreaming itself knows to keep its distance and let them have this space. Her hand rests lightly against his shoulder, fingers splayed over the soft black of his coat, and she can feel the subtle shifts of his body beneath the fabric as they move.

Each step, each turn, brings them a fraction closer, until her skirt brushes fully against his legs, until the faintest whisper of his breath grazes her temple when he leans into a turn.

He does not hurry, if anything, he slows, the rhythm of their steps stretching to match the unhurried pulse of the music. His hand at her waist shifts fractionally lower, the curve of his palm resting more firmly, steadying her as though he means to keep her exactly where she is.

“You are smiling,” he observes quietly. “Am I?” she murmurs, though she already knows she is. It’s not the practiced smile she has worn in courts, or the one she summons for diplomacy: it’s smaller, unguarded, the kind that grows without permission.

“You are,” he says, and there is no judgment in it, only something that feels dangerously like fondness. They turn again, and this time she looks up at him rather than past him, meeting his eyes fully.

The space between their faces narrows without conscious thought, the motion of their dance becoming more sway than step. His thumb strokes once over the side of her waist, subtle but deliberate, and her breath catches.

The music changes, just slightly, slowing as if it, too, feels the shift in them. Her free hand drifts from his shoulder to the line of his collar, the edge of her fingers brushing the skin just above it. She feels him inhale, steady and deep, but he does not pull back, if anything, he draws her a touch nearer, his forehead almost brushing hers.

Neither of them speaks, thr air between them is thick with all the words that would only ruin this perfect suspension of time. The heat of his body seeps into her, and she can feel the faint, steady beat of his heart beneath the layers of cloth and darkness.

When the last notes fade, they don’t stop, they stand there in the quiet, his hand still at her waist, her fingers still curled lightly in the fabric of his coat. The absence of music only makes the silence heavier, more intimate.

His gaze drops to her mouth for the briefest moment before returning to her eyes, and it’s enough, more than enough, to make her pulse race. “May I?” he asks, voice low, each syllable shaped like an offering.

Her breath catches at his question. It is not the words themselves, though she cannot remember the last time someone asked her for permission with such care, but the weight of them: the fact that they came from him.

“You may,” she says, and the faint tremor in her voice does nothing to hide the truth in it. The distance between them dissolves. His lips meet hers slowly, almost cautiously, as though he means to give her every chance to decide this is not what she wants after all. But when she leans into him, his hand at her waist draws her closer, eliminating the final gap between them.

The kiss is warm, unhurried. His mouth moves against hers with a deliberation that feels less like restraint and more like reverence, as if he means to memorize the shape of this moment. The faint taste of the sweet wine lingers between them, mingling with the soft exhale he lets out when her fingers curl more firmly in his coat.

Her free hand rises, threading into the dark silk of his hair, and she feels the give of it under her fingers, the way it slips and tangles, and he tilts his head slightly to deepen the kiss. Even then, there is no rush, no force, just the steady build of something that feels both like an opening and a farewell.

When he finally draws back, it is only enough to rest his forehead against hers. His breath brushes her lips when he speaks. “I would have kissed you long before now, had I thought you would welcome it.” She smiles faintly, though it wavers. “I would have.”

Something passes over his face, relief, perhaps… or regret, and he presses another kiss to her, softer this time, before straightening enough to guide her toward the couch’s edge. His hand slides from her waist to her back, warm through the thin fabric, steady as he helps her to her feet.

Neither of them speaks as they cross the chamber. The only sound is the faint whisper of her skirts and the muted thud of his boots over the rug. The bed dominates the far wall, draped in layers of deep blue and shadow, its headboard carved with constellations that glimmer faintly in the starlight spilling through the tall windows.

When they reach it, he turns to her rather than stepping away. His hands find her shoulders, fingertips brushing down the length of her arms until they meet her hands again, he holds them as though they are something precious, his thumbs stroking lightly over her knuckles.

“If we do this,” he says, voice low, “it will not be as a performance of your boon, it will be because I wish it.” The words pierce through her lingering doubt like sunlight through fog. She searches his face, looking for any hint of falseness, and finds none, only him… only this.

Her answer is simple: she leans in and kisses him again. This time there is more heat behind it, more need, though still tempered by that same gentleness. His hands release hers only to frame her face, his thumbs brushing along her jaw as if he means to hold her steady while the world tips and turns beneath them.

When he finally urges her backward toward the bed, it is done with the same unhurried care, step by step, his body a constant presence against hers, his mouth never straying far from hers for long.

When her knees meet the edge of the mattress, he breaks the kiss just long enough to look into her eyes. No words, no questions… just a silent offering of choice.

The mattress yields beneath her as she sits, the deep-blue coverlet cool under her palms. Morpheus remains standing for a breath, framed by the dim spill of starlight, as though memorizing the sight of her here. Then he moves, fluid and deliberate, lowering himself to the bed so that his knees bracket hers.

He leans in, his hands braced on either side of her thighs, and kisses her again. This one is deeper, more certain, the press of his mouth coaxing hers open. His tongue brushes against hers with a tenderness that makes her shiver, tasting her slowly, like the sweet wine they shared was only the prelude.

Her hands rise to his chest, sliding over the firm lines beneath his coatc she feels the steady rise and fall of his breath under her palms, the solid heat of him soaking through the fabric. When her fingers find the edge of his lapel, he lets her tug him closer until his body presses fully against hers, his weight a welcome anchor.

One of his hands leaves the mattress, gliding over her hip in a slow arc before settling at her waist. His thumb strokes there, barely moving, as if mapping the shape of her through the thin material. The other hand comes to her face again, tilting her just so, deepening the kiss with a languid certainty that leaves no room for doubt: he wants this… he wants her.

When he finally breaks away, it is only far enough to trail his lips along her jaw, down the line of her neck. His mouth is warm, his breath a soft counterpoint to the faint scrape of teeth that follows, gentle enough to make her sigh. “Lie back,” he murmurs, and the low timbre of it sends heat coiling in her belly.

She does, the coverlet cool against her spine, the starlight shifting across the ceiling above. He follows, one knee on the mattress, one hand at her hip, guiding himself down until he’s over her. His hair falls forward as he kisses her again, one hand sliding beneath the fall of her skirt to rest against the smooth skin just above her knee.

The touch is reverent, fingers tracing upward with a slowness that makes her breath stutter. His palm glides over the curve of her thigh, the pads of his fingers brushing higher, inch by inch, until they find the edge of her underthings. He pauses there, his eyes on hers, waiting.

She nods once, wordless, and the tension in his shoulders loosens. His fingers slip beneath the fabric, the heat of his hand startling against the softness of her skin. He strokes her gently at first, learning her with each careful pass, the pace steady and unhurried.

Her own hands find the fastenings of his coat, pushing the black fabric back over his shoulders. He lets it fall away without protest, revealing the lean lines of him beneath. She smooths her palms over the crisp shirt, feeling the subtle flex of muscle as he moves against her.

When his fingers slide lower and press into her more firmly, her breath catches against his mouth. He swallows the sound with another kiss, his tongue stroking hers as his hand works her toward a slow, building ache. “Tell me what you need,” he murmurs against her lips, his voice deep and quiet, like the space between dreams.

“You,” she answers, without hesitation. The faintest smile ghosts across his mouth before he kisses her again, his hand withdrawing only long enough to hook into the waistband of her underthings and ease them down her legs. The fabric pools on the floor in silence, forgotten.

Her breath hitches as the last barrier falls away, the air cool against her bare skin until his hands find her again. His palms are warm, steady, sliding up the length of her thighs in a slow, deliberate sweep. It’s not just touch, it’s the way he looks at her as he does it, his eyes dark and intent, as though he’s etching her into himself.

He lowers himself, the weight of his body settling more fully over hers. The contact is grounding, the heat between them blooming in the quiet. She runs her hands over his chest, down his sides, feeling the long lines of muscle through his shirt until the need to see him, really see him, becomes too much.

“Let me,” she whispers, fingers finding the buttons at his collar. He doesn’t speak, but he nods, leaning back just enough to give her room.

She works each button open with care, her knuckles brushing the cool expanse of his chest as she goes. When the last one comes undone, she pushes the shirt from his shoulders, her palms sliding over his skin… i’s smooth and cool in some places, warm in others, alive beneath her touch.

Morpheus bends to kiss her again, and as his mouth moves over hers, his hands begin a slow exploration: over her hips, the curve of her waist, up to cup her breasts with a reverence that makes her shiver. His thumbs brush lightly over her nipples, coaxing a sigh from her that he swallows with his next kiss. “Beautiful,” he murmurs, so soft she almost thinks she imagined it.

She arches into his touch, her fingers finding the fastening of his trousers. He shifts, helping her ease them down his hips, until the last of the barriers between them falls away. The heat of him against her bare thigh makes her breath catch, her body tightening in anticipation. He pauses there, his forehead resting against hers, breathing her in. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” she answers, the word certain and steady despite the racing of her heart. He kisses her once more, slow, deep, like a seal on her choice, before lowering himself, his hips fitting between her thighs. One hand cradles her face, the other steadying himself as he presses forward. The stretch is slow, careful, every inch deliberate until he is fully seated in her.

For a moment, neither of them moves. She holds onto him, her hands framing his face, memorizing the feel of him here, the weight and heat and solidity. His eyes close briefly, a flicker of something almost vulnerable passing over his features before he begins to move.

Each thrust is unhurried, measured, the kind of rhythm meant for savoring rather than racing toward an end. His body fits to hers with a precision that feels inevitable, as if this was always where they were meant to meet. His hand strokes up her side, his thumb tracing idle circles at her waist, grounding her even as each motion builds the heat between them.

She tangles her legs around his hips, drawing him closer, deeper. The shift pulls a low sound from him, quiet but raw, and she feels it reverberate in her own chest. “Nuala,” he breathes, as though the name itself is an anchor.

Her fingers thread through his hair, pulling him down to kiss her again, her lips parting under his with a desperation that is still somehow tender. The world beyond this bed… the summons to faerie, the shadow over his fate, falls away entirely, leaving only this moment, only them.

The pace between them stays unhurried, as though they both know the moment they give in fully, it will tip them closer to the end. His hips roll into hers with a measured rhythm, each stroke deep and deliberate, his body moving in perfect sync with the soft, involuntary sounds she makes against his mouth.

Every thrust draws her tighter around him, every brush of his hand against her waist or thigh grounding her even as her pulse climbs. Her nails skim his back, just enough to make him breathe a little harder, and the sound sends a fresh wave of heat through her. He kisses her again, slower now, his tongue sliding lazily against hers as if tasting her is as important as the way their bodies fit.

When his mouth leaves hers, it travels to her neck, the hollow beneath her ear, down over her collarbone. Each kiss feels like a deliberate mark, not possession but memory. She tilts her head back, giving him more, and his hand slides between them, fingers finding her with the same patience he’s kept all night. Her breath stutters. “Morpheus…”

“Let go,” he murmurs, low and steady, his forehead pressing to her temple as his fingers work in perfect counterpoint to his thrusts. It builds slowly, the pressure winding higher and higher until it feels like she’s suspended on the edge of something vast. The care in his movements makes it sharper, almost unbearable in its intimacy, like he’s not just touching her body but holding every fraying thread of her together.

When it hits, it’s like falling into a tide that’s been waiting for her all along. Her body tightens around him, the rush of pleasure pulling a soft, startled cry from her lips. He follows her down into it, his hips pressing deep one last time before he groans quietly, the sound rough and almost reluctant, spilling into her with a shudder that seems to sink into his very bones.

For a long moment, neither of them moves, the only sounds are the slowing of their breaths and the faint hum of the Dreaming outside the windows. His weight is warm and solid above her, his face buried briefly against her neck as if he can hide there from the inevitability waiting for them.

When he finally shifts, it’s only enough to ease them onto their sides, his body still wrapped around hers: one arm curls beneath her head, the other draped over her waist, holding her close as if the act alone could keep the morning from coming.

She rests her forehead against his collarbone, her eyes closed, listening to the slow, steady rhythm of his breathing. His fingers trace idle lines over her hip, over the dip of her back, never straying far, as though even in stillness he needs the reassurance of her presence. “Thank you,” she whispers, though she’s not sure if she means for tonight, for the boon, or for letting himself be this with her at all.

He doesn’t answer right away, instead, he presses a slow kiss to the crown of her head. “You will not be forgotten,” he says at last, and though it is not quite a promise, it feels close enough to one that she lets herself believe it.

In the dark quiet of his chambers, with his arms still around her, Nuala lets herself pretend, for tonight only, that there is no leaving, no parting, no shadow waiting for him… there is only this.

The night folds in around them, the kind of darkness that feels more like shelter than absence. Nuala drifts in and out of sleep, never fully slipping from the awareness of his body against hers: the steady, grounding weight of his arm draped over her waist, the faint rise and fall of his chest beneath her cheek.

When she wakes enough to shift, he adjusts without stirring fully, tucking her closer as though some part of him refuses to let her go even in dreams. When the pale light of false dawn begins to creep across the chamber, she knows it’s time. She can feel it in the subtle tightening of his arm around her, in the way his breathing changes, not the deep, even rhythm of rest, but the measured quiet of someone already bracing for the inevitable.

She opens her eyes to find him watching her, his expression unreadable except for the faint shadow of something she doesn’t often see in him: reluctance. “Morning,” she says softly, though it feels strange to name it in a realm where time bends and folds as it pleases.

“Morning,” he echoes, his voice low, still softened by the night. Neither of them moves for a long moment, the silence feels fragile now, as if the smallest wrong word might shatter it into something sharp.

Eventually, he shifts, his hand smoothing once over her hair before he draws back enough to sit, and the absence of his warmth is immediate. She follows him up, the sheets pooling around her waist, watching as he reaches for the shirt discarded the night before. His movements are deliberate, unhurried, but they carry the quiet finality of someone preparing for parting.

When they stand, they face each other in the wash of early light, the faint gleam of the constellations carved into the headboard still glimmering behind them. She wants to reach for him, to anchor herself in his presence just a little longer, but she forces her hands to remain at her sides.

“I won’t ask for another boon,” she says, her voice steadier than she feels. “I won’t ask for a promise you can’t keep.” He tilts his head slightly, studying her as if waiting for the rest.

“I will only ask this,” she continues, her eyes holding his. “Try to survive… for yourself, if not for me, just… try to keep yourself alive. Don’t give up hope.”

Something flickers in his expression, a ripple of emotion that moves too quickly to name, before he nods once, slow and deliberate. “I will try.” It’s all she can ask.

He steps forward then, closing the space between them, and cups her face in both hands. His kiss is brief, but it holds the same care as the night before, the same unspoken weight. When he lets her go, it is with a touch that lingers at her jaw before falling away entirely.

And then the moment is over, and the Lord of the Dreaming stands before her again, every inch the figure she first met, except now she knows the warmth he can hold, and she carries it with her as she leaves.

He lets her go with that final touch, and the quiet in the room settles heavy between them. Nuala draws in a slow breath, willing the burn in her throat to ease, she will not leave him with the sight of her falling apart: she will not stain this night with anything that might cheapen it.

Morpheus does not follow as she turns toward the door, but she can feel his gaze on her with every step. The black wood parts at her approach, opening onto the long corridor beyond, where the pale light of the Dreaming’s dawn seeps in through the high windows.

Her feet carry her through familiar halls, each turn a reminder of the life she is about to leave behind: the vaulted ceilings she has walked beneath countless times, the soft, dreamlike air that always smelled faintly of starlight and earth after rain… every step seems louder than it should, the echo of her boots on stone cutting through the stillness.

She passes the gardens, the archways framing glimpses of moon-pale blossoms and silver fountains. The flowers sway gently in the breeze, though there is no wind, as if the Dreaming itself knows she is going and is offering its farewell. Her fingers itch to reach out, to touch one of the blossoms and let its cool petals anchor her here for one more heartbeat, but she doesn’t… she keeps moving.

Ahead, the great doors to the palace loom, their carved panels shifting subtly in the dim light, scenes and shapes rippling like memories. Two sentry-dreams stand on either side, motionless, their eyes following her without comment.

Just before she crosses the threshold, she hesitates. Slowly, she turns her head, looking back down the long stretch of corridor… he is there.

Far away, at the opposite end, framed by shadow and the faint spill of morning light, Morpheus stands where she left him. He hasn’t moved, and though she can’t make out the details of his expression, she knows he is still watching her.

For a moment, it feels like the Dreaming holds its breath. She gives him the smallest of nods, not a bow, not the formal farewell of a subject to her ruler, but something quieter: personal. He inclines his head in return, just enough for her to know it is meant for her alone.

Then she turns away, stepping out into the pale air beyond the palace doors. The great panels close behind her with a muted, final sound, and though she does not let the tears fall, her hands curl tightly at her sides as she walks, holding herself together until she is far enough from the gates that the Dreaming can no longer see her face.

The photos of him online don’t do him justice. 

“It’s not bad. I know it hurts, but,” —his hand finds your shoulder, squeezes lightly— “it’s because it’s so high up, alright? They always bleed more. It doesn’t mean this is anything to worry about beyond fixing you up and getting you some pain relief.” 

“You– you’re real help.” 

He holds your gaze. “Yeah?” 

You wonder if he can feel the heat of your blush. It’s all over. He’s lucky your head wound doesn’t start spurting. “Yeah– yeah, I– Superman.” 

His smile is everything. “What?” he asks patiently. 

“I’m a big fan of– of yours.” 

“You are?” 

“You’re so brave,” you breathe out in a rush, though it hurts your head. “So brave. And– and…” 

“Sorry,” he murmurs, putting a little more pressure on your temple. “Thank you for being a fan. All I want is to keep everyone safe.” 

“You’re so gentle with everyone, even the aliens, and– you’re pretty…” 

“Pretty?” he asks, pure surprise in his voice, his hand falling off of your arm. 

You wince. “Yeah. Yes. Handsome. Sorry, you must get told that so much.” 

“It’s okay. I won’t hold you to anything you say. You’re injured, after all.” 

His teasing tone pretty much flies over your head. “No, I’m not lying. I mean it. You’re really lovely, and what you do, it makes you lovelier, it does–” You nearly choke on your enthusiasm. He has to know.

“Don’t get wound up, I’m sorry. I believe you. Let’s try to stay calm.” 

Your head is aching in a new way, now. Less the sting of a wide cut, more beating, like a whirl in your own brain twisting and shaking, dizziness alive behind your eyes and threatening to knock you over. You clutch at Superman’s arm and he knows what you need, slipping his free arm behind your back before you can collapse. 

“I don’t usually get crushes on people,” you inform him. “But it was hard not to get one with you. You’re even nicer than I thought you’d be.” 

“It’s easy to be nice to you. Easy as breathing.” 

Superman hugs you. You swear he does. But when the concussion begins to clear up and your confusion wanes in a hospital bed outside of the battle zone, you realise that he was holding you upright. Superman doesn’t know you, he never will, and you’re okay with it in the grand scheme of things. If you had to meet him, you’re glad it was while he was keeping you safe. He really is a good guy. 

—

A week later, Clark Kent is waiting for you at the doors to the Daily Planet. 

“Are you sure you don’t need more rest?” he asks, forcibly removing your handbag from your shoulder to carry himself.

“I’m sure.”

“It’s okay if you need more time to recover. You’re still wearing a dressing.” 

“It’s a bandaid, Clark, and it’s to hide the scar for now, it’s–”

“It’s still a wound.” 

“It’s fine! You saw it, you know it’s fine.” 

Your overbearing best friend had surprise-visited you the day after your injury despite a text to tell him to stay home. You’re fine. It was a cut and the mildest concussion you could’ve had. You didn’t throw up, or collapse, you’d simply gotten confused and bled all over Metropolis’ finest super hero until his hands were more red than white.

“It looked awful, it still does.” 

“It looks fine. Even the nurse said it was a small cut, in an unfortunate place.”

“Very unfortunate.” 

You follow him to the elevator bank with a frown. “Clark, you don’t have to sulk.” 

“I’m not sulking! I just don’t see what’s wrong with staying in bed for now.” 

“I have stuff to do, babe. I have to work. I have to move forward, it barely hurts anymore.” 

He likes being called babe, simpering accordingly. “Well, you’re sitting down all day. Doctor’s orders.” 

“Show me your oath and I’ll consider it.” 

“Please?” 

He looks like he could cry. Not that he will, but like he could if you keep saying no to him. And despite all your grievances with being treated like you’re fragile now, you decide to take it easy, if only to give Clark the peace of mind. “Okay, sure. You can wait on me all day.” 

“Yes. Thank you.” 

Clark’s your best friend because —no matter how much it might confuse you— he seems to really love you, maybe from the moment he met you. You started at the Daily Planet and he took to you like a duck takes to water. Everything you said made him laugh, every recipe you wrote was one he had to try. And you figured it was something boys tend to do, right? Pretend you‘re interesting until they get what they want from you, but Clark’s never asked for anything else, loving you wholly and expecting nothing in return. 

You let him swing an arm around your shoulders, a mirror of himself those few nights ago where he’d come shaky and sorry to see you. He apologised for not being there when you got hurt, as if he could’ve stopped it. 

“I’m sick of working already,” you say. 

“Then let’s go home.” 

“Clark. I’m being conversational.” 

“Don’t tease me,” he pleads, sounding all sudden and whiney. You squirm out of his arms to poke his side. Gets more solid by the day. Idiot boy. 

“Have you been working out?” 

“Can you stop?” 

“Can I stop? You’re a nightmare.”

Clark threatens to superglue you to your deskchair, but he titters around you hopelessly all day. 

— 

You’re laying on the gravel roof of your apartment on top of a sun lounger, trying to decide if getting some sun is worth all the noise. Beeping, birds, cars, doors, the wind, this high up and occasionally curving through buildings to kiss your skin —noise, noise, noise. Your phone is ringing while you ignore it, desperate to get through the last chapter of your book without interruption. You have thus far been foiled, and figured nobody’d be able to find you up here. 

The quick, awful zip of a high impact sounds somewhere close. You nearly topple from your lounger, a hand pressed to your chest, your heart racing near painfully at the surprise. You whip your head to the horizon looking for smoke, but there’s nothing. For a few minutes, you can’t hear anything at all. 

The shape of him descends before your mind can catch up. Then, he’s there in one piece. A touchable dream, Carol Ann Duffy at work and torturing you in passing. You’ve seen a ton of photos of him, hundreds, videos of girls recording to ask him sweet questions, and you’ve never seen him smile so shyly. You shiver violently down your arms, but Superman isn’t here to hurt you. 

“I’ve been looking for you.” 

“You were?” you ask.

“I wanted to make sure you were doing okay.” 

You sit up properly. The book in your lap makes a crunching noise that you happily ignore. “I’m fine. I’m fine, did you– You’re here to see if I’m okay?” 

His smile strengthens. “Is that okay?” 

You stammer, “Of course it’s okay!” A flush rises from your chest to your cheeks as he stays there. He’s not leaving until you answer. Holy fuck. “I’m great, Superman. All healed up.” 

“Are you sure? You still have–” He gestures to your bandaid. 

“It’s to keep it clean in the daytime. I take it off before bed.” 

“Does it hurt?” 

“No, of course not.” 

“Why of course not?” 

Your heart makes a funny pulse. Handsome isn’t the right word for him. There’s something special about it, otherworldly, literally, the cut of his jaw somehow sharp and soft at once, his pert nose, his eyes gone light in the sunshine and framed by dark lashes that beg to be touched. You imagine running a fingertip along them, gently brushing them up for no reason at all, and he narrows his gaze at you in your silence. The shorts you’re wearing have you worrying you’re underdressed in his eyes. They’re pajamas, pink with black polka dots and edgings. You’d had the forethought to wear a short-sleeve rather than a vest lest one of your neighbours find themselves up here with the same quiet idea. Superman’s fully clothed in comparison. 

His boots look formidable next to your puppy dog socks. 

“It doesn’t hurt,” you promise, half-lying and uncaring. Superman saved you. He’s perfect, so your head doesn’t hurt. 

“You seem a little flustered, is all.” 

“Oh. Oh, well, it’s hot out, and I’m not like, super used to being in your company. Or any company, um, like yours.” 

“You’ve never met a metahuman?” 

“No, never.” 

“We’re just like everybody else.” 

You laugh. 

“No, really,” he says, idling toward you, red boots treading the gravel down flat. “I’m just like you, you don’t have to be nervous.” 

“Sorry.” 

“Now what do you have to be sorry for?” 

You laugh again, a giggle you’d never admit to. He’s strangely intimidating; a presence, but not an imposing one.

“What are you reading?” he asks, nodding to your lap. 

“Oh, uh. Uh, it’s called The Ocean?” You straighten up the book to show him the cover. “It’s good, uh, the main character is a young boy who wants to find his father, I think it’s supposed to be a take on The Odyssey,” 

“Why is he looking for his father?” 

“He’s missing after a terrible war. It’s one of those ones that hurts the entire time but the ending has wrapped it up so nicely, it was worth it.”

“Maybe I’ll read it, too. You look like someone who has great taste.” 

“You can borrow my copy.” 

Superman’s gaze narrows again. “You’re finished?” 

“Yeah, I finished it before you got here.” 

He waits in the quiet. You’re sure he’s going to call you out for your lie. It's not as though a Kryptonian truth-radar would be outside of the realm of possibility. 

Superman finally smiles. “I promise to bring it back,” he says simply. 

“Sure. Well, take your time.” 

—

How long can it possibly take a superhero to read one book?

You shouldn't be thinking about it again. Poor Clark is sitting in the corner of the couch with your feet stuck under his thighs, telling you about the grocery store widow who asks him for help to take her groceries out to her car whenever she sees him. She’d spotted him at the produce section today and dibsed him, and Clark doesn’t mind (though she leaves her car at the back of the parking lot no matter the weather). In fact, Clark doesn’t bring it up to complain. He’s sympathising with her, how lonely she must be. 

You try to shake Superman from your head while Clark is talking, but the thoughts of him won’t budge. 

You’d made a fool of yourself on the roof. Superman had taken your book to be polite. He probably won’t come back. 

“Hey.” 

You lift your head. 

Clark’s looking at you. Big blue eyes in a classic face, the line of his glasses dark and heavy against his brow. They trace your expression, searching for the misery you’ve failed to hide, until he finds it in the creases of your eyes. 

“What’s wrong?” he asks. His voice is weak with worry. 

“Nothing.”

“It’s something.”

“It’s really not.” 

“It definitely is. You can tell me about anything, you know. Or you don’t have to tell me, but I’ll be here for you no matter what. Some food for thought.” 

“Food for thought. Eat this, Kent,” you say, jabbing him at the top of the thigh with your heel. 

Clark grabs your foot. “Come on. I know something’s wrong, and I don’t understand why you wouldn’t tell me, but…” He lets your foot smack down into the top of his thigh to grab his tea instead.

“Isn’t that cold?” you ask. 

“It’s tepid,” he allows after a sip.

You laugh, so he laughs. It’s a lovely sound.

“Again. Again, you don’t have to tell me what’s wrong, but I’d listen if you wanted me to.”

“Don’t try and make out like you’re not keeping secrets.” 

Clark goes slack-jawed. “Sorry?” 

“You don’t tell me everything. I know exactly where you disappear to all the time.” 

“You do?” 

You climb up on your knees and settle in front of him. You’re wearing those pink polka dot shorts like you were on the roof with Superman, in hopes they’ll summon him to you like a talisman. Clark presses his lips together, watching you closely as you take his face into your hands. 

“You’re dating Lois Lane,” you say. 

His fingers dust your elbow. “What?” 

“You’re sweet on her, aren’t you? Plus, you’re busy all the time. You’ve cancelled movie night three times this month, did you know?” 

“I’m sorry–”

“I’m not. I’m happy for you.” 

Clark shakes his head. “But Lois and I… I mean, not for months. We were almost something, I think, but no. Not for a while.” 

You let your hands fall off of his cheeks. “Oh. Sorry, Clark.” 

“Don’t be. I should’ve told you, but it was new and then it was over.” 

“You should’ve told me,” you agree, “but I sort of get why you didn’t. I’m your girl best friend. That’s a thing.”

“You’re my best friend,” he promises, no ‘girl’ prefix necessary. “That’s not why it ended, Lois isn’t like that. It was… we disagreed on so many things. Looking back, I think she was right about most of it.”

“Well, she’s a girl.”

“That she is. You’re all the same, aren’t you? All dazzling.” 

He says it with an earnestness that reminds you of the other half of your friendship-equation. Clark’s your best friend because he loves your work and your jokes and your company, and you’re his best friend because he’s good as gold, inside out, just awfully lovable.

“You’re ’dazzling’ too,” you say. “You are.”

Clark offers you his mug of tea. You take a sip for something to do. 

“Not that cold,” you murmur. 

“I never realised you were such a liar.” 

“I don’t really lie to you, Clark.” 

He leans up to kiss your head, chaste against your purpling scar. “I know.”

—

“So, this book–”

You jump hard enough to send your groceries five different ways, oranges and kiwis for Clark flying up in the air. They never hit the ground —Superman catches them in two hands. 

Your loaf of bread lays cradled in his arm like a baby. 

“Fuck,” you complain. 

“I’m sorry.” Superman laughs at you. Laughs. “Sorry. But this book, is there a sequel?” 

“What?” you ask. Superman tips your groceries into your waiting paper bag. 

“I think I need a sequel.” He pulls The Ocean from a pocket and squeezes it unkindly. “I think it ruined my life.” 

“There’s no sequel. But–” don’t spoil the ending for me, you almost say. “Did you enjoy it at all?” 

“It was good. Do you read a lot, or are you down to the real heart-achers?” 

“Uh, I guess. Well, no, I used to read more, but I didn’t have time for a while ‘n now I’m usually too stirred up to settle down.” 

“You cook.” 

You blink. “You googled me?” 

“No, how could I? But I did see you on the third page of the Daily Planet. You have a little author’s window. You made pumpkin pie.”

“For Thanksgiving weekend, yeah. They only ever put me near the front or on the main page of the website if it’s the holidays.” 

“Is that true?” 

You shake your head. Not to say no, to say, let’s not talk about it. Silly insecurities are unnecessary conversation. At least, they are with him. 

Someone gasps from behind you. With one comes a few. The people near the crosswalk are starting to notice Superman’s tall figure standing in the sun, and though you’d wish he’d managed to hide in the shadows, you admit to yourself that there’s nowhere else he could ever be. He looks right in the sun. 

“Do you want to come with me?” he asks. 

Do you want to go with him? What the fuck does he think? said in your head ecstatically, not a lick of derision against him. Your excitement nearly blinds you. 

“Yeah,” you say, practically mumbling, wanting to come off nonchalant and instead sounding painfully shy, even to your own ears. 

“Yeah?” He offers an arm. “Come here.”

Your charmed little laugh makes him grin. “Alright?” he asks, locking an arm around you vice-tight. 

“Where are we–”

The air leaves your lungs in one fell swoop. There and gone, breathless and weightless in tandem.

The sky is more than blue when you’re in it. 

There’s nothing you can say about it. You’re terrified Superman is going to drop you, you can hardly breathe from the sudden speed at which you’d been taken up with him, but beyond that, there’s nothing to say. Wordless, endless sky. Blue, blue—

“It’s not as scary as you think, right?” he asks, his head angled down to yours. 

“I expected you to have to shout. I don’t know why.” 

“It’s windier in the air, but we’re close. I don’t need to yell.” 

“You’re lucky I didn’t get many groceries.” 

“You aren’t heavy.” 

You’re delighted. “This is a paper bag, you realise! I’m surprised it didn’t explode the second you got me up here!” 

“I’ll be careful. You’re precious cargo, and you deserve a better experience now than the one you got when you first came up here with me.”

“I don’t remember much of it.” 

“That’s okay. I do.” 

You should feel ridiculous, but strong arms hold you steady. Blue eyes like someone familiar pour over your face, as though they need to see you clearly, with all this perfect light. Your few groceries are squeezed between your chests as you squeeze him by the neck, desperate for the extra security, that he won’t simply let you go, and have you fall. 

“This is amazing,” you breathe, your eyes sweeping down to take in beautiful Metropolis beating away beneath you. The cars look like ants. The buildings cast shadows you’d never noticed from the ground. 

“Yeah,” he says. “It’s something.” 

You glance up to find him still staring at you. 

The girls on SuperClub would never, ever believe you if you tried to tell them what passes between you, then. (Not that you frequent SuperClub. Often. You see it while scrolling, and you tend to scroll past it with a fond eye roll.) They wouldn’t believe that Superman brings his hand to your head to touch your temple, as though your small scar is a personal affront to him. They wouldn’t believe the way that he pauses when you shudder. Wouldn’t believe how he lets his fingertip tumble down your cheek, or the soft incline of his head. The slightest kiss of his eyelashes meeting in the very corners of his eyes as they almost close. 

“Don’t feel guilty, please,” you say. 

“What?” He sounds as though he’s woken up from a nap. 

“About what happened. It wasn’t your fault that I got hurt. I wanted you to know that. You saved me.” 

Superman lets the distance between your two faces grow. “I…”

“If this is what that is, if you feel like you owe me something, well. You don’t… I don’t know you, Superman, but sometimes I think I do. It’s like… someone I've met before? I can see your bleeding heart.” You offer a brash smile. “But I’m just fine. You promised me that I would be, and I am.” 

“You’re not making this any easier for me.” 

You shift in his grasp, his hair tickling you and the little hairs on your arms. 

“I’m not a very easy person,” you say. 

Superman presses his nose to your cheek. 

“I think you’re giving me tachycardia,” you whisper.

He hears it. Doesn’t answer for a while, and when he does, it’s to neither of the things you said before.

“Let me take you somewhere new,” he says.

—

A day later, Clark asks if he can bring you dinner. Like and unlike himself, to care enough to ask but to forgo his usual boisterous lack of respect when it comes to taking care of you. Clark recognises that you like to be cared for aggressively. That you want someone to care so much that they won’t stop at the first hurdle. You want someone to take it at a sprint, and Clark’s a show off loser-dork who likes taking care of you. 

He meets you at the door, where you show him your small picnic basket kitted with two plates, knives, forks, and a hidden dessert. “Too hot in my apartment,” you say. 

“What’s wrong with the AC?” 

“It’s leaking.” 

“I’ll take a look at it. What happened to that fan I got you?” he asks, his fingers at your wrist trying to steal the basket. 

“Oh, Clark, can’t you just leave me alone?” you plead. 

He laughs like a kid. “I love when you do that.”

“What?” 

“I don’t know, is it sarcasm? I don’t think that’s apt. Whatever it is, when you act like that? You’re really convincing. It’s funny.”

“I can be funny.”

“I know, that’s what I’m saying. You’re really funny. Can you do it some more?”

“Now it’s not natural, though.” 

“Please?”

“Leave it alone, Clark. You’re such a beg.” 

He laughs again. It peters off to a quiet you’d like to live in. His takeout bag rustles, your picnic basket rattles, his fingers brushing the back of your arm as he follows you down the street to the wooded path. 

There’s a small park not far from your apartment that’s been divided into two halves. The playground for the neighbourhood kids, and the picnic tables made of strangely shaped wood. They’re all rounded. One table is shaped like an ‘S’. Another like a filled in ‘8’. 

You sit at the one furthest from the playground, coincidentally shaped like a ‘C’. “For Clark,” you say, pleased. 

“Adorable.” 

You set up your plates, dividing up the food squarely. Clark had the wherewithal to bring two cans of soda and a big bottle of water. He asks which one you want, cracking it open accordingly. “Gonna pour it into my mouth, too?” you tease. 

“Do you not want me to be nice to you?” 

And the night slips away. You eat your takeout at the picnic table and linger until your legs are numb. The grass around the park is damp, but you sit, and you shoot the breeze until the sun starts to go down. It must be hours out there together. 

Clark takes his jacket off and spreads it over your shoulders. “This is your only bad trait,” he says happily. “You never tell me when you’re cold.”

“I’m not that cold.”

“Sure you’re not. Look, come here,” —he pulls you bodily into his side, his voice turning silky as angora— “you act like you’re such a plague, like– I don’t know, like I wouldn’t wanna know that you’re cold.”

“I don’t act like that.” 

“You do. You could rely on me for more, you know? I want you to lean on me.” 

You lean on him.

Clark presses his nose to your temple, his glasses digging into your skin.

And you think, I know you. 

But you don’t know why. 

—

Clark can't believe this is happening again. 

He woke up this morning with a scary yet firm plan: he’s going to get himself together, pluck up what he has in the way of courage, and be honest with you about Superman. If only so he can stop lying to you. He should’ve told you months ago that he was Superman. Hell, he might’ve told you from the moment he met you, that’s how sure he was that he’d love you. As a friend —his best friend, half of his life. There’s this ease, like he’s known you for far longer than he truly has, like he could know you for the rest of his life. 

And lately. 

Oh, lately. Clark can’t get a handle on things. He hadn’t realised he was falling in love with you, isn’t even sure that’s the way to describe it; far from a sharp plummet downward into love, this has felt like a slow and steady ascent, but now suddenly he’s at the mountain top and the air is thin, and he’s looking for you, aching for relief, and you’re sitting in the snow with your book and your shy smile, cross-legged, just waiting for him to get there and open his cowardly mouth. 

Or that’s what he’d like to think. 

Fact of the matter is, Clark would like to kiss you. Hold your hand, have your head rest on his shoulder. He’d like to pull you into his lap and squeeze. Clark could die happy if he got just one shot at it, no matter the outcome. 

He knows he won’t lose you, but he’s worried you don’t want what he wants. He’s gotten so close to having you, he’s not sure he can take being any further apart than this. 

Clark takes the tramline to the rich part of the city with the best florist. There are buckets and buckets of flowers; orange tiger lilies and white orchids turned green in the sun; roses as big as his fist, unfurling; sweet peas kissing pinkest camellias all tangled up with baby’s breath. He chooses the sweet peas. They really are sweet, their hemmed edge petals curling in and nearly blue. They’re beautiful. He can see them in a glass on your nightstand by tonight if he’s lucky.

It’s on the walk to your apartment (tramline too busy to risk, lest your flowers get hurt) that the trouble begins. 

The light goes out. 

It doesn’t make logical sense. He’s outdoors. It’s the early morning, the sun should be shining for hours to come. 

He looks up and finds a singular dark rectangle over Earth. 

It blots out everything, disapears the clouds, turns the blue sweetpeas in his hand a tired shade of grey. 

Clark wonders if he should’ve told you how he felt when he had the chance. Then, he leaves his glasses, his jacket, and his sweetpeas in the hedgerow at the park with alphabet picnic tables and throws himself upwards into the sky.

—

What emerges from the spaceship (and it is a spaceship, made of an element humans aren’t want to touch) are creatures shaped like spinning asterisks, wisps of their angel-white bodies bending the shadows they’ve cast down onto Metropolis. It’s like smoke. 

The dark makes it hard to breathe. 

You sit huddled in your bedroom looking out through the window, despite a desperate urge to hide somewhere further inward. Sirens echo throughout otherwise quiet streets, discordant wailing that wavers for long, sharp minutes. There had been screaming and crying and the splintering sounds of glass. It’s not —not unseeable, out there, but anyone with poor vision will find themselves stranded.

You open your phone. Your theory is that the aliens have been able to dampen sound as well as sun, leaving the battlefield dangerously quiet. Clark’s not answering your texts because he never has his phone, but you’re sure he’s out there somewhere. He told you he was coming. The last message he sent this morning blinks at you from the bottom of your screen: Coming by soon if you’re not busy, do you want me to bring breakfast? 

You’d said, just some eggs please if you want eggs 

You’d said, hey, are you safe? What’s with the dark? 

You’d said, clark please text me back right now, I’m freaking out, do you need me to come get you? 

He won’t answer the phone. Outside, up in the sky where it’s darker still and the white shadows have begun to ripple, the occasional red beam of heat slices into whiteness, turning it to shadows again. There are two sets of red if you watch carefully. Green light flickers at the ground. 

And Clark Kent is out there all alone. 

You crawl to your shoes under the bed and put them on, pajamas and all. Clark’s blue hoodie lays on the back of your deskchair. You shrug it on. 

He’s gonna lose his entire mind if you do find him out there. Can friends ground you? Because Clark’s going to ground you. But you’d rather be grounded than all alone. 

—

Superman groans into the floor, his tongue coated in dust. 

He has far better vision than a person feasibly needs. He wore a pair of glasses once that are supposed to approximate what it’s like to have legal blindness, and he’d felt suddenly, achingly sorry for the human race. But then he’d found the glasses stand beside it with all their different prescriptions and shrugged it off. Humans are brilliant. He’s in awe of their persistence, their resilience, and their strength. He knows he can find it in himself to go on because they can, too. 

He has better vision, and still he finds himself batted away from the entities like a bothersome fruit fly. 

“Krypto?” he asks into the smog. 

His borrowed dog flies at him with impressive speed, pressing his snout straight into a bruise. 

“Ow!” 

Krypto snuffles and hits at his arms with both paws. 

“Krypto, stop! Jeez, stop. You’re such a pai– Ow! Get off.” 

Krypto nibbles his shoulder. 

Clark forces himself to sit up. At least he hasn’t killed the dog. Kara would probably eviscerate the planet country by country if something happened to her dog, not mentioning the aliens that started this whole thing. And he is good at bringing the suit when Clark needs it. 

He rubs at his eyes and drags himself to his feet, back aching, eyes like sand. Nothing is healing because he can’t feel the sun, but he’s not too hurt. He can take a bad landing. He can take twenty of them. 

“Krypto, stay.” 

Krypto tilts his white blurry head. 

“You’re not helping.” 

Arf! Clark rolls his shoulders and shoots back into the air. 

Krypto stays down, for now. 

Clark takes a lap through the air, searching for signs of life with his ears. The eery quiet is beginning to fill with catastrophe.

“Clark?” 

He stops dead in the sky. 

“Clark?” you call, ten miles below him, shouting all clipped and scared. “Clark Kent! Are you out here? If you can hear me, call back to me!”

He says your name.

“Clark? I’m here!” 

Clark looks up into melted-sugar shadows as they begin to curdle and makes a choice. Damn the aliens, they can have the sky, so long as Clark gets to keep you safe. 

He has to keep you safe. 

—

You’re watching a shadow plummet toward you when the sky opens up into shards of Technicolor. Concentrated around a single point of red and blue and moving so fast it turns puce.

—

There’s a scene in The Ocean where the main character realises his father has been dead before the beginning of the book. Dead for years. He goes searching for him because he’s scared to be alone, brave enough to realise it, and young enough to misunderstand the danger of the world. He treks sandbanks, ferries favour, turns in promises and follows the footsteps of a man long dead across the world. Clark told you once, privately, quietly, in a moment that immediately panicked him, that his parents had adopted him, and that his birth parents had left him with a letter after they both died.

What did it say? you’d asked. 

To be good. 

You find your copy of The Ocean cradled in familiar hands. You recognise its secondhand cover, the bends in the front where a previous owner had tented it for a long period of time. The spine is loose and lax with age. The pages are yellow with time. 

Clark is sleeping quietly in the plastic-wrapped chair beside your bed. He doesn’t have a bruise or cut. He doesn’t look anything like Superman had as he’d flung himself at you, two seconds too late, his body a shield against an explosion that lit your body with fire and colour alike. The whole world had been red, and then yellow, and suitably blue. There was pain. 

Not a darkness as people often say. Just hurting and now this. 

You take a scary breath. Hitching and pained, you search for comfort and find none of it. There’s a needle in the back of your hand secured with a teddy bear wrapping. The sheets have been drawn to your chin and choke you as you try to sit. 

After a moment of struggling, you sink back and try for another breath. Deep, aching breaths. You do it until your lungs burn, these awful, stringing breaths, eyes to the ceiling and fighting the spots of nothingness that cloud your vision. 

“Hey,” a soft voice says, softer hand pressed to the curve of your neck. “Oh, hey, sweet girl, hey… it’s okay. The pain won’t last, they gave you a little more morphine a few minutes ago, it’ll kick in.” 

“Uh–”

Clark makes a sound. “Oh.” 

You let your eyes slide to him. He’s checking his wrist where it’s resting on you. 

“I was sleeping for a long time, I… Honey, I’ll get a nurse.” 

“No,” you breathe. 

“Yeah, honey, I’ll get a nurse,” he repeats, stroking your neck with his thumb. His eyes are their usual calm blue, bearing down into your own with an emotion that’s somehow palpable and implacable. “It’s no good, you being in pain like this. I’ll come right back.” 

“Clark, don’t go,” you whine. 

It’s like the world has been placed heavy on your head. 

Clark offers you relief. “I won’t go if you don’t want me to. Tell me what’s hurting, and I’ll fix it.” 

You shake your head at him. Fuck, nothing hurts. It’s not pain you’re being smothered in. 

“Okay,” he murmurs.

For a while, you don’t talk. Clark stays stooped over you, too tall and careful anyhow to stay out of your light. He holds your cheek, rubbing at skin with his thumb until it’s tickled into numbness, your body begging you to move away from his touch and your brain knowing you can’t. You’ll never duck away from his fingertips ever again. 

Where he’d been unhurt, he isn’t unharried. His hair is in a complete disarray, curls in places pulled straight and greasy behind his ears. His face is pale. His eyes flicker obsessively between you and your monitor, as though he can decipher the information it displays. He must see something there that he trusts, sitting down again in the chair dragged quick and easy to the side of your bed. His hand stays at your face. He’s long. It’s simple work. 

“You read The Ocean,” you whisper. 

“I read all your annotations, too,” he tells you, turning his hand to run it down your cheek, his fingernails especially silky against the line of your jaw. 

You turn your face toward his touch. Your eyes flutter closed as he indulges your deepest fantasy. 

“I didn’t–” Oh, you can’t say it. You hadn’t meant to want him like this. You hadn’t known he was Superman, and isn’t that awful? Something cruel. Your best friend kept a worst secret. 

He doesn’t rush you. 

You’re ready to try again a few minutes later. His fingertips have started to draw a flower into your neck. 

“I’m embarrassed that Clark knows what I said to Superman,” you say plainly. 

“Superman didn’t tell Clark anything,” Clark says. His voice is light in contrast to your hesitancy. 

“But you know it all.” 

“I know you,” he agrees. 

“I’m really… sorry. I’m sorry, I–” You search for his touch and he immediately cups your cheek again. “Clark, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come out looking for you. I didn’t realise you could look after yourself and I made things worse.” 

“Do you even remember?” he asks. 

Mildly. You’d woken once before and found a less fixed Clark covered in blood above you. A part of you had understood that it was Clark, even without his glasses, and a different part knew it was Superman. Then things had blurred, half-replaced by a memory of his hand behind your back in the middle of a meadow halfway across the world, that beautiful quiet valley where the water had been ice and the grass emerald velveteen under your legs. 

In the dream, Superman (and this had been real until it wasn’t), turned to you, and said, with Clark’s dorky intonation, “That’s seriously beautiful, huh?”  

“You have nothing to be sorry for.”

“But–”

“You don’t. I won’t argue about it with you. You have no apologies to make, you did everything right and nothing wrong, and I lied to you, and I got you hurt, and…” He has the gall to pink in the cheeks, like you’ve taken the skin between your knuckles and pinched. “I wasn’t honest with you about my feelings. I almost kissed you as Superman, and that wasn’t fair.” 

“You really are… him?” you ask weakly. 

“Yeah, I am.” 

Clark sits up as a doctor opens your room’s door. 

“Everything okay?” she asks. When she sees you awake, she smiles broadly. “Hey, you’re up! Can we get you some dinner now?” 

“You skipped breakfast,” Clark tells you. 

“I was awake for breakfast?” 

“Barely. We had you on some pretty gnarly painkillers,” the doctor says. She adjusts her white coat. “I just wanted to check in with your nurses and your lovely partner here that you hadn’t thrown up again.” 

You flush. “I’m fine.” 

Clark simply rubs your chest like a wave of his hand against your heart. 

“I’m worried you haven’t gotten enough sustenance this past day, but we try not to hook you up with too many things,” the doctor explains, “much better for you to settle and then eat. And to drink some water!” 

“I don’t feel very hungry.” 

“The painkillers you’re on can make some people feel quite sick. But try your best, okay? I’ll come back after dinner to see what we can do about those broken fingers.” 

You follow your arm down to your hand. Your pinky and ring finger on the non-dominant hand have been splinted but not casted. 

“Oh.” 

The doctor takes her leave, abandoning Clark to your questions. 

“What’s wrong with me?” you ask. 

“You got concussed again. It made you sick, and your hand is very nearly broken, but they think it’s just your fingers from the look of your x-rays. And you have a long cut.” He puts his hand on your stomach gently. “Here. Almost as long as your arm, but it’s a surface cut. You landed on debris. I’m sorry, my– honey. Sorry.” 

You can’t fight the chills or your bewilderment. “What for?”

“I didn’t get to you fast enough.” 

“Clark.” Your mouth is dry. He’s pretty. Your head goes round and round and aching and then with a dash of clarity, the world snaps back into place. Your hospital room is empty and bright, with a vase filled to bursting with sweetpeas in pride of place on your nightstand. There are voices drifting in from the hallway, and Clark is handsome even as he tears himself apart. The silver lining his bottom lashes doesn’t go unnoticed. “I’m okay, babe.” 

He laughs wetly. 

“I’m fine,” you promise, quieter now. “How couldn’t I be? You’re so gentle.” 

Clark finds your hand, pulling it to his forehead, his body bending forward like a marionette on loosening strings. He shakes his head vehemently, his grip on your wrist tight but far from cruel. 

“You’re gentle,” you promise under your breath, “I told you that before, didn’t I? You’re kind, and brave, and– it’s not your fault I went looking for you.” 

“I should be comforting you. I should be helping you,” he whispers. 

“You won’t catch me crying on your shoulder twice, Superman.” 

His head flinches up, like he’s realising for the first time that you know who he is. 

Whatever he sees in your face helps him to settle down. He curls long, thick fingers around your hand. You can’t help noting how adversely tender they feel while he holds your hand. 

“What did you think of the book?” you ask finally. 

“I didn’t know you liked to read,” he says. 

You shrug. Let your head fall back into a thin pillow, wondering how you might go about getting a better one, and beginning to feel the effects of the painkillers they’d been talking about. “It’s not like it’s the most alarming secret, between us.” 

He lets out a wounded whine. “Why do you hate me?” he asks. 

“You’re due some hazing.” 

“Can’t you take pity on me?” he asks. 

You curl your fingers around his where they’d otherwise been limp. “I’m not really half as cool as I’m trying to act, Clark.” 

He sulks beautifully. “I think you’re lying to make me feel better.” 

Only a little. 

—

Being cool around Clark Kent lasts about as long as the morphine does. The reality is this: Clark Kent —best friend extraordinaire, sweetheart farm boy who’s vetted all your worst ideas, held your hair back in the smallest toilet in Metropolis bar history after a too-happy happy hour, knows all your holey socks and questionable medical queries— is Superman. 

And Superman? 

He’d been courting you. 

The word is antiquated and accurate. Superman had been cautiously courting you with his sparse visits, shy and brave at once, brash but remarkably put together. It is after you know the truth that you realise Clark had been not so secretly courting you simultaneously. 

“Is that why you were bringing me dinner and stuff?” you ask, lured into the conversation by accident, now deeply curious. 

“No. I did that stuff before I wanted you. It was hard to sort the feelings into boxes, like– platonically, I’ve loved you since you came into the office with your miserable laptop and– and romantically, I don’t know. I guess I didn’t realise until I tried to kiss you and you wouldn’t let me.” 

“Sorry?” 

“I tried to kiss you, and you thought it was a pity kiss.” 

You hold him by the shoulder. “That was real?” 

“Do you dream about it?” he asks knowingly. 

“It was really going to be a kiss?” 

He softens. Clark, big on your smaller couch, in his pajamas with his hair finally washed again and your hand in his lap, rests his shoulder into yours with a long-suffering sigh. “Best kiss of your life,” he promises. 

“Prove it.” 

“What?” 

It’s been four days since the hospital and Clark is horrifically chaste. “Do you not want to kiss me?” 

“You know I do.” 

“So kiss me.” 

He pinches your chin. “If you wanted a kiss, you could’ve just taken one,” he tells you, looking you straight in the eyes. 

“From Superman?” you ask with a little scoff. 

He moves his head from left to right. “From me,” he says. 

There has been so much to tell him. So little space to hide from him. Lines of books you’d underlined for him, lines for Superman, for both of them. The guilty way you’d watched Clark Kent take off his shirt at the public pool in summer heat and the loop of Superman under your thumb as you’d fallen asleep scrolling SuperClub. You’ve been more honest with him than you’ve dared to be previously. 

Clark has repaid you in kind. 

Did you know, he’d confessed, when you were still grody from the hospital and he’d demanded you let him stay, that night, that everything I’m good at is because of the sun? I can function without it. I can store up the energy in my cells and I don’t need much to stretch it far, but without the yellow sun, I’m just like you? 

How could I know that? you’d thought. Why are you telling me this? you’d asked instead.

I want you to know. 

Clark loves the sun, you realise now. He turns his face up to it often, soaking it in silently. He gets this look whenever he stops to take it in. Perfect contentment. Trust, that it will make him feel better. 

Clark tilts his chin against yours, nudging your face gently inward, giving you the shortest glimpse of that content stretched across a smile as it presses into yours.

You hyperventilate your way into an open-mouthed, gasping sort of thing, and find Clark a fiercer kisser than you could’ve imagined. All those daydreams about Superman saving you from another day copyediting your own messes, you’d never thought to picture the boy sitting at the desk across from you, how his hand might slide behind your neck like water. How he’d take the breath from your lips and offer his own in a shaky, wanting gasp. 

Superman, breathless under your touch. No one would ever believe you. 

“Did you want me to tell you how it ends?” 

You break away from him, panting, vaguely confused. “Sorry?” 

“The Ocean? You never finished it.”

“Oh. Maybe you can read it to me. You know, afterwards.” 

Clark grins. “After,” he promises, leaning down for another kiss. 

˚‧꒰ა ❤︎ ໒꒱‧˚

Bucky stood in the entryway, wind-tousled and still in partial tactical gear. The sleeves of his black shirt were pushed up to the elbows, revealing the flex of muscle and dull gleam of vibranium beneath. He had a look in his eye that was hard to read–half sheepish, half pleased with himself–and he was already fishing through one of the many compartments in his bag. He didn’t speak again until he pulled something out with a sort of slow care.

”Ta da.” You raised an eyebrow at him, seeing him pull something from his bag like it was a treasure he’d smuggled across enemy lines. You hopped off the bench with a soft thud and crossed the room toward him, curiosity instantly piqued–mostly because Bucky Barnes was not one to say ‘ta da’. Not unless he was hiding something behind that half-smirk of his.

Your eyes immediately caught sight of what he was holding.

The flower hadn’t bloomed yet, but even in its dormant state, it was breathtaking. The outer petals were tightly furled, each one smooth and iridescent like the type you would find on shells of certain mollusks–but it was shaded in a gradient you couldn’t quite place. They started as an inky, oil-slick blue at the base, then rippled out into smoky violets and blushing wine tones near the tips. Delicate veins shimmered faintly across the surface, catching the lab lights with a strange metallic luster, almost like the petals were dusted in powdered silver.

The stem curved gently, a deep green tinged with gold, and the leaves were narrow, slightly translucent, and lined with fine threads of coppery red. Even when it wasn’t fully bloomed, it had an energy to it. A heat, almost. As if it were responding to the proximity of warm skin and breath. You squinted at it.

”Bucky, if this is your idea of asking me out on a date, you really need to brush up on your courting skills.” He let out a sharp bark of laughter, head dropping forward briefly with a grin.

“Hey,” He said, handing the flower over to you carefully, “You’re the one who told me, if I saw anything weird, unknown, alien, or otherwise ‘botanically suspicious,’ I should bring you back a sample.” You gingerly accepted the stem, trying not to touch the tightly closed bud itself.

”Yeah, I meant specifiers, not some interstellar looking thing.” You shot back. He leaned against a nearby counter.

”Don’t say I never do anything for you.” He commented back. You rolled your eyes, but the smile tugging at your mouth betrayed your fondness.

”You absolutely broke every rule of containment protocol by walking this thing straight into my lab, but…” You gave the top of the flower another slow once-over, still entranced, “Thanks for thinking of me.” You turned, crossing to your bench and plucking a clean beaker from the rack. You filled it with a few inches of distilled water, and set the flower inside, watching it float just enough to stay upright. The petals didn’t open, but they flexed slightly–like they were stretching, or drinking the water you had put the stem in.

”So,” You started, glancing over your shoulder to where Bucky was still leaning, “Where’d you find it?” You asked, watching him give you a small, casual shrug.

”There was a patch of them, right off the tree line. I spotted them on my way back to the quinjet. Figured I’d snatch one up before anyone else trampled it.” You hummed, turning your head away–not noticing the way his gaze lingered on the flower for a beat too long. You were too busy cataloguing the possibilities in your head. It was too vibrant to be terrestrial, but it wasn’t necessarily alien. Possibly hybridized. The energy you felt coming off of it could’ve been psychosomatic–but you weren’t one to write something off without running tests.

“And you’re sure no one else touched them?” You asked, looking back over at him to see if you can spot any of the tells he had when he was lying. His brow lifted toward you.

”I mean…I touched one obviously.” You gave him a pointed look, and he immediately held up both hands.

”Didn’t eat it. Didn’t stick it up my nose. I was the only one that touched anything. Scout’s honor.” You snorted, and shook your head.

”Alright, Barnes…I’ll bite. I’ll run some diagnostics. Spectrograph, chemical composition, basic pollen analysis when it blooms…All the sciencey things that you don’t understand, then I’ll get back to you.” He gave you a mock salute and pushed himself off the table he was leaning against, going toward the door.

”Just make sure you name it after me if it ends up trying to kill you.”

”Noted,” You called, “But if it ends up giving me superpowers instead, I’ll be naming it after myself.” He was still laughing as the door slid shut behind him. You turned back to the flower, now gently swirling in the water–its petals flexing once more, as if hearing your voice. You leaned in just a touch, and breathed in slightly.

You could’ve sworn it hadn’t smelled like anything before, but now…

Now it smelled faintly of summer rain, citrus, and the soft trace of jasmine. It was warm, soft, and inviting, like it was trying to beckon you to come closer to it. You straightened slowly, then reached blindly across the workbench for a spare sheet of scrap paper, grabbing the pen you had tucked behind your ear.

”Initial scent: None. Notable change after water exposure–New profile: humid, citrus notes, floral base (jasmine like). Unsettling–shift occurred in under two minutes.” You tapped the end of your pen lightly against your chin, your gaze never leaving the beaker. The flower was still half-closed, petals fluttering slightly in the water like they were breathing–like they were aware. The surface tension of the liquid shimmered faintly around the base of the stem, as though reacting to something within the plant.

You didn’t like that.

Flowers didn’t just change their chemical profile that fast. Not unless they were highly volatile. Not unless they were engineered.

A muscle tensed along your jaw.

You slid the note aside and moved quickly now, grabbing a glass containment dome from one of the side drawers–a heat-tempered cloche you typically used when running long-term decay tests on bio-samples. It wasn’t hermetically sealed, but it would be enough to contain most airborne particulates.

Just in case.

You placed it gently over the beaker and the flower with practiced care, watching as the edges sealed against the bench with a soft thunk. The scent dimmed immediatel-ybut didn’t vanish. It clung to the air like it had already soaked into the fibers of your clothes, your skin.

You took a step back, and another, suddenly aware of the way the heat of the room felt a degree too warm.

Your eyes narrowed. You made another note.

“Mild thermal increase noted (subjective). Investigate potential volatile compounds. Possible synthetic ancestry. Unknown reaction to water exposure–possible activation trigger?”

You stood still for a moment longer, arms crossed over your chest now, staring at the flower like it might start humming.

Then you exhaled through your nose, gave your head a small shake, and muttered, “Okay, mystery plant. Let’s see what you’re hiding.”

You turned on your heel and crossed to the far side of the lab, grabbing gloves, pipettes, and a test slide. You didn’t see the way the petals quivered beneath the glass dome. Or the way the center of the bud pulsed–slowly, rhythmically–as if something within it had begun to wake.

You were too busy prepping your tools.

You’d get your first sample from the outermost edge of the petal, where a small amount of condensation had begun to form–right where the flower had interacted with the water. It wasn’t much. Just enough to suggest a subtle chemical discharge. A secretion, maybe. Or pollen.

Your gloved fingers hovered just beside the dome.

You paused.

A thought scratched quietly at the back of your mind, the way instincts sometimes do when they’re not fully formed.

You didn’t ignore it.

You stepped back again.

Instead of removing the dome outright, you retrieved your small fume extractor arm—used mostly for soldering–and wheeled it over until its head hovered just above the cloche’s apex. You flicked the switch, and a soft hum filled the room as the extractor began to filter the air directly above the sample.

Another note:

“Smell is still detectable after containment. Strong. Possibly psychoactive. Proceeding with caution.”

Still, despite your wariness, you found yourself walking back toward the glass.

One more glance. Just to be sure.

The flower was still closed–but now its bud looked fuller. Like it had begun to swell. One of the petals had unfurled the tiniest bit. Barely a sliver.

But just enough for you to see a glint of gold pollen resting in the shadows of its center.

It shimmered like dust caught in a sunbeam.

You stared.

And then, carefully, you reached over to your comm unit and tapped the call button for your assistant team over in the biocontainment lab.

“Hey,” You said when the line clicked open, voice low. “I’ve got a…Weird one. Found by Barnes. It’s stable, but I want a second containment unit prepped in case things escalate.”

A pause on the line. Then:

“Escalate how?”

You glanced back at the flower. That scent. That impossible shimmer. You didn’t know yet.

“Just…Prep it,” You replied. “I’ll send over a sample in a few.”

And then you muted the line.

You looked down at the flower one more time.

It was no longer just beautiful.

It was waiting.

———————

It had been three days since Bucky dropped the flower off, and by this time it had bloomed. Not delicately, and certainly not in the way flowers usually did–with gradual graceful predictability. No. This thing had opened like it knew it was being watched and studied by you.

When you came down to your lab the morning after Bucky brought you the mysterious flower, the petals had fully unfurled–broad, sweeping things with a high-gloss sheen and hypnotic gradients that shifted from gold to scarlet to bruise-dark purple depending on the light. The stamen in its center now pulsed visibly, a slow inhale-exhale rhythm that made the entire structure look…Alive. The pollen shimmered every time it moved, a near-invisible cloud that never seemed to settle but floated in still air like it was defying gravity. Or logic.

You had kept it sealed tight under the reinforced cloche, and had the triple-filtered vents on and the entire section of the lab cordoned off with containment protocols. Your notes had doubled in size, and still, nothing definitive had come back from the biocontainment team. There were just vague updates telling you that they were behind on other specimens and that they would get around to it when they could.

So you worked around it. You monitored. You wrote. You catalogued symptoms–your own included, though they were still annoyingly ambiguous: mild temperature spikes, random surges of adrenaline, difficulty concentrating in bursts. But no rash, no lesions, no hallucinations. There was a kind of pressure, similar to urgency but just on the cusp of it, desire maybe–but for what, you had no clue. You had only inhaled a bit of the pollen and hadn’t been exposed since, so you didn’t dwell on it–not with your schedule stacked, and not with your own lab being as backed up as it was.

You were just rinsing a pipette when the door to the lab slid open with a soft hiss.

”H-Hey,” Came the voice you’d come to recognize more easily than your own thoughts lately. You didn’t need to look up to know that it was Bob, but you did anyways, just to catch a glimpse of him.

He was towering and soft-shouldered in a dark grey hoodie with the sleeves shoved up to his elbows, worn sweatpants hugging the curve of his hips, and his crown of light brown hair was in absolute disarray, like he had it tied up and decided to let the locks fall free in front of his face. He looked like someone who didn’t have the slightest clue what he did to people around him, and he truly didn’t know.

The plastic takeout bag in his hand swung gently as he stepped inside, smiling at you like it was the easiest thing in the world.

“Brought y-you lunch.” Your stomach growled at the word lunch, and it echoed through the moment of silence that settled between you, which only made Bob’s grin stretch wider.

”Let me guess,” You started, pulling off your gloves and throwing them into the biohazard bin, “You timed this perfectly because you knew my stomach would start making monstrous noises, didn’t you?”He shrugged, with a small smirk on his face, setting the bag down on your cleared desk near one of your monitors.

”You skipped b-breakfast.” You held out a finger.

”No no…I postponed breakfast.” He shook his head.

”You always p-postpone breakfast,” He said, moving past you to pour you a cup of water from the cooler, his big hands making it look smaller than what it actually was, “And if I d-dont show up with something d-decent by 2 p.m, you would just end up inhaling the vending machine c-crackers and freeze-dried apple s-slices…Which is not s-sustainable i-in the slightest.” You couldn’t help but let out a laugh at his comments.

”Seems like someone has been watching me a bit too closely.” He turned and handed you the water, fingers brushing yours as he didn. His hands were boiling as usual, and it left the paper cup feeling warm from where his fingers had been holding it. His eyes lingered on your face a beat longer than necessary.

”I-I always watch you c-closely,” He said softly, like it slipped out before he could catch it. Immediately his eyes glanced down away from you, dropping to the floor for a second, before flicking away toward the cluttered end of your bench like he suddenly remembered a far more interesting smudge on the tile. His cheeks were red–not just a flush, not just a tinge, but a slow bloom of color climbing from the collar of his hoodie up to the tips of his ears.

You said nothing in response. Not because you didn’t notice–because you did. More because if you said anything, if you so much as looked at him with any kind of expression that acknowledged the truth buried in his voice, he might self-destruct on the spot. So instead, you took a slow sip of the water he handed you, letting the quiet hum of the lab fill the air between the both of you.

Then you turned on your heel toward the takeout bag.

”So what’s on the menu today, Chef Bob?” You asked lightly, pulling the plastic open and peeking inside, “Please tell me it’s not another one of your hot dog stir-fry’s.” He let out a groan.

”Listen…I-It was one time, I-I know nobody was a fan of it.” You grinned as you pulled out a tinfoil-wrapped container, unraveling it with careful fingers. A rich, savoury scent wafted up–soy and sesame and something sweet under it, like cane sugar with more of a freshness that was unexpected, “So what am I looking at?”

”Sticky rice, soy-glazed chicken, uh…” He rubbed the back of his neck, “T-There’s some grated g-granny smith apple in the glaze…C-Cause I didn’t have honey.” You raised your eyebrows.

”Pretty decent alternative.” You replied.

”Yeah,” He said, shoving his hands into his pockets like he wasn’t sure what to do with them, “You know how S-Sentry gets with processed s-sugars in his system. Makes him a-all buzzy.” You let out a soft laugh.

”So this is officially Sentry-approved, then?”

“F-For the most part,” He mumbled, “I-I think you’re the real t-test though.” That made you pause, glancing up at him, still holding the half-unwrapped meal in your hands, finding his gaze had landed on you again. This time it held something quiet but vulnerable. Expectant, even. Like he really cared what you thought.

And that was the difference between Bob and everyone else–you knew he didn’t make things just to impress. He made them because it gave him joy to offer them. He brought you food not because he wanted credit–but because he worried you wouldn’t eat otherwise. He brought you books because he remembered which ones made your eyes light up. He let you take his blood every month without protest, even when the Sentry made his pulse unpredictable or his veins hard to find, because he trusted you with every part of him–even that. And because of those little things, you always made sure to praise him.

Even when he burned the eggs.

Even when the pasta came out overcooked.

Even when the hot dog stir-fry almost gave you heartburn.

You forked a bite of the rice and chicken, chewed, and let your eyes widen a bit as the warmth hit your tongue. “Okay. Wait. This is actually good.”

He blinked, caught between shock and a smile. “Y-you don’t have to lie.”

“I would lie,” You said, pointing at him with your fork. “But not this convincingly. This? Bob. It’s delicious.” He looked like he didn’t quite know what to do with the praise. He rocked back slightly on his heels, running a hand through his already-messy hair, trying to hide the shy little grin that was pulling at the corners of his mouth. You watched the way his fingers threaded through the strands, the way his forearms flexed under the soft stretch of the hoodie.

You took another bite and leaned against the counter beside him, letting out a hum of satisfaction.

“Y’know,” You said between chews, “If Val found out you were secretly good at this, she’d start expecting meals during debriefs.”

”She’d want a report first,” He said, playing along, “T-Then she’d make Walker taste it for poison.” The both of you laughed lightly. The silence that followed was companionable. Safe. You brushed your shoulder lightly against his as you leaned forward to set the food container down beside the monitor.

His body went still at the contact.

Not because he didn’t want it. But because he did. You knew that reaction well by now–the micro-freeze, the way he’d let the warmth of your hand or arm settle into him like he was still learning he could have it. That it was for him.

You let your arm linger against his for just a second longer.

Then you pulled back, slow and easy.

He looked at you from the side of his eye. His voice was low when he spoke.

”H-How’s the flower?” You glanced toward the containment dome instinctively. The petals shimmered under the harsh lab light, colors shifting in slow gradients like they were part of something fluid, something still breathing. It looked even larger today. Full-bodied. Restless.

“Still haven’t heard anything back from the biocontainment lab,” You said, turning back to Bob and picking up your fork again. “Apparently they’re still backed up from the Skrull fungus incident.”

His face pulled slightly. “God…D-Don’t remind me of t-that.” You nodded grimly.

“I won’t…But this?” You took another bite and chewed thoughtfully. “No movement. Just… opened. Big. Loudly. Like it knew I was looking at it.” Bob followed your glance as you continued to speak, “I breathed in a little bit of the pollen when I first got it–just a trace. It made me really warm. Flushed. But otherwise nothing dramatic. No side effects. No changes. So I think it was just my body reacting to whatever compound it’s putting off–probably a weird hybridization. Something experimental maybe.” Bob’s brow furrowed at this comment.

”You s-should’ve been wearing a m-mask.” You huffed a laugh, nudging your shoulder into his again.

”Please, I’m pretty sure I’ve been exposed to worse.”

“S-Sure,” He said quietly, his gaze fixed on you now, “B-But definitely not like this.” There was something layered in his voice—concern wrapped around protectiveness, softened by something you didn’t dare name.

You didn’t say anything to it. Just took another bite of the meal he made, let the flavor distract you from how closely he was watching you now. He shifted beside you, and you knew it was only a matter of time before–

“How’s the Golden God doing, by the way…Totally forgot to ask.” Bob rolled his eyes, “You know you’ve got bloodwork today, and I know how much he looks forward to that.” He grimaced.

”D-Darn…I f-forgot that was today.”

“You always forget,” You mumbled between bites, mockingly stern in tone, “Even though we’ve had the same schedule for, what–eight months?”

“Nine,” He corrected, “You count too?”

“Only because I have to track your blood chemistry, Bob.” He gave you a crooked smile, “Stick around,” You said waving your fork at him, “Let me finish this delicious lunch and I’ll get everything set up.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He gave you a faux salute, backing off to give you space. You watched him for a moment out of the corner of your eye as he wandered slowly around the perimeter of the lab, hands in his pockets, shoulders soft beneath his hoodie.

Bob moved like someone who didn’t want to disturb anything. Not just the tools and data, but you–your space, your rhythm, your day. Even now, when he stopped in front of the containment dome, he didn’t lean close or peer in like most people would’ve. He just stood there, quietly watching.

The flower didn’t move. But the pulsing in its center seemed to slow, slightly. Steadying. As if recognizing something.

Bob tilted his head faintly.

But said nothing.

You finished your lunch in a few final bites, wiped your hands on a cloth, and pulled on a fresh pair of nitrile gloves.

“All right,” You called, walking over to the locked cabinet beside your centrifuge. “Time to sacrifice a little plasma for science.”

Bob grumbled playfully as he headed back toward the stool you always set aside for him during these sessions. “Sentry’s gonna make it d-difficult again. Last time you had to chase the vein for like five minutes.”

“Oh how could I forget,” You said playfully, drawing the phlebotomy kit from the drawer, “I’ve never met a God who’s afraid of needles. He flared your heart rate on purpose and kicked the adrenaline response. Your veins were literally jumping.” Bob winced at the memory and sighed.

”I-I don’t think he m-means to be a jerk a-about it.”

“No, he just is,” You turned with a teasing smile and raised your brow, “You listening in there Sentry, I called you a jerk.” A flicker of gold passed through Bob’s eyes, and his expression shifted just slightly. A pressure just beneath the surface of his calm exterior. You saw the way his jaw flexed. The way his breath caught on the edge of a heartbeat. It was gone just as fast as it appeared. You gestured to the stool.

”Alright, you know the drill.” Bob sighed and tugged his hoodie over his head with one hand, letting it fall across the nearby stool in a heap of worn fabric and static-charged threads.

Your breath caught for just a second–not that you’d ever admit it.

He was wearing a plain white t-shirt underneath. Simple, but it didn’t leave much to the imagination. The fabric clung in all the places that mattered: broad shoulders, a narrow waist, the gentle taper of his torso. His arms were sculpted, the muscle built from the serum and his own training he did on the side with Walker–solid biceps veined faintly beneath pale skin, his forearms thick and freckled with golden hairs. Even through the shirt, you could see the subtle rise of his chest when he breathed. His body wasn’t exaggerated or showy like some of the other enhanced agents. Bob’s strength was honest, clean and quiet. The kind that didn’t beg to be seen–just was. He sat on the stool, leaned slightly forward, and offered you his right arm without hesitation–palm up, wrist relaxed, fingers curling just slightly where they hung over the edge of your tray. As always, he was warm. Always a degree or two above everyone else. Like the Sentry lived just beneath the surface, pulsing against the skin.

You pulled your chair close and gently cradled his arm in one gloved hand, “You good?” He nodded, jaw ticking faintly.

”Sentry’s a-already getting stirred u-up.”

“I figured,” You murmured, swabbing the crook of his elbow with an alcohol pad, watching the way the fine blond hairs on his arm caught the light, “You twitched when I called him a jerk.” Bob exhaled a shallow breath, half-laugh, half-wince.

”Y-Yeah he–uh–didn’t like t-that.”

“Well, tell him to behave,” you said, voice softening as you spoke, instinctively adjusting your tone. You’d found, over time, that it wasn’t just what you said–but how. The Sentry didn’t respond well to authority. But he did respond to calm. To care. To you.

“I’m going to insert the needle now, okay?”

“Y-Yeah,” He said quietly, “Keep talking through the process, t-that would help.” You gave him a smile–genuine and soft.

“All right…Just a little pressure here…” You slipped the butterfly needle in with smooth, practiced hands, watching the dark blood flood into the first vial like a ribbon of garnet. He didn’t flinch. His fingers curled just slightly, but that was it. You could feel the tension in him, though–not fear, not even discomfort, really.

Just a heightened presence.

You always felt it when the Sentry was nearby. Like a third set of lungs had begun breathing somewhere in the room. Like the molecules in the air shifted their charge.

“I’m taking five tubes,” You said gently. “You’re doing fine. Your blood flow is nice and steady today.”

“Y-Yeah,” Bob said, watching you with his head slightly turned. His voice had dropped to something deeper. Thicker. “That’s because o-of you.”

You glanced up.

He blinked, quickly. “Your voice. It…I-It helps.” You kept working, carefully switching out the first full tube for the second, then the third, eyes flicking to him only briefly.

“I’ll take that as a compliment. Or a cosmic honor. One of the two.” That got a smile out of him, even if it was small. The rest of the draw passed in familiar quiet–soft beeping from your equipment, the slow, gentle swirl of the containment fans, the hum of the overhead lights. His blood was warm in your hands. You didn’t realize you were holding your breath until you reached the fifth tube and carefully capped it.

You retracted the needle in one smooth motion, placing it in the sharps container before gently pressing a cotton ball to the puncture site.

“Pressure here, please.”

Bob complied, two fingers resting lightly over the spot. You retrieved a bandage, peeled it open, and pressed it into place over the cotton. Your hand lingered a second longer than it needed to. His skin was flushed warm beneath your glove. He smelled faintly of cedar and limes, probably from his shampoo. Then you leaned back in your chair and gave him a mock-serious look.

“So,” You said, cocking your head, “Does Sentry want a lollipop for his troubles?”Bob groaned, dragging a hand down his face.

“D-Don’t get him riled up…” You laughed at the way his cheeks turned rosy again, as he attempted to hold back a smile, which failed.

”You sure?” You teased, “You don’t want me to pull out the glittery sticker chart?”

“W-We talked about this…He remembers t-things like that.” You both burst into soft laughter again, the kind that curled at the edges of your ribs and left everything just a little lighter.

And somewhere behind you, the flower twitched.

The petals shifted.

The pulse in its center matched his heartbeat.

But neither of you noticed.

——————

The next day, just after 2:00 p.m., the soft hiss of the lab doors made your head snap up again.

You were halfway through a long-winded notation on the flower’s latest chromatographic analysis when you heard the now-familiar rustle of footsteps and the unmistakable creak of someone cradling a takeout bag with too much care.

“Brought you lunch!” Bob announced.

He looked warm again–an oversized hoodie only blue this time, the same worn sweatpants from yesterday, and hair pulled back messily like he’d tied it in a rush. His free hand shoved deep into his pocket, but the other held a paper bag from a café you liked downtown. He wore the same small, crooked smile that made it difficult to think straight.

“Careful,” You warned playfully, turning in your seat to face him, “If you keep feeding me, I’ll start to expect this kind of treatment.”

Bob shrugged, walking in slow, casual steps toward your workstation. “M-might be worth it…Just to s-see you eat.”

You smiled at that–too caught up in the rare softness between you to notice the way the flower behind its containment dome had begun to stir.

Not much. Just a twitch of its outermost petals. A subtle change in the shimmer of its stamen. But you were facing Bob. You didn’t see the way it reacted to his voice.

“I-I got you the g-grain bowl you like. The one with roasted squash, the f-feta, that spicy vinaigrette you always try to recreate in your lab notebook–”

“I do not take vinaigrette notes in here,” You interjected, grinning.

Bob set the bag down gently on the corner of your cleared space shaking his head at you, glancing over at the dome just as the hum of your equipment shifted slightly. The air changed. Subtle, at first. Like something pressurizing behind glass.

He leaned over–only just–peering closer at the flower inside.

That was all it took.

The dome fogged instantly with a pale gold haze. Then–without warning–the containment glass shuddered with a sharp, pinging sound, like internal pressure had snapped a seal.

Then it ruptured.

The top of the cloche blew off with a muted pop, and a cloud of glittering golden dust erupted from the flower in a slow-motion burst. It expanded like fog, like breath in cold air–drifting, floating–straight into Bob’s face.

You froze for half a second. Then your instincts kicked in hard and fast.

“Shit—Bob!” You yelled, already leaping from your stool and hitting the emergency switch on the wall.

Red lights flashed as the isolation protocols kicked in. Vents slammed shut with a metallic clank, and the air filtration units hummed to life. Your console blinked through a security override as the lab sealed itself airtight. Your heart thudded in your chest like a drumbeat.

Bob had staggered back, coughing hard and pawing at his face, blinking rapidly. The golden dust coated his cheeks, his lashes, the curve of his nose, and clung to his stubble like cosmic pollen. It shimmered with a strange, otherworldly sheen–like it was alive, almost.

“Hey–hey–Bob, come here.” You grabbed him gently but firmly by the wrist, leading him toward the decontamination corner. “Don’t rub your eyes. Just come with me. You’re okay, just–just keep breathing.”

He nodded, still coughing, blinking fast. “I-it got in m-my face–feels like sand, b-but–s-sticky, maybe–” He stumbled slightly as you pushed the lever on the eyewash station.

“Lean in,” You ordered, voice steady. “Both hands on the sides. I’m gonna guide you.” You pressed the large silver button. The twin streams of water erupted instantly, and he hissed through clenched teeth as the cold hit. You steadied him, one hand braced on his lower back as he tilted forward.

”Keep blinking,” You instructed, “Get it flushed out. It’s probably just pollen but I can’t take chances, we still don’t know what that stuff is.”

“It’s–f-fine,” he said, spitting water out, breath hitching. “It doesn’t b-burn, just f-feels weird–” His voice was strained, breathless. You didn’t like the way his skin had started to pink at the edges, how the golden dust had clung even beneath his collar.

When the two-minute flush was over, you helped him lean back slowly, grabbing a towel from the stack nearby and pressing it gently to his face.

“We’re not done yet,” You said, pulling a second towel out and pressing it to the back of his neck. “Blow your nose. Three times. Then cough hard. I want that stuff out of your lungs if you inhaled any of it.”

He obeyed without protest, still coughing lightly between ragged breaths. The dust had left faint shimmer marks down the front of his hoodie, now slightly wet from the eyewash station. You reached over to the wall unit, flipped on the emergency fan array, and turned your console back toward manual override. The air slowly began to cycle through a localized carbon scrubbing system.

You turned back to him, grabbing a disposable cloth and wiping under his jaw, where a little gold still shimmered. His eyes were red-rimmed but clear. Breathing shallow, but not distressed.

You stepped back, hands braced on your hips, the overhead scrubbers humming louder now as the first cycle of filtered air began to push through the sealed lab.

Bob sat perched on the deacon bench, towel still clutched in his hands, his lashes dripping, cheeks damp, and glittered with flecks of gold the eyewash hadn’t quite cleared. He looked flushed–not sick, not distressed–just… warm. Lit from within, like something in him was beginning to glow. But you didn’t let yourself think about that.

Not yet.

“Are you okay?” You asked quietly, kneeling slightly so you were more at eye level with him, voice softening as you scanned his face for any irregularities. “Are you dizzy? Lightheaded? Anything weird?”

Bob blinked slowly, the water still dripping off the tips of his hair as he met your gaze.

“N-No…” He murmured, voice rough with lingering grit, “Just…Feel kinda like I s-snorted fairy dust.” He gave a weak little smile. “M-might be glowing in the dark now.”

You rolled your eyes and let out a half-relieved breath, giving him a playful–but firm–swat to the arm.

“This isn’t funny. You know we have to be in isolation for twenty-four hours now, right?”

Bob groaned, slumping back slightly against the bench. “Ugh. Great. Cool. L-love that.” You crossed your arms.

“We’re both trapped in here. With no way out. The lab is in full lockdown. Airlocked. Everything. Biocontainment protocol 9A.” He sighed, tilting his head toward you dramatically. “

It’s not like we don’t already spend the majority of our free time together or anything.” You narrowed your eyes.

“Don’t act like this is some cozy movie night. You almost got yourself pollinated into another dimension.” Your voice was softer now. More affectionate, more playful. Your gaze dropped briefly–to the faint shimmer still clinging to the edge of his collarbone–and that’s when you noticed it.

You looked down at yourself.

Tiny flecks of gold sparkled faintly across your sleeves, dusted across the dark wool of your sweater and even the collar of your lab coat. The stuff was finer than you thought–so fine you’d barely felt it settle.

“Shit.”

“What?” Bob asked, alarmed.

You pulled your lab coat off immediately, shrugging out of it and tossing it into the nearest biohazard bin. Your sweater followed next, leaving you in the tank top you had underneath–thin, breathable, already damp with nervous sweat. The cold air bit at your arms, but it was better than risking more exposure. You grabbed a clean disposable mask from the supply drawer and tugged it on.

“You got exposed?” Bob asked, sitting up straighter.

You gave him a wry look as you reached for a pair of gloves. “You think that cloud only wanted you?”

He flushed again and shifted where he sat. “S-Sorry…”

“Not your fault,” you said quickly. “You didn’t provoke it.”

Bob’s eyes slid to the corner of the lab where the flower still sat in its shattered dome, motionless now, but unmistakably altered–its petals twitching like cooling muscles, the last of the pollen still floating down like it hadn’t quite obeyed gravity yet.

You pointed to his hoodie.

“That’s gotta come off too.”

He blinked. “W-What?”

“Bob. Your hoodie is covered. You’re basically wearing a glitter bomb.”

“Oh…Right.” He looked down at himself and, reluctantly, peeled the hoodie off over his head, careful not to shake loose any more of the clinging dust. The fabric crackled softly as the static gave way. You moved forward with a biohazard bag already open and waiting.

“Drop it in,” you said, and he obeyed, his white T-shirt riding up slightly with the movement. You caught a glimpse of pale skin, faint golden freckles across his lower ribs, the subtle cut of his hip. You averted your eyes quickly, pretending not to notice.

But he noticed.

You didn’t speak for a beat.

Then:

“Okay,” you said, stepping back with the sealed bag in hand, “Contaminated clothing secured. Isolation timer has started. We’ve got twenty-four hours to kill and a potentially sentient flower that just gas-bombed the strongest man on Earth.”

Bob blinked at you, then gave the tiniest smirk.

“Th-this gonna be in the report?”

“Oh, absolutely,” You muttered, deadpan. “‘Subject A leaned into mysterious glowing flower. Subject B now has fairy glitter in her bra.’”

He laughed. Harder than you expected. The sound echoed softly in the sealed room and you let it hang there for a moment. Eventually his laughter faded, but the heat that was beginning to build in the lab didn’t.

It wasn’t just the tension between you anymore–it was physical. Palpable. You could feel it crawling along the inside of your spine like static. Your skin felt…Tight. Like your clothes were holding in too much warmth. Like the fabric of your tank top was suddenly too heavy in all the wrong places and far too light in others.

You shifted your weight from one leg to the other, hoping it would pass, but it didn’t.

Bob was still sitting on the bench, towel now draped loosely across his lap, chest rising and falling more steadily than before–but even from a few feet away, you could see the faint shine of sweat beginning to gather at the hollow of his throat.

You squinted slightly.

“Is it just me,” You said slowly, brushing a strand of hair off your neck, “Or is it…Hot in here?”

Bob lifted his head toward you, blinking slowly. His cheeks were still pink–flushed in that way people only got when they were either just out of a fever or just getting into something much more compromising.

“I-I thought it was just me,” He said, adjusting how he sat. “I figured the air filters w-weren’t moving much cool air yet. It’s… It’s an enclosed space, so…” He trailed off, eyes catching briefly on your arms, the exposed slope of your collarbone, and then darting away again, as if ashamed of the glance.

You nodded, trying to focus–but it was getting harder. Your tank top clung to the skin beneath your ribs like a second layer of sweat-dampened silk. You could feel the heat collecting at your lower back, a slow, stoked furnace of warmth that wasn’t just the room. Your breathing shifted slightly. Shallower.

There was a kind of pressure building behind your sternum. An ache–not painful, not sharp. Just…Present. Gnawing. Low in your belly. You cleared your throat.

“Do you feel weird?” You asked, keeping your voice as casual as you could. “Like… more than just warm? Any lightheadedness? Sensory changes?” Bob didn’t answer right away. His shoulders rolled back slowly, and his hand came up to drag across the back of his neck. You watched the way his palm moved over the sweat-damp strands of hair, the tension in his forearm, the way his biceps flexed just slightly under the tight stretch of cotton.

He wasn’t looking at you now. But his voice was quiet when he answered.

“M-My heart rate i-is up,” He admitted. “But I d-don’t feel sick. I just feel–” He stopped. Swallowed. Then: “Wound up. I-it’s like I’ve been waiting for something to happen and m-my body’s just trying to stay ahead of it.” You stared at him, hearing as he listed out the same symptoms you were feeling.

Then there was the ache again–twisting low and slow, enough to make you shift your thighs closer together without thinking. You noticed the way Bob’s eyes tracked the motion and immediately flicked away. His chest was rising faster now. His jaw clenched, breath audible through his nose. Something was happening. Something chemical, something hormonal. Something Induced.

You took a slow breath, then glanced at the ruined containment dome, the flower sitting quietly like nothing had happened. Its stamen pulsed gently, and the last wisps of pollen still hovered in the filtered air like gold-lit ghosts.

”You said it didn’t burn when the pollen hit…” You murmured, “Just felt weird…Right?” He nodded slowly, eyes flicking toward your face, then to your mouth, then away. You swallowed hard, wiping a bead of sweat off your forehead. ”How weird?”

Bob exhaled a shaky breath. His hands flexed against his thighs, fingers twitching.

“It just felt really…Light,” he rasped. “Like ash. N-Not like sand–softer. Barely even there. But now–” He trailed off, and when he looked at you, it was like being seen for the first time. His pupils were blown wide, only a thin ring of ocean-blue clinging to the edge. His voice lowered.

“Now I feel like my skin is on fire. L-Like I’m burning…And everything’s so damn sensitive. I c-can’t stop–” His voice cracked, “–I can’t stop looking at you.” Your breath caught. The ache between your legs deepened sharply, twisting upward through your belly like someone had plucked a string that now hummed through your bones. The realization slammed into you with full force. The heat. The ache. The scent. The shimmer. The reaction.

Fuck. You staggered backward from the bench slightly and slapped your hand down on the comm panel by the edge of your lab table, hitting the line for Bucky.

“Come on, come on, pick up–”

“Yeah?” Bucky’s voice crackled over the line. “What’s up?”

“Bucky,” You said, trying to steady your breathing. “Where exactly were you when you found that flower? Be specific. What were the surroundings?”

“I told you, it was near the tree line,” He answered, confused. “On the way back from the ridge. Why?”

“Was there anything else? Anything that stood out?”

There was a pause. Then, “Uh…There was kind of a–garden? Like, a bunch of them. Just a whole patch. Maybe fifty or sixty, I dunno, they were all clumped together.”Another pulse of heat ripped through your core, and you clenched your thighs, biting back a soft, involuntary groan. You half-collapsed, catching yourself on the table edge before sliding down the side of it, pressing your forehead into your forearm.

“Where were they, Bucky?” You grit out through clenched teeth. “Was there a lab? A compound? A goddamn marker on the ground–anything?”

“What? Y/N, I don’t–wait, there was a lab…But it wasn’t even close. Maybe two miles east of it. Looked abandoned. You think it’s connected?”

“Jesus Christ,” you muttered, voice rough, stomach clenching. Your vision was starting to blur around the edges. “That’s not wild growth, Buck. That’s a planted field. That was cultivated. You brought me a fucking bioweapon.”

There was silence.

Bob had shifted, and when you looked up, he was no longer on the bench. He had crouched behind one of the heavy lab tables on the far end of the room, head bowed, palms braced hard against the floor like he was praying—or like he was trying to hold himself together.

“I-it’s getting worse,” he called out, voice hoarse and echoing faintly off the tile. “I—I can feel it in my hands, my back—like I’m buzzing from the inside out. You need to go to another room, Y/N. Please. I don’t—I don’t know what’s going to happen—”

“There is no other room,” you snapped, clutching your own torso, fingers digging into your tank top like it could peel the sensation off your skin. “We’re sealed in. Remember? Isolation. Twenty-four hours.”

You turned back to the comm, swallowing back the pulse building low in your belly. “Bucky, something happened in that lab. This isn’t just a flower. It’s engineered—enhanced. There’s pheromone manipulation in the pollen. Maybe synthetic hormones. We both got exposed.”

“What kind of exposure?”

You hesitated.

Then you exhaled shakily, voice lowering. “The worst kind. I think it’s… I think it’s sex pollen, Bucky.”

A beat of stunned silence on the other end. Then:

“…You’re shitting me.”

“I wish I was,” you hissed, grinding the heel of your hand into your temple, heart pounding. “And unless I get a suppressant cocktail in the next thirty minutes, I’m going to lose it.”

“What about Bob?”

You turned your head just slightly toward where Bob was crouched, shaking. His knuckles had gone white.

“He’s already losing it,” You whispered.

“What do you need me to do?”

“Nothing,” you said, too fast. “Just…We’re locked in for twenty-four hours. There’s nothing anyone can do. Just… Just keep the others out. Don’t let anyone near the door.”

There was a long pause. Then Bucky’s voice dropped.

“Y/N. What exactly happened in there?”

You clenched your jaw and gave the only answer you could.

“I’ll tell you if we survive it.” Then you hung up the comm, bracing your hands on your knees as the ache spread like wildfire across your thighs, your chest, the hollow between your hips. Everything was overstimulated–fabric too rough, air too dry, skin too tight.

And then there was Bob.

You looked up slowly, panting now, vision swimming with heat and color. You could barely see his face in the shadow of the bench, but you heard his voice.

“I-It’s in me,” he said quietly. “Whatever it is. I can feel it in m-my blood. My skin feels like it’s too small. I’m–I’m shaking. I c-can’t stop it.” His breath hitched, voice breaking apart. “I can smell you. I c-can hear your heart. I can feel every molecule in this goddamn r-room. God, what is this stuff?” You were already dragging yourself across the floor, crawling on hands and knees to the nearest storage cabinet, yanking open drawers for anything–anything–that might help regulate internal chemistry. You were half-crazed with heat, sweat dripping between your shoulder blades, your whole body lit up like it had been set on fire from the inside.

“Okay,” you muttered, teeth clenched. “We’re gonna–we’re gonna figure this out. Just don’t come near me, Bob. Not yet.”

You couldn’t see him now, but you heard the thick, wet swallow from where he hid behind the bench.

“I w-won’t,” He rasped. “But…If you don’t figure it out soon…” His voice was barely audible now. “…I d-don’t know if I’m gonna b-be able to stop myself.” The words weren’t loud. They weren’t cruel. But they hit you like a blow to the chest. A sharp pulse rippled through your core–your muscles tensed like a wire had snapped in your belly. The ache between your legs twisted again, hot and hungry, and a broken sound escaped your lips before you could stop it.

A whimper. Soft, shaken, and needy.

”Shut up,” You gasped, your voice hoarse with panic and arousal, hand bracing against the cabinet, “Just…Stop talking, Bob please…Your voice. Fuck sake.” Another wave of heat surged under your skin like a current of electricity. You curled slightly into yourself, arms trembling, every breath catching high in your throat.

“I–I’m sorry,” Bob groaned from across the room, his voice cracking with guilt and something far darker. You heard him shift, heard the thump of his back hit the cabinet behind him like he’d braced himself against it, like he couldn’t trust his limbs to obey. He let out a loud breath, shuddering.

”G-God, I’m–I’m sorry, I c-can’t even think straight–“ His voice broke on the last word, thick with restraint. You dragged open another drawer with shaking fingers, rummaging through cold metal and sterile pouches, tossing one after the other to the side. Glucose packs. Emergency syringes. No suppressants. No hormonal regulators. Nothing for this kind of exposure.

Your vision blurred as your stomach clenched again. You could feel sweat beading at the base of your spine, making your tank top stick like a second skin. You couldn’t stop panting. Couldn’t stop trembling.

”Fuck…” You hissed, almost on the brink of sob. You slammed the drawer shut with a metallic clang, the sound too loud, echoing in the sealed lab like it was mocking you. ”I can’t–I-I can’t find anything.” You wheezed, voice cracking. You braced your hands on the cold tile, heart pounding so hard you could feel it in your teeth.

The need was crawling over your skin like insects. Every breath was friction. Every shift of your body felt like dragging yourself through static. Your nipples were tight beneath your tank top, aching. You could feel your own pulse in places it didn’t belong.

“Shit–shit,” You whispered, eyes welling with frustrated tears. “Oh my god.”

Behind the bench, Bob made a low, strangled noise.

A grunt. Guttural. Desperate.

You couldn’t see him.

But you didn’t need to.

Because you could feel him.

You could feel the way the air changed when he moved. You could feel the ripple of heat that seemed to follow the sound of his voice. And worst of all–you could feel your body answering it.

Every cell in you was lit up with something heavy and humming. Something wild. Something designed.

You curled forward against the floor, pressing your forehead into your arm. You were panting now–wheezing, almos-trying to hold on. Trying not to cry.

You didn’t hear him crawl over, not until it was too late. Your breath was ragged, and your vision was swimming–and then warmth touched your arm. A large hand. Familiar. It closed over your bicep–but it lit your nerves on fire. You jerked away violently, scrambling back on instinct, collapsing onto your ass with a gasp. Your palm slammed against the tile and you skidded slightly, breath hitching as you spat out–

“Don’t touch me!” Your voice cracked, sharp and wet with panic. The motion made your spine arch, your tank top riding up slightly as your hip knocked into a rolling stool, the metal clattering away. Bob’s eyes widened in horror, hand halfway outstretched like it had betrayed him. He dropped to both knees in front of you instantly, not touching, but close enough for you to feel the warmth coming off his body like a wave.

“Y/N–” He breathed, his voice hoarse, chest heaving, “Y/N I-I feel it too, I p-promise. I feel everyth-ing” His hand hovered near your shoulder again, hesitant. Then, slowly, gently, he reached behind your neck, cradling it with a trembling touch. His fingers were hot against your skin, too hot. “Look at me. W-We’ll be okay. We’ll be o-okay.” You shook your head, lip quivering as the tears came faster now. Not the kind you could hide or blink away–these ones slid heavy and helpless down your cheeks, pooling at the corners of your mouth. You were trembling all over, shoulders shaking, thighs clenching without relief.

”I-I feel like I’m dying,” You whispered, voice raw, “Fuck, Bob it’s so painful.” He nodded once, his face contorting with shared agony, as his hand slipped from the back of your neck to your jaw, like he couldn’t decide whether to hold you or let go.

“I-I know,” He rasped, his other hand gripping his thigh so hard it shook, “I-I’m burning from the inside out. I can smell y-you…I can s-smell everything–“ You swallowed, chest rising in short, hard jerks. Because so could you.

His scent was all over the room now. Thick and devastating. It rolled over you in waves—heat-warmed cedarwood, sweat, and something deeper. Instinctual. Masculine. Not cologne. Not soap. Something completely and totally him. A biological beckoning, chemical and holy and blinding.

It made your thighs twitch and your breath break.

And your own scent…You could smell it, too. Like heat-glazed citrus and clean skin. Something golden and heavy, threaded with notes of sun-warmed vanilla and fresh-cut stems. Like the wild edge of spring. It filled your nostrils, clung to your skin, hung in the air between you like a dare.

Bob’s eyes fluttered, jaw clenching again. He let out a low grunt, like the effort of staying still was costing him something visceral. His voice cracked as he spoke.

“I-Isn’t there…a-any way we can stop this f-from getting worse?” You didn’t want to say it, you really didn’t. But the truth came out anyway, scraped and raw from your throat.

”Only if…” You swallowed. Your tongue felt too thick in your mouth, “Only if we have sex…” The words dropped like a stone.

Bob’s breath hitched so hard it almost sounded like a choke. His throat bobbed, and he blinked down at you, eyes wild and dilated, dark lashes damp with sweat and desperation.

There was a pause–long and shaking.

Then, softly:

“W-Would it be t-that bad if…If we did?”

You flinched. Just barely. The air stilled, vibrating between you. And then you shook your head slowly, tears welling again–not from heat this time, but from something deeper.

“I really didn’t want our first time together being l-like this.”

That stopped him cold. All the breath punched out of him in a single exhale. His lips parted, but nothing came out. His hand fell away from your jaw like it had been burned. His whole posture shifted–still close, but paralyzed with guilt.

You looked away.

Because if you looked at him now–if you looked into that face, flushed and desperate and filled with longing–you’d give in. Your breath hitched sharply—twice—before you folded forward on a gasp, one hand clutching your lower stomach like it might soothe the throbbing pulse building between your legs.

“God,” you choked out, voice breaking. “Oh my god, I—I can’t fucking take it.”

The ache had bloomed into something unbearable—wet and slick and throbbing through your core with every heartbeat. You were drenched, panties stuck to you, heat radiating off your skin like you were about to combust. Across from you, Bob made a strangled sound, his fists tight on his thighs, chest heaving as he forced shallow breaths through his nose—like if he didn’t, he might do something reckless.

“I c-can’t smell you,” He whispered, more to himself than to you. “I–I can’t smell you–I can’t–”

But he could. You both could. Your scent was everywhere–sweet and sharp and thick with want. It hung in the air between you like perfume, like bait, and you knew it was driving him mad.

You twitched again as another rush of slick gushed between your thighs and a broken moan slipped past your lips–soft, needy, involuntary. Your eyes squeezed shut as your hand pressed harder against your stomach, trying to contain it.

But it was useless.

“I can’t–fuck, I can’t take it–” You gasped, and before you could stop yourself, you were lunging forward.

You grabbed his face with both hands–hot, flushed skin beneath your palms–and crushed your mouth to his like it was the only thing keeping you alive.

It wasn’t a kiss.

It was a collision.

A mess of lips and teeth and spit.

You moaned into his mouth the second you felt him gasp beneath you–his lips parting wide in helpless surrender, his hands flying to your waist like magnets. The second he touched you, it was over. You melted into him, mouths sliding and sucking and devouring with sloppy, panting need.

Spit slicked your chin, his chin, your mouths, your skin. It dripped down between you as your lips broke and reconnected over and over in increasingly desperate, wet smacks. His tongue slid against yours, hungry and hot, and you whimpered into the kiss like your whole body was unraveling.

His hands squeezed your hips, hard–fingertips digging in, dragging you toward him roughly until your knees bumped his thighs and your chest hit his. You felt the tremble in him, felt the heat pouring off his body as he let out a low, feral grunt into your mouth, like he was trying to hold himself together and failing.

You pulled back just an inch, breath catching in your throat as a strand of spit still connected your lips, both of you panting so hard it echoed in the sealed lab.

“Fuck–” He gasped, chasing your mouth again, not even giving you time to respond before crashing back into the kiss, even hungrier this time. “You taste like–God–l-like sunlight–like h-honey–fuck, I can’t–can’t stop–”

“Don’t,” You moaned, sliding your tongue into his mouth again, letting it tangle with his, swallowing his sounds, his heat, his everything. “Don’t stop. Please. Don’t stop.” Your fingers tangled in his hair, yanking at the damp curls as his hands roamed, gripping your waist so tightly it made you whine. He guided you into his lap without thinking, until your knees straddled his thighs and your body pressed flush to his. You could feel everything–the twitch of his erection beneath the thin fabric of his sweatpants, the way his breath hitched when your hips brushed his, the way his hands couldn’t stop moving–gripping, sliding, needing. Every inch of you was pressed tight to him, and he felt all of it. The heat. The wetness. The hunger.

”G-God…” He gasped, his head dropping to your shoulder for a split second, voice thick, “I c-can’t–can’t stop–need…Need something–“ And then his hands flexed, dragging you forward–against him. You cried out, the sound strangled and high as he rocked your hips into his, grinding you against the thick line of his cock through his sweatpants. The friction sent a lightning bolt through your core, and your whole body spasmed in response, clutching at his shoulders as the contact jolted through your nerves.

“Oh–God–” You moaned, tearing your mouth from his as your head tipped back, spine arching. “Oh fuck–do that again–” He didn’t even answer. Just groaned–loud, filthy–and rolled your hips again. Rougher. Harder. Enough that your soaked panties dragged hot and slick over the outline of him, soaking into the soft cotton of his clothes and yours.

You clung to him, nails digging into his shoulders as your thighs trembled on either side of his lap. Your hands found his hair and tugged–hard–and he moaned so deeply it vibrated through your ribs. His mouth trailed down to your jaw, your throat, open-mouthed kisses dragging over sweat-slick skin. His tongue was everywhere–greedy and reverent–and then you felt him kiss the top of your chest, right along the edge of your tank top.

You were panting, shaking, drenched in sweat and arousal. You couldn’t stop grinding down against him now, couldn’t stop chasing that friction as you rolled your hips again and again, letting your swollen heat drag along his cock in slow, devastating passes. The pressure built fast, sharp and aching, pulsing low in your belly with every movement.

Bob’s mouth trembled where it kissed just below your collarbone. His fingers slipped up your sides, shaky but sure–and then they hooked under the thin straps of your tank top.

“P-Please–” He rasped, looking up at you like he was about to fall apart. “Can I—can I see you?”

You nodded, breathless. “Yes. God, yes.”

He didn’t wait. He dragged the straps down your arms, kissing the slope of your shoulder as they slipped, one by one. Then he tugged the neckline down–slow, desperate–and bared your breasts to the heavy, sweat-damp air.

The second your nipples were exposed, he let out a groan–a sound so broken, it barely sounded human. His eyes glazed with worship, with hunger.

And then his mouth was on you.

He wrapped his lips around one tight, aching nipple and moaned–like he was dying for the taste of you. His tongue flicked, sucked, lapped, over and over, and you cried out, hips jerking uncontrollably in his lap as you rutted down against him.

“Oh my god–Bob–“ You gasped, fingers burying in his hair, yanking him closer, needier. “That–fuck–you’re so good…” He didn’t stop. If anything, he got more desperate. His tongue traced circles around your nipple, sucking it deeper into his mouth with each slow pull of his lips. One of his hands gripped your ass, guiding your hips faster against his erection, grinding you down until your whole body was quivering.

“Y-You’re so warm,” He panted between kisses. “So soft–God–“ And then he took the other nipple between his lips, just as eager, just as mindless. His tongue licked a long, slow stripe across the swell of your breast and you sobbed at the contact, your whole body arching into him. Bob groaned around your nipple one last time before pulling off with a wet pop, his mouth red and slick with spit. His eyes were blown wide, pupils so dilated there was barely any blue left–but there was something else swimming behind them too, something ancient, hungry, waiting to surface. His breath caught in his throat as he leaned in close, nudging your jaw with his nose, mouth grazing your cheek. Then suddenly–

He surged forward.

Your back hit the cold tile in one fluid motion, the breath punching out of your lungs as he guided you down with firm hands, mouth still dragging across your chest. The contrast between the icy floor and the furnace of your skin made you cry out softly, arching up into his touch.

“Bob–” You gasped, but your words cut off with a moan as his hands slipped low, gripping the waistband of your pants and underwear in one practiced motion.

“L-Lift your hips,” He instructed–voice rough and tight with restraint. You obeyed instantly, and he peeled both garments down your legs in a single fluid movement, baring you to the air, to him, to everything.

Your thighs quivered as the rush of cool air met the wet heat between them. You leaned up, grabbed the hem of your tank top, and tore it over your head. It hit the floor behind you just as Bob stripped off his shirt–his chest gleaming with sweat, muscles flexing, dusted with faint gold shimmer and a constellation of freckles across his collarbones.

You barely had a second to breathe before he dropped between your thighs again, mouth finding yours in a kiss so urgent and deep it knocked your head back against the tile. It was messier now–hotter, more desperate, his tongue fucking into your mouth with wild hunger.

Then he broke away just far enough to speak.

“I-I’m going to c-crawl on my fucking knees,” He growled, “And you’re gonna spread those thighs wider for me, and let me eat you until you come on my tongue.”You arched up with a moan, hips twitching off the floor. Your hands reached for him blindly, pulling at his shoulders as he trailed kisses down your throat, your chest, your ribs.

“I need you so fucking bad,” He whispered, his voice darker now–lower, smoother. The stutter was gone.

You blinked through the haze, the heat, the sweat clinging to your lashes–and that’s when you saw it. The eyes. Not Bob’s soft blue. Gold. Molten.

“Sentry,” You whispered, breath catching.

But you didn’t stop him.

You didn’t want to.

His teeth scraped gently along your stomach, sending electric pulses through your nerves, and then he kissed the inside of your hip bones like he was worshipping an altar.

“You smell so fucking sweet,” He murmured, nose dragging through the crease where your thigh met your core, voice reverent and filthy all at once. “I can’t wait to have a taste.” You sobbed his name as your thighs opened wider for him, your body obeying without question. He slid his hands beneath you, lifting your hips off the floor, draping your thighs over his shoulders–his palms spreading across your lower back to anchor you in place.

“Look at you,” He groaned, lips brushing against your soaked folds without yet tasting. “You’re drenched…You’re so fucking wet I can see it drip.”

Then he leaned in.

And licked a slow, devastating stripe up your center.

You choked on a scream. Your hips jerked hard against his mouth, and his arms tightened around your thighs, holding you down as his tongue moved again–sloppier this time. Messier. Hungrier. He licked into you like he was starving. Long, deep strokes. Quick flicks. Circles around your swollen clit that had you crying out his name.

“God, fuck–yes–”

You gripped his hair hard, yanking at the sweat-damp strands, and he groaned like he liked it–no, loved it. The vibration of the sound against your core made your whole body shake.

“You taste like summer, like heat, like stars.” He moaned. “Absolutely fucking sinful.” He pulled back only long enough to look at you, his mouth wet, chin dripping with slick.

“I can’t wait to make you come on my tongue,” He growled.

And then he dove back in.

Tongue sliding flat against your clit, then swirling, sucking it into his mouth with slow, rhythmic pulls that made your vision blur. You cried out, grinding into his face, your hands clutching his hair, your whole body vibrating with sensation.

“P-Please–” you whimpered, barely able to breathe, “Please don’t stop–”

He didn’t.

He licked and sucked and groaned like you were his favorite meal, like he could do this for hours. His hands gripped your ass, dragging you tighter to his mouth, keeping you from squirming away.

You were going to come.

It was building fast–tight and white-hot and burning like it had nowhere else to go. You were right on the edge when–

He slipped one thick finger inside you.

You let out a loud gasp. It wasn’t pain–it was too much. Too good. The stretch, the pressure, the way his mouth never stopped moving.

“That’s it,” He murmured against your clit. “Take my fingers…Just like that…You’re so tight, fuck…I’m imagining how you’re going to take me.”

You clenched around him, and he groaned again–louder this time–and slid a second finger in, stretching you open. His fingers curled up, rubbing slow, teasing strokes into that perfect, devastating spot. Your walls fluttered, your thighs trembled.

“Oh god, oh god–”

“Come for me,” He growled. “Right now. Let me feel you.”

And he sped up.

Fingers pumping hard, mouth sucking your clit with filthy precision. You sobbed his name, your back arched clean off the tile, and you shattered.

The orgasm ripped through you like fire, like lightning–your thighs locking around his head, your hands gripping his hair as you wailed through it.

He didn’t stop.

Not when you cried out.

Not when you begged.

He kept sucking, licking, fucking his fingers into you as your body convulsed.

Your body was still twitching when he pulled his fingers free–slick and trembling, your core fluttering from aftershocks as he slowly sat back on his heels.

His chin was soaked. His lips swollen. His eyes–those molten, god-touched eyes–burned down the length of your naked body like sunlight through stained glass.

“I should feel sated,” He murmured, voice too calm for the storm coiled in his chest. “I should be full from what I’ve just taken.”He leaned in. Slowly. Pressed one open-mouthed kiss to your thigh, then another–hot and reverent, just shy of your folds. His breath dragged over you, still sensitive, and it made you whimper.

“But I’m not,” He said low, his nose skimming up the inside of your leg as he worked his way toward your face. “I’m still starving.”

You were trying to breathe, but it wasn’t easy. Not with your pulse echoing in your throat, not with the ache between your legs still pulsing with the memory of his tongue, and certainly not with him looking at you like that.

“I’ve waited…So long to taste you.”

His voice was velvet heat–slick with need, rich with something that throbbed like want and worship tangled together.

He braced a hand on either side of your head as he crawled up over you, hair wild around his face, sweat glistening on the slopes of his shoulders and chest. The weight of him caged you in. It wasn’t heavy–it was all-consuming.

You reached up with a trembling hand and cupped his face. His skin was flushed, warm and slick, his jaw tight as though holding back something enormous.

“I can still feel you,” You whispered, voice raw. “On my mouth. On my thighs. Inside me.”

He smiled at that–but it wasn’t gentle.

It was hunger.

“You’ll feel me even more soon.”His hand found your jaw, thumb brushing your lower lip, and his gaze flicked down–watching the way your mouth parted for him instinctively. He leaned in again, voice now a whisper of thunder against your cheek, “Imagine what it’s going to be like when I fuck you…” Your hips bucked helplessly beneath him, but he only smirked, catching them with a firm palm.

“Sentry,” You gasped, voice trembling as your thighs clenched under the weight of him, “P-Please. God—don’t you feel it too?!”

His nose brushed yours, breath hot against your cheek. He didn’t answer at first–just let that small, dangerous smile curl across his lips, teeth barely catching his lower lip before he released it.

“Of course I feel it,” He murmured, hips dragging downward, grinding his clothed cock into your slick heat. “It’s everywhere in me. In my chest, in my spine, my teeth.” His voice dropped to a darker pitch, and the gold in his eyes flared one last time before dimming. “I-I just know I’m going to get what I-I need…

Bob sat back on his knees between your spread thighs, hands sliding slow and sure down his stomach to the waistband of his sweatpants. “I-I already came once just from eating you out,” He confessed, voice timid now, “I t-think I have more in me…”

Then he tugged the sweatpants down.

Your breath stuttered in your throat.

His erection sprang free, flushed dark and glistening at the tip, already slick with the evidence of his earlier release. A thick bead of cum sat heavy at the crown, dripping slowly down the curve of his shaft, and your whole body twitched at the sight of it. The raw, shameless arousal surged in your belly like wildfire.

“Fuck–” You whispered, pupils blown wide.

He was beautiful. Veined and heavy and so hard it twitched with every breath. You couldn’t stop yourself. Your hand moved without thought–licking your palm once, slow and deliberate, before wrapping your fingers around him.

Bob groaned immediately–deep. His head dropped forward, curls swinging around his jaw, and his hips bucked into your touch as your hand slid down the length of him in a slow, sticky stroke. His cock throbbed in your grip. Hot. Pulsing.

“Mmmf–fuck,” He growled, the sound rattling against the walls. He dropped one hand down to your thigh to steady himself, the other bracing behind him as you worked him with your slick hand–up and down, tight and wet and slow, like you wanted to savor every second.

His breath came out in sharp pants, his face flushed, his eyes fluttering shut as your thumb rubbed just beneath the swollen head, gathering that leaking slick and spreading it over his cock.

“God, I didn’t even have to touch you and you came.” You whispered,

“That’s what y-you do to me,” he gasped, voice shaking. “I couldn’t help it—god, I couldn’t fucking help it—” He surged forward, kissing you hard, and you moaned against his mouth as his hips began to stutter forward, chasing the motion of your hand with every pass.

It was hot, the way he kissed you–messy. His mouth was open, panting against yours, lips dragging along your tongue, teeth grazing your bottom lip before sucking it into his mouth with a wet pop. He moaned into you with every stroke of your hand, deep in his chest, growling like it hurt not to move faster.

He kissed like he was about to fall apart in your arms.

Like he wanted to ruin you and thank you at the same time.

And you could feel it–he was close again. Already.

“G-God–don’t stop–don’t stop–” he choked out, hips bucking into your grip, his cock twitching hard in your palm.

Then his mouth tore from yours with a ragged moan, his body going rigid as he came–again.

Thick ropes of cum spilled across your stomach in hot, wet spurts–slicking your skin, painting the swell of your belly in messy, sticky heat. Bob cried out, breath catching, his hand clutching your thigh hard enough to leave fingerprints as his hips jerked against your hand one last time.

You watched it all, feeling it dripping down your skin. You slowed your hand, and then looked up at him. His eyes were fluttered closed. His mouth hung open, panting raggedly. His cheeks were red and damp with sweat, hair curling against his temples in loose, disheveled strands.

And then–

You ran your fingers through the puddle of cum on your stomach.

Bob’s eyes snapped open.

He watched, transfixed, as you dragged two fingers slowly through the mess he left on you–slicking them up, glossy with white.

Then you brought them to your mouth.

And sucked them clean.

He groaned–low and guttural, more animal than man. He surged forward and kissed you, hard–his mouth hot and open, tongue licking into yours like he needed to taste what you’d just tasted.

And when he pulled back–just barely–he looked drunk. Starved. His voice was hoarse, reverent.

“W-We taste so g-good together,” He whispered.

You whimpered, eyes wide and glassy.

And then your voice broke.

“I need you inside me.”

His breath hitched sharply. His eyes searched your face like a prayer–like he needed to make sure this wasn’t just the pollen, wasn’t just chemical.

But your body told him everything he needed to know. The slick between your thighs. The tremble in your voice. The way your legs fell open without fear. He saw your hand reaching for him–trembling, open, desperate–and instead of just taking it, he kissed it.

One slow kiss to your palm. Then your wrist. Then each fingertip in turn, reverent and breath-warmed. His eyes didn’t leave yours, even when his lips brushed the soft pads of your fingers. It felt like something sacred.

“I-I’m yours, Y/N…” He whispered, his voice wrecked–hoarse and honeyed, lined with awe. “All yours.”

Your chest trembled. Not from the pollen. Not from the heat. From the weight of it–his words, his body, his need. You brought your other hand to his cheek, touching the sweat-slick curve of his face, thumb stroking over his flushed skin.

“You’re burning up,” You whispered.

“So are you,” He breathed back.

But the ache had shifted now. It was lower. Thicker. No longer frantic. Just heavy. Full. Demanding.

His lips met yours again–slow this time, almost trembling. Not chasing. Not crashing. Just pressing. Full and warm. Your mouths moved in sync, deeper with every pass, until he adjusted his weight above you, one forearm braced beside your head while the other hand snaked down to your thigh.

His fingers curled around the underside of it, tugging you closer until your legs wrapped around him again and your slick heat pressed against his length. He groaned into your mouth at the contact.

“G-God, Y/N,” He muttered, dragging his mouth down to your throat, kissing the line of your pulse. “You’re s-still dripping. I can feel it–so hot, so wet for me…”

His hand shifted, reaching between your bodies. He stroked himself once. Twice. The glide was obscene, slick with both your arousal and his release from before. He cursed low under his breath–voice strained with restraint–and guided the thick head of his erection to your entrance. Then–he paused, letting his forehead press to yours, his nose brushing yours as he whispered

“T-Tell me you want it.”

”I want you, Bob,” You breathed, “I’ve wanted you for so long…Please I want you inside me.” You begged, almost on the brink of tears just from the sheer anticipation that wracked through your body. He let out a long sigh and slid in, with such slowness you felt your whole body tense up.

You both gasped at the same time–loud, broken, raw. Your back arched and your thighs locked tighter around him as he pushed forward, inch by inch, stretching you wide with the thick, pulsing heat of him. He groaned above you, mouth falling open as your walls clenched around him, impossibly wet and tight.

“Oh–f-fuck…” He stuttered, his voice cracking like it couldn’t contain the feeling. “You feel…God…You feel like…Like e-everything.”

You whined under him, nails scraping lightly across his back. Every inch dragged through you like it was carved for you–hot, thick, filling. It was too much and not enough at once.

“You’re stretching me so good,” You gasped, voice shaking. “Bob–go slow–I wanna feel all of it.” He obeyed, hips moving with devastating care, sinking into you until he bottomed out, fully seated, buried to the hilt. The moan that left your mouth was guttural. His wasn’t any better. It came from deep in his chest–an animal sound, trembling and wrecked.

He stayed still inside you, just for a moment, just to feel everything, just to breathe.

Your chest rose beneath him in shuddering gasps, your nails pressing into the flex of his back as your hips trembled beneath the weight of him. He was deep–so deep it was hard to breathe–but it wasn’t painful. It was perfect. Like a lock clicking into place after too many years of holding the wrong key.

His forehead dropped to yours, your sweat-slick skin sticking where it touched, his breath ragged and hot against your cheek. His arms trembled faintly from the restraint, from the fire still licking through his blood, from the unholy grip of your body around him. His hands slid slowly from the curve of your thigh up to your waist, his thumbs brushing over your hips as if memorizing them. One hand trailed higher, tracing the line of your ribs, his touch light, soothing, trembling.

”You feel–“ He choked on the words, voice wrecked and shaking, “–Like…L-Like you were made for every inch of m-me.” Your fingers dug into his shoulders as your back arched slightly, hips shifting. The movement made him twitch deep inside you, and the sound he let out was hoarse and broken. Your lips brushed his, breath mingling.

“I need you to move,” you whispered. “Please, Bob. I need you to–”

He cut you off with a kiss.

Not desperate. Not wild. Just deep. Intentional. His lips dragged against yours in slow, soft strokes, his tongue slipping into your mouth like a secret. You kissed him back with a whimper, your hands cupping his face, fingers sliding into the damp curls at the base of his neck.

Then he started to move.

Slow at first.

A long, slow withdrawal that had your breath catching in your throat, followed by a deep, steady thrust that made you moan into his mouth. His hips rocked forward again, harder this time, but still slow. Still deliberate. Still savoring.

You felt every inch.

And he felt everything.

Your slick heat around him. The way your body welcomed him, tightened for him, trembled from the fullness. He moved like he wanted to stay inside you forever–long strokes that dragged through you with devastating patience, hips grinding at the end of each thrust like he wanted to feel the slick press of your clit against his skin.

He kissed you between thrusts–messy, wet kisses that dragged across your jaw, your cheek, your mouth again. His lips caught your whimpers. His tongue tasted your gasps. He moaned into your mouth when you clenched around him.

And then–

His hand slid up your chest, broad and warm, until his palm cupped the base of your throat. Not tight. Not forceful. Just there. Anchoring. Feeling the frantic flutter of your pulse beneath his fingers like it was the most sacred thing he’d ever touched.

“You’re burning,” He whispered, lips dragging across your cheek, your jaw, the corner of your mouth. “S-So warm…So soft…So alive…”

His hips rolled again, slow but deep, pressing into you until your breath stuttered beneath his palm. Your body arched into him helplessly, your thighs wrapping tighter around his waist, your mouth parting on a moan that he caught with a kiss–hot, slick, and panting. He swallowed it greedily.

The pressure of his hand on your throat didn’t restrict. It grounded. Like he needed to feel your heartbeat just to believe this was real.

You whimpered, and he pulled back enough to look at you–his curls dripping sweat, his lips swollen and damp, and those eyes, half-lidded and molten gold at the edges.

“G-God, I could be inside you forever,” he rasped, voice trembling like the words themselves threatened to undo him. “I–I never want to l-leave this. Never wanna stop feeling you like this…”

Another thrust–this one deeper, grinding. Your head dropped back with a gasp.

“Bob–” You sobbed his name like it was the only word you remembered, your fingers twisting hard in his hair. He groaned, deep and wrecked, his hips stuttering slightly as you tugged, his body responding like you’d yanked something primal out of him. His mouth found yours again, frantic and hot, tongue flicking into your mouth with messy, desperate hunger.

Then he pulled back just enough to see your face–flushed, dewy with sweat, eyes glassy and wide.

“Y-You’re close again,” He murmured, like it was something holy. His hand still cradled your throat lightly, thumb stroking gently beneath your jaw as he pressed his forehead to yours, “I–I can feel it, you’re tightening every time I move–you’re doing so good for me Y/N.” You whimpered beneath him, your hands clutching at his back, at his shoulders, pulling him deeper, harder, anything–

“I’ve got you,” He whispered, rocking into you again, the friction slow and devastating. “Let go for me. Come around me. I wanna feel it. I wanna feel you fall apart.”

You moaned–high and soft and broken.

“That’s it,” he breathed, voice breaking. “Just like that. You’re doing so good—G-God–you’re so perfect.” Your thighs shook around his hips. His hand slid down from your throat to your chest, splaying wide over your sternum, as if he could feel the orgasm building beneath your ribs. His other hand slipped to your hip, holding you still as he gave one slow, deep thrust that hit the exact spot that made your vision blur.

Your mouth dropped open in a cry.

“Come for me,” He begged, hips rolling again, steady and relentless. “Please–I wanna feel you–let me feel you come around me–”

You shattered.

Your back arched off the floor, your breath catching in a series of sobbed gasps as the orgasm ripped through you. He kept moving, kept whispering praise through your climax, voice ragged with awe.

“That’s it…That’s it, Y/N…You’re so beautiful like this–“ You clung to him like he was the only thing keeping you on earth, your nails digging into his back, your body convulsing beneath him with every wave of pleasure. You could feel yourself pulsing around him, feel how it dragged a strangled moan out of his throat.

“I-I’m so close,” He gasped, his voice wrecked, his rhythm faltering. “W-Wanna fill you up–please–can I–?”

You nodded, breathless and trembling. “Yes–yes, please–I want it–give it to me–” With a broken groan, his hips jerked forward one last time–and he spilled inside you. His whole body shook as he came, burying his face in your neck, his arms wrapping around you like he needed to hold every part of you to survive it.

You could feel it–every throb, every pulse of warmth deep inside you. His moans, soft and shaking, buzzed against your throat as his breath caught in your skin.

He didn’t move for a long while.

Just stayed there–buried inside you, mouth warm against your neck, arms tight around your waist like he was anchoring himself to this moment, to the rhythm of your heart against his chest. His breath was still coming in short, shaken bursts, and yours wasn’t much better. You were both trembling a little–not from fear, not anymore–but from the rawness of what had just passed between you. Like your bodies hadn’t quite caught up to the aftermath of something so explosive, so full.

But the heat was different now.

It had shifted. Softened. Still warm. Still thick. But no longer blistering, no longer maddening. Just…Lingering.

Your hands slid slowly up his back, fingers tracing through the sweat that slicked his spine, dragging across the faint bumps of his vertebrae. He let out a soft, shaky sigh against your skin. Your fingertips wandered to his sides, palms smoothing gently over the curve of his ribs as if to say I’m here. Still here. I’m okay.

You tilted your head and pressed a kiss to his shoulder—soft, damp, reverent. His skin tasted like salt and breathless devotion.

Bob shifted then, his arms loosening around you as he lifted his head just slightly, enough to look down at you. His hair was a light brown mess, damp curls stuck to his temples, a few clinging to his cheeks. He blinked at you–slow, still dazed–but there was something clearer in his eyes now. Something tender. His hand dragged along your side, skimming your ribs, and he leaned down to kiss you again.

His lips moved against yours like he hadn’t quite gotten his fill–like maybe he never would. He kissed your mouth, then your jaw, then your neck, peppering slow, breathless kisses along the column of your throat. You giggled once–just a little–as his nose brushed the underside of your jaw, tickling your skin.

He pulled back just enough to blink down at you, lips wet and parted, chest still heaving.

”Y-You know I like you, right?” Your breath caught. Your fingers paused where they rested near the nape of his neck. His voice had cracked slightly on the word like, and you could tell he meant something so much more than that. Of course you knew his feelings for you, it was easy to spot, but hearing him say it aloud–even after the both of you just had the most carnal sex ever–still made you a bit breathless. You swallowed, then nodded–eyes searching his face, your heart fluttering in your throat.

“I like you too,” You whispered, your voice shaky and soft. “Always have…” Your cheeks burned, and not from residual heat. You traced a finger over the curve of his shoulder. “T-The circumstances right now are a bit c-crazy…But…Maybe after this…”You tried to continue, but your nerves tangled the words together.

He finished them for you.

“I-I’ll take you out,” He said, nodding once, as if promising both you and himself. “We…We can go to your favorite r-restaurant. And we can do this right…” He ducked his head a little, voice lowering to a smile. “W-Without the sex pollen.” You let out a laugh–helpless and bright–and leaned up to kiss him again. He grinned into it, just a little, and kissed you twice more, slower now, like sealing the agreement. When he finally pulled back, his thumb was brushing your cheekbone, his other hand still lazily tracing your hip.

His gaze dropped to your chest for a moment, then back to your eyes. “A-Are you still aching?” He asked gently.

You paused, body still humming with the memory of him, but no longer sharp with urgency. You shifted slightly, feeling the wet stickiness between your thighs, the throb finally quieting to something warm and dull.

“It’s dulled a little,” you admitted. “But I think we should wash up…”

He blinked, nodding. “R-Right. Yeah.”

You offered a small smile, brushing the sweat-slick hair from his forehead. “We’ve got that little makeshift shower unit in the corner storage. Emergency setup. I-I can activate it.”

He looked at you, eyes soft, one hand trailing lightly over your ribs again.

“I-I’ll come with you,” He murmured. “Just to m-make sure you’re okay.” His curls hung loose now, wild and slightly matted from where your fingers had yanked at them during your climax. The gold shimmer on his skin caught the low lab lights, making him glow faintly where he hovered above you.

“Aww,” you murmured, brushing a hand lazily over the sharp line of his jaw, “That’s sweet, Bob. Really. But we both know that’s not the reason you’re joining me.” Bob flushed immediately, lips twitching into a bashful grin.

“O-Okay,” He said quietly, nuzzling your cheek with the tip of his nose. “M-Maybe it isn’t…M-Maybe I just wanna wash you, and k-kiss you under the water…Until all this heat dies down inside me.” Your chest stuttered at that, heart tripping over itself. His voice was so soft, so wrecked, so full of you.

“Now that’s much better,” You whispered, leaning up to kiss the corner of his mouth. He smiled into it, and you felt the way his arms curled tighter around your middle, the way his cock–still half-hard inside you–twitched slightly at the praise. He sighed, then slowly pulled out, both of you gasping a little at the drag of it. You shivered, and he was already reaching for a nearby towel to cover you while you sat up. His hand cradled the back of your head as you steadied yourself. Always gentle, even now.

You stretched your sore limbs and started for the far corner of the lab where the emergency hygiene setup was stored. Still naked, still glowing with post-orgasm daze, you knelt beside the console and started activating the emergency rinse station–a compact but functional retractable stall with hot water access, a single pressure-nozzle head, and sealed drainage for contamination containment. You flipped open the sanitation kit, pulling out the packet of unscented soap, a washcloth, and the emergency towels folded like paper bricks.

Bob padded over behind you, and you heard him laugh softly as you organized the supplies with shaky hands.

“What?” You said over your shoulder, arching an eyebrow.

He scratched the back of his neck, grinning sheepishly. “N-Nothing. Y-You just look really focused for someone who’s still naked and covered in glittery sex pollen.”

You snorted. “Yeah, well,” you murmured, standing and turning to face him, “Remind me to access the cameras in here later and delete the footage of what happened…”

Bob raised his brows. “You think there’s audio?”

You gave him a deadpan look. “Bob. We shouted at each other and cried out mid-orgasm while covered in science glitter. If there’s audio, we’re already blackmail material.”

His face turned scarlet.

“Y-You think they’ll–”

“I don’t think we want our sex tape leaking,” You interrupted, grinning wickedly as you flicked the shower head on. Warm water streamed out with a pleasant hiss, filling the space with a light mist and the sound of soft rainfall. You stepped under it first, pulling him gently in after you. The water hit your skin and instantly began washing away the gold flecks still clinging to your chest and thighs.

Bob’s hands found your waist again.

“…M-Maybe I’ll take a copy,” He mumbled.

You looked over your shoulder at him with mock exasperation. “You’ll have the real thing almost every night, Bob,” you said, voice low and teasing. “I don’t think you’ll need a copy.” His breath hitched–barely–and then you felt his mouth press to the back of your shoulder, his arms circling your waist from behind.

“I-Is that so?” He asked, lips trailing kisses up your damp neck.

You tilted your head back against him, smiling into the steam.

Even though you had told him many times that you didn't like to eat or drink before a mission, he did it anyway. He cared too much about you to not to. So every time he ordered himself something, he had to order something for you as well.

“Thank you, Bob,” you offered him a kind smile nonetheless in appreciation, turning your head so that you could face him. His countenance was all flushed red and the content of the cups swirled a bit with the tremor of his hands.

“Can you help me with the cape?” you then asked, watching him as he awkwardly set the cups down on the small coffee table in the center of your bedroom before making his way towards you with swift steps, as if you were the center of gravity of the entire universe, of his universe.

He couldn't control how his eyes drifted down from your face and swept along your back, drinking in every curve, every outline of your gorgeous, perfect figure, relishing in the way the tight black fabric clung to your body like a second skin. 

Bob's gaze traced a very slow scan across your lower back, through the shape of your hips, the curve of your ass, the complex of your thighs—

“Isn't it too much?” you wondered out loud, making him flinch. Your eyes were looking at him through the reflection of the mirror as Bob stumbled to set the cape where it supposed to be, hooking it onto your shoulders very carefully, with trembling fingers. 

You could catch a glimpse through the mirror of the way his eyes were glowing under the soft yellowish light of your room, you could see your own reflection within them, melting into all the darkness of his particularly dilated pupils. The darkness in his eyes surrounded you completely.

He finished settling the cape on your back and Bob took a couple of steps back from you, permitting himself to gaze at you in awe, his mouth falling half-open.

“You're— you look nice.” He responded to you, in a stammering but entirely truthful voice, nerves racing on his tongue as he pronounced one of the many compliments that were flooding his head as he ogled you with big eyes. “L–like, really nice.”

He nodded his head in a short frenzy, approving the words from himself. Then his eyes searched yours through the reflection of the mirror and he found himself swooning as you spun around to face him, your cape twirling in the air with the effortlessly graceful motion.

You raised an eyebrow as you saw how Bob held his hands out in front of him, fingers clasped together casually. He kept an innocent visage, though his cheeks were flushed, nervous eyes dropping to the ground as he saw you walking towards him in all your glory and beauty, like a goddess stepping down from the heavens. And you didn't have to coax him into surrendering to you, he already stood in the palm of your hand, wrapped around your pretty finger.

You flustered him so much it was silly. Every step you took stirred an earthquake inside him.

He was as yours as the sun is to the moon, as darkness is to light, as craving is to love.

His heart raced as you stood in front of him, gazing at him from all your power and majesty. And Bob knew he was long gone.

“Are you okay?” you asked him in a tone that conveyed raw concern, just as much as what your eyes shared with his in their familiar, heart-warming silent intimacy.

You had your head slightly tilted and your brow just barely furrowed in worry. You looked so beautiful, so cute, that you had him speechless for a few moments.

“Y–yes, I—” Bob stuttered, jerking his head gently, dismissing any sign of worry he might spark in you. “I'll s–see you after the mission—”

Immediately after that, he rushed to grab his beloved milkshake, flashed you a lopsided smile all crooked with nervousness and stormed out of your room, almost tripping over the box full of vinyls you had yet to organize on the shelves.

Shortly before he left, Bob turned once more to look at you, with that sheepish little grin curving his lips and you noticed how he struggled to hold his cup of milkshake now low in front of him, trying to cover up the prominent bulge that had grown painfully harder the more he watched you in that suit.

And then he just disappeared.

You stood in silence, dumbfounded, staring at your door with puzzled eyes and gaping mouth. Then you glanced down at yourself, searching around for something wrong, something that looked ugly maybe, something that would cause such an outburst in Bob. 

But there was absolutely nothing wrong with you. In fact, you looked perfect. 

When you came back from the mission, the first thing you looked for in the living room once you stepped out of the elevator was Bob, naturally, eyes flicking to the couch where he usually lay down to read or gaze at the cityscape.

Yelena and Bucky were talking animatedly beside you, exchanging a single knowing glance as they both caught a glimpse of disappointment surfacing on your face, still a little sweaty from all the physical exertion the mission had taken. It had not been difficult. The guys had especially relied on your skills to accomplish it successfully.

For that, you were a bit tired, your mind and body had given up a lot to the energy of your abilities. You were still buzzing. Adrenaline was throbbing in your veins. And normally when you were like this, you reached for Bob's comfort to anchor you back to earth.

Your cape fluttered behind you as you made your way towards the hallway to the bedrooms, looking defeated.

Yelena huffed a small chuckle at you, taking a sip of water from the glass Bucky had offered her, “I can't believe that less than thirty minutes ago you were at full power, levitating off the ground, with your eyes glowing and all, and now you go crawling back to your boyfriend like this.”

You just shrugged, offering them both a small tired smile before continuing to walk towards Bob's room, needing to see him and hug him. You didn't even care that you were still wearing your suit.

You stopped in front of the door and as you were raising your hand to knock on it, it swung open with a ‘wooshh!’, revealing a very distressed looking Bob. His hair was a bit messy, he was still wearing that black shirt that looked so good on him. He had changed his pants, though, now wearing a pair of gray sweatpants, hanging dangerously low around his hips.

He looked like a hot mess. In every good sense of the term.

“You're back,” he breathed out, as if he'd been holding his breath all this time in your absence, his Adam's apple bobbing in his throat as he gulped loudly. His eyes took a quick journey across you and widened as he noticed you were still in your suit. He pulled them back, forcefully, painfully slow back up to your face.

You looked at him strangely, realizing how you were both still standing in his doorway. “Yeah... are you okay, Bob? I feel you... closed off.”

“Yeah, it's just— I didn't want to distract you— before the mission and all that,” he explained, sounding more like a cheap excuse.

“Distract me?” You raised a single eyebrow, repeating his own word, noticing perfectly how his gaze wandered to your chest for just a split of a second, but nonetheless, you managed to catch up with it. A hint of an amused smile tugged at the corners of your lips, leaning against the threshold of his door, and he closed his eyes tightly, ducking his head in shame, knowing full well that he had been caught. Nothing could ever get past you. Not when it came to him.

“Looks like you're the distracted one here, Bob.”

“I'm not—” he stammered, his hands raised to his flushed face, “S-sorry, I don't mean to be like like a wacked out pervert— I don't want you to think less of me. It's just a s-suit.”

The last part seemed to be speaking more to himself than to you, as he grunted it under his breath, verging on a scolding.

But it wasn't just a suit.

It was you.

Your body, your naughty smile, your gaze, your lips tinted with that deadly crimson red.

A couple of beads of sweat led a wet trail down your neck. Bob could smell the saltiness oozing off your sweaty skin, mixed with that exquisite scent of your perfume. He could hear your heart pounding, the throbbing pulse in your jugular vein. Demonstrating that you were real, that you were breathing, that you were right in front of him, dressed like that.

You were devastatingly beautiful. And he was completely at your mercy.

Your hand rose to his face, making him stop his babbling with himself and lift his gaze slowly. His cheek felt warm under your palm, you didn't know if it was because he was a blushing mess or because that was the effect that your touch brought upon his skin.

“It's okay to feel desire, Bob, there's nothing wrong with that,” you reassured him, lowering your tone to a softer, more sympathetic one. “It makes me feel good that you desire me, actually.”

That got a reaction out of him, his lips quivered, hesitating whether or not to speak, until eventually, he made up his mind, “It makes you feel good?”

You nodded your head, your smile morphing to one of a little more shyness, “I thought you didn't like the way I looked in my suit. Since you just ran off without saying anything, I thought that—”

Bob interrupted you right there, shaking his head repetitively. You felt his jaw and flesh move under the palm of your hand as he spoke.

“What? No,” he blurted, huffing air as if it were the most obvious subject in the world. Regret passed over the expression of his face and he uttered your name in that adoring, soft way he did, “You look perfect. It drives me crazy, h-honestly. I haven't been able to stop t-thinking about you. You look so beautiful it makes me want to—”

He forced himself to shut up, suddenly feeling his throat constrict and his face grow even more red. One of his hands ran through his hair anxiously, looking really tense.

“You want to what?” You urged him, your breath feeling warm against his face, your thumb caressed his cheekbone, making him shiver under your touch, “Say it, Bob.”

Bob looked into your eyes again, struggling to maintain eye contact, his hands trembled at his sides, so desperate to reach out to you, to touch you, to grasp you. To hold all of you.

“Make love to you” He mumbled against your lips just before you kissed him, breathing in his air and devouring his words, covenanting them as a mutual yearning. A promise.

Bob kissed you as if you were the air his lungs depended on to breathe, his lips moving with yours like an old habit, like second nature.

“Jump,” he urged you between kisses and shaky breaths, his hands finally being set loose to reach out to touch you and hold your waist.

And you immediately complied, bouncing up and wrapping your legs around his hips. He lifted you up and held you so effortlessly. Sometimes you forgot that this man was the strongest among all of you. The strongest on the planet, most likely.

Without ever stopping kissing you, Bob locked you tightly against him with one arm while the other one stretched out towards the door, closing it behind his back once he started to walk with you in his arms over to his bed. 

Both of his hands grasped your body at the bottom of your thighs, squeezing and cupping your warm flesh through the fabric of your suit.

Promptly you felt the bulge press against the underside of your thigh, so desperate for attention, for you.

Bob broke the kiss, the noise of your mouths slipping apart from each other swept across the interior of his room, so filthy and hot. He looked at you with half-closed eyes, gaze darkened by desire and raw adoration.

He was breathless and feeling so flustered and anxious he was trembling, you could sense it as he held you close against him.

“I-I'm sorry, I don't want you to feel pressured into anything. It—” he mumbled, closing his eyes in ecstasy as he felt your fingers sinking into his hair at the back of his skull, “It just... pops up. It's inevitable when it comes to you. You drive me crazy.”

He was referring to his erection, of course. His big erection. He was ashamed of it. Bob didn't want to appear desperate —although for you, he certainly was—; someone who was unable to control himself. He was striving for control.

“Just shut up and make love to me, Bob,” you murmured, pleaded, right against his lips, your tongue grazing across his bottom lip, pulled outward, his countenance turn into a pout. “I need you inside me, now. Please, baby”

“S-shit,” he hissed a lot of cursing under his trembling breath. He was buzzing, “I-I need you too.”

Bob kissed you one more time as he laid you down on his bed very gently, careful not to trip or get tangled up in your cape.

His lips traced a path of kisses across your face, down your chin, along your neck. Your body quivered as you felt his tongue run across your skin, wiping away a bead of sweat.

Your legs were still on either side of his hips, one of his hands was running up and down the outside of your thigh and the other was supporting his own weight on the side of your body.

You arched your back for him, grinding against his crotch. Bob groaned lightly into your skin at the friction.

“You drive me crazy— you don't know what you provoke in me,” he uttered, rasping out against the skin of your neck, like an unhinged man, blinded by lust and longing. “This fucking suit— shit. You look so good, so pretty for me. I need you so bad, baby. All the time.”

Rarely did Bob call you by pet names, but every one of those occasions elicited the exact same reaction out of you. Your gaze would darken and your eyes would squint. You didn't have to tell him anything at all. Your body spoke everything to him, calling out to him in silence, in complicity.

With you, the intimacy, the complicity spoke for itself above the silence.

He knew the power he had in you. He knew exactly how to use it.

“P-please... ah—” yet he still begged you, whimpering just from friction and touch alone, pulling his head out of your neck and bringing his face closer to yours. He kissed your lips once more, just as your legs squeezed tighter around his waist, pulling him closer to you and making him pant against your mouth. “I dreamt of your legs wrapped around my waist. Just like this...”

Even Bob couldn't fully recognize himself. He was in some kind of deep lust trance, everything was blurred, except for you. Just beneath him, your beautiful body squirming, flushed against his.

To think that not so long ago you had been out there, in your nice suit, in full super-heroine mode, helping and saving people. Protecting kids from the bad guys, fighting for them.

They all probably looked up to you with adoration, everyone would most likely be jealous of him if they knew how he had you now.

None of them could ever see you like this. Only in their dreams. 

“Only in their dreams,” a voice murmured at the back of his mind.

“Bobby...” You breathed out his name, pleading for mercy, for him to do something, anything at all. One of your hands was curled around his forearm at your side, squeezing it to attract his attention. Your fingertips absentmindedly traced the veins outlined against his skin trough his arm. You could feel his throbbing pulse on them. Desperate and hepless. Craving. 

“Let me taste you, baby, please” Bob cooed, his voice coming raspy and desperate out of his throat, “I need to taste you, yeah?”

“Y-yes, yes,” your mouth moved faster than your mind, gazing at him with eyes glazed over with lust. “W-wait, I have to take off my suit first, let me—”

Bob cut you off with a sloppy little kiss, pressing his forehead affectionately against yours, his nose nuzzling yours just before he pulled away, “I-I got it.”

He patted your thigh gently and you unwrapped your legs from his waist, following him with your gaze attentively as he settled over you carefully so that his fingers reached around your neck, in search of the zipper of the suit. When he found it, he began to pull it down, looking at you with ravenous eyes, blinking so slowly that it seemed like he wasn't blinking at all.

“Turn a little and lift your hips up, baby.” He said to you once the zipper trail was almost reaching your lower back. As he unzipped the bottom of it, you took off your top to help him, leaving your bare chest on full display for him. “That's it. God...”

Bob shakily exhaled air as he became aware that you weren't wearing any underwear at all, he had to be extremely careful not to tear the zipper into a thousand tiny pieces with the force he squeezed it, pulling it further below your hips.

“You don't wear anything under it? Should I be worried about this?”

His tone of voice was so confident and borderline playful that for a moment you felt like he was someone else entirely. He really wanted to look confident for you, he wanted to provide you that security and comfort. You were stripping naked for him, for God's sake. Bob had to make an extra effort to appear confident and self-assured.

“Just for you, baby,” you assured him, shifting your legs slightly just once to help him pull the suit off completely, tugging it delicately down your thighs. The distinctive noise of the zipper, which this time was reaching your ears like the most arousing noise on the planet, ceased at last, reaching its end.

“J-just for me,” Bob echoed, leaning into you again like a magnet to a gravity core. His lips latched onto your naked thigh, kissing the side considering the position you were lying on his bed now. His wet, leisurely kisses awakened shivers on your skin. He could smell how aroused you were. He practically could taste how wet your sex was. Thinking about it made his mouth water.

“So pretty, so beautiful, my God,” he babbled, his trail of kisses reaching your lower stomach, tickling you in a way that made you sigh. Bob looked up at you for just a moment, his pupils blown out with pleasure, “How could someone like me deserve something like this?”

It all seemed more like a conversation with himself, like if he was walking through a daydream.

Your hand came to rest on his face, cupping his cheek, and he leaned against your palm instantly, closing his eyes for a moment.

“Bobby, please,” you pleaded.

And he gave in immediately, kissing the palm of your hand, “You don't have to beg me for anything. You already have it.”

His kisses trailed back down your stomach and you arched your back so beautifully for him. When he pulled away from your hand, it fell to the side of you on the bed. You clenched in a trembling fist all the fabric of whatever you could catch hold of.

“Are you— are you sure about this?” he looked up to you for consent, his fingers soothingly caressing your thighs, hands pressing them to either side of his face and settling them on his shoulders. When he saw you nodding your head, too much overcome with lust, he brushed a kiss on the inside of your knee, attempting to get your full attention back, “I need words, baby.”

You hurried to answer, babbling, gazing down at him, kneeling so pretty in between your legs as if they were the gates to heaven, “Yes, Bob, baby, please.”

He kissed your other knee now and then licked his lips, hungrily.

“I want to see you fall apart under me,” his hot breath brushed against the skin of your inner thighs, spreading your legs a little wider with a delicate but assured grip. “You're soaking wet, baby,” he marveled, in awe watching your pussy dripping with his adored honeyed water, yet his voice sounded disappointed, “you're wasting my meal.”

The mere sight of how his eyes sparkled with adoration as he gazed at your pussy could have made you cum right there if you started to think about it too much. Bob looked at you as if you were the center of the universe, the entrance to paradise, the sun he orbited around. 

It all made sense when you were there. Your presence in the room shifted the whole gravity of his being. His everything was for you. He was all made for you.

All the sense he could possibly envision now was to devour your pussy as if it were his last meal. He devoured it like a starving man, like reaching an oasis in the most arid desert, drowning and sheltering into it.

The sloshing sounds that spread with each stroke of his tongue between your wet folds made you flush all over, throwing your head back against one of his pillows and squeezing your eyes tightly shut, muttering and moaning his name out like a prayer.

To Bob, that noise was the most beautiful melody he'd ever heard. He sucked particularly hard onto your slit, pushing his tongue just barely into your gushing hole, pulling a loud, raspy moan from your throat. Oh, that noise...

His name sounded like the utmost hopeless and religious chant out of your pretty mouth. At that moment he was loving his name, loving the way you moaned it and kept murmuring it, as if it was yours, holding it close to your heart.

Amidst all the acoustic thrill of raw passion, mingled with his own soft whimpers breathing out into your core, Bob could nearly hear the stars themselves just above his red, hot ears. 

Your cunt was pulsing all around the tip of his tongue and Bob sensed, tasted your heartbeat through it. 

To feel that close to you nearly made him cum right there in his sweatpants.

One of his hands unclasped your leg, crawling up through your skin, his digits drawing a smooth path up your stomach, through your ribcage, all the way to reach your chest, cupping one of your breasts with a possessive hold.

“Bob— uhh—” you croaked out his name, glancing down at him with half-closed eyes, searching for his gaze in desperation.

Your back curved into such a perfect arch, your body squirming up against him as you felt his tongue flick your clit, his fingertips gently caressing your nipple. The stimulation would soon knock you into fucking heaven.

“Yeah, baby,” he responded to your call, disconnecting his mouth just an inch from your pussy, feeling lust-drunk enough to hold your gaze. His whole mouth was drenched with you, the slickness glistening under the dim light of his bedroom. His other hand sneaked between your legs, just barely brushing your pulsating cunt, “I'm here, hm? I got you, angel.”

Angel. That one was new.

You looked as close as he could ever imagine to an angel; sprawled on his bed, your body, magnificent, perfect, damp with sweat and arousal, your gaze searching for his in longing. There, in the shadows, Bob saw the whitish gleam of your energy flashing through your orbs, your power lingering in the air, pulsating along with your heartbeat.

You were so powerful, so strong and marvelous.

And you were all his to break apart.

“Are you going to cum for me?” He asked right before passionately kissing your pussy, his fingertips teasing your clit as he plunged his tongue deep into you, knocking all the air out of your lungs. “I got you, I got you.”

Bob felt you clench impossibly tight all around the two fingers he had thrust into your warm, fluttering hole, barely pressing against the spongy walls of your insides. He sucked your clit just right, breathing your name against your hot flesh. That's what pushed you over the edge, making you cum, falling apart so devastatingly beautiful against his mouth.

He slurped and drank in everything you had to offer him, lapping at your cunt as if he was drowning and it was the oxygen he needed to keep afloat. 

He paused to gaze at you attentively as he made you cum, your whole body buzzing, squirming so beautifully under his touch that you resembled some ethereal, otherworldly sight.

His name rasped out of your throat, as if it were your own religion.

“There you go...” Bob cooed, his eyes hazy with adoration, licking his lips clean and kissing your twitching pussy once again. “So good to me. So good...”

His lips kissed a trail upwards, swiping his tongue occasionally across the scars and freckles that decorated your skin as a constellation that appealed to him to adore. Eventually, Bob reached your face, looking down at you with pure love and a glimpse of that gentle shyness of his natural mannerism.

“A-are you okay?”

Bob watched your soul slowly crawl back to the ground and to your body, right back to him, finally snapping out of your post-orgasm trance. He propped his weight against the bed on the side of your waist with one hand, his thumb brushing against your bare skin and he brought the other to your face, caressing your cheek reassuringly. 

Your response was your mouth seeking his to join in a deep, loving kiss. Bob closed his eyes, kissing you back, his hand cradling your face.

You could taste yourself through his lips and tongue. And that managed to turn you on even more. 

Wrapped in an adrenaline surge of lust pumping through your veins, you rolled both of you over on the bed, laying him underneath you now. 

It was nice that you had much more stamina and energy than a normal human. Although there, you didn't feel like a human at all.

You were animals driven by their own instincts.

Bob gasped against your lips, his eyes barely opening so he could visualize you on top of him now, grinding your ass down on his rock-hard erection as you sat so prettily on his lap.

“Shit,” he croaked out your name, his hands grabbing as much of you as they possibly could, sliding past the curve of your waist to your ass, pressing you harder down onto him in urging. “If you keep doing that— I-I'm going to—”

You stopped all movement of your body and sat perfectly motionless on his lap. Bob whined hoarsely in protest, but you didn't let him utter a word, your finger pressed against his lips, silencing him instantly.

“I want you to cum inside me, Bob.” You purred against his ear, your tongue lazily stroking his earlobe. He froze speechless, just staring at you flabbergasted, still delighting in the way you had said those filthy words, so softly and lovingly. He strained himself to keep strong and not burst into his boxers at your words alone. “Let me take your clothes off, okay? Can I see all of you, baby?”

“Yes, p-please, just take everything of me— it's all yours” he promised you, helping you take off that black t-shirt he knew you loved to see on him so much. Exactly why he had put it on that morning.

When his naked torso was fully exposed for you, you bent down to kiss his neck, his collarbone, his pecs, your tongue spent some extra time fondling his sensitive nipples and Bob's legs twitched under your thighs.

The light in the room flickered for a split second and you just grinned against his flushed skin.

“I-I'm sorry—” he apologized with his voice lowering sheepishly, embarrassed. Then he closed his eyes when you raised your head to hush him with a kiss that was more tender than anything, reassuring him in silence.

Then your lips specifically grazed the spot where his heart was, beating maniacally on the other side of his skin.

He was so perfect, effortlessly perfect.

Bob was the most powerful man on planet Earth and yet, he was crumbling beneath you, bowing to the mercy of your touch.

You might as well just tear his chest apart and take his heart, it was already lying open for you, so full of you.

It was yours to take, to hold, to shatter.

You took your time to strip off his gray sweatpants, kissing his thighs, his knees and his calves, gently tugging at the hem of the gray fabric until you eventually slid it off his body and tossed it on the floor, forgotten alongside your scandalous suit.

Bob stared at you with a blushing, timid face as you rose again up through his body, your fingers lightly fiddling with the hem of his boxers now, fully ruined by all the pre-cum he'd been spilling. And you lifted your gaze, searching for his, silently asking for his consent.

He nodded tremblingly, his Adam's apple bobbing in his throat.

With wobbly hands he helped you take off his boxers, lifting his hips so you could slide them down his body and toss them into the pile of clothes lying on the floor as well.

His cock sprung free and you looked at it in awe.He was so big, bigger than you had ever had before. It was long too, hard, powerful and desperate for you, just like him.

It's head was furiously red, throbbing and oozing pre-cum incessantly. You found it impossible not to bend down to his groin and swipe your tongue along his slit, scooping up every essence of him and savoring it delightfully. Your tongue lolled along the prominent vein that bulged all along his shaft.

Bob's eyes rolled back and in a blur of bliss, he had to struggle to guide a hand to your head, fingers brushing across your cheek to get your attention. You looked up at him with big, lustful eyes, swallowing everything you had slurped out of him. The taste was bittersweet, hot, familiar, like him.

“No— don't do— don't do that, p-please,” he begged for your mercy in a raspy, cracked, breathless voice. “Come here.”

His hand gripped yours as you took it and carefully, but hurriedly helped you to position yourself on top of him once again, his digits latched onto you your waist, holding you as you squatted just above his lap, straddling him.

You grabbed his cock and held it up against your pussy, the swollen tip slowly sliding in between your wet folds, pushing achingly slow through your entrance.

Both of you sighed at the contact. Wet, hot, shaky and desperate.

Slowly you began to sink down on his cock, hands pressed on his shoulders, clenching them more and more with every inch he pushed inside you. 

Bob whimpered shudderingly, choking back the deep, heavy moan that crawled up his throat. He could feel his whole body shivering, squinting his eyes as he leaned his sweaty forehead against your shoulder, struggling to steady his breathing. It was like his soul was slipping out of his body and merging with yours.

No one had ever been so close to his soul. And he didn't think anyone else would, either. No one did it like you. 

His veiny hands at your waist gripped your flesh, yet they never pressed you hard enough to push you lower any faster, no, he would wait for you so patiently, giving you the pause to accustom yourself to his size.

“You do it so— so good.” Bob praised hoarsely into your shoulder, his wet lips grazing across your skin, drooling all over you, “you take it so good, you take me so good. There's n-no one like you— no one.”

Heavenly, him pressing against you, his lips laying softly upon your neck, marking you on the outside and inside, his mouth felt like heaven, his kisses falling upon you like stars, shaping a constellation of raw adoration. 

Your pussy fluttered around him, squishing him deeper inside. 

One of his hands wandered down to your back, fingers tracing your spine reassuringly. He just took the time to reassure you amidst all the blissful trance of pleasure you made him feel.

“Just a little more, baby,” he murmured, his hand caressing your ass appreciatively. Your warm, spongy walls clamped down tight around his cock and Bob's voice cracked. “Oh— S-shit—”

You moaned so loudly against his forehead that your whole spine seemed to twitch, finally feeling your ass pressed down on his lap. He was so deep that you easily thought his tip was almost reaching all into your guts now. 

“You're so deep, Bob” You whined, just barely pulling away from him so you could look at him. His eyes were already locked on yours and you caught a glimpse of that golden sparkle flashing through them, his irises glowing like two suns in the twilight. “Bobby—”

Your words struck him to the core and his eyes flashed golden once again, utterly starting to lose control. 

“I'm here,” he hissed, panting your name breathlessly, his hands caressed your skin, scoring his imprint on it. He kissed you sloppily, “I got you, I always got you.”

As you began to move on top of him, Bob suddenly felt like he was in heaven. He could no longer envision a life where he didn't feel this way, where he didn't feel you. He shall be yours in every life.

He dropped back on the bed as your hand pushed against his chest, bending down with him and bouncing your hips so lusciously against his that you actually could see his eyes filling with tears, looking up at you riding him in pure adoration. 

Bob whimpered your name endlessly, crying it out in a hoarse, broken voice, his hands squeezed your waist, your hips, your ass, anything they could possibly grope out of you.

“My God—” his eyes rolled back, arching his back as you delivered a particularly hard bounce down his cock, so deep that he saw the stars twinkle in the darkness right behind you. 

The constant filthy noise of flesh slapping against flesh soon merged with the pornographic acoustic medley of moans, shattered sighs, slurred whispers of names and nonsense words.

You kissed his lips lazily, then his nose, and his chin as you cooed, “You feel so good, baby.”

The bed was beginning to creak beneath the ruthless sway of your hips, ass bouncing up and down heavy against his thighs, so deep that every time you bottomed out you felt him in your throat. His heavy balls were pressed hard against your ass, throbbing, so ready to give you everything they had, to fill you up to the brim, as if it were his sole purpose in life. 

“You're perfect— perfect,” he croaked out so pathetically to you, thrusting his hips up to meet yours, plunging into you as if you were his nest, engulfing himself within your soft, warm, spongy walls, pressing against that squishy spot that knocked the breath right out of you.

He kissed your lips once more and in a fragment of a second Bob flipped you over on the bed, rutting into you so good that it made you gasp between kisses. 

Bob began to set the pace just as your legs wrapped around his hips, pressing him impossibly close to you.

“Right there?” he whispered, burying his head down on your chest, nuzzling your sternum. “You feel perfect— so tight, my God—”

He kept on praising you endlessly, kissing you, grasping you, breathing in the air you breathed out, sharing the same oxygen, the same time-space that existed between you, that little inches that belonged to both of you and no one else.

“You feel like heaven.”

That was enough for him to have you cumming again, in some way even more earth-shattering than the last orgasm. Your body started to wobble, your pussy squelching and clenching so tightly wrapped around his cock. 

The light voltage in the room lowered and raised, matching the racing beat of your heart.

Bob sensed the energy sparking off your body and blending with his own, merging and intertwining as one. 

After feeling that, after feeling you so close, so inhumanly close, beyond the physical plane, beyond anything he had ever felt in his life —it was euphoric, overwhelming—; he was cumming too, picking up the pace to reach the apex of his high. 

He buried himself in you to the hilt, sobbing out a ragged whimper as he leaned his forehead against yours. 

The atmosphere shifted and the light in the room flickered once again.

His load felt hot and thick inside you, coloring your insides with his color, spurting what resembled an ocean of him inside your womb. His hips jerked, his cock shooting out ropes and ropes of hot seed, marking you from the inside.

Bob remained motionless on top of you, panting up against your face, keeping his eyes closed, buried to the fucking hilt inside your overwhelmingly stuffed pussy, making sure nothing could spill out.  

And even though his body was drained and succumbing to post-orgasm limpness, he was careful not to collapse his full weight on you, supporting his hands on either side of your shoulders. 

Your arms wrapped around his neck, hugging him close to you, hands soothingly caressing his back. He sighed against your lips, slowly opening his eyes.

Until then you hadn't realized that the room was completely dark now. 

“I think we just blew out the voltage of the room.” You uttered after a comfortable silence, your throat felt scratchy and though you were still in the haze of the afterglow, your voice came out rather playful.

Bob glanced lazily away from you, finally noticing that there was, in fact, no light. He was grateful for that in a way, that way you couldn't see the blushing, tear-stained mess that was his face, snuggling it against your chest. 

“I'm s-sorry,” he stammered in his own raspy voice as well, embarrassed, as if he wasn't balls deep inside you, his seed gushing out of your pussy. “I think— I think it was me.”

“I think it was both of us.” You smiled lovesickly as you kissed his sweaty forehead, fingers tracing his shoulder blades. “Don't worry, we'll fix it. Just give me a few minutes.”

Bob placed a couple of kisses on your chest before he began to reluctantly push himself up, carefully pulling out of you. You both sighed lightly at the over-stimulation and the loss of connection. Although, even when he had already slipped his cock off you, you could still feel him inside, leaking out of your gaping pussy, trickling down your thighs.

Bob rushed off in search of a washcloth, stumbling over the pile of clothes you had tossed on the floor. The sound of his feet walking clumsily back to you made you grin.

Then he swiped the cloth in between your legs, very delicately, wiping you clean. The contact made you shiver from the sensibility.

And even through the shadows of the darkness, you could see him frown slightly, very much focused on taking care of you, sensing how the fabric of the cloth felt uncomfortable against your sensitive skin, “I'm sorry.”

“You apologize too much, baby” you tried to reassure him, already in need of him close to you again. “Come here.”

Bob instantly flopped down on the bed next to you, careful not to crush you, but with your arms wrapping around his shoulders and pulling him tight against you it was complicated.

In between hugs and caresses, he ended up being the little spoon, happy to be able to feel your chest pressing against his back, arms embracing his torso.

“Did I— I do okay?” he asked after a brief silence, anxious.

“You were perfect.” You assured him, tenderly kissing his shoulder.

“You too” Bob whispered back, grabbing one of your hands on his chest and bringing it to his mouth, planting soft kisses on your knuckles. The words raced up his throat even before he could think, “I love you.”

He let the words carry up into the silence of the darkness and held his breath, already considering that he had ruined everything.

“I love you too, Bob.”

If it hadn't been for you holding him, his limbs tangled with yours, and because well, you were there, Bob had jumped out of his bed in joy.

But, because you were there, he stayed still, perfectly still, and smiled, utterly in love, savoring the way you had said the three words to him.

You were closing your eyes, drifting off in exhaustion when, through your super-hearing you heard steps approaching through the hallway, of more than a pair of feet, mixing with the voices of your teammates.

“What could have happened?” You heard Ava's voice ask, her tone hovering somewhere between worried and annoyed.

Yelena sighed. “I don't know. Some power failure?”

“A power failure in the whole city?” John remarked, as snarky as usual.

You grew up in a house where love was... quiet. If it was there at all, it never spoke. No kisses over coffee. No lingering glances. No hands held on road trips. “I love you” was said with the same flat tone as “dinner’s ready.” It taught you that love was restraint. Conditional. Measured.

No one yelled, but no one kissed. No one fought, but no one held hands. “I love you” was something you overheard in movies — not around the dinner table.

You grew up unsure if your parents loved each other, or just… merely existed beside one another. Tolerated each other. Did they love each other? You still don’t know. Maybe they didn’t, and maybe that’s what scared you the most.

Because it made you wonder if that was all love ever was.

And then you met Bucky Barnes.

And he rewrote everything.

When Bucky Barnes came into your life, it felt like getting hit with sunlight after decades in the dark.

He's unapologetically soft for you. Hands always reaching—brushing your hair back, pulling you close, squeezing your hip as he walks by. Your kids are so over it.

“Do you have to do that now?” your oldest groans as Bucky kisses your cheek in the middle of the grocery store. “Yes,” he answers simply. “Your mom’s hot.” You roll your eyes, but your cheeks warm. Every single time.

It’s the little things Bucky does that undo you.

Like when you're driving the kids to school, and he insists on holding your hand — even when you're the one behind the wheel. His fingers slide between yours easily, resting on your thigh, warm and grounding. His thumb draws lazy circles against your skin as you maneuver turns, one hand on the wheel, one hand in his.

“You know this is wildly impractical,” you tease, eyes flicking over to him.

He grins, eyes hidden behind his sunglasses, voice low and smug. “Don’t care. I gotta hold my girl.” “Can you not be in love for five minutes?” your son groans.

You and Bucky just laugh. He lifts your hand to his lips and kisses your knuckles like some old-timey gentleman who also happens to be a menace. And still doesn’t let go.

Bucky, who hugs you from behind while you’re cooking and whispers in your ear like a menace "Skip dinner, let’s order in and make out on the couch."

Your daughter and son groan loudly from the couch, “OH MY GOD.” “I’m gonna pour bleach in my eyes!” Bucky laughs, holding you tighter with his metal arm snug around your waist, “Love you too, buddy.”

He kisses you while you're folding laundry. He dances with you in the kitchen just because the song is good. Tells you he loves you like it’s as natural as breathing — because for him, it is.

And yeah, sometimes he says dumb things like,

"Bucky, why is the car so hot?" He throws you a wink. “Cause you got in it.” A chorus of “Daaaaaad!” erupts from the backseat.

“Oh my god.” Your son gags. “I’m gonna be ill.” Bucky glances at them through the mirror, unfazed. “Good. Builds immunity.”

But under all the dramatics, they smile when they think you’re not looking. They giggle when he slow dances with you in the kitchen, or calls you doll like it’s sacred. They see it. They know it’s real. They know it’s safe.

You didn’t grow up with love like this — but you’re raising them with it. And that matters.

That night, after the kids are asleep and the house is finally quiet, you curl up beside him on the bed, wearing one of his old shirts and nothing else. The air is warm and soft-lit, and you’re sunk so deep into the quiet you almost don’t want to break it.

But you do.

“Can I tell you something kind of dumb?” you murmur.

“Doll, you could talk nonsense for hours and I’d still nod along like it’s gospel.”

You laugh, but it fades. “Sometimes I still wait for it to stop.”

He tilts his head, confused. “Stop?”

You bite your lip. “I grew up thinking love didn't exist or wasn't meant to be shown. That it had to be quiet. Conditional. Measured. So sometimes I still catch myself waiting for the moment it… ends. That you leave. That it all disappears.”

Bucky’s quiet for a moment. Then he reaches out and touches your cheek like he’s holding something fragile and precious. Because he is.

“Doll… whoever taught you that love had to be small, they were so wrong. I need to love you like this. Big. Loud. Always. I need to hold your hand while we’re driving and kiss your neck while you're stirring the pasta.” He swallows hard. “I want to love you in a way you never have to question. Ever.”

Tears prick your eyes, and he pulls you into his lap, pressing kisses to your temple, your cheek, and your mouth.

You kiss him like you’re trying to press every word you haven’t said yet into his mouth. And he lets you—hands on your waist, grounding you, holding you like he’s scared you might vanish if he lets go.

When you finally pull back, just far enough to breathe, he’s looking at you like you hung the stars in the damn sky.

“I think about it a lot,” he says softly, voice rough, “how lucky I got.”

You blink, heart thudding. “Bucky…”

“No, listen.” He brushes your hair back, thumb tracing the curve of your jaw. “After everything I’ve seen—everything I’ve done—I didn’t think I’d get this. I thought my story ended in blood and silence. And then there you were. Warm, loud, bossy as hell—loving me without flinching.”

You shake your head, tears building. “You don’t have to thank me—”

“I do.” His voice breaks. “I have to thank you every damn day. For seeing me when I couldn’t. For staying when it was hard. For giving me this life. The kids. You. All of it.”

You don’t say anything at first. You just kiss him again, slow and deep, a promise pressed into skin.

And as his hands slide up your back, pulling you impossibly closer, you think— Yeah. You got lucky too.

You pull back eventually, breathless, heart full. And then you rise to your feet.

He looks up, dazed. “Where you goin’, sweetheart?”

You smirk, already halfway to the hallway. “Gotta make sure the door’s locked,” you call over your shoulder. “We don’t want to traumatize them.”

Bucky groans, laughing, throwing himself back against the pillows. “You’re killin’ me.”

“And I’ll bring you back to life, Barnes.” You wink, hovering over him, straddling his waist as his hands slide up, thumbs rubbing slow, hiking closer to the hem of your shirt.

You smirk, leaning over him, ready to take your place on top — but before you can, his hands slide around your waist. In one smooth motion, he flips you over, pinning you gently beneath him.

“Not so fast, doll,” he murmurs, grinning as he settles between your legs. “You always think you’re in charge.”

You arch a brow, breath hitching. “And you love it.”

He laughs under his breath, eyes dark and soft all at once. He leans down, brushing your hair back to kiss your neck — slow and deep, with a bite that makes you shiver.

“Let me take care of you tonight.”

You exhale a laugh, heart skipping. “You always wanna take care of me.”

He smiles against your skin, lips trailing lower, worship in every movement.

“Damn right I do.”

Because loving you isn’t a duty. It’s instinct. It’s devotion.

I am a mix of emotions! 🥹💕😫🤧 I really enjoyed writing husband! Bucky and I will definitely do it again!

I hope you enjoyed reading this, feel free to leave your opinion!

Saints, Feints ↬ Minerva / Just a Girl / Young God ↫ - One - Two - Three

Couldn't Hold Me Back ↬ Seven Nation Army / Fight Like a Girl / Glory and Gore / Centuries ↫ - Four - Five - Six - Seven - Eight - Nine - Ten

In The Age of Icons ↬ Start a War / Feel Something / Silvertongue / Immortals ↫ - Eleven - Twelve - Thirteen - Fourteen - Fifteen - Sixteen - Seventeen - Eighteen

And You Decided This ↬ Hide & Seek / Northern Lights / Ophelia / Medusa / Golden / I'm With You ↫ - Nineteen - Twenty - Twenty-One - Twenty-Two - Twenty-Three - Twenty-Four - Twenty-Five - Twenty-Six - Twenty-Seven

In Search of Your Glory ↬ The Last of the Real Ones / Sunlight / Athena / King and Lionheart / The Night We Met ↫ - Twenty-Eight - Twenty-Nine - Thirty - Thirty-One - Thirty-Two - Thirty-Three - Thirty-Four - Thirty-Five

The Future's In Our Hands ↬ Dear Fellow Traveler / She Lit a Fire / Foreigner's God / Things We Lost in the Fire ↫ - Thirty-Six - Thirty-Seven - Thirty-Eight - Thirty-Nine - Forty - Forty-One - Forty-Two - Forty-Three - Forty-Four - Fort-Five

A Sinner Like Me ↬ Never Let Me Go / I Found / I Need My Girl / Broken / Heavenly / Angela / Hold My Girl / Constellations / Electric Love ↫ - Forty-Six - Forty-Seven - Forty-Eight - Forty-Nine - Fifty

'Til The Day's End ↬ Bird Song / Infinity / Glitter & Gold / In Our Bedroom After the War / Spark ↫ - Fifty-One - Fifty-Two - Fifty-Three - Fifty-Four - Fifty-Five - Fifty-Six - Fifty-Seven - Fifty-Eight - Fifty-Nine - Sixty

Lacie's Tethering. It's finally happened.

You're taught, growing up, that your Tethering is the biggest moment of your life. It shapes who you are forever. Sets you on your eternal path. You're presented with your soulmate in a big display of love and affection and metaphorical fireworks. It's supposed to be magical.

You wish people would shut up about it.

The World seems to be split into two categories - the people that have been Tethered, and the people that haven't.

You fall into the latter.

You're repeatedly told it'll happen one day. It'll happen when the time is right. It'll happen when you least expect it.

You're not sure you ever want it to happen.

The idea that the Universe determines the person you're with forever has never sat right with you. What happened to free will? What happened to personal preference? You believe you should at least have a choice in the matter. It's your future, after all.

Not everyone shares the same sentiment.

"Babe, you still there?"

Lacie's excitement filled voice pulls you back to reality.

"Yeah, I'm here."

"Are you busy? Can you meet me for coffee, like, now?"

You take a deep breath and plaster a fake smile on your face.

"Sure. I'll see you in ten."

✵  ✵    ·　 ✵ 　　 *  · ✵

"Oh my god babe, it was just incredible! You won't even believe it. There's nothing like it, truly."

You remind yourself quickly that Lacie is your best friend, and that you owe it to her to be happy for her. Personal feelings about soulmates aside.

"Tell me all about it, Lace!" you encourage, grabbing a hold of her hand excitedly.

The blonde girl squeals before shuffling closer to you, pressing her knees against yours.

"Okay, so. Picture this. I'm at my gym, doing my usual routine. I'm wearing my super cute pink Lulu Lemon set, you know the one with the flowers?"

She waits for you to nod in affirmation before she continues.

"So, I accidentally drop a weight on the ground, and it makes the biggest noise. I'm super embarrassed, and I'm trying to pick it up, but it's so heavy. And then, the hottest guy I have ever seen appears. Like, seriously gorgeous."

As much as you despise the whole soulmate thing, you can't deny how happy Lacie seems. She's almost vibrating with it, bouncing up and down in her seat.

"He comes over and picks it up for me, sets in back on the rack. And then he introduces himself, and shakes my hand, and it happened."

"What was it like?" you smile, eager for her to carry on.

"Like fucking magic."

You've heard that before. A million times. From literally everyone. Surely it can't be that magical if billions of people have experienced it.

"Magic?" you prompt.

"It is indescribable, babe. It's like... it's like everything just falls into place. Like everything finally makes sense!"

She jumps out of her chair, hugging you tightly. She's practically sat on your lap in the coffee shop, but neither of you really care.

"So, what's his name? What's he like?"

"His name is Cameron. He's new in town, he just moved here for work. He's a personal trainer, so he's like, super fit. And gorgeous. Did I mention gorgeous?"

"Maybe once or twice," you laugh.

"I'm so happy," Lacie whispers, emotion choking her voice. "I can't believe it finally happened. This is the day I've been waiting for since I was a little girl."

You hug her tighter, and ignore the look you get from the barista.

"I love you," she declares, suddenly serious. "You know that me being Tethered now doesn't change that, right?"

"I know," you confirm. "I love you too, Lace. I'm really happy for you."

You genuinely mean it. Lacie has talked about meeting her soulmate every day since you met her in the 3rd grade. You may have never quite shared her enthusiasm, but you admire her passion. And you adore her, more than anyone.

"So, what now? Are you gonna get married tomorrow and run off into the sunset?"

"I'm choosing to ignore your sarcasm because I know you're using it as a coping mechanism," she tells you pointedly. "And I know that there's a tiny part of you that wishes you'd been Tethered already, so you don't have to deal with everyone talking to you about it."

Jackpot. She's read you like a book.

"No, we're not getting married tomorrow," she rolls her eyes before continuing, "but we are going on a real date tonight. We're gonna get dinner and get to know each other. Isn't this crazy? I'm going on a date with the guy I'm gonna to be spending the rest of my life with!"

"That is kinda crazy, actually," you laugh. "What are you gonna wear?"

"It doesn't matter - we're going to be together forever anyway!"

You make Lacie promise to send you a picture of her outfit as you're leaving the coffee shop, which she agrees to with glee. On your way home, you pick up some of your Mom's favourite wine, and prepare yourself for another soulmate based conversation that will inevitably happen when you tell your parents the events of the day at dinner tonight.

✵  ✵    ·　 ✵ 　　 *  · ✵

"Hi, sweetheart!" your Dad beams as you step through the front door of your childhood home.

"Hey, Dad," you greet, allowing him to pull you in for a hug. "Where's Mom? I brought wine."

"Kitchen," he gestures with a nod of his head. "She's making that mango dessert you like."

Walking into your Mother's kitchen is like dipping your feet into a pool on a scorching hot day. The windows are propped open, curtains billowing softly in the wind. The ocean breeze drifts through the room, ruffling your Mom's dress and floating the hair away from her face. The evening sun beams in, illuminating the space with a golden glow. It smells like fresh fruit, mint, and salt water. It's a haven.

"Hi, Mama."

"Oh, my love! Just in time. I was about to call you to see if you were alright."

She makes her way over to you and kisses you on the head swiftly, before walking to the cabinet to grab wine glasses.

"Sorry I'm a little later than I said. I changed my outfit three times - it's warmer than I thought it was going to be."

"I know! Summer, finally. We've been waiting long enough."

She takes the bottle of wine from your hand and pours it into the glasses.

"You've poured four, Mama."

"Didn't your Dad tell you? Bucky's joining us for dinner."

"Oh. No, he didn't mention anything."

"He's back from his vacation. He promised he'd show us all of the pictures he took!"

She grabs the glasses and floats out of the room, leaving you alone in the kitchen, thoughts of Bucky Barnes swirling around like dust in the sunlight.

✵  ✵    ·　 ✵ 　　 *  · ✵

James Buchanan Barnes. Bucky.

Your Dad's best friend.

They met a few years ago, when Bucky moved to town. He said he was looking for something quieter, sick of city living. He wanted to slow down a bit, finally take a breath.

He was out for a run around town, getting his bearings, when he stopped your Dad on the driveway to ask about his car. They bonded over their love for motorcycles and vintage vehicles, and the rest is history.

Bucky's been a regular fixture in your life for so long, you can't remember a time before. All you know, is that it was probably a little more peaceful. His boyish charm is infectious, bringing out the youth in your Dad. They're like teenagers, when they're together. Long lost frat brothers, your Mom jokes.

She's got a soft spot for him. Most people do. It might have something to do with the fact he's devastatingly handsome.

It's no secret that Bucky Barnes is a ladies man. He is without even trying. He's charming, gorgeous, funny in all the right ways. He's mysterious, but not disarming. Tough, but not scary. Rebellious, but not a liability. He's a catch.

A catch, with a taste for beautiful women.

Your Dad always jokes that he's the towns most eligible bachelor. You can't count on two hands the amount of women you know that have dated him - but nothing seems to stick. He isn't Tethered, after all.

Some people choose not to date, if they haven't met their soulmate. They wait and wait, and when the time comes, they're complete. Others take pleasure in dating before it happens. Might as well make the most of the freedom, Bucky said once. You can't help but agree.

Might as well make the most of the freedom.

✵  ✵    ·　 ✵ 　　 *  · ✵

"Hey, buddy!" you hear from the hallway. You make your way out of the kitchen to be met with the sight of Bucky, sun-kissed and practically glowing. His hair has a few light streaks from the sun, and the faint freckles on his cheeks are more prominent now. His steel blue eyes meet yours, mischief rife in them.

"Hi, honey," he greets, draping an arm around your shoulders. He kisses you on the cheek, light stubble scratching your skin. You throw an arm around his back and look up at him.

"There's no way this tan is natural," you tease, nudging him slightly.

"It makes me even more gorgeous, doesn't it?" he jokes, winking at you. He squeezes your shoulder before letting go, grabbing a bottle of wine from his bag.

"I brought your favourite, Lori."

"So did I," you echo, laughing.

"Great minds, honey. Great minds!"

"You can never have too much wine," your Mom yells out from the kitchen doorway. "Bring it in here, Buck. I'll put it in the refrigerator."

"Yes ma'am," he obliges, making his way to her with a smile on his face.

✵  ✵    ·　 ✵ 　　 *  · ✵

"Guess what happened today," you begin, in between bites of your strawberry salad.

The three of them look at you intently, urging you to continue.

"Lacie got Tethered."

"How exciting!" your Mom squeals.

"That's a long time coming," Bucky chimes in. You look at him and smirk.

"Tell me about it."

"Here we go," your Dad smiles. "Our two anti soulmate protestors."

"Don't make it sound so political," Bucky laughs. "She's the only one that gets it."

"I've said it a thousand times, and I'll say it again. Just. You. Wait," your Mom lectures. "The two of you don't get it."

"Magic, fireworks, eternal love, blah blah blah. Trust me, I get it."

"She gets it," Bucky echoes. "And so do I. The Universe decides our fate, and we get no choice whatsoever. I don't believe in it, is all. I have no faith in the system. I should get to choose."

"But you feel like you are choosing," your Dad defends. "It didn't feel like it was being determined for me. It's hard to explain."

"It's just so... backwards," you justify. "I can't believe we live in a Universe where we have all the choices in the world, but don't get to choose the person we spend the rest of our lives with."

"It's worked out pretty well for us," your Mom smiles.

And it has. The first thing anyone notices when they meet your parents is that they are undeniably in love. You've never met two people more perfect for each other - which should solidify your belief in the Universe, really. But it doesn't. You can't explain where your lack of faith in it came from. It just appeared one day, and you haven't been able to shake it since. You're grateful every day to have two Tethered, happy, smitten parents. You've seen how hard it is for people with Untethered Mothers and Fathers. The judgment, the uncertainty, the hushed whispers. It sounds unbearable.

"Yes it did," your Dad confirms, shaking you from your thoughts. He reaches for your Mom's hand and kisses the back of it tenderly, eyes never once leaving hers. You look to Bucky next to you, who smiles at you gently. Feelings about soulmates aside, the both of you love these two people sat across the table with all your heart.

"Trust me, sweetheart," your Mom begins. "I know you're against the idea now - God knows I was the same at your age. But when it happens, you'll forget about all of your rebellion. You'll just be happy."

You nod in agreement, praying for the conversation to be over. As if he can read your mind, Bucky pipes up.

"Let me show you some pictures from Italy. I did promise I would."

You shoot him a grateful look before picking up your empty wine glass and making your way to the kitchen for a refill.

✵  ✵    ·　 ✵ 　　 *  · ✵

The dining room is now lit solely by candlelight, wax dripping onto the white lace tablecloth like condensation on a cold glass. The sun fell asleep hours ago, the four of you enjoying each others company with no regard for time.

"Oh, shit. It's late," your Dad says suddenly.

"You got big late night plans?" you tease.

"We have Clara and Mike's wedding at the weekend, so we're flying out tomorrow. We should probably get some sleep, so we're not exhausted."

Your Mom rises from her chair and kisses you on the head, before grabbing the dessert bowls from the table. Your Dad helps, smiling every time his hand brushes hers accidentally.

"Thanks for coming, kiddo. Your place next week?"

"Of course. I think I'll try that salmon recipe you sent me."

"Can't wait," your Dad assures you, giving you a one sided hug. He squeezes you once before letting you go to grab your shoes.

You can hear your parents saying their goodbyes to Bucky as you tie your laces, smoothing out the skirt of your dress as you stand. They all join you in the hallway, Bucky leaning over to grab his jacket from behind you. Fuck, he smells good.

"Have a great time at the wedding, you guys. Send me pictures, please!" you say as you hug your Mom goodbye.

"We will! Drive home safe, the both of you!"

They shut the door softly, leaving you and Bucky stood on the porch. The evening air chills your bare legs, salt in the breeze sticking to your lips.

"Where's your car?" he asks, looking around.

"Oh, I walked. It was a nice day, and I'm trying to be a little greener. Save the planet, and all," you chuckle.

"You want a ride, then?" he offers, leaning against the side of his truck.

"Uh - maybe," you hesitate, shifting your weight from foot to foot. You feel antsy, for some reason. There's a buzz flowing through your veins, making you a little restless.

"Maybe?" he smirks.

"I just, I'm not sure if I wanna go home yet. It might be that I've had three glasses of wine, but I'm kinda... jittery? Think I need to burn off some energy. Maybe I'll walk home."

"Like hell you will," he grumbles.

You quirk a brow in confusion.

"It's dark, and all those college kids are in town on their break. I don't trust 'em."

You fight to keep the grin off your face. You weirdly like it when Bucky gets protective. He's always so calm, so relaxed - it takes a lot to rile him up. He looks hot with a clenched jaw.

"Why don't we go somewhere?"

"Where?" you ask tentatively.

"I don't know," he thinks for a second. "How about the beach?"

You smile, gazing at him with a twinkle in your eyes.

"I fucking love the beach."

✵  ✵    ·　 ✵ 　　 *  · ✵

The ocean waves break the shore steadily, the repetitive pattern calming you both. You're sat on the sand, grains slipping through your hands where you're pouring it out through your fingers. The light of the moon reflects off the surface of the sea, illuminating the abandoned cove. It's just you, Bucky, and the night sky.

The alcohol in your system has evened you out, warm buzz keeping you sheltered from the chill. Bucky's stretched out next to you, strong arms folded underneath his head. His shirt rides up slightly, exposing a slither of sun kissed skin. You pretend not to notice his Adonis belt, or the little trail of hair that leads down into his waistband.

The silence is easy, comfortable. You don't get to hang out like this often, just the two of you. It's nice.

A notification on your phone breaks through the tranquility. You both flinch.

"Sorry," you mutter, checking the screen. "It's Lacie, telling me about her perfect date."

He chuckles lowly at your tone, sitting up to look at you.

"This is hard for you, isn't it?" he asks. "You hate the whole soulmate thing, but you like seeing her happy."

Bingo. It's like he's read your mind.

"I don't know why I hate it so much" you confess quietly. "It's a part of life. I can't avoid it. I just think - what if... what if I'm like, the exception, or something? What if I never meet my soulmate - or - what if I meet them when I'm like, seventy? That happens, you know! And then I'll be fucking cursed to spend my entire life feeling like this."

"And what is this?"

"Hopeless. That's what this is. I just feel pretty fucking hopeless."

You're not sure why you're baring your soul to Bucky tonight. You could blame the wine, but you know that's not what it is. Maybe it's because he seems to be the only one that understands.

"Me too," he whispers.

You whip your head around to stare at him in shock. He laughs at the look on your face, and continues.

"You're young - you have time. I'm forty in a couple of years. Every single one of my friends is married to their soulmate - except for me."

You bite at your lip nervously, but refuse to tear your eyes away from his steel blue ones. His face is lit by the glow from the moon, and it takes your breath away for a second. He looks almost ethereal.

"You always act so... unbothered. I didn't realise... I guess I just, I didn't -" you try to gather your thoughts before continuing. "This fucking sucks, huh?"

He laughs with his whole chest, and you're convinced the sound is so special, so rare, that you should bottle it. Sell it as medicine. It'd cure anything, you're sure of it.

"Yeah, it does," he agrees with a chuckle. "It's the waiting around that's the worst part. The unknown. It could be minutes, it could be decades. I just don't know."

"At least for now, we have each other," you joke.

"Every cloud has a silver lining, huh?" he teases, nudging you with his shoulder.

You allow your weight to press into his side a little, leaning in. He's warm, and he's familiar, and in this moment, he understands you better than anyone else in the world.

"We'll be okay, honey," he murmurs. "It'll all work out the way it's supposed to."

You close your eyes, and allow his words and the breaking waves to calm your nerves. Bucky wraps an arm around you, and all the tension melts from your muscles.

✵  ✵    ·　 ✵ 　　 *  · ✵

You're not sure if it's the honest conversation, or the brisk ocean breeze, but you've sobered up in record time. Your body registers this, and sends a shiver down your spine.

"You cold?" Bucky asks you. "You wanna go home?"

"Not yet," you whisper. "Not yet."

He shrugs off his worn brown leather jacket and slips it over your shoulders. It smells so strongly of him that it makes you dizzy. Bucky settles back down in his original place, returning his arm to where it was draped over you. His rough fingertips rub patterns into the material that now covers your arms, and you wish, for a fleeting moment, that it was your bare skin instead.

"You been working on anything new recently?" he enquires in a hushed tone, careful not to ruin the atmosphere.

"I made a damn good batch of macarons yesterday," you reply, beaming smile etched across your face. "Raspberry and lemon. I'll bring you some, next time I pass the Garage. You're gonna love them."

"You know, I think the only reason I ever get Mechanic of the Month is because you bring by all of your sweet treats."

You laugh melodiously, and the sound makes Bucky's heart stutter in his chest without warning.

"Happy to be of service," you tease. "I take requests, too, if you ever want something specific. Just let me know."

"You're the best, sugar."

You sink into Bucky's hold a little, daring to rest your head on his shoulder. When he doesn't stop you, you exhale, and relax even more.

"Are you working tomorrow?" he asks.

"Nope. You?"

"Nah. I'm going sailing, finally. It's been way too fuckin' long," he grumbles. "Your Dad's usually my right hand man, but he'll be in Ohio. You wanna come?"

The idea of laying on the deck of a boat in the blazing sunshine with a shirtless Bucky Barnes sounds like heaven. Who could say no to an offer like that?

"Yeah, of course. I'll bring a picnic, if you like. It's the least I can do."

"Sounds perfect," he replies, squeezing your shoulder.

Suddenly, he rises to his feet, extending a hand out to you. You grab it, and he pulls you up, the both of you shaking sand off yourselves.

"It's late, and dark, and a little cold. You ready to go?"

You nod your head, and make your way over to his truck, ignoring the heat that blooms over your chest when he opens the passenger door for you before his own.

✵  ✵    ·　 ✵ 　　 *  · ✵

"Thank you, for tonight," you say as he pulls up in front of your apartment building.

"Thank you," he replies, killing the engine. "It's nice to have you back, you know. Wondered if you were gonna finish college and stay out there in California. Thought we might not see you again."

He almost sounds... relieved. The idea that he might have missed you if you didn't return effects you more than it should.

"I liked it there, but... I don't know. My family's here. I'm only twenty three. I've got time to move around the country. I missed this place too much when I was away."

"Never thought I'd hear you say that," he chuckles.

"I know, trust me. They do say absence makes the heart grow fonder."

"Yeah, they say a lot of fuckin' things," he jokes.

Bucky swings his door open, hopping down from the drivers seat. He makes his way over to your side, holding out a hand so you can jump out.

"Careful," he warns. "It's higher than it looks."

You grab his hand, and step onto the metal sill. Your foot slips slightly, sending you tumbling down and forward, out of the truck. Luckily, Bucky catches you, one hand in yours, other on your hip.

"Woah, easy. You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm good," you breathe.

He places his hands on your cheeks and cradles your face, searching for any signs of distress. You place your palms over his, silently reassuring him.

And then, it happens.

Warm, golden, molten electricity surges through your veins, lighting up each and every one of your nerve endings. Your surroundings explode into glorious technicolour, everything suddenly brighter and more vibrant. It feels like your heart is being ripped out of your chest, only to be replaced by one that beats in a slightly different rhythm. There's flowers blooming in your ribcage, new life happening inside of you. You catch eyes with Bucky, expecting to see his stormy blue ones looking back at you. Instead, all you see is your future.

Vivid, flashing images of Bucky Barnes fill your mind, each one of them tinted with a warm, rosy hue. You feel like you're being reinvented. Your skin is alive, hyperaware of the way Bucky's palms are still gently cupping your cheeks. Your fingertips tingle with anticipation where they rest on his, itching to touch every inch of him. You feel as if the oxygen has been stolen from your lungs, and replaced with love.

Your knees are the first to buckle, the weight of the moment taking you down. You hit the ground, and so does Bucky, his palms not once leaving your face. You're both kneeling on the warm concrete, ocean waves providing a distant soundtrack. Blood is rushing in your ears, and you wonder for a second if you're about to pass out. You squeeze Bucky's hands so hard, it's a miracle you don't break his fingers. He squeezes back, eyes locked on one another.

After what feels like an eternity, you both break out of your reverie. You lean forward, resting your forehead against Bucky's, both of you panting.

You're trying to catch your breath unsuccessfully. You move one of your hands to rest on Bucky's chest, right on his heart. You swear the steady beat of it spells out your name.

He mirrors you, and moves his own hand to rest above your frantic heart, the other still glued to your cheek. You both breathe, in and out, trying to match each other. When you finally do, it's as if time stops. It's just you and Bucky. One heartbeat. One soul.

You break away from him to look into his eyes again. They look different, you think. He looks different.

He gazes back at you, cheeks flushed and chest heaving. The moonlight dances off your faces, illuminating the moment both your lives changed forever.

"It's you," he breathes in disbelief.

A laugh escapes your chest, surprising you both. He chuckles with you, and before you know it, the both of you are in hysterics, sitting on the sidewalk at three in the morning.

"Of course it's me," you giggle. "The two people that hate soulmates, Tethered together. You couldn't write it."

Bucky grins at you, clutching at his stomach.

You both take a breath, and realise your surroundings. Bucky gets up first, heaving you up by your arms. He towers over you, suddenly close. Not close enough, you decide. Never close enough.

You lunge forward and crash your lips to his. Bucky instinctively wraps one arm around your back, moving his other hand to hold you by the back of your neck. He tastes like salt and spearmint and every kiss for the rest of your life.

Bucky presses himself into you, attempting to tangle your bodies together. He wants to feel every inch of you against his skin, willing you to come closer. He aches to climb into you, sew himself into your ribcage. He'd be content to live there, beating your heart, forever.

You whine, and he takes the opportunity to slip his tongue into your mouth, exploring eagerly. You tilt your head back, and fist your hands into his shirt, plastering yourself to his front. He shoves his thigh in between your legs, the rough denim a welcome contrast to your soft skin. You buck your hips forward, and the friction is so delicious it makes you dizzy. You've never been kissed like this. It's almost feral. You're both surrendering to your fates, giving in to the animalistic urges coursing through you.

A seagull caws on a nearby street lamp, and the sound makes you both jump. You suddenly realise your scenario. Your Dad's best friend, who also happens to be your soulmate, has you pressed against his truck in the street, kissing you like he's running out of air and you're his only oxygen source. If it goes any further, you'll both get arrested for public indecency.

"Fuck, sugar," he murmurs against your mouth. "My pretty girl. My honey."

"My soulmate," you whisper.

The reality of it comes crashing down like a tsunami, drenching the both of you.

Bucky kisses you again, gentler this time. The tenderness makes you want to cry.

"What do we do now?" you mumble, fear coating your voice.

He senses your trepidation instantly. He feels it, actually, right in the front of his chest. It's like you suddenly share one body. There's no guessing, anymore. He knows exactly how you feel.

He takes a deep breath, trying to settle his building anxiety. He knows that if he stays calm, you'll stay calm. That's how Tethering works, right? He has to keep it together for the both of you, despite the panic that's rising in him, vibrating in his bones.

"How about... how about we both go to bed, get some sleep - and then we go sailing, later on today, just like we planned? And no matter what, we take everything one step at a time."

"One step at a time," you repeat, attempting to pacify you both.

"We'll figure it out," he reassures. "I know we will."

You find the will to step apart, which proves harder than you thought. It's like Bucky's an anchor - fastening you to peace, to happiness, to serenity. The more distance you put between your bodies, the more unsettled you feel. When you're not touching him, it's as if everything becomes unsteady, more difficult. You feel like you're on a rogue sailboat, battling the waves, threatened to be thrown overboard. Bucky is your lifevest, your lighthouse in the dark night. You're not sure how you're supposed to live your life any more than two feet away from him at all times.

You breathe, and smooth down your dress, running your fingers through your hair. You reach out and adjust Bucky's shirt where it's been wrinkled due to your tight grip.

"Goodnight, sweetheart," he murmurs, fingers tangling around your own.

"Goodnight, Buck," you echo.

He leans in to press a chaste kiss to your lips, savouring the taste of your cherry lip balm. He wraps his arms around you, unable to resist. Bucky breathes you in deeply, smiling uncontrollably. Nudging your nose with his, he murmurs gently against your mouth.

"My honey girl."

tag list <3

You couldn’t blame your advisor for pushing you overboard.

Lady Stell wanted results, and if you weren’t to give them to her and your father, then she’ll seek and harvest them herself. After all, she had married almost all of your elder siblings to their first prospect with pure willpower and cunning convincing. Though when either of those would work with you, she was cornered to use more concrete actions.

She wasn’t at fault for wanting to avoid your father’s rage and the possibility of being dismissed as unreliable. 

It was yours for accepting to come to Rakva for a celebration you were sure wasn’t part of the official festivities of the country. Only meaningful gazes were exchanged between your parents during dinner just before they offered you to visit the Grand Palace as a sign of cooperation between the two kingdoms.

They never told you what kind of cooperation they were thinking about. Not until you saw Lady Stell abording the ship as one of your advisors that you knew their secret intentions. Sadly, it was too late to backtrack your decision.

It was your fault to give in to your curiosity and lean in against the wooden rail to see the golden koi Lady Stell was pointing at, allegedly as big as a puppy. But when you gazed down, the fish was gone, scared by your approaching figure falling into the lake.

A muffled yelp, then a big splash. Perhaps some visitors would have seen the swirl of lavender skirts and heard the creak of the wooden rail of the boat as you toppled over.

The water was cold despite the mist that emerged from its surface, sapphire waters becoming darker and darker no matter how much you tried to swim upwards. Your dress was too heavy, layers of wool and cotton to keep the cold autumn air away as you were more used to the warmer climate of your natal kingdom.

Exhaustion settled in your arms after a few moments; your legs were already tangled in your skirts. Would someone come for you when the Rakvan King decided he wouldn’t get his suit wet? You doubted Lady Stell knew you couldn’t swim, an activity that never appealed to you ever since you almost drowned in one swimming lesson many years ago.

It would’ve been very funny to see the plan fail, if your life weren’t at stake, of course. Despite the amount of shame, you were to feel the moment you break into the surface, part of you hoped for it. Because you didn’t wish to get married—at least, not into the Lantsov family.

Your family had been struck by tragedy when your sister Farelisse got engaged to Prince Vasily. The vain and presumptuous Vasily. You doubted the Young King would be any different, as the traits repeated in the family tree, from father to elder brother, to younger brother, surely. After all, the apple never fell further from the tree.

And upon arriving at the Grand Palace, with the other parties presenting expensive gifts and graceful daughters to his distracted, almost bored, figure sitting on the throne, you were sure of your judgment. The Lantsov continued to be reckless rulers and haughty courtesans,  idling between luxuries and privileges they didn’t truly deserve.

Farelisse had told you about Prince Vasily’s ill fame of pleasure houses and racehorses, fancy gambling, but gambling, nonetheless. Seeing that the His Majesty had disappeared for years when he was supposedly enrolling in the prestigious University of Ketterdam, you could only imagine how much he had squandered the royal coffers on his little adventures.

Did the King take after both his role models and was also akin to being surrounded by pretty women? Because it seemed he was, with all the women he fancied into his own house to play with them as he pleased.

Good thing he was equally charming and easy on the eyes—not that you cared, of course.

And right now, seeing his outline entering the water, diving toward you, His Majesty wished to play the hero.

The King was a very good swimmer, though perhaps everyone was a master swimming in your eyes, his figure cutting through the water as firm hands took your arms, tugging you upwards so he could embrace you by the waist.

Good thing it was dark down here, so he couldn’t notice your growing flustered state. The water didn't help to disguise the grasp of his fingers pressed into your soft skin, wet clothes becoming thin and tight into your bodies.

He wasn’t supposed to touch any of you, not until he had made up his mind about who he will be courting, so having you between his arms was overwhelming. You dug your nails into his shoulders in desperation, and you saw him frowning at the presence of such shameless behavior, eyes shifting between the surface and your face as if saying that you were so close, or that you should at least try to kick if you wanted to ascend faster.

Your lungs burned from holding your breath, and the surface seemed too far away still, as if time had slowed down on purpose. Some bubbles escaped between your lips when you opened your mouth, muscles sore from keeping it forcefully close. But at least the water seemed clear, though you weren’t sure if you felt warmer now because of the water or of because the King's warmth body.

He heaved you first, your face breaking the surface seconds before him, one of his hands on your waist, the other holding your thighs, to balance your body when you curled around him, coughing water over his shoulder, feeling his ragged breaths against your neck.

When your mind cleared enough that the borders of your vision wouldn’t be all blurry, you pushed him away hastily, blaming your adrenaline for the frenetic heartbeats roaring in your ears. The wooden planks of the dock were sturdy and warm, slightly slippery with covered moss as your fingers enveloped one of the posts to propel you up.

Your muscles felt sore, your legs wobbly, but you climbed onto the dock alone, too embarrassed to accept the help of any of the King's guards.

Some seconds after you’ve sat with a dead gaze upon the water, you heard a wet plop next to you, from where you saw the King sitting on the wood boards warm from the weak rays of sunlight peeking between a group of clouds. The wind blew stronger in this part of the Palace where there were no tall buildings to seek coverage, and you couldn’t stop your teeth from clattering, layers of soaked clothes hung to your body.

“Are you alright, My Lady?” he asked softly, looking at you with a gentle smile, blonde hair dripping around his forehead. “Let’s get a Healer to check on you, shall we?”

You shook your head, afraid that the words wouldn’t come out, still feeling the strained muscles from your intense coughing. “No, no, I—I’m fine.” Because you wished to forget what had just happened, and bringing attention to it was the exact opposite of that. But you couldn’t be rude after he just saved your life, so you added after an awkward pause: “… Thank you, Your Majesty.”

The boat you were in was settling next to the dock, and you could see Lady Stell’s black hair moving with each stride as she descended the ramp. There was no way she would let you waste an opportunity of drawing the King’s attention so easily.

“I insist,” he said. “You’re an important guest and your well-being is my priority. Besides,” the King added, eyes traveling along your figure with a concerned look. “You’re shivering, my Lady. I should get you warmed up with a hot drink, so you don’t get sick.”

Lady Stell arrived with your ladies-in-waiting, their hands helping you stand up. For a moment, you thought if it was possible to push your advisor into the lake to create a distraction and flee the scene.

Not that it would help you to blend in as you’ve been doing ever since your arrival.

“Apologies, Moi Tsarevich.” She bowed. “The Lady is quite shy, but she would be very grateful for all your attention and concern, Your Majesty,” she said, grey eyes looking sternly at you, lips pressed in a thin line as if she were expecting you to talk back.

Exemplary princesses didn’t talk back.

You’re being ungrateful, you heard your mind nagging, your eyes drawn to your bare feet, shoes forever lost in the depths of the lake. All they ask is for you to become a Queen, and you’re being an entitled brat. All the people of your nation are giving to you, and this is how you’ll pay them?

You bit the inside of your cheek, head low. Of course, they were right.

You felt the King’s gaze for a moment, and then he walked away, nodding and requesting to build a fireplace and to fetch some blankets for the both of you, just as a change of clothes.

Part of you thought that perhaps that was it all. He had delivered the girl safely to her ladies, he was already the gentleman and the hero. He would let you in peace as you wished, and then you only had to endure a couple of weeks half-hiding behind the pillars of the ballroom, withdrawn to the gardens and lonely balconies on parties where nobody would think of looking. The King would have probably forgotten your face already.

So you let yourself be guided toward a turn in the cobblestone path running along the garden, fluffy blankets pressed around your hair and body as the servants prepared a fireplace neatly outlined with rocks.

You rubbed the soft fabric of the blanket against your cheek, thinking that perhaps they could absorb you, hide you from the upcoming scold of Lady Stell when you returned to your chambers. For now, you tried to relish in the crackling fire, hands extended toward the flames.

In front of you appeared a pair of polished boots, followed by a hand with the Lantsov emerald shining offering you a glass of amber liquid.  

Looking up, you saw the King, his eyes shining. “This will warm you from the inside, My Lady.”

Who could say no to a King? You thought bitterly, taking the glass, careful not to touch his hand.

He noticed, of course, and you hope he thought you wished not to have more inappropriate contact with him after the last events. Though it was only half the story. The rest of your reasons were tucked in a dark corner of your mind, thoughts that were starting to filter when he sat next to you on the blanket.

You huddled closer inside the fabric. From all the empty seats around the fireplace, he had to choose the one closest to him.

“My Lady,” he said after taking a sip of his beverage. “May I ask you a question?”

You just did. “Of course, Your Majesty.”

He leaned in closer to the fire, elbows resting against his knees. “Have I done something to make you avoid me?” he muttered low enough so anybody else could hear the conversation. “If so, I truly apologize. The last thing I want is for any of my guests to feel uncomfortable.”

You doubted that could ever happen with him being so close.

*~*~*~*

“You’re too kind, Your Majesty, but everything is alright,” you said, and Nikolai had to contain a chuckle. You were a terrible liar, and he was a very acute observant.

“Without trying to be rude—I don’t believe you, My Lady. You can’t even look me in the eyes when we’re talking.” Not strike up a conversation with him in any of the past dinners.  

You pressed your lips in a thin line, the outline sharp against the covering blanket. “You heard it, I’m shy.”

This time, Nikolai didn’t contain his amusement. He wasn’t supposed to tease his guests, but perhaps that would be the only way you could talk more than three words in his direction.

 “I think falling into the river is a very bold move for you to be considered shy,” he heard himself saying.

It had been a surprise that the avoiding Princess suddenly had a change of heart and decided to gain his attention in such a… concise way. Though he was sure it was somebody else’s idea, that you only were a piece of the puzzle your advisors had to complete.

 “It was an accident.”

“One too common in novels, don’t you agree?”

You glared at him, the first time he felt acknowledged. The gesture was borderline rude, but he felt relieved of not being ignored anymore—such feeling resurfaced not many good feelings from his childhood that he preferred to ignore.  “Are you accusing me of something, Your Majesty?”

He smiled. “Ah! There is it. You have beautiful eyes, My Lady,” he said because it was true.

While choosing the people who will be attending his festival, his advisors had told him that he had inherited your mother's beauty, and now that you were so close, he can testify that it was true.

If only he could see your smile instead of that resigned pout.

“Have you ever thought that perhaps I don’t like you?” you muttered, the edge of your words coming sharp and hurtful like the edge of his sword.

“If I can be honest with you, my Lady, yes. That idea has certainly crossed my mind, but I wasn’t sure.” He shrugs, trying to brush off the sudden pressure that stepped on his chest. “Usually, the people who despise me try to kill me, so this is new.”

He took another sip of his beverage, hot brandy to warm him from the frigid waters of the lake, to comfort his mind as he tried to come up with a plan. “I’m sure it must be difficult to have a pleasant stay in the Palace if you have such an opinion of me.”

You sighed, playing with the glass, swirling the amber liquid inside. "My father wouldn't have had it any other way.”

Your Father, the King of Rewfel.

His playful aura had changed, with his eyebrows knitted together, lips pressed in a pondering line as he gazed at your dress, overly warm, and the way you were leaning in closer to the fire, still cold. 

The lavender and teal blue colors of your dresses mimic the tropical bays surrounding the kingdom. Rewfel the land of dreams, home of many gemstone mines and the so-called Capital of the Arts, with the myriad of artistic academies that had trained many renowned artists whose pieces were showcased in the private gallery of the Grand Palace.

Nikolai wondered if you had an artistic inclination, too.

A tiny, amicable kingdom thanks to your grandfather and father’s attempts to woven political bonds with every nation possible, ties that strike to be unbreakable. 

“Then I’m afraid we’re in a little predicament, my Lady.” You were one of the most suitable people for him to marry, as your dowry would be bountiful and well-received for the rapidly drying coffers. Not to mention the social influence of your family, even within the Rakvan high society.

By marrying you, he could secure a steady income from the importation taxes of gemstones coming from your kingdom, which could be used for public affairs.

The problem was that you didn’t seem very thrilled about the idea. But why? Surely you had warmed up to the idea of an arranged marriage at this point.

“I don’t think either your father or my Council would be very happy to know that we aren’t on good terms.”   

Always the diplomatic. With some luck, he'll get you to open up about the reason behind such an impression about himself. Had he done something rude toward you without noticing? Surely his Triumvirate would have made him known of such a slip.

Your shoulders sagged. “My father considers we aren’t on good terms already,” you said, so low he had to lean closer to you. “Ever since… well, the last engagement.”

The last engagement—?

Oh. That was the reason he had doubted inviting you, but he didn't wish to be in your father's bad book if Nikolai ignored that his younger daughter was still unmarried when he was looking for a bride.

He wasn't there when your elder sister got engaged to Vasily, much less when she broke off the engagement due to Vasily’s overindulgent behavior. Nikolai can only imagine all the things your sister confided in you after her return to Rewfel; all the pitying looks of the other nobles when she assisted to another party alone because her fiancé was enjoying himself in Caryeva.

For the first time in too long, Nikolai didn't know what to say. It wouldn't be good to apologize, because not only he wasn't guilty of anything, but the person wronged wasn’t here anymore.

“Princess…” he started. It was logical that you didn’t wish to be here, let alone in the same situation your sister was. But he wasn’t like his elder brother, he wasn’t even like the last King, and part of him felt hurt that you would assume so of him. “Princess, I know I have no right to say this to you, but I assure you that I’m not like that. My family had committed many mistakes that I don't wish to repeat, and that prodigal behavior is one of them.” He wanted you to see him, to at least give him a chance to prove himself.

He'd been proving himself to everybody, every day, so what was another one added to the list?

“I understand if you don’t believe me—why would you when I’m having you all inside my home? But at least let me try to prove your assumptions wrong.” Nikolai didn’t wish to make you miserable in the upcoming weeks of your stay in the Grand Palace, and he considered, deep down, that he could strike a closer bond with you, that he could achieve being cast in a new light, one that would set him apart of his family that so much pain has caused on Rakva, and now, even beyond.

You held your head low, eyes wandering across the fireplace. Sometimes he did that, too, gazing across the view before him while pondering his options.

There weren’t many here, of course. You could still antagonize him, and return home without his promise of marrying you—but what would your father do? If he cast away your elder sister for not securing a royal marriage, he would surely do that again.

Or you could give him a chance, and both would end up beneficiated from the deal.

Nikolai wasn’t sure about marrying you yet, but at least the idea didn't sound so bad to him.

For what he knew about the report about you, at least you liked to sail.

“Please, Princess,” he muttered. “Let me be your friend.” Nikolai held his glass toward you, a gentle smile tugging his lips.

You peeked from under the makeshift hood of the blanket, your eyes reflecting the everchanging flames of the hearth. “I can try,” you muttered in what felt like an abysmal silence. And then you nodded as if to convince yourself.

By then some locks of hair had already dried, pocking from underneath the blanket, half-covering your eyes. For a moment, he itched about brushing them away.

He grinned, gesturing toward a servant so they could change your cold beverage for a warm one. “Let’s drink, then, my Lady. For our friendship.”

Sheepishly, you toasted, the glasses clinking as your knuckles almost brushed each other with the movement.

“Do you like it, Princess? It’s the tastiest brandy in the country and my favorite.”

You nodded, the blanket slipping out your shoulders when you started to feel warmer.

Nikolai leaned against the blanket that was already making him sweat—or perhaps he was nervous, who knew?

"I was thinking, my Lady, what about having a walk in the garden tomorrow? I’ve heard you’re very fond of flowers, and Mother was, too. We take care of her garden and the conservatory, and it would be an honor if you would like to see it.”

He regretted it the moment the words left his mouth. It was too soon, and he was pushing you too fast. Nikolai was about to brush off his idea, but then he heard your voice, clearer than ever:

It didn’t mean you couldn’t play.

What else were you going to do to get through the afternoon?

“Sure you can’t get off early?”

The text was innocent enough. The photo beneath it of you was not. Sprawled out in the middle of the bed with your hand down your panties, you wondered if his super soldier eyes picked up just how wet you were through the fabric.

“Or should I get off by myself? Lick my fingers clean and tell you how good my pussy tastes?”

A heartbeat later, a message from Bucky popped up. God, how fast was he typing? “Don’t you fucking dare. Only one getting you off is me.”

You smirked, wondering how far you could push before there were consequences. “Don’t know, old man. Might need to break out my blue friend. This pussy isn’t going to fuck itself.”

Bucky left the message on read.

A few minutes passed and he still hadn’t responded. You frowned as you checked to see if he was typing anything. You almost apologized for the “old man” remark. He knew you didn’t mean that, right?

The ding of a new message was one of the happiest sounds you heard all day. Would he tell you off for your sass? Tease you back? Your heart raced a bit when you realized he sent you a video. Maybe whatever he had to say was too much to type out.

You recognized the break room when you clicked on the video, gasping when Bucky’s face came into view. Even though he couldn’t see you through the screen, it was like his blue eyes stared into your soul. You could make out the gray hairs on his short beard from how close he was to the device. You wished you could bite his chin.

All in good time.

“You know what a good fruit for old men is? Plums,” he said, a bit of hair falling in his face as he looked down.

…what?

“Good for bone health and improving your memory,” he went on, the rumble of his voice mesmerizing you as he looked back at the screen. “Not to mention they’re delicious. So fucking sweet.”

As Bucky brought a plum to his mouth, he kept his eyes on the device and ran his tongue along the piece of fruit. His hand dwarfed it, a subtle reminder of how big your man was. Your clit throbbed when he bumped his nose against it and gently inhaled. It was the only warning you got before he sank his teeth in to devour it.

“Oh, fuck,” you whimpered as you watched him have his fill. Juice spilled from the corner of his mouth as he growled, reminding you of how eager he got whenever he ate you out. He was relentless when it came to your taste, demanding you give him more. And you’d give it all to him. “Fuck.”

“And still doesn’t taste as sweet as you,” he said, digging his thumb into the plum as deep as it could go. “Bet your pussy’s clenching right now, wishing I was there to fill it up. Maybe I’ll make you ride my tongue before you ride my cock. Show me how good I know you are.”

“Yes, please,” you moaned, your hips shifting on the bed and wishing he was there to relieve the friction. The first time you sat on his face, you hesitated. You’d never forget how he grabbed your hips and helped guide you up and down, moaning as you coated his tongue with your release.

Champion pussy eater and best cock I’ve ever had.

He sucked the digit clean as he narrowed his eyes. “So be good ‘til I get home, keep your legs open so I can dive right in, and don’t you dare touch my cunt again before I get my mouth on it,” he ordered, his voice deep and knowing before he took one more bite. “And I expect an apology for getting me hard during a meeting when you weren’t under the table to suck me off.”

You licked your lips, wishing he was there to slide the heavy weight of his cock to the back of your throat.

“Love you, doll,” he added, licking the last drop from his lip before the video ended.

Well played, old man.

You smiled as you typed back, “Love you, too, and I'll have your dessert waiting.”

“Good because I’m starving.”

This man. Love and thanks for reading! 💙