32yo Female *18+* 🚫minors DNI
Lover, reader, writer, and reblogger for all Chris Evans, Henry Cavill (especially Syverson) and Sebastian Stan characters! I’m mainly here to read other’s work and reblog my favorites!
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I plan to write about Chris Evans Characters, Henry Cavill Characters, possibly some Sebastian Stan and Glen Powell.
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May I pretty please request a short blurb of Bucky with a reader who has an abnormally high sex drive?
Bucky With a Girlfriend Who Has a High Sex Drive
WC 919 (yay I’m getting better at writing shorter fics!)
TW established relationship, super-soldier stamina, very very suggestive
Bucky thought he had a high sex drive.
He had enhanced stamina, enhanced recovery, enhanced everything, and for a while he assumed that meant he was a problem. He wanted you too much. There would be too many mornings where he woke up hard against your thigh, too many nights where kissing you once turned into him pinning you beneath him until the headboard creaked.
He had even warned you when you first started officially dating.
He did it like he was admitting to a terrible flaw instead of looking at you with those beautiful blue eyes and telling you he wanted you all the fucking time.
“I’m not exactly normal about… sex,” he’d said, thumb dragging over your wrist. “The serum changed things. Stamina. Appetite. Um… drive.”
Your mouth had twitched into a smile. “Appetite?”
His ears had gone pink, but he held your stare. “Yeah.”
You had looked him up and down, shameless enough to make his teeth clench.
“Hm,” you’d said. “We’ll see about that.”
Bucky had been so sure. He really thought the serum meant that he’d have to tone it down.
Then, after months of being friends with benefits, he learned what you were like when you were in a relationship.
You might have an even higher sex drive.
You’re not exactly louder about it. Sometimes you were sweet. Domestic and barefoot in the kitchen, wearing one of his shirts, humming into your coffee like you hadn’t dragged him in bed three times yesterday.
But then you’d look at him over the rim of your mug.
That look.
Bucky would recognise the mischief in your eyes low in his stomach before you even opened your mouth.
“Buck,” you’d say, soft and sweet.
And he’d groan like a man already defeated.
“Again?” he asked once, voice rough, half laughing into the crook of your neck while you climbed into his lap like the answer was obvious.
You blinked at him, looking at him with innocent eyes and bare thighs bracketing his hips. “Is that a no?”
His hands tightened on your waist so fast it gave him away.
“No,” he said immediately. “No, of course it’s not a no.”
You smiled, smug and pretty, and rocked down against him until his head tipped back against the couch.
Bucky had been tortured, frozen, shot at, thrown through walls.
Nothing humbled him like you wanting him.
You got him messy. Everyone thought Bucky Barnes was disciplined, but you got him undone.
You got his mouth open. You got his hair ruined. You got his metal hand gripping the couch hard enough to make the frame creak while his flesh hand slid between your legs and found you already soaked for him.
“Jesus,” he breathed, forehead dropping to your shoulder. “You’re gonna kill me.”
You hummed, pleased, rolling your hips against him. “I thought you had enhanced stamina.”
His laugh came out broken. “I do.”
“Then keep up.”
His eyes went dark.
“Yeah?” he murmured, and the next second he had you under him, your back pressed into the cushions, his body heavy between your thighs. “That what you want?”
You reached down, wrapped your hand around him and watched his eyes nearly roll back.
Every time, that was your favourite part.
That ruined, hungry look when he pushed inside you and had to pause like he was praying for control he didn’t have. Not that you even wanted it.
“Fuck,” he whispered.
You smiled against his mouth, moving around him just to feel the shudder move through his whole body.
“Still think the serum makes you special?”
Bucky groaned, dropping his forehead to yours.
Then he started moving.
Slow at first, because he was still your Bucky, because your pleasure was a mission he intended to complete with military precision. But then you hooked your legs around his waist and pulled him deeper, and the sound he made was almost inhuman.
“You’re greedy,” he said, kissing your jaw, your throat, and the corner of your mouth.
“You love it.”
His hips snapped forward harder, and you gasped.
His mouth brushed your ear.
“Fuck,” he admitted, voice low. “I do.”
Boy did he love being wrong about your sex drive.
He loved that you wanted him past the point of reason. He loved that you could make a super soldier sweat, make his thighs shake, make him press his face into your neck and laugh breathlessly.
He loved dragging you into bed after dinner because he had looked at you too long. Loved waking up to your mouth on his throat and your hand sliding beneath the waistband of his sweats. Loved the mornings where he ended up late because you had tugged him back by the chain of his dog tags and whispered, “One more.”
One more was never one more. Bucky learned that quickly. Not that he would have it any other way.
And every single time, he pretended to complain. He’d groan your name, call you trouble, tell you that you were going to get him fired from the new avengers, as if they could ever afford to fire him.
Still, his hands would already be on your waist, his mouth already open against your skin.
He would already be hard again, heavy and flushed between your thighs, because the truth was embarrassingly simple:
Bucky thought he had a high sex drive. Then he met yours.
He realised, very quickly, that he had been outmatched.
—
Note : I’m supposed to post a John Walker kofi request today, but I'm still unhappy with it so I’m gonna look at it with fresh eyes. Probably going to post that Sunday/Monday now!
After Y/N's job declares that employees may continue working remote for as long as they want, she wonders if this is sign from the universe to take a break from New York City. When her crazy cousin finds out, she begs Y/N to spend a year with her in Texas. For some crazy reason, Y/N agrees. A true city girl and a northerner, Y/N immediately feels like a fish out of water in the south. And her cousin's friends enjoy teasing her for all their differences – especially a certain Ethan Syverson.
A/N: this will be a collection of vignettes instead of an episodic series with a through-line.
vignette: Y/N gets horrified when she learns that some women are fine with not being... satisfied.
words: 2,300+
warning: no smut, but a lot of talk about sex and sexuality
masterlist
“Please, please, please, please, please!” Layla was begging Y/N.
The two of them decided to as lay out in their bathings suits on the dock in Aiden’s backyard. It was scorching outside, and Y/N refused to leave the air conditioning unless there was a close body of water she could jump into to cool off.
“Layla, it’s your ten-year reunion!” Y/N laughed at her cousin’s ridiculousness, per usual. “I didn’t go to your high school. I’m not even from the same state as you, let alone the same region of the country. Just take Aiden.”
Layla groaned, “He’s older than us and already went to his own reunion. He thinks he’s above showing face again.”
“Guess he didn’t really mean the whole ‘in sickness and in health’ bullshit in his vows,” Y/N teased.
Layla punched her arm.
“Ow! What the fuck!”
“He didn’t even say that in his vows, you stupid bitch.”
Y/N giggled.
Layla let out a heavy sigh. Clearly, she was genuinely stressed about this reunion.
“Why don’t you just not go?” Y/N offered. “It’s not like you talk to most of those people anymore. Most of your friends are from surrounding towns, or you went to college with them, or their Aiden’s friends' wives and girlfriends.”
“It’ll be worse alone. At least we could laugh at everyone together.”
Y/N sighed. A part of her still felt like she owed Layla so much. After all, her cousin let her stay with her rent-free for an entire year. And if Layla hadn’t begged her to do so, Y/N never would’ve met Sy.
Layla has never held It over her head and she never would.
But a chill goes up Y/N’s spine every time she thinks about how her life would be if she never found Sy. So, she felt like she owed Layla the same happiness she’d gained.
“Is it an open bar?” Y/N asked while looking at the lake.
Layla sat up straighter. “Of course.”
“Fine. I’ll come.”
The next thing she knew, Y/N was being tackled by Layla in a vice-like hug.
Y/N giggled at her cousin’s reaction. “OK. OK. OK. Get off me.”
Layla pulled away and grabbed her cellphone, calling someone.
“Who are you calling?” Y/N asked with confusion.
But Layla ignored her. “Hello my sweet, sweet, handsome hubby.”
Y/N rolled her eyes and looked behind them at the house that sat up the hill, 50 yards away from them.
“Could you make us some margaritas or bloody marys or even micheladas.” Then she added ever so sweetly, “Pleassseeeeee?”
Y/N rolled her eyes at Layla’s act.
Aiden must’ve submitted because Layla then cheered and practically squealed, “Thank you!” Then hung up, looking very pleased with herself.
Y/N lifted her sunglasses and narrowed her gaze on Layla. “I can’t believe that poor bastard is stuck with you forever.”
Layla rolled her eyes. “Oh, please. I spoil him just as much. And who are you to say anythin’? Syverson treats you like a damn queen.”
Y/N tried to hide her smirk and pulled her sunglasses back down. “It’s not like I ever asked him to…”
Layla giggled, “No, you don’t. But the man can’t help himself, now can he?”
15 minutes later, Aiden came down with a pitcher of frozen margaritas and two glasses already salted.
Layla gave her husband a passionate kiss not meant to be done in front of others. So Y/N made a point of making a gag noise at the two of them, earning her another punch to her arm from Layla.
––––
As soon as Y/N walked into a random dive bar in Layla’s hometown, she knew she had made a mistake.
Her and Layla stuck out like a sore thumb.
“We should’ve pregamed,” Y/N muttered quietly to her cousin.
The two of them made a point of trying not to overdress: Layla in a cute dress and Y/N with simple jeans and a cute top. But somehow they still looked like they were going to a completely different event than the rest of the women at the reunion.
“Shots. We need shots,” Layla blurted out before tugging her to the nearest bar.
It only took a few minutes for some of Layla’s old classmates to find her and attack. Some of them already knew Y/N was her cousin. And it was clear many of them thought it was weird – the nicer ones thought it was fun.
But it took a bit of alcohol and time for others to start thinking Layla was her girlfriend.
“Layla why didn’t you come out in high school,” a former mean girl asked, her words slightly slurred.
Layla had told Y/N her name was Caylin. A couple of her minions were by her side, clearly never having gained their own independence – even after high school and college.
Layla tried not to laugh. Honestly, she was kind of flattered.
“Yeah, why didn’t you come out in high school?” Y/N asked, giving no help.
Caylin got closer, eyeing the two of themm and lowered her voice, “Is it true?”
When Y/N and Layla shared a look of confusion, Caylin added even quieter, “You know… that the sex is so much better.”
“Oh, yeah,” Y/N answered without hesitation, voice quiet but excited, as if were some kind of scandalous secret. “It’s sooooo much better.”
The women were even more intrigued and gathered closer.
“Do you really…” the girl hesitated. “Do you really cum every time?”
Layla looked concerned now. “Are you tellin’ me that you ain’t cummin’ every time? Haven’t you been married to Chad Keen for like 5 years?”
“Most of the time it doesn’t happen,” Caylin shrugged. “But that’s normal.”
Then she looked at her friends for confirmation, and none of them look horrified like Layla and Y/N were.
Mother of God. Someone help these women.
Y/N couldn't help herself as she asked, “So you just… fake it all the time?”
It was hard to even ask the question, the idea was so upsetting to her.
“I’ve never even orgasmed before,” one of the minions commented.
Layla’s jaw dropped. “OK. Georgia. That is not some sort of humble brag.”
Y/N whipped out her phone. “OK. I’m going to need everyone’s addresses so I can send all of you a box of sex toys.”
“Sex toys!?” Caylin hissed as if Y/N has just told her she murdered someone.
“Are you telling me you masturbate, too?” One of them asked in disgust.
“Ummm. Everyone should be masturbating,” Y/N preached.
“Gross. I don’t do that,” Georgia chimed in again waving her hand and cringing.
“How the hell ya’ll expect a man to please you if you ain’t know how to please yourself?” Layla yelped.
Caylin gave them a cocky smile. “I’ll have you know, my man is very satisfied.”
“Who gives a fuck if he can’t return the favor?” Y/N spit out without thinking.
“Oh, look at that,” Layla looked down at her phone dramatically. “Aiden is here to pick us up.”
And with that, Layla tugged Y/N out of the bar. “So nice seeing you girls,” she managed to call over her shoulder.
By some miracle, Aiden drove up a few minutes later. But unbeknownst to Y/N, Layla had texted him half an hour ago that they needed to Irish goodbye soon and he promised to be their get away driver earlier that day.
However, Aiden didn’t expect the two of them to be so drunk.
“My God, Layla,” he laughed when they struggled to climb into the truck. “I didn’t know y’all were fixin’ to get toasted at this thing. It’s only 7 o’clock.”
“Mind your business, Aiden.” Y/N growled before falling into a fit of giggles.
“Yeah, let us live our lives,” Layla added.
Aiden shook his head, but smiled. “Well, alright then. Does livin’ your best lives’ include gettin’ somethin’ to eat?”
––––
Half an hour later, Y/N was being delivered to Syverson’s home with a bag of fast food in one hand and pushing Aiden away with the other as he tried to escort her to the front door.
“Scared I’m gonna get lost?” Y/N laughed as she shoved a frie in her mouth.
“Just tryin’ to make sure you don’t fall and break somethin’. Sy would kill me.”
Aiden knocked on the front door.
“Oh, please,” Y/N rolled her eyes. “He’s not even that scary. It’s all a front.”
Syverson opened the door and it only took a second of looking at Y/N to say, “Ahh hell. What did ya’ll do to my girlfriend?”
“This would be my wife’s doin’,” Aiden chuckled. “Just makin’ sure she got home safely.”
“Thanks, Aiden. ‘ppreciate it.” And he gently pulled Y/N into the house.
Aiden nodded. “See ya around, Sy.”
“I brought you some food!” Y/N cheered as Sy closed the front door.
Sy subtly smirked. “Well, that was mighty kind of you, darlin’.”
He followed her as she walked crookedly to the living room and fell onto the couch to continue her feast.
Sy slowly sat down next to her.
Then Y/N suddenly remembered something. Her eyes widened and she turned to him. “Oh, I have quite the horrifying story for you."
Sy listened as Y/N retold the strange conversation she had with Layla’s old classmates. He didn’t interrupt or show any strong reactions. But she could tell he was paying close attention to not only the story, but also Y/N’s reaction to it.
Once she was done, Y/N let out a heavy sigh, “I swear Sy…sometimes the people here make me feel like I’m in a different world.” She shook her head. “Like, those dudes might as well just marry a sex doll. Clearly they wouldn’t know the fucking difference…”
She had sobered up a bit since eating her food and Syverson shoving a large glass of water at her. And somehow the subject got her so fired up that it was like it burned all the alcohol out of her system.
“Well, you’ve been awfully quiet,” Y/N coed as she poked Syverson's shoulder. Then she teased, “What? Are you one of those guys who’s intimidated by a woman’s sex toys?”
Sy gave her a look as if saying, ‘I’m warnin’ you, darlin’.’
But Y/N wanted to play, so she kept poking. “Oooo. The big, bad Ethan Syverson is scared of them.”
To her surprise, Sy’s response was grabbing Y/N and pulling her on top of his lap, giving her no choice but to straddle him on the couch.
No matter how long they’d been together, Y/N still got surprised when he manhandled her like this. Not that she minded. Actually, she was obsessed with it.
“Darlin’,” his voice was deep, giving her chills, “I’ve seen that vibrator of yours. And since then, I can’t stop thinkin’ about watchin’ you use it on yourself.”
Y/N felt her cheeks grow hot.
Another thing she’d probably never get used to: Sy’s directness when it came to sex. She couldn’t match it – and maybe she never would be able to. But that didn’t mean she didn’t love it from him. It just made her shy, but excited.
Sy studied her reaction to his words and waited for her to break the silence. When she didn’t, he got worried that he’d gone too far for her.
“Too honest?” He asked gently.
“No, no, no,” Y/N quickly answered. “Just…not what I expected you to say.” She gave him a shy smile and laugh.
While Sy’s hands gripped her waist, his thumbs traced up and down her sides in an effort to comfort her.
“Maybe for another time,” he told her softly.
Which was code for, ‘When you’re ready. But it’s OK if you never are.’
‘God, I love this man,’ Y/N thought.
“Any man that’s intimidated by his woman’s sex toys is no man at all. That there is a boy,” Syverson added for good measure.
Y/N nodded in agreement.
Then she suddenly realized that with all the talk of unfulfilled women, not one did Sy look stressed about it, not at all relating it to his sex life or their sex lives.
She leaned closer to her boyfriend, bumping their noses with a mischievous smirk. “Aren’t you going to ask me if I’ve ever faked it?”
Sy scoffed. It was an unusual sound, not often heard from him. “Don’t insult me, darlin'. You really think I wouldn’t know?”
Y/N giggled at how fired up she made him from a single sentence.
Then Sy jerked back to fully look at her. “And don’t you ever try to, ya hear me?”
She was caught off guard by the seriousness in his eyes and his military voice.
But she still answered with, “Yes, sir.”
“Good girl.”
Goosebumps and heat simultaneously rushed through Y/N at the comment. ‘That bastard, he knows exactly what he’s doing,’ she thought.
“After what you witnessed today, think I should remind you it ain’t somethin’ you gotta worry about, darlin’.”
Then his lips crashes against hers.
Y/N pulled away with a laugh. “And what exactly does that entail?”
“Not what, darlin’. How many.”
Jesus fucking christ.
He kissed her again and his hands moved under her top, starting to pull it off of her.
Once it was off and Y/N was left in just her bra and jeans, she paused their kissing. “Upstairs?”
Sy shook his head. “Nuh huh. Right here.”
Y/N felt sorry for those poor women.
–––––––––––
a/n: honest to god, this is a conversation my friend once had at a bachelorette weekend. half the women said they'd never had an orgasm, yet were all in long-term relationships. and they thought my friend owning a vibrator was gross and so was masturbating. when i tell you my mind was blown... and i thought it was so funny that it inspired me to write this.
vignette: Y/N thinks her relationship with Sy is going to end up like all the others in her past. After dealing with fuckboi after fuckboi, Y/N realizes she doesn't know what to do when a man might actually care about her.
words: 4,500+
warning: mentions of smut, but no actual smut
a/n: once again, a shoutout to @just-chirpin for letting me pick her brain.
masterlist
Y/N was woken up by someone’s tongue licking her entire face. And with the effort being put into it, she was grateful it was clearly a dog and not a human being.
She pushed whatever it was gently from her face and winced in confusion as she opened her eyes.
Aika was laying on the bed next her, panting happily and wagging her tail.
“What the fuck…” Y/N groaned, trying to put together where she was.
Oh. Right.
She glanced around, realizing that she was in Sy’s bedroom – more specifically, in his bed.
‘Fuck,’ Y/N thought. ‘I had no intention of falling asleep here.’
The old fashioned alarm clock on the nightstand said it was almost 7 o’clock at night. She looked out the nearest window and saw how beautiful the sky looked as the sun almost set. She swore the sunsets in Texas were far more beautiful than those in New York City.
Y/N looked down at herself and realized she was still naked, and only the white sheets of Syverson’s bed were keeping her modest.
As if Aika could sense her distress, she gently licked Y/N’s right shoulder.
This was all wrong. She wasn’t supposed to sleepover. She was supposed to book it as soon as the sex was over.
Then again, Syverson had really worn her out – in the best way possible, that is.
By some miracle, he was nowhere to be found.
Maybe he had chores to get to, she thought. And he probably thought she was lazy lump for falling asleep in his bed.
Y/N spotted her jeans laying discarded on the floor and jumped out of bed, suddenly rushing to find all her clothing to put back on.
Aika watched her from the bed with the tilt of her head and whined softly.
As Y/N dressed herself, she went over what happened earlier in the day. Syverson had picked her up from Layla’s house and hadn’t given her much warning. He had texted her before getting there and asked if she was busy. When she said no, he told her to be ready in an hour and to wear clothes for riding.
--
“We going riding?” Y/N practically skipped when they got to Syverson’s farm.
He smirked at how excited she sounded. “You are. But not on the trails like last time.”
She was suddenly confused. “What do you mean?”
“You’re gonna learn how to gallop.” He said it confidently, leaving no room for her to turn down the idea or argue.
“Oh, God,” Y/N groaned. “I’m gonna make a fool of myself.”
He chuckled at her reaction. “No, you ain’t. You’re gonna do great.”
And Syverson was quite serious about teaching her. He had a giant round pen on his farm that she hadn’t noticed before. He stood on the edge, giving her instructions.
Meanwhile, Y/N was at on top of Dolly, nervous as hell.
“What if I fall?” Y/N looked down at him and asked.
“You ain't gonna fall.” He pet the horse. “Ain’t that right, Dolly?”
The horse reached her neck out and bumped Sy’s face as if she were giving him a kiss.
Y/N felt like she was taking a proper class for horseback riding. Only her teacher was super hot and distracting, only making her task harder.
They started off with a walk. That was obviously easy. Then they moved on to a trot, which Y/N surprisingly got the hang of rather fast. Next was cantering, which was a bit more of a challenge. It was all easier for her than when she was a kid at summer camp. She had more weight on her bones now, not to mention some muscle and strength.
It took a lot longer to get comfortable with the cantering than she wanted.
But Syverson was so encouraging.
Every time he said something like, “That a girl” or “You got it, darlin’,” Y/N’s heart dropped and she tried not to focus on it too much.
When Syverson finally thought she was ready to up it to galloping, he grabbed his own horse, Skunk, and they left the pen.
“Ain’t enough space for galloping in there,” he explained to Y/N when she asked.
Syverson made Y/N practice trotting and cantering on their way to a spot he wanted to reach.
They finally reached a plain and boy was beautiful.
“Should be flat enough. Ain’t any dangerous divots,” Syverson explained.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Y/N asked nervously.
“Hell yeah,” he smiled back, hoping it would reassure her. “By the end of the today, you’ll be a proper cowgirl.”
Y/N couldn’t help but smile at his support.
“What I want ya to do is start off right by the tree and ride right across from me. That way I can see your form and we can go from there.”
Y/N nodded and directed Dolly where he had pointed to.
Earlier, Syverson said to fight the nerves and fear, that horses could sense it and that was no good. "You need to trust your horse and have them trust you in return," he'd said.
“Come on, Dolly. We can do this,” she muttered to the horse before lightly digging her heels into the horse's sides.
Dolly got the message and slowly moved from a trot, to a canter, and finally…to a gallop.
Y/N tried to remember all the pointers Syverson had given her. But she knew her riding was sloppy...because it felt sloppy. It was like she was going to fall off at any second, no control in sight.
When she reached the end of the path Syverson told her to follow, she slowed Dolly to a stop and looked up to see Syverson trotting up to them.
“That was bad, wasn’t it?” She asked meekly.
“Give yourself some credit, darlin’. This is all still new.”
He gave her a few more pointers.
From today, Y/N finally understood why Syverson would make a good captain in the military.
She had tried to subtly ask Aiden about it one night, understanding that Layla already told her all she knew about the military, specifically Syverson's history with it.
“Captains can be in charge of at least 60 soldiers, and that can go up to around 200,” Aiden had told Y/N. “And you don’t just wait for the promotion, you gotta work your ass off to get it. And it ain’t easy. Gets real competitive.”
“And what exactly did he have to do as a captain?” Y/N had pushed.
Aiden shrugged. “Training. Discipline. Keeping his unit’s morale up. Planning attacks. Executing operations. Preparing for big movements. And he was responsible for keeping track of all that fancy equipment our taxes pay for,” he ended with a chuckle.
Y/N saw Syverson’s commanding presence more than ever today. He was patient but firm with his teachings. And Y/N appreciated it, but she also knew she would never want to be on Sy’s bad side. She could only imagine how many young and naive soldiers had been terrified of him.
“Go on now,” Syverson waved her off.
Y/N laughed as she turned Dolly around to try again.
And this went on for an hour, and eventually Y/N got it down. She knew this wasn’t a one and done situation. But she had come so far. Except horseback riding was not like riding a bike: she’d have to keep practicing and practicing, or all this would go to waste.
But for now, Y/N was going to be proud of herself.
She galloped circles around Syverson with a beaming smile.
And true to character, he tried to hide his own.
“Don’t get cocky now,” he teased.
Y/N just giggled.
“Alright, hot shot, what about a race back to the barn?”
Y/N slowed Dolly to a trot, but continued circling around Sy and Skunk.
“I’m not entirely sure I know the way back,” she admitted.
“Ahh...That’s alright. ‘Cause you’ll be chasing after me the whole way.”
With that, Syverson made a clicking noise to Skunk and dug his heels in. And that’s all the horse needed to know that it was time to go – and to go fast.
Y/N’s jaw dropped and she took too long to recover as she attempted to race after him. But she knew it was useless. Sy was clearly not even trying, but he was still yards ahead of her. He probably didn’t want to lose her or be far away in case anything happened to her.
Obviously they made it back to the farm farm quicker than they left it.
And when Y/N slowed Dolly to a halt, both her and the horse were breathing heavily.
“You’re an asshole,” Y/N pointed to Syverson, who had a cocky smirk on his lips.
“Now, darlin’, I didn’t peg you for a sore loser…”
Y/N rolled her eyes, but laughed as she dismounted.
“Come on. Let’s brush ‘em down,” and Syverson nudged his head in the direction of the barn.
Y/N nodded and followed after Sy and Skunk, pulling Dolly alongside her.
Brushing Dolly and Skunk was probably just as relaxing to Y/N as it was for them.
A relaxed quietness had fallen over the two of them and the horses.
Once they got Dolly and Skunk water and food, Y/N shoved her hands in her jean pockets and toed her shoes in the ground, not really sure where to go from here.
Syverson stood in front of her.
“Thank–” But Y/N stopped herself, remembering her promise from the night of Layla and Aiden’s engagement party.
She smiled and tilted her head to press a slow kiss to Syverson's lips.
“I like those much more than your ‘thank yous,’” he mumbled to her with a spark in his gaze.
But Y/N wasn’t done being bold.
She took an exaggerated step back. “You might be able to beat me in a horse race...but can you win against me on foot?”
And before Sy had a chance to answer, Y/N was sprinting out of the barn and back towards the house.
“Oh, yer playin’ with fire, darlin’!” He called after her.
When he made it to the house, Y/N was hiding. Which was an even easier to do when half his house was covered in canvas or plastic from the construction.
But then he heard Y/N’s giggle and immediately knew it was coming from the doorway of the master bedroom.
Syverson was quiet, but there was no silencing the old creaks of the house.
However, he didn’t believe Y/N was aware of how close he was.
So he whipped around the doorway, making her yelp.
And the next second, he picked her up into his arms.
“Is this your way of playing hard to get?” He rumbled.
Y/N giggled, clearly not mad about being in his arms. “Mayyyybeeeee,” she sang.
To her surprise, he gently plopped her on top of his bed. And it was giant. Like, california king big.
“Do I smell like a barn?” Y/N asked, suddenly self conscious.
She had been snapped out of the moment as she realized how sweaty and gross she'd gotten from all the riding.
Sy smiled down at her. “Darlin’, you don’t smell nothin’ like a barn.”
Y/N giggled.
The sound made him freeze, hovering over her.
“What?” She whispered, self conscious once again.
“Nothin’. I just love that sound.”
Her face felt hot with embarrassment, but there was flattery under there, too.
Feeling bold again, Y/N’s fingers scurried underneath the hem of Sy’s t-shirt, slowly lifting it up. Her eyes flickered to his, silently asking if it this OK. Instead of answering, he just pulled the back of the neck with his right hand and yanked the shirt over his head.
No wonder he had no hesitation: Ethan Syverson had the body of a god. His pecks were huge and his six pack looked like it was made from stones. He was perfectly unshaven, with hair sprinkled on his chest and around his belly button, only to trail down further – almost teasingly.
“But now…” Syverson began, slipping his hand up her waist and going underneath her own t-shirt. “I’m interested in what other sounds you can make, darlin’”
Before Y/N could get nervous and abandon this intimate situation, Syverson locked her in a passionate and prolonged kiss.
But he was just getting started.
––––
Y/N finally managed to find all her pieces of clothing.
She tried listening to house to figure out where Syverson might be lingering. Hopefully, he wasn’t even in the house. Maybe he was doing chores around the farm.
“Aika, where’s your dad?” Y/N whispered.
But the dog didn’t seem to be on her side, just watching her.
By some miracle, Y/N’s phone was still in the back pocket of her jeans and there was 50% battery on it. She’ll sneak outside and then call Layla to come get her.
Not having a car here was really starting to annoy Y/N. But she was too cheap and lazy to lease one for the year. It seemed as if she might have to bite the bullet soon.
Y/N tiptoed down Syverson’s stairs.
Immediately, she heard soft music playing and guessed that it was coming from the kitchen.
‘Fuck, fuck, fuck,’ Y/N thought.
If he was in there, she’d have to slip right past him to get to the door. And she had 0 faith that she could sneak past a retired captain from special forces.
But when Y/N peaked her head around the corner, there was no one to be found. Maybe luck was on her side.
When she skipped to the door, Aika decided it was the perfect time to start barking. Damn that loyal guard dog. Apparently, she didn’t want the girl to leave quietly.
Y/N thought she was still in the clear when she reached the front porch outside.
Her foot was on the first step down when she heard, “Tryin’ to make a run for it?”
Her entire body froze.
Y/N looked to her left to see that Sy was leaning against the side of the house. He appeared amused by her failed attempt of sneaking out.
“Uhhh…” Y/N really had no clue what the hell to say.
Syverson pushed off the house and walked to her.
Y/N bowed her head, looking only at her feet. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”
“Why’re you apologizin’?”
“Umm…” Once again, she had no idea how to respond.
“Y/N, I ain’t tryin’ to interrogate you.” Syverson tilted his head and crossed his arms. “So why don’t you tell me what’s goin’ on in that head of yours?”
“Nothing,” Y/N blurted out.
She didn’t make a habit of being honest and forthcoming with men she just had a fling with.
“Y/N,” Syverson warned, using what she assumed was his military tone.
It made her weak in the knees. Damn him.
“Look," she ran a hand through her hair. "I know how this works. It’s best if I just leave. I’ve quickly learned that no one really wants their one-night stands hanging around.”
His brows furrowed. What the hell was she on about?
“Do you…want to leave?” He asked her seriously.
She shrugged. “I figured that’s what we both wanted…”
“That’s not what I asked.”
She sighed and finally lifted her head. “I have trouble sleeping with other people – I mean, like actually sleeping. I’ve never passed out like that before. Sorry.”
“Will you quit saying sorry?” Syverson scolded her. "But I ain’t exactly surprised. I wore you out, darlin’ – in more ways than one.”
This man had the audacity to have a mischievous smirk on his lips.
And Y/N didn’t know if it made her want to smack him or kiss him.
Now Syverson stepped even closer, getting in her space.
“How about I tell you what I was planning on doin’ and then you can decide if you wanna stay? And if you don’t, I’ll drive you home. No questions asked.”
“Umm…o-okay,” she managed to stutter out.
Syverson nodded and continued, “I ain’t one to kick pretty ladies outta my house, especially ones who were just in my bed.” He paused to see her shiver from the subtle compliment. “But my plan was to wake you up, and ask you to stay for dinner. I just pulled some steaks outta the fridge.”
Y/N blinked at how forthcoming he was being.
“So how 'bout it, darlin’?”
Was this some kind of dream? Or a movie?
Y/N had the sad realization that Syverson was treating her more like a human being than all of her past flings combined. Was that her fault or theirs?
“OK,” she finally nodded.
He wanted more than that. “OK?”
“I-I’ll stay,” she agreed. “Can I ask a favor, though?”
Syverson couldn’t help but notice that Y/N only seemed to stumble over her words when she was talking to him. But he wouldn’t let himself linger on that right now.
“‘Course,’ he answered.
“Do you mind if I shower real quick?” She looked him up and down, noting that he had clearly showered and changed into different clothes.
Syverson smirked. “I think that’s a mighty fine idea. How ‘bout you get yourself a shower while I get started on dinner?”
Y/N smiled shyly, but nodded.
Syverson led her to the master bathroom as if she hadn’t been in his bedroom just moments ago.
“Those towels right there are clean,” he pointed. “Use anything ya want in the shower. And I’ll grab you some clean clothes.”
"Thank you."
Syverson raised an eyebrow.
And it took a second for Y/N to realize what she’d said.
But for some reason, something was stopping her from giving him yet another kiss.
Sy wasn’t one to push, so he just gave her a stiff nod and shut the bathroom door behind him.
A big sigh escaped Y/N as she leaned against the bathroom door.
She didn’t turn on the water until she heard Syverson reach the bottom of the stairs.
Y/N quickly showered. And when she moved back to the bedroom, she saw that Syverson had neatly made his bed, and left a t-shirt and shorts neatly folded on top.
“No underwear it is,” Y/N laughed to herself.
For some reason, showering at Syverson’s house was less stressful than sharing a home-cooked meal with him. And Y/N felt shaky as she made her way back down the stairs and moved to the kitchen.
“Can I help with anything?” She asked from the edge of the kitchen.
Syverson turned around and did a double take at her.
Yeah, he had been the one to give her his clothes. But seeing her in them was three times better than how he had imagined them looking in his head.
“Beer or wine?” He asked, completely ignoring her offer to help.
But that was probably for the best.
“Wine,” she answered.
Just as he started reaching for the bottle opener, Y/N shot forward.
“I may be useless in the kitchen, but I know my way around a bottle opener,” she told him and gave him an insistent look.
Syverson and Y/N chatted as he cooked. Eventually, she was able to convince him to let her stir or cut things. He didn’t even seem to mind how slow she was at the latter.
Slowly, Y/N’s anxiety from the situation disappeared. And in its place, she felt a new wave a calm fall over her.
It was something she’d never experienced with a man before, especially right after sleeping with them.
“This is...so nice of you, Sy. You really didn’t need to make me dinner,” Y/N told him gently as she took the first bite.
“Can I ask you a question?” Syverson asked carefully when he took a seat across from her.
He took a sip of his beer, giving her some time to think about it.
“Sure,” she laughed lightly.
Who knew where this was going?
“This really all that new for you?” He asked.
“What? Being wined and dined?” Y/N laughed.
But he didn’t join in, his face was serious as he patently waited for her answer.
“No," she admitted. "Men in New York...they get away with the bare minimum. There’s definitely no southern hospitality in that city – especially for one night stands.”
“One night stand?” Syverson repeated.
Y/N awkwardly clear her throat. “Umm…yeah?”
Damn this man. And damn his ability to make her feel so unsure of situations. She never felt this lack of control with any other man.
“Who said anything ‘bout a one night stand?” Syverson disputed.
Y/N just looked at him, wide eyed and utterly speechless.
Instead of telling her what this was, Syverson changed the subject and moved it to casual, get-to-know-you-more, dinner conversation.
And it seemed to finally relax Y/N a bit.
The talking kept going and going.
Y/N asked him more about his time in the house, his childhood, his family, what he planned on doing with the place, the farm.
The dinner went on for nearly 2 hours, even though they both had eaten their dinner rather quickly. They just continued to fill themselves with more conversation and alcohol than food.
“You need to get back home after this?” Syverson finally asked.
From his tone, he almost sounded disappointed by the idea.
Wasn’t this man sick of her yet?
“Not really,” Y/N shrugged. “Tomorrow’s Sunday, so it’s not like I’ve got work.”
Sy was more intrigued now that she wasn’t completely shutting down the idea of staying with him longer.
“Got plans with Layla?”
“Nope,” Y/N popped the p. “She’s got a date night with Aiden.”
Syverson noticed the hidden disgust in her tone. “And that’s a problem?”
Y/N sighed and let out a light laugh. “I love the crazy idiots. But I don’t know anyone who has louder sex than those two.”
“Oh, helllll…” Syverson groaned.
Aiden was one of his best friends. And Layla was practically a cousin or even a sister to him. He did not want to imagine either of them getting down and dirty.
Y/N laughed at his reaction. “Exactly.”
“So stay the night,” Syverson offered as if it were obvious.
She laughed again, thinking he was joking.
But when he didn’t join in, her laugh slowly came to a stop.
“Aren’t you tired of me?” She didn’t mean to blurt it out. It just happened.
And Y/N shrunk in her seat when Sy’s response seemed…angry?
He leaned towards her from across the dinner table, forearms digging into the wood.
His voice was low and evenly as he slowly asked, “What makes you think anyone would ever get tired of you, darlin’?”
Y/N gaped at his question.
But Syverson didn’t push her to answer the question. Instead, he just let it linger and process in her mind, making her think.
“I’d like to stay…if that’s alright,” she mumbled.
He gave her a small smirk and leaned back in his chair again.
“But I’m cleaning! And that’s that!” Y/N cried out before shooting up for her chair, as if her quick movements would set it in stone and prevent him from trying to help.
He just shook his head and laughed at her.
“Fine. I like the view from here anyway,” Sy muttered as he looked her body up and down.
Y/N was grateful that her back was to him so she couldn’t witness his ogling.
She liked to think she really made up for her lack of cooking skills with her fast and thorough cleaning.
“What now?” Y/N asked him as she leaned against his giant sink and dried her hands.
“How about a movie?” He offered.
She just looked a little surprised.
“What?”
“Nothing. I just…didn’t think you liked movies.”
“I don’t watch them a lot,” he admitted. “But who doesn’t like movies?”
What he really wanted to say was, ‘Yeah, but I know you love ‘em.’ However, he had quickly decided against that.
Y/N shrugged. “What do you wanna watch?”
“Got any recs?” He asked.
Her eyes lit up. “Do I have any recs!?” She mocked. “I’m like a walking movie and TV recommendation. Tell me what you’re in the mood for and I’ll figure one out.”
Sy slowly stood up as she made her way to the living room.
As Y/N passed him, he patted her on the ass.
It was light and playful. And it felt like something a boyfriend would do to his long-term girlfriend, not some girl he’d just slept with.
She feigned exasperation and offense, “Excuse me!”
“You’re excused, darlin’.”
Sy had a giant sectional in his living room that was a little beat up. So Y/N assumed Layla would force him to get rid of it at some point during the renovations. But it was fine for now.
After asking Syverson nearly 20 questions, Y/N started browsing through the TV apps to find the perfect movie.
“I think you’ll like this one,” Y/N explained why she personally liked the film without giving anything away.
Sy was listening, except he also couldn’t help but notice that she was on the complete opposite side of the couch.
“What do you think you’re doin’?” He asked just as she was about to press play.
She just looked at him, confused.
He clarified, “What are you doin’ all the way over there?”
“Oh,” she mumbled, eyeing the giant space between them on the couch.
But she didn't elaborate.
“Y/N, am I doin’ something wrong here?”
Her first instinct was to lie. That was her way of controlling the situation: don’t let them know how you’re actually feeling or what you’re really thinking.
But Sy had been nothing but honest and vulnerable today.
Didn’t he deserve the same in return?
“You umm…” she hesitated.
Fuck. Why was this so hard?
“I what?” He pressed.
“You make me extremely nervous,” Y/N finally confessed.
Syverson let himself think that over before following up with, “Did I do something to make you feel that way?”
“No. Well, at least not consciously, I don’t think. You just…make me unsure of myself. And I’m...I'm not used to feeling that way.”
“Well, if you asked my opinion, I’d say it’s ‘bout time someone got you outta that head of yours, darlin'.”
Y/N let out a laugh. Maybe he was right.
“So what’s making you put an ocean between us?”
She sighed. “I hate Netflix and chill.”
He nodded, slowly understanding what she meant by that.
“Come here,” he demanded, patting the spot right next him.
Y/N took in a deep breath before basically crawling to his requested spot.
She sat on her knees, waiting for him to speak.
To her surprise, Syverson cupped her cheek.
“I ain’t got no ulterior motives. Right now, I want to watch a movie with you. If I want to fuck you, I don’t need need a damn movie to make a move. You hear, darlin'?”
Little did Syverson know, his explanation made Y/N want to skip the movie altogether and return to the bedroom.
But she controlled herself and simply nodded.
“Now come here,” he instructed, lifting his arm closest to her.
Y/N may be dazed from his frankness, but she could still comprehend that he was offering to cuddle as they watched the movie.
She did as he asked, snuggling into his broad chest. And he wrapped his arm around her, hugging her even closer.
“Relax,” he mumbled into her ear before kissing the top of her head.
Fuck. Could he feel how tense she was?
The answer was: yes. Yes, he could.
Syverson realized he really must've been making Y/N nervous, because she passed out right before the end of the movie.
Her whole body was probably exhausted. A whole day of horseback riding, then sex, then anxiety. She finally allowed herself a break from the tension.
Now she had no choice but to fall asleep against Syverson.
And the man didn’t mind one bit.
When the end credits started rolling, he turned off the TV and picked her up in his arms.
Y/N slowly woke up when she felt herself being placed in bed again and Sy pulling the covers over her shoulders.
Her eyes peaked open to see him walking quietly around the room as he changed into his pajamas, which was really him just in briefs without a shirt.
And even in her half-conscious state, Y/N wondered to herself, ‘Is this what domestic bliss feels like?’
––––––
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vignette: Y/N just couldn't leave Texas without seeing Sy one last time.
words: 2,300+
a/n: thank you @just-chirpin for basically being my interior design assistant. lol.
masterlist
Y/N pulled up to the giant farmhouse and all her bravery fled from her body and mind.
She threw the rental car in park, but her hands still gripped the steering wheel so tightly that her knuckles lost their color.
Aika was sitting on the front pork.
She barked at Y/N’s car, clearly on high alert.
To the dog, she was just another intruder.
“What are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing?” Y/N whispered to herself as her eyes raced around the giant property.
A inner voice finally spoke to her, ‘Don’t be a fucking coward.’
And with that, she threw the car door open and stepped on the driveway.
As soon as Aika spotted Y/N and caught her scent, the barking stopped and the dog sprinted to her old friend.
Y/N laughed as the German Shephard almost tackled her to the ground.
“Hi. Hi. Yes. Hello. I’ve missed you, too.” Y/N kneeled down to appease the dog.
And Aika took that as an invitation to give her endless kisses.
Y/N laughed as she tried to lightly push her away. “OK. OK. OK.”
Then she looked up at the front door of the house, and was surprised that all of Aika’s barking hadn’t alerted Syveron and brought him to the porch.
Y/N stood up and looked around.
“Where’s your dad at? Huh?” She asked the dog.
Aika turned her head to the side.
But she seemed to immediately understand, because she barked and started running in the direction of the barn.
When Y/N didn’t start to follow, Aika barked at her, ran back, circled around Y/N, and then headed back toward the barn again.
Y/N laughed and followed after the dog, who would pause and make sure she was following every few yards.
When they were just a few yards away from the entrance of the barn, Aika started barking nonstop.
“Goddamnit, Aika! I swear… if you have another dead squirrel in tha’ damn mouth of yours…” Syverson growled from somewhere inside that Y/N couldn’t see.
The next second, he begrudgingly came charging outside of the barn.
But Syverson stopped dead in his tracks when he spotted Y/N.
However, he recovered quickly and controlled any reaction to her presence. And he started walking slower towards them.
“Thought you’d be back in New York by now…” Syverson muttered as he scratched the back of his neck awkwardly.
Y/N shrugged. “My flight’s not until until tomorrow afternoon.”
Sy nodded as he crossed his arms.
“Didn’t mean to bother you,” Y/N shifted nervously. “Layla mentioned something about the reno finally being finished,” she thumbed behind her at the house. “Just thought…I don’t know…that I could see it.”
Sy watched her for a moment, reading the situation.
They both knew the house wasn’t really what she was here to see.
He gave her a half smirk. “You ain’t ever botherin’ me, darlin’.”
“You’re working though. Clearly.” Y/N started walking backwards. “I shouldn’t have just shown up like this.”
“Y/N,” Sy said her name so firmly that it froze her in place.
There was that military authority. It revealed itself so rarely.
Syverson walked closer to her. “Relax," he requested.
Y/N’s shoulders did as he commanded, even if for just a few seconds.
Sy looked her up and down.
Y/N’s face felt hot as she realized she was wearing an oversized flannel that she’d stolen from Syverson. She had worn it so much since leaving that she had started to forget that it originally belonged to him.
Sadly, it had lost his scent not long after moving back to NYC.
“You look mighty cute,” Sy said with a smirk, knowing that she was embarrassed to be wearing his clothing in front of her by complete accident.
She scoffed, “Oh, shut it. You going to show me your house or not?”
Sy chuckled and nodded. “Well, come on then. Ain’t got all day.”
But when it came to Y/N, he did have all day.
Sy brought them back around the front to start with the main entry way.
Y/N’s eyes widened when she saw the first of the renovations.
Layla truly had a gift. She'd clearly respected the history of the home and all the details that could never be truly recreated in a modern home. The woodwork was raw, but absolutely beautiful.
And the colors they chose only brightened the once dark home.
There were knickknacks around that clearly had been in the family for decades, and Layla knew exactly how to stage them.
“Pops claims his great grandpa made this miniature ship,” Sy pointed out. “It was hidin’ in the attic, collectin’ dust. Layla just about lost her damn mind when she found it.”
Next, he took her into the living room. It was even brighter – thanks to all the windows – and welcoming.
The fireplace was beautiful, but Y/N’s northern self was struggling to think of a time when Texas was ever cold enough to light a fire.
The room surprisingly didn’t feel like only a man lived there, especially with all the candles and accent pieces through the giant room. Sy also managed to still fit in a giant couch for him to spread out on, and still keeping enough room for plenty of guests to fit, too.
“You light all these candles every night?” Y/N teased him.
But it was clear none of the wicks had even been touched yet.
“Think you know the answer to that,” he replied with his arms crossed.
Sy then brought her to a small library. It had been covered up every time she visited, making her oblivious to its very existence.
Y/N had never seen actually Sy read before. But he also always woke up before her, and she could somehow perfectly imagine him reading the newspaper or something with his morning coffee – all while she was still fast asleep.
The library was darker than the rest of the home, but very cozy – just like libraries should be.
Y/N couldn’t stop herself from imagining sitting on the velvet couch with a favorite book. Maybe even Aika would be sleeping at her feet.
She started walking through the room, her index finger tracing across the shelves of the bookcase. No dust in sight.
Sy leaned in the doorway, watching her with his arms crossed.
“Reading anything good?” She asked, fully expecting him to tell her no.
Before Syverson could answer, Y/N noticed a book on the coffee table near the sofa. And from the way it was placed, she could tell it was currently being read, and not just there for display. There was an even a bookmark placed 3/4 of the way through.
Y/N swore her heart had leapt into her throat as she read the cover: Men Who Hate Women.
It was the book she was reading the day they met.
Sy had caught her noticing it too, immediately seeing the shift in her body.
Y/N looked up at him, waiting for an answer to a question she never actually asked.
“Thought I give it a read,” was all he said with a shrug.
If Sy was embarrassed from getting caught, he did a good job of hiding it.
“And are you liking it?” Y/N tried to sound casual and only half interested.
A sound escaped his throat, close enough to be called a growl. “Makes me wanna punch a bunch a men, that’s for damn sure.”
Y/N giggled. “I appreciate you giving it a shot.”
Sy didn’t know how to handle the way she was looking at him, so he chose to avoid it.
"Come on,” he nudged behind him. “Let me show you the kitchen.”
The kitchen looked exactly like the plans Layla had showed Y/N when she had been started to brainstorm ideas for the redesigning Syverson’s whole house.
He looked around the room as if inspecting it.
“I always think ‘bout what you said,” Sy hummed.
Y/N tilted her head. “What I said?”
He nodded. “About kitchens.”
Y/N's body stilled for a moment when she realized what he was talking about.
He remembered that?
They had only looked at the first floor. But somehow the enthusiasm for the tour had suddenly subsided for both of them.
And therefore, they could no longer hide behind the distraction.
Sy saw Y/N’s nervousness slowly seep out.
“I talked to my mom this morning,” she mumbled.
But her eyes couldn’t look at him, only staring at the floor.
“Mhmm,” Syverson hummed casually, even though he knew exactly what she must have told her daughter.
“Said you told her that you love me.”
“I did,” he confirmed.
The quick honesty made Y/N’s gaze shoot up from the floor to meet his.
But Syverson didn’t back down. “Is that a problem?”
“No,” she exhaled. Even the single word was shaky. “It actually makes all of this less uncomfortable when I tell you…”
Sy took a step closer, getting into her space. “Tell me what?”
Y/N swallowed, buying herself some time to find the courage.
Then she looked into his blue eyes. “When I tell you that I love you, too.”
Without missing a beat, Sy responded by crashing his lips onto hers.
Y/N lightly moaned into the kiss, not expecting such a reaction from him. In fact, she had half expected him to tell her to get out and leave him alone for good.
Their closeness was somehow not close enough for Sy.
And he backed her up until her butt hit the kitchen counter. With hardly any effort, Sy gripped her waist and lifted Y/N, placing her on top of it.
Y/N made her intentions clear and started undoing Sy’s belt buckle.
She froze when he suddenly held her wrist in place, preventing her from ripping the piece of leather out of the loops of his jeans.
She looked up at him in fear, thinking Sy was about to reject her and it was just delayed response to the wild situation.
But Syverson smirked at her before saying, “You still ain’t even seen the master bedroom, darlin’.”
She gave him a relieved smile.
But wasn’t expecting Syverson to throw her over his shoulder.
Y/N couldn’t help but giggle.
And the sound brought something out of him: Joy? Playfulness? The first wave of relief he’d felt since she’d left?
Sy smacked her bottom.
“Ethan Syverson!” She scolded.
And just like, they were back to how they used to be and it was like no time had passed.
——
Y/N traced the shadows underneath Syverson's eyes.
Was he having trouble sleeping?
When she had been in Texas, it seemed like Syverson was able to operate on four hours of sleep and still be perfectly fine.
So, he must really be struggling if his body was started to show signs of exhaustion.
“I think you need some sleep,” Y/N pointed out gently.
“Don’t wanna,” he sighed.
“Why not?”
Sy looked at her for a moment before admitting, “‘Cause I ain’t about to give ya the chance to sneak off.”
That was fair, but it still hurt.
“Well, I’m not going to do that,” she promised.
But Sy didn’t seem fully convinced.
So he simply pulled her body closer.
And Y/N rest her head on his bare chest.
Sy was already a space heater, but when they were both naked, he felt even warmer.
They settled in quietness. Both of them were now tiptoeing around each other in a post-sex haze, scared to ruin the glow of it all.
“Why do you have an office?” Y/N suddenly asked him. “I didn’t think you’d need one…”
When Sy had thrown her over his shoulder, she had caught a glimpse of it at the top of the stairs. She swore before the renovations it had been another guest bedroom. But it seemed to be set up as an office space now.
Sy's breathing got quiet at the question, and Y/N felt his body tense.
She didn’t think it was a controversial question. She had just been curious.
But his reaction made her sit up to look at him.
It was hard imagining him needing one. All of his work was hands on and physical.
In fact, Y/N wasn’t sure she’d ever even seen Sy even write before or sit in front of a laptop. Did he even have a computer?
“I didn’t have a lot of thoughts on the house. I damn well drove Layla crazy,” Syverson muttered, his eyes staring out at nothing.
He took in a deep breath. “When all of it was finally done, you were gone. An’ one night, I just looked around at everythin’.”
Y/N watched him hesitate. What was he trying to figure out if he should say or not?
“And I realized I was–” He cleared his throat and scratched his beard. “Guess I was jus’ imaginin’ you here.”
Syverson finally met her gaze. “The office was for you, I guess.”
Y/N’s heart felt like it dropped to her stomach as she processed what he was telling her.
Sy hadn’t been building his home. He had been building their home.
And he hadn’t even realized it.
“We can’t leave each other again,” Y/N whispered, surprising herself with how it just escaped her without even thinking.
She buried her face into his neck, hiding from her confession.
Sy calmed her by weaving his fingers in her hair and massaging the back of her neck along with his combing.
“WelI, it’s good we agree," he muttered softly. "‘Cause I wasn’t plannin’ on lettin’ ya go another time.”
She pulled back to look at him. “Really?”
This woman… Sy thought. When would she stop being surprised that’d he do just about anything for her?
He nodded.
“It’s just…" She frowned. "I’m not ready to leave New York. Not yet.”
“I never told ya that ya had to give it up,” he clarified.
Y/N just nodded. “Are you sure?”
“Damn right I’m sure.”
She gave Sy a shy smile.
But Y/N seemed to be slowly shrinking into her own mind, getting drawn in my her chaotic thoughts and struggling to stay with him in the present.
“Darlin’?” He asked gently as he cupped her cheek.
“Hmm?” She sounded distant even though they were basically on top of each other, still naked.
“We’re gon’ figure it out, alright? And we don’t gotta solve it this instant. But we will. I promise ya.”
A closed smile slowly formed on her lips.
“Alright?” Sy urged.
She nodded. “Alright.”
––––––––
Let me know if you liked it. Also open to writing more vignettes – even if they take place before this certain one.
vignette: Y/N offers to help Layla with her next, big interior design job. And that job just so happens to be gutting the entirety of Ethan Syverson's house.
words: 5,100+
warning: my sad attempt at trying to write a texas accent. military talk, yet i know very little about the military. (once again, thank you @all1e23 for your help)
masterlist
“I don’t think I’m going be any help, Layla.” Y/N told her cousin as they drove. “I mean, I’ve never even owned a home. For year, I’ve been jumping from one shitty New York closet to another.”
“Give yourself some credit,” Layla argued. “You’ve got a good eye.”
Y/N gave her a shy but thankful shrug.
“Also, my crew is all made up of men. I need some female reinforcement!”
Y/N sighed, but didn’t argue further. She was actually more than willing to help Layla with her job, she just felt like she needed to clarify that she had no idea what she was doing.
Apparently Syverson had finally bit the bullet and hired Layla. And when she announced the new job during her celebration, Y/N was surprised the bachelor had any interest in properly decorating his home.
“It’s his family’s home,” Layla explained. “And it hasn’t been updated in decades.”
“Interesting,” Y/N hummed as she looked out the window.
“And the house is absolutely beautiful. I’ve been begging Syverson to let me help him for years.”
“Wonder what changed his mind finally…” Y/N thought aloud.
Layla managed to successfully hide her smirk or any other reaction.
Because she had a hunch.
And that hunch was also the reason that Layla convinced Y/N that she needed to accompany her to “help” on the job.
“Horses!” Y/N gasped and pointed.
“Jesus H. Christ, Y/N!” Layla yelled as she accidentally swerved the car a bit. “Do not fuckin' scream when you ain't the one driving the damn car!”
“Sorry! I just got excited,” Y/N laughed.
Layla shook her head. “Once a horse girl, always a damn horse girl.”
“You’re so spoiled,” Y/N snapped back. “You get to see them all the time! The only horses I get to see are the drugged out ones that take tourists around Central Park, and it’s depressing as fuck.”
“You’re so right,” Layla answered sarcastically. “I’ll be sure to appreciate the horses from now on, alright?”
“Whatever.” Y/N punched her arm. “If you had told me there were horses, I would’ve offered to drive so we got here faster…”
Layla just laughed and shook her head some more.
A few minutes later, Layla pulled onto a long driveway and Y/N’s jaw actually dropped when the house came into view.
Layla giggled, “Told you so.”
It was the most beautiful home Y/N had ever seen, a Victorian farmhouse sitting on god knows how many acres. There weren’t any neighbors in sight, which explained why it felt like such a long drive from Layla’s place. There were giant trees surrounding them, only proving how old all the property was.
Layla threw the car in park just outside the front door.
A giant german shepherd started barking at them from the wrap around porch, most likely alerting its owner to guests – welcomed or unwelcomed.
A few seconds later, Syverson came walking out the front door.
“There’s still time to back out,” Layla teased.
“Don’t make me regret this,” Syverson pointed at her seriously.
“My crew should be here in 30 minutes, I thought we could talk about any of your concerns or things you may be nervous about before they get there.”
Y/N smiled shyly. It was nice to see her cousin in her element. Layla turned so serious as soon as she was in work mode.
“Sounds good,” Syverson nodded.
Suddenly, the german shepard came bounding off the front porch, ran past Layla entirely and right to Y/N.
“Aika! Relax,” Syverson commanded.
Y/N jumped from his order more than the dog did. She had never heard him use that voice before. It was so severe and dominant.
“She won’t hurt you,” Syverson quickly told her, his voice gentle and calm now. “She just doesn’t know you.”
“Oh, it’s ok. I’m not afraid of dogs,” Y/N giggled and she bent down to pet the dog, whose tail was now wagging enthusiastically.
The dog was fighting the hold on her face, wanting to give Y/N an overwhelming amount of kisses.
Y/N was laughing at the dogs attempts. “What’s her name again?”
Syverson had said it so quickly a moment ago that Y/N hadn’t caught it.
“Aika,” he repeated, slower and softer this time.
“And you’re such a cutie, Aika. Aren’t you?” Y/N cooed.
“Aika, leave the poor girl alone,” Sy sighed. “Here.” There was that tone again.
But the dog instantly ran to Syverson’s side and sat down, looking up at him, and patiently waiting for her next command.
Syverson nodded towards the front door. “You ladies want anything to drink?”
“Water would be nice,” Layla chirped.
“I’m fine,” Y/N politely declined.
As soon as they walked into the house, Y/N understood what Layla meant when she told her that Sy’s family hadn’t changed the home in decades. The bones and structure of it were stunning. People paid thousands and thousands of dollars to try and replicated homes like this. But the decor and interior design of the house was severely outdated – and not in a charming way. Almost every wall had wallpaper, and most of it was pretty terrible. And the finishes on the woodwork were chipped and in need of a fresh coat.
Y/N watched Layla’s eyes brighten, clearly seeing the home as a blank canvas for her creativity to run wild on.
“So we’ve talked about budget,” Layla jumped right into it. “And with my plans, we should actually have some leftover and I had an idea…but I don’t know if you’re gonna like it.”
Sy crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow. “Mhmm.”
“The master bathroom. You have that giant circular window…”
He nodded.
“And it’s always covered with drapery that doesn’t quite fit it, right?”
“Yep.”
Layla smiled. “So my idea was to get a custom stained glass window. That way you don’t feel so exposed, even though you don’t have any neighbors. And it would be such a beautiful touch, dontcha think?”
Y/N couldn’t help but smirk at how passionate and excited she sounded.
Sy rubbed his beard. “Seems like such a waste, don’t it? I was thinking about getting rid of the clawed bathtub anyway.”
Layla gasped, “Don’t you dare, Ethan Syverson!”
“I never use it, Layla.”
“Oh, yeah. Well, what about your future girlfriend or wife. Don’t you think she’d appreciate it?”
Syverson sighed.
But he did know Layla had a point. He didn’t expect to live in this giant house by himself forever – at least he hoped that wasn’t the case.
“Sy,” Layla said sternly. “You hired me to make your house feel like a home, not a bachelor’s pad.” The she smiled. “And you’re lucky enough to have an interior designer who knows you. I promise I designed everything to fit you as a person. I want this place to feel like it’s yours, not like a house you’ve just been given.”
“You’re right,” Sy finally let out. “When I told people I hired you, they said I was just about the luckiest bastard in the county.”
Layla beamed at that.
“So, let’s go over the plans one more time.”
Y/N silently followed them around, sometimes trying to peak at Layla’s designs when she could, but not wanting to insert herself in any of the discussions. She just wanted to witness the experience of it all.
Eventually, they got to the kitchen. Which was actually the most dated room in the house and the biggest eye sore.
“I’m thinking wide wood floors and minimum color,” Layla explained with her iPad in her hands. “Let the food speak for itself, you know what I mean?”
Syverson nodded.
The sound of multiple cars arriving caught all of their attention.
“That’ll be my crew. I’ll be right back,” Layla said before going out the front door.
Syverson and Y/N were left alone for the first time that day – first time in awhile, actually.
“You have a beautiful home,” Y/N told him quietly.
“Thanks,” Syverson replied, almost awkwardly. He didn’t seem to take compliments well. “It’s old. Been in the family for quite some time. As you’ve seen, it needs some updating.”
“Old is good. New homes suck,” Y/N laughed.
Then her eyes took in the room. “The kitchen might end up being my favorite part, once Layla’s done.”
“Think so?” Sy shifted his weight and crossed his arms. “You a big cook?”
“No,” she chuckled. “I’m no good at it. And I really don’t enjoy it, either. I almost exclusively live off takeout or go out to eat a lot. Layla’s been spoiling me with all her cooking – she cooks, I clean. But it still doesn’t feel even to me.”
He smiled at her honesty. “So why the kitchen then?”
Y/N hummed, thinking about how to explain it to him.
“A professor of mine once said that the most important conversations happen in two places: the car and the kitchen. The car because you’re both looking forward, and not being forced to look at each other. There aren’t any interruptions, no one can eavesdrop.”
“Never thought about it that way,” Sy nodded. “And kitchens?”
“They’re comfortable. Kitchens are the communal and informal area of a home. Usually people are just eating or drinking something. And the conversations just…happen. They aren’t forced or awkward.” Y/N smiled. “Doesn’t matter if you cook or not, kitchens are the most important room in a house.”
Sy smiled back at her.
Their little moment was ruined by Layla directing her workers into the home and already giving them orders.
“I’m about to really get in the way,” Y/N told him quietly. “I think I’m gonna go outside. Call if you need help with anything.”
Syverson opened his mouth to tell her to stay, but she was already walking towards the door that led outside from the kitchen.
Aika whined as she watched her leave.
Sy couldn’t help but laugh at his dog. Seemed they had similar taste in humans.
“Go keep her company, girl.” He ordered.
Aika barked happily and sprinted out the doggy door, following after Y/N.
Sy watched through the window as he could hear Y/N’s laugh as Aika attacked her with love.
Layla reminded Syverson of drill a sergeant with how she carried out orders. It was entertaining to watch, that was for sure.
After about 30 minutes, Layla took a breath and watched as everyone was getting down to business.
But then she looked behind Syverson’s shoulder, clearly seeing something through the window.
“Oh, hell. She’s found the damn horses…”
Sy whipped around to see what Layla was looking at.
Y/N was gently petting one of his horses in the pasture. It was Dolly, a Palomino mare. She was an absolute sweetheart and loved people, always excited by new visitors. And she was clearly loving the attention Y/N was giving her.
“It’s fine. They won’t hurt her.”
“I know that," Layla answered. "She’s just a crazy fucking horse girl. You should’ve heard her when she first saw them when we got here. Nearly gave me a heart attack.”
Syverson had to stop himself from smiling too much. “I wouldn’t’ve expected that.”
“Oh, don’t let her fool you, Syverson. She may be a city girl, but she’s got some country hidin' in her.”
Layla observed in amusement as Syverson continued watching Y/N.
“You know, Sy, it might be best if you get out of here at this point.”
He quickly faced her. “What do you mean?”
“You’re paying me so someone else does all the work. You didn’t pay me so you would also have to work. Plus, I can tell that you’re already getting anxious and we haven’t even started the demolition. Might be easier if you didn’t watch us rip apart your family home…”
He just nodded.
“Go show Y/N around,” Layla playfully shoved him in the direction of the door.
“Alright. Alright. Give it a rest,” Sy groaned.
But he did as she said.
–––––
Y/N was on cloud nine as she pet the horse. She hadn’t been near a horse in years. And this one seemed to love her just as much as she loved it.
“You a Disney princess or somethin’?” A voice asked from behind her.
Y/N jumped and quickly moved away from the horse. She turned around to see Syverson watching her with clear amusement, his arms crossed and head titled a bit.
“W-What?” She asked confusedly.
“My dog is already mesmerized,” he nodded to Aika, who was laying at Y/N’s feet. “Now you’re making Dolly fall in love with ya.”
“Her name’s Dolly?” Y/N smiled innocently.
He nodded.
“Like, Dolly Parton?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Y/N had that little smirk on her lips again.
Syverson realized it was the same every time he said something southern that she wasn’t used to. Then he realized he also found it adorable. So he didn’t plan on stopping it.
Y/N turned back to the horse and started petting her again. “You got named after one of the baddest bitches in the world, you lucky girl.”
Syverson couldn’t hold back his chuckle.
“Layla kick you out?” Y/N asked when he moved to stand next to her.
“Somethin’ like that.”
Y/N just laughed. Typical Layla.
“Didn’t think you’d be a horse lover,” Syverson noted. “Most people who aren’t around them every day seem to be a bit afraid of the things.”
“True,” Y/N agreed. “But I used to go to summer camp when I was younger, and got to ride horses half the time. I wasn’t really that good. But I just enjoyed learning how to take care of them.” She looked away from Dolly and smiled at Sy. “Half my childhood was me begging my parents to let me get a horse,” she laughed.
“So when’s the last time you were on one?”
Y/N blinked, trying to think. “Jesus. Probably not since I was 13 or something.”
“So it’s decided,” Sy stated a bit louder and slapped the outside of his thigh.
Then he started walking away. And somehow Y/N knew she was meant to follow him.
“Wait what? What’s decided?”
“We’re going ridin’.”
The inflection in his voice was saying she didn’t have an option. It was an order.
Y/N nervously looked down at her outfit as they walked to the barn. She was wearing jeans, so that was good. But then she was wearing high-top converse. She basically wore clothes she wouldn’t mind getting dirty or paint all over them.
And all Y/N could remember from summer camp was that they just wanted the kids to have closed-toed shoes. They weren’t serious equestrians by any means. But Y/N assumed that someone like Syverson wouldn't think converse were sufficient.
“Umm…Sy?” She asked nervously.
“Hmm?” He barely looked over his shoulder.
“I don’t have boots or anything like that…”
He glanced down at her shoes. “We have a bunch of old boots laying around. My moms old ones might fit you. If not, you’ll survive with those.”
“O-OK.”
Turned out that Syverson did find a pair of boots that fit her. They weren’t his moms. But they worked, so she didn’t care who they belonged to.
“I feel like a real cowboy,” Y/N laughed as she heeled and toed them.
“Not quite,” he muttered and disappeared into the same small office-like room where he had found her a pair of boots.
Syverson returned with a cowboy hat that was clearly too small for him, and held it out for her to take.
Y/N beamed and did a little excited dance before taking it and placing it on her head.
“How do I look?” She asked.
There was no mirror for her to see for herself.
Syverson looked at her, trying to control his expressions.
Beautiful. Sexy. Cute. Badass. Adorable. Sweet.
“Like a real cowboy,” he finally confirmed.
She smiled even bigger at his answer.
Y/N patiently watched Sy saddle two horses – one of them being Dolly. Y/N wanted to offer to help him, but she was nervous she’d just slow down the process with him having to explain a lot of things she’d forgotten.
“Who’s this?” Y/N asked about the other one he was saddling.
The horse was a black pinto with a pink nose and much bigger than Dolly.
“This here’s my horse. His name’s Skunk.”
The horse neighed as if he was responding to his name being said.
“Well, isn’t he mean for calling you that,” Y/N told the horse sweetly, petting his neck.
“Hey now. He’s named after a 70s punk band from Austin.”
“Ahh. My apologies. I’m not on top of my game when it comes to obscure bands from around here.”
Sy smiled and brought over Dolly, lining up her saddle to where Y/N was standing.
“Now, you’re gonna wanna–”
But before Syverson could even finish one sentence, Y/N had grabbed the reins and Dolly’s withers with her left hand, and the end of the saddle with her right, put her left foot in the stirrups, and swung onto Dolly.
Syverson couldn’t hide how impressed he was with the smoothness of it all.
Y/N looked down at him with a crooked smirk. “What? I said I wasn’t good, not that I didn’t remember.”
“Well, aren’t you full of surprises, darlin’.”
Syverson didn’t waste any time and quickly mounted Skunk.
“Where we going?” Y/N asked, giddy with excitement.
Syverson just pointed to the opposite side of the barn that they had entered in.
Y/N turned Dolly with ease and walked her out.
Sy dug his heels into Skunk and clicked his tongue, quickly catching up.
“Sure you weren’t any good?” He eyed her now that they were parallel.
“Walking and directing is easy. It was the whole trotting and cantering and galloping that I wasn’t good at.” Then she thought about it for a second. “But to be fair, I probably weighed less than half of what I do now, so I was really bouncing around a lot,” she laughed.
“That’ll do it.”
Once they were a few yards away from the barn, Aika barked at them from inside.
Syverson turned Skunk to face his dog. “Aika, stay.”
The dog whined, but laid down and looked at them riding away longingly.
Y/N looked around at the property. “I didn’t realize you lived on a farm.”
“Been in my family a long time.”
“How do you take care of it all and have a job in construction?”
“I used to work construction. Not anymore. Now I work on the farm full time. I have some help. It’s not much, but it’s enough to live off of and make some money from.”
Y/N nodded, still taking in all the details.
“Can I ask you something?”
She sounded nervous and unsure of herself.
Once again, Syverson couldn’t help but notice that she only seemed to get that way around him. Clearly it wasn’t because he was man, she had no issues with his friends that he had gotten used to seeing her interact with.
“Sure.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you were in the military?”
Syverson was a bit confused by the question.
“I’m assuming you did construction after you served?”
He nodded. “I didn’t tell you because it didn’t come up. Everyone here knows that about me. It was…nice to meet someone who didn’t.”
“What’s wrong with knowing?”
Syverson sighed. “People treat you different.” He moved his gaze to the horizon. “And I’m sure you city folk have your thoughts on the military.”
“Believe it or not, I don’t have a lot of thoughts on it. No one where I’m from is in the military and no one in my family is either. I don’t really know much about it, if I’m being honest.”
“Well…what do you want to know?”
“Do you hate talking about it?” It wasn’t really her first question. She just wanted to make sure she wasn’t making him uncomfortable.
The truth was, she didn’t think any man should be forced to do what American’s military required of them. And what she did know about the subject was the psychological studies related to veterans – included, but not limited to, post traumatic stress disorder. But the actual life of being a soldier was something completely foreign to her.
“Depends,” Syverson tilted his head. “But why do you seem nervous about it?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “I don’t want to insult you by asking something stupid or assuming anything.”
He smirked. “I think the fact that you’re worried about it proves that you’re not gonna do that, darlin’.”
She laughed lightly, seeing his point. “What…part?”
“You mean what branch?”
“Yeah, sorry.”
“It’s fine. I was in the Army. Special Forces.”
“Special Forces,” she repeated. “That’s kind of a big deal. Right?”
“It’s just the unit I was in,” he answered evenly.
Y/N might know next to nothing about the military. But she knew people. And that was enough to recognize Sy was being extremely modest. She’d have to google later or ask Layla about it – half the people she graduated high school with ended up in the military.
“Did you like it?” She asked carefully.
“That’s hard question to answer. It was my job. And it was my job for a long time. You just start looking at it that way – not thinking about if you like it or not. You just gotta do it.”
Y/N nodded. “That makes sense.”
She knew she was about to ask another dumb question, but she really didn’t know the answer to it.
“So are you…done? Will you ever have to go back?”
He smiled at the way she was talking. “You’re being real careful.”
Y/N groaned. “I know! I’m sorry. I’m trying to learn.”
“I signed a 18X contract – which is 6 years. That’s pretty standard, even for other units. Then I did 4 more after that.”
“10 years?” Y/N gasped. “Fuck.”
“It goes by real fast and real slow at the same time – a whole lot of nothing and then sudden moments of chaos – and those would really kick your ass.”
“You sound really…indifferent about it all.”
Syverson huffed out a laugh. “I guess that’s a good way of putting it.”
Y/N had a million other questions. But she didn’t think it was right to ask any of them. After all, the two of them were still practically strangers.
“Enough about me,” he said. “Why do you like New York?”
Y/N laughed at the question. “I mean, sometimes I don’t. Some days I hate it.”
“I think any sane person would say that about any place they live.”
“Fair,” she countered. “I don’t know…it’ll sound cheesy.”
“Cheesy ain't so bad,” he told her with a smirk.
“The obvious and cliche answer is art, music, fashion, and food. But it’s more complicated than that. I guess...” She thought for a moment. “You can be the weirdest version of yourself, and no one will blink an eye. And better yet, you’ll probably be able to make a friend who’s the same weird.” She sighed. “You can be as lonely or as un-lonely as you want.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“You can go to a crowded bar and not talk to a single soul. But you can also make a friend anywhere you are – if you go about it the right way. But it’s up to you, and I guess that’s the tricky part. There has to be an effort.”
Syverson nodded slowly.
No one had ever described New York to him that way before.
To him it was a tiny place. Overcrowded. Dirty. Smelly. Unforgiving. Frustrating.
But Y/N had a way of painting the romance of the city without being delusional about it.
“And why do you hate it sometimes?” He challenged.
Y/N took in a deep breath. “There are just times where I ask myself, ‘Is this Stockholm Syndrome?’ Every time I even just think about what it would be like to leave, I get this overwhelming feeling that I would be quitting. Like, I couldn’t handle it anymore and had to leave before it destroyed me.” She gave him a sad smile. “But those don’t happen a lot.”
Their ride continued and the subjects got a bit lighter.
There was a moment when Y/N remembered what Layla said about Syverson not talking. And it confused her even more now. Because the man was talking more than even that night he saved her and drove her home.
The two of them rode for about an hour. Syverson chose a shorter trail, not wanting to be gone from the house too long. But also the fact that Y/N hadn’t been on a horse in quite some time meant that she would probably be exhausted rather quickly.
When they finally got back, Y/N surprisingly asked Syverson if he would give her a tour of the rest of the farm.
“Do you need any help with anything?” She had quickly followed the request with the offer.
He couldn’t help but smirk at her enthusiasm.
Yeah, she was a city girl who wouldn’t probably know a whole lot about running a farm. But she didn’t seem to let that stop her. It was like Y/N was always proving that anyone could learn anything new at anytime in their life. You just had to be openminded.
Y/N just about lost it when she got to pet Sy’s cows and a pigs.
He forgot how much mundane things in his life could be new to others. Then he thought of how overwhelmed he would be if Y/N showed him around New York City.
‘What the hell are you thinkin’?’ His mind suddenly stopped him. ‘Who said anything about this woman taking you to New York?’
“You lazy asses done or does Y/N need to pet the stupid horses more?” Layla suddenly screamed from the side porch of Sy’s house.
Y/N looked around and realized that the sun was nearing the horizon. The day was almost done, and Syverson and her had spent most of it hanging out – or rather she had spent most of the day annoying him.
Layla clearly wasn’t annoyed by their absence. In fact, it probably made her job easier. Syverson wasn’t breathing down her neck and Y/N wasn’t asking her if she was doing something wrong every two seconds, which is what would’ve happened if the two of them actually stayed and helped.
“Y/N, you comin’? Or you movin’ into his barn?” Layla yelled again, smiling cheekily because she knew her teasing would earn her a glare from her cousin.
Syverson chuckled.
“Relax! I’m coming!” Y/N yelled back.
She started walking and then realized something quickly.
Y/N quickly turned around, but misjudged how close behind Syverson was to her. So she nearly ran into him when she pivoted. But he quickly caught her by the shoulders before she could fall backwards with her unsteady step.
“Sorry,” she muttered quickly, taken aback by how close they were now.
Syverson realized he still had a gentle grip on her shoulders, and brought his hands down, shoving them into his front pockets.
“Forget something?” He asked.
“I just wanted to…umm…” God damn it. Why did he have be so good-looking? “Just wanted to say thank you for taking me riding and showing me around your home and letting me cuddle with all your pets.”
Syverson was surprised with the look he caught in her eyes. There was some inner turmoil she was fighting in that pretty head of hers and he wanted it to come out.
But to his disappointment, she just took a shaky step back.
“I should…” She thumbed behind her. “Yeah.” She gave him one last shy smile. “Thanks again, Sy. Really.”
He nodded, waiting until she turned her back to him before smirking at her calling him by his nickname.
Y/N hurried towards Layla’s car.
He followed after her much slower, allowing her to put the distance between them she was so clearly desperate for.
Layla was giving Y/N the most wicked and smug look as she approached.
“Shut the fuck up,” Y/N warned and pointed to her, walking right past her cousin to the get to the stupid car.
Syverson stopped in front of Layla, who seemed to be waiting for him.
“Am I gonna have a meltdown when I see my house?” He asked.
She rolled her eyes. “When have you ever had a meltdown, Syverson?”
The woman had a point. Syverson was always cool, calm, and collected.
Layla smiled. “We’re saving the master bedroom and bathroom for last, after everything else is nearly finished. So, you have a bit of an escape from the construction.”
He nodded in thanks.
“You two have fun?” She cooed.
Syverson gave her a warning look, “Layla.”
“I was gonna offer a bit of advice is all…” she drew out the words teasingly.
Sy just released a heavy sigh. “OK. Let’s hear it.”
“Patience. She’s skittish, that one – only when it comes to men. But she’ll make a run for it if you push her too fast.”
Syverson had almost put that together for himself. It made her reaction just a few minutes ago make a lot more sense.
Layla did a little wave, starting to walk away. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Sy.”
But before she was too far, she turned back around. “Oh. And, Sy?”
“Yeah.”
“She likes you, too.”
“You two get home safe.”
When Layla got back into her car, Y/N seemed to be in a completely different world. She was staring out the passenger window. It looked like she was taking in Sy’s farm. But Layla knew she was actually lost in her head and far, far away.
“You OK?” Layla asked carefully.
“Yup,” she answered too quickly.
“Now, don’t you go overthinking.”
Y/N finally acknowledged her cousin. “What the fuck makes you believe I’m overthinking?”
“Ya got the look.”
Y/N rolled her eyes and scoffed in annoyance. “Whatever.”
They were halfway home before Y/N spoke again.
“What’s the deal with Special Forces?”
Layla didn’t tease her for asking the question, even though she knew why Y/N was asking it in the first place.
“I ain’t no expert by any means. But Aiden explained it to me a long time ago. Takes a strong person to join Special Forces. You can’t be scared of nothing, really. The training’s a bitch, too. I sure couldn’t handle any of it.”
“So…they’re all just like...macho alpha males?”
“Opposite actually,” Layla clarified. “Every one of ‘em I ever met was quiet and reserved. Not one was a cocky son of a bitch. They are on another level, but they never act like it. And they take real good care of one another. The units they join end up being like a second family to each other.”
Y/N was just quiet, not commenting or even reacting really.
Layla stole a glance at her cousin while she was driving. “You gonna tell me what you’re thinkin’?”
“I don’t know what I’m thinking…”
––––––––––
please, please, please let me know what you think. otherwise i will get discouraged and feel like no one is reading these silly little vignette.
the friend fic (part one) As the sister of Sy's best friend, at first you mainly tolerated Sy being around. Until that tolerance turned into a fondness. Until that fondness turned into a hidden crush. Until that crush turned into…something you didn't want to label.
Syverson x Reader, adult characters but with high-school flashbacks
Words: 2.5k
A/N: No warnings yet. Not sure how many parts it'll be, but probably about three or four.
A/N 2: is this me.....writing in past tense???
The Superbowl. The biggest game of the year. The time to overeat, to get drunk, to get loud. All over a bunch of men running back and forth on TV.
You couldn’t care less about it.
Yet here you were, anyway, wearing an oversized football jersey, eating your third plate of food, donning a neverending grin on your face at the corniest commercials. Sports or not, it was your best friend Katie’s house, surrounded by all your mutual friends, and there, you could be yourself. Best of all, your boyfriend was at his own Superbowl party, so you didn’t feel the need to behave a certain way or anything. You could be one-hundred percent you. No external judgment in sight.
You didn't dwell on the fact that maybe that wasn't an especially normal thought to have about a boyfriend.
It was easy not to dwell, anyway, when Sy's been next to you on the couch all evening. He was always so particular about having the seat on the left of the sofa whenever he came over to Katie's because it could recline, so before he even claimed it to start with, you chose the middle seat. And that's where you've stayed.
It was a safe distance away where only your knees touched from time to time, yeah, but it was still close enough. Comfortable. A comfort you haven't had in a long, long time, it seemed. The comfort of just…being near a person who understood you. The familiarity.
For as much history you two have had as friends–some good and some admittedly not so good–there was still that comfort there. Always would be, you thought to yourself.
Anyway, he just got up to walk into the kitchen with your brother, so, naturally, it was obvious what you were going to do. First, you stared at his back for a few minutes, and second, you scooted over to his recently-vacated spot on the couch.
Casually scrolling through your phone while keeping your peripheral vision tuned into the kitchen, you noticed the very second Sy started walking back to the living room, and when you saw movement in front of you, you acted like you ignored it. Even when Sy cleared his throat, you continued ignoring it, eyes glued to your phone.
Sy tapped your foot with his own. “I was sittin’ there,” he finally said when he was directly in front of you.
Still keeping your gaze averted to your phone, you shrugged and asked, “Were you?”
A pause. Trying not to smirk, you glanced up.
He simply gave you one little look, and your eyes got big while you froze. He wouldn’t dare.
Just as he started to lunge for you, you shrieked and leapt over the back of the couch. It made your phone fly out of your grip, but you didn’t care; you giggled maniacally as Sy tried to catch you. Joke was on him, though. He was too damn stocky to be a match for your agility. You quickly made it out of the entire room before he could even get close.
Or so you thought. Breathing heavily, Sy caught you in the hallway easily, and after he ran in front of you to block your advancement to the back door, he crouched down and wrapped his arms around your waist. When he stood upright again, it was with your entire body draped over his shoulder.
As he began marching down the hall like everything was normal, you pounded on his back with closed fists. “Sy!”
“What’s that noise?” Sy calmly asked himself under his breath.
“Let me down!”
Sy turned quickly to the left, and you almost knocked your head against the wall. “Who is that?”
“It’s me, you asshole!” you hit his back again and called out, almost laughing but not giving him the pleasure to hear it. “Let me down!”
“I thought I heard…” Sy turned again and finished walking down the hall, choosing to go into the dining room instead of the den where all the activity currently was. “Nah.”
“Syverson,” you firmly said while kicking your feet. “Let–me–down!”
“Sounds like someone’s sayin’ my last name, but I can’t…really…hear.”
Upside down, you could tell you were finally about to approach the back door. “Alright, alright, you win,” you told him breathlessly. “That what you wanna hear? You win.”
Sy let you down on flat ground again, and almost smugly, he smiled. “Always do.”
While all the blood from your head rushed back down your body, you stuck your tongue out at him.
"Dick," you muttered without meaning it at all, and he offered a smile.
After you opened the back door and walked outside to the deck, Sy followed you. “Don’tchu wanna go back in there and see the halftime show?”
“Ah, I don’t care," you said.
You took a seat on the outdoor loveseat while catching your breath, and Sy stepped closer to you while looking towards your lap for some reason. After a moment that couldn't possibly be hesitation but sure as hell seemed like it, he sat down heavily in front of you. His giant figure made the chair he selected look like it was designed for a child.
"Your band's playin', though."
Blankly, you stared at him.
"That band you saw in high school," he supplied.
"Gonna have to gimme somethin' more than that, Sy…"
While thinking, he waved his hand in front of him. "The--The fuckin'…The one from England. You know. You saw 'em before I–"
You tilted your head to the side.
"Damn, Y/N," he said incredulously, dropping his hand, "you don't even know who's playin' the Superbowl halftime show?"
Ooh. You knew which band he was talking about now.
And you knew why he cut himself off, too. He was about to say "you saw 'em before I shipped out". But he didn't. He didn't say that. And the reason why is because he didn't want to touch that subject. Didn't even want to risk bringing it up.
After all this time, you still haven't talked about the party the night before he and your brother left for Basic Training. Not a word. You've been pretending the night just…didn't happen. It was better that way.
-O-
In high school, your brother and Sy signed up for the fucking Army together, literally seconds apart, standing side by side in the cafeteria, using the same exact black pen and everything.
(You've since learned that the military forbids any type of pen that writes in any other color besides standard black.) (You've since learned more about the Army than you've ever thought to be possible, actually.)
Recruiters visited the school every year, dangling a bunch of promises and perks at seniors with too-few options of collegiate success, and they successfully made their pitch. They roped them all in. They got your brother. They got Sy.
The pep rally that hosted them encouraged the whole thing, cheering for the students who stood in a line in the middle of the basketball court with their hands clasped together at the smalls of their backs. The new class of recruits.
Before Sy and your brother left town, they'd thrown a party. A big one, a huge one, an epic one. A night that people still talk about an entire decade later. A barn party off the grid from any trouble from the law.
Over a hundred people were there, about the size of Sy's graduating class. Older than you. Cooler than you.
You'd tried hanging drink-for-drink with them–even did a keg stand or two away from the hovering watch of your brother–and you proceeded to get drunk. You proceeded to get embarrassingly, shit-faced, throw-up-in-the-grass drunk.
Sy had gotten a new girlfriend. Another one. That's what started the whole thing. Thinking about it now seemed so stupid because you'd never had any chance with him, but still–it hurt.
It hurt.
So the party was supposed to be a perfect opportunity to just…let loose. To just forget about the nonexistent chance with Sy. To forget that he and your brother were joining the fucking Army in the first place.
Sometime between beers five and six, you found a random pair of eyes looking at you from underneath a dirty ballcap, someone you didn't recognize. Someone from another school.
The outfit was the same as all the other guys, though. The same old generic blue-jeans, white t-shirt, and dark pair of boots. A look that screamed "I'm a lifetime sponsor of the FFA". You figured he’d do.
So you drank with him until that turned to laughing with him until that turned to touching until that turned to full-on sloppy kissing until that turned to groping one another without a care who saw.
Sy saw. Sy intervened.
“Christ. What the hell do you think you’re doin’, Y/N?”
Drunkenly, you slurred, “Whassit look like? Makin’ out with…” You giggled and leaned into the guy holding onto you. “What’s your name again?”
Before the guy could even answer, Sy simply pointed at him. “Go fuck off somewhere else,” he brusquely said over all of the loud noises of music and people shout-talking surrounding you, and, after very obviously looking down at Sy’s boots and then up his entire body until his eyes reached the ire of Sy’s eyes, the guy beside you took one large step back and then disappeared entirely from your side.
With your jaw dropped, you instantly turned to face Sy head-on, squaring your jaw and defiantly lifting your face. You pushed yourself up on your tip-toes to make yourself taller, but within seconds, you lost your balance entirely, falling into the brick-wall of Sy’s body.
"What tha fuck," you slurred. Why was he so firm.
Because over the past year he'd gone through a protein bar every single hour of every single day, bulking himself up for this specific day. The day he left.
Sy caught you at each of your forearms with two firm hands, and you gasped as he stared down at you with a mixture of disappointment and anger. It was an anger you could feel in the very grip of his hands, the fire from his eyes burning into your glossy ones.
The hard touch passed quickly, turning softer before releasing entirely, and you were drunk enough and confused enough to lean into him again on purpose just to feel it once more. He was leaving tomorrow.
But then he was crossing his arms, asking, “The fuck, Y/N?” and then you instantly turned mad.
"You're–" Leaving tomorrow, you finished your thought despondently. "You're….interruptin’ my night!”
"Your night?" Sy leaned his face down to speak to you through harshly-gritted teeth.
"I mean…Well, I know it's not my night–I just meant…"
Sy lowers his voice. “He was gropin’ your entire ass in front’a dozens of people.”
“Well, this ain’t church, Sy,” you countered while pushing yourself upwards again, lifting your face so it was within inches of his. “What d’you think people come to parties to do?”
“If that’s the case, then why don’tchu just go an' findju a good tree to hide behind, Y/N?” he asked. “Really go for it.”
After approximately five shock-still seconds, you pulled one of your hands back and slapped Sy's cheek as hard as you could. “You’re a fucking asshole,” you seethed.
He stood silently.
“Good God,” you heard from your brother nearby, quickly approaching you. "What the fuck, Y/N?"
"Why's no one stickin' up for me here?!" you shrieked, feeling ganged up on. "Why is everything my fault?"
Your brother grabbed your arm and walked you several meters away, out of earshot of Sy. He stared at you in disappointment so heavy you felt it on top of your skin.
“One night,” he said. “Just one night.”
“One night for what?” you repeated, now holding back tears.
“All I asked for was just one fuckin' night. It’s the last night before we’re goin’ out, Y/N.”
"I can’t help your friend is a dick,” you muttered, glaring at Sy in the distance. "He did the exact same thing with his girlfriend."
"How d'you know that?" your brother challenged. "Did you see?"
You rolled your eyes. "Seen it enough times to know."
"Well. That's funny, 'cause she ain't even here."
"Why?" you asked, starting to feel your body sway. "It's y'alls last night in town. Obviously he's--you know."
"He dumped her earlier today."
The world stopped. "Oh. Damn."
"Shit, Y/N," he cursed. "I can't do this kinda shit. Just fuckin' talk to him yourself."
"What does that even mean?" you slurred, starting to hiccup. "Why would I–Why would I talk to him…after he…”
After suddenly forgetting everything, you felt a shake on your shoulder. “Y/N,” Sy's voice said, then louder and more insistently. “Y/N, open your eyes.”
You squinted one open, and you found yourself laying down for some reason, Sy's face peering down at you.
“Thought you could keep up with the seniors,” he murmured, just in time for you to gice him the middle finger.
Immediately, you realized you were laying down in the backseat of a car. Your second realization was the motion of the car causing a queasy feeling to pass through your stomach.
An ill noise emitted out of your throat.
“Oh, shit,” Sy urgently let out. “Fuck–Here–”
You leaned over and threw up on the floor of the car.
The next afternoon, you woke up in your bed with your head weighing ten-thousand pounds. You didn’t see Sy again for another year. Didn't communicate with him, either.
-O-
The Thursday after the Superbowl, you found yourself at the usual bar with the usual gang at the usual time: Buffalo Wild Wings; your brother Nick, his girlfriend Lizzie, your best friend Katie, her boyfriend James, and Sy; 6:30pm.
You'd been staring at your beer glass while everyone around you talked until Sy's voice shook you out of your thoughts. “You really movin’ in with him?”
You ran your finger along the condensation on your glass and wondered how the hell he'd found out already. You certainly didn’t tell Sy you were moving in with your boyfriend, but you knew that these things got around. You had a close friend-group.
"Guess so," you finally replied.
“Well, you sound fuckin' pumped.”
Almost laughing at his dry delivery, you shrugged. “He’s got two other roommates.”
“Women?” Sy asked, and you looked at him curiously and shook your head.
“No,” you answered slowly. “They’re guys. Just some friends of his.”
Sy grunted.
“Yeah,” you agreed with the gruff sentiment. “And if they think I’m gonna be their maid now that I'm movin' in, they’re in for a surprise, ‘cause it ain’t happenin’.”
Barely discernible due to his large beard, Sy's lips curled up a little. You wanted to smile right there along with him, but you didn't.
You wished he would tell you that you were making a mistake. You wished that he’d convince you not to do it at all.
The serum amplifies everything that is inside, so good becomes great; bad becomes worse. This is why you were chosen. Because a strong man who has known power all his life may lose respect for that power, but a weak man knows the value of strength, and knows compassion. Whatever happens tomorrow, you must promise me one thing. That you will stay who you are, not a perfect soldier, but a good man.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, STEVEN GRANT ROGERS (July 4th, 1918)
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@identity2212 I love love love you and I’m so sorry I’ve been shit and haven’t updated my other story in months! I got sick and then kids got out of school and it’s been chaos but I promise that I haven’t forgotten you!! Thank you for always sharing and supporting me😘😘😘
Summary: Rhys is a bumbling buffoon when it comes to meeting his mate for the first time.
Warnings: awkward tension, reader lives in the hewn city
A.Note: not totally proud of this one since it’s hard for me to write first meeting stories with a concluding ending, but I hope you guys enjoy :)
Word count: 4.8k words
The scratching at my door had me sitting up in an instant, my back pressing against the cold stone wall as my hand slid beneath my pillow, fingers curling around the worn hilt of my dagger. My breath came shallow, controlled, as I listened—waiting for another sound, another shift in the air that might give away whoever had decided to test their luck tonight.
Life in the Hewn City never allowed for restful sleep. Not when shadows slithered in every alley when cruelty pulsed like a second heartbeat through its streets. And especially not now that Morrigan was gone.
Her father's estate had been far from a sanctuary, but at least the sheer power Keir wielded had kept the worst of the monsters at bay. Here, in my apartment on the outskirts of town, I had no such protection. Only thin walls, shattered locks, and neighbors who wouldn't need a reason to break into a young female's bedroom—who wouldn't care that I was High Fae, not when my magic was little more than a flickering candle in the wind.
A shiver danced down my spine as I gripped my dagger tighter, pulling it free just as the handle of my door twisted. My breath stilled.
Wards should have held. I'd watched Mor herself etch them into the worn wood, her golden power laced with every careful stroke. And yet the door creaked open, the darkness beyond bleeding into my already shadowed room.
I made myself as small as possible, the blanket of night cloaking me enough to fool a drunk—most in this wretched place were—but if they stepped inside if they came closer...
A head popped through the gap.
Gold hair caught the dim light.
My breath punched from my lungs. "Morrigan."
I tumbled out of bed, my dagger forgotten as I all but threw myself at her. She caught me effortlessly, her arms wrapping tight around my waist, solid and real, her familiar scent washing over me.
"Oh, I've missed you," she murmured, holding me as if she'd been gone for years rather than two unbearable weeks.
I pulled back just enough to take her in, my hands framing her face, my eyes darting over her features, searching for any sign of injury. My stomach knotted at the gauze wrapped around her waist, but otherwise, she seemed unharmed.
"I thought you got out safe?" I whispered.
She smirked. "Forgot some things."
There was something reckless in her eyes, something sharp and unyielding.
My stomach tightened further. "Mor—"
"I'm getting you out of here."
Her grin was edged with mischief, with certainty.
—
I had heard the rumors—the hushed whispers exchanged between patrons in dimly lit taverns, drunken murmurs of a secret city our High Lord kept hidden from the rest of us. A place untouched by the cruelty of the Hewn City, a myth spun to keep fools hopeful.
I never believed a word of it.
But Velaris was real.
"The City of Starlight," Morrigan had said, her voice breathless with something I hadn't seen in her since we were reckless, ignorant children. She'd smiled then—wild, unguarded. And I had known, in that moment, that every whispered legend had been true.
The city thrived even in the late hour. Laughter and music curled through the streets, golden lights casting soft glows against dark stone. I had never dreamed a place like this could exist, not outside of bedtime stories and half-formed wishes. And yet, Mor guided me through its winding paths as if it were the most natural thing in the world, showing me pieces of the Night Court I had never dared to imagine.
Until, finally, she led me to a small cabin at the edge of a quiet clearing.
Warm light spilled from its windows, shadows dancing against the wood as the hum of conversation and bursts of laughter leaked into the night. It was a thrilling sound—carefree, safe.
Mor stepped onto the porch, her fingers curling around my wrist as she turned back to me with a smirk. "I've been living here for the past few weeks," she hummed, as if it were no great thing. "And I decided I missed my roommate."
Her words barely registered over the clatter of voices inside. I could hear the easy teasing, the playful shouts.
I hesitated.
"It's Rhysand's cabin, but—"
"The High Lord's?" I whirled on her, my stomach clenching.
Mor blinked, as if I'd said something absurd. "He's my cousin, you know?"
I did know that. Of course I did. But the knowledge didn't stop the shiver that traced my spine.
I had seen Rhysand twice in my life—twice was enough.
Both times, I had been convinced I would die right there on the spot, crushed beneath the weight of his power. It exuded from him like a second set of wings, dark and monstrous. The ground itself seemed to quake beneath his steps. To say he was powerful was an insult to the very meaning of the word. He was terror incarnate, the nightmare that lived in the dark corners of every court.
I had heard the stories—of him reaching into minds and shattering them from the inside out, twisting their own fears into weapons sharper than any blade. He did not need to lift a hand to kill.
My throat went dry. "He's not in there, is he?"
The words were barely a whisper, but Mor only shrugged, far too casual. "Sure he is."
I nearly choked. What?
"Mor—"
She didn't give me a chance to protest.
Her fingers curled around mine, firm and unwavering, and before I could think to dig in my heels, she had pulled me forward—up the steps, through the doorway, past the foyer—until I was standing in the heart of the house.
The moment we entered, the conversation stopped.
Four sets of eyes locked onto me.
Hazel. Silver.
And then—
A violet gaze, piercing and unrelenting, dilated with something unreadable.
My heart slammed against my ribs.
Rhysand.
The High Lord of Night. The male who could level entire armies with a flick of his wrist, who could peel apart minds like flower petals and leave nothing behind. The nightmare whispered about in every corner of the Hewn City.
And he was staring at me.
His lips parted slightly, as if words had caught in his throat.
Mor, of course, was entirely unaffected. "Gentlemen," she said, grinning as she strode deeper into the sitting room. "And Amren."
The silver-eyed female merely flicked a gaze over Mor before cutting straight to me, a sharp, assessing glance that made my stomach twist.
I was still trying to school my expression into something other than imminent death panic when Mor gave my wrist a final squeeze and released me.
"I'd like you all to meet—"
"She's my mate."
Silence.
Utter, perfect silence.
Then—
A choked sound came from the male lounging in an armchair, wings draped lazily over its sides. He had dark hair, hazel eyes gleaming with delight, and an unmistakable aura of shit-eating amusement. That one must be Cassian.
Next to him, another male, shadows curled at his feet like living things, merely blinked—slowly, deliberately—before glancing at Rhys and murmuring, "That was subtle." And there's Azriel.
Rhys, for all his legendary cunning, looked like he wanted to launch himself into the Sidra.
"Mate?" I rasped, my stomach flipping over itself.
No. No, surely not. That was—impossible. I would've felt something.
Or have I all along?
"You must forgive our dear High Lord," Amren drawled, sipping from a glass of something dark. "He usually has more tact when announcing these things."
Rhys finally seemed to snap back into his body, straightening his spine with something like composed horror.
"What I meant to say," he amended, his voice dropping into something far smoother, far silkier—too smooth as if he were compensating, "is that it's a pleasure to meet you."
Cassian snorted. "You just said she was your mate."
"Yes, thank you, Cassian."
Azriel's lips twitched. "I think she got the message."
My head was spinning, my throat tight. But my body had stilled—not from fear, exactly, but from something else. Something coiling in my chest, something aware.
Rhys's gaze flicked to mine, and his expression softened instantly, all humor melting into something devastatingly gentle.
"It's late. You must be exhausted." His voice had dipped, his usual charm tempered with something achingly sincere. "Let me get you something to eat. Or drink. Or—are you warm enough? I can get you a blanket—"
Cassian was shaking with silent laughter. Azriel merely watched, like he was filing this away for later use.
Amren, however, had no such patience. "Oh, for Cauldron's sake," she muttered, rolling her eyes. "She's not a wounded animal, Rhysand, stop circling her like a mother hen."
"I just want her to be comfortable," he argued, flashing her a glare before turning back to me with something so devastatingly earnest that I nearly forgot who he was. What he was.
He liked me.
No—he wanted me to like him.
Rhysand, the most powerful High Lord in history, was tripping over himself to win my favor.
And somehow, that was more terrifying than any of the rumors I'd ever heard.
—
I wasn't entirely sure how I ended up sitting on a plush couch in the middle of the High Lord's cabin, wrapped in a ridiculously soft blanket that I didn't remember agreeing to. A cup of tea—also not requested—was placed carefully in my hands, steam curling in the dim candlelight.
Rhysand hovered nearby.
And I meant hovered.
He was standing at an awkward, not-quite-close, not-quite-far distance, shifting slightly as if debating whether he should sit or stand or vanish into the floor. His normally easy, fluid grace had been utterly abandoned, leaving him looking... well. Uncertain.
Cassian, sprawled in the armchair across from me, was barely keeping it together. His wings twitched every few seconds, his lips pressed tightly as if physically holding in his laughter.
Azriel, seated beside him, was far more composed—but the slight upward tilt of his mouth betrayed his amusement.
I took a sip of my tea, trying to make sense of all this.
The High Lord of the Night Court—the terror of the Hewn City, the most powerful male in existence—had declared me his mate. And then proceeded to fall apart before my very eyes.
I was still trying to process it when Rhys spoke.
"Would you like more pillows?"
I blinked. "What?"
His violet eyes were very, very wide. "You look like you could use more pillows."
Cassian made a strangled noise.
Azriel coughed into his fist.
"I—I'm fine," I said slowly, watching as Rhys's shoulders sagged in relief.
Too fast. All of this was happening too fast, I couldn't keep up.
"Are you sure? Because I can get more."
Cassian let out a wheezing breath, eyes shining with unrestrained delight. "Yes, Rhys. More pillows. That's definitely what she needs."
Rhys shot him a withering glare before turning back to me, smoothing his expression into something intended to be charming, but coming across as deeply, deeply desperate.
"Or food!" he blurted. "Have you eaten? I can make you something. Or, well, I can't make you something, but I can get someone to—"
"She has tea, Rhys," Amren cut in dryly. "You shoved it into her hands two minutes ago."
"I did not shove—"
"You definitely shoved," Cassian confirmed, barely containing his cackle. "I thought you were going to spill boiling tea all over your mate."
I flinch slightly at the term as Rhys shoots back with, "I was being thoughtful."
Azriel hummed, taking a slow sip of his own drink, the amber color telling me it was something much stronger than tea. "Is that what we're calling it?"
I had absolutely no idea what to do with any of this.
Rhysand—the charmer, the schemer, the legend—was unraveling at the seams in front of me.
Because of me.
"I can make my own food," I finally said, mostly just to say something.
Rhys visibly straightened. "Of course! Yes, I knew that. I just—" He ran a hand through his hair, his usual ease nowhere to be found. "I want you to feel at home."
Cassian grinned. "I think she'd feel more at home if you stopped looming over her like a lovesick bat."
Rhys's glare could have melted stone.
Azriel just leaned back in his chair, shadows curling lazily around his shoulders. "I don't think I've ever seen you like this," he mused.
Rhys turned his attention back to me, clearly trying to regain some dignity. He attempted one of his infamous smirks. "You must forgive them. They're not used to seeing me flustered."
Cassian clapped a hand to his chest, eyes sparkling. "Oh, it's a gift, truly."
Azriel nodded solemnly. "We should savor this moment."
Rhys looked seconds away from throttling them both.
I just stared at him, still gripping the cup of tea like it was the only solid thing in the world. "Are you okay?" I asked before I could stop myself.
His breath caught.
And for a moment, the amusement, the chaos—it all faded. His eyes softened, something raw flickering behind them.
"I'm fine," he said, voice lower now, steadier. "I just... I wasn't expecting this."
Neither was I. But still, something shifted in my chest at the way he looked at me—like I was something precious.
I wasn't ready to name that feeling.
But for the first time since I'd arrived, I didn't feel like running.
Slowly—mercifully—Rhys seemed to remember how to function again.
He settled into the chair across from me, still watching me with those impossibly violet eyes, but at least he wasn't hovering like I might vanish if he so much as blinked.
Not that he'd relaxed entirely.
No, because the moment I so much as shifted—adjusting the blanket, setting my tea down—he twitched as if preparing to leap to his feet and fix something.
If I asked for anything, I had no doubt he'd be up and fetching it before I could even finish the sentence.
But at least he was sitting.
Amren, on the other hand, was done with the entire situation.
With a long-suffering sigh, she stood and stretched. "Alright. That's enough of this."
Cassian perked up. "Of what?"
She shot him a withering look. "The two of you sitting here, watching this disaster unfold like it's a theatrical event."
Cassian grinned, utterly unrepentant. "Oh, but it is."
Azriel just sipped his whiskey, but the small smirk on his lips said everything.
Amren turned her glare to them both, then pointed at the door. "Out."
Cassian gaped. "But—"
"Out," she repeated, already making her way toward him.
Cassian barely had time to dodge before she grabbed his arm, yanking him up with surprising strength for someone so small. "Azriel, move," she barked.
Azriel, for all his shadows and lethal grace, barely managed to stifle a chuckle before obeying.
Rhys, looking very much like a male clinging to the last shred of his dignity, just sighed. "Amren, I hardly think—"
"Oh, please." She shot him a knowing look. "You want them gone."
Rhys opened his mouth. Closed it. Then glanced—too quickly—at me.
Cassian cackled. "Oh, this is so good."
"I hate all of you," Rhys muttered.
Cassian just grinned, throwing an arm over Azriel's shoulder as Amren shoved them both toward the door. "Love you too, brother!"
The door shut behind them then silence settled.
I exhaled slowly, my mind still spinning from all of this—this place, these people, Rhysand, sitting before me and looking as though he didn't quite know what to do with himself.
Mor, still seated beside me, gave a soft, reassuring smile. "Ignore them," she said. "They're menaces, but they mean well."
I nodded, unsure what to say.
She nudged me gently. "You doing okay?"
I hesitated.
Then, quietly, "I think so."
Mor's smile warmed. "Good." She stood, stretching. "I'm just down the hall if you need anything, okay?"
I nodded again. "Thanks, Mor."
She winked. "Get some rest."
And then, just like that, I was alone. With Rhysand.
Who, despite his best attempts to seem relaxed, looked about two seconds away from combusting.
The silence stretched for a beat too long before Rhys cleared his throat, shifting in his seat. "So," he started, voice smoother now, steadier, "what do you think of Velaris?"
I exhaled, my grip loosening on the blanket around my shoulders as I glanced toward the window. The city lights still twinkled beyond the glass, mirroring the stars above.
"It's..." I searched for the right word. Magnificent."
His lips curved. "It is." He leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. "Not what you expected?"
A soft huff of breath left me. "In all honesty, I didn't even expect it to be real."
Rhys chuckled, low and warm. "Most don't."
I looked back at him. "How long has it been hidden?"
His expression turned thoughtful. "Since the war." His gaze flickered to the window, a distant look in his eyes. "My family—my court—has fought to protect it for centuries. It's the one place in all of Prythian untouched by war, by cruelty." He met my gaze again, and this time, there was something softer there. "Now it's yours, too."
Something shifted in my chest at that. The way he said it like I belonged here. I swallowed. "And the court?"
His smile returned, easy and knowing. "You've already met the worst of them."
I let out a small laugh, shaking my head. "I don't believe that."
"Oh, you should." He smirked. "Cassian and Azriel? Winged buffoons. Mor? Chaos incarnate." He placed a hand on his chest, feigning solemnity. "And me? Well, the stories you've heard don't paint me in the best light, do they?"
A teasing edge now, that sharp, clever humor creeping into his voice.
I tilted my head. "No, they don't."
He grinned, but it softened as he glanced back outside. "You'll see for yourself, though." He hesitated, then added, "You'll be here for Starfall."
"Starfall?"
His eyes lit up, and suddenly, it was as if the shadows in the room no longer existed.
"You've never heard of it?"
I shook my head.
Rhys leaned closer, his voice dropping to something conspiratorial, enticing. "Once a year, the sky does something extraordinary."
I raised a brow, peering out the large arched window to look at the galaxy of stars just outside. "More extraordinary than usual?"
A chuckle. "Much more." He sat back again, watching me with a quiet sort of delight, as if he already knew I'd love it. "The stars don't just shine that night. They fall."
I blinked. "They fall?"
"Mmm." He traced a circle on the arm of his chair. "Not like shooting stars—though it looks similar. The souls of long-lost beings drift across the sky, shimmering trails left in their wake. It's..." He trailed off, searching for the word.
"Magnificent?" I supplied, unable to help the small smile tugging at my lips.
Rhys gave a slow, approving nod. "Very."
Something warm settled in my chest. For a moment, neither of us spoke.
And then, finally, I allowed myself to really look at him.
Not the High Lord. Not the nightmare. Just Rhysand.
And gods, he was handsome.
The kind of handsome that made the room feel smaller, the air feel warmer. Sharp cheekbones, a strong jaw, those impossibly violet eyes that seemed to catch every flicker of candlelight. And the way he looked at me—like I was something precious. Like he already knew me, in some deep, unspoken way.
I cleared my throat, shoving away the thought. "It sounds magical."
He grinned, and for the first time, it wasn't the grin of a High Lord, or a male who held the power of nightmares in his hands.
It was just a smile. For me.
A slight yawn slipped from me, Rhys was instantly moving.
"Mother above, I've kept you up too late—" He was already leading me toward the hall, his steps brisk, his hands half-lifted as if he wanted to guide me but thought better of it.
I barely had time to keep up as he strode toward a door across from Mor's, gesturing to it like it was some grand reveal. "This is yours—of course, if you don't like it, we can find you another room, or a different house entirely, or—"
"Rhys—"
"I really should have let you rest earlier, I can be insufferable when I ramble, and—"
"Rhys."
"I hope you find everything comfortable, but if you need anything—extra pillows, a softer mattress, a different view—"
I pressed my palm to his chest. He froze.
His breath hitched, just barely—but I felt it beneath my hand, the sharp inhale, the slight stutter of his heartbeat.
His eyes locked onto mine, the violet darkening, blazing.
I had only meant to stop his spiraling apologies, but now... Now the air between us was thick with tension.
Something unseen curled and tightened, coiling like a living thing beneath my skin.
Rhys exhaled sharply through his nose. Slowly—reverently—his hand lifted, covering mine where it lay over his chest. His fingers curled just enough to hold me there, as if... as if he couldn't bear to let go.
Something between us shifted and I didn't have time to decide if it was for the better or not.
A pull, deep in my ribs. An ache that hadn't been there before.
Rhys went completely still.
Like he was waging some great internal war, fighting against a force that neither of us had yet spoken aloud. But I felt it.
The way his fingers tightened just slightly over mine. The way his lips parted like he was about to say something, only to think better of it.
The way his eyes—those star-flecked, devastatingly beautiful eyes—searched mine like they held the answer to something he'd been waiting for.
I should have stepped back.
I should have moved.
Instead, I stood there, heart pounding, fingers twitching against the soft fabric of his tunic.
Rhys swallowed, his throat working around the motion, but he said nothing. Did nothing. Just stood there, his chest rising and falling beneath my palm, his fingers flexing ever so slightly over mine like he was grounding himself—like he needed to hold on. I knew I should step back.
We had only just met.
Yet that fact seemed irrelevant, insignificant compared to the weight of the moment curling between us, thick as smoke.
Because I could feel it—something pulling me toward him, that bond deeper than attraction, sharper than longing. It was in the way his breath came uneven, in the way his gaze dropped, just briefly, to my lips before snapping back up to my eyes, a flicker of something raw, something wanting, breaking through his carefully placed walls.
His lips parted, like he might say something. Like he might stop this before it went too far.
I didn't let him. Didn't give myself the chance to second-guess, to think, to reason.
I surged forward.
Rhys barely had time to exhale before my lips met his. Soft. That was my first thought—how soft his lips were, warm and parting against mine as if in stunned surrender.
And then he was kissing me back.
A sharp inhale, his hand sliding up my wrist, curling around it like he couldn't quite believe this was happening—but wouldn't dare let go, either.
His other hand found my waist, light, hesitant, his fingers pressing in just enough to ground me, to anchor us both in the storm of whatever this was.
It wasn't desperate. It wasn't hurried. It was slow, tentative, a gentle exploration.
His nose brushed mine as he tilted his head, his lips parting wider, and I felt the way he breathed me in—like I was something to be savored, something he hadn't known he was starving for until now.
A small sound left me—something between a sigh and a whimper—and Rhys shuddered, his grip tightening ever so slightly, his fingertips pressing into my skin like he needed to remind himself this was real.
We lingered there, caught in something we didn't have a name for, something neither of us had expected but couldn't seem to pull away from.
His thumb brushed along my wrist, slow, reverent, as our lips moved together in a rhythm that felt achingly natural.
Like we had done this a thousand times before. Like we would do it a thousand times more.
When we finally parted, it was only enough to breathe, our foreheads pressing together, breaths mingling.
Rhys's fingers flexed at my waist.
"I—" His voice was hoarse, rough with something unspoken. He swallowed. "We should stop."
I exhaled shakily, my hands still fisting the fabric of his tunic.
"We should," I admitted.
His thumb traced slow, lazy circles along my wrist, like he was memorizing the shape of me, the feel of me.
And then, softer—softer than I'd ever heard anyone speak my name—
"But I don't want to."
I barely had time to whisper, "Neither do I," before he kissed me again.
His lips were still on mine, still moving, still taking, even as he rasped against my mouth, "We can't."
But he didn't stop. Didn't pull away.
If anything, his hands tightened at my waist, fingers pressing into my skin like he was anchoring himself—like he was fighting a losing battle against whatever force was unraveling between us.
I gasped as his tongue slid against mine, slow and thorough, like he was trying to memorize me, like he was desperate to learn every piece of me with nothing more than his lips, his hands, his breath.
"Rhys," I whispered, not knowing if it was meant to be a plea or a warning.
He groaned, his forehead pressing against mine, his breath coming out in short, uneven pants.
"I want to know you," he said, his voice so raw, so gutted that it sent a shiver down my spine.
Then his lips were on mine again, harder, deeper, like he was proving it, like he needed me to believe him.
"I want to know everything," he murmured against my mouth, between kisses that left me gasping, left me trembling, my fingers still tangled in his hair. Another kiss, this one rougher, hungrier. "Everything."
I whimpered against his lips, barely able to think, barely able to breathe with the way he was consuming me, the way his words were carving themselves into my ribs.
He groaned, like the sound was being ripped from him. "I—" He shuddered. "Tell me to stop."
I froze beneath him, blinking up at him, my head spinning, my lips swollen from his kisses.
He swallowed hard, his breathing uneven, his hands flexing at my sides.
"Tell me to stop," he repeated, voice ragged, "because I don't think I can on my own."
His words hung between us, raw and trembling, his breath fanning against my lips. I could still taste him, still feel the imprint of his hands at my sides, as if he had branded himself into my very skin. My heart pounded against my ribs, my body warring between the pull of the bond and the sliver of hesitation curling in my chest.
I slipped my hands from his hair, brushing my fingers along his jaw, feeling the tension coiled beneath his skin. "Rhys," I whispered, my voice barely a breath.
His eyes, dark and blazing with emotion, searched mine. I saw the restraint there, the war he was fighting within himself, the way his hands trembled against my sides.
I swallowed, forcing myself to find the words through the haze of want clouding my mind. "I'll accept the bond," I murmured. His breath hitched, his entire body going utterly still. "I just need some time."
A heartbeat passed. Then another. And then—he exhaled, his forehead pressing against mine, his entire frame shuddering. His hands skimmed up my sides, gentle now, reverent, like he was memorizing every inch of me before letting go.
"You could take centuries," he murmured, his lips brushing against my temple, featherlight. "Beyond that, if you wanted. I'd wait for you, always."
Something in my chest ached, something too big to name. I closed my eyes, breathing him in, the warmth of him, the endless patience laced in every word.
I tilted my head up, pressing the softest of kisses against his lips—nothing like the desperate, fevered ones from before. Just a promise. Just a thank you.
His hands lingered on my waist, like he wasn't quite ready to let go, but he didn't stop me as I pulled away. A small smile tugged at my lips. "Goodnight, Rhys."
His eyes softened, something almost wistful in them. "Goodnight, my love."
With a final glance, I turned and slipped into my room, closing the door behind me. And even then, I could still feel him—like a shadow, like a promise—waiting.
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Series Summary: After Bucky cheats on you, you leave the Tower shattered, humiliated, and convinced that love has only ever made you smaller. Steve comes back from a mission to find you gone - and when he learns the truth, his loyalty is tested in ways he never expected.
Wordcount: 8.1k
Pairing: Steve Rogers x Female Reader (no use of y/n)
Warnings: tower fic, alternative mcu, slow burn, healing arc, hurt comfort, emotional hurt comfort, angst with comfort, infidelity angst, second chance at love, cheating / infidelity, emotional betrayal, toxic ex relationship, Bucky Barnes is OOC, forced kiss, non con elements (very light), boundary violation, sexual assault implications, emotional manipulation, jealousy and possessiveness, panic attacks / panic response, vomiting due to distress, STI scare / medical testing mention, violence / physical fight, blood mention, breakup grief, trauma recovery, found family, protective steve rogers, soft steve rogers, toxic bucky barnes, self-worth issues, mentions of emotionally abusive family dynamics, reader has a difficult childhood, happy ending, MDNI, some chapters will have smut or explicit intimacy
A/N: Beta read as always by Cassie.
Important note about Bucky: Bucky is very OOC in this fic. I want to be very clear about that from the start: I know he is OOC, I know canon Bucky would not act like this, and I am not presenting this as my interpretation of canon Bucky Barnes.
This story uses him in a deliberately darker, more toxic role for the sake of the angst, conflict, and Reader’s healing arc. So please, before sending me an ask or leaving a comment to tell me that Bucky would never behave this way: I know. That is what this warning is for.
I will not be replying to complaints about Bucky being written OOC. You have been warned, and if this version of him is not something you want to read, please feel free to skip this fic.
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Steve did not ask why when you stopped in the corridor and said, abruptly, “I need a box.”
He only looked at you for half a second, read something in your face – decision, tension, a kind of quiet revulsion – and nodded.
“Okay.”
You found one in a storage closet off the residential wing, after Steve asked FRIDAY where to look. It was plain cardboard, medium-sized, the kind used for office supplies or medical shipments. Nothing dramatic. Nothing ceremonial.
Still, when he handed it to you, your fingers tightened around the edges like it weighed more than it did.
Neither of you spoke on the way to your room.
The door opened for you without hesitation. Tony had done his job perfectly. The lock recognized you, and only you, and slid open with a soft click that seemed louder than it had any right to be.
Steve followed you in only after you stepped aside and let him.
Your room looked like a life interrupted.
Not destroyed. Not wrecked like Bucky’s had been. That almost made it worse. Your bed was still mostly made, one corner of the blanket turned back from some forgotten morning. A mug sat abandoned on the desk. A sweater lay over the back of a chair. A pair of boots waited beside the closet. The whole room seemed to hold its breath, as though it had been waiting for you to come back and pick up the sentence exactly where you had left it.
You stood just inside the door for a moment, box in your hands.
Steve stayed near the entrance, giving you the room.
Then you moved.
At first, he did not understand what you were doing.
You crossed to the chair and picked up a dark sweatshirt that was too big to be yours. Folded it once. Put it in the box.
Then a book from the nightstand. Not yours, he realized when he saw the worn spine. Russian poetry, bilingual edition. Bucky’s.
A spare knife from a drawer.
A pair of socks half-hidden under the bed.
A metal hair tie from the bathroom counter, though Bucky had no use for it – maybe left from a mission pack, maybe just one of those odd things people accumulated in shared spaces without thinking.
Steve’s chest tightened as the pattern became clear.
You were collecting him.
Not memories exactly.
Evidence.
The small, ordinary remains of a relationship that had once had enough intimacy to scatter itself across your room without either of you noticing. A shirt here. A paperback there. A charger. A battered notebook. A pair of gloves. Tiny proofs of belonging, now turned foreign.
Steve watched silently.
He wanted to help.
He did not move.
This was not his to touch unless you asked. Every object you placed in the box seemed to pass through your hands with its own private sting, and he knew better than to insert himself into that process. There were some separations a person had to enact physically, one item at a time.
You opened the closet.
Reached up to a shelf.
Pulled down a small black box.
For one second, Steve thought you might stop there, but you only opened it, stared for less than a breath, then took out a set of dog tags and dropped them into the cardboard with a sound too soft to deserve how much it hurt.
Steve looked away.
Not because he did not want to see. Because the privacy of that moment was yours, even if you had allowed him in the room.
You moved through the space with increasing steadiness after that. The first objects seemed to cost the most. Then anger began doing what anger sometimes did best: giving the body a task and enough heat to finish it.
A scarf from behind the door.
A toothbrush from the bathroom.
A spare tactical strap from your bottom drawer.
A cracked lighter from the desk.
A photograph, face-down.
That one made you pause.
Steve saw it.
Your fingers rested on the back of the photo for a long second before you picked it up. You did not turn it over. You did not look at whatever image waited on the other side. You only held it there, jaw tight, then put it into the box with the rest.
When you were done, the box was not even half full.
That seemed to affect you more than if it had overflowed.
You stood over it in the middle of the room, staring down at the collection of his things as though the smallness of it offended you.
Steve understood that too.
How could something that had taken up so much room inside your life be reduced to a half-filled cardboard box? How could years, trust, love, routine, shared nights, arguments, mornings, missions, and all the ugly aftermath become a hoodie, a book, a toothbrush, dog tags, a lighter, and a photo you refused to look at?
It was absurd.
It was cruel.
It was practical.
You stayed silent for a long time.
Steve did not interrupt.
At last, you said, “I’ll leave the box in his room tomorrow.”
Your voice sounded calm.
Too calm, perhaps.
Steve watched your profile. “Okay.”
You did not look at him immediately.
Your hands flexed once at your sides, then stilled.
When you turned, something uncertain had entered your face. Not fear exactly. Not even vulnerability in the way he had come to know it over the last few days. This was smaller. More embarrassed. As though needing to ask one more thing exhausted you more than filling the box had.
You opened your mouth.
Nothing came.
Steve stepped closer.
Not all the way. Just enough.
“Anything you want,” he said.
The words came before the request did, because he already knew. Not the exact shape, but enough. You had that look again – the one you got when you hated needing help and were going to ask anyway because pride had finally become less useful than honesty.
Your throat moved.
“Will you come with me?” you asked quietly. “Just in case…”
You did not finish.
You did not have to.
Just in case he was there.
Just in case Bucky ignored what you had already said.
Just in case the room hurt more than expected.
Just in case putting the box down felt too much like tearing something out by the roots and you needed someone beside you who would not make you feel weak for shaking.
Steve nodded once.
“Of course.”
Relief passed over your face so quickly he might have missed it if he had not been watching closely.
Then you looked down at the box again.
“I don’t want to see him.”
“I know.”
“I mean it.” Your voice sharpened, not at Steve, but at the thought itself. “I don’t want another hallway scene. I don’t want him saying my name like that. I don’t want him looking at me like I’m doing something to him.”
Steve’s jaw tightened.
“He won’t get near you.”
Your eyes lifted.
There was something in your gaze then – gratitude, yes, but also warning.
“I don’t want you fighting him either.”
Steve held your eyes.
That was harder.
Not because he intended to fight Bucky. He didn’t. But because the protective instinct in him had grown teeth lately, and he knew you knew it. Bucky reaching for your hand had been enough to make every part of Steve prepare for violence before you handled it yourself. Tomorrow, in Bucky’s room, with the remnants of your relationship boxed and waiting between everyone – there were too many ways that could go wrong.
Still, he said, “I won’t start anything.”
You raised a brow.
He amended, “I won’t fight him unless I have to.”
“That is not as reassuring as you think it is.”
“It’s honest.”
Your expression shifted, reluctantly amused despite everything.
“Annoying man.”
Steve let a small smile answer that. “Yeah.”
The amusement faded.
You looked back toward the box again, and Steve could see the moment the exhaustion of the task finally caught up. Your shoulders dropped a fraction. Your face lost some of the hard edge anger had given it. You looked suddenly tired in the way grief made people tired – bone-deep, weary not from doing too much but from having to understand too much all at once.
He closed the remaining distance between you.
This time, when he reached for you, you came without hesitation.
Your forehead landed against his chest. His arms settled around you, one hand at the back of your head, the other low at your back. For a few seconds, you simply stood there beside the half-filled box.
“I hate that this is all there is,” you murmured.
Steve looked down.
The box sat at your feet like an accusation.
“I know.”
“It feels stupid.”
“No.”
“It does.” Your voice muffled against his shirt. “It’s a box of random crap, and somehow it feels like I’m handling a corpse.”
Steve closed his eyes briefly.
That was exactly it.
Not the death of a person. The death of a version of your life. And here were the belongings, the small personal effects, the things to be returned because the person they belonged to no longer belonged here.
His arms tightened slightly around you.
“It’s not stupid,” he said. “It was part of your life. Of course it feels heavy.”
You breathed out slowly.
“Tomorrow,” you said.
“Tomorrow.”
“And after that, I don’t want anything of his in here.”
Steve nodded against your hair. “Then there won’t be.”
You stayed against him another minute.
Then, with visible effort, you pulled back and wiped at your face even though no tears had fallen. Maybe it was habit now. Maybe your body anticipated them before they came.
Steve did not comment.
You took a breath, lifted the box, and set it near the door.
A boundary.
A thing ready to leave.
When you turned back to him, your expression was steadier.
“Stay tonight?”
The question was quieter than before, but less uncertain.
Steve answered just as simply.
“Yes.”
You nodded once, as if that settled something important.
Then you crossed the room, picked up the face-down photograph from the top of the box again, and looked at it for the first time.
Steve remained still.
Your face changed, but not drastically. A tightening around the eyes. A small movement at your mouth. Then you tore it once, cleanly down the middle, and dropped only Bucky’s half back into the box.
Steve watched you place your half in the desk drawer.
Not destroyed.
Not returned.
Yours.
When you closed the drawer, the sound was quiet.
Final.
You turned back to him. “Now I’m done.”
Steve nodded.
And because sometimes the only thing left after endings was the gentlest possible beginning, he held out his hand.
You took it.
Steve noticed your room more slowly once the box was no longer the center of it.
At first, he had only seen the practical pieces. The bed. The desk. The half-open drawer. The chair with your sweater thrown over it. The empty mug that had probably once held coffee and now looked like evidence of a life interrupted mid-thought. He had been too focused on you, on the box, on the strange ache of watching you gather Bucky’s things one by one, to let the rest of the room come properly into focus.
Now, with the box by the door and the worst of that task done, the room began revealing itself.
It was more you than the safehouse ever could have been.
Not neat in the sterile way Steve’s room was neat. Not messy either. Lived in. Layered. There were books stacked in strange places – on the desk, on the floor by the bed, two balanced dangerously on the windowsill. A blanket had been folded at the foot of the bed, soft and dark. There was a framed print on the wall, not expensive, but carefully chosen: water and pale flowers and light blurred into something dreamlike enough that Steve guessed Monet before he fully registered the style. A jacket hung from the back of the chair. A pair of boots sat beneath it. On the desk, beside a laptop and a small lamp, lay a notebook full of color-coded tabs and two pens aligned with the precision of someone who claimed chaos but secretly preferred systems.
And there were little signs of softness tucked into corners where he had not expected them.
A candle burned down unevenly.
A tiny ceramic fox on the shelf.
A bowl full of loose earrings and old keys and coins from at least four countries.
A half-finished crossword folded beneath your phone charger.
Steve looked around with more open curiosity than he probably should have.
You noticed.
Of course you did.
“So?” you asked.
Steve turned his head toward you.
You had folded your arms and were watching him with a look that was just a little too pleased with itself. Tired still, yes. Bruised by the day. But there was mischief there too, creeping back into your face like sunlight finding its way through curtains.
He narrowed his eyes.
You tilted your head. “Is it how you imagined?”
Steve stared at you for one second.
Then he said, with deep feeling, “You’re a menace.”
Your smile widened.
“You knew that already.”
“I’m being reminded.”
“That’s healthy for you.”
He huffed out a quiet laugh, and the sound softened something between them. It felt good, absurdly good, to be able to stand in your room and tease you after everything that room had just contained. The box by the door still existed. The hurt had not vanished. But now there was also this – your smile, your room, Steve seeing pieces of you he had not been allowed to see this closely before.
He let his gaze drift again.
“I wasn’t sure what I imagined,” he admitted after a moment.
That made your smile falter into something gentler.
“No?”
“No.” He looked at the books again, the print, the candle, the small fox. “Maybe I thought it’d be sharper.”
“Sharper?”
“More like your desk at work.”
You snorted. “My desk at work is a threat display.”
“I’ve noticed.”
“My room is where I don’t have to convince anyone I’m scary.”
Steve looked back at you.
The words had been light, but not only light. They held a small truth inside them, and he heard it.
His voice softened. “No. I guess you don’t.”
For a second, you did not answer.
Then you looked away first, as if the sentence had landed closer than you expected.
Steve did not push it.
Instead, he moved toward the bed when you did, both of you drifting there with the same quiet instinct. No urgency now. No heat demanding immediate attention. Only the deep, bone-worn exhaustion that came after confrontation and return and the strange intimacy of ending something by putting it in a cardboard box.
You lay down first.
Not beneath the covers. Just on top of the bedspread, on your back, one arm lifting almost immediately to cover your eyes. It was a gesture Steve recognized by now. A way to hide without leaving. A way to be present while giving yourself the illusion of privacy.
He lay beside you a second later, also on his back, close enough that your shoulders nearly touched.
For a while, neither of you spoke.
The mattress beneath him was softer than his own. The room smelled faintly of your laundry detergent, old paper, and whatever candle had burned here last. It felt intimate in a way the safehouse and motel had not. Those places had held you both because circumstance put you there. This place belonged to you. Being invited into it meant something different.
Steve stared at the ceiling.
That was when he noticed the stars.
At first, he thought they were random. Small glow-in-the-dark stickers scattered across the ceiling, nearly invisible in daylight but still faintly pale against the paint. Some were larger than others. Some had been placed closer together, others spaced in careful stretches. The more he looked, the less random they seemed.
His mouth curved before he could stop it.
“You put these up just like that?”
Your arm stayed over your face. “No.”
He turned his head slightly toward you. “No?”
“They represent Sagittarius.”
Steve looked back at the ceiling.
Now that you had said it, he could see the structure. Not perfectly – he was not exactly an astronomer – but enough to recognize intention. A shape hidden in what had first looked like scattered pieces. A pattern that only became obvious when someone told him how to look.
Something about that felt almost too on the nose for the day.
“That’s cute,” he said.
Your arm lifted just enough for one eye to look at him.
“Cute?”
He smiled at the ceiling. “Yeah.”
“I don’t know if I like being called cute.”
“You put glow-in-the-dark stars on your ceiling in the shape of your zodiac sign.”
“Technically, my childhood self did that.”
“And you kept them.”
You lowered your arm back over your eyes. “They survived multiple relocations. At some point, removing them felt disrespectful.”
Steve laughed softly.
The sound settled gently in the room.
He looked at the stars again. “Sagittarius, huh?”
“Don’t start.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were thinking it.”
“I was not.”
“You were absolutely about to make a comment about astrology.”
Steve turned his head toward you fully now. “I don’t know enough about astrology to make a comment.”
“You know enough to be skeptical.”
“That’s different.”
You made a low sound of amusement. “Classic Cancer energy.”
Steve stared at you.
You kept your arm over your eyes, but he could see your mouth curve.
“I have no idea what that means,” he said.
“I know.”
“You just said it to annoy me.”
“Yes.”
He shook his head, smiling despite himself, and turned back to the ceiling.
The stars looked faint in the afternoon light. He imagined them at night, once the room went dark. A constellation glowing above your bed. A private sky. Something childish, maybe, but not childish in a way that deserved mockery. More like a remnant of someone younger who had needed comfort and found it in tiny pieces of plastic arranged into meaning.
Steve’s voice came quieter when he spoke again.
“Did you put them up when you were a kid?”
For a moment, you did not answer.
Then your arm lowered, but only to rest across your stomach. Your eyes stayed on the ceiling.
“Yeah,” you said. “I started in Acadia.”
Steve glanced at you.
You kept looking up.
“I had this phase where I was obsessed with constellations,” you continued. “Not astronomy, really. I didn’t care about the science enough to remember it properly. I liked the stories. The idea that people looked up, saw chaos, and decided there had to be shapes in it.”
Steve said nothing.
That deserved quiet.
You smiled faintly, still staring up. “Also, I liked that the stars didn’t care what anyone thought of them.”
His chest tightened.
There were so many little doors in you, he thought. So many rooms he had only just begun to see.
“Did you believe in the zodiac?”
“Not really.” You paused. “Maybe a little when I was fifteen and dramatic.”
“You? Dramatic?”
You turned your head and gave him a look.
He held his hands up as if surrendering, though he was still lying down. “Sorry.”
“No, you’re not.”
“No,” he admitted. “I’m not.”
You looked back at the ceiling.
“I liked Sagittarius because it sounded free,” you said after a while. “The archer. The traveler. Restless. Honest to a fault. Always aiming at something.”
Steve let that settle.
Then he said, “That does sound like you.”
Your mouth went still.
For a second, he wondered if he had said too much, or said it too plainly.
Then you breathed out a tiny laugh.
“Careful, Rogers. You’re going to make me believe you know what you’re talking about.”
“I get lucky sometimes.”
“Mmh.”
Silence returned, but it was softer now.
Steve’s shoulder brushed yours.
You did not move away.
After a while, you turned onto your side to face him, propping your head on one hand. He stayed on his back but turned his head toward you. The closeness was easy now in a way that still felt new enough to notice.
“You really didn’t imagine my room?” you asked.
Steve sighed, because apparently you had decided to return to that line of attack.
“Not in detail.”
“That’s not a no.”
“It’s a careful answer.”
“So yes.”
He looked at you.
You looked entirely too pleased.
Steve reached over and tapped one finger lightly against the tip of your nose, the way he had kissed it earlier. “Menace.”
You smiled. “Coward.”
He laughed under his breath. “I imagined things.”
“Things.”
“Not like that.”
Your eyebrows lifted.
He gave you a dry look. “Don’t start.”
“I said nothing.”
“You said a lot with your face.”
“That’s because you’re learning to profile.”
“I’m learning that you’re impossible.”
“That too.”
He turned slightly onto his side so that you were facing each other properly now. The room around you seemed to pull in closer. The box by the door existed, yes, but it was behind him now. Outside his immediate line of sight. He could focus instead on you, on your face in your own room, beneath your private constellation, looking at him as if the last few days had not torn every rule apart but maybe rearranged them into something you could both live with.
His voice softened despite himself.
“I imagined you had books everywhere.”
You glanced around. “Correct.”
“A weapon within reach of the bed.”
You froze for half a second.
Then your mouth twitched. “Also correct.”
“Coffee mugs in places mugs shouldn’t be.”
“That’s slander.”
“There’s one on the desk.”
“That’s a legal place for a mug.”
“And one on the windowsill.”
You looked toward the window. “That’s… less legal.”
Steve smiled.
You looked back at him, quieter now.
“What else?”
He hesitated.
The question had shifted without changing words.
He could feel it.
So he answered carefully.
“I imagined it would feel like you.”
Your expression softened.
“Does it?”
Steve looked around again, but only briefly. His gaze returned to you.
“Yeah,” he said. “It does.”
Your eyes dropped for a moment.
That answer seemed to please you more than a compliment about the room itself would have.
Then you lay back again, returning your gaze to the ceiling. After a second, your hand found his on the bed between you. Not dramatic. Not tentative. Just there.
Steve turned his palm up, and your fingers slipped into his.
Together, you looked at the faint stars above.
“They glow better at night,” you said.
“I figured.”
“You’ll see.”
The words were simple.
Casual, almost.
But Steve heard what lived inside them.
You’ll see.
Not if you stay. Not maybe. A small assumption of his presence later, when the lights were out and the constellation revealed itself properly. It went through him with a warmth that was almost embarrassing in its intensity.
He squeezed your hand once.
“I’m looking forward to it.”
You were quiet for a few seconds.
Then you murmured, “It’s weird.”
“What is?”
“You being here.” A pause. “Not bad weird.”
“I know.”
“I mean, I used to think about what it would be like if you saw my room.”
Steve looked at you.
Your eyes stayed on the ceiling.
The admission hung there, delicate and dangerous.
He did not pounce on it.
He only said, “Yeah?”
You nodded slightly. “I wondered what you’d notice first.”
“The books.”
“That’s a safe answer.”
“It’s a true answer.”
“What was the second thing?”
He looked up at the ceiling again.
“The stars.”
That made you smile.
“Good.”
“Good?”
“I’m glad you noticed them.”
Steve turned your hand in his, brushing his thumb over your knuckles carefully, avoiding the bruised ones. “Me too.”
The afternoon stretched around you, suspended and gentle.
It was not that the day had become uncomplicated. It had not. There was still the box by the door. Tomorrow’s return. Bucky somewhere in the building. Denise too. Feelings that did not vanish on command. Words said too soon in the wrong room and not regretted. There were still conversations ahead that would hurt.
But right now there was your room.
Your hand in his.
Your ceiling full of small faded stars.
And Steve, lying beside you beneath a constellation you had kept from childhood, felt the strange impossible privilege of being allowed to see something soft that the rest of the Tower never would.
You turned onto your side, facing him.
Steve stayed on his back for a second longer, still looking up at the faint constellation on your ceiling, your hand warm in his. The room had gone quiet again, but not heavily. It was the kind of quiet that made questions easier to ask because neither of you seemed in a hurry to run from the answers.
“So.”
Steve smiled before he turned his head toward you. “So.”
Your mouth curved faintly, like you knew exactly how much trouble you were about to become.
“Tomorrow,” you said. “First, my things.”
“Yeah.”
“Then date in the evening?”
Steve’s smile softened. “Mm-hmm.”
You studied him for a second, then asked, “Any advice on what I should wear?”
His brows drew together.
Not because he did not understand the question. Because for half a second, the idea of answering it seemed far more intimate than it should have been.
You must have read his confusion, because you continued, “I mean… Are we walking? Are we taking the Harley? Can I consider a dress, or would pants be smarter?”
Steve closed his eyes.
That was a mistake.
The second the word dress reached him, memory opened before he could stop it.
He had seen you in dresses before.
Not often. Not casually. A few times over the years, when Bucky had taken you somewhere that required more than jeans and boots and the kind of jacket that hid weapons well. Steve remembered those moments with a clarity that felt almost indecent now. You coming through the common room with your hair done differently, shoes clicking against the floor, a dress falling over you in a way that made the whole room glance up even if only for a second.
And Steve, back then, had always looked away too soon.
Always.
He had trained himself to.
Because Bucky had been there. Because Bucky had been the one waiting for you, trying and usually failing not to look proud. Because you had turned toward Bucky with that private, easy expectation people had when they belonged to one another in public. Because Steve had known, even then, that if he let himself look for too long, something in his face might betray him.
So he had looked once.
Only once.
Long enough to register beauty.
Not long enough to want.
Or so he had told himself.
Now you were lying beside him in your own room, asking whether you could wear a dress for him.
Steve kept his eyes closed one second too long.
You noticed.
Of course you did.
“Steve?”
He opened his eyes and found you watching him carefully. Not teasing now. Not fully. There was still warmth in your face, but also a question underneath it.
He exhaled slowly.
“I’m trying to answer like a normal person.”
“That bad?”
“Worse.”
Your lips parted around a silent laugh.
Steve turned fully onto his side then, facing you. Your hands were still joined between you on the bed, and he rubbed his thumb carefully over the side of your hand, avoiding the knuckles you had bruised on Bucky’s jaw.
“If you want to wear a dress,” he said, voice lower than before, “I’ll take the car.”
Something shifted in your expression.
Small, but visible.
“You don’t mind?”
Steve almost laughed. “Mind?”
You shrugged one shoulder, a little too casually. “The Harley’s more you.”
“The Harley is transportation.” His gaze moved over your face. “You feeling comfortable matters more.”
Your eyes softened.
Then, because apparently softness could not be allowed to live unchallenged for more than two seconds, you said, “That was painfully decent.”
“I apologize.”
“No, you don’t.”
“No,” he admitted. “I don’t.”
You smiled, but Steve still saw the thought moving behind it. The way you were not only thinking about logistics. Not only about fabric and shoes and whether a motorcycle made a dress impossible. You were thinking about being seen. About choosing something with intention after everything that had happened. About whether dressing for him meant stepping too close to memories that had once belonged elsewhere.
Steve understood that because he felt it too.
He looked at your joined hands.
“I’ve seen you in dresses before,” he said quietly.
Your smile faded a little.
“Yeah.”
He nodded once. “Yeah.”
For a moment, neither of you spoke.
The room seemed to fold around that shared knowledge. Not cruelly. Not even painfully, exactly. But honestly. There were things between you that could not be made clean just because you wanted each other now. Memories had their own stubborn geography. Steve knew that. You knew that.
He lifted his eyes to yours again.
“I looked away a lot,” he said.
Your face changed.
Not surprise. Recognition.
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
You were quiet for a second. Then, softly, “Because of him?”
Steve answered without hesitation. “Because of you.”
That seemed to catch you more than he expected.
He went on before you could turn it into guilt.
“And because of him. But mostly because if I looked too long, I knew I wouldn’t be able to pretend it didn’t matter.”
Your fingers tightened around his.
Steve gave you a small, rueful smile.
“So if you’re asking whether I want to see you in a dress tomorrow because you picked it for a date with me…” He stopped, searching for restraint and not finding much. “Yes. I do.”
Your breath shifted.
His thumb moved once over your hand again.
“But I don’t want you wearing one because you think you have to prove something,” he added. “Not to me. Not to anyone. If pants make you feel steadier tomorrow after dealing with his room, wear pants. If a dress makes you feel like yourself, wear the dress.”
You stared at him.
For once, you did not answer immediately.
Steve wondered if he had said too much. Or exactly enough. With you, those two things sometimes stood dangerously close together.
Then you said, “You make decisions very inconvenient.”
His mouth twitched. “How?”
“You keep refusing to be shallow.”
He laughed softly. “I can try harder.”
“No, don’t. I’d hate it.”
“I thought so.”
You rolled onto your back again and stared up at the little stars, but your hand stayed in his.
“So,” you said, more slowly now, “car.”
“Car.”
“Dinner?”
“Dinner.”
“Are you telling me where?”
“No.”
Your head turned sharply toward him. “No?”
Steve smiled at the ceiling this time. “It’s a date. I’m allowed to plan at least part of it.”
“That sounds suspiciously like a man who intends to be charming.”
“I was going to try.”
You hummed. “Dangerous.”
He turned his head toward you. “For whom?”
You looked at him then, and the answer sat in your eyes before your mouth found it.
“For me, apparently.”
Steve’s heart gave one hard, foolish thud.
You looked away first, but you were smiling. Not broadly. Not with certainty so easy it erased the rest. Just enough to make his chest ache.
“I might wear the dress,” you said.
He closed his eyes again, but this time he was smiling too.
“Okay.”
“That’s all you have to say?”
“I’m trying to survive the information with dignity.”
You laughed, quiet and warm, and turned back toward him. “You’re not doing great.”
“No,” he said. “I know.”
Your hand slipped free from his only so you could touch his face, fingertips brushing the line of his cheekbone, then the corner of his mouth. The gesture was almost absent, but it stilled him completely.
“I want it to be different,” you said.
Steve understood what you meant.
The date.
The dress.
The evening.
Being picked up by him instead of anyone else.
Your life making space for something new without pretending nothing had come before.
“It will be,” he said.
You searched his face. “You sound sure.”
“I am.”
“How?”
Steve took your hand from his face and kissed your palm.
“Because it’s us,” he said simply.
Your expression softened so quickly it almost hurt to watch.
Then you leaned forward and kissed him.
Not deeply. Not urgently. Just a small, lingering kiss that made the room feel warmer.
When you pulled back, your forehead stayed near his.
“You better not take me somewhere with tiny portions,” you murmured.
Steve laughed. “Noted.”
“And no place where the menu has foam.”
“I wasn’t planning on foam.”
“Good.”
“Do flowers count as too old-fashioned?”
Your eyes opened.
There it was again – that flash of being caught off guard by care.
Then you recovered enough to narrow your eyes at him. “You are going to bring flowers?”
“I am considering it.”
“You really are from the forties.”
“Is that a complaint?”
You pretended to think about it.
“No,” you said at last. “But if you bring roses, I’ll mock you.”
Steve smiled. “No roses.”
“Good.”
“What about peonies?”
Your face changed again, softer this time.
“Peonies are nice.”
He filed that away immediately.
Peonies.
Dress.
Car.
Dinner with no foam.
He could do that.
He wanted to do that.
And lying there beside you, under the faint outline of Sagittarius on your ceiling, Steve realized that planning tomorrow did not feel like a distraction from the damage anymore. It felt like a thread thrown forward. Something to follow. Something ordinary and deliberate and yours.
You shifted closer, resting your head near his shoulder.
“Steve?”
“Yeah?”
“If I panic tomorrow, before going to his room…”
“I’ll be there.”
“If I get angry?”
“I’ll be there.”
“If I change my mind about the dress?”
He smiled into your hair. “I’ll still be there.”
You were quiet for a beat.
Then, very softly, “Okay.”
Steve wrapped an arm around you and drew you against him.
Outside your room, the Tower continued around you both – voices somewhere far off, elevators, footsteps, the machine of the building carrying on. Inside, the box waited by the door. The stars waited above. Tomorrow waited too, with all its difficult pieces.
But for now, you were warm against him.
And for now, Steve let himself think about a dress you might wear for him, lilies he might bring to your door, and the first real date he had somehow been trusted to get right.
You stayed like that for a while longer, lying side by side beneath the faint outline of Sagittarius.
The room had settled into a pocket of quiet that felt almost unreal after the noise of the day. The box by the door still waited there, half-filled with things that no longer belonged in your room. The Tower still held Bucky somewhere within its walls. Denise was still Denise. Fury still existed, which meant schedules and reports and operational consequences still existed too.
But for a few minutes, none of that moved.
Steve lay on his side with one arm around you, his hand resting at your back, and listened to the softened rhythm of your breathing. You had tucked yourself close enough that your forehead nearly brushed his collarbone. Every now and then your fingers moved absently against his shirt, tracing a seam, smoothing fabric, catching and releasing as if your hand needed something to do while the rest of you tried to process too much at once.
He thought about tomorrow.
The box first.
Then your first real date.
A car, not the Harley, because if you chose a dress, he wanted you comfortable. Dinner somewhere decent but not stiff. No ridiculous tiny portions. No menu foam. And flowers.
Not roses.
Peonies, maybe.
The thought came quietly and pleased him more than it should have. Peonies suited you better anyway – soft-looking but full, impossible to ignore, almost excessive in a way that did not apologize for itself. He wondered if the florist near the Tower would have them in the right color. Something not too bridal. Not too innocent. Something warm. Maybe blush pink, maybe deep coral, maybe white with edges of color like the flower had been touched by sunset.
He was still thinking about peonies when you shifted slightly against him and asked, “Did you manage to write your report?”
Steve went still.
Only for a second.
Long enough.
You lifted your head.
The look on his face must have given him away before he even opened his mouth, because your own expression changed almost immediately. Your lips pressed together, not quite hiding your amusement. Your eyebrows lifted in that quiet, devastating way you had when you had just caught someone making a tactical error.
“Oh,” you said.
Steve exhaled through his nose. “That bad?”
“You look like a man who has been personally defeated by paperwork.”
He shut his eyes.
That made you laugh softly.
Not much. Not loudly. But enough that warmth moved through his chest and ruined whatever remained of his dignity.
“I started it,” he said.
“Mm-hmm.”
“I wrote some of it.”
“How much is some?”
Steve opened one eye.
You looked entirely too entertained now.
“Enough.”
“That means not enough.”
“It means enough for a first attempt.”
“Steve.”
He sighed and rolled onto his back, staring up at your constellation as if the ceiling might be kinder than your face.
You pushed yourself up onto one elbow and looked down at him. Your hair fell slightly forward around your face. In the dim room, with the bruised knuckles of your left hand still visible and your mouth curved in faint amusement, you looked both tired and alive in a way that made him ache.
“What happened?” you asked.
He did not answer right away.
Not because he was embarrassed about the report itself. Well. Maybe a little. But mostly because the real answer was sitting right there beside him, looking at him with soft eyes and a sharp mouth and the nerve to ask as though she hadn’t been the reason he had stared at a blank file for ten minutes and forgotten how mission summaries worked.
“I was distracted,” he said.
Your expression softened just slightly.
Then you ruined it again by asking, “By the report?”
Steve turned his head and gave you a flat look.
You smiled.
“Right. Sorry. Stupid question.”
“You’re not sorry.”
“No.”
He huffed a laugh despite himself.
You reached out and brushed two fingers lightly over the line between his brows, smoothing it as if his frustration were something you could physically erase. The gesture was gentle enough that his amusement faded into something warmer.
“You know,” you said, “I can help.”
Steve looked at you.
“You want to help me write a mission report?”
“I have written many reports.”
“I know that.”
“Better ones than yours, probably.”
“That’s rude.”
“That’s honest.”
Steve’s mouth twitched. “There’s a difference?”
“In this case, no.”
He caught your wrist before you could pull your hand away and pressed a soft kiss to the inside of it.
The smile slipped from your face.
Not vanished. Changed. Softened into something more vulnerable, more aware of the closeness between you and what the last few minutes had been circling around without naming.
“You want a hand?” you asked again, quieter this time.
Steve kept your wrist lightly in his fingers and kissed your palm.
Then your knuckles, carefully avoiding the bruised ones.
Then he looked up at you.
You waited.
His heart did that strange, heavy thing it had been doing around you far too often lately, as if it kept forgetting he was supposed to be composed.
He said nothing.
Instead, he leaned up and kissed you.
Softly at first. A kiss that could have been thanks. Then a little longer, because thanks was too small and you tasted like the quiet of your room and the faint sweetness of whatever tea you had made earlier. Your hand settled against his jaw, and for one dangerous second he forgot all about mission reports again.
When he pulled back, you blinked at him.
“Does that mean yes?”
Steve rested his forehead against yours.
“It means,” he said, “that you’re going to make me fall even more in love with you.”
Your face changed so fast it stole his breath.
The teasing vanished. Color rose to your cheeks, soft and immediate, and you looked down as if the blanket had suddenly become fascinating. You were not fragile in that moment, exactly. But the compliment had found somewhere unarmored.
“Smooth, Rogers,” you muttered.
Steve smiled.
“Only with you.”
“That is not helping.”
“I wasn’t trying to help.”
You looked back at him then, eyes narrowed despite the blush still warming your face. “Menace.”
He laughed. “You started that.”
“I know.”
For a few seconds, neither of you moved.
Then you sighed, sat up properly, and looked around the room as if remembering there was still a world beyond the bed and the faint stars on your ceiling.
“Come on,” you said. “If Fury doesn’t get that report eventually, he’s going to materialize from the shadows and ruin whatever peaceful evening we’re pretending to have.”
Steve groaned quietly and covered his face with one hand. “Don’t say that.”
“You know he would.”
“I know. That’s the problem.”
You climbed off the bed and held out your hand to him.
He looked at it for a second.
Then took it.
You pulled, though of course you could not actually move him unless he let you. He let you. He stood, leaned down, and stole one more kiss before you could get too far into responsible mode.
You pointed at him afterward. “That is not report-writing behavior.”
“No?”
“No.”
“Motivational?”
“Distracting.”
“That seems fair.”
You rolled your eyes and went to your desk.
Steve followed, carrying the laptop from where he had abandoned it earlier. Your room became something different once the two of you sat down together – not less intimate, exactly, but intimate in another way. The bed behind you held one kind of closeness. The desk offered another: shared concentration, shoulders almost touching, your knee occasionally brushing his beneath the chair as you leaned over the screen.
You were, unsurprisingly, ruthless.
“Too poetic,” you said after reading his opening paragraph.
Steve stared at you. “It’s a mission report.”
“Exactly. Why does it sound like you’re narrating a war documentary?”
“I do not–”
You pointed at the screen. “The phrase ‘hostile weather conditions impeded visibility across the eastern approach’ is dramatic.”
“That’s accurate.”
“It was foggy, Steve.”
“It was more than foggy.”
“It was fog with ambition.”
He tried not to smile.
Failed.
You deleted half the sentence and rewrote it with brutal efficiency.
Steve watched you work, chin propped in his hand, and realized almost immediately that this had been a mistake.
Not because you were bad at helping. You were excellent. Too excellent. You trimmed his sentences with surgical precision, asked the right timeline questions, flagged the parts Fury would care about and the parts Steve had included because he still thought like a field commander trying to give context to ghosts.
No, the problem was that watching you work was its own kind of distraction.
Your focus sharpened everything about you. Your posture. Your eyes. The small crease between your brows when you read. The way you tapped the desk twice with one finger before suggesting a cleaner phrasing. The way you leaned closer to the screen and forgot, apparently, that your shoulder pressed warmly against his every time you did.
Steve lasted fifteen minutes before you caught him staring.
You did not even look away from the laptop.
“Rogers.”
“Yes?”
“Are you reading the sentence or my face?”
He paused.
You turned slowly toward him.
He gave you the most innocent expression he could manage.
It did not work.
“You’re impossible,” you said.
“That’s usually my line.”
“You lost the right when you started looking at me like that during administrative work.”
Steve smiled. “Like what?”
“Like I’m somehow making incident summaries erotic.”
He choked on a laugh.
You looked deeply pleased with yourself.
“That is not what I was doing,” he said.
“No?”
“No.”
“What were you doing?”
He looked at you for a long second, and the truth came far too easily.
“Falling more in love with you.”
The blush came back.
This time you looked genuinely annoyed by it, which only made it worse.
“Stop weaponizing sincerity,” you said.
“I don’t think that’s what weaponizing means.”
“I was in Quantico. I decide what words mean.”
He laughed and turned back to the laptop before he could kiss you again and ruin all progress permanently.
The report took longer than it should have.
Not because the information was complicated. Because the two of you kept stopping.
Once because you insisted on reorganizing the timeline and Steve argued about operational relevance until you proved, in three sentences, that your version was clearer.
Once because he brought up a detail you had not heard about from the mission, and you made him explain the extraction route while sketching it badly on a sticky note.
Once because your hand brushed his and he caught your fingers under the desk and neither of you typed for nearly a minute.
And once because you leaned over him to correct a line and Steve, in a moment of profound weakness, kissed the inside of your wrist.
You froze.
“Steve.”
“Mm?”
“You are the reason this report is not done.”
“You offered to help.”
“I offered to help you write, not test my concentration.”
“Is it working?”
You stared at him.
Then, very quietly, “Unfortunately, yes.”
He smiled.
You pushed his shoulder. “Type.”
He typed.
Eventually, somehow, the report became a report.
Cleaner than his original version. Sharper. Less dramatic, according to you, though Steve privately thought Fury might miss the weather description. You reviewed it twice, leaning close enough that your hair brushed his arm, then nodded with professional satisfaction.
“There,” you said. “Readable. Accurate. Not embarrassing.”
“High praise.”
“You should be honored.”
“I am.”
You turned your head toward him. “Send it.”
Steve hovered one finger over the trackpad.
Then looked at you.
“You sure?”
“It’s your report.”
“You just rewrote half of it.”
“I improved half of it.”
“That’s what I said.”
You smiled and leaned back in the chair. “Send it before I find more things to fix.”
He sent it.
The email vanished.
For one second, both of you stared at the screen in silence.
Then Steve closed the laptop with far more satisfaction than one finished report deserved.
“Done,” he said.
“Look at that,” you said. “Captain America defeats paperwork.”
“Couldn’t have done it without you.”
“I know.”
He laughed, then reached for you.
You let him pull you from your chair and into his lap with a surprised little sound that turned into a smile before it became protest. His arms circled your waist. Yours rested around his shoulders.
The desk lamp cast warm light across your face. Behind you, the stars on the ceiling waited for darkness.
“Thank you,” he said.
You looked at him, and for once your answer came without teasing.
“You’re welcome.”
Then you touched his cheek, softer now.
“And Steve?”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t know when I’ll be able to say it back.”
His chest tightened, but he held your gaze.
“I know.”
“But I like that you say it.” Your thumb brushed once along his cheekbone. “Even when it scares me a little.”
Steve swallowed.
Then he kissed you gently, because no answer he could give would be better than that.
When he drew back, your forehead rested against his.
Outside the room, the Tower kept moving. Inside, the report was done, the box waited by the door, and tomorrow with its hard parts and its date and its peonies remained ahead of you.
For now, though, Steve held you in your desk chair and let himself be glad for one completed report, one quiet room, and the fact that you had offered to help.
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pairing: brother's best friend!steve rogers x female reader
summary: when your brother's best friend interrupts your quiet moment in the hot tub, the tension between you two reaches a boiling point.
warnings: 18+ content (minors dni!!!), smut, piv sex, unprotected sex, rough sex, possessive sex, creampie, multiple orgasms, cockwarming, choking, biting, bit of dacryphilia, brief chase kink, bdsm undertones, bratting/brat taming, check-ins, sir kink, dirty talk, very possessive dirty talk, praise kink, light degradation, pet names (sunshine, baby), teasing, begging, referenced marathon sex, aftercare, emotions, sort of enemies to lovers, happy ending. Steve is a fucking menace in this—you've been warned.
word count: 6.6k
a/n: ahhh Eva, thank you for sending in this prompt!!! it sparked an idea that got away from me a little bit and i ended up writing a much longer fic than i was planning for this event 😅 but i had so so so much fun writing these two, especially reader's bratty antagonism and how Steve meets her challenging provocations. i hope you enjoy what i came up with, thanks for playing my blizzard bacchanal game ♡
The midnight mountain air was chilly, serving as a delightful contrast to the deliciously heated water of the hot tub you were submerged in up to your shoulders. Leaning your head back on the edge, you reveled in feeling snowflakes alight on your face before quickly melting into your warm skin.
It was peaceful, and a rare moment alone, everyone else having gone to bed while you’d decided to soak in the chalet’s outdoor hot tub. It was so nice, in fact, that you should've known your brother's best friend, Steve Rogers, would ruin it.
"Mind if I join you?"
His voice was made all the more irritating by how pleasing you found it—so deep and steady in the silence of the wintry night. It had only gotten under your skin more and more as each day passed while you were at the mountain chalet with your brother and both your friends for a week-long ski trip. After almost the full week, you were over it.
You lifted your head briefly, intent on giving Steve a disinterested look that would hopefully be cold enough to send him packing back to his room. But then you got a look at your brother’s best friend wearing nothing but a pair of swim trunks and the sight of so much bare, golden skin on display had your belly clenching and your mind short-circuiting.
As quick as you could, you let your head fall back to the lip of the hot tub, arranging your face in an expressionless mask as you stared up into the dark night sky. Your mind raced with only one thought—it was indecent how good Steve looked in a pair of simple black swim trunks.
"If you must," you said, barely paying attention to the words as you offered him a careless wave of your hand.
You tried not to notice the way the water swished and swirled as Steve climbed gracefully into the hot tub. And you refused to acknowledge the way your body warmed further with his presence. The water was simply hotter because there was another person in the hot tub. That was all.
But in the deepest corners of your own mind, even you had to admit it was growing increasingly difficult to ignore the crush you had on Steve Rogers. Especially after so many days in such close proximity to the man.
Your crush had taken such deep root in your heart so long ago that it felt like a part of you. And no matter how many years you’d spent denying it, acting out against Steve to make sure no one—especially not him—knew your true feelings, you couldn’t hide the truth from yourself.
All you could do was bury it deep in your heart and hope no one ever discovered the truth of how you really felt about your brother’s best friend.
"Fuck, that feels good," Steve groaned as he relaxed into the opposite corner of the hot tub from where you sat.
The sound of his pleasure did obscene things to your body. Your skin tingled with sparks of lust as heat gathered low in your belly, while a thrumming ache bloomed in your core that had you pressing your thighs together. It was all you could do to bite back a needy whimper and stop yourself from squirming beneath the water.
To distract yourself, you lifted your head again and glanced at Steve. For the briefest of moments, you were both relieved and disappointed to find so much of his glorious chest obscured by water, the surface of which bubbled and foamed from the jets in the hot tub.
"I don't think I've ever heard the golden boy swear before," you taunted, using the mocking nickname you’d given him a long time ago. You were trying to needle him, to get under his skin in the way that his mere presence did to you, so you shot him your most infuriating smirk.
But Steve didn't rise to the bait. He only chuckled good-naturedly, though there was a slight edge to it that had you holding your breath and waiting for what he'd say next.
"Y'know, I'm not as much of a goody two-shoes as you might think."
It was damn near traitorous the way your body reacted to Steve's declaration, every part of you sitting up at attention—your nipples perking up so much, you were thankful they were hidden beneath the water. Even your pussy gave a dull throb like she thought she might be getting some prime dick that night, and you had squeeze your thighs to stave off the ache.
While your body rioted in response, outwardly you did your best to give Steve the coolest look you could muster, making a show of rolling your eyes.
"Sure you're not, golden boy," you drawled, sarcasm dripping from your voice like icicles melting in the bright sun.
You were rewarded by a flash of emotion in Steve's eyes—something like glee, but darker—but you were quickly distracted when he stood up, water sluicing obscenely down his chiseled chest. You tracked its descent like it was the most riveting thing you'd ever seen, and you only realized your mistake when Steve gave an amused snort.
"Have you had sex in a hot tub, sunshine?" Steve asked, prowling slowly toward you, an evil, knowing smirk on his stupid, handsome face.
You hated the way your body lit up at the way the mocking pet name rolled off his tongue—the one he'd given you because you had such a sunny disposition around him. You hated how much you loved that Steve had a special nickname for you, but you stuffed those feelings down deep and tilted your chin at him in a challenge.
"Because I have."
Your brain short-circuited at that declaration, not noticing that Steve had gotten close enough to plant his hands on the edge of the hot tub on either side of your body. He leaned over you, caging you in with his body, but his closeness barely registered.
You were too consumed by the jealousy blooming hot and bright, lodging deep in your ribcage like a burning knife, to notice his proximity. Your mind raced as you thought through all the other girls on the trip who Steve could've had sex with in the hot tub, and you saw red.
"Who did you fuck in a hot tub, Steve?" you demanded, glaring up at the man who occupied so much of your heart and mind, your voice little more than a possessive snarl.
He had the audacity to chuckle, looming over you with a smirk twisting his perfect mouth. "Are you jealous, sunshine?" he asked lightly, the tone of his voice daring you to deny it even though you both knew you were.
His question finally slapped some sense into you and you crossed your arms over your chest, trying to regain some of your emotional distance by sniffing haughtily and looking away. Steve’s eyes were too sharp, they saw too much, and you were suddenly terrified that not only did they see right through you, he’d been seeing right through you for years.
"Of course not," you snapped, refusing to look at him as you scrambled for some other explanation for your question. "I'm just curious,” you said, giving a one-shouldered shrug like you couldn’t care less. “Whoever they are, they must lead a pretty boring life if they think fucking a golden boy like you in a hot tub is a good time."
At that, Steve growled, sounding furious as he leaned down, making the cage of his body smaller as he crowded you into the corner of the hot tub. Inexplicably, you weren’t scared of him. No matter how much you riled him up, you knew Steve would never hurt you. You…trusted him.
So you weren’t worried by his posturing. In fact, you were practically tickled by it, and you had to bite the inside of your cheek to keep from grinning triumphantly at getting a rise out of him.
"I assure you, sunshine,” Steve bit out through gritted teeth. “Fucking me would be anything but boring, no matter where we do it."
Steve was trying to provoke you, and you knew you shouldn’t rise to the bait, but you couldn’t pretend you were unaffected by his words, by the way he made it sound like fucking him wasn’t just a possibility, but an inevitability. And, for a brief moment, you wanted it so badly, you could practically taste your desire in the cold, wintry night.
“Prove it, golden boy,” you snarled, trying to keep up the front that you didn’t want him, but it was a losing battle.
Despite your best efforts to remain calm, a shiver skated down your spine as you imagined Steve fucking you right there in that hot tub. You knew it would be good—if you knew nothing else, you knew that—and you couldn’t help but tremble at the thought, your body weak under the weight of your lust.
A rough, pleased sound came from Steve's throat, startling you out of your thoughts. Before you could figure out what it meant, he was grabbing your chin and turning you to face him, your head craned back while he loomed over you, still caging you in with his broad form and delicious heat.
Suddenly, his nearness wasn’t enough. You wanted him closer, you wanted every inch of his hard body pressed against your softer one. You wanted your paltry swimsuits to dissolve so you could feel his bare skin against yours, so there’d be nothing hindering him from lining himself up with your body and sinking inside until you begged for relief.
In that charged moment, your need was so exquisite, you nearly whined, but you bit it back at the last second, refusing to give Steve the satisfaction of knowing how much he’d gotten to you. Still, his blue eyes flashed like he knew exactly what he was doing to you—that your challenge for him to prove he could fuck you good was more than a furious rejoinder.
But before he could get to that, his expression softened, and his grip on your face became more affectionate. There was something he wanted to clear up before you continued your conversation, and it derailed you entirely.
“Don't worry, baby, I haven't fucked anyone else on this trip," Steve said, stroking his thumb along your lower lip. His voice was gentler than it had been, and you hated how his words soothed the jagged edges of your jealousy. "I was talking about a trip I took with Sharon back when we were together."
A snarl gathered at the base of your throat. You hated being reminded of Steve's ex-girlfriend, the one he’d been dating when you first met him and was a big reason why you didn’t want him knowing how you truly felt.
But it was only you and Steve in that hot tub, and you felt laid bare beneath the intensity of his gaze. Before you could think better of it, a question fell from your lips.
"Was she good?" you asked, hating how small your voice sounded.
It became immediately clear that you weren’t fooling Steve with your question—he knew what you were really asking: Was she better than you? It was a ridiculous question, since you and Steve had never fucked, but it revealed too much of your insecurity when it came to him.
You tried to pull away from Steve's grip and turn your cheek to him as tears threatened to fall, but he gathered your face in both hands, his thumbs stroking softly over your cheeks. He held you reverently, grounding you back in the moment, and you found the strength to roll your eyes in an attempt to save face.
"The hot tub sex, I mean,” you clarified, your voice only wavering a little. “Was it fun?"
Steve closed more of the meager space between your bodies, until his stomach was nearly brushing your chest, and tipped your head all the way back. He leaned down over you so there was no possible escape from the way his shoulders were bunched like a predator ready to pounce, his eyes darkened with desire.
"If you promise to be a good girl, sunshine, I could show you just how good it can be to fuck in a hot tub."
It was on the tip of your tongue to say yes, your answer spurred by the way your pulse was throbbing insistently between your thighs. But at the last second, you remembered yourself, and you remembered you couldn't give in so easily to your brother's best friend.
Somewhere deep inside your heart, you wanted Steve to earn you—and he could only do that if you continued pushing him. So that’s what you did.
"Why don't you show me what ya got, golden boy, and then I'll be the judge of how good it is," you taunted, hoping you weren’t pushing Steve too far.
You got a brief glimpse of bright delight and deeply buried affection flashing in Steve's eyes before he was moving. His mouth crashed down on yours in a kiss that was blisteringly hot from the moment it began, stealing all the air from your lungs and making you gasp from the sheer heat of it.
Steve kissed you like a feral beast that had finally been unleashed on the prey he'd been stalking for years, and you met his fervor with all the pent-up lust you'd been hiding since you'd first started crushing on your brother's best friend.
The kiss was brutal, all clashing lips and nipping teeth, your desire finally unbound and untethered. Steve’s teeth sank deep into your lower lip, biting you hard enough to nearly draw blood, and in retaliation, you grabbed his face, pulling him closer and licking into his mouth like you were daring him to consume you.
With a bitten off growl, Steve crouched down and hooked an arm around your waist, spinning you around with him as he turned and sat down heavily on the bench of the hot tub. He manhandled your body so easily into the position he wanted, with you straddling his lap, it made you dizzy with desire.
Once you were settled on his lap, you kept right on kissing him, your hands braced on his shoulders. Steve let out a muffled moan, his hand cupping the back of your head and kissing you deeper until you went wild.
When he plunged his tongue into your mouth, seeking to claim the air straight from your lungs, you wrapped your lips around it and sucked on him obscenely, pulling him deeper into your hot mouth. You were rewarded by Steve’s low, tortured groan, and his hips kicking up between your thighs like he was overcome.
In answer, you spread your knees wide on the bench seat, grinding your pussy down on the hard ridge of his cock through your thin bathing suits. It felt so good—the hot, hard length of him pressing between your folds and rubbing so perfectly against your clit—that you finally pulled away from his kiss with a reckless moan.
"Oh, does that feel good, sunshine?" Steve asked, his voice teasing and mocking even through the huskiness of his own lust. While you gasped for air, he pressed heated kisses to the underside of your jaw and down the line of your neck. "Do you think my cock will feel even better when it's inside you?"
A needy, ravenous shiver skated down your spine and you let out an impatient snarl as you carded your fingers in the hair at the back of Steve's head, pulling him back from your neck so you could glare directly into his infuriating, gorgeous eyes.
"Shut up and fuck me already, golden boy," you bit out through snapping teeth, refusing to acknowledge just how desperate you were for him already, your pussy slippery and throbbing with need. "Or are you gonna make me do all the work myself?"
Something dangerous and hot flashed in Steve's eyes, his mouth twisting into a feral smirk, but he didn't move right away like you expected him to after your vicious provocation. Instead, he let you languish in the breathless moment, waiting to see what he would do.
"Oh sunshine, you really have no idea what you do to me, do you?" he rumbled, but didn't stop to let you answer before continuing, his eyes growing impossibly dark as his pupils blew wide, eclipsing the blue of his irises. "If you did, you wouldn't keep pushing me the way you do."
You didn’t know what he was talking about, so you resorted to taunting him. Rolling your eyes, you only had enough time to scoff out an "Oh please," before, suddenly, Steve was moving.
You let out a startled little yelp as he stood, maneuvering your body deftly as he pried you away from his chest and spun you around beneath the churning water of the hot tub.
In a matter of seconds, Steve had you bent over, your knees planted on the bench, upper body hanging over the edge. It felt like you were about to topple out of the warm water entirely, and you were so off-balance that you might’ve, if not for the tight way Steve held onto your hips.
You pushed yourself up, not fighting against Steve’s hold but wanting to sink further into him. Your shoulders collided with Steve’s chest, and he held you tightly against him, one arm banding around your waist. His other hand trailed up the center of your body, tugging the top of your bathing suit down until your tits popped free.
You gasped as the cold air and icy snowflakes brushed over your heated skin. It was such a contrast from the warm water swirling around your thighs that your nipples peaked immediately. Throwing your head back against his shoulder, you arched your spine, offering yourself up to Steve’s touch—and he happily took everything you had to give.
He groped you brazenly on the deck of the chalet, and you were thankful that there wasn't any chance of the two of you being caught. You both faced the mountains, only the snow and darkness a witness to the obscene way your body shuddered beneath Steve’s rough handling of your tits.
His big hands kneaded your soft flesh, deft fingers pinching and plucking your nipples until you were moaning wantonly and grinding your ass back against his cock. As much as you enjoyed feeling him play with your tits, you hoped to urge him along until he was sliding himself inside you.
"God, I've dreamed of these tits for years, sunshine," Steve groaned in your ear, hanging his head over your shoulder so he could watch himself play with your nipples. "Knew I shouldn’t…You're my best friend's little sister, you should be off limits, but I couldn't fucking help myself."
"Steve," you cried, as much from his confession as the zings of pleasure tingling down your spine at the way he teased your tightened peaks so ruthlessly.
The possibility that Steve had yearned for you just as long as you’d ached for him was too much to comprehend in that moment. It hurt just as much as it made you happy, and you didn’t have the capacity for the conflicting emotions. You just wanted more sensation—you wanted more of him.
"Please, Steve,” you whimpered, squirming more insistently against his cock. You tried to reach between your bodies, to skate your palm down the firm line of his cock, but he batted your hand away and laughed as he redoubled his efforts on torturing your tits.
"Do you need something, baby?" he cooed mockingly against your cheek, his laugh ghosting over your skin and making you shudder hard in his arms. "Do you need my cock, huh? Need me to pound your tight, hot pussy like you’re my own personal fuck toy and make you cum all over my dick?"
Something in your brain broke hearing your brother’s best friend murmur such filthy things in your ear, and you let out a low, helpless moan as you melted into his strong arms and hard body. It was too fucking hot hearing Steve talk to you like that, and you finally gave in to him, unable to make it difficult for him any longer.
"Yes!" you cried, driven to desperation by your need for him. Your pussy was throbbing insistently between your thighs, and your nipples ached from his attention—and you still needed more. You needed him inside you so badly, you couldn’t think, could only beg. "Please, Steve,” you sobbed. “Please fuck me."
Gentler than you expected, Steve kissed the tears spilling onto your cheeks, one hand collaring your throat just beneath your jaw so he could keep your face turned to the side for him. With the other, he shoved his swim trunks down and pulled the gusset of your bathing suit to the side.
Before he could slide inside and put you out of your misery, though, Steve paused. Staring deep into your eyes, his voice turned serious as he spoke.
"I've been tested, I'm all good—are you on birth control, baby?"
Steve's question swam in your mind for a moment before you could make sense of the words. When you did, a glimmer of gratefulness took root in your ribs, but you were too far gone to appreciate his thoughtfulness. Not when you were so close to getting what you most desperately wanted. So all you did was nod frantically.
"I'm on birth control, I got tested, I’m clear. I want to feel you bare, Steve, please," you babbled, your words tripping over each other in your haste to get them out, making you sound almost incoherent. "Fuck me raw, please, please, please, please.”
“That’s my good girl,” Steve groaned, his praise washing over you and warming you from the inside out. “Such a good fuck toy, telling me what you want and that you’re safe.” He pressed a kiss to your ravaged lips and you took it as the reward it was.
A pleased smile bloomed on your face even as your pussy clenched at the degrading name he called you. You never would’ve expected Steve to have such a filthy mouth, but you fucking loved it. And you were about to tease him for it, but then he was notching the head of his cock at your entrance and starting to push inside.
"Oh fuck, baby,” he swore when your tight heat enveloped the tip of his cock. Burying his face against your neck, his hot mouth pressed to your thrumming pulse so you could feel his words burrow beneath your skin and fizzle through your bloodstream. “You feel better than I ever imagined. So tight you’re choking my dick, and so fucking warm—”
Steve cut himself off on a strangled grunt as he pushed deeper, your slick cunt clasping his hard shaft, enticing him further into your body. You sucked in a sharp breath, reveling in the way his hot, hard length was stretching you open, making room for himself in the most intimate part of your body.
“Ya like that, sunshine?” Steve rumbled against your ear, pausing long enough to bite the corner of your jaw and drag another pleasured cry from your lips. “You like the feel of my dick splitting you open, huh? Claiming this cunt like I fucking own it?”
Steve’s voice was so rough and furious, you barely recognized it, but it was so hot—what he was saying and the tenor of his lust reverberating through your chest—that you never wanted him to stop. You didn’t have the breath to tell him to keep going, but somehow he knew, and he even upped the ante of the filthy things he was saying.
“Tell me how good it feels, sunshine,” Steve growled in your ear. “Tell me my cock feels better than anything you’ve ever had—tell me this pussy is all mine because no one’ll ever feel as good as I do inside you.”
If it weren’t for the fact that your brain was broken from how good Steve’s dick felt inside you, pushing deeper and deeper into your tight heat, until your entire being was focused on the feel of him, you might’ve bitten out some scathing reply about his possessiveness. But instead, it just ratcheted your need higher than you’d ever felt.
"Yuh huh, yuh huh," you babbled, your lips forming words before you could think them through—because Steve had already fucked you dumb on his cock and he hadn’t even started fucking you yet. “Feels sooo good, Steve. Feels like I was made for you—I was made to be fucked by you.”
“That’s fucking right,” Steve seethed, surging forward until he was almost entirely buried in your body. “You were made to be mine. My good girl, my fuck toy, mine—all fucking mine. Fuck, oh god, fuck."
A litany of curses and obscene sounds of pleasure poured from Steve's mouth unbidden, and it was all you could do to join him, even as the air was knocked from your lungs by the exquisite feeling of his cock shoving into your cunt. He was almost there…just a little more.
When Steve finally bottomed out, his hips pressing flush against your ass, you felt overcome with relief, like you’d been waiting for years and finally—finally—you were right where you were supposed to be. You sucked in a deep breath of air and melted into Steve’s embrace as you exhaled.
Your body sagged forward until you were hanging over the lip of the hot tub, and Steve followed you down. His hand stayed collared around your throat and his forehead pressed between your shoulder blades as his chest heaved and heavy breaths puffed against your spine.
For a moment, the two of you stayed like that, basking in the feeling of being joined together so intimately and wrapped up in each other. Then Steve’s hand gripped your neck firmly, his other palm skimming down your side to anchor in the curve of your waist.
"You ready, baby?" he asked in a voice so rough, it sounded like the growl of a snow plow on an icy road.
"Just fuck me already, Steve," you whined weakly, putting up a fight with words even as your body fully submitted to Steve’s domination. But you weren’t paying as close attention to what you were saying as you should’ve, letting your true feelings for him slip through. "How many times do I have to beg—I want this, I've wanted you for years. Please!”
Steve’s reaction to your confession was instantaneous, his fingers digging into the sides of your throat, holding you tight enough to cut off any other provoking words you might utter. He growled a wordless, desperate vibration in your ear, sounding like he was unraveling—and yet he still held you like you were something precious.
Then, Steve's strong arms and powerful body shoved you forward, so your hips were pinned against the lip of the hot tub. The movement pushed your ass up out of the water and Steve lifted one of his feet onto the bench, giving him the leverage he needed to fuck you.
"You've done it now, sunshine," Steve rumbled in your ear, pulling back until only the tip of him remained inside your grasping channel before surging forward and pounding into you hard.
All you could do was sit there and take it, a sound of pleasure bursting from your lips as your hot breath puffed into the midnight mountain air. You were pinned completely by Steve, unable to move—and you’d never been happier. You clung to the arm wedged between your tits, holding him tight while he lightly choked you and thrust into you again.
"I'm gonna fuck you so hard and so deep, you'll be feeling me in your cunt for fucking days, sunshine,” Steve seethed, his bared teeth pressed to your cheek so you could feel his feverish lust and desire on your skin. “And you're gonna take everything I give you with a smile and a 'thank you, sir.' Do you hear me?"
He punctuated his question with another rough slam of his hips, the sharp smacking sound of his skin against yours sounding loud in the quiet night. Thankfully, the snow blanketing the chalet muffled the obscene sounds of your fucking, swallowing them up in the darkness.
So you didn’t worry about staying quiet when your mouth fell open, intending to respond, only to discover you couldn't. Your breath was stolen by the delicious ruination Steve was delivering unto your body, and all the words you might've said fled from your lips.
"I said, ‘Do you fucking hear me,’ baby?” Steve demanded, slowing his thrusts and loosening the tight grip he held on your throat enough for you to answer. You’d never been more eager to give him what he wanted.
"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir—thank you so much, sir," you babbled, unable to say anything else.
Steve huffed an all-too-self-satisfied chuckle, murmuring a patronizing, "Good girl," before his fingers tightened around your throat again and he resumed his brutal, punishing strokes.
He choked you tenderly as he fucked you hard and fast, pounding into you until you were nothing but sensation—pleasure and pain riding you so hard you went cross-eyed staring out into the snowy mountain night. His cock was thick and hot, thrusting so deep it felt like he reached the very end of you, claiming your body as his territory.
And your body was only too happy to be his, your pussy making the most indecent sounds as your inner walls gripped tight around his hardness. You could hear the obscene wet slaps of Steve’s cock hammering your cunt, and it only made you hotter, made you gush with more desire, until the sounds of your sopping pussy being fucked were loud in your ears.
Your pleasure ratcheted higher, until it was almost too much. Then, when you were teetering on the edge, Steve’s hand slipped from your hip to between your thighs. He rubbed your clit with a merciless determination you didn't know he possessed, shoving you right over the cliff of your pleasure.
You let out a shattered, muffled scream as you came apart at the seams. Your entire vision went white and your throat went dry as all your muscles seized. All you knew, all you were, was blistering pleasure. And you came harder than you ever had in your entire life.
"That's it, baby, cum all over my cock,” Steve rumbled in your ear, tethering you back to earth as he fucked you through your release. “Be a good girl and give it to me, milk my dick with that tight cunt, suck my cock deeper into that greedy pussy.”
All you could do was exactly as he said, your body shaking, your pussy pulsing around his hard length. You were so far gone, it took you a moment to realize you were letting out desperate little gasps and whines, his hand having loosened on your throat so your sounds of pleasure could spill freely from your lips.
Steve pressed his feral grin against your cheek, thrusts falling out of rhythm as he chased his release in your body. “You want my cum, sunshine?” he muttered against your skin. “Want me to fill you up so deep that you'll be dripping my cum down your thighs for days, huh?"
"Yes, please, sir," you rasped, your voice ragged from pleasure. You didn’t think, just answered him honestly, baring your soul for him in a way you never would have before. "Mark me, claim me—my pussy is yours, Steve. I’m all yours.”
"Oh fuck—fuck, baby," Steve groaned like he was overcome by your admission. He thrust hard into your cunt and began grinding deep, enjoying the way your inner walls rippled and sucked his hard length like your body was trying to pull him deeper. "Who do you belong to—say it again, sunshine."
"You, sir," you gasped, and when he bit out an unhappy sound through clenched teeth, you went on, babbling, "My body, my heart, my soul belongs to Steven Grant Rogers."
"Fucking right—that’s my fucking girl,” Steve growled, the words so righteous and satisfied that your heart thumped in your chest. “You’re all mine, just like I’m all yours, sunshine,” he rumbled right before sinking his teeth into the skin of your shoulder and exploding inside you.
Steve's big body shuddered and pinned you hard to the edge of the hot tub, his hand around your throat bracing you against his chest while he fucked you full of his cum, his hips grinding so deep in your cunt that it set off another, smaller release in your body.
You moaned as you came right along with him, dizzy from his confession that had so quickly followed yours. You were his—a truth you’d known a long time—but he was yours too. It almost seemed too good to be true, but then Steve repeated it.
“You own me, body and soul, baby,” Steve murmured, pressing kisses to your cheek, your chin, the corner of your mouth, anywhere he could reach. “You hold my heart in the palm of your hands, sunshine. Be gentle with me.”
The weight of his words settled deep in your heart and you smiled, a true, joyful smile before turning your head and capturing Steve’s mouth in a kiss. It was so much softer and sweeter than the first one you’d shared.
The battle between you was over. You’d laid yourselves bare and been accepted, flaws and all, and all that was left was to rejoice. So you reveled in Steve’s kiss, in the simple pleasure of being open and honest together.
For long, languid moments, you hung suspended in time, your body so disgustingly sated that all you could do was let out a contented sigh and keep kissing Steve, the corners of your mouth curling up with a smile. He huffed a soft laugh against your lips, winding down the kiss until he pulled away.
Steve looked so deliciously wrecked, his blond hair mussed, his cheeks an adorable shade of pink and his mouth looking so plump from your kisses that it made you want to ruin him more. At that thought, your pussy throbbed with renewed lust around Steve’s softening cock, and you had to hide a smile in your shoulder when his dick gave an answering twitch.
"You gonna take me back to your room so we can do that again, golden boy?" you tried to snark at Steve, but your voice was too breathless for the comment to have much of heat. Instead, you came off sounding desperate, though it was worth it from the way his eyes sharpened on your face.
Steve captured your mouth in a searing, conquering kiss, only pulling away when you’d melted back into submission—though you both knew it wouldn't last for long. Even if you were done hiding your feelings from Steve, that didn’t mean you were going to stop provoking him, especially when it led to such delicious consequences.
"First, tell me one thing, sunshine—admit it was good."
Steve looked so serious, like your answer really meant something to him, that you knew you couldn’t lie. But you could still play with him, just a little bit, right?
So you heaved a beleaguered sigh, making a show of thinking about it, drawing out the moment to annoy him. But when you caught Steve's eye over your shoulder and found a little furrow of unease forming between his brows, you knocked it off and gave him a shy smile.
"It was better than good," you confessed in a whisper, so only Steve and the cold, mountain night were witness to your admission.
The uncertainty cleared from Steve’s face immediately, and his mouth broke out in a broad, self-satisfied grin. You couldn't help yourself, your smile turning impish, the only warning of what was to come out of your mouth.
"It was a spectacular performance, golden boy,” you teased, delight sparking in your belly when Steve’s eyes darkened with lust at the nickname. “But I think I need a repeat before I can determine whether it was a one-off or not."
Steve's laugh was loud and incredulous, bouncing off the mountains and filling your heart with joy. He shook his head at you as he helped you up off the lip of the hot tub.
“You’re a menace, sunshine,” he growled, but there was no heat to his words, only the warmth of affection.
With his arms wrapped around your waist to keep your bodies connected, his cock staying nice and warm in the heat of your cunt, Steve sat down on the bench of the hot tub, gathering you up in his lap and holding you close.
Before he could kiss you, you giggled, your hands cupping his handsome face. “But I’m your menace.”
“Damn, right,” Steve muttered moments before kissing you.
It was slower and sweeter than ever before and you let a soft moan slip from your lips as you melted into Steve’s arms, savoring his kiss and the warmth of the hot tub.
When he finally pulled away, Steve stared deep into your eyes, all his affection for you etched into every line of his face. You stared at him with your own expression open, so he could see how much you adored him right back.
"Don't you worry, sunshine,” Steve murmured, his thumb stroking reverently over the curves of your face, like he was committing it to memory. “I’ll give you as many repeat performances as it'll take for you to understand just how good I am for you.”
Although his words sounded like a dare, Steve said them so sweetly, they sounded like a promise—one that had your heart thudding harder in your chest. Unable to stop yourself, you beamed at him.
"Prove it, golden boy," you challenged, your voice husky with need, as you began grinding your ass on his lap and clenching your cunt around his cock.
Steve went a little cross-eyed and he let out a tortured groan. You used his distraction to give him one more kiss, then slipped off his cock—feeling more than a little bereft without the hot, hard length of him inside you—and clamored out of the hot tub.
On trembling legs, you darted toward the chalet, intent on your next time with Steve being in a bed. Just as you were flinging open the sliding door of the deck, you heard water sloshing as Steve launched himself into pursuit.
In seconds, Steve was hot on your heels, chasing you through the chalet and up to his room, where the two of you fell into bed. You were still slick with his cum and your renewed desire, and he buried his dick deep in your cunt with one stroke, setting a brutal pace as he murmured sweet words in your ear about how good you felt on his cock.
For the rest of the night, he proved to you just how perfect he was and by the time dawn broke over the mountains, you were utterly and irrevocably gone for him. You fell asleep entwined together, Steve’s cock still buried in your pussy, right where he was always meant to be.
From that night on, your heart belonged to the golden boy you’d antagonized for so many years, and he went to great lengths to keep it safe and prove he was deserving of your devotion. As if that wasn’t enough, he gave you his heart in return.
Steve Rogers was all yours—and you cherished him for the rest of your life.
thanks for reading!! reblogs and comments are appreciated ♡♡
Warnings: explicit sexual content, aphrodisiac, sex pollen, dubious consent due to aphrodisiac, established relationship, blood/injury, rough sex, multiple rounds, overstimulation, size kink, strength kink, manhandling, prone bone, possessive sex, feral Steve Rogers, gentle Steve Rogers, protective Steve Rogers, praise kink, breeding kink, creampie, unprotected sex, aftercare, emotional hurt/comfort
Summary:
Steve Rogers has always been gentle with you.
When a mission exposes you both to an aphrodisiac, quarantine forces him to confront the difference between protecting you and holding himself back.
Author’s Note:
steve rogers sex pollen fic for everyone who has ever looked at that man and thought “okay but what if he actually used the super soldier strength”
Steve knew how to be careful with you.
Most of the time, that was one of the things you loved most about him. He remembered which old injuries needed gentler hands, which silences meant comfort, and which meant space. Steve was good at care.
He was simply worse at understanding that care and gentleness were not the same thing.
You had tried to tell him that carefully, then less carefully. You had asked him to hold you down harder. You had asked him not to pull back so quickly when his fingers tightened on your hips. You had told him more than once that you liked feeling how strong he was.
He listened every time, and he tried because that was who Steve was. Then, inevitably, you would feel the moment he remembered himself. His hands would ease. His body would shift, giving you room you had not asked for. His mouth would soften against yours as if tenderness could cover the shape of what you wanted.
You loved him for that, too, which made the frustration even more complicated. Steve had spent too much of his life being turned into an object, a weapon, a symbol, a body that belonged to everyone except himself. You understood why he treated his strength as something that needed rules.
You just wished he would believe you when you told him that you were not asking him to forget the rules.
You were asking him to trust you with them.
The HYDRA lab was colder than it should have been.
That was the first thing you noticed when the mission turned bad, not the broken glass or the blood on your glove or the technician crawling toward the console with one shaking hand. The cold came from the ventilation system overhead, pouring through the room in steady white streams that disturbed the pale gold vapor spilling from the ruptured canister at the center of the floor.
You had already inhaled by the time Steve shouted your name.
It had happened too fast. You had thrown yourself into the technician before he could reach the alarm override, and your shoulder had struck his ribs hard enough to knock the air out of both of you. He went down. You went with him. Something cracked under your elbow.
The canister hit the floor.
For half a second, the room looked almost beautiful. Gold mist rose through the emergency lights, turning the lab red and amber at once, and you thought absurdly of sunlight in dust.
Then your throat burned.
You coughed, rolling away from the technician, and Steve crossed the room in three strides.
“Don’t breathe,” he ordered.
You looked up at him through watering eyes. “Little late for that.”
He did not smile.
That scared you more than the chemical.
Steve’s hand closed around your arm, steady and warm through the sleeve of your suit. His grip was firm enough to anchor you, but even then, even in the middle of a contaminated HYDRA lab with alarms beginning to shriek overhead, you felt the restraint in it. He was holding you like something injured. He was holding you like something he could accidentally hurt.
The thought should not have made heat curl through your stomach.
It did.
Natasha’s voice cut through the comm. “Status?”
“Exposure,” Steve said. His voice was controlled. Too controlled. “Unknown agent. Canister breached. We both caught it.”
There was a pause.
You hated the pause.
“Symptoms?” Bruce asked.
You opened your mouth to answer and nearly embarrassed yourself.
Because there was pain. There was heat. There was dizziness and a strange, liquid weakness in your knees. But underneath it all was something else, something low and humiliating and far too recognizable to deny. It moved through you with the same terrible certainty as fever.
Your fingers tightened in Steve’s suit.
You did not mean to do it. One second, your hand was braced against his chest because standing had become more complicated than it should have been, and the next, your fist was curled into the dark tactical fabric over the star.
Steve went still without pulling away, which somehow made it worse. His body changed before his face did, the breath he took too careful, the muscles beneath your hand locking as if he had turned himself into a wall through discipline alone. When you looked up, his pupils were blown wide, his jaw clenched so tightly that a muscle jumped near his cheek.
“Steve,” you said.
His eyes dropped to your mouth.
It lasted less than a second.
Then he stepped back.
The loss of him hit you with embarrassing force. It was not just emotional. Your body noticed the absence of his heat like it had been denied something necessary, and frustration flashed through you so sharply that you almost reached for him again.
Almost.
“Don’t do that,” you said.
His eyes lifted. “Do what?”
“Act like I’m the hazard.”
His expression shifted, pained and stubborn in equal measure. “You’re not.”
“You just moved like I was.”
“You’re contaminated,” Clint said over the comm, which was unhelpful even by his standards. “Technically, he’s right.”
“Clint,” Natasha warned.
“What? I’m just saying, this feels like a situation where nobody should touch anybody.”
You closed your eyes. “I hate all of you.”
“You say that when you’re scared,” Steve said quietly.
You hated him a little for knowing that. You loved him more for saying it softly enough that only you could hear, even with the comms open.
“I’m not scared,” you lied.
Steve’s gaze moved over your face. You wondered what he saw. The flushed cheeks, probably. The sweat beginning at your hairline despite the cold air. The way you were breathing too quickly. The way your hand had curled into a fist at your side because you did not trust yourself not to reach for him again.
His own color was high. It was subtle, because Steve’s body did not betray him easily, but you knew him better than most people alive. You knew the signs. The tightness around his eyes. The careful set of his shoulders. The way he kept his hands loose when he wanted to clench them.
Bruce’s voice came back, low and focused. “Extraction in two minutes. Masks on. Don’t touch the canister, don’t touch any exposed surfaces, and try not to touch each other.”
You laughed once under your breath. “Great.”
Steve looked like someone had put him in front of a firing squad and asked him to stand still.
Natasha reached you first.
She came through the lab doors in a sealed respirator with emergency masks in hand, her eyes sharp above the clear visor. She took one look at you, one look at Steve, and understood too much.
That was the problem with Natasha. She was never unobservant when you needed mercy.
“Mask,” she said.
You took it. Your fingers did not work properly on the strap.
Steve moved.
Then stopped.
You saw the exact moment he caught himself, and something inside you twisted.
Natasha saw it too. She stepped between you both without comment and fastened the mask for you, her gloved hands efficient and careful. You stared past her shoulder at Steve. He stared back, miserable and fever-bright, and did not cross the three feet between you.
The ride back to the compound on the Quinjet was worse.
Bruce sealed the rear med bay, which meant you and Steve were isolated from the rest of the team but not from each other. You sat on opposite sides of the compartment, trying not to watch the width of his shoulders, the tension in his hands, the way he kept himself perfectly still because motion had become dangerous.
“You need to stop looking at me like that,” he said.
Your gaze snapped to his face.
His eyes were closed.
“I’m not looking at you like anything.”
“You are.”
“You have your eyes closed.”
“I can still tell.”
It should have been funny. Instead, the heat in your blood sharpened.
“You’re doing it too,” you said.
Steve’s eyes opened.
He looked wrecked.
“I’m trying not to,” he said.
That was worse.
Your fingers curled against your thigh. “Steve.”
“No.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were about to.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know you.”
The words landed too softly to be an accusation. You looked away first because your eyes had started to sting, and you did not know whether that was the chemical, frustration, or the awful tenderness of being known by someone who was still trying to deny you what you wanted.
“I know you too,” you said.
Steve did not answer.
When the Quinjet landed, medical was waiting.
Bruce met you in full protective gear beside Dr. Cho and two nurses you recognized, all of them moving with the efficient calm of people who were worried and trying not to make it worse. Tony hovered behind the quarantine barrier, tablet in one hand, expression caught somewhere between fear and a joke he knew better than to say.
Mostly.
“So,” Tony said as you and Steve were ushered into adjoining decontamination stalls, “good news, bad news, horrifyingly awkward news.”
“Tony,” Bruce said.
“I’m just setting expectations.”
You peeled off your gloves with more aggression than necessary. “If you say anything about HR, I’m coughing on you.”
Tony took a step back. “Noted.”
The decontamination process was necessary and humiliating in the way medical procedures often were. Your suit was sealed away. Your skin was scrubbed clean. Your temperature was taken three times. Blood was drawn. Your pulse was monitored until the sound of it began to feel accusatory.
Steve was on the other side of the frosted partition.
You could hear him.
That was the worst part. His voice was low and steady as he answered Bruce’s questions. Yes, elevated heart rate. Yes, increased body temperature. Yes, heightened sensory response. No, no loss of consciousness. No, no hallucinations.
Then Bruce asked something too quietly for you to hear.
Steve did not answer right away.
Your entire body went alert.
“I’m managing it,” he said at last.
Managing it.
You pressed your eyes shut.
The phrase felt like him. Like all the disciplined, self-punishing restraint that made him both wonderful and impossible. Steve managed pain. Steve managed fear. Steve managed his anger, his grief, his strength, his desire. He managed himself so carefully that sometimes you wondered whether he understood there was supposed to be a difference between control and loneliness.
A nurse handed you a loose medical shirt and soft pants through the decontamination slot. You changed behind the privacy shield with hands that shook more than you wanted to admit.
By the time they moved you into quarantine, your skin felt too small.
The containment suite had been stripped down to a bed, a couch, a bathroom, a table with water and medical supplies, cameras in the corners, and a glass wall with privacy film currently turned opaque.
And Steve.
He entered a few seconds after you, wearing gray medical sweats that did absolutely nothing to make him less distracting. The shirt clung to his shoulders. The pants hung low on his hips. His hair was damp from decontamination, darker at the roots, and when he looked at you, you saw the same hunger he had been trying to hide since the lab.
Only now there was nowhere for either of you to go.
The door sealed behind him.
A red light blinked once above it.
You laughed before you could stop yourself.
Steve’s brows drew together. “What?”
“This is absurd.”
His mouth softened, almost. “Yeah.”
“We have fought aliens.”
“I remember.”
“You punched a robot through a wall last week.”
“It was trying to kill Sam.”
“And now we’re trapped in horny jail because HYDRA made perfume for war criminals.”
For one blessed second, Steve looked like he might actually laugh.
Then your breath hitched.
It was small. Barely anything. A minor betrayal of your body as another wave of heat rolled through you, stronger than the last. But Steve heard it. Of course he heard it. His expression changed immediately, humor gone, concern rushing in to take its place.
He stepped toward you.
Then stopped again.
Your patience, already thin, tore.
“Steve.”
His hands flexed at his sides. “I’m trying to do this right.”
“I know.”
“I need you to understand that.”
“I do.”
“No.” His voice roughened, and the sound went through you like touch. “You don’t. This isn’t just—” He stopped and looked toward the opaque glass as though Bruce could somehow help him find the words. “This isn’t normal.”
You almost laughed again, but it would have come out wrong. “I’m aware.”
“It’s affecting judgment.”
“Yes.”
“It’s affecting inhibition.”
“Also, yes.”
“It’s pushing your body toward something you might not choose if you were clear-headed.”
That hurt. Not because it was unfair. Because it was almost fair, and almost fair was where Steve did his most damage without meaning to.
You crossed your arms, partly to hold yourself together and partly because the loose shirt brushed your skin in a way that made it difficult to concentrate. “You think I wouldn’t choose you?”
His face tightened. “That’s not what I said.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“I’m saying I don’t want to take advantage of you.”
“You’re dosed too.”
“That doesn’t make it better.”
“No,” you agreed. “It makes it complicated. But don’t stand there and talk like this is something happening to me that has nothing to do with us.”
Steve looked away.
The room hummed around you. Air filtration. Medical monitors. The low electronic pulse of containment systems doing their job. Beyond the glass, someone was probably watching your vitals spike in real time.
You stepped closer.
Steve noticed immediately. His eyes snapped back to yours, warning and want tangled so tightly that you could barely tell which was winning.
“Don’t,” he said.
You stopped. Not because you wanted to, but because his voice mattered. Even now. Especially now.
“I’m not going to touch you if you tell me not to,” you said.
His throat worked.
“But you don’t get to decide what I want by being afraid of it.”
For a moment, neither of you moved.
Then Bruce’s voice came through the speaker.
“I’m sorry to interrupt.”
You looked up at the ceiling. “No, you’re not.”
“I’m really not,” Tony added, farther from the microphone. “But Banner is.”
Bruce ignored him. “We have preliminary results. The compound appears to be a synthetic neurochemical stimulant. It’s targeting adrenaline, dopamine, oxytocin pathways, and likely other endocrine responses. The simplest explanation is that it was designed to heighten arousal and attachment under stress.”
Steve’s expression went blank in the terrifying way that meant he was angry.
“HYDRA was using it for compliance,” he said.
“Likely,” Bruce said.
Your stomach turned.
For a second, the heat receded beneath disgust. HYDRA had always been good at finding new ways to make bodies into battlefields. You looked down at your hands, flexed your fingers, and wished you had broken the technician’s jaw instead of his ribs.
Steve moved before he remembered not to.
He crossed two steps toward you, then caught himself halfway.
This time, the aborted comfort hurt less. You could see the anger in him now, the protective instinct that belonged to you and to every person HYDRA had ever tried to use. He wanted to touch you because he was worried. Because he loved you. Because the idea of that chemical in your blood made him look like he wanted to tear the whole lab apart brick by brick.
“Treatment?” Steve asked.
Bruce hesitated.
Tony made a faint sound in the background. “Here comes the awkward news.”
“Supportive care,” Bruce said carefully. “Hydration, monitoring, temperature management. Sedation is an option, but your vitals are already volatile, and with Steve’s serum involved, I can’t guarantee a predictable response.”
You looked at Steve.
Steve was staring at the speaker.
“What else?” he asked.
Bruce was silent for long enough that your face went hot for a reason that had nothing to do with the drug.
“The compound appears to metabolize fastest after peak hormonal release,” Bruce said finally, with the pained professionalism of a man who had attended too many universities to deserve this conversation. “In plain terms, sexual release would likely shorten the active period. Possibly significantly.”
Tony, because he was Tony, said, “Or, as absolutely no doctor should put it—”
“Do not,” Bruce snapped.
Tony lowered his voice and said it anyway. “Fuck it out.”
You covered your face with both hands.
Steve looked like he might commit a felony.
“I’m muting him,” Natasha said from somewhere beyond the speaker.
“Hey—”
Tony cut off abruptly.
“Thank you,” Steve said tightly.
Bruce sighed. “To be clear, no one is instructing you to do anything. The door remains sealed until we’re certain you’re not contagious and your vitals are stable. What happens inside quarantine is up to you, within safety limits. If either of you wants sedation, we’ll discuss it. If either of you wants privacy, we can disable visual monitoring and keep vitals only.”
Your heart was beating so hard you could feel it in your teeth.
Steve said, “How long if we wait it out?”
“Based on your current levels? For her, maybe eight to ten hours if we wait it out.” Bruce hesitated. “For you, Steve, your system is burning through it faster, but the serum is making the spikes worse. Shorter duration, higher peaks.”
Another wave hit as if summoned.
Your knees softened. You caught the edge of the table, breath leaving you in an unsteady rush, and Steve was there before you could tell him not to be. His hand closed around your waist instead of your arm or elbow, and the difference was immediate enough to steal the air from your lungs.
The pressure was firm, instinctive, and devastating.
You made a sound.
Steve froze.
So did you.
It was not loud. It was barely more than a breath broken around his name. But Steve heard it, and you felt his grip tighten once before he forced it loose.
He tried to step back.
You caught his wrist. “Don’t.”
His eyes found yours.
“I can’t be objective right now,” he said.
“Neither can I.”
“That’s the point.”
“No, Steve. The point is that we know what’s happening. We know it’s chemical, and awful, and not how either of us would have chosen to spend our Friday night.” His mouth twitched despite himself. “But you also know this isn’t coming from nowhere.”
The almost-smile disappeared.
“You know I want you,” you said. “You know I wanted you this morning. You know I’ll want you tomorrow when this is out of our systems.”
His voice was low. “That doesn’t mean—”
“It means you don’t get to pretend the drug invented it.”
The words landed.
“I’ve asked you before,” you said, quieter now. “I’ve asked you to stop being so careful. I’m not saying that to pressure you. I’m saying it because I need you to stop acting like wanting you like this means I’m not myself.”
Steve closed his eyes.
“You want rougher,” he said.
“Yes.”
“You’ve wanted that for a while.”
“Yes.”
“And I keep pulling back.”
You nodded.
“I know my strength,” he said. “You don’t always know what it feels like from my side. You ask me to hold you down, and I want to give you what you want. But then I feel how easy it is to move you, and all I can think about is what happens if I misjudge it.”
Your anger softened so abruptly that it almost hurt.
You let go of his wrist and covered the hand he had resting on your waist.
“You’re allowed to trust yourself,” you said.
His laugh was silent and humorless.
“You trust me in combat.”
His expression shifted.
You pressed his hand more firmly against your waist. “Trust me here.”
Steve looked toward the glass wall.
“Bruce,” he said.
The speaker crackled. “I’m here.”
“Visual monitoring off.”
A pause.
Then Natasha’s voice, gentler than before. “Done.”
The opaque privacy film deepened until the glass became a flat gray mirror. You could still see your reflections in it, blurred and strange. You looked flushed, unsteady, your hand over Steve’s. He looked like a man trying to stand at the edge of a cliff without looking down.
“Vitals remain monitored,” Bruce said. “Audio?”
Steve looked at you.
It was a question.
Even now, it was a question.
Your throat tightened. “Off unless we call you.”
The speaker clicked.
Silence settled over the room.
For a moment, neither of you moved.
Then Steve said, “I need you to say it again.”
Your pulse jumped. “Which part?”
His eyes were darker than you had ever seen them. “That you want me.”
You stepped closer. His hand slid more fully around your waist, not pulling yet, but ready.
“I want you,” you said.
His breath left him slowly.
“I want you when I’m sober,” you said. “I want you when I’m clear-headed. I want you sweet. I want you careful. I want you in all the ways you already know.”
His fingers tightened.
You felt it through the thin cotton of the medical shirt.
“And I want you rougher than you let yourself be.”
Steve’s expression changed.
It was not the chemical alone. You knew that. The drug was there in the fever-bright heat of his eyes, in the tremor that moved through his hand, in the way his control looked painfully thin. But underneath it was recognition. Not surprise. He knew. He had always known.
He had just never fully believed he was allowed to answer.
“You say red, I stop,” he said.
“Yes.”
“And if anything feels wrong, you tell me.”
“I will.”
“I can’t promise I’ll be as gentle as I usually am.”
The words moved through you like a match struck in the dark.
“I’m not asking you to be.”
His hand went still at your waist.
Then, very carefully, Steve pulled you to him.
It was not rough. Not yet. It was barely more than a closing of distance, his body meeting yours with enough restraint that you could feel the shape of what he was holding back. But after hours of aborted touches and careful avoidance, the contact hit hard enough to make your knees weaken.
Steve caught you.
This time, he did not let go.
His arms came around you properly, one at your waist and the other across your back, his hand spreading wide between your shoulder blades. He bent his head until his forehead rested against yours. You could feel him shaking.
Not from weakness.
From refusal.
From the effort of not taking too much too fast.
“Steve,” you whispered.
His eyes closed. “I’m trying.”
“I know.”
“I don’t know if that helps.”
“It does.”
Your hands rose to his chest. His heart was racing under your palm, strong and fast and alive. For a second, you forgot the chemical. You forgot HYDRA, quarantine, cameras, and medical monitors. There was only Steve in front of you, still trying to be good in a situation designed to make goodness difficult.
You kissed him first.
Or you meant to.
You pushed onto your toes, and Steve met you halfway, his mouth catching yours with a sound that was almost relief. The kiss was hot, clumsy by Steve’s standards, a little too hard at first before he corrected himself.
Then you bit his lower lip.
Not hard.
Enough.
Steve made a sound against your mouth that you had never heard before.
Everything changed.
His hand tightened at your back, pulling you in so suddenly that your breath broke. The kiss deepened, lost its careful shape, and became something hungrier and less practiced. You felt the couch strike the back of your legs and realized he had moved you there without asking your feet to cooperate.
Your heart kicked.
Steve felt you tense and stopped instantly.
His mouth lifted from yours. “Tell me.”
“No,” you said quickly, almost offended by how fast he had pulled himself back. “No, I’m not scared.”
His eyes searched your face.
You reached for his hand, put it at your hip, and held it there.
“I liked that.”
Steve stared at you.
The realization came slowly. You watched it unfold across his face, not as shock but as reluctant understanding. The movement had not frightened you. The suddenness had not hurt. His strength had not been a mistake to apologize for.
You liked it.
His gaze dropped to where his hand covered your hip.
“Oh,” he said, very softly.
Your breath caught.
Because that was the moment.
Not the exposure, not Bruce’s terrible explanation, not the locked door or the privacy film or the heat crawling under your skin. This was the moment something between you tilted. Steve looked at your body under his hand and understood, maybe for the first time without softening the knowledge into something safer, that you were not merely allowing him to be stronger with you.
You wanted it.
His thumb moved once over your hip.
Then his hand tightened.
Your eyes fluttered.
Steve saw that too.
The look on his face changed again, and for one dizzy second you thought: Oh.
The realization startled you with its simplicity. Steve had not been waiting for permission to become someone else, and the aphrodisiac had not uncovered some secret cruelty buried beneath all that gentleness. He was still Steve, which was the part that made your chest ache around the heat.
But he liked this.
He liked your trust. He liked the way you responded when he stopped treating his strength as something shameful. He liked being asked for the power he spent so much time containing, and maybe the roughness itself was not the fantasy he would have chosen alone, but your wanting transformed it in his hands.
Steve Rogers did not secretly want to ruin you.
Steve Rogers wanted to give you what you asked for and had just realized that giving it to you did not make him a danger.
It made him yours.
“Tell me again,” he said.
His voice was lower.
You swallowed. “What?”
“What you want.”
You did.
Not all at once. Not crudely, though there would have been room for that in another version of the night, one without poison in your blood and medical staff outside the door. You told him where you wanted his hands. You told him you wanted his weight. You told him that when he moved you, when he held you still, when he stopped asking your body to pretend it did not know exactly how strong he was, it made you feel trusted too.
Steve listened.
He always listened.
Only this time, he did not translate every word into a warning.
The next wave of heat took both of you under.
It started with his mouth on yours, slower than you expected and rougher than he usually allowed himself to be. He kissed you like he was still giving you time to change your mind, but his hands had stopped pretending they did not know what they wanted. One stayed locked around your waist while the other slid up your back, spreading wide between your shoulder blades and pulling you closer until there was no space left between your bodies.
You made a small sound into his mouth, and Steve went still for half a second.
“Still with me?” he asked, breathless.
“Yes,” you said immediately. You caught his jaw in your hand and made him look at you. “Still with you.”
Something in him broke open at that.
He kissed you again, and this time he let you feel him. Not carelessly. Never carelessly. But fully. His grip tightened at your waist, and then he lifted you as if it cost him nothing at all. Your legs wrapped around him on instinct, a sharp breath leaving you when his hands caught under your thighs and held you there, suspended against his body.
“I like it,” you whispered before he could ask. “I like when you move me like that.”
His jaw flexed.
Then he carried you to the bed.
He lowered you onto the mattress with maddening control, following you down until his body covered yours and his weight pressed you into the sheets. It was not enough to trap you. It was enough to make your thoughts blur at the edges, enough to make your hands fist in his shirt while relief moved through you so sharply it was almost pain.
“There,” you breathed.
Steve’s face changed. “There?”
You nodded, pulling at him until he understood. “Stay there.”
For once, he did.
His body settled over yours, heavy and warm and solid, and the sound that left you was embarrassing in its honesty. Steve’s eyes dropped to your mouth. His hand slid to your hip, fingers firm through the thin cotton of your pants.
“You really do want this,” he said, like the truth had finally reached a place in him deeper than fear.
“I’ve been telling you.”
“I know.” His voice went rough. “I know. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize right now.”
His mouth twitched, but the heat in his eyes did not soften. “Bossy.”
“You like it.”
His hand tightened at your hip. “Yeah,” he said, low enough to make your stomach pull tight. “I do.”
Then he kissed his way down your throat.
Steve had always been careful with his mouth. Gentle presses, patient attention, the kind of tenderness that made you feel cherished and occasionally made you want to scream. This was different. His lips dragged over your skin. His teeth grazed beneath your jaw, then closed lightly at the side of your neck, not hard enough to hurt but hard enough to make you arch under him.
His hand caught your waist and held you down.
You froze, but not from fear.
Steve felt the change and lifted his head immediately. “Tell me.”
You swallowed, heat rushing into your face. “That was good.”
He looked at his hand where it held you against the bed.
Then he did it again.
Not harder. More deliberately.
His palm spread over your waist, his fingers pressing into the soft give of you, and he held you in place while his mouth returned to your neck. Your body reacted before your pride could stop it. Your knees shifted around his hips, your back trying to arch even though his hand kept you exactly where he wanted you.
Steve made a sound against your skin.
It was not gentle.
It was hungry.
The noise went through you so intensely that you nearly forgot how to breathe. You pulled at his shirt, impatient now, and Steve let you drag it up only so far before he took over. He sat back long enough to pull it over his head, flushed and broad-shouldered and breathing hard, his eyes fixed on you like he was done pretending looking was enough.
You reached for him.
He caught both your wrists in one hand and pinned them carefully above your head.
Your breath stopped.
So did his.
For one suspended moment, neither of you moved. Steve’s grip was firm, but not painful. His fingers circled your wrists with terrifying ease, holding you in place while his free hand braced beside your shoulder. He looked down at you, and you watched the exact second he understood what the expression on your face meant.
Not fear.
Want.
“Okay?” he asked, his voice low.
You tested his hold, just enough to feel that you could not break it unless he let you. Your pulse kicked hard, your body going hot and liquid beneath him.
“Very okay,” you said.
Steve’s eyes closed for half a second.
When they opened, something steadier had settled there. Still fevered. Still affected. But listening.
Always listening.
He lowered his mouth to yours again, kissing you while he kept your wrists above your head. His other hand moved down your body, slow enough to give you time and firm enough to make the touch impossible to ignore. He found the hem of your shirt and dragged it up, his knuckles brushing your ribs, his palm flattening briefly over your stomach as if he needed to feel you breathe.
“I’ve got you,” he said against your mouth.
“I know.” You lifted your head as much as his hold allowed. “That’s why I want it.”
The words hit him hard. You felt it in the shudder that moved through his body, in the way his grip tightened for one second before he made himself loosen it again.
“Steve,” you said softly. “You can hold me tighter than that.”
His eyes went dark.
Then he did.
His hand closed more securely around your wrists, still careful of the bones, still perfectly aware of his own strength, but no longer treating you like you might disappear beneath it. The pressure pinned you to the mattress. His body covered yours again, and this time when you arched against him, he did not pull back.
The kiss that followed was messy and deep, full of heat and teeth and his breath catching when you rolled your hips up against his.
After that, patience failed both of you.
Clothes came off in pieces, interrupted by kisses and Steve stopping only when he needed to look at your face. By the time there was nothing between you, his hands had learned a new kind of certainty. He touched you slowly at first, watching what made your eyes flutter and your breath break. Then he touched you with more confidence, his fingers firm on your thighs, spreading you open beneath him while his mouth moved lower.
You grabbed at his hair.
Steve looked up immediately.
“Don’t stop,” you said.
His mouth curved, barely.
Then he lowered his head again, and the room slipped sideways.
You lost track of time under his mouth. You knew only heat, his hands on your hips, the rough scrape of his jaw against your inner thigh, the obscene tenderness of how closely he watched you while he took you apart. Every time your body tried to twist away from the intensity, his arm came across your hips and held you there, keeping you open for him until your hands fisted in the sheets.
“Steve,” you gasped.
He lifted his head just enough to answer. “Too much?”
“Not too much. Don’t stop.”
His gaze held yours for another second, making sure.
Then he gave you exactly what you asked for.
When you came, it was with his name broken in your mouth and his hands holding you through it. He stayed there until the last tremor passed, pressing kisses to your skin as if gentleness had not disappeared at all. It had only changed shape.
By the time he crawled back over you, you were shaking.
Steve kissed your cheek, then your jaw, then the corner of your mouth. “Still with me?”
You laughed weakly. “Unfortunately for your ego, yes.”
His smile flickered. “My ego?”
“You look smug.”
“I do not.”
“You absolutely do.”
He kissed you before you could say anything else, and you felt him hard against your thigh, hot and heavy and barely restrained. The contact made both of you go still.
Steve’s forehead dropped to yours.
“You’re sure?” he asked.
The question was quiet, but there was nothing casual in it. Not after everything. Not with both of you still fevered, still shaking, still aware that wanting was not enough unless it stayed a choice.
You touched his face. “I’m sure.”
His eyes searched yours.
You held him there. “I want you inside me. I want you to hold me down. I want to feel you tomorrow.”
Steve’s breath left him in a shudder.
He reached between you, and even with everything your body wanted, the first press of him made you inhale sharply. Steve stopped at once, his arm trembling beside your head.
“Okay?” he asked.
“Yes. Just slow.”
He kissed you, soft now, almost unbearably sweet. “Slow,” he promised.
He gave you slow. He gave you patient. He gave you every inch with his jaw clenched and his body shaking from the effort of not rushing, even as the chemical burned through both of you and made restraint feel like cruelty. Your hands slid over his shoulders, down his back, nails pressing into muscle as he filled you.
When he was finally seated deep, he went still.
You could feel his heart pounding.
For a moment, neither of you moved. The weight of him pinned you down, his chest against yours, his breath hot at your cheek. You had wanted his strength, but this was more than that. This was trust made physical. This was Steve giving you the part of himself he feared most and keeping it careful because you had asked him not to hide it.
You turned your head and kissed his jaw.
“Move,” you whispered.
Steve did.
The first thrust was measured, deep and controlled, and it drew a sound out of you that made his rhythm falter. His hand slid beneath your knee, lifting your leg higher around his hip, changing the angle until the next thrust made your eyes squeeze shut.
“There?” he asked, voice strained.
“Yes. There.”
His control thinned.
You felt it in the way his hips drove forward, still precise but harder now, each thrust pushing you deeper into the mattress. His hand found your waist and held you still, not letting you slip away from the force of him. The bed creaked beneath you. Your breath came in broken pieces. Steve’s mouth moved against your throat, your shoulder, anywhere he could reach.
“Tell me if it’s too much,” he said, rough and low.
“It’s not.”
His grip tightened.
A helpless sound escaped you.
Steve groaned. “You like feeling me hold you down.”
“Yes.”
His hips snapped forward harder, and pleasure flashed through you so brightly that you grabbed at his arm. Steve stopped immediately, body locked above yours.
You shook your head before he could ask. “Don’t stop. I just—Steve, it felt good.”
For a second, he only stared at you.
Then he laughed once, breathless and disbelieving, and buried his face in your neck. “You’re going to kill me.”
“You’ll live.”
“I’m not sure.”
You smiled against his skin. “Steve.”
He lifted his head.
You wrapped your legs tighter around him. “Harder.”
The word changed him.
Not into someone else. Never that. His hand came to your face first, thumb brushing your cheek with aching tenderness. His eyes held yours, giving you one more chance, one more breath, one more place to stop.
You did not take it.
Steve kissed you, and then he stopped holding back.
He fucked you like he trusted you to know what you wanted. Like he trusted himself to listen. His body drove yours into the mattress, strong and relentless, one hand gripping your hip while the other braced beside your head. You felt surrounded by him, overwhelmed by him, held down by him, and the pleasure of it was so sharp that tears burned at the corners of your eyes.
Steve saw them.
His rhythm broke. “Sweetheart—”
“Good,” you gasped, pulling him back down. “It’s good. Please.”
His face twisted, desperate and tender all at once.
Then his mouth was on yours again, swallowing the next sound you made as his hand slid between your bodies. You came hard enough to lose the shape of the room. For a few seconds there was only Steve, his weight, his voice saying your name, his hand firm at your hip as he held you through every shaking second of it.
He followed soon after, burying his face in your shoulder with a broken sound as his body went rigid over yours. Even then, even at the edge of himself, he was careful. His hand cradled the back of your head. His weight shifted just enough not to crush you. His mouth pressed against your skin, trembling and reverent.
For a long time afterward, neither of you spoke.
Steve stayed inside you, breathing hard, his body still covering yours. You could feel him everywhere: in the ache of your thighs, the heat between your legs, the solid pressure of his chest against yours. His hand moved slowly over your hair, almost dazed.
“Too much?” he asked finally, voice wrecked.
You turned your face into his palm. “No.”
He exhaled.
“Intense,” you admitted. “But not too much.”
His eyes closed like the distinction mattered more than anything else you could have said.
You touched his cheek. “Come here.”
“I’m already here.”
“Closer.”
A faint, exhausted smile crossed his face. “That might be a medical impossibility.”
“Try.”
He lowered himself carefully, giving you more of his weight again, and you sighed with the comfort of it. His arms came around you. This time, when he held you, he did not loosen his grip before you asked.
You smiled against his shoulder.
“There,” you whispered.
Steve kissed your temple. “There.”
The serum made the whole thing absurd.
You knew Steve’s stamina. You had been dating him long enough to understand that ordinary human limits were, for him, more like polite suggestions. But the aphrodisiac took everything the serum already made unfair and pushed it into something almost ridiculous. Each time your body went loose and heavy with relief, his pulse would begin to slow for maybe a minute before another spike hit him, heat coming back into his eyes with an apology already forming on his mouth.
The third time it happened, you started laughing.
Steve looked stricken. “What?”
“You have got to be kidding me.”
His ears went red.
Actually red.
Even fevered, overwhelmed, and visibly fighting the urge to pull you back under him, Steve Rogers blushed because you had implied his recovery time was inconvenient.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
You laughed harder, then winced because your body was beginning to feel like you had survived both sex pollen and a full Avengers training circuit. “Don’t apologize. Just bring me the blue drink.”
He brought you the blue electrolyte drink. He opened it. He held it for you even though you were capable of holding it yourself, and when you gave him a look, he gave one right back.
“Hydrate,” he said.
“You’re such a romantic.”
His mouth curved, tired and fond and still hungry in a way that made your exhausted body consider mutiny.
“You love me,” he said.
“I do. Unfortunately.”
His smile faded into something softer.
The drug did not take that from him. It sharpened want, stripped patience, twisted need into something urgent and physical, but it could not manufacture the way Steve looked at you when he forgot to be afraid. That was yours. That had always been yours.
You reached for him.
He came.
The hours passed in heat and fragments. The bed. The couch. The cold bathroom tile against your feet when he helped you drink water between waves because even compromised by HYDRA’s poison and his own impossible stamina, Steve Rogers still cared about hydration. The first time his control slipped enough that his body covered yours fully, his weight pressing you down into the mattress in a way that made your mind go bright and empty with relief. When you told him harder, he believed you. When you told him wait, he waited. When you told him yes, he stopped making yes prove itself over and over before he accepted it.
At some point, Bruce’s voice came carefully through the speaker after a long warning chime, asking for a verbal status check. Steve had wrapped you in a blanket by then, one hand braced on the mattress beside your hip, his body angled between you and the rest of the room as if the sound system itself might threaten your modesty.
“We’re alive,” you called, because Steve looked like he might combust if forced to answer.
Bruce paused. “Vitals are improving.”
“Great,” you said.
“They’re still elevated.”
“No kidding.”
Steve put his face in his hands.
Bruce, clearly fighting for professionalism, said, “Do either of you require medical assistance?”
You looked at Steve. Steve looked at you.
His hair was a mess. His mouth was swollen. There was a red mark on his shoulder you were fairly sure you had put there with your teeth at some point, which meant Captain America was going to leave quarantine with visible evidence that his girlfriend had briefly lost her mind.
You felt a little proud.
Steve saw your expression and narrowed his eyes.
You smiled at the ceiling. “We need more water.”
“Sending it through the transfer drawer.”
“And maybe food.”
“Also sending food.”
“And if Tony is anywhere near the observation room, tell him I can still kill him from quarantine.”
A faint sound came through the speaker that might have been Natasha laughing.
Tony’s voice, farther away, protested, “I have been nothing but respectful during this medical crisis.”
“You told us to fuck it out,” Steve said.
“I said what the science implied!”
Natasha said, “Muted again.”
The speaker clicked off.
You closed your eyes and let your head fall back against the pillow. “I’m moving to Canada.”
Steve sat beside you, the mattress dipping under his weight. “Why Canada?”
“I don’t know. It was the first place that came to mind.”
“You hate being cold.”
“I’ll adapt.”
His hand settled over your ankle beneath the blanket, warm and heavy and careful again.
The care made your chest hurt.
You opened your eyes.
Steve was looking at his hand on your ankle, thumb resting lightly against the bone as if he were cataloging every possible bruise before it appeared.
There it was.
The crash.
“Steve.”
“I’m okay,” he said.
“You are a terrible liar.”
His mouth tightened.
You pushed yourself up carefully. Every muscle objected. Steve moved to help you, then hesitated, his hand hovering near your elbow.
You stared at it.
He started to pull away.
“Oh, don’t you dare.”
His eyes jumped to yours.
“You don’t get to spend hours proving you can listen to me and then go right back to treating me like spun glass.”
The words were sharper than you intended, but you did not take them back. You were tired and sore and still flushed with the chemical’s fading heat, and you could not bear the thought of waking up tomorrow with Steve further away from you than he had been before.
His hand closed carefully around your elbow.
He helped you sit.
Then he let go.
You sighed. “That’s not what I meant.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
He looked down.
The room was cooler now, or maybe your skin was finally returning to itself. The sheets were tangled around you, towels abandoned near the edge of the bed, and Steve had arranged water and protein bars on the table with the grim practicality of a soldier preparing supplies during a siege.
You touched his hand.
He went still, but he did not pull away.
“I remember,” you said.
His gaze lifted.
“I know you’re going to worry it was all fever and chemicals and that I’ll wake up horrified. So I’m telling you now. I remember asking. I remember you listening. I remember you stopping when I said wait. I remember you giving me water like the world’s most overqualified nurse.”
That got the smallest breath of amusement from him.
“And I remember liking it,” you said.
His expression closed.
You squeezed his hand before he could leave you from six inches away. “Steve.”
His voice was quiet. “There will be bruises.”
“Probably.”
“I was too rough.”
“You were rougher.”
His eyes met yours.
The distinction mattered. You could see him hearing it.
“You were not too rough,” you said. “If you had been, I would have told you.”
“You were drugged.”
“So were you.”
“That doesn’t cancel it out.”
“No. It means we talk about it like adults who were put in an awful situation by people who wanted to use our bodies against us.” Your throat tightened, but you kept going. “HYDRA did that. Not you.”
Steve looked away.
You shifted closer, giving him time to stop you.
He did not.
“The worst part,” you said softly, “is that I’m afraid you’re going to use this as proof that you were right to hold back.”
He did not answer.
That was answer enough.
“I don’t know how not to think about what could have happened,” he said. “I don’t know how to look at marks on you and not wonder if I misjudged. I don’t know how to be that with you without worrying I’ll become something I can’t take back.”
You cupped his face.
He went still.
“Listen to me,” you said. “I do not need you drugged. I do not need you out of control. I do not need you to become someone else. I need you listening. That’s all I’ve ever been asking for.”
His eyes closed.
You leaned forward and pressed your forehead to his.
“Sometimes I want sweet. Sometimes I want slow. Sometimes I want the way you touch me when you’re trying to remind me I’m safe.”
Steve’s hand rose to your waist, hesitant but there.
“And sometimes,” you continued, “I want to feel your strength because I already know I’m safe with you.”
His fingers tightened, not by much, but enough for you to notice.
You smiled.
His eyes opened, and this time he saw you clearly. You were tired and sore, sober enough to know what you were saying, and still leaning into his hand.
A long breath left him.
“I don’t know if I can promise to get it right every time,” he said.
“You don’t have to.”
His thumb moved once at your waist. “I can promise to keep listening.”
Your chest softened. “That’s the whole thing, Rogers.”
He huffed out a quiet laugh.
Then he kissed you.
It was gentle.
You let it be.
Gentle was not the enemy. Careful was not the enemy. You loved this part of him, the sweetness that survived war and serum and ice and every person who had tried to make him into something less human than he was.
When he pulled back, he rested his forehead against yours again.
“I love you,” he said.
“I know.”
His eyes narrowed.
You smiled. “I love you too.”
“Better.”
“You’re needy after sex pollen.”
His face went pink.
You laughed, and this time it did not hurt as much.
The speaker chimed before Bruce’s voice came through again, cautious but relieved. “Your levels are dropping. Steve’s are still elevated, but trending down.”
You patted Steve’s cheek. “Negative refractory period and slow toxin clearance. Tragic.”
Bruce coughed.
Steve closed his eyes. “Please don’t say that where he can hear you.”
Bruce, sounding like he regretted medical school, said, “You’re both past the worst of it.”
Past the worst of it.
You leaned into Steve and felt his arm come around you. Still careful. Always careful. But when you tucked yourself closer, he did not loosen his hold to give you space you had not requested.
He kept you there.
That felt like victory.
Several hours later, the door unsealed.
By then, you had showered, changed into clean clothes from the transfer drawer, eaten two protein bars, half a sandwich, and something Tony claimed was a recovery smoothie but looked like melted radioactive mint chip. Steve had refused to let you drink it until Bruce confirmed it was safe. You had refused to let Steve throw it away until you got to take a picture.
For blackmail, obviously.
The chemical had faded to an afterglow of exhaustion and tenderness by the time Dr. Cho cleared you both for release. She examined you first, clinically calm, making notes on your vitals and checking the places where bruises had begun to rise along your hips and thighs. Steve stood on the other side of the room pretending not to watch while absolutely watching.
Dr. Cho glanced between you once and said, “Any pain beyond expected muscle soreness?”
“No.”
Steve’s jaw tightened.
You shot him a look.
Dr. Cho’s mouth curved faintly. “Any dizziness? Nausea? Confusion?”
“No.”
“Do you feel safe leaving quarantine with Captain Rogers?”
Steve looked as if the question had physically struck him.
You answered without hesitation. “Yes.”
Dr. Cho nodded as if she had expected nothing else, then turned to Steve. “Do you?”
That surprised him.
It surprised you, too.
Steve blinked. “Do I what?”
“Feel safe leaving quarantine with her.”
For a second, he looked almost offended on your behalf. Then the question settled, and something complicated moved through his face.
“Yes,” he said quietly.
Dr. Cho made another note. “Good.”
When she left, Steve stared after her.
You bumped his arm with your shoulder. “Told you. Smart woman.”
He looked down at you. “You planned that?”
“No. I’m just choosing to take credit.”
His smile was small but real.
The hallway outside quarantine was empty except for Natasha, who leaned against the far wall with a paper bag in one hand and the expression of someone prepared to murder Tony Stark if necessary. She took in both of you with one sweep of her eyes, pausing only briefly on the marks high on Steve’s neck that his shirt did not fully cover.
Her brows rose.
Steve’s ears went red again.
You took the bag from her. “Please tell me that’s food.”
“Your actual clothes,” Natasha said. “And food.”
“I’ve never loved you more.”
“I know.”
Steve cleared his throat. “Where’s Tony?”
“Banned from this floor,” Natasha said. “Possibly forever, depending on whether he makes the T-shirt.”
You stared at her. “What T-shirt?”
“The one he absolutely should not make.”
Steve looked up at the ceiling like he was asking God for strength, and despite everything, you started laughing.
He looked at you like you were the sunrise and a headache at the same time.
Natasha’s expression softened by a fraction. “Go home. Sleep. Hydrate. Don’t let him brood too much.”
“I don’t brood,” Steve said.
Natasha and you looked at him.
He frowned. “I don’t brood that much.”
“That’s progress,” Natasha said, and walked away.
The elevator ride to Steve’s floor was quiet without being uncomfortable. Your body was exhausted in a deep, humming way, and Steve kept his hand around yours as if he had decided, finally, that touching you after quarantine was allowed.
“You’re thinking,” you said.
“I do that.”
“Dangerous habit.”
His mouth curved, then faded.
When the elevator doors opened, he did not move right away.
“I don’t want that to be the only time,” he said.
Your heart tripped.
Steve looked straight ahead into the empty hallway, jaw set as if he were bracing himself for enemy fire. “Not like that. Not because of the drug. I don’t want that again.”
“Me neither.”
“But what you asked for.” He glanced at you then, uncertain but honest. “I don’t want to go back to pretending I don’t hear you.”
The tenderness that moved through you was almost worse than the heat had been.
“Okay,” you said.
His brows drew together slightly. “Okay?”
“We don’t go back.”
Some of the tension eased from his shoulders.
“We talk,” you said. “When we’re rested. When there’s no toxin, no quarantine, no Tony making commentary from behind glass. We figure out what we both want. What’s okay. What isn’t. Where you need reassurance. Where I need you to stop deciding for me.”
Steve absorbed that.
Then he nodded. “I can do that.”
“I know.”
His eyes softened. “You sound very sure.”
“I am.”
“About me?”
You squeezed his hand. “Always.”
That one hit him. Steve could take praise in public if it were about Captain America, but give Steve Rogers certainty in private, and he looked like you had handed him something fragile enough to frighten him.
You loved him so much that it made you ache.
“Come on,” you said softly. “Take me to bed.”
His eyes darkened before he could stop them.
You pointed at him. “To sleep.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You thought it very loudly.”
“I have never thought loudly in my life.”
“You are a patriotic foghorn.”
He laughed then, a real laugh, tired and warm in the empty hallway. It followed you into his apartment, into the quiet space that smelled like laundry detergent and coffee and the faint cedar soap he liked. You changed into one of his shirts because your clean clothes were in Natasha’s bag and Steve’s were closer. He pretended not to watch you do it.
The bed felt impossibly soft.
Steve climbed in after you with unusual caution, lying on his back at first as though he did not want to presume. You let him suffer for approximately three seconds before rolling into his side.
His arm came around you.
Careful.
Then, after a pause, firmer.
You smiled against his chest.
“There,” you murmured.
Steve’s chin brushed the top of your head. “There?”
“That’s better.”
His hand spread against your back.
The weight of it was warm and solid and exactly enough.
For a long time, neither of you spoke. His heartbeat slowed beneath your ear. Yours followed. The city beyond the windows moved on without you, full of noise and light and people who had no idea that the world had narrowed for a few hours to a locked room, a terrible chemical, and the difference between fear and trust.
You were almost asleep when Steve said your name.
“Hm?”
“I was scared,” he said quietly. “Not of you. Not really of the drug either. I was scared I’d find out there was a part of me I couldn’t control.”
You lifted your head.
“And then I was scared because I could control it enough to listen,” he said. “Which meant all the times before, when you asked and I pulled back, it wasn’t because I couldn’t do it safely. It was because I didn’t trust myself.”
Your throat tightened. “It frustrated me. Sometimes it hurt my feelings. Not because you wouldn’t do exactly what I wanted, but because it felt like you trusted your fear more than you trusted me.”
His face softened with pain.
“But I understand why,” you said. “That doesn’t erase it. It gives us somewhere to go.”
His hand covered yours.
“I don’t need perfect,” you said. “I need honest. And I need you to stop looking at my bruises like they’re evidence in a murder investigation.”
A startled laugh broke out of him.
You grinned. “Some of those are mine emotionally.”
He shook his head, but the guilt in his eyes eased. “You’re impossible.”
“You love me.”
“I do.”
“Unfortunately?”
His smile softened. “Never.”
That was unfair. You were too tired to be expected to survive Steve Rogers saying things like that while looking at you like you were the only place he had ever wanted to come home to.
You settled back against him, hiding your face in his shirt.
“Go to sleep,” he murmured.
“You first.”
“I can do this all night.”
“Negative refractory period and no sleep requirements. Tragic.”
“Please stop calling it that.”
“No.”
He sighed, but his arm tightened around you, and this time there was no fear in it.
Only warmth.
Only weight.
Only Steve, careful with you because he loved you.
And finally, finally, strong enough to understand that careful did not always mean letting go.
credit to @uzmacchiato for the cherry divider and @saradika-graphics for the Captain America divider
