MrsEvans90

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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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.

GENERAL taglist: @mellowfurynight | @castielscaplan | @whatisanniedoin | @barewithme02 | @mathcat345 | @overwintering-soldier | @alpinebarnesworld | @alwaysreenie | @iceyyycapsicle | @karlahan

STEVE taglist:@mrsevans90 | @blobfishlol | @phoenix-in-writing | @sassandscribbles | @alyssinwunderland-blog-blog | @pattiemac1 | @fantasyfootballchampion | @theoryxwaller | @thatisamericas-ass | @allthingswickedpodcast | @katarina1224 | @kryptidfiles | @greatenthusiasttidalwave | @vicmc624 | @strangerthing93 | @scarlettbeth | @05-12-05 | @projectcutie | @cap-bot | @peachiestevie | @evilplansandstuff | @kaley0144 | @nicobidd | @i-lie-here-charmed

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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.

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.

Steve Rogers doesn’t do “friends with benefits.”

Well, he didn't until he felt your skin against his; that changed his mind very quickly.

It started simple, really– a brush of his hand against yours during a briefing, your shoulder nudging him slightly as you walked by, your eyes meeting in the middle of a conference– just innocent, short moments of contact.

It’s not like either of you were really new to the game, but Steve had been pathetically out of practice. He didn’t make the first move; he couldn’t. Not with how much he respected you, anyway. In his time, it was impolite to make advances on a woman before “courting” her. Really, all he wanted was to take you out to dinner!

But when your hand met his chest one night on the couch of his apartment? He was an absolute goner.

“Beautiful,” Steve whispers against your skin, his warm breath brushing against the sensitive flesh of your chest. His eyes seem clouded, like the scrawny boy from Brooklynn had been ripped away and replaced with a man that knew exactly what he wanted.

Your hands are in his hair, lightly tugging at the blonde strands until his breath catches. It’s not the first time you’ve seen Steve like this: completely undressed and pinning you to his bed, biceps flexing where they rest on each side of your head. You really hope it won’t be the last, either.

His weight against you is persistent, but not overwhelming: like a weighted blanket that’s been waiting for you to return to your plush mattress. You’re not blind– you know exactly what Steve looks like in and out of the bedroom– but the feeling of him actually pressing against you, cock stretching you tortuously slowly– nothing could prepare you for that, even after experiencing it time and time again.l

“If I didn’t know better,” you start in a low drawl, the tease flowing off your tongue just as the rest of the banter between the pair of you does, “I’d almost think you were admiring me.” You’re aware of how Steve looks at your naked body, of how he worships the ground you walk on, but you really can’t help but poke a little fun at the man. After all, it’s almost laughable to think that Captain America gets flustered every time he sees your beauty to the fullest extent.

Your remark earns a small groan from him, or maybe it’s the way your walls are clenching down on him like a vice as he pushes himself just a tad bit deeper. “I am,” he responds without hesitation, blue eyes meeting yours with more heat than you thought possible, “It’s impossible not to.”

The corners of your mouth quirk upward slightly, the ghost of a smile tracing your lips. “Didn’t expect anything less from you, Cap,” you shoot back.

Steve hums slightly in agreement, pressing his face and lips against your neck as his cock nestles itself deeper within your folds. The sound sends vibrations through your skin, making you shiver slightly against his insistent form. His breath is hot against your nerves, coming in shaky puffs from his nose. It’s unusual for Steve to be out of breath– since he got injected with the serum, anyway– but he supposes you just have that kind of effect on him.

His hips meet yours in languid, steady thrusts, like he’s scared of moving too fast and ruining the moment. The brush of his pelvic bone against your clit every time he bottoms out is divine, earning small sounds from between your parted lips.

Sure, Steve hadn’t had any action since the 40’s until he met you, but he’s a quick learner.

A warm hand makes its way to your side, gently tracing until it meets your breast. The touch is firm but gentle, sending fire throughout your nerve endings. His fingers brush against your nipple slightly, pressing just enough to get a reaction out of you.

“Steve-”

“I know,” he cuts off in a whisper, his lips making contact with your neck in what could almost be described as a kiss, “Just let me make you feel good, yeah?” Steve has changed in the past couple of years since he’s been out of the ice, but the one thing that has certainly stayed the same is his accent; it drawls out beautifully, like his words are too precious for anyone but you to hear. It’s stronger, you’ve noticed, when he’s enjoying himself.

The only thing that could distract you from the sound of his voice would be the wet plap of his skin against yours, with a light sheen of sweat forming over each of your bodies. It makes your breath catch slightly every time he shifts just the right way, the tip of his cock presing in just the right spot to have you curling up into him.

But Steve doesn’t speed up one bit, doesn’t try to race you to the edge that both of you crave. If anything, his hips slow slightly, pressing harder into those spots that make you gasp and has stars forming in your eyes. You might actually mistake this for Steve making love to you as opposed to having sex, if you weren’t aware of your relationship– or lack thereof.

His fingers making their ways down to your clit has you arching up into him, the spark of his calloused skin making contact with your sensitive nerve endings tightening that coil in your stomach. Your hips move up to meet his slightly, like having his hardened length as deep as possible inside of you isn’t enough. Steve could give you absolutely every inch of himself, and you would still beg for more.

Your breathing is labored slightly as you approach the edge of your climax, leaving your lungs with soft sounds that only Steve is allowed to hear. You’re not sure if you trust anyone else hearing them, honestly.

“I have you,” he whispers against your neck, lips brushing against your skin yet again. The contact is so delicious, so soothing that you never want to let it go. His fingers move around your sensitive bundle of nerves with an expertise that only comes from having experienced you countless times, pressing and brushing just the right way to have you arching into him.

“Holy shit…” You whine, eyes screwing shut as a final touch against yout clit sends you over the edge. Your body shakes slightly as you cling to him, arms wrapping around his shoulders while your nails scratch against his back. Surely you’re leaving angry red marks across his skin, but neither one of you seems to care too much. “Fuck… Steve…!”

All Captain America can do in this moment is groan, the sound vibrating out of his mouth against your neck. He’s right there with you, his hips stalling slightly in their once-steady thrusts as his own orgasm approaches. This may not be the longest time he’s lasted, but how can he, when your walls are squeezing him so beautifully?

His sharp teeth gently nip at your neck as his stomach and balls contract, wave after wave of his sperm flowing out of his angry red tip. The moans he lets out are heavenly, as if the angels themselves have blessed you enough to bear witness to them. Steve is borderline whining against you as he rides out his orgasm as much as possible, continuously thrusting into you with his overstimulated dick.

Maybe being friends with benefits isn’t so bad.

Adopt me! Come by the Coronado Police Station this weekend to meet your new best friend!

Bradley pauses as he reads over the text, taking in the place, date, and time. Tomorrow morning, a fifteen-minute drive from his small two-bedroom house. He doesn't know why, but he reaches into his back pocket to take out his phone, snapping a quick picture. Bradley looks over his shoulder, seeing if anyone has caught him in the act. And just as quickly as he had stopped, he was off again.

The drive home should feel like any other; wind in his hair, aviators over his eyes blocking the rays of the setting sun, and soft classic rock from the radio. But Bradley couldn't help but feel like something was missing.

Phoenix went on and on today about how her family is visiting her for the weekend, saying how excited she is to see her parents again. Bradley smiled at her, genuinely happy at the news.

Bob had talked about staying in with his girlfriend this weekend, saying they were going to try out a new recipe of banana bread they saw on the Food Network earlier this week. Bradley had hummed, telling Bob to save him a slice and to bring it in on Monday.

Jake had even told Bradley about the long run he was going on with a few of the newest TOPGUN class recruits, saying he was going to put them through hell this weekend. Bradley just laughed and grimaced at this, thankful his time in the program hadn't been led by someone as ruthless as one of his best friends.

But as the keys hit the small dish on his counter, Bradley couldn't help but tune into the creaks and groans of his house. Nothing else, just the small and quiet sounds. Even as he cooked dinner that night, the boiling of the pasta seemed drowned out by the stillness of the kitchen, of everything that surrounded Bradley. The episode he had seen at least three times now seemed to go in one ear and out the other. Bradley only heard his breathing and the occasional dripping of the faucet.

The hot summer nights were grueling. Not only due to the heat of his sticky skin against the now warm sheet, but also because Bradley could hear every little bug from the window above his bed. Cicadas seemed to chirp, grasshoppers seemed to sing, and if he listened closely, he could even sometimes hear the buzzing of the fireflies. Too quiet, but so loud. Loudness from the wrong sounds, the ones nobody noticed. Loudness from the beating of his heart from underneath his skin. Loudness of the crinkling sheets beneath his grasp. Loudness from the unsteady breath that escaped his lips.

Reaching for his phone, Bradley looked at the most recent picture in his camera roll. Swiping out and clicking the clock icon, he set an alarm for 8 AM sharp.

જ⁀➴

Bradley pulls into the parking lot and takes in the sight around him. Cars are already packed in the lot, despite it only being 5 minutes since the adoption event started. Minivans and SUVs are taking up most of the spots; his Bronco seems out of place among the other cars. The California sun is barely starting to warm up the air, but Bradley knows in an hour he'll be thankful for the loose Hawaiian shirt he wears.

Off to the right side of the building, he can hear children laughing and dogs barking. Tucking his keys in his back pocket, he makes his way towards the noise.

Like he suspected, families are standing around chatting with volunteers in bright pink shirts, the same pink on the poster from the base. Kids are wide-eyed and fascinated with all of the dogs they see. It's not just German shepherds, but smaller dogs too, and all types of breeds. He wonders why his poster only had the proud-looking line-up when there were so many other options.

But like a man on a mission, Bradley peers over the crowd of people and spots K-9 in big black letters near the middle of the scene. Sending small smiles and tapping his left hand anxiously on the side of his thigh, Bradley weaves through the crowd. Taking in the well-behaved group of dogs before him, he settles down a bit. There's only one volunteer over in this area, a woman with her back turned away from him. It only settles him more, giving him the space to really look over the animals. Some of the dogs are panting, as if being out on the grass has somehow exhausted them. Others are playing with each other, rolling around, and showing their bellies. But one dog sits near the woman, curled in on itself, head tucked into her side.

Without meaning to, Bradley watches this dog, missing the way the woman looks at him fondly.

"He's just a little shy, but I promise he's a good boy," your voice snaps him out of his trance.

Bradley doesn't think he's ever thought so hard about what to say next. You have a soft look on your face, eyes darting back and forth between him and the dog that sits so close to you. The morning light is peeking out from beneath the tree branches, golden rays dancing across your skin. Bradley is glad he doesn't have his sunglasses on right now.

"What's his name?" Bradley walks closer to you, and you turn your body towards him. The dog next to you perks up a bit at the movement.

You smile a little before saying it, "Ducky." Seeing the way his brows raise, you laugh a bit. "He's just a bit of an odd pup out, thought the name suited him."

Bradley couldn't help but feel like it was fate. Ducky and Rooster. It was almost laughable.

"You said he's shy," Bradley led on, looking up to you as he sat on his haunches next to the dog.

"Yeah," you hummed. "Definitely my sensitive boy out of the group. These guys are retiring K-9, but Ducky has a bit of a soft side, wasn't trained properly as a puppy." Your voice seemed to waver a bit at the end of your sentence.

Bradley watched as your throat bobbed before you spoke again. He could tell where this conversation was going, but didn't want to interrupt. The look in your eyes was fiercely protective.

"He was abused by his first owner. So he has some PTSD tendencies. Hyper vigilant, can get really avoidant and shy, whines a lot when he's feeling anxious," you tell Bradley, petting the dog softly.

But nothing in your expression tells him that you don't care for this dog, that you think he's broken because of all of these things. It makes his heart beat a little quicker.

"But Ducky's a good boy. You just have to put some work in to see that." As you say his name again, Ducky peeks out from where he's hiding in your side. You smile a bit at this, ruffling his ears. "You wanna say hi to the sweet man?" you ask in a soft voice, like you're talking just to the dog, like Bradley's not right next to you, hearing every word.

He holds his hand out slowly, knowing not to move too fast. "Hey, Ducky. I'm Bradley." As soon as he says it, he feels a bit silly. But the way your smile deepens makes him continue. "Looking for a home, buddy? I got a nice backyard."

"Oh, he'll love that. Runs around like a bunny when he's all riled up," you told him with a smile on your face, now looking only at Bradley.

Bradley smiles at that, only imagining the life this dog could bring to his quiet house.

Finally, Ducky nudges his outstretched hand, sniffing it first, then licking it softly. He hears you gasp lightly at the action, nothing big though, trying not to disrupt the moment.

"He never does that," you offer. Bradley can see your head shaking slowly as Ducky continues to push into the man in front of you.

Bradley feels his heartbeat steady. It's quiet around him. Even with the squealings of the children around him and the barking of the other dogs, Bradley only hears the little laps of Ducky's tongue against the skin on his hand. But this quiet is something he can get used to, something that grounds him.

"It's a 150 dollar adoption fee, right?" Bradley asks, not tearing his eyes away from the dog in front of him. Ducky's big brown eyes seem to bore into his soul, making him ask the question before even thinking about what he's saying.

You bite your lip before speaking, trying to hide the big grin on your face, even though you know Bradley can't see it. "Um, no fee for him. I already took care of it."

Your words confuse Bradley. He looks over to you for an answer but sees clearly why you had paid the fee yourself.

Quickly, a hand comes up to your cheek as you wipe the stray tear away from your face. "I just didn't want anything to deter someone from taking him home." Bradley's heart clenches at this as you offer him a smile and you fan your eyes.

"Well, what do you say, Ducky? Wanna come home with me?" Bradley finds himself talking to the dog again, not feeling as silly this time around.

જ⁀➴

Bradley looks at the large, fluffy cream colored dog bed lying next to his and the brown wicker box overflowing with colorful chew toys with a small smile. Ducky had been a little hesitant to leave your side at first when he realized what was happening, but with some whispered assurance and a kiss on the tip of his wet nose from you, he jumped into Bradley's Bronco, settling in the passenger seat.

Ducky had whined when Bradley peeled out of the parking lot. The man had glanced over at Ducky as he stuck his head out of the window and looked in your direction. His eyes found your figure in the mirror, blue denim, and a sweet pink-colored top catching his eye. He saw the way you brought one hand up to your heart, and as the other wiped at your cheeks. You loved this dog, every bit of your being told him that.

Bradley couldn't help but feel bad as the dog's whines continued throughout shopping for essentials, the drive home, and the arrival at his house.

Ducky had opted to lie in Bradley's brown leather chair as soon as they got into the house, and he decided to take it as a good sign. But as the day continued, Ducky had barely left the spot, and small cries were coming every few minutes.

Opening up the sliding glass door to his backyard, Bradley called Ducky over, beckoning him to come out and play. But the swings of the bright blue and purple rope and the energetic movements from Bradley weren't doing anything to move Ducky from his spot.

Even when making dinner, Ducky had barely budged from his spot on the recliner. With the wafting scent of the food on the stovetop, Bradley was sure that Ducky would appear by his side sooner rather than later. But nothing came of it, even with the temptation of a seared ribeye with Ducky's name on it.

He had tried speaking softly like he had seen you do earlier that day, but Bradley didn't want to push the poor dog more than it seemed like he already did. Instead, he turned on the television and sat in the company of the shy dog.

It wasn't until Bradley was tucked under his sheets that he heard the faint noise of shuffling paws on his hardwood floors. Ducky sat next to the side of the bed, noticeably avoiding lying on the dog bed next to him. Bradley laughed quietly at this, furrowing his brows a bit.

He wasn't quite sure what to do, to be honest. Growing up, he never had dogs or cats or anything of that sort in the house. He figured it was hard enough being a single mother of a toddler; the added stress of an animal just wasn't feasible in his situation.

Sure, his friends growing up had dogs. He recalled throwing around a tennis ball with one of his friends and their black lab in their backyard almost every day during the summer before 7th grade. But Bradley had never lived with a dog. Never had to deal with big brown eyes looking at him as he lay underneath the sheets.

"You okay, buddy?" he asked in the otherwise quiet room.

To this, Ducky started whining.

"Oh, come on. I thought we got over that a few hours ago," Bradley groans, rolling up to sit in his bed now.

Bradley was man enough to admit it was hard to drag Ducky away from you during the adoption this morning. Ducky's whines as you gave him a few last pets and spoke gently to him, did tug on Bradley's heartstrings. Bradley was sure the dog next to him couldn't stop thinking about your kind eyes and sweet disposition; he certainly couldn't.

Bradley's hands were rougher than yours. He felt the softness as you handed the leash to him this morning. You had explained to him a routine that Ducky usually had with the unit, your hands animated as you looked between the pair in front of you with a smile. Occasionally, one would come down to rub the top of his head. Ducky was probably missing that, missing you.

On top of that, when Bradley smiled at the dog next to him, he couldn't help but think of how goofy he looked compared to you. Your smiles were gentle, drawing him and Ducky in from a few feet away. He could tell you had that kind of magnetism, that kind of energy that just took hold of people and didn't let go. Bradley struggled to think of what the dog in front of him thought as he shot him another small smile.

And Bradley couldn't let go of the way you switched from talking to him to Ducky. How you had described Bradley with a soft tone and warm look in your eyes. You didn't even know him. How did you settle on "sweet man" from what Bradley was giving you this morning? It was a little too mind-boggling to think about for too long.

Shaking away the memories of this morning, Bradley was brought back to the dog that sat at his side. With a small sigh, he pointed to the bed next to him. "That's your bed, Ducky. It's time to go to sleep."

This only got him louder whines.

Bradley sighed and shook his head. He felt clueless.

"Do you want to come up here?" he tried, patting the comforter near his feet.

Within seconds, Ducky was jumping onto the bed and taking claim to the opposite side of the bed.

"Unbelievable. I try to get you to listen all day, and this is what you respond to," Bradley laughed as he looked at Ducky with a smile, not able to get mad at the dog as he cuddled up similarly to this morning with you.

The whines had stopped now, replaced with steady breathing and a small huff. The buzzing of the bugs outside his window that seemed so loud yesterday was now quiet. Bradley was only keying in on the ups and downs of Ducky's chest, something more grounding than he realized.

"Alright, Ducky. Time for bed," Bradley spoke again to the dog, stroking the fur on his back gently. Lying his head back down on his pillow and continuing his movements, Bradley was asleep within minutes. Soft snores from both him and Ducky fill the house with a comfortable, peaceful energy.

જ⁀➴

It was a bit daunting at first. That first week with Ducky was definitely a learning curve. Trying to adjust his routine to best suit the dog's needs hadn't been quick or easy.

The first morning, Bradley woke up to licks on his face and playful growling. At first, Bradley thought Ducky wanted attention, some pets, and cuddles. But as soon as he sat up in bed, Ducky was bolting to the front door.

Sitting in front of the door with the green leash in his mouth, Ducky whined as Bradley slowly made his way down the hallway.

Still adorned in his slippers and ratty college football shorts, Bradley closed the front door and took off with Ducky as the sun rose in the distance. After a few minutes of tugging Bradley down the block, Ducky broke out into a trot, urging Bradley to keep up with him.

That's how Bradley ended up running barefoot in his neighborhood at 5 in the morning, slippers in one hand and leash in the other. He had passed Mrs. Greene, Mrs. Johnson, and Mrs. Nguyen on their morning aerobic walk with a small nod and smile. The older ladies had laughed at the scene, something Bradley couldn't help but join in on.

An hour later, they ended up back at Bradley's house. This time, Ducky barked happily as he opened the sliding glass door out to his backyard, running circles in the yard much like you had said he would. Bradley found himself watching with a disbelieving smile on his face, wishing he could somehow tell you that you were right.

A few weeks later, Bradley runs shirtless, tennis shoes on his feet now, with Ducky on an early May morning. The sun is just starting to peak out from the greenery lining the trail they take every morning. Bradley's grateful for the cool morning air as sweat wicks at his lower back and hairline. A combination of the morning dew and perspiration rolls down the muscles of Bradley's body as he jogs.

Suddenly, Ducky pauses once they reach the familiar park. Bradley looks down at his dog and then up to see what he could possibly be stopping for.

Seeing nothing but the group of older women with small hand weights and crows in the trees, Bradley bends down to Ducky's level. "What's up, buddy? What do you see?"

But as soon as Bradley settles down next to the dog, Ducky's leash is slipping through his fingers. He reaches out to grab onto anything, his dog, his collar, his leash, but ends up grasping at the air instead. Ducky is taking off in a sprint before him.

Rising to his feet and going after him. Bradley swears under his breath and calls out loudly, "Ducky!"

He finds himself weaving through the playground, wood chips kicking up in his wake. But his eyes widen as Ducky zeroes in on a group of women at the edge of the park.

He sees them all stretched down in downward dog as Ducky gets closer and closer. Again, Bradley calls out, "Ducky!"

At this, he sees a few heads turn towards the sound of his voice. But only one woman looks in the direction of the blur of fur coming straight for her. A yelp is heard as Ducky barrels into her, knocking her from her place on the mat. Gasps are heard from the surrounding women, and Bradley's chest heaves as he sprints to catch up to his dog and pull him off the stranger.

But as he gets closer, his heart calms at the sound of laughter. Ducky is lying on top of this poor woman, but at least he's not attacking or barking or anything of that sort. No, he's just licking and nuzzling into the figure on the ground.

"I am so sorry. I don't," Bradley gets out quickly, stuttering a bit as he looks around at the group with an apologetic smile. "He never runs away like that, I'm sorry. Ducky, get over here!"

But the dog stays put, and the laughter doesn't stop. But finally, Ducky is pushed up from the figure on the ground, and Bradley's heart races once more when he sees your face peeking out from behind the ball of fur.

"Oh, it's you." He doesn't know why he says it, but it comes from him like a breath of relief.

You laugh at this, not even taking in the way Bradley scolds himself at the odd behavior.

"And it's you and Ducky!" Your attention is on the dog in front of you, petting him and smiling brightly, only glancing up at Bradley once before returning to the panting dog rather than the panting man.

Bradley kneels down next to you, sweat still rolling down his skin. He doesn't catch the way your cheeks flush as you take in his build. Muscles are a mix of the perfect summer tan and red rosy dusting, no doubt from the sprint he took off on to get here. His arms strain as they go behind him, veins jumping out from his skin. From this position, his tight stomach is also on full display, ridges and divots begging for your attention.

What you don't realize is that Bradley is doing the exact same thing to you, drinking you in fully. You're in flow yoga pants, calves peeking out from the wide-legged flare of the pants. And your top half is barely hidden, only wearing a sports bra, pretty and pink like the top he had seen you in a month ago. The straps dig into your shoulders, and Bradley takes in the swell of your breasts as he follows the scoop of the top.

A bark from Ducky snaps you both back into reality. Some of the women around you laugh.

"You guys seem to be doing well," you spoke softly, voice just as sweet as Bradley remembered.

"Mm, yeah. We've got our routine now, he's been great," Bradley tells you, reaching to pet his dog.

You watch the action fondly, seeing the way Ducky leans into his touch now. The moment is sweet and completely yours, at least that's what it feels like as you and Bradley make eye contact and share small smiles. But a voice clearing is heard as you and Bradley remember where you are.

You turn to a young woman next to you, speaking quicker than Bradley has ever heard before from you. "I'm gonna go with them, I'll be back soon." She nodded at you with a gleaming look in her eye that Bradley didn't quite understand. But you turned quickly towards him, grabbing Ducky's leash and apologizing to the other women around you.

As soon as you had walked away from the group, they resumed their positions, some of them craning their necks to watch the scene a few feet away from them unfold.

"I'm so sorry about that, again," Bradley told you, grimace on his face as you handed him the leash.

But you just shook your head and smiled. "No, no. It was nice seeing you guys again. I was wondering how he was doing with you," you told him. Bradley hoped you didn't catch the way he swallowed hard at your words. Leaning down a bit, your hand came down to Ducky's face. "But you like the sweet man, huh? I knew you would."

Bradley's cheeks flush at the repetition of your description of him, yet again.

The sun paints everything a nice golden color, pinks in the sky still dancing a bit in the distance. But Bradley can't peel his eyes away from you, and it seems like you are having the same problem.

"I should probably get back." Your head is pointing in the direction of the class, now moving through another pose.

"Yes, yeah. Sorry," he doesn't know why he apologizes, but the smile on your face doesn't make him think about it for long.

"Well, bye, Ducky. And bye..." you lead off, looking for him to pick up the end of your sentence.

"Bradley," he says, hoping you say it back to him.

"Bye, Bradley," you tell him, turning away from the pair, but not before sending them one last glance over your shoulder. And Bradley doesn't realize how long he stands there and hangs onto your words, only focusing on the way his name sounded coming out of your mouth. It had never sounded better, sounded sweeter from you.

Begrudgingly, he turns, ushering Ducky to follow him.

"I know, Ducky. Come on," he says, starting off in a slow jog as his dog turns back and begins to follow him. But as the day continues, Ducky's whining starts up again, and Bradley can't help but think of you.

જ⁀➴

Pool balls clack up against each other as Bradley misses yet another wide-open shot.

"Jesus, Rooster," Jake laughs loudly. "Missing your dog so much you can't even focus on one little game of pool?"

It was partly true. It was Bradley's first night out since getting Ducky; he had been opting to spend the nights and weekends at home with the dog rather than out drinking with the squad.

But before Bradley could defend himself, mouth already opening to fire back, Bob had cut in, "No, he's definitely distracted because of the girl."

Bob sipped his soda innocently as the group of pilots turned in his direction with peaked interest.

Looking at Bradley, Bob grimaced; he was always a little loose-lipped after his 3rd soda of the night. "Shoot. Sorry, Bradley."

This set off a chain of questions from the group as Bradley's head hung low, hand coming up to the back of his neck to rub harshly at the skin.

Bradley had confessed his feelings to the WSO earlier this week, not being able to get the image of you out of his brain the entire weekend after Ducky had run you down in the park. He just had to tell someone, and Bob seemed like the logical choice. Smart, level-headed, in a stable relationship. But the words from the WSO only sent him into a spiral as he had finished describing you.

"Sounds like your perfect woman."

Bob's voice seemed to be on repeat the entire week. And God, he was right. You were perfect. More importantly, Bradley felt like he was going through withdrawal. Every time he looked at Ducky, he thought of you. He reasoned that getting out of the house and spending some time with his friends would be good for him.

Evidently, his secret being outed wasn't what he had in mind for tonight.

"Idiots, shut it!" Phoenix's voice rang out above the others. The group was now silent, all looking to the woman. "What girl?" she asked hesitantly.

With a sigh, Bradley's shoulders slumped. "The woman who I got Ducky from. I ran into her again last week, doing yoga at the park on one of our morning runs. And I don't know," he says, face twisting, not even sure why he's volunteering this information to his friends. "I just... I can't stop thinking about her."

The group is silent, understanding and hearing the sincerity in Bradley's voice.

Jake lets out a whistle at this. "Let's get you another drink, lover-boy." And at this, the group seems to hum in agreement.

The blonde clamps a hand down on his shoulder, guiding him to the bar.

"And you don't have her number?" Jake asks as they weave through the crowds of people.

"No, man. I mean, I don't even know her name. The adoption paperwork happened quicker than I expected, and I was just standing there like a dumbass the second time," Bradley grumbles, hands clenching and unclenching at his sides.

"Yikes. Any chance she's gonna do yoga again this week?" Jake asked as they sat at two open seats.

"I looked, it said the yoga happens the first Saturday of every month. So, I just have to wait," Bradley explained, feeling a little embarrassed at the admission.

"A month?! Good luck, my friend. You've gone crazy after only a week," Jake laughed. Bradley rolled his eyes at this and groaned, knowing Jake's words held some truth to them.

"Hello, gentlemen. I've got a drink here for you, Lieutenant Bradshaw," Penny's voice makes Bradley's head snap up. Her hand is pointing in across the bar, and when he follows it, he can't help but swear.

"Holy shit," Bradley laughs, turning to Jake with a smile and wide eyes.

"Holy shit, that's her?" Jake asked, looking at you and your friend at the opposite side of the bar, taking in the way she poked your sides and laughed.

"That's her," he spoke breathlessly. Penny grinned at the scene unfolding in front of her.

"Go, dumbass. Go!" Jake pushed him off the barstool, both hands guiding him in your direction.

Bradley recognized the girl sitting next to you, the same one at the yoga class the other day; she was probably your best friend if he was guessing. The way you smiled at her, cheeks flushing as she spoke, and sent you a wink made Bradley giddy. She grabbed her purse and hopped off the stool, gesturing for him to come take her spot before squeezing your hand and leaving.

"Hey," he says, sitting next to you, disbelief on his features.

"Hey, you," you tease back. "Are you in the Navy?"

Bradley takes in the way your eyes narrow at him, like you're trying to put pieces together. He nods and smiles, "I am, TOPGUN graduate."

"So you saw the poster I put up? For the K-9 unit?" You were smiling brightly now, like you had guessed correctly.

"I did. The pink's what got me." Bradley's eyes met yours. This conversation seemed different than all the other you had in the past. Before, you were calm and collected, but here you were excitable and giggly.

"I totally thought you were a firefighter," you spoke honestly. "I put the K-9 posters up at the base, the fire station, and places like this," your finger wagged as you spoke, gesturing to the bar.

"Disappointed?" he asked, a teasing smile on his face.

You held your hands up in faux surrender. "No! Not at all. Impressed actually."

He grinned at this, settling into the conversation more and more. "And what do you do? Not a police officer, right?"

"No, vet actually. I just work pro bono with the police department, specifically for the K-9 unit. Those guys are hard workers, and usually get roughed up after big jobs," you told him with a small smile.

Bradley put together some pieces of his own. How you knew so much about Ducky, why you had gotten so close to him. You had probably gotten to see the pup at his lowest.

Bradley nodded, "Now I'm impressed." You smiled wider at this, laughing at his words.

For the first time since sitting with you, Bradley fully took you in. Your denim shorts that rode up just a bit and your white tank top, the V-neck framing your collarbones and chest perfectly. Your cheeks had a slight blush to them; he couldn't tell whether it was from him or from the fruity drink you seemed to be working on.

Again, you did the same thing. This time, though, Bradley was in a tight white T-shirt and jeans that seemed to strain against his thick biceps and thighs. His hair wasn't as windswept as it had been that day in the park; now it was pushed back slightly, a single curl coming down on the left side of his face.

The squad watched as the two of you talked, Jake practically skipping back to the group to tell them the good news. Every time they glanced over, you and Bradley had gotten closer and closer, fully leaning into each other.

You both sported matching smiles and flushed cheeks the entire night, despite letting both of your drinks sit and become lukewarm. The alcohol couldn't be to blame for the way you were acting.

They saw how Bradley's eyes softened as they met yours. How his shoulders relaxed after each laughing fit. How he opened himself completely in front of you.

You had talked about everything. It seemed to flow so easily out of Bradley, even the hard things. When you asked about his family, you must have noticed the way his face dropped slightly, instantly placing a supportive hand on his thigh. He had told you about his family, the squad, about Maverick. It was nice. You asked questions, not the kind that he had an automatic response for, but ones that made him think.

"Who on the squad is most like a sibling to you?"

"What dish instantly brings you back to childhood?"

And his favorite, "What's your favorite story about your dad?"

He asked you about school, and you indulged him in crazy stories from your early days in the profession. How you had worked out on a farm in Wyoming one summer and helped with the births of calves. It had been a lot more physically exhausting than you would've imagined. How you had studied in Australia for an exchange year, learning all about marine wildlife and how to care for them. The way your eyes lit up when you told him about a baby turtle hatching you had witnessed had him giddy.

You had told him about all the adventures you had gone on and all the ones you wanted to do in the future. Swimming in Baja, Mexico, with the Whale Sharks was at the top of your bucket list, and while Bradley was a bit scared of deep waters like that, he had to admit it didn't sound as scary if you were going to be by his side.

In exchange, he told you a few things about his time in the academy. The risks he had to take on missions, the close calls that happened more often than he would like. He saw the pain this job caused his mom, and he didn't want you to go into this without knowing the risks. But the way you bit your lip and told him that you thought what he was doing was so brave made his heart race and a wide grin break out on his face. You had hit his shoulder lightly at this, saying you were serious, but Bradley just smiled wider.

"Is there anything else I can grab you two tonight?" Penny asked, wiping down a glass as she looked at the pair, effectively popping their bubble.

"Oh gosh, I'm sorry. We stayed way too late," you spoke, digging into your wallet to pull out some bills to give the kind woman.

"Sorry, Penny," Bradley chuckled, handing her a handful of cash before you could even finish fumbling with you wallet. Your eyes met him, mouth about to open to argue, but he just offered you a hand as he hopped off the barstool.

"Goodnight, you two," she called as you both walked out with sheepish smiles.

You hadn't dropped Bradley's hand as you led him through the parking lot to your car. He relished in the warmth and softness; the feeling was vaguely familiar as he recalled the earlier touches from when you had first met.

"This is me," you told him, as moonlight danced across your features. Bradley couldn't help but run his eyes over your face, thinking to himself how beautiful you looked.

"Can I get your number?" he asked brazenly, a tad louder than he needed to. You giggled at this but nodded regardless, hands reaching for his phone as he stared at you.

Despite the cold breeze that came from the ocean just a few meters away from you both, Bradley felt a deep warmth spread in his chest. He opened your car door, closing it softly as you waved through the window. And once you backed out of your spot, Bradley found himself smiling all over again at the paw print stickers on your back window.

જ⁀➴

3 months later...

You and Bradley sprawled out on his couch as the movie finished up in front of you, Ducky sitting by your feet. Lying on Bradley's chest, you couldn't help but listen to his heartbeat beneath you.

These past few months with Bradley had been nothing short of perfect. He had texted you the morning after you had sat at the Hard Deck for hours, asking if you were free for dinner that same night. You remember laughing at his eagerness to yourself, but agreeing nonetheless.

He appeared at your door at 6:30 PM sharp, taking you out to a nice dinner on a beach patio. You teased him about not bringing Ducky, saying you thought they were a package deal, but you quickly paused the teasing after seeing how nervous he was by the way his cheeks flushed brightly.

He asked you about your career out here, only really talking about school last night with you. He said he wanted to learn more about you now. It was more thoughtful than you had expected.

Halfway through the dinner, you moved your chair over to Bradley's side of the table, something that caught a glare from the hostess. But you had to, as you scrolled through pictures and pictures of animals on your phone. You told him each of their names and all the little quirks they had, told him about the family you had worked with, and how much each of these animals meant to people. You hadn't noticed, but he smiled the entire time, not really looking at your phone but instead at the way you lit up when you spoke about the animal you've worked with.

When the date wrapped up, you told him that you'll just have to see his dog another time, giving him a quick kiss on the cheek before you closed the door to your apartment. He hadn't seen you peek through the curtains, but you saw the way he pumped his fists like a dork while walking to his car. You couldn't help but fall even harder for the man.

Two days after your first date, Bradley had asked you to meet him in a little coffee shop near your apartment. He had apologized countlessly for the timing, seeing as he had requested 6 AM as the time, saying it was okay if you wanted to wait for the weekend, but his training schedule was just a little hectic at the moment. But you insisted it was okay, saying you had your own share of early mornings too and that you wanted to see him.

As he walked you to your car after a quick coffee and pastry, you smiled at him. Leaning against your car, you tugged him down by the collar of the familiar plain white tee he wore, pulling him in for a kiss. Bradley's hands found purchase on your hips, fingers giddy against your scrubs.

It was the fifth date, and both of you opted for a night in, where he promised to cook for you. It had also been the first time you had been in his apartment, Ducky clinging to your side the entire night.

Bradley had asked you to be his girlfriend before dinner was even finished, too distracted by the way you sat on the countertop to focus on the food simmering around him. You laughed as he flushed from the question and the sound of the smoke alarm going off, but ultimately said yes with a smile as he leaned down, caging you against his firm chest and the cabinets, to capture your lips in a deep kiss before waving a towel in front of the alarm. You couldn't help but laugh as you moved to open the sliding glass door to let the smoke out of the little house and to get some fresh air for yourself, too, after feeling how Bradley's hands rested on your thighs.

Recently, though, you had been having your fair share of sleepovers with the tall aviator. The first time he had slept over, you had shared one too many glasses of wine over sushi takeout from your favorite place downtown. After glancing at the clock and the empty bottle between you, you asked quietly if he wanted to spend the night.

Bradley hadn't ever seen you so shy before, but he figured the rosiness of your cheeks definitely matched his own and said nothing. Instead, he nodded, kissing your forehead sweetly as you further pushed into his hold.

He remembers feeling your soft face up against his bare chest as you dozed off, not being afraid to lean into his side once you had settled under the covers. The smell of your shampoo and lotion was strong, wafting off of you after your shower. Bradley lay there for a few minutes. Not daring to close his eyes, he instead wanted to take you in as you slept on top of him. The combination of your sweet smell and soft skin had the man reeling.

Now you lie on the couch at his apartment, and Bradley sees your eyes blinking away sleep as you curl up to his side. With a kiss pressed to your hair, your eyes widened as Bradley ushered you to the bedroom. Big hands coming up to your sides to support you, strong chest pushed against your back to guide you.

It was the first time you had slept over at his. But after grabbing a quick shower, inspecting all of the hair and body care products he had available, you took your place in bed. Bradley's sheets were softer than yours, and you wondered why it had taken so long to sleep over at his.

But before you were about to call out and ask him, the answer came jumping onto the bed next to you, taking Bradley's spot. You laughed softly as Ducky turned on his back, urging you to rub his tummy.

Getting out of the bathroom, with nothing but a tight towel around his waist, Bradley groaned. You giggled at this, but Bradley shook his head you and Ducky all cuddled up already.

Walking into the small closet on the other side of the room, your eyes tracked Bradley. The way the small towel around his hips was working to show off his deep V-line had you squirming in your spot on the bed. You watched his back muscles push and pull as he rolled his neck and stretched a bit while walking. Maybe you could offer to work out the knots; it'd be a win-win situation for you and your boyfriend.

As he emerged from the closet in nothing but a pair of boxers, you urged yourself to calm down. It wasn't like it was your first time seeing him in this state; you did have sleepovers at your apartment quite often. But it was the first time that you could actually do something about it.

There had been countless times when you and Bradley had been pretty handsy, but all of them seemed to be interrupted. Whether it was an emergency call from the clinic or an alert on Bradley's phone that Ducky had knocked over another vase in the house, something always tore you away in those moments.

You had felt Bradley's frustration, seen it firsthand. The way his jaw ticked each time, and his hands got all grabby before either of you had to leave. You didn't blame him, often finding yourself rubbing your thighs together after your time together was interrupted. Maybe even having a wandering hand shoot down your panties if he was the one who had to go.

But tonight you might have him all to yourself, whether that means deep kisses or holding each other tightly and finding sleep. That was until Ducky refused to move.

"Come on, Ducky, off the bed tonight," Bradley told the dog, standing over him.

"You let him sleep on the bed regularly?" you asked with a playful look on your face. Bradley caught your tone quickly, sending you a lighthearted eye roll.

"Yes, because I love my dog," he spoke, ruffling Ducky's ears.

"But what's the big bed for then?" you questioned again, smile growing bigger with every second.

Bradley wanted to lean over and kiss it off your face. But with the big dog in his way, he just shrugged. "He didn't like it."

You giggled at this, Ducky turning to you at the sound. "Gosh, he's a big softy, huh?" you told Ducky in a sweet tone, something that made Bradley suck his teeth and grin.

But with Ducky's attention elsewhere, Bradley was able to shift the dog to the end of the bed. Getting under the covers, Bradley reached for you automatically. Instead of feeling the cotton of your pajama pants that you usually wear, he instead felt your warm skin.

Seemingly watching the confusion spread across his face, you offered an explanation, "Your sheets are nice. And it's a little hot out."

If nice sheets and 90-degree weather were what it took to get you in the little lacy pink underwear your wore now, Bradley would buy a set in every color and run his heating system even on hot nights like tonight.

But instead, he just hummed, fingers tracing over the lacy trimming of your panties.

On top of this, you wore one of his old Navy shirts. Not expecting to sleep over, you had limited options available. Bradley had never been more thankful.

"Let's go to bed, pretty girl," Bradley told you as he saw the way your eyes started to blink closed again. You nodded sweetly at this and settled under the covers as he turned off the lamp on his nightstand.

Settling under the covers, Bradley's big hands found your stomach, pulling your back into his chest. From this position, sure, his hands could roam all over you, and he could touch anything that begged for his attention. But what stopped him in his tracks was the smell of his body wash on your skin.

It made logical sense. You had showered before getting in bed while he washed up the dishes and straightened the living room, but it didn't hit him until this very moment that you were fully his. The woman he had pined over for a month, not even knowing your name, only remembering your kind eyes and soft touch. Now, you were in his bed, falling asleep next to him in his shirt after washing yourself with his body wash.

What did he do to deserve you? You who cared for animals so much that you made a career out of it. You who held his hand and kissed away his tears when he finally told you about what happened to his father. You, who at every chance were unapologetically yourself, either dancing in the kitchen while making dinner or sobbing your eyes out while watching Marley & Me for the hundredth time.

He loved you. Bradley realized in that moment that he loved you. More than he had ever loved anyone like this before.

At the thought, his hands had squeezed your waist tightly, and you stirred next to him.

"Baby, are you okay?" you asked, voice laced with sleep.

Letting his grip on you loosen, he was quick to come down and kiss your neck in an apology. "Sorry, just thinking about you. Didn't mean to wake you up."

You hum, shifting against him slightly. Your neck is now on full display, and Bradley just couldn't help himself.

Feeling his warm mouth work against your sensitive neck made you squirm against him. Bradley's mouth was relentless, biting and licking underneath your jaw and down the side of your throat. Your breath hitched as he moved a spot near your pulse point, chest rising and falling dramatically.

Bradley's hands wrapped around your stomach once more, but this time, one of his hands snaked underneath your shirt. "Can I touch you like this?" his voice was deep, breath hot against your ear.

"Yes, please," you whispered.

Suddenly, his mouth was back on your throat, and your hips pushed back further into his now hard length. His hand came up to grab your tits. They were in the perfect position for Bradley, who was able to pinch and roll your nipples in between his big fingers.

"Oh gosh, Bradley," you huffed, eyes fully rolled back into your skull as his hand worked against your puffy nipples and he ground his length into your ass.

"Yeah, baby, feels good?" he asked in a cocky coo, watching the way you bit down on your bottom lip and nodded up and down at his words.

Your mouth opened, not quite knowing exactly if you could speak with the way his touch seemed to intensify in mere seconds. But still, you tried, aching for him now, "Touch me, please. Down-"

A loud bark had you jumping out of your skin. Ducky growled at Bradley, starting to shield you protectively.

You laughed at his dog's actions, and Bradley looked at you in disbelief.

"Ducky, down! Off the bed!" Bradley's voice was loud, but it carried no real weight to scare the dog. Ducky instead settled down in between you two, almost pushing Bradley off the bed.

You laughed again.

"This is unbelievable," Bradley scoffed as he threw the covers off his body and got out of bed. From here, you could see the way his length strained under his boxers.

But it wasn't long before Bradley was over at your side of the bed and scooping you up into his arms.

"What are you doing?" you asked, legs instinctively wrapping around his waist.

"Trying to give my girl what she wants. This time uninterrupted," Bradley huffed, sending a glare at Ducky on the bed as he carried you outside the bedroom.

But when Bradley closed the door, Ducky only started scratching and barking even louder. You looked at him with a small smile, pressing a kiss to his temple to calm him.

"I've got an idea," he spoke, something dancing in his eyes. "Go open the door to the patio."

"Bradley, no! You can't leave him out there!" you chastised with a small frown on your face.

He hummed, head falling into your shoulder. But just as quick as it fell, it came back up again.

"Okay, you go outside then. Wait for me," he told you, planting a searing kiss on your lips that made you forget any questions you had. Bradley placed you down softly and watched as you padded over to the back patio, underwear now clinging to your skin in a way that almost looked uncomfortable.

But as soon as he heard the click of the sliding glass door shutting. He opened the bedroom door and let Ducky inspect the living room.

"I don't know where she is, buddy," he told the dog, shoulders shrugging, really trying to sell the bit. Ducky sighed and made his way back into the bedroom after a few sniffs and laps around the couch.

After seeing him settle back into the bed and toss and turn for a few minutes, Bradley crept out the back door, swiping the big, soft blanket you liked so much, on his way.

"What'd you do?" you asked the man as he came up to you and draped the blanket around your shoulders.

"He's sleeping. Do you really think so poorly of me?" he teased, hands once again coming to your waist.

"I never said anything," you shot back, failing to hide the small smile on your face.

Bradley walked backwards until he reached the little love seat on his back patio, pulling you down so you were sitting on his lap. You smiled at the eager look on Bradley's face, giggling to yourself.

"Hi," he said, leaning in to press his lips against yours.

"Hi," you teased back, meeting his lips halfway.

Bradley's mouth moved in a delicate, yet passionate way. His hands were planted firmly on your hips; you could feel his thumbs pressing into your skin as the kisses turned more intense. You gasped as Bradley dragged your core across his hard length, cotton rubbing together to create a dizzying friction.

Taking advantage of your open mouth, Bradley pushed his tongue into your mouth, licking into it with urgency. The noise that came out of your throat at his movements was quiet, but Bradley heard it nonetheless. Groaning into your mouth, Bradley moved your hips once more, going a bit crazy at the feeling of your heat against him.

"Come on, baby. Show me how much you need me, huh?" he broke the kiss to speak, eyes searching yours. But all he saw was the gloss already over them as you nodded quickly and threw your arms over his shoulders.

Bradley kissed down your neck as your hips started to move back and forth against his length. Your pace was slow, but he heard the hitches of your breath and decided not to push you just yet. His hands instead crawled up underneath your shirts and began to toy with your nipples again. At this, you captured your bottom lip between your teeth and nuzzled your head into the crook of Bradley's neck.

"So sensitive for me. Doing so good. You like it when I touch you like this?" he asked, nudging your head out from its hiding place.

With another nod of your head, Bradley grabbed your chin, quickly swiping your bottom lip out of its hold.

"Wanna hear you, please, baby," he begged, kissing your face sweetly. It was the exact opposite of how his other hand moved under your shirt, twisting and rubbing your pebbled nipples like they were his own special toys.

"Feels so good, Bradley," you said breathlessly. At the sound of his name falling from your lips, Bradley's hips jumped to meet the steady rhythm of yours. You yelped as he did so, but he was quick to capture your lips in another deep kiss, keeping his hips pressing harshly into your heat through the cotton of both your underwear.

"You're driving me crazy," he confessed, hand coming up to the hem of the old Navy shirt you were wearing. Looking to you for permission, you nodded wordlessly and felt the shirt being taken off your body.

Bradley threw the shirt across the patio and drove straight into your chest, taking one of your nipples between his lips. He lapped and sucked, feeling your hips roll with more urgency across his length at his ministrations.

"So beautiful, baby," he spoke in a low tone before switching to your other breast. One hand snaked around to hold onto your lower back, helping you with the drag. The other pinched at your now wet nipple softly.

"Bradley," you warned, eyes rolling to the back of your head at the combined feeling of his mouth, hands, and hips. The new pressure from the hand on your back was now pushing your hips in the perfect position, feeling his tip make contact with your clit through the cotton.

The man watched as you became consumed with pleasure, lip wobbling as your hips moved back and forth. He felt your fingernails dig into his shoulder blades, surely leaving marks.

His mouth popped off your nipple and made its way up to your open mouth, licking into it once again.

"Gonna come for me, baby? It's okay, I wanna feel you come. I'm right here," he spoke softly to you, watching your brows furrow and face twist.

The words and the intense look in Bradley's eyes made the tension in your tummy snap, hips moving fast to chase your high. You tried collapsing into your boyfriend, but with a firm hand that stayed on your jaw, you were forced upright, looking straight at Bradley as you came on his lap.

Your bare chest heaved as you came down from your high, pressing into Bradley's warm figure. His hand traveled from your lower back up to your hair, stroking it sweetly while placing soft kisses on your hairline.

"Can I feel you?" Bradley asked, fingers now toying with the lace on your underwear again.

"Yeah, but I wanna feel you too," you told him with a small smile on your face, bringing your fingers down to the waistband of his boxers. He chuckled at your actions, but still brought you into a sweet kiss.

Your hands pushed down his waistband and grasped his length in your hands. He was heavy in your hold, twitching as you rubbed a finger down the side of his member, tracing a prominent vein.

"So big," you whispered, more so to yourself, but the way Bradley's fingers moved to push into the front of your underwear made you think he must have heard you, too.

You felt one hand plant firmly on your waist while the other cupped your heat softly. His middle finger circled your entrance, rubbing little circles and spreading the wetness around, something that had you squirming in his hold. Bradley's thumb rubbed similar circles on your clit as you hunched over into his hold.

Your hands worked to rub at his tip, one hand coming up to your mouth to collect some spit, making the movements more fluid. Bradley shuddered as you found a steady pace, feeling your fingers continuously working over his sensitive head.

A finger pressed into your entrance, stretching you in an unfamiliar way. You whined into Bradley's neck at the feeling, tensing up for a moment. But he was quick to keep rubbing little circles against your nub, relaxing your muscles.

The finger pumped in and out of you at the same pace as your hand. Bradley's lips find your neck once more, now breathing heavier and lapping at more of your skin. As you ground down on him further, he moved to push another finger inside your wet entrance.

"Jesus, baby. Feel so fucking good around my fingers. Can't wait to have you on my dick," he groaned, feeling you clench and squeeze around his fingers. You moaned at his words, pushing further into him to rub your breasts against the hard muscles of his chest. Your nipples rubbed harshly against him as you moved your hand more quickly to keep up with the rhythm of his fingers.

"Need you, please, Bradley. Now," you gasped, feeling your stomach wind up again. He nodded at your words, pulling his fingers from your entrance and instead picking you up off his hips, pushing you up against the wood railing of the patio.

"This okay, baby? You okay with me taking you like this?" Bradley asked, referring to your back meeting his chest, taking you from behind. Your stomach jumped at his words as you braced your hands against the railing.

"Yes, please, Bradley." The words were barely off the tip of your tongue when you felt Bradley tug down your underwear, leaving you completely bare in the warm summer breeze. He quickly did the same with his own underwear, fully allowing his member to spring free and rub on your ass.

One of his large hands came to wrap around your hips while the other guided his cock into your entrance. Feeling your breathing pick up, Bradley placed sweet kisses on your neck before whispering, "Breathe for me, baby. I got you."

Taking a deep breath, you exhaled as Bradley pushed into you. It was only his tip at first, but the way you pushed your hips back at the feeling of him drove his hips further, pushing in fully.

Gasping at the stretch, your head lay back on Bradley's broad chest as he snuck his other hand around to toy with your tits. Your nipples were still sensitive from his actions earlier, so this only caused you to push further into his hold.

"Can I move? Are you okay? Need to hear you, talk to me, baby," Bradley told you, kissing the top of your head softly.

"Feels really good, please, Bradley. Need you to move," you complied, as he nodded, pressing his hips into you before drawing out and pushing in again.

You whine as he sets a steady pace. His hands roam all over your body, trying to grab onto every part of you. Your tits, your thighs, your throat. You feel your eyes cross once his thumb lands on your clit once more, squirming and crying out in a nonsensical plea.

Bradley watches as you start to fall apart on him. His hips are moving to piston his hard length into your warm heat, finding it hard not to fully bend you over the railing and have his way with you. Instead, setting a pace that had you crying out every few seconds, mouth open, and eyes closing at his deep movements.

The crude sounds of his hips meeting your ass were filthy and the loudest thing in contrast to the otherwise quiet night. The extra squelching sounds surely come from the previous orgasm you had. Bradley wondered what you tasted like, but he'd have to save it for next time.

"So good, feels so good. My pretty girl," Bradley groaned, head dropping to kiss along your exposed jaw line, hand pushing your tummy to arch you even further into his hold.

You moaned in response, feeling him deeper, feeling more pressure. "For you, only you, Bradley," you told him, head turning to capture his lips in a kiss.

Bradley felt a surge of energy at your words. His thumb worked in tighter circles against your clit, the kind that had you shaking earlier on the loveseat.

"Yeah? This is my pussy, baby? Gonna let me fill you up?" he asked, spit mixing with yours as he bit harshly on your bottom lip.

"Mhm, please. All yours," you cried out as his other hand came to hold across your hips, helping him push you to the edge by bending your frame even more than it already was. Your back arched away from Bradley as your hips and head pushed back to meet his solid body.

"Fuck, baby. Can't say shit like that," he scolded, but his hips kept pounding into you.

Bradley's filthy mouth was somewhat shocking to you. The only other time he had cursed around you was when he had stubbed his toes on the corner of your bed 3 weeks ago. So his words sent a chill down your spine despite the heat of the summer air.

Bradley's thumb stayed in its spot, working your clit and making you twitch and begin to thrash in his hold. But his other arm thrown around your hips made sure that you still felt his deep thrusts.

"Bradley," you breathed out, head tilting back to look at the man. Sweat dripped from his hairline, but he still moved to swoop down and catch you in a searing kiss.

"I got you, I got you. Come for me, baby. Wanna feel you come on my dick." His words pushed you over the edge as he licked into your mouth once more after speaking. The constant rub from his thumb and deep thrusts had you shaking as you worked through your high with him.

Seeing the way your body tensed, your tits bouncing with every movement, and your thighs shaking, had Bradley releasing in you with a low groan. His hips canted into you, slowing down slightly with each thrust, only moving to help you both work through your respective highs.

He had neglected to turn on any porch lights to not alert any neighbors or even Ducky, but the way the moonlight streamed through the trees and painted your features was something Bradley wished he could remember forever. Your lips were still parted, taking labored breaths. Your eyes were glossy, like you were trying to focus and come back into your body. Your cheeks flushed a deeper shade of rosy pink than he had ever seen on you before.

You were beautiful.

Bradley leaned down to kiss your cheek, and he felt you smile against his lips.

"Feeling okay, that wasn't too much, pretty baby?" he asked, genuine concern making his brows furrow.

You moved a thumb up to smooth the creases, kissing him softly on the nose with a small giggle. "Felt really good, Bradley. Gonna need some help walking, for sure though."

He chuckled at this, kissing your lips this time, deep and slow.

"I can help with that," he told you as he pulled out, both of you wincing at the loss. He quickly picked you up bridal style and carried you into the house, only letting your feet touch the ground as he set you down on the edge of the guest room bathtub.

Bradley moved to start the water, running his fingers under it to make sure it wasn't too warm or too cold before plugging the tub.

His big hands came down to frame your face, fingers a little wet, but you leaned into his touch regardless. "Gonna go grab our stuff outside and start a pot of tea and come back, okay?" he asked, searching your eyes. You smiled at him, and he leaned down once more to capture your soft lips between his own, the brush of his mustache making you giggle into the kiss.

"I love you, Bradley," you told him, lip now pulled between your teeth as you looked sheepishly at him.

But the man smiled wider than you had ever seen as he began to pepper kisses all over your face and head. You giggled at this, hands coming up to hold his which still framed your face.

"I love you so much," he told you, coming down to peck your lips once more, but the sound of the whine made you and Bradley turn towards the entrance of the bathroom.

Ducky huffed, lying on the cool hardwood, making you and Bradley laugh.

You leaned back in your chair, crossing your arms. You were hit with a wave of confidence; the same one that hit you in the grocery aisle two days ago. After months of his teasing, you weren't just taking it anymore. Two could play at that game.

"I did end up going with the fun, truthfully," you said, tilting your head and letting a smile flirtatiously fall on your lips. You kept eye contact, your voice matching his quiet tone. "Though, if I'm completely honest, I think the company in the aisle was way more interesting than the cereal itself."

Jake froze.

The reaction was instant, and it was beautiful. For a split second, the Hangman armor cracked. His smirk was gone, and his green eyes widened in surprise. He didn't think you would ever bite back, let alone full on flirt with him. A small, almost unnoticeable red color formed on his cheeks.

You didn't say anything more as you enjoyed the view of the fighter pilot becoming disoriented over a single sentence.

The bubble you two created was quickly popped by a loud whistle from the tarmac. "Seresin! Briefing room, five minutes!" Javy shouted from the other side.

Jake blinked, coming back to reality. He straightened his posture up from the partition of your station. He looked at you, really looked at you, his eyes radiating with Hangman's captivation and Jake's warmth.

He adjusted his flight suit, his eyes never snapping away from yours. "Duty calls," he murmured, the familiar smirk landing back onto his face, though this time it was much softer. "Don't miss me too much while I'm up there."

He gave you a nod and a lingering look before turning around and heading toward the briefing room.

You watched his back as he walked away, your hand trembling just slightly as you reached for your water bottle. You took a sip as your chest started to tighten with anticipation.

Oh, you are seriously in trouble.

---

As the day was coming to a close, most of the mechanics had clocked out for the night, which made the massive space around you quiet.

You were standing on a maintenance scaffolding leaning nervously over the open cockpit of Jake’s jet. A diagnostic tablet sat in your arm as you ran a final sweep on the display wiring.

The unmistakeable sound of boots on the concrete echoed through the quiet hangar. You didn't need to look to know who it was.

"You know, they tell us that these jets are state of the art," a tired, raspy voice spoke from the floor. "But seeing you up there, I'm starting to believe the real part that's state of the art is entirely behind the scenes."

You glanced over the side of the scaffolding. At the bottom of the metal stairs was no other than Jake. You took one quick glimpse at him; he looked absolutely exhausted, but the sight of him made your heart stop.

His flight suit was unzipped down to his waist, the sleeves tied securely around his hips. It left him in a dark black tee shirt that was fitted to his chest. His hair was messy from his helmet, which he held loosely in his left hand.

"The state of the art is entirely structural, Seresin," you called down to him, turning your attention back to the tablet in your hands to hide the sudden blush on your face. "Though, if it were up to you pilots, I think you'd fly these things until the wings literally fell off."

"Hey, I think it's in the job description to push the limits," he said.

The metal stairs creaked as he climbed up them. He stepped into your workspace. The air quickly grew warmer, the smell of the air starting to fill with his scent. He leaned against the cockpit frame, looking down at your tablet, then up at you.

"Everything looking okay?" he asked. The normal banter was there, but his voice was lower, ditching the edge he usually had to it.

"Just about done," you murmured, your eyes remaining on the tablet. "Need to verify the pitch-rate gyros. You had kind of a hard pull during your drill earlier this afternoon."

"Yeah. The air was bumpy today," he said softly.

He didn't move away from you. He lifted his body from the jet, moving himself closer to you. The playful rhythm that you both had earlier in the day felt different now.

The hangar was empty, with no audience to perform for. The silence between you grew heavy, but charged with a tension that made your fingers move nervously over your tablet.

You could his eyes focused on your face intensely.

"Jake," you said, barely above a whisper. You decided to finally look up from the screen. "You're distracting me."

He had a sudden shift in his posture as he let out a ragged breath. His helmet dropped onto the pilot's seat in front of him.

He didn't stop himself as he stepped right into your space, his hands finding the metal railing on both sides of you. He trapped you between his arms and the jet.

"That's okay. I'm completely distracted," he admitted, his green eyes shooting into yours. Hangman was gone; Jake looked entirely undone.

"I have spent the last five hours flying in the air thinking about what you said to me this morning. I'm done playing this little game darlin. I don't want to wait until next weekend to hopefully run into you. Let me take you on a date."

Your heart felt like it stopped for a moment. The directness and honesty in his voice was intoxicating. You swallowed hard, forcing yourself to maintain eye contact. A small smile started to form on your face despite your nervous system making the rest of your body race.

You tilted your head up and made your voice quiet. "It depends. Is this Hangman asking me out or Jake?"

The effect of using his first name was immediate. His shoulders dropped, the shield he always wears completely fell off right in front of you. His face softened into something vulnerable. It made your chest ache. He got closer, closing the few leftover inches between you two.

His eyes locked into yours with honesty. "Jake," he promised. His voice was rough and sent goosebumps down your spine. "I promise you. It's Jake asking."

You became completely defenseless; there was no way you were saying no to him like this.

"Okay," you managed to breathe out, "tomorrow night."

A boyish joy washed over his face, and a smile broke across yours. The tension faded when he showed a real smile; one that made him look happier.

However, he quickly noticed how exposed he had been in the hangar, and he fixed himself. He swiftly grabbed his helmet from the cockpit seat and pulled away from you. Even though his body moved, his eyes focused on your lips for a long moment. The familiar Hangman smirk put itself right back on his face as he climbed down the scaffolding.

"Tomorrow it is," he said. "Don't hurt my jet before then."

You were left leaning against the metal railing, staring at the jet in front of you.

-

Monday was one thing. Tuesday was completely different.

The moment you woke up to your alarm, you were hit with the reality of what you agreed to the night before. In 12 hours, you were going on a date with Jake Seresin.

By the time you made it to base, the knot in your stomach was tight, and a nervousness took over your entire body. The confidence you found the day before was gone and self-consciousness took its place.

The hardest part? He wasn't hanging out at your station today. Most days, Hangman was incredibly hard to brush off. He always made sure his presence was known so he could get a reaction out of you. But today, he kept his distance; he was just as nervous as you were.

The realization of that hit you early on during the shift; he was strangely quiet, his hands in his pockets, his body completely still while listening to a briefing.

No words were spoken between the two of you. This Tuesday became a quiet war of quick glances. Where there's usually a blur of noise throughout the hangar, the day felt quietly cut by the tension held by your shared secret.

Around lunchtime you were at your desk, forcing your brain to wrap around fuel pump schematics. At the same time, you felt tense, as if someone was looking at you.

You raised your head and turned from the computer in front of you. Across the hangar, Jake stood with a wrench in his hand. He was standing next to Maverick, who he was supposed to be listening to, but he wasn't looking at him. He was looking straight at you.

The second his eyes connected to yours, all of the air in your lungs disappeared. He didn't smirk at you; he didn't wink. The expression on his face was soft, like his eyes were watching you intensely. It made your heart skip a beat.

You immediately shifted your face and looked at your computer in front of you, the smile that was appearing on your face unstoppable.

About an hour later, the roles reversed. Your eyes scanned the hangar as you stepped out of the tech office. You saw Jake over by a jet, inspecting a hydraulic line with Javy.

You let your eyes linger on his broad shoulders, watching how the overhead lights caught the golden blonde edges of his hair.

Almost as if he could feel your eyes on him, Jake's head snapped up. He looked past Javy, his eyes locking into yours even with all of the distance in between. It made you freeze - you expected him to break out the Hangman moves for his friend to see.

Instead, he gave you a small, private nod as his lips turned into a genuine smile. It was meant only for you.

Your boots were the only thing you could quickly find to lay your eyes on as your heart hammered against your chest. You hurried back to your desk before the heat could form a blush on your cheeks.

That was how the whole afternoon went: shared looks, breathless pauses, looking at the floor to hide your smiles. The anticipation for the evening ahead was intoxicating. It made every minute of work feel like an hour.

By 4:00, you two hadn't said a single word to each other. Yet, there's never been a time you've felt more connected to him. There was a sweet torture knowing that nobody else on base had any idea what you two were counting down to, and it was driving you absolutely crazy.

Your workstation clock felt like it was moving at half speed. You take your time packing up for the day, taking even more time to organize your tools in order to keep your hands busy and eyes off of the clock.

Around you, the office begins quieting down as people head home for the night. The anticipation and nerves for the night ahead of you however makes your chest tighten. Every shadow that passes your desk causes you to be more hyper aware than the one before it. You can't help but be distracted by the thought of how the night is going to go.

After many shadows of people wrapping up for the day, you catch the familiar stride of a particular one. Then the sound of the boots enters your ears.

Jake casually walks past your station, as if he's also just trying to make his way to the parking lot. His pace doesn't slow down at your desk; he knows as much as you do that any pause would cause suspicion. Tonight, he wants to have you entirely to himself.

As he gets closer to your station, he leans down just enough for you to catch the scent of his cologne. It hits you before his voice does.

He murmurs low and privately, "I'll pick you up at 7. Wear something casual."

You look up at him and catch him straightening back up. No wink, no cheeky grin - just another one of those genuine smiles he gave you earlier. The one that softens his face and warms his eyes.

You don't have time to reply. Before you can even take a breath, he is walking away towards the parking lot. Now you're officially counting down the hours until seven.

-

At 7:00 exactly, there's a sharp knock on your front door. When you open it, your breath hitches.

Jake is standing at the door, looking effortlessly like he just came out of a movie. He's wearing dark jeans and an olive green Henley, the shirt fitting him just right. It hugged his chest and shoulders perfectly, and the color made his eyes glisten.

For a moment, neither of you speaks. His eyes traced the lines of you fact, down your outfit, and back up to your eyes. Hangman, the one who always has some kind of comeback to throw around, is completely speechless. You made him completely speechless.

"Wow," he whispers, "hi."

You smile, a faint warmth creeping onto your cheeks. "Hi."

He takes you to a hidden Texan barbecue joint that he swears is as close to the real thing as you can get in San Diego. The atmosphere of the restaurant was loud and unrestrained, which helped remove any remaining tension that was between the two of you.

Sitting across from him at the table, you noticed every part of Hangman melt away from his personality. There was nobody around to impress or maintain the reputation; he was just Jake.

Conversation between two of you flowed effortlessly. You found yourself leaning into him, wanting to peel back every layer and figure out who Jake is outside of the hangar.

"Alright, Seresin," you teased. "Give me the real deal Where in Texas are you really from? Why did you actually join the Navy?"

Jake lets out a chuckle, his finger slowly tracing the rim of his glass. He looks up from his glass to you. "I'm from a little town outside of Austin," he starts, his voice softer than normal. "Texas is just so big, you know? I always craved more, wanted something bigger. Once I saw a jet fly over for the first time, that was it for me. It wasn't just about flying fast, it was about showing that I could conquer the toughest things the sky could bring. I simply wanted to be the best."

You nodded along, getting as much information out of him that you could. "And when you're not bossing people around at work or trying to break the sound barrier?"

"I'm surprisingly boring," he shrugs, a grin breaking on his face. "I'm somewhat of a perfectionist, if you haven't noticed. So I usually drag work home with me more often than not. I'll spend time fixing up an old truck or organizing tools to keep my hands moving. I don't really know how to slow down." He pauses and his fingers stop twiddling with the glass. He looks at you seriously. "And lately, I've been spending way more of my time thinking about you."

The confession hangs in their air, but it's not awkward. A sudden confidence floods over you. "Why me, Jake? Out of everyone there?"

Jake slowly reaches across the table, his thumb brushing the back of your knuckles so softly. "Because you don't buy Hangman," he starts quietly. "Everyone else in that hangar sees what I want them to, but you have managed to look right through it. You're so smart, you're slightly stubborn," he lets out a soft chuckle, "but the second you walk into a room, you're the only person who can manage to make me forget about everything else I'm doing."

By the time dinner is done and he's driving you back home, the temperature outside has shifted to something much cooler. He walks you up your steps, his face looking as if he's a little upset that's where the night is ending.

You unlock the door and step into the warm entryway, but you don't close the door behind you. You turn around to face him, leaning against the wooden doorframe.

"It's cold out there," you start playfully, "do you want to come in for a minute?"

Jake's eyes go wide, the question surprising him. But then his eyes go dark. "I shouldn't," he starts slowly, even though he's already taking a step in. "If I come in, I'm not going to leave."

"Then don't," you whisper.

He comes into the house fully. The second the door clicks, all restraint Jake had the rest of the night snaps. His hands find your hips and guide you back to the wall. There's no hesitation anymore. His mouth catches yours as he leans down, the kiss desperate, breathless, and revealing exactly how long you both have been waiting for that moment. One of his hands moves from your waist to your cheek, his palm cupping your jaw as he pulls you completely against him.

When he finally pulls back just an inch, he rests his forehead on yours. It's quiet for a moment, the only thing being heard is the sound of both of you trying to catch your breath. Jake stares at you, his eyes looking at your face in its entirety, ending on your lips.

Even with how dark it is in the room, you can see his vulnerability in his eyes. A vulnerability you've never seen in the hangar. Your heart is pounding against your chest. You can feel the heat radiating off of him.

His fingers find a strand of hair that he gently tucks behind your ear, his hand lingering a little too long.

"Ive been wanting to do this since the first time you ever argued with me," he admits to you. His voice was breathless and low, something you had never heard before.

You look into his eyes, a smile finding its way to your face. You whisper, "Well cowboy, you took way too long do do something about it."

A quiet laugh escapes his lips. He doesn't waste another second. His hands make their way to your waist again, his grip on you possessive and firm. He pulls you right back into him as your hands slides up the soft fabric of his shirt to the base of his neck. You fingers find their way into the short hairs at the nape of his neck to pull him in closer.

The trace of fear that lingered in your head, the voice that whispered I'm in so much trouble, completely vanishes. As his hands rest on your waist and he deepens the kiss, the fear turns into certainty.

You're not in trouble at all; you're exactly where you're supposed to be.

---

Ahh I hope you all liked it and I hope I did them justice!

However, this week of all weeks, Jake had a few cracks in his armor and he was starting to show. First, you caught him on the tarmac taking the time to explain something to a struggling young mechanic. Then, you saw him comforting a Lieutenant after a drill that left him shaken up. With no mockery.

It made you quickly realize that behind that perfect golden boy charm, there was a heart. You simply had yet to meet that part of him on your own. Until one Saturday morning.

You were roaming the cereal aisle of the grocery store looking boarder line homeless. The design on your hoodie was faded, your hair was messily tossed up into a claw clip. You reached for a box of cereal when an incredibly familiar voice spoke right next to you.

"You know, generic brand versus name brand, they're really all the same when you think about it."

You jumped, turning to face the voice next to you. Standing there casually was Jake.

No flight suit, no cocky persona. He was wearing jeans and a tee shirt, looking the part of the Texan he was proud to be. The most interesting part to you was his face: no clever smirk, no sharp look in his eyes. His eyes were soft, his face was relaxed.

You let out a sigh. "Seresin," you chucked, "what are you doing here? I thought you lived off of protein shakes and adrenaline rushes?"

The laugh he let out was a genuine one, not like the pretend or performative ones you've seen from him at work. "Hey, a man's got to eat. I'm just trying to remember which one my mom told me to look for when I come. I usually just grab one and hope it's right. So far, no luck."

You looked at him briefly, blinking rapidly. He was smiling like a normal human being, not the practiced Hangman grin that he tried to use when attempting to get your clothes off. His smile was sweet, comforting.

"Well," you said, tilting your head. "That's strange. Hangman would never say anything as honest as that."

Jake paused. He looked down at the floor for a brief second. There was a reserved, quiet expression landing on his face.

"That's because Hangman only exists at the hangar. This is Jake." He said the words so softly that it sent goosebumps down your arms.

Heat rushed to your cheeks. You felt your chest tighten as you really looked at the man in front of you, who had no military protection around him.

"Jake," you repeated slowly, trying to recall if you had ever actually said his first name before. "Let me get this straight. Jake doesn't feel the need to lecture me about my day being faster if I looked at him instead of my computer?"

He rubbed the back of his neck, the look of embarrassment starting to form. "Yeah, fair point. Look, at the hangar, you have to project a certain level of certainty when you fly jets that go as fast as ours do."

"Is it the same when you're picking out groceries?" you joked, finding your rhythm in the conversation again.

"I'll have you know that when I'm looking for cereal, I'm just a guy who can't decide between fun or fiber," he said, his voice grounded. The second part came out shyly, "and maybe a guy who's somewhat glad he ran into the smartest person on the base in something other than her work uniform."

The genuineness in his eyes was completely different than anything you'd seen before. You swallowed hard, taking a breath and being hit with his scent. Which for once wasn't masked by jet fuel and sweat.

You cleared your throat, snapping back into reality. "Right," you managed to say, nodding your head. "Good to know."

He lingers for a second longer than he probably should have. "Anyways," he started, "I should let you make your final cereal decision. See you on Monday?"

"Yes, I'll see you Monday."

You gave him a polite wave as he walked away. You watched him leave, your mind now racing. Your heart felt like it was pounding against your chest, and your brain was still buzzing from the small interaction.

Before he could completely escape the aisle, a strange new confidence took over your body as you spoke again. "Hey, Jake?"

He stopped dead in his tracks, turning around to look at you. He gave you his full attention, his eyebrow raised curiously.

You took a breath in, hoping to not regret what you were about to say in the middle of the aisle. "For the record, I like Jake much more than I like Hangman."

Jake froze for a moment as he started to blush. The arrogant pilot you knew was entirely gone and instead replaced by a man who looked flustered as he looked down at the floor.

But a split second later, a tiny hint of that familiar Hangman charm appeared in his face. He looked back up to face you fully. "That's the whole point, darlin."

He smirked at you and winked, turning the corner and disappearing into the next aisle. You were left entirely alone.

You stood there dumbfounded for thirty seconds, frozen on the empty space he was just in. You looked back down at your basket, a nervous laugh escaping you.

Oh shit, you thought to yourself. I'm in so much trouble.

---

Fuck

Alpha Steve. It's inevitable - both because you can't take control of your body's reactions to the beastly man and because he decided he wants you whimpering on his cock. Whether your will loses the battle with the pulsing of your cunt and you crawl to him begging for ruin; or he forces your body into full compliance, that fucking will be forever branded on your pussy. And ass. And mouth.

Marry

Mafia Steve. Not that you had a choice. Especially not after your escape attempt, when he easily intercepted you and stretched your virgin pussy on his cock, proving to you that it belonged to him all along. You can wear black to the wedding for all he cares, because you'll be full of his white, thick cum anyway as you walk down the aisle to him. That's only a drop of all the ways he's going to spoil you with, so why fight him when you can have all the protection, care, luxuries, and holes dripping with cum.

K...neel for