RoneAroundLibrary

Romance 🔥 || Smut 🦆 || Author Fave 🍀 || Angst ⛈ || Fluff 🌼 || Dark Fic 🌘 || *** denotes work for all ages || MainStory Complete ✅

Ari Levinson

Ari buries his face in your neck to smell and/or kiss. He's so tall and bulky that getting down to your level is a kind of intimate act, so whether during a simple hug or while you're both dripping sweat and fucking like rabbits 😮‍💨, the crook of your neck is where it's at. I know I've said Ari is an ass man, but the signature part of this is he can hear your every whimper easily and his praise can be heard from that proximity. That move is for you, not him.

Jake Jensen

Hardly could be considered a legit 'move,' but Jake frequently cocks an eyebrow as if he's not going to do something you've asked for--which he 100% will--or as if he's casually paying less attention--which is 100% paying too much attention to you--and that Jake always saves energy for a final push during sexy times (or even video games, let's be honest). He likes to be impressive; he's trying to leave you with a good impression. 😅

Bucky Barnes

Bucky will take some sort of hold on your hair, head, or neck. He will only use pressure if you're into it, but there's something comfortably possessive--almost equivalent to the actual penetration of sex--about cradling you, having your hair wrapped around his hand, or forcing you to look him right in the eyes until you fall apart.

James Mace

Very simply, Mace mostly only repeats moves that you have shown the most interest in, but if I had to pick something, his signature is slowing down. He is nothing if not a tantric, longterm-type lover...but he enjoys that tiny torture which has you claw at him and beg, juuuuust a bit.

Lloyd Hansen

Spanking and pinching. He's got to incorporate a little pain/discomfort somehow--just to keep you on your toes, so you know who's in charge,-- but slapping your ass, any time, any position, is by far his favorite move.

Is anyone surprised? ::crickets:: Yup, that's what I thought.

Ransom Drysdale

If Ran is truly in love, will he become more sentimental and caring? Sure, a little, but that doesn't mean Ran doesn't continue to like what he's always liked. Pushing or holding you down has been a preferred move of his pretty much since puberty. He can squeeze your breasts or press your stomach to watch them bounce as he drives himself home, or he can taunt your muffled screams while shoving your face into the sheets, or both. Both is good.

Andy Barber

Polar opposite of Ransom, hilariously, is Andy with his obsession to wrap both arms around you, holding you against him, facing him or facing away. He needs not only the physical connection and control, but the move often grounds him in the moment with you...even as his lower half goes buck-wild, rutting and thrusting like a maniac.

Jimmy Dobyne

Jimmy has to taste you in some way (see: oral preferences), but he is not picky about how much, for how long, or even where really. Hickies count, by the way, but not for marking purposes; Jimmy just gets kinda lost in the licking/kissing/sucking of all of it. He will, however, settle for very slowly cleaning his fingers after they've been inside you. He has, fortunately or unfortunately, repeatedly done this at a restaurant before. It's disturbing how hot you find it, and he fucking knows that.

Steve Rogers

😵‍💫 Steve might be best known for including some delicate gesture in the midst of downright animalistic fucking. You could be pinned in a mating press, and this dude is dragging his knuckles softly over your skin. You could be smooshed between chiseled body and the damn wall, but Steve's tucking his finger under your chin, planting barely-there kisses on your lips as you gasp for air.

Gurl, bye. I cannot with this man.

Curtis Everett

I guess...playful mocking? As in "are you tired?" after dawn breaks and y'all are still going at it. As in "that's only four, honey" when you floated silently for three solid minutes from the last orgasm. As in "no one noticed" while climbing out of the backseat of his own car that was just bouncing against the goddamn pavement with the force of your fucking. Yeah. He's king of that shit.

Oh, oh, and bending his head to touch you. It's not always sexual, but Curtis does love to curl against you in the heat of the moment (see: pretzel boi).

Johnny Storm

Bless his basic soul, Johnny remains 'a classic bro.' He just loves grabbing your ass with both hands to guide you or to hang on. I don't know if you could categorize honesty as a signature move, but if so, Johnny actually has Steve Rogers beat for telling you the TRUTH about what exactly--and explicitly--he wants to do to you. Johnny has no shame in that...or anything, really...

Thank you for asking!

James Mace

Wholly unaffected and unamused (if and when it's just rando on the street), partly because Mace doesn't know how to respond without being rude. Is it true? Yes, but Matron Mace runs a tight ship and has certain hours she will talk on the phone. You're damn right he calls their house every week at his allotted time! He makes sure to send little notes to her as well. His grandpa, though, isn't much for the phone, so Mace goes over to work in the garage with Pops. Generally once a month or so.

Curtis Everett

Unless he's already making eye contact with the person, he has to be told it's for him. Curtis is a bit clueless. He will respond with things like "both my grandma's have passed but I see Dad's dad next week!" He's just mystified that someone would single him out because Curtis purposefully stays in the background. If the flirting is from afar, he's fine. He'll ignore it--if he even notices,--but he's not much for forceful flattery--from women or otherwise--because that always strikes him as fake.

Steve Rogers

While Steve waves politely, he will also quietly comment that it's not safe to yell at strangers.

Yes, if his grandparents--or even his parents--were still alive, he'd call them to say 'hi.' The lot of them would be trying to figure out the new-fangled phones together!

Steve...hates the actual cat-calling though. He thinks it's rude when men do it to women--complimentary or not--yet he would never correct a lady for taking that power back. It makes him uncomfortable. He just smiles and nods. He will forever be surprised the phrase "bounce a quarter off of" is still in use.

Bucky Barnes

Complete opposite. He's seriously confused by yelling that's not mean. Why be nice so loudly?

Bucky grumbles--usually under his breath--that he's a mass murderer, not a Beatle... It takes explanation for Steve to understand the reference.

Lloyd Hansen

Preening Lloyd makes a double kiss-kiss with his lips and winks. He thoroughly enjoys the attention (though pretty much every nice thing said about him is untrue) and kinda compliments back...only if the person is attractive. He has standards.

Jimmy Dobyne

Jimmy is a bit "aww shucks" embarrassed when he's dressed nicely because, yeah, he does clean up well! Thank you for noticing! However, he's a bit grossed out by someone thirstily yelling over a fence and across a field at him.

He still says 'thank you' though.

Ari Levinson

Honestly? Loves it just as much as Lloyd. Ari beams with all his pearly whites on display and runs his fingers through his hair. He rarely responds verbally because he's on the move and can't find who said something in one passing glance over his shoulder, but he appreciates it nonetheless. Nevermind the fact that he, for sure, has not talked to his family in a while...

Ransom Drysdale

Scowls on scowls.

Ran believes he deserves the attention--and will show amusement if/when someone he doesn't like is annoyed by the attention Ran's getting--but it's exhausting to be so perfect. Can't he just go about his life, in peace, for free???

Jake Jensen

omg ME, really??? He thinks this is the pinnacle of flattery.

Jake's all excited, blushing. Sometimes he wishes the compliments made him seem more macho and less dorky even though he is less macho and more dorky. He has all sorts of violent and intelligent skills, however, so Jake appreciates being told he seems sweet.

Now, will someone please go on a freaking date with him??? It's getting embarrassing on those calls with grandma; she keeps asking him when he's gonna find a girl!!!

Johnny Storm

Lives. Off. That. Shit.

Could be polite--could also be vulgar--he doesn't care which. Johnny has a handful of canned responses because there's just so many women and men who shout at him! He even looks forward to the heckling, to be quite honest. Attention is attention after all...

Andy Barber

Oblivious half the time, and the other half, Andy spends time making sure everyone he's with gets a compliment, too, unless he's in a professional/work setting which he simply finds distasteful. Mister Barber out here bringing what little fairness and equality he can to the world 🙄.

Thank you for asking!

[Main Masterlist; Who Would...Masterlist; Ko-Fi]

That said...I imagine a scenario where you two get stuck on a stormed-out vacation with only one working TV channel playing cartoons, and you both get very invested in stupid characters from bingeing four seasons. Curtis would probably definitely get that cartoon character as a tat if you asked him to. See, it's just gotta mean something.

James Mace

Absolutely. He needs no convincing. If it's words, they will be in your handwriting. You'd choose together, no surprises, but he is unashamed if you pick a cutesy design or a visible area (as long as it's not on the face or neck).

Steve Rogers

He...can't? In canon (at least I subscribe to that idea), but if he could, yes. He would design it himself if you didn't want to, the scene would spread over time to include experiences you share, and good-ol'-artist-boy Steve will tell anyone who asks the whole backstory! In canon, he probably would let you draw on him for fun, and he'd either draw on you or design tattoos for you (if you wanted).

Bucky Barnes

Also can't? Yes, he would if he could/will if he can, but Bucky is not as creative as Steve. A tattoo would not be his idea either. If you ask though, he's down. He would be highly amused by goofy or mildly-offensive designs. Come on. You know he would. Admit it. Bucky would get a lady who dances on his arm or abs, or something silly in the crease of his elbow or knee that transforms when the joint is folded.

Lloyd Hansen

Yes, but it's something really dumb and would not be specific to you (at least not obviously you for anyone else). No names, no dates, possibly a vulgar nickname, probably involves blood or knives.

He is the most likely to get an emoji tat. (Yes, even MORE likely than Jake Jensen. Imagine Lloyd torturing folks while having smiley faces on the knuckles of his middle fingers. The man is diabolical.) I will die on this hill.

Ransom Drysdale

No. Not unless you do, too, and the tattoos would not necessarily be matching. He would make you go first. The location has to be somewhere hidden and no names.

Ari Levinson

Sorta. Absolutely, if he's no longer doing any undercover work; if he is still doing military work, then it would have to be something nondescript.

This might just be me, but Ari strikes me as the 'prettiest' of this list,--hear me out--the one that could pull off tats of butterflies and dolphins and flowers while still looking utterly manly. He can pull it off, and he will...once he's retired.

Johnny Storm

Yes, but like, he says 'yes' and then gets super distracted multiple times. When he finally does, he gets very excited, and it is a big turn on after he fakes being a big baby about the pain. Only strong designs though; Johnny is a bit sensitive to having things that look too feminine on his body.

Jake Jensen

Oh yeah. MANY.

He gives you whole areas just for you to design and lets you draw on him to figure out what will look best. Anything is on the table--names, dates, goofy stuff, jokes--plus it tickles! He loves it. If for some reason you run out of space on him, Jake will add whatever tattoos you want to his avatars in video games!!

Jimmy Dobyne

It's not a hard 'no,' but he's not enthusiastic. Jimmy would likely put it off for a few years even. He has to mull over whatever the design is, and, ultimately, a lot of things would get vetoed instead of making it to his skin.

Andy Barber

Yes, but there are rules, obviously. 1) It must be professionally coverable, 2) it must be significant/important to both of you, 3) it would likely be on his chest over his heart, and 4) it can be your name but is more likely a flower or cute character.

He doesn't mind those, and in fact finds cutesy designs fitting. Andy gets comfort in seeing them, remembering his home life and what he's doing all this work for, and uses them as a tool for calming down actually.

Also, 5) Andy insists he be able to pick something for you. It's gotta be an equal trade.

[Main Masterlist; Who Would...Masterlist; Ko-Fi]

Steve’s caught off guard and fumbling. Bucky dropped you off in Alpine form, and you still haven’t changed back for his whole, little house tour. A simple setup, just like you’d expect, but there are candles everywhere, and it smells of fresh baked cookies. It almost seems like he’s selling you on it. Isn’t that what realtors do when they want you to move in?

No need to try so hard, buddy. I’m definitely interested in closing the deal.

His hands twitch like he keeps forgetting he can’t reach out to touch you while walking around.

“So, um, we’ve got dinner, dessert, wine, and a bubble bath,” he rattles off, shuffling trays and pans over the kitchen counters to cool before serving, “if you want.”

You pick a clear spot and hop up, stretching your neck. To him, it seems like preening, so you have to emphasize by scratching at your collar pointedly.

Steve blinks, confused. “You…want it off?”

He gets a nod in reply.

“You—“ he coughs and swallows “—want me to take it off?”

Another nod, this time with added, authentic preening because Steve’s face changes when he gets it. If and when he removes your collar, you will shift. You will shift and will have no clothing, no cover at all. You’ll be naked, completely on purpose, for him to see.

Gently, his long and delicate artist fingers dance around to the clasp at the back of your neck, tugging first tighter then looser to release the joint. Steve holds it close, hesitant, as if you’ll change your mind at any second. You simply continue to stare him down—sweetly, with golden eyes—until he straightens again, then you jump from the counter, sauntering with your tail up towards the bedroom.

The sway of your hips is pretty dramatic, even as a cat, but it does the trick.

Beyond the threshold, you shift to your full self, transforming the warm, flickering candle glow into a shadow of what’s to come once Steve rounds the corner, and he follows. He follows so quickly you haven’t even turned before his lips are at your shoulder, and his arms wrap your waist.

 You stayed in cat form because you knew you couldn’t be trusted to make it one second without climbing him like a tree. The only words you can imagine are naughty so best to keep those under wraps before Buck is a distance away. With how quickly he gives up on dinner, Steve has the same intentions.

He’s ready to touch you, itching to, in fact.

Tender though insistent, the mindless way he shuffles forward, pressing along your back, knocking you past the bed, proves he can’t wait any longer with the tension as high as it is. Neither can you.

You grab his hands, encouraging one up and one down your body, holding them with interlaced fingers, exploring your skin while the proximity betrays Steve’s his lustier desires.

He’s just that into you.

He prepared for you to be here. The covers are turned down. The candles all have holders or drip trays. Not a single garment of clothing is on the floor or even visible inside an absently cracked drawer. You’re slightly surprised there are no rose petals thrown about.

The bulky man behind bullies you until the wall bumps your elbows.

You giggle with joy, stifling a grin.

“Dinner first?” you joke.

Steve releases his grip to spin you around, nearly growling, “that’s what microwaves are for,” and captures your lips instead. Few modernizations have caught on for him more—apparently—than the ease of reheating a delayed meal.

He paws over you but lingers on seemingly innocuous areas, gently mapping the shallow of your spine between your shoulder blades, the dimples of muscle above your hips, the jut of your wrist bones as your hands explore the planes of him, too.

He dressed nicely, for a dinner in his own home, slacks and a tucked-in button-down, no belt, no shoes or socks inside either. The fabrics are luxurious and tantalizing since you know just how strong the man underneath them is. Although built of pure patience normally, Steve breaks down at a mere nibble of his bottom lip, slamming you the last few inches against the wall and cages your jaw between his hands, tongue shameless in its pursuit of more.

Candles shake on the dresser, one taper rolling off axis precariously. You both peek sideways, breath bated, as it settles safely.

You scrape at his back enough to free the shirt tails, but how you’re pinned—and how he’s pinning you—makes anything else impossible. You bury your hands in his hair, twisting the front of his shirt until a button pops.

“Rip it,” he begs. “Just tear it off.”

Steve’s falling into a trap, a sweet catastrophe of his own making. He shimmies you up to his stomach to undo his pants but can’t keep you high enough on his hips. You sense his finger tips ghosting your folds. He doesn’t have the right angle. His patience must really be boiled away to forgo warming you up.

He carries you to the bed, keeping your mouth occupied as you finish with the buttons and push the shirt off of his shoulders. He lays back, scooting you up so he can shimmy out of slacks and boxers alike. 

You’re amused by how this action bounces you playfully.

“And now…” Steve kicks his clothes away and leans forward, planting a kiss in the hollow of your clavicle, grabbing a condom blindly from the bedside table.

“Man with a plan, eh?”

Steve looks at you, eyes twinkling. “Yeah,” he says simply. After a long moment and a squeeze of your thigh, he sighs. “You know, when I was on that mission with Sharon, I kept thinking about it—what and who I’d want to be with, for real—that’s how I got through. I thought of someone to live a smaller, more intimate life with, someone who wants me as me, someone okay with the quiet peace of being near each other. And you’re it. You are what I always hoped for.

“I love you. I absolutely love you, babygirl, and I had to tell you. You gotta know. I love you.”

You take his face, his sincere, sweet face, in your hands.

“First,” you bite back a smile, ”maybe don’t mention another woman with your dick poking my ass.”

He panics. “I—shit—that’s bad. That’s so bad, isn’t it? I’m sorry,” he mumbles, shifting awkwardly until you stop him.

“Second, it’s alright. You’re it for me, too, Steve. I love you.”

He sags into your hold. “I got nervous—“

“I know.”

“—and you’re just so beautiful.”

You take the wrapper from his hand and tear it, letting Steve remove the rubber and inch yourself backwards until his hard cock slaps the V of his abs. Both of you watch the sheath roll down his length, eyes darting between each other and his lap.

Out of sheer curiosity, you curl four fingers around him, thumb tracing the seam of his head.

Steve has no more words for now; he only needs your lips again. This kiss is unbroken though as he pulls pillows to his side with one hand and cradles your nape with the other. Easily, smoothly, he flips you onto them, raising your hips level with him kneeling, bracketing himself. His hands roam. He strokes at your limbs like he’s painting a masterpiece, and it’s wildly arousing and annoying at the same time.

“Stop petting me, Steve.”

“I’m not,” he denies, languidly rolling his tip through your slick, working to mix the colors of passion evenly over hot skin.

You both expected he’d be the most impatient, not you, strung out and up, scratching in protest of waiting. He’s thought about you, drawn you, shared things with you he doesn’t usually tell anyone. He fantasized about a whole life with you, but he has to pay for this teasing.

“Wait,” you blurt one instant before he pushes in, “what type of cookies did you bake?”

“You’re such a rascal.“ Steve snorts in delight, brought back to the joy of the occasion, released from some untenable pedestal. He hangs his head, gripping the base of his cock to pause. “Shut up and let me love you, babygirl.”

You’re happier than words, art, or music can ever convey as Steve’s large hand anchors you to your pedestal. Finally, he sinks in to the hilt.

He bends over you, lacing fingers together, nuzzling your throat as you grow accustomed to the fit of each other. He’s so careful and gentle with Alpine, the same way he now treats you so lovingly, lavishing attention on your breasts, hips stilled.

You begin to rock against him first.

Once he starts moving, Steve slowly body drapes flush with yours. Your neck angles to watch his firm ass thrust. His muscled back flexes and he pushes your joined hands into the firm mattress to stabilize himself.

“What do you need?” he husks in your ear. “Want to make you come.”

You can’t get the words out until he sits up to reposition you high on the pillows once more. Steve watches closely as your fingers find your clit, moans when they touch him nestled deep inside you, and then swats away your hand to take over.

“Like that?”

He finds a rhythm fast.

“Oh, yes—“ he pulls out enough to hear you whine “—like that.”

He’s pointed in these moves, mesmerized and darkly proud to see you fall apart on his cock, but Steve Rogers, the light-hearted heavyweight in love, is a kiss-you-while-he-comes man. There can be no space between you for the end, and you don’t care that it’s crushing you. He’s worth it. He’s it.

 You two stare at each other, eyelids hooded in fatigue and contentment, basking in the glow.

Steve only lifts off when you begin wriggling for air. He tosses the condom in the bin and sits at the edge of the bed, smiling.

He turns to ask, “what are you thinking about?”

So much. Everything, you want to respond, but you can do better. “How good you feel,” you say, crawling to latch onto his broad shoulders. “How good it is to see you feel good and spoiled. You?”

He hugs your arms as best he can.

“Me? I’m thinking about how to serve you dinner in the bathtub.”

Even though you have the whole weekend, he really is impatient to do it all, but you don’t blame him. You were anxious, too. Bucky’s not picking you up. It’s just Steve who’s supposed to take you to HQ next.

“Don’t worry,” you purr. “We can do this all night, and all tomorrow, and all of the day after.”

[Main Masterlist; Companion Animal Masterlist; Ko-Fi]

This is torture. This is exactly how to torture Steve Rogers.

He is unmistakably captive in this solid cage, overlooking an enormous honeycomb of similar rooms. The atrium of the place—what is this? A ship? Some kind of bunker?—is so, so vast that Steve can’t make out specific figures in any of the other windows. He can tell there is movement, but what light is there shines too dimly.

The glow comes straight through the walls, a material strong enough that a running start from a super soldier cannot dent it, something far beyond current human engineering.

He’s in a room without furniture, without vents, without fixtures, and without corners. Each plane of the room rounds gracefully to the next, but it’s still a cube, still infuriating. Almost more frustrating is the fact Steve somehow does not feel hunger or thirst or fatigue. He can’t measure time by his own constitution or some sort of schedule offered by his captors.

He sticks to questions he can answer, none of which explain why.

He is naked and trapped. There is no pattern of day and night. He is stuck in ambient dim until a spotlight announces…someone else.

Steve doesn’t know how they come in—are put in, rather—without doors, but they’re there, also naked and afraid, the only regular offering in this hellhole. 

Keeping his distance is made inhospitable. Texture, sharp and cutting, rises from the floor. Temperate walls become icy, too cold to touch without his flesh sticking painfully against them. Yet Steve Rogers fights it. He will not give in.

He promises every person that he will not touch them, he will not hurt them, because that’s what the aliens want. He’s clearly supposed to look and touch, and he fights it. Even when the poor, terrified person begs and pleads for his help, even when they reach out for Steve, he won’t do it.

He keeps his head turned away. He refuses. He will never give in.

Steve has recognized a few of the people trapped with him which only proves captives were harvested from the same general area. In a way, he should have known this might happen. He almost feels dense for not figuring sooner, but his mind would never have conjured this.

A searing reflection of a new offering breaks his evaluation of the view outside the room.

A bare back. Someone huddled with legs pulled up to their chest. The faintest sniffle when most start with sobs.

Automatically, Steve averts his eyes.

“Don’t worry. I won’t hurt you.”

That’s his justification: anything forced would be harmful, no matter how gentle he’d try to be. Steve won’t consider what happens after the failed offerings are removed from his room. He won’t bear responsibility for the evils of his captors. His morals will never change.

He takes his hand from the freezing wall and shifts his weight from foot to foot against the uncomfortable, shell-beach feeling, continuing his parroted speech.

“I promise not to—“

“Captain?”

Steve goes silent. He knows that voice.

Whipping around, completely uncaring for modesty, and sees your profile greeting him like a long-awaited tin type delivered in the trenches. Your face shines, streaked with tears.

He moves without thought.

No. Not you. He cannot fight the urge to comfort you. He cannot pretend you won’t be punished by his resistance. He has—since well before this stupid box—longed to touch you but never let himself hope.

Steve lowers to the floor, tucks his own knees up, and wraps an arm around your shoulders. Below him, the sheet metal is smooth and tepid again, a reward for approaching, encouragement he doesn’t need. He simply comforts a friend, an acquaintance really, one he noticed working the periphery of his life since the fall of the Triskelion, but he was too stoic—petrified—to act.

You shiver, and all Steve’s decorum evaporates.

He pulls your legs over his to engulf you in an embrace. Your arms remain crossed over your chest reflexively, so he rests his chin on your shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, because he is, because this may be the worst possible way to have this chance to be close, to keep you, safe, at all costs. “Please…just let me hold you.”

Your words come out watery beside him. “You know what we have to do, right?”

He understands now that you aren’t just shivering; you shake uncontrollably and break his heart a little with each fearful twitch. Steve smooths a wide palm over your back, trying to steady your breath by keeping his own calm.

It takes far more effort than it should.

When he doesn’t reply, you adjust out of his arms, retracting into yourself with a pinched shrug.

“It’s okay—” you quiver in denial “—I know you don’t want this. It’s not your fault. You’d never ask for—“

“I have loved you since twenty-fifteen,” Steve blurts, loudly, far more forceful than intended, sweeping a wide thumb across your cheek.

You duck your gaze away, face inscrutable for a long beat. Your grip fiddles with nervous excitement. 

“Really?”

The last thing Steve expected in this nightmare is a delicate smile. He’s pleased to see such a bright gesture and squeezes you just a little closer.

“I…I loved you way back in twenty-twelve. Didn’t know you—never expected us to meet—but you’re handsome and kind. I imagined maybe going on a date first…in that…whole, unlikely scenario.”

“Many dates,” he agrees. “I’m notorious for taking too long.”

“Planning lots of activities then?”

Steve can hear your smile broaden in the words.

He leans his forehead to yours. “Dinner and a movie to start, probably.”

“Classic—“ he nods at your approval “—bet you’d buy an expensive wine that neither of us actually likes. We might share a dessert…which was really too small to split.”

He finds it cute that you play along.

“The staff get annoyed when we stay at the table for hours. Talking, obviously, because you’re so chatty.”

“So much talking,” Steve snorts.

Your grip relaxes to reach out. “You…hold my hand—“ he immediately takes the cue “—and kiss me at my doo—“

Close as he is, Steve still has to lunge slightly to capture your lips. He inches forward, achingly slow, because he’s always thought of starting that way. His knuckles brush the softness of your breast, tantalizing, because he hasn’t seen you yet. You both shimmy uncomfortably when the room tells you to go faster.

You inhale, sharp and painful, tongue wiping the taste of him inside your mouth. “You’d call me before even starting your car.” 

His finger crooks beneath your chin to showcase his own smile. “I should really get a car then.”

“More talk, on the phone, all night, until one of us falls asleep. It’s you, of course. You fall asleep first.”

“Oh, is that so?” His voice gets huskier the more he thinks about dates that could have been.“A picnic would be nice, somewhere sunny…or shady…”

“Or by the water.”

He pets your bare leg and side. He loves the water. Anywhere, really, if you’re there.

The talking makes this feel more normal, like he’s done the work, like he’s earned his fingers sliding up your thigh, exploring your folds. He forces himself to not linger, to not savor, to reboot his strategic mind and get to the next move.

“I would worship every inch of you, for hours, for days maybe…”

You hold his shoulders, displaying your top half fully, so he stares and repeats. “Every inch.” He likes the way you bite your lip on a gasp.

“I bet you would, slowpoke.”

He narrows his eyes at your cheekiness. He’s a little lost in the fantasy.

“I might even punish you for that,” but he can’t keep a straight face to sell that threat.

Steve smothers your giggle with a kiss, pushing you onto your back, gently groping your chest while you gawk at him hanging heavily above you. He, too, is so excited and awed by your gorgeous, glistening body, the sweet little noises you make, how you open for him, that he almost forgets the circumstance. He enjoys draping himself over you like the shield he’s been stripped of. He is your cage instead.

For several glorious minutes, it’s all normal.

Fast as it may seem, after a quick fingering and lick of his hand before working himself in, your body welcomes him. It’s crass and inelegant, but the worst part is that Steve finds it all…a thrill. He walks a fine moral line: this presses his boundaries, he’s already pushed too far, yet you’re willing.

When he sinks as deep as he can, in that moment, he remembers you love him. Stress had not let his brain process what you said. You love him, and he loves you.

His fingers dig into the meat of your thigh at the feel of your body relaxing, welcoming his hard length over and over. You clutch at his tense biceps. Steve thinks it’s all in pleasure until you jolt up from the gravel texture of the floor. You arch into him, bent like a cresting wave or a crescent moon, something beautiful, natural, powerful.

He’s powerfully angry to be interrupted.

“Why?” he bites out. “What’m I doing wrong?”

A selfish pang strikes his chest. You’re his. This experience should be his.

“Nothing,” you breathe. “You’re doing your best, Steve.”

It’s the way you say his name—the shallow panting, the deep plea—that boosts and breaks him all at once.

He leans back on his heels, hauling you onto his lap, and finally lets himself watch you. Your lips part, and you bury your hands in his hair. Your hips mindlessly keep fucking him as if the real punishment is to stop, not what might happen after. Seeing you so free cracks the seams of his comfort zone, each new possibility opening a vent, toppling a fixture, or swinging a door wide, giving him the confidence to fantasize.

He takes in your happily twisted features while one hand supports the small of your back, his other hand over your breast, playing with the nipple.

It’s still not enough.

Icy shards dig at his knees, less so under his toes. Behind him, the floor smooths and a warm, inviting light frames the window. 

A view. A show. That’s what he is doing wrong.

He steadies you against him and stands, wobbly, at least one small trickle of blood rolling down his shin from where his skin ripped, but it will heal before he’s even come.

The glass is comfortably warm as he props you up, settling your legs around him, leaning to make your bodies flush. Your hips still tense.

When he thrusts, your skin stutters down the window pane because he wouldn’t be jumping to this without practice, without consideration, if not for the circumstance. He grabs your ass to stop your fall. He’s not sure if the position is any better. 

“Well, this is humiliating,” you lament.

Well, then this is not what he wants.

Brow furrowed in annoyance, Steve doesn’t know what to do as the prickle returns beneath his feet. His mind doesn’t work this way.

He nuzzles into your neck for the briefest moment, mourning that sense of normalcy.

The window darkens to a mirror.

He can see. He can see what exactly there is not to see, and it’s not the answer he wanted.

Voice thick, strained from being pushed to limit after limit, Steve starts to truly understand the mission. His comfort zone just became a comfort continent and then sank in a tectonic disaster.

“Do your trust me?” he sighs into your temple.

You squeeze his shoulders, a ‘yes’ laced with forgiveness, or so he thinks.

Steve drops your legs, nudges your hips until you turn.

“Just look at me if you need to,” he whispers, finding your entrance from behind before sinking his cock back in. 

Your eyes flutter closed, and your hand flies out to keep upright as his pelvis slaps your ass. He moves to cup your mound and tease your clit.

He praises every gorgeous piece of you he can see, his lips so close to your ear that ‘p’ sounds pop with breath, ‘w’s are a whistling moan, and ‘r’s vibrate through his chest to your back.

He picks up the pace to near-frantic. His hand presses along with yours into the glass, squeaking down several inches, your hands sweatier near warmth. 

Yet…the light gets colder, and he knows you can feel the rough floor, too.

Steve’s blood is boiling for the wrong reasons. He wants to be left alone with you—he should be alone with you—and though the window may not show anyone watching, though no nooks or crannies hide cameras and microphones, there’s an audience.

The broad span of his palm blocks the ‘view’ of your sex and the connection between you, so he knocks your feet far apart and checks the reflection is unhindered.

You should be his. He should make it clear that to touch you is his privilege only. Sure, he would take too long to ask you out, and sure, he’d imagine—well—nothing where you are quite so vulnerable, nothing where he tries this before learning more of your body and pleasure, but definitely something that sets his brainstem on fire, something that tingles from his toes up to his balls. He’s pushing his quads to the brink of combustion. He’s so close yet been nudged and corrected to the point he suspects what’s next.

Steve tries to pull out, and immediately the floor is jagged and sharp.

He has to come inside you. He has to make it messy. He has to make it visible. He has to hope that’s enough.

Deliberately, he uses just one finger to rub your clit, unable to compartmentalize his fury and need any longer, and squats down to pound into you harder.

“Steve, I—it feels—“

He loves how you say his name.

“Too much? Does it hurt?” he rasps. He would never hurt you, so he reluctantly slows until you yelp in protect and press your two joined hands to the bulge of him in you belly.

Steve loses the battle with his brainstem, growling, “then give me everything.”

He would not stop now if nails were driven up the soles of his feet.

No sound leaves you, but he watches your unbridled cry in the mirror, supporting your weight as copious cum gushes from around his hammering dick.

 Steve’s eyes are glued to the reflection of you writhing, jerking uncontrollably, seizing everywhere, and it’s the best torture. 

He straightens his spine, cranes his neck to the ceiling, and continues, relentless, balls throbbing and cock twitching inside your slippery cunt.

A spotlight flares behind his eyelids.

He takes hold of your hips with bruising force, letting loose a prolonged, whining groan as that tight feeling surges, punching all the air from his lungs.

He stops you from shrinking away, wrapping his sweaty arms around you possessively. He falls backward, off balance as he pumps his cum inside you, shallowly thrusting without leverage in a sad attempt to bounce you in his lap that final bit.

Steve repeats “please” weakly.

Please let this be enough. Please let her stay. Please let us rest. Please leave us in peace.

Please don’t let this be the last time…

He hooks your knees over his, pointing you directly at the mirror even if he’s no longer looking, other palm heavy on your thigh keeping you wide. Once he’s somewhat recovered, once he feels the trickle of his cum slow, out of you, down your folds, dripping from his spent manhood, he releases you.

 You don’t move, but he certainly doesn’t mind you laying limp, pliant atop him. He quite like it.

The exhibition of your used sex is over.

The lights dim gently, the floor becomes soft, squishy like a mattress beneath his still faintly spasming ass.

Steve has his answers. He will never escape, and he doesn’t fight it. He won’t find a weakness in the walls or an edge to the window. 

He won’t apologize either. Instead, he brushes your tangled hair out of the way for a kiss on your cheek. He reverts to the type of tender and caring he wants to be. He stretches your legs, rolling you to the side and kneading your sore muscles, the joints he abused.

He cares that the temperature is comfortable for you, that you’re close to him, that the air smells fresh like an ocean breeze as it ghosts over your salty skin.

You look so tired and happy, that same, delicate smile blossoming again, dangerous as a nightshade in the moonlight.

“So…which date would that have been on?”

“Every single one of them,” he huffs, “from now on.”

[Main Masterlist; Steve Rogers One-Shots List; Ko-Fi]

After over one-hundred years, he's still having new experiences, but Steve certainly does not consider going to a bar tonight a 'new' experience. He shows up with Thor and Bucky, looks at the menu, and knows before the words come out that Buck is about to ask what the hell elderflower liquor is.

The prices are what Steve scoffs at, but who really cares if he knows no amount of it will get him drunk? Not these three men. Thor never even brings a wallet anywhere, just a flask, so they pass that special-bewitched-never-empty thing around while ordering food--and lots of it to make sure the waitress says nothing about the foreign silver canteen.

He doesn't usually partake. Every other time, when Steve has taken one polite swig, he's noticed nothing but the normal burn going down. That, and mead is deceptively sweet. He's not worried.

Steve thinks it's the hot food warming his belly, the spice of the jalapeño poppers are what's flushing his cheeks, and the music is getting better.

But it's not.

See, he is actually new to this. When Steve was a teen, his illnesses put strain on his lungs, his heart, his liver, his kidneys, you name it, so any alcohol (that wasn't the base of a cough medicine or mouth rinse) was a bad idea. Nothing improved as a young adult, but he had a cocktail or two at the dance halls. There's not much else to do when you won't dance. Problem is Steve never got drunk; he got sick. Sicker, more specifically. He has--to this very day--never experienced being drunk.

Steve is used to being hit, but only when he can see the fist coming.

Bucky...forgot about this until it was way too late.

You get an S.O.S. text begging you to come to the bar. The message is your only gauge for how the night's gone because Steve hasn't texted in hours. You haven't dated long, sure, but you'd expect super-responsible Steve to reach out in boredom not...

Oh.

Oh.

Jacket shrugged off, t-sleeves rolled up so even his shoulders are bare, Steve spots you before the others, suddenly springing to attention and fixing his hair with a rushed sweep of his hand.

Bucky then looks up to wave you over, seemingly unaware of his own floating constitution, holding the drink menu up like a fan for his poor nerves.

Steve is clearly interested and giving you the eyes. "Hey, gorgeous," he blurts with a lopsided grin.

Bucky shouts overtop him, slowing your approach. "Why do you people need to mess with a classic?"

"Explain who 'you people' are in that question."

"HUMANS," Thor bellows.

Bucky points to the laminate page in agreement. "This is not how a sidecar is made."

"Creative license," you offer dismissively, turning to Steve. "How you feeling, big guy?"

"I am spectacular!" Thor leans on Steve's shoulder. "Have a dram?"

Before the cap-full is passed to you, Steve snatches it and downs the liquid.

"Nope." He races to cover his mouth, loosing a belch strong enough to feel as a breeze. "Shit, sorry, doll."

"Not safe for humans," Bucky agrees again. "I've been hoping to order--"

"HOW'S ABOUT--" you announce, forging a path to the bar --"I grab a pitcher of water?! Think that's the best bet right now..."

Good god, he's toasted.

Thankfully, asking for water gets you service super fast, and you're quickly back on your way.

'Quickly' might be an overstatement in the thickening crowd, however, when you can't make it all fifteen feet without being bumped.

The accidental strike knocks you off-course, and Bucky lunges to take the pitcher before it spills. In an attempt to correct yourself, you fall into Steve's chest.

He doesn't notice. He's only seeing red beyond your shoulder.

"Watch where you'r--re going," Steve slurs at the passer-by, possibly burping mid-word.

"Relax, man," the guy drawls, flicking a wrist, uncaring to look at who spoke, and loudly muttering.

"Fucking lightweight."

Sure, Steve has pick fights over the honor of others since forever, and yeah, he's been called derogatory things the majority of his life, but hearing 'lightweight' sends him over the edge. In an instant, Steve is a skinny kid who's ninety pounds soaking wet.

One who swings his fists...and misses.

Thor roars. "Fight!"

"No," you scream as loud as you can while the unbalanced behemoth of current-day-Steve-Rogers regains his footing, shoving you forward.

Bucky apologizes, trying to defuse the situation including Thor's excitement to avenge Steve's honor.

You can't see any of it.

Steve's leaning into you, pinning you between the edge of the hightop table and his strong chest. He looks down with a dopey smile like he didn't just throw a (really bad) punch at some idiot.

"What brings a beautiful woman such as your--" he hiccups "--self to a place like this?" Steve shifts too far on one foot and almost stumbles, slamming his hand on the table to break his fall. "Meant to do that." He's then delighted to notice what his hand landed in.

The tray is produced and exhibited with a flourish. "Fries, m'lady?"

Out of nowhere, Thor pops over Steve's shoulder again. "I taught him that!"

Steve nods.

"He did." Your boyfriend takes a fry to snack on briefly. "He taught me that when I said there was a girl I've fallen in love with."

Steve eats a few more fries, clearly uncomfortable letting that information hang in the air, though he keeps his focus--inconsistent as his vision may be--on you.

You've been on several dates with this man, known him for months and months, talked about taking things slow because neither of you want to scare the other or screw this up. Apparently, he doesn't quite remember that part, though, so Steve bends his head down beside your ear and whispers, "I want to make you drip like that pitcher."

"THE ABSOLUTE SHIT DID YOU JUST SAY, PUNK?" Bucky whips around.

"I did not teach him that," Thor chuckles, still scaring off the last of the club-bros.

Ah, to have super-human ears and dry panties.

Steve steps back, tongue running achingly deliberate across his lips.

"I'm--" he hiccups and shrugs "--trying something new."

When no one responds save for open-mouthed shock, Steve simply announces that he's very thirsty and pins you between his hard body and the table.

"I love YOU PEOPLE," Thor raves, sparking the crowd to join him on the dance floor.

[Main Masterlist; Sleepover Masterlist; Steve Rogers One-Shots]

You’re boiling in a pant suit, the one you specifically have for presentations like this, but whether it’s the stress of finals or the still-dissipating fever of the last week, you don’t know. You fight the urge to wipe sweat from your face and just pray you aren’t visibly damp anywhere.

Professor Barber is wearing his own suit jacket. He isn’t glistening at all. He looks perfectly fine, ticking boxes on your evaluation and flipping between slides on the tablet in front of him.

He’s shaken his head three times already. There was no applause when you finished, nothing but a sigh.

You’re going to snap like a twig. A desiccated, over-strained twig that’s been rained on for the sole purpose of making breaking suck worse.

Why did you finish your entire, electrolyte-enhanced water bottle two-thirds of the way through your speech? Why—why is your professor saying absolutely nothing?

You missed the class presentations due to illness, are making it up in office hours, and might shrivel in such oppressive, stifling heat. Is the air conditioning even working in here? It must not be since without ambient sound you can hear the neighboring professor so well in all his bitching glory.

“Why do I need to pick up the—you’re closer to the grocery. What? I’m here another two hours so—why are you? No…No, remember I bought those damn condoms becau—“

“Leibowitz,” Professor Barber shouts.

“—I’m not— Hold on,” then even louder, “yeah, Andy?!”

“For god sakes, man.”

There’s a muffled ‘shit’ but no outright apology, and Mr. Barber immediately goes back to his infuriating note-taking. Professor Leibowitz keeps talking, but none of the words are clear anymore.

When he isn’t writing something, he clicks the top of the pen, a move you never saw in class. Professor Barber is a great conversationalist, he’s smooth and personable, and he does not fidget, all of which is great for preparing witnesses or making them crumble on the stand. 

You wonder if it’s a good or bad sign that he’s not using that talent now. His class has built a solid foundation for your career. Ethics is by no means the last class you’ll take, but after this semester you can apply for internships. In those terms, this man holds the proverbial keys to the kingdom, and instead of smiling, he rubs at his beard and says one word:

“Shame.”

The weight of heat, stress, and fatigue collapses in on you. Tears rain down your face while you fail to hold in wet sobs. You worked so hard for so long. You triple checked everything. You practiced the presentation in pieces (between mandatory naps) and in full over and over again last night (during a fever dream of cough medicine). What could have gone so wrong?

You’ve buried your face in your hands, your heavy, tired head lolling you off balance, preventing you from noticing the man rushing around his desk.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, I meant it’s a shame.” His hands smooth against the sleeves of your blazer, but nothing can slow your machine-gun crying. He continues anyway. “That was so good, it’s a shame the whole class couldn’t see it. You answered half the questions that came up after other student’s—“

“Everything okay in there?” the neighbor calls out, knocking on the office door.

“Yeah, Matt, we’re fine.” Professor Barber responds with unmistakable irritation in his voice. “Just having one of those end-of-semester cathartic moments.”

“Hmm, right…I’m about to have one of those tomorrow myself.” 

Your teacher apologizes for the noise, thanks Leibowitz for checking in, and tries to steady you in his hold.

“It’s fine. You’re fine, honey,” he slips. “Never meant to scare you. I didn’t realize I said it like that. You’re alright.” He rips a tissue out of the box behind him and pries fingers back from your face to reveal the wreckage of your composure. Gently, he dabs your cheeks, brow furrowed in concern.

After a long moment, he reiterates, “did you hear me? That was excellent. You were excellent. So much so I think I’ll need to use it next year, especially the part about—no, no, hun!”

As a fresh wave of overwhelm takes you, Mr. Barber keeps you from falling out of the chair, sweeping you into a bracing hug. You notice when he holds you tucked at his neck, that he’s not wearing a tie, a strange, casual detail which allows you to see this peek of trimmed, dark chest hair. Very day-off flair.

He smells fresh, a spike of woodsy notes when you turn away, his beard catching your hair before he apologizes again and smooths a hand over you.

The warmth of his palm makes you shiver—embarrassingly—and gasp slightly.

“I really am…so—“ his face is only inches away “—so sorry.”

Your pulse in your throat hammers with a choking thud thud thud so loud you’re sure he can tell through his touch.

From your seat in his lecture hall, you never knew just how blue his eyes are, and now, you can’t seem to look away. With a soft gaze, relaxed lids, and pupils much too large for the harsh fluorescents shining above him like a halo, he makes you want to collapse, to drape yourself in weary surrender over cheap furniture, to strip naked amongst the air of old books and manly focus.

Jesus, you’re fucking sick.

You swallow and glance down, unwittingly, straight down to his slacks, crisp navy pleats framing a dark metal buckle. You force your eyes back up to the bookshelves before registering the emblem above his crotch. That’s the most composure you can muster as his arms fall away from you.

“Sit. Sit, please. I’ll only be a minute,” Mr. Barber rushes out, rounding his desk, shuffling for a file that takes him three stacks to locate. “Let me just…” He furiously types in little bursts as he refers to the open page. “Almost…and done.”

Sighing loudly again, he stands and leans against his fists on the desk. “Your grade is entered. You are no longer my student—“ he smiles, softening even more though he towers over you “—and you can call me ‘Andy,’ if you want, when you probably tell me off.”

This time, when the professor steps closer, he says your first name, something you haven’t heard him utter since the intro class’s roster reading. He only spoke in Miss, Misses, and Misters after that. The word is sultry when it falls from his lips, tantalizing, nearly inspiring.

Your body draws up slightly, following his approach, willing him near without fully standing.

“Class is over,” he whispers, “but I…I would love to see you more.”

“Oh god yes,” you blurt. There’s a good chance your brain believes this is another one of those dreams you’ve been plagued with all semester, the ones where that clean, white button-down gets wrinkled in your grasping fists and his beard burns over your whole body.

Fuck, you are so thirsty. Your tongue sweeps out involuntarily.

His eyes are on you.

“Yeah? Really?” His fingers twitch like he’s holding back, trying not to reach for you without permission again. He rattles through your other options—he can stop, you don’t have to be here, you can walk away, no hard feelings, just wants you not to be upset when leaving—but barely allows the shake of your head and push of your arm from the chair to complete before pouncing forward.

Andy kisses you like he’s a student again, sneaking deep into the library stacks with you, crushing you flush to the bookcases on the far wall of his office, hands broad and supportive while his knee braces between yours.

You’re held high on pure heat, delirious, suffocating on woodsy notes and academic taboo, yet the biggest break is actually him.

You’ve never seen this man babble. He’s always composed, always finds the right words, but you’ve rattled him.

“Had no designs…knew you were smart and impressive…you’ll make a great lawyer because you do the work and do it thoroughly and well…want you on my side at trial…watched you go hard when you suspect someone is wrong about the slightest thing…” 

Andy’s compliments pull him away from exploring your mouth. He clears his throat when you whine, slipping to sit on his knee with your face still tilted for his taking.

Compulsively, his hand sweeps over his mouth and beard, a learned and practiced behavior to give him a second’s reprieve. He has to think. He can’t think with you. The overwhelming heat is a two-way street.

“In fact,” Mr. Barber starts slowly, “I’ve a few firms I’d recommend for your internship, but… there could be a conflict in writing you formal recommendations now.” He leans to rest his forehead to yours. “Sorry.”

Stifling, ready to tear off your clothing and his, enamored by his restraint as well as his pining, your words crackle through an unwitting chuckle.

“How very ethical of you, professor.”

[Main Masterlist; Who Would...Masterlist; Ko-Fi]

A/N: Better late than never? Whoops this took me since September? Writing has been a bitch lately, so let's just push through, huh?!

Never written Andy before so I have no Andy girlies to tag except @sarahdonald87

He's just so easy to read, like an emotional open book, and when Steve's worried about anything at all, you just have to sit with him and stare. He always cracks. He'll tell you everything, and as you continue to gaze with that caring he always recognizes in your eyes, he keeps going, every bit of honesty just flowing out of him.

Sometimes, however, Steve begs for you to change back. He wants to listen to you talk about your day. He wants to hear what you think, what you would do in his place, what you've been up to. Steve likes companionship in all its forms--you in all your forms--but loves the equanimity of human-to-human interaction.

There are so many reasons you shift to a cat, but the biggest is that life is simpler this way. It was the motivation for your first change: you wanted things to be simple. If you feel small, you can be small. If you don't feel like talking, you don't have to.

Steve envies your powers honestly. He knows what it was like to be small and overlooked. Steve actually misses that from time to time. He never thought he would.

Tonight, though he has no idea why you've felt the need to be small and quiet, Steve holds you in his lap, balancing your fluffy body in a soft curl at his hip. He talks, and once he's covered all the important bits of his day, he keeps talking about nothing at all. He mentions a new houseplant or two that he wants, but he's not sure whether to find some clippings to propagate or to go buy them.

Steve never noticed how much he talks about food until he started filling the empty air with you. He would apologize for that, but he has a lot of opinions about chicken (all the proteins, really) and serving sizes (you stop him with a chirp when he mentions 'pricing' though). There are also certain meals that go very well with certain types of weather, which he thinks should be obvious but still lays out a case for having soup and stew always at the ready for rainy days and--

"Are you asleep, babygirl?" he asks in astonishment. "Why didn't you stop me? You could have asked to go to bed if you were tired."

Steve tries very hard not to turn his frown upside down as you yawn, a big gesture for such a little thing. You're so cute. You know he can't resist the fierceness of your fangs coupled with your half-closed eyes.

You roll onto your back in his lap, a dopey, quirky look on your squished face, staring at him again.

"What?" Steve pokes gently at your belly. "You'd rather watch TV? Do--what's that stupid phrase--Netflix and chill?"

You pop upright, tail swatting between his knees, and slow-blink at him.

"You're very predictable, darling," he chides, grabbing the remote but kissing your head as he leans over. "Why'd you let me go on an' on?" Steve whispers an apology while you shove your skull into his cheek. "I don't mean to bore you. You could have--" he feels you shake your head "--no? Not boring you?" He leans back. "How is listening to me jabber not boring?"

You stand to put one paw on his chest, the other tucked to your own, holding his brilliant blue gaze.

You've told him you love his voice. You've told him you love to know what he's thinking, that everything he says is important to you, but...Steve hasn't considered how you being in Alpine-form forces him to use his voice.

Because you want to know what he's thinking.

Because you want to hear all of the things that take up important space in his thoughts.

Because you know that he won't if there's anyone else there, any other person, any other human.

Steve Rogers always puts other humans above himself. If anyone else is in the room, Steve's not the priority, so...

The second his face drops in understanding, you look smug as hell and cheekily bat your fuzzy paw at his lips.

"Ha ha, very funny," he drawls. "You think you're so smart, don't you!"

Steve scoops you up in his arms and peppers you with kisses, tightening his grip a smidge.

"What if I don't turn on your show, huh? What are you gonna do about it?" There's a familiar pressure against him, and your body becomes much heavier. He lets the shift happen as usual then looks down.

You, human-you, snuggle into his lap, the rest stretched across the couch, turned away from the television to focus only on him.

"Nothing."

Steve plays with your hair quietly because of course he stops filling the air already.

"Tell me about all these soups we're going to make."

You poke his side as Steve laughs. You know his tricks. He's so easy to read, but no matter what, he's your favorite open book.

[Main Masterlist; Light Masterlist; Ko-Fi]

Steve grins at the kids frantically bouncing around when they see him. The young boys and girls call out questions in competition with each other, antsy for him to come into their classroom, uncaring that he can’t answer over the screaming.

He, of course, happily shuffles in, taking two strides where each child takes five. Steve's heart swells at the sight of papier-mâché helmets, origami side caps, and striped skirts made of felt strips and cut up white sheets. 

They made costumes.

“Okay, kids,” their teacher manages to shout in the din. “Places!”

In alternating red and blue t-shirts, the boys and girls line up, desks pushed into the corners of the room and stacked higher than they are tall.

You herd your students like cats into a very loose V shape.

“Who…” you start to lead, wearing your much nicer and more accurate outfit.

The kids all whip up their arms up in salute, a few using the wrong hand before they’re corrected by a neighbor.

“WHO’S STRONG AND BRAVE,” everyone slowly yells almost in unison, “HERE TO SAVE THE AMERICAN WAY?”

Most of the children stick their left leg out to the side and tuck it back in, taking a step forward. You  wink at him; you’re doing the moves with them and helping with the words.

—campaign door-to-door—

Steve sees you waving him to jump in, but he hasn’t thought of this dance for what feels like fifteen years. He watches you do a kick-ball-change, the kids doing a simple little kick because clearly there’s only so much you can teach the youngsters.

Whatever possesses him in that moment, he’s grateful.

Steve moves into the middle of the V and marches, his steps tentative as he follows your cues

—Hoboken to Spokane—

There’s multiple pronunciations throttled in volume for fun.

By this point, the performers amongst the students are very obvious, one boy just mumbling with a sagging salute that ends up in a head scratch. It’s one of the most adorable presentations he’s ever seen.

Who’ll rise or fall, give his all for America?

He’s getting into it now, walking the span of the line and offering high-fives to the kids, folding himself in the row beside you for can can.

Who’s here to prove that we can?

There are no measurable beats. He began rushing to think ahead but ends a bit too fast. It’s the most fun he’s had in a while though the two verses you and your kids have practiced is enough. Steve beams at the final, joyous scream of“THE STAR-SPANGLED MAN WITH A PLAN!”

The kid celebrate themselves—as they should—and struggle to listen to your corralling for one last surprise.

Instead of a whole other tune, there’s just a very slow, deafening cry of ‘happy birthday, Captain Rogers.’

“Thank you,” he returns. “Thank you so much!”

“How old are you?” one kid shrieks.

“One-hundred and seven,” another answers before Steve’s mouth even opens.

There’s gasps and a couple of ewwww-s.

“Actually, it’s more like forty,” he admits.

“Forty? That’s older than my dad.”

“Mine, too.”

“That’s crazy. What’s it like?!”

Steve wants to say it’s a bit like being 107 properly when they react like that, but kids will be kids.

“Alright, guys and girls, Captain America has to go see some other rooms before his talk this afternoon.” You clap to regain attention. “Let’s put our room back in order, okay?”

They excitedly scatter as you show him out to the hallway, Steve’s helping handlers for the day standing toward the other end to mark his next stop.

“Forty, huh? That’s a milestone,” you add with a sweet smile. “Must have big plans!”

Steve scratches at his neck nervously. “If I have my way, it will be something quiet…” He takes a long look at your fairly accurate costume, makeup, and, specifically, red lipstick. “Maybe now I’ll add a bit of dancing to the menu, ya know, since I’m feeling spry…for a relic.”

Your laugh echos in the mostly empty hall. “You picked it back up very quickly. Good muscle memory.”

“It’s like riding a bike,” he chirps, sharply inhaling to puff out his chest, gathering confidence. “And you’re a great teacher. I always had a pretty good memory even though I’m apparently so old.” Steve enjoys the sound of your laugh again. “For example, if you tell me your number, I’ll learn it. Easy.”

Happy Bday, Stevie!

Steve rubs at the blue powder as it shimmers on his exposed fingertips. After trapping an enemy grenade beneath his shield, he thought everything trapped beneath would turn to dust—ash, specifically—but this feels more fine and then disappears as if it were never there.

He runs his thumb along the inside again.

Perhaps his mind is playing tricks on him. Perhaps his eyes are still adjusting from the flash-bangs of battle. He could swear he saw though, but there’s no time to ponder. When he tosses the shield, letting it ricochet twice before thudding against an enemy agent’s skull, all the remnants of powder dislodge and faintly rain down to the concrete floor. He assumes the glittery substance gets incinerated later once the building is set alight.

Steve doesn’t feel any different. He’s not sick or incapacitated. He returns to HQ with the usual fanfare he loathes, grins and bares it, yet notices one congratulatory handshake in particular has him relaxing significantly, a drape of rose-colored calm descending down his body after his nostrils flare and his slightly sweating palm tingles.

The woman is on Echo Team, and he supervised some of her training months and months ago. Steve keeps everything professional—always has—so he swallows the odd, overwhelming surge of desire that twists in his gut, allowing the excited newest recruits to pull him away.

He visits the infirmary later that night, concerned that he seems to be taking deep breaths that somehow aren’t…satisfying? It’s difficult to describe to the doctor, who finds nothing strange in the sound or strength of his lungs, but Steve also fails to mention the blue powder that may or may not have absorbed into his skin.

So embarrassing, you chastise yourself, tucking into the back bench surrounding the practice mats in the gym. Cap doesn’t deserve to be ogled like a slab of meat while he’s working.

You can’t help it.

It’s like a flood of intense arousal hit you—harder than the super soldier can hit, truly, the gentleman—the moment you opened the door. Normally, this is a safe place to let go of sexual tension, to flush it out of your body, because the stench of sweat hovers thick in the air.

It smells…uh god, it smells spectacular today, warm and natural.

Your core feels heavy, a boulder anchoring you to the bench, planting you squarely in the sightline of Steve Rogers teaching two Deltas a fresh evasive technique. You lean forward, burying your nose against a closed fist to block some of the aroma, trying to gain the focus and momentum to get on with your own exercise.

Instead, minutes of staring later, Jones shouts your name.

“You good? You wanna jump in?”

Rogers doesn’t look up, his face pinched and hands shoved in his pockets. “We done for now,” he says with a curt nod, the sharpest of glances whipped in your direction, and the captain excuses himself.

Jones hops up one of the bleacher steps.

“How heavy was your workout today, Pinkie? You’re sweating bullets.”

That stupid nickname will haunt you forever, damn it, but he’s right. You are perspiring enough to leave drops rolling down your back and neck. The shock of one bead dripping between your breasts causes you to sit suddenly straight, and you haven’t done anything at all.

So embarrassing.

He’s a handsome man, no doubt about that, but he’s not hanging around for your pleasure. Rogers is here to do a job, as are you.

“Can I ask you a question?” Steve starts delicately.

Nat swirls her bottle of beer, a lazy smirk blooming in anticipation. He always asks that before something pertaining to romance in the modern world. She’s discussed this tell with him repeatedly but never fails to enjoy his shy pokes for dating tips.

Not that Steve has used any of her advice, but Natasha remains hopeful.

“What did Yelena say the Red Room mind-control felt like?”

Nat’s face falls. That was a chance of pace.

“Why…”

“I just wondered whether it was, ya know, blind obedience—“ Steve props himself on his arms across the table, quiet so as not to draw anyone else in the common area’s interest “—or an unexplained loyalty? Did she feel like a…a slave or was it a kind of…”

Nat takes a long sip of her beer, eyes narrowing.

“Love,” he finishes. “Did it seem like she loved following orders from Dreykov?”

“That’s an awful way to put it,” Nat mutters, disgusted.

Steve is quick to wave it off, telling her never mind, forget it, but he doesn’t change the subject once he notices she’s thinking on it.

“As far as I know, the Widow formula worked same as the Winter Soldier’s conditioning. They had no choice, no conscious thought about obeying or not.”

“Was it from electricity?” Steve presses. “Or a powder?”

“Her cure was what was kinda an aerosolized pow—what is this about?” Nat scoots closer to him across the small space. “Why are you asking about this?”

Steve does a poor impression of a man casually shrugging and enjoying a beer but stays distracted, scanning the room.

She sucks her cheek thoughtfully. “I don’t know about the mind-control thing, but I know that’s not what the pheromone lock felt like.” After Steve perks up, she attempts to elaborate. “That I could think about how much I wanted to hurt him, but my body couldn’t do it. I began the action, my arm moved at first, but no followthrough. One of the weirdest moments of my life. I was helpless.”

He’s always appreciated how honest Nat will be with him. Both of them work to be normal in a world they don’t really belong in.

“Helpless,” she adds, “not unaware.”

That’s how he feels; Steve cannot control how much he thinks about you, how he seeks out even a whiff of you, how ingrained his need has become so quickly.

He’s watched security footage of your team trainings, listened to your comms track of mission recordings, and stole a piece of your clothing.

Technically, Steve did not intend to take anything. It just happened.

Yesterday, you ran through the hall with your laundry in an open hamper, smacked right into him when rounding a corner, and dropped something without noticing.

He could have called after you. He could have returned the thin tank that lay crumpled at his feet. He did not. Steve held the soft bundle in one fist, deliberately down by his side, until alone in his quarters. He stood there just inside the door, thinking till it hurt about how wrong he was for doing this, how wrong he was for even thinking about you that way.

So he threw the garment into the trash and went about his night normally.

Steve, however, found himself with that same hand clamped over his nose and mouth as he furiously stroked his cock in the dark. He wouldn’t wash it until another round in the morning, shamed and sticky in the bed, breathing in the satisfaction like oxygen, his heart beating fast enough to concern him again.

He hasn’t gone to the doctor though since he knows what’s wrong.

He’s infected. He suspects you might be, too.

The goddamn training videos all feature Captain Rogers fighting.

You’re going to die.

It’s torture to sit in an uncomfortable chair, flanked by ten of your fellow junior agents, and watch his body spin, his chest heave, his legs spread as he leaps farther than any of these boys can hope to. Goddamn it, you’re going to die.

Rogers lets out this faint grunt when he’s been pummeling someone for a while and the microphone and camera are close enough. The footage is a mix of real battle and simulation, with blows either not connecting with the volunteers sparring or his punches being pulled. Those struggling noises actually get worse and more frequent when Rogers isn’t truly fighting. It appears harder for him to hold back than to go full-bore.

Goddamn it, he’s so hot.

The problem is two-fold now: these glimpses of him—hints of him by sight or sound or smell—throw your hormones into overdrive, AND when your adrenaline spikes, you’re desperate for a hit of him.

After the latest successful mission, with Echo Team being transported home on one of the main jets, the ones with lockers for the Big Six just in case, you found yourself pulled to that very corner, itching all over to find the source of that utterly intoxicating musk. You had to have it. You would combust without it, crawl right out of your skin, waste away on the grating and cargo net without it.

You wedged yourself in the small space behind the lockers, smothering the Cap suit to your face, nose practically bruised by the ridges of the shining star at his chest’s center, imagining it resting against his sternum. You let the flood wash over you, the pulse of sheer passion devastating your nervous system and exploding in your veins.

You imagine the body inside the suit pressing you into the wall with those broad shoulders, those strong arms pinning you by waist, that lean pelvis crushing your hips into the metal hurtling twenty-thousand feet above the Earth, and those dextrous hands anchoring your throat to offer him the best access.

Your head thuds against the lockers, alerting your team to shout from the front, calling you to rejoin them. Reluctantly, you replace the suit in silence, petting how the supple leather one last time before locking away that weakness to which you keep succumbing.

Goddamn it.

Steve’s convinced he’s going insane until Natasha tracks him down while they prep for a big multi-national sting of Ten Rings terror cells.

“Took a look at the Red Room files,” she throws out. “Found something interesting.”

At first, Steve doesn’t catch that this isn’t about the job at hand.

“The scientists played with the controls together.”

“Huh?” He tightens a clasp on his suit and swears his brain senses a phantom hint of you. “What controls? Was Red Room ever working with Ten Rings?”

“No, I mean the mind-control and the pheromone lock. They tried to kill two birds with one stone.”

Steve slides on his glove. “And?”

“Well, the results were catastrophic, so the project was abandoned.” Her brow ticks up when she notices his sudden, undivided attention. “It was a dual-acting compound, the owner of the Widow took one chemical and the Widow took the other. For obedience, loyalty, all that shit you mentioned. Added bonus being that you could sell a specific client a Widow only beholden to him. There were test subjects it didn’t work on at all, but there were also those who…”

Steve holds his breath.

“…became obsessed with each other. The—quote—‘owner’ lost control because he was also devoted to his Widow, and you can’t care about disposable resources, can you?” Nat’s voice drips with bitterness and judgment. “So, yeah, abandoned. There’s no mention of the testing continuing. They just moved on.”

“They just—what? Cured the subjects?”

“It didn’t work, Steve,” Natasha softly hisses back at his strained tone. “That’s what I’m telling you.” Her eyes bulge, encouraging the dots to connect. “Terminated. Widows don't have attachments, either.”

“Killed them,” he squeaks, clearing his throat. “And there were different powders?”

“Funny you should mention ‘powder’ because they did color-code them.”

Steve’s stomach drops. He know what’s coming.

“One was described as rozovyy.” Natasha turns to walk with him across the hangar to their gathered troop of agents. “Reminds me of that incident where Pinkie got exposed. Spent eight days in quarantine because two of the noobs played Hot Potato with what they thought was a dud dispersal pod. You remember that scare?”

He swipes his tongue over dry lips. “I recall something of the sort.”

“Guess we don’t have anything to worry about though. Nobody got doused in azure, did they?”

Steve swallows hard, sweating, heart rate kicking up, but it’s possible that’s because you’re among the agents assigned today and he can see you, positioned in the back—unnecessarily for your current rank,— focused strategically at his feet.

He swings around, halting Nat with a firm hand.

“Was there a reason they found it worked on some and not others?”

She sighs. “The pair that hated each other, it didn’t take. They did not want to be bonded in any way. There was no mutual…let’s call it ‘respect.’ That was the best guess.”

“Right.” Steve hangs his head, catching another imaginary whiff.

If he’s not already insane, it’s only a matter of time, and he knows it.

[Part Two]

The storms have lasted 44 hours so far. Since his apartment is too small for two full-grown humans (who aren’t a couple) to live, you’ve spent the majority of these cooped-up days as Alpine. Buck has resorted to cleaning a rifle on the coffee table, and in doing so, he triggered the laser scope.

Of course, now he’s going on the second hour of using the laser to play ‘kill the bastard red dot’ with you. He’s delighted at your animated, affronted attack on the lightning fast devil, playing along that the perfectly uncatchable point is simply slipping from your paws. It is a blast to chase, but his laugh values even higher than you can jump up the wall.

The dot disappears.

Your eyes are wild, your furry chest heaving from the exercise of jumping and flipping.

Bucky’s phone is turned over in his hand, and he glares seriously at the screen, taking a deep breath. You think it’s because he’s been called to a mission.

Instead, he bites his cheek and looks your way. “Pretty girl,” he says softly, “I need you to not freak out, okay?”

That can’t be good.

“Human-style freak out, I mean.”

Your eyes sting in the drying wind lashing past your fur, but as much as you’d like to blame the alarming tap of errant raindrops in your face, it’s actually that you would be crying were you in your real form right now.

By the time you and Bucky walk up to HQ, you’ve decided it’s best to get this over with. You’d choose to never do this, if you could, but that ship has sailed.

“You don’t have to go in there,” Bucky assures you, the stairwell door clicking shut to give you some privacy to shift. “You give me the word and Steve sends him packing.”

“I’m fine.” You yank the door open and barrel past him. “I’m fine.”

Bucky whistles and ticks his head the other way down the hall. In your defense, you’ve never gone to Steve’s actual office. You’ve only been in this building a handful of times really.

The first face you see inside is his, deliberately placed to show you concern and empathy, because Steve, like Bucky, fears this interaction.

Your father doesn’t even look up.

He sits on a small couch, wringing his hands, a flask and the news article with your picture, smiling, on the coffee table in front of him.

That’s how he found you: a candid photo where Tony Stark stood beside you after creating your collar. The blur in the corner of the photo is Steve’s back if you remember correctly.

Dad focuses on the small vessel like booze will answer all his prayers. 

Some things never change.

“Could we have some privacy?” he asks you meekly.

Before your lips can part, both men behind you bark “no,” punctuated by Steve’s “no way.”

As much as you don’t want Steve and Bucky to know about your previous life, you’re comforted. You cannot stand for them to leave you alone with this man. Buck perches in a corner, looking fittingly scary. After you take a seat across from your father, Steve remains at your shoulder but not too close, arms crossed over his broad chest.

And so it begins.

Though less contentious than you expected, Dad starts into a long-winded excuse that lacks almost any detail. When your father says he looked for you, Steve bristles and bites out a strained “not good enough” before chewing his tongue instead. The sudden gesture not only made your father squeak in alarm, but you shrank away from him in the chair.

He brought alcohol in a flask but swears it’s been hours since he’s had a drop.

“I have a theory that you’re like me…and I drink so I won’t…change.”

 He’s ready to tell you even if you aren’t; Mom knew only that he left home at a very young age, but the truth is he ran away.

Your grandparents fought a lot apparently, and grandpa beat his wife and son. Dad was abused, and abused, and then he escaped by ‘changing.’

He doesn’t specify. He just…changed. He ran, terrified for many reasons, and couldn’t get back home, couldn’t control it, and got caught in a sticky trap and had to rip skin off of his foot.

It hurt, your father swears, so he tried to numb it like he saw his mother and father do. Alcohol made it easier, but he couldn’t control it. 

“Stole jewelry mostly, small things I could carry and hoard, so when I changed back, I could pawn them,” Dad confesses. “You see, when Princess came around and meant so much to your mom, I drank. It was the only way I knew how to stay human! So—so the cat wouldn’t hurt me, but if I couldn’t…”

That’s how he lost ‘his job,’ which wasn’t a real job and wasn’t being supportive of you and mom and certainly wasn’t being a good man anyway.

He hoped you weren’t like him. If he’d told you or Mom and you’d freaked out? He thought he’d end up in a lab somewhere. He was so afraid all the time. Then Mom died, you ran away, he realized you could have shifted and been scared. He looked for you but has no answers, no real understanding of any of it, no stability to offer.

Dad is close to tears, his fingers instinctively stretching toward the flask.

“I wasn’t worth coming back to. I know that. I’ve done too much—too little in the past to be forgiven. I was never wanted this way.”

He becomes jumpier and more agitated by the minute, and then Steve grumbles a single phrase.

“Abused becoming abusers in different ways.”

Your father shivers, squeaks again, and begins to shift. His clothes pile there empty, cascading from the cushions to the floor until a pink nose nuzzles out from between a shirt tail and waistband.

“Oh,” Bucky startles. “Oh.”

“It’s…it’s a rat,” Steve deadpans in confusion. They weren’t paying the closest attention to your father’s implications, likely horrified to know this much more about your past and childhood, this stuff you never talk about because you like to focus on the future.

“Give us some space,” you sigh reluctantly. “Please.”

You know he needs to feel safe but won’t with two super soldiers towering over him in an unknown building.

“Only because you asked,” Bucky says loudly. “Be right outside.”

Steve’s hand rests on your shoulder for a long moment while he debates moving at all. Finally, when Bucky holds the door open for him, Steve lets go and steps closer to the couch, several terrified squeaks coming from the corner.

“We would never hurt her.” Then near silently. “We love her.”

He’s out before you process the words.

In the quiet that follows, while your father calms down and you…think, you go around to the other side of Steve’s desk, hoping the physical distance will help both of you feel less caged.

There—in the righthand, prominent spot by the pen cup—is a framed sketch of you, as Alpine, sleeping. Your chest tightens, full of the lucky feeling that springs from being so much better than the broken creature on the other side of the room. You were older when you shifted. You found Bucky on day one. Those two sweet and patient men barely blinked when you posted needed them.

Dad had none of that.

He coped, but he coped poorly.

Sure, you were both scared and confused, completely caught off-guard by the shift, but you were angry, too. You were grieving and determined. You were…

…not alone.

“I learned to control it,” you project over the desk. “You can, too. In fact, I—I hope you do because burying all your worries and insecurities in alcohol isn’t fucking working.”

Dad reforms in the corner by the couch, pulling his clothes over him quickly. “I know,” he admits.

“Mom would have wanted you to get better, to feel better without numbing yourself. She…she really loved you.”

“I know.” You spin the desk chair around while he slips on his clothing. “They really love you here, too, huh?”

You bite back a smile, realizing the truth of it. You’re not in a ‘phase’ of life. You don’t have to move on from them, your people, your family.

“This—“ you say confidently “—is not a place people like us need to hide.”

Bucky takes over handling your father’s travel back to his home. Dad will be offered any resources he needs to learn to shift at will, but it won’t be you who oversees it. You’re not there yet.

Steve’s hand is on your waist or the small of your back from the instant you emerge, uncaring who in the hallway is watching. Once your father is out of sight, he steers you into his shadow and asks what he can do, what you need from him right now, and you squirrel yourself into the office again.

Steve’s steadying hand becomes an arm then the other, an all-encompassing hug that warms you somehow deeper than your very bones.

Family is exhausting. Family is everything, too.

“I was so young,” he whispers, face buried in your hair while yours nuzzles to his chest, “but I know Ma was…I know my father had his demons. Then my ma fought everybody’s—taught me to fight everybody’s demons—but you don’t have to. It’s an excuse. Unless he proves he’s sorry? Well, even saying it doesn’t undo—“

“Can I stay here a while?” you interrupt. It’s not that you don’t appreciate what Steve’s telling you, but you’ve had enough of talking, you’ve had enough of listening, and you want to settle your soul in the comfortable place it was just hours ago, joyfully bouncing around chasing an uncatchable dot. That feat seems more possible now than fixing a broken relationship.

“Of course,” Steve mumbles to your temple.

You let the shrinking feeling takeover and shift into Alpine. He immediately understands you’re done talking, returning to his desk, assuming you’ll curl up on the couch for some distance.

Rain batters the lone, thin window. Bucky won’t ride back to the apartment in this weather if he can help it, so he’ll wait it out as well.

Instead, you hop into Steve’s lap and watch him type out a message to Buck that you’re okay.

Before you lay down for a nap, one desperately needed to replenish your wiped out emotional bandwidth, you step up on Steve’s pec to headbutt his strong jaw. The fondness makes him chuckle.

He cups his hand around your side and kisses your soft head.

“Careful there, cutie, or I’ll take you home with me.”

Wouldn’t be so bad, you think, enjoying the soothing pitter-patter of drops down the glass pane and the subtle roar from wind, since he loves me an’ all.

[Next Part: Borrowed For Blue]

[Main Masterlist; Steve Rogers Series List; Bucky Barnes Masterlist]

It's a simple mistake.

When Pete called to book for your group of four people (because Mr. Everett is running a very small campaign to keep it very personal for this rural tour), the older woman who owns the tiny B&B heard "a family of four" and held only two rooms. The old, converted mansion doesn't have connecting suites or a basement full of cots to request. There's naught but a high-backed chair in the corner other than the single queen-sized bed against the other wall, and considering you heard Tommy exclaim, "two twins, you gotta be kidding me," no better options exist.

There's three grown men and you. That's it. So either two six-footers struggle--you know what? This isn't your fault, it's just one night, and the hour is too late already.

You don't care anymore.

If Mr. Everett says nothing, you won't say anything. Better to suck it up now instead of ruin the rotation of who bunks with whom. Your boss and candidate is professional enough under all sorts of pressure. It will be fine.

He lets you use the bathroom first, and you immediately get into your comfy (but ample coverage) pajamas, hydrate, wash, moisturize, and brush quickly. No need to make a whole show of being the only woman. Believe it, they know.

"All yours," you announce, reorganizing your bag to have tomorrow's necessities up top.

He simply grunts while flipping through the factory info for the morning meet-and-greet.

As casually as you can, you setup on the farther side of the bed so as not to block him from his suitcase and review the schedule on your phone, resetting your alarm for the right time based on driving distance to the first stop. You get lost in the whole process for a while then look up to see Mr. Everett throwing a blanket over himself in the chair as if he's going to sleep right there, sitting up.

"Sir, you can't do that."

"Why not? I'm tired and I'm here and it's cushioned," he grumbles, purposefully being inarticulate because you've mentioned more than once that he mumbles when answering 'stupid questions.' "We've had a long enough day, you should call me 'Curtis' or I'll make you ride in the backseat."

"Curtis, then," you respond, "if you sleep in that chair, you will look more like shit than you already do. I will put concealer on you. Do not test me."

He gives you the stink eye, contemplating his options, and eventually tosses the blanket off to slide onto the mattress beside you.

It creaks fiercely. You and Curtis make faces at the sounds but don't say anything more about it. He tucks an arm under his head, stretching out with his feet completely off the bed, and after another minute or so, you click off the bedside lamp and turn over to fall fast asleep, the bunched up quilt in between you as a barrier, and the slightly wonky fan above you sounding like a distant warp engine.

You don't know what actually woke you. You didn't startle from a dream, didn't have a feeling of fallen, or feel any movement around you. You're not too hot or too cold. You're just right and...weighted down...but not?

You yawn and blink to focus, stiffening when you realize the weight is Curtis's arm across your waist and your own leg is tossed over his hip. Your boss's head is pressed into your chest, the buzzed hairs prickling through the fabric of your pajama top.

The quilt you probably each thought the other was is wadded near your feet, precariously ready to fall off the bed entirely.

He must not have been in this position for long because the arm he's laying on (your arm) isn't numb yet. Your other arm is draped over his on you, hand hanging off the edge of his tricep.

It's very...comfortable.

You've never really seen Curtis's arms. He always wears button-downs and at least 3/4 sleeve shirts, but tonight, his t-shirt is loose and stretched out, rolled up by tossing, turning, and gravity. He's not tan--he's never tan--but it's so dark in the room that his pale skin only slightly differs from the charcoal of the clothes and near-black of his hair. You can see enough though.

Even with his body relaxed, the muscles of his arm are thick, prominent, pushing veins to the surface like a road map to victory for you to study--

Nope. NO! Bad brain!

You need to find a way to untangle yourself from your boss without embarrassing yourself, or him, or your inner horny gremlin now enjoying the slight, involuntary clench of his fingers in the small of your back. The sudden tickle of that makes you jerk forward, grabbing the arm already in your hand for stability.

Shit.

So much for subtlety.

Curtis rouses, inhaling deeply where his nose is practically lodged between your breasts, and begins to straighten out, lifting his head slowly. The move is not enough to knock your leg off of him. In fact, his shuffling places his top knee directly in the middle of your thighs.

The gravelly way he says your name, sleepy, hopeful, questioning, calling...it's so sexy, it stops you in your tracks.

His lashes flutter against your chin as his beard drags over your arm, and Curtis looks up at you.

The dark obscures any nuance you could discern from his expression, leaving your breath to catch like a caged animal desperate to be free. Your heart hums in anticipation while you wait for an apology, or a scolding, or disgust, anything but what you want, what he actually does next.

His hips roll forward, elongating his spine so his lips can reach yours. The kiss is tender and heated.

Stunned, your reactions--though excited--seem jumpy in comparison to the assured and casual way Curtis devours you, so slowly, so confident, but you're never held down or shut up. Each time he closes what few gaps remain between you, there's a pause, a chance for you to voice some concern, to halt him.

Curtis doesn't trap you; he cradles you.

Without words, you know he's wanted this, but you don't know for how long. The most you know of his personal life is women don't come and go like a revolving door. He's not a fuck-and-fuck-off type, but in your wildest--most suppressed--dreams, you never imagined he'd be so intense and devoted from the first kiss.

You're both still clothed, for christ's sake.

Unrushed, the hand at your back goes from teasing the strip of skin exposed above your waistband to tugging you up his leg. Higher and higher you rock, bit by bit so that the creaky springs don't give away what's happening in the dark.

He feels so wonderful, and he's sure to make you feel him everywhere, the only words he offers whispered against your swollen lips warn that you're moaning, gasping too loudly.

"Be good."

You run your hands over the soft bristle of his hair and nod, ghosting a 'yes, sir' before grinding into the bulge he's perfectly positioned, hips maneuvered to seat perfectly between yours, both arms encircling you perfectly.

So fucking perfect in that intense, quiet, dark way.

The rippling buzz of the ceiling fan drowns out the pleased rumble from Curtis's chest, but the vibrations seep from his skin to yours.

You're climbing high, wet enough for your bottoms to stick in place while the bulbous head of his cock grows distinct through damp fabric.

He holds you, grips your ass to keep you exactly where you need to be, muttering "come on, come on" in a demanding, wrecked tone more devastating than any fantasy you've ever had. He peppers your neck and jaw with kisses because the quick little movements keep your lips from aligning. Concentrating on staying silent delays the inevitable, but not for long.

Though you want that praise, those phrases that could wash you slowly back down to Earth, you still relish his touch, those broad shoulders you hang onto, those large hands bracing you during impact. He's everywhere.

Curtis steadily relaxes as your own breathing settles.

A lone groan precedes his "I--I'll be right back," and just like that you're left alone in the bed, straining to hear after the bathroom door shuts.

Worry sets in.

Have you crossed a line? Well, more of a line or one you didn't know about?

You roll over to your other side, watching the shadowy leaves and swaying branches through the window, bathed in dim moonlight, until there's a flush and a literal washing sound behind you. Your whole body dips when he climbs back in.

Curtis has brought the quilt back up, lays it over you both, and curls around you.

The renewed warmth makes you keen, a whimper of peaceful pleasure escaping you, louder than all the rest that was said and done.

He props himself up, leaning to press a gentle kiss to your cheek.

"I will do--" his beard grazes the shell of your ear "--anything you ask of me. Always have," he breathes, "always will."

Curtis tucks in behind you again, weighty arm lacing beneath yours, deflating the worry filling your chest.

"But let's go to sleep now," he grumbles, "and make sure tomorrow there's a king...that doesn't shriek like a banshee."

"Condoms, too," you add before your eyes shut and your brain realizes.

That pleased rumble still gets drowned out by the fan, but you feel it anyway.

Because he's everywhere, and you're his everything.

[Main Masterlist; Sleepover Masterlist]

A/N: I'm fine. I can live without him. I'm fine. ::dies::

Not after the Battle of New York

The young waitress Steve personally saved from (watch again), the one who gave TV interviews about how grateful she was to Captain America and the Avengers, died in a traffic accident only a few weeks after. No drivers were drunk, the city was had barely started to recover a normal feel and schedule, but bad weather left small-debris-filled roads flooded and slippery. The waitress was one of four pedestrians and five cars involved in the pile-up yet the only casualty.

He read about her death in the newspaper, and that disconnect, the slow dawning of "what's it all for," kept him silent and contemplative for hours. He shed no tears over her. He felt worse because of it and sent a wreath to her funeral.

She was 24 years old, and that was the 67th flower arrangement he'd ordered...so far.

2. Not during the trial

Wherever they go, death follows...and follows...and follows.

A man's wife died in an attack on them--which is an unfortunately common story--but when there are no repercussions, the man gets angry and shoots up his local courthouse. He's tried, publicly and passionately, in front of dozens of cameras broadcasting to millions of people.

Steve sat in the gallery, listening to the man, the defendant, the murderer's testimony. He listens to the story of their lives, their love, his loss of her, and the fury that took this man over, the vice of hopelessness that dragged him into a dark place with two guns and six magazines of ammo.

Steve was reminded of wars that never end and ripples on a pond. There's waves and waves of death, then the waves start somewhere else of the surface.

He can't cry about it, though, because of the cameras, because Steve knows he did nothing wrong that caused this, but he makes himself sit and listen and share some burden of pain.

3. Not for the clean-up

After the Snap, there were half of everything, but somehow not an even half. Some communities lost three-quarters of their doctors or cops. Whole households disappeared; some parents dusted while their children did not. In an attempt to help supplement places with diminished emergency services, Steve volunteers to do 'home visits' to find any kids who cannot fend for themselves.

He's fast--fast enough to cover lots of homes with registered children,--but Steve wasn't prepared for the pets.

Dogs and cats, bird, guinea pigs, rabbits, rats, fish...each one hits him like raindrops until it's just pouring death on top of dust.

Humans are depressed, understandably, but many stop going to work for a time, long enough and in enough places that it keeps happening. Steve goes by shelters, boarding facilities, and vets when he sees completely empty parking lots.

He breaks windows, smashes through doors, rips apart cages, but Steve doesn't cry.

The burden is too heavy. There's too many cars piling up. The war has ended and death still keeps following. He can't feel the rain or the waves anymore.

Weeks after the Snap, he buries that last pet in a field of wind flowers and doesn't cry.

4. For a wedding

He thinks it's one more bit of bad luck: Maria Hill's father has a stroke a week before her wedding. The world had been down a long road with a lot of loss, and this small but happy event is meant to keep him afloat--or, at least, Steve is using it that way.

So when Hill asks Steve to fill in, he jumps at the chance, anything she needs to go forward.

Miraculously (by his own stubborn disposition), her dad recovers in time, and Steve watched them walk down the aisle, tears freely streaking his face. The floodgates opened when a balance was reached. The scales weren't even, there was no rhyme or reason, but drop by happy drop, Steve saw what it was all for: a beginning. He embraced this.

He didn't have to save everyone. He didn't have to shoulder the whole burden. He didn't need to fill in every empty space.

He could just begin. He could just try. Being ready and willing to step up, step in, step forward...that's plenty.

Steve takes one step, and the next step follows and follows and follows.

He missed you in S.H.I.E.L.D.

You built the room he woke up in. They told you it was for a training exercise of some sort, but the only questions you need to (or are allowed to) ask pertain to the era they want it to look like. Your job is to satisfy the client based on their parameters, and the client was the company, not Steve. You never even knew he was being kept in a coma one wall away, but the first thing he saw after 70 years? It was your work.

You, however, were not responsible for their choice of background noise outside the fake windows, the radio playing the wrong baseball game, or the female agent dressed incorrectly.

Twenty seconds before Steve ran out of the building terrified, you'd left with your check and turned the opposite direction down the street.

2. He missed you in the Tower.

You were part of the team remodeling Stark Tower after the Battle of New York. The construction proper lasted most of the time, and moving in the furniture and decor was very straight-forward. The modern style clearly juxtaposed the previously requested mid-'40s reproduction, but through consultation with Pepper Potts (plus one or two blunt emails laced with sarcasm from Tony Stark), you found a nice balance.

Your last day putting the finishing touches around the monolith skyscraper was the same day as the party where Ultron woke up. If you hadn't been quite exhausted, you would have stayed for the festivities. You didn't last more than ten minutes before heading home instead, so you never met Steve. Natasha rode the elevator with you part of the way, and you got to compliment her dress. She was very nice.

3. He missed you in Berlin.

Your taxi unknowingly drove in front of the convoy transporting a captured terrorist.

A conference highlighting the crossover work of architects and designers took over a hotel in Berlin. Sirens passed during a presentation you weren't fully listening to (since you had a booth to run in the hall later that afternoon), and about a quarter of the audience turned toward the windows.

Of course, at the time, none of the whispers mentioned James Buchanan Barnes, the Winter Soldier, or Steve Rogers. Nobody knew there knew of the Black Panther. They knew of a tragedy in Vienna, and they went quiet for a few seconds, wondering if the sirens were pre- or post-threat, waiting in case a boom sounded, near or far away.

Later on, there was talk of some helicopter crash, but nothing else. You never heard anything about the Avengers being in Berlin, but there was plenty of footage of them fighting in Schkeuditz.

4. He found you in the middle of nowhere.

Steve wasn't ready. He was either too fresh out of the ice, too new to trusting again, or he was too hung up on redeeming the memory of his past. Then everything dusted: his hope, his progress, his family, and he failed to get them back.

In a last-ditch effort to stay close to Tony, Steve drove to the remote address Pepper invited him to, and you were unloading the final pieces of furniture for a nursery.

You were there, right there, at exactly the time Steve was so ready to meet you.

He helped carry in the crib.

Hope. Progress. Family. All presented to him with a kind smile and a recognizable hurt in your eyes. Loss can be a common foundation on which is built a stairway to heaven.

You stayed for dinner at Stark's, and after that, Steve stayed in constant orbit, never ever 'missing' you again.

You've noticed him: first since he's famous and there, second since a woman he already hit on laughed so freaking loud while shrieking "oh, Johnny, you're so bad," and third since he stared in your direction. He was obvious. The obviousness wasn't the weird part, though, because he's Johnny Storm and known for being on fire. What was weird is the staring being AT YOU.

His behavior earlier in the night, combined with your anxiety at being singled out, makes exactly what he said to you pretty fuzzy. You weren't rude, but you were dismissive. Other than saying your name, you basically shut him out. You could tell there were other eyes on you now like yours had been on him.

You're sure he'll find someone else. He won't even remember you. Johnny takes it in stride, and that basically proves your point.

2. NO because it wasn't just you

You're out at dinner. This is a fancier restaurant, and no one is with you at the two-seater booth. You just craved several things they offer. Since takeout isn't quite the same, you splurge and have that beautiful trifecta of appetizer, entrée, and dessert all to yourself.

Mid-main course, right after you thank the server for taking your dessert order, a smiling face pops around the corner.

"Hey," Johnny beams, "I know you. Small world, huh?"

A distinctive blond comes to stand behind him.

"Let the woman eat her dinner in peace."

"Right, sorry, Sue, this is my friend--" you were wrong that he wouldn't remember your name "--and..." He eyes the empty edge of table across from you.

"It's nice to meet you--"

"Are you alone?" Johnny blurts over his sister's kindness.

Suddenly, you're the one who could burst into flames from sheer embarrassment.

And then there's Reed Richards, openly scolding Johnny in a nice restaurant that you will never be setting foot in again.

"No, I just meant..." Johnny tries, far quieter than before. He even slides into the free side of the booth. "I meant you should eat with us instead."

It's not really a question, but you're beyond put off your food.

"I would rather crawl into a hole right now," you hiss, flustered as you catch the curious eyes of other patrons.

Sue and Reed dismiss themselves, thank the gods, removing themselves as an obstacle trapping more onlookers in the gap between tables.

You flag down your server, begging for you check and dessert to-go, as soon as humanly or inhumanly possible.

"Wait. Wait. You don't have to leave."

"I don't have to but I want to," you retort.

Johnny puts his hand on the bill which you rip out of his grasp. "At least let me get this. Please, I--it's my fault. You--"

But you've already slapped down your card and told the poor, confused server that you'll pick it up at the hostess stand along with your coat.

3. NO because you didn't feel safe

To say you were alarmed when Johnny Storm showed up at your job not long after the restaurant would be an understatement, but apparently, someone took photos of what they thought was a lovers' quarrel and mailed them to the Baxter building. The person's note threatened your life for 'treating' Johnny that way, and now he has come to make sure you're okay until the person is found.

He suggests the security of his home rather than yours. Doesn't seem to bother him that the secure building is also where the threat was sent, but on the elevator ride to the top of the Baxter, Johnny admits that if you're here then The Four can easily catch them.

You're bait.

Excellent.

Johnny makes the whole thing feel like a planned game night with friends, a sleepover of sorts, but the mood is heavy and swept through with the undercurrent of danger.

He confesses at the door to your temporary bedroom that he'd like to go on a real date with you. His biggest regret for the situation is that you two didn't have any of the 'benefits' of being together before someone tried to pull you apart.

He is genuine. He seems genuinely sad. He's authentically comforting, it's true, but you can't see this as a good life for you. If this is the life, Johnny's too hard to go out with.

The threat is caught in the small hours. You tossed and turned, never knew any of the capture was going down, and were told later in the morning, promptly returning to your regular world.

4. YES when he stops trying so hard

He waits a few weeks before coming to your home to check on you.

"I'll leave," he promises, "just tell me your okay. Sleeping alright? Going out normally? Whatever it is that made you happy before, you're doing it, right?"

He waits some more for your response, stuck at your threshold, a box in his arms.

Literally, nothing has been normal. You sleep horribly, you get distracted at work constantly, and you haven't accepted any invitations to even the tamest social events, let alone eaten out since.

"I swear, I'm not trying anything. It's not a date. I brought this to give you. Not expecting anything." Johnny's puppy dog expression makes you smile, the first one you can recall this week.

"I don't know... I'm really tired."

He stands up straight and cheery. "I got movies for that." He rummages in the box. "I've got flicks to keep you awake, flicks to put you to sleep, and popcorn to eat until...whenever."

He produces a stovetop popping pan.

"No," you sigh, and Johnny deflates instantly. "No. You said it's not a date, but I'm disagreeing with you."

You step out of the way and push the door wide open.

He soaks in the victory for a moment, then passes you, leaning to kiss your cheek quickly as you hear the popcorn start rattling to life in his hot palm.

Johnny--solo--is adorable and comfortable, normal enough to forget who he is. When he's relaxing, when he's focused on you, it feels completely different to the pickup lines and the parties. The most daredevil thing he does is hold cornels on his tongue until they pop, trying to catch them in his mouth as they jump away. The most playboy thing he does is critique bad dialogue in the movie.

It's during one of the 'stay awake' movies that you're knocked out cold on his toasty shoulder.

Without making any moves, he made just the right move for you.

[Main Masterlist; Sleepover Masterlist]