#(eheheheh)

☆☆☆

You were so absorbed in your novel, you hardly noticed the door opening softly. Only when it clicked shut did you startle from your reverie.

“Bucky?”

No response, only the heavy thunk of boots being kicked off.   

You carefully tucked a marker between the pages before turning to look towards the front door over the back of the couch. The room’s lamplight didn't quite reach the entryway, so his form was cast in darkness. But it was unmistakably Bucky’s sigh that you heard as he freed himself of his shoes and coat. Unburdened, his gaze turned to you.

You were curled up on his couch, camped out for the evening with a book and a long empty cup of tea. The soft glow of the lamp limned your features with tenderness. His heart went sore under his tired chest at the sight. 

“Welcome home.”

“Hey, doll,” he said. His voice sounded tired, but his eyes glimmered with contentment. 

“How was the mission?” 

You expected him to make his usual beeline towards you, but he headed into the kitchen. 

“Successful,” he replied shortly as he filled a cup with water. You watched him as he gulped it down. There was no sign of a struggle on his body, no visible blood or bruises this time. Only his shoulders betrayed his lingering tension.  

You waited patiently, appreciating him as he decompressed. He’d only been gone for one night, but you drank him in just as thirstily. Even dead on his feet, he looked good. 

It was a strange image, the imposing soldier in such a domestic setting. His tactical gear hugged his sculpted form in a way that had you biting your lip. It was no secret that you liked him in his dark fatigues.   

His hair hung limply in his eyes, and you made a mental note to ask him if he wanted a haircut soon. You’d wait a couple days though. You liked his hair a little longer like this, when it brushed behind his ears and fell on his neck in a gentle wave. Maybe you should have offered to trim it before he left for his mission. 

Bucky came to stand behind the couch, as if lured to you by your quiet admiration. A small smile crept onto his tired face, crinkling his eyes. 

“Hi,” he said simply as he drank you in, absorbing the soft image of you relaxed on his couch. His sharp eyes catalogued your form, ensuring that you were healthy and safe. 

“Hi,” you smiled up at him.  

He dove to kiss you deeply, and you hummed at his sudden affection. He tasted a little bitter from the long travel, but you leaned into him all the same. The warmth of your mouth stoked something in him, embers flaring to life at the brief contact. 

Like a moth to a flame, he casually hopped the back of the cushions and lowered himself to lay on top of you. He tugged you down impatiently so that he could bury his head in your chest, humming as he felt your skin against his. He melted wordlessly into your comfort. 

It was good to be reunited with your man. It had been late when you sat down for the evening, and it was even later now when he’d finally made it home. Reclining with him now though, you felt awake. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” you offered. 

He hummed in appreciation, but shook his head against you, “This is good.”

His arms around your midsection pulled you a little more securely to him until he was content. After a beat he added in muffled words, “Tell me about your day, didn’t you have that thing? With your coworkers?”

You launched into the whole story for him. Despite the absence of your favorite person, it had actually shaped up to be an entertaining few days. You’d learned to distract yourself with plans when he was gone for more than a day trip.

As you spoke, he nodded along amiably, but his eyes were glazed over, as if his mind was in two places at once. You recalled many nights like this, where he would come home a little more machine than man. 

In the aftermath of a rough assignment, he would sit with you and listen to you chatter on and on. You’d talk about all the small nothings that amounted to your life, and to his, until he came back to himself. He would sit quietly all night listening to your chatter, or anything, as long as you were in his arms. And you would prattle on for as long as it took for his irises to return to their usual fullness. 

Bucky, for his part, was so grateful to have you to come home to. He recalled when he would come home to an empty apartment, battered and bruised, to the cold comfort of his solitary, lumpy chair and microwave meals. 

Sometimes this was overwhelming still; shifting from one arena of his life to another. One so bloody, one so blissful. 

Once, when your love was new, he’d described it to you as an out of body experience. “Like, I know this is my life,” he had explained haltingly. “I can rationalize the facts. But I'm not really there. It’s like too much of me got left back in the 40s, or 80s, or whatever decades they’d pull me off the ice.” 

Your heart had broken at the words. He had concluded, “Sometimes it's hard to pull enough of myself back together to feel like a person, in a way where I can be present, y'know?”

It had come up when he’d been struggling to feel present in the moment with you, especially in tender moments like this one tonight. 

Pride flared between your lungs as you held him now. He had made so much progress since then. Even now, as he decompressed, his eyes were a recognizable blue. The haunted darkness that blew out his irises was practically a thing of the past. Still, you felt the rapid beat of his heart, the way his eyes darted around his apartment, the tension in his hard body.

As your story drew to a close, your coworkers’ drama painted colorfully in a long winded and only slightly exaggerated tale, you asked, 

“What do you need?” 

“I’m okay,” came his gruff response. His eyes remained distant as you stroked his face. Several days of stubble scratched you back. 

“I know you are. What do you want?”

He hummed, and nudged his head into your warm hand, subconsciously seeking your reassuring touch. As much as he could deny his needs, you knew he wouldn’t lie to you about what he wanted. 

That was one rule he’d come up with with his therapist. 

She’d helped him work on intimacy, first helping him identify when he felt safe or unsafe in his body so that he knew when he was or wasn’t getting what he needed. Unfortunately for the reserved supersoldier, it required him to be honest about his own needs and desires. Initially, he had scoffed at the practice, but now, in the depth and comfort of your relationship, he couldn’t deny it had worked.

He whined as your hands found their way to his scalp, your fingernails scratching at the base of his neck as you stroked his hair. His hips pressed subtly into the couch, but you clocked the motion. It sent a shiver down your spine. 

His head was buried in your stomach, his strong arms around you. 

“I want you,” he spoke lowly, his voice rough. He nipped at your stomach through the thin material of your shirt, his teeth scraping your skin mischievously. His usual dominance was bubbling up, but you had other plans.

“You can have me,” you promised. “How would you feel about trying something new?”

His face popped up abruptly, a suggestive smile on his rugged features. 

“What did you have in mind, baby?” His hand crawled up your thigh to your hip. His touch set your flesh aflame as his weariness instantly vanished. 

“Well, I've been thinking…”

“Dangerous.” His eyebrows shot up, and a cocky grin relaxed onto his face. 

“What if you let me take control this time?” 

Bucky’s mouth fell open. 

“I- I don’t know about that, doll,” he stammered, and then swallowed thickly. His eyes were set with desire even as his nerves flashed.  

“I wouldn’t do anything we haven’t already done,” you assured him. “I just thought it might be nice for you to relax.”

“Yeah, only it’s sort of hard for me to relax when… when I’m not in control.”

“I know, but think of it as one of your missions.”

He arched his brow at that. 

‘Your missions’ were what you called his therapy homework. The objective was usually to do with adjusting the response of Bucky’s nervous system, opening the world up for him, so he could live alongside his trauma as freely as possible. What happened to him was real, and awful, but it didn’t have to define his future. 

Sometimes it was something as simple as an excursion to a new place, really anything that could affirm his newfound sense of safety. It was an honor any time he invited you to join him.

You’d been toying with this idea for a while now, but you hadn’t run it by him yet. It was a little different than a visit to a history museum or trying a new sort of cuisine. 

“You’re going to top me as part of my therapy regimen?” he deadpanned.

“No! Well…sort of. What do you think?”

“I think you’re crazy.”

“Well, technically true. But think about it! It would be giving your body a new experience…” 

He squinted at you, unimpressed. 

“You need to learn that you can be treated nicely,” you lowered your voice seductively. “I could teach you.”

You were just playing, but his breath caught in his throat. Bucky swallowed his arousal at your gravelly tone.

No, he thought. No. The last time he let someone take control, people died.

As seductive as the idea was, he couldn’t afford to give up control. The idea freaked him out, and he didn’t want to end up a freaked out mess mid-fuck.

Even as he thought the words, though, he pictured what you could do to him. Was it fear he was feeling? Or was that something else building in his gut…

He took a steadying breath. One tool he had developed with his therapist, Dr Raynor, was ways to center himself when his nervous system was triggered unnecessarily. Through his work with her, he was learning that he could give his body a new experience, a different experience than the ones the world had given him. 

The proof was in the pudding with you. He would never have been able to be intimate with you, to feel comfortable with that level of vulnerability without a slow, controlled approach; slowly unraveling the old sensory experiences and replacing them with positive ones.

You were being unfair, he thought as you waited on him patiently.

Positive reinforcement was an undeniably useful tool when it came to re-regulating his nervous system. For you to pair your logic with your supremely fuckable appearance and the hunger flaring in your eyes, you were practically abusing his treatment. 

Unbidden, his mind supplied the first time he’d finally let himself touch you with his metal arm. He'd had to take things slow. Real slow. So when he’d gently cupped your face with a cool vibranium palm, you’d only ever kissed twice before. The contact had heat flaring in your face, a blush dusting your cheeks. He had been quick to kiss it away.

That same blush had made another appearance the first time he used those fingers on you. He shifted his growing erection against the couch again as he recalled your breathy moans and whimpers as he’d fucked you on his vibranium hand. After, you’d admitted your fixation with his metal arm. He had practically purred at the confession. 

Even now, in your cozy position, he felt the same attraction. He couldn’t help it, you were so gorgeous, and you were all his.

As you watched him from above, your eyes were heady. Your teeth pulled at your bottom lip in a pleading pout. 

Fuck it. 

Bucky nipped playfully at your fingers stroking his chin. “You wanna show me a good time, huh, baby?”

You lit up at his words.

“You’re up for it?” you confirmed.

He nodded, “Ready as I'll ever be.”

You nodded along, reassuring, “We can stop whenever you want.”

Your hands brushed through his hair, down his neck, and along his shoulders, and melted any remaining tension. He whimpered as your hands worked his sore muscles. He felt a little awkward, not sure what he was supposed to do with himself.

“Just relax.” Your words were a quiet lull. 

He let himself melt under your slow touch. For a while, you just massaged his back. The angle wasn’t ideal since he was laying on your stomach, but you persevered. The feeling was enough to have him falling apart. Slowly, brush by brush, his groans shifted from pain to pleasure. 

Eventually, you coaxed him to flip over so you could reach his shoulders easier. He sat in front of you and nearly choked at the ecstasy of your hot hands on his knots. 

“Fuck,” he groaned out

“That's good?” 

“Yeah.”

Bucky rarely let you massage him, but he seemed to be eating it up now. The poor soldier was regularly plagued by aches and pains given his intensive line of work. He bore it stoically, and you respected his independence. 

However, there was a small part of you that lived for these moments; the ones where he let down his guard and let you support him. It was intoxicating, and the simple truth was that it made you feel like you mattered in his life. 

You revelled in the opportunity to gawk at his wide back and the thick set of his muscular arms. He was still fully dressed, yet his thin shirt did little to hide the expanse of rippling muscle, firm and sculpted, deceptively edible. You trailed the gentle slope of his spine, and he shuddered. The whisper of your fingers on his skin was like a flame, burning away the stress of the day, the week, his life. 

“Lean back baby.”

His head turned, confusion in his eyes. He was sitting between your thighs; if he leaned back he would smother you. 

“Come on,” you urged. You splayed your legs, gently urging him to lay back against your shoulder, his broad back against your chest. Your arms came around his waist, reassuring him. He often held you like this, and he felt a little odd to be in your lap. 

“I’m crushing you.”

“No, you’re not. Shut up you big baby.”

He bristled until you smoothed a kiss into his temple. 

He took a few labored breaths as you stroked his chest, over his heart. Bucky was always so solid; he grounded you. You were determined to provide the same sensation for him tonight. 

With a finger and thumb on his chin, you turned him into your face for a deep kiss. The dominant angle shocked him, as did your tongue dipping into his open mouth almost immediately. The kiss was slow, heated. 

Your hot tongue in his mouth tasted like home. It was his favorite flavor, he would drown in it if he could. A sigh curled out of his nose as you sucked his teeth.

Your hands came around his torso to continue their exploration, soothing over his body. His tough chest was firm under your delicate touch. He was rooted in place, riveted by your attentions. 

You pressed hot kisses to the side of his neck, tonguing over the abused spots. His skin tasted salty and sweet, his musk flooding your senses. Bucky gasped and groaned as you devoured him, starved as you’d been in his absence. 

His heart beat harder as your touches became bolder. Your eagerness excited him, his nerves spiking along with his desire. 

“You like this shirt on me?” Bucky asked suddenly.

You nipped at him in response, your lips occupied on his salty skin. To express your affirmation, you dragged your nails torturously down his stomach, snagging lightly on the thin material. 

His voice rasped as he snapped, “Yeah, I can tell– since you seem determined to leave it on me.” 

Incredulous, you pulled away from his neck. There was a challenge in his stunning blue eyes, his brows set in determination. 

“All you had to do is ask, baby,” you crooned.

He huffed in relief even at your teasing purr, and lifted his arms for you to pull his shirt up before he threw it across the room. His triumph was short lived, as your hands ghosted his skin teasingly. They brushed his nipples lightly, but not enough to provide any real stimulation. 

Bucky’s expression hardened, and he shifted to press into your touches. You pulled your hand away, defiant. 

“Do you really want to piss me off?” you asked darkly. His eyes widened at your tone. You’d never bossed him around like this before– not in a moment like this at least. 

The air was charged as you met his gaze, equally harsh. His breath caught at your gentle caress across his bare abdomen, disarming him. 

Your brow arched when he stayed silent. “Well?”

“No, ma’am,” he coughed. 

“Good boy.” You kissed his ear, hands coming to stroke firmly down his naked chest and clothed thighs in reward. 

He sighed at the stimulation even as his frustration rose. You were avoiding the painfully obvious need tenting his pants. His body felt hot over you, the weight and heat making your own pulse throb.   

Your mouth resumed its sloppy, wet work along his neck and jaw as you brushed along his upper thighs. You traced his hip bones, the sharp vee and coarse hairs that led below his waistband. 

“Is this where you need me?” you asked condescendingly.

He nodded once, a terse gesture.

You clicked your tongue; his curtness just wouldn’t do. Despite his bratty attitude, you relented and unzipped him with a gratuitous drag of your knuckles along his clothed member.

He groaned, and the sound only fanned the flames of your little game. 

Slowly, torturously, you skimmed your hand flat along his hip under his undone fly. His skin burned as you roughly pushed his undershorts out of the way just enough to free him. He hissed at the abrupt intrusion as you pulled out his aching cock. 

“Look at you, baby.” Your voice was mocking. “I haven’t hardly touched you yet and you’re leaking all over.” He was already semi hard, and his tip was an angry, glistening red.

Despite your mocking words, you gave it to him just how you knew he liked it. 

Your pace started slow, your familiar grip firm around his girth. An ache was brewing in your own abdomen at the image of his thick, long cock in your hand. His pants were sloppily undone still, not even shoved down his thighs. Neither of you minded in the moment, swept up in the bliss of your reunion.

For some minutes you stroked him steadily, unhurried as you whispered praises into his ear. 

The imposing man flushed as his moans swelled. You saw his expression gradually lose its edge as bliss washed over him. His eyes were as blue and shining as the ocean of pleasure he was lost to. 

Bucky’s eyes slid closed as he surrendered fully to your touch. One particularly harsh tug had him groaning, and his body shuddered. His sweat drenched spine tingled with the sensation. 

One moment it was bliss– the next it was stabbing panic. 

The sweat covering his body was suddenly unbearable, gone cold in the open air. In the darkness behind his eyelids, the chill was like that of another room, on another continent, decades ago. Deep underground, the chill would spread from the unholy metal appendage, tearing through his ragged scars, until it would seep into his bones. Darkness followed. 

You paused your motions when you saw his expression freeze.

“Bucky?”

His chest heaved. 

He focused on the warmth of you, surrounding him. The softness of your flesh on his. The pitch of your concerned breath in his ear, the steady beat of your heart. 

Slowly, his eyes blinked open, looking bleary. He focused on the warmth of you, your living heartbeat. It was out of sync with his own, but beating nonetheless. 

“Do you want to stop?” 

“No,” he pleaded, gasping. The past was done. He was with you now. He was safe.  

“Are you sure?” you checked tentatively. “I’m not going to make you do anything, okay? How about we just do this, huh? I just take care of you?”

He moaned at that, bucking his hips into your hand impatiently. 

“Good boy. Keep telling me how you like it,” you murmured. 

He was clearly eager, but you were hesitant now that he’d slipped away for a moment. You could only guess where he'd gone.

His eyes focused again on the present, zeroing in on your hand holding him, and your resolve grew along with it. 

“We’re going to go slow okay?”

Bucky nodded distantly. You felt his cock throbbing painfully under your still hand. His voice was broken when he finally spoke, “Please, keep going.” 

You pressed another kiss into his temple, then you began to pump his hard length in earnest. Immediately, it was like he was a whole other person. Your stoic boyfriend was whining and shuddering as you touched him. It was like your touch was pure sex. His usually attentive eyes were blown with lust, focused solely on your connection. 

Now that he had swallowed his panic, he was wracked with the sensation of your hand on him. Rarely did he let you jack him off like this. He was usually a generous lover. Despite the lack of stimulation now, you heated as he continued to harden under your strokes. 

Bucky swore, “Shit, baby. You’re so good at that.” 

Pride surged through your veins in tandem with a fresh lick of arousal. 

In his own mind, Bucky floated back to when he was a pawn in the hands of evil. Now he was putty under your hands. His gut was twisting at the lack of control just as much as it was burning with desire at his submission. 

It wasn’t easy but, god, was it worth it.

Your warm hand pumped his length with the perfect pressure. He felt the pull of it in every inch of his body, even his molars were buzzing with the strength of his pleasure. 

He had no idea he would enjoy it so much. Typically, he plotted out your pleasure mutually and methodically, always determined to achieve the necessary benchmarks to attain the most favorable outcome. It was thrilling to be at your mercy, under the sweet control of his most trusted partner. 

He hadn’t felt this way since Steve, and had never expected to again. 

The anticipation of the unknown set him on edge, but not in a way that sent his mind spiraling. Instead, it sent his pleasure to a higher pitch, one of feverish desperation. It amplified every sensation tenfold. He only realized he was shaking when you paused your hand and kissed his skull again. 

“You okay, Buck? We can stop if you–”

“Don’t stop,” he panted, frantic. “Please don’t stop.”

His hips jutted into your fist as if to prove his point. You resumed your strokes with renewed fervor at his breathy begging. His cock strained under your hand, and his hips struggled to stay still as you worked him towards his release. 

“You’re being so good for me,” you murmured into his ear.

A delicious whimper escaped his parted lips at your praise, his dick pulsing in your hand. His chest was flushed and slick with perspiration. His head had fallen back against your shoulder, his body gone limp. He was wholly exposed to your view, and totally vulnerable to your actions.  

The sight was almost absurd. You still had moments like these, where it was a shock to see how open the calculating soldier could be. 

After this last job, you could tell he was spent.

What you couldn’t feel was how every ache in his body was turned sweet under your merciful touch. The man was lost in the all encompassing rhythm of your ministrations, every stroke and squeeze transporting him further into a state of bliss. 

His overgrown hair had fallen into his face, and his perfect pink lips were parted in ecstasy. The stubble that dusted his jawline was thicker than usual, a handsomely dark accent to his pretty features. 

The menacing supersoldier was reduced to a whimpering mess under your tender hand. 

As you felt his orgasm approach, you had the twisted urge to pull your hand away. The desperate sobs he heaved tipped you to put the off idea for later. 

“Please,” he begged. He was gripping the side of the couch with such force you were worried it would snap. His eyes were heavy lidded, focused on the rasp of your hand over his weeping cock. 

Your lips anchored to his neck, teething at his pulse as he barely contained his trembling sighs. 

“Let go baby, make a mess for me.”

He moaned loudly as you whispered encouragement in his ear. With a stuttering gasp, his release struck. His back arched as pleasure wracked him, and your hand continued to pump as his hips stilled. 

Bliss slackened his whole body, the powerful man slipping into a different dimension. His expression was gorgeous and unguarded as he came all over his chest. The slick mixed with his sweat in an intoxicating concoction; the sight was as exquisite as it was addicting. Bucky was a dangerous man, in more ways than one. 

His chest heaved as he came down from his high. He whined at the feeling of your hand still on his oversensitive cock. You released him with a final swipe over his tip, earning a hiss. 

“You’re mean,” Bucky whined. 

“Is that what you’d call it?”

His head lolled back against your shoulder. He kissed you sloppily on the jaw from the odd angle. Your heart soared at the messy contact. 

“You’re a saint," he amended. 

“For your eyes only,” you conceded. 

His agreement was a deep rumble. “That was so hot, baby.”

“Did you like it?”

Bucky choked on a laugh. “Did I like it? Did you hear me screaming? That was amazing, doll. How did you know that would be so good?”

You shrugged, breathless. He shook his head, glowing in the aftershock. 

“I didn't even know I’d like it that much!” he exclaimed. 

“We can do it again whenever you want.”

He growled suggestively, and you slapped his shoulder. You tried to swallow the hot tang of arousal filling your mouth. 

“How did it feel?” you changed the topic. “You went somewhere for a second there, at first.”

There was a pause as he weighed his response. “For a second… just being shirtless and feeling exposed, it felt like too much. And then the sweat… It just reminded me too much of another time.” His eyes met yours, clear and bright. “But then I focused on you. It’s just you and me, you know? I thought ‘I can do this.’ I trust you.” 

Your heart sparkled in the light of his admission. You caught his hand in yours, and he laced your fingers together. 

“You can trust me,” you agreed, “and thank you for sharing that with me.”

Bucky brought your hands to his lips, pressing a tender and chivalrous kiss to your knuckles before bringing them to rest against his heart. 

”Speaking of trust,” His eyes lit with mischief as he shifted to skim his other hand along your side, “can I return the favor?” 

His rogue hand slipped under your shirt, and his thumb came to a torturous rest just under your breast. He stroked the soft skin gently with his metal digit. 

With effort, you shook your head. “Tonight was about you.”

You kissed him once, chastely, as he sighed. 

“Tomorrow?” he begged. 

“Tomorrow,” you agreed. You wrinkled your nose, glancing over his spent form, “Besides, you need a shower.”

His brow arched suggestively as he watched your eyes trail his body.

“Alone!” you clarified. 

His thumb moved up imperceptible, his touch feather light as he teased your nipple. You sighed into his touch, his rough hands familiar and enticing. 

“Join me,” he pleaded. 

“Fine!” you caved. “Only ‘cause you did so well on your mission.”

Bucky smiled in victory, and grabbed your neck for a long kiss. His tongue swiped at your lower lip, asking for permission, and it was almost humorously innocent after what you’d just done. 

But he was plotting. If he could only get you to settle in for a nice long necking session, then maybe you’d be needy enough in the shower to let him–

You broke away from the kiss abruptly, holding up a finger to his face.

“Don’t tell your therapist about this.” 

Your look was accusatory, like he had a habit of spilling your dirty little secrets to her. Which to be fair, he did.  

“I think I have to, doll.”

He chuckled at your groan, your embarrassment endearing. 

“I’m just pullin’ your leg, sweetheart,” he amended, sealing his promise with a kiss to your jaw. 

He wasn’t kidding though. 

Much to Dr. Raynor’s surprise, as well as his own, he indeed spent his next session unpacking his newfound affinity for being bossed around in the bedroom. Next time, he resolved, he would not be caught so unprepared. 

_