#fic requests

Sterile antiseptic and latex is all you can smell right now as you work on sewing shut the body in front of you. You’d already followed out the previous steps– things that were automatic to your process. The bleeding had already been taken care of, and you were fine to continue on with the rest of your procedure. The wound was cleaned, the site was numbed, and you had the proper tools in hand to start your suturing. 

Your hands were smooth, your movements were precise– there’s no sweat coming off your brow. There’s nothing to be worried about.

“You know,” Sam murmured beneath you, “it would’ve been real nice if you were this calm back when we were on the field in Afghanistan.”

You let out a small laugh, shaking your head at him. “I was a rookie back then. So were you. Now shut up before I ‘accidentally’ stab you with this needle the wrong way, just like the old days.”

“That’s cold,” he whispered, but there’s a smile playing on his lips despite the pain that he’s in– a good sign. There’s some color that’s returned to his face now, and his breathing had finally evened out from how it was when he was first brought to your table. 

You finished out your work on his torso, and bandaged him up. You could go into a long winded spiel on infection, and how he needs to keep the wound area clean to make sure that he doesn’t get sick otherwise he’ll have to come see you, but one look at Sam’s face tells you that you don’t even need to say it.

“Yeah, yeah,” he brushed off, carefully rolling over to his side to push himself off the table. You cringed slightly at the way he sat up– he’ll pop his stitches at this rate. “I know. You talked my ear off for years.”

“And here I thought, you never listened,” you scoffed, beginning to clean up the area around you.

“Oh, I don’t. I just let you think I do.”

You fight back the desire to roll your eyes at him, and he laughed– or at least he attempted to. Sam’s hand flies to his side, and he groans in pain. Instant karma. The numbing injection could only do so much for the pain, after all.

“Want me to prescribe you some painkillers?” you offered, a hum on your lips.

“Fuck you.”

You grinned, already pulling out a bottle from the medication cabinet to toss over to him. He catches it, obviously, but if he was who he was a few years ago? His reflexes wouldn’t have been this sharp. Sam had come a long way since the Air Force, and you’d be lying if you said that you weren’t proud of him.

Hell, you had come a long way from the Air Force.

You still remembered when he knocked on your door, and asked you if you wanted to join the Avengers initiative. You laughed in his fucking face, thinking that it was a joke– that it was just some funny opener that he was hitting you with after not seeing you for a while to make you smile after your shared grief of losing Riley. But Sam didn’t laugh. 

He said they needed someone reliable, a good medic on the team to patch them up after their missions— told you it was too much work and money to keep flying doctors into the country from other parts of the world. 

You had the same experience that Sam did, which was what he used to argue with you that you were more than qualified to join this team. You couldn’t really say anything against him when he brought up your history together. The two of you had been hand chosen straight out of basic training for the Falcon initiative, which was covered up to be known as the pararescue team that served two tours. 

Sam spent two weeks knocking on your door daily— sometimes multiple times a day. He wasn’t asking anymore. He was begging you to join him, to come back and fight beside him like you once did.  

You told him that you didn’t know if you were worthy of being an Avenger– not after what happened all those years ago. You couldn’t even save the people that you were supposed to protect during the war overseas. How were you supposed to protect the entire world?

So, you compromised. You would be their medic, just like he was asking you to do– but you didn’t want to necessarily join the Avengers in the way that he was doing it. You would keep up with the training to keep your body in shape if they really needed you– but you told Sam that you couldn’t live with yourself again if you lost someone right in front of you on the field. 

He understood. So, saving the world became his thing, while saving the Avengers’ lives became yours.

More times than not, you still ended up joining the Avengers on their longer missions away from the base. You wouldn’t necessarily join them on the ground, but you would stay back on the jet. You would keep an eye on the monitors that tracked each and every single one of their vitals, making sure that none of them entered dangerous territories of stress levels or suddenly passed out somewhere without anyone knowing. 

You were also there as their emergency evac if it was ever needed. You had military experience on the field, but Natasha helped train you to move more stealthily so that you could get across a battlefield without anyone noticing. 

When things were said and done, and if everything went miraculously well, all you had to do at the end of missions was just check up on everyone. Do quick, fine tune-ups, to make sure that everyone was alright– that they were cleared for the next mission without any concussions or any other traumatic brain injuries that would put them out of work for a couple of weeks. 

You’d treated almost every single one of the Avengers at one point. 

Shit– you’d become somewhat of a mechanic and a scientist overnight for what you had to do for these guys. After all– they weren’t fully human.

Steve was the first one to trust you with a more interesting question based on his genetic code. You should’ve expected it, honestly– Steve was the closest to Sam, and Sam constantly sang your praises to anyone that would listen.

“The serum that I was given– I don’t know if you know too much about it,” Steve said with a sigh as you patched up a gash on his arm.

“I’m kinda aware of it,” you hummed. “What’s going on?”

“Well, it’s supposed to accelerate my healing,” he said slowly, “but I feel like my muscles are still too tense these days? Like knots are forming all over my back– I think it’s affecting how I move on missions.”

You paused at his words, nodding slowly. You finished up on his arm before going around behind him, slowly running your hands around his back before sucking in a deep breath. 

“You do have some muscle tension,” you murmured softly. “Do you ever get massages? I think it might help.”

“I didn’t think super soldiers need massages.”

Your hands stopped their examination, and you stared at the back of his head, blinking at him. You let out a slow, deep breath before closing your eyes, taking a moment to calm yourself down. 

“Steve… You’re still human. You know that right? Your body will still hold tension and trauma whether you like it or not,” you said slowly.

“... Ah.”

You made Steve come back to your lab once a week so you could bully the knots out of his back, digging your elbows into his muscles until there was nothing left that could cause him discomfort. Then, you made him go see a massage therapist once a month. 

After that, you studied more of his mannerisms. You took note of how long his body healed compared to a regular human, and how fast he could run a mile– how much food he ate compared to Sam. You were studying everything about this enhanced human’s biology in case he came to you with something else.

Except the next person that came to you was Rhodey. Asking if you could help him out with his prosthetic because it wasn’t working properly and he wasn’t able to walk like he usually was.

“I’m not a mechanic,” you said slowly.

“Weren’t you in the Air Force?”

“Yes, but–”

“With Sam?”

“I mean–”

“Then you should have some basic understanding, right?”

“Rhodey–”

“Tony’s not here. You’re the closest help I can get, please.”

You prayed to every God out there that you didn’t fuck up the delicate technology of his metal braces. Honestly– this was more stressful than any other life saving technique that you had to do on the field. 

That night, you studied Stark’s machinery. You opened up his manuscripts and went through his lab. You made his stupid A.I. walk you through everything to help you out with the things that you couldn’t wrap your head around– and when Tony came back from wherever he went? You slammed his blueprints in front of him and made him explain.

That man was a little too excited to talk your ear off. 

Just when you thought that you had finally gotten a break, you had another visitor. One that made your blood run cold when you saw her waiting for you outside your med bay. Still, you invited her inside and asked her what you could do to help her. 

“Sometimes I feel a burning sensation under my skin," Wanda told you as she sat on your examination table. “Do you know what causes that?”

You could only stare at her blankly, a million different thoughts racing through your head. 

NO! you want to scream at her. I DON’T KNOW!!

Instead, you give her a smile and nod in understanding. “Does it feel like that right now?”

“Not right now, no.”

“Is it okay if I take a sample of your blood?” you asked, already moving towards your supplies. “And the next time you feel that burning sensation, come to me immediately so I can take another sample. I want to compare the two different blood samples to see if there’s a difference.”

Wanda nodded like you had somehow made a dent in cracking the code towards her existence as an enhanced individual– but you had no idea what you were doing past rubbing an alcohol wipe on the inside of her elbow and wrapping the tourniquet around her bicep.

Strangely enough– there was a difference in her blood. 

“Overuse,” you told her, exhaustion thick in your voice. “Your powers are burning into your blood, and mixing into your bloodstream. You’re basically ripping your blood cells apart. You need to be more careful, or just get a better grasp on your powers. Try to train more and increase your endurance.”

The only person that you have not had the pleasure of helping?

Sergeant James Barnes.

Part of you believed that he didn’t even know you existed. In fact, if it wasn’t for his curt nods of dismissal when you tried to check him over after missions, then you would’ve completely assumed that he didn’t even know that you were around. 

Bucky had been injured. More than once. You’d seen him walk onto the jet before, limping, holding onto his side, and closing his eyes while trying to pretend that everything was alright. Each time– he denied your help. Well, he didn’t even deny it. He didn’t even talk to you. He actively avoided your gaze, and only nodded at you if it was unavoidable.

You would’ve thought that you had done something to offend him, to bother him– but you had never even had a conversation with this man. No– you’d never even spoken one word to this man. Your interactions with him were limited to a nod, a head shake, and one second eye contact from across the jet. When you were in the compound? He walked straight by you in the hall like you were part of the air in the room.

You wondered if it had anything to do with his former Winter Soldier status, even though he wasn’t that guy anymore Right now, he was just another one of the Avengers to you. Albeit, he was a little grumpy, a tad bit mysterious, and very easy on the eyes.

You weren’t bothered by his lack of visits to your med bay. You figured that he just didn’t want strangers to touch him. You didn’t blame him for that. Besides, it’s not like he was required to use your services whenever he was hurt. You were there to help out if any of them needed you, and that’s all. 

After all— if none of them needed your help ever again, then that was the best gift they could ever bestow upon you.

The supply drawer slid shut with a satisfying click, and a smile fit over your face. 

Finally, you were done organizing the med bay. You’d gotten a new round of supplies a month back while you were out on a week-long mission with half the team, and returned to find that some of the recruits had just… haphazardly restocked your place. You wanted to scream when you saw everything. 

The rational part of you made you realize that you didn’t label any of your drawers or cabinets. Then again, you didn’t ever think that you needed to. It was only you that went through the items, only you that restocked the med bay, and only you that distributed everything. You had your system in your own head, and you didn’t need to explain it to anyone.

Except, it seemed that you needed to now.

You didn’t even have the time to organize everything for a while. The back to back missions, the influx of injuries that rolled through your doors– you had to make do with what you had, and fix everything as you went along, grumbling under your breath.

Now? Everything was right where it should be, even though it was nearing three in the morning. Still, sacrificing your sleep for this was worth it. You would wake up to find your workplace fully functional and prepared for another work week, and you would send out an order for the next restock to be simply left in its box if you’re not around to take care of it yourself. 

“Visitor outside Med Door One,” F.R.I.D.A.Y.'s voice suddenly rang through your lab, alerting you.

You paused, sitting up straighter on your stool as you turned towards the door– Med Door One was near where the hangar was. It was where the team would filter in after they came back from missions. You weren’t aware of anyone being dispatched. 

“Unfrost the glass, please,” you muttered, eyebrows still furrowed.

“Right away,” the A.I. replied immediately.

The entire glass wall turned clear, and you startled. Bucky was standing on the other side of the glass, a trickle of blood coming down from his temple along with a bruise on his cheek. He was nursing his vibranium arm, clutching it towards his torso, and leaning against the glass slightly. His eyes met yours without the obstruction in the way, and you immediately shifted out of your seat, breath catching in your throat.

“Unlock the doors,” you ordered, already moving towards him.

The glass slid open, and Bucky pushed off the walls. The man gave you a brief nod of acknowledgment as he attempted to appear undeterred by the injuries all over his body. 

“Didn’t think you’d be awake,” he forced out.

“I didn’t think you were gone,” you breathed, hands shooting out on either side of him in case he stumbled forth. “What happened to you?”

“Solo op,” he grunted, a low hiss escaping through his teeth as he took a few steps forth. “Left early this mornin’.”

“Jesus, Barnes,” you whispered, backing up slowly as he continued to step forward. Your eyes raced all over him, trying to take in his physical state. It was hard to decipher how badly he was injured with all his tactical gear still on his body, but from the way he was limping? “Why didn’t you radio back to base?”

“I made it back in one piece, didn’t I?” 

You don’t know whether to feel relieved or to shoot him where he stands. 

For now, you choose to lead him to the examination table instead, and you’re grateful that the soldier doesn’t dismiss you like he usually does when he’s injured. There’s a soft noise of pain that exits his lips when he manages to sit down, and you’re already reaching for your gloves.

“Is it okay if I take a look at you?”

“My arm is what’s killin’ me the most,” he muttered. “If you can do anything for that, then shit– go ahead. I think there’s a wire out of place in the bicep.”

Your hands freeze mid-pull of the latex glove, and your eyes drop down to the glistening vibranium arm. You can see it– the slight tremor of the metal, the involuntary twitching against his body as Bucky attempts to keep the prosthetic under his control. You suck in a tight breath, and remove the gloves on your hand, and go for a different drawer in your office– a toolbox that you had for when Rhodey came to bother you. 

Bucky looked briefly surprised when you turned back towards him, dragging your stool with you to sit in front of him, but there was no protest. His flesh hand dropped back down to his lap, and he let out a small sigh.

“Do the plates just pop out?” you asked softly, swallowing thickly. 

You’d be lying if you said you weren’t nervous about this. Now that you were sitting right in front of him, you could hear the faint buzzing coming from within his arm, almost mocking you about your lack of experience with this kind of thing.  

“Yeah– just… be gentle,” he murmured, his voice tight. 

Your eyes flitted back up to his face, meeting his gaze. He didn’t look nervous per se, but he didn’t look relaxed either. His body was wound up tightly– and you had always known Bucky to already be a pretty tense guy. Even for him, this was pretty bad. His jaw was clenched, his shoulders were squared off– even his thigh muscles were flexed like he was waiting for the impact of something to hit him.

You could chalk it up to the fact that he had other injuries that were bothering him, but that wouldn’t be right either. You weren’t sure where his solo mission took him, but if Bucky didn’t even try to patch himself up on the way back to the base, then you were certain that he wasn’t even able to take care of himself with the amount of stress that his arm was putting him in. 

Shit– you weren’t even sure that Bucky ever had an issue with his arm in the past before, let alone let anyone touch it before. You didn’t even think Tony was allowed to make tweaks with it after Wakanda gifted it to him. If there had been any issues with his arm, then there weren't any incident reports logged in that you were ever made away of. 

“Can you take your arm off for me?” 

“With how it’s shocking my every nerve right now? I really wish I could.”

A shaky breath exited your lips as you looked back down at his arm– the vibranium seemingly shining back into your eyes under the sterile lighting of your lab. It really was pretty. You enjoyed looking at his arm– to steal a glance at it on the jet whenever you had the chance. 

Slowly, you reached out to touch him. You wondered briefly if he could feel the weight of your hands underneath the metal– if there were some sensors that were built into the new prosthetic that was gifted to him. You wondered how badly his arm was hurting him right now, and if your touch only added to the pain he was feeling.

You gently traced over the vibranium, your eyes studying the onyx and gold design as you felt each groove and plat beneath your fingertips. You were searching for the point of impact– where he had sustained the most damage for him to be complaining of some kind of pain. 

You could feel Bucky’s eyes on you the entire time, watching you with an intensity that made your heart race.

It could be from the fact that you’d never treated him before. He’d never been under your care– he’d never been one of your patients. Out of the lengthy time that you had worked with him, this was the closest that you had ever been to the man, and this was the first and longest conversation that you had with him. You could laugh, honestly. You wanted to, if it weren’t for the fact that you had to deal with Wakandan technology and the highest level of technology you were ever formally trained to deal with was U.S. military.

You reached for your toolbox, and released a breath. You steadied your hands. This would be like any other procedure– you didn’t have to be nervous. If anything, the stakes were lower. There was no blood. Just some open fucking nerve endings that were directly connected to his arm, shooting pain directly into the rest of his body.

No pressure at all.

Gently, the plates on his arm came open. A soft puff of air escaped your lips– one that you didn’t even know you were holding. Your heart still hammered in your chest regardless, and you were certain that Bucky could hear it from how close you were to him. Maybe he could even sense the anxiety rolling off of you. If he did, he didn’t say anything– didn’t even make it known that he noticed. 

You were careful as you placed each of the vibranium pieces on the bedside table next to you, memorizing exactly which piece went where, and not taking out more than what needed to come out. You studied the hinges inside his arm, making sure that there wasn’t anything that you were missing as you took him apart.

Then, you saw it. 

The soft, electrical shock in his arm– a wire connected inside. 

“Fuck– what happened?” you murmured, eyes narrowing at the inside of his arm before you reached for the next appropriate tools.

“Asshole jammed this thing in between the plates– pumped me with several thousand watts of electricity. I think I’m lucky only one wire came loose,” he murmured back to you.

“Thing, huh?” you repeated with a laugh. “Can’t even tell me what it was?”

“I was a little busy trying not to die, sweetheart.” Despite the amount of pain he was feeling, he was well enough to hit you with a sarcastic remark— a great sign of his physical and mental wellbeing.

“Well, you did good on that front,” you told him, and looked up to meet his gaze before giving him a grin. “I’ll put you back into one piece, soldier.”

There was a soft chuckle of a response from him— gentle and light. Your hands paused, allowing the moment to pass before you went back into his arm to start poking and prodding once again. (This was an excuse. You wanted to listen to the soft rumble of his laughter.)

You tore your gaze away from his face, and looked back down to his arm, trying to focus once more at the task at hand. 

“I’ll contact Wakanda tomorrow morning… Talk to Princess Shuri, make sure that there isn’t anything else I need to do for you,” you said softly as you began to connect the wire back into its rightful socket. You took a mental note of the positioning, the color of the wiring, and everything else that you could think of. “Make sure that there’s nothing that we need to replace or fix so that it doesn’t become some sort of chronic pain for you.”

“You don’t have to do all of that,” Bucky sighed, shaking his head in dismissal. “It’s fine– I’ll figure it out if it happens again.”

“Are you gonna be able to pry apart the plates yourself if your arm goes to shit— You wanna scratch Wakandan vibranium?” you asked, glancing up at his face briefly.

Bucky met your eyes, and closed his mouth. He just stared back at you, and didn’t respond. You gave him a small smile, then turned back to the metal in front of you. You let out a small gasp as the wire finally connected, and the small buzzing noise in his arm stopped. 

“Flex your hand– be careful. Your arm is open. Think of it as if your arm is skinned,” you quickly warned him, almost frantic with your words.

“You’re kinda dramatic, Doc.”

“I’m being cautious, Sarge. Have you ever tried that?” you shot back.

A small scoff fell from his lips, and Bucky rolled his eyes– but there was a twitch of his lips, like he was mildly amused. It was there, just ever so slightly there, before it was gone– replaced by the perpetual stoic and generally irritated look he usually wore. 

Bucky’s fingers twitched first, almost as if he was afraid to move. The movement was slight and slow, but he eventually created a full fist with a slow breath exiting his lips. Soon, his palm opened back up, and he felt brave enough to lift his arm halfway up, and your own sigh of relief escaped your body. 

“You fixed me,” he reported, his entire body relaxing with his words.

“Told you I would. Now try not to die from things out in the field,” you hummed. 

“Alright—“

“I’ll get some replacement parts for wires and plates sent over from Wakanda,” you cut him off, humming to yourself. You reached for the loose plates that were at your side table, ready to put him back together. “I think you got lucky that nothing was fully damaged– just dislodged– but you’re not leaving my med bay without stitches on your flesh wounds though.”

Thankfully, Bucky didn’t argue with you. After you carefully put back together his metal arm, you were able to move onto his actual body– which was a hell of a lot easier on your nerves than the vibranium Wakandan tech on him. 

You breathed easier when your mind wasn’t racing a thousand miles an hour, and you didn’t have to force your hands to stop shaking under the constant pressure of fearing that something would go wrong. Bucky, of course, was as still as a statute the entire time. You were just glad that he didn’t complain when you told him to take off his gear so you could inspect his body. 

The sun was coming up over the horizon by the time you were done with your full examination on the soldier. You’d gone through several syringes of lidocaine in stronger doses– something that you learned that needed to be done when you had to patch up Steve– and had laced even more stitches through Bucky’s skin, but the man was finally in one whole piece before you. 

“If you take those stitches out yourself, I’ll kill you,” you threatened under your breath as you watched him slide off the table. “Come back here in three days.”

“Only three?” he asked, surprise evident in his voice.

“You and Steve heal faster than the others,” you dismissed, clearing off the last of your workspace. “I’ll come look for you in two days and check your progress, but I think three should be more than enough. How’s the arm?”

Bucky’s arm rotated from the shoulder in a quick circular motion, and you could hear the gears whirring as he moved. His hand opened and closed experimentally, then he extended his arm outwards. All the while– the light shined upon the vibranium plates, the golden detailing gleaming against the black like starlight. It really was like artwork attached directly towards his body. 

You had to remind yourself to not openly stare at him.

“Good as new. I’ll let you know if it bothers me again,” he told you, grabbing his gear that you had stripped off of his body so you could have examined him properly. 

He was barely halfway out the door when you spoke again.

“I’m putting you on bed rest until those stitches come out, soldier.”

Bucky froze in his place, and turned back to look at you– to see if you were being serious about what you had just said. You could only give him an innocent smile before you sent off the report on your tablet. Moments later, a matching buzz resounded on his own phone– everyone on the team was now aware that he wasn’t allowed to be on missions or in training.

“You fuckin’ traitor,” he whispered, betrayal and a hint of respect written all over his face.

Strange things began to happen around you.

You sent out the order to make sure that no one would restock your lab on their own, only to find out that someone else had already done it for you.

Except, there was no log of it.

There wasn’t an incident report, and none of the recruits would tell you. In fact, they all looked like they were about to shit their pants whenever you brought it up. Last time you pressed one of the recruits, they ended up scrambling to check the security cameras because they mistakenly believed that you were asking because someone else had restocked your med bay without your permission and they needed to find out who to rat out. 

You had no idea what was going on. You didn’t even get a chance to tell them that no one had restocked– that you were just trying to get answers on who gave the order out before you could. In the end, it benefitted you, so you weren’t too upset about it. 

If this was all that happened, then maybe you would’ve left everything alone. Maybe the coincidences wouldn’t have bothered you as much.

You mentioned to Natasha that you were running out of your preferred bullet rounds– but it wasn’t urgent for Tony to order since it wasn’t often that you actually ended up going out into the field. You just wanted to let her know for whenever she did a bulk order of her own rounds so she could add your casings to it.

Two days later, you had a whole box on your bed, along with two extra handguns. It was the exact same brand and type that you specifically used– one that Natasha normally told you had you waitlisted for a few months when she ordered it directly from the supplier from how difficult it was to make. Naturally, you brought it up with the assassin the next time you saw her.

“I didn’t order anything yet,” she said, shaking her head. “I order everything at the end of the month, remember?”

“But on my bed…” you trailed off, gesturing down the hall towards your room. “Who got me the casings?”

Natasha only tilted her head at you, eyebrows furrowing as she stared at you. “I didn’t order anything,” she repeated to you. “Are you okay?”

“I’m… fine,” you said slowly then shook your head. “Never mind. I must’ve– uh. Sorry. I thought I was running out of ammo. I’m good. You don’t have to order me anything.”

Her confusion only deepened with your words, but you were spiraling. You managed to dismiss yourself from the conversation before you made things even more awkward. 

It wasn’t even limited to supplies or work-related items. 

After sending out a text in the shared group chat asking to borrow a phone charger for a couple hours because yours was acting up, you found yourself with a new phone charger in your room that same night– in the box with the plastic wrap untouched and everything. 

Later, you found a gift box on your work desk. Upon further inspection, you found that someone had mysteriously gifted you an assortment of your favorite time of the month snacks along with a fresh bottle of Tylenol. You were briefly disturbed, only until a brief memory came to mind of you asking Clint to pick up some feminine products from the store for you when he went out into the city.

“I only got you those pads and tampons you asked me for,” he said, holding his hands up in defense when you cornered him in the hall. “Besides, how would I know that you liked Ferrero Rocher chocolate? Or dried mangoes? You do your own grocery shopping unlike the rest of us– we make Tony have our shit delivered to the compound every other week since we’re too fuckin’ lazy to go out into the city. I only went out because I was getting some shit for my kids, and stopping at the store was just on the way–”

“You’re the only one I mentioned to that my period was coming up,” you hissed at him, frowning. “Are you the one that got me those guns, too?”

“Shit, someone got you guns and chocolate? You have a secret admirer, doc?” he asked, a teasing grin matching the light in his eyes. “I’m not gonna lie, that sounds like one hell of a way to flirt. Has your suitor tried getting you a new scalpel yet? Maybe some latex gloves?”

You’ve never wanted to strangle the archer so bad in your life. Unfortunately you took the Hippocratic Oath, and you had to let him free.

Your breaking point came when you said you wanted to start reading again in your free time, but had no idea what to read. An assortment of different books were waiting for you— science fiction, self help, and fantasy. All different things you enjoyed, but had never once spoken out loud. 

You searched the security cameras. You set up your own cameras in discrete corners, and didn’t tell a single soul. Whoever was leaving you these little gifts either didn’t exist, or had some sort of power that allowed them to be undetected by modern technology because you could never catch them. 

F.R.I.D.A.Y. was specifically ordered not to allow anyone into your room or med lab without your permission— only for you to find a pair of brand new combat boots waiting for you at the edge of your bed. 

The stupid fucking A.I. wouldn’t even tell you who managed to break through her security protocols. Tony couldn’t even figure it out, much to his dismay. Part of you felt bad for giving him something else to work on, on top of upgrading the entire team’s gear— but shit someone managed to bypass a Level One order and there wasn’t a trace. 

“I thought you were my friend,” you said into the void. 

“I apologize, doctor,” the A.I. replied to you. 

“I’m not a doctor,” you scoffed, shaking your head as you organized your notes on your most recent findings on Steve— the man purposely didn’t sleep as much as he should, but when he didn’t have anything to do? He slept like a man who had more than twenty four hours in one day. 

“The others refer to you as a doctor,” a new voice chimed in as the doors to your med bay slid open. 

“Didn’t go to med school, Barnes,” you said, pushing back from your desk to take a look at him.

Bucky was dressed in a compression shirt that left little to imagination, and you wondered if there was really no other size left for him to take when he joined the team. Then again, he also could’ve just gained all that muscle. Still, he could’ve worn another fucking shirt before coming to your lab. You could see every single line and ridge of his muscles with each movement and breath. 

“How can I help?” you asked, deciding to play off your blatant staring as a medical check.

“I have a contusion,” Bucky said.

“What?” you barked out before you could stop yourself. 

“You know, internal bleeding caused by—“

“I know what a bruise is,” you cut him off, holding a hand up to stop him from speaking further. “I— what do you want me to do about that?”

“Don’t you check out our injuries?” he asked, as if he was speaking the obvious. Which— yes. Obviously. You did check out their injuries. But none of them came to you for a fucking bruise. 

You could only stare at him, briefly wondering if the man was bullshitting you. Was this his attempt for conversation after fixing his arm, after ignoring your presence for who knows how long?

He wasn’t backing down from this. 

Bucky held your gaze, expectant and waiting for you to do something about his playground injury. You quickly realized that you would be fighting a losing battle if you didn’t just give in to his request. 

“Okay,” you said slowly. “Show me your… contusion.”

He took off his fucking shirt.

Your mouth went dry– and if you weren’t blatantly ogling him before? You definitely were now. You thought the compression shirt left little to your imagination? You were wrong. There was plenty hiding underneath the thin piece of fabric that he uncovered for you, now fully showcased. 

A thin layer of sweat clung onto his body, and you guessed that he had come straight from the gym— which would explain why his body looked so fucking massive right now. You watched as his chest rose and fell with each breath, how his abdomen muscles rippled as he shifted to the side to drape his shirt over a free table. 

Last time he was in your med bay, there was no need for him to strip down to his skin. He didn’t complain of any torso injuries, just some lacerations on his face, arm, and another cut to his leg that you took care of. 

Honestly, the human body shouldn’t affect you like this, not when you’ve studied it like your life depended on it, but this was different. This was a walking statue of pheromones and all things unholy and filled with temptation. 

“Doc?” Bucky called out to you, raising an eyebrow at you. 

“Where’s the bruise, Sarge?” you asked, snapping out of it as fast as you could. 

The soldier turned his back to you, and you felt the final nail plunge into your coffin. He straightened his spine, his back muscles shifting along in the process as he did. You couldn’t help but lock your gaze onto him, the broad shoulders, the large wingspan of him—  Jesus Christ. 

Yeah. You were going to hell.

You forced yourself to collect your thoughts, clearing your throat lightly as you looked down his back. You saw it. The light purplish blue spot. Gently, you reached out, fingers resting upon his warm skin. Bucky didn’t flinch, but you didn’t press against him to elicit such a reaction either. You simply just grazed upon the hurt, feeling for any swelling or lump.

“Doesn’t feel like a hematoma, doesn’t appear to be large enough to be one either,” you muttered, a frown settling upon your face. “You’ll be fine, Barnes. Why did you come to me for this?”

Bucky shrugged, already reaching for his shirt. “Just making sure that it wasn’t anything serious.”

“I’m watching the discoloring fade back into your regular skin color in real time,” you pointed out, still zoned in on the injury. It was a fascinating scene– being able to watch as his body healed itself before your very eyes.

“Then write it down in your notes,” he said, tugging the black fabric of his shirt back over his head. “Better yet– start a file for me with all the other freaks on the team that you take care of. James Buchnanan Barnes, in case you forgot my full name.”

You almost missed it. The hint of jealousy in his voice– the way he didn’t turn back to meet your gaze. Your eyebrow twitched slightly as you stared at the back of his head, assessing him in a way that you had never seen him before.

You cleared your throat, and reached to push a couple files to the side. Bucky couldn’t help but let his curiosity get the better of him as he heard you shuffle some papers around.

A smile fit over his face as he saw it on your desk– clear as day. A folder with his name written on it, with your handwritten notes already tucked away neatly inside of them. When his pretty blue eyes met yours, you couldn’t help but mirror his smile.

“I’ll add your little boo-boo to your incident report log, soldier.”

“You fuckin’ suck, sweetheart.”

Despite his words, Bucky still kept coming to you. In fact, you began to see more of him than you had ever seen before. It’s as if the barrier between the two of you had somehow got torn apart like it was never there.  

The next time he came to you, you almost ripped your brain apart. You were completely, extremely, and utterly distraught, as if you had somehow managed to miss something in the few years of research that you had been doing on Steve.

“You… have a headache?” you asked him slowly.

“Yeah. A horrible migraine,” he replied, nodding to you.

“Rate it on a scale of one to ten,” you told him, already reaching for your computer to pull up Steve’s archived notes. “Ten being: Please sedate me bad.”

“Uh– six.”

Your fingers paused over your keyboard. That wasn’t a horrible number, but not the best either– especially not for a super soldier. Six usually meant that the pain deterred a person from being able to do their tasks without thinking about the symptoms they were under, and he described his headache as a migraine. 

“Are you okay?” Bucky’s voice cut through your thoughts, and you took in a sharp breath, looking back at him.

“Yeah, fine– sorry,” you muttered quickly, quickly browsing through Steve’s medical history. You didn’t find a single thing that could help you, and a soft curse exited your lips. You reached for your gloves, and quickly crossed the room towards him, already herding him towards where you wanted him to go. “Can you get on the examination table for me?”

“It’s– it’s a headache,” he stuttered, bewildered at your sudden hovering.

“Steve said that he doesn’t get headaches, and the serum that you got was developed after him which means that technically– you should be developmentally better than him biologically speaking,” you told him.

From the look in your eye, Bucky couldn’t help but listen to your orders, and got on the table. You kept him in your med bay for a while, trying to figure out why the hell his head was hurting– but he stuck to the same script. Said he woke up wrong, and the pain just kept increasing throughout the day.

There was an abnormal amount of muscle tension across his neck and back when you ran your hands across his body, but there weren't any of the same muscle knots that Steve had. 

“I stretch before and after training,” he muttered when you brought it up. His voice was a bit lower, slightly thicker. You figured it was from the pain he was feeling in his head. 

“You and Steve might just be carrying tension in your muscles differently,” you said with a frown, smoothing your hands over his shoulders. “He has back pain. You get headaches– makes sense though– are the headaches left side dominated since the metal weighs you down? I see you compensate for the weight, but when you’re tired you sometimes lean.”

Bucky paused for a second, then looked over his shoulder at you. “You noticed?”

“I notice everything, Barnes.”

His eyes stayed fixed onto your face for a bit, something unreadable in his gaze. You watched as he wet his lips slowly, and turned to face forward again. He took a deep breath, his shoulders rising and falling with the actions under your hands.

“Yeah,” he muttered. “Left side dominant migraine.”

“I’m prescribing you 2000mg of ibuprofen.”

Bucky spun around to face you once more, and you could read the expression on his face this time– fucking shock and doubt. “Sweetheart, are you trying to kill my liver? What the hell are you going to do when it shuts down from shock?”

“Did you forget who you are, soldier?” you asked, staring at him with equal amounts of disbelief. “Your liver will chew through a regular dose of 200mg of ibuprofen and shit it out like it’s a tic tac– take 2000mg or you’ll spend the rest of the week with your own personal drummer using your head as its instrument.”

He grumbled, but you watched him swallow down the cup of pills you poured out from your stash in the medicine cabinet along with the water from your own personal water bottle. You quietly realized you would need to get a water dispenser in the med lab. Even so, you weren't in any rush to do so as you drank out of the same water bottle when he left.

Bucky continued to come to you for more… superficial wounds that didn’t require you to do a full body examination on him. You never meant to downplay the injury or the pain that he may or may not be feeling, but the super soldier came to you for you to blow on his scrapes. You were wondering what the hell his thought process was in his head, but you also couldn’t just turn away a patient. 

He had the leg of his sweatpants tugged up past his knee, but the fabric was strained against the thick muscle of his thigh. You had to force yourself to ignore the fact the stitches were basically ripping at the seams.

“This will heal in like, an hour, Bucky,” you told him. “You barely fell on your knee– this was definitely through the clothes.”

“You stopped calling me by my last name,” he said, ignoring your words of examination. His voice was soft– softer than you had ever heard it before. “When did that happen?” 

Suddenly, you were keenly aware of the fact that you were kneeling in front of him– the position you had so naturally assumed when he had exposed his leg to you, and he was just staring down at you. You could feel the warmth creeping up your neck, and you knew that he could see it. 

“Focus, soldier,” you replied, snapping your fingers in front of his face. You pointed your index finger between his face and yours, connecting a line between his eyes to yours. “Back to the scrape.” 

You didn’t know if you were telling him or yourself, honestly. There was a smile on his face that you would later categorize in your notes as devastating. You could barely tear your eyes away from his, looking back down at the already healing injury.

That day, you sent Bucky away with a saline wash and a bandaid slapped onto the joint, knowing full well that he would be fine. You hoped that he wouldn’t come back with something stupidly bad for your heart, but no. 

He just came back with something stupid period. 

“Back in my day, people used to die from papercuts. Did the Aerospace Medical Training not teach you that, Doc?” he mocked you.

“Did you Google which training I got?” you rolled your eyes at him. “Didn’t know that you knew how to use search engines, Sarge.”

“I asked Sam, actually,” he grunted, almost like he didn’t even want to admit it to you. 

“You spoke to him. Good for you,” you said, pretending to look impressed. “Did you guys argue before he told you who trained me? Did he tell you that I graduated top of my class, too? While we’re on the topic, let me tell you that I also retired from the military with the highest of honors–”

“Can you shut the hell up and look at my injury before I die from some unknown disease?” he cut you off.

You held his pointer finger in your hand, glaring at the tip of it like the pad of it owed you something. “There’s nothing here, Buck.”

“Do you need glasses? Goggles, maybe? I’m sure Sam can hook you up with that,” he chuckled, clearly happy with himself for the jab.

You really tried to fight back the smile that threatened to creep up onto your face, but failed miserably. You couldn’t help it. You also made fun of Sam the first time you saw him in his hero uniform– sent the picture straight to his sister and the two of you spent a good two hours on the phone cackling in front of him.

“There’s no papercut,” you told him again, releasing his finger. “And even if there was– people don’t die from papercuts anymore. Of course, unless you’re not fully vaccinated. And at that point… I don’t know what to tell you. Are you not vaccinated, soldier?”

“I’m vaccinated against everything that exists,” he informed you, crossing his arms over his chest.

“What’s the vaccine called? H.Y.D.R.A. serum?” you shot back.

His reply came just as quick. “Yes, actually.”

“Sounds like some good stuff– how many times did you have to get it for it to be this effective? Do I gotta get it once a year like a flu shot?” you joked. 

“Just once, but there were all these different side effects, doll. Like, frying my brain, my personal agency ripped from me for several decades, and insane amounts of trauma– crazy shit. Don’t recommend it. I’d stick to what the CDC pushes out to the regular civilians,” he said, and waved a dismissive hand in the air. 

You had to bite back a laugh, covering your mouth with a hand as you looked to the side. You weren’t even sure if you were allowed to laugh at his trauma laced up with a pretty bow. 

“It was funny, you gotta admit,” Bucky said, nodding to himself more than to you. When you looked back at him, there was a charming smile on his face, one that you couldn’t even believe that he had on at that moment.

“You are awful.”

“And I’m still at risk of dying from an infection. Sweetheart, you gotta get me right,” he told you, a hint of a Brooklyn accent peeking from under his words. You’d be lying if you said there wasn’t a slight tingle than ran through your entire being at the sound of his voice.

You cleared your throat, attempting to steel your mind and soul once more since your body clearly wasn't listening to you. “Didn’t you just tell me that you were immune to every disease possible?”

Bucky’s lips parted, and he cocked his head to the side as if he was trying hard to formulate an excuse. You waited patiently as you watched him shut his mouth, and look over to the side as if your closed medicine cabinets would give him some answers.

“Better to be safe than sorry,” he settled with.

“Do you just come here for me to lick your wounds?” you asked, moving to go sit down at your desk. You couldn’t help but tease him a little. “Because I’m starting to think all you do is come here to waste my time.”

He shrugged, a little noncommittally. “Maybe I just wanted an excuse to talk to a friend.”

“A friend,” you echoed, a chuckle leaving you. 

“Yes, a friend,” he repeated, raising an eyebrow at you suspiciously. “Why do you say it like that?”

“I just– I didn’t realize that’s what we were,” you admitted.

Once more, the man in front of you paused. This time, there was a crease between his eyebrows as he looked at you, and his hands fell to his sides. Confusion was evident on his face. 

“What is that supposed to mean?” he asked, the start of a frown beginning to settle over his face.

The change in the air was clear. Colder, and even though he was right in front of you, he had felt farther away than he had ever been before. 

A sigh escaped your lips as you looked away from him, down at your desk in front of you. “We’ve worked together for years. You didn’t bother with me until three weeks ago, Bucky. Coworkers, yes. But friends? I didn’t think we were close enough for that.”

“You take care of the entire team as it is– was it wrong for me to try and take care of myself?” he defended himself.

Your gaze flitted over to him quickly, finding that he was leaning over one of your worktables, arms crossed in front of him. He was genuinely upset, you realized. You couldn’t figure out why. 

“No, Bucky– I’m just saying. You never even talked to me before,” you sighed, shaking your head. “At some point, I just gave up on communicating with you all together. If it weren’t for the fact you nodded at me during missions, then I would’ve fully believed that you just didn’t think I was there.”

“Of course I knew you were there,” he replied back instantly. “But you were busy. With everyone and everything else. Me and Steve heal faster than the rest of them, but you always seem to try and check up on us first.”

“Because you two never seem to take care of yourselves— it’s my job to take care of you,” you stressed to him. 

“I never asked you to do that for me!” he shouted at you.

You blinked at him, taken aback. Did he just yell at you?

 It took you a second to collect yourself, to be able to even look him in the eye without the last bit of your patience snapping. 

“It’s in my job description, just like it’s in yours to take care of me if I have to go out in the field for an evac, Barnes.”

“We’re going back to last names?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at you. The edge in his voice was sharp, thick. It made you want to smack the attitude out his mouth. “So we really aren’t friends after all?”

“Jesus Christ,” you muttered, leaning back in your seat. You brought your hands up to cover your face. “What the fuck is your issue with how I address you? Barnes is your name isn’t it?”

“Well, excuse me– I thought we were closer than that,” he said, spitting your words right back at you. 

You sucked in a deep breath before dragging your hands down your face to look at him without any obstruction.

“Okay, sure– then why did you ignore my existence for so fucking long despite us being on the same team? Even if you don’t need my help, it doesn’t explain you pretending I’m nothing but air around you up until recently,” you demanded from him. 

“I just– I didn’t want to add to your workload,” he told you, shaking his head.

“And you think that coming into my med bay with a fucking papercut isn’t increasing my workload? I have other shit to take care of,” you scoffed at him, voice laced with sarcasm. Your body felt the regret before your mind caught up with you– and you wanted to scream. The words had come out faster than you could stop it. 

Bucky’s body tensed, and his eyes dropped down to the metal table before him. His fingers tapped along it, a soft beat resounding against the silence as he nodded slowly, processing your words. Then, there was a wave of calm that rushed through him. His body loosened. Accepted your words as if they were scripture. 

“Okay,” he finally said, his voice softer, and his fingers stopped moving. He stood up tall, and didn’t look at you again. “I got the message. I won’t add to your busy plate. I know you have a lot going on.”

Bucky moved towards the doors. Something told you that he wouldn’t come back if you let him leave– even if he had some sort of grave injury. He would definitely try to take care of it himself.

There was a tightness in your chest that you wouldn’t be able to explain in medical terms. There were no heart palpitations or anxiety attacks. No, this was just you being a fucking asshole to him. 

“F.R.I.D.A.Y., lock the doors and frost the glass,” you ordered as fast as you could.

Bucky had to step back quickly, otherwise his foot would’ve gotten caught with how the doors came sliding shut. Finally, the soldier turned to look at you where you sat at your desk, frowning at him.

“F.R.I.D.A.Y. unlock the doors,” Bucky said, holding your gaze.

“I can’t do that, Sergeant,” she replied, making a sigh of relief exit your lips. 

“You stupid fucking A.I. —“

“We’re in my lab,” you interjected his words, running your hand through your hair. “Within these walls, she listens to me. Well, usually she does. I still need Tony to fuckin’ fix her and tell me who’s been sneaking past my shut down protocols to sneak presents into my rooms when I’m not around.”

Bucky tongued at his cheek as his eyes narrowed at you. “Thought we weren’t close. Why are you holding me hostage in your lab, sweetheart?”

You released a breath, and gave him a small, weak smile. One that you hoped looked sincere. You watched as Bucky’s exterior slowly melted away as he stared at you, and you let out a shaky breath.

“You’re not adding to my workload– I didn’t… I didn’t mean that,” you whispered, still keeping your eyes locked onto his. “I like it when you come to visit me, even if it's for some stupid shit that I have to log into your file, but if you just wanted to be my friend– you don’t have to make up excuses to come and see me. You can just… come visit me.”

The silence was loud. You didn’t dare look away from him, afraid he would take it the wrong way if he did. Then, you saw it. A slight shake of his shoulders. 

The smallest of laughs escaped his lips, and he shook his head, chin tilting downwards to his chest until he was looking at his feet. You could see the slight tug of his lips, curling upwards into a smile.

“Activate Override: Protocol Doc authorized by White Wolf, F.R.I.D.A.Y.,” Bucky spoke.

You pushed out of your seat quickly, lips parting. You felt betrayal deep in your bones as you watched as the doors slid right open, and the glass turned clear once more– and there was a disastrous smile on Bucky’s face that stole the air from your lungs as he met your eyes.

“It was you–”

“We’re not gonna be friends, sweetheart,” he told you, a chuckle on his lips as he turned towards the door. “I don’t leave flowers and chocolate for my friends on their beds.”

Your eyebrows furrowed. “Flowers? I haven't gotten flowers!”

Bucky didn’t respond to you. The man just walked right out of the med bay, forgetting about the papercut injury that threatened his health, and left you with that fat piece of information to sit on. 

When you regained your senses, you rushed out towards the door, but it was useless. He was already gone. You couldn’t find him on either side of the hall. Your next stop was your bedroom, and just like Bucky said– there was a bouquet of fresh flowers waiting for you on the edge of your bed.

You could feel your blood pressure rising with each passing moment. 

The monitors mounted on the walls of the jet were blaring at you with different warning lights on each of the Avengers– showing you where each of them had sustained critical injury. Every few moments, an explosion went off, causing the aircraft to tremble with you inside of it.

“Can I get a status report?” you asked, eyes glued onto the screens.

Static crackled right back to you through your earpiece before it connected– you could hear the sounds of battle and gunfire. The sounds of the team shouting over each other to take cover, to watch each other’s six– it was too much. 

“Someone talk to me!” you shouted. “Do you need an evac?!”

“Stay put!” Steve barked on the other end. “It’s too dangerous for you to–”

The ground shook beneath the jet, toppling you over. The comms cut off into a buzzing silence as you hit the metal floors, your heart racing in your chest– that wasn’t just a mini explosion set off by Tony or Rhodey. That was something bigger. More lethal and heavy.

“F.R.I.D.A.Y. get them back online!” you ordered as you scrambled to your feet, slamming your hands on the sides of the monitors to force them to reconnect with everyone’s suits. 

Slowly, the screens came back to life– and your stomach dropped through your body. Critical warnings were showing onto the screen before you. A gaping hole in the side of his torso that ripped through his gear. Foreign bodies were detected to have entered his skin– and the scans could barely show it but you were certain there were broken bones.

“Evac– Am I evacuating Bucky?” you demanded, trying to will your voice to stay even as you connected through the comms. 

Radio silence. The only noise that greeted you back was the sound of your own heart pumping wildly through your ears. 

You moved quickly, grabbing the keys to the motorbike that was docked at the end of the jet. There wasn’t any time to wait– not when the entire team was injured badly, and Bucky was potentially dying out in the middle of the field. You swung your leg over the seat, and removed the hooks that kept the bike in place–

You froze.

You had no information.

If you went out onto the field, you would be going into a warzone without any eyes or ears to let you know where to go. You’d be going in blind, creating more of a liability for the rest of the team to try and take care of while you pulled Bucky out of there. 

You had a failsafe. If they needed you to come out, and couldn’t reach you through the earpiece, then Tony would’ve contacted you through F.R.I.D.A.Y.. You had been instructed by Steve to stay put. Disobeying direct orders would put the entire mission, the team, and you at risk.

Your hands trembled as you rehooked the bike into place, and slowly unmounted the seat. All you could do was prep the examination table in the jet, pulling it from the middle of the floor, and grabbing out all the supplies that you could possibly need. 

All you could do was wait for the dust to settle, to watch the monitors for any more injuries that inevitably came– and pray to every higher being out there that Bucky’s heart didn’t give out before they brought him back to you.

Your earpiece crackled to life after what had seemed like an eternity. 

“Incoming!” Sam yelled, and you immediately moved to open the rear ramp. 

The shape that Sam was in– it made you want to throw up. His goggles were cracked, suit ripped in several different areas. This mission went sideways and been thrown upside down more times than you could’ve counted. 

But Bucky– he made your heart stop. His skin was nearly devoid of color, and blood fell down his body with each passing second in thick droplets. His lips were pale, dry, and cracked. Soot and ash caked onto his face, his hair sticking onto his forehead with a mixture of sweat and dirt. You didn’t even know where to start when you looked at him.

Sam dropped him onto the table, and you immediately took to his side, fingers pressing against the pulse point on his neck. It was faint, but there– but still wasn’t good enough for what you needed. 

“What happened?” you breathed out.

“Cap lost his shield– fucking RPG came out of nowhere. Bucky threw himself in front of it– blocked Steve from getting the blast, but he took the brunt of it,” Sam said, watching as you ripped open Bucky’s vest. 

Your eyes immediately fell on Bucky’s torso, your lips parting in shock. Shrapnel was buried deep into his side– but his body was already rapidly healing around it. You’d never seen this before– not with Bucky or Steve. This was different. Bucky’s body healed faster the more it was damaged.

“An RPG?” you whispered, meeting Sam’s eyes. 

Your hands were shaking. You didn’t see what happened, sure, but just from the looks of it– from what you were seeing in front of you? Bucky unconscious, the labored breaths, the blood seeping out from his side– the weapon that took him down– it was too much.

The flashbacks of everything were coming back to you. The failure, the fear–

“He’s still alive,” Sam cut through your thoughts, grabbing your wrist. “Don’t freak out on me now. We’re not back in the trenches. I need you to focus because Buck’s not the only one injured right now.”

As if on queue, everyone else started piling into the jet. A shaky breath exited your lips as you watched them limp on board, leaning onto each other and groaning in pain. For the most part– they were alive. They were doing much better than Bucky.

“How is he?” Steve asked, setting Natasha down onto the benches.

“He’s lost a lot of blood– Tony, we need to get back to base quick,” you told him, and watched as the man got out of his suit and assumed control over the front console. “I gotta get this shit out of his body before we get there– he’s healing around the metal.”

“How the hell are you gonna do that?” Sam asked, frowning at you.

You bit the inside of your cheek, eyes darting around your supplies. “You guys are gonna need to hold him down… I don’t have any anesthetics on board.”

Both men froze in front of you, but they shifted to assume positions. Steve rested his hands on Bucky’s arms, pressing down firmly, while Sam held onto Bucky’s legs. You released a breath before you brought the scalpel to his torso– you needed to reinjure him. You needed to open him back up quickly to pull out every single foreign body within him otherwise it would only cause him some more issues.

“Starting,” you muttered out your warning.

Then, you cut into him.

Bucky’s body tensed immediately, eyes flying open as he jolted– Sam and Steve fighting to push him back down. His left arm immediately tried grabbing for you, only for Steve to readjust his grip to force Bucky back down.

“Shit– Buck! It’s just us!” Sam shouted at him, trying to get his attention. “You’re gonna fuckin’ hurt her if you don’t calm down!”

You could feel Bucky’s eyes land on you, the breaths coming out of his chest fast and uneven. Soon, he managed to fall limp under Steve and Sam’s hands, though his body still twitched as you dug into him, retrieving each and every single broken piece of metal within him.

“I’m sorry– I’m so sorry,” you kept repeating to him, wincing as your tweezers dug deeper into the tissue– as you had to reach for the scalpel again to cut back into him. His body kept healing before your eyes. You hadn’t had to deal with this before. 

You could barely keep your hands from trembling. Every ounce of your concentration was going towards the task at hand, trying to pull out the smallest pieces of metal while also trying to make sure his wound didn’t heal too fast, but also trying to stop him from actively bleeding out on you– you were panicking.

It was too similar. Too close to home. It reminded you too much of what had happened back on the war field all those years ago when you lost Riley. There was nothing that you could have done to stop his pain after he went down. You were ill equipt– you didn’t have the right tools with you to help him. Your team was too far away from your headquarters, and it didn’t even matter how fast you got there. He was already gone.

You didn’t even realize you were crying until Bucky’s hand cradled your face, the metal thumb brushing away a stray tear that fell.

“I’m fine, sweetheart,” he muttered to you, forcing his eyes open to look up at you. He offered you a small, weak smile. “I got that crazy vaccine, remember? I can’t just roll over and die so easily.”

“You’re going to die by my hands if you don’t shut the fuck up and save your energy,” you whispered back to him.

Despite the pain, he laughed on the table. He regretted the action a second later, a crease forming between his eyebrows as he struggled to catch his breath again, but you appreciated him all the same. He was attempting to make you feel better. And it worked.

Bucky’s hand dropped from your face, but it lingered on you. He rested it on your hip, squeezing you lightly whenever you had to cut back into him– a quiet move to let you know that he was okay and to keep doing what you were doing for him. 

With Bucky’s comfort, his touch– the light tap of his fingers against you– you managed to calm down your nerves well enough to get everything out of his body before the jet touched back down onto base. The second the doors opened, Steve and Sam were carrying him onto a stretcher for you to do your full assessment on him.

With how fast his body was healing, you needed to move rapidly– faster than you had ever done before. You didn’t have time to give him any numbing agents, despite how badly you wanted to. The fractures that the monitors had detected must be already attempting to set into place during the time that you were focused on his torso, and you really didn’t want to have to rebreak bone in order for him to heal properly. 

Even after Bucky was finished up, fully patched and stitched, you didn’t even allow him to leave. You managed to get him transferred from your table to a more comfortable hospital bed, then you drugged him to really make sure the man wouldn’t be able to walk out of your med bay. 

He was pumped with sedatives that you knew knocked out Steve, and you felt some sort of comfort when you watched Bucky fall asleep without pain etching into his features. While he slept, you had fluids pushing through his body, replenishing him while you moved on to take care of the rest of the team. 

Thankfully, they weren’t as bad as Bucky was.

You needed to push a collarbone back into place, reset a broken nose, stitch some wounds together– but nothing like pulling foreign bodies out of a torso. You could breathe easier. 

“You okay?” Sam asked you as you tugged the needle through his arm. 

“I think we should invest in a medical team,” you replied. “I think just having only one of me around isn’t cutting it anymore.”

Sam let out a small chuckle, and shook his head. “That’s not what I mean.”

Your hands paused over his arm, and you looked up at him. You met his gaze– he looked just as exhausted as you felt. Your eyes dropped back down to his injury, and you kept working.

“The hell are you talking about?” you murmured, even though you knew exactly what he was about to start on. 

“I haven’t seen you act like that since Riley got shot out of the sky,” he said softly. “Damn near thought you were gonna pass out on the jet.”

Your jaw clenched as you released a breath. “Sam…”

“It scared me, too– don’t get me wrong. It was… I’m glad you weren’t there to see how it all unfolded on the field.”

The words died down between you. You could only hear the light sound of the sutures being pulled through his skin as you punctured him repeatedly, gently closing the wound back into place. 

“On another note,” Sam spoke, breaking the silence, “Don’t think I missed the way that Robo-Cop held you on the jet–”

“We’re not talking about this right now–”

“And he called you sweetheart,” he whistled lowly, and you could hear the grin on his face without even looking at him. “Is there something you wanna tell me–”

A sharp cry exited his lips, cutting off his words as you dug the needle through him. Your eyebrows furrowed in feigned concern as your eyes flitted up to meet his gaze in mock apology.

“Haven’t heard you scream like that since Riley was around,” you mused, tilting your head at him. “You gonna pass out on the floor of my lab?”

“Oh, fuck you.”

This time around, Bucky wasn’t discharged back into regular duties for over two weeks. You put him on strict bedrest, even though he hated every single moment of it. Thankfully, the other members of the team snitched on him every time they found him roaming the halls near the training grounds, and you would immediately herd Bucky back into his room.

He told you that it was overkill. Subconsciously, you agreed. He didn’t need to be out of commission for that long, and he was honestly fine after a week and a half. You had already taken the stitches out of his body. X-Rays showed that his bones had healed the right way, and he had made a full recovery. 

You were still worried. You couldn’t shake the memory— having to continuously cut into him, him bleeding in front of you… It really did mess you up, more than you wanted to admit. 

One look from you made Bucky concede, and follow your wellness plan without another complaint. 

However, it didn’t stop Bucky from bringing you gifts. Except he hand delivered it to you now, rather than leaving it in your room like some sort of off season Santa Claus. 

Bucky sat on the bench beside you, watching you open up the little package. He wasn’t even around you the other day when you said you’d been having a hard time sleeping recently, and now? You had lavender incense and some candles– peach scented. Along with the aromas, he also presented you with a small plush toy.

“How the hell did you know that I like Miffy?” you asked, raising your eyebrow at him. “Scratch that– how do you even know what Miffy is?”

Bucky shrugged beside you. “You’re not the only one that notices everything.”

“So you just… never talked to me, but you remembered everything I ever said? Even when you weren’t in the same room as me?” you mused. You took out the small bunny toy and placed it on your desk like a little guardian watching over your med lab. You tapped on its head, a smile coming onto your face. 

“I’ve had a crush on you for a while, doll,” he said, as if it was old news. “I just didn’t really know how to approach.”

“So you thought depositing a gun in my room was the best way to approach me?” you questioned, turning to look at him. 

Bucky paused, the words going over his mind and filtering through. The man took a slow, deep breath before meeting your gaze. Then, he smiled. That same smile that made you go weak and dizzy in the head. “Kinda romantic, right?”

The sheer audacity of him made you roll your eyes, a scoff falling from your lips not too long afterwards. Even so, you couldn’t help but mirror his smile. You did have to admit it– fine. It was a little romantic. 

“And here I thought, we were gonna be friends,” you teased lightly.

“I told you, sweetheart– we’re not gonna be friends,” he shook his head.

“Oh? Then what are we going to be?” you asked, raising your eyebrows at him.

“Lovers,” he said, like it was the most obvious answer. “Do you think I just take my shirt off and tell you to look at a contusion without any ulterior motives?”

“You keep saying it was a contusion to make it sound worse than it actually was, but it was literally a bruise, Bucky,” you sighed, shaking your head. “You’re sick in the head for that.”

“And you’re a pervert,” he accused. “I could feel you staring at me. Don’t tell me that you weren’t.”

“I’m the pervert?” you repeated, eyebrows up to your hairline.

Bucky hesitated for just a second as he looked at you. His eyes roamed over your face for a few moments, then he shrugged. “Well, I don’t think I can really say much. I really liked seeing you on your knees that one day.”

You slapped his arm, the smack resounding off the walls of your lab, quickly followed by the rumble of his laughter. You stood up, needing to take a second to get away from him as heat crawled back up your neck and threatened to appear on your face. 

“And I thought you were a gentleman,” you huffed, moving to turn towards your workbench.

Bucky’s hands caught your wrist, pulling you back towards him. The action was so smooth– so quick, but so gentle all at the same time. You found yourself standing between his knees, barely any space between your bodies as he looked up at you. His hands slid down from your wrists to rest into your hands, lacing your fingers together.

“I can be a gentleman, sweetheart,” he told you, the softness of his voice matching the look in his eyes. “Is that what you want from me?” 

“You… are on bedrest, soldier,” you warned.

“What do you mean?” The corners of Bucky’s lips curled upwards slightly. “I’m not doing anything– is there something that you want me to be doing?”

Maybe you were the pervert after all.

All Bucky was doing was sitting there before you, looking up at you with those blue eyes that seemed to hold the world, and a soft smile on his face like you had given him that world– and you were coming undone. 

Was there something that you wanted him to be doing to you? Absolutely. You.

“Something about the way you’re looking at me right now tells me you don’t want me to be a gentleman right now,” he murmured to you, releasing one of your hands in favor of reaching up for your face.

“You spend too much time watching me if you can tell what my thoughts are just from looking at me,” you whispered back. You leaned into his touch, allowing him to pull you down into him until your forehead rested against his.

“You were mine before you even realized it, doll.” 

“Could’ve just hit on me sooner, y’know. Didn’t have to come here asking me to look at papercuts—”

“Shut up,” he sighed, his hand slipping to the back of your neck to close the remainder of the distance between you two. 

You could feel the smile on his lips against your own as he kissed you, tugging you impossibly closer to him. Your hands flattened against his chest for stability, a soft hum escaping your throat. 

Bucky’s teeth caught at your bottom lip, dragging down lightly until you willingly granted him the entry he was asking for. His tongue glided over yours, the hand at the back of your head pressing you deeper into him. 

He tasted sweet— like plums with a hint of syrup. You wanted more of it, wanted to consume him and his entire being into you. Thankfully, it seemed like he felt the same way. 

You found yourself fully situated on his lap, legs framing his hips. One of his arms looped around your waist, hand pressed onto your upper back to hold you against him as he kissed you harder. A sigh fell from your lips, one that he greedily swallowed up for himself. 

He pulled away, but didn’t stray too far. 

Bucky peppered kisses down your jawline and neck. You could only tilt your head to the side, giving him the space to play with whatever he wanted. 

“You’re so soft, sweetheart,” he murmured against your neck— right before he sucked a bruise right onto your skin. 

You forced back a gasp, your body tingling and screaming under his touch. He pressed his lips against the wound, tongue gently lapping over to soothe. 

“F.R.I.D.A.Y.—“ you called out, cut off by another nip of his teeth on your neck. You swallowed thickly, trying to get your bearings as you buried your hands into his hair, tugging him away from you to give you some space to think. 

“Yes, doctor?” the A.I. spoke, waiting for your instruction. 

You were breathless, just from one kiss and two hickeys. Bucky stared up at you, eyes filled with innocence, lips slightly swollen from the kiss you shared with him. From where your other hand rested, you could feel his heartbeat thrumming against his neck. 

“Block the glass, lock the doors, and turn the lights down. If anyone asks for me, I’m not here,” you ordered. 

“Understood.”

The room dimmed around you, and all doors slid shut. The glass and windows in your med bay turned to frost, while the blinds and curtains quickly got drawn shut. On the outside— it looked like you weren’t in. 

“Turning the lights down, doll?” Bucky whispered to you, a hint of tease in his voice. “Creating a mood for us?”

“Be quiet,” you muttered, pressing a chaste kiss to the corner of his mouth. “Bedrest. Now.” 

“Something tells me that this isn’t the same bedrest you prescribed,” he whispered.

“You don’t want me, soldier?” you asked, tugging on his hair again. 

A low groan escaped his lips, and his eyes shut for a second. You watched how his throat bobbed as he swallowed. “Don’t put words in my mouth, sweetheart.”

Bucky stood, carrying you with him as he crossed the room. He laid you down onto one of the recovery beds in your lab— the same beds that you would nap on if you ever spent too much time working. You were certain that Bucky knew that about you, too. 

His weight gently blanketed you as his lips caught yours again. Bucky slotted himself between your legs as if he’d always belonged there, like there was no place that he should’ve ever been. You wrapped your arms around his neck, a soft moan pulled from your lips as his hands dipped under the hem of your shirt, seeking skin. 

The contrast of the cool, smooth metal against the warm, calloused texture of his organic hand was enough to make your head spin. His hands continued their journey, fingers stopping just at the edge of your bra. 

“Is this okay?” he muttered against your lips. 

“Yeah,” you nodded. “It’s okay, Buck.”

He exhaled slowly, breath mingling with yours as his hands ventured beneath the last piece of clothing. He cupped the mounds, feeling the weight of you, and cursed under his breath.

“Fuck– I might die,” he whispered, massaging your breasts slowly.

“What?” you breathed out, trying to focus on his words as his fingers caught the hardening peaks of your nipples. 

“I might die, sweetheart,” he repeated to you, eyes glued to your chest even though he couldn’t see anything from the layers of fabric over his hands.

“You’re not allowed to. I want you inside me.”

Bucky’s eyes shot up to you, brain malfunctioning for a second. Then, he dropped his head down to your neck. He was trying to catch his breath– and you hadn’t even done anything to him. This reaction was purely from your words, from just touching one part of you.

“I’m trying real hard to be a gentleman here,” he murmured against your skin.

You huffed, reaching between the two of you. Bucky’s body twitched as you undid the tie of his sweatpants, loosening the fabric around his waist. Your hand slipped beneath the waistband of the fabric, feeling him waiting for you. 

“You can be a gentleman while you fuck me,” you murmured, taking him in your hand. A low moan filled your ears as you began to stroke him– the hard, heavy length of him. 

You could feel his resolve breaking apart with every single slow pump of your hand. Bucky groaned into your neck with each of your movements, his hips pressing deeper into your hand as if to assist you. 

You could feel him throb in your hand, a thick vein coming to life against your palm. You took him from the very tip, thumb brushing over the head of him and smearing over the bead of precum that leaked over, and ran it all the way down to the base of him. 

Part of you thought it was a waste. You wanted to lick it up– swallow whatever leaked out of him. You wondered if you would be able to convince him to let you get down on your knees again for him.

Bucky didn’t even give you a chance to entertain the idea any farther. His hand gripped at your wrist, pulling your hand out of his pants as he sat up. His chest was rising and falling in slow, barely even breaths as he stared down at you.

The softness you saw earlier was gone. It was replaced with hunger, desire– you were about to be consumed by him. A tingle ran throughout your body, going straight down into your core as he reached for the buttons of your pants.

He moved slowly, peeling the fabric off of you like you were a present to unbox. Bucky even unlaced your boots, gently removing them and resting them onto the floor neatly before he was able to remove the rest of your pants. You could only watch with bated breath as he folded it, and put it on the bedside table, then turned back to you.

“Look at you,” he whispered, already shifting downwards onto the bed. “So pretty.”

He parted your legs, hooking your knees over his shoulders before pressing a featherlight kiss to the inside of your thigh. He continued forth, more kisses trailing upwards towards where you need him most, but you couldn’t dare breathe a word to rush him– not when he was holding you like you were something precious, not when he was pressing kisses against your skin that felt more sincere than anything you’d ever heard before. 

“Do you like these panties?” he asked you, glancing up to your face.

“They’re comfortable,” you answered, resting up onto your elbows to look at him.

“You have more?”

“Yeah–”

The sound of fabric ripping filled your ears, then you watched as he chucked the ruined article to the side like it meant nothing. You didn’t even have a chance to say a word before his mouth closed around your heat, taking you in. Your head dropped back against the pillows, a shaky moan escaping your lips as his tongue flatted against you, then parted your folds. 

Bucky groaned at the taste of you, eyes fluttering shut like you were the best thing he had ever had. His hands tightened around your hips, tugging you closer to his face– trying to drown himself in you as his tongue nudged at your entrance, just barely dipping in and out. His nose brushed against your swollen clit, and your legs trembled around his head.

“Bucky–” you moaned, hands reaching for his.

His fingers laced with yours, and he hummed in acknowledgement. The vibrations only made your hips twitch against him, lifting off the bed and up into his face. You couldn’t help it– you were chasing the pleasure that he was giving you just with his tongue alone. 

Bucky’s thumbs brushed against the back of your hand in quiet encouragement– as if to tell you to let go whenever you wanted to. You wouldn’t be the one to deny him, not when he was giving it to you so deliciously. 

You came apart with his name on your lips, his head between your legs, and his fingers intertwined with yours. Bucky kept lapping up your arousal, desperate to not let a single drop go to waste. 

“Buck– shit– too much,” you gasped out, trying to wiggle yourself away from him.

A soft grunt came from him, but he relented. He came up for fresh air, licking his lips as he did. You caught the way your own slick glistened against his chin, how he looked so satisfied with himself– Jesus. It was a sight to behold. 

“Need you,” you whispered. 

“I’m all yours,” he replied. 

Bucky lowered himself back onto you without another second to waste. You could taste yourself on his tongue– the saltiness mixed with sweet. You craved more of him– all of him. You nearly cried out in relief when you felt him tug down the fabric of his sweats, pooling them around his knees.

You both moaned into each other's mouths as his cock pressed against your folds. Slowly, his hips moved, covering himself in your juices, the tip of his length nudging and catching on your clit every few moments. A shaky breath fell from his lips as you angled your hips just slightly, and his length caught slightly on your entrance. 

Very slowly, he stretched you out. Neither of you could say a word– you could hardly breathe as you took him in. You felt every single ridge and vein of his dick entering you, splitting you open and forcing you to learn the shape of him. 

“Fuck,” Bucky moaned above you, hips fully flushed against yours.

You could only nod in silent agreement, barely meeting his eyes. His breathing was labored as he looked down at you, eyes roaming all over your body before landing back onto your face. Bucky reached for you, and pulled your shirt up over your chest, taking your bra with it.

“God, you’re so beautiful,” he whispered, grinding his hips against yours before he started at a slow pace. His hands ran up and down your torso, as if he was trying to memorize every part of you, catching every single contour of your shape. 

“You– you’re pretty, too,” you barely managed to force out as his thrusts naturally picked up speed, his cock dragging in and out of you in deep, hard strokes. 

Something mixed with a chuckle and a low moan ripped from this throat as he smiled down at you. Again– absolutely catastrophic. You couldn’t help but clamp down around him at the sight, and felt as his hips stuttered against yours. 

“You think I’m pretty, sweetheart?” he whispered, falling back into rhythm quickly. He found purchase at your waist, pulling you into him with each thrust, meeting you halfway– the pressure he was building was making you go insane.

“Mm– mmhm,” you nodded frantically, reaching to grab onto his wrists– his biceps– something to hang onto as he picked up the pace. “Your arms– fuck your arms are so pretty, Buck.”

“Knew you liked ‘em,” he chuckled, hips snapping into yours harder than before. A sharp cry ripped from you, as you dug your nails into him. “I always feel you staring, especially the left one. You really like this one, huh?”

Excitement shot through your body as you felt his vibranium hand trail up and close around your neck. Even against the dimmed lights of the med bay, the onyx and gold detailing still shimmered like stars against your eyes. You couldn’t help it– your walls clenched around him, fluttering madly.

You didn’t even need to warn him. Bucky’s efforts doubled in an instant, his cock hitting you deeper with renewed fervor. His other hand slipped between the two of you, fingers beginning to rub tight circles into your swollen clit. His metal hand tightened, just ever so slightly around your neck– and you were done for.

Bucky groaned out your name as you came on his cock, legs twitching on either side of his hips as he continued to fuck you through your high. It was too much, yet still not enough at the same time.

“Gonna– god, I’m close,” he grunted, his hands migrating towards your hips as he chased his own climax, using your body. “You’re so– fuck, you’re so warm, doll. So warm and wet and so fuckin pretty–”

His own words were cut off, your name falling from his lips once more in a choked out moan as his hips faltered against yours. You could feel his cock inside of you, trembling and pulsating as he emptied himself within you, painting you with a warmth that made you shiver beneath him. 

Bucky caught himself before he collapsed over you, forearms caging you on either side of your head. His breath fanned against your face as his forehead rested against yours. You tilted your head upwards, pressing a kiss to his lips– one that he returned right away. He kissed you slowly, moving against you with unhurried passion, just reverence and affection.

Slowly, his cock softened within you. The two of you sighed against each other as you felt him slip out. You could feel the remnants of him leaking out of you and onto the bed, but you would deal with it later. For now, all you could focus on was Bucky’s lips and the kisses he pressed all over your face.

Before long, Bucky carried you onto another bed– one that wasn’t soiled by your sinful activities. The two of you naturally shifted into a more comfortable position on the bed, you tucked into Bucky’s chest with his arms thrown around you. 

“You still think we’re friends?” he whispered into your hair. You could hear the smile in his voice, and you nudged yourself deeper into his warmth.

“I’m gonna put you on bedrest for another two weeks,” you warned, though there was no edge to your voice. In fact, it came out a little sleepy. “You’re obligated to report to me daily in the med bay.”

“You’re threatening me with a good time, sweetheart,” he chuckled, squeezing you tighter against him. 

“That’s the point,” you muttered, settling into him. “You like my version of bedrest.”

Bucky didn’t argue with you, but you already knew that he wouldn’t. The soldier pressed another kiss to your hairline, then shifted to cradle your face, angling your head upwards towards him. His lips met yours once more in a brief peck– just to let you know that he agreed with your treatment plan. 

masterlist | bonus headcanon

Jack Abbot was never really one to complain, he’d rather keep it inside. He hardly complained in his free time and he certainly didn’t complain during his time at the hospital. He was there to treat other people, not himself. But he’d be lying if he said he didn’t wince and groan a little each time his prosthetic touched the floor as he entered the ED for his shift.

The weather had been damp and rainy, his nerves were on fire and his phantom pain was at an all time high. If he had a choice he’d rather be in his bed at home with a heat pad wrapped around his residual limb, and the tv playing some old late night comedy rerun that always made him laugh.

But, here he was. A job to do and the determination to do it, even if it meant putting caring for himself on the back burner.

You clocked him as soon as he approached the hub, his footsteps a little slower than usual.

“You ok?”, You murmur softly, turning your head towards him as he leans up against the hub next to you.

“M’fine. Just tired, especially of the rain.”

His answer came low, his eyes still trained forward, knowing better than to look at you; he didn’t want to crumble here—not while he could still pretend like nothing was bother him, while he could still do something useful.

You let your finger tips brush against the exposed skin of his bicep, just barely, but he reacted all the same; goosebumps appearing and all the hair on his arm standing up. He turned his head and rubbed his chin against the fabric of his scrubs that covered his shoulder. A small and low rumble escaped his throat—and he had to fight every urge he had to lean into your touch—to just let you take everything bad away in that special way only you could. You couldn’t magically make everything disappear, no; but he wasn’t going to pretend that being curled up with you didn’t take the edge off.

Neither of you had a name for what you were to each other. Whatever it was stayed mostly casual. No expectations. Sure, you spent more nights in his bed and at his place than you did your own apartment, but that was just how things happened. You both sought each other out for the comfort after a long shift. You’d eased the tension out of him by running your fingers through his hair until he fell asleep way more times than you could count.

There was the occasional breakfast at the diner down the street after a shift. Sometimes he’d show up with flowers or your favorite takeout, he knew your coffee order by heart. But that was just him being a gentleman, him being, well Jack, right?

It was casual, it had to be that way. No matter how much you wanted to cross that line, you knew it would open up more questions. More feelings you couldn’t ignore or keep down anymore. It would complicate things. So you both agreed to it, even if it ate away at you inside.

In front of Jack, Dana and Lena were laughing between them as they conversed, waiting for handoffs to be over so they could go their separate ways. Robby was already approaching, iPad in one hand—coffee in the other—his glasses low on his nose as he peered over them.

He slid up next to Jack easily, following your gazes to watch the two charge nurses across from you for a moment before he spoke.

“As fascinating as our lovely charge nurses are”, Robby smirked, turning towards Jack; “Can we do handoffs so I can go home?”

Jack snapped out of it, running a hand down his face and then rubbing the back of his neck.

“Yeah, give me a second to put my stuff away.”

You both watched him walk away, disappearing into the staff room, whatever dark cloud he was carrying with him still looming over his head.

Robby sighed next to you.

“I wish he wouldn’t do that.”

You quirked your brow, head snapping back around to look at him; “Do what?”

“Pretend like he’s fine. I know he’s in pain.”

You sigh; “Yeah. I noticed as soon as he walked in.”

You decided not to mention how Robby liked to do the same thing.

Robby shook his head, leaning further onto his elbows; “Weather’s been brutal. I know his leg’s killing him.”

You frown, biting at your bottom lip as you watch Jack open his locker through the window, throwing his bag in with a little too much force. He knew anyone could see him in there, so he stayed composed—no matter how badly he wanted to throw his head in his hands and pull at his hair.

“Just, keep an eye on him for me, yeah?”, Robby says, straightening back up; “Make sure he sits down. Eats something.”

You scoff; “Easier said than done, chief.”

Robby huffed a laugh, patting your shoulder; “Wishful thinking.”

You knew Jack was stubborn—hell Robby knew, Dana and Lena knew, practically the whole ED knew that. But you were determined, and maybe, just maybe, that would be enough to break through to him.

─ ─── ─── ─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─── ─── ─── ─

You watched Jack throughout your shift anytime you got the chance. On the outside, he seemed fine, maybe just tired like he’d said earlier, but to those who really knew him—they could spot that it was something deeper.

Staying in your own head and routine was easy, see a few patients, chart, chat with Lena, sip on your coffee; repeat. The occasional incoming trauma had you sprinting towards the ambulance bay doors. It was all pretty much something you could be prepared for, at least in some capacity.

What you couldn’t prepare yourself for was being pulled into an empty exam room halfway through your shift—a familiar strong hand on your forearm—not anything that would hurt, just firm enough to be noticeable.

“Jack? What’re-“

You couldn’t finish your sentence before he had his arms around you, strong torso pressed flush against you. It caught you off guard. The way his shoulders sagged—the way he folded himself down to meet your height—letting his head dip into the crook of your neck; hiding his face there. It made him look impossibly smaller.

You could feel the tension coiling in his shoulders, in his entire body. The way he still tried to hold himself up to some composure, even as he sunk into you.

A shuddered breath from his nose prickled the skin at your neck, nerve endings alighting at the suddenness of it. You found yourself wrapping your arms around him—one hand at the nape of his neck—running your fingers through his silver curls.

He was a little sweaty from the shift, yet he still smelled the same, musky and sandalwood, the same way his blankets and bed smelled in the morning.

“Sorry”, He finally mumbled against your skin, nosing deeper like he still needed to be closer to you; “Just needed to see you.”

You froze. It wasn’t rare for Jack to seek out your contact outside the hospital, when you were curled up on his couch with him or hovering behind him in his kitchen. He always leaned into you, threw an arm around your waist and kissed your neck or forehead. But this? Whatever casualness he was keeping your relationship at, whatever arm’s length he set it at, he was toying with the line, preparing to cross into something more.

“Hey”, You say, cupping both his cheeks to make him look at you; “Don’t apologize.”

He searched your face with tired eyes, looking for any signs of hesitation. He found none.

He sighed.

“You ok?”, You ask him softly.

He cups your hands under his own, a thumb rubbing softly against the back of your hand.

“Yeah”, He says, voice low, “Just…head’s loud today.”

You nodded, pulling him back against you, letting him lean his weight on you, letting all his tension and stress leave his body. You don’t say anything—just stand in the silence of the exam room—swaying a little as his hands slide back and forth on your hips. It’s far more intimate in a way you couldn’t explain, in a way neither of you had ever been with each other. It cracked something open in your chest.

“Robby said your leg’s bothering you?”, It comes out as more of a question.

He clicks his tongue once; “Always is.”

There’s no heat behind it, just firmness, finality that’s confirms what you and Robby had discussed at the beginning of your shift. The silence drifts back in, but it doesn’t last long.

The pager in Jack’s pocket buzzed, interrupting the quiet. You can feel Jack tense, a low groan escaping from his throat. He hesitates for a moment—like he’s breathing you in—before he forced himself back to his full height; rubbing the back of his neck the same way he had when arrived at work earlier that evening.

Finally, he goes to step away. The doorknob in his hand when you reach for him. He stops when you grab his hand in yours.

“Hey”, You say.

He turns to look at you, eyes slightly wide and glossy, like walking away from you is the hardest thing he’s ever had to do.

“M’right here, ok?”, You squeeze his hand once reassuringly.

He stills, searching your face before he slowly drops your hand, opening the exam room door and letting the noise of the ED float back in. The sterile smell is stronger out in the hallway. You watch him walk away, favoring his left leg, before you force yourself to get back to work.

─ ─── ─── ─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─── ─── ─── ─

The final hour of the shift brings chaos that throws everyone slightly off their balance.

Jack and Ellis are in a room somewhere down the hall with a patient, brought in already combative. Ellis is fighting to get the restraints on him, Jack trying to start another IV and administer Zyprexa.

But the patient is already up, IV pole being drug along with him, swinging about in defense. Like Jack and Ellis are his enemies. To him, they probably are.

“Sir, I need you to calm down”, Jack tries, his hands up in defense.

It doesn’t work, the IV pole swipes past him, barely missing him.

For a moment, Jack feels like he’s back on the battlefield. Stakes high, time running low. Every movement counting more than it usually would.

Outside at the nurse’s station, Lena’s trying to get medicine ready as voices grow louder. Your hands move fast, pushing aside paperwork as you try to help her. It’s not enough. The patient’s shouting only growing louder. Then it happens.

A loud smack echoes through the ED. Metallic and loud. The sound of metal hitting skin and bone. It’s sickening, deafening, silencing. The entire ER pauses for a moment, everything around you seeming to move in slow motion.

The lights are too bright, patient’s too quiet. Then you hear it. You hear him.

He’s shouting for help before you can even move. One quick glance at Lena and you’re both rushing through the halls, nurses and security following closely behind.

Right as you turn the corner there’s another loud metal against skin noise, and that’s when you see it happen. The IV pole comes into contact with Jack’s face—sending him stumbling backwards—a hand flying up to his face as blood begins to trickle from his nose faster than it should. Covering his mouth and running down his chin. You watch him pull his hand back and groan when he sees the crimson shade on his fingers.

Ahmed is on the patient, helping Ellis secure the wrist restraints. The room moves in a blur. All you see is Jack.

You already had a hand around his bicep, pulling him out into the hallway.

“Put your head back”, You tell him.

He doesn’t argue. His hand cupping his nose as he lets you guide him through the hallways and into an exam room.

“Lena! Get Robby!”, You call out.

“He’s not here yet!”, She calls back, “I’ll send him as soon as he gets here.”

You force Jack down on the bed, making sure his head’s still back as he sits. You move quickly, gathering gauze and settle it under his nose.

“Hold this there.”

He still doesn’t say anything, just watches you move around out of the corner of his eye. You don’t speak, he can see the tension and emotion you’re carrying. He can see you slowly spiraling.

“Sweetheart…”

“Jack, don’t.”

You settle in front of him, carefully tilting his head forward and removing the gauze, gently wiping underneath his nose at the blood that still falls there. Up close you can see the blood on his lips and the swelling starting to form around his eye. You feel your heart clench, the lump in your throat—but force yourself to push it down and get to work. Do what you know best. To help. To heal.

You focus on his injuries, you can’t look at him. Not like this. Not with the way his eye and the bridge of his nose are starting to turn purple. Not with the split in his lip and blood on his teeth. Not with the gash on his cheek. Not with the blood drying around his nose. No, you couldn’t see him like that.

So you move quietly, grabbing a suture kit and changing your gloves. Forcing him to lie back so you can numb his cheek and start stitching. You force him to ice his eye. After thinking it over you decide to let Robby make the call on whether or not he needs a head CT scan. You checked his eyes with your pen light—both pupils were reactive as they should be.

The silence in the air hangs thick and icy. You can see Jack tense under your touch, the way he shifts a little on the exam bed. He knows you’re upset—knows it’s only a matter of time before you break. But still, he doesn’t push.

You smooth a bandage across his red skin when you finish his stitches. Changing your gloves again to examine his nose.

“I’ll have Robby reset it.”

Then you’re moving to check his lip when one of his hands catches your wrist. Warm and grounding. Everything around you goes silent and fades into the background.

“Sweetheart…”, He says it again, this time lower with more emotion in his voice.

You shake your head, trying to force back the tears in your eyes.

“I can’t Jack, I can’t-“

“Shh, hey, hey.”

He’s using his thumb to wipe away a tear you didn’t even know was falling, gently pulling your head up to look him in the eye.

“It’s okay”, He says, “I’m ok. I’m here.”

You shake your head again.

“It’s not ok, Jack!”, You’re pulling back from his touch, watching the frown that crawls onto his lips; “You’re not ok! You scared me! This could’ve been so much worse!”

You’re gripping at your own scrubs, arms hugging around yourself like it’ll help.

“You could’ve blacked out, you could’ve broken something or hit your head and not woke back up, you could’ve been-“, You stop yourself to let a sob escape; “I can’t handle that. I can’t pretend like that wouldn’t break me. I can’t pretend that-“

His hands are hovering over your cheeks again, like he’s afraid to touch, brows furrowed; “Can’t pretend what?”

“I can’t pretend like you don’t mean more to me than whatever we’ve been doing between us!”

He stills, eyes wide, hands going to his hips as he tilts his head down. Then, you hear it. A soft and breathy vibration escaping his chest. He’s laughing.

You look up at him, trying to convince yourself you hadn’t heard it right. But there he was, grin on his lips, shaking his head as he laughs.

“I think we’re way past the point of casual, honey”, He says, closing the space between you, pulling you down into his lap as he sits back down on the exam bed.

You try to ignore what the nickname does to you. Honey.

“We are?”, You croak out.

“Baby, you sleep in my bed. You wear my clothes, wake up curled up next to me for coffee. We shower together and ride to and from work. You’re at my place more than your own. Hell, I think more about you than I do work…If that’s casual to you then I think we need to have a serious conversation.”

His words settle deep into your chest, making your breath hitch. A new set of tears pricks at your eyes.

“I didn’t know you noticed all those things…or that they mattered that much.”

He pushes a strand of hair behind your ear; “Of course they mattered to me. It’s you.”

You let your fingers grip the curls are the base of his neck, pulling him in for a kiss that’s nothing but love and finally spoken feelings. His large hand spreads across your back, the other holding you by your waist.

“I’m sorry I scared you”, He says quietly.

“S’okay”, You breathe, forehead pressed against his, “Just means I care about your dumbass.”

He laughs, a real, uncontainable laugh; “Oh yeah?”

He quirks an eyebrow.

You nod; “Yeah.”

Then you kiss him harder, pulling a soft groan from his throat, followed by a chuckle.

“You keep doing that and we’re gonna be showing this ER a little more than they need to see.”

He’s smirking as you smack his shoulder, once softly, before going to lean back in to kiss him again.

But, because it’s just your luck, the sound of Robby finally arriving rings out behind you; “WHAT THE FUCK!?”

You made a small sound you couldn’t help, embarrassed by how quickly your body gave you away, by how obvious it probably was that you didn’t know what to do with any of this. The heat in your face only made it worse. Eddie lifted his head from where he settled between your thighs, just enough to look at you, dark eyes steady, hair falling into his face, expression softened by something almost unfairly patient.

“You’re okay,” he said, quieter this time. “I’ve got you. I told you, sweetheart, it's gonna feel so good.”

That alone should not have made your heart slam harder than it already was, but it did. Your fingers tangled in the sheets, then reached for his hair for half a second, as he kissed you inner thighs, before you pulled back like even that was too much.

He smiles against your thigh, looking up. "Trust me, you can pull. Just wait till I do something you like so I know how good you're feeling, okay?"

You nod, unable to give him more than that. He was so patient with you through all of these new experiences, like he was just happy and honored to be the one to guide you through them.

He pressed a soft, lingering kiss to your left thigh, then the right, and your skin tingled everywhere he touched. He was slow and steady, in vast comparison to your nervous energy.

"M'gonna taste you now, sweetheart." He murmurs, as he hooks his fingers in your panties to pull them down, revealing your heat to the open air.

Eddie hooks one arm under your thigh to keep you open for him, his gaze never leaving the wet, perfect sight of you.

"Pretty little thing you're hiding under those panties." He says, mostly to himself, before he's running a calloused finger up your slick folds to gather the wetness there.

The noise that rips from you is choked, surprised, as he brings that same digit to his lips to taste what was clearly just for him.

"Oh, angel, you have no fucking idea..." He trails off, then dips down to lick a slow, long stripe up your pussy like he can't wait any longer.

You squirm under him and his other hand comes easily to splay across your stomach, holding you, but gently. You don't run this time, mostly because of what he just did, partially because of the pressure. His arm across your tummy isn't restricting, it's steady.

When he laps at your core again, you sigh instead of gasp, and that seems to please him to no end as he gives a quiet hum against you before repeating the motion.

"Eddie..." You whine in a way that's so needy, it even surprises you.

Eddie seemed determined to find what drove you wild, testing out long laps versus shorter and slower ones, paying attention to how hard he was pressing against you and how it made you react, what made your thighs quake around his head and your breath stutter.

No one had ever done this for you before, Eddie was your first for everything and he always made you feel good. But this was better than all of it combined. It was like he knew how good something was about to feel before he ever even gave it to you. Maybe he really did have a magic tongue like he teased.

You squirmed a little more when he sucked on your clit, but the hand holding your tummy went to match his other.

He had both his arms under your thighs, keeping you on display for his sinful meal.

"Angel," he lifted his head, lips glistening in a way that was way too beautiful to be so dirty. "You gotta let me have my new favorite treat."

He didn't even let you reply before burying his face in your folds again, this time much more ravenous.

Your legs shake at an alarming rate now as you get close and Eddie notices, doubling down on whatever you liked most, he'd apparently found exactly that now, flicking his tongue exactly where you had told him you liked to press your own fingers.

His hair tickled your inner thighs, messy strands sticking to them as he worked, and you loved seeing him like this. So lost in tasting you that he looked entirely undone by it.

"Gonna eat this pretty pussy 'til you scream," Eddie slurs into your folds, drunk off of what you were offering. "That okay, sweetheart?"

"Please." You whined, already so close, so out of breath it felt like you had run a mile.

"Please," he repeated softly against you, before sucking your clit hard again, making you keen.

Your hips lifted off of the bed involuntarily to get closer and the small moans that left your lips as your orgasm washed over your left your throat aching from the pure intensity.

He kept going though, like it was for his own benefit now, to be able to taste your release directly from the source. He kept a slow and steady pace as you came down, lapping up all you had to give him like he didn't want to miss a single drop.

"Eddie..." You said, caressing his head. "Too much..."

He looked up with a small pout, but it turned to a smile when seeing how wrecked you already were.

"Mmm... okay, actual breakfast time." He said, before moving up your body to kiss you sensually, making you taste your own arousal from his tongue. "I need a little somethin' in my belly anyway. Got a big day of treating you right."

"Oh my god." You blush, rolling your eyes in playful disgust even though you were secretly melting inside.

"And then..." He gives you a devilish smile before whispering in your ear, as one hand trails down to your sensitive heat and swirls around the opening of your slit, "Second breakfast."

You smack his hand away playfully and he laughs like he made the best joke in the world.

As unfamiliar hands pull you through the forest, you wonder how you could’ve missed it, how anybody missed it. 

The strange markings around the city. 

The almost ritualistic dismemberment of wild animals left behind, almost on purpose.

You’ve seen headless deers, perfectly intact, clean even, like someone took the time to wash and prepare the animal before slaughtering it at the neck. 

As your feet carry you through the grass, you try to catch the whispers and murmurs around you, but the bag over your head and the rustling of the footsteps that lead you away muffled any words for you to make out. You weren’t scared, not yet, but when the world darkens around you and a piercing silence swallows your body whole, you suddenly begin to run a cold sweat. 

The warmth of your breath under the bag heats the air around your skin, every movement is suddenly amplified in the silence. Footsteps echo around you, the space feeling both vast and hollow. The familiar smell of rotten wood makes its way through the woven fabric and after being led further into the space, a new source of light surrounds you.

It’s warm and flickers shadows you can just make out through the fibres of the bag.

Suddenly, without warning you feel a strike to the back of your knee, hands pushing down on your shoulders, and with a sharp dull pain, your knees hit the cold hard floor. 

Marble. 

You wince at the pressure of your weight pressing down on your knees. Then, at the sound of a heavy door creaking open your head snaps up, turning in the direction of the sound, focusing on everything you can hear.

The slight rattle of metal, the hollow echo of footsteps, the dull thud of something heavy being dropped against a wooden surface. 

On either side of you, you hear the flutter and rustle of fabric, the kind that sounded heavy, like a thick blanket sweeping past your side. 

You breathe slowly, eyes closed even though it wouldn’t make much of a difference, silently groaning under your breath as your hands start to go numb behind your back. 

When the silence settles you hold your breath, waiting, listening. 

There is a soft sound of a page turning, a flutter of something fragile, a breath and then, a voice, singing. 

The chant echoed hauntingly around you, the walls reflecting the sound of the woman’s voice as she vocalised a hymn in a language you couldn’t understand. Her voice was like silk, almost hypnotic, and when the final note rang out into the air, around you a chorus of voices chanted a response in unison. A low somber sounding melody, each phrase concluding with an elongated cadence that rides off the closing vowels. 

You can feel your heart start to pound, not necessarily in speed, but in vigour, thrumming hard against your chest. 

As the deep, warm, hypnotising melody reverberates around you, your mind starts to run. 

What on earth is this place? How did they slip past your radars? And if they were planning on killing you, why haven’t they done it yet?

‘This evening, marks the end of a holy cycle’ the woman’s voice speaks, pausing between each beat of her sentence as her words echo and ring through the room.

‘Tonight, at the peak of the lunar eclipse, we will finally free this world of its disease’ 

You remain still, as footsteps approach you. 

‘Rid her of the veil’ the woman’s voice commands, now closer, a few steps away. Before you have a moment for your mind to catch up, the bag is ripped up and over your head, the thick coarse fabric scraping against your chin. 

When your eyes blink open you are greeted to a circle of cloaked, hooded figures, at the chancel of an old church. 

The walls lined with pillars and statues, every available surface was covered in burning candles, with melted, dripping wax at the base of each holder. 

‘Eyes on me, child’ The woman in front of you spoke. When your eyes found her, she looked different from the other figures. Her cloak was a deep red, the material looked like it could be made from a velvety silk, and the hems were lined with intricate embroidery from golden thread. 

Your eyes scan more than just her figure, they flicked around to every corner, every wall, searching for either a way out, or any potential threats. 

The woman’s hand reaches forward, stepping closer to you and with a surprising amount of gentleness, lifts your head up to meet her gaze. 

‘I said, eyes on me’ She repeats, lower, just to you. 

‘Show me’ she commands, holding your chin just slightly tighter. Your brows furrow at her request, lips parting to speak before she pulls her hand away from you, making a nod at the man to your right.

He moves quickly, untying the ropes behind your back, as his fingers move, threading the knot back between itself and just when you start to think this might be your chance to run, you spot in the woman’s other hand, just behind the trail of her cloak, an iron dagger. 

Shit-

The man frees your hand, thrusting your arm forward, you pull back against him but the woman in the red cloak holds out the dagger towards you. 

The grip loose in her hand, but a threat nonetheless. 

‘I wouldn’t’ she warned, as she watched the man carefully pull back the sleeve of your shirt. You stare confused, as the man and woman stare at your bare forearm. The man drops your arm letting it fall, staggering backwards as the cloaked woman’s attention turns to him. 

‘My orders were clear,’ she says to him. Her voice, now firmer than it was before.

‘Were they not!?’ She shouts, voice ringing through the room. 

‘Please, forgive me Your Eminence’ the man cowers at her feet, his voice trembling. You watch with your eyes wide, trying to make sense of what you’ve just been dragged into. 

She turns now to the man on your left, and motions with her hand that holds the dagger, to the front of the church and without hesitation, he moves, pacing over to the man on the floor, now whispering and murmuring prayer against the ground. 

You watch as he is stripped of his robe, as he cries and pleads, being dragged to the centre of the room, in front of the marble altar. 

‘You dare bring me a faux saviour!’ The woman roars, her robe flaring as she turns her body to him. Raising her blade under his chin to tilt his head up to her, his eyes pleading. 

‘No- please Your Grace, I’m sorry I- I thought-‘ His voice cut off as the woman pressed her blade closer to his throat. 

‘Chalice’ She speaks, her hooded figure turning slightly towards the podium. The man at her feet whimpering, begging under his breath as another cloaked figure moves to collect something behind a curtain off to the side of the room. 

She turns over her shoulder, back at you. 

Finally, her face catches enough of the candlelight to make out her features. Long strands of dark blonde hair frame her face, her cold stare pierced through the room. 

‘Speak to me child’ her voice commanding, shooting through you. 

‘Are you immune to the world's evil?’ 

‘What?’ You whisper under your breath.

She takes a step closer to you, while the other person returns from behind the curtain, carrying a large golden chalice.

‘The evil that plagues this world, you know of it?’ She asks, her eyes burning into you. You weren’t sure if she was talking about the infected or something else, but you answer anyway.

‘Yes’ 

‘Are you… resistant to it?’ 

You pull back, frowning in confusion, your eyes falling to the ground. 

‘Answer me!’ She shouts

‘That’s not possible…’ you whisper, your confusion growing, chest tightening with every breath. 

‘Speak up’ 

‘That’s not possible!’ You repeat, louder. Her face drops. 

‘Then you-‘ she turns back to the man, ‘- have set us back MONTHS!’ Her voice rings out, all the other figures in the circle remain still. Not moving, not making a sound.

She takes one more slow step towards the man, his cries starting to echo across the marble floors before the sudden swing of her arm, dagger plunging straight into his neck, the man choking and gargling as she drags the blade through his neck spilling his blood. 

The second she steps away, the figure holding the chalice rushes to their knees, catching the spilling blood. With her back turned to the man she holds the blade facing the ground against her chest, head hung low, the hood of her cape almost covering her whole face. 

She whispers something that sounds like a prayer, blood dripping from the blade, a soft dull splatter as it hits the floor. Behind her, the man’s struggles slowly weaken, body slumping to the floor. 

The kneeling cloaked figure rose slowly, standing next to the woman in red, bloody chalice held outstretched in front of her. 

When her head rises again her eyes catch yours, a deep sting in her gaze. She takes the chalice and walks it to the podium, taking her position behind it, her absence in front of you leaves you in direct view of the man laying bloodied and dying on the floor, slowly and painfully bleeding out, his eyes still blinking while the rest of his body slowly shuts down.

‘It is a shame really. You all know how I hate to be wasteful, but our brother's life will not have been in vain’ and as though it were rehearsed, like this has all happened before, the rest of the circle began to chant again. The woman speaking over the low somber hymn. 

‘Tonight was intended to be one of victory, of our strength and devotion, not a night of loss’ 

You watch her speak, the chant reverberating through your body, you were terrified, too terrified to move, but there was also something about this place, you couldn’t stop watching her. 

As the singing builds to a climax she lifts the cup in both hands just above her head, before lowering back down and taking a slow sip of the blood it carries. Your stomach churned, twisting as she slowly pulled it away from her lips, handing to the closest figure to her left. Each person in the circle, one by one, took a drink from the cup. 

‘We are all one with our fallen brothers and sisters, we carry them inside,’ The woman says, lowering her head. 

‘We carry them inside’ the rest of the room chats in unison, unsettling you to the absolute core.

‘Tomorrow morning we will forge a new plan. That is all, my faithful coven.’ The second she finishes her final words, like statues awakening from a spell, the rest of people in the room bow their heads before dispersing across the room, some leaving through the side door, others walking down through the pews out the front door behind you. You turn your head, eyes panicking, watching everyone move, leaving you kneeling on the ground, seemingly forgetting about you. 

You thought surely you’d be free to move, to leave. You heard them, they don’t need you. You move to push yourself up with your hands when the woman’s voice cuts through you. 

‘Don’t!’ She snaps. Low and threatening. Your eyes lock onto her, freezing in place. You watch as she shuts the thick leather bound book on the podium, carrying a single candle stick around the room, blowing out the rest of the candles that light the room, the darkness following behind her. 

Was this really how you were going to die? You survive all these years, all the patrols, the raids, infected breaking through the town's perimeter, all to be captured by some insane cult. You hang your head low, the darkness in the room slowly swallowing all the details of the walls around you.

‘If you’re going to kill me, just do it already’ you whispered. She had the manpower to do it, you just hoped at least, someone from town would notice you haven’t returned yet from patrol before you end up with your own throat slit and bleeding out on the floor.

The soft flutter of the last remaining candle in the woman’s hand washes over your skin as she stands in front of you. 

‘Oh, no child,’ she says, almost warmly, cupping your face under your chin, turning your face to the left then the right, taking you in, her eyes studying every feature of your face. 

Your heart skips, you almost recoil at the initial thought that, seeing her face up close, she was incredibly beautiful.

‘You’re far too pretty to waste’ she whispers and you feel your blood run cold. 

‘Follow me’ she says, not waiting for you to respond or move before she walks towards the large arched doorway behind the altar at the front of the church.

You stand quickly, not wanting to be kept in the dark, your legs feeling weak as you falter to your feet, stumbling for a moment towards the candlelight she holds. 

The back room was already dimly lit, you follow her through the curtain, the smell of candle wax and frankincense lingering in the room. To the left of you is another small archway leading into a small kitchen, in front of you a small wooden table and to the right, a bedroom. 

The woman shrugs off her cape, long blonde hair falling across her back, finally letting you see her properly. As your eyes drag over her body you grow anxious, her body was built like a weapon, strong enough to break you with her bare hands. Under the cape she had worn a white buttoned blouse with black pants held up by a thick leather belt.  

‘Undress’ she says over her shoulder, her voice commanding. You freeze. 

She turns to you, head slightly tilted, her hands working to unbutton the cuffs on her blouse, rolling the sleeves up, showing off every inch of strength she carries in her body. 

You blink at her, watching as her eyes widen. ‘Will you disobey me?’ She asks, eyebrows raised. 

You shake your head immediately, terrified what she might do if you refused. So slowly, you remove your clothes in front of her while she watches you like prey. Her face unreadable, jaw set tight, her eyes sweeping over every new piece of skin you unravel, till you’re down to your bra and underwear. 

You tremble, feeling vulnerable, exactly how she wants. Your arms try to cover your body as you cross them in front of your chest. 

She clicks her tongue, turning towards the bedroom, waving for you to walk inside, watching quietly as you follow.

‘All of it,’ she commands. Standing in front of you, blocking your way to the door now, the bed frame just behind you. 

‘Why?’ You ask through a shaky breath and she steps closer, the back of your legs hitting the mattress. 

‘Because, my sweet little lamb, I’d like to see how filthy you’ve been before you’ve come to me’ 

Her breath was hot against your skin, and you felt yourself shutter when her hands slowly slid against your hips. ‘Don’t make me ask again’ she whispers against your ear. 

You let out a shaky breath before complying, slowly unbuttoning the back of your bra, and slipping your underwear down, feet stepping out and over them. 

‘Good. Now kneel on the bed’ she commands, reaching for a small paddle from her bedside table. Without questioning this time you turn, climbing onto the mattress, kneeling down facing away from her.

‘That’s perfect’ she whispers softly and you hate the way her voice makes you feel. Her hand runs gently from the curve of your ass down your back, till she reaches the back of your neck and suddenly you’re being pushed down, hard into the mattress ‘stay there’ she spits, before slowly letting go. You keep your face down, heat burning under your skin, embarrassment and something worse… something that feels like need, like wanting to be owned, to be controlled, to have someone to care for and protect you. 

The feeling of her warmth lingers when she pulls away and you feel her shift behind you, looking at you, at your body, you could almost feel her eyes drag across every inch of your core. Then you felt the edge of the leather paddle, running down your leg, slowly pushing you apart so she can get a better view of your pussy, now shamefully wet and pulsing against every small touch she gives you. 

‘Oh?’ She says behind you, using her thumb now to spread your lips apart. ‘You’re wet.’ A sickly sweet tone to her voice. ‘And I’ve barely touched you… are you that needy, sweet thing?’

She prods further, a small whine escaping from your lips, a single finger running down through your folds brushing against your clit for just a second before pulling away. 

‘You’re still intact’ she says, almost surprised. ‘I suppose I won’t need this…tonight’ she says, putting the paddle back down. 

‘Face me’ 

You comply quickly, turning over and sitting on the edge of the bed, gazing up at her, already strangely captivated by her, the fear, the danger, the control, the thoughts running through your mind sends a pulsing heat through your body. 

‘I’m going to keep you’ she states plainly, gazing down at you. ‘You’ll listen, you won’t question me, and if you think of running away from here my coven will know where to find you. We’ll track you down have you back here before you reach the edge of the woods’

You nod, her cold blue eyes locked onto yours, waiting.

‘Understand?’ Her hand finds your chin again, holding your face with a gentleness that makes you squirm. No one has ever extended this much tenderness before, even if it was laced with dominance and control, you melted into it. 

‘Yes, ma’am’ you whisper, your body still buzzing, face flushed with shame.

She hums, her thumb slowly brushing over your bottom lip, you part your mouth slightly against the pressure, her eyes flicking between yours and your lips, slowly inching closer to you, hair falling past her shoulders, brushing against her cheeks as she leans down further. Her weight presses you back, your body sinking against the mattress as she climbs over you, pressing a firm kiss against your lips. Your body instinctively arches up into her, letting go of a soft moan into her mouth she swallows by deepening the kiss, a tender claim. 

‘You’re mine. My sweet little lamb’ 

Tengen turned to you suddenly, halting his steps and looking you over with that oddly analytical gaze of his. Your grimace dropped instantly, wanting nothing less than for him to see you showing any sign of pain. He might be almost three times your size, but it would be so embarrassing if he saw you struggling while he acted like they had just gotten done at dinner.

"Are you wounded, Y/N?" He asks, eyeing the hand you had let dropped to your side when he turned to you.

You give a shake of your head, offering what you hope is a small smile and not a wince. "Nothing terrible."

He hesitates for a moment before giving you a firm nod and returning to his conversation with Rengoku, the footsteps continuing. You go to step after them but quickly find that you had allowed your body to relax just a bit too much in trying to convince him, and there were instantly tears streaming down your face.

You couldn't lift your leg to move forward, the muscles paralyzed with pain and you couldn't stop cursing those stupid gods walking in front of you. It was a terrible idea to date a Hashira. How dare he go skipping off into the sunset like you didn't both just get houses thrown at you? Stupid big man with his big muscles and incredible pain tolerance and why did you have to feel like you were thrown down a mountain -

"Up we go." It was the only warning you had, you hadn't even noticed him approaching against the angry rant in your head and the eyes squeezed shut against the pain.

You were in his arms a second later, the gash in your side twinging just a bit before you settled into his embrace. Thoroughly embarrassed, you met his eyes with a pink tint to your cheeks.

"I didn't mean to cause a scene."

His grin was wide but his eyes were soft. "A scene? You weren't nearly dramatic enough, darling. Next time give me a death rattle cough and some sobs, we'll make a show of it yet." His fingers are firm on your arm and thigh, and despite his joking words you know that he just wants you to be alright. That undercurrent of worry on his face tells you everything that he won't give voice too.

"I'll be sure to sob and curse the gods next time."

"Now that's what I'm talking about."

Giyuu Tomioka

It was infinitely difficult to hide your low pain tolerance from the water Hashira, because he was constantly assessing your state. Whether it was at home or in battle, he never went more than a few minutes without a quick glance, ensuring that all is well with you.

All was most certainly not well right now, but you'd be damned if you let him figure it out.

You learned early on that not only is Giyuu an exceptional fighter, he's one of the most stoic people you had ever met. Whether it was an exceptional pain tolerance, or just the ability to compartmentalize those hazardous emotions, you had never seen him even flinch at a wound he got. He flinched at yours all of the time, however.

So you decided it was probably best not to let him know how much certain things hurt. He was a worrier, and it was frankly embarrassing that you felt like the weak link between the two of you. He spared almost no reaction when he broke his arm a few weeks ago - maybe if he had you wouldn't be gritting your teeth against this sprained ankle.

If his lingering gaze was any indication, you were not doing a very good job at hiding it.

He was across the training field, running a completely different drill with some of the other slayers but you could feel his gaze boring into you. You walked confidently to the sidelines, searching for your water so you could get it and slip away from his knowing eyes.

You turned to him and smiled, a bright thing, in an attempt to throw him off and then scurried toward the safety of the indoors - seemingly having managed to evade his godlike senses.

"Stupid ankle, and stupid over analyzing boyfriend." Your voice had a little crack to it, the tears spilling from your eyes freeing when you started allowing your limp to show. If you weren't injured; you would stamp your foot. It just wasn't fair that you were in so much pain. Barely wounded, and strung up to the heavens about it.

"I resent that." He was right behind you when he announced himself, one of his hands coming out to grab your arm and turn you toward him. You winced against the turn of your ankle but he was quick to grab at your hips, most of your weight settling in his hands instead of your legs. "You're injured." He said it like a question, but he already knew the answer.

"Yes of course I'm injured because I'm just some weakling compared to you." Your sentence was punctuated by a small hiccup against your tears, leaning completely into this pathetic feeling you had.

He froze for just a minute, his brows screwed together. "What do you mean, Y/N? You can't compare yourself to me, or to anyone. We all feel things differently. If it hurts enough to cry, then you can't help that."

His soft words didn't help your exasperation. "Easy for you to say because you're literally impenetrable." You give a light shove to his chest and this time he smiles lightly.

"Let's go get that ankle wrapped." He's quick to pick you up, turning and heading back down the hallway.

"I'm still mad that you're made of rock."

"You seem to be the only thing that can get under my skin, my love."

"Flattery will get you nowhere."

Obanai Iguro

Obanai expressed very little emotion, and that was especially true for pain. You didn't know if it was because he had been through too much to react to the minutiae of pain, or if he had just trained himself against the reaction - but it was aggravating. Specifically because something as small as a paper cut could have you teary eyed.

Like right now.

Your lips were puckered together against the sting, the small drops of blood pooling from your finger tip trying to get you to fall over the edge into tears. Why was it always the smallest cuts that felt like they were laced with hellfire? It was the worst that it was horizontal against the pad of your finger, sure to pull every time you move it.

Literal torture.

"Everything okay?" Obanai had noticed you stop moving, the piece of paper you were holding long since having fluttered back down to the table. He didn't wait for an answer before he moved to you, and you could feel the air shift when he joined your side.

You hastily wiped the blood away on your pants, biting your cheek at the resulting sting. "Just a little cut. Nothing of consequence."

Those eyes stared into yours with an intensity that he reserved just for you, and you could tell that he was not buying into what you were trying to sell.

He reached down and grabbed your arm, pulling your hand up to him to examine. "A paper cut."

The tears were instant.

"Yes, I know it's just a paper cut but why do they sting so damn much?"

The amusement in his eyes did nothing to make you feel less embarrassed but he was quick to talk you down. "Paper cuts are the worst, love. And it's across your finger so it's going to sting every time you use it for at least the rest of the night. It's annoying and painful." He closes a hand over your finger, like he can heal it with his touch and leans his head against yours. "I'm sorry that you're in pain."

A sniffle from you, but the heat coming from his body is more than enough to distract from the pain in your finger, his snake uncoiling itself from his neck and stretching cross your bridged shoulders.

"Sorry for being a baby about it.

"My baby." You can hear the smirk on his voice.

"Watch it, Iguro."

Kyojuro Rengoku

"I'm home, my flame!" The sound of Kyo's voice was loud through your small home, and you instantly started panicking at his early arrival. Dinner was only half cooked and specks of your blood littered the counter.

You were holding shaking hands under the faucet, trying to make sure that the deep gash you had just cut into yourself was somewhat clean before you attempted to staunch the bleeding. What terrible timing. Your boyfriend had been on mission for the past week, and his grand arrival comes just moments after you almost lose a finger.

You can hear his footsteps echoing through the hall as he looks for you and you try to strong arm the tears off of your cheeks and back into your eyes. It was just a cut, no need to freak out over it, but the tremor in your hands while you searched for a towel to wrap around it told you that you were a razors edge from full on sobbing.

"Cooking dinner?" He had finally located you but your back was turned toward the door, buying you another few seconds to gain your composure while you wrapped the towel tightly around your hand.

"Yes! Just a bit behind. You're home early." You hadn't turned yet, but you heard his footsteps stop just short of the door and you had the sudden realization that he was scanning the room.

Because he had seen the blood on the counter, of course. What sort of Hashira wouldn't noticed blood spilled in his own home? You cursed under your breath, knowing that you were about to be bombarded. It was so hard to act like it didn't hurt when he fretted over you.

"Y/N!" It was a worried exclamation but he was already turning you around before your name had even fully been said. Eyes flicking quickly over you before they find their target, zeroing in on the darkening cloth clutched in your hand. "Let me see."

You use your good hand to grab his, trying to stop him from prying the towel from you. "It's okay, Kyo. Just a little cut."

Those eyes cut up to yours then and the naked worry there stutters your heart, the pulse of pain you feel next almost making you start crying again.

"It's never little if you are injured, Y/N, I hope that you understand that." So earnest, him clutching the hand that you had used to grab at him. "Please allow me to look."

The floodgates opened before you could fight it back and his eyes widen in surprise, gently unwrapping the towel around your hand while you sob out a reply.

"It was pretty deep and I can feel my heartbeat in it and there's so much blood." That's when you notice the purple bruise flowering at his collarbone, only visible with his head bent over you. You looked a bit closer then and noticed the bruises that littered both of his hands, more purple than pale in most places. Despite everything, it made you cry harder. "And you just got home. You're injured! And here I am crying over some stupid cut that I inflicted on myself." You flail your free hand in a general gesture, wondering why the world had to gift you a rock of a man when you were as shifting as the sand. "I'm sorry."

Rengoku had listened quietly, finishing his examination of your hand and re-wrapping it gently. When he finally looked back up at you, that glimmer of humor in his eyes was shining brightly.

"You can't be expected to be a solider, Y/N, because you're not. You have every right to feel pain, my flame." He bends down and punctuates his words with a quick kiss to your tear stained cheek. "But the cut is fairly superficial. You should be okay."

You blink, wondering if you should be offended that he called whatever caused all of that blood superficial or if you should be grateful that he was eternally patient with you.

Your eyes narrow and you decide to be just a bit offended. "I'm sorry that we can't all get stabbed and laugh it off."

His laugh comes on cue, loud and mirthful. "You'll get there someday, love. What's for dinner?" Your answer is a swat at his chest and you turn away, grabbing up the ingredients that still need to be dealt with.

"Nothing for you."

His gasp is comical. "Surely you don't mean that, darling."

"Try me."

Sanemi Shinazugawa

You were going to absolutely destroy that other slayer the next time that you saw him. Paying next to no attention during a drill and he ends up nailing you right in the eye with the butt of his wooden sword. When you were both fighting a different opponent.

The poor guy had instantly dreamed of his death at Sanemi's hands and gone running off, hasty apologies screamed out behind him while he went to hide.

He didn't need to fear your boyfriend, he was going to learn to fear you at training tomorrow. What an idiot.

The blow he had landed was impressive, though. At least the strike behind it was. The skin at your temple had already split, small rivulets of blood running down your cheek. You hadn't found a mirror yet but you were sure you were already swollen, the colors of a bruise setting in. Hell, even the muscles in your neck ached from the impact.

You couldn't tell if the tears gathering in your eyes were from frustration or pain but it might as well be both. You knew from the jump that you were naive to become a slayer with the low pain tolerance you have; but how could you let that stop you from making a difference in the world? Sure, blows like this felt like you might actually die - but it was worth it in the end.

"Y/N?"

The gruff voice is achingly familiar and you square your shoulders, willing whatever tears were teasing at your eyes to go back to where they came from.

"Yes?" You reply, turning toward him and wincing at the immediate cloud that darkens his gaze.

He's on your before your next breath, that vein in his neck jumping against the grit of his jaw. His fingers are light at your chin, turning your head gently away from him, scanning what probably looked like a very nasty black eye.

"Name." A demand, barely a whisper.

You have to try not to roll your eyes. "Just some kid, 'Nem. No one to get jumbled over." He raises his other hand and ghosts it over the wound but even the light contact is enough to make you wince, those annoying tears pooling embarrassingly close.

He notices quickly and you find yourself cursing, not for the first, time, those keen eyes.

"You're about to cry from the pain, Y/N, tell me it isn't a big deal one more time." The anger in his voice would have anyone else trembling but you knew that it was directed at everyone but you.

"That's just because I'm a little baby about it." Just the movement of your jaw against your words was lightning through the wound, a tremble at your hand against the blow to your nerves. "I doubt you'd even notice if you got a black eye." Your attempt at a joke fell flat as he stared at you with those darkened eyes.

"Don't compare yourself to me, babe. We're different. This hurts you. So I'd like to hurt someone about it. Much more severely."

You allowed some of those tears free then, melting against the man before you. "You're just such an immovable force, Sanemi, it's embarrassing to be this banged up over one hit."

You appreciate his attempt to mask his smirk against the compliment and he gives you a quick, deep kiss. "Don't be embarrassed about not being a god, Y/N. No one's like me." That little shit.

You pull away, rolling your eyes, the pain igniting anew. "That's it, I'm going to go and find a dark corner to die on my own."

You catch the beginning of his own eye roll before you turn from him, heading back in the direction of Lady Shinobu to get this patched up.

"Oh, c'mon, babe. I still need that name!" He exclaims, following closely behind you.

"Do me a favor and punch yourself as hard as you can."

"Don't threaten me with a good time."

Gyomei Himejima

Being with Gyomei taught you a lot about being blind; specifically that it in no way meant that he didn't see things. His other senses more than compensated for what he had lost, and his skill as a Hashira only opened up new doors for him.

He had the most uncanny ability to tell when something was wrong with you. Whether it was just the slightest uptick in your heart rate, an incredibly quiet sigh, or change in the pace of your gait - he knew almost instantly when something was wrong.

It was, to put it plainly, hell - sometimes.

Because he was the stone Hashira. He was literally a mountain. In all of the missions he had been sent on, his injuries had never been very extensive and you were convinced that it was because they couldn't even penetrate his skin. When he did come home with some real gashes and bruises, he literally never spoke of them. He never walked with anything less than a straight back and that pensive look on his face. No wincing, no groaning.

So when you were almost bent over double in pain, it was absolutely mortifying. You could only hope that you recovered quickly enough for him to not hone in on you from across the clearing.

"I am so sorry, Y/N." Tanjiro sounded like he was about to start hyperventilating, no doubt terrified at the prospect of Gyomei seeking some sort of retribution for me. Not that the young man had even done anything wrong, I just hadn't been looking when I came around the bend.

"It's okay." I wheeze out, still bent over with my hands on my knees. Tanjiro had been in the middle of a brutal swing of his sword when I'd come outside, intending to ask them when they were going to be ready for dinner. Gyo had these training sessions with the younger slayers fairly often now, and you took pride in being able to cook for them while they worked so hard.

You hadn't announced yourself and you'd spooked Tanjiro, him turning right as he was swinging his wooden sword, dealing you a blow that would've cut you in half if he had been wielding his nichirin.

"Are you sure? You don't look very good. You might have a broken rib! We should go to the butterfly mansion at once." He was flitting around you nervously, looking like he wanted to reach out and grab hold of you and drag you there himself but not wanting to do any more damage.

"Nothing's broken, I'm just winded." It certainly hurt like he broke something - but you were fairly certain he hadn't. You'd always had a small pain tolerance, part of the reason you could never battle the way these others do. The tears pooling in your eyes and your inability to straighten yourself didn't settle the young man at all. In fact when he saw the tears starting to build he let out a little shriek, fussing over you even more.

"I am so sorry. Please let me get you help."

"Tanjiro, it's fine, please don't cause a scene - "

"My love?" Gyomei had appeared soundlessly, those brows drawn together tightly in worry.

You tried to straighten instantly and winced against the pull of your ribs, almost doubling back over if it hadn't been for your boyfriends hands reaching out to steady you.

Tanjiro's squeak would've been funny if it had been any other time. "Lord Himejima, I accidentally hit her and I'm so sorry I promise that I didn't mean to but I understand if-"

"Calm yourself, young Kamado. You held no ill intent and so you hold no blame. Though next time, you need to be sure that you aren't swinging on a civilian." Gyomei used one arm to band around your waist, holding you steady while the other hand grazes lightly over your torso, feeling out any potential injury.

He always made you feel so small like this, so frail. A mountain of a man in comparison to the small flowing creek of yourself.

"Yes, sir." With that Tanjiro left and Gyomei's head cocked to you, that pensive look everpresent.

"Nothing's broken, but are you alright? That's quite a blow to take, my moon."

You nod and ignore the pull at your stomach, trying to straighten the rest of the way with his hands to guide you.

"I'm alright. Just wasn't expecting it. It was just a training sword, nothing serious."

He didn't remove his hands from you. "If it hurts, it's serious. Let's get you inside to rest."

The tears bubble without warning, and you reply sounds wet from them. "But I wanted to prepare dinner for you."

He bends back down to you instantly, his own tears mirroring your own. "I want you to be okay, Y/N. I appreciate you wanting to do that for us, but I need you to rest. Okay?"

You nod and continue crying softly, his hand catching a few of the tears off of your cheek. "I'm sorry, you must think I'm so stupid. You wouldn't have even felt that hit."

His frown is deep. "We are very different people, Y/N. Comparison is the thief of joy. You cannot help how things hurt you."

You nod again, knowing the truth of it but still feeling a bit like a whiny baby. "I know. I'm sorry."

He shakes his head and lifts you into his arms, a firm kiss placed on the crown of your head. "No apologies. Let me help you."

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these always turn out longer than I intend

You walked into the rec room, and his eyes flickered to you for a moment, a moment you would’ve otherwise missed if you hadn’t walked in there on a mission to talk to him specifically. He noticed the way you were looking at him, all business and no fun. He tried to ignore you, shifting his focus back to the worn punching bag hanging in front of him.

“Alright, what’s your deal? Let’s get this over with.” You stood next to him with your arms crossed against your chest.

You weren’t intimidated by him, although the scowl on his face was begging you to be. You were aware that it was all a façade, a way to protect himself and you weren’t going to fall for it.

“Why do you hate me?”

He noticed now that you were wearing a tight tank top, and shorts, and your muscular legs were exposed more than usual. His breath hitched, and his blood went warm, he didn’t want to admit that he was avoiding you because you made his heart race and he wasn’t used to it.

“Shouldn’t you be getting your workout in?” He was avoidant, and you knew it. You usually let it fly, but not today. He brushed past you to get on a nearby elliptical machine.

“You can work in Congress but you can’t welcome a newbie with open arms? I’ve been here for months. ” Your eyes flickered to the metal arm, not intentionally, but he caught it immediately. Finally, his intense blue eyes lingered on you for longer than a moment, “Why do you care if I acknowledge you or not?”

You were caught off guard by his questioning, you really wanted his approval or at the very least a moment of his time. “You’re the only person I haven’t bonded with here, you avoid me like I’m carrying the plague or something.”

“How do I know you’re not?” His tone was so dry. You couldn’t tell if he was joking or not, his eyes never wavered showing any kind of emotion. You stood there, almost emotionless before you noticed the corners of his mouth starting to turn.

“Okay, progress! A smile! Let’s sit? Maybe get a cup of coffee, please?” You finally smiled at him, feeling the tension starting to shift.

“Fine but let me get a smoke break first” he walked over to the hoodie he had left lying around, grabbing a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from the pocket.

You eyed him up and down, not in disapproval but more so that you were surprised he had picked up this particular habit. You quickly assumed it was to calm his nerves, PTSD will do that to you.

“We can go to the diner downstairs, I’m really not in the mood to listen to any of Alexei’s war stories today” he rolled his eyes, and you nodded following him out of the building as he held the cigarette between his flesh fingers.

“Want one?” He sucked the cigarette end hard, the menthol feeling taking over his senses as a chill went up his spine.

“I like my lungs” you teased and he only shrugged. You excused yourself to change into warmer clothes, before meeting him back outside before going to the diner.

You and Bucky sat at that diner for four hours, it was the first time you had ever had a real conversation and it felt like the words continued to flow on both sides. You realize you had a lot more in common than you anticipated, he talked about Steve a lot and about how he was really bad at online dating, and making friends apparently. He went into detail about how he never meant to make you feel slighted, he just wasn’t good with new faces. He truthfully just didn’t think you wanted to know him at all, and that confession nearly jarred you.

“Why wouldn’t I? You’re by far the most interesting person in the tower.” Your eyes went wide as you motioned to the waitress for another cup of water, you had probably gone through 10 different drinks by this point.

“Interesting huh?” He tongued the inside of his cheek and chuckled, an actual laugh that made his chest vibrate and his stomach feel warm inside.

“That’s supposed to be a compliment! I swear!” You giggled as the waitress set a hot order of mozzarella sticks down in front of both of you.

“These are on the house” she winked at Bucky before smiling widely at you too.

You both took one at the same time, making eye contact as you both suddenly realized how hungry you were.

“I guess we have been here for hours huh? Do you want something else to eat? Or I can make us paninis for dinner, you like those right? ”He remembered that last time he made them you raved about them, something you thought he hadn’t noticed.

“Paninis sound good!” Your eyes flickered to the metal arm once more.

“You’ve been looking at this a lot today” he lifted it slightly before placing it back down to his side.

“Honestly I’ve always wanted to know how it works, I mean, I obviously see it in action when you guys are out there doing your thing but up close it’s different.”

“Doing our thing huh?” He chuckled, nursing his Diet Coke, which had surely gone watery and flat by now.

“You know what I mean Barnicle.” The nickname, rolled off your tongue, he had never really had a silly one like that before. He probably wouldn’t have liked it if it didn’t come from you, but the fact that it came out of your beautiful mouth well, he wasn’t going to complain.

“Is it heavy?” You sipped your water, absentmindedly, tracing the straw with your tongue, and Bucky definitely noticed.

“My dick or the arm?”

Buckys comment caught you off guard, you gasped, your entire body growing warm with embarrassment.

“Both?” You rasped, answering truthfully.

After that night, you and Bucky Barnes were pretty much inseparable, you wouldn’t say that you were dating per se, but what you would say was that most nights you slept in one another’s bed, and often times he finished inside you. The perks of super soldier serum made his sperm sterile, no worries at all in that department.

Everyone in the watchtower knew it was pretty much a don’t ask and don’t tell situation with the two of you. Walker would comment here and there about how you two were obviously flirty, but everybody else let it fly under the radar. Most people knew without being told that Bucky Barnes didn’t like too much attention, and he would prefer it if everybody minded their own business. You, however, would like to shout it from the rooftops that he made you orgasm 6 times in one night, but you respected his boundaries.

Bucky was a mess today, exhausted and full of nerves. It didn’t help that the mission briefing was taking place at 5 AM. He had just fallen asleep two hours prior and now he was sitting here with the rest of the team, who honestly looked worse for wear than he did. Some nights, like last night he didn’t want to fuck, and you understood why. On those nights you would give him space, always make sure he ate dinner, but space nonetheless.

“You okay?” You whispered as you took a seat in the rolling office chair beside him.

“Missed you last night” he avoided the question, grabbing your hand under the table and fidgeting with the ring you wore on your pointer finger.

“You know where to find me” you hummed, knowing he wouldn’t have anything to say in response.

You had gotten up an hour earlier to get ready, you hated admitting it, but you always cared what he thought of you. Especially now that you were having sex, the pressure felt magnified. You made sure to style your hair, put on makeup, and wore his favorite outfit on you. A low-cut top, and a short jean skirt. It was just a mission brief so you didn’t have to wear your combat clothes. You also knew he was extremely sensitive to smell, making sure you used the honey apricot shampoo he liked this morning.

“You smell really nice and your legs look good” he hummed, a more noticeable smile forming and a sparkle coming over his tired eyes. He started to stop and start igniting the flame with the royal blue lighter in his other hand.

Teasingly you grabbed the lighter from him, thanking his tired demeanor for being able to successfully grab it from him unsuspectingly. As he went to grab it you slipped it into your bra, a mischievous smile spread across your face as the meeting began.

“Give it to me” he whispered as he maneuvered in his chair.

“Take it” you teased back, making sure it was partly visible in your bouncing cleavage.

Bucky kept his eyes on your breasts, wanting what was his back and enjoying the view. “You’re a damn tease” he mumbled as the instructions were given to the team.

You shrugged, taking notes as you rubbed your foot on his leg, the subtle contact driving Bucky crazy. “You can’t even use it right now.”

“It’s still mine” he lightly coughed, trying to hide the fact that the two of you were wildly distracted. You liked how possessive he was over his things.

“Take what’s yours then soldier” you teased back. It wasn’t until you felt his warm hand on your leg that you realized what he was doing, he squeezed your thigh gently as a warning.

Walker was sitting across from you two, trying to drown out his own super soldier hearing as he listened to the brief.

Bucky slowly moved his hand up, halfway up your thigh. “Give it back now,” His eyes told you how serious he was being now.

You ignored him until his hands trailed up your thigh and his warm fingers brushingly teased your clit he realized immediately that you weren’t wearing underwear, a small growl coming from deep in his throat. You wondered if you should just give up and give him the lighter, worried you wouldn’t be able to control yourself.

Bucky didn’t give you time to change your mind, he took two fingers and teasingly dragged them through your slick folds, the warmth of his hand felt good against your skin, he circled your clit teasingly before pushing his fingers deep inside you.

Your eyes went wide as he hid a smile, you quickly took the lighter out of your bra sliding it to him but he kept his fingers there to show you who was really in control.

When the meeting brief was over, you quickly pushed his hand away and the two of you stood up, making eye contact with one another, it was as if you had forgotten you had company, which truthfully happened a lot.

“Are you guys okay?” Yelena interrupted your train of thought as Bucky subtly wiped his hand on his joggers.

“Never better!” You smiled and both you and Bucky blushed as he quickly followed you out of the room.

“We have to leave for the mission in an hour!” John reminded, having heard the tension between the two of you.

“Don’t you have a cigarette to smoke or something?” You knew he was hot on your trail with purpose, and you were still acting like you didn’t need him.

“Do you really want me to leave you alone?” He blinked, standing still and waiting for your authentic response.

“You know I don’t” You grabbed his wrist and the two of you eagerly slipped into his bedroom and shut and locked the door.

“That was an insane stunt to pull by the way” You smacked your lips as the two of you haphazardly threw your clothes off and onto his floor.

“Was it?” He stood there, in his briefs, his dick begging to spring free. You were in your bra, waiting for him to unclasp it. He padded over to you, taking it off with one hand as your breasts bounced free. Your nipples were hard already, and the cold air in his room didn’t help.

Bucky got on his knees, his intense blue eyes looking up at you before his mouth found your clit as you stood before him, one hand cupping your ass and the other reaching up to play with your sensitive nipples.

“Bucky, we only have an hour until we have to leave” you moaned with your eyes closed. Your body involuntarily spasmed as he pushed his tongue against your clit.

“You’re right, let’s not waste any time” he growled, carrying you with one arm over his shoulder and to his bed. He carefully put you down onto his pillows. “Eyes on me, you know what I like” he rasped and you opened your eyes, making eye contact with him. He stood at the foot of the bed, holding your legs up as he angled himself inside you. It took two pushes for you to fully take him.

He put both of your legs on his shoulders as he continued to pump into you, “How does this feel good girl?” He has his metal palm flat on your stomach so that he can feel himself twitch inside you.

Bucky kept the momentum, pushing in and out of you quickly, the rhythm would’ve given any regular person a cramp but not Bucky, it didn’t take him long to figure out what worked for you.

“I asked you a question” he moaned, he was never shy about being vocal with you.

“Holy fuck Buck- Bucky I’m not going to last- to last, long” You fought to keep your eyes open as he leaned slightly away from you he was angled right against your g-spot.

He felt your vagina tighten around him, your orgasm quickly approaching and making him gasp as he caught himself from collapsing on top of you, warm ropes of cum filled you as his hips stuttered. He stayed inside you for longer than he needed to, allowing both of you to breathe again.

When he pulled out of you, he started to look for his clothes and you stood up, stopping him with a hand on his sweaty chest.

“Don’t we still have thirty more minutes?” You winked and he threw his shirt back down to the floor and eagerly kissed you, his large hands wrapping around your face.

“Now get on the bed soldier! I want to ride!” You winked and he did as he was told.