#pbe

“Like, a month ago for about 10 minutes. What? I’m just so busy.”

The third base bit is true – the social media assistant you went out for drinks with last month had swept you off your feet for a whopping 6-something minutes before collapsing next to you on the bed and start talking about the future of picture-based social networking for the remaining 4.

You decide that your little encounter with Bucky Barnes can stay off Tony’s realm of knowledge for the rest of eternity. Because it’s a private thing.

And not because you and him had texted each other on and off for a whole two days, and then Bucky never texted you back.

Definitely not because of that.

“Even I do it once a week, at least.”

From his corner of the lab, Bruce sighs. He’s probably regretting not having earplugs right now, and honestly, so are you.

“You’re literally married.”

“Exactly! I’m married, and still get more action than you do.”

You set your screwdriver down and grab your coffee again. It’s your third mug of the day, and it’s not even noon. Needless to say, your braincells are bouncing around like popcorn kernels inside a microwave.

You feel a little unhinged, and very mouthy, as a certain metal-armed man would say. “Sure, but you’re married to Pepper. If I was married to Pepper, oh boy, we’d–”

“Don’t, no no, no, don’t finish that. Nope. Shush. I’ll fire you.”

“You can’t fire me, I’m like, 99% of the brains in this lab.” You roll your eyes, twirling on your chair. Now even Bruce is looking at you. “Okay, I’m the looks of this lab. Any who, you’d be nothing without me. Just a bunch of fucking nerds.”

The spider drone is up and running, and you pull up a screen to control its movements. It’s still wobbly, like a baby deer, but it works. You wonder if the propulsors you’ve been working on could be incorporated to it, and make it into those terrifying flying spiders you’ve seen on nature documentaries.

You just might be the brains and the looks.

Bucky did say you were pretty, after all. And annoying, but that was a no-brainer.

You hate yourself for it, but you actually kind of liked him – you liked his pretty blue eyes, pink lips and long hair, you liked talking to him over the phone, and you liked vacuum cleaning the inside of his mouth with yours.

That other night felt unfinished, and not just from a sexually frustrated nerd standpoint.

Goddamnit, you were in deep already.

Not that it mattered now, because he didn’t seem as interested as you were, and that is fine. It’s life.

It’s totally fine.

“Hey kid, come back to Earth.”

You rub your face, thankful you got up too late to put on any kind of makeup. “You guys really need to stop calling me kid already.”

“Who else is calling you kid?”

“Uhm—? No one.”

Tony has his face nested in his hands, eyeing you with interest. You knit your eyebrows, and suddenly your work is very compelling. So much so that you have to sit correctly in your chair, turn your back to your boss-friend and start fiddling with the designing software on your computer.

“Because that sounds like a Rogers thing to do. And if he is—”

“As much as I’d love to add fuel to your love-hate fire with Steve, no, he didn’t do anything.”

He scoffs, reiterating for the last time that there wasn’t love in this fire, but you know better.

Thankfully, that is good enough to make him leave you alone to work in peace.

As if Tony Stark being a little too invested in your love life wasn’t enough to make it for a less-than day, heavy rain plagues New York City just when you’re trying to get home. It’s absolute chaos, as expected. The trains get delayed and that leaves you with two choices: facing the 5-station-long walk home, in the rain, or waiting for god knows long in a crowded and sweaty underground platform.

Anything is better than standing for hours in a musty tunnel.

That’s what you repeat to yourself as your shoes squelch every time you take a step.

“Ugh. Ew, water. Rain water. On my feet. Warm from my feet. Fuck me, fuck me sideways.”

You wish you were one of those romantic people who saw beauty in the rain, but right now you are soaked, cold, hungry, your feet hurt and you are starting to regret leaving your dry and sunny hometown to become a scientist or whatever.

You wrestle against the iron door of your apartment complex – really, only the neighbors are complex – the building itself is a repurposed rowhouse, the typical New York accommodation, complete with fire stairs outside and everything.

Once you close yourself into the warmth of the hall, the smell of spices coming from Mr. Bakshi’s apartment fills your nose and you smile. You’ll have to come knock on his door for curry later.

He’ll swat you with a wooden spoon and send you off running, but at the end of the day you’ll have a warm bowl of food on your lap and a life lesson given to you unprompted.

The stairs are your last nemesis before arriving at your apartment, and you try to catch your breath while you turn the key in.

Your apartment isn’t as nice as Steve’s – in your humble opinion, at least. There’s a constant background sound of either pipes creaking, people living their lives in the apartments above or beside you, or on the streets below. The landlord turns off the heating after 9 p.m., and your bathtub has a leak he’s been ignoring for the past couple of months.

It’s still your home, though, your safe place, and you’ve been living in it for so long you can make your way around everything in the dark, with your eyes closed.

That means that when you get inside, you don’t turn on the lights. You swing your bag over a hook that’s by the door. You kick off your wet shoes and jacket.

“Got caught in the rain?”

You scream.

Your eyes dart wildly around your dark apartment, stopping at the figure sitting on your favorite chair. Long, dark hair. Blue eyes. Metal arm.

Slowly, you peel yourself from the wall.

It’s Bucky.

Your heart is still hammering inside your ribcage.

“What the fuck,” You punch the light switch on. “who do you think you are, the Winter Stalker?”

He’s not wearing his tactical gear, instead clad in a leather jacket and dark wash jeans, but your first aid kit is sitting by his feet. His eyes flick to it for a second before returning to you, his boot nudging the box lightly.

To be fair. You did offer it to him that one time.

“You shouldn’t leave your window unlocked. ‘S not safe.”

“Would it have stopped you?”

“Not really.”

You groan, and stomp to your bedroom. You think about asking just how he got your address, but last week you tweeted it during a drunk rage, so you’re sure he’s not the only person to know exactly where you live.

Still, the audacity of him.

Your wet clothes are starting to weigh on you, but you suddenly miss the wet shirt that has been tossed on the floor when Bucky appears, leaning on the doorway.

He looks at the wall when he realizes you noticed him staring at you in your bra, and you laugh.

“So now we’re pretending you care about privacy.”

“I’m trying here.”

“Well, try harder,”

You go up to him, and under the light you can see he barely has any visible injuries. Why was he even here, then? “and leave my private bedroom.”

He rolls his eyes, but does what you say. You slip into your old college sweatshirt, the one without any holes, and a pair of leggings once he’s out of sight.

The leggings are a little bit of a stretch. But this is Bucky Barnes, and he looks hot even dirty and sweaty from kicking some bad guy’s asses, more so now that he’s clean, and you think you should at least try to not look like a gremlin for once.

You don’t miss how his eyes linger on your form as you come back to the living room. You’re annoyed as hell, that much is true.

But the way he swallows sends your ego soaring like a dove in a country wedding.

Never mind that those doves usually fall down pathetically five seconds later; your ego will not.

When you enter your small kitchen, it’s pristine – which is saying something, because your kitchen is never pristine. Sure, it’s always clean enough, but because you never cook. You’re positive you left a few dishes in the sink and breadcrumbs on the counter before you left in the morning, though, and those have vanished.

You turn to Bucky, who’s now back on the armchair you found him in earlier. “Did you clean my kitchen?”

“It was messy.”

Guy’s a keeper.

You’re a little offended by his wording, though. It was decent, not messy. Not great, not awful.

“Uh—it wasn’t? That’s so rude.”

“Not if it’s true.”

Out of spite, you take a mug from the cabinet and a spoon from the drawer and throw it in your sink. Bucky’s looking at you as if you’ve grown a second head, and you smirk.

“So you came here to clean my kitchen and use my first aid kit?”

“I wanted to see ya’ too, doll.”

There we go with the nickname again. Your legs feel like jelly when his eyes meet yours, but you soon remember that he’s been ghosting you and they regain their solidity.

“Well, yeah, but then you could’ve texted me back.” Checkmate.

Bucky exhales and rests his elbows on his knees, hands intertwining. You wonder if he’s trying to find his words or if he’s assessing the cleanliness of your floor.

“I was out on a mission and things got complicated—” He shakes his head, and reaches for the Rubrik’s cube on your coffee table. “but then it was days later and I felt like just texting you wasn’t enough. I’m not very good at this. I’m sorry.” 

You don’t know how to play chess. Not a clue, really.

And now you feel a little bad for giving him a hard time, because he is an old man and probably hasn’t had to maintain normal relationships with pretty much anyone outside of his conjoined twin, Steve Rogers.

“Look, I know this is probably all new for you.” With a resigned exhale, you sit on the table in front of him. “But all I needed was one text.”

“I know—”

“To stop me from thinking you were ignoring me on purpose.”

His face falls, and you smile softly. “You wouldn’t be the first. I am a little weird.”

“You are.”

“Hey!”

Bucky laughs, and suddenly you’re hypnotized by the flashing white of his teeth. “I like it.” His attention turns back to the Rubrik’s cube, and he frowns. “I thought I knew how to do this one.”

It’s your time to laugh. “You can’t. I changed the places of the stickers.”

His brows knit deeper, and it’s like your second head grew a third. “Why?”

You extend your hand and he deposits the toy on your palm.

“Makes for a good conversation starter. Like a little coffee table mystery. It also keeps fools occupied.”

“Are you callin’ me a fool?”

“You were occupied.”

Bucky’s shaking his head, but the corners of his lips are tugged up. Your smile grows larger. He takes your hand and pulls you to him, and you land with your knees on each side of his thighs.

“Hi.”

“Hi.” His flesh hand now travels up and under your sweatshirt, so warm that you shiver. “I guess I deserve being the fool. I should’ve texted you.”

You lean in, bringing your hand up to the back of his neck and tangling your fingers in his hair.

“Yeah, you should’ve.” You close the remaining distance between you and Bucky, kissing him long and deep. He slips his tongue over yours, which feels downright illegal, and you melt; all that pining and sighing around you’ve been doing culminate into it.

Bucky seems to notice, because he raises his metal hand to cup your face, steadying and dominating, but his cool fingers do little to snuff out the fever that’s building up inside you. On the contrary, really.

The back and forth movement of your hips makes Bucky groan. He plants his hands firmly on both your thighs, and looks up at you. There’s hunger in his eyes, and you can’t say your appetite doesn’t match his at the moment.

“No IKEA furniture to stop us now.”

Bucky smirks, and your sweatshirt is lifted up your body and thrown across your living room. You and Bucky realize you forgot to put on a new bra earlier.

Oops.

“Goddamn, doll.”

You capture his lips on yours again, and your fingers work to rid him of his leather jacket, which gets hurled away as well. It should be impossible, but Bucky in a Henley shirt might be hotter than anything else you’ve seen him wear.

Your leggings are the next to go, and you moan quietly over the friction of your underwear against his jeans once you straddle him again. Bucky guides your head to the side, planting his lips to your neck.

He teases and nips at the sensitive skin, and you can’t help yourself but go back to grinding on him. You gasp and moan when he slips a finger inside you. “Bucky—”

“Fuck, I could get used to hearing that.” He works you up, and you have to bite your lip to stop you from becoming – much more of – a mess too soon. “Say it again. Moan my name, beautiful.”

You’re happy to oblige him, his name falling out of your mouth like a prayer, pleading for something you weren’t sure of, most likely him. Bucky. Bucky.

“Ah—Bucky,” You move your thumb across his lips as you’re trying to brace yourself, and he flashes that brilliant smile again. “bedroom.”

Bucky nods, but shows no signs of stopping his ministrations so you two can move from the small armchair to your bed. He adds another finger in, and your breath hitches.

“Cum for me. Then we’ll go.”

It’s as if your body is eager to do everything he says, because as soon as the words leave his mouth you feel the familiar coil in your belly. Bucky moves his fingers inside of you almost painfully slow, making you bury your head on the crook of his neck to stay grounded.

It’s between your moans and pants and Bucky’s coos that you reach your peak, orgasm exploding inside you as you rock against his hand.

“Attagirl.”

You laugh at his praise, mostly to hide how much you loved it; you’re still a little dazed when Bucky gets up, gripping the soft flesh of your thighs and lifting you up with him.

You have no choice but let him carry you to the bedroom – not that you had anywhere else you wanted to be right now – and deposit you on your bed gently. After a quick sweep of his eyes across your room, he smirks at you.

“Your room’s messy.”

“Oh dear god. What, you want to tidy up a little first?” You close your fist around the hem of Bucky’s shirt, pulling him towards you. He looks at you through hooded lids, and you smirk. “Right. You don’t. Get your ass over here.”

He kisses you tenderly, finding place between your legs and pressing against your bare chest. The roughness of the shirt against your breasts is a wonderful contrast to the sweetness of the kiss, and you sigh against Bucky’s mouth.

“It’s an orderly mess. I know where everything—” You almost forget what words are when he begins a trail of kisses down your neck, stopping to lick the line of your jaw and nibble on your earlobe. “—where everything is.”

His hand travels down your torso and stops at the elastic band of your panties. “You talk too much.”

The gruffness of his voice gives you goosebumps, and you nearly lose it.

This man. It’s like he does it on purpose.

“So you’ve said,” You quip back, pushing one of Bucky’s shoulders so he’d fall on the mattress and you would be on top of him instead.

The few seconds you spend away from his body heat leaves you shivering, from either the sudden shift in temperature, excitement or even the way Bucky watches you from his spot on your bed.

One leg on each side of his body, you can feel the pressure and heat of his bulge against your (still clothed) core as you lean in to kiss him.

No shit, it’s for sure how he’s looking at you. As if you were a full course meal and he hasn’t eaten in days.

You fiddle with the button and zipper of his jeans as he tosses his Henley aside. You’ve seen him shirtless before, but seeing his bare torso, the strong lines of his shoulders and the glint of the metal arm under the dim light of your bedroom is enough to make you feel dizzy.

Bucky’s hand comes to rest on the side of your face, thumb stroking your cheek as you kneel down in front of him and begin feeling him over the material of his briefs.

“You don’t have to do—that.” He says when you free his cock from his underwear.

“Want to,” You stroke him slowly with one hand and plant a kiss on the head. “Want you so badly.”

Bucky’s voice is husky with need. “Feeling’s very mutual, doll.”

He groans when you lean down to lick a strip on the underside of his dick and suck on the tip, his fingers interweaving in your hair as you take more of him in your mouth and start bobbing your head up and down.

Bucky guides your head languidly – hell, lovingly almost – his breath becoming laborious while you concentrate on pleasing him. His hand closes in your hair and he pulls you off him gently, your lips leaving his cock with a pop.

“C’mere,” He says, still using the hand on the back of your head to bring you up and towards him.

He kisses you deeply, his tongue tracing your bottom lip as if asking permission to go inside and slide against yours.

With one hand to your waist he flips you onto the bed, now leaning over you with a smirk. He presses his lips down your jaw and neck and you exhale, throwing your head back for a moment before resting your back fully on the mattress.

You gasp when he takes one of your breasts in his mouth, air puffing out of your lungs as his tongue swirls over a nipple. You breathe his name out and feel him smile against your skin.

Bucky’s flesh hand travels down your body, finds the hem of your panties and pulls it down, your legs folding closer to your chest to help him remove it completely.

Your breath fails again when he inserts two fingers in, your toes curling at the same time he curls his digits inside of you, thumb coming to trace circles against your clitoris.

“I—Bucky,”

He trails kisses up to your lips this time, humming encouragements as you roll your hips and come undone on his hand. “You’re so beautiful when you cum for me.”

You think you could do it again to the sound of his voice alone.

With both hands at the back of his neck you kiss him hard, keening as he grinds against you and renewed, intense want builds up.

“Buck—ah, I need you,” You moan, now even the featherlight touch of his fingertips being too much for you.

“Need me where, doll?”

“Inside me.”

Bucky bites his lip and obliges immediately, sheathing himself inside of you and making you gasp at the girth. He’s got most of his weight on his metal arm, the other is tightly gripping the one of your legs that is hooked around his waist.

You feel full and blissed out. Bucky’s pink, parted lips are a sight, and it’s hard to focus on anything that isn’t them or the movement of his hips against yours. Or rather, those two things or the multiple spots where your skin touches his; it feels unbelievably hot, like burning coal, a fire that right now you have no intention of smothering.

You tangle your fingers through his hair as his thrusts gain rhythm, the friction making your head feel light and any coherent string of thought be cut loose.

“Been wanting this – you, since I caught you starin’ back at Steve’s.”

“I didn’t stare—oh,” Your attempt at a clap back is cut short when Bucky goes particularly deep, his fingertips digging into the soft flesh of your thigh, and you feel your pleasure build up, again.

Bucky’s movements turn slow and mellow, and you huff out a desperate laugh that comes out more like a little sob as you’re trying to handle the stimulation on top of the change in pace – it’s almost overwhelming, and you hold onto his metal bicep and the locks of his hair for dear life.

“C’mon, doll, just one more. Know you can do it.”

He purrs the words in your ear, bringing his hand to knead your breast and lightly pinch your nipple – as if you’re in need of motivation, but surely, it helps. Soon enough you’re bucking your hips, moaning his name and clenching tightly around him.

“That’s it – god, you feel so good.” Bucky mumbles against your neck before kissing the flushed skin. His ruts become sloppier and you meet his thrusts lazily, kissing and nipping at his bottom lip to push him into his own climax.

With a soft groan he pulls out, spilling himself on your stomach. You kiss his face and he seeks out your lips, the both of you coming down from your highs in a tangle of spent, sweaty limbs.

You keep your eyes closed when he gets up and pads to your bathroom and back, only opening them when you feel the wet softness of a washcloth on your belly and inner thighs.

“Made a mess.” You tease as Bucky works on cleaning you up, and he looks at you with feigned annoyance in his eyes.

“Zip it.”

You know it’s all an act because his face breaks into a grin immediately after, even if it happens against his will – maybe it’s because of the post-coital dopamine, or your irresistible charm, or maybe Bucky happens to like you as much as you like him. It hardly matters.

Suck it, Tony. He’ll probably never know about any of this, but if he could just see you now. Bucky Barnes, butt naked in your bedroom.

The rain still pours over the city, droplets collecting on your windowsill. It’s nice, pretty even – the chill of it a distant feeling now that you were inside and your cheeks and body were heated up from Bucky’s presence in your tiny, messy, lovely apartment.

Bucky comes back from the bathroom (after tidying something else up, you’re sure) and places a hand on your hip when you’re done pulling another pair of underwear up your legs. They’re still a bit unsteady, so you let him guide you back to your bed as he kisses you softly.

Your lips meet again, and again and again, and you let yourself melt between your sheets and Bucky’s warmth.

“So I can break in again sometime, you think?” He says it so nonchalantly that you snort and swat him on the shoulder.