#us4gent

it's a mechanical bull, the number one you'll take a ride from anyone

smut prompt. | @us4gent

they're hypocrites, both of them. there's no sensible or easy way to pave their way through mutual traumas, the blood-price burden every war combatant knew the incessant weight of, the gaping and clenching wound loss created a permanent fixture furrowed just beneath the skin. on the field, they operate in tandem, two cogs in an easy machine despite the roughage endured in the undertaking. it's taken effort to get them both here; bucky cuts his teeth on the position john swears to god he doesn't mean to supplant, and bucky thinks he can hear the bible-belt in his drawl.

he trusts him. the result is that in private, bucky unwinds just as much, feeling like a machine gutted of it's copper wiring and connective nodes. alpine snakes around their tangled feet, bucky's carefully seated over john's, who can't even muster a smile as he noses into bucky's thick mussed curls ('you're so short,' he laughs, the sound cool and dry in his throat). both arms seat over the span of john's shoulders, deceptively strong, bearing the weight of his shimmering prosthetic without complaint. dolly parton and her high dulcet drones from bucky's blu-tooth speaker, john's phone nestled in the dock. they sway in half circles, languid and warm.

the scent of sweat and barely-placated anxiety is astringent and loud, a sort of strange and obvious contrast to their practiced and gentle movements. trauma was strung out on fishhooks like fresh viscera, never new, but always crude and stinking; even bucky's soft strawberry clarifying shampoo or john's earthy deodorant (the scent drove him crazy, made his gut clench) couldn't cover it all up. he feels john's heart still racing in the tract of his ribs, the rhythmic pound of his pulse drumming through the veil of bucky's thin tank. the scene is sweet and placid to an external eye, but both soldiers know it's merely a learned dance, oil on troubled waters shared in their mutual pain. that was easy, simple, understood.

he would never be olivia, and john would never be steve.

but--they didn't have to exist as the others ideal. this broken thing with jagged edges fit together well enough.

john's hands migrate from bucky's upper lumbar, where the torso melted into the back, to the lower ridge of his spine, thumb coursing a bare dimple of venus where his tank rucks up. the gesture isn't meant to be lewd, bucky doesn't think, but when he meets john's eyes, he gets a good look at the depth of sullen monotony in them. he's tired. he's miserable.

bucky is too, if he's being honest. alpine chirps as she departs from the two of them, leaping up onto an unoccupied counter to curl into a white, sleepy ball.

natal hand bracketing the edge of john's unshaved jaw, the soft trail his thumb makes through the thicket of blond hairs is like kinetic transference, tandem to john's nail sticking at the lip of bucky's onyx shorts. the clock affixed above his sink reads 1:04am, it's ticks quieted beneath the consistent lull of music. bucky leans up, weight pointed onto his toes (ballerina pristine) in order to meet john's face evenly. congruent, he initiates a kiss, the soft ghost of his mouth fanning a hot breath across his unkempt beard. john's return is without resistance, seated somewhere between disimpassioned and controlled hunger. the touch of morosity bleeds blue and grey into everything; bucky holds him close, long enough that john breaks the kiss to suck in a breath and measure a retaliatory upshot. his lead is heavy and hard and a little less restrained, creating nothing illusory about intent. he wasn't chasing or hunting, the way he sometimes did when barnes presented himself sheen from sparring or how he so authentically enjoyed forcing john to wrest him into submission like some wily prey animal in the predator's jaws. this was yielding supplication, silent begging to be made whole if only for a while, to smother out that radiating pain like any good analgesic.

bucky capitulates to it.

❝ you gonna eat those fries? ❞ as if he wasn't already stealing them off his plate this whole time. he pops one in his mouth with a grin, before he leans back in his chair. hand grabs glass, raising it to his lips and knocking back the last of the beer he'd ordered. ❝ keep frownin' like that, your face is gonna get stuck, johnny. ❞ free hand comes out to clap john's arm, before he leans forward again, with his forearms settled on the table.

❝ what's goin' on in that head of yours? i can practically see the gears turnin' in there. ❞ another easy grin, and another nudge, this time with his elbow. lemar's gaze tries to catch john's, grin fading slightly. ❝ c'mon, what's wrong? tell me, or i'm just gonna assume somethin'. and you know what they say 'bout that. ❞

@us4gent is getting a thing from lemarrrrrr

The mission was supposed to be quick In. Out. No attachments. But apparently, fate, or maybe just really bad planning, has a cruel sense of humor.

Metal bites into Yelena’s wrist, cold and unyielding, a perfect match for the man currently attached to the other end of the cuffs. John Walker stands half a step behind her, jaw clenched, eyes flicking between their surroundings and the offending steel chain as if he glares hard enough, it might magically disappear. If not for Yelena's growing annoyance, she might laugh at the sight. She brushes her lips together, even muffles a slight snort: "Great first date." She's being cheeky. The extraction point is three kilometers away, and they’ve got a whole nest of armed men in between. Moving fast would be smarter. But moving fast when you’re shackled to Captain Overachiever? That is its own special kind of hell. Every step turns into a dance they haven't rehearsed, him pulling too hard, her pulling back harder...

"If we are going to figure this out we have to work together!" she finally snarls feeling a pang through her bruised wrist. There's both a command and plea within her intonation.

Steve had spent a long time considering how he might go about this. He'd seen from the sidelines the results of what was now called the New Avengers. Or was it New Avengerz. He didn't care for the semantics. He just knew that there was one member of the team that had a harder time than others sometimes as a result of what others viewed him as.

Suppose he wanted to meet the man known as the US Agent for the fact that he had once represented the Red White and Blue of Captain America. Or maybe it was because he bore his own shield and wore the weight of what that meant.

Maybe it was more than that but as he stepped into the tower, there was a bit of shock from those that had been around. Everyone but Bucky had thought he had gone into remote hiding and they weren't wrong. But he'd turned up after retirement and that's when he pulled John Walker to the side.

He thought once that people were simple. There were them. And there was him. No further complications. You put on a mask. You put on a suit. You talk the talk and you walk the walk. And it’s suddenly no different. 

But those were her rules. 

Not his. 

And he always thought CAPTAIN AMERICA should be no different. But he is. 

His lips twitch at the edge. Almost a smile. Something flutters in his chest that he can’t quite explain. And his eyes are glued at the man in the big red, white and blue.