So, I was diving through the inbox and saw this and for some reason got really super inspired?

On Halloween, it’s her. He knew it would be. The man that his team expects she’ll assassinate has women and children locked up in his basement that he plans to sell at an auction once this masquerade ball is over. So, this is personal to her. She’s alone, but he didn’t expect them both to show up. His brain understands that it’s a tactical decision—one is arrested, kidnapped, or killed then the other can continue on with their work. His stupid, lovesick heart wants to believe it’s a desperate attempt to keep distance between themselves and him. He knows some warm memories come back to them when he’s around. Put them all three in the same room? He wants to think it’d make them crack and cave. It’d make them come home with him and that scares them. They want to be wild and free and he threatens that with his promise of domesticity.

There are old stories that he’d heard back in the war. About werewolves that could be cured and turned back into a human. All that needed to be done was to have someone the werewolf trusted and loved whisper their true name. Fuck, he wishes that was true, but those stories don’t talk about what to do if the werewolf doesn’t remember who they used to be. That still doesn’t stop him. Sometimes, all he can ever do is scream their names. He still loves them both. He’ll do whatever he can to make them remember.

When she makes her appearance, the irony of her costume isn’t lost on him. The maroon corset pushes her breasts up and her lips are painted the exact same shade. The hooded cape is, too, and it has velvet material. Rather than the skirt he’s seen other women wear, she’s in black leather pants and boots. Doesn’t make the costume any less of a hot little number, but now it’s more practical should all hell break loose. And it will now that she’s here.

Because it isn’t Little Red Riding Hood that stands in front of him. Here, she’s a hunter. These are the missions where she thrives, he knows. She touches his chest and slides her hands up to his shoulders. When she smiles up at him, it’s sharp. No wonder she’s called Fenrir. She’s the Big Bad Wolf. A predator in sheep’s clothing. But, oh, does she try to play up the innocent act. There’s a little wooden basket in her hand that she pulls something out of. Then, she holds it up between them and sweetly asks, “Apple?”

“Poisoned apples are a different fairytale, sweetheart,” he tells her over the music.

And his back is pressed to the bar. She brackets him in with her arms as she places the apple and her little basket on the bar behind him. But she doesn’t move away. “Aw, I’d never poison you. Just wouldn’t be as much fun without you around.” She wraps her hands around the leather straps of his uniform and pulls him close to her. “Oh, I didn’t wish you a happy Halloween. Why don’t you find a quiet room where I can let you have a treat?”

“And leave you alone to play your tricks?”

“Why do you even bother to pretend you’re here for anyone but me?” Jesus, she’s always made his knees weak when she leans in the way she does now. Hovers her lips over his. “Or that you wouldn’t let me do exactly what I want? All I have to do is say that I haven’t been able to do what I want almost seventy years and you would let me burn the whole world down.”

“Baby, I’d hold the match.” He would. God help him, he would.

That coy and playful smile disappears. She presses her thumb to the dimple in his chin and stares into his eyes. “They really should’ve left you in the ice,” she mourns almost to herself. “My beautiful boy, this world’s too mean for someone with a heart like yours.” Isn’t that a kick in the balls? Because that’s what he’d think about her, back in the war. Good woman like her never should’ve been thrown in war. But then he went and crashed a plane and left her behind to be swallowed up by the nastiest parts of the world. “And look where you’re at now. You’ve taken monsters to bed.”

“You’re not monsters.”

“We are,” she croons. As quick as the emotions came, she’s back to the superficial sensuality. “Because I plan to kill all the men who plan to show at the auction and I’ll love every second. I’ll make them howl. I’ll tear them to pieces and write on the walls with their blood to make all the people like them scared. They’ll have a slow, extremely painful death and that makes me happy. We don’t take orders anymore. Now, we kill because we like it.”

“And all those women and kids locked up, what about them? You plan to let them rot inside their cells?” Her lips purse and she doesn’t answer. She doesn’t need to. “No. You won’t even wait on my team. You think I don’t know about the little network you two have set up to help victims? You two do the same work I do, but you’re as brutal with the bastards as I wish I could be. I wish I could drop this all and come with you two. I want to watch them burn, too.”

She leans in to nip at his earlobe. “I love when you talk dirty to me.” Her cheek presses to his. “I’ve never had beard burn before. And I’d be so much happier to kill them all with your come inside me. Want to help me out with that?”

Why the hell does she even bother to ask anymore?

One second she’s there and then she disappears the next. He suspects she does it so on the off-chance that someone clocks him, he won’t be seen with her. Sometimes, he thinks she cares more about his reputation than he does. The world would lose their shit to see him with an ex-Soviet assassin turned mercenary. He could care less.

Like a lovesick pup, he follows after her. She never makes it hard. A door is cracked open on an upper floor and he sneaks inside the emptied office. She’s sprawled back on the leather couch and smirks at him, pleased as punch. As he locks the door behind him, he notices some drawers are open to the desk on the other side of the room. Papers strewn across the floor. It’ll probably be information about the people who host the auction, will attend it, and all their known associates. A head-start for his team, but she and her partner are always one step ahead of them. It’s a courtesy. An excuse. Natasha and Sam tend to not ask questions when he’s not empty-handed.

“Y’know, here lately, you look real tense in all the pictures I see of you, Cap,” she drawls in the southern accent that makes his heart ache. “Why don’t you c’mon over here, huh? I know how to help you relax.” She spreads her legs, a blatant invitation, and pops the button of her pants.

And he shouldn’t because the more he does this with them both, the more he falls back in love with them. No doubt, they’re all on the road to ruin and his heart will end up broken, but he’ll ride this out. They’ve always been his addiction. He tried, before he knew they were alive, to sleep around in hopes he could…could feel more than the ice and the pain and the loneliness. It never worked. Man or woman, he couldn’t even get it up. They’re it. They’re the ones for him.

Before he knows it, he’s down on his knees between her parted thighs. He rubs his cheek against her inner thigh, nipping at her soft, pale skin. He takes a deep breath and his eyes almost roll back in his head. He hasn’t seen her in months. Been even longer since he tasted her. “Fuck, it’s true. You canbe cruel. To make me go all this time without tasting this sweet pussy.” She starts to chuckle breathlessly, but it morphs into a quiet sigh at the first press of his mouth on her. “I missed your cunt, y’know that?” She fists his hair and moans quietly. “Come home with me. I’ll spend the rest of my days between your legs.”

“Well, isn’t that a pretty offer.” She tilts her head back and her eyes flutter shut. He licks into her and she finally unclasps the front of her corset. He knows she plans to touch herself, but he reaches up before she has the chance. “Fuck,” she whispers as he rolls a nipple between metal fingers. “Oh, that mouth of yours makes me want to climb in bed with you and never leave,” she gasps. “You make me want to do a lot of things I shouldn’t.”

He slides back up her body and presses his mouth to hers. They kiss while he fumbles to get his dick out. Her hands slide over his and she helps him, uncharacteristically patient. Something changed in her after that confession. Her kisses and her touches are charged with emotion now. He touches his forehead to hers as he slides inside her. It’s burning hot here. Hotter than she ever was in the war. He tucks his face in the crook of her neck and rolls his hips. The keen she replies with and the way she reaches down to dig her fingers into his ass spurs him on.

“Моя луна,” she whispers like a prayer. She runs one hand through his hair and has the other wrapped around his shoulders. His pelvis is rubbing on her right. Her legs are shaking and each hot breath near his ear pitches higher and higher. “Я мечтаю о тебе каждую ночь. Я вою только для тебя. Я тебя хочу. Я не имею права. Волки вечно гоняются за луной.” Then, her body clenches up and she’s coming.

It doesn’t take long for him to follow after her. As he spills inside her, he breathes out, “Quinn.” He leans back so he can stare her in the eyes. He cups her cheek and his heart is in his throat. “Stay with me. Please.” Fear is in her eyes. The first time he’s ever seen it this side of the century. Is she scared because she wants it? It’s so close. She’s so close. “Quinn, baby doll, please don’t leave this time. Come back with me. Make my place a home.”

Quinn doesn’t stay and the kiss she leaves him with tastes like a goodbye, or so she tries to convince herself. But Bucky knows the next time he sees her, she’ll stay.

—

Once upon a time, a heartbroken woman had been lured into the deep, dark woods. Lured by a mindless beast that wore the face of her soulmate. The bastards that took her soulmate wanted to take her, too. They had reasoned she could be the fair maiden to soothe the rabid animal they’d turned her soulmate into. That woman she used to be…she was swallowed up in the darkness. And the darkness won, but her captors sure as hell didn’t. They had no idea. Didn’t know that there are wolves. There are stories about wolves and girls. Girls in red, all alone in the woods, about to get eaten up. Dumb assholes didn’t stop to think that wolves and girls both have sharp teeth.

—

Different person, but the story ends the exact same.

There’s no one in his hotel room when Bucky walks inside, but when he comes out of the bathroom after a shower, Steve is there. Propped back against the headboard. This time, he doesn’t even bother to talk. Just slides off the mattress, pulls his shirt up over his head, and moves into Bucky’s space to furiously kiss him.

So, here Bucky is, on his back. Bottom lip between his teeth as Steve looms above him. Sinuously rolling his hips and Bucky doesn’t think he can get any deeper inside Steve, but goddamn does Steve try. Steve hunches over, touches his cheek against Bucky’s, and Bucky usually takes that as the go-ahead to bend his knees and put his back into it. That doesn’t happen this time, though.

Steve loosely wraps a hand around Bucky’s throat. “You have some nerve, Barnes,” he husks into Bucky’s ear. “To make her cry the way you did. To think you can take her away from me.” Steve squeezes, only a little, only a threat. The danger that suddenly radiates from Steve should not turn Bucky on. “I’ve killed men for less. For simply looking at her. You’re lucky that you fuck me so good. I’d miss your cock too much if I slit your throat here.”

Bucky’s the definition of dumb fuck. The last thing he should do is stoke Steve’s fiery temper. “Jealous, baby boy? You scared she’ll wizen up and take me up on my offer? God forbid she not want her hands bloody anymore.”

Steve chuckles and it’s low and dark and sends sparks up Bucky’s spine. “Do you reallythink that’s my problem? Do you think I don’t want her to have peace? No, you’rethe problem. You—” he catches Bucky by the chin and squeezes so hard Bucky thinks his jaw may break. “You can’t protect her,” he whispers into Bucky’s mouth. “I didn’t have a choice when I went down. You did. You left her all alone, Buck.” Jesus Christ, his boy’s always known how to make it hurt. “I’mthe one who protected her all these years. I have the scars on my back to prove it.” He kisses Bucky, gasping because he’s about to come. “You don’t deserve to have that shield.”

“What do you mean by leaving?”

The second that Steve’s shout makes it back to him in the bedroom, Bucky is awake and scrambles to make it out of bed, almost trips over himself in the process. Both Steve and Quinn are out in the hall and where Steve’s at least in a pair of boxers, Quinn is dressed a lot like she’d been when they convinced her to come in from the cold–a lot of layers, backpack with supplies over her shoulder–and she has a hand on the doorknob to their apartment.

Quinn, when she spots Bucky, drops her eyes to the floor and, for the moment, steps away from the door. “You’re smart. You know good and goddamn well what I mean.” When she looks back up at Steve, she looks nowhere near as mad as she sounds. Instead, she looks dogged…exhausted…resigned.

Bucky reaches out to touch Steve’s shoulder because if Steve doesn’t calm down, this’ll be a lot messier, but the punk’s always looking for a fight, so he snaps at her, “Maybe I don’t. Spell it out for me.” Steve’s scared, though. He’s–aw, hell, who is Bucky kidding? They’re both always terrified that they’ll wake up and Quinn won’t be there anymore.

“I need to leave,” she explains quietly and her eyes drop back down to her feet. It’s still hard for her to keep up prolonged periods of eye contact. “I don’t know how else I can say it so you’ll understand it.”

“Quinn,” Bucky speaks up, pushing Steve back behind him a little so maybe he’ll get the hint to calm the fuck down. “What’s goin’ on, sweetheart? Things…they ain’t been easy, but it’s not been all bad, has it? Why you wanna sneak off in the middle of the night on us?”

“I don’t belong here, Bucky,” she snaps and he can see her blink rapidly to hold back tears. “I’m not her anymore and you both know it. They ripped out your soul mate and they put an animal in her place and wild animals don’t belong in houses. They belong in cages.”

“We know you’re not the same,” Steve quickly butts in, calmer than before, probably because his heart’s breaking hearing her talk about herself like that. “We’re not the same people, either. But, Quinn, you’re not an animal, okay?”

“Yes, I am!” Quinn shouts and throws her backpack on the floor. “I’m Fenrir, goddamn it! I’m a goddamn rabid dog that they muzzled or threw into the wild where I left a fuckin’ trail of bodies behind me!” She stops, realizes that she’s yelling, and reigns herself back in. “It’s only a matter of time before I wake up and you both got your throat’s ripped out at my feet.” She puts her hands over her face and her shoulders start to shake with her tears. “And I can handle a lot, but not that. I can’t live to see you both taken away, especially when I was the one to do it. So…” She stops, tries to collect herself, but sobs out, “Please let me go.”

The mask clatters to the ground and Fenrir looks over her shoulder to watch the targets closely. Two pairs of disbelieving blue eyes settle on her naked face and, the same as before, since she started this mission, a wave of…something washes over Fenrir’s mind. She ignores it–she must. She has to complete the mission and maybe they’ll send her to the ice without a wipe.

“Quinn?” the target who carries the shield questions her, voice quiet yet horrified.

“Who the hell is Quinn?” Fenrir questions because the mission is looking at her like she’s this…Quinn.

Quinn…

…Quinn…

There is no singular wave now and there’s nothing gentle about what suddenly happens in Fenrir’s mind. Whatever these men have done to her, it suddenly crashes against the wall in her mind, wave after brutal wave. The precarious wall the handlers have struggled to build over the years is suddenly cracking and there’s a flicker. These men…these men…she’s seen them before. Were they handlers? Perhaps defected and her current masters want to see them taken care of? No. It has been at least a decade since she was last used and they would not be so young. The flickers in her mind, those show glimpses of a different decade besides. Not modern. The men smile. Did she smile back?

This is worse than any physical wound and, panicked and backed into a corner, the asset raises her weapon to threaten them away. She tries to snarl at them, but she can’t wipe the confused panic off her expression entirely. These men, her missions, they’re what has caused this disturbance in her brain. She can…retreat and regroup and the handlers won’t like it, but she can handle the pain.

A sound like a jet engine comes barreling in her on her right and she’s kicked to the ground, sent tumbling and trying to recover. The unknown with her three targets has some kind of flying weapon and she goes to aim her gun at him, but then the strike team comes speeding into the area, creating a perimeter around them. Fenrir hauls herself to her feet and watches as Rumlow and Rollins come storming up behind her–the two men. They’re not hers. Nothing belongs to her. Fenrir is a weapon. She is nothing and no one.

And yet they call her Fenrir, a wolf, and even wild animals have packs, don’t they? That can be the only explanation for why she wants to storm over to where her current handlers are and bite and rip their flesh apart with her teeth to get their nasty hands off the targets.

“Who is Quinn?” Fenrir suddenly speaks up–out against her handlers.

Every weapon, other than Rollins and Rumlow’s, turns to point at her. That’s right. She’s dangerous. She’s not a weapon. She’s an animal. She has sharp teeth and sharp claws.

“You are!” the man with the metal arm shouts, face furious for a moment before his expression drops, saddens. “You’re Quinn,” he adds miserably.

“Barnes,” Rumlow hisses at the target who just spoke. “You or Cap say another word and I’ll put a bullet in her pretty little head right here and now and shove your face in her brains.” The mission stares at her, terrified, and snaps his mouth shut. He is…concerned for her safety?

More importantly, Fenrir has another flash. Another man had used her as a shield before, too, threatened to put a bullet in her head. It’s not Rumlow, though. This man in her…is this a memory, she doesn’t know–anyway, he is in a military uniform. The missions are there too, across the way, worried and full of rage. Was that the Quinn they spoke of, who was kept a hostage? It can’t be Fenrir, though. Fenrir was only born to pain and darkness. Nothing came before Fenrir…did it?

“Asset,” Rumlow starts slowly because she’s tensed up and looks ready to pounce. “Stand down,” he warns.

“Who the hell is Quinn?” Fenrir is desperate to know, but it seems that the only people who know are about to be killed. They’re the missing pieces. They have to be protected. They are pack.

“No one. A dead woman.” Rumlow hisses in aggravation under his breath and suddenly presses at the comm in his ear. “Director Pierce, requesting the shut down code. The asset is breaking down.” A pause and Fenrir raises her weapon again, aiming it at Rumlow. “Now, sir,” Rumlow adds quickly, leveling Fenrir with a steely gaze, like she wouldn’t dare shoot at one of her handlers.

“Who the hell is–”

“Shutdown code 07041918, 03101917.”

“In my defense, it seemed like a brilliant idea at the time.” Steve can’t help but close his eyes at the sound of her voice. In the war, she would talk so much, her voice a melody that he’s never forgotten but apparently never remembers that well because every time he hears her speak now, it’s like a religious experience. “I wanted to see ‘em burn for what they took from me. They put a gun in my hand and told me to burn Hydra to the ground and…it was such a good idea. What was the worst that could’ve happened? They kill me?”

Sam purses his lips in disapproval when Steve turns around to face Quinn, but he leaves the room without a word. Steve stumbles over and drops to his knees in front of the chair they were forced to shackle her to until…the mess Hydra made in her brain had settled. It’s been tearing his heart up inside his chest to have been the one to put her in more chains. And Bucky said he wasn’t allowed to let her free, but no one ever said he couldn’t press his cheek to her thigh, close his eyes again, and soak up her comforting warmth.

“Turns out they could do worse and they did,” Quinn admits and this is the first time in two years since she came back to life right before their eyes that she’s spoken more than a few words. “They burned you two outta me, over and over,” she whispers and her eyes shut, a lone tear rolling down her cheek. “But my marks,” her voice is a little stronger, “I ripped men’s throats out with my bare teeth if they ever tried to burn those off me.”

There’s quiet and Quinn whispers, “There’s things the mind can forget, but the body never ever does. I never forgot you, not all the way. So–I’m not even sure where I was going with this.” Steve chokes out a laugh and she sighs, tilts her head back, and stares up at the ceiling. “Rumlow can do whatever he wants to my head, but show me my marks and I’ll always scent out the trail to you two eventually. It’s why they always kept my body covered up.”

Tears start trailing down his cheeks and then she ducks her head and she’s got tears in her eyes, too. “Jesus, I wanted an excuse to talk to you, is all. I’ve fucking missed you, Steve. Seventy years is so goddamn long.” Quinn sniffles and he does too and they’re both emotional wrecks. “They took so much, but they didn’t take away my love. I love you. I love you. I love you,” she repeats over and over.

what kind of a monster are you…………

…….the same kind as me because i originally had an idea that, when hydra thought they finally had quinn under control, they put her to the ultimate test by making her kill her whole family (which would be a lot easier in the backwoods of kentucky). thankfully, her brother isn’t there because this is years after quinn is captured and liam is out on his own, but she still takes them down to the river and drowns them. it’s only after her father’s stopped squirming, gasping out “quinn, babby!” when he’s up for air, that she breaks past the programming and that’s where she initially gets the name fenrir because her screams echo and she takes out a bunch of hydra agents before she’s subdued.

her memories of what they made her do come when steve and bucky ask if she wants to visit liam, who’s still alive. when she does realize what she’s done, she spends a week locked up in her room, and steve and bucky prowl in front of her door and make sure friday lowkeys monitor quinn. natasha is the only person who can ease her out and she won’t speak or eat still, looks dogged and haunted. the boys ask natasha, but she doesn’t easily betray quinn’s trust but gives them enough by saying, “don’t take her to see her brother. it’s a bad idea.”

“how can you love me?” she asks them repeatedly after really bad nights. “they ripped out your soul mate and put a monster in her place. why can’t you see that?” and then she breaks down into tears, like that there doesn’t prove she’s not a monster because she can’t stop feeling terrible about what she did.