Shinatsuhime ❤️

The lights were low, the silence thick, and your phone screen glowed faintly in the dark as you scrolled thumb dragging slow over your camera roll until you landed on the last photo the two of you had taken before he left.

It was a simple one. His chin tucked over your shoulder, the ghost of a smirk on his lips, his arm slung lazily around your waist like he always had to be touching you, which was true.

Your smile was soft. Lazy. Your eyes half-lidded, hair messy from bed. It had been two weeks since that photo. Two long, aching weeks.

He still texted you, when he could.

Little things.

A quick “miss you” before lights out. A blurry image of the skyline, always from strange places. A half-joking voice note once where he said, “They’ve got me living off protein bars. Save me leftovers,” like he wasn’t out there risking his life for something you weren’t even allowed to ask about.

But the replies came slowly, and they were always short—just enough to let you breathe, but never enough to fill the space he left behind.

And it was that space—the hollow of it, the need—that made you do it.

You lifted your phone again, shifted your weight where you sat, and tugged the hem of his shirt just far enough down your thighs to frame the shot.

Your knees were drawn up, one bare shoulder exposed, your smile caught halfway between innocent and deliberate. It wasn’t explicit. Not even close. But it felt like something—a tease, a thread you knew he’d pull if you gave him the chance.

You didn’t overthink it. Just typed:

“Still smells like you.”

And hit send before you could talk yourself out of it.

Then you tossed your phone aside like it burned.

Your heart was pounding. You weren’t even sure why.

It wasn’t like he hadn’t seen you in less. Hell, he’d kissed every inch of your skin. Touched you in ways that still made your legs tremble if you thought about it long enough.

But this was different. The distance made everything charged. Every word, every image. And something about that photo—about the softness of it, the suggestion felt like more than just missing him. It felt like wanting him.

You tried not to think about it as you got ready for bed. You left your phone face-down on the nightstand, buried your face in his pillow, and told yourself not to obsess.

But in the morning, the reply was waiting for you.

Two words.

“Fuck. Baby.”

You sat up too fast, stomach flipping, and opened the photo he’d attached.

His boots were kicked up against a wall of stacked sandbags. The sun was low, desert light bleeding gold across the sky, casting long shadows across the terrain.

You could only see the lower half of his face, the sharp line of his jaw, the stubble on his throat, the faint tension in his parted lips. It was so him, and so not him, like a snapshot of something private, pulled from a world you didn’t belong to.

Beneath it:

“I miss you like hell.”

You stared at the screen for a long moment, then tucked the phone against your chest and exhaled.

It didn’t stop there.

A few days later, you sent a shot from bed. Nothing scandalous—just the soft tangle of your legs under half-kicked sheets, one bare thigh caught in golden morning light. The caption was short. Flippant, almost:

“Too much space without you here.”

Another from the bathroom—mirror fogged, droplets still clinging to your skin. Only your collarbone and the curve of your neck visible, hair wet, mouth parted like you’d been mid-sigh. You typed:

“Shower’s not the same without you.”

And hit send before your brain could stop your fingers.

Then you panicked. Tossed your phone across the bed, buried your face in your hands and groaned into the quiet.

What the hell were you doing?

He didn’t reply for hours.

But when he did?

“You’re gonna kill me, sweetheart.”

You swallowed. Your pulse throbbed low and slow in your belly.

A few hours later, just three more words:

“Show me more.”

And that was when it shifted.

The line between playful and needy started to blur—not all at once, but gradually. Incrementally. Like dipping your toes into warm water and not realising how deep you’ve gone until you’re sinking.

You found yourself leaning into it. Subtle provocations. A bite of fruit caught on camera, lips parted just enough. A sleepy video of you stretching in bed, the hem of your shorts sliding higher than necessary.

You weren’t posing, exactly. But you knew what you were doing.

You left him a voice memo once, late at night—soft laughter curling at the edges, his name whispered like a secret. Breathless. Wanting. He replied with a single line.

“Play that again. Slower.”

The escalation was inevitable.

One night, you propped your phone against a pillow and hit record. Ten seconds. That’s all. Just your hand, sliding low across your stomach, dipping below the band of your sleep shorts.

You didn’t touch yourself. Not really. But the implication was there—the slow exhale, the tension in your muscles, the camera cutting out just before anything too much.

You didn’t write a caption.

You didn’t need to.

He left you on read for an entire day.

When he finally replied, it was a photo—his hand, gloved, twisted tight in a white bedsheet. You stared at it for longer than you should’ve, pulse hammering behind your ribs, and saw the words beneath it.

“I don’t have the words for what you’re doing to me princess”

That night, you couldn’t sleep. You laid in the center of your bed, one hand between your thighs, too wound up to find relief. It wasn’t about the tension—not really.

It was him. Or rather, the absence of him.

You didn’t want the release if it wasn’t his hands, his voice in your ear. You wanted the weight of his body pinning yours to the mattress, the rasp of his breath when he lost control. The look he gave you when he was so far gone in you, he forgot how to be quiet.

By the third week, it wasn’t even teasing anymore.

You were in a tank top and soft shorts, sprawled across your bed. The cotton rode low on your hips, one hand resting just beneath the waistband, fingers grazing bare skin. You took the photo slow. Deliberate. Soft lighting. Warm shadows.

You looked at the camera like you knew what it would do to him.

The caption?

“Can’t stop thinking about you.”

You didn’t expect a response right away, but it came quicker than anything before.

A voice note.

You hesitated—thumb hovering over the play button.

Bucky’s voice was rough. Lower than usual. Just a little frayed at the edges.

“Don’t send that kind of shit unless you want me jerking off to it in the middle of a barrack full of mercs.”

You froze. Your breath caught in your throat.

Then, after a beat—quieter, deeper:

“I haven’t stopped thinking about you either.”

You didn’t send anything else that night.

You couldn’t.

You were already curled around the pillow he used to sleep on, heart pounding, thighs pressed tight, your body wound up with no place to go. You didn’t come—not properly—but you hovered close. Just enough to feel it ache in your bones.

The next morning, your phone lit up.

Call me tonight, when you’re alone

You stared at the message for a full minute, thumbs poised. Then, without thinking, you typed:

“Been waiting for you to ask.”

You hovered over the message, thought about deleting it. But you didn’t. You let it fly.

No reply came.

But just before midnight, your phone buzzed. The screen lit up with his name, and the words:

Incoming Video Call.

Your heart stuttered. Your breath hitched.

And you answered.

The screen lit your face with soft, flickering blue, catching on the curve of your cheekbone, the hollow of your throat. You hadn’t moved since the call came in.

The phone vibrated once in your hand and you stared at his name on the screen like it might vanish if you blinked too hard. And then you picked up—not thinking, not breathing—just hitting accept because you couldn’t not.

And suddenly, he was there.

The image was a little grainy. The lighting was bad—shadows cutting across his face in places, harsh fluorescents glowing behind him. But none of it mattered.

Because even through that poor connection and a scratched front camera, Bucky still looked devastating. Like he’d walked straight out of your memories and into your bedroom. His hair was pushed back, his jaw dusted in scruff, a faint glisten of sweat still clinging to the side of his neck.

“Hey, pretty girl.”

Just those two words. But they wrapped around your spine and tugged hard.

Your lips parted, but no sound came. You’d prepared for this—half-expected it after the last few days—but somehow you still felt caught off guard.

Because this version of him, this present Bucky, this heavy-lidded, shirt-stretching, arm-tensing Bucky was a living weapon, and you were entirely unarmed.

His gaze dropped slowly. His mouth curled just a little.

“You’re wearing my shirt,” he said, and it wasn’t a question.

You glanced down, smoothing your palm over the fabric like you’d forgotten. The neckline hung off your shoulder. The hem brushed the tops of your thighs. “I just missed you.”

He chuckled softly, but it was breathless. “Fuck, you look good in it.”

You didn’t respond. Not verbally. You just shifted your legs slightly, enough to show the bare stretch of skin where the shirt stopped and your thighs began. His eyes tracked it instantly.

“You’ve been torturing me,” he muttered, voice pitched low now, almost reverent. “All those pictures. All those fucking videos. And now this.”

You tilted your head, letting the shirt slip just a little further down your arm. “Thought you could use a reminder of what you're missing.”

His eyes burned. “Take it off.”

Your chest rose sharply.

He didn’t growl it, he didn’t snap. He just said it—low, intent, like he needed it more than breath.

You peeled it off slowly, fingers curling into the hem, lifting the worn cotton inch by inch until your bare skin caught the light. You pulled it over your head and let it fall behind you, leaving you in nothing but your panties—soft and thin and dark with the heat that had been building through the day.

His breath hitched audibly through the mic.

“Fuck. You’re even prettier than I remember.”

You smiled. “Your turn.”

He didn’t hesitate. Just reached for the hem of his shirt, dragging it up to reveal that perfect stretch of hard stomach and the dark trail leading below his waistband.

His abs flexed as he pulled the fabric over his head, tossing it off-camera. His vibranium arm gleamed faintly as it dropped back to his thigh, and your thighs squeezed together instinctively.

“You wet already?” he asked, eyes dragging over you like he was memorising it.

You bit your lip. “You wanna see?”

He groaned. “Show me, baby. Please.”

You shifted onto your back, propping the phone just right so he could see your whole body. Your hand drifted down, fingers hooking the edge of your underwear, dragging it slowly to the side until your pussy was bare and glistening in the soft glow of your bedside lamp.

His breath caught. You watched him exhale like he’d just been punched in the gut.

“Jesus fucking christ,” he muttered. “Look at that mess.”

“I made it thinking about you,” you said softly. “Thinking about your fingers. Your mouth. The way you fuck me when you’re too worked up to talk.”

His hand was moving already. Just slow strokes at first, under the waistband of his sweats, but you could see the outline of him—thick and heavy and aching—and when he tugged them down, your mouth actually parted.

“No boxers?” you asked, a breathy tease.

“Didn’t need ‘em,” he said, eyes glued to the screen. “Knew I wouldn’t last long.”

Your fingers moved to your clit, slow circles at first, dragging slick over swollen nerves. You moaned quietly, hips tilting into your own touch as you kept your eyes locked on his face. He was jerking himself now—long, firm strokes, the head flushed and leaking as he tightened his grip.

“You’re mine,” he said, voice shaking. “All fucking mine.”

“I’m yours,” you breathed. “Always.”

He swore again, his free hand bracing against his thigh as he fucked into his fist, watching you like he couldn’t decide whether to slow down or come apart.

“Spread wider for me,” he demanded, breath hitching. “Let me see how wet you are.”

You obeyed—lifting one knee, baring yourself fully for him. He made a sound then, dark and ragged.

“Fuck, baby. You’ve got no idea what you’re doing to me.”

“I do,” you whispered. “I want you to cum with me.”

Your fingers moved faster now, circling, pressing. You were soaked—obscene sounds rising between your thighs as your pleasure climbed. Your hips rolled helplessly into the motion, breath coming in short gasps.

You couldn’t stop. Didn’t want to. You were close — embarrassingly close—the pressure in your core wound tight, ready to snap.

“Say my name when you come,” he gritted out. “I want it in your mouth when you fall apart.”

“Bucky,” you moaned. “Bucky, I’m gonna—fuck—”

He was right behind you.

You cried out his name as your orgasm tore through you—sharp and fast and deep—your body arching, thighs trembling, pleasure blinding and raw.

You barely had time to breathe before you heard it—the low grunt, the curse, the slick sound of him spilling over his hand as his eyes fluttered and jaw locked.

“Shit. Fuck. You’re perfect,” he gasped. “Perfect.”

When it faded, you lay there panting, spent, legs still twitching. He mirrored you—head tipped back, chest heaving, hand slick where it rested on his stomach.

For a while, neither of you said anything.

And then he looked at you.

“You okay?”

You nodded. “I miss you James."

“I know,” he said softly. “I miss you too.”

You pulled his shirt back on, the fabric warm from your skin. Bucky smiled, eyes soft now.

“Keep wearing it,” he murmured. “Until I can pull it off you for real.”

“You better hurry home, Barnes.”

“I will,” he said. “First chance I get.”

It was close to 2 am when you heard a knock on your bedroom door, you opened the door without thinking, breath caught somewhere between your ribs.

You hadn’t expected him this early, hadn’t dared to believe he could really be home. And yet, Bucky stood there in the dim hallway light, silent and eyes dark, his chest rising like he’d sprinted the last block just to get to you.

He didn’t speak. He didn’t smile. He just stepped inside, slammed the door with one hand, and grabbed you like a man starved.

His mouth was on yours before the lock clicked. Hot, hungry, no prelude. Just teeth and breath and weeks of desperation, his tongue claimed yours, kissing you like he didn’t know if he’d ever get the chance again.

It wasn’t soft. It wasn’t sweet. It was a snarl of lust and longing wrapped in salt and spit and the sound of you gasping his name.

You tugged at his jacket, fumbling the sleeves as he walked you backwards. His hands slid down your spine, possessive and certain, gripping like he needed to confirm you were real.

When the back of your legs hit the edge of the bed, he broke the kiss long enough to lift you. Your back thudded against the wall as his hands slipped under your shirt, dragging it up and off like he was tearing away the weeks that had kept him from you.

“No bra?” he asked, voice hoarse against your throat.

You managed a shaky breath. “Didn’t bother.”

His groan was low, a dark rumble in his chest. “Fucking perfect.”

He didn’t waste time. He dropped you on the mattress, eyes drinking in every inch of your bare skin as you lay sprawled across the sheets.

You reached for his belt, fingers eager, but he caught your wrists and pinned them above your head. His grip wasn’t tight, just firm enough to hold.

“Don’t,” he said, his gaze sharp, locked to yours. “Let me look at you.”

And he did.

His eyes moved slowly, reverently. Taking in every line, every shadow. Your nipples peaked under the weight of his stare, your thighs shifting restlessly where they parted for him. He stepped back, stripped off his shirt with one pull, then dropped his pants and boxers in a single motion.

He was already hard, thick and flushed and heavy against his stomach, and you reached again without thinking.

“No,” he growled, batting your hand away. “Spread your legs.”

You obeyed, legs falling open, your skin flushed and aching. He dropped to his knees between them, hands gripping your thighs, and dragged you closer to the edge of the bed.

His mouth was on you before you could take a breath. One long, hot lick that made your back arch off the mattress.

He moaned into your pussy, the sound guttural and needy. “Jesus, baby. You taste like a fucking dream.”

You fisted the sheets, thighs trembling as his tongue circled your clit, slow and unrelenting. His fingers dug into your hips, keeping you pinned as he devoured you. No teasing, just his mouth working you open like he could undo the time you’d spent apart with every stroke of his tongue.

You cried out when he sucked your clit into his mouth, sharp and tight and perfect. Your thighs shook, your breath stuttered, your entire body burning from the inside out.

“Thought about this every night,” he muttered, dragging his tongue down, slipping it into you with obscene ease. “Thought about how wet you’d be. How you’d taste after driving me crazy for weeks.”

“Bucky,” you gasped, already so close it hurt. “I’m gonna—”

He pulled back. Just like that. Leaving you throbbing, breathless.

You whimpered, hips chasing him. “Why—?”

He stood. His cock glistened with precum, flushed dark and twitching. He grabbed himself and stroked once, eyes still on you.

“Turn over.”

You rolled onto your stomach and pushed up onto your hands, arching your back as you felt him behind you. His hands gripped your hips, spread you wider. He dragged the head of his cock through your folds, coating himself in your slick, then slid inside with one deep, brutal thrust.

You cried out, nails clawing at the sheets.

He didn’t give you time to adjust. Just started fucking you like he owned you. The slap of his hips echoed in the room, his grunts raw and low, breath punching out of him with every thrust.

“This what you wanted?” he snarled. “Sending me those fucking videos? Making me jerk off in some goddamn bunker?”

You moaned, the sound wrecked. “Yes. Fuck, yes.”

He grabbed your hair, yanked your head back so your spine arched for him. “Say it. Say you’re mine.”

“I’m yours,” you gasped. “Yours, Bucky.”

“That’s right,” he gritted out. “Fucking mine.”

His flesh hand landed hard on your ass, the slap stinging and sharp, making your whole body jolt. You cried out, and it sent you over the edge. You came with a scream, muscles clenching tight around him, body shaking as pleasure ripped through you.

He fucked you through it, rhythm breaking, hips stuttering. You felt him pulse inside you, hot and deep, a ragged groan tearing from his throat as he emptied himself with your name on his lips.

He collapsed over you, breath hot against your neck, arms caging you in. Sweat cooled on your skin, and your heart raced in time with his.

Slowly, he pulled out, hands gentle now, dragging over your waist, your thighs, like he didn’t want to stop touching. You turned onto your side and he followed, pulling you into him, arms wrapped tight around your body like he was afraid you might disappear.

He kissed your shoulder, softer now. “If I knew I’d be coming back to this,” he murmured against your skin, “I’d tell Val to put me on more missions.”

You turned your head with a tired glare, swatting his chest. “Don’t you dare.”

He grinned, “Kidding princess,"

But his arm only tightened around you, and your fingers stayed tangled with his as the quiet settled between you—soft, spent, and just enough.

a/n: have a great day my darlings! ❤️ please leave a comment or reblog if you enjoyed it!

Somewhere behind you, a pipe burst with a metallic scream, jetting steam into the air so violently it echoed like a detonation. The shockwave reverberated through the corridor, rattling the bones of the facility. 

The lights overhead guttered, struggling to stay alive in the chaos. They buzzed and flickered, bathing everything in a staccato strobe that blurred movement into nightmare. Friend and enemy were just silhouettes now. Just shadows.

Every breath tasted like smoke and copper and panic.

You sprinted.

Boots hammered against the ground, splashing through slick pools of coolant and something darker. Your lungs burned, your throat scraped raw from the air that was quickly turning to poison. 

Each step jarred your body, jostling the fresh wound at your side—a sharp, searing burn that you were trying very hard to ignore. But when your hand shot down to apply pressure, your glove came away red and sticky.

Shit.

Bucky was just ahead of you—a dark silhouette moving like a phantom, purposeful and controlled even in the carnage. He turned sharply at the junction, glock raised, muscles coiled tight.

He didn’t glance back, but you didn’t need him to. You could feel his awareness of you like a wire stretched taut between your bodies—a constant pull. 

He moved with you in mind. Always.

The sirens overhead howled, their keening pitch loud enough to blur thought. Somewhere in the distance, distorted voices barked over intercoms in a language you didn’t recognise. The earpiece at your neck spat static, crackled once, then died.

"Comm’s dead," you rasped, ducking low as gunfire split the corner behind you, rounds ricocheting off the far wall with sparks.

"No shit," Bucky muttered, already moving, already firing. Three controlled bursts—center mass. The figure ahead dropped before it could scream. “You’re bleeding.”

“I noticed,” you bit out, stumbling slightly as you followed him through the next turn. The corner of the wall caught your shoulder—pain flared.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

Quick in. Quick out. Sweep the lower levels, confirm the cache, plant charges. Black market tech from some HYDRA splinter. 

Old ghosts. Easy target.

But somewhere between the briefing room and ground level, everything had gone to hell.

The resistance was heavier than expected. The layout had changed and there were reinforcements waiting—armed. Whoever was here had been tipped off, and now the entire facility was shaking apart around you.

Another shadow lunged from the smoke—Bucky didn’t hesitate. The glock cracked once, and the man fell like a puppet with its strings cut.

“We need cover. Now.”

“I’m open to suggestions,” you muttered, teeth clenched. Your boot skidded across the slick ground—a slurry of melted tile, blood, and some kind of chemical discharge. You nearly went down.

Bucky grabbed your vest with one quick, powerful jerk, yanking you back upright. His vibranium fingers curled around your gear like steel cables, the motion precise but rough. “You with me?”

You nodded, panting. “Still standing.”

He glanced down, eyes darkening as they took in the spreading stain at your ribs. There was a moment, just a flicker, where something colder passed over his face. Not panic. 

Not exactly. Something sharper. Something older. Not at you. At whoever had fired that round. At the idea of losing you.

The ground rumbled again beneath your boots. Another explosion, deeper this time. Structural, maybe. Something was definitely collapsing.

“They’re trying to bury this place,” you breathed.

“No—” he said, grim. “They’re trying to bury us.”

His gaze darted around the corridor, calculating in that quick, precise way he did, always seeing angles, routes, exits. A soldier’s mind. A killer’s instinct. 

Then it landed—sharp, immediate.

“There.”

To your left, a collapsed portion of wall, partially obscured by a mound of broken paneling and twisted rebar. Barely noticeable unless you were looking. Bucky was already on it, shoving debris aside like it weighed nothing.

Behind the rubble, a maintenance shaft. Narrow. Deep. Black.

Just wide enough for two bodies, that’s if they didn’t mind pressing close.

Too close.

“In.” His voice cracked like a whip, sharp and absolute.

You stared at it. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding.”

“I’m not.”

The shaft looked like a coffin. The jagged metal edges were wet with condensation, the air inside swirling with oil and smoke. “There’s no way we both fit in there.”

“Then I’ll go first,” he snapped, already tearing down more of the frame to make room. “But you’re coming with me.”

He turned to you, face shadowed, voice lowering. “We don’t have time for a debate. Reinforcements are inbound. We’re outgunned. Comms are dead. And you’re fucking hit.” His tone dropped lower. Rougher. “Get the fuck in.”

It wasn’t the words that made you move. It was the voice.

Commanding, steady and final.

You ducked into the shaft, your shoulders scraping the sides, the ceiling just inches above your head. The air inside was suffocating, thick and chemical, humming with static energy. You pressed back against the wall, one foot braced awkwardly as you twisted your body to fit.

Then he came in after you.

His bulk filled the space in a rush, the scrape of his tactical gear, the rough press of his thigh slotting between yours, the weight of his body shifting against your own as he maneuvered inside. His rifle braced beside your ear, muzzle angled down.

You could feel every inch of him.

His chest, firm and heaving, pressed to yours. His forearm planted above your head. His other arm curled tight around your waist, steadying you. Holding you. There was no room to move. No room to breathe.

His mouth was at your ear when he spoke, quiet, low.

“Don’t move.”

And just like that, the world narrowed to heat and breath and the impossible thrum of your heartbeat echoing through the dark.

The darkness swallowed you whole.

It wasn’t just the absence of light, it was thick, oppressive, as if the walls themselves inhaled and held their breath the moment you stepped inside.

A tomb disguised as shelter. The kind of dark that clung to skin and filled lungs. That made every shallow breath echo back twice as loud. You could feel it, the narrow, concrete throat of the shaft compressing around you, closing in with every heartbeat.

You weren’t alone in it.

You could feel the narrow walls breathing with the heat of your bodies, every exhale ricocheting off metal and stone until it circled back in whispers, growing louder with every pulse of blood in your ears. 

The space wasn’t built for hiding. It wasn’t built for people. It was a maintenance shaft,  narrow, ancient. But Bucky had forced his way in after you, muscled past jagged steel and choking heat until his body pressed fully to yours, armour against armour, thigh slotted between your legs.

Now, you couldn’t tell where you ended and he began.

His hand was braced above your head, palm flat against the wall, elbow bent to keep from crushing you. The strain in his shoulder was visible even in the dim glow leaking from a crack in the wall, veins flexed under dirt-slick skin. 

His other arm wrapped firmly around your waist, anchoring you there, holding you still, holding you close, like letting go wasn’t an option. Not here. Not now.

You could feel the heat of him in every place he touched you. The flex of his forearm braced against your back. The steady, controlled drag of his breath, each inhale expanding his chest, pushing it flush against your own. You were plastered together.

No space. No choice.

And his thigh, god, his thigh was wedged between yours, firm and unmoving, supported most of your weight now. It was the only reason you weren’t sagging into him completely.

You didn’t dare move.

Not with the blood roaring in your ears. Not with your wound still hot and throbbing under your tac suit. Not with Bucky fucking Barnes flush against every inch of you.

But still, your body noticed.

It always had.

The heat. The tension. The way his breath ghosted over your temple, short and fast, like he wasn’t as composed as he wanted you to think. You could feel his heartbeat through the chest plate of his suit. Fast. Sharp. Right in sync with yours. The brush of his belt buckle dug into your hip. His shoulder pressed into the curve of yours, hard enough to ache.

Then the tremor in his fingers, subtle, but real, as they flexed slightly around your waist.

“Be quiet,” he whispered, the sound so low and deep it felt like it came from inside your chest rather than outside it. A command dressed like a plea.

“I am quiet,” you hissed back, lips barely moving.

“I can hear your heartbeat, princess.”

The nickname landed like a sin—sharp, searing, and soaked in sarcasm. It was barely more than a breath, but it still cut through the hush like a lit match, curling down your spine, making something inside you clench.

Outside, just beyond the cracked wall, the hall rumbled with the stomp of boots.

The enemy was still close.

You could hear them, the soldiers moving in tight formation. Orders barked in clipped, guttural accents. Gear clanking. Flashlights sweeping methodically through the gloom. One beam licked along the edge of the breach just inches from your foot.

You stopped breathing.

Your muscles went rigid, throat tight, every instinct screaming Don’t move.

And then, Bucky shifted closer. Just slightly. But it felt like the world tilted with him. His chest flattened more fully against yours, his thigh pinning you tighter. Your breast grazed the edge of his vest, your nipple dragging across thick Kevlar.

You inhaled, too sharp. He felt it.

You saw his jaw tighten. Felt his arm tense. Like he felt it, too. Like he noticed everything.

The light passed.

The soldiers didn’t.

But neither of you dared relax.

Because the longer you stayed like that, shoulder to shoulder, mouth to ear, sweat pooling between your skin—the worse it got.

The heat was unbearable now. Trapped. It had nowhere to go but in. Into your pores. Into your bloodstream. Clinging to your skin like a second suit. Your body was trembling, not from exertion, not from blood loss, but from something deeper. Hotter. More dangerous.

Because it wasn’t just adrenaline anymore.

Your body had made a decision without your consent, without consulting the mission clock or the bullet wound still leaking crimson under your gear. It didn’t care that this was a suicide hole in the side of a collapsing facility. That HYDRA's leftovers were closing in with guns and floodlights. 

That you hated the man pinning you in place.

Because this tension? It wasn’t new.

It had always been there, since the first moment Val had slammed your names together and ordered you into the field. “Try not to kill each other,” she’d said. Like it was a joke. Like it hadn’t already been written in the way you’d looked at each other.

You sparred like enemies. Like animals. You left bruises. Cracked ribs. 

You taunted, you snapped. You called him grumpy old man under your breath. He called you reckless, annoying, a fucking pain in his. You rolled your eyes when he brooded. He glared when you flirted—especially when it wasn’t with him.

And yet, in combat, you were perfect.

Seamless. Lethal.

He always had your six, you always took the perfect shot. He moved, you followed. You moved, he shielded. You never missed each other.

Like muscle memory.

And maybe that was why this—now—felt so inevitable.

But still, nothing had prepared you for the feel of him like this.

The sharp scent of cordite still clinging to his sweat. The way his breath hit your cheek, too warm, too fast. The press of something hard against your hip.

You blinked, heart stuttering. You didn’t dare look down. You didn’t need to.

Bucky didn’t move. But you saw it, that flicker of strain in his eyes. The muscle feathering in his jaw.

Like he was trying not to look at your mouth.

Like he was pretending his cock wasn’t pressed thick and full against the curve of your hip.

Your thighs squeezed around his leg. Reflex. Instinct.

Not fear.

His arm flexed around your waist, vibranium fingers shifted slightly, grazing the hem of your shirt, dragging over sweat-slick fabric like an accident. You knew it wasn’t.

You swallowed hard.

“Still think this was a good idea?” you whispered, sarcasm a lifeline now, the only thing between you and the cliff you were hanging off.

He exhaled a laugh against your neck. Warm. Dangerous. “Would you rather be riddled with bullets right now?”

You didn’t miss a beat. “Would hurt less.”

His lips ghosted close. Close enough to feel but not touch. “Don’t tempt me.”

The silence that followed was electric, sharp enough to cut. You could feel the tension morphing. Twisting into something raw. Something that clawed under your skin and dug in deep.

Your chest dragged across his with every breath, nipples painfully stiff under your bra, and your hips buzzed, caught between the sting of your injury and the dull throb of growing heat. You were sore. Sweating. You ached everywhere.

And you wanted him to move.

His vibranium hand flexed again, pressing into the curve of your spine.

Every nerve in your body lit up like a fuse.

“You need to stop that,” you whispered. Barely audible.

“I’m not doing anything,” he murmured back, and he sounded so calm.

Too calm. Too close.

You shifted. Just a fraction. Just to prove a point.

He groaned. A quiet, broken thing, deep in his chest.

“You’re not helping,” he gritted out, voice rougher now, voice that frayed at the edges.

“You’re the one pressed against me like some fucking space heater,” you hissed back.

Then—another voice outside. A barked command. Boots pivoting.

You both froze.

The moment stretched. Tightened.

Then, the sounds retreated. One step. Another. Fading.

Silence.

Your eyes found his in the dark. 

Neither of you breathed. Neither of you blinked.

“I hate you,” you whispered, and it wasn’t convincing.

“Sure you do,” he whispered back.

His hand stayed curled tight at your waist.

And he didn’t move away.

It started small.

A shift. A breath. The slow, deliberate drag of his thumb along your waist. Just a brush at first, casual, even, but it lingered. Longer than it should have. Slower than it had any right to be. Not some accidental twitch. Not some nervous fidget. No. He meant it.

And you felt it everywhere.

His vibranium fingers stayed locked at your back, unmoving, anchoring you against the solid wall of his body.

But his other hand, flesh and blood, rough and warm, moved with a calculated kind of boldness. He wasn’t hesitating, he wasn’t testing, he was deciding. 

His palm swept with aching slowness along your side, fingers grazing over the damp fabric of your shirt, then lower, sliding just above the waistband of your ruined combat pants, brushing against skin so sensitised it made your whole body jolt.

His fingertips ghosted over the sliver of bare flesh beneath the hem of your shirt, skin long ignored, long untouched and your breath stuttered.

Your body stiffened. Instinct. Reflex. Not out of fear but anticipation. Heat.

“Bucky.” You whispered it like a warning, soft and tight. Barely a sound. Just a name, but spoken like a confession.

But he didn’t stop.

His hand passed over your waist again, this time slower. Lower. He wasn’t pretending. Wasn’t hiding behind pretense or excuse. His touch was firm, measured, dragging like silk over sandpaper. His fingers curled slightly, grazing the edge of your hip, slipping just under the edge of your shirt where sweat beaded at your lower belly.

It should’ve been harmless.

But it felt like your whole body tilted toward him.

Like gravity had shifted.

The air between you felt molten. Thick with breath and silence and something else — something sharp and magnetic and inevitable.

“Tell me to stop,” he murmured, voice low and frayed. It was torn at the edges — half challenge, half escape hatch. One final out. One he wasn’t sure he wanted you to take.

“Don’t,” you breathed, the word barely holding together under the weight of everything you felt.

Because your heart was pounding so loud you could feel it in your ears, in your fingertips, in the spot between your thighs that throbbed with each desperate beat.

Because your body was already leaning in.

Because your thighs were clenching, your mouth had gone dry, and his cock—hard and hot and undeniable behind the weight of his tac gear was pressed against your hip in a way that made your thoughts splinter.

And because when you looked up at him, when your eyes found his in the low flicker of emergency light bleeding through the shaft wall, you saw it.

Raw, flickering need. Something deeper, something starved. His expression was a storm barely held at bay, hunger licking behind every breath.

It was already too late.

His mouth dipped toward your jaw, not quite a kiss, not quite contact, just breath. His lips hovered, dragging over your skin without touching, a ghosting warmth that raised goosebumps in its wake.

Then his hand moved lower.

Over the waistband.

Past it.

Your breath hitched. A sharp, soundless inhale. Your body shifted involuntarily, and he was already there, his fingers slipping beneath the ragged band of your pants, rough against soft, familiar with desperation.

He didn’t hesitate.

He found your heat instantly.

Skin on skin.

And groaned, low, guttural, like he’d found salvation.

“You’re soaked,” he rasped, voice shaking with the effort it took to stay controlled. “Fuck.”

The sound of it—his voice in that moment made your knees threaten to buckle. His fingers didn’t even move, not yet. They just rested there. Claiming. Possessing. And your whole body trembled under the weight of that touch.

You whimpered. Quiet. Helpless. The kind of sound you didn’t recognise coming from your own throat.

He hadn’t even moved yet.

Just touched.

“You think I haven’t noticed how you look at me?” he breathed, mouth hot against the shell of your ear. His fingers began to move slow circles, featherlight, teasing and your whole spine arched into him. 

“You think I haven’t felt it every time we spar? Every time you mouth off just to see how far I’ll let it go?”

You tried to speak. You really did, something snide, something biting, something to maintain the illusion of control.

But then he slid one thick finger inside you, and your brain turned to static.

“Oh, fuck—” The sound ripped from you like a wound, head thudding softly against the wall.

He moved closer, pressing into you fully now. His thigh locked yours in place. His arm around your waist kept you pinned, held, owned. And his finger, slow and deep, fucked into you with a rhythm that made your whole body twitch.

And then he added another.

“Don’t be loud,” he warned, barely more than a breath. Then his hand was over your mouth, wide and firm. “You want them to hear you?”

You shook your head, frantic, flushed.

Another finger joined the first.

The stretch was exquisite. You were so wet he slid in effortlessly, and yet every push made your walls flutter. Your thighs quaked. His palm was tight against your lips now, muffling the noise that clawed up your throat.

It was too much.

Too hot. Too deep.

He was wrecking you with just his hand.

Your cunt clenched around him like it knew him. Welcomed him. Fucked back, desperate and filthy.

His breath caught. His mouth dipped to your throat, lips dragging along the sweaty, sensitive skin just below your jaw. He didn’t kiss.

He breathed.

Like your scent was undoing him from the inside out.

“You gonna come for me while they’re right outside?” he growled, voice velvet-wrapped sin. His fingers pumped faster, firmer now. “Gonna soak my fucking hand while I keep your mouth shut?”

You moaned against his palm, a pathetic, muffled sound. You were trembling now, caught in the rhythm, sweat running down your spine.

He could feel it.

“You gotta be quiet, sweetheart,” he whispered, biting back a groan as your pussy clenched hard around him. “Don’t want them hearing how bad you need it.”

Your eyes fluttered. Your thighs squeezed tight around his wrist. Your body knew what was coming. It was building, sharp and staggering, curling low in your belly, winding like a spring.

The wet, slick sounds of his fingers working your cunt echoed in the shaft, obscene and unstoppable.

You didn’t care.

You were grinding down on his hand now, chasing it, using it. 

Shameless. Starved. Your fingers clawed at the wall, nails scraping concrete, sweat dripping from your temple.

He kissed your throat, hard now. Open-mouthed. Possessive. Teeth scraping, almost primal.

You whimpered. He felt you tighten.

“Come for me,” he rasped.

And you did.

The orgasm ripped through you, brutal and sudden, your whole body locking, then shattering. You came on his fingers, walls fluttering, legs shaking, heat blooming behind your ribs.

You cry, or you tried to, but it was swallowed whole by his hand.

You were still trembling when he pulled away, not roughly, but not gently either.

And he wasn’t done.

You barely had time to blink. Your head was spinning. But your hands moved before your brain did, grabbing at his belt, trembling fingers tugging hard at buckles, pulling open his gear like your survival depended on it.

Frantic. Desperate.

Your hand closed around him—thick, hot, leaking and you gasped.

“Jesus christ,” he hissed, teeth clenched.

Then he moved.

He flipped you, fast, hard, until your front slammed gently against the shaft wall. His body covered yours, heat and strength and desperation wrapped around you like a cage.

One hand braced above your head. The other dragged your pants lower. Then between your thighs again, guiding himself.

You felt the blunt head of his cock nudge your entrance, dragging through your slick, and your breath caught.

“This what you want?” he growled. “Here? Now?”

You nodded—wild, frantic, voiceless.

And then he pushed in.

You gasped, sharp and silent.

The stretch was delicious, thick and deep and slow.

He filled you inch by aching inch until your hips trembled and your forehead hit the wall with a soft thud.

“Fucking hell,” he groaned against your shoulder.

He stayed still. Let you feel all of him.

Then his hand slid over your mouth again. Gentle. Thumb brushing your cheek.

“Breathe, sweetheart.”

And then he moved.

He fucked you.

Hard.

Your shoulder slammed into the wall, his hips smacked into yours, loud and wet and brutal. You couldn’t catch your breath—every thrust punched the air out of you. There was no rhythm anymore. Just need.

His hand stayed firm at your mouth, catching your sounds. His vibranium one gripped your hip like a lifeline, dragging you back onto his cock again and again.

He reached around, found your clit, and rubbed.

“Gonna come for me again,” he growled. “Gonna squeeze me while I fuck you full.”

You were sobbing now, breathless, wordless.

Every nerve ending was lit, raw and overrun. Your body trembled, slick with sweat and slicker between your thighs, his cock dragging across swollen, overstimulated walls. You couldn’t form a sound, not really, just desperate gasps and stifled cries broken against your own hand, against his chest, against the fucking silence that surrounded you both like a net.

And then you broke.

It hit like a wave, violent, sudden, uncontrollable. Your body seized around him, hips jerking, spine bowing as your muscles locked tight and then unraveled all at once. You came again, harder this time, vision flashing white as your cunt clenched around him like a vice.

You damn near collapsed.

Your knees gave out, your breath punched from your lungs. You reached for the wall, for him, for anything to ground you, but it was all too much, the stretch, the sound of him, the way he held you together while you fell apart.

That’s when he came, too.

A sharp curse spilled from his throat as he drove deep, impossibly deep, hips stuttering against yours. He buried himself to the hilt, shaking, jaw clenched, breath choking out in ragged bursts. His whole body shuddered against your back, muscles locking, every inch of him tensed and trembling.

His cock throbbed inside you, thick and pulsing as he came, each hot spurt flooding your core, filling you until it leaked down your thighs, messy and spent.

And for a moment, neither of you moved. You just breathed, uneven and wrecked, locked together in the dark.

You stayed there, pressed against the wall, your chest rising and falling in shallow, uneven breaths, skin tacky with sweat.

His weight still lingered over you, anchoring you with the kind of silence that made your heart pound in your ears. You could feel every inch of him still inside you, every echo of where he’d been.

Your limbs were a mess. His arm still braced above your head, his other hand curled at your waist like he wasn’t ready to let go. Your legs were weak, barely holding you upright, and your fingers had long since slipped from where they gripped the wall. You didn’t move. Neither did he.

The scent of sex clung to both of you, raw and thick in the stale air. His cum leaked down your thighs, hot and wet, mixing with your own slick, with the sweat that slid between your shoulder blades. Your clothes stuck to your skin. Your breath stuck in your throat.

Then slowly, he pulled out.

You whimpered, soft and hoarse, from the loss. From the emptiness that followed. A hollow ache bloomed where he’d just been, and you had to brace yourself against the wall again to stay upright.

He smoothed his hand down your spine, not possessive now. Just… gentle.

You turned, breathless, chest still heaving as you tried to gather yourself. His hair was a mess, damp and curling slightly at the edges, sweat trailing down from his temple. 

His pupils were still blown wide, gaze glassy and dark with something that hadn’t yet settled. You pulled your pants up slowly, wincing as the fabric dragged over tender skin, the ache between your thighs sharp and lingering. 

He laughed softly, the sound more exhale than amusement. 

“Next time,” you panted, shooting him a look, “maybe don’t pick the smallest shaft on the planet.”

He glanced at you, something like mischief flickering behind his eyes as a crooked smirk pulled at his mouth. 

“You complaining?” he asked, voice rough but playful. You rolled your eyes, biting back a smile. 

“Define complaining.” His chuckle was low, almost fond, and then he reached for you—his hand warm, steady, curling around yours like it was the most natural thing in the world.

“Come on,” he murmured, tugging gently. “Before the rest start wondering where we went.”

You let him lead you toward the sliver of light ahead, your fingers still linked with his, your legs unsteady with every step still shaking. 

a/n: if you enjoyed it, please leave a comment or a reblog, thank you sweethearts 💌

The mattress creaks and the frame knocks into the wall, chipping the paint, denting the wood where the two meet.

Forehead to forehead, sweat accumulating with torrid breaths and aching muscles, Bucky's hips caught to yours. Pressing, slamming, holding down as he clenches his glutes and humps, elongating the pleasure, taunting.

But the light chime of his tags kept ringing. They keep batting across your chest, cold and moist, patting your chin and dragging across your skin when you were right there.

It was just as your legs fell open, knees laying up as his dick dragged in and out, and he willed his noises to stay at a minimum, when the tags flittered to the dip of your neck. Your lips parted, sighing, rolling your eyes as it tap tap tap's and sings against your hot skin. You move, careful not to ruin the precision, pressing the chain against his peck, holding them firm to his chest.

At first, Bucky almost sat up, almost paused to ask if you were okay — pushing at his sternum, brows taut and eyes glassy, whining with every breath. Instead he pushed deeper, metal fingers drawing up your body until they held your jaw, squeezing your cheeks, making you look into his eyes.

"What's the matter?" His breath sticks to your face, bumping his nose to yours. "Pushin' me away? C'mon, speak to me."

You can't. That's the problem. It feels like with each pull and push, each pulse around his cock, and every kiss his tip grants your cervix, he drives all linguistic knowledge out of your brain, spilling it from your lips in garbled nonsense and breathy moans.

A whiney hum spills out as you tighten your lips into a line, keeping your jaw firm. You lean back into the pillow, shutting your eyes trying to find any semblance of words, but his hips keep moving. Slower now, yet still as effective, still holding you rigid and perfectly, and tauntingly precise. Rutting the length of himself inside of you while the fuzz of hair that littered the base kept grazing your clit. It isn't until one hand claws at the meat of his shoulder, and the other, the hand that pushed at the chain, leaving tiny dents in it's wake, fisted at the metal.

It clinks as the tags stay dangling from your palm, bumping to and fro.

"Oh, sweetheart," Bucky soothes, the warm metal of his thumb strokes against your bottom lip, slicked with spit and salty with sweat. "We're they botherin' you?"

You nod quickly, leaving a sharp smile on his face, dipping down to leave gentle kisses against your jaw.

"My smart girl," you keen into the praise, leaning deeper into his hand, letting his voice rasp and vibrate into your skin, leaving more room for him to lick and kiss. "Thought you wanted me to stop."

Ardently, you shake your head, ruffling your hair into the pillow behind you.

"No, no stopping. 'M not gonna stop." And he doesn't. His flesh hand replaces your own around the tags and he slots them between his teeth.

Salt and iron cover his tongue, sweat that had dripped from his down body, and your own that had mixed in as it had laid against your own skin, or tapped annoyingly your neck. It makes a dull sound as they sat firmly between his teeth, braced to the side, just where his molars start and his canines dig into the printed letters of his name.

It shouldn't be hot.

The sight of his mouth full, his teeth bared, carrying something precious with an iron grip of his jaw, made your walls pulse. You almost wanted to swap it out, to reach up and take the tags in your own mouth, enveloped in the debauched taste of century old metal, skin and spit.

But its hedonic. You love how he looks. Skin slick, chest heaving, drool already pooling at the edges of the tags, at the corner of his mouth right where his lips met. Animalistic in a way.

"There we go, there we go," his speech muffled, yet still affirmative and firm as he brings back the pace. Making your head drop back and mouth hang open on a gasp, arching your back. The warmth of his palm glides up your torso, leaving goosebumps as he drags up and down, before pulling your leg up by the thigh to latch onto his waist and holding you firmly at the hip. All while holding himself up on his forearm, vibranium fingers holding the top of your head reassuringly, grazing his thumb on your hairline.

He hums, unable to speak with his mouth full, unable to gather the spit about to fall. Your hands claw at the contorting muscles of his shoulder blades, moving to capture his hair between your fingers.

The tug you force has him stuttering, hips pressing to your own, the hair surrounding his base tickles again, right against your nub.

"Oh—fuck," you breathe out, jaw slack and tight all at once, the light feeling of release easing up your back as your thighs begin to tingle and tremble around his torso. "Bucky… Bucky, please."

The rivulets of spit drop, coating your neck and chin, and he follows them down until his hot, wet breath finds your temple. His chest caves with each inhale, keeping his hips up, holding down the pace that has you throbbing up his shaft, your nails digging into his shoulder and thighs shaking. He can feel the ring around the root of him, creamy and white, mixed in with the dark patch of hair.

The tags tinkle dully, let go from the cell of his teeth to lay wet next to your neck. You pay no mind to the slurping sound of him gathering spit from his lips; only staying in the blissed out haze of Bucky's body atop of yours and his pretty cock slapping in and out of you.

"C'mon, c'mon…" he repeats like a mantra, whispering under his breath, heated on the shell of your ear. "You got it, fuck, you feel so good. Wanna cum—cum inside of you, wanna push it in deep, n'keep fuckin' it in… Please, please, please…"

As your nails print crescents into his skin, your mouth holds a jumble of 'yes's to his shoulder. Balm and torrid to the meat of his shoulder, your body locks and a sweet ache begins to release around the stretch of him. Your lips press to his collarbone, muffling the shudders and whines and gasps that release as he fucks you through it, wet slaps and mumbled grunts chorusing together while you jolt and pulse.

It isn't long until he follows through, finishing deep inside, pressing and holding himself as his cock twitches with each spurt of cum. As if awoken from his daze, he keeps his hips moving.

Splatterings of white coat both of your pelvises and thighs, shuddering with overstimulation, muscles limp from overexertion, eyes half lidded and lips parted and red.

Bucky slowed himself as your jerking lessened and your teeth bared to hiss at the mild pain, and his dick softened. He watched, holding himself up with his knuckles to the pillow, guiding the softer limb to stay inside of your full warmth, uncaring about the mess that now coats his fingers — absentmindedly licking them off like candy residue.

Sighs and soft groans alike leave you both as he slips out. Your nails caress his torso, gliding gently up the red marks you printed on his back, down to the sensitive muscles of his ass, making him twitch and press his hips to yours again with a stifled laugh to your jaw.

"Careful, might get hard again before I can clean you up." He kisses and breathes you in, holding you into his body as your fingers hold their gentle rhythm.

You huff a lazy version of a laugh, nosing against the sweet smell of sweat where his neck meets his shoulder.

"Oh no, how awful," You croak sarcastically. The weakness in your voice makes you both laugh fully, rumbling chests pressed against one another, cheeks tight with smiles, and eyes watching with warm fragments. After a short moment of silence, of lungs catching up, you follow down the column of his neck to where his dog tags laid lopsided on your chest, and hummed. "I liked that thing you did."

"'That thing'?" He pressed, smirking, lowering his voice. "I've got many things goin' for me, sweetheart, be specific."

Another laugh breaks, crinkling your eyes at the corners, playfully pushing at his chest.

"That dog tag thing, you know, putting them in your mouth."

"You liked that?"

You nodded, fervently. "Uh-huh. Very much."

His lips move into a soft smile, catching the slick metal cards between his fingers to bring them up.

"That so?" He teases quietly, dragging them across your bottom lip, leaving the dewy residue to sit, sliding them just between the seam of your lips only to jut it out with a pop. "Maybe next time you can hold them for me?"

With your tongue poking out, you get a taste of the flavour that pooled alongside Bucky's own tongue. Musky and sour, tangy with body heat. And with a soft press on your thigh, you know that you're under a limit.

"Next time meaning five minutes?" You prod, tilting your head innocently. "Haven't even gotten cleaned up and it seems like little Sergeant Barnes is reporting for duty."

With a tut, he holds your chin, shaking his head. "Nuh-uh, fuck that and your smart mouth. Open wide, hold tight."

You obey and bite down as he slots the tags between your teeth, tugging at the chain twice to test out your grip. You scrunch your nose and furrow your brows, playfully pulling back at the chain. The grotesque brackishness of the tester you got grips you fully and drips down your throat.

"'Little Sergeant Barnes'," he repeats, sitting up as far as he could to grab ahold on himself. Sticky, wet and just as hard as before. He strokes himself, groaning as he fists tighter at his ruddy tip, coaxing a pearl of precum. Defiantly, he taps his heaviness on your clit. "Keep that up and making sure every inch of you aches with me the next day, understood?"

A giggle bubbles up before you could force it down. He slaps his cock against your clit again, holding and coating it down and between your lips, still creamy and dripping his own release, bullying your button with his tip. Your whine is muffled between your teeth as you bear them down.

"Understood?" He pushes, voice firmer, harsher, and you nod, heart racing, ribs already quivering. The sounds of your joint bodies squelch louder and louder, as your head lays dizzier and dizzier, but his voice whispers so soft and the way he terrorises and hounds your insides brings stars to the corners of your eyes.

taglist: @devililithh @buck-star @buckyfmd @nikkitabarnes @miraclediviner @barnes-babydoll @kqtholins @wint3rbarnes @swimmingnightcolor @ilovestizzy @chronic-fangirl-222 @ornateglass @bucklesby-barnes @avgdestitute @demiebarnes @sunkissedspell @stanmarvelous @castielscaplan @ladymiseryy @phoenix-in-writing @layaflores @wherewinterblooms @sunday-bug @buckybunni @filthgf @angelryex @megsavengersslut @sassandscribbles @amidnightwish21 @goobers-mcgee @my-fabulousness-has-arrived @angelryex @iloveotters101 @venigrantrogers

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June 2016 - Bucharest, Romania

Sleep had become a rare commodity the past couple weeks. 

The group of guy backpackers staying below you refused to turn their music down after eleven—if anything, they turned it up louder to spite you—and you could hear them fucking the poor girls who made the mistake of going home with them after the pub. Every night. Fortunately for you, the guys had awful stamina and they were finished within five minutes. This wouldn’t normally be a big deal, if you hadn’t ‘lost’ your headphones three days after you moved in to the short-term stay apartment—you were ninety-nine percent certain one of them had broken in to your room and stolen them, but you had no proof.

Sleep would welcome you for a few hours before the screaming across the hall started. The first time the deep, throaty screams made their way through your paper thin walls, you startled awake so violently you jumped out of bed and twisted your ankle. You limped out of your apartment—if you could call it that—with a Romanian dictionary held high as your weapon, your socked feet quiet on the concrete floor. It wasn’t hard to find the source of the screaming—the aftermath of a nightmare, heavy breathing and sobbing, was crystal clear through the door opposite yours. 

It was on day four of being woken up by your neighbours nightmares when you finally saw him. You were running late for your first class of the day, arms full of marked papers and keys hanging from your mouth as you opened your door, when you caught movement in your periphery. He was climbing up the stairs silently, his head titled towards the ground with a cap on top of his long dark hair, obstructing the view of his face. The first thing you noticed was the size of him—he was tall and broad, big muscles still noticeable under layers of clothes. The second thing you noticed was his gloved hands—an odd sight in the Bucharest warmth—one of them holding a bag of plums. 

Plum guy. You had seen him while out on your daily morning walks, buying plums at one of the fruit vendors down the street. You had no idea that the gentle giant you watched make quiet conversation with the vendor was the man whose sobbing and whimpering had your heart clenching at three every morning. 

The keys in your mouth dropped on top of the paper stack, the small jingle and thud making the man tense, his eyes darting to you—standing in your doorway staring at him. You quickly looked away, grabbing your keys and locking your door. 

He was opening his own door when you crossed the short distance to the stairs—and to him, given that his door was right next to the stairs. He turned his head slightly, a gloved hand clenched tight on the doorknob.

You smiled softly as you walked closer to him. “Bună dimineaţa,” you said quietly. He tracked your movements closely, offering you a brief nod before he disappeared inside his apartment. Not a talker, then. 

Later that night—or technically early the next morning—you were bent over the small kitchen table, struggling to read your student’s handwriting. You had just over a week left teaching English to Romanian middle-graders, and then you would be on a flight back home to the States. 

You were trying to rub the red ink off your hand when the first gasp echoed from across the small hallway. You looked towards the apartment door on instinct, halting your movements and waiting for another noise. It came a few seconds later—a loud gasp that sounded like someone was struggling to breathe. Then a pained shout, in what you were almost certain was Russian. The shouting turned into whimpered pleas within minutes. You felt tears well behind your eyes listening to the man across from you have another nightmare. Your heart bleed for a man you didn’t know, didn’t even know his name. You only knew he spoke gently to fruit vendors and bought fresh plums everyday.

Call it sleep deprivation, homesickness, or basic empathy, but you felt deeply enough to come up with a plan—to offer the hurting man some kindness. You finished marking papers as quietly as you could before you fell into bed, barely audible sniffling sending you to sleep with a heavy heart. 

In the morning you thought strategically about how you would approach him. Knocking on his door empty handed made no sense, and following him around the fruit market seemed an even worse idea. But, like him, you wanted to buy plums. And, it made sense to buy them on your usual morning walk.

You left earlier than you normally would, wanting to be at the market before him so it didn’t look like you were stalking him. You were making idle chit-chat with the vendor, asking what traits constituted a ‘good’ plum—half of you was interested, the other half was stalling in the hopes that plum guy would show. 

Conscious that you were in the way of paying customers, you turned to leave and found your neighbour standing two metres away, watching you apprehensively. How long had he been there?

“Bună!” You greeted him with a kind smile, a little louder now that you were outside. His eyes narrowed slightly, giving you a once over as he studied your body language. Despite how hard you worked on your Romanian pronunciation, your American accent came through strong and you knew he noticed it. 

Another brief nod was your reply. You tried to not let your disappointment show but his eyes darted to your shoulders, watching them deflate.

“Morning.” Oh. You were not expecting that. 

You were expecting the American accent even less. 

He spoke quietly, his voice rough from lack of use. He stepped to the left, turning his body slightly to let you pass. It was progress at least—you would take the simple greeting as a win. 

You saw him again later that day. You were stomping up the stairs cursing to yourself, more papers to grade overflowing your arms and a takeout bag dangerously close to slipping from your fingers. You tripped on the last step, the takeout dropping on the floor and spilling right in front of your neighbours door—half of the papers in your arms following shortly after. 

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!” You exclaimed louder than you intended, pissed that your dinner was now all over the floor—some of your students work now stained with pho. 

You bent down slowly, gently lowering the rest of the papers on the clean ground next to your ruined dinner. You didn’t notice the door in front of you opening—the sight of boots next to your mess making you flinch. You jerked your head up to find your neighbour watching you carefully, the side of his mouth twitching in faint amusement. You flushed red, embarrassed by the mess you’d made and flustered from seeing him without his baseball cap. He was handsome. 

“Shit, I—sorry, I’m in the way. I’ll just, uh…” You stumbled over your words, feeling suddenly intimidated by him. 

He squatted down to where you were crouched awkwardly, your arms still holding the pile of papers. He looked down at the mess of pho and essays, his eyes assessing the damage.

He picked up a soggy paper, a stray noodle sliding down the page. He read the page slowly, noticing the name and age in barely legible scribbles. He let out a quiet huff, his blue eyes flicking to your shocked ones. “Might have to give out a few automatic passes.”

He spoke first. He’s looking at you with amusement swirling in his gorgeous blue eyes, and he spoke to you first—even more, he made a joke.

You let out a breathy laugh, leaning closer to see what students name was written at the top. “He struggles more than anyone else in the class, giving him a pass may cause suspicion…” You trailed off with a small, teasing smile. 

He placed the ruined essay back on the mess, his movements gentle.

He stood to his full height, nodding towards the stack in your hands. “You should put those inside. I’ll clean this up.” He moved back towards his door to let you pass.

You stood back up and hesitated, biting your lip as you looked down at the mess. “No, this is my fault. I’ll sort it out.” 

“You should put those down first. Don’t wanna ruin more of your student’s work.” A muscle in his cheek twitched, like he was holding back a smile. 

“Right, yeah, that’s smart.” You stepped over the mess and walked the few steps to your door, fumbling with the keys in your bag. You glanced over your shoulder as you opened the door, seeing plum guy crouched down and picking up papers gently. You shook your head fondly at the sight—of course he would clean it up anyway.

You entered the small apartment, making your way over to the dingy kitchen table and dropping the stack of papers and your bag onto it. You closed your eyes and took a couple breaths, shaking off the nervousness seeing your neighbours face properly had caused.

He’s just a guy. A handsome, tormented, gentle guy—whose name you still don’t know. 

In the time it took to give yourself a pep talk, plum guy had finished collecting the papers and was standing in your doorframe. He cleared his throat softly causing you to turn around quickly. His eyes roamed around your small apartment while yours focused on him—he made the doorframe look small, his shoulders just as wide and his head close to touching the top. 

“You didn’t have to do that,” you said as you walked towards him.

His eyes met yours, soft and hesitant. “I know.”

He looked down at the papers in his hands, extending them towards you. You offered him a grateful smile as you grabbed them. “Thank you, I appreciate it.”

He stuffed his hands in his front pockets, shrugging his shoulders at your gratitude. “It’s fine,” he murmured, his eyes scanning you and the apartment—looking for any hidden threats. 

He took a step back, nodding his head once in goodbye.

You blurted your name out quickly, not wanting to miss the first chance you’ve had to properly connect with the man. 

He tilted his head towards the ground, a strand of hair falling in front of his face. His eyes darted side to side, like he was thinking. Hard.

Finally, he lifted his head but kept his eyes downcast. “…Bucky.”

Your eyebrows lifted a fraction of an inch, surprised by the unusual name. “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Bucky.” His eyes met yours again, more sure this time. 

“Likewise,” he muttered before leaving your apartment, closing the door softly behind him. 

You felt a small smile take over your face as you stood still, watching the space he just occupied. Progress.

Half an hour later you were bent over the drying essays, determined to make sense of the smudged scribbles when two sharp knocks sounded against your door.

You furrowed your brows, not sure why anyone would be knocking on your door—the only person who knew you lived here was your neighbour, Bucky. You shot up from your chair quickly—it must be him. 

You opened your door a second too late, just catching his door across the small hall closing behind him. You looked down to the floor, surprise knocking you breathless for a moment. There on the concrete at your feet was a bowl of soup, steam rising from it. You picked it up slowly, your heart doing flips in your chest. Bucky had made you soup. He had cleaned up your mess outside his door, and had made you soup to replace your ruined dinner.

That night you found yourself silently crying along with him, the sounds of his nightmare causing you physical pain. What had happened to him?

It was Saturday afternoon and you were pacing the length of your apartment, trying to hype yourself up. Bucky’s clean bowl was resting in your palms, feeling like a loaded gun. You had a plan—to return the bowl and try make conversation, maybe even get him to laugh. That would be nice, right? For him to laugh, for you to hear something from him that wasn’t sounds of agony in the middle of the night. 

You raised your hand hesitantly to his door, giving it two soft knocks. You waited patiently, straining to hear any movement behind the door. A minute passed and nothing. You tried again, knocking with more confidence this time. Thirty seconds passed and you were shifting on your feet, starting to feel disheartened.

“Bucky,” you called softly. “I—sorry for disturbing you, I just wanted to return your bowl—from the other night?” It came out as a question, your confidence fading and you started to feel silly. Obviously the guy wanted to be left alone.

You turned to leave when the door in front of you opened, Bucky’s large frame obstructing your view of his apartment. He was without his baseball cap again and his hair was damp, like he had just stepped out of the shower. He was wearing a long-sleeved shirt and jeans like usual, gloves covering his hands. His eyebrows were raised slightly at you standing in front of him, nervously biting your lip with his cheap bowl in your hands. 

You extended the bowl towards him. “Thank you, for the soup the other night. I…wasn’t expecting it. Beats the granola bar that’s been sitting in my bag for weeks.” You chuckled awkwardly.

He grabbed the bowl with a quiet nod.

“And, thank you again for cleaning up the mess I made. You really didn’t need to.”

“It’s fine. You don’t need to worry about it.” His voice was deep, still rough from lack of use. You found it comforting—you wanted to hear more.

You took a breath to steel your nerves, plastering on what you hoped was a disarming smile.

“I was planning on baking a plum pie this afternoon.” You started, watching as a confused expression took over his face. “My mom’s recipe—I used to bake with her, and I’ve been feeling homesick lately so…” You trailed off, hoping the lie wasn’t obvious. 

Your mom didn’t bake plum pies, and the last time you baked with her was when you were nine—you ended up in tears with little burns on your hands. 

“Would you…would you like some? Or want to join me?” 

His surprise at your invitation was evident, though it was quickly replaced with suspicion. 

“…Why?” 

“You like plums, right? I saw you down at the market.” He was still looking at you skeptically, his big arms now crossed over his chest. Your voice wavered slightly, “think of it as a thank you gift, for your help the other day.”

He sighed at you thanking him again.

“…Fine. I’ll come over in a couple hours.” 

Bucky looked abnormally large sitting at your small kitchen table. His shoulders were tense, his gloved hands clutched together tightly in his lap, his eyes darting around the small space absorbing every detail he could. His brows furrowed at your suitcase on the other side of the room, your clothes spilling out next to the bed.

You followed his line of sight, an embarrassed chuckle escaping you. “Sorry for the mess, this is just a temporary situation. I wasn’t expecting to be living out of my suitcase, still.”

His eyes flicked back to yours in interest. “Temporary?”

You turned back to the dirty dishes, needing something to do with your hands when he’s looking at you like that. Like he wants to know more about you.

“Yeah, I was meant to fly back home a couple weeks ago, but the school I’m teaching at asked me to stay until school finished for the year—they offered to pay for the flight transfer.” You shrugged lightly.

He shifted slightly, the small chair squeaking and straining beneath his weight. “Home?”

You noticed he didn’t talk much and when he did it was in small sentences. Though he was asking you questions now, and you took that as more progress. 

“The States—Philadelphia, to be exact.” You took a breath before asking him, “where’s home for you?”

He was silent for a minute before quietly muttering, “Brooklyn.” 

You turned to him, flashing him a bright smile you couldn’t tame. “Oh cool, my parents are planning on moving there in a couple months! Any non-touristy places they should check out?”

He hesitated again. “It’s—uh, it’s been a while since I was last…home.” He wasn’t looking at you anymore, instead staring intently at his clenched hands. You took the hint that he didn’t want to talk about it anymore. 

You bent down to check on the pie in the oven, sighing in relief that it didn’t look like an absolute disaster. 

Turning back to Bucky you tried to think of anything else to talk about, wanting to know more about the quiet man. 

“The pie should be ready in a few minutes. Do you want to…watch something, maybe? While we eat.”

His response was a small nod.

You walked over to grab your laptop off your bed. You sat down on the chair across from Bucky, noticing how he leaned away from you and put his hands in his lap.

“Anything in particular you want to watch?” You briefly glanced at him as you scrolled through the streaming apps.

“Dealers choice,” he hummed quietly. 

You picked A New Hope, deeming it an acceptable movie to watch while eating pie with your neighbour.

Bucky waited until you took your first bite of pie before he inhaled his slice in less than a minute. You let out a small laugh at the sight of him—hunched over in the small chair, shovelling the pie in his mouth like he hadn’t eaten for days. 

He looked up at you sheepishly when he heard you laugh. 

“Sorry,” he mumbled, mouth full of plum and pastry.

“No, don’t apologise—I take it as a compliment,” you smiled at him, licking your fork clean. His eyes tracked the movement carefully, causing your smile to turn to a small smirk. He looked back down to his empty plate quickly, his shoulders tense after being caught staring.

You stood up and grabbed his plate, cutting a much larger slice of pie for him. He offered you a bashful smile as you put the plate in front of him. 

“Thanks…it’s, uh, pretty good.”

Your body rushed with warmth at his compliment, your cheeks flushing and a small smile now permanent on your face. 

“I’m glad.” 

He ate the second piece at a normal pace, only half interested in watching the movie playing from your laptop on the table. You caught his eyes watching you every few minutes but it didn’t put you on edge. From the few times you’ve interacted with him you gathered he’s a cautious, suspicious guy—the occasional staring didn’t bother you.

Suddenly, the floor started to shake below you—the telltale sign that the backpackers had started partying early. Their music was more bass than anything, making everything in your apartment vibrate slightly. You rolled your eyes and sighed in annoyance—you knew it was going to be a long night.

Bucky stood up and grabbed your empty plates, walking over to the sink to wash them. You opened your mouth to stop him, to tell him you’ll sort it out. He shut you up with a sharp look and shake of his head.

“That happen often? The…music?” He asked, his head tilting towards the floor.

You let out a small scoff. “Yeah, basically every night. This isn’t even the worst of it.”

He grunted in response, displeased. 

“You don’t hear it from your apartment?”

“I do, it’s just not this bad. Becomes background noise after a bit.” He let out a bitter chuckle. “It’s fucking awful music.”

You laughed at that. “Right?! I’m pretty sure they’re aspiring DJ’s…all I know is that I hate them.” He let out a deep laugh that sent a thrill through your body. God help you, you wanted to hear it again. 

“What music do you like?” You tried to ask casually.

He paused, deliberating his answer. “I like…older music, jazz. Not a fan of the modern stuff.”

That didn’t surprise you at all.

You hummed in response. “Yeah, I get that. My grandma made sure I listened to all the classics—I have a soft spot for Sinatra, among others.”

“Huh,” was all he offered. He started walking towards the door, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

“This was…nice. I—um, I enjoyed your company. Pie was good, too.” 

You giggled at his nervousness—there was something so charming about this big guy being awkward. 

“Yeah, me too. We should do it again, before I go home.”

He hesitated opening the door. “When’s your flight?”

“Friday morning.”

“Monday after work. I’ll bring the plums.”

Later that night, you made the unsafe decision to take an after midnight stroll around Bucharest, choosing to potentially put your life in danger than listen to the gut wrenching sounds of Bucky’s nightmare. It was a bad one—you tried burrowing your head in all the pillows and blankets you had, but you could still hear the harrowing screams and cries. Potentially being mugged seemed a lot more appealing in that moment. 

Bucky knocked on your door an hour after you got home on Monday, with plums in his hand and a request that you teach him the plum pie recipe. 

“Oh Bucky, it’s really not that special. Any recipe you find on the internet will be just as good!” And you knew that was true, because your recipe was the first result when you googled ‘plum pie recipe’. 

“I want to know your one. Promise I won’t get in the way.” His eyes were almost pleading, and you hated the way your heart clenched at his kicked puppy expression. You could see the exhaustion lining his eyes, how his torturous, sleepless nights were taking a toll on him. Your eyes burned with tears just looking at him. 

That’s how you ended up hiding in your bathroom, staring unblinking at your phone screen trying to commit the plum pie recipe to memory. 

He didn’t get in the way, just like he promised. But you could feel him hovering over your shoulder, his eyes solely focused on your hands as you made the pie. His rapt attention made you stumble a few times, completely forgetting steps and measurements. 

He still didn’t talk much, only offering small grunts and hums when you explained techniques and made the occasional awkward—trying to be funny—comment. 

You sat closer to him at the table this time, cheering internally when he didn’t lean away or move his chair further from you. 

You let out a breathy chuckle as a thought crossed your mind.

“What?” Bucky asked curiously.

“Nothing, just had a thought.” You shook your head with a small smile, pushing around a large chunk of plum with your fork. 

“Do you not get those often?”

You gasped in shocked delight, not expecting him to make a lighthearted dig at you. You looked up from your plate at him, seeing his blue eyes twinkling and an almost smirk tugging his mouth. 

“Wow,” you dragged out. “And to think, I was just starting to like you…” You teased him back.

He huffed out a small laugh.

“M’sorry, couldn’t help it. What were you thinking about?” He shovelled more pie in his mouth, waiting for your response. 

“You remind me of a cat.”

“What?” He laughed out, his mouth full of pie.

“You’re like a cat. Aloof, wary of people, ready to run out the nearest exit.” You spoke softly, not wanting him to perceive your words as an attack. “But, with a bit of patience and treats,” you nodded towards the pie, “you start to become curious…even trust a little, maybe. It’s not a perfect analogy—it was just a thought.”

He looked at you with a strange expression on his face—something achingly tender, with a mix of disbelief and sorrow. He didn’t answer for a minute, just watched you like he still couldn’t figure you out. 

“What kind of cat would I be?”

“A black cat, for sure.”

You saw him two more times before Thursday afternoon. The first time he joined you on your morning walk around the neighbourhood, the both of you silent—basking in each other’s company and enjoying the quiet summer morning. The second time was late on Tuesday night, when you finally had enough of the backpackers bullshit and were banging on their door demanding they shut the fuck up. Bucky was there within a minute of you shouting, gently pulling you away from the door where two sleazy backpackers were leering at you.

“It’s not worth it,” he said your name softly. 

“Fucking assholes,” you seethed. “I know they stole my headphones, Bucky!” 

You were no match for his strength as he carried you up the stairs, your legs thrashing uselessly. “They were expensive,” you whined like a pouting toddler.

Saying goodbye to your students on Thursday was by no means easy. Even though you only taught there for a few months as part of your gap year, the kids had dug their way into your heart and left you in tears when they hugged you goodbye. 

You recovered by the time Bucky knocked on your door in the late afternoon, plums in one hand and a small bunch of wildflowers in the other. You were frozen, staring at him with what you were sure was a lovestruck expression on your face. 

He held the flowers out for you to grab, your hand brushing his gloved one in the process. He quickly pulled his hand back at your touch, running it through his hair as he looked everywhere but you.

“For your last day,” he said, like that explained everything. “Sorry, they’re nothing, uh, special—they were the only ones the florist had left…” He shrugged his shoulders, his eyes fixed on a spot over your shoulder.

You snapped out of your smitten daze, a soft giggle leaving you at his nervousness. He looked at you then, his shoulders relaxing.

“They’re perfect.” 

You opened the door wider for him to come in, walking to the kitchen to put the flowers in a glass of water while he closed the door behind him. 

You turned your head sideways, shooting him a teasing look. “You know…they’re going to die in a couple days. I won’t be here to look after them.”

You watched in fascination as a flush climbed up his neck, painting his cheeks red. 

He rubbed the back of his neck, letting out a nervous huff. “I didn’t think about that.”

“You can always break in after I’ve left, grab them for yourself before the pricks downstairs steal them.” 

“We don’t want that happening,” he chuckled, putting the plums on the counter next to you. “I’m starting to see why you hate them so much.”

“You’re only seeing it now? They’ve been my number one enemies since I moved in.” You grumbled bitterly. 

You rolled your shoulders back with a sigh—you didn’t want your bitterness clouding your last night with Bucky. 

“Okay, let’s change the subject,” you clapped your hands together, turning to face Bucky fully. “I’m thinking one last plum pie, and maybe we can finish that movie we were watching the other night?”

“Whatever you want.”

An hour later you were both sat at the small table, the half-eaten pie between you and Bucky barely paying attention to the movie, again. His eyes were fixated on your packed suitcase and duffel bag next to the bed. He looked…sad, mournful even. There was a small crease between his furrowed brows, the sides of his mouth downturned, and he hadn’t eaten much in the last few minutes.

“Hey,” you started, voice low and soft. “You okay?”

He whipped his head back to you, his glassy eyes meeting yours for a second. “Yeah,” his voice broke faintly. He cleared his throat, looking down at the pie.

“I’m…gonna miss you.” 

You sucked in a breath, the emotion in his voice making your throat feel tight. Tears pricked behind your eyes as you looked at the man in front of you. You wished you could take away all his pain, all his sadness.

You gently laid a hand on his arm, your eyes darting between his for any signs of unease—the only other time the two of you had touched was when he dragged you away from the backpackers door. His arm was solid and cold through his long-sleeve, almost unnaturally hard. His shocked eyes looked into yours as your thumb rubbed his sleeve faintly.

“I’m going to miss you, too.”

You removed your hand and looked back at the movie, a single tear slipping down your cheek.

Tension hung thick in the air, causing you to clear your throat and try relieve some of the tightness in your chest.

“You kinda look like him,” you said to Bucky, nodding towards your laptop—a close up shot of Luke Skywalker on the screen. 

“Yeah, I can see it,” you continued, turning your face to see him already looking at you. “If you cut your hair short, shave the beard…” You trailed off, your eyes catching on a bit of plum on his chin.

You raised a hand without thinking, your attention transfixed on the piece of fruit and his pink lips an inch above. His stubble faintly pricked your thumb, your touch featherlight as you swiped the bit of plum away. A small gasp caught in his throat, his chin leaning towards your touch unconsciously. 

Your eyes couldn’t leave his lips, a faint purple tint to them from the pie. 

“You really like plums.”

“They’re meant to help with memory,” he murmured, distracted.

That caught your attention, your eyes darting up to his in question. He let out a deep exhale, the air brushing against your hand. 

“I had an accident…a few years back. Can’t remember much from before, it’s—uh, it’s coming back in bits and pieces.” Your heart clenched painfully, the sorrow for his lost life bleeding through his eyes. 

“Is that—,” you swallowed against the lump in your throat. “Is that what your nightmares are? Memories coming back?” You asked gently, your thumb rubbing soothing circles on his chin. 

His eyes widened in panic. “You—you know about the nightmares?”

You moved your hand from his chin, your fingers brushing against his cheek as you pushed a loose strand behind his ear. His body involuntarily shivered from your gentle touch.

“Yeah…I’ve known since my first night here,” you whispered. “The walls are pretty thin.”

His eyes dropped to his lap in shame. “God, I am so sorry,” he rasped out your name, his deep voice thick with emotion. 

You cupped his face with both your hands, tilting his head up until his eyes met yours. “Never apologise for your pain, Bucky.” The anguish and self-hatred you saw in his eyes made yours tear up. “Can I—would it be okay if I hugged you?”

He stared at you for a long moment, then finally gave you a nod.

You stood up slowly with Bucky following your lead. You looked into his eyes once more, checking he was still comfortable with this, before stepping forward and winding your arms around his waist, your palms resting lightly on his back. He sucked in a sharp breath at the touch, his muscles going stiff under your hands. You gently rested your cheek against his chest, his heart beating fast beneath your ear. He didn’t reciprocate the hug for a moment, his arms hovering at his side like he didn’t know what to do.

“Breathe,” you whispered into his shirt. He took a few shuddering breaths in and out then raised his right arm slowly, hesitantly draping it over your shoulder. You felt some of the tension leave his body as he sunk into your embrace. His gloved hand instinctively traveled from your shoulder to the middle of your back, pulling you closer into his warmth—surprising you both.

“Sorry,” his voice was quiet, a slight tremble lacing through. “It’s…been a long time, since I last…hugged someone.” His voice cracked at the end and your heart broke into a million pieces. 

You hugged him tighter, your hands clutching the back of his shirt—tethering him to you. A small sound slipped out of you, something between a gasp and a pained whimper. The lump in your throat grew bigger, spreading down your chest and sitting heavy on your heart. 

He rested his chin on the top of your head, so gently you barely noticed it at first. He let out a staggering breath and then rested the weight of his head on yours fully, purposely. He moved slightly, his nose brushing against your hair as he inhaled deeply. His arm around you tightened, pulling you tight against his strong body.

“…I can’t believe you’re real.” 

You croaked out a watery laugh against his chest. Fuck, he had no clue what he was doing to you—that you were going to be leaving half of your heart behind when you got on that flight in the morning. 

You pulled away from him an inch, moving your hands from his back to cup his face gently. You looked into his glistening blue eyes before looking down at his lips, watching as his tongue peaked out to wet them.

“Can I kiss you?”

He leaned in slowly, brushing his lips on yours hesitantly. He sucked in a sharp breath before pressing his lips to yours firmly. You let him set the pace, letting him know he was the one in control here. His hand moved from your back to your waist, pulling you up into his chest as he deepened the kiss. A whimper caught in your throat when his tongue swept along your bottom lip, your mouth opening for him immediately. His chest rumbled with a low moan, his kisses growing more desperate. Your hand slipped from it’s place cupping his jaw, trailing along his skin before tangling in the long hair at the nape of his neck. He let out a whimper at the feeling, breaking the kiss and taking in deep breaths. 

“You okay?” You asked softly.

His breathy chuckle brushed against your lips. “Yeah, more than okay.”

He kissed you again, more sure this time. Both your hands tangled in his hair, gently tugging his scalp as you kissed him with just as much desperation. His stubble scratched against your skin as he moved his lips, kissing along your jaw and making you gasp. The noise encouraged him, his kisses gaining more confidence, making their way down your neck. You titled your head back, granting him more access. He kissed and licked all over your neck, gently biting down on a spot under your ear making you release a moan. He focused on the spot, sucking and biting as you let out more moans and gasps. His hand on your waist gripped tighter, his fingers digging slightly as he pulled you flush to his body. That’s when you felt it—hard and unmistakable, pressing against your lower stomach. 

You broke away from the kiss, watching his eyes flutter open to look into yours. You moved a hand from his hair, brushing your thumb against his jaw. 

“Let me help you feel good.”

He swallowed audibly, his eyes leaving yours to glance at his left arm hanging stiffly at his side. You watched an internal struggle play out on his face, his darting eyes exposing his overthinking mind. 

“We’ll only do what you’re comfortable with,” you said softly.

He let out a small, disbelieving chuckle before kissing you again—his mouth both achingly tender and bruisingly desperate against your own. 

“Did you fall from heaven?” He whispered against your lips, walking backwards and pulling you towards the bed without breaking the kiss.

You giggled and rolled your eyes at him. “Shut up,” you mumbled.

He sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled you onto his lap, your knees on either side of his thighs. He took his hand off of your waist and ripped the glove off with his left hand. He brought his hand up to your face, tracing your bottom lip with his thumb and gazing at you reverently. You let out a little gasp, not expecting him to initiate skin to skin contact first. He leaned in to kiss you again, hungrily claiming your mouth with his. He moved his bare hand down to your hip, slipping tentative fingers under the hem of your shirt and brushing your skin—igniting your nerves and sending shivers along your body. His hand cupped your waist under your shirt, pressing your hips down ’til they were flush with his.

He let out a wrecked moan from the contact, his hips jerking against yours involuntarily. You rolled your hips experimentally, relishing when he let out a deep groan—his body vibrating beneath yours. You rolled your hips faster, spurred on by his noises and his bulge pressing deliciously against your jeans. He broke away from your mouth, dropping his head to your shoulder.

“Shit, I’m not gonna last long if—if you keep doing that.” He sounded ruined. A needy whine tore out of you, your need for Bucky overwhelming you. You ground down on him harder, the ball of desire in your core slicking your underwear and making you greedy. He moaned out your name, clutching your hip to stop your movements. He lifted his head off your shoulder, his glazed eyes meeting your own. 

“Do you have a condom?” He asked, panting already. 

You jumped off his lap, opening your suitcase in a rush to find a condom. You found the open—but unused—box at the bottom, grabbing a couple before joining him on the bed again. He rolled you onto your back, hovering over you with a small smirk on his face. 

“Eager, are we?” 

You nodded quickly in response, grabbing his face and pulling him down into a needy kiss. He gripped the hem of your shirt and slowly pulled it up and off your body, pausing to stare at your clothed breasts. He kissed down your neck, lavishing your collarbones and chest in tender, hungry kisses. 

“God, you’re a work of art.” He mumbled into your skin. Your heart swelled in response, unexpected tears pricking behind your eyes. No guy has ever said anything like that to you, it’s normally ‘you’re hot’ or they don’t compliment you at all.

“Take off your pants,” he muttered. He removed himself from your body, standing at the foot of the bed to take his own jeans off, your eyes widening at the impressive bulge in his boxers. You felt more wetness gather in your core, preparing you for what was to come.

You eagerly pushed your jeans down, kicking them off your feet. He climbed back over you, holding his body up with his left arm next to your head. His right hand trailed down your torso slowly, stopping at the wet patch of your panties. He pressed down on it, pulling a desperate whimper from you, your hips rolling up to his touch. He pulled your underwear down your legs one-handed, throwing them somewhere behind him.

He pulled his boxers down to his knees, grabbing one of the foil squares on the bed next to you and ripping it open with his teeth. He rolled the condom down his cock, gasping from the sensitivity. 

He leaned down to kiss you tenderly. “Still wanna do this?” He asked breathlessly.

“Please, Bucky.” You whimpered.

With his mouth on yours, he lined himself up and pushed in slowly. You both gasped at the feeling—he was the biggest you’ve had and you couldn’t control your walls clenching down on him. A pained moan tore from his chest as you gripped him tight, your hands winding through his hair and tugging the dark strands.

He mumbled curses, taking deep breaths to calm himself. He pushed in more, and you let out a sound you’d never heard before—the stretch of him sending you to another world. He started off with slow thrusts, letting you adjust to his size.

“More,” you moaned against his mouth. He picked up the pace, hitting the spot that had your back arching and stars forming behind your eyes. You clenched down on him hard, his hips stuttering and head dropping onto your chest at the feeling.

“Christ, shit—I’m not gonna last long.” He whimpered, his thrusts starting to lose rhythm. He moved his hand to your centre, finding your throbbing bundle of nerves and rubbing firm circles. Your eyes rolled back at the feeling, the fire in your core spreading through your veins.

Bucky thrusted a few more times before coming, your name slipping from his lips in a half moan, half whimper. He continued thrusting into you, his release long and overwhelming. He doubled his efforts on your clit, sending you over the edge with a sharp gasp of his name. It wasn’t an all-consuming, white hot pleasure but it was good. Warm, like golden sun rays spreading through your body.

He laid his head on your chest, the both of you panting after your releases. You raked a hand through his hair, rubbing soothing circles on his scalp. He shuddered at the feeling, tears slipping from his eyes and wetting your chest.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

“For what?”

“For making me feel human.”

You woke up before six the next morning, finding cold sheets next to you where Bucky once was. Sitting on the small kitchen table was your stolen headphones, a ripped piece of paper with chicken scratch handwriting next to them. 

You were right 

- Bucky

A week later you were at your parents place in Philly, sitting on the floor in their lounge sorting their stuff into boxes for donation or storage. Your mom turned the TV up louder, drawing your attention to the breaking news story. There on the screen was a video of the man officials suspected bombed the United Nations—James Buchanan Barnes, the Winter Soldier. Bucky.

 Oh, shit. 

Present day - Brooklyn, New York

The referee’s whistle shrieked loudly, piercing your ears and signalling the end of the soccer game. You had little time to prepare for the blur of messy dark braids and mud sprinting towards you, colliding with your legs and making you stumble back. 

“I did it, mama! I didn’t let a single goal in!” 

“I saw, peanut—I am so proud of you!” You squatted down and hugged your daughter tightly. “Did you have fun?”

She bounced in your arms, nodding vigorously. You pulled back, seeing the beaming grin on her face—proudly displaying the small gap in her top front teeth. She lost her first tooth the week before and she was ecstatic when the tooth fairy visited her—she tried to stay up two hours past her bedtime to ‘catch’ the tooth fairy, but fortunately for you she was out like a log long before you went to sleep. 

“Can we get ice cream? Pretty please?” She asked, her blue eyes wide and bottom lip jutted out in a small pout—the puppy dog expression pulling on your heart strings.

You stood up, combing the loose strands back from her face and wiping a smudge of mud off her forehead.

“Hmm, how about we go home first and get cleaned up?” The both of you headed towards the field’s exit, waving goodbye to her teammates and their parents.

She rolled her eyes. “But home is far away, the ice cream store is closer!” Where she got her attitude from, you had no idea. Well, you did—while she was the spitting image of her father, her personality was a mirror of your own. 

“You have a great point, Jamie. But—” you leaned towards her and took an audible sniff of her hair, dramatically taking a big step back and holding your nose. “—you’re stinky. We need to get you cleaned up for the public’s sake.”

She let out a high-pitched giggle, a familiar smile gracing your face at the sound. It was the most beautiful sound—your daughters joy was all that mattered to you. It meant you were doing something right.

“Okay,” she dragged out. “Does that mean I get two scoops?”

“What?! Two scoops? You won’t be able to sleep after that, bug.” 

The two of you made your way down the street, walking the normal ten minute route back home. She continued to try her luck, trying to guilt trip you into giving her more sugar and you were close to breaking once—when her big eyes glistened with tears—but you held strong even when your heart tugged. God, what you would do for those baby blues.

You were halfway home when a group of men in suits stepped out of the cafe ten metres ahead of you. They were taking up the whole sidewalk, laughing obnoxiously and all exuding alpha male energy. You pulled Jamie closer to you out of instinct, your eyes scanning for an open gap in the group of men when something—someone—caught your eye.

He looked…older, more refined. His hair was slightly shorter, the once styled strands tousled—likely from him running his hands through his hair. His suit was tailored to him perfectly, the faded blue and dark grey combination making his heavy stubble stand out. He held his head high, his shoulders rolled back in a quietly domineering stance. He looked confident, comfortable even. 

You stopped in your tracks, your heart beating wildly in your chest. The world around you faded, your attention focused solely on him as he shook his head with a small laugh, a faint smile curving his lips. 

Bucky Barnes, in the flesh. 

Shit. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. 

Jamie’s little hand tugged on yours, confused as to why you stopped walking.

“Mama?” 

You sucked in a sharp breath, reality crashing down on you—along with a bucket of anxiety and fear.

You tightened your grip on her hand, spinning the both of you around and hurrying in the direction you came from.

“What’s wrong? Where are we going?” Jamie asked in her sweet small voice.

You brushed a hand over her head, tucking loose strands behind her hair. “Nothing’s wrong, peanut. I just—you were right, it makes sense to get ice cream now!”

She instantly perked up, her little feet walking faster than you—dragging you towards the store.

“Finally! Can I get two scoops?”

You nodded in a daze, your mind racing. “Yeah, sure. Whatever you want, honey.”

Had he seen you? Had he seen Jamie? 

You spent countless sleepless nights tossing and turning over the past five years, playing out millions of different scenarios. You had numerous scripts drafted in your head, what you would say to him—how you would tell him he had a child, a daughter. But seeing him a few feet away from you, alive and well—and so fucking handsome—your mind went blank. 

It wasn’t the right time, you told yourself. Other people were around—you couldn’t put Jamie in that situation.

Trying to get a sugar crazed Jamie to bathe was like trying to tame a sticky-fingered tornado. She jumped over furniture, slid between your legs, and slipped through crevices like she was boneless. You were starting to regret enrolling her in taekwondo classes.

“The hell? How are you moving like that?” You flopped on the couch in defeat, the pounding in your head exacerbated from chasing her around the apartment.

You blinked and suddenly a jar was shoved in your face, half full of crumpled dollar notes, glittery pink and purple letters spelling out ‘swear jar’ on the white label.

“You said a swear word!”

You pounced on her, securing your arms around her waist and pulling her tight against you. You blew raspberries on her face and neck, holding her tighter as she squirmed.

“Let me go!” She squealed through giggles, trying to wriggle out of your arms.

“Not a chance, peanut.” 

After her bedtime routine that took twice as long with the sugar in her system, you sunk into the couch with a glass of wine in one hand and your phone in the other. 

Your phone shook slightly in your grip, anxiety pinching your chest. The last time you looked up Bucky on the internet was over a year ago; you found out he was saving the world alongside Captain America and had been pardoned of his crimes from when he was the Winter Soldier. It was hard to process—that the gentle man you had spent a tender night with in Bucharest, the man that was Jamie’s father, was off saving the world when the world had been anything but kind to him.

But now, you knew he was in the same city—the same borough—as you, and you couldn’t keep running from the truth. 

Ever since that night you’ve felt an ache in your bones, like you had left a part of yourself behind in that shitty apartment. You missed him, but you were so confused. After the UN bombing you tried to find out everything you could about him, and when the two pink lines appeared clear as day on the pregnancy test you knew you had to tell him. But, he had disappeared—gone off the face of the earth and you had no ways to contact him. You thought he had died.

Then the blip happened. Jamie and you came back to find a world that had changed—that had forgotten about you. Your apartment in Philly had new residents, all your belongings gone—you had taken Jamie for a walk in the park and then suddenly five years had passed when you blinked. You moved to Brooklyn to live with your parents while you rebuilt your life, and keeping Jamie safe in a world that was torn apart was all that mattered. The Avengers had brought back half of the world, and that’s when you found out Bucky was alive—his face plastered on the TV screen along with dozens of other superheroes. You didn’t know how to reach out and you didn’t know if you wanted to—you and Jamie were just finding your footing and you didn’t want anything to jeopardise that. And truthfully, you were scared.

When Jamie asked about her dad you told her that you had lost contact when the blip happened, and that you were looking for him. You told her he was once in the army and fought for your country, that he took down bad guys like it was nothing. She occasionally asked, “have you found daddy yet?” and your heart broke every time you looked into her bright, hopeful eyes—the exact same shade of blue that you had fallen for over plum pie.

Taking a long swig of wine, you typed his name into google—your thumb shaking as you hit the search button. 

And there he was.

Congressman James ‘Bucky’ Barnes. Representative for Brooklyn.

A memory from two weeks prior surfaced, when you were slumped over your home desk—trying not to panic over the next months budget. Jamie had begged to join a swim club, even with her already busy schedule of school, soccer, and taekwondo. You were starting to struggle on your teacher’s salary, but you couldn’t say no to her. You wanted to provide her with everything she wanted and more.

You were barely paying attention to your mom on the phone, gossiping about brunch with her book club friends earlier that day.

“You’ll never guess who we saw—that new Congressman, the handsome one. You know, I heard that he’s single…” 

You sighed at her tone, knowing what she was suggesting. “Great, I’ll make sure to tell dad he’s got competition.” 

“Oh, hush! That’s not what I was implying and you know it.” You dropped your head onto the desk with a groan. “It’s about time you put yourself out there, give dating a go again. You never know who you’ll meet.”

“Mom, I’m busy—“

“We’re worried about you, honey. All you do is work and take care of Jamie—who takes care of you?”

“I don’t need anyone to take care of me, thank you very much. Jamie and I are happy on our own.” You mumbled, a headache starting to pound against your temple. 

There was a pause on her end, and you braced yourself for what was coming. 

“…Have you—has there been any updates on Jamie’s father?” 

“No—look, sorry, I’m busy with school stuff. I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?” You ended the call without waiting for your mom’s goodbye, guilt gripping your chest like it always does when someone brings him up.

Little did you both know, the congressman she was gushing about was Jamie’s father. 

You gulped down the rest of your wine, saving the number for his office in your phone. 

“What the fuck.” You muttered, your voice echoing in the quiet apartment. You had no clue what you were going to do. 

Jamie’s giggles could be heard from across the grocery store, bringing an unconscious smile to your face. She was with your mom in the bakery section, giving her opinion on what her grandpa’s birthday cake should be. You could already picture the awestruck expression on her face—no doubt her nose was pressed against the glass with wide eyes taking in all the baked goods.

You were in the fruit and vegetables section, gathering ingredients for your plum pie. It had become a tradition without meaning to—baking the pie for your loved ones on special occasions, or even when they just needed comfort. It was a staple in your kitchen now, you had even altered the recipe throughout the years, truly making it your own.

In the weeks after you left Bucharest, you would find yourself making it when you missed him. When you couldn’t get to sleep at night, the sounds of his nightmares echoing in your mind, you were in the kitchen making the goddamn pie. And then when your pregnancy cravings kicked in, all you wanted was that stupid pie. And him. But you couldn’t have him, so the sugar filled pastry would have to do.

Walking through the section, you felt your phone sitting heavy in your pocket, weighed down by the numerous email drafts in your inbox and his office number in your contacts. 

You were focused on selecting the right apples—Jamie was seriously picky with them—when a deep voice called out your name. A low, gravelly, familiar voice—one that you hadn’t heard in years. 

You turned around and there he was, standing a few feet away, wearing a similar suit to when you saw him outside the cafe. His hair was just as messy, dark strands swooping on his cheeks, making his blue eyes look even more electric, intense. You watched as they widened in surprise, an awed smile overtaking his face. He took a small step towards you and you resisted the urge to take one back, your brain struggling to comprehend that Bucky was right in front of you. 

“It really is you.” He spoke softly, dazed.

You blinked.

This wasn’t how this was supposed to happen. You were meant to meet at a cafe, or a park—a safe, common ground. Not at your local grocery store after five pm on a Friday, your hair frizzy from a long day at work and running around after your daughter. 

“Bucky, hi,” you mumbled, still in shock.

“You—you look great, beautiful.” He shook his head as if in disbelief, his eyes trailing up and down your figure. 

Your nerves lit up in response, your body begging you to step closer—to close the gap between you and the man you had spent the past five years yearning for.

“How are you? Are you still teaching?” Your breath caught in your throat—he remembered. He remembered you, and he remembered the brief conversation you’d had about teaching during your gap year. 

Then, as if fate had orchestrated this whole interaction, your daughter came skipping over, a big giddy grin on her face.  

“Look, mama! Nana said I could get Pop the Captain America cake for his birthday!”

Bucky watched closely as Jamie crashed into your legs, your hand instinctively rubbing her back in soothing circles—more for you than her. You watched his eyes drift over her, starting at her messy dark braids, then taking in her taekwondo uniform, finally ending on her crocs—covered in princess and Captain America charms. 

She peered into the basket in your hands. “Oooh! Are you making plum pie tonight?!” You think the whole store heard her yell. 

Bucky’s eyes shot up to yours, a stunned and confused expression on his face. He looked speechless.

Jamie turned around, finally noticing the other adult in front of her. You watched the infectious grin take over her face, proudly showing off her missing tooth. She waved to Bucky. “Hi!” 

You had taught her the importance of stranger danger—well, as much as you could teach a five year old—but her kindness was built into her DNA, she couldn’t help smiling at and greeting every stranger she met.

Bucky was still speechless, his wide eyes looking into your daughters—seeing the same blue you imagined he saw in the mirror. He let out a stunned breath, his body swaying slightly like the rug had been pulled out from under him—because it had. You knew he knew.

“Sorry, hun. I don’t know what you feed her, but I’ve never seen a kid run that fast.” Your mom panted as she joined the accidental family reunion, the Captain America cake in her hands. She looked at the man in front of you, doing a visual double take as she recognised him. 

“Oh! Congressman Barnes, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” She stuck her hand out to Bucky, shooting you a side-eye that screamed “what the fuck aren’t you telling me.” Bucky shook her hand absentmindedly, his eyes not leaving Jamie for a split second. 

You were stood frozen, unable to think. Both your mom’s and Jamie’s eyes were watching you curiously. Why weren’t you saying anything?

Bucky finally looked away from Jamie, his confused yet hopeful eyes meeting your panicked ones. He opened and closed his mouth a couple times, at a loss for words. He licked them nervously then tried again.

“…Is she—“

His voice brought you back to earth, back to your body.

“It was really great seeing you, Bucky—I hope you’re well! We’re running late—like super late, so we need to get going.” You grabbed one of Jamie’s hands tightly, using it to pull her with you and to ground yourself. Your mom hesitantly followed, her eyes darting between you and Bucky—suspicion written clearly on her face. “We’ll—I’ll see you later!” You said to him over your shoulder, scurrying towards the checkout as fast as you could.

Your hands shook as you bagged your groceries, barely noticing that you had only gotten half of what was on your list. You took in a deep lungful of air once the three of you were outside. 

Your mom called your name softly yet sternly. “What was that in there? How do you know—did you call him Bucky?”

You sighed, exasperated. “Mom, it’s nothing—“

“No, that was not nothing! You’re acting strange—what’s going on?”

“Please, just drop it!” You nodded towards Jamie next to you, completely oblivious to your inner turmoil. “We’ll talk about it later, promise.”

She narrowed her eyes at you but ultimately let it go.

The next morning you were rushing around the lounge, struggling to get Jamie into her soccer kit as she zoomed through the apartment.

“Jesus—just sit still, peanut. Don’t you wanna go play with your friends?” She nodded eagerly, stopping her mad dash around the place so you could get her shirt on. She didn’t stay still for long though, running back into her room with one sock on. “How do you always have so much energy?” You muttered to yourself.

Three heavy raps sounded against your front door. You knew who it was immediately—who else would be knocking at your door before nine am on a Saturday.

Your heartbeat hammered in your throat as you walked to the door slowly, trying to delay the inevitable. You took a deep breath in and grasped the doorknob, stopping for a second to collect yourself.

You opened the door and were greeted by the sight of Bucky, looking devastatingly handsome in a blue t-shirt and black leather jacket. It should be criminal to look that good so early in the morning. His eyes met yours and you could see the emotion swirling in them—hope, determination, and something that looked too close to hurt for your liking. Shit.

You opened your mouth to speak but he beat you to it.

“We need to talk.”

“Bucky, hi—how do you know where I live?”

“I have my ways.”

He looked over your shoulder, straining his neck to see into your apartment behind you.

“Look, I agree we need to talk—“

“Why did you run off?”

And yup, there it was—the hurt crystal clear in his voice.

You closed your eyes briefly, the familiar clench of guilt overwhelming your chest. 

“I—it wasn’t my intention to…run off, I just—“ You stopped, suddenly at a loss for words. He looked at you expectantly, the exhaustion from a sleepless night evident on his face.

“You what? Were you ever gonna tell me?”

The accusation in his tone slapped you across the face. 

“Bucky, that’s not fair—you don’t even know—“

And, like usual, your daughters timing was impeccable.

“We’re gonna be late!” She barrelled towards you, knocking you off balance as she slammed into the backs of your legs. 

Bucky instinctively grabbed your upper arms, holding you steady as you regained your balance. Your nerves buzzed alive under his hands and you couldn’t help but notice—no gloves, he wasn’t wearing gloves anymore. 

He stepped back from you just as quick, and your body felt the loss of his touch immediately. Goddamn traitor. 

He squatted down to Jamie’s level, smiling at her with the softest look you’ve ever seen on the man. 

“Hi, I’m Bucky.”

You were suddenly annoyed with him. Coming to talk to you unannounced was one thing, but introducing himself to your daughter when you hadn’t had a chance to place boundaries—yeah, that pissed you off. 

“Hi, I’m Jamie!” 

The look he shot you had some of your anger dulling, the guilt you were so familiar with clouding over. You both knew the name Jamie was no mistake, and the flurry of emotions that crossed his face showed what the name meant to him. 

“Jamie?” His voice wavered. “That’s a great name.”

She beamed brightly at him and you felt the world shift beneath the three of you. There was no going back now.

“Are you coming to my soccer game?” 

That shocked both of you.

“Only if your mom wants me there.” And then two pairs of blue eyes are staring at you—one pleading, the other just waiting, letting you know the ball is in your court. And it’s not fair.

“Jamie, we need to talk about you inviting strangers out with us.” Bucky visibly flinched at the word ‘strangers’—it hit like a punch to your gut. “But, sure. Bucky can come with us.”

The ten minute walk to the soccer field was…nice. Bucky fit in like the missing puzzle piece, and it was doing complicated things to your heart. To be fair, Jamie talked the whole time. She was excited to tell someone new all her stories from school, yapping his ear off about everything she could think of. And Bucky was lapping it up. He had a soft smile permanently plastered on his face, his eyes on Jamie the whole time. From the second you stepped outside of your building, he positioned himself to be on the car side of the street, angling his body to protect Jamie—making your heart flip in your chest even more, and waking up something dangerous in your core. 

There was no missing the looks sent your way from the other parents when you arrived—especially the looks your fellow soccer moms shot Bucky. Great, the last thing you wanted was Jamie to be stuck in the middle of their rumour mill.

Jamie sprinted towards her friends already warming up for their game, leaving you and Bucky alone for the first time. You drifted towards the other side of the field, putting distance between you and the gossip hungry parents. No one else needed to be privy of your conversation.

The air around you and Bucky grew heavy, neither of you speaking for a few minutes as you watched Jamie hug her friend after they fell, asking if they were okay. An overwhelming sense of pride took over you, tears warming your eyes at the sight of your daughter being so kind, so caring. 

Bucky cleared his throat softly.

“She’s…happy,” he said wistfully.

“Yeah,” you mumbled softly. “Means I’m doing something right.” 

He looked at you then, his eyes scanning your face as you kept your attention trained on Jamie. You couldn’t look at him. The exhaustion from the last few years was weighing heavily on you, and you knew one glance at Bucky would have you breaking.

He turned back, watching Jamie put her oversized goalie gloves on, chuckling softly as they dwarfed her hands.

“She looks like my sister.”

That had you looking away from your daughter, focusing on the man next to you offering more information about himself. You didn’t know he had a sister.

“Becca was full of energy at that age, too. We both were,” he shook his head with a small laugh. “Ma used to say our house was tornado central with all the damage we caused.”

You let out an amused huff. “I figured she got her energy from you—I was more on the reserved side as a kid. She’s now in three different after school sports activities, but I think they just make her more energised.” 

He made eye contact with you briefly. “Three, huh? That’s…a lot.” 

You both grew silent again, watching Jamie dive for a ball and successfully defending the goal.

Bucky let out a heavy sigh, stuffing his hands in his jacket pockets.

“Were you gonna tell me?” He asked again, no accusation in his voice this time—a pensive sadness in its place. It only made you feel worse, the tears from earlier blurring your eyes.

“Bucky, I—“ you took in a deep breath, trying to control your emotions. “I was planning to, I swear.” You kept your eyes on Jamie, her smile bringing you some comfort.

“When I found out I was pregnant, I tried looking for you—I really tried. But, you just vanished…I thought you were dead.”

He sucked in a sharp breath at that, looking down at the ground.

“I didn’t want to go through the pregnancy alone, I was fucking terrified. Then, Jamie was born and she became my whole world—I would do anything for her.” Your throat grew tight and a single tear slid down your cheek.

“After the blip, I could only focus on her, on building a better life for her. And then I found out you were alive, that you had helped save the world, and I was…scared. I didn’t know what I was doing half the time, and Jamie’s father—you—being a superhero, putting your life in danger…it was a risk I didn’t want to take. I didn’t want you in our lives if you were just going to be…ripped away from us. It would break Jamie—it would break me.”

Your voice cracked and Bucky lifted his head, looking at you with concern. You brushed the tears off your cheeks and continued.

“Plus, I don’t know if you know this, but getting in contact with the Avengers when you’re a civilian…it’s pretty fucking hard.”

He let out a small laugh, nodding his head. “Yeah, that tracks.”

“I thought about reaching out last year, when I saw you were fighting alongside Captain America—who Jamie is obsessed with, by the way—but I just couldn’t get past that fear. It was easier to…live without you than potentially have you torn from us. Well, that’s what I tried to tell myself.”

You both watched as Jamie hit the ground, hard. Bucky stepped forward instinctively, like he was about to run to her side. She recovered quickly, jumping back up with a giggle. 

“She’s tough,” he mumbled with a small smile. 

He turned to you, determination and longing shining in his eyes.

“I get that. I get why you didn’t reach out, you were putting Jamie’s safety, her happiness, first.” He let out a humourless chuckle, “it’s a fucking complicated position to be in, I’ll give you that.”

“I want to be in her life, in your life—if you’ll have me.” 

You looked back at Jamie in time to see her waving at you, at both of you. 

“Yeah,” you muttered softly. “I don’t think she would let you leave, even if you tried.” 

“Good.”

You both settled in to a comfortable silence, before you couldn’t resist asking what you’ve wanted to know for the last five years.

“Where were you—“

“What does she know—“

You both laughed softly. You tipped your head towards him. “You go first.”

“What does she know…about me?”

Yeah, you were expecting that.

“I told her you were in the army, that you fought bad guys…that we lost contact after the blip. She asks for updates, wanting to know where her daddy is.”

His brows pinched, his mouth trembling slightly like he was holding back tears. He cleared his throat twice. 

“How do we tell her?”

There it was, the question you had been dreading—because you had no fucking clue. 

“…I don’t know—hope she figures it out herself?” 

The look he shot you was deadly. 

You sighed. “Fine, I’ll sit her down one night, tell her gently.”

“I want to be there.” 

Of course he does. Of course he just walks back into your life and wants to be involved in everything. Half of you is fucking thrilled he’s here and wanting to be part of your lives, but the other half is terrified he’ll think it’s too much and leave you both—or worse, die and leave you broken.

His eyes watched you carefully and you knew he could sense your internal battle.

“I’m not going to leave, I promise.”

And, because it was the reason you suffered many restless nights, you couldn’t stop yourself from asking.

“What happened to you? After Bucharest?” 

He closed his eyes briefly, letting out a breath.

“I was in Wakanda. I…couldn’t trust my mind, and they helped me. Brought me a bit of peace.”

You could see it, how different he was to the man who once lived across from you. He was still gentle, soft, but more sure of himself—more confident in who he was. He no longer walked around like he was ashamed to be alive. 

“And now…you’re a Congressman? I’ll admit I’m a little shocked, it’s quite the difference to the guy who could barely make eye contact with me.” You teased lightly.

He scoffed, shaking his head with a small smirk. 

“Trust me, speaking in front of Congress is much easier than talking to the pretty girl across the hall.”

Your body flushed with warmth. Was he seriously flirting with you? 

You bit the inside of your cheek, trying to keep your emotions in check. You were not going to crumble for him that quickly. 

“We need to set ground rules, if we want this to work. For Jamie’s sake.”

He nodded solemnly, catching the seriousness in your tone.

“No showing up unannounced—we have a routine, and Jamie can get easily distracted.”

“Noted.”

“Communication is important, okay? Let me know if you want to see her, or if you have to cancel last minute. We have to be honest with each other—you need to tell me if it’s too much. If we’re too much.”

“Not gonna happen,” Bucky muttered.

“And absolutely no funny business—I’m serious, Bucky. I’m not jeopardising her relationship with you because we couldn’t keep it in our pants.”

A muscle in his jaw jumped, but he nodded regardless. 

“Whatever you say, doll.” 

You glared at him when he said ‘doll’—that was not helping. 

“Should I come ‘round tonight to tell her? I can bring dinner.” Bucky was rocking back and forth on his feet, barely containing his eagerness. You bit your lip to suppress a smile.

“No, not tonight. She has a playdate this afternoon and she’s always a nightmare to calm down afterwards.” 

“Tomorrow, then?” 

You rolled your eyes, the smile breaking out across your face.

“Fine.”

“…Any chance you can make that plum pie?”

Jamie was lying on the couch, her head hanging off the side when Bucky knocked on the door the next evening. You had told her earlier that he was coming around for dinner and she had barely sat still since. It was a pain in the ass, if you were being honest. She clung to your torso like a koala as you tried to vacuum the apartment, making the chore take twice as long. Her crayons and toys covered the dining table—you had already put them back in her room three times that afternoon but she kept on bringing them back out. And there was a purple stain on her chin—which you were fairly certain was a bit of plum pie mixture she had swiped when you turned your back. 

“I’ll get the door!” She all but screamed as she ran towards it. 

“I hope you like burgers,” came Bucky’s deep voice from behind you. You turned to find Jamie giving him a tour of the apartment, starting with the small kitchen you were standing in.

She gasped, delighted. “They’re my favourite!”

“Thank you,” you said, taking the bags from his hands and putting them on the counter. 

“Of course,” Bucky replied, his eyes traveling down your body before meeting your eyes. You tried to not let that affect you, busying yourself with gathering plates and napkins.

“Peanut, can you please grab your stuff off the table?” You asked Jamie. “Don’t forget to wash your hands, too.”

Jamie grumbled her objections but did as you asked, huffing as she gathered her mess of toys. 

You turned to Bucky. “Sorry for the mess, I cleaned earlier but…”

Bucky nodded, a small smile on his face. “Tornado central.”

You grinned at him. “Exactly.”

Jamie ran back to the kitchen, grabbing Bucky’s hand and pulling him towards the lounge. “C’mon, I’ll give you the tour.” She was no match for his super soldier strength yet he let her drag him around with no complaint. 

You put the finishing touches on the plum pie, sticking it in the oven before setting the dining table for dinner—all while listening to Jamie show Bucky your quaint apartment.

“And finally, this is mommy’s room—“

“Peanut, I don’t think he needs to see that.” You raised your voice slightly, rushing down the hallway to see them already in your doorway. You did not need Bucky in your room—that would just open pandora’s box and you were not prepared to deal with that.

“Your mom’s right, I don’t need to see her room,” Bucky said, though the small smirk on his face said something else entirely. You really hoped he didn’t catch the bra hanging from the laundry basket.

“Let’s eat before it get’s cold, yeah?” Jamie didn’t need to be told twice, forgetting her tour and sprinting down the hallway.

You and Bucky followed behind her, and he was an inch too close for your liking.

“Red, huh?” He muttered lowly. Your body went hot—he definitely saw the bra.

The burgers were good, like really good, and you weren’t afraid to tell him.

“Where did you get these? I think they’re the best I’ve had in Brooklyn—wait, no, in the city.” You practically moaned.

Bucky’s smirk was bright and smug. “It’s a small hole-in-the-wall near my office. I can take you there sometime.”

Jamie was bouncing in her chair, happily nibbling away at her food—unaware that her life was about to change in a second. You made eye contact with Bucky, both your faces falling serious. It was time.

“Hey, Jamie? There’s something I—we—need to talk to you about.” You spoke to her gently, putting your burger down and wiping your hands. Her bright eyes met yours and you knew you had her attention.

“You know how I said I was looking for your dad?” She nodded eagerly, her eyes briefly flicking to Bucky. She was a smart kid, you could practically see the gears in her brain turning.

“Well, I—uh,” you stuttered. Now that you were here, your mind had gone blank. How the hell do you tell your daughter her dad is sitting right next to her?

Bucky placed a hand on yours, brushing his thumb over your knuckles. He shot you a look saying “I’ve got this” before turning to Jamie fully. 

He sucked in a breath. “I’m…I’m your dad, Jamie. And I would love to be in your life, if you’re okay with that.”

Bucky had barely finished his sentence before Jamie lunged, wrapping her little arms tight around his neck—no doubt smearing sauce on his shirt and hair.

He was taken aback for a quick second before returning her hug, his hands gently cradling her back. And that’s when you noticed it—his arm, the left one. You had seen it in pictures, on TV, but never in the flesh. His vibranium thumb was rubbing soft circles on her back, soothing her as sobs wracked through her—her little frame overcome with emotion. A tear slipped down your cheek as you watched them—overwhelmed with guilt from keeping them apart for so long, and something else warm blooming in your chest. 

Bucky pressed a kiss to her head, closing his eyes tightly like he was fighting back tears. He pulled back slightly, his hands moving to brush away the tears on Jamie’s cheeks.

“Does this mean you’re moving in?” Jamie asked sweetly.

He let out a watery chuckle. “No, no I’ll be staying at my place. It’s not far from here.” His eyes shot up to yours quickly before continuing. “But, I’ll come ‘round as much as I can. And, I’ll be at all your soccer games—promise.”

By this point she had fully crawled onto his lap, bouncing happily in his arms. “What about taekwondo and swimming? Will you be there?”

“If I don’t have to be away for work.” 

She pouted at him, opening her mouth to argue when the oven’s timer went off. She jumped off his lap, running the short distance to the kitchen. “Plum pie!” She squealed, excited. 

You put a hand on Bucky’s shoulder. “Thank you,” you whispered. He looked at you with glassy eyes that you were sure mirrored your own. 

“Get the pie, I’ll clean this up.” He nodded towards the mess of burgers and napkins. 

You shooed Jamie away from the oven and she climbed back onto Bucky’s lap—natural, like it was where she belonged. You put your hands on the counter, dipping your head down and taking a few breaths. This was going better than you imagined, but it was also dangerously twisting your heart. 

“You’ve got no idea how much I missed this,” Bucky muttered, looking at the pie in your hands. His eyes dragged up your body, meeting your own with a darkened gaze—it was obvious he was not just talking about the pie.

Your hands shook imperceptibly as you plated up three slices. Bucky was the first to dive in, letting out a low moan as he tasted the pie for the first time in five years. Jamie giggled at him from her place in his lap.

And you? You were frozen in your chair, a warmth spreading in your core from his moan. It was fucking sinful, and he had no right to make a noise like that at your dining table—even if it was him showing his appreciation for your baking. It felt like it was more than that.

You were in the kitchen cleaning up while Jamie had convinced Bucky to sit on the lounge floor with her, showing him her favourite toys. You looked over your shoulder, catching her holding his vibranium arm in her little hands—gazing at it in wonder.

Then you watched the realisation hit her.

“…You know Captain America.” It wasn’t a question.

“Sam? Yeah, I know him.”

And then she was shrieking, hugging the arm tightly. 

“Can I meet him? Please, please, pretty please?!”

Bucky laughed loudly at her excitement. “Yeah, princess. I’ll see what I can do.”

You watched as he stood up slowly with Jamie hanging from his arm. She swung on it, giggling nonstop. A smile spread across your face, despite the way your ovaries were screaming at the sight. The ‘no funny business’ boundary you set was looking a lot less appealing now, and it had barely been twenty-four hours. 

The three of you were stood at your front door, Jamie clinging onto Bucky’s leg like her life depended on it. You and Bucky had your phones out, syncing your calendars so you were aware of each others schedules, routines. 

“You weren’t joking,” Bucky muttered, looking at the colour coded schedule you had for all of Jamie’s activities. You rolled your eyes—you took your schedule very seriously, there was no joking when it came to having your daughter’s life prepared.

Bucky squatted down, pulling Jamie into a hug. “I’ve gotta go now, angel. You be good for your mom.” He tried to pull back but she held on tighter, her little fists clenching his jacket.

“No,” she whined. “Please don’t go.”

“The sugar crash, right on schedule.” You mumbled, gently prying her hands off of him. She let out a cry as you gathered her in your arms, her little hands reaching for Bucky. “I’m sorry,” you whispered to him. He gave you a small smile and shake of his head, stepping forward to kiss Jamie’s forehead.

You were exhausted by the time you tucked Jamie into bed. She cried for half an hour after Bucky left, and it fucking broke your heart. You weren’t expecting her to get attached to him so quickly, but that was your daughter—she loved with her whole heart. And you couldn’t blame her, you felt like crying after he left too. All your feelings for him came rushing back as you watched him with your daughter—his daughter.

This was not going to be easy on your heart. 

A few weeks passed and everything felt so right. Bucky kept true to his promise—he didn’t miss a single one of her games and came to her taekwondo and swimming classes when he wasn’t needed at the Capitol. He spoiled her with gifts—even when you told him not to—and he had started spoiling you too. You tried to brush him off with an eye roll every time, but the flush on your cheeks gave you away. 

First, it was a nice bottle of wine, one you would never buy for yourself. Next, a box of expensive chocolates he had been “gifted” and didn’t want—you called bullshit. Then, it was a massage voucher—when you tried to refuse it, he promptly said “it’s either this or I give you one myself, doll” and you snatched it out of his hands before he could see the deep red crawling up your neck. The more he did for you and Jamie, the harder it was for you to ignore the way your heart tugged towards him—the way your body lit up every time he threw you that secret smirk. You were growing more frustrated each day and it was starting to show.

You were sitting in the break room at work, half paying attention to the geography teacher who was gossiping about one of her sophomore classes—apparently two of her students had a cute back and forth and she was coming up with a plan to push them together.

She called your name, looking at you expectantly.

“Huh? Sorry, bit out of it today,” you muttered, your cheeks growing warm.

“I was talking about Sophie and Ben—they’re in your third period English class, right? Don’t you think they would be cute together?” She all but squealed.

You let out a small laugh. “Yeah, I’ve noticed them. I don’t know if we should be meddling in our students relationships, though. Besides, it’d just make me feel depressed about my lacking love life…” You trailed off, your mind already wandering to Bucky and the look on his face when Jamie called him ‘daddy’ the night before.

Your colleague dropped into the chair next to you, chin in her hand as she peered at you in interest. “Oh? Are you looking to date?” You were about to shake your head, but she continued. “My cousin just moved here and I think you would be perfect for each other! You’re definitely his type.”

You rolled your eyes, the last thing you wanted was to be set up on a blind date. “No, I’m not dating. It’s fine, really—“

But she was already grabbing your unlocked phone, pulling up your calendar and looking for a free slot. She found one—next Saturday, when Jamie would be staying the night at Bucky’s for the first time. She typed on your phone, setting up an appointment for eight pm—“Date with Michael!”

“I’ll text you his details!”

There was no way in hell you were going to text him to arrange a date. You already had a date scheduled that night—your bath, a bottle of red Bucky had given you, and the toy you hadn’t unboxed yet.

Later that night, Bucky was in your kitchen drying dishes slowly, a faraway look on his face. You had just tucked Jamie in for the night, and he didn’t notice when you returned to the kitchen.

“Hey,” you started. “You okay?” 

“Who’s Michael?” He asked gruffly, his eyes boring into yours.

You furrowed your brows at him, very confused. “Michael? I don’t know a Michael.”

He pulled his phone out of his pocket, turning the screen to show you an appointment in your synced calendar—the appointment you had forgotten to delete. 

You let out a breathy chuckle, rolling your eyes. “Oh, that. My coworker was trying to set me up with her cousin, she put that in my calendar.” You shrugged.

“And you didn’t think to tell me?” He looked pissed.

“Tell you what, Bucky? I’m not going.”

“I think I have a right to know if you’re dating, doll.” He crossed his arms over his chest, glaring down at you. Fuck, he looked hot. 

“I’m not dating, Buck.” He leaned against the counter behind him, still staring at you intensely.

“But, you would tell me if you were?” You were starting to get aggravated, this felt like an interrogation.

“What does it matter to you?” You said, voice louder than intended.

“We have a child together. I should know if you’re bringing random guys home.”

Now you were mad. He made it sound like you were out hooking up with any guy that showed you attention.

You stepped towards him, pressing a finger into his ridiculously sturdy chest.  “For your information,” you seethed, glaring into his darkened eyes. “I haven’t slept with anyone since Bucharest. Don’t you dare imply I’m hooking up with randoms.”

You watched as his pupils dilated, his eyes turning almost black. His vibranium arm whirred as he clenched the counter behind him. 

“You haven’t been with anyone else?” He asked, voice dangerously low. 

You hadn’t meant to let that slip, to tell him that he was the last guy you slept with.

You took a step back, dropping your hand and putting much needed space between you two. When did it get so hot in here?

“It’s a bit hard to find time for yourself when you’re raising a kid solo.” You were sick of the focus being on your nonexistent sex life.

“What about you, Bucky? Now that Jamie is going to be staying at yours, I have a right to know who you’re dating.” You were only asking for Jamie’s sake. It had nothing to do with the twisting in your gut at the thought of Bucky with anyone else.

He stepped forward, crowding you against the counter behind you. His eyes did a slow drag up your body, lingering on your lips for a few seconds.

“I’ve got all I need right in front of me.”

Goosebumps erupted across your skin, your breath hitching. This was not the Bucky you knew in Bucharest, he was never this forward.

“No funny business,” you whispered, though there was no heat to it. 

“It’s not funny business, it’s the truth. Thought you wanted me to be honest, doll.” 

You glared at him. How dare he use your words against you. 

You pushed at his chest and he took a step back, giving you some much needed breathing room.

You went back to cleaning up the kitchen, Bucky falling in step beside you after a minute.

There was a buzz in the air between you and Bucky, your body hyperaware every time he shifted next to you—slowly closing the gap.

“Do you have photos?” Bucky suddenly asked.

“Photos of what?” 

“When you were pregnant.” 

You whipped your head to him, staring at him with wide eyes.

“What? Why…why are you asking me that?”

He shrugged like it was a normal thing to ask someone. 

“I want to see.”

“Bucky, I’ve already sent you photos of when Jamie was a baby.”

“I’m not asking for those.”

You shook your head at him. “You’re weird, you know that?” He just stared at you blankly. “Fine, whatever. I’ll send you some later.” 

The side of his mouth twitched, a faint smirk ghosting his lips. 

“Good girl.” 

Every time Bucky looked at you all you could think about was those two stupid words. On their own they’re completely acceptable, harmless. Put them together and they’re a totally normal praise to say to a child. But when he said them to you in that low voice? There was nothing harmless or normal about your body’s reaction. 

And you knew he knew what he was doing to you. There was nothing subtle about the way his eyes raked over you, and the gifts he kept on getting you? They were not for the sake of co-parenting or whatever bullshit half-excuse he used. 

The bouquet of flowers he turned up with the other night? “Something nice for you and Jamie to look at.” 

The gift voucher for your favourite clothing store? “Can’t have the mother of my child wearing old clothes.” That was a bullshit excuse and you both knew it. 

“You use that massage voucher, doll?” He asked when he came to pick up Jamie for their first sleepover. 

You woke up feeling hot and flustered, with a notification on your phone telling you that you were ovulating. The heat lingered all day, your clothes irritating your skin every time you breathed. Now Bucky was standing in front of you with that half-smirk, asking about whether you used his gift, and it was not fucking helping. 

“You look…tense, it might help.” He stepped closer, your back pressing against the doorframe.

“Gotta make sure you take care of yourself, sweetheart.” 

Oh. That was new. He hadn’t called you that before.

He raised his vibranium hand slowly, running a cold fingertip along the heat blooming on your neck. “Got any plans tonight?”

You shuddered at the feeling, your brain going blank as the dull ache in your core amplified.

“…What are you doing?” You asked, voice barely a whisper. 

“Jus’ making sure Jamie’s mom is looking after herself, taking care of her needs.” 

Jamie came running from her room, her backpack unzipped and overflowing—even though you had already packed it and double-checked it had everything she needed.

Bucky took a step back, clearing his throat before turning and catching Jamie with ease. Your ovaries started a war inside you, your core cramping with need watching Bucky interact with your daughter.

“Bye Mama!” Jamie kissed your forehead, her spot in Bucky’s arms making her taller than you.

“Have a good night, sweetheart.” Bucky mumbled with a wink, grinning at your cheeks flushing even more red.

Bucky brought Jamie back early the next evening, her body slumped in his arms with little snores escaping her.

“How the hell did you get her to sleep?” You whispered, astonished that she was passed out so early.

He shrugged like it was nothing. “We did some soccer drills at the park, I let her try out some taekwondo moves on me. Helps that the serum gives me a high stamina.”

He walked Jamie to her room, tucking her into bed like it was second nature. He came back to the lounge to find you stood frozen, your mind still reeling over high stamina.

Blame it on your smart mouth, or on your ovulation obliterating your filter, but you opened your mouth without thinking.

“High stamina? Where was that in Bucharest?”

Your wide eyes gave you away—you had clearly not meant to say that. You weren’t disappointed with the sex you and Bucky had, god no, but you wouldn’t say it was a good example of super soldier stamina.

A devilish smirk spread across his face, stalking towards you like he was a predator and you were his prey. 

“Cut a guy some slack, doll. You were the first woman I’d touched since the 1940s. I’m surprised I lasted as long as I did.”

He was right in front of you now, pushing a strand of hair behind your ear—his hungry eyes latched on your lips.

“You want a redo? Want me to show you how long I can really go for?” 

Your pulse jumped in your neck, a breath getting lodged in your throat, the ache from the day before hitting your core at full force. 

“…Bucky, we—we said no funny business.” 

His hand moved to your chin, gripping it gently and tilting your head up. There was a fire blazing in his eyes as he stared into your soul.

“No, you said that.” His vibranium hand rested lightly against your hip, testing. You gasped at the cold seeping through your clothes, relieving some of the heat and making your core clench with need at the same time. 

He dropped his head, brushing his nose against yours.

“Did you take care of yourself last night, sweetheart?” His voice was low, husky.

Your body flushed even hotter. His proximity had your brain short-circuiting and butterflies raging in your stomach, the smell of his aftershave and something uniquely him overwhelming your senses with every shuddering breath you took. 

“I asked you a question,” he gripped your chin tighter, his tone bordering on demanding.

“I…had a bath, drank some wine…” the vibranium hand on your hip slipped higher, cupping your waist and pulling you closer. A tiny gasp got caught in your throat.

“Did you touch yourself?” His nose brushed across your cheek, his mouth dangerously close to your ear.

“You—you can’t ask me that, Bucky.” Your voice shook. Your hand clutched his shoulder, the vibranium cold against your palm even through his shirt. The ground beneath you felt unsteady, your body swaying towards him for support.

“Sure I can, your wellbeing is important to me. Answer the question.” The hand on your chin moved, a calloused thumb brushing your bottom lip.

The touch had your mind blanking, tingles erupting beneath his thumb and travelling through your body, gathering in the pit of your belly. Your head felt fuzzy and the world narrowed to him, only him.

“Yes,” you whispered.

He hummed, satisfied.

“Good girl.”

Your thighs clenched at the praise, the warmth in your core begging for relief. You watched his tongue swipe along his bottom lip, leaving them glistening and looking so fucking tempting. 

“It wasn’t enough though, was it?” He walked you backwards slowly, a small gasp escaping you as your back hit the wall. “No, I think you need more.” 

His head dropped to the crook of your neck, his stubble scratching your sensitive skin. You sucked in a breath, resisting the urge to moan. It had been so long since someone had touched you—since Bucky touched you—and the need pulsing through you was making you delirious.

Both Bucky’s hands dropped to your hips, squeezing tight as he stepped closer. One of his thighs slotted between your legs, the pressure against your core making you whimper. 

“You need to be more careful about what you put in your calendar, doll.” 

You struggled to understand what he was saying, too overwhelmed by his closeness and the dizziness it was causing.

He pressed a faint kiss to your throat, right where your pulse was beating wildly. He chuckled lowly, the sound vibrating against your skin.

“God, I’ve been hard ever since I saw that notification yesterday.”

That had you reeling, a fraction of reality slipping through the haze. What was he talking about? 

You found your voice, although meek and small. “What notification?”

His vibranium hand slipped from your waist to your back, pulling you into him until your back arched, your core shifting against his thigh. The slight friction made your body thrum, your hips instinctively rolling to chase the feeling.

“The one letting you—me—know that you’re ovulating.” 

You gasped, horror running through your body. You didn’t even think about how your tracking app was linked to your calendar. 

“I can smell it, sweetheart. How fucking needy you are.” His words had the horror dissolving into liquid honey, the need he was talking about dripping from your core. 

His right hand gripped your hip tighter, his fingers digging in as he moved your hips, dragging you back and forth on his jean-clad thigh.

“I wanna take care of you. Let me make you feel good.” He whispered, his mouth hot against your ear. 

Any worries you had about crossing boundaries, about ruining Jamie’s relationship with her father disappeared, replaced by a blazing fire.

“Please,” you whispered desperately.

Bucky didn’t waste a second, his lips finding yours in a bruising kiss. His hands pulled you tighter against him, your hips flush with his. Your hands found their place in his hair, tugging the soft strands and making him moan into your mouth. 

His tongue slipped past your lips with no resistance, meeting yours in a battle for dominance that you had no intention of winning. He bit your bottom lip, tugging it as he pulled back. He dropped his forehead to yours, both of you panting heavily from the kiss.

“You’ve got no idea how long I’ve wanted to do that,” he murmured, pressing small kisses to your lips like he couldn’t help himself.

You whined when he stepped back, missing his warmth and the friction between your legs. 

“Patience, doll.”

And then he was dropping to his knees in front of you, his hands sliding up the sides of your thighs and gripping the waistband of your leggings, pulling them down torturously slow. He groaned low at the sight of your panties, the dark wet patch exposing your need for him.

He pressed a quick kiss to the patch, making your head hit the wall with a thud. He chuckled at you, his eyes filled with a possessive hunger.

“So responsive.”

He placed one of you thighs over his shoulder, peppering your inner knee and thigh with soft kisses. He stopped at your mid thigh, turning his head to lavish your other leg with the same attention. Your breathing grew heavy at the teasing, the need in your core growing unbearable the more he avoided where you needed him most.

“Bucky, please, stop teasing,” you whined, your voice echoing in the apartment.

He chuckled darkly, looking up at you like you were a feast he couldn’t wait to devour. 

“Gotta be quiet, doll. Don’t wanna wake Jamie up now, do you?” His tone was mocking and you wanted to slap the smirk off his face.

He relented his teasing, rising to his full height and gripping your hips. His mouth found yours again, softer this time but still just as hungry. Your arms wound around his neck, pulling him impossibly closer as you tried to grind your core against the bulge in his jeans. He let out a small broken moan, leaving your lips to kiss along your jaw and neck. 

“Jump,” he muttered into your neck. You did as he said, your legs wrapping around his waist as he hoisted you up in his arms like you weighed nothing. His hands grasped your ass, rolling your hips against him harder. He spun you around, walking towards your room with his face still buried in your neck, biting and tugging your sensitive skin.

He closed the door behind him softly, dropping you gently onto your bed. He stood at the end, quiet as his eyes raked over your half-dressed body. He grabbed your ankles and pulled you to the edge of the bed. He dipped down to kiss you passionately. 

His hands grasped the hem of your top, dragging it up your body and over your head. He stopped momentarily, staring at your naked breasts in awe.

“I didn’t worship you like you deserved, sweetheart. I’m not making that mistake again.” 

Then he dropped his head, kissing a path down your neck and across your collarbones. He ran his tongue along your skin, biting the soft swell of your breast gently, avoiding your nipple. Your hips bucked under him, desperate for more. His hands tightened on your hips, pushing them into the bed to stop your squirming. He finally took your nipple into his mouth, sucking gently and grazing his teeth against it. You let out a sharp gasp, your hands clutching his shoulders. His flesh hand came up to palm your neglected breast, pulling and twisting the nipple between his fingers, eliciting more debauched gasps from your lips.

“So fucking pretty,” he mumbled, switching his mouth to the other breast to give it the same attention. His vibranium arm whirred as your hips tried to buck more, holding you down with ease. 

His flesh hand stayed palming your breasts as his mouth descended, his stubble scratching the soft skin of your stomach. He stopped, pulling back slightly as his eyes focused intently on your skin—more specifically, on the stretch marks covering your lower belly.

He let out a low moan, pressing his forehead against your stomach like he was collecting himself. His hand on your breast trailed down, calloused fingertips reverently tracing the jagged lines your pregnancy left behind. 

“You’re beautiful,” he murmured absentmindedly, like he was in a trance. “You’re always beautiful, but seeing those photos of you pregnant with my child.” He let out a dark chuckle. “You don’t know what that did to me, doll.” His dark eyes met yours. “I’ve fucked my fist every night looking at them. Seeing you big and round with my baby—shit, doll.” He closed his eyes and groaned. “Makes me wanna get you pregnant again.”

He dropped his mouth to your skin, his lips kissing your stretch marks with a tenderness that had your heart clenching painfully. He took his time, worshiping every scar with his lips. Your underwear was soaked, his actions and words making you so overwhelming needy that it hurt.

You pushed on his shoulders, trying to get him to move down to your core—to offer you some relief. He relented his soft kisses, grabbing your panties and pulling them down your thighs. He moaned, watching the way the fabric clung to your wet pussy—a line of slick keeping them tethered. He stuffed your panties into his back pocket once he removed them, throwing you a wink.

“A souvenir,” he muttered before diving in. 

His mouth was hot on your core, his tongue dragging a line up your slit before latching onto your clit. He sucked greedily, a hum sounding in the back of his throat. Your hands flew to his hair, grasping the strands and pushing him further into your core. He switched between sucking your clit and fucking you with his tongue, listening to your moans and whines to see what you liked. His flesh hand splayed against your stomach, stroking the marks there as he held you down. It was both tender and dirty, and it had the heat in your core spreading like wildfire. His vibranium hand trailed along the top of your thighs, making you gasp and shiver. 

He lifted his mouth off you, your slick glistening on his lips and beard—you almost came from the sight alone. He watched you closely as his hand inched higher, a cold finger brushing against your lower lips. You gave him a quick nod, muttering “please” and he didn’t waste any time.

He dipped a finger into your entrance, moaning at the wet heat and little resistance. He pumped it slowly, sucking your clit back into his mouth—making your back arch and hands tug harder, pulling at his scalp and making him moan into you. The noise had you preening, the ball in your core tightening. He inserted another cold finger, curling against the spot that had your legs shaking. You let out a long moan, your breath coming quick as you climbed higher. 

“Come for me, sweetheart.” He mumbled, his voice vibrating against your core. A third finger joined in and the stretch had tears brimming your eyes, the pleasure he was unleashing on your body too much. You came with a cry, your body tensing and shaking under him. He slowed down slightly, dragging your pleasure out until you were whimpering and pushing his head away from the overstimulation.

He crawled up your body, peppering more kisses on your skin as you struggled to catch your breath, coming down from your high slowly. You giggled as his stubbled tickled your stomach. He brushed your cheeks gently, wiping away the few tears that escaped from your pleasure. He looked at you with what looked like love in his eyes, causing your cheeks to flush and heart to beat harder.

He kissed you deeply, the taste of you on his tongue turning you on more. You returned the kiss with fervour, wrapping your legs around his clothed waist and grinding your hips against his bulge.

He moaned at the feeling, his arms on either side of your head shaking with restraint.

“Can I fuck you, doll?” You responded with an eager nod.

“Will you let me fill you up?” You continued nodding, a little whine and pleads leaving your lips.

He removed himself from you, ripping his clothes off in a hurry. He dropped on top of you and you relished at the feeling of his bare chest against yours. Your hands found his shoulders as he rubbed his cock along your dripping slit. You both let out matching moans.

“Wanna give Jamie a little sibling.” It wasn’t a question.

You nodded deliriously, your breath hitching as his tip caught your entrance. He pushed in achingly slow, kissing you as a high pitched moan escaped your throat. He grabbed your legs, wrapping them around his waist as he plunged deeper—a deep groan rumbling in his chest. You whimpered at the stretch of him. He thrusted slow and gentle at first, closing his eyes and savouring the feel of your tight walls hugging him. He picked up the pace, hitting your sweet spot—sharp gasps escaping you with every thrust. Your hands clutched his back tighter, your nails digging into the flesh slightly. The obscene sounds of skin slapping against skin, your breathy pants and gasps, and his low moans filled the room.

His hand moved from your hip to your core, rubbing circles on your clit in time with his thrusts. You were still sensitive from your first orgasm and you could feel the fire spreading from your belly at record speed.

“That’s it, that’s my good girl,” Bucky muttered against your lips. You clenched around him tightly, the praise adding more fuel to the fire. “You like that? You like when I call you a good girl?” You nodded, babbling incoherently as everything became too much and you seized below him. A harsh gasp escaped you as you came a second time, your nails scratching along his back and drawing blood. 

“Fuck—squeezing me so tight, sweetheart. Shit,” he grumbled out as he continued to fuck you through your high, only slowing down when you let out a sob.

He cradled your face in his hands, brushing away tears with a concerned look on his face. “Hey, hey, you’re okay. Just breathe,” he cooed softly, pushing hair back from your face. His eyes roamed over your features as you collected yourself, gasping in small breaths as your mind came back to your body. 

“You still with me?” You nodded shakily. “Wanna keep going?” 

“Please, need you to come inside me.” You whispered, a shaky hand grabbing his jaw and kissing him softly.

He groaned into your mouth, his cock dragging inside you slowly—making you whine.

“You got any idea what you do to me, doll? Fucking begging me to breed you,” he gave a harsh thrust and you let out a broken sob. 

He shushed you, moving his flesh hand to your mouth as he continued to thrust mercilessly.

“You’re gonna wake Jamie up.” You moaned behind his mouth, your eyes rolling back and your body feeling weightless.

He pulled out suddenly, making you let out a pained cry at the loss of him. “No, no, please, don’t stop.” You babbled, your hands grabbing his arms trying to get him back inside you.

He chuckled at your desperation before grasping your hips and flipping you over, positioning you on your hands and knees. You had little time to adjust to the new position before he was slamming into you, his cock pounding your walls at a relentless speed. Your moans were muffled by the pillow beneath your head, the fabric getting soaked in your drool and tears.

“Fuck, you look so good like this, baby,” he moaned, clutching your ass cheek before bringing his palm down in a harsh slap. Your body jumped forward, pain radiating from his slap and morphing into pleasure. You clenched down on him in a vice like grip, his hips stuttering in response. 

“You want another baby, doll? Want me to get you pregnant again?” 

You nodded your head vigorously, mumbling out “yes” and “please” like they were the only words you knew.

He slapped your ass two more times and you let out a broken sob, tears flowing down your cheeks as the pleasure became too much. You could feel Bucky getting close, his thrusts losing rhythm and his grunts increasing in volume. 

“God, you’re gonna look breathtaking, not gonna be able to keep my hands off you.” He muttered out, cursing as you gripped him even tighter. His hand moved from your hip to your clit, rubbing harsh circles. Your back bowed from the oversensitivity, trying to escape his touch but needing it at the same time. You bit the pillow below you as you came for a third time, your wail ringing out in the dark room. Bucky thrusted three more times before stilling, coming inside you with a long drawn out groan. He kept pumping inside you, his warm seed filling you completely. You sighed at the feeling, bliss running through your veins. Bucky caught you as your body collapsed, all your strength leaving you. You felt completely ruined.

Bucky pulled out with a groan, gently rolling you over so you were laying on his chest. His hand trailed up and down your back in soothing patterns, the both of you quiet as you came down. He pressed a kiss to your head, breathing you in deeply. You traced a pattern on his sweaty chest, sleep pulling at the corners of your eyes.

“We should probably talk,” you mumbled.

“Later,” another kiss to your head. “Wanna enjoy you in my arms a little longer.”

More tears pricked at your eyes and you hugged him tighter. You took in a shaky breath as you prepared yourself to say what’s been on your mind since Bucharest.

“I…I think I love you, Bucky.”

Bucky’s chest shook with a trembling exhale below you.

“I know I love you, sweetheart.” 

"Well, you remember when we went to Grandpa George's ranch last month and his Mama Dog had those tiny puppies?" Bucky asks, watching Henry's eyes widen hopefully.

"Yeah," Henry replies, warily optimistic.

Bucky removes the blue-mottled puppy from his shirt and Henry jumps up from your lap with a gasp. Bucky places the squirmy pup into the little boy's arms. "Happy birthday, kiddo. She's excited to meet you."

Henry immediately sits down on the floor, still cradling the furry bundle in his arms. When he looks up at you both, tears are in his eyes. "I love her so much. Thank you, thank you!"

Bucky smiles and settles in next to you on the couch. You lean into his familiar body and rest your head into the crook of his neck.

You watch Henry nuzzle into the soft puppy. "You're welcome, honey," you say while rubbing a hand lovingly on Bucky's bicep as a silent thank you for keeping the pup fed, watered, and hidden in the barn for the past two nights.

"Does she have a name?" Henry asks, petting her gently. The puppy is standing on her hind legs and licking at the boy's face.

You look at Bucky and he shakes his head. "No, kiddo. You'd better think of one. She's going to help us keep the cattle in line, so make sure it's somethin' tough."

Henry considers this as you all hear the rooster crow outside the open window. "Rooster?"

"Yeah," you reply. "He loves to harass those hens."

"No, Mommy. I want to name her Rooster."

Bucky chuckles. "You want to name the dog Rooster?"

"Yeah Daddy! You said something tough. That rooster is tougher than nails."

You and Bucky both burst into laughter. "Tougher than nails, huh, Hen? Where did you learn that?"

"Grandpa George," he answers with a smile. "He teaches me funny words."

You look at Bucky with narrowed eyes. "I'm sure he does."

Two months later, Henry and Rooster, or Roo, as you've all affectionately nicknamed her, are inseparable. She even sleeps in Henry's bed.

"You want to go for a ride with me while your mama gets her nails done?" Bucky asks, leaning into Henry's bedroom doorway. Roo pokes her head up at his voice and cocks it to one side, recognizing the word "ride". She's graduated from riding in a saddlebag with her tiny head poking out to balancing on the horse's rear end. She licks Henry's hand to rouse him.

"Yeah!" Henry exclaims in a groggy voice. He sits up in bed, and his dark hair is sticking up in every direction.

"Okay, I'll be in the kitchen when you're ready," Bucky says. "Take your time, son."

He follows the scent of your peachy vanilla lotion to the bathroom off of the bedroom you now share together. Bucky officially moved in when Henry was almost two. Most of his stuff was here anyway, slowly intermingling with your things as the time passed - pairs of socks rolled up side by side in the top drawer, toothbrushes with the bristles touching in a cup by the sink, three sets of boots in the mudroom. The evidence of a steady migration toward normal again.

"What color should I get today?" You ask, looking down at your bare toes. You'd love to get a manicure, but the ranch doesn't allow it. It's only a matter of hours before a nail breaks or chips from doing something hardy with your hands. You always stick to pedicures, plus Bucky loves to pick out the color.

"Hmm," he considers, wrapping his arms around you from behind and admiring your reflections in the large mirror. He plants a kiss to your neck before bringing a calloused hand up and under the neckline of your dress and over your breast. Your eyes flutter closed. You don't think you'll ever get used to how good he feels, and not just sexually, although that's another level of good. Just his breath on your skin and his deep voice in your ear are enough to sustain you for days. "So sexy," he groans with a gentle squeeze.

"We can't right now," you say, biting your lip. "My appointment is in twenty minutes, Buck."

He growls and releases your breast, but keeps his arms around you.

"What color?" You ask again, this time wiggling your toes. He looks down and sighs out a laugh.

"Hmm," he hums as he turns you and sets you on the bathroom counter top before he steps between your thighs. "There's this shade of pink I can't get out of my head," he whispers as he nips at your ear. "It's becoming one of my favorite colors."

You sigh in a sharp breath as one of his hands runs up your thigh and under your sundress. He traces the lace edge of your underwear with a warm finger before pulling the fabric to the side. A delicate moan escapes you as he draws a line up the seam of your pussy. "Yeah, such a warm shade of pink. Perfect for -" he pauses as he presses in knuckle-deep, "summer."

"More," you gasp, rocking your hips into his hand, but he removes his finger and pulls your underwear back into place with a devilish grin. Your gaze widens as he lifts his hand to his mouth and sucks the digit clean. He leans in and whispers. "You'd better come back with those toes painted pussy pink."

"James Buchanan Barnes," you whisper-shout in shock as you hop off the counter and adjust your dress. "You're crazy."

"Crazy for you, honey," he says with a kiss. "I'm taking Hen and Roo out for a ride this mornin'. Gonna mend that piece of fence the herd took down."

"Okay, there's breakfast sandwiches on the stove for y'all. I'll be back in a couple hours."

You finish getting ready while Henry and Bucky eat their breakfast. You give them both a kiss, pat Roo's head, and grab the truck keys from the hook on the wall.

"Pink!" Bucky shouts with a grin as you close the door behind you. Naughty, perfect man.

When you get to the nail salon, you find that you're scheduled for a manicure and a pedicure. "No, that's a mistake. I'm sorry," you explain. "I'm just here for the pedicure."

"Oh, well, your husband called earlier and added on a manicure," the receptionist says and repeats your name to confirm.

"Yeah, huh, that's me," you say with a puzzled expression. Bucky isn't your husband, but you let that assumption slide.

"It's already paid for," she explains.

"Oh, well, okay. I guess I'll do both then."

"Okay, go pick your color," she says, pointing to the wall behind you.

"Pink," you say under your breath and feel your cheeks heat. He's such a quiet man. You'd never know how deeply naughty and affectionate his is unless he was yours. You study the rainbow of shades and pick a "warm, summer pink" that you think is the closest to… well, you know.

The nail technician leads you to a chair where she gets you started with a hot, soapy soak for your feet. You show her the color you want - yes, for both fingers and toes - and she gets to work. Your eyes flutter closed and your head hits the massage chair pillow at some point during the treatment. You wake up from your semi-slumber with a soft tap on your knee. Your toes and nails are now pink and you smell like a sugar-scrubbed coconut. You admire the color - it is the perfect summer pink.

Meanwhile at the ranch, Bucky and Henry are getting back on the horse with Roo in tow.

"That's a good lookin' fence there, Hen," Bucky says, offering up his hand for a down-low high five. "Thanks for the help, buddy. And thanks for talkin' with me."

"You're welcome Daddy," he says, settling back into the saddle against Bucky's chest. As Bucky looks out over the land, he feels a slight pull at his heartstrings. He misses his brother. He wishes he could have seen his amazing little boy grow up. He didn't even get to meet him, and that's a damn shame. Fucking drunk drivers. Henry falls asleep against him as they ride slowly back to the house. Bucky spots your truck pulling up the gravel drive and his heart pulls again, but this time it's for different reasons. It's you - your strength, your beauty, that fact that you're stubborn as hell, smart as a whip, and everything he's ever needed - the fact that you helped him feel like himself again. You helped each other heal together. He's never letting you slip through his fingers again. You get out of the truck and hold a hand over your head to shield the sun. Here comes your world, all on the back of a horse. You can tell Henry is sleeping by the way he's slumped against Bucky's chest and you smile. You meet them in the barn and carefully carry your boy inside to his bed. You'll change the bedsheets later. Who knows what they got into out in those fields,but you don't want to chance changing him out of his little jeans and t-shirt.

You pour Bucky a quick glass of iced tea and walk out to the barn. He's hanging up the saddle as you round the corner.

"Hey," you say. "Thanks for the royal treatment." You hand him the glass, showing off your surprise manicure.

"You deserve it," he says, taking the glass from you with a nod before taking a long drink. "Thank ya. Lemme see 'em again," he says, gesturing to your hands.

You hold your hands out in front of you and the side of his mouth quirks up in a smile. "That's a good color," he mutters, "but I think we'd better color match 'em." Before you know it, the empty glass is on stable ledge and Bucky has you in his arms. "Hen stay asleep?" He asks, carrying you bridal style to the old desk in the corner of the barn.

"Yes," you answer through a gasp as he sets you down on the desktop and drags the fabric of your dress around your hips.

"Good. Now spread your legs," he groans, hooking his hands into your underwear and pulling them down around your ankles. He stops and runs his knuckles over the arch of your foot. "So soft." He plants a kiss there.

"Bucky," you whine, but before you can say anything else, he drags your body to the edge of the desk and kneels down, licking a broad swathe up your center with a grunt and he inhales.

"So sweet for me," he mutters as he nuzzles his nose against your clit and tongue fucks you. "Touch yourself, baby."

You comply and bring your freshly manicured nails to your swollen bud. "Perfect match," he says, smiling up at you with a pleased expression. You swipe your thumb across his glistening lower lip, and he takes your wrist in his hand before bringing it up to his mouth. He sucks your arousal off. The action makes you clench and Bucky notices with a needy sigh. He doesn't say anything, just stands up and unbuckles his belt. His eyes never leave yours as your chest heaves in anticipation. Every time with him feels like the first in the best way.

"I'll be right back," he says as he leans in to kiss you and turns on his heel toward the house, presumably to get a condom.

"Buck, don't go," you beg. "We could just…"

"What are you asking?" He presses with a raised brow.

"I'm saying I want to feel you, please."

A whimper erupts from his throat. "Bare?"

You nod, eyes pleading, and he answers you by unbuttoning those Wranglers you'll never get enough of, and putting your hand down the waistband of his boxers. He's all heat and girth and veins, and you know he's it for you. No one else could ever compare. You've done it countless times over the past few years, but never like this, and you shiver in anticipation. Something about seeing him with Henry earlier on the horse, maybe? The manicure he insisted on? No, it's nothing specific. It's all the little things - the way he lets you sleep in on the weekends while he gets up to eat big bowls of cereal and feed the horses with Hen, his strong silence that makes you feel safe and like nothing can touch you, how he understands that even in the thick of bliss and happiness together you still get hit with bouts of grief over the death of his brother, the generosity of his spirit and hands - "Oh," you moan as he lines himself up and looks at you one last time for confirmation.

"I want all of you," you whisper across his lips. He nods and swallows, pressing in slowly, carefully until he's fully inside.

"There's all of it," he rasps. "God, I love you."

"I love you, James."

He starts to move, wrapping his arms around you and keeping most of your body weight off the desk. There's a handful of positions that feel amazing with Bucky, but your favorites are the ones where you're face to face like this. Watching each other come undone - the dilated pupils, the sharp intakes of breath, the flushed cheeks, sometimes even tears - it's everything.

"Fuck honey," he groans. "I can feel everything. Fuck."

His breathing is labored and delicious and hot against your neck as he starts to move faster. He brings a thumb to your clit. It's warm in the barn already, but now you can feel sweat start to form on the back of your neck as your body heats.

"Feels… bigger," you manage to breath out, gripping at his biceps. He keeps working slow, methodical circles on that sweet spot as he fucks you a little bit rougher against the desk. The tension in your lower belly snaps.

"Mmm, can feel you squeezin' me," he grunts. "Come for me, Junebug."

He moves a hand to the back of your neck and adjusts your head so it's level with his. He looks into your eyes. "Come," he demands.

"Buck - I," is all you get out before your thighs start shaking around his hips and your orgasm takes hold.

"There you go," he encourages you, keeping your head in place to talk you through it. "Look at me when you come on my cock."

"God!" You exclaim, a groan escaping your throat.

"So wet," he gasps. "I'm so close."

You catch your breath and make him look at you this time by tugging gently on his hair. "Don't pull out," you whisper.

"Sorry?" He whines like he didn't fully hear you.

"I wanna feel you, Buck. Please."

His mouth collides with yours, tongues dancing together as he whimpers, spilling into you. You both stay where you are, breathing in tandem, coming down from your highs. After a half minute or so, he shifts his hips to pull out with a hiss. He stands back and admires his handiwork with a blush and grin. "She looks real pretty all full of me."

"You have such a mouth on you," you reply with a giggle. "But I love it."

"I love you," he blurts out again. "I-"

He looks nervous all of a sudden, then moves to you to pull down your dress. "I'll clean you up inside, but Junebug… I gotta ask you somethin' first."

"What?"

He buckles his belt quickly, takes one more glance at you like he's never loved anyone more, and kneels on the hay-laden ground.

"Will you marry me?"

"Bucky-" you start as your heart starts beating wildly in your chest.

"I have a ring, I swear," he says, eyes widening in panic.

You hop down from the desk and walk to him, kneeling in the dirt as tears fill your eyes.

"It's inside, I'm sorry, I-" he panics.

"Bucky, yes," you say, putting your hands on each of his cheeks in an attempt to calm him.

"Wait, what?" His eyes snap to yours.

"Yes, I'll marry you."

"Oh, thank God," he sighs and picks you up. "I had this whole night planned, and I don't know, I just had to ask you right now. I love you so much. I love Henry. I love our little life that we've built from the ashes. I can't imagine anyone but you guys as my forever."

"Bucky, I love you so much. I want this forever with you too," you answer.

"Wait, is this why you had me get a manicure today?" You ask through a giggle, admiring your shiny nails.

"Well yeah," he admits sheepishly. "I figured you'd want them nice for pictures."

"You're so thoughtful."

"Oh, and I already asked Henry while we were mendin' that fence earlier. He said, and I quote, "I don't know why you're askin' me for Mama's hand when you already hold it all the time anyway."

You choke up at that. Right before you walk back into the house together, a junebug lands on your sleeve and you know that one more very important person is sending their blessing down from above. Bucky notices too.

"Thank you," he says, looking up into the bright blue sky. "I'll take care of both of them. Forever."

Officially The End

he just couldn’t help but smile. he’d never imagined mornings like this. definitely not after everything he’d gone through.

but here she was, her soft hair sticking up in six different directions, her lips parted in the deepest sleep, and you, still under the blanket, your face turned toward her.

he’d never seen anything so beautiful in his life. the two of you, his whole world.

a rustle beside him made his eyes dart back down. she shifted, her small nose scrunching before her lashes fluttered against her cheeks.

and there it was— that tiny hiccup of breath she always made right before waking, like her dreams were reluctantly letting her go.

he saw it happening in real time, the stirring that always came a minute before the real waking. he moved quickly, sliding his arm under her tiny body before she could fully rouse and wake you too.

she was warm, heavy in the way only sleeping children could be, as he gathered her into his chest.

she smelled like baby shampoo and the faint sweetness of last night’s strawberries, and for a second he just held her there, face buried in her hair, breathing her in like she was the only clean thing left in the world.

“dada,” she was barely audible, the word thick with sleep. her first word of the day, which had also been the first word of her life.

“shh,” he whispered against her hair, pressing a kiss there. “mama’s still sleeping, baby. let’s let her rest, hmm?”

she gave a soft hum, head dropping against his shoulder, and he carried her out of the room with the utmost care.

her weight always surprised him. how could someone so small feel like the heaviest thing he has evercarried?

heavier than steve after a mission gone south, heavier than the shield when it wasn’t his to carry, heavier than all the ghosts he still woke up swinging at some nights.

it just surprised him sometimes that he gets to have her as his daughter.

in the bathroom, she blinked awake more fully, eyes squinting up at the harsh light. he set her on the step stool that had been wedged under the sink just for her and reached for her tiny toothbrush. the pink one she’d picked it out herself.

he crouched down to her level, knees popping like an old man’s, and watched her tongue poke out in concentration.

“alright, c’mon,” he coaxed, handing it to her. “little circles, just like we practiced.”

her small hand wrapped clumsily around the handle, and she shoved it into her mouth without much ceremony.

he watched with amused patience as she wiggled the brush, half-hearted at best.

she was mostly chewing on it, if he was being honest. but fine, it was close enough for him.

“that’s good. keep going,” he encouraged. “gotta make those teeth shine. show me.. aah.. big smile.”

she pulled the toothbrush out and beamed at him, foam dripping from her lip. her two front teeth had a tiny gap he was secretly obsessed with. he was going to be devastated when they falll out.

bucky chuckled. “that’s my girl. alright, back in, finish it up.”

it took a little more coaxing from him, but eventually she spit into the sink with dramatic effort, missing the drain entirely.

he sighed but also laughed, wiping her mouth with a tissue. but she just giggled, like she was proud of herself. she had your laugh, the same bright and unapologetic laugh, the kind that started in her belly and burst out like she couldn’t contain it. every time he heard it he felt like he’d won something.

by the time they made it to the kitchen, she was more awake, clinging to his arm with one small hand. he set her on the counter, right where he could see her, and tied an apron around his waist.

“you hungry?” he was now pulling pans from the cabinet.

“mhm.” she nodded keenly.

“what are we making?” he asked, like she had a choice in the matter. he’d already pulled eggs from the fridge.

“cake.” just cake, of course.

bucky grinned, cracking an egg into the pan. “cake, huh? first thing in the morning?”

she nodded like it was obvious, as if he was the dumb one for even asking clarification. “yeah.” her little voice carried so much certainty, as though she didn’t see the flaw in her logic at all.

he tapped the spoon against the edge of the bowl, glancing over at her. “you gonna tell mama we ate cake for breakfast?”

her brow furrowed, like she was weighing it out. then, she shook her head solemnly, “secret.”

she even put a sticky finger to her lips, shushing him with all the gravity of a toddler who definitely planned to sell him out the second you walked in.

he bit back a laugh. “good. it’s our secret.”

he would last approximately thirty seconds before he’d tell you himself.

he handed her a slice of apple while the eggs cooked, watching her gnaw on it with dedication. she chewed for a long while before declaring, “it’s crunchy.”

“mm, it is. that’s how you know it’s fresh.”

she chewed and swallowed, then held the rest of the slice out toward him. “wanna bite?”

his heart swelled, and he just leaned forward to take a small bite from her hand. she giggled when the juice dribbled down his chin. he let it stay there longer than necessary, just to hear her laugh again.

her laugh is always always worth it.

“daddy, you’re messy.”

“yeah, yeah,” he muttered, wiping it with the back of his hand, though his lips were curved the entire time.

while he moved around the kitchen, flipping eggs and pulling toast from the toaster, she narrated in broken little sentences, her own brand of little commentary.

“hot.” she pointed at the stove.

“very hot. that’s why you don’t touch it.”

she nodded seriously, like she was filing it away in her little head. “i won’t touch.”

“that’s right.”

she kicked her little feet where they dangled from the counter. “i can help?”

“you’re already helping,” he told her. “keeping me company.”

truth was, he needed her there. needed the running commentary and the sticky fingers and the way she looked at him like he hung the moon even when he burned the toast.

when the food was nearly done, she lifted her head suddenly, her little eyes narrowing toward the doorway. her hand smacked against his arm, urgency behind it. “mama.”

bucky turned his head, frown forming. “mama’s sleeping, baby. we’ll wake her up when we—”

“no no, dada,” she insisted, still pointing. “mama.”

her radar was uncanny. she could sense you from three rooms away like a bloodhound with separation anxiety.

and there you were, standing in the doorway. you leaned against the frame, watching the two of them.

your hair was a disaster, one of bucky’s old army t-shirts hanging off your shoulder, and you were still half-asleep, but god, you were beautiful. he forgot how to breathe for a second, like he did every morning.

you leaned there drinking it in, afraid to move and shatter whatever fragile magic let you witness them like this—bucky soft and laughing, your baby glowing like she’d swallowed the sun, the two of them like some small world you’d stumbled into instead of built yourself.

bucky’s gaze softened at the sight of you. he hadn’t realized how badly he wanted you there until he saw you. his morning already felt full, but with you standing there it became whole.

he needed to remember this exact moment. the light, the noise, the smell of slightly burnt toast. but above all, you two.

he still woke up some mornings convinced it had all been a dream. that he’d open his eyes and be back in a cryo chamber or a hydra cell or worse—alone. then he’d feel tiny hands smacking his face demanding “up, daddy, upppy” and know it was real.

“hey,” your voice brought him back, it was still rough from sleep, but warm with affection.

your little girl nearly toppled off the counter in her rush to point harder, bouncing where she sat. “mama! mama!”

you laughed, crossing the room. “i see you, baby.”

bucky turned back to the stove briefly, trying to disguise the tug in his chest. but he couldn’t resist. when you reached them, he bent just slightly, brushing his hand over your back in greeting before focusing on the eggs again.

“she spotted you first,” he murmured. “didn’t even give me a chance.”

“well, you were occupied,” you kissed the top of your daughter’s head before reaching out to stroke her cheek. “good morning, sweetie.”

your babygirl leaned into your touch, “mama sleeps long.”

“yeah? did daddy wake you early?”

bucky smirked without looking up. “volunteered herself. said we needed cake for breakfast.”

you raised a brow, shooting him a look. “cake?”

“shh,” he tossed her a wink that made her giggle all over again. “that was supposed to be a secret.” like he didn’t just out it himself.

you settled against the counter beside your daughter, and leaned your hip against the cabinet, and just watched. the way his shoulders moved under the thin t-shirt, the careful way he flipped the eggs so they wouldn’t break, the way he kept one eye on your daughter at all times like she might vanish if he blinked.

there was something almost unbearably domestic about the sight of him moving through the kitchen, his voice gentle as he coaxed another bite of fruit between her tiny fingers.

it was a soft sort of ache, the kind you could live in forever. it made you reach across and brush his arm as he passed you the plate, a silent thanks.

your fingers lingered on the warm skin of his forearm, tracing the raised scars you knew by heart. he leaned into the touch without thinking, the way he always did now—like your hands were the only ones allowed to map the damage.

“go on,” he told your daughter, lifting her down from the counter carefully. “sit with mama. breakfast’s ready.”

she scampered off, clambering onto a chair with difficulty before tugging at your hand until you too sat beside her.

then without preamble, she climbed into your lap instead of her own chair, sticky fingers immediately in your hair, narrating the entire morning like you hadn’t just witnessed most of it.

bucky set the plates down, sliding into the chair across from you.

“toast is crunchy,” she announced, holding it up like evidence. lately everything has been crunchy to her. she’d started ranking foods by crunchiness. apples were a ten. bananas were “zero crunchy, very yuck.”

“best kind of toast,” bucky replied.

he was eating his own toast plain because she likes hers with extra butter. he didn’t even complain. just watched her with that soft look that made you want to climb across the table and kiss him stupid.

bucky leaned back eventually, stretching his legs under the table so they brushed against yours. his eyes flicked from you to your daughter, lingering in a way that made your chest squeeze.

you felt the weight in his gaze. the way he looked at her, then at you, like he was still waiting for someone to snatch it all away. you wanted to tell him it was safe now, that he didn’t have to keep bracing for loss, but the words got caught in your throat. instead you pressed your foot against his under the table, hoping he’d feel it and understand.

he would.

his hand found your knee under the table, thumb tracing absent circles through your pajama pants. a silent conversation in touches

he still didn’t believe it some days. still waited for the other shoe to drop, for someone to come take it all away. but then your daughter would smear jam on his metal fingers and demand he “make it go brrr” like a robot, and you’d laugh with your mouth full of coffee, and he’d think—maybe this time the universe would let him keep something good.

this was everything he’d ever wanted. and he gets to have it forever.

The only good thing about a mission was that it ended. And when it ended, Bucky can come home to you.

The door clicked behind him. He exhaled properly, maybe for the first time in three days, and let the quiet settle over him. He shed his jacket, his boots, and followed the strip of warm light under the bedroom door without thinking. Muscle memory by now, this particular walk. You were on your stomach, one leg bent, cheek soft against the pillow, mouth barely open the way it only went when you were properly under. Completely gone. One hand curled slack beside a book lying pages-down on the bed, spine cracked, the way books shouldn't be left if you cared about them. 

He'd seen this exact scene before — you falling asleep mid-read, the lamp still on — and his move was always the same: turn the light off, climb in behind you, sleep for ten hours. He almost did. His hand reached for the book to set it aside when his eyes caught the open page. He sat down slowly on the edge of the mattress because his legs stopped cooperating. The prose wasn't fancy. It didn't need to be, it was blunt about what it was describing. A man with both hands pressed to his girl's lower belly while he worked himself deep, telling her she was going to take every drop, that he wasn't stopping until he'd filled her up past overflowing. That's it, pretty girl, take my cum, let me breed this tight little cunt till it takes, want you so full of me you can't think, wanna see your belly swollen with my babies. The woman in the story was begging for it, wet and completely broken, while he kept his palm flat over her stomach. 

Bucky's hand tightened around the spine until the cover bent. He turned the page and found a star drawn in pencil in the margin. Your handwriting. Neat and small, beside the passage where the man pulled back just enough to watch his cum leak from her before pressing it back inside — not wasting a drop, gorgeous, every bit of it stays right here where it belongs. A star. He sat with that for a moment. Two moments. Maybe a full minute of just sitting there with the lamp warm on his hands and your soft breathing behind him. He knew this want. He'd been sitting on it for months — the need to just stay, every time he was buried inside you and the pull of it got so loud it took actual effort to talk himself back. The responsible thing. The right thing. Pull out. Don't push it. Don't put that on her. And then watching the mess of it on your skin and thinking about what it would mean to not. To keep it all where it was supposed to go. How many showers he'd stood in thinking about your belly. What you'd look like. How soft you'd go. How it would feel to press his palm there and know. To him, this wasn’t some random story anymore. Apparently his girl has been falling asleep to fantasies of getting claimed and filled until she carried his baby, the same urges he’d been swallowing down every time he pulled out and spilled across your skin instead, not wanting to push too far and scare away that sweet softness you always seem to give him.

He turned another page. Found another star, this one beside the line where the man cradled his girl's tits as he asked about nursing from her.  He closed the book and looked at you. All the love he felt towards you multiplied with the awakened hunger, hands itching to wake you right then, to show you how perfectly those pages matched the way he wanted to ruin you for anyone else. He stood up, stripped down. Shirt, pants, everything. He was not getting into bed in three-day mission clothes, even if his brain was only half working. 

He looked down at himself. Already half-hard, his cock thick against his thigh, wet at the tip just from reading. He'd been on missions that didn't break him this fast. He wrapped his hand around himself slowly, hissed at his own slickness smearing his palm and stroked just to get a handle on it.  He put his hand on your hip. "Baby." He shook you gently. "Wake up for me." The sound you made was small and personally offended by the concept of consciousness. You burrowed deeper. "Baby." He rubbed your hip. "Open your eyes." Slowly, you did, blinking like a deer caught, as you found him in the warm lamplight and your face just opened. All of it, the sleep-blur gone in a second, replaced by that warmth, that automatic reaching, your arms coming up before you'd even finished registering what you were looking at. Like some part of you knew it was him before your eyes did, and your whole body moved toward him on instinct. He gathered you in. He would never in his life stop being leveled by this, the way you reached for him like that, all open and unguarded, not one defensive thing in you when you saw him. He tucked his face into your hair and breathed. "You're home," you mumbled against his neck. No matter what, the images from the book spilled over, now all he saw was you and him, those dirty promises echoing. "I'm home." His lips found your temple. "Came home and found you sleeping like you haven't got a single bad thought in your pretty head." He felt your breath catching, your fingers going still in his shirt. "Left your book right out here for me." "It's just a book." You spoke into his skin, pressing closer into him, fingers digging into his shoulders with a restless energy, soft sounds vibrating through you that only made him harder "Pages worn soft from reading it." "Bucky —" "Little pencil stars in the margins." He pulled back just enough to look at your face. The flush was already climbing your throat, your eyes sliding sideways from his. He could see you trying to determine exactly how much he'd read. "My sweet girl." He shook his head slowly, as he watched you bite your lip. "Sleeping like an angel… with her breeding kink book on the nightstand." A mortified sound left you as you tried to press back into his chest. He let you, his mouth curving, his arms pulling you in. "Don't," you said, muffled by him. "I'm not doing anything." "You're laughing at me." "I'm not laughing." He really was, a little. He pressed his lips to your hair to hide it. "I would never." He rubbed your back, felt you slowly start to relax against him. "I've been pulling out," he said, into your hair. "This whole time." You went completely still. "Every single time," he continued. "Being responsible. Doing right by you. While you've been in here starring passages about being filled up and bred." He felt your fingers curl in his shirt. "I've been pulling out for nothin', baby." A long pause where you just nuzzled again and breathed. Then very quietly your voice came. "I didn't think you'd want —" "I think about it every time I'm inside you." He said it simply. Just the plain truth of it sitting between you. "Just — thought it would scare you. Thought I'd push you away." He pressed his lips to your forehead. 

He continued when you didn't reply, "so here we both were, keeping our mouths shut like absolute idiots." You looked up at him with an expression he could never quite name, somewhere between wanting and completely undone. He kissed you before either of you could ruin the moment with more words. Slow and thorough, hands cupping your face. You made a soft sound against his mouth that had always gone straight through him. Clothes came off fast, what little you had on was gone, and he was already bare. He settled between your thighs and looked at you properly. Your cunt was weeping before he'd even touched you. Slick and swollen, soaking the sheets, and he dragged two fingers through your folds and brought them to his mouth while holding your gaze the entire time. "You were dreamin' about it." He could still taste you on his tongue. "Weren't you? Dreaming about me filling up this tight little pussy." A broken whimper came as you turned your face into the pillow. "Baby." He tapped your thigh gently. "Look at me." Reluctantly, you met his eyes, warmth spreading to your ears. He circled your entrance without pushing in, felt you clench around nothing, as he listened to the sound it pulled out of you. "Don't get shy now, sweetheart. Tell me what you want." "Please —" "Please what baby?" "Fill me up. Please, Bucky, please just fill me up, I need it —" Your hand raised to hide your face, which he softly pulled away.  Bucky pushed in slowly. Your nails found his biceps before he was halfway there, digging crescents into the thick muscle. He worked into your dripping cunt inch by inch, feeling every clench and flutter, the wet sounds of it loud in the quiet room. 

When he got himself fully seated, he held there, both of you just breathing each other in. His palm pressed flat to your lower belly. "Feel that?" He pressed down gently and watched your eyes go soft. "That's me, baby. Right here." He pressed a little firmer and your breath punched out. "That's where it's staying. Every load, from now on." He pulled back slowly and drove in, as he watched your mouth fall open. "Never pulling out. Not wasting a drop. Gonna fill this pretty pussy up and keep her that way." "Bucky —"  "I know, baby." He started moving, finding a rhythm. "I know. We've been idiots." You came apart under his hands easily, wound up and desperate, scratching at his back, your thighs locking around his waist. Your cunt was soaking him, drooling around his cock with every thrust, the slick sounds of it filling the room. "I know you love swallowing." You made a soft, small sound when he said that. "And I love watching you do it. Love seeing my cum on your stomach, on your tits." He palmed your breast, taking your nipple between his thumb and pointer finger, feeling you jolt under him. He did it slower the second time, watching your face. "But that's done. From now on every single load goes right here." He ground his palm down over your lower belly. "Load after load, until you're round with my babies and everyone can see what we've been doing." "Yes — please —" "These tits." He thumbed your nipple again and your back bowed off the mattress. He felt you gush around him. "They're gonna fill up, you know that? Get so heavy and full." He kept his palm there, felt your pulse jumping under your skin. "Gonna let me drink from them." His thumb dragged slowly across your nipple again and your whole body shuddered in a shock. "Aren't you?" A gasp spilled from your lips, barely a sound. "Aren't you, baby?" "Yes," you gasped. "Yes, god, yes, anything you want —" "Atta girl." He sucked a mark into your throat and felt your cunt clench and flood around him, soaking him straight down his thighs. He kept his palm on your belly. Couldn't stop touching you there, the soft warm plane of it, the thought of it round and full of him. "Gonna put a baby right here." He spread his fingers wide. "Take such good care of you. You and our baby both, I promise you that." "More — please — Bucky—" He hooked your knee higher and drove in harder, making you cry and scratch at his skin.  His metal hand reached up, curving gently under the back of your neck and tilted you forward. "Look how good you're taking me." You looked down. He watched your face while you watched his cock move in and out of your puffy, soaked cunt, the slick mess of you coating every inch of him. Your thighs were dark and wet, your pussy drooling around each thrust and clinging to him when he drew back. He could see the drag and pull of it from here. Watch the way your cunt stretched open and tried to keep him every time he moved. "Look at her," he marveled. "See how she takes me? Sucking me in like she's been starving." He drove in to the hilt and held himself there, watching your head drop back. "Did I starve her? Hm?"

"Bucky —"

"Tell me." He rocked into you, slow enough to be punishing. "Did I keep her empty when she wanted to be full?"

You whined in response, clinging to his arm. He pulled back slowly, and pushed back in. "That's done, babygirl." Your sounds had gone to pieces, his name breaking apart in your mouth. He worked you harder and felt you winding up, getting impossibly tight around him. "You'd make such a good momma." The words fell out of him without planning. He pressed his face into the curve of your neck. "Gonna make this belly round and take care of you through every bit of it. Every part. I mean that. You want that, sweet girl?" The headboard rattled at his pace, as you openly scratched at him harder, head lolling to one side, soft mewling sounds threading through each exhale.

"Say it baby. Come on, sweetheart."

"Please — I'm so close —"

"I know, baby… I know. Say it first."

"Make me a mommy —" It tore out of you. "Please, Bucky, please — make me a mommy—" That pushed him to the edge, and he came, hard and sudden, hips slamming forward and holding while his cock pulsed in long thick ropes inside you. You came apart with him, cunt clenching in tight rippling waves, whole body shaking, a broken sob of his name leaving your mouth. He felt you your pussy milking every last drop, as he kept grinding in, palm pressed hard to your lower belly, like if he just kept his hand there "Take it — take all of it — every drop, baby —" He was still rocking into you in slow, sloppy thrusts when he felt himself going soft, working the last of it out. You were limp and shaking underneath him, hands slack in his hair. He pressed his face to your neck and breathed until he could. He lay there with his softening cock still inside you, palm warm over your belly. You nuzzled your face against his jaw. The room smelled like sex. He pressed his lips to your cheekbone, your temple, the side of your mouth, anywhere he could reach. Told you between each one how good you were, how beautiful you'd be, how he'd meant every word. When he finally slipped free, it was reluctant, genuinely, physically reluctant, a resistance he had to push against. As he looked down, slow, thick stream of his cum leaked from your swollen, puffy cunt, running down your inner thighs. He pressed two fingers gently at your entrance before he'd even made a decision about it. Your whole body twitched. "Bucky." "Shh." He pushed it back inside, slow but thorough, and pressed his fingers there when he was done. Just held it there. Keeping the warmth of you against his palm, plugging you, not letting any more of it go. "I know what you're doing," you said. "I know you do." He didn't move his hand though. A small, helpless sound slipped out of you. You pressed closer into his chest, as he brought his other hand over your shoulders to rest on your lower belly. Both of them just stayed there — one cupping you from below, one warm and flat on your stomach. He nuzzled into your hair. Pressed his lips to your forehead. He's wanted this for so long, and he's going to be good at this no matter what. "You're not moving your hands," you said eventually, voice drowsy, sated, barely there. "No," he said. "Either one." "No." You made a sound that was too tired to be an objection and pressed your face into his chest. His thumb drew a slow circle on your belly and didn't move. 

This is not your scene. The chandelier must have cost a fortune just to hang there and look pretty. You know this because you spent the better part of your first ten minutes staring up at it with your mouth slightly open, trying to calculate how many months of your salary it would take to even come close. You stopped at four years because it was getting depressing. Sarah had promised you open bar and good food. She had failed to mention that you’d feel like a fraud the entire time. “You look fine,” Sarah had said this evening, watching you smooth down the front of your dress in the mirror of her condo. You had gone back and forth for longer than you’d like to admit. The dress is nice. It’s the kind of nice where you’d wear it to a birthday dinner, maybe a date somewhere with cloth napkins. It is not, by any stretch, gala nice. The other women in this room are in floor-length gowns with jewellery that probably has names, and here you are in a midi dress off a sale rack. “You’re a guest of a congressman’s daughter,” She’d reminded you, fixing her own earring. “Nobody’s gonna care.” Nobody might care, but you sure do notice. There’s an ease to the way these people move around each other. There’s air kissing, the laughing at things that aren’t funny, the way they hold their champagne glasses by the stem like it’s second nature. You hold yours like you’re scared of dropping it, which you are, because you’re fairly certain the glasses alone are worth more than your monthly metro card. Still. Free champagne. That part, at least, Sarah had been right about. You’ve had two glasses and are working steadily on your third, which is making the whole scene considerably more bearable. The food is also ungodly good. You had swiped four of the little crab toast thingies off a passing tray and felt zero shame about it. You were coming off a forty-eight hour shift two days ago. You deserved the crab toasts. Sarah, for her part, has completely abandoned you. Her father is a congressman from Virginia and this is his world, so she knows everyone in a twenty foot radius of wherever she stands. It hadn’t taken long before she was absorbed into a circle of people you didn’t know.

She’d shot you an apologetic look over someone’s shoulder, and you’d waved her off.

You’re fine. You’re a grown adult. You can stand by the tall cocktail table near the windows and people-watch by yourself like a normal person.

The problem with people-watching, as it turns out, is that occasionally the people watch back.

He’s been drifting in your periphery for a few minutes now. You clocked him when he walked in, because he’s the kind of man you can’t not clock when he walks into a room.

Easy forties, maybe pushing further than that, with dark hair and the kind of jaw that belongs on something carved out of stone. He’s in a suit that fits him the way suits are supposed to fit, which is to say, perfectly. There’s a slight silver threading through the dark at his temples. His left arm is gloved, metal just barely visible at the cuff. You know who he is, vaguely. Congressman James Barnes. Before that, the Winter Soldier. You’ve seen him on the news twice and found him credible both times, which is not something you say lightly. Not that this is relevant. You’re just noting that he’s across the room. That’s it. Just noting.

What is relevant, however, is the man currently sidling up next to you, because the man currently sidling up next to you has had considerably more of the open bar than you have, and he smells like it. “Lovely evening,” he says, in the way that people say things when they are not actually talking about the evening. You give him the polite smile. The one that says I see you, and I’m too tired to be rude. “It is.” “You here with anyone?” “My friend,” you answer, with a pointed glance across the room in Sarah’s general direction. “She’s just over there.” He follows your gaze, disinterested, and then looks back at you. He introduces himself as something, and you honestly don’t catch it because your brain has already filed him under do not engage. He’s maybe mid-fifties, the kind of man who introduces himself at parties by his job title, and his eyes haven’t quite been at eye level this whole conversation. “What do you do?” “I’m in medicine,” you say, keeping it deliberately vague. In your experience, the vague answer is the one that ends conversations faster. It does not, in this case, end the conversation. In fact, it seems to invite more of it. His hand lands on the cocktail table next to yours, he leans in like you’d asked him to, and the smell gets considerably worse. “Beautiful and smart,” he says. “That’s dangerous.” Gag.

“Mm,” you say, which is not agreement, but which he takes as agreement. His shoulder shifts incrementally closer to yours, and your brain is already doing the math. How do you extract yourself from this without making a scene, because making a scene at a congressman’s fundraiser gala, at which you are a guest of a congressman’s daughter, feels inadvisable at best and catastrophic at worst. You can’t exactly do what you’d do at a regular bar, which would be to simply say not interested and walk away, because this is not a regular bar and these are not regular people and you’re suddenly very aware that the champagne glass you’re holding probably costs two hundred dollars. The man leans in further. “Can I get you a drink?” “I have one,” you say, lifting your glass, which is clearly almost empty, which he also clearly notices. “Let me get you another, then.” And that is when, for the second time tonight, you make eye contact with Congressman Barnes. He’s a little closer now, not by much though. He’s watching the scene with an expression that you can’t quite place. It’s not pity, exactly. Not amusement either. It’s more like someone who has correctly identified a problem and is turning over how to address it. You do the only thing that seems sane to you in this moment. You hold his gaze, and your expression says, if you speak even one word of fluent English right now I will owe you forever. He receives it. You can tell by the slight shift in his posture, the barely perceptible nod. Then he’s making his way over, like he’s just wandering and it happens to be in your direction. “Sorry,” he says, stopping at your side. Not to the drunk man. To you. Like he’s the one who’s late. “Got caught up.”

His voice is … nice. A lot different from TV. The drunk man recalibrates visibly. He looks at Congressman Barnes, recognises him the same way you did. There’s that small double-take of oh, him, and suddenly the lean is gone, the arm is pulled back, the proximity becomes appropriate. “Congressman,” the man says, in a completely different register than the one he’d been using on you. “Didn’t realize you two—” “Good to see you.” Congressman Barnes’ voice is perfectly pleasant, perfectly even. He extends his hand and the drunk man shakes it, quietly excuses himself to the bar, which is where he should have stayed to begin with. “Thank you,” you say, once he’s out of earshot. “I really didn’t want to make a thing of it.” “I could tell.” His eyes are blue. A shade darker than you’d expected, up close. “He giving you trouble for long?” “Long enough.” You take a sip of your champagne to have something to do with your hands. “I’m not really sure of the etiquette for telling a middle-aged man to leave you alone at a formal event.” “Usually just telling him works.” The corner of his mouth pulls up, barely. “But I get it.” He reaches past you for the appetizer that a passing server is offering, takes one of the small bruschetta thingies, and doesn’t immediately move away.

You notice that. He doesn’t immediately move away. “You’re Sarah’s friend,” he says. It’s not really a question. “Jackson’s daughter.” “Yeah.” You blink. “How’d you—” “He mentioned his daughter was bringing someone tonight.” A small lift of a shoulder. “I know Richard well. He’s a good man.” “He is,” you agree, which is true, having met Sarah’s father a grand total of three times. “She didn’t warn me that good meant—” you gesture vaguely at the chandelier, the room, the twelve-piece orchestra, “—all this.” His face looks like he found that funny, but he also looks like he doesn’t want to give you the satisfaction. “First time at one of these?” “That obvious?” “Little bit. He doesn’t say it unkindly. “You’ve been staring at the chandelier for the most part.” Your face does something embarrassing. “I was doing math.” “Math.” “About how long it would take me to afford it. On my salary.” You stop yourself, because that is possibly the most un-gala thing you could have said, and he is a congressman, and you are already wearing the wrong dress. “Which — never mind. I’m a resident. I don’t have the money for light fixtures.” He does laugh at that, quietly, more of an exhale than a real laugh, but it counts. “What kind of medicine?”

“Emergency.” You set your now-empty glass down on the nearest surface. “I’m in my third year.” “Long hours.” “Long doesn’t really cover it.” You glance sideways at him. Up, technically, because he has several inches on you and you’re in heels. “But I’m not going to complain at a gala. It seems rude.” “You can complain… I don’t care.” Something about the way he says it is disarming, and you weren’t expecting that. You’d expected… you’re not entirely sure what you’d expected. Polished, maybe. The kind of conversation that sounds like a conversation but is really just two people exchanging pleasantries until someone finds a more useful person to talk to. That’s what galas are, as far as you can tell. This doesn’t feel like that. “How long have you been doing this? The congressman thing.” “Six momths.” He picks up a glass from a passing tray. Water, not champagne. You notice that too. “Why?” “I saw a clip of you once. About pharmaceutical pricing.” You pause, aware that this is maybe strange to bring up. “You didn’t let him deflect.” He looks at you for a moment, and you can’t quite tell what he’s thinking. His face is not an easy read. “Most people don’t bring that up.”

“Most people here probably benefit from him deflecting.” Another one of those almost-laughs. You’re starting to like those unreasonably. “Fair.” He turns slightly toward you, weight shifting, and it’s the kind of body language that says I’m not going anywhere yet, which you are reading, as positive. Possibly incorrectly. “What made you go into emergency medicine?” “I like knowing the answer fast.” It is the honest version. “Other specialties… you wait for labs, wait for imaging, wait for rounds. Emergency, you have to think right now, decide right now. I like that. Also I’m bad at small talk, so at least in the ER nobody expects it from me.” “You’re not bad at it.” “I’ve been talking about chandeliers and my salary.” “I liked it,” he says, like that settles it, and the frankness of it catches you off guard enough that you don’t have an immediate response, which almost never happens to you. You tuck a strand of hair behind your ear. The orchestra has transitioned to something slightly livelier and a few couples have migrated toward the cleared floor at the center of the room. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“How old are you?” The words come out before you can dress them up more politely, you wince slightly at the delivery. You’re three champagnes deep and apparently that’s what three champagnes does.

He doesn’t look thrown by it. If anything, he looks like he’s deciding how to answer, which is its own answer. “Forty-four or biologically a hundred and eight.”

You do the math without meaning to. The math is not small. “Right.”

“How old are you? Just so we’re both working with the same information.”

“Twenty-eight.”

He doesn’t look away from you. “So… age change anything for you?” His voice is quiet enough that it doesn’t carry anywhere.

Oh. We are going there straight. Okay. The warmth that works its way up your neck is something, that even the air conditioning can’t seem to help with. You look down at your empty glass and think about how Sarah is absolutely going to scream when you tell her about this tomorrow. “That’s—” you start. And then Sarah materializes at your elbow like she has a sixth sense for inconvenient timing, slightly flushed and smelling like champagne and grabbing your arm with both hands. “There you are! My dad wants to say hi, he knows you’re here—” She clocks Congressman Barnes. Her eyes go very wide and then very carefully neutral, which is the least neutral expression you’ve ever seen on a human face. “Congressman Barnes, hi, I’m so sorry to interrupt—” “You’re not,” he says easily, and he means it, you can tell, which is somehow worse than if he were being polite. He looks at you. “It was good talking to you.” “Yeah.” Your voice comes out smaller than you want it to. “It was.” He holds eye contact for exactly one beat longer. And then he nods, and turns, and Sarah is already dragging you in the opposite direction with her grip iron-tight on your wrist. “Oh my god,” she hisses, the second there’s enough ambient noise to cover it. “Oh my God—” “It was just talking.” “It was not just talking—” “Sarah—”

“He’s so hot,” she says, almost mournful. “He’s so hot and he was talking to only you for like twenty minutes and I need you to know that Bucky Barnes does not do that—” “Bucky,” you say, and your stomach does a small stupid thing. “His name is Bucky?” She stares at you. “Please tell me you got his number.”

You didn’t. You are, the longer you stand here being dragged toward Sarah’s father, increasingly annoyed about that.

You find him again by accident. That’s the part you’ll tell Sarah later. That it was an accident and she will not believe you, and she will be partially right not to.

Because when you excused yourself from the conversation with Sarah’s father after approximately nine minutes, you were not not looking for Congressman Barnes. You were getting another drink. Those are two different things that happened to involve the same direction.

The bar is less crowded, so there’s an actual open stretch of marble counter to stand at. You order a club soda because your limit is three champagnes and you reached it. You’re stirring it with the little cocktail straw and staring at the ice like it did something to you when someone stops next to you. Not just anyone. You know before you look, from the proximity, from the particular way the air in the vicinity shifts. “Club soda,” Bucky says, nodding at your glass. “Smart.” “I’m a doctor… In theory.” “In theory?” “I mean residency.” You glance up at him. He’s looking straight ahead at the bar, not at you, and yet every part of you is acutely aware of him. “I know my limits.” “Three glasses?” He sounds like he already knows. “How’d you— Were you watching me?” He doesn’t answer immediately. He signals the bartender for something and then he turns his head to look at you. The look on his face is the least congressman-like look you’ve seen from him all evening. It’s quieter than that. More direct. “Yeah… I was.”

The bartender sets his glass down. You notice that it’s water again.

But Bucky doesn’t reach for it yet. He’s still looking at you. You have been through four years of medical school and almost three years of residency, which means you have stood in front of attendings who looked at you like you were a problem they needed to solve, and you did not flinch. You are flinching a little now. Just a little. “You didn’t come find me,” you try to keep your voice even. “You were with Richard.” “For like eight minutes.” Something moves across his face. Not quite a smile but in the neighborhood. “Were you counting?” “I’m not answering that.” He reaches for his water, finally, and takes a drink. You watch his jaw because you’re only human. There’s a scar that runs just beneath his jaw. You have the reflexive urge to ask how he got it, which is the emergency medicine in you, and also probably something else. “I thought about asking for your number,” he says, and he says it the same way he says everything, like he just decided to set the thing down in front of you and see what you do with it. “What stopped you?” He considers you for a moment. “Didn’t want to do it in front of Sarah. Felt like a thing that shouldn’t have an audience.” “That’s—” you press your lips together. “That’s actually reasonable.” “I have my moments.” The orchestra finishes something and starts something else, slower, and the lights in the ballroom dim imperceptibly.

You should go back. Sarah is probably wondering where you are. You have a club soda to finish and heels that are beginning to make their unhappiness known and a 6 AM shift on Wednesday that is always at the back of your mind. His hand finds the bar just next to yours. The same way the drunk man’s hand had, earlier. Except nothing about it feels the same. Not even close. “I have a suite upstairs… I stay here when I’m in the city for these.” A pause. “I’m not— that’s not—” “I know what you’re saying.” He looks at you. “Yeah?” “Yeah.” His pinky finger moves. Just barely. Just enough to press against the side of your hand, the lightest possible contact, and you feel it everywhere. “Tell me if I’m reading this wrong.”

You look down at where his hand is next to yours. You look back up at him. And then you do the most impulsive thing you have done since you signed a lease on an apartment you couldn’t afford because it had good light. “You’re not reading it wrong.” He walks slightly behind you toward the elevator, which is not nothing. It is discrete, and you appreciate that without saying so. His hand presses briefly to the small of your back as you reach the elevator, guiding you left. Even through the fabric of your dress, the warmth of his palm is enough to make your brain go briefly offline. The elevator ride is quiet. It’s the kind of quiet that’s loud. He’s not looking at you. He’s looking at the floor numbers. You’re doing the same. The back of his hand grazes yours and neither of you moves away, and by the sixth floor you have resigned yourself to the fact that you are going to be completely useless. The suite is significant. Of course. You take approximately two seconds to register that the entryway alone is bigger than your apartment’s living room before you stop looking at the suite. He closes the door. Turns around. And the way he looks at you when it’s just the two of you, without a ballroom background, is different. There’s nothing measured about his eyes right now. “Hi,” you say stupidly, because your brain has officially handed in its notice. “Hi.” And then he’s crossing the room and his hands are on your face and he’s kissing you. It is hungry in a way that makes your knees register a complaint.

Both of your hands come up to grip the lapels of his jacket just to have somewhere to put them. He pulls back just enough to breathe. His thumbs are at your jaw. “Okay?” he asks.

“Very,” you manage. He kisses you again, slower this time but no less certain, and his hands slide from your jaw to your waist. He walks you backward until your shoulders meet the wall. You make a soft sound against his mouth that you are immediately embarrassed by. “Don’t,” he says against your lips. “Don’t what?” “Do that thing where you get embarrassed.” He pulls back to look at you, properly. “Don’t.” You open your mouth and close it. He’s still in the full suit — jacket, tie, the whole shebang — and you are suddenly very, very aware of that.

His hands find the zipper at the back of your dress. Watching your face the whole time like he’s making absolutely sure. The zipper gives and you feel the fabric loosen across your back, cool air reaching your skin. “Arms up,” he says. You raise your arms and he lifts the dress over your head, and sets it on the chair behind him like it matters, like he’s thinking about the fact that it’s the only dress you brought. Something about that short, practical gesture does more to you than it should. And then he takes you in. It’s for a long moment. His eyes move over you and there’s not a single thing performative about how he looks at you. It’s not the look of someone who is trying to make you feel good, it’s the look of someone who genuinely cannot help himself. You are standing in front of a congressman in a four-hundred-dollar-a-night suite in a bralette from Target and underwear that does not match it, and you are acutely aware of this fact. “These don’t match.” Your face goes hot. “I wasn’t exactly planning this.” “No?” “I was planning on eating canapes and going home by ten.” Your voice comes out more defensive than you intend. “So no, I didn’t— I didn’t put on a matching set, I just—” “Hey.” He says it gently, and his hand comes up to tip your chin. “I’m not complaining.” “You literally just pointed it out—” “Because it’s cute.” His thumb traces your jaw. “Because you’re standing there looking like you can’t decide whether to be embarrassed or annoyed, and it’s—” something moves through his expression, “—it’s really cute is all. And I’m flattered” You stare at him. “You’re a congressman.” “I’m aware.” “You give floor speeches.” “Also aware.” “You can’t just… say things are cute.” “Sure I can.” He’s guiding you back toward the bed, and the backs of your knees hit the mattress and you sit down. He doesn’t follow you down. He just stands there, looks at you, still fully dressed, tie still knotted, and goes to his knees. Oh.

Oh. His hands slide up your calves, and he watches you watch him. You’re gripping the duvet with both hands because he hasn’t even done anything yet and you already feel like the floor dropped out. “You don’t have to—” you start. He looks up at you, and his eyes are very, very dark. “I want to.” His fingers find the waistband of your underwear and pulls them down your legs with an efficiency that should not be as attractive as it is. Then his hands are on your inner thighs, pushing them apart. He looks at you one more time like he’s checking in, which he clearly is.

“Good?” “Please,” you say, which answers nothing and everything. He lowers his head. The first press of his mouth to your cunt makes you bite down on your lip hard enough that you taste something. He takes his time with it. There’s nothing hurried here, nothing obligatory, he moves against you like he has absolutely nowhere else to be and no interest in being there anyway. His tongue finds the bundle of nerves at your center and stays there, slow and devastating, and you have to press the back of your hand to your mouth to keep the sound in. “Don’t,” he says, again, pulling back just enough. His breath is warm against you and it’s its own kind of torture. “I want to hear you.” “There are other rooms on this floor—” “Thick walls,” he says, and then he’s back at it. You stop thinking about the other rooms. He’s good at this in the way that makes you forget your own name temporarily. His hands are on your hips, keeping you from squirming away when it gets to be too much, which it does, quickly, because he has apparently decided to be completely merciless about this.

You have your fingers in his hair now. His perfectly styled hair, which you’re currently ruining, but do not care. And you are saying his name at a volume that would embarrass you under any other circumstances. “James—” you breathe, and then, when he does that specific thing with his tongue, laving at your entrance, “—God, Bucky, please—” He makes a sound against you that you feel everywhere. His fingers find the slick of you, and he looks up at you from where he is, which should be illegal, the visual of this is going to live in your brain for years. “This okay?” he murmurs.

“Yes, please, yes—”

He sinks two fingers into you slowly, and your head drops back. He works them against your walls while his mouth moves on your clit and you grip his hair tighter and he doesn’t tell you to let go.

The tension builds fast. Faster than you’d like, because you’d like this to never stop. When it breaks it breaks completely, your whole body pulls tight and then releases, the sound you make is completely beyond your control. He works you through it. Every last second of it. His fingers slow but don’t stop, his mouth gentles but stays, until you’re twitching away from the sensitivity and pressing weakly at his shoulder, and only then does he pull back. He stands, and he looks… composed, almost, except for the flush at the collar of his very nice shirt, the slick in his beard and the way his hair is thoroughly destroyed.

He’s still in the full suit. The tie is still knotted. You are lying on his hotel bed having just come completely apart and he looks like he’s about to chair a subcommittee meeting. “That’s unfair,” you say to the ceiling.

“What is?”

“You.” You lift your head to look at him. “The suit. All of that.” Chuckling, he reaches up and loosens the tie, pulls it over his head, starts on the buttons of his shirt. You push yourself up to sitting, because if he’s going to do that, you are watching.

He shrugs out of the shirt and underneath is a white undershirt, and underneath the undershirt — well. You were not unprepared for the shoulders. You were unprepared for everything else. “Hi,” you say again. He should be tired of hearing it. He isn’t. He almost smiles. He reaches into the inside pocket of his jacket, and comes up with his wallet, and from his wallet— “You just… carry that?” you ask. “I was hoping,” he says.

Something about the admission makes your chest do a complicated thing. You reach for him as he comes down onto the bed, pulling him in. He braces his forearm by your head and kisses you and you can taste yourself on his mouth, which makes the complicated thing in your chest considerably worse.

“Tell me if anything’s—”

“I will… I trust you.”

He pulls back to look at you at that. Just for a second. Something moves through his eyes that you don’t quite have a word for.

“Okay.”

He takes his time. He works you back up with his hands first, until you’re arching into him and your nails are at his back and the patience of it is making you slightly insane, and when he finally rolls the condom on and shifts over you and pushes in—

The noise you make is entirely involuntary. Because he’s big. No, that would be an understatement.

“Still with me?” Right by your ear.

“More than with you,” you get out, and he exhales a short laugh into your neck and then starts to move, and you stop being capable of full sentences.

He’s thorough about it in a way that makes your brain melt clean out of your head. He learned what makes you gasp and then does that thing again. His hand slides under your ass and tilts your hips and hits something that makes you dig your nails in hard enough that he hisses.

“Right there,” you say, uselessly, since he clearly already knows.

“Yeah?”

“Don’t stop—”

He doesn’t stop. He does exactly that, again, and you’re gripping his shoulders with both hands and talking without fully knowing what you’re saying.

He’s got his face pressed to your temple and his breathing is not steady anymore, which is information you file away with tremendous satisfaction.

“You feel—” he starts, and stops, like he doesn’t finish that sentence with people often.

“Tell me.”

He pulls back to look at your face. His hips don’t slow. “Perfect,” he says, like it’s a simple fact.

Your whole body clenches around him at that and he groans. His rhythm shifts. Deeper, more insistent, and you have completely stopped worrying about the other rooms on this floor.

His thumb finds your clit and you cry out. He watches your face while he does it, and there is something about being looked at like that, while he’s inside you, while he’s taking you completely apart for the second time—

You come with your face buried in his neck and his name on your lips and his hand pressed flat to your lower back like he’s trying to keep you together while he undoes you.

He follows not long after with a groan against your temple, his whole body tensing.

Then he’s still, and the room is just the sound of both of you breathing.

He doesn’t move immediately. He stays where he is, most of his weight on his forearm, his other hand moving to push your hair away from your face. It’s a gentle thing, automatic, like he did it without thinking. Like it was just the natural next thing to do.

You stare up at the very expensive ceiling of the very expensive suite.

“I came here for canapes,” you say.

He laughs. A real one this tim. Not the almost-laugh from downstairs, an actual laugh, and it does something devastating to his face. “How’d that work out?”

“Better than expected.”

He presses his lips to your temple, and it’s soft. It lingers for a second, and when he pulls back he’s looking at you with that look again. The one you don’t have a word for yet.

He gets up to deal with the condom, comes back with a glass of water that he sets on the nightstand next to you, and gets back into bed like he does this, like this is just a thing he does, take someone apart completely and then bring them water after.

He’s pulled on his undershirt and his briefs and he looks unfairly good in both, and you’re in nothing, and neither of you seems to have a problem with this.

“Bucky.”

“Mm.”

“What actually made you come over? Downstairs. Earlier.” You turn your head to look at him. “Before that drunken guy. You were watching me before that.”

He’s quiet for a moment. He’s on his back, looking at the ceiling, and his jaw shifts slightly the way it does when he’s thinking.

“You were looking at the chandelier,” he says. “Everyone in that room was pretending they belonged there. You were just standing there, looking up, in the wrong dress. I liked that.”

You look at him for a long moment. “I got it on a sale,” you say.

“I like that too.”

You press your face into the pillow so he can’t see you smiling, and he doesn’t say anything about it, which is possibly the most considerate thing anyone has ever done for you.

Light is the first thing you register. It’s not the thin, grey light that seeps through your blackout curtain at home. This is different, the kind that comes from curtains that cost more than they should and don’t quite meet in the middle.

For a moment you don’t know where you are, which is a feeling you’re familiar with from overnight call, that brief horrible second of complete disorientation before your brain catches up.

Then it catches up.

The sheets are softer than yours. The room is too quiet. And the other side of the bed, when you reach for it without opening your eyes—

Empty.

You open your eyes anyway. On the off chance. The suite looks the same as it had last night except for the light, and the way the silence in it has a different quality now. A full kind of silence. The kind where someone has recently left.

His jacket is gone from the chair. Your dress is still on it, folded carefully over the back. So carefully, actually, that it takes you a second to really process the image. He’d folded your dress before he left. Which means he’d been here, moving around the room, and you’d slept through it.

The glass of water he’d set on the nightstand is still there, half full or half empty or whatever. You stare at it for longer than you need to.

You didn’t expect anything. That’s not entirely true; you’re a grown adult and you know the difference between what you expected and what you’d maybe hoped, and those two things are not the same thing, and it’s fine, it was one night, it was always going to be one night, you knew that going in.

Still. You look around the room. Almost wanting to find something. A note on hotel stationery, his business card under the water glass, anything.

Some small proof that it happened to him too, that you didn’t imagine the careful way he pushed your hair back.

Nothing.

You check the bathroom. The bathroom is pristine and smells faintly like whatever he’d used from the amenity shelf, and there is no note on the mirror, no nothing.

Of course there isn’t. He’s a congressman. He has a schedule. He was probably on a 7 AM call somewhere, probably has a driver waiting downstairs, probably has twelve things on his agenda and last night was just one of them. Item six, maybe, between a donor dinner and a briefing.

You sit back on the bed. You pick up the glass of water and drink the rest of it.

Fine.

You find your underwear, the mismatched ones, and even now that makes your cheeks do something. And then your dress, and your heels, and you check your phone.

Three texts from Sarah that escalate in punctuation, one from your roommate asking if you’re alive. Nothing from a number you don’t recognize.

Obviously.

The elevator ride down is considerably less charged than the one going up. The lobby is already busy, morning check-outs and businessmen with rolling luggage, and you walk through it in last night’s dress and last night’s heels with your chin up, because you are an emergency medicine resident and you have walked into much worse rooms than this.

The glass of water, though. He’d gotten up and gotten you a glass of water and now he was just… gone. Without a word.

That part stings a little. You’d be lying if you said otherwise.

Seventeen days later, you are standing in your kitchen at six in the morning counting backwards on your fingers, and the number you keep landing on is not the number you want.

Your period is late. Not a little late. Late enough that you’ve noticed, which takes something, because your cycle has always run regular, every twenty-eight days, reliable enough that you’ve never had to think about it.

You think about it now. You’ve been thinking about it for four days with increasing focus, telling yourself it was stress, it was the hours, it was the back-to-back overnight shifts that had wrecked your sleep, because that’s what happens to residents, your hormones get strange when your cortisol stays high, it happens.

Except.

Except that two weeks before your missed period, which would put it at about a week after the gala, you’d had spotting. You had noted it the way you noted things and filed it under irregular and moved on, because you’d had a fourteen-hour shift and the last thing you wanted to do was think about your own body on top of everything else. You’d thought mid-cycle spotting, stress, nothing.

And the fatigue. God, the fatigue had been something else, but again you’re a third year resident. Fatigue is the baseline. Fatigue is just Tuesday.

Except implantation spotting typically occurs six to twelve days after fertilization. Except you are standing in your kitchen doing obstetric math at six in the morning, and the number you keep landing on is seventeen days post-ovulation, which is—

That’s too late for it to be stress.

You know this. You know this the way you know things you don’t want to know yet, the way you knew a patient’s CT wasn’t going to be clean before the radiologist called. You just know.

You get to the hospital forty minutes early, which is easy enough to explain away to anyone who asks. You’re always early, everyone knows you’re always early.

You take a detour to the ground floor pharmacy. You stand in the family planning aisle for probably thirty seconds longer than a person who is confident about what they’re grabbing would stand there.

You take one off the shelf and tuck it under your arm, and take the stairs up to the third floor resident bathroom, which has a lock that works and more importantly, privacy.

The instructions are not complicated. You’re a doctor. You know what two lines mean.

You sit on the edge of the closed toilet lid you look at the water stain on the ceiling tile for the full three minutes.

There’s a crack in it that branches from the fixture in a way that looks like the course of the facial nerve in the middle ear. You have stared at this ceiling before during bad shifts, during the kind of nights where someone didn’t make it and you had to go somewhere quiet for six minutes, and it has never felt quite like this.

You turn the test over.

Two lines.

Both of them dark. Two unambiguous, immediate, definitive lines.

You sit with that for a long moment. The tile. The test.

You’re pregnant.

You are twenty-eight years old and you are a resident and you had a one-night stand with a congressman whose number you do not have and you are pregnant.

You turn the test face-down again. Pick it up. Put it in a cover at the bottom of your bag under your stethoscope, which feels insane but you’re not leaving it in the trash where someone could see it.

You look at yourself in the mirror. Your face looks the same as it always does. That’s somehow the strangest part.

You unlock the bathroom door. You have a shift to get to.

But one thing you’re sure about is that, you want this baby. Be it a maternal impulse, or whatever it is you don’t have a name for it yet. You want this baby. You need this baby.

Two days of carrying it around inside you like a stone in your chest, and by the third morning you’ve made the decision, or the decision makes you.

Either way, you’re sitting on your bathroom floor at midnight with your back against the tub and the thing is settled.

He needs to know. Whatever happens after that is not something you can fully think about yet, but the part where he doesn’t know is no longer something you can live inside of.

The problem is getting to him.

You try the obvious thing first. His official website has a contact form. For constituents, it says, and you are technically not his constituent, but you fill it out anyway and it autoresponds within thirty seconds with something about being committed to responding within five to seven business days, and you close the laptop.

Five to seven business days.

His office number is listed publicly and you call it the next day on your lunch break. It rings three times before someone picks up.

“Congressman Barnes’ office, how can I help you?”

“Hi.” You try to keep your voice level. “I’m — I’m trying to reach Congressman Barnes. It’s a personal matter.”

There’s a small pause on the other end. “The Congressman has a full schedule. Can I take your name and a callback number? Please describe the nature of your inquiry.”

Right. The nature of your inquiry. “It’s — it’s a private matter. I’d really need to speak with him directly.”

“Ma’am, any personal correspondence for the Congressman goes through his office. If you can describe—”

“I know him personally.” You are aware of how this sounds. You are aware that people who call congressional offices claiming to know the congressman personally are, in fact, not people who know the congressman personally. “I’m not a — I’m not a constituent with a complaint. I’m a personal acquaintance and it’s urgent.”

“I understand,” the woman says, in the tone of someone who does not entirely believe you. “I can pass your information along and someone will follow up.”

Someone. Not him.

“Okay.” You give her your name and your number. You know with complete certainty that you will not hear back.

You dissociate for a minute after you hang up, and then you text Sarah.

You : Hey. Random question. Completely unrelated to anything. How hard would it be for you to get Barnes’ personal number from your dad

Three minutes of silence, which for Sarah is practically geological time.

Sarah: why

You: Sarah please.

Sarah: whyyyy

You: I'll explain later. Is it possible?

Sarah: my dad would notice if i asked. but his phone’s usually just sitting on the counter when he’s in the shower soooo. give me 12 hours and a good reason

You: I promise I'll explain everything.

Sarah: oh this is GOOD. this is so good. okayy

You put your phone in your coat pocket and go back inside.

Sarah texts at eleven seventeen the following night, which means Richard Jackson apparently showers late, and the text is just a phone number and then:

Sarah: okay i need the full story. not a summary. the FULL story. what did you DO??????

You look at the number for a long time.

You: Thank you. I’ll explain everything soon I promise.

Sarah: are you okay??

You think about the test at the bottom of your bag. The ceiling tile with the crack in it. The empty side of the bed with the sheets still warm from him.

You: Yeah. I'm okay. Thank you Sarah.

You add the number to your phone. You just stare at the digits, and your chest is doing the complicated thing again, and you have no idea what you’re going to say when he picks up.

If he picks up.

The first time, it rings five times and goes to voicemail.

His voicemail. His actual voice, which you were not prepared for. You hang up before the beep because you don’t know what you’d say and you can’t practice it out loud yet. The words exist inside your head in a specific order that you’ve rearranged a hundred times since eleven seventeen last night, and none of the arrangements feel right.

You set your phone face-down on your kitchen table. You make coffee you don’t drink. You sit there for twenty minutes and then you pick your phone back up.

It rings three times. You are working out, specifically, how to begin. Not hi, too casual. Not hello, Congressman, too formal and possibly insane. Maybe just his name, just Bucky, like you have any right to—

“Hello.”

Just that. One word. And your heart does something it has absolutely no business doing.

“Hi. This is— It’s — we met at the fundraiser, I mean the gala. About three weeks ago. Sarah Jackson’s friend.” A pause, because you can’t tell if any of this is registering. “The one in the wrong dress.”

“I know who you are.”

Something in his voice. Something that is not nothing. You press your free hand flat to the kitchen table just to have something solid.

“Okay. Good. Hi.”

“Hi.” And there it is, threaded through the single syllable — a smile. The same almost-smile from downstairs at the bar. “It’s good to hear from you.”

You close your eyes for a second. You had not let yourself think about whether it would be good or awkward or somewhere cold in between, because thinking about it felt like jinxing it.

“I need to—” The arrangements in your head are all wrong again. “Is there any chance we could meet? In person. I have something I need to tell you, and I’d rather not do it over the phone.”

“Is everything alright?”

“Yeah.” The word comes out before you can think about whether it’s true. “I just — it’s better in person. I think.”

“I can do tomorrow. I am free tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow works.” Your voice is admirably steady, and you are giving yourself full credit for that. “Wherever’s easiest for you.”

“There’s a place on 54th. Briar something — Briar & Co. You know it?”

“I’ll find it.”

“Two o’clock?”

“Two o’clock,” you confirm. And then neither of you say anything for a second, and you don’t know who should end this.

“It’s good to hear from you,” he says again. Quieter this time, like maybe he’s saying it more to himself than to you.

You don’t know what to say to that. “Right. See you tomorrow.”

You hang up.

You sit back down at your kitchen table, look at your untouched coffee going cold. You breathe in and out very carefully for a minute, and you do not let yourself think about what it meant that he said it twice.

You’re not going to do that. You’re going to be a reasonable adult who goes to work and eats lunch and sleeps normal amounts, and tomorrow you are going to sit across from Bucky Barnes in a coffee shop and say the thing that needs to be said.

That is the plan.

You’re three minutes late. When you push through the glass door and scan the room you find him immediately, because he’s not a man that takes effort to find.

He’s already there. Of course he’s already there, he’s probably never been late to a thing in his life.

He looks like something out of a campaign ad, which is annoying, because you are in your off-duty jeans and the overcoat you’ve had since forever.

He’s at a corner table, which is a thing you file away and he’s got a coffee in front of him already.

He looks up before you reach him. Like he sensed it.

You pull out the chair across from him, sit down and unwrap your scarf. The whole time he’s watching you with an expression you cannot read, which is the same as before, which should not feel as familiar as it does.

“Finally,” he says.

You blink. “Am I late? I thought I was only — what time is it?”

“You’re not late.” The corner of his mouth pulls into a smile. “I’ve just been— Never mind.”

He said finally like he was waiting for you. But he wasn’t waiting long. Does that mean he meant that you finally called? But how would you call if he didn’t leave a number?

No. Nope. You’re not going there.

You look down at the menu you don’t need and tell yourself firmly that it doesn’t mean anything, that he is a politician and politicians are good at making people feel like the only person in the room, it is literally a professional skill.

You’ve rehearsed this. You’ve rehearsed it on the subway here, in the shower last night. You had a version that started with some context, that built up gradually, that eased both of you into it. That version is somewhere on the sidewalk because you don’t have access to it right now.

“I have to tell you something.”

He sets his cup down. “Okay.”

“It’s—” You press your hands flat to your thighs under the table. “It’s not a small thing.”

“Okay.” The steadiness of it is almost its own problem.

Just say it. Say the thing. Spit it out.

You have said hard things before. You have sat across from people and told them their person wasn’t coming home, you have held those conversations together with nothing but your hands and your voice, you can say six words to one man in a coffee shop on 54th Street.

“I’m pregnant.” The words land flat on the table between you. “It’s yours. It’s from — from the gala. That night.”

Silence. Absolute deafening silence.

Not the kind that means he’s gathering himself to respond, or the kind that means he missed it. You can tell from his face that he didn’t miss it. It’s a longer silence. The kind you have to sit with no idea what’s on the other side.

You watch his face. You had run through versions of this moment in your head. There’s shock, the obvious thing, or anger, or some careful measured political blankness.

But it isn’t quite any of those. His jaw is tight and his eyes are on you and he is… not here, quite. He’s somewhere slightly behind his eyes, somewhere you don’t have access to.

“Bucky,” you say, because the silence is going somewhere you don’t like.

He comes back. Just slightly. His hand around his coffee cup tightens and releases.

“Are you sure it’s mine?”

You hear the words. You take a second to make sure you heard them correctly.

“I wore a condom,” he says, and his voice has changed. It’s careful, like he’s walking on ice. “I just — I want to be sure that we’re—”

“Yes.” The word comes out sharp, which you didn’t mean, or maybe you did. “Yes, it’s yours. I’m sure.” You make yourself hold his gaze. “I haven’t slept with anyone else.”

Something shifts in his expression. You can’t tell if it’s belief or the beginning of it or something else entirely.

“We can do a paternity test,” you say, and your voice is admirably level and you hate that you have to say this, you hate that you’re sitting here offering this like it’s a reasonable next step. “If you want confirmation. That’s — that’s available to you. I understand.”

Then you both speak at the same time.

“I didn’t come here asking for anything,” you say.

“What do you want?” he asks.

If only you’d spoken a moment sooner.

Four words. They’re not unkind, exactly. But they land cold, because of what they assume, maybe, or because of what they don’t. What do you want.

As if the only reason you’d be here is because you want something from him specifically, as if this is a transaction he’s being presented with rather than a fact of his life, as if you’d spent three weeks carrying this alone and called his number and rearranged the words a hundred different ways just to want something.

You feel it move through your chest before you can stop it.

“Nothing… I don’t want anything.”

You can clearly see his face change. “That’s not what I—”

“I have to go.” You reach for your scarf. Your hands are steady and you’re glad for it. “I shouldn’t have — I thought you should know. That was the only reason. I’m sorry for wasting your time.”

“That’s not—hey—” He’s half out of his seat. “That’s not what I meant—”

“It’s fine.” You stand. You loop your scarf once around your neck and your body is doing the automatic things while your brain is somewhere else entirely, somewhere a little removed and glassy. “I’ll be in touch about next steps. Whatever you want to do. If you want the test, just—” You stop yourself before you finish the sentence because your voice is doing something you don’t want it to do. “I’ll be in touch.”

And then you’re walking. Through the small tables, out through the glass door that lets in a rush of cold air that you are grateful for because it hits your face and gives you something to feel that isn’t this.

The sidewalk is busy, you merge into it and walk because walking is something you can do. You’re not going anywhere in particular. You’re just walking.

“Hey.” His voice is behind you. Close. “Just — stop.”

You don’t stop immediately. You take two more steps, which is honest.

“Please.” His hand closes around your arm, just above your elbow. There’s barely any pressure in his grip, but you stop because ‘please’ is not a word he uses easily, you’ve already gathered that, and the way he said it is not a politician’s please.

He’s standing there without his coat. He left it inside, apparently, didn’t stop to grab it. He looks like a person, suddenly. Not a congressman anymore.

“That came out wrong.”

“It’s fine.” It’s something you have said twice now, which is increasingly not true.

“It’s not.” He runs a hand through his hair. The same dark hair you’d pulled at in a hotel suite three weeks ago, but you cannot think about that right now. “I panicked. I said something stupid and it came out wrong and I— I’m sorry.”

“You asked me what I want,” you keep your voice low. “Like I was — like this was something I came to negotiate.”

“I —”

“I’ve been sitting with this for two weeks by myself.” You hadn’t meant to say that part, hadn’t meant to let him know, but there it is. “Two weeks of figuring out how to even find your number, two weeks of—” You stop. You are not going to do this on 54th Street, you are absolutely not. “I’m not asking you for anything. I just thought you deserved to know.”

He’s looking at you with an expression that you can’t name and have never seen on him before. Something stripped of the careful management, the controlled stillness.

“You’re right. I’m sorry.”

The wind picks up and he doesn’t even flinch at it, no coat, and you look at him and you are… tired. You are so, so tired, and you don’t have the energy to hold onto any of this out here on the street.

“I have to get back. I have a shift.”

“Can we— Can we try this again? Somewhere. When you’re ready.” He holds your gaze. “I’d like to do that right. If you’ll let me.”

You look at him for a long moment. The sweater. The cold. The line of his jaw that you’d had your hand against on a different night in a different context. The fact that the two things are the same person is almost too much to hold at once.

“I’ll think about it.”

It is not a yes. It is not quite a no. He seems to understand this, because he doesn’t push.

You turn and don’t look back. You get half a block when your phone buzzes in your pocket.

Bucky: I’m sorry. I mean it.

The phone is an inconvenience right now. It’s him.

You stare at it for two full rings.

Then you pick up, because you are apparently a person who does that.

“Hey.” The same voice that said I’m sorry on a windy sidewalk six hours ago, except now it’s evening and you’ve been on your feet since noon and you have considerably less patience available than you did then.

“I’m in the middle of a shift,” you say, instead of hello.

“I know, I just— Have you eaten?”

You open your mouth. Close it. Look up at the ceiling for a moment, which is a habit you’re developing, apparently. Ceilings when you need a second to not say the first thing that comes to mind. “Bucky.”

“It’s a simple question.”

“It is not a simple question, it is a—” You lower your voice because a nurse just walked past and you do not need this. “Can you just not, please? I’m working.”

“Have you eaten?” he repeats, like he didn’t hear the second half of what you said, or heard it and decided it wasn’t load-bearing.

“I had lunch.”

“It’s 8 PM, I’m not asking about lunch—”

“I’m a resident. Having lunch is a privilege.” You hear an ambulance. “Gotta go.”

“I’ll —”

You don’t let him finish.

At eleven thirty, one of the nurses at the front desk — Maya — stops you in the hallway with an expression that is doing something specific.

“There’s a guy at the front desk.”

“…Okay.”

“He brought food.” She pauses. “A lot of food.”

You look at her. She looks back at you with the energy of someone who has decided this is the best thing that has happened on this shift and possibly this month. “He’s very—” She searches for the word.

“Maya.”

“He’s asking for you specifically.”

You close your eyes for exactly one second. Then you go to the front desk.

There’s a paper bag on the desk in front of Bucky and he’s talking to the security guard with the easy manner of a man who talks to people for a living.

When he sees you coming, his expression shifts into something that is not quite relief but is in the direction of it.

“You didn’t have to do this,” you say, before he can say anything.

“I—”

You don’t let him finish. “I’m working.”

“I’m not staying.” He nods at the bag. “It’s just food. You said you hadn’t eaten.”

You look at the bag. You look at him. Maya, behind you, is doing an absolutely terrible job of pretending to type something. “You didn’t have to drive here.” You keep your voice quiet enough that it stays between the two of you. “I’m fine. I can take care of myself.”

“That’s not why I’m here.”

“Then why are you here?”

His jaw does the tight-release thing. “Because after you left I felt like an ass… and I need you to know that I’m sorry. Not over a text. In person.” He pushes the bag slightly toward you. “And because you said you hadn’t eaten.”

You stare at the bag. Thai food, from the smell of it, something with lemongrass. Your stomach, which has been ignoring you all evening, suddenly has opinions.

“This doesn’t fix what you said.”

“I’m not trying to fix it. I’m trying to—” He stops himself, and you can see him editing, which is strange to watch on a man who normally seems to say the exact amount he means to. “I’m showing you I’m sorry. That’s all.”

The energy to process this is something you don’t possess now. You pick up the bag. It’s heavier than it looked. “Thank you.” It comes out stiff and you don’t have the bandwidth to soften it. “You should go home.”

“Right.”

“I mean it. You don’t have to — this isn’t something you have to do. Standing in hospital lobbies with Thai food isn’t gonna be your thing, okay? We’re not— that’s not what this is.”

He’s quiet for a second. “Okay.”

“Okay.”

“Get some food in you.”

“I was going to,” you say, which is not strictly true, and he seems to know it. But he doesn’t say so, which you are choosing to be grateful for.

He nods once, and walks back toward the entrance. You watch him go for exactly two seconds before you make yourself turn around and go back to work.

Maya spins her chair to face you the moment you’re within range. You point at her before she can speak.

“Don’t.”

“I wasn’t—”

“Maya.”

“He’s so—”

“I will give you a terrible evaluation.”

She turns back to her computer, failing entirely to hide her smile, and you take the bag to the break room and eat the whole thing. It’s very good, which you resent.

Six hours later, at ten past two, you come out of the hospital into the cold. Your brain is running on fumes, and the black car in the far corner of the parking lot does not immediately register.

Then the door opens.

“You have got to be kidding me,” you say, to no one in particular. To the night. To whatever version of your life this is.

He gets out slowly, like he hasn’t spent six hours in a parking lot. He’s in the same coat and he looks it. A little, around the eyes.

“Bucky.” Your voice comes out flatter than you intend.

“I—”

There’s a pattern developing here, the way you don’t let him finish talking. “You’ve been here this whole time.”

“I fell asleep for a bit.”

“In your car. In the hospital parking lot. Why?”

He stops a few feet from you. His face looks tired in a way it hadn’t the other night, something honest about it. “I wanted to make sure you got home okay.”

“I do that everyday… I’ve been doing that everyday for almost three years.”

“Right.”

“Then why—” You stop. You’re too tired for this. The cold is getting into your coat and your feet hurt and you are twenty-eight years old and you do not have the reserves for whatever this is. “Go home, Bucky. Please. Get some actual sleep.”

“Let me drive you.”

“I have my car.”

“You’ve been on your feet for—”

“I have my car.” You hitch your bag up on your shoulder. “Thank you for the food. I mean that. But you can’t just— sit outside my hospital all night, that’s not— you can’t do that.”

He’s looking at you with that expression again. The unreadable one that isn’t quite unreadable anymore, or maybe you’re just too tired to not see it. “I handled it badly yesterday… or today — I don’t know — I said something that I would take back if I could.”

“I know. You said that.”

“I’m saying it again.”

“Bucky—”

“I need you to understand that I’m not— I’m not the guy who says something like that and means it. What I said, the way it sounded. I need you to know that’s not— that isn’t who I am.”

You look at him for a long moment. The parking lot is quiet. A couple of birds somewhere. A car turning out onto the street.

“I know.” Because you do, or you think you do, or you’d like to. “I just need you to give me some room to figure out—” You gesture vaguely between you. “All of this. Okay? I can’t think straight when you’re standing in my parking lot.”

Something moves through his expression at that. He looks down at the ground and then back at you, and the corner of his mouth shifts. “Okay. I’ll go.”

“Thank you.”

He holds eye contact a beat. “Drive safe.”

“You too,” you say, which is automatic, which is ridiculous, and you turn before your face can do anything about it.

You think about him walking to his car in an empty parking lot, and you think about him falling asleep in there, and you don’t do anything with that. You file it somewhere.

You go home. You sleep for nine hours straight. It’s the best you’ve slept in three weeks.

He calls two days later.

You’re off shift, sitting on your couch with an unopened anatomy refresher on the cushion next to you because you’d told yourself you were going to be productive and had instead been staring at nowhere in particular.

You pick up on the second ring. “Hi.” His voice is the same, which isn’t entirely a good thing to your composure.

“Hi.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Fine. Tired, but that’s— that’s normal.”

“Oh?”

“The fatigue is normal first trimester. The nausea I’ve been managing, mostly… I’m not telling you this to update you, I’m just— you asked.”

“I’m glad you told me.” His voice is quiet. Careful in a way that doesn’t feel like walking on ice anymore, more like he’s choosing things with intention. “I want to know how you’re doing.”

When you don’t say anything, he continues. “I want to come to your appointment.”

You close your eyes. “Bucky.”

“Hear me out—”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“I — I want to.”

“You said that in the parking lot too, about the food, and I told you—”

“This is different. This is— this matters. I want to be there. I know I gave you every reason to tell me to stay out of it. What I said at the coffee shop— I know. But I’m asking you to let me— I’m asking… please”

For some reason, you think about the hotel room. The folded dress. The empty bed. The water glass. You think about a parking lot at two past midnight and a man who fell asleep in his car because he wanted to make sure you got home safe.

“It’s at my hospital… next Tuesday. Eleven.”

“Eleven,” he repeats.

“And if you say anything—” You hadn’t meant to go there, but you’re going there. “If you say anything like what you said on that day, I will walk out. And that’ll be it. I mean that.”

“That’s fair.” Without hesitation. Like he expected it and meant to agree to it.

“I’m serious, Bucky.”

“I know you are. I know.”

You nod, even though he can’t see it. “Okay. Tuesday.”

“Okay… Thank you.”

You don’t say you’re welcome. You don’t say anything for a second.

“Get some sleep,” he says. It’s like the water glass. The automatic thing, the thing that comes out before he decides whether to say it.

“You too.” This time it doesn’t feel ridiculous.

You hang up and open the textbook on whim. You read four pages before you fall asleep on the couch with the lamp still on.

He’s standing at your door at ten thirty with peonies.

Actual peonies, fat and pale pink, the kind that look like someone made a decision.

You open the door in your coat already because you’d been about to leave, keys in hand, and the two of you look at each other for a second in the doorway.

“How do you know where I live?”

“Sarah.”

Of course. You make a mental note to have a word with Sarah, except Sarah will laugh at you and you both know it.

You look at the flowers and then at him and he has the decency to look slightly uncertain, which is the most uncertain you’ve seen him look, and it does something small and involuntary to your chest.

“You didn’t have to—”

He just holds them out, without saying anything.

You take them because leaving them in his hands would be strange. They smell like something expensive and vaguely like outside, and you stand there for a second not knowing what to do with them.

You turn back into the apartment and find a glass in the cabinet and fill it with water, which is not a vase but it will have to do.

Setting them on the counter, you look at them. White and pink against your very normal kitchen, and something about the image makes you feel things you don’t have the time or inclination to examine.

The waiting room at the OB practice is warm and aggressively neutral, the kind of beige that has been carefully selected to be soothing. It achieves the opposite.

You sign in at the front. Bucky sits beside you, and he doesn’t make small talk, which you’re grateful for. He’s looking at something on his phone with the focused stillness of a person who is trying to be unobtrusive, and you watch the fish tank in the corner for lack of anything else to do with your eyes.

Your name gets called and you both stand. There’s a second, while walking towards the exam room, where you’re very aware of him behind you and you don’t know what to do about that.

The room is what it always is. Exam table with the paper that crinkles, the blood pressure cuff on the wall, the small screen angled toward the bed. You hop up on the table without being asked.

The nurse takes your vitals and says the doctor will be in shortly. Then it’s just the two of you in the room.

Bucky takes the chair in the corner.

“You can sit closer,” you say, because the chair in the corner feels like he’s been sent there. “You don’t have to be all the way over there.”

He moves the chair, just enough, and sits back down.

“How are you feeling?” he asks. Same question as the phone call, except in person it is different.

“Okay. A little nauseous this morning but it passed.” You look at your hands. “I have to go back on in the afternoon so I’m hoping the appointment doesn’t run long.”

“I can have you back by one.”

“You don’t have to—”

“I want to.” Right. That’s his line.

You don’t argue with it this time.

Dr. Reyes comes in five minutes later and doesn’t react to Bucky’s presence in any visible way, which you appreciate, because you’d anticipated some version of aren’t you. Congressman Barnes or Winter Soldier.

You did not want to deal with that today.

She’s warm and efficient in the way of someone who has done this enough times, and she goes through the questions with you and you answer them like the doctor you are. Last menstrual period, no significant history. Bucky stays quiet in his chair and you don’t look at him.

Then Dr. Reyes reaches for the gel.

“This’ll be cold,” she says, and you nod. She picks up the transducer and you are doing the thing you planned to do. Stay clinical.

Except your resident-brain has never been on this end of a transabdominal ultrasound before and it turns out those are two different things.

The screen fills with the grey static of it. Dr. Reyes adjusts the angle, and—

There.

The flicker. Fast and insistent, one hundred and fifty beats per minute or close to it, the cardiac activity clear enough on the doppler even before she turns the sound on, but then she does turn the sound on.

It’s the sound that gets you.

You’ve heard fetal heart tones a hundred times. A thousand times. You’ve stood in rooms while other women heard this for the first time and you’ve read the chart and noted the rate and moved on, because it was clinical, because it was data.

Except right now your body is doing something entirely outside of your control, something warm moving through your chest without asking permission, and you press your lips together and breathe.

“Strong heartbeat,” Dr. Reyes says, with the particular quiet of someone who knows what this moment is. “Right around a hundred and fifty-four. Looking good.”

You nod. Your throat is doing something it shouldn’t.

From the chair beside you, you hear Bucky exhale. Like he’d been holding something and set it down.

You turn your head and look at him.

He’s looking at the screen, not at you, and his jaw is tight and his hands are braced against his knee. His expression is… soft. You know because it’s the same on your own face.

“Can I—” His voice comes out different than you’ve heard it. Rougher. He clears his throat. “Can I get a copy of that? The image.”

Dr. Reyes glances between you, and you nod. “Of course,” she says.

He looks at you then. Quick, like he’s checking whether that was okay. When you nod, he immediately turns back to the screen.

Dr. Reyes does the measurements. Everything is how it should be, and she gives you the due date. Mid-July. Which you’d already calculated, but hearing it out loud is its own thing.

She goes through the first trimester expectations with you and you listen to all of it with the clinical half of your brain taking notes while the other half is somewhere else, somewhere watching the flicker on the screen and not knowing quite what to do with itself.

When she hands you the printout of the image, you put it in your bag. She hands one to Bucky too, without being asked again, and he takes it with both hands and looks at it for a second before sliding it into his inside coat pocket. Like it’s something he doesn’t want to bend.

He drives you back. You sit in the passenger seat and watch the city go by.

Neither of you speaks for a while, which is fine. Which is easy, actually, and you resent that a little.

You’d like to be uncomfortable. Discomfort is useful.

“Thank you. For letting me be there.” He’s the one to break the silence.

“You asked,” you say. Which is true, but not the full answer, and you both know it.

He doesn’t push.

In front of your building, he puts it in park. “Do you need anything? For the apartment, or groceries, or I could pick stuff up—”

“I’m okay.” You’re already half out of the seat.

“Prenatal vitamins, or—”

“Bucky.” You pause with one foot on the curb. “I have prenatal vitamins. I ordered them the morning after I tested. I’m a doctor. I know what I need.”

He has a hand on the steering wheel and he’s looking at you, and there’s something in his face that isn’t quite hurt and isn’t quite frustration. More like a person who wants to do something and doesn’t know how.

“I know you do.”

“I’m not—” There’s a version of this that comes out wrong, and you navigate around it. “I’m not keeping you out of it. That’s not what this is. I just— I don’t need you to manage things. Okay?” You look at him. “I’ll call you when there’s something to call you about.”

He’s quiet for a second. “Okay.”

“The heartbeat. That was… yeah. It was good.” You don’t know why you said that, only you didn’t want that to be the last thing you told him.

You’re already inside your place by the time you hear his car pull away.

The peonies are still in the glass on your counter when you get back in, and you stand there looking at them.

You are a person who has her prenatal vitamins already ordered and her charting caught up and her shifts covered, and you are also a person who left a one-night stand’s flowers in a water glass because they were too nice to throw out.

You said no three times.

The first time was on the phone, two days after the appointment, when he called with what he’d clearly prepared as a reasonable proposition. He delivered in the tone of someone who has won arguments in rooms full of people who didn’t want to lose.

His apartment was twelve minutes from your hospital by cab. Your commute was forty, on a good day. The first trimester fatigue was going to get worse before it got better. He had a spare bedroom. It was just practical.

The second time was a week after that, in person, when he’d swung by your hospital on his way from somewhere official to somewhere else official. He’d shown up in your break room with a coffee you hadn’t asked for and had the conversation again.

He laid it out like he was briefing someone. The proximity to your hospital, the fact that his building had a doorman and a parking garage and an elevator, the fact that your building had none of those things and three flights of stairs that were already becoming a thing you noticed at the end of a long shift.

The third time was on a Tuesday when you’d gotten home at midnight and stood at the bottom of your stairs for longer than you’d like to admit before making yourself go up them.

You’d texted Sarah about it not entirely meaning to, and Sarah had apparently mentioned it to her father, and her father had apparently mentioned it to Bucky. Your phone had rung at twelve fifteen.

How does news travel so fast?

The fourth time you said no it was because you’d run out of actual reasons and had to fall back on principle, which he received with the patience of someone who understood the difference and was content to wait.

That patience, somehow, was the thing that wore you down. Not the logic of it.

He’d just set the option on the table and waited with his hands in his pockets while you turned it over and found fewer and fewer things wrong with it.

That time you’d said, “Fine. A month. We’ll see how it goes.”

His apartment is on the fourteenth floor of a building that has a lobby with actual plants in it and a doorman named Gerald who learned your name on the second day and now says ‘good morning’ like he means it.

The spare bedroom has a window that faces east, which you hadn’t expected to care about. But find that you do, when the morning light comes in early and clean.

The first few days felt like moving around a furniture arrangement that hadn’t fully settled. Two people with established routines in one space, both of you figuring out the other.

You learned that he woke up early, always, and that the coffee was made before you came out of your room.

You learned that he watched the news in the living room in the evenings with the sound low and that he didn’t talk during it. Which suited you fine because you had charts to finish.

You learned that he stocked the fridge with things you’d mentioned offhand once, twice, in passing.

The ginger tea appeared on the third day, on the shelf above your coffee mug. You hadn’t said you needed it. But you’d been slightly more nauseous every morning and apparently he’d noticed, because there it was, three boxes of it, like it had always been there.

You’re fourteen weeks now. Which means you’d started to show in the way that is noticeable if you know what you’re looking for, the small firm curve of it below your navel that your regular clothes are beginning to politely argue with.

Looking down at it in the mirror still does something to you that you don’t have a clean word for.

Bucky doesn’t comment on it. That might be the thing you appreciate most.

What he does is quietly rearrange things. The stuff on the highest shelves moved down without discussion. A non-slip mat appeared in the shower.

He started being in the kitchen when you came home late, putting something together, and there was always enough for two.

You’d tried to protest the first time and he’d handed you a bowl of whatever it was and said ‘sit down, eat’, and something about the directness of it had short-circuited your objection.

The dynamic between you had shifted in a way that was hard to articulate. He made you laugh twice last week, genuinely. Once about something on the news and once about something Gerald had said in the lobby. You’d felt the laugh leave your body and thought afterward, with some surprise, that you hadn’t been performing it.

You still felt the thing from the coffee shop, underneath. You didn’t think you’d stop feeling that for a while. It is something that won’t stop hurting when you think of it often, and you think of it often.

Tuesday morning, you’re off until noon.

Off, for a resident, means you slept until eight instead of five and only have emails to deal with instead of a full shift, but still.

You come out of your room in your robe and your thick socks, hair in the kind of chaos that only nine hours of actual sleep can produce, and you’re running through the schedule of the day in your head when you turn the corner into the kitchen and stop.

Bucky is at the stove.

In a towel.

Just a towel. White, knotted at his hip, his hair still damp against the back of his neck. He clearly just stepped out of the shower and he’s got the skillet on and he’s doing something with eggs, fully concentrated on it.

You should say something. You should announce yourself, the way a normal person would, and give you both a second to reorient.

You don’t.

You’ve seen him in suits, casuals at home, you’ve seen him in the sweater from the coffee shop, you’ve seen him in the dark of a hotel room. But this is different in a way that your body is entirely on board with and your brain is slightly behind on.

He’s solid, broad across the back and tapered down, and the towel sits low on his hips and the morning light in the kitchen is doing things you’d like it to stop doing.

His left arm, the metal one, catches the light differently than his right, the lines of it tracing the shape of a shoulder, a forearm, fingers curled around the handle of the pan.

You’ve always been a normal amount of attracted to him. You’ve been telling yourself that it was circumstantial. Hormones, proximity, those things. And that it would settle down, because that was the sensible thing for it to do.

It is not settling down.

You press your lips together and look at the ceiling briefly and remind yourself that you are a grown adult in her first trimester who is going to behave appropriately. The first trimester is notoriously unkind when it comes to this, your body does not always know what’s good for it.

“Morning,” you say.

He turns around. To his credit, he doesn’t look particularly thrown. A little caught, maybe, but he rolls with it. “Hey. Sorry… I was running late, I figured I’d just start breakfast before I—” He gestures vaguely at himself with the spatula, which you choose not to find charming. “Didn’t hear you get up.”

“It’s fine,” you say, and you get yourself to the coffee maker and give yourself something to do with your hands. “What time is it?”

“Eight-forty.” He turns back to the eggs. “I would’ve had it ready before you got up usually. Woke up late.”

“You know you don’t have to make me breakfast every single day.”

He shifts the pan off the heat. “I was making eggs anyway. Seemed wasteful not to.”

You look at his back. His very… whatever. You pour your coffee. “Are you going to put clothes on?”

“Yeah, I— are the eggs okay first or should I—”

“The eggs are fine,” you say, which possibly comes out with slightly more feeling than the eggs require, and you turn and look very deliberately at your mug.

He dishes the eggs onto two plates, sets yours on the counter in front of you with a piece of toast that has appeared from somewhere.

Then he takes himself and his towel situation to his room.

You sit at the kitchen counter and stare at your eggs and feel extremely normal about everything.

Hormones. First trimester. Completely explicable.

You eat your eggs. They’re good. They’re always good, which is its own kind of inconvenience.

He comes back in grey sweatpants and a t-shirt with his damp hair and sits across the counter from you with his own plate.

The thing about Bucky Barnes in grey sweatpants is that it is somehow worse than the towel because you cannot blame it on anything. You cannot say you were caught off guard.

He is just sitting there in normal clothes eating scrambled eggs and looking at his phone. This is just your morning now. This is what your mornings are.

“You have the afternoon appointment Friday?” he asks, not looking up from his phone.

“Two o’clock.”

He nods. Puts his phone down. Picks up his coffee. “I can drive you.”

“I can get there.”

“I want to be there.”

You consider pointing out that he says that a lot. You decide not to. “Okay.”

The scrubs have been sitting in the bottom of your bag for three weeks. The dark navy set, the ones you’d bought in your first year when you finally had enough shifts under your belt to feel like they were earned.

You’d packed them when you left your apartment and told yourself it was practical, that you’d need them before the end of your residency, that they’d still fit by then.

Today is the final week. Last stretch before your exams, before whatever comes after, and you’d woken up this morning with the particular weight of an ending sitting on your chest. The bittersweet kind, the kind that doesn’t fully resolve into either sad or glad and just sits there asking you to feel both.

You’d thought about your locker at the hospital, the mug you kept in the break room, the nurses who knew your name and your coffee order and the specific way you liked your charts organized. You’d thought about who you’d been when you started, which felt like another person’s life viewed through glass.

The scrubs had seemed right. Nostalgic. The way you might put on an old sweater, or drive past your childhood home. Just to remember what it felt like.

That was the theory.

In practice, you’re standing in front your mirror at eight in the morning and the scrub top is bunched at your midsection, stuck there, going neither up nor down.

Your stomach has done what stomachs do at nineteen weeks. It is present, unmistakably, the firm round curve of it that you’d spent weeks watching appear like something surfacing through water.

The scrub top, which had been fitted-ish even before, has no interest in accommodating it. The fabric is straining across your chest in a way that would be funny in a different context, because your chest has also done what chests do, which is become something you are still getting used to seeing in mirrors.

The whole picture is that the scrub is basically a crop top, currently. The bottom six inches of your stomach are exposed. It will not go down.

You already know. You knew the moment you got it over your arms.

Still. Something cracks anyway.

It’s not rational. You’re a doctor, you understand what’s happening to your body better than most people get to. You’d read the weekly summaries without sentimentality. You’d taken your vitamins and gone to your appointments and been, all things considered, fairly functional about the whole thing.

But there’s something about the scrubs specifically that you hadn’t accounted for. Three years of who you were, and they don’t fit. You cannot explain why that particular fact is the one that finds the crack, except that it does. And your eyes are burning before you’ve fully registered that they’re going to.

You pull at the hem once more anyway. Just to try. It doesn’t move.

“Hey—” Bucky, in the hallway, knocking twice before he pushes the door slightly open. He does that, announces himself before the door, which you’d noticed in the first week and filed away as a thing you appreciated without saying so. “Breakfast is—” He stops.

You’re not crying. You’re at the stage just before, the one where your face is doing something you can’t control and your eyes are bright and your throat has that specific tightness. And you’re wearing a scrub top bunched up to your ribcage with your stomach completely exposed and your bra visible and your hands still fisted in the fabric.

He comes into your room properly, and stands behind you. You look at him in the mirror. He looks at you.

“The scrubs don’t fit.” Your voice comes out steadier than you expected.

“Yeah,” he says. Like he’s agreeing with whatever the real sentence is underneath the one you said.

“I know they weren’t going to.” You let go of the hem. “I don’t know why I thought—” You press your lips together. The burning behind your eyes is doing what it wants to regardless, and you look up at the ceiling briefly and breathe.

“It’s the last week,” you say, after a second.

Bucky doesn’t say anything right away. Your eyes meet in the mirror and there’s nothing in his face that looks like he doesn’t understand.

“I know.”

The simplicity of it helps more than anything elaborate would have. You breathe again and feel the tightness in your throat ease a fraction.

His hands find the hem of the scrub top, and he looks at your face in the mirror first. When you give the smallest nod, he eases it up and over and off.

You stand there in your bra and maternity leggings.

In the mirror, his eyes make a trip south that he doesn’t intend you to catch. Quick and involuntary and immediately corrected, back to your face. But you caught it. The fraction of a second where they landed, where they stayed, before he pulled them back up.

You don’t say anything.

You’d spent weeks rearranging your sense of your own body, cataloguing the changes the way you would with a patient.

Maintaining the clinical distance had always been your competence.

But clinical distance has a way of not applying when someone’s eyes do what his just did.

This is not the hungry look from a hotel room. This is the helpless half-second kind. The involuntary kind. The honest kind, the kind a person can’t manufacture.

The fact that it was involuntary is the part that does something.

“Breakfast is probably cold,” you say, because you have to say something and the other things aren’t available yet.

“I can reheat it.”

“You don’t have to—”

“I’ll reheat it.”

You look at yourself in the mirror. You don’t look like yourself in the way you’ve always expected to look like yourself.

And you can’t tell yet whether that’s loss or just change, whether there’s even a meaningful difference between those two things.

“Bucky…. Thank you.” For the way he’d come in and just stood there and let the thing be what it was without trying to fix it or reframe it or promise you it would be fine.

The anatomy scan is at twenty weeks, which you know from the part of your brain that has been doing obstetric math since the positive test.

It is the one where they can tell you. If you want to know. If you ask.

You hadn’t decided, going in.

Bucky hadn’t asked whether you were going to find out, which you’d appreciated. He’d just shown up, same as always, jacket and the particular stillness that he brought into medical spaces with him.

The scan takes twenty minutes. You lie on your back with the transducer moving over your stomach while Dr. Reyes takes her measurements and narrates in the calm voice she has.

Bucky sits in the chair and watches the screen.

The anatomy is normal. All of it—the cardiac chambers, the spine, the cerebellum, the face. You listen to Dr. Reyes confirm each structure and your brain files it the way it always does, methodical.

Underneath the methodology there is something that is not methodology. something that has been building since the first scan, something that you have been calling various things and none of them have been entirely right.

“Do you want to know the sex?” Dr. Reyes asks.

You look at the ceiling. Then you look at Bucky.

He looks back at you. His expression says it’s up to you, the same way it said that about the apartment, about the appointments, about all of it.

He’d been very careful, the whole time, not to lean on decisions that were yours to make. You’d noticed. You’d been noticing for months.

“Yeah.”

Dr. Reyes smiles, and moves the transducer.

A girl.

You hadn’t had a preference, or you’d told yourself you hadn’t, but when she said it you understood something, like—oh. Oh, of course. Of course it’s her.

You don’t cry in the office. You make it to the elevator.

Its the sudden, quick kind. Two breaths worth, your hand pressed to your mouth, and then it passes.

You’re left standing in an elevator with your eyes bright, and Bucky is beside you looking at your face with the expression that isn’t unreadable anymore.

“Sorry,” you say, which is stupid, crying is a completely normal response to—

“Don’t.” He puts his arm around your shoulder and you let him.

By the time you’re in the lobby you’re fine, or close enough.

“A girl,” you say out loud, just to hear it.

“A girl.” Something in his voice makes you look at his face, and what’s there stops you. He’s looking straight ahead, jaw working slightly, and he looks like a man who has just understood the full size of something and is very quietly being changed by it.

His arm comes down from your shoulder but his hand finds yours briefly, just for a moment.

The first kick happens on a Thursday evening at twenty-three weeks.

You’re on the couch. You’ve been on the couch for an hour, which has become a thing you do now. Come home and decompose horizontally for a while before you can face anything requiring vertical effort.

Bucky is somewhere in his officr and you’re watching something on the television that you’re not fully watching.

It’s not what you’d expected. It isn’t a kick exactly, it’s more like something — someone really — turning over. A rolling flutter from the inside, unmistakable once it happens, unmistakable in the way that means you’d know it anywhere forever.

You go completely still.

It happens again. Clearer this time. More definite.

“Bucky.” You don’t mean to say it at volume. It just comes out.

Following footsteps, you see him. He reads your face immediately and crouches beside the couch without asking ‘what’s wrong’, because whatever your face is doing right now clearly isn’t wrong.

“She’s moving.”

His eyes go to your hands on your stomach. “Now?”

“Just now. She—” It happens again, and your face does something you’re completely not in control of. “There.”

He looks up at you and then at your stomach and then at you again. “Can I?”

“Yeah.” You take his hand and put it where yours is, your palm over the back of his.

For a moment nothing happens, and you think maybe it’s stopped, and then—

His face.

You’ve catalogued Bucky’s expressions for months. You know the almost-smile and the real one and the careful one and the behind-the-eyes one, but this is none of them.

This is something you haven’t seen before and can’t name, something stripped entirely of everything else, just… pure. Open in a way his face almost never is. His eyes are bright and he is looking at your stomach like it is the most astonishing thing he has ever encountered.

“That’s her.” His voice is not steady.

“That’s her.”

He doesn’t move his hand. You don’t move yours. The kick comes again. The two of you stay like that on the couch, with his hand under yours, her making herself known between you.

There are things between you still. Not resolved, the coffee shop, his words you seem to can’t get past.

But right now it’s quiet.

“She’s strong,” he eventually says. A little undone. Trying not to show it and not quite succeeding, which you love. Which you note, quietly, that you love.

He looks up at you and something passes between you that doesn’t need words, something that would have been impossible five months ago.

His thumb moves slightly on your stomach, a small unconscious thing, a hello from the outside. You let your head fall back against the cushion and close your eyes and feel her move again.

Today you notice that your left breast is tender in a specific way. Your colostrum has been leaking for the better part of five days.

Now there’s this localised tenderness. You press two fingers against it, and find the spot immediately.

Blocked duct. Clean and obvious. You’d diagnosed it in approximately four seconds.

The knowing doesn’t make it hurt less.

You get in the shower and let the hot water run directly on it, and you work at the tissue the way you know. Gentle, firm strokes toward the nipple, drained before it blocks further.

It helps a little. Enough to get dressed and eat breakfast and tell yourself it would resolve on its own by afternoon, which it might, which blocked ducts sometimes do when caught early.

By afternoon it hasn’t resolved.

By evening it’s worse.

Bucky makes dinner and breakfast and lunch. It’s something he took it upon himself, and no matter what you did, he insisted he wanted to. You decided that was the least he could do, since you’re already growing a whole human.

You’re on the couch when he brings you your plate, but don’t really eat it, which he notices. Because Bucky notices things. That is one of the more inconvenient facts about living with him.

“You’re not eating.” An observation.

“I’m eating.” You take a bite to demonstrate.

He sits down on his end of the couch, his own plate, and looks at you in the way he looks at things when he’s decided something. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong. I’m fine.”

“You’ve been holding your left side since you sat down.”

You look at him. You hadn’t realized you were doing that. Your hand is braced just below your ribs on the left, the pressure of it a reflex you hadn’t consciously authorized. You move it to your lap.

“I’m fine.”

“Okay.” He eats a bite of his dinner. “What’s wrong?”

The repetition startles a short laugh out of you. “Bucky.”

“I’ve got time.”

You look at your plate. The thing about the past several months is that you’d stopped performing fine quite so much. You still did it sometimes. Habit, mostly.

But the effort of maintaining it in the face of someone who was going to sit there and wait it out had started to feel like more work than just saying the thing.

“Blocked duct.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means one of the milk ducts is… blocked”

“You’re… producing?”

“Yeah, for like five days. It’s normal. Don’t worry.”

“Normal? You’re in pain.”

“The milk part is normal. The blocked part is not normal even after delivery.”

“So, what do we do? What’s the treatment?”

Of course. Of course that’s the immediate question. You set your fork down. “Warm compress, massage, expression. In that order.”

“Have you tried all of that?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“And it’s… helping. Some. Not fully resolved.”

He’s quiet for a second, and you can hear him thinking, which is a thing you’ve learned to recognize. “Do you want me to— I could help with the massage. If that’s— if it would help.”

Something happens to your body that you are immediately and completely dismissive of. You are thirty-eight weeks pregnant and you are sitting on a couch across from the man who is the father of your child and who is also just a person asking a practical question.

Your body’s response to that question is frankly embarrassing and entirely the fault of the third trimester hormonal profile.

“I’m fine,” you say, for the third time, which even you can tell is getting less convincing.

“You said that.” He puts his plate on the coffee table. “What else is there?”

“What do you mean?”

“For the duct. If massage doesn’t work, what else is there?”

Your face does something you are not responsible for. You think about how to answer this question, which should be simple, which is a medical question with a factual answer, and yet.

“Suction.”

“A pump?” He’s already standing with his not even half finished place. “I’ll go buy one—”

“It’s not the pump.” The words come out before you’ve decided to say them. You look at him.

He looks back at you.

“Tell me what it is.” His voice is even.

You hold his gaze for a second. There are thirty-eight weeks of something between the two of you, not all of it clean, most of it good, and you are in pain that has a solution that you are not asking for.

“Manual suction would be equally effective than the pump. It’s also direct. You don’t have to— I don’t need you to do anything. It’ll resolve.”

He’s very still. “Will it?”

“Probably.”

“Probably,” he echoes.

“Yes.”

He’s looking at you with the expression that isn’t unreadable anymore, hasn’t been for a while, the one that means he’s made a decision and is waiting to see if you’ll come to the same one. “You’re in pain.”

“I’m fine.”

“You’ve said that four times and eaten approximately one bite of dinner.” His voice is quiet and not unkind and leaves absolutely no room. “You’re in pain, and there’s something that would help, and you’re sitting there not asking for it. So I’m asking. Do you want me to help?”

“It’s not— This isn’t—”

“I know what it is and what it isn’t. I’m asking if you want me to help.”

The honesty of the question, the way he’s asking plainly if you want him to, does something to the knot of your refusal, loosens it.

“Okay.”

The bedroom lamp is on low, which you’re grateful for. You’re sitting against the headboard in just your tank top because bra is compression and compression makes the pain worse.

Bucky is sitting beside you. You’ve walked him through it in the voice you use for medical explanations. Impersonal, methodical, this is the direction of drainage, this much is the pressure we’re aiming for. He’d listened the way he listens to everything, completely, without interrupting.

“Tell me if I’m doing it wrong.”

“You’re not.” You’d watched his hands and the technique was right, working from the periphery inward the way you’d told him.

The heat of it was immediate, the specific relief of pressure moving in the right direction, and you let your head fall back against the headboard and breathe through it.

It hurts. It hurts in the way that relief sometimes hurts, the way that unkinking something that’s been kinked for too long. You press your lips together and exhale.

“Still okay?” he asks.

“Yes.” Your voice is not entirely steady. “Keep going.”

The blocked duct is stubborn in the way they get when they’ve been compressing for a day. The massage alone was never going to be enough, you’d known that, you’d known it since Wednesday morning and done it anyway because asking was harder.

But his hands are warmer than yours, the pressure more sustained, and the way his fingers glide over your swollen skin sends an unexpected shiver through you, the warmth pooling not just in relief but in a deeper, aching need between your thighs.

When his mouth closes over the nipple, the sensation is overwhelming at first.

The sound you make is entirely involuntary and you press your hand to your own mouth immediately.

His hand stills on your ribs. He doesn’t stop. The suction is careful and rhythmic and nothing about the way he’s doing this is anything other than what it is.

Yet your body does not seem to fully understand the assignment. The wet heat of his mouth envelops you, his tongue pressing softly against the sensitive peak as he draws gently, each pull sending a spark of unwelcome arousal straight to your core, making you clench involuntarily around nothing.

You tell yourself you’re not turned on by him relieving your pain. You’re wrong.

Just for a fleeting moment, you wonder, if it's affecting him too. If the intimate act of tasting you, feeling your body respond under his lips, is stirring something in him the way it's unraveling you.

With continued suction, the colostrum releases slowly, the hard cord of tissue beginning to soften under his hand. You feel the pressure shifting, the acute point of pain diffusing.

And your eyes fill without your permission, the specific relief of it after a day of something that just quietly hurt and hurt and hurt.

“There.” Your voice breaks on it, just slightly.

He pulls back. Looks at your face. And then without discussion he puts his arm around you and pulls you into his side carefully. His hand finds the top of your bump in the way he does sometimes without thinking and you let him.

“You’re okay,” he says into your hair. “I’ve got you. You’re okay.”

You breathe. The ache is fading and you are okay.

But the lingering warmth of his mouth on your skin, the ghost of his breath against your nipple, has left you throbbing with need.

There’s this heat in you that has nothing to do with pain or hurt or blocked ducts. And everything to do with him and his proximity. You don’t think you can blame it on your hormones anymore.

You’re focused on not doing anything more. Because you don’t know how he feels. Just because he’d offered to help doesn’t mean he’s into this. Into you.

“Why didn’t you call me?”

You don’t know what he is talking about.

You lift your head a little. “What?”

His hand moves slightly on your back, a small motion, like he’s deciding how to continue. “The morning after the gala.” He’s not looking at you directly. “I had an early call. I had to be out by 5.30. I didn’t want to wake you.”

That morning comes rushing back like it was yesterday. The empty side. The folded dress on the chair. The glass of water.

“I left my number on the hotel notepad, by the lamp. I thought— I thought you’d call.”

“What—”

“Left side of the lamp. I figured maybe you didn’t want to. And then weeks went by and I thought—” He doesn’t finish that sentence. He doesn’t have to. “And then you called. And I picked up and heard your voice and I thought, okay. Okay, she called.”

If only you’d looked properly.

You close your eyes. Your brain does the math. How close you’d been to something, how much the last eight months might have looked different… if only you’d looked properly.

“And then the coffee shop. I said something— I said something I would take back ten times over if I could. The look on your face.” He finally glances down at you, and his expression is the honest one, the one stripped of the management. “I’d been thinking about you for weeks, and then there you were, telling me something that big, and I panicked and I said the worst possible thing, and I’ve been—”

“Bucky…”

“I’ve been trying to show you that I’m not that… Since then. That — that isn’t who I am.”

“I know.” You mean it fully. “I know.”

His hand hasn’t stopped moving on your back and you’ve gone completely loose against his side.

You turn your face slightly into his shoulder. He smells like the same thing he always smells like.

Something clean, something his.

You look up. He’s looking down. At you.

”I looked, I searched… I — I am so sorry, Bucky.”

He shakes his head, “you have nothing to be sorry about.” His voice is a whisper, gently wiping something off your face, only then do you realise you’d been crying.

Later if you thought about it, you could not have said who moved first. Maybe it was you, maybe it was just the proximity and the angle and months and months of near misses.

But his mouth is on yours and it is nothing like the hotel room. Nothing at all like that.

That had been hunger and dark and mutual want in its simplest form, and this is something else, something that has been earned in increments. When you kiss him back you feel the whole weight of it.

His hand comes up to your jaw, the right one, and he kisses you the way he does things when he means them. Slow. Sure. Like he is not going anywhere and wants you to know it. This time there’s no tears.

When you pull back, his thumb is on your cheek and your foreheads are together and you’re both breathing.

“Hi,” you say, which is what you always seem to say when he takes you off guard.

Something changes in his expression. Soft and a little helpless and very, very him. “Hi.”

You kiss him again, slower, and his hand slides from your jaw to your neck, and when you shift against him you feel him go still.

“I don’t want to—” He pulls back enough to look at you, and his face is flushed, and he’s trying to be responsible about something and finding it difficult. His eyes go briefly, helplessly, to your stomach, and then back to your face. “I don’t want to hurt her.”

You look at him. Something warm and fond moves through you, which is perhaps not the most practical emotion for this particular moment, but there it is.

“Sex is not contraindicated,” you say.

His brow furrows slightly. “How do you—”

“Bucky.”

“I just—”

“It’s actively encouraged in the two weeks before the due date.” You hold his gaze. “Prostaglandins in semen help with cervical ripening. And orgasm stimulates uterine contractility, which—”

“Okay.”

“—can help initiate labour at term, which is why—”

“Okay.” He’s slightly flushed. “I get it.”

“Do you? Because I can explain the mechanism—”

“How do you know that?” He asks with the expression of a man who has already realized the answer.

You cock your eyebrow.

“Right. You’re a doctor.” He looks like he’s genuinely embarrassed, with the kind of blush you have never seen on him before in eight months of looking at his face. “Sorry.”

You press your lips together so you don’t smile too much, because this is not the moment for I told you so, except that it is a little. “It’s okay.”

“I just—I didn’t want to—”

“I know.” You put your hand on his jaw, the same way you’d put it on his jaw in a hotel room eight months ago in a completely different life. “I know. She’s safe. I’m safe. Okay?”

This is different from the hotel room in every way that matters.

“You’re beautiful.” He says it simply, like it’s the truth.

“I’m enormous.”

“Yeah.” He says it like those are the same sentence. Like enormous is included in beautiful, like the distinction doesn’t exist.

You pull his shirt over his head and he lets you, and then his hands find your tank top and he eases it off fully. His eyes move over you the way they’d moved that day in the mirror, except now there is nothing to look away from, and he doesn’t.

“Tell me what feels good. Tell me what doesn’t.”

“You’re going to make me talk the whole time?”

“I’m going to make you talk when I need to know something.” His mouth moves to your jaw, your throat, and his voice is warm against your skin. “Which will be often.”

Your hands find his hair and you hold on.

His hands learn it the way you’d watch him learn anything else. With attention, nothing half-done.

He finds your hip, your thigh, and his fingers trail up the inside of it with the unhurried patience of a man who is not going anywhere. When they reach the apex of your thighs and slip between your folds, finding you slick and swollen, he exhales slowly against your neck.

“Jesus.”

“I told you it was—”

“Not the physiology… Just— you.” His fingers part you gently, circling your clit with soft strokes, and your grip on his hair tightens. “This.”

You stop talking.

His fingers are gentle in a way that is its own undoing. He’s learning, finding the places that make your breath change and staying there, pressing and rubbing with just enough pressure to send heat pooling low in your belly.

You’re on your side, which is where he’d guided you with the easy practicality of someone who’d done their research and wasn’t going to make a thing of it.

His chest is warm against your back and his hand is over your hip and everything about the angle lets his fingers delve deeper, one sliding inside you while his thumb works your clit.

He keeps going until your thighs are shaking and you’re saying his name with your face pressed to the pillow and when his fingers slow, you make an undignified sound

“Don’t stop—”

“I’m not stopping,” he says into your shoulder. “Just changing.”

He shifts, settling behind you, and you feel the warm blunt pressure of his cock at your entrance, the head nudging against your wetness.

He pauses there. His hand is on your hip, his mouth is at your temple. “Okay?”

“Yes… Please.”

He pushes in slowly. All the way slow, inch by inch, stretching you, giving you time to feel every ridge and vein as he fills you completely. You exhale through it and he stays still when he’s fully seated, buried to the hilt. You feel his chest chest rising and falling against your back. “Okay?” he asks again.

“More than okay,” you manage, which makes him exhale a short, warm laugh against your neck.

He moves. The kind of pace that builds rather than rushes, his cock sliding out almost to the tip before thrusting back in. His hand on your hip holds you in place, and you feel every movement everywhere, the particular fullness of him inside you, pressing against that sensitive spot with each stroke, the particular closeness of his body wrapped around yours.

His hand slides from your hip to your stomach and just rests there and something about that, the fact that he thought to do that, his palm warm and open on the curve of your belly while his cock moves inside you, does something to you that is beyond physical.

“Bucky.” It’s not a request for anything, just his name in your mouth, just needing to say it.

“I’m here.” His arm tightens around you. “I’ve got you.”

His other hand finds your clit again, fingers slick with your arousal, rubbing in tight, slow circles that match the rhythm of his hips. You feel the tension building in slow long waves, nothing like the urgent snap of the hotel room, this is the accumulative kind, the kind that climbs and climbs, your walls clenching around him with each thrusts.

His mouth is at your ear and he’s saying your name, just your name.

When you come, you come with his name on your lips and his arms around you and his hand on your belly.

It moves through you like something warm breaking loose from somewhere it had been held for a long time, your body pulsing around his cock, drawing him deeper. You feel it in your chest as much as anywhere else.

His hips stutter and slow and he presses his face into your neck and follows you, spills inside you. His arm fully wraps around you, and then everything is still.

You lie there with his heartbeat at your back, fast still and slowing.

This time there’s no condom to dispose. But he does move, and comes back with a washcloth and a glass of water. A glass of water, again.

His hands are soft and his touch gentle when he cleans you, wiping away the mix of your release and his from between your thighs.

After a while, after he’s made you drink half a glass of water, and you’re settled into him, his hand moves on your stomach. “Hey,” he says. To her. Like a hello.

You press your hand over his.

Something moves under your palms and you realise it’s a hello back from the inside.

my masterlist !

extras. if this flops, i’ll cry. also why was this so long lmao 😭

permanent taglist. @devililithh @buckyfmd @sheriff-bodecker @honeysucklewatr @demiebarnes @solivagant-reverie @kqtholins @amoremarveloustime @colettebarnes @barnes-babydoll @miraclediviner @of-sanguine-eyes @biaswreckedbybuckybarnes @manly-man-whore @indigo123789 @wasa-bby @biggestfangirl @herejustforbuckybarnes @buckysbunnny @highhopes1008 @castielscaplan @ornateglass @grumpysunnybarnes @luvyoupxmimi @slutdier @yes-ilovetowrite @cautiouscas17 @astridphantom @delusionalwomsn @cinnamon-girl-writes @wherewinterblooms @stifflyspeedyquirk @sassandscribbles @marvelouslyme96 @stesha02 @floatingvalhallasea @goobers-mcgee @t1redphoenix @vickynguyennn @bluellamacheesecake-blog @serenityrjd @pitabread79 @galaxygoddess30 @biggestfangirl @chenoadouble-o7 @phoenix-in-writing @ceoofdisappointment @ladymiseryy @wherewinterblooms @avgdestitute @lunexiax @akthoughtss + to get added to the taglist!

Bucky who loves falling asleep with his cock deep inside you.

It’s an accident the first time it happens. After a long day and night of him fucking you senseless you both pass out with you still wrapped around him. You wake up to his hips rocking, a smile on his face and his blue eyes bright. 

“Best. Sleep. Ever.” 

You get used to him falling asleep buried deep in your cunt. You don’t bother with pajamas anymore because what’s the point? It’s easier to get that barrier out of the way. You do occasionally wear panties just so he can move them to the side and take what’s his.

Some nights he rubs your clit in his sleep and rasps, “Come on my cock, sweetheart.” while his other hand plays with your breast and teases your nipple. It’s almost like your pleasure helps him sleep a little easier. He nuzzles your neck when you give him what he wants, and you tremble in the aftermath of your orgasm when he adds, “Attagirl.”

Other nights he keeps a firm hold on you, your back against his chest as he thrusts every so often. Not to get off, but because he just can’t help himself. “Pussy’s so warm,” he mumbles, his mouth touching your shoulder. He doesn’t like being cold. “And all mine.”

You’ve woken up after he comes back from missions, your pussy wet and ready when he gently pushes in. “Shh. It’s just me,” he soothes against your ear when you whine, his tactical pants brushing your bare legs, like he couldn’t bother to get undressed. “I’m home.”

Tonight he has you lay on top of him as your eyes slip shut. “Feels so good,” he rumbles, your mixed release still seeping around him. He holds you closer, tight enough for you to feel his possession and tender enough to feel his love. “So fucking good.”

“So good,” you breathe. 

“You keep the nightmares away,” he whispers, his hand absentmindedly rubbing your back. Chest to chest, your walls stretched around his cock, his heartbeat matches the rhythm of yours, connecting you body, heart, and soul.

You reach up and run your fingers through his hair with a tired moan. “I got you,” you mumble before sleep takes you. 

You don’t see him smile, but you feel him get a little harder inside you. “Yeah, you do,” he agrees, kissing the top of your head. “And I got you, too.”

it’s not age — the reason his cock protests any acceptance of arousal — it’s the job; what it’s done and taken and twisted.

and where there was a time he was content to kiss and touch and slide his fingers inside a wet pair of panties, the last time he did so, the girl was reduced to tears when he didn’t harden for her. the memory of it still sits sour in the back of his throat — her mascara gone to ruin, the apology he hadn’t known how to shape.

so john has rules now. flirt, finish the pint, leave before anyone’s hand wanders south. keep it to the part he can still manage — the looking, the wanting, the slow honey of a woman leaning in close.

but you.

you’d slid into the booth beside him an hour ago and now you’re halfway across him, knee planted in the cushion by his hip, breath warm and cranberry-sweet against his jaw. your fingers are buried in his beard. your mouth finds the corner of his, asking.

“c’mere,” you murmur, and he does — god help him.

he kisses you because kissing he can do. kisses you like it’ll be enough, like if he keeps your mouth busy you won’t go looking for more (as if that’s ever been a thing. he’s just not ready to leave you yet). his hand spans the dip of your waist, the bend in your spine, the heat of you through your jeans, and you make a sound into his mouth, small and pleased, that makes his pulse trip.

then your hand drops.

he feels it coming before it lands, the path of it down his stomach telling him exactly where it’s bound, and for a beat he thinks about catching your wrist. lying. blaming the beer. instead he lets you press your palm flat to him and…nothing.

you stroke him through his trousers, slow, and his cock gives you nothing back. no twitch. no rise. just soft flesh where there ought to be a swelled heat.

he braces himself. shoulders tight, jaw set, eyes fixed somewhere past you on the bottles glinting behind the bar. here it comes — the pause, the slow dawning, and then the pity, or the hurt, or whatever humiliating awful thing you’ll do with your face before you decide how to leave.

but you don’t pull back, don’t go stiff or cold. you just keep it there. and when he finally makes himself look at you again, you’re not wearing a single one of the faces he’d readied himself for.

“hey,” you say, soft. your fingers smooth a slow line up his chest. “we don’t have to. sorry if i got ahead of myself…”

something in his chest pulls taut. “you don’t—,” he starts and stops, clears his throat. “s’not you.”

“it’s okay.” and the worst of it, the part that nearly takes him out at the knees, is that you mean it.

you’ve left him nowhere to hide it. “i can still—,” his hand flexes at your waist, drops lower, thumb hooking the seam of your jeans like proof of intent. “you. i can get you there. whatever you want.” a muscle ticks beside his eye. “just won’t happen for me. that’s all.”

you tilt your head. consider him. and then your mouth curves, slow and a little wicked at the edge. “that doesn’t seem very fair.”

“fair’s got nothing to do with it, love.”

“mm.” your thumb moves against his collarbone, idle. “still.”

you’re looking at him like the wanting is the whole of it. like he’s enough. “i’m not going anywhere unless you ask me to.”

and christ — what he hasn’t got a defense for is this: you settling deeper into his lap with no agenda at all, tucking your face into his throat like you’ve got all night and nowhere better to spend it. his arms come around you.

“i won’t ask, then,” he says into your hair.

“good.” you press a kiss below his ear. “now buy me another drink, old man.”

You wanted to get up to finally rinse.

To feel like a person again.

But his calloused hand came down flat on your hip the moment you moved, before your knee had even cleared his leg.

"Where?" is all he managed, voice wrecked and low and gravelly with sleep, the word barely fully formed on his tongue.

"I'm disgusting," you complained, a whisper.

"Mm." His thumb moved across the jut of your hipbone, finding crust of himself there. His eyes hadn't opened yet. The corner of his mouth had, though, dragging up at one side. "Yeah… y'are."

"I'm glad you're happy with yourself," you huffed sleepily.

His hand kept going, palm dragging down over your hip and around the back of your bent thigh, and then up again into the real mess of you, fingers finding where you were still half-open and swollen from last night, slipping through the sticky wet, the pad of his middle finger circling your sensitive entrance. It was too much and not enough at once — the drag of him over flesh that hadn't settled, a wince folding straight into something hotter, your hips pushing into his hand.

He made a sound; pleased, throaty, his brows pulling in for a second.

"Look at that," he murmured against your temple. "Bet you don' even wan' it cleaned up, do you?"

"Shut up," you half-heartedly murmured.

"Mm-mm," he protested.

Then he rolled, the whole heavy heat of him coming over you in one move, knee shoving your thighs apart before you'd even agreed to anything, and the air between your bodies went humid and ripe, his chest sticking to yours, the dense hair on it dragging over your tender nipples. And your body answered him — thighs falling open the rest of the way, some primal part of you glad of his weight, glad to be pinned under it, glad he was solid and here and breathing on you. He braced up on a forearm and looked down at you, cyan eyes cracked open and bloodshot, lashes still gummed together. He looked like hell. But so did you, you were sure, and he was staring down like you were the best thing he'd ever seen.

He spat into his own hand without breaking from your eyes, crude, and reached down between you to slick his cock with it. You spread more open for him, your hands coming up to his back where sweat was gathered at the base of his spine.

He sank all the way in on the first stroke, stretching your sore walls, an obscene wet crackle of air pushing out to make room for him, Your whole body remembered him in one shoved open rush. He dropped his forehead to the side of your neck and let out a long breath through his nose.

"Four months," he rasped, almost to himself, the syllables coming apart as they fell. "Four months this was the only thing in my fuckin' head." Then, against your mouth, the gravel coming back into it, his throbbing cock bumping your cervix, your nails scrabbling over his sweaty skin for purchase: "That's it, dove. You can take it. You can take it, look at you, you've had worse than this off me."

You could hear his grin.

"Since last night?" you managed to get out. "Or— generally?"

A huff against your lips, almost a laugh, his hips not stopping. "Both."

He fucked you like he hadn't slept it off at all, like four months of going without you had only stored it up, his cock dragging thick and deep through the wreckage he'd already made of you. Every push of it pressed the sweat-slick of his furry belly against your clit so you got it both ways at once, inside and out, until your spine wanted to leave your body.

He talked the whole time — clipped, half-swallowed, filth pouring out of him like silver.

"Feel that," he asked. "That's last night still in you, that is. Didn't go anywhere." His teeth caught your jaw, dragged, overgrown beard scratching at your skin. "Gonna add some more to it." A deep grind of his hips that pushed the breath out of you. "Was lying there, every night, in the dark thinking about this. You under me, made a mess of, soaked through and still begging for more. Had to think about something else quick or I'd've embarrassed myself." His mouth is in your ear, hot and foul. "Four months of that. And now here you are. Wetter than the inside of my own head."

"John— you're so—," you couldn't get anything else out before he'd angled up and a moan tore out of you instead.

"Gross? Annoying?" he offered, hips snapping now, the bed knocking the wall, his hand slipping between you and the mattress to cant your cunt to his liking. "Yeah. And yet you're clenched down on me like you've never been happier. Funny, that."

It built faster than it had any right to. You'd stopped being able to do anything but hold on — one hand fisted in the wet sheet, the other clamped to the flexing muscle of his ass, your heels skidding down his back for purchase that wasn't there, every thrust knocking another broken little sound loose from a throat you no longer had any say over. And when you came you spasmed around him with your nails dug into the meat of his shoulders and your mouth open on a noise you'd have been embarrassed by if your brain hadn't been simmered down and reduced to nothing. He cursed and pushed his face into your throat and licked the salt off it, tongue flat against the tendon, groaning into your flesh as you fluttered and squeezed and dragged him over the edge with you.

He spilled deep with a groan you're not sure you've ever heard from him before, and then stayed there. Heavy. Crushing. His heart going hard against your chest, his breath sawing at your collarbone. Neither of you moved — both of you a single disgusting glued-together animal. Roadkill, maybe.

Underneath the slowing wreck of your own pulse, the feeling you'd been fending off since he walked through the front door finally claimed you — he was home. Your throat went tight, and you turned your face into his damp hair so he wouldn't catch the sound that squeezed out of it.

He exhaled a warm gust against your throat, then he dragged his lips to the corner of yours and kissed you — sloppy, tasting of sleep and salt and the both of you mixed past telling each other apart.

“patience, baby,” he releases your nipple with a wet pop, blowing cool air on the damp skin, watching goosebumps rise on your skin. “got all night. wanna make you feel reaaal good.” 

he looks up at you, crimson eyes flooded with need that mirrors your own. then he’s kissing you again, his tongue slipping into your mouth, greedily swallowing your moans as his fingers trace a path down your torso. his palm presses flat against your lower belly, right where you can feel the pressure of him inside you. he smirks as he dips into the hollow of your hips, then lower.

“mghh” you’re trembling as his fingers slide through your slick folds. gasping into his mouth, hips bucking involuntarily. he’s so close, but he’s not touching you where you need him most. “please ‘suki,” you whimper against his lips, the word torn from your throat. you need him just as much as he needs you.

“always so damn impatient” he pants but he finally rubs slow, sweet circles on your already swollen and sensitive clit. ministrations too much and not enough at the same time. you’re dripping all over him. filthy, lewd squelches filling the space between your gasps with every pass of his thumb over the bundle of nerves.

you clench down, a vice-like grip around his cock. his thumb presses harder, circles on your clit spinning a little faster. the lotus position leaves you no room to escape the overwhelming sensation. every desperate roll of your hips grinds your clit against his fingers, buries his cock even deeper, and forces you to feel the unyielding pressure of his tip brushing that sensitive spot inside you.

katsuki revels in it. in the mess you’re making just for him. in the way your slick coats his fingers, your inner thighs, the base of his cock still buried deep inside you. he loves the way your body reacts to him, the way your breath hitches, the way your walls clench down even harder around him every time he brushes against your sweet spot. he loves watching you fall apart, loves knowing he’s the one making you feel this way. 

his eyes are fixed on you, pupils blown wide, swallowing the crimson of his irises. he’s memorizing every every subtle shift in your expression. he’s watching the way your eyelids flutter, struggling to stay open. the way your lips part. the bead of sweat tracing a path down your temple, following the curve of your jaw. he doesn’t miss a thing. it’s like he’s trying to burn this image of you directly onto the back of his eyelids.

you feel exposed in a way that has nothing to do with your nudity. heat crawls up your neck, burning your cheeks. you instinctively break eye contact and try to hide your face in the sweat-damp crook of his shoulder. and of course, he’s far from pleased

“nuh-uh,” he tuts, his free hand, the one not currently torturing your clit, comes up to tangle in your hair, gripping gently but firmly. he uses the leverage to pry you away from the curve of his neck, “don’t you dare hide from me.”

“well stop staring at me.” you mumble, squeezing your eyes shut.

“i’ll stare all i damn want to,” he scoffs. “now open your eyes so i can see how pretty they look when you cum” his grip on you loosens, his voice loses its edge, “please. . .”

it’s the closest he’ll ever get to begging. you can’t really deny him, not when he’s making you feel so good. so you let your eyes flutter open. you let him look. you let him see all of you, you let him see the way your pupils dilate, the way your lips falls apart. the way tears prick at the corners of your eyes as he rocks you into oblivion, coaxes orgasm after orgasm out of you. and he watches it all, committing every gasp, every tear, every tremor to his long-term memory. 

he doesn’t let up. even when your legs tremble uncontrollably and his muscles scream in protest from being folded for so long. he just shifts his weight, pulling you impossibly closer. because this is what he craves. what he needs. what he lives for: being skin to skin, heart to heart, until your very souls merge into one.

"You need somethin', Riley?" John asked, never looking up.

Simon's mouth was twisted beneath his balaclava as he weighed his options. He wasn't especially eager to be John's second victim of the day, but it'd been miserable for weeks with no stop in sight. In the end, he decided to be straight—

"Y'need'a get laid, boss."

John's hands immediately froze.

That unyielding anger came up his chest right on schedule — insubordinate, out of line — and then couldn't quite find his footing in it because the truth was a trapdoor just under him.

His eyes flicked up and across the room, ears warming up just like Johnny's had an hour ago.

"Bloody ornery, you are," Simon went on. "'ave been."

Simon wasn't wrong, John knew that.

The work winds them all too tight — adrenaline that can't be spent, images that don't erase, choices made under duress that keep them questioning at three in the morning. And everyone's got a valve that lets the steam out. Johnny shouts his out at the football. Kyle has somewhere to be lately that he's cagey about, and Simon has whatever Simon has, no one asks.

And John drives home, shuts the door, and the house is quiet, his walls holding all the built-up pressure.

Ten months since his usual I'm-Home-Hookup found herself a steady bloke and stopped answering his calls. He'd told himself the whole time it was casual right up until it ended, when he learned it had actually been load-bearing.

And was that affecting his mood? Maybe.

His eyes narrowed on Simon and his jaw ticked at the hinge. He threw his chin toward the open door.

"Fuck off out've my briefin' room, Lieutenant."

Simon's chair scraped across the linoleum when he stood, sighing through the cloth over his face.

"I jus' think—"

"OUT."

The door clicked shut behind him, and John stood in the silence for a moment.

Then he squared the stacks again.

——

Johnny never volunteers to bring the beer, yet here he is at half seven with a box of glass bottles rattling on his shoulder, grinning under the porch light. Behind him, the headcount runs long by one. Three men when John only agreed to two. Kyle with a canvas bag full of crisps. Simon at the back, hands sunk in his pockets.

"Thought it was just you and Garrick?"

"Aye, well." Johnny shoulders past him into the hall, close enough that their shirts drag. "Simon heard there was football."

"Simon doesn't care about football," John retorts as the rest of them push their way inside.

"I care 'bout football," Simon lies through a simper no one can see, wiping his boots on the mat.

Unfortunately for John, his team is undoubtedly adept at what they've trained in and he doesn’t always catch when there’s fuckery afoot.

Under his nose, in his very own home, Johnny distracts him with talk about the match while Kyle lifts his phone from the side table just beside his elbow. Simon waits an appropriate amount of time before slipping away to the kitchen to guess the passcode, which he manages in one go.

"Gonna have to talk to him 'bout that…" Kyle mumbles as he swipes to the App Store.

"He textin' anyone?" Simon cranes his neck over Kyle's shoulder. "He used t’see tha’ one bird… wot was her name…?"

"Leah," Kyle answers flatly. "Laura?" he second-guesses as he thumbs in the passcode again to approve the install: Hinge Dating App. "M'not lookin' at his texts, mate. Be lucky he doesn't RTU us just for this. Plus, I think he said she started seeing some—"

"—y'know, Cap," Johnny's voice cuts through, a warning for the men in the kitchen. "I can get ye another beer, y'don't have…"

Simon and Kyle glance up from where they've leaned against the counter and freeze when John appears in the doorway, face screwed with suspicion. His eyes flick between the phone in Kyle's grasp and the faces lit behind it.

His initial thought is that the phone's got a nice, durable case, proper practical. His second thought is to start patting down his pockets with his free hand — which all turn up empty.

The room's gone still, a collective held breath to see which way the tension'll break.

"That's my phone."

"It is," Kyle agrees carefully.

Johnny appears at John's shoulder, squeezing past into the kitchen. "Cap, before you start—"

"When'd you nick it?" His eyes accurately settle on Kyle, the slickest of the bunch.

"Doesn't matter when, sir. We just—"

"It matters to me." John puts his empty beer bottle on the table and uses both hands now to pat down his pockets a second time, not quite believing his own team got the drop on him. "Professionally speakin',” he mumbles. 

"Wot really needs addressin' is your passcode," Simon grumbles. "0-0-0-6?"

"Christ," Johnny snickers.

John chooses to ignore them and holds his hand out, palm up. But Kyle doesn't fork it over. Instead, he looks back at the screen and watches the progress ring around the icon close in on itself.

"What're we doin' right now?" John presses, stepping closer.

"Jus' take a seat, boss," Simon suggests, gesturing to the kitchen table just as Johnny yanks a chair out, beaming something mischievous.

John looks at the chair, then looks at Johnny.

"Think I'll stand."

"Suit yourself," Johnny spins the chair around and drops into it, arms folding over the back.

Kyle checks the screen one more time before turning it around. A new little white icon sits on John's home screen, Kyle points at it. John squints to read the little letters beneath it.

"What's Hinge?"

"It's a dating app," Kyle answers and places the phone on the table.

A dating app….

Grown adults sorting through each other like they're shopping. Swipe, tap, Add to Cart. He's heard the lads chat about it for years — the 'ghosting', the games — and always thought: thank god that's not me.

Under the simmering contempt, the idea of typing hello to a stranger who might simply never reply (left on read, whatever ungodly hour of the soul that phrase was invented in) shoots something cold through him.

There's a beat of hesitation before his eyes snap to Simon, the scowl on his face carrying the weight of Wednesday's interaction.

"This is you, then?"

"Team effort," Simon corrects without a flicker of shame.

"It's no' the dodgy kind of app, it's for relationships," Johnny explains. "Says so in their slogan: 'designed to be deleted'. You make a profile, upload a few pics, answer some—"

"I know how online dating works, MacTavish."

Johnny squints. "Do ye, though?"

"You've been rank for months, sir." Kyle tells it plainly. "Whole teams sayin' it."

John feels like he’s been put on a rinse cycle in the wash. His nostrils flare as he snuffs his irritation back down his chest lest he prove them right in his own kitchen. 

"So that's what all this is? A Friday night welfare check?"

"It's no' a welfare check," Johnny defends poorly, voice cracking at a pitch too high.

"It's a bit of a welfare check," Kyle shrugs.

"Right." John reaches for his phone. "Well, thanks for the concern, lads. Truly. Warms the heart."

Kyle slides it just out of reach. "Just give it a shot, sir," he implores. "Try it for the weekend. If you still hate it, I'll delete it and we'll never bring it up again."

John's chin tucks to his chest and he glowers at him from under his deeply furrowed brow. "You'll delete it now," he orders, except these men have never listened to him off the field.

"I could," he agrees, wrestling a smirk. "And you can keep spending your Friday nights with us."

It's meant as a joke. It doesn't land as one.

Because John looks around at the three of them and knows in a few hours their engines will fade down the street and that hulking quiet will pour back in, the one he keeps calling peace. 

So… he pulls out a chair.

Simon pushes off the counter and Johnny's grin pulls wider.

"Go on," John surrenders, falling into the seat with a sigh. He does not look at any of their faces because whatever's on them’s going to make him cross. 

Chairs scrape and Kyle settles down at John’s arm, Simon looms over them from behind, all crowded around the one screen.

The basics go quick — name, age, pronouns. Kyle finds his rhythm working through the questions.

"Drinks? Socially. Smokes…?" Kyle seesaws his head a bit. "We'll say no."

"I smoke cigars," John protests.

"That's a personality trait, not a habit." Kyle scrolls. "Height?"

"Six-two," Johnny says immediately.

"He's six-foot," Simon corrects.

"Aye, and on the app he's six-two."

Kyle selects 6'. "Occupation?"

That one hangs in the air a bit longer than the rest, and John doesn't quite know why. His hands turn palm-up on the table with the question.

"Consultant," Simon offers.

"Civil servant," Kyle tries.

"Military," John answers irritably off the edge of a scoff.

Three sets of eyes come up off the phone — Johnny's eyebrows go high, Kyle's mouth opens to argue, Simon tilts his head just enough, as if to say: if you say so.

"It's not a state secret that I serve," John says, eyebrows pulling close with confusion.

Kyle types it despite whatever he's got hanging on the tip of his tongue. And in the little silence afterward, the obvious question finally comes to mind.

"What've you lot got on yours, then?"

The simple question sends a tidal wave of overlapping chatter and excuses over the table.

"Ah, well—" Johnny starts.

"I actually—" Kyle says, at the same time.

"Different app," Simon adds, under both of them.

"—see, it depends," Johnny goes on, trying to gain volume over the others, "I like to keep the profile fresh. Rotate the pics, the bio—"

"—don't have one," Kyle is saying over the top of him, "because me and Amara are— well, it's not official-official, but it's a thing, so—"

"Been usin' Feeld," Simon finishes.

When the wave recedes, the full picture comes into view: Johnny reinvents himself on a cycle, Kyle has Amara, mentioned now for the first time ever. And Simon—

"What's Feeld?" John asks.

"No," Kyle says before the question has its punctuation, quick and stern, head whipping back and forth. “Absolutely not. We'll talk about that another time."

"It's not for you," Simon adds.

"Right," he mumbles, taking a pull of his beer, settling back against the chair. He inhales and looks off at the window. "M'glad it's amateurs running my love life."

"Enthusiasts," Johnny corrects.

The rest goes quicker.

"What kind of connection?" Kyle reads. "Options are: Long-term. Short-term. Short-term, open to long. Long-term, open to short."

"Short, open to long," John answers without hesitation.

Johnny opens his mouth but Simon glares at him just as quickly through his ragged eyeholes, and he closes it without a word.

His profile photos have to come off the lads' phones since John's camera roll offers nothing but screenshots of maps, car parts, and three random pictures of the K9, Xena, from another unit on base (he’s been trying to snatch her for his own team for months).

He watches the photos of himself go by and it's a strange census, seeing a year of himself entirely through other people's eyes. Makes him queasy, so he takes another bitter gulp to wash the feeling out. 

There's a short argument about the proper order the pictures should be presented, Johnny wins.

After, Kyle starts explaining what a good prompt does, how to choose one. He hardly gets any words out before John's holding his hand out the same way he did half an hour ago.

"I'll do these myself."

This time, Kyle hands the phone over.

The lads drift to the far end of the table to finally give John the space they've neglected to all night. 

Fresh beers are cracked open and a bag of crisps demolished as they fold into their own conversations. The match they’ve been ignoring comes first, then Amara, whom Kyle spends five minutes refusing to elaborate on, and somewhere in there Simon mentions an oddities shop he’s been meaning to stop by.

John sits with his reading glasses on, typing slowly, brows low in concentration.

When he finally sets the phone down, all three of them quickly move behind him.

"So, their profile comes up on screen," Kyle reaches over to demonstrate. "Have a look, read the bio. If you wanna chat to her, tap the heart. If you don't, hit the X, and you'll never see her again. Simple."

The first woman is on a beach holding a cocktail the size of a fishbowl. X.

"Okaay," Kyle drawls, mouth pulling straight. "Sure. Was there a reason, or…"

"No."

The next woman is at a festival covered in glitter and feathers. X.

So is the one after. X.

A woman in her work scrubs. X.

A woman holding a child. X.

A woman in a bikini on a lake (his eyes linger). X.

It's not that they're not lovely. Some of them probably are. But every picture is a performance — arms out, teeth out, look how much fun I am. Advertisements.

"The fish," Johnny mourns as another goes down, a woman on a small boat holding a big trout up. "Cap, she was fishin'. You love fishin'!"

"Wasn't her fish," he grumbles under his breath.

"Whose fish d'you reckon, then?"

"Bloke she cropped out," Simon says, and John tips the neck of his beer toward him.

"Give me criteria," Kyle pleads, both hands on the back of John's chair, gripping with restraint. "I can work with criteria."

"He's calibratin'," Simon says. "Let 'im work it out."

Simon's giving him too much credit. He's not calibrating. He's not reading these women, he's not even really looking at them. Each X is just the whole premise being declined, proof accumulating that he was right about the app all along, and if the profiles run out, well, he tried. Right? The lads witnessed it. He can get back to his peace with a clear—

His thumb stops and hovers, then pulls back to the outer edge of the phone case.

Huh. 

There you are.

Up a trail somewhere, hills of green grass rolling behind you, hood half-blown off, one hand trying to catch it. You're laughing at whoever's taking the picture, smile wide.

John's not sure he's ever seen eyes twinkle before, but that must be what yours are doing, shimmering even under overcast.

You're very pretty.

For the first time, John taps the profile open.

30. Executive Assistant. 4 Miles Away. Short-Term, Open to Long-Term.

Executive Assistant, so you likely work too much. That's familiar to him, something he understands inside-out. 

There's a photo of you in office clothes at what looks like a retirement party, smile an edge more saccharine than the one on the hill.

Another of you criss-cross on the floor, a black and caramel cat stretched out and content in your lap, belly-up. Shirt low cut, cleavage to feast on. He is sixty percent gentleman about how long he looks at it.

And at the bottom:

The best way to ask me out is by: using words.

I recently discovered that: I'm better in person than I am on here.

John huffs an amusement through his nose. He spent more time on his profile than he thinks you spent on yours. Seems like you're tired of the same things he's already tired of, one night in.

Behind him, the lads have gone silent, holding their breath.

John taps the heart and his screen goes bright with a wash of confetti, both your photos ringed together:

IT'S A MATCH!

"Oh, shit, she already matched with you," Kyle cranes his neck closer to inspect.

"Gimme that." Johnny plucks the phone from John's hand. "No way," he scoffs. "Fuckin' fit. A bit young for you, Cap, aye?" He looks at John, then back at the screen like the two won't reconcile in his brain.

"Careful," John warns mildly.

Johnny hands the phone back, muttering something in Scots only Simon could translate.

John doesn't hear much of it anyway. He's already looking at your photo again.

Better in person.

Yeah. He'd bet you are.

"Right, sir," Kyle says. "Now we wait. Midday tomorrow the earliest. Message her any sooner and it reads keen."

"It'd be accurate," he deadpans.

"There's rules, Cap," Johnny says. "No messagin' straight away, no double-textin', keep a wee bit of mystery."

John turns in his chair with a scowl to look up at the three of them.

"So, you're tellin' me a woman says she's interested in you and you… make her wait?"

Silence.

"I mean, when you put it like that…"

"Yeah, s'a bit fuckin' rude, innit?" John derides, turning back around.

He's already typing, screen tipped away.

"Sir," Kyle pleads. "At least let us read it."

"This is a two person conversation, not a five piece."

He presses send and quickly pockets the phone.

——

Four miles away, a phone lights up…

——

Your windows are open to the last of a long evening, warm air breezing through the sheer curtains. You’re finally on the couch. Shower taken, its heat still damp in your skin. A glass of off-dry riesling teeters precariously on the arm, cold from the fridge and sweating through its stemless glass.

Twix is a puddled tortoiseshell furnace against your thigh, one paw twitching through a dream, her purr winding down as she drops deeper. And on the telly, Last Christmas is on. You've seen it a dozen times, that's why you leave it — it's mindless.

The second glass goes down easier than the first, tart on your tongue, blooming warm in your belly and over your cheeks.

Somewhere in the lull, your thumb opens Hinge, a reflex to being bored. You don't really expect anything from it anymore. 

A man holding a fish, sunglasses on. X.

A man whose photos are all group shots. X.

A man who is 6'2" and it's his entire personality. X.

Your thumb knows the rhythm without you.

The next profile slides into view and you pause, thumb hovering.

He's handsome in that sort of rugged, classic way. His beard is salted at the edges, lines beside his eyes creased deep, cheeks faintly rosy. He's mid-laugh at what looks like a Christmas party, red and green tinsel drooping off the beams behind him; head slightly tipped, one heavy hand flat on the table. He's not cackling, you can tell it's more reserved, but it's probably still more than he usually offers.

John. 43. Military. Four miles away. Short-Term, Open to Long-Term.

The one thing you should know about me is: I'm gone a lot for work. But when I'm home, I'm home.

Most men bury the catch in the fine print, but he's leading with it.

You don't know yet whether that's honesty or efficiency. You suspect that with him they might be the same thing.

His second photo is of him on the tailgate of some enormous vehicle, fatigues taut over his thighs, thumbs hooked through his bulky khaki plate carrier, looking up from under the brim of his hat.

Two truths and a lie: I've never seen Star Wars. I have a lie-in every Sunday. I've had tea with a warlord.

The sky is pink with the morning in his third picture. He's thigh-deep in a lake, turned away from the camera entirely. (You're noticing it's a common theme that he does not look at the camera for any photo.) The sunlight catches the breadth of his back and shoulders, cotton molded around muscle.

Don't hate me if I: call instead of text. It's quicker.

You giggle just enough that Twix's ear rotates toward you in reproach.

It's kinda cute when older men put more effort into their profiles.

But the alarm is already going off somewhere in the back of your skull — too good, probably old photos, probably has a wife — it has never once failed to ring. But you're two glasses in, and the heart really costs nothing even if the conversation seems off.

You tap it, and put the phone facedown on your thigh.

On the telly, Emilia Clarke is busy falling for a man you happen to know has been dead the entire film. You mouth one of his lines along with him, not really invested, wine warm in your chest, Twix breathing slow against your leg.

Then your phone buzzes against you once, and you ignore it, because you have rules about lunging for male attention. But then it buzzes again, and, well, you just turn it over to have a look. Maybe it's your mum, you don't know!

HINGE: You and John matched!

HINGE: 1 New Message

You open it.

Evening. Not much good at using the app, but I really wanted to chat to you. How's your Friday night?

You hum to yourself curiously. Not an innuendo or emoji in sight.

i actually volunteer helping the elderly with technology, happy to walk you through it.

friday's been average. wine and a movie on the couch. how's yours?

You put the phone back down and focus on the film, but his reply comes within the minute.

Ouch. Friday's alright. The lads invited themselves round for the match. Still here, unfortunately.

you're messaging me with guests in the house? terrible host.

They invited themselves. Hosting rules don't apply.

What movie are you watching?

You glance at the telly where a dead man is mid-song and weigh lying about it.

You could be watching anything. You could pick something more interesting, something with a deep lesson, educational, historical, something niche to come off cool and worldly.

you're not allowed to judge me.

Judging is sort of my life's work, but I'll do my best.

You snort. Twix relocates to the far cushion in protest.

it's called 'last christmas'. i don't know why it's on in july, but i've probably seen it twelve times. it's good background noise.

The reply takes slightly longer this time. You picture him all big hands, small phone, and then stop picturing him, because that's how it starts.

Twelve times? Must be decent.

it's objectively not. the love interest is dead the entire film lol

Dead?

it's a twist. it's festive!

You and I have very different definitions for "festive". I've got a few questions. But I'll save them.

You smile.

so, your lake photo. did you catch anything that day?

Not a thing.

hours in freezing water for zero fish?!

The fish aren't the point.

do tell, what's the point?

The mist off the water. The quiet. The no one expecting anything from you.

It's the first real answer a man has given you on this app in, like, six months. 

You feel oddly like you've been handed something and should keep your hands still so it doesn't spook.

that actually sounds really peaceful.

i've never been fishing, but i do love nature in the mornings. i have a trail by me that i like to trek early on weekends.

That the trail from your photo?

it is! my best friend actually made me go that day, i wasn't in the mood. complained the whole way.

Doesn't show.

Good photo of you.

Beautiful, actually.

You stare at the screen and feel warmth tickling your nape, sliding lower, molten and slow. 

Every instinct you have reaches for deflection.

oh! thank you. the wind did most of the work lol

No it didn't.

— and he just takes the deflection off you, like being returned something you've dropped. You press the cool curve of the wine glass against your cheek and remind yourself, sternly, that this is a stranger on the internet.

well, for the record your photo's not bad either. handsome smile.

Somewhere past ten, you notice the conversation keeps not ending. 

how long have you been on hinge?

It's my first night, actually.

first night???

Profile's about two hours old.

yikes, so i'm just the practice woman then, huh?

Practice implies I'm planning to do this again.

——

John's still at the kitchen table, reading glasses pushed up into his hair now, beer gone warm at his elbow. The lads have migrated to the living room doorway — close enough to monitor, far enough to pretend they aren't.

He knows they're watching, and he's been watched by better.

What he can't seem to manage is his fuckin' face — it keeps doing things beyond his control, and every time your reply comes he has to reel it back to neutral, and he can tell by the quality of the silence behind him that he's not reeling nearly fast enough.

"He's smilin' again," Johnny murmurs, elbowing Simon in the ribs.

"Shameless," John mumbles, without looking up. "All of you."

He's typing when the floor creaks jus to his left. When he glances up, Johnny has drifted to his shoulder under the pretense of collecting empties.

"Need another, Cap?"

"I need you three feet back, MacTavish," he replies, thumbs tapping away.

A minute later it's Kyle from the doorway, "If she asks about hobbies, don't lead with the cigars. They poll badly amongst females."

"'Females'?" John grimaces, face down, thumbs still at it. "Say it with me Garrick, 'women'."

Then Simon, who hasn't moved or spoken in twenty minutes, asks, "Wot's she sayin', then?"

John rolls his eyes and sets the phone face-down, pushing himself up out of the chair.

"Time to go, lads," he says with an obviously fake smile, gesturing his arm out towards his front door. "Goodnight."

"It's no' even eleven oclock!" Johnny complains.

"Then the night's still young. Go on, fuck off."

They go — bottles gathered, snacks cleaned up, Simon herding Johnny down the hall as he’s still negotiating.

Then their engines fade down the street, and the quiet pours back in, right on schedule. Except tonight it arrives and there's a phone lit on his kitchen table with your name on it, and the quiet — for the first time in a long while — has to wait.

He locks up, kills the TV, then drops into his armchair with the phone already unlocked.

did the football finish? who won?

He glances at the dead telly. Hasn't a clue. 

Couldn't tell you.

omg lol you had ONE reason for guests tonight!

I got distracted.

by what? 😇

I think you know by what.

Nothing comes back for a minute. He pictures you on your couch, that cat beside you, deciding what to do with it — and it occurs to him, mildly horrifying, that he's enjoying this. The wait. The little emoji with the halo, transparently unrepentant. He finds himself smiling at the ceiling like there's something written on it.

anyway!

Anyway.

He'll allow it: retreat granted. There's no rush.

The cat in your photo. Yours?

yes! that’s twix. she's a menace.

Good name.

she prefers men that ignore her.

Then we'd get on fine. I'm very good at ignoring cats.

It goes on just like that: easy.

You ask if he's a morning person and learn he's up at five most days by choice; he learns you consider five the middle of the night.

He talks about the Brecon Beacons — the actual Beacons, the ones he loves, not the ones that nearly killed him at twenty-two. You tell him you've always wanted to go, and he catches himself already planning the route he'd take you. Then quickly chastises himself. 

How's the average Friday held up?

certainly improved

Mine too.

He puts the phone on the arm of the chair and sits in his quiet house, and for once it doesn’t feel so desolate.

——

The following morning he's up at five. He starts drinking his coffee at the counter, looking out the window over the sink, the sorbet summer sky bleeding morning.

He thinks of you before he can stop himself. Asleep, presumably, five being the middle of the night and all. Then he takes the coffee out to his back step for some fresh air.

He wonders if he was any good with the messaging last night. It's the longest he's ever sat with his phone in his hand, period. Let alone chatting with someone. There's no debrief for it, that's the trouble. No one to tell him whether ‘I got distracted.’ read as charming or desperate.

He runs the entire two-hour exchange back over and over and finds no actionable errors, but remains unconvinced.

He goes for his run at six. The route climbs uphill around klick seven, and somewhere on the hill he thinks about your photo, your smile, your mouth. He wonders what you smell like, what you sound like when you're being sarcastic. 

By noon he's under the Land Rover draining the old oil, and he catches himself pondering what you might do on a Saturday. Whether you slept in properly. Whether the cat allows it; he grew up with one himself and knows how demanding they can be when they're ready for a feeding.

He hasn't messaged yet and neither have you.

He couldn't say exactly why he's held off. Something the lads said about being keen, and rules, and mystery lodged somewhere he can't reach to dig it out. He's not normally a man that takes doctrine from Johnny MacTavish, and yet… here he is. 

It's a stupid fuckin' rule.

The afternoon goes long and gets quiet in the old way.

The house at four o'clock has a particular acoustic he knows down to the plumbing, and today, for the first time, he notices himself noticing it. It never used to be so obvious. Years of Saturdays like this one and it took his phone going quiet for half a day to show him the loneliness so plainly.

By the evening he's got Chinese takeaway at the kitchen table, eating it straight from the carton, chopsticks shoveling fried noodles down his gullet while he does the crossword from the morning paper in his head.

That's when his phone lights up for the first time all day, buzzing three times in succession — he absolutely hates how quickly it's in his hand.

spent six hours wedding dress shopping with my best friend. i need a glass of wine and a lie down.

thought of you on the tube home

He reads the second message again.

Thought of you. 

He’d been drafting the same admission since noon and something in his chest going catastrophically hot.

are you still up? i know sundown is bedtime for your generation.

And there's the sarcasm. 

Outside the window, the sun is — he checks — still up. Barely. He's got that going for him, at least.

Just in time. Was about to take my dentures out.

Thought about you as well.

He types the second line fast before he can be a coward about it. If you can say it, he can say it. Fair's fair.

I do have a question now though. It's not your wedding we're shopping for, is it? That'd be proper inconvenient for me.

lol no! maid of honor. today was purely supervisory.

don't really see myself getting married anyway.

the dresses were stunning though!

He’s picking up on a pattern. Three messages arriving like one exhale — the vulnerable thing said flanked with distraction. 

Nothing wrong with that.

Successful trip then? Or is there another six hours coming?

successful! she found it. there were tears and champagne.

what about you, how was your saturday?

He’s had a day spent purposefully not doing the one thing he wanted to do.

Quiet. Nothing worth typing.

hm. sounds like you should ring me then…

He looks at that one for a moment and blinks, the inside of his cheek finds itself between his teeth.

For all their blabbering, the lads did not warn him about this bit. Not that he can't speak on the phone, he prefers it. You're essentially quoting his profile back at him. But he's been thinking about something since roughly the fourth time you crossed his mind today, and a phone call isn't the ask he's been building up to.

Could do.

Truthfully, though. I was just working up the courage to ask you for a drink.

Courage. He's used that word in citations, for men who ran toward gunfire, heroes. Now he’s using it to describe the act of asking a woman on a date, and the genuinely undignified part is that it's regrettably accurate.

Your reply takes a minute. He watches the dots start and stop, and start again. God, he's been shot at with less suspense.

Then your message comes through and it's just a number. Ten digits. It buzzes in his hand once more.

for logistics.

He stares at it for a beat and then he's up out of his seat. Takeaway abandoned, at the fridge with his phone still in one hand, snapping the cap off a beer on the lip of the counter, and then he's out the back door into the garden where the evening's gone navy and the air’s still warm from the day.

He saves your number first. Then he stands there a moment, beer sweating in one hand, thumb over the call button in the other.

——

You’ve just tipped the bottle over your glass when the phone starts buzzing against the counter.

Unknown Number. Local.

“John?”

“Evenin’.”

Fuck. 

His voice lands an octave lower than you were braced for. A honeyed gravel that seeps into your ear and slides thick over your spine, pooling somewhere behind your ribs.

You set the bottle down before you drop it.

“So you actually do ring,” you manage.

“Said so on the profile, I think.”

“I half thought it was a bit.”

“I don’t really do bits.”

“No,” you say through a grin, picking up your glass and drifting toward the couch. You drop your voice into a gravelly impression of him: “You’re a very serious man.”

The laugh that comes down the line is quiet — more breath than sound, warm at the bottom of it, like you’ve caught him somewhere he doesn’t usually go.

“That meant to be me?”

“It’s uncanny, I know.”

The line goes quiet a moment — the good kind, neither of you rushing to fill it — and in it you catch the sounds of his side: a whirl of breeze, the faint ring of a glass set down on iron. He’s outside. You picture a tidy yard with tall dark hedges, a big man pacing slowly with a beer.

“Am I interruptin’ the wine?”

“The wine and I are happy to share the time.”

“Good.” There's a pause that you can hear his smile in. “I have a beer out here. Seemed only fair we’re both suffering the same.”

“Are we having our drink right now? Is this it?”

“No,” he says immediately, unamused even — which is very amusing for you. “This one doesn’t count.”

The speed of his reply sends something fizzing under your sternum. You tuck your feet up under yourself and take a slow sip.

“No?” you tease.

“I had imagined I’d see your face.”

“Been imagining, have you?”

You are very glad he cannot see your face right now. Cheeks warm and strained, you press the cool of the wine glass briefly against them in turns

“Nothin’ mucky if that’s what you’re gettin’ at.”

“Mm, no, 'course not. You’ve been a proper gentleman. Haven’t even thrown me a cheeky pick-up line.”

“I could workshop somethin’ for you if you’d like.”

“No thanks,” you giggle into your glass. “It was a relief when I opened your first message and it wasn’t a riddles-three about your dick.”

You can hear his scoff and recoil on the other end.

“Is that what it’s come to?”

“Unfortunately.”

There’s a short silence you’d swear is him coming to terms with the modern world, and you bite down on a smile.

“Right,” he says, and there's a controlled shift in his voice. “My question...”

Your stomach does a free-fall, nauseating and fluttery, fifteen again on the Detonator at Thorpe Park.

“Mm?” you hum around a sip, deeply casual, a woman entirely unbothered, curled so tight around the phone that Twix doesn’t have a leg to lie on.

“There’s a pub about halfway between us, Lamb & Flag. I’d like to take you for that drink tomorrow. Will you come?”

Then you remember what tomorrow is and sigh, immediately irritated with your whole family.

“Ugh, I want to say yes,” you sulk. “But I’ve got Sunday dinner with my family tomorrow. My mum would hunt me for sport if I flaked.”

“Fair. Wouldn’t want that on my conscience.”

“I could do a weeknight? After work?”

There’s a pause on his end.

“I’d rather not promise you a weeknight,” he admits. “I rarely get away on time, and I’m not startin’ this by standin' you up.”

You go quiet for a beat, you were ready for the usual ‘ahh, well, we’ll figure something out’. But instead got a man mindful of your time; a unicorn, really.

“Also fair. And— and thoughtful.”

“Friday, then?” he tries hopefully, you catch the small lean in his voice.

“Friday’s perfect,” you agree. “It’s a date!”

“It is,” he agrees, smiling.

The conversation should end there but it doesn't.

You learn things no profile has a field for; that he talks slower than he types, that he hm's real low in his throat when he’s considering something, that when you make him laugh it rumbles, so rough at the bottom that you feel at the back of your knees.

Somewhere past the hour mark you stop scrutinizing the call for red flags and just talk, and you only notice you’ve stopped when Twix jumps onto the couch and you realize you’ve been lying down for a while, phone balanced on your ear like you’re seventeen.

Eventually, you yawn.

“Right,” he says, and you can hear him moving, standing up by the way he tries to muffle a stiff groan. “That’s my cue.”

“Aw, no! I’m fine, really.”

“It’s late, love. And you’ve got your family tomorrow.”

“True. And you’ve got… whatever it is old men do on Sundays.”

“Lie-in, according to my profile.”

“Ha!” you bark, vindicated alone in your living room, having forgot about his little 'two truths and a lie'. “That’s the lie, I bet. I don’t think you’ve ever had a lie-in in your life.”

A low sound of amusement rolls down the line. “Goodnight,” he says, declining to confirm.

“Night, John.”

You sit a minute in the amber shine of your lamp after the line goes dead, phone loose in your hand.

——

Sunday morning, you text him at 8:12 AM.

good morning. how was the lie-in?

Wouldn’t know. Been up since five.

the lie confirmed!

He doesn’t dignify it. You don’t expect him to. You grin at your phone while you wait for the kettle to boil.

Your mum will later describe you, over dinner, as ‘suspiciously cheerful’.

The day swallows you — the drive, the roast, your mum’s questions, your brother’s kids. It’s near ten when you’re finally home, shoes off, replying to the last thing he’d sent that morning.

survived. my mum sends her regards to whoever put me in a good mood. her words.

Regards received. Sleep well.

——

Monday morning, John’s at his desk with his coffee going cold because somewhere between the canteen and the walk to his office, his phone buzzed, and it was you and he hasn’t stopped looking at it. 

good morning :) big meeting today. does this say “promote me” or “she tried”?

[ PHOTO ATTACHMENT ]

You, in your hallway mirror — chin tipped, black short-sleeve blouse with a wide collar exposing the smooth skin of your upper chest and collar, grey pencil skirt stretched over the curve of your hips and thighs, one knee bent like you’d just been lowering your foot from fitting on your heel.

His eyes are stuck on the soft-looking flesh just above and between your knees when a rap lands on his door and forces a cough from his throat.

Johnny eases it open with Kyle behind him holding a folder, Simon's behind them both, holding nothing, not even a pretense.

His phone goes face-down on the desk at a compromising speed, shifting to sit up straigher.

Simon’s eyes go to John’s hand over the phone, then to his face before he leans in the doorway with his arms folded.

“Mornin’, Cap. Good weekend?” Johnny asks, falling into the side chair in front of the desk with a theatrical groan.

“Fine.”

“Aye? Do anythin'?” He smiles, waggling his eyebrows. “Anyone?”

“You’ve got thirty seconds to develop a work reason for being in my office, Sergeant.”

It's an empty threat and everyone in the room knows it.

Kyle sets the (empty) folder down and steps back behind Johnny. “How’s it going, sir? Did you have any luck with Hinge?”

John could make them work for it. He’d planned to. But all three of them are standing in front of him trying so hard to look casual it’s a wonder none of them have pulled something.

"Have a date Friday. Drinks."

Johnny is ready to blast out of his seat, but Kyle shoves him back down by the shoulders, digging his fingers into the pressure points on either side of his neck until he relents with a hiss.

"That's great. Same woman or…?"

"The same."

“Good, good, good,” Johnny says, and means it — John can hear that he means it, he can also hear the restraint he's keeping from unloading shite advice.

“We'll stop buy Saturday for the debrief,” Simon says, already turning around, and Kyle picks the folder back up like it had a purpose all along, and they file out the way they came.

"I'm not debriefing you on my date. Don't come!" John calls to them half-heartedly, but the door's already shutting on top of his words. 

He turns the phone back over.

Promote you, he types.

You look lovely.

Your reply comes before he’s picked his pen back up.

well now the meeting feels easy. thank you x

He gets on with his morning, but by noon he suspects he's looked at that damn photo a dozen times.

——

The rest of the week goes standard. Your Tuesday runs long and his Wednesday runs longer, and the messages carry throughout it all. His texts arrive before your morning alarm even sounds, your replies go mid-commute — nothing heavy, just remaining in each other's orbit of interest as Friday chugs slowly into view.

Thursday night, near nine, he rings you, having first texted to ask if he could, which you’re beginning to understand is just how he’s built. It’s a short call by your new standards with him. He only wanted to confirm you’re still on for the pub, but he had you grinning into your pillow until you fell asleep.

———

You leave work at five on the dot, and you’re in front of your open wardrobe by six.

The little black dress comes off the rail first. Goes back. Comes off again. Back. The floral one gets as far as your shoulders before you pull it off over your head and drop it on the bed, where Twix immediately sits on it.

The silky baby blue halter’s been hanging on the door since you bought it. You put it on like you hadn’t already decided and do the tie at the back of your neck twice before the bow sits flat and neat. You pull on some jeans and rummage the closet for your chunky heels. 

You press some strawberry perfume to your throat in the mirror and try to comfort the nerve-ridden woman in the reflection.

“It’s just a pub,” you tell her. 

She doesn’t seem convinced. 

———

The pub is exactly the kind of place you imagine he'd frequent — quiet, all old mahogany and low brass lamps, no telly anywhere. You claim a stool, hook your heel over the rung, and decide not to order anything yet simply because it just feels polite to wait.

You're fifteen minutes early which means you're left alone with your anxieties. 

The last of the sun lies across the bar top in warm stripes, and you trace one with a finger while you wait. 

You’ve done this before, and it almost never goes how the phone promises. There was the guy whose photos were six years out of date. The one who spent both drinks talking about his ex and then sent a payment request for half the tab. The one who, two hours in, hadn’t asked you a single question about yourself. And John has been too good to be true for a week, and you know how that saying ends. Tonight is where you find out how, find out he really is just a man between deployments looking for entertainment and a shag.

It felt good, though. All week. Being excited about something. You’d forgotten the feeling. 

You pick at the hangnail on your thumb until it stings.

You don’t have to wait much longer for him. 

He casts a shadow when he comes through the door. Broad. Tall. Smart olive polo fighting for its stitching across his chest and where it grips into his biceps. He’s tidied his beard in comparison to his photos, hair less kempt in a purposeful way.

He scans the whole room before he finds you and stops looking anywhere else. He smiles tight and restrained, pleasant, but like he’s pacing himself, and by the time he crosses to you, your tongue has gone dry and whatever you’d planned to open with has shriveled away.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hi,” you smile.

He smells clean, a bit like pine and amber, and faintly like there’s tobacco somewhere on his collar.

“You’re early,” he adds, almost pleased.

“So are you.”

“I’m always early.” His eyes drop to the empty bar top in front of you, then come back. “You haven’t ordered?”

You shake your head once, legs shifting to cross. “I wanted— I was waiting for you.”

The lines beside his eyes deepen and he holds out his hand, says your name for the first time, and his hand swallows yours — big and dry and calloused across the palm where yours is soft — and you hold on a beat too long. He doesn’t mention it. You add that to the list of things you like about him, which is getting embarrassing for something four minutes old.

“What’ll you have?”

“Uhm, whatever you’re having,” you decide.

He signals the bartender with two fingers and opens his mouth — and there’s a brief second where he looks at you first, and you notice for the first time that his eyes are blue, and you get stuck, and it seems so does he. By the time he looks back, he’s lost the name of the beer he’s drunk here a dozen times.

“Two of the, uh— the local,” he manages.

You pretend not to notice. He knows you did.

He pulls out the stool beside you, and more of his cologne wafts around you as he sits, turned to face you, legs spread, one knee pointing between yours.

The pints arrive wet from the tap, and for a second neither of you says anything at all. You trace a bead of condensation down your glass.

“Funny, isn’t it,” you offer, sheepish. “We’ve talked every day for a week, and the second we’re actually in front of each other…” You trail off, cheeks warming, eyes fixed on the fizz jumping over the rim of your beer.

“You’re nervous?” he asks, a cheeky lilt on it.

“A bit, yeah. Aren’t you?”

“Not at all.”

You squint at him. “I don’t know if I buy that.”

“Hm.” He takes a sip that lasts a little too long, and the tips of his ears have gone pink.

Your cheeks are doing about the same. You drink your beer — cold, hop-bitter, helping — and let him have his lie. It’s a generous lie anyway. It’s a lie shaped like a man trying, and you’ve been handed far worse shapes.

“So,” you start. “I haven’t asked why you’re even on Hinge. You don’t seem the type.”

“I’m not,” he chuckles, and offers nothing beyond it.

You wait. He just sips his beer. You hike a brow.

“That’s it? That’s your answer?”

“Well, it wasn’t my idea. The lads put me on it.”

“The lads — your guys from work?”

“Yeah.”

“They what, talked you into it?”

“No.” He turns his glass a degree. “They nicked my phone and made the profile behind my back.”

“And what made them do that?”

He takes a moment with that one. He could give you a cover story — you can almost watch him weigh one — but then he doesn’t.

“Their assessment,” he laughs to himself, “was that I’d been… cranky. Needed gettin’ out of the house.”

“Cranky?” you repeat, delighted.

“Their exact words were a bit different.”

“Hm.” You look at him — at ease, half a smile living in his beard, one arm resting along the bar. “You don’t seem cranky to me.”

“Yeah, well. Guess they were right, then.”

Your neck goes hot and you have to look away from him. “Well,” you manage. “They do good work, your committee.”

He huffs into his pint, and lets you recover.

“Okay, next one, then. Military.” You tip your glass toward him. “What do you actually do?”

He sets his beer down and you can see him carefully choosing which door to open. “What d’you want to know?”

“I don’t know. What’s your day look like?”

“Depends on the day. Paperwork, mostly. Meetings.” A beat. “Sometimes we go away.”

“Away?”

“Away.”

“For how long?”

“As long as it takes.”

“Doing…?”

“Whatever they need me to,” he says easily. “S’not me being mysterious. I’d tell you if I could.”

“That must be so strange, though. Having this whole— like, most of your life you can’t talk about.”

“You get used to it.” Then, because you’re still looking at him expectantly, not filling the space the way people usually do: “There’s loads I can say. Ask me what six weeks of rain in a jungle smells like. Or what a month in the desert does to your skin.”

“What’s a month in the desert do to your skin?”

“Nothing good, love,” he answers, shifting to face you better. “The beard’s load-bearing.”

You laugh into your beer, and it makes the next one easier to ask.

“Do you like it? Like, the whole life of it?”

He goes quiet on that one. Longer than he’s gone quiet on anything else you’ve asked. You can see him thinking on it. 

“It’s what I’m best at,” he says finally. And then, mostly to his glass: “It’s all I’ve known, really. Been doin’ it since sixteen.”

You turn that over. There’s a whole life folded up in that sentence and you notice you want to ask about all of it, which is not a thing you’ve wanted to do with a man in a very long time.

The second beers arrive, and the conversation stops keeping to lanes — his lads and your best friend, the wedding in October, the neighbor whose bins are apparently a whole saga. You’re midway through the story of your work feud when a birthday party arrives loud and glittering behind you, and John, without so much as glancing down, reaches down and hooks his hand under the edge of your stool, and pulls.

The whole thing drags six inches across the floor with you on it, your knee sliding neatly between his, close enough now that his voice drops to match the new distance. You’re looking up at him, pulse tapping somewhere that has your thighs pressing together. 

“Go on,” he encourages. “She said what?”

It takes you a moment to find your place, but you go on.

The bar only gets louder from there, the birthday table multiplying, and when a booth opens up in the back corner, John tips his chin at it.

“Go grab that,” he says, turning back to the bar. “I’ll get another round. Want the same?”

“Actually—” and you hesitate out of nothing but habit, out of years of a man’s face going tight when you complicate an order, “—could I do a vodka cranberry this time? I could get the round—”

His brows furrow with something akin to bafflement, brief and genuine. “You can have whatever you’d like,” he says, and suddenly you feel silly, your hand crossing to grip your elbow.

“No—I know. I just—”

“Whatever you’d like,” he repeats, gentler. “And—” he grimaces, like what he’s about to say pains him deeply. “Don’t ever offer to pay on a date with me again. Properly wind me up, that will.”

“S-sorry,” you shake your head, like you can rattle the habit loose.

“None of that either,” his eyes have gone crinkled at the corners, warm all the way through, and he raps two knuckles soft on the bar top like the matter’s settled. “Vodka cranberry. Go, sit.”

“Actually— I’m gonna go freshen up quickly. Two minutes.”

And you go, biting down on a smile, ears hot — embarrassed and looked after all at once, which is apparently a combination that works on you.

The bathroom is cooler than the bar and a quiet that leaves your ears ringing. You reapply some lipgloss and wash your hands and look at yourself in the dirty mirror, buzzing warm at the collarbones, eyes shiny, mouth half-curved.

It’s going well.

It’s going suspiciously well.

And every time it’s gone well before, this is exactly when you started hunting for the catch. So you dry your hands on the rough paper towel and leave before you can start.

He’s in the booth when you come back, settled against the wall side, the last of the evening gone from the windows and the lamp above him glowing gold over the table. Your drink is waiting — pink, iced, a lime wedged on the rim — set neatly across the table at the seat opposite.

You look at the seat opposite.

Then you slide in beside him instead. Your thigh a heated inch from his, reaching across to relocate your drink.

You don’t look at him, but you can tell John’s a bit curious of the arrangement. His arm comes up and settles along the back of the booth behind you, and it oddly feels like it was always going to end up here, his thumb grazing the bare skin of your shoulder. He picks up his beer with the other hand.

“Comfortable?” he asks, low, and with entirely too much satisfaction.

“I am,” you say, and the first sip of the vodka cranberry is cold and tart and sweet all the way down, blooming behind your sternum right where his voice has been landing all night.

The booth is easier than the bar, somehow — closer, quieter, the birthday party more muted — and the talk drifts wherever it wants, his low laugh arriving against your shoulder through the arm behind you. At some point the lull comes; ice softening in your glass, his thumb resting an inch from your shoulder. And maybe it’s the vodka, or the arm, or the running list of things you like about him that you’d need both hands to count now—

“How long ago was your last relationship? Like a real one.”

He takes a deep breath before answering. “Honest answer?”

“Preferably,” you giggle softly, and he smiles — most of it lost in the beard, enough that you wonder if there are dimples under there.

“Longer than what sounds good out loud,” he admits through the pull of it. 

“Say it out loud anyway.”

“I was thirty-two. So, almost ten years ago.”

“Ten.”

“Mm.”

“A whole decade.”

“You can stop countin’ the years to me at any time, love.”

“Sorry, sorry.” You’re grinning. He is too. “It’s just, quite the gap in romance.”

“It went quick,” he says, and it’s a joke, and it’s also not. “What about you?”

“Ended about a year ago, we were together four.”

“Mm.”

“It was fine. Amicable— mostly,” you shrug. 

“Mostly,” he repeats — not pushing, just setting the word down where you can see he heard it.

“Mostly,” you confirm, and leave it there.

The ice ticks in your glass. And the next question’s been sitting in your chest, so you take it out while you’re brave.

“Can I ask something and you not be offended?”

“Startin’ well,” he says, nodding on for you to continue. 

You settle further into the booth and your shoulders press against his warm arm behind you, his fingers brushing over your shoulder. You lean your head back, turned to his face. 

“What’s changed? Between thirty-two and now that you’re trying dating?” You mean just to ask the question, but you find yourself rambling on. “Because if the honest answer is nothing, and this is just— a-a hookup with, like, really good manners, that’s fine. Genuinely. I’d just rather know now.”

“Fair,” he says. “Asked myself the same thing this week.”

“Yeah? And what was the answer?”

“I’m tired of the quiet,” he starts, pausing as his eyes drift away in thought. They come back to you just as quick. “Used to come home to it like a reward. Now it just feels… empty.”

Something in your chest slides sideways.

“So, no. Not a hookup,” he continues with a breath. “But I can’t promise you’d be happy with the alternative either. I can be gone longer than I’m home.” His thumb brushes along your shoulder, once, like an apology.

“Guess I wouldn’t know unless I gave it a go.”

You say it lightly, and the exhale he lets out has a smile riding on it — and something in his shoulders comes down, some held thing you didn’t notice until it let go.

“No,” he agrees, low. “You wouldn’t.”

You’re suddenly aware of the distance between you — or the lack of it. Somewhere between sitting down and the vodka you’ve ended up awfully close: near enough to count the grey threaded through his beard, to catch the beer on his breath, near enough that the light between you has stopped reaching the space. Near enough that you can feel the heat coming off him, and your heartrate has picked up on it before the rest of you has.

His eyes flick down to your mouth. Quick — half a second, there and back — but you catch it, and it lands low in your stomach and stays.

Neither of you leans back.

And the pub carries on behind you — glasses clinking, the birthday table shouting, a till drawer slamming — all of it arriving from somewhere far off and dreamlike.

You move closer. Barely. Imperceptible. Your pulse is in your ears now, drumming out the last of your sense—

“You know,” you say, quiet, pitched for the six inches between you and nobody else, “you can kiss me. If you’d like.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Mhm,” you grin.

“Well,” he says, matching your volume, low enough that it lands somewhere below hearing, “I was going to be a gentleman about it. Wait til I walked you out.” His gaze drops to your mouth again, slower this time, no secret. “But if you’d rather have it here in the booth, I won’t argue.”

“I suppose I could be patient.”

“Mm,” he says, and doesn’t move.

Somewhere in the world, presumably, time is passing.

His jaw shifts. 

“I’ll go pay the tab,” he decides.

And you’re both up and out of the booth quick, and you watch him stand at the bar with his back to you, shoulders set, and you press one cool knuckle to your own cheek and find it burning.

You two make it out the door.

The night’s gone hazy and July-thick, and you get maybe four steps down the side of the pub with his hand a light at the small of your back before you glance up at him and he glances down.

Whatever was left of patient dies right there on the pavement.

He moves you.

One hand finding your hip, the other your jaw, and then your back meets brick, warm through the thin of your blouse and against your bare shoulders, and his mouth is on yours.

Whatever mindful version he’d planned for the end of his gentlemanly walk out must have been spent in the booth — this is the interest. The kiss opens on a low rumble out of his chest, one you feel travel through his ribs into yours, and his tongue slides against yours, all beer and him, and you grip the front of his shirt with both fists just incase the wall behind you vanishes.

He kisses you thoroughly, his beard catching along your chin, a chafe you know you’ll feel tomorrow. A thigh slots half between yours, not pushing, not touching, but it’s not any less inviting. You could bare down on it, get the friction your body is craving, he’d let you, but you restrain yourself. His thumb strokes a slow line along your jaw in obscene contrast to what his mouth is doing — and it blooms down through you, fervid, liquescent.

He pulls back just far enough to breathe — forehead near yours, both of you loud with catching your breath — and when you open your eyes his are dark.

“Very gentlemanly,” you croon.

“I walked you out first, yeah?” he says, unrepentant.

You giggle against his mouth, and he claims it for himself with one more gentle kiss, and then he steps back a seemly distance, hand smoothing once down over his beard, shoulders resetting, breath evening out, everything going back in its place except his eyes.

“Walk me home?” you ask.

“I drove. I’ll give you a lift.”

You look up at him, all vodka-warm and enjoying yourself. “Well, just so you know, I share my location with my best friend and she knows exactly what pub I’m at, and has your name and photo, so—”

“Good,” he replies, no hesitation. “Smart girl. Keep it that way.” He finds his keys, fishing them out of his pocket. “I’m taking you straight home. You have my word.”

He draws an X over his heart, your lipgloss shining at the corner of his crooked mouth. 

——

The car smells like-new — clean upholstery and faintly of engine oil, everything squared away, nothing rolling around in the footwells.

The drive is short. The radio murmurs. His hand rests easy on the gearstick a few inches from your knee — close enough that you spend two full streets aware of nothing else — and the streetlights slide over him in slow bars, catching the grey at his temple and the small satisfied set of his mouth. 

The kiss is still thrumming under your skin like a struck glass, low in your belly, at the back of your knees — and you catch yourself doing the thing you swore off doing: imagining forward. Him in your doorway. Him in your kitchen on the weekend. Him coming home from wherever away is and it being your door he— 

You look out the window. Four miles has never taken so long.

He pulls up outside your building and sets the handbrake, and the engine idles, and neither of you move.

The dashboard glow makes everything blue. 

You want to ask him up. That's not the question; that got settled somewhere around the second kiss in the alley, possibly earlier, possibly around the moment he walked into the pub, or whatever. But there's the other thing you can't evict from your head: do you really want to sleep with him on the first date?

"So," you say.

"So…”

You look at him — streetlight in the grey of his beard, arm along the wheel, he’s in absolutely no hurry to resolve you.

"Did you have a good time tonight?"

His head turns. There's a beat where he just looks at you, and you watch him physically decide not to make a joke of it.

"Yes. Best night I've had in a while," he says. 

"Would you—" and god, you're thirty years old and your heart is doing this anyway, "—want to see me again? Like this?"

"Was already plannin' to ask you to dinner." A small crease starts at the corner of his eye. "Was workin' out whether to do it now or ring you tomorrow, so I didn't seem overly—"

"Keen?"

"Keen," he confirms, gravely, like the word's been a burden to him all week.

And that lands warm and the relief does something reckless to your mouth, which is that it stops guarding it.

"Okay. Then I'm going to say something, but you can't look at me while I say it."

“Right.” He scrubs a hand over his twitching lips and looks out the windshield, obedient.

"I want to ask you up."

"Mm."

"And I'm having a whole debate about it."

"I can hear it," he says. "Been losin' to the engine for about a minute now."

"Just—,” you sigh, “—shut up." But you're smiling at the dashboard. "It's just— I spent all week wondering if this was a hookup thing for you. And you answered that, and I believe you, I do. But there's this small, paranoid part of me that's like, well, that's exactly what a man would say at the pub, isn't it? And then there's this other, stupider part that thinks if you come up, you'll—" you take a deep breath, your fingers hooking into each other on your lap, and make yourself finish it, "—think less of me. First date and all."

He's quiet for a second, lips pursing. 

“Can I look at you now?” he tries.

“Yeah.”

"You want to know where I'm actually at?"

"Truly just desperate for a man to be honest so I know what headspace to put myself in."

“Alright.” He shifts to face you, wrist still hanging over the wheel. “I want to come up. Badly, if you want some extra honesty.”

The badly goes straight between your thighs.

“Okay,” you manage. “Noted.”

“I haven’t lied to you once tonight. And I’m takin’ you to dinner whether I come up or not.”

“And, like— you wouldn’t think—”

“Think less of you?” He frowns, like the math’s not mathing. “For doin’ the same thing I’d be doing? Together?”

“When you put it like that…”

“For what it’s worth, I’m sat here havin’ a version of the same debate. Been out of this a long time. Didn’t want you thinkin’ that’s all I came for. So if you’d rather I kiss you at the door and drive home, I’ll do that and consider it a perfect evening.”

And maybe it’s the ease of him, the total absence of pressure you’re always braced for on nights like this, that settles it for you. 

“Would you like to come up?”

——

The stairwell smells of somebody's late dinner and warm dust, the day's heat still trapped in it, and you take the stairs ahead of him to the second floor.

John is a gentleman.

John has been a gentleman all night.

John gives himself the length of one flight of stairs off the clock — the sway of you in those jeans, the shift and give of you with every step, the smooth line of your bare shoulders under the halter's little bow — and by the landing he's a gentleman again, and if you felt his eyes like a brand on you, and by the half-smirk you throw over your shoulder you did, neither of you says a word about it.

Your flat smells like you — the perfume he got to know at the pub, but underneath it, clean laundry, a candle burned down sometime this week — and a blur of black-and-caramel bolts across the living room and vanishes down the hall before he can so much as get a look at her.

"That was Twix," you say, her paws still pattering away. "She'll start her background check and circle back."

"Sensible."

And then the two of you are standing in your living room with the whole car’s worth of honesty sitting in the middle of the floor, and you look at him, and look at the kitchen, and say:

"Do you want a drink? I have wine. Or, um. Tea? I might have a beer from—"

"I'm alright," his mouth pulls at one side. 

"Water? I'm gonna have water."

"Then I'll have water," he says like he’s surrendering. 

He watches you go — and he could laugh, not at you, but because he knows exactly what he’s looking at. The two of you agreed in plain English on why he’s standing here, and now you’re in your kitchen filling glasses neither of you want, and wiping down a counter that, from where he’s stood, was already clean. 

So he gives you room. Settles against the arm of the couch, takes a slow lap of your shelf with his eyes — you and a woman he guesses is the October bride, you on a hike somewhere sunny, you and Twix bravely on the balcony — and he wants you the whole time, low and patient, in his back teeth, but doesn’t move on it.

 Your pace. Your move.

You come back with the waters, and hand him his, and hold your own in both hands like you might drop it. He takes a sip, looks at you over the rim of it.

“You’re nervous,” he says.

“Not at all.”

“Mm.” He nods slowly, deeply unconvinced and taking a page from your own book. “Don’t know if I buy that.”

He watches it land, watches the laugh come up out of you before you can stop it, head tipping back, throat bare, and half your nerves seem to leave with it.

He likes that. 

He sets his glass down. Then, gently, he takes yours out of your mid-fidget hands and sets it down too — he tips your chin up with one knuckle, and kisses you.

Easy-like, cold from the water, cranberry still faint on your tongue, your breath catches once against his mouth and then lets go. Your hands slide flat up his chest and stop over his heart — which is going quicker than he’d care to admit, and he feels the exact moment you find it out, the little hum of discovery you make.

When you pull back to look at him, whatever nerves were left in you are gone from your eyes, and they’re twinkly a lot like the first photo he ever saw of you. 

You take his hand off your waist, lace it through yours, and guide him backward toward the short hall.

In your bedroom he finds the tie of your halter at the back of your neck and pauses with the ends between his fingers, silk warm from your body. One pull and it gives, the fabric sighing loose, and he follows it slide down with his eyes first, then his mouth — the slope of your throat, over your shoulder, then the soft skin below your ear that tastes of strawberry perfume and salt. His beard drags over your neck and a shiver flows through you so he does it again, slower. You shiver harder, fingers curling into the front of his polo.

Good.

You tug the hem of his shirt up and he reaches back, pulls it off over his head one-handed, and drops it somewhere he’ll look for later. He unhooks your bra just as easily, and when your palms spread into the coarse hair over his bare chest and down his toned stomach, the muscle jumps under your fingertips, he hears his own breath go rough.

“Okay,” you say, a little wonder in it. “Wow, yeah, that’s….”

“Mm?”

“Nothing. Just— I knew military, just didn’t realize… this much military.”

“Lodging a complaint?” he askes, amused.

“Definitely not.”

The rest goes gradually — his belt, your jeans peeled down warm thighs with his calloused palms flat against your skin the whole way, a hop and a giggle when the denim catches your ankle and he steadies you by the elbow — and then you’re bare in front of him, lamplight pooling gold along your shoulder, your hip, the soft curve of your stomach. He stops with his hands at your waist and looks.

“Say something,” you murmur, half a laugh, shy at last under the attention. “You’re oggling.”

“I am.” His thumbs press slow arcs into your hips. “Give me a minute. Been picturin’ this since Tuesday and I did you no justice.”

You pull him down onto the bed by way of an answer, and the mattress sinks with a soft complaint, and then it’s just skin — so much warm skin, soft everywhere he’s hard, giving under his hands, smelling of perfume and the clean sweat July dampens into everyone.

He stretches out alongside you, one heavy thigh over yours, and takes his time. The curve of your waist. The full weight of your breast, thumb dragging over your nipple until it peaks and your breath stutters. The inside of your thigh, where the skin is finest and the heat pools. You move under his touch the whole time, restless and rising, fingers in his hair, at his shoulders, and the small sounds you make land somewhere at the base of his neck and prickle there.

Then he shifts down the bed, kisses the soft of your stomach, the plush crease of your hip, and looks up the length of you.

“Can I?”

“You— yes,” you breathe, trembling feebly. “Yes, obviously, you don’t have to a—”

His mouth is on you before the sentence ends.

You’re sweet and slick against his tongue, already so wet the first slow lick slides easy, and the sound you make is high and caught somewhere low, thigh twitching against his ear, one hand flying to his hair. He hums — feels you feel it — and settles in. No rush. Long soft strokes of his tongue until your hips learn the rhythm and rise to meet it, then his lips close warm around your clit, sucking gently, and your whole body pulls tight.

“Oh my god— okay— okay—”

“Mm.”

“Don’t be smug—” and your voice climbs off the end of the sentence as he slides two thick fingers into you, curling them, tongue still working, and whatever the rest of that scolding was, he never learns it.

“Could do this all night, sweetheart,” he murmurs against you, and feels the words land in a shudder. Your breathing changes. Your thighs start trembling, your hand fists in the sheets — and he keeps the pace exactly the same until you’re pulling at him. Hair, arm, anything you can reach.

“John— John— come— I want you. Now,” you whine, “Please.”

He comes up the length of you slow, mouth mapping stomach and sternum and throat on the way, and settles over you on one forearm—

"I should've said this in the car," he starts, eyes on yours. "I don't have a condom. Wasn't assuming tonight would end up here."

"I don't have any either. I actually checked the drawer before I left tonight." You push his dampening hair back off his forehead. "I'm on the pill, and I trust you. But I'd still feel better if you pull out. Is that okay?"

He nods assuredly. "Then I'll pull out," he says flat and plain. "You have my word."

"You and your word—" but you're smiling, and then you're not smiling, because he's already moved and taken himself in hand and dragged the head of his cock through your folds, coating himself in you, and notched against your entrance, and the smile falls open into something much, much better.

He pushes in slow, watches your face the entire way — he couldn't look elsewhere if a grenade went off — your brows drawing up, your lips parting around a breath that doesn't finish, your nails biting little crescents into his forearms — and fuck, the feel of you: scalding, soaked, tight enough that he has to stop twice, jaw clenched, sweat sliding at his temple, feeding you his cock an inch at a time and pulling back, then giving you more; the slick easy give of you around him unspooling something in his stomach.

"Talk to me," he murmurs, gravel-low. "Alright?"

"Yes." Your voice has gone breathless and small and blissed. "You're— god—"

"Christ, you’re snug," he exhales shakily, eyes finding yours. “Relax for me, baby. Breathe.”

"I am breath—oh. Oh—shhit—"

John’s seated all the way, hips flush to your backside, and both of you go quiet — a shared beat of stillness, you fluttering around him hot and full, his body coming down, forehead dropping to yours, ten months of silence pulling a sound up out of his chest that he couldn't have stopped if he knew it was coming.

Then you shift your hips, experimental, a slow grind up against him, and that stillness is over.

He moves slowly; long level strokes dragging all the way out so you both feel every hot stretch of the return, your breasts pressing soft against his hairy chest. Your heels slide up the back of his thighs and he budges his hips closer, holding deep and pressing the head of his cock into your furthest wall. Your hands squeeze the meat between his shoulders and his neck as he pushes a small squeal out of you. 

"Right there—right there—right there, don't—"

"I won’t," he murmurs against your jaw. “I won’t move.”

"—okay maybe move a little—"

He breathes something restrained through a smile. "Make your mind up, darling," he grunts. 

“It’s hard to— mmm—think like this,” you half-moan against his cheek. 

“Don’t think, then.”

It’s all your talking that undoes him more than anything, he realizes distantly. He’d forgotten there was a version of this with laughing in it; a version with a woman eagerly gripping him and grinning against his cheek in the second before a moan carries her voice away — and every time you say his name, breathed and broken, something in his chest cinches another notch tighter.

He draws back and drives home again, and whatever you’d been about to answer with comes out as a punched huff.

You don’t think.

He feels the difference in you immediately — your body dropping the manners, hips rising to meet him harder than he’s giving it, heels dragging him in by the thighs on every stroke, a low frustrated sound building in your throat when he keeps the same controlled pace. You’re not asking for anything. You’re taking it in inches, greedy and unaware of yourself, nails dragging down the small of his back, pulling—

“Harder?” he asks against your ear. 

"Yes, please."

He hooks your knee up over his hip and opens you wider—“So polite.”—and gives it to you deeper, his weight behind it, your headboard cracking against the wall. You go loud and lovely underneath him, clutching, slick heat and plush skin and your nails scoring lines down his back that he hopes, viciously, will last long enough to admire.

He works a hand between your bodies, thumb finding your clit, riding the motion you’ve bkth created.

"That's— John— You’re gonna make me come," you sob. 

"I know. I feel you. Squeezin' me like— Christ. Go on—fuck."

He watches it arrive before you do, a shiver running ahead of the wave; your spine arches up off the bed, your cunt clenches around him in long pulsing, aching, waves —  it takes you under, and you pull him with you.  

He holds you, murmuring filth and praise in equal measure against your ear—

How good—

How gorgeous—

You’re mine now, you know that? Hm?—

It’s watching you eagerly nod along with his babbling that finishes him. He lasts maybe ten more strokes on borrowed time, heat gathering alacritous and irrevocable at the base of his groin — and he rears back onto his knees, pulling out of you with a growl that tumbles from his throat, fist working his cock over, soaked with you, spilling hot across your stomach and hip in thick ropes, head hanging, shoulders heaving, your thighs still bracketing his knees.

When he lifts his head, you’re already looking at him.

Glowing down to your chest, lips parted and kiss-swollen, wearing him low on your stomach — and neither of you says anything. Neither of you looks away either. His chest is still heaving. Your knee presses in against his side, and the corner of your mouth starts to curl, and his does too, helpless about it.

He comes down on his side, careful of the mess he’s made of you, one arm heavy across the pillow above your head. The curtain breathes at the window beside the bed and the night comes in and cools the sweat on his back, and he can see your heartbeat going hard at your throat, the rise and fall of your stomach not yet settled. He gently fits his thumb against your pulse, just to feel it going. 

He kisses you, your mouth lazy under his, and then your temple, and the crown of your head, and you make a low, boneless sound and turn your face into his hot neck, and the two of you just lie there breathing each other in, tangled and settling, your finger drawing slow shapes on his forearm.

"John?" Small, against his throat.

"Mm?"

"Would you mind grabbing me a cloth? Bathroom's just across the hall."

He's up before the sentence finishes, annoyed at his own carcass the whole three steps to the door, ten months out of practice and it shows, he used to know this part, the part where he takes care of you before you have to ask.

You bathroom is small and smells of your shampoo, fruity, herbal. He runs a flannel under the warm tap, wrings it out, catches his own eyes in the mirror over the sink — wrecked hair, beard ruined and shiny with your lipgloss. He turns, craning his neck spotting a blooming red scratch coming up nicely at his shoulder.

He comes back and cleans you up properly, kneeling on the edge of the bed, one hand steady at your hip while the warm cloth moves over your stomach — thorough about it, frowning slightly the way he does when he’s concentrating — and you watch him do it propped up on your elbows with an expression he can't quite read and doesn't need to. It's warm, whatever it is. And it’s aimed at him, so.

"You're staring," he says, not looking up. 

"You're tidying me."

"Should've done it before you asked." He folds the cloth, sets it on the nightstand, and stretches out beside you again, this time gathering you into his chest. "Out of practice."

"I'll allow it," you say, magnanimous, settling your cheek against his pec. "The rest was very in-practice."

He huffs into your hair.

Your fingers trail idle through the hair on his chest, down over old pinked scars, and you ask him about them — whether the jagged line at his shoulder hurt, what caused the puckered one under his ribs — and he answers more honestly than he means to, your weight settling heavier against him as the adrenaline drains.

There's a soft thump from the hallway, then, and a moment later a small shape appears in the doorway — sits, tail wrapping her feet, and surveys the wreckage: the trail of clothes, the stranger man in the bed, you draped over his ribs.

She stares at John.

John stares back.

"We have an audience," he says.

You look over him to see your cat, "Twix, John. John, Twix."

Twix holds his gaze a moment longer, supremely unimpressed, then steps delicately over his discarded shirt and exits the way she came and he feels you giggling before he hears it, the shake of it against his chest.

"That went well," you say, overly pleased. 

“Yeah?”

“Mhm.”