🧿

The understanding was practical, not sentimental. He knew what it meant to misjudge a doorframe, to dent a canteen without thinking, to occupy a body that still caught you off guard in reflections. You'd crossed paths at inter-division briefings three times before your units drew the same operational territory.

The consolidation was mutual, arriving independently from both ends; two serum-enhanced captains running parallel missions across overlapping terrain was redundant at best, reckless at worst. Pooling forces was the obvious call. Neither of you deliberated long.

The formality between you had softened since then into something that might, generously, pass for warmth. He poured your coffee without asking how you took it. You annotated his situation reports in the shorthand he preferred before he had to request it. Neither of you remarked on any of it.

His unit absorbed yours with the practical ease of soldiers who understood shared ground meant shared risk. Good men, competent, loyal to Rogers in that bone-deep way that reflected well on his leadership.

You made a point of learning names, habits, rhythms. One name you already knew: Sergeant James Barnes.

Steve's right hand, his oldest friend, the one he mentioned with a frequency that bordered on devotion. You'd heard about Barnes before you ever shook his hand, which left you predisposed to warmth before you'd earned your own reasons for it.

The real thing matched the reputation: broad shoulders, a jaw that could cut glass, an easy confidence that sat well on a man who'd never once questioned how much space he deserved in a room. Half the nurses at base camp watched him pass like he was a weather event.

You could see why — a good sergeant, quick under pressure, steady in the field, possessing a loyalty to Steve that was written into every reflex he had.

You were still negotiating your own dimensions. Sleep had become a problem of geometry; the cots were too narrow, every angle wrong for the new architecture of your neck, your shoulders. It drew attention. But you were a captain. Everything you did collected observation, the low murmur of men recalibrating what a human body could look like. You'd stopped cataloguing the glances weeks ago.

Though Barnes, amidst the steady current, had been wavering in your periphery a beat too long. Not quite staring, nothing so obvious. Just a gaze that caught where it didn't need to, held a half-second past casual, with a regularity that was becoming harder to file under coincidence.

0010 — two

The Willys had room for three across the front bench if all three men were built to regulation standard — none of you qualified.

Steve drove because he insisted on it with the same polite immovability he applied to most decisions. You took the passenger side. Bucky, by process of elimination, got the middle.

He settled between you with the ease of a man who'd ridden in worse configurations, his shoulders fitted against Steve's on one side, against yours on the other. His thigh pressed flush to yours, warm through two layers of wool, the bench offering nothing that resembled personal space. He didn't seem bothered. If he was, the performance of unbothered was flawless.

"Supply route's compromised past the tree line." Steve kept his eyes forward, hands steady on the wheel. "Patterson's unit took fire there two days ago."

"From the east ridge?" Your arm rested along the back of the bench behind Bucky’s head, not around him, just where it fit.

"Northeast. Clean sightline on the road for about a quarter mile before the bend."

"Then we loop through the valley." You leaned forward to catch Steve's profile, your chest brushing Bucky’s shoulder as you shifted. An incidental thing, barely worth registering. "Adds forty minutes, but we keep the convoy out of range."

"Forty minutes is a lot of daylight to burn," Steve said.

"Better than burning men."

A beat of agreement passed between you, wordless, the kind of tactical shorthand that came from weeks of operating in sync. Barnes, bracketed between the two of you, sat very still during it.

"We could split the column." His voice was steady, practiced, delivered with a sergeant's certainty. "Half through the valley, half on the main road with a rearguard. Stagger by fifteen minutes so the first group draws their attention."

"That makes the first group a target."

"That makes the first group soldiers, Captain."

You looked at him. The correction was sharp, confident, accompanied by a half-smile that knew precisely how good it sounded. He met your gaze with a steadiness that almost held before it slipped, just barely, from your eyes to your mouth to the stretch of your collar across your chest. A fractional inventory. Quick enough to deny, but slow enough to feel.

"He's right," Steve said from the driver's side, almost amused. Humming in agreement, you turn back to the road.

Between two captains who'd just echoed each other on his behalf, Bucky exhaled through his nose. His thigh pressed a little more firmly against yours. Whether it was the road or a choice, you didn't examine.

0011 — three

The table in the briefing room wasn't large enough for the three of you to stand around comfortably — this was becoming a pattern, mind you.

Steve had the map weighted at the corners with spent casings, the region's topography spread between you like a question waiting on an answer. You stood across from him, Bucky at the narrow end between you. The lamp overhead painted the whole scene in amber, shadows pooling in the low corners of the room.

"They've been repositioning the artillery." Steve tapped a ridge line on the eastern edge. "Here last week. Probably here by now." His finger traced a path northwest. "They're staying ahead of our recon."

"‘Cause it’s predictable." You reached across the table to flatten a curled edge of the map, your forearm passing directly through Bucky’s sightline. He blinked. "Same routes, same intervals. They've had weeks to study the pattern."

"So we change the pattern."

"We scrap it entirely." The pencil from behind your ear found your hand without thought, circling two points on the western approach. "Smaller teams, irregular timing, no fixed route. Let them chase ghosts while we map their movements instead."

Bucky leaned in to study the points you'd marked, his shoulder settling against your arm with a naturalness that suggested habit rather than intention. Close enough that you could catch the standard-issue soap on his skin, something warmer underneath it. His frown at the map was genuine, focused.

"These ravines are tight." His finger traced one of the passes. "Two men across, maybe three. If a team gets caught in there, there's no room to maneuver."

"They won't get caught if they're fast enough," Steve said. He'd moved to Bucky’s other side of the table without ceremony, standing at his shoulder now. The geometry of it placed the Sergeant squarely between you, both of your frames eclipsing the lamplight from either side.

His finger stalled on the map.

He recovered quickly, a cleared throat that could've been the dust, a voice that held its ground. "The 107th ran ravine operations in Italy. I can brief your men on the terrain tactics if you'd like, Captain."

The offer was directed at you. His eyes, when they found yours, were sharp with an effort that suggested the alternative was looking somewhere he shouldn't. Like the way your hands pressed flat against the table's edge, wide enough to span the distance between two grid squares. Like the breadth of your chest where the lamp caught the fabric.

"I'd appreciate that, Sergeant."

Something in the word — sergeant — made his jaw tighten. The reaction wasn't displeasure, perhaps something more heated than that lived behind it.

Steve, on Bucky’s other side, said nothing. But his gaze lingered on the man’s profile for a moment too long, something quiet rearranging behind his expression. Recognition, maybe. The specific kind that belonged to a man who'd watched his best friend come undone in slow increments enough times to know what the early stages looked like.

He looked at you over his head. You looked back, but neither of you said a word.

"Right." Bucky straightened, squaring his shoulders in a way that might have been composure or might have been an attempt to reclaim space between the two of you. "I'll pull the Italian maps after dinner."

"Good." Steve's hand landed on Bucky’s shoulder, brief, a natural gesture between old friends. The span of his palm nearly covered the joint. His breath caught thin enough to miss before he stepped out from between you toward the door.

You watched him go. Steve watched you watch him.

0100 — four

The corridor outside the sleeping quarters was narrow even by military standards, built for function rather than comfort, a concrete throat connecting the briefing rooms to the officers' bunks. Most men could pass through two abreast without difficulty. For you or Steve, it was single file or nothing.

For all three of you, it was an exercise in proximity that nobody had agreed to but nobody was leaving.

The evening had wound down an hour ago. Most of the unit was asleep or near it, voices fading to the low hum of a camp settling into itself. You'd stepped out for air, found Steve already leaning against the corridor wall, found Bucky already with him.

The conversation started easy, drifted into nothing consequential. Plans for after the war that none of you fully believed in. A bar Bucky knew in Brooklyn. The specific quality of light in a city without blackout curtains.

It was the most informal you'd been with either of them.

Steve leaned against one wall, arms folded, his shoulders spanning most of the available concrete. You mirrored his posture against the opposite wall, the corridor's width reduced to the narrow channel of space Bucky currently occupied between you. He stood with his hands in his pockets, chin tipped up in that easy way he carried himself. Comfortable, nearly.

"You're telling me you never once started a fight at that bar," you said to Steve, a thread of disbelief pulling through your voice.

"I said I never started one." A smile ghosted across Steve's mouth. "There's a distinction."

"He started all of them." Bucky’s voice was warm with the particular fondness of someone recounting a long-documented history. "Every single one. He'd find the biggest guy in the room with the worst opinions just to make a point nobody asked him to make."

"The point usually needed making."

"The point usually got us thrown out, Steve."

You laughed. Low, genuine, unexpected enough in the concrete quiet that Bucky looked at you with something unguarded crossing his expression. Surprise, maybe — like he hadn't expected that sound from someone your size, like the warmth of it didn't match the architecture.

His gaze held yours a second too long.

The ease between the three of you had shifted over the past hour into something less simple. Not tense, not exactly. Aware.

Every movement felt catalogued. Every silence carried a specific weight. Steve's voice had dropped lower as the night wore on, settling into a register that was less captain, more something older than rank. Your posture had loosened in a way that should've read as casual but instead made the full breadth of your frame more apparent; shoulders dropped, chest open, occupying precisely as much space as the serum had built you to fill.

Bucky kept adjusting. His weight shifted from one foot to the other. His tongue wet his lower lip when he thought neither of you was looking. Both of you were.

"So what's your excuse?" He turned to you, his voice still easy on the surface, something thinner running underneath. "You pick fights too, Captain?"

"I don't need to." You said it simply, without posture. "Most people don't argue with me twice."

"I believe that." His gaze dropped to your shoulders, your arms, the way your hands hung loose at your sides. The survey lasted longer than the ones before it — he didn't bother disguising it. "I genuinely believe that."

Footsteps echoed from the far end of the corridor. Two soldiers from the night watch rounded the corner, voices low. The corridor was too narrow for them to pass without someone adjusting.

Your hand found Bucky’s waist.

It was instinct, more practical. You drew him closer into the triangle, into the shallow alcove of space between your body and Steve's, making room for the soldiers to squeeze past. A casual gesture, barely a conscious thought. Your palm settled against the curve of his hip, fingers spread wide over the wool of his jacket, the pressure firm enough to guide without asking.

Bucky came willingly. His body followed the direction of your hand like water finding a new course, his back nearly flush to your chest, Steve close enough on his other side that Barnes could probably feel the heat radiating off both of you in stereo. The soldiers passed without a glance.

Your hand stayed.

The corridor was clear. The practical reason had walked around the corner thirty seconds ago. Your palm remained on his waist, the weight of it steady, your thumb resting against the jut of his hip bone through the fabric. You could feel his breathing beneath your hand — a carefully measured rhythm, controlled — the kind of deliberate control that only became necessary when the natural alternative was something far less composed.

Steve was looking at your hand on Bucky’s waist, then at his face, then at you.

You met his gaze. Something passed between you that carried the weight of a full conversation compressed into silence. He knew. You knew he knew.

The formality you both wore like rank, like insignia stitched into your bearing, was still technically in place. The seams were beginning to show.

Bucky hadn't moved away, nor had he shifted your hand. He hadn't cracked a single joke to dissolve the moment the way you'd watched him do a dozen times before when something drifted too close to real. He stood between the two of you, solid, warm, his jaw set in a way that looked less like composure now, more like restraint.

"You good, Buck?" Steve's voice was low, gentle in a way that had nothing to do with softness. The question was precise. He knew exactly what he was asking.

"Fine, Steve." The answer came out rough. "Just fine."

Your fingers tightened on his waist. A fraction more pressure, the kind of thing that could be accidental, could be nothing, could be everything. Bucky’s breath stuttered once, thin as paper.

None of you moved.

The generators hummed beneath the floor. Somewhere beyond the concrete, the war continued its patient work. In this corridor, three men occupied a silence that held more weight than any briefing, any map, any coordinated strike they'd ever planned between them.

Steve unfolded his arms. The movement was slow, deliberate, bringing his hand to Bucky’s other side. Not quite touching — but placed at the small of his back, close enough that he could feel the warmth of his palm without the confirmation of contact.

Bucky closed his eyes. When he opened them, the deflections were gone. No charm, no easy grin. Just want, bare and startled, directed at you with the full awareness that the same expression pointed just as fiercely at the man behind him.

Your thumb traced a slow line along his hip.

"We should get some sleep," Steve said quietly. He didn't move.

"Yeah." Bucky's voice barely held. He didn't move either.

You let go first. Your fingers trailed across the wool before falling to your side, the absence so specific that Bucky's exhale sounded obscenely loud in the corridor.

"Goodnight, Sergeant."

"Captain." His voice was not steady.

Steve's hand landed on Bucky's back, brief, firm, shaped like farewell while meaning something else entirely. Then he stepped toward the officers' quarters at a pace that suggested discipline was the only thing keeping his legs moving in that direction.

Bucky stood alone in the corridor. Somewhere behind his ribs, beneath the uniform, beneath the broad shoulders half the nurses on base admired, something had cracked open that he was not going to be able to close.

He pressed his palm flat to the wall where you'd leaned. The concrete was still warm.

Thirty steps to your quarters. You know because you'd counted them, the way any good captain maps his environment. Steve made it to his door, and you to yours. Bucky made it to neither.

The specifics of how all three of you ended up in the same room were mechanical in hindsight — a glance that wasn't dismissed fast enough, a door left open with intent that couldn't be called accidental, Bucky standing in the hallway like a man who'd run out of reasons to pretend he wasn't exactly where he wanted to be.

Steve reached him first. Gentle hands, a murmured word against his temple, permission asked with a patience that made his knees unreliable. You reached him second, less gentle. Your grip on his jaw turned Bucky’s face toward yours with a certainty that left no room for questions, only answers, and the sound he made in response told you everything.

0101 — five

The dim light of the barracks cast long shadows across Bucky's pale skin as he lay vulnerable on the cot, his breathing already shallow and uneven.

Steve was hovering over him like a guardian angel gone rogue, his massive frame casting a shadow that swallowed him whole.

"Easy now, Buck," Steve cooed, his voice a velvet murmur that betrayed nothing of the raw power coiled in his shoulders. His cock, thick and pulsing with the serum's relentless energy, nudged against his lips. He gave a slow kitten lick before gripping his own length, his palm dwarfing the cock.

Meanwhile, you were already positioned between Bucky’s legs, your own cock already throbbing against his skin. You didn't have the patience for Steve's slow burn approach; you wanted to feel him stretch around you right now.

"Hey, Rogers, quit playing nursemaid and hand over that oil," you snapped, your voice rough with impatience as you nudged your tip against Bucky's puckered entrance. "This soldier's gonna drive me crazy if we don't get moving."

Steve obliged, reaching for the small tin with one hand while his other remained possessive on Bucky's thigh. But as he leaned forward to help you, the sheer, uncoordinated power of his new frame betrayed him. His hips lurched forward with too much force, and before he could catch himself, his cock slid past Bucky's lips, lodging deep in the back of his throat.

He let out a muffled, startled noise, his eyes widening as tears welling in his eyes from the sudden intrusion. He gagged weakly, his throat working convulsively around Steve's impressive girth, but Steve didn't pull away immediately. Instead, he steadied himself, his large hands framing Bucky's face with surprising tenderness despite the cock blocking his airway.

"Shh, it's alright, Buck. Just breathe through it," Steve murmured, his voice dripping with that infuriatingly gentle concern as he carefully adjusted his angle, sliding his cock deeper but more deliberately into Bucky's mouth. "I've got you, just take it."

However, you weren't too interested in the sentimental routine. You were too busy wrestling with Bucky's stubborn resistance at your end. You had already taken a generous dollop of the oil Steve handed over, lathering the tight entrance with impatient fingers, but every time you tried to drive your tip home, he simply wouldn't budge. The tight ring ass refused to yield, clamping down hard against your slick tip like it was trying to shut you out entirely.

"Dammit, Bucky, quit playing tough and take it like a man," you growled, your fingers digging into the meat of his hip to hold him still. You leaned forward, your breath hot against his flushed ear, completely unfazed by Steve's tender ministrations nearby. "You're acting like some green recruit on his first day in the field. Open up."

Steve let out a soft, breathy laugh, his thumbs stroking Bucky's cheekbones as he watched you work. "Give him a second, Captain. He's still adjusting to... everything." Steve's cock gave a deliberate thrust deeper into Bucky's throat, forcing a wet, desperate whimper from the soldier's nose. "See? He's doing just fine, jus’ a good boy."

"Boy?" you scoffed, rolling your eyes at Steve's saccharine tone as you pressed your cock harder against Bucky's stubborn ring. "He's acting like a scared kitten, Rogers — can’t handle a little friction."

You grabbed Bucky's hip with enough force to leave marks, your thumb digging into the muscle. "Come on, darlin’, quit playing coy. You know you want this more than any commendation from Command."

Bucky's eyes fluttered shut, his face flushed crimson as he struggled to process being claimed from both ends. A wet, choking sound escaped his throat as Steve's cock bottomed out against his tonsils, the gentle captain's hips beginning to roll in slow, deliberate circles. "That's it, Buck... just let it happen," Steve whispered steadily despite the obvious desire.

"Save the sweet talk for the dames, Rogers," you muttered, though your own pulse was hammering against your ribs.

The sight of Bucky flushed, teary eyed, and utterly overwhelmed between two super soldiers was doing more to loosen his grip than any amount of gentle coaxing. You shifted your weight, grinding your cock against that stubborn ring. "Bein’ difficult, and I don't have all night to wait for him to find his courage."

Bucky's fingers curled into the rough wool of the cot's blanket, his knuckles white. A thick string of saliva escaped the corner of his mouth as Steve's cock slid deeper, the movement precise and devastatingly smooth. The soldier's hips gave an involuntary twitch upward, a desperate attempt to meet the dual assault, but you weren't having any of his hesitation.

"That's more like it, you little bastard."

You didn't wait for him to settle. Grabbing both of his thighs, you yanked them wider apart, exposing every inch of his vulnerable, slick ass to the dim light. The muscles there were quivering, caught between the gentle pressure of Steve's cock in his mouth and your own demanding presence at his rear. "Now quit stalling and take what's coming to you."

The resistance finally broke with a wet, obscene sound as you abandoned all pretense of patience. "That's it, Barnes. Stop fighting — take it like you mean it," you growled, your voice dropping to a rough command.

Grabbing his hips with bruising force, you drove forward. Your cock slid past the slick barrier, pushing its way with a gradual thrust. Bucky's back arched off the cot, a strangled, muffled cry dying in his throat as Steve's cock simultaneously filled his mouth to the hilt.

The sensation was too overwhelming the dual invasion of his body creating a pressure that seemed to split him open. You weren't gentle; you manhandled his lower half like he was military equipment, yanking his legs aside to find the perfect, punishing angle. Each time you drove yourself home, you heard the wet slap of your pelvis against his thighs.

You were incessant — hips working with a mechanical, brutal efficiency that left Bucky gasping for air he couldn't quite catch.

"Look at you," you sneered, leaning down so your lips brushed his burning ear while your cock hammered into his depths. "Caught between two captains, and you can't even keep your legs still. Pathetic."

The contrast between your two styles was devastating.

While you were all rough edges and demanding thrusts, Steve remained infuriatingly composed, his movements gently purposeful. Steve's cock slid in and out of Bucky's mouth with a practiced rhythm, his large hands stroking Bucky's jaw to keep him open, his thumbs tracing idle patterns on his flushed skin.

"You're doing so well for us," Steve cooed, his voice a low rumble that seemed to vibrate through Bucky's entire body.

To get the depth you craved, you grabbed his knees, hauling them up and back until his legs were spread wide against your own hips. The position left him completely exposed, his ass gaping open to every punishing stroke of your cock. You manhandled him roughly, adjusting his stance with bruising grips on his inner thighs, forcing his hips to tilt upward to accommodate your full length.

"There we go, there’s a boy," you grunted, your teeth bared in a feral grin as you found the sweet spot where your cock scraped meanly against his prostate.

"Easy now, Buck. You're getting sloppy," Steve scolded him softly, though there was an edge of command beneath the sweetness. "Try to keep a good rhythm for me — you need to focus."

The reprimand was gentle, but the effect was immediate. Bucky's throat worked harder, his eyes rolling back as he tried to salvage some semblance of control, his tongue swirling around Steve's cock in a desperate attempt to please.

But between the two of you, there was no mercy.

You weren't giving him any room to breathe, let alone focus. You gripped his inner thighs hard enough to leave crescent moon bruises, hauling his legs even wider until they were pinned against the mattress beside his hips. The position allowed you to drive deeper than before, each thrust hitting him with the pounding pace.

"That's it, Barnes, choke on it," you sneered, watching the way his throat convulsed around Steve's cock while you claimed his ass. "Show us how well you can take orders from both sides."

Every time you bottomed out inside him, Bucky let out a muffled

muffled whimper that died against Steve's cock, his whole body shuddering from the sheer force of your penetration. The sound was wet and pathetic, exactly what you wanted to hear.

You leaned forward, your chest nearly brushing his knees as you maintained your punishing crouch, using your body weight to drive each stroke even deeper into his slick, overheated ass.

"That's it, keep taking it," you commanded, your voice dripping with disdain as you watched his hips jerk involuntarily under your assault. "Both of you. Don't you dare slow down now."

Bucky's eyes were blown wide, glazed with pleasure and desperation as he tried to process the dual invasion. The wet sounds of his mouth working around Steve's cock mingled with the obscene, squelching slap of your cock hammering into his ass, creating a chorus of debauchery that filled the small space.

The tension had shifted from charged anticipation to something far more feral and obscene. The air was thick enough to taste salt, sweat, and the metallic tang of arousal. The debauchery was in full swing — the mercy that had defined the earlier moments had evaporated, replaced by a raw, unrelenting hunger.

"Jesus, look at him," you barked out a harsh laugh, your voice dripping with cruel satisfaction as you watched Bucky's hips buck uselessly. "He's completely undone. Can't even make sense of what's happening, can you, doll?"

Steve's jaw was set, his usual softness replaced by a focused, dominant intensity. He gripped Bucky's hair to tilt his head back further, exposing his throat more fully as he drove himself home. "He's doing exactly what he needs to do," he countered, though there was no kindness left in his tone — only the raw command of a man who knew exactly how to break someone. "He's doing what he's told."

"He's doing too good of a job, Steve," you taunted, your own breathing coming in ragged gasps as you maintained your relentless pace. "Almost makes me want to be nice to him. Almost."

You deliberately slowed your thrusts for a moment, just enough to make Bucky whimper at the loss of friction, before slamming back inside him with renewed vigour. "But he doesn't deserve nice, does he? Not when he's making such greedy noise."

Steve's hips stuttered for a moment as he watched Bucky's eyes roll back in pure, unadulterated agony and ecstasy. "Captain," Steve rasped, his voice rough with his own building need, "maybe ease up on him. Let him finish, help him cum."

You let out a sharp, mocking scoff that cut through the messy sounds of Bucky's distress. "Help him?" You pulled back just enough to glare at Steve, though you didn't stop the relentless grinding of your cock against Bucky's entrance. "You think this little soldier needs a helping hand?"

With a cruel smirk, you reached out and delivered a sharp, stinging smack to Bucky's inner thigh, the sound echoing like a gunshot in the small space. "Can't he handle it on his own?" You asked, punctuating each word with another vicious smack against his flushed skin. "Bet he can."

Bucky didn't even try to protest. His eyes were glassy, unfocused, and completely shattered. All he could do was give a weak, desperate nod. He was completely at your mercy, his body already betraying him.

"Look at that pitiful little nod," you sneered, but your words were undercut by the way your own cock throbbed painfully inside him. "Alright then, darlin’, show us what you're made of."

The challenge was all it took. Without a single finger touching him, Bucky's body reached its breaking point. The dual stimulation — your brutal pounding and Steve's constant stretching of his throat sent him over the edge. His hips bucked off the cot, his entire frame seizing as he orgasmed. Without a single hand touching his cock, Bucky came with a mess across his own stomach and the rumpled sheets.

"Holy hell," you barked out a derisive laugh, watching the pathetic display with undisguised amusement. "Look at you, Barnes! Squirtin' like those dames in the bar after three martinis. Couldn't even wait for a proper send off, could you?"

Despite your mocking words, there was an undeniable heat in your voice as you watched him unravel. "Wretched little soldier, cumming like a fountain without so much as a finger to guide him."

Steve didn't join in your mockery; instead, he let out a low, rumbling moan as Bucky's climax seemed to trigger his own.

"That's it, Buck, attaboy," Steve cooed, his voice dripping with a tenderness that contrasted sharply with your cruelty. "That's it, just take it all. You're doing so well."

As Steve reached his own breaking point, his hips bucked forward with desperate force. Bucky's eyes flew wide as Steve's cock buried itself to the hilt in his throat one last time, followed immediately by the hot, heavy pulses of Steve's climax flooding down Bucky's gullet. Bucky could only make wet, gagging sounds of overwhelmed pleasure, his throat working frantically to swallow the thick loads being pumped into him.

The sight of them — the Captain claiming his soldier even as the soldier unravelled was the final trigger for you.

"Fuck, Steve, he's fucking wrecked," you growled, your own control snapping like a frayed cable. You stopped trying to be precise and simply became a force of pure, unbridled aggression. You drove into Bucky's tight ass with everything you had left. The friction was molten, the slick mixture of Bucky's cum and his own arousal making each thrust slick and easy.

The moment Steve orgasmed, his hips gave one final, possessive thrust before he began to withdraw. Unlike your assault, his retreat was agonisingly slow and careful. As his cock slid free from Bucky's overstimulated mouth with a wet pop, Steve didn't pull away entirely. Instead, he leaned forward, his large hand cupping Bucky's jaw as he used his thumb to gently wipe away the stray threads of saliva and cum clinging to the soldier's swollen, straining lips.

"There we go, Buck," Steve murmured, his voice a soothing balm against the raw chaos you were still inflicting. "All done, you did so well, our good soldier."

Bucky was a broken thing beneath you. His eyes fluttered prettily, half lidded and glazed with a dazed, post orgasmic haze as he stared up at nothing, his breath coming in ragged, uneven hitches. He let out a weak, high pitched whimper that sounded more like a plea for mercy than anything else.

You weren't finished with him yet. Seeing him so completely undone — eyes unfocused, lips glistening, and body still twitching from his own uncontrolled release — only drove your own need to a fever pitch. "Not yet, doll. I'm not done claiming what's mine," you growled against his neck.

You delivered three more devastating, deep thrusts, each one more desperate than the last, until your own orgasm tore through you. You jerked against him hard, your cock buried as you came inside messily..

For several seconds, the only sound in the room was the ragged synchronisation of three sets of lungs fighting for air. When the tremors finally subsided, you let out a long, satisfied exhale. With a smirk of pure triumph, you reached down and gave his inner thigh a sharp smack that made Bucky flinch involuntarily despite his dazed state

"Good fucking job, soldier," you muttered, your voice rough with satisfaction. You pulled out with a wet, sucking sound, leaving his entrance gaping and slick with the evidence of your combined conquests.

thigh. "Good fucking job, soldier," you muttered, your voice rough with satisfaction. You pulled out with a wet, sucking sound, leaving his entrance gaping and slick with the evidence of your combined conquests.

Watching the way his ass gaped, slick with a messy cocktail of cum, you couldn't resist one last taunt. You reached down, pressing your thumb against the sensitive, swollen rim of his hole, deliberately pushing some of the leaking mess back inside him. Bucky let out a broken, high pitched whimper at the contact, his body still far too sensitive for even the lightest touch.

Turning toward Steve, you wiped your hand on your thigh and let out a low, appreciative whistle. 

"Jesus Christ, Rogers," you said, your voice rough with residual heat. "Gotta try this again sometime — tight as anything, absolute fucking heaven."

You gestured toward the wrecked soldier on the cot, his chest still heaving as he tried to regain some semblance of composure. Steve just offered you a tired, knowing smile — one that lacked any real reproach for your crude language, as if he were already anticipating the next time you'd crash into their private world.

"I'll keep that in mind," Steve replied, his voice still carrying that warm, protective undertone even as he reached out for a water canteen and some ragged cloths.

You let out a dark chuckle, adjusting your clothes with lazy confidence. "You better. Because if this is what's in store every time I drop by, I'll definitely be paying visits to your unit more often." You shot one last glance at Bucky who was still staring at the ceiling with glazed, empty eyes before turning to leave.

"See you around, Captain. Don't let your soldier break too badly before next time."

The door clicked shut behind you, leaving the heavy silence of the corridor to swallow your footsteps. Behind that closed door, the only sounds left were the soft rustle of sheets and Steve's quiet murmurs as he pulled Bucky close against his chest.

0010 — willys jeep for reference

$ tag @twentytomidnight @i-gotta-go-so-much-bigger @hisokamywaifu @froggibus @axtira @rosemint-tea @sheriff-bodecker @mathcat345 @speakercosplays

$ join taglist

It happened at breakfast when Roy leaned close to murmur that the duke across the table had been staring at your sleeve for ten minutes because he suspected you were hiding a blade there. You were hiding a blade there, of course, but Roy’s voice warmed the side of your cheek, and your attention fell briefly, stupidly, to the memory of his mouth against yours.

It happened in the training yard when Jason corrected your stance with one hand at your elbow and said, “Breathe,” in the same low voice he had used when his hand was at your waist. You breathed badly enough afterward that he looked at you, and the look made everything worse.

It happened at night in your solar, behind an unlocked door, with rules laid carefully between the three of you like blades on a table.

There had been three lessons since the first one.

Four, if you counted the evening Roy insisted that “how to stop kissing without looking like a startled deer” was a necessary subject and then ruined his own argument by looking more startled than you did when you kissed him quiet.

You had not gone much further.

Hands. Mouths. Waist. Shoulder. Jaw, once, because you had asked Roy whether touching someone’s face made kissing easier or harder, and Roy had replied with impressive sincerity that the answer depended on whether the person being touched had any prayer of surviving it. Jason had watched from the chair by the hearth with his arms folded and his eyes dark, and when you asked him later, he had let you touch his jaw too.

That had nearly ended the lesson.

Not because he stopped you.

Because he had not.

Jason’s self-control had become a thing you could feel under your palm, beneath his skin and the rough edge of his breath. He let you guide him, let you kiss him, let you learn pressure and pacing and the small difference between being held and being caught. He also stopped every lesson before you hated him for it, which was deeply unfair, because he was always right.

Roy was warmer about stopping. Jason made it feel like a locked gate. Roy made it feel like a hand held out before a cliff.

Both were infuriating.

Both were necessary.

And neither of them had prepared you for the morning Prince Adrian arrived.

🛡️⚜️👑⚜️🛡️

The entire palace woke before dawn.

You knew because everyone made certain you suffered with them.

Elowen came in while the sky outside your windows was still gray, carrying hot water, linen, and the strained expression of a woman who had already argued with three ladies-in-waiting and lost none of those battles by accident. Behind her came two maids with a tray of hairpins, gloves, ribbons, and a jewelry case that looked as if it had been chosen by a committee of people who believed subtlety was a moral failing.

You sat up in bed and immediately regretted having a family.

“No,” you said.

Elowen did not stop. “Good morning, Your Highness.”

“It is not.”

“The prince arrives before noon.”

“That sounds like his mistake.”

“The queen requested you be ready by ten.”

“The queen loves me. She would not do this.”

“The queen specifically said you would say that.”

Betrayal was everywhere.

You pushed the blanket down and reached for the dagger beneath your pillow. Elowen removed the tray of hairpins from your reach without looking, which was unfair because competence was admirable in everyone except those directly opposing you.

“I am wearing trousers,” you said.

“You are not.”

“I am wearing knives.”

“That was assumed.”

“I am wearing as many as I want.”

“Her Majesty said three visible blades at most.”

You stared at her. “Visible.”

Elowen’s mouth twitched.

You narrowed your eyes. “You negotiated.”

“I accepted Her Majesty’s exact phrasing.”

“You are my favorite.”

“I know.”

The gown chosen for the arrival was not the green one. Madame Isera had apparently decided that gown needed spiritual recovery after your escape from the fitting, and perhaps she was right. Instead, Elowen and the maids dressed you in dark red silk with silver embroidery along the cuffs and hem, formal enough to satisfy the court and fitted enough to satisfy people who believed princesses existed to be examined. The bodice was structured but less cruel than the green one, the skirts heavy but not impossible, and the sleeves split enough at the wrist that you could still reach the narrow blade strapped beneath your forearm.

A compromise.

You hated that you appreciated it.

Your hair was worse. Elowen pinned half of it up with silver combs and left the rest falling in a way that looked effortless only because it required an hour of labor and three threats to your patience. You insisted on the sharpened pin. She placed it herself without comment. By the time she finished, you looked like a princess from a song about dynastic stability and controlled amounts of danger.

You almost did not recognize yourself.

Then you shifted your weight, felt the dagger at your thigh and the second at your boot, and returned to your body.

Jason and Roy were waiting in the outer receiving room when you emerged.

They both looked.

They both failed to hide it completely.

That helped.

Roy recovered first, because Roy was better at performing survival. His gaze warmed, moved from your hair to the fall of the gown, then returned to your face with an expression that made your fingers curl against your skirt.

“Well,” he said. “The kingdom appears very negotiable.”

Jason looked at him.

Roy lifted both hands. “That was diplomatic.”

“That was stupid.”

“It can be both.”

You ignored Roy and looked at Jason.

He wore formal guard black with the royal insignia at his shoulder, polished enough to appease the court, armed enough to appease himself. His hair was still damp from washing, pushed back from his face in a way that made him look sharper, more severe. He had shaved. You noticed because you had felt the roughness of his jaw under your fingers two nights ago and immediately hated yourself for noticing.

His gaze held yours for a second too long.

Then he looked at the visible dagger at your waist. “Only one?”

You smiled. “Only one visible.”

His mouth curved faintly. “Good girl.”

The words landed between you like a dropped match.

Roy went very still.

Jason seemed to realize what he had said a heartbeat after you did. His expression closed at once, but not before heat moved through you so quickly you almost forgot the prince, the court, and the entire kingdom waiting outside.

You lifted your chin. “Careful.”

Roy made a low sound that was either a laugh or a plea for mercy.

Jason’s eyes darkened. “That advice goes both ways.”

Elowen, standing behind you with a pair of gloves in hand, stared very hard at the opposite wall with the expression of a woman who deserved higher wages.

You took the gloves from her. “Are we ready?”

“No,” Roy said.

Jason looked toward the door. “Yes.”

That was how you knew you were all doomed.

🛡️⚜️👑⚜️🛡️

Prince Adrian of Veyr arrived beneath a sky so theatrically clear it felt like a personal insult.

The reception took place in the outer court, where banners snapped from the high walls and the palace musicians played something triumphal enough to make you wish for rain. Your father stood at the top of the broad marble steps with your mother beside him, both dressed in formal blue and white. You stood one step below them, because symbolism had rules even when everyone involved pretended not to see them. Advisors lined the steps. Guards lined the courtyard. Courtiers filled every available balcony and archway like brightly dressed vultures.

Jason stood behind your right shoulder.

Roy stood behind your left.

They had been placed there by protocol and security design, but the arrangement felt different now. Everything did. The brush of air from Jason’s cloak when he shifted. The quiet tap of Roy’s thumb against the side of his bow. The knowledge that both of them had kissed you in the room that was yours and now had to watch the whole court examine you in daylight.

You kept your face calm.

That was the first thing the lessons had changed.

Before, you had used your expressions like thrown knives. Smirk, scowl, eyebrow, teeth. You had never cared much for subtlety because subtlety made men think they could ignore you. But Roy had taught you that silence could invite rather than yield, and Jason had taught you that looking did not have to become surrender.

So when Prince Adrian’s carriage entered the courtyard and the court around you inhaled as one pleased creature, you did not scowl.

You looked.

He was handsome. Annoyingly so.

The miniature had been competent but insufficient. In person, Prince Adrian was taller than you expected, lean rather than broad, with dark blond hair tied neatly at the nape of his neck and the kind of posture that suggested years of fencing masters, dance tutors, and people telling him not to waste the line of his shoulders. His traveling coat was Veyrian blue, embroidered in silver at the cuffs, and his sword hung at his side as both ornament and threat. He moved like someone used to being watched and clever enough not to seem too pleased by it.

That irritated you.

It would have been easier if he were foolish.

He stepped down from the carriage, greeted your father first, then your mother. His bow was polished without being excessive. His voice carried well across the courtyard, warm and clear as he thanked them for the honor of their welcome. He knew exactly how to make formality sound sincere.

Then he turned to you.

You felt Jason go still behind you.

Roy did not move at all.

Prince Adrian climbed the steps and stopped at the correct distance. Not too close. Not too distant. His gaze met yours, direct and curious, then lowered no farther than propriety allowed before returning to your face.

He bowed.

“Your Highness,” he said. “I am grateful for your welcome.”

You inclined your head. “You have not been welcomed yet, Your Highness. You have only arrived.”

A flicker of surprise crossed his face.

Then he smiled.

Not the court smile. Not fully.

Interesting.

“Then I will endeavor to earn the distinction,” he said.

Your father made a small, approving sound that he probably thought no one heard. Your mother did not react, which meant she approved too. Traitors, both of them.

Prince Adrian’s gaze dipped to your hands.

You wore gloves. White, formal, embroidered at the wrist. There was no reason for the sight of his attention there to make you think of Jason’s bare palm or Roy’s thumb brushing over your knuckles, but it did anyway.

Adrian lifted his eyes. “May I?”

He asked.

That was the second problem.

If he had assumed, you could have hated him easily. If he had reached for your hand because custom told him he could, Jason would have glowered, Roy would have made a comment later sharp enough to peel paint, and you would have decided the prince could return to Veyr with his excellent posture and insufficient manners.

But he asked.

In front of your father, your mother, the court, his party, your guards, and every gossip in the palace.

He gave you the choice.

You looked at him for one long moment.

Then you offered your hand.

Jason’s silence behind you had weight.

Prince Adrian took your gloved fingers with controlled care, bent, and pressed his mouth to your knuckles.

It lasted less than a second.

It did not feel like Roy’s mouth. It did not feel like Jason’s. It should not have mattered.

It mattered because the entire court was allowed to see it.

When Adrian straightened, his gaze remained on yours. “Now I have been welcomed.”

You smiled.

Not because you were frightened. Not because Mistress Alis had arranged your waist, your gown, your posture, and half the courtyard to make this possible. You smiled because you knew what your smile could do now, because the prince had asked and you had decided to reward the asking.

“Do not become too comfortable,” you said. “The welcome may yet be revoked.”

His smile widened. “I will proceed with caution.”

“Wise.”

“Rarely, but I make an effort when properly warned.”

You liked him a little.

That was the third problem.

🛡️⚜️👑⚜️🛡️

By the time the formal introductions ended, Jason looked ready to invade Veyr single-handedly.

He did not show it in any way the court could read. That was the worst part. Jason’s face remained calm, his stance professional, his hands loose near his weapons without ever resting on them. He performed guard duty perfectly. No one watching from the balconies would have noticed anything beyond the reassuring presence of a loyal knight at the princess’s shoulder.

You noticed.

Roy noticed too.

“Careful,” Roy murmured as the court began moving from the outer courtyard toward the great hall. “If you glower any harder, Veyr will declare it an act of war.”

Jason did not look at him. “I am not glowering.”

“Right. This is your diplomatic face.”

“This is my face.”

“That is what I said.”

You walked ahead of them, close enough to hear, far enough that anyone watching would assume your guards were discussing security. “He did ask,” you said softly.

Jason’s gaze moved to the side of your face. “I heard.”

“And waited.”

“I saw.”

“You are angry anyway.”

Roy coughed delicately. “Wonderful. We have reached the public confrontation portion of the welcome.”

“I am not angry,” Jason said.

You looked over your shoulder just enough to give him the full weight of your disbelief.

His jaw tightened.

Roy leaned toward him. “She has you there.”

Jason’s eyes cut to him. “Do you want to be useful?”

“Not particularly. It sounds unrewarding.”

“Then be quiet.”

Roy’s smile was easy. Too easy.

That was how you knew he was angry too.

The realization surprised you enough that you nearly missed a step. Roy caught it, his attention snapping to your hem before your foot could tangle in it, but he did not touch you. He did not need to. You recovered and kept walking.

Your mother glanced back from a few paces ahead.

You smiled.

She turned forward again, not fooled but willing to wait.

The welcome feast took place in the great hall, which had been transformed into a map of political hope. Veyrian blue and royal white hung from the rafters. Candles burned in silver branches along the tables. The musicians had moved to the gallery, and the air smelled of roasted meat, spiced wine, summer herbs, and the collective ambition of two kingdoms pretending affection could be scheduled.

You were seated between your father and Prince Adrian.

That was expected.

Jason and Roy stood behind you.

That was expected too.

The disaster was that expectation did nothing to make it easier.

Prince Adrian behaved beautifully.

He spoke with your father about shipping rights and managed to sound informed without performing brilliance. He complimented your mother’s gardens without making it seem like a man who had been told to compliment gardens. He greeted Lord Pelham by name despite having been introduced only once, correctly identified three regional wines, and did not once look at your neckline in the way court men seemed to believe was invisible if they moved their eyes quickly enough.

He was not perfect. You caught the practiced edge under his charm, the sharp calculation when naval routes were mentioned, the brief flicker of impatience when an elderly countess spoke too long about a hunting lodge no one cared about. But none of that made him worse. If anything, it made him more real.

You had expected a suitor.

You had not expected a person.

He turned to you when the second course was served. “I am told Your Highness prefers the training yard to the music room.”

You took a sip of wine. Jason had already smelled it, and Roy had watched the servant pour it, which meant the poison was either absent or imaginative enough to earn admiration.

“Who told you that?”

“Your father.”

You looked past Adrian to the king. “Father.”

Your father did not bother looking ashamed. “You do.”

“That is not the point.”

“It seemed relevant.”

“To trade discussions?”

“To your character.”

Prince Adrian’s mouth curved. “I asked what pursuits held your interest. His Majesty mentioned swordwork first.”

You glanced at your father again, slightly less annoyed.

He smiled into his cup.

“He was being kind,” you said. “I am better with daggers.”

Adrian looked at your visible blade with open appreciation. “May I ask how many you are carrying?”

Behind you, Roy made a sound so small no one else could have identified it as laughter.

Jason did not move.

You looked at the prince over the rim of your cup. “You may ask.”

Adrian waited.

You drank.

His smile sharpened. “Ah. I see.”

“You see only one.”

“Then I should say I understand the correction.”

You set the cup down. “Better.”

Adrian leaned slightly closer, still within the bounds of propriety and still enough that the entire hall would see nothing improper. “Should I fear for my safety?”

“That depends entirely on your manners.”

“I will treasure the warning.”

“You should. I give excellent warnings.”

“So I am beginning to learn.”

This was flirting.

You knew it now.

It was not the breathless, terrifying thing you had imagined from Mistress Alis’s silence and the court’s warnings. It was a game, if both parties understood the rules. A duel with softer weapons. Eye contact, timing, small challenges offered and met. Roy had been right. Flirtation could be playful. It could let you hold power without drawing blood.

You let your gaze stay on Adrian’s face a moment longer than court demanded.

His attention warmed.

Behind you, Jason shifted.

Only half an inch. Less.

You felt it anyway.

Your pulse answered, not to Adrian, but to the man standing behind your chair.

That was unfair.

Adrian’s gaze dipped to your hand where it rested near your place setting. “You have calluses.”

You blinked.

Most courtiers pretended not to notice. They praised your hands when gloved, kissed them when custom allowed, and delicately avoided the evidence that you spent more time gripping weapons than embroidery hoops. Madame Isera had once suggested a softening balm with the tragic optimism of a woman trying to repair storm damage with lace.

Adrian did not sound disapproving.

You turned your hand palm up. “Yes.”

He looked, not touching. “Sword or dagger?”

“Both. Bow occasionally, badly enough that Roy despairs.”

Roy murmured, “I persevere.”

Adrian glanced back. “You are the archer?”

Roy bowed with just enough respect. “Among other sins, Your Highness.”

“Then I sympathize with your despair. My sister once tried to teach me. She eventually declared me useful only as a target.”

“Your sister sounds wise,” you said.

“She is unbearable. Wisdom is her worst habit.”

You smiled before you could stop yourself.

Adrian saw it.

Jason saw him see it.

Roy saw all of you and stopped smiling.

The fourth problem was that you did not feel frightened.

You felt awake.

Not because Prince Adrian had conquered some secret part of you with good manners and polished conversation. He had not. You did not want his mouth the way you remembered Roy’s, did not want his hands with the same sharp, aching curiosity that Jason inspired by simply removing his gloves. But you understood now that being wanted could be a field you walked with your eyes open.

You had learned that in your solar.

You used it in the hall.

And the men who taught you had to stand behind your chair while someone else admired the result.

🛡️⚜️👑⚜️🛡️

The dancing began after dessert.

It was not a full ball. Your mother had insisted on that distinction, as if fewer musicians and no formal receiving line made the ordeal less obvious. It was only an informal welcome dance, which in court language meant the same people wore slightly less jewelry while saying equally dangerous things.

Prince Adrian asked your mother for the first dance, which was correct, charming, and politically wise. He danced well. Of course he danced well. Men like Adrian were taught young that grace could imply command without the vulgarity of reaching for it.

Your mother returned from the set looking pleased.

Your father looked amused.

Mistress Alis looked vindicated, which nearly ruined the evening on principle.

Then Adrian approached you.

You stood near the edge of the hall with Jason and Roy behind you, where you had been attempting to avoid Lord Pelham’s eldest son and his thoughts on falconry. The prince stopped at a respectful distance and bowed.

“Your Highness,” he said. “Would you honor me with the next dance?”

Jason’s stillness changed quality.

Roy’s hand tightened briefly around the stem of the wine cup he was holding for you because you had refused to carry it while armed.

You thought of all the lessons.

Ask. Answer. Choose.

You offered your hand.

“Yes.”

Adrian’s fingers closed around yours.

Gloved. Proper. Public.

Jason had no right to react.

You had no right to care that he did.

The dance was one you knew well, measured and elegant, with enough turns to display the woman’s gown and enough structure to prevent scandal unless someone was determined and creative. Adrian was neither careless nor dull. He guided without forcing. His hand rested precisely where custom permitted. When the steps drew you close, he maintained the correct space. When they sent you apart, his gaze followed in a way that made the court whisper with approval.

“You dance better than someone who claims to prefer blades,” he said.

“I prefer them. That does not mean I am ignorant of other weapons.”

His smile flickered. “You consider dancing a weapon?”

“Court considers everything a weapon.”

“Fair.”

“Do you disagree?”

“No. I was deciding whether I admired your honesty or feared it.”

“You may do both.”

“I suspected as much.”

He turned you cleanly through the next figure. His hand was steady. His attention stayed on you with practiced ease, and for the first time since learning he was coming, you wondered what might have happened if you had met him before the lessons. Before Jason’s hand at your waist. Before Roy’s mouth against yours. Before desire had names and boundaries and answers.

Perhaps you would have been more afraid.

Perhaps you would have mistaken charm for safety.

Perhaps you would have liked Adrian because everyone wanted you to, then resented him for being part of the machine that expected your body to become diplomacy.

Now, you could like him a little without surrendering any of yourself.

That felt like power too.

Adrian looked down at you with growing curiosity. “May I ask something potentially rude?”

“No one ever asks that unless they intend to ask regardless.”

“True. May I?”

You considered him. “Yes.”

“Are your guards always this interested in your dancing?”

You did not look toward the edge of the hall.

That would have been a mistake.

“Are they?”

“One looks as if he is measuring the safest path to remove you from the room. The other looks as though he is deciding whether to shoot me in a nonfatal place.”

Despite yourself, you laughed.

Jason would hate that.

Roy would hate it more because the prince had been funny.

“They are protective,” you said.

“So I see.”

“And you are observant.”

“I was warned you value competence.”

“By whom?”

“Your mother.”

You missed a step.

Only slightly. Adrian adjusted immediately, covering the error before anyone watching could see. His hand did not tighten. He did not smirk. He simply moved with you until the rhythm returned.

That steadied you against your will.

“My mother warned you about me?”

“She described you,” he said. “The warning was implied.”

“What did she say?”

“That you are intelligent, stubborn, loyal, armed even when forbidden, kinder than you enjoy appearing, and unlikely to forgive anyone who mistakes softness for obedience.”

Your throat tightened unexpectedly.

“Oh,” you said.

Adrian’s gaze gentled. “I took notes.”

You did not know what to do with that.

The dance turned you again. For a moment, over Adrian’s shoulder, you saw Jason.

He stood by the column at the edge of the hall, Roy beside him. Jason’s face was unreadable, but his eyes were on you with an intensity that cut through music, candlelight, movement, and every watching courtier in the hall.

Roy said something to him.

Jason did not answer.

Roy looked back at you and found you watching.

His smile came automatically.

It did not reach far enough.

The dance ended.

Adrian stepped back and bowed over your hand, stopping short of kissing it this time. “Thank you.”

You curtsied. “You survived.”

“With great effort.”

“You danced adequately.”

His smile warmed. “I will accept this devastating praise.”

“You should. I was generous.”

“I noticed.”

The next set began forming around you, couples shifting into place. Adrian glanced toward the open doors leading to the terrace. “Perhaps later, Your Highness, you might show me the training yard. I would like to see whether your skill with daggers matches your confidence.”

That was more dangerous than the hand kiss.

Not because it was improper. It could easily be arranged with guards, companions, and half the court pretending not to watch from the windows. But the training yard was yours. It was sand, sweat, bruises, arguments, Jason’s corrections, Roy’s laughter from the wall. It was the place where your body had belonged to itself before court had begun trying to rename it.

You should have said no.

You wanted to see Jason’s face when you said yes.

The desire was small, mean, and unworthy of you.

It was also honest.

“I could,” you said.

Adrian’s eyes brightened with interest. “Then I shall hope to be educated.”

Something about the word educated should have warned him.

You smiled.

“Careful, Your Highness. My lessons have become rather strict lately.”

The prince laughed.

At the edge of the hall, Jason turned and walked out.

Roy watched him go, then looked back at you.

This time, he did not smile.

🛡️⚜️👑⚜️🛡️

Jason made it to the old western corridor before Roy caught him.

You knew because you followed.

Perhaps that was reckless. Almost certainly, in fact. You were supposed to remain in the great hall until the welcome dance ended, smiling at Adrian, tolerating Mistress Alis’s satisfied glances, and allowing the court to write romances in their heads that would become rumors by morning. Your mother would notice your absence within minutes. Your father would notice your mother noticing. Mistress Alis would develop a headache, which was at least one benefit.

But Jason had left.

Roy had followed.

You lasted through precisely one conversation with Lady Veyna about Veyrian table customs before you excused yourself with such royal composure that even she could not object. Then you slipped through the side doors, ignored the two palace guards who startled at the sight of you unattended, and walked toward the western corridor with your skirts gathered in one hand and a dagger hidden in the other.

You heard them before you saw them.

Roy’s voice came low and sharp. “You cannot just walk out.”

Jason’s answer was colder. “I did.”

“You are on duty.”

“You are here.”

“That is not the point.”

“It is the only point that matters.”

You stopped just before the turn in the corridor.

The lamps burned lower here, farther from the celebration. Music drifted faintly through stone walls and open archways, softened by distance until it sounded like memory. The western corridor was lined with old battle tapestries, all faded reds and dark thread, heroic men killing one another beneath banners no one used anymore.

“How noble,” Roy said.

Jason made a rough sound. “Do not.”

“No, I am going to. You do not get to make this only your guilt. You saw him kiss her hand and decided suffering silently was a vocation.”

Jason’s voice turned dangerous. “Watch it.”

“You think I did not hate it too?”

Silence.

Your grip tightened around the hidden dagger.

Roy laughed once, without humor. “There. That finally got your attention.”

“Keep your voice down.”

“Why? Afraid she will hear? She already knows. She has known since the hall.”

“She does not need this.”

“She does not need us turning into statues with weapons every time some man behaves decently toward her either.”

“Decently,” Jason repeated.

“Yes, decently. He asked. He waited. He did everything we told her a decent man should do, and I still wanted to put an arrow through his hand for touching her glove.”

Jason did not answer.

Roy’s voice dropped. “That is the problem.”

You stepped around the corner.

Both men turned at once.

Jason’s expression changed from anger to alarm to something worse when he saw you standing there in the dim corridor, skirts in hand, formal hair slightly loosened, the visible dagger at your waist catching lamplight. Roy’s face went carefully blank, which hurt more than if he had flinched.

“You left the hall,” Jason said.

“You noticed.”

“It is full of diplomats.”

“And yet I survived the doorway.”

Roy sighed. “Princess.”

You looked at him. “Do not.”

His mouth closed.

Jason took one step toward you, then stopped. “You should go back.”

“Yes,” you said. “I should. You should not have left.”

His jaw tightened.

You came closer slowly, not because the corridor required it, but because all of you needed time. “Are you angry with me?”

“No,” Jason said.

Roy said nothing.

You looked at him. “Are you?”

His face shifted. “No.”

“You are both lying very carefully.”

Jason’s eyes flashed. “I am not angry with you.”

“But you are angry.”

“Yes.”

You laughed softly. It sounded worse than you intended. “Progress.”

Roy looked pained. “This is not the place.”

“No one is here.”

“That has never stopped the palace from hearing things.”

“Then let it learn something useful.”

Jason’s voice cut in. “Enough.”

You turned on him. “No.”

The word echoed down the corridor.

Jason went still.

You were breathing too quickly now, though not from panic. This was anger sharpened by hurt, and hurt was always more dangerous because it made you want to strike places you knew would bleed.

“You do not get to do that,” you said. “You do not get to teach me how to stand in my own body and then punish me because someone sees me doing it.”

Jason’s expression shifted as if you had hit him.

Roy looked away.

“I was not punishing you,” Jason said.

“You left.”

“I needed air.”

“You left where I could see.”

“That was not—”

“Do not lie to me.”

He stopped.

The quiet after that was terrible.

You swallowed. “You told me to decide whether I wanted a man to keep looking.”

Jason’s face went hollow with recognition.

“You told me that,” you said. “Roy told me flirtation could be playful. You both told me asking mattered, choosing mattered, stopping mattered. Prince Adrian asked. He waited. He listened when I spoke. He looked at me and I looked back because I could. Because you taught me how not to be afraid of that.”

Roy’s voice was barely above a whisper. “We know.”

“Then why did you look at me like I had done something wrong?”

Jason looked toward the tapestries.

Roy closed his eyes.

That was answer enough, and not enough at all.

“You are jealous,” you said.

Jason’s gaze snapped back.

Roy exhaled.

The word should have felt childish. It did not. It felt enormous, older than the stones beneath your feet, sharpened by every law and custom that made Adrian’s attention permissible and theirs dangerous.

“I have no right,” Jason said.

The words were for himself.

You heard that, and it only made your chest ache harder.

“No,” you said. “You do not.”

He flinched.

Roy’s eyes opened.

You lifted your chin before either of them could retreat into guilt. “But I did not ask whether you had the right. I asked whether you were.”

Jason stared at you.

Roy answered first. “Yes.”

The honesty struck with such force that you forgot Jason for half a second.

Roy’s expression was open in a way he rarely allowed without humor to guard it. “Yes. I was jealous. He asked before touching your hand, and I was glad because it meant you were safe. Then I hated him for being the kind of man we told you to recognize.”

Your throat tightened.

He looked down at his hands. “I hated him when he made you laugh. I hated him when he saw your calluses and did not make you hide them. I hated that he gets to ask you to dance in front of the whole court while I stand behind your chair pretending I have never had your mouth against mine.”

Jason’s breath changed.

You went very still.

The words were too plain for the corridor. Too private for stone walls and battle tapestries and music drifting from the hall. You should have told him to be careful. You should have looked around for servants, guards, spies, ghosts.

Instead, you took one step toward him.

Roy looked up.

“You are not pretending very well,” you said.

His laugh came out broken. “I know.”

Jason turned away sharply. “This is why we should have stopped.”

Anger flared again. “Do you want to stop?”

He did not answer quickly enough.

Roy’s face tightened.

You forced yourself to ask the question properly, even though your voice wanted to shake. “Jason. Do you want to stop?”

His jaw worked.

Then he said, “No.”

The relief was so sharp it made you furious.

“Then stop saying that like it is noble.”

His eyes cut to yours.

You kept going because stopping would mean feeling everything at once. “You think if you suffer beautifully enough, it becomes a decision. It does not. It only makes everyone else stand around watching you bleed on the furniture.”

Roy murmured, “That is vivid.”

You ignored him. “If you want to stop, say stop. If you want me to stop, say that. If you want me to stop letting Adrian look at me, say that too, and then explain why your jealousy should have more power over my choices than Mistress Alis’s fear.”

Jason looked as if the words had gone in under armor.

Roy’s gaze dropped.

The corridor seemed colder now.

You regretted the line as soon as you said it. Or not regretted, exactly. It was true. It was also cruel in the way true things became cruel when delivered with perfect aim.

Jason’s voice came very low. “It should not.”

You held still.

“My jealousy should not have power over your choices,” he said. “That is the point.”

“Then what do I do with it?”

Jason looked at you.

The anger in him was gone now, or buried so deep it had become something else. “Nothing.”

“No.”

His eyes narrowed.

You shook your head. “You do not get to hand me honesty and then tell me to do nothing with it.”

Roy stepped closer. “Princess—”

“You too.”

He stopped.

You looked between them, both of them armed and miserable and beautiful in the lamplight, both of them trying so hard to do the right thing that they had forgotten you were also in the room. “I liked him.”

Roy’s expression flickered.

Jason’s did not, which meant he felt it worse.

“I liked him a little,” you said. “He was charming. He listened. He asked. He did not treat me like a porcelain treaty or a decorative womb. I liked that.”

Jason nodded once, tightly.

You swallowed. “And then I saw you watching, and I wanted to make him laugh because you would see it.”

Roy inhaled.

Jason’s eyes lifted to yours, sharp and startled.

There. Your ugly little truth. The one that had followed you from the dance floor into the corridor, tucked beneath silk and pride.

“I wanted you to be jealous,” you said.

The words trembled despite your effort to hold them steady. “Not because I wanted to hurt you. I think I did hurt you, and I am sorry for that. But I wanted to know if you cared. I wanted to see whether I had imagined everything in my solar, because he can touch my hand in front of the court, and you both leave before dawn with your mouths still on mine like the room itself has become a crime scene.”

Roy whispered your name.

Jason looked wrecked.

Your eyes burned, which was humiliating. “I know you have no claim. I know. I am not asking for one in the middle of a corridor during a diplomatic welcome feast. But do not stand behind me and make me feel like I am alone in wanting things that have nowhere to go.”

No one spoke.

From the hall, applause rose faintly at the end of a dance. The sound felt like another world.

Jason moved first.

He did not touch you. He came closer and stopped at the exact distance you had all learned to respect. Close enough for heat. Far enough for choice.

“You did not imagine it,” he said.

The words were rough.

You blinked.

Roy exhaled softly, as if something in him had been waiting for Jason to say it too.

Jason’s gaze held yours. “Any of it.”

Your throat ached.

“I hated him,” Jason said. “Not because he did anything wrong. Because he did it right. Because he gets to stand in the light and ask for your hand, and if he asks for more someday, the court will call it romance, alliance, duty, hope. If I look at you too long, I am one bad whisper away from being the man who forgot his place.”

The pain in his voice stripped the anger out of you.

Roy looked at the floor, jaw tight.

Jason continued. “I taught you to use what we gave you, and then I watched you use it where I cannot follow. That is not your fault.”

You took one careful breath. “It still hurt.”

“I know.”

“Do you?”

His face changed.

“Yes,” he said. “I know.”

Roy spoke then, quieter. “We should have done better.”

You looked at him.

He offered a smile that was small and ashamed. “I should have, at least. Jason being emotionally disastrous is expected. I usually provide balance.”

Jason muttered, “Do you?”

“I provide contrast.”

Despite yourself, you laughed once. It came out watery and ridiculous. Roy’s face softened immediately.

Jason looked away, but this time it was not avoidance. It was mercy. He gave you half a second to gather yourself, and because he gave it, you took it.

Then footsteps sounded from the far end of the corridor.

All three of you reacted at once.

Jason stepped to your side, not in front of you this time. Roy moved behind your left shoulder. You smoothed your skirts, lifted your chin, and transformed your face into the polished thing the court expected before the approaching servant rounded the corner.

It was one of your mother’s pages.

He stopped when he saw you, relief crossing his face. “Your Highness. Her Majesty asked me to find you.”

“Clearly, you succeeded.”

He bowed. “The queen requests your return to the hall, if you are well.”

If you are well.

Your mother knew something. Of course she did.

You smiled. “Tell Her Majesty I required air and have found it.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

The page glanced once at Jason and Roy, read absolutely nothing useful from their faces, and fled back the way he came.

When he was gone, you looked at them again.

Roy’s mouth curved faintly. “Found air?”

“It sounded better than found two jealous guards having a crisis beneath my least favorite tapestry.”

Jason’s gaze flicked to the tapestry. “This one is terrible.”

“The horses are badly proportioned,” Roy agreed.

You looked at them, and for one fragile moment, everything almost felt normal.

Almost.

🛡️⚜️👑⚜️🛡️

Returning to the great hall felt like stepping into a play halfway through the second act.

The music was louder. The candles had burned lower. Conversations had loosened with wine and spectacle. Prince Adrian stood near your father beside one of the long windows, listening to Lord Pelham speak with the patience of a man who understood diplomacy required endurance. When you entered, his gaze found you almost immediately.

So did your mother’s.

So did Mistress Alis’s, though hers was much less welcome.

Jason and Roy resumed their places behind you as though nothing had happened. This was their talent. They could make violence, panic, jealousy, and near-confessions vanish beneath duty. They stood with perfect composure, two loyal shadows behind the princess, while your mouth still remembered them and your heart had not yet decided what to do with the fact that Jason had said you had imagined nothing.

Prince Adrian approached once a mercifully aggressive aunt pulled Lord Pelham away.

“Your Highness,” he said. “I feared the evening had lost you.”

You smiled because the court was watching. Because Adrian had done nothing wrong. Because you liked him a little, and because liking him did not erase what waited behind your shoulders.

“I am difficult to lose,” you said.

“Then I will call the fear unfounded.”

“Wise.”

He offered you a cup of watered-down wine from a passing tray. He did not step too close. He did not touch your hand with the cup. He waited until you accepted it.

Jason noticed.

Roy noticed.

You noticed them noticing, and this time you did not sharpen yourself with it.

Adrian’s gaze moved over your face. “Are you well?”

The question was simple enough. Courtly enough. But he seemed to mean it, which made answering more difficult.

“Yes,” you said. “The evening became warm.”

“The court can have that effect.”

“You say that as if your own court does not.”

“Oh, ours is dreadful. I have simply been trained to pretend otherwise.”

You considered him over your cup. “That may be the first honest thing a prince has ever said.”

“I doubt that.”

“Do not ruin your achievement with modesty.”

He smiled. “Forgive me. I will be insufferably proud.”

“Better.”

Behind you, Roy made the quietest possible sound of pain.

You did not turn, but your mouth almost did.

Adrian saw that too.

He was too observant by half.

His gaze flicked briefly past you, not lingering on either guard. “I should release you before your protectors decide I have monopolized your evening.”

You felt Jason’s attention sharpen.

“They do not decide my evening,” you said.

Adrian’s brows rose slightly.

You held his gaze.

Then he bowed his head, not offended. If anything, he looked more interested. “No. I imagine they do not.”

Something in his tone said he understood more than you wanted him to. Perhaps not the details. Not the kissing, the lessons, the way Jason’s hand had felt at your waist or Roy’s breath had caught when you tugged him closer. But he understood currents. Men raised in courts either learned to read them or drowned.

“Would you walk with me tomorrow?” he asked.

The request was quiet enough to be private, public enough to be safe. “In the rose court, perhaps. With whatever escort satisfies the palace.”

Jason went utterly still.

Roy’s gaze shifted to you.

This was the moment.

You felt the old instinct rise. Refuse because Jason was jealous. Accept because Jason was jealous. Bite because you were cornered. Smile because the court expected it. Use Adrian as a blade. Use yourself as a blade. Turn wanting into proof that no one could command you.

Then you breathed.

The lessons had taught you that too.

Not every answer had to be a strike.

“I will consider it,” you said.

Adrian’s eyes warmed. “Then I will hope carefully.”

“That is safest.”

He bowed over your hand again, stopping short of kissing it, and withdrew with grace.

You watched him go.

Behind you, Jason exhaled slowly.

Roy leaned in a fraction, voice low enough for you alone. “That was merciful.”

You looked ahead. “Do not get used to it.”

His laugh brushed the back of your ear, soft and relieved.

Jason said nothing.

After a moment, you turned slightly, just enough to speak without drawing attention. “Both of you.”

Roy straightened.

Jason’s gaze moved to you.

“My solar,” you said. “After the hall empties.”

Roy’s expression shifted.

Jason’s eyes darkened.

You faced forward again before anyone in the court could read your face.

“I am asking,” you added softly.

Neither answered at first.

Then Roy said, “Yes.”

Jason’s voice followed, lower. “Yes.”

The word moved through you, warm and dangerous.

For the rest of the evening, Prince Adrian remained charming. Your mother remained watchful. Mistress Alis remained alive despite Jason’s earlier moat proposal, which seemed increasingly unreasonable of fate. You danced once with your father, twice with visiting nobles, and declined Lord Pelham’s son so sweetly that it took him several seconds to realize he had been wounded.

Jason and Roy stood behind you whenever protocol required it.

They did not punish you with silence this time.

That was something.

Not enough, perhaps.

But something.

🛡️⚜️👑⚜️🛡️

Your solar looked different after the feast.

The lamps were low, the hearth unlit because the summer night had warmed the stone, and the balcony doors stood open to the rose court below. Music still drifted faintly from the hall, though most of the court had begun to scatter toward cards, gossip, beds, or mistakes. Elowen had left tea on the table again, along with a note in her neat hand that said only: Drink water.

You loved her.

You also wondered how much she knew.

Enough, probably. Chambermaids knew everything worth knowing and several things better left to rot.

Jason entered first, as always, checking the room before stepping aside. Roy followed. Once the outer hall was clear, you closed the door yourself and left it latched, not locked. Private, but not sealed shut.

For a moment, none of you spoke.

The silence was not like the first night. It had no innocence left to protect. It knew the taste of Roy’s mouth, the shape of Jason’s hand, the sight of Prince Adrian kissing your glove in front of two courts. It knew jealousy now. It had teeth.

You removed your gloves slowly.

Roy watched your hands.

Jason watched the balcony.

You set the gloves on the low table. “Look at me.”

Jason’s eyes came to you.

Roy’s followed.

You stood in the center of your solar in the blue gown, formal hair slipping loose after hours of dancing, daggers still hidden where Elowen had helped you place them. You were tired, angry, fond, and hungry in ways you barely understood. The evening had left you with too many feelings and nowhere clean to put them.

“You may both be jealous,” you said.

Roy blinked.

Jason’s eyebrows drew together.

“I am not granting permission,” you added, because Jason had taught you to be precise and apparently you intended to make that everyone’s problem. “You do not need my permission to feel things. But I am saying I would rather know than watch you both pretend badly and hurt me with the pretending.”

Roy’s expression softened.

Jason looked down.

You stepped closer. “You may not make your jealousy my cage.”

Jason’s gaze lifted at once. “Never.”

“You already tried.”

The word landed.

He accepted it.

You continued, because this mattered more than pride. “I will not use Adrian to hurt you again. Not intentionally. I should not have done that.”

Roy said your name. “You were hurt too.”

“Yes. That is a reason. It is not an excuse.”

He looked at you then as if he was remembering every lesson they had given you and realizing, with some despair, that you had learned all the inconvenient parts.

Jason’s mouth curved faintly. “Look at you.”

You narrowed your eyes. “Do not sound proud when I am apologizing.”

“I am capable of both.”

Roy made a soft sound. “Unfortunately, yes.”

You crossed your arms, then uncrossed them because the bodice made the gesture uncomfortable. “Prince Adrian asked me to walk tomorrow.”

Jason’s face did not change.

Roy’s did, very slightly.

“I said I would consider it.”

Jason gave a short nod. “You should.”

That hurt, though less than it would have before.

“Do you mean that?” you asked.

“Yes.”

Roy exhaled. “I hate that he means it.”

You turned to him.

He smiled without humor. “What? I am growing as a person. It is terrible.”

You almost laughed.

Jason looked at you. “If you want to walk with him, walk with him. If you do not, refuse. Do not make the choice because of us.”

“And if you hate it?”

“I will hate it.”

The honesty struck softly.

Roy added, “We will both hate it, apparently. Heroically. With excellent posture.”

“You do not have excellent posture,” Jason said.

“I have emotionally expressive posture.”

You laughed then, despite yourself. The sound loosened the room enough that Roy smiled for real.

Jason’s face softened, and the sight of it made you ache.

“You are not alone in wanting things that have nowhere to go,” he said.

Your breath caught.

Roy looked at him, then at you. “No,” he said quietly. “You are really, really not.”

The space between the three of you changed again.

You had thought the night would arrange itself around jealousy. Perhaps it had. But underneath jealousy was something worse and sweeter. Wanting unclaimed by law, ceremony, permission, or politics. Wanting that lived in an unlocked room while the court slept badly around it.

You took one step toward them.

Then another.

“Lesson?” Roy asked, but his voice had gone rough.

You shook your head.

Both men stilled.

“No lesson tonight,” you said.

Jason’s eyes darkened. “Then what?”

You stopped close enough to reach them and lifted your hands, one toward each.

“A reminder.”

Roy looked at your offered hand like it might undo him.

Jason did not move for one long second.

Then both of them took your hands.

Roy’s fingers slid between yours, warm and familiar. Jason’s hand closed around the other, careful and steady. For a moment, that was all. No mouths. No waist. No instruction. No prince, no court, no jealous wound pretending to be dignity.

Only choosing the hands.

Your throat tightened. “I liked him a little.”

Jason’s thumb moved once over your knuckles. “I know.”

“I may like him more.”

Roy’s hand tightened, then eased deliberately. “We know.”

“I do not know what that means.”

“Neither do we,” Jason said.

You looked up at him. “You are supposed to know things.”

“I know exits, poisons, blade angles, and six ways to kill a man with a candlestick.”

“Seven,” Roy said. “We tested the seventh.”

Jason ignored him. “This is not my area.”

You looked at Roy. “And you?”

Roy’s smile was soft and sad. “I know how to make terrible decisions beautifully. That feels unhelpful here.”

“It might become relevant.”

“Fair.”

You did not kiss either of them.

That took more restraint than you expected, which made you understand Jason a little better and resent him slightly less for being difficult.

Instead, you stood between them with both hands held, feeling the ache of the evening settle into something you could carry. It did not resolve. Perhaps it was not meant to. Prince Adrian would still be in the palace tomorrow. The court would still watch. Your parents would still hope. Jason and Roy would still stand behind you with no public claim and too much private truth.

But when you finally released their hands, neither reached for you without asking.

Neither retreated as if wanting had made them criminal.

That was enough for tonight.

Roy stepped back first. “Drink water. Elowen scares me.”

“She should.”

Jason paused near the door. “There is an empty guest room off the outer hall.”

You looked up. “Is there?”

“Yes.”

Roy leaned one shoulder against the doorframe, arms folded. “Very comfortable, I hear. Terrible view. Excellent proximity to trouble.”

You almost smiled. “Trouble being me?”

“Usually,” Jason said. “Tonight, diplomats, servants, bored nobles, unfamiliar guard rotations, three balconies, and the scaffolding still too close to the east guest wing.”

Roy pointed at him. “That is romance.”

You laughed.

Jason’s mouth twitched. “We will take the room.”

Not extra guards, then. Not another wall of men outside your door. Just them, close enough to hear if the palace remembered how dangerous it was.

“Yes,” you said. “Take it.”

He nodded.

Then, after a moment, he asked, “May I?”

Your pulse jumped. “What?”

His gaze dropped briefly to your hair. “The pin.”

You reached up and found it half-loosened already, barely holding the twist together. “It is almost bedtime.”

“I know.”

That made it worse.

“Yes,” you said.

Jason stepped close. His fingers were careful as they found the pin, careful as they drew it free. Your hair loosened at once, falling around your shoulders in a soft spill that felt strangely more intimate than anything the gown had revealed.

He held the pin between two fingers and looked at it as if it were a blade he had disarmed.

Roy’s expression had gone quiet. Warmth, wanting, and the grief of being unable to step closer without changing the whole night.

You looked at him. “Roy.”

His eyes lifted.

You held out your hand for the pin. Jason gave it back to you with visible suspicion.

You offered it to Roy.

Roy stared at it. Then at you.

“Put it away,” you said, softer than you meant to. “Before Jason decides my hair is a security concern.”

“It is a security concern,” Jason said.

Roy took the pin from your hand, his fingers brushing yours for one brief, careful second. “A grave one.”

He crossed to the vanity and set it down beside your brush with exaggerated solemnity, as if returning a sacred relic to its shrine.

Jason looked unimpressed. “You are ridiculous.”

Roy turned back, smiling faintly. “And yet she asked me.”

You touched your loosened hair and smiled. “I did.”

For one ridiculous second, the ache of the evening loosened into something bright enough to bear.

Then they left you with the door unlocked, the water untouched, and the rose-scented night moving softly through the balcony.

You stood alone in your solar and listened as their footsteps crossed the outer hall, then stopped at the room beside yours.

Tomorrow, perhaps, you would walk with a prince.

Tonight, your hands still remembered who had held them.

🛡️⚜️👑⚜️🛡️