Tumgik
#bucky barnes x you
jobean12-blog · 3 days
Text
For the Love of Plants...and You
Pairing: Bucky Barnes x female reader (plant!dad Bucky AU)
Word Count: 1,229
Summary: You and Bucky go shopping for new plants and he has the best idea.
Author's Note: My lovely friend @sagechanoafterdark shared this wonderful little idea with me and I was so happy to have inspiration for more plant!dad Bucky! YAY! Thanks so much Sage! Thank you all so much for reading! Much love always! ❤️❤️❤️Divider by @firefly-graphics thank you sweet Daisy! 🥰
Warnings: it's soft, sweet and fun, spicy and silly, some implied sexy times and Bucky is delish.
Tumblr media
*If you want to read more about plant!dad Bucky you can find his other stories on his Masterlist labeled with 'plant!dad Bucky AU'*
Tumblr media
“Are you sure you don’t want anything else doll?”
You look up from the current plant in front of you and stare unblinkingly for a moment before bursting into giggles.
Bucky’s arms are full of plants and his handsome face is obscured by various leaves and flowers.
You sift through the flora that hides him and find his blue eyes bright and crinkled at the corners with his wide smile.
“What?” he asks.
“It’s just…you’re so cute.”
His cheeks become tinged with a flush of pink and you lean through the leaves to place a sweet kiss to his lips.
“Thank you for carrying everything. We really need to start getting a cart.”
“Nah doll, then we’ll go home with even more plants. And you don’t have room for more plants. At least this way we are limited to what I can carry.”
“What are you saying Bucky?” you ask with feigned shock.
He’s quiet for a moment and you worry that he thinks you’re serious.
You open your mouth to speak and reassure him you were just teasing but he beats you to it and says, “I’m going to build you new shelves.”
Now it’s your turn to be quiet.
“Doll?” he asks, trying to see you from around the armfuls of plants.
“You want…you want to build me shelves for my plants?”
He finds a free space on the plant stand outside and places a few down so he can actually see you.
“Yeah. Of course. I want you to have all the plants you can fit.”
“I didn’t know you could build things.”
Your voice comes out slightly breathless.
The corner of his mouth lifts into a devious smirk.
“Sounds like you like that I can do that,” he murmurs as he slips his free arm around your waist and tucks you into his side. “I’m pretty good with my hands.”
“Mm,” you hum, laying your flat palm against his chest. “Very good actually.”
He dips his head to capture your lips, lingering with a soft kiss that has your fingers fisting in his shirt.
“Do you have a tool belt?” you ask him when he finally pulls away.
“I do.”
“You should do it shirtless. So, you don’t get too warm.”
“So shirtless with my toolbelt. Anything else?”
You tap your chin playfully.
“Your dark wash jeans. The really fitted ones.”
“Is this some secret fantasy you have?”
You bury your face in his neck and mumble something incoherent.
“What was that?” he chuckles.
“It wasn’t until you said you could build me shelves!” you squeak.
“This is gonna be fun,” he simpers as he releases you to grab the plants again. “Let’s go check out.”
Tumblr media
As promised, later that day Bucky shows up at your place in his dark jeans with a tool belt hanging low on his hips.
“Why are you wearing a shirt?” you ask.
He covers his laugh with a cough and grabs your waist, pulling you into his chest.
“I didn’t want to take the train shirtless.”
“Oh. Yeah.” You answer. “Right.”
He laughs. “Right.”
“I know you think this is hilarious, but you don’t understand…”
His expression softens. “What do you mean doll?”
“It means a lot to me that you’d do this, and you support my love of plants.”
“Of course I would. And of course I do. And you know I love plants too.”
“I know, but even if you didn’t I just know you’d do it anyway.”
He brushes his lips lightly across yours, holding your gaze as he whispers, “I would.”
“Can we take this off now?” you ask as your fingers slide down his chest and under the hem of his shirt.
“Sure.”
He kicks the door shut with his booted foot and lifts his arms above his head. You start to peel the shirt from his body, the action deliberate as you watch every inch of his toned stomach come into view.
After staring at the distinct V shape at his hips you focus on the dark trail of hair just under his belly button then practically let out a moan when his abs flex and move as he shimmies.
“This is like porn,” you sigh dreamily.
That makes him laugh and he gets tangled in the sleeves of his tee.
You keep staring, enjoying all the shifting muscles of his torso.
“Little help here doll face.”
“Oh!...sorry Buck!”
You slip the shirt over his head and drop it to the floor, letting your fingertips run along the smooth metal of his left arm.
“There. Perfect.”
He takes you in his arms and spins you around until your back is against the door. Trapping you in place he settles both hands on either side of your head.
“You’re distracting,” he murmurs. “Not sure I can get to work just yet.”
“Me?” you ask incredulously. “Look at you.”
Your finger slips into the waistband of his jeans, and you give him a sharp tug, drawing him closer.
His hips press into your stomach, and you feel the hard length of him. You catch your bottom lip between your teeth and toy with the button of his jeans before running your fingers along the leather of his tool belt.
The muscles in his stomach tense every time your skin touches his and you watch his dark eyelashes flutter against his cheeks with his barely controlled restraint.
His toolbelt drops to the floor with a loud thud and you pull the zipper of his jeans down.
“Doll,” he hisses when your hand slips inside his jeans.
You slide down to your knees, taking his jeans with you.
“Fuck you look so perfect on your knees for me,” he grits out.
Tumblr media
You stretch out along the hard wood floor and press yourself against him.
Bucky’s fingers soothingly slide up and down your arm, his eyes closed and his breathing finally even.
“You need to make me a list of all the things you want me to build,” he says.
You laugh as you twirl a strand of his hair between your fingers. “It will be the longest list ever.”
“It better be,” he says, finally opening his eyes and pinning them on you. “I’ll building anything and everything if we can start every project like that.”
You kiss his neck, working your way to his chin and then along his jaw before climbing on top of him and kissing his lips.
“Deal!”
His hands are soft as they reverently trace the curve of your hips and waist. “You know what we still have to do?” he asks.
“What?” you smile.
“Name all the new plants!”
Your smile widens. “WE DO!”
You kiss him again and reluctantly move off him so he can get up. Once you’re both dressed, Bucky sans shirt of course, he starts working on the shelves.
You hold up one of your new plants, Devil’s ivy, and twirl the pot between your fingers, gently fingering the leaves.
“What do you think Buck?” you ask. “How about…Spaghetti!”
He looks up from the wood in his hands and nods with a smile. “That’s a good one, especially for the ivy.”
As soon as he finishes the thought his stomach promptly grumbles, making you both laugh.
“I’m just going to name these last two then I’ll start dinner…how does spaghetti sound?”
“Perfect doll face. It sounds perfect.”
Tumblr media
234 notes · View notes
gutsby · 7 hours
Text
Honor Among Thieves
Tumblr media
Pairing: Mob!Bucky x Reader
Summary: Marrying Brooklyn’s most dangerous man was easy. Divorcing him proves to be a bit harder—particularly when you’re pregnant with his child.
Warnings: 18+. Unprotected p-in-v. Oral (f!receiving). Breeding kink. Hurt/Comfort/We-Almost-Just-Died-Sex. Morning sickness. Manslaughter. Brief coerced kissing. Beefy, mob boss Bucky is a possessive expectant father who just wants to make sure he knocked you up properly
Descriptions of violence throughout.
Tumblr media
“You know exactly what you’re doing.”
Bucky’s words reverberated like a shotgun’s report, skimming across two dozen feet of marble, glass, and stainless steel before reaching your ears on the opposite end of the room. He was standing at the threshold of the kitchen, and your back was turned to him. Lucky thing, too, or else he would’ve seen the smile threatening to tug at both ends of your lips—effectively blowing your cover.
“Really, I don’t have the slightest idea, Barnes,” you told him, and it took everything in you not to laugh. Having just narrowly preserved your composure, you continued, “You keep me locked in this prison all day and expect me not to find ways to entertain myself? Well, this is all it is.”
Like hell it was, you could already hear in Bucky’s head. Feeling him eye you up and down from the archway, take his first steps into the room, loosen his tie, most likely.
“Prison?” You registered a low scoff, and his voice was already so much closer than it’d been five seconds ago.
Your husband was striding as quickly as his smooth, dark, tailored suit would allow, and he was undressing as he walked. You could hear the clothes coming off but pretended not to notice. Instead staring more intently at the crab bisque simmering on the stove before you, you licked the spoon you were holding and hummed a little.
“Yes,” you answered, simply, “Prison.”
Bucky was by your side in no time at all. Up close, he smelled like rosemary, oakmoss, and gunpowder.
“Well, this is news to me,” he said. He dragged out the middle syllables of his words longer than was necessary, likely to make his move sidling up closer to you. The last sound had scarcely died in his throat more than a second or two before you felt an arm loop around your back. A hand coming to rest on your hip, then his voice, again:
“See, I never knew they built ‘prisons’ up in first-class penthouse apartments in Brooklyn. Must be pretty nice.”
Bucky stepped behind you, and you were half-certain the black suit jacket he’d come home wearing was fully removed. Again, you pretended not to see, or care.
“It’s a metaphor, James.” But your voice wavered.
“A metaphor?” Bucky’s head sank into the soft groove between your neck and your shoulder, and he kissed it.
“Yes.”
Your mouth made a sound more akin to a breath than a real, enunciated word, and you knew Bucky felt it too. He sensed this headstrong, no-bullshit façade of yours was sure to come crumbling apart any second, and each new brush of his hands and lips would be making it happen. Knowing this, he wasn’t in a rush to get the rest of his clothes off. He did, however, start to toy with yours.
“Tell me more. Am I really holding you hostage, doll?”
You took a ladle and started to stir, trying to stay cool. Meanwhile, your husband tugged gently on your dress.
“Hostage, housewife, same thing,” you muttered, low.
For once, it was Bucky’s turn to break character, as he laughed. It was short-lived and sweet, and he pressed another kiss to the skin of your neck, as if in apology.
“Right, right. I forgot. You were forced to marry me.”
“Right,” you shook your head, just slightly emboldened by the way you’d made him crack, if only for a moment, “I’m forced to marry you, move into this horrific little shanty in Brooklyn”—gesturing to the multi-million dollar apartment surrounding you both—“and then you leave me here, all by myself, with nothing to do while you go play Godfather with your mobster friends. It’s not fair.”
By the tail end of that last sentence, you and Bucky both were already grinning a little, coming to terms with just how ridiculous it sounded when you phrased it like that. Still, your husband seemed game to keep the bit going.
“Now that’s just not true,” he said, tone all faux offense.
You felt the soft snap of a ribbon coming undone, and in a second realized it was the satin bow holding the back of your dress together. The fabric loosened, and Bucky’s hands slid down your sides, over your front—of course.
“I didn’t leave you ‘by yourself’ at all, doll,” he said, and suddenly, his palms were fanning out, over something, “Gave you this baby to keep you company, didn’t I?”
The ‘something’ he was touching now was your belly. All soft and smooth and protruding out in a perfect little globe beneath your dress, no bigger than when he’d left for work that morning. Bucky treated the bump like it was a novelty all the same—like he was seeing it for the first time and couldn’t believe he was actually the one responsible for making it get like that. It had gotten to be a hobby of his, nearly, just how much he loved watching it grow. He had his fingers splayed out across your tummy virtually every chance he could get, and that didn’t stop whether you were out in public or sharing a moment in the comfort of home; he couldn’t get enough.
Which was why Bucky was right when he’d said you knew exactly what you were doing when he came home that day. You knew just the kind of effect that wearing a tight, white dress while cooking dinner would have on him, and you hoped it would rile him up just like this: with his hands roaming over every inch of your body, making soft, sweet circles along the swell of your belly, and kissing your neck again and again. Biting some, too. Getting so worked up he was all but gnawing at the skin as he drank in your scent and got lost to pure instinct.
If it wasn’t clear that Bucky had had a breeding kink before, you saw it written plain as day across his face every morning and night since he’d first learned you were pregnant. Like all the life force within him was just a byproduct of the knowledge that you were his—and this baby, growing bigger each day, was a mix of you both.
You hated to say it, but fatherhood suited your assassin-trained, mob-heading, bloodlusting husband better than anyone could have predicted in a million years or more.
Presently, Bucky flipped you around and sank to his knees. He slid you over to the counterspace area, away from the stove, and made sure to flip each knob to ‘off’ to make sure there wasn’t a chance you’d get burned. You cast one last look at the crab bisque and knew at once your hard work would have to be put on the back burner for now, because Bucky wasn’t hungry for that.
Still, you kicked a foot in soft, muted protest when you felt him slide his hands up your legs, under your dress, and start to reach for your panties. You let out a breath.
“I spent two hours perfecting the seasoning on that, Barnes,” you chided him, gently and without much admonition in your voice as you pointed to the soup, “You say you want a good little housewife but won’t even leave me un-fucked long enough to try any food I make!”
“And I’m very sorry about that, Mrs. Barnes,” Bucky replied, head disappearing beneath your skirt so he could take your underwear off with his teeth instead.
But, much like your reproach, your husband’s strained apology held less than half of its professed sincerity. Your blue cotton panties were discarded in a second, your hips pushed back against the cool white marble behind it, and Bucky, almost too cheekily, brought his head back up from underneath your dress just to steal a quick look at your belly, then up at you. He was smiling.
“Anything you make tastes amazing, honey. Daddy just needs to eat a little something beforehand, that okay?”
He already knew what you’d say. The sweet, shit-eating grin hovering over your lower half knew all that and more. Bucky just loved to tease, taking the hem of your dress between his index and thumb, and rubbing all the more tenderly, murmuring again, ‘That alright with you, pretty girl?’ and ‘My wife likes getting tonguefucked in the kitchen, doesn’t she?’ while his breaths spread over you.
You nodded that you did. Momentarily forgetting the three-course meal you’d had planned for him since early that morning, you let your knees fall limply apart from one another, and Bucky’s broad form filled the space in between. The fabric of your dress was snug, especially so over your belly. Your husband pushed the material up your hips and let it rest just high enough to expose your warmth to him. Angling your hips back the slightest bit, trailing his fingers up your thighs and inside them, gently, Bucky let out a low groan against your body, and you could feel the vibrations of it travel up your spine.
“I really am mean for keeping you here all day, aren’t I?” he teased, sliding the tips of his fingers between your glistening folds and watching you jolt in response.
“So— so mean. Bucky, please.”
Your voice was far more hoarse than circumstances would seem to beget; your husband had just eaten you out that morning. Nevertheless, your hand was trembling as it reached for his head. Your pull was taut and dire. While your fingers threaded in through his hair and your body opened itself more and more for him, you could feel that kind smile, even if you couldn’t see it. Frankly, the swelling of eight-and-a-half months made it difficult to see much of anything below the waist, but Bucky made sure to let you know he was there. By holding your hand, skimming his lips against your skin, starting, just then, to sink his fingers in toward the heat of your body, and softly pulling his face away so he could look up at you.
“Baby?” he breathed.
Your eyes locked with his as he slid two fingers inside you. The stretch alone was enough to put your brain on the fritz, but, fighting the first shockwaves of pleasure:
“Y-Yeah?”
He withdrew. Pressed them back in and let out a grunt.
“I need you to do something for me.”
You couldn’t fathom what that might be, but you nodded anyway. ‘Anything’ was what you managed to choke out.
“And you might not like it, doll.”
Your eyes widened some.
“O— O-Okay, what?”
Bucky’s fingers curled inside you, and a short, sharp streak of dizzying pleasure pulsed through your body. Your knees felt weak, and your mind even worse, but with what little resolve you had left, you were able to keep your eyes entirely open and fastened to his. A look that struck you as almost bittersweet crossed your husband’s features, and you saw his gaze soften again.
“I need you to wake up,” he said, calmly.
“What?”
Your toes curled tight underneath you, and the warmth between your legs leapt up to over a thousand degrees.
“Melaya, I need you to wake up.”
At the same time, your blood ran cold in your veins. Surely, you couldn’t be hearing him right if the voice he used was so gruff and low—and laden with a Russian lilt.
“Bucky? What— What do you mean?”
But you knew. Or suspected something of it anyway.
Now the sound from your own throat was hardly one that you recognized as yours, so shrill and high and strange—what could he mean by that? Why was he watching you in that way? Your husband wasn’t smiling so brightly anymore, and the once-gratifying conflagration between your legs had grown to an almost scorching degree, no longer nice, generous, or pleasurable in the slightest.
“We need you to wake up now, honey. Right now.”
His tone, too, was distorted. Grating.
“Bucky, I-I don’t underst—”
“WAKE UP!”
Tumblr media
“WAKE UP!”
Natasha shook you hard, and it hurt.
She didn’t mean for it to. She just needed you up and out of bed, and you’d been asleep for almost fourteen hours.
You started at the fifth or sixth shake, nearly punching yourself in the face when you tried yanking a set of covers up and over your head and discovered, shortly, that there was none. You were splayed out on a bed in an as-yet unfamiliar home—Steve’s new place—and, while you slept, you’d kicked all of the blankets you’d been given the night before off your body and onto the floor.
Your eyes were wide as saucers as they darted to Nat’s.
There was no need to say what had happened—she knew these dreams were getting worse by the day.
It’d been a week since you fled your Brooklyn apartment in an all-out terror. A week since a senseless, short-sighted idea on your part had led to the discovery that your husband was once part of a HYDRA sleeper cell whose activation phrase turned him into an agent of total destruction at will. A week since you’d seen a half dozen bodies litter your living room floor, more still being bludgeoned by the so-called ‘Winter Soldier,’ as Bucky had formerly been known. A week since you’d sobbed in Natasha’s arms and begged her not to let you go back. A week since you’d been obliged to hide out in Steve Rogers’ new bachelor pad upstate, because, frankly, there was nowhere else you could safely live until this whole ordeal with Bucky was settled—if it ever would be.
A full week since you’d learned you were pregnant, too.
As far as you knew, your husband was wholly unaware of this fact, and of Steve’s most recent real estate purchase up in Buffalo, and you’d been existing in a semi-serene and largely dissociated state for the past seven days.
Your gaze adjusted to the light, and you blinked up at Nat, feeling damp in just about every place on your body. You looked down and found yourself drenched in sweat.
“Hydrate. Please.”
It wasn’t so much a request as it was a standing order: Nat holding out a glass of water and instructing you to drink. Though your first instinct was to make a face and shake your head—you’d found that any new fluids in your body this early in the morning would only get thrown back up when you made your first frantic trip to the toilet—you accepted it anyway. You drank three big gulps to appease the woman standing next to the bed, then wiped your mouth with the back of your hand and smiled
“I’m gonna go puke now,” you said.
“Aim for inside the toilet bowl if you can,” Steve called out from the doorway. By the look on his face, you’d been doing a pretty shit job of aiming vomit lately.
“My bad, Rogers.”
You had a hand on your stomach, slowly easing back up into a seated position, when you heard something being flung across the room, followed by a ‘HEY!’ and a crash.
“Your aim sucks, too, Romanoff,” Steve griped, loudly, “And I was kidding. She can puke wherever she wants.”
By the door, a hefty hardcover book lay open on the floor. Apparently Nat’s options for projectiles had been limited.
“All good, Rogers,” you offered anyway. Fighting a smirk.
You were starting to stand, and your head felt as if you’d just taken your first steps off a rocking boat. Your other hand jumped to your mouth, and you muttered, ‘Fuck’ before brushing past Nat and her outstretched arms.
She held your hair while Steve retrieved the glass of water, as well as a towel. The unsightly first trimester ritual proceeded as it had for all of the last week, with Nat rubbing circles in your back and Steve making well-meaning but completely useless live commentary like, ‘Babies are a real pain in the ass, aren’t they?’ At the conclusion of each new stupid remark, Natasha would shoot a dirty look his way, but you never let her shoo him away. Through no conscious choice of your own, Steve had become something of a comfort blanket over the course of the past chaotic days. At the very least, you two were no longer at each other’s throats flinging accusations and exorbitantly-priced tumblers in the other’s direction, which was a marked improvement from where you were the day after you and Bucky’s wedding.
At length, you lifted your head from the toilet, and he daubed at your cheek with the towel—mostly just trying to wipe off spit and your own queasy-looking expression. He succeeded in clearing away just the former, but you forced a smile all the same, then shared it with Natasha.
Nat couldn’t smile back. In fact, the grimace on her face only etched even deeper, and her forehead creased.
“This is a horrible time to be asking you this, I know—”
“Nat, please.” Steve groaned.
Nat, what? There wasn’t a lot more that could catch you off guard after all the shit you’d come to see that week. Still, Nat’s breaths were both measured and slow, and you could see she was chewing on the inside of her cheek like she wasn’t quite sure how best to phrase her words. This, coming from one of the most astute legal minds this side of the Hudson River, gave you pause.
“Ask anything. I’m pretty numb, if you haven’t noticed.” You rapped on the side of your head for comedic effect, but neither Natasha nor Steve laughed or cracked a grin.
“How do you feel about filing for divorce tomorrow?”
At the sound of Nat’s words, you felt the bile jump back up your throat. You knew there wasn’t enough food or fluid to make much of anything now, but all the same, you craned your neck back over the toilet and retched. When nothing came out, as expected, you turned back.
“What?”
Natasha looked a little ill herself, but still, she continued.
“How do you feel about just…fast-tracking a divorce from him and taking off new? We’ll talk assets later.”
Assets? Fast-track? Divorce? What the fuck?
“What the fuck, Nat?” you repeated as much out loud.
It normally wasn’t your thing to be so blunt with her, but the inquiry certainly seemed to invite some extra candor. You swiped at your mouth for any excess spit that might’ve trickled out, crudely, and in a second, Steve was handing you the towel. Then helping you to your feet, holding your arm and lower back in a grip you could feel was secure. You were unsteady on your legs, so he and Natasha guided you over to the sink, where you could regain your bearings and freshen up a bit. Sneaking a look at your reflection in the mirror was a bad idea; your face was sallow, and the rest of your body had every appearance of being horribly weak, for lack of a better word. You caught a glimpse of a gash sitting just above your left temple and immediately looked away. Stupidly, you hoped Steve and Nat hadn’t seen it.
“He did that to you,” Nat said without missing a beat.
You winced, and you washed your hands, not looking up.
“I thought you said it wasn’t him. Soldat, you told me.” And for a second, your eyes flickered to Steve, whose expression was a touch more sympathetic, if not visibly discomfited now. Like he didn’t want to speak for once.
He did, anyway: “Doesn’t matter if it was Winter or him, really. Point is he hurt you while trying to protect y—”
“And yet, you asked me to forgive him just last week for killing my dad in the same type of rage,” you replied, and instantly regretted the accusatory tone you’d taken on.
Your anger was misdirected at Steve. It wasn’t his fault for sharing the truth about your husband’s—his best friend’s—past when you’d asked him. These were queries you’d made, helping to form justifications for your own decision to stay after what had happened in Madripoor. Obviously, Steve would be biased to help support his friend in a time of need. But now things were different; Bucky had never been activated as soldat and ended up hurting someone he’d loved before. Steve was free to change his mind after seeing that happen and urge you to leave, or at least reconsider, your marriage to Bucky.
The second look you gave him attempted to convey as much, a bit more apologetic as he and Natasha led the way out of the bathroom. Steve smiled and held your arm again, though you probably didn’t need it. You walked downstairs to the kitchen together. Over by the toaster, Sam was inspecting a charred bagel with a scowl
“Rogers, you really need to ditch this shit,” he said, gesturing to the rusted metal contraption that appeared to be from 1918, and had just burnt two bagels to a crisp.
“It was a gift from a friend, piss off,” Steve replied, grinning a little. Reaching for the blackened bread roll and even going so far as to take a bite, crunching loudly.
“Did your friend happen to fight in World War II?” Nat asked. She lent one look to the archaic machine but said nothing further, opting instead to take a seat at the kitchen table, where a sea of papers was strewn about.
Then, to you, “Come. Sit.”
Somewhere in your tentative stroll from where you stood to where she sat, and in the middle of the men’s toaster bickering, Sam called out that he’d have bacon and eggs ready in a second. Steve offered up his singed sesame bagel in the interim, and you told him no thanks. With a still slightly throbbing skull and a nauseous gait, you took the chair next to Nat’s and looked down at her papers.
Honestly, you thought your present condition might warrant some leeway when it came to holding off on the heavy-hitting topics first thing, but, to your surprise, Natasha slid a crisp white packet over almost instantly.
“Nat, what the fuck?” you groaned for the second time.
“Read it. Give it a second to digest, then we can—”
“No!” you cut in, pushing the packet back to her with a little more force than you’d meant, “I-I can’t. Not now.”
On the very first page, in bold and capitalized typeface, there was printed a brief string of words you’d never wanted—or thought you would ever need—to see:
‘VERIFIED COMPLAINT: ACTION FOR DIVORCE’
“It’s just the petition. No harm in taking a look,” Nat said.
You could hear a faintly gentler tone in her voice, even as you shook your head and looked away from the papers.
“I don’t want to. I can’t do this right now.” You kept shaking your head for a couple seconds after, turning your gaze instead to the bay window of Steve’s kitchen.
A nice, sprawling yard stretched as far as you could see. In the distance, a fuzzy white horizon was punctuated the slightest bit by the outline of a wood fence, but apart from that, the land was empty. The lot was secluded. Happy and effervescent in a nearly cloudless sky, the midmorning sun cast its rays without so much as the threat of a storm’s hinderance. You fixed your eyes on the clear expanse above and silently wished it would rain.
Before more than a minute or two had passed like that, Sam was approaching the table with two platters. Steve balanced four more by himself, watching the sway of one plate of scrambled eggs in his arms with a wary look before setting each one of the dishes on the table.
“Bon appétit,” Steve said, butchering his French just about as badly as Sam had the bagels. You and Nat thanked them both anyway and started clearing off the table, pushing papers away in favor of steaming plates. Sam and Steve sat down, and all of you began to eat.
While you dutifully piled on each scoop of eggs, bacon, sausage links, biscuits, gravy, and grits—far more than you knew you could feasibly consume—you wished again for a rainstorm, and maybe a quiet breakfast. One that wasn’t marred by talks of legal separation and lengthy battles in court, if you could help it at all. To this end, and perhaps against your body’s best interest, you shoveled two supersized spoonfuls of egg in your mouth, so that if Nat tried reviving those subjects again, you could put off the conversation by simply continuing to chew. You felt your stomach turn inside you but, stubbornly, ate more.
You had just swallowed it all, about to make way for a warm, flaky buttermilk biscuit, when a sound cut in, and your belly flipped again. Your teeth had barely sunk into the bread a second when Nat set her own food aside, then used two fingers to push something toward you.
“Just skim it. Let me explain what the process can be,” she said, tapping her index on the first line and meeting your eyes as if to plead. She had to have known she’d be met with resistance—from you, of course, but also Steve. She raised a defensive hand to him before he even cut in:
“Come the fuck on, Nat. Will you give her a break?”
“I’m saying this for her sake! I’m doing it for her.”
“And throwing divorce papers in her face over breakfast is really the best way of going about it? Is that for her?”
Sam swallowed whatever he’d been chewing on, glanced down at the top paper, and seemed to brace himself.
“Guys, is now really the right time—” he started.
“That’s what I’m saying!” Steve barked over him.
Natasha ignored the plainly disdainful look from the latter, lifted her hand off the paperwork and instead trained her gaze solely on you. Just like she had in Zurich. Focusing intently on your face, ignoring whatever Steve or Sam were saying in the moment, she turned to you and found your expression was stale. Unmoving. Frankly, half of what was running through your mind right then was how badly you wanted to puke again. As if the eggs had turned rotten in your gut the second they reached their destination in your GI tract, you felt a heavy, oppressive fog of nausea taking shape between your ears, and you just wanted everyone to stop talking.
Sam and Steve continued on without a hitch, agreeing vaguely but also appearing to bicker over other things, like when was the most appropriate time to have this conversation. Natasha was leaning in, reaching for your hand this time, and you knew she meant well. You would bet any large sum of money there wasn’t a malicious bone in her body, and she was doing this for your benefit. All the same, you were grateful when the front door swung back on its hinges, and a new person walked in. Nat, Sam, and Steve all suspended their conversations.
“Hey, wh—” the blissfully unaware, semi-stranger began.
“Sharon!” Steve cried, “Would you tell Romanoff she’s being a goddamn pest with no sense of boundaries?”
Sharon halted at the threshold of the house, skating a look between Nat and Steve at first, then Steve and Sam, then just at you. The look didn’t linger for long, and before you knew it, she was setting down a fistful of grocery bags and twisting her mouth into a frown.
“Will you shut up, Steve?” was her only response.
Sam rose from his chair and pointed as if to say, ‘Yeah, that’ before joining her in the foyer to help carry in the Wegmans bags. Natasha leaned back in her chair with a vaguely pleased look, and Steve just rolled his eyes. He slapped his palm overtop the stack of divorce papers still laying before you and, seemingly undeterred, continued,
“Do you think it’s fair for her to force divorce papers on this poor soul—” pointing to you, the poor soul, apparently, “—when it’s been a week since she left?”
Sharon started handing off the frozen stuff first, sliding a box of Stouffer’s across the counter to Sam, who then deposited it in the freezer. These exchanges took place in relatively quick succession, with Sharon only chancing a look toward the kitchen table once or twice as they did.
“I think she should do whatever the hell she wants,” she said, “And I think their divorce is none of our business.”
Fair enough take. One that you could respect, at the very least, even if you weren’t certain she particularly cared for you at all. You reckoned she had no reason to, and on the whole, appeared to be a pretty reserved person.
You wanted to add a word in her defense, reiterate to Steve that he didn’t have to go to bat for you, the poor, defenseless soul, right now. Instead of being able to speak, though, you felt an upsurge of something heavy in your throat. You clamped a hand to your mouth again, cheeks flushing with the heady sensation and also out of embarrassment, then pushed your chair back and stood.
“I— gotta—” you stammered, just audible to the table, through the wall your fingers had made over your lips.
You sprinted up the stairs without another word.
The first trimester ritual repeated, and ten minutes later, you re-emerged from the bathroom feeling two big spoonfuls of scrambled eggs lighter and still none the happier, healthier, or wiser. You took a peek in the full-length mirror at the other end of the room and discerned from a distance of ten feet that you looked like dogshit.
You flopped down on the bed face-first, heedless of the pool of sweat that still encompassed roughly half of it, and let out a weak, muffled breath into the sheets. Someone had been gracious enough to replace all the blankets and pillows you’d kicked off last night. When you heard a knock on the door, it sounded a lot like Nat’s.
You rolled to the side, eyes screwed shut in frustration.
“If you’ve come to tell me my marriage is a fucking dumpsterfire, I agree completely, Natasha. I’m dumb.”
A little huff of a half-laugh sounded from the doorway. You opened your eyes and saw Sharon standing there.
Up close, she looked a little paler than you’d remembered seeing her last in Switzerland. Soft beads of perspiration dotted her neckline from what had likely been a hot and arduous journey walking up the driveway with all the food, and presently, she seemed tired. She wore a simple gingham blouse that had her eyes shining with vibrance, though, and both hands, you noticed, were full—she had a mug in one and a spoon in the other. She smiled kindly.
“The mob tends to have that effect,” she said, strolling in. Setting the mug on the nightstand and easing the spoon into it, stirring, “Don’t be too hard on yourself.”
You had no idea what all she knew about your marriage. You weren’t so sure you could extricate yourself from all the blame of having the thing go up in flames in four short weeks. Nevertheless, you smiled back and offered up something good-humored in return, like, well, I’m not exactly winning wife of the fucking year anytime soon.
Again, Sharon chuckled. It was small. She leaned back against the nearest armchair and, pointing to the cup she’d left to rest on the nightstand, said in a soft voice,
“Give that a minute. It’s hot.”
You glanced over and saw a little string that you guessed was attached to a teabag sitting at the bottom of the mug. The drink smelled like chamomile, maybe. You sat up, readjusted your pyjama top, then slid your socked feet underneath you so you could scoot closer to the edge of the bed. On a deeper inhale, you decided the tea was definitely chamomile. And too hot, as Sharon said.
“Thank you,” you told her.
“It’s not poisoned, I promise,” she replied. Letting out that funny little chuckle of hers—one too low to be considered a full laugh, but very close—and then, seeming to realize what she said might’ve sounded off, “Like— I heard what happened with Schröder. Him trying to drug you after the wedding and all…that. I— I’m sorry.”
Bad time to be making jokes, she appeared to chastise herself, but you just nodded along with the faintest grin.
“It’s OK. I’d pay money to be knocked the fuck out now.”
You grinned bigger, and she smiled too.
“It should make you sleepier, if you wanted to nap.”
You replied that you would, in fact, love to be unconscious right now if it meant not having to put up with all this bullshit morning sickness, and you slowly reached for the mug. Sharon stood up, and while you took your first sips, she fluffed the pillows behind you.
She was right. The tea felt like a hug. You settled under the covers and brought the cup to your lips once more, taking two big draughts before setting the drink aside. Yeah, that shit’ll put you right out, no drugs needed. You sank even further under the sheets and watched Sharon hover between the bed and the doorway, looking around as if trying to find something to do—some way to make herself feel more useful, if you had to guess from the pensive look in her eyes. Finally, she settled closer to the door and gave you one, fairly sanguine look. The warmth of your drink had already begun to nestle inside your weary bones, and your eyelids felt heavier. Still, you tried to return the sunny look before getting fully settled.
“Thanks again, Sharon. I appreciate it.”
“Yeah, of course.”
She started to leave. In fact, she’d already made it three-fourths out of the room when something stopped her in her tracks. She turned back to you, and you looked up.
“This…probably doesn’t mean a whole lot coming from me, but—whatever you decide to do with Bucky…is okay. We’ll support you, whether you choose to raise this baby with him or do…whatever it is you want to do. Don’t let Nat or Steve or Sam or anybody tell you differently. It’s your choice, y’know, whether you wanna stay married…”
Sharon trailed off, and somewhere inside, you could tell she meant to finish with words like, ‘…even if you didn’t get to make the choice to get married in the first place.’ You appreciated it. You beamed with just your head poking out from over the covers and thanked her again.
And, before she left, for the second time, she stopped. She walked over to the nightstand and bent slightly at the waist, just enough to set something small down. You turned to the side and saw a vial—a minuscule tube—on the surface. Your eyes widened, realizing what it was.
“Sam picked it up in Madripoor. He said Steve had given this to you…to, uh, give to Schröder, and I thought you should have it back,” she said, pausing, “Just in case.”
You eyed the little vial of poison on the nightstand and nodded, still not completely understanding. Your head throbbed, your stomach was still turning, churning. Your brain was about ten blinks away from logging off entirely and drifting to sleep. All you could do, then, was repeat what Sharon had said as you exchanged one final look.
“Just in case.”
Your eyes closed, and you fell asleep very soon after.
Tumblr media
You couldn’t have been out for more than an hour; you were sure of it. However, the next time you glanced over at the clock on the bedside table, you saw it read 11:04.
P.M.
Shit.
SHIT.
That chamomille tea was no fucking joke.
Just as your thoughts drifted back to Sharon, the conversation you’d shared, the drink she’d given you, the poison she’d left behind for you to keep, you heard her voice all over again—and now, not just in your own head.
Presently, she was standing over your bed again, though the room was much darker this time around. She pressed a finger to her lips, hey, please, please, be quiet, alright? At first you wanted to make a sharp and strangled sound. A cry for help? You weren’t sure. Didn’t know. Couldn’t see very much of the woman at all, except for the outline of her face from the moonlight streaming in through the window. She stared and ‘shh’ed’ some more.
And you were contemplating yelling out a loud obscenity in response to it when next she cut in, markedly gentler:
“Keep it quick. Nat and the guys will be back in thirty.”
You blinked hard into the darkness and waited for your vision, or else your still-missing voice, to return. It didn’t. You just stared back, eyelids going up and down and up and down like a goddamn idiot gone sluggish off one too many Quaaludes, and it was several seconds more before she gestured behind her, into the shadows.
You tensed under the covers, chock-full of terror. You squinted, and shrank, and might’ve nearly pissed yourself were it not for the intervening force of a face.
A familiar face.
Bucky’s face.
You leapt up from the bed, displacing each one of Sharon’s cool and careful warnings from your mind all at once. You didn’t mean to, and as soon as she’d shushed you again, you shut your mouth. Fell still. Sharon slipped out of the room, reminding you both, again, that you had to be quiet, and you had to be quick. Then it was just you and Bucky. Silence and slightly less than five feet of space between you two. Then, shortly, no space to spare at all, as you ran to meet each for a hug a second later.
Your head struck his chest, and it was hard. That, alongside the python’s squeeze he wrapped around your body, hugging you to him in the tightest embrace imaginable, had your mind reeling, skull pulsing just a bit. You pulled back and stood smiling up at Bucky, whose eyes were wide, drinking the sight of you in.
‘Are you hurt?’ were his first words.
You shook your head that you weren’t, still unable to talk.
“Why are you— Who— who brought you— I didn’t—”
It seemed Bucky was equally hard-pressed to form a sentence himself, while his eyes were roaming wildly, all over you. Looking for bumps or bruises or cuts, whatever the wound might have been. He stumbled to the lamp and flicked it on. You tilted your head left, reflexively.
“I’m fine, Bucky,” you said. Sudden and swift, “I’m good.”
But you didn’t move your head too far to the right, either, for fear he might see the cut above your temple—the one soldat had caused when he’d pushed you to the floor, trying to protect you from a threat he couldn’t see.
As it was, your husband seemed to be too much in shock to see anything else apart from what stood immediately in front of him. He hugged you again. He kissed the crown of your head. He constricted your body so tight in his arms you felt a pressure start to build behind your eyes, and suddenly you weren’t so much pulling away as you were wrenching your body from him. When you met Bucky’s gaze again, the sweet blue irises were glossy.
“Nat wouldn’t say where you were, just that you were safe and needed to be…be alone for a while, but I—” He stopped, and it was as if he couldn’t even finish with the words, because his breath was stuck in his throat and his eyes were stinging too much. He looked down, briefly.
You wanted to reach for his hand but hesitated. He took yours a second later, holding extra tight as he continued:
“I thought I’d— thought you might’ve…left. I don’t know. I hadn’t been able to sleep, and then she— Sharon, she called me tonight, said you were here, so— so—”
You felt a pang of guilt holding his gaze, seeing how all the hurt that had come to accumulate behind those eyes over the last week went spilling, at length, into emotions he was either too overcome or sleep-deprived to express. The weight of this suffocated him, made him extra quick to speak his mind but slow to make sense of just about anything that was coming out of his mouth. He stopped, sucked in a breath, then pinched your hand in his, and you didn’t know what to do. You had no idea what to say.
“I was scared, Bucky.”
It sounded pathetic coming out of your mouth. Your husband nodded as though you’d just said the most profound thing in the world. His knuckles went white from just how hard he was gripping your hand, his head bobbed along in agreement, and for a moment, you winced to think that he might hug you again. Instead, the fingers tangled between yours just made a tighter knot.
“I know. I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” he said.
“You scared me,” you added, voice wavering.
Your left hand was going numb. You didn’t want to give him pause—possibly hurt his feelings—by freeing your touch from his, but that grip was brutal. Deathly rigid and unforgiving. Thoughts of Brooklyn and Madripoor came flooding back; Bucky was so much stronger than he realized. His tone, in contrast, was dulcet and soft.
“I didn’t know I’d get like that. I should’ve told you, doll.”
“I shouldn’t have tried the activation in the first place.”
You shouldn’t have tried digging into Bucky’s past all. When all there seemed to be at every turn was a brand new way for him to hurt you, or the people you loved, maybe there came a time when you had to stop asking questions altogether. Maybe that was what his mother and all the women who’d gone before her had known to do, what you had been too stupid to see all along. There was no knowing these men at all, only taking them as they were and learning to cope with what they became.
Bucky shook his head.
“No, doll, it’s not on you,” he murmured low. Still forceful
Thankfully, he released your hand to cup your cheeks, and he kissed your forehead. You felt your pulse in your palm, throbbing from where he’d held it. When he let go the second time, his expression was considerably softer.
“Listen, I’ll take you home, we can talk things over. As long as I know you’re safe, it doesn’t have to— to—”
Hey. He was already halfway toward the door before he realized you weren’t following him. He turned and gestured forward. He beckoned you, brows drawing in.
“Baby? C’mon.”
You didn’t budge.
Your feet were rooted in place, as though cemented to the floor. No matter how much you wanted to appease him, go along with whatever he asked, you couldn’t. You shook your head, and Bucky tilted his own, confused.
“Baby?”
“I’m leaving, Bucky.”
You couldn’t hear your own words slipping out between your teeth, only the blood rushing through your ears. Bucky stopped and turned to face you completely.
“What?”
“I’m leaving.”
“What— what do you mean, ‘you’re leaving’?”
“I want a divorce.”
That part you did hear yourself. You wished you hadn’t.
You wished you hadn’t seen the light break off from Bucky’s eyes, expression going limp the instant your words registered with him. You nearly wished you hadn’t said them at all, seeing just how far his face fell and how hurt he looked by them—but quietly, from somewhere more rational-headed inside yourself, there was a voice reminding the rest of you that it needed to be done. You couldn’t keep pretending like this wasn’t what had had to come next. What you’d been skirting with Nat all day and hadn’t been able to bring yourself to admit before now.
Your husband still didn’t seem to be computing it fully. He walked closer to you, and his gait was unsteady.
“Divorce?”
Your vision was bleary; you hadn’t even realized tears had begun to brim at your waterline as you watched him.
“It’s what we need, Bucky,” you could barely get it out.
“I don’t,” he shot back, not missing a beat, “I don’t.”
“It’s what I need.”
“You don’t mean that.”
His voice was hoarse, face shifting from lax incredulity to one of a wince—screwed up in a way that said he felt ill. You shook your head but couldn’t look away from him.
“You don’t mean that,” he repeated.
“It’s what I want,” you pressed on, just as sick yourself.
“You said what you wanted was me.” Again, Bucky’s voice splintered, and you could feel the pain in it.
“You said you wouldn’t hurt me, Bucky.”
Gritting your teeth, unsure where else to fix your stare on his face but those eyes—while your own betrayed their feelings too easily, fraught with wet, rolling tears—you shouldn’t have been surprised when his went wider.
“What are you talking about?”
The question was short, sharp, and biting, spoken with such haste as might be mistaken for anger, but the eyes softened his look at once. The anguish painting them now as he stared back at you were a proof, beyond a doubt, that it was betrayal, not rage, which steered him. He turned, and it was as if he couldn’t see a thing but you; his elbow clipped the lamp and knocked it over, but still, he just stared. In turn, the ceramic appliance rolled onto its side, toppled the mug and the vial beside it, and all three went crashing to the floor. Bucky didn’t blink.
“Wh—” he started again, but you didn’t hear the rest.
You remembered Sharon. Heard a flash of her last admonition in your head—be quiet, be quick—and without thinking, you fell to your knees. You tried retrieving what pieces of chipped lamp and shattered mug you could, quickly. You spotted the small vial on the floor and shoved it in a pocket. Your hands swept over the broken pieces without any real idea of what you were doing—all except needing to clean Bucky’s mess—and then swiftly, stupidly, you tried picking it up by yourself.
Of course, a shard cut you. The little slit that was left in its wake could have been no wider than a fraction of an inch, but still, it bled. You looked down at the cut, just then starting to sprout red from left to right along the side of your palm, when a new sight crossed your vision. It was fast, too. All but thoughtless in the way it broke in, gripping your hand in his, and yanking you to your feet. Bucky hadn’t seen that you’d cut yourself, it seemed, and, out of instinct, had grabbed your hand to help you up. As before, his grasp was like a vice, and his thumb pressed right inside the lacerated flesh, sending a whole new maelstrom of pain shooting up your wrist and arm. Now, as then, he was heedless of his strength and his sheer, brute force, that he didn’t even see the effect of his grip. He just held on, held you, tighter, tighter, and—
“STOP!” you shrieked.
You shoved him off. Pried his touch off your palm and gripped your forearm in your other hand and pored over the sight, seeing the gash almost doubled in size from just where Bucky’s finger had sunk into the fresh wound. You let out a sharp, muffled cry through lips that tried to stay closed—remembering Sharon again. You shook your head, clenched your jaw, and tore off the other direction.
And when your husband reached out, eyes wide with their own shock and apologies, ‘Baby, fuck, I’m so sorr—’ you threw him off again. With your non-bleeding palm, you thrust your hand against his chest and pushed hard:
“Don’t touch me!”
When he reached for you again, as if by force of habit, you held up a defensive arm and sobbed out, ‘Stop!’
‘Don’t touch me, don’t—don’t—don’t fucking touch me.’
You screamed it. You didn’t mean to. Thinking only vaguely of the need to be quiet, and almost entirely on the stabbing pain in your hand, the imprint of Bucky’s touch on your body, and the blood trickling down your forearm, you darted into the bathroom and threw the door closed behind you. You locked it. You meant to.
Tumblr media
Twenty minutes might as well have been twenty years in Bucky Barnes’ mind. In a moment like this, following yet another supreme fuck up on his part, he felt powerless. He had had to fight the instinct to barge into the next room over with every fiber of his being, and, making fists by his sides and pacing the floor and hating himself was all that seemed capable of occupying his mind just then.
He’d knocked on the bathroom door at least ten times. He’d been ignored each time, no matter the duration.
He still had your blood on his thumb, and it made him ill.
You said you wouldn’t hurt me, Bucky.
While he uncurled his hand from a fist just long enough to stare at the streaks of red stretched over his finger, he heard those words replay over and over again in his head. He’d said it—swore it—himself, and still your blood was turning a cool, dark, dry shade of crimson on his thumb.
This wasn’t how he’d meant for any of this to go. Still, notwithstanding his best intentions, none of it mattered. He’d seen a sincere look of fear in your eyes looking up at him, and nothing in the world would change what he’d done, or who he was. He’d caused you pain tonight, last week—though his memory of that was still so hazy and dark he hardly knew what else had happened, even now—and above all, he’d failed you as a husband, a protector.
You were likely curled up in a ball by the bathroom sink, cowering in fear because of him. The thought sent another tidal wave of nausea thrumming through his skull, a lump in his throat growing larger alongside it, and before he knew what he was doing, Bucky was striding back to the bathroom door. He banged his fist against it.
“Honey?”
No answer.
“Baby, please open the door.”
More silence.
The moment brought to mind a memory from the night you two had been married. How you’d fled to the en-suite bathroom and locked yourself in it; how Bucky had rattled the whole doorframe with the force of his knocks, demanding you come out. He’d hardly known you then. You hardly knew him now. The realization of this made the weight in his throat all the more excruciating as he stood, and, wincing with pain, Bucky kept knocking.
“I’m sorry, honey, I’m so sorry.”
Pleading now. His voice was hoarse all over again.
Had he been the slightest bit more desperate and reckless, he might’ve been tempted to muscle through, kick the door in with his boot. But Bucky knew better. He could already guess how much that action would terrify you now, while tending to an injury that he himself had inadvertently made worse. Barreling inside would be neither romantic nor sweet, just sinking what may then be a lethal dose of salt in the deeper, metaphorical wound. He refrained. Instead of continuing to knock, he dropped his forehead to the door and closed his eyes.
“Please believe me, baby,” he tried again.
He’d said it so quietly he feared you might not hear it. Then, a little bit louder, ‘Please, please believe me.’
No sound to be heard inside but running water.
“You mean everything to me, doll.”
By now, his voice was clogged with pain, teetering on the brink of agony as he rested his hands on the door, and willed you to open it. Say something to him. Anything.
“I’d never mean to hurt you. Not in a million years.”
For a moment, he heard nothing more. Just how desperately he needed to hear a voice in reply could not be overstated. Craving a new sound worse than oxygen in his lungs. At first, when he heard something other than himself nearby, it nearly knocked him back with joy.
A voice right next to his ear, “But you did, didn’t you?”
The joy lasted less than a second.
The voice beside him was low. And close. Not coming from the other side of the bathroom door, as he might’ve reasonably expected from you, and not even in the tone of a female’s voice, as he might’ve seen, were Sharon to have appeared by his side. This new voice was deep, and masculine, and in his ear now, chuckling some as a gloved hand pressed the barrel of a gun to his temple.
Bucky didn’t blink.
Tumblr media
You stepped outside not wanting to see him.
The bleeding had long since stopped, thanks to the aid of a cool, damp washcloth and a few minutes’ pressure, but even once it ceased, your legs were reluctant to carry you back. You dreaded the thought of having to resume your conversation with Bucky—of having to look him in the eye and tell him all over again that it wasn’t safe for you to be married to him. But you didn’t have much of a choice now, either. This wasn’t your honeymoon, where you could stay locked in the bathroom, try climbing out a window, and hope for the best like you’d done before. You had the man’s child inside you, for fuck’s sake.
That uncomfortable subject and at least a dozen more were already swarming your brain as you made your way out of the bathroom. You’d taken a few extra squares of toilet paper to press into the cut, were looking down at it with a tense, uncertain gaze as you ventured out, when you were obliged to stop just a few steps into the room.
“Hi, honey.”
It wasn’t Bucky.
Your eyes snapped up to the source of the voice in an instant, and, on seeing you were right—that it wasn’t Bucky but a gaunt, grinning blond with a gun to your husband’s head—you almost screamed at the sight.
You’d wanted to scream, anyway. It would’ve been the sane thing to do, and one that nobody could’ve blamed you for in the moment, you reckoned, but strangely the sound never came. You just stared at the two, eyes wide and jaw slightly more lax as your lips made an ‘o’. Bile jumped up in your throat. You wished it would choke you.
‘Please. Don’t.’ was all you could get out.
Johann Schröder’s smile stretched wider.
“Don’t what?”
The question was clearly meant to be derisive, rhetorical. Still, with your fingers trembling, you tried answering:
“Don’t hurt h—”
“Why?”
You watched the gun sink deeper against your husband’s face, and he flinched. Your stomach clenched inside you.
“Why shouldn’t I hurt him, hon? Seems like he’s gotten pretty damn good at doing it to you,” Schröder sneered.
His words stung. The grin didn’t flinch. And, as if to punctuate his sentence, or else remind your husband that he was tied to a chair and entirely at his mercy now, Schröder struck Bucky in the face with the butt of his gun. If an onlooker hadn’t known better, they might’ve mistaken you for the one who’d been hit, though—at last, you unleashed that scream, and you reached out for Bucky, hands open and pathetic and desperate to help.
“Think it hurt as bad as your hand?” Schröder hummed.
Your feet were stumbling forward, “He didn’t mean—”
Another resounding thud against Bucky’s skull, this time hard enough to split his lip in half. If he’d grimaced in the slightest, you would’ve seen the teeth smeared with blood. But, true to form, James Barnes didn’t wince. He hadn’t even seemed to acknowledge the blow as it landed. Just stared at you and, with eyes as hollow and deadened and faintly pleading as you’d ever seen them before, manifested their silent apology to yours—again.
“Bet he didn’t mean to hurt anyone as the Winter Soldier, either. Still couldn’t have felt too good for all the folks he butchered, though.” At that, Schröder’s sick amusement morphed into a laugh, and he was taking Bucky’s collar in his other hand. Shaking him lightly while he spoke.
“Couldn’t have felt all that great for your dad, I bet.”
The diversion turned to you, all toothy smiles and mocking eyes. He didn’t care. He let you stagger another step toward the two of them, even try to get your hands close to Bucky. But when you’d drawn too close, he stopped you cold. Not thinking much else in the moment, you made a move to push Schröder’s arm away, hard, and were shortly rewarded with a shove of your own. He knocked you sideways onto the bed, and you landed on the hand you’d hurt. Before you could let out so much as a sound yourself, Bucky’s voice tore in:
“Schröder.”
Schröder turned. He raised his Ruger to your husband’s head again, as casually as if he’d asked him for the time.
“Yes?”
“Don’t touch her.”
Schröder turned to you. Though he didn’t move the Ruger again, he did point his finger at your form, haplessly curled into itself amidst the covers and pillows.
“Why? Saving all the rough stuff for later, are we?”
You cowered as his free hand reached for you, and just as your husband’s eyes went wide and a vein nearly tore through his skin from how hard it protruded, you cried,
“What do you want?!”
Schröder stopped. He brought his hand to a halt just south of your thigh—and then he dropped his weight on the bed beside you. He gestured indistinctly, almost disbelievingly, toward Bucky. The latter appeared near-apoplectic, nails raking down either arm of the chair.
“What do I want?” Schröder quipped, incredulous, “What do you want, doll? To stay married to him?”
And you knew he’d intended the question to be hurtful; you knew it by the glint in his eye, the goading tone of voice and the look he’d flitted to Bucky—nondescript and yet saying a world more than words could ever convey. He knew what had gone on between you, had likely heard your last conversation in its entirety, and was now using it against you. Mostly to taunt, then to injure your husband with truths he hadn’t yet uncovered himself.
Schröder’s eyes were shining with sadistic delight as he took your hand in his. He didn’t waste another second.
“No, no, that isn’t what you want at all, is it?”
Ignoring the screech of Bucky’s restraints as he tried to lunge out of his chair. Hearing him curse when he failed.
“—you said you’re leaving him, right?”
Schröder slid the thin, glistening ring off the hand he’d been holding before you could even think to stop him.
“—said you want a divorce, is that it?”
Then his grin got so big and conceited and enlivened by the sight of pain working its way onto Bucky’s face that any good sense you’d had left inside you was abandoned in a blink. You didn’t hesitate, or else try and make a pass to retrieve your ring—you just hit the man in the face.
Your fist was small, and his chin was hard. You knew before you ever threw the punch that it’d probably hurt you more than him, but you did it anyway. It succeeded, at the very least, in catching Schröder by surprise and swiftly pissing him off. Seeing this and feeling a bit bolder, you were somehow able to dodge his hands when he lurched for you again. Inside, your own anger flared.
“Why the fuck do you care?” you spat.
You found momentary respite in the corner of the bed, sliding back against a wall that would only protect you for so long. As soon as Schröder regained his bearings, he had you back in his sights and his grasp just as quick.
He dragged you back. He pulled you up. He dug the tips of his fingers so hard into your side that you thought the flesh might tear in two across your ribs. But it didn’t. Crescent-like indentations did leave their mark in a grisly set of five, though. You felt the sting of it as Schröder loosened his grip, then sucked his next breath through his teeth as if calming himself. Your gaze only hardened.
“I care,” he said, once he’d completed this slow inhale. He replaced his touch by pinching your face in one hand and bringing it up to his, expression more like a snarl. Then, raising the gun to your face in his other hand, “because I made a deal with your father. Remember?”
You did. Your head jerked back by force of instinct, but he held it. From every direction, then, you had nothing to hear but the sound of your own pulse thrumming a fast, panicked tempo in your skull. You tasted blood in your mouth without a drop on your tongue. And, had that deafening fear and revulsion been anything less, you likely would’ve heard something else beneath it all.
Would’ve felt it, if you weren’t already so numb: Schröder’s hand sliding its way down your body, diamond ring still stuck to the tip of his index finger. You sensed it as though seeing yourself from another perspective—watching his hand trail lower, lower, lower until something in Bucky split in two and he bellowed:
“SCHRÖDER—”
He said something more after that; you were sure of it. You just couldn’t hear him, or see him, or discern much of anything else but your own racing heart as the man who’d just beat your husband twice and lifted a gun to your head proceeded to press his touch to your belly. Almost conscientious and gentle as he lowered it.
“Was this part of the deal, too, doll?”
Your eyes widened. Realizing—then feeling fear seize you completely. Forgetting the metal at your temple and shaking your head with a force, but slow enough that your husband wouldn’t see it. Meanwhile, across from you both, Bucky seemed more than sufficiently occupied by his own blinding rage—he spit a glob of blood to the floor and, with his teeth bared again, swore he’d kill him.
Over and over and over again, oaths of taking Schröder’s life and making it gruesome and painful and slow filled your ears, but none of it stuck, for either you or Schröder. Instead, your maniacal captor just smiled, leaning in.
“I said, was this part of the deal, Mrs. Barnes?”
The heel of his palm sank into your stomach, and as the shock of his first words began to fade, a pain replaced it. His hand made an impressive demonstration of flattening and forcing itself so hard against the skin that a flurry of stars cropped up in your eyes, and you cried:
“Stop! I-It wasn’t— just— just stop. Stop.”
“Stop? Was it part of the deal or not?”
Schröder bore down even harder.
“It just happened!” you keened. Unsure why you felt compelled to answer for what had gone on at all—addressing the baby in this awful, oblique way—though reckoning it had something to do with the pressure he was applying to your stomach. You tried to squirm back.
But your stuttering pulse and your pleading gaze and the ache in your stomach proved to be all too much for any real progress to be made. You’d scarcely moved off an inch before he drove his palm deeper, and with the agony of a body about to rupture beneath it, a shriek clawed out of your throat. Your mouth fell open, and for once, you couldn’t curtail the pain, or fear. Schröder’s hand had just forced the noise from your mouth, along with some mindless, broken pleas to stop pushing, it hurts, please, please, when the face above yours only brightened. Schröder’s cruel, snide mouth flashed a smile above you, and before you could whine again—
He kissed you.
It couldn’t have lasted for more than a second.
Still, the moment seemed to stretch indefinitely. And felt perverse. So deeply nauseating and unsettling to every last nerve, muscle, tendon, and bone in your body that the response it evoked could be nothing less than visceral. You didn’t need to think at all to shove him off. Whatever might’ve given you pause with a loaded gun to your head was forgotten in a second, and soon enough, you weren’t alone in letting your reproach be known.
It started off with a crack, then a harsh, crude splintering of wood. A violent rift, from what you could hear of it, and when you turned your head, your suspicions were confirmed: Bucky had snapped half the arm of his chair away from the seat, and his right hand was almost freed.
Whatever barrier he faced in being bound more than four times over with rope seemed immaterial to him now. He could strain as hard as he pleased—feel the coarse synthetic fibers dig into his flesh and leave streaks of red, if not break the skin itself—and any pain, as before, hardly appeared to register with your husband at all. He just muscled through it, thrusting his wrist even harder. The whole force of this movement rocked the chair on its legs, and just when you sensed it might collapse beneath his weight, you felt Schröder stand up. The man didn’t need to move too far or do much else other than drop his hold on you and flip his gun to point it at Bucky instead.
Even when he had, though, Bucky didn’t flinch. His hands were in fists and his drive was like a machine’s—he tried forcing his way out of the right hand’s restraints, and the second the wood gave way, he was shoving it off.
Blind to the firearm Schröder was holding, or his words:
“Stay where you are, Barnes.”
Bucky was just then shaking off the rope that had been loosened by the break in the wood, jaw still tight as ever.
“You’ve got three other limbs to free, my friend, just—”
Schröder was still speaking when you saw his finger slip to the trigger, and it seemed to you it was itching to pull.
“James, stop!”
That plea came from you. More of a strangled cry, really—no more pleasant for either man to hear than it was for your throat to shriek. It did, however, stop Bucky cold. Your husband paused just long enough to meet your gaze. And in it, you saw, at least, that he was all there, if not enraged. But not soldat, or anyone else but himself.
You sighed in relief, despite what seeing two red rivers seeping out of Bucky’s mouth might otherwise provoke.
It was him. You might’ve smiled if another hadn’t cut in.
Schröder seized Bucky’s wrist. With it, you saw his hand just as mangled and bloodied as his lips. Knuckles cracked, slit, and soon to be littered with bruises of every shade, he shocked you again by how calmly he took it. Even when Schröder sank a thumb inside a big, gaping crater of a flesh wound he’d found on the back of his hand, your husband didn’t blink; he just looked at you.
‘I’m sorry.’
When the barrel of the gun returned to his head—this time, at the rear, as Schröder had circled back around the half-broken chair and was leaning over him—you could see the apology lodged in his eyes on full display.
“For safekeeping.” The man wielding the gun seemed almost pleased as he dropped your ring inside the breast pocket of your husband’s shirt, before patting it gently:
“Now where were we?”
A beat. Bucky’s right hand twitched beside him, but evidently, he knew better than to move in that moment.
“Right, right—” Schröder pretended to be remembering, tapping steel to Bucky’s skull, “She’s leaving, isn’t she?”
More silence.
You wanted to speak, beg Schröder for mercy, anything.
“Do you know why that is, Bucky?”
But before you could utter even a word of protest, the voice pressed on. Schröder was leaning in his ear.
“—what you did to her?”
The baby. Brooklyn. All the bloodshed that had ensued last week, leaving your husband completely in the dark. Of course, he couldn’t remember. He hadn’t been himself, and was scarcely more able to control his actions as the Winter Soldier than he could in a dream.
To your horror, Schröder reached down for Bucky’s hand, and, still holding the gun to him with the other, lifted it.
Pointed it.
Pushed it closer to you.
“C’mon, Buck. You don’t want me touching her, right? Why don’t you feel for yourself what she’s been hiding?”
Your blood turned to ice. You’d never felt so immobile—paralyzed—in your life, but seeing the hands drift closer and closer and feeling defenseless to their course, your body went numb. Your limbs grew heavier than lead.
And when you felt the smug, smiling blond guide your husband’s touch toward your head, you understood it all.
You were perched at the edge of the bed a foot away. Schröder was nudging Bucky forward in his chair, urging him to reach out and tilt her chin a little, go on, that’s it. And neither one of you had a choice, so he touched you. His fingers, directed by someone else, were obliged to brush the skin of your chin, your jaw, your cheek, and your brow, before finally settling above your left temple.
Your husband felt the cut—touched the stitches.
You winced, but not from any physical pain. It was Bucky’s face as the tips of his fingers skimmed the wound. The look of chagrin that crossed his eyes. Then bewilderment. Fear, as plain as anyone could see it— was he the cause of that? Had the hurt been from him?
You couldn’t bear to answer him, so you looked away. It was Schröder, again, who had all the power to speak.
“Can’t remember pushing her down?” he said, tone dark, “Making her split her head open on the bedside table because soldat didn’t know his own strength—only that he had to keep her safe—and sensed a threat outside?”
Bucky shook his head. His face was grave.
Schröder kept making him prod the skin.
“It’s bruised here, too. You feel it?”
Your husband did, and you thought it might break him. So tender and forlorn were the eyes, raking over every spot where a touch, his touch, had left you hurt before.
If nothing else could bring you back to your senses, the wounded look in Bucky’s gaze was sure to get it done.
You hardly thought again, just croaked: ‘It’s not his fault.’
Schröder’s hand then descended your neck, your torso.
As if he hadn’t heard you at all—
“You already saw what happened to her hand.”
—and forcing Bucky’s touch lower still.
“But what about here?”
Your breath hitched in your throat when you felt your husband’s hand come to rest on your stomach.
It was like a fire had ignited in your lower half, and nothing close to the soft, pleasurable kind. Not the flutter felt in anticipation of a touch from your husband, not the desirous sort. In fact, you dreaded it now; seeing Schröder over his shoulder, urging him closer, making him flatten his big, broad, scorching palm over your belly.
What should’ve been the ecstatic scene you’d conjured in your mind at least a hundred times since marrying him—the picture of domestic bliss as you said it, smiling, I’m pregnant—was now nothing short of torture. Choice all but stripped from you here, forced to emerge inside this terrible place, you found yourself needing to shrink back, shake your head, look to Schröder’s stubborn, unyielding gaze and beg him not to make you do this now. Not now.
Not here, with Bucky’s skin a shade of glacial white and his eyes going wide, taking on a look you’d never seen.
“What do you—”
He stared hard at the hand on your belly, but it didn’t last for long. As if realization were trying to seep in, he couldn’t meet it. His eyes flitted back to your face.
“Baby, what’s—” he tried again, stammering.
“—right, that’s it, Mr. Barnes.” That was Schröder.
Satisfied in the suspense of the moment keeping your husband still, he lifted his hand from Bucky’s and snapped, that’s it, and clapped him over the shoulder.
Congratulating him before the truth had even sunk in.
“A baby, that’s right! You’re going to be a father, Buck.”
And how far was the look on Bucky’s face from the one you’d dreamed before. The lips you’d envisioned in a smile now twisting bleakly, parting slightly, and the eyes you’d once hoped to be bright and elated only staring back with rings of red enveloping the irises. Whatever tears formed at his waterline were decidedly not of joy.
Only guilt.
“You did it.”
Desperation.
More moisture in his eyes as his hand started to tremble across your stomach, voice hoarse and soft, “Is it true?”
You didn’t need to nod. You just watched him, let your own eyes fill with the worst, stinging tears you had felt in your life, and from the silence that followed, Bucky knew.
As if the life beneath his palm were something dear, but still too much for him to comprehend, he shook his head. He stroked his thumb over the cotton of your pyjamas and tried inching closer, as much as his restraints would allow him. Then, with words that were audibly strained, but always gentle, he lowered his voice—as if to keep the communication between you two, despite your position:
“I love you.”
His hand was still on your belly as he said it. He reached up to cup your face. Even lower than before, “I’m sorry.”
I’m sorry.
That much was evident from every look he’d given you tonight. Every move he made a de facto apology, all actions in the vein of atonement, it couldn’t possibly escape your mind or his that he knew he’d done wrong. It was only a matter of accepting this—maybe coming to terms with the fact that your life wasn’t safe in his hands—for the guilt plaguing Bucky to multiply. Paralyze him.
There was no better time for Schröder to strike. Just as the anguish had flooded Bucky’s face completely, and his hand had had to lower itself from want of strength, a sound split the air. Bucky was so lost in his thoughts that it didn’t even register at first, but the impact was real, and it was harsh: Schröder punched him squarely in the jaw. The next, swift snap was his nasal bone taking a blow, and breaking beneath it. Blood breezed down and into his mouth. Feeling warm, his lips and chin doused in a second, he sensed nothing else. He might’ve groaned.
He caught another swift right hook, and his mind went blank. Nothing of substance threatened to materialize between his ears, save for the rush of blood through and from his skull and the dim recognition of something ugly.
Something horrific.
He couldn’t protect you.
His body was as much an idle waste as it was a danger. Useless now, as he was tied to this chair, and a risk to your well-being even if he weren’t. The hazard was him.
Schröder hit him again, and Bucky realized that the ringing he’d heard in his ears was your screaming.
“I’m doing her a favor,” Schröder spat before shoving him back in the chair, almost knocking it sideways.
The blond advanced with ease. His knuckles were drenched in blood; none of it was his. When he reached for Bucky again, the resistance was slight, and a simple, firm grip on the collar was all that was needed to drag his frame to sit straight. Bucky was barely upright for a second before the next—and worst—blow struck his face. His whole head rang with it, reeling, but still, he could make out the words as they were spoken to him.
“She’ll never be safe with you, Barnes. Never—” and at the last, Schröder lowered his gun. Started to loosen the rope from Bucky’s left arm, “—I could free you now, and you still wouldn’t get within an inch of what you want.”
He nudged the rope away and let it fall to the floor. Bucky lifted his hand, but the effort was in vain. No sooner had a finger of his stirred than Schröder was delivering a kick to the chair and letting it splinter. Topple. Skitter a half-foot across the hardwood floor with Bucky’s ankles still bound to it, before finally, gracelessly, breaking apart.
Bucky was on the floor, blinking through a stream of blood and a sea of muddied thoughts when Schröder kicked the chair again. The rope slackened some more.
“Her own father knew as much, so he made me a deal to take her off of your hands. Settle his debts the way he should’ve done the first time around,” Schröder said, and now his tone was lower. Lethal as it ever was, and stern.
“I know how much you hate to lose your playthings, Buck, but this one’s better off with me, I promise.”
And, as if to emphasize his point, Schröder turned and reached for you. Bucky’s own hands were slow, fumbling in fits and bursts to get the rope unwound from his ankles, but they were determined. He just couldn’t get the bleeding to stop, the ringing to subside, or his brain, in its concussed state, to let him move with a little more agility. He’d been hit too many times. He could barely lift his head off his shoulders and hold it straight, so he was forced to stay where he was, keep at his task, and listen.
“You’re weak when you’re not soldat.”
Using his knuckles, Schröder brushed the blood that was evidently all Bucky’s across your cheek, and you flinched.
“When you make the switch, still…you’re inhuman.”
Then he tilted your head, making you show them both the mutilated, stitched-up flesh above your temple. Again, you tried to slink away, but his touch was firm.
“Don’t you think your bride deserves better than that? Your child? Forced to live in fear of that thing you are?”
Blood coursed down Bucky’s face, and his lips were curled apart in a grimace, mouth hanging slightly ajar. His eyes fixed their look on you. The rope was undone.
He’d just started to try and stand when the edge of his vision blurred. He felt the lacerations in his face pulse as one, and with it, half his sight went skewed to the left. Schröder couldn’t help but crack a smile seeing him stumble, pitch back, and barely catch himself on the bedside table. When he stood, he was mostly hunched.
“Look at you, Buck. You can’t try and save her like this,” Schröder taunted, drawing you closer, “So stop trying.”
The man’s hand was like ice holding your face. The grip grew tighter when he saw your husband limping your way, and before either one of you could move, the index of Schröder’s other hand had slid down to the trigger. He didn’t wait to give another warning before he did it—just pointed the gun and fired one shot over Bucky’s head.
His aim was good. The bullet missed your husband by less than an inch. The gun had gone off by your ear, and immediately, you seized the side of your head as a sharp, searing pain cropped up. Your skull was still ringing when you heard the thing discharge again, and you realized it had been aimed at Bucky’s neck. He’d ventured another step, and Schröder had fired a second round to graze the top of his shoulder. Crimson bloomed through his shirt.
Bucky should’ve stumbled again. He might’ve staggered back with a grunt of pain, lifted a quick, reflexive hand to feel the wound, but the sense of it all was slow to reach him. The moments that passed him were delayed just the same, as if the world around him were distorted—the fibers of time tugged and stretched before his eyes—and he could hardly keep himself straight. When he got another look down the barrel of the gun, he didn’t blink. Couldn’t see, really. It was all misshapen sights and sounds and a dim recognition that his mind was in a fog.
Somewhere from within that mist, he heard, faintly:
“I’ll go— I’ll go— I’ll go with you, I’ll go— just stop.”
Schröder turned to you, and the smile that he wore was cruel, but Bucky wasn’t able to make out the expression.
All he could see then, to the faintest extent, was you—your face, gripped hard in another man’s hand, eyes pleading and wet with tears, and a slightly slack jaw.
“Leave him for me?” Schröder repeated, sneering.
You nodded. Blinked. Rolled your tongue along the inside of your cheek before pulling it back and biting down once. There was a hint of a wince in your eyes, but, from what Bucky could tell, it vanished just as fast as it came.
Your lips parted again. Your eyes widened a little.
“So the girl has some fucking sense.” That was Schröder.
He’d had his weapon re-holstered and your face firmly seized in both of his hands in no more than a second.
What came next surprised no one, though the sensations of disgust and rage were as quick to turn a stomach as the shock would have done. Schröder bent down and, having pulled your face closer to his, kissed you again.
Schröder’s mouth was glistening with a grin and Bucky’s own blood—smeared all over your face from how hard he’d been holding you—when he looked up and turned.
“Sensible and sweet, isn’t she? Tastes like it, too.”
Bucky saw nothing but red. It wasn’t just blood crowding his vision now but violence and rancor and outright hatred, stirring his limbs to start moving again when the rest of his body was plainly too battered to venture an inch in that condition. He staggered again, watched you again, and had made it almost halfway across the room when another sight slowed him, if only for a moment.
Schröder’s lips were back on yours, as if to mock him, but what startled him, really, was the way you’d opened your mouth. You couldn’t mean it. Clearly. Schröder was gripping your jaw, forcing it open—it had to be—and he was coaxing your tongue out from inside and weaving it with his. Once more, time moved like molasses, and that was all your husband had had to see: you kissing him back, gripping his arm through the thick, black tactical gear, and still parting your lips more and more for him. Like you needed a touch, or something, worse than ever.
That stalled Bucky, though he was nowhere close to stopping now. Briefly preoccupied, and seemingly shocked as well that you’d accepted the kiss so eagerly this time, Schröder didn’t see the approach. If he had, he likely would’ve turned and made a move for his Ruger, but as it was, he had only to blink—and there was Bucky.
He hit him with a force that was blinding, directly to the side of his head so hard that he’d had no choice but to separate from you. Schröder was stunned one second and on the floor in the next. Bucky threw him there, kicked him down, and, wavering for only a moment to cock back the shoulder that’d been shot, he ignored the pain and punched the man again. And again. And again.
There was a callousness, an indolence, and an ease with which he was able to inflict the pain, that much was evident. What didn’t seem so natural, at least in Bucky’s mind, was the weight that was in his hands: Schröder’s body felt limp before he’d even landed the second blow.
The pressure grew heavier and heavier in his hands the harder, and more frequently, he delivered each hit, but for now, he didn’t care. Bucky kept on punching until the face beneath him was gnarled and bloody, and his own fist, too, slashed every which way with more cuts than he was able to count. He would’ve kept going—could’ve ignored the stabbing pain in his shoulder for as long as it would take to ensure the man was dead—but as it was, he refused to ignore the voice he heard. It was yours.
Muffled now, as your body was bent to the side and your head drooped lower still. Your voice was soft but clear:
“Bucky, please, stop.”
He did.
He dropped the man’s collar from his hands as soon as he’d heard you say it, and he turned away as if nothing had transpired behind him at all. His focus was on you.
“Baby—”
To his surprise, he watched you spit on the floor.
Your face was grim and almost sick, and you spit again.
The look grew even worse, and afterward, you didn’t waste a second more; you stood and left the room.
Bucky was stunned at first, and his instinct had been to follow. Then he heard a rattling sound beside him. He glanced down and paled, seeing Schröder there.
His face had turned blue much sooner than Bucky had expected—and not from any bruising but a lack of oxygen in his lungs. He was choking, foaming slightly at the mouth while he gasped for air. Surely, it hadn’t been the hits that caused it. The whites of Schröder’s eyes were as conspicuous as he’d ever seen them. Desperate.
Bucky swiftly got the sense that the life of his former captor was lost, and frankly, he didn’t care enough to watch him die. He left what remained of Schröder’s form to continue writhing on the floor, choking and sputtering for a breath that would never come, and went after you.
Downstairs, he found you hunched over the kitchen sink—spitting, retching, and trembling, too, but breathing.
You let the water from the faucet fill your mouth, and you rinsed again. You winced as something stuck your cheek.
Bucky drew closer, quickly, and when he was right by your side, he saw you spit a shard of glass into the sink. He looked over to the counter, and he spotted three more
They were minuscule, really. Nothing quite the size to leave a wound too deep, but sharp enough to cut your lips, your tongue, or the insides of your cheeks. When Bucky leaned in, he saw droplets of red joining the flow of the water beneath it. You coughed over and over again
“Don’t,” you croaked, seeing Bucky reach for the glass.
Before he could reply: “It’s the poison. From Madripoor.”
Your husband’s blood went cold in his veins. He didn’t touch the glass, but he did press closer to you, feeling his insides churn as the cogs started to turn in his head.
The vial of poison you’d been given to slip in Schröder’s drink at the Foxy Den—how the hell had you gotten it back? Why would you think you needed it, if he— but no, that couldn’t be the case. There wasn’t a shot you just—
“—put it in your mouth?” Bucky couldn’t curb the fear in his voice. He reached for you and spun you to face him.
“Did it kill him?”
Your eyes were wide for entirely different reasons. Bucky couldn’t believe what he was seeing; his mouth was dry.
“I didn’t want to kiss him,” you went on, voice shaking a little, “I didn’t— I just— I couldn’t get him the poison any other way. I knew he’d kiss me again, and when he did—”
“I know,” Bucky said. He smoothed the hair from your face, shaking his head. Feeling his stomach clench with fear and dread as he hurried to get a look in your mouth.
You’d snuck the vial inside your cheek, then crushed it between your teeth before Schröder had kissed you. You’d all but forced him to swallow the poison, shoving your tongue down his throat, but what of the stuff that remained? The rough, trembling fingers of Bucky’s hand were trying to pry your lips apart as gently as they could, ensure all the serum was out, but at present, you wouldn’t let him. You pushed back gently, though not too far to prevent your own touch from roaming his shoulder.
“The bullet—” you started.
“Barely nicked me,” Bucky cut in, “Baby, I need to see—”
That you’re safe. That you won’t be hurt in any way. He couldn’t finish the thought himself, having seen what the poison did to Schröder. Instead, he just held you closer and fought the lump that was starting to form in his throat. Adrenaline had worked well enough to clear his mind of the haze, but the rest of him was all high-strung.
Your clothes clung to you both, wet with blood and sweat. Your breaths were fast. Your expressions were feral, eyes no calmer as they scanned over the other’s form and soaked in every trace of what had happened. Bucky in his formalwear and you in something close to a chemise—like your honeymoon night all over again—you each got a glimpse of the gore ornamenting yourselves and let the room fall quiet, if only for a minute or two.
Your husband was the one to break the silence, at length, with cracked and grisly hands sliding down to your hips.
“You’re okay?”
His touch shifted you back in place to sit on the counter.
“I’m alright.”
You wanted to say more; assure him, in a voice as sedate as you could manage, that this wasn’t his fault. Whether he would believe a word of what you said was a separate question, but, at any rate, it didn’t matter. The next thing you knew, Bucky was slotting himself in the space between your legs and pulling you into his arms.
In spite of himself and all the wounds, he held you tight.
“You’re alright,” he repeated.
His face sank into the crook of your neck, and you felt his muscles contract again—pulling you closer—as he drew a shaky breath against your skin. You hugged him back.
“Are you?” Your voice was small.
In a blink, Bucky resurfaced. He lifted his head from your neck and, still holding you, hadn’t seemed to have heard.
“The baby,” he said quickly.
He stepped back. Lowered his gaze and his hands to trail over your hips and near your stomach, and he stared, as if trying to make sense of something dire. His blue eyes were wide, and they assumed such a look of panic that you feared a blood vessel might actually burst in one.
After all the great lengths he’d gone to, ensuring you were safe and taking extra precautions, on the off-chance you might be pregnant, here you were.
And there he went, sliding his touch lower and lower again until his hand was pressed into your belly, and the gaze you’d once thought soft before had all but melted into tenderness—delicacy. Complete, loving unreserve.
When his eyes met yours a second time, they were shiny.
Wet with the only kind of tears you’d want to see in them.
“You’re really…” he started, just to taper off, blinking.
And then his cheeks were dotted with the tiny, round droplets, and he’d finally ventured a smile for the first time in what seemed like ages and you couldn’t keep from reaching for him. The second you’d lifted your arms you were back in his, lips and nose smushed against the front of his stained white button-up and breathing deep.
Or trying to, anyway. Bucky had you squeezed so tight to his chest you had nothing but his shirt to inhale at first. You didn’t mind, and when he pulled away a moment later, you realized that your eyes, too, were filling up quick. You had to steel yourself against a maelstrom of emotions that threatened to emerge—the aftermath of a half-dozen traumas laid bare over the last hour—but the longer you were here, and the more your husband stared at you like that, the quicker your courage was depleted. In the span of five seconds, your senses were shot to hell. All you could think was what you could feel, and all you felt was Bucky: his arms and his hands and the raw, blistering heat between your bodies. The rest was noise.
It surprised you both when you kissed him. Physically, your mouth and his were hardly up to do it, injured as they were, but the impulse was strong, and it flowed between you. As soon as your lips latched onto his, Bucky was holding your face, molding his body to yours without so much as a second thought, and the mouth you met was sturdy. Hungry in the way it kissed back.
A string of words from Schröder flashed in your mind—‘Never be safe’—and you grit your teeth together, snagging the cusp of Bucky’s lower lip as you did it. He groaned. Before you could even try to apologize, though, he was gripping your face harder in his hands and coaxing your mouth open with his tongue. His front was still flush with yours, and your legs were starting to wind around his hips. Your husband nudged you back against the cabinets, and from the force of that push, you felt it.
Felt him.
Surely, it had had to take two very fucked up individuals to get all hot and bothered from a bloodbath that had just taken place; but, again, here you were—together.
And there you went, grinding your lower half with his.
“Doll?” Bucky broke out, word slurred just a little.
For a second, you thought he was going to stop you. Your eyes scanned his, and you were already planning to apologize for being so horny, it must just be the—
“You know I love you, right?” he breathed.
You blinked. You were about to nod, when you felt the bulge in his slacks start to rub against your barely-clothed heat, and something akin to a shockwave coursed through your frame. It couldn’t be helped. A monsoon of hyper-sensitized pleasure trembled over the skin in a way you’d never felt it before, and suddenly you were letting out a moan: a muffled cry of, ‘Yes, I-I know.’
Your husband swallowed and stared, slightly taken aback by the reaction his erection had produced. He’d never felt that either. At least from what he could remember.
The truth was that he’d never had a pregnant wife before—someone whose body was now extraordinarily responsive to his touch, nearly aching for him.
When you scooted your butt to the edge of the counter and dug your heels in the backs of his legs, humping him, almost, he got the idea. Bucky swallowed again.
“I love you too, I— I—” you started, already out of breath, “I just really need you to fuck me. Can you— please—”
Bucky didn’t need to be asked once, much less twice. He already had his belt, button, and zip undone before you could even look down, and then your own pyjama shorts were sliding off too. The counter was cool against your skin, but your husband’s warmth was more than enough to compensate for the loss. You smiled again, sheepish.
“It’s just…hormones,” you said, quieter toward the end.
You weren’t sure why you felt so ashamed to simply say, ‘James, I’ve been damn near insane with desire ever since you put a baby in me. Can you give me five more?’ But you did. You felt your cheeks start to heat as your lower half was left exposed to the air, and Bucky slipped his hand down between your legs, practically groaning:
“Honey, you’re soaked.”
There wasn’t one iota of shame in his tone.
He was more than happy to find you drenched beneath his touch. He had a smile on his face and a warmth bleeding from every fingertip as he caressed that soft, tender spot. You didn’t need to tell him what was on your mind, either. He sensed something was making you shy, and rather than have you say it aloud, he just touched you gentler, stroked the skin more affectionately, and tilted his head so only you could hear him, quiet as ever:
“That’s my girl. Feeling good for me?”
You felt your heartbeat between your thighs.
“My baby,” Bucky went on, voice dulcet and slow.
Your body was trembling at the edge, waiting. Impatient.
“My wife,” he said that with a smile, into your neck.
He lowered you onto his length, and you whined.
“Mother of my child.” The smile got bigger.
You couldn’t see it, but you could feel it. Feeling him slide inside the most precious, wet, pliable part of you, stretching you out, you couldn’t help the sounds you made. You felt full in a whole new way; the groan Bucky let out when you were impaled down to the base of his cock said he shared the feeling. He throbbed inside you.
“You’re—fuck.” Bucky’s words broke off at the sensation.
Your walls were as slick as ever, your body delicate, rolling your hips to the first gentle thrusts that his shaft carved inside. Neither one of you could last long like this.
Still, at the threat of sublime pleasure, you felt fear, briefly: Schröder’s implacable stare—and the thousands more like him in HYDRA. You couldn’t help but grip Bucky tighter, willing these thoughts away with the rhythm of your body over his. Feeling him fill you up, fuck you with quick, deliberate thrusts and hold you, ‘That’s it, take what you need, sweet girl, you’re okay.’
You wished you were. You wanted to be. With every stab of Bucky’s hips, you hoped this would be the last night you ever feared for you or your child’s life, but deep down, you knew that wasn’t true. This was everything your husband’s varied ‘enterprises’ entailed, and a life with him meant never knowing a day without it—fear.
The head of Bucky’s cock grazed an especially sensitive ridge in your walls, and you whimpered into his shoulder.
You smelled blood.
He pushed you back against the counter and pounded harder, breaths heavy and labored and gruff as he spoke:
“You’re okay, baby, it’s alright.”
Your mind tried clinging to that thought, nodding along as if to convince yourself. The pleasure grew stronger, and your body was hot. Everything was heightened. Bucky couldn’t keep his eyes or his lips or his rough, bloodied touch from roaming you wherever he could reach, and he kept rutting his hips, assuring you gently, again and again, that it was all okay. He was right here.
The pleasure from the depths of your body was beyond your control—you couldn’t help it when the band inside of you snapped. You held Bucky closer and you moaned, more desperate and needy and soaking for him, taking something from him, and knowing the bliss you felt would only steal the dark thoughts for a moment or two.
Bucky’s eyes said it just the same. He couldn’t keep stuffing you full, feeling his pleasure hit its peak, and finally painting your insides without sharing that look.
You were less than halfway down from your highs when you felt him go still, panting fast, then hold your face.
“I love you.”
It was desperate. Hoping for something.
“I love you, too,” you told him, and you meant it.
But there was more. Both of you knew there was more.
“I can’t be married to you, Bucky.”
You didn’t know why it had to come out now, but the emotions were there—his gaze had all but drawn it out.
Still sheathed inside you, your husband tensed. He looked as if he might try and shake his head, but the movement was stalled by his own momentary shock. He’d known the words were coming, but the sound of you saying them now wasn’t any less jarring to hear. Before he could reply, you found yourself cutting back in:
“Not now, at least. We need some…time. To think.”
You weren’t sure what you were saying, just that your lips were moving and every new word was hurting him more.
“Even with Schröder gone, there are so many…dangers for both—or, all—of us, and I don’t know…I just can’t—”
—imagine bringing a child into a world like this. Like his.
You didn’t need to say it.
The pain in Bucky’s eyes already communicated as much, and the conviction in your own only convinced him that you’d meant it—and what you said was the truth. You couldn’t stay in a marriage that wasn’t safe.
Just as you opened your mouth to say something more, the man surprised you when he squeezed your hand.
Nodding, almost imperceptibly, in front of you.
“I can wait,” he said, “Whenever you’re ready, doll.”
His voice was hoarse, words strained from the lump in his throat as he spoke, but the message was sincere.
“Whenever you feel safe,” he added, softly.
You wanted to hold him again. Like before, your eyes began well with something stinging and harsh, but the look you’d fixed on him was filled with nothing but love. You would’ve reached for him then, if he hadn’t moved his hand to his pocket. He felt around inside it, briefly.
Then Bucky retrieved your wedding ring.
Holding you up against him, pressed snugly into the counter with your legs still wrapped around his lower half, he pinched the silver band between his forefinger and thumb and held it up to you. It glistened in the light.
“The next time you wear it, I want it to be because you chose to marry me. Not for anything, or anyone, else.”
Nothing arranged, no game, no being forced to stay.
You nodded and had to blink through a layer of tears.
Bucky’s thumb traced the moisture, cupping your cheek in one of his hands. He’d had to keep blinking himself, and before you could reach for him, he kissed you.
“I really hope you marry me again one day, Mrs. Barnes.”
You smiled, having parted but still holding on.
“I think I would like that, too. One day.”
The next thing you heard was a sound at the front door: what sounded like a crash. Half a dozen sets of feet stumbling inside, crowding the foyer, making a loud, frantic clamor that you and Bucky knew only too well. The two of you scrambled to get your clothes back on as Steve, Nat, Sam, and Sharon all seemed to yell at once.
You had one hell of a story to tell them.
Tumblr media
Taglist: @vicmc624 @she-could-never @mcira @kentokaze @ordelixx @stinkerbelle007 @wilsons-striped-ties @pono-pura-vida @geminiflanagansblog @buggy14 @sky-full-0f-fl0wers @buckysdoll1520 @armystay89 @kunakizen @ghostiebby06 @blackhawkfanatic @sushiseoks @deansapplepie @mrsjoequinn @lunaroserites @first-edition @jaggedsi @excusememrbarnes @mostlymarvelgirl @yujyujj @mrs-bucky-barnes-73 @athenabarnes @christinabae @wintrsoldrluvr @bethbunnyy @i-heart-smut @5thgoddess @oogaboogabeepboop @sky-full-0f-fl0wers @buckysdoll1520 @armystay89 @mimimarvelingmarvel @counteveresttt @thepetitemandalorian @diannana @aagn360 @aka-tua-braindump @shortnloud @dahliawolfe @fantasyfootballchampion @lilyevanstan1325 @kandis-mom @ladyvenera @gyokujyn @bigtreefest @winterschildren8 @mega-kittyglitter-1
237 notes · View notes
thevillainswhore · 15 hours
Text
Loverboy
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
Pairing: Bucky Barnes x F!Reader
Word Count: 4.3k
Summary: Bucky, a lovesick, pining super soldier, vows to keep his feelings for you a secret — no matter how obvious his crush may seem. Those plans are ruined between a meddling Sam, an embarrassing fall, and a visit to the medbay with you.
Warnings: Avengers AU, Bucky’s POV, fluff, crack (my lame attempt at comedy), suggestive thoughts (no smut), just our boy being a lovesick little bean with a big ol’ crush.
Author’s Note: Dividers by @saradika. Proofread by @buckys-wintersoldier, thank you so much sweetie, I love you!! This was inspired by a wonderful request from @prettyboy56, thank you so much! Hope you enjoy x
Tumblr media
“Hi, Bucky.” 
Instantly, he sputtered over his mouthful of cereal, eyes watering from his food going down the wrong way. 
Bucky knew that melodic voice before his gaze even reached its owner. You entered the kitchen, wiggling your fingers at him in greeting. 
Clearing his throat, he swiped his bowl to the side, his breakfast now forgotten about, and directed his attention solely onto you. “Hi—um h—hello, doll.” 
The muscles of your cheeks lifted up to your eyes in a smile that made Bucky swoon. Hard.
Your eyes fell to Sam then, who stood in the corner, fresh from a workout with a shit eating on his face. “Good morning, Samuel.” 
“Mornin’, beautiful. How did you sleep?” 
Bucky fought the growl rising in his throat, the unprecedented possessiveness caving its way through its internal barriers in your presence. 
You grabbed a bottle of water out of the refrigerator and closed the door, leaning your back against it to take a big gulp. 
“Not bad at all.” You licked your lips, ridding the dryness that came from a long slumber before your eyes lit up. “Oh, by the way! I drank some of that tea you recommended. It’s helped a bunch—”
Bucky zoned out while you continued to express your gratitude to Sam. He couldn’t help the way his eyes dilated as he rested his head in the palm of his vibranium hand, a lovesick sigh escaping his lips. You were just so gorgeous – a deity in human form right in front of his own very eyes. Bucky had never considered himself so lucky in all his time on earth to be within your vicinity. 
In his own world of oggling, Bucky didn’t notice how the conversation fell short between you and Sam. Neither did he realise how the two of you were staring at him; you with concern and Wilson smothering his laughter with his hand. 
“Bucky? Sweetheart?” He finally registered that you were speaking to him and almost choked, again, on his own spit.
“Mhm?” Bucky murmured, drunk off your attention. 
You smiled once again, so devastatingly beautiful that his left arm whirred in stupor. “Are you okay? You feeling alright?” Not waiting for a response, you walked over to him and Bucky almost let his eyes roll to the back of his head when you lifted your wrist to his forehead. “Jeez, you’re a little hot, Buck.” 
Sam keeled over in hysterics, unable to keep his composure any longer. Meanwhile, a bright red blossom of colour rose up from the skin of Bucky’s neck all the way up to his cheeks. 
Had Bucky not been embarrassingly infatuated by you, the throwaway comment wouldn’t have had any effect on him. But this was you. The woman who had the ability to make him melt on the spot. 
While logic and a basic level of common sense screamed at him that you were talking about his temperature, his mind could only conjure up the fact you had called him hot. 
Bucky saw your mouth moving, however he couldn’t concentrate on the sound of the words coming out of it. You were still touching him, patting his cheeks and sweeping the tendrils of hair that had fell out from behind his ears out of his face. The close proximity of your bodies threw him through a loop and without even realising, his thighs spread further, subconsciously begging you to forego all boundaries and smother yourself against him. 
Gently tapping his nose three times, you managed to gain his full attention again. “You seem out of it, sweetie. Maybe you should go down to the medbay. See if you’re coming down with a fever or something.” 
Sam blew out a breath of air. “Yeah, because that’s what’s wrong with him.” 
You threw a lighthearted glare his way before bringing your eyes back to Bucky. “Promise me you’ll get seen to?” 
How could he refuse when you asked so sweetly? “Anything you want.” He vowed sincerely. 
Scrunching your nose, you chucked his chin and whispered under your breath, “Good boy.”
Bucky almost whimpered when you withdrew your hands and stepped back. He so desperately wanted to follow you and nudge your arm until you paid attention to him once more. Your touch was fire and a cool breeze all at once. Electricity that created static across his stubbled cheek, yet also stoked a warmth through his entire body.  
Peace. He’d never felt anything like it. Never before felt drunk from just the delicate essence of a perfume or experienced the loosening of his limbs, relaxing until his legs felt like jelly whenever you so much as cast him a glance. 
You grabbed a piece of fruit from the table, ready to go down to the gym and train. “Catch you later, Sam,” you called over your shoulder. Meeting Bucky’s eyes a final time, you winked while you headed for the elevator. “Bye, sweetheart.”  
Bucky’s gaze was glued to you, following you out hopelessly until you were completely out of sight. 
He was fucked — well and truly out of his depth. 
Sam crossed his arms and smirked. “You are down bad, man.” 
Bucky swiped a hand over his face, sighing deeply. “Fuckin’ tell me about it.” 
“This is serious.” Sam sobered up, his lips softening into an honest smile. 
With an embarrassingly loud thud against the island countertop, Bucky let his head drop. “I have no idea what to do, Sam. I thought this crush would have passed by now but it’s been months.”
“Well,” Sam raised an eyebrow. “Have you even tried asking her out?” 
“And why would I do that?” Bucky asked, genuinely confused. 
Sam sputtered over his words. “What do you mean—Because that’s what people do when they like someone, you dumbass!” 
Bucky had lost enough braincells daydreaming about you constantly. He didn’t need to be told what he already knew. But the pressure of asking you out to then have a chance of being rejected? He would never come back from that. “Yeah, no thanks,” he mumbled.
“Come on, man. What’s the worst that could happen?” Sam asked. 
Bucky lifted his head up and huffed sarcastically. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe she could turn me down and rip my heart out into little pieces, so much that I would hide out in my room for the rest of eternity never to be seen again?” 
“Now you’re just being dramatic.”
Bucky sighed longingly. “Let me wallow in my misery alone, Sam.” 
“Why? So you can spend your days staring at her with your googly eyes and drooling over her.” 
“I have never drooled over her,” Bucky snarled. 
A twinkle shone in Sam’s eye, a mischievous grin donning his face. “Then what’s that on your chin?” 
Bucky’s eyes widened and he quickly brought his hand up to his face to check if he did in fact have any wetness coating his mouth. Finding none, he looked back to Sam with a scowl. “I hate you.”
Sam shook his head with laughter. “You shouldn’t make it so easy to tease you, loverboy.”  
With a growl, Bucky lifted from his seat and stormed out of the kitchen. 
The irritating voice followed him. “Don’t forget training tomorrow morning, loverboy!” 
Tumblr media
The sun was shining over the compound the next morning and so came the bright idea from Steve that all exercise activities should be held outside. While the recruits in training buffed up on their sparring with the Captain, the rest of the avengers worked out as they saw fit. 
As usual, Sam took any opportunity possible to annoy Bucky, which brought them together, running laps around the outdoor track. 
“When are you gonna man up and ask her out then, Cyborg? Pretty girl ain’t gonna be available forever.” 
Bucky wasn’t entirely sure why he didn’t run ahead of Sam. It wasn’t as if he couldn’t. Maybe the pace he kept alongside Wilson allowed him to stare at you so clearly in your tight workout leggings and sports bra as sweat sensually rolled over your skin. Maybe. 
“I’m not asking her out, Sam. Drop it.” 
Sam huffed out an annoyed breath. “Listen, man. It’s not as if you’ve got nothing going for you. As much as you’re a grumpy shit, you’ve got them blue eyes the chicks love. Gets them all gooey when you give them intense eye contact, y’know?” He reluctantly added, “And they dig the brooding, bad boy, leather jacket vibe.”
Bucky let out a rare smile within the presence of Sam. “You tryna hit on me, Wilson?” 
“Look, all I’m saying is you have a chance.” Sam slyly glanced over the field. “And if you don’t quit fuckin’ around, that chance is gonna disappear.”  
The smile instantly dropped from Bucky’s face. “What do you mean by that?” 
Sam’s signature smirk came back with vengeance. “Your girls lookin’ kinda cute today. So I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but you ain’t the only one who’s got their eye on her.” 
Naturally, Bucky followed his instinct and let his eyes look over at you. You were a fucking wonder, of course he knew that. But heeding Sam’s ominous warning, Bucky allowed his gaze to venture out, only allowing you to blur into the background for a couple of seconds while he took stock of the other male, and female, recruits. 
Low and behold, plenty of other people wantonly stared at you while you completed your circuit, almost salivating over their barely concealed pining. As much as Bucky hated to admit it, the fucker was right. You were the pinnacle of everyone’s attention. 
With the way you were bending over, squatting and looking like an angel amidst the perspiration the sun brought on, Bucky wasn’t sure if he could actually blame anyone for it. 
That didn’t stop the ugly, green eyed beast within him that wanted to tear everyone’s eyes out for daring to glimpse at you. 
It was silly, he knew he had no right to feel any sort of possessive nature for you. Unfortunately, you didn’t belong to him. Still, he couldn’t control the deep rooted urges that whispered the kinds of fun he’d have gouging out eyeballs that looked where they weren't supposed to. 
Knowing he had stirred the pot enough, Sam figured it was time to try and hit the final nail in the coffin in order to make his friend move his ass. “Y’know what gives you an advantage though, man?” 
Bucky continued to death stare the surrounding agents, while keeping up with his steady jog. “What’s that?”
“Guess who’s making eyes at you right now.” 
At breakneck speed, Bucky snapped his head back around to you, only to indeed find you staring at him with a fire in your eyes and your bottom lip trapped between your teeth. 
A violent shudder ran down his spine and for a moment, the whole world stopped on its axis, allowing Bucky to revel in a daydream brought to life. 
That was until his mind snapped him back into the present. The super soldier was majestic on his feet in a fight, graceful yet utterly dangerous out on the field even with the pressure a mission came with. 
However to his utter bewilderment, you happened to be the most dangerous being he had ever come across, because in all of his years as a trained, professional assassin, Bucky had never, never, tripped over his own feet. 
And so, inevitably, Bucky’s face ungracefully met the asphalt of the outside track with an audible thunk. 
A collective of gasps, oo’s, and ah’s, rang around the large group. Bucky could physically feel the coating of red, hot embarrassment climbing up to his now scratched cheeks.  
Bucky couldn’t see the look of shame and pity on Sam’s face as he dropped his head into his hands. All he was capable of was fantasizing faking his own death and moving far, far away where no one who witnessed his fall could ever find him.  
With a painful, deep groan, Bucky managed to roll himself over. He couldn’t bear to open his eyes and allow himself to accept reality yet and so he kept them closed, waiting for the ground to swallow him up or for the beaming sun to slowly incinerate him, melt him into the ground with his shame and dignity. 
But instead of either of those, a shadow casted over him, the harsh brightness behind his eyelids dulling down. Slowly, he peeked an eye open, only for mortification to kick him in the gut when he found you standing over him. 
“You alright there, Soldier?” Your hands were set on your hips, those deliciously curved grooves of your body that he had shamelessly stared at one too many times during gym sessions. 
“Mhm,” he gulped, his Adam’s apple bobbing roughly. “Just peachy.” 
Even though you’d just seen him eat dirt, in front of hundreds of learning recruits and the rest of the avengers, your smile was kind as you held out your hand. “Need some help?” 
Bucky took your offering, sliding his clammy palm into your dry one and hoisted himself up with your grip. He hadn’t needed your help, he was a super soldier with a metal arm; an agility and strength beyond normal human ability. But he wouldn’t pass up an opportunity to feel your soft skin against his. 
He couldn’t look you in the eye as he stood up, aware of your gaze glued to him. “Th-Thanks.” 
“It’s not a problem,” you said. “Although, you’ve got a few nasty looking cuts on your cheeks.” 
Bucky brought his left hand up to his face, hissing when the cool vibranium stung the open wounds. “Ah, it’s nothin’—don't worry about it. Nothing a few hours won’t fix.” 
You shook your head fondly. “Well, how about I walk you to the infirmary and we get some ointment on them? It wouldn’t hurt to be cautious.” 
Bucky choked on his own spit and snapped his eyes to yours. “W-We?” 
Your smile was blinding — so beautiful with an ability to stop time. At least for him anyway. “Yeah, why not? It looks like you could use a hand—y’know, since you’re a little clumsy on your feet today.” The cheeky smirk that followed your words almost sent him to an early grave.
His cheeks blazed. Bucky was sure he looked utterly stupid, with his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. But he couldn’t help the effect you had on him. “I um—I— ha, I guess.” 
Your eyes glinted mischievously. “I’ll take that as a yes?” 
Not trusting his voice to hold steady, Bucky simply nodded. 
“Great,” you approved. “Just one question though, are we going to keep holding hands on the way?”
Looking down to the space between you, Bucky felt his mouth dry when he saw that he hadn’t yet released his hand from yours. “I’m—oh fuck—I’m so sorry.” 
Still, he made no move to slacken his grip. 
You tightened your lips, and he knew you were willing yourself not to laugh for his sake. Sam would have a fucking field day with this. 
Though to his surprise, instead of pulling away like he expected you to, you began pulling him along, hands still interweaved. “Let’s go get you cleaned up, Bucky.”  
His name on your lips was akin to a siren singing her song; dragging helpless seamen to their deaths. A thought crossed his mind then, that he didn’t think he would mind so much if he sank to his reckoning, not if your voice was the last thing he ever heard. 
“Okay.” Bucky followed you blindly, eyes glued to your conjoined hands and disbelieving of his luck. 
Tumblr media
You had led the way towards the medbay and found a cozy, private room that the doctors used for small injuries. Bucky sat impatiently on the side of the medical bed, twiddling his thumbs and fidgeting restlessly. Never had he been so close to you, alone. 
Bucky internally prayed with all his faith that you couldn’t hear the rapid staccato of his heartbeat. He was sure if he was hooked up to a monitor, the doctors would be thoroughly concerned about his health. 
Finally having gathered all the supplies you deemed necessary along with a first aid box, you walked back over to the bed and dumped everything next to him. 
“So,” you began, an uneasy conspiratorial tone to your voice that weirdly reminded him of Sam. “Wanna tell me what happened out there?”  
“I—,” Bucky sheepishly scratched the back of his neck while his cheeks bloomed crimson red. “I must’ve just tripped over my own feet.” 
He tried to shrug off his nonchalance, but he knew by your raised eyebrow you didn’t believe him. “Somehow, I have a hard time believing a big, strong super soldier such as yourself has any trouble finding his footing.”
Before Bucky could muster up any other excuse but the truth, you ripped open the packet of a medical wipe and warned him, “I’m sorry. This is gonna sting.”
“Nothing I can’t handle,” he said with bravado. 
Bucky wasn’t prepared for the twinkle in your eye as you mumbled under your breath, “I’m sure it isn’t, Sargeant.” 
The breath got knocked out of his lungs. Oh did that do things to him. 
Suddenly, vivid images of you spread out on his bed wearing nothing but his old army hat while you screamed out his rank ran wild in his mind. 
Luckily, you were too preoccupied with cleaning the dried blood of his wound to notice him discreetly palming the bulge in his athletic shorts, trying to hide the effect you had on him. 
“Are you certain there is absolutely no other reason as to why I’m playing nurse right now, then?” Your feline grin was sexy and scary. “No possible distractions that led you off path?” 
There was no way you could read minds, right? Bucky doubled down on his denial, shaking his head from side to side and letting the length of his hair hide the truth in his eyes. 
“I’ll take your word for it then.” You finished up and reached for the healing gel. “I know the serum enhances your ability to repair the cuts, but I’d still like to use this.” Looking into his eyes, you asked, “Only as long as you’re okay with that, of course.” 
Time stopped and the two of you were caught in the other’s gaze. It was such a small gesture, one you probably didn’t even realise meant the world to him. But you asked him for permission on something that would affect his autonomy and if Bucky didn’t already have a hundred ways he was falling for you, that would have been the cherry on top. 
“Yeah,” he breathed airily. “Yeah, I’m good with it, doll.” 
Unseen to him before, you ducked your head and sweeped your hair behind your ear and if Bucky didn’t know any better, he was sure you were shy. 
He couldn’t help the large grin he sported. He was always so enamored with you, quick to falter in your presence and become unsure of himself. Right now though, a small bout of bravery returned. “Ready when you are,” he cheekily murmured. 
You hastily rushed to compose yourself. Clearing your throat, you squeezed the tube of gel, allowing a small drop of the cool liquid on the tip of your finger and stepped between his legs to gently dab it onto his cuts. 
“Okay, you’re all fixed up now.” With a last swipe of his forehead, you smiled. “Don’t worry, Buck. You still look handsome.” 
He tugged his plump bottom lip between his teeth. “You think I’m handsome?”
You giggled. “I would be blind if I didn’t.” 
Bucky blinked at you slowly, still processing your words and trying to calm the excited bubble rising in his throat. 
You rolled your eyes playfully. “Oh, don’t act all coy, Bucky. You must have heard the whispers of the recruits. They stare at you all the time, whispering and giggling to each other.” 
With the most confidence he had ever mustered up, he responded, “Truthfully, I’m too busy staring at someone else to notice, doll.” 
The shock of his sudden boldness was glaringly obvious on your face — it was you this time who held your mouth open, lost for words. 
Bucky’s body screamed at him to tell you that he was in fact head over heels for you. That had he known falling over in front of the full compound would lead him within a hair’s breadth away from you, he’d do it all over again. 
But you seemed to recover after a couple of seconds, clearing your throat and making yourself busy to avoid his eyes. “So, I’ve got another question.” 
“Oh?” Bucky cocked his head. 
“Yeah.” You smiled while placing everything back into the first aid box as you found it. “I’ve been hearing a few rumours around the compound recently.” 
Bucky’s stomach dropped with dread. 
“You wouldn’t know anything about those, would you?” 
“I—” Bucky swallowed the lump in his throat. “I have no idea what you mean.” 
“Oh,” you hummed. “So it’s not true then? You don’t have a crush on me?” 
Fuck.
Panicking, Bucky scoffed, though it came off sounding too pathetic, too breezy. “Me? Have a crush on you? That’s—Ha! Nope. No way. Not at all.” 
He watched as you nodded to yourself. Internally, he was begging for the floor to swallow him while he cringed at his own stupidity. 
“Well,” you shrugged. “That’s a shame, I guess.”  
Bucky’s head shot up, eyes wide and shock written over his features. “E-Excuse me?” 
“Oh, it's nothing really.” There was a sparkle in your eye that screamed trouble. “You said you didn’t have a crush on me, so it doesn’t matter.” 
Within seconds, Bucky jumped off the bed and leapt towards you, not even noticing how he had grabbed your hands. “Doll, please. You can’t leave a guy hanging like that.” 
Playfully rolling your eyes, you dramatically exhaled and decided to put him out of his misery. “Leave you hanging? Damn, Buck. It’s not as if I’ve been waiting patiently for you to ask me out for months or anything like that.” 
The air became humid and stuffy and suddenly the clothes attached to Bucky’s body felt too tight and restricting. “You—What now?” 
You rolled your lips inwards, trying to smother your laughter. “Bucky, honey,” you gently murmured. “I’ve heard what the others have been gossiping about. I’ve definitely heard Sam telling the team about your crush on me.” 
Bucky squeezed his eyes shut and groaned. “That fuckin’ punk.” 
You squeezed his hands reassuringly and offered him a warm smile when he looked at you. “I’ve just been waiting to hear it from the horse's mouth himself.” 
Bucky’s eyes darted between yours, trying to find any hint of decievement. “You’re serious.”
“Mhm,” you whispered. “Deadly.” 
It took him a couple of seconds to let the new information sink in. Clearing his throat, Bucky untightened his fierce grip on your hands and hesitantly slid them down to latch onto your waist. “So,” he mumbled. “Say if I asked you out to dinner tonight… You wouldn’t tell me I’m a fool and break my heart into a million pieces?” 
Butterflies erupted in Bucky’s stomach at the sensation of your hands sliding over his chest to rest against his neck. “No, Bucky,” you chuckled. “I would tell you that I’m looking forward to our first date, tonight. Nowhere fancy, just casual. Six o’clock sharp.” 
Bucky smiled, all beaming and ecstatic. “I wouldn’t dream of being late.” 
“Good.” You leaned up onto your tip toes and ghosted your lips over his ear. “See you very soon then, Sargeant.” 
Tingles shot down Bucky’s spine and his eyes rolled to the back of his head. He fought tooth and nail to crush the moan that rose up his throat and in his internal struggle, he missed how you’d sneakily slipped out of his hold and started to saunter towards the door. 
He almost begged you to come back; the thought of having to wait for you until the evening was unbearable. But those pesky butterflies that invaded his stomach came back strong and fierce as his gaze became glued to the sway of your hips and the sweet perfume that lingered in your exit. 
“Oh,” you stopped suddenly at the doorway and looked over your shoulder. “One more thing. Don’t go tripping over again, you hear me?” You raised an eyebrow and grinned. “Can’t have you falling for me.”
Your damn smirk was intoxicating and Bucky thought himself the luckiest fella alive to be the one taking you out. He licked his lips and crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m afraid I’m gonna have a little trouble with that request, Ma’am.” 
The clench of your thighs was unmissable. The way your eyes dilated called to him. Bucky had more game than he realised and he kept that new information tucked safely into the corner of his mind for a later date. 
You didn’t reply. You didn’t need to. Your actions told Bucky everything he needed to know and so he wiggled his fingers with a huge grin locked onto his face and watched you longingly as you left his sight. 
The minute he couldn’t hear your footsteps any longer, Bucky pumped his fist up into the air and began dancing on the spot. 
In his own bubble of happiness, he didn’t hear the footsteps of a new person entering the hallway. Only when an amused clearing of the throat echoed from the doorway did Bucky abruptly stop his dancing and slowly swivel to the intruder. 
Sam stood there, all cocky and mirthful with a shit eating grin on his face. “About time you bagged the girl, man. Dont’cha think?” 
Instantly, Bucky growled and grabbed the closest apparatus. With a pair of medical scissors, he charged towards Sam, who was quick to wipe the smirk off his face and skid out of the room with a scream. 
324 notes · View notes
Note
Bucky is the heir to a large mafia empire. He’s worked his way through the ranks and has accumulated a significant amount of financial wealth in the process. His childhood best friend (whom he’s had a crush on for years on end) from his (their shared) humble beginnings never lets him spoil her in any capacity, no matter how much he tries to explain that it doesn’t truly make a dent in his fortune.
Bucky hires a bodyguard for her, and it takes her a while to catch onto it. When she does, she’s livid. How dare he insinuate that she can’t protect and defend herself?
He explains that he’s not protecting her, he’s protecting his biggest weakness.
She’s not weak, how could she be a weakness to him?
His enemies know that there is absolutely nothing that he wouldn’t do for her. Again, she’s not a weakness, she’s not a weak person— she’s Bucky’s weakness, and not how she thinks.
She accepts his reasoning (begrudgingly) and facetiously asks him if he wants to get married so they can’t be forced to testify against each other in court.
He says “yes” so quickly that she finally realizes that her feelings have been reciprocated the entire time.
Mob!AU with a childhood best friends-to-lovers appetizer and an idiots-to-lovers side dish (yum 😏)
Protect Myself » Bucky Barnes (AU)
Pairings: Mafia Boss/Best Friend!Bucky Barnes x Best Friend!Female Reader
Summary: You get mad when you find out bucky has hired a bodyguard to help protect you. You make it very clear to him that you can protect yourself. The conversation takes an interesting and unexpected turn.
Warnings: Fluff, language, Best Friends to Lovers/Idiots In Love, Bucky is a big softie in this, kissing, pet names
A/N: Thank you to the lovely anonymous person who requested this🩵
Written on my phone. My apologies for any mistakes.
Header made by @buckys-wintersoldier
GIF IS NOT MINE! Credit goes to the creator.
Tumblr media Tumblr media
You stormed into Bucky’s mansion full of angry without knocking. You were stopped by one of his security guards.
“Ma’am.” The security guard stepped in front of you, stopping you in your tracks. “You need an appointment to see Mr. Barnes.” He tells you.
“I don’t need an appointment to see my own best friend.” You say.
You tried to walk past him, but he stopped you by grabbing your arm.
“Get your fucking hands off of me!” You say loudly.
Bucky heard the sound of your voice from his office all the way upstairs. He stood up from his desk and walked out of his office. He went downstairs to see you with his security guard’s hand on you.
“Take your hands off of her.” Bucky demands to his security guard.
“Sir, she-” His security guard stopped talking when he seen a look on Bucky’s face that he knows all too well.
His security guard let go of you. You glared at him before walking past him to get to Bucky.
“Go upstairs to my bedroom and I’ll be there in a minute.” Bucky says.
You nodded and went to his bedroom. Bucky looked at his security guard.
“Y/N is welcome here anytime.” He tells him. “And never, I mean never, put your hands on her again or you’re fired. Do you understand?” He says.
“I understand, sir. It won’t happen again.” The security guard says.
Bucky told him to go back to work before going upstairs to his bedroom where you are. He closed the door behind him.
“Sit down.” You demanded, pointing at the bed.
Bucky didn’t say a word and sat down on his bed.
“You and I have been best friends for years and I want to know what was going through your mind when you hired a bodyguard for me.” You say.
“To protect you.” He simply says.
“I can protect myself, James.” You say.
Bucky knows you can protect yourself. He didn’t hire the bodyguard to protect you. Well, he did, but he did it for a different reason.
“I know you can protect yourself.” He says.
“Then explains why you hired a bodyguard for me.” You say, crossing your arms over your chest.
“For a weakness.” He says.
“What weakness?” You asked. “I’m not weak.” You say.
You’re the strongest woman bucky knows. He knows you’re not weak.
“My weakness.” He said. “You’re my weakness.” He says.
“What?” You asked.
“You’re my weakness.” He repeats. “I have a lot of enemies and I don’t want anything to happen to you.” He explains.
Now you feel bad for yelling and throwing accusations at him. Bucky was always protective of you, even as kids. You should’ve know that right away, but didn’t think about it.
“If one of them got their hands on you somehow, I would be out for blood.” He says.
There it is… his soft side. Bucky is only a softie for you. He may be a big badass mafia boss to everyone, but deep down he’s just a big softie who has a crush on his best friend who he’s known all of his life.
“What are you trying to say, Bucky?” You asked.
“I love you.” Bucky blurted out. “That’s why I hired a bodyguard for you.” He says.
Your eyes went wide in surprise. James Buchanan Barnes, your best friend and a badass mafia boss, is in love with you.
“So…” You mused at the thought in your head for a moment. “Do you want to get married?” You asked facetiously.
“Yes.” Bucky answers too fast.
You opened your mouth and then closed it. You didn’t expect Bucky to say yes that fast.
Bucky reaches over to his nightstand and opened the drawer, grabbing a small velvet box. Your eyes went wide again and your mouth fell open, already knowing what’s in that small box.
“Question is…” Bucky got down on one knee and opened the small velvet box, revealing the most beautiful diamond ring you’ve ever seen. “Do you want to get married?” He asks.
You were speechless. You didn’t know what to say. What you do know is that you would be lying if you said you didn’t love him.
“Bucky, I-” You were too speechless to say anything. “What about our friendship?” You asked.
“That’s the beauty of marriage, sweetheart. We’ll still be best friends no matter what.” He says with a smile.
You stared at the diamond ring for a moment longer before answering his question.
“Yes!” You finally answered. “I’ll marry you.” You say with a smile.
Bucky smiles widely and put the ring on your ring finger. He stood up straight and kissed you passionately.
“I get to choose our honeymoon destination.” You say against his lips.
“I’m completely fine with that as long as I’m with you.” He says, kissing you again.
🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵🩵
-Bucky’s Doll
244 notes · View notes
Text
Y/N: You’re hot.
Bucky: I know, baby.
Y/N: And spicy.
Bucky: *smirks* I know—
Y/N: So I’ve come to the conclusion that you are a buffalo chicken wing.
215 notes · View notes
angelltheninth · 3 days
Text
Helping Bucky Stay Grounded By Riding Him
Pairing: James "Bucky" Barnes x Fem!Reader
Tags: nsfw, smut, angst, cock riding, soft sex, nightmares, affirming sex, slightly possessive sex, needy!Bucky Barnes
Ko-Fi | Rules | Fandoms and Characters
A/N: Little thing I wrote after a very long day.
Tumblr media
Bucky often had nightmares where his actions weren't his own. He saw it all, he experianced it all, he could stop none of it. "How much of it was me?" He asked you once while you held him close, your fingers running through his hair. "How much of my mind is my own right now?" His hands pressed against your back, his face against your chest.
"You're okay Bucky, you don't have to fight for control all the time. Not anymore. I'm here, we're both here, I love you. Okay?" You whispered as you kissed his forehead. His sigh was heavy, like his body felt against yours. "Bucky? Do you want to let go?"
He looked up at you, eyes vulnerable. "To you?"
With a nod you leaned down to kiss him, slowly enough that he could pull away at any time but he didn't, he kisses you back, desperation on his lips.
"I need you to ground me." He clarified and kissed you again, his embrace lose enough for you to move your hips on top of him, feel his cock stir in his boxers. "Remind me that it's me who you love." Cold, metal fingers pressed to the front of your panties and circled your clit in deliberate slow motions. "Remind me that I'm yours."
"Mine." You whispered as you tugged his boxers down just enough to free his semi-hard cock. Your hand wrapped around it, stroking as slowly as he was working your clit. "You're mine, the love of my life." With your hips raised he moved your panties to the side. You hissed when you felt his finger on your clit. No matter how many times you did this the coldness was something that always took some time getting used to. "This cock is mine, to ride until my legs give out." Bucky nodded furiously as you eased down on his cock, your inner walls tight and warm around him. "You are mine, Bucky."
"Yours. I'm yours. Only yours." Bucky moaned against your skin before taking a stiff nipple into his mouth. His hips remained firmly planted on the bed, pressed down by you and your pussy rolling up and down on his cock. "Thank you for having me. I love you sweetheart, I love you so much. I'll never let you go."
273 notes · View notes
holylulusworld · 2 days
Text
Sewer rat (2)
Tumblr media
Summary: He broke your heart. Now he must pay for it.
Pairing: Mobster!Bucky Barnes x fem!Reader, former Mobster!Tony Stark x fem!Reader
Warnings: angst, scared reader, Bucky is scary as shit, mentions of a breakup
Sewer Rat (1)
Sewer rat masterlist
Tumblr media
Prey. That’s what you are to James Buchanan Barnes. Well, at least you’re not a sewer rat to him. As long as your information is useful to him, you’re safe.
For how long, you don’t know. He’s, just like Tony, a cold-hearted man unable to feel compassion or love. Sadly, you realized too late that Tony Stark could never love you.
“Let me get this straight. Tony threw you out with nothing but a towel. Still, you got this.” Bucky holds up the little black book. “How did you manage to steal his black book in only a towel?”
“My bathrobe,” your voice cracks, and you drop your gaze. “Did you not wonder why I fought tooth and nail to get my bathrobe, not a pretty dress or at least shoes?” You lift your head to look Bucky straight in the eyes. “The moment Tony Stark stepped into my life, I knew it was too good to be true. Whirlwind romances and men fulfilling your every wish always come with a catch.”
“You hid the black book in the bathrobe, didn’t you?” Steve smirks. He’s impressed you thought about hiding something so valuable for hard times.
“In the first months, I was on cloud number nine, but the façade crumbled. I slowly realized that Tony is not the man he loves to pretend he is. I didn’t think he’d treat me like he did last night.”
“How did you get your hands on his black book?” Bucky is still not convinced you are telling the truth.
“He’s sleepy after—” You bite your tongue and look away. “You know, sex. I couldn’t sleep and got up to get some water. I saw his little black book and phone lying abandoned on the kitchen counter. He was so eager to fuck me in the kitchen, he forgot about it.”
Bucky clears his throat. He shudders; imagining Tony and you going at it is the last thing he wants to think about. “Go ahead, tell us everything.”
“I knew Tony had lots of these black books. He uses them for notes. I sneaked into his office and stole a new one,” you lick your lips as Bucky opens the black book to check on the first names. “That night, I copied the book, writing every contact and code word down. When I came back to the bedroom, Tony was awake. I didn’t get the chance to hide the book somewhere else but in the pocket of my bathrobe.”
“Smart girl,” Steve praises. “This probably saved your life. We are not the kind of people protecting others for free.”
“I know,” you wrinkle your nose. “If you’re not useful, you can rot in hell.” You chuckle humorlessly. “I’m not delusional nor blinded by my undying love for Tony. He showed his true colors, and all I got left is the little book in your hands and all the things I memorized to help you bring his business down.”
“I will check on the information. If you tried to trick me, the things Tony said and did to you will be a pleasant memory.” Bucky’s features darken for a moment. “Steve, ensure she gets food and show her the way to the guestroom.”
“Please come with me.” Steve holds his hand for you. You look at his large hand but refuse to take it. So far, they haven’t proven to be better than Tony. “Alright.” Steve shows his palms. “You don’t trust me. That’s fair. We don’t trust you either.”
Slowly getting up, take a deep breath. Bucky is still reading the names in the little black book. You only hope he won’t betray you too after you hand the only leverage you hold over Tony.
Tumblr media
“The information is gold,” Jake grins while explaining every little detail he found out about the people on Tony Stark’s payroll. “He pays cops, politicians, civil servants, and prostitutes,” he laughs. “Man, even taxi driver. That man seems to be obsessed with staying informed.”
“We will start with the less powerful people. The taxi driver he pays,” Bucky points at a name in the black book. “We will talk to him first. Make sure he knows if he fucks with me, he’ll die.”
“Got it, boss,” Rumlow hums. “Do you want him in one piece, or can I rough him up a little?” He smirks at Bucky.
“We don’t want him to shit his pants yet. Bucky wants to talk to him, not scare the shit out of him. Maybe it’s enough to offer more money than Stark to him,” Steve huffs when Rumlow gets a knife out, grinning. “No violence before we tell you so.”
Tumblr media
You’re starving. Until now, you didn’t know you were hungry. It’s been hours since Tony kicked you out of his house and life. It feels odd to give in to a primal need while your heart still lies in shambles, shattered on the ground.
“Good, isn’t it?” Bucky sits down on a chair at the kitchen counter next to you. He looks at the sandwich his cook made for you. “I hope they made something you’ll like for you.”
“I’m not picky,” you murmur before taking another bite. Bucky’s presence in the kitchen can mean two things. Your information is valuable to him, or he wants to kick you out too.
“You know,” he leans closer to steal a pickle from your plate. “I saw you at one of his parties a few months back. You helped a waitress pick up glasses after another guest bumped into her. I knew that you were different at that moment.”
“People are rude; the world too. This doesn’t mean I have to be rude too,” you sniff. “Maybe when it comes to Stark. He deserves to catch hell.”
“That guy,” Bucky steals another pickle from your plate. “Your friend. Do you think he was involved in this shitshow? I mean, he comes back to town to marry and wants to meet up with you out of a sudden.”
“If you already know all the answers, why ask questions?” You muse. “I guess he was paid to get me in trouble. I just don’t know who is behind this conspiracy and why anyone wanted Tony and me apart.”
“We will find out,” he says, eyeing the second half of your sandwich. “Your information was correct. So far. We will see if you are as valuable as you believe you are.”
“I’m not, but this,” you tip your forehead. “I memorized every shady deal and name. Whatever you want to know about his organization.”
“Jake, my smart little tech nerd, is working on finding out more about your friend and his involvement in all of this. If you are helping me, I’m helping you.”
“Quit pro quo, Mr. Barnes,” you reply, and hold out your hand.
“Quit pro quo, doll,” he says, and grabs your hand, making you squeak. "But,” he leans closer to whisper in your ear, “if you try to trick me or fuck me over, you’ll end up six feet under.”
Tumblr media
Tags in reblog.
166 notes · View notes
edenbbarnes · 3 days
Text
Cut Your Hair.
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
summary: You help Bucky cut his hair.
Tumblr media
warnings: Comfort | Mentions PTSD & past trauma | Post!Endgame
a/n: I wasn't sure what to write first for this blog, but I can at least start with something I know and that's comfort stuff. So, here we go. I wanted to write a blurb exploring the emotions around his hair for fun. I imagine this time frame is after Endgame, you are living in his apartment in NY. I used a lot of symbolism because I love to include it in fics. Anywayy unedited, so ignore mistakes. wc: 2.3k
Tumblr media
You returned to your apartment after a particularly fruitful grocery shopping trip, managing to get all the necessary items for your planned dinner. New York had been experiencing a notable shortage of certain food products recently, so you felt especially fortunate to have acquired all the ingredients on your list. The scarcity had made simple shopping trips feel like treasure hunts, with each found item a small victory.
As you entered the living space, your arms laden with bags full of your culinary prizes, you called out, "Bucky? I'm back!" Your voice carried a mix of excitement about your successful foraging and the slight strain of carrying multiple heavy bags. With a relieved huff, you practically dropped your burdens onto the kitchen counter, the plastic rustling as it settled. You looked forward to telling him of your success, but you hadn’t heard him reply.
The apartment remained eerily quiet in response to your call. The silence was unusual and slightly unsettling, given that Bucky was typically quick to greet you upon your return. Your brow furrowed in confusion and a hint of concern as you scanned the room, anxiety began to creep its way through your body while an assortment of negative thoughts flooded your mind. "Bucky?" you called out again, your voice tinged with a note of uncertainty.
Still, nothing.
Now you started to worry.
You cautiously maneuvered around the counter, your footsteps deliberately quiet as you navigated through the dimly lit living space. The short hallway stretched before you, leading to the bathroom and one of the bedrooms. Your heart raced with each step, the silence of the apartment amplifying every small sound. As you approached, a sliver of light caught your eye - the bathroom door was slightly ajar, a warm glow spilling out into the darkened corridor. A wave of relief washed over you, causing your tense muscles to relax ever so slightly. You exhaled deeply, your hand instinctively moving to your chest as if to calm your pounding heart.
"Bucky," you called out, your voice a mixture of relief and lingering apprehension, "Shit... you really scared me there." The words hung in the air, met only by an eerie silence. Seconds ticked by, and still, there was no response from behind the partially open door. A creeping sense of unease began to settle in the pit of your stomach as you stood there, waiting for a reply that didn't come.
"James?" Your voice quivered with concern as you gently rapped your knuckles against the door. Hesitantly, you pushed it open, the hinges creaking softly. The sight that greeted you made your heart ache in your chest. There he stood, hunched over the bathroom sink, his posture a blatant portrait of distress. His hands, knuckles white with tension, gripped the edges of the ceramic basin as if it were a lifeline. You worried his metal hand would break the fragile ceramic but it looked like he had more self control for the moment. Bucky's head hung low, curtained by the long strands of his hair that fell forward, obscuring his face from view. The absence of his shirt revealed the taut muscles of his back, adorned with long scars, each one rigid and fairly faded, but still there.
No matter what he did to try to scrap them away, they were still there.
Your eyes were drawn to his hair, the ends were jagged and uneven, as though hacked at in a moment of impulse or desperation. Littering the bottom of the sink were the casualties of this impromptu haircut: dark locks intermingled with the gleam of small fabric scissors, splayed against the white porcelain. The air hung heavy with an unspoken tension, leaving you frozen in the doorway, unsure of how to proceed.
"Bucky...what did you do?" You inquired softly, your voice barely above a whisper. Your hand moved with cautious deliberation, gently alighting on his shoulder. The moment your fingers made contact, you felt his muscles tense beneath your touch, a reflexive response to the unexpected contact. However, within seconds, the tension melted away as he seemed to recognize you.
Silence hung heavy in the air for what felt like an eternity. Bucky remained motionless, his gaze fixed downward, avoiding eye contact, but eventually he lifted his head ever so slightly. His icy eyes, brimming with an unspoken emotion, met yours in the reflection of the mirror before you. He looked so distressed, his face splotchy and flushed with an angry red, eyes were puffy and swollen from the tears had been running down his face before you came in. His bottom lip protruded slightly in a dejected pout, completing the picture of a man clearly grappling with some internal turmoil.
"What happened?" You prompted again, you kept your voice low and patient. Your words came out as a soothing murmur, not wanting to cause any distress to him, since he was clearly struggling. You felt his body tremble under your hand, your heart broke seeing him like this.
"Don't..." he began, his voice trembling with apprehension. He paused, swallowing hard as if to gather courage before continuing, "Don't be mad..." The words escaped his lips in a barely audible whisper, laden with fear. His entire demeanor spoke volumes, suggesting he was terrified of your potential reaction to something he had done or was about to reveal.
You felt your brow furrow involuntarily as you processed his words, your eyes instinctively seeking out his face once more. The fear etched across his features only deepened your concern.
"Why would I be angry?" you asked, your tone soft and reassuring. "You haven't done anything." Your words were meant to soothe, to dispel the cloud of anxiety that seemed to envelop him. However, your attempt at comfort appeared to have little effect.
He shook his head vigorously in response, the sudden movement causing several stray locks of hair to cascade from his head, pieces he had evidently cut himself - some still clinging stubbornly to his remaining hair.
"Because you cut your hair?" you asked, your voice a mixture of concern and curiosity. The question hung in the air, heavy with unspoken emotions.
He nodded weakly, sniffling to clear his nose. The gesture was small, but it spoke volumes about his emotional state. You sighed softly, the sound barely audible in the quiet room. You reached up and ran your fingers through his still long, but much shorter locks, noting how they now only reached his jaw in some spots, and past his shoulders in others. The texture was different, unfamiliar from the choppy cuts he gave to his hair, clearly indicating his anger towards it.
"You've let it grow out a bit," you observed, your tone careful and neutral. Your fingers continued their soothing motion, offering comfort without words. After a moment of contemplation, you spoke again, your voice soft and reassuring. "I'm not mad, you know. It’s your body, you can do whatever you want with yourself, remember?" You paused, considering your next words carefully. "Do you want some help with it? Maybe we could style it together, find a look you really love, instead of letting you stay like this."
He remained silent for a beat, contemplating your words with a furrowed brow. The weight of his long, unkempt hair seemed to press down on him, both physically and emotionally. An overwhelming desire to rid himself of this burden consumed his thoughts. He yearned to feel the liberating sensation of shorter hair, to shed the heaviness that had settled upon him like a thick, suffocating blanket. In his mind, cutting his hair felt liberating. He had been stripped of all bodily autonomy for so long, this was something he wanted to do. For himself.
His head inclined, giving a sharp nod. "Yes...yes, please..." he replied with a soft rasp, "Cut it all."
You were certainly no professional hairdresser, but with the assistance of a few hastily searched tutorial videos on YouTube, you managed to grasp the basic concepts and techniques. The shorter hairstyle he wanted alleviated a lot of pressure you had to make it perfect, so a quick cut and shave would be easy compared to any sort of specific styling. As he settled into the chair you pulled into the bathroom, you grabbed the scissors and let out a deep breath to calm yourself.
Carefully, you began the process of trimming away at his dark, lustrous locks, cutting the long pieces away with scissors first before you'd clean it with a buzzer. Each calculated snip was made carefully, regularly checking in with him to make sure he was still doing fine. You found yourself completely engrossed in the task, paying close attention to maintain an even trim.
The freshly cut strands danced through the air for a brief moment before gently descending to the cool tile floor of the bathroom. Upon contact with the ground, the severed locks curled and twisted, creating an abstract pattern around his feet. The contrast of the dark hair against the light-colored tiles made your heart throb, the meaning behind cutting his hair away was much deeper than any outside eye could comprehend.
You didn't notice his tears at first, but as more of his hair fell away, the evidence of his emotional turmoil became undeniable. His shoulders quivered beneath the weight of his feelings, the internal struggle becoming more visible to you. You maintained your composure, focusing on the task at hand, your fingers steady as they continued to work through his locks. Dark tear trails etched paths down his cheeks, struggling with handling it all on his own.
When you finally reached for the electric clippers, the soft click as you turned them on echoed in the silence of the bathroom. He closed his eyes then, a gesture of surrender or perhaps trust, allowing you to proceed with this final, most drastic stage of the cut. The gentle vibration of the buzzer filled the air, a constant, reassuring hum that seemed to ground you both in the present moment. Bucky gave the occasional sniffle, the emotional undertones of this act filled both of you.
With a final buzz, you switched off the clippers and gently placed them in the sink. Your fingers glided through his freshly trimmed hair, feeling the soft, short strands beneath your touch. The cut was perfect - a smile played on your lips as you admired your handiwork, you were proud of yourself. "Wow..." you breathed, your voice barely above a whisper, "You look just like that old photograph I have of you. It's like stepping back in time." Your words were soft and full of gentle admiration. Softly, you encouraged him to open his eyes, eager to see his reaction to his new look.
"What do you think, sergeant?" you asked, your voice tinged with anticipation as you waited for him to fully take in his reflection. As he gazed into the mirror, a profound sense of unfamiliarity washed over him. The face staring back was simultaneously familiar and foreign, he didn’t react like you expected but honestly…what did you expect? He looked disoriented and unsettled by his own reflection.
It felt so... strange, almost surreal. The sensation was akin to looking at a photograph of a long-lost relative, recognizing traces of familiarity but ultimately confronting the reality of a stranger. It felt like he were dreaming, seeing a resemblance of the man he once was - a version of himself that now seemed to belong to a distant, unreachable past.
The realization that this former self was now forever out of reach hit him with unexpected force. He knew he’d never be the person he was again, but seeing himself like this just…felt so sudden. Bucky felt the sick twinge of grief, as if he just lost a dear friend or a beloved family member, but the person he was mourning was his former self.
He had once cherished his former self, but that version of Bucky had long since vanished. HYDRA, black tendrils wrapped around him with its insidious grasp, had extinguished his essence, snuffing out his very being like a feeble, flickering ember desperately clinging to life in the face of an unforgiving winter storm.
Bucky found himself irrevocably altered. No longer was he the vibrant, spirited individual of his past, now reduced to nothing more than a charred remnant of his former self - a piece of blackened charcoal, devoid of the warmth and light that had once defined him. The flames of his identity, once burning bright with passion and purpose, had been mercilessly extinguished, leaving behind only the cold, lifeless ashes of who he used to be.
The cold consumed him, trapping him in a relentless, chilling embrace. Cryo never truly left him, the sensation continued to maintain its icy hold on him, refusing to let go. But, you...you were what he needed more than anything else in the world. You taught him what it was like to have a gentle touch, to be loved and cared for no matter what he did in his past.
You were patient.
You were loving.
You were nurturing.
You helped him throughout his long and dreary recovery, standing by his side throughout every visit to the doctor or hospital, the endless nights where he couldn’t sleep, the panic attacks that left his throat raw and eyes burning. When the days seemed darkest for him, you were there to thaw the ice that had frozen him for so long.
Winter slowly began to surrender to the bloom of spring, and you were the greatest force of nature he knew.
Bucky's voice emerged as a soft whisper after several minutes spent silently staring at his reflection in the mirror, the steady stream of tears cascading down his face had been completely unnoticed to him. You gently wiped the tears away, your thumbs tenderly brushing against his cheekbones as you dried them with care and affection.
“It’s perfect..”
Tumblr media
Dividers by @/strangergraphics
Cover images from Pinterest.
131 notes · View notes
dreamwritesimagines · 12 hours
Text
The Eye of the Hurricane 37 - Sneak Peek
Tumblr media
Series Masterlist
“Charm?”
“Over here!” you called out and heard Bucky come downstairs, then he filled himself a cup of coffee before looking over his shoulder.
“You want some?”
“Nope,” you said, stroking Alpine’s fur. “Bucky, what are the chances that we got the prettiest and nicest cat in the entire world?”
“Zero, she’s an asshole.”
You gasped. “Hey!”
“I love her, but it doesn’t mean she’s not an asshole,” Bucky said. “She never comes when I call.”
“Because she’s a cat, not a dog,” you said. “If we have a child one day, we’re so calling them Alpine Two.”
“We’re not going to do that.”
“Alpine Two and Alpine Three.”
“Absolutely not.”
45 notes · View notes
brunchable · 3 days
Text
𝐌𝐫. 𝐏𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭'𝐬 𝐃𝐚𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭𝐞𝐫 | 𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐅𝐢𝐯𝐞
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
Part Four | Five Pairings: Bucky Barnes x f!reader, Steve Rogers x f!reader | Daughter of Thaddeus Ross (Red Hulk) Words: 4.1K Themes: Forbidden/Off-Limits Reader, Love Triangle, M for Mature, 18+ , Post-Endgame, AGE GAP (24y/o reader). Summary: Y/N needing answers confront Bucky about the party. Steve finds himself sitting on the same couch Bucky has been sitting on once a week.
taggies: @astrelz @pattiemac1 @mrsevans90 @disneyprincessbuffyannesummers
Tumblr media
Y/N sat on her desk, her phone in her hand, her mind racing. Her father’s words from dinner echoed in her head—the event was fast approaching, and she was expected to play her part. But with every passing day, the pressure grew heavier, and her life felt less like her own.
The thought of the upcoming reveal made her feel trapped. She knew what was expected of her: smile for the cameras, be the perfect daughter, and make her father look good. But it wasn’t what she wanted, and the weight of it all was starting to crush her.
She glanced at her phone. Ethan had called her a few days ago, asking her to trust him, to hold on for a little longer. He said he had a plan to break things off without causing a scandal. Y/N had been hesitant. Trust wasn’t something that came easily between them, and the idea of prolonging the engagement left a sour taste in her mouth.
But now, as the pressure from her father mounted, she found herself picking up the phone again. Maybe Ethan’s plan was the only way out.
Y/N took a deep breath and dialed his number. It rang twice before Ethan picked up.
“Y/N,” he said, his voice calm and monotone as always.
“Hey,” she replied, her voice wavering slightly. “I’ve been thinking about what you said. About holding on for a while.”
There was a brief pause on the other end, then Ethan spoke again. “I know it’s not ideal, but trust me. If we just play along for a bit longer, I think I can figure out a way for us to break things off without causing a scandal. We both know how important that is—for your side and mine.”
Y/N’s fingers tightened around the phone. “I don’t want to do this anymore, Ethan. I just hate pretending.”
“I get it,” he replied softly. “But we don’t have to pretend forever. Just a little longer. We’re both trapped in this, but we can get out of it—cleanly. No drama, no backlash.”
Y/N let out a slow breath. She hated that he was right. The last thing she needed was a scandal on top of everything else. “Fine,” she said, her voice tight. “I’ll trust you. But this can’t go on much longer.”
“It won’t,” Ethan assured her. “I promise.”
Y/N hung up the phone, feeling a mix of relief and dread. She had bought herself a little more time, but the clock was still ticking. The event was looming, and her father’s expectations weighed heavier than ever.
× × × ×
Her eyes drifted to the pile of patient files on her left. She’d been staring at them for far too long, her mind distracted by everything except work.  
She had been thinking about Bucky more than she should have. The nagging feeling that he was the man from the party refused to leave her alone. And she hated dwelling on things. She wasn’t the type to sit in confusion, letting questions fester too long. She liked answers.
Skimming at the patient files, her eyes landed on Bucky’s. She hesitated for a moment before opening it. His phone number was listed, and before she could overthink it, she picked up her phone and dialed.
Bucky picked up after a few rings, his voice gruff but calm. “Barnes.”
“Hey,” Y/N said, trying to keep her tone light. “It’s Y/N.”
There was a pause, then a slight chuckle on the other end. “Didn’t think I’d be getting a call from my therapist.”
Y/N smiled, feeling a little more at ease. “I was wondering... are you free for a drink later? Bar of your choice?”
Bucky’s chuckle turned into a low laugh. “A drink, huh? Sounds suspiciously like a date.”
Y/N rolled her eyes, even though he couldn’t see it. “Not a date. Just drinks.”
“Sure,” Bucky replied, still sounding amused. “I’ll be there.”
× × × ×
Y/N sat at the bar, nervously swirling her drink, waiting for Bucky to arrive. The dim lighting and soft chatter of the bar did little to ease her nerves. She glanced at her watch—had she been waiting long? Or had Bucky already been there?
For a brief moment, she couldn’t remember how long she had been sitting there, or even how long ago Bucky had said he would come. Time seemed to slip away from her, a small sliver of panic bubbling up inside her chest. She took a deep breath, telling herself to relax.
It’s just stress, she thought, glancing toward the door.
The sound of the door opening caught her attention, and she finally saw Bucky walk in. His presence grounded her slightly, but the disorienting sensation lingered in the back of her mind.
He wore a dark navy jacket, the fabric slightly worn, giving him that lived-in look of someone who was always ready to be on the move. Underneath, a simple black T-shirt hugged his frame, just tight enough to show the broad muscles of his chest and shoulders. His dark jeans were well-fitted, faded in places from use, and his heavy boots thudded softly against the floor as he walked.
But it was his left arm that always caught her attention—the vibranium glinting subtly under the bar’s dim lights. The sleek, matte finish of the metal contrasted sharply with the rugged, everyday clothes he wore, a constant reminder of the battles he'd fought, both physical and internal.
Bucky’s expression was relaxed, his eyes sweeping the room until they found her. He gave her a small nod before making his way to the table, his steps deliberate but unhurried.
“Hey stalker,” She greeted Bucky with a smile.
“Hey, stalker. Where did you get my number again?” Bucky greeted her with a pointed look, taking a seat beside her at the bar. “You didn’t have to buy me a drink just to ask me something.”
Y/N chuckled, shaking her head. “I have my ways. Besides, I thought I owed you one after our last session. You looked like you could use a drink.”
Bucky chuckled, glancing at the whiskey in front of him. “Well, can’t say no to that.”
They made small talk for a few minutes, discussing trivial things—the weather, recent news, even the usual café’s new pastries. Y/N found herself relaxing as they talked, but the question still lingered in the back of her mind. It was only a matter of time before she had to bring it up.
She hesitated, glancing down at her glass. “You’ve been laying low lately,” she said. “I haven’t seen you around much.”
"Yeah, you know me," he said quietly, swirling the whiskey in his glass. "Sometimes it’s easier to keep to myself. Less complications that way."
Y/N smiled softly. “Yeah, I guess that’s your thing.”
There was a brief silence before Y/N took a deep breath. She couldn’t take it anymore. Finally, she leaned forward, her gaze meeting Bucky’s directly. 
“Can I ask you something?”
“Shoot.”
Before she could stop herself, Y/N blurted out, “You didn’t happen to go to a party recently, did you?”
Bucky’s eyebrows shot up, clearly caught off guard by the question. He hesitated, and Y/N watched as his jaw tightened slightly. “A party?”
“Yeah, a big one. A lot of people, loud music, dancing…”
Bucky’s expression didn’t change, not wanting to give too much away. He cleared his throat, glancing up slightly. 
“I might have, yeah,” he muttered, taking a swig of his whiskey. “Why do you ask?”
Y/N tried to play it off cool, though her pulse quickened. “Just curious. You looked like someone I met there.”
“Yeah?” Bucky’s gaze remained steady, though Y/N noticed the subtle shift in his posture, the slight tension in his jaw. 
“I just... I can’t shake the feeling that it was you,” Y/N said, her voice barely above a whisper.
For a moment, Bucky didn’t respond. Then, with a tight smile, he shook his head. “And if it was? What then?”
Y/N’s heart raced. She hadn’t expected him to turn the question back on her so quickly. She swallowed, trying to think of an answer, but all she could do was stare at him.
“I… I guess I just wanted to know,” she said, her voice faltering.
Bucky’s gaze stayed locked on hers, and his expression grew more serious. “Why?”
The question hit harder than Y/N had anticipated, making her heart pound in her chest. Why did she need to know? Why couldn’t she just let it go? She hesitated, her fingers tightening around her glass.
“I kissed him. And I can’t stop thinking about it, I felt a spark I hadn’t felt in a while. And it keeps bothering me whether it was you.”
“You think it was me?” Bucky repeated.
“I don’t know,” Y/N admitted, frustration creeping into her voice. “I can’t shake the feeling that it was you—and you called me a party animal and I didn't even remember seeing you.”
Bucky leaned on the counter, letting out a slow breath. “You really want to know?”
Y/N leaned forward, hope flickering inside her. “Yes.”
Bucky’s eyes met hers, his expression unreadable. “Then why don’t you go figure it out yourself?”
Before she could stop herself, she pressed her lips to his, her heart racing as the kiss ignited something inside her. It was quick but intense, her body responding before her mind could catch up.
For a second, Bucky didn’t react, caught completely off guard. His eyes widened in shock as her lips met his, but then he froze, pulling back slightly, his gaze locked on hers.
“Y/N—” Bucky’s voice was strained, and his hands gripped the edge of the table as if to steady himself. 
Y/N pulled back, her cheeks flushed, realizing what she had just done. Her heart pounded in her chest as she waited for his reaction, unsure if she had crossed a line.
“I thought... you wanted me to figure it out,” she whispered, her voice shaky.
Bucky blinked, still trying to process what had just happened. “That’s... not what I meant,” 
Y/N’s eyes widened in embarrassment. “Oh.”
Bucky leaned back in his chair, the back of his hand pressed on his lips, clearly thrown off balance. “I meant you should go talk to your friends or... ask around. I wasn’t telling you to—”
Y/N’s face turned crimson. “I—oh my god. I thought—”
Bucky glanced away, blinking, looking like he wanted to disappear into thin air. “Yeah, no. That’s… not what I was saying.”
“I’m sorry—oh my god, i want to crawl into a hole and never leave.” Y/N muttered, still covering her face. Her fingers dug into her palms, wishing she could vanish. 
For a moment, they sat in silence, Y/N stared down at her drink, too mortified to say anything more. Her face was burning with embarrassment, and her mind raced with how badly she had misread the situation.
Bucky cleared his throat, trying to lighten the mood. “So... does that answer your question?”
Y/N’s face turned an even deeper shade of red. She opened her mouth to respond, but no words came out. She felt even more flustered now, her thoughts a jumbled mess.
“Well... I didn’t really kiss him like that,” she blurted out, unable to stop herself.
Bucky’s eyebrows shot up, “Oh? What, you want to go again?”
Y/N’s eyes widened, her face burning with embarrassment as she stared at him in shock. “No! I didn’t—”
Bucky met her gaze and gave her a small, crooked smile. “Relax, I’m just messing with you.”
“You’re not a nice man,” she muttered.
Bucky’s smirks, “Yeah, maybe. But you started it.”
Y/N bit her bottom lip, a nervous habit she couldn’t quite stop, and Bucky’s eyes flicked down to catch the movement. He let out a long sigh, leaning back in his chair again, running a hand through his hair.
“You’re not making this any easier,” Bucky muttered, his voice low but not unkind.
Y/N’s heart skipped a beat, her pulse quickening at the tension still lingering between them. 
“Sorry,” she mumbled, feeling the heat rise to her cheeks again. “I just... I don’t know what I was thinking.”
Bucky looked at her, his expression softening as he leaned forward slightly, his elbows resting on the table. 
“Look,” he said quietly, his tone gentler than before, “you don’t need to apologize. You just got confused. Maybe it's the alcohol.”
Y/N swallowed, her gaze flicking back to him. “Yeah, right.”
Silence.
Bucky looked away, his metal fingers drumming lightly against the edge of the table, his leg restlessly shaking. It was clear that neither of them quite knew how to handle what had just happened.
Bucky sighed again, his voice dropping even lower. “I didn’t mean to mess with your head, Y/N. I just...” He trailed off, his eyes meeting hers again, this time with a vulnerability she hadn’t seen before. “I didn’t expect you to do that.”
Y/N’s chest tightened, the vulnerability in his voice surprising her. “Sorry.”
Silence.
Bucky cleared his throat again, breaking the moment. “We’re not going to talk about this, are we?” he asked, a half-smile tugging at his lips.
Y/N smiled back, a small, awkward laugh escaping her. “Probably not.”
Bucky nodded his head, and chuckled. “Figured.”
× × × ×
Y/N threw herself onto her bed, face-first into her pillow, and let out a muffled scream of pure frustration and embarrassment. She kicked her legs into the air, flailing them wildly as she groaned into the pillow. Her cheeks were burning, her heart racing, and her mind replaying the last few moments with Bucky over and over again.
What were you thinking? she scolded herself, her legs kicking the mattress in frustration. Why would you kiss him again?!
But no matter how much she tried to push it away, the memory kept flashing in her mind, like a scene she couldn’t stop replaying. She had been standing with him, the quiet tension between them growing, and then, in a moment of complete insanity, she had leaned in again.
Her lips had met his for the second time, and this time, it wasn’t just a quick kiss. It had deepened almost immediately. His hand had come up to grip her waist, and her body responded by writhing against his solid torso.
It was just like the kiss at the party—the way their bodies pressed together, the electricity in the air, the intensity of it all. Her mind had flashed back to that moment, remembering the feeling of the man’s lips moving with hers, the taste of his kiss lingering on her tongue.
But as the kiss with Bucky continued, something felt... different. The way Bucky kissed her wasn’t like the man at the party. It wasn’t playful or light. No, Bucky’s kiss was... possessive. His vibranium hand held her tighter, like he couldn’t let her go. His lips were commanding, full of intent, like he was staking a claim.
Y/N’s mind raced, torn between the memory of the party and the reality of the kiss happening right in front of her. And that’s when it hit her.
It wasn’t him.
She groaned again, flipping over onto her back and staring up at the ceiling. You idiot, you have crossed the line. Her body still felt warm from the kiss, and her mind was a whirlwind of confusion. She couldn’t believe she had kissed him like that—and now, she was left with even more questions than before.
Her legs kicked out in frustration once more, her cheeks still burning from the embarrassment. She had kissed Bucky with the same passion she had kissed the man from the party, hoping it would give her the answer she needed. 
She closed her eyes, trying to block out the noise. But no matter how hard she tried, the image of Bucky’s face lingered, along with the nagging question she couldn’t let go.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH.” She screamed into her pillow.
× × × ×
Steve couldn’t shake the feeling that ever since Steve had retired, he’d felt adrift. His friends told him to move on, to find a new life now that Captain America was in his past. But who was Steve Rogers now in this modern world without the uniform, without the shield? 
He had tried to move forward, to make sense of the new world he was living in. But it wasn’t that easy. His life had always been about duty and purpose, and now that he was free of those responsibilities, he felt... lost. And now, on top of that, he couldn’t get the mystery woman from the party out of his head.
Sighing, Steve glanced at his phone. He had saved Dr. Raynor’s number—Bucky’s therapist. Maybe it was time to try something different. He had been hesitant, unsure if therapy was what he needed, but the more time passed, the more he realized he couldn’t keep everything bottled up.
With a decisive breath, he dialed the number.
“Dr. Raynor’s office, how can I help you?” The receptionist’s voice was friendly and professional.
“Hi, this is Steve Rogers. I was wondering if I could schedule a session,” Steve said, his voice steady.
There was a brief pause before the receptionist responded. “Dr. Raynor is not taking new clients right now. However, her intern, Y/N, has been handling many sessions. Would that be okay?”
Steve hesitated. Y/N. The woman who's kept Bucky spiraling. Still, something in his gut told him to take the appointment.
“That works. When’s the next available time?”
“We have an opening tomorrow at 3:30 p.m.”
“Tomorrow at 3:30 is fine,” Steve confirmed, though his mind raced.
“Great, we’ll see you tomorrow, Mr. Rogers. Y/N will be expecting you.”
As Steve hung up, he leaned back in his bed, staring at the phone. We didn't know what to expect but there were deeper issues—his identity, his future—that had been weighing on him for months. He needed help finding a new direction, and maybe this session could give him the clarity he was looking for.
Tomorrow at 3:30 he thought, standing up. Whatever happened next, he hoped it would finally give him the answers he needed.
× × × ×
Steve sat in the waiting room, feeling a slight unease creeping over him. It had been a long time since he felt this unsure of something. He hadn’t expected this. Y/N, the intern taking over Dr. Raynor’s clients was nothing like the flustered, casual woman he’d met briefly some other day. 
Now, sitting in front of him, her hair was neatly tied back, her glasses perched on her nose, and a notebook open in her lap. She looked professional, one that felt far removed from the woman who had seemed to be having a long day when he’d seen her last.
Is this really the same person? Steve wondered. He hadn’t expected her to be so composed in this setting, so distant. The energy felt different—colder.
“Captain,” Y/N greeted with a polite nod. “Thanks for coming in today.”
“Please, call me Steve,” he replied, feeling slightly off balance.
She smiled briefly, making a note in her book. “Alright, Steve. Let’s get started.”
Steve wasn’t sure how to begin. He hadn’t anticipated feeling this out of place. Sitting there, he felt like he was being studied—like a subject. And for some reason, it didn’t sit well with him. 
“So, what brings you in today?” Y/N asked, her voice steady and measured as she met his gaze.
Steve shifted in his seat, his thoughts swirling. He wasn’t sure if he was more unsettled by her professionalism or by the fact that he was here, opening up about things he wasn’t even sure how to articulate. 
“I guess I’ve been feeling... lost,” he began, his voice slow, as if testing the waters.
Y/N nodded, her pen ready, but she didn’t push. “Lost how?”
Steve let out a sigh, feeling the weight of his words. “I’ve spent so long being Captain America. That was my life. Now that it’s over, I’m not sure who I am anymore.” He paused, his thoughts briefly drifting back to the party, to the woman who made him feel something different for the first time in a while. But he shook it off. That wasn’t why he was here. “I just... don’t know what comes next.”
Y/N made a few notes, her expression unreadable. She was so composed—so controlled. It threw Steve off. He had half-expected some casual banter or warmth, but what he got was the cool professionalism of a therapist. 
“It’s not uncommon,” Y/N replied, her tone calm. “After dedicating so much of your life to a cause, stepping away can leave you questioning your identity. It can be difficult to adjust.”
Steve nodded, though part of him felt like he was watching this conversation from the outside. She seemed different now. Completely different. He couldn’t shake the thought, and it distracted him more than he wanted to admit.
“You're... different,” Steve blurted out, not even sure why he said it.
Y/N looked up from her notes, raising an eyebrow. “Different how?”
Steve chuckled awkwardly, scratching the back of his neck. “I don’t know... more serious.”
Y/N smiled slightly, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Therapy mode, I guess. It’s different from casual conversations.”
Steve nodded, though he still felt like he was in unfamiliar territory. “Yeah, I see that.”
They sat in a brief, tense silence before Y/N gently steered the conversation back on track. “You mentioned feeling lost without the Captain America role. Can you tell me more about what that feels like for you?”
Steve began to speak, his gaze steady as he tried to articulate the feelings of disconnection that had been plaguing him since leaving behind Captain America. But he couldn’t help but notice that she seemed distracted, her eyes drifting away from him every few seconds, as if she wasn’t fully present. Steve paused mid-sentence, watching as she blinked a few times, her expression slightly dazed.
“You okay?” Steve asked, tilting his head.
Y/N’s eyes snapped back to his, and she quickly nodded. “Yeah, sorry. I’m listening.”
But Steve wasn’t convinced. He could see the faint lines of tension on her face, the way her fingers gripped her pen just a little too tightly. She seemed... distant. Unfocused.
Steve continued talking, but his eyes kept flicking to Y/N, noticing how her attention wavered. At one point, she even scribbled something down, only to pause and stare at the page, her brow furrowed in confusion.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Steve asked again, his voice soft but concerned.
Y/N blinked, her cheeks flushing slightly. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just... a lot on my mind.”
× × × ×
Steve exited the building, the afternoon sun hitting his face as he tried to shake off the weight of the therapy session with Y/N. 
He ran a hand through his hair, glancing up just in time to catch sight of her again. Y/N was standing near the curb, looking at her phone. His feet slowed instinctively. Then, a sleek black car pulled up beside her. 
Steve’s eyes narrowed as a man stepped out—well-dressed, formal, and carrying a bouquet of flowers. He didn’t know who the guy was, but the way he strode toward Y/N with confidence made something in Steve’s gut twist. He couldn’t help it—Y/N was beautiful, and he’d have to be blind not to notice that.
The man handed her the flowers, and Steve caught the way Y/N’s smile barely reached her eyes. Polite, almost forced. Steve’s gaze lingered, curious. She didn’t look thrilled, and there wasn’t the warmth or ease you’d expect between a couple. 
She got into the car anyway, the man holding the door open for her before climbing in himself.
Steve stood there for a moment longer, hands in his jacket pockets, watching the car pull away. “Huh,” he muttered under his breath, more to himself than anyone. He wasn’t sure what to make of it, but one thing was clear: she wasn’t available. 
He turned and started walking again, forcing the thought from his mind. It wasn’t his place to think too much about it, and besides, it wasn’t like he had any right to be curious. She was someone he found… intriguing. Attractive, sure. But that was it. . .he tells himself.
38 notes · View notes
theinheriteddutchess · 16 hours
Text
Tumblr media
Cheeky
Pairing: Bucky Barnes x reader
No warnings, just Sebastian Stan, the way he's looking lately is definitely a warning!
Word count: 417
Just wrote this and posted it, don't come at me with any mistakes. I just have a lot of feelings okay! Let me know if you have feelings too💕
〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️
It's Bucky's day off.
He's slept in, he ate his breakfast, took a long warm shower, and is currently sitting at the kitchen table reading the newspaper. The old fashioned way, paper, he says the screen makes his eyes tired. You don't tease him with it. After all, it looks cozy. And you can do the cross word puzzle together. Not that he needs any help. But it's nice.
He's walking around in his boxers. It's a warm day, the temperature in the apartment is pleasant. It's nice for him to not wear his suit. 
To display his arm like an everyday thing, not as a prop for his superhero persona. 
He's relaxed. 
His hair is soft as it frames his face, his arm muscles bulging everytime he flips a page. 
You haven't eaten a bite of your breakfast in 9 minutes. 
You watch his face as it expresses what he thinks with whatever he's reading. 
Eventually he stands up and stretches. Pops the kinks in his back.
You might be drooling. 
It's right in front of you. 
For a moment you don't think. You act. 
He yelps and jumps away. States at you. 
You stare back with big eyes like you didn't just do it. Like it was a phantom in the room. Like you're just as surprised as he is.
You are. But…
“Did you just…” he starts.
You look away, trying to think of anything that sounds like a reasonable, sane, justification. You find none, so you stay silent.
“You bit me??” He sounds so nonplussed.
“I- …yes,” you sigh. “But you can't blame me. You're looking really hot and it's all a little overwhelming.”
He stares.
You stare back. 
His face is slightly frowning. Did you go too far? 
Then his shoulders relax. “Steve told me you stared at my butt with a feral look at times, I didn't believe him when he said you were going to pounce some day. Looks like he won that bet, that punk.”
You blink. “ Did you set me up?!”
He chuckles. “No, turns out you don't need extra stimuli.”
You grab a piece of unfinished toast and throw it to his head. It bounces off unspectacularly in a spray of crumbs, while he's looking unfazed.
Then he pushes one side of the waistband of his boxers down to expose one cheek of perfect ass. Right in front of your eyes. 
“Did it leave a mark?” He asks teasingly.
You don't answer. Your teeth are already there.
28 notes · View notes
itsnotbird · 2 days
Text
Orphic ~ File 3
Abience (n) ; the strong urge to avoid someone or something
Bucky!Barnes x Fem!Reader
Find previous part here
Masterlist
Tumblr media
An entire month passes since the strange incident. A complete month fades before you’re even mentioned again amongst the Avengers, and that’s only because Nick Fury turns back up with a thick looking file.
It’s all hushed whispers, and he and Tony spend an hour and thirty minutes in a conference room, discussing just what was in the file.
“I still can’t believe I missed something as big as this.” Nat says, trying to listen in on the conversation. Her ear pressed to the locked door, Steve, Wanda, and Sam wait behind her, all curious too.
“Yeah, it was certainly interesting.” Steve adds, arms crossed over his chest. His morals say not to eavesdrop, but he’s only human after all and he’s completely curious.
Inside the room, Tony rubs his head, trying to process the information.
“It’s a brand new case that opened up, all because Barnes pulled her from the street. I wouldn’t be here if I thought she couldn’t be trusted.” Fury states in a serious manner, watching Tony pick up a few more photos.
He aches, knowing how bad he treated you. Now, your life is spread out in front of him, showing him exactly why you acted the way you did.
“You really want us to take this on? To take her on?” He asks, pushing the evidence photos out of his sight, not baring to look at your marks and the brand on the back of your neck any longer.
Fury gathers the multitude of papers and sorts them back into the correct places. “She’s smart, really smart.” He says. “She was monitored, observed, we learned her habits, her behavior. She’s perfectly in control of her power, we made immense progress…”
Tony cocks his head. “But?”
“But, she’s just a little odd. She told us everything she knew, then went completely silent. Her therapist said it’s normal, it’s how she copes. If you ask her to do a task, she’ll do it, she knows the importance of her cooperation…she just needs to work on her people skills. That’s why I want her here.”
His jaw sets, then he groans at Fury’s request. “Fine. We’ll put her here.”
Fury smirks, closing his brief case up. “Good, she’ll be moved here in an hour.”
Tony glares. “How did you know I’d agree?”
Fury simple chuckles. “Because you never turn away strays anymore, even if it makes you grumpy.”
What the group waiting outside doesn’t expect is for the door to open so suddenly, making them earn a displeased look from Fury as he walks past them.
“Oh, good, some of you are already here.” Tony states, motioning them in. “Team meeting.”
- - - -
“How are the nightmares?”
Bucky stays silent, then looks at the clock to see if his mandatory hour is up yet.
It isn’t.
“I don’t have them.” He half lies, looking back to Dr. Raynor.
She gives him a look. “I don’t believe that.”
He fights his urge to groan. “Well, maybe you should, Doc.”
She sighs, then clicks her pen and pulls her notebook to her.
“Oh, don’t start with the damn notebook.” Bucky rolls his eyes. “I’m talking, aren’t I? That was the deal? I talk, you don’t write.”
The woman shakes her head. “You’re talking but giving no real answers.”
“I told you I’m not having the same nightmares.” He reasons, not realizing he just lead on to more questions.
“So you’re having different ones?” She asks, putting her pen down and giving him her full attention.
“I guess, yeah.” He shrugs, grinding his back molars.
“Are they better or worse?”
He wanted to storm out of the room, and he would if he wouldn’t get arrested. She had a way of poking and prodding at him, it made him twitch. Or maybe he was still feeling the side effects of the strange girl that shocked his nervous system.
“I don’t know…they’re different.” He states, a curt tone.
“What’s different about them?”
He runs a hand through his hair and sighs. “I’m not…killing people. Guess that’s progress, huh?” He attempts to joke, but she doesn’t smile, she just urges him to continue. So he looks down at his knee bouncing up and down.
“There’s someone else in them…this person.”
She’s interested in this. “A different person? Do you know them?”
I pulled her from the rain.
“No, not really.”
Raynor nods. “This is good, this is change. What is this person doing in the dreams?”
His fists clench, he bites his tongue for a moment too long. “She’s not doing anything except for just being there-”
“She?”
Crap. Now he’s said too much.
“Can we just talk about something else?” He grumbles, blinking hard in hopes of pushing the vision of your grey eyes out of his mind.
“You want to talk about something else?” She sighs. “Okay, how about other small changes you’re making? Have you been talking to your friends? Steve, Sam?”
Bucky sneers. “Sam isn’t my friend.”
Raynor rolls her eyes. “You get my point. Have you been talking to them?”
“Yeah, we chat over tea.” He says in a dry sarcastic tone.
The woman shakes her head. “We talked about this, you can’t push people completely away. When I suggested the apartment, I told you it was to heal on your own time, with no negative influences. That didn’t mean stop talking to the people who care about you.”
She had no clue what she was talking about, it made him agitated. When Raynor determined that he wasn’t going to discuss this either, she lets out a long sigh, then looks at him in question.
“You gonna get a haircut?” She asks.
He throws his hands up. “Now my hair’s the problem? You’re extra passive aggressive today, Doc.”
“You say that every session, James. I’m just asking a question because it’s getting a little long.”
He rubs his temple where he feels a headache coming on. “If I get a haircut, will you stop being so harsh?”
“No.”
What is he doing with his life?
- - - -
The team would have been more welcoming to you if they could find you.
Simply, you find a very quiet corner and sit there, listening and observing. Not necessarily hiding, but people tend to pass by without even noticing.
“Where is she?” Nat asks the guys who stand in the dining room, waiting for the meal to be done.
They all sort of shrug, it’s Steve that motions in a direction.
“I think she’s in the west hallway, by the ficus plant.” He says.
Natasha scoffs. “Did anyone tell her we are going to eat dinner?” She asks, looking between the group of them.
They all share a look of ‘did we?’
The answer is no.
“Maybe you guys should work on your people skills.” She says before walking off to retrieve you.
It even takes her a second to find you, but when she does, she smiles softly. Crouching to your level, she reaches for the phone in your hands that has about ten contacts and a music app. You search the music library, clicking on songs you’ve never heard before. They play through your headphones, a gift from Fury himself when your therapist expressed your love for music.
As Natasha lowers the phone from your face, you gently jump in surprise, then take the headphones off.
“Hi.” She says. “We’re going to be eating dinner, I’m sorry if people ignored you.”
You don’t respond, just nod.
“I’m Natasha.” She introduces as you stand from your corner, and she looks you over.
Your shoes were not laced up, you had knee high socks on that the hem of your dress dusted. A much too large sweater hung over your frame to help keep your body temperature warm, though it doesn’t help too much.
“Tomorrow, I’m going to sneak you out and we’re going to the mall. Okay?” She tells you, feeling bad that you’re wearing clothes S.H.E.I.L.D pieced together from a donation bin.
You look at your outfit and then nod, enjoying the idea of wearing pants.
You trail behind this sudden new friend, still intimidated by the large size of the facility. Soon, you enter the more comforting area of the compound and the full table of faces greet you with unsure smiles.
“Sit here.” Natasha says, pointing to the empty chair between her and Steve.
You do just that, but what you don’t expect is for the face across from you to be so…tense.
Bucky came to dinner after Raynor said all the right words to piss him off. He needed to prove her wrong, needed to prove that he could socialize…he just chose not to…and he had to be here for the new project plan in the morning. But what he didn’t think was going to happen was the girl that’s been tormenting him for a month to come and sit across from him. Your outfit was strange and pieced together, your long hair was in a braid that laid on your shoulder, you sat there with confusion and unsureness as everyone began to eat and talk.
You stayed completely silent.
“You don’t need permission to eat.” Steve softly whispers as a reminder as he sees your hesitation.
Right.
Free will.
You had that now.
Utensils scraped on plates, people joked and laughed, you just ate in the most polite way possible.
Bucky stared.
And most get uncomfortable by it, but you just stare back. It’s not a glare, there’s no meaning of anger behind it, it’s just a shared expression that catches the attention of the ones around you.
“Oh great, we got another one that stares.” Sam exclaims.
Steve clears his throat. “That’s James, or Bucky, whatever you want to call him.” He tells you, and of course you don’t respond, just hold the strange eye contact.
Bucky’s the first to break, he talks a gulp of water and looks away.
Tony breaks up the awkwardness. “Alright, Five? Is that what they’re calling you? Your room is next to Nat’s, remember? So that’s where you go after your infusion.”
You nod, and it raised confusion.
“Infusion?” Steve asks as you stare at your spoonful of mashed potatoes before taking the bite.
Tony looks at you, almost expecting you to answer the Captains question. You’re distracted though with finishing your meal to show you are appreciative of their kindness.
So Tony continues. “There’s just some things she needs until we can ween her off of it.”
You hate the way he says it, with pity like you’re a sick animal. A junky.
Your plate is clean now, you put your dirty utensils on it and then finish your water.
No one notices this habit except for Bucky.
Because he remembers doing that. He remembers completing tasks so carefully and waiting for either approval or a slap in the face. It makes him feel odd, makes him want to reach across the table and knock your neat work over.
You pull the sleeves of the chunky sweater over your hands, feeling a wave of tiredness sweep through you as well as that almost violent shiver of coldness. Everyone is lost in conversation about what the plan was for tomorrow, but you feel that teasing heat source radiate beside you and can’t help the way you lull towards it.
“Is this normal?” Steve asks as he feels the way you lean into his side, like a reptile to a heat lamp.
You’re asleep in an instance.
Bruce frowns. “The place she came from had her on a lot of bad stuff…the doctors who were assigned to her at SHEILD say her nerves are kind of shot. That’s why she’s always cold. As far as the falling asleep thing…well, she’s kind of traumatized so that tends to make people exhausted.”
Everyone gets very quiet, and Bucky knows that look on his best friend’s face. His brows are creased, eyes a little sad as he looks down at you. That means one thing only, that he was going to go full Captain America mode and try and save you.
“Is that what the team meeting is about in the morning?” Natasha asks. “Her situation?”
Tony nods. “Looks like you and Sleepy the dwarf have some things in common.”
- - - -
Everyone left the dining room, but Bucky lingered momentarily.
He stared at that damn plate.
Steve had woken you up and sent you to the MedBay, you made sure things looked perfect before you went.
Now, he reaches out and messes the whole thing up before Wanda - who’s on dish duty because she could clean everything up in two seconds- catches him.
“Buck, hey.” Steve says as he finds his friend heading to his spare room that he stays in when there’s things to do early in the morning.
The two super soldiers walk in silence for a moment before Steve speaks up.
“She scares you, doesn’t she?” He asks.
Bucky lies. “Why would she scare me?”
“Because she’s in the same position you were in.”
Bucky clenches his teeth, cursing his friend’s intuition.
What was he supposed to say? That he wanted to stay far away from you for some unknown reason? That part of him wishes he wasn’t the one to rescue you? Or that he wants to ask you every question he has and try to figure out the way your brain works?
He can’t say any of that.
So he just avoids the statement all together. “Yeah, well you’re gonna tuck her under your wing just because she’s needy, so you shouldn’t be asking me about her, Pal.” He jokes with a smile.
Steve laughs and shakes his head. “Oh come on, give me a break, alright?”
As they stop in front of Bucky’s room, Sam happens to pass them.
“You gonna get a haircut?” He asks Bucky.
The soldier glares. “Does my hair just offend everyone now?”
File 4
25 notes · View notes
cynic-spirit · 2 days
Text
The retouch
Tumblr media
Yn stood in front of the mirror in the club's private lounge, carefully applying her signature red lipstick. The room was buzzing with chatter as Bucky, Steve, Sam, Nick, and Thor lounged on the plush sofas, discussing business and cracking jokes.
Bucky’s eyes were glued to Yn, watching her every move with a captivated intensity. He was entranced by the sight of her applying the rich, red color to her lips. Each stroke seemed to mesmerize him more.
Steve nudged Sam, nodding toward Bucky. "Look at him," he whispered, smirking. "Completely gone."
Sam chuckled, shaking his head. "Never thought I'd see the day the great Bucky Barnes gets weak in the knees over lipstick."
Nick joined in, grinning. "He's not even paying attention to us anymore. Might as well be invisible."
Thor, with his booming voice, added, "It seems our fearsome friend has met his match in a tube of red lipstick."
Bucky barely registered their teasing, his focus unwavering. Yn, oblivious to the conversation behind her, finished touching up her lips and turned around, flashing a smile.
"Is it good?" she asked Bucky, tilting her head slightly.
Bucky blinked, momentarily lost for words. "Perfect," he finally managed to say, his voice thick with admiration.
Steve, not missing a beat, teased, "Hey Bucky, you might want to pick your jaw up off the floor."
Bucky shot him a playful glare. "Shut it, Steve."
Yn laughed softly, stepping closer to Bucky. "What are you all talking about?" she asked, glancing around at the amused faces.
Sam grinned. "Just how Bucky here is completely under your spell. One swipe of that lipstick, and he’s done for."
Bucky rolled his eyes, though a small smile tugged at his lips. "You guys are impossible."
Thor leaned forward, his eyes twinkling with mischief. "Tell us, Yn, do you carry that lipstick everywhere just to keep him in check?"
Yn raised an eyebrow, amused. "I didn't realize I had such power," she said, glancing at Bucky with a playful smile.
Bucky reached out, gently taking her hand. "You have no idea," he said softly, his thumb brushing over her knuckles.
Nick laughed. "See? Completely whipped."
Yn blushed, but she didn’t pull her hand away. "Well, if it keeps him behaving, maybe I should carry it everywhere."
Steve chuckled. "Looks like you’ve found the secret, Yn."
Bucky, still holding Yn’s hand, looked at his friends. "Alright, enough. Let’s get back to business."
Yn, feeling the warmth of Bucky's hand and the sincerity in his eyes, smiled softly. She knew he was a tough, ruthless mobster, but in moments like this, she saw the tender side that he reserved only for her. And as for Bucky, every teasing remark and every captivated glance only deepened his affection for the woman who had, quite effortlessly, wrapped him around her little finger.
20 notes · View notes
Text
Tumblr media
Pairings: Bucky Barnes x Female Reader
Summary: You offer to help Bucky out shortly after he leaves HYDRA.
Warnings: Fluff, language, mentions of HYDRA, kissing, pet names
A/N: This takes place somewhere between Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Captain America: Civil War.
Written on my phone. My apologies for any mistakes.
Header made by @buckys-wintersoldier
Tumblr media
You always notice him when you’re at work. You work at a coffee shop. You don’t know if he’s homeless or lives in the area. He’s come in the coffee shop a couple times. There’s just something about him that’s different. You’re not sure what it is. What you do know is that you want to help him.
As you were walking out of the coffee shop at the end of your shift, you seen him again. You carefully and cautiously approached him and tapped on his shoulder. He turned around, looking down at you a little bit due to the height difference.
“Hi?” He says more like a question.
“Hi.” You smiled at him. “I can’t help but notice you hangout around here a lot. I’ve noticed it a lot. I work in that coffee shop.” You say, pointing at the coffee shop.
“I’m not stalking you if that’s what you’re thinking.” He says.
“Oh no, I wasn’t thinking that at all.” You said. “I was just wondering if you needed help or anything.” You say.
Bucky stared at you for a moment, wondering what you mean by help him and what kind of help you’re talking about.
“What do you mean by help?” He asks.
“I can offer you a place to stay if that’s ok with you.” You offered sweetly.
He thought about it. He can’t just keep staying in abandoned buildings forever. He needs a real place to stay.
“You’re really offering a total stranger a place to stay?” He asks.
“I’m Y/N.” You introduced yourself, holding out your hand for him to shake. “What’s your name?” You asked.
“Bucky.” He answers, shaking your hand.
“We’re not strangers anymore.” You smiled. “I would love to help you.” You say.
“Ok.” Bucky finally accepts your offer. “I don’t have many things though.” He says.
“That’s ok. I have what you need at my house.” You say.
“Hold on a second.” He says.
You nodded and watched him go in an alley to grab a duffel bag, which you assume has some clothes in it.
“Think of it as a helping help.” You say, walking to your car.
Bucky nods, following you to your car. You unlocked your car and got in. So did Bucky. You made your way home, which wasn’t too far from the coffee shop.
“Your house is blue.” Bucky points out as you pulled into the driveway.
“I just got it painted a few weeks ago.” You tell him.
“It’s nice.” He compliments.
You gave him a smile as a thank you before getting out of the car with Bucky following behind you. You unlocked the door and walked inside of your house. Bucky walked inside, closing the door behind him. He looked around the further he walked in the house.
“You have a lovely home.” He compliments, still looking around.
“Thank you.” You smiled. “I can show you around if you want.” You say.
Bucky nodded. You started the house tour in the kitchen.
“I’m sure you know about everything in kitchens so I’ll keep it brief. You’re welcome to anything in the fridge and the pantry. Dishes are in the cabinet next to the pantry and silverware are in the drawer next to the sink.” You explained.
Bucky nods, listening to every word you’re saying. He then followed you to the living room.
“You’re free to watch TV anytime you want.” You tell him. “How about I show you to the room where you’ll be sleeping in.” You suggested.
“Yes please. That would be nice.” Bucky answers.
Bucky follows you upstairs. You took him to the guest bedroom he’ll be staying in.
“This is the guest bedroom you’ll be staying in. There’s a bathroom in here and it’s stocked with essentials you might need.” You tell him. “My bedroom is the master bedroom at the end of the hall.” You say.
Bucky nods once more, looking around the bedroom.
“I’m going to make dinner.” You say before leaving the room.
Bucky put his duffel bag on the bed before checking out the bathroom. After he took a shower, he put on more comfortable clothes. He made sure to put on a sweatshirt to hide his metal arm. He also put a glove on his metal hand. He didn’t want you to see his scars and metal arm. At least not yet.
———
Bucky has been staying with you for almost a month. He’s really enjoying your hospitality and company. He always thought he would be staying in old abandoned buildings after leaving HYDRA. That was until he met you.
You and him got to know each other a little more. Bucky even gave you a cute pet name. He calls you doll all the time. You love it and think it’s cute. He’s still hiding his metal arm from you. He just doesn’t want to scare you. Since you two are developing a friendship, he has to be honest with you. Thats what he’s going to do right now. He knocked on your bedroom door and patiently waited for you to open it.
“Come in!” You say, knowing it’s Bucky.
Bucky opened the door and walked in your bedroom, closing the door behind him. He seen you brushing your hair after your shower.
“Are you busy, doll?” Bucky asks.
“I’m never busy for you, Bucky.” You say sweetly.
“I-” He paused and cleared his throat. “I have to tell you something.” He says nervously.
“Whatever it is, you can tell me.” You say.
You patted the bed next to you. Bucky walked towards your bed and sat down next to you.
“I have to tell you something about my past.” He says.
You nodded, waiting patiently for him to continue.
“I umm…” Bucky took a deep breath before saying anything. “In the 1940s, I helped Captain America take down HYDRA, but in 1945, I fell off of a train and they somehow got their hands on me. They gave me a metal arm and trained me to be an assassin.” He explains, not wanting to go into the gory details.
You sat in silence for a short moment, trying to process what Bucky just told you. He felt himself getting more nervous.
“What do you mean they gave you a metal arm?” You asked, making sure you heard him right.
Instead of answering you, Bucky took off the glove that was covering his metal hand and then took off his sweatshirt and t-shirt to show you his metal arm. Your eyes went wide when he revealed it to you.
“May I?” You asked, wondering if you can touch it.
Bucky nodded. You reached a hand out and touched his metal arm. Your fingers traced the metal plates. You then put your hand in his metal hand, intertwining your fingers with his metal fingers. A soft smile grew on Bucky’s face, feeling a warmth in his heart when you did that. Your eyes were quickly drawn to the scars where his metal arm meets his skin. You brought your free hand up to it to trace his scars without thinking. Bucky flinched away. You took your hand away.
“Sorry.” Bucky murmurs softly. “It’s a habit.” He says.
“It’s ok. I shouldn’t have done that.” You say.
Silence filled the bedroom when you continued to check out his metal arm.
“You probably thinking I’m a freak.” He mumbles, looking down at the floor.
“Why would I think that?” You asked.
“Cause I have metal arm.” He says.
“I don’t think you’re a freak.” You say.
“You don’t?” He asks, looking you in the eye.
“Of course not.” You answered honestly.
Without hesitation, Bucky leaned over and kissed you passionately, catching you off guard. It didn’t take him long to realize what he was doing and pulled away.
“Sorry.” He apologizes. “I shouldn’t have done that.” He says, feeling his cheeks heat up in embarrassment.
“Why are you sorry?” You asked.
“I kissed you.” He said.
“I like you kissing me.” You say.
You put your hand on his cheek, rubbing your thumb against his stubble. You kissed him sweetly. A smile grew on both of your faces. Bucky hasn’t felt this way since the 1940s.
“Would you believe me if I said that was my first kiss since the 1940s?” Bucky asks with a small chuckle.
“Yes.” You say with a small giggle.
You put your forehead against his, gazing in his blue eyes with love and adoration.
“I don’t know who those HYDRA people are, but I’ll protect you from them.” You say softly.
“Thank you, doll.” Bucky says with a smile, pecking your lips softly.
“You’re welcome.” You smiled back. “I just want you to feel safe with me.” You say softly.
“I’ve been safe with you since the day I met you.” He says softly.
🦾🦾🦾🦾🦾🦾🦾🦾🦾🦾🦾🦾🦾🦾🦾🦾🦾
-Bucky’s Doll
90 notes · View notes
buckyalpine · 8 months
Text
40s Sergeant Barnes with a nurse and a Sergeant kink (and breeding and house wife kink, virginity loss). This was supposed to be a pure smutty drabble but then I got in my feelings and added some fluff and angst but I promise Bucky is still a dirty, nasty little fuck in this. Just with a sweeter ending. The one he deserves.
Listen just imagine what a cute, sexy menace Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes would be just waking up from an injury when his eyes flutter open to the pretty nurse he’s been eyeing from the day he started. You’re not a shy, dainty little thing, nope. Not at all.
You bark out orders like a drill Sergeant and one glare from you is all it takes to get everyone in line and on task without a second thought. Even his superiors are scared of you, biting their tongue when you stitch them up and send them on their way before running off to your next patient.
Bucky was in love.
“Well aren’t you a sight for sore eyes” he rasps, throwing you a charming smirk while you roll your eyes in response, shaking your head. "How'd I get so lucky, got a my little angel tendin' to me"
“I see your injury hasn’t stopped hurt that mouth of yours Sergeant" You quirk an eyebrow while he playfully huffs as you change the dressing covering a gash on his abdomen. You swab the area clean and he doesn't flinch even though you know it must burn like hell, his muscles tensed while he continues to watch you with heart eyes. "Now you know I'm not your little angel, I got 20 other men to fix up, you better be out of this bed as soon as you're all healed up"
“C’mon sugar, you're breakin' my heart" Bucky gives you a little pout with those perfect lips and you catch the twinkle in his eye as he looks over your form with complete admiration. He loved your sassy, take no shit attitude and it's taking everything in him to calm himself down so he doesn't get a hard on right there in front of you.
"You'd tell that to a cat with three legs if it was in a nurses outfit" You try your best to not give into his flirty comments and puppy eyes, knowing damn well he's a heart breaker but he makes it so difficult when he continues to woo you with his boyish charm.
He can't help but chase after you; catching the way your eyes always dart around with anxiety when his group returns from an operation, relief flooding them when you finally spot him. He loves your indifferent attitude, patting him down to make sure he's uninjured but your furrowed brows and the tiny pout on your lips give away that you're worried.
How can he just let you go. Every time you check over him, he needs you closer.
So much closer.
-
"Ms. y/l/n, Sergeant Barnes is requesting you in his tent, he says it's urgent"
You shake your head looking over at the time, quietly making your way over to the tent he's stationed at, thankful that a number of troops were sleeping so you wouldn't be seen as you quickly slip inside.
“And what hurts now” you sass with your hands on your hips seeing the soldier in perfect health, doing your best to assess him without letting him know.
"Always checkin' over me" Bucky chuckles, seeing what you're doing; his words making your cheeks heat up, "Knew you cared about me sugar"
"Well what am I doin' here" You give him an unconvincing huff, struggling to keep your voice steady, refusing to meet his eyes, keeping your gaze on his silver dog tags instead. It doesn't help that he's handsome as hell with a light dusting of scruff covering his cheeks. Bucky's never seen you flustered before and it evokes something in him, all the blood in his body rushing south seeing your fingers twitch.
All he wanted to do was kiss you but now-
“Help your Sergeant out doll” He whispers, taking another step forward till his chest brushes against yours, his hand coming to tilt your chin up, "Will you?"
You gasp feeling his hardness press against your thigh, your heart fluttering wildly as his thumb traces your lips, any semblance of control you had slipping away feeling the warmth of his skin.
“Y-yes Sergeant Barnes”
His lips press against yours, soft and sweet, a stark contrast to the way his body was screaming for him to pick you up and toss you onto his cot.
"Sweet like sugar" He lets his hands fall to your waist, pulling you flush against his body while your arms drape on top of his shoulders. You stand on your toes chasing more of his lips and he chuckles at the needy whine you let out when he pulls away for air.
Now let's say your first night together was actually quite tame. He kisses you again and you swoon when he repeatedly checks in with you before going any further. His hand slips under your skirt, letting his fingers toy with places no on else has touched. With each night, he needs you more and more until he can't hold off any longer and neither can you.
-
You sneak into his tent and this time he doesn't hesitate to undress you completely, not when he needs you bare with nothing separating you both. You feel your heart race as he lies on top of you, draping a thin sheet over himself when you shiver at the chill night air. You feel his body heat instantly warm you up, his heavy cock resting between your soaked folds.
"Are you sure, sugar?" He asks, his hand cupping your cheek and stroking your skin.
"Please Sergeant" You whisper and the way you say his title makes his cock twitch. There's something so different about you when you're in his bed, a sweet little bunny giving herself to him completely. It drives him feral with a need to make you feel good, make you cry for his cock and his cock only, to keep you nice and full of him.
You don't look twice at anyone else and here you are completely naked in his tent with your tight little virgin cunt, your legs spread open so he can put his dick in you; there was no way he was ever going to let you go.
"You tell me if it's too much, alright?" His lips tickle your neck as kisses your skin while rubbing his heavy cock through your folds, coating it in your slick, "Breathe for me"
He slips his tags into your mouth as he starts to press in, the initial sting making you bite down hard onto the metal feeling a mix of pleasure and pain. You whine at the way he stretches you open, your thighs squeezing around his waist, nails digging into his shoulders.
"Shhh, that's it love, doin' so good for me so good for your Sergeant, look how you're takin' all of me baby" He looks down to where you're both connected as he continues to slowly push himself in till hes fully sheathed inside you. He gives you time to adjust, slipping his tags out of your lips and letting his tongue lace with yours instead, his balls already throbbing with how tightly you were squeezing his cock.
"Please-Sergeant" your heels press into his ass desperate for him to move, gasping when he starts to slowly roll his hips, barely pulling out.
"I got you love-don't worry" Bucky moves as slowly as he could not wanting to hurt you, taking just as much care of you as you had with him countless of times.
But he can only keep up at that pace for so long. Your muffled whines and moans don't help the way his mind is already spiraling. His pretty little nurse all spread out just for him, taking his raw, bare cock in her soaking pussy, squeezing him so tight, he was only a few strokes from cumming.
If it were up to him he would've proposed on the spot, thinking about making love to you on your wedding night, seeing you all shy and sweet wrapped up in soft white lace. If you were his wife, he'd take you apart every which way, not giving a fuck about traditions, taking you right on the dining room table.
You'd be the prettiest little thing for him to come home to, such a good wife all dirty just for her husband. Only he'd know the way your mouth would slobber all over his cock like your life depended on it. The way you'd moan at the taste of his cum. Bucky's eyes rolled back at the thought of you with nothing but some heels and a string of pearls he'd put around your neck while he stuffed you with cum and emptied his balls in you.
"S-Sergeant-I-oh god" You whimpered feeling his cock grow harder, your pussy pulling him right back in, feeling the coil low in your belly pull tighter and tighter as he hit that spot.
Meanwhile Bucky's jaw clenched as he felt his balls pull tight to his body, the tip leaking steadily in your pussy. His mind spiraled into places he didn't think would exist before he met you, rogue thoughts he only entertained when he had his dick in his hand. The harder he fucked you the more he thought about how gorgeous you'd look with a swollen belly.
Fuck, imagine if he got you pregnant right then and there. That nurses uniform would no longer fit you. Everyone would know he knocked you up, your perfectly round tummy carrying Sergeant James Barnes' baby, breasts heavy with milk, God, he wasn't going to last-
“Gonna let your Sergeant pump you full of cum?” He pants, letting his hands grip onto your hips like his life depends on it, the wiry hair at the base of his cock rubbing against your clit.
“Yes!!” You sob, biting down onto his shoulder to keep your cries down while he continues to fuck you into oblivion. You don't understand how such filth can spew from that pink, pouty little mouth of his. "Please-please-need-youI-I'm gonna-"
"M'yours sweet girl, m'all yours, go on, cum for me love, cum on my cock, it's all yours" He gazed into your eyes, cooing at your parted lips and sweat slicked skin. It didn't take long for you to shatter around him his lips smashing against yours to swallow your moans.
"Want your cum Sergeant" You beg , desperate to have him claim you from the inside.
"Oh fuck baby, y-you can't say that, m-gonna, oh fuckkk" Your words throw Bucky right off the edge as he lets out a deep groan stilling his hips and shooting endless ropes of his spend into you. You both lay in comfortable silence, your fingers playing with his hair; his usual kempt brown locks now disheveled .
“Y’know m’gonna marry you” his scruffy cheek nuzzles into your neck as he continues to stay deep inside you as his cock softens, “after all this is over. Gonna put a ring on that finger”
His words send a different wave of emotions over you, feeling more safe than ever, clinging onto him as tightly as possible. You let a whimper slip out and he pulls away from your neck with an expression of concern.
“What is it love” Bucky coos, wiping away the tears that slip you, stroking your cheek while you bite back a sniffle.
“Do you mean it? After this is all over?” You weren't sure what Bucky would want-there was still a war going on. Anything could happen. Perhaps this was just to keep his bed warm. Something to keep him calm, you were just someone to-
"Of course sugar" Bucky presses a firm kiss to your forehead, silencing the thoughts that tried to run wild. "You're mine"
-
And of course he gets his happy ending. Because when it's all over, he gets the ring for the girl he loves. He's on one knee, proposing to you with the sweetest words. He treats you like a princess on your wedding night, making love all night long until the sun is up.
There isn't a surface in the house he's left untouched. Nothing makes him more feral than moaning for his pretty wife, constantly taking her hand and wrapping it around his cock, watching that diamond glint with each stroke.
It doesn't take long for you to feel a little squeamish, knowing all the tell tale signs.
The day you tell him he's going to be a dad is one of the happiest days of his life. There isn't a single night that goes by where he isn't nuzzling his face into your tummy, talking to your little one.
Everything was perfecttt.
12K notes · View notes
gutsby · 9 months
Text
Wedded Bliss
Tumblr media
Pairing: Mob!Bucky x Reader
Summary: The marriage was arranged, and the sex is deranged. Bucky is so obsessed with your pussy that he almost forgets he’s meant to be faking this whole thing—and hating it, like sworn enemies are supposed to do.
Warnings: 18+. Dubcon. Corruption kink. Virginity loss. Arranged marriage between enemies. Brat taming. Breeding kink. Beefy, mob boss Bucky devolving into a fall-to-his-knees-just-to-fuck-you kind of horny mess.
Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
Tumblr media
You kissed him and wished him dead in the same breath. You said ‘I do’ and meant ‘I don’t,’ exchanged your vows like your own last rites, and felt him slip the ring on your finger as if he’d just tightened a noose around your neck.
You didn’t want to be a bride, and you sure as hell didn’t want to be the bride to Mr. James Buchanan Barnes.
Frankly, you were mortified.
And terrified, too, now that you knew your groom might actually kill you in the kitchen of your honeymoon suite.
“Have you lost your fucking mind?!”
“I walked down the aisle, didn’t I?”
Another plate went crashing on the wall behind your husband’s head just as he managed to duck. He side-stepped a spray of porcelain and glass and probably crushed several hundred shards beneath his polished black oxfords when he walked—stalked—over to you.
You’d just reared back to hurl a serving plate at his face when you found your speed swiftly outmatched. Bucky had your elbow gripped between his forefinger and thumb in less than a second, and, pinching the bone like he might readily break it, he said, even as always,
“Put it down.”
You did as he told you and dropped the platter to the floor with a crash.
Rather than berate you for the broken china—or the four other pieces before it—your husband only smiled.
“Are we done?”
Hell, you wanted to be. Slide over a pen and a one-way plane ticket to someplace in BFE, and you’d be signing those divorce papers in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, your dear husband was just referring to the temper tantrum.
You weren’t totally sure if you were finished on that front, so you looked him up and down and shrugged.
“Now darling—” he started.
“Don’t call me that.”
“Light of my life—”
“I’ll kill you.”
Your cool, level-headed groom took each gibe like it was his sworn duty, and only when he yanked your wrists behind your back and shoved you toward the bedroom door did you sense that he might not be too pleased with your behavior.
Your knees struck the edge of the California King at the center of the room, and before you could will yourself not to fall face-first, Bucky nudged you hard again.
Still pinning your hands behind you, he followed your collapse on the bed and leaned over your prone body.
His breaths were hot on your ear; you could tell he was smiling as he started to hike your dress up your legs.
“It’s all part of the deal, doll.”
You wriggled under his hold and tried to angle yourself better to see him, hoping he’d see your scowl.
“The deal was to get married,” you reminded him.
“Mhmm,” Bucky hummed, just then starting to trail a finger up the uncovered skin of your calf with his other hand, “And what is it that married people do?”
You kicked your foot reflexively, paused, then said,
“Fight. Constantly. Probably resent each other for the better part of two decades before we finally decide that ‘making it work’ for the kids isn’t worth it at all, and I claim half of everything you own in a bitter divorce.”
That earned a chuckle from Bucky. He kept his roaming hand brushing up the back of your thigh and squeezed the flesh just below the swell of your rear.
“Don’t worry, my lawyer drafted a pretty good prenup.”
You opened your mouth to speak, but then he was tracing the contour of your ass with his palm, and you cut yourself short. Bucky carried on, careless as ever.
“But the kids you mentioned,” he said, “How are we supposed to get those?”
You pursed your lips and tried hard not to move when his fingers drifted inward—you wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing you squirm. The bottom of your dress was bunched around your hips now, leaving you sorely exposed. Had your bridesmaids not thrust that stupid white lingerie set upon you hours before the wedding, you probably would’ve chosen something a little more modest than a thong. But here you were.
At least the sight seemed appealing to your husband, whose eyes hadn’t left you once while his hands grew even hungrier to feel your warmth.
“I’m hoping a sperm donor or one of your double-crossing mobster friends will knock me up, honestly,” you said, feigning enthusiasm at the thought.
A tart slap delivered to your ass told you that Bucky hadn’t found that funny. After, he started kneading the skin a bit harder.
“No shot,” he shook his head, suddenly gliding his fingers down closer to your core and waiting for you to say something in protest, “Only one that’s gonna be pumping this thing full of babies is me, I promise.”
It was like he wanted your retaliation, whether that be by a thinly veiled look of disgust or a reactionary jab of your own. You weren’t keen on fulfilling any wish of his, but at this point, you felt you had no other choice. When you sensed he was distracted by the newly-discovered heat between your legs and had loosened his grip on your wrists, you flipped yourself over on the bed. Shoved at his chest before he knew what to do with himself.
Of course, the push didn’t send him far, but it was enough to get his attention—and his hands off of you.
“I’m not having your babies, Barnes! I am never going to fuck you, no matter how long we stay fake married,” you spat.
At that, Bucky just raised his eyebrows and wet his lips. You were cramming your wedding dress back into place, glaring at him the whole time, and were scarcely more aware of the bright, teeming city outside the window than you were of your husband’s own growing erection.
Finally, you’d said it. His new wife wouldn’t fuck him. The sound of your resistance was almost a pleasure unto itself, and the longer you stared at Bucky with growing contempt and resolve not to do that thing, the more determined he became to make it happen.
Cat-and-mouse games had long been a staple in his life, and he was pleased to see them carry into his marriage as well. Surely if he’d triumphed in every pursuit for the last twenty years—facing the likes of some seriously execrable bandits and racketeers—he could take on a bratty woman less than half his size. You said you didn’t want his babies now, but just wait until he’d fucked you full of his cum once or twice. You’d be begging him for it in no time at all, and shortly thereafter, he’d have you barefoot and pregnant as many times as he liked. Always swollen with one of his children and whining for more.
The woman before him now had a murderous glint in her eyes, but he could fuck that away easy. In fact, he would live to do it. He traced the outline of your thigh over your dress and smiled when you tried not to recoil.
“Surely you didn’t think we’d be finger-painting and reading poetry to each other on our wedding night, hm?” he asked, almost delicately.
“Thought you might have one of your other women lined up,” you snorted. When you tried to move away, Bucky pinched your leg to make you stay. You winced.
“That’s not funny,” he said, a little more consternation in his tone. Like he actually cared whether you thought him a profligate Lothario or not, “Now that we’re married, it’s only you and me. No mistresses, nothing.”
Yeah, and he was just as likely arriving to your marital bed a blushing virgin. You rolled onto your side and pretended not to feel him tighten his grip as you did.
“Try the carnal part of our marriage yourself and I’m sure you’ll find I’m an exceptional fuck,” Bucky continued, speaking low as he stroked the chiffon of your dress.
You didn’t doubt the man was good—certainly the extent of his sexual escapades as a twenty-something seemed to demand it—but exceptional? No fucking way. You knew men like Bucky, with the world and every walking pair of tits at their fingertips, and almost all were incurably selfish. Cocky. The kind to jackhammer a woman for three consecutive minutes, roll over, and say, ‘Did you cum?’
No, there was not a snowball’s chance in hell your husband’s sexual prowess was even half as good as he claimed it was. Deciding to bite your tongue for the first time that night, though, you just stared at him blankly.
What you didn’t know was that your silence only stoked the flames of his ego, prompting him to press the matter further.
“What? You think I can’t fuck?” he said, “Any woman lucky enough to bed me has cum at least twice. Every time.”
Sure they did, Bucky, you wanted to say, but were suddenly drawn into his lap before you could speak.
“But let’s pretend I can’t,” he said, heedless of the face you made as soon as you were straddling his hips, “You wouldn’t let your husband prove himself tonight?”
“I don’t fuck strangers.”
Bucky smiled at that.
“Everyone’s a stranger until you get to blow them, honey,” he teased, squeezing your hips when you didn’t seem amused at all. Then you let out a cry, feeling yourself thrown back on the mattress like a rag doll while Bucky moved off.
Before you knew it, he was tugging your ankles down the length of the bed and widening his stance just a bit. He stopped pulling once your knees were grazing his black dress pants and your feet were dangling off of the bed.
“You like skylines?” he asked.
You frowned and raised a brow that he was quick to interpret as a ‘yes.’ He hauled you onto your feet.
“‘Course you do. All pretty girls like pretty skies,” he rattled on, strolling with you step-by-step to the set of French doors at the end of the room.
Bucky led you out to the balcony. The air was warm as it ever was, dull gusts of the evening wind curling up from the coastline below. Just as your husband had promised, the skyline of Santorini greeted you on either side, and you had to admit, it was more than just pretty. The views from your villa were absolutely breathtaking.
You stood with your back to Bucky, hands resting on the marble balustrade, and you felt him there, behind you. You didn’t bother to tilt your head when he drew even closer.
“What do you like most about it?” The question was simple enough, punctuated with a kiss on your shoulder. Your eyes scanned the horizon, the sea, even the quiet little streets down beneath, and you racked your brain trying to think of an answer that might satisfy him.
Before you could, though, you sucked in a breath when you felt your dress start to come undone at your back.
Bucky was unzipping your gown, gentle as ever, and probably grinning from ear to ear as he watched you shift uncomfortably in place and try to hold the material above your breasts where it had been fastened all day. Presently, you kicked your heel backward and hoped it would land somewhere near his balls. You missed.
“James,” you hissed.
Bucky groaned at the sheer intonation of his name on your lips.
“Yes, dear?”
“Why are you undressing me?”
Bucky had successfully dragged the zipper all the way down to your ass, and it seemed he was trying to shimmy the dress off your frame. You held on tight.
“I’d like to fuck my bride over the balcony railing, if that’s alright with you,” he answered truthfully.
The man was nothing if not blunt and crass. You turned around to give him a look, yanking your gown even closer to your chest.
“I’ll— I’ll tell my mother, Barnes.”
You felt stupid as soon as you’d said it—using your go-to threat whenever you were in distress. What were you, eleven?
“Your mother?” Bucky repeated, words steeped in derision, “Last I recall, mommy dearest was practically begging me to get you pregnant at the reception.”
Your jaw clenched, and you internally cursed your whole family. Your parents were supposed to be on your side throughout all of this—it was bad enough they’d pawned you off to a mob boss of unrivaled infamy all to settle a debt, but this? Your mother had assured you just the day before that Mr. Barnes was bound to tire of you within the year. No mention of sex or babies whatsoever.
The same mother who had beat you over the head with the notion of your own virginity since you were old enough to read, the one who had underscored just how important it was to wait for the right man to give yourself body, mind, and soul to, turning around and telling this filthy criminal to have you any way he liked. And knock you up? The fucking nerve of that woman.
You were so preoccupied with thoughts of your own backstabbing family that you hardly felt Bucky drag your dress the rest of the way down your body. It was only when you were completely bare before him, and your husband had just started to skim his lips over your tummy that you tensed with surprise.
“I don’t have to fuck you just yet, doll,” he murmured, having sunk to his knees and only moving lower. Then the corners of his lips twitched, “Least not with my dick.”
You tried to pry his head from between your legs before he could stretch his tongue so much as an inch.
“James!”
Again with that name.
“You know, I love when you call me that, Mrs. Barnes.”
Bucky was peering up at you now, soaking in the sight of your body in a white lace bra, panties, and stockings.
“Is my bride feeling shy?” he teased, gently nipping at your inner thighs.
You weren’t sure what you were feeling in that moment, to be honest. Revulsion, betrayal, arousal, you name it—each crowned with an all-encompassing hatred for the man currently occupying the space between your legs—while a still stronger desire almost hoped he would stay.
“You can hate your husband all you want and still let him tonguefuck you,” Bucky growled against your skin.
Like he’d read your mind.
In reality, your husband hardly needed the powers of telepathy to tell him just how turned on you were; the sopping wet spot in your panties said as much. From his vantage point, Bucky saw the disgust in your eyes slowly eclipsed by lust, and with a single flick of his tongue, he knew he would have you exactly where he wanted you.
“Just let it happen, honey.”
He felt your fingers thread tight through his hair and the first stir of your hips in tandem. One small, delectable whimper crossed your lips, and it took everything in Bucky not to tear your panties straight off with his teeth.
Instead, the man opted for a soft, gentle lick over your clothed slit. Testing the waters.
Your whimper was quick to meld to a moan, and then, just as fast:
“N-no, Bucky.”
To your dismay, his tongue didn’t retreat, only making firmer laps against your centre while his lips grazed the lace. He gripped your thighs and wedged himself deeper, and again, you cursed the paper thin fabric of your panties for letting you feel everything his mouth was doing. He hadn’t even made proper contact with your cunt, and your knees were already starting to shake.
He pressed a kiss above your clit through the flimsy material, and you almost tore a clump of hair from his head.
“No. Please.” You hardly made sense to yourself; it was clear you wanted his touch, but something inside you wasn’t quite ready to submit to the idea that this was all okay. That your husband’s tongue and lips might be meant for something like this, and you didn’t have to feel so guilty for wanting it either. Fucking purity culture.
“My pretty girl,” Bucky presently murmured above the fabric, words sending a dozen little shockwaves in their wake, “My beautiful fucking wife.”
The man inhaled your scent and could’ve sworn he was in ecstasy. Blinded by desire as he was, he really wasn’t bullshitting in the slightest when he gathered you to him and said you were the best; he’d genuinely grown transfixed by the feel of you, in spite of every fibre of his being telling him not to. The marriage was arranged, fake, and fueled by hatred—and somehow, Bucky couldn’t get enough.
Nor could he wait any longer. One light swipe of his finger tugged your panties aside, and then he was latching on, no cover this time, to take your clit between his lips. Sucking hard, going fast, needing it bad.
A moan rang loud in his ears, and your hand on his head was instantly joined by the other. You yanked his hair like you never had before, pulling so tight at the roots as though your pleasure depended on it. Bucky smiled around the soft pearl in his mouth and flicked it gently with the tip of his tongue.
“Feel good, baby?” he breathed.
His head tilted up to you, and he could see you were struggling just to breathe, face painted with a medley of emotions.
You didn’t know if you could, or should, be feeling this good from a man so evil. Bucky flattened his tongue and licked a long stripe up your pussy to ensure that you would. Then he posed the question again, smirking.
“You like my tongue on this wet, needy cunt?”
His words were so damn obscene, but you nodded anyway. Feeling small and powerless beneath those big, broad hands as they pinned you back on the marble and spread you even wider for the taking.
He loved how innocent and lewd you looked at once, wincing with pleasure and still trying to keep your composure like you thought a good girl should.
Bucky wanted to break that resolve. He brought one hand closer to your entrance.
And, just as your breaths were starting to hitch and grow more ragged in your chest, he pushed two fingers inside. The act surprised your husband almost as much as it did you—not quite, but almost—upon feeling how tight you were, how resistant to even two digits you seemed to be. He hardly knew whether to shove them deeper or pull them out, so fast did your muscles contract around him.
When you whined a loud, protracted, ‘FUCK!’ he figured he would stick with the former. He grinned, having never heard you speak, much less swear, out of pleasure like this.
Your head lolled back and your body made an arch when his fingers curled inside you. You were panting, moaning, coating his hand with your juices, and Bucky knew you were close.
He started pumping his fingers in and out while his tongue worked your clit, chin practically doused in your arousal by now. A swell of pride rose within him: he could finally bring you home to that sweet release, have you a shaking, soaking mess above his face like you were wholly his and no one else’s. He moved his tongue even faster and sank his fingers straight down to the knuckle.
Then, unexpectedly, both were robbed of your touch.
Seized with fear, you shoved Bucky off and stumbled away from his glistening face. You took off toward the doors and fled the balcony before you could think.
“What the f— honey? Honey?!” Bucky sputtered. He bounded after you.
You’d thrown yourself in the master bathroom and locked the door behind you in the blink of an eye. Outside, your husband had only to stare in pure bewilderment and awe, mind reeling at what had just happened.
Fucking hell, he knows. He knows! You collapsed against the door and slid down a couple inches. Your hand reflexively flew to your mouth to stifle the sounds when Bucky began pounding the wood behind you.
“Baby, what’s wrong? What’s—what’s goin’ on?”
In truth, you’d rather chug bleach than divulge the thought that had just scared the everliving fuck out of you back there. It was stupid and senseless and should’ve been frightening you for weeks before it ever came to this, but here you were, panicked in the bathroom of your honeymoon suite because you’d never done this before—and you’d never reached climax in your life without bursting into tears.
Fuck, you felt stupid. How could you think this would be any different—or that Bucky’s tongue wouldn’t eventually attempt to wrest an orgasm out of you?
It’d just felt so good, you thought maybe a new climax brought by someone else’s fingers might free you from the same unsavory demise you’d met a hundred times before, but then it hit you, shortly after Bucky had plunged his fingers inside, you were going to cry.
You winced when Bucky’s knocks grew louder, his voice gaining more ire by the second, it seemed.
“Open the fucking door!”
He’d rake you over the coals for this. Getting so close to what he wanted, only to have his silly little bride snatch it all away and run hiding in the en-suite bathroom? Your stomach turned at the thought of what men in the mob were liable to do with women like you—what Bucky might conceivably do now that you’d sparked his rage.
Your eyes darted to the window just as his fist shook the doorframe behind you. You ran over to the tub, tucked squarely beneath the windowsill, and climbed onto it just to get a hold of the fastenings around the glass.
One click synchronized with the furious cadence being hammered on the door, and just as you started to slide the pane up the way, a heavy thud sounded outside. The weight of your husband’s body being thrust against the door, most likely.
You bit your lip and lifted one leg over the windowsill, shuffling your body even closer to the outside world.
Three floors up! Have you lost your mind? You could hear your father’s words ringing in your skull already. There was a ledge, you reasoned, no more than ten feet below, if you could just grab hold of the frame right there and slide down the cool stone you might—
“Fuck,” Bucky groaned.
You watched your husband heave through the busted door of the bathroom, wide eyes and a ‘Here’s Johnny’ flourish raging hot on his face. Your heart leapt to your throat, and you started to lower yourself out of the window, hoping desperately for that ledge below to be sturdy. But before you could make it even half of the way there, strong arms were circling your frame and yanking you back inside, hurtling straight into the bathtub with Bucky tumbling over you.
“What are you doing?!” he roared.
You wriggled under his weight, petrified of the fiery look in his eyes as he lurched over your frame.
He straightened up just enough to shake you by the shoulders—like a parent reprimanding a child.
“What the fuck was that?! Huh? You think that’s fucking funny, jumping out windows?”
No, no, not funny, you wanted to bite back, but found your mouth dry and unable to speak. When Bucky shook you again, you had only to whimper a pathetic sound.
The man was enraged. Stubble still damp with your juices and looking undeniably frazzled and spent, he drew closer to your face and demanded you look at him. When he took hold of your cheeks in both hands, the command couldn’t have reached you any more clearly.
“What— what was that for?” his voice lowered as he tried to catch his breath. You still couldn’t move.
“I-I don’t—” you stopped and hardly knew how to say it:
Sorry to cut our tonguefucking session short, I was just afraid I might burst into a fit of uncontrollable tears while you licked and sucked me through the best orgasm of my life. I’d rather jump off, or out of, a building than tell my mob boss husband that I can’t cum without crying. By the way, I’m a virgin!
Instead, you just blinked and stared back at him.
“Can’t…do it,” you murmured.
Bucky’s expression only grew more puzzled by the words out of your mouth. He squeezed your face tighter and leaned in even closer.
“Do what? Sex? Fuck, I— I didn’t mean to be that aggressive, hell, I’m sorry.” He stopped to run a hand through his hair, and for the first time, you could’ve sworn you saw the first glint of compunction in his eyes.
He looked away a few seconds, as if collecting what fragmented thoughts he could, then brought his head back down to your level and took your hands in his.
“Honey?” he tried getting your attention, just barely above a whisper now, “I know the whole thing’s fucked, I know.”
That was the understatement of the century. To your surprise, Bucky’s gaze softened when he saw a scowl cross your face.
“We don’t…have to do anything. I was just pushing your buttons earlier. Being a dick.”
His tongue moved to wet his lips once more, this time without the seductive, smug demeanor he usually wore and simply exhibiting discomfort. He swallowed. The bow tie around his neck appeared to him to be fastened far too tight all of a sudden, and then, haphazardly, he started clawing at the garment to get it off.
You didn’t know why you felt compelled to help. It was like all ten fingers just lifted of their own accord to join Bucky’s hands in trying to undo his tie.
The silk fabric wasn’t tied, but knotted, crudely and inflexibly, beneath the little black bow. You frowned. Still unable to meet his gaze as you worked your fingers under the tangled material and tried to pretend like the two of you weren’t still sweating profusely from the events that had just transpired—both the tonguefucking and the window-jumping.
“Who tied this, a five-year-old?” you muttered.
“I’m thirty-eight, thanks,” Bucky returned just as quietly.
Both of you indulged in a smile that lasted no longer than a second, but you felt the tension ease a little.
This was not where you thought your dreaded wedding night was headed before. Curled up in a bathtub with your hands around your husband’s neck—and not actually trying to kill him—while Bucky blinked almost nervously the longer your hands lingered on his collar. It seemed he’d found something especially tantalizing on the wall behind your head, because his stare remained fixed on that spot the whole time you fiddled with his tie.
Maybe that, along with the last ebb of alcoholic influence from the reception still coursing through your veins, had emboldened you to come right out and say it while Bucky was looking away. You couldn’t be sure.
“I’ve never had sex before.”
At last, the tie loosened a little.
Bucky flicked his gaze back to yours in a second.
“What?”
You lifted a brow, wondering if he really needed an explanation as to what it meant to have never gotten laid before, but you decided against indulging him any further. Bucky seemed keen on doing that all by himself.
“You’re a virgin?”
You nodded.
“Didn’t my overbearing mother make sure you knew?”
“Yeah, I thought she was full of shit,” Bucky answered bluntly. Then, catching sight of the semi-offended look in your eye, mixed with a tad more amusement than indignation, he added, “I mean— I didn’t think you’d, uh, wanna wait…twenty-five years for some action.”
He winced when he realized that sounded just as bad. His throat cleared shortly to make way for a new attempt at comity, but you cut him off, shaking your head as you finally got the knot to untangle.
“No, I get it. I don’t know why I waited this long either,” you shrugged.
As soon as you’d freed him from his bow tie, you started to stand from the bath tub. Bucky, too, straightened to his full height and started to close the window while you walked back to the bedroom.
You eyed the rose petals strewn across the duvet and felt a little more relaxed this time around. The weight of the V-word had been lifted from your shoulders, and now you had only to share the crying-while-cumming stuff to Bucky later on. Much later on, you hoped.
You crawled onto the bed and stretched out on your belly, playing with the soft red petals and wondering if room service was still offered at this hour.
Bucky had just stepped out of the bathroom when he halted at the threshold. Saw your body sprawled out on the bed, back arched and ass pointed in the air as you reached over for the phone on the nightstand. He stared for a second too long and felt a familiar stir in his pants.
Sonovabitch, he started to think, before chiding himself silently, Shut up, man, she’s a virgin. Be cool. Be cool—don’t make her jump out a window again.
He ducked back in the bathroom and eased the door to just a crack while you discovered a voice on the line:
“Hi! Hey, I’d like to order room service to, uh…” your voice trailed off. Then, covering the mouthpiece, “James, what’s our room number?”
Inside the bathroom, Bucky squeezed his eyes shut at the sound of his name. Already palming his erection through his dress pants as he leaned against the wall.
“We rented the whole building, dear,” he called back.
“Oh.” He could just imagine the slight pout on your lips as you spoke. Then you asked if he wanted anything to eat, Bucky thought only of the sweet nectar between your legs, and he answered aloud, no, he was fine, really.
For the first time in his life, the man felt positively ashamed he was about to rub one out in a bathroom, alone. It wasn’t like this was the first it had ever been done, but now there was you, innocent and oblivious in the next room over, while Bucky undid his belt and quietly freed his cock from his dress pants. It felt kind of perverted, in a way, but he knew he needed this release to put his mind at ease and not feel so affected by you.
While you scanned your phone for a menu and chatted with the concierge downstairs about various food items, Bucky was spitting in his hand and fumbling for his shaft. You talked American Wagyu sirloin, lobster thermidor, and seared Faroe Island salmon while he thought achingly about the way your cunt had tasted and how badly he wanted to try it again.
How did he feel about an artisan cheese platter? Bucky hardly had the wits about himself to answer beyond a strangled, ‘Whatever you want, honey’ and a tightened fist around his cock, stroking hard to get the filthy thoughts out of his head before the food arrived.
Ever sweet, soft, supple, and savory—his mind reeled with fresh memories of that place between your thighs, and he almost lurched forward in pleasure.
Your brute of a mob boss husband was irreparably pussy-whipped and hadn’t even fucked you yet. He gripped the bathroom sink beside him and sincerely wished it wasn’t his hand doing the work right now. But of course, he had to be patient, had to be kind—couldn’t force himself on a woman who clearly wasn’t ready.
Again, he spit in his palm and jerked himself fast.
Any minute now, he thought with some relief.
Your feet padded softly into the living room as the pleasure inside him was starting to crest. Still pining for your warmth and the way your legs trembled around his head, Bucky was all but fucking his hand at this point. He’d snagged his bottom lip between his teeth in a lopsided smile and groaned, too low to be heard, and pumped himself even faster for his impending orgasm.
A thought crossed your mind as you stopped ahead of the sofa. You pivoted.
Suddenly, you were skipping back to the bathroom, wanting to know Bucky’s wine preferences before you placed another order.
You barged in and froze.
“Sorry!” you squeaked, darting out just as fast.
Five seconds slower and you probably would’ve seen Bucky blow his load all over the sink. As it was, the man was left sorely at a loss for any form of release and heaving fast, ragged breaths from the colossal scare you’d just given him.
Good fucking going, Buck—your wife wants to cuddle and eat cheese and you’re out here beating your meat.
Bucky shoved himself back in his pants and waited an excruciating minute for the sound of your second window exit of the night. A slammed door, a frantic phone call, a few sobs into your pillow as you realized how dirty and depraved your husband was, anything.
He was only met with silence.
Taking one more shaky breath, Bucky reached for the doorknob and started back out. Cautiously.
The man took his slow, silent leave of the bathroom with his gaze trained toward the doors—half-expecting to see his bride rappelling from the balcony—but then quickly shifted to the bed. Finding you kneeling at the edge.
“James?”
Your voice almost pained.
A word was all it took. Bucky was back on his knees.
“I’m sorry. I just wanted it to go away, honey. I’m sorry.”
Go away? You quirked a brow and couldn’t hold his gaze much longer; just trailed your vision down his torso to his pants, then his erection, still standing prominent as ever.
Bucky struggled to decide whether you were ticked off or intrigued, seeing your eyes make their painful appraisal of his length beneath his pants. Your brow was pinched, but your head was cocked. Almost curious.
“Are you mad at me?” you asked, gaze fixed on the spot.
Immediately, Bucky rose to his feet and crawled back on the bed, seizing your body with both of his hands.
“No! No, not mad at all,” he mumbled as he sidled up beside you. Pleased to see you hadn’t recoiled, “I was just, uh…missing you, ‘s’all.”
If his men could see him now, Bucky was sure he’d be the laughing stock of all the town. Doting and kind, eyes softened beyond recognition, he just watched you and wanted nothing more than to repair the smile that had ebbed from your face. Come ridicule, hell, or high water, the man was infatuated with his bride—all broken plates and attempted window escapes be damned.
Presently, you brought your hand down to his bulge.
Bucky stiffened but didn’t speak. He wanted you to do this on your own, of your own volition.
“You seem kinda mad to me.” You hardly knew what you were doing. Just rubbing his length and hoping it was something he’d like.
Where Bucky had wanted to see you smile, you just wanted to hear him grunt and whine—maybe grab your hips and beg you to do something, please. You’d never felt any such degree of control, and you suspected Bucky had never not felt it himself. You wanted him desperate.
You were playing a dangerous game, you knew it, but something inside those baby blues said he wanted to do it, too. Do anything for you, quite frankly.
You watched the rise and fall of Bucky’s broad chest and stroked his length even softer.
“James.”
“Uh-huh?” His mouth hung open with a gentle grunt, fighting every instinct to buck into your touch.
At last, you squeezed his shaft and prodded him on. Let your head drift closer to his so his lips would graze the apple of your cheek, and just when you sensed he wanted a taste, you tilted your face toward his own,
“We haven’t even kissed since the ceremony.”
Bucky stared blankly at you, enrapt with the pulse of your fingers. You could tell he was aching to move.
“Oh yeah?” he murmured.
You nodded a wordless affirmation and slid sharply back in bed as Bucky lunged after you. Your hands flew from his pants to the plush mattress behind you as you shifted—or, rather, scrambled—back in place and felt your husband climb over you hungrily.
“That what my wife wants?” he murmured, frame slotting tight between your legs.
You nodded again, and had only to suck in a breath before Bucky was devouring your lips. The kind of flushed, frantic, filthy kiss that would’ve doubtlessly wrought looks of horror on every face at your wedding had he grabbed you that way after the declarations of ‘I do’ had been spoken.
You loved him like this, impassioned and a bit unhinged.
His tongue worked his way past your lips and scoured every soft, fleshy inch between the insides of your cheeks before he took your face in his hands, kissing you roughly.
Something hard and throbbing nudged your sex, and suddenly you were whining in his mouth. Wrapping your legs around his waist.
“Ah, honey, don’t,” Bucky groaned, visibly straining to contain himself. When you dug your heels even deeper in his back, the groan that followed from him was hoarse and guttural.
“I thought— I…fuck,” your husband turned his head to curse as you grinded your hips up to his. You had to bite back a smile.
“I just wanna do what married people do,” you murmured coyly, pretending not to see when Bucky shot you the most red-hot, wanton look he’d imparted all evening.
“Yeah?” Like a kid in a candy shop the size of Sears.
Bucky took your face in his hands once more and made sure to scan your expression for any shred of doubt. On finding nothing there, he sat panting, half-disbelieving and half-contemplating all the wretched things he wanted to do to you. You squeezed his sides with your thighs and just hoped your husband knew what to do, because, in truth, you didn’t have the first fucking idea.
A few dry, clinical terms flashed before your mind’s eye, along with your mother’s bleak depiction of what treatment lay in store for a woman on her wedding night, and as Bucky started to work his belt and his pants off, you just hoped he wouldn’t be cruel.
He couldn’t be, right? He’d only mowed down a hundred men and dismembered dozens more, you were told, but surely a set of eyes this soft, caring, and kind couldn’t belong to a monster. You let him lift your hips and shimmy your panties, garter belt, and stockings down your legs, and when he returned, you tried your best not to betray the thoughts in your head.
Bucky hadn’t been with a virgin for as long as he could remember—maybe ever. His own ‘deflowering’ an ancient relic of his boyhood and the multitude of partners since then a mere flurry of nameless faces, he sincerely couldn’t recall a time when he’d asked, or cared, whether the woman beneath him had her cherry intact. He didn’t suppose it could be too different, as he peeled the last pieces of your lingerie set off your body and saw you seemed perfectly ready. He ran a finger between your folds and felt you shiver with what looked like excitement. Piece of cake, he thought, smiling.
No doubt he would take great joy in making you his own. His bride, his wife, an unblemished beacon of light in a life as sordid as his, looked perfect spread before him. You would adjust to his size. Bucky trailed the head of his cock up your slit and coated himself in your juices, and just when he’d bracketed his other arm around your head on the pillow, you let out a small sound.
“Are you sure it’ll fit?”
Bucky fisted his length and pressed the tip to your entrance.
“Uh…yeah. Yeah, I think so.”
He hadn’t yet met a woman who wasn’t able to fit him.
“Okay.”
Somehow, your voice sounded even smaller, head lodged between pillows and the crook of Bucky’s elbow. You felt small. Frankly, it didn’t seem like your husband was quite computing the worries that were pervading your brain, but you decided he knew best—your mother had assured you that husbands always did—and when Bucky first pressed the head of himself to the seam of your cunt, you hardly even whimpered.
You watched his brow furrow above you. He tried to go further.
Your folds were as soaked as he’d ever seen a woman’s, your hole practically pulsing with desire, and somehow, he couldn’t push in.
Bucky snagged his lip between his teeth and braced himself with the aid of the headboard, taking your hip in his other hand. A breath sounded on your lips the second he adjusted, and shortly thereafter, he felt your gaze on the same place he was watching: the spot where your bodies were trying to connect.
His features darkened at the prospect of failing, or even appearing incompetent to you in the slightest. He’d done this hundreds of times before, why wouldn’t it work?
When he felt your eyes trail back up his body and study his face—maybe wondering why her new groom hadn’t gotten around to thrusting into her yet, he thought—he felt a swell of panic and pushed.
Against his better judgment and the feel of your body, he muscled his way through and forced his cock inside. Bottoming out in a single, stabbing thrust.
You seized in pain but wanted to be a good wife for him.
Bucky, too, felt his hips stutter at the resistance your walls were giving him, but then remembered how he’d sworn to be a dutiful husband, and kept going.
Together, you stared anywhere but the other’s face and gritted your teeth for two entirely different reasons—you, in agony, and Bucky, in ecstasy, the latter hoping with everything in him that you liked this as much as him.
Bucky took a tender, if not slightly awkward, rhythm rutting against your body and stared steady at the headboard like he always did.
You were in pain and faced with nothing but his hulking chest, moving up and down, back and forth, over and over again like a goddamn seesaw from hell while it felt like your insides were presently being torn to shreds.
Who fucking enjoys this? you wanted to wail, but feigned a moan instead, raking your nails down Bucky’s back, Why isn’t he looking at me? Why isn’t he touching me?
Your walls involuntarily clenched around him, and he swallowed a moan.
Just think of baseball, beer, math, the Roman Empire, anything to keep from busting right now, Bucky told himself as he clenched his jaw and fought to maintain his pace. Your pussy just felt so. fucking. good.
Beneath him, you had tried and failed to fight back tears. The burn was just too much; the longer he thrusted, the more your walls contracted, and confusingly, stupidly, it seemed like he was using you. Your mother was right, most likely, that sex was just a means to an end for men like Bucky, and your husband didn’t care about your pleasure at all. You fought hard to keep the waterworks at bay, that one thing you hadn’t wanted Bucky to see, but eventually, the tears were flowing freely.
You stifled a sob that your husband mistook for a moan.
He fucked you even faster and felt a grin start to twitch at the corners of his lips when you made a sound that seemed consistent with pleasure.
“Feel so fucking tight,” Bucky grunted, about to lower his gaze to your face for the first time since he’d entered you, “So nice and tight and w—hey, hey, baby?”
He stilled inside as soon as he saw that you were crying. Took your face in his hands and almost couldn’t believe the sight of your tear-stained cheeks beneath him.
“What’s wrong? What happened?” he asked, scanning your face for any signs of harm.
You just shook your head and tried to brush him off.
“Keep going, I’m good.”
Bucky seemed angered at the suggestion. He brought your face closer to his and stared almost reproachfully down at you. Then he paused a beat and swiped one of your cheeks with the pad of his thumb.
“Am I hurting you?” he asked.
“N—”
“Don’t lie.”
You squirmed a bit and winced. That was answer enough for Bucky, and he slowly pulled out of you.
“Aw hell.”
The two of you glanced down to see a blooming red spot on the comforter. Bucky rubbed the blood in disbelief.
He’d gone too far. Again. Hurt something inside of you that couldn’t be fixed with a kiss. While you struggled to sit up among the pillows, Bucky was running a hand through his hair and cursing himself up and down.
“Why didn’t you say something?” he scowled.
“I didn’t wanna interrup—”
“If I’m making you bleed, you stop me, for fuck’s sake.”
“Well you seemed to be having a pretty good time!”
Bucky didn’t need to tell you in words what was painted on his face; he was pissed off and probably bound to slip off the bed any second, when your tears started welling up again. Then he eased off, remembering he was more mad at himself than anyone else, and slid closer to you. He tried pulling you into his chest, but you didn’t budge.
“C’mon,” you said, grabbing his wrist, “Let’s keep going.”
Bucky eyed you incredulously.
“Nuh-uh.”
“Uh-huh,” you insisted. He shot you a glare but didn’t protest when you guided his hand between your legs.
You were spread back open for him in no time. Still stinging like hell and ready for another go. Bucky almost couldn’t believe it.
“My headstrong wife.” He managed a smile before kissing the crown of your head, and kept right on kissing that spot no matter how far his fingers were traveling.
“You owe me two orgasms, remember, Mr. Barnes?”
It seemed Bucky’s boastful claims of late were in fact the furthest thing from his mind as he crawled back over your body. He pried your knees apart and left just enough room for his frame, taking his fingers to your folds and rubbing in light, gentle circles.
The bleeding had stopped. What little remained was long forgotten, and duly, the pain from recent memory was slowly but surely purged with every flick of his thumb. Bucky planted an arm next to your head and kept touching you there until your face relaxed completely.
When he chanced a finger inside, he was careful not to rub so much as plunge in quick, shallow motions, and at the first signs of pleasure, press light and tender kisses on your skin.
“If it hurts at all, you tell me.”
He sounded stern as he inserted another finger, but really, the man was all putty in your hands, wanting to please you and tease you in any way that he could.
When you told him faster, he sped up; you gripped his hair and said slow down, he did the same. He curled his digits in time with every whimper and moan you made and took care not to be too harsh on your sweet spot.
The only time he paused was when you looked up and asked him point-blank: could he fuck you sweet and gentle now?
Bucky paused. Swallowed.
The man would’ve screwed you six ways to Sunday if you asked him; that wasn’t the problem. The only traces of hesitation remained where your eyes said something different. Even as he shuffled between your legs at your behest, aligned his cock with your entrance, and felt a wave of desire wash over him, he pressed his forehead to yours and searched your glossy gaze once more.
“You sure about this, bunny?” he murmured.
Your heart melted at the name. You couldn’t deny you were frightened, and perhaps a bit worse for the wear after your last attempt, but his words were a comfort, his hand on your cheek a welcome gesture. When his thumb grazed your lips, you kissed it and nodded.
“Alright sweet girl,” Bucky said, tone laced with affection.
This time, before pressing the head of himself inside, Bucky caught your lips and kissed you softly. Rubbed himself up and down your slit—paying extra attention to your clit—and coated himself completely before trying to penetrate you again.
Your cheeks flushed, and you kissed him harder.
“P-please, Bucky, fuck me,” you murmured against his mouth, eliciting a small grunt from him.
“Yeah? You want your husband’s cock inside you, doll?” He kept the pretense of teasing, but really, he was just trying to make sure you wanted this as badly as he did. By the blissed out look on your face and the soft, ceaseless squelching noises produced by your arousal, he got the message pretty quickly.
He breached your folds with just the tip at first. You both felt your muscles contract. Instead of blindly pushing ahead like he had before, Bucky trained his gaze on your face and watched for any signs of discomfort.
“Everything okay, bunny?” he hummed as he brushed a few strands of hair from your face.
You were half in awe of how attentive he was, and doubly impressed by the stretch that followed—like a pinch, but nothing like the pain you’d felt before. You peered up at your husband and squeezed his shoulders.
“It— it doesn’t hurt this time,” you said, breathless.
Bucky could’ve caved at the sweet, innocent expression alone—like you were pleasantly surprised this hadn’t caused excruciating pain—and his lips moved down to pepper your cheeks with kisses again.
“Doll, I’m so sorry.”
The sounds and sighs of your pleasure beneath him, along with the words telling him it was okay, really, he hadn’t meant to do it, all made him feel even guiltier for having hurt you in the first place. It took him some time assailing your face with tiny, apologetic kisses before he even thought to feed you another inch.
When he finally plunged himself deeper, it wasn’t without your express permission; even then, Bucky feared he might split you in two.
The whole time he eased himself inside, he was moving his gaze between your face and the place between your two bodies—watching you open for him and take him inch by inch. He rubbed his thumb over your clit when you whimpered.
“Doing so good for me.”
“Stretching so nice for this cock.”
“My beautiful, beautiful wife.”
Every syllable of his praises flooded your head like honey. Feeling him stretch you out, fill you up, and rock you softly with his first shallow thrusts, all while talking you through it, had your mind ablaze and near-euphoric.
Pleasure practically searing your veins, you didn’t even hear yourself, or really mean to say it, as soon as you did.
“This doesn’t feel dirty at all.”
An epiphany to you and a puzzle to Bucky.
“What’s’at, honey?” He was still rutting his hips and slowly picking up speed. Your husband groaned when you clenched around him and pulled him even deeper—before you realized what you’d said.
Your cheeks flushed.
“I— I was always told sex made you dirty. This feels—” you stopped to swallow a moan when Bucky grazed a particularly sensitive spot inside you, “pretty nice.”
‘Pretty nice.’ Your husband couldn’t help the smile twitching at the corners of his lips as he leaned down to kiss you. He wrapped his big, muscly arms around you and pulled you closer to his chest.
“Makes you dirty?” Bucky said, disbelief evident in his tone before his smile broke into a grin, “Baby, you’re the cleanest, sweetest thing I’ve ever seen.”
He didn’t let you endeavor to protest, just buried his face in your neck and pressed teasing kisses all over the skin while he continued to pump in and out of you. He knew to keep hitting that spot, too.
You were drowning in whimpers and kisses when Bucky brought his lips to your ear.
“Doesn’t make you dirty at all,” he assured you, “Just makes you my wife.”
You clawed Bucky’s back when he sped up a little, and you felt the pleasure soar to even greater heights when he propped your legs above his shoulders—a brand new angle for him to bend you like a pretzel and fuck you good.
“You take this cock too nice to be dirty,” he gritted his teeth and continued to soothe you just how he knew you liked it, “Such a good little wife, sucking up every inch of me like you were made for it.”
Your lips parted in a soft ‘o,’ feeling him plunge the depths of your cunt like he never had before. Bucky slipped his thumb in your mouth while he held your face.
“That what you are, bunny? A good girl?”
You nodded your head and sucked his thumb, feeling yourself fucked dumb as you did. Bucky loved that blissed out look in your eyes.
“Good girl for daddy?” he cooed.
Your ankles trembled around his neck as soon as he said it. You nodded again, yes, you were, and felt a light coil start to form in your lower stomach as Bucky kept pounding you and pushing his thumb between your lips.
Then, with a pop, he plucked the digit from your mouth and brought it down to your clit. He started soft at first, but before long he was rubbing vicious circles on that little bundle of nerves, watching you come undone before his eyes and clench around him even tighter.
“B-Bucky,” you whined, fisting the sheets underneath you both as you squirmed.
“Mhmm?” Your husband pretended to be oblivious.
“I w— I’m gonna—” The words could scarcely leave your lips without finding themselves punctured with a whimper as soon as they were spoken. Bucky thrusted harder.
“Gonna what? Cum for daddy?” he grinned, “Make a mess all over this cock?”
Your moans of pleasure more than sufficed for an answer. You nodded and winced, felt your whole lower half seize with a warm and heady feeling, and before you knew it, Bucky’s thrusts were sending you spiraling over the edge, with a wave of bliss following shortly behind. Sounds of skin slapping skin hardly faltered, and Bucky kept rubbing and fucking you all throughout the waves of your high.
Tears sprung to your eyes, and you didn’t care. Your mind was alight with more bright, fervid feelings than you could count or comprehend, and your body washed over with pleasure.
You clung to Bucky and felt him keep fucking you, even as you shrieked against his skin.
“One more for me, honey.”
You didn’t think that was possible. You had just spilled all over him, squeezing his cock like a vice and screaming his name, and now he wanted it all over again? So soon?
Your fingernails sunk into his arms as he continued to rut into you, and you started to shake your head.
“C-Can’t Bucky, I can’t, I can’t,” you sobbed, tears still streaming down your cheeks.
“Sure you can.”
Your husband had his mouth at your ear again, panting as the pace of his thrusts grew faster. He tilted his body slightly forward so your legs were pushed even higher above you—damn near grazing either side of your head—and pounded you relentlessly.
His voice seemed so calm and assured as he spoke,
“Cum for daddy. Show me just how fucking good this cock makes you feel and cum again for me.”
With a command like that, how could you refuse?
You came a second time, hands seizing Bucky's forearms, and screams tearing through your chest as you rode your high impaled on his cock over and over again. The sights and sounds and repeated, pulsing spasms of your pussy on his shaft sent Bucky chasing his release not long after, and you felt a warmth spread inside you.
Your eyes were filled to the brim with tears, your cheeks practically drenched already. As you came down from your high, you started to blink.
But just as you lifted a hand to sop up the moisture, Bucky was leaning over you and into you with the brightest smile. Then he was kissing each wet, salty stain like it was the most natural thing in the world, sponging soft and gentle touches all over the spots your tears had overflown.
It seemed every nerve ending in your lower half was on the fritz, your body little more than mush underneath him, but somehow you managed to catch his mouth as he traversed the skin. You kissed him back, and Bucky drew you closer.
The two of you separated for a second, Bucky’s cock still resting comfortably inside you and his broad frame engulfing you in bed. He paused a beat. Seemed to consider something in his mind before speaking aloud.
“Honey,” he started, unsure of how he wanted to say this.
You peered up at him, curious. His seed had filled every contour and crevice of your aching walls and was just then starting to dribble out of you. Bucky seemed unfazed. He cupped both hands around your face.
“I love you.”
You blinked. No fucking way you were hearing those words.
“What?” You felt too awestruck to say anything else.
“I love you,” Bucky repeated. A smile was starting to tug at his lips, his thumb tracing your cheek while you stared at him in disbelief.
You would’ve liked to speak.
Would’ve loved to say those three little words right back.
In fact, you had just opened your mouth to tell him that, when a sound at the foot of the bed startled you both.
The warm glow of moonlight pouring in from the window panes was your only means to see it. But sight wasn’t worth much at all when a man appeared and pressed the barrel of a gun to Bucky’s temple, letting out a chuckle.
Another man, clad head-to-toe in polished black tactical gear approached from the far end of the room. Bucky gritted his teeth but remained motionless, hearing that man cock his firearm as well. You were surrounded on either side of the bed. Your blood ran cold.
“Sorry to interrupt the fun, Mr. Barnes,” the man on the left spoke so low and gruff he could scarcely be heard.
When Bucky started to stir, the man on the right raised his pistol as well. Curled his finger on the trigger.
“We haven’t even met your beautiful bride.” A set of cruel, glinting teeth turned in your direction. Suddenly, all eyes were trained on you—along with a third handgun, pointed at your head, as another man approached.
“Wedded bliss treating you well so far, Mrs. Barnes?”
13K notes · View notes