#val on left me on the right

[leafteas]

so so true

this is what me n @leafteas look like btw

[sailforvalinor]

Unfortunately I was tipped off as to the identity of River Song awhile back (thank you Facebook for just throwing suggested posts on my feed while I was just minding my own business, I hate you very much), and I figured that the thing she was in jail for was killing the Doctor (because why else would she be so afraid of him finding out), but nonetheless that was an enjoyable ride

[daddyjackfrost]

In The Woods ; B. Barnes

The truth is stranger than in all my dreams. Oh, the darkness got a hold on me.

Pairing: Thunderbolts!Bucky x Ex-Avengers!F!Reader 

Synopsis: He left you behind to keep you safe, but safety never stopped the heartbreak. Now, a year of grief, silence, and sleepless nights unravel the moment he shows up at your door with his new team—bruised, breathless, begging. You’re angry and he’s sorry, but the love is still there. It always has been. 

Warnings: Angst, hurt/comfort, y/n is mean & angry (for a bit), bucky is guilty, swearing, ft. thunderbolts, bleeding/injuries, sambucky break-up (mentions), yearning, not dating but a secret third thing, mentions of natasha & her death, y/n is “team sam”, mentions of tfatws (briefly), mentions of hell/religious imagery, violence/blood, SMUT, MDNI, kissing, oral (f), spit, p in v, creampie, unprotected sex (don’t), happy ending, no tb spoliers/ WC: 13.5

A/N: Bucky in Thunderbolts….mind goes brrr. Not helping the SamBucky divorce allegations but alas, anything for the story. Ignore any choppiness in the timeline or story, I wrote this with the worst migraine.

The forest was bleeding.

Not with colour—but silence. With snow falling slow and heavy, catching on branches and burning footprints as fast as they were made. The trees stood like sentinels, black-limed and reaching. Nothing but white, wood, and blood. 

Bucky’s breath came ragged through the hush, fogging the air. His gloved hands were soaked red. Yelena was slung between him and Walker, unconscious but breathing, the warmth of her body slowly seeping through his coat. 

They weren’t going to make it. 

He should have known. He should have been prepared for it, but he hadn’t been. 

“Bob,” Bucky called, voice tight, hoarse. “Stay close.” 

Bob—still limping, still glassy-eyed from the explosion—nodded and trudged forward, boots crunching through the snow. He wasn’t built for this. Not yet. Not like this. Val had shoved him onto the field too soon, too eager. 

Bucky had tried arguing, tried telling her that he was still fragile—a liability—but she hadn’t listened. And Bucky didn’t need more on his plate, but he’d take care of him. Or, at least, he’d try. 

Ava phased in and out ahead, scanning, ghostlike. When she disappeared for a moment too long, Bucky felt the silence of the clearing, tenfold. She was trying to stay ahead of whatever might still be behind them. 

But, Bucky could feel it. He could taste it. 

They were done. Just miles of snow and trees and nowhere to go. 

Yelena was bleeding out and Walker wasn’t any better, wobbling on his legs as he tried to stand up straight. They wouldn’t last long out here, certainly not while dragging each other. 

“Shit,” he muttered, stopping long enough to fumble with the tablet in his pouch. His hands shook—exhaustion, adrenaline, guilt—never ending guilt, swimming in his veins. He tapped into the satellite overlay, breathing hard, as their current location pinged into view. 

Grid 48-F. 

The North woods. Nothing but a snow storm. Cold, empty—remote. No outposts for miles. 

These weren’t woods happy campers visited. Untouched land, ridged and slanted, surrounded them. A perfect place for illegal activity but not so perfect to do the right thing. 

But—there—just there—barely on the edge of the map. 

A single black dot, beeping in and out existence, almost as if a trick of the light, like it wasn’t meant to be found.

His chest caved in around it. 

The coordinates suddenly looked familiar, as did the landscape. He narrowed his eyes, held the tablet up, heart slowing down. 

He knew these coordinates. 

Bucky stared at it for a long, frozen second. 

A place he hadn’t let himself think about in almost a year. 

A place filled with half-buried memories—laughter over old vinyl records, the sound of boots on the porch, a sweet voice telling him to sit as he was cleaned up. Steam curling from a mug handed to him without a word. 

Nights too quiet and long to pretend the tension wasn’t there. That the affection, curling around the wood and into the floorboards, wasn’t there. That the flicker of love, of want, wasn’t soaking into his skin.

Your eyes, warmer than firelight, watching him with a softness he’d never be able to find anywhere else. 

He hadn’t been able to go back. 

Not after deciding to leave you. Not after ignoring your calls when you got back from your mission. Not after telling himself it was for your safety—for your distance, from him and the darkness and chaos that seemed to follow him. 

He’d convinced himself that cutting the cord meant saving you. 

But now? 

Now the cord was pulling him back, wrapped around his neck and tugged, and he couldn’t rip it off even if he tried. 

“Bucky?” Bob’s voice small, nervous. He glanced at Bucky before focusing ahead, cold and wet. 

Bucky looked up, snapped out of it. “We’re not going to the evac point,” he said, voice low yet carrying. “We won’t make it. We’d freeze before the rendezvous got here.” 

“Then where?” Walker grunted. “We’re going to die out here.” 

Bucky hesitated, eyes on the trees, on the white mist curling through the frozen pines.

Finally, he said, “There’s a cabin.” He paused, like it hurt to admit. “It’s not far.” 

He didn’t say who it belonged to. He didn’t say it was the one place in the world he’d once felt safe and at peace. Didn’t say he hated every second of his life since they landed in this cold hell a few hours ago. 

Instead, he just adjusted Yelena’s weight on his shoulder and started moving. 

They reached the edge of the clearing an hour later. 

The sky was bleeding to black now, dim with twilight, blue shadows sinking low between the snowdrifts. The cabin stood half-hidden beneath a thick layer of frost and pine, smoke curling softly from the chimney. Warm light flickered behind the frosted windows.

It felt like a punch to the gut. 

Bucky paused at the treeline and held up a fist. The team crouched, quiet, bodies stiff from cold. He scanned the clearing, fingers twitching at his side. His mouth and eyes went dry. 

He didn’t think you’d be here.  

You hadn’t been the last time he checked. A year ago. After he stopped answering your messages. After he told himself staying away was the only way to protect you from the mess he was about to wade into with Val. 

Just once, last year, in a moment of weakness, he looked for you. Actively searched for you. He just needed to know, just needed to make sure you were okay, safe. He couldn’t find you. Sometimes, he can still feel that raw panic, the way his heart had stopped breathing when he came up empty, the way he had fallen to his knees and clutched at his chest like someone had ripped his heart out of him. 

The smoke was fresh. The path to the shed was shoveled. There were footprints. 

His stomach dropped. 

You were here. 

He turned, eyes on the snow. “Stay put. I’ll clear it.” His voice was low. 

“What if someone’s inside?” Ava asked, curious at Bucky’s shift in behaviour. 

Bucky’s jaw tightened. “Then I’ll handle it.” 

He crossed the snow like a ghost.

Every step was agony. Every crunch of ice beneath his boots cracked open another memory.

The porch creaked under his weight.

His hand slid along the doorframe. He knew exactly where you kept the spare key, the trick to the lock. He’d fixed it once, after you kicked it shut too hard. He remembered the way you’d rolled your eyes and offered him a beer while he worked. 

He didn’t want to break in. 

He didn’t want to disrespect this place, the peace that surrounded it. 

He didn’t want to hurt you again. 

He just—

He just needed somewhere to hide. 

His fingers curled around the doorknob, heart in his throat. You wouldn’t have been able to tell that he was once an assassin, once a killing machine. 

And then—

Click. 

“Don’t move.”

He froze, muscles stilling. 

The cold metal of a rifle barrel touched the base of his skull. It was the first time it had in years. He forgot how hard it was, how chilling. 

“Turn around. Slowly.” 

The voice behind him was sharp, cold, measured—devoid of any emotion and warmth. 

Your voice. 

Bucky turned. 

And there you were. 

Wrapped in flannel and fury. Face hard as ice, sharp eyes, steady behind the sight of your rifle. Your finger on the trigger didn’t even shake. It was steady, pressing. He felt a sliver of fear, something foreign and familiar all at once.

He drank in the sight of you like he was breathing for the first time, like he had been drowning at the foot of an altar and hadn’t known peace, hadn’t known salvation until this moment. 

Your hair was a little longer, circles under your eyes. New, faded scars on your face, under your eyebrow and lips. Same old boots. 

Still exceptionally beautiful as the day he lost you. 

The only thing different was your expression. 

New. 

You didn’t look surprised. Not the way he was. You weren’t drinking him in. 

You looked furious, angry, murderous. 

That, he decided, was the worst part. 

“...Y/n,” he breathed, voice cracking.

You stared at him, eyes like knives. Finger pressing the trigger harder, like you were going to pull. 

“What the fuck are you doing here, Barnes?” 

The barrel of your rifle didn’t drop. 

Even as the snow clung to his hair, melting down his jaw. Even as his expression cracked open into something half-empty, half-anxious. 

Even as his lips parted like he might say something real, something soft, something that would make you pull the trigger. 

You didn’t let yourself care, didn’t let yourself even entertain the thought of anything except the press of the barrel into his skin. You couldn’t—couldn’t even take a moment to comprehend that he was in front of you, alive. 

“You’re trespassing,” you said, voice ice-edged and flat, and dangerous. “So either tell me who’s bleeding in the trees or I put one in your leg and call Sam.” 

That hit him. 

It hit him. 

He flinched—subtle, almost imperceptible—but you caught it. Just like you used to catch every other shift in him. The way he’d crack a knuckle when he was anxious. The way his jaw would tighten when he was lying. The way he could never look you in the eyes when he said goodbye.

You clicked the safety off. 

He didn’t even raise his hands. 

“Yelena’s hurt. So is Walker,” he said, voice lower now. Rougher. Sandpaper. “Bob’s with us. We just needed a place to—”

“You think you can just show up here?” 

It came out sharp. Too sharp. Quick, something prickling. 

Something behind your ribs cracked open. A dam you didn’t even realize you were still holding back. You stepped forward, closer, gun still pressing against his forehead. Snow on your boots, fury in your chest, your heart pounding so loud it echoed in your ears. 

He was still standing on your porch. 

Your space. 

A sacred, secret spot you had once shared with him, but no longer. 

You were seething. How fucking dare he?

“I ought to shoot you, you know that? Put a bullet in your arm, maybe your shoulder.” 

“I didn’t know you were here,” he said quickly, eyes on you, like it made it better. “I wouldn’t have—I wasn’t gonna stay. I just—”

“Just what, Bucky?” you snapped. “Thought you’d break in? Treat it like another asset to use up and leave behind? Like you did with me?” 

He could feel his heart crack, his resolve, all the effort he’d put in himself to forget you, all came crashing down. He felt small, guilty. 

He didn’t even think about his team, the ones watching him from the treeline, taking in this new version of him. They’d never seen him stand so still, so disarming. 

He opened his mouth. Closed it. Swallowed thickly. 

His shoulders curled in just a little. Like he’d been waiting for this. Like it still hurt more than he expected. 

Your hands shook, once. His eyes fell on them before lifting, piercing into yours. You lowered the rifle only because you didn’t trust yourself not to pull the trigger on accident. 

And then—movement. A shuffle behind the trees. 

Bucky turned his head slightly, called out, “Come on out.”

You watched as Bob stepped into view first, arms braced under John’s weight. Blood stained the sleeve of Walker’s coat, and his jaw was clenched with pain. Ava phased beside them a second later, hauling Yelena, unconscious and pale, her forehead slick with blood. 

Your stomach turned. You swallowed the bile. You knew them, or, knew of them. Although you had removed yourself from society as best you could, you still kept in touch. Listening, watching.

They looked like shit, like they’d been through hell. 

But you didn’t look at them, not really. 

You looked at Bucky. Watched the way his lips turned down at the sight of them in concern. 

It made you sick that part of you still cared. 

That the sight of Yelena’s crumpled form made you shove the pain down into your gut. That instinct took over and you stepped aside, jerking your head toward the door. 

“Inside. Now.” 

Bucky didn’t move, not right away. 

Maybe he was stunned, or trying to think of something to say. 

But you didn’t wait. You turned your back on him—on all of them—and pushed the cabin door wide. 

The warmth hit you like a slap, familiar and inviting yet surprising. 

The fire was still crackling in the hearth. Your mug of half-finished tea sat forgotten on the windowsill. The cabin smelled like pine and old wood and the lilac cleaner you used on the floors just that morning.

It smelled like you. 

And then they all stumbled in, dragging the snow and blood and silence behind him. 

Ava pulled Yelena onto the couch. Bob dragged Walked across the carpet, propped him up somewhere. He hovered close, face pale, eyes wide. You moved fast—medical kit from the cabinet, extra blankets from the trunk, towels tossed in the sink. 

Your movements were sharp, precise. Practiced and automatic. 

You didn’t look at Bucky. 

You didn’t need to. 

You could feel him behind you, like a storm gathering behind your spine. Like a memory clawing up your throat. 

Your voice was low when you finally broke the silence.

“This place isn’t a fucking outpost.” 

“I know,” Bucky said quietly. Almost like he couldn’t believe you’d think he’d disrespect this place, one that had once been so kind to him. 

“Then why the hell are you here?” 

“I didn’t have a choice.” 

You snorted. “There’s always a choice.” 

His voice cracked, desperate. “I didn’t think you’d be here.” 

“Yeah?” You turned, eyes meeting his briefly, hard and angry. “You make a habit of not thinking and being an idiot?” 

The silence after was thick enough to drown in. 

And he felt it. Drowning, deeper and deeper. 

“They’re good people.” It’s all he could say.

“Don’t care.” You did. You couldn’t help yourself, because they hadn’t done anything to wrong you—except Walker—but even then. Their past had no relevance to you. You’d take care of them. It was who you were. 

“I just… I thought—”

“What, Bucky?” you snapped eyes narrowed, voice shaking. “What did you think would happen? That I’d open the door and thank you? That I’d be so grateful for the ghost of you showing up on my fucking doorstep that I’d forget everything else?”

He flinched again. Didn’t try to defend himself.

Good. He shouldn’t.

You stepped toward him, close enough that he could feel the heat of your fury.

“I waited, you know. After I got back. I waited. Every goddamn day. Thought you’d call. Thought you’d explain. But you didn’t. You just disappeared. Like none of it meant anything.”

Bucky’s eyes burned.

“It meant everything,” he said, voice low. Raw.

You shook your head. “Too late.”

He wanted to say something else—there was so much to say, so much to apologize for, but you moved away from him, left him standing near the kitchen. He felt something crack at the distance, which was funny, he mused painfully. 

For a year, he spent thousands of miles away from you, but he hadn’t felt the distance—the loss—till now. Everything inside him was aching and his hands curled into fists as he watched you, eyes burning into your back. 

You worked in silence. 

Yelena’s breathing was shallow but steady, her wound cleaned and wrapped beneath layers of gauze and tape. She hadn’t woken yet, but the colour was beginning to return to her face. You tucked another blanket around her, brushing damp hair back from her forehead with a gentleness that surprised even you. 

There was something about her, something so achingly familiar in the way she held herself, even unconscious. She had a scar, a small faded one right on her chin. Briefly, your mind flashed to Natasha, of a story she told you years and years ago about her sister and a stapler. 

Bob hovered nearby like a kicked dog—wide eyes, oversized hoodie stained with someone else’s blood. His hands trembled as he offered a clean towel, his lip caught between his teeth. 

You took it from him carefully, fingers brushing his.

“Thank you,” you murmured. Your voice dipped, just for him, something softer and inviting, like you knew who he was, what he had done, and decided he deserved kindness anyways. 

His face lip up like a spark had caught in his chest and he smiled bashfully before he looked away. 

Ava sat perched on the arm of a chair, arms crossed. Her eyes tracked every move you made, sharp but not hostile. Just watchful, trying to familiarize herself with you. You caught her eye and nodded at her. She nodded back. Quiet understanding passed, soldier to soldier. 

Then you turned to Walker. 

He was half-reclined on the floor near the fire, jacked peeled off, blood soaking the side of his shirt. Bob had done what he could—pressure, bandages—but the bleeding hadn’t fully stopped. 

You knelt beside him, jaw locked. You didn’t speak at first, rage bubbling in your throat. Just the sight of him, of his battered face made you angry, made you remember the way things were, back when Walker was the biggest pain in your ass, before Bucky had left. 

He winced when you pressed against the gauze. 

“You know,” you said, voice low, steady, “I ought to let you bleed out. If it were up to me, you’d be lying in the snow somewhere, half-dead.” 

He didn’t respond, just looked at you through gritted teeth. 

You didn’t look away. You wondered if he was remembering it—the violence, the hatred. The man he was, and very well may be. Growth can’t be disguised under darker clothes and new management. 

Resentment lingers—you’d know. 

“You’re lucky I give more of a shit about him,” you added, nodding toward Bob. “And Yelena. That’s the only reason I haven’t thrown your ass back into the cold.” 

Walker’s jaw tightened. “Yeah. I got that.” 

You peeled back the soaked bandage with clinical detachment. You didn’t even bother to be gentle.

Across the room, Bucky flinched. 

He was leaning against the far wall, arms crossed over his chest, a storm in his eyes. He felt a flicker of something—regret, guilt—familiar, so fucking familiar, as he watched you. Your shoulders were rigid, tight with restraint. 

You disliked John, you always had. Before, you had fought with him about his morals, about the way he held himself and the shield. Bucky had stood behind you, behind Sam. He had agreed. 

There was something borderline repulsive about the scene in front of him, of you cleaning up John Walker as Bucky watched with mild concern and his friend—Sam—was nowhere to be found. 

He wondered if you found it disgusting, who he had become and who he had decided to work alongside. He’d understand. He hated himself most days, too. 

You handed Bob another towel. 

“Keep pressure here,” you instructed, something softer in your voice as you addressed Bob. “Don’t let him bleed through it again.” 

Bob nodded, instantly obedient. 

You turned away.

Bucky followed you with his eyes like he couldn’t help it. Like he hadn’t been starved of you for too long. Like he had any right. 

You moved past Ava, brushing her shoulder. “You hurt?” 

She shook her head. “Just bruised.” 

“Bathroom’s through the back,” you said. “Towels under the sink. You can clean up.” 

She looked at you, eyes narrowing like she wasn’t sure how to read your tone. But she nodded once and stood, disappearing down the hallway. 

And then—silence again. 

Except for the fire. And Bob whispering something to Walker, Yelena’s slow, shallow breaths.

You turned, arms crossed, lips turned downwards. 

And finally—finally—you looked at Bucky. You silently begged your heart not to give out.

He was bigger, healthier. Gaunter around the eyes. His hair was longer, curling at the ends, damp with snowmelt. His coat was torn. Knuckles scabbed over. Metal hand twitched like he wanted to reach for something—someone. 

You didn’t let yourself soften—not at the look in his eyes, not at the way his entire body looked like it was a second away from giving out. 

“You can take the cot,” you said, jerking your head toward the corner. “If you think you’ll sleep.” 

It was a low-blow, something petty and mean, bringing attention to his trouble with sleeping, but it was all you had. Just these quips, the coldness in your voice. It was all you could throw at him, all you had since he had taken everything else—your trust, heart, and smile. 

“I—” He cleared his throat, hoarse. “I’m sorry.” It wasn’t enough, and came out too quickly, too quietly. It was too heavy, too weightless. 

You scoffed, eyes shifting to the floor before meeting his. “Fuck off.” 

Bucky’s mouth opened, then closed again. 

You turned your back to him. 

It was past midnight when Yelena stirred. 

You were sitting at her side, fresh gauze in your hands, watching the slow rise and fall of her chest. It had been steady for hours—but now, her fingers twitched, lashes fluttered. Her body went still before she relaxed. 

“Yelana?” you murmured, trying to keep your voice soft, safe. 

She blinked slowly, disoriented, as her pupils adjusted to the low light of the fire. Her mouth moved, cracked lips forming words you couldn’t hear. 

“Hey,” you leaned in. “You’re okay. You and your team are safe.” 

Her gaze drifted, found your face. Her eyes drifted along your skin, taking in your features. Recognition flashed in them before they moved to the room behind you. 

“...we made it?” she rasped, voice hoarse and dry. 

You nodded, features softening a bit at the slight accent in her voice. It reminded you of Nat’s, the way it slipped out sometimes, because of certain words, when she felt safe. 

“Bled all over my floor, but yeah.” 

A small, broken laugh escaped her and she winced immediately, bringing a hand to her ribs.

“Try not to move,” you said gently. “You’ll ruin my fine patch job.” 

She was quiet for a beat before she lifted her eyes, lips curled downwards. “You were her friend, weren’t you?”

You blinked in surprise, lips parting. You had heard about Yelena from Nat, near the end. During the blip, when she had decided that she had kept enough to herself, she told you about her little sister. You never thought you’d get to meet her.

“I was,” you swallowed. “We were good friends.” 

“She told me about you,” Yelena said, quietly, like it was a secret. “Just once. Told me I could come to you for anything.” 

Your heart tightened in your chest and you nodded, trying for a smile. “Yeah. You could—can.” 

Something dark, a mixture of grief and anger bubbled in Yelena’s chest and you saw it, saw the way it pulled at her from her hair. It was familiar, a feeling you knew well. “She talked about you,” you offered, trying to pull her out of her own mind. “She loved you.” 

“Yeah,” Yelena swallowed, “I know.” 

You patted her shoulder gently before pushing yourself up. Her hand caught your wrist and you looked down, eyebrows raised. 

“I didn’t know,” she whispered. 

You crouched down. “Know what?” 

“That you’re her.” 

You frowned, tilting your head in question. “Her?” 

Yelena’s eyes lingered on your face, tracing your scars and the bridge of your nose. “The one he never talks about.” 

Your breath caught, and your eyes widened, just a bit, but enough. You said nothing. 

“He’s in love with you, you know.” She winced as she tried to sit up. “He doesn’t know how not to be.” She paused, glancing at your trembling fingers. “It leaks out of him.” 

Your jaw clenched and you looked away, heart falling to your stomach and fingers curled. She watched as you kept your eyes on the fire, hating how dry your throat had gotten. 

“I’ll check on you in a bit,” you said finally, quietly. “Try to sleep.”

She didn’t protest, just smiled softly before shutting her eyes. 

They were all asleep by two, or pretending. But it was quiet, tense, something weighed. 

Walker was sprawled ungracefully on the rug, arm bandaged and elevated, snoring softly. Bob had curled up in the armchair, long limbs tucked close, face peaceful.  Ava took the cot near the back wall, one leg bouncing softly until it stilled.

And Bucky—

Bucky sat in the kitchen, silent, staring into the dark like it held answers he hadn’t earned. It was too overwhelming—being here. There were memories, soft laughter and lingering touches that had crawled into the crevices of the wood, peeled the stains back until the entire cabin felt smaller, haunted. In the warmth of the kitchen, the wood groaning under his weight, he felt like he could have done it. 

He could have stayed. Could have fought off Val for you, kept you out of the limelight. 

He could have fought harder. 

He should have fought harder. 

He doesn’t know what that made him—a coward, maybe. Someone afraid. He had grown, gone to therapy and made friends, but the fear, the curling of unworthiness in his bones would never leave. He knew that. 

He stared down at the table, eyes focusing on the swirls and edges of the wood. His herbal tea, the one you had forced them all to drink, was sitting cold in front of him. He was glad you hadn’t given him the one he used to drink—the exotic ones, ones he’d never heard of and couldn’t imagine. It would have felt like holy water in hell, something condemning and horrid, but sweet all the while. 

You slipped on your boots and coat and eased the front door open, letting the cold bite at your face. The stars above were clear, silver on black. The trees whispered in the distance, inviting. 

Bucky heard the door open and froze, stilled as he stared into the open space. 

You sat on the porch steps and pulled the knife from your side pocket. 

It was old now, worn. The handle smooth from your thumb, the constant rubbing and brushing.

You’d never stopped carrying it. 

Sam had found it at a vintage store. “Some kind of weird sentimental symbolism,” he’d said, when he gave it to you. “Sharp. Pointed. Quiet. Soft around the edges. Like you.” Bucky had added your initials to the leather sheath in his own careful scrawl. 

You used to carry it just to remember the two of them. When you were on long missions, when they had stumbled into some trouble far away—when it was quiet. 

Now, you carried it because it was all you had left.

You pressed your thumb into the base of the blade, not enough to break skin, but just enough to feel something—to wake you up if this was a bad dream. It felt like one. It felt strange, like you could guess the ending but it changed every time you searched for it, when the flicker of want, of fear, grew larger. 

The cabin behind you creaked softly, weight shifting and the wind howling. 

You didn’t turn. Didn’t need to. 

His footsteps were heavier now. Not loud, but familiar—measured, hesitant. A bit like when he first arrived here, years ago. The way he never pressed his full weight into the wood until he grew comfortable, until he was sure that the wood—that you—could support him. 

He sat beside you.

Not too close, but closer than he had been in a year. The porch was old pine and groaned beneath his weight, like the cabin couldn’t help but mimic the sadness that dwelled in you—in the absence of him. 

You stared at the trees, eyes fluttering shut briefly as the cold wind brushed against your skin. The moonlight was sharper now, illuminating you both perfectly, a silent spectacle for the Gods. 

The knife gleamed in your palm like it could split you open. Something was tearing apart. 

“It’s…colder than I remember,” Bucky said, after a long silence. 

You said nothing.

A part of you wanted to lunge at him, plunge the knife into his heart and ask him if it hurts, if the pain measures to your own. You gripped the hilt of the knife tighter, looked at a tree where a gun was hidden. 

He exhaled slowly, white breath curling in the air as his nose twitched. “I didn’t know you’d be here.” He said it like it made it better, like he knew you were bleeding out and these words were all he could offer, little bandaids he kept on hand. 

“Yeah,” you said, voice sharp and bitter. “You’ve mentioned that.” 

He rubbed his hands together, flesh and metal and yet he hadn’t felt warmth in months, years—whenever he touched you last. A brush against your shoulder, knees bumping under the blanket. 

“You shouldn’t’ve been.” 

You turned sharply, eyes narrowed into slits. He almost moved back. “You think you get to decide where I go now?” Your hold on the knife tightened, slipped into place. 

“No—” 

“Because last I checked,” you interrupted, “you lost that right. When you ghosted me. When you walked away from Sam and into fucking politics. When instead of taking her down, you joined up with Val fucking Fontaine and turned into some New Avenger.” 

You were seething, jaw clenched as the words came out like bullets. Your fingers twitched around the blade and you almost, almost, lifted it, just to see what he would do. You were angry, so fucking angry, and hurt, and worried, and—God—Why was he staring at you like that? 

“I was trying to protect you,” Bucky said quietly, a whisper that floated into the wind. 

“Don’t,” you snapped. “Don’t you dare say that to me.” 

He looked down, hair falling across his face as his fingers curled into fists. 

“Do you know what it felt like?” You whispered, voice cracking, mentally blaming the cold. “Coming home after six months to find no one there? I saw Sam. He looked at me like I’d been buried alive. And then I had to ask about you and he just—he looked so tired. Like he didn’t have any energy left.” 

Your grip on the knife loosened but his shoulders tensed, pinched together like he was trying to keep himself still. 

“Sam was busy with the government and he had Joaquin and I…I had no one.” You inched forward, wanting him to see the look in your eyes. “I called you. Every day. Texted you, sent voice messages. I got nothing. Nothing, Buck. Not even a fuck-you.” 

Bucky couldn’t breathe, he was sure he had stopped breathing the moment he sat down but now his chest hurt, his eyes stung and his fingers twitched. “I couldn’t,” he said, almost begging, his voice cracking.

“I couldn’t.” 

You finally turned your full body toward him. If this conversation was finally happening, maybe for the last time ever, you wanted to be present for it. If he was truly going to rip your heart out of your chest, you wanted him to have a clear shot. “Why not?” 

He met your eyes—red, bright blue, and so exhausted. 

“Because Val knew about you.” 

Your stomach twisted. The way he said it—haunted, like it was the worst thing in the world, like he’d never been more shaken. 

“She knew everything. She had a file, your name. Where you trained, where you came from. She knew. And she told me…if I didn’t cooperate, if I didn’t step in line, she’d make you vanish.” 

You stared at him, lips parting in surprise. The air thinned around you. It was less about what he said and more about the way he said it, the way he panted out the words, like they’d been taking so much space in his body. 

“She said it like she was doing me a favour,” he whispered. “Like she was giving me an option. I knew what she was capable of. I’ve seen what her people do, Y/n.” 

“So you left,” you breathed out. “Without a word.” 

“It was the only way to keep her away from you,” he said, his eyes pleading. You had to understand—understand that he’d do anything to keep you safe. “I had to disappear from your life. I thought…if I stayed gone long enough, she’d think you didn’t matter.” 

Your throat closed, anger bubbling into something colder—grief. “I did matter.” 

“I know,” he said, eyes piercing into yours, pink lips pulled into a frown. “Christ, I know. Don’t you think I’ve thought about it every day? Don’t you think I regret it? I thought I was saving you. But I was just…just a fucking coward.” 

Silence—the woods watched, trees listened. 

The stars did not blink, just stayed still, offering as much comfort as they could.

You breathed in the fresh air, trying to get your blood circulating. Your pulse pounded in your chest and you wiped at your face, angry and so fucking sad. All you wanted was to live in your anger forever, to keep it at the surface and present, but here he was, hands trembling, telling you how far he had gone to keep you safe.

“I missed you,” you admitted, softly. “Every day. Even when I was angry.” 

Bucky turned toward you, jaw clenched. His hand reached out before he dropped it. His eyes were wide and bright and sorry. 

You looked down at the knife. “I came here, once. After you left. I thought maybe being here would help. That I could feel close to you.” 

He swallowed hard, dug his nails into his palm. 

“But it just…just made it worse. Every corner. Every stupid crevice. You’re in all of it.” You paused, a small smile, filled with everything but warmth. “Ended up staying. What does that say about me?”

He looked small, like he might shatter. Like the weight of your words was too much, like his superhuman strength was nothing against them. 

“I wanted my best friend,” you said, voice small. It was easier to be like this—sad, fucking pathetic, and angry, with him. It always had been. “I needed you, Buck. And you weren’t there.” 

“I wanted to be,” his words came tumbling out, hurried and harsh. “You think I didn’t want to break every fucking rule and come running the second I saw your name pop up on my screen? I wanted to call, to explain. But Val—she had eyes. I thought if I held out long enough, she’d lose interest.” 

“She didn’t,” you mused. “She sent you here.” 

Bucky looked startled, exhaled sharply, like he hadn’t considered it. This whole time—he thought it was a coincidence. His bad fucking luck. But it was Val—of course. That scared him, made him want to pick up his team and leave you, the sooner he left the further Val got to you. 

“I shouldn’t’ve come.” 

“No,” you said, softer, a bit surprised at your immediate answer. “But I’m glad you did.” 

He looked at you, startled. His eyes, so blue, so bright, widened a fraction. 

You wiped at your eyes again, trying to brush away the feelings that had bubbled out of your chest and out in the open, dancing across your skin.

“Because now you get to see what you left behind…and I—I get to see you. Alive.” 

Bucky’s breath caught and his fingers shook. His shoulders dropped and a part of you, a small, horrible part of you relished in it. Briefly, but it pleased you. 

“You’re my best friend,” he said, like a confession. Like it meant something else, something he thought about, something that burned bright and warm in his veins every night. “That’s the problem. I had to walk away.”

He said it with heat—desperation.

Please, he was saying, understand—I love you. 

You looked at him then, fully, completely. And for the first time in nearly a year, your anger cracked, just a little—then crumbled, until it fell off you like rain. It was still there, soaking into your skin, but slid off. 

“Then stop walking away,” you whispered, responding to the words he wasn’t saying but was leaking out of him. “If I’m your best friend,”—if you love me—“stay. Stop running.” 

The words found a life of their own, stumbled out of your mouth before you could catch them, before you could measure their consequences—they fell along Bucky’s skin like snow, soft and beautiful and cold and unseen. 

The moon above you was heavy and silver and listening—waiting, glowing, yearning.

The silence stretches on, hovers softly over the snow, a blanket over the cold. 

You don’t say anything for a long time. 

Not after you ask him to stay. 

There’s just the knife in your hand and the throb in your chest and the goddamn moon staring down at you like she knows, like she understands—despite your embarrassment, the hole in your chest that was once filled with anger and pride and hurt. Now hollow, remnants of it all dried and crisp. 

And then—

You laugh. 

It’s not soft, not amused. It’s empty, something clipped. 

“I can’t believe I just asked you to stay,” you admit, bitter and in disbelief. “I’m your best friend. Right. You care about me so much I had to grieve you.” 

He flinches, chin tipping downwards. 

You’re on your feet before you even realize it, pacing the porch like it’s the only way to stay upright. You had imagined having this conversation with him hundreds of times, all different. When you had come back and Sam told you he didn’t know where Bucky was, your entire life fell apart. Sometimes, on bad days, you can still feel the ache in your chest. 

For a moment, a day, a week, a while, you had thought you had lost him. Until he turned up on your fucking television. 

 “I lit a candle for you in some tiny church in Madrid. Did you know that?” you spit. “I thought you were dead. Or worse—I thought you’d become someone I didn’t recognize.” Your eyes met his and they fell along his suit, the black, the A that had once meant so much to you. 

“I’m not sure I recognize you now.” 

Bucky doesn’t say anything—can’t. His heart is beating out of his chest and he’s blinking too fast. He never meant for this to happen—never wanted you to be in pain because of him. 

“I hated you,” you whisper into the air. “But I never stopped—” You stopped, swallowed the words, the ache. “You don’t get to say that to me. Best friend? Please.” 

“You always have been,” he said, quietly. “Even when I tried to forget you.” 

You whirled on him, a flicker of anger raging in your eyes. “And what? I’m supposed to be grateful? Being your best fucking friend? Like it didn’t crush me? Like it’s enough?” 

“No,” he responds, throat dry. “I don’t expect that.” He knows, he fucking knows. 

“Then what do you want, Bucky? Forgiveness? Closure? You want to cry under the stars and say you’re sorry and pretend like that makes it better?” You can’t breathe, fingers trembling. 

“No.” 

“Then what?” 

Bucky stood slowly, took a step forward—didn’t reach for you. 

“I just wanted you to know,” his voice is so quiet, his breath warm and cheeks pink. “That I never stopped choosing you. Even when it looked like I didn’t.” He moved closer, needed you to see him, hear him. 

“You have been, and always will be, my first choice. Even if it won’t lead me to you.”

You look away, shaking and eyes shining. “I didn’t—don't—want your protection. I wanted you.” 

I always have, you didn’t say. 

“I know,” he says, voice breaking and heart heavy. “I know that now.” 

You wanted to hit him—to kiss him. You wanted to break every bone in your body until the pain matched the ache in your chest, just so it could feel real. 

You pressed your palms to your eyes, feeling too much and pathetic and like the facade you had tried to bolt into place for months was slipping. “You let me think you didn’t care.”

“I thought it would make it easier.” He was close now, his body heat caressing yours, inviting and sorry. 

“It didn’t.” 

“I was trying to keep you safe.” 

“I’m not made of glass,” you hissed. “I’m not something fragile. Stop acting like I am.” 

“I know that,” he admits, voice gruff and shaking. “I know how strong you are. That’s never been the problem.” 

“Then what is?” Why couldn’t he just say it—how many years had passed in this dance, in this slow waltz you both were determined to participate in. 

Bucky looks at you and your heart skipped a breath. He heard it, almost smiled, but he was lost in your eyes, in the way they glowed and were on him. 

“I don’t get to keep good things,” he says, words coming out like glass in his throat. 

“I don’t get forever, Y/n. I don’t get safe. I don’t get to love something without watching it get taken from me.” 

You stopped breathing, head tilting back as he moved closer, lips parted. His words collided into your chest, ripped through layers and layers of skin until they sat heavily on your bones, pried their way inside your heart. 

“You think I was protecting you? I was protecting me.” His hands were fists at his side. “Because the second I saw her file, the second Val mentioned your name, all I could think about was you bleeding out somewhere—and it being my fault.” 

His voice cracks—hard, raw. He’s looking at you like he’s never going to see you again, like he’s at the crossroads and at any moment, he’ll be dragged to hell. The way the damned look an angel, in yearning and mourning.

“I couldn’t lose you,” he whispered. “So I walked away.”

You shook your head, fingers uncurling and curling. “So you lived with a ghost.” 

He nodded, solemn. “Better than your blood on my hands.” 

“And what about me?” You snapped. “What about what I had to live with? You think it didn’t kill me, wondering why I wasn’t enough to stay for? Why Sam and I weren’t?” 

His whole body tensed and his breathing hitched. 

“I would’ve rather had you,” you said, words trembling. “Ruined. Broken. Afraid. I would’ve taken every messy fucking day, every stupid risk, every scar. I wanted you. I didn’t want safety.” 

Bucky’s quiet for a long time. 

His shoulders shake once—twice. 

With stark apprehension, your eyes widened—- he’s crying. 

Not softly, but like it’s wrenching out of him. Like the pain has been festering for years, decades, even. Like he’s refused to feel any emotion for so long that now, it’s tearing out of him. 

You don’t move—can’t. You’ve never seen Bucky cry before—not when Steve left, not when his nightmares had him yelling in his sleep. 

He didn’t ask for comfort. 

You stood still. 

“I kept thinking,” he said, through the tears, absolutely wrecked, “that maybe if I left early on, it wouldn’t hurt as much.” 

“Did it help?” You asked quietly, resisting the urge to rub his arm. 

He shook his head. “I’ve never been more miserable.” 

You’re both quiet again. 

Just the wind now, the trees. 

He sat back down, slowly, like the weight of it all is too much. 

After a long, long beat—you sat too. 

The knife is still in your hand.

You don’t touch him. He doesn’t try. 

He just sits there, eyes red, face raw. A man undone. 

And for the first time in a year, the silence between you is not empty. 

It’s full—of pain, history, of the soft, slow pulse of something broken that still wants to live.

The silence stretched again—different, not bitter. Just tired. 

The kind of quiet that lived after grief has passed itself, after all the screaming is done. What remained is ache, the king you can breathe through, if you sit still long enough. 

You stared at the woods, the snow drifting off the trees. Your fingers curled tight around the knife.

“I kept it,” you said, suddenly. Filling the silence. “The knife.”

Bucky turned his head slightly, eyes falling on the metal in wonder. 

You traced your thumb over the hilt. “You and Sam gave it to me after Belgium. Said I earned it, saved both your asses. A gift.” 

“You did,” he murmured, licking his lips. 

You almost smiled.

Instead, you nodded towards the woods. “I took it on this last mission.” 

Bucky’s quiet for a beat, then, “What happened?” 

You don’t answer right away—breath curling in the cold. “I don’t know if I want to tell you.” 

His voice is gentle, understanding. “That’s okay.” 

You shifted, momentarily uncomfortable, knife balanced on your knee. 

“I was in Kaltag,” you said, finally. “Started as intel extraction. Easy, in and out. But it wasn’t. Not even close.” 

Bucky hated how haunted you sounded, how winded, even after a year, you seemed to be. Like you weren’t sure if you had outrun the threat, or if it loomed behind you still. 

You swallowed and ran your hand through your hair. “It went on for three months longer than it should’ve. I lost my whole team.” 

You could feel him tense, the way the guilt inside and around him increased tenfold. 

“I made it out,” you said softly, reminding him and yourself that you were okay. “But it was close.”

He turned slightly, not touching you, but near. Closer than before. 

You tried to ignore how good it felt, how it immediately eased the tension in your own shoulders. 

“When I got back to New York,” you continued, “I called you, first thing. I couldn’t think about anything else. Just—telling you I was alive.”

He closed his eyes, jaw clenched

You wrapped your arms around your knees and rested your cheek against your arm, eyes on him. He looked so beautiful, so tortured as he sat there, listening to you. 

“I left you a voicemail. Told you I missed you.” 

“I listened to it,” he said, hoarsely, pained. 

“I almost wish you hadn’t.” 

He opened his mouth before shutting it. He couldn’t argue—not when your voicemails, your voice, kept him sane for so long. It was the only physical thing he had of you. 

You pressed your lips together when the wound felt like cracking open again.

He pressed his hand to his mouth, exhaled hard. “I’m sorry.” 

You nodded once, expecting it. Taking it better than you did earlier. 

He glanced towards the cabin, peeking inside. You followed his gaze.

“Your team,” you started. “They’re good people.” 

Bucky shook his head. “Not exactly.” 

You shrugged, the ghost of a smile passing by your lips.

“Yeah. Maybe not good. But…they’re trying. I think.” 

He nodded then. “Yeah. They are.” 

There was something in his voice, something soft and vulnerable and uncomfortable. “You care about them.” 

He paused, like he didn’t like how fast he might’ve answered. “I do.” 

You traced the knife again. It felt a bit like your spine–rigid, cold, worn out. You glanced at him once, just to understand, to dig the pain in further. “Are you happy?” Your voice is soft, almost serene. “You said you were miserable but did you find something with them? Something you didn’t have before?”

Bucky looked at you, his whole body stiffening. There’s more beneath your words, he hears it. The sharp edge of grief, of doubt. He doesn’t answer immediately because the truth is—he doesn’t know. He hasn’t thought about himself, about his wants or his feelings in months. 

You were braced for it—the soft, diplomatic lie. Bucky missed you, you knew that. He missed Sam too, even if he hadn’t said it. But you saw the way his eyes narrowed when one of them winced. It was a look you were more than familiar with—what you weren’t familiar with—was not being on the other end of it. 

He clears his throat and looks up, his eyes twinkling under the starlight. “It’s not the same.” 

You looked at him, wary. He sounded older, exhausted. 

“It’s good. They’re good,” he said. “But it’s not the same. Not even close.” His throat was clogged with sadness, with nostalgia. 

You turned away, tried to breathe. You hated how he could get you like this, all unraveled and messy. He was the only one who ever could. 

Bucky waited. Then said, gently, “It’s okay.” 

You shook your head, gripped the knife tighter. “No, it’s not.” 

“It’s okay to ask me.”

You blinked, knife slipping slowly from your hand. You both had said so much tonight, opened the floor to feelings and anger and questions neither of you had ever thought you’d get to. It felt a bit like going in circles, like he couldn’t help but keep you safe and you couldn’t help but hate him for it over, and over again. 

“To wonder,” he added. “You can ask. You always could.” 

You gripped the knife tighter and your lips trembled, partly due to the cold and partly due to the weight of what you wanted to ask.

Were you ever going to come back? You wanted to ask, scream into the air. Did you find a new family? 

Bucky breathed in deeply, closed his eyes. When he opened them, he turned his head to look at you. His eyes were bright, earnest. “I’ve only ever belonged to one place,” he said, softly. “One person.” 

His words, wrapped in gentle warmth, brushed against your skin and you froze, stilled as your eyes widened a bit. 

“Don’t say that if you don’t mean it.” 

Something quiet, a mixture of grief and love and sadness paints across his face and the corners of his lips quirk upwards momentarily, like he imagined this conversation, but not like this. 

“I’ve never meant anything more.” 

The knife dropped slightly in your lap. You wanted to believe him. Wanted to take his words and cradle them to your chest, coo at them. 

But your heart was still wrapped in barbed wire, hands bloody as you tried to keep him at arm's length. 

There’s a long, still beat. 

“What about this mission?” You cleared your throat, tried to push the warmth away with your cold breath.

“What brought you here?”

Bucky exhaled and looked out over the snow. His jaw flexed and he ran a hand through his hair. It was longer, parted and freshly cut. He looked so good. You looked away. 

“There was a compound,” he started. “Hidden in the mountains. Yelena had a lead. Val gave the green light, but the intel was wrong.” 

He shook his head, looking years older and frustrated—jaw tight.

“It was a trap. A set-up. Ava nearly got blown apart. Yelena and Walker took shrapnel. Bob was doing well but then he panicked. We barely got out.” 

You looked at him then, quietly stunned. He sounded like a proper leader, someone who cared. He sounded a bit like a Sergeant and a small—large—part of you almost winced in pain. You always knew he was a leader, despite following Steve everywhere. It was who he was, a man who took the lead, control, when he had too. 

“And then you came here.”

His voice dipped, a little bashful. “Didn’t realize where I was at first. Not until I checked the coordinates again.” 

“And when you did?” 

His eyes were glasser now, glowing brightly, like your very own temptation. “I didn’t want to.” 

“But you did.” 

He nodded, solemn. “Because I knew it was the only place they’d be safe.” 

You understood, in retrospect. He was right. You knew this terrain, and had heard whispers of the death that followed. It’s why you chose this place for solitude, not just anyone can survive in a place like this. 

“I would’ve helped, you know.” You brought your knees to your chest. “Even if you weren’t there.” 

He nodded, like it was obvious. “I know.”  You’re a good person. The best he knows. But he was a coward and he was selfish and there was a part of him that would have done anything to see you, even if it meant shooting himself in the foot.

There’s a long pause—seems to welcome itself between every moment. 

And then—his voice breaks a little, vulnerable. 

“I’m sorry.” 

You don’t look at him. You can feel the fire melting. It’s all gone and now he’s smothering the burned ambers, making sure there isn’t anything left. 

“I’m so fucking sorry,” Bucky said, again, harder, wetter. “For all of it. For walking away. For staying away. For not calling. For letting you think—” 

“Stop, Buck.” 

He stopped, eyes wild and lips parted. You stared out at the snow, the rising light. You often stayed awake until sunrise, but you had barely done it with company. 

“What’s done is done. And you can’t fix it.” You paused, pretended not to notice his full-body flinch. “Not with words, at least.” 

“I know.” He sounded so defeated, like he was about to be dragged away and he was using his last breath on this, on apologizing, even if it didn’t mean anything to you. 

You glanced down at your hands, brushed your thumb across the engraving. It was still warm, still smelled like him if you pretended long enough. “But,” you almost smiled, “thank you. For apologizing. It’s a start.” 

Bucky released a short breath and his eyes gleamed. He nodded and slowly—so slowly—you let your shoulder brush his. 

Just barely—enough. The first touch between you both in a year, something soft and passing, weightless, but so incredibly heavy. 

His breath stuttered and he froze, almost as if his stillness could convince you to do it again. 

You don’t say anything. 

Neither does he. 

The sun began to rise, gold light spilling over the trees. It touched your porch, your boots, the blade of your knife. The world around you began to glow. 

And for the first time in a long time, you both felt warm—not whole, but alive. Like there was meaning now, like maybe, just maybe—you could start again.

The morning came quietly. 

Fog clung to the trees like ghosts reluctant to leave, coiled through the branches and rolling over the forest floor. It muffled the sounds of birds and leaves, wrapped the cabin in a kind of hush—a sacred, fragile peace. You didn’t sleep, just sat near the front window for most of the night, listened to the crackle of the dying fire, feeling Bucky’s presence behind you like static in the air. 

When you finally stepped outside, the grass was slick with dew. Cold bit at your ankles through your boots. You made your usual perimeter check—like muscle memory, a prayer. 

It wasn’t until you circled behind the old shed, half-hidden in undergrowth, that you noticed it. Something thin and taut stretched between two trees—nearly invisible unless the light caught it just right. 

Infrared wire. Trip-triggered—directional. 

Your heart stuttered. That wasn’t yours. 

You crouched, studied it. It was recent—clean. Hadn’t been disturbed by animals. That meant one thing—someone had been here. 

And not long ago. 

You didn’t make a sound, just rose and moved, boots silent against the snow.You ducked back into the cabin and found the team already stirring. 

Yelena sharpened a knife by the fireplace, Walker was rubbing sleep from his eyes, Ava said cross-legged with a datapad balanced on her knee. Bob was quietly eating dry granola and leaned over the arm of the chair he was sitting in, trying to get a closer look at whatever Ava was looking at. 

And Bucky—

Bucky watched you before the door even closed. 

You didn’t say anything at first, just met his eyes, that solemn blue set into all that worry and quiet guilt. The heat from the night before was still burning in those eyes, still warm and attentive. 

You looked away and cleared your throat, shattering the comfortable silence that had built upon the slow fire.

“We’ve been compromised.” 

They all stilled, exhaled quietly. 

You stepped towards the table, pulled the map out, laid it flat. “Infrared tripwire. North perimeter, ten meters past the old woodpile. Wasn’t there yesterday.” 

Yelena stood immediately, trying to hide the wince of pain. “Can you show me?” She wheezed a little. 

You shook your head, held up a hand. “Not now. I already marked it. We need to assume they know you’re here.” 

Bob cursed low under this breath as Walker rubbed his temples. “That’s just great.” 

Ava’s voice was sharp, “How long do we have?” 

“Not long enough,” you said, voice tight. 

And that’s when Bucky moved. Just a step, but the whole room shifted with him. The air charged, the team straightened. 

“I’ll handle it,” he said, voice calm, strong. Like there wasn’t a world, a situation, where he wouldn’t handle it. 

You turned to him, sharply. “You’ll—Bucky, you think I can’t handle my own perimeter?” 

“That’s not what I’m saying.” 

You crossed your arms. “Then what are you saying?” There was almost no heat behind your words—very little curtness, nothing like the day before. The team noticed, the way your shoulders weren’t as tense, the way Bucky slightly leaned towards you, like he couldn’t help it.

He looked at you, pain flickering through his expression. “I’m saying we brought this upon you—I did.” 

You scoffed, rolling your eyes and dropped your arms.

“Oh, please.” 

“We did,” he said, louder now, more insistentent. The moment he noticed that look in your eyes, like you were disturbed, he knew what had happened. His heart had stopped beating at the idea of drawing danger to you. 

“You were off the radar and safe. And we dragged you back into this.” 

“I took you in,” You reminded him. “You didn’t force me.” 

“You shouldn’t have had to,” he snapped, worried and furious with himself. “You should’ve been allowed to live without the past coming to your front door with guns and tripwires.”

“You don’t get to decide that for me,” you hissed, low, stepping in close. “We talked about this. I’m not some fragile memory in your head. I’m right here. I chose to help. I knew the consequences.” 

His voice dropped, low and softer, like he was pleading. “And I’m choosing not to let you get killed because of us.” 

There it was. 

The silence was sharp, crackling. Everyone else disappeared into background noise, blurred by the weight of what passed between you, the anger and softness of last night, the years in between. 

Bucky knew—knew the likelihood of you actually dying was low, you were strong, so fucking strong and so intelligent and one of the best fighters he knew, but he couldn’t get the image of you—hurt, bleeding—out of his head. 

“I know you think you have to fix everything,” you said, quiet, tired, understanding. “But not this.” 

“This is the only thing I can fix,” he said, and his voice cracked. Like he had spent the few hours after your time on the porch just thinking, mulling over everything you had said, everything he hadn’t said. “Please, let me.” 

The rest of the team had scattered quietly, trying their best to give you space. They shifted away, towards the fireplace and the wall, made themselves smaller, but watched carefully, nosey and interested. 

They didn’t know much about Bucky. He had always been a private person, preferred to listen to their stories than share any of his own. But in the beginning, when it was all new, they could tell his heart wasn’t in it, that obligation and morality drove him. 

His heart had always belonged to another, he had left it somewhere—ran without it. 

Now, they had finally seen it—the woman that kept his heart, the one place his guard hadn’t been up, the way he let himself be small, let himself be, with no title. They weren’t even sure if he knew, if he knew that his heart lived here, existed in the palm of your hand, in the edges of the wood. 

You stared at him, and maybe it was adrenaline, or just the years of knowing him—of knowing his heart even when he wouldn’t speak on it—but something in your chest broke. The softness in his eyes, replacing the usual hardness and fury. The way he had naturally moved closer to you, like you were the center of his gravity. 

“Y/n,” he said then, softly. Your name felt holy on his tongue, something divine. Like he was standing at the top of some cathedral and the beauty overwhelmed him and all he could do was utter the name of his worship. It felt like a promise, something far deeper than the word itself. 

“James,” you whispered back, just as softly—delicate. It slipped out, something instinctual. You watched his entire body tense before it relaxed, before the wrinkles near his eyes smoothed out and his eyes gleamed—just for a moment, but blinding. 

He stared at you like you’d just torn open the sky. He hadn’t been called that in years, not by anyone else but you. It was his name, but it felt like yours, something you held onto. 

But then the moment passed. The threat crept back in, like a shadow reasserting itself. 

He shook his head, leaned back. This always happened, he always got lost in you, lost his mind as soon as he laid eyes on you. “We’re leaving.” 

“What?” you said, breath catching, feeling like you had been pushed off a cliff. 

“We’re going to pull the enemy off your trail. Lead them into the open. Finish it.” 

“No,” you said, chest tight, feeling like a child and the blanket was being ripped off of you. “You need me.” 

“I can’t ask you to do this.” 

“You’re not asking,” you told him. “I’m telling you I can. I’ve fought beside you. I’ve bled beside you, you know I’m good for this.” 

“I know,” he said, like it pained him. “God, I know. You’ve always been better than me at this. But let me do this. Let me protect something, just once, without destroying it.” 

“Bucky—” 

“I’m not leaving you,” he said, quickly, breathless, stepping closer. “Not forever. Just for this. Let me end it, and I swear—I’ll come back.” 

Your throat closed, his cold, metal hand closing around your heart. You didn’t even know when he had reached in, when the barbed wire had fallen away. “You can’t promise that.” 

“I can,” he said, his forehead almost touching yours. His breath was warm as it brushed your cheek. He sounded so sure, so confident. “And I am. I will come back.” 

The firelight in his eyes wasn’t desperate, wasn’t afraid—it was resolute. “I can’t let you go again. I’m not strong enough.” 

He was already pulling on his gear when you stepped in front of him again, heart in your throat.

“This isn’t fair,” you said. None of it felt fair—felt real. You had just gotten him back, just made peace with him, with the familiarity that gripped you by the jaw. 

“I know,” he replied. 

You looked into his eyes, in the way they drank you in. They shifted downwards, over his body, memorizing. Without thinking too hardly, you reached for his hand. 

His fingers closed around yours instantly, like they’d been waiting—like he’d been falling and you had just reached out for him. His calluses scraped against your knuckles, grounding you. Heat flooded your body, almost tipped you over. His thumb brushed against your pulse point, pressed on it. 

“I hate you,” you whispered, not a single hating bone in your body. You were sure the hatred, the anger was somewhere deep within your body, hiding and floating and real, but it wasn’t present, wasn’t pressing against your skin the way the fear, the love—the want—was. 

“I know,” he said again, smiling just a little. “I don’t.” 

You pulled him into a hug and you both breathed for the first time. He held on like he never wanted to let go, his arms instantly wrapped around you, hands pressing into your skin. The silence between you was fuller now—stitched together with hope, with fear, with the half-formed shape of something possible—real. 

He pulled back, looked you in the eye. He looked younger, someone in love. 

“I’ll come back,” he said again, and this time, it felt like a vow.

You let him go. 

Stood there as he went, silent and still as snow fell. Let him hold your hand for a second longer than he should have. Let his eyes rest on you like they always had—gently, painfully, like it was the last time. 

“Stay safe,” he said, smiling softly.

You watched as they disappeared into the mist and the trees with soft smiles and nods, into the fight that waited beyond the edge of safety. 

He had promised. He’d whispered it in the hush between your porch and you, where things had often been left unsaid but then he said it. 

“I’ll come back. You don’t have to let me in—but I’ll come back anyway.” 

You stood on the porch until they were gone, arms wrapped around yourself, chilled to the bone.

You just stood there, empty and filled with hope—waiting. 

And hoping he wouldn’t break this promise too.

It snowed again that morning. 

This white lace drifted down from the treetops, quieting the woods like a lullaby. Two weeks had passed since he left. Since he stood at the tree line with his eyes locked to yours like it would be the last time.

You tried not to count the days. Tried to act like it didn’t matter—but the ache in your chest made a liar of you. It always did. 

Each morning you opened your door just a little too fast. Each night you lit the fireplace and left the hall light on, telling yourself it was just for warmth, for visibility. But really, you didn’t want the place to feel so empty if—when—he came back. 

Today, you wore one of his old shirts. Soft cotton and faint cologne still clinging to the collar. You hadn’t meant to put it on, not really, didn’t even know it was his at first, but when you touched the fabric, it felt like a memory.

And that’s when it happened. 

Three slow, heavy knocks at the door. 

You froze, heart in your throat. Then you rushed, stumbled barefoot through the living room, fingers fumbling with the handle. When the door creaked open, the cold hit you first—and then him.

Bucky. 

He stood there, snow in his hair, lips split, knuckles scraped, breath heaving like he’d run through the forest without stopping. A duffle hung over one shoulder. His blue eyes were glassy, rimmed red with exhaustion and something else—something soft, searching. 

“I’m sorry it took so long,” he breathed out, quickly. “I had to make sure everything was finished. That you were safe.” 

You said nothing, couldn’t speak. You just stared at him, wide-eyed, chest rising. 

“I didn’t know if I’d make it back,” he continued, like he knew you were barely breathing and wanted to give you a second. “Didn’t know if you’d still want me here. And if you slam the door in my face, I’ll understand.”

You didn’t. 

Instead, you stepped out onto the porch, into the snow. Shoved him hard in the chest—once, twice. And he took it, didn’t move or flinch, just let you. He looked at you like you were sunlight. 

And then you grabbed him by the collar of his jacket and pulled him down and kissed him. 

God, the kiss. It wasn’t gentle. It was fire—heat and years of longing poured into it like you both had been holding your breath since the day you met. His hands dropped the bag, found your waist, warm and trembling and real. You opened your mouth to him and he groaned, low and guttural like he’d waited years for the taste of you. 

He stumbled into the cabin with you in his arms, the door shutting behind him. Snow melted off his jacket onto the floor as he pressed you against the wall, mouths locked, hearts wild. 

He kissed you like a promise, like he’s finally letting himself fall. His lips moved with yours in slow, lingering passes, breath hitching slightly when your fingers tangle in the soft hair at the nape of his neck. 

“Bucky…” you whispered, breathless, as he pulled back just a little, just enough to look at you again. 

“I’m right here,” he murmured, brushing his lips along your jaw. “Not going anywhere.” 

He kissed you again, deeper this time, hungrier—but still gentle, like every kiss was him saying I’m here without needing the words. 

“I love you,” he rasped out, pressing his lips firmly against yours. “I’m in love with you,” he whispered against your mouth, breathing like a man starved. “I’ve always been in love with you.” He sounded reverent, voice raw. 

You pressed your forehead to his, blinking back tears, lips plump and breathless. “You hurt me.” 

“I know.” 

“I’m still so angry.” 

He pressed a soft, hovering kiss to your jaw. “I’ll take all of it. Every piece of it.” 

You swallowed hard, blinking away the tears. “I’m in love with you, you idiot.” 

He smiled then, the softest, most brightest thing you’d ever seen. A man who had been lost in the woods, in the snow, who finally found his way home. 

The fire cracked behind you, casting everything in gold and flickering shadows. He looked beautiful, something magical and unreal, like he had been crafted by the most expensive stained glass. 

You looked up at him, slid your hand to the base of his throat. “What does this change?” 

“Everything,” Bucky said, voice raw. “But it doesn’t have to change all at once. You don’t have to let me in tonight. You can hate me, scream. I’ll wait.”

You exhaled shakily, shifted closer. “I’ll be mad at you tomorrow.” 

He nodded, like he expected worse, like he was so enamoured by you. 

“But tonight—” You touched his jaw, traced the bruises like they were yours to soothe. “Tonight… I just want to feel you. Want to know you’re mine.” 

His mouth opened like he might say something, but all that came out was a soft, wounded nose before he kissed you again. Slower, deeper. His tongue traced his devotion into his gums as he slid his trembling hands under your—his—shirt and when his palms found bare skin, he sighed against your lips. 

“I’ve always been yours.” 

You took his hand and led him down the familiar hallway, toward the bedroom. The fireplace crackled low in the other room. Moonlight spilled across your floorboards. A few candles flickered by your bedside, forgotten after another sleepless night—but now, they painted him in gold. 

The door shut behind him and he watched you like he didn’t believe you were real. “Are you sure you want this?” He asked gently, eyes soft. “I’m not going anywhere.” 

You nodded, looking up at him like he had always belonged here, in your room, desperate and panting and beautiful. 

“Do you know how many nights I longed for you? Wanted your touch?” 

He reached for you then, slow and gentle, like he was afraid that if he moved too fast, everything would fall apart. His lips found your cheek, your jaw, your neck. Kisses layered like apology, like worship. 

“I’ll make up for lost time,” he murmured, unbuttoning your shorts with careful fingers. “I swear to you.” 

When your shirt slipped off your shoulders, his breath caught. 

He stepped forward, hands devout, fingertips grazing your skin like he was afraid to wake from a dream.

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered. “You don’t know what it did to me—thinking I’d never get to touch you. Never get to love you.” 

He touched you like you were something sacred, something so beautiful and otherworldly. He made you feel wanted, loved. 

“You’re here now,” you whispered, lips lifting into a small smile. You watched as his breath hitched, as his fingers flexed and he almost fell into you.

He kissed you again, rough and deep and messy. Like every second he’d spent away had built this fire under his skin and only you could soothe it. His hand slid into your hair, pulled you closer. His lips moved to your jaw, your collarbone—and he moaned softly, like the taste of your skin was salvation. 

You unzipped his jacket, whimpered as Bucky’s teeth grazed against your ear, the skin just below. You pulled at his shirt and with one hand, he pulled his henly off, reattaching his lips to your skin, kissing down your neck. 

Your hands slid down his chest as you leaned into him, panting against the side of his head. His lips sucked and licked your skin, finding comfort in leaving marks on your skin. 

You pulled away, needing to see him, to breathe him in. “I wanted to take care of you,” you whispered, reaching for the waistband of his pants. You kissed his neck, licked a bead of sweat. 

“Wanted to—”

He caught your wrist gently, kissing your knuckles. You were glowing, something ethereal and his heart almost gave out. “Let me,” he said. “Please. Let me love you first.” 

He sounded so pretty, so breathless. You melted, relishing in the way his gaze burned into you. Fell back onto the bed as he knelt between your thighs, spreading you open like something holy. His kisses trailed lower, burning a path down your body. Over your breasts, your stomach, down the soft skin of your hips. 

He pressed hot, wet kisses all over your breasts, cupped one while he sucked on your nipple, tongue swirling. He whispered against your skin, his devotion, his cries of your beauty. 

He sucked, licked and kissed the skin of your hips, just above your panty-line. Blew air onto the mark, kissed it once, twice, then grinned. Bucky looked up at you—eyes dark and tender—and his smile turned into something soft, something so devastating. 

“You’re so beautiful, Y/n.” He nudged your thighs apart even more, shifted you up on the mattress so he could lay down on his stomach comfortably. He kissed your inner thigh before brushing his nose against your cunt. You almost squeezed your legs shut when he sniffed, a moan escaping his lips. 

“Can I taste you, pretty girl?” He asked, voice husky. When you nodded, slid your hand into his hair and pulled, desperation and heat dancing in your eyes, he pressed a kiss to your folds. 

“Please, Buck,” you breathed out. 

That was all he needed. He buried his mouth between your legs like he’d been born for this. Like nothing mattered more than making you feel it. He moaned into you, fingers gripping your thighs, pulling you closer, letting his tongue swirl and suck and worship until you were crying out his name, hips trembling under his hands. 

You gasped when his tongue swirled around your cunt—broad, slow licks that made your knees shake. He moaned like it was his release, like your pleasure soothed something deep in him. He sucked your clit with such reverence, it made you sob. 

“James—” 

His arms wrapped around your thighs, grounding you. He pressed his nose against your clit, rubbed your slick all over his face as his tongue fucked you, curving just right.

“That’s it, baby,” he moaned into your pussy, the vibrations making your head spin. “Say my name.” 

“So good,” you panted, grinding your hips against his face, pulling at his fair. His metal hand spread your folds and you almost screamed, the sudden cold mixed with the heat of his warm breath was too much. 

He sucked and licked, tongue swirling around your clit. He felt your whole body tense, the way you tried closing your legs around him. He held your hips still, sucked harder. “Cum for me,” he whispered. “Want to taste you. Need to—fuck, baby, please.” 

And when you did, when you shattered his tongue, cried out his name, he didn’t stop. He kissed you through it, breathed your name like a prayer as he sucked and swallowed your cum. He kissed your thighs and your belly, rested his cheek against your stomach like he could live there. 

“That’s it. So sweet. So fuckin’ good for me,” he babbled, kissing your skin. “That’s my girl.”

He stripped, pulled his pants off and kicked off his boxers. His cock was hard, red, pre-cum dripping like it never had before. 

When he finally climbed over you, lips swollen, pupils blown, you grabbed his face and kissed him hard. You could taste yourself on him and it made your head spin. You needed him, needed all of him. 

“What do you need, baby?” He asked against your lips, sucked on your tongue. 

“You,” you breathed out. “I want you. Please, Bucky—need you inside—” 

He gripped his cock and slid it in between your folds, hissing in pain when your pussy fluttered around him. He met your gaze and smiled, something soft and wicked and angled his cock, sliding in, slow and thick, his mouth open as he groaned, long and low. 

“Oh, my sweet girl,” he groaned. “Fuck—so tight—” 

He pulled out, slowly, moaned—loudly—forehead pressed to yours, his hand gripping your waist as he thrust in slowly, deep, claiming you like he meant it. He was so big, so thick and veiny. Heavy on top of you, metal arm braced beside your head. 

“I’ve wanted this for so long,” he rasped. “Always dreamed of it being like this. Of being yours.” 

“You are,” you whispered, seeing stars. “You’ve only ever been mine.” 

He groaned against your throat and fucked you with everything he had, slow and worshipful, but every time your hips met, he whimpered like it was too much, like it wasn’t his cock sliding in and out of your sopping pussy. The candlelight danced across his skin, sweat glistening on his back as he hovered over you, panting against your mouth, begging softly with every thrust. 

“Tell me I’m yours,” he begged, practically growling into your mouth. 

“M-mine, James, fuck. You’re—mine.” 

“That’s right,” he moaned. “I’m yours. And you’re mine. My perfect girl. My fuckin’ everything.” 

Bucky’s obsessed with you, with your pussy, with the warmth of the cabin and being where he belongs, here, with you—loving you. His lips are all over you—biting, sucking, kissing your throat, your tits, your mouth. You look up at him and roll out your tongue, eyes glassy. His hips stuttered for a moment before he spat in your mouth, watched you swallowed with this groan that sounded like he’s in pain. 

His cock dragged along your walls, bruised your cervix, making you sob. Your nails dragged across his back as his dog tags dangled in your face. “Fucking me so good,” you moaned, kissing his ear. 

“You’re so good,” he panted. “Takin’ it so well, my sweet girl.” 

He pulled out halfway, smiling briefly when you whined. 

And then—he slammed back in, hips snapping hard, cock punching into your cunt so deep you scream. 

“Please,” he whispered. “Let me make up for everything.” 

“You already are,” you breathed, toes tingling and the coil in your chest tightening. “I love you, Buck.” 

He kissed you again, messy and open-mouthed, your tongues tangling, breath mixing, spit shining your lips. He was so deep, so thick inside you, and when he angled his hips just right, you cried out, clutching his back, nails digging in. 

“Gonna come,” you gasped, drooling a bit, pussy gushing. 

“Do it,” Bucky said, desperate. He kissed you again, licked the edge of your mouth. “Come for me, sweet girl. God, I need it.” 

He pressed his chest harder against yours, fucked into you harder. Your breath stuttered as white flashed across your gaze and the coil in your chest unravelled and you cummed, body wracked with pleasure. 

His name left your mouth like a prayer. You pulled him down, kissed his cheeks, his neck, held his face in your hands as you whispered the words he’d waited a lifetime to hear. 

“Come inside me” 

He stilled, shuddered. His eyes found yours, full of disbelief and adoration. 

“Please,” you said, eyes almost rolling back. “I’ve only ever belonged to you.” 

He surged forward, pressed his lips hard against yours as he cummed with a broken moan, hips rocking, cock pulsing inside you as he whispered your name over and over. He fucked his cum into you, collapsed into your arms, buried his face in your neck. 

“I love you,” Bucky breathed out, pressing a soft kiss under your ear. 

You hummed, ran your fingers through his hair, feeling full and content. “And I love you.” 

Neither of you moved for a long time.

Eventually, he shifted, just enough to pull the blankets over you both. His body stayed half on top of yours, your arms around his waist, holding him tightly. 

Outside, the snow fell silently. 

Inside, wrapped in each other’s arms, you both had finally found home. 

[sayangrafayel]

LADS react to your failed homemade chocolate for them! Happy Val's Day!

It's Valentine's day! So you decided to make them a homemade chocolate or other baked goods for your beloved.. but no matter how hard you try, turns out making a chocolate is not easy... how would they react to it?

Sylus, Xavier, Rafayel, Zayne, Caleb

Sylus

His trademark raised eyebrow is on full display right now seeing his kitchen a big mess and you covered in flour, chocolates, and.. are those strawberry jams? He hopes so.

Mephisto is EXHAUSTED because you used him all day to look up for tutorials and recipes and every single one he had to witness yet another fail.

"This tastes... different than the ones I would usually buy." "Just say you hate it!!!" "Hate it? No no no. This is.. amazing! What do you mean it's burnt? It's so good! So so so good!"

Xavier

Eats it with no problem at ALL. Doesn't even bat an eye.

"So.. what do you think?" "It's good." "But.. it's all.. burnt.." "Oh yeah, they taste like the ones I made." "Sorry?" "Yeah you should try the ones I gave you. They taste almost the same yet yours have more sweetness."

You. Were. Scared. To. Try. His. But your beloved worked so hard on it! So why not try it!? Another trip to the ER would be worth it if it's for your beloved!!

Rafayel

TEARED. UP.

"Do you hate me?" "What?" "You hate me and you want me to die. So you decide to poison me?!" "WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?" "I CAN UNDERSTAND THE BETRAYAL. BUT DOING IT ON VALENTINE'S DAY?" "OK YOU UNGRATEFUL LITTLE BRAT-"

You end up having to share HIS homemade beautifully designed chocolate with him because he's not gonna eat your batch...

Zayne

He was really silent.

"So? How is it? I know it's a bit burnt but-" "It's okay. It's.. good." "Zayne, you don't have to lie.." "Why would I lie to you? I love these. I'm gonna cherish these and put it somewhere out of anyone's reach for their own safety- I mean, so I can look at it when I miss you."

He took you to a chocolate making class the next day. You know he likes his sweets DIABETIC.

Caleb

This man ate your wasabi sandwich without batting an eye. You think a little burnt dessert is gonna stop him?

"Caleb I know it's bad you don't have to keep eating it-" "What are you saying! It's not bad! Plus it's good, I need to train my stomach. It's been awhile since I ate your homemade food! Is there any left?" "CALEB STOP EATING IT PLEASE"

You had to pry his hands off of the baked goods because he would Not stop. Puppy wants to appreciate your effort!!! Okay!!! 😭🥺 He gives you his own batch and they're sooooooooooo good you almost didn't believe it's homemade, but it's Caleb, so of course he's annoyingly good at everything he does. 🙄

Happy Val's Day, everybaaa!! Thank you so much for every support, likes, reblogs, comments, asks you have given me! I really appreciate it! 🥰

[buckysleftbicep]

𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐩𝐨𝐞𝐭𝐬 𝐝𝐞𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𐙚⋆°｡⋆

a/n: welcome to my masterlist, if any of the links aren't working, drop me an ask or a message!

requests are open!

disclaimer: some of my works include nsfw themes / 18+ content, all my works have content warnings, and nsfw fics are labelled with a 'ᯓ★' so minors please do not interact, thank you!

last updated: 6th July 2025

cornelia street

ONE SHOTS

— your love is a secret, i’m hoping, dreaming, dying to keep

just one race ᯓ★ | biker!bucky barnes x fem!biker!reader (modern au) summary: two years ago, you fucked bucky and never called back. when he sees you again, he's not just racing for the win.

winning streak | hockey captain!bucky barnes x fem!reader (modern au) summary: the national title on the line. one last goal. and bucky doesn’t skate to the trophy — he runs to you.

no sudden moves ᯓ★ | new avenger!bucky x fem!reader summary: a mission had gone to hell, wounded and cornered, you and bucky hide in a shaft barely wide enough for one. it starts with a touch, and it ends with you coming undone in his hands.

private gallery ᯓ★ | new avenger!bucky x fem!reader summary: sexting while he’s on a mission seemed like a good idea, until bucky comes home early and fucks you like he’s been counting the days.

in too deep ᯓ★ | dom!new avenger!bucky barnes x fem!reader summary: you told bucky it was your ovulation week and he took that as a challenge. you really, really, should’ve kept your mouth shut. based on this request

what home feels like | new avenger!bucky barnes x fem!reader (5 + 1 trope) summary: the 5 times bucky thinks of proposing to you and the 1 time he does

soft hands, heavy heart ᯓ★ | inexperienced!new avenger!bucky x fem!reader summary: bucky wants you, but he just doesn’t know how to let himself have you. but you’ll spend every second showing him how it feels to be wanted.

daddy's best friend ᯓ★ | dbf!bucky x fem!reader (modern au) summary: your dad’s best friend has been avoiding your eyes all night, until he’s got you pinned against the laundry room door, hand up your thigh. it’s everything you shouldn’t want, but you always do.

little black dress ᯓ★ | new avenger!dom!bucky x fem!reader summary: you and bucky have always danced the line between desire and something more. but he never made his move, so you showed him exactly what it looked like when john does.

swipe right | grumpy!tfatws!bucky x fem!reader summary: sam thinks bucky needs to get back out there. he suggests tinder—and really, who better to ask for advice than you? things change when he asks what you're looking for.

under wraps ᯓ★ | new avenger!bucky x fem!reader summary: you and bucky have kept things secret for months, stolen glances, quiet hookups around the compound and well, the team finally catches on.

heavy lifting | new avenger!bucky x fem!reader (domestic au) summary: moving is hard, but teasing bucky about his knees and getting kissed breathless on the floor makes it all worth it.

the things we left behind ᯓ★ | new avenger!ex!bucky x widow!ex!reader (reader is female) summary: you haven't seen bucky in years. not since the night he left. the blip changed both of you, and nothing was ever the same after. now, val has you working together again. the job is dangerous, the tension is unbearable. and the feelings? still impossible to outrun.

all the little moments | new avenger!bucky x fem!reader summary: bucky tries to remember the moment he fell for you—but it wasn’t just one. it was every laugh, every late night, every quiet second beside you. and he finally realises, he’s been falling all along.

cradles and chaos | new avenger!bucky x pregnant!fem!reader summary: you wanted to surprise bucky with the news—you’re pregnant. the only problem? everyone else on the team found out first. cue the chaos.

the cat's out of the bag | new avenger!bucky x fem!reader summary: during a storm, you rescue a stray kitten and spend the next week trying to keep her hidden from your boyfriend.

off limits ᯓ★ | new avenger!bucky x fem!reader summary: at a high profile mission gala, bucky snaps when he sees another man's hands on you, jealousy boils over and he shows you exactly who you belong to

what's left behind ᯓ★ | new avenger!bucky x fem!reader summary: after finding out bucky’s leaving on another mission without telling you, everything falls apart. the argument is brutal, but that night, he comes back to hold you. just once more. maybe for the last time.

exit wounds ᯓ★ | new avenger!bucky x fem!reader summary: after you put yourself in danger once again during a mission, bucky finally snaps.

little rabbit ᯓ★ | new avenger!bucky x fem!reader summary: you wanted to play prey and bucky was more than happy to hunt.

earned it ᯓ★ | new avenger!bucky x fem!reader summary: during a mission, bucky corners you behind a supply shelf and slides his fingers between your thighs, all while your comms stay live.

right this time | new avenger!bucky x fem!reader summary: after a disappointing date, bucky decides to show you what a proper date should be like. based on this request

briefed and blown ᯓ★ | new avenger!bucky x fem!reader summary: you are on your knees for bucky, just before a mission briefing based on this request 

high for this ᯓ★ | new avenger!bucky x fem!reader summary: during a mission, you and bucky are exposed to a gas meant to strip away restraint. he resists, and well, you try. but when the heat fades, it’s not the mission that haunts you both, it’s what happened behind that door. based on this request!

lined up ᯓ★ | new avenger!bucky x fem!reader summary: bucky teaches you how to play pool. based on this request!

you deserve nice things too | new avenger!bucky x fem!reader summary: you decide to get your boyfriend a dyson airwrap, and teach him how to use it.

who did this to you? | new avenger!bucky x fem!reader summary: bucky notices the bruises before you ever say a word. as the truth unravels, he steps in—not just to protect you, he makes sure you're never hurt again. (tw: abuse)

eyes don't lie ᯓ★' | new avenger!bucky x fem!reader summary: you and bucky were trapped in a storm during mission, with one bed and so much tension. (really just lots of filthy sex guys)

all that's left ᯓ★ | fwb!bucky x fem!reader summary: you and bucky were never meant to be more than friends with benefits—until you say those three words. he walks out. then a mission traps you both in a sealed room, and suddenly, there’s no escaping the walls you both built.

ASKS

— i once was poison ivy, but now i'm your daisy

bucky being a gentleman in the streets and an absolute freak in the sheets | ᯓ★

bucky reacting to you asking to turn off the lights during sex | ᯓ★

DARK FICS

— i know he's crazy but he's the one i want

no one else ᯓ★ (non-con) | new avenger!dark!bucky barnes x fem!reader summary: you have a boyfriend, but bucky could care less. he waited, watched, let the fantasy of you rot until all that was left was his need and obsession.

where it truly lies ᯓ★ | ex!bucky barnes x fem!reader , steve rogers x cheating!fem!reader summary: you swore you were done with him, but every time steve touches you see bucky instead. one text drags you back to the motel, back to the lies, and steve will never know.

salvation never tasted this sweet ᯓ★ (dub-con) | priest!bucky x innocent!fem!reader summary: you came to confess your sins, but father james had no intention of granting you forgiveness

daddy's got a gun ᯓ★ (dub-con) | mob!bucky x fem!reader summary: you never meant to cross a man like bucky barnes, he is cold-blooded, ruthless, he always takes what he wants and no amount of fight can drown out the way you end up begging for more. based on this request!

SERIES

— i hope i never lose you, hope it never ends

bent and bruised ᯓ★ | new avenger!bucky x fem!ex-hydra!reader summary: you were built by HYDRA to please the soldier—then left for dead. years later, bucky sees your face again. but no amount of time can erase the way you once whispered his name through tears. (tw: dark themes) inspired by this request

for better or for worse ᯓ★ | new avenger!bucky x fem!reader summary: you and bucky are forced to play newlyweds at a luxury honeymoon resort. he’s controlling, you’re reckless, and now you’re sharing a bed. the problem? it’s getting harder to play pretend. and you’re not sure either of you will survive what comes next. (completed)

letters through time | 1940s!bucky x modern!fem!reader summary: you find a letter from 1944 hidden in the old brooklyn apartment you moved signed by one james buchanan barnes. you write back, he did too, and somehow, across decades, you both fall in love. (completed)

beneath the crown ᯓ★ | knight!bucky x princess!fem!reader summary: in a kingdom ruled by duty, you're a princess promised to a prince you don't love. sir james buchanan barnes is the knight sworn to protect you. but one touch turns into a secret affair, dangerous, all consuming and impossible to stop. and now, you'd risk everything just to be his. (on hiatus)

ONE SHOTS

— you are the best thing that's ever been mine

notes on napkins | steve rogers x barista!fem!reader summary: just a barista, a rainy café, and the quiet way steve leaves his heart behind—one napkin doodle at a time.

[sinner-as-saint]

this vertigo of bliss

Dark!New Avenger!Bucky x Scientist!Reader

Summary: You were hired by Val to work alongside the New Avengers in the watch tower. Of course, you weren’t superhuman beings like them, but you were a brilliant scientist. And while the team went off on missions in their loud jets with their guns and grenades to fight battles, you stayed and took care of your lab and carried on with your research projects. Always looking for ways that might help your superheroes friends. Be it finding ways to heal their injuries faster, or how to keep them healthier, or understand their modified DNA better so that in the future as they age – albeit slower than most humans – they’ll suffer less. Plus, your research would be useful in case new superhumans popped up out of nowhere, like Bob did. And you were proud of your work, as was the team, but then one day you go down an ambitious rabbit hole and make a mistake. Luckily Bucky is there to save the day. Or is he? 

Themes: sex pollen trope, mentions of drugs, smut, mild degrading kink, mild breeding kink, dom!bucky, explicit language, c*m play, aftercare

Shit. Shit. Shit. 

You could hear your own heartbeat, your heart going insane inside your rib cage – a warning sign. This was bad. Very, very bad. 

You couldn’t do anything but stand back and watch the pale smoke fill your lab, reaching every crevice, filling your lungs, coating your skin and leaving it feeling oily and dirty. You gasped for air, the mask over your face completely useless. 

Shit, what had you done? What the hell had you done? 

You were well aware it was hubris to even get into those secret HYDRA files on your computer. You knew it was selfish to try and recreate the drugs they used all those decades ago. You knew it. You knew it. It was wrong on so many levels. There’s a reason these files are so well hidden. 

And you told yourself you’d never follow through. That you’d stop right before you created this damned thing. But you couldn’t stop. It was so tempting to do what is most forbidden and here you were now, breathing in your mistake. 

You took the useless mask off, along with your lab coat. Your body was heating up. And you felt feverish. Like in a haze. And you knew what was happening. You’d read it all this morning. And you knew it would be hours before you felt normal again. Before this itch went away. This animal inside you, suddenly awake and hungry for… everything. 

No, no, no. 

You could barely stand up. 

It wasn’t supposed to be this potent. You knew nothing would leak outside the lab, it was designed that way for safety, but you still locked the entrance just in case. 

You blinked a couple of times, trying to reorient yourself as best you could, despite the smoke filling your nose and throat. Nobody was in the tower except you today. The team had left on some mission this morning. 

Or so you thought. 

Because as you were holding onto the wall, trying to make sense of what was happening to you, you heard someone knocking on the door. 

“Hey, Doc. You in there?” A deep voice. Bucky. “The system notified me that something was wrong up here. Are you okay?” 

Ah shit. Just his voice was making things worse. Your legs trembled, you were gasping for air. Your body throbbing at the mere thought of him, his hands, his mouth, his touch, his– 

“Bucky.” You managed to respond to him. “Please,” You were getting breathless, almost fucking moaning, mouth watering just at the thought of him standing right there… no, no, no. “Please, don’t come in.” You managed to tell him, every fiber of your being wanting nothing more than to just let him use you, let him rut into you, let him– 

“Uh, you don’t sound okay, Doc. Are you hurt?” He asked, the panic and concern very evident in his voice. 

Fuck. No, he had to leave. Now. He had to leave now. 

You managed to lean against the cool wall, trying to see past the pure lust coursing through your veins. You breathed slowly. “Bucky, you have to leave. Okay? I’m not hurt. I’ll be fine, you just have to leave. Now. Please.” 

“No,” He argued, sounding worried. “You don’t sound alright. I’m coming in.” He said. And there was usually no arguing with that tone. 

“No,” You whispered weakly. He had access to everything in this tower. Of course he could unlock the door with no problem. And before you could tell him not to, Bucky was in your lab. “Bucky, no.” You whispered, unable to speak properly. 

You felt warm. Hot. Burning. And you could see Bucky’s large frame moving around in the smoke. 

“Doc, what the–,” He stopped speaking abruptly. You felt the realisation sinking in, even in him. 

You felt tears falling down your face. “I’m sorry.” You whispered, watching him get closer to where you stood, “I’m so sorry. Look, just walk away. We’ll wait it out.” It pained you just to say it. “Go away, Bucky.” 

“Doc,” His voice was strained as he spoke, “What have you done?” His face so somber and blank. He was losing it too… 

“I’m sorry.” You apologized again. “I didn’t know it would– I thought I could stop. I didn’t think…” You whimpered as he got closer, your brain – whatever part of it remained coherent and not lust drunk – knew he was feeling it too. 

That pull. That damned itch. That need to feel, or grab, or bite, or fuck another warm body… 

Bucky stood right in front of you. In full tactical gear. His guns were still strapped to his body. His glorious body… strong and muscular. 

“You…” You spoke, despite the burning desire of wanting to just throw yourself at him and let him use you however he wanted. “You have to leave, Buck.” You whimpered, gasping for air, feeling your skin all warm and damp with sweat. 

He was burning too. His fists clenched. His skin shiny with sweat, his body heat almost radiating off him. He was silent, then he reached for you with his metal hand. Tracing his cold metal fingers down your neck, feeling your quick pulse. 

“You know I can’t do that.” His fingers carefully wrapped around your throat. He was losing control. “You know I can’t walk away from this. And neither can you.” 

Something was different about his voice. Something was darker. 

“I’ve been through this before, Doc.” He leaned in and held your stare. “Believe me when I say, it gets worse if you don’t fuck it out of your system. The first hour is fine. Tolerable. But by the third, the fourth hour… you feel like you’re losing your mind. Like you’re not even human anymore. Like you were made just to breed. Like an animal.” 

“Please,” You felt fresh tears fall down your face. The guilt was still there under all the lust and filthy desires.  “I didn’t mean for this to–,” 

“Shh, it doesn’t matter. We’ve got each other. We can get out of this.” He leaned in and nuzzled your neck, inhaling your scent which to him felt like the most ambrosial scent ever. “I can make it better.” He promised, pressing his body into yours. “I’ll make it feel good.” 

You whined, tilting your head back and exposing more of your neck and throat. Surrendering. “But, Bucky…” You tried, weakly. 

“Don’t fight it.” He said, pulling away from your neck to look into your eyes. “It gets worse when you fight it, Doc. You know that, don’t you?” 

That darkness in his eyes was new. You didn’t recognise it. 

“I didn’t know it would–,” 

He cut you off. “It would what?” He barked. His icy stare had you frozen in place. “You didn’t know what you were creating?” He taunted, and you noted – even in your own hazy state – that the smoke, the drug, whatever it was, was affecting him way more than it was affecting you. Because judging by his face, his voice, his stare, his movements… Bucky was almost completely gone. “Huh? You didn’t know what this drug was? You didn’t know what it could do? You’re a smart woman, Doc. Surely you knew what you were making…” 

While you were clawing, trying to hold on to your sanity, Bucky’s words were luring over to the other side. “No…” 

“Yes you did.” He accused. “You knew all along. And you still made it.” 

“Please, Bucky.” You begged. You begged for… you didn’t even know what for. All you felt was desire, and pain. A hot pain. Like something inside you contorting, wanting to explode. 

Bucky smirked, both his hands grabbing you this time. “It’s starting to hurt, isn’t it?” 

You blinked away the tears and nodded, pleading with him with your eyes. Then you caught yourself, heavy-eyed, mumbling, “Make it better… please.” 

That did it. That got rid of whatever was making both of you hold back. 

Bucky picked you up and slammed your back against the wall – all while kissing you hungrily, like his life depended on it. You couldn’t even form a proper thought as his tongue slipped into your mouth, making you moan into the kiss. 

Your hands slid into his ridiculously soft hair and he held you tightly against him. Your core pressed against his firm body as his mouth moved perfectly against yours, driving you crazy. Well, crazier. 

You didn’t care that you were dry humping him, all riled up just from his kiss. 

“That feels good, huh? Rubbing yourself on me like that?” He moaned quietly into the kiss as your hand gently tugged on his hair. He smirked and spread your legs apart just a little so he could be closer to you. 

His hands held you up, securely against him, he had a very firm grip on your thigh, his other hand placed right under your ass – holding you up while he kissed you like there was no tomorrow. 

“I’m gonna make it better, okay? You hear me, Doc? I’ll make it feel so good.” His lips left yours momentarily to kiss along your jaw, and down your neck, nibbling on your skin and making you moan out loud. 

He pulled away from you for a moment, and stared into your eyes again. Almost like he was looking for any warning signs which told him to stop, “Tell me I can.” He demanded, “Tell me I can fuck you however I want. Tell me I can use your body and make us both feel better.” The pleading tone in his voice was hard to ignore. 

You could tell he was fighting it too. The animalistic, primal urge to fuck. To breed. 

“You can.” You told him, wanting. Just wanting. “Please, I’ll… I'll let you do anything. Just make it feel better.” 

“You’re safe with me, okay? I won’t hurt you. I need you to remember that, okay?” His voice sent chills down your back and you didn’t want to be all slow and gentle anymore, you simply couldn’t wait any longer, so you reached out and started unbuckling his pants, and he helped you by tearing your clothes off, and slipped his hand in between your legs. Your naked, squirming body pressing against his tactical gear felt immoral in a way you couldn’t explain. 

You were wet, embarrassingly so. And even you could tell just by how easily Bucky ran his knuckles along your wet folds, smearing your arousal around in the process. He chuckled right in your ear as you pulled his cock out and stroked it with vigour. 

“Can’t wait, huh?” He slipped his forefinger and his middle finger through your entrance with ease and grunted in your ear as he felt your walls instantly welcoming him in. You could feel your wetness dripping down your inner thighs. He curled his fingers inside of you, hitting all the spots you wanted him too. “Just wanna be fucked badly, don’t you?” 

“Bucky…” you whimpered and closed your eyes when he leaned down and nibbled on your skin around your collar bones. Something about how desperately, and sinfully his name escaped your lips drove him wild. You bucked your hips against his hand and he chuckled as you moaned out loud while he touched you. 

Your legs wrapped around his waist as he held you up easily with just his metal hand. The rough material of his gear chafing your skin but you did not care. “Bucky,” You whined when you felt his cock briefly brush against your wet folds. “More, please. Please.” You cried out. 

“I know, I know. I feel it too.” He kissed down your neck, smirking against your skin and peppering it with kisses as he aligned his throbbing tip with your entrance. “I know, baby. I know it hurts. I’ll make it better, okay? Just let me in…” 

He pushed himself into you, stretching you out as he went. His nails digging into your skin as he held you by your hips, and yours clawing at his neck, and shoulders as he filled you up nicely. You were both panting by the time he filled you up entirely. 

He barely gave you a few seconds to adjust to his size before he started rocking in and out of you. You felt all of him, each vein, each stroke brought you to tears with how good he felt. 

“So fucking tight…” he whispered against your cheek, more so to himself. “You’re gonna let me have this tight pussy, huh? Just like that. Hmm? You’re that much of a little slut you’re not even gonna put up a fight, huh?” He stroked your walls with his pulsating cock and you were moaning against his cheek in no time. He enjoyed every second of it. 

Both his hands supported you up by grabbing you at the curve of your ass, holding you against him, as he sped up into you. He dipped his head into the crook of your neck and said, “I bet you did it on purpose too, huh? You dirty fucking whore.” He hissed in your ear, cock sliding in and out of you as he fucked you like an animal. His brain running on nothing but pure animalistic instincts. “I see the way you look at me, like a bitch in heat. You’ve probably been plotting this for weeks now. Months even.” Bucky accused. “You knew everyone else left for that mission this morning and I stayed back. Maybe you knew it was going to be just you and me in the tower, and it all worked in your favour, huh?” His grip was punishing. “You had me all to yourself. And you knew I’d come to help you. You knew locking the door from inside wasn’t gonna stop me.” 

“No…” You tried to protest, tried to tell him his accusations were wrong. But you could barely talk. “Bucky…” 

He didn’t give you the chance to form coherent sentences. He kept taunting you. “And here we are now, Doc. Here I am, at your fucking service. Your good little soldier doing his job. Fucking you like you wanted it.” He let out a cocky chuckle. “Am I doing a good job, Doc? Am I being a good little soldier, fucking you how you want me to? Hmm? Is this good enough for you? Is this what you always dreamt of?” 

“Buck…” You gasped. “You know that’s not true.” You whined. “I would never… never do this on purpose…,” You gasped, “To you.” 

“No?” He taunted. “But look how well you’re taking it. Look at you. Look at your body swallowing that cock each time like you’d been practising.” He whispered into your ear, his tone filled with lust and filth, “Did you practise, Doc? Did you fuck your biggest toy each night leading up to this in preparation, huh?” 

You moaned out loud again, reciting his name religiously as he slammed into you relentlessly.

He was taking over all your senses and you were more than happy to surrender to him.

You felt the pressure forming, fiery and pressing inside you. While it eased the pain, it also wanted out. It wanted to explode. You needed a release. “Please, Bucky. Please make me come…” 

Bucky nibbled at the skin under your ear and you lost all control you had left. Your thoughts became cloudy and all you could focus on was how his body brought you closer and closer…. 

“So fucking good…” he mumbled softly against your skin while he fucked you like an animal; occasionally growling at how good you felt around him. “Better than I ever thought.” 

Your throbbing clit rubbed against his pelvic bone each time he buried himself completely in you, and he soon quickened his pace – earning more moans from you.

“Look at what you did,” He growled in your ear as he pounded into you as fast as he could, your back slamming into the large wooden front door with each thrust. “Turned me into a fucking animal. All I can think about is making it good for you. All I want is to fill you up, and fucking breed you. Is that what you want? Want my babies inside you?” He rambled, also getting closer. “I’ll give it all to you, you know that? Not even worried about it, you’ll be a great mommy, won’t you? Won’t you, baby?” 

Your body moved along with his, his cock sliding in and out of you like you were just a toy. And you never complained once. You barely listened to what he was saying, all you did was nod and agree with his ramblings. Thinking he didn’t mean them. It was the drugs talking, you reminded yourself with whatever sanity you had left. 

You could hear the wet sounds caused each time he pushed himself into you and the sounds of your skin slapping against each other. It was downright sinful. 

He moaned against your ear and the sound sent shivers down your back. “Perfect fucking pussy, fuck, you feel like heaven,” He gasped, “Could fuck you all day and do nothing else. Right here in between your legs, huh? Is this where you want me all the time, Doc?” He hissed in pleasure, “Yeah? Does that feel good? Do I feel good inside you?” 

“Yes,” Your legs started to shake around him as he quickened his pace, pounding into you mercilessly. “Fuck… yes, you feel so good.” 

You felt like you were losing your mind. The pleasure was too much and you couldn’t hold back anymore. So, you came undone around his cock, screaming his name out loud in the empty lab. Walls clenching around him, nails scratching down his neck. 

“That’s it, baby. There we go, that feels good, huh?” His thrusts became irregular as he came right after you did, cock throbbing against your pulsating walls as he emptied inside you. 

“Oh fuck….” You could feel his warmth filling you up. “That feels…” 

“Come here.” He pulled out of you and grabbed you by the wrist, pulling you towards your nearby desk, and pushed you on it, making you sit on the edge, legs dangling for a moment as he grabbed your face and gave you a punishing kiss. “Need more from you, you hear me? Be good and give it to me, okay?” 

You were too far gone to even care what position he had you in, all you wanted was him. Inside you. All you cared about was how he’d make the pain go away. So when Bucky grabbed your legs and placed them on the edge of the desk, opening you up to him completely, you let him. 

He placed his hands on your thighs and spread them further apart and took his time inspecting your wet folds. He mindlessly dragged a finger up and down your slit, making you shiver and moan as he touched you, occasionally fingering his cum back into you. 

“I wanna see what we taste like together.” He whispered, kneeling down. 

His eyes trailed up to your tits, and his other hand reached up to pinch a nipple, making you yelp. He chuckled, “So pretty, and all mine to play with, yeah?” He whispered, getting down on his knees so his mouth was mere inches away from your clit. “Now, keep your legs spread for me. Just like this. Okay?” 

You nodded, looking down in between your legs as he leaned in and pressed his ravenous mouth shamelessly to your wetness. 

His tongue, his lips, the gentle suction of his warm mouth – it was all too much. He moved his head side to side, his coarse stubble brushing against your soft inner thighs. You whined and trembled, trying to keep your voice down as he made you lose your mind by eating you out like a starved man. 

Then he looked up, meeting your eyes as the lower half of his face was completely submerged into your wet cunt. And that did it. You came with a yelp and a moan, riding his face and tugging on his hair. 

He got up quickly and grabbed your face, breathing heavily with wetness all over his lips, “You wanna taste us together? Yeah? Wanna see how good we are?” 

You nodded, delirious. And he leaned in to kiss you again. A messy, warm, filthy kiss. Bucky only pulled away when you were breathless and begging him to stop. He was panting by the time he was done abusing your mouth. 

Then he looked down at your cunt, seeing the way wetness kept oozing out your hole. 

“Look at that,” He looked down in between your spread, trembling legs and pointed at the little puddle of wetness you’d left there on top of the desk. “You made a mess, baby. Better clean it up.” 

He pulled you off the desk and bent you over, pushing your face down, right into the little puddle you’d created there when you came for him. 

“I said clean it!” He hissed, sliding his cock back inside you from behind. “Let me see that tongue licking all that up.” He growled, “Yes, that’s it. Lick it clean, baby, come on.” He pressed down on the back of your neck, refusing to let go. “Did you get it all cleaned up? Huh? Give me a taste of that then, come here,” He pulled you up, manhandling you however he wanted. He grabbed your face and turned it to the side to kiss your open, wet, and warm mouth. You were panting by now. He didn’t care, he took whatever he wanted. Shoving his tongue into your mouth and sucking your taste, stealing it. 

He pulled away and that wild look in his eyes made you throb. “So fucking good…” Then he spat in your mouth and pushed you back down, bending you over your desk again and went back to fucking you from behind, keeping a tight grip on the back of your neck. 

You whimpered as his pelvic bone smacked against your ass each time he thrust into you. 

“Look at that body,” He mumbled. “Look at how perfect you are.” He teased, “Who knew our resident, nerdy little scientist would be such a filthy little slut for me, huh?” He slowed down, grabbing your neck and pulling you back into his chest, getting closer to your ear as he said, “Is that what you are now, Doc? Are you my little slut? Tell me. Tell me you’re my little slut and I can breed you whenever I want to. Tell me I get to use you whenever I feel like it.” He hissed, “Fucking tell me.” 

You whimpered, “Yes I am. I am your little slut, please just… you can do whatever you want, Bucky, just please make me come.” 

Bucky chuckled, cocky now that he’d heard all that he wanted to hear. “Yes you are, baby. A perfect little slut for me. Just for me.” 

Then he resumed fucking you like an animal. His moans and groans loud in your ear. 

“You better come for me, slut.” He growled into your ear. “You hear me? Come on this cock, come on. I want it wet with your cum.” 

His words made you delirious. Lust drunk even more than ever before. You moaned as he reached every single sensitive spot inside you. You felt a familiar warmth taking over you, and a pressure building in between your hips. 

“Oh…” You whined, “Bucky, I’m gonna come.” You cried, and you were pretty sure you had warm tears streaming down your face. 

“Come on, baby. Come on. Let me fill you up again, huh? You’re gonna just be a good girl and take it, huh? You’ll just be nothing but a cum dump for me, that’s it, angel. Milk that fucking cock, it’s all yours baby… all yours.” 

You couldn’t hold it any longer. And you came all over his cock, crying with hot tears down your face. 

“Yes… look at you.” He cooed, his voice laced with lust and desire. “You come so good for me.” He slammed his cock harder into you, and your eyes watered even more. He felt agonisingly good, even though you were so sensitive that each stroke had you whimpering and trembling. 

Bucky came right after you, grunting and sighing in pleasure. His warm load shooting inside you as your body shook against the desk. 

“Fuck, angel, you’re so full of my cum.” He pulled out and pushed back into you, a shallow thrust, as if to test something out. “There, I can feel it all inside you.” 

Your mind was a foggy mess. The lab was clearer now though, no more smoke poisoning your brains. But there was enough in both your systems that Bucky only had to wait another minute, before he was ready to go again. 

Turning you around and stepping in between your legs and slid back into you again. “It’s getting better, huh? The pain? Are you okay, baby?” 

You just nodded and let him take over. 

A few slow strokes, then the animal in him took the reins again. Bucky fucked hard and fast into you, his teeth bruising your lips. His mouth swallowing your moans, as he whispered against your open mouth, “It’s all yours, all fucking yours. This is what you wanted, huh? This cock is all you wanted? Should’ve just asked, baby. You didn’t have to do all this. Should’ve just looked up at me with those pretty eyes, gave me one of those please fuck me looks and i would’ve done it.” He chuckled, ending with a loud moan. “Fuck, I would’ve done it. I would’ve taken care of you so fucking good…” 

“Please,” You begged, “Please, Bucky, can you–,” A loud moan escaping your mouth cut you off. 

“What?” He hissed. 

“I want to taste you, please come in my mouth.” You asked, your brain barely registering what you were asking for. 

He chuckled, “No, no, no. I can't waste all this.” He reasoned. “This goes in you, right? That’s why you did all of this? To be pumped full of my cum, right? So no, baby. Can’t waste it all by shoving all this down your throat instead of in your womb.” He teased, “Sorry, but not this time.” 

Moments later, you were coming undone loudly while Bucky was spilling inside you, some of it oozing out all around his cock, which was still snug inside you. “There,” He gathered some on his finger tips, chuckling, “I guess you can have some of it.” He shoved his fingers into your mouth, which you greedily sucked on like it was fucking ambrosia. Bucky hissed, “Yeah, you like that? The taste of me?” 

You nodded, his fingers still deep into your mouth. 

“You want more?” He asked.  

You nodded again. 

“Let’s go then. I need a bed to properly break you in.” 

—

Hours later, finally satiated, Bucky decided you two could stop now. That agonising hunger subsided. 

He was spent. As were you. And he had barely any energy left. But he made an effort, hissing as he got up and out of bed, feeling all his muscles screaming after hours of non-stop fucking. He stood there, stretching his limbs a little as he looked over at you. 

You were buried under his blankets and pillows, only your pretty face was visible. And your eyes were shutting more and more. Bucky leaned over and caressed your face, waking you up gently. “Hey, baby. Wake up.” He whispered gently. “I need you to drink something, okay? Don’t fall asleep just yet.” 

You whined, “Just wanna sleep.” You mumbled. 

“I know, I know.” Bucky walked over to his mini fridge and got some sugary drinks out. “But you need to drink this, okay.” He walked back to bed and forced you up, pulling you onto his lap so he could better observe whether you were drinking all of it or not. “Come on, have some more. You need it, angel, please.” He reasoned, kissing your shoulder, and rubbing your thighs. 

You finished your drink, and leaned back against Bucky, thankful for his warm chest and his strong arms holding you up. 

“I got you, angel, I got you,” He murmured, his hands rubbing all over you. He didn’t care that he was smearing his own cum all over your thighs and abdomen, it felt weirdly good. Like he was marking you. “I’m sorry I got so rough earlier,” He apologised, kissing your shoulder. “You just felt so good, I wanted your body to bend and break for me.” He kissed your tired body wherever he could, “Am I forgiven?” He kissed your neck until it tickled, “Hmm? Do you forgive me for being rough earlier?” 

He earned a sleepy drowsy giggle. “Yes, Buck.” You answered, letting him tuck you back in bed. “Need to shower,” You mumbled. 

Bucky answered, saying, “Later, baby.” And he kept kissing you, murmuring praises and post-sex rambles into your ear. “You’re perfect, you know that?” He spooned you from behind, not minding the sticky, sweaty mess you both were. “My perfect girl…” 

You were too close to falling asleep to note the change in his tone. The slight darkness lacing his words. Still. 

Bucky pressed his body to yours, caging you in his arms. Then noticed the way you backed up into him, purposely because you did it twice. 

“Again?” He asked you, chuckling when you nodded at his question, your butt pressing into his crotch as you drifted off… barely conscious and letting out the tiniest, softest moans as he slid his cock back inside you. Hard already. With ease. Fucking you slowly and enjoying the feeling of your wet warmth wrapped around him. 

He knew your body by heart now, so even in the dark he let his hands roam all over you. Touching you exactly where you needed to be touched. 

You let out a sleepy whimper, “Mhmm,” And mumbled some nonsense, “...feels so good.” You let out a sigh. “Gonna need you all the time now.” 

“I know, baby.” Bucky murmured, already spilling inside you. Filling you up with his cum again. “I know it feels good.” He tightened his arms around you, left his cock snug inside you and pulled you closer to him, whispering against the back of your neck, “And we would’ve never known how good it can be if I hadn’t intervened to speed things up, now would we?” 

How long had he yearned for this? For you? Months maybe. But you were always so cautious, always so proper. Always so distant and with frozen, icy walls around your heart. Bucky could never get in. But he wanted you. Oh, how he wanted you since the day he first saw you. 

Gods… it was so easy to sneak those files into your computer. And he knew you were so curious by nature that you wouldn’t have been able to resist looking into them. And once you looked, you wouldn’t be able to resist trying to recreate something so forbidden. 

All he had to do was let you believe that he’d left that morning with the team as well. But he never did. He planned things too well. Stalled just enough so that right as they were about to take off, Bucky was able to pull back. Showing everyone that the system had alerted him that there was something going on in the lab. The team agreed that Bucky would stay behind and deal with that while they went away and carried on with the mission. 

So then, just as he had planned, you two were all alone in the tower and he was at the lab at the right time. Barging in to get you out, like a hero. And accidentally inhaled all that vapour that drove him wild… 

And here he was now. His plan was well executed. 

Bucky playfully bit your skin, tasting you like you were there just for that. “You played your part well, baby. Thank you for that.” He smiled upon hearing another one of those sleepy moans escaping your mouth. “And now you’re all mine.” He whispered into your ear. 

—

a/n: what? I was horny okay…

[mydearzero]

Unstoppable Force | Omegaverse Robert 'Bob' Reynolds x fem!Reader

Summary: He hadn't had his rut in YEARS. You took suppressants. Some manipulation from Val made sure both those things would change.

Contents: SMUT, mild dubcon, Omegaverse, fem!reader, Alpha!Bob, Omega!Reader, No Y/N, thunderbolts!reader, penetrative sex (p in v), breeding, designations aren't obvious until rut/heat, creampie, light possessiveness, if I missed any tags let me know!

WC: 4.6K

18+ MINORS DO NOT INTERACT!

Masterlist

A/N: I still have Bob brainrot and was thinking about a A/B/O fic and couldn't find any so I wrote it. I've never written A/B/O before so yeah do with that what you will. had to hold myself back from using the phrase 'lost in the sauce' so be glad that's not in the middle of the smut y'all

“I’m not sure I understand,” you let Valentina know. “How is this going to improve my fighting?” She took back the folder she’d slid to you across the table. 

“It’s just some testing, nothing more. Now if you’ll just come with me, I’ll go get us some more drinks. We’ll discuss the details later.” Val said as she picked up the cup she’d handed you earlier. Whatever it had been, it had been sweeter than you preferred. 

“I’m good, thanks. Where are we going?” You politely declined another drink. You walked through a hallway with no windows, no doors, except for the one all the way at the end. Val entered a code into the keypad and held the door open. 

“Just wait in here, I’ll be right back.” 

Your eyebrows raised when you walked into the room. It looked nothing like a meeting room, or a laboratory, for that matter. A large mirror was hung on the back wall. The door closed behind you suddenly. The echo startled you out of your focused assessment of the room. A door on the other side opened, and the hairs on the back of your neck immediately stood up. 

Alpha. 

The smell was blinding, almost making you want to hunch in on yourself. It was natural for it to overtake all of your thoughts, yet it surprised you how much it made you pause in your tracks. Whoever it was smelled phenomenal. You slowly backed away, making sure that whatever you did, you didn’t run. Your back met with the door and you grasped for the handle blindly, twisting it, only to find it locked. You cannot be serious. 

“Val?!” You questioned loudly, sure by now the room was being surveilled. She’d tricked you. To do what, you weren’t sure yet. You shouldn’t have trusted her. Shouldn’t have let your guard down, even for a second. 

Your eyes finally caught what your nose had already told you, hunched in the doorway. Bob? He wasn’t an Alpha, right? He was a Beta, Yelena had told you herself. Was there someone else behind him? There must be. You tried to look around him, but suddenly his frame looked broader than you’d ever recalled it being. 

“Bob? What’s going on?” You questioned. His eyes snapped to yours. He looked just as alarmed to see you as you felt. 

“You can’t be serious!” Bob yelled out to nobody in particular, banging on the door that had closed behind him, presumably also locked. “You can’t do this to her!” 

His breathing was irregular as he spoke your name. “You need to stay back. Just– Just stay there, on that side of the room. I’ll stay here and we’ll wait it out.” He hunched in on himself and crouched into the corner furthest from you, behind a lavish bed. 

This wasn’t research. You still didn’t understand what Val was up to, but this couldn’t be good. 

“Bob, please tell me what we’re doing in here,” you pleaded softly, though you did as he said and followed his example, hunching in the opposite corner. 

“They can’t do this to you,” he mumbled. “It’s not fair.” 

“You’re scaring me,” you whispered. He scoffed a laugh. 

“Good. You should be,” he refused to look at you, turning his face into the wall. All this time, the looming scent of Alpha hadn’t left the room. It was messing with your ability to think. 

“You’re a Beta, right?” You searched for any change in his body language for an answer. His spine stiffened. 

“... Right?” You begged. You already knew the answer. All these months in the tower, it had somehow slipped past all of you that Bob was, in fact, an Alpha. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “This– It wasn’t supposed to happen. I didn’t know you’d be here!” 

“What is this place?” You looked around the room, trying to spot a way out. It was hard to think critically when every nerve in your body was starting to scream at you to go over to Bob.

“It’s… hard to explain. Just… Stop talking, please,” he cupped his hands over his ears. 

“I’ll stop talking when I understand what the hell is going on!” You were getting frustrated with him. You were scared. Your stomach turned as your fingers began to tingle. You brought your hands up to your lips, remembering the drink Valentina had given you. She hadn’t drank any herself. Fuck, how could you be that stupid? 

“This wasn’t supposed to happen,” he repeated. 

“What wasn’t supposed to happen, Bob?” He gasped softly at the mention of his name. 

“Don’t– Don’t say that. Don’t say my name.” He demanded. You raised your hands in mock defense. 

“You have to understand,” he started. “They said they were going to help me. They promised.” He averted his attention from the wall to the ceiling. 

“This is cruel!” He yelled at the ceiling. “You don’t know what’s gonna happen! What I– What he might do to her!” Did he? Did he know what was going to happen? He obviously knew something, knew more than you.

You saw him slump against the wall, roughly hitting his head against it. He turned, finally making eye contact. You drew in a sharp breath. His eyes were flickering gold, the way they only did when he was using his powers. This wasn’t right. He had been working on controlling it for months now. 

“It’s been years. They– They said they’d help me,” he ran a shaky hand over his face, laughing at his own past stupidity. “I should’ve known they’d pull something like this.” 

“You have to tell me what’s happening. Fucking spit it out already,” you demanded. 

“I haven’t had a rut in over 15 years,” Bob informed you. “But I’m having my first one right now.” 

Fuck. 

No no no no no no no no no NO– 

“You– Right now?” 

“Right now.” Bob nodded. 

You had to get out of here. It’s not that you didn’t want Bob. Quite the opposite, actually. But he wasn’t going to be in his right mind. God, you should’ve known the second you smelled an Alpha that you were in trouble. Actually smelling someone’s designation could only mean two things; either they were experiencing very extreme emotions, or they were nearing a rut/heat. You couldn’t think about the smell. Couldn’t let it get to you, or it would trigger your heat. 

“I’m assuming you’re an Omega?” Bob distracted you from your thoughts. 

“Yeah… I didn’t think it mattered!” You cried. “I’ve been on suppressants for forever. I haven’t had my heat in like… God, 5 years? Maybe 6? Val said they were just going to do some testing with my new suit… I should never have trusted her.” 

“I think I’m going insane,” Bob laughed maniacally. “It’s like I can smell you. But that’s impossible if you’re taking suppressants.” 

“I wouldn’t be too sure about that, actually,” you winced. “She gave me a drink. Didn’t think anything of it because apparently I’m an idiot.” 

“She spiked it with something?” His breathing was getting more and more laboured. He was realizing by now that you had been set up, too. This was all an elaborate scheme. 

You shrugged. “I guess we’ll be finding out real soon if she did, and with what.” 

Bob turned his back to you, back facing the wall. You could tell from the heaving of his shoulders that he was breathing heavily. He was trying his best to stay in control. 

You, too, felt like you were slowly but surely losing your mind. Whatever Val had given you was working fast. You could feel sweat build up on the back of your neck. You were tempted to take off your clothes, but were sure that wouldn’t exactly make the situation any easier for Bob. You could deal with the temperature, as long as he stayed away and didn’t trigger your heat. 

It had been so long you’d had one, and even when you did, you’d never spent it with an Alpha. A rutting Alpha? Even better. No. Don’t think about that. Don’t think about his rut. Don’t think about what he could be thinking about. Don’t think about what he could do to you. Don’t think about his knot. 

Shit. 

You were definitely thinking about his knot, now. 

So what if you’d been harbouring a secret crush on him for months? It had been harmless, up until now. He was relying on you to control yourself, and you were messing that part up real fast. 

The temperature was rising quickly. The room was too small for an Alpha experiencing his rut, especially with an unmated Omega so nearby. You untied your shoes, trying to find the best way to cool down without setting him off. You put your socks in your shoes. It helped for about 0.3 seconds. 

A familiar feeling was starting to build in your stomach. It wasn’t discomfort, exactly. Dissatisfaction. An itch. A need. 

You tried to hold it in. You really did. His scent was so overwhelming. That combined with the fact that your system had been flushed clear of all suppressants for the first time in years? You were fucked. 

A soft whisper of your name rang from the other side of the room. It sent a shiver up your spine. You understood, now, why he’d begged you not to say his name. It was like he was speaking directly to the part of you that was holding up your reserve, and crumbling it. 

“Hmm?” You acknowledged painfully. 

“How… How are you feeling?” Bob asked quietly. He’d likely smelled it already. The desperation. His rut had triggered your heat. Neither of you were going to be able to hold back. 

“Like I’m slowly burning from the inside, but other than that, peachy,” you replied sarcastically, bringing your hand to your forehead to wipe away the beads of sweat. 

“I don’t know– I don’t know how much longer I can control this. It’s been so long…” He didn’t dare turn around. Maybe you should turn your back to him, too. Maybe then it was easier to keep your mind off him. You decided to give it a try. The second you tore your eyes off him, you felt a dire need to put them back on him. You resisted, for now. 

You heard the ruffling of fabric. You were so tempted to turn around. The heat was getting to him. He’d taken off his sweater and let out a small sigh of relief. It sounded downright pornographic, though you were sure any sound he made at this point would sound like that to your ears. 

You decided that, since neither of you were looking, it couldn’t hurt to take your shirt off as well. You grabbed it by the hem and lifted it over your head, leaving you in your bra and pants. The air was a lot colder, bringing goosebumps and relief to your skin. You discarded the shirt somewhere behind you. 

The smallest of whimpers escaped your lips. It was really starting now. A trickle of slick escaped your core, and you knew he could smell it. Your senses were overwhelming you, telling you to rip all your (and his) clothes off and just get it over with. You couldn’t give in. Not with whatever Val had been planning to happen. 

“Bob?” He moaned obscenely at the mention of his name. He acknowledged your questioning tone with a small groan. 

“I– I just think I should tell you something, before…” you didn’t have to finish the sentence. 

“What is it?” He grunted. The sound of a zipper opening made you freeze in your tracks. Was he…? 

“I– these last few months… I just– I’m not sure how to say this,” you started. You just wanted to reassure him it was okay if he broke. You wanted him, regardless. It was okay to lose control. You knew he’d already smelled your pussy from across the room, yet still felt like a schoolgirl about to admit her crush. 

“It’s okay… If you, y’know. I– I like you, Bob,” more rustling from the other side of the room. You were fighting with every fibre in your body not to turn around. 

“You’re just saying that,” he gasped out. “Because of the– the heat.” You could hear him moving. The sound was slick, though ever so silently. He was touching himself. 

“I’m not! I like you. I do,” you were squirming, trying to find a position that would alleviate the building pressure in your abdomen. You rolled your shoulders, the tension in your neck was killing you. All you wanted to do is throw your head back and expose your neck for him. 

The slick movement was increasing in speed. He sounded delicious, even though he was obviously trying to contain all the small moans and whimpers. Whether it was to spare you the need or himself the embarrassment, you were unsure. 

“Are you,” you bit your lip. “Are you touching yourself?” 

“Yeah,” he groaned out. “‘M sorry… I can’t– It’s, fuck, just– Stop talking.” 

“It’s okay,” you were surprised by the sensual tone of your voice, barely above a whisper. 

“Stop. Talking,” you could tell he was close. His laboured breath was something you wished to feel against your skin. You slowly snuck a hand into your waistband, no longer able to control yourself. You gasped when your finger made contact with your clit. 

“Fuck, no, are you? Oh fuck,” Bob immediately groaned loudly, immediately coming at the thought of you touching yourself to the sound of him doing the same. He held the base of his cock tightly, refusing to pop a knot right then and there. Coming inside of his boxers was bad enough. 

You took your pants off, no longer content with it limiting your range of movement. Had all your previous heats felt like this? You couldn’t remember ever feeling this out of control, this insane. Fucking hell, you could smell his cum. He really wasn’t helping the situation right now. 

“Do you feel better?” You asked. An orgasm usually helped keep the hormones at bay, even if it was only for a few minutes. 

“No, I hoped I would but I–” He clenched his teeth tightly. You circled your clit with two fingers, willing your hips to keep still as to not obscenely go and fuck your own hand. 

You knew you made a mistake the second your resolve broke and you sent a glance over your shoulder to look at him. He’d been able to control his need to turn around, still facing the wall. It didn’t matter. His sweaty, naked form, heaving from his orgasm, was enough to enthrall you. He instantly noticed you’d gone silent. Worried for your wellbeing, he slowly turned around, meeting your hungry gaze. 

Something snapped. He flung his head against the wall, squeezing his eyes shut. The force had cracked the concrete on impact. He groaned loudly, every muscle straining, fighting to keep his hands off you. Your parted lips, wide eyes, undressed form, it was his undoing. 

The sight of him losing control was enough to send you over the edge. A high pitched whine escaped your lips, your toes curling. His eyes snapped open, lips parting at the display. He was on your body before either of you could blink. His powers were taking over. He pinned your arms above your head, to the floor. While you were only in your underwear, his pants had yet to leave his body. 

“I’m sorry it has to be like this,” he spoke, scanning your face. 

“It’s okay,” you reassured him again, trying to wiggle out of his hold. “I want you. Wanted you long before today.” 

He released your wrists and brought a hand to your cheek, softly caressing it and taking you in for a moment. He couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t believe you wanted him. 

“I’m not gonna be able to stop,” Bob confessed. You flung your arms around his neck, pulling him closer. You leaned into his ear to speak, feeling his hot breath on your neck. 

“Then don’t.” 

It was enough. He kissed you hungrily, bringing your body as close to his as it could go. He tasted every bit as good as he smelled. His hands made quick work of your bra and underwear. Your head whirled as your back suddenly met the soft mattress. His powers. He was so fast. So strong. The bed swallowed you. 

He was biting at your lips, nipping at the skin of your jaw. The only way you could explain it was feral. You put your hands on the waistband of his jeans, tugging them down. The zipper was still open from his previous endeavours.  “Off,” you demanded between kisses. He shimmied them off while maintaining contact with his mouth to your skin at all times. 

“Never would’ve guessed,” you breathed as he worked his mouth down your chest, taking a nipple in his mouth and sucking harshly. “–that you were an Alpha.” 

“What, I’m not imposing enough?” He laughed, making eye contact and switching to the other nipple. There was a big, noticeable wet patch in his underwear from where he’d come in them before. He quickly shimmied out of those, too. His cock slammed up against his abdomen, already hard again and ready to go. God, he was big. 

“Hmmm, you’re too sweet,” you told him. It was true. He always made an extra cup of tea so you could have one. Did the laundry for the others. Made sure everybody’s favourite snacks were at the tower at all times. He was just so thoughtful. 

“Wanna take care of you,” he came back up, having spent enough attention on your breasts, for now. “Is that not an Alpha thing?” 

“Now that you mention it…” He did have a point. An Alpha took care of their people. All the things he did so the team was at their best was exactly that. You tugged him back down to smash your lips against his again. You could spend eternity like this. You were going to get addicted to kissing him. 

You trailed your hands down his chest, over his tight abdomen. “Can’t even begin to tell you how hot I think you are,” you informed him. His eyebrows shot up. 

“Really?” He started kissing dangerously close to your mating glands. The feeling of anticipation was killing you. You craned your neck to the side instinctively, giving him more access. The feeling burned, in a good way. 

A new wave of desperation washed over you. It was starting to hurt, your eyes blurring with tears as you tried to work through the burn. Bob noticed something was off, pulling away for a second to check on you. While noble, it only made the feeling worse. 

“You okay?” He asked, eyes scanning your face for any discomfort. Like a good Alpha. 

“It– It hurts, Bob,” you whined. “Please, make it stop.” 

“I’ll make it stop. I’ll help you, baby,” he whispered, bending back down to suck a hickey over your mating gland. A promise. He ground his hips down, sliding his cock between your wet folds. The contact made both of you moan. Bob’s jaw fell slack as he closed his eyes, throwing his head back. 

“Fuck me, Bob,” you put your hands on his shoulders. “Need you inside of me.” 

“Look so good like this,” Bob mumbled as he took his length in his hand, lining himself up with your entrance. You prepared yourself mentally for the stretch. He shuddered as he slowly pushed his tip inside, spreading you open. It notched inside and he paused for a second, checking to see if you were okay. 

You were more than okay, lost in your heat, desperate to get him deeper. You gave him a small nod, signalling for him to please continue pushing inside. The stretch felt amazing. If you had ever doubted his Alpha status, the feeling of his girth inside you would’ve changed your mind. You were so full. He still wasn’t all the way inside, going torturously slow. 

When he finally bottomed out, you stopped breathing. Bob’s eyes snapped closed, mouth agape as the pleasure of feeling you around him overtook his senses. A sense of satisfaction settled in your body. The fact you were finally giving in, finally letting yourself be filled by an Alpha during your heat, was a taste of something you wouldn’t ever get enough of. You almost felt complete. There were only 2 things missing;

A knot, and his teeth biting your neck. 

“M-move, now,” you demanded. He obliged, dragging his hips back gently. When he snapped them forward again, you couldn’t hold back a moan. 

“That’s it,” Bob nuzzled your neck, pulling his cock out and snapping forward faster this time. Your exorbitant amount of slick made the slide much easier. If this would become a recurring thing, you weren’t sure you’d even be able to take him outside of your heat. 

“Gonna make you mine,” he groaned. “Nobody else can have you.” Another gleam of gold flashed through his eyes. God, you sure hoped Val was prepared for Sentry to make an appearance, because it was looking like that might be the case by the end of this.

“Already yours,” you sighed. “Always have been.” 

“Say it again,” he pleaded. “Say you’re mine.” 

He probably hadn’t intended for it to be an Alpha command. It had just slipped out. 

“I’m yours– All yours. Only you,” you whimpered out, unable to resist the command even if you’d wanted to. It had sent a new rush of heat spreading through your body. A newfound sense of need settled in your very being. You needed him closer, deeper, anything. You’d crawl into his skin if it were possible. 

You knew he felt it too, what the Alpha command had done to you. You’d tightened around him, clenching his cock tightly. A mischievous expression took over his face. His balls slapped against your cunt as he finally started fucking you the way you needed. Hard. Frantic. Feral. 

“Fuck, Bob!” You keened. He’d found that spot. You dug your nails into his back, desperate to keep him going exactly like that. “Don’t stop.” 

“So good for me,” Bob moaned. The way he chanted your name like a prayer was obscene. “All mine.” 

He dropped his head to your chest, taking a nipple in his mouth and tonguing around it. He kneaded your other boob with his hand, rough enough to sting, but so, so good. 

“So pretty,” he babbled. He was losing his sanity to his rut. “You smell so good.” He was nuzzling your neck again, inhaling your scent deeply, committing it to his permanent memory. 

“It’s like you were made for me. So tight. Perfect fit,” Bob mused. You could feel it, too. The way he filled you exactly to the brim. Stretched you out just enough for you to feel so, so full. 

He pounded into you, but it wasn’t enough. “More, Alpha. Please,” you begged. Bob lost all sense of control at the title. 

“Such a good Omega for me,” he grazed his teeth over your mating gland. It sent your head reeling, dizzy with pleasure. 

“Please.” What you were begging for, you didn’t know. 

“Shhh, it’s okay,” Bob whispered with haggard breaths. He brushed your hair out of your face, cradling it in his hands as he continued his brutal pace, chasing both of your highs. 

You knew you were getting close, the knot in your stomach tightening. Bob grabbed your hips tight, snapping his hips forward. You were sure there’d be finger shaped bruises all over your body by morning, but you couldn’t find yourself to care. 

One of his hands worked itself between your bodies, seeking contact with your clit. Your head slammed back against the pillow, eyes rolling to the back of your skull. Holy shit. 

“Ah, Bob- fuck, oh-” you sought anything to hold onto, settling on the sheets underneath your body. Your knuckles turned white as you held on tightly. Your jaw fell slack at the sensation. He was trying to make you come, and he was succeeding. 

“Come for me, O-Omega,” he moaned loudly. “Ah- Come on my cock.” His voice was faltering with the sheer effort he was putting into fucking you right. He was mesmerised at the sight of your tits bouncing wildly with the rhythm and force of his hips pounding into yours.

“Knot me,” you begged. You needed it. Needed it right now.

“‘F course I’ll knot you,” Bob reassured you. “Gonna fuck my cum inside you. Fill you up real good.” 

“Fuck, please.” The thought of him filling you up to the brim drove you insane with lust. “Alpha, please, knot me, knot me.” 

“So good for me, baby. Come for me,” his fingers sped up, circling your clit in tandem with his thrust. His hips were starting to falter, he was getting close. A tear rolled down the side of your face at the intensity. 

He bent down and bit down on your neck, exactly where you needed him to. You were screaming out his name, gripping his shoulders tight as you came on his cock. You shuddered, body tightening with your orgasm. Your vision went white as the bond settled in and connected your very being to him. Mates. 

Bob groaned loudly as his hips stuttered, filling you up with his cum. You could feel the base of his cock swell, stretching your entrance and locking you together. He ground his hips, now unable to pull out, but desperate to keep fucking more cum inside of you. 

He finally slumped over you, exhausted from the strain it had taken. He rolled over and pulled you on top of him. He placed a few soft kisses on your new mating mark. For a second, you rested just like that, still connected, chests heaving with deep breaths. Your mind was clearing of the fog brought on by the heat. 

“I’m sorry,” Bob whispered, stroking your hair softly as you laid your head on his chest. 

“Don’t be,” you picked your head up, looking him in the eyes. “I loved every second of it.” 

“I did too,” Bob smiled, but then it faltered. “I’m just… Valentina…” Right. That was the whole reason you’d ended up in this situation. 

“She’s probably looking for a way to replicate whatever they’ve done to you. Maybe she wants super babies,” you sighed. It was the only explanation you could think of. You felt his cock twitch inside you, making you gasp as another light spurt of cum came out of it. 

“Don’t– Don’t talk about us having babies while I’m still inside of you.” You laughed and clenched around him intentionally, making him hiss and throw his head back. 

The doors audibly unlocked, then. Bob quickly threw a blanket over your connected bodies. 

“Well, are you going to thank me, or what?” It was Val. Of course it was. 

“You better get the fuck out and leave us alone if you know what’s good for you,” Bob threatened. 

“Don’t say I’ve never done anything for you,” she grumbled, walking back out and closing the door behind her. 

“I’m gonna kill her,” you grumbled, laying your head back on his chest and drawing tracing shapes on his chest. 

“I’ll help you,” Bob agreed. You hated her, but at least you’d gotten a mate out of it. 

[lovebugism]

Bug! What if you and grumpy!Bucky were trying to spend time alone together but the rest of the Thunderbolts kept interrupting?

thank you for requesting :D — the one where bucky wants to kiss you but the rest of the thunderbolts won't seem to let him (established relationship, fluff, thunderbolts spoilers, cw for brief mentions of injuries)

A dark blue bruise peeks from the neckline of your dress. It falls like spilled watercolor down your spine and bleeds softly past your shoulder blade before disappearing into the fabric of your rented gown. 

Valentina needed good press and thought throwing a gala the day after a near-lethal mission was the way to do it.“The whole beat-up schtick makes you guys look more heroic, trust me,” the woman said through gritted teeth as she faked a grin for the journalists. “Now just smile for the cameras, okay?”

The front page of the newspaper will undoubtedly show six bruised and beaten New Avengers tomorrow morning, but at least they make the future president look good.

You let Val have her fun in front of the cameras and distinguished guests while you disappear outside to the balcony. You stand at the edge of the Avengers Tower, overlooking the star-speckled skyline you’ve looked upon for years, and try not to think about how different everything is now. ‘Cause you’re back home, sure, but in a way you’ll never truly be back home again. 

“These still hurt?” Bucky wonders from beside you, tracing the blurred edges of your bruises with a gentle, vibranium hand. 

You answer him with a question of your own. “Shit— You can see them?” you mumble, trying hopelessly to peer over your shoulder and fix the sleeve of your borrowed dress at the same time. You can feel the ache in your shoulder blade every time you move your right arm, like a dull knife stabbing under the skin.

Bucky huffs sharply through his nose and looks away. He stares daggers through the sliding glass door at Valentina as she parades through the crowd in a bright red, floor-length dress like satan herself. Anger pierces somewhere deep in his chest. He fidgets with the knot of his tie with his flesh hand when he feels like it’s choking him. 

“I told her we needed to wait— We weren’t ready for this yet—”

“It’s best to get it over with,” you shrug and bring the flute of champagne to your mouth. Your following words come out echoed as you mumble into the glass, “The less I have to hear from her, the better.”

Bucky looks back at you and softens all over again. You’re too stubborn for your own good. There hasn’t been a battle you’ve backed away from — not the Winter Soldier, not Thanos, and certainly not Valentina. You’ll keep fighting the good fight ’til it kills you.

“I just don’t want you to hurt yourself,” Bucky admits quietly, smoothing his metal hand up and down the length of your spine. “That’s all…”

Your mouth leaves a faint lipstick print on the rim of the glass. Champagne glitters faintly on your rouge-tinted lips before you lick the sheen away. “You know I’m an assassin, right?” you quip with a pair of squinted, made-up eyes.

Bucky huffs, ‘cause it’s too like you to dismiss his attempts to care for you. “Shut up,” he murmurs in a low, honeyed tone and ducks down like he intends to kiss you. His gelled back locks fall over his scruffy cheek as he cups your jaw in a gentle hand.

“Like, for years,” you continue despite his face being mere, stomach-swirling inches away from yours. “My whole life, basically. So I think I can handle a few bruises, Sergeant Barnes.”

“Shut up—”

You’re left giggling against his mouth when he finally kisses you. You fight back the sunshine smile on your face so you can kiss him properly back. He tastes like sweet wine, spearmint, and something unnamed but still strangely familiar when he licks into your parted mouth. His spit glimmers faintly on your lips in the moonlight when he’s forced to part from you.

The sliding door opens with a whoosh. Bob stumbles from the threshold with a lopsided smile on his flushed face, clad in a pair of borrowed slacks and an ill-fitting button-up. If he notices the way you and Bucky part less than casually, he doesn’t show it.

“This is such bullshit, right?” he says through an awkward chuckle and swipes a nervous hand through his curls.

You nod with a tight-lipped smile and wipe your mouth with the back of your hand. “Yep,” you sigh and turn your back to Bucky, facing the dishevelled boy across from you. 

“I mean, we just got back from a mission saving her ass yesterday,” Bob rambles and saunters towards the opposite end of the luxurious balcony without ever looking your way. “She could’ve at least given us a warning, you know? Like, read the room, Valentina. Come on.” 

He laughs at himself and looks over his shoulder at you and Bucky. Only then does he notice the tension between you, which he has since sufficiently broken, and the rosy lipstick smudged on the grumpy man’s mouth. His eyes widen at the realization, and his chest inflates with a deep breath.

“Oh, shit…” he mumbles, eyes flitting wildly between you. “I— I’m the one that needs to read the room, aren’t I?”

You shake your head with a kind laugh. “No, Bob. It’s okay—”

“Well, yeah, kinda,” Bucky mumbles simultaneously, then winces when your elbow digs into his ribs.

“Sorry,” Bob grimaces, wringing his pale hands into a knot. “Sorry… I’ve always had a weird thing about that— You know, showing up places I shouldn’t. I think that should’ve been my superpower, honestly.”

“You can stay, Bob,” you assure him. “It’s okay.”

He shakes his wild head and walks backwards towards the door. “No, I should— I should go—” 

He spins on the heel of his brand-new loafers and hits the glass door with a thud. It garners the attention of the crowd in the main room, and Bob flashes you a wavering grin before sliding the door properly open and slinking back inside.

You sigh wistfully when he’s gone. 

“He’s so cute…” you hum to yourself.

Bucky scowls from behind you. “I’m standing right here.”

You turn to face him and poke him hard in the chest. “You should stop being so mean to him, you know?”

“And you should stop treating him like a kid.”

“But I like him…” you whine with a scrunched nose, using Bucky’s tie as a leash to pull him further into you. “Do you think we can keep him?”

Bucky laughs, a sharp exhale through his nose. “I don’t think we have a choice,” he grumbles and glances inside again. 

Through the large glass door, he can spot the blundering members of the new team. Walker towers over everyone else and tries hopelessly to show off his new shield to an uncaring crowd. Bob follows Ava around like a lost dog before she phases suddenly through a wall (which he, then, ultimately runs into). Yelena and Alexei take a series of shots together, never minding the press watching their every move.

Bucky sighs. “I think we have to keep all of them, unfortunately.

“Don’t say that like you hate them,” you giggle.

“Well, I kinda do.”

“What about me?” you whisper with your brows raised, and your eyes wide and innocent and knowing.

“Especially you.”

Bucky smiles crookedly and ducks down again when you pull him closer with his tie in your fist. This time, his attempt to kiss you is interrupted by a rapid beating at the sliding door — several thud, thud, thuds from the other side of the glass. You part from each other again, heads whipping to find Yelena and Alexei all but pressed against the door. (They tend to act like carbon copies of each other when they’re drunk.)

“I need help!” the blonde girl whines, muffled through the closed door.

“With what?!” you shout back.

Alexei tries to answer at the same time as Yelena. You can only halfway understand them as they talk over one another in similar, deep, Russian accents. “Valentina said— But we wanted to— And we can’t find—” is all you can make out.

“What?!” you repeat, face twisted with confusion.

They repeat the same spiel once more: different sentences spoken muffled and simultaneously.

Bucky huffs in annoyance. You shake your head and shout, “Just open the door!”

“Oh,” Yelena says, pink mouth pouted, as she slides the glass open with a whoosh. She pokes her head past the threshold with an innocent smile. “Do you maybe know where you can find the booze?” she lilts, voice airy and slurred in a Russian drawl.

“The good stuff,” Alexei corrects from behind her. “Not this watered-down American shit.”

You click your lips against your teeth. “Uh, well, the liquor Tony left is somewhere in the depths of the wine cellar, I think— The one downstairs, not the one in the kitchen.”

“Thank you,” Yelena says with a huff, like she’d been looking everywhere for an answer. She’s about to close the door behind her but stops with a suspicious look in her eye. “Were you guys about to make out?” she singsongs quietly, waving an accusatory finger between you.

Bucky nods. “‘Trying’ being the key word here.”

“Oops,” Yelena whispers with a feigned wince, disappearing back inside and talking through the closing door as she goes. “Sorry— Carry on— We were never here.”

Bucky sighs when she’s gone. “We’re never gonna have a moment alone again at this rate,” he grouses.

You grin with a mischievous glint in your eye. “But that just makes it more fun, don’t ya think?”

[hollow-prey]

got burned at the beach today despite putting on sunscreen and the only thing making me feel slightly less miserable is pretending that Errol was just loving on me a little too much and this is the result 🔥

[blakellyl]

About Sentry, Void and what they're really like

Sentry, Void and Bob are all the same, they have the same traumas, fears, self-doubts and insecurities, because they are one person. The only difference is that Sentry has powers (he is Bob’s mania; mania – feeling that you can do anything; this feeling + serum = Sentry, who bc of the serum actually can do anything. That’s the only thing he’s confident in – his invincibility, his superpowers, that will allow him to do whatever he wants, because that’s what he is, but that’s it (!), because he’s still Bob). And then there is Void, who’s about absolute loneliness and hopelessness.

Some may be confused by the way they talk about each other, as if they’re separate personalities (for example, Bob calling Void "it", Sentry saying to Val "it's not Robert you need to be afraid of" and when John calls him Bobby, corrects him by saying "you can call me Sentry", Bob not remembering anything (at first) after Sentry or Void take over, or how Void was talking to Bob at the end), SO I’m adding what i wrote in other posts here:

THEY separate themselves from each other, of course they do, they are not his normal self, they are his mental disorder.

A bit more about it:

Bob has mental illnesses inherited from his mother and his own (as a result of a terrible life). The main one is bipolar, almost certainly passed down from his mom.

After he was injected with the serum it was like his bipolar was pumped with the strongest steroids and now his mental illness exists beyond human levels, as Sentry and Void (Mel talked about this, that give a serum to someone like Bob and who knows what will happen. Well now we know).

Moving on to the next one:

the key moment that a lot of people don’t seem to understand: they have never known love or care, never had a single person who was even a little worried about them or genuinely cared for them. They have zero confidence that anyone will ever need them, even more than that, they are sure of the opposite. They are very traumatized, all of them, they suffer exactly the same, because they are one.

I didn't think it was necessary to write about it because it's literally shown in every scene, but I'm shocked at how many people didn't get it at all, so.

With Bob himself, I think it's all clear to everyone, thankfully.

About Void:

He repeats throughout the movie that they (Bob/Sentry/Void) will always be alone, he says this to both Bob and Yelena (even though she hugs Bob at this moment, and yet)

He also says "you think they care about you? you don’t matter to anyone" and "the most shameful thing of all is thinking you could be anything more than nothing".

For him, there is no hope. He doesn't believe anyone will ever stay with them because all their life no one ever did, everyone always left/betrayed/hurt them. He also doesn’t believe that they’ll ever be worth anything at all, that they’ll be anything at all to anyone. The way he keeps confidently repeating that they will always be alone shows that he has given up hope that someone will ever truly love them (and that’s how he’s supposed to be, he’s Bob’s darkest thoughts and fears). He's not a mystical tough guy as a lot of people love to portray. He's a severe depression (literally), an absolute hopeless loneliness (and it’s obvious, it’s all in his name).

About Sentry:

(and all the times we're shown that it's literally just Bob with powers)

1) Desire to be praised and loved

The first person who says a kind word to him, tells him that he is worth something, he immediately follows that person and does whatever he is told, even though he is not sure that he wants to. He does it to please, to be useful, finally believing in himself because of her and wanting to prove her right.

2) Kindness

Him being kind to those who he'd known for a couple days at most, and not even through his “own eyes”.

He listens to Valentina, even when she says she plans to use him so she won't be impeached. He's okay with that. Until she gives him the order to kill the bolts. He doesn't want to do that, even though this is the first time he's interacted with them himself, only having seen them through “Bob's eyes”. He doesn't want to hurt them, and he tells them that. He offers them to surrender and he offers it sincerely, smiling awkwardly and shrugging his shoulders, nodding a little at the thought that it's a good suggestion:

He doesn't even attack them; it's Alexei who jumps on him first, screaming.

And even when they come at him with knives and bullets, he just pushes John, Yelena and Ava away most of the time (he doesn't know Bucky and Alexei, so it's different with them).

All of that screams in everyone’s faces that he's not "I'm going to kill everyone, I'm so badass" (like some people hilariously think) but that he won’t really hurt anyone who isn't a threat to him (even if they kinda tried to hurt him, but he knows their intentions, so he’s not upset with them). He calmly and kindly asked them to surrender, again because he's trying to please Valentina, but also because he didn’t want to fight them (just because Bob knew them for a day and they helped him).

3) Insecurity

As soon as the guys don't even ridicule him, but just ask him what's wrong with his hair and the way he looks, he can't leave this topic alone, he gets all worked up, saying he doesn't like it, even though Valentina tells him to leave it alone and not to let other people's words affect him. 

It shows that his giant ego is only related to his great strength, but he has no self-confidence in anything else.

4) The realization that yet another person is trying to tell him how to live and what to do:

To her "you need to do what i say" he simply asks why. 

He thought they were going to act as a team, but it turns out they want to put a leash on him, and he won't let that happen. He's part of Bob, and Bob has lived his whole life under someone else's commands and orders. 

Sentry is also honestly tells her that she doesn't know what he's capable of, and he's right, she doesn't. 

That’s the only thing he’s so sure of, his strength. (again, ironically, because of her).

5) People betraying and hurting Bob (+Sentry/Void) all his life

This scene breaks my heart every fucking time. 

When she reaches for the button to kill him. 

Kill him because she doesn't care, like all the others before her. 

Look at his face when he realized what she wanted to do.

And his words after, "You were gonna turn on me, just like the rest of them" 

And that says EVERYTHING about Sentry (and Bob, and Void). About all of them and their severe trauma.

They want at least one person in their life who won't betray them or try to hurt them.

Sentry started listening to Valentina when she, again, only said a few kind words to him. He obediently did what she told him to do, even though he didn't want to, all so that someone would stand by him and tell him he was worth something. 

And it ended just like so many times before in Bob’s life – no one cared about him as a person and about what he wanted.

All of Bob, all sides of him, want someone for the first time in their life to be there for them, support them and see their worth.

And the further it goes, the worse it gets:

Bob is hopeful, even though there’s so much pain and sadness in him. 

Sentry is hopeful too, but there's an aggression in him when faced with attempts to trick him, to manipulate him again. 

and Void – no hope at all.

And lastly, I'll add:

when Sentry becomes close to the bolts just as Bob is (as his normal self, not in his mania state), he will be ready to kill anyone for them and to die himself (which thankfully is almost impossible).

Everyone’s screaming that Bob is a sweetheart, but so is Sentry (and so is Void). And that’s a fact, that’s one human being.

They all want to be loved and understood and to matter to someone.

again quoting Florence Pugh

Bob – cute and sad

Sentry – trying and traumatized

and I’ll add from myself

Void – beyond depressed and hopeless

and I love all of them, all of Bob, very very much

[pleasantlycrazyworld]

Hi friend !! I love your writing so much, it’s so good.

I have a request if you’d be down ?? Bob / Sentry / Void x y/n. Bob was married before the events of Thunderbolts. Like maybe they got married out of high school or something. Valentina finds out about his wife & uses her as leverage to get him to agree to the Sentry project. It doesn’t go quite as well as she’d hoped because she doesn’t realize Sentry & Void love y/n as well because they can see Bob’s memories with her & understand how he feels. Val & her helpers haven’t been very nice to y/n, like hitting her & stuff, so that sets Sentry off & y/n is the only one who can talk him or Void down without it being a fight.

Just a random thought I had for a story I thought you might enjoy 🫶🏻

I absolutely love this idea!!! Thank you so much for sharing this and letting me being the one to write this for you I hope I did it justice <3

>>>><<<<

The worst part was how she was using you. 

Bob hadn’t seen you in years. Not because he didn’t want to. But because the world made him believe that he was too dangerous to love anything. Especially you. You, with your soft laugh and stormy temper, the girl he knew he had to spend the rest of his life with even at just fifteen when the two of you started dating, the girl who he married straight out of high school. You were all fire and loyalty, too loud for small dreams and too real for a man who believed he’d be nothing but an addict. So, he decided to get clean. He knew he wasn’t getting many good things in this life, that you were by far the best thing to ever walk into his life and he refused to let you slip away. 

He took notice during his small moments of clarity that his addictions were taking a toll on you, you weren’t sleeping, you were skinnier than before, the way your eyes would light up when he would just stumble into your shared apartment broke his heart every time. He had a hard time believing he was the man you wanted, he knew he sure as hell wasn’t the man you deserved, but he was determined to become that man for you.

He promised he’d be back in just a few months, “It’s-it’s like a spiritual awakening type thing babe…I-I don’t know I think it’ll help…I mean how can I not get clean if the shit isn’t around me anymore, right?”

So he disappeared. 

And then they took you.

When Val found Bob once again, she realized she needed him. However, he just wouldn’t corroborate. 

Then she had a brilliant idea of finding you, it was easy to track you honestly, you hadn’t moved out of the apartment the two of you shared from high school, Pathetic really, she scoffed, after all this time you still hadn't left? She waved her hand and sent the information to one of her assistants to take you to make sure Bob would start behaving.

He didn’t remember much about agreeing to the Sentry Project. Not really. Valentina smiled too sharply. The others stood so stiffly in black suits and said words like containment, protocol, oversight. And then she dropped the photo on the table like it meant nothing.

Seventeen-year-old you, in the random white dress you found at a thrift store outside of the courthouse holding the marriage certificate, your smile shined brightly even through the creases and worn edges from being folded too many times. Seeing the picture made his heart stop, his breath got caught in his throat and his head spined with questions. How the hell did she find you?

“Sign the papers, Bob. Or she disappears.”

He tried to hold it together. For you. He let them drug him all over again. Chain him. Train him. Mold him into something that they deemed “manageable.” But Valentina made a mistake. She thought she could control him. She forgot who was watching.

Sentry knew your name. The Void knew your name.

They could feel it – something soft and bright in the back of Bob’s mind. Neither of them had a good understanding of what love was supposed to be. But they knew you. You were warm hands over trembling shoulders. You were the taste of sunlight. You were the one memory that made Bob feel human again, that Bob clinged to. And so Sentry loved you too, in his own confused, possessive way. 

Void didn’t love easily. He destroyed.

But even he curled protectively around your name in Bob’s head. He hated everything. But not you. Never you.

Val didn’t expect it to matter. Her entire team thought you were just leverage. By the time Bob found you–through layers of classified files, locked doors, and “not your concern” responses–you were bloodied and bruised. Dried cuts across your cheekbone. A limp in your step. You didn’t scream. You did cry, you did smile when you saw him.

That broke him. The scream that tore from his throat shook the entire facility. They tried to sedate him. Too late.

They always talked about the Sentry’s power like a scale. But they couldn’t truly understand all that he was capable of. It wasn’t Bob that scared them. It wasn’t even the Sentry.

It was the Void.

And now the Void was wide awake and alert.

Everything was red.

Walls crumbled like paper. Screams ringed loudly through the background– every member of security was scrambling. Someone begged for a tranquilizer. The glass melted from the hallway cameras as the lights stuttered and died.

He didn’t even look human anymore. Gold eyes. Black smoke curling from his skin like tar. He wasn’t walking–he was gliding forward, radiating fury. A voice like thunder cracked the silence:

“Who touched her?”

You coughed from where you were curled on the cot. Blood on your lip. You tried to stand, but stumbled. The moment your knees hit the floor, Bob shattered. Or maybe that’s when Sentry took over fully–no longer able to be held back by human guilt, no longer softened by protocol. He didn’t stop at the door. It exploded open with a blinding flash, heat searing the air. A trembling agent fired.

Bad choice.

Sentry caught the bullet mid-air and snapped his fingers. The gun evaporated. The man screamed as his arm bent the wrong way, suspended by nothing.

The Void was rising–blotting out all reason.

“Bob,” you rasped. “Stop. I’m okay--”

But he wasn’t Bob anymore. Not fully. He turned toward you–crackling energy rolling off him. Void and Sentry both trying to surface, pulling at the same body, eyes blazing gold then blinking and glowing black.

“They hurt you,” he growled, low and guttural. “They will die for that.”

You stumbled toward him, dragging your broken leg. “Hey,” you whispered, touching his chest. His heat nearly burned–but you didn’t pull away. “I’m here. I’m okay.” 

He flinched.

The Void’s rage twisted, but Sentry’s light pulsed under the surface. Torn in two.

“Don’t make me watch you become something you’ll hate knowing I witnessed,” you breathed, leaning into him. “You found me. That’s--that’s what matters.”

He dropped to his knees like a falling star. The energy hissed and died around him. His shoulders shook as tears fell down his face. You touched his jaw, guiding his face to yours. “Come back to me, Bobby.” He was crying. Quiet and broken, breath ragged. “I thought you were gone,” he whispered. You wrapped your arms around him. His frame trembled like a dying sun. “I thought you were gone. You’re mine, my husband, my love,” you murmured into his neck. “I’m not going anywhere.”

>>>><<<<

Valentina survived.

Barely.

She limps now. She constantly looks over her shoulder, when the lights flicker her breathing stops until they go back to normal.

Because while the world still calls him “Sentry” and prays he’s contained–She knows better. She knows you are the only thing that keeps him human. The only thing that can control him.  And if they ever try to take you again? There won’t be anyone left to stop the Void.

>>>><<<<

Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed :) If you like my work please let me know! Reblogging, commenting and liking are huge and easy ways to let me know you're enjoying my work and it keeps me motivated to post way more!!! Request are open<3

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[taxi-boi]

based on these posters in the vee tower it would seem that the colors are supposed to be pink for val and purple for velvette.

(the blurry outlines surrounding the symbols in the bottom right corner, and also the bar lines on the edges that more clearly show what color everything is)

though all these colours are a bit off

(vals is a reddish pink, like always. vox is a much lighter cyan than the blue from the tower image. and velvettes is incredibly dull, almost grey, but still visibly purple color.)

but id still say these are the most explicitly stated color associations for these characters.

Have we ever come to an agreement who's the Pink and who's the Purple here?

It's driving me insane because in my mind technically Valentino is Red and Velvette is Pink. Apparently not.

Arguments that Valentino is the Purple:

EP 4 outfit. Also, we never see him wearing pink, not counting the Instagrams because they aren't canon anymore. All the outfits he wears in the show (posters included) are black with purple undertones, white, red

It's the stereotypical pimp color

Symbolizes creativity (he's confirmed as an artist) and emotions (his impulsivity)

Purple is the color of luxury and excess

The studio in EP 4 is painted purple

Purple is the most rare color in nature, aka it's usually seen in artificial things, fake things, you get what I mean?

Contrasts Angel

The XXX sigh in the pic above is purple

Arguments that Valentino is the Pink:

His chains and smoke color

Typical color associated with love

His room in EP 2 has a lot of pinkish (it's leaning more red to me but whatever) accents

Pink is the closer color to Red

Matches Angel, but Val's Pink is more saturated, whereas Angel is more pastel, thematically making them similar but one is obviously more intense.

Arguments that Velvette is the Purple

Her studio is painted purple (even though it has A LOT of pinks, but purple is the most prominent color)

Again, purple is seen as a luxury color, which would translate to her niche in fashion

Arguments that Velvette is the Pink

She only ever wears pink in the show and the dark purple is an accent

She's based on a doll, so based on that she should have the most stereotypically girly color

Red Velvet cake is usually, you know, reddish pink

Her Pilot design wearing pink (besides black and white)

This is genuinely driving me insane, please send help😭😭😭

EDIT: And 3 hours after writing this I see the new merch. Welp, it's settled, I take that as a sigh from the universe - Valentino is the Purple and Velvette is the Pink

[ms-spkhd]

Steve settles against the back of the couch and says, “I got a question, Ed.”

“Yeah?” Eddie replies and tries very hard for Steve not to notice that he spent the last fifteen minutes either picking at a loose thread on his jeans or sneaking surreptitious glances at him.

“And be honest with me. No deflecting.”

“Uh-huh. Go ahead.”

“Do you…” Steve pauses, and he’s got this look where he’s tossing the question around like a salad over and over in his head, like he hasn’t gotten it right quite yet. “Do you think Arnold Schwarzenegger is hot?”

Eddie blinks. This cannot be his real fucking life. 

Steve’s still looking at him expectantly, as if the question that just left his lips wasn’t affixed between world-endingly stupid and nuclear bomb-levels of disastrous to Eddie. It’s…he’s so blase about it, too. Completely unaffected! As if he didn’t just drop that question onto the gay friend he’s conveniently, y’know, swapped bodily fluids with. 

“Excuse me?”

Steve shrugs. “So you’re gay, right?”

Alright, foot-in-mouth gold medalist Steve Harrington expertly sticking the landing as always. It’s curious, Eddie thinks, out of all of his friends, Steve should be the one most well-acquainted with the sheer magnitude of Eddie’s gayness and the biblical nature of it–what with the whole dick in ass thing.

Eddie purses his lips and tries not to play the cynic, the you of all people perched on the tip of his tongue. The last thing he wants to do is scare him off again, not with their shoulders pressed against each other like this; the closest they’ve ever been since that night. He axes it before it goes any further and causes trouble. “Well shit, what do you think?”

“Alright, dumb question,” Steve concedes, though there isn’t any shame in his voice. He smiles that golden smile of his and waves his hand at the screen, where Arnold and the fussy flight attendant are busy studying a piece of paper evidence. They’re an odd pair. “So, does he do it for you or not?”

Eddie blinks, takes a sip of his High Life and purses his lips in thought. “Nah, not really.”

Steve’s eyebrows shoot to his hairline and his eyes dart from the screen to Eddie’s apathetic expression. “Really?” “Don’t act so surprised, man.”

Steve shakes his head and looks away from Eddie, chin resting on his palm. “No–no, I’m not surprised or anything–”

“Well, girls like pretty boys, so…”

“But you’re not a girl, you’re a gay guy.” Steve scoots to the side, fully facing Eddie, and gestures wildly at the vague wholeness of Eddie’s body, like he’s the representative for every homosexual man northwest of Lake Michigan.

“Last time I checked.”

“Gay guys like macho dudes, right?”

Eddie grimaces at Steve’s naive brightness. There’s a decently well-oiled machine that whirrs away in his head, but Eddie is absolutely and positively dumbstruck, and operations screech to a halt. If things go any further, it’s going to reach triangle-shirtwaist levels of disastrous. What the hell does Steve Harrington–homecoming king and president of the Key club fucking Steve Harrington–know about what gets gay guys’ rocks off? I mean, yeah, he’s wandered into ‘have gay sex and only acknowledge it as a mistake’ territory, but far be it for him to thumb open a copy of Blueboy or–God forbid–fully understand the concept of a leather daddy.

“You’re…serious…?” Eddie ventures.

Steve’s mouth twists and scrunches at the corner as he wilts slightly, lost in the proverbial woods.  “I’m pretty sure I am, yeah.”

“Okay, well”--Eddie scoots forward in his seat and knocks Steve shoulder with his fist in a semi-decent attempt to lighten him up– “think of it like this: attraction isn’t a monolith.”

Steve’s eyebrows scrunch curiously. “Right.”

“Right. So some chicks like macho guys like Arnie and other chicks like prettier guys like…uh.”

“Iceman?” Steve supplies helpfully.

“Yeah. That guy.”

“Val Kilmer.”

“Oh! The hot guy from Willow. Anyways, gay guys are the same, we’re not all just into Arnold Schwarzenegger ‘cause he’s got muscles. Some of us also like pretty boys. Hell–ugly guys are on the table, too. It’s open season, man!”

The corners of Steve’s mouth twitch upwards and his basset hound eyes brighten a fraction in relief. Eddie lowers his hand to his lap, taking it as a personal victory. Well, the word ‘victory’ is a bit of a reach, all things considered. In those massive Merriam-Webster dictionaries he used to leaf through to understand the books Wayne would lend him, ‘victory’ was defined as an achievement of mastery or success in a struggle or endeavor against odds or difficulties. Explaining the ins and outs of gay sexual attraction to some haplessly gorgeous straight man like multiplying fractions to a fourth grader was the farthest thing from a victory. Especially since Eddie’s unfortunate enough to be halfway in love with said haplessly gorgeous straight man, what with his kind eyes and swoopy hair and disarmingly boyish charm. But! A success it does make. 

Christ, it’s a sacrifice nonetheless.

“Okay, new question,” Steve prompts, because apparently he’s fixing to be this decade’s new Sherlock Holmes. Or Colombo. Eddie tries to push the rapidly materializing image of Steve wearing a tan trenchcoat and loosened tie with a cigar pinched between his teeth to the back of his mind because–to the surprise of absolutely no one–he finds it devastatingly sexy. He shoots a cute little message up to God in his little corner of the sky (or whatever primordial being is running this fucking hellscape) begging to grant him some actual, discernable relief.

“You’re a curious cat tonight,” Eddie says after his brief yet exhaustive prayer.

“What can I say,” Steve replies with a shrug, “I like to get to the bottom of things.”

“Go ahead, champ.”

“So…Val Kilmer, huh? You like pretty boys?”

  Eddie has half a mind to jump onto the couch, take Steve by the shoulders with an iron grip, and shake him around wildly, screaming and spitting, “You’re the prettiest boy I’ve ever met! And handsome! And sexy! Beautiful! Every synonym in the Goddamn thesaurus!”

Thankfully, Val Kilmer is a high enough jumping point for Eddie to prevent himself from swam-diving and landing face first into the bottom of the figurative ‘I’m so deeply in love with you it’s not even funny’ pool.

“Hell, I’d never say no to Madmartigan.” Eddie tips his head backwards against the couch headrest and fans at his face, all hot and bothered. “He could do whatever he wanted to me.”

Steve rubs the back of his hand against his lips and his breathy laugh clips at its edges. “What about sexy naval fighters? Tom Cruise in a uniform do it for you?”

“Nah, too establishment. He may be hot, but I’m not tripping over my feet for the military industrial complex. But if you want me to be honest…” Eddie’s eyes drop to his rings, his fingertips brushing against his nickel plated rings. They start twisting the scratched and worn things before he looks up at Steve’s expectant expression.

“I like honesty,” Steve says.

“Well there’s this movie, The Sting, it’s one of Wayne’s favorites–saw it in theaters and recorded it when it showed on TV Christmas day of, ‘79, I think. Could’ve been watching It’s A Wonderful Life or whatever, but the old bastard wanted to watch some movie about these two con men bullshitting an Irish guy. Anyways, Wayne loved it, so he’d play it all the fucking time, but I wasn’t complaning, like, at all, because the main character was the hottest man I’d ever seen in my life.”

“Wow.” Steve blinks. “All that talk and I don’t even know what he looks like.”

Eddie releases his grip on his rings and drums his fingers against worn denim instead. “Well, he’s Robert Redford.”

Steve shrugs smugly, because of course he doesn’t know who Robert Redford is. Eddie’s so Goddamned charmed by it.

Eddie hums, leans back, and rolls his head towards Steve. “Tall. Chiseled jaw”--he lists the traits with his fingers– “Blue eyes. Looks insanely handsome in a dress shirt with rolled up sleeves. Blond, which is curious because I don’t particularly care for blonds, but I think the hair thing is pretty much null and void because I like the devil-may-care attitude.”

“So you like bad boys, then?”

“Depends on your definition of bad. Rebel without a cause? Hell yeah. Downright war criminal? Not advisable.”

“I didn’t know war criminals were on the table.”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“Alright,” Steve says, clapping his hands with finality, and straightening himself on the couch.. “You say you like pretty boys, but generally go for more handsome, refined guys.”

“Who said I like handsome?” Eddie interrupts..

“You when you said you had a thing for rolled up dress sleeves,” Steve says, self-satisfied. “And you like ‘em bad. Not bad bad, but like, a realistic amount of bad. Spray paint and knife fights, not like. Uh.”

“Mussolini?” Eddie offers.

“Not like Mussolini.”

(It's wip wednesday when I say it's wip wednesday (it is currently friday), so here's another snippet from my fic Stand There, Looking Backwards. i'm almost at the homestretch of the second chapter so. big if true.)

[buckysleftbicep]

bent and bruised (4) 𐙚 b.b

pairing: new avenger!bucky barnes x fem!ex-hydra!reader

warnings: nsfw, 18+, minors dni, non-con/dub-con themes under HYDRA conditioning (flashback), heavy angst, bucky's guilt, HYDRA related trauma and abuse, memory suppression, emotional breakdowns, mentions of torture and cryo, unprotected sex, creampie, emotional sex

summary: you were built by HYDRA to please the soldier—then left for dead. years later, bucky sees your face again. but no amount of time can erase the way you once whispered his name through tears. inspired by this request

word count: 5.4k

author's note: hi my sweethearts! chapter 4 is finally up! gosh, it took me a full day to write this, and genuinely, so much of my heart has went into this series ❤️ and i hope that you guys will love this chapter as much as i do! i am always grateful for the support from you which motivates me to write 🥹💓 i love you guys and please stay safe out there!

series masterlist

It had been nearly a month.

Since the collapse. Since the flames. Since Bucky carried your limp body out of rubble and ruin with blood in his throat and your name breaking over his teeth like a prayer he hadn’t earned the right to say.

Recovery came in fragments. You didn’t wake up whole. You didn���t wake up you. Healing was slow—not just in flesh and bone, but in the quiet, broken machinery of your mind.

Some mornings you opened your eyes and couldn’t remember your own name until someone said it.

Other days, it rolled too easily off your tongue, like muscle memory, while everything else felt like static.

The team didn’t ask questions. Not the important ones.

But Bucky… Bucky never really left.

He didn’t hover. He didn’t talk much. But he stayed.

A fixed point in your periphery, silent and steady like gravity. You’d turn your head and find him there—sitting in the corner of the medbay in the dark, elbows on his knees, staring at the floor like he could see the shape of your soul etched in the tiles.

Sometimes he brought things.

A cracked paperback you hadn’t asked for. The soft blanket from the common room, worn at the edges, smelling faintly of cedar.

A water bottle he’d already uncapped for you, placed in your palm just before your throat got dry enough to ache.

Quiet gestures. Gentle offerings.

When you could finally stand without the world around you practically spinning, he helped you take the first few steps.

He didn’t guide you like a nurse—there was no forced gentleness. He was a presence at your side, solid and wordless. His hands would hover at your waist, the callused pads of his fingers barely grazing your ribs as you found your balance again.

But he never lingered.

Never touched you for longer than necessary. Never let himself want.

Even then, the tension was unbearable.

It pressed into the air between you like a storm front. Not new, not sudden. Old and starved and still too dangerous to name. It lived in the spaces between glances. In the pauses between words. In the way your breath always caught before his name.

You didn’t call it love.

Not yet. Not when it still felt like something torn from you, stitched back with the wrong thread.

But it was there—burning beneath the skin. Something once soft turned jagged. Something left behind in a room you couldn’t remember, but your body had never left.

And now… they’d cleared you.

Light training. No combat. Just movement. Reorientation. “Reintegration” as Val had called it, as if your mind and body were separate machines that had lost signal.

You weren’t sure if she believed that. You weren’t sure if you did either.

And of course—of course—they’d assigned Bucky to oversee your session.

The training room was as clinical as ever. Still, silent, stripped of distraction. Rows of padded mats laid out in quiet geometry.

The walls gray. The air chilled, no music, no background chatter. Just the high, electric hum of fluorescents and the whisper of your bare feet against rubber.

He stood several paces away. Arms crossed. Eyes tracking your every move.

Not invasive. Just… watchful.

Like he knew what it felt like to move in a body that had once been used against you.

You didn’t speak. Neither did he.

You stretched slowly, deliberately, muscles groaning with each extension. Tight. Resistant. But obedient. Your arms moved through familiar shapes, hips shifting to accommodate old weight distributions. Every breath came like you were borrowing someone else’s lungs.

Still—your body remembered.

Muscle memory. Instinct buried in the blood.

You flowed through the motions like a ghost moving through old ruins, letting your limbs carry you forward while your mind lagged somewhere behind.

Bucky’s gaze stayed with you. Never wandering. Never slipping. Just… there.

And when your posture slipped—when the angle of your elbow faltered—he stepped forward.

“Drop your shoulder,” he murmured, voice soft, low. Controlled. “Elbow higher. Like this.”

And then—his hand touched you.

Not firmly. Not boldly. Just the softest brush of his fingertips against your shoulder blade, correcting your alignment with the same ease he might guide a weapon into place.

No hesitation. No hesitation at all. As though his hand had always known where to find you.

But the second his skin touched yours—everything shattered.

It wasn’t just memory. It wasn’t just a flash.

It was a fucking detonation.

Your lungs seized. Your knees buckled.

Your vision didn’t blur—it replaced itself.

You were naked. Laid bare across cold sheets, back arched against the unforgiving steel of a table that creaked beneath every motion.

The air was damp. Your thighs slick with sweat, lips parted around a breathless cry that barely made a sound.

He was inside you. Not violently. Not with the detachment of routine. With intention—with devotion.

Each stroke of his hips was slow. Deep, measured.

Like he was trying to stretch time around you, like he was writing something into the lining of your body with every thrust, every roll of his pelvis pressed flush against your heat.

His hand gripped your hip—tight, trembling—the pads of his fingers bruising you with possession. The other, the metal one, cupped your cheek like you were something fragile.

Something holy.

His mouth hovered by your ear.

“I’m sorry,” he breathed. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry—”

Then, lower. Rougher.

“You’re mine.”

The words were a plea. A punishment. A prayer. Spoken like they tore him open just to say it.

And you—

You weren’t scared. You weren’t broken.

You pulled him deeper.

Your nails raked down his back, drawing thin lines through sweat-slick skin. His breath stuttered. His body bucked. He buried himself to the hilt in you with a groan that bordered on a sob.

He kissed your shoulder. Your jaw, your lips. Messy and shaking, mouth slick with desperation, like he was starving and you were the only thing that had ever fed him.

And you—god, you gave it to him.

Every whimper. Every tremor. Every broken sound.

Because it wasn’t sex. It was a man finding the last piece of himself inside the body of someone he wasn’t supposed to love.

You came back into yourself with a jolt.

Your body recoiled before your brain could catch up. You staggered back a step, a strangled breath catching in your throat like a sob choked off mid-sentence.

“Don’t—” you gasped, voice raw.

Your arm flew up instinctively, shielding your chest like you expected another memory to slam into you with teeth.

Bucky’s hand snapped back instantly, palms raised, eyes wide.

“I didn’t—” he started, voice low, rattled. But he didn’t finish.

He saw your face. The devastation. The betrayal of recognition.

And he knew.

He knew what you’d just seen.

You swallowed. Hard. The taste of him was still in your mouth. The ghost of him still pulsed between your thighs.

Your fingers trembled at your side.

“What…” your voice was barely a whisper. “What aren’t you telling me?”

He didn’t move.

Didn’t blink.

But something behind his eyes crumpled like paper soaked in blood.

You turned and fled the room before he could answer. Before he could lie.

Before he could not lie.

Because whatever that memory was—whoever that man had been, inside you, above you, holding you like he’d never get another chance—you knew two things:

You had loved him. And that man could very well be Bucky.

You stormed out without looking back.

The door slammed open, crashing into the wall behind you with a hollow, reverberating crack that rang down the corridor like a warning bell.

But the sound didn’t register—not really.

The only thing you could hear was your own pulse, pounding like war drums in your ears. Your breath tore in and out of your lungs with no rhythm, shallow and sharp, chest heaving as if the air itself was too thick to swallow.

You didn’t have a destination. You didn’t need one. You just needed distance.

Distance from him. From the walls of that training room. From the echo of his voice in your memory—mine, spoken with such unbearable reverence it had sunk into your bones like heat.

It was still clinging to your skin, that memory. Still pressing against the insides of your ribs like smoke trying to escape.

You could feel it in the throb between your thighs, in the ghost of his mouth on your throat, in the way your muscles still ached with the rhythm of a man’s body that had moved above you with trembling restraint.

You hadn’t just remembered it—you’d relived it. And your body had welcomed it like something holy. Something lost.

It was him.

The weight of his chest against yours, the shape of his hips fitting yours like they’d been carved to match. The breathless heat of his mouth whispering against your neck—you’re mine—like he’d meant it, like it had nearly broken him to say it out loud.

That wasn’t just memory. It was truth. And it had shattered you from the inside out.

You felt violated—not by him, but by yourself. By your mind, your body. By the truth of it.

Like something sacred had been pulled from the depths of your soul, laid bare, and forced into the light before you were ready. A dream you hadn’t consented to.

A memory played on loop with your body still trembling from the aftershocks.

And the worst part—the part that hollowed you out completely—was how deeply, how viscerally, you’d wanted it.

You turned a sharp corner, bare feet sliding slightly on the tile, and scanned the hallway for escape.

Your lungs were too tight. Your skin burned. You needed the dark. You needed silence. You needed somewhere you could scream without anyone hearing it.

That’s when you saw it—half-open, forgotten. The storage room.

No lights. No windows. Just shadows and space and shelves of gear collecting dust.

You slipped inside without hesitation, hand reaching back to close the door softly behind you. The latch clicked into place with a finality that felt more like a lock snapping shut around your chest.

But you weren’t alone.

You hadn’t heard him follow you—but you knew. You felt him.

The air shifted just slightly behind you.

A faint current. A gravity.

And then—he was there.

He didn’t speak. Didn’t step forward. Just stood in the doorway, motionless, cast in a wash of gray from the light leaking in through the cracked door.

His shoulders were hunched tight beneath his hoodie, arms loose at his sides, posture strained with restraint. Like he knew if he moved too fast, you might vanish entirely.

It didn’t matter.

You spun on him anyway, heart thudding so violently you could feel it in your palms, in your throat. The rage was already in you—rising fast, sharp as a blade and twice as lethal.

It wasn’t clean anger. It was tangled. Desperate. Grief and confusion and betrayal, all knotted tight behind your teeth.

Your finger jabbed into his chest with more force than you intended. His body didn’t move. But his breath caught.

“I want the truth,” you demanded, voice a raw crackle. “What did they do to us?”

You saw it instantly—the way his eyes flicked away. Like a reflex. Like shame.

His mouth opened. Closed.

“I—” he started, jaw flexing. “We were prisoners. We survived. We—”

You cut him off with a snarl. “Don’t fucking lie to me.”

The words detonated. They didn’t echo—they reverberated. Slammed off the walls and bounced back with all the fury you couldn’t hold in. Your fists clenched at your sides, nails digging crescent moons into your palms.

His face didn’t move. But his entire body locked down.

Rigid. Silent. Like the weight of the truth was pressing down on every vertebrae, threatening to split him open if he said one more word.

“Don’t do that,” you spat. “Don’t stand there and act like we were just survivors. Like it was torture and nothing else.”

Still, he didn’t speak.

Your voice cracked. You didn’t care.

“Because I see it, James.”

His name fell from your lips like an accusation. Or a confession.

You took a shaky step forward. “Every night. I close my eyes, and I see your body on top of mine. I feel your hands. Holding me like I was something… something you didn’t want to break. Someone you were trying to keep alive.”

And finally—finally—he looked at you.

You almost wished he hadn’t.

Because what you saw in his face wasn’t denial. It wasn’t confusion. It was recognition.

And guilt.

So much guilt it looked like it might drown him. His mouth parted slightly, like he wanted to speak—but no words came. Only the flicker of a memory neither of you had asked for, now burning behind both pairs of eyes.

“I feel it,” you whispered, and your voice was so quiet it almost didn’t sound like your own. “I fucking feel it. But I can’t see your face. It’s like someone carved it out of my god damn memory, and all that’s left is everything else. The hands. The voice. The—” Your voice broke, your chest trembling. “The way it felt. And it’s driving me insane.”

He stepped toward you—just one step. A single shift forward.

And you stepped back like you’d been burned.

Your back hit the shelf behind you, shoulders slumping slightly under the weight of everything coming undone.

Your hands trembled at your sides. Your heart felt like it had torn in two and couldn’t figure out how to beat around the split.

And then—barely audible. Fragile.

“It was you… wasn’t it?”

The silence that followed was deafening.

It pressed in from every direction, thick and suffocating, the weight of unspoken things crashing like waves in the dark.

And then—you saw it.

The moment he broke.

His shoulders collapsed inward, like something inside him had finally given out. His head bowed. His eyes closed. His lips parted around a breath that sounded like a sob he didn’t want you to hear. His hands, once clenched into restrained fists, fell loose and helpless at his sides.

“Yes,” he said, and the word was barely more than breath. “It was me.”

The floor shifted under your feet. Not physically. Emotionally. It was like the world tipped sideways, like the ground beneath your ribs hollowed out and took your balance with it.

Your knees buckled. Your shoulder catching the edge of the shelf for support. Your breath faltered. Your vision blurred.

Because it was him. It had always been him.

And now—you couldn’t un-know it. Couldn’t outrun it. Couldn’t undo the way your soul had always known the shape of his.

There was no going back now.

Only through.

The silence that followed his confession didn’t soothe. It scraped.

The air in the room felt colder, somehow—denser. Like the shadows had multiplied, curling around the racks of supplies, slipping beneath the doorframe to listen.

Your spine pressed to the shelf behind you, heartbeat still ragged, fingers flexing at your sides like you didn’t know whether to run or reach for him.

He didn’t move. Not at first. Just stood there across from you, chest rising and falling like he’d just crawled out of a grave. Like saying those words—yes, it was me—had gutted him open from the inside.

When he did speak, his voice was rough. Wrecked.

“They put you in my cell,” he said, each word careful, as though afraid to drop them too hard. “Said you were mine. That you… that I could have you.”

You didn’t breathe.

His eyes flicked up to meet yours—and the look in them nearly undid you. Not lust. Not possession. Regret. Bone-deep. Aged. Like it had lived in him for years.

“They told me you were built for me,” he continued, slower now. “That you were designed for me. Said you wouldn’t feel pain. That you’d… want it. That it was what you were made for.”

He swallowed hard. A muscle in his jaw jumped.

“I didn’t believe them. Not at first. I—I didn’t even know how to want anything back then. I was still… gone, still on HYDRA's leash. But they told me you were compliant. That your programming would respond to mine."

Your stomach twisted.

“I didn’t know you,” he rasped. “I didn’t even know me. But they gave the order. So I obeyed.”

He stepped forward once, like he couldn’t stand being that far away from the truth anymore. His hand lifted half a breath, then fell again.

“I touched you the first night,” he admitted, and his voice broke around the word. “Not because I wanted to. Because I didn’t know what else I could do. I thought I was following orders that would spare you worse.”

Your breath came shallow, tears starting to pool hot behind your eyes.

You couldn’t blink. Couldn’t look away. Couldn’t not listen.

“But you…” he continued, softer now, as if the memory was something fragile. “You weren’t afraid. You weren’t empty like they said. You—looked at me.”

He swallowed again, chest rising with the effort.

“You touched me.”

His voice cracked around it, that last word, like it still didn’t make sense to him all these years later.

“You said my name. James.” His eyes burned, and he blinked like the memory stung.

The quiet between you pulsed, heavy and electric.

“Even after they’d dragged you back bloody and broken, too many times to count. And when they wiped your memory—when they tried to scrub everything clean—you still remembered me. Every time.”

You covered your mouth with one shaking hand, the sob building at the back of your throat thick and hot and impossible to hold.

“You never looked at me like a monster,” he whispered. “Even after the first time. Even when I didn’t know what it meant to be touched. You looked at me like I was still a man that could be loved.”

He took another step toward you.

“You used to kiss my scars,” he said, and the memory made his mouth tremble. “Talk to me in the dark. Tell me you wanted me. Not because they told you to. Not because it was your programming. Just because it was me.”

The tears spilled from your eyes before you could stop them.

He didn’t touch you. Didn’t dare.

“I didn’t believe you,” he confessed. “Not then. Not really. But I held onto it, you were the only real thing I had.”

His gaze dropped to the floor.

“I told myself I was protecting you. That if I made them believe I was following the plan, if I gave them what they wanted, they’d stop hurting you. That if I kept you close, I could keep you safe.”

He paused. And when he looked back up, his voice cracked open entirely.

“They broke you for me,” he said, the words thick, trembling. “And I let them. I fucking let them. I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t fight them. I tried, sweetheart. I tried—” He cut himself off, pressing the heel of his palm to his brow like he was trying to press it all back in.

“I watched them put you in the chair,” he whispered. “Heard you scream. And every time they brought you back, you’d forgotten just a little more. And I kept holding you anyway. Like maybe I could hold onto the pieces long enough to keep you whole.”

Your knees gave out.

You sank down slowly, back sliding down the metal shelving until you were seated on the cold tile, knees tucked to your chest, shoulders trembling with silent sobs.

The tears came hot and heavy, streaking your cheeks, your chin, soaking into the collar of your shirt. You didn’t make a sound. But it wrecked you all the same.

Because it made sense. Every part of it.

The pull you felt when he entered a room. The ache in your chest. The way your body remembered something your mind couldn’t touch. It had always been him.

And now you understood why.

“I used to say your name,” you whispered, barely audible over your breath.

His chest hitched. “You did.”

He knelt slowly, as if afraid to shatter whatever was left between you.

“You used to hold me after,” he said, voice shaking. “And when they saw that—when they realised I was…feeling something —they started putting me in the chair again. Every time you made me softer, they shocked it out of me. But it didn’t work, not completely. Because you kept coming back. You kept finding me. Until you started to remember too much.”

He swallowed hard. “That’s when they wiped you clean.”

You stared at him through tear-blurred eyes. “You knew me all this time?”

His answer came without hesitation. “I did.”

His voice was lower now. Almost ashamed.

“You were the first person I asked about when I escaped HYDRA. When the memories started coming back in fragments—I went to Steve. Asked him if you’d ever been found. If anyone had seen you. If you were still…” He stopped himself. His jaw clenched. “When he told me HYDRA had written you off as dead—I thought I’d never see you again.”

He dragged a hand through his hair, pulling it back from his face with a soft, anguished groan.

“But I couldn’t stop thinking about you. Couldn’t stop dreaming about you. For years, I saw you in my sleep. Heard your voice. I remembered how it felt to be wanted. I remembered the way you said my name, how you held me in that room".

His eyes lifted again. Shining. Raw.

“I know what I felt in that fucking cell was real.”

You couldn’t speak. Couldn’t move. You were just… there. Drenched in the truth. Cracked open by it. Heart splintered into pieces too jagged to fit back together.

Something in you shifted. Snapped. Broke free like a tremor ripping through fault lines that had been quietly, patiently waiting for the right pressure to come undone.

Before he could say anything else—before the shame in his eyes could kill you all over again—you crossed the room in two furious, breathless steps and grabbed the collar of his shirt with both hands. You yanked him down and kissed him.

No warning. No pause.

It was not gentle. It was not sweet. It was a goddamn storm.

Your mouth crashed into his like you were trying to consume him, like the ache in your chest needed to be dragged out of you by force. He gasped against your lips, the sound ragged and helpless, before his hands shot to your hips—gripping, anchoring, holding tight like he didn’t believe you were real.

His groan vibrated through his throat and into yours as he kissed you back—hard, hungry, full of restraint that had finally snapped.

It wasn’t soft. It was confession. It was grief and guilt and years of stolen time pressed into teeth and tongue and bruising touch.

You pushed him backward without thinking. Your hands curled into the front of his shirt as you drove him into the wall, breath tearing from your lungs, teeth scraping against his bottom lip as he fumbled for purchase, groaning your name like a prayer he hadn’t dared speak in years.

He grabbed at you like a dying man—hands spreading over your back, dragging down your spine, squeezing your thighs like he needed to feel you to survive.

And then your back hit the door. Hard. You gasped, the sound punched from your lungs, but you didn’t stop—not for a second.

Your hands were already under his shirt, yanking it up, bunching the fabric over his chest as you kissed him again—sloppier now, wetter, more frantic.

He pulled away only long enough to tear the damn thing over his head and toss it blindly behind him. And then his mouth was on your neck.

Not teasing. Not coaxing. Devouring.

His teeth scraped your throat, tongue following in a heated trail that made your thighs clench around his hips. You dragged your nails down his chest, groaning at the feel of his body—familiar, built for you, already yours.

He shoved his hand between your legs, under the hem of your shorts, palm pressing hard against your clothed cunt until you arched against him with a gasp.

Your underwear was soaked. He cursed under his breath—low, guttural.

You hooked a leg around his waist, dragging him tighter, letting him grind against you, both of you still half-dressed, half-mad. You reached between you and shoved at his waistband, fingers fumbling with his belt as he kissed you again, messier this time, mouth open and breath hot.

His hands were everywhere—sliding up your shirt, tugging it over your head, cupping your tits like he remembered them.

When he shoved his pants low, cock springing free, you moaned at the sight of it—thick and flushed and already wet at the tip.

He reached down, pushed your shorts aside, hooked a finger into your panties and dragged them roughly to the side until you were bare beneath him.

He hesitated for only a second. His eyes flicked to yours—burning. Haunted.

“You don’t remember me,” he said, voice cracking. “Not really.”

You reached for his face. Touched his jaw. Brushed your thumb over his cheek like you’d done a hundred times in that cell.

“But I feel you,” you whispered. “I remember this.”

And that was all it took.

He grabbed your thigh and lifted you higher, pinned you to the door with a groan, and thrust into you in one brutal, beautiful stroke.

Your mouth fell open in a gasp—head snapping back, fingers scrambling for balance against the door as his cock filled you, stretched you, split you open in a way that felt too perfect to be new.

Like your body had been built to remember him. Like it did.

He didn’t wait. Didn’t give you time to breathe.

He fucked you like a man possessed—hips snapping into yours, hand gripping the back of your thigh to hold you in place, the other buried in your hair. His forehead dropped to yours as he moved, breath hot and harsh against your lips.

He was everywhere. All of him. The weight of his chest pressing you to the door, the scrape of his stubble against your jaw, the slam of his cock inside you, deep and raw and relentless.

There was no rhythm. Only need.

He fucked you like he was trying to erase time. Like he was punishing himself for every second you’d spent not knowing his name. Like if he could just bury himself deep enough, you’d remember every night you’d spent tangled together in the dark.

You came fast.

It hit like lightning—sharp, electric, sudden—your whole body shaking as your arms wrapped around his shoulders, holding tight, clutching him like an anchor in a world that wouldn’t stop spinning.

Your cunt clenched around him, tight and pulsing, and he groaned—a low, broken sound—and spilled into you with a final, stuttering thrust that felt like a confession.

His arms wrapped around you, holding you close, forehead pressed to your shoulder as he breathed through it, body shaking.

And for a moment—for a single, breathless second—

It felt like home.

But then— The guilt returned. Like it always did.

He pulled back, still inside you, his face devastated, eyes wide and glassy. His hands trembled on your thighs. His breath came too fast.

“I can’t,” he whispered, voice hoarse. “Not like this. You don’t remember me. And we—”

“James.” You reached for him again, desperate.

“We shouldn’t have,” he said, the words shaking. “You didn’t ask for this. You didn’t choose me. You don’t even know me.”

You swallowed. “But I wanted it.”

He looked at you like that only made it worse.

He didn’t stay.

Didn’t say another word.

He stepped back, hands falling away, head down, and walked out the door like the ghost he’d always been.

And you—

You didn’t stop him.

Because you were too busy sliding down the door, back hitting the floor, your thighs still wet with him, your body still echoing with the memory of his hands—and the empty space he left behind.

You lay on your bed in the dark.

The lights were off. The room was still. The hum of the compound’s night cycle buzzed faintly through the vents, soft and steady, like a mechanical lullaby too hollow to comfort. Even the silence felt like it was watching you—quiet, patient, endless.

You hadn’t moved in hours.

The sheets beneath you were twisted, rumpled from tossing, the faint scent of antiseptic still clinging to the cotton from your medbay stay.

Your limbs felt foreign—heavy and strange, like they belonged to someone else.

Your body ached—not just from him, not just from the way he’d held you to the door and fucked the breath out of your lungs—but from something deeper. Something that had been hiding in your marrow, buried beneath frost and programming and grief.

Your muscles were sore. Your throat was raw. Like the weight of remembering had torn through every nerve ending, every fragile thread of denial you’d still been clinging to.

You stared at the ceiling.

Blank. Colourless. Still.

The same ceiling you’d stared at the night after the mission. The same one you’d counted cracks in when the dreams started.

It looked the same now—but it felt different. Like something in the air had shifted. Like the truth had saturated the walls.

There were no thoughts left to chase. No fantasies left to run to. No lies left to wrap yourself in. The truth had been stripped down to the bone, and it sat with you now—quiet and heavy, like an old wound reopened. Like a ghost that had been beside you all along.

You had loved him. You had known him.

And now, knowing that—feeling it—was the worst kind of mercy.

And then—

A whisper.

Not out loud. Not in the room. But inside you.

A thread of memory, soft and fraying at the edges. It didn’t come with images. It wasn’t visual. It was sound. Scent. Weight.

The unmistakable presence of his body curled around yours in the dark, arms wrapped tight around your waist, chest pressed to your back, the low hum of his breath against your skin like a vow being made for no one but you.

His voice. That voice.

“I’ll keep them away from you,” he’d said. Barely above a whisper, broken and certain all at once. Like he was making a promise with his whole body. Like he knew he couldn’t keep it—but meant to die trying anyway.

“I swear.”

Your eyes blinked open again. The ceiling blurred.

Your chest stung, your throat tight with unshed ache. Your eyes burned with the sting of something that didn’t quite feel like grief. Not anymore. Not just pain. It was heavier. More complicated. A kind of sorrow that bled at the edges with memory.

With meaning. Because you remembered.

Not all of it. Not clearly. But enough.

Enough to crack the ice that had lived in your chest since the day they pulled you out of cryo, since the first scream you couldn’t place, since the first phantom bruise your body remembered without context. Enough to fill in the negative space of every nightmare with the shape of the man who had been beside you through it all.

Enough to feel the name form in your mouth like it had always lived there. Waiting.

“James.”

It escaped like breath. Like prayer. A whisper shaped from ash and ember and aching remembrance.

The sound didn’t echo. It settled.

Like it belonged here. Like it always had.

And in the silence that followed, your heart beat once—slow and steady and unbearably tender—like it recognised the name too. Like some part of you had been holding its breath for years just waiting for that moment. For him.

You didn’t cry. You didn’t move.

You just lay there—staring into the dark, blinking through the blur, wrapped in memory, in ache, in the unbearable silence of a future that might never come. Wrapped in something too quiet to be called hope, but too warm, too human, to be despair.

You said his name. You remembered. And it was enough.

It had to be.

a/n: i'll see you guys in chapter 5! it's probably one of the most painful things i've written in a while, and gosh, i cant wait to proofread and post it up! ❤️ please leave a comment or a reblog if you enjoyed this chapter! thank you for your support 🥹

taglist: @poisntree @moth-maam56 @ravenswritingroom @heymydearheart @secretdiaryofzai @whitelaxe @ficmeiguess @its-in-the-woods @chronicallybubbly @stell404 @overwintering-soldier @emilyswortwellen @vampirehimejoshi @chimmysoftpaws @herejustforbuckybarnes @s0urw00lf @cheeseman @onlyforyuto @hibiscy @quinquinquincy @wickedfun9 @bugs-n-roses @alicetesser @hibiscy @onlyforyuto

[dearwalker]

Moral of the story - John Walker x reader

━━━━━━━━━━━ ⋆⋅ ♡ ⋅⋆ ━━━━━━━━━━━

Word count: 5.6k

Requested by anon: John Walker x reader based on the song Moral of the Story by Ashe . They used to be married with no kids, after tfaws she left him only to come across him during the events of thunderbolts. John attempts to reconnect with her as he never stopped loving her.

Description: You never expected to be blindly sent to kill your ex-husband, but when you cross paths again in looping shame rooms, it’s like going through the pain all over again.

Tags/Warnings: Language. So much ANGST. John being an emotional rollercoaster. Shame rooms. Lots of fighting and regret.

Note: This turned out longer than expected but I loved writing this (my angsty heart is thriving) I'm currently obsessed with this man so expect more about him.

Masterlist

John Walker liked to think he always had the answer to everything. Or at least, most of the time. His brain ran on tactical planning, constant gears grinding with strategy and precision. He was the guy who accounted for every variable, every angle, every possible risk.

But right now? He had no idea how the hell he'd ended up in this situation. Out of all the threats he could've anticipated, out of all the variables he could've ever considered, he sure as hell never expected one of them to be named Bob.

Yes, Bob.

The weird guy that popped out of nowhere, in a bunker buried in the middle of nowhere.

That clean slate Valentina had promised him seemed to be slipping from his fingers by the minute. It was the last thing he could afford himself to screw up, with all his past failures clinging to him like heavy chains.

And yet here he was, stuck with the blonde he'd been sent to kill, a phasing assassin, and Bob.

Middle of fucking nowhere.

"Come on Bobby, you missed legs, arms and torso day" John mocked him, as he pulled him out the elevator shaft they were using to escape.

But the moment Bob's hand touched his, the world around him melted into a black shadow as it shifted around him.

The once warm air went stiff, cold.

When he turns around, he's suddenly back in his bedroom. Those godforsaken walls he once shared with you.

He takes a step forward, his pulse accelerating, and he's met with a scene his mind only replays when he isn't punching someone, when it gets too quiet.

And the first thing he sees, is you.

The ghost of you standing by the bedroom door in front of him, arms folded tight over your chest like they were the only thing holding you together.

It was too quiet, almost, the only sound being the zipper of a duffel bag his past self had thrown onto the bed.

"You're leaving already?" you past self broke the silence, voice so soft it barely reached him.

You didn't sound angry. You didn't even look like you had the energy to fight, not anymore.

John takes a step forward, watching how his past self didn't even throw a glance your way. The prick was too busy yanking dirty clothes from the bag and swapping them out for clean ones.

"You just got here" you mumbled, quieter now when he didn't answer.

John remembered this moment differently. He remembered you nagging, picking up a fight. But standing here now, watching like some unwilling spectator in a memory he didn't want to relive he really saw it, saw ... you.

Staring at him with glossy eyes, looking like not one single bone in your body wanted to fight him that day. You just stood there, still hoping that somehow this time it would land, that he would listen.

"Yeah, well" He muttered, eyes locked on a dirty torn off pair of boots he needed to get rid off. "Val needs me again. You already know how it fucking goes."

A quiet sob was caught in your throat. He saw now how you tried to swallow it, like you'd done a hundred times before.

"I haven't seen you in weeks, John. Is it really that easy for you to leave me? Every goddamn time?" you said quietly.

And fuck, he cursed when he heard it, it didn't even sound bitter. It was desperate, tired.

He scoffed, and let out that bitter, dismissive laugh he always pulled when he didn't want to feel anything. "Jesus Christ, are we doing this again?"

He didn't stop packing, like the answer to all his problems was hidden in a pair of socks rather than just turning around to look at you.

"Doing what, John? You choosing to leave every time instead of fucking talking to me?"

There it was, the anger he remembered.

"Then yes, John, we're doing it again. It's always your need to feel important. Like if you're not out there 'saving the world' you're nothing in here" you finally snapped. The ache in your chest made your words feel sour as they left your mouth.

That's what got under his skin. He saw it in the way his past self stiffened, jaw tightening with that same goddamn temper he could never quite control.

"You think I like doing this? You think I like risking my ass every time to come home to this? To another one of your guilt trips?" He's yelling at this point, throwing the holster in his hand back in his bag.

You looked like you'd been slapped.

"This?" you repeated stunned, pointing at yourself with your hands. "You mean me? I'm this'"

He turned to the door then, finally. But not to deny it, or to apologize or to even spare one single glance at you. It was to grab a jacket hanging on the doorknob.

He didn't say anything. Just grabbed his duffel bag and tossed it over his shoulder like the argument was some inconvenience he could just walk away from.

He keeps pretending to ignore you when he walks past you by the door, but a hand pressed to his chest stops his getaway.

"This is the last time I'm asking you to stay" You warned him. The lump in your throat betrayed you, what you wanted to sound firm came out like a child plea.

He didnt even flinch. He brushed it off and kept walking, thinking he'd come back home in a day or two, bring some takeout and fuck it out like always.

"Jonathan..." Your voice sobbed his name as he made his way to the front door.

Yet still, he never looked back. And neither did you.

That was the day you gave up on him. He remembers coming back a few days later, your favorite takeout in hand, only to find a half empty closet, empty drawers.

An empty home.

And now? Now it burned him watching it from the outside. Watching you blink away tears while he was too busy being an asshole.

His eyes burned, as his heart clawed its way up into a painful knot his throat.

He snaps back to reality when Yelena calls out to him. All eyes watching him, but his were locked in the tempting elevator's dark void.

What the fuck are you doing, John?

They’ll see right through your bullshit.

"Im fine" He said, a little too quick for comfort.

But with a plastic smile plastered on his face, his mask falls back into place like muscle memory.

Once again, how the hell did he end up in this situation?

And because karma seemed to have fun making John Walker's life even more miserable, he'd ended up tied in a half collapsed gas station.

Hostage to none other than Bucky Barnes.

Naturally, he just couldn't help himself to mock Bucky's absurd political position. Though in his defense, the bastard kept gettting on his nerves. They already knew each other, so why was Bucky being such an idiot about the whole Bob situation?

So John did what he always does. He fucked around and, as usual, found out.

"Yes. I know you, John" Bucky’s tone was calm, but the hint of a smirk hid behind his words. "And you've made your choices. I know it's been hard since your wife left you, but that is no one's fault but yours"

The cruel words rolled out his tongue like he's been waiting to throw them in his face since he found him in the blown up limo they'd use to escape.

John just stares at him for a second, then his eyes drift to a particular paint chipping spot on the wall.

Yelena turned towards him, lips parted in surprise.

'I've got a gorgeous wife waiting for me at home' she remembered him saying it back in the bunker.

Liar.

Yelena had believed him back there. She knew a thing or two about John Walker, having read his file, recalled your name and picture being printed out next to 'affiliations'.

Must've been exhausting carrying that rage for two, was her first thought, but she wouldn't say it out loud. Not when he was giving her that kicked puppy look.

Cause he didn't shy away from her eyes, didn't say a thing. All he could do was give a small, tight shrug that said it all: add it to the fucking list of things I've screwed up.

Yelena didnt press further.

He was grateful for that, and for Ava being too busy bickering with Alexei to pester him any further about the matter.

But then, Bucky's stance shifted.

"Shhh" he hissed, hand going up to his lips. Alexei and Ava immediately stopped talking.

In a different occasion John could've laughed at the sight of Bucky Barnes looking like a guard dog about to bite, but if he was tensing up like that, it couldn't mean anything good for anyone. So he listened.

That's when he heard it too. An almost undetectable soft thump, but his enhanced hearing catches it. It was the slight creek of metal, straight above them.

"Someone's on the roof" John said at the same time as Bucky.

Everyone looked up. But before anyone could think about what it could be, the ceiling exploded.

The roof came crashing down in a cloud of smoke and ash. The room burst in chaos between shouting and coughing, debris flying everywhere as a smoke grenade rolled past their feet. All John could see was the flicker of Yelena's widow bites glowing blue as the haze blinded the room.

Then, a pair of boots landed hard on the floor.

He hears some struggle between Bucky and the unknown intruder, and then a thud of heavy metal hitting the floor. It must've been Bucky's arm slamming against the concrete.

Someone had taken him down.

"I'm not here for you" the intruder said, a woman's voice muffled by a mask.

John instantly frowned. Even with the sound of debris falling down and the fighting in the room that muffled voice sounded familiar to him.

"I don't care" Bucky growled back.

The fight went on, blows landing hard and fast. Whoever she was, was determined to take him out.

But Bucky was the fucking Winter Soldier.

John feels Yelena drop next to him, then what must've been Ava falling unconscious as well, as the smoke hit their systems.

"Lena!" Alexei shouts.

"Okay now, what the fuck is going on?" John choked out, coughing.

He hears the fight halt for a second when he spoke.

The intruder recognized the voice. His voice.

You recognized his voice.

Bucky got the upper hand at the distraction, catching your wrist mid swing. He slams you to the ground with a quick motion, pinning you down with his knee and pressing his metal hand against your throat.

You gasped, struggling, eyes wide with fear under the mask. Next thing you knew his gun was pointed at your head.

As the dust cleared enough for John to see the scene, his face turns to horror.

He sees the mask, and immediately knows.

You're about to get blasted into next week by Bucky.

"Bucky–Stop! Stop! It's Y/N!"

John broke his cuffs in one go, his arms fighting against the bent rod holding him back.

Bucky froze, confused. He ripped off your mask, and there you were, gasping for air. Still beneath his knee, throat red where his hand had been.

"Shit" Bucky breathed, when he recognized you. But before he could lift his weight off you, John tackled him to the ground.

The girls jolted back to consciousness at once. Coughing as they sat up.

"What the hell is going on?" Yelena rasped, seeing John on top of Bucky and you standing beside them.

"Man come on, I didn't know it was her!" Bucky snapped, twisting beneath John to shove him off.

You sat up in your spot on the floor, coughing, one hand still braced against your throat.

And then you saw him, that voice you heard. God, it had been years.

"John?" you said, voice hoarse. You wished it really wasn't him.

He pried his eyes off Bucky without loosening his grip, and half turned to you.

"Oh, you have to be kidding me" You curse, a hand covering your face.

It was really him.

You pushed yourself to your feet, ignoring the pain. "Get off him you idiot, I'm fine"

John didn't argue. Just got up and backed off, hands on his hips.

Everyone stared at him like he'd just grown second head. Why didn't he protest?

Bucky immediately got to his feet, annoyed, brushing dust from his shirt.

"So ... who even are you?" Ava asked. She was still tied up and this was getting annoying.

"Y/N Walker," Yelena replied, the name burned into her memory from that file.

"That's not my name anymore," you snapped, too fast, too sharp.

John's jaw clenched, eyes going back to that same chipped spot on the wall.

"Wait, you were his wife?" Ava asked, incredulous. "What, Steve Rogers wasn't available?"

Bucky bit his tongue to keep himself from saying something.

"Ava..." Yelena warned, voice low.

As much as Yelena might've loved to take a jab at Walker herself, she didn't, his expression had left a feeling on her chest that stuck to her more than it should've.

"No but really, where'd you even find this guy?" Ava pressed on, like the idea of you marrying John Walker had personally offended her.

You turned slowly, your glare enough to shut her up for half a second.

"Give me a fucking break, Ava. When you're young, you fall in love with the wrong people sometimes." you snapped, without even thinking.

The words tasted like regret as soon as they came out. And you knew the way John stiffened meant they landed like a blade on him.

His gaze burned the side of your head.

If he'd only looked at you like that then.

"Is no one going to mention she tried to kill Mr. Soldier?" Alexei chimed in, at least the drama was interesting.

"I wasn't going to kill him," you muttered, rolling your eyes. "I just needed to knock him out long enough to get rid of you—"

You pause, the pieces clicking together.

"Goddammit. Valentina." You muttered under your breath.

That bitch. She'd really sent you to kill your ex husband without even telling you. What is he going to think about you? That this is what you'd turned into?

"Wait–you work for Valentina now?" John asked, like the words physically hurt, like he couldn't believe that's the path you had taken.

"It's not like that, John," you sighed, suddenly aware of how many eyes were watching. "I was angry at everything. At you. I figured... if running helped you escape your life, maybe it would help me too."

He didn't speak, but you saw it in his face. The guilt, the disbelief.

Had Val gotten to you the same way she got to him?

"She told me she lost a facility to some rogue agents" you explained, more to yourself than to anyone else.

"Yeah" Yelena cut in, "Because she tried to kill us."

You blinked. And suddenly, it all made sense.

You turned back to John.

“She didn't tell me you were one of them."

Your eyes locked on his, for some reason needing him to believe you. To see the truth in you, if nothing else. He barely nodded, but it was enough.

And then, from the corner, Ava scoffed.

"Pfft... perfect family" Ava muttered under her breath, shaking her head at the lie he'd told.

It had been perfect once, you thought. The dates. The proposal. The wedding. The honeymoon. The house with the porch swing.

The high school sweethearts who got married right after graduation because you couldn't keep your hands off each other.

The partying, the late night drives, the making out in parking lots, it was reckless and "romantic", all that was okay as teenagers.

But running wild has a way of turning volatile.

And then suddenly you were grown ups, trying to build a life, a home, a future. But your boy? he only knew how to fight. Maybe for the country. Maybe with you. Maybe both.

That's what he loved, really. The fighting. The heat.

Screaming, slamming doors and then fucking it off was the usual. The real break? Was when there was no more yelling, the unbearable silence.

Silence in a home you thought was built on love. Turns out it was just paper house you burned out.

All that "marry your high school sweetheart, build a dream life behind a stupid white picket fence" bullshit?

Propaganda. Nothing more than that, a fraud.

You weren't perfect, you knew that. Maybe you were even selfish. But was it selfish to want to be wanted?

To want John to look at you like your company meant more than his next mission?

It didn't seem fair.

You thought you had your lives figured out. But then he was made Captain America. You were there when he went to the army. When he lost people. When the world turned its back on him.

But when he got the serum? It was different.

All that pressure. The eyes on him. Expectations he could never live up to, no matter how right he tried to follow the orders.

And he tried. God, he tried. But the weight of it all twisted something in him.

He started carrying it alone like he had to. Like letting you see the cracks would make them real. He stopped talking, started shutting you out.

And in the end, the silence between you became permanent.

So it wasn't the fight, the heat, or that stupid shield what got to you.

It was the quiet between two people who forgot how to ask each other for help.

—

It all happened too quickly. Even for John.

One second you were helping a little boy who fell, the next he saw you dive straight to push Yelena, shoving her away from a collapsed beam.

You barely dodge it.

But now there you were, in the middle of the chaos, standing directly in Sentry's line of sight.

John saw the way your body stiffened. You knew it. And he knew it too.

You made eye contact with him, just long enough to hold the blue of his eyes. That look, carved into his memory forever, like you were trying to memorize his face, like this would be the last time you'd see him.

He was horrified. He wanted to scream. He did scream your name so loud, so broken, it tore through the chaos and made the others flinch. But not even his enhanced speed could reach you fast enough.

One second you were there, and then the next ... nothing.

You turned to nothing more than a black shadow spilling on the ground.

John stopped dead in his tracks, wide eyes staring at the shadow where you stood. He blinked a few times, trying to make sense of what he just saw.

No. This wasn't happening to him again.

The ringing in his ears drowned out the screaming around him.

Not again. Please, not again.

It was Lemar. It was Afghanistan. It was everything all over again.

It was you, gone.

No, this couldn't be real.

He didnt give Bucky enough time to grab him. He didn't even think twice about it. He ran straight into the void, his footsteps so heavy they tore through the pavement, cracking it beneath his boots.

All he knew is that he couldn't fail at another thing in his life.

When darkness surrounded his eyesight, he crashed onto a wall. His ragged breath was the only thing he could hear as he came to his senses, and realized he was thrown into the same memory, that same room he had stepped in before.

"You're leaving already?"

Your voice behind his back startled him, and he whipped around expecting to see you. The real you. But it was your ghost.

"No, fuck that" John growled, marching forward. "I'm not watching this again."

He grabbed the shoulders of his past self who kept stuffing clothes into the bag like it wasn't costing him everything.

"Look at her, you fucking idiot!" He yelled at himself, shaking his body. “She’s right there!”

His past self looks at him with that same smug, distant, uncontrolled anger he used on everyone else.

John barely had time to react before he was spun around and yanked into a chokehold by himself. His arms crushed his windpipe like a vice.

"Should've done that when you could Johnny" Past John muttered coldly.

John fights to free himself from the chokehold, kicking wildly, clawing at his own arms, struggling against his own brutal strength.

He could feel his breath giving out.

"She’s not here anymore, John" You said, and if felt like adding salt to the wound.

This was it. This was the punishment. Watching himself ruin everything and then being choked by the same hands.

And then, it stopped.

The grip vanished. He collapsed onto the carpet, coughing, gasping for air.

The scene resets.

"You're leaving already?"

"No, no, no" He grunts, dragging himself up from the floor, looking around for a way out.

He spins, breathless. "Nice place, Bobby” he mutters bitterly under his breath, looking around like a caged animal.

He slams himself into the wall next to him, bent shield first. Nothing. The plaster doesn't even crack.

I have to find her. Where is she?

"Come on, baby. Where are you?" He spins again, searching for something, anything. A door, a window, a crack in reality.

His eyes catch on two mirrors standing side by side against the far wall. They shouldn't be there, they weren't before.

Both reflecting something different from what they were supposed to.

Two different scenes.

He steps towards the first one and sees those fucking pillars. The blood stain on the concrete. The day Lemar had–no. He turned his face away violently, he'd save that one for his nightmares.

He turns his eyes to the other mirror and catches the sight of an office. Your lawyers office.

He finds a silhouette across the room, watching the scene unfold on repeat. It’s you. The real you.

He puts his bent shield in front of him and pushes through the glass, landing hard in a new memory.

The crash doesn't startle you. You stand frozen, eyes glazed, watching the scene replay again, the end of your marriage looping in front of you like a broken film reel. Your back is to him.

John doesn't move forward, he can't.

He feels like throwing up when he sees it. The mahogany walls. The glass table. That goddamn vanilla air freshener like this wasn't the worst moment of your lives. 

The moment he signed the papers.

You were separated by that long glass table. You sat beside your lawyer, hands fiddling in your lap, eyes glued on him. He was across from you, beside his lawyer.

And worst of all, his past self doesn't look at you. Not even now.

He just sat there, head hung low as he fiddled with the corner of the page. Your fresh signature next to his empty spot mocked him.

He'd told himself that day he couldn't take your angry eyes. But looking now he sees the truth. You weren't angry. You were grieving.

Hoping he'd just meet your eyes one last time. Like maybe if he did, you could still fix it. Maybe he'd remember how he used to look at you, like you were everything.

Like he still had some love left for you.

The pen next to the papers laid untouched for too long. He was dragging it out.

"We just need your signature, Mr. Walker, and we'll be settled" your lawyer said. Her voice slices through the tension like a knife.

It made him flinch, of course she was in a rush. For her, it was another Tuesday. For you, it was the end of the world.

And for him, it was losing the love of his life.

He gathered the guts to finally reach for the pen, signed with one quick stroke, and tossed it back onto the table. The glass cracked where it fell.

Then came the screech of his chair, echoing off the polished floor, and the sound of his boots walking away.

The scene restarts. 

John takes a shaky step forward. "Hey" he whispers, voice rough. You flinch. "It wasn't supposed to end like that"

"You just ... wouldn't look at me" You reply, your back still turned away.

"I couldn't" He blurts. "I couldn't see you not wanting me anymore. Wanting to end it all"

You spin around, voice breaking with anger. "Look at my face, John. Did I look like I wanted to end it?–I waited. I thought if you just looked at me, maybe we could salvage something. But you didn't. You never did"

He can't speak.

God, he'd thought about that day a thousand times. About every way he could've stopped it, every word he should've said. But right now? that you're in front of him, sobbing and shaking, he was speechless, too ashamed.

"I tried to be there for you. After the captain America mess, Lemar, the government turning their back on you" You cry, remembering all the shit they put him through. "But you kept pushing me away, like being out there was the only place you mattered. Like having me wasn't enough for you."

"It wasn't like that" he said, shaking his head.  "After everything I ruined, the field was the only place I felt like I was doing something right."

You cut him with just one line.

"I'm sorry our home didn't feel like that to you."

The pain in your voice hits him like a train. His pathological need to feel useful, needed, like his skills still held some value, had already taken so much. Then he gave it the last thing that still loved him. You.

"I used to think I knew everything about you" you whisper, shaking your head. "But then you got the serum and it turns I never really knew you. God, I really tried to."

You wipe your eyes, and John feels the earth drop from under him.

"I know I made too many mistakes. But it was real" he says, desperate. "You did know me, you loved me as much as I loved you."

He still remembered everything. The way your laughter filled the room after he made a stupid joke. The way your hands always found his, in crowds, in private, even in your sleep. The way you looked at him like he was worth saving, even when he wasn't sure he was.

"We were never what they made us out to be" you said, bitter. "We thought we were in love, but we were really just in pain."

You lie. Because it's the only way left to protect yourself.

Because you still remember too.

The way his arms felt around you, safe, strong, like the world couldn't touch you as long as he held on. The rasp in his voice when he was half asleep, mumbling nonsense against your neck. The way he made love to you like it was the only way he knew how to say I'm still here.

And the way he looked at you, like you were the one good thing in a world that had taken so much from him.

But you also remembered when it started to change, when the look in his eyes started to fade. The never ending fighting. How the conflict just kept escalating, becoming bigger than it should've.

And it hurt like hell.

He wants to punch a wall. To throw himself into that void he'd seen earlier. He sees right through you, he knows you're lying. He knows you remember as much as he does.

And the scene kept playing behind you, over and over.

"No" He snapped. "We loved each other. I loved you. I still fucking do."

He points at himself with both hands, and that's when you see it.

A glint of silver poking out under his left glove. His wedding ring.

And that's what breaks you.

Because you can't answer. You can't admit you still love him too, not after all he's done. Not when he still wears the symbol of a promise he broke.

He steps forward, hesitating and you turn your face away, but he doesn't stop, not this time. Cause all you ever needed was for him to stay, to fight for you the same way he fought out there.

And now? He would crawl to the ends of the earth if you asked.

So he keeps walking, until he's in front of you. 

Your hands cover your face as the sobs tear out of your chest, and his arms wrap around you without hesitation. One hand on your back, the other pulling you into him as he rests his chin on your head.

Your cries break against him.

How could he have hurt you like this?

You don't know how much time passes as he holds you. How many times you heard the pen crack the glass. All you felt was the pressure of his arms wrapped around you.

And slowly, your sobs soften. All that's left is the quiet shake of your chest against his.

"I'm sorry" his voice cracked the silence. This time, he means it with everything he has left in him.

You didn’t respond. You couldn’t.

Because what do you even say when the apology comes years too late? When the damage has already carved itself into the walls of who you are?

So you just stand there. Wrapped in arms that used to mean home. Sinking into a chest that once felt like safety. Trying to remember how it used to feel.

And maybe that's the tragedy, that after everything this is the closest you've felt to him in years.

And it wasn't enough, not now not ever.

“Please…” he breathes, his voice scraping at the back of his throat. “Please, just… let me try to make things right.” his voice cracks, it’s raw.

And for a second, you freeze. Just long enough to feel it, something you wanted to hear too long ago.

Then you pull away, not harsh, but before he can say more.

You don't want to hear it, not his pain, not his regret, not his late promises.

But his hand catches yours.

“Don’t leave me again, please.” His eyes search yours, desperate.

“John, you left me first” You shake your head, pulling your hand but he doesn’t let go.

“I don’t know if I can fix what I broke. And I know I lost the right to ask for anything from you. But if there’s a part of you, even a small one that still thinks of me when it’s quiet, then let me try. Cause I sure as hell think about you all the damn time”

You look at him, and it’s like he finally lets you see through him. Like he finally opened up the gates he shut on your face all those years ago.

“I was so scared” he admits, eyes looking to the ground. “Of all the weight, of failing, of not being enough for that shield or for you. And I didn’t know how to say it without sounding weak. So I fought everything instead, even…even you.”

“I would give anything just to go back to before I fucked it all up. To that night in the kitchen, when you asked if I still saw you in my future… and I stayed quiet.”

You feel something twist in your chest at that memory, the way his silence echoed louder than any fight you had before.

“I should’ve said yes. God, I should’ve said yes.”

There’s too much in you, too much pain, too much tired, too much history.

But for one second, you let yourself look at him. And it’s just your John in front of you. Bruised and begging.

And maybe that’s what love looks like sometimes.

Just the quiet, broken voice of someone asking for a second chance, even when they know they don’t deserve one.

Your throat feels tight, that fight in the kitchen.

You remember the way you leaned against the counter, arms crossed over your chest, trying not to break while your heart thudded like a war drum.

“Do you still see me in your future, John?”

He didn’t say anything. Just looked at you with eyes that didn’t hold an answer.

And now here he was, years later. Begging to rewrite a chapter that had already been printed and bound in the pages of your life.

You take your hand back, gently this time.

“You always had perfect timing” you say quietly, voice steadier than you feel. “Just never when it mattered.”

His hands twitch, like he’s ready to beg, to reach, to hold on, but you shake your head.

“I don’t know what this is anymore,” you whisper. “What is left of us, or if there’s anything left at all.”

His silence says more than words ever could. You let it stretch for just a second too long.

You meet his eyes, steady, unwavering.

“I need you to understand that I’m not her anymore. I’m not the girl who built her life around you.”

He nods slowly. He’s not the same guy who did that to you either.

You take a breath, slow and shaky, fingers lifting to the collar of your suit. For a second, you hesitate, then pull it down just enough to reveal a chain.

A ring dangles there, silent and gleaming like a ghost.

His breath hitches like you just knocked the air out of him. His eyes drop to the ring, and for a second, he forgets how to stand.

You still have it, you didn’t discard it, you carry it with you.

Just like he does.

“You kept it…” he says, barely above a whisper.

His voice cracks like a fault line, and your chest tightens because you weren’t supposed to make this harder. You were supposed to walk away and leave no room for what ifs.

John takes a slow step forward, not touching you, just standing close enough that you can feel how badly he wants to.

“Can I…” His voice falters. “Can I still try?”

You say nothing, just looked at him. Really looked at him.

The dark under his eyes, the tired weight in his voice. The ache of someone who finally understood the cost of his actions.

You bit your tongue. You wanted to say yes, that was the worst part.

And maybe that’s the moral of the story. Some mistakes get made, that’s alright, that’s okay. In the end you choose what you think it’s better for you.

Even if sometimes it meant to throw yourself back again into what once destroyed you, because maybe, just maybe, it’s the only thing that can put you back together.

━━━━━━━━━━━ ⋆⋅ ♡ ⋅⋆ ━━━━━━━━━━━ comments and reblogs save author’s lives, thank you so much for reading <3

[hazelfoureyes]

The Radio Demon fucks a Human Sacrifice (a Valentino production)

⟢ part1♡̶sidestory♡̶part2♡̶part3♡̶part4 ⟣

Valentino has acquired a living, breathing human in hell. But at the begging of Angel, Alastor makes a deal in exchange for her soul.

tags: Alastor x reader, smut, dubcon, mentions of assault (Val intended to "fuck you to death”), Val's existence, overstimulation, forced (?) orgasms, bondage (shadow tentacles), choking (sexy kind, not murdery kind), cervix wrecked, your aunt is a bitch

(author's note: I've been in Japan for like 7 years and my English has suffered, but your fucking smutty writing on this site has inspired me to write for the first time in years.)

Minors DNI

Angel burst into the hotel lobby, winded. “Please, you gotta do somethin’!” 

To the surprise of everyone, he ran straight to Alastor, tears forming in his eyes.

“Val’s gonna hurt her real bad. I don’t know who else to ask, please. I can't—-“ he cradled his head in his hands, “I can't watch him break any more people.”

Alastor didn’t seem to react at first, but Charlie appeared at Angel’s side and pulled him into a hug, “Angel, take a deep breath. He’s gonna hurt who? What’s wrong?”

“He got a new soul. Some fucking cultist offered her up as sacrifice. But she's not dead yet Charlie—- he dragged her down here alive.” His voice cracked, “He wantsta— he said he’s gonna fuck her to death on camera and wait for her to respawn in hell. He’s convinced he’ll make a fortune off the tapes. Please, for fuck’s sake someone has to do something.”

A human in hell? Well, that was something interesting after all. With a raised brow Alastor spoke, “And how exactly can I help this poor, unfortunate soul?”

“Make a deal or– rip his arms off, I don’t fuckin’ know! There has to be something you can offer Val worth her soul. I’d give you my soul if I could!”

Well that’d be worthless.

But a human? A living, breathing human? Intriguing.

“Alastor you have do something. This isn't right! Hell isn’t for the living.” Charlie’s hair flew upward as her eyes flashed red for a second, “I’ll repay it somehow.”

Well there's no harm in taking a look. 

The demons and sinners who saw Alastor walking into the Vee’s tower oscillated between fleeing for their lives and live tweeting the event. Either a truce or a war would be breaking out and they knew they’d be fucked regardless.

“Alastooor”, Val exhaled,  letting the name drag out lazily, “Come to ruin something, I’m sure.” Val hadn’t seen Alastor since his fight with Vox 7 years ago, and he hadn’t expected to see him in his studio— ever. 

“Ha! No, not today. Word got around that there's a special little guest hidden in your studio.” Alastor’s eyes darted about the room, uninterested in the various parts and bits of the actors changing.

Val glanced at Angel, who’d suspiciously returned some 30 minutes before Alastor appeared. 

“I didn’t say nothing, Val.” Angel’s hands went up in defense. “He came to me askin’ about her.”

“And what exactly do you want with my “little guest”?” Val dropped any pretense of politeness. 

Alastor leaned forward on his microphone, and with a pop of static he practically cooed, “To see the poor creature, of course.”

Val ashed his cigarette into a cameraman’s hair and walked off, “Fuck it, sure. She’s back here.”

The back room was dark, perhaps some would call it mood lighting but what mood exactly it conveyed fell somewhere between dungeon and power outage.

You sat on your knees in the center of a round bed. Arms held above your head by a large clip attached to wrist restraints. Your body swayed slightly, a long rope anchored to the ceiling and tied to the clip above you.  Your body was slightly suspended, knees barely making contact with the bed beneath you. The white nightgown you wore was bloodied and ripped at the collar, causing it to slip down your left shoulder. Jaw clenched, your eyes were covered with a red satin tie. 

Alastor took the scene in. Your lip was cut and swollen, bruises peppered your cheek and exposed shoulder. Yet, you were breathing heavily, like a bull about to rush them. You were clearly defenseless, but somehow still defiant. His smile grew to his ears. It had been decades since he had a human in such a prone state.

“Have you …. broken her in yet?” He asked delicately, eyes never leaving your face.

“Nah, just roughed her up a little. I want to capture her raw reaction on camera when she takes her first demon cock.” Valentino clenched his fist to emphasize the word “first”. 

Your head fell forward as you pulled down on your wrist restraints, a growl rising in your throat.

Alastor felt his breath get caught in his own, your nightgown riding slowly up your legs as you struggled. 

“Hey!” Val snapped his fingers in your direction. “Don’t embarrass me. Our guest came to see you. He’s considering making an offer for you, I’m sure, so say hello like a good girl.” Val rolled his eyes, “Sluts always fucking embarrassing me.”

You tried to gather enough saliva to speak, finding the taste of blood still on your tongue. “Fuck you and your friend.” barely made it from your chapped lips. When was your last drink of water? Last meal? How long had you been unconscious before this all began?

“Not friends.” Alastor was quick to retort, “The name’s Alastor, my dear. It’s a pleasure.”

You sneered, a pleasure? What a sick joke. 

“Alastor.” you repeated it, disdain dripping from your lips.

The absolute contempt with which you said his name did something to him. His eyes darted from your mouth back to your inner thighs, exposed from the rising dress. Your mouth was so rude but your body looked so sweet. A little lamb– no, a doe.  

“Say it again.” It wasn’t a request, Alastor himself was surprised to hear himself say it with such demand.

You thrashed. “Oh is that what gets you off? You wanna hear your name in my mouth?” You said mockingly. “You’re just as FUCKED as him.” The nightgown rode up even further. Alastor’s tongue stuck to his teeth as his mouth went dry. Had you been delivered to Val without panties? Offered to him in just this sheer cotton night dress? What was happening to him…

 Static bit your skin as a low hum filled the room. 

“Say it.” Alastor’s voice dropped an octave, eyes suddenly taking on a slight glow. You couldn’t see the danger before you, but you felt it. Something primal in you knew you were in the presence of a predator.

No, you couldn’t see him, but his presence was pressing in all around you. 

“Alastor.” You seethed, “ALASTOR.” Pulling down on the restraints yet again you tried to find the strength to stand, “ALASTOR! ALASTOR!!” Your legs buckled under you having gone numb hours ago, his name devolving into a gutteral scream. All of your anger and despair ripped from your chest as you shouted his name. The nightgown had now ridden to your hips but you couldn’t find an ounce of shame in you to care. 

You were so full of rage, so defiant still. You were so…. alive.

He felt the blood rushing to his crotch in an all together forgotten sensation, and knew immediately his decision. “Let’s make a deal.” His eyes didn’t leave you, but Valentino knew he was talking to him.

Val let out a laugh, “I have some time to waste while they finish the set. Why not.”

Seated in his personal quarters, Val motioned for Alastor to sit opposite him. You had been left in the dark of that room, only knowing you were alone when the static died down and the hair on the nape of your neck relaxed. 

“Listen, Radio Demon. There’s nothing you have that could tempt me to hand over the little bitch.” His long arms rested over the back of his sofa, a heart shaped puff of smoke leaving his lips. Alastor swatted at the air as it approached. 

“What do you even need her for? You don’t deal in souls, but flesh. Surely you can find another toy to break on camera.” Alastor waved his microphone away.

“Hmm”, Val brought a finger to his chin in thought, seriously considering what Alastor could possibly offer him. “Oooh, I know.” His head lolled to the side,  “People have seen me fuck a thousand times. But no one’s ever even seen you with a partner. ‘Radio Demon fucks human sacrifice’” He motioned from left to right as if reading the words off an imaginary marquee, “Now THAT would make money. Real money. Fuck GOD levels of money.” A red liquid leaked from his lips as they were stretched across clenched teeth, his hips involuntarily humped at the air, “oh fuck. Yes. You do the porn, and I’ll give her to you. Soul and body.”

Alastor was looking at Val but his mind was still in front of you, his name tumbling from your lips. The uninterrupted skin where your thighs met your hips. The desperation in your scream. How absolutely soft and fragile you were. He adjusted his hips, trying to calm the twitching of his cock at the thought of you helplessly before him. 

“What exactly are you proposing?” His fingers came to rest entwined on his knee, one leg over the other.

“First, I have full rights to the video to do as I please.” Val counted out on his fingers, “The porno has to show penetration. No dry humping or some bullshit like that. I need you fucking that whore if I’m gonna sell this shit. Aaand”, A sickening grin grew on Valentino’s face, “She has to cum. And I’ll know if she’s faking it. If you don’t manage all three, the deal is off. I keep the human and all rights to the video for per— no, *in* pep-“ he sputtered, “perpur- forever! Fuck.” 

Alastor’s default grin was now so wide his gums could be seen peeking past his lips, his eyes flashing to dials, “It’s a deal.” He extended his hand to Valentino as he stood. A green light was shining from the open palm but Val shook it regardless, confident the deal's conditions wouldn’t be met. He’d seen a lot of fucked up shit on his set, but the Radio Demon, famously uninterested in sex, wasn’t going to make a battered human cum. How stupid could Alastor be, he thought. And he’ll have the video of Alastor failing to please someone to broadcast all over the pride ring and beyond. “May I have a moment alone with her before the filming?”

Val rolled his eyes, “yeah but don’t fuck her off camera.”

The sudden feeling of a hand on your hip startled you so intensely you let out a yelp. 

“Hello, my little doe.” Hot breath tickled the shell of your ear, then your neck, then your collar bone… “Unfortunately your shoot will still continue today. But if you do as I say, I promise you’ll leave the studio alive.”

You felt the nightgown being tugged back down your hips, hiding your exposed sex.

“I will be taking that pompous moth’s place. I will be as gentle as I can, but he will want to see you suffer. You must still fight me, must act pained. Can you play along?”

Your eyes darted behind your eyelids. He sounded— gentle? His voice was soft against your skin. Maybe he was truly the lesser evil of the two. You nodded. You’d heard all the gory details of what the other demon had planned for you, this sounded infinitely more tolerable. You dare thought you’d suffered worse before. 

“And, one more little caveat, darling. I will bring you to orgasm, so please don’t fight so hard as to delay your release.”

You hadn’t realized you’d been holding your breath until his words punched you in the gut. 

“I-“

“Yes?” Alastor’s mouth was nearly on your neck, his smile ghosting your skin.

“I’ve never—- I mean I can only do that by myself. No one else has managed to-“

A large hand patted your head, cutting your train of thought off. How big was he? His hands could palm a basketball. Could he really be gentle? Was he capable of it? Were those hands going to be on you soon? Your mind was running away with the thought of this strange demon fucking you on camera. 

“Oh don’t worry about that. Just focus on your performance. We have to put on a good show!”

Angel was practically chewing his fingers off as he watched the crew finish the set.

“Alastor what the fuck, I thought you were gonna help her!”

“I am, my effeminate friend. Have a little faith in me.” He adjusted his bowtie and took his place on set.

“I have none. I have negative faith, Alastor. Fuuuuck”, Angel slumped against the wall behind him and sank to the floor. 

The stage was set. A red sigil was painted on the floor of a cabin, candles lit around the room as the only source of light (except the stage lighting hanging above the scene). Of the three walls they’d made, the far left wall had an altar haphazardly filled with flowers, a golden bowl, and small plaid satchel.

Someone — something? — led you by the restraints to the stage. Blindfolded, you were pushed down to the floor, forced to sit on your still numb legs. The leather cuffs on your wrist were unbuckled, allowing you to flex your hands. When you reached for the blindfold a hand smacked at yours.

“No no, keep it. I want you to look exactly how I found you.” The familiar voice of Val instructed. 

Someone handed a script to Alastor, but he pulled his hands away from the demon as if the paper itself was an angelic weapon, “Oh, no thank you. That won’t be necessary.”

“I’ll tell you what to say” Val said, clearly to you.

“It’s—- it’s fine. I’ll just do it like before. I don’t need any help.”

You really didn’t.  There was no improv needed. You could repeat exactly what you said yesterday evening when you awoke on the floor of an unfamiliar place. You’d been visiting your aunt one moment, and alone in a weird room what felt like moments later. Groggy, but alert enough to know something bad had happened. 

You heard “action”, and then silence. You could feel eyes on you.

“Aunt Sara….” You whispered. “I don’t understand what’s happened… Are you still there?” You rubbed your wrists trying to regain some blood flow, readjusting your legs to do the same. 

You heard a strange sound, both yesterday and now. 

“Aunt Sara isn’t here. She’s made an exchange, she gets extraordinary power….and I get your soul.” The way Alastor said it, the way his breath seemed to almost hitch, surprised you. Something cold touched your ankle, causing you to flinch, “But I want more than that. I need more than that.”

You felt that something-unknown snake up your leg toward your center. Crawling backwards on your butt to create some distance you collided with the altar. The golden bowl rolled to the edge and spilled its contents across the table. You could smell the iron tang of blood before you felt the pitter patter on your shoulder. Alastor inhaled quickly before letting the air back out with as much control as he could manage.

“Who are you?!” You’d asked this already. But this time the disembodied voice of your captor replied, “Alastor, the Radio Demon! Pleasure to meet you.”

The right side of your face smacked against the floor of the makeshift cabin as you were dragged suddenly across the room and into the red sigil. The cold appendage on your leg now tightly coiled up your calf.

“No— you have to fuck her with your fucking dick! You can’t use shadow tentacles!” Val shouted, nearly falling out of his chair.

“Now now, the deal didn’t specify with what, only that penetration must occur. Plus, I won’t show up on your video recording device anyway.” Alastor took several steps back, ensuring he was not in frame, “Rest assured, your audience will know it is me.” His words cracked and stuttered like someone had changed the station midway through his sentence.

A small, “fine, whatever.” was grumbled and the scene continued, the tentacle snaking its way up your thigh as Alastor chuckled softly at how you flinched against him.

You rolled onto your stomach and tried to kick off the shadow but it held firm. Letting out a groan you used your hands to drag yourself back towards the altar. Before you could reach the table your other leg felt the pressure of a new tentacle twist around your knee as you were dragged back toward the Radio demon once again.

Your nightgown was forced up, your ass now exposed and in the air as your legs were pulled open. That was as far as you had really gone yesterday, before a flash of light delivered you into the Pentagram City studio. 

Surprisingly, you felt embarrassed, self conscious knowing there were other people in this room. But as if he could read your mind, or perhaps just noticed the tremble in your legs, Alastor softly said, “It’s only us now, darling. There’s nowhere to hide.”

Third and fourth appendages appeared around your waist and neck. Effortlessly your hips were lifted off the floor, your cunt on full display to the man who now owned you. The tentacle on your neck slipped between your shoulder blades and pressed your chest firmly to the floor. You squirmed and struggled against the restraints but only accomplished to draw another chuckle from Alastor.

“Relax. We have forever, after all. We can take our time.”

You felt pressure at your entrance, and your pleas to stop were cut short as a shadow tentacle pushed its way inside you. It was cold, but quickly began to warm as your heat enveloped it. Your body was resisting it, too tight to take it all in one thrust, but you could feel it slick against your lips easily enough to make its way inside.

“Ooh, my dear, your wet little cunt betrays you.” He cocked his head to the side, antlers doubling then tripling in size, “Have my words affected you so much?”

You could feel the tentacle’s shape shift slightly inside you as if it were adjusting to you and not the other way around. True to his word, there was no pain except from the burning stretch of your hole against the girth of his shadow self.

Hissing, you thrashed against the sigil, “get OFF OF ME!” Pushing against the floor you barely got your shoulders an inch off the ground when you felt a nth appendage graze sloppily over your clit. You stilled, suddenly remembering your end of the deal. Your promise to the demon now circling your clit with his shadow. If you couldn’t do this, then the entire filming was for nothing.

“Don’t forget to breath. I can’t have you dying on me just yet, sweetheart.” The static was slowly building in the air around you again, a silent threat.

Your hand shot to your mouth, trying to smother the depraved sounds being fucked out of you. The tentacle in your pussy was now ramming against your cervix, curving and bending as it repeatedly forced its way in and out of you. The room was quiet, except for the slick, sticky sound of the tentacle coated in your fluids pulling nearly completely out of you before smashing back in. The pace was slow and cruel, but the pressure on your clit was fast and hard. Your mind was starting come undone, your thoughts splintering. You couldn’t focus on anything anymore, all over your body was pressure, pleasure, massaging, pushing, and pulling. 

“Ah ah, that won’t do.” Alastor practically sang the words as an appendage pulled your hands from your mouth and brought them to the small of your back. 

You whimpered, trying to find a balance between the overstimulation and the need to not let them see how much you were getting off on this. You needed to hate it more. Hate him more. Your cheek stuck to the wood of the floor as drool leaked from your open mouth, unable to keep it closed any longer. 

“I’ll—” Your strength was nearly gone, but you managed to knock your upper body around the sigil, smearing the still wet blood across your chest. You only managed to whisper into the flooring a quiet, “I’ll fucking kill you for this.”

The tentacles stopped, for a second you felt tears sting your eyes at the loss of friction. A loud screech made you wince, but you had no time to question it as your body was violently flipped. Your hips were slammed down onto the ground, held tightly by a tentacle around your waist. The back of your head ached as it was jostled in the turn. The shadows on your thighs now seemed determined to bruise you as they constricted around your skin. 

“What was that, dear?” The tentacle in your pussy seemed to swell inside you, the force of the thrusts picking up in intensity. He was ramming into your body with such fervor you felt the skin of your ass chaffing on the wooden grain beneath you.  “Speak up, now”, you heard him exhale forcefully, his controlled appearance hanging on by a thread.

“I-”, your mouth opened to continue your resistance when a new sensation stopped you. A second tentacle was trying to squirm its way into your heat, just above the now uncomfortably thick one twisting around inside of you. The pressure on your stomach from the force made you feel sick, but the devoted ministrations on your clit had your legs twitching against the restraints. “Ah–! no, wai-” It managed to slip itself into you, and with no hesitation it was pressing against your g-spot in a matching rhythm to the tentacle swiping over your swollen clit.

You’d never before made a sound like the one that was pulled from your throat. It was ugly and animalistic and took you by surprise. Still struggling to catch your breath, you threw your head back. You were losing control. As your body was rocked against the ground, the blindfold got caught in the friction and slipped down your nose. 

Bringing your head back up, you finally locked eyes with your new master. 

“Alas-” Another chilly tentacle came to your neck and began to lightly squeeze. You could only breathe out the rest of his name as your eyes met with his. He stood some feet from you, just outside of the sigil, barely on the set at all. He seemed nonplussed, antlers looming over you and suit perfectly neat, except one detail. His pupils dilated when you finally set your eyes onto his. The grip on your neck only stopped tightening when you stomped your foot down in fear of passing out. You didn’t break eye contact, a fire burning in you that told him no matter what he did you wouldn’t be broken. That look in your eyes, the contempt mixed with overwhelming pleasure made Alastor shift one foot in front of the other in an effort to better conceal the erection straining against the zipper of his pants. 

“Mmmhhh–” You finally broke contact as your eyes rolled back into your head, the pressure beneath your belly was building, a tightness threatening to snap. But this wasn’t like before, this wasn’t like when you were alone in your bed with your own hand. It felt like too much, your heart was pounding so hard you thought you’d really die. There was no way your body could continue this much longer, your heart would surely give out.

“Please–” You needed him to stop, the ghostly hand on your throat, the two tentacles pressing against your cervix and g-spot, the unrelenting pressure on your clit. It was too much, it was too sensitive. “I’m sorry, please. Pleeea-” you gritted your teeth, thighs twitching as the muscles in your core tightened.

“Going to cum, my little doe?” Through gritted teeth of his own Alastor asked you as if you had any choice in the matter. He forced your knees up to your shoulders, allowing the tentacles to reach new depths. 

“AaaaHH” You convulsed, “I’m yours, Alastor!” You moaned, willing to say anything to stop the overwhelming feeling as the coil snapped, you were orgasming on this demon’s shadow and for the love of all that was unholy he wouldn’t fucking let up. You did what he said, but he wasn’t stopping. His thrusts didn’t slow, your clit was throbbing and your body shaking uncontrollably. All defiance was dead, your fire snuffed out. Your eyes were glazed and unfocused. Your head hit the floor again as you struggled to keep your thoughts straight, “It’s all yours. My soul is yours! Please- sto-” Another orgasm was being fucked out of you, no recovery from the first. “I can’t, I can’t” Your jaw locked, the way your cunt was spasming and tightening around his shadow appendages nearly pushed them out of your body with the strength of your first forced orgasm. The lights in the room flickered and popped, the candles blew out with a sudden gust, static drowned out your voice from everyone but Alastor as you screamed through the second orgasm. A green light erupted from the smeared sigil beneath you, blinding the crew and onlookers. “My body is yours! My soul! It’s all yours. I give you all of me, Alastor! Alastor!!” Your vision went spotty, and your throat seemed to close around your voice. Your face was red with the strain of your orgasm. You’d never felt unrelenting pleasure like that before and in that moment you’d have given him absolutely anything he wanted from you. Everything. It was his. You were his. He owned you inside and out.

The bullying of your cunt finally calmed after your orgasm began to edge away, your breath no longer stuck in your throat. He didn’t stop, but he slowed down to a lazy pace as what few lights managed to survive flickered back to life. As your eyes adjusted to the light, you looked over your wrecked body to Alastor. His eyes were wild, his bangs damp and clinging to his forehead. His smile was manic, sinister almost. He looked truly demonic. A wave of fear carried a chill down your spine.

The tentacles withdrew, the sudden loss making you feel colder somehow now than before. They had taken on your own heat and matched your temperature so perfectly, now your body felt empty. You felt naked. Your cunt was still clenching, but around nothing at all. It felt…like something was missing now. Your body seemed to be upset at the loss of contact. It made your stomach turn.

You flinched when the radio demon approached you, but instead of tearing you to pieces like his grin had promised, he slipped his suit jacket off and laid it over your body. You hadn’t realized the dress was torn and lying beneath you in a wet pile of blood and sweat. The confusion must have been evident on your face, because Alastor’s appearance shifted. Antlers now small, if not tiny between his ears. His eyes a red and pink, lids half closed. His smile was just a line across his face, no teeth at all. He looked like a gentleman, had you not known what he had just done to your pussy you’d have thought him incapable of such impropriety. 

“Good job, my little doe.” He whispered before you were handed a glass of water by a tall stranger. 

“Wow, you’re kind of natural at this babe. I haven’t seen a performance like that in ages.  Are you okay?” You took the water from him but didn’t open your mouth to reply, instead transfixed on his appearance. You’d only seen Val and Alastor until now. “You can call me Angel. We’ll get you home soon. I swear.”

Your eyes flitted to Alastor’s, did he know? He must have, he must have felt it. Of course he knew. In those final moments, you hadn’t been acting. Not an ounce of your pleasured responses were disingenuous. Not a single word a lie.

Alastor helped you to your feet as Angel placed a robe over your shoulders. Alastor hummed as he put his jacket back on, a satisfied sound coming from his chest that almost sounded like a song. 

Val sat in his director’s chair with his legs crossed, mouth open. His cigarette was mostly ash, delicately lingering on the stub.

Alastor placed a hand on the small of your back as you were guided to the door. Looking over his shoulder he grinned to Val, “It seems our deal is done here, Valentino. She’s mine, in perpetuity.”

(Part two)

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