astoryisaloveaffair - Tumblr blog

astoryisaloveaffair · 1 month ago

Text

Does It Hurt? : Bucky Barnes x Female Reader Sex Pollen Fic

Summary: Bucky never would've gone out of his way to help you if he knew that HYDRA was still watching his every move, if he knew that it would shift their focus to you. When you're targeted and taken, it's his fault and he'll do anything to save you. Anything.

Warnings: angst, sex pollen, unprotected sex, fingering, restraints, abduction, violence (b/c Bucky is protective as fuck), profanity, voyeurism/exhibitionism (if you look hard enough), no use of y/n, only pet name use is random mentions of princess (facetiously)/baby/sweetheart, mention of SA of unknown characters from an old HYDRA experiment, MINORS DNI, 18+!!!

Word Count: 24.3k

A/N: This is very lengthy, I know, but I thought you all deserved one long post that you could read at once (or at your own pace) vs. me committing to and failing at maintaining a posting schedule for a multi-part series. I hope at least a few of you find it to be an interesting read.

You lived in the tower for two months before you ever formally met Bucky Barnes. Once you’d met him, you knew you didn’t want to work with him. You were sure that he was good at his job, you could tell that just from the fact that Sam was his partner. But it wasn’t about that. It was the way he looked at you with such an unsettling gaze, the way the hair on the back of your neck would stand up as soon as he was in the same room as you, even if you hadn’t yet laid eyes on him. Everything about him kept you on edge. So, instead of being sent on missions with Sam and Bucky, you did a lot of solo missions. It’s as if Fury sensed your apprehension about working with them and decided to give you a reprieve.

After three months of living in the tower, you ended up on the same training schedule as Bucky. You found yourself frequenting the gym at the same times as the steely, unreadable super soldier. When you were sparring in the ring, he’d be just a few meters away, lifting weights like he was worried the serum would one day dissipate from his system. When you were stretching on the mats after a long run, he would be doing an ungodly number of pull-ups. Of course, this meant that you’d be hitting the showers around the same time as well. At first, Bucky made a valiant effort to be a gentleman. You always beat him to the gym showers and he felt it would be disrespectful for him to use them at the same time, even though each shower is afforded plenty of privacy behind a locked stall-style door. So, he would sit around and wait in the gym until you left, leaving a vanilla-scented trail in your wake. It wasn’t until you’d been on the same schedule for a week straight that you finally spoke to him.

“You know there are multiple showers in there, right?” You’d asked as you walked past him one day, smelling of something sweet and looking perfectly refreshed after a shower. Bucky cocked his head and narrowed his eyes at you, and you took that as a sign that he didn’t quite catch your lighthearted tone. He didn’t say anything in response, which is why you were so surprised to hear the locker room door swing open and then click shut as you showered the next day. From then on, you and Bucky showered at the same time, just a few stalls apart, after every early morning in the gym.

It was three weeks after that when you ended up on the radar of an organization that never should’ve caught sight of you. Bucky likes to blame himself for that. They were watching him, after all, and if he hadn’t taken that one assignment that night, if he hadn’t answered that one call from Fury, HYDRA never would’ve profiled you. HYDRA never would’ve looked into you and found out that you were the perfect candidate for their operation.

Both you and Bucky can recall that one mission perfectly, though you each have very different perspectives on it. It was a solo mission for you, one that should’ve been fairly low risk and easy to handle without any backup. There was virtually no danger, not a single red flag came up during your recon in the days prior to the mission. That’s why you were caught so off guard when you started to get an uneasy feeling around midnight. That was when you realized just how persistent your target was, just how set he was on getting everything he wanted from you. You had only needed to get close to him for a few minutes, but somehow you ended up in a private room with him. As the scent of your perfume soaked into his button-up shirt and your lip gloss left a trail of glitter down the side of his neck, you knew you weren’t going to get out of this one easily. When his hands started kneading the curve of your ass, slipping beneath the hem of your short black dress to get a good feel of your skin, you knew you needed help. So, as you kissed and sucked on the skin of your target’s neck, you used one hand to press the panic button on your necklace. You had no idea that Bucky Barnes would be the one sent to save you.

Bucky was wide awake before he ever got the call from Fury that night. He’d always had trouble sleeping, but lately the trouble seemed worse than usual. He never once pieced together that his struggles with insomnia were worsened on the nights that he didn’t hear you across the hall. When he got the call from Fury, he was on his feet and headed downstairs to his bike in less than thirty seconds. By the time he was on his bike, his thoughts had already veered into dangerously homicidal territory. As he sped down the darkened highway, skillfully weaving in and out of Friday night traffic, he could hear Dr. Raynor’s rule echoing in the back of his mind. No one gets hurt. In that particular instance, Bucky chose to apply the rule to you, rather than to the piece of shit that had you feeling unsafe enough to press a panic button.

After that night, Bucky’s gaze never felt unsettling to you again. Though a shiver might still run down your spine when he was in your vicinity, you found that you liked having his eyes on you. He was watchful in a way that made you feel safe and seen. Maybe it was the way he tried to be civil when he first showed up at the club that night. He acted as if he’d merely stumbled into the private room accidentally, profusely apologizing as the door swung shut behind him and he ran a hand through his slightly messy brown hair. For a man that hadn’t been drunk in at least eighty years, he sure as hell was good at pretending that he was.

“I was looking for the men’s room, but I guess this probably isn’t it.” He said, slurring his words slightly and shifting his eyes back and forth between you and the man you were straddling on the couch. The man’s hands remained firmly on your ass, which had Bucky ready to put a bullet right between his eyes. He probably would’ve done it too if you weren’t right there on his fucking lap. He’s a good shot, but it was a risk he wasn’t willing to take.

“It’s the second door on the right, down the hall.” Your voice was unexpectedly soft and gentle for a girl who’d just finished putting on a show for some of the city’s most questionable men.

“Second door on the right.” Bucky repeated, mumbling the words as he took a couple of unsteady steps further into the dimly lit room. “You work a pretty dangerous job, don’t you?” He focused his blue eyes on you. One thing about making eye contact with Bucky Barnes is that it’s simultaneously intoxicating and sobering.

“She told you where the men’s room was, now you have five seconds to get there.” The man between your legs said coldly, letting his hands slide away from your ass to rest on your thighs. Bucky chuckled lowly, in a way that had goosebumps rising on your skin and anticipation building in your gut. He took another step closer to the couch, but this time it was clearly steady and purposeful. You swallowed hard, suddenly a bit worried that you were the only thing between the two men.

“I know you were being generous with the five seconds but…” Bucky began calmly, reaching into the back of his waistband and pulling out his firearm. You felt the man’s muscles stiffen beneath you instantly. “I’m going to give you exactly one to get your hands off of her.”

From then on, things were different. Though you still didn’t work together on anything directly, Bucky always seemed to know what missions you were on. You learned that his timing is impeccable, that he’s always the first one the show up when you put out a call for help, and he shows up faster than should be possible. You learned that he has rules, rules that he doesn’t follow but that he seems to cling to anyway, as if they give him some kind of comfort. The most important rule is that no one gets hurt. He broke that one when he pistol-whipped your target in the club that night. You also learned that he has a dark past, the kind that keeps him in constant danger. If you’d known that his past would introduce you to that same kind of danger, you might’ve done things differently.

Bucky likes to think that he would’ve done things differently, that he would’ve turned down Fury’s call to be your backup that night, that he would’ve let someone else save you if he’d known. If he’d known that HYDRA was still breathing down his fucking neck, watching his every move outside of the tower, waiting for the right time to get their bloodstained hands on the Winter Soldier once more. If he’d known, he wouldn’t have put you in harms way. He might’ve saved you from one handsy lowlife, but he sealed your fate when he pushed your hair away from your face and pulled his helmet over your head that same night. That was the exact moment that HYDRA got a glimpse of you.

As fucked up as it is, HYDRA could see the connection between the two of you long before you or Bucky ever could. That’s why they chose you.

That’s why, unbeknownst to you, you’re currently less than twenty-four hours away from falling right into their hands.

The soft pattering sound that raindrops make when they fall onto the roof of a parked car has always been one of your favorite melodies. It’s what’s lulling you into such a sleepy state right now as you try to make it through hour five of your solo stakeout. Glancing over at the screen in the center of the dashboard, you see that your target is doing exactly what he’s been doing since you first arrived outside of his building a few hours ago. Through the view of a heat-signature camera, you see his tall, lanky form hunched over at his desk. You never thought you’d wish for someone to break the law, but god, here you are now, wishing he’d do something, anything, to warrant you bringing in a strike team to bust down his door and drag his ass out. You’re just so damn bored. Maybe that’s why your mind starts wondering into territory it doesn’t belong in.

Bucky Barnes. The man who lives across the hall from you, the man who showers just two stalls away from you in the gym every morning, the man who saved your ass in such an attractive way that you haven’t been able to get him out of your head since. You hate that he always seems to have that indecipherable look on his face. You hate that half the time you can’t even tell if he even cares that you exist. You really hate that you find him so fucking fascinating. You like to tell yourself that if he was more open, more extroverted, you wouldn’t give him a second thought. It’s the fact that he’s so quiet and mysterious, that’s what draws you to him. You can’t help but want to figure him out, him and his dark, brooding ways.

A few minutes pass before you take another look at your target on the screen, noting that he’s still right there at his desk. You let out a soft sigh as you type out a quick message to Fury.

You: No movement for the past 5 hours, ready to get out of here. Send in a surveillance team for the rest of the night.

Fury’s quick to respond, letting you know that a surveillance van is being dispatched and that you can leave when it arrives.

So many things could’ve been done differently to prevent what would happen next. Fury could’ve given you a clear description of the van, he could’ve given you an exact ETA, he could’ve told you that the van would signal you with their lights when they arrived. You could’ve been a little less stubborn and let him assign you a partner so you weren’t sitting in such a remote part of the city all by yourself.

When a large black van starts approaching your car just ten minutes later, you get an uneasy feeling. You watch in your rearview mirror as it approaches from behind, driving slowly, with the headlights off. You should’ve known the surveillance team couldn’t have arrived on scene so quickly considering the area you were in.

It all happened too fast. It happened too fast and you don’t remember any of it. You don’t remember how hard you fought against them. You don’t remember hitting the panic button on your necklace before it was ripped from your neck and left in the street. You don’t remember taking out three men before the fourth one put a bag over your head and gave you an injection that put you into the deepest sleep you’ve had in years. You don’t remember a damn thing.

Bucky remembers it all as if he was there. He watched the footage of your attack and capture so many times that it’s burned in his brain. He should’ve been there. That’s why he’s doing what he’s doing now, losing sleep what little sleep he might’ve gotten over the last three nights and putting all of his energy into finding you. It’s why the second he found out it was HYDRA who put their hands on you, he became a version of himself that he swore was dead.

One-hundred and twenty hours. One-hundred and twenty fucking hours since Bucky last heard the sound of your door closing softly across the hall, since he last heard the sound of your triumphant laugh as you get a good hit in on your sparring partner, since he last heard the sound of your voice. Your voice. A sound he didn’t know was giving him life ever since it first graced his ears. Bucky throws another solid punch at the bag that hangs in front of him in the gym, not in the least bit surprised when the chain suspending it from the ceiling snaps and the bag goes flying into a wall at least twenty feet away.

“I’ve only ever seen one other person do that to a punching bag.” Fury’s voice rings out, interrupting the silence surrounding Bucky and breaking through the thick fog in his mind. “And he was going through some shit too.”

“I’m fine.” Bucky lies straight through his teeth as he hangs another bag, barely giving Fury a sideways glance as he approaches from the shadows.

“Oh, you’re fine? And here I thought you might be at least a little upset that your across-the-hall neighbor was taken by the same people who ruined your life. Or do super soldiers not have feelings?” Bucky shoots Fury an annoyed look before throwing a few light punches at the new bag.

“Isn’t that what people want when they create super soldiers? Mindless soldiers who take orders and feel nothing?”

“You feel nothing?” Fury leans against the wall next to the previously airborne punching bag, glancing down at it with a look of familiarity. “Do you feel nothing for her?” Bucky’s fist collides with the bag almost hard enough to snap the chain, and though Fury is standing in the danger zone, he doesn’t flinch.

“What do you want?”

“I want to know why this is affecting you so much. Is it who was taken or is it who did the taking?”

“Does it matter?” Bucky’s tone conveys every bit of his exasperation as he steadies the punching bag with both hands and raises a furrowed brow at the director.

“It does.” Bucky could lie. He could lie or he could just refuse to answer. He never signed any contracts saying he had to be forthcoming with Fury at all times, he never so much as promised that he’d be honest with him. But for some reason, he tells the truth.

“Both.”

“What lengths would you go to to save her?”

Bucky’s hands remain on either side of the punching bag, squeezing it hard enough to leave imprints in the tough canvas fabric. Images of you being taken in such a violent way swirl around in his mind, playing on repeat with Fury’s last question as the soundtrack.

“Lengths I haven’t been to since my arm had a fucking star on it.”

Your life has been reduced to brief moments of consciousness and flashes of things that your drugged mind is trying so hard to piece together. You remember the flash of a butterfly needle piercing your left arm and the cool sensation of saline entering your circulation from an IV drip. You remember someone swiping at your forehead with a wet cloth, leaving a stinging pain right above your left eyebrow and around your bottom lip. You remember harsh Russian words being spoken over you as you lost your grip on reality and went tumbling into the oblivion of a heavily sedated sleep. You remember waking up a second time and seeing nothing but gray concrete walls all around you. The air was stagnant and chilly, making you wish you had more than what felt like a small paper gown covering your skin. The sound of a metal door creaking on its hinges and a gruff voice barking orders at someone in Russian was the last thing you heard before your eyes closed and your head fell back once again. The third time you awoke from your medically-induced slumber was this morning, when the drugs were finally clearing your system. You found yourself still in that small concrete room, strapped to some kind of exam table, covered from your toes to your shoulders by a thin white sheet. Not a single thing has happened since then. You’ve laid on that exam table for hours, alternating between staring up at the dim light hanging from the ceiling above and staring at any one of the four gray walls around you. There’s a rusted metal door immediately to your left, but you found your neck too sore to turn and stare at that for very long.

You can’t seem to remember how you got here, or much less where the fuck here is. You’ve wracked your brain repeatedly, trying to piece it together, but the only thing you remember is your last interaction with Bucky Barnes.

You don’t usually wash your hair in the gym shower. You remember that on the morning of the day you were taken, you spent an extra two minutes in the shower washing your hair. It’s how you ended up in front of the mirror, with your towel wrapped tightly around your body, working the tangles out of your hair with your bare hands. It’s why Bucky took one step out of his shower, with his own towel slung low on his hips, and froze. You caught a glimpse of him in the mirror, the reflection perfectly capturing every detail of him. Drops of water clung to his tan skin, rolling down the ridges and valleys of his toned abs. The curve of his right shoulder could’ve been crafted by a master potter, sloping down to a defined bicep and forearm, accentuated by apparent veins holding such a steady balance of blood and super soldier serum. But his left shoulder? Your eyes were drawn to what was left of it. The skin there looked so painfully marred and fused to his black and gold vibranium arm. You stared a moment too long before you realized you were the one who messed up, you were usually gone by now. Bucky never would’ve stepped out of his shower if he knew you were there, right there in nothing more than a small white towel that was threatening to reveal where your thighs curve upward into your ass.

“My hair…” You had said softly, your voice coming out timid and gentle. Bucky remained frozen, watching as your eyes slowly moved away from his scars and settled on the dog tags that hung around his neck. When you finally looked him in the eye in the reflection of the mirror, you seemed to find your voice again. “My hair got tangled.” Bucky only nodded, giving you an unreadable look as he took a slow step forward to head to the locker room for his clothes. You don’t know why you didn’t leave it at that.

Bucky doesn’t know why you didn’t leave it at that either, but everything that happened after that is exactly why he’s taking your disappearance so fucking hard.

“Does it hurt?” You asked so quietly that Bucky thought he might’ve imagined it. He was a mere foot behind you when the question left your lips. You felt your cheeks blushing pink as his feet stilled and he met your gaze in the mirror once more.

“Does what hurt?” You could’ve just said it. You could have just fucking said it, you didn’t have to do what you did. You turned around slowly, letting your fingers slip out of your hair before reaching a hand out and letting your fingertips ghost over where skin meets vibranium on Bucky’s left shoulder.

Bucky couldn’t fucking breathe. As your soft fingers traced his scars, he drew in a deep breath and seemingly forgot how to exhale. You didn’t notice the way his eyes closed as you studied his skin beneath your touch, you didn’t even notice the way his chest stopped rising and falling. Your touch was so light and gentle, so innocent and yet it changed something in the atmosphere. The air in the room grew so thick that Bucky felt as though he might suffocate, you felt it too, but you didn’t withdraw your hand. It was the contrast between his rough scars and your soft fingers, combined with the warm, steamy air, and the water droplets rolling down Bucky’s back that had him growing overstimulated. When he opened his eyes and looked down at you, he watched as the towel clinging to your chest had begun to lose its grip, slipping down an inch to reveal a little too much skin while simultaneously not revealing damn near enough. He didn’t even realize what he had done until he had your wrist clamped in his flesh hand and your palm was flat against his scarred shoulder. You were looking up at him, and though he expected to find fear or apprehension in your eyes, he found nothing of the sort.

“You’re not wearing your necklace.” He said matter-of-factly, narrowing his eyes at you, but keeping his grip on your wrist, preventing you from taking your hand away from his shoulder.

“Should I be?” You asked, tilting your head to the side. Bucky shrugged, the action moving your hand slightly but still, he held it in place.

“You’re standing here in nothing but a towel with a guy you barely know and you don’t think you should have your panic button around?”

“Every time I press it, you show up.” You pointed out. Bucky dropped your wrist and you pulled your hand back to your side slowly, but didn’t take a step away from him.

“I’m starting to think you only press it when you want to see me.” His tone was taunting, almost playful, and you picked up on the smirk that was threatening to take over his features.

“What happens if I press it one night when I’m not on a mission?” Your boldness came out of nowhere. Bucky cocked his head to the side and raised an eyebrow, wondering to himself if you were just playing along with his little game or if the entire exchange had a hint of something real in it.

“Press it sometime and we’ll find out.”

As you lie on the uncomfortable exam table with restraint straps digging into your arms, legs, and torso, you have to wonder if you pressed your panic button the night you were taken. You can’t seem to remember a single thing about that day after the tense moment in the shower room with Bucky, everything after that is simply gone. Surely you didn’t get the chance to press the button, because if you did, you have no doubt that Bucky would’ve shown up. He might not have been close enough to show up before you were taken but you’re sure he would’ve showed up to the scene, found evidence that you were taken, and he would’ve been able to track and follow whoever took you. Wouldn’t he? He always shows up.

But if Bucky Barnes always shows up, then why are you here now? Why are you alone, in unknown territory, surrounded by thick concrete walls and the sinking feeling that no one is coming for you?

Bucky has gotten himself into some deep shit. He’s fully aware of that as he tilts his head back and rests it on the hard metal behind him. It’s the only part of his body that he can move with the restraint system that HYDRA has him in right now. It’s the same type of reinforced glass-walled system that has once held Loki, the Hulk, and even Bucky when the threat of descending into the Winter Soldier still loomed. HYDRA’s afraid of him when he’s in control of his own mind, so he’s here, locked away and feeling fucking helpless.

Bucky getting taken in by HYDRA was part of the plan to rescue you. You’re in a concrete bunker so deep underground that any attempts to infiltrate it and extract you would’ve only endangered both yours and countless other lives. There were too many unknowns. Truthfully, it was unknown if you were even in this bunker, when SHIELD found out that HYDRA has at least three within this state alone. The only reason they were able to narrow it down to this bunker was because of one double agent on the inside. They took a chance on his intel. They took a chance, allowed Bucky to fall into HYDRA’s hands, and now everything is stalled. Until he lays eyes on you and figures out where they’re holding you and what kind of shape you’re in, nothing else can happen. You’re both sitting ducks at HYDRA’s mercy.

He thought you were taken because of him. Bucky thought you had been targeted by HYDRA because they found out you were connected somehow, because they thought that taking you would be an affront to him. It made sense, if what they wanted was their hands on the Winter Soldier, then all they needed to do was touch something, someone, that he cared about. They knew it would drag him out into the open and give them a shot at having their prized possession back under wraps. Bucky was only partially right. They did indeed use you to draw him out, but you most definitely were never meant to be a simple means to an end.

They chose you because of what they saw that night when you climbed onto the back of Bucky’s bike. They chose you because every interaction they observed after that night was charged with indescribable tension, an obvious chemistry that was palpable even through surveillance cameras and monitors. They knew that you were the key to everything they were planning. So now here you are, sitting up on the side of the exam table, feeling weak and honestly, ready to accept death. As gloved hands move carefully against your upper back, removing a few stitches from a wound there, you wish that you’d died in the scuffle of your kidnapping. The sedation and drugs have fully cleared from your system and you’re trying hard to ignore the aches and pains raging beneath your skin and the dark thoughts clouding your mind. You clutch the white sheet over your bare chest and grit your teeth as the gloved hands tug on a particularly tight stitch in your back.

“I can’t give you any pain medication today.” The man behind you says in a hushed tone, noticing the way your muscles tense every time he touches you. “It would interfere with tonight’s test.” He continues working on your wound as you sit in silence, refusing to engage with him. Tonight’s test. Questions start swirling through your mind at warp speed, begging to be asked, but you press your lips together tightly. “You don’t know it yet, but I’m the only friend you have in here.” His confession comes as a hurried whisper.

The man finishes up removing your stitches and then takes a few steps around the side of the exam table, coming to stand in front of you. Finally meeting his gaze, you see a tall, thin man, probably a few years older than you, with warm brown eyes. He doesn’t offer a reassuring smile or anything of the sort, but something in his eyes makes you feel like there might be some truth to his claim.

“Lie back, I need to see your ribs and your left hip.” You don’t really know why you do as he says, but you listen. You lie back on the exam table, thankful that he doesn’t move to use the restraints, and you shift the white sheet so it covers your breasts but allows him to view your ribcage. You cast your eyes downward, taking in the sight of the blue and purple bruises decorating your left side. That must be why it hurts so fucking much to take a deep breath. What the hell did they do to you? “I did x-rays when you first got here, you have a couple of hairline rib fractures, but nothing major.” He runs his cold gloved fingertips over the bruises, palpating lightly and listening for the sounds of any crepitus, which would indicate much more than just a little hairline fracture or two. He hears nothing, and skims his fingers down to your left hip. It’s the worst of what you’ve seen so far. The bruising there is much darker and more expansive than the bruising over your ribs. Even just his featherlight touches there elicit a pain that has your eyes screwing shut and your teeth clenching. “It’s not broken.” He tells you, as if that’ll suddenly resolve your pain. As soon as he retracts his hand, you’re covering yourself with the sheet once more and moving to sit back up on the side of the table. Your bodily movements are slow and careful, to avoid aggravating all of these injuries that you didn’t know you had.

“How long have I been here?” You almost choke on the words as they slip past your lips, the dryness in your throat making it painful to speak. Your voice is so raspy that you barely recognize it as being your own. Maybe you should’ve started with asking for a sip of water.

“Today is your seventh day here.” The man answers in his softest whisper yet, as if he isn’t supposed to tell you. Seven days? Seven fucking days you’ve been lying on this exam table, sedated to the point of losing nearly a week of consciousness? Your nails dig into the side of the exam table as rage begins to course through your veins. “Don’t do anything stupid.” You look up to find the man standing still before you, his eyes darting from your white knuckles and then to your face. Inhaling deeply through your nose, you will yourself to calm the fuck down and focus.

“Where is here?” You ask shakily, your rage spilling over into your raspy tone.

“That doesn’t matter. There’s something else we need to talk about, but it’s not the right time yet.” Suddenly, you hear what sounds like footsteps and a bit of commotion somewhere outside the rusted metal door of your concrete room. It’s not yet very close, but you can tell whatever it is, it’s getting closer to you. The man’s expression grows nervous and he quickly begins cleaning up the tray table beside him, wrapping his mess of old stitches and bloody gauze up in a small plastic sheet. “I’ll be back here tonight, but someone will be with me. They’re going to make me give you an injection. Don’t fight it, please. It will wear off by the time morning comes.”

“What’s in it?” You ask, matching his hurried tone and low volume. He’s moving to the door in an instant, with sweat beading along his hairline and his cheeks flushing pink. “What’s in the injection?”

“Something that won’t kill you, but you’ll wish it would.”

He’s going to snap every piece of metal and shatter every fucking inch of glass that’s holding him in place right now. Bucky’s seething, his face flushed and his chest heaving as he calculates how many concrete walls stand between him and wherever the fuck you’re being tortured right now. Another pained scream reverberates through the bunker and it reaches Bucky’s straining ears, making his blood boil. It’s you. He’s sure it’s you. Though he’s never heard you scream before, he has no doubt that it’s you. Bucky’s curling his fingers into fists and scrunching his eyes shut when he hears the electronic lock to the room that he’s in beep a few times and then click. The door slides open quickly, revealing a handful of guards and a pair of electronic handcuffs.

“Are you ready to see your little girlfriend?” One of the guards spits the words out as if they’re venom, his thick Russian accent clinging to each word. “I think she needs you.”

What the fuck is this? Bucky’s mind is reeling as he tries to keep his cool, refusing to blow the entire op by losing his temper and bashing a few heads in. As long as they’re really taking him to you, he won’t kill anyone — not yet anyway. He stays silent as the guards get into formation around the entrance of the chamber he’s in. He doesn’t breathe a word as the head guard places the electronic cuffs around his wrists and presses a few buttons to release the full body restraints that he’s been in for hours. He thinks about how he could easily kill every single waste-of-breath in this tiny concrete room, even with the handcuffs on, but when another scream rings out, and much louder this time with both the chamber and room door being open, Bucky’s only thinking about one thing: getting to you.

“You recognize her screams, don’t you? Is that how she sounds when you fuck her?” Bucky starts counting down in his head.

Three. He’ll give the man exactly three seconds to shut the fuck up.

“I bet her pussy is as pretty as her moans, yeah?”

Two.

“Maybe I’ll find out for myself, she wouldn’t be able to fight me off when she’s restrained.”

One. The sound of the man’s skull cracking as Bucky effortlessly knocks him to the concrete floor is sickening. Before any of the other guards have a chance to save him, his head is between Bucky’s tactical boot and the ground. A second cracking sound echoes in the room and the man is dead. Truthfully, he sealed his fate the moment he had a single untoward thought about you. None of the other guards make a move. They’re all frozen, staring at Bucky with mixes of fear, anger, and uncertainty. They don’t know what to do without their fearless fucking leader.

“Take me to her or I will kill every single one of you without lifting a fucking finger.”

He showed up. Bucky Barnes showed up. With the amount of pain flooding your nerve endings and making you see stars, your first thought is that he isn’t real. The tall, broad-shouldered man standing before you, with his black and gold arm reflecting the dim light that hangs from the ceiling, can’t be real.

Bucky stares at you from across the small concrete room. You’re sitting in the farthest corner, with your back against the rough wall and your knees pulled up tight to your chest, wearing what looks to be a tattered hospital gown. It’s fucking heartbreaking. The way your eyes flit up to his, looking at him as if he’s a figment of your imagination, it shifts something within him. A shudder racks through your body and a torturous moan leaves your lips. Bucky’s feet are carrying him forward in an instant, closer to you. You’re dropping your head to your knees and biting down on your forearm, refusing to let yourself watch as he grows closer. He isn’t real. This isn’t real, you tell yourself. The pain is making you hallucinate.

Cold, smooth metal ghosts along the side of your face, pushing your hair behind your ear and then following the curve of your jaw down toward your chin. Bucky’s clenching his teeth together as you let him lift your head, as you lift your eyes to meet his.

“You showed up.” Your voice breaks him. It breaks him into a million little tiny flesh and vibranium pieces. It breaks him in a way he doesn’t think he’s ever been broken before. When you lean into his touch, he wants nothing more than to pick you up and draw you into his lap, to cradle you against his chest and tell you that he’s going to get you out of this hellhole. But he doesn’t.

“I showed up.” He says softly, brushing his thumb over a bruise on your cheek. “What have they done to you?” His eyes part from yours as he takes in the full sight of you. His fingers move up to trace the healing cut above your eyebrow, then down to graze along the cut at the corner of your mouth.

“I’ve been sedated until today. They gave me something not long ago, an injection.” Your muscles tighten involuntarily as another wave of pain surges through you, forcing you to drop your head to your knees again as the room spins around you. The scream that erupts from you, that rips through your chest, is enough to rattle the metal tray table across the room. By the time the surge begins to pass, you’re shivering. You let your head fall back against the concrete wall behind you and find Bucky staring at you, his brows pinched together in concern and a sheen of sweat forming across his forehead. You don’t have the strength to fight when he grabs your hands and tugs you to your feet, lifting you into his arms with ease and carrying you bridal-style to the exam table in the middle of the room. He lays you on it carefully, but your thin gown shifts to reveal your heavily bruised hip and he feels a fresh serving of rage filling him up.

“What the fuck did they do to you?” He demands to know, pushing your gown a little further to reveal the entirety of the deep purple and blue bruise. “Torture?”

“No, I think this is the first round of torture.” You groan, trying to roll onto your side so you can curl back up into a ball. Bucky places his flesh hand on your lower stomach and his vibranium one on your thigh, holding you still. “They said it isn’t broken.”

“And you believe them?” He questions. His mistake comes when he finally touches your skin with his flesh hand. When he presses his warm palm flat against your bared hip, you suck in a sharp inhale and your eyes open wide. “Does this hurt?” He asks, but you don’t respond. You don’t say anything because it doesn’t hurt. It feels like stretching your muscles after a long nap, like laying in the summer sun to dry after swimming for hours. He notices the look of relief taking over your face, so he keeps his hand right where it is. “This doesn’t hurt.” He says incredulously, narrowing his eyes as he looks down at the swollen, angry skin. Leaning into his touch again, you take another deep breath. “What did they give you?”

“I don’t know. It was a liquid in a syringe, looked like about ten milliliters of something cloudy and white.” Another twinge of pain shoots through your body but it feels muted this time, just a fraction of its previous intensity. Bucky knows what they gave you. His breaths come in quicker, the slight hyperventilation making him a little lightheaded as HYDRA’s plan begins to unfold before him. He doesn’t remove his hand from your bruised hip, but begins to curl his fingertips against your skin instead. His eyes study your face, watching how it contorts, but not in pain. It contorts with the faintest promise of pleasure. He unfurls his fingers and begins sliding his hand upward, dragging his palm and fingers flat as he nears your waist. A soft whimper escapes your lips and he halts his movements. Your eyes flutter open and you meet his gaze with a furrowed brow as pain lingers in your nerve endings. The further up he moves his hand, the less relief you feel. After giving each other a charged look, he continues his upward movement. He's trying to confirm that this is what he thinks it is, while simultaneously checking you for any other bruises. He’s tallying them up in his head. Each bruise he finds is one more of HYDRA’s men that will be dying a slow, painful death at his hands. He uses his vibranium hand to push your gown further to the side, revealing the dark bruises along your ribcage just before his hand glides over them.

“Just hairline fractures.” You whisper, speaking the words through a shaky exhale. He’s going to kill someone. Probably more than one someone. It’s already settled, the certainty of that fact taking up residence in his bones. He will kill anyone who laid a finger on you. Actually, he’ll kill anyone who has so much as looked in your direction with ill intent over the last seven days. As soon as he gets you out of this damn concrete bunker and back to safety, he’s going on a fucking rampage. “Bucky…” His name falls from your lips in a way that has his body physically reacting. He feels sick over it, over feeling even the tiniest bit of pleasure when you’re in such a state.

“It felt better when I was touching your hip.” He already knows. You nod in response. Slowly, you reach down with your left hand, watching him cautiously as your hand comes to rest over the top of his that’s still lingering over your bruised ribs. He lets you guide his hand down your skin, inching closer and closer to your hip as your face relaxes and your eyes fall closed once more. “You don’t know what this is?”

“Just tell me.” You plead, scrunching your nose up when another muted surge of pain pulses down the back of your spine, shooting down to your fingers and toes like lightning. Still, with Bucky’s touch, it’s so much more bearable.

“It’s a chemical compound that HYDRA designed when they realized that recreating the serum from a super soldier’s DNA would take years. They wanted to shift into researching super soldier stem cells instead.” As soon as the words stem cells leave Bucky’s mouth, you know where this is going. A sheen of sweat is glistening across your forehead now, and you wipe at it with the back of your hand as Bucky continues to drag his palm in circles over your hip bone, trying to keep the worst of your pain at bay.

“What does the chemical do, Bucky?” Exasperation is evident in your tone, but it doesn’t even register in Bucky’s mind. He zeroes in on the way his name sounds rolling off of your tongue, trying his best to ignore the tent forming in his tactical pants. This is not the fucking time nor the place. He grits his teeth for a second and his hand stills on your hip, which earns him a displeased whimper from you and another noticeable hardening twinge in his cock. He’s quick to start rubbing circles against the skin of your hip again.

“It does a lot of things…causes pain that gets worse and worse over the course of about eight hours, makes you wish you were dead.”

“Yeah, I got that part.” You groan, considering curling into a fetal position. “But what’s the purpose of using it on someone? Why are they doing this?” There’s a long pause after your question, and you study the side of Bucky’s face as he watches his hand moving over your bruised hip. “Bucky?” Would it be wrong of him to tell you to stop saying his fucking name? He’s considering it.

“They used to inject super soldiers with it and then lock them in rooms with women. It enhances all of this reproductive shit, sends their sex drive into overdrive, all they can think about it getting off.” It’s crude, the way he describes it, but its effective in giving you a clear mental image of HYDRA’s depravity. Your heart is beating out of your chest as things start to make sense in your mind, as you realize the true gravity of the precarious situation that you’re in right now.

“Why haven’t I heard about this before?” You have to ask, but you’re sure you won’t like the answer. Bucky hesitates for a moment, sucking his bottom lip in between his teeth and biting down, avoiding your gaze.

“It wasn’t effective.”

“Why not?” His hand pauses again, and this time, he withdraws his touch completely, taking a step back from the exam table you lie on.

“The women never survived.” A sinking feeling settles deep in the pit of your stomach, almost overwhelming the cramping pain you already feel there. He isn’t saying the women didn’t survive the dose of the drug. That’s not what he’s saying at all. He’s saying they didn’t survive being fucked by feral super soldiers. He’s saying these women were violated and then discarded like single-use plastic, all as part of HYDRA’s attempt to have at least one of them end up pregnant so they could harvest potentially super soldier serum-laden stem cells. Bucky can see the wheels in your head turning, he can see the panic rising up inside you before it’s even reached the surface. He doesn’t reach out to touch you, but god, he wants to. He wants to reassure you. “Something about this is different though. As far as I know, they never gave the women a dose of the drug. Only the men.” You take a few deep breaths, the mixture of sheer panic and an oncoming wave of pain quickly growing to be too much for you to handle.

“Touch me.” You choke out, just as another bolt of what feels like supercharged electricity shoots down your spine and raises your body temperature. You cry out in agony as you tremble on the exam table, barely noticing when Bucky steps forward and rests his hand on your hip again. You need more than that, so much more than that, and you both know it. When the wave of pain subsides and your breaths begin to come in slower, you peel your eyes open and find Bucky already focused on your face, concern, worry, and a good bit of rage etched into his features. “Why would they give this to me and not you?”

“I don’t…” His voice trails off as his eyes roam over the small bits of exposed skin, as he takes in the tattered hospital gown and the bruises and cuts littered across the expanse of your body. He knows why. He was going to lie to you, to tell you he doesn’t know. But what’s the point? “They know I wouldn’t lay a finger on you just to save myself.”

There it is. They’re dosing you to force his hand. He wouldn’t act on the torture if it was aimed at his body alone. He would suffer through the pain or die before he would touch a woman against her will, before he’d ever even think to ask that of someone. But when it’s you? He’d do whatever you ask of him, and somehow HYDRA found that out. HYDRA found that out long before even you did, and they’re using it against you both now.

“He said…the man who’s been treating my wounds, who gave me the injection earlier, he said tonight would be a test.” You whisper, your eyes roving over to the small camera mounted in the far upper corner of the ceiling. Bucky follows your gaze and thinks about ripping the camera right out of the fucking concrete.

Bucky’s trying hard to keep his composure. You’re the one weakness he didn’t even know he had until it was being exploited. What did he do to lead HYDRA right to you? Where did he go wrong? How the hell did everything go to shit so quickly?

He spends the next three hours doing everything he can to ease your pain and suffering without taking it too far. The camera captures everything. It captures the shift in the room when the drug really started to ruin you, when you turned into a moaning, trembling mess on the exam table. It captures Bucky trying to soothe you by running his single flesh hand along your thigh, your lower stomach, and at times even sitting you up to rub deep circles into your lower back. You still needed more. It’s not the first time that Bucky’s resented his vibranium arm, but it’s the first time he’s resented it for a reason totally unrelated to his own trauma. The only thing that’s offering you any relief right now is the feel of his skin against yours, and he can only give you 50% of what anyone else could, because he only has one fucking hand. After half an hour, your pain worsened to an unbearable degree and Bucky took matters into his own hands. That’s when the camera captured Bucky stripping the clothing from his upper body. It was a single cry that you tried to stifle that did it. His top was crumpled on the floor within seconds, his arms wrapping around your quaking body and lifting you from the table. Instead of carrying you bridal style this time, he guided your legs around his waist and let you collapse on his shoulder.

He took you right back to that corner of the room, the corner he first found you in. This time, he sat on the floor with his bare back pressing against the concrete wall. He turned you around in his lap as if you weighed nothing, twisting you until your back was to his chest and you were seated on the floor between his legs, and untied your gown to fully bare your back to him. The moment he placed his hands on your forearms and pulled you flush against him was the moment you knew you were fucked. It felt like coming up for air after tumbling around beneath crashing waves. When he slipped both arms under the fabric of the gown, wrapping them around your stomach and keeping you pressed against him, you felt relief and yet you only wanted – no, needed – more.

“Bucky, it’s not enough.” You whimpered, letting your head fall back onto his shoulder.

“I know, baby, I know. I’m so sorry.” The sweet name hung in the air like smoke, swirling around in the corner of that concrete room. You felt a fire begin to build low in your stomach, replacing the agonizing ache you’d previously been feeling there. Bucky noticed the way your shoulders relaxed a little and the way a serene look briefly took over your features when he slipped up and called you that name. He doesn’t even know where the fuck it came from, but he’ll sure as hell keep using it if it’s doing you any good.

An hour later, the camera captured your thighs squeezing together as you continued to lean back into the super soldier behind you. It captured the internal struggle written all over his face as you fought the desire to straddle him right there on the floor and grind yourself against the sizable bulge in the front of his pants. He knew you needed it, but until you asked, until you vocalized it, he’d hold out. Though you didn’t know it, he was completely at your mercy.

When you started slipping in and out of consciousness, your heart beat rising to a dangerous rate, sustained well over two-hundred beats per minute, HYDRA watched on through their monitors as Bucky started to drag his lips over the skin of your neck. He pressed his lips to your pulse point, seeming to count the beats with the tip of his tongue as your eyes fluttered closed and a broken moan fell from your open mouth.

“What can I do? Tell me what I can do, please.” His plea registered in your mind but the ramifications of your response didn’t. There wasn’t a thought in your head when you reached beneath the gown and gripped his flesh hand, not a single damn thought when you guided his hand down between your legs.

The camera didn’t faze either of you. Though it was a consideration in the back of Bucky’s mind, his fingertips had already felt the wet fabric of the black panties you were sporting beneath the gown and his hand took it upon itself to do anything and everything you needed. With his vibranium hand holding your thighs apart and skilled flesh fingers pulling your panties to the side, Bucky was dipping two digits into your dripping cunt almost as soon as you’d spread your legs for him.

Bucky Barnes used nothing more than one hand and a few words of praise to draw two orgasms out of you, singlehandedly ending your suffering and lulling you into a state of semi-consciousness. He himself was in a daze when a team of guards swept into the room suddenly, four of them aiming their guns at his head as two of them pulled your limp body from his embrace and laid you back on the exam table in the center of the room. Bucky was left sitting in the corner, with sweat glistening along his exposed chest and abs, his dog tags sticking to his skin, and his elbows resting on his knees. His eyes were fixated on his fingers, the two that were seated deep inside you just moments ago. The two fingers that worked your pussy until Bucky’s name was falling freely from your lips, until you wrapped your soft hand around his wrist and dug your nails in, leaving little half-moon shaped bruises in his skin. Until the power of your second orgasm took away almost all of the pain you’d been suffering through for the last three hours, and you went slack against Bucky’s chest. He left those two fingers buried in your cunt until the guards tugged you away from him, taking a piece of his already shattered soul with your weak body.

As the guards place Bucky back in electronic cuffs, not even bothering to have him put his shirt back on, he feels something rising up inside of him. It’s a part of him that he worked so hard to bury, to crush down into nothing more than dust and ash, never to see the light of day again. He feels a type of uncontrollable rage that he hasn’t quite felt since a time when he didn’t even know his own name.

Bucky feels the Winter Soldier clawing its way to the surface, scratching at the layers of his skin, begging to be set free. The only differences this time being who he’d be killing for and whether or not he’d be doing it willingly.

You. He’d be killing for you. And he would kill so fucking willingly.

Bucky is no stranger to nightmares. He’s no stranger to waking up in a cold sweat, his heart nearly beating out of his chest as he struggles to ground himself and remember that it isn’t real. He’s no stranger to being haunted during his waking hours, plagued by memories of what he’s done, or of what’s been done to him. What he is a stranger to is being haunted by you.

The little pants and gasps that fell from your lips so freely at the skilled work of his hand are engrained in his mind. They taunt him with every draft of filtered air that wafts around the chamber. He can still feel your back pressed against his chest, your thighs spread and leaning into his own, the soft tresses of your hair brushing against the side of his neck as you let your head fall back on his shoulder. He’s so fucking thankful that you let your head fall back that way. His control would’ve been in danger of slipping if you’d chosen to look down between your legs and watch as he slid his fingers in and out of you. Hell, his control was teetering on the fucking edge regardless. He hates that he knows how it feels to have your cunt gripping his fingers, your body begging him not to pull away, how it feels to have you relying solely on him for your release. He hates even more that he only has HYDRA to thank for it.

Bucky lets his head rest back and his eyes close tightly as a memory makes its way to the forefront of his thoughts.

“I’m not wearing your jacket.” You said defiantly, shaking your pretty little head and crossing your arms over your chest. Bucky was such a gentleman, keeping his gaze averted instead of taking in the way your stance was accentuating the shape of your breasts. Your breasts that were already threatening to spill over the black dress clinging to your curves. Gritting his teeth, he willed himself to stop picturing your soft skin marred with road rash. He didn’t know you very well, but he knew that if you said you wouldn’t wear his jacket, then you damn sure wouldn’t be wearing it.

“Then you’re wearing my helmet.” He said coldly, turning to face you with his black helmet gripped in his flesh hand. “Or you can go back inside and leave a little more glitter on one of New York’s most upstanding men.” The hesitation that flashed across your face only frustrated him more, as if you were really thinking about going back into that damn shithole. “It’ll keep the wind from messing up your hair, princess.”

You stepped forward suddenly, coming close enough that your arms almost brushed against Bucky’s chest as your eyes narrowed in disdain. You looked up at him through your lashes in a way that had him feeling like he was on the edge of a rocky cliff, seconds from falling.

"Put it on for me then, soldier.” You said softly, your voice barely above the whistling of the wind. A low chuckle rumbled past his lips as he shifted the helmet to his vibranium hand and did something so unexpected. He reached up with his flesh hand and gently, so fucking gently, pushed a perfectly placed stray lock of hair behind your ear. The helmet was on two seconds later, and he only had to fasten the strap beneath your chin before you’d be ready to ride.

“Look up for me.” His tone was even, unwavering, even when his words were suggestive. The energy between you was electric. It felt like the sharp, crackling atmosphere you’d feel right before lightning strikes right at your feet. A chill spread throughout your body, and because of how close Bucky was standing and how focused you were on everything he was doing, you didn’t stop to think that the chill was really your sixth sense kicking in. You were being watched. You were being chosen by HYDRA as Bucky fastened the strap under your chin and met your gaze for a moment too long. Your fate was being sealed.

The electronic lock outside of Bucky’s concrete room beeps, dragging him out of his head and back to the present. His head snaps forward as the door slides open and a slew of guards pour into the room, followed by a tall, thin man with gray hair and dark, empty eyes. His skin looks as if it would slough off and turn to dust if a strong breeze hit him just right.

“The girl made it through the night, thanks to you.” The man says, keeping his eyes cast downward at an illuminated tablet in his hands. Bucky narrows his eyes, refusing to let relief cloud his focus. “She’s had almost twenty-four hours to recover so she’s about to get her second injection now.” Bucky’s muscles tense within the restraint system, but he maintains his composure, biting down on the inside of his cheek nearly hard enough to draw blood. “We need to go over some ground rules before tonight’s session begins. Are you going to cooperate with me?” The old man looks up now, his hollow eyes meeting Bucky’s without fear.

“I’m listening.” He spits the words out like venom.

“Based on the conversation the two of you had last night, you already know why we’re doing this. You were pretty spot on, really, I was impressed.” The man pauses, waiting for Bucky to respond. Bucky bites down a little harder on the inside of his cheek before inhaling deeply.

“What are the ground rules?” He asks tensely, growing more and more impatient with every passing millisecond.

“She stays in restraints. If you so much as look like you’re going to remove them, we’ll find another super soldier to pair her with.” Just the thought of any other man being near you after the injection they’re giving you right now has Bucky clenching his teeth. “You finish inside of her. If you don’t, you’ll have a front row seat to watch someone else do it next time.”

Finish inside of her.

Bucky knew what they were plotting, but it’s only hitting him now that he’s hearing it said aloud. Some part of him was assuming the team would’ve swooped in and staged a rescue before things got this far, before anything really happened. That part of him is sweating now.

“Consider this your one chance to get what you want from her.” The man taunts, turning on his heel and heading for the door. He stops right before reaching the exit, looking back over his shoulder at Bucky. “She might feel something for you but she never would’ve given you a chance in the real world. You’re a cold-blooded killer, a ruthless assassin with a dark past. She would’ve only ever feared you.”

Something’s different about the man with the warm brown eyes, the man who gave you the first injection. He seems almost as uneasy as you are about being here. He doesn’t quite belong.

“This will burn at first, just like last time.” He says quietly, flicking the tip of his gloved finger against the side of a syringe in an attempt to pop the air bubbles inside of it. You stare at the ten milliliters of white cloudy liquid with disdain. You remember what it did to you last night. Memories of searing pain mingle with memories of a familiar face. Bucky Barnes showed up. He came to your rescue and gave you exactly what you needed to survive the torture HYDRA chose to inflict on you. “Tonight is going to be different.”

“How so?” You ask, forcing your mind to abandon all thoughts of the man whose fingers were curled inside of you less than a day ago. You can’t think about that right now.

“There will be expectations, and if they aren’t met, things will get very bad for you very fast.” The man’s warning makes your blood run cold. You tense up as he runs an alcohol swab over the skin of your upper arm.

“Things aren’t already bad?” You ask sarcastically, glancing around the concrete holding cell you’ve lived in for days now.

“They want you pregnant. Whether that’s by your friend or not is up to the two of you.”

“Oh, we get choices now? Does HYDRA have a catalog of captive super soldiers that I get to choose from?” The man shoots you a callous look as he sinks the needle into your arm and pushes the plunger down, administering the drug quickly. You feel the burning sensation all around the injection site as he retracts the needle and drops it on the metal tray table beside him.

“Do you trust me?” He asks, turning away from you and peeling his gloves off. You watch him closely as he begins to clean up the various items on the tray table.

“Fuck no.”

“That’s fair, you don’t know me. But I know you. I know that you have all of SHIELD and a few other big-name agencies scrambling to rescue you. I know that you won’t be here for very long, and that Bucky Barnes being here was part of the plan to bring you home. I know that when I tell you I’m on your side, you won’t believe me for one second.”

His claims catch you off-guard. You’re frozen, sitting on the side of the exam table with your knuckles turning white as your grip on the edge of it tightens. The man doesn’t spare you a glance as he finishes wrapping up his trash from the tray table and places it in a small plastic bag at his feet.

“He killed a guard yesterday.” You process his words quickly, your eyes following his every move as he lifts the bag and heads for the door.

“Why?” You ask quickly, keeping your tone low. You’re tempted to look over your shoulder and see if the camera is on, but if it is, you don’t want to draw attention to the fact that this man is giving you information you shouldn’t be getting.

“Because apparently, you’re worth killing for.”

“He wouldn’t have done it just for me, there would’ve been a reason.”

“The guard was talking about fucking you.”

An unfamiliar feeling settles in the pit of your stomach as the implication of the man’s words sink in. Bucky killed someone for you?

Bucky killed someone for you.

Bucky could reduce the metal restraints around him to fragmented pieces on the floor. He could shatter the walls of this damn chamber with a single punch, without even using his vibranium arm. He’s envisioning himself kicking down the door to the room violently, ripping the electronic keypad lock from the wall, and shoving it up any one of the guards’ asses. Sweat is beading across his forehead and dripping down his hairline as he struggles to hold onto reality. He can see you when he closes his eyes. He can feel your head against his shoulder and the soft skin of your thigh against his palm. You’re so unreachable, locked in your own cell with multiple concrete walls and a few hundred meters between you and Bucky, and yet, it’s as if you’re right in front of him. The image of you is taunting him, daring him to lose control.

He doesn’t know how his touch soothed you in any way last night, not when the drug is wreaking this level of havoc on his own body. He can’t imagine finding relief in anything. He’s a trembling mess when a large team of guards descend upon the chamber. He doesn’t put up a fight as they remove him from the chamber restraints and place electronic cuffs around his wrists. The only thing that stops him from killing every single one of the men in the room right now is the fact that he’s sure they’re taking him to you.

His brain is fuzzy, his thoughts jumbled and hard to sort through by the time he’s positioned in front of another metal door with an electronic lock. He has a brief moment of clarity when he sees one of the guards key in the code: 0371. Even with the swarm of bees buzzing around in his head, he commits the number to memory, just in case he needs it later.

Bucky’s shoved forward into the room as soon as the door slides open, but with the lights low and his eyes not yet adjusted, he can’t see shit. He feels one of the guards moving to stand in front of him, removing his electronic cuffs, and then moving away. There’s a rush of cool air against his bare back as the door whooshes shut behind him. They never gave him his fucking shirt back.

You see Bucky before he ever sees you. As you lie on your back, with your hands restrained out to the sides, you let your eyes roam over his disheveled body. His hair is messy and his scruff is a little more grown out than you’re used to seeing. Sweat glistens across his bare torso and forehead. His eyes are narrowed as he searches the dark room for any sign of you. You’re about to call out to him when the room is suddenly cast in a pale, dim glow, and his eyes land on you, lighting your skin on fire. You feel vulnerable as his blue eyes rake over your body, taking in the sight of you restrained and only partially covered by a thin white sheet. They let you wear a black sports bra and pair of black underwear beneath the sheet, but that does little to make you feel any more covered.

A sharp pain starts to build in your lower stomach, spreading quickly down to your thighs and causing you to tense up beneath the sheet, bending your knees upward and letting out a soft groan. Bucky’s moving forward within a second, reaching the side of the bed and resting one knee on the mattress as he reaches for your restraints.

“Don’t.” You choke the word out, shooting him a warning glance. Your eyes fall to the right, looking just past him, and he turns his head to follow your gaze. The wall behind him is made entirely of mirror, a two-way mirror, presumably. Fuck HYDRA for that. He can hear those fucking ground rules replaying in his head like a broken record as he turns to look at you once more, as his eyes take in the ropes tied tightly around your already bruising wrists. He knows what’ll happen if he touches those restraints.

Bucky pulls his hand away from the restraints but leaves his knee propped on the side of the bed, looking down at you with concern as your face contorts with pain. He reaches down with his flesh hand, letting his fingertips ghost along your jawline, watching as your eyes flutter open to meet his gaze. He can’t stand seeing you this way for the second night in a row. Fury and the rest of the team should’ve had you out of here by now. What the hell are they waiting on now that they have Bucky on the inside?

“Bucky…” His name is a near whimper when it leaves your lips. Hearing you say it in such a way has him pulling his hand back and retreating from the bed quickly, like you have something he doesn’t want to catch. “I don’t know how we’re supposed to get out of this.”

You watch as Bucky’s eyes scrunch shut and his flesh hand moves to wipe a bit of sweat away from his forehead. You take a moment to let your eyes rake over the entirety of him. They definitely gave him the injection. You can tell by the way his pulse is visible in his neck even from a few feet away, by the way his chest rises and falls so much quicker than usual, and by the slight tent forming in the front of his tactical pants. You don’t let your gaze linger for long, not when you feel your pain and restlessness increasing just at the sight of him. You want him. You want him bad, and you’re afraid if you weren’t in restraints right now, you’d already be all over him. It’s fucking shameful.

When Bucky lets his eyes focus back on you after taking a minute to gather himself, he finds you staring up at the ceiling, biting down on your bottom lip hard enough to leave an indentation of your teeth. The bulge that’s already straining against the fabric of his pants only grows, and he wants to bang his head against the concrete wall for that. He can only hope you haven’t noticed it yet, but he’s sure you have.

“What are our options here?” You ask, a slight rasp breaking through your normally smooth tone. Bucky can only assume it’s from all of the screaming you did the night before. He casts another glare in the direction of the two-way mirror wall, trying his best to look anywhere but at you.

“I don’t think we really have options here.” He answers honestly, rubbing the palm of his flesh hand against the back of his neck. His eyes are coasting over the concrete wall behind the bed now, still avoiding you. He feels a dull ache throbbing at the base of his skull and slowly spreading down his spine the longer he remains standing.

“I think we have a few.” Bucky raises an eyebrow at your statement, finally looking back at you. “We could refuse to do anything and see how long it takes for them to come in here and kill me.” Bucky narrows his eyes at your stupid suggestion, shaking his head slightly. You might think they’d just come in and kill you for refusing to cooperate but Bucky knows what they’d do. They’d take him out of the equation and bring in some other super soldier who wouldn’t think twice about taking everything from you. “We could do what they want, suffer through it, and pretend it never happened when we get out of here.”

Suffer through it. Bucky feels physically ill just from hearing you describe it that way. You think you’d suffer through sex with him. And almost worse than that, you seem to think he’d suffer through sex with you. He’s ready to bring the concrete bunker to the ground with just a few punches in order to get you out of here so you don’t have to suffer through a damn thing.

“Or we…” The words die on your lips as you watch Bucky’s muscles tensing and rippling with whatever pain or emotion he’s currently feeling. He looks pissed, honestly, and you’re not sure if that’s because of the situation you’re both in or because of something you said. You swallow hard, audibly enough that Bucky can hear it from across the room. “Or we could fuck.”

You’re not thinking straight, you can’t possibly be thinking straight. If you were, you wouldn’t have said that to Bucky just now, he’s sure of it. He’s holding his breath and keeping his brow furrowed as he stares at you, at the mouth that just said something to unhinged it sent heat flooding through his body. He’s staring at the mouth that he wants so badly to feel against his own, and for some reason, he can’t think of a damn thing to say to you. You shift under his gaze, repositioning your wrists so the ropes don’t pull as hard on your already bruised skin.

“Say something.” You press, hating the silence that’s weighing heavy on your shoulders.

“I don’t know what to say to that.”

“I gave you three options.” A distant pain rumbles through your body, making your bones tremble.

“And you want me to just pick one?” Bucky asks, sounding more and more on edge with every word. You inhale deeply and let out a sigh, choosing to stare up at the ceiling instead of staring at him any longer.

“What the hell even are those options? The first one, refusing to do what they want, that won’t end like you think it will. The second option just makes me feel…” Bucky starts pacing at the foot of the bed, letting the dim lights highlight his toned body perfectly with every jarring step he takes. “The second option makes me feel like shit. Suffer through it?” He casts you a sideways glance that makes you feel bad for the way you worded things just a moment ago. “You’ve been suffering since the night you got here and I’m not going to have a hand in adding to that. But the third option? What the fuck are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking it might be the only thing under our control.” You say softly, the meekness of your voice freezing Bucky mid-step. He’s at the center of the foot of the bed, slowly turning to face you head-on. He looks like a god from this angle and it makes you want to draw your knees up to your chest and close your eyes like a cowering child. He should look like shit. He should look as bad as you probably look right now after being held captive for so many days.

“What do you mean?”

“Not only are they behind that mirror watching us right now, but you know they’re recording every second of this.” Bucky’s blue eyes flit over to the mirror wall on his left and he scowls at it, as if he can see the horde of despicable men gathered behind it, just waiting for a glimpse of some action. “I don’t want there to be some video floating around one day where I’m just lying here beneath you in this bed, looking helpless while you just...I’ll be damned if I die down here and a video like that is the last anyone sees of me.”

Bucky wants to reassure you, to tell you that there’s no way in hell he’d let that be the last people see of you. But he knows reassurance isn’t what you need right now. You need to feel like you have some semblance of control over your situation. He can see how that third option you listed is the only way you can fathom feeling like you have that control. Fuck. Is this really what it’s come to?

“So, you want me to just…” His voice trails off, as if he’s scared to finish his sentence. The only thing you can think about is the way the fear doesn’t reach his eyes at all. There’s something else behind his blue irises, rimming his dark pupils as he stares back at you. It’s something so real that it causes a chill to spread along the surface of your skin, threatening to erupt into a tremble if you don’t tamp it down.

“Fuck me.” You say, your voice a little shaky but still sure. “Fuck me like it’s something you actually want to do, like it’s something you wanted to do long before we ended up here.”

Oh, you have no idea. You have no idea that it really is something he wanted to do long before you ended up here. You don’t have a fucking clue that Bucky has laid in bed more than one night in a row, listening across the hall as you get ready for bed. He’s waited until you’ve fallen asleep more times than he can count, before replaying a few key interactions with you in his head, letting his hand drift lower and lower down the front of his sweats until he wakes up the next morning full of shame. He looks you over carefully, from head to toe this time. His eyes rake over the shape of your body outlined beneath the white sheet, taking in every dip and curve in your form.

With the way he’s looking at you, studying you, it feels like the concrete bunker has suddenly warmed up by fifteen degrees. Your tongue darts out, wetting your bottom lip nervously as you await some kind of response from the man that you just practically begged to fuck you. Bucky’s eyes track the small movement, and he finds himself wanting to feel your tongue against his own. God, he’s going to feel so ashamed after this, isn’t he?

“You want me to fuck you.” He says slowly, bending forward at the waist until his hands come to rest on either side of your covered feet at the end of the bed. Your heart is beating out of your chest as he holds that position and looks into your eyes. He didn’t phrase it as a question, but it’s obvious he’s waiting for you to confirm it again. He isn’t going to a damn thing without confirmation. You nod quickly, swallowing hard and trying to look more sure of yourself than you’ve ever been. Bucky moves forward again, this time lifting one knee and placing it on the bed. Then the other, then the first leg moves again. He’s crawling over you in a way that has the entire atmosphere changing around you. It feels like the room is spinning, like the air is thinning out and the oxygen percentage is dropping dangerously low with every inch between you that’s lost.

“I need to hear you say it.” He speaks lowly as he hovers above you, dropping his head down so his nose brushes against your jawline while one of his knees moves between yours gently, nudging them apart just enough for him to fit comfortably against you.

“I want you to fuck me.” You answer breathlessly, letting your eyes flutter closed as his lips begin to ghost over your neck, moving closer and closer to your ear.

“Again.” He rasps, taking your earlobe between his teeth like he’s done it a million times before and knows it’ll get a reaction out of you. Your back arches in the slightest as he bites down on your earlobe softly, causing your covered chest to brush against his bare torso.

“I want you to fuck me, please.”

“That’s it.” The words rumble in his chest and you feel the vibration against your skin. Suddenly you resent the sheet that’s acting as a barrier between the two of you. “Just keep reminding me.” Bucky’s pressing his lips against the skin of your neck, right over the spot where he used his lips to check your heartbeat just one day ago. In one swift move, he’s tugging the sheet down and to the side, slipping himself beneath it letting the skin of his upper body collide with everywhere that yours is exposed. Instant relief floods through his body at the simple feeling of your warm skin against his. Whatever pain he was feeling is suddenly gone, diminished almost entirely. You’re all he needed. He positions one knee between your legs again, but a little higher this time, nearly letting it press against the fabric of your black panties.

“I want this.” You whisper, your tone laced with need. He drags his lips from your neck, over the curve of your jaw, and along your cheek until he’s hovering right over your mouth. He wants to kiss you. He wants to kiss you more than he’s ever wanted anything, but he won’t. He decides that now, as he’s staring down at your lips, wishing he knew what it felt like to bite down on one of them, what it felt like to slip his tongue between them. If he kisses you, he won’t ever be able to listen to you speak again, to watch the way you tug that bottom lip between your teeth when you’re thinking hard. He won’t be able to look at you without wanting your lips all fucking over his own every second of every damn day. So, he won’t kiss you.

You’re sure he’s going to kiss you. As he hovers above you, his mouth just an inch away from yours, you’re expecting it. You’re a little disappointed when he dips his head to the side instead, dropping his forehead down toward your shoulder and nipping on the exposed skin there. But every trace of disappointment flees when he positions himself fully between your legs and grinds down, pressing the hardened front of his tactical pants against your clothed cunt with just the right amount of pressure.

“You want this?” He asks, scraping his teeth along your shoulder as he grinds against you in small circles. A tortured moan escapes you and you tug against the restraints, wanting nothing more than to wrap your arms around him and pull him even closer. Your knees bend on either side of him but you resist the urge to entrap him with your legs around his waist. You won’t let yourself seem that desperate, that starved for his touch.

“Bucky.” His name leaves your lips as a sultry moan, and he stills instantly. Though he doesn’t pull away from you, he stops grinding entirely. He bites down on your shoulder, a little too hard, leaving a little red mark in the shape of his perfect teeth.

“You can’t do that.” He groans. He’s speaking so quietly that you doubt the cameras in the room will be able to pick up a word. You kind of like thinking that his words are only for you to hear. “You can’t say my name like that, not when they put this shit in my veins. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t.” You don’t really know why you’re so sure, but you are. He won’t hurt you.

“But I could.” He reminds you, slowly starting to grind his hips again. You can tell that your thin black panties are already soaked through with arousal. Can he feel it through his tactical pants? Can he smell how wet you are for him?

“But you won’t.” You say again. Bucky reaches beneath the sheet with his right hand and slides it under your bent knee, moving your leg out to the side to spread you even more and give himself a better angle. Another moan falls from your mouth and he feels his body temperature rising to a dangerous degree. You’re right, he won’t hurt you. He’d never, but it doesn’t mean he doesn’t fear that not-so-distant part of him that was always so capable of inflicting bodily harm. Especially this week, with everything that’s happened. That part of him is so much closer to the surface than usual. He fears that any little thing could make him snap and the Winter Soldier will take over before he has a chance to force it back down to the depths he keeps it locked away in. “Look at me.” Your command is soft but stern, easily earning you Bucky’s attention. He stills his hips against yours and lifts his head from your shoulder, doing exactly what you want when he looks into your eyes. “I trust you.”

“You shouldn’t, not with this.” He argues, fighting the urge to drag the hardened length of his cock against your damp panties again. He’s starting to itch to get his tactical pants off, to remove some of the layers keeping him from fully feeling you.

“I do, and you can’t really change that. I trust you to do this.” He almost growls at your words, hating the power you’re giving him. It’s only making things harder for him, in more ways than one. “What’s so wrong about me saying that I trust you to fuck me?”

“Everything.” He’s grinding into you again, but more fervently this time. Your head presses back into the firm pillow behind you and the soft sigh you let out has Bucky’s cock twitching in its confines. “Everything’s wrong. You’re tied to a fucking bed, covered in bruises and cuts, with a chemical influencing every thought in your mind right now, and you’re telling me that you trust me to fuck you. Shit…” His voice trails off for a moment as he hitches one of your legs around his hips and drives down against you a little harder, needing so much more of you than he’s taking right now. “That same chemical is influencing me and you think I can control myself? Enough to keep from hurting you?”

Bucky lets his flesh hand slide up your waist beneath the covers, skipping over the curve of your breasts in an attempt to be respectful before traveling up the side of your neck. He grips your chin in that hand, holding your face still and forcing you to look at him.

“What makes you so sure I won’t hurt you?” He has to know. When you search his blue eyes, you find so many things. Need, lust, desperation. But you also find fear, apprehension, and doubt. He needs to be sure that you’re really and truly okay with this or he’ll never be able to live with himself after it’s done. That much, you’re sure of.

“Is this the first time you’ve ever thought about touching me?” Your question comes out as a whisper against his lips. His hips falter, but you aren’t going to let him stop this time. Keeping your leg hitched over his hip, you start grinding your hips upward, maintaining the pace he’d been setting. He narrows his eyes at you, his grip on your chin tightening for the quickest second before releasing. That same hand slides across your cheek, moves between your head and the pillow, and tangles tenderly in your hair.

“No.”

“Every other time you thought about it, did you ever imagine hurting me?”

“Not once.”

“If I told you that you were hurting me, would you stop?”

“Yes.” He breathes the word out with ease. He doesn't even need to think about it.

“Do you trust me to tell you if you’re hurting me?” The pause that ensues is loaded and the tension is almost crackling in the air around the bed. Bucky nods slowly, his eyes still narrowed and his hips still unmoving as you grind up against him yourself. “Then why do I feel like I have to beg for this right now?” A playful smirk tugs at the corners of his mouth and you know you’ve gotten through to him.

“You would beg?” He asks, the smirk taking full form now. He leans down and takes your earlobe in between his teeth just like he did moments ago, but instead of biting down, he sucks on it gently. He releases it from his mouth after a second and starts dragging the tip of his tongue up the shell of your ear.

“Is that what you want?” A tremble shakes your body as he lowers his full weight onto you.

“I’d love to hear it.” He admits, whispering his answer so only you catch the words. “But if you do that in front of the men behind that glass, I’ll cut their ears off and shove them down their fucking throats before I kill them. I try not to do shit like that anymore, so don’t force my hand.”

You’re reminded of the possibility that he might’ve killed someone for you last night, for talking inappropriately about you. You were unsure of it at first, but hearing Bucky talk this way makes it so much more believable. You’re stuck in your head when he rolls off of you, breaking the physical contact and leaving you both yearning for more. He’s lying beside you, tugging his tactical pants down and off in one swift move beneath the sheet, trying to figure how the hell he’s going to make it through this.

Nerves are bubbling up in your stomach as you start to question everything. This is all just the influence of the chemical coursing through your veins, like Bucky said. But if that’s true, why does it feel so real? He’s back on top of you in an instant, now with only his boxers and your panties creating space between the two of you.

“You get to have some control here too.” Bucky promises, sinking between your legs and placing his forearms on the bed on either side of your head. “If you want something, need something, tell me.” You nod just as he’s lowering his head down and attaching his lips to the column of your throat. The sweet combination of him kissing, licking, and sucking on your skin like it’s the best thing he’s ever tasted has your back arching off the bed and your wrists fighting the restraints. What makes it even worse is the way his scruff combats the soothing actions of his mouth, leaving a light burn everywhere his face travels. You wish you could kiss him back the same way and show him how damn near insufferable it is to be the helpless one. “Are you sore from last night?” He asks as his flesh hand begins ghosting down your side. He traces the waistband of your panties with the tips of his fingers, back and forth slowly, teasing you as he waits for an answer.

“A little.” You rasp, your throat feeling dry and tight with the building anticipation. You swear he almost smirks at your answer. His hand slides beneath your waistband and you’re having flashbacks to the night before. The pain was worse than anything you’d ever felt but Bucky’s hands between your thighs was the perfect antidote. Just as a new wave of pain is beginning to shoot down your spine, Bucky drags his fingertips along your wet folds, teasing just outside of your entrance, before dragging them up to your clit and applying a firm pressure there. You gasp, pushing down into his hand as much as the restraints will allow as the pain in your back instantly subsides.

“That’s it.” He coos, taking in the way your pupils dilate at his touch. Your cheeks are flushed pink beneath him, and though he knows it’s mostly from the drug in your system, he can’t help the tiny bit of pride that swells in his chest. Bucky starts rubbing slow, steady circles against your clit, staying focused on your face the entire time. “There you go, just like last night.” He dips his middle and ring fingers downward until they’re threatening to slide inside of you, and you want nothing more than to buck against them, but you fight against the urge. Bucky notices your resistance and chuckles lowly, sliding his two fingers in to the first knuckle. “You wanted control, so take it. Don’t hold back on me.” He encourages, with his lips lowered down to your ear again.

With his words echoing in your head, you let your eyes fall closed and your head press back into the firm pillow as he starts slowly dragging his fingers in and out of you. In and out, in and out. He peppers your neck with kisses before sliding his fingers in as deep as he can, and then curling them against your walls on the way out, coaxing a sultry moan from you with ease. With every pretty sound Bucky earns from you, he’s one step closer to losing his shit. He hates that his resolve crumbles more and more every time you so much as take a breath beneath him. He hates even more that there’s probably a room full of men that get to hear and see you this way, that it’s not just for him.

Bucky can feel the effects of the drug growing stronger, sending repetitive pangs down his back and throughout his bones. He knows you must be feeling it too. It hasn’t reached its peak yet and he can only hope that what he’s about to do will be enough to keep that peak at bay for a while. His flesh hand continues on between your legs, with his middle and ring fingers thrusting in and out of you at a steady rhythm and his palm applying pressure to your clit. He rolls slightly to his side and uses his vibranium hand to start tugging his boxers down. He’s pushing all thoughts out of his mind when you’re on the brink of your first orgasm. When it’s tearing through you, bringing stars into your vision and a rush of heat where his hand is connected to your clit, he’s watching as you bite down on your bottom lip and lose touch with reality. You look painstakingly beautiful this way, so fucked out and vulnerable in a way that should be reserved for his eyes only.

“Say my name.” He whispers, as your orgasm ravages your body. Before you even have a moment to think, his name is rolling off of your tongue and filling the concrete room. He feels like some kind of two-pump chump now, having to bite the inside of his cheek and damn near draw blood just to hold off his own orgasm. Precum coats the tip of his hard cock, threatening to drip onto your bare thigh if he doesn’t hurry up and do something about it. As your orgasm tapers off and aftershocks begin to work through your muscles, Bucky draws his flesh hand out from between your legs and hooks his index finger in the wet fabric covering your pussy. You’re barely recovered from the first orgasm when you feel him tugging your panties to the side and pressing the shaft of his cock against your wet cunt.

“Shit, Bucky, let me catch my breath.” You pant, but the feel of his hard length gliding back and forth between your legs already has you wanting more. It has you wanting everything.

“Catch it.” He encourages you, pressing his lips against your cheek in a chaste kiss. “But there isn’t really much sense in that when you’re just going to lose it again as soon as I start fucking you.” He has a point. You focus in on the way he’s grinding against you, dragging himself against your arousal-slickened clit from balls to tip repeatedly, but slowly. You don’t have to see him to know he’s well-endowed, and that scares you a little.

“It’s…it might not fit.” You whisper. Concern is etched in your features as you blink your eyes at meet his gaze head-on.

“It’ll fit.” He assures you. With another drag of his hips, the tip of his cock is brushing against your entrance before sliding right back up to your clit. He’s teasing you, teasing himself.

“It’s been a long time for me.” You admit. A soft blush colors your cheeks as he slows his hips to a stop and drops his head to your shoulder. You feel him sigh against the bare skin there and for a second, you fear you’ve said something wrong. Should you not have told him that? Does it make you seem weak? Afraid?

Bucky’s really struggling to hold himself back. He wants to grab the backs of your thighs, push your knees up toward your chest, and sheath himself within you so fucking hard and fast that you don’t remember what it’s like not to have all of him inside you. And now knowing that you haven’t been with another man in so long? It almost makes him giddy. He almost wishes you’d said you’d never been with another man, but that’s unrealistic, considering you’ve probably had a greater number of men begging at your heels than the number of men he’s killed over the years.

“What’s your favorite color?” He asks suddenly, catching you off guard. Bucky reaches down between your bodies with his flesh hand and wraps it around his shaft, stroking up and down slowly and carefully as he kisses your shoulder. God, even your skin tastes good.

“It changes all the time.” You answer, just as he’s using his hand to line himself up at your entrance. Your eyes scrunch closed in anticipation, knowing his size is going to be more than enough to cause a bit of pain.

“When I get you out of here, what’s the first thing you want to eat?” He drops more of his weight onto you, letting the head of his cock press much more firmly against your entrance. You feel it slide in just barely, so slowly that you’re unsure if it’s even moving forward.

“Whatever I can get my hands on.” You can’t think straight enough to come up with any specific answers, but he doesn’t care. He’s just trying to distract you enough so that you don’t focus completely on the stretch of him sliding inside you for the first time. He pushes his hips in a little more, feeling your cunt start to draw him in. So fucking tight. He groans lowly, needily, and nips at your shoulder.

“Do you remember that solo op you had in the club?” Bucky shouldn’t be getting so real, but as he sinks his cock into you inch-by-inch, his mind is drifting into dangerous territory. He’s starting to feel a little too animalistic with the way your cunt is practically weeping for him, begging him to go further. Bucky feels you nod and he pulls back from your shoulder, bracing his weight on his forearms on either side of your head again. He peers down at you just as his cock is reaching the halfway point within you. A loud moan escapes you as the stretch grows to be a little too much to bear. “I couldn’t stand to see that guy with his hands all over your ass.” He confesses. Suddenly, the burning pain his cock is causing you dampens significantly. You’re staring up at him, your lips parted as panting breaths fall from them, as his hands slide over the pillow to smooth out your hair.

“You barely even knew me.”

“I still barely know you.” He points out, giving you another inch, breeching that halfway point. Though your cunt is greedily pulling him in, he still feels the resistance within your tight walls. You weren’t lying when you said it had been a while for you. “But that didn’t change the fact that I didn’t like him touching you.”

“Bend one of my knees up, around your hip like you did before.” You whimper the request as he nearly bottoms out inside you. You know that angle will make it a little easier to take such an impressively sized cock. Bucky’s quick to comply, gripping your left thigh and crooking your leg over his hip. He holds it there with his flesh palm pressed flat against your skin and his fingertips digging into the back of your knee. There it is. With one gentle thrust, he’s balls deep inside of you and frozen in place.

Bucky imagines that this is what it would feel like if he had the privilege of going to heaven. Hell, just being buried inside of you like this, feeling your chest heaving beneath him and your back slightly arching off the bed is enough to kill him and send him there right now. He holds himself still, wanting to give you a chance to adjust while also giving himself time to calm down so he doesn’t start filling you up before he’s even really fucked you. It’s a feat, trying not to blow his load so soon with the way your pussy is gripping the entirety of his length. He feels your breathing slow and after one deep inhale, you relax beneath him.

“Good girl.” The pet name rolls off of his tongue the moment he feels you relax. Suddenly, you’re tense again, and one moan from you has him dragging his hips backward and pulling his cock halfway out. You scream his name as your wrists tug hard on the restraints, threatening to break the ropes. He hated hearing you scream last night, but this is different. Hearing you scream his name this way makes him fucking feral. He snaps his hips forward, thrusting into you so hard that all you can do is cry his name out over and over. “And you didn’t think you could take me.” He says lowly. He starts to set a steady rhythm with his thrusts, in and out, in and out. He alternates between pulling his length halfway out and occasionally pulling it almost completely out before slamming it back into you a little harder each time. The sounds of his skin slapping against yours beneath the sheets fills the room, echoing off of the concrete walls and surely reaching whatever audio recording devices are around.

“This shouldn’t feel so good.” You groan, bending your right knee and hooking it around Bucky’s hip to match your other one. The new angle gives him access to go even deeper and with every thrust, you feel yourself dripping all over him and the sheets beneath.

“Yeah? It feels good, huh?” He punctuates his question with a particularly deep thrust and you cry out again, struggling against the restraints. “If you weren’t tied up like this I’d have you on all fours right now.” That’s it, the drug has to be peaking for him to be talking like that. You have no doubt. “I’d be watching you take every fucking inch of me over and over.”

“Stop saying shit like that.” You need him to stop talking, because if he doesn’t, HYDRA is going to have one fucking loud sex tape on their hands. Dirty talk is a weakness of yours, and every time Bucky speaks your moans are growing louder and even more filthy sounding.

“Just keep taking my cock.” Bucky groans out, as if you have much of a choice in the matter. You know you do, but with the way you’re feeling, your body wouldn’t give you one. You think your body might actually implode if you stopped taking his cock right now. “You’re doing so good for me.” He reaches that specific spot inside you, one that men have rarely reached before, and it has your toes curling and your lungs gasping for air.

“Right there, oh my god, right there.” You whimper, straining just to get the words out whole. If he didn’t already know how pretty you sound when you’re close to an orgasm, he’d be scared he was hurting you. The tension in your voice, the gasping breaths you keep taking when he bottoms out inside you, and the way you keep trying to twist out of those damn restraints could easily be mistaken as the actions of a girl in pain. But Bucky knows you. You’re going to cum on his cock.

“If you’re ready to…fuck, baby.” Bucky grunts, fisting a hand in the hair at the back of your head and driving his cock into you impossibly harder. “If you’re ready to cum, just let go.”

“You first.” You say through gritted teeth. He chuckles, though you can tell his resolve is steadily slipping.

“Oh no, sweetheart, that’s not how this works.” His tone is almost condescending and if he wasn’t giving you greater pleasure than you’ve ever known right now, you might tell him to fuck off. “You’re going to cum on my cock, and I’m going to fuck you through your orgasm.”

“What happened to you get to have some control here too?” You ask, repeating his earlier words back to him as he continues rutting into you at a devilish pace and depth.

“I found out how good it feels to have you wrapped around my cock and I got greedy.” He responds, looking and sounding wholly serious. The most pathetic sounding whimper erupts from your chest as he pulls all the way out and slams back into you, almost too roughly for you to handle, but it feels so damn good. It’s like he somehow knows exactly how much you can take, and he pushes that limit just enough to blow your mind. “I’m going to do that one more time, and you’re going to cum on my cock.” It’s not a question. It’s a command. Knowing this is a fight you won’t be winning, you nod desperately and tighten your legs around his waist. He pulls fully out of you one more time, leans down and presses a kiss right at the corner of your mouth, and then snaps his hips forward. He buries himself to the hilt and starts grinding his hips into yours in circles, gifting you a type of pleasure that you’ve never felt in your life. As your orgasm washes over you and your pussy clamps down on his cock, threatening to hold it hostage inside of you indefinitely, you can’t help but feel a little sad. Your back arches off the bed and his fingers curl against the back of your scalp as a needy growl climbs up his throat, as he tries hard to fuck your unrelentingly tight pussy. Your heart aches with the thought that you won’t ever get to feel this again, that he’s just ruined you for every other man out there. Fuck him.

Fuck Bucky Barnes.

Bucky’s a mess in more ways than one as he presses his forehead against yours and his thrusts grow sloppy and lose rhythm. With one final deep thrust, his balls are flush against your ass and he’s cumming so deep inside you that he fears he’ll be giving HYDRA exactly what they want. He only feels a fleeting moment of relief before a sickening feeling settles in the pit of his stomach. He only got to have you this way, to experience you like this, at the hand of the organization that ruined his life. As much as he enjoyed it, and he thoroughly enjoyed it, it feels like it’s tainted. Shaking the negativity from his mind, he slowly starts to pull out of you, watching your face with concern as you wince.

“Did I hurt you?” He questions softly, peering beneath the sheet. He doesn’t see any blood on his cock, thankfully. He never would’ve forgiven himself if he drew blood from your sweet little cunt. You murmur a nearly silent no as his eyes fall on the white stream of his cum dripping out of you. Don’t do it. Don’t do it. She’s had enough.

Bucky slips two fingers between your folds, gently circling your clit twice before dragging them down and scooping up his cum. He fucks it back into you as tenderly as he can, with his brows pinched together in concentration. You lay there and take the moment in. It feels possessive. Though you’re sure everything that just went down only happened because HYDRA mandated it, something about the way he’s looking at you and making sure even a single drop of his cum isn’t wasted on the bedsheets has you biting down on your bottom lip. This right here feels like it’s real, like it’s just you and Bucky. You decide to cling to that feeling to keep from descending into a pit of shame and sadness.

“Should we take him back to his cell now?” One of the guards asks. He stands tall beside the two-way mirror with his hands on his hips as he stares at the scene before him. He studies the super soldier, who looks so normal and humane lying next to you in bed. It’s difficult to look at him and imagine the Winter Soldier that the guard has heard so much about over the years. This man seems so different than the gory tales. As Bucky brushes your hair away from your face and rolls over to the side, the guard wonders just how far removed this man is from the legendary assassin.

“No, leave them together. The drug will peak again in a couple of hours, I want to see how they handle it a second time.”

“But we were told that—” “I said leave them together.”

You wake suddenly, disoriented and in a cold sweat. Your shoulders ache something fierce and when you try to roll over onto your side to figure out where the hell you are and why it’s so dark, you find your wrists tied to the corners of the bed. Shit. You know exactly where you are now. When did the lights get turned off? When did you even fall asleep? God, it’s just like last night, when Bucky fingered you to two orgasms and then you woke up hours later with no recollection of the events that occurred after the last bit of pleasure you felt. The soreness between your thighs and wetness seeping into the fabric of your panties is the only reminder you need of what happened earlier.

You had sex with Bucky Barnes. Panic begins to set in and you start tugging against the restraints hard enough to break your skin, hard enough to draw blood. You don’t even realize that Bucky’s in bed next to you until you feel the mattress shift beneath you and hear his raspy voice break through the thoughts swirling around your head.

“It’s okay, you’re okay.” He speaks to you softly, but sits up quickly and places both of his hands against the skin of your shoulders. You focus in on the contrast between his cool vibranium hand and warm flesh palm. “Just breathe.”

Even in the dark of night, Bucky can see the thin trail of blood dripping down your arms, threatening to stain the white sheets beneath you. He thinks quickly, refusing to sacrifice the only piece of material fully covering you from HYDRA’s view. Bucky slides his flesh hand behind your head, curling his fingers in your hair and lifting up slightly so he can tug the pillow out from under you. Within two seconds, he has the pillow back under your head and is using the pillowcase to soak up the blood on each of your forearms. She stays in restraints. Bucky can hear the rule repeating in his mind, even as his fingers trail over rope cutting into the skin of your left wrist. If he squints, he can make out the bruises that have already formed from how tight they are and how hard you’ve been fighting against them tonight. He follows the length of the rope with his index finger, noting where it’s attached near the upper corner of the bed, to a metal loop bolted into the concrete wall. Fuck HYDRA. With one solid tug, the metal loop is flying out of the now cracked concrete wall. Relief takes over your features and your breathing begins to slow as Bucky grabs your wrist and moves your arm to your chest. He does the same thing to the metal loop on the other side, and then brings that sore arm in closer to your body as well.

He stays close to your side, hovering over you protectively, waiting to see if anyone is going to burst through the door and whisk him away for breaking a rule. A few silent seconds pass and he starts to relax. When he focuses on your face again, you’re looking up at him, studying him closely.

“What?” He asks, watching as you alternate between rubbing each of your wrists. Bucky lets himself fall back into bed beside you, switching to staring up at the ceiling instead of at your face. The drug hasn’t worn off yet and when he looks into your eyes, he’s reminded of what he did to you just a short time ago. It makes his dick throb in the worst way. He reaches down beneath the sheet and adjusts himself in his boxers, letting out a frustrated sigh.

“I don’t think you were supposed to do that.” You whisper back. You maneuver the lengths of rope around so that they’re in a pile beside you on the edge of the bed. You wish you had a way to cut them off entirely, but still, this is so much better than how it was before.

“I’ve done a lot of things I wasn’t supposed to do tonight.” The guilt is evident in his tone and it feels like a literal punch to the gut when you hear it. You want to reach over and grab his hand, to tell him that he did what had to be done and you don’t resent him for it, but you stay still. You can feel his body heat radiating and seeping into your exposed skin with how close the two of you are.

“I’m sorry.” Why the hell are you sorry? None of this is your fault, yet you’re apologizing. Anger flares in Bucky’s chest and he sits up abruptly, turning away from you and swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. He assumes a sitting position, with his hands gripping the edge of the mattress and his head hanging low.

“Don’t do that.” He says through gritted teeth. When he glances up, he sees his reflection in the mirrored wall. He can see his own heaving chest, his rippling abs, and his tensed flesh bicep, all of those things coming together to give off a vibe that says fuck off.

“Do what?” You ask apprehensively, moving to sit up in bed as well. You keep the sheet draped over your lap but turn your body to peer over Bucky’s shoulder, catching his gaze in the mirror. His stare burns you up, and you quickly avert your line of sight, choosing to stare at the tense muscles of his bare back instead.

“Apologize.” Bucky responds stiffly, screwing his eyes shut and inhaling deeply. He doesn’t want to risk seeing you in the reflection, not when the drug seems to be gearing up for a round two within his bloodstream. The room is starting to feel too small and too hot around him. “You know you didn’t do anything wrong, so don’t apologize.”

“I feel like I did something wrong.” He doesn’t like hearing you so unsure, it doesn’t suit you. “I shouldn’t have asked you to fuck me like that earlier, I should’ve just—” “Should’ve what? Said no and waited around for them to bring in someone who wouldn’t care if you wanted it or not?” He can hear the sound of his vibranium arm whirring as he squeezes down on the mattress a little harder just at the thought of you with someone else, specifically with someone who doesn’t give a shit about you. “You needed to feel like you had control over the situation, so you asked me to do it and…” His voice trails off, the rest of his sentence lost in the dark room.

“Right, I asked you to do it.” You repeat his phrasing slowly. “So, why does it seem like you feel guilty?”

“Because I do.” He grumbles, dropping his chin down to his chest again and breaking the staring contest he was having with himself in the mirror.

“Why?” You press on, needing some kind of explanation. What could he possibly have to feel guilty for? He did what you asked, and only what you asked of him. He didn’t take it too far, he didn’t take advantage of you in any way. Bucky doesn’t answer. How does he even begin to explain why he feels guilty? Should he say that he feels guilty because it’s his fault that HYDRA targeted you in the first place? Should he say that it’s because he should’ve found a way to get you out of here long before they ever tied you to a bed and made him touch you?

You watch the toned muscles of his back tense more and more in the dark. You notice the way his flesh bicep flexes and his vibranium one whirs louder with each passing second. You were the one panicking a moment ago, floundering in the dark before Bucky reached out and comforted you. Now it’s your turn to comfort him. You reach out a cautious hand, watching as the rope drags along the bed. When your palm collides with the skin of Bucky’s back, you feel him tense even more and freeze, as if he’s holding in a breath. You peek over his shoulder into the mirror as you push your hand firmly against him and start to drag it down toward his lower back. He doesn’t so much as lift his eyes to meet your gaze, and you take that as good sign. You shuffle forward on your knees, moving to sit right behind him with your thighs on either side of his hips and your chest close to his back.

“What are you doing?” He asks lowly, keeping his head and eyes cast downward but sensing your movements. You continue to drag your right hand down until it’s nearing the waistband of his boxers. You’re trying not to think as you then turn your hand and slide your palm around his side and start feeling over the ridges of his abs. Your front is pressed flush against his back now and instead of pulling away, you swear you feel him lean into you the tiniest bit.

“Stop talking.” You whisper back, moving your left hand beneath his vibranium arm and around his torso to meet your right hand over his abs. When Bucky feels your hands still and your chin pressing down on his right shoulder, he finally tilts his head up and steals a glance at your collective reflection. Shit. He can feel his heartbeat pounding in his cock just from the way you’re wrapped around him and looking into his eyes.

Bucky starts peeling your hands away from his skin slowly, moving them away from his torso before pushing off the bed and rising to his feet. Rejection stings. You stay right where you are, resting on your knees with your legs slightly spread, facing the mirror. You watch the man before you as he runs a hand through his already tussled hair and turns around to look at you.

He can’t stand it. When he sees you sitting like that, looking up at him with such a gentle expression on your face, his cock twitches within the confines of his boxers.

“Shit.” He groans, quickly turning away from you and scrunching his eyes shut. “You have to stop looking at me like that.” Realization dawns on you as your eyes land on the bulge behind the black fabric of the only item of clothing he has on.

“Bucky—”

“Don’t.” He’s speaking through gritted teeth again, and with your current view of his side profile you can see the muscle of his jaw ticking. “Don’t say my name.”

“You liked hearing me say it earlier.” His eyes are back on you in an instant as a playful smirk threatens to spread across your lips. There’s a flashing image of those same lips gracing the shaft of his cock, but he shakes it out of his head as suddenly as it appeared. “What’s different now?”

“They only needed us to fuck once.” Bucky points out, continuing to stare at the concrete wall. “We don’t have to do this a second time.” You let your eyes roam over his body, taking in every detail you can make out in the dark room. It’s not over for him. The drug hasn’t cleared his system, and if anything, it looks as if it’s having an even stronger effect on him than before. Yet, for you, it’s dampened. You’re a little warm and you feel a bit of an adrenaline rush, but no waves of pain or agony are ripping through you right now. Your suspicion is confirmed when Bucky reaches up and grips his flesh shoulder with his vibranium hand, squeezing it as though his trapezius muscle is cramping up.

“You’re in pain.” You say quietly, analyzing the way he reacts to your observation. He drops his hand from his shoulder and takes in a shaky breath before turning his head to make eye contact with you.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not a very good liar.” He scoffs at your insult, reaching up to rub his shoulder again. You’re right. His shoulders are starting to feel like he’s been holding two-ton weights for hours and his back has been aching ever since he stood up from the bed and refused your touch. “Let me help you.”

“You really want another round on camera for HYDRA? The first one wasn’t enough?” He spits the words out like venom, like you chose to give the enemy a sex tape. Anger surges within you and you cross your arms over your chest. Bucky’s eyes flit down, settling on your suddenly accentuated breasts as they threaten to spill over the top of your sports bra.

“You’d rather them have footage of you cowering in the corner with a hard-on? Looking like a beaten down puppy?” He scowls, lifting his eyes from your chest to focus on your face.

“I’d rather not take advantage of you twice.” His expression is serious as he speaks.

“You didn’t take advantage the first time.” You argue. He stares at you with narrowed eyes and a fiery look behind his eyes. You can’t tell who he hates more right now, you or himself. “Stop looking at me like you want to kill me.” Your demand causes him to falter momentarily, his stern look and narrowed eyes shifting to a confused expression. Kill you? He wants nothing more than to either fuck you six ways to Sunday or get as far away from you as possible, he’d take either option right now. But killing you? It’s almost laughable that you’d think that’s what’s going through his head right now.

“If I wanted to kill you—”

“I’d already be dead, right? Save the tough guy shit for someone else, that line is really overused.” You’re dismissive now, moving to sit with your legs crisscrossed in front of you, still facing a very on-edge Bucky Barnes. His eyes glaze over as he takes in the sight of your legs against the white sheets. He knows exactly what those legs feel like in his hands, hooked around his hips, wrapped around his lower half. Fuck.

You watch as a million thoughts seem to be running rampant through Bucky’s mind. Seeing the way his eyes dart around and his tongue sticks out to wet his bottom lip makes it seem like he might actually be hearing voices or something. He clenches his fists and then unclenches them. He turns away from you and the bed, choosing to stare at the concrete wall for a few seconds before turning to the mirror and contemplating shattering it with the flick of his wrist. He turns away from the mirror and faces the only door in the room. There isn’t even a handle or keypad on the inside, there’s no way out of it unless he punches through the fucking concrete wall. He could do that, probably with even less effort that he imagines, but what would that get him? He might end up back in his own concrete cell, which is what he really needs right now, but what would happen to you? They’d find someone else to do what Bucky’s currently refusing to do. He clenches his teeth so hard that he wouldn’t be surprised if he heard every single one of his molars crack under the pressure.

“Does it hurt?” It’s as if a time machine has suddenly appeared and is sucking Bucky into a swirling vortex, dragging him back in time. The trigger being the question that’s just left your lips in such a soft whisper. You asked it just like you did the first time, the first time in the gym showers when you caught Bucky so off-guard that he thought about you for days.

“Does what hurt?” He asks, remembering every single moment of that little conversation as if it was a script. Him remembering and repeating his line in such a slow, hushed way is what has warmth spreading beneath the surface of your skin. He listens to the rustling of the bedsheets as you push yourself off the mattress. He listens to the sounds of your ropes dragging across the floor as you make your way across the room, drawing nearer and nearer to him and effectively sucking all of the air out of his lungs as you do so. Your fingertips, so gentle and soft, dance across the scars where his vibranium arm meets his flesh. His eyes close tightly as you drag those fingertips down over his shoulder blade, and then further over to the right to trace his spine. Down, down, down you drag those fingertips, until he’s shuddering beneath your touch and all he wants to do it turn around and face you. Your fingers still right above the waistband of his boxers, and that’s when he decides to make a move.

Bucky turns around as your hand falls away from him, and he finds himself only a couple of inches away from you. His mind is screaming at him to close the gap, to wrap his arms around you and eliminate the space between your bodies. But the memory of that night in the gym showers tugs at him even more than that resonating mental scream. A shiver runs down your spine as Bucky lifts his flesh hand to your face. He traces the curve of your jaw, from your right earlobe down to your chin with his index finger. His touch is so light and careful, so calculated and thoughtful as he meets your burning gaze. Your breath hitches in your throat when he starts trailing that same finger down, over the front of your neck and straight to the notch between your collarbones. His eyes follow the movement of his finger, setting your skin on fire with the combination of his touch and his watchful scrutiny.

“You’re not wearing your necklace”. That’s what he said next that night, when he didn’t want to answer your question about his scars. It’s true again now. As his eyes settle on your chest, that little necklace with the built-in panic button is notably absent. Though you know that you could keep carrying on the little charade, that you could keep reading off of the script that you both seem to have memorized, your gaze falls to his chest. You study the silver chain hanging from his neck, following it down until you zero in on the two metal plates resting over his sternum. He lets his hand fall away from your neck as you reach up and hook a finger around the chain of his dog tags.

“Give me yours.”

There’s no more hesitation or apprehension when Bucky rushes forward, letting both of his hands capture the sides of your face and guide you in to meet him. He wasn’t planning on kissing you. In fact, he was specifically avoiding doing exactly that. He feels every nerve, every sensory receptor in his body firing at once when his lips press against yours. It’s like the fourth of fucking July beneath his skin as you part your lips to let his tongue delve into your mouth. You’re stumbling backward in an instant as Bucky begins taking steps forward, moving you in the general direction of the bed. He kisses you harder and harder with every step he takes, surely leaving your lips pink and your nose a rosy shade of red. You don’t even get a chance to break for breath until you feel the edge of the mattress hitting the backs of your knees. Your hands move to his abs and you push against the firm muscles there, fighting for balance so you won’t go crashing onto the bed.

As Bucky pulls back, keeping his hands on the sides of your face and his gaze trained on your widened eyes, he realizes that he’s been fighting a losing battle not only with the drug coursing through his veins, but with you as well. He can tell by the look in your eyes that you’re having the same realization. He’s tugging the dog tags from his neck without giving the action a second thought. When he stands before you, with the silver chain clutched in his flesh fist and the two metal tags suspended in the air, it feels as though all of the oxygen has been sucked out of the room.

“If I let you wear these…” Bucky takes a deep breath in and shifts his gaze to the decades-old dog tags in his hand. “You don’t take them off until you have your necklace back.” He looks to your face, waiting for any sort of confirmation. You nod slowly, not even thinking about his request. You’ll do it. You’d do anything he asked of you right now with the way he’s looking at you, with the way he just kissed you. He slips the cool chain over your head gently, ensuring it doesn’t get tangled in your hair as he settles it around your neck.

Seeing his name around your neck awakens something feral, something so fucking primal inside of him. Bucky bites down on his bottom lip as you reach up with your right hand and grasp the tags, running a thumb over the indentation of his name.

“Bucky.” Your voice is always a little different when it’s his name being spoken. He can’t quite describe in what way it’s different, but it always does something to him. He bites down on his bottom lip a little harder and lets his hands move to your waist, smoothing over your skin and tugging you forward against him. “Let me take advantage of you.” Every single muscle in his body stops working, all except for his heart. He can’t even fucking swallow as his heart beats against his ribcage like it’s gone into overdrive. He’s sure even you can feel the rapid thrumming of it, vibrating against your own chest with how close he’s holding you to himself. If you can’t feel that, you can sure as hell feel the outline of his hard cock pressing against your lower stomach right now. He sees nothing but sincerity and lust written across your face and swirling around in the color of your eyes. So, he responds with the only sentence his brain can come up with.

“Take advantage of me.”

Though things happen so quickly, HYDRA’s cameras capture everything. When the two of you fall backwards into bed, the man observing you both from behind the two-way mirror is on the edge of his seat. Out of all of the ways the second round could’ve started, he didn’t expect it to start quite like this. He watches with his mouth hung open as the Winter Soldier presses you impossibly further into the mattress, kissing you with a fervency not many people have had the privilege of experiencing before. The man pushes out of his chair and moves to stand closer to the mirror when Bucky starts rutting against you, grinding himself between your legs in a desperate attempt to find relief. But when you hook a leg over Bucky’s hips and skillfully flip positions so that he’s on his back and you’re straddling his lap, with the flimsy bed creaking beneath you both, the man behind the mirror is truly shocked. This isn’t what he expected at all. He nearly put a stop to things the moment Bucky ripped your restraints out of the wall, but seeing this now, he’s glad he didn’t. Hell, if HYDRA doesn’t get the stem cell experimentation capabilities that they want out of tonight, they could get a big payday with the video footage of this alone.

Covering up with the sheet doesn’t cross either of your minds as you hook a finger in Bucky’s waistband and start pulling his boxers down his thighs. You only pull them down enough to free his dick, and watching it spring up toward his stomach is enough to have you wanting the boxers on the damn floor. But still, you won’t go that far, not here. You don’t give yourself much time to admire his impressive length as you wrap your hand around it and start stroking from base to tip, spreading his precum along the shaft. Bucky’s lost in the feeling, so lost that he doesn’t even realize how many times your name has fallen from his lips, and you’re not even fucking his cock yet. When he groans your name in an especially needy way, you’re already tugging your panties to the side and pressing your wet cunt against his shaft, dragging your hips back and forth in quick succession.

“Shit.” Bucky groans lowly, gripping your hips with both hands and pulling you down harder against him. “Just like that.” He learned yesterday just how far encouragement goes in getting you off. You grind against him like that, alternating between quick movements with your hips and slow, lazy circles, until you can’t stand it anymore. You feel empty and your pussy is aching for him. His face is contorted with pleasure and his eyes are screwed shut, but you can read him well enough to know that he needs more too. Your gaze travels down to where you’re seated against the shaft of his cock, noting the way the head of it glistens with a mix of his precum and your arousal. God, it’s such a sight. Your head is swirling with dangerously horny thoughts as you lift your hips and wrap your hand around his length once more. Giving it a few strokes, you line it up with your entrance.

“Don’t hurt yourself.” Bucky warns, watching you with narrowed eyes and a slightly concerned look on his face. You know you should listen to him and take it slow. He’s so big and as if his length wasn’t enough, his girth alone could take a girl out entirely. You laugh softly, thinking about how he was telling you take his cock just a couple of hours ago. You sink down, taking the tip in painfully slowly, focusing on the burning pain as your walls stretch to accommodate him. Then, just to spite him, you sit down on the entirety of his cock all at once, crying out at the mix of pain and pleasure. “Fuck, what did I just say?” Bucky groans out, digging his fingers into the skin of your waist as he tries to lift you back up. You fight against him, staying seated on his cock as tears form in your eyes. “Get off, it’s too much for you.”

“No.” You say defiantly, willing the muscles tightening around his length to relax as much as they can. With each passing second, it burns less and begins to feel more tolerable, more enjoyable. “I can take it like this.”

He’s going to lose his shit. Bucky’s seconds from either cumming so hard that it’ll be spilling out of you for days or picking you up, pressing your back against one of the concrete walls, and fucking you until you can’t even take a breath without feeling the ghost of him inside you. He watches through hooded eyes as you start circling your hips, as you let your head fall back and your hands brace against his bare chest. He catches sight of his name draped around your neck, hanging between your breasts, marking you as his and he can’t help himself. He thrusts upward just once, feeling you clench around him and memorizing the pretty sound that erupts from your chest. Again. He needs to feel and hear that again. So, he thrusts a second time. Then a third. Then, he’s meeting every bounce of your hips with one of his own.

“That’s it, take advantage of my cock.” He coos, matching your pace as your fingers curl against his chest and leave red marks in their wake. He wants more of you, he wants you closer. His eyes land on the ropes still tied around your wrists, and without thinking, he’s moving his hands from your waist and gripping one rope in each palm. He tugs on them hard, pulling you down abruptly so you fall against his chest. You’re skin to skin now, with his cock buried so deep inside of you that you think your pussy might be molding to the shape of it with each passing second. “Do you have any idea how good this feels for me?” He whispers the question against the skin of your neck, pressing his lips to your pulse point right after he’s spoken. “Do you have any idea how perfectly your tight little cunt wraps around my cock? How badly it makes me want to cum?” The volume of your moan would be almost embarrassing if everything he was doing and saying didn’t make you feel an unmatchable level of pure bliss.

“Please,” you plead through panting breaths, working hard to keep bouncing your hips in your current position. “Please cum inside me again, Bucky.” You sound desperate but don’t give a single fuck. “It felt so good the first time.”

“Fuck, you need it, don’t you?” He asks, thrusting up into you a little harder and sliding his hands down your sides. He grips your ass with both hands and puts even more force behind each upward snap of his hips. The sounds in the room are obscene and borderline pornographic as he fucks you senseless. “Whose name is around your neck right now?”

“Yours.” You cry out, dropping your head to his half flesh-half vibranium shoulder. His right hand disappears from your ass, but only before a second before it’s slapping back down with a resounding smack, earning him a gasp and arched back from you.

“Say it.” He orders, massaging his palm against your reddening ass cheek. You scream his name out only a moment later, as your orgasm is turning your brain to mush and your pussy to a fucking ravine. You’re barely aware when he rolls you over and starts fucking you into the mattress like his life depends on it. You feel the warm gush of his cum filling you up, the few sloppy final thrusts as he empties himself entirely, and then the weight of his body collapsing on top of yours. The only thing your brain seems to be thinking about is how deeply fucked you are. You’ve never been more sure of anything than you are of this, right now: Bucky’s gotten so far under your skin that you won’t be able to shake him when all of this is over.

You’re fast asleep beside him when the world tilts on its axis. When the explosion happens, Bucky doesn’t even have a moment to reach over and grab you, to pull you to his chest and try to protect you from the rain of concrete and debris. He can only watch as you’re thrown violently against the far wall, crashing against the concrete with a silent thud as a sharp ringing sound takes over Bucky’s hearing. He’s tossed in the opposite direction, feeling every little cut and rip of his skin as his body is cast through the two-way mirror on the other wall. It’s the last thing he remembers before blacking out, that he didn’t protect you when everything came crashing down.

“I’ve got something over here!” A deep male voice calls out. It’s grating to your ears, almost like nails on a chalkboard. Everything sounds too far away yet too close at the same time, and your head is throbbing in the worst way. You want to yell out and tell everyone to be quiet, to let you sleep a little longer. Something tugs against your neck, and you want to reach out and swat away whoever is nearby, but you find yourself too weak to even move your arms. Your eyes remain closed and your body remains still. You just want a little more sleep. “Dog tags!”

“Is it Bucky?” A second voice sounds, this one a little higher pitched and quieter. You try to blink your eyes open at the familiar name, but it feels like they’re covered in sand and it burns the second your eyelashes flutter, so you stop. Swallowing thickly, a cough creeps up your throat and barely manages to scrape past your lips.

“No, no it’s…” That’s when you feel a warm hand wrap around your own, intertwining its fingers with yours and squeezing once. “It’s her. I think she’s alive. We’ve got her.”

“Someone get a medic crew down here now!” The higher pitched voice grows louder and your head throbs more intensely. If everyone would just take it down a notch you could get a little more rest. “Let Fury know she’s coming home.”

Home. The word sends a fuzzy feeling, something like relief maybe, buzzing through your mostly numb body. You’re going home.

BONUS PART (will be linked here June 7th, 2024)

TAG LIST:

@sunnyhummingbee @gyokujyn @jenniferpendragon @siciliano13 @ordelixx @crist1216 @twlkdead @claireelizabeth85 @charmedbysarge @blackhawkfanatic @kentokaze @eecummingsandgoings @nyashonality @h2oaffirmations @sadeyes61 @aka-tua-braindump @immortalfangirl @valenftcrush @andrometda @sillysillygoose444 @gracescor3 @hellsenthero @mistressmkay @shortnloud @stellarburritos @hazbin-h0etel @mostlymarvelgirl @lesleurs @lillianacristina @frombkjar @witch-lemon @edelweissbarnes @glowstickfluid01 @its-daydreamer23 @sadiechar @hallecarey1 @hhiggs @steeph-aniie @lilipiggytails @ladyvenera @theallknown213

#bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you

2K notes · View notes

astoryisaloveaffair · 1 month ago

Text

Needs & Wants Series Masterlist

Bucky Barnes x Reader, Sex Pollen

Parts containing smut are in red.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3 (smut)

Part 4 (smut)

Part 5 (smut)

Part 6 (smut)

Part 7

Part 8

Part 9 (smut)

Part 10 (smut)

BONUS CHAPTER (smut)

This series has been completed. Thank you for reading!

#I’m…..unwell #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you

3K notes · View notes

astoryisaloveaffair · 1 month ago

Text

this is (not) fine [one-shot]

marvel au bucky x personal assistant!reader

personal assistant rules: don’t crush on bucky barnes. definitely don’t misinterpret a flower purchase and spiral into silent heartbreak, and absolutely never ever get stuck alone with him in an elevator.

Warnings: 18+ content minors dni, smut, oral (f receiving), public (ish) sex?, wall sex (?), okay they fuck in an elevator guys, kissing, angst, miscommunication (not badly), hurt/comfort, there's some plot if you squint, insecure/self-conscious reader undertones, reader is an overthinker, reader is horny lol, no use of y/n, lmk if i've missed anything

Word Count: 9.1k

A/N: hi, hopefully this will keep you all fed while i work on part five to lessons in lovemaking. finally getting around to some of these requests in my inbox. this one is based off this request, but i changed it up so the reader is a PA instead of an avenger. lmk your thoughts thanx for reading <3 sorry for any typos - not proof read.

main masterlist

You’d never pegged Natasha as the type who enjoyed flowers.

No, she struck you more as the encrypted-flash-drive-on-a-park-bench type, the kind of woman who appreciated mysteries with teeth. A custom leather jacket, stitched with the same precision she used to dismantle a glock. One of those sleek, low motorcycles. Not daisies. Not peonies. And definitely not whatever soft, pastel nonsense Bucky was currently handing over cash for.

You stood a few feet away, halfway hidden behind a sidewalk sign advertising oat milk lattes and gluten-free muffins, clutching a cardboard drink tray and a bag full of vegan pastries in a death grip. The barista had spelt ‘Bruce’ as ‘Broose’ again, and under any other circumstance, that would've made you laugh, but now it felt like the most irrelevant thing in the world.

You liked Natasha. You respected her. You just didn’t think she had it in her to giggle over roses like the girls in those sappy rom-coms Clint insisted he hated (right before he would watch three in a row, a beer in each hand). But there Bucky was, brushing pollen off a bouquet of pale pink ranunculus, face soft in a way you’d never seen during mission briefings or sparring sessions.

And suddenly, you were building a list in your head of all the things you were sure Natasha Romanoff would rather receive as a romantic gesture: a knife, balanced perfectly for throwing, an expensive bottle of vodka, a vintage chess set with hand-carved pieces, a bottle of expensive ink and a fountain pen with a sharp nib, cookies—messy ones—overloaded with chocolate chips, or simply just black coffee, straight from the pot, no sugar, no cream. Yet, as Bucky handed it over to the redhead, she smiled. Smiled. And suddenly you felt like you were witnessing a scene you were not welcome to.

Truthfully, it stung. Maybe it stung a little more than what was appropriate. You’d been harbouring a quiet crush on the dark-haired, sullen supersoldier from the moment he joined the team. Fresh out of Wakanda, new vibranium arm in tow, and god, he was handsome. Not in the polished, television commercial way Steve was, but in a way that made your pulse skip and your thoughts stall mid-sentence. He had the kind of face you didn’t know how to look at for too long, sharpened jaw, stormy-blue eyes, and a mouth that always looked on the verge of saying something he’d regret.

There was something electric about his stillness. Like if you leaned in close enough, you’d hear the hum of danger beneath his skin. He walked like a man who never quite trusted, drifting through the tower like he expected a fight around every corner. He barely spoke, but when he did, his voice was low and gravel-worn, something that settled right in your gut and made its home there.

He never smiled. Not really. But sometimes—sometimes—you’d catch a flicker of it when Sam teased him, or when Steve nudged him just right, and it was devastating.

And yeah, maybe you had a soft spot for broken things trying to heal.

As the Avengers’ personal assistant, it was your job to keep everyone comfortable, informed, and running like clockwork. You were a one-person organisational machine, constantly juggling the chaos that came with managing a tower full of enhanced individuals with the emotional range of a brick wall to a nuclear reactor. Your days were a blur of colour-coded schedules, back-to-back briefings, and the never-ending group chats.

You coordinated mission debriefs, booked international flights with military clearance, and handled press requests that would make most people cry. You endured complaints when Thor overloaded the power grid again, trying to make toast, and even replaced the mugs he shattered before anyone noticed. You wrangled Clint’s kids when they came to visit, sourced obscure snacks from remote parts of the world because Sam liked those protein bars, not the other ones, and Steve wouldn’t touch anything processed. You replaced a record number of coffee machines, hunted down whatever special detergent could get oil out of Tony’s designer shirts. You knew which brand of muscle balm Banner preferred and how to order it without triggering a random Homeland Security check.

And then there was Bucky.

With him, it was always a little extra, whether he noticed or not. His schedule came first in your Monday morning rounds. You made sure the pantry was stocked with the Eastern European tea he liked but never asked for, and remembered the exact setting he preferred on the tower’s training room temperature controls. You adjusted group plans so he’d be paired with Steve or Sam, just in case the crowds and questions became overwhelming. When he disappeared for a few hours, you didn’t ask questions, but you made sure no one came looking. You even swapped out the scratchy tags in his mission gear with soft ones, because he never complained, but you noticed the way he fidgeted with them.

Every day, you’d beam at him like some hopelessly love-struck idiot when you handed over his usual coffee—black, two brown sugars, just the way he liked it—and in return, he’d offer little more than a grunt. A low, barely-there sound that most people wouldn’t even register as a greeting. But you did. Somehow, that grunt became the highlight of your day.

So yeah, maybe seeing him hand over flowers to Natasha broke something in you. Not just a hairline fracture, but a quiet, splintering break that left your chest aching in places you didn’t know could hurt. Still, you understood. Natasha belonged to his world, effortlessly cool, all smoke, shadows and secrets. Yet she was kind. Not cold or unapproachable, just… carved from something rarer than you. The kind of woman who didn’t need to try to be extraordinary, she just was.

And you? You were the sweet, well-meaning assistant who made people laugh in the kitchen, who fetched dry cleaning and remembered everyone’s birthdays. You were the one who labelled tupperware and chased down Clint’s kids with bandaids. You were an afterthought, the background noise in the buzzing hive which was the Avengers Tower.

So maybe you could justify feeling jealous, but angry? No. Not really. They didn’t know. They couldn’t know. And it wasn’t their fault that you’d let yourself hope.

—

Two weeks later, and you timed it perfectly, like you always did.

Just as the door to Bucky’s apartment clicked open, you rounded the corner—folder in hand, clipboard tucked tight to your side. The hallway was quiet, save for the low hum of ventilation and the soft thud of your heels against the carpet. Bucky stepped out, his gym bag slung over his shoulder, hair tied back, and his hoodie sleeves shoved up just enough to show the gleam of vibranium. Predictable. It was routine, every morning just before six he would meet with Steve in the gym. On Mondays, you’d catch him just as he exited his apartment, unload the details for the week, a freshly printed schedule and all.

“Morning,” you said lightly, handing him the week’s itinerary. His reply was his usual, a grunt. Not annoyed. Not grateful. Just Bucky. That gruff, barely-there sound that once felt like a small victory. The kind of grunt that used to warm your chest when he followed it with a question, even if you knew the answer was printed in the folder you’d triple-checked. You always answered anyway. You liked having his attention, even just for a few seconds.

You used to dress the folders up with care, multicoloured sticky notes marking key tasks (blue for meetings, yellow for reminders, red for anything urgent and green for personal events). You’d highlight sections like traffic lights, add stickers you thought might make him smile, sometimes even scribble little crooked cartoons in the margins with cheesy encouragements—seize the day!

The folder looked rather sad today, just a plain manila folder packed with stapled papers. No colours. No stickers. No effort. Just the essentials. You didn’t let your fingers dawdle when he took it. Didn’t smile like you used to. Just handed it over and kept your gaze somewhere past his shoulder.

Bucky took it slowly, eyes flicking down at the cover like he was trying to spot something that wasn’t there. His brow pinched, barely, but enough for you to notice. His fingers lingered on the edge of the folder, like he thought maybe he’d missed a note tucked inside.

You nodded and turned to leave, forcing yourself to shift your mind to your next chore mentally, restocking med supplies in the Quinjet, cross-checking Clint’s revised travel forms, hunting down the coffee machine Tony had threatened to ‘repurpose as target practice’. You’d have to order a replacement before the morning debrief. Double-check everyone’s dietary preferences. Update Steve on the tech room schedule. Get maintenance to repaint the lines in the training room because someone (probably Thor) had scuffed them again.

You stayed busy. It helped. Kind of.

But the guilt still trailed you like a shadow.

It was probably obvious how abruptly you changed. The way your voice had lost its warmth. The way your gaze dodged his like it might burn you. You wondered if he noticed, if he thought you'd simply grown tired of him. Maybe he had. That was better than the truth that you couldn’t stand to be near him, not when every glance felt like pressing fingers to a bruise you’d caused yourself.

You had made your choice, professionalism. The kind of cool, curated detachment you admired in Natasha, only it felt all wrong on you, like an ill-fitting coat. You knew it was for the better, not mixing up work and matters of the heart. You’d already let your little crush spiral too far, thinking maybe—just maybe—if you tried hard enough, you’d earn more than a grunt. That he might see you as something more than the charming assistant with her clipboard and her stupid stickers. But he didn’t. And he wouldn’t. And that was fine. It had to be.

You couldn’t afford to fall apart over a man who had no idea he’d broken your heart.

But it was Bucky’s voice, soft and unsure, that startled you from your thoughts. “Hey.”

You paused mid-step and turned, forcing a tight smile that didn’t quite meet your eyes as your fingers curled against the clipboard. “What’s up?”

He shifted his weight, clearly caught off guard by the fact that you stopped walking at all. He was rather devastating to look at when he grew all shy and unsure, fingers fidgeting against the edge of the folder like he didn’t know what to do with them. He didn’t quite meet your eye as his weight shifted nervously, like he hadn’t thought before he called out.

“Uh. Nothin’. Just—” He raised the folder slightly, an awkward gesture. “You usually give me the rundown. Y’know… what everyone’s doing. Who’s where. Who I’m stuck with.”

You swallowed. Of course, he’d noticed. Of course, he’d grown used to your chatter about meetings and mission rosters, about who was off-world and who was due back, like it was the weather. The casual, effortless way you used to tell him what movie was playing, who cheated at Monopoly the night before, or which team member had stolen the last protein bar. You’d always done it to help, keep him grounded, and make him feel like part of the team, like he belonged.

But after what you’d seen two weeks ago, you were sure he didn’t need that from you anymore. Natasha would look out for him now. She’d keep him balanced, keep him fed, keep him from slipping through the cracks.

“Nothing interesting’s happening,” you shrugged. “Just the usual.”

He didn’t move. “Well… there’s that dinner. On Friday.”

You gave a curt nod, tone clipped. “Yes.”

“Wanda’s dinner,” he added, as if you hadn’t already acknowledged it.

“Correct.”

He hesitated again, brows drawing together in a faint crease of worry. You could see him floundering, stuck in some internal scramble. It made your chest ache because you knew that look. You’d helped talk him down from that look more times than anyone else in the tower probably realised.

You sighed quietly through your nose, against your better judgment, against every wall you’d tried to build in the past week, you caved. He looked five seconds away from spiralling.

“It’s in there,” you offered gently, nodding toward the folder. “On your schedule.”

“Right. It’s just… for me, you usually…” His voice trailed off, frustration and uncertainty knotting in his brow. “Sorry. You’re probably busy—”

That felt like a punch to the gut.

You shook your head and, before your pride could stop you, your feet were already moving back toward him. His eyes dropped as you reached into your pocket for a pen, scribbling ‘Wanda’s Dinner – Friday’ on a green sticky note. Green for personal events, always. You hesitated, then added a smiley face underneath. You peeled it off and stuck it neatly onto the folder in Bucky’s hands.

His eyes dropped to it, finger brushing over the paper like he didn’t quite understand why it mattered so much. “Thanks.”

You just nodded, already stepping back, spine straight, pretending your heart wasn’t hammering in your throat.

“She said…” Bucky cleared his throat, clearly not done with the conversation. “Wanda said she’s going to do curry.”

You paused, unsure what to do with the information. Why was he telling you that? Why was he still talking?

“That’s nice,” you said carefully, not sure what to do with this strange, lingering version of him.

“Are you going?” he asked suddenly, and you frowned.

“I wasn’t invited—” You began, already covering from the invasive thoughts, already working to mask the sting. You didn’t want to imagine them next to each other over curry, leaning close, whispering in the way people did when they thought no one else was watching. It would only make the crack in your chest worse.

“You should go,” Bucky said quickly, cutting across your thoughts. “I’ll tell Wanda you’re coming.”

“That’s not necessary. I’ll be busy that night anyway…” You lied through your teeth, heart thumping hard against your breastbone as Bucky’s face crumpled a bit. You cut in before he could argue any further. “You’re going to be late. For the gym. It’s nearly six.”

“Right, shit, yeah. Sorry, I just…” He trailed off again, rubbing the back of his neck. “Thanks. I’ll… I’ll see you around.”

You raised an eyebrow at him, unsure if you were more confused or stunned by his sudden jitters.

—

Before the whole flowers incident, you made it your unofficial mission to ‘accidentally’ bump into Bucky as many times as humanly possible in a day. Now? It was the opposite. Every hallway was a trap to avoid, every room a potential ambush. Navigating the Tower had turned into something between a tactical stealth op and a personal game of hide-and-seek.

Unfortunately, your strategy for quiet withdrawal hadn’t gone unnoticed.

In fact, Bucky had picked up on your sudden cold shoulder almost immediately. The folder debacle had only been the first of many increasingly awkward run-ins.

There was the time you’d practically sprinted away from the elevator when the doors slid open to reveal him standing inside, a brow raised and coffee in hand. Or when you turned a corner too fast and walked straight into him, muttering a rushed apology before disappearing again like you were being hunted. Then there was the silent, painful breakfast you’d shared at the communal kitchen counter, where you busied yourself with peeling an orange for ten minutes straight while he sat beside you, occasionally glancing over like he wanted to say something but didn’t know how to begin.

You’d even pretended to be asleep on the common room couch when he walked in one evening, piles of paperwork scattered, laptop still open, only for him to drape a throw blanket over you before quietly leaving again.

And yet, instead of giving you space like you’d expected and hoped for, he seemed to find any excuse to be around you. He trailed after you like some misplaced puppy whenever he wasn’t buried in a mission or holed up in a meeting.

You’d assumed that the moment you stepped back, he’d naturally gravitate toward spending more time with Natasha. It made sense. Why wouldn’t he want to be around her? They were obviously dating, even if they hadn’t made it official yet. Maybe it was one of those quiet, close things kept just between friends, like Steve and Sam. Who were you to come barreling in and expose their secret entanglement? You expected Bucky to be relieved to no longer be on the receiving end of your babbling, your perfectly-timed coffee deliveries, or the not-so-subtle gifts you littered around.

But if anything, Bucky seemed determined to figure you out. Like your sudden shift had become his new pet project, and he was personally committed to cracking the case.

You’d taken the back hallway, the long, winding route that steered well clear of the gym on your way to the shared office. High-traffic areas were too risky now—too many chances to run into him. But clearly, Bucky had caught onto your little detours, because as you turned the corner, there he was, headed straight toward you.

You froze for half a second, pulse quickening. Turning around would be too obvious. Suspicious. He’d know exactly what you were doing, and then your carefully-constructed avoidance strategy would unravel entirely. If he suspected anything now, you were one panicked backpedal away from confirming it.

It was a nightmare. And a daydream.

A part of you, some soft, hopelessly romantic piece, ached at the sight of him, at the quiet way he seemed to look for you, worry always etched into his brow like you were some puzzle he couldn’t quite solve. But the rational part of your mind, the part that had dragged you into this self-imposed emotional lockdown, screamed that letting him get closer again would only undo all the fragile healing you’d managed to piece together.

So you steeled yourself.

Shoulders squared. Laptop and paperwork clutched like a lifeline. Eyes locked on an imaginary point just past his shoulder. If you kept walking and moved quickly, calmly, maybe he’d let you go. Perhaps he’d pretend not to notice how your pace picked up and your gaze carefully avoided his.

You nearly made it.

But of course, he noticed.

“Hey, wait—”

His voice was hesitant, just enough pressure to pull you to a stop. Your footsteps faded into the hush of the corridor, your spine straightening instinctively as you turned. Bucky stood a few paces behind, one hand lifted halfway between reaching and retreating, like he’d almost grabbed your arm but lost the nerve.

He looked sheepish. Timid, even. It killed you.

You swallowed. “Yeah?”

He scratched the back of his neck, boots scuffing lightly against the floor. “Did I… forget to grab my coffee this morning? Or… did you not bring it?”

A pause. Too long. You could feel the beat of your pulse behind your sternum as you forced a casual shake of your head.

“No, sorry. That’s on me. Slipped my mind.”

The lie didn’t sit well in your mouth.

It hadn’t slipped your mind, in fact, it was still sitting on the corner of your desk, cooling beside a stack of unfinished paperwork. You’d brewed it, as always. Even used the brown sugar he liked. But then you’d walked away from it, deliberately, like some idiotic breadcrumb trail you hoped he might follow.

God, you were pathetic.

Your stupid fucking brain couldn’t even decide what it wanted anymore. One half of you was charting escape routes through the tower to avoid him, the other was fantasising about him pinning you to the nearest wall. From the way your thighs pressed together now, breath catching as his voice brushed over you, maybe the answer wasn’t distance at all. Perhaps you just wanted to taste him—

He didn’t move. Just stood there, one brow lifted, faint worry creasing the edge of his expression.

“You’re usually down by the gym by nine,” he said, his voice low. “It’s eleven.”

“I’m running a bit behind today.”

“You usually text me if you’re running behind.”

“Well,” you said, shrugging like it didn’t matter, “I didn’t this time.”

He paused, the silence between you laced with something dangerously close to concern. “Is everything alright?”

You forced a small laugh, trying to shake off how his low, worried voice made heat pool in your gut. “Yeah. Why?”

“You seem off.”

There it was. Soft, plain and far too knowing. He said it in that maddeningly sincere way that only he could manage. Like he actually gave a damn. Like this wasn’t unravelling you by the day.

Your shoulders tensed. “Off?”

“Yeah,” he said gently. “Just… I dunno. You’ve been quiet lately.”

He didn’t know. He couldn’t know about the hours you spent spinning in your head like a lunatic, trying to compartmentalise this crush until it shrank into something survivable. About the way you’d stared blankly at Tinder profiles, your phone clutched in your hand, wondering why no one else ever came close, why none of them were him.

Why you couldn’t stop thinking that if you’d just told him—confessed that stupid crush before Natasha did—maybe you wouldn’t be standing here now like some stray mutt, sniffing around for scraps of attention.

Maybe then he’d be yours.

Maybe then you wouldn’t be fantasising about quitting just to put yourself out of your own misery like some lame racehorse.

“I’ve just got a lot on my plate,” you finally mustered, tone strained. “Tony’s soirée. The fittings. Admin crap. Didn’t even have breakfast today.”

His brows furrowed further. “That’s not good.”

“I’ll survive.”

Would you, though?

Would you survive the heat that flared low in your stomach every time he got too close? Would you survive the ache that gnawed behind your ribs every time he glanced over at Natasha like you didn’t exist? Would you survive the constant, desperate craving to be touched by him? To be looked at like she was looked at?

He didn’t speak for a second, and for a moment, you were sure he could smell the reek of desperation on you.

“The oranges in the fridge are gone.”

You blinked. “What?”

“And the tea. The fancy one,” he added. “The one with the dried raspberries in it. You’re the one who always restocks them, aren’t you?”

You looked down, fingers clenching around your folder. “I’ll add it to the list.”

“I didn’t mean it like that,” he said quickly, stepping forward a half-inch, enough to make your breath hitch. “I just… I didn’t realise it was you. Doing all of that.”

Of course, he hadn’t because you’d made it invisible. Seamless. That was the kind of care you practised—silent, anticipatory, never asked for, never returned. You had cared for him with a thousand tiny efforts, but he never noticed until you stopped.

You looked up, and the hallway felt suddenly too narrow. His face was open in a way you hadn’t seen in a long time. Gentle, confused, like he was trying to work you out and couldn’t quite bear not knowing.

You dropped your gaze. “I said I’ll do it.”

He paused. You could feel him thinking again.

Then, to your disappointment, he slowly nodded. “Okay.”

But he didn’t move. Not right away. He lingered like someone who hadn’t yet decided if leaving was the right call, like he was caught between concern and curiosity.

“I’ll leave you to it, I guess.”

You didn’t answer. Couldn’t. You just nodded and turned, walking away quickly before he could see your face fall, before he could catch the naked want in your expression, the way your heart was clawing against your ribs, screaming for you to turn around and ruin everything.

—

If time travel were an option, you'd gladly launch yourself into a wormhole and strangle your past self for being stupid—no, lovesick—enough to organise this little errand. You deserve it, really. A swift kick to the gut from future-you for being this hopeless.

It had all started a month ago, when you, like a fool, volunteered to collect the tailored suits and dresses for some little soirée Tony Stark had decided to throw. Of course, in true Tony fashion, what was pitched as a ‘casual get-together’ had evolved into a full-blown, black-tie spectacle. The first warning sign? Tony footing the bill for everyone to have custom outfits made to their specifications. Translation…this was going to be a thing.

You’d spent weeks wrangling Avengers into fitting appointments, helping them choose fabrics and cuts, managing last-minute alterations and tracking shipments. It was exhausting but under control…until the catch. The aggravating, absurdly attractive, brooding catch currently sitting across from you in the tailor’s waiting room, his knee bounced like it was transmitting a detailed morse code manifesto on every possible way he planned to ruin your day.

The plan had been simple: grab an Uber, pick up the garments, pressed, stitched, and boxed to perfection and head back to the tower. But then you got the call. The one that told you Bucky Barnes had missed his final fitting, and that his suit needed some last-minute adjustments...

Of course he did.

Of all your perfectly laid plans, it only took one missed appointment to bring it all crashing down. Now here you were, stuck waiting beside the man who occupied far too much of your brain lately, silently praying the tailor would finish quickly so you could escape before your sanity, or your dignity, completely unravelled.

“I really am sorry,” Bucky said for what felt like the fiftieth time.

Between the brooding and the nervous leg tapping, he’d spent the last five minutes watching the side of your face with an expression so guilty it was practically carved into him.

“Like I said, it’s fine.” You replied, though it came out a little too tight, a little too forced, like you were speaking through clenched teeth. Which, maybe you were. Not that it mattered. Not when you could smell his cologne from how damn close he was sitting. God, you wanted to lean over and bury your face in his chest and just inhale—

You straightened abruptly, shoulders stiffening as the tailor entered the room, and mentally reacquainted yourself with the concept of boundaries.

It had been an hour—sixty minutes of waiting while Bucky’s suit got its final adjustments. An hour of you trying to distract yourself with work emails and unanswered texts, pretending the man beside you wasn’t single-handedly causing your emotional stability to nosedive. At least when he’d stepped away to get re-measured, you could breathe without risking spontaneous emotional combustion.

This wasn’t like you. You weren’t usually this wound up. Maybe it was the exhaustion, days of juggling your regular duties with Tony’s ever-growing list of soirée demands. Perhaps it was the heartbreak. Or the missed meals. Or the fact that you genuinely had no idea what day it was anymore.

“Would you like to try it on before we package it up for travel?” the tailor asked, her voice gentle. A measuring tape hung loosely around her neck, her pinned bun fraying slightly at the edges.

Bucky looked at you again, eyes flicking toward yours like he needed permission. You swallowed what was left of your pride and gave him a slight, strained nod.

“It’s okay,” you said quietly. “Go on.”

“I’m sorry—again—this is probably eating into your whole afternoon, I know how busy you are—”

“It’s fine. Really. Just go.”

He offered a sheepish smile before disappearing behind the velvet curtain, tugging it closed with a rustle. You pressed your fingers to your temples, let your head drop into your hands, and exhaled through your nose like it might stop your heart from trying to break out of your chest.

Across the counter, the tailor glanced up at you with a sympathetic look as she readied the boxes for the other garments. “Long day?” she asked gently.

You lifted your head, managing a tight smile that didn’t quite reach your eyes.

“Only going to get longer.”

You were still nursing the tail end of your sigh when the velvet curtain swished open again.

And then your brain stopped working.

Bucky stepped out in full formal attire, sharp navy suit, tailored within an inch of its life. The cut of it hugged his frame perfectly. Broad shoulders, tapered waist, long legs. A deep navy waistcoat peeked out beneath the jacket, the subtle sheen of the fabric catching the light just enough to look expensive without being flashy. His tie was already perfectly knotted, like he’d done this a hundred times, and the sleeves of his shirt revealed just enough of the polished metal edge of his vibranium arm to make your mouth dry.

He cleared his throat softly, tugging at one cuff. “How’s it look?”

You blinked. Opened your mouth. Closed it again.

Words? No. Words were gone. Your vocabulary had packed up and left the building.

Bucky shifted his weight, clearly mistaking your slack-jawed silence for disapproval. “It’s weird, right? The waistcoat maybe doesn’t work, I told her I wasn’t sure about it—”

“No,” you said quickly—too quickly. “No, it’s… It’s perfect. You look… great. Seriously.”

His brows lifted slightly, a flicker of something you couldn’t quite place crossing his face. Relief, maybe?

“Yeah?” he said, glancing down at himself, tugging slightly at the jacket hem. “I feel better about it now. The sleeves fit properly this time. Thanks for waiting.”

The tailor beamed from behind the counter, clearly proud of her work. “Wonderful. I’ll box it up immediately once you’re out of it.”

Bucky nodded, but the tailor turned to you with a friendly smile before he could disappear again.

“And for you, would you like to try your gown on as well before I pack it away?”

You blinked, suddenly snapped out of your holy-shit-Bucky-hot-hot-hot haze. “My what?”

She gestured toward the row of garment bags. “Mr. Stark sent over your measurements earlier this month. There’s a gown here for you.”

You frowned. “That must be a mistake. I’m just the assistant. None of those are for me.”

The tailor hesitated. “I don’t think so… He was very clear. Your name was attached to the order.”

Before you could argue, Bucky cut in smoothly, like he’d seen this train coming and stepped in to redirect it.

“Tony probably just wanted you to look the part, too,” he said, voice low and casual. “You’ve done all the work, he probably figured you deserved to enjoy the night a little. Might as well try it on, just in case.”

You glanced at him, but he didn’t look smug or teasing. Just… earnest. Calm. Like he meant it. Which made it all the harder to protest.

“Fine.” You sighed, scrubbing a hand down your face. “Just to check it fits.”

The tailor clapped her hands together. “Wonderful. It’s a beautiful gown, I promise.”

You gave Bucky one last side-eye before following her toward the changing rooms, the fabric bag already in her hands.

From behind, you could hear him chuckle under his breath.

“Just wait 'til you see her,” the tailor murmured to herself, and you weren’t sure whether to be flattered or deeply, deeply nervous.

The gown was heavier than you expected. Luxurious fabric slipped off the hanger like water, pooling in your arms as she handed it over with the kind of reverence usually reserved for wedding dresses.

“I’ll give you a minute,” she smiled, disappearing to finish boxing up the suits.

Left alone in the changing room, you peeled out of your clothes, letting the gown slide on over your hips, your waist, up past your ribs. It clung like it had been sewn directly onto your body, the bodice snug, the neckline just daring enough to make you blush.

You twisted to try to reach the zipper at the back, fingers fumbling and straining, but the angle was impossible. You spent the better part of five minutes twisting in the mirror like a lunatic, trying to reach the zipper that refused to budge. Your arms ached. The corset bodice was half-fastened. You were flushed, annoyed, and far too aware of the sliver of bare spine still exposed.

You were about to peek your head out and ask the tailor for help when a low voice cut in behind the curtain.

“Need a hand?”

You flinched, fabric clutched to your chest. “Jesus, Bucky! Don’t sneak up on me like that!”

“Didn’t mean to scare you.” His voice was rougher than usual, like he’d just cleared his throat. “Heard you cursing. Tailor said she’d be a minute out back.”

You hesitated, and your voice came out thin. “Yeah. I—I can’t get it up.”

“Okay,” he replied, oddly determined. “Turn around.”

You cracked the curtain open a pinch. He ducked inside, too broad for the narrow space, his frame practically filling it. He was careful not to look at you directly, at least at first.

You turned slowly, presenting your back. “Just the zipper,” you murmured, barely trusting your own voice.

“Sure,”

A single fingertip, cold metal, dragged up from the base of your spine to the dip between your shoulder blades. It barely touched the skin, but you shuddered from the sensation. Bucky wasn’t even fastening yet, just tracing the line the zipper would follow. The sound you made was too soft to catch.

The zipper came up slowly. Agonisingly. His knuckles brushed your skin every inch of the way, not by accident. No, this was too slow, too precise, to be innocent.

He was savouring it.

His other hand steadied you, palm ghosting just over your hip. His breath fanned warm against your shoulder.

“You’re trembling,” he commented.

You swallowed hard, unable to muster a response.

When he reached the top, his hand didn’t fall away. Instead, he swept your hair off your shoulder completely, fingertips grazing the line of your throat as he let it fall over one side.

He leaned in. Not touching, but close. Mouth just behind your ear. The heat of his breath against your neck.

“Should’ve let me help sooner,” he whispered, voice like a purr. “Would’ve had you dressed in seconds.”

You didn’t answer. You couldn’t. Your lips parted slightly, breath caught somewhere halfway as your lungs deflated in shock. And maybe it was the gown. Or the silence. Or the way your thighs pressed together of their own accord, but you didn’t move. You didn’t step away.

You leaned in.

Only a fraction. Just enough.

He noticed.

You could feel it in the slight shift of his stance. The faint sound of him exhaling a chuckle through his nose. The way his hand brushed ever-so-slightly along the small of your back before falling away.

And then he was gone.

He stepped back like nothing had happened. Like the tension wasn’t choking the air between you. You turned toward the mirror in a daze.

The dress shimmered in the soft light. Deep, elegant, form-fitting. The neckline exposed the curve of your breasts, the slit at your thigh scandalous enough to make you self-conscious.

You caught his reflection in the mirror. He was watching you, but not with the restrained professionalism you were used to. It was only the sudden reentrance of the tailor that made him hesitate in whatever words were forming on his tongue. He stepped aside, finally giving you space to exit. And you did—legs shaky, palms sweating—like a deer walking straight back into the forest fire, pretending it wasn’t about to burn.

—

Your plan to avoid Bucky after the tailor incident had gone off without a hitch, maybe a little too well. You'd buried yourself in helping Tony pull together the final touches for his ‘soirée’ (which, if you were honest, was less soirée and more ‘black tie circus in a penthouse’).

You'd been so laser-focused on your tasks that you'd almost managed not to think about Bucky in that goddamn changing room. His fingers ghosting up your bare spine like a spark setting fire to dry kindling. You’d folded instantly. Your body betrayed you instantly while your brain screamed to keep it together. Pathetic.

The moral implications of whatever that moment had been were filed away for another day. Were you the other woman? Was Natasha going to slit your throat in your sleep? What was Bucky doing, touching you like that—in a public changing room, no less—when he had a bombshell redhead waiting for him back at the Tower?

No time for that now. Not when Tony’s precious ‘soirée’ was already in full swing upstairs and the caterers had somehow forgotten an entire section of the food. You’d scrambled together an emergency order from some overpriced restaurant Tony swore he was ‘basically family’ with, and by some miracle, they came through in the nick of time.

Now you were in damage control mode, hauling three boxes of overpriced canapés up to the penthouse. Your heels bit into your feet with every step, your dress clung too tightly to bend properly without your tits spilling out, and your patience was hanging on by a single goddamn thread.

You pressed the elevator button with your elbow and exhaled as the doors slid open.

Drop off the food. Grab a free drink. Drown your Bucky-related sorrows. Maybe, just maybe, keep the beast between your legs from waking at the mere sight of him.

The doors began to close. You shifted your weight, careful with the boxes balanced in your arms—

Then someone slipped through at the last second.

Him.

Bucky fucking Barnes.

Tall and devastating as usual in his dark navy suit, his tie loosened just enough to suggest mischief, or maybe carelessness. You weren’t sure which one made you feel worse.

Your breath hitched. Instinctively, your gaze dropped to the floor, feigning sudden, all-consuming interest in the stability of your precarious tower of hors d'oeuvres. But teetering stacks of overpriced finger food or not, Bucky didn’t seem inclined to play along with your avoidance act. Not now. Not when the elevator doors had sealed you in together, finally, and you were without escape.

You winced at the sound of his sharp inhale, the question already pressing past his lips before the elevator even jolted into motion.

“Did I do something to piss you off?”

You didn’t look up. Eyes fixed firmly on the floor, you muttered, “What?”

“I just…” His voice was rough. Tired. “It feels like you’ve been avoiding me.”

Shit.

He stepped forward slightly. Not enough to be invasive. Just enough to make your stomach flip.

“You hardly talk to me anymore,” he continued. “Won’t even look at me unless it’s about work. And even then, it’s like you’re somewhere else. Did I do something to offend you? Hurt you? Just tell me what I did so I can fix it.”

The elevator hummed to life beneath your feet, gliding upward smoothly. You shifted your weight, bracing against the cool metal rail, eyes stubbornly fixed on the buttons, anywhere but his maddeningly perfect face.

“You haven’t done anything,” you said quietly, the words tasting sour the second they left your mouth.

“Then why are you doing it now?” he asked, eyes searching yours. “Why won’t you even look at me?”

“Bucky…”

“Please. Just tell me.”

You hesitated. His hand twitched like he meant to reach for your arm, then faltered, falling back to his side. Your grip tightened on the containers, your fingers slick with sweat. “It’s not you,” you murmured. “It’s me… I just…”

He didn’t move. Didn’t even blink.

“Please,” he said again, quieter now. “Tell me the truth.”

And that was what did it. The tremor in his voice. The way his brow creased like he couldn’t stand not knowing. Something broke open inside your chest, raw and unhealed. The dam cracked, split, then gave way completely, and the truth came spilling out before you had the chance to swallow it back down. You were exhausted. Wound tight. Running on fumes and nerves and far too many feelings. You’d tell him, you decided. Then drop off the canapés, quit on the spot, and flee the country if necessary. Stark would write you a killer reference. You’d survive.

“Okay,” you said, breath hitching as a nervous laugh bubbled out, half-bitter, half-resigned. “You want the truth? Fine. You’re going to think I’ve completely lost it.”

He stayed quiet, letting you spiral.

“This is so stupid,” you muttered. “I like you, Bucky. There. I said it. I like you. And it was fine—manageable—until it wasn’t. Until I started imagining things. Thinking maybe… maybe you liked me too.”

His eyebrows lifted, surprised but unreadable.

“I’ve had this massive, embarrassing crush on you since the moment I met you. And I know it’s weird, and probably unprofessional because you’re kinda my boss, but not. Technically, Tony’s my boss, but I basically manage everything around here, and—ugh, I’m rambling.” You squeezed your eyes shut. “I like you. And I’ve been avoiding you because it was getting out of hand. I couldn’t stop thinking about you. And it felt wrong. Especially since you’re dating Natasha, which just made everything worse—”

“What?” he interrupted, voice sharp. “I’m not dating Natasha.”

Your eyes snapped open. “That’s what you took from all of that?”

“No, I—wait. You think I’m dating Natasha?”

“Yes!” you burst out, cheeks flaming. “I saw you! At the Sunday market about a month ago with the flowers—”

His brow furrowed. “What flowers?”

“The bouquet you gave her.”

“I didn’t give Natasha flowers.”

You let out a dry, disbelieving laugh. “I saw you. It was that dumb little market Tony makes me go to for those overpriced vegan pastries Pepper loves—”

Bucky stared at you, confused. And then, slowly, understanding clicked into place. His face contorted like he’d just remembered he’d left his stove on.

“Oh my god,” he muttered, dragging a hand down his face. “The flowers. Those weren’t for Natasha. They were for Wanda.”

Your heart stuttered. “What?”

“Vision,” Bucky groaned. “It was their anniversary. He was stuck on the phone trying to get a fancy reservation and begged me to pick them up. Natasha tagged along because she was hunting for jewellery for Maria’s birthday. That’s all it was.”

You blinked at him. “You’re joking.”

“I’m not,” Bucky replied earnestly. “I didn’t know you thought that. I swear, I’m not with Natasha. I never was.”

Your stomach dropped. “Oh god.”

“Hey—”

“No. No-no-no.” You squeezed your eyes shut, wanting to sink straight through the floor. “This is mortifying. I literally thought you were in a secret relationship. I’ve been avoiding you like the plague. I’ve been thinking about moving cities. I googled how hard it is to change your name legally.”

He snorted. “You’re not serious.”

You opened your eyes, and the horror must have been plain on your face because Bucky’s expression melted into something far too amused. “Oh, you are.”

“I might never recover from this,” you mumbled.

“Hey, c’mon. It’s not that bad.”

“I confessed my undying crush and accused you of being in love with someone else in the span of like, sixty seconds.”

His mouth twitched, lips threatening a smile. “You’re kind of adorable when you’re spiralling.”

“I’m going to chuck these hors d'oeuvres at your head.”

As if mocking your attempt at dignity, the elevator gave a slight mechanical whirr, nearly at the top floor. The distant hum of the party pulsed just beyond those sleek doors.

You straightened suddenly, panic creeping into your chest. “Okay, I’m going to deliver these and then I’m leaving. Possibly forever. Please never speak to me again.”

But Bucky, ever faster than you, stepped in.

And before you could react, he pressed the emergency stop button.

The elevator jolted to a halt. The tower of overpriced hors d'oeuvres wobbled dangerously in your arms. “Oh my god,” you gasped, teetering.

Bucky was already moving, steady hands catching the top box before it could topple, plucking the rest from your shaking grasp. He crouched to stack them on the floor carefully, then rose slowly, smirking as you stood frozen, mouth agape in pure horrified disbelief.

“Bucky, what the hell are you doing?”

“No more running,” he said simply, as if that explained everything.

You could barely breathe. “You stopped the elevator?”

“Didn’t want to risk the doors opening and you disappearing into the night,” he said, a little too pleased with himself.

“I hate you,” you whispered, eyes wide.

He leaned in, just close enough for you to feel his breath. “No, you don’t.”

You were going to die right here in a metal box. With your dignity in ruins and the man of your dumb, desperate daydreams giving you that look.

And somehow, somehow, you didn’t even want to stop him.

“I’m serious,” he said, stepping closer. “Don’t shut down. Please.”

You glanced up at him, finally meeting his eyes and immediately wished you hadn’t. They were dark. Hungry. That gaze alone could melt you to the floor.

He stepped closer again. And again. Until his frame caged in you, his arms braced on either side of your head, the heat of his body swallowing you whole.

“I like you too,” he said, low, rough, like it was pulled from deep inside. “Christ, I was so blind. I didn’t see it. It didn’t click until that day at the tailor, until I saw you in this damn dress.”

Your breath hitched.

“I can’t stop thinking about you,” he murmured. “I’ve been looking for excuses just to be near you. I keep the notes you leave me with the stupid little drawings. I like looking at them. Thinking about you.”

Your heart felt like it might crack your ribs.

“I smelled every shampoo at the store one day,” he confessed, almost sheepish, almost proud. “Hoped I’d find the one you use. Because you smell so fucking good. It’s been driving me crazy.”

“Bucky…”

“I don’t know. You make me feel special. Seen. Like I’m not some monster, like I’m normal. And then one day you were just… gone. I didn’t realise all the little things you did for me that I never noticed.” He groaned, somehow pressing closer. “I missed the sound of your voice… and it made it hurt even more… I lie awake at night, every night, thinking about you and how much I want to kiss you—”

“Bucky.” You interrupted, and he looked back at you with a barely contained hunger. “Are you going to kiss me or not?”

And then his mouth was on yours.

Hot. Messy. Desperate.

You gasped into it, and he swallowed it whole, groaning as he pressed harder, deeper, hands sliding down to your thighs as he grabbed one and hitched it up around his waist. You clung to his shoulders, lips parted as he slotted himself between your legs, guiding you up until your ass was perched on the elevator’s handrail bar.

“Fuck,” he breathed against your mouth. “Tell me that you want this, tell me that you want me.”

Your head fell back against the wall, lips swollen, breath shaking. His mouth travelled to your jaw, your throat, hands digging into your hips.

It was dizzying. Chaotic. Perfect.

“I want you, Bucky.” You panted.

“Fuck,” Bucky muttered again, but this time it was different, lower. Hungrier.

His hand slid along your thigh, fingertips brushing beneath the hem of your dress. You panted as he kissed across your collarbone, his breath hot against your skin. His hands settled on your knees, then slowly, deliberately, he spread them apart.

“Bucky—” your voice was barely more than a whisper, a tremble of anticipation and disbelief.

But he didn’t answer. He dropped to his knees.

Right there. In the goddamn elevator.

You almost came on the spot at the sight, lips swollen and slick with saliva, pupils blown, the slight smudge of your lipstick on his chin. His hands slid up the back of your calves, kneading into the flesh like he was savouring the shape of you. Your dress inched upwards, his mouth suddenly pressing a kiss to the inside of your knee.

Your breath hitched. Your hands shot to the railing behind you, clutching tight.

“You have no idea,” he said, voice wrecked with want, “how long I’ve thought about this.”

His eyes flicked up to yours, dark with something dangerous. Devotion, desire, something molten and drowning. Then his mouth moved higher.

Another kiss. Inner thigh this time. Then another, and another, slow, lingering, like he was memorising you. He disappeared until the fabric of your skirt, only the back of his head, dark locks messy peaking out from between the slit.

You moaned, soft and involuntary, your hips twitching at the heat of his breath through the thin fabric of your panties. He nuzzled in close, his nose brushing against you, and his hands pressed firmly to your thighs to keep you spread.

“I’ve thought about how you’d taste,” he muttered, lips grazing the soaked lace. “How you’d sound.”

You whimpered.

And then, he peeled your panties to the side.

The groan that tore from him was obscene.

“Jesus,” he hissed, voice muffled. “You’re fucking perfect.”

And then, his mouth was on you.

Hot. Wet. Relentless. You cried out, one hand flying to his hair, tangling in it as his tongue licked into you with precision, with hunger, with something close to worship. He devoured you like he was starving. Slow circles, then quick flicks, his mouth dragging across your clit with maddening rhythm. You writhed against the rail, your leg still wrapped around his shoulder, the other trembling against the elevator wall.

“Oh my god—Bucky—fuck—”

Your words slurred together, breath coming in ragged gasps as he groaned into you, the vibration shooting straight through your core. One of his arms snaked around your thigh, pinning you in place, as if he thought you might try to escape. As if he’d let you.

His tongue slid down, dipping into you, then back up, his mouth latching onto your clit with a filthy, wet sound that made your spine arch. You were unravelling, fast, dizzy, overwhelmed.

He pulled back just enough to pant. “I could stay here all night.”

His mouth was merciless. His grip was unrelenting on your thighs, mouth working you over like a man possessed—

Bzzzzt.

A shrill, sudden buzz sounded from the elevator’s emergency panel, followed by a crackling voice.

“Hello? This is Tower Maintenance. We’re registering an emergency stop on lift three. Is there an issue?”

You froze. Every muscle in your body went rigid, as if someone had cracked open your spine and poured ice water down it. Dread spread like frost through your veins. Your heart thudded painfully in your throat, threatening to climb up and out entirely.

You could barely breathe. Could barely think.

This was it. This was how you died—legs spread, Bucky between them, and Tower Maintenance on the fucking line.

Bucky, in sharp contrast, did not freeze.

He groaned softly with wicked glee, his mouth still very much between your legs. The sound vibrated against the most sinful part of you, and then he doubled down. Mouth and hands working with infuriating, diabolical precision, like he’d just taken the intercom as a challenge.

You clamped a hand over your mouth, the other shaking as you reached blindly for the emergency call button, trying not to sound like you were seconds away from being ruined.

Your voice came out like a panicked squeak. “Hi! Uh—h-hi, yes, sorry! Must’ve been a—a small electrical fault. I’m fine! Everything’s… fine!”

Bucky nipped at your thigh in response.

There was a pause. You could feel the suspicion through the line.

“Ma’am, we’re not showing any electrical inconsistencies in that shaft. Did you press the stop button?”

You shot a wide-eyed glare down at the man currently devouring you.

Another wave of pleasure threatened to knock the air from your lungs. You were barely holding it together, every nerve ending aflame, skin flushed, thighs shaking. The cool metal of the elevator wall against your spine did little to ground you.

You cleared your throat, struggling to piece together something—anything—resembling human speech. “Oh. Oh, that—um, I must’ve bumped it. With my elbow. While holding a tray. It’s, uh—crowded. In here.”

Bucky chose that exact moment to suck hard, and you slapped your hand over your mouth to muffle the helpless sound that nearly escaped.

A longer pause. You could practically hear them frowning.

“…Right. Well, we’re releasing the stop now. Please remain calm.”

The line disconnected.

The elevator jolted slightly as it roared back to life.

Bucky gave a dark chuckle. “Crowded, huh?” Then—with zero mercy—he sped up.

“Bucky,” you gasped, head falling back against the wall, “I’m—I’m gonna—”

You shattered.

It hit hard, hot and blinding. You cried out, thighs clamping tight around his head as he groaned against you, mouth not stopping for a second, drawing it out, milking every twitch, every whimper. You barely had time to breathe, let alone moan, your hands flying to steady yourself just as the elevator dinged cheerily and the doors slid open.

Right into the penthouse. Packed full of people, who by some miracle, were utterly oblivious to your predicament.

You staggered slightly as Bucky stood smoothly, wiping his mouth with his sleeve, one arm slipping around your waist to steady you while the other casually reached down and grabbed the stack of forgotten canapés off the floor like he hadn’t just—

“Evening,” he greeted a passing staff member, utterly unbothered.

You were glowing crimson, pupils blown, lips parted, trying hard to fix your face. Bucky guided you forward, his hand warm on your back, keeping you between him and the crowd as your legs trembled. You barely managed to set the tray on the nearest table before someone whistled.

“Well, damn,” came Sam’s voice from the drinks bar. He gave you both a once-over, a wicked grin spreading. “Buck, next time you’re gonna eat face in the elevator, maybe wipe the lipstick off your chin first.”

Bucky only smirked and licked his bottom lip slow, on purpose, you were sure of it.

You nearly combusted on the spot.

“Bathroom?” he murmured into your ear, low and gravelly.

You nodded quickly and wordlessly.

He guided you with all the smugness of a man who had no regrets, his hand just a little too low on your back to be innocent.

---

hi, if you enjoyed please let me know! drop a comment below, reblog or send me something through my inbox! thank you for reading my work :) if you want to stay up to date with any series updates or new one-shots being posted, follow my sideblog @artficlly-updates and turn on notifications.

#gooooood god #i need an update of this one too now #bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you

11K notes · View notes

astoryisaloveaffair · 2 months ago

Text

lessons in lovemaking

marvel au bucky x blackwidow!reader You and Bucky Barnes go undercover as a married couple, but when a fake kiss gets too real, he unexpectedly finishes in his pants—leaving you both stunned.

Warnings: 18+ content minors dni, smut, fem reader, dry humping, grinding, soft dom vibes reader, soft sub vibes bucky, bucky is touch starved, premature ejaculation, reader has dubious methods of emotional control, vague mentions of previous sa, ex black widow reader, mentions of red room, very consensual, safe words, kissing, panic attacks, bucky barnes needs a hug, if you squint, there's some plot, fluff, angst, mentions of past violence, death and war, no use of y/n, lmk if i've missed anything

Word Count: 8.4k

A/N: hey guys, i'm a woman possessed. i've had so much motivation to write recently, so here is a quick one-shot. i'm sure this concept has been done before but i just couldn't stop thinking about touch starved bucky :( ! sorry for any typos - not proof read.

main masterlist | series masterlist

You never would’ve agreed to this mission had you known Barnes was going to be this squeamish. You’d seen the man slit throats without a sound, drop bodies with cold efficiency, and unload an entire chamber of bullets without so much as flinching. He hadn’t even blinked when aliens from outer-fucking-space rained hell upon Earth. But holding your hand? Letting his fingers brush your waist? Anything a devoted ‘husband’ ought to do? The super soldier looked like he’d rather swallow glass. He couldn’t even meet your gaze, for god’s sake.

What the hell had Fury been thinking?

You had to yank him away before anyone noticed the strained—Help me, I’m being held hostage by this incredibly attractive, incredibly capable woman who, might I add, is supposedly my wife—look on his face.

This gala, a weeklong jerkfest for the wealthy and villainous, was meant to be a stroll in the park. Your bread and butter, even if the Red Room had been... regrettable and against your consent, it had taught you an array of useful skills. Yet Barnes was ruining it, turning what should have been a simple infiltration into a goddamn babysitting job. The plan was airtight: pose as a glamorous Russian couple, collect incriminating evidence, and dip at the end of the week. Except Barnes wasn’t holding up his end of the deal. Instead of charming your way through the crowd, you were covering for his stiff, awkward pauses and the fact that he looked less like a besotted husband and more like a man being forced at gunpoint to stand beside you.

By some miracle, you managed to drag him away to one of the empty floors, a tucked-away space littered with stacks of unused tables and chairs. He was wound tight—shoulders squared, jaw clenched, eyes flicking across the dimly lit room like he was expecting death itself to emerge from the shadows. You didn’t bother with subtlety. Tearing the small recording device from between your tits, you fumbled with the button until the tiny red light blinked off. Whoever ended up reviewing the footage later wouldn’t need to hear the verbal onslaught you were about to unleash.

“What the fuck are you doing?” you hissed, keeping your voice low, though the sheer force of your frustration was enough to strip paint off the walls.

Barnes clenched his jaw, nostrils flaring as he refused to meet your eye. It reminded you of a scolded dog, all pouty and pathetic. You might’ve found it cute under different circumstances. “You’re making this incredibly fucking difficult.”

“I don’t understand why it’s such a big deal—”

“Because it’s our cover, Barnes.” you snapped, incredulous. “We’re supposed to be married, not some fucking timid virgin couple. PDA makes people uncomfortable; they look away, and we have less eye on us to, I don’t know—do our fucking job?”

Barnes looked down at his clenched fists, swallowing hard. You rolled your eyes, shaking your head in disbelief. The dangling diamond earrings you had hanging from each lobe tinkled slightly, and you ran a hand through your perfectly styled hair, resisting the urge to throttle him.

“You’re unbelievable. Fury should’ve just sent me alone—” you muttered, but the words barely left your lips before your eyes caught movement.

A group. Heading straight for you. Purposeful.

“Fuck.”

With haste, you tucked the small recording device back into your cleavage. Barnes noticed immediately, clocking your distress. His brows knit together, hand twitched toward the hidden knife tucked into his suit jacket.

“No.” You scolded. Catching his wrist, you guided it elsewhere—your hips. He stiffened instantly, making a noise of protest, but you kept him locked in place, pressing in until your chests brushed. Too close. Not close enough.

“Play along,” you murmured. “Kiss me. Now.”

“Wha—” His breath hitched, barely enough time to form a response before you rose onto your toes and sealed your mouth over his.

Barnes froze. Stiff beneath your touch, lips rigid like you’d just planted one on a slab of granite. He still tasted like toothpaste—spearmint—and the faint trace of his aftershave clung to his skin. If you’d been trying to salvage some believability, some small thread of natural chemistry, it was impossible now. It was like kissing a statue.

An aftershave-scented stone statue.

The passing group chuckled, one of them murmuring, amused, “Ah, young love.”

Maybe it was the murmured chuckles of the passing guests, or maybe Barnes had finally remembered how to act, because his grip on your hips suddenly tightened, fingers digging into the fabric of your dress with unexpected force. The silk pulled taut against your skin, trapping heat between you, and then—

A sound.

Low. Strangled. A rasping, utterly pathetic groan against your lips.

You barely had time to register it before something else stole your attention. In the tight press of your bodies, you felt it—hard, insistent, pressing against your pelvis.

Oh.

The realisation sent a flicker of shock through you, but you schooled your expression, keeping your face composed as you lingered just a second longer—just enough to ensure your audience was convinced. Then, finally, you pulled back.

Barnes didn’t move.

For a moment, he just stared, pupils wide and unfocused, a blissed-out haze dulling the sharp blue of his eyes. But then, like a lightning strike, awareness snapped back into him. Horror overtook his dazed expression, his breath hitching as he seemed to realise—

Did he just—?

You both looked down at the same time.

And there it was.

The medium grey of his suit pants betrayed him entirely, darkening at the crotch with an unmistakable wet patch.

You gaped, lips parting in stunned silence. No fucking way.

Barnes didn’t wait for a reaction. With the sheer force of a man fleeing for his life, he ripped himself from your grasp and marched away, stiff-backed and utterly silent, leaving you standing there, speechless.

—

It had been twenty minutes, and Barnes still hadn’t left the goddamn bathroom.

It had taken you all of thirty seconds to track him down, but the moment you found the door, it was locked. Of course it was. You twisted the handle, rattling it in frustration, then resorted to pounding your fist against the heavy wood—subtly, of course, but with enough force that he knew you weren’t going anywhere.

“Barnes.” You hissed his name through gritted teeth, pressing closer to the door. Nothing. Not a shuffle. Not a breath. Absolute fucking silence.

You exhaled sharply, trying to keep your expression neutral as a pair of guests passed by, casting you a curious glance. Yeah, you knew exactly how this looked—lipstick smudged, breath uneven, standing outside a locked men’s bathroom like a woman scorned. You must’ve looked thoroughly debauched.

Your pulse hammered in your throat. This was insane. A simple, fake kiss had made him short-circuit so hard that he fucking came in his pants? Twenty minutes ago, he looked repulsed by the mere idea of touching you, and now he was hiding away like some panicked virgin?

You let out a long, slow groan, dropping your forehead against the door.

“Barnes,” you muttered, knocking again—your patience wearing thinner by the second. “Open the damn door.”

Silence.

You straightened, glaring at the wood as if you could will it into splintering apart.

“Barnes, I have been patient.” You gritted your teeth, knocking harder. “If you don’t open this door in the next five seconds, I will break in.”

Silence.

Motherfucker.

"Alright, I’m coming in," you announced, your voice low but firm.

You cast a quick glance over your shoulder, ensuring no one was watching, before slipping a bobby pin from your hair. Years of practice made the process effortless; your fingers worked quickly, blindly, jamming the pin into the lock and feeling for the mechanism. A few precise twists, a satisfying click, and—

"Make sure you're decent, Barnes—"

The words were halfway out of your mouth when you pushed the door open, but whatever half-hearted joke you'd meant to make withered before it even reached your tongue.

Barnes was not decent.

Not in the way you’d expected.

He sat hunched on the closed toilet lid, head in his hands, his entire body drawn in tight like he was trying to fold in on himself. His knee bounced erratically, the rapid motion almost violent in its rhythm. He had ripped off his suit pants, leaving himself in nothing but his boxers, his bare thighs tense, twitching. His fingers dug into his hair, gripping at the strands like he wanted to rip them out, and when his bloodshot eyes flicked up to you—

You felt your stomach drop.

Panic. Raw, unfiltered, choking panic.

Tears welled along his lash line, his chest rising and falling in uneven, barely contained pants. He looked like a man caught in a cage, seconds from tearing himself apart just to escape it.

You swallowed, your throat suddenly dry, and stepped in, shutting the door softly behind you before flipping the lock.

"Hey, Barnes…” Your voice was hesitant, softer than before.

He shook his head, eyes fixed firmly on the floor, his hands trembling as he dragged them down his face.

“I don’t—” His voice cracked, breaking on the words. "I don’t want you in—"

You moved before he could finish, lowering yourself to the cool bathroom tiles in front of him, as if making yourself smaller would make you any less intimidating.

"Hey," you murmured, tone careful but steady. "Look at me."

“No.” It came out sharp, like a whip, a defence mechanism honed over decades. His entire body went rigid, his breathing ragged.

“Barnes, you need to breathe.”

Your voice was steady, firm without being harsh, each syllable carefully measured as you crept forward on the cold tile floor. The dress, the dirt—none of it mattered. It wasn’t your dress, anyway. Tony Stark could foot the bill for a replacement if this one got ruined, all this fancy wear was on his dime.

“In through the nose,” you instructed, voice softer now. “Out through the mouth.”

By some miracle, Barnes listened.

He sucked in a ragged breath, chest expanding beneath his half-unbuttoned dress shirt, and then exhaled through parted lips. It was shaky, uneven, but it was something. You watched in silence, waiting. His limbs still trembled, his fingers clenching and unclenching against his thighs, but the worst of the violent, full-body tremors had eased.

“There you go,” you murmured, voice barely above a breath. “Keep breathing, just like that. You’re doing so well.”

Slowly, you inched forward, shifting across the tiles until you sat in front of his knees. His skin was warm, radiating heat even through the thin fabric of his boxers.

“Barnes,” you hesitated, watching his face carefully. “Can I touch you?”

His whole body tensed.

“What?” His eyes darted up, sharp and startled, as if the very question had knocked the breath from his lungs.

“Is it okay,” you rephrased, slower this time, gentler, “if I touch you?”

Barnes hesitated. His gaze flickered away, jaw clenching like he was at war with himself. But then, after a long, tense beat, he gave a small, stiff nod.

You inhaled, steadying yourself. Then, with slow, deliberate care, you reached out and cradled his face between your hands.

The moment your fingers touched his skin, he flinched.

Not violently. Not like he was afraid of you. But enough that you felt it—felt the way his muscles coiled beneath your fingertips, the way his throat bobbed in a hard swallow. The cool metal of your fake wedding ring grazed his cheek, and his breath hitched, like he had just been burned.

“Keep breathing,” you reminded him, voice low and steady. “Nice and slow.”

Barnes obeyed, dragging in another breath, and you felt some of the tension leave his shoulders. The hard lines of his face softened just slightly as he leaned into your touch, nuzzling—actually nuzzling—against your palms.

“There you go,” you murmured, your thumb stroking in slow circles over his cheek. “Look at me.”

His eyelids flickered, resisting for a moment, but then those storm-blue eyes finally met yours. He looked exhausted. Frayed at the edges. But grounded, at least. Present.

“Tell me one thing you can smell right now.”

Barnes blinked. A hint of confusion crossed his face. “Smell?”

“Yes, smell.” You nodded, keeping your voice soft, coaxing. “Just one thing. Keep breathing and tell me.”

He hesitated but then took a deliberate inhale through his nose, his bouncing knee slowing. “I guess… whatever shitty fucking chemicals they use to clean this place.”

A quiet laugh left you, your thumb tracing a swirling pattern along his cheekbone. “Good. You’re doing good, Barnes. Now, tell me two things you can feel.”

His breathing had steadied, his inhales and exhales falling into rhythm with yours. For the first time since you’d walked in, he wasn’t shaking as badly.

“This suit jacket,” he muttered after a pause. His metal fingers twitched against the fabric at his arm. “It’s too fuckin’ tight. They always are with my arm—”

His breath stuttered, his body tensing again. Immediately, you leaned in, close enough for him to feel your warmth. “Just breathe, remember? You’re doing so well. One more thing you can feel.”

Barnes swallowed thickly. His gaze flickered down, just briefly, before settling back on your face.

“You,” he admitted, voice quieter now. “I can feel you. Touching my face.”

“Good.” You nodded, thumb gliding over his cheek again. “Are you okay with that?”

“Yes.” He exhaled, and for the first time, it wasn’t shaky. “It feels… it feels nice.”

Something in your chest clenched at the confession, but you pushed it aside. You smiled at him, soft and small, and kept going. “Now, three things you can see.”

Barnes’ eyes scanned over your face, searching.

“You,” he said, still quiet, still certain. His gaze lingered on your mouth. “Your lipstick is smudged.”

"Two more," you breathed, keeping your voice calm and steady, resisting the urge to comment on why your lipstick was smudged in the first place. No need to remind him of that right now.

Barnes' gaze flickered across the small, dimly lit restroom. His body had almost fully relaxed now, his mind preoccupied with the task you'd given him.

"Uh…" He scanned the space, brows furrowing in concentration. "The awful wallpaper… and the sink, I guess?"

You nodded approvingly, finally withdrawing your hands as you eased back onto your knees. The cold tiles bit through the fabric of your dress, but you barely noticed.

"Well done," you murmured. "Now, how about we keep breathing and get you sorted, huh?"

At that, Barnes stiffened slightly. The panic that had been receding just moments ago flickered in his eyes again, his hands twitching where they rested on his thighs.

You reached out, grounding him with a gentle touch to his knee. Your voice softened even further. "I’m going to turn around and face the door. I need you to clean yourself up—use the sink, use the soap."

His throat bobbed. "But my—my boxers, they’ll get all wet—"

"There’s a dryer on the wall, see it?" You tilted your head toward the small, dingy dryer meant for hands. "Use it to dry them. Then get dressed, and we’ll head back to the hotel early, okay? Order some shitty takeaway, watch bad TV. Just forget about all this for tonight. How does that sound?"

Barnes blinked as if thrown by the simplicity of the offer. His mouth parted, closed, then opened again, his voice small. "Yeah. Okay."

"Good." You flashed him a reassuring smile before pressing your palms against the sink, pushing yourself to your feet with a small wobble in your heels. "I’ll be right here. Just let me know if you need anything. Keep breathing, alright? Everything’s okay."

Turning, you crossed your arms over your chest and faced the door, giving him the privacy he needed. You tried not to listen too closely. Tried not to glance at the mirror reflecting the scene behind you.

The rustle of clothing filled the quiet, then the tap sputtered to life. You leant your forehead against the cool wood of the door, closing your eyes as you focused on the steady stream of water, the faint squeak of the soap pump, and then the soft sloshing and scrubbing of fabric.

The sound of fabric wringing out echoed softly against the tiled walls, followed by the steady hum of the hand dryer sputtering to life. You kept your forehead against the door, listening as Barnes manoeuvred through the motions, drying his boxers first, then his suit pants. The wet fabric slapped lightly against the metal dryer as he held it up, shifting awkwardly as he worked.

You didn’t rush him. Didn’t make a sound. Just stayed where you were, giving him time.

Eventually, the rustling stopped. A sharp inhale, then the familiar slide of fabric as he pulled his clothes back on. The quiet click of a belt buckle being fastened. The creak of leather shoes shifting against tile.

Then—

Barnes cleared his throat.

You turned.

He stood stiffly, suit now back in place, though the fabric still carried faint traces of dampness. His jacket was slightly askew, his tie loosened just enough to be noticeable. You took a slow step toward him, scanning him up and down with a careful eye. He didn’t flinch, didn’t move—just stood there, watching you warily, as if expecting a comment.

You didn’t give him one.

Instead, you reached up, grasping the edges of his tie. He stiffened but let you work, your fingers smoothing the silk fabric, tightening it properly against his collar. His pulse thrummed beneath your fingertips as you brushed against his throat, and though he remained still, you caught the way his breath hitched slightly at the contact.

“There,” you murmured, satisfied.

You turned towards the mirror, angling yourself slightly to the side. Your reflection was a mess—lipstick smudged, hair slightly dishevelled. You sighed, wetting your thumb with your tongue before dabbing at the edges of the stain, then reached into your clutch to pull out a small tube of lipstick.

Barnes hadn’t moved.

You could feel him behind you, his body heat pressing against your back in the cramped space. His gaze was heavy, following your movements as you leaned closer to the mirror, carefully reapplying the pigment to your lips. You didn’t look at him. You just smoothed the colour in place, pressed your lips together, then capped the tube and tucked it back into your bag.

Finally, you met his eyes in the mirror.

“Ready to go?” you asked.

There was a pause. A hesitation. His jaw clenched for half a second before he gave the smallest of nods. “…Yeah.”

You turned fully, flashing him a small, knowing smile before reaching for his arm. He didn’t resist when you looped yours through his, guiding him towards the door. With an easy tug, you led him forward, your heels clicking softly against the marble floors. His arm remained tense beneath your touch, but he didn’t pull away. Didn’t let go.

You glanced at him briefly, lips twitching into a small smirk. “C’mon, sergeant. Let’s get out of here.”

Barnes exhaled through his nose, shaking his head ever so slightly. But when you reached the bottom of the stairs, he followed without question, letting you steer him towards the exit, away from the crowded room—away from prying eyes.

—

A small, muffled whine stirred you from sleep. You blinked groggily, rolling onto your side as the cool sheets tangled around your legs. The plush hotel mattress dipped beneath you as you buried your face into the pillow, willing yourself back into slumber.

A low, panting groan cut through the silence, soft at first, then growing in volume. Your brows knit together, heart thrumming uneasily. Something about the sound was… strange. It wasn’t just a groan—it was strained, needy. Erotic.

Your eyes snapped open.

The room was cloaked in darkness, save for the dim red dot of the fire alarm and the faint reflection of the turned-off TV. You remained frozen for a few beats, your ears straining to catch the noise again. It came, louder this time—a choked whimper thick with desperation.

Was someone in the room? Adrenaline slammed into your veins as you rolled off the bed in one swift motion, bare feet hitting the floor without a sound. You had heard stories of creeps breaking into hotel rooms, preying on women while they slept. Had one made the mistake of picking yours?

Another sound. Low, breathy, utterly wrecked.

Your hand darted to the bedside table, fingers curling around the hilt of a knife, its leather grip smooth beneath your palm. Not even yours, Barnes’—

Barnes.

Your breath caught as your gaze snapped towards the couch, knife slipping from your grip and landing on the carpet with a soft thud.

There, bathed in shadows, was the writhing mass of the super soldier. His blankets lay discarded on the floor as though he’d tossed them off in his sleep. The two of you had agreed to take turns—one in the bed, the other on the couch—to keep up appearances. A stupid arrangement, courtesy of Fury and Stark’s meddling.

You flicked on the bedside lamp. The warm light spilt over the room, casting soft amber hues onto Barnes’ form. His face was twisted in torment, and his lips parted around quiet, breathless whimpers. Sweat clung to his skin, catching the glow of the lamp and highlighting the sharp lines of his body. His metal arm whirred faintly as he twitched, fingers flexing against the cushions.

Your stomach dropped when your eyes drifted lower. He was shirtless, his broad chest rising and falling erratically. The thin fabric of his boxers did little to hide the evidence of his dream—more than half-hard beneath the cotton. Was he really that big?

The realisation hit like a freight train.

He was having a sex dream.

Jesus.

You swallowed, throat suddenly dry. You should’ve looked away, should’ve given him privacy. But then his hand twitched, drifting downward—

“Barnes.” Your voice was sharp, cutting through the haze like a blade.

He jolted awake, body seizing as his eyes snapped open. For a moment, he was utterly lost, chest heaving, pupils blown wide with confusion. Then his gaze landed on you—standing there in your thin nightgown, face unreadable.

His eyes flickered downward.

Bucky sucked in a sharp breath, panic flickering across his face as he yanked a pillow over his lap, shifting awkwardly as if that would somehow erase what had just happened. A string of curses left his lips, voice still wrecked with sleep.

You tilted your head, studying him. His expression wavered, part shame, part something else, something raw and vulnerable. You exhaled slowly, pressing your fingers into your temples. There was a pattern here. A man whose body wasn’t his own, whose skin felt foreign, whose touch-starved existence had left him unravelling at the seams.

What in God's name was Fury thinking sending him on a mission like this—or did Fury not know? How could he not? That one-eyed bastard had a habit of knowing everything. Hell, he probably knew the colour of your underwear before you even picked it out for the day, the all-seeing prick.

“H.Y.D.R.A really did a number on you, didn’t they?” you muttered.

Bucky flinched. The words struck deep, sinking into something fragile beneath the surface. He didn’t say a word, just recoiled, fingers gripping the pillow so tightly his knuckles turned white. A moment later, he was scrambling off the couch, making a beeline for the bathroom.

“Barnes, we’re not doing this again. Let’s just talk—”

The door slammed.

Then, the soft click of the lock.

You exhaled through your nose, arms crossing over your chest as you stared at the wooden barrier now separating you. Asshole. You knew you should’ve been more sympathetic. Should’ve handled it differently. But after a long, exhausting day, dealing with Bucky Barnes’ second puberty was not on your list of priorities.

You stepped closer, pressing a palm against the door; your voice quieter now. “I know how you’re feeling.”

Silence.

You could picture him inside, hunched over on the edge of the bathtub, fists clenched, chest rising and falling in sharp, uneven breaths. “I understand what it’s like to be in a body that doesn’t feel like your own.”

A pause. No response.

“It must be hard,” you continued softly. “Not knowing who you are. Not recognising yourself anymore. And then... feeling things you don’t understand.”

Another pause. This one stretched longer.

“You shouldn’t be ashamed of trying to navigate that.” The silence that followed was heavier than before. You didn’t push, didn’t say anything else. Just rested your forehead against the doorframe, waiting.

You had spent the better part of your life under the Red Room’s control, under Dreykov’s control. Every breath you took, every move you made, had been dictated by someone else. Orders given. Orders followed. It was all you had ever known. And then, one day, it was gone. Just like that.

You remembered the moment with eerie clarity: standing in the open air, staring out at the horizon, the sunset bleeding colour into a sky that suddenly felt too vast. The question had gnawed at you, quiet but insistent. What comes next? Who comes next? Because you didn’t know. You didn’t know who you were beyond a weapon, beyond a machine engineered for death and seduction. Two decades of programming, of conditioning, of being nothing more than an asset to be wielded and discarded at will. And then, without warning, you were handed something you were told was freedom.

But what did freedom mean when you didn’t exist?

There were no real records of your birth, no true identity to reclaim. The Red Room had scrubbed that away long ago, erasing every trace of the girl you had once been. No family. No home. No belongings that weren’t issued to you by those who had owned you. And yet, you were expected to smile—to accept this newfound autonomy without question, to embrace the illusion of a life you had no blueprint for.

But how could you, when you weren’t sure if the body you inhabited was even your own?

So even if Barnes thought you were bluffing and just trying to relate for the sake of kindness, he was wrong. Because you understood.

Terrifyingly well.

The difference was that you had refused to let it consume you. You had forced those feelings into the farthest corners of your mind, locking them away where they couldn’t touch you. Because if you let yourself linger on them for too long.

“Go back to sleep.” Bucky’s voice finally broke the silence, muffled through the bathroom door.

You sucked on your teeth, exhaling sharply through your nose. “Yeah, not happening.”

“I know the others give you crap about not dating, but you don’t have to let them pressure you,” you continued, keeping your tone light. “You don’t have to force yourself into a role that makes you uncomfortable. It takes time.”

“Back in the day..." His voice was quieter this time, tinged with something that almost sounded like regret. “I used to be a real flirt.”

A humourless smirk ghosted across your lips. You could picture it, all smooth charm and effortless confidence. The kind of man who could wink at a girl across a dance floor and have her swooning in seconds. But that wasn’t the man behind this door. That man had been stripped away, piece by piece.

“I just don’t know anymore,” he admitted, voice raw. Your chest tightened. You could almost hear him weighing his words, picking them apart, and deciding how much of himself he was willing to give away.

“When I was the Winter Soldier... they made me do things.”

A slow, twisting knot formed in your stomach.

“It’s all… fractured in my mind,” he murmured, barely above a whisper. “Scattered. Broken.”

You closed your eyes and inhaled deeply.

“I’m sorry,” you said, and you meant it. “I understand that. More than anyone. The Red Room… they didn’t just use us for assassinations and espionage.”

There. You had said it. Pulled a piece of yourself from the grave and placed it between you.

For the first time, the door cracked open.

Bucky stood there, dishevelled and breathless, still only in his boxers. A faint sheen of sweat clung to his skin, catching the dim hotel light, while his metal arm twitched slightly at his side. His hair was a mess—damp and curling at the ends, sticking to his forehead. His chest rose and fell unevenly, as if he hadn’t quite caught his breath, muscles taut beneath the weight of exhaustion.

“Why are you being kind to me?” he asked suddenly. His voice was rough, tinged with suspicion, as if he couldn’t quite believe it.

You tilted your head, studying him.

“Because you’re hurting,” you said simply. “And obviously, you haven’t fully processed any of this.”

His throat bobbed as he swallowed. Without another word, he turned and stalked past you, out of the cramped bathroom and into the main space of the hotel room. You followed at a slower pace, arms crossed as you watched him sink onto the couch, scrubbing a hand down his face. He was hunched forward, elbows resting on his knees, his metal fingers tapping restless patterns against his flesh palm. His body had settled now, no longer betraying him with signs of arousal. That part of the moment had passed, but the turmoil in his head remained.

With a quiet sigh, you slid down to the floor, settling against the base of the bed across from him. Your legs stretched out in front of you, arms loose at your sides as you let the silence settle between you.

“Have you spoken to Steve about this?” you asked after a moment, voice soft but firm. “Sam?”

Bucky scoffed, shaking his head. “God, no.”

“Why?”

“I dunno,” he muttered, fingers threading through his damp hair. “It’s just... awkward. I feel like a fuckin’ schoolboy.”

You tilted your head, watching him carefully. “I could teach you.”

His eyes snapped to you, wary. “What?”

“I could teach you,” you repeated, voice steady. “How to make love. Fuck. How to gain control over your life again. You’re just sensitive; you need a bit of exposure therapy.”

Bucky’s expression darkened, jaw clenching. “Why the hell would you do that?”

You exhaled slowly, gaze drifting to the patterned carpet beneath you. “Do you know how many men I’ve fucked and not felt a thing?” you said quietly, barely above a whisper.

“I wasn’t just an assassin or a spy. Not like Natasha or Yelena. I was a swallow, Barnes. A honeytrap.” His expression flickered, eyes scanning your face as if searching for something, some hint of insincerity.

You swallowed, pushing forward. “It’s why Fury sent me on this mission with you. This is all I’ve ever known.”

Bucky’s breath hitched slightly, his hands curling into fists against his thighs. “Fury knows what they did to you, and he still continues to—”

“I agreed to it,” you cut in, your tone clipped, controlled. “He just wanted our sham marriage to be believable. He wasn’t asking me to fuck you, just to perform. That’s what I do. Perform.”

Bucky huffed a bitter laugh, shaking his head.

“Look, I don’t know you,” he muttered, voice low, rough. “I don’t want your baggage, or for you to fuck me out of pity or... I don’t know, self-sabotage.”

The words hit like a slap, sharper than you expected. You recoiled—actually flinched—before you could stop yourself. It wasn’t just what he said, it was the venom in it, the way he threw it at you like a blade meant to wound. And damn it, it did.

Bucky saw it, too. The way your shoulders stiffened, the flicker of something raw crossing your face before you forced it away. His breath hitched slightly, fingers twitching at his side, but he didn’t take it back. Didn’t soften the blow. Maybe he regretted it, maybe he didn’t, but either way, the damage was done.

Your expression hardened like cooling steel, every crack that had formed between you quickly sealing shut, any semblance of vulnerability buried beneath layers of carefully placed armour. It was instinct—second nature, really. You’d spent years perfecting the art of locking yourself away, of making sure no one could reach the parts of you that still bled. You’d built it, brick by fucking brick, until you were fully encased, isolated from anything that might harm you.

Bucky wasn’t the first to speak to you like that. Wouldn’t be the last.

You swallowed down the sting, inhaled slow and deep through your nose, and then let it out in a steady breath. When you spoke again, your voice was quiet, devoid of emotion, a perfect imitation of indifference. “It was just an offer.”

Nothing more. Nothing less.

You held his gaze for a second longer, searching for something, anything, that might suggest he regretted it. But Bucky just stared back, face unreadable, jaw tight. Then, without another word, he turned away, stretching out on the couch with his back to you.

Fine. Message received.

—

The rest of the week had been nothing short of torturous. After the argument, the air between you and Bucky had turned to ice. The two of you barely spoke. Not outside of necessity, not outside of the roles you had to play. At the gala, he did what was required—he held you close, leant into your touch when needed, murmured sweet nothings in your ear to sell the lie. But you felt the restraint in him, the hesitance in the way he brushed a thumb over your knuckles, the barely-there tremors in his fingers when he smoothed a hand over your waist. It wasn’t as if he was walking on hot coals anymore, but there was still that same, underlying hesitation.

Back at the hotel, the silence stretched long and unbearable. Shower, eat, sleep—repeat. Conversations were reduced to one-word exchanges, curt and impersonal. At least by morning, this miserable charade would be over. You’d gathered the intel you needed at the gala, and in a few hours, you’d be free of this place. Free of this suffocating, awkward tension. Free from Bucky’s constant, looming presence.

God, the man had a staring problem.

You had noticed it before, how he always seemed lost in thought, his gaze heavy with some unreachable burden. You had assumed it was just brooding, the kind of silent, empty-headed angst that men like him fell victim to. But now you realised—he wasn’t staring through you. He was staring at you.

You saw it when you dressed for the gala, slipping into silken dresses and heels, when you pinned your hair into elegant styles, when you traced the lines of your lips with lipstick, perfecting the illusion. You’d catch his reflection in the mirror, eyes fixed on you, dark and unreadable.

Once, he had been so caught up in his daze that he nearly left without putting on his suit jacket. You had to press it into his hands, dragging him out of whatever spell he was under. He had taken it stiffly, mumbling a quiet ‘thanks’ but the heat in his face was unmistakable.

And now, as you sat cross-legged on the bed in a loose nightgown, the fabric riding high on your thighs, the same damn stare was drilling into the side of your face.

The TV flickered before you, an incoherent blur of colours and sound. You weren’t even sure it was in English. It didn’t matter. You weren’t watching it anyway. You were too focused on not focusing on Bucky, who stared at the side of your face like he intended to burn a hole through the flesh.

You exhaled sharply through your nose, running your thumb over your knee. The sheets were soft, the mattress more forgiving than the couch you’d been forced to sleep on last night. At least tonight was your turn back on the bed, though ideally, you’d be back in your own apartment by now, wrapped in high-thread-count luxury courtesy of Tony Stark’s absurd wealth.

God, you missed Egyptian cotton.

Bucky was still staring at you. You couldn’t help it, annoyance, filthy and venomous came pouring out of your mouth before you could stop it. “What? Is there something on my face?”

Bucky startled, his whole body tensing as if you had physically struck him.

“Nothing—” he stammered.

You arched a brow, unimpressed.

“No. There’s obviously something you want to say.” You shifted on the bed, your frustration mounting. “Go on, spit it out.”

He hesitated, his jaw working like he was biting down on whatever words were lodged in his throat.

You didn’t let up. “You sure had a lot to say earlier in the week. What, do you want to dig the knife in further? You might as well just call me a whore while you’re at it—”

“I’m sorry.” Bucky cut over you, his head dipping. You paused, momentarily stunned. He was doing that thing again, where he looked like a scolded dog. Adorable, but not the fucking time.“I shouldn’t have said that, it was inconsiderate of me, especially after... after all you’ve done.”

You frowned. “You don’t owe me anything, Barnes.” The words left your lips quieter this time, but still firm.

“I snapped at you. And I shouldn’t have.” he admitted. His voice was low, restrained.

You let out a slow breath, pressing your fingers to your temple.

“It’s okay. I understand,” you said, a little softer. “I haven’t exactly been… the kindest either.”

A bitter chuckle escaped him, his fingers twitching against his knee. Then, after a long pause, he asked, “How do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Act like everything is okay. Like it’s normal.” His voice was strained, like he wasn’t even sure if he believed in what he was asking.

You let out a short, almost nervous laugh. “I’m probably not the best person to ask about this—”

“But you get it, right?” He looked at you now, something almost desperate in his gaze. “To not know… who or what you are? Sometimes I… I just want to be normal again.”

You frown deeply, weighing his words carefully. You understood his sentiment, but you knew it was futile. There had never been anything normal about your life—not anything you could remember, at least. The Red Room had seen to that. Your earliest memories were of drills, of ballet, of suffocating discipline, and of the erasure of self. Even now, you weren’t normal; you were an agent of S.H.I.E.L.D for fucks sake, a woman barely pardoned of her crimes, existing in a liminal space. The world's governments couldn’t quite confirm you existed. You were a ghost, a fucking shadow of a person.

“I don’t think people like us get to be normal,” you said finally, choosing your words carefully.

His expression twisted slightly, like he had already known that answer but had hoped for something different.

“But I think,” you continued, “it would serve you a world of good if you let people in. Steve… Sam. You don’t have to face this all alone—Natasha, Yelena, and I look to each other all the time to process it all and patch together the missing pieces. There’s no shame in it.”

Bucky’s face creased, his body drawing in on itself slightly. You moved before he could shrink further, slipping off the bed and kneeling before him.

“It’s okay,” you reassured, voice steady. “Just tell me... what is it you need right now?”

His lips parted slightly, then pressed into a thin line. He fidgeted, his fingers clenching and unclenching as if struggling to force out something that had been sitting at the edge of his tongue all week.

Finally, he exhaled, jaw tight.

“I want to take you up on your offer.”

You tilted your head. “My offer?”

Bucky swallowed, eyes flickering to the floor before darting back to you. His voice was hesitant, low—like he was worried some invisible presence might have overheard. “Lessons. Lessons in… love-making. I want to be able to look at a girl without... you know. This fucking week has been torture seeing you—”

He cut himself off, warmth flooding to his cheeks. A laugh bubbled out of you before you could stop it—light, amused, genuine.

Bucky stiffened, eyes widening slightly, horror flashing across his face as if he thought you were mocking him.

You shook your head quickly, reaching out to place a hand on his knee.

“Of course,” you murmured, smiling. “Thought you’d never ask.”

—

“Is this okay?” you asked softly as you swung your leg over, settling onto Bucky’s lap. The mattress dipped beneath you both, the quiet creak of the hotel bed the only sound between you for a moment. He sat beneath you, legs slightly spread, his hands hovering uncertainly at his sides. You dug your knees into the bed on either side of his thighs, anchoring yourself against him.

His breath hitched, sharp and uneven. “Yes,” he murmured, though there was a noticeable tremor in his voice, like he was still convincing himself.

“Just breathe,” you encouraged, smoothing your hands over his broad shoulders. His muscles were tense beneath your fingertips, wound tight like coiled steel. He swallowed hard.

“What’s worrying you?” You asked gently. “Is there something I can do to make this more comfortable for you?”

Bucky shook his head, a shuddering breath leaving him as his hands finally found purchase on your hips. His grip was hesitant, as if he wasn’t sure he was allowed to hold you. “No,” he said, his voice rough.

“This is great, I—” He cut himself off, pressing his lips together in frustration.

You tilted your head, studying him, before offering a reassuring smile. Your fingers kneaded into his shoulders in slow, soothing motions, attempting to melt away some of the tension knotted there. “Talk to me,” you coaxed.

His gaze flickered downward, shame creeping into his expression. “I just… don’t want to embarrass myself. Again.”

Your heart clenched at his vulnerability, but you refused to let him linger in self-doubt. Instead, you leant in, your lips curling in a playful smile.

“You’re cute when you say things like that,” you teased, running your tongue over your lower lip before continuing. “Don’t worry about any of that. Just stay here, in this moment, with me.”

A muscle in his jaw twitched, but he obeyed, focusing on the warmth of your body pressed against his. Slowly, his grip tightened on your hips, fingers kneading into the flesh more firmly this time. His thumbs traced cautious circles against the fabric of your clothing, testing. You let your hands drift from his shoulders down to his chest, feeling the steady rise and fall of his breathing.

“Now,” you murmured, keeping your tone soft but steady, “if you get overwhelmed, or if you need to stop, what do you say?”

“Stop,” Bucky answered without hesitation.

“Good,” you praised, smiling warmly. “And if you can’t speak? If the words won’t come?”

His fingers flexed on your hip before he squeezed in a deliberate rhythm—three distinct beats. You nodded in approval. “Perfect.”

His blue eyes flickered up to meet yours, searching.

“What about you?” he asked, his voice quieter now, more earnest. “If you want to stop?”

You demonstrated by tapping three times against his chest, just over his heart.

“I’ll do the same thing,” you assured him. “Just like we discussed.”

For a moment, he just breathed. His lashes fluttered as he exhaled a slow, measured breath, his hands steadying against you. Then, with a small, almost imperceptible nod, he whispered, “I’m… I’m ready. I think.”

You smiled, fingers tracing a soft, reassuring path along his jaw.

“Okay. I thought we’d start with kissing, since you seem worried about it. Nice and simple, no pressure,” you murmured, your voice low and reassuring as your fingertips ghosted along his jawline. Bucky swallowed thickly, his adam’s apple bobbing as he leaned into your palm without thinking, nuzzling it like a touch-starved thing. His blue eyes, dark as the ocean in a brewing storm, flickered with something hesitant, something fragile.

“I’m sure you kissed plenty of girls back in the day,” you teased, lips curling as you brushed your thumb over the sharp edge of his cheekbone.

“Oh yeah,” he exhaled, the words dipped in self-deprecation, “until Steve became… well, the Steve he is now. None of the girls spared me a second glance after that.”

You let out a soft laugh, breathy and genuine, and felt the way his body tensed beneath you at the sensation. It was funny how a man who could tear through steel and strike terror into the hearts of the world’s deadliest enemies could turn so shy at something as simple as your laughter.

“You know…” he hesitated, voice quieter now. “You were my first kiss since… well, everything.”

Your teasing grin faltered slightly. You tilted your head, gaze flicking between his eyes and his lips, close enough now that you could feel the steady heat radiating from his skin.

“Well,” you murmured, the ghost of a smirk curling your lips as you shifted closer, “now I’ll be your second too.”

And then you kissed him.

It was slow at first, a testing press of your lips against his, feather-light and coaxing. Bucky inhaled sharply through his nose, his breath hitching as though he was bracing for impact. But when you didn’t pull away, when you lingered just a little longer, he melted into you—hesitant at first, but eager.

His hands, large and trembling slightly, hesitated at your waist before gripping your thighs as if he wasn’t sure whether to hold you or let you slip away. The warmth of his palms bled through the thin fabric of your nightgown, spreading across your skin like wildfire.

You deepened your kiss, tilting your head to slot your lips more firmly against his, and a quiet sound rumbled in his chest—halfway between a sigh and a groan. Encouraged, you shifted, rocking your hips, the new position pressing your bodies flush together.

Bucky tensed beneath you, fingers digging into your flesh instinctively as you settled against him. His own hips bucked in response, and you could already feel him growing hard against your inner thigh. He pulled back slightly, panting, his lips swollen.

“Am I doing… okay?” he asked, his voice rough.

You smiled, smoothing a hand through his dark hair, tugging him gently forward again.

“More than okay,” you whispered against his lips before capturing them once more.

This time, he kissed you back without hesitation. His hands gripped your hips, anchoring himself to you as he parted his lips, following your lead. You swept your tongue into his mouth, slow and purposeful, teasing along his lower lip before deepening it. A groan rumbled in his chest, muffled against your mouth.

You rolled your hips, grinding against him with a slow, deliberate rhythm, savouring the way his breath hitched and stuttered beneath you. Even through the layers of clothing, you could feel him—hard, straining, likely aching for more. His fingers dug into your skin, a bruising grip that only added to the heat blooming in your core.

You pulled away from his lips, shifting your attention lower, trailing open-mouthed kisses along his jaw, down his neck. You could feel his pulse hammering beneath your lips, quick and erratic. He tipped his head back, surrendering himself to your touch, a quiet curse slipping from his mouth as you sucked at the sensitive skin below his ear.

“You’re doing so well,” you hummed against his skin, your voice warm and indulgent, laced with soft praise. His body trembled beneath you as he bucked his hips up to meet yours, desperate for more friction, more of you. You rewarded him with a soft, breathy moan, letting him know just how much you enjoyed this too.

“I—” He tried to form words, but they crumbled before they left his lips.

The tension in his body coiled tighter and tighter, like a bowstring pulled taut, ready to snap. His hands clutched at you, grounding himself in the sensation, like the overwhelming pleasure was building too fast for him to control. His breath came in short, needy gasps, his hips stuttering as he lost the rhythm.

“I’m gonna—” His voice broke, his head tilting forward as his entire body tensed beneath you. A strangled moan escaped him, deep and wrecked, as he came undone. His grip on your hips tightened, his thighs trembling slightly beneath yours as his climax overtook him. His body fell back against the sheets, a soft exhale leaving his lips as the last waves of pleasure wracked through him.

You perched above him, still straddling his hips. For a moment, he just lay there, his chest rising and falling rapidly as he struggled to catch his breath. His eyes were half-lidded, dazed, and his lips parted as if he had more to say but couldn’t quite form the words.

“I didn’t mean to finish so early—” he started, his voice hoarse, cheeks flushed with a mix of embarrassment and lingering pleasure. Leaning over, you flipped your hair to one side as your face hovered over his. You silenced him with a lingering kiss, slow and reassuring. He groaned softly into your mouth, still sensitive but already melting into the warmth of your lips. When you pulled away, his shoulders had loosened, the rigid tension gone from his body.

“You did so well,” you murmured, brushing your fingers through his hair. “How do you feel?”

“Good.”

You grinned, sliding off him and stretching languidly before settling back onto the bed. You exhaled, content. Bucky turned his head to look at you, still slightly frozen in place, as if unsure what to do next. His brows furrowed slightly. “What… what about you? Don’t you want to…?”

You snorted. “That doesn’t matter. This was about you, not me.”

He hesitated, clearly still unused to receiving something without feeling obligated to return it. “But I feel bad leaving you—”

“I’m fine, trust me.” You hummed, closing your eyes as you nestled into the warmth of his arm. “We have a long way to go before you need to be thinking about that.”

Bucky went quiet. You could feel his gaze lingering on you, unreadable.

For a moment, you weren’t sure if he would say anything at all. But then, after a beat of silence, you felt him shift beside you. A hesitant hand—warm and slightly calloused—ghosted over your arm before settling on your waist, drawing you in closer.

“…Thank you,” he murmured at last.

PART TWO

#welp guess i'm a bucky simp now #blame thunderbolts #bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you

10K notes · View notes