motherroam-rs

[motherroam-rs]

ok if you’re following me for lover you should have come over - CHAPTER 3 SHOULD HOPEFULLY BE UP TONIGHT I AM GRINDING TO GET THIS DONE!!

[motherroam-rs]

Killing you softly

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x fem!reader

Authors note: this is my very first Bucky request and I'm enormously nervous 🙈 A huge thanks to the one and only absolutely amasing friend @thenameswinter99 for betareading! Your comments gave me back the slowly fading confidence in this story 😘

Warnings: fluff, SMUT 18+, lots of angst, gets a bit cheesy towards the end 😅

Word Count: 11 K (sorry)

Summary: based on this request – where reader is sent to infiltrate/kill the thunderbolt but falls in love instead

Morning crept in quietly, folding over the room like a soft blanket, pale light filtered through the blinds in narrow stripes, tracing faint silver lines across the tangle of sheets that wrapped around your hips. The world was hushed, as if the Tower itself held its breath, and all you could hear was the steady, rhythmic sound of his breathing behind you – slow, deep and  unguarded. 

Bucky’s arm was draped over your waist, the cool weight of vibranium resting against your bare skin while his chest rose and fell against your back in an easy, comforting rhythm. His scent lingered on the pillow beside yours, a hint of his cologne, something smoky, maybe cedar. The sheets still carried the warmth of the night before, and the memories of what had passed between you pressed faintly against your skin like bruises made of longing.

There was a pleasant soreness in your muscles, and not only there, that reminded you of the heated trail of Bucky’s lips along the lines and curves of your body, of the steady and slightly desperate grip of his hands on your hips as if he was afraid to let you drift too far, even for a second, of the way he sank into you, deeply, unhurriedly, the firm drag of him inside you matching each breathless beat of your heart. There was strength and force in him, yes, but also something softer, a tenderness in every movement, as if he wasn’t just taking you, he was choosing you, over and over again.

You lay still for a long time, eyes open, watching the way dust floated in the sunbeams slicing through the air and your fingers brushed the edge of his arm, tracing the subtle grooves in the plates of metal. He didn’t stir. 

You should’ve moved sooner.

Carefully, you shifted your legs, slow and deliberate, testing each motion like stepping through shallow water. His grip didn’t change and you carefully inched forward, trying to slip out from beneath his arm without disturbing him, toes just grazing the cool floor.

But the moment your weight shifted too far, his body moved with yours, a low, sleepy groan vibrated against your back, followed by a stronger pull. His arm flexed and wrapped tight around your waist, drawing you back into the curve of him and you let out a soft gasp as your spine pressed once again to the solid heat of his chest.

“Where do you think you’re going?” His voice was gravelly with sleep, his breath warm against the side of your neck.

You froze for half a second, then let out a small laugh under your breath. “Bucky.”

“Mmm?” he hummed, lips brushing lazily along your shoulder as his hand slid from your stomach to your ribs and back again, something between a caress and a claim. He wasn’t letting you go.

“I have to go,” you murmured, not yet trying to break away again. “It’s already late.”

“So?” he said softly, burying his face in your hair, his scruff ticklingtickled your skin, but the touch still managed to feel tender. “Too late. Might as well stay now.”

Your chest rose with a sigh you didn’t mean to let out. “Yelena’s already watching me. She’s sharp, you know that. If she sees me walking out of your room again…”

“Let her.”

You turned your head just slightly, enough to glance back at him. He hadn’t opened his eyes, but he wasn’t asleep anymore either, not fully. There was a calmness in his voice, but also a note of something heavier, something certain, unbothered even.

“She’ll ask questions,” you whispered. “They all will.”

He lifted his head just enough to press a slow kiss behind your ear, then another against the side of your jaw. “So what?”

“So what?” you echoed, turning now, properly, until you were lying half on your back, half on your side. “Are you serious now? You know how this works, Bucky. I can’t be seen sneaking around like this. I’ll look… unprofessional.”

His brow ticked upward slightly, but his gaze didn’t leave yours. “You think that’s what this is? Unprofessional?”

You flinched at the way the word sounded in his mouth, it didn’t belong here, not in this quiet space, not with the way his thumb was brushing your hip bone so gently it made your breath catch.

“You know,” you said carefully, “if this ever gets out, I could be pulled from the duty, reassigned or worse.”

Bucky exhaled slowly, the breath warm and grounding against your skin, as he leaned in and kissed you, soft and certain. His lips moved against yours firmly as he teasingly pecked your lower lip and then let this tongue sweep inside, making you gasp. 

You kissed him back, despite yourself, despite the voice in your head shouting danger.

When he pulled back, just enough to rest his forehead against yours, his voice was quieter than before.

“Why don’t we just tell them?”

The question hung between you like smoke after an explosion.

You stared at him, your heart ticking up slowly. “Are you serious?”

His gaze didn’t waver. “Yeah. I’m tired of hiding it.”

You blinked, startled by the ache rising suddenly in your chest. “Bucky…”

He kissed you again.

You tried to resist this time, tried to put a hand on his chest and speak, but his mouth found yours again, soft and insistent, and you simply didn’t find the strength nor the will in you to push him away. 

“This could ruin me,” you breathed between kisses.

“I’d never let that happen.”

“It’s not your call…”

He silenced you again, his lips brushing across your cheek, your mouth, the pulse at your throat, your arguments thinned in your mind, losing shape, dissolving in the warmth of him, in the quiet hum beneath your skin that had nothing to do with logic, or even common sense.

“Bucky… I really do need to…,” you tried feebly, but your voice lacked assertiveness and Bucky instantly noticed it. 

He kissed you before you could finish, not rushed, not demanding, just that slow, unshakable kind of kiss that made it impossible to hold onto anything else, not worry, not reason, not the ticking of time outside the door.

His lips moved against yours with aching patience, one hand cradling your face, the other sliding beneath the sheet to rest warm and heavy at your waist as he shifted closer, nudging your thighs apart with a subtle insistence that made your breath hitch. 

“Don’t go, not yet,” he whispered.

You opened your mouth to reply, but the words dissolved before they reached your tongue, his fingers slipped beneath the sheet and found your hand, lacing through your fingers, and you did what you had done the night before, and the other night before that, so many times now that you had almost lost count.

You gave in, not because it was safe, not because it was smart, but because when he looked at you like that, like you were the first and last thing he believed in – you wanted to believe it too. 

For a little while longer. 

He rolled over you, slowly, gently, and you let him. The sheet slipped down your body as he moved above you, his weight pressing you softly into the mattress, settling between your thighs. He hovered there for a moment, just looking at you, as if he was trying to memorize something, as if he didn’t know how many more mornings like this you'd have.

His hair fell across his brow, mussed and soft, the blue in his eyes dulled by sleep but no less piercing. You felt the brush of his cock against your thigh, already hard, already aching, and a slow warmth bloomed deep in your belly.

“Bucky…”

Another kiss, deeper, this time, slower, he dragged his mouth down your jaw, along your throat, until you arched beneath him in response. His metal hand skimmed the inside of your thigh, parting you, and when his fingers slid through the slick between your legs, he groaned against your skin.

“You’re already wet,” he murmured, more to himself than to you. “God, I love how you wake up for me.”

Your breath caught. “We shouldn’t…”

“We already did,” he whispered, lining himself up, his body settling more firmly against yours. “And I’m not done with you yet.”

The first slow push of him inside you made your spine arch off the mattress. The stretch, the pressure – it was too much and not enough, all at once. He filled you in one long, steady stroke, his hips meeting yours as you gasped into his mouth and he kissed the sound from your lips.

Then he started to move, not fast, not frantic, just deep, slow thrusts that made the air catch in your lungs and your fingers curl into his shoulders, the kind of rhythm that made time feel distant, irrelevant.

“Look at me,” he said softly, brushing your hair back from your face. “Please.”

You did and that was your undoing because he looked at you the way nobody had ever looked at you – like you were the only thing that really mattered to him in this moment. 

Bucky moved within you like he had all the time in the world, like he could love you out of whatever you were hiding and for a moment – for one long, suspended moment – you let yourself believe it.

You let yourself believe you could stay.

His hips rocked in an unhurried rhythm, so deep and steady it made your toes curl and your thoughts slip away like smoke, each thrust dragging delicious friction along your inner walls, drawing soft, breathless moans from your lips before you could silence them. 

His mouth never left your skin for long, when he wasn’t kissing you, he was trailing his lips along your jaw, your throat, your collarbone, pressing open-mouthed kisses that were equal parts tender and needy. You felt the scrape of his stubble as he dragged his mouth lower, the edge of it just enough to make your breath catch when he kissed the hollow between your breasts.

One hand cradled your cheek, thumb brushing just under your eye, the other - metal one – slid down your side, cool and heavy, smoothing over your waist, your hip, before he gripped the back of your thigh and pulled you closer, deeper, making you gasp his name.

And oh, the way he responded to that, groaning low and rough, like the sound of your voice just undid him. He leaned in and kissed you again, his tongue stroking slowly against yours in time with the way his body moved inside you, unrushed, deep, claiming, like he needed you to feel every inch of him, every second he was within you.

Your hands fisted in his hair as he dipped his head, lips brushing across your breast, then closing around your nipple, his tongue circled around it, before he gently sucked on it, making you arch into him with a trembling moan. His metal hand then moved to your other breast, the contrast of cool vibranium and heated skin making your body jerk with startled pleasure.

You whimpered, and he smiled against your skin, just barely, but you felt it, you felt how much he was holding back, how much of this was not for him, it was just for you.

When he looked up again, pupils blown wide, cheeks flushed, lips kiss-bitten, you saw it – the raw affection, the hunger, the care.

You tried to say something, but the words didn’t come, his next thrust was firmer, deeper, grinding just right, and all that escaped your lips was a broken cry.

“Let go. I’ve got you,” he whispered against your lips, and you did, you wrapped your arms around his back and held on as your body arched beneath him. You moaned into his mouth as the pleasure crested, wave after wave rolling through you, pulling your body tight around him until you were trembling beneath his weight.

He followed you not long after, hips stuttering as he groaned your name, and when it was over, when your bodies were still tangled together, skin slick with sweat and breath still uneven, he didn’t let you go.

He held you there, still inside you, his arms wrapped tightly around you. He kissed you slowly, tenderly – soft, teasing presses of his lips along your jaw, the corner of your mouth, then down the column of your throat, his breath hot and a little unsteady. A sharp exhale left him as his fingers curled tighter against your skin, as if holding you closer could keep the moment from slipping away.

You didn’t know how long you lay there afterward, tangled beneath the sheets, your body draped over his, cheek pressed to the warmth of his chest, while Bucky’s fingers traced lazy circles along your spine, the kind that said stay, without asking it out loud.

Eventually, you slipped away, not because you wanted to, because you had to.

He murmured something as you rose, a soft protest half-lost in the pillow, but he didn’t stop you this time. You kissed his shoulder before you went, just once, just enough to feel him shift toward you, seeking your warmth even as you pulled away.

The bathroom door clicked shut behind you, but you didn’t turn on the light. Morning had crept in fully now, and the room was softly lit in blue-grey hues, the light fracturing through blinds and bouncing off tile. 

You paused before lifting your eyes to the mirror, hands braced on either side of the sink, head bowed.

Then, slowly, you looked up and winced at your own reflection, staring back at you with hair tousled, lips swollen, skin flushed in the way that made you look like you were glowing from the inside out. You looked ruined, wrecked… soft.

You looked happy, and that realization was killing you softly. 

Bucky was killing you softly.

You swallowed hard, gripping the edge of the sink until your knuckles ached. The soreness between your legs still throbbed with the memory of him inside you, not just the physical weight of him, but the way he’d held you after, arms wrapped tight around your waist, nose buried in your hair like you were the only thing keeping him steady.

You weren’t supposed to feel this way, damn it, you shouldn’t feel happy, you shouldn't even know what happiness means. You were not made for that.

Your breathing turned shallow as you stared at yourself for a long time, searching for the version of you that had walked into this tower months ago – cold, focused, ready. But to your absolute dread, you couldn’t find her. She wasn’t here, not in this body, not in this mirror. 

You cursed as you closed your eyes, stiffening by the strange sensation of warm liquid dampening your cheeks. Your eyes instantly fluttered open as in surprise you touched your face and marvelled at your wet fingers. What the hell was that?

It started half a year ago, in a hospital basement in Washington D.C., under lights too white to feel real.

You were still recovering, though you’d never say it out loud. The burns and wounds were mostly healed, but the deeper damage, the invisible one that didn’t show on scans and screens, took longer and it didn’t scar, it calcified and sank into the bones, but it made you stronger. Or at least that’s what you told yourself.

A woman you’d never seen before sat across the table from you with a file in her hands. Expensive heels, perfect lipstick, a polite smile that never once reached her eyes, not even when she tried. 

"You're stable," she’d said. “Sharp, excellent results in every category. Impressive.” She flipped open a file, tapping a fingernail against the page.  

“Two Distinguished Service Acknowledgements,” she noted, raising an eyebrow with mock awe. “Awarded in secrecy. No Service Cross and no Medal of Honor, though, which is of course not surprising. They don’t really hand those out for the kind of work you’ve been doing.”

She smirked and winked at you.

You said nothing, you didn’t like her, but she wasn’t wrong.

What could you say? You just shrugged, eyes drifting to the wall behind her, as if it might offer answers the Pentagon hadn’t. As if any of it mattered anyway. 

It didn’t, it wouldn’t bring back your team. They were gone, all of them. You had failed.

You had always known what you were signing up for when you were recruited to join the Swift Intervention Special Task Force.

There was no glamour in the title, no medals, no news coverage. The SIS Task Force wasn’t the kind of unit that existed on paper, and if you were smart, you never said its name out loud.

You didn’t wear a uniform, you didn’t salute flags, you did the work others didn’t want to admit had to be done – quiet work, bloody work, the kind that came in sealed envelopes and ended in unmarked graves.

You had been good at it from the beginning – no hesitation, no mess, no questions.

You rose fast, you were efficient, precise, you led missions with surgical clarity, every movement clean, every loose end tied. You had a knack for reading a mark. It seemed you knew in advance where they’d run, who they’d trust, where they’d hide and when it came time to pull the trigger or slip the knife between the ribs, you didn’t flinch.

Not because you enjoyed it, but because you knew it had to be done, because thousands of people could live their lives and sleep soundly in their beds, never knowing what danger you’d cut down before it reached them.

They trained you for that, conditioned you to keep your heartbeat low, your voice calm, your eyes dry. They didn’t want soldiers; they wanted instruments and you became one, and you were brilliant at it.

You had drifted away in your thoughts, but the lady kept talking.

"I’ve read the records: Dakar, Riga, Budapest. You pulled your team through a lot of hell, held the line when the others panicked, didn't freeze under pressure.”

Pause.

“And for that, you got... oh wow – nothing.”

She tapped the file again, harder this time, like the paper itself had offended her.

You didn’t react, you already knew what was in there. 

What the hell she wanted from you? You weren’t even active anymore. Dismissed and discharged after the last op went sideways, burned by bad intel, but instead of asking who had passed it on or where the possible leak came from, they took the easier route – they blamed you. 

Some part of you had always known it would end this way.

You were disposable, a ghost on payroll, you didn’t even exist, not if you asked the official records, no rank, no pension, no name.

Still it stung, how easily they cast you aside, how quickly they forgot what you had done for them.

Another pause, longer now, then, quietly, almost as an afterthought, she added:

"I’ve also read the incident report from Lagos."

That made you look up.

“You lost your sister,” she said, too gently. “Because Wanda Maximoff threw a bomb into a building. The blast killed eleven, your sister was one of them.”

You hadn’t told anyone that, you didn’t even share the same surname.

You had spent years searching for her, the adoption agency refusing to release the relevant information, citing laws and sealed records. Every request you made hit another dead end, every door closed a little harder.

And when you finally found her… she was taken from you.

You hadn’t even had time to grieve, you didn’t know how to grieve for someone you’d barely known, someone who was only just beginning to feel real.

You did what you always did - you just pushed everything down and kept moving.

So how the hell did she know?

Valentina Allegra de Fontaine – she’d introduced herself like the whole world should already know her name. You didn’t, at least not right away. And now she smiled at you like she knew your blood type, what you’d eaten for breakfast, and the color of your underwear.

But she had managed to pique your interest.

“I’m leading a small unit within the CIA,” she said, tone light, almost conversational. “We’re tasked with monitoring the post-Avengers fallout. Super-powered individuals acting without oversight. Wreckage in their wake, no trials, no accountability. Sound familiar?”

You said nothing, the lump in your throat made speech impossible.

But she saw it anyway, the subtle twitch of your fingers, the way your jaw locked a fraction too tight.

"You still want to serve,” she said, leaning forward, voice softening. “Just not under the same flag, not under the same fantasy of clean hands."

That was when she slid another file across the table. You looked down at the cover  – The New Avengers.

And it finally hit you as you lifted your gaze back to her. 

“You’re in charge of them,” you said. “Aren’t you?”

“Theoretically, yes,” she admitted, with a small smile. But there was a flash of steel in her eyes that didn’t escape you. “Practically... there are obstacles.”

She didn’t need to name them, you could feel it coming.

“You’ll be embedded as a liaison,” she continued. “Officially, you’re the bridge between federal command and the team. Unofficially…”

She slid a grainy photo toward you over the table with a man caught mid-motion, rifle half raised and face in shadow.

James Buchanan Barnes.

Your mouth went dry.

“The Winter Soldier,” she said. “Ex-HYDRA assassin – rehabilitated, or so they say,” she shrugged with her shoulders. “He’s one of the obstacles I’m talking about. He’s unstable, pushes back against the chain of command, doesn’t truly answer to anyone.”

She let the words linger.

“He’s a ticking time bomb. If he breaks,” she said at last, “no one will stop him. The New Avengers? They’ll go down with him. He’s dangerous. You’re the contingency…, the insurance.”

A beat.

“You are perfect for this role and you are our only hope. Build trust, watch him… and when the time comes…”

A beat and a breath.

“When the time comes… your task will be to engineer a suicide op. Fabricated intel, a civilian threat—something big enough to get his attention and pull him in.”

She’d said it so casually, like they were just moving pieces on a board.

“Things happen in the field, you know, malfunctioning rifles, faulty ammo, delays in extraction.”

A pause. Then that cold smile in her voice.

“You’ll need to get creative. But I trust you’ll figure it out.”

Her eyes had glinted then, cold and certain.

“You’ll set the trap. I’ll make sure it snaps shut. And together, we’ll end this.”

“And what about the rest of the team?”

“Bucky Barnes is the primary target. The rest… are acceptable losses.”

You should’ve said no and walked out.

But the truth was, you believed it, deep down, beneath the layers of discipline and training, beneath blood-splattered hands and nights spent waking with a cry caught in your throat, you believed in what you had been doing and you also believed super-soldiers shouldn’t exist.

You’d seen what they left behind – the wreckage, the headlines, the body bags, your team had been called in more than once to help clean up after them.

You said yes, not out of revenge, no. You said yes because you wanted to make a difference, you wanted back the feeling that your work had meaning, that it left the world even a little less broken than before and that maybe this time, you could do the damage control before the damage was even done – before someone else had to clean up, again, what the so-called heroes never stayed long enough to see. 

You stared back at your reflection, motionless.

The mirror offered no comfort, it was just a sheet of cold glass showing you exactly what you didn’t want to see – a softness in your eyes that didn’t belong to someone like you, a softness that had no place in your line of work.

You didn’t recognize yourself.

Fuck, when did it all go wrong?

Two months in, and you'd learned to walk the line like a pro, not that you'd been new to it. 

Valentina had kept her word. You were reinstated almost overnight, rehabilitated, cleared of all charges, and returned to active service, and the last operation vanished from your record as if it had never existed. 

You knew it was leverage, Valentina had made that more than clear. One wrong step, and it would all be undone, you wouldn’t just lose your position, you’d be buried under charges of misconduct, your career erased for good. But you didn’t care.

You were back, and for now, that was all that mattered.

You were embedded as a liaison and some kind of oversight, but somewhere between field briefings and late-night post-mission reports, your role very quickly began to bleed at the edges. 

You knew the job, you weren’t just watching them anymore, you started helping them.

You’d been on every mission from day one, surveillance, satellite feeds, target assessment, retreat routes, you ran threat analysis in your head faster than the system could model it.

You learned quickly which kinds of intel Yelena trusted (firsthand witness reports, not automated analysis), what Red Guardian responded to best (tactical validation, ego pressure), and which alerts would get Bucky’s attention immediately (civilians at risk, hints at possible Hydra leftovers).

You made yourself useful in a world of mistrust, where usefulness was currency and you were rich in it.

You proposed alternate access routes during a high-risk extraction that saved Ava from getting cornered, bypassed a firewall using a trick you picked up from an MI6 asset years ago and solved a hostage trade impasse with a comms disruption that turned the opposition’s earpieces into dead weight.

They started listening to you, even Bucky, and slowly, one nod at a time, they stopped treating you like a threat.

You didn’t let that go to your head, you couldn’t afford to, but you took note, quietly, like you did with everything else. 

And with every day you spent inside the Tower, every mission briefing, every shared meal, every offhand joke tossed your way, something strange began to stir beneath your skin – a quiet, persistent hum that you couldn’t shake.

You told yourself it was strategy, that blending in meant playing the part a little too well, that earning their trust meant knowing their rhythms, their habits, their fears, but it was more than that.

Somehow, without you even noticing when it happened, something had shifted, as they didn’t feel like a mark anymore, they felt like a team – your team.

You started caring where they went after missions, started paying attention to their signs, you noticed Yelena’s fake bravado when she was limping, Ava’s tight jaw when the intel didn’t sit right, the way Bucky always exhaled, sharp and quiet, before strapping on his weapons, like he needed that one breath to steady everything inside him.

You started noticing the patterns, and it was not what the New Avengers did that actually got under your skin, it was what they didn’t do, what Bucky didn’t do. 

You noticed how he meticulously refused any mission brief that revolved solely around elimination, how his fingers hovered over those flagged red lines in reports with "terminate on sight," "use of lethal force authorized", and how he always asked twice for updated civilian risk assessments, even when everyone else was already halfway to the jet.

You remembered one op in particular – northern corridor, extraction gone terribly wrong, comms crackling with static and gunfire. You were calling the shots, your voice cutting sharp through the feed.

Eliminate the target, Barnes, do it now – we’re losing control of the zone!

There was no hesitation in your tone, no room for second guesses, that’s what you’d been trained for: control the chaos, secure the outcome, clean execution.

But Bucky?

He didn’t even respond, just went radio silent, switched the damn comm off like you were noise he didn’t want in his ear and disappeared for over three hours, and when he finally reemerged, limping and bloody, he had the target alive, seized, contained but breathing.

You didn’t ask how close it had gotten, you didn’t have to, the med bay files were brutal: fractured ribs, deep lacerations, a punctured lung. He was back on his feet in two weeks,    two excruciating weeks, saved only by the brutal efficiency of supersoldier healing and a stubbornness you still didn’t fully understand. 

The look in your eyes must’ve said enough when you came to check on him.

He didn’t flinch under it, just sat shirtless on the edge of the medical cot, arm in a sling, bruises blooming across his ribs, and met your gaze with that maddening, quiet calm.

“Wasn’t gonna kill someone just because it got loud,” he said.

As if it were that simple, but maybe for him, it was. 

That moment never quite left you, not because it changed the outcome of the op, but because it changed the way you looked at him and them, and maybe even yourself.

You had been built for precision, for speed, for silence, for the fastest route from Point A to a body bag, but Bucky wasn’t like you, not anymore, maybe not ever.

And somewhere in that gap between how you were trained and how he chose to be you started to wonder which of you had been broken worse and which of you had somehow managed to stay whole.

Which of you was the real threat?

After that mission, something between you changed, maybe it had already begun before, but that day, seeing him bruised and bloodied, refusing to take the easy kill, something shifted in the silence between you.

You weren’t in the field, but you carried the weight of it all in a different way – through voices in your ear, split-second decisions, and maps streaked with target and enemy movement. You watched missions unfold from a control room lined with flickering monitors and hollow silence, your heart skipping a beat with every risk they took, with every risk he took.

You tried to tell yourself, again and again, that this was just your job, that there was no harm in making yourself useful while you waited. You were placed here for a reason, after all, to observe, to evaluate, to be in position when the time came, so why not offer tactical support? Why not keep them alive and useful in the meantime?

It sounded so rational in your head, clean, practical, professional, but deep down, in that part of yourself you rarely dared to look into, you knew it wasn’t about duty anymore, you weren’t helping them as a part of your disguise, you were helping them because you couldn’t bear to lose them, not again.

You had lost your team once before, the real one, the one that trained beside you, bled beside you, trusted you. You had watched them fall, one by one, because of bad intel and a chain of command that saw them as assets, not people. 

You weren’t supposed to feel this way, you weren’t supposed to need them, but you did, and every time Bucky’s voice crackled through your comms, every time he looked at you like you were something steady in his fractured world, you felt that tether tighten around your ribs.

It’s not that easy, you had started arguing with yourself, more often than you wanted to admit, as you tried to rationalize, to recalibrate, to drag yourself back into the clarity of your mission, but the voice inside you refused to quiet.

That unbearable, gnawing whisper had only grown louder since Bucky and the New Avengers had entered your life, questioning everything, your orders, your purpose, the very shape of your identity.

Sometimes, it got to be too much, so much that you had to lock yourself in the bathroom, turn on the shower, to drown out the sound, and press your back against the tile, biting your fist until your teeth met blood, screaming into the steam until your throat burned raw.

Because what was happening inside you wasn’t part of the plan and it was starting to feel irreversible, and Bucky wasn’t making it exactly easier. 

At first, he would just nod to you after a successful op, a quiet acknowledgment, nothing more, but then he started pausing longer in the debriefing room, hovering after missions, waiting until the others had cleared out, before wandering over to where you sat at your desk, eyes red from hours spent scanning field data.

“You alright? You barely blinked the last four hours.” or “You saved us back there, I hope you know that.”

The first time he brought you coffee, you thought it was a fluke, but then it happened again and again, and one morning, when your hands were trembling after a sleepless night, he didn't hand it over, he just set it down quietly and placed his warm, callused palm over yours.

You didn’t even realize how badly you needed it until that moment.

And when something did go wrong, when a transmission cut out mid-op and someone of the team went dark for ten agonizing minutes, it was Bucky who found you afterward, not with questions, not with blame, just a silent presence at your back, his voice low as he leaned beside your chair.

“You did everything right, it was not your fault.”

You didn’t reply, you couldn’t, your jaw was tight, your chest hollow, but when he placed a hand gently at the base of your neck, you exhaled seemingly for the first time in hours.

There was one night you stayed long past shift change, half-asleep at your station, files open, eyes burning. You didn’t hear him enter, only felt the warmth of him beside you, the quiet scent of his cologne mixed with gun oil.

“You should go home,” he said gently.

You smiled without looking up. “I am home.” And it wasn’t even a lie, somehow, slowly, the Tower, so intimidating when you first arrived, had become your home.

“Then at least take a break,” he said, a half-smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

You finally looked up at him and something shifted inside you, a flicker of impulse, sharp and playful, chasing the exhaustion from your bones.

“Feel like sparring?”

Bucky blinked. “Now?”

You shrugged, a glint of mischief slipping into your eyes. “Unless you’re afraid of me.”

He huffed out a laugh, cocking his head. “Afraid? Come on. You’re the brain, not the brawn. You don’t have to prove anything.”

“Didn’t answer the question,” you said, already rising to your feet. “Are you afraid of me, Barnes?”

“Oh, now it’s ‘Barnes,’ huh?”

You grinned.

He followed you down to the training floor, shaking his head like you’d already lost. The room was mostly empty, dimmed to its night settings, only a few lights humming to life as you stepped onto the mat.

Bucky stretched his shoulders lazily, still half-playful, clearly expecting an easy round, as you took your position opposite him, settling into stance.

And then you moved – fast, precise, controlled – the first strike was a feint; the second nearly took him off-balance. He blocked it just in time, eyes sharpening with sudden awareness, but you used the pause to shift your weight, hook his ankle with yours, and drop him halfway before he twisted out of it.

He rolled back to his feet, breath caught in surprise.

“Okay,” he said, blinking. “You’ve done this before.”

You shrugged, circling him. 

He grinned, slow and impressed now. “Alright. Show me what else you’ve got.”

And so you did, you danced around him – measured, practiced, unafraid. He landed a few holds, but never for long, you slipped out of them, used your momentum, stayed unpredictable. 

You could feel him holding back, careful with his strength, as he knew you were no match for it, but in speed and technique, you were equals. You used it to your advantage, every bit of your smaller frame leveraged with precision, ducking under his reach, twisting out of his grip, turning his size into your weapon.

Eventually, he caught you. You went in for a quick strike, light on your feet, and he read it, his hands shot out, catching your wrists mid-motion, and before you could twist away, he pulled you in.

In one smooth motion, you were chest-to-chest, breath-to-breath, your hands pinned lightly between your bodies as he held your wrists. You looked up and he was already looking down at you, your chests heaving, bodies flushed and gleaming with effort, and for a beat, neither of you moved.

His hands were warm against your skin, yours curled against his chest, he was so close, closer than you had ever seen him – close enough that you could see the glint of metal where it met flesh at his shoulder, the soft exhaustion in his eyes.

He looked at you like he’d been thinking about this for a long time, there was a heartbeat of hesitation, and then he leaned in and his lips brushed yours.

No warning, no words, just one quiet, careful kiss, like he was afraid to ask for more but had to ask for something.

You didn’t stop him, you didn’t pull away, because this was what you’d been working toward, wasn’t it? Gaining his trust, earning his confidence.

And now, now you had more than that, you had his affection – this was better than you’d expected, more effective. You kept telling yourself over and over that this was progress, advantage, leverage.

But the truth was, as you stood there, his lips lingering against yours, his breath warm on your cheek, you simply melted into his touch with a soft moan dancing on your lips.

It didn’t happen quickly.

There were weeks of glances that lasted too long, of lingering hands on shoulders, of whispered conversations that faded into silence not because there was nothing left to say, but because everything was beginning to say too much.

You kissed in secret, at first, late at night, in quiet corners of the Tower, behind closed doors when no one could catch you off guard. They were soft kisses, sweet and searching, like neither of you could quite believe the other was real, the warmth of his palm cupping your cheek.

You touched each other like teenagers, tentative and reverent, fingers tracing the lines of arms, the curve of a back, the fluttering pulse in a neck, never rushing, never taking, just exploring, just learning, like this was something new to both of you.

You told yourself it was harmless, until the night it wasn’t.

He kissed you the second the door of his room closed behind your back. It was hard, messy and desperate, like he’d been holding back for far too long and couldn’t take it anymore. Something snapped in you and you kissed him back with just as much urgency, your fingers already clawing at the hem of his shirt, tugging it up his chest.

His hands found your waist and lifted your shirt over your head with a rough pull, his breath hitching when he looked at you. “You sure?”

You nodded. “Shut up and get over here.”

You kissed like you'd been dying for this, half-dressed, half-drunk on the heat between you. Bucky’s hands were everywhere, gripping your hips, cupping your breasts, dragging down the zipper of your jeans with one hand while the other kept you steady against the wall.

Your clothes hit the floor in a scattered trail, his followed just as frantically. You tore at his belt, impatient, the clink of the buckle snapping loudly before he grabbed your wrists and pushed them above your head, drawing his mouth along the line of your neck.

By the time you hit the mattress, your lungs were burning and your skin was on fire, he crawled over you, hands rough but careful, sliding between your thighs, spreading you open with a soft groan. “Fuck… look at you.”

Your breath caught as his fingers slid through the slick heat of you while he watched your face the whole time, like he wanted to memorize the way you reacted when he pushed one finger inside, then another. You bit your lip, but it didn’t help, you moaned, hips grinding down onto his hand like your body had been waiting just for this.

“Don’t tease,” you whispered.

“I’m not.” He leaned down, lips brushing your ear. “I just like seeing you like this.”

You watched as he gave his cock a few strokes before aligning himself with you and then with one steady push, he began to slide in, slow at first, letting you feel every inch of him, stretching you open, filling you completely, until your back arched and your mouth opened in a gasp. Your nails dug into his back, your thighs locked tight around his waist.

“Fuck,” he groaned. “Been thinking about this every damn night.”

He moved fast and deep, all control gone, the weeks of restraint snapped away. Every thrust was hard, purposeful, driving you up the mattress with the force of it and you met him just as eagerly, panting, clinging, your heels digging into his back, your fingers fisting in his hair.

There was no need to be gentle, not tonight, you kissed like you were starving, moaned into each other’s mouths, gripped and grabbed wherever your hands landed. He rolled you over without breaking the rhythm, let you ride him with your hands on his chest, head thrown back, sweat rolling down your spine while he thrusted up into you.

It was raw, loud, real and when you came, it ripped through you like a wave crashing hard and fast, your whole body tightening, shuddering, the sound you made ripped from deep inside your chest as you clenched around him, breath gone, mind blank. He followed right after, gasping your name, holding you flush as he spilled inside you.

And that was only the beginning of it all. 

After that night, everything changed, but only behind closed doors, in public, nothing between you shifted, no looks lingered too long, no hands brushed too close. 

It had to be that way, so you lived for the nights.

You waited until the Tower was quiet, until the footsteps faded, the lights dimmed, and the world outside your walls settled. 

“Come,” you would read on your screen and your feet were already carrying you toward his room.

Sometimes it wasn’t even that, sometimes it was just an emoji and a question mark. You’d send back something silly and sweet, then move quickly, quietly, making sure no one saw.

Bucky never locked his door anymore.

You’d slip into his room without turning on the light, he’d already be waiting, sometimes sitting on the edge of the bed with a book still in his lap, sometimes standing at the window like he could hear the city breathing. He’d turn the second he felt you near and hold you like it had been weeks instead of hours.

There weren’t always words, you didn’t need them. He’d kiss you slowly, press you into the mattress, bury his hands in your hair. Sometimes it was soft and unhurried, the kind of love that hummed under the skin like a lullaby, other times it was desperate, quiet moans bitten back, bodies moving together like a secret too dangerous to name.

And then, when it was over, you’d lay tangled in silence, his arm slung over your waist, your head tucked into the warm space beneath his collarbone – his breathing even, yours never quite steady.

The hardest part was the days he left. 

When a mission came in and he was assigned out, something inside you twisted like it was being wrung dry. You reviewed the intel yourself, again and again.

You triple-checked every route, every fallback zone, every civilian proximity flag, every satellite ping, because super soldier or not – he wasn’t invincible, he wasn’t immortal.

He bled, he bruised, he broke, and each time he left, you imagined what it would be like to hear his comm line go silent.

You stayed in the control room longer than anyone else, eyes glued to the screen, fingers clutched around your headset, barking orders in a clipped tone, like your life depended on it – because his did.

But you never let it show, not in the hallway, not during debrief, only later, in the quiet, when the Tower slept, and you stood outside his door, hand poised to knock, your whole body let go of something it didn’t even know it was holding.

And when he pulled you in, you held him tighter than you meant to.

You ran cold water over your wrists, not to cool down, you just wanted to feel something sharp and real.

You took a breath, then another, wiped your face and slowly pulled yourself back together with the precision they trained into you, layer by invisible layer, until the woman staring back from the mirror looked steady again and opened the door.

Bucky had pulled the blankets up, his body half-sunk into the mattress, but his eyes were on you the second you emerged – worried and searching.

“You okay?” he asked, voice low, still rough with sleep.

You nodded. “Yeah. Just needed a minute.”

He didn’t press, he never did, he reached for your hand instead, tugging you gently back toward the bed. Your phone buzzed, the sound cutting through the quiet.

You hesitated, hand still in his, then leaned down and picked it up from the floor near your discarded jeans.

One glance at the screen, and your breath stopped – just a single line, no other context. 

“Greenlight confirmed. Proceed.”

Your fingers closed around the phone slowly, knuckles whitening, you didn’t move, not right away.

Bucky was watching you now, brow creased. “Everything okay?”

You forced your eyes off the screen, met his gaze, nodded again.

“Yeah,” you lied. “Just work.”

He gave a small sigh, relaxing back against the pillows, still watching you like he could sense something he couldn’t name.

You set the phone down on the nightstand, carefully, like it might explode, and climbed back into bed, letting him wrap his arm around you and pull you close again, his breath brushing the back of your neck.

You didn’t move, you didn’t even breathe. The next move was yours, and the clock had just started ticking.

You found the op file on your desk, tucked among the morning’s mission briefings, just another folder in a neat pile, nothing about it stood out at first, same formatting, same red seal, same subtle watermark used on all high-clearance assignments.

Except the name: OP: SILENT MERIDIAN

It looked clean, a suspected weapons transfer routed through a civilian zone in Eastern Europe, with intel hinting at enhanced warfare tech, maybe Hydra leftovers. But you saw it for what it was the moment you read it: the bait in the trap you were meant to set, and you knew it would work, even the faintest whisper of Hydra was enough to catch Bucky’s attention, every time. 

The day passed in a blur, you couldn’t even remember how. At some point, you mumbled something about a terrible headache and left your post in the control room for the first time since you’d arrived at the Tower.

Back in your home, you collapsed face down on the bed, still fully dressed. Your phone buzzed a few minutes later, you didn’t have to look – you knew it was Bucky.

You didn’t answer, you didn’t have it in you and you didn’t sleep that night, you simply couldn’t.

You needed time, just a little, a day, a few hours, enough to think, to breathe, to figure out something, even if you knew how hopeless it was.

Could you disappear? Go dark, lay low, leave no trace and wait? Yes, you knew how, you’d done it before.

But then what? 

Valentina didn’t tolerate failure and she didn’t write off assets, if you disappeared, she would hunt you until the end of the world and she wouldn’t abandon the target that you were sure of. You would just lose everything for nothing.

And if you stayed, then what? Try to bury the hesitation forever and pretend the message never came? Keep lying until it all caught up with you?

Time was running out, you pressed your face into the pillow and screamed – raw, muffled, helpless – trying to smother the panic rising inside your chest.

There was no clean way out, there never had been.

Silence, absolute, smothering silence, no voices, no footsteps, no distant creak of a door, nothing to break the stillness, only the hollow hum of isolation pressing in from all sides. It felt as if the world itself had stopped breathing, leaving your thoughts to flutter wildly through your mind like startled birds, slamming against the cage of your brain.

You had never imagined silence could hurt like this, there were no windows, no vents, just smooth, seamless walls and a single light, humming  faintly above, too dim to comfort, too steady to ignore. You didn’t know how long you’d been there, an hour, a day, the silence made time bleed together.

You wanted to punch something, the wall, the floor, the weight in your own chest, but you knew better, it wouldn’t help, it wouldn’t change anything.

You sank down instead, back against the wall, knees drawn in, head resting in your hands and waited. You weren’t sure what for. 

Forgiveness? Judgment? 

You deserve this.

The voice inside your head was cruel, relentless, you pressed your hands over your ears, as if that could stop it, as if skin and bone could shield you from the echo of your own guilt. 

The memories of the past twenty-four hours came back in fragments, frayed at the edges like pages torn from a burning book.

You remembered entering the Tower in the morning again with steady and firm steps, you remembered reinspecting the equipment with a serious grin on your face.

You remembered your shaky breath as you adjusted the comms gears, slipped into the secure channel, rewrote the handshake protocol, and swapped out the team’s earpieces with ones you'd preloaded the night before. Each step was done smoothly, deliberately, under the hum of routine, like you weren’t about to change everything. 

You remembered typing: "Everything’s set" into your phone, as your fingers fought to stay steady. You had sent the message, tucked the phone out of sight, and lifted your head to face the team.

You remembered Bucky’s smile, the shy, questioning one he gave you across the briefing table. You’d shrugged in response, gave him the faintest tilt of your head, a wink so small it could be written off as nothing.

You had stood at the front of the room, walking them through OP: Silent Meridian in an even and professional tone. Suspected Hydra tech, civilian risk, tight window for extraction.

You watched them all as you spoke: John nodding, arms crossed, already planning out contingencies, Yelena flipping her blade idly between her fingers, pretending not to care, Ava looking down at the satellite images, eyes sharp, calculating and Bucky – quiet, focused, trusting you without question.

You wanted to scream, instead, you handed out the comm units, moving between them quickly, adjusting frequencies. It looked like normal preparation, no one asked questions. They trusted you.

The last comm earpiece clicked into place, and you took a breath just in the same moment as the lift doors opened and you heard the click of stilettos nearing.

Valentina walked into the room like she owned the place.

“Well,” she said, voice smooth and arch. “Aren’t we all very punctual today?”

Bucky stiffened beside you. “Didn’t know we were expecting company.”

“Spontaneous inspection,” she said with a cool smile. “You understand, with so many…assets in motion…”

You smiled, handed her another set of comms, and gave a casual wave toward the control center.

“I’ll activate the video transmission once they’re airborne. Too much signal interference in here,” you said before turning and following the team toward the jet.

You made one last pass through the jet’s onboard systems, pretending to double-check fuel reports and satellite overlays, while your fingers moved across the console, entering the altered final route sequence.

No one suspected anything, no one rechecked, they trusted you.

Bucky approached as you sealed the last panel, you felt him before you saw him.

“You good?” he asked softly, searching your face.

You nodded too quickly. “Just focused.”

“Looking forward to hearing your voice in my ear,” he had said, offering you a small smile that made your stomach knot.

You didn’t let yourself linger. “Yeah. You’ll be fine,” you said, already moving away before he could say more while the others were already gathering near the boarding ramp. 

You nodded, the doors sealed, and finally you were alone. Oh, no, not really, Valentina was waiting in the control room. 

She stood with her back to you when you entered, arms folded, posture precise. 

“Is it done?” she asked without turning.

“They’re in the air,” you replied calmly, stepping past her to the control console.

Your hands moved across the keys, typing in the code to initiate video feed access and a moment later, the overhead screen flickered to life, stabilizing into the camera feed from the jet – John reviewing the route, Yelena tossing her knife from hand to hand, Ava already strapped in, Alexei chewing something and Bucky sitting in the corner with an intense gaze.

Valentina watched, silent.

“Comm check’s clean,” you added, flicking on the audio.

She said nothing for a moment. “Good. It’s in motion,” she finally murmured.

You nodded once, keeping your expression neutral, and your gaze flicked to the monitors, as their voices filled the room softly with routine chatter, jokes, systems status. They had no idea.

The stakes were set and all you could do was wait. The thirty minutes until landing stretched like hours, each second dragging against your skin like wire, as you kept your eyes on the monitors, barely blinking, barely breathing. Every system light glowed green, every voice on the comm sounded normal, calm.

You stood still, but inside, everything burned.

“We’ve reached the position. Landing in 2 minutes” pilot’s voice in the comms announced and you grit your knuckles tighter.

The wheels met the ground, it was a clean landing, no alarms, no turbulence, just the quiet hiss of the hydraulics engaging as the jet rolled to a halt and the ramp lowered with a metallic groan.

The team moved fast and coordinated, and you watched them descend one by one. John first, scanning the perimeter, then Alexei, Ava and Yelena, Bucky came last, his weapon already in hand, eyes sharp.

They hadn’t made it five steps before everything erupted.

The first shot cracked through the audio so loud as if it was fired somewhere near you, you flinched, then came another. Shouting followed, muffled by the comm feed but rising fast.

The video feed shook slightly as someone ducked for cover, smoke burst from the edge of the screen, not from flame but from flash grenades or impact shells. Voices were overlapping, shouting positions, calling out to each other, someone yelling that they were pinned down.

You leaned closer to the console, heart lodged in your throat. It had begun.

You stepped deliberately toward the control panel, placed your finger on the comm switch, and flicked it off without hesitation.

Valentina’s head turned, but she said nothing.

The outgoing channel went dead, no more coordination, no more guidance, they were on their own now.

The incoming feed remained active, sound and video still flowing in, and you both watched figures moving through the haze, half-shrouded by smoke and flashing light. Muffled gunfire echoed through the room and you caught sight of Bucky for a heartbeat, somewhere in the middle of the chaos, shouting something you couldn’t make out.

You turned to Valentina. 

“Now that I’ve solved your problem with the New Avengers…,”  you met her eyes, calm and composed, “…what’s my next assignment?”

Valentina's smile spread slowly like the edge of a knife as she turned toward you, eyes gleaming with something you would call satisfaction.

“I have to say,” she murmured, “I wasn’t entirely sure you had it in you, but you delivered.”

She walked past you toward the console, gaze sweeping over the video feed still playing with gunfire flashing, smoke thickening, shouts overlapping through the audio.

“You did what needed to be done. Bucky Barnes was never going to fall in line. The rest of them? Losers. It was only a matter of time before they became a liability.”

She looked back at you, voice smooth as silk and let out a soft chuckle, almost amused. 

“I was beginning to wonder if you were switching sides,” Valentina said smoothly, eyes narrowing with something between suspicion and amusement. “My sources in the Tower mentioned… questionable behavior between you and Barnes. But I see now, that was part of the act. Well played.”

She smiled, thin and cold.

“Excellent infiltration, soldier, you did exactly what was needed. He was always the priority, the rest – collateral, acceptable losses.”

She stepped closer, her voice dropping to something that might have sounded like intimacy if not for the venom beneath it.

“You’ve done well, proven your loyalty. Don’t worry, you’ll be rewarded and there will be new assignments in time,” she placed a hand briefly on your shoulder with a cold, weightless touch.

You swallowed hard. It was done.

A strange sound interrupted your silent peaceful torment. You turned your head startled by the soft click of the door mechanism, drawing you back into this world, back into the empty space between the sterile and smooth walls of your cell.

You recognised the bootsteps, slow and measured, but you didn’t look up, you kept your gaze glued to the floor. You didn’t want to look at him. You didn’t want to see the disappointment, the resentment, the disgust in his eyes. 

The boots stopped just a few paces away, silence spilling into the space between you.

“That was a smart move,” he said at last, as you kept studying your shoes, “feeding the system a loop of our last simulated ambush drill… rerouting the outbound comm channels…” He paused and let the silence hang for a beat. “I’ll admit, we were pretty damn surprised when we realized the jet was turning back to the Tower after barely a few miles.We figured it was a glitch at first, but the override was buried so deep, no one could touch it.”

Something in his tone didn’t quite sound like anger, at least not yet, so slowly, you lifted your head.

“We heard everything,” he continued, “and we have enough now to put her away for life.”

Your gazes locked and his voice shifted, touched with something harder to read: “Well done, soldier.”

Was he mocking you?

You pushed yourself to your feet, uncertain, but needing to meet his gaze head-on. He took a step toward you and then another. Bucky���s storm-blue eyes locked onto yours until your back found the wall behind you.

You were trapped, not forcefully, but fully.

“As for you, it wasn’t that simple,” he said, voice low. “We had to vote on it.”

He leaned in slightly, bracing one arm against the wall beside your head. He was not touching, but close enough that you could feel the heat of him, the way his breath subtly caught in his chest.

“Bob wanted to let you go,” he added, gaze flicking down for the briefest second, “with an apology. The others… weren’t so forgiving.”

His eyes returned to yours and stayed there, watching as your breath came faster, your chest rising in shallow waves between you.

You swallowed hard, pulse thudding against your throat, feeling the cool wall at your back, but your skin was hot, nerves raw and buzzing just beneath the surface.

“And you?” The question slipped out, your voice rough and  dry like it had to drag its way up from somewhere deep and cracked. 

Bucky didn’t answer right away, his eyes were still fixed on yours like he was trying to make sense of the pieces still falling into place.

“I don’t know,” he said quietly, but the words landed harder than a shout.

“I want to hate you,” he said, voice low, his head tilting slightly. “I should hate you, you lied to us. You lied to me.”

He leaned in, close enough to breathe in your scent, so familiar, maddening, unwanted and wanted all at once.

Your heart pounded so hard it hurt, the edges of the room blurred, your vision narrowing until the only thing grounding you was that one word – “should”, echoing like a thread of hope in the wreckage.

Bucky’s gaze didn’t soften, but there was something raw behind it now, something stripped down and painful.

“You’re spending the rest of your life behind bars,” he said. You didn’t flinch, you were expecting this, but then he continued. “Your answer won’t change that.”

He paused, jaw tight, throat moving with a swallow.

“But I still want to know… I need to know…”

Another breath.

“Was any of it real? Or was it all a lie?”

You opened your mouth, but nothing came out, not at first.

How could it? Why was he even asking? You both knew there was no version of this answer that wouldn’t wound you both further, no version that would undo what you’d done, and yet he stood there, asking anyway, like he needed to hear it even if it broke him.

Your eyes burned, your throat tight as your gaze dropped from his and you tried to find steady ground, something inside you that hadn’t already caved in.

“It wasn’t a lie,” your voice cracked, and you hated that it did, but you still lifted your eyes back to his and forced yourself to hold his gaze.

“Not all of it. Not… you.”

He didn’t flinch, he didn’t look away, so you kept going, even when it hurt.

“You saved me, Bucky. You saw me before I even remembered how to be someone worth seeing, and you looked at me like I was human when I didn’t believe I was anymore.”

You drew in a shaky breath, your ribs feeling too tight around your frantically beating heart.

“I love you, Buck,” you said, voice cracking, “but I also know I’ve ruined everything.”

You saw the way his expression flickered, but he didn’t interrupt you.

“I should’ve come clean sooner. That’s the one thing I’ll regret for the rest of my life,” you forced a small breath through your lungs, steadying. “Not saying yes to the mission, not even the lies… because they led me to you, and I wouldn’t trade knowing you for anything.”

Your hand trembled, despite your will not to let it, as you lifted it to his face, the motion hesitant at first, like you weren’t sure you had the right anymore, but he didn’t pull away.

You cupped his cheek gently, the stubble so pleasantly rough beneath your palm, and your thumb hovered just shy of his bottom lip, aching to remember the feel of his kiss one last time.

“I need you to leave now,” you whispered. “Please. Give me the dignity of not falling apart while you’re still standing in front of me.”

You let your hand fall, even though every part of you wanted to stay in that contact a moment longer, but you knew if you didn’t break it now, you wouldn’t be able to.

The silence that followed was vast, so wide and huge it might’ve swallowed you whole. You pressed your palms against the wall behind you, trying to ground yourself in something solid, something that wouldn’t leave when the door closed.

Bucky didn’t move at first.

He just stood there, staring at you, his breath coming hard, fists flexing at his sides like he was trying to keep something caged, and then, without a word, he surged forward.

One breath later, you were pinned to the wall, his body pressed against yours, solid and shaking, and his mouth was on yours so fierce and claiming, that it knocked the breath out of you. It was nothing like the careful kisses you knew from before.

The sound that ripped from your throat was somewhere between a gasp and a whimper and it made him chuckle, low and dark, the sound curling down your spine.

Your eyes fluttered shut, your heart thundered against your ribs, erratic, terrified, aching.

“Bucky…” you whispered, barely able to speak through the heat. “The cameras…”

“You’re not the only one who knows how to tamper with a feed,” he murmured, voice dark and sure, lips grazing your jaw as he spoke.

Your breath caught as his hand slid lower, rough and firm, skating the edge between desperation and fury, between punishment and want.

“Is this what you want?” he rasped. “Because this… this is all that’s left. This is the only part of me you can have now. So, tell me.”

A sharp and splintered sob clawed its way up to your throat, part fear, part ache, part confusion. You couldn’t hold it back.

For a second you hesitated, panic clawing at the edges of your mind, this wasn’t the version of him you’d known, or maybe it was, maybe this was the part your betrayal had cracked open, the part you couldn’t mend.

But even as your thoughts spiraled, your body betrayed you, leaning into him, aching for him. Was it truly a betrayal if you’d never stopped needing him, if you still loved every broken piece of what you had ruined, if you never stopped craving the way only he could make you feel something close to whole?

If this rough, angry, hurt version of him was the only shape his love could take now, you would still take it, grateful for even this scrap of closeness. You would take this twisted, fragile remnant of what once was and you would carry it like both – a wound and a memory.

You swallowed, hard, blinked through the tears stinging at the edges of your vision, then looked up, right into him, unflinching.

“Yes,” you breathed, voice trembling. “Always.”

The second the word slipped from your lips, he pulled away, stepped back like something inside him had snapped, like staying close to you even one second longer might break him beyond repair. His eyes wouldn’t even meet yours anymore, voice low, flat, almost distant.

“You’ve got fifteen minutes.”

You blinked, confused and still breathless.

“Until the guards notice the feed’s been looped,” he added, turning toward the door without another glance. “Use them wisely.”

And with that, he stepped out into the corridor, the door remained open behind him, but he didn’t look back.

Bucky sat hunched forward in the dim light of his room, elbows braced on his knees, head in his hands.

He hadn’t moved since returning from the cell. The fifteen minutes he had given you were long past, any moment now, the alarm would sound, confirming the one truth he knew was coming, that you were gone, escaped, ran away.

He’d told himself he’d made peace with it. It had been his choice, after all, to give you a second chance, the kind he’d once been given and he meant it. He had to let you go, because after everything, after what he’d learned, after what it had done to both of you, he knew he couldn’t force a future out of ashes.

The quiet creak of his door broke through his thoughts, his head snapped up and met your soft gaze. 

Bucky blinked as if unsure whether you were real or if his mind had conjured you from all the things he couldn’t stop needing.

You stepped in slowly, soundlessly, crossed the room and knelt in front of him. You reached for his face, gently brushing your fingers along his jaw, your touch so familiar it made him flinch.

“I’m not running,” you whispered. “Not now and not ever.”

Bucky’s breath caught, and his eyes flicked up to yours.

“I’m choosing you,” you said. “And I’ll keep choosing you as many times as it takes, until you believe it. If it means testifying against Valentina and losing everything, I’ll do it. If it means rotting in a cell for the rest of my life – so be it. But I’m not running away from you.

He swallowed hard, his hands curling around your wrists, he needed to feel the pulse beneath your skin to believe this wasn’t a dream.

Then he tugged you up into his lap in one fluid, instinctive motion, arms circling your back, as he held you there, as a shuddering exhale slipped from him, one he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

“I believe you,” he whispered. “After all, you’re the reason I’m still breathing.”

His voice cracked slightly.

“It wasn’t just Bob,” he added. “They all said I was an idiot, that you could’ve killed us all, but you didn’t. And they were right, but I had to be sure… I needed to know it was your choice… freely made.”

You nodded, your hand slipping into his hair, and pulling him closer.

“It is,” you said, softly.  “It always was.”

Bucky’s eyes closed at your words.

“Then we face everything together,” he murmured.

And that was when you couldn’t hold it in anymore, the sob tore out of you, raw and sudden, like something deep inside had cracked wide open, and you buried your face in his chest, clinging to him as your shoulders shook, your fingers fisting in the fabric of his shirt.

Bucky held you, one hand brushing gently through your hair, the other holding you close. 

“I love you,” he whispered softly against your ear, making you sob even harder, tears soaking into his shirt, but he didn’t flinch, didn’t let go, he only held you tighter.

[motherroam-rs]

ok so chapter 3 was supposed to be up today but I’ve been battling a migraine for the last 48 hours so it’ll probably be Friday or Saturday now - if anyone wants to be tagged just let me know!

Lover, You Should’ve Come Over (Bob Reynolds x Reader) - Masterlist

Rating: 18+ MDNI - this will include smut in later chapters and contains mature themes as well as graphic violence

Chapter List:

1 - The time you needed help to breathe

2 - The time you needed help to calm down (& The time he needed yours)

Chapters 3-7 will follow week by week!

Summary:

Recovering from injuries was worse than receiving them, especially the mental side, which only worsens when you push everyone away.

Bob reminds you that you don’t have to deal with the bad things on your own, if you can just let him in.

Or

The five times you needed help from the team & The one time you accepted it from Bob

Tags/Warnings: Violence, Injury Recovery, Near death experience from a gunshot wound, mentions of past abuse (from both reader and Bob’s pasts), friends to lovers, slow burn, nightmares, painkillers, bad mental health from both Bob and Reader, hurt/comfort, angst, protective!Bob Reynolds, smut in the final chapter which will require a wholeeee list of other tags

A/N: I’m about 75% done with this fic, which will have an overall 40-50k words and I hope to have an update out weekly!

Read on AO3

[motherroam-rs]

seasons • b.r.

pairing: bob reynolds x f!reader

synopsis: three times you and bob are almost walked in on and the one time you are

content: nsfw, 18+ minors dni, leg humping, oral (m receiving), handjob, early morning sex, unprotected piv, (some) plot

notes: uhhhhhhh really needed to write bob smut! this was supposed to be short lmaooo thank you for the support of my other works! xoxo

word count: 6.6k

this blog contains 18+ content, minors dni!

on the couch (winter)

it’s movie night and everyone is late. 

yelena had texted, telling you the group would be stuck in traffic and to not start until they got back. that was almost an hour ago. bucky had walked into the living room, found you and bob waiting a little too inconspicuously on the couches and turned on his heel, going back the way he came. 

you’d looked to bob then, grinning conspiratorially as you crawled down the length of the curved couch, right into his side. 

it’s innocent enough, at first. muffled by his shirt in your face when you tell him that it’s only because you’re cold, and he warms you up better than anything else could. 

he gives you a look—like he knows what you’re up to but can’t find a good enough reason to refuse himself the feel of you. makes something warm in his chest when he thinks about how you’re always looking for any reason to touch him, that you don’t shy away.

he likes it, because while your relationship isn’t exactly new, he still worries—doesn’t know if he could bring himself to initiate it even if he wanted to (he really, really does). 

but when you come to him, he welcomes it. revels in it, actually.

his arms lift, wrapping around your frame. immediately, you’re enveloped by the smell of his laundry detergent and the 2-in-1 shampoo he’s been trying to use up before opening the real shampoo and conditioner you’d bought him. 

his chin rests atop your head, breathing steady while your fingers aimlessly trace lines down his sleeve. 

“y’know…” you say, trailing off in the way he knows means you’ve got something to say that likely will get him in trouble. he holds his breath. 

“we’re the only ones here,” you continue, pulling your head back to look into his eyes, hoping those pretty blue eyes will take the hint. 

bob laughs softly, eyes flickering across the utterly empty room. the christmas decorations the team had spent an afternoon assembling, ending up a little lopsided and mismatched hanging above the mantel and from the ceiling. the string lights twinkle in your eyes. 

 “yeah,” he breathes, “i- i can see that.”

the look you give him is expectant, and he blinks owlishly in return. 

he watches your nose scrunch when you try to decipher whether he’s being clueless on purpose or if he genuinely can’t fathom what you’d want to do with him in an empty room on a couch much too big for two. 

the noise you let out is a cross between an exasperated groan and a teasing giggle. your cheeks burn a little when you tell him plainly, “i want to kiss you, bob. make out a little.”

his lips fall into a perfect little ‘o’ when he exhales the syllable. you grin up at him when his ears turn red. 

“i- i mean,” he stammers, darting between you, your lips and the elevator doors. you can almost tell when he makes up his mind, gaze catching on your lips and struggling to drag them back up to your eyes. licks his lips before he says, “okay.” 

he only catches a glimpse of the giddy look on your face before you’re pulling him down to you with a gentle hand on his cheek. 

he kisses a little unsure, a little messy—but god, does it send pleasant shivers down your spine when he’s the one to part your lips and glide his tongue against yours. 

you sigh contentedly into his waiting mouth when his grip on you tightens, and his hands start to roam—like the more he kisses you the less restrained he remembers to be. 

“w- we… we should-” he sighs against the side of your face when your head tilts to press your lips to his cheek, chest rising and falling hard. 

“we should probably move,” he manages to get out on the third try, voice raspy and deep. his blue eyes have gone dark, half-lidded as he rests his forehead on yours, catching his breath.

he’s probably right. the chances of you getting walked in on are rising by the minute—you can only imagine the shit you’ll get if the team finds you and bob, equally flustered and dazed. 

but bob makes no move to get up, to peel you off from where you cling to him, just to make that long, cold walk to somewhere more private. you hold your breath, mentally debating if it’s worth it. 

bob licks his kiss-swollen lips, and the choice is made for you. 

your arms tighten around his neck, pressing impossibly closer as you capture his lips between yours. a knee goes between his, and presses dangerously close to where he’s starting to stiffen in his plaid christmas bottoms. 

bob’s head jerks back, curls jostling as he gasps. his  hands flying to your hips to pin you down before you can do any further damage to his already-crumbling restraint. 

you know you shouldn’t tease. you’ve only seen bob at his most vulnerable a handful of times, all in the comfort and safety of your rooms, locked away from the world. 

but he’s just so pretty, and when he makes sounds like that just from your leg, you can’t stop yourself from doing it again, and again, until he’s whimpering and reaching a hand down to hold back your leg. a little pointless, considering how his hips buck in search of more. 

“they- they’re going to come back,” bob chokes, lashes fluttering as he fights to keep his eyes open. white-knuckled fingers twitch against your thigh, “someone could see.”

and you’re about to argue otherwise, that they’re not about to just walk in the next second, but it’s like he’s summoned them with magic, or spoken it into existence. 

the elevator dings twice, announcing their imminent arrival. you have seconds before the team files into the room and finds bob borderline humping your thigh. 

bob yelps in alarm, his hold on you tightening in reflex as the ‘freeze’ part of his fight or flight instinct takes over. slapping at his hands, you climb out of his grip, launching yourself to the opposite end of the couch. 

when the team walks in, you’re on your phone scrolling haphazardly, glancing up in faux-annoyance when they mill about. you chew them out for being late, and bob is grateful for the distraction—nobody asks why his cheeks are so red, or why he’s more jittery than usual. 

by the time the lights are turned off and everyone is placated with snacks and a christmas movie, bob thinks he’s off the hook. but then you’re squeezing into the only seat left with an innocent smile—between him and bucky.

the super soldier side-eyes you when the movie ends and bob still has that damned pillow clutched over his lap. 

in the shower (spring) 

the water beating down against slick tiles does a halfway job of muffling the sounds coming from your bathroom. 

it hadn’t been your intention, when you’d agreed to help yelena train bob, to end up caged under him in the shower. 

you’d lingered in your doorway while yelena disappeared into hers, already wriggling out of her sweaty top. bob had come to a slow stop behind you, waiting for the telltale swoosh of the blonde’s door closing. 

there’s something about that post-exercise high, the rush of endorphins in bob’s system that makes him walk with his shoulders a little less curled and his gait steadier. his limbs are loose, and the slow blink he gives you while he leans against the doorframe makes you pause. 

it reminds you of when the sentry peeks through. makes you swallow, peering curiously at his eyes but no—only crystalline blue already staring back.  

his hair stuck to his forehead and a light sheen of sweat around along his throat—evidence of how much he’d pushed himself. thanks to the serum, it takes a lot for bob to work up a sweat these days. 

“’m gonna shower,” you say simply, and that was that. 

he’d followed you all the way into your room, set his things down next to yours and waited patiently until the water warmed to get his hands on you. 

he descends on you, big hands engulfing your cheeks, kissing you hard. it’s hungry, and your teeth bump a little, but when one hand trails down your slick skin to crook a thigh around his hip, you can’t help the breathless sigh into his mouth at the way he’s already hard and feverish against your inner thigh. 

“bob,” you cry out when he sucks at the spot behind your ear—the same time his hand on your thigh moves to cup your ass. his tongue swipes at your pulse point and your breath hitches on your words, “what’s got you all hot and bothered?”

“i- i don’t know,” he breathes against your skin, wet lips searing more than the hot water raining down on you. he manoeuvres your bodies out of the spray when he feels how hot your skin is getting. “just- just need to…” 

he trails off, mouth falling open on a low groan when your hips twitch, and the ruddy head of his cock brushes the junction of your thigh and pelvis. 

bob’s forehead presses to the cool tile beside you when you do it again, smearing precum against your thigh. 

“shit- need to feel you,” he pleads, hands finding purpose in kneading your tits. 

“how d’you want me?” you murmur, turning your head so the words fall on his parted lips. he watches in a daze as your hand slips between your heated bodies, fingers curling around the length of him. 

bob chokes on a breath, back caving in. he’s on the brink already—on edge from hours of sparring and watching you dance around him in your tight workout gear and a determined glint in your eyes. he sees the same one now, and he knows he won’t last long enough to be inside you. 

you squeeze, flicking a thumb over his slit to get his attention, and bob realises he’s been staring into space. 

bob may as well babble—incoherent as he tries to beg you to do literally anything to make the ache go away—anything you want. “- just want you.”

he seems to swell in your grasp when you coo at him, twisting your fist as you stroke him steadily. “oh, baby,” you give him a kiss he struggles to reciprocate, “wan’ me to take care of you?”

all the bravado from earlier washes down the drain. he’s whimpering low in his throat, nodding feverishly. “y- yes, please, oh- fuck.”

“okay, pretty boy, i’ll take care of you.”

he lets you push him, back to the wall. you’re slinking down his front, straight onto your knees. his cock rests under his belly, flushed all over and leaking like a faucet. 

“you did so well today,” you whisper and it’s almost drowned out by the water, “worked so hard.”

your lips press closed kisses up the side of him. when you take his tip into your warm mouth, bob has a flicker of genuine worry that he’ll pass out. he whimpers as you work more of him into your mouth, withdrawing only to pucker up and dribble down a glob of spit over his tip. 

“oh god,” he whines, head thrown back against the tile. wet hair clinging to his cheeks and neck, lashes clumped with water (or tears)—he looks so good and you make up your mind to make him cum in record time. 

he deserves it, you think. hadn’t protested once while you and yelena had demonstrated the 101 ways to throw a grown man down. (zero complaints when your thighs had clamped around his head and swung him down, legs locked at his throat.)

you can barely fit half of him in your mouth, so your hands come up to stroke in time with your hungry tongue. 

bob thinks he actually sees stars. there might be hearts floating above his head, because if he hadn’t known he was in love with you before, he definitely knows now, when you’re smiling up at him through your lashes. 

the warning heat in his belly ramps up to a boil when he feels your tongue swirling around his head. 

“honey, i’m- i think i’m gonna-” he manages to pant, chest heaving as his stomach tenses. a jolt of satisfaction courses through you, and you’re readying yourself for his end when there’s the world’s loudest knocking at your bathroom door. 

a drawn out call of your name. 

bob fights the desperate, pleading whine when your mouth pulls off of him at the last second. he stares down at you—deer in the headlights, when the urgent knocking continues. his hand flies to your hair, not pressing, but urging. 

his wide, panicked eyes find yours—the surprise is wearing off and now you’re just mildly annoyed. 

yelena’s on the other side, short blonde strands dripping onto the towel she clutches around her. 

“can i borrow some conditioner? i ran out!” she shouts to be heard over the water. 

your hand never leaves bob’s dick, wrapped loosely as you bite your lip in contemplation. “why can’t you use ava’s?” 

“yours smells better!” she reasons, fingernails tapping against the metal. 

your face scrunches, figuring it’ll be easier to just give her the damned thing than try to talk her out of coming in. 

so you look up at bob from between his legs, press your fingers to your lips even as his head shakes, mouthing a pitiful “please”. presses himself further into the wall like it’ll absorb him out of this utterly painful situation. 

“fine, but i’m in the shower,” you call out, hands fumbling for the offending bottle. you both hear it when the doorknob turns and her footsteps enter the steamy room. 

“don’t worry, i won’t look,” yelena mutters jokingly, approaching the shower curtain. to her credit, she does turn away before your hand pulls the curtain aside a little to pass her the conditioner. it’s good she did— would’ve caught a glimpse of dark hair and a muscled shoulder, otherwise. 

the whole time, bob is shaking with tension and throbbing in your palm. you want to put him out of his misery, but you also want to drag it out a little. so you give him a slow, firm stroke and he slaps a hand over his mouth. 

she thanks you for the conditioner, and you think that’s that, but her steps stop right before the door. 

“hey, bob’s been getting better, don’t you think?” yelena hums thoughtfully, “he’s a fast learner.”

you agree, muffling a giggle because she doesn’t know just how right she is. bob’s eyes narrow at your smirk, even worse when it spreads into a devilish grin. 

your fingers curl tighter around his cock, speeding up. his head shakes vehemently, squirming under you as quietly as he can. 

“he’s got good teachers,” you say, winking up at him when he gives up on trying to not thrust into your fist. he looks absolutely debauched like this, back arching off the wall as he chases your strokes. 

yelena cackles, “no kidding. should’ve seen his face when you did that widow move on him. i think he has a crush on you.”

you do laugh then, and you feel a little bad because bob’s breathing is getting faster and his hips more erratic. but you can’t help it when you ask, “really? what makes you say that?”

yelena hums like she knows something you don’t, ironically, and you can almost see her outline through the curtain as she waves a hand, “ah, we’ll open that can of worms another time. thanks again!” 

when the door clicks shut again, bob counts five seconds before he releases the neediest moan he’s ever heard himself make. it makes his cheeks go red because he’s a little embarrassed. 

but he’s peeking down at you and finds your eyes alight with arousal as you frantically tug at his swollen cock. “you did so good, baby. stayed so quiet,” you sigh, thumb gliding over his slit with every pass.

bob cries out, biting his lip at the coil in his tummy returning, sneaking up while he’d been so caught up in being quiet—being good, for you. 

“cum for me, sweet boy,” you tell him, lips brushing his tip as your head lowers, “wan’ it in my mouth.”

that’s it for him. his whimper pitches high, cracking in his throat. your mouth closes around him just as he twitches in your hand and then he’s spurting into your mouth in thick ropes that you swallow down with a soft moan. he can’t help the way his hips jerk, nudging his cock further into your mouth. you welcome it, even as your jaw aches.  

it takes over him, dragged out by your tongue and hollowed cheeks. he cums so much—a few drops leak down your chin from the corner of your lips.

bob watches in awe as you scoop up what you missed with your fingers, suck them clean with your mouth. it feels like a gut punch to watch. 

his hand flails, shutting the water off blindly. bob carries you out with ease, uncaring in the moment that he’s tracking water over your floor. 

he’ll apologise profusely later, but for now bob drops you onto the bed, and him onto his knees. your legs are thrown over his broad shoulders, and he proceeds to give you three more reasons for a real shower. 

when the ac breaks (summer)

it’s ridiculous, really. the notion that a place like the new avengers tower, worth billions, could suffer from the mundane struggle of a busted air conditioning system. 

smack in the middle of summer. 

the entire building had been given the day off, save for the poor souls residing on the residential floors. the seven of you, condemned to braving this heatwave in a bulletproof glass box. 

the one saving grace should have been the olympic sized pool on the training floors, but as luck would have it, it’s closed—scheduled to be cleaned sometime in the day. 

so you resolve to lying splayed out on bob’s floor, against the cool floor with the only mini hand-held fan oscillating between yours and bob’s sweaty bodies. 

you’d stripped down to your underwear, bob in his boxers. laying shoulder to shoulder, skin prickling from the heat. 

“how sure are we that we’re not in hell?” 

your head turns to the man next to you, reaching out to brush damp hair off his forehead. he laughs, and hopes you don’t notice when he makes sure the fan stays pointed at you longer. 

your eyes narrow when you do, nudging at his hand to turn it back to him, scolding him lightly because you don’t want him getting heat stroke. 

the heat makes everything feel hazy and your movements sluggish. 

you groan into the thick air, shifting on the ground in search of a cool spot. eyeing him suspiciously as he stays completely still—how other than the light sheen on his body and the flush in his cheeks, there aren’t any outward signs of suffering. “how are you so calm right now?”

bob shrugs, a lax hand arcs through the air. “i run warm. ‘m pretty used to it.”

you give him a pout that his eyes catch on. he wonders if he’d taste the salt on your skin if he kissed you now.

“no fair,” you mumble, head thrown back. the move exposes the line of your throat, the way it glistens with sweat. he licks his lips, tries so hard to stop himself from following the bead of sweat that tracks down your cleavage. 

bob distantly wonders how he’s still so affected, even after he had you writhing under him last night, just twelve hours ago. remembers how you’d dragged your nails down his back, raising welts between his shoulder blades as he had you pinned between him and the mattress. 

to answer your question, he thinks there is a chance he’s in hell. only because you’re inches away, in nothing but a bra and panties, skin shimmering in the afternoon light and he can’t do anything about it because it’s just so hot.

when you shift again, bob takes the risk and kisses you. makes sure to keep his torso hovering away from yours, only connected by your lips. 

you reciprocate, craning your neck up into him. his mouth is warm, but it’s a nice contrast to the stifling heat surrounding you. 

it’s muscle memory, reaching up to pull him closer. but your fingers slip against tacky skin, chests sticking together uncomfortably. bob retreats when he hears your low whine, squirming beneath him. 

“no no no- i want to keep going,” you say breathlessly, voice catching when the heat stings at the nape of your neck, “but ‘s too hot.”

bob can see when it gets overstimulating, your eyes watering with it. he scoots away, not too far but just enough to let the air flow easier around you. sets the mini fan next to you on the strongest setting and gathers your hair away from your neck. 

“hey, you’re okay,” he murmurs soothingly, “i know, it’s hot. d’you want me to get your water bottle?”

you shake your head, still pouting. you know you’re being a little melodramatic, but you can barely think straight, you’re bloated from drinking enough water to drown a dolphin and all you want is to cuddle with your boyfriend but you can’t. 

“what can i do, honey?” he hums, scooting closer to link your pinkies. he’s surprisingly level-headed about the whole thing, and it makes you wonder if this is really how he feels most of the time. then you feel bad for ever complaining about how cold he keeps his room. you’d much rather be huddling for warmth.

your voice is small, a little petulant—it’s embarrassing to be felled by a broken ac system. “can you… can you kiss me again?”

his heart skips at your shy question. so used to the tables being flipped that he feels a little zip down his spine at the opportunity to take care of you this time.

bob’s mind becomes one-tracked, the need to make all your troubles disappear and have you happy and sated taking over his thoughts. he tells himself he’ll make it all better (maybe even says it out loud.)

“lay back,” he tells you softly, nodding when you go down without a word. he dutifully adjusts the fan again, and then he’s appearing in your vision, blocking out the ceiling. 

bob hovers over you, in a push-up position so none of his body heat reaches you. he looks so big like this, his newfound strength apparent with how he holds himself in place without struggle. 

his hair curtains his face from this angle, and you reach up to tuck it behind his ear again. he has stars in his eyes when he peers down at you, still so pretty. 

“’s this better?” he asks, voice low and gentle.

when you nod, you’re smiling and looking like yourself again. who could’ve known all you needed was bob on top of you. 

he leans down, chest only just brushing yours this time as he kisses you deep. makes it a good one (he always does), but especially since you’d asked so sweetly. 

you forget why you were upset in the first place when his tongue slips over yours. it gets a little heated, ironically, but even then bob holds himself above you, never letting his hot skin touch you. 

you start to whimper for it, especially when you feel bob sporting a semi through his thin boxers, even from where he hovers. he’s about to bring himself to do something about it—ears burning a little when he thinks about maybe asking if you’d want him to take you from behind this time, reasoning that you’ll overheat less like that.

but then through the thick door, bob’s enhanced hearing picks up on heavy, thudding footsteps approaching. you don’t need crazy senses to hear walker calling bob’s name from down the hall. 

the pair of you freeze, your glassy eyes stuck on him. the breath catches in your chests when his voice grows louder. “bob! pool’s open—let’s go!”

he rolls off of you, barely sparing a second to adjust himself in his boxers before ushering you to the en-suite bathroom. 

“stay here,” he says, even when both of you know there’s nowhere else to go. “i’ll be right back.” 

bob steals one more kiss before he ducks out of the bathroom, shutting the door right behind him just as walker barrels into the bedroom. 

“wha- maybe knock next time?” bob runs a hand through his hair, standing on the opposite side of the room from the blonde super soldier who’s already got his trunks on. 

“what’s the point? not like you’re doing anything in here, anyway.” john reasons, shrugging with a hand on his hip. 

“right… pool’s open, you said?” bob tries changing the subject. 

“a few of us are heading down now. get changed, buddy, you look like you’re about to pass out.” 

bob purses his lips, and wonders briefly if you’re listening through the door. he hopes walker doesn’t ask why he’s standing so weird. 

“s-sure thing,” bob agrees, already turning around to look for the new pair of trunks he’d picked out with you the last time you’d gone out.

a high whistle rings out behind him, and the way it pierces the air makes bob freeze in his tracks. 

“damn, bob. you get in a fight?” 

bob’s confused, grasping for any idea of what john could mean when it hits him, and he whirls around before john gets more fuel for the teasing that awaits him now. 

his face is burning up, trunks clutched in his hands. he blinks rapidly, floundering as john watches with a smug grin. 

“good for you, man,” john says simply, and bob just knows he’s holding back for later, when he has everyone’s attention. 

“o- on second thought, i don’t- i don’t feel too good,” bob struggles, eyes frantically searching for a shirt, but the last time he had one on was hours ago. he can’t remember where he’d tossed it, because his brain turned to mush the second yours came off.

“oh, come on, there’s nothing to be ashamed of!” john waves, cracking a little as a laugh bubbles in his chest. “wear it with pride! means you did a good job.”

bob wishes the ground would open up and swallow him whole. he’s sure he’s in hell, when his door slides open and both yelena and ava step in, clad in swimsuits and towels slung over their shoulders. 

“guys, what is the holdup?” yelena demands, gesturing exasperatedly with her hands. 

“it’s like you want to get heat stroke.” ava snips, glaring at john, whose face is crimson from how hard he’s holding himself back. 

“bob’s been busy.”

the girls look at him questioningly, irate at being made to wait even longer as john waits for them to figure it out. 

bob squeaks, shaking his head when john declares to the room, “bob fucks!”

he is in hell, because the room falls silent as ava and yelena stare between the two men. bob scoots a little too far to the left and they catch a glimpse of his scratched up back in the full-body mirror behind him. 

their gasps fill the room, and yelena, at least, tries to cover it with a hand over her mouth. 

“go on, bob!” ava nods approvingly, breaking into a cackle as yelena nods her agreement, speechless. 

it makes bob cringe, mind darting through all the ideas of how to squirm out of this situation, because they’re all probably picturing him in their minds right now and it makes him want to curl up in a hall. 

“oh my god, who do you think it is?” ava gasps, slapping excitedly at john. he swats her hands away, but he’s wearing a shit-eating grin when he says your name, drawling, “obviously.”

ava’s jaw drops just as yelena elbows him hard enough to make walker wince. 

bob swallows back the protest in his throat, because he doesn’t trust his ability to lie right now. decides it might be easier to just let them think what they want. 

“whoever it is-“ yelena cuts off ava and john’s gabbing, “-is a very lucky person. clearly!”

they leave bob to change in peace, snickering the whole way to the elevator. when the bathroom door opens, you find his face in his hands, sighing in resignation. 

when his hands fall, there you are, trying to muffle a laugh, half-guilty but very amused. 

“i’m sorry, baby,” you coo, running your hands up his arms to his shoulders, “should’a told you to put on a shirt first.”

you enjoy yourself plenty, watching him stammer through the group’s interrogation by the pool while you act none-the-wiser. even sprinkling in a question or two. 

it’s not as funny later that night, when the ac is fixed and bob has you on your back before it can even kick in properly. 

it’s decidedly unfunny when you have to watch tutorials the next morning on how to cover up the purple-red splotches mapped down your throat, save for the one at your collar—bob asks you to leave that one bare. 

in the middle of it (autumn)

the team is onto you. 

it’s hard to miss the pointed looks exchanged over dinner when you and bob chat intently, in your own world, totally unbothered by their squabbling. 

or when the two of you coincidentally walk into the kitchen for breakfast together. sure, you bumped into him on your way down. 

it’s been almost a year with bob, and you’re still buried under the weight of pure love when he comes to you first about what’s bothering him, or when he wants you to cut his hair, or when he doesn’t even have to ask for your order when he gets takeout for just the two of you. 

sneaking around was fun at first, a harmless secret that protected the peace that only existed when you were together. every stolen kiss and lingering brush under the table sent shocks through your system. 

the longer it goes, the harder it is to leave him in the morning, slipping into your own room quietly on the off chance that someone might catch you tiptoeing out of his. 

when bob shuffles into the kitchen, eyes bleary and hair mussed from sleep, and you have to hold yourself back from peppering kisses all over his sleepy face—it makes you wonder why exactly you’re keeping it a secret. it’s not like the team would really give a shit, hell, they probably know. 

so you stop being careful. the mask starts to slip, and bob finds that he quite likes getting to hold your hand outside the confines of your rooms. 

the day it finally happens is one of those days, where you wake up in his arms, clutched to his chest like his personal teddy bear. his lips part on a soft snore, face smushed into the pillow.

you’re a little sweaty, trapped under the covers with the heat radiating off of your dead-asleep boyfriend, but you can’t bring yourself to peel away from him. 

it’s still early. the tower is silent—on the cusp of consciousness. 

as you try to recall what exactly woke you up, bob shifts behind you and—oh. bob moves again, still asleep, and this time there’s no mistaking what nudges at the back of your thigh. 

a hitch of a breath. you wait a beat, in time with your pulse, until you decide to push back experimentally. he’s still asleep, and you’re debating whether it’s worth waking him early. 

he’s thick in his pyjamas, insistent as he grinds into you again, notching between your ass cheeks. this time he lets out a low moan, the arm banded around your middle clamping down.

you’re entirely locked against him now, unable to move as bob’s hips continue their lazy rocking. you want so bad to let him sleep, but it’s getting uncomfortably hot and sticky between your legs. 

you think you could slip a hand down and take care of yourself quietly, but then your entire body jolts up the bed on one hard thrust. the mewl you’ve been biting back finally slips out. 

that’s what wakes him, in the end. when your hand flies to his forearm against your stomach, baby blue eyes flutter open and blink slowly in confusion. 

it hits him all at once—cock throbbing in his pants and your overheating body squirming in front of him and the little sounds escaping your mouth. his name. 

bob makes a puzzled sound, halfway to a moan when the fog clears. his arms loosen enough for you to turn around, facing him as his cock now pokes at your belly. 

“i’m sorry i woke you” you whisper through the clench in your core. bob shakes his head, still sleepy, dragging you into a slow kiss, the first of the day. 

“are you-” his hand slips between your bodies, resting at your navel until you nod. “fuck, you’re so wet already.”

he runs his long fingers through your folds, spreading the arousal he finds waiting for him there. brushes against your clit, and then you’re whining, tugging at his shoulders. 

“bob bob bob, please, i need you inside,” is all it takes for him to nod against your lips, wriggling out of his pants and lifting your thigh over his. 

he guides himself to your entrance, sliding in slow, like always. lets you adjust as he groans low at the feeling of your walls fluttering around him. 

when you tell him to move, he wastes no time in drawing his hips back, pushing in steadily. each time he does, a breathless moan is punched out of you, gripping him like a vice and sucking him back in. 

“s- shit, honey, you’re squeezing me so tight,” he stutters, a soft laugh turning breathless when you seem to clench down on purpose. “s’that feel good, honey? t- talk to me.”

he needs it. with this angle, he reaches so much deeper, his coarse hairs rubbing at your clit with each push forwards. it sets your insides alight, but there’s nowhere to run in this position. his fingers clamp down on your hip, dragging you along his cock. 

“f- fuck, you feel so good,” you cry, burying your face in his firm chest, “so- so deep like this. can feel all of you.”

your praise goes straight to his cock, twitching inside you on a whimper. he moves with purpose, aims for that spot he knows is there—the one that makes you cry his name. 

he knows when he’s found it, because you’re keening, high and sharp into the room. the stillness of the morning is shattered, taken over by the steady slapping of skin on skin, the squelching where bob pushes his thick cock into your leaking hole. 

“you’re so- so fucking wet, sweetheart. ‘s all for me?” he pants, voice raspy and thick with sleep. it scratches at your brain just right, makes you arch into his touch. 

his tip batters at that spongey spot just right, and he thinks he might need to cover your mouth or something. while he’s sure the team wouldn’t be opposed to your relationship, he’s not too sure about how they’d feel waking up to your repeated chants of his name.  

he shushes you with this mouth on yours, swallowing down all your wanton moans. “you’re gonna wake everyone,” he says against your lips, a little teasing. just this side of cocky, now that he has you falling apart on his dick first thing in the morning. 

your head shakes vehemently as you cling to him. “don’t care,” you say, breath catching when he rolls your clit in slow circles. “want ‘em to know-” your hips buck with a yelp when his touch grows firm, “-want them to hear how good you fuck me.” 

bob’s eyes roll back into his head, a shiver running down his spine. “cum for me then, baby, c’mon.”

his thrusts grow harsh, and you know he’s almost there when he bites down on your shoulder to stop the pathetic moan at how your wet walls choke him. 

he keeps working at your clit, pumping in and out of you in a way that’s fucking devastating. the heat simmering in your belly bubbles over, and you’re creaming all over his cock with a wrecked whine, bucking your hips to meet his. 

“loveyouloveyouloveyou,” he hears you mumble as you wade through your high, and it does him in to hear that word. it’s not the first time, but it always feels like it. 

his fingers squeeze your hips so hard they’ll bruise for sure, marring your skin shades of blue and purple that he’ll kiss better later.

when he cums, it’s with a drawn out moan, barely muffled by your skin as he presses his face to your neck. you can feel him pulsing as he paints your insides, squeezing just to draw out his pleasure. you don’t want the feeling of him filling you up to stop. 

“i love you, oh, god- love you, baby.”

too bad the moment is fucking stomped on all over, becoming bob’s most ruined orgasm when his bedroom door flies open, revealing a blond super soldier, suited up at 7 in the morning. 

“hey, have you seen-” 

it takes a second to register but when it does, bob is tugging the covers up and shielding your body with his. 

“holy shit.” john freezes in his tracks like he’s been slapped, piecing together the flash of your mortified face and the curve of bob’s bare ass. 

“get the fuck out!” you shout from under bob, whose mind has gone completely blank. not only because he’s been walked in on, butt naked by the most annoying of all super soldiers, but also because he can feel where his cum is leaking out of you onto the sheets. he pulls the covers tighter around your bodies, blushing bright red. 

“i knew it. i fucking knew it!” 

“gold star to you, walker! now can you leave, please? the briefing doesn’t start for another hour, you psycho.”

“god forbid we get breakfast before a day-long mission! it’s only the most important meal of the day!”

your eyes roll hard, staring up at bob, both of you doused in annoyance at how john is still in the room when bob is still in you. 

“bob, i’d offer you to join but i assume you’ve already eaten-” he’s cut off by your indignant yell, easily dodging the metal water bottle hurled at him. 

“alright, alright,” john huffs, turning heel with a shudder. 

when the door slides shut, bob meets your eyes with a sigh. you look up at him, helpless to stop the unhinged giggle when you process what just happened. 

“cat’s out of the bag?” you offer, whimpering a little when bob pulls out slowly. he shakes his head, huffing a laugh with his head in the crook of your neck. 

bob cleans you up diligently, and so, so softly. within the hour, he’s zipping up your tactical suit and waiting at the door so he can walk you out to the elevator. 

“are you gonna be okay fending for yourself while i’m gone? they’re going to have questions,” you tease, raising on your tiptoes loop your arms around bob’s neck. 

he smile is small but it’s real and stays even after you kiss him goodbye. 

“i’ll manage. as long as you promise to push walker into the line of fire a little.”

[motherroam-rs]

Lover, You Should’ve Come over (2/7)

Bob Reynolds x Reader

Chapter 2 - The time you needed help to calm down (& The time he needed yours)

previous chapter | next chapter (coming June 17th) | masterlist (contains full list of tags and warnings)

Read on AO3

Series Rating: 18+

Chapter summary: The first time you wake up after the mission sends you spiraling and refusing Yelena’s attempts to help you calm down. Bob’s there to make sure you don’t fall too far, just like you were there for him.

Word Count: 8,184 words 

A/N: Ok so this one is loooong. Issuing a specific warning for this chapter because there are discussions of abuse in the reader's past. All of these are non graphic, but it implies the abuse is of a mental, physical, and occasionally sexual nature. (Think similar to black widows.) If these topics are triggering to you please please proceed with caution.

Thank you for reading and if you enjoyed it please drop a comment or reblog and say hi so I know I’m not posting to the void! (& if I know you from marveltwt hiii!)

The Watchtower - 8:13pm - Two days after the mission

Darkness has reduced itself to a smothering blanket, weighing heavily on your face, stuffed deep into your mouth and choking you. It forces your limbs into submission under its weight, trapping you beneath it, wrapped up so tightly that there was no escaping on your own.

You beg your body to move, to claw back at it, to fight back against the pressure on your tongue - but there was nothing. Maybe it was better this way. Maybe this was just life coming to collect the debt for everything you had taken from it. 

Is this death? Some empty waiting room for whatever could possibly be left for your soul - isn’t there supposed to be a light at the end of the tunnel? Your life flashing before your eyes at least?

No. That’s something you’d rather not see. Most of it is something you couldn’t face, but… maybe just the highlight reel would be okay - your first mission as a team, sitting to eat packet noodles with Yelena and Alexei, movie nights with Alpine purring in your lap, and Bob-

Bob. 

The blanket over you shifts, darkness stirring at his name.

A soft voice from the shadows on the outside of your consciousness coaxes you to your senses, out of that emptiness; yet, the suffocation only worsened when you opened your eyes. 

The last thing you remember was stars. How they were glittering behind Bucky’s face, but all of this was a blinding supernova in comparison, a tsunami on your senses. Amongst that flood is the rush of waking from a terrible nightmare, a body wanting to run, escape far away from whatever danger it was perceiving.

Right now, that danger comes in the form of various tubes and wires leaving your body.

“She’s awake!” No - this wasn’t the right voice, this isn’t who you had heard.

“Quick- pass that to me- Hold her down!“ Who was talking now? You didn’t know them - this wasn’t right-

Beep. Beep. Beep!

The world around you is a cacophony of angry machine noises and hands pushing you back down onto a stiff bed when you fight your way upwards, determined to break free. Bright lights pierce your eyes and there’s a stabbing pain in the side of your head that refuses to leave, but you fight through it anyway. Your heart was pounding louder, urgent and in time with the machines, and there's the crashing of a door somewhere in the background.

You had been content before, wanting to lay on the warehouse floor and die quietly, but now your fight or flight response was screaming at you to do both. The pain rolled in waves through you, tearing you apart. It wasn’t the most you had been in, but at least back then you had been fully in control, alert, aware. You weren’t helpless, you weren’t weak. 

Maybe that darkness was more forgiving than the unfamiliar faces clouding your vision, all talking over each other. One of them touches something covering your face and you’re suddenly aware that there’s a horrid, stale taste in your mouth. It makes you choke, only to find there’s something in your throat, plastic and foreign. It was real, but it wasn’t a blanket - it was a tube. 

Get it out. 

“Patient is fighting intubation, we need to sedate her again!”

The moment you try to reach up, yet another hand is pinning you back down; denying you control over your own body. You’re a wild animal thrashing now - prey caught in a trap, something feral to be subdued. 

Just like you had been before.

All of this was a living nightmare, a poisoned memory that you swore to yourself wouldn’t happen again, the carefully crafted illusion of safety you had built was ripped away. All it takes is one blink and you’re not seeing nurses above you, but faces of past handlers you had long tried to erase. 

Smooth latex gloves become thick leather as you panic, paused in a state of adrenaline rush as the voices come back to you. Ghosts were rising from the dead once more - living, breathing, talking memories. Not nightmares, memories. 

“Paid a good price for this one, she puts up a hell of a fight, pretty face too, that could be useful.”

The familiar, sickening heaviness of cigar smoke rises above the room's sterile scent, you’re so focused on fighting it that you barely notice the crash of the door slamming open again.

“Is she gonna be okay?” A voice cuts above all the others, desperate and loud somewhere behind the wall of people in uniforms. You thought you had dreamed of him on the other side of that blanket. 

Bob. He’s here.

Your fingers twitch against the bed, curling into a weak fist as something soft is tightened around your forearm, the same feeling following for your other one and both ankles. 

You knew this feeling, a memory rising sharp and sour like bile from your mind. You were being restrained. 

“No- I can feel her- she’s scared!” Your eyes dart around, trying to catch sight of him through the human barricade of strangers placing you into restraints. “Hey, stop, get off her!”

For a brief moment, you catch a glimpse of his distraught expression. Just a week's worth of avoiding him may as well have been a year with how different he looks at this moment. Tired eyes, bloodshot but wild, are framed by dark hair falling into his face, unkempt and messy. You meet them for barely a second, something dark glowing in them before he’s pulled back once more by two sets of arms, one of them glinting and metallic. 

Your stomach twists in nausea, but not from choking on the tube, not from panic, but from guilt. Hurt. Every emotion from that night comes stampeding back to you, cursing at you for pushing him away. Maybe if you hadn’t, none of this would have happened, maybe it was your fault. 

Come back. You wanted to scream it, but you’re choking. 

A thump sounds, something like the noise of flesh hitting flesh.

“Fuck! He just-“

“Bob, calm down- give her some space-“ 

The words are broken with the way your hearing flows in and out now, the world either completely silent, or a loud roar. The pain in your head was getting worse. It was a man’s voice, Bucky’s or Johns, and Yelena’s filters over it. 

“-To calm down- let - deal with it.” Yelena calms him as the crowd around you dwindles, morphing back into nurses again, frantically fixing various things you had pulled on during your fight. 

Deal with it.

“How disappointing, you come back to me broken, and without the information you were sent for… I suppose we’ll find a way to deal with your insubordination.”

You keep your eyes wide open, frantically looking around, trying to find Bob. You could handle the pain if it meant anchoring yourself to the present - he knew that the best of anyone. He would understand.

Someone approaches and you try to twist to see who it is, guilt pinching at your chest when you feel disappointment.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Yelena soothes, perching herself on the edge of your bed, making sure she’s not on any part of the various tubes and wires you’ve been hooked up to. 

This close, her voice and face were fully in focus. She wasn’t in her suit from the mission, but was still sporting semi-healed cuts and bruises that you had seen her receive in the warehouse when she allowed herself to be taken hostage. 

“It’ll be okay, you need to calm down and let them help.”

If she’s already healing, how long have you been out? It has to be more than the few minutes you thought it was.

This realisation only makes you panic more. 

Has everyone gotten out safely? Has anyone else gotten hurt because you jumped in too fast? Would you be kicked off the team for going against orders?

“I know, shh, I know, I’m sorry.” Warm hands accented with rings cup your cheeks as Yelena hushes you, telling you to relax so that you stop rejecting the tube. Despite the overwhelming presence of it in your throat, there's an oxygen mask overlapping it. You didn’t understand the need for both.

It feels more like a muzzle, and you’ve had enough experience with those. 

Your side aches, there’s something embedded there, pulling every time you take a breath. You cry freely now, you only know this because Yelena is wiping the tears from your face. It’s not from the pain, but something that cuts deeper. The failure. Every choked sob has your chest burning, like you’re inhaling smoke from a fire.

You can’t talk, but you turn your face away, every touch hurts, you couldn’t stand having someone so close, not with the ghosts that hissed in your ears. You were suffocated by the light now, too afraid to go back into the dark, to let them take you back. No amount of her words and reassuring looks could calm you now, not once she’s forced away by a nurse.

The fight is already lost when something cold travels through the veins in your arm. You aren’t even given a chance before those ghosts rise up to drag you down into the deep with them, at the same time that a familiar warm hand covers yours. You can’t even be sure it’s real.

On your rapid descent, you must be imagining sweet, soft Bob threatening half of the medical team if they come near you with another needle. It has to be a dream, otherwise you would have seen blue eyes, instead of a glowing, silvery white fading into gold before your eyes grow unfocused, and eventually close.

Darkness swallows you whole before you can feel the warm press of lips against your forehead. 

This time, it’s far worse.

-

Leather covered hands tighten around your throat, not to choke, but to remind you of your place as your head is tilted side to side, examined like some sort of show dog, because that’s what you were reduced to now. His breath is thick and warm on your face, rolling down your throat and you stop breathing. 

You don’t want to inhale it, not him. 

“You’re a pretty thing, you know, one of the best I’ve owned, I almost feel bad for sending you on this mission.” A calloused thumb brushes your lower lip, fingers gripping your chin unforgivingly. 

You’re frozen, not just watching, reliving. The darkness has twisted, manifesting itself into an old study, expensive paintings with cold eyes that stared down at you. Always watching. 

No, no, no. This was years ago, not now. The stench of cigars was still all around you, even if you refused to breathe, you could smell it. The smoke has burrowed under your skin, it poisoned every cell of you.

“Maybe if you make it back, I’ll see to your recovery… personally this time.”

No - You made it out of there, not just the mission, but away from him - this wasn’t real, it couldn’t be. You had watched him die. It wasn’t real.

Nonexistent limbs thrash in the darkness as you try to cling onto something solid around you, to run away, but there’s nothing. No hospital bed, no tubes, no blanket. You stumble away from his grip, crashing into a bookshelf and you can feel that, the way the edges dig into your back, the books that tumble down past your head to reveal blank pages. It wasn’t real.

You refuse the instinct to breathe, despite a growing sense of urgency, ignoring the small voice in the back of your mind that was begging and pleading for you to draw a breath. You wouldn’t validate this, wouldn’t take any of it in.

Your heart was pounding as more books fell, and your handler took angry steps towards you. You wanted it to stop, you wanted it all to stop. No matter how tightly you close your eyes, you still see him, you still feel his hands as he yanks you from your crouched position.

But there’s something else too, rising to the challenge of your nightmare.

Anger. It echoes around your mind, fracturing the vision around you, but the emotion is not your own.

Something cold brushes against your cheek, and it doesn’t feel the same as the man's hands on you. This doesn’t make you recoil in disgust. It’s trailing along your skin before stopping near your ear, and you cling to it like a lifeline, still fighting off whatever drug induced hallucination you’ve fallen into. 

Then it whispers in your ear, something solid and real that clawed its way through the emptiness to get to you. A predator so fierce that even the darkness cowers.

“I’ll make it stop, I’ve got you.”

Then, all at once, everything freezes, a house of cards collapsing, and you’re pulled into something fonder, a different kind of memory.

The Watchtower Penthouse - 04:11 am - Two months and three days after the formation of the New avengers

The room is bathed in a golden tone, expensive (and uncomfortable) couches decorated with perfectly placed cushions, are strategically placed to overlook the skyline beyond the penthouse of the watchtower. There was an artificial scent that still clings to all of it, like you were in some car showroom, a reminder of just how new this all was.

A fireplace is opposite you, artificial flames dancing on repeat. It was fake - just like everything else in the tower. Some pricey, poor attempt to feel like a home. But it was becoming one anyway. 

Over the two months since the team had formed, there were some signs of the space becoming lived in. It started with a small dip in one of the cushions where Alexei liked to sit for hours to watch the giant TV, a waxy burn mark in the carpet that had been hidden by a potted plant when John knocked over a candle, even Bucky’s motorcycle keys hung on a hook near the elevator. There was now a sticky note taped beneath them, with a bold warning to not touch.

“What are you doing?” 

Glancing up at the sudden arrival of Ava, you nod at the orange and white yarn in your hands, you had gotten used to her appearing out of nowhere, not even jumping the whole last week. 

“Birthday gift for Yelena - Alexei told me it’s at the end of next month, he’s not sure if it’s her real birthday though, but he wants to celebrate it anyways, so I’m making her a gift!” 

The words fall from your mouth as naturally as they did in the moment it originally happened, not even needing a breath to do so. You could ignore that need a little longer, you didn’t want to risk inhaling anything that could take you back.

“Why not just buy it? That’s what I’m doing.” Ava frowns down at you, picking up one of the bundles of yarn, examining it. You had snuck out in a hat and glasses to ponder the aisles of a craft store that morning, checking countless bundles and comparing the shades to the photo of what you were trying to recreate.

You shrug, focusing on your gift again, trying to act nonchalant. “It’s more heartfelt to make one, I thought she would like it.”

She leans over you, inspecting the misshapen ball in your hands. It wasn’t exactly going well, but you were trying.

“Do you even know how to crochet?”

“How hard can it be? I’m following the steps.” You shrug and glance at the instructions on your phone. It seemed easy enough at first, you were good at following instructions, but those had always been given to you. Getting to choose what you wanted to do was still new, unusual, and somewhat difficult because of how unnatural it felt. Being good at it was even harder.

Ava eyes you skeptically and takes a seat to your right, careful not to sit on any of your crafting materials that were spread out around you. For a while it’s just the two of you breathing in unison, the occasional tap of your phone when you flicker through steps, and the fake crackle of the false fire.

This was nice… you could stay here for a while. If this was death, basking in the fake glow of firelight next to one of your (now closest) friends, you didn’t mind this so much. You could ignore that frozen feeling that had settled in your chest.

“This is weird by the way.” Ava breaks the silence next to you after some time, you almost thought she had dozed off beside you. It was late after all, almost at the hour when John or Bucky would get up for training, they were always in some silent competition to beat each other down there and be the first in the gym.

“What? Why?” You don’t look up from your project, but your hands slow noticeably.

“I’ve seen you take out a guy's eye with a teaspoon, and now you’re… crocheting. It’s disturbing.” She treads lightly, but something about her words strike your chest uncomfortably.

A reminder that your hands had been used for things far more brutal than this. That they’d caused hurt. 

“I’m capable of more than violence, Ava.” You weren’t sure if that was supposed to be a reminder for her or yourself. Your heart rate spikes uncomfortably from where it had been resting lazily in your chest.

A voice disrupts the conversation. 

“Breathe. Calm down.” 

It’s not Ava who speaks, but it’s someone on your other side, so close that you can feel the chill of a breath on your ear, but when you turn to look there’s no one there. Just empty darkness behind you, a void at the edge of your dreamlike scenario. Your body responds to it anyway, and you take a slow breath. 

A pleased hum echoes from the shadows, the pressure easing, that nagging feeling at the back of your mind lifting. You can’t think about it too much, or investigate, because Ava is already drawing you back into the past.

“What are you going to ask me?” Ava sighs, leaning back beside you, resting her head back on the stiff couch. You suppose with her suit, everything must feel stiff, but you pretend not to notice that she has the yarn pressed to her cheek now, testing its softness.

“How did you know I was going to ask you something?” You try not to sound too defensive and she gives you ‘the look’. The one that says you’re being obvious at something.

“You’ve never exactly been subtle.”

And she was right. Ava was the one who was most likely to tell you the truth, you had known her the longest, you trusted her as much as you could allow yourself to. She was the one you needed to ask.

“It’s just…” You shrug, trying to soften the meaning behind your next words, “Bob, I don’t think he likes me very much.”

The man in question had been elusive from the first time you met him, nervous around you. In your frequent sleepless nights you had found yourself wondering what you had done to make him avoid you, if he had somehow read your file and decided he hated you, or if you had done something to scare him. If you walked into a room, he seemed to find an excuse to walk out of it.

“What makes you think that?” Ava asks, and you simply stare at her in response, shooting her a look of your own. “Okay, yeah, fine.”

“He’s… complicated. Got a lot on his plate.” She leans forward, placing her elbows on her knees as she rests her chin on her hands.

“He seems to be okay with you guys,” You frown in confusion as you loop the yarn, but something looks wrong with it, like part of it was loose. Ava takes the yarn from you with a sigh and phases her hand inside the ball you had been working on and pulls on a piece in the middle, making it look less lumpy. 

“Well, we had the lovely honour of fighting through our own little shame rooms and had a bonding moment with him.” Ava shrugs and passes the almost finished gift back to you.

“But then how am I supposed to… I don’t know- make friends with him, he won’t even let me shake his hand.” You huff, tired from both the day you had and the frustration that’s been growing like some poisonous plant inside you. 

“I spent years being very good at getting a read on people, Ava, but one minute he’s introverted and shy so he just hides away- and then he’s super nice and extroverted for a whole week to everyone except me- but then he goes all… moody. It’s been two months, and I still can’t understand him!”

You really had got a bad read on him back then. 

“Wow, this is really bugging you.”

It was. You had been reluctant to join a team in the first place, you didn’t need to be in the public eye, you preferred to be alone. But if that last part was true… Why does it bother you so much if Bob avoids you? It’s not like you needed to get along with him for the sake of missions, to work well together, but you still wanted to. 

“Yes. Please help me.” Oh if you five years ago could see you now she would be so thoroughly disappointed.

“He’s… like a cat.” Ava tries carefully.

“A cat?”

“Yeah, y’know, likes his space, spooks easily.” That much was true, if he wasn’t in his room, he spent most of his days stretched out on the couch near the window, lost in a book, blindly hiding in plain sight. He was good at blending in.

“So… I just let him avoid me? Sounds like a great start to a friendship.” The last word is still unnatural in your mouth, but you were growing to accept that it was something you were allowed to have now.

She narrows her eyes at you, flipping the conversation back onto you. “Why are you so keen on making friends with him?”

“No reason.” You shrug, no reason aside from the fact he was sweet, and made you smile on those rare occasions he did speak to you. He was kind too, mostly with the others, but he always made sure Alexei didn’t finish the coffee before you could get a cup in the morning. 

Before Ava can interrogate you, you quickly tie off the final knot.

“Oh I think it’s done!” Your face brightens, hiding any trace of nervousness as you place the finished gift on the cluttered table proudly.

Ava frowns down at the knotted up ball in front of you both, the sad looking mess of orange yarn flops to the side on the table. You turn to her optimistically, holding your hands out as if to say ‘Ta-da!’.

A beat of false-fire-filled silence passes as she tilts her head to the side. “What is it?”

You frown and state the obvious, picking the beady eyed yarn-creature up and holding it close to your face. “It’s Yelena’s Guinea Pig?” 

“Oh!” Ava nods, taking it from your hands like a parent who just received a poorly drawn stick figure of themselves “Right, yeah, I see that now.”

She didn’t, and neither did Yelena at first, but it now sits proudly on her nightstand.

The scene freezes, artificial flames no longer dancing or crackling, and without the background noise you recognise something else. Something that had been there the whole time - a steady breath passing your ear, but all you could see was empty space. 

What now? Why had it all frozen like some lagging movie?

You could sense it, some quiet contemplation, like the shadows had grown a consciousness, like they were making a decision. 

As suddenly as the first vision had changed, Ava fades away like smoke.

The Watchtower Balcony - 6:34pm - Two months and twelve days after the formation of the New Avengers

You’re standing about twenty feet to the left of where you had been previously, eyes fixed on a familiar hunched up on the empty landing platform. You can only see his back, painted in the soft light of the sunset, but he’s so burned into your brain now that you know who it is in an instant. 

If he’s so intent on avoiding an organic moment, maybe you could force one?

You had tried Ava’s advice for the last week, and it had no results. Bob had been on one of his happy swings recently, had helped Yelena bake, had cleaned the penthouse top to bottom despite the fact there were people hired to do that, and he had read countless books that you would have considered getting him a kindle for christmas in a few months if it weren’t for overhearing him tell Yelena that he preferred the feel and smell of real paper. All of that, but he still avoided you.

A cool autumn breeze kisses your cheeks the second you push on the glass door, an easygoing smile painted onto your face, so used to wearing it that you had forgotten it was a mask.

“Oh, hey! I didn’t realise you were out here.” He jumps at the sound of your voice, knees pulling away from his chest as he twists to face you. He had been talking, mid conversation but no phone in sight. You’d caught him doing it a few times before, talking to himself, or to no one at all.

There’s a fond emotion pulling at your chest when he meets your eyes, and just like before, it’s not your own.

Most of the time it was sweet, an odd habit that meant no harm, but this was different. He didn’t seem up in the air like he had been recently, no, this was like he was half sunken into the floor, weighed down and startled like a deer.

“I- Uh- sorry I- I didn’t realise anyone else was back from the mission yet…” 

Bob looked… sad. Not just the low dips that you had seen before. His eyes aren’t dazed from the new medication and he doesn’t hold the same light he has for the last few weeks. You take him in, now that you think harder, you’re sure you had seen him wear that same sweatshirt and jeans combo yesterday… and the day before. 

He mumbles something of an apology, and makes a move to stand up, unkempt hair falling into his face. He clumsily tries to pick up some items scattered in front of him, a notebook, a pen, and… a tiny paper swan?

“No!” Bob freezes at your soft exclamation, startled eyes wide and frozen on you. No - shit, you didn’t mean to scare him off. “Sorry, I mean don’t feel like you have to leave because of me-“

He still looked like he was halfway to deciding if he wanted to flee, like you had cornered him out here. In a way you had, and you knew that feeling. 

You needed an excuse to keep him there, not just because you wanted to talk to him, but because you recognised that look in his eyes. Luckily, you had been given the perfect one.

“Wait right here-“ You spin so fast that the early evening city lights blur together as you make your way back inside the main level. You try not to make your sprint obvious as you dash to your bag on the side of the bar, rummaging around in it. 

Once you’ve secured the items under your arm, you make a split second decision to grab the blanket hanging over the armrest of the couch closest to the glass door which leads outside. 

Bob’s now sat back down on the floor, still half turned to face you as you approach with a smile on your face. This time it’s genuine.

“Look - it’s us!” You grin as you sit down beside him, dropping the blanket next to you as you hold the two boxes in your hands, passing one of them to him.

He’s slow to take it, like you’re passing him some loaded gun instead of a children's toy.

“Are- Are these…” Bob's voice is hoarse, unsteady as he contemplates the item.

“The marketing lady gave me them on my way up, apparently mine goes on the shelves in a few weeks just before Christmas!” You smile, but he doesn’t return it.

You must have done something wrong again. A small part of you had hoped he’d find it cool, it was why you persuaded the woman to let you keep them, that part of you is crushed by his silence. 

It’s fine, he doesn’t have to like them. That’s the lie you tell yourself to ease the sting. 

You look down at the box in your hands. Cheap cardboard, a faint imitation of you on an action figure, caged in a plastic prison, your face on the corner of the box beside the New Avengers logo. Maybe he was right, it was stupid of you. 

“I think Val had them make that one of you too… just in case-“

“In case I can be The Sentry again.” You don’t think you’d ever heard him so bitter before as he places the action figure down, perhaps a little too firmly.

Oh. That’s what this was. The side of you that’s relieved it wasn’t something you had done is small in comparison to one that aches at his words, because you knew it in yourself, how it was to hold the knowledge that you weren’t good enough. But at least for him, it wasn’t true like it was with you.

A gust of wind makes you almost crush your own box before you can respond, earning you an odd look.

“Are you okay?” Bob’s focused on you now, confused by your reaction.

“Yeah, just not a fan of heights.” Truth be told, this was your first time on the landing balcony. You were far away from the edge and completely safe, but you were still stuck in your belief that humans weren’t compatible with living in skyscrapers, let alone ones with open balconies and sharp drops off the edges. 

Movement out the corner of your eye catches your attention, there’s something small and white, fluttering in the breeze as it’s pushed closer to the edge.

“Oh shit, your swan-” You’re about to stand but his hand quickly finds your shoulder, the warmth of it seeping through your sweater, and this time it was his turn to make you sit down.

“No- Don’t. I’ll, uh, I’ll get it.” Bob assures, already knowing it probably wasn’t in your best interest to have you getting anywhere height could become a danger if the wind was enough to scare you.

That was the first time he had touched you. It seems like such a small, insignificant thing to remember. But you did, because nothing was insignificant when it came to him, even though it took you almost a year to accept that fact.

If you even have accepted it…

He’s unusually quiet when he moves, shoulders hunched as he takes the few steps closer to the edge where the paper swan had scattered to, like it had been trying to take flight. With Bob, despite the power you knew he held, it’s like he sits at the bottom of the food chain, he’s become skilled at camouflaging all of the best parts of himself to avoid predators. 

Sitting down like this, you can see just how tall he is, despite his attempts at making himself smaller. You can see the softness in his face when the pink rays of the sunset catch it.

You try to ignore the way it makes your heart flutter when he turns back towards you, and you go back to pretending to look at the action figure, re-reading the choking warning on the side when he sits down beside you, paper swan safe in his hand.

“Are you, uh, scared of heights?” It seemed like a pointless question with how willing he was to go near the edge, like the possibility of falling didn’t bother him at all.

“I was, but- I mean I guess I can fly now? Or at least I would be able to if I- If I could control it.” Bob runs his ink-stained fingers along the wings of the paper bird, delicate, trying not to harm it as he places it down in a safe position between his pen and closed notebook.

Your heart sinks at his words. Wonderful. You’ve brought his mood down even more and the bar for it had already been in the damn lobby of the tower. Why did everything you say have to be wrong?

Bob squints at the box he’d left next to you, picking it up again. He’s looking at it properly now, no longer seeing some false potential of himself, but the actual reality.

“This… looks nothing like me, I look weird.”

Without thinking, you reach out to squeeze his free hand that isn’t holding the box, the one resting on his knee, pulling at the fabric of his jeans.

“I don’t know, I kinda think yours looks like Captain America, don’t tell John I said that though, he already has a whole complex about the whole ‘Cap’ thing.” 

The city stills around you when you realise what you’ve done, your quiet laugh dying when his skin warms against yours. Part of your imagination conjures up the idea that somewhere down below a cab has probably screeched to a halt in sheer horror and embarrassment for you. 

You remember Ava’s words, Bob wasn’t a touchy person when it came to direct skin contact, he had his reasons - reasons which included the potential for him to zap you into a maze of your worst memories - something you didn’t want happening for obvious reasons.

You freeze, about to pull your hand back and apologise; but then he smiles. It’s boyishly handsome, and his thick throat flexes with a laugh. You’d heard it before, but never had it been in response to something you said. On his face in pink sunlight, smile lines appear out of nowhere and his hair falls away from his face when he tilts it back. 

He looks free like this.

You laughed too, you don’t remember it, but apparently you did, because you’re seeing it from his eyes. It’s like his memory has overlapped with yours for the briefest moment. A hazy look at yourself, legs crossed and back to the sun. That same warmth from earlier echoes around you in the darkness beyond this vision. The feeling that wasn’t quite your own.

“Yeah- Yeah, that’s true.” Bob nods, lips pulled into a rare smile this time when he looks down at the box.

This was your chance.

“I brought a blanket, if you want to sit with me- Maybe you could teach me how to do that thing with the swan?”

There’s a flash of your face from his eyes, a quietly hopeful expression as you hesitantly raise the blanket. 

Why are you seeing this? What kind of drugs had they put in your IV?

“Yeah… Okay.” Bob nods, a lopsided smile on his face, and the tension between you finally relaxes.

This time the vision doesn’t freeze, it twists at the same time you lay out the blanket and the both of you lay back. You’re no longer sitting at sunset, but staring up at the night sky, silk dress cool on your skin. You remember this dress, you wore it just a month after you failed terribly on every attempt at making a paper swan.

This was the night of Yelena's birthday. Or rather, her fake birthday, the party with all the ‘important’ people, not the one with just the team where her smile had been bigger. Real. You and Bob had made a cake for that one, nothing like the expensive one that was currently inside, ordered from some fancy company by one of Valentina’s assistants in a flavour Yelena didn’t even like. 

You had learned a lot about Bob during those few weeks, nothing too deep - his favourite books, that he was surprisingly good at anything that involved puzzles, he preferred chocolate to vanilla except for when it came to milkshakes.

The Watchtower Balcony - 2:16 am - Three Months and twenty one days after the formation of the New Avengers

“Do you like stargazing?” You ask him, half testing if he was still awake.

The penthouse had been full of people with loud music playing when you both snuck out here, but now it was quiet. Those who lived here had returned to their rooms, and those who hadn’t had left to their own expensive skyscrapers. You must have been laying here for hours, but you were content with not moving until you had to. 

“I like the quiet- Well, I like you talking too, but… you know what I mean.” He stumbles over the words. You put it down to him being tired.

Bob’s nervous hands finally settle on his shirt, pulling absently at one of the buttons. Tonight was the first time you had seen him in a suit, he had worn it well, looking like he belonged on a magazine cover. The same jacket you admired had found its way around your shoulders when you stepped outside with him, it was nearing winter now.

“I get that.” You interrupt his stuttering with a small smile, eyes fixed on a cloud passing over the stars. 

“You do?” 

“Mhm,” You blink lazily, trying to keep yourself awake. “I uh… I know you have access to my file so-“

“I haven’t read it.” Bob stops you there, confirming something you hadn’t anticipated. You turn your face to look at him, but he’s still looking up at the sky. 

“It felt weird to… on the first day I was here Valentina told me all these things about myself, things I didn’t want anyone to know,” His jaw tenses, lips pinching like he can taste something vile. “It was like someone made a Wikipedia article of all the deeply personal shit I went through, so it felt kind of fucked up to be offered that information about someone else.”

This whole time… you had thought he avoided you at the start because of something in your file, because he had made some early decision to not trust you.

“If it helps, the only parts I read of yours are about that day in the city and that you were in the medical trial, nothing else,” It’s almost unnoticeable, the way he relaxes into the floor, the way his face relaxes. But you notice. “The rest doesn’t matter.”

“The rest doesn’t matter.” He agrees with you, and you hear him repeat it a few times beneath his breath before he speaks again.

“I don’t like the parties… I um, I used to think I liked the loud music, the people- but I- I think I just liked not being sober, and that… that was really the only time I was ‘allowed’ to be sober and not feel- not feel, uh, guilty about it.” Bob’s voice is shaky, and he’s still fixed on the sky, fingers still nervously twisting the button. 

“I don’t like all the people, or the loud noises, it makes my head hurt now. Makes it hard to sleep after.” Bob adds, falling quiet after. You knew he didn’t drink, it wasn’t necessarily that he ‘wasn’t allowed’, but he had set himself limits. They went hand in hand with your own, but for different reasons.

He had given you a piece of him… and you were already at an unfair advantage anyway with what you knew from passing comments about his ‘shame rooms’ the team had fought through. It was only fair you gave him something in return.

“Well, my file… it’s not too different to Yelena’s, but my line of work growing up was more private.” It’s your turn to look at the night sky now, to focus on a plane and absently guess where it was going to. “Yelena belonged to the black widows, but I was independent, I had different owners.”

“Owners? Like a dog?” You can’t see Bob’s face as you stare at the stars, but you can sense the sudden anger in his tone, the electric charge that picks up in the air.

It reverberates around the darkness too, even now.

“I wasn’t like the Winter Soldier, I didn’t need code words, or the programming that Yelena had, I was just… made for it. They told me my purpose in life was to serve… be obedient - don’t question the missions because ‘Good pets follow orders’.” Saying their words - his words - makes you sick.

You followed every one of them blindly, devoted and loyal. You thought this would be harder to say, it had practically had to be forced out of you by the therapist you were assigned when you joined the team. Even then, you provided her with the details, as cold and detached as if you were giving a simple mission briefing.

Like none of what you went through mattered.

“My last ones saw me as disposable I think, a means to an end, every job was practically a suicide mission, but I always came back.” Broken and bleeding, you always came back. Those days were some of the darkest, when you were expendable. You’d even convinced yourself of the same thing.

“Until the time I was held captive for a week… a group who wanted information about my handlers, which of course I didn’t give.” 

You had ripped your way out. Tooth and claw, and you swore that would be the last time you took an order that you didn’t agree with. You don’t tell him everything about what they would do to you, the-

“Don’t think about that.” The cool voice chides softly against your ear, reminding you it was still there, keeping you on track.

“When I got back I was given a medical kit to patch myself up with and a bottle of Advil, that was all I asked for. The first night I was healed enough to fight, I…”

Silence falls and you clutch his suit jacket tightly, afraid he might take it away at any moment.

“Killed them?” Bob finishes quietly, something dark in his voice, something you hadn’t heard in it before.

“Every last one of them. I didn’t want to take orders any more.”

You didn’t expect him to understand, or sympathise with someone so monstrous, someone that clearly had no regret in their actions in the way the others did. Even though Bob had technically put people in the void, he hadn’t killed them. 

You wait for that horror and discomfort from him, but it doesn’t come. You pick a new plane to stare at, following it between gaps in the clouds when he speaks, so softly that it’s barely audible over the city noise.

“When?”

Bob’s question catches you off guard and you lose sight of the plane, you close your eyes and try to recall the memory amongst the taped up boxes in your mind. 

“It was about four years ago, so a year before the blip. First year I spent in the states, hiding, and then-“ You make a popping noise with your mouth.

“Blipped?” 

“Yeah, made it easy to get out though, to get to Madripoor, but I had help.” 

“Valentina.” 

You nod, remembering the chaos, the aftermath of it all. It made it easy for you to slip away unnoticed, what was traumatic for the world around you, provided you with perfect cover. It freed you from your cage.

“I think Madripoor was the first real time I remember looking at the stars. I was alone, all the time… freedom felt more like isolation for a while.” 

You knew that Bob understood that loneliness, the weight of the world that threatened to fall down and crush you at any given moment.

“She must have read my file too, because she never gave me orders, mission packs were there if I wanted them - for the first time in my life I got to choose the violence I wanted.”

Guilt still followed you wherever you went, leaving behind stained footprints like you had walked through mud. Nothing you could do would remove that dirt, all you could do was hope that with each step, it would stain less. There would be less marks left behind, until you eventually left no footprints at all.

“And that’s how you met Ava?”

A tired smile pulls at your lips. “Some of my missions were international, we got paired together for one in Switzerland, spent two weeks freezing in the alps. Stars were pretty there too.”

They were much clearer there, less light pollution… but back there you didn’t have Bob next to you. Back then you couldn’t have imagined the importance Ava would eventually hold in your life.

“But you take orders from John and Bucky?”

That much was true, even more so now.

“Don’t always follow them.” Your lip twitches up in a smile. “And I think this team, especially Bucky, knows what it’s like to follow orders you don’t want to.”

You’re on the edge of sleep when he swallows audibly, his whisper keeping you conscious.

“Thank you, for…” Bob trails off, not quite knowing the right words for the moment, and you open your eyes again. The sky was clear now, the weight of the clouds shifting away.

“Is that why you came outside then… to get away from it all?” He’s pulling at the blanket again, a nervous habit he busies himself with when he’s afraid of saying the wrong thing. The consequence of a lifetime of having to be careful with his words.

There were two reasons you had come outside, but the second was the only one you had the confidence to voice right now in your weary state. The first was too new to be sure of, you were still processing the potential of its existence.

“Valentina added a new display case before the official party, I think she likes pushing the nostalgia down the throats of her little business friends…” Your jaw tenses, working over the words in your mouth, tasting the next ones.

“Oh… the battle of New York one?” Bob's voice is soft, and he must be facing you now because you can feel his breath on your cheek, warmer than the breeze.

It feels like the one by your ear, still there, still reminding you to breathe.

“It’s all just… remnants of a time gone by.” You shrug bitterly. “I wonder if that’s what I’ll end up becoming too, after all of this.”

“This?”

“Yeah, the team, the parties, the missions - the ‘great glory’ as Alexei puts it. Will I just… end up painted over? Used as a conversation starter? Everything about me just reduced to a spot in some pretty display case for people to marvel at over their champagne?”

“Never.”

You see yourself from this perspective too, only it doesn’t look like how you remember that night. The girl you’re looking at is far too soft, far more beautiful than you could ever see yourself as. It lasts a while, long enough for her blinks to slow until her eyes close completely, letting her guard down.

Bob falls quiet beside you, just as tired as you are. You’re both surrendering to the night.

“I may not know exactly what it’s like but… I kind of get it, the feeling that none of this matters…” 

It sounds like he’s going to say more, but when you turn your face to look at him, his lips are parted with soft snores escaping them. You fall asleep, refusing to acknowledge the smile that had grown on your face. You were here, you were safe. 

That wasn't the first of many late night conversations with Bob on the landing deck, but it was the first of many times you fell asleep by his side. The next morning you would wake up, tucked underneath the same blanket you had fallen asleep on top of, still with Bob's suit jacket on but your shoes removed, in the safety of your own room.

You didn’t even recognise the emotions burrowing under your skin until it was too late, you wouldn’t until a rainy night many months later, but for now you could accept the vision, of laying under the blanket of the night sky. 

You swear you still feel the warm hand in yours, the icy lips whispering against your ear, even in this dream, pleasant and quiet. It may not be real, but you hold onto it like it’s the only softness you’ve ever felt.

[motherroam-rs]

Ok chapter 2 should be posted sometime tomorrow - lmk if you want to be on a taglist for it!

Here’s a sneak peek because we get some protective bob in this one and i love him dearly:

“Is she gonna be okay?” A voice cuts above all the others, desperate and loud somewhere behind the wall of people in medical uniforms. You thought you had dreamed of him on the other side of that darkness.

Bob. He’s here.

Your fingers twitch against the bed, curling into weak fists as something soft is tightened around your right forearm, the same feeling following for your left, and both ankles.

You were being restrained.

“No- I can feel her- she’s scared!” Your eyes dart around, trying to catch sight of him through the human barricade of strangers placing you into restraints. “Hey, stop, get off her!”

Lover, You Should’ve Come Over (Bob Reynolds x Reader) - Masterlist

Rating: 18+ MDNI - this will include smut in later chapters and contains mature themes as well as graphic violence

Chapter List:

1 - The time you needed help to breathe

2 - The time you needed to calm down (Coming next week)

Chapters 3-7 will follow week by week!

Summary:

Recovering from injuries was worse than receiving them, especially the mental side, which only worsens when you push everyone away.

Bob reminds you that you don’t have to deal with the bad things on your own, if you can just let him in.

Or

The five times you needed help from the team & The one time you accepted it from Bob

Tags/Warnings: Violence, Injury Recovery, Near death experience from a gunshot wound, mentions of past abuse (from both reader and Bob’s pasts), friends to lovers, slow burn, nightmares, painkillers, bad mental health from both Bob and Reader, hurt/comfort, angst, protective!Bob Reynolds, smut in the final chapter which will require a wholeeee list of other tags

A/N: I’m about 75% done with this fic, which will have an overall 30-35k words and I hope to have an update out weekly!

Read on AO3

[motherroam-rs]

★ group grocery run

[motherroam-rs]

Lover, You Should’ve Come Over (Bob Reynolds x Reader) - Masterlist

Rating: 18+ MDNI - this will include smut in later chapters and contains mature themes as well as graphic violence

Chapter List:

1 - The time you needed help to breathe

2 - The time you needed help to calm down (& The time he needed yours)

Chapters 3-7 will follow week by week!

Summary:

Recovering from injuries was worse than receiving them, especially the mental side, which only worsens when you push everyone away.

Bob reminds you that you don’t have to deal with the bad things on your own, if you can just let him in.

Or

The five times you needed help from the team & The one time you accepted it from Bob

Tags/Warnings: Violence, Injury Recovery, Near death experience from a gunshot wound, mentions of past abuse (from both reader and Bob’s pasts), friends to lovers, slow burn, nightmares, painkillers, bad mental health from both Bob and Reader, hurt/comfort, angst, protective!Bob Reynolds, smut in the final chapter which will require a wholeeee list of other tags

A/N: I’m about 75% done with this fic, which will have an overall 40-50k words and I hope to have an update out weekly!

Read on AO3

[motherroam-rs]

Lover, You Should’ve Come Over (1/7)

Bob Reynolds x Reader

Chapter 1 - The time you needed help to breathe (Read on AO3)

Next chapter

Chapter word count: 3,760

Masterlist containing full tags and description here - Series Rating 18+

Chapter summary: The mission where everything went wrong.

You aren’t a psychic. You don’t have any enhanced senses, no visions of the future or any tip off that this mission is wrong, nothing to explain the gnawing feeling in your stomach that there was something you were missing - almost as if you had left a house and forgotten to turn off the stove.

At least you had three teammates interrogating you to keep your mind off the very important and possibly world threatening mission that requires your complete undivided focus. 

“Can we not talk about this right now?” This conversation was bound to give you a migraine later. 

Over the last year of being a team, you’d dealt with your fair share of odd pre-mission chats, ranging from what you would all eat for dinner that night to what cutlery object best represented each of your teammates (you ended up getting a teaspoon for that one.)

Today’s topic was last week's fundraiser in the Watchtower penthouse, or rather the events after the party, and the fact you hadn’t been seen with Bob in a week. Something you were all too keen to forget and had spent the last few days hiding from - on the top of your game at ignoring. That was until John brought it up, like a dog that had latched onto something it definitely shouldn’t have in its mouth, and was refusing to let go of. 

“I’m just saying, something must have happened, otherwise you wouldn’t be avoiding Bobby.” John's hands are flying out in the small space that was the back of the transport truck.

You wonder if it would kill you if you jumped out the rear door right now, if the pavement would be softer than the stares of John, Bucky, and Ava.

“You guys are like glued to each other, it’s weird, you even cheat the rest of us at monopoly together.”

“I do not cheat, Walker!” The protest flies out of your mouth as you bolt upright, jabbing a finger to his armoured chest. “Maybe you just aren’t as smart as you think you are.”

He scoffs as Ava nods beside him and Bucky shrugs in semi-agreement beside you.

A sharp turn from Alexei makes the truck swerve sharply, and you curse as you all jostle around. Your teammate in the front seat throws around some colourful words about another driver on the road. They were Russian, but he’d been teaching you some of the basics (mainly curse words).

“Hey- my advice was good advice.” John lowers his voice, which does absolutely nothing given you’re all squished together in the back of the truck. 

“You gave her advice?” Bucky pipes up next to you, growing more interested in the conversation. 

John and his big mouth. 

“Yes - good advice.” John says at the same time you shake your head in denial.

“It wasn’t.” You grumble, checking the display on your tablet to see you were just rounding the corner to the docks. At least you would be able to escape in about thirty seconds.

“On monopoly?” Ava chimes in, just as confused as Bucky. 

“What?” You look up at her beside John. 

“No, at…” You glare at John for putting you in this position. Not just with having to explain this to your other teammates, but also the situation you’ve been pushing down with Bob. 

You didn’t need this situation explained, or dragged back up, you needed to pull the covers over it and put it to sleep, preferably a heavily medicated one, leaning more towards a borderline coma.

“Uh- Marriage. Yknow- cause they’re friends, kind of like being married-“

God he was an idiot, why had you even listened to his advice. Ten more seconds, you could do this.

“Well you didn’t have a successful marriage, Walker.”

Your foot was tapping on the floor now as Bucky taunts John, at least taking the focus away from you. Yes, let’s all beat the dead horse of John's ex-marriage again instead. 

“That’s what I said!” The van pulls to a stop with your exclamation, and the weight settles back into your chest when Alexei calls out jovially that you were here. 

The paralysing anxiety returns in full force, telling you to stay in the truck, to run and not look back. 

That wasn’t an option - maybe it would have been two years ago, but not now - not when you had teammates who relied on you.

In the few seconds it takes to pull yourself back together, to manually force slow breaths into your lungs, Ava’s already phased backwards out of the truck wall and John is throwing open the door into the cool night air with a grumble of ‘at least I was married’. Even Alexei has abandoned the van before you to get to the larger truck that waited nearby. 

Bucky’s slower to leave, perhaps just as hesitant as you, but if he was, he didn’t voice it.

“Time to go, I’ll see you in there.” He breaks you out of your stupor.

You nod quickly, dismissing him before giving any hint that you felt something wasn’t right. Missions were for strategy, for skill… not superstition.

Everything would be fine.

“Right.” You follow him out of the truck, and follow your individual planned route into the warehouse. It was a simple building, nothing out of the ordinary with warm spotlights on the outside like some sort of beacon calling to you, but it still knocked the breath from you.

Eyes on the ground then, keep pushing forward, get the mission over with and go home. 

You enter from the west, checking the cameras had been disabled by Yelena before your arrival, and you hiss at the groan the heavy door makes when you slip inside. 

Praying none of the gunmen heard that, you stay low and make a beeline for the nearest shipping container, beginning your daunting ascent up the side, using the door handles as some sort of a climbing wall.

You’re almost to the top of the pile, trying not to pant from the effort of climbing when Bucky’s voice buzzes to life in your ear.

“Thought you could escape this conversation?” 

You groan internally as you scale the final container.

“Conversations over Bucky, there’s nothing left to say.” You heave yourself over the edge, finally relaxing now you knew you weren’t at risk of falling to your death. 

You focus on trying not to make any banging noise on the metal as you crawled towards the centre, one jump and you were sliding yourself onto the roof beam that joined to a shaky metal walkway. Why would people in a warehouse even need to walk this high - and why on earth wasn't there a single gunman up here? 

All of your muscles tense up, ready for a fight as you slink across the walkway and drop down to the next beam, almost where you were needed.

“Hey, team channel,” John snips at both of you. “Keep it quiet, you’re gonna blow it.”

“You’re the one who started it.” You grumble back, but it goes unanswered.

Eyes raking over the warehouse, you settle into position on a rusted metal beam above the gunmen as you take stock of everything around you - again. 

There were shipping containers, and according to a pre-mission briefing over the intel, they contained biological weapons, some sort of drug in large quantities. The shiny new Valentina-funded-equipment had in fact confirmed there was liquid and powder within the crates. 

Just ahead of you is a crane, powered down, with a cable leading straight down to the group below. You count the people again - two times. 

But why? Why take the hostages? Why bring it into New York and not somewhere more inconspicuous? It makes no sense. 

Your name being called in your earpiece breaks the focus you had on ‘scary gunman with a moustache number four’.

“Are you in position?” Bucky’s voice is quiet, crackly and you frown at the static interference that echoed, like something was blocking it. 

“Yes.” You keep your reply short.

Although you don’t lock eyes with Yelena, you know that she’s seen you, a smirk on her face as she bickers with ‘scary gunman number six’. She sits at the front of the group of hostages, twenty three of them to be exact, a combination of docks workers and people the gunmen had just pulled off the street, somehow knowing your team would show up to stop whatever deal was about to go down. 

The men were growing increasingly arrogant, thinking that they had the upper hand after capturing Yelena. (Capturing being a rather loose term given that it was on purpose.) 

“Stay on the beam until I give the signal, Ava will close in on the leader and draw the gunfire once she’s dealt with the group guarding the rear entrance. Then John will come in and help Yelena get the hostages to Alexei while me and you deal with the men guarding the crates.”

All of the moisture in your mouth seems to have been redirected to your skin instead, causing your suit to stick to you, suddenly tighter. Your heart is now picking up too as the nauseating uncertainty grows, like a snake unlocking its jaw - preparing to eat you whole. You do another scan of the warehouse, mapping out the floor plan yet again in your mind. 

If anything - anything at all - goes wrong and an exit gets blocked, the death tally would be high. Too high.

“That’s too much time wasted, Bucky.” You shake your head even though he can’t see you from his position amongst the containers. 

“The hostages are safe, the targets aren’t agitated, they’re fine.” His voice rings back casually, less crackly the closer he’s moving to your position, he sounds like he’s done this a million times. He probably has. 

“What if the buyers show up earlier- what if-“ The anxiety is slithering around your chest now, sliding over your throat and squeezing, choking you. You weren’t even sure you’d been able to breathe properly since the party last week. No, you couldn’t think about that right now, couldn’t think of him-

“Stop talking, you’ll give away your position!” John hisses at you both over the comms.

Readying yourself to fire back a snide comment and point out how he’s the loudest of the three of you, the crackle of a radio snaps your focus back to below. 

A code word, an order you guessed -  going by the way the group nods at each other.

Voices filter into your ears, but you don’t listen, eyes fixed on the scene below you as the dominos fall, sparking a series of events. 

One of them raises their gun at Yelena, steady and sure, and your body moves of its own accord.

You should have stayed in the van - you should have run. Like you always did. 

Air rushes past you as you all but launch yourself off the beam. Your shoulder was almost wrenched from its socket and leather gloves burned from friction when you grasp onto the cable dangling from the crane. 

In seconds you’re sliding down, straight into the middle of the fight. 

You knew Yelena was gonna give you shit later for the superhero landing when you dropped in front of her, tearing out your earpiece to rid your ears of Bucky and John's protests. 

The gnawing has turned into full blown panic that claws at your insides when the group didn't even look that phased by your presence. 

Something was missing. 

Their calmness is at least short lived when Ava phases through one of the containers behind them and Bucky rounds the corner, closing in on the group from both sides. They were trapped.  

“This was not in the plan!” Yelena huffs as she throws herself onto her feet. She’s shouting instructions to the group of hostages to follow her as she slices her restraints on the sharp edge of a nearby container, strangely she was the only one bound out of the group.

“New plan!” You call back, dodging a fist. 

The buzzing in your skull calms down, and a small part of you is frantic with hope that this was it, that it really was this simple. You would take down the gunmen, free the hostages, and the biological weapons would go deep underground in a storage unit. 

Sure, later you might get a verbal beating from Bucky, maybe you would actually sit with Bob on the outer balcony of the tower as you relayed the events to him over some hot chocolate, like you had wanted to every night since the party last week. Maybe you would stop avoiding him once you get back to the tower.

But of course, it’s never that easy. 

A shot grazes past your left side, nothing more than a dull thud in your ribs as parts of your armoured vest scatter across the floor, but the metallic clink of a bullet falling on concrete, or lodging in a metal container, isn’t heard amongst it. 

Has it embedded in the second layer of armour underneath? Or straight into another one of your scary numbered gunmen but you just missed it hitting? Or- 

Agony. Searing like hot oil and spreading. 

Apparently a gunshot wound was one of those things that got worse with time; the spark that ended up turning into a forest fire. A scream crawls up your throat so fast that you choke on it. 

Part of you has always assumed getting shot would be like a firework, a sharp burst of light that popped and crackled in your body but would then lessen. 

That part of you could not have been more wrong. 

If anything, that initial impact was the easiest part, the least painful. It reminds you of one of the punches Bucky would land on you in the training room when you moved too slow in the morning, dulled at first by sleep, but then the pain grew throughout the day and forced you to rest.

Your adrenaline is the only thing helping you to keep your mind from focusing directly on it, to stop yourself being led astray from the mission.

Clutching together every ounce of self control, you keep yourself helping Ava and Bucky take down the gunmen one by one, whilst Yelena and a rather pissed off John get the hostages outside into the thankfully larger waiting transport driven by Alexei. 

You try not to think about your screw up, about John’s angry voice over the earpiece moments ago when you disobeyed Bucky’s orders, you could deal with it later. 

You try not to let the pain in your ribs distract you from the mission objective, to save the hostages. To take down the criminals and secure the biological weapons.

You really try. 

Despite your best efforts, by the time you’ve taken just one of the men down, Bucky and Ava have already managed six between them. Each punch you’re throwing seems to have less impact on the second man you’ve turned to. He’s deflecting them effortlessly as your movements grow more sluggish, doomed by blood loss to be uncoordinated.

Unlike the majority of the team, you aren’t blessed with any special powers or enhancements that will grant you the upper hand. No, all you have is vigorous training and a fancy suit that has shattered with a single well aimed, or simply lucky, bullet.

All of your self criticism is proved right now that you were already bleeding more than the second man you’re trying to take on, and a shadowy figure manifests at the edge of your vision, seemingly out of nowhere. 

You have no time to turn before something hard is slammed into your temple. 

“Bucky, get her!” Ava’s voice is the last thing you hear before the ringing sets in, muffling everything else. An explosion could probably go off and you’d have no idea. 

It isn’t the hit that bothered you so much as the immediate sickness, and the sudden darkness clouding the world that caused the floor to rush up to meet you. You barely feel the impact of this either at first, much like the bullet, only the wet crunch inside you as your already shattered ribs give way under pressure. 

Only a few beats of your heart pass before a body lands in front of your face, mirroring your own position, and going by the blood on the end of his rifle that was also now trickling down your face; you’re willing to bet this was the shadowy figure. 

You shouldn’t care about his unimpressive stature, that he wasn’t even the biggest or most agile looking of the group that you had assessed, meaning he had simply got lucky in your moment of weakness. 

No, what you should be more concerned with is the fact you can’t draw a breath. You understand now what a fish must feel like out of water, lips parting and closing, but no air passing them. Only something wet and metallic tasting. 

“Are you okay? Hey! Oh shit, no, no no …”

A man’s voice echoes in your ear so quietly that you wonder if you’re imagining the way it ebbs in and of that muffled ringing out like a weak radio signal, your only reassurance being that if it was another gunman talking, you would surely be as dead as the hollow eyes you currently stared into. 

They were open, unblinking, and reflected red in the blood creeping towards you, until they’re replaced by the terrified ones of Bucky’s.

His are blue, but not the same ones you’re currently thinking of as more of the hot, metallic, tar bubbled past your lips. 

He’s speaking but he’s so, so far away. 

You couldn’t stop your mind drifting elsewhere, somewhere more pleasant, as you struggle to respond to Bucky, who’s turning you onto your back. Instead, there’s a memory from just three weeks before playing out in your very painful head of you and the only non-present member of the team. 

“I can’t believe we’re up so early, I thought this was supposed to be ‘relaxing’.” Bob complained as you practically pulled him from your bed, clothes as dishevelled as they had been the night before when he let himself in as part of a familiar routine when he couldn’t sleep.  

“Yeah well, Alexei’s the one who suggested team yoga, complain at him.” You grumbled in response. 

In your hazy dream, Bob’s stormy blue eyes are meeting yours across a gym, lips pulled into a lopsided smirk as they mouthed the words ‘breathe’ in the time with a yoga instructor that had been more amusing than calming. 

You remember fighting back that smile at his attempts to make you laugh, but all you can do is grimace now when more of that searing pain bursts along your side, tearing you from your thoughts.

“You better wake up, doll, or he’s probably gonna kill me and half the damn world.” 

A bare palm taps the side of your face, harsh, and it makes a wet noise, sticky liquid left behind on your cheek.

If you had any energy left in your body to gag on that same blood bubbling in your throat, you would. But there’s no fight in you, you can’t writhe in pain, or claw back, you’re just limp. An attack dog that’s served its purpose and now needs to be put down, unable to continue at the only thing it was good for - what it was made for - to fight.

“No, don’t you dare go there, you aren’t giving up, I’m not letting you.” 

Bucky’s grunt pulls you back to the land of the living once more the moment you begin to drift away, and unfortunately to your body, the place where all your pain is. 

“There you are.” Bucky’s still frowning when your eyes are forced onto him, but his voice is relieved. 

“John’s got a car, we’re gonna get you back to the tower, you’ll be fine, I need you to try and take shallow breaths.”

It burns. It’s like someone’s snuck their hand inside you to grip your left lung and make it disobey you. 

You want to hate Bucky for making you try it when the hot tears slide down your face from the edges of your eyes, the last thing you wanted to do was cry in front of any of them. If you were going out, you were trained to die quietly, with dignity.

But nothing about bleeding out on a warehouse floor was dignified. Nor was it fair. Not when you had left so much of yourself back at the tower after years of refusing to take root. Shame fills you for thinking you could ever be more than what you have always been, for thinking you could have more. 

For thinking you could have…

“Bucky… she doesn’t look good.” A worried voice, paired to an equally scared face only makes you want to shy further into yourself. To hide yourself away like some dying animal. 

Bucky heaves you up, into his arms, and you can’t even draw enough breath to beg him to let you slip back into that quietness with Bob. All that you can manage is some choked, wet noise.

“Don’t. Ava.” Those are the last words you’re able to actually hear before everything goes quiet. 

You were stupid, so very stupid. Stupid for not running, stupid for not listening, stupid for not fighting well enough, stupid for taking Johns advice. 

Your earlier prayers to return to your dreams instead are answered in the worst way possible when your memory twists, imaginary Bob’s mouth repeating that final word instead as Bucky’s terrified eyes flicker across your vision for the last time.  Fluorescent lights and metal beams moving past his head, faster and faster until you see stars above him.

You like the stars, like the way they make you feel at home - laying on the landing pad of the watchtower as you squinted up through light pollution and tried to tell the planes apart from the celestial jewels - but you were missing something now. You weren’t sure what it was, but you felt like it should be laying next to you.

Bucky’s saying something to you, mouth forming your name, but you only hear one thing over and over.

Stupid.

You don’t need Bucky’s pressure on your wound, or his concerned shouts of your name as he carries you when your eyes roll back, you would be okay. 

You just

Need

To

Breathe.

[motherroam-rs]

started writing a Bob Reynolds x reader fic last week that was supposed to only be 3k words…. It’s currently at 14k words, I don’t know what happened but yeah I can’t wait to finish this 😀

[motherroam-rs]

OK BOB FIC WRITERS AND READERS I HAVE A QUESTION

i have read a few fics now where his eyes are described as glowing gold or glowing white during those two scenes where John pins him to the wall and when he gets shot - which colour is it? I CANNOT TELL ANYMORE

i need to know which it is before i post my bob fic tomorrow (four days late but double the original length i planned whoops)

[motherroam-rs]

my Bob x reader hurt/comfort fic has now spiralled into something longer than the 3k words i initially planned BUT I AM COOKING - i have named it The five times you needed help from Bob & The one time you let him

IT’LL PROBABLY BE UP THIS FRIDAY BUT LET ME KNOW IF YOU WANT TO BE ON A TAGLIST FOR IT

[motherroam-rs]

thunderbolts has just yanked me back to avengers tower era fics TIME FOR A MARVEL REBRAND AND I REVIVE THIS ACCOUNT

currently writing a Bob x reader hurt/comfort one shot which should be up either tonight or tomorrow depending on how much i lock in

[motherroam-rs]

FINALLY POSTED A FOLLOW UP A YEAR LATER

https://www.tumblr.com/motherroam-rs/777940643026714624/rest-is-the-best-medicine

Unattached

Fives x Fem!Reader

NSFW Ahead Minors DNI 18+!!!

A/N: To all the girls who wish they lost their virginity to a clone trooper - this one’s for us.

Tags/Warnings: Loss of virginity, Best Friends to Lovers, Alcohol, Gambling, Lil bit of angst, Fluff, Smut, Oral Sex (F! Receiving), Vaginal Fingering, Slow burn (technically), Love Confessions, Happy Ending!!

Summary: Since the moment you were transferred to the 501’st as a Civ Medic you and Fives gravitated towards each other and over many months of friendship you can’t help but slowly fall for the charming ARC Trooper. The tension only increases when he finds out just how inexperienced you are.

Word Count: 9.8k

(For clarification, the italics are flashbacks)

The data pad read ‘Order for Civilian Medic Transfer’, which is really just a nicer way of saying ‘You can’t do anything about this, so just accept it and suffer’. 

You had no choice when you were inevitably rotated between legions, untethered. Your newest order was to the 501st, and you find yourself standing in an empty Medbay; it’s quiet. Too quiet. You’ve either been fortunately assigned to a legion that didn’t see much action, if that were even possible, or you were stood in the eye of a hurricane.

Your eyes are caught on the tattoo across the scalp of the head medic, ‘A good droid is a dead one’ and you suppress a smile at the sentiment. It’s why you were needed - clones weren’t fond of droids, even those programmed for medical purposes. 

“New?” The clone asks, eyes focused on a datapad. You weren’t, not by any means, you had been rotated countless times over the duration of the clone wars. But, you already begin preparing yourself for the usual gruff demeanour that often greeted you, although you were better than a droid, to many clones you were still just a ‘Civ’, despite the many sleepless nights of studying and GAR medical training. 

“No, sir, transferred from the 104th.” You keep your words short, formal, but the clone medic’s eyes light up in recognition.

“Under Commander Wolffe?” He asks, a hint of surprise in his tone as he actually looks away from the datapad.

“Briefly,” you admit, recalling how just a few days before the commander in question practically growled at you when you had to check his eye. You lasted a week there.  “I was with the 212th before that.”

The head medic eyes you with a curious look, waiting for you to elaborate, so you continued, “Typically Civ medics are just seen as temporary by the head medic, until a clone medic becomes available.” You explain, perhaps a bit too fast. How many times could you fit the word medic in that sentence? You internally groan, but he gives a small hum of acknowledgement, whether it was in agreement or disagreement of your statement, his face didn’t betray him either way. 

“Go get yourself settled, and then report back here in an hour.” He says with a slight sigh, passing you the datapad, a blinking spot on the screen indicating where your bunk is - at least this time you weren’t in the shared barracks. “We’ve only just got back from being planetside on Coruscant for a week.” Ah, that answers the question of why it had been so quiet then.

“Thank you, sir.” You nod, picking up your small pack of personal belongings, it wasn’t much, but it was the only anchor you had when you were transferred around so often.

“Kix is fine.” He nods, giving you a genuine smile. “Welcome to the 501st.”

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The small room is thrumming with energy that’s been ignited from an evening of drinking following a particularly rough mission for the men. Contraband in the form of amber liquid that burns your throat and fuels bad decisions, is grouped together on a small crate you’ve been using as a makeshift table for the evening. 

You’re currently sitting on the floor, leaning against a crate next to Fives as he divulges details to you about their most recent mission. Details that you probably aren’t supposed to know, but he tells you anyways, because ‘what are friends for if not to impress’, he had once told you with a sly wink. 

You knew most of the other Civ workers in the GAR weren’t as close to the clones they served with as you were. In all of the legions you had been bounced around from, there was a clear divide between the small number of Civ members, compared to the clones. But in the 501’st, those theoretical lines were blurred, or probably didn’t exist at all, with how Fives’s arm settled around your shoulder. He always had been the most friendly out of his brothers.

Your attention is drawn away from the warm expression of your friend, and you groan as you catch Jesse and Hardcase standing side by side, comparing their lengths. 

“Put it away, for the last time they’re all the same size!” You call out with a laugh, making Fives frown and whip around as he’s been interrupted from your conversation.

“Know from experience with clones?” Jesse sends you a drunken wink as his hands sloppily stuffs the offending body part back into his blacks.

“Medical experience with clones.” Your face almost hurts from smiling as you shake your head, before turning back to Fives. It’s faint and fleeting, but a look of annoyance crosses his features. You’re not awarded the opportunity to ask about it though, because he’s already delving into another over-exaggerated story of how he took out a whole group of droids on his own. 

You wouldn’t really care if they all weren’t true, you just enjoyed hearing him talk. The man could make even the most boring senate conversations interesting, you’re sure of it. So you smile, hooked onto each of his words, cursing the way your heart beats too fast when he reaches out to push away some hair that's fallen from the usual tight bun you have to wear it in. His fingers graze the skin of your cheek, leaving a burning trail.

It’s a small gesture that doesn’t even break the rhythm of his conversation. The touches are natural, instinctive on his part. He’s always touching you - you know to him it means nothing more than that, but your tell-tale racing heart screams at you that you wish it did.

—----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Once you had returned from being settled in, Kix had directed you to some neatly stacked crates containing new medical supplies to restock the old ones. Your sluggish movements remind you just how little sleep you’d managed on the transport here from the 104th, your body was still aching from the hours spent laying on the durasteel floor between containers of explosives. Not the best sleep you’ve had, and surprisingly not the worst.

“Hey Kix, can you tell me if this looks infected?” A voice pulls you from your thoughts, alerting you to the attention of a topless clone trooper, something that no longer phased you given how many entirely naked clones you had treated. Upon seeing you, the clone goes from being relaxed to formal instantly, clearing his throat as he fumbled to get the top half of his blacks on. 

“You,” he clears his throat, his voice now adopting the typical ‘trooper at attention’ tone as he pulls the clothing over his head, “Are not Kix.” His top blacks are on backwards, and he runs a finger along the collar which now presses uncomfortably to his flushed neck.

“No, I’m not.” You agree with him, suppressing a small smile at how he looks caught off guard, from his surprised expression you may as well be a battle droid standing in the medical bay.

“May I?” You gesture to his top, and he reluctantly removes it once more, taking a seat on a free bed. You see his issue, a common rash splaying across his shoulders from where his armour has been rubbing his skin through his blacks.

“You’re the new medic?” He sounds more nervous than you are, his jaw tensing when you run your fingers along the rash, checking for any signs of infection.

You give a small hum, confirming he’s correct as you step away. “And you are?”

“Echo. I, uh.. Wasn’t expecting a Civ?” They never do.

“Not infected, by the way, it’s just irritated.” You seek out a steroid cream, which you conveniently just restocked. “Here, use this twice a day, and keep the area as dry as possible.”

He gives you a short, formal nod before he redresses, correctly this time, and leaves the room with his face almost as red as his rash. 

You’ve moved onto another crate when you catch the movement from the corner of your eye, somebody passing the door to the Medbay. You think nothing of it until you see the figure again, this time he slows slightly to glance inside the room.

He walks past a third time - and then a fourth.

On what would be the fifth time you poke your head out slightly to watch him walk almost to the end of the hallway, just to turn around and begin his lap back past the door. He stops in his tracks when he sees you looking curiously at him, but quickly recovers even though he’s been caught, and strides back towards you. You catch a glimpse of a tattoo on his temple, but it’s his grin, framed by neatly trimmed facial hair, that seems to distinguish him from other clone troopers you’ve come across. It’s cocky, confident, and warm. Especially warm when he takes hold of your hand and presses it to his lips in a greeting that makes it feel as though you’re trapped in a boiler room, overheating.

“I’m Fives, and you are?”

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You were settled between Echo and Fives, the three of you with empty cups waiting for the next round of the game. Each round you had to take a shot based on your answer to the question, which so far had ranged between ‘If you’ve been shot by a droid’ - which Rex groaned at, and ‘If you ever fucked a girl in the 79’s fresher’, which made several of the men cheer. 

Your heart sinks a bit when Fives drinks at that one, recalling the night just over a month ago on Coruscant. 

You had all been there together, his arm slung around your shoulder in the booth as you both laughed at some fleeting joke made by Jesse. You had grown closer, close enough to the point that he got teased relentlessly by his brothers for calling you his ‘best friend’ whilst under the influence of some strong pain medication in the Medbay. 

You left to get some more drinks from the bar when Sinker approached you, a spark of recognition in his eyes. You were trying to focus on ordering the drinks, blushing as you attempted to turn down the Sergeant who was whispering over-sweetened things in your ear at how he wished you’d stayed with the 104th for longer.

You smiled in thanks when Echo came to help, claiming he saw that you may need help with carrying the drinks. You were grateful for the assistance, laughing with Echo under the usual volume of the crowd until you caught sight of your best friend, stumbling through the crowd towards the fresher, his hand intertwined with a beautiful Twi’lek girl.

You remember how Echo looked at you as he realised the reason behind your tightened jaw and hoarse voice when you excused yourself for some air. You couldn’t stand the sympathy in his eyes, the eyes that looked identical to those of your best friend, the man you were in love with. 

So much for being unattached.

“It wasn’t that good.” Fives nudges your knee with his own, pulling you from your thoughts. A casual smirk plays on his lips and you’re about to laugh off the comment, ready to deflect the attention from your friend, when his twin interrupts you.

“Yeah, cause you couldn’t get it up!” Echo slurs as he leans against you, clutching his cup as some of the amber liquid sloshes down your chest before he apologises and wipes the stain above your breast with hazy eyes. Fives catches his brother's wrist, pushing it away from your chest lightly, and your mind races at Echo’s statement - Fives hadn’t slept with the Twi’Lek girl?

“Shut up, Vod.” Fives grumbles, his fingers tightening around his own cup as he looks away from the two of you. A blush, that must just be from a mix of alcohol and annoyance, creeps up to his face. Thankfully as most of these questions have been related to battle or women, you’ve barely drank, so you can at least try to be rational and push away thoughts that creep into your mind of how you think Fives would take you against the wall of a fresher stall. You can ignore the contemplation on if he would show restraint, or if he would make the walls shake.

“How about this - take a shot for how many people you’ve slept with,” Jesse calls out to the small group of you, an intoxicated grin on his face. Several hands reach for the last remaining bottle at once, ready to fill their cups, each of their owners immediately wanting to show off to the rest of the room's occupants.

“No!” Kix’s hand is the fastest to snatch the liquor away, holding it close to his chest plate.  “We are not looking after you all in the Medbay with alcohol poisoning!” He gestures between you both, and Jesse bargains, coming to a compromise for 1 shot for every certain number, but the specifics of the round are drowned out by your own heartbeat.

Your body stills and you look down to your half full cup. It would be easy to drink, to lie to yourself and those around you. You don’t even have to drink more than once and yet you just continue to stare at your reflection in the liquid, it’s as if the cup were judging you.

“You know you’re supposed to at least drink once, right?” Fives whispers in your ear.

“Yeah, just got distracted trying to work out which of your brothers are definitely exaggerating,” You nod, taking a sip from the cup as you avoid his eyes that burn you more than any liquor ever could. You place the empty cup at your feet and lean your head against Echos, managing a small smile at how he’s snoring against your shoulder. 

Fives gives a small hum of thought, finishing his own drink before placing the empty cup next to you, allowing his finger to linger on the rim for a moment. Your gaze is focused on the way the traces of liquor coat his fingertips, making the battle-calloused skin glisten. You close your eyes, trying to fend off the thoughts of how the whiskey tainted fingers would taste on your tongue, and the mental image of them coated in something sweeter than the alcohol.

“Remember the first time I dragged you here?” Fives’ amused tone forces your eyes open, his warm hand settling on your knee and he taps his fingers rhythmically, almost to the same beat as your unsteady heart.

It had been just over one standard month, one of your longest posts so far, and you were already finding yourself anxious that you could be transferred away at any moment. If you had told yourself just over a month ago that in your new assignment with the 501st that you would wake to two half-drunk troopers in your room, begging you to come play Sabbac with them, you would have diagnosed them with battle induced psychosis.

“Well, not with us-” Fives starts, rummaging around the small closet for something you could wear over your sleeping vest.

“For us.” Echo finishes, practically pulling you out of your bed with an eager nod as Fives approaches you with something in his hands.

“Hands up, sweetheart.” In your tired state, you obey thoughtlessly, allowing Fives to slip the sweatshirt over your head. His fingers trail down your sides, eliciting goosebumps across your skin as he pulls the heavy fabric down over you, and between the contact and his name for you, your heart skips a beat. It nearly stops when he winks before turning away to get your shoes.

Clone Troopers were often flirty, but over the last month, Fives seemed determined to earn the title of being the biggest flirt. Regardless which of his brothers got sick or minorly injured, he was always the one pulling them through the door and would then spend the entire time sweet talking you. Just last week, Rex had nearly concussed himself on a pipe and looked like he wanted to hit Fives who didn’t stop talking the whole time you examined the injury.

“And why do you need me to play for you? I’ve never even played before,” You swallow thickly, sliding your feet into the shoes as the twins guide you from your room, both of their hands on your back, ushering you down complex hallways that all look identical.

“Fives got caught cheating, so we both got banned,” Echo rolls his eyes, placing the blame on his brother, who begins telling you the rules of the game, which they are playing a slight variation of given that they only had items to bet, not credits. You had reluctantly allowed them to bring a full bottle of rather expensive vodka you had purchased last time you were on Coruscant.

“You did not wake up the new medic just to get her to play for you.” Jesse groans, and Rex begins apologising to you for his brothers, ready to scold them for waking you up, but you raise your hand to stop him.

“It’s no bother.” You shake your head, remembering Fives and Echo’s advice to act confident - so really you just had to ask yourself ‘What would Fives do?’

“You know how to play?” Kix asks, surprised by your sudden change in demeanour. He had been used to you keeping your head down in the Medbay, following orders, not showing up with a bottle of alcohol to bet on and Fives’s arm slung around your shoulder.

“Oh please, I’ve been playing Sabbac longer than some of you have been out of the tube.” You feel Fives give your shoulder a proud squeeze at your lie as he places the bottle of vodka on the makeshift table, and you both take a seat, “Deal me in?”

After several rounds of you finding your feet in the game, Fives drops his hand to your waist, giving it a squeeze - he’s signalling to go in for the kill. You turn your head slightly to look into his eyes, and he gives a slight nod that doesn’t go unnoticed by your opponents, he’s making it look so sure you’re going to win, but in reality your cards weren’t good. 

 You and Rex were down to the last cards, everyone else had folded. Either of you could have the winning hand, but if one of you backed out now before your cards were revealed, you could at least keep your own stake in the game. It was about the bluffing now, and thankfully you were good at that.

“Well, Captain?” You and Fives lean backward in sync. You press the cards to your chest, hiding how they’re on the verge of shaking from Fives’ grip on your waist, but also to hide your tell. It’s a small, barely noticeable movement, your forefinger running along the edge of your thumbnail -  a nervous movement that Rex hasn’t noticed past your arrogant smile that perfectly mirrors Fives’. “What’ll it be?”

There’s a short beat where the room is silent and you hold the gaze of the Captain, all of the others staring between you both like it’s an intense standoff. He looks away first, tossing the cards down with a huff as he backs out, giving the win to you; he actually had a good hand. 

“Oh and by the way, sir,” You lay your cards down, revealing that you had already gone bust, over the number limit to win. “I’ve never played Sabbac in my life.” You grin at the shocked expression on his face that melts into a warm smile and you’re enveloped into a hug from Fives while Echo reaps your winnings from the table.

After you all decide to have a drink from the bottle you bet with, the tiredness catches up to you, and you struggle to stay alert with the alcohol that casts a haze on your mind. 

“C’mon, I’ll take you back.” Fives nudges you, picking up the half-full bottle of vodka as he pulls you to your feet, shaking his head in amusement when he tugs a bit too hard and you fall into his chest. “Already falling for me, sweetheart?” his voice is low, something that can only be heard between the two of you in the room full of his boisterous brothers.

You roll your eyes in amusement, a defence against how the whisper makes heat spread throughout your body. You take a half step back, placing the empty cup on the crate as you exchange a short goodbye with Echo.

“I’m gonna walk our lovely medic here back to her room, I’ll be back soon,” Fives gives a mock salute as you both make your exit and you try to ignore the whistle from one of the men as Fives chuckles, shaking his head. “Animals aren’t they, Mesh’la?”

You hadn’t known this side to any of the clones you’d served with, albeit you were just a medic, none of them had ever been this relaxed around you. The entire time you had been in the GAR, it had been lonely. There was no one to celebrate with after battle, no late night conversations between friends, no one to just sit with and cry when you weren’t able to save a life. But walking through the corridors with Fives somehow made it all worth it.

“You did great, sweetheart, I’m impressed.” Fives brings the bottle to his lips, taking a swig of the clear liquid as you stop outside of your door. “You’re just full of surprises aren’t you?” His tongue darts out to lick the vodka off his lips and you can’t help but let your eyes linger there after the action. His gaze is already meeting yours when you look up, heat flickering in his eyes like the flame of a candle - he’s caught you staring.

Fives’ hand comes up to hold your waist once more, his grip tighter now, drawing you closer like you were a flower he wanted to admire. The scent of vodka from his breath intoxicates you, and you find yourself hypnotised, leaning closer. You don’t know what causes it, but at the last moment he freezes, his hand falling from your waist to press the panel outside your door, opening it.

“Goodnight.” He gives a tight-lipped smile before stepping away, walking back down the corridor in the direction of the barracks. Despite the heavy sweatshirt and warmth of the vodka in your blood, you feel empty as you enter your dark room. You find yourself lying awake in your bunk as you work through a mixture of disappointment, embarrassment, and something that ignites an ache between your thighs. 

He stopped himself from kissing you, and you didn’t know why.

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You know your way back, he doesn’t need to walk you, yet he always does. It’s been almost 8 standard months since you were transferred to the 501st, you could practically navigate your way around blindfolded. So, you know you're about to turn onto the corridor your room is on when he speaks.

“You didn’t drink.” 

Your mouth goes dry, it’s like you’ve just eaten a whole pack of ration crackers while sitting in the Tatooine desert with no water. The lights above feel harsher, as if you’re under a spotlight on the Medbay examination table, and Fives is the one inspecting you. He’s peering at you from the corner of your vision, gauging your reaction to his statement. 

“What are you talking about, Fives?” You shrug in an attempt to appear nonchalant, but unfortunately due to his metabolism he was as sober as you, meaning he was just as observant. You couldn’t brush off his attention when he places a hand on your shoulder, stopping you in your place just as you round a corner. From here you can see the door to your room, the third from the end. It’s taunting you at how close you were to getting away with the secret you’d been keeping against your chest.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” His free hand grasps your chin between his thumb and forefinger, directing your attention to him. You swallow as he draws your face closer, eyes raking over your features as he gives a small shake of his head. “You didn’t drink.”

“Yes I did.” Your voice is impressively steady, you’re good at bluffing. Fives already knows this, but he knows you better, and his eyes dart down in search of something. Your fingertip presses against the edge of your thumb in a movement that Fives had catalogued in his brain since that day you beat Rex at Sabbac.

The credit drops. You can see the moment it registers in Fives’ brain as his jaw goes slack, his grip on your chin loosening.

“Are you a- mph!” Your hand covers his mouth and you push him to the wall before he can shout aloud what you’ve kept unsaid for your whole time in the GAR. Fives was an ARC trooper, he could easily push you away, but his muscles seem to weaken against your grip. You feel the resistance in his body melt under your touch, as his eyes soften just above where your hand covers his mouth.

“I know you’re a loud mouth but please,” Your voice is low, urgent, as you give him a warning look, your face burning from embarrassment as he’s just come to the realisation of why you didn’t drink. You didn’t have any number to drink for. You can see him linking it together in his head - why you turned down flirtatious advances from his brothers, why he walked you back alone after every late night. It was why your body was so responsive to every small touch and honeyed word from his lips; like a flower chasing fleeting sunlight in the late afternoon. “Just this once, Fives, keep your voice down.” 

Fives gives a short nod down at you, assuring you he’ll be quiet. His fingers loop around your wrist, tugging your hand from his mouth. You unsuccessfully try to ignore the way his lips had felt against your skin, you’re so caught on the small patch of wetness on your palm that you miss the clench of his jaw and flash of emotions in his eyes.

“You’ve really never..?” He trails off, the words settling into the small gap between you, they’re not taunting or teasing, they’re simply disbelieving. Even though he’s released your wrist now, it’s still suspended in the air, as if you’ve been frozen in carbonite. You’re afraid to move away, that it would be just like all those months ago, that the moment would be shattered and lost.

Your breaths are mingling together, you’re like an asteroid orbiting, drawing closer and closer to his planet, bracing for impact. Fives is unblinking, waiting for the answer he already knows, but needs to hear for himself. 

“No.” 

Something stirs in the depths of Fives’ eyes and there’s a tension you could almost reach out and grasp from the air. Your body acts on its own, hand breaking free from its frozen stupor to find interest in a small scar on his jaw. You remember treating the small cut, he never even flinched, but you had let him hold your hand anyways. ‘It’s for comfort’, Fives had told you, accompanied by the usual sly wink that made it all the more difficult for your free hand to remain steady when you cleaned the cut.

Fives’ eyes slip closed when your fingertips graze against the shining scar, his breathing becoming carefully controlled. You recognise the pattern, it’s the same pace it was during the times he would take you to the training rooms, his body pressed to yours as he taught you to shoot. He would chuckle into your ear when your hands would shake, causing you to miss.

Your hands are steady now, no signs of the trembling are evident when you raise your attention higher. Your finger traces its way over the inky ‘5’ on his temple, and you’re about to move it away but you find yourself held in place, fingers still pressed against the tattoo.

Fives’ constant touches were always casual, fleeting, and meaningless. But this? This was deliberate. 

His gloved hand is circled around the bare skin of your wrist once more, keeping your fingers pressed against his temple. After a short, breathless moment, he moves your hand, but not to push it away this time. He pulls it closer, making your fingers trace across his cheekbone, against his warm skin all the way on a deliberate path to his mouth. 

Fives’ lips ghost across your fingertips and in contrast to his rough exterior and battle scarred skin, they’re soft. Just above the point of your fixation is his heavy stare, focused and serious, like you’re his target in the heat of battle.

Your heart is thrumming against your ribcage like blaster fire and you wonder if he can feel the pulse in your wrist through his gloves at the sheer force of it. There’s barely any space between the two of you, and it only lessens with every beat of your heart.

“Just… stay still for a second, please,” Fives’ eyes burn into yours and he’s like a black hole orbiting you, pulling you in with his gravity. “Can you do that for me, sweetheart?” His voice is a strained whisper, just cosmic background noise, all you can focus on is how his breath fans across your lips. 

His eyes close again when you nod, and you allow yourself to slip away into the same darkness as he consumes all of your senses.

The touch is light, a soft brush of his lips against your own, and the gentle contact has a shiver running through your body. His hand has placed your palm back to his jaw, covering it with his own as he pulls you in deeper. The second kiss is more confident, the swipe of his tongue over your lower lip has the world around you dissolving into a meaningless void as he becomes the centre of your universe. 

Before you can part your lips for him, Fives pulls away, just enough so he can look at you. There’s a dazed expression on his face, like he’s been concussed but is strangely happy about it. The momentary bewilderment melts away into an unusually shy smile and he’s about to kiss you again when you’re interrupted. There's laughter echoing from the direction you just came and Fives pulls back further, a suddenly serious look taking over his face.

You’re filled with a strange sense of deja vu when he steps away, your heart already sinking. Before you can open your mouth to apologise for getting carried away, to try and repair whatever strain the kiss could have put on your friendship, you’re being pulled along by his gentle grasp. Fives is making urgent paces down the short walk to your door, slamming his free hand to the control panel to get you both away from whatever prying eyes may have stumbled upon your private moment.

The door whooshes down to swallow you both in the darkness of your room and just like all those months ago, your back is pressed against the cool durasteel door. Only this time, you’re on the other side of it.

You immediately miss the warmth his body has been providing you with when he walks over to your desk, fumbling in the darkness from your lamp switch. Your lips still tingle from where his own were pressed against yours, and you swear you can still taste him.

The room is poorly illuminated from the dim bulb, but it's enough to highlight the figure of Fives leaning over your desk and you take in the full sight of him. He’s still wearing his armour from the waist down, but his upper half is only dressed in his tight blacks, and the lamp casts shadows that accentuate every ridge of muscle. It’s times like this where you’re reminded the man in front of you isn’t just your best friend, but also a highly decorated ARC Trooper, a man who spends most of his days in battle.

The serious look doesn’t leave his face, even when he’s moved back in front of you, blocking out the rest of your room with his large frame. At some point in the darkness, Fives has removed his gloves, allowing you to feel the rough skin of his hand as it cups your face. His thumb tugs at your lower lip, smearing saliva across the swollen skin as he teases the sensitive flesh. You can make out the apprehensive desire in his eyes as he marvels down at your mouth, before looking up to meet your gaze once more.

“Kriff, I…” His voice is light, and there’s an uncertain, almost desperate edge to it before he swallows it down. “Sweetheart, do you want this?” 

It would be easy to lie to the both of you and back out. You never expected to meet anyone when you enlisted into the GAR straight from your medical school. Back then you had wanted to be a doctor, it was expected of you by your family, you sacrificed your entire social life to work for it. 

You were never given the luxury of free-time, how could you ever have met anyone when all you did in your later teen years, when all your friends were partying and meeting their partners, was study? It was never a case that you didn’t want to be with anyone, but life simply prevented you from it. You were in your third year when the war broke out, two more years at the university and you would have graduated, but instead you decided to take your study credits and enlist as a medic. In less than a standard rotation from the moment you notified the university, you were on a transport to your first assignment.

You had let your work and the war rob you of so many experiences, you wouldn’t let them take this from you too. You wouldn’t let them take him from you too.

“Yes, Fives.” You nod, allowing your hands to rest on his broad shoulders. You’re sure of this, sure of him.

“Tell me to stop,” There’s a hunger in Fives’ eyes when you say his name and his lips press back to yours in a kiss that’s over far too quickly. “At any time, tell me to stop.” He’s holding your face still, unmoving until he has your consent.

“Okay.” There’s no reluctance in your tone, just a breathless need that makes Fives’ jaw tick.

Fives exhales, his shoulders relaxing and your eyes close again in anticipation, awaiting his kiss. But instead you feel the heat of his forehead press to yours, as if he’s anchoring himself against you, just for a moment.

“Okay, sweetheart.” His mouth is instantly on yours, his right hand still cups your jaw, but his left slips around your back in search of the zip on your uniform. He makes quick work of pulling the zipper down to loosen the material from your skin, and both hands travel down to your hips, tugging at the edge of the fabric.

“Hands up.” Fives’ voice is low in your ear as he presses a kiss to your hairline, and you raise your arms, allowing him to slip the top from your body. He discards it on the floor, not wanting to waste any time that could be spent with his hands on your exposed skin.

Fives is slower this time. Each movement is purposeful when he guides you both towards your small bunk, his tongue slipping past your lips in a kiss that makes you dizzy as you taste him in your mouth. 

When the back of your knees meet the edge of your bunk, Fives’ lips begin to trail down your body. His path starts at the soft skin of your now exposed cleavage, and continues down past your bra, over the smooth skin of your stomach. There’s a soft scrape when his armour makes contact with the floor, he’s dropping to a kneeling position with his lips hovering over your abdomen. You look down at the man kneeling before you with his fingers hooked in the waistband of your uniform leggings, and you can’t help but smile. Fives pauses momentarily, sending a wink up at you before he tugs the fabric down, exposing the flesh of your legs. 

“Lay down.” Fives whispers, and you can feel his warm breath tickle your stomach.

You settle backwards onto the bunk, allowing Fives to remove your leggings entirely, along with your shoes. You’re left in just your simple, black GAR issued bra and panties. It’s nothing special by any means, but Fives eyes you as if you’re an oasis he’s stumbled upon in the middle of a month-long battle. One meant only for him.

You let your eyes slip closed as you hear the familiar noise of his armour being removed, clattering to the floor. It’s something you’ve heard many times when he’s come to relax with you on an evening and you find yourself counting each piece removed as a distraction until bare fingers brush your knee. It’s a comforting touch to draw you back to him.

“Open your eyes, sweetheart, look at me.” Fives is sat just between your legs, bare aside from tight boxers that leave little of his anatomy to the imagination. You already knew what clones looked like naked, you had treated enough of them to not be phased by any part of their body. But a clone on a Medbay table was different to your best friend whose lips were pressing to the soft flesh of your inner thigh. “Is this okay?”

He inhales against your panties and you attempt to swallow your embarrassment and nervousness at the sight of your friend between your legs with only a thin layer of fabric between you. The sight of his ever-present smile between your legs sends a flood of heat through your body before it concentrates in your lower stomach.

When you don’t reply immediately, he pulls back slightly, giving the thigh he’s hooked over his shoulder a light squeeze. His brown eyes are filled with concern, searching your expression for any hesitation. 

“You still with me?” His thumb traces patterns against your skin, each movement only encouraging the fire in your body.

“I’m still with you,” You nod, watching as something lights up in his eyes. “What are you-“ 

Fives immediately silences your question with an action. His wet, open mouth presses to your thigh again and you feel yourself exposed to him when he hooks a finger in your panties, pulling them to the side. 

“I’m taking my time with you Mesh’la.” His hot breath fans over your now exposed cunt and you fight the urge to clasp your legs together, you’ve never felt more vulnerable lying in your bunk, entirely bare to the person you trust most and it’s a vulnerability that makes your heart race as if you��re under attack. 

Fives seems to sense your nervousness as he holds your knees firmly apart with his shoulders and free hand, keeping your legs open for him to litter small kisses on your inner thighs, all the while keeping you exposed for him. 

“Focus on me, Cyar'ika.”

Before your apprehension can get the better of you, Fives is licking a slow, experimental stripe up your slit, parting your folds with his tongue. His eyes are on yours the whole time, studying the awed look on your face and gasps of pleasure when his tongue runs over your clit.

Fives shakes his head, grumbling something under his breath. Before you can decipher it, he’s using one hand to lift your hips from the bed while his other practically tears the panties from your body, leaving you in just your bra. Strong hands move to grip the top of your thighs and pull you to him so he can secure his mouth to your core without obstruction, filling the room with wet, desperate noises as he laps at your cunt. 

Your hands twist in the thin bed sheets, desperately searching for something to ground you as his tongue delves inside you. His mouth is attached to you like you’re his last meal before an execution, the first drop of water after a mission on a desert planet, something he’s denied himself for far too long.

One of his fingers circles your entrance and your eyes snap open, finding him already looking up at you with a question in his gaze, asking for permission. You can only nod, not trusting your ability to speak with Fives’s tongue dragging slow circles around your clit. 

Your head slumps back to the floor when he proceeds with your consent, the sensation is entirely foreign as you feel his digit sink into you, testing your tightness. Your own fingers were nothing in comparison to his, even just the one is beginning to stretch you.

“Fives…” Your breathless plea encourages him and your teeth sink into your lower lip as he adds another finger to stretch you further. You let out a small whimper at the slight burn and he slows his movements slightly to allow you time to adjust.

“Shh, Mesh’la,” He changes the angle slightly, massaging his fingertips against the walls of your cunt as they search for a particularly sensitive spot. Your body jolts, arching towards him when he finds it, and a moan escapes you. “That’s it, relax.” 

The heat in your core is building as you grow wetter, making it easy for him to work his fingers into your tight hole, only adding to the growing pleasure building in every part of you, begging to escape. He presses his thumb to your swollen clit, one goal in mind.

“Need to make sure you’re ready for me, Cyar'ika.”

Fives withdraws his fingers from your gushing cunt, his hands instead moving from under your thighs and securing themselves back to their original position on your knees, keeping your trembling legs open as he continues to suck lightly on your clit when you reach your climax. Your body shakes, set alight with pleasure that’s only intensified by the way his head rests against your thigh, looking up at you as if committing the moment to memory.

When you finally relax against the bed, the pleasure having temporarily robbed your body of energy, you expect him to be done and move onto the next step. Instead, he lets out a low chuckle and begins circling your clit with his thumb once more. 

“Do you think you can give me another one, Mesh’la?” His soft smile contrasts his words, but his eyes gleam with mischief when you whisper a small ‘yes’ in response.

He’s using just his fingers this time, two of them working you in a scissoring motion, stretching your walls as his other hand slips between you and the mattress. His fingers expertly find the clasp to your bra, freeing you from the last item of your clothing.

His pupils are dilated, drinking in the sight of your writhing body, now entirely bare for him. He leans back slightly, taking in every detail, something between a smile and a smirk on his lips when his eyes focus on his own fingers pumping in your tight hole. The moment he feels your orgasm hit, cunt tightening around his fingers, he descends on you once more. Teeth pulling at your nipple, his thumb secured to your clit as he lets you ride out your orgasm, your hips attempt to grind up against his hand, chasing pleasure.

The world is falling back into place around you when he shifts his weight on the bed, and you hear the final piece of clothing hit the floor.

Fives is kneeling in front of you, a hand on each of your knees as you take in the sight of his bare body. His large cock makes the breath hitch in your throat, but he presses a soft kiss against your lips, prepared to ease the tension that threatens to overwhelm your body. His eyes are filled with a warmth that reassures you when he pulls back to press another kiss against your forehead, “You can take it, Cyar'ika, I’ll go slow.”

Fives settles his hips between your parted thighs, hooking one of your legs over his waist to keep you open beneath him. Soft lips ghost over yours and you feel the head of his cock settle against your entrance.

“Are you ready?” His thumb brushes along your jaw, a loving reminder that it’s your best friend above you, the person you trust the most. The same man who you would stay up with late at night after every difficult battle, who you would always pick up an extra ration bar for, the man you were in love with. 

“Yes.” Your eyes slip closed as you press your lips back to his.

The initial pressure of his cock entering you gives way to a sharp pinch that causes you to suck in a sharp breath through your teeth. Despite all of Fives’s efforts to prepare you, the unfamiliar pain seizes your body in an uncomfortable grasp.

“Relax for me, Cyar'ika.” He murmurs the assurance against your mouth, forcing his own breathing to slow, unconsciously prompting you to calm down. A hand presses to the underside of your thigh, pushing it upwards as he rolls his hips into you, he’s only halfway inside and you try to force yourself to relax around his impressive girth.

“That’s my girl.” He groans into your neck as his hand drops from your thigh to drag precise circles around your tight clit. The added layer of stimulation makes you gush around the half of his length inside you, making it easier to take his cock, but he doesn’t push any deeper. Instead he rocks his hips in a shallow motion, allowing you to adjust to this size first.

“Shh, don’t worry, Mesh’la,” He strokes your hair, continuing to press soft kisses of assurance to your mouth as he works your clit in time with his shallow thrusts. “It’ll be easier once you cum with me inside you, then you’ll be more relaxed for me.”

Fives’ hips pick up their pace, but he still limits himself, expertly watching your body's reactions to his cock. He’s continuously ensuring he doesn't go too fast, too hard, too deep. It’s a balancing act, one he seems to be perfect at with the way he already has the beginnings of another orgasm taking grasp of your body.

“Fives!”

You’re grinding helplessly against him now, one hand on his tanned chest and the other grasping at the short hair on the back of his head. Between Fives’s whispered words of adoration in your ear, you can make out the wet noises as he thrusts inside you, each movement causing more of your wetness to drip between your joined bodies, smearing you both with your arousal.

You’re hooked onto his words like a lifeline as he guides you through the experience.

“Kriff-” He shakes his head as he takes in the sight of you cumming around his cock. But it’s not lust in his eyes, it’s something far more intense. “I promised I wouldn’t do this..” His voice is strained, like he’s trying to keep the words inside of him. 

Before you can even catch your breath fully to ask what he means, your world is spinning when he pulls you upwards, slotting himself underneath you so you can no longer try to read the emotions in his face. Your back is now pressed to his chest, his body supporting you to stay upright and he’s hooking his right hand under your knee, spreading you apart.

His chin rests on top of your head, the position allowing him a full view of your body as his cock enters your cunt from behind; it’s more than before, but still not the full length. Your right arm curls up around behind you to hold the back of Fives’ neck, needily pulling him closer in the moment as you writhe against his body.

“Look at that, Cyar'ika,”  You feel the rumble in his chest just as much as you hear it, and it draws your attention down to your joined bodies. He shifts slightly to support your head as you catch glimpses of his cock disappearing into your tight hole in a series of shallow, restrained thrusts. “Look how perfectly we fit together.”

His eyes remain locked on your body, the way your chest heaves and cunt tightens, dripping down his cock as you cum once more, you’re already losing count. From what you were always told by friends when you were in University, losing your virginity was supposed to be a far cry from this. In fact you don’t think a single one of your friends had cum when losing theirs, and yet here you were, the room almost spinning from the pleasure Fives had given you.

Fives chuckles at the blissful look on your face as he pulls his hand from your clit, allowing you to relax against his larger frame. “You are really something else, Cyar'ika.” He’s slower this time when he rolls you both over once more, cradling the back of your head as he rests you back onto the pillows. 

He resumes his original position above you, thumb tracing the curve of your cheekbone. His eyes are full of adoration when he looks down at you, and there’s no trace of the painful stretch from earlier when he slides the full length of his cock inside you this time.

He’s been so focused on your pleasure that his own has been forgotten, but you see the evidence of it. He’s coated in a sheen of sweat that makes him appear like one of those glossy paintings in the art galleries on Coruscant. He’s an artwork, beautifully crafted, every muscle in his body coiled tight in restraint as his hips grind against yours. 

It’s your turn to touch him this time, to appreciate every bit of the vulnerability in his face as he presses his forehead against yours and you angle your face upwards to steal a kiss. A tortured moan escapes his lips as his thrusts only increase in speed, he’s clinging onto you like it’s his sole purpose.

“Where?” His breathing is ragged against your neck.

You make a confused noise in response and he curses something in Mando’a.

“Where do you want me to cum, Mesh’la, hm?”

You‘re speechless from the pleasure, but thankfully your body answers for you, already locking your legs around his hips to keep you joined together.

“Alright, Cyar'ika, inside it is.” There’s a soft rumble of amusement against your throat before his mouth finds yours again. One hand tangles in your hair while the other grips your hip, both of them seeking to drag you closer. You’re two stars colliding in the void of the universe, no longer orbiting each other, instead becoming one as your light drowns out all darkness around the pair of you.

His name is falling from your lips, cries of it suffocated against him when his tongue slips into your mouth. Fives empties himself inside you, his cock unloading a flood of warmth that already overspills, leaking from your cunt with every slow movement of his hips. He pulls back, an unreadable emotion in his eyes before he buries his face in your hair, distracting himself by stroking at your burning skin. You stay there as you both begin to calm, hearts beating in sync with one another as your bodies remain joined.

He’s breathing heavily in your ear, an affirmation that you haven’t died and ascended to some afterlife when he drags his hips away from yours, leaving you empty as he stands up. 

“Where are you going?” You hate yourself for sounding so needy, but with his cum leaking from between your thighs, how could you not. You knew it was common for men to leave straight after sex. You’ve caught some of the boys’ one night stands sneaking out barely ten minutes after they had been brought to the barracks, hair messy and clothes dishevelled. 

“Relax, sweetheart, I’m not leaving.” He winks at you before disappearing into the small fresher joined to your room. You hear the water running for what seems like far too long, before he returns with a warm washcloth.

“Gotta clean us up before we make a mess on the bed, I’m not falling asleep in a wet patch.” He settles back between your legs, whispering soothing praises as he cleans your combined fluids. He’s thorough, making sure there’s no trace of him left before he presses a kiss to your inner thigh and discards the cloth into your laundry basket.

“C’mere.” He settles down next to you, lifting an arm to allow you to curl up against him and he pulls the bed covers over your waists. “You did so well, sweetheart.” He presses a kiss to your forehead, basking in a moment neither of you want to end. It’s sweet, intimate, and perfect. 

Yet you can’t stop yourself from asking the question.

“What did you mean when you said you promised you wouldn’t do this?” 

He pauses, an awkward smile tugging at his lips, you’d never seen him nervous like this, a blush creeping into his cheeks that he can’t even blame on the sex. “Caught that did you?”

You nod, biting the inside of your cheek. Your cards were on the table, it’s only fair that his should be too.

“I suppose it’s only fair given that I didn’t let you get away with not drinking.” There’s a nervous edge to his laugh as he drags you closer to him, like he’s afraid you could disappear at any given moment.

“Do you remember the first time we played Sabbac, you kicked Rex’s ass, and I walked you back to your room?”

You nod slightly. The memory still plagued your thoughts on sleepless nights, it embedded itself in a playlist of embarrassing moments that liked to keep you awake. Yet, it also featured on the list of thoughts that had your legs twisted in the bed sheets as you imagine what would have happened if he did kiss you that night. 

“I wanted to kiss you, but I couldn’t.” He sighs regretfully, admitting the truth he had been fighting against all of the months since that night.

“I think you’d only been here for what - a month?” You feel his laugh against your cheek as it rumbles in his chest. “And I couldn’t get you out of my damn head, I even made Echo fake being sick once just so I had an excuse to come to the Medbay and talk to you.” You remembered, and now felt slightly bad for insisting you give Echo all those unnecessary virus and anti-nausea shots.

“I needed the excuses to see you, because if I didn’t, and I saw you without them, it’d mean something that I’d been avoiding.” He trails off, trying to find a way to put it into words, it wasn’t something he had ever been good at. But he would try, for you he would try.

“The rest of the boys found out because I called you my girlfriend once when Kix gave me some of the heavy stuff in those green syringes.” He laughs, shaking his head and your mind begins to put the pieces together, that’s why they teased him so often about it. “They all promised they wouldn’t tell you how I felt though - I wanted to be the one to tell you.”

He drags a hand down his face, his jaw tenses. “And then I got jealous when I saw that Sergeant from the 104th talking to you, how he had his hands on you,” He shakes his head, an irritated look playing on his face, both at the other trooper, and his own actions on that night. “Thought I blew my shot, and I tried to cover it the only way I knew how.”

Your mind recalls him and the Twi’lek making a beeline for the 79’s freshers, how just a month ago you ended up crying in the alleyway, it was like taking a blaster bolt to your chest. No amount of Bacta could fix the pain that night, but you had certainly tried to heal it with whiskey.

“But I didn’t do it, and it’s not like Echo said, not because I couldn't,” He pulls himself back from you, but continues to hold you, to keep you in the moment with him as he explains what happens, a regretful look on his face. “It’s because she wasn’t you, Cyare.”

He presses his forehead to yours, closing his eyes and your fingers trace over the tattoo again, just for a moment, just until he finds the strength inside of him; the strength to override his programmed instincts to be a loyal, unattached soldier and nothing more.

“I promised myself I wouldn’t…” Fives trails off, opening his eyes. He needs to see your reaction, whether it’s good or bad, he needs to know. “Fall in love with you.”

You wonder if this is what the Jedi feel with the force around them, but instead of the whole world, you just feel Fives. The warmth of his skin under your fingers, the certainty in his eyes, the utter devotion for you in his voice as he fights against every form of conditioning he’s received.

“Fives, you idiot…” His expression is concerned at first until he sees your teary eyes and beaming smile. “I love you too.”

You had loved him since the moment he kissed your knuckles on your first day in the Medbay, every interaction after that only strengthened the bond between you.

Fives smiles down at you, his quiet laughs tickle your skin with warm air as you’re lured back into his embrace. He laughs disbelievingly, shaking his head as he allows his body to press back against yours, a perfect fit.

“We have so much time to make up for, sweetheart.” 

You never want to lose this feeling, his lips marking your body, peppering reminders everywhere that you’re his, you have been since the moment that fateful order flashed up on your datapad. You’re anchored, attached, tethered to him - whatever word you want to give it, you’re his.

[motherroam-rs]

Rest is the Best Medicine

NSFW MINORS DNI

Summary: When work gets stressful, your sleep begins to suffer. Luckily, your boyfriend has some methods to put your mind at rest.

Tags/Warnings: smut, soft dom fives, praise kink, vaginal fingering

If you haven’t read Unattached, it’s my pinned post and I strongly encourage you to read it before this, as it’s kind of a follow up 🫶

Word count: 2222

NSFW BELOW THE CUT

‘Rest is the best medicine.’

A line you had uttered to countless troopers when they lay bruised and complaining in the Medbay cots, which ironically weren’t the most comfortable to rest in. You lived by this rule, a good nights sleep made all the difference after all when you worked 18 standard hours with little breaks and fellow medics who seemed… less than competent.

And yet, you found yourself staring at the ceiling, dark circles probably forming under your eyes as you mentally calculated the amount of sleep you would need to survive tomorrow. You turn on your side instead, focusing your dry eyes on the neon numbers that display when you tap the data pad on the small nightstand. Letting out a quiet huff of irritation, you return to your position on your back, tucked under Fives’s arm.

Sure, being in the GAR was stressful, even with Fives’s newfound way of helping you unwind. Whenever he knew your shift in the medbay was bad, he had the surprising ability of making you forget your own name when his head was between your thighs. But the anxiety seemed to snowball this week, rendering you irritable and unable to quiet your thoughts.

“What time is it?” His chest vibrates with a hum against your cheek as he speaks. Your eyes pinch closed in frustration when you realise you’ve woken him up.

“Late, sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you up,” Your voice is hoarse from lack of use when you whisper, pulling your head from his bare chest to look up at him in the dark.

“‘S fine,” Fives mumbles, the hand that’s not around you coming up to rub his eyes. “Can’t sleep?”

“I’m trying, it’s not exactly easy.” You close your eyes, but it makes no difference in how active your brain is right now. Every thought seems so loud, echoing against your skull as your mind unwillingly begins to list off the tasks you’ll have to do when your alarm goes off tomorrow, or technically today.

“You want to talk about it?” His thumb traces lazy circles in your arm as he curls you back onto his chest.

What would you even say? A long rant about how overworked you felt, attempting to train a hoard of fresh faced medics, one of them who actually fainted at the sight of some stitches? Or perhaps how when Kix wasn’t there, you were often overlooked and dismissed by other senior medics, given either meaningless jobs, or thrown in the deep end with no help? Either way, these quiet moments were the only sanctuary you got, rest or no rest, you didn’t want your stress to spill over onto this.

“It’s fine.” You sigh, but it comes out harsher than you mean it to, the frustration seeping into your tone.

It’s silent for a few moments, and you berate yourself internally. Just as you open your mouth to apologise, you feel Fives shift beneath you, turning you onto your side away from him, pressing his chest to your back as he curls himself around you. For a moment, you allow your eyes to close again as you focus on his heartbeat, strong and steady against your back. You let yourself soak in the moment, basking in the warmth of him, relishing in the way his arm snakes around your waist, settling a large hand on the small slip of bare skin where your shirt (or technically his shirt) has shifted up from your tossing and turning.

“You know what helps?” Fives’s voice drops to that lower tone, ghosting along the back of your neck. There was no mistaking the suggestion in his tone when you feel his lips against your skin, just below your hairline.

Ever since that first time together, Fives had been overjoyed to find out just how easy it was for him to get you worked up. One sentence uttered when no one was listening, a carefully placed kiss, a stolen touch, or even a simple look was sometimes enough to have you squeezing your thighs together, and he knew it. You already knew the smug smile that would be on his face if you turned around right now, as if he knew you just tightened around nothing, an aching need already forming between your legs.

“You have to be up early,” You respond but there’s no conviction in your voice. Not with the way he’s kissing lazily along your neck, craning his head to press his lips to the place where your shoulder begins.

“I’ve survived on far less sleep than this, sweetheart.” He punctuates his statement with a bite that drags a quiet, but unmistakable, whine from your lips. In this moment, you’re no longer forcing your eyes shut to try and force your restless body to sleep. You’re shutting off senses you deem unnecessary to focus on Fives and every minuscule bit of attention he’s giving you.

“Is that a yes?” Your mouth turns dry, and you manage a nod. All you can focus on is the way his right hand on your stomach is moving lower, yet he hums in disapproval.

“Don’t tell me you forgot how to speak?” He teases, fingers playing with the waistband of your sleep pants. You already know you’re soaking through your underwear beneath them, your body craving not just release, but Fives specifically. You can’t imagine anyone else causing this aching need deep within you, only him. Always him.

“Is that a yes, sweetheart?” Fives repeats, lips brushing your ear as his fingers pause their teasing movements.

“Yes.” You plead, opening your eyes once more as you turn your face to look at him. Frustration rears up in you when he moves his hand off your stomach, fingers gently gripping your jaw as he turns your head back forwards, encouraging you to rest it on the thin pillow.

“Then close your eyes for me,” Fives soothes you, allowing his hand to trace down your chest, your breath hitching when his thumb grazes over one of your nipples.

“Now focus on nothing else, except my touch, okay?” Fives had a remarkable way of being firm with you, and yet so soft at the same time. Like dismantling a ticking bomb, but it was a guidance you needed.

“Okay.” Your heart races at the noise of approval that rumbles in Fives’s chest when you respond. You were never one to care for others opinions all that much, but maker did you love it when you pleased him like this, just because you listened to his directions.

Fives has shifted behind you, propping himself up on an elbow with his left arm, whilst his right hand slips down to your leg that you aren’t laying on, and he encourages it upwards, allowing him to slip a knee between your own. He was parting your legs just enough for his task at hand.

You fight back a shiver as he lazily traces his fingers upwards, along your thigh, and you’re thankful he’s not in a teasing mood when he doesn’t hesitate to slip his hand beneath the waistband of both your sleep pants and panties at the same time. You let out a quiet whimper when two fingers drag slowly between your slick folds, parting the delicate skin to tease your entrance before sliding upwards to lightly circle your clit.

“Kriff-“ You gasp quietly, body tensing against his at the stimulation.

“Shh,” Fives encourages, alternating between shallowly dipping barely the tip of his finger into your cunt, and drawing small circles on your clit. “Just relax, sweetheart.”

With a slow, measured exhale, you let your body unwind, your mind drifting elsewhere as you let him take control. For the first time in what feels like an eternity, that ever present tightness in your chest eases, the stress bleeding out of your body as well as your mind. All of it, every anxiety and irritation replaced by Fives, entirely overwhelming you in the best way.

You can only moan his name, soft pants of it escaping your lips as his fingers map every inch outside of your soaked cunt, your mind barely even able to recall why you were so worked up in the first place.

“Just let me take care of you, Cyar’ika.” Fives mumbles against your neck, his eyes fixed on the way his hand disappears beneath your waistband, the small movements beneath the fabric making his jaw clench as he takes you in.

Once he’s satisfied you’re out of your unrelenting loop of thoughts that kept you awake, his hand moves back down to begin fully pressing a finger into you.

“So tight,” He half groans into your hair. You feel the twitch of his cock against your lower back, causing your fingers to seek out the bicep of his right arm, digging in as you press your hips back against him. He curses as he sinks the finger down to the knuckle “C’mon, be a good girl and relax for me.”

Your whole body feels like it’s humming, set alight by his touch, and barely seconds after you manage to relax yourself, a second finger is sliding inside, maddeningly slow. Your hand tugs on his arm, hips fighting back to not grind down against his hand and fuck yourself on his fingers. But this isn’t the hot and fast touches you’ve had before from him, when he gets back from a battle, filled with a desperate need that borders on animalistic when he seeks you out after so many nights apart. No, this is slow, it’s deliberate, wiping the slate of your mind clean as he coaxes out every bit of unrest within your body and replaces it with something new.

“That’s it, Mesh’la, always so good for me.” He practically purrs at the way your body lets him in. “Letting me fuck you with my fingers.”

Your cunt tightens around him, practically throbbing as a moan slips out of your mouth. Your thighs are soaked now, evidence of the way you crave his touch as the wet sounds reach your ears when he fastens his pace. The heel of his palm purposefully presses to your clit with each movement, and your legs tighten around his own between your thighs, but he’s quick to nudge his knee higher, forcing them further apart to allow him better access to where you need him most.

You’re lost in him, hanging onto every sweet word in your ear as he tells you he’s so proud, that you’re doing so well, and you’re so perfect for him. The moment he curls his fingers inside you, you’re chasing that lightheaded feeling, where every emotion in you heightens and you feel like you could laugh and cry at the same time.

“That’s it, you’re right there aren’t you?” You feel a kiss against your jaw, and his lips return to your ear. Fives knows every inch of your body, especially the signs that you’re rushing towards a well deserved release.

“Now let go for me, you’re okay sweetheart, just let go.”

Your cunt tightens impossibly around his determined fingers at his soft command, body trembling as you see stars exploding behind your eyelids. Not a single one of the views of countless galaxies you had been awarded could ever compare to the experience of Fives causing every part of you to come undone, soul unravelling as you lay bare against him despite being fully clothed.

You’re still clinging to his arm, face buried into the pillow when he’s pressing gentle kisses to your hairline, shifting his body so that he can stroke your hair back with his left hand as you come back down to reality.

“There you are, Cyar’ika.” His hands slips free from the confines of your panties, and you’re too exhausted to fully appreciate the wet noise as he slides his fingers past his lips, or the light groan pulled from him when he tastes you.

You can’t even shake off the tiredness that’s now made a home in every cell of your body when you try to turn and reach for Fives’s still hard cock; intent on returning the favour. His hand is quicker than yours, darting out to gently secure your wrist in his grasp and place it to his chest instead as he dips his head down to give you a kiss, his mouth making gentle, languid movements before he pulls away with a soft exhale, leaving behind the taste of you on your lips.

“Don’t you want to keep going? You haven’t exactly…” You frown in confusion.

“No, sweetheart, that was all for you,” He chuckles, a smile pulling at the corner of his lips in the dark, and your brows furrow in confusion when he reaches for your datapad.

“What are you doing?” You half yawn, struggling to keep your head up off the pillow.

“I’ll tell Kix you aren’t feeling well,” A featherlight kiss is pressed to your temple as he disables your alarm and rests the device back on your nightstand. “And that he needs to do some serious work on the rest of the medbay medics before my trigger finger gets overworked.” He teases, eliciting a small, sleepy smile from you as you’re pulled back onto his chest.

“Now get some rest.”

You’d never slept better.

[motherroam-rs]

real

[motherroam-rs]

DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE  2024 | dir. Shawn Levy (Clip)