#joaquin torres/reader | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

murdrdocs · 3 months ago

Text

come into my bedroom

description. you and JOAQUÍN TORRES take a week long vacation to the beach together. just a week on the coast, spending time in each other's bubble, without falling for each other ... probably. visuals

includes. coworkers to friends to lovers, SMUT 18+ MDNI, reader has been kept as ambiguous as possible (hair type, skin color, body type, place of birth, etc), reader is able to tan, the location is ambiguous, slight spoilers for brave new world, takes place after bnw, protected p n v sex, oral (f receiving), soft dom! joaquín, reader is called "baby" a couple of times

wc. 12.3k+

a/n: title from champagne coast by blood orange. i tried to keep where they vacationed as ambiguous as possible, but it's definitely at least a little bit obvious. for my bsf who recently got back from miami. thanks to @luckypunklemonade for beta reading :D

You’re drunk.

No, you’re not drunk. You’re too drunk, inching towards shitfaced. You’re still here, at least here enough to walk beside Joaquín down the street towards your hotel, but you’re not really here. You know you’re not exactly walking in a straight line, and you know where you’re heading, but you don’t know how long you’ve been walking. You could’ve left the club five minutes or 50 minutes ago.

You weren’t going to get this drunk. Honest. You and Joaquín were just going to go out, have a few drinks, and go back to your separate rooms.

But the music was good, and the drinks were good, and the people were good, and suddenly you and Joaquín are drunk and navigating your way down the street. Well, he’s navigating your way. You’re just trying to keep up with his long strides.

He walks a little in front of you the entire time, slightly more rigid, and a little less drunk than you are. You’ll probably be at his level in another half hour, that is if you get something in your stomach by then. Every so often, he looks over his shoulder to make sure you’re still there. You thought about hooking a hand around his elbow to keep him close, but the thought entered your mind and left before you could act on it.

There’s not much small talk happening, but you don’t mind it that way. You’re focused on making your feet pick up and land one (mostly) in front of the other. Actually, you’re focused on walking and finding an open food spot on the way.

One part is going fine, the walking part, but you’re still blearily searching for something to eat. You pass bars and closed businesses, restaurants that require reservations weeks in advance, one of them you think you and Joaquín actually have a table at later this week, but nothing quick and greasy. Which is exactly what you need before calling it a night.

Joaquín calls your name and you hum.

“You up for stopping in right here?” He points to the side and you look around his wide shoulders to find your saving grace. It’s like he read your mind, or maybe you’d been audible harping on about wanting something to eat the entire time. Right now, either seems plausible.

Either way, you nod and let Joaquín hold the door open for you.

You and Joaquín end up sitting across from each other at a tiny outdoor metal table. With the wind blowing against your skin as you’re sipping freezing cold water from a to-go cup, you finally realize how hot you’ve been this entire time. You lift your skirt up a bit to press your thigh against the cool metal and a sigh pushes out front your lips. Your eyes fall shut as you just sit in the moment.

“You still drunk?” Joaquín speaks from across the table.

You open your eyes and destroy your brief peace to glare at him as you wrap your lips around your straw. “What do you think?” you ask him only when the cool liquid has slid down your throat.

He laughs. “First night here and you’ve already gotten shitfaced.” He shakes his head as if he’s ashamed of you, but the playful glint in his eyes keeps you at ease.

“It’s your fault!” you accuse. “You’re the one who made friends with that couple. They kept buying us drinks.”

Joaquín throws his hands out to the side in a surrender. “I’m not going to say no to free drinks. Don’t blame me!”

He’s right. Even if he wasn’t, you aren’t in the arguing mood anymore. You would rather finish the greasy taco sitting limp in your hands. And you do.

You’re not being very attractive about it, though, you can tell from the way the juice slides down your fingers and around your mouth, but that’s not really the point to all of this.

Besides, you and Joaquín are just coworkers and friends. Just two coworkers/friends on vacation together. Sitting across from each other in front of a taco spot, fighting for sobriety as you occasionally lock eyes between large bites. There’s no reason for you to be attractively drunk eating when you’re only with your coworker/friend.

You finish the last bite, wipe around your mouth with a crumpled napkin and throw it onto your empty tray, looking up to find Joaquín already looking at you. He has this look on his face, nothing different from the one he usually wears—soft eyes and a softer smile—but it feels different this time. Maybe it’s the city lighting and your drunkenness that’s skewing the meaning. You’re going to blame both factors for the flutter in your heart, too.

Neither of you say anything for a moment and in that moment, a thought flashes across your mind. It’s quick and fleeting, but still strong enough to evoke a reaction. Just a thought of you leaning over this small table and pressing your lips to Joaquín’s. And the thought was truly fleeting, but you bring it back and sit in it to imagine how he would reciprocate with his hands on your lower back, big palms resting on the strip of skin between your top and skirt, and he would taste like lime and alcohol and when you pulled away he would have a look almost identical to this one on his face.

Joaquín’s eyebrows push together, skewing the soft look he wore before and knocking you out of your drunken trance.

“What’s that look?” he asks.

You shrug, feigning nonchalance. “What look?”

His gaze lingers for a moment, but then he licks his lips and cleans up his area. “You think you’re sober enough to walk back now?”

You scoff and attempt to make a point by quickly standing to your feet. When you wobble, it’s because your shoe didn’t land right on the concrete. Honest!

You have a crush on Joaquín.

You don’t know why you’re realizing it here and now—laying in a hotel bed on vacation first thing in the morning. You don’t even know how long this crush has been here, but you know for sure you have a crush on Joaquín Torres, your partner/coworker/friend.

You thought your little image from last night was fleeting, nothing but a drunken thought that you let yourself imagine for less than a minute, but it proved to be way more than that because when you got back to your room, you couldn’t stop thinking about him.

As you took your makeup off, you thought about Joaquín waiting in your room for you to finish, snuggled under the blankets and scrolling through the channels on the TV until you came out of the bathroom in his shirt. As you climbed in the shower you imagined him standing at the sink brushing his teeth and humming that song he’s always singing but you never ask the name of. As you finally climbed into bed and clicked the lights off, you imagined fighting for covers with him and sleepily talking about your plans for the next day.

It was so domestic and loving and absolutely sickening and unexpected.

Well, maybe you should have expected it. At least a little.

Joaquín is kind of the perfect guy. Everyone in your life made sure you were aware of it. He was funny, attractive, hard working, and easy to get along with. Even his flaws—his incessant nature and occasional annoyance for one—was quickly reworked as lovable in your head.

You struggled with falling asleep for at least a half hour last night, and as soon as you knocked out, you were out. You might not have remembered your dreams but you knew deep in your mind and body that he was there.

Just as he is here now, standing in front of you early in the morning, wearing a bright smile and an athletic set.

“No,” you sternly shut him down before he can even say anything.

Joaquín’s jaw drops and he wears a mixture of shock and humor. “C’mon, you didn’t even let me say anything.”

“I know what you’re gonna say, Torres. I’m not going to some ‘sick workout class’ when we’re supposed to be on vacation.”

“Oh, so we’re on last name basis again?” He crosses his arms over his chests and widens his stance. “I thought we moved past that.”

“If you ask me to come with you then we’re back to last name basis, yeah.”

He pouts and it’s so stupidly cute that you want to slam the door in his face. “Don’t let the hangover speak for you. I know you secretly wanna come workout with me.”

You squint at him accusingly, leaning into the doorframe. “‘m not hungover.”

“Uh-huh. How’s the headache?” He’s obviously not buying your shit.

“I don’t have a headache.” Bullshit and you both know it.

“How’d you sleep?” He asks you instead, this time lacking any suspense. For a moment, he seems like he’s actually wondering how you slept.

“Like a baby.”

“Then that means you should be energized enough to go for a workout. It won’t be bad. It’s only an hour.”

You shake your head. “That’s an hour that I could be sleeping.”

“And basically waste the whole day away? That doesn’t sound like the partner I know and love.”

You don’t let your mind linger on that word, especially when you know he doesn’t mean it like that. But still, knowing that Joaquín has some sort of love for you makes your chest feel all airy and glittery.

“Yeah because that partner isn’t here right now. We’re on vacation.”

Joaquín doesn’t respond. Not verbally at least. Instead, he tilts his head and fully pouts, lips pushed out and eyes big. He’s not backing down and truthfully, it might be better for you just to say yes and halfass the entire session.

Finally, he reasons with you. “I’ll buy you a smoothie afterwards. Whatever overpriced shit you want. Fair?”

Fair enough.

Compared to what you’re used to, the workout is quick, but it’s certainly not painless. The instructor, some woman with much more energy than you’re willing to exert on vacation, seemed to find pleasure in kicking your asses. For a brief moment there when you were catching your breath and wiping your forehead on a towel, you wondered if she could be some big and bad super villain hiding in plain sight. That would explain the inhuman stamina, and the almost eerie cheery personality, but other than that your theory didn’t make much sense. And even if it did, you were on vacation. Now wasn’t the time to seek out trouble that wasn’t presenting itself.

The only thing that pushed you through the entire thing was looking over at Joaquín, one because of how attractive he looked with sweat glistening along his tanned skin, and two because you refused to let him show you up, even if the workout was his idea.

You will admit, though, that every time he lifted his shirt to wipe his forehead, your knees did feel just a little weaker and your last rep in a set was not nearly as strong as it could’ve been when you heard him grunting beside you.

You couldn’t understand it. You and Joaquín workout together all the time. You train together, sometimes with Isaiah and Sam, sometimes with friends of friends, sometimes with just each other. You’re used to seeing him sweat, you’re used to hearing his grunts and breaths, you’re used to all of it. But something about all of this happening now is making you lose your mind.

As soon as the class ended, relief entered your entire body.

The relief certainly didn’t last for long, though.

Since you did what Joaquín wanted to do that morning, he did what you wanted to do right after. Before you could even really think about it, you happily suggested sunbathing on the beach until you were too hot or hungry to continue, whichever came first.

It wasn’t until Joaquín slyly grinned and sang your name that you realized what you signed up for.

“You tryna see me shirtless?” he teased at the time. And you rolled your eyes and called him a freak and continued walking down the hall towards your rooms, but as soon as you were behind the closed door you were digging into your suitcase to find the cutest swimsuit you brought.

Not that you were trying to impress Joaquín or anything.

As soon as your bare toes are sinking into warm sand, you slowly feel yourself relax. Slowly.

Laying on your back in a swimsuit that was a nice mix between cute and attractive, your eyes closed, your ears full of a playlist you made just for this occasion, the sun radiating down on your skin. It’s easy to forget everything laying just like that. The breeze cools your skin as soon as you get too warm, the sun heats you back up as soon as you get too cold. Absolutely nothing to worry about except how long you’ve been laying on one side and when you should flip over.

Absolutely no stressors.

Until Joaquín speaks.

“Do me a favor and get my back?”

You peek an eye open and lift your sunglasses up to see Joaquín standing next to you, holding out a bottle of sunscreen.

You don’t mean to hesitate, but you still do. It takes a moment to process his question, and it takes another moment to find an answer, even though the clear one is yes. If he wasn’t standing there without a shirt, wearing forest green trunks that hung low on his hips, and his skin wasn’t glistening in the daylight, it wouldn’t have taken nearly half the time to help him out.

“What would you do without me?” You try not to let your voice falter while you watch him massage sunscreen onto his chest, but you’re sure the little dip at the end of your sentence was noticeable.

Joaquín just tilts his head and tosses the bottle into your lap.

It’s not awkward. At least you don’t think it’s awkward. You rub the sunscreen on Joaquín’s skin as quickly as possible, trying to ignore the sturdiness of his muscles beneath your hand. You know how fit he is, it’s impossible for you not to know since you’ve been working with him for a while now. But knowing and knowing are two different things.

Seeing is not the same as feeling.

Feeling his muscles as you work them beneath your fingers, feeling the warmth of his skin under your fingertips, grazing your hand lightly over the scars littering his skin, only lingering for a second on the life altering scar that trails down from the side of his neck to his shoulder. You try not to touch it too much. He hasn’t talked to you much about the accident, not since you visited the hospital with high quality food instead of flowers for him. Even then, he joked around it, even if you saw sorrow in his eyes like you’d never seen Joaquín wear before.

You rubbed the sunscreen down his back and finished above the waistband of his trunks. Not even a second later did he look over his shoulder and down at you through a squint. “Now let me do you,” he urged without leaving much room for argument.

Doesn’t mean you wouldn’t make room.

You shook your head. “‘m okay, I already got it.”

Joaquín turns around to face you completely. He laughs through a quick puff of air, his lips pulled up at the corners. “Barely. I saw you struggling over there. C’mon, let me top it off for you.”

His hands take the sunscreen bottle from you, but he doesn’t put any in his palm. Not yet. For now, he stares at you, eyebrows lifted, waiting for you to give him the final answer.

You turn around, moving whatever needs to be moved to give him basically full reign over your back.

The first touch makes you jump, even if you were expecting it. You hear him quietly apologize under his breath, and you quietly brush it off, but you aren’t sure if your response was heard or if it was carried off with the wind.

He continues in silence.

You’ve had Joaquín’s hands on you before. A hand clasped in yours to pull you up, a touch fixing your posture when he was showing you a new trick Isaiah taught him before, a finger jabbed into your side when he walked past you. But again, this is much different.

Having Joaquín’s bare hands on your bare back makes you tense up, and you hope he doesn’t notice it. He rubs with a lot more attention to detail than you did; he reaches beneath the straps of your top with curt permission, and even asks if he can get the backs of your arms too.

By the time he finishes, you’ve started to relax just a bit, to the point where the expected disappearance of his hand on your back feels unwanted. Joaquín’s hands are big and soothing, you could do with them on your skin for the rest of your life.

Of course, you don’t tell him that. Not just because it would be completely inappropriate, but because he would never let you live it down. He would go the lengths to change his phone contact to Joaquín “best hands there ever were” Torres.

Which is just a step below Joaquín “best co-worker there ever was” Torres.

Somehow, you manage to make it through the rest of the beach day without much trouble. You tan until you don’t think you could tan anymore. Joaquín lays next to you most of the time, besides when he began to feel fidgety and he ran to grab both of you drinks, and pre-cut fruit for you, as an excuse to stretch his legs. You used the few minutes of solitude to text your group chat about the agony you accidentally put yourself into. Agony that was only made worse by Joaquín coming back with two drinks in one hand, fruit still in its rind in the other, and his newly tanned skin glistening from sweat in the sunlight.

Shortly after, you had to leave and take a cold shower to get your head on straight.

You think you’re doing pretty good at ignoring your feelings. You know you have a crush on him, but acting on it would change nearly too much, and a lot in your lives—his especially—has already changed. It’s not a leap you think you’re ready to make yet, so you’ve been ignoring your feelings.

Over the course of the past couple of days, you and Joaquín have been spending your time doing every relaxing thing you could think of. Decompressing at that same club from the first night, but leaving as soon as the crowd proved to be very different from before—more rowdy for the hell of it and less generous in general. Eating at trendy, overrated lunch spots, or underrated hole-in-the-wall dinner spots. Spending a little too much money on new clothes but enabling each other anyway, because the shirt might look similar to another one that you already have but that shirt back home wasn’t that shirt there in your hands, so you needed it.

There were just two nights left and then you would have to pack all your stuff, somehow fit in more new clothes than you anticipated, and return to the real world. One that entailed mission debriefs and learning how to work new tech. The only thing you were looking forward to about the real world was Sam, since he happened to be a natural barrier between you and Joaquín. It’ll be hard to focus on how badly you wanted to be underneath the Falcon whenever Captain America was in the vicinity providing tasks that required your full attention.

But that is days away. For now, you’re going to try and enjoy the remainder of your all too quick vacation as much as possible. Even though you’re becoming more and more tense as you go on, a tension that your fingers beneath your panties hasn’t been able to fix yet.

You didn’t think your behavior was noticeable, but Joaquín notices more than you thought.

The two of you are walking side by side down the boardwalk. You’ve been fairly silent throughout, but not for any particular reason. Silence made sense to you, there wasn’t much to talk about right now.

Apparently, Joaquín felt different.

“What’s up with you?”

You furrow your eyebrows, quickly trying to figure out if you did something wrong between the walk from your hotel to the walk at the start of the boardwalk. Coming up short, you ask for clarification. “What do you mean?”

“I mean why’re you so tense? Isn’t this relaxing for you?”

Yeah, this is relaxing for you. Walking side by side, letting the beach breeze blow your dress in the wind. Showered, fed, at the end of your vacation, this moment you exist in is like heaven. It’s a little too much like heaven, a perfect plane where the guy you’ve been crushing on is wearing a button up with the first two buttons undone so you can see the fresh tan he has and the gold glint of the chain he wears instead of his dog tags.

It’s hard to relax when right beside you is someone you’ve wanted so badly, and he looks like everything you’ve ever wanted.

“I’m not tense,” you finally respond. Although it’s a lie.

“You so are,” Joaquín counters, “let me show you what you look like walking around here.” He takes a few quick strides ahead of you, and then pulls his shoulders up to his ears, straightens his spine, and walks with a little too much purpose. He looks odd and menacing. And definitely not like you.

You tell him as such.

He turns around to face you, grinning and walking backwards. “Okay I did take some creative liberties there, but you do look tense.” He turns back around and slows until he returns to a stride right beside you again. “What’s wrong? Do you wanna do something else?”

You shake your head. “No. This is fine. I like doing this.”

Joaquín takes a moment and you see him look down at you from the corner of your eye. “Then what’s up? Anything you wanna get off your chest?”

God, you should just tell him the truth. Well, not the full truth.

Joaquín is chill personified. If you told him that you’re wound up sexually, he would likely make a joke about it, then brush it off and avoid asking you about it again. Friend to friend, you could just let off some steam—verbally!, although the other option is much more preferable—and then hopefully feel better.

But just imagining yourself saying those words makes you tense even more and you have nothing to do but shake the thought out of your mind completely.

“No. ‘m okay. I was just … thinking. But not anymore.”

He doesn’t say anything for a second and you don’t know if he believes your lie. But he moves past it. He points to an ice cream shop to your right, and you swerve for the window.

You and Joaquín end up sitting side by side on the beach, willingly letting sand press into your nice clothes but neither of you care much. You have a dinner reservation soon, and you’ve just been killing time—and also your appetite, but you and Joaquín both swore to eat dinner. Even if you’re devouring ice cream cones. Truthfully, this is a perfect way to end your night, sitting by your partner's side, letting the world exist around you both.

The breeze blows against your skin. You and Joaquín sit with your bare toes digging into the sand, shoes having been discarded to the side, your shoulders close enough to brush against the other if either of you move. You’re looking off at the ocean, watching people enjoy the evening air around you both as you sit in a moment of stillness. There’s paragliders, a few jet skis, some boats, and a large cruise ship sailing into the port.

Joaquín points off at the ship with the hand not holding his waffle cone.

“We should cruise for our next vacation.”

You turn to face him, tilting your head to the side. “Our next vacation?”

Joaquín nods. “Yeah. We should make this a regular thing. You know we work well together.”

That you do. You grin and knock your shoulder into his. “Let’s hope Sam doesn’t start feeling left out.”

Joaquín laughs with a quick exhale through his nose. “He’s definitely having the time of his life back home.”

You’re unable to stop yourself from grinning as you imagine it—Sam working back home, likely enjoying the rare lull in the terror that the three of you have been fighting and will continue fighting. “He’s probably blasting Marvin Gaye over the speakers in the office.”

This gets a real laugh from Joaquín, likely because he, too, can see it perfectly.

Your laughter dies down and for a few moments, you and Joaquín sit in comfortable silence.

Then, “You been having fun?”

You hum. “Yeah. It’s nice not having to deal with—” you gesture vaguely in the air and Joaquín nods beside you. “Especially after everything.” You don’t say it exactly, but you know Joaquín still understands you. He knows you’re talking about his accident.

You weren’t even the one in danger, having stayed grounded on the ship, but the horrors still settle deep in your heart some nights. Things are repaired, or currently being repaired in the case of D.C, but everything still feels so fragile to you sometimes.

Which is why you’re so glad to be here with him at your side, reminding you that he’s okay. Everything’s okay.

Joaquín takes a breath as if he’s about to speak. You turn to look at him. He’s staring off at the sunset, his face mostly stoic except for a slight twitch in his eyes, a flare of his nostrils, and his jaw clenching. “For a moment there when I was falling out of the sky, and when I could barely move my body on my own in the hospital I was worried that I wouldn’t get the chance to see places like this again. To … you know…” he hesitates and you’re about to tell him that he doesn’t have to keep going if he doesn’t want to. You and Joaquín have avoided talking about the day his heart stopped, and you don’t have to start now. But then he inhales through his teeth and continues. “To see home.”

Your breath hitches and your eyes sting. Without thinking too much about it, you scoot closer into Joaquín’s side, tilting your head and resting it on his shoulder. Immediately upon contact, Joaquín wraps his arm around your waist, pulling you fully into his side.

“I’m glad you’re here with me, Joaquín.”

“I’m glad you’re here with me,” he says your name at the end, echoing you but somehow sounding more earnest. More meaningful.

He places a kiss on the top of your head and in that moment you decide you could stay here just like this for the rest of your life. It all settles in your body at one time, the realization that you want Joaquín, you’ve known that for a while, but you want more than his body.

You want Joaquín Torres in his entirety.

“Is that what you’ve been thinking about?” he continues, “Is that why you’ve been tense? Because I promise I’m okay. It was scary for a bit but my heart’s fine and I feel fine physically—”

“No. It’s not that, Joaquín. I promise I was just a little tense but I’m good now, too.”

He nods once. “Okay.” He pulls his phone out and checks the time. He doesn’t say anything for a while as if he doesn’t want to disrupt the energy, but he speaks eventually. “If we wanna make our reservation we gotta leave now.”

He stands to his feet and puts a hand out for you to grab. You take a moment to look at the sun setting and to finish the rest of your ice cream in one bite, then you take another moment to look at him. With resolution, you place your hand in Joaquín’s and let him pull you to your feet.

Yeah, ignoring your feelings isn’t working anymore.

It’s not like you’re exactly able to ignore how bad you want Joaquín when you’re at dinner with him, sitting in such an intimate setting—sat at a small table tucked in the corner of the restaurant next to a window looking out on the street, his tan skin lit by candlelight and ambient low lighting around the both of you.

Having just come from the beach, the two of you are still wearing the same outfits (now without as many grains of sand as possible), meaning you have an even better view of Joaquín’s chest and the chain sitting right below his collarbones. He looks so nice and put together—his curls out more than you’ve ever seen them before, his face a little unshaven and adding an older look to him.

God, he’s so pretty, it’s impossible for you not to think so. Not when you’re faced with him like this.

Joaquín’s looking at the menu, acting like he didn’t look at it on his phone two hours ago. You’re holding the menu open, acting like you’re still deciding between two options, when really you’re just trying to decide if you should make a move or not.

When Joaquín looks up, you quickly look down, furrowing your eyebrows and pouting as you stare at words that aren’t processing.

Joaquín calls your name and you hum without lifting your eyes. When he doesn’t say anything immediately, you glance up. Not only is he already looking at you, but he’s looking at you with a certain look in his eyes. Infatuation, admiration, something else that you don’t wanna name, for it feels like too much of a jump.

“What?” you ask, a shy grin splitting your face open as your skin starts to warm.

Joaquín shrugs like he’s going to say the most casual thing ever. Instead, he tells you, “Nothing. I just wanted to tell you how pretty you look.”

Oh my godddd.

What are you supposed to say to that? Everything thus far on this vacation has been widely platonic, and anything crossing that barrier has been nothing but a hopeful figment of your imagination. But his words, paired with the way they were delivered, feels like a step towards a future you want to live in.

But maybe you’re overthinking it. Joaquín is honest and earnest when he wants to be and maybe now is one of those moments.

You wrap your hand around your glass of ice water and bring it to your lips, pausing just long enough to respond. “What is it? The tan?”

Joaquín nods but that look in his eyes is still there. Chocolate brown dances across your figure before settling back on your own eyes. “Yeah … among other things. The tan and the color of your dress,” a bright colored fabric that hung loosely over your body and dipped around your back, you chose it especially because you knew it would look good on your skin, “and just you.”

You gulp down water, trying to contain yourself.

“Thanks, Joaquín,” you finally respond, trying to remain as casual as possible. “You look good, too.”

Joaquín grins and you can see the man you’re used to coming back to himself. He tugs at the collar of his shirt and dusts off invisible particles. “I clean up well don’t I?”

You halfheartedly roll your eyes and return back to the menu. That interaction has already been catalogued for you to hyper analyze in the shower later.

You thought that interaction was mind boggling, but the one you find yourself in later is ten times worse.

You’ve both steadily worked through your plates, giggling and laughing about any and everything you could think of. The waiter mentioned the option of drinks at one point, and you looked to Joaquín for his reaction, wanting to see if that’s how the night was going to go. Not exactly as drunk as you were the first night, but at least a little buzz. When Joaquín politely shook his head, you did the same, and continued to sip your water instead.

You do, however, decide to split two desserts.

“Can I say something?” Joaquín speaks whenever he scrapes his fork across the decadent chocolate dessert sitting in the center of the table.

You hum, grabbing a forkful of the fresher, citrus dessert instead. “Depends. How stupid is it gonna be?”

“Um … let me say it and then we can decide.”

You sit back in your seat, thereby giving him the floor.

He takes his time chewing and swallowing before he goes to respond. “I’m shocked that we’ve been together every day and night of this trip.”

Your eyebrows furrow. “What d’you mean?”

“Like we haven’t … been with other people.”

His words shock you. “Is that what you think of me, Joaquín?”

You don’t feel upset, or particularly offended. You’re just a little confused on why Joaquín has been thinking about your sex life while the two of you have been on vacation together. Sure, you’ve been thinking of the same thing, but his sex life hasn’t exactly crossed your mind. Besides whenever you pictured the two of your sex lives merging into one.

But now that he’s presented the idea, you, too, are shocked that things have been contained to just the two of you this entire week. It’s not that you expected Joaquín to sleep around, you actually didn’t know what to expect when it came to his dating life. You did know that Joaquín was attractive and people other than yourself thought so, and he obviously knew it as well, but it’s unexpected that you didn’t see him intentionally ogling at least one other person on your nights out.

You don’t know why he would think the same of you, though.

“No!” he’s quick to defend himself, “But I wouldn’t judge you if that’s how you wanted to spend your vacation. I mean I wouldn’t blame you.”

“You’re digging yourself further and further into a hole, Torres.”

He laughs. “Yeah, I can tell.”

A moment goes by and you sip your water. The air here feels open, but certainly not casual. You feel like you can tell the truth in this intimate atmosphere, and your words would hold intentional weight.

You take the jump. “I didn’t wanna be with anyone else. I liked being with you.”

Joaquín looks surprised. “Really? So you preferred beach trips and coffee shops and working out over a hot hookup?”

You shrug. “I haven’t been interested in hooking up with anyone else.”

His eyebrows lift in the center. “Anyone else?”

Fuck.

It seems you have joined Joaquín in that hole, but you don’t mind being here. It’s about time you did something, right? You don’t bother responding, at least not verbally. Instead, you just look at Joaquín over the rim of your glass, sincerely hoping that he’s starting to understand.

Before any more progress can be made the waiter comes back with the check and you’re already reaching into your bag for your wallet, verbally chastising Joaquín before he can even reach for the bill.

Quiet returns to you both during the walk back to your hotel. It feels natural this time, likely because you’re not speaking, but it isn’t silent. Cars against asphalt as they drive down the street beside you, music spilling out of establishments that line the way, the automated voice of the pedestrian crossing pole when Joaquín presses the button for the both of you. There’s not anything being said, but there doesn’t need to be; much is being communicated through the energy radiating off of your body.

Walking closer to each other than you had ever before, elbows grazing, a lightness to your bodies even if you both indulged a little too much over dinner. Everything just feels so right, even if there’s still an emptiness inside of you. Even if you leave this trip without getting laid, you’ll still feel fulfilled because you and your partner are closer than you’ve ever been before. Though, after existing in this bubble with only him, it’s going to be hard to return to your normal life and let other people in.

A car honks and skirts to a stop. Before you can even realize what just happened, Joaquín’s already throwing an arm over the front of your torso, his face turned to the car that almost (wrongfully) hit the two of you. He yells something at them and blindly grabs your hand, pulling you in front of him and pushing you to the sidewalk and out of the street.

He mutters something under his breath, but you don’t hear it. “You good?” he asks at full volume. He stands next to you but still holds onto your hand.

“Yeah. We’ve been through worse than almost getting floored by a Benz, right?”

He laughs and continues leading the way back to the hotel.

Your hand stays in his the entire time.

You and Joaquín make it all the way inside of the hotel with your hands still clasped together. They don’t part until an unattended child runs between your bodies, forcing you to separate.

You end up standing in front of the elevator with the up button pushed. It dings every few seconds, an indicator of its steady descent, but it makes a few stops along the way. While you wait, you lean your shoulder into the wall next to it, crossing your arms over your chest and your legs at the ankle as you look at Joaquín standing across from you.

He speaks first. “You wanna go out again tonight? End the week with a bang?”

You shake your head. Your eyes are big, your lips are pulled into a soft smile, your entire expression is soft. Fuck hiding it, you’re done pretending.

“Nah. I’d rather stay in tonight.”

Joaquín nods and tucks his hands in his front pockets. “Alright. Together or separate?”

“Together.”

His eyebrows lift as if he’s shocked, but there’s a little glint in his eyes. You think he’s starting to catch on.

“Okay,” he drags the last syllable out and shifts his stance. He clears his throat before he speaks again. “What d’you wanna do?”

The elevator door opens and you and Joaquín stand out of the way to let people come out. As soon as everyone has cleared out, the two of you enter the elevator alone and you push the button to shut the door before anyone else can come around the corner. With the doors closing you turn to face Joaquín to see him already looking at you.

You smile up at him and he smiles down at you.

You take a step closer to him and he takes a step closer to you.

You reach a hand out to his face, hesitating, and then he nods just before he reaches a hand out and places it on your waist.

And then finally, your lips press against his.

The first kiss is tentative. It’s testing. Your lips press together, you stay like that for a moment, and then you pull away. The two of you stare at each other, Joaquín’s expression as soft and docile as it always is. You think you’re mirroring him in this moment.

Then, without any words exchanged, you both move towards each other again. Your heads are tilted and without much trouble at all, your faces slot together nearly perfectly. This kiss is more exploratory. It’s open mouthed, teetering towards a messiness that you’re sure you’ll both fully succumb to by the end of the night. At least, you hope so.

You don’t have much time, you’ve realized that as soon as the elevator dings the first time to indicate its ascent, therefore you’re trying to get what you can while you can. You throw your arms over Joaquín’s shoulders and hook them around his neck, pulling him down towards you as you tilt yourself up into him. His body curves to engulf yours in his warmth, but he kisses you like he has all the time in the world.

He kisses you like he means it, like there’s more than one mutually shared goal at the end of this motivating him.

It’s hard not to give in to the slow and longing way Joaquín kisses you. You don’t even try resisting it at a certain point. Instead, you press your chest up into his and lean up on your toes to get more of him, yet not initiating a change in the pace at all. You like the slow way Joaquín’s lips move against yours. You feel much more this way.

Your fingers lay across the back of his neck and just as they start to inch up into the faded part of his haircut, the elevator dings and announces your floor.

You and Joaquín separate with clear hesitance in the movement. The two of you stare at each other, unmoving, just looking in each other’s eyes. His eyes look darker than you’ve ever seen them before. If you got closer, you think you would see his pupils blown out. From here, though, you see his desire in other ways—the flush on his cheeks, the prominence of his chest rising and falling, the hint of your lip products that have rubbed off on his lips.

The elevator door starts to shut and Joaquín is forced into making the first move. He slots his arm between the doors just before they close and he stays there when they open. He turns to look at you, tilts his head in a beckon, and holds his hand out for you to grab.

The walk to your rooms feels much longer than it usually does. You try to make it go as fast as possible, skittering ahead of Joaquín as fast as your impractical sandals would allow, but you’re trying not to look too eager all the while. Still, when you reach the number you’ve memorized for the week and turn around to look at him, he has a slight smile of amusement on his face.

You’re already searching into your bag for your key when you ask, “Yours or mine?”

Joaquín reaches around you for the handle to the door without speaking. You watch him press the key card to the sensor and push the door handle down just as you feel your fingers find the piece of plastic.

“We gave each other one of each when we checked in, remember? Just in case.” comes his unprompted explanation. And now that you’ve been reminded, you do remember. Your key to Joaquín’s room has been sitting on the dresser forgotten the entire week. You know he wouldn’t have done it, not without your explicit consent, but you wish Joaquín had used the key to his advantage once this week. You wish he would have acted on the tension between you both, the tension that you’re finally realizing has been reciprocated this entire time.

But now it’s happening. There’s no reason to complain when you’re getting what you wanted.

His hands are on your hips as he leads you into the room, your bag is thrown to the floor and your shoes are kicked off of your feet. Your body is turned at his will, your eyes meet his as he lazily grins down at you. His tongue flicks out over his lips in a quick and smooth movement, and at a much slower pace, you lean back in to press your lips back to his.

Joaquín’s hands automatically latch onto your lower back, one warm palm pressed into the thin fabric of your dress and the other settling right on your bare skin in the opening. Meanwhile, you start working on his shirt, popping button after button through the holes. You stop when you’re halfway down, not on your own accord.

You’re forced to stop when Joaquín slots his hands behind your thighs and he easily lifts you up. You squeal into the kiss on instinct.

There’s a moment where both of you are grinning against each other’s lips and it just feels so right. It feels incredibly natural to be doing this, to be smiling when you’re kissing Joaquín, even though nearly everything else about this situation isn’t natural for the two of you (your erect nipples rubbing against his chest, your panties stuck to your cunt, the very faint brush of his cock stiff in his pants that you get on the journey up).

“You’re just showing off,” you half-heartedly chide.

Joaquín shrugs and walks you back to the bed. “Maybe just a little.” He places you down, kneeling between your legs and finishing off the remaining buttons on his shirt. “You love it, though.”

You don’t admit it verbally, but the way you shamelessly ogle his chest when he pulls the shirt off says everything.

As soon as his shirt is gone, he places a hand on your ankle, slowly inching your dress up a few inches before he stops and looks at you. His expression is open, you can tell what he’s asking without words. But for good measure, he includes them.

“Can I keep going?”

You nod, eager and unashamed. “Yeah. Keep going.”

He starts to push the bright fabric further and further up your legs, speaking to you as he continues. “You gotta let me know if …” his words taper off when he sees the first hint of your panties, and you don’t know exactly what he’s seeing, but it makes him speechless for a moment and your ego inflates.

“I’ll let you know if …?” Cockiness is audible in your words but he doesn’t comment on it.

Joaquín blinks and comes back to himself. “If you wanna stop, or if you want something changed. We gotta communicate.”

“M’kay.”

And with that, Joaquín pushes the fabric completely over your hips and he’s met with your panties. They’re a bright color that compliments the color of your dress, and, consequently, your tanned skin. He swears under his breath and although you don’t hear him clearly at all, you’re pretty sure it wasn’t in English.

You sit up fully and slip your dress over your torso with Joaquín’s help. He lets the fabric drop to the floor without looking, his eyes are focused solely on your chest.

You’re laying back on your elbows, elevated just enough to look at him. You stare at his eyes, even if you aren’t making eye contact, while he leans up to hover over you. His head dips and he presses a single kiss in the center of your chest and repeats the action right over each side of your ribcage. The tip of his nose grazes your breast and instinctively you arch up towards him. When he pulls away just enough to look up at you, you see him smiling.

You could beg, but the night has only begun. You decide to save that for later. For now, you huff and stick your spine back to the mattress.

Joaquín places a hand around your side and dips his head back down, this time higher than before. When he latches his lips around your nipple, a little gasp breaks from between your lips. He lets his teeth scrape against the bud, alternating between giving you pressure and giving you wet heat from his tongue. By the time he switches to your other nipple, you’re already desperate for a true relief focused on your cunt. His lips travel upwards, brushing against your skin throughout the journey, until he’s pressing them into the side of your neck and under your jaw. You let him continue upwards, you let him kiss you a bit more, but you can only go so long without real, fruitful stimulation. And maybe another time after this (circumstances willing) you would love to prolong everything.

But right now you need to get fucked, whatever that could entail.

You buck your hips up and end up catching the bulge in Joaquín’s pants where his zipper lies. You think he’ll catch on that way, and maybe he does, but he just chooses to ignore it. Either way, you send him a hint and Joaquín doesn’t do anything about it. He continues kissing you, he tweaks your nipples and slots a knee between your legs, all of which you’re grateful for since it is a stepping stone in the right direction. But you need stimulation, you need to get off, and the slow crawl is slowly driving you crazy.

You pull away from Joaquín to call his name. He responds with a gruff yeah that immediately settles deep in your gut.

“I need more. Please.”

He grins right in your face. The expression almost looks wicked on him for the first time ever. He has the power here right now and he’s obviously letting it go to his head.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” he asks while his hand slides down between your bodies until his thick fingers can slip between your clothed folds.

His question was rhetorical (and smug but that’s besides the point), yet you still find yourself going to respond. Your lips part, you can feel the corners turning down as you prepare to say something just as smug back to him, but then he presses down and quickly finds your clit after a moment of fumbling. As far as words go, you’re silent. Nothing but sounds slip from your mouth from that point onwards.

Joaquín toys with your clit. He starts with one finger, just the pad of what you think might be his middle finger, and when that has you forcing your hips up into his touch, he adds a second finger. With two fingers, he has more space to work with, resulting in larger circles right over the most sensitive part of you. He speeds up, too.

Your back arches and you dig your nails into the sheets. You know what you want to ask for, it's simple and you’d already said the word in this space, but it gets trapped in your throat this time. You’re close already. Yeah, you’d been getting yourself off throughout the week, but finally having Joaquín do it for you has made you so much more responsive.

You get the first syllable out, the ‘M’ vibrating in your throat before you open your mouth to round it out in an ‘O’.

Joaquín picks up where you left off.

“More?” he asks, eyebrows lifting as he holds your heavy gaze. Before you even respond with a nod, he’s already sitting back far enough to slip his hand in your panties and repeat his emotions.

The first real touch dizzies you for a moment. You pinch your eyes shut with the pure intention of orienting yourself, but then Joaquín chastises you in a soft, but firm voice.

“Look at me. I wanna see you.”

You do as told, of course.

He nods. “There we go.” His fingers get just a little faster, the circles tighter. You’re so wet that there isn’t any uncomfortable friction at all, his skin easily glides against yours.

“You close?” he asks after a moment. When you nod, he continues, “If I give you this one, you’ll be able to give me another, right? You can give me more?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I can.” You’re breathless when you speak, and it certainly doesn’t help that it’s then when Joaquín decides to pull his fingers away completely, pull your panties to the side, and sink down completely until his face is level with your cunt.

Just the image below you is enough to twist that section deep into your stomach into a knot. He’s barely able to give you anything before your back is arching off of the bed and everything in you mounts to a peak.

When you come, it’s from the controlled and effective licks Joaquín delivers to your cunt. You don’t know when your hand moves on its own, but you feel silk-like strands between your fingers. It helps anchor you, gripping his hair helps keep you sane, especially when Joaquín keeps going.

He broadens his reach this time. His mouth opens wide enough to slide his tongue down from your entrance and back up towards your clit. And he doesn’t just lick this time, you hear the audible suck from him. He’s slurping that shit, and you can already feel the introduction of another orgasm.

If you were with anyone else, you’d be shocked at how soon another is on the precipice. But it’s Joaquín, and aside from the fact that you’ve wanted him for a while, you’re not exactly shocked that he knows what he’s doing.

He slowly sinks one finger into you, pumping the digit in and out of you with meticulous ease. It’s a stark contrast from the almost sloppy way he’s eating you out. But it works.

One finger is nice, it’s thicker than your own, rougher, too. You could get off just like that. And then, he adds a second.

“Fuck,” you swear without any conscious intention.

Joaquín comes up for air, releasing you with an audible smack. “Yeah?” he asks, the word coming from right in his throat.

You nod as you take in the way he looks—cheeks flushed, hair tousled and hanging over his forehead, pink lips shining, his eyes wide and nearly doe-like.

“Yeah,” you confirm. You see a look flash in Joaquín’s eyes then. It’s a look similar to the one he has whenever Sam affirms his work with a clap on the back—self-satisfied, delighted, proud. It occurs to you then that he doesn’t know what he’s doing to you. He can read your body language, sure. It’s obvious from your cunt, along how good he’s making you feel, but you know verbal affirmation is different. It’s better, especially for Joaquín.

As he goes back in to finish you off, you speak to him.

“Just like that,” you tell him. Just this little bit encourages him, you can feel it in his movements. “Keep going. ‘M close, so close, Joaquín. Please, don’t stop. You’re so … you’re so—” Before you can even get it out, all noise dies completely from you. Your mouth uselessly hangs open, not even air comes out as your entire body stiffens. Nothing happens for a moment, Joaquín continues, you’re stuck, and then a nanosecond later everything knocks into you.

Sound emits from you, moans and groans and breaths. You’re digging into whatever you can find—the heel of your foot into Joaquín’s back, your hands in his hair, the rest of your body into the twisted sheets beneath you. You’re simultaneously trying to escape and trying to keep Joaquín from parting with you for even a moment. It’s hard to decide which you prefer, you don’t even think your mind has any say in the dilemma, your body is in control at this point.

Ultimately, your body decides to let go, releasing both of you at the same time. Still, Joaquín takes a moment to pull from you. He continues licking and sucking, but his fingers slowing down indicates his intent to free you. It comes after a few drawn out moments where you’re stuck twitching beneath him until finally, he pulls his fingers out of you and presses one final kiss right onto your clit.

His head lifts and the evidence is more obvious than you expected. It’s gathered all over his chin, stuck along the beginnings of facial hair that will likely be gone first thing Monday morning. It’s gathered on his lips and along his tongue when he uses the muscle to pull the remnants of your arousal into his mouth.

He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and only then does he realize how much of a mess you’ve made of him. He pulls his hand back, brown eyes big as he stares at the evidence.

“Shit,” he laughs.

All you can do is agree through labored breaths.

He tries to clean you off of his mouth, but not much is done. He leans in tentatively after that, as if you’re going to shy away from him. You don’t.

You kiss him back eagerly, although a bit lethargically. You’re trying to hide it from fear that Joaquín could think that you’re done. But your body needs a moment to recover from that.

When Joaquín pulls away from you with a small smile on his face, you know he’s onto you.

“You need a minute?” The way he says it isn’t much different from the way he asks you those same words when he’s kicking your ass in the gym.

And just like when you’re in the gym, you shamefully nod.

Joaquín chuckles and leans in to kiss your forehead. “That’s okay. You want anything? Water maybe?”

“Water sounds good.”

You watch him leave and then your eyes are focused solely on the ceiling. You can’t even let what’s happening sink in when you’re still a little spacey. But you can handle more. You want more from him.

Joaquín comes back with a glass of water. He stands next to the bed and passes the full glass to you. You don’t question the source, you just drink until there’s half left. You offer it to him and he gladly takes it from you.

“Are you … do you wanna stop?” He speaks when the glass has been emptied and placed on the nightstand. For the most part he looks like he would be unaffected by whatever answer you gave, but you think you can detect some premature dejection in his features. Quickly, he adds, “Because it’s fine if you do. I’m okay with that.” And he’s being honest. You don’t feel any pressure coming from Joaquín at all.

It’s what you truly mean and want when you immediately shake your head. “No. Let’s keep going.”

He nods once to himself. “Alright. Cool. Yeah.”

Excitement leaks from his pores but you don’t comment on it. You felt just as he did not long ago. You still feel like that, but you’re under a haze right now and that’s what your emotions are being led with.

Joaquín hooks his thumbs into his already-loosened jeans and goes to pull them down. First, though, he pats at his pockets. When he doesn’t feel what he’s looking for, he swears.

“One second.”

You watch his form retreat until the door of your room is pulled open. Not even a minute later he comes back in with a foil pocket brandished between his fingers, the same fingers that were in you not long ago.

“You came prepared?” The question comes out more judgemental than you meant it to.

Joaquín shrugs. “I keep an emergency bag full of … stuff. You know, in case of an emergency.”

“Freak.” You don’t mean it.

“You’re about to get fucked by a freak so, wouldn’t that make you a freak by association?” He seems to mean it.

“I don’t think that’s how that works.”

He holds the packet between his teeth while he slides his jeans off of his legs, stepping out of them and leaving them at the foot of the bed. He comes back around to the side, pulling the packet out from his teeth and staring down at you. Like this he looks more imposing than he ever has before.

When he’s been out in the field, when he’s training, when he yelled at the car earlier tonight, he didn’t look as imposing as he does now—staring down at you over the bridge of his nose, hair tousled, cock tenting in his black briefs.

“That’s definitely how that works,” he claims as he leans down. He presses his hands into the bed beneath you to leverage himself as he kisses you, slow and passionate. You wonder if he’ll fuck you like that too.

You reach a hand up and pull the elastic away from his waist. When he doesn’t react, you tug the fabric down. You feel it get stuck around his cock just before you feel his cock spring free. It brushes against your wrist and you make a little noise into the kiss.

As soon as Joaquín’s briefs are laying at his feet he assumes his previous position, this time sitting right on his haunches. You avoid looking at his cock for a moment, but when you watch him tear the condom packet open, you get the first glimpse at him.

Even this part of him is attractive. He’s thick, that’s the first thing you notice. Thick and heavy, if the way he hangs to the side is any indicator. There’s a vein leading from his taut stomach down towards the dark and trimmed thatch of hair at the base of his cock. You hadn’t noticed the vein ever before, not when you had been too busy ogling the v-line chiseled into his torso instead.

Now that you’ve seen all of Joaquín, you can easily conclude that he’s perfect. Just as you have that thought, Joaquín takes an inhale as he prepares to speak.

“You’re so perfect,” he says.

The warmth instantly floods your body.

“I was just thinking the same thing about you,” you tell him.

He dips his head almost shyly and doesn’t say anything. Instead, Joaquín pulls the condom out of the packet.

“Wait. Lemme do it. Can I do it?”

He looks momentarily surprised at your request, but he passes you the condom and politely places his hands on top of his thighs.

It’s truly an excuse to feel him beneath your palm as you glide the latex barrier down his length. You revel in the warmth beneath your hand, because as soon as you’ve secured the barrier around the base of his shaft, Joaquín's leading you back without even having to touch you. He leans forward and in response, you lean all the way back until you’re nestled amongst the pillows at the head of the bed.

“Ready?”

You nod, letting your legs fall open for him.

One warm hand falls to the inside of your thigh while the other disappears between your legs to line up his dick. Then, slowly, Joaquín pushes forward. The stretch is instant, you can feel yourself opening up wider and wider to fully fit him in. If you weren’t as soaked and prepped as you were, you’re sure the burn would’ve been way worse.

For a few moments it’s like the length of him keeps going and going, but then you feel his thighs press up against the back of yours and there’s the faint feeling of his balls resting against your ass and you know he’s bottomed out. He looks at you, gauging your reaction, and your response comes in the form of linking a leg around his back.

Joaquín smiles through nothing but the twitch of the corner of his mouth upwards, and then he wastes no more time. He rests his weight on his hands at either side of your head, and pulls his hips back just to roll them forward and slide his cock back into you.

And for a bit, Joaquín does fuck you slow and passionate. He fucks you in full strokes, a nice tempo that doesn’t overwhelm you too quickly. There’s punctuation at the end of each thrust, followed by a nearly agonizing pull back out. Whether intentional or not, Joaquín’s introducing you to the feeling of his cock filling you up, just as he’s introducing the concept of another release to you.

But you’ve had your fill, it’s his turn now.

You press your hands into his shoulders. They glide back, one hand grazing over the raised skin of the scar that leads down his back, the other following a smooth path, but they meet in the same place—back around the front to where his chain hangs. You hook one finger into the gold link, the other going behind his head. You pull him closer until you can nudge your noses together.

His eyes flutter shut and his eyebrows pinch together in the center. You kiss him once and pull back to tell him, “You can use me, Joaquín. Take what you want.”

His eyes open to stare at you with confusion written on his face, bordering on hope, as if he already has an idea formed in his head of what he really wants to do to you.

You nod assuredly. “It’s what I want.” Just as you’re about to add a quiet plea to seal the deal, Joaquín adjusts his position and then he pulls nearly all the way out of you, only to forcefully drive back into you.

The switch is immediate. He still fucks you in complete motions, but they’re shorter, no longer the tip to the shaft each time. These are faster, much faster. It feels like he’s reaching up into your guts each time, just to pull back and do it again and again and again.

You’re forced to find purchase again, hands digging into whatever you can find. One hand attaches to his hair and the other holds onto his chain, your legs have linked around Joaquín’s hips, your head has craned backwards, leaving the area between the base of your neck and your chest open for Joaquín to rest his forehead on.

You can’t hear his sounds over yours, but you feel them—quick breaths let out onto the sweat coated area of your chest. You would try and silence yourself to better hear him, but you couldn’t even if you tried.

Luckily, though, Joaquín lifts his head and notches his nose against the side of your neck instead. He kisses you right beneath your earlobe, but when he can no longer complete that action, his jaw goes slack and every single noise he makes travels directly to your ear.

You swear and it comes out as a whimper, not even a second later Joaquín swears and it’s a deep groan all the way from the back of his throat. You call his name and he calls yours. He’s affecting you, and you’re affecting him, even just by laying back and urging him to get himself off by using your body.

“Are you close?” you eventually gather the strength, and will, to ask.

You feel Joaquín nod against your neck. “Yeah,” he confirms, “yeah, baby, ‘m almost there.”

Your reaction is instant. You groan, a sound that could be interpreted as frustration if you weren’t having your guts completely rearranged right now.

He chuckles deeply against your skin. “What? What’s up?”

“C…Call me that again.”

“What? ‘Baby’? You like when I call you baby?”

You hum affirmatively.

Joaquín lifts his head and slots one hand against your cheek. His pace slows as he stares at you. “You’re my baby? Hm? Are you?”

You nod, whining out an “uh-huh”.

“Yeah?” he grins as he says it, as if he’s shocked that you agreed. You don’t know if he’s serious, if he knows that his words are holding weight even if you’re a little dumb right now, but you do mean it.

He licks his lips and you see an idea coming to his head. “You gonna be good for me, too?” When you nod, he continues. “Be good for me, baby, and touch yourself, alright?”

He gives you the space needed and watches your hand slide down your stomach. When you use two fingers to tweak your already overstimulated clit, Joaquín nods.

“That’s right. Just like that.”

He resumes his original pace, this time with his eyes fully locked on your cunt. He pulls one of your legs up and throws it over his shoulder, leaning forward to get even deeper into you.

You’re close, you’re almost there, and the erratic way Joaquín practically jackhammers into you as he chases his own release is what pushes you over. You finish just after Joaquín buries himself into you and curls his body over yours. This orgasm truly feels like a release. Everything in you melts into the world around you, just as Joaquín’s body melts on top of yours.

He kisses the skin closest to him, first in small almost discrete pecks, and then they gradually get bigger and more audible until he’s clearly making them ridiculous on purpose.

His cock is still nestled in you and his head is still resting on your chest when he speaks. “You think you’ll be up for a shower?”

You hum, letting the question run through your head for a minute before responding. “In about ten minutes, yeah.”

“Take your time.”

In the meantime, Joaquín slowly slides out of you. The emptiness is immediate, but after all you’ve been through since getting back to your room, you don’t exactly hate it. Your eyes start to feel heavy but you let them close for a little while. You rely on your other senses throughout.

The feeling of Joaquín kissing over where you think your bikini tan lines are, the rim of the glass that he brings to your lips, the sound of his voice as he gently urges you to drink, the feeling of cool water sliding down your throat. He holds you steady as you drink with a hand behind your head. Your lips turn up tiredly, and you feel his thumb at the corner of your lip catching a stray drop of water. You don’t have to open your eyes to know he’s wearing that same soft look on his features.

You’re so pampered there that you don’t force yourself to get up until you hear the shower running.

Joaquín’s already there waiting for you at the door. He smiles when he sees you as if he’s shocked that you came, even though this is your room and your bathroom. Still, he reaches out and grabs your hand, pulling you into the bathroom and in front of him. His hands push at your back, guiding you towards the shower. He pulls the door open for you and lets you step inside before he follows after you.

You reach for the towel and soap, but stop when he tuts behind you.

“I got it,” is all he says. So you let yourself completely relax with the feeling of Joaquín dragging the cloth up and down your limbs. He talks to you throughout, mostly asking you to lift an arm or turn around, sometimes bringing up small bits of conversation, every now and then singing bits of songs—some that you recognize, some that you don’t. There’s a familiarity now that you’ve gained since his hands had massaged sunscreen into your shoulders.

Eventually, though, he finishes with you, leaving you to lean against the wall and watch him shower.

“You know what I realized like a few minutes ago?” he says when he’s rinsing the soap off of his body.

“What?”

“Remember the couple from the club that first night? The one who kept buying us drinks?”

“Yeah, how could I forget?”

“Yeah well I’m pretty sure they thought we were like … swingers or some shit.”

You’re startled awake. “Huh? Why do you think that?”

“Oh I don’t think, I know. The guy gave me his number and everything. Plus you saw the way they were looking at us, and the woman kept cozying up to you.”

You frown. “I thought she was just drunk or friendly.”

“She definitely was drunk and friendly. And she also wanted you.”

You blink. “I thought she wanted you.”

Joaquín shrugs and rinses the last of the soap from his back before he shuts the water off. “She probably did. That’s sort of part of the whole swingers gig, isn’t it?”

You laugh through a quick exhale of air. “Come on, Joaquín, let’s go to bed.”

You step out of the shower and wrap a towel around your body. Joaquín follows after you.

“Oh, I get to sleep with you tonight?” He sounds giddy when he says it, as if he wasn’t just fucking you so good that your legs are still getting used to walking again. When you tell him that, you see the unintended compliment go straight to his head.

You end up getting exactly what you wanted. Joaquín leans into the bathroom counter with the towel hung low around his waist and his eyes watching you do your skincare routine. As soon as you’re finished, he’s trekking off to his room for a change of clothes and to do whatever he needs to do, and he comes back in nothing but boxers with a big shirt in his hand. He lays it on the counter for you casually, but you see the tips of his ears tinted just a tiny bit red when he retreats back to your room.

You come out in his shirt to see him lying on your side of the bed, the remote in his hand and pointed at the TV. As if the entire trip had been going like this the entire time, he instantly scoots over when you come to the side of the bed and lifts the sheets for you to climb under. You lay curled into his side, telling him to click a channel playing a movie that you know he likes.

The remote is placed on the nightstand, the lights are clicked off and you’re snuggled up next to Joaquín, wearing his shirt and talking about how the two of you are going to spend your last day of vacation.

Not everything goes how you thought it would, though. Joaquín ends up being pretty mindful with his blanket usage.

#joaquinsworld!#joaquin torres x reader #joaquin torres x you #joaquin torres smut #icarus writes mcu

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bruisedboys · 21 days ago

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thinking about lazy makeouts with joaquín torres…

it’s late afternoon on a saturday and joaquín’s finally got a weekend with nothing on his schedule. no missions with sam out of town, no important meetings that he can’t get out of. just an entire weekend with nothing to do but love on you.

you’ve put a film on but neither of you are paying attention anymore. it started with joaquín’s hand on your thigh, thumb rubbing slow circles into your sweatpants. when his hand climbed higher and the tips of his fingers pushed inwards, you quit pretending you were paying any attention to the movie and instead twisted to look at him. he was already looking back at you, eyes flickering to your lips and back up again. you leaned closer, a wordless invitation, and then he was kissing you.

soft and slow, no expectations, his grip on your thigh is warm and strong. his kisses are open mouthed from the beginning — all languid and sticky, the glide of the tip of his tongue against your bottom lip. the pressure of his kissing parts your lips and you’re sighing into his mouth like you can’t help yourself. it’s not long before he tugs on your thigh, bringing his other hand to curve around your opposite hip.

“c’mere,” he murmurs softly, big palm spreading over your hip to pull you into his lap with ease, not even a grunt spared as he easily pulls your body on top of his. you let yourself be guided, let him adjust you how he wants in your lap.

your hands drag up his forearms to rest on his biceps and he sets both his hands on your hips. your shirt rides up around his wrists, his fingers pressing into your skin with a lovely sort of pressure. he doesn’t kiss you again, just looks at you, the warm afternoon sun painting his skin a pretty shade of gold.

“what?” you ask, feeling fondness like an ache all over. and joaquín just shrugs, “nothing. just like looking at you, baby,” he says.

after that you let him take the lead, every fibre in your body too heavy with fondness to do much of the leading yourself. he kisses you so slow it borders on agonising, tilting his head to the side for better access, his mouth warm and sticky on yours, his tongue sliding against yours languidly. you let yourself be kissed, content to feel the strong, thick muscle of his arms under your hands, to hear his soft moan when you push your fingers up the back of his neck and into his hair. he kisses you until you’re breathless and the film plays the end credits, and then some.

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goosewriting · 4 months ago

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The Aftermath

summary: reader visits Joaquín at the hospital as he wakes up from surgery.

relationship: Joaquín Torres x gn!reader

warnings: established relationship, spoilers for captain america: brave new world, mention and description of injuries and medical procedures, mention of accident and explosions, brief mentions of PTSD from events in Infinity War/Endgame, self-doubts and guilt

word count: 2.2k

A/N: i started writing this the moment i came home from watching BNW. can't believe it took me this long to write for him,, he's been rotating in my mind ever since tfantws <3 we really need more fics for joaquín, he’s so blorbo coded like cmon!! 🥹🥹 if you have any recs pls send them my way!

[all masterlists] 🪶 [mcu masterlist] 🪶 [ao3]

(english is not my first language. constructive criticism and grammar corrections are very appreciated!)

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Sitting by Joaquín’s hospital bed, you bring your hands to your face as you remember his accident on the Indian Ocean. You had watched the broadcast in horror, your heart in your throat as his figure fell from the sky into the open water.

At that moment, you couldn’t help but remember the video from all those years ago, where you saw how Rhodey had fallen as well, like a rock, everyone watching, unable to do anything to stop him. Just like War Machine, Joaquín had turned uncontrollably on his descent, one of his wings ripped from the suit by the missile exploding right in his face.

You’ve been in the Avengers’ orbit since a little before the battle against Thanos on Wakanda, where you had also fought with everyone, but then got blipped. The transition back to society with a gap of 5 years had been very hard on you, and while you stayed in contact with everyone who remained, helping out whenever you could, you didn’t really have it in you to go back out to the battlefield. Even after all this time, you still have nightmares about the snap and the Battle for Earth.

Bringing your hands back into your lap, you let out a trembling breath, clinging onto the constant soft beeping of the machinery to tether yourself to reality and not fall down a spiral of despair. Every time your eyes roam over Joaquín’s injuries, you close your eyes, pressing the base of your hands over them, then open them again. Your sight is momentarily sprinkled with dots, and as it clears, you hope for everything to have been a horrible nightmare. But once your view clears up, he’s still there. Unconscious. Hurt.

The surgery he’d been in last night had felt like it was never going to end. Still, you had stayed the whole time, and once he got out, you stayed at his side.

It’s been several hours since Joaquín got wheeled into his room, the head medic saying he was still unconscious but stable. You shift in the armchair by the bed where you sit. One of the nurses brought you something to eat earlier since you refused to leave, the wrapper of your sandwich still in your hands as your eyes start feeling heavier and heavier, and you can’t find it in yourself to fight the welcome embrace of sleep, slowly spreading through your limbs. You’ve almost completely dozed off when you hear a groan, and immediately your grogginess dissipates. You straighten up in your seat, the wrapper falling to the floor as you scoot closer to the bed, tears stinging behind your eyes. How you still have tears left, you have no idea, given how much you’ve cried in the past hours, terrified of losing the love of your life.

Joaquín blinks several times, scrunching his face, eyes trying to adapt to the light. He lifts his good arm, looking at the tubes attached to it, and his gaze roams the room and down his body, face contorting in pain lightly. Then his eyes land on you, and his face immediately softens.

“Hey, there,” he croaks out.

“You’re awake,” you whisper, holding his hand in your trembling ones. “I was scared you wouldn’t.”

“Pfft, it’ll take more than a meagre explosion to defeat the Falcon,” he retorts with a pained smile.

Normally you’d laugh at his jokes, enjoying his silly side, but right now you have no humour left in you. Another wave of tears rolls down your cheeks, and his smile vanishes.

“Please don’t joke about that,” you plead, giving his hand a squeeze. “You were hit by a freaking missile. From a fighter jet. While up in the air between two armies about to start a war with each other.”

“Well, if you put it like that…” He sighs.

There’s a moment of silence where you again study his bruised face, your gaze landing on the massive burn covering his whole shoulder, streaks of red raw skin visible on his jaw and throat. Your brows furrow in frustration.

“I should have been there,” you mumble, angry at yourself for letting this happen.

“What?” he asks, craning his neck to fully look at you.

“I should have gone with you,” you say, bringing your eyes to look up at him. “Then I could have helped and you wouldn’t have gotten hurt.”

Joaquín exhales through his nose in disbelief.

“We were in the air, and I went head to head with the missile even after Sam told me to back off,” he retorts, shaking his head. “There was nothing you could have done.”

His tone isn’t scolding; he’s telling the truth and you know it. Still, you can’t help but feel like the outcome could have been different, if you had just been better, braver. You try to choke back a sob, unsuccessful, and his hold tightens around your hand.

“Hey, hey. Look at me.” He speaks your name softly. “This isn’t on you. Please don’t cry.”

You grimace, biting the inside of your cheek.

“For a moment I thought you died, Joaquín. I was so scared,” you say with a shaky breath, bringing his hand to your face, and he cups your cheek. You place your hand over his, holding onto it and leaning into his touch like it was the last time you could hold him like this.

“I’m sorry I scared you.”

Your heart shatters at the thought that even after getting hurt, after getting blown up, he’s the one apologising to you. He’s about to add something when the door opens and a nurse comes in. You back off a bit and hastily wipe your face with the back of your sleeves as she does some check-ups, both on Joaquín and the machines, taking some notes on her clipboard. She then takes one of the tubes attached to his arm, and places a syringe at the other end.

“What’s that?” you ask, suspicious. She gives you a quick look with a raised brow, but when she sees the state you’re in, her face relaxes again.

“Painkillers and antibiotics. He’ll need both of them,” she explains.

It doesn’t take long for the fluids to reach Joaquín’s blood system, and he visibly relaxes against the pillows and closes his eyes.

“Oh, hell yeah. That’s the good stuff,” he sighs, and the nurse chuckles softly. You still can’t get yourself to let go of your worry. Once she’s done with everything, she leaves the way she came, exiting the room. As the door closes behind her, your eyes land on the wrapper on the floor, and you pick it up with a sniffle, crumpling it up further.

“Are you hungry? Thirsty? Can I get you anything?” you ask as you throw the trash into the bin from where you sit, to your surprise making the shot. He doesn't answer, eyes still closed.

“Joaquín?” you ask softly, not wanting to wake him in case he fell asleep again.

“Huh? Wha?” His eyes open and he turns to look at you, his face visibly relaxed now.

“You okay?” You take his hand again, and he gives you a squeeze.

“Hmm-mm,” he hums with a nod, blinking slowly as he tries to focus on your face. “I just think I’m… kinda high right now.”

That’s when you finally break, unable to hold back an endeared chuckle, shaking your head. Joaquín’s eyes are filled with warmth and then concern as they land on your face, brows furrowing as if he just noticed something. His hand comes up to wipe away the remaining streak of tears. He also playfully pinches your cheek for good measure, eliciting another smile of yours.

“That’s better,” he concludes, a smile spreading on his face as well. The smile that could light up any room he’s in, in your humble opinion.

You prop your elbow onto the edge of the bed, head in your hands as you look at him, and he looks back at you with a silly grin. The beeps on the machine speed up a bit, and you look up at the screen, then back at him with a brow raised in amusement.

“Usually you can’t tell because I’m smooth as hell, but it’s true,” he notes, like a huge secret was just uncovered. “You still make my heart race.”

Heat prickles on your cheeks at his words and you avert your gaze with a snort. As long as your heart is still beating, you think, remembering that they had to resuscitate him after the accident, but you shake those thoughts away, preferring to focus on the fact that he’s still here, alive.

“I know that the moment you’re back on your feet, you’ll be out there again, suited up,” you start after a moment, shooting him a serious look. “So I won’t ask you to stop. But promise me to be more careful next time?”

“Pinky promise.” Joaquín lifts his hand, fingers curled except for his pinky, and you can’t help but chuckle as you mirror his gesture, curling your finger around his. He shakes your hand like that side to side for a bit, then drops it back down onto the bed. A strand of hair falls into his face as he leans back, and you brush it back, caressing over his bruised cheekbone gingerly.

“When was the last time you slept?” he asks suddenly.

“Hmm.” You look at the timestamp on the muted TV in the corner, currently playing some movie or other. It’s only then that you realise you’ve been intermittently awake for almost two full days now. “Can’t really remember,” you lie.

“You need to rest. You look exhausted,” he remarks, gesturing to himself. “I’m taken care of.”

“No, I’m not leaving you,” you say, putting as much finality into your voice as you can in your state.

He says your name softly. You look away. He sighs.

“Well, if you insist on staying, then at least I can get pampered a bit, yeah?” he starts, and you narrow your eyes at him in feigned suspicion. He asks with a playful pout, “You know what would make me feel better?”

“Hmm?”

Joaquín turns his head, offering you his cheek. You can’t help but laugh.

“I thought you were high on painkillers already?”

“Even the best medicine holds nothing against your kisses.”

“Pfft, is that so.” Now it’s your heart’s turn to speed up. You two have been together for a while now, but he still makes you feel warm and fuzzy, and gives you butterflies in your stomach, when he isn’t on the brink of death, at least. “Well, in that case, I better get started on your dose.”

You lean forward, placing a kiss on his cheek, and he hums pleasedly. He doesn’t move, though, clearly waiting for more. You’re more than happy to oblige, placing kiss after kiss on his cheeks, his nose, his forehead, being especially careful around his injuries. Finally, you hold his chin to turn his face towards you, and kiss the corner of his mouth, then his lips. It's chaste but sweet, and he smiles into it. When you lean back, his eyes are filled with love, slightly unfocused because of the meds, a goofy grin on his face. As you hold his face, you consider saying something cheesy, hoping he won’t remember it. But before you can speak, there’s a knock at the door, and someone steps in. It’s Sam. He looks surprised to see you.

“Damn, you’re still here?” he asks with concern, then turns to Joaquín. “How’re you feeling?”

“Splendid, really,” he replies, leaning into your hand still cupping his face.

“He got a decent shot of painkillers,” you explain, looking up at Sam with a tired smile. “He’s high as a kite.”

Sam chuckles, then looks at you worriedly.

“You need to rest. Both of you.” He places a hand on your shoulder. “Go home, I’ll take it from here.”

You hesitate, looking between the two, and Joaquín nods, his eyes pleading for you to also take care of yourself.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Joaquín says, taking your hand from his face and giving it a squeeze. “I’ll be here when you come back.”

“Right,” you sigh and rise to your feet with wobbly legs now that the exhaustion is finally kicking in full force, and Sam holds you up when your knees threaten to give in.

“Whoa there. You need a nap, ASAP.”

“Yeah, yeah I do,” you say with a sigh, steadying yourself as he lets you go, his hands still hovering over your arms for a moment in case he has to grab you again, but you manage to stand straight. You grab your jacket from the back of the chair, and turn to Joaquín. “I’ll come back this evening, okay? I’ll bring your favourite snacks too. Don’t tell the nurse, though.” You wink at him with a knowing smile.

“You’re the best.”

“No, you are.” You lean over him to kiss him goodbye, whispering ‘I love you’ against his lips, and pecking him once more for good measure. The machine’s beeps speed up again.

“Love you too. See you later.” Joaquín brings his hand up to caress over your cheek one last time, then you leave the room.

Sam is still standing there, hands in his pockets, looking down at his friend as the beeps slowly start decreasing back to normal.

“Very cute,” he remarks, unable to bite back a teasing smile.

“Don’t even,” Joaquín says and rolls his eyes playfully, knowing perfectly well that Sam will never let him live that down.

○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

🐥 taglist: [link to join in my pinned post!]

#goose feathers #joaquin torres x reader #joaquin torres x you #the falcon x reader #marvel x reader #mcu #marvel #brave new world

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sortagaysortahigh · 1 month ago

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Jealousy, Jealousy | Joaquin Torres

A/N: Heyyyy, finally got that freaked out Joaquin smut for yall, but who would I be if I didn't fill it with plot?!?! I present to you, delulu jealous Joaquin Torres, enemies to lovers(ish), with some freaky deaky smut and my amazing comedic timing (pls laugh or ill cry). Also this is hella fanon but does contain a few minor thunderbolts/cabnw spoilers. And I did in fact make it so the world didn't forget my bby Peter Parker BECAUSE HE DESERVED BETTER GOD DAMNIT! Also thx to the super hot and secksi chicken @love-chx for beta-ing half of this, mwah <3

Summary: It was as if every single thing you did irritated Joaquin Torres, you didn't even have to say anything to him, your presence alone was enough to tick him off. Don't get him started on your relationship with Peter Parker either.

Warnings: spelling and grammar errors, cursing, 2nd person POV, Joaquin's a total dick, Joaquin also has a big dick, mentions of Sam and Buckys divorce </3, the reader is a total flirt, mentions of Tony Stark </3, Smut: hair pulling, fish hooking, finger sucking, spitting, spitting in someones mouth, oral (fem receiving), munch!joaquin, minor male masterbation, ass eating if you squint, fingering, kissing, unprotected p in v, creampies, minor breeding kink (joaquin torres YOU ABSOLUTE FREAK!), panty/pussy sniffing, missionary, doggy style, praise, dirty talk, overstimulation, girl i think thats it idk man this was triffling

Word count: 12.7k

Joaquin Torres x Fem!Witch!Reader

Bark bark bark omg ok anyways heres the fic:

Joaquin Torres has always considered himself a pretty good person, his ultimate goal in life has always been to help people and to be a hero. He knows how to use his intelligence and skill set for good, he’s done more than enough to prove himself as the new ‘Falcon’ and from the feedback he’s received, he’d done a damn good job at being a hero, and most importantly, being an Avenger.

Typically, he doesn’t get irritated or angry easily, he’s got a positive mindset and does his best to not let things or people bother him. For a long time he thought it was just genuinely difficult for someone to get under his skin or agitate him, even in the line of combat.

That was until he met you.

Somehow, every single miniscule thing you did pissed him off.

It didn’t matter if it was as simple as forgetting to fully shut the office door, he’d get mad over it. If you’d interrupt him in the slightest, even if it wasn’t purposeful, it would tick him off. Anytime you wore heels, the constant clicking of them against the laminated floors had him taking deep breaths, fingers pinching his nose bridge in annoyance.

But nothing compared to the pure irritation that he’d feel whenever he overheard your high-pitched almost wheezy laughter whenever you were with Peter Parker. Now, Joaquin didn’t have anything against Peter per-say, but the fact that you two got along so well was what bothered him the most.

Sure Sam had told him that you’d grown up together, it made sense that you and Peter were close, but that didn’t stop him from being pissed off when he’d see you and Peter sitting close together on a sofa, or you leaning into Peter’s space, or wearing his hoodies, or laughing at his jokes.

It was normal to find your co-workers obnoxious, even if you weren’t exactly in the most normal profession. Being considered a superhero was a dream that most kids had, it was rare that anyone would be able to follow through.

Maybe that also irritated Joaquin when it came to you, it was as if everything had been handed to you, you hadn’t needed to work hard, you were a witch or a sorcerer or whatever Sam described it as! You’d been born with magical powers straight out of a fantasy novel! You didn’t need to work hard or constantly train or hone in on specific skill sets that would’ve made you better fit to be a hero.

At least that’s what he thought. Then again, Joaquin Torres hardly knew you, all he knew was that every single thing about you bothered him.

Not to mention the grimace that would overtake his features anytime you’d walk past him and the smell of your citrus perfume and shampoo would waft in his direction. You smelled like sweet oranges, sunshine, and the summer.

It made him want to hate the summer.

He didn’t even fully understand what it was about you that he didn’t like. From the outside looking in, you were relatively kind, sure you had a lot of jagged and rough edges but according to Sam you’ve ‘had a hard past few years’. Anytime the both of you had to go on a mission together, you knew exactly what needed to be done and how it needed to be done.

You weren’t exactly a know it all, or a smartass. You were just intelligent, that much was evident, especially after he found out that the entire reason Peter Parker had even had the chance to work with Tony Stark (outside of the whole recruiting two fifteen year olds to fight with the avengers against the avengers thing), was because you were persistent enough to hack into Stark enterprises security system and override parts of the very complex artificial intelligence that Stark had spent years engineering.

At the age of fifteen.

Maybe that also ticked him off, that you were so smart without having to try.

He was currently seated in his shared office at the Air Force base, one leg rapidly bouncing up and down as he clenched his jaw and stared at the two monitors in front of him. He wasn’t even focused on any of the code, surveillance footage, or data on screen, instead he was busy trying not to glance over his shoulder at you and Peter Parker sitting on the large navy blue sectional.

It wasn’t as if you were all over him, the two of you weren’t even seated directly next to one another, you were on the chase-end of the sofa, feet propped up in front of you as you worked on revisions to a few previous mission reports, adding in newly discovered information pertaining to a few arms deals, extraterrestrial activity, and foreign government involvement.

Meanwhile Peter was focused on repairing his web shooters. He was seated in the middle of the sofa, practically on the edge of one of the cushions while he leaned towards the coffee table where his gadgets sat.

Joaquin didn’t get it, he really truly didn’t get how your presence could bother him so much.

It didn’t help that he could smell you from where he sat. Your perfume had a way of lingering around, the aroma made him light headed and he hated it.

The worst part is that he liked Peter, he found him to be funny and admirable, given everything he’d gone through with losing his Aunt May, and then Stephen Strange nearly ripping a hole into the universe just to prove some point. It was nice to see people that still genuinely cared about the wellbeing of others.

Joaquin just couldn’t stand the sight of you and Peter together. So what if you’d known each other since high school, you were five years older than him now due to the Blip, and somehow, you two were still as close as ever.

He’d been so focused on not looking at you, that he hadn’t heard you say his name, nor had he registered your loud sigh as you got off the couch and approached him. Now you stood right beside him, looking at him while tapping your hand on his desk several times.

“Earth to Torres? I need the satellite scans from three days ago. Sam wants me to finalize the report to send over to the public relations department." You were very clearly annoyed by him, blinking slowly while both of your brows were raised, waiting for his response.

He slowly looked up at you, nodding his head while keeping his jaw clenched.

“Did you check the email I sent?” his condescending tone made you scoff, so instead of arguing with him, you simply shoved him out of the way, now leaning over his desk, his mouse in hand while your eyes trailed along his screens. Opening up the secure records, easily bypassing the password encryption to pull the files you needed.

Then you reached into your back pocket, grabbing a flash drive before connecting it to his computer, downloading each file that you needed while he sat in shock a few feet away.

But the longer you stood there, the more his eyes started to wander. Your back was slightly arched as you focused on the data downloads, your legs were a bit spread, and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t immediately notice the way the denim levis hugged your ass perfectly. When his eyes trailed higher he realized your usual braided hair was straightened today, flowing along your back, cascading along your shoulders.

And God did you smell good.

Your shirt was fitted, the cotton of the tanktop hugging all of your soft curves, and maybe that made it worse for him. You weren’t exactly skinny, and he knew for a fact, he didn’t want you to be.

Sam was right, he needed to get laid.

Then you glanced over at him “what’s your password” he blinked a few times, finally processing what you were talking about, eyes glancing back at the monitors, now seeing his displays completely disorganized as you had several different sized windows up, showing different footage, paused feeds, coded entries, and encryptions. You pointed a singular manicured finger at the smaller black window, waiting on him to provide the necessary password.

“Move outta the way and I’ll type it in princess” you rolled your eyes at the nickname.

“You’re such a child Torres, just tell me the damn password, what you afraid I’m gonna look through your shit? As if we don’t have access to the same things?” he scoffed at that, running a hand along the lower half of his face as he let out a cynical laugh.

“Can’t you just listen and get the hell out of my way?” you shushed him, now typing a random assumption into the password box, waiting on it to load through as the cogwheel showed on screen. Finally after a few tense minutes, it worked and you were into his system fully.

“Seriously? That’s your password? Couldn’t think of anything more creative than Dwayne Wade? I know you’re a Heat fan but damn”

It took everything in him not to stand up, grab you by the hips, and move you out of his way. His leg was bobbing up and down again and now he was leaning to the right, elbow against the armrest of his chair while his hand covered the top half of his face.

“So uh, is now a bad time to ask if either of you are headed to the gala sponsored by Valentina Allegra De Fontaine this week?” you glanced back at Peter, who looked at both of you with his brows furrowed, eyes wide, and concern evident on his features.

He was sitting up a bit straighter now, as if he was anticipating a larger argument between the two. He wasn’t the best mediator, but he knew when to drag you away, considering you never backed down.

“Yeah, Sam sent us the invite last night. Said it’s mandatory, something about intel and his faux-divorce with Bucky.” you spoke as you glanced back at Joaquin's monitors, now finalizing a few downloads and taking the time to fix two of his encryptions, the codes having very clear errors that you couldn’t resist adjusting.

Then you stood up, taking a second to adjust your jeans, pulling them up slightly, the motion catching Joaquin’s eyes-or rather the sight of your ass slightly jiggling in your jeans caught his attention. Then you were walking away from his desk with the flashdrive in hand.

You initially were going to sit back down and get back to work, it wasn’t exactly easy being an Avenger or whatever the hell Sam called you all, and a lot of it actually required paperwork-something that Tony had never prepared you for. Then your phone started ringing and the sound of Marvin Gaye’s Sexual Healing started blasting from it.

The ring tone made you burst out in laughter, seeing Sam’s contact name alongside a photo of him giving you the middle finger showing on screen.

“You seriously need to change that Bug!” you scoffed at Peter “No I don’t it’s funny! He’s the one who went on and on about how great Marvin Gaye is. It’s only right that I honor that sentiment”

He shook his head at you, the brunette then glancing towards Joaquin who quickly looked away. Peter could practically feel the laser beams shooting from Joaquin’s glare towards the both of you.

Then you answered the phone, putting it on speaker.

Another annoying habit of yours that made Joaquin’s jaw clench.

“Hi Father America, how can I help you on this pristine day?” Sam’s sigh was loud over the phone, meanwhile you and Peter looked at each other and shared a muffled laugh.

“Did you finish those reports? Gotta know what we’re fully up against, and the press is on my ass over it. Also have you heard from Kate? She said she’s been trying to reach out to Yelena but y’know they’re always on and off again” you shrugged, then realized he couldn’t actually see you.

The long silence followed by Sam’s “once again, shrugging while we’re on a phone call isn’t helpful for me here kid.” you rolled your eyes at that, elbowing Peter slightly who laughed at you.

“Nope, haven't heard from Kate, she was still wallowing in her relationship sorrow last time we spoke, also did you see that Bob guy? You think Buck will put in a good word for me?”

The comment made Joaquin choke on his coffee, you didn’t register that though as Peter responded “Seriously Bug? Can you not act like yourself for five minutes? Maybe don’t go try jumping someone’s bones who literally turned into like a black mass and overtook Manhattan?” you sighed at that, shaking your head.

“He’s just misunderstood I could fix him, with this pus-” Peter was quick to cut you off, a hand over your mouth as your words were muffled, meanwhile Joaquin scoffed, rolling his eyes again.

“Okay, Sorry about that Sam, Bug’s gonna finish the reports soon, she just got the last few satellite files from Joaquin, we’ll call you back later when she’s in her right mind again!” with that he hung up your phone.

One thing Joaquin clearly didn’t understand was how Peter was alright with you making comments like that. He was under the assumption that the two of you were dating, you spent most of your time together, went out together constantly, it only made sense. Maybe he just wasn’t the jealous type, Joaquin could respect that to a certain extent.

You quickly swatted Peter’s hands away. “You’re really raining on my shine here Parker!” he laughed at that, shaking his head at you.

Sam eventually got back to the office to go over the reports with you, meanwhile Joaquin offered side quips that you easily shut down, rolling your eyes a few times at his antics. Then you were walking everyone through the several different dimensional aspects to the most recent space-level threat and the Avengers response.

Joaquin leaned against his desk with his arms crossed over his chest, when he wasn’t looking you were quick to peek at the way his biceps bulged. He was glaring in your direction the entire time you spoke, pulling up the holographic feeds, zooming in and out of different bits and portions, elaborating on the issue and the scope of it all.

You were too smart and that also pissed him off.

By the time you were finished with the long winded explanation, and answering a few of Sam’s questions on the matter, you were tired and ready to head home. Then Sam cleared his throat as you packed your things.

You didn’t live far off base, and you’d shared a townhouse with Peter, it was a nice place, nothing compared to New York, but you were settling in just fine.

“Actually, none of you are headed home, remember how I said a go bag is a necessity, yeah, well we’re all headed over to the airport, then we’re headed into New York to the backhanded ‘New Avengers’ tower for that big Gala. There are ground rules here, the biggest one is you and you-” he paused to point at you, then at Joaquin “need to get the hell along. We’re walking into a building full of super soldiers, ex-war criminals, and that guy who turned into a black mass-”

You interrupted Sam “so do you think I have a shot with him, these are the important questions-so what if he’s a little evil, I could fix him!” Sam groaned.

“Peter please control your friend” Peter sighed and nodded his head.

“Okay, now back to what's important, actually as a matter of fact, a new rule just for you Bug, you are not allowed to seduce Bob!” you sighed, shoulders dropping and bottom lip pouting “-okay but can I seduce someone?” he shook his head, nostrils flaring slightly while he stared at you.

“No! You can’t seduce any of them, Jesus Christ do I need to put you on a leash?” you were about to make a joke out of that, until Peter quickly pulled you into his side, a hand over your mouth, earning an irritated groan from you.

“We’re headed to the airport, get your go bags, pack your computers and whatnot because our flight is set to take off in two hours. I’ve already got someone up there getting you all something more gala-like. Kate’s also meeting us up there as well.”

By the time that you’d all arrived in New York, you were exhausted. You knew that everyone would be spending the weekend in the New Avengers tower, and you had no expectations of how it would actually look, not when you knew how it originally looked, and when the place held a few memories that you didn’t want to relive.

It was a shell of what it used to be, that was certain.

The building had been remodeled, there was a lack of character here, everything felt too new, too modern. It didn’t have the same touches that Tony had left, things were different now.

You hated it.

But you couldn’t complain, not yet at least. Not when everyone was busy greeting you and your eyes were jumping from person to person, studying each of the New Avengers, you’d read about the ones you didn’t know personally, most of them had serious criminal backgrounds.

Then again, if you weren’t technically an Avenger, you would’ve had a serious criminal background as well.

“Ah, you must be the Bug we have heard much about!” you blinked a few times, a large russian man looking down at you with a wide smile on his face, then he pulled you into a bone crushing hug, lifting you right off of the ground as your eyes widened. It was kind of nice though, the kind of hug that reminded you of Thor. So you smiled and hugged him back.

That action surprised several people in the room.

Then he put you down.

“I have heard much about your battle stories, you are a strong fighter, yes?” you shrugged “something like that” which earned a scoff from Joaquin, and you were quick to glare at him.

“I’m Alexei Shostakov, the Red Guardian.” you nodded at him, introducing yourself, following it with “but everyone calls me Bug” then you shook his hand.

Clearly he was the nicest out of everyone.

Well that and, everyone had been conversing with Sam, or rather watching Sam and Bucky argue and awkwardly introducing themselves, even though everyone pretty much knew everyone, and then Kate and Yelena were off in a corner whisper shouting at each other yet again.

“So why do they call you Bug?” you shrugged at him, now sitting at the bar with the older man “Honestly, Mr. Stark-uh Tony-used to call me Bug. Said it was because I was always bugging him, and my best friend was a spider, so of course I’d be some kind of bug too” he nodded as you spoke.

Meanwhile Joaquin tried to act as if he wasn’t eavesdropping. He honestly had never thought to ask you why people called you Bug, he just knew he didn’t have that privilege. That also kind of irritated him too.

What was so irritating about you? He didn’t get it.

The next day rolls around faster than you expected, and after waking up in a guest bedroom, halfway off of the king sized bed, you realize that you were tossing and turning all night. Then you glanced around the room, all of the furniture was dark, but it wasn’t dark wood, it was black with silver hardware, and honestly, it reminded you of an upscale hotel in the worst way.

Peter was across the room, sprawled out across the large sofa after having lost the game of rock paper scissors you’d played over who would sleep in the bed. Typically you would’ve had your own room, however Sam labeled you as a ‘flight risk’, and stated that you needed someone to be with you, so of course you were quick to say Peter.

Joaquin was constantly an asshole to you, it made zero sense for you to want to be around him.

It didn’t matter how attractive he was, or how nice his biceps looked, or how kissable his lips were. Nor did it matter that you liked his hair, or his smile, or really anything about him. He was an absolute dick to you, and he’d been that way since the both of you had started working together.

Initially, when you’d met him through Sam and Bucky, he wasn’t that bad, sure he talked a lot, but you hardly saw him. Then, when Sam had asked if you and Peter wanted to come to D.C. to work with him, that’s when things started changing. Slowly but surely, Joaquin was more hostile towards you.

You thought that maybe you’d done something wrong at first, but then after talking to Peter about it, and venting about how annoying he was, you realized that you hadn’t done anything and Joaquin was just being an asshole.

So you kept your distance, and of course, anytime he was rude, you had to be ruder. He brought out the worst in you at times, you weren’t outwardly a mean person, but spending too much time around him brought out that side of you.

“Peter! Wake up! Before Sam kicks our asses!” he groaned, nodding his head as he slowly sat up, rubbing his eyes a bit.

It’d taken the both of you about twenty minutes to get up and ready for the day, the gala was tonight and Sam had said they’d already gotten you both your outfits. Peter would be in a black suit with a white shirt, meanwhile you were in a red floor length dress. Why was it crimson? You had no idea, maybe to pay homage to your magic, or to your previous mentor that had flown off her rocker and gone into the deep end of insanity? Who knows.

You were currently seated on the bed, legs crossed in front of you as you rapidly typed. Sam had texted you a screenshot of information that he’d gotten from Bucky. Something about Valentina’s assistant giving him information, you weren’t really awake enough to process where it came from, but you were told to work your magic and get past a few firewalls.

Everything was going fine until your hands started to cramp.

Peter also wasn’t in the room anymore, he was out ‘networking’ as he called it. You groaned, putting your laptop on the bed beside you, taking a minute to clench and unclench your fists, doing your best to relax your hands.

Then you spotted Joaquin in the hallway, and god damnit, he would be your saving grace whether he liked it or not.

“Torres! Come here!” you were loud as you shouted his name, he blinked a few times, walking backwards a few steps, now gazing into your room, rolling his eyes at the sight of you in the middle of the large bed like some kind of princess.

“What?” you rolled your eyes at his evident attitude.

“Listen, I don’t have time for the sassy man apocalypse today, I need help with something Sam asked me about” you motioned for him to come into the room with your hand, brows raised expectantly as you stared at him. He shook his head before walking into the room, then you waved your hand slightly, the door shutting behind him.

“Like come here, not stand by the door.” you aggressively pat the bed beside you, and he let out a frustrated sigh as he made his way over, now sitting beside you, but also practically halfway off the bed. You rolled your eyes at him, grabbing his forearm and dragging him closer, you tried to ignore how firm his arms were-that was a thought for another day.

“Stop acting like a shy virgin about to hookup for the first time. I don’t have time for this, Sam needs this information asap, so here” you handed him the laptop, now pointing at the screen “I need you to finish bypassing this, my fucking hands are killing me and you’re the best hacker I know-don’t let that inflate your ego either”

He glanced at you, then at the laptop. Then he started typing, eyes scanning your previous work as he found a few quicker work-arounds.

Meanwhile you watched him, your eyes tracing along the veins in his hands, taking in every small detail. His hands were pretty big, you hadn’t really noticed that before, they looked firm and strong. His forearms were nice too, a bit toned, his skin had a golden tan.

Then your eyes moved along his figure. His hair was still damp, a few loose curls lightly touching his forehead. His jawline was sharp and defined, part of you wanted to reach out and touch it, but you didn’t want to make things weird.

Although, he was always an asshole to you, so what would making things weird really do?.

You reached over slowly, one finger gently tracing the slope of his jawline, the feeling had him freezing up, eyes widening at the feather-light touch against his face.

“You have a nice jawline Torres.”

He slowly glanced over at you, now finally processing the smell of citrus in the room, the warmth of the sun's rays against your skin as you looked at him. He noticed how soft your lips looked, and how focused you were on him.

It didn’t help that you were wearing a pair of black shorts that were riding all the way up your thighs, but the grey Midtown sweatshirt you wore ripped him out of his potential fantasy. His jaw clenched at the sight and he leaned away from your touch before shrugging your hand away from him.

“Thanks, now stop being a creep.”

You scoffed at that. “Seriously? A creep? Why do you always have to be such an asshole to me!”

He blinked a few times, rolling his eyes as he continued typing.

“Wow, the silent treatment, well aren’t you fucking mature. Damn, learn how to take a compliment you douchebag." Then you were quick to get off the bed, he watched as you moved away-which probably wasn’t the best idea because as you walked off, his eyes were focused solely on the way your ass moved in your shorts.

The sound of the door slamming practically echoed inside of the room.

Then he was looking around, annoyed at the fact that you were probably lying in this bed last night side by side with Peter Parker of all people. It was irrational for him to be annoyed by the thought, but genuinely, what did you even see in Peter?

Okay, so maybe Peter wasn’t ugly, and he was a good kid, plus he was really smart, and he had the whole ‘Spider-man’ thing going for him- okay maybe Joaquin did understand what you saw in Peter. But that didn’t make it any less annoying.

That’s when it hit him.

“Am I jealous of Peter Parker?” he spoke to himself, brows knit together as he looked down at your laptop, now realizing that he’d gotten into the system, then he noticed the notebook you had on the bed with a jumbled mess of scribbles and notes of things Sam wanted you to figure out.

He knew that this job stressed you out, that much had always been obvious because it stressed him out too. So he decided to actually be a nice guy for once, going through your sloppy checklist and pulling the necessary information on the Sentry project, on the Darkholder Cult, and on a few under the table weapons manufacturing deals.

Once he finished, he was quick to retrace all of his steps, ensuring nothing could be traced back to you, then he exited out of every tab, only to come face to face with your laptop background, a photo of you, Peter, and an older Brunette woman with large glasses on her face.

You were younger in the photo, and based on the burnt cupcake in your hand with two small candles showcasing ‘15’ on them, he knew it had to have been your birthday.

He wanted to snoop through your things, but then the door opened, and in walked Peter who looked a bit surprised to see Joaquin there.

“Let me guess, you two got into it again?”

He nodded his head at the question, watching as Peter walked over to the sofa in the room, sitting down and now digging through one of his bags.

“Between me and you, I think you really need to stop being a dick to her man, it’s only making things worse on your end.”

Joaquin blinked a few times at the advice, sure it was sound advice, but he didn’t need sound advice from your boyfriend.

“I just don’t get it, you two would make sense, but you guys are just constantly going head to head. Y’know Mr. Stark always used to tell her she needed to find someone that could out-argue her, I guess that actually might be you.”

Joaquin blinked a few times, now utterly confused, glancing from the laptop to Peter.

He then grabbed a few things and stood up. “But y’know, what would I know right?” He shrugged, leaving the room.

Then Joaquin was alone again.

By the time that he’d actually left your room and managed to find everyone, he spotted you talking to Bob. That made his blood boil. You were smiling while he said something, Joaquin didn’t give a shit what anyone had to say to you, there was no reason that you should’ve been practically beaming at him.

He couldn’t have been that funny or entertaining.

So he decided he would make his presence known, waltzing right up to you, then throwing an arm around your shoulders. He smirked at your shocked expression, then he glanced at Bob who just looked confused, glancing between you and Joaquin.

“Uh-I guess we can talk later then?”

You nodded at Bob, mumbling an apology on Joaquin’s behalf as the brunette awkwardly nodded and walked away. Then you let out a deep sigh, shoving Joaquin off of you. Glancing around the room, you realized that while it was a large space, it was clear that this was the last place to yell at him.

So you grabbed his arm and dragged him off, finding a random quiet hall.

You shove him, “What the fuck is your problem? You’re constantly such an asshole to me, then you do stupid shit like that!”

He scoffed, rolling his eyes.“So sorry I stopped you from throwing yourself at Bob”

You shove him again.“I wasn’t even throwing myself at him! Sam said to talk to everyone, y’know be social?! He’s working his ass off to try to find some fucking solution to this whole his Avengers vs Valentina’s Avengers fiasco and you’re just being a self centered dick!” you were yelling now.

He shook his head “As if you give a shit about any of that!”

You scoffed, jaw dropping. “Well excuse the fuck out of me, I didn’t know Joaquin Torres knew a single god damn thing that I gave a shit about! You don’t even know me. You know jack shit about me!”

He was quiet now, trying to come up with something to say, anything to prove that you weren’t right.

But you were too quick.

“Exactly, silence because even you know it’s true. You don’t know the first fucking thing about me, and yet for the past year and a half, you’ve treated me like the bane of your existence. I get that you’re mister hot shot Falcon now, but for fucks sake, you don’t need to be such a douchebag! You couldn’t even tell me my favorite color. That’s how little you know about me.”

He scoffed. “As if you could tell me mine”

You shook your head. “It’s orange, your favorite fucking color is orange, the bright ass orange that matches the University of Miami’s orange. You jackass.” With that you walked off again, shaking your head, while muttering a series of curse words. Whenhe tried to follow you, you waved a hand in the air, a random vase flying towards him.

Part of you wanted to blow something up, the other part of you wanted to kick Joaquin in the chest.

There was a sliver that was upset though, upset that he genuinely thought so little of you.

Before you could storm off to your room like a child throwing a temper tantrum, you stormed right into Bucky, practically falling back after walking right into him, but he easily steadied you.

“Seriously Bug? Still angry walking and not paying attention?”

You sighed, looking at Bucky and shaking your head. It took him half a second to realize who made you angry.

“Let me guess, you and Joaquin still haven’t kissed and made up?”

You scoffed at him, shaking your head, then you were walking in sync with him. You honestly had no idea where Bucky was headed, but now you were too busy venting to him about your problems. Besides, you always used to vent to him about anything and everything prior to him going off to pursue being a Congressman.

“No, Buck, you don’t understand. I’ve done nothing to him! Nothing at all! And still no matter what, he’s constantly an asshole to me! It’s like if I even breathe the wrong way he’s just mad about it. Now, we have this stupid gala to be at tonight and I have to wear a stupid dress and I’m already irritated, then, then I’m talking to Bob, y’know being nice like Sam said to be! Sure, I think the guy’s hot-he’s got the whole shy introvert thing going on-but I’m not over here throwing myself at him!”

Bucky nodded as you spoke, humming every so often so you knew he was listening. Meanwhile he was trying to figure out the best way to let you know that Joaquin Torres was obviously in love with you.

“Then-then get this Buck! He’s just mean to be mean! Today I complimented him, sure I was a little too touchy feely, but then he like jerks away from me and acts like I have the damn plague or something! Whatever happened to extending an olive branch and not being a dickhead?!”

Bucky laughed at that, it wasn’t a light laugh either, no it was loud and boisterous and it caught you off guard.

“You probably flustered him. He’s just a guy, don’t get too caught up in him being an asshole, alright? There’s plenty of other fish in the sea that won’t make you so mad you’re about to blow a hole in the tower.”

You nodded at that.

After your conversation with Bucky, you were quick to make it back to your designated room, finding your laptop and finalizing all of your work related documents, then you knew it was about time to start getting ready for the obnoxious Gala, and of course, that also meant having to mix and mingle with everyone.

So you screamed into a pillow six times, then started getting ready. Showering and doing your best not to wet your hair was the longest part, then you’d gone back over your hair, ensuring that your hair and extensions were blended seamlessly as you sat in front of the floor length mirror curling them.

Makeup was easy, mostly because you didn’t have it in you to do an entire glamorous look, instead you’d opted for something soft and simple with a bold red lip to compliment the obnoxious dress they’d chosen for you.

You still didn’t even know who picked the dress out, but your money was on Kate, considering she’d asked you for your exact measurements three days ago over text. Plus she had an eye for dramatics.

By the time that Peter had showed up to get dressed and ready, you were sorting through your jewelry, with your ‘I hate men’ playlist on full volume.

He opted to stay quiet, getting dressed as you angrily applied your makeup and fixed your hair. Once it was time for you to put the dress on, you walked into the ensuite, slamming the door behind you in your own silent rage.

How Joaquin had the nerve to treat you the way he did was just baffling to you? It made no sense!

You were jumping up and down trying to get the zipper to work on the back of your dress, huffing and puffing a few times before yelling out “Can you come help me?!”.

When the bathroom door opened, you expected Peter. When your eyes met Joaquin’s in the reflection, you debated on kicking his ass right then and there, but that wouldn’t be possible, considering one of your hands was on the front of your dress, holding it up against your bare chest, while your other hand was leaning against the countertop.

He stared at you with his lips slightly parted, and if you weren’t so irritated, maybe you would’ve blushed.

“Can you zip my fucking dress up instead of staring at me?”

He rolled his eyes at that, now standing behind you, holding the top of the dress together, then finding the zipper closer to your lower back. His brows knit together at the sight of the tattoo along your spine, and that knowledge made him a little light headed.

“Didn’t know you had tattoos.”

You scoffed. “Once again, you don’t know shit about me so that’s not very shocking, Torres”.

He shook his head at that, grasping the zipper and slowly sliding it up until he hit the top. His hands lingered on your skin for a few seconds after, then you were shoving him away, walking right past him, practically shoulder checking him on the way out of the en suite.

You gave Peter a dirty look while he fumbled with his tie.

“Ugh, c’mere let me fix it.” You were adjusting Peter’s tie, all while Joaquin leaned against the doorframe and watched. The sight had his right eye twitching slightly.

Once the Gala was in full swing you were mingling with everyone, flashing fake smiles, a few winks, and even a few flirty lines to some of the older more influential politicians and socialites there. It was easy to get information out of them, a handful of giggles and a shy smile was everything they needed from you.

It also helped that your tits were practically out, sitting pretty in your crimson dress, as if you were Jessica Rabbit herself.

Joaquin stayed in the back for the most part, ignoring the pent up aggression in his body while his eyes followed you through the room. Each and every person you spoke to, he made a mental note of, part of his job was to do reconn, the other part was to keep you safe.

At least that’s what Sam had told him prior to the event. Meanwhile, Peter was nowhere to be found, but that was also most likely because he was touring the research facilities with some of the other influential scientists present. Valentina made sure to dot all of her I’s and cross each and every one of her T’s to make tonight successful.

You didn’t even want to be there, you’d even run into Kate and Yelena, both of them doing exactly what you were doing, which earned a few succinct head nods and winks.

The music was too loud, the champagne was disgusting, your head was hurting, and you were still a ball of pent up rage. Across the room, Joaquin was feeling the same exact way.

It wasn’t until some politician’s son had pulled you to the dance floor in a different room for a shitty slow dance that Joaquin had finally snapped. Maybe it was the way you smiled at the man, laughing, getting too close for comfort, pressing your ample chest against his own. Or maybe it was the way that you let the man’s hands roam along your waist, down to the curve of your ass that really got to him.

Joaquin didn’t know, nor did he care.

All he knew was within seconds he was behind you, gently pulling you back and away, offering some half-assed excuse about needing to handle Avengers business, then he was dragging you away from everyone.

You two stood in silence in the elevator, the air was thick with tension and you wanted nothing more than to rip his head off like a female praying mantis.

Then, the doors dinged and he dragged you down the hall, right to his room and as he kicked the door shut, he stared right at you in the dimly lit room.

“What the fuck is your problem?”

You scoffed at the question, taken aback, laughing at his outburst.“You dragged me away from our job to ask me what my god damn problem is? Meanwhile, you’ve been nothing but an asshole to me for forever at this point, you don’t know anything about me, and still you constantly judge me, and constantly talk down to me like I’m some little fucking kid. Newsflash Torres, I’m twenty five not six.”

He shook his head at that, taking a deep breath.

“Your favorite color is blue. It’s not sky blue, it’s not navy, no it’s the color of a Robin’s egg, it’s not exactly blue and it’s not exactly green.”

You stood in silence at that, brows knit together as you looked at him.

“You have a playlist for every bad mood you’ve ever been in, and I’ve probably contributed to more than half of them. Your favorite season is Spring and you hate the winter, you smell like fucking sunshine and oranges and lemons and it drives me insane because you drive me insane.”

He ran a hand through his hair while he spoke, then he loosened his tie, with one hand, pulling at the collar of his shirt as if he was hot.

Joaquin was absolutely burning up.

“Being around you makes me feel like I’m fucking losing my mind, everything about you pisses me off to no extend, I can’t stand it when you’re around but I hate it when you’re gone-” you cut him off, closing the space between the both of you, pressing your lips against his.

When you tried to pull away he placed a hand on the back of your neck, lightly holding you in place, lips moving against yours. The kiss was anything but sweet, it was all teeth and tongue, pent up anger, jealousy, and downright delusion. Every single aspect of his being was on fire, and you were the only thing that could extinguish it.

He backed you up against the door, the thick mahogany cold against your back was the only thing grounding you. His hand stayed behind your neck, the other on your waist, holding you against him firmly. He’d easily won control of the kiss, it was like he was trying to prove himself.

You were intoxicating and maddening.

It was sending him deeper and deeper into a hole that he wasn’t sure he’d ever get out of.

His lower half was pressed directly against you, but the second you bit his bottom lip, one of his legs easily slid between yours, practically pinning you against the door. His grip on your waist bruising while he started trailing open mouthed kisses along your jaw and down your throat.

He spoke between kisses “do you know-” kiss “-how crazy you make me-” kiss “every single day of my life”. Then as he met your pulse point, you gasped, earning a smirk from him before he started nipping at the skin there, sucking a harsh mark against you, your hands now in his hair, tugging at the curls as your back arched into him.

“Shit-fuck you Torres” he nodded at that, tongue gliding against the freshly bruised skin.

“Trust me, you’re gonna” you blinked a few times, letting out a raspy laugh, shaking your head at him.

“This why you’re always so mean? Cause you wanna fuck me? Could’ve just asked nicely” he groaned at your flirtatious tone, a short giggle leaving your lips as his tongue moved against your neck, tracing your skin, the saltiness made him moan. He wanted to run his tongue along your entire body.

He shook his head, leaving another bruising kiss to your exposed skin as he started moving lower, then you gasped as the hand that was on the back of your neck slid between your body and the door, easily finding the dress’s zipper, slowly tugging it down.

“Gonna make you mine for tonight” his words were muffled against your skin, lips moving along your exposed shoulders down to the swell of your chest. Then he was pulling the dress down, moaning against your skin.

“These are so nice-you’re so fuckin pretty” he took his time, kissing along each of your tits, leaving a few marks. Each time you pulled his hair, he’d moan then lightly bite against your supple skin. He took his time trailing his tongue along each of your nipples. Rolling the hardened peaks between his teeth before lightly sucking against them.

Your whimpers and gasps were like music to his ears.

You managed to press yourself closer to him, head leaned against the door behind you as he moved lower and lower, pulling your gown down to the ground as he tried to kiss every single inch of your exposed skin.

His lips were searing, he felt like he was on fire. His ears were practically ringing.

Then he was on his knees, pulling his tie off, tossing it to the side as he helped you step out of the dress. Then you were being pushed further against the door, one of your thighs now resting against his shoulder while he kissed along your lower stomach, moving to your upper thighs, then he bit into your inner thigh, a sharp gasp leaving your lips.

When met with your clothed pussy he moaned, leaning into it, nose practically pressed against the wet patch as he took a deep inhale, biting his bottom lip before licking a flat stripe against the thin lace.

“Smell so good-fuck can I taste you?” your eyes widened at his needy tone, nodding your head as you looked down at him, he looked absolutely wrecked and he’d barely even touched you.

He used one hand to pull your panties to the side, moaning at the sight of your glistening cunt.

The Joaquin Torres you were seeing now was a completely different man than the one that’d been purposefully being an asshole to you for months.

He looked desperate as he licked his lips, a breathy laugh slipping past his kiss-swollen lips before he leaned in, tongue flat against your cunt, moving from your weeping entrance to your clit.

Your hands were back in his hair in seconds.

That was all it took for him to absolutely lose himself in your cunt. He focused on lapping his tongue against your clit, swirling around the pearl as if it was his last meal, moaning at your taste. Then he brought it into his mouth, sucking on it as if he was dying of thirst, the motion made your thighs shake slightly.

You tried to push him away-it was too much.

But he’d just begun. He used one of his hands to pin you in place, fingers digging into your thigh, holding you right against him, the other hand was currently focused on undoing his belt, trying to relieve the pressure on his restrained cock.

You were loud, louder than he expected as you ground yourself against his face, moaning a mixture between half-spoken words and whines.

He didn’t let up, keeping his focus on your clit while you felt the coil in your abdomen tightening. Then he moved away from your clit slightly, licking against it a few more times before trailing down, tongue now prodding at your sopping entrance, the slight intrusion made you light headed.

Joaquin was teasing you now, enjoying the sting from you pulling his hair and your low whines and whimpers. Not to mention the way you tasted, he’d stay between your thighs for days if you’d let him.

“Fuck-please I need more” he smirked, now pulling away to look up at you.

“More what?” you let out a low whimper at that, now looking down at him again, your brows knit together, lips swollen and parted, a thin layer of sweat coating your skin.

You were glowing, he wanted to be a little mean, but he couldn’t, not when you were looking at him so desperately.

“Don’t worry baby, I’ll give you everything you need” then his tongue was back on your clit, and one of his thick fingers was sliding right into your hole, he was met with a little resistance as you immediately clenched around the digit, your walls fluttering, then practically pulling him in as you ground your hips against his hand and face.

Then he slid a second finger in, and you just about lost it, your back arching even harder, a high pitched moan practically echoing in the room as you were creaming around his fingers, rocking your hips, fucking yourself on them to prolong your own orgasm.

He bit his lip at the sight of you, then he started moving his fingers, thrusting them into you, curling them perfectly, finding the spot that made you see stars.

It was too much, but you couldn’t push him away, not when he had you pinned between himself and the door.

He continued to suck on your clit, moaning at the taste of you as his fingers sped up, the sloshing sound of your cunt was almost embarrassing. You were positive you’d never been this wet in your life.

He didn’t care anymore, he didn’t have time to be sweet or gentle with you, his pace was brutal, fingers practically pounding into you while his tongue flicked against your swollen bundle of nerves. Except the faster and harder his fingers fucked into you, the slower his tongue moved against your clit.

He looked up at you, hooded eyes moving from your tits, moaning at the sight of them slightly bouncing as you ground yourself against him, to your pretty face. You were biting your bottom lip, one hand still in his hair, the other moving to your thigh that was propped up on his shoulder.

Joaquin thought you were going to try to push his hand away, instead you grasped it, yours clutching against the top of his. That made him blush-as if he wasn’t already flushed from tongue fucking you.

You were an absolute wreck above him. He knew you were close, your walls constantly clenching around his fingers.

“You’re so fuckin tight-can’t wait to get my cock in you” you nodded at that, biting your bottom lip and whimpering. “Gonna fuck you so good-make you forget all about anyone else” you were moaning above him, getting closer and closer to your orgasm, chasing your high as you practically bounced against his penetrating digits.

“Yeah, you’d want that huh? Want me to fuck you stupid?” you tugged harshly on his hair, pushing him back into your cunt, the motion earned a throaty laugh from him. Then his tongue was back on your clit, applying the perfect amount of pressure as he focused on the rosebud.

Then you were gushing on his fingers and the lower half of his face. It had initially caught him off guard, then he pulled back, watching your cunt squirt for him as he finger fucked you through your orgasm.

He then slowly pulled his fingers out, smirking at you whimpering. Then his fingers were in his mouth as he licked them clean before his tongue was back on you, licking and slurping everything, moaning at the taste of you.

“Fuck Torres-shit stop-” you were now pushing his head away, still out of breath as you looked down at him. He sat back on his haunches, looking right at you, his face still wet, chest rising and falling, and it was then that you noticed his belt was undone, his pants were unzipped, and there was a very large tent emphasizing his hard-on.

Your legs were a bit wobbly as you leaned against the door, then he slowly stood up, tossing his suit jacket to the side.

Then he stood up, and suddenly you felt too exposed. He bit his bottom lip as his eyes trailed along your nearly-nude figure. Taking in every single detail of your body.

“You’re beautiful y’know that” you rolled your eyes at him, shoving past him and walking towards the bed, and when he stood in place, just watching you, head tilted to the side as his eyes focused on your ass and thighs you scoffed.

“Are you gonna fuck me or stare me down?”

He shook his head at your tone. Then he started unbuttoning his shirt as he approached you. “That attitudes gotta go Princessa” you rolled your eyes at the pet name, slowly starting to remember why you didn’t like him in the first place.

Then when you stood at the edge of his bed facing away from him, he smirked, pushing you down, guiding your body onto the mattress. Once you were on it, he was quick to grasp your hips, pulling them up, his strength shocked you. Then again he was an Air Force Captain and the Falcon for a reason.

His hand was at the small of your back, pushing you down slightly, enjoying the way that you arched for him while your upper body was flat against the bed. He wasn’t going to force you onto your hands and knees-not when he knew you couldn’t take it.

Then you started moving your hips, swaying them side to side as your legs parted a bit further. But when you were on your forearms, taking a second to look back at him, your hair cascading around your figure while you met his eyes-that was his breaking point.

He didn’t even fully remove his pants, he pulled his cock out as fast as possible, and you moaned at the sight. Joaquin looked directly at you as he slowly stroked his cock, then he was leaning forward, one hand outstretched close to your face.

“Spit” you raised a brow, eyeing his hand, then his dick, then as you made eye contact you moved closer to his hand, slowly spitting into it, letting it glide off of your tongue right into his palm. He bit his lip at the sight, then pulled his hand back, now running it along his cock.

“You gonna let me fuck you just like this? Fuck you raw so you can feel it all?” you nodded at him, ignoring the part of your brain screaming at you that it was a bad idea. This was Joaquin Torres, he was an asshole! But you couldn’t give less of a shit right now.

Then he was closer to you, tapping the head of his cock against your swollen clit a few times, the motion making you whimper. He started running the tip along your cunt, and each time it would catch on your entrance, you’d roll your eyes and whine.

You hadn’t expected him to land a firm slap to your ass-the motion caught you off guard, eyes widening at the feeling. Then he did it again, and on the third time you let out a broken moan.

“I always thought you were wound too tight, guess you just need to be fucked good huh?” his condescending tone made you whimper, your forehead resting against your arms while you clenched around nothing. The sight had him biting his bottom lip, watching as your pussy fluttered over and over again.

He hadn’t stopped jerking himself off as he watched you, then he was lining himself up with your entrance and part of him wanted to go slow, but you were just too fucking agitating. So the second he was able to slide the head of his cock into you, he bottomed out in one harsh thrust, the motion practically knocking the air out of your lungs.

Your back arched even harder-the sight had his brows raised while he took a second to breathe.

“Fuck-you’re so fuckin tight, cunt’s gripping me in a vice” you moaned at his words, taking a few deep breaths as you tried to adjust to him.

“‘S too big-fuck you’re too deep” your words were slurred together as you tried to move your hips, he was invading each and every one of your senses, you felt like you couldn’t breathe.

He shushed you as he slowly pulled out “It’s okay, you can take it-I know you can” you moaned at his words, toes curling slightly, one hand moved back-you tried to push him away, but he grasped it instead, now holding your wrist, pinning your hand in place on your lower back while he started fucking into you.

Joaquin was slow at first, giving you time to adjust to his size, he knew he wasn’t exactly small, but the way you were practically mewling from the stretch was making him feel light headed.

“Just like that baby, relax into it, taking it so well now-” he spoke as he started building a rhythm, each thrust earning moans and whimpers from you. He bit his lip at the sight of him fucking into you, watching as your pussy swallowed him whole, over and over again. “-just like that baby, fuck, pussy was made f’me”

You were fluttering around him again. He let go of your hand, instead leaning over you more, grasping your hair, pulling you up slightly, your hands catching on the bed, holding yourself in place at the new angle. Then he dropped your hair, one hand on your jaw now, while he leaned into your space.

“Feel that Princessa? Feel how deep I am, fuck, look at you, can’t even talk huh?” you nodded at him, head leaning back now as you tried to look at him, but you couldn’t focus on anything he was saying, not when he started fucking you harder and faster.

Then two of his fingers slid into your mouth, you were quick to start sucking on them, swirling your tongue around them as he muffled your whimpers.

He bit his bottom lip, now sliding his fingers to the side of your mouth, keeping it open, pulling you back slightly just like that. They were hooked into your cheek and you were leaning into his hand, spit dribbling along his fingers and your jaw while he practically pounded into you.

The mixture of your moans and his were loud, but not as loud as the sound of skin slapping and the wet slosh of your cunt.

“‘M gonna cum-please-fuck let me cum” you were begging him, words a bit slurred as he was still pulling against the side of your mouth. The sounds of you begging had his hips faltering slightly, but he easily regained his rhythm, now moving his fingers out of your mouth, dragging your spit along your jaw as his hand wrapped around your throat.

Then he was leaning over you, practically caging you in as he kept his relentless pace. You leaned your head back against his shoulder as he lightly tightened his grip on your throat, the added pressure making your head fuzzy.

“You wanna cream all over my cock huh baby?” you nodded, looking to the side slightly, trying your best to look at him.

You were so fucked out and that only turned him on more. His lips were on yours in an instant. You couldn’t really kiss Joaquin back, you tried, but you were just moaning and whimpering against his lips.

“Fuck-cum for me princessa” you nodded, moaning as you felt yourself tip over the edge into a sea of ecstasy, except it was never ending, he fucked you through your orgasm, moaning against your shoulder as your cunt clenched around him.

He was quick to pull out of you, resting his head on your shoulder for a few seconds before moving back. You were too focused on catching your breath to focus on what he was doing. Then you felt it-his tongue back on your cunt, and you were a mess of whines and whimpers, hands clutching the duvet below at the overstimulation.

“You’re so sensitive, so fuckin reactive all the time-fuck you drive me crazy” he spoke before licking a flat stripe along your used cunt, then his tongue moved further, until it was resting along your other hole, lightly lapping at it, the newfound sensation made your eyes widened. Then he slid two fingers back into you, tongue lapping at your ass while he curled his fingers inside of you.

When he slid in a third finger, you were babbling, begging him for a break.

He smirked at the sound, pulling his fingers and tongue away from your fucked out pussy.

As he moved back, he watched you practically flop into the bed, biting his lip at the sight of you in his bed. Where you belong.

Then he was slapping your ass again a few times before helping you roll over.

“We’re not done baby” he stroked his cock as he spoke to you, you nodded your head at him, looking at him, eyes trailing along his bare chest, then down to his big cock, hand curled around it. “Eyes are up here Princess” you blinked a few times, gaze now on his.

You laughed while he kicked off his pants, he rolled his eyes at you for a few seconds, but for the first time in a long time, it was playful.

Then he made his way onto the bed, easily spreading your legs, making room for him between them as he used one arm to hold his weight above you. Now the two of you were face to face again, your eyes trailing his features, while he did the same thing.

“You ready beautiful?” you raised a single brow, wrapping one leg around his waist, pulling him closer to you. The motion made the both of you laugh.

It was nice to laugh with Joaquin.

He lined himself back up with your entrance, and as he slowly rolled his hips into you, you gasped, back arching slightly while one of your hands gripped against his side, nails digging into his tanned skin.

“Can you go slow?” your voice was breathy, and the question was almost a whisper. Your eyes fluttered shut at the feeling of him pulling his hips back.

Your question made his heart race, his eyes practically popping out of his head. It wasn’t that Joaquin had anything against slow sex, but he was already on top of you, and he was about to lose his mind and profess his love to you like an idiot.

It didn’t help that even after a few orgasms, your cunt was still squeezing him in a vice grip.

“You feel so fuckin good baby” you nodded at the praise “and you’re so pretty, fuck just look at you” his free hand was now on your jaw, thumb tugging at your bottom lip slightly while he spoke.

“Fuck-need you to be mine” you nodded at his words, too cockdrunk to care about anything that he was saying. The intimacy of it all was sending you to cloud nine.

Then he started moving a bit faster, fucking into you a bit harder-the new pace had your eyes opening, looking up at him while you rolled your hips into him, meeting his motions.

“Just like that baby-fuck taking it so good-so fuckin tight” you nodded at his words, pulling his thumb into your mouth, sucking on it briefly before he pressed it against your tongue.

“Open your mouth, fuck-good girl-just like that” then he leaned over and spit directly on your tongue before pulling you into a sloppy heated kiss. Your lips moved in sync as you both swallowed each other’s moans, your hands were scratching along his back as his thrusts got faster and a bit more sporadic.

He pulled back for air just in time to hear you moan his name.

“Fuck-say it again baby” you nodded, moaning his name while he trailed open mouthed kisses along your neck and shoulders “-fuck I’m close-where do you want it?” his breathy words were strained and raspy while he moaned against your skin.

You moved one hand, now tugging on his hair again as you moaned out “Inside-fuck inside Joaquin” he let out a deep gutteral moan at that.

Then he started talking, and it was a bit incoherent at first, but you fully understood him the longer he spoke “fuck-feels so fuckin good baby-fuck gonna fill you up-fuck a baby into you- make you mine forever” you couldn’t help the whimper that left your lips following his words.

“Just like that, fuckin little cunt’s squeezing me so well-that’s what you want huh? Want me to fill you up? Want me to make you mine?” you nodded, your eyes watering from the overstimulation.

Then your orgasm hit and it was as if your entire body was levitating, a white heat spread throughout you while you gushed around his cock, practically screaming his name while your nails dug into his back and shoulders.

He was quick to follow, a warmth spreading inside of you as his hips jerked a few times, filling you with everything he had while he moaned against your skin.

Then he pulled out of you, laying right beside you while staring up at the ceiling.

You two sat in an awkward silence for a few minutes, you shifted awkwardly at the feeling of his cum running down your cunt and inner thigh, meanwhile he was trying to process what just happened.

“Uh…for the record…I don’t want to get you pregnant. It just kinda came out of me” you slowly nodded your head at his statement.

“What about the other part?” he blinked a few times before his eyes widened and he registered what he said.

“Which part?” you scoffed, now glancing over at him. “So you’re seriously gonna act stupid as if you didn’t just fuck me, then tell me you wanted to get me pregnant so I could be yours forever.”

He took a sharp inhale, grimacing slightly at your words before he finally turned to look at you.

“Is now a bad time to tell you that I’ve been a dick to you because I’ve been really jealous of Peter this entire time and was completely under the impression that you two were dating?” you stared at him with a dumbfounded expression, then you scoffed and shook your head, getting up-wincing slightly- and making your way to the en suite.

“You’re such an asshole with shit communication skills!” you shouted as you slammed the door behind you. In this moment he was glad you weren’t some kind of super soldier, otherwise the Avengers tower would’ve been down a door.

He sighed as he sat up, running a hand through his now messy hair. Then he found his clothes and slid on his briefs, pacing around the room, trying to figure out what to say to you, or how to apologize, or what to do next. It wasn’t like he could just waltz up to you and apologize.

You interrupted his pacing when you stormed out of the bathroom wearing one of his Air Force t-shirts and your panties. When did you manage to find either of those items? He had no idea. All he knew was he really liked the look on you.

Then you were grabbing your dress and heels, and for the first time in a long time, he watched you use your magic, disappearing into a cloud of red dust.

He was so fucked.

Joaquin didn’t sleep well last night, that was for certain. Half of the night was spent with him reliving the night with you. He couldn’t get his mind to focus on anything but the image of you above him and below him, the way that your hair framed your face, the way that you moaned his name-every single bit and piece of it.

Then he was tossing and turning contemplating on how to actually address the situation properly. It also didn’t help that his bed smelled just like you. It was as if he couldn’t get away from you.

Not that he wanted to ever get away from you.

In the past forty-eight hours he’d managed to realize that the entire reason you irritated every single morsel of his being was because he was jealous of your friendship with Peter Parker, he’d then been able to actually have mind blowing sex with you, then embarrass himself by letting his breeding kink slip out, and finally, get you to hate him even more.

You’ve also been avoiding him.

This was the most he’d seen you use your magic in years at this point. Usually you used it when needed on a mission, or for small miniscule tasks. You never did the whole ‘disappearing in thin air’, not until last night and today that is.

You’d done it twice already today.

He couldn’t even track you down to talk to you, and he was overly frustrated.

Joaquin found himself sitting in one of the high-tech laboratories in the tower, his arms resting against a random desk as he leaned his forehead on them. Giving himself time to wallow in self pity under the guise that he was actually doing work.

Besides, it was clear hardly anyone used these labs.

He thought he would just be alone all day, that was until the doors opened and the sound of whistling filled the room. Joaquin knew exactly who it was before even looking up.

Then a chair was pulled out near him, not too close, but not too far. It was a fair distance, and Peter was quick to clear his throat.

Joaquin slowly looked up and over at him, meanwhile Peter had his hands in his hoodie’s pocket while he looked directly at Joaquin with an expression that was the perfect mixture between disappointment and shock.

“So, I guess now would be a good time to tell you that I’ve had a girlfriend for a long time now, her names MJ, uh yeah. Bug told me what happened-well she spared me most of the details. Outside of the whole baby thing. I’m not judging though, just thought I’d come with some helpful advice”

Joaquin sighed, running a hand over his face while he looked at Peter.

“I fucked up didn’t I?” the younger man nodded. “Majorly, listen I’m not mad about the whole jealousy thing, I think I see where you’re coming from but she’s like family to me. Uh but the thing is, she thinks you hate her which is kind of the whole issue here”.

“I’ve never hated her, I think I might actually be in love with her” Peter nodded, shrugging a bit.

“Yeah I’ve been saying that for a while, kinda figured between the lovesick staring and the glaring at me anytime she laughs at anything I say. But between me and you, you still have a chance, she wouldn’t be reacting the way she is if she didn’t like you even a little bit.”

Joaquin slowly nodded, looking down at his hands for a few seconds, running his thumb over the few small scratches you left on one of them.

“Don’t try to do a grand gesture either, she hates that kind of stuff. You just gotta talk to her and actually act like a civilized adult. Don’t worry though, I’ll help you actually get her in a room”

Four hours later, you were sitting in a conference room, on top of the table, swinging your legs back and forth as you looked at the few monitors in front of you. You were focused on taking note of the different feeds, and diagnostic issues with the satellite imaging and reports.

The sound of the door opening didn’t catch your attention, you just assumed it was Peter coming back with either Yelena and Kate. He said he’d be back in fifteen minutes, it’d been around thirty.

Then again, it’s not like he’d left you with some hard task.

However, at the sight of Joaquin Torres you rolled your eyes. This had to be Peter’s idea. You couldn’t exactly up and disappear when monitoring two live feeds while actively running diagnostic scans that required specific time variations.

“Can we talk? Please?” you clenched your jaw, putting the notebook down.

“What could you possibly have to say to me? Are you here to tell me you regret fucking me too? Or just that you don’t know how to actually talk about your feelings like a grown adult, and instead opt to treat people like shit for funsies because you can’t control your own jealousy?”

He rolled his lips in, nodding his head at you. He had to admit, you were right, and there wasn’t exactly much he could do or say that would make up for how he treated you.

“I wanted to apologize, not just for the whole acting weird after we had sex, but for being an asshole to you and constantly pushing you away. I know it was stupid for me to be jealous of you and Parker, and he told me about his girlfriend, and I realized that I don’t know everything about you but I want to, everything I know about you is from eavesdropping on your conversations and based on what everyone tells me.”

He paused, running a hand through his hair “-I just want us to be more than what we were. And I’m genuinely sorry for everything, I just, I guess I thought I’d never have a chance so I pushed you away and then you constantly irritated me. Everything about you pissed me off and I think that’s also because I told myself that I would never be able to have you so it was just easier-”

You cut him off “easier to be a dickhead than to be my friend?” he nodded at that.

“But not because it was easy to be an asshole to you, but because I could never just be your friend. I’d never want to just be your friend. I think I’m in love with you, or I’m falling in love with you”

You slowly nodded your head, unsure of what to say to him. It wasn’t like you would forgive him overnight for the way he’d treated you, and having sex with someone wasn’t exactly a decent apology.

But maybe, maybe you could give him a chance.

“So you’re in love with me?” he slowly blinked, hands now on his hips while he looked at you, then around the room before awkwardly laughing.

“Uh-maybe? I don’t actually know.” your brows knit together at that.

“Okay Joaquin. Tell you what, what if we just try being friends first, and then see where that takes us? I’m not just gonna magically forgive you for being a dickhead to me all the time, but I guess Peter was right about you”

He blinked a few times, head tilted to the side slightly “what’s that supposed to mean?”

You shrugged again “he told me you were like desperately into me which is why you said you’d get me pregnant when we had sex” you said it so casually, and that had him choking on air. He shushed you immediately, looking around the room, making sure no one was outside listening in. After all, the conference room was surrounded by large glass windows.

You looked him up and down.

“Yeah, I could see myself falling for you-the real you. Not the asshole version of you” he smiled at that, biting his bottom lip slightly.

“So friends?” he nodded at you. “Friends”.

#joaquin torres x reader #joaquin torres smut #joaquin torres fanfic #joaquin torres x y/n #joaquin torres x you #joaquin torres imagine #joaquin torres fic

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dance-is-life27 · 3 months ago

Text

Drive

Joaquin Torres x Reader

Summary: After you find yourself not able to sleep, you take Joaquin out for a late night drive.

Warnings: Gender Neutral Reader, fluff, friends to lovers, flirting, first kiss, driving at night, not beta read

A/N: I need everyone to thank Halsey because the song Drive really inspired both of my most recent fics for some reason.

Reblogs are more appreciated than likes!

You know that it’s late when you call, that the last thing that you should be doing right now is interrupting Joaquin’s sleep but your brain has been going a thousand miles a minute since the sun set and you're desperate to do anything to get it to shut up for once.

And still, Joaquin answers anyway.

“Hey, everything okay?” He asks you, his voice deeper than usual as sleep mixes over the concern for you calling so late at night. The fact that he answered at all makes your heart flutter.

“Wanna go for a drive?” You ask instead of replying, the silence that stretches over the call makes you wonder briefly if he’s fallen back asleep but it’s then that you hear movement on the other side of the line.

Joaquin clears his throat, “Give me ten minutes.”

“I’m giving you five, Falcon.”

Joaquin comes out true to his word, or yours you guess, five minutes later in a hoodie, a pair of shorts, and some old converse. You can’t help but laugh when he picks up speed to get to your car, probably to escape the biting wind that you know is howling right outside. It doesn’t take long before Joaquin is sliding into your passenger seat, looking tired but nonetheless happy to see you.

“Hey,” Joaquin grins at you before his brows furrow, “what’s going on? Are you okay?” Joaquin’s eyes drift down your body, probably trying to check for any physical injuries on you but you wave him off with your hand before reaching for the radio. Turning up the volume you let the music from the station fill the silence before you take off.

You drive around city streets, taking both new and familiar turns alike, letting only your gut lead you to where you want to go next. It’s surprisingly blissful being out this late, not that many cars on the road and any tension that you might normally hold within you during the day is completely gone. As expected, it doesn’t take long for Joaquin to start talking again about anything and everything, you turn the music down and try to keep up with the conversation when you can but mostly you’re just focused on keeping your eyes on the road. And it helps that Joaquin doesn’t seem to mind either, happy to talk and to let his words be the perfect distraction for you.

It’s easy to admit that this is exactly what you were wanting when you pulled up outside of Joaquin’s house, debating if you should call him or not.

You don’t know how long it is that you drive for, or where you’ve ended up, only that at some point you’ve yawned one too many times and that your eyes have started to feel heavy. That’s your cue to get you to pull into the nearest empty parking lot. You finally relax as you put your car in park, letting your eyes shut as you lean your head back against the headrest.

A few moments pass before you realize that Joaquin has stopped speaking entirely and you crack open an eye to look at him.

“What’s on your mind, Torres?”

Joaquin tilts his head, “What’s on yours?” he questions, an added gentleness to it that makes you feel comforted. Safe, in a way that only Joaquin has the power to do.

You shrug, before you finally force yourself to answer, “Everything, I guess. Couldn’t sleep, decided I wanted to go for a drive, then decided that I wanted some company and called you.”

“Oh.”

You laugh despite yourself, “Yeah, oh.”

Silence stretches on in the closed space of your car. When you do find it in you to open your eyes again you're greeted by the dazzling sights of the city you’re in. A sight that you find yourself taking for granted more often than not these days. You look around at empty buildings lit up by neon lights, a sight that replaces the glow of the stars in the night sky. You’ll never get over just how mesmerizing the world around you becomes when you just stop to look and admire it for once.

You turn your head to face Joaquin, maybe to ask him a stupid question but the words die on your tongue when you find him already looking at you.

“What are you doing?” You eventually ask as you stare at Joaquin, taking in how the glow from a business sign near by highlights his face in a gorgeous wash of blue and purple.

“Enjoying the view,” Joaquin replies before he smiles at you and you can’t help the laugh that escapes your throat. “Oh, c’mon that was a good line!” Joaquin tries to defend but even he doesn’t stop the few chuckles that leave him either.

“It was cheesy.”

Joaquin clicks his tongue before he leans over the center console, gently invading your personal bubble, “A good cheesy?” Joaquin inquires, his eyebrows going up as a smirk stretches wide on his face. You just barely repress the urge to roll your eyes.

“I don’t think there is such a thing.” You reply, leaning into Joaquin as you do so.

Joaquin hums, the low sound feels like it echoes in the space between you two, “Maybe you think too much.”

You shrug, “Maybe I do,” Joaquin’s eyes shine in the night, the look of lights and love reflect in the all consuming warmth of brown, “You got a good solution for me?”

Joaquin nods only once, the movement so minuscule that you barely notice it before he leans in. “I’ve got a few ideas.” He whispers, his breath hot against your lips as the gap between you both finally closes. You sigh into the kiss, a warmth settling over you as you and Joaquin explore each other like this for the first time. It’s gentle and soft and intense all at the same time, a mix that leaves you dizzy and your hands come up to cradle Joaquin’s face in an effort to ground you in reality. It feels like hours pass by when you and Joaquin break apart for air.

You both gasp, your noses still brushing together as you breathe each other in.

“We should-” Joaquin pants, you realize then that this is the first time you’ve ever seen Joaquin Torres at a loss for words. Speechless, because of you. “We should go on drives like this more often.” You find yourself nodding in agreement as Joaquin grins at you. The sight of his blinding smile and his flushed face under the lights makes you want to pull him back in again but you refrain, pulling back slightly when Joaquin tries to lean in again. He takes your cue without a word spoken and settles back into the seat as if nothing had happened at all.

Your eyes glance over at the clock and you realize just how late it's gotten, “And you should’ve had your idea sooner,” Joaquin looks at you out of the corner of his eye, clearly questioning where you’re going with this, “Might’ve saved me some gas.”

Joaquin’s laughter rings out as you put your car in reverse, you use your phone to map out the quickest way back to Joaquin’s place as you have a feeling that you won’t have any more trouble with falling asleep tonight.

#joaquin torres #joaquin torres x reader #joaquin torres x you #joaquin torres/reader #joaquin torres/you #the falcon #the falcon x reader #the falcon x you #joaquin torres x male reader #joaquin torres x gender neutral reader #joaquin torres x gn!reader #danny ramirez #danny ramirez x reader #marvel fic #mcu fic #marvel fanfiction #marvel x reader #drew writes fics #my writing

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mrs-elsie-barnes · 2 months ago

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I've Got to Let You Know (Need You Tonight) | Joaquín Torres x Reader | Oneshot - 3.3k words

There's a guy hanging out at the bar, the most handsome man you've ever seen...and he's watching you back.

Warnings: 18+ for language and adult content, drinking, smoking, almost public/car location, oral (m&f receiving), pet names 'baby', no concept of stranger danger, swapping kisses before swapping names, suggestion of restraint, p in v, discussion around protection...unprotected, creampie & a hint of cumplay. It's embarrassing how bad they want each other. S for smutty

A/N: listend to INXS, had Joaquin thots, bon appatit.

Divider by @saradika-graphics For @avengers-assemble-bingo "oral"

Masterlist | Joaquín Torres | Kink Bingo

He was back.

You'd seen him the last few nights as well, he always ordered a single beer and nursed it for hours which drove your fellow bartender, Louisa, insane.

But then he always left a twenty in the tip jar, so you didn't care.

Tonight he took a seat to the side, near enough to the window to see out but close enough for you to enjoy his side profile while he sipped his beer. He tipped the bottle up high, lengthening his neck, and you caught the glimpse of healed scars between his collar and his ear.

God, even his ears were cute, dark curls bobbing around them. He'd pulled his hair back tonight, into a messy little bun, his aviator glasses perched on top of his head despite the fact it was almost dark. He was wearing a dark green vest under an unbuttoned light linen shirt, light in the hot night air, but paired with a pair of jeans that looked painted onto his thighs. His forearms were bare apart from his watch and, though you hated to admit you'd sunk this far in your fantasies, as sexy as the rest of him.

He leaned back and pulled a tin from his pocket, rolling paper, a packet of tobacco, or maybe weed, you couldn't tell. He sprinkled a little on the paper before angling his head slightly and catching your eye. His calm expression lit up, a twinkle in his eye as he poked his tongue out, licking the paper slowly. He didn't look away as he finished rolling his cigarette, placing it in the corner of his mouth. He lit a match on the rough wooden edge of the table, cupping his hand around his mouth before lighting the end.

Smirk still firmly plastered on his face he inhaled and then exhaled, a perfect smoke ring encircling his beer bottle.

He winked and heat flooded you.

You looked away, embarrassment hot on the back of your neck, it was already sweltering but you were trapped under his gaze.

"You okay?" Louisa gave you a concerned once over.

"Yeah, just hot, that's all." You excused yourself quickly, hoping something needed changing in the cellar so you could cool down.

"Hey, baby."

The man's voice took you by surprise, but you knew who it was even in the darkness, even if you'd only ever heard him order a beer.

You'd managed to survived your shift only to stumble upon the man again in the parking lot. His cigarette was out now, but you could smell the tang of beer as he strolled closer, confident, as if this was his bar and nothing would stop him from talking to you now.

You stepped closer too, allowing your eyes to drag up and down his body. He smirked and raised his eyebrows in return.

Chest to chest you still couldn't find the words, nerves, embarrassment and need had taken over until you could barely think.

But you didn't have to.

Warm hands cupped your face as your back hit the car door and you expected his lips to follow, slightly parted as they were, so you closed your eyes, drinking in the feel of him. But instead his breath ghosted your cheek, his nose tracing the a delicate line around the shell of your ear.

"You want to tell me to stop, baby, just say the word." He whispered, his lips leaving a lingering kiss behind your ear before moving slowly down the column of your neck. You tipped your head back, body on fire at just these simple touches.

"Please - please don't stop," you begged and your voice was far more pathetic than you'd anticipated when you'd aimed for sexy and sultry.

He chuckled, resting his forehead on your shoulder, lips touching the bare skin of your neck. His hands moved from the arguably chaste position over your jacket on your hips, to underneath your shirt and you gasped at the new sensation, body arching into him and mouth opening. He took the opportunity and kissed you, sliding his tongue past your lips and tasting you for the first time.

With a moan that reverberated through his chest he pulled back, "thank fuck for that, been wanting to kiss you for days."

So he really had been watching you back, you weren't imagining those beautiful dark brown eyes following you around the bar.

You slid your hands into his hair mussing up the sweaty curls beneath your fingers, freeing it from the tangle of his hair tie and tugging when he sucked on your bottom lip.

"Fuck - do that again," he groaned, scooping you up into his arms and pressing you more firmly against the side of your truck.

"Let me just —" you fumbled for your keys before he took them and opened the car door, lips still firmly locked together.

You were grateful for the wide bench seat now, although you were usually cursing the beat up truck, now the words fell from your lips in pleasure.

He climbed in after you, shutting the door behind him and settling carefully on top of you. He leaned over, cupping your cheek to hold you steady while you kissed heatedly, angling your chin to deepen the kiss, tongue sliding against yours.

"Been watching you too, so glad you came to find me." You moaned, grasping at his open shirt and shoving it down over his shoulders. Beneath the patterned fabric his arms were strong, the biceps flexing when he moved and you had the urge to put your mouth on them.

He let the shirt drop to the floor and bent his head to kiss you again, but you had your mouth on his neck, kissing down his shoulder, unable to resist you let your teeth dig into the meat of his shoulder, nipping and biting lower until you could sink your teeth into his bicep, soothing the indents of your teeth with a long lick.

"Fuck, that's hot." He groaned, holding the back of your head as you kissed back up to his lips.

Your skin prickled with electricity at the knowledge you'd given in to such a base thought, you felt your temperature rise again, embarrassment still simmering beneath the surface at the way this man made you feel.

"Sorry —"

"No, shit that's really hot — God — you're really hot." He held your face again and kissed you, tongue dancing over your own, he tasted of beer, a hint of the lime wedge you'd pushed into the lip of the bottle.

Hands slid against each other, sweat slick and eager, before you nudged at the growing hardness between his legs.

"Yeah — yeah—" he panted into your mouth, fingers fumbling with the button and zip of his jeans, "if you wanna —"

"Yes, yes I want to — " Your hand found its way inside, grasping at the heavy warmth of his cock. You'd thought about this moment, of course you had, alone in your bedroom with your hand under the waistband of your panties. But you hadn't really expected it to happen. Now this gorgeous man was leaking pre-cum into your palm while he awkwardly shoved his jeans down to his knees.

His cock stood proud against a dark thatch of hair, the tip rubbing onto his green vest and twitching when you ran your finger from base to tip.

You shuffled down the bench until you were level with his hips and licked a slow stripe up and down the length of him.

"Like that, baby—" he pushed forwards and the head of his cock slid along your tongue, leaving the salty taste of him in its wake. You sucked hard, bobbing your head and trying to pull him down until he took over.

Everything he did was firm and purposeful, from the first kiss against your car door to the way he thrust into your mouth, eyes locked with yours, panting hard. You could've stayed like this all night, would've let him fuck you for hours if you got to get your hands and mouth on his delicious cock. But he had other ideas.

With a tug he had you spread beneath him and he set to work kissing down your neck and the swell of your breasts where they peaked over your bra cups. He rucked up your shirt to squeeze your sides, his hands hot against your skin, finger tips a little calloused. You liked that, he must work with his hands.

They left your sides to stroke the bare skin of your thighs, higher and higher towards the edge of your shorts.

You popped the button open quickly, hoping to wriggle out of them, but he stilled your hands.

"Let me enjoy it, baby," he slowly inched his fingers up the leg of your shorts until just the rough fingertips were touching the wet fabric of your panties. "God — you're so fucking wet."

"Don't tease me," you covered your face with your hands, it was too embarrassing how much you wanted him.

"Why would I do that," you felt his lips graze over your belly button, ghosting lower and lower. "Your little pussy so wet from me fucking your face? Baby, that's hot too, pretty sure everything about you is hot — fuck — you're gonna set me on fire." He buried his face between your legs, breath hot where your skin was bared and nose pushing against the thick denim seam of your shorts right against your clit.

Suddenly the pressure was gone and your shorts were round your knees, trapping you awkwardly with your legs together, that didn't seem to deter him though. He sat up, lifting your denim bound legs over one shoulder and then bending down to taste you again.

Trapped as you were, the most handsome man you'd ever met driving you wild with his tongue, it was hard to think about how insane it was to be having sex in your car. You prayed the cameras wouldn't catch you in this quiet corner while at the same time your body was revelling in the feeling of doing something so wildly out of character.

"Fuck, you taste good, baby." He hummed, the vibrations pressing against your swollen clit.

"I'm gonna cum, ohh, goddd — please don't stop, please please please please."

You reached down to his hair again, the curls barely brushing your fingers. He reached up to meet you, squeezing your palm and pressing it back down against the truck seat. It wasn't quite a restraint, but given the position you were in you were helpless to do anything but cum on his tongue, clenching his hand in yours to help expel the overwhelming rush of pleasure.

Your whole body was on fire, hot and sweating, sticking to the leather seat and pulsing with need. He carefully set your legs down and you made quick work of kicking your shorts off.

He looked as lust drunk as you, hair messy and neat facial hair wet with your slick.

"Do you have a condom?" You gasped against his mouth, desperate for another kiss and tasting yourself on his lips.

"Yeah — yeah — let me —" He pulled his wallet out and retrieved a battered looking packet.

You sat back, "how long's that been in there?"

His ears went a little pink, "not long — what do you mean?"

"I didn't mean — god — I just — you shouldn't keep it in there."

Breathless you both looked at each other, half naked, clothes rumpled, and then at the condom packet.

"Sorry —" he mumbled, "is there a machine in the toilets I can go back in." He thumbed at the now empty and locked up bar behind him.

You hesitated, "don't make me fucking regret this okay, I'm on birth control and I'm clean so you'd better be clean too."

He looked confused for a moment, but then you were in his lap, straddling his thighs and he was kissing you back.

You could feel him between your legs, still hard and leaking, a warm, heavy weight when you ground down.

"Fuck me. Please." You could barely tear yourself from him enough to talk, but he nodded anyway.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes — fuck — yes, just please."

He smiled, genuinely happy, almost rakish, and slipped a hand between you both, rubbing your arousal over his length and then pressing the head of his cock between your folds.

With a groan you sank down, he'd been hot and thick in your mouth and he felt just as solid and satisfying stretching you open. He closed his eyes and tipped his head back, his throat bobbing as you both adjusted to the sensation.

You took the opportunity to really look at him again, the strength in his shoulders, the bulge of his arms and the toned plane of his stomach. Even in the darkness of the truck you could still make out the deep grooves of his abs when his vest moved up, undulating as he tipped his hips up to press himself deeper.

In response you rolled your own hips, starting a languid, liquid, rhythm that matched the slow kiss he placed on your lips. You clit brushed against him as you moved, building a slow burning fire deep inside of you. It started between your thighs, rippling out until your body was taut, your orgasm taking you almost by surprise in its intensity.

He didn't let up, hands bracing your hips to move you up and down his cock despite the high whine of your moans. The slow pace was a wonderful torture, dragging out your release and rolling it into the next until you were babbling into his ear, lips dragging against his neck, nipping and sucking, anything to help you through the pleasure and pain of your extended orgasm.

"You feel so fucking good like this, baby, s'like you're fucking milking me —" he slurred, his forehead against your shoulder, "I wanna cum so badly but you feel so —" he made a rough noise and tried to pull his hips away, raising you up in an effort to pull out, but the slide and grip of your lips against the pulsing vein on the side of his cock was too much. With a strangled moan he slipped his hands down to cup your ass, hauling you up away from his cock, his hips mindlessly searching for you again, but it was too late.

"Oh god — yes yes — cum in me — give it to me — give it me —" you chanted, pushing back against his grip and grinding your still sensitive clit into his lap.

He bit down on your shoulder and you felt the moment he gave into his pleasure, fucking up into you in two jagged thrusts, his cum deep inside of you.

"Oh shit —" he opened his eyes, shame marring the gorgeous shine you'd come to love. "I'm so sorry."

"No, it's okay, it's fine." You murmured kissing his cheek, "your cum feels so perfect in me." You ground against him again, feeling your combined releases running down over his cock.

"Baby, where did you come from — fuck." Then he was kissing you again, messy and hot, manhandling you back onto the bench seat. "You're so dirty, I love it." He grinned, shoving your shirt up over your chest and tangling your arms together, he gripped the fabric and held it high over your head, your breasts pushed together and he kissed them with the same ferocity.

"Never actually done this before, in the car, in public, but you're so hot I couldn't help myself." You admitted, oddly embarrassed even though you could feel his cock getting hard again where it was trapped between you.

"Yeah?" He gave you a cocky smile, eyes shining.

"Yeah." You were breathy in your post orgasmic haze, sensitive and a little scared by how well you both fit together.

He slipped himself between your messy folds, with one hand still keeping you down on the seats he used the others to rub the head of his cock in your escaped arousal before teasing your entrance. You could feel yourself clench, and given the feral look on his face, he'd seen it too.

"You want more?" He teased, nudging himself in and out, barely the tip, barely a centimetre, but enough for you to give a desperate cry.

"Yes, yes, yes."

"I was talking to her," he looked up only briefly and then cupped you gently, massaging your clit with the heel of his palm, you felt yourself flutter again and he pulled away to watch you clench and open at his command. "That's so sexy you have no idea." He said matter of factly, and sheathed himself inside you again with a moan.

You were so sensitive you could barely respond to him anymore, one leg hitched up and squashed between his sweating torso and the sticky leather seat, the other dangling into the footwell. Yet, you could have stayed there forever, pinned beneath him, surrounding him, taking everything he had —

"Wait —" you gasped, and he immediately sat back, kneeling awkwardly.

"Sorry, baby, are you okay?" His eyes filled with concern.

"Yeah, yeah —" you made grabby hands at him, tugging him closer again with your fingers clenched in his shirt. "I just," you giggled, "I don't even know your name."

"Oh, yeah," he laughed too, his eyes lit with mischief, "I guess you don't. Let's finish what we started and I can tell you my full government name over a coffee or something, m'kay." He kissed you quiet, slipping inside you again and you let him, keeping your hand fisted in his shirt.

As wrapped up in each other as you were, you didn't notice the flash of headlights entering the car park and the beep of a horn. A door slammed and you paused, ankle pressing into the small of his back to keep him still.

"Someone's out there," you whispered, hoping no one would see you in the gloom of the truck.

"Joaquín !" A voice shouted.

"Shit." He pulled back, untangling himself. "Shit, shit, shit."

"You know that guy?" You gasped, feeling suddenly empty and vulnerable while he fastened his jeans.

"Yeah, uhm —" he ran a cum slick hand through his hair and then winced, "I'm Joaquín ."

"So that's your name, it's nice, Joaquín ." You rolled the name round and smiled. "I guess you've got to go, huh?"

"Torres, get your ass outta that truck, we've gotta go!" The man outside shouted again and he met your eyes again apologetically.

"I'm so sorry baby," he pressed a kiss to your lips, "I really did have a great time."

You found your shorts and sat up, shimmying them back on before he opened the door.

"There you are, kid, been lookin' everywhere, we've gotta go, we — what were you doing?"

There was a pause where Torres said nothing and you saw the other man get into a black truck. You were sure you recognised him from somewhere.

"Hey, I didn't tell you my name." You called and Joaquín turned to you again, smiling.

"Tell me over coffee," he bent into the cab of the truck and stuck a napkin with a phone number on the dashboard before kissing you one last time.

Torres shut the door with a final slam and made his way over to the other car, the cab lit up and you finally got a good look at the man inside. He looked a lot like the new Captain America, Wilson, that was it, Sam Wilson.

The napkin fluttered in the air as the breeze picked up again, you grabbed it before it blew out of the window. There was his number in neat writing, it was a napkin from the bar with a bottle mark on, and there underneath was a little drawing of a bird. You turned it round, a bird of prey maybe.

"Oh my god."

If that was Sam Wilson, and the man in the truck was Torres.

"Oh my god, I fucked the Falcon."

#aakinky #joaquín torres #Joaquin Torres #joaquin torres smut #joaquín torres x fem!reader #joaquín torres x reader #joaquin torres fanfiction #joaquin x you #joaquin x reader #joaquin torres/reader #joaquin torres x you #joaquin torres x reader #Joaquin Torres x female reader #Joaquín Torres smut #need you tonight

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caxapthecat · 2 months ago

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STEVE ROGERS WOULD PUNCH THE SHIT OUT OF DONALD TRUMP!!!!!

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sunsburns · 4 months ago

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forget it — joaquín torres (marvel) !

⟢ synopsis. request: reuniting with ex!joaquín after his near death experience, but you’re the nurse assigned to his care after he gets out of surgery. you broke up a couple years ago because of your very demanding careers, and you don’t see him until you realize they put YOU on babysitting duty to nurse him back to health, yikes!

⟢ contains. spoilers for brave new world! joaquín torres x nurse!reader, so much angst you’re gonna want to block me!! mentions of death, blood, gore, possible inaccurate medical procedures (i am not a nurse idk how that works), open ending but it's honestly realistic and cute.

⟢ word count. 13.7k+

⟢ author’s note. i learned medical terms for this

You like to think that every decision you’ve made has shaped you into the best version of yourself.

A better student, a better nurse, a better person. You’ve spent years honing your skills, pushing yourself past limits, ensuring that when it matters most, you’ll be capable—prepared. You might not have superpowers, enhanced genes, or combat training, but you have your mind, your steady hands, your patience. That’s what makes a difference in the field you’ve chosen. That’s what saves lives.

And it’s paid off. You don’t work at just any hospital—you work at this one. A private facility that caters to soldiers, government agents, and the kind of people who make headlines when things go wrong. The kind of people who disappear into classified reports. The kind of people you don’t expect to see lying unconscious under your care.

But you love your job. You love the structure of it, the control. You love the fact that, in a world constantly spinning off its axis, you can still do something that makes sense. You have your patients, your colleagues, your friends, your family. You still go out when you can, still make time to shop, and still remember to water your plants. Life is steady. Good.

And yet—

There’s something missing.

It creeps in during the quiet moments, when the hospital halls are still, and the steady beep of a heart monitor is the only thing filling the silence. It lingers in the space between breaths, in the pause before you check a chart, in the phantom weight of something you can’t quite name. A presence that once was, or maybe never was, but should have been.

You have everything you’ve ever worked for. So why does it still feel like something’s missing?

You don’t let yourself dwell on it. It’s ridiculous. You have your health. You have your life.

And you know better than anyone how fragile both of those things can be.

You remind yourself of how lucky you are because you’ve seen the alternative too many times. Lives wrecked and ruined by things far beyond anyone’s control. You’ve watched the light fade from seven pairs of eyes. Seven people who didn’t make it. Seven moments that carved themselves into your memory, no matter how hard you try to forget.

You haven’t even been working for three years.

And yet—

You’d hate to see the day when someone you love is one of them.

The thought grips you too tightly, too suddenly, and you only realize you’ve been staring at your hands under the running faucet when the sound of your name cuts through the fog.

“Look what I made!”

You blink, water still rushing over your fingertips, skin already pruning. A slow exhale leaves you as you reach for the faucet, shutting off the tap. The chill lingers on your skin even as you tear a paper towel from the dispenser, crumpling in your damp grip as you turn.

Maria is sitting up in bed, dark eyes bright with excitement as she holds out a carefully folded piece of olive-green paper.

She beams at you, her small fingers cradling the delicate shape with a reverence that makes your heartache. It takes a second for recognition to click. An origami bird.

“What’s this?” you coo, stepping closer.

Maria is a few weeks shy of nine. She should be at home planning her birthday party, picking out a cake, laughing with friends. Instead, she’s here. Confined to this sterile room, surrounded by too-white walls and the soft beeping of machines monitoring the inexplicable changes in her body. She isn’t dying. But she isn’t getting better, either.

Exposure to some strange quantum disturbance in San Francisco had led to her transfer here, to Washington, under your care. Away from reporters, away from speculation, away from anyone who might pry too closely while the government tries to figure out what happened to her.

“It’s a bird. Like the one on TV.” She explains, her tiny fingers carefully adjusting the wings.

You glance at the television, expecting to see another nature documentary—the kind she’s grown fond of in the past few weeks. But when your eyes land on the screen, you freeze.

A news channel. A live interview. Captain America and the Falcon, still in their gear, standing at an Air Force base. The headline scrolling across the bottom of the screen is a blur. Something about a mission. About another near disaster averted.

Falcon stands just behind Captain America, posture sharp, hands clasped loosely in front of him, expression serious but composed. His suit still bears the scuffs of combat, a faint tear along the armoured plating at his ribs. You wonder if it hurts. If he’s bleeding. If he even let anyone check.

A small huff leaves your lips before you can stop it.

You can’t remember the last time you saw him. Now, here he is again, on a screen in a hospital room, larger than life.

“You like superheroes, Maria?” You force a lighter tone, turning back to her, moving to check her monitors. It’s unnecessary—you already did this when you came in—but it gives your hands something to do.

“You like superheroes, Maria?” you ask, forcing a lighter tone as you move to check her monitors. It’s unnecessary—you already did this when you came in—but it gives your hands something to do.

“I love superheroes,” she exclaims, voice full of unshakable certainty.

“Yeah?”

“Yes!”

She watches you closely, studying your face with a look that’s far too perceptive for someone her age. Then, after a beat—

“Who’s your favourite Avenger?”

You pretend to think about it. “Hmmm... I don’t know. Maybe... Hawkeye?”

Maria immediately groans, rolling her eyes so hard it nearly makes you laugh. “That’s so boring!” She throws her arms up in exasperation, nearly tugging her IV loose in the process.

“Hey, hey—“ you reach out, gently taking her hands, steadying her before she can do any real damage. “You’re really gonna judge me for that?”

“So boring,” she insists, her signature sass making an appearance. “My mom likes Thor because he has big muscles.”

You snort. “Wow. Okay. And what about you?”

Maria’s expression turns mischievous, blushing slightly as she glances back at the screen.

“The Falcon.”

The words land like a punch to the ribs.

You swallow hard, but the lump in your throat stays put. You should have seen it coming, the way she lit up at the sight of him on TV, but it still catches you off guard.

Because for Maria, it’s admiration.

For you, it’s something else entirely.

“He’s so cool,” you manage, your voice lighter than you feel. “I don’t think he’s an Avenger, though.”

Unless he is and you have missed that entire chapter of his life. A lot had happened in the last few years—you wouldn’t put it past him to just forget to mention something like that. Not that either of you were on speaking terms anyway.

Maria grins, a small, mischievous thing, and before you can move, she takes your hand in hers and presses something into your palm.

“Here.”

You glance down.

The bird.

You blink at the delicate folds of olive-green paper, the slight tilt of its wings. It’s small, fits perfectly in your hand, but somehow, it feels heavier than it should.

“You have it.”

You open your mouth—to tell her she should keep it, that it’s hers—but the words never leave your throat. The sincerity in her gaze keeps you quiet, so instead, you close your fingers carefully around the paper bird, holding it like something fragile.

“Thank you, Maria,” you say softly.

You still have the bird.

It sits on your nightstand even now, weeks later, its delicate folds untouched, a reminder of that small moment. Of Maria.

You hadn’t thought much about that conversation at the time. Maria’s gift had been sweet, and you had found it endearing—the kind of innocent kindness that children offered so easily.

It wasn’t every day you cared for someone so young in this hospital, and while that was a blessing, it didn’t make it any easier when that child was rolled in on a stretcher.

And it wasn’t until a week later that you remembered Maria’s words.

Not until you watched a familiar face get wheeled into the hospital.

You had heard about it first—on the news, in passing conversations between coworkers. Another mission. Another near-tragedy. Another casualty.

And then you saw it.

The frantic rush of bodies in the emergency bay. The whine of a helicopter’s rotor blades still echoing through the halls, rattling against the glass doors. The sharp, sterile scent of antiseptic burning your nose, mixing with the metallic tang of blood—so much blood, too much of it pooling beneath the stretcher, staining the floor, the sheets, the hands of every ER staff trying to keep him together.

Your coworkers moved fast, their voices sharp and urgent as they swarmed the broken, battered body like bees to a collapsing hive. You barely recognized him at first. His suit—scorched in places, torn in others—hung off him in tatters, the once-pristine armour dented and smeared with something dark.

His skin was pale—too pale.

His lips were slightly parted, chest rising and falling in short, uneven gasps like every breath cost him something.

The blur of medical jargon barely registered in your mind, words overlapping, breaking, reforming into pieces that didn’t quite fit together. But certain ones still made it through the haze, lodging themselves somewhere deep inside you, where they twisted like a knife.

“Heart palpitations—“

“Severe burns—“

“Broken arm—“

“Breath is weak—“

“We’re gonna need a defibrillator—“

“Won’t make it to the OR—“

Your heart stuttered.

You would’ve rather never seen Joaquín Torres again for the rest of your life than see him like this. Like that.

And after that, you were moving on autopilot.

The rest of the day blurred together, slipping through your fingers like sand. You went through the motions, nodding when spoken to, keeping your hands busy, but nothing really stuck. The only thing that did was time—how it crawled, stretched, and bled into itself.

One hour turned to two.

Two turned to four.

Four turned into a sharp, sickening pause.

You were just about to punch out for the night, car keys hanging loosely from your fingers when you heard it.

“His heart gave out. Medically dead for T-minus 30 seconds. Extra hands needed.”

You froze.

The words echoed, hollow and distant like they were being spoken underwater. A strange ringing had started in your ears. You weren’t sure if it was real or just something inside your own head—maybe both.

You had already been hesitant about leaving without checking in on him. You could’ve gone in. You had clearance. But you didn’t.

And now?

Now, you were hearing his heart gave out?

Your mind ran ahead of you, filling in the gaps before you could stop it—could almost hear the faint, dull whine of the machines, the inevitable, lifeless flatline.

The surgeon calling out the time of death.

Your own heart lurched violently in your chest.

Your feet were moving before you even made the decision, carrying you faster than you thought possible. You nearly crashed into the doors of the emergency wing, swiping your card into the OR viewing room, stumbling into the dimly lit space. Your breath came short, choppy, your pulse hammering in your ears.

Your eyes locked onto the glass.

And then—

“Clear!”

Joaquín’s body jerked violently, his back arching off the table before collapsing again.

From where you stood, you couldn’t see or hear the monitor. Couldn’t tell if there was a beat or if it was still that awful, empty silence.

“Clear!”

His body seized again, limbs convulsing before falling limp.

You flinched, a breath hitching painfully somewhere inside you.

The panic clawing up your ribs only loosened when you saw the doctors start to relax, their frantic movements easing back into precision. You watched, rooted to the spot, as they worked—saw the ventilator strapped tightly around Joaquín’s face, the way they were cutting into him, the deep burns covering his side.

But it didn’t feel like him.

He looked dead.

He looked so, so dead.

Your fingers dug into the ledge of the viewing window, knuckles white.

And suddenly you can remember the last time you saw him. A memory that grabs you like a vice.

He was so alive, and he was crying.

His eyes were red and bloodshot, but he wasn’t making a sound. Just staring at you, jaw clenched so tight you swore you could hear his teeth grind. His hands—warm, steady even in their trembling—gripped yours, his touch so familiar, so safe. His fingers curled around your palms like he could keep you here just by holding on tight enough. Like if he let go, he knew he would never get to touch you again.

His skin burned beneath your fingertips.

Like home.

But the warmth of him, the heat of his touch, it didn’t reach his eyes. And you knew—God, you knew—this was the last time.

The ring that sat on your finger was like a wound that wouldn’t stop bleeding.

You hadn’t even noticed the way your breath had started to shake, the way your shoulders had drawn in like you could shield yourself from what was coming. The weight of his forehead pressing against yours was the only thing keeping you grounded, the rise and fall of his chest meeting yours in a rhythm that was almost enough to trick you into believing, for just a second, that nothing had to change.

And then he pulled away.

It was slow like he was giving you time to stop him. Like he wanted you to stop him.

But neither of you moved.

His fingers ghosted over your left hand, tracing over the ring like he was committing the shape of it to memory. You swore his breath hitched when he touched it, but he didn’t hesitate. Not when he curled his fingers around the band. Not when he gave the gentlest, barely-there tug.

The metal slipped from your skin.

The absence was instant. A phantom weight. A missing limb.

Your breath stilled.

He turned it over in his palm once, twice, before slipping it into his pocket, the movement almost absentminded. Like he wasn’t crumbling apart inside. Like he wasn’t shattering this thing between you both with his own two hands.

And then you kissed him. And he kissed you back.

It wasn’t soft. It wasn’t hesitant. It was desperate. A broken thing—raw, aching, more plea than passion. His lips pressed to yours with the kind of hunger that tasted like regret, like grief, like goodbye. There was no hesitation when his fingers slid up to cradle your jaw, no distance between your bodies when he pulled you in, chests flush, like he was trying to fuse himself to you, trying to rewrite the ending of this moment with the press of his lips alone.

You tasted the salt of tears.

Yours or his, you couldn’t tell.

You felt his hands tremble when they skimmed over your skin. It hurt—fuck, it hurt—the way you knew neither of you wanted to pull away, but you would. You had to.

But you stayed. For a minute. For a breath. Lips lingering, foreheads pressed together, hands gripping tighter even as the seconds slipped away from you both.

He was the first to move.

The absence of his lips was instant—a cold, hollow thing. But he didn’t pull away entirely, not yet. His nose brushed against yours, his fingers curled at the back of your neck, like if he could just stay here for another second, one more second, maybe none of this had to be real.

Then, finally, painfully, he let go.

That kiss was one that lingered, burned, long after he was gone.

He was alive then. And so were you.

But when the door shut, a part of you had died.

And watching his body, motionless on that operating table, you thought maybe a part of him had, too.

It was hard to grieve someone who had never died.

You don’t realize how long you’ve been standing there, staring through the glass, until someone says your name.

Your body jolts, and when you spin around, you're surprised to find Sam Wilson standing a few feet away. His voice had been steady, but his eyes—God, his eyes—heavy with something unspoken, something worn. You wonder how long he’s been there. You think it must’ve been a while, judging by the exhaustion shadowing his face. The bags under his eyes aren’t just from one night of lost sleep.

You’ve met him plenty of times before—hell, you’ve had dinner with the guy on multiple occasions—but something about seeing him now, here, leaves you speechless. Maybe it’s because he’s not just Sam. He’s Captain America, the man Joaquín idolized. And he looks... helpless.

You feel your entire body tense. “Sir—“ Your voice cracks at the word, and you hate it.

Sam exhales, long and slow. “I was gonna call. I mean, I don’t know if you know this, but you’re still the kid’s emergency contact.” He rubs a hand over his face. “I just... I didn’t know what terms you guys were on. I know the breakup was pretty bad and...” He trails off, looking at you like he’s bracing for impact. “I didn’t know if you’d show up.”

“I…” You swallow thickly. You should say something. Anything. But you don’t know how to find the words.

“Were you working?”

You glance down at your scrubs as if you need to confirm it. “Yeah... I just... I heard about his heart, um... how long was he...?”

Sam hesitates. He doesn’t want to say it. But he does. “Two minutes.”

You suck in a breath, sharp and cold, and instinctively look back through the glass. Joaquín is still now, the chaos momentarily subdued. He’s always been restless, always in motion, a man who never seemed to sit still to save his life. And now he’s just... lying there. You feel nauseous.

You don’t know what to say. You think Sam doesn’t either.

“I’m sorry, kid.” His voice is hoarse. “I’m sorry. For Joaquín. I never meant for this to happen. I’m always telling him to be more careful, but you know how he is—”

Do you?

You don’t know how much someone can change in the time you and Joaquín have been apart. You think you still know him. You remember how he used to be—stubborn, hard-headed. Kind, too. Always quick with a response, always teasing. Always warm.

You don’t think you’re remembering him the way Sam asks you to.

“Um... sorry.” You blink, realizing how long you’ve been zoning out. You should say something more. Something meaningful. But your throat is tight, and your hands shake at your sides. Sam looks just as lost as you feel.

“Fuck, sorry,” you mutter, rubbing at your face. “Are you okay?”

Sam blinks. He looks genuinely surprised by the question. “Am I—? Are you okay?”

You nod too fast, stuffing your hands into your back pockets. The heart monitor beeps steadily in the background, grounding you in the moment. “Yeah, I just… You were out there too. Did you get hit? I can check for a concussion.”

Sam says your name, and the way he says it—soft, sad—makes your lip quiver. When he steps forward, you don’t resist. You meet him in the middle, letting him wrap his arms around you, his warmth solid and steady. You tuck your face into his chest, only realizing you’ve been crying when you see the darkened patches on his shirt. He smells like coffee, and—funnily enough—a little bit like Joaquín.

“I’m sorry, kid.” His voice is tight, thick. Like he’s been holding back his own grief for too long.

You hum under his hold. “It’s not your fault,” you say because you think it’s what he needs to hear. You don’t know what happened out there, don’t know who made what call, but Sam relaxes just a fraction at your words. You hug him back.

The hours bleed together after that. You sit with Sam in the waiting area, watching the surgery unfold from a distance. Neither of you leave for long—only to grab coffee, maybe splash cold water on your face—but you don’t sleep. Sam doesn’t either, even when you suggest it. He stays rooted to his chair, jaw clenched, watching the clock.

He doesn’t move until the surgery is almost finished, until the surgeon is finally stitching up Joaquín.

And even then, he stays put.

So do you.

It’s nice, in a way, sitting in this heavy, aching silence. You don’t know what you would’ve done if Sam wasn’t here. You don’t know what he would’ve done if you weren’t.

Sam seems to relax even more when a friend of his shows up—Bucky. You don’t think you’ve ever seen him in person before, but you recognize the way Sam’s shoulders loosen just slightly like something fragile inside him can take a break. Bucky nods at you, then at Sam, and without a word, he takes a seat next to him.

You don’t say anything either.

Because you don’t need to.

For the first time in hours, Sam exhales like he’s not carrying the world on his shoulders.

You leave only when he urges you to, though it takes less than a minute after Joaquín is sent out for recovery.

You barely remember the drive home. The world outside the hospital blurs past in streaks of streetlights and empty roads, your hands gripping the wheel just a little too tightly. Every red light feels longer than it should, every breath harder to take. By the time you step inside your apartment, exhaustion settles in your bones, but sleep never truly comes. You close your eyes and see glimpses of him—Joaquín on the operating table, still and silent in a way he never should be.

You wake up before the sun rises, restless, your body aching with the kind of fatigue that sleep can’t fix.

By the time you return to the hospital, it’s at a strange hour—too early for the day shift, too late for the night crew. The hospital is caught in that eerie in-between where the halls are too quiet, where the few people still moving about do so in hushed voices. The fluorescent lights overhead hum, stark and artificial against the pale blue of the walls.

You’re running on espresso shots and the growing pit in your stomach, a weight that presses heavier with every step.

Joaquín is here. You know that. You have known that for almost twenty-four hours now.

But the thought still makes your hands cold. It was easier when you didn’t know what State he was in, or what he was doing—if he was even in the country.

You don’t let yourself think too much about it. You go through the motions, moving from patient to patient, checking vitals, signing off charts, trying to push through the fog in your mind. It almost works—almost—until you step out of Maria’s room and spot Amanda, the Chief Nursing Officer, walking toward you.

She smiles, clipboard tucked under her arm, but there’s something in the way she looks at you. Something unreadable.

You can already feel the dread start to wrap itself around your ribs.

“Hey, how’s it going?” she asks, falling into step beside you.

“Good,” you reply automatically. “What’s up?”

She doesn’t answer right away. Instead, she takes your tablet, her fingers brushing against yours for just a second too long. You furrow your brows, taking it from her, but your stomach twists at the hesitance in her gaze.

“There’s been a bit of a change,” she finally says. “Kit’s taking over Nicholas now.”

That makes you pause.

You've been taking care of Nicholas for a little over a month, an older man who came back from the blip different, well… different was a nice way to put it.

“Oh?”

Amanda nods, opening a new file on your screen before watching you closely. “Here,” she says, passing you the updated patient file. “Your new assignment.”

You take the tablet, adjusting your grip as you glance down at the screen—only to feel the air sucked from your lungs.

Captain Joaquín Torres.

The name alone makes your heart lurch, when did he become a captain? But then your eyes drop to the image beneath it.

You freeze.

Joaquín, unconscious. His skin is bruised, his face pale under the harsh lighting of the hospital room. The ventilator is taped to his mouth, bandages covering his side where the burns must be. He looks… wrong.

Your stomach turns.

“Um.” You barely recognize your own voice. “I don’t think I can take this one.”

Amanda’s brows knit together. “Why not?”

“It’s…” You swallow, suddenly hyperaware of how dry your throat feels. “It’s a personal case.”

“I know.”

That makes you look up, and when you do, Amanda is already watching you with that same careful expression—understanding, but unwavering. “That’s why I’m assigning it to you,” she says, soft but firm.

You stare at her, trying to process the words.

“Familiar faces help in recovery,” Amanda says like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Waking up to someone he knows might do him some good.”

Your grip tightens around the tablet, fingers pressing into the smooth surface as your pulse pounds in your ears.

“Not everyone gets shot out of the sky by the military and lives to tell the tale.”

She’s right. You know she’s right.

But Joaquín isn’t just anyone.

And it’s been a long time since you’ve been a familiar face.

Would he even want to wake up to you?

You don’t ask that. You don’t let yourself. Instead, you swallow around the knot in your throat and force a nod. “Okay.”

Amanda watches you for a moment, searching your face like she can see everything you’re trying to hide. Then, she squeezes your shoulder, her touch warm and grounding. “You got this.”

You wish you believed her.

You suck in your pride as Amanda walks away and your fingers tighten around the tablet as you glance down at Joaquín’s medical file, his name printed in bold letters at the top. You already know his blood type, his medical history, his baseline vitals—things you shouldn’t still remember but do anyway. It feels strange seeing them laid out so clinically like he’s just another patient.

Your thumb swipes down the screen, scanning through his injuries. Severe burns on the left side of his torso. A broken radius and a fractured humerus on his right arm. The notes estimate he’ll be unconscious for a few more days, maybe a week at most. The doctors don’t think it’ll be a long coma.

He might wake up anytime.

Your stomach twists.

The live security feed on the tablet shows a grainy, black-and-white image of him, still and silent in the hospital bed, wrapped in layers of bandages and hooked up to machines that beep in steady intervals. The sight of him like this, unmoving, is almost more unsettling than the injuries themselves.

The elevator ride to his floor feels endless, but when the doors finally slide open, the hallway ahead stretches on like something out of a dream—too long, too empty, too quiet. The soft hum of fluorescent lights overhead fills the silence, and your shoes barely make a sound against the polished tile.

You’ve never hesitated like this before. No patient has ever made your heart pound this hard before you’ve even stepped into their room.

You stop in front of the door, your ID card clutched tight between your fingers.

He is hurt, you remind yourself. A wounded soldier. He needs care. That’s all this is. Just do your job.

Your hand trembles slightly as you swipe your card for clearance, and for a second, your eyes flicker down—out of habit, maybe—toward your left hand. The ring is gone. Has been for a long time.

You press your lips together and push the door open.

The room smells like antiseptic and fresh flowers.

Your eyes find him instantly.

He’s barely recognizable beneath the layers of medical care—IV lines, gauze, the rigid brace securing his arm. But it’s still him. His curls have grown out, the longer strands curling over his forehead, though the sides are still neatly trimmed. His face is slack with unconsciousness, lips parted slightly as he breathes in slow, measured rhythms.

There’s already a small collection of bouquets on the bedside table, a mix of bright yellows and deep reds—he always liked bold colours. You know more will come, especially once his mother finds out what happened. You pity whoever has to make that phone call.

Your pulse is loud in your ears as you move toward the sink, washing your hands on autopilot before slipping on a pair of gloves. The scent of hospital soap clings to your skin even beneath the latex.

You set the tablet down and step to his bedside, the weight in your chest settling heavier now that you’re standing this close. You can see the damage now. The discoloration where the burns peak through the bandages, the bruises blooming beneath his skin. His arm rests stiffly in its brace, fingers curled loosely at his side.

You hesitate before touching him.

Then, with careful hands, you reach for the hem of his hospital gown, lifting it just enough to expose the bandages on his torso. The dressings are damp, already beginning to seep through.

Too gentle.

You’re taking too long, moving too carefully. This should be routine—cleaning, reapplying, monitoring for infection. But your hands linger a second too long over his skin, your fingers ghosting over the edge of a bandage before you force yourself to focus.

You work in silence, methodical but deliberate, peeling away the old dressings and replacing them with fresh ones. His chest rises and falls steadily beneath your hands, the only sign of life in his otherwise motionless body.

When you finish, you pull the blanket up to his chest, tucking it carefully around him.

You don’t leave right away.

You should. You have other patients to see, and other rounds to make. But you linger for a moment longer, just watching him.

Being here—being this close—feels like stepping into something half-forgotten. Something you’re not sure you’re ready to remember.

With a quiet exhale, you turn away, stripping off your gloves and tossing them in the bin before grabbing the tablet again.

This is just a job.

And you have work to do.

The next few days slip into a pattern—one you follow carefully, almost methodically, because routine is easier than thinking too much.

Joaquín remains unconscious, but his condition improves. You can see it in the subtle things: the way his breathing becomes steadier, how his colour starts to return beneath the bruising, how the tension in his features eases little by little. His body is still healing, but it’s doing what it’s supposed to—recovering, piece by piece.

Somewhere along the way, his mother and grandmother are flown in.

You make sure you’re nowhere near the hospital that day. You tell yourself it’s because you need the rest, that you’ve been pulling extra shifts, that you could use the break. But you know the truth.

You aren’t ready to face them.

You can barely bring yourself to stand in the same room as Joaquín, let alone look his mother in the eye. She always had a way of seeing right through you, of reading between the lines of what you said and what you didn’t. You don’t want to know what she’d find if she looked too closely now.

So you take a sick day. You ignore the tight feeling in your chest when you imagine them sitting at his bedside, his mother smoothing down his curls, his grandmother murmuring quiet prayers over him. You wonder if she blames you. If she thinks you should’ve been there when it happened. If she wonders why you’re here now, after all this time.

But you don’t ask. You don’t want the answer.

The next morning, when you step back into Joaquín’s room, there are more flowers.

The table beside his bed is overflowing now—bouquets of sunflowers, carnations, lilies, roses in every colour. Some are from coworkers, others from people you don’t recognize. A small card tucked between them catches your eye. You don’t pick it up, but you already know who it’s from.

His mother’s handwriting is easy to recognize.

A fresh wave of guilt washes over you, but you push it aside. You busy yourself with checking his IV, adjusting his blankets, making sure everything is in order. The steady beep of the heart monitor is the only sound in the room, save for the occasional rustling of flower petals when a breeze drifts through the open window.

Sam visits often.

He comes at random hours, able to bypass the strict visiting times the hospital has set up, sometimes lingering for only twenty minutes, sometimes staying for hours at a time. You catch glimpses of him in the security feed before you even enter the room—his tall frame slouched in the chair beside Joaquín’s bed, one ankle resting on his knee as he flips through a book.

He plays music sometimes, a quiet hum of familiar songs drifting through the room. You recognize the playlist—the same one Joaquín used to blast while working late, the one he’d force you to listen to whenever he got too excited about a new artist. It’s a mix of genres, the kind that shouldn’t work together but somehow do.

You pretend you don’t notice the way Sam watches you when you walk in, his eyes lingering like he’s waiting for you to say something. But he never pushes. He just nods, sometimes offering a small update about Joaquín’s family or a passing comment about work before settling back into his chair.

Neither of you talk about the fact that Joaquín still hasn’t woken up.

Instead, you go through the motions.

His burns are healing faster than you expected. The bandages come off, revealing raw, pink skin that will take time to fade. His arm is no longer suspended from the ceiling, the rigid brace replaced with a looser sling. His body is catching up with itself, putting itself back together the way it always does.

You try to keep the windows open as the sun sets later and the spring weather gets warmer, letting the sun come into the room. You hope it might bring back that golden tan to his skin.

The air in his room changes as the days go by. The tension shifts—subtle, but there.

The sun sets later now, casting golden light through the blinds in the evenings. You start leaving the windows cracked open, letting the spring breeze filter in, replacing the sterile scent of antiseptic with something softer.

It makes the room feel less like a hospital and more like something else. Something warmer.

But warmth can be deceptive.

Because the closer he gets to waking up, the more real this all becomes.

And you still don’t know what’s going to happen when he finally opens his eyes.

One day, while cleaning his burns, you notice something—something small, but enough to make your breath hitch.

The heart monitor.

The steady rhythm you’ve grown so used to suddenly shifts—just a faint change, barely noticeable, but it’s there. You freeze, your gloved hands hovering over his burned skin, waiting to see if it happens again. The beeping stabilizes after a moment, falling back into its familiar, constant pattern.

You swallow hard, exhaling slowly through your nose.

Maybe it was nothing. A fluke. You’ve seen it happen before—small involuntary fluctuations that don’t mean anything. You force yourself to shake it off, to keep going.

But the moment your hands brush against his skin again, the heart monitor spikes.

This time, you see it. The sudden jump, the erratic beep, the undeniable reaction.

You pull back immediately, like you’ve been singed. Your heart lurches, panic flashing through you because—did you hurt him?

Your pulse pounds in your ears as you scan his face, searching for any sign of pain. His expression doesn’t change. His eyes remain closed, his body still. But the numbers on the monitor flicker with every beat of his heart, betraying what his body won’t show.

And then it hits you.

He feels it.

He’s not just lying there, unaware of the world around him. His body is reacting. It means he’s drifting, slipping from unconsciousness, slowly clawing his way back to waking.

Your chest tightens.

This is what you’ve been waiting for. What you should want.

You should be relieved.

But you’re not.

Because for all the times you’ve wished he’d open his eyes, you never stopped to think about what it would mean when he finally did.

What if the first thing he sees is you?

What if he looks at you and all you find in his face is resentment?

What if he asks why you’re here? Why you even bothered?

Your breath catches in your throat, torn between anticipation and fear. Your fingers curl into your palms, gloves crinkling under the pressure. You wait, holding yourself still, eyes locked on his face, waiting for the inevitable flutter of his eyelids, the slow, unfocused squint as he adjusts to the light.

But it never comes.

His breathing stays even, his lashes unmoving, his expression unchanging. His body is stirring, but his mind isn’t ready yet.

Your hands feel cold.

You force yourself to take a step back, creating distance—just in case. You reach for the tablet to record the change in his vitals, trying to make sense of what just happened, of what almost happened.

You practically jump out of your skin when a voice cuts through the hallway, sharp and frantic.

“¡Mija!”

Before you even see her, you feel her—Esperanza’s presence sweeping toward you like a storm, her heels clicking against the tile. The next thing you know, you’re wrapped in her arms, your face pressed against the soft fabric of her floral blouse, caught in a hug so tight it knocks the breath out of you.

“Mi amor, ¿cómo andas?” she asks, her voice thick with worry and affection.

You barely have a chance to respond, still stunned by the unexpected embrace. She smells the same—warm vanilla and roses, a scent so deeply tied to holiday dinners that it nearly knocks you off balance.

When she finally pulls back, she doesn’t let you go completely. Her hands clasp yours, fingers curling over your knuckles like she’s afraid to let you slip away again.

“Esperanza,” you manage, breathless.

Her eyes shine with unshed tears, her lips pulling into a grin so familiar it makes your chest ache.

“What are you doing here? Visitors can’t be here for another hour,” you point out, grasping for something—anything—to ground yourself.

She waves a dismissive hand, scoffing like the very idea is ridiculous. “Ay, enough with that,” she chides. “When has that ever stopped me?”

And then she stops. Really looks at you.

Her expression softens, and suddenly, you're under a gaze so warm it makes your throat tighten.

“Wow, look at you, my dear. Hermosa,” she murmurs, shaking her head like she can’t believe it’s really you standing in front of her.

You let out a small, breathy laugh, flustered. “I look like a mess,” you correct, glancing down at yourself. You’re in scrubs, nearing the end of a long shift, and you know you must look exhausted. Especially after dealing with Maria throwing up glowing vomit all over you earlier today. There’s no way you look anything close to hermosa.

But Esperanza just smiles knowingly, squeezing your hands once before tugging you toward the chairs lining the hallway. She sits down, keeping her grip on you like she’s afraid you might disappear through her fingers if she lets go.

You follow, hesitating only slightly before settling into the seat beside her.

"It’s been so long," she says, her brows furrowing with something between disappointment and relief. "You haven’t called in months. I thought you were sick! Do you hate me?"

"I could never hate you," you say quickly, shaking your head, a little horrified she would ever think that.

And then she smacks your arm.

"Then why haven’t you answered my calls?" she scolds, her voice laced with exasperation. "Your mother tells me you moved away and what? I don’t hear a word from you?"

You blink. Your mind stutters at the revelation.

"Wait—" you pause, trying to piece it together. "My mom… and you? You’ve been talking?"

Esperanza gives you a look, like it should be obvious. "Of course," she huffs. "What, you thought just because you and Quino broke up, I was going to stop talking to my comadre?" She rolls her eyes like the very idea is ridiculous. "Por favor."

Your mouth goes dry.

Your mother and Joaquin’s mother—keeping in touch this entire time. Behind your back. Talking about you, probably about him, too.

Your stomach churns, and suddenly, there’s something heavy pressing against your ribs.

You open your mouth, but she’s already shaking her head.

"Oh, lo sé," she sighs, exasperated. "The dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. If it were up to me, you two would’ve been married by now. Given me a grandchild, too."

Your laugh comes out a little too flustered, a little too forced. You glance around the hallway, avoiding her gaze, trying to ignore the way your heart wrings at the thought.

"Yeah," you mutter because you don’t know what else to say.

Esperanza exhales, her posture softening. She lets go of one of your hands just to reach up and brush your hair from your face, tucking it behind your ear with the same gentle touch Joaquín used to.

The same way he always did when you were talking too much, or overthinking, or when he just wanted an excuse to touch you.

You let out a long, quiet sigh, blinking hard against the sudden sting in your eyes.

It’s too much.

Too much familiarity, too much of your old life creeping back in all at once. You don’t think you’ve gotten enough sleep to process any of it properly.

"Mija," she murmurs, her voice softer now, more careful. "I don’t care whether you and Quino are together or not. I loved having you around. I still want to have our little chats. You are like one of my own. And when he told me you broke up, I just…" she shakes her head, pressing her lips together like she doesn’t want to say it. "I hate that it took him getting hurt for us to talk again."

"Esperanza…" you start, but she just shakes her head again.

"I know, I know. Perdóname," she says, waving it off as she stands up. She smooths down the front of her dress and sighs. "It’s so good to see you again, mi amor. You keep taking good care of my son. I’ll be in the city for another week, so please—call me. Maybe we can get coffee."

Before you can respond, she scans her visitor’s pass on the key panel and walks into Joaquín’s room, disappearing behind the door without another word.

But she leaves the question hanging in the air, thick with nostalgia and something painfully close to longing.

And she leaves the scent of rosy perfume lingering in her wake.

You stare at the closed door, your heart thudding unevenly in your chest.

You should go. You need to go—your tablet is already beeping, pulling you back to reality, reminding you that there are other patients who need you, that there’s a crisis waiting for you three flights down.

Still, you hesitate for just a second longer, swallowing hard against the lump in your throat before finally turning away.

There’s no time to process this right now.

But you have a feeling that, no matter how hard you try, you won’t be able to shake this conversation anytime soon.

Maria’s hand grips the IV pole tightly, her small fingers curling around the metal as she rolls it beside her, careful not to let the wheels catch on the tile. The fluorescent hospital lights cast a soft glow over her—too pale against her skin, too sterile—but despite it all, she beams.

You’ve never seen someone so excited just to walk.

But today is special. It’s her birthday.

She didn’t ask for much—just this. A chance to stretch her legs, to be somewhere other than her hospital room. Her parents had begged you to keep her busy while they decorated, slipping streamers and balloons inside the room like they could somehow make up for lost time.

Maria hadn’t argued. She had just grinned up at you when you asked if she wanted to go outside.

Now, she’s practically glowing, her feet sinking into the grass as you lead her through the small hospital garden.

She tips her head back, eyes fluttering closed as the breeze ruffles her hospital gown, lifting strands of hair from her shoulders. Pink cherry blossoms sway on the branches above, petals drifting onto the ground like delicate confetti.

"Did you know cherry blossoms only bloom for a few weeks?" you tell her.

Maria gasps. "Really?"

"Yep. It’s called hanami in Japan. People go outside just to watch them bloom."

Her eyes widen in pure delight. "That’s the best thing I’ve ever heard. They should be watched. They’re so pretty."

You smile. "Yeah, they are."

For a moment, she just stands there, soaking it in. And you let her.

It’s one of those rare times when she doesn’t look like a patient. No tubes, no machines, no sterile smell of antiseptic—just a kid. A kid enjoying the sun, the air, the simple beauty of something fleeting.

She sighs, finally pulling herself away. "Okay. I’m ready to go back in."

"Are you sure?"

She nods. "Yeah. I don’t wanna get in trouble for being outside too long. It’s my birthday, but I think Nurse Kate would still yell at me."

"Yeah, probably," you say with a chuckle.

The hospital halls are quieter than usual, the usual hum of voices and distant beeping fading into soft background noise. Maria walks beside you, still clinging to her IV pole but with a bit more confidence in her steps.

She doesn’t drag her feet anymore. That’s new.

Her body is stronger than it was weeks ago—no more trembling hands, no more laboured breathing after short walks. It’s a victory, even if it’s small.

Maria suddenly gasps, gripping your arm and her feet skid against the floor. You barely have time to react before she jerks to a halt, her entire body going rigid, eyes locked on something ahead.

Her mouth falls open.

"The Falcon?!"

Your stomach drops.

"Maria—"

"The Falcon is here?!"

Before you can stop her, she takes off, darting toward the digital display outside one of the hospital rooms. The screen flickers with patient information, vitals, and medication logs—

Torres, Joaquín

Maria’s hands slap over her mouth. "Oh my God."

"Maria," you warn, but she’s already clambering onto one of the chairs lined against the wall, pressing her face to the glass window beside the door.

"Oh my God! It's him! It's really him!" She whirls around, panic-stricken. "Is he dead?"

You lurch forward. "What? No." Your hands instinctively find her waist, steadying her before she tips over. "He’s just sleeping."

"Can I go say hi?"

"No."

"It’s my birthday."

"Maria—"

"Please!"

You close your eyes, inhaling slowly.

This was not in your job description.

You glance at the window, frowning. You weren't supposed to let anyone into a patient’s room unless they were authorized. Especially not another patient. There were rules. Strict ones. The last thing you needed was for someone to get sick, for someone to get hurt, for someone to wake Joaquín up before he was ready—

But then you look at Maria.

She’s practically vibrating with excitement, hands clasped tightly like she’s holding back from bouncing on her toes—the youngest patient in the entire building. Wide-eyed and full of wonder, she’s looking at Joaquín because he’s a real-life superhero, someone she’s only ever seen in headlines and shaky phone recordings.

And Joaquín… Joaquín loves kids.

He always has.

You’ve seen it firsthand—the way he kneels when he talks to them, the way his face lights up whenever he makes one laugh, the way he always offers high-fives like it’s second nature. Even now, even unconscious, the thought of him being the reason behind Maria’s uncontainable joy tugs at something deep in your chest.

It feels like something he would want.

And maybe… maybe this is okay. Maybe this is good—a reminder that people out there care about him, even the ones who have never met him.

Still, you hesitate.

You’re comfortable taking care of him now.

Or at least, that’s what you tell yourself.

No more denial. No more excuses. No more pretending that seeing him like this—unmoving, caught somewhere between here and wherever his mind has drifted—doesn’t scare the hell out of you. You’ve accepted that you miss him, that you still... care for him, even after everything. But stepping into that room again—with Maria, of all people—feels like a step toward something you’re not sure you’re ready to face.

Because Joaquín is here. So close. Close enough to reach out and touch, to whisper his name and wait for that slow, teasing smile to appear—the one he always gave you when you were being too serious. Close enough that you should feel relieved.

But he’s also impossibly far.

No teasing smiles. No dumb jokes. No knowing looks from across the room. Not even anger of having you near. Just silence. Just the faint rise and fall of his chest, the machines working to keep him stable.

For days, you’ve watched him. Sat beside him. Checked his vitals. Changed his bandages. Waited.

But then Maria looks up at you, eyes round and pleading.

"Okay," you exhale, already regretting it. "But you have to be really quiet so he doesn’t wake up, okay?"

She nods, lowering her voice, "Okay."

Maria is practically bouncing with excitement as you swipe your keycard and push open the door. Sunlight spills in through the half-drawn blinds, cutting warm streaks across the floor, across Joaquín’s blankets, across his still form. The midday hum of the hospital filters in from the hallway, muffled but present. The steady beeping of the monitors tracks his heart rate, a slow, even rhythm, while the IV beside him feeds a clear solution into his veins.

Maria tiptoes inside like she’s afraid of disturbing something sacred.

You don’t blame her.

Because up close, he looks even more unreachable. The bruises along his temple have faded from deep purple to a softer yellow-red, but the cuts on his face are healing. His lips are chapped. His hair is messy against the pillow, a sharp contrast to how put-together you remember him.

You move—more out of instinct than anything—because lingering in the doorway makes it worse. The small cart beside his bed is stocked with fresh bandages, antiseptic, gauze—everything you’ve used to help keep his wounds clean these past few weeks. Without thinking, you pick up his chart because you've forgotten your tablet, scanning the latest notes, his most recent vitals. Stable. No new concerns. No change.

Maria whispers something, but you don’t catch it.

You blink, glancing at her. "What?"

She’s staring at Joaquín, her small hands gripping the edge of his blanket like she’s afraid to touch him, but wants to.

“He’s even prettier up close,” she breathes.

Despite yourself, you smile. "Yeah? You think so?"

She nods seriously.

There’s something achingly familiar about the way she looks at him—like she’s trying to memorize him, like she’s afraid he might disappear if she blinks.

You know that feeling.

Because you’ve caught yourself staring at him the exact same way.

Like if you look long enough, you might commit him to memory all over again. Like you can make up for the lost time, for the time that has slipped through your fingers. You study him—not just the broad strokes of him, not just the familiarity of his face, but every little thing you’d forgotten during your time apart, the things that had slipped from your mind.

There is a faint stubble that’s started to grow along his jaw. And now you notice little moles dotting his skin, scattered in ways you don’t recognize from your memories or dreams of him—they were always focused on the bigger picture, the way he smiled, the way he laughed, the way he loved you.

Now, it’s the details that root you to the present.

The soft rise and fall of his chest beneath the hospital blanket. The steady hum of the monitors. The warmth of his skin when you reach out, pressing two fingers to his wrist, feeling the familiar, comforting rhythm of his pulse beneath your touch.

You check his vitals—his heart rate is stable, his oxygen levels are good, and his IV fluids are running properly.

Maria exhales softly, still watching him, her voice quiet as a breath.

"I think he’s gonna be okay."

You let out a slow, measured breath, your thumb grazing over the back of Joaquín’s hand—just for a second, just enough to feel the warmth of him.

"Yeah," you whisper. "Me too."

It’s enough. For now.

Your fingers slip away from his, the warmth vanishing almost instantly, and you start to usher Maria back toward the door. But as you move, something shifts—so small, so quick, you almost think you imagined it.

Joaquín’s fingers twitch at his side, just as yours leave his.

Your heart stutters.

A rush of warmth blooms in your chest, something fragile and desperate, something that wants to hope, to believe that it means something. That he felt it.

Swallowing, you make a quick note on his chart, recording the small movement even though it could be nothing.

Even though it could be everything.

You exhale, trying to ground yourself, trying to shake off the way your heart is pounding now, loud and heavy in your ears. You don’t even realize you’re holding your breath until Maria tugs at your sleeve, glancing up at you, her own expression somewhere between curiosity and uncertainty.

You force yourself to move. To turn away. To guide her toward the door, because whatever flicker of hope just sparked inside you is too fragile to hold.

But then—

A sound.

Low. Faint. Hoarse from weeks of silence.

Your name.

Spoken.

Maria gasps softly.

And you—you freeze.

The breath leaves your lungs in a sharp, startled exhale, and your fingers go rigid against the door handle. A slow, involuntary shiver runs down your spine, your pulse hammering against your ribs.

Did you imagine it?

You must have.

But then you feel it—Maria’s small fingers wrapping tightly around your hand, clutching at you with quiet urgency.

Because she heard it too.

Your name. A whisper, raw and barely there, but there.

And it came from him.

Joaquín.

The hospital room feels smaller now, charged with something delicate and terrifying all at once. The air thickens, pressing against your chest as you slowly—slowly—turn around, terrified that if you look, it’ll be gone.

That it was just a trick of your desperate mind.

But it’s not.

Because Joaquín’s fingers twitch again.

His brow furrows, lips parting slightly, throat working as he struggles to form a sound, his voice raw and unfamiliar after so many days of silence.

Maria gasps, gripping your sleeve, her excitement barely contained, but you don’t register it.

Because Joaquín’s eyes are fluttering open.

For a moment, he stares blankly at the ceiling, his chest rising in a shallow, uneven breath. His body remains rigid, like his muscles haven’t caught up with the fact that he’s conscious. There’s no immediate recognition in his gaze—just a hazy sort of confusion, as if he’s somewhere else entirely.

Then, he moves.

His fingers twitch against the sheets, then curl. His breath hitches. The faint beeping of the heart monitor quickens. His body tenses, his shoulders pulling in as if bracing for impact.

His gaze shifts—and lands on you.

The second your face comes into focus, his entire body jerks.

A sharp, ragged inhale drags through his chest. His pupils constrict. His hand flinches at his side, like he wants to reach for something—like he’s searching for something solid.

His breathing changes. It’s not just uneven anymore—it’s too fast, too shallow. The rise and fall of his chest is quick, erratic, his ribs barely expanding with each breath.

Then, a whisper, barely a breath—words spilling from his lips before he even realizes he’s speaking.

"Me morí."

The words repeat, over and over, almost like a prayer.

"Me morí. Me morí. Me morí."

His voice trembles. His fingers fist the blanket. Tears well in his eyes and slip down his temples, silent, unchecked.

Your heart lurches.

You move instinctively, stepping closer, hands steady even as your pulse pounds in your ears.

"Hey, hey," you soothe, voice low and careful, placing a gentle hand on his good shoulder. "It’s okay. You’re safe."

Joaquín flinches at the touch, his muscles twitching beneath your fingers. His head turns slightly, his gaze darting, frantic, searching—taking in the room, the medical equipment, the IV in his arm. You can tell his body wants to move, to fight, to run, military instincts kicking in. But he’s still weak, his limbs heavy, uncooperative.

His pulse pounds beneath your fingertips. Too fast. His whole body is reacting before his mind can catch up.

"Joaquín." You keep your voice steady, careful, like speaking too loudly might shatter him completely. "Can you hear me?"

His gaze snaps back to you.

Something flickers in his expression. Recognition.

His chest is still rising and falling too quickly, his hands still tremble against the sheets, but his shoulders drop just barely. Some of the tension bleeds away.

His lips part, but no sound comes out at first. His throat works through the effort.

Then, at last, a hoarse, broken whisper.

"Hi."

Your breath catches.

Your fingers twitch against his shoulder, the warmth of his skin grounding you as much as you hope you’re grounding him. You press your palm there just a little longer, just to reassure yourself he’s real, that he’s awake.

"Hi," you whisper back.

His lashes flutter as he blinks at you, slow and deliberate, his eyes still wet with tears. Still searching. His gaze drifts over your face like he’s trying to map every detail back into his memory.

Like he’s afraid you might disappear.

"Hi," he says again, quieter this time.

Your chest tightens, a lump forming in your throat.

"Hi, Joaquín."

A slow, trembling exhale leaves his lips. His body sags into the pillow, exhaustion catching up to him all at once. His fingers unclench from the blanket, the tension in his muscles fading—but not entirely.

Because when you start to let go, when your fingers begin to lift from his shoulder, he twitches beneath your touch.

The hesitation is so subtle that you almost miss it—almost.

A flicker of something crosses his face, something unspoken, something aching. You worry he's hurting.

It reminds you of another time, a different moment in a different place. Years ago, Joaquín slouched in the passenger seat of your car, showing you his newly earned stitches after getting beat up by a Flag-Smasher, laughing through the pain while you frowned.

"You gotta stop scaring me like this."

"I’m trying, I swear."

You remember the way his eyes had softened in the dim streetlight, the way he had looked at you then. The way he kissed you to take your mind off of his pain—how neither of you had wanted to let go.

And now—now, as your fingers hover over his shoulder, as he doesn’t look away—it feels exactly the same.

Only this time he can't kiss you.

Only this time you can't wipe his tears away.

You force yourself to pull back, to let your fingers drift away, even as your hand aches to stay.

Joaquín swallows hard, blinking sluggishly as his gaze flickers to the IV in his arm, the monitors beside him, then back to you. His lips press together briefly as if he’s gathering himself before a rough, scratchy mutter escapes him.

"Ah, shit. I screwed up so bad."

The sound of his voice—dry, raspy, but carrying the faintest hint of that familiar humour—makes something in your chest crack wide open.

A breathy, wet laugh slips from your lips before you can stop it, and you quickly swipe at your eyes, shaking your head.

"I'm... I'm gonna go call a doctor, alright?"

Joaquín doesn’t say anything. He just watches you.

There’s something in his gaze—something unreadable, something too much. It makes your pulse stutter, makes your breath feel too shallow in your lungs.

You don’t give yourself time to process it.

Instead, you turn, pressing the call button for the doctor. "Come, Maria," you say, voice quieter than before.

Maria, who's gone strangely silent since Joaquín woke up, rushes to your side without hesitation. But she does nearly break her neck to keep looking back at him until you pull the door shut, sealing that moment away.

You exhale, resting your back against the wall for half a second longer than necessary before forcing yourself to move.

The doctor arrives quickly. You straighten up, rattling off Joaquín’s vitals, every detail you can remember—his initial reaction, his moment of panic, his response to stimuli, everything. The words come automatically, like muscle memory, like routine. You focus on that, on the familiar rhythm of procedure, handing off the responsibility to the doctor so she can begin running tests, checking his neurological responses, assessing how much damage—if any—his body has endured after so many days in forced stillness.

The weight of your exhaustion presses heavier against your shoulders as you upload his files to the system, sending them over before turning your attention back to Maria.

"You did good, Maria," you tell her softly as you lead her back to her room.

She just nods, but there’s something distant in her expression now.

You get it.

She’s just witnessed the moment. The one where everything changes.

It’s the moment where the panic stops being panic and turns into something else—something messier, something heavier.

It’s the moment where the question “what if he never wakes up?” turns into something just as terrifying:

“He’s awake. Now what?”

Her parents are waiting when you bring her back, and you don’t stay. You let them have that moment for her birthday, closing the door gently behind you before turning back into the hallway.

And then you’re alone.

For the first time in hours, in days, you’re alone with nothing to distract you.

Your hands are shaking. You hadn’t even noticed at first, but now you can’t not notice—the tremor in your fingers, the way your pulse hammers too fast against your ribs, the way your body suddenly doesn’t know what to do with itself now that you’re not running on pure adrenaline.

You sink into one of the chairs outside Joaquín’s room, bracing your elbows on your knees. The motion feels stiff, foreign—like your body isn’t quite yours anymore.

Your eyes sting.

Joaquín is awake. He’s awake.

He spoke. He looked at you. He recognized you. He remembered you.

You should feel relief. You should feel something good.

And yet.

It’s like coming up for air after being stuck underwater too long—except just as you’re about to take a full breath, it’s ripped away again.

Because now that he’s awake… he can speak to you.

He can react to what you say, to what you do.

Maybe he’ll ask for a different nurse. Maybe he’ll ask to be transferred to another hospital back in Miami or something. Maybe, when his voice isn’t so raw and broken, he’ll tell you exactly what he thinks about the fact that you were the one sitting by his bedside all this time.

And God, you don’t know if you can handle that.

You drag your hands down your face, pushing out a breath. You don’t have time for this.

The sound of hurried footsteps in the hallway reminds you that Sam—or Joaquín’s mother—is bound to show up any minute now. The news will spread fast, and soon, his room will be filled with people who have been waiting for this moment, praying for this moment.

Shit.

You squeeze your eyes shut for a second before forcing yourself up. You should be in the room right now with the doctor, checking over Joaquín’s vitals, taking actual notes instead of spiraling in the hallway. Get your shit together and do your job.

Your movements feel sluggish as you reach for your tablet, swiping your ID card at the door. The scanner beeps, and for a split second, you hesitate—your fingers still lingering on the door handle, your chest tight.

Then you force yourself to step inside.

The room is brighter now, bathed in soft afternoon light filtering through the window. Dust motes drift lazily in the warm glow, a stark contrast to the sterile white walls and the quiet hum of machines. The steady rhythm of the heart monitor is too steady, too real.

The doctor is already mid-assessment, having raised Joaquín’s bed into a slightly upright position as she runs through a neurological check-up.

Joaquín is watching you.

His dark eyes flicker to you the second you enter, and you feel it in your chest, hot and unrelenting.

You swallow hard, gripping your tablet like it’s a lifeline, and take your place near the doctor, prepared to focus on numbers and stats and anything else except the weight of that stare.

You wonder if you’ll get kicked out for distracting him.

"Oh, great, you’re back," the doctor says, breaking through the static in your brain. "Do you mind grabbing some water for Captain Torres? I’m just about done here. Everything looks good and healthy. He’s recovering well."

You nod, already moving before your thoughts can catch up. Autopilot. It’s the only thing keeping you grounded at this point.

Still, you feel it.

The way Joaquín’s gaze follows every single one of your movements, tracking you like you might disappear if he looks away.

You crouch, retrieving a bottle from the mini fridge, fingers twisting at the cap before stepping back toward the bed. That’s when it hits you—he can’t take it. His muscles are still sluggish, his coordination not quite there yet.

You pour some into a paper cup instead, stepping closer when the doctor gives a nod of approval. Joaquín doesn’t say anything.

The tremor in your hands is almost imperceptible, but you feel it when you lift the cup to his lips. The moment your fingers brush his skin, a muscle in his jaw tenses.

His heart monitor beside the bed jumps.

Your eyes snap to the screen, but the doctor catches it first.

"Interesting," she hums, her tone just teasing enough to send heat creeping up your neck. But she lets it go.

"So, Joaquín," she continues, "We’re gonna have to do some blood work tomorrow, just to make sure everything is alright internally. We’ll up your dose of painkillers now that you’re awake."

"Awesome," he mutters, voice scratchy but laced with dry sarcasm.

She smiles. "They’ll make you a little drowsy, which is normal, but we’ll need you to try and stay awake until sunset. Just to make sure you’re not slipping in and out of consciousness. But I doubt it."

Then she turns to you.

"I’ll let Amanda know he’s awake. But you did a good job—woke up sooner than we expected."

You blink, caught off guard by the compliment.

"Thanks."

"I’ll come back later for a check-up."

And then she leaves.

The door clicks shut, and there is a silence that follows.

You stand there, hands gripping the tablet against your chest, unsure of what to do. Well, you know what to do—your duty is clear. You should be checking his vitals, updating his chart, making sure he’s comfortable.

But that’s not what’s stopping you.

It’s him.

Awake. Looking at you.

Joaquín Torres, alive and conscious and blinking at you like he’s still trying to convince himself this isn’t just another fever dream.

His voice comes quiet, hoarse, a low grumble you barely hear over the rhythmic beeping of his heart monitor.

"You took care of me?"

Your breath catches.

It’s a simple question, but it knocks something loose in your chest. Because it’s him asking. Because he’s here to ask it.

You swallow, shifting on your feet. Your gaze flickers over him—not just the wounds, but all of him. The way the sunlight filters in through the window, warming the stark white of the sheets, reflecting in the deep brown of his eyes. He looks more alive now, and maybe it’s the light or the steady rise and fall of his chest, but for the first time in weeks, you allow yourself to believe it.

He’s here.

Breathing. Talking. Alive.

And yet—his dead face still haunts you.

The memory lingers in the corners of your mind, just out of reach but never truly gone. His stillness, the unnatural slack of his features, the too-loud silence of a body that had once been so full of energy, of life. The image is burned into your brain, playing over and over again like a cruel loop. The moment you thought you lost him.

The tears in his mother’s face.

The look of dread on Sam.

The guilt.

"Uh, yeah. I did."

Your voice is barely above a whisper.

Joaquín exhales, long and slow, as if processing your words. Then, he tries to smile.

It’s small, faint and unsteady like he isn’t quite sure how to do it yet. The corners of his lips curve, but there’s a hesitation in the movement, like his face isn’t used to the motion after so long.

Still, he tries.

And when his eyes meet yours again, your stomach twists, sinking deep like an anchor dropping into dark water.

"I… I know it’s just your job, but—" His voice falters, but his gaze doesn’t. "Thank you."

Right. Your job.

The words settle into your chest like a weight—familiar, suffocating.

Because you remember the last time he said that to you.

Your last fight.

Well—it wasn’t really a fight, was it?

Not the kind with screaming and shattered glass, not the kind where anger built up and spilled over, reckless and sharp. It was quieter than that. Heavier. Because in the end, it wasn’t about anger.

It was about exhaustion. About wanting so badly to hold on to each other but realizing, little by little, that neither of you had hands free to do it.

You had barely been sleeping.

Between overnight shifts at the hospital, classes, training, and trying to be the best nurse you could be, your time wasn’t your own. It belonged to the people who needed you—the patients, the emergencies, the long nights where your body ached and your mind ran on fumes.

And Joaquín?

He had thrown himself into working with Sam, into proving himself, into becoming something bigger. His missions got longer. The risks got greater. He was gone more often than he was home, and when he was home, he was bruised, exhausted, a shadow of himself trying to piece together the scraps of a normal life between deployments.

You tried to make it work. God, you tried.

You spent so much time missing each other—passing like ships in the night, phone calls that never lasted long enough, conversations cut short by a code blue or a mission call.

At first, you thought it was temporary. That one day, things would slow down. That eventually, you’d find a rhythm that let you breathe with each other again.

But that day never came.

Instead, the gaps between you grew wider.

The distance stretched, and stretched, and stretched—until one night, you were sitting across from each other, and you both knew.

"I can't do this anymore, Joaquín."

You had whispered it.

Not because you didn’t mean it, but because saying it any louder might have broken you.

He had looked at you, like he was waiting for you to take it back.

Like if he just held on long enough, you’d change your mind.

"I know... You know, I love you," he had said, low, firm, desperate.

And that had been the worst part.

Because love wasn’t the problem.

It had never been the problem.

It was everything else.

Your job. His job.

The nights spent apart, the exhaustion, the never-ending fear of opening your front door to a folded American Flag. You couldn’t stand watching him bleed.

And he couldn’t stand knowing that one day, you might not be there to stitch him back up. That was the last time he said it. "But it’s my job."

Like that was supposed to make it better.

But now, you’re standing in his hospital room, staring at proof that it never got better. Because you had left to protect yourself from seeing him hurt. And now you had seen him dead.

"Of course," you manage to say, wincing when you hear your voice break.

Joaquín hums softly, but his eyes don’t leave you. He’s looking for something in your face—like he’s searching through memories neither of you have spoken aloud in years.

But then, his gaze flickers away. Over to the table. To the mess of flowers stacked in unsteady vases, their petals bright in the afternoon sunlight. The kind of display that only happens when someone is lucky enough to wake up.

His brow creases. "How bad was it?"

You swallow, feeling something sharp lodge itself in your throat. "You were shot out of the sky by a missile."

His lips part. "Right."

"It was pretty fucking bad."

A beat.

"Right."

You don’t know what you were expecting. Some kind of reaction, some flicker of acknowledgment for the hell he’s put you through. But instead, he just takes it—like it’s another report, another piece of intel.

You hesitate, something bubbling up inside you. You can’t tell if it’s anger or sorrow. "You died."

The words hit the air, heavier than you expected.

Joaquín blinks, his breath hitching almost imperceptibly. His fingers twitch against the blanket.

"I died?"

You nod, biting your cheek so hard you taste iron.

"Yeah," you force out. Your throat tightens. Don’t cry. Not in front of him. Not again. "Two minutes."

He’s staring at you now. Eyes wide. Disbelief creeps into the edges of his expression, but not enough—not enough for someone who actually understands what that means.

What it means to you.

"Oh."

You scoff. "Yeah. Oh."

Your laugh is brittle. Sharp around the edges. Because what else is there to say? Joaquín dies for two minutes, and you’ve spent days living inside them.

He exhales, dragging a hand down his face.

"God," he mutters. "Sam’s gonna be so mad at me."

You don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Because this wasn’t how you imagined seeing him again.

In your head, there were a million other ways this could have gone—maybe you’d run into each other in the future when you were older. When things had settled. When you’d moved on.

Maybe you’d both be married to other people.

The thought makes you sick. But this? This is so much worse.

"Do you, um, do you need anything else? Are you hungry?"

"No."

You nod, but you don’t believe him. Patients are usually peckish when they wake up—a sign of life returning to their bodies, a reassurance that things are moving forward. And while he’s not allowed solid foods for another twenty-four hours, you could bring him a smoothie, something light.

But if he really wants something, he can call you.

You tell yourself that as you turn toward the door.

"Can you stay?"

You linger because you didn’t expect it.

Because you kind of hoped he would ask.

Because he didn’t ask you to stay last time.

Your fingers twitch at your sides, gripping your tablet a little tighter, as if the tension in your body could be contained in that single movement.

"Yeah," you say softly. "I can stay."

You turn back to him, and Joaquín is already looking at you.

His eyes are pleading.

It takes everything in you not to break right there. To not spill over.

You force yourself to move, careful, measured steps toward the chair beside his bed. It feels like you’re wading through something thick, something unseen, like grief or memory or all the what-ifs you’ve tried to bury.

You sink into the chair slowly.

A strand of hair falls into Joaquín’s face as he leans back against the pillows, the bruising on his cheekbone catching the light just enough for you to hate it.

Your fingers twitch again. The urge to brush it back is unbearable. But you don't.

He exhales.

"When was the last time you slept?" he asks suddenly.

You blink, caught off guard.

"Last night." you answer, almost automatically.

"Did you sleep well?"

"Not really."

A beat.

"Nightmares?"

"Something like that."

"Something on your mind?"

"Lots on my mind."

The words slip out easily, like an old habit. No walls. No defences. It’s like no time has passed at all, like the space between you hasn’t been filled with anger, regret, and time apart. Just raw, open honesty in the quiet of the room.

The weight that’s been crushing you for days feels a little lighter in the space between his questions and your answers. You exhale, and only then do you realize you’re holding back tears.

You wipe at your face absently, surprised to find wetness there. You hadn’t even known you were crying.

Joaquín shifts in the bed, his gaze sharpening. There’s concern in his eyes, guilt, and maybe something else—something deeper. He looks away, clearing his throat, as if trying to fight it.

"I hope it's not me you're worried about,"

"I'm always worried about you."

You glance away from him, pretending it’s nothing, but the words hang between you both, too heavy to ignore.

His breath catches, something in him faltering, and then you catch the slight, almost imperceptible way his fingers curl into the sheets. His ears are pink, the flush spreading down his neck. He’s always been terrible at hiding how he feels, and you’re helpless against it. You always have been.

You can’t look at him. You don’t want to admit how much you’ve missed him. How much you’ve been carrying around since the breakup. How much he’s haunted every quiet moment since you walked away.

"Joaquín," you start, tugging at the ring finger on your left hand, the absence of his name there like a wound you forgot was still open. "When they brought you in here—"

"I miss you."

Your chest tightens. "Joaquín—"

"It's true, I do." His voice is quiet, almost vulnerable. "I’ve been looking for an excuse to talk to you again, and I just…" His gaze drifts from yours, like he’s struggling to put it all together. "I couldn't get it out."

You swallow hard, feeling that familiar ache well up in you. “I miss you too. It’s been... it’s been really hard.”

"Yeah." He nods slowly, his voice softer now. "It has. But, you know, I’m the Falcon now. Can you believe that?" He chuckles, but it’s almost nervous, as if he’s trying to lighten the mood, trying to make you smile. "I work with Captain America. I’ve got big shoes to fill. I’ve got to show up, but this... this is all I’ve ever wanted, since I was a kid. I’ve got it now. But... there’s something missing."

You look at him, really look at him, seeing the difference in his eyes now—less brash, more tired but still so much the same. "Yeah. Yeah, I feel it too. It’s like a nagging feeling, right? No matter what we do, it’s there."

"Make me feel guilty." His lips curve into a faint smile, but it’s tired.

"Like I wanna vomit," you reply dryly, the familiar banter slipping back into place before you can stop it.

Joaquín’s eyes soften as he lets out a breath, and there’s an edge of regret in the way he says, “I’m sorry I left.”

Your heart aches at the words, and you feel the old wounds crack open. "I’m sorry I made you leave." You’re not sure whether you’re trying to make him feel better or punish him with your own guilt. Either way, it burns.

“No,” he says quickly, “It doesn’t work that way.”

"But it does," you insist, your voice soft but firm.

He presses his lips together, brow furrowed, as if trying to work through what you’ve just said. "I should’ve fought harder," he murmurs, voice cracking just slightly.

"Joaquín... c’mon. Let’s talk about this later, okay? You just woke up from a coma. I can’t be putting this much stress on your mind."

"But I wanna talk about it," he presses, desperate.

“I know, I do too,” you admit,

“Then let’s talk about it,” he says, leaning forward just a little.

"Rest first." You place a hand on his shoulder gently, urging him to lay back. “You’ve been through a lot. I can’t let you burn yourself out again.”

“I’ve been resting. Had the best nurse in the world take care of me,” he teases, trying to distract you with a smile.

You feel the tug in your chest at his words. "And I will still take care of you. But you need rest. We can talk about it tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?"

"Yes, tomorrow," you confirm, trying to smile, to soothe the tension you’ve both built up.

"Will you still be here?"

You glance down at him, a familiar warmth flooding your chest at the sight of him so vulnerable, so human. "I’m not going anywhere. Will you still be here?"

His smile softens, a quiet promise in his eyes. “I’m not going anywhere.”

#listen to blood orange while reading 🫶🏽#they make out and fuck after this i promise #faye’s writing ⭑.ᐟ #joaquín torres #joaquín torres x reader #joaquin torres #joaquin torres x reader #joaquin torres x you #joaquin torres imagine #joaquin torres fluff #joaquin torres fic #joaquin torres fanfiction #the falcon #the falcon x reader #joaquín torres smut #joaquin torres smut #joaquín’s wings

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marvelwitchergilmore · 1 month ago

Text

Open Wounds

Summary: Bucky Barnes x fe!Reader -> Due to an open wound, Bucky seems to hate you. And no matter what Sam does, nothing seems to change. Until you and Bucky have a heated exchange that ends in a way neither of you had been expecting.

Disclaimer: Bucky is a little bit of an asshole, (lovers to) enemies to lovers, slightly established relationship, angst, platonic!sam, platonic!joaquin, a little steam, swearing, reader cleans Bucky's physical wounds, arguments, heated exchanges, happy ending. Not Proof Read.

Bucky had a scowl on his face like usual. And Sam only had one guess as to who it was aimed at.

Opening the door to the meeting room, he guessed right.

“Sam,” you smiled, standing at the front of the room.

“Joaquin said you were looking for me.”

You nodded. “Take a seat.”

You’d been working with Shield for a little over a year; specifically Sam and his team. Of what Sam knew, you’d been off grid for over a decade. You’d made a new identity for yourself at the age of sixteen and stayed quiet until the day Maria Hill turned up with a job proposition.

She was the only one who knew you were still alive, let alone off grid.

And from your first day, Bucky had been scowling.

Sitting in that meeting for over an hour, Bucky’s gaze remained fixed on you until you looked back and he looked away. Sam had been trying from day one to help you both get along, but to no avail. Joaquin had even tried, but his failure had been worse.

With Sam, it was silence. If not, a sentence and then one of you would walk away. With Joaquin, it turned into a full blown argument.

“I’ll be working from the base with Torres.”

“Is that everything?”

You looked at Bucky and clenched your jaw as you picked up the remaining files. “Yes. That is everything, Sergeant Barnes.”

Bucky’s eyes still fixed on yours, he pushed himself out from his seat. Within seconds he was by the door and Sam was following behind him.

“Thank you, Y/n.” Sam closed the door for you before he hurried down the hallway behind his friend. “Dude, what the hell is your problem?”

“She is.”

“You know, when you wanna pull that stick out your ass, it would be handy to have a date. She’s part of our team and you treat her like she’s the enemy,” Sam pointed out.

“Maybe she is.”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Okay, I can take you two not speaking to each other but, how long were you in that office with her? You were talking before I came in.”

“Nothing.”

“Had to be something.”

“It was nothing. Do you want me to pick you up some lunch?” Bucky turned the corner.

Sam sighed, but he was hungry. “Yes. But no pickles this time, I’ve got a date later.”

Bucky stopped and turned around. “With who?”

“A woman.”

“You don’t know a woman.”

Sam seemed offended. “I know plenty of women.”

“Who want to date you?”

Sam rolled his eyes. “It’s a friend of Y/n’s. It’s a blind date.”

Bucky just grumbled. “Maybe she’s better than Y/n.”

Sam would have argued but Bucky was too far down the hall for him to shout and it be normal.

Bucky was sitting in the Compound living room when you walked inside. You rolled your eyes. “What are you doing here? Thought you’d be stalking Sam on his date.”

“Should I? Why? Is she a liar like you?”

You shook your head as you shut the fridge door and unscrewed the water bottle. “I never lied. And she’s nice. Sam’s type. She’s beautiful, kind and her brother was in the Air Force – so they’ve got something in common.”

“Other than a liar for a friend.”

You looked at Bucky. “I’m not doing this today. Did you read the mission file?”

Bucky looked away from you. “Yeah, I read it.”

“And?”

“You need to make sure we can tag the boats. We know where the boats are going, we’ll find the arms dealers.”

“Boats?”

Bucky nodded. “There’s a loading dock nearby. CCTV footage tracks one of the vans there.”

You shook your head. “They were just lobsters.”

“Lobsters can’t be caught in freshwater. They need salt water to survive.”

“How do you know so much about lobsters?”

Bucky didn’t know what to say. “I don’t. It was on…a nature thing Sam was watching.”

“Huh.”

“Look, my point is, the weapons are being smuggled on fishing boats. Probably how they ended up on the other side of the world. Passed from country to country.”

“Via lobster.”

Bucky rolled his eyes but nodded. “Yes, by lobster.”

Four days later, Sam had tagged the boats and you and Joaquin were tracking their movements.

“So, what’s with the tension between you and Bucky?”

“What do you mean?” You asked, absentmindedly as you turned towards a different monitor.

Joaquin laughed. “Oh, come on. You know what I mean.”

You did. You sighed, “It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing. You two look like you’re either about to fuck or fight.”

You turned in your chair. “You know, I could report you to HR.”

Joaquin gave you a dead-panned look. Considering you’d been his neighbour for the last year and spent every Friday night with him and Sam, he knew you wouldn’t.

“Come on, you can tell me. Promise I won’t tell anyone.” Joaquin made a cross over his heart.

You giggled as you shook your head. “Sorry, buddy. No-can-do.”

“Why not?” Joaquin whined.

“Because that is between me and Sergeant Asshole.”

Joaquin sat back in his chair. “You know I’m gonna find out eventually, right? I will.”

You just shook your head and got on with your work. By the time Sam and Bucky returned a week later, it was with three arrests made and over a hundred and thirty weapons seized.

“God, you look like hell.” The sentence slipped from you as you watched Bucky walk inside.

“Look great yourself, Sweetheart.” Bucky grumbled, avoiding you at all costs. Sam followed behind him.

“What happened?” Joaquin asked him.

“We won, that’s the bottom line.”

Bucky shook his head as he sat down. “Oh, no. Tell them about your master plan. Go on.”

“You’re just mad you didn’t think of it yourself.” Sam said as he sat beside him.

“That missile could have blown you to pieces!”

“What?!” You and Joaquin shouted, for two completely different reasons.

“That’s so cool,” Joaquin whispered. You hit him as you heard him.

“Sam, what the fuck?”

He shook his head. “It wasn’t like that.”

“It was exactly like that.”

“You nearly got blown up?!”

Sam shook his head, again. “No. Look, the point is, we’re all okay and the bad guys are gonna be dealt with. In the meantime, can someone please order, like, four pizzas. I’m starving.”

Joaquin nodded, pulling out his phone. “Lucky’s?”

Sam nodded as he stood, starting to remove his suit. “Yeah.”

You folded your arms and looked at the man who hated you most in the world. “And you? Are you okay?”

Bucky just nodded. “Oh, I’m just fine.”

“No, he’s not.” Sam pointed at him as he peeked out from the changing divider. “There’s a med kit under the desk.”

That was when you spotted the tear to his jacket, red blood mixing with blue leather.

“For god's sake.”

Bucky watched as you turned on your heel and went directly for the med kit. “I don’t need your help.”

You didn’t answer him. Just walked back over to him on the sofa and sat beside him.

“I don’t need your help.”

“Fuck you, you’re getting it. Now move.”

Bucky didn’t see much in the way of another choice. So, reluctantly, he turned so his back was towards you.

“You’re gonna need to take your jacket off.”

He looked down, peeling away at the zipper before pulling the jacket away from him.

You took a breath.

It was the first time in over a year, you’d be touching him. Even if it was to clean his cut.

Bucky felt his breath hitch in his chest as your fingers touched his back through the cut in his black t-shirt. The last time you’d touched him had been under a completely different circumstance.

“This might hurt,” your voice was softer than usual. Just loud enough for him to hear. Bucky hissed. “Sorry.”

“It’s…it’s okay.” Bucky’s voice, for the first time in over a year, was soft when he spoke to you. You watched his side profile for a moment before pressing a full cleaning pad against his cut.

His eyes closed for a moment, letting your touch soak into his skin.

Dabbing at the cut before taping it shut, you tidied the rest of the kit away. “That should do it.”

“Thanks,” Bucky shifted in his seat and for a moment, his soft gaze remained on you.

After a year of scowls, it felt too much. Within seconds you gave him a brief smile before standing and walking away.

“Pizza’s on the way.” Joaquin said as he walked back inside.

Sam appeared, fixing his shirt. “Great.”

For two hours, the scowl disappeared into a neutral zone. But somewhere between the end credits of the film and Sam mentioning the date you set him up on, the scowl reappeared.

And that soft moment between you and Bucky was like dust in the wind.

“You’re a goddamn asshole, did you know that?”

“You know what, so are you.” Bucky was sick and tired. “We wouldn’t even be in this position if it wasn’t for you-”

“For me?! Oh, puh-lease. If you’d just listened to me in the first place-”

“I had a plan!”

You paused and looked at Bucky. He was waiting for a response. “Oh, I’m sorry. You had a plan. Oh, well, that just makes everything so much better, doesn’t it?!”

“It was better than yours.”

“Really? And what part of your plan has an escape route from this hell hole?!”

“If you just give me a minute-”

You scoffed. “Give yourself a little more credit, Sergeant.”

Bucky glared at you. Before he could respond, Sam’s voice cracked over your comms. “If you two are done arguing like children, I’ve found you an escape plan.”

“Where? There’s no-”

“Take cover.”

Bucky watched as the shade from the small window grew bigger. Immediately reaching for you, he pulled a table behind you both as you crouched together on the ground.

As the dust settled, you both pushed the table and rubble from you, coughing as it swirled to get into your lungs. Bucky tried to help you up but you just swatted his hand away and stood up yourself.

“Don’t.” Was your only warning to him before you left him in the dust, quite literally.

Upon getting back, you avoided him at all costs and made a beeline for your room and bathroom. It took three rounds of shampoo to get all the dirt and grime out of your hair. But you let the hot water wash away the tension in your shoulders.

Which all came flooding back the minute you turned around in the quiet kitchen and found Bucky entering. He was freshly showered himself, fresh henley with the sleeves pulled to his elbow.

Any other time, you would have left.

But you were hungry and there wasn’t a chance in hell you’d be letting him rush you out of making something to eat.

Despite the silence, it was the loudest atmosphere between you both since you’d met. The harsher sounding slam of the kitchen draws and cupboards, the aggressive click of the kettle, the quick wash of plates and cutlery.

You were the first to lose patience. “Okay, what the fuck is your problem?”

“What’s my problem?”

“Yeah!”

“Asks the girl who can’t close a cutlery drawer in peace.”

“Don’t turn this back on me. I asked first.”

Bucky shook his head. “I don’t have a fucking problem.”

“Really? Because after the stunt you pulled today, I’d say you do.”

Bucky rolled his eyes. “The stunt I pulled?”

You groaned. “Do you really have to keep repeating everything I say?”

“The stunt I pulled saved our lives!”

“It got us trapped!”

“We got out!”

You tilted your head. “Oh, ‘we got out’, he says. What if Sam hadn’t shown up? What then, huh? Because I don’t seem to remember you having a plan for that.”

“I would have worked one out!”

You scoffed. “And what was so wrong with my plan?”

“We would have gotten caught. You hadn’t looked at the footage properly, again.”

“What the fuck do you mean again?”

“The lobsters-”

You held your hands up. “Oh, do forgive me for not knowing much about sea animals.”

“It’s a crustacean,” Bucky corrected before catching himself. “That’s not important. Look, it’s happened before.”

You groaned. “Once? You’re going off a one time thing? Seriously? Why don’t you trust me?!”

“I made that mistake the first time.”

You stood back, your fire settling but burning brighter than ever. “That is not fair.”

“No. No, what is not fair is having your emotions toyed with!”

“Jesus,” you walked away. But turned back. “How many times do I have to repeat myself until you believe me? I didn’t know who you were, Bucky!”

“And you just expect me to believe you?”

“No,” you shook your head. “But I do expect you to trust me. No matter what happened before, we’re still on the same team.”

“Maybe you are, but I’m not.”

You forced yourself to take a deep breath. “I swear, I didn’t know. Bucky,” you sighed and threw your arm out. “I’d been off grid for over a fucking decade! It wasn’t like I was kept up-to-date on Shield and their filing system!”

“So you just happened to miss one of the biggest man-hunts Shield ever saw, when you were working for them?”

“Yes!” you shouted. “I’m aware it sounds stupid but when you’ve got my history, it was easier for me to not watch the news 24/7! Jesus-” You stepped away, again. “No, you know what, believe whatever the fuck you want. You’re not gonna change your mind anyway.”

The next time you and Bucky spoke to each other was eleven weeks later.

“I don’t like him.”

That was all Bucky had said to you in the silence of the kitchen.

“What?” You turned from the food you were mixing together in the tupperware bowl.

“Rick. I don’t like him.”

You looked away from Bucky with a roll of your eyes. “His name is Nick, and what makes you think I value your opinion?”

“You asked Sam.”

You nodded, sucking the splattered sauce off your thumb. “Because Sam is my friend.”

“Fine.”

“Great.”

“Wonderful.”

Putting the meal back into the fridge, you closed the doors and paused for a moment.

“What don’t you like about him?”

Bucky looked up as you asked him your question. He seemed surprised you’d even asked.

“Forget it.” You said quickly as you turned away. But he answered anyway.

“He’s not good for you.”

You turned and looked back at him. “How do you know what’s good for me?”

There was a knowing look behind Bucky’s eyes. One you weren’t willing to acknowledge.

“You have to press him to show you affection in public.” Bucky told you. “You’re always the first to initiate contact. He doesn’t ask you follow up questions, or real questions. He calls you when he feels lonely-”

“Excuse-”

“And you don’t smile.”

That one hit you harder than you’d been expecting.

“You smile. But it’s not genuine. It’s forced, all the time. Even when you don’t notice…” I do. Bucky added to himself, silently.

“And how do you know what my real smile looks like?”

Bucky looked down at his own food. “I did see it…a long time ago.”

“A long time ago,” you laughed a little. “And whose fault is that?”

Bucky had hurt you. He knew that much. But the image of you standing in that office that day, just as he’d been telling Sam about the woman he’d met two nights before, wouldn’t leave him.

The betrayal. The hurt. The ignorance.

With you, he felt like himself for the first time in a long time. And all of a sudden, you were standing like a completely different person, introducing yourself as an Agent of Shield. He’d had agents sent to follow and watch his every move before, but someone to go as far as to sleep with him?

That was a new low.

“It wasn’t easy for me, either, you know. To see you walk in that day.” You were so tired of the fighting and yelling and secret-keeping. You were yet to explain your side of the story further than you ‘never lied’.

You laughed a little. “You know, I thought you were some kind maths teacher before you told me you worked for the Army. It explained the arm, and I didn’t think much else of it. Never even heard of The Winter Soldier until the day Sam said it.”

You shook your head. “I really thought we could have had something special before I realised you hated me. But it wasn’t my fault, Bucky. I didn’t know you were Shield, let alone that I’d be working with you.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Why didn’t you?” You counter, walking towards him a little. “You told me you were in the army. Which, yeah, I guess was kinda true. But why not just tell me who you were? Why keep secrets? Shit, I really saw myself falling for you after that night but when you saw me…you didn’t even give me a chance, Bucky. Do you know how much that hurt? Too fucking much. And now, out of fucking nowhere, you suddenly tell me that a guy I’m dating- the first guy I’ve dated since…and you tell me he’s no good for me.”

You knew your emotions were taking over, but you couldn’t help it. They’d been bottled up for so long, the extra tension in your bones seemed to have cracked each jar wide open.

“Why the fuck-”

Your emotional running-thoughts speech was cut short by Bucky’s lips suddenly being on yours.

“What was that for?” Was the first thing you asked as the kiss broke away.

“You were rambling. I couldn’t…” Bucky swallowed. “Think of…”

Your gaze was locked onto his. And in a whirlwind of emotions, you decided to kiss him. His hands tangled in your hair before he picked you up and you wrapped your legs around his waist.

Similar to one of your first kisses, this one was emotionally charged. Not only was there a wanting behind it, but also a need. A need to make up for lost time. A need for taste, touch and memories.

You made a small noise as he kissed you and you tried to pull him closer to you. Eventually, he sat you on the counter-top where you trapped him against you in case he tried to move away.

Kissing down the column of your neck, you sighed, “James.”

Sucking at your pulsepoint, ultimately leaving a reminder of him for later, your nails ran down the back of his neck. Admiring his handy work for a moment, his heated gaze locked back onto yours. You watched as his tongue swiped across his lower lip.

Finally kissing you again, you kissed back, wanting more.

Which he was more than happy to provide.

By the time you woke up the next morning, all the tension was gone from your bones. The pillows beneath your head were soft, and so was the bedding.

Except, where there should have been someone lay next to you, there was nothing but an empty space.

You were still in his room. After a rather heated make-out session in the kitchen, Bucky had asked you whose room to go to. You had said his, considering it was closer. That much, and a little more, you could remember.

Holding the covers against your body, you turned over to finally find him.

Sitting on the edge of the bed by your legs, Bucky was sitting at a hunched ninety degree angle. And from the expression on his face, he looked…remorseful.

“Hey,” you said in the quiet of the room, already worried. Did he hate you again? After everything the night before…did it mean nothing?

Bucky looked at you for a second, the guilt on his face even more prominent despite the fact he tried to hide it with a smile. You hated the forced smile almost as much as the fake one.

“Is everything-”

“I’m so sorry.”

It felt like someone had dropped a boulder in your stomach. You should have prepared yourself for the worst before you spoke; found a way to mask the hurt and bury it deep down. Agree with him that it meant nothing and move on, even if your mind screamed the opposite.

“I’ve been such an asshole.”

You stopped. Where was he going? He was right. But where was he going with it?

“I should have let you explain. I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions so quickly. I shouldn’t have been such an asshole to you.” Bucky rubbed a hand across his jaw. “I was hurt and rather than be an adult about it, I lashed out on you.” He looked directly at you. “I’m so sorry.”

There was something in your heart that grew. Gratefulness at the fact he wasn’t about to tell you he regretted the night before, gratefulness that he was apologising for being such an asshole, care for…him; the way he was looking at you, the way he was holding himself.

Not knowing what to say, you did the next best thing. Shuffling down the bed, which confused Bucky for a moment – you could have left or punched him. But you didn’t. Instead, you hugged him. It took him a moment, but he hugged you back before he melted into you when he realised you’d settled against him.

“We all forget ourselves sometimes. But thank you for apologising.” You pressed a kiss to his shoulder before resting your chin in the same spot to look at him.

His eyes were always so much more blue in the mornings.

“And I’m sorry, too.”

Bucky felt more guilt and confusion. “Why are you sorry?”

“I could have forced you to sit down and listen to me. I could have asked about who I was working with beforehand and given you a heads-up. And I could have followed you out of the office directly after. Maybe then we wouldn’t have been at odds for the last year and a bit.”

Bucky ran his hand up and down your arm that rested on his chest and nodded a little, agreeing with your final statement. “Sixteen months, three weeks and four days.”

“You kept count?”

Bucky nodded a little before meeting your gaze. “You were the best thing to happen to me in years. I didn’t see anything else for me to do other than count the days since.”

You tilted your head. “That…is very sweet. But now you know why I thought you were a maths teacher when we first met.”

Bucky chuckled. “I guess so.”

A quiet atmosphere settled over you both for a moment. “I mean it when I say I’m sorry. And I don’t know what I can do to make up for it but I want to start.”

You smiled and kissed him softly. “Staying in bed with me is a start.”

Bucky smiled and lowered his head for a moment, kissing your wrist before pressing his lips to yours.

Long after you forgave him, Bucky was still finding ways to make up for not only being an ass but also lost time.

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