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imaginesmai · 5 years

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Alex Hogh -Friends don’t love each other

Requested by anon, I hope you like it!

Plot: when feelings and sex are mixed, nothing good can come out of it. Alex and you have been doing it for a while, and the bubble if about to explode.

Warnings: sex (that’s the only thing I write about lately or it’s just me?), rough smut TO THE POINT WHERE READER HAS TO ASK HIM TO STOP; don’t worry though, Alex is a cute baby and solves it all.

Alex kicked the door open with his foot, and pressed you back harshly into the wall of your living room. It took a few messy kisses and rushed words to make him close it again. The neighbours would be probably hearing from you anyway that night, but it was better if the door was closed. You smiled when his mouth was on you once more, his hands touching everything that was on their reach.

Finally, they settled on your wrists, and put them up until your arms were fully stretched and you couldn’t move. His grip was tight and unrelenting, sure to leave light bruises on your skin. Like those on your neck from your make out session on the pub fifteen minutes ago. You would have time in the morning for regrets.

You stared up at him with a glint of teasing and challenge in your eyes, attempting to win a battle that was already lost. Alex was angry, jealous and incredibly horny. And you loved that.

It wasn’t as if you were a couple. No, just two friends that hooked up almost every weekend when you went out with your friends. Always the same routine; making each other jealous, pissing two other people off because you had been flirting with them for nothing and fantastic jealous sex on your apartment.

The best kind was when it was you who flirted with another man. He got so, so mad that you had to stay all Sunday in bed because you couldn’t move. That was what had happened that night.

“You’re not gonna ask me if I want to invite you over for a drink?” you asked against his lips. The corners of his mouth turned up into his classic infuriating little smirk that had all the girls on his feet; you weren’t an exception.

“Shut up, Y/N.”

His light blue eyes glittered with a teasing mischief that drenched you with a mixture of anger and anticipation. One wild strand of hair had fallen off his perfect man bun, making him even more gorgeous. You tried to pull your arms free so you could put it back on its place, but he was far too strong. Two more tries and the knowing smile on his face let you know that he wasn’t going to allow that, so you whined and pouted.

His smile only widened as he watched you struggle against him, his perfect white teeth peaked out from behind his lips. A wave of heat rushed to your cheeks, and you fought to not let it show. Friends didn’t make each other blush. Alex slid his foot forward, slipping his knee between your legs to keep you still better, as he leaned into you.

“Tell me, were you having fun, peach?” he spat at you, jealousy lacing his words. You rolled your eyes at the nickname. Friends didn’t put each other nicknames, you had told him so many times, but he still called you that.

Alex’s face was so close to yours that you could feel his breath on your lips as he let out a small chuckle. He tilted his head to the side and brushed his lips against the skin of your neck.

“Not gonna answer now? You had plenty of words for that man. What was his name again? ‘Cunt’?”

“Kurt, his name was Kurt” you stopped talking when he pressed his parted lips to your neck for the tenth time that night, casing your breath to hitch in your throat. “Maybe I’ll call him. I bet he doesn’t have so much reservation in fucking me right.”

“Oh, peach” he put his face away and let out a sarcastic laugh. “You don’t know what you’ve signed yourself for the night.”

The stupid cute laugh that left his lips made you huff in annoyance. He shook his head and brushed his nose against yours. After another exasperated sigh, you bit your lip and struggled again, wanting to kiss those lips and take the control away form him.

Squeezing your thighs to alleviate the heat that was growing between your legs was useless, because Alex’s thigh was in between. He locked eyes with you and let your wrists free, keeping contact with your body as he slid his hands down to your hips.

Within two seconds, your arms were around his shoulders and pulling at his hair. Your lips locked once again, and you nipped at his; hard enough that he had to pull back slightly with a grunt, his eyes burning into you.

“You think you’re in charge?” his eyes were shinning with a flame that you had never seen before. However, you trusted him; and knew that the night was going to be marvellous.

While you looked at each other, your hips still grounded back an forth on his thigh, repeatedly. Jolts of pleasure shot through you each time your pussy made contact with it, and you weren’t sure you were going to last much longer. To be honest, you had been drenched since the moment Alex exited the pub with you hot on his heels, a poor excuse leaving both of your mouths.

There was no time for you to get to the bedroom, and soon you found yourself with your legs parted and jacket long gone, while Alex fumbled with the lock of his belt.

When he finished, he placed his hands on the small skin that showed from your top, and pulled you closer to him. His hand felt hot on your stomach as they slid up, taking the piece of cloth with them. He pulled the fabric over your head and tossed it the floor, where his trousers and sneakers laid in a pool. Alex let his eyes wander over your newly exposed skin, eyes settling on your chest. However, it was not the kind of look he used to give you. There was something more on his eyes, and you didn’t like a bit the small butterflies on your stomach. Friends didn’t stare at each other, they just fucked.

“Do I have to call Kurt? He might-“

He cut off your sentence with his lips, sliding his tongue along your bottom lip until you allowed him access. His hand cupped your cheek as he darted his tongue into your mouth, and you ignored the flutter of your heart when he did that.

One curious hand travelled down the curve of your neck, tracing your collarbone and descending to cup your right breast. Alex caressed your nipple softly and you arched into his touch.

“I don’t think you deserve this” he whispered against your lips, smiling when you let out a moan.

“Come on, I don’t want to play” you whined. “Just fuck me already.”

You didn’t wait for an answer and drove into his lips. Alex moaned against them when you pulled at his hair. Still, he set the pleasure aside, ignored the painful boner between his legs and took two steps back.

He narrowed his eyes at you, staring shamefully at the sight in front of him. Your hair was messy and the ponytail he had been pulling at when you had sucked him off in that bathroom was undone. Lips swollen and red from kissing and pulling, and cheeks with a faint pinkish colour. You had your front uncovered, your bare breasts rising and falling as you took in short ragged breaths.

The moment might had not seem romantic for anyone, as he was palming himself through his black boxers and you were asking him to fuck you. Still, it felt different from the other times you had fucked. For the both of you.

“Turn around” he muttered. Alex took your hand in his and pulled you up. You stumbled into his chest, but recovered quickly when his hand gripped your ass.

“W-What?”

“Turn around, bend over and pull your pants down, peach” he took another step backwards. “Come on, I don’t have all day. I’ve seen them faster.”

Your cheeks turned red for a different reason that night. You thought about the brunette that had been on his arms the week before, when he and Marco had been hanging out with two sisters. You had been so mad at him that you had left his back full of angry long red lines from your nails.

Lost in your thoughts and jealousy, you didn’t notice his annoyed eyes, only when he gripped your arm and pushed you against the table. It cracked under both of your weight, and was pushed a few inches forward when he pressed himself against your back. You felt his dick hitting your core, the only thing between them the thin layer of your panties and the stupid pants.

“Are you deaf, peach?” he growled against your ear. “Does that ‘Cunt’ have filled you with those stupid compliments?”

“Fuck you, Alex”

“Yeah, I’m gonna fuck you”

In a quick movement, your pants were on your ankles and your panties on your knees. Alex’s fingers brushed over you slick folds, but not where you needed them the most, making you squirm beneath him. You bucked anxiously your hips, as much as you could move them, under him as he dipped his fingers between your folds. The feather light contact with your lips was enough to make you moan.

“Damn, Y/N” he groaned as he swirled his fingers around in your juices, soft and needy whimpers leaving your lips. “You’re-You’re dripping. Is that for me? Or for that pathetic excuse of a man? Who has you this wet, peach?”

He slowly removed his hand, his eyes drifting from your face to your back. Alex got lost for a moment in the small moles and marks on it. Not so long ago, he had woken up after a night of rough sex with you; while you opened your eyes and woke up fully, he had counted every small detail of your back, and found it perfect. But friends don’t admire each other, so he kept his little discovery to himself. You were friends, friends who messed around with each other.

That was that.

So, he recovered quickly and pushed his boxers down. You quite literally begged him to fuck you already, yet he cut you with a hard slap on your ass.

“Shut up or I’m putting that mouth to a better use” he touched your lips with his hardness. “And you’re not going to cum then, alright peach?”

“Please, please, Alex” you cried out as he moved his length up and down your slit. “I-I, don’t tease me. Just-Please, fuck me.”

“That’s what you get for being a brat, Y/N” he put all of your hair on the hand that wasn’t holding your wrist and pulled your head back. “Do I have to remind you your words? About-“

“I’m sorry!” you snapped. “I’m-I’m, I didn’t-Just, Alex, please, I-“

The tip of his dick poised at your entrance, and with a hard thrust he pushed it into you. You let out a long and loud moan when you felt him filling you in a way only he could. His lips parted as if he was going to say something else, because, honestly, the moment was perfect for that. Alex clenched his jaw shut and shook his head, deciding against it; he was going to fuck you, you were going to make him leave and he would be in your house again the next day, repeating the routine. It was not worthy.

He pulled is hips back, agonizingly slow, until the tip of his dick was almost all the way out; then, slammed back into you in one harsh motion. He repeated the rhythm over and over again, each time pulling out almost completely and burying himself to the hilt. Each time, faster and faster. Each time, thinking about that man who had been monopolizing you the whole night.

Alex pounded into you while you cried out his name and begged him to go faster, his powerful hips bruising yours. The hand that was holding your wrists had also enough force to complete the bruising frame he had started there before. He was so focused on forgetting about the feelings he had been growing over you, that he didn’t notice how your walls clenched around him and how the time passed between the two of you.

“You like this, peach?” he said between short breaths against your ear. “You-damn, Y/N, you’re so fucking-yeah, difficult. You’re so-so complicated.”

The sweet whisper of your name that came after his words made you scream his to the top of your lungs as you crashed over the edge. Pleasure filled every nerved of your body and you swore you shook from the, probably, most powerful orgasm you had ever had.

But he didn’t notice.

You tried to tell him to slow down a bit, to give you a break. Understanding that he hadn’t finished yet, you decided to wait for a bit; until the ache between your legs made tears appear in your eyes. You called his name a few times as you felt the oxygen leaving your lungs, anxiety filling it instead.

If it was because of the pain or anxiety, you didn’t know, but you let out something similar to a sob. And he, of course, heard it.

“W-Wh-What?” he managed to say as he slowed down. Still, he didn’t pull out.

“I need-I-I can’t b-breath” you cried out. “Please, pl-please, just-t pull out”

Alex hadn’t done something as quickly as moving away from you. He had a terrified expression on his face, one you had only see him when something really bad had happened. Without his grip, you fell to the ground slowly and gripped your knees tightly, hiding your face between them.

He froze and opened his mouth as a fish out of the water, watching every shaky breath you tried to take; and his world came crashing down on him. You had done that before, much rougher and harder, and you both had been more than okay with it. Maybe that night was different, because you were facing things that you didn’t want to face. It felt different, and that suffocated you to a whole new level.

A huge wave of guilt hit Alex and in a second he was on the floor, his hands up without touching you. Finally, he put one of your shoulder.

“Shit-Hey, peach…” he tried to smile when you looked up at him between the tears, his own eyes glossy. “Did…Did I hurt you? Was I-Was I too rough? Damn, I’m, I’m so sorry Y/N.”

You wanted to answer him and put his mind at ease; it had not been that bad, it had not been his fault, but your stupid reaction. Because you had realised, just as he put you over the moon, that no one could ever do that to you, and that you didn’t want to spend your life with anyone that wasn’t him. Yet the lump in your throat didn’t let you speak, so you closed your eyes and felt as he pulled you closer.

Alex placed the other hand on your hip and dragged you on top of him. He hugged you and held you while you cried, mumbling thousands of apologies and letting out a few tears too, the guilt swallowing him whole. When you stopped crying, he locked eyes with you once more.

“Y/N?” he said softly. There was pure panic in his blue eyes, and his hands were shaking slightly against your body. “I’m so sorry, I-I didn’t-Oh my god, I promise-“

“It’s okay” you gave him a small smile. “It was nothing, Alex. We do this kind of things, right?”

He was looking at you with so much concern that your heart jumped in your ribcage, and you nearly lost your breath again. Alex lifted one hand and brush the mess of hair from your cheek, before setting on your cheek.

“Still” he sighed. “I’m sorry, peach. I just-I was so angry, that guy was all over you, and I got so mad when he-I don’t know, I guess I wasn’t myself. I’m sorry.”

“I know” you gave his palm a small kiss, and thought your next words carefully. “But… we’re, well, we’re not a couple, you know? So, hooking up with other people, you know, it’s fine, right?”

You were silently asking him if he was okay with that, if he liked the ‘deal’ of friend you had, but he didn’t get it that way. He thought you were reproaching him getting jealous when you were just, you know, friends. Alex looked down and let his hand fall, like a puppy that had been kicked out or a kid who had been told harsh words. You forgot about the previous events and decided that, maybe, it was time for to take the step forwards.

“We should probably end this” you muttered. At your words, he looked up with the most hurt expression you had ever seen. “This-This is hurting us both, and we don’t deserve that. We’re old enough to know-“

“I love you” he blurted out, surprising even himself at his sudden confession. Your eyes went wider than what he had ever seen, and your breathing hitch. He broke eye contact with you looking down to your white carpet.

When you didn’t say anything just stood up from the ground, he thought it was over. It was over for good and because of him, because he couldn’t let his mouth shut. Whatever it was, whatever kind of friends you were, it was over. Tears threatened to fall down, but were interrupted by your hand pulling his head up and making him look at you.

You stood next to him, on your feet and a nervous smile on your face.

“I didn’t- It wasn’t the best position to talk about it” you let out a giggle as your cheeks turned red. “I, what I was going to say, was that, maybe we can-I don’t know, just if you want to… we could like, you know, be in a proper relationship? Or not! Whatever you prefer! I just thought that, if…”

Alex looked at you with his mouth open, as you rambled about having a relationship with him. Your eyes moved to the floor to him, then to another different spot and to your feet, no more than five seconds in the same place. Memories of you laughing loudly beside him with his friends played on his mind; you sprawled out on his bed as you played video-games, you making him laugh until his stomach hurt. Pictures of the five years that you had known each other flashed in front of his eyes.

He blinked and focused again when something wet hit his cheek, and he realised that you were crying in front of him.

“…because I really love you, you know? L-Like in love with you. But I don’t-If you said that because you were desperate and you didn’t w-want to break up, that’s…that’s fine.”

“Well” he let out a small laugh and pushed himself to his feet. Alex gripped your waist and pulled you closer, until your faces were inches apart. He wiped the tears with his thumbs and traced your lips with the right one. “Friends don’t love each other, right?”

With that, he kissed you sweet and slow, like he had been wanting to since the begging of the night. And you smiled against his lips, because friends didn’t love each other, but you were more than okay with that.

“Bend over and pull your pants down” & “That’s what you get for being a brat” From my prompt list Smut

Want to know more about me? Here is my Masterlist! Feedback is always appreciated!!

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sherrybaby14 · 5 years

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The Option X

Summary: Bucky comes to save you.

Warnings: Violence, death, little bit of sexy time, drugs

A/N: We’re doing a little bit of a body swap in this chapter. You’re not “Peach”.

The drive home went by in a blur, relying solely on muscle memory since he was lost in his thoughts. Was this a trap? There were enemies everywhere, it was stupid to get comfortable and let his guard down.

When he parked he ran straight to the front door, taking the keys out with a slight tremor in his hand. He needed to see her. She would calm him down. Always did.

He walked inside. She didn’t come to greet him. His blood pressure flared as he looked around the empty kitchen.

“Y/N?” He walked over by the couch, almost expecting to see her ghost. “Y/N?”

Something was wrong. Very wrong. She was gone, a phantom all around him. His rage started to boil over.

“Steve?” She poked her head from the stairs.

Relief flooded his veins. She was here. She was safe.

“Oh God.” Her smile went to a frown. “Are you alright? What happened?”

She ran toward him. He opened his arms and she flung herself against his chest. He held her as close as he could while rubbing her back, placing kisses on the top of her head.

“Nothing.” He shut his eyes, unsure why the panic had come over him. “I thought…I don’t know what I thought.”

“I’m sorry.” She lifted her head. “I should have been at the door to greet you. You didn’t think I…left did you?”

Steve frowned, not wanting to lie, but unsure what the truth was.

“You didn’t do anything wrong Doll.” He turned, sliding his arm around her shoulders.

“We’ve been together for over a year. You don’t need to worry about that anymore.” She leaned against him as they walked into the kitchen. “It’s been so long since you went into the office. I was working on something upstairs, I didn’t hear you come in. I didn’t mean to worry you.”

“It’s not you.” Steve squeezed her tight one more time before letting his arm slide and getting some water. “Something weird happened today. It’s kept me on edge, made me feel off.”

“Well, can I help?” She sat at the table. “You can talk to me about anything.”

“I know Doll.” Steve stared into her face and a warmth spread through him. Being near her made him feel better. “Sorry if I scared you, I just love you so much. I don’t know what I would do if anything happened to you.”

“Happened to me?” She tilted her head. “In our house? Am I in danger?”

“No.” Steve moved to the table, he reached in his back pocket before sitting down. “I got this weird message. I can’t figure out what it means. My brain got the better of me.”

He slid the paper over.

“What are the coordinates?” She didn’t look up as she read.

Steve couldn’t stop the smile coming to his face, she was quick. He was the only one who realized how intelligent she was and the last year Y/N had really blossomed.

“Europe, close to Romania.” Steve hoped she saw something he was missing.

“But not in Romania?” She glanced over the paper at him.

“No. It’s the weirdest thing. Technically it’s not a country. It’s independent land space. Which I didn’t even know was a thing.” Steve leaned forward, studying her face. “Came in over a satellite phone. Coordinates from the transmission are about thirty miles away, same independent space.”

“Captain America. Assistance needed. Zero hundred hours GMT. Kept woman.” She read the line over and over again. “Did you do any research?”

“Hard to research a country that doesn’t exist.” Steve scratched his head. “But that area, people go missing. Rumors of human trafficking, that sort of thing. Nothing documented though. Satellite imaging shows those coordinates are a mansion, with armed guards.”

“So what are you thinking?” She set the message down and looked at him with concern.

“I was thinking that it was a threat against you.” That line kept woman bothered him to his core.

“I’m safe.” She reached out and squeezed his hand. “I don’t think it has anything to do with me. I think there’s a girl in that house someone wants you to rescue.”

“Or it’s a ruse to draw me away from you?” Steve pulled up his hand and kissed her fingers.

“You sound paranoid.” She tilted her head as she bit her lip. “Any idea who it’s from? It’s not addressed to the Avengers. It’s straight to you.”

“No clue.” Steve sighed. “It might be a joke, but the satellite image, the guns they were carrying. I’m not sure what to think.”

“Are you going to go?”

“No. I’d have to leave now to make it there on time. Tony isn’t keen on the Avenger’s playing world police.” Steve set her hand down. “He said if I wanted to he’d give me a jet and a small team since it’s technically not a country. I don’t like the time crunch either. It feels like a trap. I want recon.”

“So, not leaving tonight?” She stood up from the table.

“No Doll.” Steve walked over to her. “I missed you too much to leave you again.”

Steve didn’t want to scare her, but he still had a sinking suspicion she wasn’t safe, that the message was about her. Kept woman. That was his lady to a T, literally.

“I’ll look into it though. On my own terms.” He brought his hand to her neck and pulled her close as he kissed the top of her head.

The plan settled Steve’s nerves. This way he could keep his girl safe and not have the guilty conscious for ignoring people who wanted his help. She had to come first. Always.

“Are you hungry?” She looked up at him.

“Yes.” He pressed his mouth against hers and reached under her ass, hoisting her in the air as she wrapped her legs around his hips. “But not for food.”

Her eyes flashed with lust. Steve set her on the kitchen table. She bunched the skirt of her dress around her waist as Steve undid his belt and pushed his pants down. He needed to be inside her. She grabbed the back of his neck and pulled him down for a kiss. He pulled his cock out without pushing his pants down past his thighs and rubbed it down her slit. She was wet for him, his perfect girl.

A gasp escaped her lips when he pushed inside of her with ease. Nothing in the entire universe felt as good as her, was as good as her. Nothing would ever hurt her. Steve would die the most painful death over and over again if it meant keeping her safe and happy.

She was his everything.

The thoughts mixed with how good she felt made Steve’s cock twitch and grow even harder. He wasn’t going to last long, but he knew her body better than she did and slammed deep inside her, stilling and rocking his hips in the way that drew the orgasm from her. ��

It didn’t take long until she was shaking in his arms, eyes shut and lips parted. A gorgeous mess of desire and satisfaction. Steve grunted as his cock exploded inside of her, coating her walls in his juices and claiming her as his own once more.

He put his hands on the table on both sides of her as his head fell forward. Both of them took a minute to steady their breathing before Steve pulled out. He kissed her forehead as he tucked himself back into his pants and went to get her a towel.

Over the past year a few things about their relationship had changed, but she still wore the dresses for him and never any undergarments. That rule was permanent.

“I think that broke a record,” Y/N called from the kitchen. “You waited a full ten minutes after you got home.”

“Was someone getting anxious?” Steve walked back in with a towel and handed it to her, matching her teasing tone.

“Maybe.” She cleaned herself up while Steve went over to the fridge.

“Do you want to order delivery for dinner? I don’t feel like cooking tonight.” There were some menus on the fridge. “Maybe Chinese? Pizza? I don’t care.”

“It looks like some letters in this message have weird ticks on them? Did you notice that?” Y/N was holding the paper again.

“What do you mean?” Steve grabbed two menus and went over to her. “Maybe we could get an Asian pizza. That’s a thing right? Like a Thai pizza?”

“At first I thought it was a problem with whatever printed it out, but the ‘P’ in Captain looks off.” She ignored him.

“I’ve spent all day obsessing over that thing.” Steve started scanning the pizza menu for specialty ones. “I’ll look at it tomorrow with fresh eyes.”

“This is going to sound weird, but does the word ‘punk’ mean anything to you?” She looked up from the message.

Steve’s eyes went wide and he dropped both menus, no longer caring about food.

~~~

It was time. Bucky was on the ridge, staring down at the complex. He knew sending for help was a long shot, one that didn’t pay off.

The mission was simple: get the girl, kill anyone who gets in your way. She didn’t need Bucky, she needed the soldier. That was who was coming from her.

Bucky shut his eyes and pictured her face. Get the girl. Kill anyone who gets in your way. For those seconds his eyes were shut he let his emotions surface. She wasn’t the girl, she was his girl. She was in danger. Those feelings wouldn’t help her though and they would comprise his mission. So he buried them.

“I love you,” he whispered the words to nobody before opening his eyes.

Get the girl. Kill anyone in your way.

He grabbed the remote detonator and set off the first charge. Fire lit up the sky on the south end of the house.

The first wave of guards ran to the explosion. The soldier stood up and started down the ridge, eyes on the blast.

There were at least ten men in the area. He hit the second charge.

“AHHH!” Shrieks filled the air as the sky went orange again.

Sixty-nine enemies remained.

He stalked toward the house in the shadows, the screams of the men who weren’t killed on impact when unanswered. There were seven men at the back of the house, too scared to offer their fellow’s assistance for fear of another bomb.

Rifle first. The soldier lined up the shot. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. None of them had a chance to scream before their bodies hit the grass.

Sixty-two enemies to go.

“COVER THE PERIMETER!” A man on a headset ran out of the house with a trail of others behind him.

These ones seemed smarter than their fallen comrades, actually arming themselves with their weapons. There were too many to pick off. He needed a weak point to break inside.

It was time for charge three. He hit the remote. BOOM! Another orange blast. Everyone’s eyes went toward it, but nobody ran this time. The soldier went to the guard on the end, he slid the knife into his jugular.

The one next to him noticed and tried to fire, but Bucky swung the dying man’s body and used it as a shield. Then he reached out and yanked the gun out of the other man’s hand, blowing him away first before grabbing his body for shield number two.

“IT’S ONE MAN!” Someone yelled.

There was lots of yelling, but the Soldier knew how to tune it out.

They were charging him, but none stood a chance. One by one he took them out, going on auto-pilot. A bullet grazed by him and he ducked, there was strength in numbers. He imagined more were pouring from outside the house.

He head-butted the next man who came at him and a bit of blood dripped over his eyes. The soldier wasn’t sure who it belonged too.

Then he heard it. Screaming. Of the painful variety.

“MORE! MORE!”

The group of men seemed to change direction as bullets flew through the air. Killing the enemy wasn’t the mission. Getting the girl was.

Now the back door was unguarded and he was no longer the point of attention he walked right inside.

BUZZ! A bullet whirled by his head. He reached down to his pants and pulled out one of the pistols. Click. The interior trigger man hit the floor with a thud.

Another appeared behind him and fired over his dead friend. The soldier grabbed a knife he had on his other leg and tossed it, the sound of it sliding into the man’s chest was quieter than the gun going off.

A third enemy appeared. Get the girl. He raised his weapon, but the soldier jerked forward. He grabbed the man’s arm and bent it backward, snapping the bone in two above the elbow.

“AHHHH!” The man screamed in pain.

“Where is the girl?” No emotion was in his voice.

“Fuck you.” The man was sweating.

The Soldier pushed him to his knees, but not before he swung with heel up, shattering the cap.

“Where is the girl?” He stood over him.

The man screamed in pain, unable to use his broken arm to hug his broken knee.

The Soldier didn’t have time for this. He pulled the trigger on the pistol, nailing the man in the gut. One of the most painful places. He screamed louder.

The sounds of someone approaching made the soldier turn and fire two shots, killing two more approaching enemies.

“The girl?” He could inflict significantly more pain if needed.

“Upstairs.” The man cried, red in his teeth. “They keep them upstairs. All the way upstairs.”

Click. The man was put out of his misery.

The sounds of fighting outside were growing louder. Men screaming and running to join the battle. By the time he reached the staircase, he’d only had to kill one more person.

He climbed, prepared to attack anyone who got in his way. Certain there would be more guards.

When he neared the top, three floors up the first bullet were fired at him. The angle made it difficult with the aerial advantage of his opponent. He took cover, but would never get a clear shot.

So he grabbed one of the grenades, pulled the pin and tossed it up the steps. The five-second delay was followed by another scream, but no more bullets.

He climbed again, jumping through the smoke, hole in the floor, and dead body. It was silent up here, the fighting still in the distance.

Door number one. He pushed it open to see a sleeping woman. Wrong one. He left the room and went to the second one. Empty bed.

The hall was lined with doors. He opened each of them, about half were filled with sleepers, but none the one that was his mission. Still, he kept cool. Nothing had changed. Get the girl, kill anyone in your way.

He opened the next door. There she was, slumped over in a man’s arm. He was dressed differently than the others, an expensive suit, grey hair. A gun was in hand, but it wasn’t pointed at the Soldier. It was pointed at the girl.

“She’s worth a lot to you.” He smiled. “But you don’t know who you’re….”

CLICK. Kill anyone in your way. A tiny red dot was in the man’s forehead as he started to fall to the floor. The soldier ran forward and caught the falling girl.

Holding her made something snap. He couldn’t hold back any longer.

“Peach, what did they do to you?” Bucky fell on the floor, cradling her against him as he pulled off the face mask.

She was wearing a small black dress with thin straps. Nothing else. She was breathing. He ran his hand down her hand and pressed his lips to her. Unresponsive. He turned her arms and saw them. Track marks by the elbow. She wasn’t coming to anytime soon.

Tears stung his eyes. How could he let this happen to her? It was his job to keep her safe and he failed. He would spend the rest of his life making it up to her though. But they weren’t out of danger yet.

The fighting outside had grown quiet. Bucky assumed the dead body on the floor belonged to the leader of this operation. It would be easier to sneak out than it was to sneak in.

“Almost free Peach.” Bucky scooped her up.

Her head fell back since she was dead weight in his arms. He sidestepped through the doorway into the hall. Bucky had to stay on guard and holding her this way wasn’t going to cut it.

He rolled her so that she was over his shoulder, her head dangling down his back. He wrapped an arm around her stomach and pulled a gun in his other hand.

He started for the stairs when he heard a footstep. He swung around and raised his gun. Peach let out a small groan at the movement.

“Bucky?” Steve Rogers stood in the middle of the hall, his hands raised. “It was you.”

Seeing him was like staring into the past, a movie long forgotten. When the attention shifted outside Bucky assumed he arrived, but now he didn’t know what to say.

“Come home.” Steve stepped forward. “Let me help you. You don’t have to run and hide any longer.”

“I am home.” Bucky swallowed. “If I’m with her.”

The features relaxed on Steve’s face. Almost like he understood exactly what Bucky meant.

“If you need help again, call.” Steve nodded.

Bucky returned the response. His friend was the first to turn around. It made Bucky’s heart clench, a part of him wanting this reunion. But too much had happened, they were different people and he wasn’t ready. And his attentions were needed elsewhere.

With a heavy heart Bucky turned and headed down the stairs, toward his future.

#Bucky x reader #Bucky barnes #Bucky fanfic #Marvel fanfic #Long fanfic #winter solider imagine #winter solider x reader #winter solider fanfiction

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180abroad · 5 years

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Days 165-167: More Munich (Food, Beer, & Art)

After two long and draining day trips out of Munich--and a short but even more daunting trip to Dachau on the horizon--we decided to sleep in and take things slow. Apart from the aforementioned Dachau trip, we'd be spending our last three days in Munich experiencing its sunnier side of food, beer, and art.

For the first day, we had booked a guided tour of the Viktualienmarkt, the city's world-famous outdoor food market that we'd visited on our introductory walking tour. We’ve seen plenty of old food markets in the towns and cities we’ve visited, but they tend to be a little intimidating to enter as a tourist--especially if you're like me and don't know much about cooking to begin with.

Now, we would get shown around the food market by a knowledgeable local and experience a curated tasting of some traditional Bavarian fare.

We met our guide at the New Town Hall in Marienplatz, and he turned out to be a friendly college student doing tours as a side gig. We learned that we were actually the only two people booked for the tour. We held out hope that someone might join us at the last minute, but nope--we'd be getting a private tour.

Some people might have loved that right off the bat, but we weren't those people. Remember how glad we were to have just missed the same fate on our trip to Connemara back in Ireland? We were a little nervous that it would be awkward with just the three of us, but our guide seemed a little awkward about it too, so we all just gave ourselves a break and rolled with it.

Our first stop was for a traditional Bavarian breakfast of white sausages (weisswurst). They're thick, pallid, rubbery, and frankly a little intimidating. But they're also absolutely delicious. The key is that you have to slice through the casings and peel them off the sausage before you eat them. This does nothing to improve the visual aspect, but such petty concerns evaporate with the first bite.

Weisswurst aren't smoked or seasoned, which gives them a delightfully fresh and delicate flavor. That's also why they're considered a breakfast food--before refrigeration was invented, they had to be eaten right after they were made.

Keeping with Bavarian tradition, we ate the sausages with sweet mustard, fresh pretzels, and a tall glass of weissbier. (I've never been a big fan of mustard, but this sweet mustard was a revelation.) It was a rich, heavy meal, and our guide told us that this is mainly eaten on special occasions--like Sunday brunch or an early get-together with friends.

Thankfully, the rest of our stops weren't nearly as filling.

Our next stop was for some fresh-squeezed juice. They had a fairly normal range of tropical fruit juices like mango, grapefruit, and peach, but they also had some more intimidating options like avocado juice.

Next, our guide took us into a stall run by a local biodynamic farm, where we chatted with the proprietor and sampled some of their wares. A lot of the biodynamic stuff is based on astrology and other weird mysticism, but there was some interesting things as well. They grow their crops from "ancient seeds," which are strains of fruits and vegetables that haven't been breed into bland homogeneity. Their produce came in all sorts of weird shapes and colors that would immediately qualify them for rejection at a typical supermarket. But I wouldn't be surprised if the proprietor was right in her assertion that they are more flavorful and possibly even more nutritious.

According to the proprietor, "stronger foods make stronger people."

The stall also sold a variety of preserves, sauces, and even ointments. To be honest, it felt a little like being back at an argan oil "pharmacy" in Morocco. But I was still suffering from bug bites I'd gotten in Prague, plus the wasp sting in Nuremberg the day before, so I bought an ointment advertised for bites and skin irritation. I don't know if it actually helped, but it smelled nice.

Next was a stand selling an intimidating variety of olives and pickles. Jessica and I both decided to try a "pepper pickle," which was surprisingly spicy but extraordinarily juicy and flavorful--genuinely one of our most memorable food experiences of the entire trip.

Our penultimate stop in the Viktualienmarkt was a dairy goods stall, where we sampled a cheese platter. The first three cheeses were local: one fresh cheese, one aged cheese, and one floral cheese with various herbs and flowers mixed in. The young cheese tasted a bit like gouda, the aged cheese tasted more like a chewy, crumbly cheddar, and the floral cheese had an earthy, nutty flavor.

The fourth cheese was a Dutch wasabi cheese, which I didn't hate quite as much as I'd expected to. The fattiness of the cheese cut most of the wasabi's spiciness, but I just don't like the flavor of wasabi.

The last sample was a Bavarian cheese spread called obatzda. Along with the weisswurst and pepper pickle, the obatzda was one of the stand-out discoveries of the tour. Everyone has their own signature recipe, but it generally involves mixing soft cheeses like camembert with paprika and other spices, plus a softener like butter, cream cheese, or even beer. Like many traditional foods (such as Lebkuchen), it was invented out of necessity for finding a way to turn scraps into something tasty and nutrient-dense.

As we left the Viktualienmarkt, we made our final stop for desert at a local bakery just across the street from the market. There, we got to try a local delicacy called a schmaltznudel--a big flat sugar doughnut with a thin layer of crunchy dough stretching across the middle. Predictably, it was delicious.

All throughout the tour, we couldn't help but noticed the swarms of bees everywhere. In the pastry shops, they were literally piling up in the display cases.

When we asked about them, we learned that bees and wasps are protected in Germany, and it's illegal to kill them. Thanks to the unusually wet spring and hot summer Europe had experienced this year, the bee population had exploded along with the flowers. And there was nothing anyone could do about them except ignore them and hope to not get stung. With the welt of yesterday's wasp sting still throbbing, I was not especially enthused to learn all this.

Since we were already nearby, we decided to stop for a drink at the Schneider Weisshaus. As we'd learned on our first-day walking tour, Schneider Weisse has over half a dozen different types of wheat beer on tap. Most Bavarian beerhouses only have three beers on tap at most: a pale lager, a dark lager, and a pale wheat beer. Schneider has pale wheat beers, dark wheat beers, filtered and unfiltered wheat beers, and even a 12% ABV wheat beer. We only had one each, but they were both very good.

Wheat beers were the first beers that Jessica realized she actually liked, but I had never been a fan. I could stand a few sips of Blue Moon with orange juice, but mostly they tasted gritty or dirty to me. But all the Bavarian weissbiers we tasted were really good. They can still get a little gritty as they warm up, but they're super smooth when chilled and have an amazing banana-like flavor. It's funny to imagine the first Bavarian to taste a banana and discover that it tasted like beer.

In reality, as we'd learn later, very few historical Bavarians actually got to enjoy weissbier. The traditional Bavarian beer purity laws (Reinheitsgebot) banned the production of beer from anything other than malted barley. Wheat beers could only be made by special permission of the government, and they were extremely exclusive. While researching Schneider back home, I learned that it was the Schneider family that pushed for broad legalization of wheat beer production in the 1800s. And were it not for a relentless, century-long push to popularize this amazing brew, Bavarian weissbiers may have gone extinct out of sheer obscurity.

It was threatening to rain, and we were still quite tired from our last few days, so after a little bit of souvenir shopping we headed home for a nap and an early evening.

I finally bought that Bavarian flag mug I'd been eyeing earlier, and we drank the fume blanc we bought in Schwangau.

Our next day started with a trip to the Dachau concentration camp. But like Auschwitz, I will save that for its own post.

After recuperating from that ordeal, we headed out for our much-needed evening entertainment–a tour of traditional Bavarian beer.

The tour started with a bottle right in the Radius Tours office at the train station–a 33cl bottle of Hacker-Pschorr helles pale lager.

As we drank, our guide asked the group if we could name all six Munich breweries. After nearly a week in the city, Jessica and I were able to immediately rattle off four: Hacker-Pschorr (that one was easy), Paulaner, Augustiner, and Hofbrau. The rest of the group was eventually able to get the last two: Spaten and Lowenbrau.

To be a Munich beer, it has to be produced, cellared, and bottled entirely within the city limits of Munich, and some aren’t available anywhere else. Augustiner–the one locals generally consider to be the best–doesn’t spend a dime one exporting advertising. And because they’re technically a church organization, they don’t have to pay tax and give almost half their income away to charitable causes within the city. So Muncheners can drink all they want with an easy conscience.

One member of our tour group seemed perplexed by the notion of the beers being made entirely in Munich. To our guide's mild but steadily increasing perplexity, the man kept asking, "but where is the beer actually made?" I guess it says something about globalization that our ideas of where a company is located and where its product gets made have become so totally separated.

Beers finished and bottles stowed away for recycling, it was time to set out. Our guide--a friendly if slightly haggard Brit--lead us down to the underground metro platform, where we caught a ride over to the other side of the Old Town. There, we'd be enjoying a visit to the Beer and Oktoberfest Museum.

Though nominally a museum, the place is also a first-rate beerhouse and restaurant. The mayor himself frequents the establishment, or so we heard, and regulars keep their personal steins in rented lockers near the bar.

In a tasting room, we got to try samples of the three main types of Bavarian beer: light helles lager, dark dunkel lager, and weissbier. We learned some of Bavaria's beer history, some of which we've already shared--such as the origin of beer gardens.

Our guide told us about the medieval Bavarian beer purity laws of Reinheitsgebot. Of course, we'd long been vaguely aware of them through our uncle Doug, a master brewer trained in strict Bavarian tradition. Jessica and I had never been especially interested in beer before the trip, but finally, after nearly 10 years of legal drinking, we had seen the light. Better late than never.

Under the Bavarian purity laws, only barley, hops, yeast, and water could be used to make beer. No fruit or other additives were allowed. The reason wheat beers could only be produced by special permission of the government was to reduce competition with bakers. Wheat and barley could both make good beer, but barley bread wasn't nearly as desirable as wheat bread.

Our guide also talked about beer's role in Bavarian culture, which can be neatly summarized in the popular catchphrase "Beer is food." Beer is full of energy for fueling farmhands and factory workers, and for most of its history beer was much safer to drink than water. Pretty much every successful civilization before the advent of effective water purification was fueled by some form of alcohol or tea.

When safe drinking water finally did become common, governments in Europe and America suddenly started treating beer like a luxury adult good. In other words, they could start taxing and regulating the heck out of it. But Bavaria proudly resists this tradition. If you want to drink a beer in Munich but don't know if it's allowed, simply ask yourself if you would feel comfortable eating a sandwich. Anywhere you can eat a sandwich, you can drink a beer.

Upstairs, we got to see pictures and artifacts covering the history of Oktoberfests past and present. Thanks to our first-day walking tour, we got to impress our guide with our guide with our knowledge of the celebration's origin as a wedding/anniversary celebration.

We also learned that the popular British and American image of Oktoberfest, at best, only a small part of the picture. I've always pictured it as a gaudy celebration of raucously inebriated tourists drinking gallons of beer served by oversexualized beer maidens, with real Bavarians staying as far away as possible. That may describe the Hofbrau tent, but there are still five other Munich breweries that each have their own tents as well. And those tents are filled almost entirely with locals.

In the rooms dedicated to beer in general, we learned more how Bavaria became such a mecca for beer. The purity laws were a big part of the equation, but another part was a combination of geography, technology, and politics.

When Europeans discovered the American continents, they brought back all sorts of treasures, from precious gold and silver to the even more precious potato. And--without even realizing it--they also brought back a new species of yeast. This new yeast could be used to make a cleaner, more quaffable beer than anyone in Europe had ever tasted before. But it only worked in cold, strictly controlled environments, and most of Europe lacked either the climate or the skills to take advantage.

For Bavaria, however, with its cool alpine climate and exceptionally well-regulated beer industry, it was practically a gift from God. For a good three hundred years or so until the invention of industrial refrigeration, lagers were the uncontested domain of Bavaria and its neighbor Bohemia.

In fact, at least according to the museum and our guide, it was France's envy of German beer that spurred their chemists to finally invent refrigeration. At the very least, French breweries were among the first and most enthusiastic adopters of the technology. By the 20th century, Bavarian-style pale lagers--or at least mediocre approximations thereof--were being mass-produced around the world.

The night culminated with a dinner at the Hofbrau Keller on the eastern end of the city. Unlike the infamously rowdy Hofbrauhaus, the Keller is a more relaxed, family friendly establishment. In general, we learned, a beer "house" is big and boisterous while a beer "cellar" is smaller and (relatively) peaceful, with a beer garden outside.

Our guide had prepared us for placing our beer orders. We could have either a half-liter or the full mass--a one-liter pitcher of beer that constitutes a Bavarian's idea of a single serving. Not wanting to miss out on the full cultural experience, Jessica and I both opted for the mass. Our guide seemed impressed--only one other person in the entire group did the same.

One liter of beer is no joke. After thirty minutes, we had barely dented them. But somehow, it seems to get easier the deeper into our glasses we got.

For dinner, we enjoyed a mountainous "vesper" board loaded with local meats, breads, and cheeses. And accompanying the board was a steaming pot of weisswurst. Internally beaming at our good fortune to have been shown the ways of weisswurst on our Viktualienmarkt tour, Jessica and I got to be the experts of our table, enthusiastically digging in while the others were still perplexed by its variously off-putting physical attributes.

Despite our guide's perfectly sufficient explanation about how to skin a weisswurst--as well as the exemplary performance of Jessica and myself--one of our tablemates didn't deem to have gotten the memo. The woman, who may have been the wife of the man so confused by the concept of urban breweries, began to fork-scrape the fillings of her sausage into a shredded horror on her plate. Visibly dismayed at the atrocity, our guide quickly stopped her, showed her again how to correctly peel her weisswurst, and didn't leave until she vowed never to do it the other way ever again.

Catching a tram back towards Marienplatz, our tour concluded outside the doors of the Hofbrauhaus. We could hear the sounds of oompah music and three-thousand drinking tourists. We peeked inside just long enough to take a couple pictures and make badly needed use of the facilities. It wasn't something we'd normally do--using the facilities uninvited without being a customer--but with the amount of business the place was doing, I don’t think it was much of an imposition.

After stumbling our way back home in the blissfully cool night air, we of course capped the night off with a taste of Jessica's Little Bay.

On our last full day in Munich, we found ourselves with plenty of things we could do and little energy to do any of it. There was the Residenz, the Nymphenburg Palace, a Nazi Documentation Center, and a host of museums--including the BMW world headquarters. And that's ignoring all of the other things there are to see in the surrounding Bavarian countryside. I could happily spend another week or two back in Nuremberg alone.

We already knew that we both wanted to visit the city again someday, so we decided to take it easy and do just one more thing--the Alte Pinakothek, the city's main art gallery of old European masters.

It was a nice day, so we decided to walk over to the museum quarter after catching a tram to the station. Along the way, we passed through the Karolinenplatz, which is really more of a roundabout than a square. It is dominated by a stark black obelisk. With our translation apps and a bit of Googling, we learned that it was erected in honor of the thirty thousand Bavarian soldiers that died in Napoleon's disastrous invasion of Russia in 1812. Apparently, the metal used to build the obelisk came from melted-down Turkish weapons captured during Greece's war of independence from the Ottoman Empire.

Past the square, I led us on a short detour to see the Königsplatz, a square surrounded by classical monuments and museums. Outside the museum of ancient sculpture, we were pleasantly enthused yet somehow not surprised to find our old friend Laocoön, this time sporting some serious ink.

Finally, we made it to the Alte Pinakothek. It may not be a match for the Prado or the Louvre, but it is still a fantastic collection--especially for anyone into Renaissance and Baroque art.

One of the museum's signature pieces is a 16th-century painting by Albrecht Altdorfer of a battle between the armies of Alexander the Great and Darius III of Persia in 333 BC. We'd probably seen hundreds of battle paintings by this point, but this one was utterly unlike any other. Epic in scope and perspective, it zooms from individual soldiers in the foreground to a curved Earthscape of the entire eastern Mediterranean Sea in the background. Overhead, the sun and moon seem locked in a showdown between light and darkness amidst a rippling, cloud-filled sky.

It actually had a lot more in common with paintings we'd seen of the apocalypse than of other historical battles. And that was very much intentional. Tensions between the West and the Middle East were perilously high, and many believed that the end times were close at hand. Some things never really change.

We also saw some works by Albrecht Dürer, including the famous self-portrait where he depicted himself as a Christ figure. But Jessica and I were more interested in a somewhat subtler but no less provocative pair of paintings.

In this two-panel painting of The Four Apostles, Dürer shows John, Peter, Mark, and Paul huddled together in an open circle. The painting is immediately unusual for its unidealized depiction of the four men as ordinary figures--aged, wrinkled, and not especially attractive. But more than that, and true to Dürer's Franconian roots, the painting is actually a powerful piece of Protestant propaganda.

John holds the Bible open as Peter--the saint so deeply associated with admission into heaven--reads it closely. Meanwhile, Mark and Paul--his sword at the ready--look challengingly outward. The anti-Catholic sentiment is clear: read the Bible for yourself if you want salvation, and stand guarded against anyone who would try to stop you.

There were plenty of Italian Renaissance paintings as well, including masterpieces by Da Vinci, Raphael, and Lippi.

Another highlight of the visit was a massive room filled with epic works by Rubens. Or rather, works by Rubens' students. Rubens was a master of churning out high-priced commissions, and many of these paintings were done almost entirely by his students based on quick sketches by Rubens himself. Delightfully, the museum actually had one of these sketches on display in view of the final product.

We also saw some more landscapes by Claude Lorrain, a recurring favorite of our museum trips. On our own, we each noticed his paintings from across the room and recognized them instantly by his style. They were hung amidst a collection of other similarly styled paintings, and their placards confirmed that each of these artists were deeply influenced by Claude's techniques.

This is just a sampling of everything we saw. We had just about exhausted our museum chops at this point, but I made sure to go back to another room that had previously been too crowded to enter. On loan from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam was Vermeer's Woman in Blue Reading a Letter.

When we visited the Rijksmuseum less than three weeks later, the painting was still on loan, and a simple "Sorry" placard was hung in its place. But we had nothing to feel sorry about, since we'd seen it already.

And that's about all there is to say about our stay in Munich. Apart from our visit to Dachau, of course, which will be coming later. It was one of our favorite cities of the entire trip--right up there with Florence and Edinburgh. The culture, architecture, food, drink, and access to nature are all top-notch, and I can't wait to go back someday.

#180abroad #munich #germany #food #beer #art #museums #travel #hofbrau #weisswurst #schneider weisse

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