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tofixtheshadows · 1 month

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Hello, op! While I do find your reading of Kabru’s self sacrifice and how little he eats really good, im curious why you consider him the deuteragonist? He is a foil to the protagonist yes, but still a supporting character.

I think its pretty clear Marcille is the second most important character in DM, and her story has much more weight than Kabru’s.

Hello! I've mentioned this on my blog before, but I actually consider Marcille and Kabru to both be deuteragonists to Laios's protagonist. I just wasn't talking about Marcille in that post.

Technically this term is meant to be used in playwriting, and the Greek tradition at that, so I'm playing a little loosey goosey with semantics and my argument would sound different if I were writing an academic paper. But this is tumblr dot edu and I'm trying to get a point across on my little blog, and part of the idea of a deuteragonist is that they support the protagonist. "Secondary main character who has their own importance in the narrative while bolstering the protagonist" works well enough for my purposes.

I think Marcille and Kabru are both playing specific and complementary roles to Laios. Marcille is at his side, facilitating the A plot: namely, "save Falin", which requires Marcille's magic, and then Marcille's method of resurrection ropes Thistle in, so the continuation of "save Falin" necessitates confronting the Dungeon Lord and conquering the dungeon (the B plot).

Kabru only intersects with Laios, but he is tied from the beginning to the B plot- and with dragging basically everyone else into it. Actually, the fact that he brings in this extremely loaded B plot despite only having brief face time with the protagonist should be seen as significant. In a sense, Kabru represents the surface world and all its concerns.

Before I talk about that more, I want to continue with the complementary line of thinking and point out that Kabru and Marcille have very similar background motivations.

Laios wants to save his sister first and foremost, and it's only along the way that he starts to consider what he'd do with the responsibility of Dungeon Lord. Coming to the conclusion that he wants to create a home for disparate peoples to live in harmony has connective tissue to both Kabru and Marcille's desires.

Marcille is the only one in their party who starts out with a greater motivation other than saving Falin (Izutsumi is a special case, but she's ultimately along for the ride), one that she keeps hidden for a long time. Because she is a mage, and because she is driven by a very personal tragedy (my dad died; I am terrified of outliving everyone), she is looking for a miracle to bring the different races closer together.

Kabru comes from a background of personal tragedy as well, but it's also a far greater, more political tragedy than just the death of a parent. It is not a coincidence that Kabru is a brown boy from an exploited region that suffered despite and because of military intervention from a first-world power, nor that he was adopted by a white woman whose coddling/dehumanization of him represents the paternalistic oversight of these world powers.

Thus, Kabru's motivations are both personal and political: if they, the short-lived races, can finally access the secrets of the dungeons, then not only can they have agency in stopping tragedies like Utaya's, but it will also give them a greater power of self-determination.

Marcille and Kabru have both correctly identified and set themselves against a problem that is greater than saving the life of one girl, greater even than sealing this one dungeon.

Despite Marcille's hopes, there is no grand magic solution to this. Only small, slow, backbreaking, ordinary solutions, the kind you labor over in kitchens and bedrooms and throne rooms and meeting houses and hearths and negotiation tables. The kind you run a kingdom with.

There is a reason why Dungeon Meshi ends with Marcille and Kabru on either side of Laios's throne.

Okay: back to Kabru (under the cut).

I've talked about this a little before, but I'll reiterate here: I consider Kabru to be the counterweight to the back half of the story. In a very literal sense too, as he pulls the focus up from the depths to the surface not once, but twice. Dungeon Meshi builds itself on the premise that the traditional "dungeon" must function as an actual ecosystem, and the monsters in it are biological actors in that ecosystem and not merely magical obstacles independent of their environment. The first couple dozen chapters are focused on this. Like regular animals, monsters have needs and instincts and unique behaviors, and they can be killed and consumed as part of a food chain.

And then Kabru comes along and he reminds us that humans are also part of their own special ecosystem, with their own needs and instincts and unique behaviors, and that beyond the biological drive of the literal food chain there are also complex social issues influencing these behaviors (like capitalism). Tansu's visit with the governor introduced us to these ideas, but Kabru is the one who carries them.

The way he and his party break down Laios's party also serves an important function. I think most readers are so busy being shocked that Kabru is "so wrong" about our goofy boy Laios that they don't realize that he isn't actually wrong about anything (he's only missing the context of what drives Laios, which he admits to and is part of the reason why he pursues him). We've gotten only Laios's view of things so far, and Laios is pretty tunnel-visioned. The narrative, through Kabru, is telling the reader this is how our protagonist actually comes across to his community.

We like Laios because we are following his story from his inner circle. We know he's naive and struggles with people but that he has a good heart and is ultimately just a big silly guy who won't harm anybody if he can help it. But we only know that because we're seeing him with his inner circle, in his environment. Outside of the dungeon, Laios is anti-social to the point of rudeness; he misreads situations and misjudges people, he acts in ways that cause friction, and he accidentally aligns himself with people who make his whole enterprise look suspicious: a prominent half-foot community leader, a mysterious foreigner literally surrounded by spies, the disgraced daughter of a criminal who now has to shoulder the burden of her father's reputation, and an elf in a land where there are no elves. And they seem to be very good at what they're doing. Yet this whole time, Laios acts as if he doesn't care about profit or taking the kingdom, the only logical reasons why anyone on the Island would gather up such a party and throw themselves into this death pit day after day.

Yeah of course Kabru finds this suspicious and interesting. Of course people don't know what to make of Laios. This all reiterates the question that Zon the orc already raised: What will you do, Laios, if you defeat the Mad Mage? If you gain control of all of this? Can you be a leader? Laios himself doesn't know yet.

This is all necessary context for our protagonist and the journey he has to go on, and it's fittingly brought up by the most socially adept character, who is so concerned with human ecosystems and the bigger picture of the dungeon. There is a reason why Kabru, as a character, is connected to large webs of people as he moves throughout the narrative: his own party, Toshiro's party, the Canaries, the denizens of the first floor of the dungeon.

Kabru is responsible for bringing Toshiro down to Laios's party. Toshiro is not a big mover and shaker in the story itself, but his confrontation with Laios is a huge part of Laios's character arc. His detour down to the lower levels also allows Izutsumi to escape and join Laios's party later.

We also have this very important moment:

It shows the first inkling- to the audience, to Kabru, and to Laios himself- that Laios is willing to do a painful, necessary thing to protect other people, that he won't just allow them to become collateral for his sister/monsters. That he can listen, and that he can assess a situation beyond his personal feelings. Again, fittingly, big-picture-thinker Kabru is the catalyst for this.

And then, not content to leave him as merely a device for Laios's character growth, the focus slingshots back up to the surface, and we follow Kabru.

The Canaries were going to go into the dungeon soon anyway, and they were always going to stir up the crowd in order to lure Thistle to them. Unless Thistle had given up right then and managed to slip away, the story could have very easily ended here:

Falin, immobilized and surrounded by Canaries, would have certainly been killed, and there would have been no way to ever resurrect her. Thistle would have been neutralized. The dungeon would have been taken by the elves, and anyone they could get their hands on would have been imprisoned at best. And maybe the dungeon would have been managed safely ... or maybe something would have gone wrong, and more lives would have been lost. Remember: the Canaries arrived in Utaya one year before the tragedy.

This is a huge moment that changes Laios's life forever, and he doesn't even know it. Kabru single-handedly keeps the story on course by sabotaging the Canaries, and he does it not just for Laios's sake, but for everyone's sake. For his friends and companions in the dungeon and everyone else outside it. Laios is a part of his motivation, a key player in Kabru's hopes, but Kabru has his own desires, his own agenda. He's trying to change the world. In a way, he succeeds. And while the Canaries might wish it were otherwise, as an entity in the narrative they are always anchored to Kabru's character. The two forces collide because of Kabru. The unsealing of the Winged Lion and Marcille's emergency ascension to Dungeon Lord happen indirectly because of Kabru.

While I have talked so much already that I don't want to give a detailed breakdown of it, I do want to mention Kabru's unique interiority as a character. That is to say: we see the inside of Kabru's head more than anyone else. Every character in the main ensemble gets their own moments of inner monologues or fifteen minutes in the limelight, but for Kabru, it's constant. He's always thinking, talking, narrating. His POV chapters always stand out for how first-person they feel compared to most others.

Notably, the only other character I could compare that to is Marcille, specifically during the dungeon rabbit debacle and her ascension afterward, which is when she really takes center stage as a character.

I hope I've explained my reasoning without becoming too insufferable.

To cap off my thoughts with a nod to my original post, I cannot stress enough how significant it is, thematically, that Kabru's relationship with food is the inverse of Laios's. It isn't just that Laios is the main character in a story about cooking monsters and Kabru happens to be his monster-hating foil. The artistic choice to deny the reader the visual of this character ever enjoying food, and only ever putting it in his mouth in situations where it hurts him, in a manga that gives so much attention to eating and the pleasures of meals, cannot be understated.

#Dungeon Meshi #Marcille Donato #Kabru #Kabru of Utaya #Dungeon Meshi meta #Dungeon Meshi spoilers #I started answering this at 10:30 AM but took several detours #mostly I was at work. some people shitpost at work. god knows what I'm doing.#I am so fucking sorry I did not mean for it to be this long. I had to EDIT THIS DOWN #paging malewifesband I feel like this does the trick wrt: Kabru's function in the narrative #of course I have more to say about he and Laios specifically (she threatened)#musings with Dea #I think I'll go back and add image descriptions but it's been eight hours and I need dinner!#and also to play FFXIV #dungeonposting #Dea's anonymous friends

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ronearoundblindly · 9 months

Text

Your Dog, His Tricks

a Steve Rogers x Avenger!Reader tale set a little over a year after losing their virginity together and based on this ask.

Summary: Injured on a mission and MIA for days, you return to a very high-strung boyfriend who can't express what he's feeling until it boils to the surface.

Warnings: arguments and smut. MINORS DNI. WC 5.4k

You don’t know when it started, this sort of competition with your boyfriend, but at some point you and Steve became a packaged deal. Unfortunately, that package was labeled: Steve Rogers and his girl. You feel nameless sometimes, and you know you are better than that; maybe you aren’t super like he is, but you are (and were since before dating) a whole-ass Avenger in your own right. You are a stellar agent. You can bring home the top prize. You can finish this shit-show of a mission all on your own.

No help.

None.

You noticed a problem after months and months of fighting with Steve—no, that sounds wrong—beside Steve.

Okay, maybe it’s not wrong-wrong to say fighting with him because you two do have the occasional argument. Just one argument, really. One argument over and over again about you fighting beside him, why it’s fine, why he should let it go. You are as safe fighting beside him now as you were before the two of you became this set, this lop-sided partnership. He still wants to protect you from shit you are trained to protect yourself from, shit you survived just fine without him, shit like the last three days.

He’s stubborn, and so are you.

You’ve had trouble getting him to back off. The Team is a team, and Steve does great, delegating all sorts of jobs when you are one among many. As soon as it’s you and him alone? He’s…overly helpful, over-protective, and generally over-the-top fussy. He is adoring and caring and competent. Apparently, those things make him feel capable of doing everything for you. It’s sweet until it’s not. Every time you start a project—laundry, cooking, organizing shelves, or leading an actual mission—Steve waltzes in and has to finish it for you.

Because he loves you. Because he’s trying to help. Because he can.

It makes you feel as if you can’t, or, at least, as if he thinks you can’t.

“Well, buddy, you can’t have this one,” you mutter outside of HQ’s gate, gripping your side and flicking open the phone you stole a few states back.

You’ve been gone for just shy of seventy-three hours.

At first, you truly had no way to contact the Team. You were on your own a thousand miles from home, fried comms and a spent weapon. You missed the rendezvous at the safehouse because it took twenty or so hours to find a vet office with the supplies to patch yourself up, and by the time you could have reached out, that ear worm wouldn’t leave you alone.

He’ll swoop in.

He’ll save you.

You’re his girl, so you need him. You can’t handle this without him. No one will believe you did once he gets anywhere near you.

Call it adrenaline. Call it blood loss. Call it shock. You can’t give up this glory, so you told yourself you needed radio silence to keep the recovered intel secure until back on Avengers campus. You told yourself the risk of interception was too high to chance a phone call.

Now, fifty feet from the infirmary, you need to get past one more obstacle.

You know Steve would jump from a third-story window to get to you, know he would scoop you right up into his arms and carry you over the threshold, know that would mean Steve wins.

No. Not this time. This is yours. You deserve the credit. You are crossing that finish line solo.

You jab the last of the epi-pens into your good leg, letting yet more adrenaline heave through what little of your blood volume is left and call the HQ secure line from the burner.

“Friday,” you start, standing at the bus stop, a blindspot from the Avengers’ surveillance cameras because the city already monitors it, “authorization Gamma-Lima-Four-Whisky. Do not declare connection. I repeat, do not declare this connection.”

The AI welcomes you back onto the grid politely.

“Thank you.” A bubble of pain bursts in your throat. “Give them a different location for this call, ok? Tell them it’s from the nearest functional payphone.”

Friday does as you say because why wouldn’t she? It’s not as if Steve is going to pause to question where the ping is—

—and he’s already out, on the bike, pushing that engine to its acceleration limit and narrowly escaping a shoulder check from the slowly opening gates.

You sneak right past, knowing he won’t look in his rearview, not with his eye on a prize ten blocks away, and you collapse just inside the garage ramp.

You wake prone in the Regeneration Cradle after surgery to a kind, smiling nurse monitoring your progress.

It’s difficult to focus. After a few blinks, you can see her features clearly, then beyond her are just eyes.

His eyes.

Piercing blue doesn’t begin to describe the intensity of Steve’s gaze, and his silence is deafening.

Each quarter-minute he inventories the room, and he exhales. That is the sum total of what he can manage to do right now. He’s attempting to keep it together until you two are alone obviously. Steve fails at very few things in life; this is one of them. You can see the outline of his teeth through his tight cheek.

“Doc wanted me to tell you you did a great job,” the nurse states softly. “If you hadn’t packed those wounds so tight, you’d have died for sure.”

Your mouth is too dry to respond, so you flash a wry smile. No one gets the Cradle without…extensive injuries. You’ve never had the ‘pleasure,’ not even for your through-and-through last year.

Steve huffs in frustration, keeping his huge body out of the nurse’s way even when you can feel him try to astral project himself forward to hand you ice chips. Instead, you swallow cotton.

“Captain Rogers,” F.R.I.D.A.Y. chimes from above, “your motorcycle has been cited for running five red lights with a further two dozen traffic violations. Shall I claim Official Avengers’ business?”

You croak ‘no.’ He says ‘yes.’

There’s a pause. “I will ask again later.”

Who says AIs can’t throw some serious shade?

Silence descends again as the spindling print needle moves on to a different wound. You’re lucid but wobbly trying to think, a combination of the waning anesthesia and pain meds.

If frowns could kill, your boyfriend’s would devastate the entire med bay.

This is what you hoped beyond hope to avoid, but it’s also why your endgame involved going solo.

“You’re making my point for me,” you sigh, your chest hurting more after surgery than it has in the past twenty-four hours. Clearly, your nerves are back online.

“And what point was that?“ he asks sarcastically, waiting in your own stubborn silence. “You gave me a heart attack.”

“Really?” You’re playfully shocked.

“No, not really! God.” He rushes closer. “What the hell were you thinking? If you had time to send me on a wild goose chase, you could damn well have called to tell me you were alive!”

The cradle’s lights shut off, job complete.

“Language, Steve.”

He looks incredulous, engrossingly livid, anxious outrage contained by his one frayed thread of control left.

“We found the intel,” he grits through a clenched jaw. “After power-washing your blood off it, everything was on the drive.”

You can’t sit up on your elbows yet, so you bite back, “good. It all worked out fine then.”

Wafting off him in thick clouds, Steve’s anger is near-flammable in the small room.

The nurse offers to step out for a second.

You say ‘yes.’ Steve barks ‘no.’

This isn’t the nurse’s first rodeo. “Alright, surgery went well. All debris and fragments removed. Your tissue is all intact now, too, but remember, this treatment doesn’t train new muscle fiber or nerve-endings.” She ignores Steve and pushes past to the other end of the table. “Rest up. Tomorrow, you can report to PT. They’ll work with you until you’re field-approved again.”

“She is not—“

“Both of you are ordered to rest,” the nurse snaps, nodding in Steve’s direction “—and make yourself useful by changing her drip when it runs out. If you can’t manage that, Captain, I will find a separate apartment or keep her here overnight.”

“No,” Steve breathes, visibly deflating. Like a scolded puppy, your boyfriend tucks his chin down, rings of grey settling beneath his dark sea eyes. It’s plain as day he hasn’t slept either.

The nurse calls for a wheelchair, and Steve dutifully helps you scoot off the table when it arrives. While he positions the IV to move in tandem, you attempt to push yourself by the huge rubber wheels and fail. Doc was not kidding about muscle weakness.

Steve says nothing.

You’re rolled back to your shared room by the grumpiest Captain America.

He helps you dress in baggy, comfy clothes and silently reattaches the line of your drip. Not one touch is in a sexual, sensual, or even intimate way even though you are naked at some point.

You can’t remember what you expected; you’ve been so focused on completing the mission for so long. Did you want a desperate homecoming? Did you want him to grovel or worship at your feet? You think, at some point, you knew he’d push back, but you thought…maybe…he’d want you more.

Steve seems to turn his interest on and off so easily, which is great professionally but hard to read personally…or maybe you’re just struggling under the distracting hum of medication. It’s a white noise you can’t ignore, lulling you unconscious, so you can’t analyze the situation anymore. Maybe, you think, you try…but the thoughts don’t come.

He situates you on his side of the bed—to accommodate the cord and stand—and tucks himself quietly into the smallest corner of mattress that his bulk can fit on.

He falls asleep holding your hand. It’s the only place you two are connected. After nearly eighty-five hours apart, that’s still worth it. Maybe.

At some point, his hand goes limp and falls away.

Finally clear of mind, you keep watching Steve the next day. He doesn’t necessarily seem angry, and he doesn’t necessarily seem relieved either. He’s so robotic in his interactions. He won’t talk to you just at you.

You understand why he was so standoffish last night, but you thought Steve would surely want you after that. You thought he’d start touching you again.

You two waited so long for your first time, but after that, sex was relatively easy. Steve is an affectionate man when he’s allowed, when he’s in love, and you know he loves you.

Like the nurse said: all your tissue is fully healed. The only restrictions you have are in regards to field work, and the phantom jolts of pain—when you reach into a cabinet or take down a clothes hanger—aren’t real.

Steve’s always an arm’s length away, just in case, meaning he is there to help you.

Always an arm’s length away.

No closer. No farther.

That afternoon you attempt to start talking about your mission, but that’s when he moves.

Steve practically sprints out the door with a half-baked excuse, so you go to physical therapy alone. You can go alone. That’s not the problem.

If you thought talking to Steve was difficult, you weren’t ready for how hard touching Steve would be.

You try to initiate even a cuddle that second night, and he jumps up claiming to have forgotten something somewhere else that he promised someone. Your boyfriend can’t lie worth beans. You don’t know why he tries.

You’re asleep before he returns.

The next night is exactly the opposite. You spend longer at the gym, slowly and painstakingly repeating every single exercise you know in order to streamline these new muscles. It’s an unholy pain in the ass, but you do it because you can—and will—get back in the field.

Even though the workout was mild, you’re awash with that runner’s high when you return to find Steve passed out already. He looks so peaceful, brow relaxed and lips gently parted. He also looks, well, good enough to eat, but you’ll start slow.

There was one time early on, before you two went all the way, that you woke him up by grinding on him in your sleep. You think now, perhaps, you can recreate that, catch him off-guard and dissipate some of this tension between you. This would be a good release. You don’t normally go this long. Obviously, Steve wouldn’t have masturbated while you were MIA and possibly dead, and every other second since has been accounted for.

He practically can’t have sex anywhere else except naked in a bed. He’s even told you, point blank, that he feels no need to touch himself since he has you. You are what he wants. That’s what he said.

Except he doesn’t wake up to your advances. He just rolls over like you’re disturbing him and softly snores.

For the first time, you wonder if you’ve really broken the two of you. How long will he be mad at you for doing your job?

Steve rolls back over in his sleep, holding you close like nothing’s happened. He doesn’t even know he’s doing it, but it’s enough and so, so wonderful to imagine all is well.

About a week into your ‘recovery’ (which is sorta bullshit since you can do everything the same by now just with an occasional, faint twinge, no more than the strain of every workout, ever), Steve takes Sam Wilson up on his offer of 1-on-1 basketball for a while. The Team—minus you—has a raid planned in the morning, and there’s always nervous energy to burn off in anticipation.

Your boyfriend has been a nightmare grump, but no one wants to take on the hassle of convincing Steve that he’s being too Steve to Steve properly. He still won’t talk to you about anything other than the weather, food, or daily schedules.

You’re even considering taking a break from field work because this all has become too much. If Steve is gonna shut down after every dangerous mission—which is, in fact, all of them—then maybe it’s not worth the risk. You’re good, you’re great, but you aren’t super.

“Taste of his own medicine, I say,” Bucky mutters, sitting beside you on the bleachers between courts.

“Huh?” You were distracted, watching Steve and Sam squeak across the floor.

Steve sinks a perfect layup and doesn’t gloat. Do-gooder.

“He used to get so mad when I’d find him in an alley all beaten up,” Buck continues. “Thought I was being too protective. I trusted him, but he was puny and he did get sick all the time. He could take a punch, sure, but every mark took weeks to heal. Half the time, they were still yellow when some idiot landed fresh ones.”

Steve claps beneath the net, encouraging Sam, focused on not outshining anyone.

He’s been the same with everyone else but you, and the whole Team can see it. You shouldn’t be surprised someone is finally talking about it; you simply wonder how Buck drew the short straw.

“Didn’t wanna be babied,” Bucky snorts, fondly glowering at his century-long bestie, “while low and behold, he pulls that stunt with everybody, every day.”

“Yup,” you pop, looking at the matte metal beneath your feet, knowing there’s a line between the ‘caring’ version and the ‘coddling’ version. Steve nose-dived right over that line this time.

“What he appreciated, though, was consistency.” Bucky swivels his hair around into a bun and ties it. “Punk is dedicated, and even if it was just him--the hund’ed pound soaking-wet guy whose only real talent at that point was getting back on his feet--he knew he’d fight anyway.

“Bit hypocritical to be mad at his girl for doing the same, don’t ya think?” Bucky muses, clucking his tongue.

The brunette watches you bristle slightly at the moniker. His girl. Not only is it what got you into this mess, it feels untrue based on that big, broad, cold shoulder you’ve received from the man racing back and forth in front of you.

Smiling, Bucky nudges you with his elbow. “I’m excited for you to get back on your feet,” he adds.

You’re stuck thinking about that long after Bucky jumps into the game.

It’s no surprise then that when the doctor gives you the all-clear the very next morning, you’re over the moon and ready to strike. You don’t hesitate for a second when the alarm sounds less than an hour later.

The Team needs reinforcements. Your Team needs you.

You hustle into the back of a quinjet with a dozen agents. While the others file out to where the main conflict is raging, you sneak around the perimeter to suss out the mission goal, a treasure trove of enemy tech hidden somewhere in what was thought to be an abandoned village.

Not so abandoned if it’s lighting up like the pyrotechnics show on an action film set...

The explosions rattle the ground, yet you know the Team have breached the main chamber. Those enemy forces still fighting are distracting from a retreat. The other agents can catch them just fine. Your mission is intel recovery.

To keep your approach stealthy, you don’t announce your movements over comms, and Nat doesn’t scan back down the dark hallway you wedge into as she carries out an asset. If you weren’t so far back, you never would have seen him.

An enemy agent slinks out from behind a floor-to-ceiling tapestry right in front of you. His silhouette is short and thin; he’s built for stealth, too.

Your heart thumps loud in your ears as you follow, and that bastard gets close—so close—to Steve’s turned back that the pistol’s muzzle nearly touches.

Not this time. Not a chance. None.

You land a roundhouse kick to the exposed neck above his kevlar, and that sucker goes down like a sack of potatoes.

Steve turns around at the ready, stunned silent in the middle of his instructions to Bucky who is not visible from the other side heaped boxes. The papers still smoke where evidence was burned.

You salute at big, blue eyes.

“On your six, Cap.”

Steve looks at you, looks down at the man, and looks back up at you…pissed.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

What the fuck indeed…

All you did was help your team. All you did was stop Captain America from getting his head blown off. In no small fashion, all you did was save your boyfriend’s life.

“Uh, you’re welcome.”

His grip on your arm is painful as he leads you all the way back to the jet himself, shoving you into the jump seat between other returned agents and shouting for you to 'stay right there.'

Bucky announces over comms that the rest is clean up. All but the specialized document interpretation and perimeter teams are moving out.

Steve huffs, contemplates staying on a battlefield instead of going back with you, but decides to sit across the ship in silence again, fuming, making fists over and over in his fingerless leather gloves, bitterly sniffing as loud as possible the entire flight home. He refuses to answer a single person until the jet touches down at HQ.

“Everyone off,” he bellows, “everyone except you.”

You can’t stop it. Your hands fly up in exaggerated annoyance automatically.

“What do you want, Steve? I got the go-ahead this morning. I’m allowed to be here.”

“Stop doing that.” He rounds on you.

“Doing what? My job?!”

Chest puffed out, feathers ruffled, cheeks hot and red, Steve peels off his cowl. “Being insubordinate.”

“You’re not my superior officer,” you hiss, “we are equals, and if you think for one second I did anything wrong out there, go ahead and report me. From where I’m standing, I did the work, got cleared for duty, helped out the team, and stopped you from being shot.”

You poke a finger to his chest for each achievement listed.

“Fine," Steve shouts, crossing his arms, "but quit acting like a selfish coward.”

Them be fightin’ words. “A what?”

“You heard me,” he all but whispers.

It’s laughable, truly laughable how bad Steve is at hiding some of those wheels from turning in his head. This isn’t about today. This is the thing he buried the past week.

You roll your eyes. “If you’re gonna throw a hissy fit every time I get a scratch—“

“THREE BULLETS IS NOT A SCRATCH.” He tries—he visibly, painfully tries—to keep his cool one last time. “You weren’t ready,” he concludes, judge, jury, and executioner all poured into one star-spangled package.

“Say’s who?” You’re stepping closer, getting in his face because this is bullshit and unfair. “Last time I checked you’re not a doctor, and you should be thanking me for saving your ass—“

“It’s not your job to save me.”

“We have the same job, Steve! We are both perfectly capable of—“

“I know that,” he barks, hot breath mingling with yours.

“Do you? Because you don’t seem to think I can handle myself.” You push weakly at his chest, taunting, like it's a game. “Maybe you need to walk it off, buddy.”

His face cracks, an avalanche unmoored from a stable mountain.

Oh shit. You’ve done it now.

“Walk it off?! WALK IT OFF?!”

Steve charges like a bull seeing red, crowding you against the far wall, his own derisive finger pointed at your heart.

“You were injured. You didn’t make contact. You went dark for days, and you could have died. Alone. In the middle of nowhere. Who knows how long it would have taken us to find you. No—“ he cups your chin in a tight pinch “—you want to talk about the job? It’s protocol to check in. It’s common courtesy to let me know you’re alive, and it’s goddamn rude to ignore your own safety.”

A dark, hazy sheen layers over his sharp gaze. “Don’t make me keep you home.”

There’s a deep line of frustration carved between his brows. His nostrils flair as he waits, daring you to refute him.

“Well—” you purse your lips in defiance “—isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black.”

Steve lets go of you, smacked away by your cutting tone.

“Excuse me?”

“Oh, whatever, Rogers,” you dismiss. “We both know you don’t have the authority to bench me.”

“Like hell I don’t,” he growls, grabbing your wrists and throwing your arms above your head, He weaves your hands through the cargo net behind you. The loops are tight and complicated in seconds, he’s so fast.

You can’t wriggle away.

“Let’s see how you like it.”

Steve roughly throws the zipper of your uniform down, letting the jacket hang open to show nothing but your sports bra.

“Feeling paralyzed—“ he dexterously undoes your belt “—exposed—“ your pants and underwear are yanked down to your ankles “—and afraid.” His last word thickens the air on the jet.

How can this man launch you into unbridled lust in the space of two syllables?

Who. Fucking. Cares. How.

Steve’s fingertips teasingly glide over the swell of your breasts, brush down your belly, and tick their way in a casual walk between your legs. He retracts his touch the instant you let out a longing sigh, unable to restrain how needy you are. His fingers wander to perfectly clean and unmarked flesh…on your thigh, along one side, and a few inches below that. He’s tracing the bullet wounds he watched heal so quickly.

“Maybe I should leave you wondering how it’ll all play out?” he says absently, lost in thought, his thumb shifting to notch into the dip of your hip. “Maybe I should leave you wondering if we’ll ever—”

“Yes,” you whimper, no real idea what you’re saying. That’s not what answer you meant.

“How would you like three whole days of this feeling, huh? You think you’d fare any better than I did? Think you’d make it even five minutes?”

“Uh-uh.” Again, with no clue what you’re truly responding to, you buck your hips forward onto his long fingers.

The cords around your wrists get tighter while you struggle to set a pace. Behind you, the metal rings of the netting hit the hull with a soft clinking noise.

“Not so fast.” Steve pulls his hand away just far enough to remove all friction. “Because three days, sweetheart, it was torture. Felt like an eternity right on the edge.”

“Please,” you beg.

One deliberate swipe of his fingers through your slick is enough to make you mewl.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Steve. Please, I need you.”

“Need me? You have an odd way of showing it, doll. You have to promise me—“ he thrusts his fingers in “—promise me you’ll never leave me.”

“I’ll never leave you,” you cry, convinced that it’s true for the sole reason: you never want to experience anything other than this Steve for as long as you live.

“You are so brave, and so…capable, and I know you can do anything, but you…can’t survive anything.” He takes excruciating pleasure in slow thrusts and teasing circles. “Promise me you won’t be so reckless. Promise, say it.”

“I promise.” Your weight sags into his ministrations, called to focus on nothing but where his hand disappears between you. “I promise I won’t be reckless.”

“That’s my girl.”

Your head falls limp against your tied arms. It sounds so good from his lips. Why did you ever doubt?

“I promise I’ll come back to you,” you manage out like a prayer.

“Yeah? That’s it. Is that what you want?”

“I promise. I promise, Steve.” You time your movements sloppily with his measured tempo. “Please, I need more.”

“I know. I know.” He’s strung out, too, listening to your pathetic whimpers after less than five minutes, exactly like he predicted.

You’re so over-wrought with desperation you can’t coordinate with his manhandling your legs apart—your knees, really, since your ankles are still caught in your pants. Instead of taking off your boots, Steve simply unzips himself and dives right into your wet, warm, and welcoming pussy.

Knowing he has a thing against anything naughty in his suits makes it sexier. You want his intensity—you’ve always been curious—and finally you have it: unhinged, untethered, super Steve Rogers. Your body makes room out of sheer joy.

“I know,” Steve coos, his face pressed to your chest as he adjusts. “Fuck, I know, honey.”

“Move, Steve.”

“No,” he says with a gentle kiss to your sternum. “You wanna come? Go ahead. You can do it all on your own. You can do anything you want, can’t ya?”

You groan in frustration.

You wanted this, an annoying voice in the muddled depths of your mind calls. You’re independent.

With a sob of both excitement and fury, your thighs weld onto that sturdy, I-beam beast. You brace your bent arms over your angled and hovering body, leveraging the cargo straps to hoist you up and down.

Your muscles burn, strained more than they were on your lone journey back to HQ.

Steve grunts and moans, the ghost of his wide spread palms beneath your back as a safety net.

“That’s it. That’s it, good girl.”

Amidst your own noises, you can barely hear him. You’re not building to a climax, you’re falling into one at terminal velocity, flailing. Struggling to hang on and let go all at once, you do come, but it’s more of a plateau than a full release.

Steve’s unhappy and takes your ass in a bruising grip, finally pumping his thick length in and out, dragging the head of his cock across that perfect spot over and over.

“You can do better than that,” he snarls, hair wrecked and falling in his face.

Wave, undertow, and wave again, pleasures simply blend into the next. He gets handsy, keyed up and out of control, muttering “don’t you ever fucking leave me.”

You’d scold him for cursing if the air weren’t being punched from your lungs.

“Come on, sweetheart. Three for three.”

You’re almost disappointed he only wants you to come three times in payment for his days of torture. Even as a tear escapes the corner of your eye and your throat breaks in a hoarse “please,” you know you would give him more. You'd give him anything.

When you finally reach that shattering end, Steve is almost incoherently feral, one hand clamped at the back of your neck, the other anchored to the small of your back, slamming your ass to his leather-covered thighs like you are his mission.

“I promise,” you try to repeat, but you aren’t sure they sound like words.

Whether in response to you or as an errant thought, Steve’s own broken voice rattles at your sweaty neck. “You can take it,” he whispers gruffly. “You can take it.”

You’re floating by the time he comes, his hips stilling slowly. The buzz of your body now outdoes anything anesthesia or pain meds concocted.

Steve peppers your skin with lazy, light kisses until you remind him of your bound wrists, but then he’s overly apologetic and scrambling to free them.

He keeps himself inside you and maneuvers to sit with you on his lap.

You stay there for a while, your numb and sore arms folded between your chests. Steve only stops petting your shoulders to cradle your face, soft blue eyes roaming, adoring. He whispers concern that you’re okay, how are your legs, are you warm enough, you feeling good?

Yes, you think, you’ve taken care of your girl.

“I love seeing you like this,” he mumbles long after the pins and needles have abandoned their assault on your tired legs.

You tuck some silky hair behind his ear. “Like what? Fucked out?”

He’s floating too because he doesn’t chastise.

“Happy, healthy—“ he lets out a deep sigh “—home.”

“Speaking of home,” you say, inching ever so slightly higher to let him slide out of you, “wanna cuddle in bed all night and not get up until someone tries to break in the door?”

That knocks some of the glow off him. He drags a hand down his face. “Oh god, the poor people who have to clean this thing…”

“Let’s be honest,” you snort. “This isn’t the worst thing that’s been on you, but if it’s that big of a deal, we could go hose you down before handing our equipment in.”

He smiles, shaking his head in dismissal.

With his help, you climb off his lap and slowly shimmy up your bottoms, realizing he did truly make a mess of you both.

Steve looks down at his own lap, horrified. “Do I need to burn this?”

“That sounds like a challenge to make you filthier,” you consider, but maybe you should change into your civies before exiting the jet…

“Ya know,” Steve muses, passing over to the small locker of clothing overhead and grabbing a t-shirt and sweats, “I almost got shot in the head today, and you had three bullets fished outta you a week ago. I’m thinking we’ve earned a vacation.”

Workaholic Steve? Actively applying for time off? You’ll be damned.

“My my my, Captain Rogers…the real dirty talk begins.”

He huffs out a laugh and blushes.

“Well, I know we didn’t do anything more special than dinner for our anniversary, so…” He pulls you to his chest again, smelling of slightly musty laundry and pungent sex. “Let’s go on a fucking vacation.”

Your neck cranes to his height to see a soft smile. Oof, he’s good.

“I missed you,” he adds like a prayer, “and you’re the badass who saved me.”

He giggles at your scrunched nose and watches you bask in that glory.

“Like I said, you’re welcome—“ you hug Steve, letting his warmth radiate through you, moving in time with his rising and falling chest “—and I love you.”

“I love you, too.” He kisses the crown of your head.

When you open the bombay doors, there’s a thermos left at the base of the ramp, a folded paper tucked beneath it.

We should talk about how to better soundproof the jets. Brought you some refreshments. It’s hazelnut. ~Bucky

Tags: @supraveng @1950schick @patzammit @whiskeytangofoxtrot555 @yiiiikesmish @ashesofblackroses @jamneuromain @bucky-fricking-barnes-reads @fallinallinmendes @deandreamernp @brandycranby

A/N: I sincerely give up on editing this anymore, so I hope it turned out okay 🙇🏻‍♀️

[Main Masterlist; Ko-Fi]

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