Chapter Text
The welcoming committee is ready when the Quinjet touches down on the landing pad. They’re only shadows against the light, but Bucky recognizes them with ease. Hill with her straight-backed stance and Steve who mastered standing at ease before he joined the military. He loses sight of them as the jet taxies into the hangar.
Even though Hill’s not here for him, it makes the skin on the back of his neck itch; he’s in no mood for a debriefing. A headache has kept him company since… well, since he clawed himself back in control of his own body. Like drill-bit chewing through balsa wood, it bores into his skull. All he wants right now is some downtime. Because if he talks with Steve about the invasion of privacy right now, there’s a chance he might blow a fuse. He just needs to be left alone.
And that’s not gonna happen however much he wants it to.
He feels Natalia’s eyes on him before she puts her hand on his. The metal of the seat has been dimpled by the fingers on his left hand and he forces himself to relax as she laces their fingers together. He hadn’t even realized he’d been digging holes into the frame. She doesn’t say anything, because most of the extraction team is trying to be invisible at the other end of the hold, and she likes her privacy as much as he does. Instead she taps a finger against his, lightly, minimal movements.
It takes Bucky a few seconds to remember the old cipher, but when he does, he smiles and shoots her side-glance.
The cipher doesn’t allow for niceties, but then that has never been her style. Her concise, “Status?” says everything that needs to be said.
When he answers, “All clear,” it’s not even as much of a lie as it would have been a few seconds ago. Because the tight coil in his stomach is loosening, unraveling by a slim hand on top of his.
As they get up to approach the opening bay door, Natalia squeezes his hand. When he looks down at her, she gives him a closed-lip smile that disappears just as fast as it appeared. She walks down the ramp and he follows, blanking his expression to appear as unconcerned as her.
Steve’s face is a mix of relief and worry as his eyes dart over both of them, pausing on the bruise on Natalia’s cheekbone and the lump on Bucky’s jaw. He says nothing though, because the extraction team follows right behind with shuffling steps. Bucky doesn’t have to turn his head to know that they’re even less excited about this than he is.
Hill waits until the entire team has left the plane before she orders them to follow her to what will no doubt be a part debriefing and part dressing down. Even with how unenthused Bucky is about the talk he needs to have with Steve, he’s glad he’s not in their shoes.
“I’m sorry, Buck,” Steve says and for a second Bucky almost believes he’s about to get an apology for the monitoring. “I’d hoped you would get the answers you were looking for.”
Only their location stops Bucky from asking if Steve has gotten the answers he was looking for watching that damn monitor. The wind up here is strong; he’d have to raise his voice to be heard. Who knows who might be lurking in the shadows?
Natalia keeps a conversation going with Steve for the entire trip to his apartment. Bucky stays out of it, focused on how good it’ll be to rid himself of the blood splattered clothes. The stains aren’t noticeable on the dark fabric, but he can smell it and it stings in his nose. Pulls at something primal deep inside.
By the time they’re through the front door, Steve’s shoulders are no longer hunched up, but Natalia’s watchful eyes clearly aren’t fooled by Bucky’s silence.
“Go take a shower,” she says. “We can eat when you’re done.”
He doesn’t say that that’s what he’s planning on, because she’s not telling him as much as narrating his silence. Instead he nods and grabs some clean clothes on his way to the bathroom.
The shower takes the edge of his headache, but washing his hair brings attention to a lump on the back of his head. A quick examination in the mirror reveals a faint shadow in the middle of his chest. The bottom of it matching the heel of Natalia’s boots. He has to give it to her, she didn’t hold back.
Clean and fully dressed again Bucky goes to join the other two by the breakfast bar. Steve greets him with a smile and gestures at the make-your-own-sandwich components he’s lined up.
The situation seems so normal when it’s anything but. This should have been like coming home, finally returning from his deployment. Safe in this fortress of scanners and hidden weapons. His best friend and his girl by his side. But instead the walls are closing in on him, the windows are too big, and the air-conditioning is like sandpaper on his skin.
Ignoring the niceties, Bucky lets the raw, naked feeling speak for him. “So when I agreed to wear a tracker, you took it as an okay to watch my every move?”
“Bucky, I—“ Steve begins, but is cut short.
“No, I want you to really think before you answer. You, of all people, should know better.” The urge to grip the counter is strong, but he holds back because the massive slab of 3 inch thick hardwood would be expensive to replace.
The miracle happens: Steve actually thinks before he opens his mouth next. “I was afraid of losing you again. I’m sorry. It was a stupid thing to do, but I didn’t know what else I could do.” Head bowed, Steve fidgets with the sandwich.
“And keeping track of when I was freaking out was the way you chose to go about it?”
“What was I supposed to do? I know I shouldn’t have, but I thought you would disappear again.” The pain in his voice cuts through Bucky like a hot knife through butter.
A flicker of movement on his right gives Bucky an excuse to look away from Steven Grant Rogers patented look of hurt innocence. He rounds on Natalia, catching her half off the high chair she’s been sitting on. If he’d been feeling generous, he’d say she’s trying to give them privacy. But he’s not, he feeling too goddamn exposed. “Don’t think I can’t see you trying to sneak off. This is on you, too.”
She tilts her head to the side and looks at him with a perfectly calm expression. “And did you really expect me to act differently? The Winter Soldier was masquerading as Bucky Barnes. You posed a security risk. It might not have been the best solution, but it was the only one we had on such short notice.”
Her words are a slap in the face, but they don’t surprise him. Despite how soft she looks, Natalia has an iron core.
He wants to bolt, pack up his things and leave. During the night when everyone is asleep. But that wouldn’t really help would it? Because it’s not them he wants to escape. It’s feeling like his dirty laundry is hanging out for all the world to see and that won’t go away even if he’s alone. It clings to his skin, a tight band around his chest. He needs to protect himself, he needs to—
There’s a movement on his right and suddenly Natalia is leaning against the counter next to him, close enough for him to touch if he wants to.
“What do you want him to say? He can’t take back what he did. None of us can.”
The sting of the last bit was no doubt on purpose, but he stands his ground. “So I should just forgive and forget?”
“No, we should try to make up for it. It’s all anyone can do.” She says it as if it’s a simple thing to do.
“It’s not that easy.”
“No, it’s not, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.”
“And how do you propose we do that?”
“That depends on what you want to do. I’m pretty fond of bug scanners and you’re welcome to borrow some of mine. Or you can buy your own if you want to.”
Steve moves over to stand next to Natalia, with an expression on his face he probably thinks is calming when it’s anything but.
“How about he wears a tracker,” Bucky says, pointing at Steve. “Then I get to watch the monitor and call you when taking a shit makes his blood pressure rise.”
Steve’s entire mouth twitches and it’s very clear that he’s trying and failing not to laugh.
“This isn’t fucking funny, Steve,” Bucky says. But it sort of is, in a twisted way.
It only makes Steve laugh harder. There’s tears sparkling in his eyes, but Bucky is pretty sure they’re not there because of the laughter. “No it’s not,” Steve says, “but, if anyone had ever told me I’d miss being scolded by you, I’d never have believed them.”
“No. You’d have tried to start a fight with them. And lost it.” He drags a hand roughly through his hair. “Punk.”
“Jerk,” Steve says and pulls him into a hug that would have tested the limits of the bionic arm if Bucky had tried to break it.
The sheet finally gives up trying to stay on the mattress when Natasha turns for what must be the hundredth time. With a sigh, she gives up chasing sleep and gets up to do the one thing that seems to ease her mind. Her gym clothes are easily located and she’s out of the door within minutes.
The hallways are empty and silent, but when she nears the doors to the gym she hears the regular thump, thump, thump, of fists hitting leather. She’s not the only restless soul in the tower.
It doesn’t come as a surprise who the other late-night visitor is. James’ hair is plastered to his head and only the light gray left sleeve of his tee shows what color the rest of it was before. He meets her eyes when she walks through the door, but doesn’t stop the work-out.
The smooth slide of hard muscles under the wet shirt is predictably mesmerizing and she finds a spot near the back where she’s safe from distractions. She’s well into her routine with the resistance bands before she notices that the pounding has stopped. The air conditioner hums quietly and her breathing is even and she refuses to turn around to look at what he’s doing. Because she’s not a hormone driven teenager. She didn’t come here to look for him, she came here to work out so she could finally get some—
The resistance band snaps with a loud twang. Only her quick reaction keeps the ends from hitting her square in the face. Well, that’s just great. Just perfect.
A low chuckle interrupts her and Natasha turns to see James walking towards her, a towel around his neck.
“Weren’t you trying to make that bag pay for everything that’s wrong in the world?” she says before he gets a chance to say anything.
“Your pull is too strong. Can’t seem to stay away.” The smile is crooked and almost fragile. She almost wants to believe it.
“You don’t believe that. You’re not that naive,” she dismisses him. Hours of exposure therapy with the shutdown codes has done more for him than her kiss. More than her hard-hitting brand of cognitive re-calibration.
The smile widens, crinkling the skin at the corners of his eyes. He’s testing her again, and she passed this one too. “It’s a nice story though.”
“It’s a fairy tale, and fairy tales aren’t for the likes of us,” Natasha says and pulls his head down for a kiss.
The kiss starts out as unhurried; no one will interrupt them. It doesn’t remain unhurried for long, though, the hunger growing as their tongues meet.
His upper lip tastes of salt from the work-out and when she weaves her fingers into his hair it’s damp. He must have held off cleaning his guns for the nth time, because there’s none of the gun-oil smell that usually clings to him. Instead, there’s just him. Musky is a cliché but she can’t come up with a better description because male is even worse, if still fitting. No matter the description, it smells like heaven to her.
The height difference is bad enough as it is and his trainers combined with her bare feet only makes it worse. His back is curved under her hands at what must be an uncomfortable angle and she breaks the kiss much to his displeasure.
“We should go upstairs, unless you feel like putting on a show for Tony.”
He locates the nearest surveillance camera and extends his middle finger at it. “Your place or mine?” he asks with a smile that’s bordering on rude, like he does this all the time.
“Your place as in Steve’s place, or my empty and soundproof place. Difficult choice.”
“He used to be in the army, he’s had to listen to worse.”
“Well, that settles it then.”
The hallway with the elevators has cameras, too, but apparently these don’t matter, because James pushes her into a corner and lifts her off the ground, allowing him access to her neck and collarbone. Her legs wrap around his waist, almost by instinct. He is perfectly capable of keeping her there with just one arm around her waist, but she’s not doing it to help him. She’s doing it for his reaction when she grinds against him. The groan, more felt than heard, interrupts his kisses, teeth scraping over her collarbone and she smiles widely.
They miss the ding of the elevator arriving. Instincts so engraved into them that they are impossible to turn off, alert them to the opening door, though.
The elevator is occupied by a single staffer pulling the graveyard shift. They aren’t touching by the time they walk into the elevator, and the corner was well out of sight, but the evidence from their previous actions is hard to hide – with red lips and breaths coming in short, hard bursts. The staffer's face gets redder by the second as they stand silently in the cart, Natasha biting the inside of her cheek to not burst out laughing.
The low Muzak only adds to the absurdity of the situation.
When they finally reach her floor she pulls James with her, fingers entwined, before he gets any bright ideas about what the empty corridor can be used for. Her lock isn’t that complicated, but with his hands roaming her body it takes her several seconds to get the door open. The contrast between the smooth metal and the calluses on his right hand is distracting, to say the least. Once through the door she makes him pay for it. Backing him into the closed door and pulling his head down into another kiss, this one hard and messy. His tongue is slick against hers and she bites his bottom lip as he sweeps her off the ground for the second time.
She wraps her legs around his firm waist and steadies herself with an arm on each shoulder. He’s so solid and hard, not just where the actual metal is. She knows how strong he is, has felt it on her body more than once and it sends a thrill down her spine. She moves to his jaw, nipping and kissing her way down his neck until she feels the staccato of his pulse against her tongue.
Pushing off from the door, he begins to move toward her bedroom and once there he nearly trips on the covers, lying discarded half on the bed and half off. The sheet hasn’t fared much better, but at least it’s still on top of the bed.
James laughs and puts her down. “Somehow, I expected that you would keep a neater home, Romanoff,”
“You want to critique my décor or you want to do something more interesting?” Natasha asks and yanks the top over her head. The sports bra follows quickly with the leggings and underwear right after.
He doesn’t answer. Ridding himself of his shirt as quickly as her and almost trips over the covers again as he tries to remove his pants and trainers in one go. When he’s finally free, he sits on the edge of the bed and she straddles his thighs, combing her fingers through his now dry hair. Sitting this close, she can feel the heat coming off him. He’s so damn warm all the time and for a brief second she wonders if it’s a super soldier thing or if he’s always been like this. Then his lips close around one nipple and she stops thinking.
Arching into the touch, she lets him have free reign as he switches from one to the other again and again, leaving her breathless and aching. She’d thought that maybe they would prolong it this time, explore more of each other’s bodies, maybe she would even see how it felt to have those metal fingers inside her. But it will have to wait. With a hand on his shoulder, she twists back to open the drawer in the bedside table.
James lets go of her breasts with a disgruntled, “Hey,” but smiles and adds, “Impatient as ever,” when he sees the condom in her hand.
Natasha shrugs as a reply and rips the packet open, rolling the condom down over his cock. It is hot and heavy in her hand, already leaking. She wants to take it in her mouth, leave him gasping for air, but that will have to wait, too. She only pauses to meet his eyes, searching for approval, before she positions him by her entrance and slowly lowers herself onto him, inch by straining inch.
Okay, a bit more warm-up would probably have been a good idea. He slides in easily enough, but her muscles haven’t yet relaxed enough for someone of his size. Sudden movements will probably be painful, but she doesn’t care. There are goose bumps coursing down her back and it’s all she can do not to let her breathing turn into outright moans.
James’s fingers are digging into her hips, hard enough to leave bruises. When she manages to open her eyes, his are bottomless pits.
“Jesus Christ, Natalia,” he huffs out.
She leans forward carefully and captures his bottom lip between her teeth. His tongue slides against hers and the kiss sends sparks flooding her nervous system, helping her body accommodate him.
As her muscles begin to release their taut grip, she starts to move. Rolling her hips, not actually lifting off him, no yet. The tightness, combined with the friction of the condom makes for a highly pleasurable if potentially painful experience.
After minutes of this, finally able to move more freely, Natasha lifts up and pushes back down. Slowly, enjoying the feeling of him inside her. If she angles her hips, the pressure is just right each time she pushes down, and she does so with excruciating slowness. As much to prolong the pleasure as to torture him.
He’s not putting up with it, of course. When his hands on her hips can’t make her speed up, James slides the left one up to her breast, showing her just how nimble those metal fingers are. His mouth on her neck adds to the mix and she’s falling apart on top of him. Half-choked moans escape her lips as fire courses through her body.
It takes her several moments before she’s able to move again, and when she is, she lets his hands on her hips set the speed. As he gets closer, he begins angling his hips up into her and it means he’s pushing against her in a way that— Biting into his shoulder as a second orgasm is ripped out of her is all that keeps her from screaming out her pleasure, but even through that she hears the low, desperate sound he makes. Hips jerking up a few final times, before he falls back, pulling her with him onto the messy bed.
His arms are crushing her to his chest and she smiles against his neck. As comfortable as it is, her legs are folded up on either side of him and that part is less pleasant. She slides off him and snuggles up against his side. His arms remain around her, the hold no less firm.
When she looks up at him, she sees that a lock of her red hair is sticking to his forehead. It takes two fingers to remove it and return it to its proper place. “A shower might be a good idea,” Natasha says with a smile.
James plucks a stray hair she had missed and says, “Ya think?” Reluctantly, he sits up and gets rid of the condom.
“I’ll make sure the bed meets your high standards when you’re done showering,” she calls after him.
He stops in the door to the bathroom and half turns. “You—you want me to stay tonight?” His face betrays less than his voice, only a glimmer of uncertainty.
They haven't talked about him moving from Steve’s apartment to hers, yet. She’s pretty sure his nightmares are holding him back from asking and she doesn’t want to push him. It seems too soon, too rushed for them to move in together yet, but if he asks she will agree to it in a heartbeat. “If you want to,” Natasha says, “If you don’t mind the walk of shame in the morning.”
If he’s relieved by the switch from the serious tone, James doesn’t show it, only flashes her a grin she’s only seen in the newsreels and says, “Ain’t no walk of shame when it’s coming home from your place, doll.”
After she’s made up the bed, she joins him in the bathroom and following the longest shower in her life they both sleep the entire night, almost without nightmares. In the morning, it isn’t a walk of shame, because she joins him as they pick up Steve to go for a morning work-out in the gym. If anyone notices that James’ clothes aren’t fresh from the laundry, they don’t comment on it.