Archive of Our Own

“Steve,” Bucky wheedled, “why do we have to do this right now?”

“Because we’re here.”

“You’re here twice a week.”

“I know, but I have to figure out what I’m going to do for this paper.”  Steve ran both hands through his hair. “Contemporary Art, also known as everything that happened after I crashed the Valkyrie.  I haven’t exactly had the downtime to investigate any of the major movements. I don’t have any idea what I like.”

“You don’t have to like it to write a paper on it,” Bucky pointed out.  “Just pick something.”

Steve glared back at him in half-serious disapproval.  Bucky used to like art, back in the thirties. Even took some classes with him.  He wasn’t half bad, honestly. In light of that, Steve thought he would be excited for this opportunity to learn about Modern and Contemporary Art at NYU.

Not the case, apparently.  He wondered if maybe he took those classes back then to try to get closer to him.  The old show-interest-in-what-your-crush-likes move. Since when did Bucky Barnes have to resort to that?  Since he fell in love with his (male) best friend, Steve supposed.

It still blew his mind a little.  It wasn’t that he never thought of Bucky that way - Lord help him, he had, and promptly felt ashamed every time because that was his best friend.  It was more that he never for one second imagined Bucky would reciprocate the attraction or the feelings.

They’d discovered, entirely too late, that they loved one another.  There had only been a year, really. Then the draft got Bucky, the SSR got Steve, and by the time Steve found his way to Europe and pried Bucky off that table, the world had descended into such madness that there just wasn’t time or safety enough to touch one another.  That had been some kind of torture when Steve finally had a body worth touching.

Bucky would sock him in the mouth if he knew Steve still had thoughts like that.  He was direct now, sometimes a little too direct. People had their theories about his lack of filter.  Steve didn’t really care about any of that. Bucky put in his hard time, more than any man should ever have to suffer, and whoever, whatever, however he chose to be now, Steve accepted him without question.   Loved him without question.  They could do that, now.

“Let me grab a few books,” he compromised.  Bucky had been preoccupied all day. He probably just needed to get back to the safety and relative quiet of the Tower.  “Then we can go home.”

“You don’t even have to write the paper,” he said to his fingernails.  “You’re auditing the class.”

Steve rolled his eyes.  

Technically, Bucky was right.  After the Battle of New York, a few colleges in and around the city had instituted an Avengers Audit Program, in which any member of the Avengers could audit one class per academic year, for free.  It was incredibly generous; he knew how expensive higher education was now.

That said, there was no way in hell he’d sit there and coast while everyone else in the class paid thousands of dollars and had to work their asses off to get credit.  Nope. Steve Rogers did every assignment and took every test, lent out his notes, and helped with study groups where he could. Though they mostly devolved to people asking him questions that had nothing to do with whatever they were studying.  

He knew Clint and Natasha had taken advantage of the free classes, too.  Clint took a class on agriculture, of all things, and Nat harbored a secret love for world literature.  He didn’t think Bruce or Tony needed to take any more classes ever, since they were more or less the smartest people in existence, but he’d found out just last week that Bruce was taking a class on feminism.  He asked if he could borrow the class materials when Bruce was done and got an enthusiastic yes.

“No one even goes to libraries anymore, Steve.  That’s what the internet is for.”

“I don’t want to learn about art from the internet,” Steve responded, well aware that he sounded petulant.  But he felt strongly about that. Art needed touch and smell and noise. Not tiny screens and blue light. “And shut up, I like libraries, and so do lots of other people.”

“Lots of other 97 year olds.”

He didn’t bother to rise to that one.  The library was more than busy enough to prove his point, and nobody in the place was 97.  Besides, Bucky knew full well why Steve was so comfortable in a library. He spent most of his evenings between the ages of five and ten in one; his mother’s good friend was a librarian and a saint for watching him until Sarah could get home around seven.  

“You don’t have to wait for me,” he shrugged, heading for the computer to do a few searches.  JARVIS had painstakingly taught him how to do this via his earpiece when he couldn’t take the ambiguity of the internet anymore.  He’d come a long way since 2012, but this still felt more natural.

Steve scribbled down several reference numbers.  Bucky was sulking at the workstation next to him.  He complained, but he never left. Sometimes, Steve thought he was obliquely paying him back for all the annoyance Steve heaped upon him in the past.  It was certainly deserved, so most of the time Steve just dealt with it.

He leaned down and kissed Bucky’s temple.  “Come on. The more you try to talk me out of it, the longer it will take me to just do it.”

Bucky fixed him in an expression that said he wasn’t born yesterday.  “I know how this is gonna go, Rogers. You’ll get interested in whatever you’re skimming and then sit here until closing.”

Hmm, well, he had been known to do that from time to time in their youth.  All these years and Bucky still had his number. His chest went a little warm and fluttery.

“There are audiobooks over there, so you’re not bored,” he said hopefully.

It was Bucky’s turn to roll his eyes.  There was nothing wrong with audiobooks, per se; it was more that he needed to use them at all.  All the years of brain scrambling had left him with a nasty case of acquired dyslexia. He could read, but it took a lot of time and effort, and worse than that, it made him feel both self-conscious and stupid.  Bucky had never liked to feel or look stupid.  Though, Steve reflected, he was liberal enough in finding ways to tell Steve he was a moron.  That hadn’t changed.

“If I’m not done in an hour, come get me,” Steve relented, unreasonably fond.

“Oh, I will,” Bucky promised, and there was a glint in his eye that did strange things to Steve’s insides.

Steve brought a cart with him, and he managed to stack five or six promising books on it before getting completely absorbed in the next one that came off the shelf.  True to form, he was a quarter of the way through the book when a bump against his leg startled him back to reality.

He looked up and there was Bucky.  He’d driven the edge of the cart into Steve’s knee.  Gently, of course. Steve looked at his watch.

“It’s only been 52 minutes.”

“Yeah, and you were trying your best to get balls deep in that book.”

Steve didn’t bother to say that the only thing he ever wanted to be balls deep in was Bucky.

“Did you know there’s an art movement called Stuckism?”

“Is there,” Bucky replied, in a voice that said, unequivocally, that he did not care .  Steve stifled a grin.

“They call us Stucky on the internet sometimes.”

“Ain’t that sweet.”  Bucky stepped around the cart, intent in the line of his body.  Ooh, Steve loved this game, but usually they played it at home. He couldn’t resist, though.

“Wouldn’t it be ironic if I did my paper on that?”

“Nine and a half decades and you still don’t know what irony is.”  He slid right up against Steve, front to front, pressing him back into the metal bookshelves and mouthing at his neck.  Steve tilted his head. Fuck, that felt good. Bucky was so warm, so solid, and his stubble grated agreeably against Steve’s skin, reminding him on some caveman level of everywhere else he wanted to feel that stubble.  The tailspin into arousal was all too easy.

“Irony is you trying to get me in trouble right now after nine and a half decades of trying to keep me out of it, Buck,” Steve panted.  

Teeth closed around his earlobe and Steve had to suck in a deep breath.

“Nobody’s here,” Bucky whispered.

That was at least partially true; there was no one in the immediate area.  Steve had learned early on that most of his classmates were procrastinators.  None of them would be in the library for another week, at least. They had the contemporary art section to themselves, a secluded corner on the third floor of a surprisingly large library.

Bucky shifted to slot his lips over Steve’s.  Steve melted into the commanding kiss, always hungry for this.  He’d thought about kissing him so many times when they were young and even when he believed Bucky was gone.  So many times, and now he could, whenever, and almost wherever he wanted.  It never failed to get him intensely worked up.

And really, he doubted they were the only ones who had ever kissed in this library.  It was college and hormones ran high, and kids these days were fearless. They’d make out anywhere. He figured that out fast his first day on a college campus.

Can you please join us in the 21st century, grandpa, Tony always said.

Yes, yes he could.  He kissed back with his usual abandon, picturing the plush curve of Bucky’s lips in his mind, savoring the distinctly sexual slide of his tongue.  Oh, the things he could do with that tongue. Such a delicious prelude. Yeah, there was still a thrill, as simple as kissing could be when compared to everything else they did to one another.  The cusp of the forbidden, and all that.

Steve sighed into his mouth, head gone fuzzy.  He abruptly came back to full awareness, however, when Bucky’s hands drifted and began to unzip his now very tight jeans.  

“Buck--”

Did pumping the brakes ever work when Bucky had set his mind to something?  People said he was stubborn, but boy, they didn’t know this side of Bucky.  Steve choked on a gasp as Bucky’s hand slid into the front of his jeans, rubbing roughly down his shaft and cupping his balls.

“Always thought you might have a little streak,” Bucky breathed hotly.  “Never got to try. Woulda been pretty hot, though, fucking in a tent in enemy territory with the rest of the squad a few feet away.”

“Oh God ,” Steve blurted, his entire body jerking.  He was pretty sure most of his brain cells just died.

“Uh huh,” Bucky said, conversational with an edge of strain.  “That’s what I thought. Stay quiet, sweetheart.”

Steve knew he should want to protest, but really, he didn’t.  He was wired to give Bucky what he wanted. Always had been. Bucky had only recently figured out how far he would go, though.  

After easing him free of his clothes, Bucky put his metal forearm across Steve’s chest to pin him in place.  He started a slow stroke with his right hand, tight, agonizingly slow.

“Watch,” Bucky ordered, his voice a silken growl.

Ah, fuck, Bucky knew how to take him apart.  It was hot enough to be fully clothed, but with the most private part of him exposed, on display, in a place where anyone could walk by and see them.  Watching Bucky’s hand working his shaft at his command, pleasure shivering up his spine, made him feel like none of it mattered. Like he’d lay down and take it anywhere if it meant Bucky would keep touching him.  Steve couldn’t help but squirm, head butting back against the plastic-wrapped books.

A second later the stack of books moved and there was a crash from the next row.  He froze.   Tellingly, his cock just throbbed, eager, unfazed by the possibility of discovery.  Maybe even excited by it. Bucky just chuckled darkly against his ear.

“Keep watching,” he purred.  Then he sank down to his knees.

“Bucky--”

A handjob was one thing, that could be hidden if someone walked by, but not this.  He was helpless, though, as he watched Bucky lick a stripe from balls to tip and then slide his lips over the head of his cock like it was a thousand degrees outside and he’d been handed the last popsicle on earth.

Truth be told, his dick wasn’t actually that much bigger than it was before the serum.  It had always been a mouthful for Bucky - for anyone , but no one had really mattered except Bucky - and sometimes, watching him choke himself on it made Steve forget that anything had changed.  They were just twentysomethings making their way, and making one another scream into pillows when they could.

That was why it wrecked him.  Steve had to consciously check the moans that wanted to bubble out of him.  He pressed his arm over his mouth, biting the soft ribbed cuff of his jacket, but like that he couldn’t see , and he wanted to.  He wrenched his hand away and gripped the edge of the bookshelf for dear life.  When he looked down, Bucky was staring right at him, eyes dark with arousal. He closed them as he moved, brow furrowing in blissful concentration.  Again and again Steve felt his lips at the base of his cock, the hot sheath of his throat. Jesus, the sounds - there could be no mistaking what they were doing now.

Bucky was giving him a messy suckjob in the library.   He almost came right then, at the absurdity of it, the scratch of his stubble, and the aborted gag he could feel around his glans.  Almost. Bucky was glowing when he pulled back to catch his breath.  God, he was a sight, lips red and spit slicking his chin.  Steve stroked his cheek with his knuckles and he leaned into the touch.

That was the first clue.  Well, maybe the second. Bucky wasn’t one to deny his libido; he’d decided a long time ago that his every independent urge was a nice fuck you to Hydra, and he was often (always) the one in charge of their sex life since he came back.  But he never asked anything of Steve that was dangerous, harmful to his public image (however inaccurate it was), or potentially humiliating. As much as he was enjoying this, it was out of character. And he only got that way when...

Bucky must have seen the comprehension dawn on Steve’s face; it did take a bludgeon, sometimes.  He kept his chin up, eyes glazed with want. Slowly, as Steve inspected him, Bucky sat back on his heels in that slow, deliberate way Steve loved, raw power ceding to grace.  He crossed his arms behind his back, wrists touching. No longer the aggressor.

Steve brushed his hair back from his face.  Indulgently, he traced his thumb along Bucky’s lower lip.  It was full and wet, the stuff of fantasies. His tongue flicked out to pull him in, to suck at his thumb in promise.

Bucky hated that he needed this.  He’d been controlled by Hydra for so long.  But, as Steve well knew, being in control all the time was exhausting.  It built a sort of wall that ended up being a trap in the long run. For a while, he hadn’t liked to admit that he needed to let go, either, but there weren’t many things one could sneak past Natasha Romanov.  Now he knew what to do when the bricks got too high, and Bucky was only too happy to help. That didn’t mean he’d come to terms with his own compulsion to surrender.

Steve knew he was the only one Bucky would ever trust with this.  Because of that, he treated it like something sacred. He pulled his thumb from Bucky’s mouth and buried his fingers in his hair, grasping just tight enough to make his scalp ache.  Bucky’s hips stuttered.

Steve leaned down to kiss him, ferocious and tender, because fuck, he loved this man.  Then he straightened up, stepped forward off the bookshelf, and fed his cock to Bucky.

“Stay quiet, sweetheart,” he ordered.

And predictably, Bucky let out the prettiest little whimper around his dick.

This was the wrong place for this, the absolute wrong place, but Steve had always been an all or nothing kind of guy, so he pushed him.  He fucked Bucky’s mouth in slow, deep strokes, filling up his throat, making him fight to control his gag reflex. He always had to settle into it a little.  Once he did, Steve could go faster, and he took it so fucking well .

Not only that, he loved it .  Face-fucking wasn’t Steve’s favorite - struggling for breath always reminded him a little too much of asthma.  Bucky, on the other hand, never asked for it expressly, but his two dozen porn bookmarks and sheer enthusiasm gave him away.  If there was any question, Steve could just defer to the thick curve of the erection currently tenting his designer sweatpants.  Steve smiled to himself; that was not something Bucky’s chic hobo-wear could hide.

“Ready for it, Buck?” he asked, pulling back so the head of his cock rested against the soft pout of his lips.  Bucky nodded, tongue darting just below the head, jolting a little tendril of pleasure through him. “Not gonna stop ‘til I come, doll, and neither are you.  Got that?” Bucky nodded again, his brow creased with the strain of his desperation to please.

The briefest, tiniest flicker of annoyance passed through Steve.  If Bucky would just learn to ask …  But he had to admit, this was pretty fucking hot, and if they got caught, well, Tony paid a lot of money for a team of lawyers.  Might as well give them some work to do and Tony something to splutter about.

“What do you do if it’s too much?” Steve asked gently.

“Red,” Bucky whined, ragged and impatient.

“Good.”  He gave a sharp tug at his hair and wished Bucky was naked so he could see the way his cock jumped.  “You’re always so good to me.” He pressed back into Bucky’s mouth - his lips were sinful , fuck, so good.  

Usually he’d drag it out, try to make it last, but not here.  He was already so close. And the night was young; this alone wouldn’t calm Bucky, not as worked up as he was.  He could take his time when they got home. In fact, he intended to. He was going to make Bucky beg .

The thought of tormenting him to the point of mind-altering climax combined with Bucky’s little choke-slurps did him in.  The dam broke, blindsiding him with pleasure. Steve shook with the effort of not crying out. It felt like old times, like 1940, and that crested the wave, his head going dizzy and his heart pounding because the only way not to scream his pleasure to the heavens was to stop breathing.

Bucky kept right on sucking, lips a glorious wet friction on his shaft, driving him to oversensitivity that blotted everything out of his mind until he felt something give under his hand.  It was the metal of the bookshelf; he squeezed so hard it warped in the shape of his fingers.

“Buck,” he gasped, still flying, the pattern blinking behind his eyes like the old lace over their apartment windows.  “Too much.”

Bucky pulled off immediately, licking his lips, staring up at Steve worshipfully.  It was a hell of a sight. He was going to have trouble stuffing his dick back in his pants at this rate...not that he really wanted to.

“C’mere.”

Bucky rose, arms still behind his back.

“I love you,” Steve said, emotions colliding, tightening his throat.  It never seemed enough, those words. There had to be something more. Something the universe would let him do to show Bucky how deeply he was stitched into the fabric of his soul.  Maybe one day he’d know what to do, but in the meantime, he kissed him.  Open mouthed, full tongue, tasting himself, and fuck, he had to get control of himself or he’d strip Bucky down, bend him over the cart, and fuck him right here.

He slid his hand down between their bodies.  Bucky was hard, probably painful at this point.  Steve wished he had the cock ring in his bag. He dipped his hand under Bucky’s waistband and into his underwear.  Bucky jerked, biting against his lips. He was wet, leaking, perfect.   God.  His kingdom for a cock ring.

“I’ll take care of this when we get home,” Steve promised, an edge of playful menace in his voice.  It was Bucky’s turn to twitch. Steve smiled, kissed him some more, and then took his sweet time putting them both back together and retrieving the books he wanted.

He thought they were going to make it.  They were in line, and the librarian was scanning his books, but there was high color in his cheeks and he wasn’t making eye contact.  Steve narrowed his eyes and looked closer. It wasn’t just his cheeks; the flush was down his neck, disappearing into the border of his sweater.  Either he’d just had an amorous visit from a significant other, or…

Or he’d watched something highly arousing.

Fuck.  Did this place have security cameras?  He should have checked. Steve could admit to being a little preoccupied, however.

Well, the librarian - his badge said Liam - seemed too shy and stunned to say anything.  If he was the only one who had seen it, they would probably be all right. Steve kept his eyes on him.  He looked impossibly young, and it occurred to Steve that he was probably a student doing work-study. Twenty at most.  He was kind of cute, actually, built the way Steve had been before the serum but without looking sickly. Lucky him.

Liam had to look up when he gave Steve’s student ID back.  Steve made sure to give him a dazzling smile. He wasn’t self-absorbed, but he also wasn’t oblivious to the effect this built and very symmetrical body had on people.  Although, Bucky said his smile was mostly the same as it had been before, and that still made him feel dopey in love every time he thought about it.

“Th-thank you,” Liam stammered, and dropped Steve’s ID twice before he managed to place it in his hand.

You’re welcome, honey.

Steve turned and Bucky followed, hand slipping into Steve’s.

They were almost to the door, the flow of New York foot traffic visible through the glass, when a security guard stepped into their path.  Bucky tensed immediately, but Steve knew there was nothing to worry about, not where their physical safety was concerned. He was a large, bored-looking man with more keys than weapons on him.  It was clear that he didn’t realize who he was stopping.

“Hold up,” the security guard said.  “The head librarian wants to see you guys.”

“Sure,” Steve said mildly.  Bucky’s grip on his hand had gone from pleasant to crushing.

“Follow me.”

Steve nodded and tugged Bucky along.  Bucky looked like he was marching to the gallows.  As much as he deserved it, he didn’t like to see Bucky afraid.  Steve squeezed his hand and wished he could comfort him via osmosis.

The office they were led into wasn’t exactly spacious, but it was nicely decorated.  Organized. Everything had its spot.

“Sit,” the security guard said, gesturing at the small loveseat against the wall.  “She’ll be right in.”

Steve tried not to feel like he was eight years old in the principal’s office for punching someone and didn’t succeed.  Bucky was breathing too fast.

“It’s fine, babe,” Steve said, nudging him with his shoulder.

“ No it is not ,” Bucky hissed.  “I--”

He got no further.  The head librarian strolled in and they both had to forget whatever was going to be said.  Steve took her in; she was tall, stern-faced, with long ringlets of salt and pepper hair. Her outfit was 80% corduroy, 14% clogs, and 6% miscellaneous beads and pendants.  And she owned it .

“I’m Agnes Harper.  I run this library. And while I congratulate you on finally pushing Liam over the threshold of his gay awakening, we have a big problem here.”

This was his fault.  Fuck. Fuck .  It only he never needed this shit, if only Steve was even marginally more perceptive than a pile of bricks.  If only his life wasn’t a continuous series of if onlys.

Now he’d done it.  He was going to be single-handedly responsible for ruining Captain America.  One might argue Steve Rogers, too, but nobody paid enough attention to the actual person.  It was the image that mattered. He, Bucky Barnes, had just blown Captain America in the library and someone saw .

Oh, God, what if there was a recording?   Of course there’s a recording, you moron, it’s 2015.  Agnes Harper, world’s most terrifying librarian with the dangly glasses cords (he’d used those as a garrote before and didn’t put it past her to do the same), confirmed his greatest fear a moment later.

Apparently Liam, the rosy twink in denial, was sitting in the security office for Hal, security guard extraordinaire, while he took his lunch, and saw the whole thing.  The whole thing.  Steve.  Fucking his mouth.  Choking him with his dick in that weirdly loving way of his.  In the library.

Damn, it was good, but just now it didn’t really seem worth it.  He felt sick. He shouldn’t have pushed Steve to do that. Now the world would know that Bucky wasn’t as okay as he seemed, that there was no real place for him in Avengers Tower, that he should be in a mental ward.   Told you, Stevie, told you there might not be enough of me to put back together.

Snowballing.  That was the word Sam used to describe what he was doing right now, letting the catastrophe grow bigger and bigger in his mind with no end in sight.  Sam was a dick, but the kind of dick Bucky appreciated. They would get along better if Bucky didn’t know his resurrection had effectively cockblocked Sam.  Sam was resentful and probably still a bit in love, Bucky was paranoid and jealous because how could Steve want someone so screwed up .  And through it all, Steve Rogers was a ray of lethal beefcake sunshine, blessedly oblivious to the subtext between his two best friends.

But yeah.  Snowballing.  Sam also said the important thing was to make an effort to stop as soon as you realized you were doing it.  So the next thought, lethal beefcake sunshine jailbird public disgrace, was just not helpful.  Bucky wanted to pound his head repeatedly on Agnes Harper’s immaculate desk.

But Steve learned something from Natasha and whatever poor soul was assigned to him for Avengers PR.  Or maybe he’d relearned something from his youth.  Bucky’s brain might not be right, but he does remember what an absolute sneaky little turd Steve used to be.  And he was charming now.  Only took him nine decades to get that down.  End result, Steve was all yes, ma’am, no ma’am, we’re so very sorry, ma’am, it’s just we missed so much time together…

And Agnes Harper, clearly she shipped it.  She still looked like she’d kill a man if he put a crease in the spine of her books, but she wasn’t going to turn them in.  However, when Steve asked if there was anything they could do, she didn’t hesitate.

“Public libraries have been losing funding since the recession.  Fewer staff, fewer resources, less usage.” Her lips pursed. “And we already know information literacy is a problem since half the people in this country think click bait is gospel.  Wouldn’t know a goddamn reliable source if it punched them in the face,” she muttered.

Did Steve even know what click bait was?  Also, did Steve have a secret boner for this lady?  Yeah. Yeah, Bucky knew that look. It was the Peggy Carter Effect.  The more terrifying the woman, the more googly-eyed Steve got. Example one, Peggy Carter herself.  Example two, Natasha. There was nothing romantic between them, but Steve sure did enjoy the way she could hand him his ass on a platter on many levels.  And Steve was fooling himself if he thought Bucky didn’t know that he sometimes let Natasha use him for furniture.

“It’s a sin,” Steve commiserated.

“What we need is an advocate.”  Agnes leveled a shameless stare at him.  “Someone people know and trust telling them that libraries are important.”

“Libraries are important!”

“Then you’ll do it?”

“Oh, yes, I’d be happy to!” Steve responded, like they weren’t in the midst of a blackmail shakedown.

“Three years,” she bargained.  “That ought to be enough time.”

Steve nodded.  Then a slow, bedeviled smile crept over his face, and Bucky knew he was going to say something he shouldn’t.  “Do we get anything for good behavior?”

Agnes folded her arms and considered him.  Oh. Oh, whatever was going on here, whatever weird power boner was happening, it went both ways.

“You keep your hands off each other in my library and maybe I’ll send you a copy of the security footage a year from now.”

Bucky wanted to scream that no, they should delete that footage, but all of a sudden his dick remembered it existed.  His brain could not handle the realization that they might be able to watch it.  Not that they couldn’t record themselves in the Tower - JARVIS was a pal - but this was different.

“Understood,” Steve said, perfectly calm.  “Thank you, ma’am.”

“How,” Bucky said in the Uber, “the hell…”

Steve shrugged.  “Tony Stark School of Not Giving a Fuck and People Still Somehow Liking You?”

He felt like he was in shock.  He was, a little, because he expected the worst, and Steve handled that with a level of dignity, calculation, and swagger he’d not had the pleasure of witnessing before.  Steve often insisted that Bucky wasn’t the only one who had changed, but he hadn’t really seen that in action until now. He liked this side of Steve.  A lot. He’d been half-hard for twenty minutes.  

“The future has corrupted you.”

Steve laughed and leaned over to suck at his neck, and by the time they got back to the Tower, he was as hard as marble and ready to let Steve ream him.

The first thing Steve did was disappear into their bedroom.  Even that short time was enough for Bucky’s brain to descend into crisis.  The haze of arousal yielded to fear and guilt. He wanted to cry at how stupid he’d been.

“Hey,” Steve said, cradling his face, catching his eyes.  “Hey. What’s the matter?”

He leaned into Steve’s chest.  “I almost made you lose everything.”

Steve was quiet for a moment, like he was processing.  Then he tilted Bucky’s chin up and said, “Don’t you get it?  You’re my everything.”

It was like being punched in the stomach with emotions.  Bucky couldn’t control an indelicate sound.

“I’m an adult,” Steve continued, voice soft and patient.  “I could have stopped you anytime. I didn’t want to. But we really do need a way for you to let me know what you need.”

He didn’t deserve Steve.  Bucky knew this was on him, no matter how easily Steve threw around words like ‘we’.  He had to speak his needs, tell Steve what he wanted. It was unfair to expect him to just know .  Maybe they’d get there in time, but for now…

“You trust me?” Steve asked, brushing their lips together.

Bucky nodded.

“Say it.”

“I trust you.”

Steve sighed against his lips.  Then he smiled.

“Good thing.  You’re in for a long night, Buck.”

The promise in his voice was all it took.  Bucky left guilt behind. For a little while, anyway.

And oh, Steve had been in his porn bookmarks again.  Bucky squirmed and groaned as his hand started up again, stroking his too-full cock with a hot, lubed-up hand.  Steve’s grip was like steel. He was relentless .  It hurt.  It hurt so fucking good .

Bucky was sweating.  His muscles trembled, feverishly fighting against the restraints he knew he couldn’t escape.  There was no fear in it, though. Just instinct. Just the desperate need to move, to do anything to distract from the pleasure-pain Steve kept inflicting on him.

Steve paused.  Bucky gasped for breath, thighs shaking.  Even the air felt like a snapping caress, cold and biting against his dick.  He wanted to howl.

“ Steve ,” he begged, though he didn’t even know what he was begging for.

“Yes, darling?” Steve’s cheeks were pink, his lips parted.  He looked on the edge of bliss even though he was still clothed, knelt between Bucky’s knees.  

“Clothes off ,” Bucky managed to whine.

Steve smiled, love practically exploding out of his pores, right alongside the hard flash of mischief in his eyes that told Bucky he was not going to get what he wanted.

“I’m in charge, Buck,” he replied, languidly dragging a thumbnail over the seam of Bucky’s balls.  “This too much for you?”

Bucky shook his head so hard he made himself dizzy.  Steve’s hand came up suddenly, trapping his jaw in an unyielding, dominating grip.

“I’ll take my clothes off when I want.   If I want.  Maybe I’ll just leave you here like this for a while.  Order some takeout and read my books while you sit here with your dick throbbing.”  

Oh, no , he wouldn’t!  The thought made Bucky want to scream.  And that tone of voice stoked some desperation in him; he wanted Steve inside him so bad that he started to salivate.  Steve’s grip tightened ever so slightly.

“If I hadn’t already, I’d give you something to drool over, sweetheart.”

Bucky’s brain made a noise like television static.  Then his throat made another noise entirely when Steve released him and all of a sudden his lips were around Bucky’s dick.  The heat and the suction were shocking after the few minutes of nothing, and Bucky’s right leg jerked and kicked like he was being electrocuted.  He knew all about that, but it was nowhere in his head at the moment, it had no place when Steve---

Ah, fuck.  Steve wasn’t teasing.  He sucked hard, fast, lips meeting the circle of his fist.  He couldn’t stop looking at Steve’s beautiful blond head and how thick and ruddy his shaft was in his mouth.  Oh fuck. Fuck. The pressure was building in his balls, nerve endings like licks of fire, and he was going to come, oh God, he’s---

It’s gone.  Steve’s gone.  Nothing but cold air and Steve’s teeth on his nipple, biting, and he’s on the edge, so close, so close, but Steve won’t let him.  And now his dick was wet. Steve’s hand tightened and no , he’s too close, too sensitive, he can’t---

“It’s only been 26 minutes, Buck.  I want to go at least an hour,” Steve said, jerking his dick without mercy.

Steve Rogers was fucking mean .  

Bucky was dimly aware that he was yowling like a cat, hips arching off the chair, simultaneously trying to escape and seek more.  Especially when the saliva began to dry and he was left with the rough friction of skin to skin. Bucky’s eyes rolled back.

And he stopped.

Bucky growled at him, curses and threats in Russian spilling from his lips in a cracked voice.

“You know how to stop it,” Steve shrugged, as he squeezed more lube into his hand.

Steve let him come nine torturous minutes later.  It was earth-shattering. Like his body was turning inside out.  He screamed. His abs hurt. He shot spunk up to his own neck.

Steve licked come from the hollow between his collarbones and kept going.   That was when he realized Steve had only let him come so that it would hurt more .  He could feel the oversensitivity to the roots of his teeth.  His breath hitched, his eyes pooled, but in the end, it was the soft touches that made him cry.  The grazes to his nipples, his abdomen, the spot where his thigh met his pelvis. His perineum.

And then Steve full-on slapped him in the dick, and he came again, body seizing with violent ecstasy.  The arm recalibrated, servos hissing, and Bucky sobbed and writhed and wailed. If they had been in the tenements of old there would have been a mob with torches at their door in no time flat.

“Jesus Christ,” Steve whispered, tremulous, worshipful.

“ Yellow! ” Bucky gasped, when words could happen again.  He felt shaky and jarred and like he would lose his mind if Steve didn’t stop.  All the same, he didn’t want him to stop. This was cleansing. This was sublime.  This was healing.

Steve was there.  He kissed Bucky’s dry lips tenderly.

“What do you need?”

Bucky couldn’t answer.  That was an answer in and of itself, though.  He needed time. A break. Steve kissed the corner of his mouth and then went into the kitchen for a minute.  Bucky closed his eyes and just listened to the sounds of him moving around. The sounds of home.

Not a cryotube.  Not a sniper’s nest.  Not a van full of people who viewed him as a weapon and nothing more.  Home, with Steve, in a time and place where no one could hurt him. Anyone who tried would be met with the fury and lube-sticky fists of Steven Grant Rogers, and probably a few others who weren’t Steve, but pretty amazing nonetheless.

His muscles unwound.  His hips eased back down to the chair.  His breathing slowed. Bucky surrendered, his mind going soft and floaty .   The black tornadic cloud that sometimes lived inside his head was no more than an eddy.

Steve came back and a glass of water was pressed to his lips.  Bucky drank, emotions rising at the simple pleasure of being cared for.  A warm, soft cloth wiped the dried and drying semen from his body. Steve eased back down to the floor and kneaded the muscles in his feet and calves, pushing the last of the tension away.

“You’re doing real good, Buck,” he soothed.  His broad fingers were magical on the arch of a foot.  “It’s been 48 minutes. Think you got 12 more in you? One more round?”

And one more after that.  Anything, everything for you.

“Green,” he said, fighting tears of exhilaration.  “ Please .”

Steve beamed.  “I knew you could do it.”

Bucky squirmed.  He needed it.  “Please,” he repeated.

“I just need a minute,” Steve said with a kiss to the forehead.  He disappeared again. That was okay, though, because when he came back he was naked.  God, he was so beautiful, he’d always been beautiful. Bucky wanted to put his mouth all over his favorite parts of him: the freckles on his shoulders, the dense muscles of his pecs, the hard cut of sinew at his hip that used to be a hollow.  He loved him with a visceral force that still sometimes took him by surprise.

Steve kissed him, and while he did, his hand drifted.  Bucky tensed, waiting for the onslaught to begin, but he just eased the cock ring off.  He sighed into Steve’s mouth. It wasn’t a drastic change; he was still incredibly hard, but it felt like there was an end in sight.  Steve was going to fuck him. Finally, Steve was going to fuck him. He’d been dying for it all day.

Steve paused to make him drink some more water.  Bucky’s body thrummed with anticipation. If he was worried about hydration, Steve planned to sweat.  Bucky was on Cloud Nine.

He was going to take his time, though.  That was clear. Steve drifted down between his thighs again, revisiting everything with his mouth.  Slow, gentle, not enough.   Understimulation was as bad as overstimulation when he wanted it this bad.  But Steve’s fingers were teasing gently, wetly at his asshole, and his other hand fisted his own cock.  He would lose his patience soon.

He rose up to kiss Bucky again, and his hands went around the back of the chair, deftly releasing the restraints.  It didn’t even occur to Bucky to move, so focused was he on what was next. Steve had to tug him out of the chair. Bucky followed him to the bedroom like he didn’t even have a brain.  After that he just stared at him, besotted, while Steve reattached the restraints to the exceptionally sturdy bedposts. JARVIS really was a pal; when they said they needed stronger furniture, the AI understood and did the ordering under Tony’s radar.

He whimpered as Steve settled between his legs.  Still not in any rush; he laved at Bucky’s nipples, rubbed their cocks together, giving Bucky just a fraction of what he wanted.  This was still edging, but it was mental, emotional. Steve could taste his desperation.

Fuck, he loved him.  He loved him so much.  And Steve loved him back enough to be downright cruel when Bucky needed it, because it sure as hell wasn’t in his nature, otherwise.

“You want it?” he said, when Bucky was near tears with frustration.  

Bucky tried to say twenty different words at once, most of which were variations of yes you goddamn son of a bitch fuck me now .  Steve smiled.

“Okay.  You don’t come until I do, is that clear?”   

Bucky banged his head back into the pillow with the force of his nod.

“I mean that,” Steve warned, eyes hard.  “You screw up, and I’m going to strap your legs down, too, and put that blue vibrator in you and leave it on the highest setting until the battery dies.”

“ Nguh! ” was all Bucky could manage as he clamped down with every muscle he had to keep from coming right then.  And that, of course, was when Steve swung a leg over him and began to sink down over his cock.

It was like being hit by a truck.  All the stimulation he wanted, all the force, was now concentrated around his sore cock in a vice grip.  Steve was hot and tight and slick , fuck, that was what he was doing when he went to take off his clothes, fuck, no, he’s going to come he’s going to---

Steve was fully seated, eyelashes dipping in pleasure.  He stayed absolutely still, breathing, watching Bucky’s face and its ten thousand contortions of ecstatic agony.

“You got this, Buck,” he breathed.  “I know you do.”

He wanted to scream I hate you .  But more than anything, he wanted Steve to move.   To ride him, to own him.  He dared to punch his hips up an inch, earning a sharp breath from Steve and a shot of pleasure so intense his eyes crossed.  He absolutely did not have this. He was going to come any second, he was going to disappoint Steve, he was going to be here screaming with the vibrator until he went hoarse--

“Look at me,” Steve commanded.  Bucky obeyed automatically, trembling.  Steve rolled his hips slow and he was so close .  He moaned, helpless.  “Stay with me, sweetheart,” Steve exhaled as he did it again.  And again.

Stay with me.

And Bucky found that if he held onto his gaze, those blue eyes so bright and fogged with love and greed for him, he could weather the unbearable pleasure.  He could do this for Steve. Wonderful Steve, whose life and career he almost ruined today.

“Uh-uh,” Steve said gruffly, hand winding into Bucky’s hair.  “Come back.” He was flushed all down his chest. He tugged gently to lift Bucky’s head.  “See what you do to me?”

His cock was thick, full, as red as Bucky’s had been earlier.  He was waiting all this time, delaying his own gratification to take care of Bucky.  He watched Steve ride him - Steve liked when he watched - heart spasming with so many indefinable emotions that for a few moments, the pleasure seemed secondary.  But not for long. Orgasm was building inside Bucky, inexorable, a wave destined to become a tsunami that would unmoor him, but he wasn’t alone. He knew Steve’s tells.  He was close.

Steve was sometimes quiet when he was on top - he was topping , even like this, and they both knew it - but when it felt good enough he made the most beautiful sounds.  It was always Bucky’s goal to earn those little moans, and his success rate was pretty fucking fantastic.  Steve didn’t tell him he had to be still; just that he couldn’t come. Not until Steve did.

He could make Steve come.  That was easy. And once his mind shifted from don’t come don’t come to make Steve come so hard he can’t talk, it was automatic to dig his heels into the bed and meet him halfway.

It was a near thing, because Steve was pointedly not touching himself.  Bucky couldn’t be angry, not when he shuddered and whispered Bucky’s name like a prayer at the sharp contact of their bodies, not when the weight of everything disappeared from his face.  Bucky gritted his teeth, felt his eyes grow hot with tears as the monstrous ache of pleasure began to crest.

Not yet, not yet, him first, please, please, don’t let me fail--

“--Steve, please , I can’t!” he sobbed.  It was happening, he couldn’t stop it--

“Oh fuck ,” Steve gasped, tensing, and then he was coming, head thrown back, nails digging into Bucky’s thighs, and pleasure spiked so viciously inside Bucky that he jackknifed and almost threw Steve clean off the bed.   

What kind of man was he, Steve wondered, that the sight of his beloved crying pushed him over the edge?  It was pleasure, but not entirely. No. This was the only time Bucky ever cried.  The only release, the lone catharsis.

Exorcism.

“I love you,” Steve babbled, leaning down over Bucky’s sweaty, trembling body to kiss him.  “I love you, I love you, I love you.” His cheeks were salty and his throat issued little mewling sounds.  A second later Bucky tugged fiercely at the restraints. He always did this at the end. He needed to wrap himself around Steve.

Steve eased their bodies apart and unlocked the restraints.  Bucky latched on like the hatchling in Alien, kissing him with urgent, addled, post-orgasmic passion.

“Steve,” he said a few times, dazed.  “Steve...”

“I’m right here.”

His body relaxed like it had after the second orgasm, and in under ten minutes, he was asleep.  

It was the middle of the night when Bucky woke.  His brain felt like pudding. Neither that nor the heavy ache in his muscles could contend with a full bladder.  He slipped out of bed on rubbery legs and took care of it, and then tried not to wake Steve as he got comfortable again.  He was unsuccessful; Steve shifted, settling into the big spoon position, face between Bucky’s shoulder blades.

“Steve?” Bucky asked, unable to control himself.

“Hm?”

Bucky twisted around.  He needed to be looking at him for this one.  Steve’s eyes were sleepy, but alert, curious.

“How come you’ve been letting me boss you around?”

And he had been, in the bedroom, anyway, for close to a year.  He didn’t remember enough of their time together before the war to know whether this was how it always was, but he did know that Steve Rogers liked following orders about as much as vegetarians liked steak tartare.

Steve pushed a piece of hair out of Bucky’s eyes.  “Because you needed it.”

It seemed mad that it was so simple, but sometimes, with Steve, things were.

They slept in.  It was an indulgent eleven in the morning before they stirred.  By eleven fifteen Steve was draped over Bucky’s back, skin to skin, fucking him deep.  No teasing. No power play. Just the pounding Bucky wanted and hadn’t gotten last night.  And frankly, there was no place he’d rather be than underneath Steve Rogers, where no evil could touch him.

“I’ve got it, Buck,” Steve said in the shower later that day, his hair a wild shampoo mohawk.

“I’m sure you do,” Bucky drawled.  He always forgot that Steve was a hot water hog, even in this miraculous shower that had three showerheads.  He elbowed him aside.  For fuck’s sake, he was the sore one here.

“I’m serious,” he insisted, before ducking back into the spray to rinse.  “I know you don’t like to talk about it, but we agreed last night that we have to come up with a way for you to tell me what you need.”

Yes, that was a thing that happened last night.   When he almost cost Steve his reputation.   Jesus.  He had to face this whether he wanted to or not.

“All right.  Let’s hear your big idea.”

Steve tried to control his smirk, but Bucky could see it coming a mile away.  

“All you have to do is tell me you need to go to the library.”

“Oh, fuck you,” Bucky said, without any real vigor, but he did splash Steve in the face for good measure.  Steve spluttered a laugh and kissed him.

Really, truthfully, it wasn’t a bad idea.

Steve aced his Modern Art paper.  Bucky almost decked him when he asked if Bucky wanted to go with him to return his library books.  It wasn’t until several days later that Bucky realized Steve might have been asking him if he could initiate.

That became the system.  Bucky said he needed to go to the library, Steve asked if he could return some books.  To all onlookers, it just seemed like they were really into reading; it wasn’t too strange, what with the two of them being temporally displaced.  As stupid as it was, it worked. Though, Bucky mused, Natasha seemed to be catching on.

A few months later, luck was such that no one felt a need to try to end the world on Super Bowl Sunday, and Steve and Bucky found themselves on the massive sectional in the common area of the Tower with everyone else.  Neither of them cared much for football, especially when there wasn’t a New York team involved, but it was something to do, and the commercials were always interesting.

Steve smiled to himself.  He hoped Agnes was watching.  Just in case, he fished his phone out of his pocket and sent her a text.

Outside of the fact that she was ballsy enough to blackmail him, or perhaps because of that fact, he liked Agnes.  She took exactly zero shit. It was a dream of Steve’s to get her in the same room as Tony and watch her rip him a new one.  

“Is this another eight minute long car commercial full of feel-good rural Americana?” Tony asked a moment later, as strains of solemn music began to play.  Then Steve was on the television explaining why libraries were important to him. It wasn’t eight minutes, but it was at least four, and Steve’s charisma was dialed up to thirteen.

No one on the couch could look away.  Steve’s phone started to go off - Agnes was sending lines and lines of exclamation points.  Bucky attempted to merge with his hoodie.

“My God,” Tony said, “it’s like a Sarah McLachlan ASPCA commercial for libraries .”

“JARVIS,” Pepper sniffled, wiping tears from her eyes, “make a donation in the name of Stark Industries to New York public libraries.”

“How much, Miss Potts?”

“A million.”

“A million ?” Tony protested.

“Where would you be without libraries?” she accused.

“Er,” Tony said.  

They all knew, courtesy of too much wine, that when Tony was a kid and Howard was too busy for him, Jarvis - the real Jarvis - took him to the library.  So much that the people at that particular branch actually thought Jarvis was his father.  Well, he basically was.

“Make it five million,” he said, and got up to grab the next round of beers.

“Steve,” Bucky said when the game was over, fidgeting.  “I really need to go to the library.”

“Yeah?”  It was kind of surprising, since Bucky looked absolutely mortified while the ad was playing.  If Steve had to guess, it was because he was thinking about why Steve got roped into doing it in the first place.

Hmm.  Ropes.

Natasha had introduced him to shibari, and Steve was getting pretty good at it.  He painstakingly tied Bucky with the supersoldier grade ropes Nat used on him, set him in a predicament position, and contentedly watched him struggle as he finished the last of the queso.  By now he didn’t question the arousal. It was what Bucky wanted, and it was a gift that Steve could give. The same one Natasha had given him in the bleak times before Bucky came back into his life, although that was decidedly less sexual.

He didn’t like her black ropes on Bucky, though.  He was going to have to order some red ones. His erection gave an agreeable twitch in his sweatpants.  Yeah, the red ropes would be better with the metal arm and his lovely dark hair.

“Doing so good, beautiful.  Five more minutes.”

Bucky whined, muscles straining, cock fat and dripping where the ropes framed it.

“Get that ass up, unless you want it to be seven.”

He scrambled to do what Steve said, breathing hard from the effort.  Steve watched a droplet of sweat slide down his chest. He couldn’t resist the urge to lick it, and a great many other places as those minutes ticked away into eternity.

AGNES: Defiled any institutions of higher learning lately?

STEVE: Only in my mind.

AGNES: Are you taking any classes next semester?

STEVE: I don’t know.  Haven’t had a chance to look at the course catalog yet.  Some a-hole keeps building robots that are apparently based on cartoon villains of the 1980s?

AGNES: Oh, that explains the giant Mumm-Ra in DUMBO the other day.

STEVE: And people blame us for this shit.

AGNES: People were crazy bastards before the Avengers and will continue to be crazy bastards long after.  You should take an anthropology course. T-Th 6-7:30, Sweeney is teaching it. You probably went to grade school with him.

STEVE: I probably got in a fight with him.

AGNES: And lost.

STEVE: Amen.

STEVE :  How’s Liam?

AGNES: Dating a sugar daddy.

STEVE: In a good way, or a bad way?

AGNES: He can barely string together a sentence on Monday mornings and has some very nice Gucci loafers all of a sudden.

STEVE:   Oh, definitely good, then.  But you tell me if he hurts him, I’ll beat this guy up.

AGNES: No you will not.

AGNES: Is Barnes still afraid of me?

STEVE:   What?  Bucky’s not afraid of you.

AGNES: Yes he is, darling.

“Bucky,” Steve called across the team kitchen, “are you afraid of Agnes?”

“Who’s Agnes?” Natasha asked.

“Is that the terrifying lady in the clogs that you invited to the holiday party?” Tony chimed in.

“She is not terrifying!” Steve protested.

“Yeah she is,” Clint said.  “But I dig it.”

“She seemed sweet to me,” Bruce shrugged, pushing up his glasses.

“Not you, too,” Bucky groaned.

“What?”

STEVE: He’s not afraid of you, he’s afraid of that video getting out.

AGNES: Well maybe you should have controlled yourselves.

STEVE: I know, I know.  Bad call. I really am sorry, I hope you know that.

AGNES:   I do, Steven.

STEVE:   You ever think about learning Gaelic?  

AGNES: Can’t say I have.  Why?

STEVE:   Just been a long time since anyone swore at me in Gaelic, that’s all.

AGNES: You have strange fetishes.

STEVE: I don’t deny it.

STEVE: Do you date?

AGNES: What am I, a nun?  Of course I date.

STEVE:   Men, women, non-binary, cryptids?

AGNES: All of the above.

STEVE: Perfect.  I’ve got a good one.

“Hey Bruce,” Steve said, “A friend of ours needs a plus one for an event at the MOMA tonight.  You in?”

“Uh,” Bruce replied.

“Great, see you at eight.”

“You are evil ,” Bucky said, shaking his head. “You set that poor man up.”

Steve had cancelled at the absolute last minute, too late for Bruce to bail.  Manners dictated he had to stay and entertain the lady.

“Oh, like how you used to set me up all the time with your double dates?” Steve shot back.  Bucky winced. Yeah, he did pull that one on Steve a couple dozen times. Steve would show up thinking he'd be spending time with his best friend, only to find him there with two girls, both of whom were more interested in Bucky than Steve.  

“I just wanted someone to like you as much as me,” he hedged.  “And maybe suck your dick so I wouldn't have to keep thinking about it.”

“How'd that work out for you?” Steve grinned.

“Great, actually.”

Steve melted into his side, sharply satisfied with his matchmaking.  “Just wait.”

AGNES: He’s cute.

AGNES: I like the chest hair.

AGNES: Maybe I’ll buy him some Gucci loafers.

“All right,” Bucky said, nodding, as Bruce Banner sauntered through the common space, looking more relaxed and content than he had, well, ever .  Some might call it fucked out.  Bucky sure saw that expression on his own face often enough, now that he was getting what he needed on the regular.  “Good call.”

“Thank you,” Steve preened.

Three weeks later, a package came through the mail for Steve.  Inside the package was a thumb drive and a piece of paper liberally splashed with Gaelic vulgarities.  There were a few lines of English at the bottom.

Rogers,

This is now the only existing copy of your little exhibition.  Tell your boyfriend he can stop worrying. And maybe make him your husband, if the two of you are into that.

He was so into that .  And, as it turned out, Bucky was, too.