Chapter Text
“Fuck, what? Nah. I dunno anything about that. Do you really think I did?” Rumlow shrugged and grinned. He grinned like he always did, like a shark or a wolf or something. Grinned like a bastard. That grin got sparkier as Rumlow went on, failing to answer Steve’s question. “Probably above my level. Sounds kinda like some serious shit. I mean, I dunno if you were thinking Hydra was some kinda open access information kinda set up, or what, but I am not the font of all fucking knowledge on every aspect of… Look, Cap, nice of you to think I’m such a big fish, but I’m just a fucking henchman. I’m just a man who knows how to follow orders. And give ‘em, when I need to.” Rumlow’s teeth flashed under the parking garage’s strip lighting.
Steve shuffled his feet and looked around. He’d dug his hands deep into his pockets, thought maybe it looked casual - like this was about nothing more than the thing it was about. But the parking garage was echo-empty, except for Rumlow’s black Kuga and Steve’s bike and it felt, to Steve, that Rumlow could hear every hitch in his breathing, every clatter of his heart, each, startled, nervous swallow. He pulled back his shoulders. He knew he did that for dominance; did it to look big. But it wasn’t his best or cleverest move in front of Rumlow, who would see it as an act of contrition, a sign he was feeling intimidated. But he did it, all the same. He was feeling intimidated. Rumlow had intimidated him right from the start. “What do you want then? If you don’t have any intel to trade, why am I here?”
Rumlow smiled again, but this was a different smile, a quiet smile, “I just wanted to see you. Wanna talk. I don’t want things to change. Between us.” Steve saw Rumlow’s throat move. “I still want you. I still feel the same.”
It took a moment for Steve to respond at all to that, and then what he had was a jumble of shocked words, “You fucking… What? You fucking serious? I…” He trailed off, swallowed hard. Like, loss just overwhelmed him. This particular loss - a minor one, all things considered - hurt so acutely, suddenly, he couldn’t think straight. He could feel it in his chest, his throat and burning in the back of his nose. He sucked in a hard breath.
Rumlow dipped his head, touched his chin to his chest and looked up at Steve. It was odd, sort of innocent. And that was just weird. “Yeh, I know” he said. “But I’m serious; don’t want things to change.”
Steve huffed out a fast breath that almost sounded like a scoff. “Well they’re fucking, they’re fucking gonna.”
“Okay. That’s a real shame, because, you know, I have these, uh, photographs." Rumlow’s tongue slipped from his mouth, touched the corner of his top lip - quick, but very clear in it’s intention. "Gotta lot of them. They’re not… not so pretty. An’ I got them off the SHIELD system before you pulled your big reveal. So, considering I took that trouble, it’d be a real shame if they got out.”
“Oh. What?” Steve shook his head, just pissed at that, almost disappointed. Like, for all that emotion, that was what this was? Blackmail. As tedious as that. His lip curled. “I don’t give a fucking shit about your fucking jerk-off photographs of me chained to your fucking bed, Rumlow. None of that matters now.” And he didn’t know, quite, if it didn’t matter. It probably did matter a bit. It would, actually, matter to a lot of people. To all the people who didn’t know what had gone on. Which was everyone, really.
Rumlow smiled like a wolf/shark/bastard again. “Ah, see, now, don’t be jealous, sugar.” He reached out a patted Steve’s hip. Steve didn’t stop him, or even move away, “but these photographs, they aren’t of you.”
**
He was there when Steve turned around, louche in Steve's office doorway. Steve knew his name, Rumlow, knew it from one brief handshake introduction from Fury.
Steve was unpacking a box of his possessions. He didn’t have much. Rumlow said, 'Is that you?' pointing at a framed picture Steve was setting on the desk. It was of Steve and Bucky, taken during the war - Africa somewhere - black and white and the focus was off. He was smiling in his uniform - not his outfit - his uniform. His old uniform. Khaki and gold, although you couldn’t see that in the picture. No jacket, sleeves rolled up. Broad chest, arms crossed over it. Big guns. Beaming, teeth shining and sweat glistening on his forehead. A simple super-soldier fighting a war with his best buddy, and he looked a hundred times happier and more relaxed than he felt right now, with Rumlow strolling casually through the doorway as if moving to get a better view of the picture. And not for any other reason. Not to get nearer to Steve, although the room was small so, of course, that happened too.
Steve was just in front of his desk, leaning back against it, sort of causal. Rumlow ended up right in front of Steve, weirdly close, facing him and caging him tight against the wooden edge. Weird because men - people, really, but mainly men - kept their distance from big guys like Steve. Stayed out of arm’s reach - like a subtle acknowledgement of what they could do, what that much muscle could do. But Rumlow was standing so close to him their thighs were almost touching. Rumlow looked down, right at Steve’s dick, and it was subtle in one moment and completely obvious in another.
Steve wet his lips, like an idiot, like that wasn’t fucking blatant, fucking lewd. Then nodded and said, “Yeah.” The word was breath. He was answering the question. The picture was obviously of him.
'I like you in that uniform.' Rumlow said.
There was a stretch of time then, that was probably seconds but was also, actually forever, where Steve was certain Rumlow was going to kiss him. Right there, in his fucking office. But he didn’t, he just looked like he was going to for as long as that could be possible without Steve whimpering out loud - and then he grinned a dazzling grin, iced it with a flicker of a wink and twirled away.
“See you soon, Cap.”
It took a minute for Steve to let go of the desk behind him.
*
Steve looked at the photographs in silence, scrolling through them on Rumlow’s phone. Steve could go a long time without sleep, but he still felt tiredness. He felt tired now. The call hadn’t come until after 2am. He should’ve junked that phone, still doesn’t know why he didn’t.
He got to the end of the photographs. “You should delete these. If not for him, for the other guy. He’s dead - did you know? He died. At least give him his privacy.”
Rumlow stared at Steve, heavy brows shading his narrow eyes. Steve could see his tongue moving around inside his mouth, pushing up over his top teeth. Christ, that tongue. “You know I ain’t gonna do that, Cap.”
“What are you gonna do?”
“Heh. You.”
Steve grimaced. “Jesus, Rumlow, that was fucking beneath you.”
“Yeah. Maybe a bit.” Rumlow was smiling and smiling. “Oh, or do you mean the blackmailing you into sex?”
Steve lifted his chin. “Oh no, that’s not beneath you at all.”
*
What Rumlow did to Steve, in the first three weeks after they met, was seduce him. There was no other way to describe it. It was both a charming and an overtly-sleazy seduction and Steve didn’t stand a chance. Months later, in bed, he’d say as much and laugh about it. “That time on the Helicarrier. Sweet Jesus.”
‘That time on the Helicarrier’ was just over a week after the brief conversation in Steve’s office. They were on their way back after a mission that had been a total bust. Rogue intel - they got out just in time. Nothing too bad; cuts, scrapes. It was fine really - really fine, but when Steve debriefed, he had a slight tremor to his hands that he was hoping no one had noticed.
A moment after the debriefing was over, Steve found himself alone in the room with only Rumlow, who’d paused in the doorway - another doorway - just looking. Steve looked back.
Neither of them said anything. And then Rumlow crossed the room, quick, it was a small room, it took him three strides. He stopped when he was standing right in front of Steve, reached out, took Steve’s hand and placed it on Rumlow’s own dick, hard through his clothes. He leant close, a mouth at Steve’s ear, said, “I fucking want you.” And that was it. He turned away and he left. Left Steve with a pounding erection, that he couldn’t help feeling had been as obvious to Rumlow as Rumlow’s own.
*
“What do you want me to do?”
“You know what I like, right? You still know.”
Steve shook his head slowly, mouth open a fraction - disbelief, or something. “It can’t be that. It can’t be like that.”
“But it can.” Rumlow took a small step forward, reached out and touched Steve’s chin, took it in a pinch of thumb and forefinger, and it felt so familiar. It was like - just feeling that odd, particular sensation - like none of the last 3 months even happened.
Rumlow moved his face a little closer and bit his bottom lip, letting the flesh cascade back out past his teeth, slow, “Reckon this might be even better the second time around, y’know, Cap. Before, you were a bit easy for my tastes. You couldn’t wait to give it all up to me, could ya? Couldn’t wait to have me bend you over your fucking mahogany desk. Desperation is hot in its way, sure, but this,” He took his hand away from Steve’s chin and gave his cheek a little, soft slap. “On your knees for me now, sugar. Show daddy you mean to be a good boy.”