Archive of Our Own

Seated squarely in the middle of the bed, Steve is very pointedly not looking at the camera, which is set up on a tripod and humming away with the effort of capturing everything on real film. “This is such a waste of time.”

“Shhh. It’ll be good for you, baby. And you know it’s really just between us, anyway… Now, let me show you off.” Bucky sidles up close to Steve’s back, kissing his ear while he reaches around to feel up his chest. “You’re always such a natural on camera.”

“I’m pretty much always in the suit on camera.” Steve looks up at the ceiling. “Not just a T-shirt and socks.”

“You look good in this shirt, though.” It’s just a navy-heather tee reading ‘CAPTAIN AMERICA’ in arcing tricolor text, styled like his old comic book covers, and Bucky is groping around under it, stretching the fabric taut. Bucky is mostly hidden behind Steve’s tall and sturdy body, but he doesn’t mind one bit. Maybe if they get to do this again later on, it’ll be him in center stage, but in the meantime, he’s perfectly fulfilled with just being seen where his eyes peek over Steve’s shoulder-muscles and his legs frame Steve’s narrow hips, his mismatched hands wandering in front as if sticking out from behind a curtain. “Your socks are cute, too. Trendy.”

Steve pouts, then leans forward to tug up one of his red-and-white striped knee-highs. They would benefit from some kind of sock garter, he thinks. “You don’t even know what’s trendy right now.”

“And you do?”

“I don’t bother with it.”

“You never have.” Bucky lifts the hem of the shirt, working it up Steve’s chest like he’s peeling off a pillowcase; Steve’s button-downs and coats are sensibly boxy, but his tees all seem to be a size too short, and sometimes Bucky wonders who he’s showing off for. “Mmm. Look at these…” He kneads Steve’s curvy pectorals in wide, slow circles.

Steve shoots the camera a lethal glare. “I really don’t get the hype. They’re just muscle.”

“But they’re so nice to look at… and so fun to play with.”

With a little furrow of his brow, Steve flexes his pectorals, tensing them to the point of unsquishability.

Bucky just laughs, taking the hint and pulling the shirt back down. “Fine. We’ll just show everybody your snappy little logo.” He gropes Steve’s chest through the fabric again. “Just in case they don’t recognize that handsome face.” Carefully, he brings his left hand up to cup Steve’s jaw, slipping just the middle finger past the bright pink pout— he knows if he’d used his right hand, he’d get bit.

Steve makes a little hmph sound as he sucks the metal digit, rolling his tongue over the finely-textured pad of the tip. It’s etched with a subtle geometric fingerprint that always tends to drive Steve a little crazy; that’s what lets Bucky use that hand to pinch and pull his lower lip, or press a thumb down firmly on his tongue while holding his jaw open, as opposed to the way it might just slide right off if it were completely smooth. He lets Bucky press the finger in a little deeper, draw it out, and push it back in again without complaint.

“That’s it, baby, that’s it.” Bucky’s good hand gives the base of Steve’s neck a light squeeze, then slides a little further up, gently tilting his head back and holding it there. “Way more fun than complaining, yeah?”

Steve makes a sound like mm-rrmm that could go either way, really.

“You got such a beautiful face, sweetheart. Just can’t help playin’ with it.”

Steve lets Bucky add the ring finger to his mouth, and the gentle mechanical whirring buzzes his tongue just slightly.

The tactile sensory input through Bucky’s prosthetic is limited, but he loves the way it registers— or tries to register— the near-frictionless heat of the inside of Steve’s body. The sensors let him intuit the temperature down to a tenth of a degree Celsius, but they never know what to make of the soft, wet smoothness, or the simultaneous give and pressure of the way Steve invites him in and keeps him there, and the mixture makes for a pleasant tingling all down the artificial nerves as they strain for clearer input they were never designed to sense. “I bet this is the hand you want inside you, huh?”

Steve gives a more definitive mhm.

“Always is. Dirty thing, don’t want me to go easy on you…”

Steve parts his lips and pronounces a couple nonsense syllables.

Bucky takes his hand away. “Talk to me, baby.”

“I was trying to say— you never cut your nails enough. And you don’t even own a nail file, either.”

“Oh, yeah, sure, and solid metal is so much easier on your pussy than my damn nails.”

“Yeah, actually, it is.”

“Am I hearing that outta the same mouth I was just fingering? …Look, do you want me to touch you or not?”

“Of course I do. Why wouldn’t I?”

“If you don’t cool it with the attitude, we’re not doing anything fun and I’m gonna get up and leave you here.”

“You wouldn’t.”

Bucky rolls his eyes and sighs. “Yeah, I wouldn’t.”

Steve smiles, internally noting down his little resistance as a success, and relaxes a bit. “Alright, may as well get started before your hand gets cold again.”

“I’m about to stick it in ice first just to show you what happens when you get snippy. C’mon, open those legs up, baby, if you really want somethin’ from me.”

Steve widens the angle, but it’s still acute. The camera isn’t able to see much besides the head of his shaft and the dense blonde fur it’s nested in.

“That’s it, baby. Show them what you’re workin’ with.”

Steve suddenly shuts his legs again. “This is so stupid. Nobody would ever want to see any of this.”

“I would.”

“Only because you’re crazy.”

“Crazy about you, honey.” Bucky massages Steve’s thighs to try and coax them open again. “How’s this harder for you than all those fancy speeches you’re always givin’ people off-the-cuff, huh? You act like I’m askin’ you to do somethin’ impossible. I just wanna see you relax.”

“How the hell am I supposed to relax when there’s a camera pointed right at me?” Steve grips Bucky’s wrists tight. “I feel like I’m gonna be on the news.”

“Which should be nothin’ for you. You’ve been on the news three times this week.”

“Yeah, talkin’ about robots and aliens and whatever. Not— doin’ this.”

“This is somethin’ we do pretty much every day. Just act natural.”

“In front of a camera.”

“Yeah.”

“Ugh…”

“Close your eyes if that helps you get started. Focus on me, baby.”

Steve’s lashes fall closed, and he breathes deep as he feels Bucky lightly kiss the shell of his ear.

“That’s right, honey, just like that. Nice, big breaths. Love hearin’ you breathin’ so well.” Bucky nuzzles Steve’s neck, matching every steady inhale and exhale. “Remember how slow I used to have to go with you?”

“Yeah…” In his dreams, Steve often revisits that stinging tightness in his chest, the frantic delirium of drowning on dry land, and the way his pulse would thud all the way up into his mouth to make up the difference. He doesn’t miss it, but sometimes he misses the way Bucky would watch over him in bed, tuned into every little cue, every signal, and never once complaining when they had to dial something back. There was always a clear fear in Bucky’s eyes, but such a deep softness, too.

“Always wanted more than you could take.” Bucky keeps petting Steve’s thighs, gradually working his way back towards their center. “My little firecracker. Couldn’t be too careful.”

Steve nods, his eyes still shut, and leans his head against Bucky’s.

“Now we get to have so much fun, don’t we?” Bucky’s fingertips slide down and outward to massage just around Steve’s core, close enough to feel the wet heat emanating from it. “You just can’t get enough of me.”

“Only ‘cause you’re…” Steve squirms, trying to push Bucky’s hands to where they ought to be. “You’re always teasin’ me… Can’t just do what you’re sayin’ you’re gonna…”

“You always say I’m teasin’ you. I just want you to have a little patience. It’s not gonna kill you, sunshine. Promise.” Bucky opts to use his good hand to stroke up the underside of Steve’s shaft so lightly it almost just tickles.

Steve opens his legs wider, well past a right-angle by this point. “Mean as hell, draggin’ it out just ‘cause you can… Oh— please, Bucky—”

“Mm? What? Did I hear a please?”

Steve groans. “C’mon, Buck…”

“I will, I will, just ‘cause you asked me so nice, baby.” Bucky drags plenty of slick up to stroke Steve with, pressing and kneading with every firm but gentle pull. “See how much more fun you get to have when you’re nice?”

Refusing to dignify that, Steve makes another needy noise in his throat to try and goad Bucky on.

“That’s right, baby, you can get whatever you want if you just don’t talk back.”

Steve gets the sickest thrill from feeling Bucky’s metal hand on him— he can’t admit it out loud, but he doesn’t even need to. Bucky has very nearly killed him with that same hand, and who knows how many others really have met their own fates from it. Only the narrow lifeline of trust ensures his safety when Bucky uses it to pleasure him in this way.

When he first got the serum, and suddenly he found he had the height and weight advantage after years of always being small and light enough for Bucky to carry around one-handed, Steve mourned that warm feeling of utter surrender he’d always felt when they were together. And when he lost that one glorious outlet, and suddenly Bucky was asking for breaks, to go slower, to not make such sudden moves, Steve was left feeling walled-off from something… or walled-in. There was no longer any way out of being the man he had to be, even for a moment.

The way he goes almost boneless when Bucky slides in two metal fingers is probably a dead giveaway of just how much he’d missed that vulnerable feeling.

“You really are dirty, aren’t you?” Bucky sinks his fingers in down to the knuckle and starts massaging. “How’s everybody keep buyin’ that golden-boy act? How come they can’t see it all over your face when you’re lookin’ at me…?”

Steve sighs and shudders. That’s a very good question, actually. He can’t say he’s ever tried to hide it. People see what they want to see when they look at him, though.

“I sure see it. Plain as day, every time. Always givin’ me those bedroom eyes, lookin’ all sweet and flirty like I don’t know how bad you need me.”

“Ohh, don’t stop, Bucky—”

“Puttin’ your arm around me and smilin’ to the crowd like you’re the boss of me. Think they’d believe it if they saw this, baby?”

“Bucky, please—”

“I don’t think they would.”

“Buckyyy—”

Bucky takes both his hands away.

Steve wails.

“What’s wrong, baby?”

“F—fuck you, jerk, I can’t fucking believe you— I was this close!” Steve groans, feeling that heady buzz just slipping away. “Why’d you do that?”

Bucky snickers. “’Cause I knew you’d freak out.”

“I hate you so much.”

“Stop givin’ me a reaction and I’ll quit pressin’ your buttons. You make it too easy.”

Steve swats behind his head and manages to pop Bucky square on the temple.

Bucky just laughs again. “I’m gonna tie you up next time we do this, you little brat; see if I don’t.”

“Are you gonna tease me all night or are you gonna stick it in at some point? I wanna get this over with.”

“How’d you ever end up in movies, anyway? That’s what I still don’t get.”

“What you don’t know could fill a warehouse.”

“Okay, okay, I’m givin’ you what you want now, so quit actin’ like that, alright?” Guiding him by the shoulders, Bucky lays Steve down on his right side, settling behind him in a comfortable spoon. Bucky’s face is hidden from the camera at this angle, but he doesn’t mind; this isn’t about him, after all. Besides, when he lifts Steve’s left leg high up in his metal grip, his best asset is definitely within view of the camera, all eight inches of it. He rolls his hips, dragging the broad, leaking head across the fuzzy inside of Steve’s right thigh.

“Why the hell are you posing me like this, Buck?”

Bucky laughs and hooks his good arm under Steve’s narrow waist, splaying his warm palm across Steve’s abdomen, just below the navel, anticipating the bulge he knows he’s about to make from the inside. “I just want the camera to catch how well you take the whole thing. You’re a real natural, y’know that, honey?”

Steve stretches to hike his socks back up, like having a few more inches of calf obscured will save him any of the dignity he’s losing from Bucky nearly spreading him into the splits. “I hate this. It’s only gotten worse each passing minute. Can’t even get off because you like playin’ with your food too much.”

“Aww… I’m sorry, baby.”

“You’re not. You keep acting like this— it’s not just a one-time thing.”

“No, honest, I’m real sorry. You keep talkin’.”

“You’ve been so much nastier to me ever since I got you back… I know you always liked to mess with me, but you’ve really been amping it up, and it’s like you’re not even listening to me sometimes; you’re just doing whatever you want to me because you know I—”

With an encouraging uh huh muttered under his breath, Bucky jerks his hips forward and stuffs his cock into Steve, who’s already plenty wet and warmed-up just for him.

“Buck!!”

“What?” Bucky grinds it in deeper. “I told ya, keep talkin’. Go on. You were just about to chew my ear off…”

“Bucky, I can’t—”

“Can’t think when I’m in you?”

“This is what I mean— you’re turnin’ into a real sadist, Buck…”

“Oh, poor sweet thing. Really, baby, I’m sorry.” Bucky draws out slow, like he really is about to pull out, but then he drives it back home again, harder than last time. “You know you got that effect on me, sweetheart. Can’t control it.”

“If you can’t— can’t control it, why’re you always— God, oh, fuck— teasin’ me and gettin’ me so— so worked up… Christ, Buck, not so hard…”

“Hm? I gotta give it to you hard, baby; otherwise it won’t look good on camera.”

Panting, Steve glares right down the lens of the camera like he can somehow shut it off with a thought.

“Yeah, I can’t wait to see how this turns out. I bet you look gorgeous right now, dollface. I bet you’re bitin’ that big cute lip already, huh?”

“Mnh—” Steve is biting his lip— “Bucky, just shut the hell up…”

“I wanna show you off. Make everybody see this little movie. I wanna brag about my baby, watch ‘em all just die inside, ‘cause they know I got the perfect man.”

Steve covers his face and whines. “Shut up, shut up, you’re the worst…”

“You always gotta act like you’ve never wanted anythin’ but a good fight. Struttin’ around like nothin’ can fuckin’ touch you. Got everybody fallin’ all over themselves tryin’ to kiss my baby’s boots, and he’s beggin’ me to wreck this pussy.”

“Please, Bucky…”

“You want me to, honey?” Bucky belly-laughs and tries to find the perfect pace to thrust into Steve to make those pectorals really bounce under that skin-tight tee. “Mm— feels so good, baby, so tight, so goddamn tight ‘cause my baby’s so fuckin’ strong—”

“O-oh fuck! Bucky— god!” Steve doesn’t have anything to hold onto in this position except the sheets, which he’s gripping as tightly as he can. “Gentle, Buck, gentle, slower!”

“I know you want it, baby, I know you like it like this, ‘cause you always lose your damn mind—”

Steve tries to muffle his moan through the sheets, but he’s too loud for that to work; he sounds like he’s in absolute agony. And he is, but Bucky’s right: he does like it that way. Nothing less will satisfy in quite the same way.

The camera is still pointed right at him, and the film is still rolling, and Steve is finally falling past the point of caring. He can see his own reflection in the camera’s dark lens— the obscene way Bucky is holding him like a wide-open book.

He’s sworn up and down in front of every news crew in the country that Bucky is his oldest, dearest friend, and to some, he’s let on a little more. He’s laid down his life and stood in the line of fire for Bucky. Everyone with eyes and ears knows what Bucky means to him.

Even those who know it’s a weak point still don’t know just how deep it goes.

Bucky takes him right back to forever-ago in a way that nothing else can. And it’s all about feeling like this: like he can leave everything at the door, layer by bloodied layer, shucking off that weatherbeaten shell, stepping out of it almost too soft to stand, and crawling into bed like it’s the safest place in the world to be.

And Bucky loves getting him like that. Every time, just when Bucky’s about to say it’s not worth the trouble, he sees those fractures, sees Steve begin to slip and stutter and just hold still for once, and Bucky suddenly remembers why he’s always been willing to forfeit absolutely everything he’s got— his time, his money, his very life— just to see it again.

It’s happening now. Steve is melting; the fight is running out of him in rivers.

Every day, he almost forgets he can feel this way— like his body is more than a tool, more than the weapon and the ammunition and the gunner all in one. Here, he’s enough, and he’s wanted. He’s wanted so, so badly that Bucky can’t help but touch him and please him and dote on him with every breath and heartbeat. There’s no fight to win, no wrong to be righted. There’s absolutely nothing in his world but Bucky smothering him.

Bucky always comes alive with a delirious passion when they make love. Steve has always been the one thing in Bucky’s life that’s all his. Nobody can take his baby away from him. Nobody can tell him what not to do when they’re together. No orders. No punishment. He wants to have Steve in every way he can, and he can have whatever he wants.

Steve is glad to give it— and to lie back and let Bucky have it, ravenously, greedily, with extra helpings. Steve knows that whatever he gives is finally enough. There’s always a point where Bucky smiles and sighs and collapses and says you’re perfect, and Steve can, for once, be satisfied with a job well done. He can’t afford it anywhere else, can’t take the risk of lowering the shield for an instant… but Bucky always wants to cuddle to sleep eventually.

Everyone needs Steve, but Bucky wants him.

And Bucky wants him just like this: raw, shaking, unglamorous, incoherent with pleasure, and everything Steve can never possibly hope to be anywhere else. Too many people are counting on him. If they saw him like this— if they watched this film—

“There he is, there’s my sweet baby, just fallin’ apart, huh?”

Steve nods his head frantically. That’s all he is right now: just Bucky’s baby, his sweetheart, his toy.

“Yeah? Who else does it for you like this, doll?”

“Nobody, Buck, nobody, just you!” This is the ugly molten center of himself, and only Bucky can crack him open to see it.

“That’s right, just your daddy, c’mon, let me hear you, baby, let everybody hear you—”

“Buck— oh, Bucky, I—” Everything just bubbles up and rushes out and once and Steve can’t stop himself— “I’m sorry! Oh, god, please, Daddy, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, please, please—” He only pauses to gasp— “You’re right, you’re right, I’m sorry, Daddy, ple-e-e-ease…”

“Please what, baby?”

“Please, gimme, gimme—”

Bucky growls, his good hand pressing hard on Steve’s shaft, his metal fingers sinking deep into Steve’s raised thigh, and he aims his thrusts to strike squarely at the weakest spot inside, so innately familiar with how to really abuse it that even their ridiculous position can’t stop him. “C’mon, baby boy, c'mon, there you go, baby—”

Steve shrieks, too far gone to protest, possibly not even aware of what’s about to happen— of what’s already happening. A long, hoarse, crackling cry escapes him as he comes, and he starts gushing, the clear spray of it arcing out in a wide and heavy splash, and again, and again, forced out by his convulsions and by Bucky.

He keeps squeezing and shaking and shuddering, and he’s only vaguely aware of when Bucky jaggedly slows to a freeze to come inside him. There’s so much, and Steve is so wet, it starts to leak back out almost immediately.

Bucky pulls out as slowly as he can, lowering Steve’s leg, and then he pushes himself upright to try and haul Steve’s limp, perfect body up and into his lap.

Steve’s legs fall to the sides in a wide split, showing everything to the waiting camera— his twitching shaft, his wet thighs, and the very generous dose of Bucky’s come overflowing from his spread lips and pooling on the already soaked sheets. His chest is heaving underneath the restrictive skin-tight tee, which has ridden up just shy of exposing his pectorals, rendering the bold logo nearly illegible.

“Just look at all that.” Bucky kisses his neck and shoulders to keep him floating dreamily. “That’s my baby… takin’ whatever I give.” Another kiss. “Glutton for punishment, aren’t ya?” Kiss, kiss, kiss.

Steve hums and tries to nuzzle his head against Bucky’s; he feels like there’s just confetti where his brain should be.

“You have fun?”

“Uh huh…”

“Ready for more?”

“Mm… huh?” Steve has a vague, delayed awareness of Bucky moving away from him and letting him lie flat on his back; he’s not sure if Bucky’s setting him down slowly, or if that’s just a trick of his mind in this state. “How much more…?”

“Until we run out of film.” Bucky crawls on top of Steve, keeping some distance between them, and he feels desperately envious of the camera’s angle— of himself positioned still half-hard over Steve’s aching, waiting body. He hopes those stupid socks are still in-frame, now that he’s blocking the view of the tee. “I love you like this. I wanna watch a million hours of just you lookin’ up at me the way you’re doin’ now.”

Steve laughs self-consciously, bowing his head, looking at the camera where it’s framed between their legs and then back up at Bucky’s face. “I’ll never get what you see in me.”

“You don’t gotta understand it, baby. All you gotta do is relax.”

Relax…

Steve can relax. Yeah.

When Bucky’s here, he can do anything.

Even just doing nothing at all.