Archive of Our Own

It’s a secret Steve doesn’t tell anyone. He can’t, because where would he possibly start?

Once upon a time his Ma had told him about how they grew parsnips. Summer parsnips, she said, were much more wooden than others because they hadn’t experienced frost. Apparently it was the experience of extreme cold which made them sweeter, and so she’d almost never allow Steve to buy them at the market until she decided it was suitably cold enough.

And maybe that was a good explanation? Maybe he was part parsnip, because he sure as hell didn’t have a good reason why when he came out of the ice his libido had come upon the very worst kind of roadblock.

It was enough to drive a man right up the wall. Everything worked . He could still get hard and still orgasm. He just couldn’t stand being manually stimulated anymore. His cock was in defiance against any and all direct sensation, which kind of defeated the point as far as Steve was concerned. He wanted closeness and intimacy with his partners, but he just couldn’t… Well. He couldn’t fuck. Not the way they needed him to, anyway. It killed all his efforts at dating, because what would be the point? And as far as taking his concerns to a doctor went? Well, he probably should, but he was old fashioned and embarrassed, and having to swat the two women he’d taken to bed away from his dick hadn’t gone down all that well already. Strangely enough they’d taken the gesture personally.

Most guys didn’t get frozen into a block of ice, so it wasn’t really all that likely that the doctor had a cure, and asking Tony or Bruce? Out of the question. He needed to work with those guys, and look them in the eyes while they performed very important Avengers business.

Perhaps for the first time since he’d been introduced to it, the Internet also offered very little help. There were over the counter numbing sprays and topical ointments he could and did try, but medication and super soldier serum didn’t mingle all that well. No, his parsnip was well and truly busted. Which meant the best he could manage to not lose his mind were a string of beads and vibrators which were to be fair a modern miracle and sated his frustrations, but didn’t solve any of his issues with potential lovers.

Which was all well and good and humiliating right up until the point he was climbing into Bucky’s bed in Wakanda, nose to nose with him and finally breaking through an interrupted century of homosexual repression. He didn’t want to screw this up. Way more than he didn’t want to screw up random dates with random women. This was Bucky , and it had been a long wait to bring them to this point. If he swatted Bucky away then there just wouldn’t be any coming back from this.

It was no good to just try and adopt positions that prevented Bucky from getting a grope in edgewise. Steve had to confront him quickly over it, awkwardly, even before the kisses got too hot and heavy and led in that direction before he was ready.

“Bucky I…”

“Yes, Steve?”

He looked so wide eyed and hopeful, and Steve couldn’t help but feel like his news was going to drop a bomb on proceedings, no matter how carefully he approached it. God, he just really didn’t want to mess this up right now.

“The ice… I can’t…”

“You can’t get hard?” Bucky said it so easily, almost pragmatically, that Steve wanted to back out then and there. Like he was talking about it raining that afternoon, and not the sorry state of Steve’s cock.

“No, I can. I just… You can’t touch it.”

Bucky licked his lips, glancing down Steve’s body. He was so carefully avoiding pressing their hips together that there was more than enough space for Bucky to see that he was in fact smuggling an erection into his cabin. No fear of that.

“Oh. …Cause that happened, you know? Sometimes. To me. It was like the ice got too cold and it didn’t thaw right.”

Steve tried not to imagine what reason HYDRA would have for Bucky to have an erection, but trying not to imagine it immediately invoked that image, and he grimaced. Bucky squeezed his bicep. His expression was apologetic and sad, but not the haunted look that Steve’s worst imaginings might have summoned.

“No, Steve. It’s not like that. They made me give samples for whatever bullshit science stuff they were doing, that’s all. Testing the effect of repeated cryogenics or trying to reverse engineer the serum, I don’t know. Hell, maybe they were knocking up all the HYDRA ladies. The point is I just…I know , okay? I went in and out often enough that maybe it never got that bad, but I guess… Maybe you got freezer burn from being in too long.”

It was the most unsexy description of his problems that Steve had ever heard, but when he tried to pull away Bucky kept a good grip on his arms.

“Well thanks,” he pouted.

“It’s okay. It’s okay , Steve. Really. We’ll just have to…focus on what still works, right?”

“You’re not disappointed?”

“I mean–did I want to blow you? Yes, definitely. But there’s other things I can do with my mouth that’ll drive you crazy with lust, Steve.”

Steve squinted, uncertain, but Bucky just shook his head right at him, evidently mystified that Steve didn’t immediately know what he was talking about.

“I thought you had access to the Internet, Steve.” Bucky clucked at him, but it wasn’t remotely condescending, and he softened the tutting by pressing a kiss to Steve’s bottom lip. “Come on. Roll over and spread your thighs, and I’ll show you exactly what you’re missing out on.”

Steve still felt uncertain. He licked the kiss away from his bottom lip, his eyebrows knitting together as he stared cross eyed up into Bucky’s face. “Are you sure?”

Bucky smiled with all his teeth, already tensing to roll Steve over on the bed, “Never been more sure of anything. Man, Stevie. I’m going to rock your world. ”