Archive of Our Own

The two of them made quite a pair.

At least that’s what everyone around them certainly thinks—the Winter Soldier and the Widow, a duo that worked in tandem so naturally that it was easy to forget that they didn’t start this way. If anything, it was now hard for others to imagine them apart, like the idea of one of them removed from the other was as misplaced as a butterfly with only one wing. 

It all started when they accepted the unofficial designation as co-leaders by the rest of the team. The decision was unanimous, and neither necessarily rejected the motion, no matter how wary they felt about assuming leadership positions. Consequently, they spent more time together than with anyone else on the team, so it was no wonder that they formed a bond different from any they had with their other teammates.

As time went on, the team continued to grow closer, and it became apparent that the connection between their co-leaders was particularly special. It went well beyond a shared kinship, it seemed. The team really became aware after taking note of some little things, small observations that suggested their relationship operated on a level different from the others. 

Like how they would sometimes have a drink together, unwinding after a particularly stressful day, especially if they had to deal with a meeting with Valentina. Or how they’d share a smirk when Ava and Walker bickered loudly, like a secret joke that only the two of them were privy to. Or even how they would often spar together, a lot more than the rest of the team despite the fact that neither of them needed that much extra training. And how, at the end, Bucky would toss her a bottle of water, and Yelena would always have an extra towel for him. 

Eventually, it became the new norm; it was more common to see them joined at the hip than not. 

This newfound dynamic bred feelings that neither one of them was particularly equipped to deal with; stirrings of emotions so foreign that they could only imagine experiencing them in another life. Well, until now.

Bucky takes his time ruminating on it. 

At first, he tried to convince himself that his relationship with Yelena was similar to the friendships he shared with Steve and Sam. That she was just a friend, perhaps even a best friend, whom he also happened to find very attractive, and that’s why it felt a bit different. 

But Bucky knows that best friends are not supposed to gaze longingly at one another when the other is looking away. He knows that best friends don’t have a constant undercurrent of charged tension between them, that every atom that exists in the space between their bodies doesn’t thrum with electrified want. 

He knows all of this.

Perhaps if he were different, like the person he was before HYDRA: young, suave and charismatic, he could allow himself to feel these emotions without care. He would be a gallant gentleman who could actually court her, provide her with everything she would ever need and whisk her away. She was a brilliant woman and deserved the whole nine yards. 

But Bucky is who he is right now. 

And she deserved the best. 

Better than him.

So, he shoves it all — his emotions, his affections, his wants — into the deepest recesses of his mind and does his best to pretend that they don’t exist. Bucky pretends he doesn’t feel the magnetic pull towards her, like an asteroid entering her orbit, destined to be bound by the irrevocable force of her gravity. Instead, he tries to pull away subtly, tries to draw himself back as much as he can, ignoring the inevitability of their collision.  

And when Yelena notices, because of course she does, he still pretends even as she tries to provoke him. When she not-so-accidentally brushes her hand against his when she hands him the tablet, he pretends her touch doesn’t burn, like the sensation did not stoke the roaring flames of desire he’s tried to smother time and time again. Like with everything she did, she didn’t set him ablaze and leave him a never-ending inferno. 

God, he wants and wants but never lets himself have. 

He can’t.

⚡︎

When they’re told they have to show face for a public event, they are less than enthused about the entire affair. Despite the near-endless PR training Valentina has wrangled the team into, it’s specifically Bucky and Yelena who are roped into the limelight for this particular occasion. It’s happened a couple of times before; the two co-leaders have had to represent their team many a time, from press conferences to interviews with various media publications.

However, this time it’s different. 

This is a gala that will be filled to the brim with very high-profile individuals, namely politicians and government officials. It was a formal function that was meant to commemorate the success of a recent international defence summit and boasted the attendance of foreign officials as well, with various ambassadors from different regions in the world present. Being as exclusive and extravagant as it was heralded, the event was to be hosted by a well-known 5-star hotel, a place frequented by the country’s one per cent for equally useless endeavours. Everyone was expected to dress to the nines, and there was no question about witnessing obscene displays of wealth that would send one into existential dread. 

Typically, such an event called for them to act as security escorts as opposed to attendees, but Valentina clearly had other plans, namely, displaying her power in front of important people. What better way to do that than to show off the Winter Soldier and the Widow, co-leaders of her scrappy team of superheroes, dressed in custom designer wear at such a lavish gathering? 

The whole sordid affair is all about rubbing shoulders and being paraded around like show poodles, really. But that’s what most of politics was. 

It’s something they are reminded of, repeatedly, once the dreaded day arrives. 

“You need to be extra chummy with Ambassador Lewis,” Valentina pointedly reminds them before the elevator doors close, “I need him on board for this plan.”

With that, both Bucky and Yelena are left to share an unimpressed look before they have to lug their suitcases to their respective rooms. There was no time for them to even enjoy ribbing on Valentina since they were on a strict schedule, due to reconvene downstairs, just outside the event hall in two hours, dressed in Valentina’s ordered garb, and then head down to the event hall to get this shitshow on the road. 

It was going to be a long night. 

⚡︎

When he sees her, the world stops. 

Bucky Barnes isn’t exactly a man of God. He’s survived too many kinds of hell not to question whether there truly was any salvation out there. Most of the time, his search for an answer comes up short. Now, he’s more or less resigned himself to a bored ambivalence to the idea of a higher power. 

But the sight before him would make him a believer. 

Yelena looks divine, the closest to something holy he has ever seen; a goddess he would worship with an irreverent devotion, his knees always at the foot of her altar in his assiduous veneration. 

Bucky has always found her attractive; he was stunned from the moment he laid eyes on her, her piercing green irises pinning him in place. He remembers how he mentally rebuked himself for being distracted on the job, a time when he was blissfully unburdened by the suffocating longing that consumed him wholeheartedly. 

But he’s never seen her like this; bathed in shimmering jewels and donned in fine silk, while each and every single one of her striking features is accentuated by cosmetic artistry that makes her all the more stunning. As if it were even possible. 

“You look… good,” he manages to utter, momentarily speechless, but still awe-struck in the face of her magnanimous beauty. Yelena notes the starstruck look on his face and lets a smug smirk dance on her painted lips. 

“You don’t clean up too bad yourself,” she simpers, “very handsome.”

Bucky pointedly ignores how he feels his heart stutter in his chest when she looks up at him with sultry eyes, her words making his stomach twist and turn in knots. 

He can’t ruin this, he reminds himself. He is a professional. 

“You ready?” The change in subject has more to do with shifting the attention from how her praise makes him want to buckle to his knees than with his building apprehension about being put on display for everyone to gawk at. 

Yelena’s eyes soften, picking up on the underlying anxiety in his voice. She pats his shoulder, hoping her touch could somewhat alleviate the concerns that were evidently troubling him. 

“Let’s go.” 

Immediately, all eyes are on them, and it’s like being thrown into shark-infested waters. 

Yelena accepts his offered escort, something Bucky did more out of impulse than conscious thought, and follows his lead. They make their way to Valentina, Mel stationed dutifully by her side. 

While Valentina was generally an unpleasant presence to be around, she was phenomenal as a social butterfly. And, here, she was truly in her element. 

Upon sighting them, she beams in a way that makes both their skin crawl, knowing that their number was up next. 

“Here they are! I would like to introduce you to…”

Just like that, a good amount of time is put into smiling politely and nodding as Valentina flaunted in front of her peers. After exchanging some mandatory pleasantries, all the while Valentina boasted, they both managed to escape her clutches once some high-roller figures appeared, specifically, ones who would need her undivided attention if she wanted them on her side of this upcoming campaign. 

As such, they are thankfully shooed off to run “rounds” of the banquet hall and mingle amongst the other attendees. Yelena never strays from his side. She’s on his right, her hand delicately tucked in the crook of his elbow, an anchor in the storm. 

They go around faking pleasantries with the other guests, exchanging their own hushed commentary in low murmurs and smothered smiles. It's really the fact that they both would rather be elsewhere that allows them to create a little world of their own, a space for both of them just to be; to rely on one another and enjoy each other's company.

“Sergeant Barnes,” a familiar voice calls out, ripping them from their little bubble. 

Senator Clarke was a colleague with whom Bucky had worked closely during his brief stint as a congressman. He was a jovial older man who had a penchant for telling stories in a way similar to Alexei, in retrospect. He was quick to take a shine to Bucky when he was relatively green in his short-lived political career, taking him under his wing and showing him the ropes. 

Admittedly, it has been a good while since Bucky had last spoken to him, their last encounter being his resignation as a congressman, a decision that thankfully didn’t tear a huge rift between them. 

“Good to see you!” The senator greets Bucky warmly before sheepishly greeting the widow, “Ms. Belova, you look lovely.” Yelena smiles in kind, genuinely amused as she reciprocates the greeting politely, eye flitting between the slowly flustering Bucky and the oblivious senator. 

“May I please borrow Sergeant Barnes?” Senator Clarke’s request is more of a courtesy, especially from the way he’s already latched onto Bucky, looking at Yelena almost pleadingly, “We have so much to catch up about!”

“Of course,” Yelena offers before turning to Bucky, biting back her laughter with a bemused grin when she sees the tip of his ears turn pink. 

“Go on, Sergeant Barnes,” she bids him cheekily, the playful twinkle in her eye unleashing a swarm of butterflies in the pit of his stomach. 

God, is he fucked.

⚡︎

The event is a bore. 

They are clearly only here to show face and inflate already too-big egos. At the very least, Bucky was engaged with what he would call the lesser of the evils present at the event, still nodding along to whatever Senator Clarke was prattling on about, even though half an hour had long passed since they exchanged greetings. 

Bucky is given endless opportunities to survey his surroundings while the Senator continues to regale him with stories, which he uses to check in on his friend; he reminds himself. She’s been faring no better than him, equally bored with the forced pleasantries and idle chattering. Occasionally, their eyes meet, and they share a look conveying their mutual disdain, leaving Bucky feeling a bit lighter than before.

Except this time, when Bucky looks for her, the sight he sees makes his stomach churn. 

The foreign ambassador that Valentina had her sights set on seems to have been drawn to Yelena, much to Bucky’s chagrin. He feels something monstrous twist inside of him as he observes how the other man is quite taken with her, smitten and obvious. 

It was hard not to be; she looked ethereal, a goddess dipped in diamond and adorned with the finest silk.

But that was no invitation for the lascivious look in his eyes, which seemed to flit down to her exposed decolletage every time the opportunity presented itself — an unfortunately frequent amount given how Yelena would avert her gaze from him in disinterest when given the chance. 

She conducts herself as if she were assigned to a particularly boring mission, which, in a way, she is. 

It’s no effort to carry out this charade; her years of training as a widow made professionally masking emotions a second nature. Everything is calculated with impeccable precision. Her smiles are pristine, her speech is polite, and her mannerisms demure when needed. 

But Bucky knows better. 

Their newfound closeness meant that he knew her better than most of the team did. It also meant that he could tell how she actually felt and was easily able to look past the farce she fooled most others with.

So when the ambassador tries to impress her or illicit some kind of reaction outside the undeserved courtesy she affords him, Bucky is well aware that Yelena only smiles with feigned interest to appear cordial. 

He is also aware that being stuck in this predicament is not something she can help, and it irks him, simmering rage growing as he watches the lech ogle her unashamed. God knows that Yelena can take care of herself. She doesn’t need backup from Bucky or anyone else in any capacity, especially not when they were at a damned event and not a battlefield. 

Despite knowing all of this, he does not let her leave his line of sight.

He was just keeping an eye on her to ensure that she was okay. That’s what friends do. Or at least that’s what he tells himself when he catches himself zoning out in front of his chatty former colleague in favour of gazing at the blonde woman who has plagued his every waking thought for the last couple of months. 

Thankfully, the man in front of him remains oblivious to Bucky’s lack of focus, having had too many glasses of champagne. He was far more engrossed in the sound of his own voice, allowing Bucky to nod along absently under the guise of seeming intrigued. 

And Bucky was doing a damn good job of playing along, too. That is, until he notices something that makes his blood boil.  

Throughout every interaction she’s had tonight, Yelena makes sure to keep a respectable and appropriate distance from the people she mingled with, which, knowing Yelena, was already far too close for her liking. 

It’s also apparently something the ambassador wants to challenge. 

He encroaches on her personal space, trying to shift closer to her. However, with each attempt he makes, she is able to subtly inch away whilst maintaining her polite facade. 

Bucky’s eyes narrow dangerously at the blond man, bristling silently as the grip around the champagne flute in his hand tightens. Numbly, he thinks how he would rather his hand were wrapped around the ambassador’s throat.

Yelena’s politely packaged indifference does little to deter the man. If anything, he takes it as a personal invitation for him to behave more brazenly. 

And that’s when everything goes wrong. 

Just as Bucky manages to somewhat compose his irate expression into one of detached neutrality, he sees the man lean closer to her and place a hand on her bare shoulder.

The stem of the champagne flute in his hand snaps, and the bowl of the glass topples to the ground with a shatter, champagne spilling over the marbled floor.

“Oh, Sergeant Barnes!” The sudden crash was enough to disrupt the senator’s endless chattering, but thankfully not enough to cause a commotion that would attract the attention of people around them; the sound was drowned out by the live music that echoed off the walls.  

“Sorry, I forget my strength sometimes. Metal arm, you know?” Bucky manages to explain half-heartedly, attention transfixed on the pair at the opposite side of the room, “You’ll have to excuse me, Senator.”

Before the inebriated man can point out that it wasn’t even his vibranium hand that was holding his drink, Bucky has already long abandoned him, body operating on autopilot. In the blink of an eye, he’s made several strides across the floor, skillfully dodging anyone who would try to engage with him. 

Bucky is a couple of feet from standing right behind Yelena when the tail-end of the conversation enters his earshot.

“You never know,” the ambassador’s suggestive words drip with licentious intent, “so maybe we should be in contact.” 

Yelena’s stiff smile doesn’t waver, but her shoulders imperceptibly tense, and it takes everything in Bucky to maintain his composure and not yank her behind him.

“Excuse me.”

The ambassador has the gall to look a bit annoyed at the interruption, but the look morphs into one of flustered apprehension when he realises just who had approached them. 

Something ugly jeers inside of Bucky when he notices that he stands a whole head taller than the blond man. He smiles thinly at him, unconsciously sizing him up, while the shorter man tries to stand straighter. Not that it makes any difference. 

“Sergeant Barnes,” the ambassador states, more like an observation than a greeting. Ever the diplomat, he still offers his hand to shake, faux smile in tow.

Bucky offers a terse nod in return, making sure to firmly clasp and shake the proffered hand with far more force behind it than necessary. Satisfaction coils deep in his chest when he notices the ambassador’s poorly concealed wince. 

“Ambassador,” Bucky acknowledges coolly, “Sorry to interrupt.”

Except he doesn’t look sorry at all, even less so when he essentially dismisses the blond man’s presence in favour of facing Yelena, whom he visibly softens in front of, “Lena, we’re needed for something urgently.”

The use of her nickname in front of a stranger — a foreign government official, no less — was enough to pique some curiosity about the nature of their relationship. Something the ambassador picks up on, grimace deepening as he glances between the two, while Yelena wills herself not to break her mask into a look of sheer incredulity at the sudden one-eighty from the same man who was a flustered mess just hours ago because she called him handsome. 

“Then, how about that phone number before you leave, Miss Belova?”

It’s a pathetic last-ditch effort to cling to her attention. Before Yelena can even respond, Bucky has already shut down the leech’s impetuous attempt to get any more from her than he deserved.

“You would need to find Valentina’s assistant, Mel; all communications go through her,” Bucky interjects curtly, offering his arm for Yelena to take, the polite facade slowly starting to crumble along with his patience.

The ambassador looks like he wants to protest, but Yelena only offers a simpering smile as she accepts the proffered gesture, happily taking Bucky’s arm in stride as she delivers her parting words with cutting finality. 

“Have a good night, ambassador.”

⚡︎

The cool night air on the terrace is a welcome reprieve from the stuffiness of the event hall. Yelena takes a couple of steps away to bask in the crispness while Bucky carefully shuts the doors behind him to ensure that no one has followed behind them. Yelena lets herself decompress before she turns back to look at him expectantly, trying to decipher the unreadable expression on his face.

“Now, what was so urgent, Sergeant–“

Her coy provocation is cut off abruptly as he tugs her towards him and dips his head down, hot mouth slotting against hers to capture her lips. He kisses her hungrily, a man starved, swallowing her gasp of surprise, flesh hand tenderly but firmly cupping her cheek while his vibranium arm hooks around her waist to pull her flush against him.

Bucky has long abandoned any semblance of self-control, his restraint having snapped long ago with the broken champagne flute from the moment he saw that mongrel touch her. 

There is just her and him, and this. 

And that’s all that matters. 

Yelena freezes for barely a second, stunned, before she fervently reciprocates, pressing herself up against him in earnest, greedy to finally feel him while her hands desperately grip onto the lapels of his suit jacket as if they were an anchor to reality. 

At her assent, Bucky only grows bolder. He nips at her lower lip, quickly soothing the sting with his probing tongue before it delves past her lips, impossibly deepening the heated kiss. Yelena can’t help the delicious whimper that tears itself from her throat, hands leaving the purchase of his jacket to wrap her arms around his neck, tugging him closer while Bucky tangles a hand in her hair as he kisses her senseless. 

They part with heavy pants, breathing harshly. Bucky rests his forehead against hers as they catch their breath. Yelena recovers first, leaning up to steal another kiss that makes him melt. 

Ruefully, however, he forces himself to pull away.

“Lena, wait,” Bucky stops her, his warm hand gently cupping her face. The tortured look on his face rips her from her haze immediately, as though someone had doused her in cold water.

“What’s wrong?” The concern in her voice and the furrow in her brow as she quickly gives him a quick once-over make his stomach flip. It’s just so her, Bucky thinks fondly, as he presses his forehead against hers, thumb unconsciously stroking her cheek. 

“Do you want this?” His voice is almost a whisper, small and vulnerable in a way that she has only seen him during particularly rough nights when the nightmares haunt his sleep like ghosts with a vengeance. 

Do you want me?

“Yes,” she breathes, almost instinctively. She doesn’t hesitate for even a second, doesn’t need to think about something she knows so surely in the very marrow of her bones. 

“Even after tonight?” Bucky challenges, voice rough with emotion, “Even if it’s more than just this?” 

He can’t fall any deeper into this mess — in love, in her — unless he knows it’s something real. Unless he knows it means the same to her as it does to him. Bucky has survived many things in his miserable life; he has loved and lost, trusted and been hurt, and in the end, he always makes it to the other side. 

But he will not survive her —  can’t survive this if she doesn’t feel what he feels. 

“Yes,” her voice trembles as she avows the conviction of her feelings without delay. She feels her throat close up as she finally lets herself become overcome with the emotions she’s been grappling with for the last few months. 

“I want all of you, James,” she promises, finally verbalising what she has known for months in a quiet revelation, “For as long as you let me.” A warm palm presses against his hand to hold him to her, as though to make sure he wouldn’t flee. As though he could.

Something crumbles inside of him, yet Bucky still tries to hold firm. 

“We can’t go back,” he warns her, but it sounds weak even to his ears.

Yelena doesn’t want to let his doubt fester for even a second. “Good,” she asserts her position again, decisively, “I wouldn’t want to.”

The look of unguarded, open and honest want in her eyes makes him want to buckle to his knees. It begins to ignite the spark of hope that he had so desperately tried to snuff out. 

“You’re sure?” he asks again, although this time something shifts in his expression. The look of disbelief morphs into one of desperation, eyes alight with a hope he has never let himself feel before. 

“Yes,” she stresses, growing frustrated, “I think I’ve been very obvious. Who do you think I’m all dressed up for? Ambassador Lew–“

She’s cut off, again, with a kiss that leaves her breathless and reeling. Yelena almost wants to pull away to snark at him, but the irritation immediately melts away as she gets lost in his touch. 

“Don’t say his name,” he mutters between kisses, hands grabbing her hips in a bruising grip, lifting her off the floor to press her up against the nearest wall. The skirt of her dress starts to ride up as she wraps her legs around his waist, while his knee slides between her thighs. 

“Fuck, James,” Yelena parts with a whimper, grinding her hips for more friction, her clit pressing deliciously against the muscular thigh pinning her in place. Bucky grunts as she tugs lightly on his hair, dipping his head down to suck a pink mark on the underside of her jaw, then another right above her pulse.

“God, you drive me insane,” he rasps between kisses and nips, trailing down her neck. Within seconds, there are little marks scattered across her clavicle, each of which earns him a sinful cry which rushes straight to his groin.

“Always so pretty for me, like a doll,” Bucky rumbles, as he sinks lower and bites into the swell of her cleavage, tongue quickly soothing the blooming bruise. He hears Yelena’s breath hitch at the pet name and wills himself to pull away to steal another kiss from her bitten lips before he’s tempted to draw out more filthy sounds from her. 

Immediately, she tugs him closer and bites his lower lip, earning a guttural groan that surges right to her clit. Yelena trails a hand down his torso, relishing in how a shudder wracks through his frame. However, just as she reaches the waistband of his trousers, a large hand covers hers and pulls it away.

“Not here,” Bucky hushes her frustrated whine with a quick kiss and lowers her to the ground gently. 

“I want you all to myself,” he murmurs, dark and possessive, as he admires his handiwork.

Yelena looks debauched. Her hair is mussed in disarray, while her lipstick is smeared, kiss-bitten lips swollen to a plump pink. A light sheen of sweat clings to her exposed flesh, her cheeks flushed like a rosy cherub, as bright red marks blossom along the expanse of her neck and across her sternum, forming constellations from the evidence of his devoted affection.  

She looks thoroughly wrecked and completely his.

Bucky shrugs off his suit jacket and drapes it around her shoulders, pulling the lapels in to hide his handiwork. He can’t stop the affectionate smile from spreading on his face as he watches how Yelena drowns in the fabric while she fusses with her hair and makeup to make herself look somewhat presentable and not like a dead giveaway about what they had clearly been up to. And when she huffs petulantly at him, almost as if to say, ‘you did this,’ he certainly can’t stop himself from letting out a low chuckle and stealing a sweet peck on the lips before he laces their fingers together.

“Let’s go, sweetheart.”

⚡︎

The trek back to their reserved hotel floor is swift. Valentina had been sure to block off an entire floor for them, despite only needing to utilise a single room for each of them; it was a safety measure to ensure that there would be no opportunity for any snooping press. It was also an incentive, an assurance that the two of them would not be bothered in their designated accommodations to ensure that they both would play nice at the event. 

They are both able to sneak out of the event hall with relative ease, not only because they were skillfully trained ex-assassins, but also because one of the drunken politicians had too much to drink and was on a tangent about one of his political opponents. Despite the divinely timed distraction, their departure does not escape the notice of Mel, who raises a brow at the pair as they discreetly slip out of the hall, unbeknownst to her scrutiny. 

Thankfully, no hotel guest who was loitering around at this hour was sober or familiar with either of their faces, allowing both of them to shuffle into the elevator with practised ease. From the entire journey from the event hall to their hotel floor, Bucky is practically fused to Yelena, a hand against her skin at all times, as though he would dissolve without her touch. Yelena, to her credit, is equally touch-starved, tugging him along to the room closest to the elevator, hers, unable to delay for even a second more. 

The second the door unlocks, they stumble through the doorway in a mess of limbs and heady desperation. 

They fall into each other like a cosmic collision, lips clashing together almost violently. The jacket falls haplessly from Yelena’s shoulders to the floor, soon joined by her heels, which she manages to kick off in between kisses. Bucky’s lips chase hers every time there is the slightest space between them, and once he’s rid of his own footwear, he has her pinned against an adjacent wall, licking into her mouth greedily. 

His hands are occupied with tugging down the zipper of her bodice while her own nimble fingers make quick work of his tie before undoing the buttons of his dress shirt, followed by the buckle of his belt. As the loose fabric pools around her, Bucky attends to the newly exposed flesh with a shower of nips, licks, and sucks. 

Each of his affections is rewarded with soft pants and moans, while Yelena focuses on stripping him of his shirt before she shimmies the rest of her gown down her hips, letting them join the growing pile of discarded clothes on the floor. Bucky lowers his head and mouths wetly at the soft tissue of her breast before he latches onto a pert nipple, rolling the sensitive bud between his teeth needily, savouring her wanton cries.

As he trails further and further down, Yelena’s hands take purchase on his shoulders, manicured nails digging into his flesh deep enough to leave red, crescent-shaped marks, making him groan deep in his throat. Bucky parts from her with a wet pant before standing tall to capture her lips in another heated kiss, while a hand drops down between them to grab the waistband of her thong and pull it up against her sensitive clit. He takes a moment to savour her shuddering gasp before he deftly flicks his wrist, the lace fabric tearing off neatly and dropping to the floor. 

Yelena palms him through his trousers, mouth watering when his bulge presses against her, letting her really feel how she affected him. He grunts into the kiss, shivering when her fingers slide teasingly against him. 

“Off,” she mutters against his lips, tugging at the last barrier between them, and who was Bucky to argue? He acquiesces to her demands easily, shucking down his trousers with his boxers in tow, finally leaving them both completely bare. Within seconds, Yelena is whisked off her feet, two large hands hoisting her up from the underside of her thighs while she hooks her arms around his neck, pulling him closer to her.

Bucky easily carries her to the bed in a couple of quick strides and drops her in the centre of the bed, descending on her with a barrage of kisses. His weight presses her into the mattress, and his dog tags hang between them, the cool metal burning against her flushed skin. 

Yelena shivers as he works his way down her torso, leaving a wet trail of kisses and love bites, letting out quiet sighs and sweet sounds that only add fuel to his burning desire. When his lips reach the bottom of her navel, he pulls away to sit back on his calves, pushing her knees apart to slot himself between her legs and gently cradle her hips. He resumes his ministrations, dipping lower and lower until finally he has reached his destination. 

The second his hot breath hits her mound, she reflexively bucks against his hold, which only prompts him to let out a low chuckle as he curls his arms around her thighs to pin her in place, “Easy, sweet thing.” 

Despite his earlier impatience, Bucky wants to take his time now that he finally has her. He is transfixed at the sight of her sopping cunt — all pretty, pink and swollen, and can’t help but curse under his breath as he drinks it all in; a view he has only dared to envision in a few filthy dreams, sinful fantasies that roused him in the early hours of daybreak and left him with an irreverent longing and a weeping hard-on he had to get rid of before breakfast.

The smell of her musk hits him like a ton of bricks, making his mouth salivate, and Bucky dives in like a man starved. He attacks her exposed nub with unforgiving vigour, groaning hotly against her pussy when he feels Yelena’s fingers tangle in his hair and tug on his scalp with a broken gasp of his name, “James.” 

It was all nearly too much for him — her sounds, her smell, her taste; every little thing about her was dizzingly intoxicating, and every fibre of his being was drunk off of her. He abandons the swollen little button with one last messy lave before he dips down lower to her glistening slit, sampling her juices with a quick swipe of his tongue before he spears the muscle as deep as he can, fucking her on his tongue relentlessly.

“Taste so good, fuck,” he hisses, rutting his hips into the mattress, granting his leaking cock much-needed friction. Bucky briefly pulls back to bite into the meat of her inner thigh, loosening his hold to hitch one of her legs over his shoulder before he truly devours her. 

He suckles on her clit before messily running the flat of his tongue against the engorged nub, rubbing it raw with broad strokes that make her breath stutter in her chest. Yelena can only writhe helplessly, forced to do nothing but take everything he gave her, his iron grip keeping her cemented in place, whining as her pussy clenched pathetically around nothing, “J-James, please.”

Bucky soaks up her cute whimpers and pleas, gently shushing her cries, “Don’t worry, I’ve got you, sweetheart.” 

The reassurance, the security of him, blankets her in a thick haze that pulls her under, and she almost misses when his flesh hand snakes in between her thighs. Her cries and moans reach a fever pitch when he shallowly dips a finger into her folds. With a gentle crook of his wrist, he carefully fingers her open, leaking cunt swallowing two of his digits knuckle-deep with practically no resistance, and Yelena shatters. 

She cums hard with a wail, cunt spasming uncontrollably around his digits as her hips thrash against his hold. Bucky fucks her on his fingers undeterred, making her ride wave after wave of her orgasm with his lips still suctioned around her throbbing clit. With one last pitiful gyration of her hips, Yelena crumples into a boneless heap against the sheets, cursing breathlessly when he parts from her pussy only to remove his fingers from between her trembling thighs and bring them up to his lips.

Bucky keeps his half-lidded gaze locked onto hers as he diligently sucks clean his digits, smacking his lips noisily before he dives back down, drawing another winded gasp from her. He is relentless, almost eager to lap up her juices right from the source, but she tugs at his hair again, this time to draw him away with the sharp sting of sensitivity becoming entirely too much. 

Yelena pulls him up towards her and kisses him deeply, uncaring and even enjoying that his stubbled chin was wet with her juices, her taste on his tongue. That realisation alone makes his aching cock throb painfully, and he can’t help but grind his hips into the mattress desperately. 

Sensing his reaction, she only grins deviously before nudging him to lie back, switching their positions. Straddling his thighs, Yelena is on top now, peppering kisses all over his face and down his jaw. She leans in to nibble on his ear, softly tugging on the cartilage, her searing tongue quickly soothing the sting, and Bucky grabs onto her hips so hard she’s sure he’ll leave bruises as he calls out for her in a hot pant, “Lena.”

Watching him slowly come undone by the faintest of touches only spurs her into action, eager to make him crumble beneath her lips. Her teeth scrape against the exposed column of his neck, leaving a wet trail of little marks in her wake as she works her way down his chiselled torso. Yelena is enraptured by how he responds to her: the raspy groans that rumble deep in his chest, the way his throat bobbed with each scrape of her teeth, how his eyes were blown wide and locked on her every move.

Her sinful lips reach the sculpted lines of his Adonis belt, and she swallows the lump in her throat, the deep divots having always drawn her full attention when they trained together. She sucks a pretty bruise along the bone, and then another, and another, each of his answering grunts and moans incensing her voracious hunger for him. The distinct hitch of his breath cuts off the litany of filthy sounds, and Bucky has to remind himself how to breathe when her lips attach themselves to the sensitive skin near the base of his leaking erection.

“Fuck, sweetheart,” his voice is a low growl that coils in her belly and makes her want to fall apart against him.

Yelena presses a couple of more wet kisses against him before she raises her head and finally wraps her lips around the bulbous, pink tip of his weeping cock. Instantly, a strong, salty taste hits her tongue, and she hums around him appreciatively. The vibrations make his hips nearly buck off the bed, and Bucky breathes harshly, his vibranium hand fisting the sheets, fighting the urge to thread his fingers in her hair. 

Seemingly sensing his hesitation, Yelena pulls off of him with a wet pop, a string of saliva hanging between her swollen lips and his pulsing cockhead in a filthy sight that was burned so deep into his retinas, it would plague his mornings for years to come. Her salacious gaze locks onto his desperate expression as she reaches out to firmly grasp his metal hand and guide it to the back of her head.

“Don’t hold back,” she gives him a second to register her command before she dips back down to lave little kitten licks against him. That’s all Bucky needs before he throws the rest of his reservations to the wind, fingers entangling themselves in her hair and gently tugging on her scalp in a way that makes her whine. She rewards him in kind, and the tip of her tongue prods into the slit of his sensitive cockhead, while one hand wraps around the base, jacking off whatever didn’t fit in her mouth, and the other slithers down to fondle his balls.

It’s all too much, too fast, and he’s already embarrassingly close to blowing his load from how the hot cavern of her mouth encases him, drawing out a series of husky grunts and pants that make him sound more and more like a feral animal. 

“Fuck, doll, I’m so close,” Bucky shakily warns her through gritted teeth, as though it would slow her down. Yelena, however, has different plans. 

Instead, she laces her fingers with his flesh ones and peers up at him through her thick lashes before she goes for the kill. Drool pools in her mouth, and she relaxes her jaw, hollowing her cheeks, and then she fully envelops him. Within seconds, his entire throbbing length is encased in the velvet heat of her mouth. She gurgles around his impressive girth, sensitive tip brushing the back of her throat, her nose nearly brushing up against his pubic bone. 

This time, Bucky can’t stop himself from thrusting his hips, fucking her mouth as he cums with a loud grunt, hand knotted in her hair as she gags around his spurting cock. Yelena’s eyes water as she forces her throat to relax, letting him use her mouth as his own personal cum dump,  swallowing around him greedily and milking him for all his worth.  

When his grip loosens, she pulls off with a self-satisfied smirk, like the cat who caught the canary. Yelena catches his fucked-out gaze and parts her lips, wagging her cum-coated tongue before she swallows his load with a salacious lick of her lips. 

Bucky swears he stops breathing, air knocked right out of his lungs from how lewd she was, and he’s hard again within seconds. He flips them, throwing her against the mattress like a ragdoll, not even giving her a second to catch her bearings before he pins her in place, diving down to kiss her voraciously.  

He kisses her like the world would collapse in on itself if he didn’t, and for him, it would. Yelena keens, noise muffled by his lips, while her back arches off the bed and arms hook around his neck, pulling him in closer as she presses her body flush against him, the endless yearning for him becoming too much to bear. 

He mirrors her appetence in turn, grinding his stiff cock against her weeping cunt, hot arousal dripping down her thighs and coating him in her slick. Bucky ruefully parts their kiss to take a couple of lungfuls of air before he gently presses his into her, carefully watching her reactions as he slides in, her pussy swallowing him whole. 

He lets a full-body tremor wrack through him once he’s fully sheathed inside of her. He’s nestled so deep and so fucking perfect inside her, like she was made just for him. It’s so wet and warm and, God, he knows this is the closest to paradise he’ll ever be; just her encompassing him, mind, body and soul. 

Her trembling walls clamp around him in a vice grip, and Yelena salivates at the stretch. She hasn’t felt this full, this complete, in her entire life. It burns so good, and she swears it feels like she’s about to die, balancing on the cusp between the living and the dead and that this was heaven, just a hairbreadth away. 

The physical pleasure pales in comparison to the devastating weight of the intimacy of it all. For them, two broken souls cut from the same cloth, using their bodies for function was just a way of survival; they were forged to be weapons, after all. 

But this — this is something sacred.  

This is something that goes against every innate instinct for self-preservation they’ve cultivated during their blood-stained, miserable lives. A connection that they never could have envisioned for themselves, something they never dared to let themselves covet despite the bone-deep ache of longing. 

It was everything.

They smear their lips together messily, sighing into each other as they lose themselves to the vulnerability of the moment, allowing themselves to just be before the carnality of their desire consumes them. 

Bucky doesn’t move, he can’t just yet — not if he wants it all to end before they’ve properly begun. Instead of completely losing himself in the mind-numbing pleasure, he busies himself with feathering kisses down her neck, seemingly on a personal mission to ensure no stretch of her skin is untouched by his lips.

Yelena is equally ravenous in her appetite for him, grinding her hips up against his in need of the delicious friction that made stars dance behind her eyelids. 

“Lena, slow,” Bucky hisses a warning through gritted teeth, fisting the sheets as he tries to focus on anything other than the overwhelming sensations that were dragging him closer and closer to the edge. 

Seeing him like this, all hot and bothered for her, makes her want to push his buttons. Yelena has watched him hold himself back, carefully toeing the line between friends and more, for months. And now that their feelings are out in the open, she doesn’t want any more restraint. Just him.

“Or what?” she dares with a playful smirk, hips undulating up against his teasingly. It’s only fair to goad him a little bit, she thinks, given the whole cat-and-mouse game they’ve been playing. Bucky, however, is at the end of his rope. 

Smack!

“Hah! ” 

The sudden impact of his palm against her soft flesh rips a choked cry from her throat, and immediately, Bucky feels her flutter around him with another gush of wetness that nearly makes him lose his mind. An unnervingly wild look enters his eyes as he hungrily appraises the gorgeous vixen writhing beneath him.

Oh.

Oh.

“You like that, doll?” Bucky purrs, calloused palm gently kneading the ass cheek that smarted from the swatting as he rolls his hips into hers, relishing in her strangled whimpers. The revelation stirs something that had long lain dormant in him, a primal impulse that he tried to tamp down for years, now roaring to life and consuming whatever remaining dregs of restraint he possessed. 

Yelena is a quivering mess; the sharp sting of pain intermingles with a jolt of pleasure that burns through her. It was all so good, it leaves her lost in a delirious haze and aching for more. 

Smack!

“Answer, baby,” Bucky admonishes her, gently patting the freshly stinging flesh before he draws his hips back and snaps them against hers mercilessly. 

Her eyes gloss over, and her jaw goes slack from the pleasure, mind swirling from the overwhelming stimulation that was slowly robbing her of her sanity. Yelena can only let out a trembling half-plea, half-sob, “Yes.” 

She’s never let anyone have this kind of hold on her, never had anyone she could trust with herself like this. Prior experiences only extended to missions back in her Red Room days, and since then, she had only quick trysts with strangers on occasion to burn off some steam. An occurrence that all but disappeared once the team was formed. Once she realised that no one but him could scratch that pervasive itch that left her empty and unsatisfied. 

And now that it’s finally happened, Yelena’s positive she could never tire, the monstrous yearning amalgamating into an insatiable need, a black hole that could never be filled.

“Fuck, more,” she whines pathetically and digs her heels into his lower back, trying to meet his thrusts, get him deeper, “please.” 

Yelena’s pitiful cries, along with his quickly waning self-control, made for a dangerous cocktail, and Bucky was plummeting headfirst into the haze of intoxication that accompanied the brewing pleasure. 

“Pretty doll, all fucked out because of my cock,” he coos, pistoning his hips at a breakneck pace that leaves her breathless, lungs burning from the lack of oxygen, with only high-pitched squeaks and keens ripping from her bared throat. It makes for a view that leaves him reeling. 

“G’nna cum for me, baby?” The question is rhetorical, more like a conclusion he’s reached, knowing how well she’s taking his cock, pussy squeezing around him like a vice. He can feel how she teeters on the edge of the abyss, and he wants to drag her down with him, until there is nothing except the both of them and this. 

“That’s it, doll, cum.” 

The husky growl behind his drawling urging ignites a spark that sends a zap through her, toes curling. Her cunt spasms around him once, twice, and then Yelena cums with a shuddering cry, gushing around him as the cresting pleasure takes her under. She can only cling onto him like a life raft, nails raking down the rippling muscles of his back in an attempt to anchor herself as the throes of pleasure threaten to drown her whole. 

Bucky fucks her through it, every ridge of his engorged girth scraping against the deepest crevices of her pulsing cunt, lapping up her broken cries before his own orgasm rips through him, and he cums with a staggered grunt. Hot, thick ribbons of cum paint her insides as he empties himself, before he collapses against her, spent.  

They lay there in a mess of limbs, basking in the soft afterglow as both of them used the tender moment to catch their breaths, exchanging soft, chaste kisses. Eventually, Bucky has to move, and Yelena lets out a shaky gasp when he pulls out, their fluids mixing together in a milky froth that dribbles down his balls, adding to the slick mess between her thighs. 

Bucky sucks a sharp inhale when he looks down, heart lurching as he beholds her in all her beauty. She looked like a succubus who haunted his dirtiest dreams, covered in blooming bruises that marked her as his, reeling from how he made her feel. The knowledge alone nearly sends him into another frenzy, and he feels the stirrings of renewed arousal reach his now-stiffening cock. Still, despite what just transpired, he isn’t a complete cad and inwardly berates himself for acting like an animal in heat. 

That notion, however, seems to evaporate into thin air once Yelena notices his predicament. 

She actually perks up and offers him an amorous stare, “Good to know you can keep up, old man,” she jabs, “Or someone else might have to finish the job.”

She means nothing specific by it, but succumbs to her facetious snark, wanting to poke at his buttons now that she knows she has him. Her glibness is successfully and handsomely recompensed.

“Careful, doll,” Bucky’s warning is a low hiss that sends a chill down her spine, gooseflesh skittering across her skin. The air is suddenly thick, corded with a tension that makes her nerves stand on edge. 

“And if I’m not?” Yelena simpers, peering up at him coquettishly as she bats her lashes prettily. 

The answer arrives in the form of Bucky dipping his head to snag her lower lip between his teeth, delivering a sharp nip that nearly breaks skin before he slips his tongue down her throat as he kisses her stupid. 

And the tense atmosphere fractures. 

Yelena pulls him closer with a firm tug of his hair that has him grinding against her, breathing heavily, the underside of his cock sliding along her clit, coating him in more and more of their mixed fluids before he finally pumps his hip into hers, dick sliding in like it was coming home. 

For a moment, the world tips off its axis and everything feels much more. More amplified, more sensitive. The pleasure is kaleidoscopic, and they can only cling to one another, the only anchor to reality that could tether their sanity as ecstasy takes hold.  

Just as they fall into a new rhythm, they are torn from their hedonistic haze by the blaring of a phone ringing. The tone is specific, and they both recognise it as one of the pre-programmed ringers that Valentina had Mel assign to their contacts on the team’s mission cells. 

Yelena pulls away from his lips with a frustrated groan, dropping her head back against the mattress, while she reaches out to fish for the buzzing device with a grumble, “It’s Mel.” She knows which ringer Mel picked for herself, and, really, it had to be Mel because Valentina knew better to call Yelena first, especially if she slinked away in secret. 

“Leave it,” Bucky mutters, occupying himself with pressing open-mouth kisses against her throat, unwilling to let go of this moment, disturb their little bubble, for even a second. Yelena hums a pleased sigh, allowing herself to melt into his touch, even as she reasons with him, “‘Might need us.”

Still, Bucky is persistent, punctuating his point with a sharp swivel of his hips, soaking in her ragged gasp, “They’ll get the message.” A tremor skirts down her spine as the wave of pleasure rocks into her, and it takes a second for her to come back to earth.

“Or they’ll come here to get us,” Yelena’s distracted rebuttal is solidified once she finally gets the buzzing device in her hands, flashing Mel's caller ID, and Bucky lets out a displeased huff, dropping his head in the crook of her neck. 

“Hello?” Yelena manages to answer the call in a raspy voice before she sucks in a sharp inhale, mind going blank when she feels Bucky start to move his hips. She glares at him menacingly, scowling when he only offers her a smirk as he continues to roll into her languidly, fucking her nice and slow.  

“Sorry, Yelena,” Mel sounds genuinely apologetic from what Yelena’s distracted, hazy mind can register, “it was either this or I come get you.” 

“Mel, what do you–” The brief look of confusion instantly evaporates once she realises what the apology was intended for, as a familiar slimy voice calls out, ‘Miss Belova.’

“Hello, Ambassador Lewis,” Yelena openly grimaces, rolling her eyes to herself as she delivers the greeting with a rehearsed courtesy that carries an edge of exasperation. Not that he would notice, or even care.

At the mention of the ambassador, Bucky’s expression immediately sours in a way that Yelena knows she should not find cute, of all things. The very idea of him being jealous of anyone is ludicrous, especially since she’s certain that she’d made it abundantly clear that she only had eyes for him, if anyone. Yet still, she can’t help but feel endeared by his reaction. 

So, of course, she gave in to the urge to tease him.

“Yes, our conversation was cut short,” she agrees to the ambassador’s attempt to rekindle some kind of conversation with her, lamenting the premature end of their earlier exchange. She offers Bucky a cheeky smile, mirth dancing in her eyes as she watches how he glowers.

Smack!

“Hah!” 

The sound of the impact ricochets off the walls, her tender flesh smarting from the spank as the strangled yelp that escaped her lips quickly derails the rest of the call. Yelena clenches tightly around him, making his hips stutter mid–thrust, and Bucky swears loudly. Distantly, she makes out that the ambassador asks her what happened, and she only barely manages to sound normal when she replies.

“Nothingghh!”

Smack!

Following another swat that makes Yelena muffle a cry against his bicep, Bucky lifts one of her legs, hiking it up to rest on his shoulder so the angle shifts while he keeps her other thigh pinned to the mattress. He feels so thick and deep, like he is trying to get as close as possible, and the next thrust nearly makes her black out. Everything is so much more sensitive, the head of his cock prodding against a patch of sensitive nerves that short-circuits her brain. 

Smack!

The slick sounds of his cock battering into her aching pussy echo throughout the room, and nothing other than him can permeate through the thick fog of dizzying pleasure that leaves her light-headed and jittery. Her grip on the cellphone loosens, and she has long abandoned the notion that she could carry on with her farce, mind too blown from the frenetic sensations to offer a coherent response to the ambassador.

Bucky slows to a languorous pace, opting to deliver deep and hard thrusts that send her careening towards the edge of her precipice, tits bouncing from the rough pounding. The controlled pace allows him to quickly take the reins of the situation, his flesh hand snatching the phone from her weak grip to press it against his ear.

“Lena can’t chat right now,” Bucky doesn’t disguise the snarl behind his voice, disdain apparent. He smirks to himself as he hears the other man sputter uselessly, clearly affronted by the abrupt interruption.

Bucky cups her cheek with his vibranium hand, eyes softening when she instantly leans into his touch, and runs his thumb teasingly over her kiss-bitten lips. He feels something depraved inside of him preen in delight when she parts her lips to lean forward and suck on his thumb, saliva messily dribbling down the corner of her mouth.

“She is busy with more important things,” and with that, he hangs up, chucking the phone off to the side. Immediately, he ravages her, descending on her with every single thing he’s tried to hold back. 

“Such a good girl, aren’t you, doll? Mine to kiss, and bite, and love, and fuck,” Bucky unravels every single buried desire he’s kept to himself as he begins to jackhammer into her in earnest, nipping and kissing the calf that was braced against his shoulder, affectionate and possessive all at once, “Sweet little thing, and all mine.”

The soft words wash over her, beginning to tug at her heartstrings, and Yelena starts to feel her eyes burn, tears from all the overwhelming sensations and emotions clinging to her lashes as the pleasure begins to mount, higher and higher, leaving her a whiny, fucked-out, love-drunk mess beneath him.

“Yes, yes, yours, only you,” she babbles mindlessly, unaware of how her affirmation nearly makes his heart burst in his chest, too preoccupied with trying to rut herself back and meet his thrusts, desperate for release, “Fuck, James, need more, I’m–“

In one swift move, Bucky hitches her other leg over his shoulder, one hand shooting out to pin her wrists together to the mattress as he fully bends her over, folding her in on herself like a lawn chair. Yelena’s hamstrings burn at the sudden stretch, and her squeal of surprise is cut off when he surges forward to capture her lips in an intense kiss, licking into her mouth as he begins to truly fuck her without abandon. 

The new position has her trapped between the firm mattress and the never-ending onslaught of his cock fucking her deep and raw, scraping against the deepest crevices of her sweet little cunt. Bucky bottoms out with each sloppy piston of his hips, heavy balls smacking lewdly against her labia, meaty cock relentlessly impaling her weakly contracting pussy with a bestial ferocity that Yelena is sure to feel for days to come. The mattress springs creak in protest from the brutal fucking, and had the hotel floor had any occupants aside from themselves, they would surely get a noise complaint from the way the headboard was loudly ramming into the wall.

The building pressure climbs and climbs until the dam just breaks. Every nerve ending beneath her skin burns like a live wire, and it takes one final tidal current of electrifying pleasure to splinter through her before Yelena cums with an agonised sob. Her ears ring loudly, enough to drown out the depraved sounds she was making, and her vision blurs while her whole body convulses violently as the ecstasy takes hold of her in its entirety. 

She feels a hot, wet gush jettison from her pulsing cunt as she hurtles into the most intense climax of her life, liquid cum spraying wildly between them, coating their sweaty bodies in slick and soaking through the sheets. Pinpricks of numbness begin to needle through her extremities as the cacophony of euphoria brings her back to her senses. The aftershocks of her orgasm leave her quaking like a leaf, shuddering and twitching occasionally while her spasming pussy pathetically creams around his cock.

Her climax is almost pornographic, easily the hottest thing he has ever seen, and it sends him barrelling into his own earth-shattering end. 

Bucky lets out a guttural groan as he hilts himself as deep as he can, outline of his cock distending her lower belly, balls smacking loudly against her perineum. 

And then he finally cums, hard. 

Bucky bites down on her shoulder like a feral beast, exactly where that foul bastard had touched her, as the pleasure ripples through him. His purpling cockhead is nearly kissing her cervix, taut balls contracting as torrents of molten jizz spurt like a broken faucet against her fluttering walls till he’s filled her stuffed pussy to the brim.

The pleasure soon becomes too intense, and Yelena warbles as another weak orgasm rocks through her, the sensation of him fucking his thick load into her springing tears of overstimulation to her eyes. Bucky shudders, collapsing on top of her and tucking his face in the crook of her shoulder with a low grunt.  

“So good, baby,” he slurs against her, soothing the prominent bite mark with gentle kisses, while Yelena clung onto him like a koala, suddenly slammed with a heavy wave of exhaustion and drowsiness. 

Bucky adjusts them, jostling her as he ripped away the soiled sheets and tossed them off the bed. Drowsiness begins to take hold of him, and he pulls Yelena flush to his chest, lips brushing against her temple as he whispers soft murmurs in her hair.

And, for the first time since he met Yelena Belova, the weight on his chest is not an empty longing. 

It’s home. 

⚡︎

The shrill ringing of the discarded cellphone is what rouses her from her sleep. Yelena lets out a dissatisfied grumble as she’s torn away from the most restful slumber she’s had in ages by a ringtone that was soon to be associated with a murderous rage. 

She twists, groaning as her stiff muscles roll with the motion, her body aching in the best way. She doesn’t get far, though; Bucky is coiled around her, arms caging her to his bare chest, her back pressed flush against him. She cranes her head back and glimpses a view that nearly drowns her in a wave of fondness. 

He looks so serene in his sleep, the hard edges of his usual grumpy expression softened into an almost boyish innocence — something that is hard to reconcile with the side of him that revealed itself to her last night. 

Thankfully, the cell is close enough to her that Yelena manages to find it in her blind fumbling, her range of motion limited given the circumstances. She quickly mutes the ringer, briefly glancing at the screen and scowling before answering the call, already anticipating the headache that was sure to come. 

“Good morning, Yelena,” Mel’s voice is distinctly chipper for it being fucking seven in the morning. Just as Yelena is about to offer a gripe greeting in return, Valentina’s grating voice echoes like a banshee in the background, “Where is she?!” 

“Asleep,” Yelena bitterly grouses, “until just now.”

Before Mel can utter another word, Valentina sets off on her tirade, likely having realised that Yelena could hear her. 

“What the hell did you say to the Ambassador?! ” The tenor of Valentina’s voice somehow jumps another octave as she all but nearly shrieks, “One call with you and suddenly he’s pulled out of the plan entirely!”

Before Yelena can respond with the kind of scathing vitriol one would expect from a cranky, rudely awoken, Russian ex-assassin, Mel cuts in, attempting to diffuse the situation.

“What Val is trying to say is that–“

However, she, too, is cut off, but this time, by someone neither of them expected to intervene. 

Yelena feels him before she hears him, the rustling from behind her alerting her to his waking, and she simply lets him pull the phone from her loose grip. 

“Tell Valentina,” Bucky’s sleep-laden grumble carries a frustrated edge, “that she should be more concerned that the itineraries she forwarded us included your honeymoon suite booking.” 

Yelena almost barks a laugh, especially since she can hear Valentina’s choked outcry of rage, along with Mel’s loud gasp of mortification. Before either of them manages to get a word in edgewise, Bucky cuts the call, muting the ringer before tossing the phone to the side. 

She turns back to face him, just as he begins to tug her closer, closing the space she made between them to take the call. Her bleary eyes meet his soft gaze, still tinged with sleep. 

“Hi,” her voice is a contented whisper, brimming with welling affection as she maps every detail of his sculpted features, close enough to count his eyelashes. 

“Hi,” Bucky’s reply is an equally affectionate hum, his piercing blue irises delicately and unabashedly appraising her, like he was trying to commit everything to memory. 

“Mel and Valentina?” Yelena cannot help but arch a brow as she peers up at him curiously to gauge his response to her question. It wouldn’t be the most outlandish thing in the world and, if anything, explained quite a bit as to how and, more importantly, why Mel was always glued to Valentina like a second skin. 

“This is why you double-check the e-mail attachments,” he chides her with a low chuckle, delighting at how she deadpans at his jab; something similar had happened a few months ago where they had to travel commercially and Yelena seemingly misplaced her booking confirmation which resulted in a short-lived frenzy of panic before they realised that she hadn’t checked all the attached files.

“Piss off,” she playfully tuts at him with an exaggerated roll of her eyes, “I don’t need to do it when I have you for that.”

“Yes,” Bucky agrees easily with a reverent sigh, “you have me.” 

His words carry a hefty weight, one that has plagued him long before he even realised what it was — an unspoken admission that sits primly on the tip of his tongue and presses incessantly against the back of his teeth, words that he knows he can’t unsay, ones that cannot undo themselves once they’ve materialised so he keeps them under lock and key. And instead, he settles for something close; close enough at least, and that is enough for him, for them, for now. 

And Yelena knows.

She doesn’t need to hear him say the exact words to understand what he truly means, isn’t new to the heartaching revelation that tinges her entire world, hues of him in everything she sees. She knows she doesn’t need to say it yet, knows that everything is too new for them to dive into the fray, so she won’t. 

But she will always be ready, always have an answer for anything he’s willing to give. 

“You have me, too, James.”

⚡︎

fin.