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“You’re late, again.”
He leans against the doorframe, arms crossed over his chest, feigning utter aloofness despite the fact that you’ve been gone for weeks and he’s damn near got jizz leaking from his eyeballs; he wants you so bad.
He could make this simple, the way that it’s supposed to be.
He could stand aside and wave you right on through the door.
Within a minute, you’d both be naked. Anywhere from fifteen to forty-five minutes later, you’d both be satisfied.
You’d catch your breath, you’d collect your clothes, and then you’d leave, because that’s the whole point of a fuck buddy, isn’t it? All the reward, with none of the elaborate pretext of an actual relationship.
Yeah, well, you and Bucky don’t exactly have the “buddy” part going for you, so, your whole situation’s a little more complicated than that.
Anyway, Bucky’s got this part down to a science. The lead up. He’s got a head for strategy, by nature, and he’s had plenty of time to cook up a plan he just knows you’re going to hate.
He’s pretty excited, all things considered.
To start, he’ll hassle you about the time. (“Sorry, doll, but you said you’d be here at nine. That was two hours ago. Rules are rules.”)
He’ll dither for a bit about whether or not he’s actually going to let you inside. You’ll probably make some empty threats, maybe toss out the names of some other folks you could call up, even at this hour, who’d be more than happy to dick you down and who wouldn’t be complete bastards about it.
He’ll just yawn.
Honestly, after a certain point, he won’t have to do much at all; you’re pretty good at winding yourself up all on your own. All he’s gotta do is stand there and look smug.
(He’s had plenty of opportunities to hone his craft, here, and he’s noticed a direct correlation between how self-satisfied he looks and how pissed off you get. It works in his favor every single time.)
Maybe it makes him a bad person, the fact that he frequently goes out of his way to piss off the girl he’s trying to fuck, but, hey, if either of you wanted romance, you wouldn’t be here.
“Ohmygod, shut up, Barnes,” comes your answering snit.
Your face is mid-transition, your features shifting around like ferrofluid.
It’s fucking freaky to watch.
Your hair changes. Your height shifts. Even your weight fluctuates. Restoring to factory settings.
Your eyes and nose shift, blending into your cheekbones. Their size fluctuates, oscillating, like maybe you can’t remember what you’re supposed to look like.
He wonders about that sometimes.
What would happen if, one day, you just… can’t remember the face you were born with? Is the face he’s become familiar with—the one that sasses and scowls at him during team meetings—actually your "real" face?
If you guys were friends, he might endeavor to ask.
He wouldn’t particularly care either way – what does he give a shit if you decided to change your nose or your eye color, or whatever? He just finds it interesting, in a fucked up way, that he might never truly know what you look like.
Your face settles into place within thirty seconds or less, and, yup, that’s 100% your frown aimed right in his direction.
At least, it's the version of a frown that he's come to think of as "yours," after being exposed to it so many times. He’d recognize it anywhere.
Aw. Memories.
As soon as you find your face, your sass is soon to follow.
“I just got back from two weeks working undercover,” you say. “I don’t need your hysterics right now, Barnes. So I’m a little late, fucking—”
A meow comes from the floor, interrupting your diatribe.
Right on cue, here to ruin all his carefully laid plans, none other than Alpine comes winding between his ankles and makes a beeline for you. The cat is purring fit to beat the devil, rubbing against your shins and your calves like she wants to topple you to the floor.
In typical fashion, you give her exactly what she wants, and with no shortage of enthusiasm.
“There’s the sweetest baby girl,” you coo in probably the most disgusting voice Bucky has ever heard.
He watches in horror as you sink to the floor right there in the hallway and scoop the cat into your arms, cradling her like a newborn.
“Isn’t she just the sweetest babiest best girl, oh hell~o.”
Fucking figures.
The girl who hates his guts just happens to be in love with his cat. What’s worse – the feeling is mutual.
It took him three months to coax Alpine into sitting on his lap, with ample amounts of bribery, and the damn thing still occasionally uses his leg as a scratching post when he comes through the door.
Fucking. Figures.
Bucky wrinkles his nose at the horrifying display taking place on his doorstep.
“Eugh, are you actually kissing her?” he grimaces. “Jesus, woman. She’s a cat, not a baby. Get inside, at least, if you’re gonna do shit like that. I’ve got neighbors, you know.”
Granted, this is the Avengers compound, which means that everyone on campus is accustomed to seeing weird shit on the daily, but still.
He has his doubts that you’re going to abide by his request to take this shit inside, purely because you’ve made a career out of being a contrarian asshole, but – as always – you’re the champion of proving him wrong in the most upsetting possible ways.
You’re still babbling baby talk and planting slobbery kisses all over Alpine’s fluffy white face, but now you’re also working your heels into the floor, scooting yourself across the threshold of his apartment like a dog trying to wipe its ass on his welcome mat.
No wonder he treats you so differently from any other woman he’s met in his life, he realizes
You’re categorically unlike any woman he’s met in his very long, very unconventional life.
Which is probably for the best, because you’re horrible.
(He still intends to fuck you, though. Yeah.)
(He doesn’t want to know what this says about him.)
Since you’re busy getting to first base with his cat, apparently, Bucky busies himself in the kitchen. Normally, you guys don’t bother with niceties like small talk or sharing a drink, but after one good look at you, he figures you could use one.
He returns with two mismatched glasses in hand, topped up with two fingers each of mid-shelf whiskey, neat. He thumps the butt of the glass against the side of your head. Not nearly hard enough to hurt, just enough to draw your attention away from baby-talking his cat, without requiring him to address said baby talk directly.
You look at the proffered glass like you’ve never seen this sort of newfangled technology in your whole life.
Bucky’s eyes roll.
“Just– Take it,” he insists. “Idiot.”
Your lips curl in a smirk. At the same time, your fingers curl around the glass.
“That’s what she said,” you intone, because you're horrible.
You’re looking at him over the mouth of your glass like you’re waiting for him to groan. You love it when he groans, preferably in dismay; particularly if unfunny double entendre is involved.
He doesn’t give you the satisfaction. Instead, he says:
“You look like hell.”
Immediately, your expression tightens.
Alpine leaps from your lap and, not for the first time, Bucky wonders if your powers affect the air in a way that the cat can detect, like a whiff of ozone before a storm.
Your appearance begins to change again. It’s subtle, especially when compared to your shocking transformation just minutes before.
The dark circles under your eyes disappear, improving both in color and in their degree of puffiness. The whites of your eyes, too, turn several shades brighter, no longer looking bloodshot and strained. Finally, your hair gains a noticeable amount of bounce and shine. You look like you just breezed through the doors of a salon. Too bad it’s all an illusion.
You don a fetching smile, batting your eyelashes like a beauty pageant babe.
“There,” you flutter. “Happy? Do I look perky enough for you now, Sarge?”
The overall effect is somewhat diminished by the fact that you’re sitting cross-legged in the middle of his (somewhat dusty) living room floor. You’re covered in cat hair, and there’s definitely what looks like someone else’s dried blood splattered across the front of your shirt.
Bucky drains his whiskey in a single go. A damn shame that liquor doesn’t affect him the way it used to.
He’ll have to start rationing the Asgardian shit, for when you come over.
“You still don’t look like you’ve slept in a week, sweetheart,” he says, not because he’s concerned or anything; he just gets off on disagreeing with you.
He saunters towards the couch, slumping against the cushions in a way that forces his legs to spread, creating an obvious – and hopefully enticing? – space between his thighs.
You swivel on your butt, still sitting like a lump in the middle of the floor, nursing your whiskey. He also happens to know you hate whiskey, which is half the reason he chose it off the shelf.
“It’s only been two days,” you cough into your elbow, giving the liquor in your glass a spiteful look.
“Since what?”
“Since I slept.”
“Right.”
“I had to burn my alias, like, right before I was set to leave Tokyo,” you sigh.
As if raising a glass at a funeral, you slug the last half-inch of your drink.
“Uh-huh.”
Still grimacing from the alcohol burn ( such a drama queen), you set your empty glass on the hardwood floor and slide it like an air hockey puck in the vague direction of the kitchen. It ultimately plunks against Alpine’s water dish, spilling some, which you do seem to regret.
Before Bucky can bark at you about cleaning up the water, you’re already knee-walking towards the couch. Back arched, half crawling, eyes alight with that inner flicker of mischief that’s a sure sign Bucky is in for some trouble tonight.
You kneel in between his splayed legs, hands spreading across the meat of his thighs, squeezing. When you speak, your voice is lower… smoother… not quite a purr, but something damn close.
“Now… do you really want me to give you a full mission debrief right now, or do you want to skip to the part where you fuck me through the floor?”
That you can say this type of shit without even batting an eye is what really keeps Bucky coming back. God damn.
This is the part where it could all be so easy. With his strength and your willingness, it’d be no trouble at all for Bucky to sweep you into his lap right then and there. Sure, some clothing might need to be sacrificed (namely: yours), but with just a few popped seams and a bit of joint effort, Bucky could get some much-needed friction on the half-chub he’s been sporting ever since he opened the damn door.
Instead of easy, Bucky keeps right on talking.
“Tempting offer, doll,” he murmurs in a low, sandpaper voice. He sucks his teeth as if he’s feeling truly, truly regretful. “But you know I’m a stickler for rules. You were late. You broke rule number one.”
Immediately, he’s rewarded with a glimpse of what he’s aiming for: a flash of anger in your eyes. Not a simmering, playful anger. He’s looking for hot, and raging, and pissed. The type of stuff that forest fires are made of.
Yeah, he might be a little fucked up.
“That is not rule number one,” you snap. Your nails dig into his thighs, ten equal points of pressure he can feel even through his sweatpants.
“Oh, is it not?” he drawls, feigning innocent surprise. “Sorry, you’re gonna have to remind me. What’s rule number one again?”
Just to be a bastard, he reaches out and gently – so gently – tucks a stray lock of hair behind your ear, his metal fingertips lingering on your jawline.
He may as well have doused you with lighter fluid.
You grit your teeth so hard, he can damn near hear the squeak.
But it’s good.
It’s exactly why you came here, and it’s exactly why Bucky isn’t just yanking you into his lap, not without a fight, not without rules.
If you wanted that sort of ease, you could damn well get it anywhere else you pleased, just for the price of asking.
Lucky for you, what Bucky’s offering don’t come cheap.
“Rule number one,” you grit out, every syllable a colossal effort in the art of self-control. “Either be there, or don’t.”
Bucky’s lips stretch into a smirk, tongue flashing forward to wet his lip. He savors the way you chase it with your eyes.
“Exactly,” he says, “and you weren’t here on time.”
His metal fingers tense ever so slightly on your jaw, forcing your lips to part.
“That’s rule number one, baby,” he continues, brow furrowed in regret. “The very first one we ever made. If you want to be here, then be here. If you don’t– don’t.”
His voice hardens on the final syllable. He might not be able to feel your breath as it brushes against his vibranium hand, but he can hear you gasp all the same. Got you.
“So, doll…”
He leans in closer, close enough for heat to fan across your lips (but not quite touching – because rules.)
“You gonna make it up to me?”
Bucky Barnes is a bastard.
And an asshole.
And if he doesn’t give me his dick in the next five minutes, I swear I’m gonna riot.
Your head tips back subconsciously as his thumb traces a slow, deliberate line down the column of your throat before he settles at the base, fingers wrapping around. He knows exactly how much pressure to apply (of course he does, fuck) to make your pulse jump under his touch.
Goddamit, he’s still talking, you realise. Forever talking.
You swear he talks more when he can see you're too fried to pay attention, like he can’t help but grate against every single one of your nerves as much as humanly possible, forever.
It’s a compulsion for him. Poor lad.
His breath is hot against your chapped lips. Smells like whiskey.
“Do I need to remind you what happens when you break the rules?”
His voice is downright sly, a barely-there threat laced with something far more intoxicating: a promise.
You know exactly what will happen if you refuse to “make it up to him”: you'll be right back where you started, alone in your room with so much pent-up energy that your poor vibrator could never hope to vent it all on its own.
Unless you want to suffer through another long, frustrated, frayed-nerve kind of night, you've got to stop bucking long enough for Barnes to take his goddamn pants off, at the very least.
(After that… I can buck all I want, and he’ll thank me for it.)
You take a deep breath, feeling his vibranium grip constrict your windpipe.
It’s delicious.
“Tell me how I can make it up to you, Barnes,” you rasp.
It sounds like submission, sure, but it’s not – not even close.
There’s too much angry heat in your eyes for it to be anything approaching submission.
Nevertheless, you can see that you've got to him. You got him good. His eyes darken, pupils blowing black.
In the next second, he’s one-hand palming your hip and straight-up hauling you into his lap. God damn, but the boy is strong.
“That’s a good girl,” he murmurs, his voice rough, and you immediately know why.
He’s hard in his sweats.
Unabashedly so, judging by the smirk smeared across his face.
“You know what I want to hear. Come on.”
You push your fingers into his hair, tugging until his head is forced backwards, throat bare. With his strength, he could fight you on it if he really wanted to, but he doesn’t. He never does.
Now it’s your turn to loom over him, lips ghosting over his, never touching.
Never touching.
Fucking rule number two: never kiss on the mouth, bullshit.
That one was Bucky’s idea, fucking little Pretty Woman nonsense.
You assented to it, at the time, because secretly you agreed – kissing made it too damn personal.
“I’m sorry,” you say lowly, sounding not sorry at all. “If you wanted to fuck a mind reader, you should have called Wanda Maximoff. If you want something from me, dollface, you’re just going to have to use your big boy words.”
“Mouthy little brat,” he mutters, but you can feel the way his cock twitches in his sweats. “Maybe I should shut that pretty mouth of yours.”
Your only answer is to roll your hips against the bulge in his lap, eyes flashing and wicked. You're treated to a single, choked, wanton moan that slips between his lips before Barnes can hold it back.
Your fingers tighten in his hair; his eyes meet yours.
He knows you heard that sound, so naturally, now you have to pay for it.
With a swift, sudden movement, he shifts your positions, pinning you lengthwise against the frankly enormous couch with his not-insignificant body weight.
You would take the opportunity to motorboat him from below if you weren’t so focused on your sexy staring contest.
Maybe later.
“Are you finally gonna put your money where your mouth is, Barnes?”
Your legs lash around his waist, attempting to drive his hips down against your core. He remains stubbornly upright.
Stupid muscle-bound jock asshole.
“So impatient.” Bucky tutts, shaking his head back and forth.
His metal hand – always with the metal hand whenever he’s touching your face, but you’ve never thought to question why – comes up to grip your chin. His thumb traces the curve of your bottom lip, pressing down just hard enough for you to feel it.
“I thought ladies liked foreplay,” he says, flashing one of his roguish smirks, like he thinks he said something so fucking clever.
Keeping your eyes locked on his, you part your lips and slowly suck his thumb into your mouth. The metal tastes strange on your tongue, almost conductive. Like sucking on a penny.
It’s a fairly pedestrian move, but either there’s something to be said for the classics or Bucky Barnes is a fucking sucker (you vote the latter) because he’s looking at you like he’s never been more turned on in his life.
You just wish he could feel your teeth dig into his metal thumbpad, for the brat of it.
His thumb pops out of your mouth right as he’s uttering, “Jesus, doll,” and at the same time, you reach down to grab the hem of your bloodstained shirt.
In one not-so-smooth motion (you manage to upper-cut Bucky with the back of your fist on the way up), you wrench your shirt over your head and fling it into some unseen corner of the apartment.
Barnes looks like he’s already forgotten all about his bruised chin when he sees the way your tits bounce as you flop back down onto the cushions.
You feel like if you don’t just ask, you’ll never get around to it.
“Are we doing this, or not?”
You're already reaching for your pants.
Miracle of miracles, that’s all it takes.
Either Barnes has run out of quippy Dom-lite bullshit to torture you with, or he, like you, is ready to come so he can get some goddamn sleep already.
Whatever’s going on in his square-headed skull, you really don’t care, because by the time you shed the last of your clothes, Bucky has done the same.
“You ready for me?” he rasps, already taking himself in hand.
Fuck if he doesn’t look good.
Thick around the chest and middle. Muscular thighs, dusted with a masculine spray of dark hair. His flushed, leaking cockhead, popping in and out of his fist with every teasing stroke.
This is the best part of this whole fucking arrangement, you think–
Because he asked the question (You ready?) and now all you have to say is, “Yeah,” and then he’s all yours – at least for a little while.
After, the air is heavy. Sweaty. You're too boneless to care.
Bucky lies beside you – well, actually, you're half-sprawled on top of him because you never made it to the bedroom, and it’s a big couch, sure, but it’s still just a couch, so there’s only so much room to work with.
He’s got his arm thrown over his eyes, chest heaving with exertion. There’s a bit of sweat tangled up in his chest hair, and if you weren’t so utterly boneless at the moment, you’d be sorely tempted to rub your face in it.
For the first time in over a week, your mind is blissfully quiet. All that pent-up anger, all your frayed nerves, simply vented and smoothed over.
This is why you do this.
This is why you let Bucky Barnes get under your skin again and again, for the pure bliss that comes after.
He’s a human shiatsu massage.
“Fuck…” you moan, voice muffled against the crook of his neck. “I can’t feel my toes.”
Bucky laughs lowly, and it rumbles through his entire chest. “Yeah, well, you’re welcome.” He sounds entirely too pleased with himself.
It’s basically an I told you so, the motherfucker.
In retaliation, you shove him as hard as you can with both of your hands and your feet. There’s no way you could ever manage to unseat his ridiculous super-solder bulk (that beefy asshole), but you get points for trying, at least in your own mind.
“God , you’re annoying,” you grunt.
Barnes is, predictably, unfazed by your attempt to push him off the couch. He doesn’t even pretend to brace himself.
"And you’re stubborn,” he returns, never once losing his grip on that damn smirk.
Your arms and legs go slack. You give up. You’ll just have to bribe the Hulk to toss him off a building, or something, the next time you get a Code Green.
Or maybe Thor would do it? He’s usually pretty suggestible.
Bucky turns, propping himself up on one arm, effectively penning you in between his chest and the back of the couch.
He’s warm, dammit, and weirdly soft despite all the muscles, and it’d be so, so easy to throw your leg over his hips and nuzzle in against his ridiculous tits and sleep like the dead for roughly 10-12 business days.
And that’s not even accounting for the amount of wordless, half-lidded staring he’s doing in your direction, at the moment.
Thank god you can just focus on his cleavage, because the last thing you need right now is some full-frontal, post coital eye contact with James BuChAnAn Barnes. Asshole.
Fuck him.
This is exactly why you have rules, dammit.
“I gotta go,” you declare suddenly.
You sit upright so quickly that his choices are, effectively, A) move out of the way, or B) receive one (1) headbutt.
He opts for option (A). Wisely, you'd say.
You vault over top of him, rolling off the couch and sticking the landing considerably well, when you account for the none-sleep you’ve gotten and everything you got up to on the couch.
You hunt around for your clothes, continuing to prattle on, because it’s either that or let Barnes capitalize on the silence and say some dumb shit.
“Just, you know, I wish I could stay, man, but if I don’t go now, then the dopamine is gonna wear off and all of this will have been for nothing.”
You find your shirt, your panties, and your leggings, clenching them in your fist.
But that’s all you can find.
Your bra is somehow gone, like, *poof*, no idea where it went, but whatever.
Fuck bras.
Barnes can sniff it while he eats his breakfast, for all you care.
Bucky flops back onto the couch, the picture of perfect, naked leisure. You totally don’t get distracted for a second, watching the way his biceps bulge as he tucks his hands behind his head.
“Yeah, yeah,” he drawls. “Run off before you actually have to admit you enjoyed yourself. Wouldn’t want to ruin that delusion of yours.”
God, he’s so annoying, you think for the umpteenth time tonight.
Annoying sexy asshole with his thick thighs and his dumb hair.
If he didn’t perform cunnilingus like a fucking demon, you would have murdered him ages ago, you swear.
You're still half-looking for your bra (it was expensive, okay) when you spot his wadded-up boxer briefs on the ground.
Impulse wins out.
You turn to look Barnes dead in the eye, then reach out and push his underwear through the flap of the garbage chute.
Like all the apartments in the compound, the chute in Bucky's quarters is a one-way ticket to an industrial incinerator.
Somewhere deep underground, Bucky's shorts are living out an alternate ending to Toy Story 3.
“Oops,” you intone, sounding considerably un-sorry.
Apparently, Barnes is way more precious about his underwear than you ever could have imagined.
Gasping, he sits bolt upright on the couch, staring at the spot where his boxers just disappeared.
His eyes slide to meet yours, and in that moment, you realize:
I fucked up.
“Really? That’s how you want to play it?” He shakes his head, clicking his tongue in disapproval – but there’s no hiding the glint in his eye. “Two can play at that game, sweetheart.”
He stares you down for a second longer before, suddenly, he launches himself off the couch – flashing you his bare ass in the process, thanks so much – and makes a grab for what you didn’t notice until just that moment:
your bra, hanging from the floor lamp next to his stereo.
It doesn’t matter that, moments ago, you were ready to leave that bra for dead. It’s about honor now. Anyway, you're still faster than that meat-headed creep.
You dash across the room, naked as the day you were born, leaping over the couch and barely avoiding catching your shin on the coffee table. You manage to snatch your bra before he can grab for it, then roll out of the way, correctly anticipating that he’ll grab for you, next.
As you sashay out of harm’s reach, you activate your powers, morphing quite seamlessly into a perfect copy of Bucky Barnes, with one difference:
you made his penis, like, really small.
“Oh, look at me, I’m Bucky Barnes and I can’t take a fucking joke,” you simper foppishly in his voice, pulling your clothes on at the same time.
You can mimic faces, bodies, and hair – even voices! – without missing a beat, but clothes, for whatever reason, have always been trickier for you to ape.
Still, though, while you can’t disguise yourself as Bucky Barnes wearing, like, a gorilla suit or something (unless you so happened to have a gorilla suit in your possession at the time, which would be dope) you can disguise yourself as Bucky Barnes wearing a sports bra and a thong, which is almost as good.
Bucky freezes for a full three seconds – blinking rapidly at his own face staring back at him – before doing something that you weren’t expecting.
He laughs.
Deep and genuine, shoulders shaking with amusement at the illusion of his (fictitiously!) tiny dick stuffed into a thong.
“Jesus Christ, you’re such an asshole,” he wheezes between laughs. “What the fuck is wrong with you… Shit.”
He braces a hand against his side, eventually catching his breath enough that he can stand to look at you/him without cracking up again.
“Watch yourself,” he warns, still grinning. “Next time I’m feeling petty, I might just have to pitch your vibrator down the chute. See who’s laughing then.”
Your/his head jerks in his direction, a look of abject horror on your/his face.
“You wouldn’t!” you gasp, and dear god, his voice shouldn’t be allowed to sound so shrill. “That breaks rule number four! Who I fuck is none of your business!”
Bucky shrugs, completely unrepentant, his grin only widening at your horrified expression. “Yeah? Well rule six is don’t fuck with my underwear.”
He leans back against the wall at the mouth of the entryway, crossing his arms while he watches you pull on the rest of your clothes. You morphe back into your own visage in an instant.
At least… the head that pops out from the top of your bloody t-shirt is the one he’s come to think of as yours.
Christ, what a mindfuck.
He’s too tired for this shit.
“Yeah, well,” you huff. “Get cuter underwear, and maybe I won’t mistake it for trash next time. Later, bee-otch.”
You turn towards the door without further ado, tossing your middle finger over your shoulder as an afterthought.
If Bucky so happens to admire the sway of your hips as you head for the door, well, there’s no one around to know it but him – and maybe Alpine, who’s wisely made herself scarce for most of the evening.
Damn woman, he thinks. Infuriating as hell, but… what am I suppose to do, not do this again?
And of course he can’t just let you leave with the last word.
He calls your name.
You pause with your hand on the door, letting out an exaggerated groan of annoyance.
“Oh my god, what?”
Bucky grins. It shouldn’t be so easy to get under your skin; he shouldn’t enjoy it so much, either.
“Just noticed you’re walking a little funny, there, sweetheart,” he says casually. His gaze drifts down your legs, a hint of a smirk on his lips. “Did you hurt yourself or something?”
He assumes an expression of innocence when you meet his eye.
You look at him down the length of the hallway, and he looks right back at you. He doesn’t need to be a mind reader to hear the singular word running through your head: Asshole.
Nevertheless, you grin.
The last sound he hears before the door swings shut is the barking, unabashed sound of your laughter.
It rings through his empty apartment even after you’re gone.