#hes not just like going with him... he's TAKING him

[fairsweetlonging]

svsss body swap au where shen qingqiu and liu qingge swap bodies, and while shen qingqiu (either yuan or jiu could work!) is having the time of his life with the full power of the bai zhan war god, liu qingge is having a very rude awakening on how much chronic illnesses suck and how much pain and discomfort sqq is in every single day.

liu qingge finds out how awful without-a-cure is, it's blocking his cultivation and leaving him helpless, and it hurts, too, a constant ache that lingers in the back of his mind. it takes mu qingfang calling him out on his behavior to realize that he's been lashing out at others out of his own discomfort and frustration. the only relief he gets is the cleansing of his meridians, but to take all those brews every day and be dependant on his martial siblings for his base health is really frustrating, because he can't do so many things he used to be able to do without second thought.

meanwhile, shen qingqiu arm-wrestled every peak lord and won, cleaved a mountain in half, ran a marathon for fun, and approached every dangerous animal he could find to study them because his strength and reflexes get him out of tricky situations every time.

shen qingqiu: i just ran eighty miles and im not even sweating !!

liu qingge: i tried to circulate my qi and now i have a horrible migraine

eventually they switch back; liu qingge is very relieved, glad to be himself again. shen qingqiu is keeping up a brave face, but the constant discomfort feels a little worse now he knows what it's like to live without it.

[kissbabie]

he’s clingy when you ride him ♡

your boyfriend gets pretty clingy when you’re on his lap, bouncing up and down on his cock. he’s unlike those guys who prefer to lean back, arms behind their head as they watch their lover do all the work. instead, he prefers to wrap his arms around your waist, holding your body close against his, just so he can feel the way you’re shaking from how good it feels.

“feels good?” he murmurs. he’s not exactly asking, since he already knows the answer. he can feel it just from the way your body keeps tightening around him, clenching with every slow bounce, alongside that dumb, fucked out expression you have on your face. “so warm around me, baby… keep going, yeah? jus’ like that…”

your thighs are trembling, struggling to keep up with the rhythm, but it doesn’t matter, not with the way he’s whispering things to you right against your ear, causing you to collapse onto his chest as you desperately try to lift yourself up and down. he’s not even thrusting up, just holding you there and letting you use him to your heart’s content.

“mm—‘s too much,” you whimper into his shoulder, burying your face there as your pace falters. but his hands slide to your hips, guiding them again. “no it’s not,” he mumbles, lips brushing your ear. “you can take it. you always do. look how good you’re doing for me.”

when you let out another shaky moan and sink fully onto him, he hugs you tighter, arms locked around you like he needs you to breathe. he loves this position, because he gets to be so close to you, never having to let go.

"stay right here," he sighs, burying his nose in your hair, breath ragged. "don’t go anywhere… not till i finish inside you, ‘kay?"

for this req

[marvelstoriesepic]

A Thousand Times Before

Pairing: Avenger!Bucky x Avenger!Reader

Summary: Bucky travels to an alternate universe for the sake of a mission. But he doesn’t expect to come face to face with a version of you that loves him, completely and openly. Back in his own world, he is left with a truth he can’t keep to himself anymore.

Word Count: 16.5k

Warnings: alternate universe; multiverse; so much yearning; identity confusion; emotional distress; guilt; self-worth struggles; unintentional non-consensual kiss (non-violent, due to mistaken identity); angst; heartbreak themes; slight mentions of Bucky’s past; self-preservation; self-doubt; Bucky is a man in love

Author’s Note: This ended up being longer than I intended. Anyway, I’d love to hear what you think! Also, I’ve been toying with the idea of writing an alternate version where the roles are flipped. This time the reader travels to another universe where Bucky and your counterpart are already a couple. Let me know if that’s something you’d be interested in reading too! I hope you enjoy ♡

Divider by @cafekitsune ♡

Masterlist

The air smells of memory.

As though someone took the world he knew, put it through a sieve, and rebuilt it with hands that were almost - but not quite - shaking.

Bucky walks slow, even though his boots echo down a corridor that used to be silent. Used to be. In his world, the east wing of the Avenger’s compound is always cold, sterile, mostly unused. Here, the lights are warmer. Someone’s installed those vintage bulbs. They buzz faintly and flicker around.

There is a plant in the hallway. A real one. He steps past it. Looks down. A ceramic pot painted with little sunflowers. A tiny sticker peeling off the side.

This version of the compound is lived-in.

It’s unnerving.

He hates how it makes him breathe more deeply as though he is listening for something it shouldn’t. How everything is just off. The couch in the lounge is turned at a different angle. The vending machine is missing. There is a lavender-scented candle burning on the coffee table.

He doesn’t trust this. He doesn’t trust any of it.

Not the way the ceiling seems too low or how the hallways echo the wrong sound the longer he walks. The floor beneath his boots is almost the same. But almost is what gets people killed. And he’s not in the business of dying again. Not even here. Not even in a world that’s supposed to be some mirror image of his own.

It smells of lemon disinfectant and something faintly floral as though someone sprayed a bottle of room freshener and hoped no one would notice the rot underneath.

He runs his metal fingers along the wall as he walks, lets the vibranium whir quietly against the plaster. Feels the microscopic grooves in the paint.

In his universe, there is a crack near the main stairwell. Sam swears he didn’t do it. Clint insists he did. Here, it’s perfectly smooth. That bothers him more than it should.

He takes in this slightly different world as though maybe this is all some trick of the multiverse, some clever illusion designed to fool the worn-down man with the metal arm and the hundred-year-old ghosts. But the walls are still painted in the same color - off-white, barely warmed by the overheads. The hallway lights flicker golden. As though someone decided the compound shouldn’t feel like a facility. As though someone decided it should feel like home. His breath still fogs faintly in the colder patches of the corridor.

This could still be his universe somehow.

Even though it isn’t.

And even though he doesn’t want it to be.

He never wanted to be part of the mission.

He said no. Loudly. Repeatedly. With many adjectives and lots of glares. It didn’t matter. Fury said he was the only one who could go. That this universe had some piece of tech - some half-mythical Howard Stark prototype that their Stark never got the chance to build.

Something with the potential to rewrite temporal coordinates with precision. To fix anomalies. Maybe even to bring back the ones they lost.

He sat through the debrief like a man sitting on a bomb. Not moving. Not breathing more than he needed to.

And Bucky noticed, the way he always did, that you never ask quite so many questions during debriefing - unless the mission involves him. And this time, it’s only him. So that meant more questions from you. More concern you didn’t even try to mask.

And it made his heart clench.

You asked how they knew this tech even existed in that timeline.

You asked why Tony couldn’t just build it himself to which the man gave you a look.

You asked what would happen if Bucky saw someone he knew. If he saw himself.

You asked what exactly Bucky was going to walk into and what was expected of him.

You asked how much they even knew about this universe.

Steve had exhaled, hands braced against the briefing room table, blue eyes clouded. “We don’t know much,” he admitted. “This universe is close to ours in structure, but details are limited. No major historical deviations. No sign of HYDRA still in power. No active wars. Just small shifts. Choices made differently.”

Bucky had watched your face tighten as if the lack of data itself was a warning.

“SHIELD had a file on it, but nothing concrete,” Steve went on. “Stark’s readings say it’s stable - no time fractures, no reality collapses. Just another version of what we know.”

Bucky had listened, fingers flexing against his metal wrist. Close to theirs, but not the same. And he wonders, not for the first or last time, what choices this other world made for him.

The mission is simple. Locate the prototype. Extract it. Avoid unnecessary contact with variants. And get the hell back before anything breaks - him, the people, the timeline.

Bucky stopped listening entirely after receiving all the information he needed.

He only registered you shifting beside him, and it was the tiniest movement, but he noticed. You always get fidgety when something bothers you. He wanted to say something, reassure you, but he didn’t truly know if he even got this.

He knew you were worried. Knew you were angry. The kind that made your eyes too quiet and your hands too still. The kind that made Bucky feel like he was walking through a house where all the lights had been turned off, but every door was open.

When Dr. Steven Strange opened that portal, you stood in the corner of the room, watching him and giving him that guarded look that said you better come back whole. He couldn’t meet your eyes for too long.

And when the world rippled and bent, and the air shimmered as though it might break, and he stepped forward like a man walking into the sun with his eyes closed, he thought of you.

The stairs groan beneath his boots, familiar but not.

Same wood. Same color. But smoother. As though someone took the time to sand down the scars.

In his universe, the fifth step has a chip where Steve dropped a dumbbell. Everyone tripped on it at least once. Here, it is whole. Perfect. No history at all.

That’s what gets him. The lack of damage. As though this place hasn’t lived the same kind of life.

He reaches the second floor and hesitates.

The hallway is dim. Only the lights overhead are on, flickering just slightly. He hates the buzzing. It’s like something alive and trapped.

He turns left.

Your room is down this hall.

Or - your room in his universe is down this hall. He shouldn’t assume anything. Things are wrong here. Tilted just a few degrees off center. The kind of wrong you don’t see until it’s already unmade you.

But his feet are already moving.

It’s not like he’s planning to go in.

He just wants to look. Maybe see how different this version of you really is. Maybe see how different he is, through your eyes.

He reaches your door at the end of the corridor. It’s cracked open. That’s weird. You usually always have it shut.

Your voice isn’t behind it. You’re not laughing, humming, ranting about something. There is only quiet.

He steps closer.

The doorframe is covered in tiny indentations. Not scratches - these are deliberate. Someone’s been marking height on the trim. Two sets of lines. One lower than the other. Two sets of initials scrawled in black ink. Yours. And his.

He knows it’s yours. Because he knows your height. Like a number carved into his bones.

He’s memorized the space you take up in a room. Not just how tall you are, but the way your presence fills the air.

He knows where your head would rest if you stood beside him. Knows it would reach just beneath his chin. Knows the sound your footsteps make when you enter a room, and how the air shifts when you’re near.

He has painted you in his mind a thousand times before.

Eyes open, eyes closed.

In dreams, in silence.

In the echo of a laugh you left behind on a Tuesday.

He’s mapped you in the kitchen. Measured, in his mind, which cabinets you can stand beneath without hitting your head. Which shelves you can’t reach so he can be there, quietly, to help. So he can hand you that mug you always squint up at, the one you pretend you don’t need.

He knows how your arm swings when you walk.

Knows the rhythm of your stride. Knows your pace.

And sometimes, not often enough to be suspicious, he lets his hand brush yours.

Lets his fingers catch a hint of your warmth.

It’s not an accident.

It never is.

He carries you like a story he hasn’t told yet.

And he is aching, aching, aching to write you down.

Bucky stares at the markings like they might reach out and touch him.

He brushes his fingers against one. The ink smudges slightly under the metal pad of his thumb. Fresh.

He doesn’t understand.

Why would he-?

No. It has to be a coincidence. Just a prank. A weird joke. Someone else with your handwriting, maybe. Another version of him. One who doesn’t carry his past like a loaded gun. Or it’s just some odd inside joke he never got to know about in his own universe.

Bucky moves to step back, but his eyes catch on something else.

To the right of the door, hanging crookedly, is a small, square canvas. Acrylic. Textured.

It’s a painting. He knows it immediately. Your style.

He’s seen you paint a thousand times in silence, your jaw clenched, music too loud in your headphones. You always say you paint when you can’t say something out loud. When the words get stuck in your chest and rot.

This painting is familiar. A half-sky. A steel arm. Fingers open, reaching toward a red string that trails off the edge of the frame.

He knows what it means. He knows you.

But the painting doesn’t belong here. Not like this. It’s intimate. Meant for someone who understands the weight in your throat when you speak through colors.

Someone like him.

His stomach twists.

Maybe it is him.

He doesn’t like that thought. Doesn’t like how it makes his heart trip over itself.

He takes a step into the room because his brain told him to and his body didn’t want to argue. And he stops breathing.

Because you're not there.

But the room is.

The room is here.

And that’s almost worse.

It’s too familiar.

Not identical, not exact, but similar enough to tear him wide open.

The walls are a different color. Now necessarily lights. But just not how he remembers it. The books on the shelf are in new places, different spines, rearranged lives.

But the couch is the same shape, the same worn-out comfort.

The window still drinks in the light the same way - slanted, soft, forgiving.

And there’s a sweater messily folded on your dresser.

A book, face-down on the cushion like someone meant to come back to it.

Like you were just here.

Like maybe, if he stays long enough, you’ll walk back into the frame of this almost-life.

He doesn’t touch anything.

He’s afraid to.

Because this version of the world remembers you.

The shape of your existence lives here - in shadows and coffee rings, in the faint scent of something sweet and floral and you.

He walks the room like an intruder in someone else’s dream, eyes cataloguing the differences, chasing the sameness.

He notices that the cabinet doors hang slightly crooked in the same way.

And for just a moment he swears he hears your voice in the next room.

But it’s only silence, mocking him.

He wants to sit.

He wants to stay.

Wants to believe that if he closes his eyes, you’ll be beside him again.

He knows it isn’t true.

This isn’t his world.

This isn’t his home.

And this isn’t his you.

But the ache doesn’t care about reality.

The ache believes in the melodic sound of your laughter and the empty seat beside him.

There’s a coat draped over the back of a chair.

His coat.

Not one like it.

His.

The leather’s too worn in the same places. The collar stretched where he grips it with his right hand. There’s even the tear near the cuff that you stitched together with dark red thread, muttering that you weren’t a tailor but you’d seen enough war movies to fake it.

He steps inside without meaning to.

The room smells like you.

It’s your scent - soft, unassuming, threaded through with something sweet. Like worn pages and old tea and maybe vanilla.

It’s the same smell that clings to your hoodie when you get closer to each other on cold stakeouts to warm the other. The same one that lingers on your gloves when you pass him something, and he holds them a moment too long just to feel the warmth you left behind.

There’s a mug on the nightstand with faded text that reads I make bad decisions and coffee.

He bought that for you. In his world. As a joke.

You still used it until the handle cracked, and then you glued it back together and kept using it anyway.

He reaches out for it.

Stops.

His hand is shaking.

Bucky turns slowly. And sees the photo.

It’s not framed. Just pinned to a corkboard on the far wall, beneath torn paper scraps and to-do lists written in your handwriting.

It’s the two of you.

He recognizes the background - Coney Island. A bench by the boardwalk. Sunlight in your hair. His arm around your shoulder. His face not looking at the camera, but at you.

You’re laughing. And he looks-

He looks in love.

Like he has everything he ever wanted.

His breath hitches.

He steps back.

Back again.

Like distance might undo the gravity of what he just saw.

His ears are ringing.

None of this makes sense. Not fully.

He is stepping into a space he should not recognize but does.

The walls are a little brighter than in his world. Pale blue. Like the sky on cold days. There’s a candle on the windowsill—burned low and forgotten. Its wax has dripped onto a saucer, hardened into a small, messy sculpture. The bed is half-made. A throw blanket in a tangled heap at the foot of it. He recognizes that blanket. You two fought over it last movie night and then ended up sharing it.

There’s another book lying face-down, this time on the mattress. A knife on the nightstand. A half-written grocery list in your handwriting with his name scrawled at the bottom next to coffee and razor blades and more apples.

He stares at the list too long. At his own name like it sits in the wrong place. Like it’s foreign and familiar all at once.

His heart makes a quiet, traitorous sound in his chest.

He shouldn’t be here.

This isn’t his room. It’s not his place. Not his world. He’s just a shadow slipping through someone else’s life.

The longer he stays, the more it feels like the walls are leaning in.

He has a job.

A mission.

A very, very clear objective and a limited window to complete it in. That’s the only reason he’s here. The only reason he agreed to this whole ridiculous plan.

He doesn’t belong to this life.

He doesn’t belong to you.

Not like this.

Especially not like this.

He steps back. Slow. Controlled. As if the room might lurch and pull him in again, keep him held tight inside the heat of it. The scent of lavender on your pillow. A half-drunk mug of something still faintly warm on the desk. A soft blanket, folded neatly over the back of the couch by the window. Woven wool, pale grey, fraying just at the corners. In his world, that blanket lives in the rec room. He draped it over your slumbering body a few times already after you fell asleep somewhere between the second and third act.

The room creaks as though it knows he’s not supposed to be here.

So he leaves.

Each footfall measured like a soldier retreating from a line of fire. Not because of danger.

Because of what it could mean.

He closes the door behind him. Doesn’t let it latch.

He is leaving your room because he has to.

Because he’s still Bucky Barnes, and he still has something to do with his hands that isn’t letting them hover uselessly over photographs he never shot, or standing in the middle of a space that smells like your skin and wondering how long it would take before he forgot this wasn’t real. Or wasn’t his.

The hallway is still and dim. It breathes around him, too familiar and too wrong all at once. Different lungs, but the same bone structure.

His boots scruff over the same tile. The grooves on the walls are the same, the small imperfections in the paint still visible where someone - Clint, maybe - banged a cart too hard against the corner and then tried to cover it up with exactly the wrong shade of touch-up.

There’s a duffle bag sitting outside the laundry chute with a name tag stitched in crooked red thread: WILSON. Of course. Even this Sam never takes his stuff all the way in.

And there is a vending machine. It stands in the wrong corner, but it too has a post-it note stuck to it - out of order, again, thanks Tony - with a penknife stabbed through it, just like Natasha used to do when the machine ate her protein bar credits.

These things shouldn’t exist here. But they do.

Everything feels so carefully replicated, as though this universe is a reflection cast on rippling water - almost right, except where it wavers.

The picture frames are all straight here. No one’s taped up drawings on the elevator doors. But the dent in the wall by the training room door is still there - Tony left it during a particularly aggressive dodgeball game. And the pillow on the corner of the couch is still upside down. Steve never fixes it.

Someone’s sweatshirt is slung over the railing. Sam’s. Same one he wore for three weeks straight after the Lagos op. It still smells like burned rubber and that weird detergent Sam insists is “eco-friendly but manly.”

The common room has a blanket folded over the arm of the couch.

It’s yours.

You always fold it the same way. Two halves, then thirds, then smoothed flat.

The corners of his mouth twitch. Not a smile. Just muscle memory of one.

He walks slower now. Like he’s afraid he’ll wake something up.

He turns down the south hall, toward the kitchen.

He tells himself it’s for the layout. That he’s retracing steps, building a map in his head, keeping sharp like they trained him to. But really it’s you. It’s always you. He knows you’re here, somewhere, and if he turns the wrong corner too fast he might see you in a way he isn’t ready for. Or worse - see you in a way he’ll never forget.

His hand curls into a fist. Flesh and metal both.

The light changes first.

The kitchen here is bigger. Airier. The windows seem to stretch wider than they should, the frame redone in something softer than steel. Someone left the lights low, warm glimmers buzzing faintly above, full of melancholy chords.

And then he freezes. Everything in him turns to stone.

He stops breathing.

Because there are you.

Standing with your back to him.

You are in fuzzy socks, standing at the counter, shoulders relaxed, a pot simmering on the stove, and a sway in your movements that hit him so hard his throat tightens. You shift your weight slightly, hip against the edge of the counter, your hand rising to tuck your hair behind your ear.

The way the light hits you from behind is exactly the same.

You are moving through a rhythm you don’t know he’s watching.

You’re cooking something - he doesn’t know what, can’t smell it through the barrier of this aching distance - but it all is so heartbreakingly familiar. The tilt of your head as you read the label. The absent little sway in your hips as you stir something in the pan.

It’s domestic.

Effortlessly soft.

The kind of moment he’s never had, but has imagined a thousand times before.

His body goes very still. Maybe if he moves, the moment might shatter.

But it cleaves him open.

Because you move the same.

You move the way you do in his world - as though every room bends slowly toward you. As though you don’t know how much of your soul you leave behind in your trail. As though the air makes space for you because it wants to. Because it has to.

He watches.

Rooted to the floor.

This is doing something brutal to him. Seeing you here like this, in this soft golden kitchen that smells like tomatoes and thyme and something slow-cooked with patience and love, tucked into his shirt as though it doesn’t tear his heart apart.

You’re not just wearing it to steal warmth or tease him, the way you’ve done before in his world - tugging on his hoodie after a long mission, smirking when he raises an eyebrow, pretending it was an accident. You always returned it too quickly. Always laughed too loudly when he was too nonchalant about it. Always looked away too fast.

But here. Here you wear it as though you truly mean to.

Here you stir sauce in his shirt and sway slightly to a song you don’t know you’re humming and taste the spoon as though this is just another Saturday. Here, the shirt is not a stolen thing.

The hem skims your thighs. The collar is stretched slightly. The cotton even moves in your rhythm. His name is ghosted into the shape of you, etched along your silhouette. It’s almost too much. It’s absolutely too much.

Your movements are familiar in the way only time can make a person. And God, you move the same way. The same way. Like the version of you he left behind an hour ago. Fluid. Quiet. Self-contained. You hum under your breath, just barely.

He feels it like a bruise forming under his ribs.

His hand curls at his side. Metal fingers flex.

You don’t see him.

He’s not ready for you to. He knows he shouldn’t let you see him.

Not here. Not like this. Not when you’re standing in a kitchen that looks like the one you always complained was too small, in a shirt that is his - or the other Bucky’s - cooking with your whole body curled in that same subtle tension like you’re thinking about something else entirely.

And for one breathless second, he forgets.

He forgets this isn’t his kitchen.

That this isn’t his world.

That the you standing there isn’t the one who left a hair tie on his wrist last Wednesday.

That you’re not the one who laughed at him for not knowing how to use your espresso machine but then proceeded to teach him with that sweet voice of yours he doesn’t mind drowning in.

But God, he wants to walk across the room. Wants to slide his arms around your waist. Rest his chin on your shoulder. Breathe in your scent and feel your heartbeat under his hands.

Because he’s seen you like this before.

In his own kitchen, in his own universe.

Not often. Just enough to be dangerous.

You, in fuzzy socks. You, humming softly. You, squinting into a pot like it might confess its secrets.
You, looking over your shoulder and catching him staring.

Smirking. Amused. But with a warmth in your eyes.

And now, he just watches.

This version of you doesn’t turn around. Doesn’t feel him standing there, made of want and memory and too much tenderness for a heart that was never meant to carry this much.

He grips the doorframe.

Tries to swallow the pain.

Because this is what he’s always wanted, but it isn’t his.

And it won’t be.

But he can’t stop looking.

He knows he should move. Now.

He’s not supposed to linger.

Not supposed to look.

Not supposed to feel.

He’s a shadow in this world, a breath not meant to be heard. A presence designed to pass unnoticed.

But you-

God.

You are gravity and he is weak against it.

You are the glitch in every rule, the exception in every universe.

And he can’t help it.

He looks.

He stays.

Because there is no version of reality where he walks past you untouched.

You are the only thing in this place that hasn’t changed.

The only thing that feels right.

And that’s the worst part.

Because you feel like home.

And you’re not his.

You might never be.

But he stands there, selfish and still, pretending the silence could make him invisible. Pretending this version of you isn’t real. That your shape, your voice, your hands wouldn’t undo him in ways the war never could.

You reach for the spice rack, standing on your toes just a little, the hem of the oversized shirt lifting slightly. His name is written in the way the fabric hangs off your frame. It’s branded into this whole place.

He watches you like a man watches fire from the other side of glass - warmed, lit, and ruined all at once. You move like morning through him - and he, all dusk and dust, knows he is never meant to touch such light.

You wear that shirt on your shoulders as though it is normal for you. As though you want it to be there.

Bucky watches it stretch across the curves of a body he’s only ever worshiped in dreams.

You still feel like you, he thinks and the thought is so sudden and so violent that he has to step back - just a fraction of an inch, just enough to pretend he didn’t feel it, just enough to pretend it doesn’t mean something.

He doesn’t understand how this version of you still reads like poetry he’s already memorized.

He backs away, so slowly, he wonders if time might forgive him for the moment. For his hesitation to leave.

For the way, he just stands there and watches you as though you are the last good thing in the world.

As though you are the world. His world.

You turn, slow, stirring spoon still in hand. You haven’t seen him yet. You’re focused, brow furrowed just slightly, lower lip caught between your teeth, and he knows he should get the hell away from here.

But he is frozen in place. His muscles aren’t working.

He sees the angle of your cheek, the line of your neck, the quick twitch of your nose as though you’ve caught a scent you know too well.

And then you look up.

You see him.

Bucky’s mind is running on empty cells.

Your whole face changes. Clouds lifting. Sun rising. Your smile is instant. As though seeing him is something your body wants to do.

Everything in you brightens. As though the sun cracked open inside your chest. Your whole body jolts. Just a fraction. In surprise, delight. As though seeing him is something that rearranges the air in your lungs and makes it easier to breathe.

He is not prepared for the way you breathe his name.

“Buck-” your voice is thick with shock and joy and something lighter than either. “You’re back.”

He doesn’t move. Can’t.

The word back rattles in his ears. Echoes. Feels like a lie made of gold. He is not back. He is not yours. Not in this life. Not in this room. Not in the way you somehow seem to think he is.

You don’t give him time to speak. You don’t give him space to even think.

Because you’re already closing the distance between you, fast and sure-footed, and he has just enough sense left in him to realize he should say something, before you launch yourself into his chest, arms flung wide, a soft gasp of excitement still spilling from your mouth.

You collide with him hard and certain and unapologetic, and your arms wind around his neck as though they’ve done this a thousand times. So easy with him. Knowing the shape of him.

He stiffens. Every muscle in his body locks up, heart ricocheting against his ribs. He chokes on his breath.

He’s too overwhelmed with this situation to hug you back. His arms stay frozen at his side. His fingers twitch, trying to reach for you but remembering they shouldn’t.

You’re warm. You’re so warm.

You smell like that candle on your windowsill. Like a version of comfort he hasn’t earned.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were back?” you murmur, voice muffled as you bury yourself into the crook of his neck, full of a joy so honest it makes his entire ribcage squeeze the life out of him. “I thought you were still stuck over there. I was starting to get worried. Were you trying to surprise me? Because you definitely surprised me.”

Bucky can’t speak. He can’t do a single thing and that’s absolutely pathetic. He wants to say something clever or distant or safe, but his mouth is a graveyard and the words are bones. He’s not sure he even remembers how to use them anymore.

Your breath fans across his collarbone, your nose brushing his jaw, and it’s too much.

The feeling of you against him is unbearable. You fit. Of course, you do. His body knows you, even if his brain is screaming that this is wrong, that this is not the life he is living, that this version of you is not his to touch.

But you don’t know that. You don’t hesitate. Your hands slide up his back. One of them tangles in the hair at the nape of his neck. The other rests against the curve of his shoulder. His flesh shoulder.

He feels like glass. Like a single breath could rip him to shreds.

You pull back just enough to look at him.

There is something tender in your eyes. Something known. Something that sees him without flinching. You’re beaming. And he is blinded.

You’re looking at him as though he’s something you loved for years and known down to the marrow.

And then, so quickly, so confidently - you kiss him.

Bucky freezes.

All the air leaves his lungs.

His heart stutters in his chest.

Your lips meet his as though the air between you has gravity, as though you have done this before, soft and sure, knowing how he likes it. You kiss him as though you’ve kissed him a thousand times and a thousand more.

Bucky is a rigid wall, thunderstruck.

But he doesn’t stop you.

He should. He knows he should. The second your hands touched his face, he should have stepped back. Should have told you the truth. Should have warned you that this isn’t him. Not the right one. That the man you think you’re kissing is a ghost wearing someone else’s memories.

But he doesn’t. He lets you. For a heartbreaking moment. Lets his mouth press to yours for the span of a beat and a half. Lets the warmth of you crack the ice he’s been carrying in his chest for too long.

Your lips are warm, soft, sweet, tasting of honey and cinnamon and nostalgia and the imaged version of a dream he’s buried too deep to name, one he’s never dared to reach for but still lingers in his bones. Bucky doesn’t know if he’s breathing or if that became something irrelevant.

He lets you press into him as though the whole world hasn’t changed, as though this you is not a stranger wearing your skin, your voice, your tenderness. And for a second, a small and selfish, shattering second, he melts.

His muscles go slack and his eyes fall closed and the universe falls into place. Your lips on his feel like relief, like the end of war, like something he didn’t earn. He lets himself sink into it, into you.

You kiss him as though you know him. As though you know the hollow places and where they go. As though your body is working off muscle memory forged from love he was never around long enough to deserve.

Your hands are on his face and you’re kissing him as though this means something and he wants to pull away, he does, but not for one split-second. He folds like wax in flames, pliant and helpless under your affection.

His heart stutters - skips, crashes, burns.

Your body is pressing forward as though it’s coming home.

His mouth moves with yours, slow and stunned and melted, like a man learning to breathe in a language he doesn’t speak.

This is what he has imagined. This is what has haunted the spaces behind his eyes when he lets his guard down. He has imagined this. Wondered what your breath would taste like when it caught between your mouths, how your fingers would feel fisted in his hair, how it might feel to be wanted by you - openly, without hesitation, without shame.

But then you whisper against his mouth, soft and breathless and full of joy.

“God, I missed you.”

And everything collapses.

The words strike like ice water down his spine. It’s like being shot. He grows tense again. His eyes snap open. His mind catches up to his heart. The sweetness goes sour in his mouth. The warmth becomes poison under his skin. Because it isn’t real. This isn’t real.

You’re not his.

Not his to kiss. Not his to miss him. Not his to touch him with that bright look in your eyes as though he is part of your story.

You think he’s your Bucky. The one who - as Bucky would imagine - kissed you on every hallway in this place, whenever he could. The one who knows which side of the bed you sleep on. The one who earned your trust, your touch, your history.

And so he breaks the sky.

He pulls away - rips himself out of paradise with shaking hands and a jaw clenched so tight it might snap. The breath that leaves him is ragged, torn.

Every muscle in his body is tight. This is not your kiss. Not yours to give or his to take. Not when you don’t know. Not when you think he’s someone else.

And even though it’s you - your warmth, your voice, your heartbeat fluttering against his chest - it’s not the version of you he’s imagined this with.

And it’s not right.

The guilt punches him all at once, shame and grief and confusion he’s never quite learned to survive. He recoils - not even fully on purpose - but instinct, instinct that tells him he has stolen something you didn’t offer him.

He’s just a stranger behind familiar eyes.

You freeze. Blink at him. Confused. Concerned.

Your smile falters. Disappears.

His chest heaves once, twice, too fast, not able to breathe properly with your taste still caught in his mouth. His hands curl into fists at his side, trying to remember what they are for.

And then he sees it - your worry folding into something smaller, something more ashamed.

And it murders him in slow motion, one heartbeat at a time.

Your hands drop away from his face and flutter against your lips for the smallest second as though maybe you’re the one who crossed a line.

And he watches, helpless, as the light behind your eyes dims.

You take a tiny step back, shoulders inching inwards as though you’re suddenly unsure of yourself.

And then your eyes widen, and the guilt spills out of you now, sharp and immediate.

“Buck, I-” you start, your voice soft and hesitant. “I’m sorry. That was… I shouldn’t have just- I didn’t mean to- God, you probably needed a second to just settle, and I-” you trail off and take another step back as though you think you hurt him.

Your face crumples, not dramatically, not completely. But enough to look a little wounded. Vulnerable in that way you only let him see when no one else is around. Even here. Even in this life that isn’t his.

It’s killing him.

That pain in your eyes. The sheen of doubt and confusion that he put there.

You wrap your arms around yourself, retreating inward, your expression far too close to shame.

His chest caves as though something vital just got torn out, and his body hasn’t caught up yet.

Because even if you are not his - you are you. And hurting you, even by accident, even like this, feels like peeling the skin of his ribs.

He feels it in the hollow beneath his ribs, a wound that won’t stop bleeding.

“No!” he forces out quickly, voice low and rough and all wrong. “Hey- no, no, you didn’t- You weren’t- I’m not-”

But he doesn’t know what to say.

He wants to tell you it’s okay, that you didn’t do anything wrong, that it’s him, it’s all him, it’s always him, it’s never you.

He wants to scream that his bones are made of want, that his blood sings only your name, that he is drowning in everything you don’t know you’ve given him.

But none of this is simple. None of it is clean.

And all he does is stand there.

Breath shaking.

Heart breaking.

Hands curled so tightly to keep from reaching.

Because you didn’t give this kiss to him, not knowing who he was. You gave it to the man you think he is. The man you trust.

And he accepted it anyway. Let it happen. For just a split second, but still, he let himself have it.

He feels sick.

And now you look like you’re folding in on yourself, and all he wants in the world is to pull you close and undo every second of pain.

“I just got excited,” you say timidly, even softer now, eyes dropping to the kitchen counter. “I missed you and I didn’t- I thought you’d- Never mind. I’m sorry.”

You’re already turning away, trying to tuck the moment back into yourself, trying to pretend it didn’t just break the air between you. As though you haven’t just handed him a piece of your heart and watched him flinch from it.

And Bucky feels like the worst kind of monster.

Because it’s not your fault. This version of you, who somehow but clearly loves him, who thought she was greeting the man who has kissed her a thousand times and more. Who thought this was welcome. Who probably counted down the days until he walked through that door.

He knows because he does the same thing although his you and him aren’t even a thing.

Because in his world, you’re his friend. Just that. A friend with soft eyes and sharper wit, someone who argues about popcorn toppings and sings loudly in the kitchen when you know he needs some cheering up. You’ve patched him up after missions. You’ve watched old movies with him in silence, both of you staring too long at the screen and not long enough at each other. You’ve fallen asleep on his shoulder. You’ve tucked his hair behind his ear when it stuck to his cheek after a nightmare. You’ve told him - more than once - that you’re here for him.

But you’ve never kissed him.

You’ve never touched him as though you owned the moment.

You’ve never stood in his clothes and cooked dinner for the version of him who let himself be yours.

And god, he wants to hate this version of himself. This man who found the courage to step forward when he only hovered on the edge. Who earned the right to be held by his dream girl like a homecoming.

And now you are ashamed. Now you are hurt.

Because he couldn’t be the right Bucky.

He steps forward, frantic, needing, desperate to fix it, to say something, anything that would wipe that hurt look off your face.

“No- no, hey,” he rasps, voice frayed. His hands are hovering. He wants to touch you. He wants to hold your face in his palms and make this better. “It’s not your fault. It’s not you. I just… I mean, I didn’t think-” He knows he’s not making this better at all right now.

He sighs, mouth open but language failing him, and he scrubs a hand over his jaw as though he can erase the hesitation you saw there.

You search his face, your eyes too deep.

A trembling nod.

“Okay,” you say. “I just thought- I don’t know what I thought. I was just really happy to see you. But I should’ve given you a moment.”

And there it is.

The softness.

The part of you he has always tried to guard. The one he’d go back to Hydra to protect. The one that makes his chest ache and his hands shake at his sides.

He wants to tell you everything. The truth. The mission. That he’s not the man you think he is.

He almost does.

But his throat is choked up.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper, and that only breaks him in a new way.

Because you think you did something wrong.

“No,” he starts again, firmer this time, softer too. “You don’t need to apologize, sweetheart. I-” he hesitates, and you see it. “I missed you, too.”

He screwed up. Completely.

You bite your lip, unsure. Your eyes flick down to your shirt. His shirt. Not really his shirt. But Bucky’s shirt. You tug at the hem as though it suddenly doesn’t belong to you anymore.

And Bucky knows that this moment will haunt him long after he leaves this world. Long after he goes back to the version of you who wears his hoodies just to tease, who touches him only in passing, who is his friend despite him wishing for you to greet him the same way this you greets her Bucky. For the rest of his life.

You look at him as though he’s a wound.

As though he’s something tender and broken and half-open, and not in the way that frightens you but in the way that makes you reach for the first aid kit. As though you’ve seen the blood already, and you are not afraid to get your hands dirty to make him whole again.

Your voice turns softer now. Maybe trying not to shake the walls around him. Like you’ve already seen him flinch once and you’re afraid of making it happen again. He can hear the thread of caution in your throat, stretched thin with concern.

“Buck,” you say, slow, quiet. “Are you okay?” you ask and it’s not just a question. It’s a doorway. A key turned in a lock he hasn’t let anyone touch. You’re peering through the walls he built up as though you have done it before. Maybe you know all his hiding places. Maybe you’ve kissed every scar on his soul and memorized the way his silences mean different things.

But not this version of him.

Not here. Not now.

And it does something sharp to him.

Because he’s not okay. He is a thousand feet below the surface, lungs full of water and salt and regret. He is standing in a version of his life that is too soft for the callouses on his hands, and you are looking at him as if he means something to you, as if he still matters even after he’s flinched from your kiss, after he’s stood there in a borrowed skin, giving nothing in return.

He wants to say yes. Wants to lie because it would be kinder. Because maybe it would make your forehead smooth out and your mouth curl back up and your shoulders drop from where they’ve crept up near your ears. But the words catch in his throat. He can’t swallow them. He can’t spit them out.

You step closer, slowly now, more careful than before, and the guilt rises more than ever.

“Do you need anything?” you ask, as though you’ve asked him this a thousand times before. “Water? Food? A shower? A-” you falter, “- a second to breathe?”

Your eyes are so gentle he could cry. You’re hurting and you’re still soft with him, still reaching across this invisible crack in the earth, still offering care with both hands like it won’t burn you if he doesn’t take it.

He doesn’t deserve this.

He doesn’t deserve you.

Not when he’s not the man who earned the right to walk through that door and be met with your affection like sunlight. Not when you looked at him like a miracle and he gave you nothing back but a statue.

His hands remain in fists. His chest is too tight. Too small. His own skin is too loud.

“I’m fine,” he answers. Too fast. Too clipped. He regrets it instantly.

Your face drops a little, enough for him to feel it all over again. Another weight, another reminder that he is ruining something delicate, something not meant for him.

“Oh,” you murmur, nodding too quickly, stepping back as though your warmth was a mistake. “Okay.”

And there it is.

That thing he can’t stand.

That thing you do - both of you, all versions of you - when you feel shut out. That pull inward, that retreat behind your own ribs, as though maybe you’d overstepped, and now you need to fold yourself small enough not to take up space.

It crushes him.

Because he made you feel that way.

He made you feel as though you’re making it worse by caring.

He swallows hard, sorrow burning down his throat.

He doesn’t deserve your tenderness. He doesn’t deserve your care. He doesn’t deserve the way you’re moving again, back to the counter, shoulders tense. You’re trying to give him space and comfort in the same breath and it hurts to watch.

You stir something in the pan. Wipe your hands off a towel that looks as though it’s been used too many times. Domestic. Familiar. This life is familiar, too much so, and he is standing in the middle of it like a trespasser.

“I’m almost done here,” you note sweetly, glancing back at him with that look - gentle and worried and wounded. “If you do want something.”

You say it as though you’ve fed him before. As though he likes your cooking. As though this is something you fall into easily, the kitchen your common ground, your voice echoing off the same cabinets.

Bucky can feel his heart cave in.

You’re still looking at him like that. As though he’s someone you’d give your last spoonful of soup to. As though he isn’t just standing there like a coward with your kiss still on his mouth and your concern sitting in the hollow of his chest.

Even when he pulled away, even when he didn’t say a damn word, you didn’t get angry. You didn’t accuse him of anything. You just worried. And you’re still here. Still cooking. Still offering pieces of yourself like they’re nothing when they mean everything.

It makes him feel like a thief.

Because he’s not your Bucky. And he doesn’t know what yours did to earn you, but he can’t possibly live up to it.

His guilt is a creature now - gnawing and breathing heavy in his chest, pacing in circles behind his ribs. He feels it crawling through him, scraping at the back of his throat, making it hard to speak, hard to swallow. You are being careful with him, and all he can think about is how he should have stopped the kiss the second you leaned in.

You wouldn’t have kissed him if you knew who he really was.

And still, he wants to say yes.

Wants to sit at the kitchen table as though he belongs. Wants to take the plate you’d hand him and eat every last bite and listen to your stories and pretend just for a moment that this is his.

But it’s not.

It’s yours.

And it’s his job to leave it untouched.

“I’m good,” he lies, voice a gravel-dragged croak.

You pause, spoon in hand, frowning softly.

He hates that look.

That little line between your brows. The tilt of your head. Maybe you know he’s not telling the truth but don’t want to press. Maybe you’d rather hold the silence in your hands than make him bleed more words than he has.

“Okay,” you say again, quiet but still open, still gentle. “Just let me know if that changes.”

And you turn back to your pan, shoulders remaining to stay curled in. Like a window closing just enough to keep the cold out.

And Bucky just stands there.

Mouth dry. Hands shaking. Jaw tight. Chest full of something that feels like grief and guilt and anguish all tangled up in barbed wire.

And you’re cooking for a man who doesn’t exist in your world.

And the worst part - the part that scrapes down the back of his throat - is that he wishes he could deserve you.

He wishes this was real.

He wishes it were him.

He wishes it more than he’s wished for anything in his life since he lost it.

Since he became something else, since he forgot his own name, since his hands were turned against the world, against himself. Since all he’s done is survive.

He watches you like a man starving for sunlight. Terrified it might disappear if he blinks too long.

The way your shoulders move as you stir. The curl of your fingers around the wooden spoon. The tuck of hair behind your ear. The shift of your weight from one foot to the other.

He watches you move like he’s memorizing. As though this is the last time he’ll see you in motion. Like your movements are things he can bottle and carry with him, tucked deep into some pocket where the world can’t steal it. Where time can’t take it. Where even regret has no reach.

Your fingers fuss over something inconsequential now. Adjusting the position of a mug that didn’t need to be moved, opening a drawer, and then closing it again. You’re pretending not to look at him but he sees the way your eyes keep falling over, the way you keep folding and unfolding yourself. You’re waiting. Giving him the space he didn’t ask for and that he doesn’t actually want but knows he should take. Giving him something kinder than he’s ever learned to give himself.

And you are so familiar. You’re the same here. Even in this place that’s slightly sideways and tinted in colors, he doesn’t recognize. You move the same. You speak the same. You care the same way.

Even if your kindness isn’t meant for him.

Even if your kiss was meant for a version of him he doesn’t even understand.

Because this Bucky - the one you seem to love here - he must have done something right. He must have looked at you one day and not looked away. He must have let himself have you. He must have been brave enough to reach for you with both hands and hold on.

Bucky doesn’t know how to be that man.

He wants to be.

But he doesn’t know how.

Not in his own world. Not where he loves you from afar and pretends that’s protection. Where he swallows the way you laugh like it’s medicine and doesn’t let it show on his face. Where he listens to your questions in briefings - always you, always asking the most, as though you know people better than they know themselves - and he lets the sound of your voice guide him through the fog in his head like a rope he can follow back home.

But he never says anything. Never answers unless he has to. Never tells you how often he thinks about you, about your hands and your hair and your smell and the way your eyes find his in a crowd like a lighthouse built just for him.

Because what would he even say?

Hey, I can’t sleep unless I replay the way you laughed when Sam dropped popcorn all over the floor last month. I still have the napkin you folded into a crane at that terrible diner. I know the shape of your handwriting better than my own.

And what would you say to that?

Would you smile?

Would you run?

He doesn’t know. He’ll never know. Because he never asked. Because he never tried.

But this Bucky did.

And now this is the price.

Standing in the compound’s kitchen that smells of roasted garlic and too many things he’s never had. Watching you move around as though this is all so very familiar to you.

He wonders if you’d greet him like this every day if he were yours. If you were his.

If you’d light up like that every time like he was coming come and not just showing up, arms open, voice warm, like there was no place he could be safer than here with you.

If you’d wear his shirts as though they are yours because of what he means to you, not because they are soft or convenient or too clean not to steal.

He aches with the idea of it.

He wants this.

He wants you.

And not just in the sharp pain that lives under his ribs. Not just in the sleepless nights and the imagined conversations. Not just in the way he stares too long when you’re laughing or how he makes excuses to sit beside you on the couch.

He wants this.

You, warm and open and lit up from the inside. You, the way you could be if you saw him like this. If you let yourself. If he ever earned the right for you to let yourself.

But he hasn’t. He knows that.

He’s just your friend. The one you trust with your coffee order and your spare key and the heavy things you don’t want to talk about until 2 am. The one you steal clothes from, but always give them back because they don’t actually belong to you. The one you fall asleep beside during late movies without worrying about what it means because it doesn’t mean anything. Not to you.

Not like it means to him.

And still, he always watches. From doorways. From shadowed corners of rooms that dim the moment you leave them. Not to possess you - but because to look away would be a small death he cannot bear.

You laugh, and he holds the sound like contraband. You glance past him, and he lets it wound him sweetly. He’ll love you like that forever - at a distance, in silence, in awe. A man carved hollow by devotion, wearing his yearning like a prayer no god will answer.

And this version of you belongs to someone.

Even if it’s just a different version of him, it’s not him. Not this one. Not the one still lost in the burden of everything he’s done. The one who still wonders if the blood on his hands will ever wash off. The one who doesn’t know how to be soft.

He doesn’t know what the other Bucky did to deserve this version of you. Doesn’t know how he got so lucky. Doesn’t know what he offered you, what words he spoke when you were doubting yourself, afraid of being too much.

He’s not sure if he even knows this Bucky. It sounds weird as fuck. But maybe he doesn’t. Because it seems impossible to Bucky that this guy actually managed to get his girl. To get you.

Though he sure as hell would start a fight if the other him ever took this for granted. If he ever walked through this kitchen distracted or tired or in a bad mood and missed the way you smile when you think he’s not looking. If he ever left you waiting too long.

Bucky thinks he’d kill to have what that punk has.

And he hates himself for that.

But he can’t help but watch you, and it feels like the axis of something turning. Like time folding in on itself to offer him one brief, borrowed breath of what could have been.

It feels like being kissed by a future he lost, and forgiven by a present he never dared to ask for.

Because he knows that if you knew his thoughts, if you knew what he is feeling right now, you’d feel betrayed. You’d feel wronged. Because this wasn’t yours to give and it wasn’t his to want and now you’re both tangled in something made of shadows and parallel paths that should never have crossed.

But you’re here. And he’s here. And the moment still smells of cinnamon and citrus and something sweet, like safety, like you.

And he can’t stop wanting.

He wants it so badly he feels like a child in his chest. Like a boy in Brooklyn again, heart too big, hands too empty. Wanting something too beautiful for his fingers. Afraid to touch it in case he ruins it.

He wants this kitchen, this quiet, this life. He wants to be the Bucky who you wrap your arms around without thinking. Without hesitation. The one you miss. The one you think about. The one you care about so deeply. The one you kiss without asking because of course he wants you to.

He wants to be the one you light up for.

He wants it so bad it hurts.

But you are too soft for the ruin of his hands. Too bright for the rooms he lives in. You drink from fountains he was never invited to approach, speak in tones that his rusted soul cannot mimic.

And this is gutting him. To know the shape of your intimate kindness, the tilt of your adoring smile, the poetry of your presence - yet remain nothing more than a silent apostle to your orbit.

And maybe that’s why he finally moves. Why he tears himself away, footfalls too loud in the silence, heart thudding wildly in his chest.

He can’t stay here, not with you standing in the soft yellow light looking like everything he’s ever tried not to need.

He clears his throat, tries to make his voice sound normal, even though nothing about him feels human right now.

Your eyes lift to his. Wary. Still warm. Still worried. Still too much.

“I should, uh,” he mutters, nodding toward the hallway. “I’ve gotta take a shower.”

He bites his lip in frustration at himself.

Your lip twitches. Tugs down ever so slightly. It splits him open.

“Okay,” you say, quiet. There is disappointment in your tone, you weren’t able to overshadow. “You’ll tell me if you need anything?”

He nods too fast. Too tight. “Yeah.”

And then he leaves.

Because if he doesn’t, he’s going to do something worse than kiss you back.

He’s going to beg.

And he knows he has already taken too much.

And he needs to turn away.

Because he has something to do.

Because this world isn’t his. And he wasn’t sent here to collect the storyline he’s too afraid to build on his own.

He’s here for a mission.

He wasn’t sent here to linger in your doorway and let his bones dissolve into longing.

He walks away with you still behind him. He feels your gaze on his skin and with every step, it’s like he’s leaving something behind he’ll never quite be able to touch again.

He almost turns around.

Almost says your name.

Almost asks what this Bucky did - how he said it first, how he reached for you, what it took.

But he doesn’t.

Because he doesn’t get to ask.

So he keeps walking, heart in his throat, your taste still on his lips, and the echo of your smile carved into his spine like something sacred he was never meant to keep.

****

“Did you run into anyone while you were there?”

Steve’s question comes as casually as a bomb dropped from the sky.

Voices rise and fall in the conference room - wooden chairs squeaking under shifting weight, pens clicking, someone’s fingers drumming absently on the table.

The room is too bright. The lights overhead white and clinical, burning a little too harshly through his eyes and down into the back of his skull.

The air smells like ozone and burnt coffee. The kind that’s been sitting in the pot too long, scorched at the edges.

Bucky sits at the far end. Back against the chair but not relaxed, never relaxed, spine too straight, jaw too tight, metal fingers tapping once against the glass of his water before he clenches his hand and stills it.

And he knew this was coming.

Knew from the moment Strange opened that cursed slit in the fabric of the universe and Bucky stepped through like he was boarding a train to nowhere. Knew the second he saw your face - your face, but not yours - that this would catch up with him. That this would unravel under fluorescent lights and scrutiny.

Every muscle in his body coiled tighter. A reflex. A learned thing. His mouth is already dry.

The table is crowded with Avengers, coffee cups clinking, files half-open and untouched because no one is really looking at the paper.

The prototype sits in the center of the table, carefully sealed inside one of Tony’s vacuum-shielded cases. A long-forgotten Howard Stark fever dream, something meant to bend energy fields into weaponized gravity. Or something. It doesn’t matter.

They have it. He got it.

But that’s not what anyone is talking about right now.

Not when Sam is already side-eyeing him. Not when Doctor Strange is seated in his dark robes like the warning label on a grenade, fingertips tented, waiting. Not when you’re sitting two chairs down - his version of you - and you’re watching him with that same knitted expression you always wear when something doesn’t sit right.

“Bucky,” Strange says, voice low and still too loud. “I need to know. Did you encounter anyone significant while you were there? Interacting with alternate selves is risky. Prolonged exposure can ripple. If you spoke to someone who knows you-”

“I know the damn rules,” Bucky mutters, sharper than he meant to, and instantly hates the way your brows lift at the sound of it.

He rubs a hand across the back of his neck. Tries to breathe. His body is still holding something that didn’t belong to him. Your smile. Your voice. The feel of your lips, pressed to his like they had every right to be there. Like you knew him.

He can’t stop thinking about you.

He doesn’t want to talk about it.

He dreads talking about it.

“There was someone,” he says, and the room quiets.

You sit a little straighter. Sam leans forward. Even Clint lowers his cup.

He can feel you watching him.

You, his version of you, sitting across the table with your arms crossed and your head tilted just enough to catch the shadows under his eyes. The real you. The only important you. And it’s so difficult to just look at you because he swears there’s a phantom echo still lingering in his chest. Of another you. Of another kitchen full of light.

“Who?” Strange asks.

Bucky exhales slowly, eyes fixed on the table. The grain of it. The scratch just under his knuckle. He imagines digging his fingers into it, splinters biting through skin, anything to ground himself.

“You,” He meets your eyes when he finally says it, and it feels like swallowing gravel. “I saw her.”

You blink.

“You ran into Y/n?” Sam asks, something like a smirk in his voice.

Bucky nods once. It feels like rust grinding his neck.

He can’t look up anymore. Can’t look at you.

He doesn’t need to look to know your breath has caught. He can feel it in the air. The absence of it. Like the moment before thunder.

He pushes through.

“She was there. She saw me.” His jaw clenches, his fists curl under the table.

Bruce exhales, pushing up his glasses. “That’s not ideal.”

Tony makes a sharp noise in his throat.

“Did you talk to her?” Strange inquiries, voice tighter now, more urgent. And Bucky has to refrain himself from wincing.

He sees you shifting in your seat in his peripheral vision.

“Yeah,” he sighs, quieter now. “We, uh- we talked.”

Silence.

Strange’s eyes are boring through him. “How close did you get?”

Sam leans forward. Bucky doesn’t look at him.

You’re staring at him now. Open. Quiet. You haven’t said a word. Your silence feels worse than anything else.

“I don’t think that matters-” Bucky starts, but Strange interrupts.

“It matters exactly. If she saw you, if you talked, if you touched, if anything that could destabilize your emotional tether occurred-”

Bucky laughs, but it’s hollow, breathless. Rotten. “What the hell is an emotional tether?”

“It’s you,” Strange answers simply. “And her. On a metaphysical level. The same person in different timelines can act as anchors. Or explosives.”

“Jesus,” Bucky mumbles, dragging a hand down his face.

His palms won’t stop sweating.

He hasn’t felt this kind of sick since HYDRA used to strap wires to his temples and ask him how many fingers they’d need to break before he forgot his own name.

The conference room is too still. Too sharp. His chair feels wrong under him, too stiff, too narrow. The soft, predictable sound of conversation from earlier has dropped into something tighter. Focused. Hunting.

He doesn’t want to lie. Not about you. Not when you touched him like that. Not when you said his name like that. Not when it almost felt like it could be true.

So he swallows hard and pushes words through his locked jaw.

“She hugged me.”

A pause.

He doesn’t look at anyone. Just the table. That one dent from Steve’s shield. The scratch Clint made with a fork because he talks with his hands. A small, folded paper crane tucked under your fingers. He doesn’t know where you’ve got that from but your fingers are bending the wings back and forth. He doesn’t think you even realize you’re doing it.

“She hugged you?” Sam repeats, brow raised. “Like… greeted you?”

Bucky nods slowly, heart thudding in his ears. “Something like that.” He can feel your gaze like heat pressed against the side of his face and it almost burns to meet it, so he doesn’t.

“What happened before that?” Steve wants to know, eyes narrowing.

“I-” Bucky starts, and then stops, scrubs a hand over his mouth. “I walked into the kitchen. She was cooking something. Then she saw me. She thought I- he- was back. From something. A mission. I don’t know the details.”

“And she hugged you,” Steve adds.

“Yeah,” Bucky sighs.

He doesn’t mean to look at you, but he does. For a second.

And you’re watching him with something unreadable in your eyes. Something still. As though you are trying to understand.

“And you just let her?” Sam presses, not unkind, but relentless in the way only Sam can be. “You didn’t say anything?”

“What do you think I should have said?”

“Well, I don’t know, man-“

“Did I say anything? Or… she?”

It’s your voice.

And it makes his stomach flip.

His eyes snap to you. But you’re not looking at him directly. You look at the edge of his shoulder. The hinge of his jaw. The tension written across his face.

He shifts in his chair. “You- She asked why I hadn’t told her I was coming back. Thought I was surprising her.” His hands are pressed flat against his thighs as though he can keep himself from shaking if he stays grounded.

“And?” Steve asks, too gently.

“She kissed me,” Bucky manages finally, and the room stiffens around him like a held breath. His voice is almost flat now. Hollowed-out. Maybe he’s trying to bleed the memory dry so it stops spreading in his chest.

There is a momentary lapse of silence that feels like someone dropped something delicate and no one wants to be the first to point it out.

Clint exhales slowly, muttering something under it. Sam leans back in his chair, maybe trying to decide if this is funny or devastating. Steve just blinks.

And you go completely still. Not a twitch of movement. Not even your fingers on the paper crane.

“She kissed you?” Natasha says, brows high.

Bucky exhales. Nods.

“What kind of kiss?” Sam blurts, leaning forward again. “A welcome-home kiss? Or a- like a real kiss?”

Steve sighs exasperated.

“No, I mean- we gotta know. This matters.”

His hand is aching. Flesh thumb pressing hard against the knuckle. “It was- not friendly.”

And the room really freezes. Stunned.

Until Sam lets out this sharp, incredulous sort of whistle, and Clint groans, dragging a hand down his face.

You glance down at your lap, jaw clenched, breath held so still it barely moves your chest. And it twists something in Bucky’s stomach, the way you sit there trying to disappear. He’s not sure who it hurts more - you, hearing this, or him, saying it. There is shame curling behind his ears. Shame and something like grief. And it’s all turned inward.

Sam’s eyes narrow. “So she kissed you thinking you were the other Bucky.”

Bucky doesn’t answer. He’s trying to keep still. Trying not to flinch. Trying not to look left. Trying not to look right. Trying not to look at you.

Because he feels the air around you shift like the press of a coming storm. It’s not anger. He knows that heat, and this isn’t it. It’s just quiet and tight and uncomfortable. A subtle withdrawal as though you’ve stepped behind some invisible wall only he can see.

And he hates it.

Bruce clears his throat carefully. “That implies a romantic connection. At least in her mind. Probably in his, too.”

Tony makes a face. “So we’re saying that Barnes and our girl are a thing in that universe.”

“Looks like it,” Natasha muses, eyes sliding toward you.

“Holy shit,” Clint remarks unhelpfully.

They say it so easily. As though this is nothing. As though this doesn’t wreck something fundamental in Bucky’s ribcage.

And suddenly everyone is quiet. Even the noise of the lights seem muted. It’s hot and awkward and strangely intimate.

Bucky stares down at his hands. They look like someone else’s. He can still feel your touch on them. Still feel the heat of your mouth against his. The softness. The way your lips pressed with such intention.

He says nothing.

He feels terrible.

Because a part of him still wants it.

Still aches with it.

Not the kiss. Not the accident.

The life.

That version of himself who gets to love you out loud. Who gets to be yours in daylight, in kitchens, in the moments that don’t demand heroism but just presence. That version of him that doesn’t have to swallow the way your voice makes something flutter in his chest like a broken-winged butterfly. The one who can kiss you because you already know him. Trust him. Want him. Miss him.

He wants that version to exist so badly.

And it makes him feel like a monster.

You’re sitting just far enough to be untouchable, just close enough that he can feel the space between you aching like a wound.

You are you. You are right there. And you don’t even know that in another universe, you loved him so much you ran into his arms without hesitation.

The light from the high windows drips in thin streaks across the long table, catching on Bucky’s knuckles, the tightness of his body.

There’s a long pause.

Then Tony exhales. “Well, that confirms it. Barnes is getting some in another universe.”

“Tony,” Natasha warns lowly.

Tony holds his hands up in mock innocence, but Strange interrupts them, turning to Bucky with a roll of his eyes. His cloak rustles.

“Did you tell her anything?” His voice is edged. “Did she suspect something?”

Bucky doesn’t answer immediately. He shifts in his seat. His back is too straight, and still, and his hands are bracing for something.

“No,” he relents. His voice is raw and rough like gravel pulled from the bottom of a riverbed. “I didn’t tell her anything.”

Strange’s eyes narrow. “Nothing?”

Bucky shakes his head. “Nothing.”

Strange tilts his head slightly. His expression is unreadable. Calculating. “Her behavior. Did she seem disoriented? Odd? Suspicious? I assume you know Y/n well enough to tell if she’s acting off.”

The lump in his throat settles as though it lives there.

“She was hurt,” he admits, and the words punch out of him. “I froze up. She thought she’d done something wrong. But she didn’t suspect anything.”

Across from him, you shift. A small movement. But he feels it in his bones. He looks up. Meets your eyes.

You’re watching him as though you’re trying to learn something about yourself from inside of him.

He swallows hard.

“I didn’t tell her anything,” he says again, and it’s not for Strange this time. It’s for you. “I didn’t compromise anything. I was careful.”

“You were compromised,” Strange says, not unkindly, but without sympathy. “Emotionally. Whether you said something or not.”

Bucky doesn’t argue.

Because yes. He was. He is. He doesn’t even know how to be anything else anymore. His chest still echoes with the memory of your laugh - not your laugh, but close enough to trick him. His arms still remember the shape of your body, the way you buried yourself into him. As though you’d been there a thousand times before and would be a thousand times again.

He wonders what that other you is doing now. If you are still standing in the kitchen, perhaps waiting for him. Still hurt. Still confused. Still so worried.

He wonders what that Bucky is doing now. If he’s back. If he’s home. If you’re in his arms, asking what took him so long. If he knows what he has. If he’s grateful. If he deserves you.

And he wonders too, if you - the you here, right across from him now, quiet and tense and real - will ever look at him that way.

Your eyes are on his and it seems as though you want to say something, as though maybe you’ve been wanting to say something for a while now.

He doesn’t hear the others anymore.

They’re voices in a room, sounds in space, language and logic pressing against the outside of a window he’s no longer looking through.

Because your eyes are on him and they are too open, too careful.

And, unfortunately for him, this is where the hope begins.

Small. Thin. Stupid.

Because there is a version out there who loved him already. Who ran to him as though he was safety and home and joy all wrapped in one reckless heart and it had been so easy for her. Natural, even. Like a reflex. Like a need.

And he has to think that if she could, then maybe you could too.

Maybe - if he just keeps showing up, if he keeps giving you pieces of himself even when it’s terrifying, even when he thinks he has nothing worth offering - maybe you’ll see something in him that you’ll want to keep.

Maybe he’s not beyond that.

Maybe he’s not on the edge of the world after all.

His heart stumbles inside him, a sharp jolt under his ribs, and he realizes too late that his breathing has gone shallow. His palm is sweating. His chest is aching in a way that is not just pain, but hunger, longing, desperate weightless wonder.

Strange is talking. Something about dimensional instability and neural resonance and all that science talk - but Bucky is no longer a soldier at a briefing.

He’s a man staring across a room at the person who has made his worst days survivable, and he’s remembering how it felt to see you in his shirt in a different kitchen, how you stood there with your back to him waiting for him to wrap his arms around you, how your lips tasted like things he should never know but can’t ever forget.

You shift again. Your knee knocks lightly against the leg of the table as you tuck your foot beneath you. And your hair falls forward, soft and a little tangled from the wind that always sneaks through the compound’s side doors. Your lips part, as though maybe you’re going to say something in front of everyone, and he braces for it, all of him going still like a wolf spotting something too delicate to touch.

But you don’t.

You break eye contact and tuck your hair behind your ear as though you caught yourself doing something you shouldn’t.

But Bucky doesn’t stop hoping.

Because he watched you do exactly that in a very different universe. Such a small gesture but it means so much to him.

Because yes, maybe he is not the Bucky she thought she kissed.

He’s not the Bucky who wakes up with you tangled in his sheets.

He’s not the Bucky who lets himself believe he could be loved without earning it first.

But maybe he could become that man.

Maybe if he tries hard enough, he too can get the girl.

Maybe if he works at this more than anything else that matters, you’ll love him too. Not just in some alternate world, but here.

In this one.

In your voice, when you say his name.

In your laugh, when he says something without meaning too.

In your eyes, when you don’t look away.

And he knows he would do anything to earn that.

He would do anything to be enough for you in the only universe that matters.

His fingers twitch. His shoulders square slowly, almost unconsciously, as though some decision has clicked into place without needing permission.

The room is still full. Voices layered over voices like shadows that haven’t realized the sun moved. Chairs creak beneath shifting bodies, Sam’s laughter breaking loose and grating on Bucky’s nerves.

The idiot is grinning, leaning back in his chair as though this whole situation is the best thing to happen this week. “Alternate-universe you is in a relationship, Barnes. What do we think about that, huh?”

“Sounds like he’s living the dream,” Clint mutters, giving Bucky a jab to the arm. “You finally got the girl, Barnes. Took a whole damn reality shift but you got there.”

Someone chuckles. Tony, maybe. Or even Steve. He can’t tell anymore. He can’t hear much over the buzz in his ears, over the sound of his own heart pounding behind his ribs.

“Hell, maybe all our multiverse selves are having better luck,” Sam remarks, amused.

Clint chuckles. “Ah, Barnes just grew a pair.”

“Well, that’s kind of a big deal, isn’t it?” Natasha, calm as ever, lifts one elegant eyebrow.

“Alternate-universe Barnes has game,” Sam says delighted.

“Lucky bastard,” Clint mutters under his breath.

They mean well. They always mean well. This is how they show they care. With ribbing and teeth-bared grins, with shoulders nudged, and things they don’t say louder than the ones they do. It’s how they keep their own wounds in check. How they keep from bleeding all over the carpet.

But Bucky isn’t laughing. He isn’t smiling. His lip twitches but only with frustration at his teammates.

He notices your stillness. The lines around your mouth have gone soft and tight all at once. Your hands are folded too carefully in your lap and your gaze is pinned to the table.

With every mention - every offhand comment, every teasing jab - he can see it.

The way your shoulders stuck in closer to themselves. The way your breath grows quiet and shallow. The way you can’t seem to look at him anymore.

He swallows around it, the sharpness in his throat, but it doesn’t go down.

Everyone else seems to think this is a strange, mildly awkward, maybe slightly endearing detail in a weird mission story.

But Bucky feels sick.

Because he’s seen it on your face. The way the information about the kiss struck you like a misfired bullet. A shadow in your eyes, the small breath that caught in your throat, the way you shifted your legs like you needed to move, to run, to put distance between yourself and what you heard.

God.

He’s such a fool.

A lovesick idiot.

Because he let that brightness curl in his chest. The hope that even though you have every right to feel nothing at all, even though he’s spent so long training himself not to want this, not to wish for things he can’t have - he truly thought that if there was a version of you that looked at him that way, that reached for him without fear, then maybe this version, this you - maybe there was something possible here too.

But now he is watching it close again. Watching you feeling uncomfortable, retreating into yourself, folding inward like the paper crane you left behind. And he knows the fault lines are his. That even his silence can crack things apart.

When the meeting finally breaks - Strange dismissing everyone with a calm nod and a list of inter-dimensional protocols Bucky doesn’t hear - you stand before anyone else. Quiet. Not hurried. Just deliberate.

As though you’ve made a decision.

You don’t look at him. Not once. Just gather your notes and your coffee and the sweater you left draped over the back of the chair.

And you leave.

No goodbye. No glance back. Not even that half-smile you offer when the day has left you tired and the silence between you feels soft instead of loud.

Bucky is on his feet before he realizes it. He ignores Sam calling after him, something about needing to finish signing off the tech. Doesn’t respond to Steve’s “Buck?” Doesn’t glance at Strange, who’s looking at him as though he already knows where this is headed.

All Bucky sees is the hallway.

You, disappearing around the corner, just a whisper of your hair and the sound of your boots against the polished floor. And all he can think is no.

Not like this.

He walks fast, with his pulse in his mouth and panic blooming in his chest.

You’re so graceful even when you’re upset, even when your body is stiff with tension. You carry yourself with that strength that’s always pulled him in, and he hates that he knows it. Hates that he can read you this well, because it means he knows you’re hurting.

He walks fast enough to catch up, to not give himself time to think about it too much. His hands are cold again. The way they get when he’s unsure. When something matters more than he knows how to handle.

“Hey,” he calls out, and his voice comes out too soft. Almost hoarse. “Wait- can you- can we talk?”

You stop. Slow, reluctant. As if the last thing you want to do is this but some piece of you can’t help it.

You don’t turn around at first. You’re breathing hard. He can see your shoulders rise and fall too quickly, your jaw tight, your arms folded across your chest as though you are trying to keep yourself together.

You turn.

And it’s worse than he thought.

Because your eyes are shiny and your expression is made of glass and restraint and you’re biting the inside of your cheek in that way you do when you want to pretend something didn’t bother you.

He hates this. Hates that he did this to you, even accidentally.

But god, you still are beautiful in a way that feels like gravity. Like the ache in his chest could drag the stars down to meet you.

You watch him as though trying not to give too much away.

“Can we talk?” He repeats, breath catching somewhere between hope and despair.

You shrug, not cold, not angry. Just tired. “If you want.”

He steps closer. Not too close. Careful. Always careful with you.

“I know it probably sounded bad in there,” he says, voice rough. “I didn’t want it to come out like that. Like I was… caught up in something.”

“You don’t have to explain yourself, Bucky,” you say quickly, voice too neutral. “You didn’t know. I get it.”

But he wants to explain. Wants to lay it out, piece by bloody piece. Wants you to understand that for a minute there, he forgot how to breathe because of how you looked at him. That he hasn’t stopped thinking about it since.

“I didn’t tell you- I mean, tell her,” he blurts, breathless. “I didn’t tell her who I was. Or where I came from. I didn’t say anything.”

You blink at him. “Okay.”

“She thought I was him. I- I didn’t say anything because I- I wasn’t supposed to engage and I wasn’t planning to. I swear I wasn’t planning to.”

You say nothing. Just stare at him with that sweetly confused expression.

Bucky steps closer. He’s aching, head to toe, something brittle in his chest like cracked glass.

“You kissed me,” he continues, and you bite your lip, looking away, “but I didn’t- I froze. It felt wrong. And when you said you missed me, I panicked. It felt like I was stealing something. From you. From you both.”

He stops. Swallows.

And there it is again. That dangerous spark. That sharp, flickering thing that’s lived inside him ever since he saw that other version of you, ever since your arms wrapped around his neck and your mouth pressed to his and your voice filled his chest with something whole.

He wishes for a version of that hope here, too.

But not if it means breaking you to find it.

You’re watching him with something unreadable in your eyes. He can’t tell if it’s pain or disappointment or confusion or all of it. He just knows it’s tearing him apart.

“I know it wasn’t me she kissed,” he goes on, quiet, every word dragging out of him as if it doesn’t want to be spoken. “And I know it wasn’t you, either. But it made me think that maybe-” He breaks off, exhales. “I know it’s not fair to say it, but-”

“Then don’t.” Your voice is soft when it comes.

And he flinches as though you touched a nerve.

But your face isn’t cruel. It’s sad. Honest. Tired in the way people get when they’re holding too many emotions all at once.

“I’m not her,” you clarify, but there is something fractured in the way you say it, like the words are paper-thin and barely holding shape. “I’m not whatever version of me you saw, whoever she is to you, that’s not me.”

“I know,” he croaks out. Bucky steps closer, just once. Not touching. Not yet. He doesn’t dare.

“No, I don’t think you do.” Your arms unfold slowly, but not in surrender. You gesture at yourself, the smallest movement, but there is steel in it. “She looks like me,” you go on. Your voice is tight. Bitter. It’s not like you. Not how he knows you - the warmth, the patience, the fire and calm and kindness all mixed together. “She sounds like me. But she’s not. She’s not me, Buck.”

And then you turn as if you’re about to go. As though you can’t stand another second of standing still in front of him.

“No- don’t,” he pleads, and before he can stop himself, he reaches. His hand finds your wrist, not tight, not rough, just enough to stop you. “Please.”

You pause again, with an exhale that is sharp and hurt and too loud in the hallway.

He is closer now. Close enough to see how tight you press your mouth together to keep it from trembling. The twitch of pain in your brow, the soft crease between your eyes he knows only shows up when you’re trying really hard not to cry.

Guilt and desperation roll through him, thorough, like a tide pulling everything warm away. It unspools him from the inside.

“What?” There is no weight behind your words. Your voice is worn. Defeated.

Bucks swallows. His voice feels like rust trying to be rain.

“She hugged me. Said she missed me. She kissed me like she’d done it a thousand times before.” His voice is shaking, even if he’s trying not to let it.

“And I didn’t stop her. Not for a second,” he goes on, quiet. “I should’ve. I should’ve pulled away sooner, but I-”

You pull your arm back, but he doesn’t let go.

“Why are you telling me this?” you question him, voice breaking in the middle. “What am I supposed to do with that, Bucky? Be happy for some other version of me?”

There is so much pain in your eyes, so much confusion and hurt and jealousy and heartbreak and it cuts him right through the heart. He feels it bleeding into his organs.

He closes his eyes, forgets how to breathe for a moment.

“I didn’t stop her,” he says lowly, slowly, “because, for a second, it felt like you.”

The silence between you is thick enough to drown in.

Your lips part, but no sound comes out.

“For a second, it felt like something I’ll never have,” he confesses, barely audible now. “And I was selfish. I let it happen. Because it wasn’t just a kiss to me.”

You don’t speak. You don’t move. Your chin trembles.

You look at him as though you want to say something but can’t trust yourself to do it.

“I’ve been trying to bury it,” he admits, voice strained. “This thing in my chest. This want. It’s been there for a long time. And I kept thinking- if I just waited long enough, maybe it would go away. Maybe you’d never have to know. But I saw what it looked like when I had it. When I had you. Even if it wasn’t really you. And I- I didn’t want to come back here and pretend I didn’t feel it anymore.”

You don’t move. Just stand there. Staring at him as if you don’t know what to do with the version of the world he is handing you.

“I’m not asking for anything,” he adds quickly, voice thick and gravelly. “Not expecting anything. I just- I couldn’t let you walk away thinking it didn’t mean anything. Because it did. But not because of that other you.”

Bucky loosens his hold on your wrist the way someone lays a weapon down.

Slowly. Gently. Like an offering. Giving you a choice. A chance to run. A way out, if that’s what you need.

His fingers brush fabric as he lets go, every inch of skin unthreading from yours just another stitch in the fabric holding him together.

He steps back. Not far, but enough. Giving you the room to run if you want to. Because he would never cage you. Not you. Not the girl he’s tried so hard not to need and failed so spectacularly at not loving.

The cold creeps in like a punishment.

He swallows, breath shallow, heart trying to climb out of his chest. He doesn’t look away.

“It meant something,” he breathes, and the words are low but steady, dragged out of some buried part of him where he’s kept the truth folded up too long. “It meant something because I love you.”

The words hang there. Open. Unarmored. His voice doesn’t shake but he feels the quake underneath it. He is already bracing for the ruin of it, for the way your silence might cut him down. It’s too much. He’s too much. Too much and too late and he’s saying it anyway, because what else can he do now, what else is left to do but burn with it.

“I love you. You. Only you,” he repeats, and this time it’s quieter, as if speaking it softer might hurt less if you break him.

He is bracing for your silence. For the recoil. For the slow turning of your back and the slam of a door, he won’t ever be allowed to knock on again.

But you don’t run.

You just stare at him.

Wide glassy eyes, lips parted, your whole face carved out of disbelief. Your chest rises with shallow, trembling breaths, and for a second, it’s like the hallway has no oxygen at all. Just the two of you standing in a vacuum made of shattered timing and aching things laid bare.

You look like someone trying to decide if the ground beneath you is real. If you are dreaming.

And Bucky is not breathing.

Doesn’t know how he will ever take in a breath again.

Then you move.

Fast. Sharp. Certain.

You close the distance between you with a speed that knocks his soul out of him, and before he can even process the intention behind the storm in your eyes, your hands are in his collar and your mouth is on his.

It’s not gentle.

It’s not careful.

You crash into him as though gravity has finally won. As though your body has been held back for too long and now it’s surging forward with years of restraint snapped at the root.

It hits him like an impact. Like a whole damn earthquake disguised as your mouth on his.

He makes a noise - somewhere between shock and surrender - and for the barest second, he is frozen.

He’s still.

Because this is you.

You.

One breathless, startled second he forgets everything - his name, the room, the hallway, the mission, the multiverse - and then he’s moving.

He melts.

His arms are around you in a heartbeat, tight, desperate, finding your waist, your back, the edge of your jaw, greedy and trembling and too careful all at once. He pulls you in, tighter, tighter, one hand threading into your hair, the other locking around your waist.

And then he is kissing you back with everything he has, with everything he’s been holding back, with every version of himself that ever wanted to belong.

He is kissing you back as though he’ll never get the chance again.

His whole body folds into yours, heart slamming into his ribs, mouth pressing against yours, like a question he’s been dying to ask. He kisses you like an apology, like a promise, like he’s been holding his breath for a century and only just remembered how to exhale.

It’s not a careful kiss.

It’s years of aching packed into the space between your lips. It’s soft lips and a metal palm and your nails digging in his jacket and his thumb shaking against your jaw. It’s a kiss that tastes of every unsaid word, every sleepless night, every time he looked at you and wondered what it would feel like to have you.

The second your tongue touches his lower lip, a low and tortured sound rips from somewhere deep in his chest. He answers you with open-mouthed hunger, tilts his head just enough to draw you in deeper, slants his mouth over yours as though he’s living out every dream in which he’s imagined this before.

He feels the warmth of your lips and the way you lean into him, the way you give yourself over completely, and he pulls you even closer, as though he’s trying to kiss every version of you that exists in every universe just to get back to this one. You. Here. Now.

His tongue brushes yours and everything goes tight inside him - his stomach flips, his spine arches ever so slightly, his body not knowing whether to hold steady or fall apart entirely.

Your lips are sweet and urgent and you make a sound - quiet, somewhere between a sigh and a gasp - and it knocks the air in his lungs every which way.

His mouth moves faster when your fingers curl into him tighter and tug him closer, dragging him under. His metal fingers are splayed over the small of your back, and his flesh fingers are tangling at the nape of your neck, holding you still as his tongue licks into your mouth, gentle but full of everything he’s feeling.

He moans softly into you, doesn’t even realize it’s happening until he feels the sound buzz against your lips. His pulse is pounding in his ears. His knees feel untrustworthy. There is heat spreading through his chest, through his limbs, and he wants to live in this moment forever, suspended in the place where you chose him.

When you finally pull back, your lips are swollen, flushed. He presses his forehead to yours just enough to breathe, but not enough to let you go. Never that.

His hands are on your face. His thumbs brush under your eyes. His breath shudders out against your lips.

When he opens his eyes, slowly, he is met with yours. Glistening and wide and so full of feeling it almost floors him.

He stares at you as though he’s seeing the sun rise for the first time.

“I love you too,” you breathe against him.

Bucky shivers.

It lands like a heartbeat he forgot to hope for.

Pleasure surges through his veins, straight to his heart. His eyes fall shut, lost in it.

And something in him tells him he will hear this at least a thousand times, maybe even more, if he’s lucky.

“I loved her not for the way she danced with my angels, but for the way the sound of her name could silence my demons.”

- Christopher Poindexter

[nanamisgirly]

Body hair?? not stopping him from his meal! ྀི

CW oral (f. receiving), kento calls her 'greedy thing' & honey, he's eating wellll, hairy reader!, college au., once spitting, I had young nanami in mind with his pretty blonde bang, established relationship, pussy drunk!, a bit of plot ig either we're diving right in 😼

you're kissing

messily, hungrily—your lips part with a wet pop as you gasp for breath. kento's full weight is pressed against your body, his thigh slotted between your legs, his lower stomach grinding hard against your core. one of his hands cups your jaw roughly, angling you where he wants it.

“i didn’t know we would go further…i didn’t shave and uh..im quite hairy. even my stomach” you mumble shyly. “i didn’t even shave my armpits. or down there.” your fingers threading through the long strands of his blonde bangs—trying to get his attention. 

you gently push them back, letting your hand slide into his hair until you’re gripping a handful at the nape of his neck—a deep groan escapes his throat at the tug.

doubt is creeping in you…

“i didn't know we were gonna go this far tonight…” you repeat. “i didn't shave. like, anywhere...”

kento pulls away from where he was attacking lovely your neck with wet kisses. his eyes met yours—heavy-lidded, pupils blown so wide they almost eclipse the warm brown of his irises. his brows furrow, not in judgment, but because he genuinely has no idea what you just said.

“honey, i quite literally have no idea what the problem is,” he says, and then drags his fat tongue sloooowly, obscenely, all the way from your collarbone to your jaw. as he feels his glasses slide down his nose, he adds : “actually, take my glasses off. . don't want them in the way while i’m tasting you.”

“but kento—”

“i said. remove. them.”

“it's probably not hygienic,” you whisper. “i mean—body hair and, like… going down on me?”

kento's lips curl slightly. “who said that?” he mutters,  then sinks his teeth a bit harshly into the crook of your neck. “society?” he continues, words muffled against your skin. “tell me this, do you wash your pussy properly?”

“y-yes—” you gasp.

“then where the heck is the problem?” his voice dips into something dark so sure of itself, it turns your whole body to liquid. one of his hands slip under your shirt and slides up, palm pressing against your stomach—and when he feels the soft trail of hair leading down…

“fuuuuck,” he breathes in the soft hair of your neck. “you smell like soap and lavender, your skin's clean and soft. i don't shave either, by the way. i'm not exactly hairless under this button-up.”

he presses down harder, strong abs pressing deliciously against your heated core.

“now stop worrying.” his teeth graze the skin above your waistband as he mouths hungrily at your stomach. 

he's already undoing your pants with one hand, the other braced beside your head like he needs leverage to keep himself from just tearing them apart. he doesn't even slide them down—he rips them past your hips in one desperate motion, underwear bunched and clinging wet to your center. 

there's a split second where he just stare—jaw slack, lips parted.

the soft dark hair above your slit glistens with the damp warmth beneath it, “fuck. fuck—fuck..” he spreads your legs wide—too wide that they ache instantly. he loses no time to bury his face between your legs, nose hitting your dripping folds and sniffing. he swipes his tongue devastatingly precisely, from your clit to your entrance and back again, groaning into the slick mess he's creating.

as your hips jerk up violently, he brings his hands to your hips and pin you down, keeping you in place. his tongue works in filthy little circles, mouthing and sucking enthusiastically your clit. when he pauses to speak, his voice is hoarse and soaked in spit. “this…this hair—” he pants, dragging his tongue right through where you have them the most. “don't you dare wax this pretty pussy. you taste divine, honey.”

he presses two fingers to your puffy hairy lips, spreads them open, and spits—watching it drip down between your folds. he dives back in, slurping so loudly it’s the only thing you can hear in the room.

kento can't help but grind onto the mattress—his hips rutting in rhythm with his tongue that trusts into your hole. The friction against his huge cock, trapped tight in his slacks, is maddening. he's not even trying to hold back the pleasure he’s having from this—choked and whining noises leaving his lips :(

“kento, please—” you sob, pleasure crackling up your spine.

“mm-mmmhh” he hums against you, tongue getting sloppier. to have better access, he lifts your hips, tilts them just right and devours you from underneath, tongue circling your clit only to drop and lap at your dripping hole again, wide flat strokes followed by desperate, suckling kisses. 

he moans loudly as his rough fingers part your folds once again, exposing that sensitive bundle slick and twitching for him. “greedy little thing,” he grins.

“ken—ken…i—t-too much,” you whines.

“too bad,” he growls, voice deeper than usual. he bites into your inner thigh, rough and claiming, then licks over the sting. “thought i'd care about some hair…?” he shakes his head in disapproval. “i want it messy. sooo messy, you have no idea.”

he’s glassy-eyed when he looks up at you—dazed. drunk on taste and scent.

“i’m gonna fuckin’ lose my mind if i don’t stay down here,” he mumbles, voice hoarse, tongue darting back out to drag one more slow, obscene stripe through you. “look at this. look at this mess. it’s all mine.”

“you're just so pretty, honey. i need more.”

  ˶‾᷄ ⁻̫ ‾᷅˵ 

[seat-safety-switch]

Did you know you can just go on Craigslist and buy a trebuchet?

Yeah, some rich dude had a collection of them. Basement full of siege weapons. Classic hoarding problem: I guess he kicked it and his family doesn't want them. They're cleaning out his trebuchet collection. Putting these giant war machines up at cut-rate prices. Honestly, looking at the pictures, I'm not even sure these are replicas.

Trent – you remember Trent, from college? – went down there and talked them into giving him one of the little ones for $60. Sixty bucks! I know! It's still big enough to chuck a Coke can full of rocks about half a kilometre. Government forgot to put it in the firearms code, too, so he can take it wherever he wants and the cops can't say shit.

Man, listen to me talk about trebuchets. I didn't even remember that it's insensitive to you, because your dad died in the 1300s during a prolonged siege of Stirling Castle. I'm sorry, it's so easy to forget with how busy life is now, not like when we were kids. You know what, I bet that dude's estate sale has a lot of regular-ass catapults too. Just as much fun without the harrowing memories. Let's go on down there this weekend, pick up some toys, and see if we can wreck Trent's Chevy Malibu from the other side of the lake.

[faemurmur]

╰┈➤ 𝕝&𝕕𝕤 𝕞𝕖𝕟 & 𝕥𝕙𝕖𝕚𝕣 𝕗𝕒𝕧𝕠𝕣𝕚𝕥𝕖 𝕤𝕖𝕩 𝕡𝕠𝕤𝕚𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟𝕤

author’s note: 🗒️ oh i’ve had so much fun writing this. <3 talk to me about the lads men 😫💞

-> xavier *ੈ✩‧₊˚ legs up in a V

xavier loves control. loves precision. he loves to humble you at times when he switches from the cutest, most adorable little snuggly bear to the hardest dom you’ve ever seen. the eyes switch, the demeanor switches, and you love it.

he has your legs pushed up in a trembling v, hands wrapped around your thighs like restraints, your cunt exposed and twitching, so sore and swollen it’s almost pulsing. he loves the way his cock digs into your velvety walls, slippery sounds of him pumping you full echoing through his apartment.

his voice is calm, low, calculated.

“don’t move, princess. i want to see everything. i want to see your face when you cum, when it’s xavier making you cum — and not lumiere.”

he’s slow with it—methodical, hitting that perfect spot every single time while he watches your body tremble beneath him like an experiment unraveling. your hands claw at the sheets, lips parted in ruined moans, and he just smirks. jealousy dripping, conceited and oh- so so horny.

“mm. there. that reaction. that’s the one i wanted.”

-> zayne *ੈ✩‧₊˚ cowgirl

zayne wants you on top. not always, but on the occasions when he wants to see you struggling to fit his thick, fat cock inside you. when he wants to reduce you from a big, baddie hunter, to his subby little angel who’s sobbing because her pussy feels too full.

he lays back with that lazy, cocky smile, hands behind his head, muscles golden and taut like he’s built to be ridden. head leaned against the headboard.

“go on, little one. show me what that pretty body’s made for.”

he watches every bounce. every grind. his hands slide up your waist, your thighs, gripping your ass as you lose rhythm and start crying from how deep he hits. he would wipe your tears tenderly, peppering sweet kisses — “look at you, so little and so cute for me like this. sometimes i wonder if this is what you’re made for.”

“hmm, already falling apart? and here i thought you were gonna ride me like a good girl.”

he pulls you down, sucks a bruise into your neck, and mutters against your ear

“don’t stop now. i’m not done watching you yet.”

-> sylus *ੈ✩‧₊˚ doggy-style

sylus doesn’t just fuck you. he hunts you from behind. it’s like your predator chasing you. his thick, girthy & veinny cock loves when your pussy tries to run away from it. swollen & desperate, how your body lurches forward when he pumps you full. his heavy balls slapping against your clit.

has you on all fours, back arched, cunt dripping, and one hand pressing your spine down harder every time you try to lift your head. sometimes he would hold your shoulder, muttering softly, “ah ah ah— don’t run away now, sweetie.” voice laced with that soft mockery that you love oh so much.

“no, stay like that. let me see everything.”

his pace is brutal. steady. punishing. he watches your ass ripple, your thighs shake, your mouth gape into the mattress like you’re trying to scream but forgot how.

“look at that. twitching already? good. you’ll remember this one.”

and when you whimper out “sy—sylus—please—”

“mm-mm, sure kitten. you want to be bred by me just say so…” and you do, so badly.

-> caleb *ੈ✩‧₊˚ prone-bone

caleb’s all about ownership. he wants you to know he owns you, he wants everyone to know he owns you, he wants your body, your soul, everything related to you to know & remember — you’re his.

he lays you flat on your stomach, legs spread just enough, hips tilted up & a pillow underneath as he sinks in deep, pinning you under his body like you’re his. and you’re meant to be pliant & take it.

“don’t move, baby. i got you.”

his arms are tight around your waist, face pressed to the back of your neck, lips brushing your ear as he fucks you in slow, aching rolls that make your clit throb against the sheets.

“feel that? how deep i am? how i’m not letting you go?”

he grinds deeper, and you sob, trembling from how much you’re taking. caleb’s not small, and both of you know that. the way your pesky cervix stops him from forcing more of him deeper, harder..

“you don’t have to do a thing, angel. just lie there and come on my cock.” and you don’t. you just lay there and watch him, feel him make you see stars.

-> rafayel *ੈ✩‧₊˚ mating press

rafayel wants to own your soul. he’s waited for you so long & his stupid lemurian instincts want you to so many times to feel satiated…

he folds you in half, presses your knees to your chest, and thrusts so deep it feels like he’s kissing your womb with every stroke. he really is, and in the back of his head if the position is called — a mating press. then he should be able to make you pregnant.

“you’re mine, cutie. say it.”

his hand is on your throat, his other pressed to your belly where he can feel himself inside you. you’re gasping, leaking, absolutely gone. “say you’re mine~” he almost sing songs, the way your pupils have dilated from the sheer pleasure in your nerves only makes him chuckle a little. oh he’s gone so far deep.

“look at how your body opens for me. like it knows who it belongs to.”

and when you start shaking—so overstimmed you’re crying? oh how can his cock not erupt and fill you up? over & over & over?

“let me fuck it deeper. let me keep you.”

[amordixon]

𖥔 𝐒𝐈𝐌𝐎𝐍 '𝐆𝐇𝐎𝐒𝐓' 𝐑𝐈𝐋𝐄𝐘 𝐏 𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐊𝐒 𖥔

୨ৎ if there is anything simon riley wants after a mission, it's to come home and get his hands on you

୨ৎ to get to play with him like this oh my god

୨ৎ being his pretty princess and letting him fuck your pretty holes

୨ৎ holding hands while he's eating you out is a must. he needs to know he's making you feel good, taking his time to get you ready for him

୨ৎ he is so handsy. has to have his hands all over you as you bounce on him, helping you move

୨ৎ wanting to take care of him after he's had a rough day at work

୨ৎ simon has a size kink. he doesn't care about weight, just height. he loves feeling bigger than he already is

୨ৎ mans is big. we know it. he knows it. so playing with him is always a nice fun treat

୨ৎ he would be a messy lover. getting his cum absolutely all over you. just wanting to see how pretty you look covered in his loads

୨ৎ you were being mouthy so he has to remind you who the lieutenant is

୨ৎ i 100% believe this is how feral i would be with simon. wanting him to breed me so bad omg

୨ৎ i just know this man GRUNTS when he's taking you from behind WOOF WOOF

୨ৎ he loves measuring to see how deep he'll be before fucking you

୨ৎ having to pull over and fuck you on the side of the road because he can't go a second without having his hands on you

୨ৎ when he eats you out i just know he eats like he's never going to eat again, like a starved man depraved of food

ᯓ★ disclaimer : all character p link posts contain links from x, some of which may be unavailable if you don’t have an account or have been removed by the original posters. i cannot help this but i will try my best to update links when i can. sometimes trying to open them a few times works x

[madamechrissy]

Worst Behavior preview/taglist

pairings- stepbrother! Sukuna x f! Reader

summary - Sukuna’s dad married your mom while you were in high school, and you hated each other on sight. He endlessly picked on and tortured you. So much so that he became a fucking YouTube sensation from prank videos starring you! You come back home for summer break after a bad breakup, and of course annoying ass Sukuna is there, with his stupid smirk, ready to pick on you again, only to be derailed when he sees you're going out with his old friend Toji for a date. Turns out, Sukuna has had it bad for you for a long time, and making you hate him was the only way to guarantee you stay far away, but can he keep up the act?

content/warnings - stepcest, lots of pining, kinda one-sided lol, Sukuna is an asshole to you, reader hates him. Enemies to ????- fuck ton of sexual tension, jealous ass Sukuna, he's probably stealing your panties as we speak, he is kinda yandere, gonna be explicit and filthy ngl, also Toji gonna stir shit up lol - gonna be like 4 parts

Comment to get tagged -Preview below

"Dinner in thirty. Get settled and don't kill each other."

Sukuna eyes you then, ever so slowly up and down with bright ruby eyes, while you start setting things down. "Really filled out huh?"

"I'll punch you." He grins again, you walk up and shove at him, pausing when you feel just how hard his chest is. Blushing a bit, he notices apparently, raising a brow.

"Feeling me up?"

"Gross no. Gym bro." He glares now and you smile meanly right back.

"Yeah how's that loser boyfriend of yours?" He asks so casually, walking in your room and touching all your shit like he does. You follow him and put everything back in its place as he skews every position of any item.

"We broke up," he pauses at your tone, eyeing you then. You're so pretty you make his heart pound in his chest - not like he'd ever fucking tell you. He calls you a gremlin and worse, knowing you're a whole knockout. "Yeah rub it in."

"Wasn't gonna," you pause then, as his eyes glint and catch yours. For a moment you see a rare softness in them, making you falter. "He get tired of your bitchy ass attitude?"

"Oh fuck off, you're such a dick." You roll your eyes, sinking on the white day bed, hands brushing the soft sheets that smell like your mom's favorite fabric softener. But you also smell him, Sukuna, so manly and taking over your space, he leans on your dresser, eyeing a picture of you.

"What happened?"

"Like you care," you lay back, shorts sliding up your thighs. Revealing far, far too much skin, he barely tears his eyes away. "He left me for my best friend."

"Oh shit..." he doesn't know what to say, all he's ever done is pick on you, prank you. Be a whole ass. How does he... comfort you? Without getting too close, feeling shit he can't feel?

What you didn't realize, is Sukuna has had it bad for you for years now. He knows he can never act on it, so the next best thing was to make your life a living hell. To make you hate him and stay far, far away.

It worked, you hate him.

But it's still not enough to stop the raging thoughts always inside him, of the filthy things he thinks of when he's alone. Stroking his cock to memories of you rather than porn, finding himself comparing others to the traits he loves about you. Traits you'll never know.

He can never ever tell you.

"I've got a date this week though. Old friend of ours," you lean up on your elbows, eyeing him then. He feels that familiar pang of fucking jealousy he also can't feel, remembering the ridiculous amount of men he's chased off over the years.

"What old friend?" He asks curiously, you smile a little then.

"Toji. Weren't you two super close?"

"Toji!?"

[basket-of-radiants]

A comic about Szeth and cooking. Or that's what it's going to about. Part 1/4.

(In case it wasn't clear, Nale is 100% just messing with him. Honestly they both kinda are.)

[whenstarsundress]

you flirt back for the first time:

sylus

you say something like, “you keep looking at me like that, sylus… you’re gonna have to do something about it,” with a shy little smile.

he completely malfunctions. his eyes grow wide, he swallows hard, his heart visibly skipping a beat.

sylus stares at you like he’s trying to determine if you’re possessed. then, quietly, with his voice a little huskier than usual, “that’s new.”

he recovers fast, though. steps closer and gently brushes your hair behind your ear. “is this your way of telling me you want me to kiss you? because i’m listening.”

bonus:

… sylus.exe has crashed.

his lips part and his eyes darken. he stares for a moment, like he’s trying to decide between kissing you soft or ruining your life. eventually, he just breathes, “say that again. i dare you.”

zayne

you casually murmur, “if you’re gonna keep biting your lip like that, at least let me do it for you,” while scrolling your phone.

dead silent. zayne stops breathing. his jaw flexes, his pupils dilate.

“…excuse me?” his voice drops an octave and he looks at you like you just kicked open the doors to a side of you he definitely wants to explore.

he walks over real slow, tilts your chin up and says, “say that again. no, no—i need it word for word, baby. because if i heard what i think i heard…”

bonus:

zayne chokes on air. his head snaps around so fast, his whole brain reboots. “wait. what? you never—?!” he chuckles lowly. “okay, okay. who are you and what did you do with my sweet, shy angel?”

caleb

you’re teasing him during one of his gym sessions and say, “keep showing off like that and i might have to reward you. privately.”

caleb drops the dumbbell. literal pause. he stares at you with wide eyes, mouth slightly open like a golden retriever who just got called a bad boy.

“wait. wait. wait, back up. say that again?” he starts laughing, but it’s nervous, like he doesn’t know how to process it.

he immediately gets 10x more flirty and tries to re-assert dominance with a grin. “okay, but only if you’re the reward too.”

bonus:

his jaw clenches, breath catches and you can feel the tension shift. like something in him just snapped. he leans back, clears his throat and gives a tiny smirk. “you’re playing with fire, and i’m not the type to pull away when i get burned.”

xavier

you’re both deep into a high-risk deepspace operation. he’s focused, assessing potential threats, guns calibrated, his hud flickering with tactical readouts. you, cool as ever, lean in behind him and murmur through the comms. “you look sexy when you’re in control like this. makes me want to follow your every order… after hours.”

immediate system crash. xavier stops walking, literally halts mid-movement in zero gravity like his whole code just corrupted.

“…repeat that,” he says into the comm, voice a little rough, a lot lower than usual. he doesn’t turn to face you. he’s trying to regain composure while actively calculating threat levels.

he doesn’t miss a beat on the mission afterward, but the tight grip on his weapon and the way he refuses to look at you say everything: you broke him.

bonus:

he stammers, short-circuits, then just covers his face and laughs into his hands quietly. “okay. that’s unfair. you can’t just… out-flirt me like that.”

rafayel

you’re watching him get dressed and casually comment, “if you’re going to tease me with that shirt unbuttoned, the least you can do is let me take it off for you.”

rafayel blinks, twice. “what did you just say?” not offended, not teasing. he’s actually stunned.

a slow, devilish smile starts to curl on his lips as he puts down whatever he was holding. he steps toward you and murmurs, “are you seducing me? because i have to warn you… i’m very easy to seduce.”

bonus:

rafayel freezes. for one glorious second there’s silence. then he smiles a bit mischievously. “oh? okay, i see you. someone’s been hiding from me the whole time.” he never lets it go, but he wants more of your flirty side. “you gonna flirt like that again, or was i just blessed once?”

author’s note: sometimes i can’t decide in which direction i want to go with a headcanon, so, i went with a little bonus 😊

[moonlightwritingf1]

Breaking Point | LN4

ꕤ* summary ━━━━━━━ Y/N’s Friday night goes from frustrating to electrifying when her car dies in a downpour and she has to swallow her pride and call Lando Norris—the one guy she can’t stand—to come to her rescue. He shows up soaked and irritated, but quickly becomes her savior. Trapped together in the warmth of his car, all their old arguments and jealous glances melt into a raw, unexpected confession of desire. 

ꕤ* pairing ━━━━━━━ Lando Norris x she!reader

ꕤ* word count ━━━━━━━ 6.3k

ꕤ* warnings ━━━━━━━ +18, sexual content, enemies to lovers, creampie, fingering, rough sex?, aftercare, use of 'baby', multiple orgasms

The rain hammered against Y/N's windshield as her car sputtered to a pathetic stop on the desolate stretch of highway just outside the city. Of course. Of fucking course this would happen tonight.

She slammed her palm against the steering wheel, cursing under her breath as she scrolled through her contacts. Everyone she called went straight to voicemail—probably out enjoying their Friday nights like normal people who didn't have cars that betrayed them at the worst possible moments.

Her thumb hovered over his name. Lando Norris. The last person on earth she wanted to call. The mere thought of his smug face made her blood boil.

But as another car zoomed past, spraying water across her already-fogged windows, she had no choice. She pressed call, each ring feeling like a personal defeat.

"Well, well," his voice drawled through the speaker, already dripping with that infuriating smugness. "Y/N calling me on a Friday night? Did hell freeze over, or are you finally admitting you can't resist me?"

"My car broke down," she bit out through clenched teeth. "I need—" The words physically hurt to say. "I need your help."

The silence on the other end stretched just long enough to make her want to hang up.

"Where are you?" His voice had shifted, losing some of its teasing edge.

"Highway outside the city. Mile marker 47."

"Don't move." The line went dead.

Thirty minutes later, headlights cut through the rain, and his McLaren pulled up behind her car. Y/N watched in the rearview mirror as he emerged, not even bothering with an umbrella. The rain immediately plastered his white shirt to his chest, outlining every muscle as he jogged toward her car.

She rolled down her window a fraction. "Took you long enough."

"You're welcome for coming to rescue your ungrateful ass," he shot back, rain dripping from his dark curls. "Pop the hood."

"I already tried—"

"Just do it, Y/N. Unless you'd prefer to sit here all night arguing in the rain."

She yanked the hood release with more force than necessary. Through the windshield, she watched him work, trying not to notice how his soaked shirt clung to his shoulders, how his jaw clenched in concentration. She hated him. Hated how he always looked so effortlessly good, even drenched and annoyed.

After a few minutes, he appeared at her window again. "Battery's completely dead. You're not going anywhere tonight."

"Fantastic," she muttered.

"Get in my car. I'll drive you home."

"I'd rather walk."

His eyes flashed dangerously. "It's fifteen miles to the city in a downpour. Stop being so fucking stubborn and get in the car, Y/N."

The way he said her name—low and commanding—sent an unwanted shiver down her spine. She grabbed her bag and stepped out into the rain, immediately regretting not taking his earlier offer of waiting in his car.

The rain soaked through her dress in seconds, the thin fabric clinging to every curve. She caught Lando's eyes tracking down her body before he quickly looked away, his jaw tightening. They tumbled into Lando’s car, slamming the door shut against the downpour. Once inside, he glanced over his shoulder, reached back, and pulled a jacket from the back seat.

“Here,” he said, holding it out to her.

“I don’t want—”

“Take the damn jacket before you freeze to death and I have to explain to everyone why I left you hypothermic on the side of the road.”

She snatched it from him, their fingers brushing. The contact sent electricity shooting up her arm, and from the way his breath hitched, he felt it too.

The interior of his car was warm and smelled like his cologne—something expensive and masculine that made her stomach flip traitorously. They drove in tense silence for several minutes, the only sound the rain pelting the windshield and the swoosh of the wipers.

"Why do you hate me so much?" he asked suddenly, his knuckles white on the steering wheel.

"I don't hate you," she replied automatically.

He let out a harsh laugh. "Could've fooled me. Every time we're in the same room, you look at me like you want to strangle me."

"That's because you're insufferable," she snapped. "You walk around like you own the world, with that stupid smirk and your stupid perfect hair and—"

"My stupid perfect hair?" He glanced at her, one eyebrow raised. "That's what bothers you?"

Heat flooded her cheeks. "That's not—you know what I mean."

"No, I really don't." His voice dropped lower, rougher. "Explain it to me, Y/N. What is it about me that gets under your skin so badly?"

Everything, she wanted to scream. The way you look at me. The way you make me feel completely out of control. The way I think about you when I shouldn't.

"You really want to do this now?" she deflected.

"Yeah, I do." He suddenly pulled over to the side of the road, throwing the car in park and turning to face her fully. "I'm sick of this dance we do. The fighting, the tension, the way you can barely stand to be in the same room as me."

"Lando—"

"Do you know what it's like?" he interrupted, his eyes blazing. "To want someone who looks at you like you're dirt beneath their shoe? To spend every interaction wondering what you did wrong, why you're not good enough?"

The raw honesty in his voice stole her breath. "That's not—I don't think you're not good enough."

"Then what is it?" He leaned closer, close enough that she could see the rain droplets still clinging to his eyelashes. "Because I'm going insane trying to figure you out."

"Maybe that's the point," she whispered, her heart hammering against her ribs. "Maybe I don't want you to figure me out."

"Why?" His hand came up to cup her jaw, his thumb brushing over her cheek. "What are you so afraid of?"

This. She was afraid of this—the way her body betrayed her the moment he touched her, the way every cell screamed to close the distance between them.

"I'm not afraid," she lied.

His thumb traced her bottom lip, and her breath caught. "Liar."

The air between them crackled with electricity. She could feel the heat radiating from his body, could see his chest rising and falling rapidly. His eyes dropped to her mouth, and she unconsciously licked her lips.

"Fuck," he breathed, and then his mouth was on hers.

The kiss was nothing like she'd imagined—and she had imagined it, late at night when her defenses were down. It was fierce, almost angry, years of frustration and want poured into the clash of lips and teeth and tongue. His hand tangled in her wet hair, pulling her closer, and she moaned into his mouth.

That small sound seemed to snap something in him. He hauled her over the center console and into his lap, her dress riding up her thighs as she straddled him. His hands were everywhere—her hair, her waist, her hips—like he couldn't decide where to touch first.

"Is this what you wanted?" he growled against her mouth, his hands sliding up her bare thighs. "To drive me absolutely fucking insane?"

"Yes," she gasped, grinding down against him and feeling him hard beneath her. "God, yes."

He groaned, capturing her mouth again, his kiss brutal and demanding. She gave as good as she got, biting his bottom lip and swallowing his resulting hiss. His hands found the zipper of her dress, but he paused, pulling back to look at her.

"Tell me to stop," he said, his voice wrecked. "Tell me this is a mistake."

She should. This was Lando—the man who infuriated her more than anyone else on the planet. But he was also the man looking at her like she was everything he'd ever wanted, his hands trembling slightly where they rested on her skin.

"Don't stop," she whispered.

His control shattered. The zipper came down, and he pushed the wet fabric off her shoulders, his mouth following the path of exposed skin. She arched into him, her hands fisting in his hair as he found that spot where her neck met her shoulder that made her see stars.

"Fuck, Y/N," he groaned against her skin. "Do you know how long I've wanted this? How many times I've thought about you like this?"

"Show me," she challenged, rolling her hips against him.

The windows were completely fogged now, creating their own private world as the storm raged outside. Every touch felt electric, every kiss more desperate than the last. When his hands found the clasp of her bra, she helped him remove it, too far gone to care about anything but the feeling of his hands on her.

"You're perfect," he breathed, his touch reverent even as his eyes burned with hunger. "So fucking perfect it makes me crazy."

She kissed him to shut him up, but also because she needed his mouth on hers like she needed air. Everything about this was intense, overwhelming, like a dam had finally burst after holding back a flood.

When they finally broke apart, both breathing heavily, reality started to creep back in. She was half-naked in Lando's lap, in his car, on the side of the road. This was insane.

"We should—" she started.

"Yeah," he agreed, but neither of them moved. His hands stayed on her waist, his thumbs tracing small circles on her skin.

"This doesn't change anything," she said weakly.

He laughed, the sound dark and knowing. "This changes everything, and you know it."

She did know it. There was no going back from this, no pretending the explosive chemistry between them didn't exist.

"Take me home," she whispered.

"Yours or mine?"

The question hung in the air between them, loaded with promise and possibility.

"Yours," she decided, consequences be damned.

His eyes darkened. "You sure?"

Instead of answering, she kissed him again, pouring all her certainty into the contact. When she pulled back, his pupils were blown wide.

"Drive," she commanded, climbing back into her seat and attempting to fix her dress with shaking hands.

He drove faster than was probably safe given the weather, one hand on the wheel and the other tangled with hers across the console. The silence wasn't awkward now—it was charged, full of anticipation.

When they finally pulled into his garage, he was around to her side before she could even unbuckle, pulling her out and pressing her against the car.

"Last chance," he murmured against her lips. "Tell me to take you home. Tell me this was just adrenaline, or the rain, or temporary insanity."

"Lando," she said, framing his face with her hands. "Shut up and take me inside."

He grinned—not his usual smirk, but something genuine and almost boyish. "Yes ma'am."

As he led her inside, her hand in his, Y/N realized the truth she'd been fighting for so long. She didn't hate Lando Norris.

She was completely, utterly, irrevocably falling for him.

And judging by the way he looked at her—like she'd hung the moon and stars—he was falling just as hard.

The storm outside had nothing on the one they'd created between them. And for once, Y/N didn't want to run from it.

She wanted to dance in the rain.

The elevator ride to Lando's apartment stretched like an eternity compressed into seconds. Y/N stood beside him, hyperaware of every breath, every slight movement, the space between them crackling with unspoken promises. Her dress still clung damply to her skin, his jacket draped over her shoulders like armor she no longer needed.

Neither spoke. Words had become obsolete, replaced by something more primal, more honest—a language written in glances and trembling hands, in the way he kept looking at her like she might disappear if he blinked.

The elevator doors opened with a soft chime that seemed to echo through her bones. Lando's hand found hers, his touch both question and answer, and she let him lead her down the hallway to his door. His fingers fumbled with the keys, a vulnerability in that simple struggle that made her heart clench.

"I can't get the—" he started, frustration coloring his voice.

She took his face in her hands, turning him to look at her. "Breathe."

He did, his eyes closing for a moment, and when they opened again, the raw need in them stole her breath. The lock clicked open.

The apartment was dark, illuminated only by the city lights streaming through floor-to-ceiling windows. The storm continued its assault outside, rain painting abstract patterns on the glass, but inside, a different kind of tempest was building.

"Y/N," he said her name like a prayer, like a question, like an answer to something he'd been asking his whole life.

She stepped into him, her hands sliding up his chest, feeling his heartbeat thundering beneath her palms. "I know," she whispered. "I know."

Their mouths met with the inevitability of tides meeting shore—not gentle, but necessary, fundamental. His hands tangled in her still-damp hair, angling her head to deepen the kiss, and she melted into him, years of resistance crumbling like sandcastles before a wave.

They moved together, a dance neither had choreographed but both knew by heart, until her back met the wall. His hands braced on either side of her head, caging her in, but she'd never felt less trapped. This was where she wanted to be—had always wanted to be, if she was honest.

"Do you know," he murmured against her neck, his breath hot against her skin, "how many times I've imagined this? Imagined you here?"

She arched into him, her nails scraping lightly down his back through his wet shirt. "Tell me."

He pulled back to look at her, his eyes dark with something that went deeper than desire. "Every night. Every time you looked at me with fire in your eyes. Every time you walked away and I wanted to follow."

The confession hung between them, heavy with truth. She saw herself reflected in his eyes—not the careful construction she showed the world, but something raw and real and utterly exposed.

"I hated how much I wanted you," she admitted, the words scraping her throat. "Hated how you could look at me and make me forget why I was supposed to keep my distance."

"Why did you?" His thumb traced her jawline with devastating gentleness. "Keep your distance?"

"Because this," she gestured between them, "this terrifies me. You terrify me."

"Why?"

"Because you see me." The words came out broken, honest. "Really see me. And I don't know what to do with that."

He kissed her again, softer this time, like he was trying to tell her something words couldn't capture. When he pulled back, his forehead rested against hers.

"I see you," he confirmed. "The real you. The one who's brilliant and stubborn and passionate. The one who fights me because it's easier than admitting we're the same."

"We're not the same," she protested weakly.

"No?" His hand slid down to where her pulse hammered in her throat. "Then why does your heart race when I touch you? Why do you look at me like I'm both your salvation and your damnation?"

She couldn't answer, because he was right. They were two sides of the same coin, two storms destined to collide.

"I'm tired of pretending," he said, his voice rough with emotion. "Tired of acting like I don't think about you every moment. Tired of this dance we do."

"Then stop," she challenged, her hands fisting in his shirt. "Stop pretending."

Something shifted in his expression, a wall finally crumbling, and suddenly they were moving again. He lifted her easily, her legs wrapping around his waist as he carried her deeper into the apartment. She expected him to head for what she assumed was his bedroom, but instead, he stopped at the sofa, setting her down gently.

"I need to see you," he said, his hands framing her face. "In the light. Need to know this is real."

The city lights painted them in silver and shadow, the storm outside providing a percussion to their heavy breathing. She reached for the hem of his soaked shirt, helping him pull it over his head, her hands mapping the planes of his chest like she was trying to memorize him by touch.

"It's real," she assured him, pressing a kiss to the hollow of his throat. "We're real."

He shuddered beneath her touch, his hands tangling in her hair again. "Say it again."

"We're real," she repeated, punctuating each word with a kiss. "This is real. I'm here."

"Finally," he breathed, the word holding years of longing.

He sat down on the sofa and pulled her onto his lap, the cushions creaking beneath their weight as his mouth crashed into hers with a hunger that left her breathless.His lips were soft yet demanding, and she couldn’t help but moan into the kiss, her hands tangling in his messy curls. The kiss was wet, messy, and fucking perfect, their tongues sliding together in a rhythm that felt like they were trying to consume each other. His hands immediately found her waist, gripping her like he couldn’t believe she was real, like he needed to anchor himself to her.

“Fuck, Y/N,” he growled against her mouth, his voice rough with lust. “You’ve been driving me fucking crazy. You know that, don’t you?” His hands slid up her body, fingers skimming the sides of her breasts before he palmed them through her dress and lace bra, and she arched into his touch with a gasp. Her nipples were already hard, aching for his attention, and he didn’t waste any time. He pinched them through the fabric, making her cry out, her hips bucking up against him.

Lando pulled back just enough to unzip her dress and take it off in one smooth move, his eyes darkening as he took in the sight of her tits. They were fucking perfect—full and round, spilling out of her black lace bra like they were begging for his touch. His hands came up to cup them, squeezing gently before his thumbs brushed over her nipples, and she whimpered, her back arching off the sofa.

“These are fucking incredible,” he muttered, his voice low and gravelly. “I’ve been staring at them all this time, all these years, imagining how they’d feel in my hands. And fuck, Y/N, they’re even better than I dreamed.” He leaned down, capturing one nipple in his mouth through the lace, sucking hard as his hands kneaded the soft flesh. She gasped, her hands fisting in his hair as he gave her other nipple the same treatment, his teeth grazing the peak through the fabric. It was almost too much, the sensation so intense it felt like he was sucking directly on her clit.

He pulled the cups of her bra down, and her tits spilled out, her nipples already hard and begging for his mouth. He didn’t disappoint, his lips wrapping around one nipple again while his fingers pinched and rolled the other. She cried out, her hips grinding against his thigh, her hands clutching at his shoulders. He sucked harder, his tongue flicking over the sensitive bud, and she felt like she was on fire, every nerve in her body alight with need.

“Lando, please,” she begged, her voice trembling. “I need you. I need you inside me.” He pulled back just enough to look up at her, his eyes full of promise.

“Not yet, baby,” he murmured, his hands still kneading her tits. “I’m not done with these yet.” He leaned down again, this time taking both nipples between his fingers and rolling them roughly, making her cry out. His mouth moved to her neck, sucking and biting as he continued to torture her tits, and she could feel her pussy getting wetter with every touch.

“Lando, please,” she whimpered, her hips moving frantically. “I need you to fuck me. I need you to fill me up.” He groaned, his hands moving to her hips as he pulled her closer, his cock hard and pressing against her thigh.

“Fuck, Y/N, you’re so fucking wet,” he growled, his fingers slipping under the waistband of her panties. He found her clit, rubbing it in fast, tight circles, and she cried out, her hips bucking against his hand. “You want me to fill you up, baby? You want me to give you my fucking cream?” His voice was rough, almost guttural, and it sent shivers down her spine.

“Yes, please, Lando,” she begged, her voice breaking, each word trembling with need. “I need it. I need it so bad.” His response was a low, guttural groan, one that sent shivers down her spine. His fingers slid inside her, slow and deliberate, as if he wanted to savor every inch of her tight, wet heat. When he crooked them against her g-spot, she gasped, her back arching as pleasure shot through her like a live wire. “Oh god, Lando,” she cried out, her hands gripping his shoulders so hard she might’ve left marks. Her pussy clenched around his fingers, the sensation so intense it felt like she was being pulled apart and put back together all at once.

He didn’t stop, didn’t give her a moment to catch her breath. Instead, he fucked her through her climax, his fingers moving in and out of her with a rhythm that had her crying out his name over and over. She could feel herself unraveling, her body trembling with aftershocks as he pushed her higher, driving her toward another peak before she’d even come down from the first. “That’s it, baby,” he murmured against her neck, his voice rough and full of admiration. “Let go for me. Let me feel how much you need this.” His words, so filthy and tender at the same time, made her whimper, her hips bucking against his hand as if begging for more.

Her hands tangled in his hair, tugging him closer as she gasped for air, her body completely overwhelmed by the sensations he was wringing from her. His lips found hers, and the kiss was wild, desperate, his tongue sliding against hers as he continued to fuck her with his fingers. He swallowed every sound she made, his free hand gripping her hip so tightly she knew she’d bruise, and the thought of his marks on her skin only made her wetter.

“You’re so fucking perfect, Y/N,” he growled against her mouth, his voice ragged with need. “The way you’re clenching around my fingers—fuck, I can’t wait to feel you around my cock.” His words sent a fresh wave of heat through her, her pussy tightening around his fingers as her orgasm built again, faster this time, more intense. “Please,” she whimpered, her voice breaking as she clung to him. “Please, Lando, don’t stop. Make me come again. I need it. I need you.”

He didn’t disappoint, his fingers moving faster now, harder, his thumb brushing against her clit as he fucked her relentlessly. She could feel her orgasm building, a coiled tension in her belly that threatened to snap. “That’s it, baby,” he murmured, his voice low and full of promise. “Come for me. Let me see how much you need this.” And then she was there, her body convulsing as she came with a scream, her pussy clenching around his fingers like a vice. He didn’t stop, didn’t let her catch her breath, just kept pushing her higher, until she was gasping for air, her body trembling with the force of her release.

He pulled his fingers out, bringing them to his mouth and sucking them clean, his eyes never leaving hers. “You taste so fucking good, Y/N,” he murmured, his voice low and full of desire. 

“But I’m not done with you yet.” He stood up, pulling her with him, and she felt his cock press against her stomach, hard and thick and ready. “I’m going to fuck you so hard, baby. I’m going to fill you up until you’re dripping with my cum.”

She whimpered, her hands gripping his shoulders as he pushed her panties down and kicked them aside. He spun her around, bending her over the back of the sofa, and she felt his cock press against her entrance, the tip already slick with her wetness.

“Please, Lando,” she begged, her voice trembling. “Please fuck me. I need you so bad.” He groaned, his hands gripping her hips as he pushed inside her, inch by agonizing inch, until he was buried to the hilt. She cried out, her nails digging into the sofa as he bottomed out, the stretch almost too much.

“Fuck, Y/N, you’re so fucking tight,” he growled, his hands tightening on her hips as he started to move, pulling almost all the way out before slamming back in. She gasped, her pussy clenching around him as he set a brutal pace, his cock hitting her g-spot with every thrust.

“Oh god, Lando,” she moaned, her head falling forward as he fucked her harder, faster, his cock filling her up so perfectly she thought she might come again just from the feel of him inside her.

“You feel so fucking good. Please don’t stop. Please don’t ever stop.” He groaned, his hands moving to her tits, squeezing and kneading them as he fucked her, his hips slamming against her ass with a force that made her see stars.

“You’re so fucking perfect, Y/N,” he growled, his voice rough with need. “You take my cock so fucking good. I’m going to fill you up, baby. I’m going to give you every fucking drop.” His words sent a thrill through her, her pussy clenching around him as she felt her third orgasm building.

“Please, Lando, I’m so close,” she whimpered, her voice breaking as her hands gripped the back of the sofa, her knuckles turning white. His cock slammed into her relentlessly, hitting that perfect spot inside her with every thrust, making her see stars. Her pussy clenched around him, so tight it was almost unbearable, and she could feel her orgasm building, coiling in her belly like a spring ready to snap.

“I need you to fill me up,” she begged, her voice trembling with desperation. “I need to feel you come inside me.” 

His response was a low growl, his hips driving into her with even more force, his hands gripping her hips so tightly she knew there’d be marks. “Fuck, Y/N,” he groaned, his voice rough and full of need. “You’re so fucking tight. I can feel you milking my cock already, baby. You want my cum that bad?” His words were filthy, so raw they sent shivers down her spine, and she whimpered, her pussy clenching around him as if to answer. 

“Yes, yes, Lando, please,” she gasped, her body trembling as she hovered on the edge of climax.

“I need it. I need you to fill me up. I want to feel you spilling inside me, marking me as yours.” Her words seemed to unleash something in him, because he fucked her even harder, his cock driving in and out of her with a desperation that matched her own. The sound of skin slapping against skin filled the room, mingling with their ragged breaths and her broken cries. 

“You’re mine, Y/N,” he growled, his voice guttural, almost primal. “You’re always going to be mine.” His words, so possessive, so full of raw emotion, pushed her over the edge. Her orgasm hit her like a tidal wave, her body convulsing around him as she screamed his name, her pussy clamping down on his cock like a vice. He didn’t stop, didn’t give her a moment to catch her breath, just kept fucking her through her climax.

“That’s it, baby, come for me,” he murmured, his voice rough with admiration.

“Let me feel how much you need this.” His hands moved to her tits, squeezing and kneading them as he continued to thrust into her, his cock hitting her g-spot with unerring precision. She could feel him swelling inside her, his release so close she could almost taste it.

“I’m going to fill you up,” he promised, his voice low and full of intent. “I’m going to give you every fucking drop.” 

“Please, Lando,” she cried, her voice breaking as she clung to the sofa, her body shaking with the force of her pleasure.

“I need it. I need you.” He groaned, his hips slamming into her one last time before he buried himself to the hilt, his cock pulsing as he came deep inside her. She could feel him spilling into her, hot and thick, and she moaned, her pussy clenching around him as her own orgasm peaked again, drawing every last drop from him. 

Lando stayed buried inside her, his cock still pulsing softly as their bodies remained locked together. The air around them was thick with the scent of sex and sweat, their breaths ragged and mingling in the stillness. Her back was still arched over the sofa, her hands gripping the edge for support, but now his arms wrapped around her waist, holding her close, anchoring her to him. He pressed his chest to her back, his lips finding the curve of her neck, and the tenderness of the gesture made her shiver. 

“Y/N,” he murmured, his voice raw and husky, yet so full of affection it made her heart ache. His fingers traced delicate patterns along her hips, and she could feel the way he trembled against her, his own body still catching up with the intensity of what they’d shared.

“You don’t even know, do you? What you do to me?” His words were soft, almost reverent, and they sent a warmth spreading through her chest. 

She tried to speak, but the words caught in her throat, replaced by a soft, breathless moan. It was part plea, part prayer, and he seemed to understand, his grip tightening ever so slightly.

“I know,” he whispered against her skin, his lips brushing her shoulder. “I know, baby. I’ve got you.”

The endearment, tender amidst the raw passion they’d just shared, nearly undid her. This was Lando—her obsession, her undoing—holding her like she was something fragile and sacred, even as his body still pulsed inside hers. His hands moved to her stomach, splaying across her skin like he wanted to memorize every inch of her.

“You’re so fucking perfect,” he breathed, his voice rough with admiration. “I could stay like this forever, just... feeling you. Being inside you.”

She turned her head slightly, seeking his gaze, and when their eyes met, she saw herself reflected in his—wild, free, utterly transformed. “Don’t look away,” he murmured, his voice soft but firm.

“I need to see you. Need to know you’re still here with me.” His hand moved to her cheek, brushing away a strand of hair, and she leaned into his touch, her eyes never leaving his. 

“There you are,” he said, his voice so tender it made her chest tighten.

“There’s my girl.” The possessive endearment should have made her bristle, but instead, it settled something in her soul, a piece she hadn’t realized was missing. She felt claimed, yes, but also cherished, like she was his in a way that went beyond the physical. 

“Yours,” she whispered, the word slipping out like a secret, a promise. And it was—a surrender and a claim all at once. 

He kissed her then, his lips soft against hers, and she melted into it, her body still trembling with aftershocks. His hands moved to her hips, gripping her gently, and she could feel him hardening inside her again, his cock stirring as if it couldn’t bear to be separated from her. 

She gasped softly, her body still trembling from the aftershocks of their passion. "That was..." she started, her voice breathless and unsteady, her hands still gripping the edge of the sofa for support as she tried to find the right words. But nothing seemed adequate, nothing could capture the intensity of what they’d just shared.

"Yeah," Lando murmured, his voice low and rough, his chest still pressed to her back, his hands splayed possessively over her hips. His breath was warm against her neck as he leaned in, pressing a tender kiss to her hair. His hips shifted slightly, still buried deep inside her, and she felt a shiver run through her.

"It was, baby." His words were soft, but they carried a weight that made her chest tighten.

Her fingers traced idle patterns across his forearm, marveling at the way his skin felt against hers, at the way he held her like she was something precious. The walls between them had crumbled, and she was still trying to process it—the raw vulnerability, the honesty, the way he had claimed her body and soul.

"What happens now?" she whispered, her voice so quiet it was almost lost in the stillness of the room. Her body was still pressed against his, their connection unbroken, and she wasn’t sure if she was ready to let go of this moment—of him.

His arms tightened around her, pulling her even closer, as if he could sense her uncertainty. "Now," he said, his voice firm but gentle, "we stop pretending. No more games, no more dancing around this. We stop wasting time." His lips brushed her shoulder, his breath warm against her skin. "Unless," he added, a teasing edge creeping into his voice, "you’re planning to hate me again tomorrow?"

She almost laughed at the absurdity of it. How could she hate him when he held her like this? When his touch made her feel more alive than she’d ever been? When she could still feel him inside her, their bodies utterly entwined? "I never hated you," she admitted softly, the words spilling out before she could stop them.

"I hated how you made me feel. Out of control. Vulnerable." Her voice wavered slightly, and she felt his hands tighten on her hips, grounding her.

"And now?" he asked, his voice smooth and low, his lips trailing up her neck to press a kiss just below her ear.

She hesitated, taking stock of her scattered defenses, the walls she’d spent so long building now lying in ruins around them. "Now," she said, her voice steadier this time, "I think maybe control is overrated."

He chuckled, the sound low and warm, and she felt it vibrate through her. "There she is," he murmured, his voice full of admiration. "The Y/N I fell for. The one brave enough to admit what she wants."

Her breath caught in her throat, and she turned her head slightly, trying to catch his gaze. "You fell for me?" Her voice was soft, almost hesitant, and she hated how vulnerable she sounded.

He tilted her chin up, forcing her to meet his eyes, and the intensity in his gaze made her heart stutter. "Sweetheart," he said, the endearment rolling off his tongue like he’d been saying it for years, "I’ve been falling for you since the day we met. I just got tired of hitting the ground alone."

Her eyes burned with unshed tears, and she blinked them back, but he noticed, his thumb catching one that escaped. "Hey," he said softly, his voice gentle, "what’s this?"

"I wasted so much time," she whispered, her voice breaking. "Fighting this. Fighting you."

"No," he corrected, his voice firm but tender. He pulled her closer, his hands moving to wrap around her waist, his body still pressed against hers. "We both did what we needed to do. Maybe we weren’t ready before. Maybe we needed the fire to forge us into something stronger."

She shifted slightly, her body still connected to his, and with a soft, almost reluctant push, she eased him out of her. The sensation of his cock sliding free made her breath catch, her pussy feeling suddenly empty, as if it already missed the heat and fullness of him. He groaned softly, his hands gripping her hips as if he didn’t want to let go, but she turned in his arms, settling back against the sofa until his now-softening cock rested lightly on her lower belly, the weight of it a reminder of what they’d just shared. Her hand trailed down his chest, fingers brushing over the damp skin, before she cupped his face and kissed him—slowly, deeply, pouring everything she couldn’t say into the contact. When they broke apart, she felt something settle in her chest, a rightness she’d never experienced before. His breath was warm against her lips, his eyes searching hers, and in that moment, she knew she was exactly where she was meant to be.

When they broke apart, she felt something settle in her chest, a rightness she’d never experienced before.

"I want to try," she said, her voice steady now. "No more games, no more pretending."

"Good," he said, his voice low and full of promise. His hands moved to cup her face, his eyes locked on hers. "Because I’m not letting you go now. You’re stuck with me, Y/N."

"Promises, promises," she teased, but her heart was in her throat.

He smiled, that boyish grin she’d seen glimpses of before, but now it was directed at her with such open affection that it made her chest ache. "I don’t make promises I can’t keep," he said seriously, his thumb brushing her cheek. "And I promise you this—I’m going to spend every day showing you that this was worth the wait. That we were worth the wait."

She believed him. For the first time in her life, she let herself believe in something as dangerous and beautiful as love.

[flwrstqr]

COMING HOME ✶ WHEN YOU CRY

𝗔𝗡𝗚𝗘𝗟𝗜𝗖────𝗂'𝖽 𝖽𝗈 𝖺𝗇𝗒𝗍𝗁𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝗃𝗎𝗌𝗍 𝗍𝗈 𝖻𝖾 𝗐𝗂𝗍𝗁 𝗒𝗈𝗎

【 𝐀𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐘𝐋𝐋𝐈𝐒 】 𝑙’ enhypen x fem ! rea 7OO established relationship fluff comfort a tiny bit of angst 𝗰𝗮𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 skinship, petnames ˊᯅˋ ｡｡ daily clicks

다니⠀⦂ this is for my @jiwuu ♡ summer started meaning i will post way more often hopefully >< ( last year summer flashbacks..)

LEE HEESEUNG

“baby… are you seriously crying right now?” heeseung whispers, half-laughing as he pulls you into his chest, the credits rolling while tears roll down your cheeks. “it’s just a movie,” he teases gently, thumb brushing under your eye, and you sniff, pouting harder. “shut up,” you mumble, hiding your face, but he just grins, tilting your chin up. he peppers soft kisses across your face—your forehead, your damp cheek, your knuckles. “still crying?” he murmurs, lips brushing yours. “’cause i’ll keep kissing you till you forget the plot.” you breathe out a shaky laugh, heart fluttering despite yourself, and he kisses you again. “there she is,” he whispers smugly, tucking you under his chin. “my pretty girl.”

PARK JAY

“c’mere, baby,” jay murmurs, voice velvet-soft as he pulls you gently into his lap, arms looping around your waist like he’s scared you’ll disappear. your cheeks are warm and damp, but he doesn’t flinch—just presses a kiss to your temple and lets you curl into his chest, burying your face there while his fingers stroke your spine. he hums something soft under his breath. “don’t cry, sweetheart. you want me to get you that bag you were looking at last week? the pretty one with the bow?” he whispers against your temple. “i’ll buy you ten if it makes you smile again.” he cups your jaw so gently it almost makes you cry again. “i’ve got you, princess,” he says, thumb brushing away your tears.

SIM JAKE

“baby? wait—did i do something?” jake’s voice is frantic the second he sees your tears, eyes going wide like you just broke his entire heart. “did i say something? did i hurt you? please tell me, angel, i didn’t mean to—” you shake your head and hiccup, and he exhales like he’s been holding his breath for hours. “oh thank god,” he whispers, pulling you into his chest. “you wanna lie down? or ice cream? or that plushie you liked last week? i’ll buy you ten,” he rambles, “just say the word, angel. i’ll do anything. just don’t be sad.”

PARK SUNGHOON

sunghoon shows up at your door within minutes, breathless, cheeks flushed from the cold, holding a slightly crumpled bouquet like it’s the only thing keeping him upright. “i heard you were crying,” he mumbles, voice quiet as his eyes flicker over your tear-streaked face, “so i brought you these.” you don’t even speak—just fall into his arms, and he catches you instantly, hands on your waist. he presses a kiss to your hair, heart racing beneath your cheek. “it’s okay,” he whispers, not much else—just that. over and over. “it’s okay, baby. i’m here.” because even if he can’t always find the words, his love doesn’t need explaining. and tonight, that’s enough. he is enough.

KIM SUNOO

sunoo’s lips instantly pout when he sees your teary eyes. “oh no, no, don’t cry, angel,” he whispers, cupping your face with both hands so gently it makes you cry harder. “it breaks my heart when you’re sad,” he murmurs. “you’re too precious for tears, okay?” he guides you to sit on the couch and letting you curl up. his arms wrap around you snugly while he hums something soft, cheek resting against your head. “let me take care of you,” he coos, rubbing your back.

YANG JUNGWON

jungwon kneels in front of you without saying a word at first, his brows pulled together in quiet worry as he reaches up to gently tuck your hair behind your ear, fingers lingering a little just to hold your face. “hey, look at me, baby,” he says softly, thumb brushing under your eye to catch a tear before it falls. “what’s going on, hm?” his voice is so calm, it only makes your chest tighten more. “you don’t have to talk if you don’t want to. just… let me be here, okay?” he pulls you into his arms, your face buried in his neck. i’ve got you. always.” “seeing you cry makes me want to fix the whole damn universe.”

NISHIMURA RIKI

"aww, baby," riki coos, brushing a thumb under your eye, catching the tear before it slips — and of course, the little shit’s smirking. "crying already? i didn't even do anything that mean." he pulls you into his lap anyway, arms wrapping snug around your waist. "should i kiss it better? maybe here—" he plants one on your jaw, "—or here—" a kiss on your nose. you grumble, hiding your face in his hoodie, but he’s relentless. “no hiding. i wanna see that pout. it’s cute.” you shove him, and he grins wide. “there’s that almost-smile. c’mon, baby, give me the real one. or i’ll really start being annoying.”

[dcxdpdabbles]

Danny wakes up in a cage in the Batcave as a human and thinks to himself “well that’s not a good sign.”

Big bad bat encountered him in the caves near the Batcave by finding him half dunked in the Lazarus pits under Gotham during a routine check. He put the boy in a cage as a precaution, but was otherwise planning on investigating then returning him to his rightful place.

Danny does not know that.

He proceeds to search his pockets (phase his hand into his body disguised as reaching into his pockets) and pulls out a tool kit, systematically disassembles, exits, then reassembles the cage.

And walks out.

Now the bats are hunting the streets for this engineering escape artist while Danny is just hanging out at a newsstand reading up on the universe Clockwork had sent him to check out.

"Woah! What happened here?" Duke gasps from the staircase. He is wearing his school uniform, but upon checking his backpack, he realizes his chemistry textbook is missing, likely somewhere in the Batcave after his latest monitor duty.

He had been multitasking by shooting out questions to the rest of the bats as they patrolled. Due to an injured wrist, Duke had been benched from his regular day shift (Jason offered to cover for him), and watching screens had been the only way Bruce had been willing to let him participate.

That quickly became boring, however, since Oracle was much faster than he was, and Duke had a tough time focusing on screens. He's never been one to enjoy too much screen time - he didn't have the attention span for it.

This meant that Duke had not been in the cave for the past three nights, after he struck a deal with Bruce to let him catch up on some much-needed rest instead, provided he could continue his civilian work during the day.

Imagine his surprise to find the Batcave in disarray, with almost everything taken apart, piece by piece, including the Batcomputer and the dinosaur. Bruce, Damian, Dick, Jason, Tim, and Cass were currently attempting to gather the pieces and reassemble everything, which seemed hard given all the little pieces that had shattered about.

"Some kid with a screwdriver," Jason grunted, holding up various nails towards the light. In front of the anti-hero were five distinct piles of nails and bolts, each separated by type and size, which he carefully sorted from a large bucket.

"What?"

Tim looked up from a mountain of wires, some of which were dropped over his shoulders, around his head, and a few were entangled with his leg, as he tried to untangle everything. He looked as crazed as he did the year he decided he was going to put up all the Christmas lights by himself, only to realize how large Wayne Manor really was. "Two nights ago, we found a civilian unconscious in cave sector T-Y13. He was practically radioactive with Lazarus pits water, so Bruce had the bright idea to put him in a cage as a precaution. The civillain woke up while Bruce was away so he couldn't explain that he was not kidnapped, realized he was in a cage, and deassimbled it with a tool set he pulled from his ass-"

"Tim. Laugauge" Dick scolds, leanign over metal tubes to cover Damian's ears. The twelve-year-old huffs, but doesn't shake off Dick's hands as he stares at a different buckets of lightbults, sorting them like Jason was doing to the nails.

It was a little darker than what Duke was used to.

"-And then, he decided to reassemble the cage once he was out." Tim continued as if he weren't interrupted, nodding his head to the only part of the cave that looked normal. The contamination unit seemed to shine in the untouched spotlights. "Then the civilian had the bright idea to take apart everything in the cave. He systematically disassembled everything and mixed up the pieces. The only things he left alone were the railings!"

"It's pretty impressive," Bruce praises. He was checking over technology boards with a critical eye. A headlight strapped to his forehead shines brightly on the pieces as he smiles. "I wonder where he is now."

"If he has any brains, he's probably applying for a position with a pit crew in NASCAR," Cass laughs, picking up different boards of metal. "He took the whole place apart in less than twenty minutes."

"He even got the Batpens" Dick sighs. "Why was he so passive-aggressive about pulling out the pen's springs?"

"If I woke up in a cage, after unfair imprisonment, I would also cause my captors as much grief as possible," Damain comments casually. "We are lucky he decided to leave nothing harmful behind."

"He just took everything else!" Steph's voice calls out from a dark patch of the cave. Duke knows it's in the direction of the showers and the changing room. "Does anyone see any shower heads over there? The kid took them off every shower!

"I have one!" Cass calls back, holding up an item in her hand. "Are any pipes missing? There are five long metal cylinders that I can't figure out what they are for."

"No, he left the pipes along, but I think he took the mirrors and the door."

"Which door?" Bruce yells back. There is a moment of silence before Steph replies.

"All of them! "

"Of course. That's what these ones are for." Jason says in an Ah-ha voice, holding up a few black bolts. "They're the ones from the shower heads!"

Duke stares, then sighs. He lets his backpack slide off his shoulders, landing on the stairs with a thump. Looks like he's calling in sick to school again.

Rolling up his sleeves, he moves over to Cass and helps her lift the long cylinders she had mentioned. "Do we know anything about this civilian?"

"Before he took the Batcomputer apart, we were able to get that he wasn't in any of the local government records. He isn't from Gotham or this state." Bruce says while carefully placing pieces back on a large computer board with a pair of tweezers. "My guess, he's not going to be in any system, either."

"Why?"

Bruce looks up, his eyes shining. "His DNA matched eighty-five percent with Themyscira's genetic make-up. No proof of cloning either. We may just have a genius male Themysciran on our hands."

Duke didn't like how excited Bruce sounded when he made that statement. He opens his mouth to snap, "You can't adopt him, Bruce!"

It's validating that his voice wasn't the only one that said it, but that it echoed by literally everyone else in the cave. Bruce purses his lips but doesn't agree or disagree with the accusation as he turns back to his computer board.

Duke hears him mutter under his breath, but he's too far away to figure out what he said.

"How long do you think this will take us to put back together?" He asks Cass as they compare metal pieces- he's holding a triangle-looking thing that he can't figure out where it came from.

She kicks aside a circular metal slate, raising a brow at him, then nodding her head toward the left side of the cave. Duke turns to look in the direction of the third Robin, who was wiggling around.

"What are you!?" Tim screams at a blue wire, shaking it like he was strangling someone's neck. Somehow, in the time Duke looked away from him, Tim had his right arm tied to his left knee, with a red wire thread running through his shirt, and his right leg was no longer visible because the rest of the wire pile had consumed it.

"Oh, so it's going to be a few hours," Duke sighs as Cass nods sadly.

"Does anyone have any eyes on the light switches?" Dick yells out. "Damian and I almost have all the pieces to turn the lights back on."

"Oh gods -He took the lockers!" Steph screams in angst. "I had a snack stash in there!"

[barnesonly]

thinking about Bucky and his dog tags in bed

i once saw a post somewhere about fucking a man with dog tags and they accidentally hit your face and you can’t help but laugh so he takes them in his teeth and fucks you harder… that’s all I think about now when I hear phrases “Bucky” and “dog tags”…

He’s deep inside you — hips grinding slow, strong arms braced on either side of your head, eyes locked on yours like you’re the only thing keeping him grounded. The weight of his dog tags swings with every thrust, clinking gently against your chest, your collarbone… your chin.

Then, one good thrust, and they bounce up — smack — right against your lips.

You let out a surprised giggle, biting down on the sound, but it’s too late. Bucky hears it. His rhythm stutters. He pauses, cock twitching inside you.

“What’s so funny, doll?” he murmurs, already smirking.

“N-nothing,” you pant, breathless and wide-eyed.

But the tags swing again — click, clack, a little more chaotic now — and you giggle again, covering your mouth.

Bucky chuckles once, low and dangerous. Then, without a word, he dips his head, catches the chain between his teeth, and bites down.

The sound of the metal muffled in his mouth is sinful. His eyes stay locked on yours. And then he fucks you — hard. Deep. Relentless.

Your laughter is gone, swallowed by gasps and the slap of skin. His dog tags no longer hit your face — they bounce wildly against his lips as he holds them in his mouth like a threat.

“Still funny?” he growls through clenched teeth, mouth full of metal, sweat dripping from his temple.

You can only whimper.

He doesn’t let up. Just keeps driving into you with brutal precision, eyes burning, chain still clenched in his teeth like you’re something he refuses to let go of.

“Didn’t think so.”

[blueberrybirdsworld]

Out of frame 3/4

Summary : Y/N and Lando Norris have been together for three years. Their relationship is real, steady, and full of quiet love but always behind the scenes. While fans know they’re a couple, Lando has never posted about her, avoids public displays of affection, and never mentions her in interviews. At first, Y/N understood. She believed it was about privacy, about protecting what they had. But over time, being constantly left out of frame has started to hurt.

Genre : angst, SMAU

Pairing : Lando Norris x reader

Faceclaim : @suanbeiii

Main Masterlist

Serie Masterlist

@your_username 📍Côte d’Azur

A very special photoshoot, thanks @your_photograph 🌸

@_user1 she’s literally the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. like??? how is this even real??

@_user2 Lando must be the dumbest man alive I fear 😭

@_user3 girl you’re glowing like someone who deleted his number ✨

@_user4 he said “which gf?” and she said “not me then.” ICONIC.

@_user5 this is exactly what peace looks like after you stop begging a man for the bare minimum

@_user6 no because if they break up for real, I’m shooting my shot 🫡

@_user7 soft girl era activated. and he’s nowhere in sight? suspicious 🧐

@_user8 I just know Lando’s watching this through his tears

@_user9 the flower, the pearls, the PINK , yeah no, he lost

@_user10 if he doesn’t come crawling back after this… I WILL. give me a chance queen 😭❤️

@_user11 she didn’t need to mention him to completely obliterate him

@_user12 you mean to tell me he left this to go party with his friends in Japan? okay clown

@_user13 this looks like a breakup shoot and a Vogue cover at the same time

@_user14 soooo when are you free for dinner? asking for literally all of us

Texts messages :

Lando I saw the photos You look… breathtaking

Lando I don’t even have the words How do you manage to look like that and I act like you’re not the most beautiful person in the world?

Lando Y/N please. You know I’m sorry I’ve been sorry since the second we started fighting

Lando I messed up, okay? I was defensive, I didn’t listen, I didn’t take in how much it mattered to you I thought I was protecting something private and sacred, but I see now I was just hiding

Lando I was scared. And I pushed you away because I didn’t know how to be vulnerable in front of everyone

Lando I see the comments I know what people are saying I know I look like the dumbest man alive Because I was.

Lando I’m not partying, I’m not happy, I’m not okay. I miss you. I miss your voice, your laugh, your constant humming when you cook, the way you curl your fingers in my sleeve when you’re cold

Lando I sent the flowers because I didn’t know what else to do And yeah, anyone can send flowers. But no one can love you the way I do

Lando I’m sorry. For every time I made you feel small, or hidden, or unloved You weren’t. Not even for a second You are everything

Lando Please talk to me. Please. Even if you’re mad. Yell at me. Swear at me. Just… don’t go silent on me

Lando I don’t want to lose you because I didn’t know how to show I was proud of you I am, I’m so proud. Of everything you are

Lando I love you. More than ever

Lando Please come back. Or let me come to you Just say something Anything ?

@_F1Gossip 📍Tokyo, Japan

Spotted: Lando Norris seen out partying in Tokyo after the Japan Grand Prix last night. No Y/N in sight.

@_user1 not him clubbing while she’s not here, be serious lando

@_user2 he’s out here drinking and dancing while the rest of us are grieving their relation??

@_user3 how are you gonna party when you clearly hurt your girl and she’s getting love letters in her comments?? GET IT TOGETHER.

@_user5 I’ve defended him for years but… I can’t do this anymore. she deserved better and we all know it.

@_user6 I know PR team is sweating.

@_user7 he parties like he didn’t just lose the most beautiful woman alive and humiliate her on live TV. delusion.

@_user8 idc what the drama is, I’m just waiting for Y/N to post again. SHE’S the star now

@_user9 literally everyone: “Lando please fix it” Lando: goes clubbing with his shirt unbuttoned

@_user10 “which girlfriend” got him feeling single I guess 😭

@your_usurname

Needed a drink and have the best friends ever for that🥂

@_user1 She’s in her IDGAF era and I’m here for it 🔥👑

@_user2 Oh she’s DONE done. 😮‍💨

@_user3 the crown. the girls. the middle finger. this is the official breakup tour

@_user4 Y/N said “cry about it, I’m busy glowing.”

@_user5 your glow-up is legally blinding. teach us your ways

@_user6 she’s heartbroken but make it sexy

@_user7 I know Lando’s watching this post on repeat 😭

@_user10 She’s too fine to be sad. Lando who???

@_user11 Not to be dramatic but I’d jump in front of a train for her

@_user12 Her friends deserve a raise. Crowned their queen and gave her the world tonight.

@_user13 this is what it looks like when the pretty girl realizes she deserves better 😭👏

@_user15 tell me your bf fumbled without telling me 💅🏽

3:02 AM Texts messages : Lando babe babeee bbabyyy i mean not baby i mean. ugh whatever why u so pretty huh?? like??? WHYYYY

Lando saw ur post n now i’m lying on the floor face down sad pathetic loser man vibes

Lando u look like a literal goddess like Aphro… aphroditty… aphrotiddy?? idk u know what i mean

Lando not even mad just confused hurting too mostly sad after seeing your post

Lando did ur friend give u that crown? tell her i said thanks for crowning the queen of my whole life also tell her to stop commenting “he fumbled” i knooooow

Lando i miss ur laugh ur hands ur eyes ur frown when i’m being annoying miss all of it even ur cold feet under the covers

Lando i shud have posted u every day every hooour every millimillisecond u soooo pretty i wanna scream

Lando come back plsss or lemme come back i’ll be so good. i’ll buy u flowers every hour i’ll post u. tag u

Lando can i call uuuu i wanna hear ur voice just wanna know ur real and not like. a hallucination from my own stupidity

Lando ok gonna go cry in the shower now

Lando iloveyou babyyyy answer plssss i'm not drunk just ok i'm drunk plssss answer fuck i miss u

@landonorris

Mmyyy loove

@_user1 wait… WHO is this girl??? where is Y/N??? 😭

@_user2 why this man do a post at 4 a.m, is he not in a club ??

@_user3 so let me get this straight. he couldn’t tag Y/N, never posted her, but now he’s posting mystery girl like this???

@_user4 he really said “which gf?” and then proved it 😐

@_user5 the audacity of this man is actually insane. like. Y/N was literally still watching his races

@_user6 did they break up and he already moved on?? and posting about it?? bold

@_user7 3 years of silence and now THIS. lando norris you will pay for your crimes

@_user8 hope Y/N is living her best life far away from this nonsense

@_user9 he’s just soft launching a whole new girl while Y/N gets silence. bro what

@_user10 if this is a new gf… he better never talk about privacy again cause this is messy 😵‍💫

@_user11 no way you were gifted the most elegant woman and fumbled her like this

@_user12 someone go check on Y/N cause this?? this is COLD.

5:02 AM Texts messages

Y/N who the fuck is she?

Y/N you seriously meet some random girl ?

Y/N you CHEATED on me??? you really cheated on me and then posted it for the world to see?

Y/N lando what the hell you disappear on me, ignore everything I said, and now THIS?

Y/N you couldn’t post me for THREE YEARS

Y/N is this why you didn’t tag me? because you still flirt with girls in clubs and you didn’t want me to find out?

Y/N you didn’t even have the decency to end things before doing this we weren’t okay, but I still loved you. I will have still showed up for you and this is how you repay me?

Y/N this is LOW. even for you.

Y/N say something SAY. SOMETHING. LANDO !!!!! Answer your phone I'm trying to call you rn

Y/N I swear to god, we’re DONE.

Taglist (closed) : @angelluv16, @httpsxnox, @anunstablefangirl, @chocolatemagazinecupcake, @mayax2o07, @freyathehuntress, @verogonewild, @lilyofthevalley-09, @esw1012, @its-me-frankie, @linneaguriii, @ezzi-ln4, @rlbmutynnek, @actuallyazriel, @sofs16, @thulior, @sltwins, @henna006, @stylesmoonlight12, @lilaissa, @sideboobrry11, @l3thal-l0lita, @lorena-mv33, @ispywlittleeye-blog, @lesliiieeeee, @sageskiesf1, @adynorris, @curlylando, @rebelliousneferut, @justcharlotte, @secret-agents-stole-my-bunnies, @emneedshelp, @lando-505, @yukimaniac, @sashisuslover, @f1norris04, @hi26loveie, @bunnisplayground, @nina481, @reallifemermaidprincess, @cars-and-frogs, @delululeclerc, @txmhxllqnd, @lydia-demarek, @destinyg237, @rhaenyrasversion, @sarascabiosa, @readz4u, @tvdtw4ever, @mynameisangeloflife, @teti-menchon0604, @suns3treading, @op814kitty, @prettyboyroseberg, @willowsnook, @ariesandwolves, @clarksgf, @knivesdoingcartwheels, @pinklemonade34, @fat-meh, @tiaajosephin, @landosbabe4, @easy4, @jule239, @mercrussell, @skylandori, @ryuucollapse, @nickie-amore, @fairyjinn, @seonaw, @strawberrylov-er, @linnygirl09, @dilflover44, @bell1a, @f1fantasys, @sillyfreakfanparty, @janonymus0, @taetae-armyyyyy, @charlesgirl16, @angstynasty, @jules-bea2308, @afternoonarchive, @itsbieberxholland, @rexit-mo, @chlmtfilms, @vampgege, @mochimommy2002, @budgetcupid, @lemon-stvrrr, @bell1a, @taebearyoongs, @hazzasmunchkin, @sainz0fthetimes, @didaaa4, @madelyn2000, @il0vereadingstuff, @march32nd, @chlmtfilms, @literallysza, @cheapdocmartens, @wolfstarsimpxx, @pretzelcat4-blog, @larya810, @6-noir, @urfavftoomie, @ficr3ccs, @strawberrylov-er, @wosof1, @behindmygreyeyes, @justheretoreadthxxs, @pinklemonade34, @ninass-world, @landosbabe4, @leclercdream, @perfectsuitcasegardenpie, @flowersandalll, @sagestack, @angxedxtz, @fangirl125reader, @mimisweetz, @mattslovelygf, @taetae-armyyyyy, @guacala, @gothicwidowsworld, @chezmardybum, @virtualperfectioncat, @cherryhazee,@bubble012, @teti-menchon0604

[p1girlfriend]

five ways he loves you – OP81

cw: pure fluff, established relationship, lots of cuddly boyfriend energy

✦

Oscar Piastri is not a loud lover. He doesn’t yell it to the world or post a million photos of you online (unless you’re both drunk and giggling in the back of a golf cart). But the boy loves hard. Quietly. Consistently. In ways that make you melt from the inside out.

1. Words of Affirmation. He says “I’m proud of you” so often it’s like punctuation to him. You burn toast? “Still proud of you.” You get a raise? “I knew they’d notice how amazing you are.” You get sad for no reason and cry on the couch in his hoodie? “I’m proud of you for feeling things and letting it out. That’s hard.” And sometimes, when you least expect it, he slips in a low, sleepy “I love you more than anything,” like he’s letting you in on a secret he’s kept since the first time he saw you.

2. Quality Time. Oscar’s version of quality time is not extravagant. It’s the way he sits beside you in comfortable silence, sharing a blanket, each of you doing your own thing but still touching. It’s post-race nights in hotel rooms, where you lie on his chest and watch trashy TV while he absentmindedly plays with your fingers. It’s road trips where he lets you DJ, even when you add questionable 2000s pop hits, and he just laughs, shaking his head like he’s doomed and in love.

3. Acts of Service. You don’t even notice half the things he does. Until one day you realize your car has a full tank, your favorite snacks are stocked, your charger was untangled and neatly placed on the nightstand. He’ll stay up to double-check your flight details, or fix that annoying kitchen cabinet that creaks without a word. His version of “I love you” is “already took care of it.” And it’s never about being thanked — he just wants to make life easier for you.

4. Gifts. Oscar isn’t flashy, but he’s thoughtful. A tiny koala keychain when he comes back from Melbourne. A limited-edition notebook because you mentioned needing a new one (once). A necklace with your birthstone, given so casually over breakfast that it takes you a full minute to register what just happened. He never says why he bought it. But the way he looks at you when you open it — that little proud smile and soft eyes — says everything.

5. Physical Touch. This is his weakness. Oscar is so touch-starved when it comes to you, it’s embarrassing (to him, not to you). He’ll pretend to stretch, then wrap an arm around you. He’ll pull you close during interviews when you’re just off-camera. He’ll come home, drop his bag, and immediately bury his face in your neck. He rubs circles on your thigh when you’re anxious, kisses your forehead when you’re sleepy, laces his fingers with yours under tables. He’d spend hours like that if you let him. And you do.

✦

Oscar doesn’t love in loud, chaotic ways. He loves like a steady hum — the kind you don’t notice until it’s gone. But with him? It’s never going anywhere.

He’s all five love languages. And somehow, all five belong to you.

©p1girlfriend