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Bucky's recovery seemed to be happening in phases.
The first lasted the shortest amount of time, which was a blessing because it was the phase Steve hated the most. During the first few weeks after he'd come to live in the Tower, Bucky hardly spoke a single word to anyone and only left his bedroom to eat and use the bathroom. Steve hadn't known what to do. Part of him just wanted to take Bucky up in his arms and never let him go. But he also reasoned maybe it would be best to give Bucky the space he demanded; the last thing he wanted was to make Bucky feel pressured or scare him off.
Steve's perpetual indecision involved a lot of time spent sitting on the floor outside Bucky's locked door.
Until, finally, something must have fallen in place in Bucky's head at last, and one afternoon, when he emerged from his bedroom to find Steve sitting with his back against the adjacent wall, Bucky stared down at him with something like awe and a little uncertainty. Steve hadn't seen that much emotion in Bucky's expression since he'd come back, and, to his utter shock, Bucky sat down facing him and placed a shaking hand on Steve's cheek. Steve leaned into the touch, just a little, and didn't make another motion besides that. He wanted Bucky to know the contact was welcome but there was no pressure for anything else.
And that began the second phase. As Bucky recalled with increasing clarity what he and Steve had been to each other
before
, he took to touching Steve any chance he got. It started infinitesimally small. Brushing hands. A light grip of an arm. The barest hint of contact between their thighs whenever they sat together on the couch.
But, as the weeks passed and Steve kept on encouraging the touches -- never initiating but alway,
always
conveying his joy at the contact -- Bucky grew bolder. They started sleeping in the same bed, curled up close together, even on the vast king size mattress. And then kisses turned to rutting against each other turned to getting each other off in all the ways they used to.
The constant touching phase lasted the longest, but Steve was alright with that. He even felt a bit of melancholy when springtime rolled around and Bucky found a new way to occupy himself: his own garden on the roof of Avengers Tower. He planted flowers of all kinds and colors -- roses, magnolias, daffodils. He grew vegetables of all varieties. Their apartment became filled with color in those summer months, bouquets and arrangements on every surface, baskets of ripe fruits and vegetables lining the kitchen counter.
Steve didn't know where Bucky's sudden fixation came from -- they didn't even have so much as a window planter in their old apartment before the war -- but he was overjoyed anyways, seeing the glowing pride on Bucky's face whenever he walked through the door with his arms full of the day's pickings. He indulged in all the new dishes Bucky cooked with his vegetables, all the new desserts he made with his fruits. Steve's heart melted on the spot everytime Bucky left flowers just for him to find.
But then the warmth of summer gave way to autumn chill, and Bucky was forced to find a new fixation. Whatever Steve had been expecting, it certainly wasn't --. Well.
It started with a text.
Bucky:
Which flavor do you like best? Peach strawberry raspberry or blueberry
Strawberry
,
Steve replied. He assumed Bucky was talking about pie flavors. There was a little bakery a few blocks from the Tower that they liked to go to for breakfast on mornings when Steve wasn't tied up with a mission and Bucky wasn't tied up with crippling anxiety.
Bucky just replied with a winky face, and Steve smiled, imagining Bucky coming home with a pie in hand, meaning to surprise Steve. Maybe this was going to be his new obsession. Instead of bequeathing Steve with bouquets of roses everyday, he'd present him with fresh-baked goods.
When Bucky came home that night
without
any sort of pastry in hand, Steve tampered down his mild disappointment. Bucky didn't say anything about the text he'd sent earlier, just gave Steve a loving peck on the mouth and disappeared into their bedroom with small black plastic bag, reemerging a few moments later when Steve called him to dinner.
The rest of the evening passed in their usual fashion, eating a quick supper together before curling up on the couch to watch a mindless sitcom. And then they went to bed, kissing lazily, both of them just a little hard, in that strange sort of sensual limbo where maybe-they-would or maybe-they-wouldn't take things further.
Bucky put a hand on Steve's chest, breaking their kiss. "I have a surprise for you."
"Yeah?" Steve didn't bother to hide his eagerness.
Bucky just smirked and reached into the nightstand drawer. He held up a bottle of lube. Strawberry flavor, the packaging declared.
Oh
.
"I didn't know that stuff came in flavors now," Steve blurted. Christ. Of all the things to say.
Bucky's smirk just deepened. "There's a lot I bet you don't know about this century."
Steve couldn't help himself. He surged up and kissed Bucky, deep and hungry, because that -- the teasing, the playful adventurousness -- that was all Bucky. He'd been like that before, sometimes.
"How should we put this to use?" Bucky murmured, low and heady. And that part, too, was so familiar it made Steve's chest ache. Bucky had always initiated their more unusual forays, and then it was Steve who took charge from there.
Delighted as he was, Steve was also surprised. He would have expected, after everything he'd gone through and was still crawling his way back from, Bucky would no longer want any part of that dynamic they used to slip into.
Bucky seemed to be reading Steve thoughts because he put his flesh hand to Steve's cheek, met his eyes, and said, "I want it. The way we used to. I trust you."
I trust you
. The words ran over Steve in a flood of warmth. It felt monumental. It felt like a greater victory than any win he'd ever had before. And the raw sincerity in the way Bucky said it was enough to dissolve Steve's worries. So he leaned forward, crowding into Bucky's space, pressing him down into the mattress, and whispered:
"I'm gonna slick myself up. And then I'm gonna fuck you, hard and messy, so it gets all over. And then I'm gonna taste it inside you."
Bucky's lips parted, a breathy, surprised gasp escaping from him. He arched up, kissing Steve fiercely and tilting his hips so Steve could feel his cock straining hard in his briefs when it brushed against Steve's belly. They moved together like that for a little while longer, rutting and teasing, expressing their mutual enthusiasm for the return of this facet of what they used to have.
It was only when they were both dangerously close to the edge that Steve moved off Bucky and settled on his knees, removing his boxers and flinging them aside. He uncapped the lube and starting slicking himself up, using more than was probably necessary. But that was the point -- he'd promised Bucky messy.
"Take those off," Steve growled, jerking his head at Bucky's briefs, the front of which were stained with precome, his cock making a valiant attempt at escaping the confines of the fabric. Bucky's eyes were dark and hazed, his stare fixed downwards, watching Steve stroke himself. The sharp command to undress seemed to shake Bucky out of his transfixion though, because he lifted his hips at once and eagerly divested himself of his underwear.
"Turn around," Steve said and Bucky did, resting his forehead on his hands, knees wide and apart. The position left him so open, so
vulnerable
.
Steve leaned over him and rested a gentle hand between his shoulder blades. "If you want to stop," Steve said, dropping the commander voice and speaking to Bucky soft and affectionate. "You just say 'Jersey', alright?"
Bucky turned and reached back, taking Steve's hand and squeezing his fingers. "I know that's our word. I remember."
Before Steve's insides to could turn to mush at that, Bucky dropped his hand, canted his hips up, and spread his knees apart even wider. Steve felt desire burn through him, hot and all-encompassing. He could get emotional about this later. For now though, he would express his adoration without words.
Steve pressed a kiss to Bucky's collar and then moved back down to settle between his legs. He slid a finger inside and a second shortly after, and some things may have changed in the decades they'd spent apart, but it turned out Steve still knew exactly how to bring Bucky to his breaking point. Within seconds, he was a shaking, moaning mess.
"I need you. Please. Oh God, I can't--," Bucky broke off, burying his face into the pillow, hips jerking up, frantic and ungainly as he sought the fullness and friction of Steve's fingers.
"You're so good," Steve murmured, pulling his fingers out and earning a whine from Bucky. "I'm gonna give you what you need. Make you feel so good."
He lined himself up and pushed inside, unable to help his own moaning at the sensation of Bucky's tight heat around him. Not wasting any time, he snapped his hips forward and back, again and again, relentless in his pace as he chased moans and gasps from Bucky lips. Bucky started rolling his own hips in time to meet Steve's movements, their synchrony turning each thrust momentous.
And then, suddenly, Bucky let out a keening sound that was halfway between a sob and a moan, and Steve could tell he was coming from the way he clenched around him, even before he noticed him spilling in white ropes all over the sheets. Steve kept on moving inside him, wringing out more pleasured sounds.
"You feel so good. You feel so damn good, Buck," he kept saying, over and over until he came hot and jerking inside of Bucky.
When Steve pulled out, Bucky made to turn over on his side, but Steve grabbed his thigh, stopping him.
"I told you, I wanted to taste it from inside you."
Bucky's eyes widened. He was panting, naked body glowing with blush and sweat. Even wrecked as he looked, there was no mistaking the eagerness that appeared in Bucky's eyes. He let out a breath, fond and disbelieving at the same time, and then settled back on his stomach, legs spread.
The sight of it was downright obscene. Slick and come leaked out of Bucky's hole, his rim and thighs glistening with it. Steve didn't waste a second, parting Bucky's cheeks with his hands and sinking his tongue inside.
The sound Bucky made at that was borderline inhuman.
Steve kept on going, licking and teasing, spurred on by Bucky's hoarse pleas. The "oh God, please stop"s and "again, right there"s spilled out in equal measure. It was only after he'd wrung a second orgasm from him that Steve finally relented.
"You know," Steve said, wiping his mouth and climbing up the bed to settle down next to Bucky. "I think that stuff tastes more like strawberry ice cream than real strawberry."
"You are un-fucking-believable," Bucky said, and then drew him in for a kiss.
Much to Steve's delight, this new phase of Bucky's didn't end with the strawberry lube.
In the weeks that followed, Bucky kept on coming home with new things for them to try. Cock rings. Lubes and oils and lotions. Vibrators of all shapes, sizes, and power settings. And even when they were intimate without any of the extras, more and more they ended up still slipping into their old dynamic. It came so naturally to them, felt so good, so right. Steve may have been the one in charge, but his mission was always to make Bucky feel good, and meanwhile, Bucky was pliant to Steve's ministrations and eager to give Steve pleasure in return. Their wants and what they had to give complemented perfectly. In everything they'd ever done together outside the bedroom, they'd always been perfectly balanced and synchronous. Steve wasn't surprised this part of their life was no different.
One night, Bucky came to bed holding a two sets of handcuffs. They hadn't tried
that
before, for a couple of reasons. One being that Steve had assumed anything involving restraints would be a hard no for Bucky, the other being the fact that the flimsy cuffs usually sold for that purpose would do a laughable job at containing a super-soldier. Upon closer inspection though, Steve realized that Bucky was not in fact holding a run-of-the-mill set of cuffs. He recognized them at once. Tony had manufactured them the first night Bucky had shown up at the Tower. They were reinforced to withstand even the force of of Bucky's metal arm.
"You didn't," Steve said, almost disapproving except that he knew the flush rising in his face and the tenting in his boxers had to be giving him away.
Bucky just shrugged, dropping the cuffs in Steve's lap and shedding his clothes.
"How did you even…?"
"I want to try this. And I know Stark would have made something that could hold me."
At the time, Steve had disapproved of Tony's creating such a device, but now he was very much reconsidering that stance.
Completely naked, Bucky knelt in front of Steve on the bed. He was already half-hard and though he was smirking at Steve's bemusement, Steve could also see the raw
need
in his expression.
"You want this?" Steve asked, reaching out and drawing Bucky in so that he straddled his lap. The prospect of what Bucky was suggesting thrilled him, but he had to be sure it was what Bucky wanted too. Things like this… it would only be good if Bucky was just as eager.
Bucky nodded and then kissed him, gentle and chaste. "I trust you."
And there it was, that monumental statement again. The weight of it made Steve feel like he had to prove with everything he had that he was worthy of such sentiment. And, God, he
wanted
to prove it. Wanted to show Bucky exactly how good Steve could make him feel when he surrendered all control.
"I want you up against the headboard," Steve said and Bucky complied at once, positioning himself so that his back was to Steve and his wrists rested against each bedpost.
"No," Steve said, pulling his own clothes off. "I want to look at you."
Bucky turned around, looking confused and a little awed, but obeyed nonetheless. Steve moved in close to him, pushing him back against the headboard. The cuffs weren't on yet, but Bucky remained perfectly still while Steve kissed along his jaw, down his neck, and trailed his hands down Bucky's body, possessive and reverent. He could feel Bucky's hard cock against his belly.
Reaching behind him, Steve picked up both sets of handcuffs. He watched Bucky's gaze settle on them, expression unreadable. Steve put a hand on his cheek.
"Where are we, Buck?"
Bucky looked up, away from the cuffs and meeting Steve's eyes. He licked his lips. "So fucking far from Jersey."
Well. Alright then. Steve locked Bucky's flesh hand to the bedpost first and then moved to the metal one. He made sure to be careful when he handled the prosthetic; he knew Bucky still struggled with its existence, but he also wanted to make it clear that he loved
every
part of Bucky.
Before he moved away, a strange inspiration struck him, and Steve placed the handcuff key in Bucky's metal palm.
"I need you to hold that for me," Steve said, closing Bucky's fingers around the key and kissing his knuckles. "My hands are gonna be busy."
Bucky just nodded, looking a little dumbstruck.
Steve settled back on this knees, admiring the sight before him. Bucky was completely naked, spread open and at Steve's mercy. He couldn't imagine anything more arousing.
"Try to get free," Steve said and
oh
-- he'd have to reconsider that previous assessment because now that he was watching Bucky strain against those chains… Christ. After a few seconds, Bucky sagged back against the headboard and looked up at Steve through his lashes, expectant and deferent.
Steve moved into his space again, and Bucky arced up to meet him, pulling the chains taught, desperate in his attempt to get to Steve. Steve kissed him hot and fierce, running his hands all over Bucky's body. And then he broke the kiss and moved his lips down slowly, taking his time, moving at an almost agonizing pace as he kissed all down Bucky's body.
"I've got you," Steve murmured, in between the kisses he pressed to Bucky's bare skin. "I'm gonna make you feel so good."
Bucky just let out a pleased hum. He wasn't straining against the cuffs anymore, and his eyes were closed, face and whole body lax like he'd never held any tension at all.
When Steve lips made it between Bucky's legs, he moved both hands to Bucky's hips and pushed up with gentle pressure. Bucky understood immediately, arching his hips up so Steve could press a finger inside him.
The choked off sound Bucky made at that soon devolved into soft moans as Steve moved his fingers, pressing inside him with long-practiced skill and memory. Bucky was all but a whining mess when Steve bent down and took his cock in his mouth.
"Fuck, Steve..."
He could feel Bucky trembling, shaking all over from the stimulation Steve knew must be practically overbearing. But that was the point. He wanted to make Bucky feel good in every spot he knew, wanted to give him relentless pleasure he was helpless to move away from.
With that philosophy in mind, Steve cupped Bucky's balls and massaged the skin with gentle motions.
"I can't-- It's so much-- God, Steve--." Bucky was actually crying now; Steve could see it when he looked up for a second. His eyes were squeezed shut, tears streaking his cheeks while his mouth hung open and breathy whines escaped. He writhed futilely against the cuffs. The sight just invigorated Steve even more. He pressed his fingers in Bucky deeper. He took Bucky's cock further down his throat. He applied just the barest hint of more pressure to his balls--
"Steve--
fuck
!"
Bucky's orgasm could only be described as
violent
. He let out an inhuman cry, pulling so hard against his restraints that Steve actually heard the metal creak of the bedpost starting to give. Steve swallowed it all down, not letting up with his hands even as Bucky cried and begged. It was only when Bucky quieted and collapsed back onto the mattress that Steve moved off him.
He looked absolutely wrecked, panting and sweating and still trembling all over. Still, he managed to give Steve a dopey grin that warmed him from the inside out.
And then, suddenly, Bucky's blissed-out expression drained away and was replaced with a look of panicked terror.
Steve felt his own heart seize, cold dread coming over his whole body. If he'd done something wrong, if he'd hurt Bucky…
"Shit," Bucky cursed in a way that sounded more irritated than distressed. That eased the tension in Steve's chest by only a minute fraction.
"What's wrong?"
Bucky winced. "I think I broke the key."
Steve just blinked, a little stunned from the emotional whiplash of going from aroused to panicked to incredulous in a span of seconds. "What do you mean you 'broke the key'?"
Slowly, Bucky unclenched his lift fist, and there on his palm was a deformed piece of metal that might have been a key once. Steve stared back and forth between the it and Bucky's grimacing face, his disbelief growing by the second.
Bucky returned his incredulous look with a scowl. "Well,
excuse me
for tensing a bit in the heat of the moment. Maybe
someone
shouldn't have insisted I keep the key in my
metal hand
."
Steve might have relished in that small bit pride knowing he'd elicited such a strong physical reaction from Bucky. But there was a much more pressing issue at hand.
"How the hell am I supposed to get you out of there?" Steve looked around the room, as if a spare key was going to magically appear between their plaid cotton sheets.
Before he could think on it any further, a familiar disembodied voice spoke from the ceiling:
"Sirs, you wished for me to inform you next time Mr. Stark accesses the override for your door."
Jesus fucking… Of all the times for Tony to pay one of his surprise visits. If he was overriding the apartment door that meant he'd be inside in a matter of seconds, and the only thing worse than Bucky being stuck handcuffed to the bed was
Tony finding out
about Bucky being stuck handcuffed to the bed. The whole Tower would know by dinner time.
Steve launched himself off the bed and scrambled to put on the first pair of pants and shirt he could find. "I'll deal with Tony. You just stay there."
Bucky just stared at him and shook his chains. "I don't think that'll be a problem."
Steve gave him a final apologetic wince before stepping out of the bedroom and shutting the door behind him. He'd hardly taken two steps when Tony suddenly appeared in the hallway entrance.
"Where's Robocop?" Tony demanded, striding right up to Steve.
"Bucky's sleeping."
Tony looked him up and down, and Steve cringed internally. No doubt Tony was taking in the lingering redness in his cheeks, his mismatched clothes, and the awkward way he was standing in a futile attempt to conceal the tenting in his pants.
"Uh huh," Tony said, now grinning broadly. "I'm sure he is."
"What do you want, Tony?"
To his surprise, Tony's expression fell back into seriousness and he took Steve by the arm, guiding him down the hall, away from the bedroom and into the living room.
"I think we have a problem with Barnes," Tony said in a hushed voice. "He stole the reinforced cuffs I designed."
It took every bit of self-control Steve possessed not to burst out into insane laughter right then and there. Barely managing a straight face, he asked, "How do you know it was him?"
"I have surveillance footage of him swiping them from my lab. Your boy is good, Rogers. I'll give him that. He disabled all the main cameras on that floor, but luckily, Dum-E's visual interface is always recording."
Jesus fucking Christ, Buck
, Steve thought with equal parts fondness and exasperation.
Tony went on, "Look, if he's taking measures against us being able to contain him, I think we should be concerned. I know you don't want to hear this--"
"He's not dangerous," Steve said firmly. He hated how familiar that phrase was. He'd said it to Tony and all the others too many times to count during Bucky's first few weeks in the Tower. And now, even in this ludicrous situation, Steve hated having to repeat it again.
"Well, your opinion isn't exactly unbiased--"
"I already know about the cuffs, Tony!" Steve snapped and then instantly regretted it. He'd been desperate to end the conversation about Bucky being a danger, but now he had no idea how he was going to explain
that
.
A look of surprise came over Tony's face and he pointed a finger at Steve. "You
knew
he broke into my high security lab and stole piece of technology meant to contain him, and you
weren't concerned
? What, did he take them for you two to play with in the bedroom?"
Steve knew it was just a joke, just Tony being his usual crass self, but the inadvertent mention of the truth must have caused something in Steve's expression to shift just enough to give him away because after a second's pause, Tony's eyes went comically wide.
"Oh. My. God."
"Tony, it's not--" But Steve had always been a terrible liar, and his flustered protestation only made Tony's gleeful smile widen. He looked like his birthday, Easter, and Christmas had all come early.
"Don't tell me he's tied up in there right now! Oh my god, he is. He definitely is. Captain America has Sergeant Barnes handcuffed to the--"
"Tony!"
"This is the best day of my life. Don't tell Pepper I said that."
Steve sighed. There was no hiding it now; he might as well take advantage this turn of events.
"Look," Steve cleared his throat. "We have a situation."
Tony continued to look absolutely delighted. "Oh? Do tell."
Steve winced, like it was a physical pain to get his next words out. "We broke the key. He's stuck in the cuffs."
Tony burst into a fit of laughter that went on for several seconds and might have gone longer if Steve hadn't snapped at him:
"Can you help or not?!"
Tony took a breath, wiping his eyes. "What? Oh, yeah, I got just the thing." Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a device about the size of a pen. Before he handed it over to Steve, though, he looked up at the ceiling and said, "Hey JARVIS, you get all that?"
"
Audio recording from the past two minutes have been archived in my permanent databank, sir.
"
"Great. I'm gonna break that out whenever I'm having a bad day." Tony tossed the pen-like object at Steve. "Laser cutter. Should do the trick."
"Thanks," Steve dryly and turned, going back to the bedroom.
He managed to hear Tony shout "Next time you want to play 50 Shades of Red, White, and Blue, don't steal my stuff!" before slamming the bedroom door behind him. When he turned to face Bucky, there was a shit-eating grin on his face.
"How much of that did you hear?" Steve asked, walking over to the bedpost.
"Enough," Bucky said, still smirking.
"You know, I could just leave you like this," Steve said, even though he had already activated the laser and was carefully cutting into the cuff on Bucky's left side. It fell away with seconds, smoldering. As Steve moved to work on the other side, he said, "Guess no more handcuff stuff for us."
"Are you kidding?! I'm telling Stark to make four more pairs."
When the second cuff came off, Bucky all but threw himself at Steve, and they fell back onto the bed, together.