Hell Bound

I woke in the morning to the sound of scratching and thumping from the attic. I must have jumped because I felt a metal arm wrap around my body. I could feel his other arm just under the pillows beneath my head. I rolled onto my back and looked toward the sound. Dappled sunlight made shadows on the ceiling. The thumping continued.

“Raccoon,” Bucky mumbled from beside me.

He moved his arm again and pulled me closer. His hair tickled my face, and his nose was pressed against my cheek. So I rolled to my side and slid my hand over his shoulder. Then it seemed to take on a mind of its own and moved to cup his face. He had his eyes closed still, but I wanted to kiss him. And with the way his hands gripped me, I guessed the feeling was mutual. Our bodies were touching. His hand moved, gentle but daring, up the back of my shirt. I pressed my lips against his chest. My leg slid between his. Then I dragged my lips to the hollow of his throat. I could feel him gulp. We were both breathing hard, and he gripped me tight. I was finally about to reach up and kiss him when I heard the door across the hall open.

We both froze exactly as we were. I didn’t even realize how heavy we were both breathing until we were forced to remember we weren’t alone in my house. I could feel his pulse thumping quickly. The floor creaked in the hall, and then Graham knocked on the door. Bucky let go of a held breath in exasperation.

“Yeah?” I asked.

“Can you give me a ride?” Graham replied.

“What?”

“Can you give me a ride? I need to turn in these job applications.” I glanced at Bucky, and his jaw had gone tight. His eyes were dangerously dark, but he looked more irritated than homicidal. I moved to climb out of bed, but his arm shot out and wrapped around my waist again.

“Don’t go,” he whispered. His fingers splayed out, gripping my hip in his cold metal hand.

I sat still for a moment as I tried to figure out what to do. He was sprawled out and warm in my bed. With messy hair and eyes that were vibrantly blue in the early morning sun. Then I glanced at the door and thought about leaving this spot to ride around the city with Graham. He’d probably make comments about Bucky sleeping in my bed. I slid my hand up his arm and cupped his face again.

“Just give me a second,” I told him. Then I stood up and walked to the door.

I had to readjust my shirt since Bucky had his hand up the back and had taken most of it up with it. I’d thought we were being relatively innocent in our touching, but the state of my clothes told a completely different story. I cracked the door open and glared at Graham standing in my hallway, fully dressed and ready to go.

“Can you give me a ride?” he repeated.

“Just take the car. You have a license, right?”

“Of course I do. I’m twenty-thr….”

“Twenty-three, I know.”

“The car won’t work. It’s got the fingerprint doohicky, doesn’t it? I don’t want Stark to murder me.”

“I’ll call him and ask him to give you access. It’s my day off, and I want to sleep in.”

Then something seemed to click. He looked down the hall at the stairs as if he was putting the pieces together. I’d spent two nights on the couch with Bucky. I’d left the door open each time just so he’d know I wasn’t there. But now I was. And I was in no rush to leave. His mouth opened slowly, and he turned back to me with wide gray eyes.

“Don’t even start,” I warned. His mouth snapped shut.

“Right. I’ll just—take as long as I possibly can.”

“I’ll call Stark,” I reminded him. Then I shut the door. I could hear him head down the hall to the stairs, and I returned to my bed. But instead of sliding back into place in Bucky’s waiting arms, I reluctantly pulled my phone off its charger and called the last person I wanted to talk to at that moment.

“Talk to me,” Stark answered.

“I’m letting the kid take my car,” I told him.

“And good morning to you too, Johanna.”

“Let the kid take the car, please?”

“What does he need it for?”

“None of your business, Tony.”

“It’s my car. I think it’s my business.” I groaned.

“He’s putting in job applications, alright?”

“And what are you doing?”

“Sleeping in.” I felt Bucky shift, and then his hand was on my back. I had to take a deep breath. His fingers were cold and made goosebumps shoot up all over my body. He seemed to know what he was doing. The fingers slid up my spine. “Will you let the kid take the car or not?”

“I guess so. But only this once. Because you asked so nicely.”

“Kay, great. And can you do me a favor?”

“What do you need?”

“I need you to stop monitoring my house.”

“No can do. Saved your ass last time. I’m sure as hell not gonna stop now that Hydra wants you.” I sighed heavily. More like groaned. “Look,” he said after a moment, sounding slightly more serious. “Is this about the uh—other person who’s been staying with you?”

“Maybe.”

“Not a homeless kid.”

“No.”

“A guy.”

“Yes.”

“A boyfriend kind of guy?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“What’s his name?”

“I’m not telling you.”

“Then I’m not going to stop monitoring you.”

“Fine then, don’t. But be prepared for the alerts.”

“Jarvis has gotten much better at telling the difference between ‘she’s scared or in pain’ versus ‘she’s very much the opposite.’ Since the LAST time anyway. Let me tell you, you do not want to get woken up at 3 AM to an AI telling you your girlfriend’s sister is getting….”

“Okay, Tony. I get it. Bye.”

I shut the phone off and tossed it back onto the nightstand. Then I turned around, and Bucky’s arms pulled me right in. I leaned on my elbow and ran my hand up his chest, carefully avoiding the stitches.

“He’s in the kitchen,” he told me as my lips found his neck again. He pulled me closer until I slid my leg back in between his.

“Give him a minute,” I whispered against his skin.

A groan escaped from deep within his throat. He was irritated and impatient. But then he moved me onto my back and positioned himself between my legs. My fingers tangled in his hair. His lips left a trail of kisses along my jaw. His skin was warm, and I wanted the kid to hurry the hell up and leave. But this was nice too. Bucky’s hand slipped beneath me and pulled my body roughly against his. I felt the sutures catch on my shirt.

“Does it hurt?” I asked as his lips moved down to my collarbone.

“No,” he growled.

“Are you sure? And the stitches? What if they rip again?”

“Then you can put me back together.” His lips moved lower, and his hand slid out from under me. He tugged at the hem of my shirt.

“Don’t you think that would kill the mood? Just a little?” I whispered. His hand moved up, taking the shirt with it.

“No,” he said flatly.

“Bucky—you do realize you haven’t even kissed me, right?”

“I’m working on it.”

“We just woke up. Don’t you think we should at least—brush our teeth or something?” He paused in his efforts to get my shirt up and glanced at me.

“Is that really what you want to do right now?”

“Well—no.”

“Do you want me to stop?”

“Absolutely not.”

“Then don’t worry about it.”

The shirt went up higher, and his lips went lower. Right to the center of my chest. I had my hands on his shoulders, and I was having a hard time controlling my breathing. I heard the front door close right as his lips met my stomach. And once he was sure Graham was gone, he pulled me up and yanked the shirt right up over my head.

His lips crashed against mine, and he knocked me back onto the pillows. Then his lips were on the crook of my neck again. His hand slid down my body and gripped the edge of my sweatpants. He sat up to pull them down, lifting my hips off the bed to yank them off with eager force.

But he was still wearing the sweatpants I’d given him. So I sat up and moved onto my knees. I slipped my hands into them as I kissed him along the jaw. I pushed forward, moving him down onto his back as I pulled them down. But he was faster than me and apparently more impatient. He had them off in a flash, and then I came to rest on top of him.

“I remember,” he told me as I leaned on my hands to hover over him. He tucked my hair behind my ear and gently brushed my cheek with his fingers. “I remember you like this.” My heart felt full and heavy. I didn’t want to be patient anymore either. I leaned down to kiss him, but before I could go any farther, he gripped my hips and had me flat on my back in half a second. He kissed my chest, and one hand pressed my thigh flat against the mattress. “I wasn’t done.”

“I was trying to avoid ripping out your stitches,” I told him. But I wasn’t going to complain about my new position either. His lips were moving down my stomach, and my breath caught in my throat as he pulled me around and climbed off the bed.

“I’m not worried about it,” he told me, positioning my hips right at the edge.

I wasn’t anymore either. His breath was hot on my skin, and every so often, he would gently bite me. Not hard, but enough to make my fingers grip the sheets. His lips found my inner thigh, moving quickly over my skin to the center of me.

And then I no longer cared about stitches or Hydra or anything else. Mostly because I wasn’t incapable of thinking about anything other than what he was doing with his tongue. My fingers gripped his hair, and I arched my back. The first time we’d spent the night together, he’d seemed cautious of every noise. He checked in with me frequently just to make sure I wasn’t in any pain. But during the second time around, he’d gotten more comfortable. Only occasionally asking for reassurance instead of constantly. Now he didn’t bother to ask at all. And maybe it was because I had a handful of his hair and was desperately trying to get closer to him.

He didn’t stop until my mind was so far gone it felt like a blank emptiness. I was just on the verge of completely coming apart when he pulled back. He motioned for me to reposition myself on the bed. So I moved back to the pillows. Then he climbed onto me, parted my legs with his warm, callused hands…

And winced.

“Buck?” I whispered, still breathing hard. He was hovering over me but had gone completely still. His eyes were pinched shut. He didn’t look the least bit comfortable.

“I’m fine,” he said, but he didn’t move.

“Just roll over. Please?”

He finally, and reluctantly, did as I asked and moved onto the bed at my side. I climbed onto him but paused with both hands on either side of his head. I’d been so caught up in the moment that I hadn’t even taken the time to notice what he looked like so early in the morning. Alive and free. Unshaven, but his hair was clean. He was messy but in a healthy sort of way. Eyes that were no longer dark and tired. His brown hair had fallen in his face and was only tangled from sleep. Sunlight dappled through the windows and hit his eyes at just the right angle to make them pop with color and life. Even covered in stitches and bruises and scars, he was beautiful.

I didn’t want to forget him like that, and I hoped he was truly as alive and content as he looked. I pressed my forehead against his, just wanting to savor the moment. But then I slid my hand down his chest and between us to grip him. His breathing went shallow, and I lifted my head, just slightly, so I could see his face when we came together. He was studying me with vibrantly blue eyes. No longer cold and threatening and lost, but warm and inviting and eager.

“Brown,” he said.

“What?”

“You were right. Your eyes look brown in the sunlight. They’re beautiful.”

Then I couldn’t stop myself from kissing him. His metal hand came to rest on my hip, and he pulled me down onto him. The other hand moved into my hair, pulling me against his mouth. I finally understood what the kid meant by how he looked at me. I couldn’t recall a single time in my life when someone looked at me that way. Or made me feel beautiful just by noticing the color of my eyes. More than that, I couldn’t remember ever feeling the way I did now.

I couldn’t say for sure that it was love, romantic or otherwise. But I really hoped it was. Even if it was just the start of it. Because I didn’t want to love anyone else. And I didn’t think anyone could ever make me feel the way he was at that moment.