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#clothes and towels and random gear bits basically shoved in there
cake-writes · 5 years
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In Your Atmosphere (Part Three)
Pairings: Steve x Reader & platonic Bucky x Reader (mostly)
Warnings: PTSD / Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Anxiety Disorder, Panic Attacks, Mental Health Issues, Survivor Guilt, Eventual Smut 18+
Summary: The first time you met Steve Rogers, he kissed the hell out of you. It wasn’t the first time he met you.
Part Two / Master List
As the sun disappeared under the horizon, the compound became busier, almost bustling with activity as more and more people returned from their missions. Not that you noticed. After your brutal training session with Steve, you'd left him behind to finish his training and took another long, hot shower and then a nap, having been thoroughly and completely wiped out by the exercise. At first, you’d changed back into your casual clothes with the intention of exploring more of the compound, but once you went to rest your eyes for a minute you were out like a light.
The sounds of a heated argument followed by the slamming of a door were what woke you from your slumber. You couldn’t hear a lick of what had been said, but you ventured out into the hallway to investigate, yawning loudly. Your muscles were already singing from overuse – not even the hot shower had helped – and you’d feel it even worse tomorrow for sure.
The long hallway was dimly-lit, giving you the impression that it was much later than it actually was; a quick check of your phone indicated that it was a little after eight o’clock at night.
During your tour earlier in the day, you'd learned that this entire side of the building was residential, including the three floors above and the two below yours. It was evident that other people lived on your floor, the third floor, but you hadn’t yet figured out who your neighbours were. Your bedroom was in the corner, furthest from the stairs, and as you made your way toward them, you assumed that you probably wouldn't be finding out tonight. The other doors were closed, and it was far too quiet for your liking.
Your stomach growled and you gave up on your investigation to make your way to the kitchen. Considering everyone who lived here were all basically roommates, there were bound to be arguments. You knew from experience that it was hard to live with other people sometimes, and the Avengers were people, too.
The kitchen was deserted, and the dishwasher was running. It looked like everyone may have already eaten dinner. How did that even work, anyway? Did they share meals at the kitchen table, or did they eat separately? Who bought the groceries? Were they for communal use? At the very least you hoped that the answer to the last question was ‘yes,’ because you were starving.
Not wanting to accidentally steal someone else’s food, you took a mandarin orange from the fruit bowl on the table, in hopes that it would stave off your hunger while you tried to figure out what else you could eat without imposing. You took a seat at the counter and peeled the fruit as you scrolled through your Insta feed, liking a couple of Wanda’s posts. She was really excited about an upcoming high-end makeup release based on the female Avengers, herself included. She even had her own eyeshadow palette which you made a mental note to buy.
Just as you started to research the other palettes, a female voice piped up from the other side of the kitchen island. “Hey, you’re up.”
You jumped, slamming your knee on the counter in the process.
“God damn it, Nat,” you hissed, rubbing your bruising knee. “I hate it when you do that shit.”
She just grinned at you and took a seat at the counter beside you, peering at your phone. “Oh yeah, those are coming out next week. You’d better buy mine.”
“You know I will,” you told her, popping a piece of fruit into your mouth. Not that you knew how to use it properly, the makeup, but you liked to try anyway.
Natasha took a piece of your orange for herself without asking, but that was only because you’d shared plenty of meals before, namely when the two of you went drinking. It didn’t bother you in the least. “How are you doing?”
“I’m fine.” You knew what she was asking, about how you were coping with what had happened earlier. At her skeptical look, you rolled your eyes. “We did some burpees and talked it out.”
Natasha snorted.
You frowned at her. “What? Exercise calms me down. You know that.”
You purposely didn’t mention the fact that you and Steve had trained together for over an hour, or that the sexual tension between the two of you had been so thick you could’ve cut it with a knife. It was unfortunate that your face heated at the memory, because Natasha didn’t fail to notice if the sly look on her face was any indication. “Is that what it does, now?”
“Yes,” you said exasperatedly, shoving the rest of the orange into your mouth.
She laughed again. “Burpees. Christ. You’re perfect for each other.”
You finished chewing and swallowed the fruit. “Can you not?"
She shot you another teasing look, but as per your request she changed the subject. “Have you had dinner?”
“No, I was going to ask. Is everything shared, or…?”
“Yeah,” she affirmed. “Pretty much. If you buy something for yourself, though, just write your name on it before you put it in the fridge. Otherwise someone will get into it.”
As if on cue, Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, the Winter Soldier, walked in for a post-workout snack – at least that’s what you assumed from the gym towel slung over his shoulders. There were two large refrigerators in the room, one by the entryway and one near you, behind the kitchen island. He went for the former, from which he pulled out a random blue container and cracked the lid to peer inside.
“Like I said,” Natasha said, eyeing him warily, “Someone.”
You tried and failed to stifle a laugh. From what you understood, Sergeant Barnes had been through hell and back, so you couldn't really blame him. He was probably still adjusting to not being a human science experiment. That was probably a little more important than remembering to check a container for names.
“I only take Nat’s food,” he commented dryly, not even bothering to look over at the two of you as he popped the container into the microwave. “She likes to eat healthy. So do I. Your body’s a temple ‘n all that.”
You raised an eyebrow and glanced over at her for confirmation. She just shrugged. Well, you couldn't really blame him for that, either.
After the microwave started up, he leaned on the counter and finally spared a glance at you. Then he greeted you casually, “Oh, hey, Tang. Been awhile.”
Your brows furrowed in confusion. “What?”
That was when his eyes widened for a split second, and you could almost see the gears turning in his head as he realized what he’d said - not that you had any idea what that was, exactly.
“Sorry,” he covered quickly, “You, uh, look like someone I used to know.” As if that was a good enough explanation, he came over and held out his right hand, the flesh one, for a handshake. “Call me Bucky.”
“Nice to meet you,” you said politely, shaking his hand as you offered him your name.
Then he brought your hand to his lips, and pressed a kiss to the back of it with a crooked smile.  “Good to meet you, too, gorgeous.”
Maybe it was because your brain was already fried from the day’s earlier events, but you just gaped at him. That made twice in one day you’d been hit on, and by two Avengers, no less. Bucky was plenty handsome, of course: he had that sort of ‘bad boy’ appeal, with a bit of scruff on his face and a head of unruly brown hair. It suited him, but you couldn’t help but wonder how often it got in the way during fights. You liked to have yours pulled back out of the way, or cut short, depending on the mission.
The microwave beeped, then, signalling that his food was ready, and he released your hand to go retrieve it.
“I think you broke her,” Nat remarked.
“Nat,” you huffed, “You need to stop.”
You definitely weren’t used to this kind of attention. While in the past you’d been on missions where your role was that of a seductress, you’d never actually had that sort of appeal in your regular life. Today was a freak occurrence.
Bucky just laughed and, with his container and a fork in hand, he made his exit. He called over his shoulder on his way out, “See you around, sweetheart.”
---
What was meant to be a quick meal turned into a spontaneous girls’ night, with wine and cheese and stupid, terrible spy movies. That had always been a favourite for you and Natasha, because they were so hilariously inaccurate and the two of you loved to rip them apart. This one in particular was worse than most, but then again, you’d already polished off a bottle of wine each and were well into a third.
It felt so, so good to catch up with her. You hadn’t had a chance to over the last few months, considering how busy she’d been with the Avengers and how hard you’d been working to dig into SHIELD’s corruption. Every now and then, you did a welfare check on her to ensure that she was still alive, and of course she was. You had no doubt that she checked up on you every now and again, too.
Your peals of laughter spilled out of the living room as Natasha did a particularly awful impression of the female lead, who seemed to have no common sense whatsoever.
Sadly, your fun was rudely interrupted.
“It’s three in the morning, ladies. I can hear you all the way…”
Steve’s reprimand trailed off as he caught sight of you, and it was like his irritation seemed to just melt away. You were sitting cross-legged on the sofa, looking pretty as a picture with a blanket thrown over your lap, face flushed from the alcohol. He’d been able to hear all the excitement from his room upstairs, but he didn’t really put two and two together until he saw you. It wasn’t that he didn’t recognize your voice; it just caught him off-guard. It had been a long, long time since he'd seen you smile, and even longer since he'd heard you laugh.
You glanced over at Natasha, brows raised. “Uh oh,” you managed to say in between giggles, “We’re in trouble, now.”
“Busted,” she agreed with a grin, before she let out a sigh. “I guess it is getting late, though. Got an early mission.”
As Natasha got to her feet, Steve eyed the coffee table and spotted three bottles of wine, two of which were empty and the third, nearly so. Beside them were two wine glasses, a small platter of cheese, crackers, and grapes, as well as a half-eaten block of chocolate. Judging by the haphazard way the chocolate bar had been opened, with the foil ripped and crumpled in such a strange way, he guessed that it was yours.
“Aw, but the movie isn’t over,” you protested, reaching over to break off a piece of chocolate.
He was right.
“Sorry,” she told you apologetically, taking one last cube of cheese for the road. “Night, guys.”  
With one final pout, you said, “Bye, Nat.”
Steve didn’t miss the sly look Natasha shot him as she left the room, and his jaw tensed. He wasn’t going to live down the day's earlier events for a while.
“There’s still plenty of cheese left,” you called out to him, not wanting it to go to waste. “And wine, if you like that sort of thing.”
“What are you watching?” he asked you, slowly coming to stand beside the sofa.
“It’s called Hitler’s Mistress.” At Steve’s unimpressed look, you added, “His girlfriend is an American spy, except she’s really bad at it. Like, in real life he probably would have figured it out in the first two minutes of meeting her, bad.”
“That sounds…” he paused, wrinkling his nose as he tried to think of a nice way to word it, “not that great.”
“Oh, it’s hilarious,” you told him matter-of-factly. “It was supposed to be a love story, but it’s terrible. Watch with me?”
Considering his history, he didn’t particularly want to watch a movie about Hitler, but you really seemed to be enjoying it and he was awake, now. So, taking your word for it, he settled into the nearby armchair. “Sure.”
You were a bit disappointed that he didn’t next to you on the sofa like Natasha had, but that was fine. It was probably better that you didn’t sit together, considering, well, everything.
What you didn't know was that Steve had purposely not sat there for exactly that reason. He wanted to respect your boundaries, for one, and for two, he honestly didn’t trust himself around you, not after the stunt he'd pulled. In the end, though, he was glad that he stayed. The movie was absolutely terrible, and he got a kick out of it just as much as you did. Hitler was portrayed in a negative light, which was great, and it was even better that his ‘girlfriend,’ the spy, was so bad at her job and he still couldn’t figure it out. While Steve appreciated that, what he liked more was spending time with you.
Unfortunately, you were sauced. You put on pretty good front so as not to appear drunk, but tonight it wasn’t intentional; it had just become second nature to you now due to your job. And, quite the opposite, not once did Steve touch the alcohol. You got the impression that he preferred beer or spirits.
As the full extent of your inebriation started to set in, you found yourself staring less at the movie and more at him. God, he was flawless and so, so sexy even when he wasn’t trying to be. He was literally just sitting there, but all you wanted to do was get up, go over, and mount him like a stallion. Every now and then, Steve leaned over to take a piece of cheese or a grape - a simple movement, really - and when he licked his fingers, it lit a fire within you that just wouldn’t quit.
It didn’t take long for you to polish off the rest of the wine. There wasn’t much of it left, anyway, and you didn’t want it to go down the drain. At least, that’s what you told yourself. The real reason was because your nerves were shot.
That was a mistake.
The credits started to roll sooner than you would have liked. It was about four o’clock, now, per the clock on your phone. Even though you knew how late it was, there was just something about him that made you want to stay with him, spend time with him… maybe even sleep with him. No, that was definitely just the alcohol. With a heavy sigh, you unsteadily got to your feet and stretched, doing your best to ignore the growing heat between your legs, the lingering soreness in your muscles, and the fact that you’d had far too much to drink.
“You alright?”
When you turned your head to look at Steve, you swayed a little. “Peachy keen.”
You weren’t. You’d drank quite a bit, and he knew it, judging by the amused expression on his face as he pulled himself up out of the armchair. God, with even that simple action you could see his muscles flex and strain under his shirt. He wasn’t even doing it on purpose, which made it about ten times worse.
“Here." He held out his hand to you. “I’ll help you up to your room.”
How chivalrous. You wanted to swoon.
“But the mess—?”
Steve shook his head. “I’ll take care of it, doll. Come on.”
Your face heated at the casual address, and even more so when you took his hand, your skin tingling at the warmth of his touch. Still, you felt guilty letting him clean up after you, but you were in no state to try and collect the leftover plates and glasses without dropping them. Your words slurred just a little as you apologized, “I'm sorry for the trouble. It’s been awhile since I’ve seen Nat, and…”
“Don’t worry about it,” he reassured you as he eased you down the hallway. “Everyone needs to let loose once in a while.”
“Do you?” you asked him.
He pondered that question for a moment, before he answered, “Not as much as I should.”
“Well, that’s no good,” you said with a frown. “Have a drink with me next time.”
Next time. The phrase warmed his heart, but he got the feeling that it was just the alcohol talking. “Next time?”
You didn’t notice what you said until he mentioned it, and then you found yourself flustered, drunkenly babbling, “I shouldn’t have assumed– I mean, I’m a mess so I totally understand if you don’t want to—”
Steve said your name and stopped walking, giving your hand a gentle tug to stop you, too. "Hey," he said as you spun around to face him, swaying slightly. “I’m kidding. That sounds great.”
The halls, unlike the living room, were still dimly lit, and with the television switched off, it was quiet - almost unnervingly so. The only thing you could hear was the sound of your racing heartbeat in your ears as you looked up into his kind blue eyes, feeling absolutely minuscule in front of him. He was so tall, a fact you’d never fully realized until now. You loved it.
Despite your inebriated state, you didn’t miss the way Steve’s eyes flickered down to your lips. 
You needed to say something, anything, to break this tension, otherwise you’d do something you would absolutely regret in the morning. You’d always prided yourself in your professionalism: you weren’t the type to sleep with a coworker, and you didn’t plan to start today despite how incredibly tempting the prospect was. 
That thought sobered you up a little.
“Do you—” you began, throat dry, “Do you have a mission in the morning, too?”
Your sudden question brought him back to reality. “Oh, yeah. With Romanoff.”
You grimaced and gently released his hand, not wanting to take up any more of his time. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to keep you up so late.”
“I think I’m old enough to make my own decisions,” he teased, “being 96 and all.”
Right. Of course. You knew his backstory, but having him come right out and tell you something like that came as a bit of a shock. Here you were, in your mid-twenties, being attracted to someone who'd been born nearly a full century prior. How stupid of you to assume that you'd be able to relate to him, someone who had grown up during the Great Depression. There was literally nothing in common between the two of you, no foundation upon which to even build a friendship, let alone a relationship. You felt like a moron.  
Well, you certainly swooned, but it wasn’t because of his chivalry.
“Whoa, hey.” Steve caught you easily as you fell, with one arm around your lower back. “Do you want to sit down?”
Your fingers embedded themselves loosely in his shirt as a flush of shame crawled up your neck. God, you were an idiot. Even now, you loved how strong his chest felt under your fingertips, the way he held you so securely, his warmth—
Your eyes fluttered shut, then, and your head lulled back as your consciousness began to fade. You could vaguely feel him pull you closer, and when he said your nickname again, you thought that his voice sounded so far away. It barely registered when he hooked his other arm under your knees to lift you up; instead, for a brief moment, it felt like you were floating.
That was the last thing you remembered.
---
Tags: @jennmurawski13, @patzammit
Part Four
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windstrider2017 · 3 years
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I'm watching a random gear bag video and, to quote The Breakfast Club: why do you have so much shit in your bag???
Apparently in aftg the amount of cool new stuff Neil got when he came to Palmetto was not an exaggeration. Holy crap
#just a *little* bit hypocritical of me tbh#bc i have a LOT of shit in my bag#not custom stuff from a school but just. lots of shit lmao#my workout bag is always kind of a mess#clothes and towels and random gear bits basically shoved in there#it's sort of organized but still kind of a mess bc there's a bunch of random stuff#not as random as this guy's tho. he still has this knee brace he had to wear ages ago and just. hasn't bothered to take out of the bag#and still carries around w him. i have mine too but i forgot where i put it#my room and my workout bags are basically organized chaos. i know where everything goes and have a specific place for everything#but to anybody else it probably looks like borderline messy dumping ground 😂#which actually works in my favor bc a thief or a snoop would probably have little to no clue where to look for a thing#cause there's just shit stuffed wherever it fits and wherever i kinda remember it#and there's a lot of random trash and junk mixed in#my closet is literally like. stuffed to the max and borderline w stuff falling out of it#i hope my apartment will be cleaner when i move in! a bit messy is fine but this is just bc i have no choice#there's rly nowhere to put this stuff for now so it just goes where it fits and won't fall over in a giant crap-alanche#i haven't even unpacked a lot of my shit from 2020 emergency move-out. that'll be fun /s#i have no clue what's even in some of those bins and i know for a fact there's just random stuff shoved haphazardly in there.#including trash. bc i was in a hurry and just had to get everything out of the room and put it wherever it would fit and not get broken#the mess is extra funny to me bc on one hand there's my neat little stacks of books and clothes that have to be Just So#and the clothes are all folded and stacked in a particular order and all neat. books in order. then you open the closet or a drawer or smth#and boom! mess
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