Angsty smut ahoy!

Never Have I Ever

"Never have I ever…fucked somebody with a strap-on."

Of course it's Clint's suggestion. Darcy glances around the group curled up on the sofas, expecting everyone's beers to remain firmly on the table. Instead, Natasha raises her bottle to her mouth with a coolly raised eyebrow.

Maria follows suit.

"Holy fuck," Clint whispers, and everyone bursts into giggles. The two women exchange a high five.

"Wait, I have a question," Tony butts in, his mouth only just able to keep up with his thoughts. "Does this mean you each own a strap-on? Who was the 'somebody'? Male or female? Both?"

Nat interrupts the barrage of questions. "Wait your turn."

"Was it each other?" he persists.

"Alright, you've forfeited your next go," Maria decides, and ignores Tony's protests. "Jane?"

Jane chews at her lip thoughtfully. They've already covered the basics: giving oral sex, threesomes, anal, doing it al fresco—and the strap-on suggestion was the beginning of scraping the barrel. Darcy's taken relatively few drinks, learned that Vision and Wanda's sex life is way kinkier than she needed to know, and even the good captain has outpaced her.

"What? I toured with showgirls for months. They're relentless!"

"Uh…" Jane muses. "I have never received oral sex?" Everyone grumbles and takes a sip. Well, everyone except Darcy.

They all turn to stare at her.

"Did you not hear her, Darce?" Nat asks.

"No, I heard," she says, fiddling with the label on her bottle, and pretending not to notice the incredulous looks they're all exchanging. This is why she hates games like this: people get so judgey about stuff. She's only here to make sure Jane doesn't wander off and attempt drunk!Science.

Oh, and because she was meant to be hanging out with Bucky tonight, before team drinking games made their way onto the agenda. Bucky, who isn't even affected by alcohol but went along with the games. Now, when she glances up at him, his brow is furrowed, and he's staring at her very intently. But Bucky's expressions are always inscrutable to her, so she chalks it up to the same disbelief as anyone else.

"Are you saying no one's ever gone down on you?" Jane asks with something faintly resembling horror. Darcy tears her gaze away from Bucky, feeling her cheeks heat up, and takes a swig of beer while she nods.

"Wait, is that drink a belated admission?" Tony chirps up. "Because—" Nat clamps a hand over his mouth before he can say anything else.

"What is wrong with people?" Jane continues. "Guys have let you go down on them but not reciprocated? I'm telling Thor, he'll track them down and—"

"Janie, no—"

"Some people have no manners," Maria says. "You gotta demand what you want or they'll take advantage."

"Never have I ever," Steve loudly interrupts, "got caught with my hands down my pants."

Darcy throws him a grateful look for moving the discussion along. There are a few drinkers, including Bucky, who still appears to be staring in Darcy's direction. She tries her best to ignore his scrutiny, and quietly ducks out for a refill of beer. Only, instead of heading to the bar area, she slips back to her quarters.

That was enough humiliation for one night.

The next evening, she's fussing with her hair in the bathroom mirror, regretting the new conditioner which leaves her curls fluffier than she'd like. The fluff looks a hell of a lot like frizz, despite how soft it is, but it's too late to do anything now. She's meant to be meeting Bucky in the cinema room in ten minutes, to watch one of the movies from his list, and she doesn't know why she's bothering because Bucky is the last person to notice her hair.

That's a lie. She does know. She wants him to notice.

She's become Bucky's go-to companion for anything pop culture related—TV shows, music, movies and even food, with their recent forays out to try cuisines he's never had before—because she's more useful than Steve, and less impatient with him than most of the team. She's fine with filling the silence for the both of them when he's at his most monosyllabic. Steve joined them at the beginning, before dropping out more and more often, so it's been just the two of them for a while. And so far, Bucky hasn't noticed her spiraling crush.

She intends to keep it that way, though she knows tonight she'll struggle to control her mortification over him knowing more about her sexual history than she ever wanted him to know.

There's a knock at the door, interrupting her fidgeting. She frowns up at the ceiling. "Friday, who is that?" Darcy's never sure why she directs her interactions with the AI upwards, but it's a habit she struggles to break.

"Sergeant Barnes," the AI replies, and Darcy's frown deepens. They always meet at their destination, so him coming here can't be good news. He's probably canceling tonight—figured out from her blushes and coy glances last night that she likes him more than she should, or realized that he probably needs someone with a little more 'life experience' to guide her through the 21st century.

Or, her brain responds, he's got to work and is polite enough to cancel in person.

"Alright, Friday, let him in."

She exits the bathroom just as Bucky strolls into her living room. He's dressed as casually as always, hair pulled back in a messy attempt at a ponytail, but the way he wears a t-shirt and a pair of jeans is enough to make most male models weep. The sleeve of the shirt cuts off mid-bicep, and it strains to cover even that much. She drags her gaze away from the curves of his arm to his face, which is as enigmatic as ever.

"Change of plans?" she asks, waiting for him to explain his presence. He's definitely not suited up for a mission.

"Something like that," he mutters. Then he crosses the room in two strides, caging her against the bathroom door with his arms, and the breath leaves her body in one swoop.

She stares up at him with wide eyes, wondering briefly if someone's managed to trigger the Soldier, but the storm in his eyes suggests otherwise. She's never been this close to him before, not even when they've sprawled out on the same sofa, and just wants to press herself even closer, to see if all the muscle feels like she always imagined it would.

Whatever he reads in her face in that split-second seems to persuade him to continue, because he bends his head and kisses her.

It's a hot kiss, in every sense, and because her mouth fell open when he crowded her, he takes advantage to immediately stroke his tongue against hers. She moans and balls her fists into the front of his t-shirt, momentarily forgetting that he isn't supposed to know she feels. Except he's kissing her so expertly, with a strong, slow rhythm, that she struggles to summon any resistance.

When he pulls away, she's left panting under his scrutiny.

"What was that?" she asks, her voice breathier than she'd like, when it seems he has no intention of breaking the silence.

"Showing you how good I am with my mouth."

She's pretty sure she whimpers, but he's kissing her again before she can ask further questions. Darcy never had any doubts that he'd be good with his mouth. She's spent too much time thinking about his pouty mouth and what he could do with it, but he didn't need to actually turn up and offer any proof.

His lips move from hers to her jawline, and somehow he manages to locate a weakspot she didn't know about, because she has to increase her grip on his chest to keep herself upright. His beard tickles and scrapes against the sensitive skin of her neck, and she definitely whimpers this time.

"Why d-do you need to…?" she tries to ask, as he works his way down her throat.

"Because I'm about to make up for all the men who left you high and dry."

It's a good thing he chooses that moment to sweep her off her feet—literally, swooping her up into a bridal carry—because her knees are no longer functional. Instead, he carries her across the room and to her sofa, where he sets her down and drops to his knees. With his height, though, it means his face is still level with hers.

This time when he kisses her, she digs her nails into the cushions, while he works his way between her legs, his hips spreading them until they're flush with her own. She knows what he intends, and she also knows that if she called a halt to this, he'd obey her, no question.

But she really, really doesn't want to do that.

Instead, when he tugs the neckline of her shirt down so he can get a mouthful of breast, she arches up to give him better access, letting her head fall back. His other hand is at her waist, snaking under the fabric of her shirt to curl around her hip. He sucks through the fabric of her bra, before pulling that away with his teeth, and she's aware of cool metal cupping the other side, thumb stroking over and mirroring what his tongue is doing. She's always found this part of foreplay a little perfunctory, more for the guy's benefit than her own, but for the first time ever Darcy's appreciating a man going to town on her chest.

It's only when he unzips her jeans and reaches his hand inside, fingers gently cupping her, that reality begins to set in. He's not just going to touch her—holy shit his thumb is right where she wants it to be—but he's going to put his face down there. He's going to look at her, completely exposed, and she is not prepared for this, at all. There are reasons she's never demanded this, has always been too reticent to broach the idea, and doesn't want him to feel obliged to do it just because no one else ever did.

She opens her eyes, braces to say something, but the words are stolen by the look on his face. He's all dark eyes, swollen lips, and there's even a flush on his cheeks. He looks as wrecked by this as she feels. So when he tugs the jeans over her hips, she forgets to protest, at least until he's settling between her legs again.

"You don't have to do that," she mutters, trying to keep her knees together. He doesn't try to push them apart, just looks at her with bemusement.

"I want to," he replies, and his voice has gone ridiculously low and gravelly. He licks his lips and she follows the movement with her eyes, convinced she may actually spontaneously combust.

"No, you don't. Men never actually want to—"

The look he shoots her shuts her up: a flash of anger—not anger at her, she thinks—and frustration. "Darcy, believe me when I say, I am looking forward to this."

She doesn't really have an answer for that, letting him spread her legs until they rest on his shoulders. She has to look away, too embarrassed to watch his reaction, even as the cool fingers of his metal hand spread her open to him. She can feel his breath on her skin, so close, but he doesn't do anything. Not yet.

"Look at me," he commands, and she screws her eyes shut instead. "Darcy," he warns, with more than hint of impatience, and a quick swipe of his tongue at the crease of her thigh. A threat: there, that's all you're getting until you do as you're told.

She glances down, ready to look away again, and he rewards her by placing a gentle kiss on her clit.

It's not much, but it's also everything.

"I'm going to need you to tell me what feels good," he says, and she gives him a shaky nod in response. Her nails are digging into the cushions so hard she knows they are violent white, and could snap at any time. She holds her breath, waiting for whatever comes next, and his is hot against her.

He licks his lips once more, than dives in—full, wet mouth falling upon her wetter flesh, tasting her like he's a starving man. Now, she can't tear her gaze away from him, not from the flashes of tongue he graces her with, or the way his face glistens when he pulls away to nuzzle at her inner thigh. His beard scratches her, and she knows tomorrow she will bear the prickling marks, but for now it is a welcome contrast to the soft, pliant movement of his mouth.

He begins slow, experimenting, and while she struggles to actually find the words to tell him if something is merely nice as opposed to toe-curling, it must be easy to read in her little gasps and stuttering movements. He moans too as he works her over, and the whole thing sounds obscene, louder than she ever expected it to. Not the harsh smack of skin on skin that sex sometimes created, but greedy, wet noises. She should be mortified, but Bucky appears to be enjoying himself more than she thought possible.

So much that she hears the metallic slide of his zipper, and he briefly pulls away to lick the palm of his flesh hand, which disappears between his own thighs. She leans up on her elbows to get a glimpse of that hand curling around a very thick—thicker than she'd anticipated, in her illicit fantasies—cock, before his face blocks the view again.

Doesn't matter. It's seared in her mind's eye, and the visual helps her relax into efforts. He's definitely, definitely enjoying himself, and it strips the veil of her self-consciousness away.

She melts into the sofa cushions, hips bucking up towards his mouth when he does something she likes, and if even she can't quite summon the ability to speak to him, she becomes more vocal in other ways. The wicked little grin he offers up to her suggests he knows that she's surrendered to him.

Now he's confident in what she likes best, he sticks to that, building up a rhythm that begins to crescendo—or maybe that's the heartbeat in her ears. He's relentless, and if she had control over her thoughts, maybe she'd be wondering about how he's breathing, or how he hasn't got cramp yet, but he's a supersoldier and he's not giving her space to think. She feels a scream building and she has never, ever screamed during sex, never understood why anyone would other than mimicking what they'd seen in porn, but now it's forming, not just in her throat but all the way down her body, like her voice is directly connected to where his mouth is latched to her body.

Her spine bows, her fingers scrabble for something more substantial to dig into than chenille, and sounds come out of her throat that she'd never known she was capable of: not a scream, not a cry, but a wordless entreaty, the embodiment of the heat and liquid pleasure washing over her.

She has to wrench his head away, digging fingers into his hair to gain get him to move, because it's become too, too much, and the smile he flashes this time is wolfish, his tongue running over bared teeth and shining chin. She expects that when he rocks back on his haunches, he will be ready for more, but instead his hand and forearm are coated in the evidence of his own orgasm.

"Oh," she murmurs, glancing at him with fresh uncertainty.

"I didn't come here for that." He stands, dips his head as if he's going to kiss her, but she shifts away and he doesn't push. Instead, he tucks himself back into his heans, padding across to her bathroom. "I'll meet you at the movie room in twenty minutes?"

"What?" she asks, brain still barely forming a thread between one thought and the next. She's sprawled on her sofa, naked from the waist down, and he still wants to go watch a film?

"Twenty minutes, time to clean up," he replies, emerging with washed hands and his face splashed clean too. "Stevie says Pearl Harbor is a travesty I have to witness myself."

"O-okay." Then he's gone, and she spends ten minutes wondering what the hell just happened.

Movie night is awkward, and it's all on Darcy's part. Bucky leaves her space to sit next to him, but she's not sure how close he wants her to be. She curls up, close but not touching, and if he was expecting more he doesn't mention it. She's too aware of his presence to concentrate on the film, and there's nothing she can think of to say that won't be awkward as hell. Bucky seems relaxed and doesn't push for conversation, but he'll always choose silence if given the option.

When the credits roll, he raises one eyebrow and shakes his head. "Stevie was right," is all he says, before rising and gracing her with a kiss on the forehead—one she doesn't have time to react to before he's gone.

It's a sleepless night.

He turns up in the labs at the end of her shift the next day, like he does so often. "Nepalese," he says when she throws a questioning look his way, and she tries to nod nonchalantly in response. Jane stares at her curiously when she almost knocks half the contents off her desk—she's been a klutz all day, but she can't bring herself to tell Jane what happened. Not in the middle of the labs, anyway, bright and sterile as they are—a confession like this deserves a softer atmosphere.

Instead, she follows Bucky to dinner. He does not take her hand, or offer her any more kisses, and in fact it's meal like any other. He expects her to lead the conversation, she knows he does, because she always does, so she babbles about how Tony pissed Jane off this morning. In the end, it's beginning to feel like she imagined the night before. Only the raw scrapes on her thighs offer any proof that this was more than her own fevered imagination.

He's away on a mission the next day, so she has dinner with Jane and Helen, but she still can't form the words to explain what happened, and now it's beginning to feel like a secret.

When she returns to her rooms, there is a note on her vanity, the blue cursive not what you would expect from an assassin but probably should expect from a man taught to write in the 1930s. It's a list, one which begins with "Receive oral sex" crossed out. The rest, she realizes when she scans through the other items, are the things she said she had not done during the drinking game, including several things which make her cheeks burn. The list ends with a note.

If there's anything you don't want to do, knock it off the list.

She's got questions. Lots of them, starting with did he really catalog all of her responses during a round of "Never Have I Ever"? Some, she's not even sure she can piece together, like why? What are they—is he trying to morph their friendship into something more, or should she draw the line in the sand? How much of a bad idea is this and should she really be contemplating this?

It's a terrible idea, she knows it is, but when the list includes wall sex, the devil on one shoulder knocks the angel clean off the other. Sex with Bucky is going to be incredible, of that there's no question. She might as well experience it.

She edits the list, though she's not sure where she's meant to leave it. She definitely doesn't have the skills to return the favor and break into his quarters. Instead, she leaves it on the vanity, knowing that he'll find it when he's ready.

He must find it quickly, because when she returns to her quarters the next evening, the door is slammed shut, and his hands grip her hips from behind.

"No threesomes?" he says into her hair, where his face is buried, one hand underneath the hem of her shirt and spanning her belly. "Nat will be disappointed."

She giggles—his jokes are rare, and she makes a point to reward every one— then gasps when his fingers trail lower.

The devil on her shoulder is absolutely right. Sex with him makes Darcy realize why people are always raving about it, even if when it's over—reverse cowgirl scribbled off the list—he only spares her a few moments lazing together before he's cleaning himself up again and disappearing.

"Duty calls," he says, as if it explains everything.

It's a pattern, one that's quick to establish. They fuck, frequently, and it's everything Darcy ever wanted. He even kisses her, and not just as a precursor to more, but like he enjoys doing it: long minutes of exploring what makes her sigh and shiver. He doesn't stick to the list either, instead surprising her with extended sessions of vanilla-but-toe-curling sex in her bed, and plenty of time with his face between her thighs. Yet he doesn't sleep over, and outside of her quarters it's friendly meals and silent movie nights. She's a mess, bouncing between a puddle of hormones and a lovelorn sap, and everyone's noticed, but because Bucky's so unaffected they don't piece the two together.

Or maybe it's because the idea of the two of them together is so ridiculous. Even if Steve has started assuming that she will know where Bucky is at any given moment, and asks what "they're" getting as a gift for Maria's birthday. Darcy's stumped for a response, and Steve appears concerned by her silence.

When Pepper quietly suggests that Darcy get her birth control re-assessed, because she's twitchy and flushed and ready to cry at anything, something gives. Not during that conversation, when Darcy nods absently and promises to schedule an appointment, but later, when Bucky has her stripped down in the shower.

"What are we?" she murmurs as his fingers curl into her, and squeezes her eyes shut as soon as the words escape. This is the worst time, the very worst, because she was this close to another orgasm—possibly her final orgasm with him.

His fingers still in their movement, and she can feel his stare. It's no good avoiding it, so she peels her eyes open. Gently extricates his hand, turns off the water, grabs a towel, and retreats to the bedroom. It feels like surer territory than the shower, though given how much time he's spent in here lately, it's still not the surest.

He follows her, but foregos the towel; apparently he's comfortable being naked. She can't blame him, even if it feels like he's cheating. "Darcy?"

"What are we?" she asks again, to his confusion, and God, how much clearer could she be? "Fuck buddies, friends with benefits—I don't know what they called it back then—"

"You're my girl." He seems very, very sure of that. On the other hand, she's not sure what that's meant to mean at all.

"This thing we've been doing—well, maybe we should have talked it out first. Because it always ends up going wrong, one person ends up deeper than they should, and I should have told you from the beginning that I was way deeper than it obviously looked—"

"Darcy," he says to cut her off, stepping up close and wrapping his hands around her shoulders. "You're my girl. Not a fuck buddy." He spits the last two words out like shards of glass.

"Am I? Because we don't do anything together except have sex. We might actually be on a rung below fuck buddy."

Now he's incredulous, and she suspects he wants to shake her, but instead he plants himself firm and stares her in the eye. "We go to dinner every night we're both available. We watch movies together. I let you talk me into going bowling, I joined in with drinking games so you could babysit Jane. I have taken you on no less than two picnics. I thought it was pretty clear we're dating."

It's her turn to be incredulous. "We do all that stuff as friends! Outside of this room, you don't even touch me."

He lets out a harsh bark of laughter, and rests his forehead against hers. For some reason, his expression has gone all tender. "Fuck, Stevie's right, I am rusty at this. Forget people expect me to put stuff into words." One hand shifts, brushing strands of wet hair away from her face. "Darcy, I was trying to let you set the pace. Thought you wanted to keep it quiet so nobody stuck their noses in our business, and honest, I don't want anyone knowing enough to use you against me. In fact, I thought I was pushing for more than you wanted to give me, and that's why you were keeping your distance. But if you want to hold hands, cuddle up to me when we watch things, all that sappy stuff—at least in the facility—then I'm more than ready to."

"You won't even spend the night." She's aware this last accusation, delivered quietly, makes her sound like a petulant child, but it's the one which hurts the most. Because no one can see him here, so what does it matter?

"Sweetheart, I'm no good at night, not enough to trust myself around you. Not yet. But I'm working on it." He kisses her, soft and sweet. "And if you think you're in this deeper than I am, you've been paying less attention than it seems."

She gapes up at him—he may have said more words in the last few minutes than he's ever said before, and what words they are—and he keeps kissing her, barely-there brushes of his lips and tongue, until she's pliant in his arms. There's a lump in her throat, and she's dimly aware that of the gauzy haze of impending joy pressing in on her from all sides.

"You are my girl, right?" he whispers into her ear, one set of fingers tip-toeing down her bare spine, and she nods, pressing herself up against him. She needs his weight to anchor herself.

"I'm your girl," she echoes, and she still doesn't believe it until she's said the words. But when she has, she has to catch her lower lip in her teeth to stop a smile wide enough to hurt her cheeks.

He's smiling too, not out of lust or grim humor. "Good. How about we continue this in the shower?" He smile turns teasing. "I think this whole mess proves you still need to learn to ask for what you want…"