Elevated

Nora stayed on Bucky’s couch for a long time. It had been late afternoon when she lay down and fell asleep and edged into evening while Tony hassled her and Bruce showed up to hug her and drag Tony away. Then Clint and Darcy turned up with Luna, Sam hot on their heels. He knocked, so maybe he’d learned something.

Clint carried a bag with food for Luna, some clothes she really hoped Darcy had picked, as well as her toothbrush and spare glasses. It was nice to be able to see properly again. Darcy was extremely apologetic about Nora being kidnapped which she didn’t really think was warranted. She would’ve preferred it happen to someone else, but not to Darcy. That would’ve been awful too. Bucky sat by her feet the whole time, silent, petting Luna where she lay mostly on top of Nora’s legs.

“Seriously though,” Darcy began, switching topics easily to something she thought might be easier than a kidnapping, “How did you afford that apartment? Did you win the lottery? The bathtub in there is ridiculous.”

Sam shot her an interested look, “Your place is that nice?”

“It’s alright. No to the lottery.” Nora answered, shrugging awkwardly.

“She’s being weird,” Darcy said, “The place is insane.”

“It’s just an apartment,” Nora mumbled. She could concede that she was pretty weird about her place. It was a whole thing.

Clint looked at her. He’d mostly been looking at Darcy’s back where she sat at the coffee table in front of him. Nora figured she was going to have to ask Darcy point blank what the grudge against Clint was about if only to let him know if things were hopeless. “Probably ought to let Tony install some extra security.”

Nora made an annoyed sound in response. Tony had already harassed her about her building’s security. She didn’t really know how she was expected to do anything about it so finally she’d told him to stuff it and go away. He hadn’t, but at least she tried.

“You’re not going back there tonight?” Sam asked from the kitchen. He’d opened the fridge like he expected to find something in it and said, “Seriously? Not even ketchup packets?” when he didn’t.

“No.” Bucky answered immediately for her. It was possible he was answering the second question, but Nora was positive he was answering the first.

Darcy grinned at her. Clint looked over her head at Sam, whose expression she couldn’t see, with both eyebrows raised. Bucky ignored them all and looked at Luna. Nora didn’t care. She didn’t want to leave. A little because she was afraid to go home by herself, but a little because she hadn’t gotten to climb into Bucky’s lap the way she wanted to yet.

They stayed a little longer until Nora started to yawn and Sam got the hint, announcing to everyone that it was time they all go home. Darcy hugged her goodbye, Clint squeezed her shoulder as he passed, and Sam shot Bucky an absolutely shit-eating grin. Nora wasn’t really sure what that was about, but she didn’t bother to ask when he was gone.

Instead, she flung the blanket off herself and darted for the door. Luna scrambled after her and Bucky watched looking alarmed, “Nora?”

She slapped the door with both hands and regretted it immediately when she remembered her stitched-together palm. Then she flipped the deadbolt, announcing to Luna and Bucky both, “No more visitors.” Before making her way back to the couch at a more leisurely pace. Bucky huffed a laugh. She liked when he laughed. He did it so rarely it felt like earning something special every time.

“Need to order food,” Bucky told her seriously, watching as she rounded the back of the couch.

“Yes,” Nora said, nodding. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast the day before and while she hadn’t been hungry through the entire kidnapping, rescue, or doctor visit, it was starting to catch up with her, “After.”

“After what?” He asked.

Nora thought from the way he was looking at her that he probably knew. She hitched up one knee on the couch at his thigh and swung the other over his lap to sit on his knees. He let her but didn’t move right away. She reached up to run her nails through his much shorter hair and felt him shudder.

He slid cool metal fingers across the bruise on her jaw, then tilted his head and frowned, “You’re hurt.”

Nora nodded, “Yes. And I would like for you to kiss it better.”

For a second, she thought he might tell her no. She knew he worried about hurting her by accident and here she was already injured. Instead, he took her left hand in his right. He turned it over, inspecting the bandage that wound from her palm down to her elbow. Gently he lifted it to his mouth, kissing her palm, then the inside of her wrist, and her forearm.

She wished her skin was bare so she could feel it properly even as she knew she’d made a horrible mistake. He was going to kiss her and then stop, leaving her stuck with the fire already licking its way through her stomach.

He twined his fingers with hers and shifted his attention, tilting her chin up with the metal hand on her jaw. She let the air fight its way out of her lungs as he leant forward and kissed a path, feather light, across the curve of her jaw and lingered at her throat beneath her ear.

“Please don’t stop,” Nora whispered. She closed her eyes, positive he could hear the pounding of her heart. Bucky hummed against her throat, not a yes but not a no. For the first time Nora was frustrated by one of his nonanswers, “Please.” The hum turned into a growl and still he didn’t move, “Bucky,” she begged.

He pulled away and she loosed an almost-sob in disappointment but then he tugged his hand from hers and buried it in her hair instead, pulling her forward and slanting his mouth over hers. It was just like it had been when it was him who was hurt instead. Hot and hungry and desperate. The relief of it was instant even as the fire in her stomach curled a little deeper.

He bit at her lip and she whined, twisting one hand into his shirt and the other around the back of his neck in a vain attempt to pull him closer. He rocked forwards, his left arm sliding down and around her back to pull her flush against him.

She gasped and he swallowed it, licking into her mouth and across her tongue. She savoured the feeling, half drunk on the taste of him. She pulled at his shirt, desperate to have him even closer, as she returned the kiss. It came to her, suddenly, and she pulled away. He let her go with a growl that cut off abruptly as she hooked both hands under the hem of her sweatshirt and pulled it up and off.

She leant to kiss him again, but he caught her with a hand on her collarbone, holding her still, “Nora,” he whispered, voice unhappy.

She glanced down, noticing for the first time the purple brand that started somewhere under the band of her bra and stretched down over her ribs. She tried to take steadying breaths and failed, “You can kiss that one too,” she whispered.

His hand slid down, ghosting across her skin and over her breast in a way that made her shiver, to linger on the bruise.

“Bucky,” he didn’t look at her and she dragged in a lungful of air and buried a hand in his hair. The other she pressed to the edge of his jaw until he dragged his eyes up to meet hers, “I’m okay. I promise. I knew you’d come get me and you did,” she willed the truth of it into her touch and hoped he could feel it.

Very slowly he loosened, becoming less like a stone and more like a man. She slid her hand from his jaw around his back and pulled him into her, pressing her cheek into his hair.

They stayed for a long time with their arms wrapped around each other. Bucky counted her heartbeats, his cheek pressed to the bare skin of her chest.

He’d wanted to keep kissing her. Wanted to carry her to bed and strip the rest of her clothes away. But she was bandaged and bruised and had spent an entire night in some hell hole warehouse at the edge of the city. He couldn’t do it, not when he could see how breakable she was. Not when the awful twisting guilt still sat somewhere behind his ribs. He wanted to be careful with her more than anything. Be gentle and know that she was safe and well and that her fear would never belong to him the way the thing in his chest whispered it would.

He could wait until her bruises were gone. He could wait forever if he had to.

“Okay,” Nora said eventually, “Food.”

He let his arms fall, curling them loosely around her hips as she twisted to look at the coffee table and then bent backwards to reach for his phone. The movement gave him a very clear view of the pale expanse of skin across her chest and down her stomach and shot electricity through his chest and down his metal arm, even as the sight of the ugly bruise filled him with guilt.

“Ideas?” She asked. She didn’t seem inclined to move and he didn’t want her to.

“Pizza.” He’d enjoyed sitting in bed eating out of the boxes with her before. He really hoped that at some point they could do it without either of them being burned first.

Nora nodded, “That is a very good idea.” She tapped away at the screen in her hand, “Which was your favourite?”

“Hawaiian.”

She gasped so dramatically she nearly lost the phone, “Bucky! I can’t believe you! Pineapple on pizza?”

He knew she was making fun of him but didn’t really get why she would be, “You ordered it.”

“Well yeah,” She replied, “I thought you’d complain about it like a normal person. Didn’t realize I’d fallen for a complete nut job.”

She returned her focus to the little brick in her hand and seemed not to notice he’d been struck by lightning.