the soldier

3^rd November, 2015

London, England, United Kingdom

“A name.”

Laboured breathing broke its pattern to hiss in incoherent rage. “fuck you…”

“Mr. Bateman.” Her voice was gently chiding, at odds with her swift punch to the bound man’s face. With a wet crack, blood spurted from the man’s nose, and he swore. “I thought you Tommies were polite.”

Ghost sat back down in her own chair. The old warehouse she’d captured her target in was one of many such dilapidated buildings lining the old shipyards along the banks of the Thames rarely seen by tourists. Like the walls, windows, floors and stairs, the roof was falling apart, and holes in the corrugated iron were letting patches of moonlight into the dingy space. It made for a dramatic setting, and Ghost had made sure to position her target right in the centre of one of the brightest spots. The old chairs she had found moldering in the basement had just been a spot of good luck.

 Jasper Bateman had been difficult to catch.

The soldier-come-mercenary-come-assassin hadn’t given any indication to whether or not he had known he was being tracked by her, but when the time had come for his interrogation, the man had put up a good fight. Just not good enough.

She couldn’t deny she had felt some relief when he had finally been subdued – though amusing – his moniker ‘Slaymaster’ seemed to be relatively accurate. She was nursing several wounds still, and the bleeding had only just stopped from the stab wound he had put in her right thigh with one of his strange weapons she could only describe as weaponized knitting needles.

“Who is this message from?” She asked again, leaning slightly into the light so that she could shake a printout of an encoded transmission she had found sent to Bateman’s personal computer. The transmission itself had come from a German-English man she had tracked from one of Kovac’s contact lists, who had received it originally from a second source. The transmission was identical to the one she had found suspicious at Kovac’s office. The one from the American unknown, with an unfamiliar signature, and in HYDRA code. Bateman scowled, and spat blood at her. She scowled, leaning away from the splatter. “I will break a finger, and then remove it.” She told him. Her seriousness must have shown upon her face, because he paled.

“Stephen Wagner.” Bateman muttered finally, mutinous.

“No.” She shook her head. “Not him. Who is it from?”

Bateman growled wordlessly. “I just told you. Wagner-”

Ghost pulled out her phone, silently unlocking it and showing him the screen. His eyes widened at the image of the body on the screen. Wagner had been helpful up until he had begun to proclaim both his vengeance and power, and she had found evidence of his involvement in child-trafficking whilst searching through his files. He hadn’t lived very long after that. She put her phone back in her pocket. “Would you like to try again? Whose signature is this?” she rustled the message again. “I know he’s American, I know he’s HYDRA, and I know he’s recruiting.” She scowled. “And I know you already sent a confirmation of interest. So, tell me his name.”

“No.” Bateman said.

“No?” Ghost felt a little hysterical, a laugh building and dying in her throat. “Do you not know who I am?”

Bateman actually had the gall to chuckle. “You’re one of HYDRA’s little experimental attack dogs. I’m not afraid of you or your freaky friends.”

“Friends?” She echoed faintly, as she stood. She had to retrieve her bag if she wanted to make him talk, but she was distracted by his odd phrasing. From her knowledge, the only two enhanced subjects that HYDRA had permitted into the field were her and her partner. No one knew about the others. The other Winter Soldiers that had been lost to history.

For a moment, she was back in the training rooms, the scent of sweat and blood filling her nostrils, the dull fear she had felt as her partner had been forced to his knees-

Her arm, broken and aching, kept her from doing much but watching. The brute that had shattered it was still engaging her partner. Colonel Karpov seemed uninterested, still writing furiously in his little red notebook. When her partner was thrown into the window, he looked up briefly. The whole room was dank with old mildew and the humid stench produced by hours and hours of human labour, the combat cage long unwashed.

The sudden chaos that resulted seemed inevitable. She moved on autopilot, fingers locking around Karpov’s neck, as she forced him out of the cage. His fury seemed near comical, his disbelief in his failure humorous. Her partner and her exchanged a laughing look at his swollen red face, as the sour-sweet tang of knock-out gas began to fill the room.

She shook off the old memory. There was no way Bateman – or anyone else for that matter – knew about the Winter Soldier Program. So far as HYDRA history was concerned, there was only one Winter Solider, and his Ghost. So who did Bateman mean?

“Yes… you and your little friends.” He cackled. She almost winced at the cliché. “Unless – you don’t know about the Witch and her brother. Oh no – you mustn’t. That little concoction of madness was devised out of your jurisdiction. Out of most people’s jurisdiction, so I’ve heard,” She, personally, had heard enough. She phased out of sight, Bateman’s babble fading to a distant murmur. “Though the Avengers picked them up, I’m sure they’re just like you. All bark and no bite without the right handler. Is that what you want? Are you looking for a new owner? Is that why you want to know who-”

Ghost kicked the man square in the chest, and he let out an aborted screech of surprise and fear as he and his chair went toppling over. Bateman blinked, eyes moving rapidly as he searched the room for her. She took her time retrieving her things, letting him stew in the uncertainty. When she could see his breathing stabilise slightly, she moved again. Swiftly, she stabbed him – not mortally – in the junction of nerves directly through his shoulder. He cried out, before he steeled himself. He was former Spec-Ops, she knew that he would have been trained to withstand interrogation. She was prepared for the exercise to take some time.

He held out longer than she expected.

She was almost impressed.

“Cross…Crossbones…” He’d had to whisper it, barely able to manage a full breath.

Ghost watched the bundle of evidence sink beneath the murky water of the Thames. The weapons that had been tainted with her own DNA had joined the rest of the pile she had stacked to sanitize and then dispose of, and though she would have liked to have kept one of the needles to examine, she had thrown it into the river too.

“He was…SHIELD…undercover…he…exposed…in DC…”

Bateman had not known the real name of the man recruiting internationally for spies, soldiers, assassins and terrorists to join what appeared to be some kind of death squad. Just an alias. An alias, and another long list. Ghost didn’t know the name of every undercover agent that had been posted at SHIELD HQ during the takedown.

But she did know how to get them.

5^th November, 2015

Paris, France

The press of lips to the side of her neck made her still. The still new, but strangely welcome fizzle of something in her gut only sparked hotter when her partner’s arms went slipping over her shoulders and down her sides, the weight of him settling against her as he embraced her as best he could in her seat at the desk.

“Ready for dinner?” his voice was muffled in her hair. It was longer now, dead straight and fine to the point of thinness, still growing an unnatural white, and just brushing her shoulders. To her partner’s amusement, it was now the same length he kept his. She envied him his full head of hair, his thick, almost wavy locks. She still looked…anaemic, even after more than a year of being out from HYDRA’s strict regime. Her partner was already golden skinned, fuller-cheeked, and she suspected taller, living and eating and exercising as he saw fit, rather than as dictated. Freedom looked good on him. It just made her pale – paler – in comparison.

She hummed, reaching to run her fingers through his unbound hair, just because she could. Even now, the faint thrill of warning, of wrong made her hesitate to touch. Erasing years of conditioning took time, but it just made every causal touch a victory she revelled privately in. “Almost.” Not really. If she had her way, she’d sit until her work was done. With a fine-tooth comb, she had been going through the records of HYDRA agents stationed anywhere in the Washington state at the time of HYDRA’s exposure. She was crossing off anyone dead or in custody, and it was taking longer than she thought it would.

“What are you working on?” He asked, and she glanced back at the desk, at the files she still had open. Her partner had asked that question more times than she could count now, sometimes worded differently, sometimes accusatorily, sometimes sweetly – but mostly just curiously.

She couldn’t tell him what she was working on, until it was finished. She didn’t want to give him false hope.

So, she twisted, tugging slightly at his hair, making his eyes snap to hers, and smiled. “I’m looking at the agents stationed at DC when we were there.”

“Why?” he asked so gently, that she knew he was afraid she wouldn’t answer. Luckily, she had already thought of an adequate excuse.

“I wanted to see if my memory lined up.” She said, and stood. His arms fell away from her, and at the severing of their contact, she felt a distinct longing warring with an immediate relief. To spite herself, to crush the old feeling, she stepped back into his personal space. He had always been larger than her; made of muscle where she was made of shadow, and though she was still shorter than him, she was tall enough so that she could almost look directly into his eyes. When they kissed, she didn’t have to reach so far. It made it easier to hold his eye contact. Up this close, she could see the way grey and blue blended in his iris to make the pretty colour of his eyes. Up this close, she imagined she could see the machinations of his mind, the fractured, perfect contours there. She wondered which corners belonged to her.

Her partner understood memory.

“And did it?” he asked, swaying a little closer.

She smiled slightly, leaning in to press a short kiss to his mouth. “I’m not sure yet.” He searched her face for a moment, before his metal hand came up to delicately tuck a loose strand of her hair behind her ear, fingers ghosting the edges of the scarring that began at her temples.

She followed him from the room, pausing once to look back at her work.

Soon.

10^th November, 2015

Paris, France.

In the early hours of the cold morning, Ghost got to the final name on her list.

No matter how hard she looked, no matter which contacts she harassed, no matter which leads she followed – there was one agent left unaccounted for after the events of DC. It was probably the lack of personal surprise that solidified her belief in her findings.

Because Brock Rumlow had always been a vicious, fervent follower of HYDRA doctrine. Because the man was cruel, and Ghost knew that he revelled in the pain of others. Because she knew he would have a vendetta, and to achieve his goals, he would need help. Because killing Captain America was harder than it seemed on paper. She would know.

Crossbones – Rumlow – had been pulled from the wreckage of the Triskelion, and been placed on immediate life-support. He hadn’t been charged with the various crimes he had committed, because up until a few months ago, he had been in a coma. Ghost had read the extensive transcript of his care, and she’d seen the police-file opened when Crossbones had made a break for freedom. Somehow, the man had managed to escape American jurisdiction, and had been making leaps and bounds in his sinister and somewhat vague plans.

Ghost had located as many recipients of Rumlow’s encoded transmission to HYDRA and their sympathisers, and though she’d been able to get to a few – including Bateman – none of them seemed to have any real idea of Rumlow’s true motives. Ghost would make a guess that Rumlow would aim to first make some money – steal it, most likely – before embarking on some kind of revenge plot, most likely revolving around Steve Rogers.

In her addled state – scatterbrained by her sudden epiphany and several nights of no sleep – she had the wild notion to simply track and kill Rumlow herself. It didn’t take her long to reach the realisation that it would take too long, and more resources than she had on hand. And then, she had another thought.

She had been searching for some way to get what her partner wanted; forgiveness.

What better way to begin, than to give Steve Rogers a gift.

From what she knew of the man, HYDRA was as much his enemy as water was fire’s. He had been ready to give his life to exterminate them, and she respected that. From what she could tell, the hunt for HYDRA had only gone on as long as it had taken the Avengers to be distracted by another catastrophe of their own making. She had seen no evidence of anyone but her looking into the rat nests and the vermin still surviving in the shadows.

She wanted HYDRA gone, and so did Steve Rogers. And something told her that Rogers would take Rumlow’s mission to cause chaos personally.

The commute home had been, as it always was, horrible. The Parisian metro system was generally cleaner than the American version, and smelt far less like urine, but he didn’t think he’d ever grow to like – or even accustomed to – the crush of passengers at the end of the day. He jogged up out of the station, ducking his head automatically at the CCTV camera affixed over the exit, and sucked in a quiet breath of the fresher night air. With the overwhelming noise and sensation gone, he could take a second to wonder about his aversion.

Was it his own, or was it something that belonged to the Soldier?

The rediscovered history he remembered showed him taking trolleys just as packed, showed him surrounded by the public, friends and family, with no relief and no rejection. No. He hadn’t been born with the desire to avoid others.

As always, his thoughts went to his partner. She didn’t like crowds either, and perhaps it was simply an ingrained response he’d developed over time too. As always, the realisation filled him with a bittersweet triumph. For him, aligning the memories and habits of the man he had been with what he was today was always a victory. Often though, it came with more sorrow. Disparities, sometimes within himself, usually with his partner – just made him painfully aware of what had been taken from him, and what she had never had.

The lights were off in their small apartment. Their neighbours: a cheerful couple that had attempted to throw them a housewarming party – had their own lamps lit, as did much of the apartment block. It just made the small dark square of their window all the more prominent.

He just wished he didn’t have to come home to empty rooms.

The rickety elevator that serviced the residents of the block always squealed in between the third and fourth floor, and though he was now used to the screaming mechanics, he still winced at the sound, gratefully stepping out of the wrought iron box and into the thin hall.

It smelt like roasting vegetables in the space beyond the elevator, onion and rosemary, a warm kind of smell. He wondered idly what he’d have for dinner; something simple. His partner preferred to do the cooking, and whilst he could eat and cook for survival, something about a kitchen seemed to defeat his meagre skills.

He was so sure that he had the place to himself, that his partner would be out again, it took him a dangerously long time to realise he wasn’t alone.

He kicked off his work boots at the door, slinging his coat over the hook, threw his keys with customary accuracy into the bowl on the side table, and meandered into the kitchen. He pulled open the fridge, staring blindly at the pots of yogurt, a few loose plums, and an old sandwich he wasn’t sure was still classified as food.

The faint flicker of movement in his periphery made him turn, gun already in his hand, and he met the amused eyes of his partner through the low partition that separated the kitchen from the living room. He blinked, taking in the strange scene.

The dining table was set for two. Alight on every flat surface was a concerning amount of tea candles, filling the living room with a soft warm light. Steaming gently on the plates was the roast he’d smelt, and some grilled chicken. She’d even stuck three long stemmed irises in a jug half filled with water.

“Welcome home.”

He could admit freely that his brain may have frozen, the odd sensation of receiving an error message making him jerkily lower his weapon at her soft voice.

Just as strange as the dinner setting was his partner.

Perhaps it was the light, turning her to liquid gold, fair hair and skin glowing – but he couldn’t be sure. There was a tremulous something to her face, her lips pressed tightly together as if to conceal a smile or a secret.

“Uh, thank you?” He walked slowly toward the table. “What’s- what’s this for?” he couldn’t help but be wary.

And then-

There.

A great big, beaming smile that he didn’t think he’d ever seen lit up her face. And she giggled. Like, hand over mouth, lash-fluttering, excited giggling. He wasn’t sure whether or not to be concerned. She bit her lip, trying and failing to straighten her face. “It’s for you. Can’t I surprise you?”

He smiled bemusedly, looking around again. “Well, consider me surprised.” At his words, her face grew impossibly happier. She stepped right through the table, phasing through the set up until she was in his arms. He had the odd sensation of a distant coolness on his skin before she solidified, pressing herself into him. For a moment, she just looked at him, pale eyes sparkling, lips still curved happily. “God, you’re beautiful.” He breathed, unable to help himself. Like a dam breaking, she surged towards him, and he met her halfway, hands coming up to grip her delicate jaw as she curled her fingers into his shirt. She felt a little like porcelain, though he knew rationally she was so much stronger.

Her lips were cool, and tasted faintly like the red wine on the table. It was intoxicating, and he knew he probably should pull back, lest he frighten her. But it was hard to keep control when she kept deepening their kiss, when her cool fingers raked their way down her chest, catching on the button of his jeans-

He sucked in a breath, and pulled away. “Hey.” She blinked, looking a little star struck. “What’s going on? You don’t have to-”

Ghost phased out of his careful grip, until she was pressed against his chest again. “I know I don’t have to. I don’t have to do anything.”

“Right.” He nodded, searching her face. Her cheeks had warmed, and high spots of colour across her cheekbones, her swollen lips and her blown pupils made her look a different kind of tempting. She shouldn’t have to deal with him acting like some horny teenager-

“But I want to.” She murmured. He swallowed roughly as her hands returned to his jeans, her long fingers looping through his belt loops and tugging him against her.

He shook his head slightly, “Are you sure? I don’t want you to-”

She kissed him, hard enough to hurt slightly. “I want to.” She said, and bit down on his bottom lip. The bolt of sharp pain made him hiss, the tang of blood on the tip of his tongue and when she pulled away, there was a scarlet stain on her mouth.

“Fuck.” He swore, and reached for her.

His hands slid down, tightening under her thighs, and lifting. She felt her stomach flip, legs instinctively wrapping around his hips as he kissed her.

God-

It was… better. Better than she thought. Better than she had been told. Some rational part of her brain worried momentarily for the food on the table, but then he let go of her with one hand, and the fingers of his flesh hand – burning hot and startling – skated up her back, pushing up her shirt. Impatient suddenly, wanting to feel more of him against more of her, she leant back slightly, holding him in place with one hand on his throat, trusting him to support her weight as she reached for her own shirt.

She ripped the cotton, tearing it off her own body and tossing it to the side.

For a long moment, he stared. For a brief moment, she was stuck with an insecurity she had never felt before. She knew her body, he knew her body – but context was everything. When had her body taken on this desirable quality? When had he looked at her bare chest besides treating a wound?

He bent, craning his neck slightly, and pressed a kiss to her breast, over her heart. The sound that came sighing from her made her blush, made him look up at her with wonder, before he did it again. Suspended, she couldn’t do anything but watch, as he trailed his lips over all the skin he could reach. Sparks settled low in her belly, and she twitched at the pooling heat in between her thighs.

The same heated impatience rose again, and she tugged at the collar of his shirt. He laughed quietly. “Yeah…yeah, I’ll- I will…” His voice was rough, words barely comprehensible. He lowered her to the ground, but it was as if she couldn’t be apart, and she leaned into him as he tugged off his shirt. The hard planes of his torso were still the same as she remembered, but the fluttering madness his chest and arms were inspiring was new. A good kind of new, she decided, bending to kiss him as he had kissed her, running her tongue across his right nipple and making him grunt.

His hands were back upon her, running over the places his mouth had touched, cupping her breasts, dipping down her stomach, thumbing at her hip bones. It was all she could do to breathe. Why had she waited so long? If she could go back and slap her past self, she would. She tried to kneel, the way she’d been taught, the way the magazines said, but he caught her. “Whoa – let’s just- I mean, you don’t have to.”

She frowned. “But you want it?” she could see he could, could feel the thickening hardness through his jeans against her belly.

“I just want you. I want this to be good for you.” He said, sounding a little clearer. She reached for his length, stroking firmly over the denim of his jeans, feeling the way he jumped and twitched at her touch. “Shit, doll…” he groaned.

“I do what I want,” she told him, gripping him again, kissing him softly as he panted into her mouth. Seeing him so undone was stoking the fire in her belly higher, making her reckless, desperate. “When I want,” she sunk slowly to her knees, and this time he didn’t stop her, staring at her with a delicious hunger. Her fingers fiddled briefly with the button and zipper of his pants, before she undid them with a definitive snap. “And I want.”

He was hard, straining against the front of his boxers. She tilted her head slightly, running a finger down his clothed length, feeling the visceral reaction as his cock twitched and his hips jumped forwards. She did it again, watching as a small damp patch began to form. Interesting. As much as she would have liked to see how far she could push him without actually touching him, a deeper want made her tug down the waistband of his underwear. His cock sprung free, thick and reddened, and though she should have expected it; a little intimidating. Just to see, just to measure, she wrapped the fingers of her right hand around it. Above her, he let out a strangled hiss, and she looked up to see his head thrown back, eyes squeezed shut.

Amusement tempered her slight worry, enough to make her next movement confident. She ducked her head, and licked a long, slow stripe up the underside of his shaft. She pulled back, trying to hide her smile as she realised he had stopped breathing.

“James…” his name slipped from her lips surprisingly easily. She knew, distantly, that it was the first time she said it. Said his name. He seemed to know it too, looking down at her with wide eyes. Giddy elation made her grin. “Watch me.” She commanded. She lowered her head again, and took him in her mouth. He let out another pained noise, but he kept his eyes on her obediently. He tasted musky and warm, and though it wasn’t a familiar taste, it wasn’t entirely unpleasant, and the realisation made her bolder.

She took her time, working out how she could breathe and yet keep her mouth upon him, how to bob her head just so, how to twist her hand in time. He was patient, and she trusted him to keep still whilst she figured it out. It was only when she dared take him a little deeper, the thick weight of him brushing past her tongue, hitting briefly at the back of her throat did his control waver. His fingers flew to her hair, fisting in her loose locks, and his hips stuttered forwards, making her choke, surprised.

“Fuck! Sorry! Jesus, sorry!” he backed off as she coughed.

Eyes watering, she looked up at him. “Do it again.” She said, her own words surprising her. But she…she wanted it. She wanted to see him loosen his control again, and the thought of it was making her hotter. Gently, he did as she asked, letting her take him gently into her mouth until she growled, swallowing him down as best she could, ignoring her throat tightening reflexively. He swore, hands holding her in place again, thrusting into her mouth with abandon. She took it, holding back any reaction, watching him through the tears building uncontrollably in her eyes. Fuck.

Unable to help it, she reached between her legs, pressing against the soft place that was aching, aching for him. It helped somewhat, and she pressed harder, trying to unwind the coil spiraling tighter and tighter and tighter-

“Shit.” He pulled away from her, wrapping his hand tightly around the base of his cock, so tightly she thought it must have hurt. She panted, and he crouched before her, running his metal fingers under her teary eyes with that same expression of wonder, down her cheeks, over her mouth. Daring, she licked at the tips of his metal fingers, making him clench his jaw. “Darlin’…” he whispered, leaning in to kiss her softly. “Могу ли я коснуться тебя?” Can I touch you?

She nodded desperately. “Пожалуйста.” Please. She gasped. He reached for her, and in a movement that left her breathless, tossed her over his shoulder. She couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of the act, and he slapped her ass in retort. “What am I? Un sac de pommes de terre?” A sack of potatoes?

“Hardly.” He huffed a laugh, nudging open their bedroom door. He dropped her on the bed from high enough that she bounced slightly, managing to prop herself up on her elbows as he knelt at the end of the bed, cock proud and at attention, metal arm shining in the low light, flesh arm rippling with capable muscle. “You’re so much better than potatoes.” She found it a little hard to smile at his humour. Not when she wanted him so bad, not when he was looking at her like that, not when he was glowing with such beauty. “Hey. You okay?” he tilted his head, frowning at her slightly.

“Yes.” She managed to nod. “Very much okay.”

He grinned again, and languidly stretched forwards to kiss her, supporting his weight above her with one hand. She lost herself in his lips again, so preoccupied that she didn’t realise his free hand had skated down her body, until he popped the button of her jeans. She sucked in a breath, irrationally startled as he ran his fingers over her protruding hip-bone. He stilled, pulling back slightly, and for a moment they were quiet, breathing the same air as she calmed the slight nervousness she felt.

“Прикоснись ко мне.” Touch me. She told him.

And he did.

Gently, he eased down her jeans, impossibly skilful for a man who had  been celibate for the better half of a century. His fingers ran along the band of her panties, briefly skating under before he pulled back again, leaving her gasping at nothing. Much like she had found amusement in his responses, he seemed just as interested in her reaction, a heavy look in his eyes as he cupped her sex over the fabric. It was barely anything, barely a touch, barely pressure anywhere she wanted and needed it, but she groaned, the heady fire in her belly stoking higher.

He sucked harshly at her neck, the faint twinge of pain paired with a single, deliberate stroke over her pussy making her ball her fists in the sheets of the bed. She had another surge of impatience, and sat up, wiggling out of her panties as she half-collapsed into him. The new position was reminiscent of the night in Greece, when she’d ran a straight-razor over his face, and they’d slipped into a close embrace that she hadn’t quite known how to react to. Now, looking back, she could recognise the butterflies for what they were; not so much nervousness as a physical reaction to his body against her. Like this, with her legs on either side of his hips, her breasts to his chest, she could feel the pulsing heat of his cock against her belly, and she shivered.

He eased his hand between them again, and with unerring accuracy, rubbed against her clit, and the jolt of pleasure made her go stiff, staring at him with wide eyes. She could see her face reflected in his eyes, pale and startled looking. This time she smiled with him, even as her body shuddered without control, hips rolling in time with his perfect fingers. She was winding tighter and tighter, and the feeling was so strange she wanted to pause, back down from the peak that was beginning to feel as if it would overwhelm her.

His finger dipped, leaving her clit untouched and she growled slightly in frustration. Slowly, he circled her entrance, dipping in shallowly, though the unfamiliar sensation was enough to have her panting again. He kissed her open mouth, messy and wet, and slid a finger into her. She gripped at him, as he slowly withdrew, pumping back in just as slowly, and then out again, and again and again and again-

“Больше.” More.

It came out as an order, but he didn’t seem to take offense at her sharp tone, pressing kisses across her shoulders and collarbones. It was a different kind of pleasure now, slower and deeper, and though not as startlingly intense as before, she found herself swallowing back sounds wrenched from her as he worked another finger in. And then he let her go with his metal hand, and gripped her hip instead, fingers long enough that he could thumb at her clit with the cool metal. She shouted, some garbled mix of Russian, German and heavily accented English, as he worked her harder.

“Let go.” He told her, sounding just as out of breath as she was. “Let go, darlin’.”

She was about to tell him she didn’t know what he was talking about, about to ask him what exactly she was supposed to be letting go of, when the coil snapped. Her vision spotted briefly, body shaking as she was overwhelmed by the waves of pleasure that had been building. She didn’t- she hadn’t- if it-

It was hard to think for a moment, and when the sensation of his fingers began to grow too sharp, her body too sensitive for touch, she batted at him weakly, limbs feeling oddly jelly-like. She was glad now, to be leaning against him. She didn’t think she could have supported her own weight. He pulled his hands back, metal hand moving back to its supportive place against her back, gently stroking down the nobs of her spine.

They panted together. She wondered if she looked as awestruck as she felt. She must have, because he smirked, far too smug, and pressed a kiss to her forehead, before he brought up his fingers to his lips. They were shiny, wet with – what she realised with a thrill of new arousal – her. He licked himself clean, holding her gaze with an entirely masculine satisfaction. She rolled her eyes, pretending the visual didn’t effect her as much as it did. Already, with his cock still hot and hard between them, she was feeling a new fluttering.

She rolled her hips again, this time deliberately, and felt him slide between her lips, made slick with her wetness. He grunted, and kissed her, taking himself in hand. She could taste herself, the warm saltiness of herself on his tongue. It just made her twitch again, clenching around nothing.

None of this was familiar to her.

Sex was one thing. Sex was a transaction. It wasn’t pleasure, and it wasn’t intimacy. That was what she had been taught, and it was what she had taught the Black Widows under her patronage.

Being made to feel like this-

It was new, and it was incomparable to anything else. She was vulnerable in wake of the discovery of these feelings, and yet it was not a vulnerability that frightened her. Not with him. Never with him. When they kissed this time, it was gentle, and she wondered if he could somehow sense what she was feeling. It would neither shock or worry her if he actually could.

It stayed gentle, as he guided himself towards her entrance, when she sank down upon him slowly, full and stretched and so warm-

They moved together. It came as no surprise that they fit so perfectly, that their bodies, so used to moving in sync, could do this so perfectly too. She wrapped her arms around him, feeling that same crest approaching, albeit softer. He held her just as tightly, fingers in her hair, arm around her like a vice, and they sighed into each other. When his breath came shorter, when his controlled thrusts began to grow wild again, she reached between them, seeking out her clit, determined to come with him.

“Мой милый, мой маленький призрак, мой дорогой-” My sweet, my little ghost, my dearest- He whispered his endearing string of epithets into her ear, and as he moaned, she threw back her head and came with him. It was different again, to feel him spill inside her, hot and wet, and she could feel her body milk at him as she caught her breath. “Shit.” he muttered to himself, gulping down a breath.

This close to him, she could hear his heartbeat, and knew he could hear hers. She pressed her face into his shoulder and listened as it slowed, as it regained its steady, familiar pace. He held her and they breathed.

There had been a subtle shift. Something else had slid into place, something undefinable, some barrier breached, some trust built. It was an eternal sort of feeling, and she thought that she might stay with there forever.

But the cold part of her, the darker part whispered;

She was not finished.