"Hey. You two. Rogers. Barnes. For heaven's sake, go to your room."
Natasha tossed a pillow at the other end of the sofa. "We're trying to recover here."
Steve was in the corner, his legs stretched out on the ottoman. Bucky was perched straddling his lap. She had been trying to not look at them for the past fifteen minutes but the faint moaning noises that followed the licking sounds were getting more than a little distracting.
She dared to look over the top of her latest copy of Pointe Magazine at the two scruffy faces, mouths pressed together in a deep and languid kiss. Bucky's hands were roaming over Steve's shoulders and chest. Natasha could barely see Steve's face under the cascade of brown hair. She lowered the magazine like a reverse curtain at a burlesque show, hoping clothing was still involved. There they were. Steve's hands gripping the place on Bucky that would correlate with love handles if he had love handles, which he didn't. What he had was muscle, a whole lotta muscle. She noticed this. Often.
She assessed the undulating hips; slow and methodical, they rolled gently back to front encouraged by Steve's hands. Sensual pliant rolling. She pictured a sunny day, a cross-country hunter jumper course, a sleek horse pacing through a slow collected canter.
She wondered when Barnes had learned to ride.
She went back to her magazine when Steve's fingers began to caress the skin under the Captain America sleep pants.
They were all lost in the post-Thanksgiving meal stupor of turkey-induced tryptophan overload, compounded by a dollop of carb coma driven by sweet potato pie and eggnog. At least she and Sam were lost.
The super serum soldiers didn't observe that phenomenon with loosened belt buckles and snoring on the sofa while listening to the endless football chatter on TV. Their celebration was sex. Long, slow and apparently as an exhibition. Not if Natasha had anything to do with the chosen location. "Boys seriously, rent a room. Oh wait, you have a room, two of them, use one!"
They ignored her.
"Sam. What's going on." She tossed her attention to him and held another pillow up to block her view of the deep throat action that Barnes was inflicting on a way-too-willing-to-accept Steve Rogers.
"Facebook. I"m on Facebook." He never looked up.
"You didn't use your real name right?"
"No. That's something Barnes would do. I made one up."
"Birdman." A voice heavy with as yet unfulfilled sexual cravings wafted from the make-out session.
"No Barnes. Not Birdman. Too simplistic."
Natasha humored him "What did you use?"
"This is great. Ready?" He swung around to add emphasis by actually looking at her. "Ok, ready? Slaws Mino." He added a 'ta-da' sort of hand gesture.
Natasha stared blankly.
Bucky's hips stuttered.
Sam could see Steve's left eye peek out from under the curtain of hair.
The stunned silence lasted a few seconds until Bucky's attempt to stifle a laugh ended with him spitting on Steve's head. "Sorry."
Steve used his hair to wipe it off.
"Where the hell did you dream that up." Natasha groaned.
"Hey, it's an anagram. I used an anagram generator online. It's my name."
"That's stupid." Barnes went back to grinding and kissing.
Steve went back to being a willing participant.
Natasha picked up her magazine.
Sam went back to Facebook.
"Black Friday sales. Everywhere. Look at this deal on a grill, we need a new one."
"How could we need a new one we just bought one during the summer." Natasha humored him by answering.
Sam nodded his head towards the dynamic duo in the corner. He added in hushed tones, "Remember? Barnes blew up the last one testing out the C4 detonators."
Natasha gave him the thumbs up. It was still a sore spot for Steve since it took out the back porch windows and half the siding on the garage.
It was hard to explain to the fire department.
"Yes sir, I understand sir. C4 is not a toy. My incorrigible assassin boyfriend who is peeing his pants laughing at us right now won't ever do that again. I promise sir. I swear it. Pinky finger swearing."
Steve didn't really say any of that except for the thousand times he said "I'm sorry and no I'm not Steve Rogers, former Captain America. He doesn't have a beard. I do."
The husky sex desiring voice chimed in from the sofa. "Black Friday? Is that like Bloody Sunday?"
Sam looked at Natasha. She looked back.
They did a lot of that when it came to Barnes.
"Bloody Sunday?" Sam was truly perplexed.
Natasha caught the reference too late to thwart the anxiety attack.
"Bloody Sunday!" Barnes was pacing the room in half a heartbeat; panting and pacing and generally working himself into a full-blown panic in less than three seconds, not four, not two. Three seconds.
Steve still had his hands in midair, the fingers twitching looking for the hips that were just there a second ago.
Natasha used the pillow to block all below the waist views of both of them. At least she made the gesture of blocking the view as she justified her peeking.
"I mean really, how could a girl not look at the aftermath of aborted foreplay?"
"I was there, I think. Bloody Sunday. No? Yes!" Bucky pointed wildly at Natasha and shouted at Steve. "Yes! I was there. 1972 Northern Ireland, peaceful protesters shot by soldiers. Shit; shit. I did that!"
It was always hard when he remembered the bad stuff.
Steve caught his arm and pulled him out of the pacing. Looping his steps, pulling his forward motion down to land in an embrace. "Ok let's just take a deep breath and move through this one." His hand on his chest, he breathed long and slow, matching their breathing in and out.
"Focus." He whispered close. Steve was getting good at this part; talking him down from the memories.
Bucky settled in the corner of the sofa. "My turn."
Steve flopped next to him. "So it's Thanksgiving. We've got a lot to be grateful for; maybe we should do something to give back."
"Steve, we fight aliens to save the world, isn't that enough?" Bucky wasn't ungrateful; it was just that he'd won the prized corner seat and was optimizing his 'make out with Steve from the right side position.'
Face buried in Steve's neck; check.
Hands snaking under the too tight T-shirt; check.
One leg tucked between Steve's; check.
Pillows to hide the erections; priceless.
Sam chimed in, "I'm grateful. Grateful for pecan pie; a decent internet connection out here in the middle of the Adirondacks; and wings."
Natasha had adopted the Thanksgiving concept. "I'm grateful for a roof over our heads; Ben and Jerrys Chocolate Therapy, and no aliens."
Bucky was back to the husky sounding voice muffled by Steve's cheek. "Yup. Grateful. Food. The Glock in my pocket and Steve likes to top."
"TMI buddy. Grateful too, but TMI."
His further mumble of "And he's great at it." Was thankfully consumed by Steve's mouth.
"Okay. Good Deeds." Sam was back on the search. "Well, we could collect canned goods for a shelter."
"We do that anyway." Natasha tossed the magazine on the coffee table.
"We do?" Sam was always a bit behind the inner workings of the house.
"Yup. Where do you think all those cans of spaghetti end up?"
Barnes stopped humping Steve's side. "What about my spaghetti O's?"
"Barnes buys it by the caseload. I donate it." She picked up a nail file and went to work.
"You gave away my spaghetti O's? Damn, woman."
"You buy it and never eat it. It'll go bad. You're a spaghetti hoarder."
"You coulda asked." He laced some genuine hurt in his tone but Natasha was a pro, she knew he was full of BS. Besides, he was back to sucking on Steve's ear before he'd even said the word 'asked.'
"Alrighty then. We could pick a stretch of the highway and clean it."
It was Bucky's turn to stare, which meant the idea was a particularly bad one for him to be distracted from face time with Steve.
Sam worked to recover. "Ok then, the peanut gallery is glaring. So, next idea. Here, how about this one. Save the Whales."
Bucky stopped mid-suck and looked thoughtfully at Sam, then; "Too much swimming."
This time even Steve stared. "You do know that saving the whales does not involve swimming."
"I know that." Bucky was always quick to recover.
Sam decided to no longer offer up random ideas until he'd found one that was worthy of group discussion; everyone in the group.
"Wait here's a good one. A 5k race to benefit Aids research on December 1, 2017."
Natasha stopped filing "That sounds interesting; details."
"Get a group together, get sponsors, run to benefit research." Sam was feeling he had the mojo going on this idea.
"Five thousand meters?" Seems the idea had piqued Bucky's interest. He had partially detached from Steve's body.
"Yes. 5k, you know what 5k is; come on, all that time with Hydra." Sam was getting cranky, the eggnog sugar high was wearing off. He was getting the sweats.
"We can't run five thousand meters, it has to be six thousand. We can run 6k."
"6k? That's not the race distance, it has to be 5k." The sweat was beading on Sam's forehead a sure sign he needed a pecan pie refill.
"I don't care. We, me and he, will run 6k. Right, Steve?" Bucky held fast to his OCD fetish of three and divisible by three. Any mention of numbers, and distances, or steps or bullets (thankfully his Glock held fifteen) It all had to be in the three family. "It's my coping mechanism." He deadpanned. "My therapist says so."
They didn't catch on to the numbers thing for a while. It got interesting. Sam thought he was losing his mind. Or that Barnes was gas-lighting him just for the hell of it. Every time he'd set four plates out for dinner, one would disappear. It was always at the chair where Barnes would sit.
"I know I set our four plates." Sam would complain.
"Sam what's the deal. It isn't funny to leave him out." Steve got defensive when it came to Barnes. Always thinking Sam was somehow dissing him.
"I am not excluding him. I set the table with four plates every time. And every time there are three just before dinner."
"Well, I don't believe in ghosts so what's going on."
Bucky never said a word. He'd just stand in the corner perfecting the impassive 'Mom and dad are arguing over me look' and watch that argument drone on. A lot like that smug cat that everyone has met; the one that watches the poor fool of a dog get scolded for the broken flower vase that obviously was a cat thing; not a dog thing.
Sam finally got fed up and turned on the forbidden surveillance cameras. (A whole other adventure in the land of Anxiety After Hydra Syndrome.)
"Look. Just look at this." He pointed with great and personal emphasis at the screen for Steve. "It was him all along." HIM. Said with the undertone of "That asshole."
So. The three fetish. They finally agreed to set the table for three and left one plate in the cabinet that Bucky would take out for himself so he could feel he had some control over his own anxiety.
"Ok 6k for you and Steve. The rest of the entire world will run in the 5k." Sam was needing that sugar break for sure.
"That many? Wow. Imagine the starting line chaos." Bucky was living up to his asshole status.
"Great. Let the planning begin!"