Rose eyed the panting red head across from her speculatively, mind working overtime as she went over her options. They had spent the last couple of days sparring and pushing Rose's body to its limit, trying to get a handle on what exactly the blonde was capable of.

It had been…enlightening.

Sammy had been putting her through her paces, attacking her in just about every way she could imagine while trying to get a pin on what exactly her fighting style was. The red head was convinced it was some amalgamation of aikido, judo, jiu-jitsu, and pankration (which was apparently some ancient Greek martial arts)- which meant exactly nothing to Rose. The security expert had tried to explain it to her, even going so far as to try and explain the origins of each, but the blonde could feel her eyes glazing over, mind melting and trying to escape out of her ears. Before she could develop a taste for brains, Sammy had groaned and summed it up as "close-range, acrobatic and brutal- like Natasha and Bucky's fighting styles had a terrifying baby"- a dramatic improvement from Rose's old fighting style which was "throwing her entire body at someone and hoping they got tired from kicking her ass".

Rose just thought it was fun.

It turns out, she really, really liked being active. After her Ascension, Rose had noticed a sort of tightness in her limbs- almost a buzzing underneath her skin. Part of that, she was sure, was her anxiety over the changes in her body and her hunger for human contact. Climbing the tree and her boys had helped considerably with that, but the buzzing had persisted.

It turns out that sex, no matter how athletic or creative, doesn't actually count as exercise.

Fighting with Sammy? Pushing herself on the machines? The feel of her muscles coiling and stretching, heart beating overtime in her chest, sweat tracing paths down her body? It was ecstasy. For the first time she could recall, the buzzing underneath her skin finally went silent. In fact, everything went quiet. All of the anxiety and pain she'd been suffering disappeared, carried away in the impact of her fists and the faint burn in her lungs. She left that first successful day feeling tired but relaxed, mind mercifully blank but for the lingering worry for her boys.

She actually managed to get some sleep before she woke up screaming.

She'd taken that as a sign to push herself harder- something that Sammy was more than happy to do. If she was being honest, the red head was definitely having more fun than she was. She'd taken Rose's invulnerability to mortal weapons like a challenge, interspersing her hand to hand combat with the occasional weapon- usually something small like a knife or baton. Occasionally she'd use something not so small.

Like a baseball bat.

Or a Scottish claymore.

The claymore was probably one of the scarier moments of Rose's life. Despite the fact that the sword was nearly twice the size of the redhead, Sammy had wielded the thing with unerring accuracy and a pants-wetting amount of maniacal glee. If she hadn't already been having nightmares, the sight of Sammy trying to decapitate her while screaming in Scottish Gaelic (which she now apparently understood) would have definitely done the trick.

Thankfully, Sammy had run out of weapons- or at the very least gotten bored of terrorizing her with them. Satisfied that Rose could defend herself, she'd decided to move on to something they hadn't yet covered; more specifically, they had yet to assess if Rose's "muscle memory" extended to offensive attacks. This led to Rose's current predicament, namely trying to figure out how to get past Sammy's guard to take the red haired woman down.

It wasn't going well.

Turns out, it was much easier to access her "memories" when she was actually being attacked. As terrifying as Sammy was, her brain simply didn't categorize her as a serious threat, leaving her floundering more often than not. She'd spent ages analyzing the other woman, trying to figure out the best way to take her down- all with little to no success. She was hot, thoroughly soaked in sweat (and thankful that Darcy managed to yet again convince her to wear so little), and more than a little frustrated that she was apparently unable to fight if a sword wasn't racing for her head. Across from her, Sammy let out a loud groan, rolling her eyes in agitation.

"Seriously, Goose, I can feel you thinking from over here. Just stop." Grumbling in irritation, Rose absently reached up to tighten the ponytail on the back of her head, eyes flitting about the arena as she searched her brain for answers.

"I'm not going to stop. I know I can take you down, damn it! I can do this!" Sammy rolled her eyes again, voice as dry as the Sahara when she replied.

"I meant stop thinking. You think way too much. You're failing because you second guess your every move and the hesitation is costing you. At some point you have to stop analyzing and just go." Feeling a little abashed, Rose gave her a sheepish nod, closing her eyes and doing her best to shut her mind off. Eyes still closed she takes a couple of deep breaths, focusing on the feel of the air moving past her lips and filling her lungs, shifting her attention to the sensation of the sweat trickling down her chest and sticking to her skin, the way her muscles felt as she flexed and relaxed her hands, slowly shutting out the outside world and all of its distractions to focus just on being. Calm settles over her mind and nerves like a blanket, clarity creating a sense of peace in all of the dark corners of her head. She feels her heart rate settle, the buzzing under her skin amping up with her anticipation.

Then she opens her eyes and moves.

She charges across the arena floor, watching as Sammy's body tenses in preparation of her frontal assault. However, at the last second she instead darts passed her, leaping towards the cage wall and then spring boarding off of it to land on the red head's shoulders, arching and twisting until the smaller woman was slammed into the mat. Before she could recover, Rose twisted again, her legs locking around Sammy's right arm, calves half choking the other woman as she pulled her into an arm bar. There's a half second where Rose isn't sure that the red head will actually submit, her mechanical legs groaning as she attempts to escape, face nearly the same shade as her hair as she struggles. Rose tenses up around her, unwilling to hurt her friend but also reluctant to lose, tightening her grip minutely in an attempt to ward her friend from doing something stupid. To her relief, Sammy finally goes limp, her free arm smacking against the ground as she submits. Feeling giddy with pride, Rose collapses back against the mat, a beaming smile appearing on her face.

That's when she notices the applause.

Confused, Rose half-heartedly glances around the gym. Unable to see anything from her sprawled position, she decides to sit up, ignoring Sammy's grumbling when she almost accidentally kicks her in the face (considering the amount of times the red head had deliberately kicked her in the face, she wasn't feeling terribly charitable). She only has to look for a second when she finally spots them, standing tall but noticeably battle worn across the gym.

The noise that escapes her mouth is barely human.

She's up and moving before she can really process it, sprinting for the cage with all of the grace of an excited puppy. The logical thing would have been to go through the cage door to get to them- but Rose had never claimed to be particularly logical. Instead, she latches onto the cage and climbs twenty feet straight up the side. She doesn't stop when she reaches the top, only pausing long enough to adjust her body before throwing herself off of the top, body twisting and flipping until she lands in a roll, her momentum carrying her forward at a speed impossible for the average human. She reaches Bucky first, slamming into the cursing brunet hard enough that she nearly knocks him over.

"Damn it, Rosie! Are you trying to give me a heart attack?" She ignores his swearing to clamber up his body, urgency making her movements an uncoordinated clamor. For all of his complaining, Bucky eagerly helps her out, mismatched hands finding purchase on her ass as he hauls her up his body, carefully maneuvering her around the various buckles and weapons attached to his TAC gear. Once she's settled he continues, voice gruff but teasing. "I mean, don't I get enough of Stevie throwing himself off of things? I don't think I can handle the stress, sweetheart. I'm over a hundred years old, Rosie. You've got to give me a break-"

She shuts him up with her mouth.

Usually she would have responded to his teasing- maybe told him he looked pretty damn good for a centenarian, or made a terrible pun about "falling" for him. This time, though, she doesn't have the energy for it. She throws herself into the kiss, her relief at him being home and safe quickly morphing into that familiar, delicious heat. It's like pop rocks and lightning underneath her skin, her heart hammering double time in her chest, one hand crawling up his shoulders to tangle in his hair while the other comes up to cup his face. It's a heady combination of passion and relief and soul-deep, fathomless love. She wants to lose herself in the warm, familiar feel of his body. She wants to savor the smell of him, trace the familiar planes of his face and get lost in the kind, tender weight of his silver eyes.

She wants him to wipe away the greasy stain Edward had left on her skin.

She wants him to make the nightmares stop.

She probably would have tried to undress him in the middle of the gym, had she not found the blood behind his ear.

She pulls back so quickly that she nearly gives herself whiplash, eyes shooting over the brunet's body as she frantically searches him for injury. Bucky watches her panic in a daze, eyes hooded and lips swollen from the blonde's passion. When it appears that Rose isn't going to continue her not-so-tender ministrations he frowns at her, eyebrows furrowing with his confusion.

"Baby doll, what's wrong?" She scowls at him, lifting up her tacky left hand to show him the cause of her alarm.

"What's wrong? What's wrong is that you're bleeding!" Eyes wide and voice getting progressively shriller, she barrels on. "Where are you hurt? What happened? Why haven't you gone to the med bay!?" Bucky watches her panic with the tiniest amount of amusement, secretly tickled by the sudden change in roles. Rose catches onto his amusement and her scowl deepens, the hand not tainted with blood coming up to smack him on his flesh shoulder. "You tin-foil wrapped baked potato what if it's serious?" By the time she finishes she's bright pink in the face, periwinkle blue eyes wide with irritation and anxiety. Rather than be chastised, Bucky grins down at her, silver eyes soft and his smile decidedly dopey.

"I missed you too, baby doll." Before Rose can open her mouth to cuss him out again, he continues, the smile on his face taking a vicious, darkly pleased edge. "And that's not my blood. Stevie and I are fine- that's animal blood." Rose squinted at him, glancing between the blood and the predatory look on her love's face.

"Animal blood? Why do you have animal blood on your face?" The brunet licked his lips, silver eyes glinting darkly.

"We heard there was a rabid, wounded dog that had to be put down." He scanned her face intensely, vicious protectiveness lighting up his features and making him appear nearly feral. "It touched someone it shouldn't have- a lot of someone's, actually. Couldn't seem to help itself." Rose felt understanding dawn on her face, something just as vicious blooming in her chest. Steve, who'd been observing them both quietly, finally decided to speak up, rage deepening his voice and turning it into a baritone growl.

"So we put it out of it's misery." Rose whipped around to face him, scanning the blond for injuries before settling on his face. Mouth dry and heart racing she questioned him, her tacky hand reaching out to draw him into her and Bucky's embrace.

"Did it suffer?" Steve went willingly, sandwiching the much smaller woman in between the two soldiers. His hand was surprisingly gentle when he reached up to cup her cheeks, in direct contrast with the dark, hungry look on his face.

"Yes." It's a simple, one-worded reply, but it carries an entire depth of meaning in it.

Yes he suffered.

Yes he died screaming.

Yes he'd begged and pleaded and they'd ignored every word of it.

Yes they'd avenged her- her and every woman that he'd put his damned hands on.

She gives him a one worded reply, wicked satisfaction glinting in the blue of her eyes.

"Good."

It had not been civilized justice. There had been no court, no trial by a group of his peers. The two men had been his judge, jury, and executioners. Getting to the man had been laughably easy for the super soldiers- in part because the resident billionaire had helped them out. Edward had been transferred out of the facility at Tony's request, placed in a much less secure county jail.

The only difficult part had been covering up the man's screams.

Afterwards, there had been an unfortunate fire- the only casualty being one Edward Lawrence. Truthfully, they'd planned to make it look like a suicide. However, they bastard had been too mangled by the end of it for that little story to be believable.

The only regret that Steve had was that it had taken them an extra day to get home to their girl.

It had been a hell of a homecoming.

Steve had been aware of Rose's training. Tony had done his best to get them up to date on their way home, but Steve had still had a hard time imagining the picture the billionaire was painting. He'd made her sound like some sort of vicious, warrior princess- a lethal goddess doling out retribution with grace and brutal strength. It was…a lot to digest. Don't get him wrong- he knew that his girl was a fierce little thing. He'd seen her dole out enough dick punches with brutal accuracy and ruthless determination to at least be able to attest to that much. Her strength was also something that wasn't up for debate. She was a god damn queen who'd faced more pain and terror than most people would ever see in the entirety of their lives. In spite of this, she'd come out on the other side so terribly, beautifully kind. The world had tried to crush her, pressuring her on all sides in the hope that she'd break, and she'd turned into a god damned diamond instead.

He just had trouble imaging her attacking someone outside of rather impressive ability to end bloodlines.

Watching her choke Sammy out with her thighs had been a fucking revelation. One part of him had been caught up in the beauty of her technique, analyzing the way that she moved while cataloging her strengths and weaknesses.

The other part of him was supremely jealous of the red head.

He wasn't a huge fan of being choked, but he was pretty sure he would make an exception for Rose's thighs.

She'd looked one of Thor's Valkyries- a vicious temptress doling out pain and punishment with the grace of an acrobat. She'd been a god damn vision, sweat making her skin glow Irish gold in the fluorescent lighting, her form only covered by a tiny pair of pink shorts and a sports bra. He'd been able to watch the way her muscles stretched and moved, perspiration tracing shining paths down her body in a manner he was pretty sure was designed specifically to drive him insane.

He wanted to taste her.

He's a little ashamed to admit that watching her jump off of the cage had actually frozen him in place- not because he'd panicked like Bucky had. No, his issue was that all of the blood in his body had decided to flee his muscles and make a beeline straight for his dick. Watching her climb the brunet had only compounded the problem, his brain making an odd gurgling noise before bleeding out of his ears.

He thinks he blacked out a little.

The only thing that had stopped him from asking the blonde to ride his face like a bicycle had been Rose's worry over Bucky.

Her "good" just about destroyed any self-control he had left.

He surges forward to press a brutal kiss against her mouth, one possessive hand grasping at her hair to pull her closer while the other reached around to pull both of his loves into his body. He's vaguely aware that he's making a scene- that they've all just exposed their relationship to the entirety of the damned gym- but he's just doesn't fucking care.

He wants to love her.

He wants to feel that she's safe.

He wants to lose himself in their bodies, worship his goddess in the most primal way he can think of; he wants to trace her sweat with his tongue and wipe away that animal's touch with the press of his hands.

Mostly he just wants.

Later, they'll have to deal with damage control. For now, he all but drags his loves from the gym, determined to be selfish for a while and take exactly what he wants.

`~`~`~Author's-Note`~`~`~

What's this? TWO updates in a week? What can I say? I missed you guys. Don't be afraid to review! I love hearing from y'all. Thoughts? Comments? What do you guys think of Sammy? Love you!