Bucky glanced in between his fuming girlfriend and the very large cat currently locked in a staring contest with her. When he'd decided on going to the Bronx zoo to distract the petite blonde, he hadn't had any thought besides "hey, she likes animals! What harm could it do?".
He'd clearly underestimated her ability to be a fucking idiot.
For instance, it looked like Rose was seriously contemplating jumping the zoo enclosure and fighting a fucking lion. Granted, it was nearly impossible for the massive feline to hurt her now- that didn't lessen the inherent stupidity of jumping into a caged animal's space to throw hands with it. She'd started to pace in front of the cage, gesticulating angrily at the lounging lion while cursing in what Bucky was almost positive was ancient Greek. To his shock and amusement, the big cat also appeared to be responding. The large female (if the lack of mane was anything to go by) would let out the occasional growl and grumble, green eyes slatted an almost human manner as it tracked the pacing blonde.
Bucky decided it was time to step in when the irate woman started to roll up her sleeves.
"Rosie?" The blonde grunted at him, eyes flashing rose gold as she fiddled with the buttons on her jacket. Bucky sighed, placing a restraining hand on her shoulder. "Why are you trying to fight a lion? I thought you liked cats?" Rose hissed at him, folding her arms moodily over her chest.
"I like house cats. That is a big cat." Said big cat grumbled, apparently saying something inflammatory if Rose's reaction was anything to go by. "Oh! I'm sorry, it's a lioness. You're not nearly as amazing as you think you are! Which one of us is in a cage, huh? Not me!" The cat snorted, settling more heavily on its side with an almost amused grumble before rolling over, deliberately ignoring the seething woman. Rose froze, mouth gaping at the passive aggressive move, struggling to understand the sheer audacity of the overgrown fluff ball ignoring her—
"Catch me outside, bitch! Oh wait! You can't! You-" She probably would have continued her verbal tirade were it not for the alarmed hand Bucky smacked over her mouth.
She thought she responded very maturely when she licked the appendage.
Bucky was less than impressed.
"Are you trying to get us kicked out of the zoo?!" He gestured minutely to the small crowd of people observing the squabbling couple. Sufficiently cowed by the attention, Rose winced, waving a sheepish hand at the onlookers. Satisfied that the blonde was finally calm, Bucky moved his hand away. "Now, can you kindly explain what the hell that was about? And, more importantly, when you developed the ability to talk to damned animals?" Rose blinked up at him, mentally going over the last thirty minutes, a perplexed frown appearing on her face.
"I can't talk to animals- that's Hecate and Artemis' thing." Before Bucky could question her on how exactly she knew that, she continued. "Besides, I didn't talk to her. She talked to me. I was just admiring the exhibit and she started mocking us." She puffed up, irritation simmering just below the surface as she shot a glare at the smug feline. "She said I looked like mousy cub and you had a pathetic mane." Rose huffed, face flushing with rage. "Which is just ridiculous. You have amazing hair- amazing everything, really- I mean seriously she has to be blind. You're perfect. Well- not perfect- your old man slippers are terrible and you really need to stop eating Mexican food because chemical warfare is against the Geneva Convention-" Her rambling was finally cut off by Bucky's mouth.
She was just too fucking cute.
He'd stood there watching her face get pinker and pinker, small hands angrily twirling the fabric on her long sleeves, periwinkle blue eyes getting brighter and brighter with her impassioned defense of him, and found himself brought back to the moment he'd realized he'd had to have her in his life. She'd been this frail, angry woman, trapped in a hospital bed but standing taller than anyone else in the room- a little queen on her sterile throne. He'd been struck by how fierce she was, stalwart in her desire to protect everyone but herself- a job that he'd been more than happy to pick up. At the time, he had thought it was because of all of the ways she'd reminded him of a young Steve. Now though?
Now he knew that was a lie.
Rose, after that first beautiful night together, had told them her theory on love- that it wasn't so much of a fall as it was a climb. That moment? When she'd been so fierce and fragile and bright? That had been his first step.
This kiss felt like another one.
It was short and sweet, heat dancing between them in that familiar delicious way, the taste of spices and peaches shared between their mouths. He'd crushed her into his body, one hand delicately placed on the back of her neck, the other hoisting her up around her waist so that he didn't have to hunch over to reach her face. She all but melted into him, petite hands curled into the front of his jacket as she matched his love with her own, heart dancing a rapid beat in her chest at the warm feel of him.
It was almost physically painful to pull away from her.
However, he figured public indecency was just as likely to get them kicked out of the zoo as trying to fight a lion was.
Mouth red from the force of the kiss, Bucky grinned down at the now pouting blonde, silver eyes shining happily. When she whined up at him, his grin only deepened, the dimple in his chin appearing in full.
"Come on, baby doll." Rose shivered at the warm growl of his voice, hands flexing as she fought the urge to pull his mouth back down to her. Bucky, full aware of the effect he was having on her, gave her a smug wink. "Ignore the big kitty- I think she's just jealous that my hair is better than her fella's." He shot the lioness another smug wink, pointedly ignoring the way the massive feline was now watching the both of them.
Talking animals were the least of his worries right now.
Besides- he had a date.
Rose firmly tucked under his metal arm, Bucky slowly made his way out of the big cat exhibit, gently redirecting the blonde's attention to the other things she wanted to do at the zoo.
Behind them, the lioness watched them with intelligent green eyes, silently cataloguing their interactions and the way the tiny blonde lit up underneath the much larger man's attentions. The little swan was coming along quite nicely.
Perhaps it was almost time to come out of hiding.
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Rose loved the butterfly garden. While not as fantastic as the beach house, she could safely say that it was probably in one of her top ten favorite places.
For starters, it was warm.
Fall had finally hit New York, and an annoying layer of frost had come with it- annoying because she was hoping it would snow. She had trudged through and shoveled snow many times in her life, but had always been too afraid of getting sick to go out and play in it. Now that she was healthy, she was fully looking forward to pegging her boyfriend's with snowballs and using the shield as a sled.
Which of course meant that it hadn't snowed (yet).
Instead, the weather had oscillated between freezing and temperate, allowing for it to rain before freezing the condensation once it was on the ground. It had turned New York into an ice rink- one that Rose was barely qualified to walk on before it became a slippery hellhole. Bucky had been "forced" to walk with one arm around her waist, helping the blonde course correct whenever she looked like she was about to tip ass over tea kettle. With the exception of her desire for snow, Rose found that she still hated the cold (a sentiment shared by both of her boyfriends). It had used to be its own kind of torture, locking up her joints and sending a constant, throbbing ache down to her very bones. No matter how many layer she'd worn or how hot she kept her apartment, she had never managed to get fully warm. Now, as healthy as she was, and despite the fact that she didn't really feel temperature the way she used to, she still hated being cold.
The butterfly garden was like a little sauna in the middle of a refrigerator.
She'd been able to take off her jacket and hat, savoring the warm humidity of the greenhouse and the way it melted some of the frost off her cheeks. The garden was its own little world, the gentle babbling of the stream and the excited chittering of birds overlapping the quiet roar tourists talking amongst themselves. Bucky had joined her in taking off his jacket, though he pointedly kept his hat on as a way of shielding his identity.
The last thing they needed was to get mobbed by fans at the damn zoo.
The second thing that had landed the garden in her top ten, was the butterflies. The greenhouse was positively packed with them, well over a dozen species bopping around in a menagerie of colors. The butterflies, like the cats, were seemingly drawn to her, gently landing on her clothes or nesting in her hair. Unlike the cats, they weren't quite so aggressive in their affection, fluttering curiously at her before moving on.
Also unlike the cats, the butterflies were much more open to direction.
Bucky had snapped a couple of pictures of her covered in the brightly colored insects before the urge to tease the blonde had become too much for him. He'd just barely finished calling her a "Disney Princess" before Rose was directing the butterflies in his direction.
Rose could safely say that it was the laziest swarm she'd ever seen.
He'd ended up with close to a dozen perched on him, one going so far as to land smack in the middle of his face. Anxious at the thought that he might accidentally hurt the fragile insects he'd frozen in place, eyes huge as he quietly begged his laughing girlfriend to move the butterflies- a prospect that probably would have worked better if he wasn't also trying to gently blow the butterfly off the tip of his nose.
Rose found that she was more than content to let him suffer- at least until she'd gotten her own pictures taken.
Besides, it was only fair. Bucky was definitely more of a Disney Princess than she was. After all, he was the one who'd slept in a glass coffin for nearly a hundred years before being roused by true love's kiss (punch? It was nearly the same with those two).
Bucky had only been slightly amused by her vast oversimplification of his time with HYDRA, and was of the firm opinion that the swat he gave her ass was entirely called for. Now, the noise she'd made when he'd smacked her? That had been entertaining- and definitely worth looking into…
-_-_-_-Page-Break-_-_-_-
Rose glanced anxiously between the heels on her feet and the crush of people on the dance floor, desperately trying to tamp down her nerves for the sake of the man eagerly perched beside her. When Bucky had insisted on taking her dancing, she had been expecting something like the last time they'd gone- a swing hall where she could wear something fluffy and get spun around.
The dress Natasha had shoved on her should have been her first clue that wasn't the case.
It was a slinky, crimson colored thing, arguable baring more than it covered. She probably would have argued against wearing something so revealing, had the woman really given her any time to argue. She'd been stripped and plopped into the thing so quickly that she'd barely had time to process the stilettoes on her feet before she was being shoved into Bucky's waiting arms.
Bucky had no such reservations about her outfit.
He'd loved it so much, in fact, that her underwear (what little of it that was left) was nestled in his back pocket. That her lipstick was only slightly smudged was a damn miracle.
That was beside the point.
The point, was that they were in a salsa club.
The building was jam packed, couples pressed together and writhing against one another, a slow, Latin beat throbbing in time with the movement of the dancers. Warm colored lights danced across miles of exposed flesh, perspiration sparkling under the pulsing lamps. The heat of the pressed bodies made the club almost humid, everything bathed in a hazy glow as the music played on.
It was, in short, definitely not a swing club.
Glancing again between her towering heels and her excited lover, Rose swallowed anxiously before speaking, confident that the brunet would hear her despite the deafening music.
"Bucky- are you sure this is a good idea? You know I can't dance…" Bucky gave the hand he had clasped a tender squeeze, pulling the much smaller woman into his body so that he didn't have to shout to be heard over the bass.
"Rosie- baby doll- have you seen yourself fight?" He hummed, the sound vibrating through his chest and radiating into her own. Rose unconsciously shivered at the noise, swaying into his body, eyes arrested by the pure heat on his face. Satisfied that he had her full attention, he slowly backed onto the dance floor, silver eyes dark as they traced over the lines of her body. "Sweet heart, I'd bet anything that you can definitely dance now."
Rose still wasn't convinced.
"That's fighting- it's different." She winced, struggling to focus on the now swaying brunet over the abundance of stimuli bombarding her enhanced senses. "Besides that, I know you're excited but its so loud in here- and the smells- I don't know if I can-" She's cut off by Bucky suddenly pulling her more forcefully to his body, one muscular thigh appearing between her own, mismatched hands sliding down to cradle her waist.
Everything in her head goes quiet.
"Don't think, baby doll." He began to roll his hips, hands gently guiding her own until she was grinding with him, the bass of the music throbbing between them. Once he was sure that she had the motion down, his hands began to move, one coming up to grab one of her hands while the other settled more firmly on her lower back. Against her will, Rose felt herself relax into the familiar push and pull of their bodies, her free hand coming up to curl against the seam of his neck, head rolling back as she danced with him. Pleased that his attempt at distraction had worked, he leaned forward to press a soft kiss into the base of her throat, savoring the taste of her skin, an unwitting groan escaping his throat at the way her body shuddered so sweetly underneath him.
"Just focus on me, Rosie." He breathed into her skin. Enraptured by the slow grind of her body, he slid the hand on her waist up her body to her head, gently redirecting it until she was fully facing him again. Pupils blown wide and heart thundering in her chest, Rose nodded at his direction, giving herself over to the rhythm and his lead. She finds that, once she focuses on him, it's almost impossible to focus on anything else.
It's sweet, decadent torture.
The throb of the bass, the feel of his hands tracing her body, the smell and taste of his skin so tantalizingly close and yet so terribly far away. She's stuck in her own personal hell, the desire to stop dancing so she can peel the clothes from his body and the desire to never stop dancing clashing in her head.
She's almost positive there's a wet spot on his ridiculously tight jeans.
Bucky appears to be in a similar predicament (if the tent he's sporting is anything to go by), but also doesn't appear to have any intention of stopping their slow, sensual dance. Feeling like she'll go mad from the tension, she surges up to press her lips against his, heat and electricity dancing down her spine at the first dizzy taste of him. Bucky meets her kiss just as enthusiastically, biting teasingly at her lip before reluctantly pulling away. He grins down at her, lips still enticingly close to her own, silver eyes dark and dimples appearing in the corner of his smile as he purrs at her.
"Just dance with me, baby doll."
They spend the rest of the night dancing together, savoring the slow grind of their bodies and the taste of each other's mouths, hearts beating in time with the music.
They barely make it back to the tower before Rose finally gets to show him the other dance he'd taught her…
-_-_-_-Page-Break-_-_-_-
Across town, a lioness goes missing from the zoo.
`~`~`~A/N`~`~`
That' was hella steamy- just oof, guys. I wanted to apologize for my last chapter- I know a lot of you received a notification saying it had updated, but couldn't find the chapter. I have ZERO idea what happened. I loaded and reloaded the chapter at LEAST four times, and it just didn't want to appear. SO, to make up for it, I have a cute little one-shot for you guys. It's called "The Cat" and takes place between chapter 35 and this one. In the meantime- thoughts on the chapter? Comments? Wild speculations? I love hearing from you guys!
