"How long does this dish usually take?" Bucky was glancing over my shoulder, under the open lid as I gave the contents a stir. He wasn't being as careful as he had been, and his body was pressed against me, creating a slight malfunction in my brain functions.
"Um," I closed my eyes and swallowed down a rush of hunger for more than chicken and dumplings. Think, Brooke, think. "Around a half an hour, I think." It had been a long time since I'd helped my mom make it.
He hummed his understanding, his right hand moving to my waist. "The timer is still in the living room." I nodded. "Let's go set it." His lips found the soft spot just behind my ear and I was thinking for a guy who hadn't seen this type of action for over 80 years he had a great memory for the mechanics. Pulling me away from the stove, we were back in my living room and he picked up the little plastic owl and set it for thirty minutes.
"Now," I bit my lip when he turned to face me. "What should we do for a half an hour?"
"WWSD?" I asked and he squinted at me. "What Would Steve Do?" He shook his head and reached for me. "What?" I teased, as he sat back in my seat on the sofa and pulled me down onto his lap. "Surely Steve wouldn't do THIS." My legs went on either side of his as naturally as anything and then his hands were carefully framing my face, our lips met and I stopped teasing, and stopped thinking about Steve Rogers. Captain America who?
My hands finally made up their minds, sliding into his hair to hold him tight and I sighed as his left hand, cooler than his right, slid down my back and teased at the skin that was bared as my shirt rose slightly from my position on his lap. I smiled into the kiss when he nipped at my bottom lip, happy that Bucky wasn't going to be timid, and when our mouths broke free this time he was breathless, not as badly as me, but at least I knew he was affected. And it wasn't only to get air this time.
Once Bucky got started, he was a man on a mission. His lips sliding along my jaw, teasing as he kissed, telling me how much he loved how I tasted and how much he wanted to taste more of me. He'd just found my pulse, which was pounding so hard I was almost certain that my neighbors could hear it, when the timer went off. He growled and I groaned.
I was panting, and he was still against my neck, holding me tight. Could he feel my pulse through my entire body? Because I sure as fuck felt like I could. I felt him swallow rather than heard it, and then a soft kiss, softer than we'd worked up to, and Bucky worked his way back to my mouth and face. A long, slow kiss - as if he NEEDED one more before he could let me go and then he pulled back to look into my eyes.
He brushed my hair out of my face, smiling at me. "Think dinner's ready?" I chuckled, breathless.
"Probably," I hoped I could stand up without falling over. I was throbbing it seemed, with need. Bucky was still holding me, his hands on my waist. "We should get up and check."
"Yeah," he agreed, but didn't move. "If I wasn't completely opposed to a visit from the fire department -" that got a real laugh from me.
"That would be a pretty horrible way to end an evening, Buck." I got up off of his lap carefully and held out my hand. "Come on, let's go see if I didn't ruin dinner."
He took my hand, but didn't actually use it to get up, because that would be ridiculous. Instead, he linked our fingers and walked with me to the kitchen. "Not possible," he shook his head with complete confidence in my cooking abilities. "Besides, we can always order in and kill the time until it gets here -" another twist of need hit me at the very idea and I almost hoped that dinner WAS ruined.
Dinner wasn't ruined. In fact it was just as tasty as when Mom had made it. Bucky ate seconds, then thirds. We told stories about our families, and our friends. The times before, long before in his case, the Snap, and we got to know one another a little more.
"You ended up riding home in a freezer truck?" I was staring at him like he was crazy, because I was kind of thinking he might be. "Because of a girl?"
"She was cute," he winked at me. "Delores." He nodded as if the memory was a fun and normal one, which for a man his age, it might be.
"Wanna look her up?" I asked, crossing my arms over my chest and sitting back. "I mean, she might still be available."
Bucky licked his bottom lip after he took a drink and I was distracted for a moment. "Your eyes are green, Brooke, but jealousy isn't a great look." His teeth flashed and I tossed a napkin at him.
"I'm not jealous, I'm just not one to stand in the way of true love." I stood up to gather up our dirty dishes so I could load the dishwasher. "I mean, any guy who's willing to ride home in a freezer truck because he spent all his money trying to win a girl a silly bear, that sounds special." I had my back to him and I should have remembered that he moved like smoke, but I was new to life around Bucky Barnes.
When I stood up from putting the dishes in the machine, he was there, pressed against my back, his hands sliding down my arms and I forgot what the hell I was teasing him about. "Dot's dead, or she's close to it." The heat of his breath against my earlobe had me wishing for a drink, of what I wasn't sure, but something to quench my thirst. "I want to kiss you again." I nodded, that sounded fair.
I turned and our lips met, like magnets, and I sighed. That did it. That was what I was so thirsty for, the taste of him. I was off my feet and in his arms, my legs wrapped around his waist and he had my back against the nearest wall. We were both smiling as the kiss deepened, his fingers growing bolder, teasing under the hem of my shirt, and mine tugging at his even as my legs worked against my progress.
It wasn't fair, I realized, as Bucky's hand rose higher, finding more of my skin to touch and tempt, and I was still running into problems with getting his skin bare.
"Do you need some help?" He murmured, pulling away as I groaned, fisting his shirt. My gaze met his and even as his fingers were teasing at the bottom curve of my bra covered breast, his eyes were twinkling with amusement.
Instead of my normal reaction, I kissed him, slower and more sensuously then he was expecting. His fingers stopped teasing my skin, and I unwrapped my legs from his waist and slid down the wall, forcing him to lean down to follow my mouth. Without my own damn trap, I pulled his shirt free, and slipped my fingers under the fabric, finally touching HIS skin. He sighed into my kiss and I swallowed it, fed it back, and let my fingers run a path higher.
Bucky was sharp ridges, and warmth. He pulled away from my mouth so he could stare into my eyes as my fingertips ran along his chest, under his shirt, skin on skin. Somehow more intimate than being completely bare before one another. When I reached his shoulders, running over both cliffs, his mouth met mine again, hands pulling me to him, holding me tight, while my hands were trapped under his shirt.
The next time we pulled apart, not far enough to really count, we were both breathing less than easily. "I -" Bucky was looking down at me like he was looking at something incredibly precious, and I felt incredibly precious because of it. "I have to go." I knew he was thinking I wasn't going to take it well, but he didn't know about my nightmares, so -
"I thought you might," I bit my lip and watched his gaze follow the movement. "I guess I can't convince you that my guest room is a good alternative to the walk back to your apartment again, can I?"
He shook his head, his thumb finding its home brushing under my eye. "No, not yet." I nodded. "I -" he was working out whether he wanted to tell me something, I was getting good at knowing the signs. "I have problems sleeping."
I huffed out a breath. "Oh," my thoughts went to the flashes that were waiting for me when I finally went to bed. "Yeah, I can understand that."
Bucky was studying me, scrutinizing actually. "Brooke?" I swallowed and waited. "Are you having problems -"
"I think anyone who went through what we did, the Snapped, I mean, have some residual side effects, Buck." I shrugged him off.
He was looking at me like he wasn't quite buying my bullshit, which was pretty apt, since I didn't buy my bullshit either. "You said you tried group therapy?" Shit, me and my big fucking mouth.
I pulled away and unwound myself from his shirt. "Yeah, the 'regular' people all got shoved into it, right after." I moved to the stove to put the leftovers in Tupperware. "Do you want to take some of this with you? It's not bad for breakfast - well lunch?"
"Brooke?" I sighed. "Come on, I told you about mine." He had, and to be fair, his was arguably more fucked up.
I turned to face him, and of course he was closer than I expected. "Don't make me put a bell on you, Bucky Barnes." He smirked and I rolled my eyes. "I went to group therapy," I took a deep breath and took a great interest in my socks. "Everyone wanted to talk about how great it was to be back, even though they all didn't realize they were gone." Weirdest shit that I'd ever heard. "We all look the SAME, Bucky. Exactly the same as the day we poofed. And everyone who didn't looks different." Or they're gone, like Mom and Dad. "I sat there, listening to thirty people talk about the Utopia of coming home, but no one talked about where we were. And I realized no one knew where we were, no one saw or felt anything when they were gone."
"Because we were gone, Brooke," Bucky was waiting, his gaze just locked and loaded when I looked up. "Just gone."
"No," I shook my head. "We were SOMEWHERE, Bucky, because I remember parts of it." He was staring at me and I sighed. "OK, that's a stretch, I have nightmares. Or, maybe that's not the right word either. I have flashes. Colors that I can't name, then these horrible feelings. Impressions of pain and suffering and terror. And I wake up gasping and screaming every single day." My eyes were burning and I felt like I unloaded the worst secret that I'd ever had.
Instead of calling me crazy and running away, Bucky pulled me to him and held me while I cried. And I wasn't entirely sure why I was crying, if it was because I finally told someone, or if I was finally grieving the loss of my family and my life from before, but he held me and told me that he was there that I wasn't alone. Not now.