"Say it."

"You're an ass."

"C'mon, say it."

"Fuck you."

"Workin' on it. C'mon, sweetheart. Say it for me."

"Please."

Groan.

"Had enough?"

"Please, please, just do it. Just...please."

The words were followed by a stuttered gasp and a sharp hiss. Her fingers ached from how tightly she gripped the rough fabric of the bedroll under her. Ada felt like every part of her being was on fire and she desperately needed the flames to consume her.

He kissed her soft and sweet, the taste of her still on his tongue. How delicately he kissed her as he roughly thrust into her. His calloused hands pinned her hands above her head in what they both knew was a useless hold. He might have a genetically enhanced serum coursing through his veins, but she had over a decade of experience on him.

But Ada was beyond frustrated at the fact that he was denying her this touch. She craved the feeling of his skin under her fingers as she trailed them over his muscles and down to the patch of blond curls between his hips. He loved seeing her like this. Frustrated, writhing, and begging for more.

"Good?" he asked as he hiked her leg up to reach a new angle in her. Ada let out a stifled moan and he grinned, his hair falling into his eyes and over his sweaty skin. Steve always wanted to please her before the serum and please her he did, but now he had the stamina and strength to bring what was good to something great. Mindblowing, even. She never wanted him to stop. She loved the feel of him over her, on top of her, in her. She loved being claimed by him. She chose him to be the one to map out her body with his lips as he nipped and sucked along her pale skin.

Moments like this made Ada truly believe that they weren't property of Drema or the US Government, but rather each other. That the vows and the ring on her finger felt actually real. That they weren't trapped in this war but back in Brooklyn in their tiny apartment as he fucked her to the point where she was drowning from the waves of pleasure crashing over her.

"Just don't stop," she bit out. He huffed out a laugh that was swallowed by her kisses. He had sent her over the edge twice already with just his tongue and now it seemed like he was going for a third. Heat burned in her stomach and electricity built up from her legs into her core into her head and-

"Fucking fuck shit! Fucking hell, put a sock on the damn fucking tent door!" Bucky yelped. Steve hurriedly grabbed their blanket and threw it over their intertwined bodies before turning to glare at his best friend who was currently facing the canvas fabric wall of the tent with a hand clasped over his eyes.

"What the hell, Buck?" Steve snapped.

"You two were late to breakfast so I said I would go check on you. But now I need to go find poison ivy and rub it on my eyes so that it can be burned out of my mind."

"I can assure you, Barnes, there's nothing to be worried about if we're late," Ada drawled.

"Yeah, I got that by now. You two were bad enough back home. Listen, I've known you two for a long time and I still never wanted to see that."

"Well, we weren't planning on you to see it," Ada quipped.

Steve let out a frustrated groan and pressed his face into the curve of his wife's neck. "Buck, get out!"

"We'll be there in a bit," Ada called as the brunet stumbled out of the tent in search of something to erase his memories. Ada bit her lip in an attempt to hold back the laughter that threatened to escape her but that failed the second Steve raised his head to look at her with a disgruntled expression.

"It was bound to happen eventually," she said. "You're insatiable."

He captured her lips in a sweet kiss and then pulled back, a cocky grin spreading across his lips. "I'm the insatiable one? Because I distinctly remember that time in the closet at headquarters."

She snickered at his comment and rolled them over, sitting up so she could straddle his waist. The blonde rolled her hips, eliciting a moan deep from his chest. While he loved being in control, he also loved laying back and seeing her like this. Her normally curled and pinned back hair fell around her flushed cheeks and kiss-swollen lips. She looked up at him from under her thick lashes, green eyes reflecting an emotion he couldn't fully read yet understood entirely.

After they finally rejoined the team after Paris, there was a deeper bond between the couple, if that was even at all possible. While Steve knew there was no chance of them dying that day, the very image of her seconds away from execution made fury rise in his chest every time. His wife, his Ada, was seen either as a weapon or an accessory. She was never granted an opportunity to be a person.

Anger burned through his veins at the thought of how young she started in this life, of how much was taken from her. She said things and did things sometimes that made him just want to sit down and hold her and weep. Now that he knew the truth, he could look back at their time in Brooklyn and understand the things that confused him. When she expected him to hit her after she broke a dish or the nights he would wake up to an empty bed to find her curled into the smallest she could make herself on the couch.

Drema made her into a weapon and the SSR was now using that weapon with no regard for her person. He saw how emaciated and pale she looked in the tent when Phillips nearly sent her off for another mission. He wanted to end this war, end Drema, and hide her from the world so it could never hurt her again.

She leaned forward so she could kiss him as their highs crashed over them. He stroked a hand down the scarred skin of her side and slid another arm around her waist, keeping her close as she pulled herself off of him and settled down on the bed roll.

"I love you," he whispered. She tilted her head to look up at him, confusion written in her eyes.

"Still?"

"Never stopped."

She surged up to kiss him, her calloused hand curling around his cheeks and holding him. "Thank you. Thank you. I love you."

He wanted to hear her say those three words until he took his last breath and he was determined for that to happen when he was old and grey.

/

"All I'm saying is just a sock or a flag or something, anything!" Bucky declared as he and Ada hurried along the hills surrounding the HYDRA compound.

"Do you think if we stop talking about it, you'll stop being so traumatized?" she asked.

"It's just a common courtesy."

"And Steve yelling my name wasn't enough of a warning?"

Bucky stumbled over a log in the woods and let out a retching sound as the blonde smirked. He truly walked right into that one.

They rounded the back and Bucky wiggled onto his stomach so he could set up his sniper rifle. Ada touched his shoulder to gain his attention and pointed towards the warehouse and then held up two fingers. He sent her a thumbs up and then brought his vision back down to his scope where he could see the battle pan out.

A flash of blonde appeared in his vision as Ada hoisted herself up and over the hill and then crawled down the rocky side to land neatly next to a HYDRA canvas truck. She slid her mask over her face and dropped into a crouch, creeping along the walls of the trucks and sliding into the shadows.

The battlefield was always chaotic. Bucky's role was ensuring everyone's backs were protected and if any HYDRA soldier got a little too close, they would meet a bullet from his rifle. But something was gnawing at his gut that something was wrong. Ada's task was to recon the inside before they blew it to the high heavens, but Bucky hadn't seen her since she first entered the building. She usually emerged by now and sent him the signal.

Twenty minutes passed and nothing. Bucky spotted Steve's shield arcing through the air and taking out two soldiers. He scrambled down from the hill and rushed towards his best friend, blasting the shit out of any HYDRA scum that crossed his path.

"Buck? What happened?"

"Ada never gave the signal. She's still in there."

Steve's eyes darted towards the warehouse and then back to the Commandos.

"Go!" Falsworth shouted.

The two men bolted to the door and Steve made quick work of the lock and wrenched open the door. The entire building was constructed like a maze, trapping them between walls and having random dead ends. Bucky could practically feel Steve's blood pressure raise every time they entered a room to find it empty.

The super soldier rammed his shoulder into the next door and entered the room with Bucky hot on his heels. Steve slowed his steps and stopped in front of one wall, staring up at the insignia painted on the concrete.

"Is that-?" Bucky asked.

Garish white paint made up the lines of the gas mask that was muraled on the wall. Five Cyrillic letters were printed under it and Steve knew it even without Ada's Russian lessons.

"Drema," Steve exhaled. "This isn't just a HYDRA warehouse. Drema is here."

All composure was gone now. He spun on his heel and ran into the hall, his head swiveling side to side in a desperate search for his wife. There seemed to be no signs of life inside the building, indicating that Drema figured this warehouse was next on the list of targets and fled before the Commandos arrived.

"Ada!" he shouted and then fell silent, hoping to hear a response over the roar of gunfire and bombs outside. A faint voice rang out through the halls and he immediately followed the sound of the voice. The two men turned the corner and stopped.

Ada stood in the middle of a large room, her mask loosely gripped in her hand and eyes locked on the wall in front of her. A projector was set up across the room and photos and reels of videos played on the wall. Photos of young girls glaring at the camera. Videos of girls practicing how to stab someone. A photo of a young blonde girl with familiar haunted eyes staring up at the camera with pure malice coating her expression. News clippings and reports of murders and assassinations.

"They knew I would come," she finally spoke. "They knew and they set this up. Not as a warning or a courtesy. This is a threat."

"Hey," Steve said. "They're scared. They know they're going to lose. They're running because they know that they have no chance."

"This war is over and they'll still remain. They'll broadcast these photos to the world and let everyone know that the great Captain America has a murderer for a wife. I am a monster and this is all that they will see."

A grainy video started to play of two girls playing some kind of game in the yard while a man watched over them. Ada dropped the mask in her hand and sank to her knees, her hands coming up to clasp over her mouth. Tears built in her eyes as she watched the video.

"I'm so sorry, Sasha. I'm so sorry. I didn't want to do it," she stammered out. "It should have been me."

The sound of a bullet sliding into a barrel echoed through the room and then the shot echoed through the room. The images faded and bathed the room in darkness. Bucky hoisted his rifle onto his shoulder and shot a hate-filled glare at the destroyed projector.

"We burn the place down. Who cares if they have copies or something? We don't stop until these fuckers are dead," he vowed. "At the end of the day, who cares? You're Stevie's girl and you're our friend. Anyone who has something to say can answer to us."

Steve sent him a grateful look and extended a hand out for his wife to take. She grasped it and then looked down at the gas mask that lay at her feet. Steve understood her thoughts and shook his head.

"Leave it. You are no longer under them."

She glanced over at the smoking projector and then at the two men. "I killed Sasha. I killed all the girls that they put up against me. Only the strongest lived."

"Then we do this for you and for all those girls. You had no choice," Bucky announced. "Now, can we get out of here and burn this shithole to the ground? I'm getting the creeps."

She didn't understand it. How they could be so unmoving in their belief that this would all end up okay. They truly thought that they would emerge from this war in one piece.

Ada would let them dream, but she was ready for when it all fell apart.