How long you would wait for me?
How long I've been away?
The shape that I'm in now is shaping the doorway.
Make your good love known to me.
Just tell me about your day.
Hozier, "As It Was"
The call comes sometime after midnight, pulling you instantly alert from your deep sleep. Your phone is set to "Do Not Disturb," and only one number is programmed as an exception.
"Are you home? I...I need you."
"Of course you can come, let me just-"
"I'm already here." A pause, and then, "I let myself in. It was too risky to wait-"
You hang up the phone, switching it off as you slide out of bed. Your feet don't even register the shock of the cold hardwood as you pad across the floor, opening your bedroom door and moving down the hallway. The hair on the back of your neck rises, your nerves jangling in anticipation.
It's been nearly five months since you've seen him (you had him for three whole days, that time), and it was six months before that (only a single day). You don't allow yourself to speculate in the brief moment before you see him, refusing to analyze just how tired and broken and lost he sounded in the few seconds you spoke.
He's here, he's here, he's here, your heart whispers with each rush of blood.
You turn the corner from the hall into your cramped living room, big enough for a loveseat and a tiny coffee table, but no more. It seems all the more cramped for the super soldier occupying the room.
He fills all the available space, his black-clad figure blending with the shadows as you pause to take him hasn't bothered to turn a lamp on, and the only light filters in from the street through your amber curtains.
The room is tinted sienna, and the bare skin of your legs that shows beneath the hem of your oversize t-shirt (his shirt, left behind many visits ago) is shaded a dark, aged bronze. Steve's hair is nearly black in the gloom, his eyes colorless and deep. He's no longer the golden hero you'd learned about in school; he's tarnished and aged with misuse. Up until the last few years, the media had been singing songs of praise for the wonder soldier.
You pause a few feet away. His eyes linger on the floor for a heartbeat or two before rising to meet yours. His face is streaked with dirt and what might be faint smudges of blood if you were to look any closer. He's shed his tactical gear, leaving it in a neat pile near the door, but otherwise, he hasn't bothered to clean up from his last mission.
"Nat and Sam told me to say hello," he says, a tired smile raising the corners of his lips.
"Did it go badly?" you ask.
Steve drops onto the loveseat and sits for a moment, silent, lost, and worn. He doesn't speak for a long, loaded moment, but you can't think of what to do to fill the silence.
Finally, Steve exhales, his hands scrubbing up through his beard to dig the heels of his palms into his eyes. His face tilts forward, damps strands of hair swinging loose from where he's pushed it back out of his face.
"I hate coming to you like this. I should clean up, get a shower or wash my face, at least." Despite his strength, the lightest brush of your hand on his shoulder halts his rising. His face, otherwise untouched by the years, is lined with worry and grief. You cup his cheek in your palm, your thumb gently smoothing over the dark circles under his eyes. Exhaustion radiates from him, and your heart aches.
"You can shower later. You're exhausted. Let me help you clean up enough so you can at least get some rest with me. Then we'll get you a shower. Are you hungry?"
You're expecting the refusal of food, but you still sigh as you retrieve a deep bowl and a clean towel from your kitchen. Steve is always hungry, but he will almost never admit it, especially when he's like this. You fill the bowl with warm water and return to find him bent over, elbows planted on his knees, face buried in his hands.
"Still awake there, soldier?"
Steve snaps to, every line of him tense as if he's ready to spring up from the couch, but you're ready for this reaction (some lessons are learned the hard way), and you've stopped a few feet short of your target. You give him time to relax and then you set your bowl on the coffee table.
"Take your shirt off?"
Steve nods wearily, stripping down to the waist, and you examine his torso with a critical eye. It doesn't seem to matter how many times he reminds you of his healing abilities; you always have to see for yourself. As always, his abdomen is free from marks and wounds: literally more perfect than the day he was born.
"Do you want to talk about the mission?" A toss up, really; some nights, he needs to vent. Most nights, he needs to escape. A quick shake of his head shows you it's going to be one of the latter.
"In that case, have you heard about a pigment called Vantablack?" Steve shakes his head, his eyes locked on your face as you move over him with your warm, damp cloth. "Then let me tell you about a couple of guys named Anish Kapoor and Stuart Semple. You'll love this."
For the next several minutes, you carefully clean Steve's face of any traces of filth, moving on to his neck and chest when you are satisfied with your work. You keep up a steady narrative, outlining the drama between the two artists, giving Steve as detailed a history as you can, knowing he appreciates those little tidbits as much as you do.
You stop once to fetch a clean towel and fresh bowl of water, and by the time you reach the waistband of his trousers, Steve is visibly more relaxed and even smiling a little as you bring him up to speed on the pigment feud. A shower would have been more efficient, probably even better for his muscles, but Steve doesn't come to you for efficiency. Every stroke of your hand, every time your fingers press the cloth to his flushed skin, brings you a little closer until you're straddling him, his hands firmly bracing you against him as the cloth drops from your nerveless fingers to fall to the floor behind the loveseat.
"I missed you," he says. His eyes search your face restlessly, maybe memorizing with that artist's eye, always searching for his next sketch; maybe trying to see what's changed since the last time he held you; maybe just reassuring himself that you are still here, waiting for him like you promised you would.
Like he tried to tell you not to.
Like he'll never admit he deserves.
Your palms find his jaw again, fingers slide gently through his beard, and you shiver as the thick, coarse growth scratches against your skin. Your lips meet unconsciously, neither of you meaning to initiate the kiss, and you sigh with relief at the silky, plump press of his mouth against yours.
"Let me dump this water," you say, sliding back off his lap and standing on shaking legs. "Then we can go to bed."
But you never make it from between his knees. His hand catches yours, his grip gentle but resolute, and you don't have it in you to pull away. Not that you really want to. He reels you back to him, just a couple of steps, and then his arms are around you, his forehead pressed to your stomach. The heat of him through the thin material of the worn t-shirt is enough to loosen your muscles, send shivers of giddiness through your limbs.
"I missed you," he murmurs into your navel, sliding his face to the side. Individual hairs from his beard slip through your shirt, scraping over your skin, and Steve's arms instinctually tighten as your legs falter. Your fingers anchor in his hair, your grip tight enough to make any lesser man cringe.
Steve groans heavily against your belly, rolling his face to the other side, his teeth nipping and pulling the shirt as he moves. His hands shift, moving his grip from your backside to your hips, digging in tight before his thumbs begin to rise, lifting the hem of your shirt as they move. His nose presses against your bare skin, inhaling deeply as he mercilessly slides the worn garment up.
"Take it off," he says, his voice resonant against your hip bone. His lips press, hot and devastating, along the crease between your thigh and pelvis, and you obey without hesitation.
Steve seems determined to memorize the span of skin between your hip bones, to map it with his tongue and lips, but as his mouth trails lower, you grasp his face between both hands, fingers pressing tight as you pull his gaze up to meet yours.
"It's been too long. I need you inside me."
His nostrils flair, his eyes sliding shut as he sucks in a sharp breath. His eyelashes lie feather black against his cheeks for a long moment, his jaw clenching, but you know better than to speak.
"Sometimes I dream of you saying those exact words to me."
You move to open his fly with shaking fingers, and after a couple of stumbling attempts, Steve stills your hands, pressing your fingers down on his lap as he shifts his hips, a hiss escaping his throat as you stroke his length through his pants.
You lean down, sliding your lips across his cheek, your hands pressing down harder as Steve ruts up into your grip. There's a sudden line of pressure on your hips, and then Steve lets your shredded underwear drop unceremoniously to the floor.
He pulls you down to his lap just as your mouth finds his ear. Your lips ghost up the edge, teeth nipping the cool skin there; Steve settles your thighs on either side of his, still rutting against you even as he turns his head to give you better access. The tendons in his hands creak with restraint as he pulls you down harder, and you know he holds back for fear of hurting you, no matter how much he needs this release.
But tonight, in reverently simple, soft words, you tell him to hold on as hard as he needs. You reassure him, tell him everything you both need to hear, a mantra repeated so much it's sunk deep into your bones.
That you'll wait for him no matter how long he's away.
That your love is absolute and unmoved, how it will remain until the dust takes you both.
That even if it's only for tonight, he has to let everything else go and just be with you, feel you, lose himself in you.
"I'm here, Steve. Take what you need."
And for the first time since you've known him, the captain obeys orders and digs in harder. You lift up long enough for him to finally open his pants and pull himself clear of material before sinking down on his length.
And if the word forced from your lips is some unrecognizable hybrid between a prayer and a curse, both of you are too far gone to notice.
Later tonight, when the two of you have finally migrated back to the bed, Steve will apologize. He will soothe raw skin and blossoming bruises with tender kisses. Tomorrow will find him massaging your aching joints and icing the darkened prints of his grip left on your skin.
But right now he clutches you harder and absolutely uses you. He doesn't waste breath with instructions, just moves and places you exactly as he wants.
His arms line your back, his enormous hands clutching your shoulders from behind for leverage as he grinds into you. Your fingers lock into his hair, pulling his head back to bare his throat to your teeth, and the snarl that erupts from his chest at the sharp, unexpected contact sends a jagged spike of lust straight down to your belly.
Steve's eyes darken, his eyebrows knitting together as he gazes down at where you're joined. His breathing speeds up the longer he watches his hips rising to meet yours, and his face flushes as he loosens a hand, slipping his fingers between you.
With a jerk, you wrench his head back up, bringing his mouth to your own throat as he curses, his fingers clenching between you. His beard scratches your throat raw as his tongue travels over the tensed muscles and tendons of your neck.
Profanity, filthy promises spill onto your skin as Steve pushes you harder, demands more from you. He swears as he tells you you can take everything he gives you, that you have to, that he needs you to.
And you do, absolutely everything and more.