Chapter 6: Clear

Chapter summary: They shared a kiss under fire, but are they destined to share anything else?

AN: Okay so it turns out this isn't quite the last chapter. There will be a fluffy little coda to follow. *posts porn* *runs and hides*

Once the Hydra attack was over, Bucky helped Jemma pick her way past the downed Hydra agents and out of the cell. They headed for the Hub's command centre, Bucky moving silently through the halls in front of Jemma and peering carefully around corners, but there were no more Hydra agents to be seen.

The first thing Jemma did when they got to the command centre was a head count. Fitz, Skye, Coulson, May and Trip were all there, and something cold in her chest warmed with the knowledge that her team was safe and well.

"Jemma!" said Fitz, all but running to her side. "Are you alright?"

Everyone else seemed to have forgotten what they were doing and were staring past her at a blood-spattered Bucky Barnes. Jemma's eye caught the smooth motion of May reaching for her weapon and she threw up her hands in a placating gesture.

"Yes, I'm fine! We're fine, it's all fine," she assured the room at large. "Bucky took down the Hydra agents who attacked us. He saved my life, we've got nothing to fear from him." She put a hand on his arm as if to prove her point, and also because it mustn't be nice to have a roomful of people giving you the side-eye.

With a nod from Coulson, May re-holstered her weapon.

Fitz turned to face Bucky, his spine straight and his expression solemn. "Thank you for keeping her safe, sir."

Bucky looked for a moment like he wasn't quite sure what to do with that, but then he gave Fitz a solemn nod in response. As an afterthought, Fitz dug into his pocket and pulled out a clean, neatly folded handkerchief and held it out to Bucky.

Bucky stared at it for a second, then took it from him. "Thanks," he said, as he started wiping the spray of blood off the side of his neck.

"Simmons, if you're up to it, we need you in the medical bay," Coulson said, already turning back to his console.

"Yes, of course, sir," Jemma answered automatically. She took a few steps towards the door on the opposite side of the room, then turned back and looked at Bucky. Somehow, despite his cybernetic arm and the blood of Hydra operatives drying on his skin, he still managed to look a little lost as he watched her go.

Fortunately Trip was taking all this in and within moments he was at Bucky's side. "Mr Barnes, sir, my name is Antoine Triplett. I don't usually lead with this, but my grandfather was Private Gabriel Jones."

"Well, how 'bout that," said Bucky, shaking Trip's proffered hand.

"If you don't mind, we could use your help out in the hall," Trip said. "There's a fallen beam stopping us from getting to the north side of the complex. I suspect you could make short work of it."

"Happy to help," answered Bucky, and with one more glance at Jemma, he followed Trip out of the room.

Jemma's first responsibility was triage and medical treatment for the handful of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents injured in the attack. Fortunately there were no life threatening injuries, and when Jemma got the chance, she gave Captain Rogers a call and told him what had happened. Not because Bucky seemed particularly distressed in the wake of the day's events, just because she thought Steve would want to know.

It was still unclear whether Hydra had been specifically trying to retrieve the Winter Soldier, but Jemma's guess was that they'd simply stumbled on him by accident while breaking out the other prisoners. Those half dozen men hadn't been at all prepared to take in someone of the Winter Soldier's strength.

The rest of the prisoners had escaped and the general attitude among everyone was good riddance to them. It had been wholly unpleasant to have all those holding cells filled with familiar faces, and it was going to be a problem figuring out what to do with the traitors in the long run anyway.

Within hours the Captain was back at the Hub, and by the end of the day Bucky had his own quarters. Aside from the fact that all the cells no longer had doors, confining him at this point was simply unnecessary.

Despite the chaotic scramble to get repairs underway, Coulson had found a minute to toss an authorized access card to Jemma and she'd left Fitz and the mangled electronics they were working on for a whole twelve minutes while she dashed off to show Bucky to his room.

The rest of the day and most of the next had continued at a similar pace as they restored vital systems, and the few times her path crossed with Bucky's there were always other people around. Needless to say there had been no more kissing, and Jemma didn't know what to make of the way Bucky continued to act just like he had before: warm, friendly, but like nothing had changed between them. Not like nothing had happened, there was nothing fake in his manner, nothing cold or awkward, just like nothing had changed. She thought they'd shared a moment, but what she needed to know was whether he thought so too.

The next afternoon, when they reached a point where the most urgent tasks had been completed, she took a break and headed to Bucky's new quarters. If she could just spend a few minutes alone with him she'd be able to get a sense of where they stood. She thought she might even ask him if he wanted to go out somewhere for dinner, seeing as he was finally free to do so.

She stopped outside Bucky's door and took a moment to smooth a hand over her hair and press her freshly glossed lips together before knocking on the door. Jemma swore her heart beat at least twice for every second that passed as she waited for the door to open.

The first thing she noticed when Bucky opened the door was that his hair was pulled up into a knot at the back of his head, which was enough to make her knees turn to honey. She'd have to do a search to see if there were any journal articles out there on the effects of men's hairstyles on women's libidos. Surely she wasn't the only one who went into a swoon over a man-bun!

The second thing she noticed was that he was far from alone. Over his shoulder she could see not just Steve, but Sam and Natasha, filling the couch and recliners of his sitting area, each one with a beer in hand.

"Hey," Bucky greeted her with an easy smile.

"Oh! You have guests," she said, realising too late that she probably should have started with 'hello.'

"Yeah, come and join us." Bucky stepped back to give her room to come in. By this point everyone else in the room was looking at her, and she could literally feel the awkwardness taking over her limbs.

"No, no, it's fine," she said with a too-big wave of her hand. "I didn't mean to intrude. I'll... come back later," she said with a polite smile that was probably also too big, and then made her escape.

Jemma quick-marched back to her own quarters, because it wouldn't do to return to work with flaming cheeks. Fitz would ask her what was wrong and she didn't feel like explaining that she'd just realised she'd been deluding herself about her place in Bucky's life.

While Steve was gone they'd spent so much time together that it had been easy to feel like she was the only other person in the world who really knew him.

She got to the door of her own quarters, swiped her access card and went inside. As if on autopilot, she began making tea, her hands going through the motions without bothering to distract her brain with the details.

Bucky had chosen to stop his delta-ray treatments before any more of his Winter Soldier memories returned, so aside from a few follow-up blood tests there was no reason for the two of them to spend any more time together. He had other people to support him now, people who actually knew what it was like to grow up in another time, to be a soldier, to be an assassin. At some point along the line she'd started needing him, but he no longer needed her.

She was going to ruminate on that for a bit, let her perspective right itself before she threw herself at him again. If she threw herself at him again.

She had two sips of her tea, tipped the rest down the sink and got back to work.

The last hour of the day found Jemma in the lab. It felt oddly quiet and still in there without Fitz or the security feed from Bucky's cell to keep her company. She was just about to finish up for the day when an unexpected visitor arrived.

"Knock, knock," said Steve from the doorway.

"Captain," Jemma smiled, switching off her newly repaired hyperspanner. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"I just wanted to stop by and say thanks for everything you did for Bucky while I was away," Steve said as he came into the room.

"It was nothing," she assured him.

He cocked a hip against the counter she was sitting at and folded his arms over his chest. "Must've been more than nothing, he hasn't stopped talking about you since I got back," Steve said with a knowing little quirk of his mouth.

Jemma's heart leapt in her chest. "Is that so?" she said, playing along with his conspiratorial tone.

"Anyway, the others have left and he said something about a headache or something," said Steve, with a vague wave in the direction of his head. He wasn't even trying to hide the fact that it was a bald-faced lie. "So you should probably go check on him."

"I'll be sure to do that," she said with a wink, though she had to open her mouth and really concentrate so that only one eye to close.

He straightened up with a grin. "Good. Catch you later, Simmons."

As Bucky cleared away the empty beer bottles his mind returned, as it did every six minutes or so, to his brief and rather dramatic make-out session with Jemma the day before.

He liked to think he'd kissed enough girls to know the difference between the ones who really liked you and the ones who were just fooling around, and his money was on her being one of the former.

Her soft but fervent kisses had been the perfect distraction to allow his brain to shut out the latent Winter Soldier programming. That, and when she'd said his first name. 'James' was what his mother had called him, and the nuns at school. There were so many potent childhood memories attached to that name that he knew if he ever found himself in that situation again, that he just had to remember that he wasn't the Winter Soldier anymore, he was James. That and the thought of Jemma's kisses would get him through.

He was desperate for more of those kisses, but she had responsibilities and he wasn't going to interfere with them, she's already given him so much of her time. The way her face had fallen when she noticed he had company had all but confirmed his suspicions that she was just as keen for some time alone with him as he was with her.

He hoped she actually would come back later, like she said she would. He was contemplating going to find her when there was a knock on the door.

He opened in and there she was, teeth caught on a smile that was equal parts shy and coy. He grinned back at her, letting more of a smoulder seep into it than he'd previously dared.

He stepped back and ushered her inside. "Good timing, the rabble have just cleared out." He shut the door behind her and started to step past her towards the kitchenette. "Can I get you something? There's a couple of beers left from the six-pack Steve brought over, but that's about all I've got."

"Actually," she caught his cybernetic hand in hers and he stopped and turned towards her. She traced his knuckles with the pad of her thumb and suddenly he was reminded of the first time they met.

It was only a couple of weeks ago at most that a slip of a girl in a pink cardigan and a ponytail walked into the room, scooped up his hand and started running her fingers over his. After all the time they'd spent together, the Jemma in his memory almost felt like a different person to the one standing in front of him. She shouldn't, though. She was everything on that first day that she had been every day since: brilliant, beautiful, surprising, amusing, adorably awkward, and completed unphased by what he was or who he'd been.

"What I'd really like," she said, big hazel eyes looking up into his as she stepped closer, "is another kiss?"

Cutting to the chase, then. That suited him just fine. He tipped her chin up a little higher with a crooked finger as his heart thudded loudly in his chest.

"Anything for you, Jem." It was supposed to sound smooth, maybe a little husky. At the very least it was supposed to sound like a come-on, and hopefully that was how she heard it, but to his ears the words sounded embarrassingly earnest, because that was the moment he realised he really would do almost anything for her. That was also the moment he realised he was completely, irretrievably gone on this girl.

They may be skipping the small talk, but he wasn't about to rush this. There was no Hydra this time, no security cameras, no other intrusions, and his last memory of doing this sort of thing was from a long, long time ago, so he decided he was going to take his time and do this right.

He leaned in slowly and paused just before their lips touched, letting the anticipation build. Her eyes were closed and a gentle, knowing smile graced her lips as she let herself be teased. He was close enough to smell the sweet scent of her perfume, and somewhere down below a small hand found its way to his hip. He waited for one more warm breath of hers to ghost over his skin, then he brought their lips together.

What started as a careful press of lips on lips didn't stay that way for long. She opened her mouth to him, inviting him in with a subtle flick of her tongue. He accepted the invitation, his tongue following hers at an unhurried pace, at least until she wrapped her arms around his neck and drew him in deeper.

He encircled her with both arms and pulled their bodies flush together, letting her take over the kiss for a few moments as he gave himself over to the sensation of all that physical contact. It was like being swept away in a sea of champagne, and he might have let himself drown in it if he hadn't been so determined to make sure Jemma enjoyed herself too.

He slid his hands up her back over the crisp fabric of her shirt then back down to her waist. As he dropped kisses along her jaw he freed her ponytail and carefully combed his fingers through her smooth, straight hair, then he lightly traced the line of her tie up the middle of her chest with one finger. A tiny sound escaped her throat and she pulled in a deep breath, pushing herself up towards his touch.

With both hands he loosened the knot at her throat and opened the first three buttons of her shirt. She broke away from him just long enough so he could lift the tie over her head and drop it to the floor. When they came back together her lips were on his neck and both hands were up under the hem of his t-shirt. It was like cresting another champagne wave as her warm hands roamed over all the skin they could reach. Her fingers splayed over his stomach, then slid up over his chest, back down and around to press into the small of his back. It felt like she left an imprint of her warmth everywhere she touched.

They found their way to the couch at some point, losing his shirt in the process, and continued making out like teenagers for who knew how long. He could have stayed like that for hours, just kissing her lips and face and neck as her hands fluttered and slid over his skin and through his hair.

It made sense that he would crave human touch—as far as he knew he'd been deprived of it for decades—but more than anything he was hungry for Jemma. His appetite had been whet by all the small touches they'd shared every day as she treated him, and he'd been tamping down his own desire to touch her for so long now that there was an element of pure relief in just being able to run his hands over her.

Perhaps she felt the same, like she was now able to touch him in ways she'd been holding herself back from, because she spent no small amount of time becoming more familiar with his cybernetic arm, tracing its grooves and edges with her fingertips. At one point she laced her fingers through his metal ones and lifted them towards her lips.

"May I?" she asked, her voice husky from so much kissing and so little talking.

" 'course," he murmured. He didn't know what she intended to do, but he didn't really care. She was more than welcome to whatever parts of him she wanted.

He still hadn't really had time to process how the arm would play into whatever semblance of a normal life he attempted to pursue from this point on. It felt so much a part of him that it hadn't really occurred to him yet to be self-conscious of it, but there was no doubt in his mind that most people wouldn't be as accepting of his prosthetic as she was.

She pressed reverent kisses to the cool metal on the back of his hand, then each finger in turn. The highly sensitive plating relayed every detail to the pleasure centre of his brain.

She turned his hand over and kissed his palm, his wrist. "I was so silly that first day. So rude."

His flesh and blood hand rubbed idly up and down her thigh. "You were excited," he said softly with a smile. "It was adorable."

The next pass of his hand went a little higher up her leg, his thumb sweeping thoughtlessly down over the inner seam of her trousers. Her breath shuddered out of her and she released his hand so she could pull him in for a hot desperate kiss.

That particular combination of moves hadn't been intentional, but he was plenty pleased with the result. Blood rushed to his groin as her slick tongue dove into his mouth and her fingernails scaped lightly over the skin of his shoulders.

His fingers fumbled to undo the rest of the buttons on her shirt and she yanked the tails of it unceremoniously out of the top of her pants, not waiting for him to untuck them for her. Responding to her enthusiasm, he slid his warm hand down her chest and cupped her breast through the fabric of her bra.

She moaned softly into his mouth and pushed herself deeper into his palm. He squeezed gently and rubbed the heel of his hand over the spot where the material was hiding her nipple from him, then pushed the offending fabric down out of the way.

He broke away from her mouth, trailing wet kisses across her cheek and down her neck, then pulling away just enough so he could see. He was more than half hard already, but the sight of her rosy nipple and her beautiful little breast took him the rest of the way there. He cupped the weight of it, a perfect handful, and stroked his thumb over the tight bud of flesh at its centre.

She gasped against the side of his neck and threaded one hand through his hair. The other she slid over the bulge in his pants.

Bucky sucked a breath in through his teeth, because even though he was aware that it had been a long time, in that moment every fibre of his being knew it had been far too long, and that this was a situation that needed immediate attention.

"I'm sorry," she breathed against his neck, sliding her hand up and away. "Was that too much? I know you've been through a lot. If you're not ready for..." She took a shaky breath and pulled back, meeting his eyes and forcing herself to speak in a less evocative tone. "If you don't want to go any further, I understand."

"All I can think about right now is getting more of you," he said, his voice rough with desire.

She gave a little oh! as he swept her up in his arms and carried her to the bedroom. A bit dramatic perhaps, but he really didn't care. He set her on her feet next to the bed and pushed her unbuttoned shirt off her shoulders.

His first couple of attempts to unhook her bra were unsuccessful and Bucky suddenly felt sixteen all over again, but Jemma only let him flounder for a few seconds before batting his hands away with a smile and doing it herself.

"You too," she said, nodding at his pants, so he stripped them off and then helped her out of her own.

He pulled her in for another kiss and didn't bother suppressing his hum of contentment at feeling so much skin on skin. She slid a hand between them and pressed it over the fabric of his underwear where he was hot and hard. Just that one simple action felt indescribably good, but he was close enough to coming as it was and he still had so much he wanted to do for her, so he eased her back onto the bed before she could do much more.

He positioned himself over the top of her and pressed kisses to all the pale skin now available to him. He sucked on one pink nipple and gently pinched the other as she moaned, then moved down further to kiss her stomach and her thighs.

The sound she made when he mouthed at her through the already damp fabric of her underwear was shameless, and he didn't make her wait long before hooking his fingers into each side and pulling them off her.

He stroked her folds with the fingers of his right hand, but after a few moments she pushed them gently away.

"Do you think you could...?" she asked from behind closed eyes as she reached for his cybernetic hand.

He chuckled against her stomach as he ran the metal fingers down the outside of her thigh and then up the impossibly soft skin of her inner thigh. "I get it now. You just want me for the arm, huh?"

"Not just the arm," she said with a quirk of her lips. "Wait." Her eyes snapped open and she started to sit up. "In all seriousness, please tell me that you know this is about much more than just the arm." It was an impressive skill, the way she could talk so fast without actually tripping on any of the words. "I'm not denying that it has a certain appeal, but I would hate for you to think that this is just—" The tumble of words stopped suddenly as her eyes widened, then started straight back up again. "Oh dear lord, unless this actually is just a one night stand, and I'm the one who didn't realise and has now unwittingly revealed the depth of my feelings..."

He tried not to laugh at her, he really did. He silenced her runaway mouth with kisses and pressed her back down onto the bed. "Don't worry, kitten," he murmured against her lips. "I'm pretty taken with you, too."

Those words didn't even begin to describe how he felt about her, how much he was grateful for, but if he couldn't find the words to tell her, then he could at least try to show her.

Before long she was gasping and grinding herself down on his cybernetic hand as he kissed and sucked her nipples. He moved down her body so his tongue could work in tandem with his fingers. The taste of her made him harder still, if that was possible, and it took all his effort to keep his own arousal in check. She made it easy for him to figure out what she liked, at least, her fingers curling in his hair whenever he got it right.

He was working her with a steady rhythm of tongue and fingers when she cried, "Stop!" and tugged urgently on his hair. He stopped immediately and lifted his head, holding his fingers still inside of her. She was a sight to behold, eyes closed and bottom lip caught in her teeth, hair spread out around her on the pillow and breasts rising and falling with quick, shallow breaths.

"So close," she said, reaching for him.

He withdrew his fingers and she whimpered, pressing her knees together for a moment as he quickly removed his own underwear. Then he crawled up beside her on the bed and opened the top draw of the nightstand, tearing a condom from the strip Sam Wilson had left behind after observing Jemma and Bucky at the door together. He'd have to remember to thank Sam later.

Jemma kissed his shoulder, his neck, his cheek, whatever she could reach, as he tore open the wrapper and put the condom on. Thank god for the way his sniper's hands stayed steady despite the way he felt like he was about to come apart at the seams.

She parted her legs to him and when he sank inside her she was as warm and welcoming as she had been from the first. He buried his face in her neck as he moved inside her, lacing his fingers through hers and holding on for dear life.

He wasn't going to last long, and the little sounds Jemma was making had a desperate edge to them as she lifted her hips to meet him, trying to find the right angle.

In one smooth motion he flipped them so she was on top. "Go for it, darlin'," he said, urging her on with his hands on her hips.

She worked herself on him at a punishing pace—which was fitting, really, because he'd been at her mercy in more ways than one from the very beginning—until she came, her core fluttering around him as she cried his name. He shuddered as his own orgasm swept through him with a blinding force, and as she collapsed on top of him he decided he was never letting her go.

AN: Thanks so much again for all the reviews and favourites and follows, they mean the world to me. I find smut really hard to write so I hope this wasn't too unbearable! Like I said, there's a fluffy little coda coming soon. Thanks for reading :)