ostavil | don't touch that dial

"That's easy," she says, her voice lower than usual as she practices her American accent, "you're just the brawn." It's easier to slip into her lighter Sokovian when she continues her teasing, "If you were the beauty, too, then we would have a very big problem." Wanda smiles sweetly at him and pats his arm, ensuring to touch his sleeve and not the heavy metal beneath.

Barnes might tuck his arm into hers to help convey their little charade of a happily married couple, but she knows better. She suspects that, despite having spent decades with the weight of his arm, he's still getting used to being conscious and wearing it. It's not easy being burdened with something permanent. And all she wishes for is not to remind him of it or to touch it without being asked to. She knows what it's like to be poked and prodded like she's nothing close to human.

She looks away from him as she surveys the street. She likes it here. She's always liked the houses and some of the picket fences. No matter how many walks they take and no matter how many she takes on her own, she likes observing the houses, the way the leaves fall, and how everyone around them takes it for granted. She remembers when the leaves stopped falling in Sokovia.

Looking away from him also plays into her hand slightly. She doesn't have any answers for him. All Wanda knows is that, lately, anything she wants, she gets. An inconspicuous house. Fewer prying questions. Easy waves and warm smiles and no lingering, strange looks.

Of all the things she's afraid of, it's questioning their seemingly good luck.

"Hey, I didn't mention which of us was the beauty," he teases, grinning at her. "Though I have to give that one to you. I don't fit into cute little dresses like you do. I guess I could, if I wanted, but I would probably attract the exact kind of attention we don't want."

Except that they don't attract attention, ever, and he thinks Wanda must be doing a lot of things in the background to make sure the façade is up permanently and that no one looks too closely at the picture. They're at least well matched for a couple. He might be over a hundred but he looks a comfortable ten years older than Wanda, give or take, and it is a natural enough age gap to pass.

Their house is an old-fashioned one, the kind with a big wrap around porch and a welcome mat at the door. It'd never be the kind of house he'd have back home because he'd always grown up in a third story walk-up but maybe the other Bucky, the one who came home from the war a hero? He probably got to have a house like this with a wife and maybe some kids. He reaches into his pocket for the keys and speaks softly.

"Just like every time, let me check the place before you leave the doorway? I know nobody is looking for us but I don't want to get lazy about keeping us safe."

She's a little grateful Bucky's back in Bucky Mode. His little comment about her dresses has her flushing almost as red as her hair.

Wanda sighs quietly, but she does so with a smile. She nods. "I'll stay right here," she whispers seriously. As much as she wishes to joke, there's a time and place—and now isn't the time, not when he's concerned for either of their safety.

While she knows no one's at the house—she can't hear anyone else's thoughts, let alone feel them—she knows how important it is to have control. And for someone like Bucky, she thinks he needs to have some semblance of it. He's been surprised one too many times by people and the truth. And as strange as it is to think he trusts her, even Wanda Maximoff has been surprised from time to time.

Truth be told, she's still a little surprised by her current situation. Holing up in a house that's come right out of her dreams is still a shock despite the good amount of time that they've spent here.

"But be careful," she says, as she always does, furrowing her brows seriously. "If you walk on the porch, walk lightly. The floorboards creak beneath you." It's something she'll have to fix later.

It's hard for someone as heavy as he is to keep a light step but he does because Wanda reminds him of it. He can give them away if he's banging around heavy-footed and thinking he can fight his way out of trouble. This is more about being stealthy, about maintaining a steady place to live where they don't have to worry about being tracked by any and every government agency there is. He'd picked this particular area because it's not that far from a city center but the neighborhood is quiet; there's an airport an hour away and plenty of ways to travel otherwise if they need to make a quick break.

It takes him a few minutes to clear the house and then he comes back out to get Wanda. "All clear, as usual. I need to teach you how to fight so I can stop being so paranoid you're gonna get hurt. I don't want us to be found out, sure, but I think I'm more worried about you getting hurt."

Is that a stupid thing to worry about? He's seen her move buildings with her mind and he knows she can probably stop bullets if she knows they're coming at her but it's his job to take the bullets meant for her. He has a healing factor, she doesn't. When it comes down to it, he's going to throw himself in front of Wanda Maximoff every time.

"Is this when you wrinkle your nose at me and say you can put me on the floor?"

Because he mentions it, she wrinkles her nose and smiles. "I can turn you into the floor. You can be the softest part of the porch." She glances over her shoulder and surveys it for a moment before pointing to her left. "I'll put you right over there."

It's easier to joke than it is to let herself sit with what he's said. It's better to think about it when she's in bed. She doesn't wish for Bucky Barnes to take a bullet for her, just as she wishes that Pietro had been faster than the bullets Ultron had shot cruelly at him. She wants everything and everyone to remain as they are—alive, still, and not jumping in front of any bullets that are flying in any direction.

"I know how to punch," she says as she steps inside. Toeing off her flats, she's quick to turn on the lights with a click of her fingers (a useful discovery, even if she's still confused as to how she can do it). When she turns toward Bucky, she's quick to punch his flesh arm. "See? I can punch. You don't need to worry about me. You'll get even more wrinkles." Impulsively, Wanda reaches up to brush her fingers between his brows where his alleged wrinkles happen to be.

It was hardly a punch. She'd held her fist all wrong. According to Pietro, her idea of a punch always felt like being whacked in the head with a very empty pillow.

"You punch like a newborn kitten," Bucky says, laughing at her attempt at it. Her fingers are brushing up against his brow and he feels his face soften the way it only does when he lets his guard down around her. He thinks that Wanda's the first person he's let see the real version of him since before he fell and Wanda gets to see parts of him that he even hides from Steve. Steve wants so badly for him to be the Bucky Barnes that he grew up with, the kid who was missing his front tooth and just got a nickel from the tooth fairy, and he's pretty far past all of that now.

Wanda is different. Wanda has no expectations for him one way or the other. She didn't know him before HYDRA and she's not scared of what HYDRA made him. She seems to accept him as he is, scars and all, and it's a sort of comfort and ease he doesn't have in anyone else's presence. He reaches for her hand and folds her fingers into a fist so she can give him a much better attempt at a punch.

"Tuck your thumb in your fingers so you don't break it and hit me. You're probably not going to hurt me but it's good practice to give it a shot. I'll even let you have a free shot on my face if you wanna take it. If not, just punch my shoulder or something."

Of all the critiques in the world, Wanda's never received any about how she holds her fingers. She's spent so long watching red tendrils slip from her fingertips to know how to hold her hands without thinking. She's learned how to move her fingers and how to hold them just right to let her power flow effortlessly through her. And now Bucky holds her hand and instructs her to position her fingers in a way that feels so unnatural to her. An enclosed fist feels as though it's stifling her power, even if doing so means she has more power in strength.

"I wouldn't hit your face," she says, not looking up at his face. It's easier to look at his hand. She doesn't need to have seen the photographs of Bucky in his youth to know that he's attractive. He still is with his bright blue eyes and the way he tends to hold his mouth in a smirk-like smile. Punching his face feels like it'd only cause her more problems than give her solutions.

But she does as he instructs, holding her hand awkwardly for perhaps the first time since the glowing sceptre had struck her down hard on HYDRA's metal floor. She looks at her hand intently, holding it for a moment, and then punches his bicep.

"One day, my punch will hurt you." It won't; it never will—and she hopes it never does. But she tilts her chin up and smiles at him, wanting to feign smugness. "And then you will not be the brawn at all."

Maybe he'd just be Bucky then.

"If I'm not the brawn, then we're in trouble because I don't know if I could be the brains or the beauty. Maybe you'll take pity on me and let me stay anyway. I'd hate to get thrown out in the cold when winter's on the way."

They need one another so he knows neither is going to be tossing the other out on their ass unless it's necessary but he doesn't think it's going to be necessary. He can keep her safe because he can fight like hell. She can keep him safe by keeping him invisible and out of sight. He reaches down and touches her chin lightly with his right hand, tipping it upward a little. He's always had a thing for redheads ever since he was old enough to understand that girls were worth running toward instead of running away from and Wanda is very beautiful. She has a delicate face and a haunting sadness that makes him want to just protect her and the fact that she doesn't even need his physical protection makes it even more confusing to him.

"You gonna let me stay inside your pretty little house, Wanda?"

He can be the blue eyes. Wanda's pretty sure if she tells him that, he'll never let her forget it. As much as Wanda wants to see Bucky be as comfortable as he's grown to be since hiding in the shadows, she doesn't particularly want to show any part of her hand. Not that she thinks she's showing her hand at all. There's nothing to show. He has blue eyes; she doesn't. It's a fact, nothing more.

She ignores the racing of her heart and the heat brewing at her cheeks when he touches her chin. It's not because she's surprised by him being gentle. She's observed him enough to know he's more capable of softness than he is being harsh.

She furrows her brows tightly in mock thought. "Hm." She hums long and loud, purposefully drawing it out.

"You clean and get the very high corners," she teases, scrunching her nose. He's pretty useful when it comes to things on high shelves. "When all the high corners are gone, well…" She clucks her tongue. Surely, he knows what that means.

"I'll start learning that traditional Sokovian cuisine," Bucky says, grinning at her. "I'm pretty good when I have a recipe book in front of me. If I can find a legitimate one written in Sokovian, I think I'll be on the right path."

There's a library in town and Bucky doesn't know how well stocked it is on foreign cookbooks but he thinks he's going to find out. There's the internet, sure, but he loves the feel of a real book underneath his fingertips a lot better than just reading words on a screen and he has the sense that anything committed to paper is probably going to be better than some modern reinterpretation of it.

"I'll get the laundry too. The Army taught me how to iron the wrinkles out of everything. Honestly, you should just take a whole night off and let me handle it. I'll cook the dinner, get the flowers, pick the music. You just have to show up."

"I remember a few recipes. I can write them down for you," she says before she really thinks about it. Wanda doesn't regret it. There are many things that she wants to remember about home. Without Pietro around anymore to remind her, Wanda wants to make sure she doesn't forget a single thing, whether it be a lullaby or a recipe.

Bucky provides her with a good excuse to write it all down. It might help with his memory, even though she knows from Steve that he's just a boy from Brooklyn who most likely never had anything Sokovian in his youth. It hardly matters to her. A trigger is a trigger, and she knows Bucky's doing most of these things not only out of the kindness of his heart, but from a desire to unlock something that's been hidden away.

"As long as you pick good music," she smiles. All of this sounds so mundane. It's not something that has any place for aliens. "I like the old stuff." Like him.

"Well, you're a lucky lady. I'm very old," Bucky teases. "So I also like the old stuff. How old are we talking? Because all my favorite musicians died decades ago and if there's any still alive they're probably on life support. I like the one show you watch...what is it, I Love Lucy? That one reminds me of when I was younger. The people all dress the same. I think it's a little later than me but it's close enough."

Women don't wear dresses every day the way they did before the war, though, and while Bucky knows he's got to make way for modern life (and has, honestly, because he'd be completely ineffective if he was still Bucky Barnes 1943) he does miss the things that remind him of simpler times before the world went all to shit. Dresses and dances and flowers at dinner are those kinds of things.

"Before the war, I was out every night with a girl. I used to love to dance. I guess I still like it - I just don't have any dance partners."

It delights her to know that I Love Lucy is exactly how he remembers the 1940s, even if it was a sitcom of the 1950s. It's close enough. Wanda would need everyone in the Avengers hands to count the number of times she wished she had been born decades earlier so she could wear the pretty dresses and learn how to dance and be driven in the cars that seem fewer and far between now.

Pietro never liked to watch her sitcoms as much as she did, but it feels… nice to know that something she loved so much is something that resonates with him. Another thing connects them, something a lot lighter and less traumatic than HYDRA.

"Are you saying you were a ladies' man, Mr Barnes?" she teases, cocking her brow as she peers up at him. If he says no, she'll know he's lying. Photographs don't lie. Wanda doesn't need Steve's stories to know what type of man Bucky Barnes was before the war tried to break him.

"Guilty," Bucky says, laughing softly. "I could lie but I think you wouldn't believe me. I have the sense you can tell when people are lying to you even if you aren't in their heads. I used to like to go out at night. I never found what I was looking for, though, and then I went to war. I was only twenty six, you know. Had my whole life ahead of me. I just didn't realize that my whole life was going to be decades and decades longer than it should be."

He strokes the fingers of his left hand down her shoulder and arm. "And I didn't think I would be playing house with a beautiful girl, either. It doesn't bother you, does it? That I'm honest about how you look? I know it might make you uncomfortable that I'm open about it but I think being open is probably best. If I'm around here mooning like a puppy about you, you're gonna feel weird about it."

Wouldn't anyone? He's the most feared assassin on the planet. He isn't exactly someone you bring home to dinner.

"It doesn't have to mean anything, though. It's just a fact."

There was a boy in Sokovia who used to enjoy making her blush. Wanda had thought that was long since over after joining HYDRA, but Bucky Barnes seems determined to embody that boy. She wonders if this is what he was like in the 1940s. The ease in which he speaks convinces her that he's remembering more about himself than he's aware.

Wanda doesn't particularly want to stifle that, even if she wants to stop flushing and feeling like she's about to be set on fire. Receiving compliments that aren't based on her powers' performance is strange at best. Even when Vision had called her beautiful, she'd always felt like she was about to burst through her skin with shyness. She's just Wanda.

But he gives her something else to think about—and something else for herself, too. His touch is distracting, but she knows how important it is for him to realise that despite all the things he's done, he's not brutal when he's trying to be gentle. He reminds her again and again that he trusts her not to get into his head and that when she accurately guesses what he's thinking that he knows she's not reading his mind; she likes to remind him that she trusts him not to physically hurt her.

"Do you miss it?" she asks, furrowing her brows as she looks up at him thoughtfully. "Going out at night. Dancing."

"I don't know. I haven't had enough time to be myself to know what I miss. I think I miss it," Bucky says, frowning a little while he works it out. "I miss being able to just be a person, you know? I was a machine for a very long time. HYDRA wasn't gentle with me and I know you'd never peek in there but if you ever saw something, even on accident, I'm sorry in advance. I know it's terrifying in there."

He lifts his hand and brushes it against her cheek, tucks a lock of hair behind her ear.

"I think I do miss it. I think I miss being able to go on a date with a beautiful girl and just have a hell of a time. You know, it's all online now. I heard someone at the store talking about it, about how they just look at profiles and meet people based on that. I don't think I could do anything like that. For me, it's how you meet. You bump into someone, you strike up a conversation - having your name and preferences just out there ruins the surprise of it all. What about you? You miss being with someone?"

When she shakes her head, she keeps the movement small as to not throw his hand away from her face. Even when his memories and nightmares are loud and seep into her view, she thinks it's terrifying, but she doesn't think it's something for him to apologise for. Her time with HYDRA is a different kettle of fish, and perhaps a nicer one in comparison.

"I've never really done that." There was no time with the war and HYDRA. She smiles small. "Pietro would never let it." He'd chase every boy off with a stern look, a severe talking to, or with a threat. She used to find it tiresome, but Wanda knows it had been Pietro looking out for her in the best way he knew how.

She doubts he'd like her shacking up with Bucky and pretending to be married. It's the undercover story Natasha used to tell her she often depended on. Being married raised silly questions about kids and anniversaries. Not being married raised the questions that she often wanted to avoid.

She furrows her brows as she looks over his shoulder. "I guess I had it with Vision." She had something with Vision. Wanda's certain that something would still be a thing if it hadn't been for the fact that she'd broken the law. He was needed to help Rhodey heal. She needed to avoid the Raft. "He was the only one who really talked to me at the compound."

"Vision was a good guy. Is, I guess. I just don't know how a relationship with him would work. He's...different, is all. Then again, so am I. Maybe we're the same in a way."

Bucky doesn't really think so. Vision is worthy enough to pick up Mjolnir and Bucky doubts it would even tremble in his hand. He's done too many bad things to be worthy of something so good and deep down, he thinks Wanda must surely know that. And yet, she trusts him. It feels good to be trusted by someone, to be under someone's guard, and he never wants to do anything that will revoke that trust.

"I haven't been physical with anyone since the 40s. Not until you. What few touches we have between us are the only ones I've had since 1943. It's a big burden you carry, introducing the Winter Soldier back into polite society. But hey, if anyone can do it, it's the cute little witch with all the tricks right?"

Wanda furrows her brows as she peers up at him curiously. She's slightly amused. He says all these pretty things while dropping little tidbits that reveal more about what he doesn't seem to wish to openly admit without some sort of cushion in the form of a tangent to fall back on.

It's interesting that he sees himself that way—as the Winter Soldier. He speaks of himself in the 1940s, back when the Winter Soldier hopefully was merely a faint idea brewing in the heads of cruel scientists, as though the soldier was always there, humming beneath the surface. Wanda doesn't think that's right. Sometimes, the person someone becomes was waiting beneath the surface all along. Other times, events force the person to become someone they can't recognise anymore.

"But you're not the Winter Soldier," she says, shaking her head. "Not if you don't want to be."

She still thinks of herself as 'the weird one'. It's easier to speak on someone else's experience than examine her own.

For Bucky, there's two eras: Before Winter Soldier and After Winter Soldier. He can date his whole life by these two fixed points and they're axes that never change. They're constant, whether he wants them to be or not, and he has to shape his life around them. This new era, the AWS, it's something he's still learning how to navigate. The tools that served him before don't quite fit and sometimes he has to force them. With Wanda, he doesn't have to force anything at all. It's nice.

"No, I guess I'm not. I'm just Bucky Barnes again, whoever he is. I was excited to go to war, you know. Not everyone who drafted was and for good reason - there were tons of casualties - but I wanted to go. I wanted to be a hero for my country and help stop evil. It was simple back then. The Nazis were evil and we were good. It's not so easy anymore. As the Winter Solider, I killed a lot of people. Some of them weren't good people but they were necessary cogs in the wheel, people who made whole countries run. I destabilized whole governments. Sometimes it's not worth it. It's hard not to think about it in the middle of the night, how many people I got killed both directly and indirectly."

He gives her a soft, sad smile. "I want to be different, you know? But I'm afraid I've done too much bad to ever make up for it. It doesn't feel like I have to be different with you here, though. I can just be Bucky. I don't have to think about all the bad things I've done and I can just think about the day to day. I can think about cooking you dinner or watching tv or curling up on the couch. I don't think I deserve all of that but I have it and I know it's because of what you do for me. So thank you."

Wanda smiles, softly gazing up at him. She shakes her head. "I don't do anything," she says before she scrunches her nose and widens her smile, "but put you to work. It's nice having a house husband who does all the chores." She laughs lightly.

She never wants to appear dismissive of the moments where Bucky opens up. Before they felt like few and far between, but now it seems like he's no longer sinking beneath the surface of not knowing who he is. Wanda's not entirely sure how she's helped—she's a stranger to his past life, hardly a walking trigger like Steve—but she knows what it's like to indirectly and directly kill. She supposes that's the difference between her and Steve. He's so good.

And she supposes that's the difference between Bucky and Steve. Captain America was manufactured as a weapon of good, a symbol to keep people going. The Winter Soldier was a force of dismantling that good, much like she was.

She touches his bicep and intends for it to be a brief pat, but she curls her fingers around the muscle and gives him a small squeeze. "I think you already are very different." She drops her hand from his bicep, but steps into him to press her fingers against the corner of his lips. Gently, she guides them up. "You smile more."

"Don't tell anyone. I'll lose my menacing aura and then people will talk to me in public."

It's a joke but it's a weak one. Wanda has been chipping away at the armor he has up the whole time they've been living together and he's not really sure what to do with the weakness inside of him. There's a part of him that yearns for human contact, for the things that could have been, and those hopes have somehow gotten wrapped up in Wanda and it's a dangerous game he's playing. It's a pretend marriage, not a real relationship. He closes his eyes when her fingertips touch his face.

"You deserve more than this," he says, thinking the Sokovian probably describes it better than anything he could say in English. Wanda deserves to live a life in the open as herself, not hiding him and herself from every government that exists. The world just isn't ready for the Scarlet Witch and the Winter Soldier, he guesses. Maybe it should be.

"You should be able to live a free life. You never did anything wrong." He could make the argument that he never did either, that he was brainwashed, but he could have fought more. Wanda was just a kid when HYDRA got their hands on her and experimented on her. How was she supposed to fight that? How was she not supposed to fall in their hands when he had a hand in destabilizing Sokovia into a state of endless war? Maybe Stark destroyed it, in the end, but Bucky had done his bit.

But she did do many things wrong. When their parents had died and their apartment building had turned to ash, she and Pietro could have chosen differently. They could've chosen to live and make do with what little they had. They could've chosen to live with their anger and be much like their surviving neighbours, helping each other amongst all the strife. If Pietro hadn't been so angry, maybe he would've doubted Strucker's claims as she originally had.

Wanda knows where her series of choices has led her. She knows where they led Pietro, too, even if she prefers to bury her head in the sand. Unlike the people she's controlled, she always had a choice. Sometimes she thinks Bucky is too kind to her, much like Steve often is.

It's her choice to greedily grab hold of Bucky's company rather than face the void of Pietro. It's not fair, but Wanda knows she's never been fair.

But rather than argue with him—there's no point; Bucky may exude charm when he lets himself relax into it, but he's as stubborn as an immovable boulder—she wrinkles her nose and drops her hands to her sides. "I think you should make me dinner first before you we start talking about that."

She thinks it's only fair.

"Far be it from me to deny a girl dinner. I'm gonna learn that paprikash someday but you're gonna have to live with American food for right now. I guess you'll survive, huh?"

Bucky is actually a good cook both between what he'd learned before the war and what cookbooks have taught him now. They buy the best food they can, too, because he knows that they pump chemicals into things now and he has no idea what that might do to Wanda even if he's immune to it. It's steak tonight and roast potatoes and he hopes his ability to cook makes up for Wanda's part of this whole deal.

"You just have to sit your pretty little self down on the couch and watch tv until it's done. I'm full service. You don't have to worry about a thing, Wanda. Never have to, with me. I should have bought some flowers for the table and made it real nice but I forgot. Next time, though."

Wanda thinks to ask him 'What flowers?' but she does as he suggests, sitting in the very corner of the couch with her legs curled beneath her and her body twisted in the direction of the kitchen. There are flowers now on the table in a nice little vase. She's chosen sunflowers, thinking something nice and bright is most suitable for his caretaking mood.

"One day, you'll be sitting here and I'll be cooking," she says. "Even though the kitchen will be a mess and something will most likely be on fire." She purses her lips and shrugs a shoulder dismissively. Her cooking gets her by, although she doesn't have a love for it as Bucky does.

Of all the things she anticipated of him, a love for cooking wasn't one of them. It's been a nice surprise. Despite knowing almost everything about everyone (or at least what they think about), she likes that his little biography at the Captain America museum doesn't include everything about him.

That blurb at the Smithsonian misses a lot. It doesn't tell you that he loves to cook, that he can't sing, that his favorite subject in school was math and he wanted to go to college for engineering but he could never afford it so he was working the docks until he could. Then the war happened and he couldn't go anyway but he still loved math, could calculate coordinates and angles in his head, and it made him a better sniper.

It doesn't tell you that he loves dancing because it's intimate, that it's a way to get close without giving away your whole heart. It doesn't say that he loves to read everything he can get his hands on or that his favorite weather is fresh-falling snow before the city can get it all dirty. Even after all that time under the ice, he loves the cold.

Cooking doesn't take him long because he's efficient; he puts his ingredients together mise en place before he ever starts. The potatoes are roasted with herbs and the steak is cooked over the stovetop and by the time it's done, he just has to get the wine and set the table. It makes this house a home, to do these things, and he enjoys it.

"All ready, Wanda. Yet another Bucky Barnes culinary masterpiece ready to be experienced."

Honestly, she could get used to this.

She knows she shouldn't take it for granted. She also knows she should stop him from taking on too much. He's still recovering from a decades-long ordeal and he needs to rest his mind and his muscle memory so he can regain everything that's attainable back. But she thinks that he likes this, that this is a part of Bucky Barnes HYDRA only smothered but never snuffed completely out.

Wanda's always surprised by the effort he goes to and the elaborate meals he opts to cook. She imagines it makes him feel somewhat normal. It must reconnect him to something that he truly enjoys—and she doesn't doubt that he does enjoy being in the kitchen.

"You continue to outdo yourself," she says with a wide smile. Most of the time these days, her cheeks pinch from smiling too much. Wanda's still surprised that she can smile after losing Pietro.

She stands by the table with her hands poised, ready to grab something—anything—that's needed, but she's unsurprised, yet again, that Bucky leaves nothing unthought of.

"You're going to have to leave something for me to do one of these days," she laughs. "I feel like you do too much."

"If I leave you something to do, you will no longer need me to provide you with food," Bucky teases. "Traditional gender roles say that I'm supposed to provide you with food and since I don't have to hunt, I've decided cooking is going to be the way I do that. If we were in the woods, I would keep you well stocked in game. I'm a machine."

They're in a two story suburban in a cul-de-sac though so hunting for survival isn't the kind of thing they need to do. Everything is easy for them, almost too easy, and Bucky is getting used to it. He never wants to leave. He wants to pretend to be Wanda Maximoff's husband for the rest of his over-extended life.

"You brought the flowers, though," he points out. "It's an essential part of the place setting. Now eat up before it gets cold. That steak needs to be eaten before it sits too long. You're gonna love it. I'm fantastic at this." Cooking, at least, isn't killing people and he can be proud of it. He takes a bite of his own steak and it's good, really good, and he's glad he can share this with Wanda.

"You know, as far as the neighbors know, you have the perfect husband."

"I'm aware," she says in a deep tone, ensuring that she speaks in her American accent. As she easily slices into the steak, she knows that this whole charade is too easy. She always wanted to be like Samantha and be the perfect witch and wife and solve problems while living efficiently.

Life isn't a sitcom, even though it's feeling very close to it right now.

She moans when she bites into the steak. Unsurprising, yet again. It doesn't matter to her how many weeks he's spent cooking for her, everything tastes better and better. Wanda will never forget what it's like to go without fresh food.

She'd thought Bucky Barnes would be a big walking question mark, someone to keep two eyes on and her back up around, but she's growing too relaxed. It's too easy to believe this is real.

"Is this what you did before?" she asks as she cuts into her steak once more. "Cook all the time?"

"I used to help my mother in the kitchen when I was a kid," Bucky explains. "She had her hands full with the baby after my sister was born and she couldn't do it all alone. I learned how to do a lot of things. I can mend clothes, too, if you rip a hole in your favorite shirt. I'm fully house-trained."

It feels nice, too, to have the stability of it all and it makes the nightmares a little more bearable if his days are idyllic and domestic bliss. Wanda doesn't have to hear him scream at night if he makes sure to stuff towels under the door to block the sound and then he can get through it all without embarrassing himself or betraying his weakness.

"I used to like to help people. Still do, I think. I would love to be like Steve, you know? I just can't. There's too much evil in my history to ever be inspirational. People can't trust me. They can trust him in a way they'd never trust me. Doesn't help that I have this monstrosity of a left arm. But with you, it's better. I don't dwell on it all day."

Wanda frowns thoughtfully. "You can still help people."

Steve might wear the Captain America garb, but Captain America is merely a vessel and not the heart behind all the good-doings. It's the same with Bucky's arm, even if it's more of a displeasing weight than something he can use to help guide his desires to help those around him. It's a reminder to be better. She thinks his arm is much more than what he considers it to be.

"I think Steve is inspirational in a different way." Looking down, she taps the prongs of her fork against the side of the plate. "People think of him and see Captain America. They don't see Steve, not as you do. People see someone unattainable who is meant to solve all of their problems. They put too much hope on him to be the perfect solution, but he's just a man."

And fallible, at that. Look at the mess they created in Germany. Although Steve is hardly the only one to blame for what's occurred, she knows that the world's idea of Captain America would never have played a part in the dismantling of The Avengers. Their version of him is too perfect and not real.

"You know that better than anyone." She looks up at him and gives him a small smile. "When Pietro died, he used to tell me some stories about you. You were a brother to him and I think you inspired a lot in him. Monstrosity of a left arm or not."

"Steve was always my brother. Even when I had nothing, I had Steve. It feels weird for him to be so unattainable now, like something I'm no longer allowed to touch. This is the same guy I used to snag double dates for in hopes we'd find a girl who would look past his physical appearance to see the good guy underneath."

Bucky pushes his food around on his plate and tries to find the words to say. He has a hard time talking about Steve because he misses him more than anything and the only thing that fills that void is Wanda. Wanda makes him feel like a whole man again, makes him feel like he's allowed to want things and allowed to be a real person again.

"Spending time with you helps, though. Sometimes I wish it was real and not a cover. I wish it wasn't...I know it has to be uncomfortable. I know it has to be something that's unsettling, knowing the weird guy you're hiding with started nursing tender emotions because he's finally being treated like a good person again. I know you should have better. You'd be happier with better than me but I'm selfish, you know?"

"We're friends, aren't we? I think that's very real."

Without Pietro, Wanda has no one. Her family is gone. Her home is gone. Her country is in ruins. Vision isn't here. All she has is Bucky, who's stuck around despite what she can do is very similar to the torture he faced for decades. She might not grip him tightly or box him in a magical cage to keep him close, but the ease with which she's taken to this life has been made easier because of him. Wanda's an odd fish in a pond she's only ever dreamed of swimming in.

She smiles and ducks her gaze. "You think too highly of me. I belong in the Raft with everyone else, but I'm here with you, where I'm being fed very big meals," she chuckles, "and being encouraged to sit on my ass when Barton made a big speech about getting off of it. I'm getting very lazy because of you."

"I'm not talking about friends, Wanda."

What he feels for Wanda isn't exactly friendly. It's beyond that. For the first time in eighty years he's felt desire and he doesn't know what to do with it. He doesn't know how to ease that ache or how to even broach the subject. He feels like he's getting close, talking about his feelings, but Wanda is putting up an invisible wall and he wonders if this is her way of saying he's too close, he's too much, she's not ready or willing to take him on as a romantic prospect.

It's hard, though, to look at her and want for the first time in so long and he doesn't know what to do with it. He should hide it, he thinks. He shouldn't change what they are and should keep them as friends. Friendship is safe, very safe, and he thinks the safety is probably better than the wild, tangled unknown that would be a romantic relationship. He thinks he should be telling himself this over and over until the feelings go away.

"I'm talking about more than that. And I don't have a right to want more than that, Wanda. Not after everything I've done. There's no amount of dinners and house cleaning that can make up for what I am inside, you know?"

She frowns as she looks at him. "But who you are inside is a good man."

If he was anything to the contrary, she sincerely doubts he'd entertain her, cook for her, and trust her. She started out as his best friend's enemy. She tried to kill his best friend. Wanda sincerely doubts that if Bucky was as horrible as he believed himself to be, he wouldn't be able to see past that.

Or the fact that she can easily read his mind if she so wished. Sometimes it was like flipping through a picture book. She's done it carelessly to people before. As tempting as it is to peek inside, she thinks it's only fair to let him reveal what he wants when he wants to.

It seems that he is, and Wanda flushes, her heart racing violently. It's easier to read someone's mind than to hear it. At least she can prepare for it or she can gently bat it away from being at the forefront of their consciousness. He credits her too much. She simply sits and walks with him and makes sure that no one thinks anything more about their new quiet neighbours who are a little odd and keep to themselves. She's not the one who has made this feel like a home.

"I'm… weird," she says, furrowing her brows tightly together before she laughs, but it's an incredulous, weak thing. As kind as most of the Avengers are, she had been alone in a crowded meeting room. And now that Bucky keeps seeing her—and making it a point that he can and does see her—she feels like backing into the shadows and to what was her normal. "This is the most normal my life has ever been and that's because of you. Anyone would be lucky to have you as anything in their life. I know I am."

"And I'm not? Wanda, do you think I care about your powers? You've never hurt me. I feel...myself with you. More myself than I've felt since before I fell. I still have nightmares but the days are good so it balances out. I don't care about your powers. You're not gonna hurt me with them because if you were, you already would have done it. You can read my mind without a book. You can control me without HYDRA's code words. You haven't because you're a good person."

Bucky reaches his right hand across the table to touch Wanda's. "If it makes you feel uncomfortable, I won't mention it again. I just thought I should be honest that what I feel for you isn't simply friendship and that I want...well, I want you. And I haven't wanted anything for myself in a really long time. It means something to me to have these feelings because it means I trust you with the most vulnerable parts of me."

He rubs his thumb against her skin. "It's up to you, though. If you don't want me to ever mention it again, it drops right now. We go back to being friends and nothing changes. But if you're interested in it, we could try it out and see if it fits. I think it will. I think we're suited for one another. I'm not the same as Vision, I know that, but maybe I can still be good enough."

Her powers were always her backup wall erector if she ever needed them. She'd done so with Vision plenty of times, and he had been too kind and patient and literal to ever question it. But Bucky isn't a synthezoid learning how to walk like a human and talk like a human. He already is one.

She's so used to being the one in the room who knows everything. She can prepare for anything. Of all the things she had tried to prevent or be ready for, this had never crossed her mind.

She looks down at his hand on hers, distracted by the movement of his thumb. Whenever Bucky touches her, she wants him to touch him even more. That's the only information she's ever let herself have about this. She's always tried to subtly encourage him to touch her more, to reach out and grab her. It all seemed to help him feel more at ease, and it had selfishly let her feel, well…

"I've never…" She keeps her gaze down and her brows furrowed. "I've never done… anything like this before. Ever."

Bucky's lived a life, even one that had been cut short. Wanda's always been envious and enthralled with his stories because she's never gotten to experience what he did. She wishes she had. She always imagined it as herself in his stories. When she looks up at him, she says earnestly, "I don't know even how to dance. You should want someone who can dance."

It's silly, she knows, but she's not as great as he thinks she is. She can't dance. He likes dancing. It's an oversight and an important one.

"I can teach you how to dance," Bucky says. He frowns a little though. "You and Vision never...? Ever? Because I don't mind doing the teaching I just figured you had some experience."

Bucky doesn't even know how sex with Vision would work other than he'd assumed she'd had it with him even if she'd had no partners before him. It's something he'd assume of anyone her age and now he has to look at her differently. It's all right, though. If she needs someone to teach her, he's more than happy to do it. Being the more experienced one is erotic, in a way, and he's not going to take much to warm up to the idea.

"We can take it slow if you need to. I don't need you to jump into bed with me for dessert or anything. If you need to ease into it, I'm more than happy to do it. I just wanna be with you. There's not a statute of limitations on when and there's not any rules on the how."

"I've had sex before," she says a little indignantly in an attempt to ignore her furious flush.

This is why it's easier to stay friends with very attractive almost-one hundred-year-olds! It means that his infinite amount of experience is shared in little anecdotes that make her long to travel back in time and see him in his prime. It means that there's some distance between them, where her inexperience is kept under wraps while she acts as a sponge for all of his.

Her face and neck are hot. Wanda could easily make the room chilly—she's been working on that, even if she hardly understands it—but doing so will alert Bucky, and she doesn't particularly want him alert to anything at all at the moment.

"I've done some… things. When there was time." Given her house arrest, Wanda did have some time on her hands. God, she's making her face feel even worse.

"I don't need to know what you did," Bucky says softly. "I just need to know what you like, that's all. I want to make sure you enjoy it as much as I enjoy it. That's the point of it, after all, and you should always be enjoying yourself. Your life should be full of joy."

Bucky doesn't know how much he contributes to that but he wants to, desperately and it seems like Wanda isn't saying no to him. He turns her hand over, stroking his fingers against her palm. Her skin is soft, so soft, and it's so much different than his hand that is calloused from years and years of shooting firearms.

"When we're together, I'll make sure that you enjoy it. I'll do everything I can do to ensure that. If you can trust me, I'll make you happy. It's all I want to do." He smiles a little. "And I'll teach a little witch how to dance. You're beautiful when you fight. I'm sure you will pick up dancing quick as anything."

"Do you ever think of yourself?" All that indignation and furious flushing are gone. It's always about her, what she likes, and what she enjoys. Wanda's enjoyed every little thing that Bucky's done for her, even the things that she was never aware she would like.

It's something she's noticed for a while now and has never quite known how to address it. She's always wanted to be delicate, knowing that his focus on others comes from a place of healing and from some unfounded need to atone for every little thing he's done to everyone, even those he never directly hurt. But she supposes being blunt is appropriate now, especially given…

"I trust you," she says, looking at him. She closes her fingers around his, wanting to momentarily stop his distracting movements and to make sure that he understands it through a language he seems to prefer. "And it's important to me that you enjoy it, too. It's fine if you end up not liking it."

God, she's talking about having sex with Bucky Barnes.

Bucky frowns at that, at the implication that he might not like it, that thinking of her is somehow wrong. Shouldn't he be thinking of what she likes and how good it feels for her? He doesn't want it to feel bad for her or remind her of something bad and now he feels like she's turning that on him and he doesn't like examining it.

"Why wouldn't I like it, Wanda? Why shouldn't I think of you more than me? I haven't wanted anyone in decades. I want the closeness of it, the intimacy. I don't want you to run from me. Is that a bad thing? To want you to feel good and find that important, more important than what feels good to me?"

Maybe he's taking it the wrong way. She did say she wanted him to like it too. It's just the it's fine if you end up not liking it that bothers him. Does she know something he doesn't know, something she picked up on accident? It worries him.

"Men are easier to please than women, Wanda."

There are a few reasons she can think of that could be the reason why he doesn't like it. She's not as experienced. She's different. What makes her different makes her dangerous. Wanda has to assume the other women he's been with were different to her—normal, without powers, and possibly without all the baggage that follows her.

"It's not just about me, Bucky. It's sweet that you're so focused on me, but… you're going to be there, too." She grips his hand, and this time it's her turn to sweep her fingers over his.

"You should like it, too. That's important to me," she says quietly. "There's a chance—maybe a really small chance—that you won't like it, and I want you to know that's okay."

She knows deep in her soul that he'd tell her the same thing. It's okay for her to not like it; he won't be offended. Wanda just happened to get there first.

"I'm pretty sure I'm gonna like it. 99.99% confident that I'll love it, actually," Bucky says, laughing softly. "But we don't have to go run in there to do it right this second. It's usually better if you warm up to these kinds of things and set a mood. Why don't you let me clear the plates and we'll watch something? Maybe something we've already seen?"

If they've already seen it, he won't be compelled to take in every detail the way he does every time he sees something new and he can spend more time touching Wanda instead. He needs the background noise as a crutch to ease into the intimacy and he thinks Wanda will probably feel more comfortable with it as well. He doesn't know what Vision was like intimately and he knows Wanda doesn't know about any of his partners (and they're all probably dead by now anyway) so they'll come into this with clean slates.

"Go get comfortable and let me handle the mess? I like doing it, so I don't want any arguments from you. Maybe I can't do magic but manual labor? I'm great at it. I want to make your life easy and nice. I love taking care of you."

That furious flushing and heat return promptly at his confidence. Sometimes she wonders if Bucky's aware of it and does what he does on purpose. She likes to think he's oblivious, but there are times when she's convinced he's well aware of what he's doing and enjoys it.

She sighs heavily, regarding him with a look of not being amused. It's on the tip of her tongue to argue with him and even do the dishes herself, but if it gives him something to do and a moment to mull over what they've spoken about, then she'll give it to him this last time.

She reluctantly pulls her hand away from his to grab her glass of wine. Pushing out her chair, she stands, and rests her other hand against her hip as she looks down at him sternly. "You're annoying," she says, narrowing her eyes at him. While he might have taken the mantel of wanting to treat her well and do everything for her, she thinks it's only fair that he sees her pay it back in kind by letting him get away with it.

Turning away from the table, she states matter-of-factly, "If it's not done in five minutes, I'm coming in to do it. Charming words or not." And that's a threat she intends to uphold. She glances over her shoulder to regard him sternly so he's aware of how very serious she is about her threat.

Reluctantly, she returns to the living room and sits in the corner of the couch she tends to claim. She doesn't feel as comfortable as she usually does. There's an expectation now. She's too aware of herself and how she's sitting and how her dress is falling across her thighs. She listens intently to Bucky in the kitchen for something to focus on that isn't herself.

The cleaning helps him get his head straight and he thinks he might go over the five minutes but luckily he's fast and efficient so he has everything in the dishwasher, the counters wiped down, and the wine put away by the time he thinks his time is up. He knows Wanda could do it with a wave of her hand but he likes doing the work. He likes taking care of her because it makes him feel like he's doing something good and putting happiness into the world, even if it's happiness for one Sokovian witch and not anyone else.

When he's done, he wipes his hands on a dishtowel and goes to sit next to Wanda. He's hyperaware of her now because the penny has dropped and he knows he's allowed to look at her openly instead of sneaking glances when he thinks she isn't looking. Wanda is beautiful, her features delicate but hiding the incredible power she has behind them. She doesn't look like she can be capable of what she is and it's very easy to forget she doesn't need his protection. He slides his arm around her shoulders.

"Let's start with this," he says quietly. "Sit in my lap for a little while and we can just watch tv. It'll be new but we can get used to it."

She cocks her brow at him as she smiles, although she's not going to decline his suggestion. Sitting on his lap might be nice, even though it's clear to her where this will lead. She wishes she had more time with his arm around her shoulders; it's grounding in a way that isn't suffocating, and if she could somehow keep that arm around her while she sits a little too close beside him, she would. It's a gesture that's given her confidence since they came here.

She does as he suggests, moving onto his lap. At first, she sits ramrod straight, resting her hands on either side of his thighs like she's unsure of whether she's going to tip over or not. The last thing she wants to do is hurt him or make him uncomfortable, but she's thinking too much. When she overthinks, the world starts making noises and the last thing she wants to do is let all the noise from the neighbours and beyond the street infiltrate the wall she's erected in her mind. She relaxes on her own, pulling at the strap of her short red dress up her shoulder and leans back against his chest as she rests her hands easily in her lap.

"I liked your arm," she says quietly, looking straight ahead at the television. Even though she's moved, she thinks it's something he can know now without her admission feeling stupidly weighted and weird. "I like it when you put it around me."

The dress is too damn short. He noticed it before, of course, but now he can't do anything but notice it because it shifts up a little when she sits in his lap and he can see long, slender legs and soft skin and thighs he just wants to touch. Not yet, though. He looks and he's probably staring and it's only when Wanda says something that he pulls his eyes up to look at her profile as she watches the television.

"Yeah? I think it just reminds me that I'm ruthless but if you like it, I guess I'll just have to get over that. Makes me strong enough to hold you all night, though, so I'll take it. A normal man would get tired but not me. You're tiny. I could throw you over one shoulder if I felt like it. I won't, though. We're not at that point."

Wanda isn't looking at him so he puts his right hand on her knee and sweeps his thumb along the inside of it. He wants to kiss her while he shoves his hand under this microscopic dress but that's for later. He's going to ease into this so he doesn't frighten her off by being so hot for her that decades and decades of nothing has suddenly let the floodgates go.

"Tell me if you need to stop," he says, low and a little rough. "And I'll stop."

"Only if you do the same," she murmurs. It might sound silly now since all she's doing is sitting in his lap, but Wanda intends for Bucky to understand and accept that there's a possibility he might want to stop. For whatever reason. She wants to be self-deprecating enough to believe it'll be because he's not into it, but she's too distracted by his hand on her knee to really feed the thought.

"And you're such a caveman," she says with a sigh. She wants to relax. She wants to be as relaxed as she's come to be with him, easily letting her guard down and poking fun at someone who could possibly kill her within seconds. But she's aware of his hand on her knee and what that means, and all she can do is sit tensely despite not wanting to.

As a distraction, she looks at his hand on her knee and glides the nails of her right hand down his arm before tracing what she can of his fingers.

"I doubt you can carry me up the stairs over your shoulder. You look frail, old man." Her words lack the usual heat and sharp challenge, but she thinks he'll see the gauntlet for what it is. She doesn't wish to be passive, even if she's letting him lead this dance and he's giving her the grace to step on his feet a number of times.

Wanda shifts her left leg in an effort to get comfortable and in a tiny attempt to goad his left hand onto her skin.

Bucky draws in a sharp breath when she draws her fingers up his arm and it's distracting enough that he doesn't notice at first when the fingertips of his left hand stray from fabric to the soft skin just below her hem. When he realizes it, though, he freezes and tries to decide how he can pull them away. He doesn't know if she wants that or not and he doesn't want to just surprise her with something as crazy as his hand.

She's saying something, though, and when it dawns on him what she's said, he slides the fingers of his right hand higher. Her skin is so soft and wants to get her off right here in his lap just to prove he still knows how to do it. It's been such a long time.

"I could do it right now if you don't believe me. Flip you right over my shoulder like a caveman and haul you upstairs. Make the stars in the sky realign. Promise it."

Wanda snorts, scrunching her nose in amusement. She thinks to comment on his line—she's pretty sure she's the one who can realign the stars if she so wished, even though she's unsure of just how far her power even extends in strength—but he seems worried. She doesn't mean to sense it; it niggles at her mind even if he doesn't mean for it to reach her.

She presses her left hand firmly against his and digs the heel of her palm down. No matter how hard she pushes down, he can easily tug his hand free. But she doesn't think he will, not when she's physically noted it's there. The metal's cool on her skin and unnaturally heavy, but she hardly minds.

"If you want to do this, then it's all of you," she says, looking at him from over her shoulder.

Bucky blinks at her, confused for a moment, but he doesn't move his hand. She'd been pretty clear by pressing his hand down that she wants it there and he thinks she can tell he's nervous about it but now that it's out in the open, he's not really sure what to say. He parts his lips and then closes them before speaking again.

"I can't feel anything with it," he says softly. "It's cold and heavy and it's a weapon. I don't...you want it? I might hurt you on accident."

He'd hurt himself before hurting Wanda, hands down, and he doesn't want to leave bruises on her skin because he just can't feel how hard he's pushing down with his hand or that his fingers are too tight. It's different when the bruises are on purpose. Women in the 40s weren't into that but he...he's different now. He doesn't mind the idea of leaving bruises if he does it with his right hand. The left, though...the left worries him.

"I know you'd never hurt me," she says softly, looking down at his left arm.

She removes her hand from his right arm and slowly traces the back of his metal hand with her fingers. It's curious how he can't feel anything in the arm, but he's so conscious of it despite that. She doesn't want him to be distracted by it—or worse, afraid if he does happen to accidentally miscalculate his weight and hurt her.

"I can bring someone's nightmares to light," she murmurs thoughtfully as she glides a finger down the length of one of his. "Maybe I can do this." She doesn't finish her thought aloud; Wanda focuses, unsure of what she intends to do other than do something with his arm.

As she moves her fingertips lightly up and down the back of his hand, tendrils of red magic are left in her wake. She watches as it sinks down between the seams of the metal plates of his arm and keeps moving her hand back and forth. His arm is cold and feels deader than a mind, but Wanda doesn't stop sending lines of red along the metal. If she so wants him to be able to feel his arm, even at a slightly lesser extent than he can with his flesh arm, then she'll will it into existence. She's already made so much happen with a simple thought. Why not this?

Bucky can feel it. He hasn't felt anything in his left arm since 1943 and it isn't the same as his right arm but it's there and it's real. He should have known that Wanda's magic could fix this problem but he hadn't really put two and two together until she started working on it. He presses his fingers down harder just to prove it's real and then he slides his right hand up her body to cup her breast.

"I can feel it," he murmurs. "Kiss me. I wanna see how much I can feel now that you magicked it all up. You don't mind, do you?"

He doesn't think she will, considering she brought it up, but he thinks if he can't kiss her, he'll die of thirst, and he knows it won't be a soft, polite kiss like he originally intended. He'd intended all of this to be soft and gentle and he thinks she let the brakes off something a lot more fierce than that. Brave little witch.

That's definitely a way to say 'thank you', even if Wanda's not entirely sure what he can feel. She wants to pry. Can he feel the heel of his palm? His fingertips? Knuckles? How does it feel?

Her breath hitches before she twists as best she can to face him. It's a little awkward; she should've straddled his lap and turned to face him, but she knows she hadn't been brave enough, preferring to hide with her back to his front.

She pulls her right hand away from his metal arm and reaches awkwardly to touch his face. "I don't mind," she murmurs, leaning back toward his left shoulder and turning her face toward him.

She plants her left hand on the top of his metal one and frowns. "Is it okay?" Even when there's pleasure to be had, Wanda's still all business.

"Better than okay. Just feels like I've got a glove on," Bucky says, leaning in and kissing her before he says something stupid like thank you or please or some unintelligible noise. He tugs his teeth against her lower lip and slides his left hand up higher, gripping the softness of her thigh under a hand that hasn't felt sensation since the 40s. It's amazing and terrifying and wonderful all at once.

He cups her breast in his right hand, kneading lightly as he kisses her as if his life is dependent upon it and it probably is. He's never felt so alive in his life. Who knew that one little spell could change everything like turning on the lights in the dark recesses of his mind.

"Gonna haul you up those stairs any minute now," he murmurs, breathing heavy as he pulls away from the kiss. "Just gotta get over how good it feels to finally feel something in the left after so long. You're driving me insane."

"Sorry," she murmurs, although she's hardly sorry. She's distracted by touching his face lightly with her fingertips. They don't glow red, not that she particularly wants them to. If she can make up for the horrors she's been responsible for by somehow changing what she can sense in his metal arm, then she will. Bucky may not believe he deserves much, but this is something he can't take care of without her.

She gently touches the other side of his face with her other hand, gazing down to watch her fingertips glide along his jawline. Pressing her fingertips against his mouth, she traces the curve of his bottom lip with her thumb. She much prefers to touch like this, as though she can feel every little cell beneath his skin. And she supposes she could, if she wanted to, but there's nothing she wishes to change about Bucky's face other than to see his lips curve upward rather than down and imprint what makes him feel like him into her fingertips.

"I like your face," she says, then she laughs, doing her best to ignore the way her cheeks flush as scarlet as her power. But she likes his face; she's liked it since she first saw him, in his photographs when he seemed lighter and more boyish, and even now, despite everything that weighs him down.

"Good thing you do, since you're gonna be seeing a hell of a lot of it." He smiles when she traces his lips and he kisses her flushed cheek. She blushes easily, the color lighting up her cheeks and neck, and he wonders if she blushes everywhere and if he can make that pretty red wash down all of her pale skin.

"C'mon. It's time to go upstairs." Bucky has to stop touching her to shift position but he intends to make good on his promise and he lifts her easily, slinging her over his left shoulder in a fireman's carry so she can see that when he makes promises, he follows through on them. It's fun, too, to feel the light weight of her in his arms and know that she's going to be naked with him soon.

"Better hang on to something if you don't want to lose your balance up there." He'd never drop her but he has to make the joke about it, keep it light, because if he doesn't he'll do something ridiculously possessive like curl his fingers into her thigh just hard enough to leave bruises that will last a few days. After so many years of not controlling anything or being able to have anything, he wants to hang on tight to this.

Wanda laughs loudly, gripping the back of his shirt. It's ridiculous. She can levitate into the air and soften her falls, but she acts like she's not a girl who can quickly pull the couch over toward her if she was to fall out of his arms. Is this what it's like to feel normal?

Her heart pounds heavily as she lets herself relax momentarily. This might be the only moment where she can go boneless. She wants to enjoy it before she gets worn out being as taut as a string on a bow. The tension she's carrying lets go of her temporarily as he makes his way up the stairs, and she does her best not to let it come back.

"If you drop me, you'll be sleeping outside for the rest of your life," she says sternly, although she breathes hard. She continues to grip his shirt, not wanting to accidentally shift her weight to work against him. "And I'll make sure all the mosquitoes get you."

"I'm not dropping you, gorgeous," Bucky says, laughing at the thought of it. He decides to go to her bedroom instead of his and he's glad for the choice. The colors are softer, more muted, and there's more of her touch in here instead of the clean lines and minimalism that's in his own room. It feels more intimate here than how his room would feel.

He eases her down onto the edge of the bed and kneels there, slides his palms up her thighs. Her dress is tiny, tinier than her, and he starts easing it upward as he tips his face up to look at her.

"I need to get this off you," he murmurs. "Are you ready for that or is that too much too soon?" He wants to check in, at least this first time, because he doesn't know what sex with Wanda is like yet and he wants to make sure he doesn't do anything that she dislikes or isn't comfortable with. They've both been used hard by HYDRA and that leaves scars. He doesn't want to poke at them.

She doesn't lean back and rests her hands against the bedsheets. She wishes she would. If she did, that'd mean she can relax, but she leans forward and digs her hands into the bed beside her thighs. She'd rather be bowed toward Bucky than lean away from him.

While she likes the fact he asks, it gives her too much to think about. And Wanda tends to spend more time in her head than anywhere else, keeping to herself in the fear of responding to something that had been a thought rather than a spoken word.

"It's fine," she answers quietly. If she doesn't do it now, she might not do it later, and Wanda doesn't particularly want to lose her nerve. Being around Bucky has quickly taught her that he's perceptive. She's unsure if that's him or if it had been something he'd learned in the army that had been abused by HYDRA. She supposes being a sniper requires a keen eye and an intense focus. He sees things about her that she thought she'd hidden well enough from plain view.

She's already felt half-naked around him with each and every perception he notes to her, but there's a difference between emotional nakedness and her being half-naked and just in her panties in front of him.

"But don't rip it," she says, although she doesn't sound stern at all. "I like this dress."

"Not gonna rip something I wanna see again. But you better get something you're not attached to so I can rip it next time," Bucky says, licking his lips as he looks at her. He pushes the little dress up and off and he's pleased to see there's nothing under it but her panties. God. It's been entirely too long since he's been with a woman and this isn't just any woman, it's Wanda.

"Lay back and relax for a minute. I need to get undressed if I'm gonna do this the right way." The more aroused he is, the more his consonants slur and slide back to Brooklyn even though years as the Winter Soldier erased his accent from him. He can speak 32 languages but right now the only language he can speak is fuck and now and he thinks it's probably sufficient. At least Wanda can read his emotions and knows how little he's thinking right now.

He tugs his t-shirt off in one fluid movement and then brings his hands to his jeans, fingers fumbling over the fly for a moment before he can get them undone. He draws a little closer and reaches for Wanda's hands. "You wanna push them down for me or do you just wanna watch?"

Perhaps it's a good thing he takes her hands as she'd felt the impulsive need to wrap her arms around herself. Rather than bat his hands away, Wanda leans forward and threads their fingers together as best as she can. She doesn't look away from his face as she tilts her head to the side and smiles a close-lipped smug smile.

She might be out of her element here, but she refuses to lose what little confidence she continues to gain. She grips his hands and, with her eyes flashing a dull red without her realising, she telekinetically tugs his pants down his legs to bunch at his ankles.

"I prefer to watch," she says with a toothy smile before she laughs a little breathlessly. While she'll try and keep her powers as far away from the bedroom as possible, she can't help but have a little harmless fun. Bucky's already taken her by surprise. She doesn't want things to remain too predictable for him—and this is the only way she knows how.

But when she looks away from his face, it's to admire the slope of his neck and his broad shoulders. Her eyes linger on where his metal arm connects to his shoulder. The way his skin has healed has led to ugly scarring, but Wanda much prefers it to his right arm. It's a sign that he survived despite it all.

The telekinesis is hot. Maybe he's only seen it as a useful weapon in the field before now but having a woman yank his pants off with nothing but her mind has changed his opinion on the matter greatly. He kicks off his jeans and pushes down his boxers so he can just be naked and done with it before licking his lower lip and just watching her for a moment. God, she's beautiful.

"I don't even know where to start with you," he murmurs. "I just know I wanna take my time. Slide up the bed a little so I can get my hands all over you, yeah?"

He thinks he'll touch her first, experiencing the new sensation in his left hand until he can get used to it, and then he'll follow it up with his mouth. She's more than just the first woman he's seen in decades. She's someone who would be special no matter what. She's Wanda and he's been carrying a torch for a while.

She reluctantly lets go of his hands and does as he suggests, looking at him as she does so. She sits toward the headboard and watches him, keeping her gaze on his face before she slides it down his body.

This isn't the first time Bucky's been naked before her. While his body had been fully dressed, his stories and anecdotes and what she thought to be tiny secrets had left him exposed to her each and every time he trusted her with a piece of himself. Wanda had never needed to pry into Bucky's head to know what he was thinking; most of the time, he'd tell her.

Except this. Wanda definitely missed this.

She doesn't want to stare. It'd be particularly gaudy of her. But this is the first time she's seen a man stand naked before her and look at her like she was something more than just a miracle object that happened to be created out of pure luck. Vision had been different. She always knew Vision was different.

"You're not going to take too long?" she asks, arching her brow slightly. "The ice will melt if you take your idea of time."

Bucky laughs softly. "You're an impatient girl, Wanda Maximoff. You haven't ever had a man spread you out on the bed and make you sing from head to toe? Because that's what I'm gonna so and I think you're gonna like it." He hopes so, anyway, but if she's more about getting to the point he guesses he's going to have to get used to that.

He moves to lay alongside her and cups her breast in his right hand before leaning over to kiss her softly. The earlier kiss had been a little frantic and desperate and he wants this one to be slow and pleasurable, something to remember when the nights get cold.

Her skin is so soft under his fingertips and he rolls his thumb against her nipple, trying to get it to peak for him. Bucky wants nothing more than to make her fall apart and stop thinking for a little while and once he has, then he'll take the chance to do the same for himself.

Before she can even answer that, he's kissing her again. Wanda turns onto her side so she can be closer to him and reaches out to faintly curl her fingers against his collarbones. She isn't afraid to touch him, but she doesn't know where she even wishes to begin. There's so much of him exposed. Before, she used to let him dictate touch, accepting his left arm looped around hers as she covers its bulkiness by almost cuddling it to her chest.

Now… she likes holding his hand. She knows it's not something she can do outside of the four walls of their makeshift little home.

As she arches her breast into his hand, she brushes her toes against his calf and plants her palm against his shoulder, moaning softly against his mouth. She presses down against the heel of her palm as she drags her hand from his shoulder to his pectoral, sweeping her thumb across his nipple.

If she's feeling inspired, he only has himself to blame.

It feels so good. Bucky thinks it's mostly because it's Wanda and he wants her so badly but some of it is because it's been so goddamn long since anyone has touched him. He wants to roll to his back and let Wanda's little hands run all the way over all his skin but right now, he wants to make it about her. He wants her to want to be with him again.

"I need to get my mouth on you," he murmurs. "Every single place I can put it, I want it. Please?"

Maybe he shouldn't ask and should just do but he thinks he needs to ask more for him than for Wanda. He needs to know that his touch is wanted and needed. He wants to know that she's enjoying herself and that his hands can bring someone pleasure instead of pain for once.

She nods. "Just a minute," she says quietly. "Let me touch you."

Wanda glides her hand down his chest to tuck it against his hip. Rather than kiss his lips again, she nips at the underside of his jaw. If she lets him do as he wants, he'll never give her a chance to simply touch him.

And all she wants to do is touch him, even if she has to do so shallowly. She slides her hand from his hip to the small of his back and follows the notches of his spine to his nape. There's so much of him to touch. All she wants is to feel almost a century of life beneath her fingertips and feel it move beneath her hand.

It feels good to be touched, to feel Wanda's curious fingertips tripping over his skin. It's good enough that Bucky moans and rolls to his back so she can touch more of him if she wants. He still intends to make good on his promises and get his mouth all over her but if she wants to spend some time touching him, well. It's about what she wants, isn't it?

Physical touch is something that he was deprived of as the Winter Soldier except as a tool to keep him in check. Touch has been associated with pain for him for longer than his natural lifespan and to feel it now as a gentle thing, exploratory and arousing, is brand new for him.

"You can touch as much as you want. Anywhere you want."

With Bucky now on his back, Wanda shifts so she can twist her upper body and lie on her stomach against him. She traces her index finger along his right shoulder, pressing down hard enough to leave a temporary white streak in her wake.

If he's going to let her touch him the way she wants, then she's going to take advantage of it and enjoy it for as long as possible. She doesn't want to devour him in the same hungry way he seems to want to do so to her; she wants to take her time and see the way his muscles move beneath the various weights of her hand. It's how she learns to manipulate her power; she wants to be able to take her time to feel the movement of his muscles than rush and miss it and not learn the locations of the little sensitive spots that are hidden away by hard muscle. He's always been difficult to read; she much prefers to read this way.

Watching the movement of her hand, she traces the lines of the muscle in his pectorals before gliding to his belly. "Is this okay?"

The touch feels good. Bucky hadn't realized how much he missed a touch like this until he's gotten it and now he doesn't know what he'll do without it. It'll make it very difficult if he and Wanda ever part ways but he can't start courting disaster at the very beginning; he's a catastrophist but he shouldn't ruin a good thing up front.

Her hands are soft against the hard lines of his body and when she presses down a little, it's unexpected. What isn't unexpected is when she glides her hands lower, past his chest and down toward his belly. If he hasn't had a touch on his upper body, he definitely hasn't on his lower body and he nods eagerly.

"Yeah, God, do whatever you want. It feels good."

Wanda watches his face as she trails her hand over his hipbone and against the side of his thigh. She doesn't think he'd lie to her, but she wants to see his reactions and be able to learn how to read him through another avenue that isn't touch or the little nigglings she feels in her mind before swatting every desire to pry away.

She's content to touch him this way and have his body react in ways that tell her where his most ticklish spots could be. Even after all the calluses he's developed during his time as the Winter Soldier, she likes that she can feel his muscles contract beneath her hand.

If he hadn't been such a stubborn pest earlier, Wanda would take what he says to be literal. He wants to be touched any way she wants to touch him—and while she suspects that's very true (Bucky seems so easy to please), she thinks it's only fair of her to press her earlier point. And she does so with a harder dragging of her nails against his upper thigh, stretching her arm to his knee before trailing her fingertips back up to his hip. "What do you want?" She smiles, "Because I am very happy doing this for a very long time."

"I mean, I want to get off but not before you do," Bucky says. Her touch feels good enough that he's closed his eyes and he knows his face must look content and relaxed for the first time in a long time. He doesn't do a lot of relaxed in his life. He's always hypervigilant, always watching to make sure they're safe. He doesn't have to here, though, and it feels amazing.

Her fingertips are soft against his skin until her nails dig into his thigh a little and the mix of sensations is enough to make him moan a little even if he didn't really intend to do it. She's gonna undo him before he even gets a chance to undo her and he doesn't think that's particularly fair.

"I haven't been with someone I wanted to be with since before the war," he says softly. "You're the first person who's touched me that I wanted touching me, that I wasn't forced to touch or that touched me when I didn't want it. It's...amazing."

Wanda's grateful that he's closed his eyes because she knows her expression isn't one he'd probably want to see. Now most likely isn't the time to ask him about his terrible experiences, of what HYDRA made him do over the years before she stupidly walked right into its arms of her own free will. But what he says only makes her want to doubly ensure she doesn't do anything to jeopardise the trust he has in her. She doesn't think it's overly deserved—he trusts her too much when she's done so little, and she poses such a threat to be the very thing that he's tried his best to escape from—but she selfishly doesn't wish to point that out to him right now. She appreciates being trusted.

"Is there any place you don't want me to touch?"

Wanda doesn't look down at her hand to watch her movements as she trails up his side before following the indent of his ribcage. She shifts against the bed so she can easily hover over him as she traces meaningless shapes against his skin. It's hardly erotic at all, but she figures someone as touch-starved as him might appreciate the reminder that there's no part of him she doesn't want to touch.

"No, I think I'm okay. It hurts a little where the arm fits into my shoulder so keep a light touch there but otherwise, I think I'm good. There's nothing I'm thinking of that will trigger me."

It might happen and it's something he doesn't want to think about but it isn't something obvious right now. He doesn't know if he'll realize it until he's in the moment if he doesn't like something but he feels like Wanda would be able to tell better than most if he wasn't enjoying himself. Her fingertips tracing little shapes against his skin feel so good and he sighs a little.

"If I didn't want to fuck you as bad as I do, I could spend all day just having you do that. It feels so good just to be touched."

That's expected, and it only inspires her to move away from leaning over him and touching him aimlessly. She doesn't want his shoulder to be a source of pain and she can't fathom how to even stop that, but she hopes that what she has in mind alleviates it just a little. She's the one who wanted to bring his shoulder into this, after all.

Resting her hand lightly against his chest, she doesn't trace any other shapes against his skin. She shifts against him and kisses the skin of his left shoulder. She makes a point to kiss his shoulder, close to where metal and skin meet before she kisses the metal plate.

Trailing back to the flesh of his shoulder, she smiles against him. She scrunches up her nose when she suggests, "Maybe you should wait a little longer."

"You're going to kill me and I didn't spend all this time alive to get taken out by a little Sokovian witch," Bucky says. It feels good to have her lips against his shoulder because he's never had a good touch there, ever, and he didn't realize he would be so into it. It feels better than it has any right to feel.

Waiting longer to get his hands and his mouth on her sounds like a special kind of torture but maybe that's what he signed up for with this. Payback will be very sweet, though, and he knows he'll drive her insane when he gets his turn to touch her. He has so much he wants to do with her.

"Is this what sex with Wanda Maximoff is like? The edge of paradise?"

She's glad she can hide against his shoulder. She smiles and flushes, shaking her head a little incredulously. Whenever he speaks of her, he always says something that's nice—and it feels so unearned. She's simply Wanda. Weird, dangerous, and definitely out of place, but he's gone to great efforts with and without realising to make her feel as though she does have a place, no matter how odd it feels to try and slot into it.

Considering he hasn't tried to shrug her off, she kisses her way along his shoulder and to his neck. With him lying pliant beneath her, she's grown a little more confident to heed her impulses and do what she wishes to do—which is to touch him and explore him. Maybe make him go a little crazy. All she wants is for him to relax and let her take her time.

"I wouldn't say it's paradise," she murmurs. She nuzzles his neck before she finds his pulse and licks at his skin.

"Woman, you have no idea how good you are at this," Bucky says, laughing softly. She licks his skin and he sighs a little. It's such a simple touch, that one, but it makes him feel like every nerve ending in his skin is alive and he just wants more. Maybe she has a point about spending her time touching him first because he thinks he needs it. He thinks he needs it more than his next breath.

He shifts his left arm a little when she moves to his neck and spreads his palm against her back. He can't get over being able to feel something and while it's still muted and not the same as his right hand, it's something, and after not having two hands for so long it's intoxicating to know that he'll be able to feel her skin under both his hands. It feels like he's a whole man again and there's no one in the world who could give that to him but Wanda.

"You have any ideas about where this paradise is headed to or are you just making it up as you go along?"

It's a good thing she's too busy alternating between kissing his neck and licking at it, or else she'd feel the need to rebuff him and his compliment. He needs to stop; he's becoming a menace and it's almost like he wants her to combust from the embarrassment of being looked at too closely. She curls her hand around his right shoulder as she nips at his neck, pleased that he's not discouraging her from exploring him.

She shivers at the touch of his metal hand. She shakes her head and doesn't immediately reply, a little too busy sucking at his skin. Now that she has permission, she intends to give him a hickey so she can see just how long his skin holds it before his healing factor kicks in. She hopes it's for longer than a few seconds. Wanda wants to leave a physical mark on him.

"Making it up," she says against his neck. She squeezes his shoulder and sucks at his skin. "I just want to feel you."

"Could feel me a lot more if you were under me," he teases but then she's sucking at his neck and he makes a low sound that is wordless and mindless. He wants to be in her, desperately, but there's something to be said for foreplay even if he's not used to being on the receiving end of it. He wants to be giving in bed, to make up for the fact that his hands deliver pain and death instead of anything good, and he sighs a little.

"Please don't stop."

It's more pathetic than he means it to be, almost a whimper, and he hopes that Wanda can feel how much he wants her because he thinks it must be rolling off him in waves that even she can't block out. She's a polite telepath, to be sure, but this has to be too loud and too much for her to ignore.

If she stays focused on the task at hand, she can block out all the extra noise. Since Bucky's started them down this path, the outside world has grown louder the more nervous Wanda grows. It's easier to ignore them all if she focuses on the fact that he's all talk and very, very pliable beneath her.

And it's easy to focus on what she's doing given how receptive he's being. For as long as he lets her try and mark his neck, she'll keep at it until she's left even just a sliver of a mark behind.

Wanda drags her tongue up the length of his neck and nips at the underside of his jaw. Feeling a little smug, she shrugs a shoulder and smiles against his neck. "Okay," she almost singsongs. And she happily returns to alternating between licking and kissing his skin before she finds her way back to where his pulse beats the heaviest. She sucks then, moaning roughly low in her throat. She squeezes his right shoulder again as she focuses her tongue on only that spot.

"Shit, Wanda, you're driving me insane. I already said that, I think." Truthfully, it's hard to think. It's just hard in general right now and Bucky doesn't know if he's going to be clear headed again until he can fuck her into the mattress. Not that this is what you say to a nice girl like Wanda; he'd never be that crass with someone he cares about as much as her.

But what if Wanda doesn't mind that? She's clearly not shy in bed even if she doesn't have a lot of experience with other people and she seems to know exactly what she wants and how she wants it. If that's the case, maybe she doesn't care if he slips up and shows her something other than the kind, polite man he always tries to be with her.

He reaches for her with his right hand, trying to tug her on top of him. She can keep kissing him, sure, but he wants to feel her pressed up against him while she does.

She pauses her attentions at his neck and reluctantly shuffles on top him, not wanting to stop now that she knows he's not going to push her away or try and stop her. Now pressed skin to skin, Wanda's grateful she can hide her face in the crook of his neck. His skin's warm and his muscles are hard beneath her; she's overwhelmed by how much of him she can feel.

She's partly grateful that she's practically naked on top of him; she didn't feel this close to him while on his lap on the couch. Pushing her chest into his and her hips into him makes the voices growing louder in her head quieten somewhat. Moving her knee to sit between his legs, she stretches out as much as she can against him. He's so damn tall and broad. All she wants is to touch all of him at once.

Wanda curls both her hands into his shoulders, mindful of where is metal arm and skin connect on his left. She pants softly as she swaps to the other side of his neck and kisses up along the slope of his shoulder and immediately sucks hard at his pulse point.

"You feel so good." There's no point in trying to hide it now, not when he's hard as hell just from some kissing and when she kisses and sucks at his pulse point, it feels good enough that he grabs her ass and just pushes her down against him. She's still got on panties but he has on absolutely nothing and there's no way that she will miss how much she's gotten him worked up.

"I'm gonna get you back," he murmurs. "Spread you out and get you back for all of this."

He intends to make good on that promise, too, because there's nothing he loves more than making a woman fall apart under him and he can take his sweet time about it. He has plenty of stamina and plenty of ideas so he knows he'll be able to work her up for a while.

She can't help but chuckle against his neck, although it's more breath than any laughter. She inhales shakily, keeping her head buried against his neck. Where she'd been determinedly sucking at his skin, she now simply pants and grazes her teeth against him.

When she pushes her hips down against his, she shudders at how hard he is. And she does it again, enjoying the warm sensation the movement elicits within her. She grips his shoulders and pushes her hips down against his as she rocks against him.

"Will you?" her voice isn't as strong as she'd like it to be; her words come out breathless and low, her accent thicker than she usually allows it to be. "Because it seems I have you spread out."

While she may not have the experience he does, she's pretty sure this feels as good for him as it does her. And all she wants to do is follow that feeling; it's the one thing Bucky has consistently encouraged her to do since they paired up in the aftermath of everything.

"All's fair in love and war," he gasps out. Bucky doesn't think he's ever been with anyone this insistent to not let him have what he wants while giving him exactly what he wants at the same time. He doesn't know if that's just Wanda's good intuition or if she just likes it this way but it's definitely working for him as much as it seems to be working for her.

"If you're gonna be up there, you could at least get that mouth of yours down lower."

Her accent's thicker and so is his, sliding into the Brooklyn of his youth and not the generic accent he'd developed after years of being the Winter Soldier. He might as well be hooking up with a girl at a dance hall in the 40s for as much as she's got him strung out and it's a good feeling to not know what's coming next.

But Wanda doesn't want to move away from his neck. How else is she meant to mark him beyond where his Super Soldier enhancements can touch and repair the damage she's done? Wanda lingers by his neck, nipping at what she hopes to be bruised skin, before she even thinks to move away.

Moving her knee out from between his legs so she can straddle him a little better, she continues to absently rub against his crotch, her attention elsewhere. She kisses her way to his collarbones, enjoying the fact that he's letting her touch him. While Bucky often presses a hand to the small of her back, she imagined that after everything he's been through, any kind of touch wouldn't be welcome. Now that it is, she intends to be greedy, dragging her hand against his chest while she kisses her way down his pectoral. Wanda swipes her tongue firmly over his nipple.

Settling her hand onto his side, she lifts her head and gazes up at him with her lips parted as she pants softly. She cards her hand through her hair, trying to move most of it out of her way and away from hot skin, before she asks breathlessly, "Was that okay?"

"Only if you lean down here and let me return the favor," he says, grinning up at her. He's pretty sure he looks punch-drunk at this point and his skin feels hot; he's hardly a blusher but Wanda's worked him up pretty damn good and it's been a long, long time since he's had anything like this. It feels so good to be wanted.

"I don't like to be so passive, Doll. I'm more of a hands-on kinda guy."

It's an understatement, really, but he guesses the frustration will pay off in the end of it. If she works him up really tight, when he finally gets that release it's going to feel better than anything he's ever felt in his entire life. At least, that's what he's going to tell himself because otherwise he's just going to go insane.

"But you are actively participating," she says with a cheeky smile.

When she moves up the length of him and hovers over his face, she doesn't lower her mouth to his. She kisses the tip of his nose and laughs softly, enjoying teasing him way too much. She likes that he lets her.

Moving her hands to palm his chest, she sits up straight on top of him. She's grateful now that some of her thick hair falls against her breasts. She's slightly red and her skin's damp and she's more exposed than she's ever let herself be; she doesn't feel as well-put-together as she often tries to present to Bucky.

Absently clawing her nails against his chest, she tilts her head to the side as she shifts her hips against his cock. She inhaled sharply and stiffens her back, ignoring the butterflies unfurling in her gut. "I'm enjoying you and you seem to be enjoying it a lot."

Yeah, he's enjoying it, but he'd be enjoying it a lot more if he was in control. But maybe Wanda knows this about him. Maybe she knows that he likes to be in control in bed, likes to direct things and make sure it goes the way he wants because he's afraid of losing control. He's afraid of someone taking advantage of him again.

Wanda is different, though. Wanda could make him a puppet on a string with a flick of her fingers but she doesn't and it's because she cares about him. He isn't afraid of her powers because he trusts her with everything he has and he trusts her with this even if it isn't the way he normally does things. Maybe there's something to doing it this way.

He grips her hips and pushes her down hard, lets her feel him against her and uses the softness of her thighs to find some relief. He slips his hands upward and gets them on her breasts. If she wants to control the pace, she can do that, but he's getting some of what he wants, too.

"You're not going to be able to walk when I'm done with you. I hope you know that."

She gasps, accidentally sinking her nails into him to try and grip something. She'd apologise, but she has a feeling Bucky hardly cares.

Wanda likes to be in control as it means less rubble and fewer surprises, but this surprises her.

Bucky's hard because of her. She wants to believe it's decades of pent-up frustration leading him to desperately tug at her, but Wanda doesn't particularly want to think that way even though she wants to guarantee that she's not going to lose one of the only stable things and people she has in her life. To guarantee that remains, it's easier to place an impossible-to-climb mountain of rubble between them. This is already crossing a line she had been reluctant to even acknowledge was there. There's no option to rewind if this goes pear-shaped.

But she can't think like that—and doesn't want to. Instead, she arches her breasts into his hands and grips onto his wrists. She likes the fact that he's touching her with his left. Even if he might accidentally bruise her because of his fingers being made out of something sharper than flesh, she doesn't care. He trusts the arm enough.

"Will you carry me around then?" she smiles and shifts her hips, partially lifting them in an attempt to frustrate him further. He can't have his hands on her breasts and on her hips at the same time. "I have many things to do, people to see."

"I don't think you're gonna want to see anyone after I'm done with you, Wanda." He thinks it might be unfair to think about bending her over the bed and fucking her from behind as loudly as he possibly can but she started this and she can reap the rewards of being a tease. She's pulled her hips away from him and because his hands are on her breasts, he can't tug her back down and still have that. Or maybe he can.

He slides his left hand down and presses at her hip, trying to get her to rub up against him again. If she wants him to come like this, he'll come like this, but he wants some semblance of control just to know that he's going to eventually get a payoff. This situation is just frustrating for someone like him who thrives on control and being in charge.

"You know, if you were a good little witch, you'd at least get your mouth on my cock and have some mercy on me. I don't think I've ever been this hard in my life."

One thing Bucky has always gotten wrong about her is thinking of her as good. She's not. It's a mistake he keeps making, and Wanda wonders if he'll ever learn to correct it. Good people aren't the catalyst for a law that condones the good heroes from being good.

While Wanda might settle down onto his hips, she doesn't move. Even though she wants to give him what he wants, she doesn't want to get him off with her mouth. She wants to selfishly embrace the confidence she's found teasing him like this. She likes watching him. She's always enjoyed watching him and seeing HYDRA's stone crumble to reveal the person they tried to suffocate beneath. She doesn't need to skim across the surface of his thoughts when she can see him enjoy himself instead.

"Nobody is stopping you from getting what you want but you, Bucky." She taps her fingers against the wrist that she still holds, resting her other hand against his left. She shakes her head. "But I won't. I don't want to give you mercy that way."

Bucky huffs out a low breath and squirms underneath her. She's sitting on top of him and feels soft and warm and wonderful and all he wants is to fuck her and she's just not letting him do it. This isn't the way things usually go for him because he's used to taking control and guiding things and he'd thought since she'd seemingly had less experience, that he'd be doing that.

He'd thought wrong.

"So we'll do it your way," Bucky says, pulling his hands free so he can get them on her hips. It only takes him a moment to realize that she said not to rip the dress, not the panties, and he grips at them with his left hand while he looks up at her, eyes steely and challenging.

"Either they go or I tear them. Your choice."

If they were truly doing it her way, he'd have come already rather than being so stubborn and holding out and he'd be holding her just the way she hasn't let herself want.

She looks down at where his hand is and doesn't think to bat it away. She liked her dress. She wants to wear it again. The colour's nice, and considering how she thinks Bucky had been trying not to look at her earlier, she'd like to wear it again to get beneath his skin. Besides, it's just a nice dress—and Wanda likes that she got to buy it.

But the panties aren't her favourite pair.

So, ignoring the racing of her heart and the surge of nervousness, she shrugs and looks down at him. "Have you ripped underwear off with that hand before?"

"Absolutely not. I never use this hand for anything intimate. Not until your magic, anyway."

She'd said if they were doing this, she wanted all of him, and all of him includes his left hand. He twists it and the fabric tears easily, falling off to just be a pathetic scrap between the two of them. He wants to be inside her more than he wants his next breath but Wanda doesn't seem to want that (right now, at least), so he grips her hips and slides against her and not in her.

With nothing between them now, it's harder to keep control and he knows he's going to end up coming sooner rather than later. It's been a protracted battle, honestly, so he doesn't think he's giving up to give in just now. Maybe she's won this one but she won't win the war. He doesn't have much time to think about that, though, because another hard press against her and he's done. He's pretty sure he's fried every brain cell he has but he's never had an orgasm that's felt this good.

Wanda breathes heavily, swallowing thickly. It's a lot different without her panties in the way. She already knew she was aroused, but now Bucky's going to feel how slick she is. While she's not embarrassed by it, it's just another vulnerability he's exposing amongst many tonight.

Her skin feels hot and clammy at watching him come. She stares down at him, no longer gazing at him teasingly. With her lips parted, she leans forward and rubs her hands against his shoulders.

She wraps her hand around his wrist to pull his hand away from her chest. All she wants to do is sprawl out on top of him, uncaring of the mess of his come. She doesn't like the distance sitting astride him creates; she wants to be closer to him.

"Who knew ripping panties was your weakness?" she teases gently, smiling softly. She keeps rubbing her hands against his shoulders.

"Keep 'em in supply," he says, laughing softly. Wanda has sprawled on top of him and she feels so soft and warm. It feels so good to just be intimate with someone, to share moments like this with another person and not be afraid or slam the walls up. He reaches his right hand up to stroke her hair. It's a little messy from all the exertion but he doesn't care. Not a bit.

"I wanted to get you off first. That's why I held out so long," he whispers. It seems wrong to talk loudly when they're intimate like this and her fingers are stroking against his skin. He tips his head back and tries to meet her eyes, smile tilting his lips.

"I thought you'd just get frustrated and let me have my way. You're getting French lessons later, though." It's a tease and he pauses for a moment before speaking again, softer and more sincere.

"It gets me off to get you off. Or it will, anyway, if you let me. I just want you to feel good."

She rests her head against his right shoulder and curves her hand into his left. Now that he's no longer being frustrating and fighting her, she can relax and not expect any funny trickery from him.

She likes lying on top of him. Moving her leg so she can wedge her foot beneath his calf, Wanda exhales long and loud and feels boneless against him. This is all she's wanted, someone to simply hold her while the world kept spinning. It's all she wanted at HYDRA when she was unable to be near Pietro.

It keeps the town's growing thoughts quiet. She can listen to his heart pump and the blood rush beneath his skin and the way his voice sounds like she's underwater when she presses her ear tightly to him.

"And I wanted you to stop focusing on me," she says quietly. She smiles and traces her fingers against his shoulder, mostly on his skin. "I don't need you to get lost in me when I need you here, too."

"Most women complain that their husbands don't do enough around the house and my wife wants me to stop doing things. Somehow we got this all mixed up, Wanda."

Bucky can understand her point. It feels good to him to make her happy, to take care of her, to bring her pleasure. If it feels good for him, it must feel good for her, too, and maybe he shouldn't be so stubborn about accepting things from her whether it's a nice dinner or an orgasm. He strokes his fingers against her skin, grounding himself with the touch.

"It...I've got control issues," he admits finally. "And I know it's because of HYDRA and what they did to me. If I'm the one doing things, I know that no one can hurt me because I know exactly what's going to happen. And then there's the fact that I was used to hurt and maim and kill for so long that I want to know that my hands can make someone feel good, that my actions can make someone happy. Does it make any sense?"

She tilts her head up and watches him, even if what she mostly sees is his jawline. She understands it. While she hadn't been forced to be a killing machine with no sense of agency until after the fact (and even then), she understands it. Everything that's happened to her in her life has been outside of her control. It's why she wants to keep puppet strings tied to her fingers at all times.

"It does," she says quietly, resting her hand against his chest. "But I know you're not going to hurt me and you make me happy. You don't have to do anything more than be yourself."

And it doesn't matter to Wanda if he has to spend time figuring out who he is now that he's a man out of time. But she doesn't want him to overcompensate or forget that she's here for him, not for the ways he tends to serve her.

"I'm just afraid that myself might not be enough, eventually."

It's a heavy thing to admit but he feels safe admitting it when they're curled up together like this. He hasn't felt close to a person like this since before the war and he never thought he would get to have this and especially not with someone like Wanda, who is amazing and talented and a force of nature all on her own.

He doesn't want her to think it's a mistake. If he keeps doing things for her, keeps the house nice and waits on her hand and foot, maybe she won't want to leave. That's it, in the end of it. He's been abandoned by too many people for too long and he doesn't want Wanda to be another one. Not when he's let himself care.

"If I make myself valuable, you'll need me. Does it make sense?"

Wanda's quiet for a long moment, grateful that she can hide her face. She frowns as she absently rubs her hand against his collarbones. The last thing she wants is for him to think he needs to do things for her to guarantee she likes him. She thinks about their time together so far. Has she unintentionally given him the impression that she only likes it when he does things for her?

Lifting her head, she looks down at him. "I've had nothing for most of my life. All I wanted as a kid was to watch my stupid shows with my family," she says with a sad smile. She still can't bring herself to watch that episode of Dick Van Dyke. Perhaps if they hadn't been watching it, they would've been able to avoid Stark's bombs. "It didn't matter to me if we had a couch or anything. It still doesn't."

She looks down and exhales quietly. She licks her lips and remains quiet for a moment, ignoring how her throat tightens. This is what she likes to avoid and keep to herself, but she doesn't want Bucky to think she doesn't need him. She does, just not in the ways he thinks he's required.

"I don't need you to do things for me other than be here. Because when you're not here, I feel like I'm drowning."

"I feel like I'll drown if you don't need me," Bucky says. It's a little dramatic, he thinks, but it's how he feels and he thinks it's time to be honest right now even if he'd brush it off normally. He strokes his fingers against her skin still, trying to ground himself, and wonders how he can put his feelings into words. It's hard to talk about these things but he thinks it's important to do it, especially with Wanda. She's the best thing he's had in a long time.

"I want to love you, Wanda. I'm not really good with words so I try to show it in the ways I can do it best. That's why I do things all the time. That's why I take care of you. It's how I show you that I care about you, you know? It's hard to break down all these walls that have protected me for so long but with you, it seems like the walls just disappear."

He doesn't know if that's because she's a telepath or if it's just because she's Wanda but it's the truth of the matter. He's shit with words and he wants to express his emotions and his love in a way that makes sense to him and that's by taking care of her.

Maybe always batting away his thoughts hadn't been the best thing to do. Wanda wants to be prepared for any bomb that could potentially hit her so she can quickly roll out of the way. But the bomb he drops is one that has her frozen in place. She doesn't deserve that.

She bites her bottom lip and shifts her hand against his shoulder. Despite the urge to hide her face in the crook of his neck, she doesn't allow herself to. She's afraid to love anyone, but she doesn't want to be afraid of someone else's vulnerability. And telling Bucky that… she doesn't want this to become something he carries amongst all the other baggage he's burdened with.

"I don't need you to do everything for me," she says with a small smile. "My brother," she begins and stops herself for a moment. Talking about Pietro is always hard, no matter the context, but she's tried and tried to make it easier for herself by storming straight through the pinch in her chest. "He was very protective of me. I need you to let me do things. Some things," she says with a small scrunch of her nose.

"I'm not going to hate you because you sat on your ass for a day or you didn't walk with me to the park or insist I watch my television show downstairs rather than in my room."

"I want to make you happy," he murmurs. "I want to give you the kind of life you truly deserve. I don't have magic but I have my hands and my heart, if that's any good. I finally have something to give to someone and I want to give it to you."

It feels good to say it, to tell Wanda all these things he's been feeling but afraid to say. The intimacy of sex has loosened his tongue and all the things he holds so close to the chest seem to pour out easily in the afterglow. He glides his hand along the length of her body.

"Thank you for trusting me with your body. It means a lot to me. It means you trust me not to hurt you."

Now, Wanda tucks herself beneath his chin, this time bowing her head so her lips press against his skin. It's not in a kiss, even though it'd make it easier to do as much. Pressing her nose into him, she inhales deeply to only exhale loudly. She hides because she's blushing again.

She murmurs, "You trust me with your mind." It'd be so easy to slip a thought into his head that makes him stop. She knows she can do it. He has to know that it'd be all too easy for her to do so. He's been paired with the one person who should be a walking trigger for him.

She kisses his collarbones then before rubbing her hand over the spot. Resting her chin against him, she looks up at him, uncaring that he might not be able to see her face. She's comfortable tucked against him now. "I hope you had a good time. I know it wasn't exactly what you wanted, but it was good for me. I've never done that before."

"Wouldn't have figured that for a first time," Bucky says, laughing softly. He knows she means that particular sex act and not sex in general but it's still pretty impressive that she'd just gone for it and not been self-conscious if it was brand new for her. He hasn't gotten off with another person in longer than he can remember and it was good - not just for that reason but because it was Wanda.

"It was a damn good time, though," he assures her. "And I could tell you enjoyed it."

This is more in his wheelhouse, being able to tease, and he looks at her face while he speaks. He knows there's a good chance she might blush when he says what he's going to say but he wants to see the blush. He wants to know he affects her as much as she affects him.

"You were so wet I could have slid right in."

She smacks his chest. "Stop," she says sternly and does her best to try and pull the corners of her lips down. But they curve upward in her embarrassment. It's only really been tonight, but every time Bucky talks like this, saying she looks nice or he wants to sleep with her, she wants to bury her head in her hands and hide. She sees herself as everyone else sees her; she doesn't see herself as Bucky does, and each time he challenges that, she grows self-conscious.

"I know what you're doing," she continues, pushing roughly against his chest to she can look down at him sternly, "and I know why you're doing it and I'm not going to blush!"

So, it's a stray thought she caught. Wanda refuses to delve into his mind, even if she wanted to, because, right now, she's afraid to see just what he's thinking. Knowing him, it'll make her want to combust.

She pushes away from him so that she can give him her back and grab her pillow to place over her head. With her truly hidden away, he won't be able to see her face and thus will have to stop.

Bucky laughs, a rumbling one deep in his chest, and he just strokes Wanda's hip while she's tried to hide everything else from him. It's cute, honestly, that she doesn't want to blush in front of him and it only makes him more determined to make it happen.

"You don't like a little dirty talk? You're gonna have to get used to it with me, sweetheart, because I happen to be amazing at talking dirty. That was mild, considering."

He keeps moving his fingers against her skin while he decides what he's going to say next, what's going to work her up as much as she worked him up all night before he finally gave into her and got to come. This game she started is fun once he realized he was playing and now he really wants to play.

"I bet you don't want to hear about how hard your nipples were either, do you? Or how I want to get my mouth on your cunt until you scream for me? You don't want to hear that either?"

"No."

Wanda presses the pillow down harder over her head, grateful that she has her back to him. If she had rolled off of him and onto her side and faced him, she knows she'd have had a harder time hiding the fact that she was smiling and scrunching up her nose. Her nose scrunch is her telltale sign that she's at least enjoying herself, even if this is very, very new.

She shifts, but not to try and push his hand away. She doesn't mind him stroking her hip.

"Shh."

"You know, the more you try to shush me, the more I'm just gonna do it. I think it's a valuable part of a relationship, being able to talk about what you want. And I damn sure want you, Wanda. I know you're polite about not getting in my head but if you had, you'd know I wanted to get you on your hands and knees and fuck you hard."

Bucky thinks he'll stop in a minute or two because while this is fun for the moment, he doesn't want it to stop being fun and he doesn't want to truly upset Wanda. He thinks it's all right for now, though, and he keeps touching her hip, drawing little patterns on her skin.

"I wanna see you fall apart."

Removing the pillow from her head, she clutches it to her chest and roughly rolls onto her side to face him. While it's sadly lost his hand on her hip, she suspects that it'll be back soon. Bucky doesn't seem like he's incapable of not touching her, even if Wanda thinks that assumption feels arrogant. And if he doesn't, she's more than comfortable now in putting his hand back on her hip.

She furrows her brows tightly as she regards him, still hugging her pillow. It acts as a nice little defence against everything he's exposed to her this evening. "How long have you been feeling this way?"

"Pretty soon after we started hiding out. I don't know if you've noticed but you're a hell of a woman, Wanda. You look like a fragile little doll but you can break the world if you want to. That kind of power is very attractive. Besides, you're funny and caring and warm and all the things I've been missing in my life."

Maybe it's a little soft of him but he doesn't care. He feels all of these things about Wanda and he thinks that she deserves to know about it. Bucky keeps touching her, fingers tripping along her skin, and she's got the softest skin he's ever touched.

"You take care of me, Wanda. Nobody has for a long time."

She scrunches up her nose and murmurs, "I'm not that funny."

Even though she's pried into minds and has the rare ability to know exactly what people are thinking and feeling—and often accidentally; Wanda hasn't spent the entire time she's had her powers slipping into the minds of everyone around her to read them like a book for leisure—it's still overwhelming to her to know that she can have any impact on anyone. Lagos feels as though it's an outlier now if she's somehow prompted Bucky to feel this way.

Still with the pillow clutched to her chest, she wriggles over toward him until she rolls on top of him. With her knees on either side of his belly, Wanda gently cups his face and softly slopes her mouth against his.

Bucky doesn't expect the kiss considering she'd been so embarrassed a few minutes ago but he certainly welcomes it. He keeps his mouth soft under hers and unlike the frantic pull between them earlier, this is slower and more exploratory.

He's always liked kissing and never thought of it as a throwaway before the full act and he thinks he could kiss Wanda for hours and not be tired of it. He reaches his left hand between them and tugs at the pillow before reluctantly pulling his mouth away.

"You don't have to hide from me, Wanda. I promise."

"Oh, but I'm not hiding," she says quietly as she smiles down at him. She is and she knows it, but Wanda's trying not to tuck herself in the shadows as she's been prone to do. The darkness has kept her safe since she was ten years old, but she knows that she's safe with Bucky out in the light.

She wrinkles her nose as she teases, "You are just very, very uncomfortable to lie on. What do you need all of this for?" She pushes up against him and taps his broad shoulders. Who really needs that much muscle?

"Or this?" Wanda trails her hands down his sides before she digs her fingers in an attempt to see if he's ticklish.

Bucky laughs when she tickles his sides and tries to bat her hands away but it's a half-hearted attempt at best. Any touch is good as long as it isn't painful and none of Wanda's are painful. He craves her touch almost more than he craves his next breath.

"If you want me to get fat, I guess I'll stop running and eat more but I already eat half the house in food. Besides, I thought gals liked a little muscle. You sure weren't complaining earlier."

He grins at her, teasing the whole time. Wanda is fun to tease, honestly, and he hopes she puts up with it a little longer.

"Ah, so you are ticklish..."

She's been a little curious, is all. Bucky's not like anyone else—he's older, his DNA has been altered, and she's seen him scowl more than she's seen him smile. While she may flatten her hands against his sides and brush her thumbs hard against his skin, she has every intention on making him laugh again.

"It's good to know you have a little weakness."

But Wanda shifts against him and rests her cheek against his chest, sliding her hands beneath the bulk of him so that she can hold him to her.

"Wanda? Can I move the pillow?"

Bucky asks it softly because he's sort of figured out that she wants to be covered up and if that's the case, he's more than happy to respect it. Still, he wants to feel her skin against his and he can't do that if she has a pillow between them and he doesn't think his body is so rock hard that she won't be able to relax against it. Maybe it is. Maybe he just has to live with pillows.

"I just want to feel your skin close to mine, all right? No tricks, no teasing. Just intimacy. That's all. I won't tease you about it."

With his promise of ceasing being a pest (at least for now; Wanda can hear the unspoken caveat), she lifts up and pulls the pillow out from between them.

Peering down at him sternly, she warns playfully, "If you tease me, I'll be putting it over your head." And she's not opposed to doing it, either. All Wanda wants is stillness and to be held. She doesn't need anything else, even if Bucky believes otherwise. Everything has been moving so quickly for the last several years that all she wants is for a moment where it's all stopped—and given that it has, she wants to take advantage of it.

She threads her hands back under him and rests her cheek against his chest. "And I won't be afraid to smother you," she murmurs.

"Well, don't smother me," Bucky says softly. It feels good to fold her into his arms and he's quiet for a moment, just enjoying how good it feels to have another person close to him. It's wonderful, honestly, and he just wants to keep this moment forever and never leave it.

"Are you sure you don't want me to get you off? I won't, if that's what you want, I just want you to know that you don't have to go without it. It's something I love to do, okay? I feel bad not making you feel as good as you made me feel."

Maybe he shouldn't feel guilty but he does.

"It's fine, Bucky," she says quietly. If she didn't have her hands tucked under him, she'd rub her hand against his side in an attempt to comfort him. She keeps her cheek pressed against his chest and looks at the wall of her room.

She doesn't want anything to feel transactional, especially this. Sometimes he's simply allowed to take or have without having to give something back. He's been robbed of a good portion of his life, and Wanda doesn't want to thieve anything else from him.

"It doesn't really happen for me, anyway," she shrugs. What she doesn't want is for Bucky to feel obligated, but she believes arguing as much will only send them in circles. He likes to do it and has said as much, and Wanda has to accept that.

She shifts against him and clears her throat softly before she murmurs, "I don't want you to feel guilty because it doesn't happen. I like this, what we're doing now."

"Wait. You have trouble coming?"

This is a whole different problem and not one he expected. Sure, some women have trouble with a partner but he's never had trouble getting a woman off (unless they're spectacular fakes) and the idea that Wanda has trouble with it makes him both sad and determined. She should enjoy it as much as he does. More than he does, even.

"I would do my best," he says, thinking that's a safer choice of words. He doesn't want to say of course he can make it happen because if it doesn't, she'll possibly feel awkward or upset and he doesn't want that at all. He strokes her hair lightly.

"Why do you think you have trouble? You don't have to answer."

She shrugs. Despite being able to answer the question of Stark's greatest fear or Steve's greatest desire, she doesn't quite know the reasoning behind that. She just doesn't get off as easily or at all. If she hadn't had her friends in Sokovia long before HYDRA got its claws in her, she wouldn't have known that it was a little normal.

"It's just always been like that for me." Even with Vision and herself, she's struggled to achieve anything close to orgasm like she knows other girls have. Vision would try. Her intimacy with Vision was never about anything physical, and Wanda never needed it to extend beyond simply having someone choose her company.

"And then you add in everyone else..." She blows out a breath and shifts against him, but she doesn't lift her head from his chest. "I can't block everyone out. I can't tell what's me and what isn't. Everyone just... gets louder."

Bucky is quiet for a moment. He thinks it's sad that she can give him some of the greatest pleasure of his life but she doesn't experience that for herself. He feels bad for teasing about it, for embarrassing her, and decides he's not going to do that anymore. Not about that, anyway. He doesn't know what it's like to hear the whole neighborhood in his head and he thinks he wouldn't be able to relax either.

Instead, he just strokes her hair and her skin, trying to be intimate with her this way if the other way isn't something he can have right now.

"Would you ever let me try? Because...shit, Wanda, I want you to enjoy it. If it's just about me it's not fair."

It clearly means something to him. Wanda wishes he could simply shrug it off and enjoy himself without worrying about her, but she knows that's not Bucky. It's already an arm wrestle to get him to let her do anything for herself when he feels he can do it for her instead. This would become an outright battle that she knows despite her powers she'll lose.

She closes her eyes, liking his hand in her hair. This is what she's wanted for a lot longer than she'd care to admit.

Gently pulling one of her hands out from where she's tucked them beneath him, she draws nothing on his shoulder. "I don't want you to feel like you've done something wrong if it doesn't happen for me."

"I just want to try. It doesn't have to be today. It can be whenever you feel comfortable enough to try."

Bucky holds her close and he's quiet for a while, just enjoying how it feels to touch her and to be touched and when he speaks again it's just as soft as it was before. He doesn't know if she understands how much she means to him and how much it means for him to at least try to make her feel good.

"I shouldn't have...I was wrong, earlier. I wouldn't have said what I said if I knew you had trouble, you know? I wouldn't have been so...crass about it, I guess. I'm sorry."

She furrows her brows and pulls her other hand from beneath him, pushing against his chest so she can peer down at him incredulously. "I know you didn't mean anything cruel by it." How could she? She still doesn't.

Resting her palms flat against his collarbones, Wanda smiles down at him and wrinkled her nose in an attempt to tease him. "You were having fun. You should have fun, even if it exasperates me." And makes her blush. That's what she doesn't say—and on purpose. She's keeping her denial of any blushing as close to her flushed chest for as long as she can.

Bucky smiles a little. It was fun and maybe he shouldn't feel guilty about it when it's clear that Wanda isn't holding it against him. She's looking at him with that perfect smile of hers and a scrunch of her nose and it's nothing he has any willpower against. It just makes him love her more.

"Hey, are the people around you less loud when they're asleep? If it's harder to relax when everyone's making noise in your head, maybe we can just try for like...a quieter time of day? Would that be more relaxing for you?"

Wanda can't help but laugh lightly in amusement. It's such an innocent question, and one that implies the world around them ever actually sleeps. It'd be easier if it did, if she knew that around eight in the evening, everyone stopped thinking and feeling.

The only way they'll stop is if she makes them, and that's a kind of villainy she's purposefully stepped away from.

Smiling, she presses her lips together and regretfully shakes her head. "It's loud all the time," she says. "When people are asleep, they dream. And they dream just as loudly as they think."

"I just thought maybe it was easier at some time of the day. If it's not, well, I'm sorry."

Bucky worries his lower lip with his teeth for a moment before frowning because he's just realized that if she can hear all the noise of people around them, maybe she's hearing the noise from him. Jesus. He never thought about that. Is there a way to think quieter?

"I'm not loud, am I? If I am, is there something I can do to be quieter?"

She shakes her head. "I make them quieter," she says. Wanda thinks to leave it at that, but considering they're talking about this because he wants to give her an orgasm and she's convinced she can't have one, she supposes it's not out of line to say more.

Although she thinks about it for a few short moments, brushing her fingers beneath his lips.

"That's... why, I think. Being with someone involves letting go, and I can't do that. If I do..." Wanda exhales softly. "It's like being unable to turn off the television, and every time you do, it just gets louder and more turn on. And more and more and more."

She doesn't know if that makes sense. The only other person she's ever had to explain this to was Pietro, and he'd experienced the very rough beginning of it. She's had her training wheels on for so long that even with them off, she's still having a rough time navigating it.

"I just have to keep them quiet. It's what's working right now so I can enjoy being with you."

"What if we went somewhere that there was no one else? Maybe camping isn't terribly romantic but if you're far away from people, away from everything but me, would you be able to let go a little easier? Everyone deserves to be able to let go sometimes. Especially you."

This is a problem with more facets than he anticipated and he's determined to solve it even if the solution is stranger than the problem. If he can make Wanda feel comfortable and relaxed in the middle of the woods then he'll make it the most luxurious camping trip anyone's ever had.

"Would you trust me?"

"I trust you," she says immediately, looking down at him. There's no doubt about it. If she didn't, she wouldn't be here with him.

Wanda smiles and cocks her brow in amusement. "If it was to work, you'd take me out to somewhere far, far away with no people to have sex with me? That's a lot for you, Bucky. That's not fair." And she wouldn't ask that of him, either. That's too much work and effort, and it's not fair to him when things could be so much simpler.

"Does it really matter?" she asks with a light incredulous laugh. She wants to lighten the mood, to make him smile and feel less burdened by this. It's not his fault, and Wanda doesn't want it to be his problem. "We'll be together. That's all that matters to me. It doesn't matter to me if I don't... you know. I'll still enjoy myself because I'm with you."

"It matters to me. My hands have brought nothing but pain to people for a long time, Wanda. I want to use them to bring you pleasure. That's all. Maybe it shouldn't be about me but I've never been a selfish guy. I've never taken for myself what I didn't give back."

He strokes her hair a little and gives her the softest smile. "And it wouldn't be any trouble at all for me to take you somewhere far away so you can just be with your own thoughts. Even if we don't have sex, you deserve to have a break and not have to constantly be turning people down in your head. And I want to give you that, all right?"

"Do you think pleasure is only orgasms?"

She exhales softly and shakes her head. "You've given me a lot already, Bucky. You gave me a friend when I had no one, and you spend time with me and look after me even when it exasperates me," she smiles fondly. "I don't need you to do... that just because you had one with me. I don't think it should work that way."

Especially when it's already going to prove so difficult. She's not like the women he's been with or the type of woman he should be with. Wanda doesn't want Bucky to exert his energy chasing after something unattainable that will only make him feel bad about himself. She wishes he would take the out she gives him.

"No, I don't think it's only that," Bucky says. "But I don't think it's such an abnormal thing to want to please your partner, either, and that's all I want to do. It's not about me having one and you not having one. It's about me wanting to just..."

He falls quiet for a moment because this is the last thing he wants to argue about but it's gnawing at him that Wanda doesn't even seem to want him to try for it even though he knows he would give it his best.

"I want you to have it," he says finally. "Because I love you. And that's what love is, wanting your partner to have the best of everything. And that includes the best of me."

Wanda smiles softly. "But I already have the best of you."

How much more does he want to give her? She feels she's already been spoiled. Wanda might not be the type to say it, but she knows it. The life she has with Bucky here isn't fake despite the facade they put on for the rest of the town. It's as normal as it's ever going to get for her, and Bucky's a big part of that.

She brushes the back of her hand against the side of his face. "I just don't want you to feel bad about anything that doesn't happen, Bucky. It's not because of anything you've done." She shrugs a little hopelessly, pressing her lips together. "It's just me."

"Well, I like you, so hopefully we figure it out one day," Bucky says, hopeful even if he doesn't want to keep pressing at it and potentially upsetting her. He thinks Wanda deserves to have a little peace and he hadn't realized other people were so loud and that it was constant. If he'd known, he'd have had them live somewhere remote.

"I guess the important question is...are you into kissing? Because I am really into kissing and I'll be sad if we don't get to do a lot of that."

And kissing is something they can mutually enjoy.

She wrinkles her nose in feigned distaste. "I like kissing anyone but you." But the way she laughs makes it clear that that's not the truth at all.

At least that is easy, and it's something Wanda's done before, even if she hasn't had a steady stream of dates lined up at a dance hall. She leans in as if she's about to kiss him, but she pulls back and lifts her brows slightly in amusement.

"But I think I'm too tired to kiss." She fakes a very big yawn before she rests her head against his shoulder. "Maybe tomorrow. Or the next day." With the mood a lot lighter, all Wanda wants to do is tease him.

"Tease," Bucky says but it's a lazy accusation. "You really shouldn't get a guy's hopes up just to crash them on the rocks. Could really make a man give up on everything."

He's grinning, though, and he slides his hand down the dip of her waist, the curve of her hip, and slips over to cup her ass. It's just touching, sure, but he thinks Wanda probably hasn't had nearly as much touch in her life as she deserves.

"I can tease too."

She inhales sharply and makes a noise low in her throat as she shifts and arches ever so slightly against him. He's right in assuming she hasn't been touched like this a lot in her life. Aside from being poked and prodded at HYDRA, normal touches were few and far between except for Pietro. Sensual touching was rare.

She doesn't hate it, even though it's not the norm for her.

Shooting him a warning look, she shakes her head as she curls her hands into his shoulders. "Bucky," she warns, even though she highly suspects his hearing will become selective in this very moment.

Bucky slips his fingers along the inside of her thigh. He wouldn't if she stopped him, though, but he thinks that her arching up against him is an invitation to keep touching and not an indication for him to stop. Her skin is soft, just like the rest of her, and he just strokes there along the inside of her thigh for a few moments.

"You have to say no, Wanda. Don't send mixed signals," he murmurs. "Because your body just said yes, please."

If she says no, he'll stop immediately. But if not, well. He can play a little more.

"Bucky," she says again. All she wants is for him to hold her, but she also doesn't mind him touching her. She wriggles against him for a moment and doesn't close her legs to dissuade him, but she doesn't part them any further, either.

She expects nothing, and she wants him to know that. Getting him off the way that she had had been something she wanted to do. Give him a little bit of relief, a little bit of pleasure, and prove to him that sometimes he wouldn't get his way in always putting her first.

She looks at him in amusement. "Didn't we just talk about this?" She really doesn't want him to be disappointed.

"I'm just touching," Bucky says, stilling his fingers for a moment. "I don't really have a goal. It's just touching."

That's the honest truth. He thinks if Wanda thinks he's after the orgasm, she'll tense up but if he's just touching to touch her, maybe she'll get some pleasure out of it even if she doesn't come. It'll at least get her used to being touched by him, anyway.

"Do you want me to stop?"

Wanda gazes down at him before she shakes her head. Touching she can do, even though she knows she's akin to a skittish animal right now. She's outside of her element, and while she suspects that Bucky knows that, her not erecting all of her walls to protect her from that discomfort at something new has to mean something to her. He's opened up to her; she figures it's only fair that she lets herself have something she often stops before it can even start.

"Don't tickle me," she says pointedly. She reluctantly rests her chin against the edge of his shoulder so that she can see his profile and he'd be able to tip his head toward her and see some of her. She relaxes somewhat, although she still holds herself tensely. "Not that I'm ticklish, of course," she finishes softly.

"Not planning on it," Bucky says. He shifts his hand a little higher and just strokes his fingers lightly. If he was looking to actively get her off, he'd be a little more insistent, but he's not. He just wants to touch and see how Wanda reacts to it and if he learns anything for next time, he learns something.

"Why don't you kiss me? Kiss me while I touch you a little?"

He thinks that's a safe enough place to start and if she doesn't like it, she can stop it.

"Like before?"

She has a feeling that's not what he means. Wanda hadn't minded touching his chest and kissing what she had been allowing herself to daydream about until she'd take an editor's knife and cut it out of her mind when Bucky used to be unattainable. She likes Bucky's chest; she's enjoyed it when he's stood closely behind her or when she's accidentally walked into him. She's a simple woman despite all the complications she brings.

"Or like this?" she asks more quietly before she lifts up and shifts against him, moving so she can kiss the corner of his mouth. The placement isn't purposeful—she'd been meaning to slant her mouth directly over his—but she much likes what she achieved, nonetheless. It feels more like her, not doing things so perfectly.

Bucky murmurs a yes against her lips and kisses her and even though the angle is a little off, it doesn't matter. It's still good. Sometimes things don't have to stay in the lines to be perfect and while they have a picket-fence kind of life, maybe it doesn't have to be so perfect behind closed doors. Weren't the best parts of life the messy ones?

He slides his hand up higher and touches her, really touches her, and while his fingers are light and aimless, he's still touching her a lot more intimately than he had been earlier. Maybe he can just ease into this a little at a time and eventually they'll both be more relaxed with one another.

He just hopes that Wanda doesn't pull away.

Wanda tenses and squeezes her thighs together, effectively trapping his hand. But she wills herself to relax at the unfamiliar touch. She wishes she was more like him, comfortable at the presence of a kind hand, accepting of gentleness. She worries uselessly—about what he feels, if he likes it, if he thinks any of this is worth it with how taut she always seems to be.

She's distracted by his touch, not quite kissing him back, although she keeps her lips pressed against his. Parting her legs slightly, she makes a soft noise low in her throat. She doesn't hate the touch; Wanda couldn't, not with the way he takes to her so gently like she's something worth being admired by hand.

Although she's very aware of his hand against her cunt, she slopes her mouth firmly against his, still gentle in her kiss even when she cups the sides of his face to tilt his head slightly toward her.

The kiss is good enough that he gets distracted for a moment and stops moving his fingers and just focuses on kissing Wanda and feeling her soft lips against his and her hair touching his skin. It's probably one of the better kisses he's had in his life if only because it's this soft, delicate intimacy and he hasn't had a lot of that.

He pulls away just enough to whisper against her mouth, "Stop me when it's too much," and slips his fingers against her again, glad to see she's at least a little slick and this at least feels good for her even if she isn't coming from it. That's good.

"Just relax and kiss me, all right?"

Touching his face, Wanda doesn't pull away when she nods. She exhales roughly through her nose and shifts her hips slightly in a bid to relax, but tenses her legs instead. All she needs is a moment to metaphorically shake it off.

When she kisses him again, it's a little harder. She traces his lips with her tongue before she pulls away to only kiss him again, but softer this time. She wants all that anxious energy to go somewhere else. She wants not only to prove to him that she'll let herself have this rather than self-sabotage, but show herself that she can trust herself with him, too.

And she thinks of what she wants, of what Bucky would prompt her to ask for to have her relax. She'd wanted his metal hand to touch her earlier; her desire for it hasn't changed. She wants what makes him different to warm her naked back.

Can you put your other hand on my back? But what she doesn't realise as she kisses him is that she doesn't ask it, but thinks it loud and clear in his head.

It takes him a moment to realize that Wanda hadn't asked him the question out loud and had merely thought it but it isn't something that bothers him. She's a telepath and he's touching her in a way she's not familiar with - it makes sense that she might not have the rigid control she usually does. Honestly, it's a little refreshing.

He slides his left hand up to touch her back, just laying the weight of it there in a way he hopes feels comfortable to her, and he keeps kissing her, running the edge of his tongue against her lower lip before biting it gently. He doesn't stop his hand, either, and traces against her with two fingers in an absent sort of way, just letting her get used to it.

That better? Bucky thinks it as purposefully as possible because he's not sure how telepathy works.

That's much better. Although she'd like his hand to move up and down her back, she just wants its weight and coolness to remind her that she's safe. And while it's not the part of Bucky anyone would deem is safe, it's a part of him that he's chosen to use to help her, protect her, and now even hold her.

Against his mouth, she says, "Yes", but frowns when she hears how strange her voice had sounded in comparison to his. She gasps, but not because of the ministrations of his fingers. Cupping her face with her hands, she abruptly sits upright, uncaring of his fingers nestled against her, and stares down at him horrified.

Cursing the equivalent of Oh fuck in Sokovian, Wanda's quick to say in a very heavy and apologetic accent, "I'm so sorry. I didn't want to do that."

Her one rule since living with Bucky was to never enter his head. She wouldn't read his mind, wouldn't accept the temptation of giving into the niggling of his thoughts, and wouldn't plant any thoughts or ideas in his head no matter how tempting it often is.

"S'all right, doll," Bucky says, smiling up at her. "You were distracted and it got the job done. I just don't think I did the thinking back very well because I don't know what I'm doing."

Her accent is thicker and Wanda usually only does that when she's nervous so Bucky wants to make this as little of a deal as possible. He'd be upset if she pried into his thoughts without permission on purpose but she'd just asked him a question and it was harmless. He rubs his hand along her back to try to soothe her.

"Stop worrying," he says, using Sokovian instead of English. "Just enjoy yourself."

Keeping her hands covering most of her face, she shakes her head. She won't do it again. Next time, she'll catch herself before she does it. It's a slippery slope and not one she ever wants to find herself on. Even though she'd only ever fallen down that slope once during her earlier days of understanding her ability, it's one she'll never fall from again.

She moves her hands down to cover her mouth as she peers down at him. "It won't happen again," she says quietly, her accent still thick. Then in Sokovian: "I promise."

Reluctantly—and mostly at the encouragement of his hand rubbing her back—she slowly lowers herself back down against him. Curling her hands against his shoulders once more, she doesn't hide her face in the crook of his neck like she wants to. She hovers above him.

Instead, she tries to lighten the mood just a touch and teases gently, "You think very loudly. I would be able to hear you from the sidewalk across the street."

"Yeah? Maybe you just gotta teach me the right way to think. I'm not too smart, you know. I'm just a guy from Brooklyn."

Bucky knows plenty of things, to be honest, and it isn't just the languages and the combat - he knows history and science and math. Still, it's a little fun just to pretend he's a dumb guy with a really smart girl and he hopes that Wanda will play along for the moment. He pulls his right hand from between her legs and strokes it along her arm.

"How am I 'sposed to think, Wanda?"

"Quiet."

She'll let his playful self-deprecation slide for now. While she still feels like jumping out of her skin for slipping, Wanda appreciates his hand on her arm. It's distracting and comforting, just like his metal arm had been on her back.

What he asks is a serious question, and Wanda thinks to reply in that manner.

"Like I'm in the room right beside you," she says, not switching to her lighter American. While she often defaults to her natural way of speaking when she's anxious, she can't explain this as anyone else but Wanda from Sokovia. That little girl beneath the rubble is the girl who transformed thoughts into stories, and while she didn't have her powers then, Wanda feels like that little girl now sharing this with him. It's an important part of herself, just like her love for stories. "Like this. I'll hear you no matter how loud everyone else is."

Bucky tries it again except this time he thinks it more casually, more like a conversation, and he keeps touching her the whole time. He thinks the touch is important because as much as it grounds him, he thinks it grounds Wanda a bit too and she needs something to feel good and safe for her. He wants to be that for her.

Did I ever tell you that you were my favorite, sweetheart?

He thinks he's doing it right this time and if he isn't, he guesses that Wanda can correct him again. Maybe this is something they can do sometimes because it feels incredibly intimate in a way that would be terrifying with anyone else but feels right with her.

Better, even if he's still a little loud.

Wanda rolls her eyes and looks at him with amusement. This is such a Buckyism, and she wonders if he's trying to make her blush again. She sits up against him, uncaring for once that she's naked, and rests her hands against his chest as she peers down at him. For once, she wants to sit on top of him and roll her shoulders slightly rather than lie against him.

She opens her mouth to speak, but presses her lips together and takes a moment to breathe deeply before she allows herself to respond in kind. She absently scratches lightly at his skin with a nail.

Your favourite what?

It feels like she's taken the bait.

Favorite person. You're my favorite person.

It means a lot to say it, to admit that he even has a favorite person or that he's allowed himself to care deeply enough to admit that he needs her in his life but it feels a little easier to think it and not say it out loud. Maybe it's something he should say out loud, yeah, but for now he'll keep it to their private thoughts.

You're the person I want to tell everything to and the person I want to make happy. The rest of the world can hang as long as I have you.

He's noticed that she shifted so he can see her more easily but he's just looking at her face for now, studying the lines of it as if he hasn't already committed it to memory a thousand times over.

Wanda doesn't reply immediately, although she doesn't frown or scowl or hide her face away. She sits astride him and looks down at him, and feels the same intense sincerity he speaks aloud within his thoughts. Thoughts are where she finds people are most truthful, and while his thoughts are intentionally strung together, his sincerity can't be manufactured in the same way.

She ducks her gaze for a moment, smiling softly to herself. She shouldn't be his favourite person, but he remains steadfast in his affection and loyalty for her. Maybe she should let herself simply accept it for once.

You're my favourite old person.

She smiles at that.

Parting her lips, she inhales deeply before she swallows. Despite appearing like she wants to say something, she stalls for a long moment. Rather than speak what's on her mind, she decides to take a page out of his book. It feels safer, even if she should say it aloud so he can hear it reverberate differently to the thoughts in his head, but this way, she can hide in plain sight.

Can we swap? I want you to touch me, but not like this.

She doesn't want to lay sprawled out on top of him and use her weight and the angle to her advantage to hide. He's accepted a part of her, perhaps the most core part of who she is, with ease… and she finds that at this moment, the fear and anxiety of him seeing all of her are outweighed by her desire to trust him completely rather than in slivers.

Yeah, we can swap.

Bucky eases her from on top of him to roll to her back instead and he lays on his hip beside her. He can see all of her this way but he takes a moment to arrange her hair so it covers her breasts a little better and hopes that's a compromise she'll accept. He doesn't want Wanda to feel exposed or uncomfortable, especially since he's going to touch her, so this is better for now.

Once they're arranged, though, he cups her breast gently in his right hand and leans in to kiss her, lips soft against hers. He wants to keep all of this slow and gentle because he doesn't want Wanda to feel like there's any pressure to do one thing or the other. He just wants her to enjoy herself.

It's weird now that she's on her back. She doesn't know what to do with her hands. Does she rest them by her sides or against her belly? Will that prove to be an obstacle for him later? Or does she reach out to him? She's thinking too much, and not in the way that they've begun to think to one another.

She sighs softly and opts to thread a hand through his short hair, leaving her other one to grip at the bedsheets. Opening her mouth beneath his, she shifts her legs, lightly digging a heel into the bed and bending her knee slightly.

This is the most naked she's ever been. Although he's been kind enough to arrange her long hair, she's still so naked before him. Before placing those thoughts into his head, she still felt clothed in a way. She doesn't want anything other than for Bucky to touch her and for her to let herself be touched when she's refused it for so long.

Bucky moves his lips from her mouth to move along her neck and he sucks lightly at the hollow of her throat, wanting to leave a mark there that he can see in the morning. Is that possessive? Yes. Does he care? No. No one is competing for his affections with Wanda but he doesn't want anyone getting ideas to do it, either.

"Can I kiss you lower?" he asks, pausing for a moment. He wants to shift down and kiss her breasts, too, but he doesn't want to do something that's going to upset Wanda and take her out of the situation. He'd rather her be comfortable and happy than him get something he wants and this is about what she enjoys right now.

"I don't have to if you don't want me to."

Wanda hums in contentment at Bucky tending to her neck. She wishes for him to stay there until her skin's purple and raw, but she drags her fingertips along his scalp and nods.

"Yes," she says quietly. She doesn't remove her hand from the back of his head, trailing her fingers through what she can of his hair. She much prefers it short; she likes being able to see his face and blue eyes, even if his face is currently buried in the crook of her neck.

And, as she peers down at him with her eyes half-closed, she adds for good measure: "I want you to."

Bucky smiles against her skin and moves his lips lower along her breastbone and then over to one of her breasts, gently kissing along the slope of it. He tries not to openly stare but to just look at Wanda's eyes as much as he can before dipping his head down to kiss her again and again. When he thinks she might be warmed up for it, he slides just the tip of his tongue along her nipple and then sucks it gently between his lips.

He thinks if he does everything slowly and deliberately then Wanda will be able to just focus on her own body and not the thoughts of other people or even his thoughts. Maybe all of it will drift away and she'll just think about the two of them together and how much they care about one another. While he kisses her, he slides his left hand up to cup her other breast, still marveling that her magic has made it so she can feel something with it. It isn't the same as the right, no, but it's something.

This is a gift that no one but Wanda could give him and he wants to pay it back in kind.

Wanda hums low in her throat and fidgets slightly beneath him. While she wants to look at him, she tilts her head up and closes her eyes as she drags her fingers through his hair. She likes that he's trusting his metal hand; even if his touch is a little different than his right hand, she can make do with the soft harshness because she knows what it means for him to use it.

She exhales loudly through her nose and moans softly. Even though she's not picking at his thoughts, his concentration is like being hit with a wave at the beach. She can feel it lapping at her feet even if he doesn't intend for it to try and knock her over.

"You can stop thinking so much," she murmurs a little breathlessly. "I'm fine; you're fine. I like this." And to emphasise what she likes in particular, she roughly slides the hand not in his hair over her side to touch his left hand.

“Am I really that loud?”

Bucky has to laugh at it because he’s never thought about how loud he thinks or how hard he concentrates, not before now, and now he feels like he has to be aware of it so he isn’t bothering Wanda with it. She seems to take it in stride, though, and when she touches his left hand he squeezes her breast with it lightly. He wishes he could feel more but feeling it at all is amazing enough and it’s some magic he will never ever be able to thank her for.

Maybe all the thanks she needs will be in the kisses and touches he gives her. He dips his head again and barely edges his teeth against her nipple before sucking at it again. It feels good to take the time and maybe Wanda not being concerned with the end result is a good thing. Maybe he shouldn’t be racing to the finish and should just be enjoying the journey.

She inhales loudly and lets out a noise that sounds like it's on the verge of being a whimper. Sliding her hand to his nape, she deliberately curls her fingers and drags her nails against his skin.

"You… always have been," she says hesitantly, only reluctant to voice it because of what it implies. Even before they'd been saddled with one another after the events in Germany, Wanda had always found him to be loud in the moments when they shared space. Always worrying, always thinking, always seemingly plotting a way to push Steve away.

She's sensed it here, worrying about her. Where she had originally focused on him to ensure the safety of her friend, it's morphed into personal interest. And he worries about her now, with her at fault for bringing something that he needn't worry about to the forefront of his mind.

"Don't worry about it," she whispers and arches her back off the bed to try and distract him. "Please."

You...always have been. It sits heavy on him to think that in the entire time Wanda has known him, he's always been this way. He wonders if Wanda would have liked him before war and HYDRA destroyed who he was and then he decides that doesn't matter because he would have died in a train accident in 1945 and not had the chance.

She tells him not to worry about it and he tries not to, focusing instead on kissing her and getting rewarded for it when she arches her back up off the bed. He shifts a little and kisses lower along the line of her belly and over to her hip.

"Are we still good?"

"Hm?"

Of course, she's still listening. She can hear everyone in their street and the streets several blocks over, but Wanda's distracted by how it feels to be touched like this again. With tenderness, like she's something to be gentle with. Where tension had once sat in the lines of her muscles, she feels pliant and like her bones are water now.

It takes her a moment to understand what he's asking. Peering down the length of her body, she sucks her bottom lip between her teeth and nods again. "You feel nice." Wanda ignores her flush when she asks quietly, "Are you enjoying this?"

"Am I? More than I've enjoyed anything in eighty years," Bucky says, looking up at her before deliberately licking along the line of her hip and then along the inside of one thigh. She feels a little less tense beneath him now than she had before and maybe his idea of just focusing on her very intensely is starting to work and she'll enjoy herself more than she usually does.

He kisses where her thigh and hip meets and murmurs softly against her skin. "I want to get my mouth on you, Wanda. I wanna taste you. Can I do that?"

Just the thought of it makes him want to die a little and it's as good for him to give to her as it is to receive. Maybe more, really, because he loves making Wanda feel good and he thinks she deserves it more than anyone. She deserves a chance to only think about herself for once.

His question makes her heart flutter anxiously, but while Wanda might dig her heels into the sheets slowly and softly to not draw his attention, she doesn't roll over or curl into herself. He's already seen so much of her—more than he has since they settled down here—that the idea of him touching her so intimately makes her skin feel aflame with nervousness and excitement.

Peering down at him, she parts her legs slightly—not enough to try and dislodge him from where he's perched at her hip, but enough so that he can see that her answer isn't her attempt to please him, but represents what she wants, too. And she knows she wants it despite her nervousness. "Yes," she says quietly.

"I'll be careful," he whispers. Bucky isn't a telepath but he can tell that Wanda feels nervous about this because her muscles are a little tightened and her voice is small. Still, she's parted her legs for him and he just moves them a little bit wider so he can get comfortable before curling his left hand around her thigh to hold it there before he draws up closer with his mouth.

He's always liked doing this for women and even if he's old, it's a myth that men only discovered how to please a woman in the modern era. No, he learned how to do to it because he was paying fucking attention and he wanted both of them to have a good time. It didn't take much to do. It's part of why he wants it for Wanda so much because for someone who has lost as much as she is, she deserves to have someone give all of themself to her.

He doesn't want to startle her, though, so he keeps his lips and tongue soft when he kisses her and just lets her get used to him being there before adding anything else to it.

Wanda inhales shakily and tilts her head back, closing her eyes as she grips the bedsheets. Imagining and dreaming is always different to the reality of experiencing it, and Bucky's mouth is warm and wet and gentle.

This isn't her first time receiving head, but it's her first time with an experienced partner who doesn't need her to guide him through the darkness that she's also navigating herself. She's not quite sure if she should be. She shifts her right foot so she can lift her thigh up a little more into his metal hand. It's such a strange and arousing sensation to feel the cold metal on her thigh while his mouth is warm and soft.

Rather than grip the bedsheets, she curls one hand into his hair and quietly whimpers. "You can do more," she murmurs, accent thick. Although, she suspects Bucky knows what he's doing. She ignores how her skin heats. "I want you to. It's okay. I'm okay."

Good.

She wants him to and he wants to give her more so Bucky keeps his tongue soft and lazy, just trying to find the places that make her want more and the places that aren't so desperate. He wants to hit the sweet spot of working her up without her thinking that she has to perform for him or anything so he makes it seem like he's just happy to explore and see what happens because, well, he is.

It's never really been like this before, to do this without having the end goal in mind, and he sucks her clit with a little more pressure before backing away and slipping his right hand up between them to touch his fingers against her.

Yes or no?

Okay, telepathy was useful.

She wriggles beneath him, not hard enough to dislodge him from between her legs. It feels good enough to not lie still beneath him. Intimate in a way that has her feeling more exposed than she is. She's grateful he's not looming over her to watch her reactions; she much prefers for him to listen to her via touch. It feels less confronting. Breathing hard and shallowly, she peers up at the ceiling and swallows hard.

Digging her heels into the bed, she shifts her hips slightly, unintentionally angling them up. She startles at his question, having expected him to speak rather than think. Gripping the bedsheets, Wanda inhales deeply in an attempt to regain some semblance of control. She doesn't want to slip; she wants to be present, but not tightly coiled, even though she knows he can feel just how aroused she is by his gentle exploration.

It takes her a moment to parse what he's asking. Wanda keeps her gaze on the ceiling and hums. Yes.

I love how you taste.

It had been strange at first, the idea of Wanda being in his head, and now that he thinks he's figured out how not to be so loud (or god, at least he hopes he's not too loud now) he thinks it's intimate and a good way to say things he'd never be able to say if he had to use his voice to do it. It turns him on to do it, anyway, so he hopes that Wanda likes it too.

He slides his fingers into her and lets them just sit for a moment for her to get used to it while he spends a little more time warming her up. He has the idea that if he can make it last a long time that maybe the orgasm will sneak up on her instead of it seeming like she has to give it up so he'll just stop what he's doing. He's got all the time in the world for this, especially when the result of it is so good. He just wants her to feel good and not feel self-conscious about it.

Just relax with me, all right?

She shivers—at his words, at his fingers, and at his voice being inside of her mind. It's overwhelmingly intimate. Telepathy is a part of her that she's kept to herself—had to, for the sake of others, especially since she's only ever used it to manipulate people onto puppet strings—and it's a strange and overwhelming thought to have him accept it so readily. And she fears doing it now, accidentally making Bucky do something he hadn't wanted to do.

It's a little hard to relax when Bucky's in her head and has his fingers nestled in her cunt. She breathes in sharply, making a gasping noise that sounds like its part moan, and digs a heel into the bed in response to his fingers.

Just two. Move slow.

She tightens the muscles in her belly, sucking it in before forcing a long exhale. The desire to control him is there—it's always there, waiting for her on the precipice of new and nerve-wracking moments—and Wanda palms the bedsheets with both hands to stop herself from dipping into it.

Trust me.

All of this is about trust at the end of the day. For her side, it's the physical part she's trusting him with but for his, he's trusting her with his mind and it's terrifyingly intimate because of it. They both have skin in the game and they're both doing something a little frightening but it's good because they're doing it together.

Bucky doesn't move his fingers so much as curl them a little to try and see if he can find the places that feel good for her. If she wants it harder and faster there's time for it once she's loosened up but right now she's too tense for him to do anything but just get her used to how it feels to have his fingers there while he's working her over with his mouth. He squeezes her hip with his left hand in reassurance as he does, trying to let her know with everything he has that it's all right if this doesn't end in a picture-perfect way.

At the squeeze of her hip, she places her hand over his, gripping the back of his hand tightly. He feels so close yet so far away, and she wants to keep reminding herself that he's here. But she relaxes as she arches her back and exhales, moaning a little louder than she had previously.

She knows she's still tense, and every time she tries to force herself to relax, her body doesn't listen. And no matter how hard she tries to control herself, she doesn't heed her own wishes.

She focuses on his fingers, focusing on the way they feel, on the heavy sensation of him being inside of her, of how he's so gentle yet present, and whimpers at the sensation of him curling them.

A little more.

Wanda's not quite sure if that even makes sense. She knows what she wants, but she doesn't know what she wants at all. She exhales roughly, a little aggravated with herself.

Of that.

Bucky moves his fingers then. He keeps it fairly slow even if the rhythm is steady because if it's too fast, he thinks she won't enjoy it. He doesn't push in hard, either, because if she's not used to penetration, she needs to get warmed up and stretched before he starts doing anything rougher; if they're going to have intercourse, he wants to make sure he doesn't hurt her.

He focuses on her clit a little more now, though, focusing in on the spots he has determined feel the best and he alternates sucking and licking to see which one Wanda is more into. Her reactions will tell him a lot and they have the benefit of telepathy if he's really getting it wrong.

God, he loves doing this. She tastes good and she doesn't have to do anything but lay there and enjoy feeling good and he's the cause of that. It's a damn good feeling to know he can do that for her.

Although she desperately wants to stay still in fear of accidentally hurting him, Wanda fidgets where she lies. Every time he sucks, she shifts her hips delicately but digs her feet roughly into the bed, arching them and curling her toes as she lifts slightly off her back.

She can hear a mix of sounds from the neighbourhood, but nothing is as loud as her panting. Her mouth dries, but she hardly cares as she tilts her head back and closes her eyes. All the thoughts around her are there, present, little spokes trying to prod at her, but Wanda reaches telepathically out for him before she stops herself. Beneath her closed eyes, her irises begin to glow red. The tips of her fingers start to smoke a pale pink.

It's more when he sucks on her clit that she wriggles and red thin vines curl along her long fingers. Digging her heels into the bed, she lifts one of her feet up and plants it on his back. The moment she realises where she's digging her heel into, she quickly puts it back on the soft bed. "Sorry," she murmurs.

<>You can put it back, doll. No problem being touched.

If she's feeling good enough to lift off the bed and press her heel into his back, he's doing what he should be doing to make her feel good. He crooks his fingers a little before sucking again, hard, and tries to see if he can get her there. It hadn't been the true goal, no, but if she gets there it's amazing.

If nothing else, she'll know he can get her close and that's all he wants her to know. If there's the promise of pleasure that they can work toward, maybe she won't feel so frustrated or worried about things and maybe she will let him try more.

Wanda gently places her foot on his back again, but that gentleness is short-lived as he sucks hard on her clit. She pushes into him as she moans and twists her upper body slightly on the bed.

She arches her back and doesn't try to be quiet. She ignores the dampness of her skin and the heat of the bed beneath her as she focuses on his mouth and fingers and her foot on his back. She pushes into him as though he's all she has to stay afloat. Gripping the bedsheets, her hands glow red as her magic slowly weaves itself through the threads.

Where she would let his voice go in her head, Wanda latches onto it tightly without thought. The tension she'd been holding remains, but something in the way she holds herself tautly snaps. She zeroes in on the skin and muscle beneath her heel, the mind in her hands. Where her voice would feel like a little ticklish whisper, it's akin to being tangled in thick vines.

When she thinks next, it's in a hushed whisper of Sokovian that resonates around the room like an incantation.

More please.

It's almost as if there is no thought in his head other than pleasing Wanda and giving her exactly what she wants and that's as clear as if it were blasted inside his brain. It's almost like he has a diagram of where she wants his hands, what pressure, where to put his tongue. It's easy. It feels good to just follow it.

Everything you want.

It comes to him so naturally to stroke inside her faster and to suck a little bit to the side of her clit instead of directly on it, little strings that are pulling him in all the right directions. It feels better than anything he's ever done to do it.

This is what she's been denying herself for so long. Giving into that addictive allure to get what she wants by giving what she wants. It's easier to make people see it than to explain it. It's what Strucker had always prided her about. It's what Ultron had always been mesmerised of. Where they had to train and program and teach, all she had to do was overtake.

She doesn't think much of it within the first few seconds of Bucky's response—it's in line with what he's been saying all night. Everything feels right and warm. But it's the pliancy in him following her subconscious that makes her furrow her brows. It's the weight that overtakes her when she enters someone's mind to make them do exactly what she wants. It's in the lack of tripping as he explores. She likes the tripping; it reminds her that not being perfect is okay.

Her mental grip on him extends beyond their house and it's once Wanda feels the puppet strings grow taut and the puppets themselves comply that she jerks against him.

She digs her heel into his back harshly, but not to try and find purchase. Everything he's doing to her becomes distant. All she can focus on is the tangle of puppet strings around her fingers. She tightly curls her hands into the bedspread. When she pants, it's not from arousal. Panic clutches her heart and tenses every muscle in her body.

"Stop," she says meekly. "Stop. Stop," she says, her voice growing louder. She pushes up onto her elbows, her eyes still glowing red, but the tendrils of scarlet that seep from her hands and the heel of her foot disappear back into her skin. The firm and comfortable grip she has on his mind abandons him instantly to continue its free fall as if she never caught it at all.

More firmly, she snaps, "Bucky, stop."

Bucky feels like he's been kicked both mentally and physically when Wanda starts telling him to stop and when he pulls away, he looks at her with concern on his face and he knows his right hand is trembling. What did he do? What did he do? For someone who hasn't had his body autonomy for a long time, he's afraid he's taken something from her.

"Wanda, I'm sorry, I thought I was doing what you wanted...I don't know what I did wrong but I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. Did I fuck it up?"

Shit. How is she going to trust him when he's clearly crossed some kind of boundary with her that she didn't want him to cross? He had only wanted to be intimate because he loves her and wants her to feel good but now he's afraid he's fucked it all up.

With a pinched expression, Wanda shakes her head. "No, no… I fucked it up. I did." She grits her teeth and tenses her jaw, glancing away for a moment in shame. If he was her, she wouldn't forgive her for what she did. After everything he's gone through with being controlled, the last thing she ever wanted to do was control him.

Her eyes water and despite the racing of her heart, she inhales deeply to try and centre herself. Her nerves are frayed from his ministrations and from her having extended her mind across the street and her bed. But she forces herself to stay present.

She sits up properly but doesn't tuck a leg beneath her for fear that he'll misread that, too. Instead, her grip on the bedsheets tightens until her knuckles grow red with anger at herself. "You did nothing wrong," she says imploringly, staring down at him. "I took it too far. I'm sorry." As her voice wavers and grows wet, her accent thickens, "I'm really, really sorry."

"You were in my head."

It makes sense now, the strange sense of calm and peace that had come over him, the way he knew exactly where to touch her and how. She had been pulling the strings on him the same way HYDRA could only it was different because he suspects - strongly - that Wanda hadn't meant to do that at all.

"I couldn't tell, I just thought I was getting it right. I just wanted to make you happy."

Bucky moves to sit up and sit beside her, not wanting to be down here while he's trying to have this conversation. He tries to ball up his fear of being controlled and focus on the fact that he's scared the shit out of Wanda instead.

"You didn't mean to do it. I was distracting you," Bucky says gently. "Right? Isn't that it?"

With him now beside her, Wanda tucks a leg beneath her and pulls the other to her chest. She wraps her hands around it and glances at him before looking down.

She nods but doesn't answer immediately. She doesn't know how to even begin explaining it. She spends most of her time gently smoothing out the sharp edges of bad memories and dreams of those around her that sometimes being in that much control can be addictive. Feeling someone's contentment is adrenaline spiking. Having Bucky in her head so intimately had produced the same feeling. Bowing her head towards her knee, she presses her nose against her kneecap and nods again.

"I really liked you in my head," she says quietly. Looking at his legs, she furrows her brows thoughtfully. "It's… intimate for me. And you were there and… everywhere and I just didn't let go this time." She presses her forehead against her knee before turning her head to look up at him. "I think I was too distracted. But I shouldn't have been. I never should've done it." Wanda shakes her head and wipes a tear from the corner of her eye. "I never will again."

"Never go in my head again or never let yourself get distracted again?" Bucky asks softly. Because he understands her concern but he's a little afraid that Wanda might have spooked herself out of being intimate with him and that's the last thing he wants out of this. It's not her fault she lost control. It felt good and she had let go of her worries, just the way he'd wanted her to.

He slides his arm around her. It's his left and he can still feel a little bit of the spell there, can still feel her skin against the metal in a way that he shouldn't be able to do. There's wonderful things about Wanda's magic and he's afraid she's not thinking about those things right now.

"I know you didn't mean to, Wanda. I still trust you. Do you wanna know why I still trust you?"

While Wanda continues to rest her head against her knee, she leans toward him when he wraps his metal arm around her. She hides behind her other hand, pushing her palm against her face as if her heel can somehow stop her from crying. Even if he refuses to be mad at her, she's hurt the one person she cares about. It's an invasion and cruelty she promised he'd never feel again.

She shakes her head. She doesn't want to know why he still trusts her because he shouldn't. But she sniffs hard and wipes at her eyes and smears her tears. She rests her hand on his upper thigh and grips it hard.

"Why?" she asks, her voice small. Wanda doesn't deserve to know, but Bucky has a right to voice those reasons after decades of being forced to be silent.

"You told me to stop. You could have kept going, could have finally gotten that orgasm that you could never quite get and I wouldn't have known the difference, right? But you didn't do that. As soon as you realized what you did, you told me to stop and move away. If you wanted to hurt me, you wouldn't have done that. So I trust you."

He turns his head and kisses her hair. Bucky suspects that Wanda just needs to be held right now and he's more than happy to do the holding. Sex is off the table for tonight and possibly for days or weeks but physical touch is something he still thinks is important for them.

"You care enough about me to not want to control me. You want me to be myself. You didn't fuck anything up and it was just an accident."

She removes her head from her knee and curls into him, taking the arm not around her to hug to her chest. She nods her head. All she wants is for him to be himself. She doesn't want to be in his head, making him do anything. She wants it all to be him.

That's what she had wanted from the start, but Wanda supposes perhaps she had wanted it too much.

Wiping at her face again, she turns her face into his chest to impulsively kiss his skin before resting her forehead against him.

"I have to make sure it won't happen again," she says quietly. How, she doesn't know, but she's determined to figure it out. For now, she wants to let herself have this. Rather than refuse everything he says and his efforts to comfort her, she wants to let herself accept what he's offering. He's shown her he won't lead her astray in that regard.

Hesitantly, she asks, "How… did it feel?"

"It didn't hurt. It made me feel...I felt as if it was the right thing to do, the thing that would make me so happy. I wanted to please you more than anything and I knew exactly how to do it. You didn't hurt me, Wanda. I swear you didn't."

Bucky is a little frightened she'd gotten into his head, sure, but he also knows it was accidental. Wanda is so careful to keep away from his mind, so careful not to violate what HYDRA violated for decades.

"It's okay. I don't hate you for it, all right? You didn't mean to."

She's slow to nod, although she has some difficulty in accepting that he doesn't hate her for it. He should. It'd be so easy to make him, but for all of her self-sabotaging tendencies when it comes to her facing potential contentment or even happiness, Wanda, of course, doesn't. That's up to him. And while that desire to self-sabotage is prevalent even now, Wanda doesn't want him to hate her.

"I wouldn't blame you if you changed your mind," she says quietly, peering up at him. She curves the corners of her lips upward as though that's the joke. But, really, it'd be up to him if he changed his mind on his current stance.

"I'm just glad it didn't hurt you." Vehemently, she whispers, "But it won't happen again."

"I trust you. Think about it, Wanda - I could have hurt you with my arm, right? I could have bruised you or something and I would have felt awful. It's a part of me. Just as much as that's a part of me, it's a part of you to have magic and accidents happen."

Bucky doesn't want Wanda to feel bad about this. He wants her to understand that he still cares for her and wants this to work. He wants to be with her, all of her, and that includes the magical part of her as well. He wants to cherish her the way she deserves.

"Do you want me to just hold you for a little while, Wanda? Just to have the comfort? Because I could do with comforting you right now so you can tell yourself it's just for me."

"Okay," she says quietly, smiling softly. Being held sounds nice—and if it's something Bucky wants, then Wanda thinks it's only fair to make sure he gets it… even if it's something that most likely will make her feel a lot better, too. She had liked lying on top of him earlier and simply being held. It's those moments that she appreciates the most. "That would be really nice."

She widens her smile and laughs quietly, "I'll think it's just for you since you look like you have very bony shoulders." She pokes him in the shoulder with her index finger. It's her attempt to lighten the mood.

Bucky laughs at that because his shoulder is mostly pure muscle and if she feels bone, it's only because everyone has bone there and not because he's especially bony. God, he loves this woman, and even if she makes mistakes he hopes he can help her pick up and try again because she deserves more out of life than guilt. He's lived that life and he's done with it.

"You know there's nothing but muscle here, baby. It's all I am. Of course, you were complaining about that earlier too so I don't know how to please you. Just know I wanna try."

He gives her his best attempt at puppy eyes and pulls her to curl up alongside him where she can pillow her head on his chest if she wants to. He idly drifts his fingers through her hair.

"I ever tell you I love your hair?"

As she rests her head against his chest and wedges her foot none too gently against his calf, Wanda mouths Not too bony incredulously and leaves it at that. She makes a mental note that perhaps calling his shoulders 'bony' in the near future might have him call her 'baby' again. She hadn't minded it. She rests her palm against his side.

Briefly, she wonders if during her accident she had somehow revealed she liked her hair played with. Wanda decides no, she mustn't have; not everything Bucky will do from this moment on is because of some seed she's unintentionally planted in his head. He's simply discovered it on his own without knowing it.

As for his question, she thinks to tell him no, but Wanda opts for continuing to tease him. She prefers a gentle chaotic approach, especially in light of everything. "I was thinking of chopping it all off."

"I would be sad but it's your hair. I could grow mine out," he teases, giving her a bright grin. "Go back to the homeless look. It was really working for me in Bucharest and I could definitely blend in for a long time with that hair and a cap. Nobody wanted to walk near me because it looked like I hadn't showered in a month."

Bucky doesn't think he's going to go back to long hair. It had been a pain in the ass, for one, and for two he likes it short and out of the way. He doesn't like having it cut but Wanda can do it for him and he trusts her not to come at him with a pair of scissors to stab him in the jugular and to, you know, only cut his hair.

"What'd you do if I grew it out?"

She instantly scrunches her nose in distaste. While Bucky had been attractive even with the long hair, she much prefers his short hair. It doesn't distract from his eyes and she thinks it being a hairstyle he hadn't been forced to wear makes him appear more confident.

She doesn't afford him the same luxury as he does her.

"Change all the locks and make you sleep outside until you cut it again." With her cheek pressed against his warm skin, she shakes her head. "I told you I never liked the homeless look. It's not you."

Bucky laughs, a warm rumble in his chest, and he traces little patterns on Wanda's skin. The idea of her changing the locks and making him sleep outside until he cut his hair is hilarious and he wonders if she would have the resolve to actually do it or if it's just a threat. He decides he doesn't want to find out.

"Well, as long as you'll keep doing my hair and I don't have to go to a stranger, then I'll keep it cut short. I don't trust anyone with sharp objects near me. Call me paranoid but I was a killer too long."

Bucky knows a million ways to kill someone and while he knows his imagination can come up with more things than the average person, he doesn't want to risk it.

Wanda's silent for a long moment, grateful to be tucked against his chest where he can't see her face. Her mind wanders to Pietro and his thick head of hair and how he was the same. He trusted no one to go near him with a pair of scissors after Mama had died. She'd always cut his hair, entertaining him even when he'd complain of an imaginary stray hair remaining in an otherwise perfect haircut.

She thinks to keep that to herself, but if Bucky's going to trust her with a pair of scissors, then she can trust him with her brother.

"I used to cut Pietro's hair," she says, smiling softly. Her chest feels heavy so she shifts against him to try and move it. "He used to say I was very, very bad. Are you sure you want a hairdresser with such rave reviews?"

She has a good inkling she already knows his answer.

If she used to cut Pietro's hair, it's an intimate thing, and Bucky isn't sure if he wants to tread on that. Wanda seems all right with it though. She's touching him and pressed up against him but then she shifts and he thinks that she is possibly uncomfortable. It makes sense; she has just told him a very heavy thing.

"I think I can trust a hairdresser with reviews like that," Bucky says softly. "But only if she feels comfortable sharing that kind of intimacy with her client. Otherwise, I'll tough it up and go to someone else so you don't kick me out of the house. Wouldn't want to spend the winter on the porch."

"I would be very sad that winter."

Who would get the items from the top shelf for her for three months? It'd be an absolute shame if he had to waste away outside while she had to find a little step to get into all of those pesky high corners.

She rubs her hand against his side. "I wouldn't do it if I didn't want to. It's…" Whenever Wanda speaks of home, she knows she always fidgets, and now is no exception to that. She's had to mould herself into the American—and Avenger—way of life so quickly so she would have a place. There was no room for her life before until now. "It's comforting to do something I used to do back home."

"All I want is for you to be comfortable," Bucky says, giving her the softest smile he can manage. It's true - not a platitude - and he keeps touching her because he just can't stop touching her. Touching Wanda is addictive and he's pretty sure he could do it for the rest of his life and it still wouldn't be enough.

"Do you want to get some sleep, maybe? I don't know if you're wired or not but I thought maybe we could share tonight." They haven't been since he didn't admit his feelings until today but he doesn't want to get out of her bed and go across the house to his bedroom when it's just going to be cold and lonely and Wanda-less.

"That sounds nice."

While Wanda's certain she'll be awake and a little wired for an hour or so, she doesn't particularly want that to be the reason why Bucky decides to wander back to his room and leave her alone in hers. Selfishly, she'd like for him to stay—it'd mean that she has no reason to be alone with her thoughts and entertain them further. His being here means she remains present.

She scrunches up her face as she pushes against his side and peers up at him in mock worry. "You don't snore, do you?"

Of course, Wanda knows the answer to that. But sometimes it's nice to act like she doesn't know everything—or most things.

Bucky laughs a little and shakes his head. Of course, he can't hear himself while he's asleep but he's never had a complaint, either, so he's reasonably sure he doesn't snore. If he's a liar, he guesses he's a liar but it's unintentional at best.

"Nah, I don't think I snore. Never had anyone say I do, anyway, and Steve's slept in the same room with me enough times to let me know. He's polite but he's not too polite to tell me I'm making a racket."

"And if he is too polite, I am not." She smiles up at him a little smugly. Of course, Wanda will fib and inform him that he does snore like a freight train even if he was as silent as the night. She likes her stories, even the ones that aren't true—and she has a good feeling Bucky doesn't mind them, either.

"I kick in my sleep." She doesn't unless she has a nightmare, but Wanda's intent to keep things light and her efforts to tease exasperating. "Very hard. Are you sure you want to stay?"

don't touch that dial

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject