Archive of Our Own ^beta

𑣲 . . . Bucky always knew there was something about him that had an interest over hearts and heartbeats.

What had simply started as a simple comfort, his mothers lullaby beating on his ear, counting each bump as sleep slowly whisks him away, to holding his thumb to his or Steve’s wrist, or holding a fist to his sternum every time the world got a bit too much. But it all hit him full force after Hydra.

The nightmares slammed like a hammer, jolting Bucky awake with no remorse. Sweat staining his skin and the sheets of the makeshift bed on the floor, and his heart pulsed inside his ribs so hard he believed it could break through the bone. But the beat was soothing.

All Bucky could do in those days was be thankful he still had his heartbeat against his palm.

𑣲 . . . He would still have episodes from time to time. Silence would take over, constricting his throat and vocal chords, pressing down onto his chest until his lungs felt too big for his body, and his skin didn’t feel like his own, so the only thing he could do was wordlessly reach out for a pulse of some kind.

Of course, being a six-foot-something, a hundred-and-what-year-old, male, supersoldier… it took some time to understand and get used to around the tower.

Being an assassin yourself, you got to know Bucky well during his time around, scoping out tiny details in his routine whenever he made an appearance, easing him into your own daily life as a means to make him feel less like a burden, in his eyes, and more wanted, and with your own knowledge and experience you regulated him with an ease he’s been praying for since however long. Taking his hand in yours, placing it over his own chest, whispering soft affirmations into the air between. Keeping eye contact, also realising that also helps him come to and relax; knowing you’re looking at him, and not around him like he’s a ghost.

Bucky selfishly kept staring, trying to pinpoint and name things with the same shade, getting lost in your irises. And as the days turn to weeks, you start to do the same.

𑣲 . . . He suddenly couldn't find comfort with his own pulse. He knows hes alive, hell, his heart makes sure he knows with the never-ending 'thump-thump-thump' in his ears, his chest, in every joint, it started to make him feel like his age. So you started placing his hand on your own chest. And thats when it all finally locked into place.

𑣲 . . . he can still feel how you flutter beneath the pads of his fingers as he lies in bed at night.

You still somehow vibrate up and all through his arm, tingling from his knuckles, weighing his wrists, aching his elbows, all towards his shoulders where your pulse seeps into his entire bloodstream, coursing it's way around his body. He can barely keep up with himself and how his body reacts to you. Hands automatically find their way beneath his sweatpants to palm his erection over his boxers — eyes shut, so he can picture you, he believes he can hear your muscle thumping better that way.

Bucky never goes all the way with himself when times got desperate like this, it’s perverse, odd. The almost instinctual response to your heart made him angry and joyous all at once. Finally a comfort he can indulge in, a routine from his past he can stick to — but it’s coming from you. Beautiful, helpful, gentle, and oh so lovely, you. So he keeps the cloth barrier as some sort of chastity, ‘if skin doesnt touch, it doesn’t count.’ and ruts into his palm until the burn begins to ignite from an ember to a flame, flipping himself over, burying his face into his pillow so the images behind his eyes play on repeat like it’s his favourite movie and humps the mattress like a dog in heat. Bucky always comes like that. Dragging out his orgasm by fucking into the sheets faster, and faster, overstimulating himself until his heart feels as if it’s going to explode, thumping into the springs and sponge underneath his chest, reverberating, and falls asleep with the sound in his ears.

Sometimes, when sleep wanders over and his body miraculously goes easy on him for once, Bucky counts your beats instead of sheep. Pressing his ear into his pillow he started manoeuvring to hold tight to his side, arms wrapped protectively around it like a person, and finding the perfect position for his own heartbeat to sound in his ear.

Pretending it was yours, that wrapped in his embrace wasn't some flimsy pillow, but you. Despite the clarity he'd suffer before, during, and after, the comfort was undeniable, even when he knew he wont be able to trick his brain for much longer.

He knows he can just tune in and listen to your gentle snores and easy heartbeat through the walls, but despite the little voice inside of his head telling him 'it'll be okay' and, 'they'll never know', he can't seem to bring himself to do it. You have to be here with him.

𑣲 . . . One day, Bucky whispers "your heartbeat is my favourite" under his breath, a mumble after hours of quiet, after breath came too quick and his pulse thundered. The sentiment slips past his lips and straight to your ears, and Bucky — with his palm placed atop your heart — can feel a slight jolt, a quickening so infinitesimal, it couldn't be noticed by the normal person. But Bucky is no normal person. No, he has a strange infatuation with his co-worker (roommate too!), and their heartbeat.

"Thank you," you whisper back, a blush slowly wells over your cheeks, "Can I?" And before he can speak, your hand finds it's way atop his chest. It catches him off guard, from the sudden jump in your chest, and your mimic of his actions. His ribs almost caves with the touch.

It's more intimate than anything he could think of. Nothing like sex, this was closer, better. Two people touching each others souls, placing their palms against the very thing that keeps them alive, feeling, and staring at each other.

The two of you sit in each others presence, letting silence settle and time pass by as your hearts hum a tune only for you both to hear.

Clearing your throat softly, you break the silence with a soft whisper. "You're pulse is kinda high," you shuffle your fingertips, pressing down on his sternum a little harder, "You okay Bucky? Is this too much?"

Thinking you're moving away from him, Bucky instinctively wraps his hand around your wrist. His hold isn't harsh, or anything truly worrying, he holds just tight enough to show reluctance, it's enough to let you know you can pull away at anytime.

But even when your breath leaves your lungs empty with a gasp, his eyes bore into your own. Pleading.

"Stay." Despite his earlier sentence, words don't come easily, especially around you. But he knows he can count on you to make him feel safe and human. Normal.

So you stay.

𑣲 . . . Bucky makes a promise to himself that he'll take things slow. The relationship you both built between missions, hour long meetings that should’ve been an email, and days spent in the med-bay stuck to each others side, blossomed into something deeper.

Hands still caressed chests in times of need, but this time, the touches became casual, like a secret language. Team movie nights had the two of you squished together, oftentimes with you stretched out in the corner crease of the worn couch, while Bucky got himself comfortable with his head rested on your shoulder. Though as the hours went on, his head would dip, an unconscious movement as if his ears and cheeks sought after your heart, like a magnetic pull, or a siren's song. Your fingers trace through his soft hair, massaging his scalp, while his eyes grew heavy with emotions and tenderness he hadn’t felt in years — decades.

It didn't take long at all to realise his interest and fixation on your heartbeat was something a little more than just comfort, it became obvious to you a while back, but now with this new label, you finally felt comfortable enough to ask him yourself.

𑣲 . . . whenever nights got heavy, laid in his bed while his lips and tongue roamed your own in a gentle dance, his fingers lingering above your racing heart, delicately grazing the soft skin of your sternum as if not to disturb — even afterwards, bodies weighed down with adrenaline and love, his body blanketing yours, his head always, always, had to lay against your thumping ribs.

You'd gaze down at his form, this man once feared, now reduced to putty. How his head moved with each harsh pulse, arms tightening around your body, the smallest smile on his face as he'd nuzzle in closer.

Your fingers twirled around a damp lock of hair against the nape of his neck when you finally asked, slicing through the silence with a whisper. "You like this, don't you?" And he didn't freeze, or stay silent, didn't lock up like he thought he would.

Bucky exhaled a large breath, all weight lifted from his shoulders. Your hands just felt so good in his hair, and your heart beat so quick... all for him, too. He made it beat like that.

Too be honest, he didn't know what you meant.

'You like this?' Did you mean you? Your presence? How all his muscles would suddenly go lax under your touch? How your heart seemed to know of his whereabouts? Follow him around, learn his footsteps and pick up a notch when you'd hear his voice from across the hall.

Yes. He likes this. He likes it all.

𑣲 . . . Bucky tries to keep things soft and gentle, but you make him lose all of his control. Palms smoothing along bare skin, from your shoulders, to your chest, lingering only just. Kneading your waist and stomach, following down with trails of kisses, before gripping the silken flesh of your thighs. Soft points where your pulse lingers.

Your heart raced with anticipation — one of the reasons he kept drawing it out, keeping you on your toes. Grazing his lips against your tender flesh, kissing and sucking ever so slightly, enough to tease you with his corse beard, gliding closer and closer, and stopping right in front of your heat.

Bucky watched as you pulsed, dripping wet just from sweet kisses and soft touches, the rhythmic pulls your pussy drew were hypnotising.

“Sensitive thing, aren’t you?” He asks, voice gravelly and low. You answer back with a whine, you had no clue if he was talking to you or the stickiness between your thighs. “Pulsing so pretty for me. Bet your heartbeat’ll feel stronger inside, hm? What do you think, sweetheart?”

You tremble under his gaze, now staring up at your form with hunger in his eyes. Your stomach twists with pleasure, eliciting a harsher squeeze. “Yes... Yes, Bucky, please,” you beg, “God, please, i need you. I need you so bad.”

He grins from below, eyes flickering between your eyes, your chest that heaves and pounds in time with your cunt that sits just a breath away. He could practically taste you already. Licking his lips, teasing the tip against you so minutely, it could've been mistaken as an accident. But with a groan, he shifts, palms holding you steady and wide behind the knee, thumb pressing into your popliteal artery. And if that wasn't bad enough for your poor wanton self, he drags and nuzzles his mouth and cheeks on your femoral pulse. nipping and suckling soft kisses to the tender triangle of skin, dragging sighs and whines from your pretty little throat.

You feel his smile before his baritone voice, so low and heavy, vibrating against your skin, “Gotta get my mouth on you first... get you ready. Get that heart going.”

𑣲 . . . He places his lips against your sternum, lingering against the pulsing skin, holding it's rhythm against his mouth and tongue. Your bodies covered in the evidence of connection, bathed in sweat, sex and love, but neither you, nor Bucky, care enough to move.

You hum as he holds his mouth to your heart, going lax underneath his heavy body, letting his weight and warmth hold you like a blanket. Even when you’ve laid like this a million times before, every night, every silent, gentle moment with your partner in the throws of dusk to the glimmer of dawn, it never seems to ease your heart’s cry for his presence and touch.

Bucky’s attention never moves, he keeps his affection to your still heaving chest. Sometimes he watches your ribs bump, sometimes he listens with his ear pressed against it, or he’ll shuffle up to keep your chests together and kiss your lips, neck, jaw, cheek — wherever he can find with his droopy eyelids — and lazily lap. Recently, though, he’s started to move.

Shuffling himself to the side, until your back lays against his chest. You miss his weight, you think, but the weight of his arms slung around your waist, taking a handful of your tummy, legs tangled, holding a palm to your sternum to pull you back onto his own. Its close like this. Bucky’s warm breath against the back of your neck, cold nose dragging across your shoulder taking in your scent like he’s testing if it’s actually you in his embrace. And you can feel his own heartbeat against your spine.

“Thank you,” he’d whisper, “for all of this.”

This is when you turn yourself over, face to face, chest to chest. “You don’t have to thank me, Buck,” you reply, palm finding his pulse in an automatic move. The nickname nips him slightly, it always had his heart skipping a beat, especially when it came from you.

“Even if we never got to this point, i would always be there for you, letting you listen to my heartbeat.”

“Not always,” he breathes, voice wavering, eyes already reddening, “you’ll be gone one day, and then what would happen?”

“i dont know what would happen,” you start, cupping his face to make him look at you, and whispering, “but you have me now. We have each other now, and that’s all that matters.”

“We have time, Bucky. And i’ll be right next to you through it all.”