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Steve's tense. He's been tense since the fight. Bucky's tense, Steve can feel it though he's standing at his back, but when Bucky's the one to close the bedroom door the nervous tangle in Steve's stomach gives just a little bit. He's been saved from having to fumble his way through asking and explaining. Bucky's giving him permission and he can just do it.
He swallows in a tight throat, adrenaline buzzing under his skin, on the edge of something dangerous if he isn't careful.
"Get on the bed."
Bucky doesn't blink. He climbs onto the mattress on all fours, facing away from Steve, presenting himself. Steve draws in a breath, something inside him creeping toward this by inches, toeing that metaphorical edge he's afraid of. The artist in him takes a second to appreciate the lines of Bucky's body, but the artist in him didn't fight in that battle tonight. The artist in him didn't let three civilians die by not being fast enough.
He stands behind Bucky and slowly takes his sweatpants down. He's not wearing anything underneath and Steve bares the pale roundness of his ass and then his balls and cock, letting the material pool around Bucky's knees.
Bucky doesn't look at him. Steve doesn't want him to. He doesn't know why Bucky would let him do this, after what he's been through, but Bucky has become surprisingly introspective since then and says he understands the need for control.
Control. That's all Steve wants right now. Something to break in his anger at himself. Something to fix.
For a moment, he stands there running his hands over the firm muscle of Bucky's cheeks, kneading them, letting his thumbs slip between, playing in soft fuzz. He's a veteran of beatdowns in back alleys. Something in him feels at home in dirty places.
Bucky's breathing picks up and Steve stops touching. Everything's laid out on the bed, the small wooden paddle, the lube. Steve slaps Bucky's ass with his open hand first though. Bucky clenches and his back arches like a cat. The sound rings through the quiet, and red blooms on Bucky's skin—red like the star they put on his shoulder when Steve first found him alive.
Another slap and Bucky's cheeks quiver. Steve smacks one and then the other so the red marks match. He slaps Bucky's cock hanging between his legs, wondering not for the first time or even the hundredth how many cunts and how many mouths it's been inside.
Bucky grunts, his strong thighs tightening. Steve smacks his ass from every angle in a quick succession of blows. He wants it pink all over. He wants it hot and stinging. Bucky's cock swells and he's breathing harder, but not out of any real desperation. It's not enough. Bucky's gotten used to this. Steve pulls away, feeling himself drawn closer to those festering dark needs he's scared of.
"Turn over on your back. I'm going too easy on you."
Without a word, Bucky gets on his back. Steve slips his sweatpants off so he's completely naked. He takes hold of Bucky's thighs, pushing his legs up toward his chest, lifting his spanked-pink ass off the bed so he has plenty of access.
Bucky rolls his head to one side, dark hair half wet from the shower. It's strange he's not bothered by being in such a submissive position, but maybe he's the one with the power here. He's the only one to know this side of Steve, the secret hidden side no one would suspect Captain America of having.
Steve's gaze traces the backs of Bucky's thighs and the underside of his cock against his stomach and his balls nestled in dark pubic hair, but he doesn't touch any of that. He grabs for the paddle, smacking it down right where Bucky's cheeks press together.
It earns him another grunt. Steve knows it stings by the way the skin blooms redder than his hand can make it. He brings the paddle down again, slapping Bucky's left cheek and then his right. When both are a satisfying shade of red, Steve puts the paddle down for a minute.
He knows what he wants now.
"Spread yourself open for me, Buck."
Bucky angles his head so he can see around his own raised knees. This order is new and Steve's nerves cinch tight again, hoping he hasn't gone too far, hoping it isn't too dirty. Bucky wets his lips though and opens his thighs wider. It gives Steve a decent peek, but it's not what he meant.
"No. With your hands. Hold yourself open."
Steve waits for Bucky to tell him this is getting sick. He waits and he's the one who feels exposed, but if he's at home in dirty places it makes sense his mind would be one.
He's half surprised, half throbbing with the thrill of watching Bucky obey him, when Bucky's hands cup his own ass and slowly, like it's part of the game, lets his thumbs spread his red and tender cheeks apart.
Sharp want throbs through Steve's cock to see the puckered pink of Bucky's hole exposed like that. It looks so vulnerable, with Bucky's legs in the air and his hips tilted up, stretched just a little bit where he's pulling. Steve's quick to coat his fingers with lube and then he's touching it, gently circling Bucky's hole with his thumb, just playing with it, rubbing back and forth and pressing with the pad of his thumb until he feels Bucky yield a little.
Bucky's intake of breath is sharp.
"You like showing this to me?" Steve strokes back and forth some more and eases just the tip of his thumb inside. "You like when I work you open?"
Bucky's cock is getting pinker and harder and he lets out a moan too sensual for a legendary murder machine. He likes being touched there, but that's not what Steve wants to do right now.
"I'm gonna need to pound you pretty hard after this, but first I want to make it real sore."
Bucky breathes out something sharp that might be a laugh. He can't get used to Steve talking filthy like this.
Steve grabs for the paddle. "You know I don't like it when people don't take me seriously." He doesn't feel in control when he's laughed at any more than he does when he fails.
"I'm sorry," Bucky says.
The worst part is that he means it. It doesn't matter though. Now Steve needs to show him he's serious, that he has it in him to hurt. He needs to show him that Bucky's the one lying on his back with his cheeks spread and Steve's the one with the paddle.
He slaps it hard right on Bucky's hole. Completely unprepared, Bucky cries out. It tightens and flushes to a ring of pink, like a rosebud. Steve hits it again and with his legs up and his hands busy, Bucky's got no purchase to brace himself. Steve paddles that pink little ring until Bucky's biting his lip and digging his fingers into the muscle of his spread cheeks, still red from their paddling.
Letting up, Steve is back to rubbing and circling Bucky's unprotected hole again, testing a finger inside where he's wet with lube. Bucky's always tight from the tension he carries around. Steve's always careful with him, but the little guy in him secretly likes the way Bucky's eyes water when he works his way in inch by slow inch, likes how it makes him feel like his cock's just too big for him.
Bucky gives pretty easily for him now though, and Steve slides his finger in and out. "Does it sting? Because I need to hurt it a little more."
He gets a little moan for answer. Bucky's eyes are closed. He knows all he has to say is 'stop,' but he doesn't.
Steve has the paddle again. He doesn't give Bucky any time to try and brace himself, or any time between blows to catch his breath or let the pain fade. They're rapid and merciless and he paddles Bucky hard on his sore, open hole because Steve doesn't deserve to be allowed inside him when he lets people die. He paddles Bucky's sore cheeks, right and left, and the backs of his thighs and even his balls a few times too just so he doesn't know where he next blow will land, but mostly it's that tight, glistening hole that gets the worst of it, because it's not right that it's lubed up for him, that Bucky will let his cock inside even after Steve hurts him there.
Bucky's whimpering and there’s wetness on his lashes. Steve stops. He has to stop. Has to pull himself back. Has to fix it now.
He tosses the paddle aside. He hadn't realized his heart was beating so fast, thrilled and disturbed at the same time. His cock hurts it's pounding so fiercely, but that's only fair.
Sweat shines on Bucky's chest and his forehead and the backs of his thighs. His ass is a vivid pink, but his hole is angry red, punished and swollen.
Steve swallows and pulls Bucky's hands away. There's marks where his human fingers have clenched and the beginnings of bruises from the imprint of his metal ones. Gently, Steve eases Bucky's thighs open so he can lie between them.
Cupping Bucky's jaw, Steve turns his head to him and kisses his mouth, slow, tender, the slide of his lips saying things he can't yet. His tongue slides between Bucky's lips and he gently lets a hand drift down. He kneads Bucky's balls that he knows are stinging from the paddle too, and then he's gently toying with Bucky's swollen hole again, slipping one finger in and then another, stretching him, thinking about his cock in there.
Bucky lets out a vulnerable sound against his mouth.
"Is it sore?" Steve asks, concerned, like he wasn't the one who smacked it with a wooden paddle over and over. "Want me to make it better?"
Bucky murmurs something into the slow kiss Steve gives him and then Steve is sliding down his body. He gets his hands under Bucky's thighs and spreads him as wide as he can, circling his balls with his tongue so they feel better too. He draws them into his mouth and sucks, extremely careful not get his teeth in the way.
Bucky rewards him with a broken moan. Steve lifts his legs a little more, letting Bucky's feet rest on his shoulders. His hands stroke and softly scrape Bucky's thighs with his nails and he's circling his tongue over his stinging hole, pushing the flat of it into puffy, puckered skin, laving back and forth until Bucky's cries have a shaky, desperate sound to them. Steve can take him apart like this, and he does. This is what he deserves, lying on his stomach, on his elbows licking Bucky's asshole until his thighs shake and his cock is shiny with precome. He deserves it for failing him, for the nightmare that happened to Bucky after he fell. Maybe that's why he needs this. He needs one way to hurt him that he can make better, because he can never make the other thing better, no matter what he does.
Steve's tongue pushes inside him and moves in and out, fucking with him it, getting him wet and ready to be fucked. Bucky tightens at the first intrusion, but then he's opening and fisting the sheets. Steve's thumbs caress his bruised cheeks where he'll be too sore to sit for a couple hours. He keeps thrusting and stroking with his tongue until Bucky's gaping enough to fuck as hard as Steve wants.
Bucky will come if he doesn’t stop, so Steve stops. He applies more lube to his cock and stands on his feet, dragging Bucky by the hips so his ass is at the edge of the bed.
Steve takes him holding his legs on his shoulders. Then he has him by the ankles, pushing his legs almost over his head, holding him wide open and exposing him and his reddened cheeks all over again, pounding his hurt, but so tight and warm hole harder than the paddle ever did.
Bucky takes it, throws his head back, claws the sheets. He doesn't mind pain. He's been through so much of it that it has no power over him anymore. It's afterward that Steve is reminded of what it takes to break him now.
He's lying on his back, holding Bucky draped on top of him, sweating and still catching his breath, his heart rate not quite slowed to normal, a stuttering rhythm against Steve's chest. "You want me to get you some ice?" Steve lightly rubs a hand over Bucky's tender cheeks.
"I'm fine," Bucky mumbles, head on Steve's chest.
Steve swallows. He wants to do something so it doesn't sting so much, to help the bruises. He feels... Bucky shouldn't let him do this. "Can I suck your cock? I'll do everything you like."
Bucky shakes his head, his hair tickling. "Not right now. I'm tired." A minute later he adds, "Stop feeling guilty. I don't mind giving you what you need."
He doesn't mind because pain has no power over him anymore. If Steve wants to break him now, what he has to do is be gentle. That's the measure of the failure Steve will always have to bear long after he's forgotten the faces of the three who died tonight.