Notes: Beta by G., inspiration from the usual, best-beloved suspects.
09-01-2007
At first, Sharon just wanted to help Val. That's what friends do, she knew, though she'd never had a real girlfriend before. Growing up, her best friend was a ghost: her much older sister, catatonic with grief, shrouded in her mantilla.
Well before SHIELD taught her about psychology, profiling and analysis in the field, Sharon had learned -- from television and the books she read voraciously -- that girls should be nice. Girls should have friends, girls should help.
Fury and SHIELD took that sense of duty and honed it into a weapon.
Sharon regretted this urge to help well before Val wheeled on her, teeth bared and Neapolitan curses falling thickly from her tongue. She shouldn't have been startled -- Val's temper had scorched and singed her more than once -- but she was, so she failed to dodge the kidney chop the dropped her to her knees.
"Say that again!" Val grabbed the root of Sharon's ponytail, yanking her head back.
From there, all Sharon could do was strike at Val's knee and hope she made contact with the nerve cluster.
Val toppled, Sharon caught her, and they rolled across the dorm-room floor. Sharon fought clean, angling for openings and conserving her breath, but Val fought as if she'd never seen the inside of a SHIELD training room.
"You want to help? Little Yankee thinks she can help!" Val spluttered and bit and jabbed as they rolled, elbows and teeth and knees catching and bouncing.
When they hit the wall, Sharon caught Val's arm over her head and sat back on her heels. She ached everywhere; tears of frustration and not a little humiliation stung her eyes.
"I thought you needed help," Sharon said. "I was stupid to think I could try -- but you --"
Val's face shone with sweat. The kohl around her eyes -- SHIELD anti-cosmetic policy had never applied to her -- glittered like metal filings. "I need nothing."
Sharon took a breath. "You think -- you think you're in love with two men."
Arching her back, Val slipped free of Sharon's hold and smirked. "I do not think, 13. I know."
"But that's impossible." Sharon crossed her arms, then added, "14."
Val arched again, the zipper on her catsuit groaning as she tugged it down and fanned herself. Sweat beaded in the hollow of her throat; her skin was darker than Sharon remembered. The last time they'd shared the showers, however, had been over the winter; clearly, Val'd been sunbathing. She probably did it nude, starting the first warm day of February.
Sharon tried to rise. Her throat was tight and sore. She'd been foolish to try to be friendly to this woman, to go up against Val's volatile pride.
When she shifted, Val brought her right knee up against Sharon's back and knocked her back down.
Sharon landed on one hand. "Let me go --"
"What do you know of love, little girl?" Val wrapped her in a chokehold, legs scissored around Sharon's waist. Sharon panted into the floorboards. "Hmm?"
So much for waiting out La Contessa's tantrum. So much for escaping with any dignity. Sharon squeezed shut her eyes. "Enough. I know enough."
"Nothing, you mean." Val's hold changed. It never loosened, but seemed to slide and expand until her entire body was pressed to Sharon's. She combed her fingers through Sharon's loose hair; the touch was so gentle, so uncharacteristic, that Sharon shivered despite herself.
Sharon knew about love. She knew she loved Steve, knew he loved her back. She felt it, like a chandelier burning and breaking inside her ribcage, whenever she looked at him. She felt it, too, when he kissed her, his eyes closed and his hands gentle on her waist.
She knew, but none of that was any business of Val's. Val confused love -- which was precious, overwhelming and tender, as beautiful as Steve's smile -- with desire. Lust.
"Hmm, little girl?" Val's mouth was warm, lips slick with paint, against Sharon's ear.
"I am --" Sharon tucked and rolled, until she was free, until she was crouched, facing Val with her arms crossed. She shook off the chill that replaced the heat of Val's hold and narrowed her eyes.
Val lay on the floor, carelessly beautiful -- locks of disordered hair in her eyes, zipper opened to reveal her breasts, full as fruit and probably just as warm, spilling sidewise.
Sharon cleared her throat. "I'm three inches taller than you, little one."
Lips curving, Val pushed a white curl off her forehead. "They do grow you big over here, don't they?" Her smile showed sharp teeth, whose imprints still burned on Sharon's arms and neck. "Just like your Captain..."
"Don't talk about him."
Val shrugged. "Shall I talk about your boss, then?"
The memory closed Sharon's eyes. She'd been serving routine monitor duty one night on the helicarrier when the superiors' channel flickered into clarity, revealing Fury, barechested with the cigar in the corner of his grimace, standing behind a bent-over Val, one hairy hand on her buttocks, the other on her shoulder. He'd thrust to meet Val's backward arches and Sharon dropped the channel-changer in her haste to look away.
"Perhaps we should visit him together..." Val pushed herself up until she was braced on one arm, the catsuit shoved off her shoulders. "Nicky could use the company. He's very upset these days."
Sharon snorted. "Upset because of you, because --"
Val tossed her hair. "Because I love him and your Captain America? And yet it would be quite easy to resolve matters."
Leaning in, Sharon drew her hand back. She meant to smack Val, shut her up, she truly did. But Val moved, cat-smooth and -fast. Sharon's hand bounced off Val's waist, up to her shoulder; Val tilted to meet her, laughing as their foreheads cracked together, pushing Sharon onto her back.
"You really think you can help?" Val straddled Sharon's hips, palms skating up Sharon's sides, under her breasts.
"No," Sharon said. "No, not anymore."
Val bit her lower lip as she yanked down Sharon's zipper. "But you can, of course..."
Sharon opened her mouth -- to reply, or to protest, but Val's fingers curled over her breasts as Val's back curved over Sharon, and the kiss Val pressed into her felt less like a pause than it was a continuation of all Val's bending, curving, perfect movements.
Val kissed hard, sharply, her tongue sweeping as her cheeks hollowed and she suckled on Sharon's lip. Sharon was ready to cry out, bang her head against the floor, when her hands found Val's breasts. They were unexpectedly, grandly, heavy, the nipples already hard and scoring her palms; the angle was dizzyingly strange, all wrong and backwards, until, suddenly, it wasn't. It was right, and her hands were full, Val overspilling Sharon's best efforts, the weight of her, the friction, setting countless bonfires along Sharon's skin.
Val licked like a kitten at the corner of Sharon's lips, pushing against Sharon's hands, until, gasping, Sharon realized her smile matched Val's own. Their hips rocked together; the seam of the catsuit was thick against the burn tightening between Sharon's legs.
She knew this feeling, too, the breathless need to feel more, kiss harder, break free of her own skin. Every date with Steve ended like this, after kisses that looped and persisted; she associated this desperate burn with the sound of his departing feet.
Val pinched both her nipples and deepened the kiss; Sharon arched her back in response. She spread her legs against the burn, but it wasn't enough, so she braced one foot on the floor and pushed her hips against Val's.
"Greedy, greedy," Val murmured against Sharon's swollen mouth. She ticked her thumbs across Sharon's nipples and Sharon arched again. "You Americans are so --"
Sharon thrust again, riding the seam between her legs, grabbing the firm, muscular curve of Val's ass and repositioning herself. Val shifted, mouth on Sharon's collarbone now, teeth against the top of one breast. Sharon kept pushing up, raggedly, chasing a friction and heat she didn't have a name for, sensations that only sharpened and intensified when Val drew her teeth over one nipple.
*
"And, don' know about you, but -- eating pussy's more boring than church," Nick says, pausing the image before hitting fast-forward. He catches Bucky's eye and winks. "God's gift to the man who wants to get laid, sure, but boring as *hell*."
On the couch beside Nick, Bucky shifts restlessly.
"Only thing more boring'n doing it," Nick adds, hitting play once Val's head has stopped bobbing between Carter's legs, "is watching it."
Bucky's got his arms crossed loosely over his chest. He showed up at breakfast this morning in a plain undershirt and worn jeans, the metal arm exposed and shining like no big deal. Nick's proud of the kid for that; you wear your scars and the years -- white temples, Commie prostheses -- easily, if you're any kind of man at all.
"When you said you had info on Agent 13 --" Bucky shakes his head.
"This counts," Nick says. "Gotta know what you're dealing with."
Barnes rolls his eyes. Like the brat he'll never stop being.
"She loved Cap, same as you." Nick grasps Barnes's knee and squeezes. He doesn't let go. "You need to understand that."
"Uh-huh." Barnes doesn't shake off the touch; he does look down, then over at Nick from below his lashes. "It's understood. Turn it off."
"Nah, we're gettin' to the good part." Nick thumbs play as he slides his palm, easy-like and casual, up Barnes's thigh, fingers tracking the seam.
On the screen, Sharon -- red and damn near glowing from orgasm -- shakes back sweat-darkened hair and kneels between Val's legs. For her part, Val's in what used to be, once upon a time, one of Nick's favorite positions: braced on her elbows, hands kneading those fine, fine breasts, curved tummy sucked in. She knew how to take care of herself, his Val did.
Barnes sighs. "Fury..."
Without looking away, Nick slaps Barnes's leg, then squeezes hard, right at the crease of thigh. "Watch."
Carter's got two fingers inside Val. At Val's order, a third enters, and her elbow pistons as Val's head falls back, throat and unseeing eyes exposed to the ceiling-cam.
Bucky slides closer. His breath comes hot on Nick's neck.
Rocking his hand against the kid's erection, Nick grins. "Ready to bust a nut, huh? Me, too."
"Let me --" Bucky tugs at Nick's fly.
The graze of friction's almost enough to make Nick gasp like Carter did. He swallows against it and, once the fly's open, dodges right and flips, so he's standing, foot on the couch, pants around his thighs, and Bucky's sprawled below him.
"Good as y'are orally --" Nick switches his hips so his pants fall farther, nudges his boot against Bucky's knee to spread him wider, and tugs his cock from his boxers. "Think ol' Fury's in something of a more penetratin' mood."
Barnes shakes his head. Mulish to the last. "Not a girl, Sarge."
Nick laughs helplessly and squeezes off his balls. "Course you're not. Nearly pretty as one, always were, but --" He lowers himself over Bucky and licks open his mouth. "You stink just like a man."
Bucky tips his head back, allows the kiss and grasps Nick's arm with the metal hand. Nick rubs their pricks together until he gets the gasp -- low, bitten-off, but it counts -- he's been waiting for.
"And you'll bend over, just like a man." He bites Bucky's ear, sucks the hollow behind, and feels the kid shudder beneath him. He's got to act like he believes whatever he orders; he's always had to, but never more than now, had to let the confidence determine others' compliance.
Barnes is shitty excuse for a right-hand, Nick knows that much. He's smirking at Nick now, scooting back against the cushions and lifting his hips. He circles the metal arm around Nick's neck, robofingers cool and rough on Nick's throat, and hooks one leg around Nick's thighs. Bucky's eyes are dark; his refusal to obey and his offer of an alternative heat up Nick's gut and weigh down his balls, swelling his cock that much harder.
"Or, sure, you could fuck like a pansy."
Bucky laughs, low in his throat, the sound as dark as his eyes. Nick spits on his hand, steals the sticky slick pooling on the head of the kid's dick, and breaches him with two fingers.
Bucky gurgles, just once, as he spreads wider, cants higher, tightens his hold. Inside, he's burning, like they all do, ghosts and memories, Val's sweet come and Red Hargrove's curved dick. When Nick sinks inside, fucks his way in, Bucky makes another sound, nearly verbal, and thrusts to meet him. Nick pushes faster, chases away the hordes with every snap of his hips; Bucky matches, then outpaces him, then holds on and takes it, mouth wet on his throat as a babe's.
"And that," Val says from the screen; God, her accent used to be so much thicker, full-on Sophia Loren sexy wop, "is another meaning for 'love'."