Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

You went to him first.

You went to him, handed them your business card and I want to speak to Steve Rogers.

Honestly they almost threw you out with an extra hole in your head but then the man of the hour walked right in.

So now you’re here. Now you’re here, sitting across a gorgeous dining table with a ten-course meal laid out and honestly you’re surprised they didn’t tie your wrists to the arms of the chair while you watch him eat and take in the look of those baby blue eyes scanning you over.

He even brought you non-alcoholic rosé, when you said you didn’t drink.

So.

So.

You wanted to talk to me?

Yeah, I do. Thought you’d just sit me in your office, have a consultation.

I like breaking bread with new friends. Have a nice dinner, get the wine flowing — of course, that’s not gonna loosen your tongue, but we’ll forgive it.

Oh. Cool, I like being forgiven.

He laughs at that one and the room, strumming with tension, snaps into amusement. So do you, cracking a half smile on dark red lips, before swallowing down the lump of anxiety threatening to break through and destroy everything. You need this. You need this and you can’t let anything — not your nervousness, not your morals, not him — stop you. You need this and it needs to be done and if this is what justice is in this fucking city then so be it.

Well, sweetness, you’ve got my attention. You want to talk business or pleasure?

That one makes you laugh, a little sharp and a little cruel, and the curling smirk on his face gets a little furrowed because he hears it too — pain.

It could be both, you say finally, picking up the glass of rosé-that-wasn’t, if your reputation is as real as they say it is.

He lifts a bite of cheesecake into his mouth and lets it melt on his tongue while he watches you, somewhere between impressed and incensed. You know the look — you saw it the last time he met you in court, but you weren’t there as allies then. Never thought you’d come to me, he admits finally, sounding halfway bemused at the idea, but you’re full of surprises, aren’t you, Counsel?

You wince, or maybe smirk, eyes on the man before you.

It’s a game, a dance, a ruse, and the woman you thought you were thirteen months ago when you put four of Steve Rogers’s best men in jail for fifteen years — fifteen years longer than any District Attorney had ever managed to do before you, and you were just the rookie they handed a shit case to — is leagues different from the woman you are now, seated prim and proper in the lion’s den.

You’re not innocent. That’s not been your game for years — this life doesn’t leave room for innocence, it tears at you, leaves you tired and broken and ill.

Your colleagues learned to fear him a long time ago, the man before you. Captain America, leading the city, the country, the world into a new era of high tech crime all under his thumb. It’s a pretty shiny shield, the one that sits behind him, but mirrors are black on the other side and his soul is dark as coal.

You’re not an angel yourself, and this deal with the Devil isn’t for anyone but you.

I need someone taken care of.

So you come to me? I thought you were a lady of morals, Counsel.

Certain kinds of morals.

You can see him smile, see the way he raises his glass, the glimmer of malice and amusement in his eyes. So tell me. What’s the name?

You give it.

He’s not in the city, your target, but he will be. A Judge, an activist, real tough-on-crime-sweet-on-justice type of shit. You don’t tell him the reasons why, because those are yours, but you tell him the name. You tell him he’s a problem, you tell him he’s dangerous, you tell him you’ll pay to have him taken care of, you tell him you don’t want to practice in front of that black, black robe.

And he smiles like the Devil he is, watches you with a grin and drinks his whiskey in one last shot before slamming it down, Real woman of the law, aren’t you?

You said that when we met the first time.

He’s a hunter, you can see it in his eyes. That lion’s mane might be tamed right now but it won’t be for long and you’re playing with wild animals. The eyes on you are ice and daggers, daring you to do the one thing everyone in the office has been begging you not to do.

(Drop the charges, Rookie, the case is just to get your face in front of the judge.)

You upped the charges.

(Rookie, you don’t know what you’re dealing with, there’s other cases.)

You subpoenaed his phone records.

(Rookie, don’t make me drag you off this case!)

You won.

You had no witnesses and a jury you had to drag in from god-knows-where after you proved, over and over again, that he’d paid off the cohort in the courtroom. Finding people with nothing to lose and a desire to do their civic duty wasn’t harder than you thought — it was exactly as impossible as you expected.

But you did it.

That’s what you do, isn’t it? Push and push and fight, claw your fingers at the ledge and pull yourself up, you pay for your crimes in your blood, sweat and tears you pay for the things you could have done then and didn’t do.

You pay.

And sometimes, that payment bounces back.

And when it was all said and done, when the closing statements were delivered, when the Jury came back out and the Judge — hands shaking, mouth agape, eyes wide — read out the verdict no one expected, you… didn’t feel any better, did you? There was no justice for you in that room, just the searing glare of ice-blue eyes and the burning of your steel spine.

Real woman of the law, aren’t you?

First words he said to you, while the courtroom emptied out and you stood there, facing the man you’d just made an enemy of with your briefcase in your hand and your eyes aflame.

I did my job.

Did you? Is that what you think your job is?

My job is justice, unflinching and blind, Mr. Rogers. I don’t care how much power you have or how afraid you leave this city, I’m going to do my job.

You could always let justice turn a blind eye.

Yeah. I could, but that wouldn’t make this any fun, would it? Thank you for the win, Mr. Rogers — I’m sure I won’t get many more.

You leave him with a smile on his face and the scent of your perfume in his memories.

He leaves you with the pride of victory in your bones and a reminder that your strife could be worth it.

One day.

How do you plan to fill that pit, the one you tossed the corpses of your old self into? The one you let them claw up out of, to haunt you? Remind you?

You’re digging your own grave and you know it, but you won’t let Steven Grant Rogers be the first one to toss a handful of dirt over your corpse.

But now here you are.

In his dining room, enjoying dessert and some sort of after-meal coffee. In need of him…

This might almost have been a date, if not for the topic of conversation.

So. You want a Judge taken out. What if he’s already on my payroll?

Why would you keep a dead man in your pocket?

You like the sound of his laugh, and you don’t even have the excuse of wine to fall back on when it warms your core. Don’t admit it though, don’t say it aloud, don’t let him get an in. Be smart, cross your legs tighter, keep your eyes on the prize.

You’re so close to the finish line.

That’s a big favor you’re asking for, Counsel, I think you need to make it worth my while.

Worth your while?

I’m not a charity. And since you put the guy I usually use to handle these things behind bars for a few years—

You know I can get him out too.

That’s not payment, that’s putting things right.

You take a drink. Steady on, girl.

I’m leaving the DA’s office.

That stops him.

Oh that stops him good, and he looks fascinated. Interested. You’ve said something he can use as leverage and it’s not just about a job. That smirk on his face is smug and his eyes are darker and he has to know the impact that look has.

Can’t falter, don’t falter, don’t give in.

Am I allowed to ask why?

No.

You’ve done your research. You just don’t know why you’re thinking about it now. Steven Grant Rogers, “Captain America,” leader of a crime family that had too many names to stamp out, bolstered by a mad scientist, a military man through-and-through who turned New York into his own private base against whatever stood against his way.

Get in his good graces and you’re set for life. Get in his good graces and you’re safe, you’re protected, you’re good.

Get on his bad side and you only make that mistake once.

There are no second chances in this game, and here you are, asking for one.

So what? You leave the DA’s office, you leave yourself open to me — you think leaving New York is going to be the thing that stops me, Counsel?

No.

Then what?

Breathe. Steady.

I know you gave me that win on purpose — you could have taken out my last jury cohort. This isn’t about the four men… and you know I’ll get them out. This is something else, but I’m not here to ask about what or why.

He falters just briefly, like he’s surprised you knew, but the crack in his mask smooths itself over as soon as it forms and he’s back to watching you, nodding along in silence while you breathe and watch him and keep talking.

But even then. I got four of your guys in prison. And I know how your organization works — I subpoenaed the documents, remember? Your lawyers are good, but they’re not used to people asking the right questions. You want someone to seal up the cracks you need someone who actually knows what to look for.

You have more than his attention, you have his interest, and now he’s leaning in a little. Imperceptibly, but enough. Scanning over you from across the table, like he’s thinking how you managed to get so impertinent in the face of the likes of him but that’s the thing — when the only thing you have left to lose is your life, you’ll risk everything.

So what are you offering?

Breathe. Don’t. Stammer.

Myself.

The chair scrapes and suddenly there’s the clicking of guns, aimed and ready until his hand rises up and he stops them and he’s stalking towards you.

This is the lion’s den, sweetness.

The stakes are higher and you ought to be braver and he’s got your chin in his hand before you have a chance to react, dragging you to your feet. Do you know what you’re offering me, Counsel? Low and hissed and hungry, like those perfect teeth might be sinking into your throat in the next moment.

Oh, you have no idea.

You get me. On your payroll — you know. The offer you sent me a year ago.

You think it’s still open?

If it wasn’t, you wouldn’t have met with me.

The chuckle in your face makes your cheeks warm and you’re looking more flushed than you would like, the open shoulders of your dress suddenly feeling a lot more like a mistake the more you realize just what kind of meal he might make out of you tonight.

We might need to have a discussion about your workplace duties, Counsel.

You don’t notice the hand near your thigh until it’s too late, sliding up the soft fabric of your skirt until it’s squeezing your ass, until it’s jerking you towards him, until you’re pressed against his chest and the hand on your chin is now hooked around the back of your neck, thumb pushing your jaw until you’re forced to look at him. Won’t lie, when I woke up this morning, I certainly didn’t think my day would end like this, having your pretty little body in my arms, and you can look as indignant as you want but he’s got the upper hand and you only thought you were two steps ahead of him.

You think I haven’t thought about what it’d be like to put you in your place, Counsel? You’ve got a smart mouth — I wanna know what else it can do.

He doesn’t give you a chance to use that mouth to lash at him, lips sliding over yours, swallowing that indignant yelp with a punishing kiss. Nipping at the plushness of your lower lip until you open your mouth and yield to him with a sigh of reluctant surrender, let his tongue slide past that barrier for him to explore. He’s got his fingers wound through your hair, just a little too tight and whether the whimper in your chest is because of the pain or because of the want, he doesn’t care.

Knew you’d be sweet, Counsel… softly, when he pulls back to look at you, take a look at those love-swollen lips and your ruined lipstick, the pretty way you pant at him already, the heat burning your cheeks. Pay no attention to the slick warmth between your thighs, pay no attention to the way he makes you burn already, pay no attention to how your fingers have curled into the lapel of his coat to hold yourself steady, pay no attention to how you suddenly miss the pressure of his lips.

All that smart-talk and now you’re quiet, Counsel? F’I knew it just took a kiss to get you to shut up, I would’ve done that at trial, he’s purring in your ear, soft and sweet and you should push at his chest, so uncurl your fingers girl and push.

I didn’t say I was selling my body, there’s your harshness, and there he is, laughing at you again, the grip on your hair jerking your head back until you’re looking into those dagger-cold eyes again.

You don’t make the rules here, Counsel, I do, and you need me more than I need you. So if you want to make sure your Judge can’t start wreaking havoc on your career… you might want to get used to readjusting it for me. I promise I’ll make you feel nice, if you let me…

And if I don’t?

Then I take what I want and I don’t feel bad for not holding up my end of the bargain. Your choice, Counsel, you cum willingly and I’ll give you everything you want. Don’t, and it’ll hurt you more than it hurts me.

That’s not a threat, that’s a promise, and suddenly you’re more scared than you ever thought you’d be, wondering if you’ll need to sell another part of your soul to take him down after. How much of yourself will you put up as collateral to get justice for the wrongs you were never able to correct?

You’re afraid.

Oh sweetness, you’re afraid.

Here? Now?

No, Counsel, we’re gonna do this right, aren’t we? You wanna be in bed with me, I’ll take you to bed with me. Come on, say it. Say the word.

Say no. Say no, rail and fight, stamp your heels into the expensive leather of his shoes, jam your knee into the sensitive between his legs, scream and yell and tell him you will never let another man take advantage of you again to help you reach your goals. Do it. Do the thing you swore you would do the next time a man like him — men who think they can take anything from anyone, men who think they own the world and the women in it, men who think you aren’t strong enough to fight back — propositioned you just like this.

You’re selling your soul to get rid of a man just like this.

But that’s coiling heat in your core that wasn’t there the last time, was it? That’s want. That’s the realization that you like the way this predatory smile feels, that you like the way this one wants you. You’re not her, not scared and alone and helpless. You could fight back and run and maybe escape if you were lucky.

You could choose.

He’s let go of your hair to stroke your cheek with the backs of his fingers, soft and sweet, You gonna give me an answer, Counsel, or am I gonna have to take it?

Say something. Say no. Scream. Say no say no say no say— Yes.

It’s a whisper. A desperate, soft whisper. A helpless, lonely whisper. It’s enough.

He sweeps you around until you’re pressed with your back against his unyielding chest, feeling him flex with every movement, broad arm wrapped around your shoulders from the front. All of you are dismissed, and that’s when you remember there were others in the room with you. Others who just watched you concede to becoming Captain America’s newest plaything and the burn on your cheeks is more shame than lust. You pull at his arm briefly, futilely, earning a tighter hold for your efforts and a whispered don’t make me choke you, before you are half-walked, half-dragged out of the dining room.

The walk to his room is slow and agonizing as you’re pulled along, barely struggling but barely helping at the same time, tears sliding down your cheeks as you come to terms with what’s going to happen next — no one is going to save you tonight, no one’s going to interrupt and drag you out, this is your job and this is your place and here you are.

No one speaks. There’s no sound but the steady tap of your heels and his shoes on fine marble. Even your sobs are silent, even your breathing is muffled, until the stairs are traversed and the faintest click of a lock turning opens the door to the rest of your life.

You made a deal.

Time to pay.

Sit on the bed.

You move as if in a trance, and he watches your face, the hint of waterproof mascara failing to do its job, the smudged ruby red of your lipstick. Don’t give me that look, you knew what you were signing up for when you walked into this house, Counsel.

His hands are gentler than you’d expect, when he wipes away the streaks your tears leave down your pretty cheeks, coaxing you to look up at him, We’ll set ground rules later. Tonight? I wanna see if I can get that mouth of yours to beg for me.

It won’t, you snap without thinking, knifeblade sharp and cruel, ready for a fight again. He promised you that once, in a hiss you thought you’d misheard but no, you heard him just fine and now if he thinks he can quench your fire and have you pleading just because you sold your body for the prospect of revenge then he’s wrong.

Thing is, he laughs like that’s a challenge, and the hand holding your chin so gently is wrapped around your throat before you know it, silencing your voice with just the right application of pressure. I can do this all night, Counsel. Do you think you can last that long?

Fear. Anger. Indignation. You are fury made flesh and he is manipulating you with just the barest press of his palm and sliding over you, until you’re laid out there on soft sheets and he’s looming over you, splaying that big hand out and sliding it down your throat, over your chest, feeling the ruching of the fabric under his palm. You wrapped yourself up like a present for me, didn’t you sweetness?

The change in nickname isn’t lost on you but here you are, glaring up at him while he smiles so beatifically it leaves your blood boiling and your skin steadily warming. The rise and fall of your chest is hypnotic, every angry breath a swear you don’t utter, every inhale your protests dying in your throat. What can you say, what would you say, right now? There’s nothing that can change the way he looks at you, or the way his eyes flicker from ice to blue fire the more he takes stock of the pretty little thing he’s about to start sharing his bed with.

Fuck, you’re beautiful, that one shocks you, but not as much as the sudden rush of cold air when he tears the emerald green fabric of your dress down and reveals the soft swells of your breasts, nipples peaked from the sudden cold.

You don’t get much time to gasp, just something soft and strangled before he turns your voice to whimpers, wrapping lips around that pebbled tip and laving his tongue over sensitive flesh. Where are your words now, Counsel, while he threatens the softness of your chest with the scrape of his teeth, when he slides his hands over the round curve of your thighs and parts your legs so he can press himself between them, so he can press himself against you? Where is the knife-dagger of your wit to protest each soft, suckling kiss to your skin, each press of his fingers like he could just squeeze his ownership of you into the plushness of your hips, into the sweet swell of your ass? What do you say to the dirty little thrust of his hips as he bucks with his own burning need, reminding you just how much this is for his pleasure as he will make it for yours.

You would, could, should push him off and instead what are you doing? Curling your fingers into the silk-smooth of his comforter, desperate to writhe out of your own skin away from the burning pressure between your thighs, the foreign, unfamiliar heat you suddenly feel like you might be craving.

Anyone ever touch you like this before me, Counsel? Warm breath splays across your skin when he questions you, eyes fixed on yours and he waits. Answer him, answer him, tell him he’s nothing, tell him you’ve had better, lie and destroy that ego, lie lie lie lie—

Nnnh—no.

He looks like you’ve just told him the best news of his life, eyes wide and blown with lust, Oh is that right? You’re saying no one’s ever touched you this good? Or just no one’s ever touched you at all?

You don’t have to answer. The furious blush on your cheeks? The way your eyes slide away from his? The way you writhe, trying to press your thighs together to relieve the pressure and finding the effort futile? If the man’s grin could get any wider, it would, right now. Oh sweetness, we’re going to have so much fun exploring your body together…

He pulls back just enough to take a look at you, already flushed and writhing and overwhelmed and if he could take a picture of this right now he would. He’ll save that for later though. Tonight? Tonight is just the two of you, and his hands are back to your skirt, pushing the tight fabric up over your round hips and revealing the lace of your panties… just before he rips them off, to the sound of your indignant yelp Steve!

You’re going to call me Captain, sweetness, we’re not close enough to use my name just yet.

No. No you’re not, and he’s not sure you’ll ever be — he rather likes the idea of hearing you whimper out his title when he gets you desperate and wanting.

He touches, slow and steady, watching you try to jerk away and tutting at you when you do, fingers at your delicate nerves like an assault on your pleasure. Bite your lip, bite back the moans, whine at him like he’s wounded you, You’re so wet, sweetness, you’re so desperate for me aren’t you, as he palms his cock to relieve the pressure on himself. You’re going to beg before he does and he’s patient, he’ll last the night.

St-stop it, it’s too— he shushes you ahtahtaht and rests his free hand on your mound, holding you down so his probing, inspecting fingers can take stock of the velveteen plushness of your delicate cunt. It’s too much, too much and you want to scream the moment he presses one finger into you, already overwhelmed, already so tightly wound the barest touches are unraveling you steadily.

You’re such a pretty thing, all desperate and needy, sweetness. You wanna cum already, don’t you? So busy, never gave anyone the chance to fuck that stuck-up bitch right out of you, did they? It’s almost pitying, isn’t it, the way he talks, hums at you while you’re reduced to a whining, whimpering mess so soon, so desperate for the release he’s on the edge of denying you, feeling you flexing around his finger and then the second leaping jolt of your body when another joins the inspection. Taking careful stock of the pretty cunt he owns now, and he’s careful to curl his fingers just right as he seeks the spot to hammer just to get you to scream.

You don’t, not yet, but that’s okay too, because he sees the way you take desperate hold of the sheets, the way your eyes roll backwards just slightly, the way you strain against his heavy hand to arch your back. Gotta tell you, sweetness, I imagined you under me a thousand and one ways but this one, right now? Tops the list. You ready to beg for me?

Do it. Do it and end your pleasurable torment. Do it and be released from the pressure, the coiling want. Surrender to him. Let him have you.

The white hot rush of your orgasm is not unexpected to him, his curling, cruel fingers having found the sweetness of your g-spot, but  — you, too busy climbing the ranks to think of your own pleasure, too busy demanding your due from an unjust world explore your own warmth beyond that of a memory of a college hookup you would rather forget — you left breathless and wanton in the heat of the explosion he draws out of you, mewling something desperate and pleading against your own will and the song of it fills his ears like it’s all he’s ever wanted. There it is, and I thought we’d be here all night. A thumb flickers over the nerves at your entrance and you practically jump, something between a yelp and a moan escaping your lips.

First one’s just a treat, sweetness. Now on, you cum when I say you do, understand?

You nod.

Oh you nod, and you are lost, here and now. Sensitive and broken and there is so little of that steel spine here, writhing in his sheets and oh you don’t know the things you do to him.

Think you can go again, sweetness? He’s purring, smug, twisting fingers stretching you slowly, muttering under his breath about how fucking tight you are around his fingers, how good you’re going to feel for him, and the smugness on his face is slowly fading into a dark consternation, brows furrowed like he’s somehow angry at you for being plush and delicate and fuckable.

You’re almost begging him to stop, and yet the pressure is building again, the twisting, coiling heat that leaves you breathless and mewling and he looks like he might be trying to immortalize this moment forever. Say it, sweetness. Say you need me. Beg me for my cock.

That’s it.

That’s what you need to, you need to beg, you need to give in. No more fighting, no more arguing no more —

Please…

Please what, sweetness, come on now. You got a way with words. The snarl is so barely contained.

Please, Captain, please just…

What do you need, sweetness? The fingers are relentless, the buzz in your nerves is overwhelming, you can barely even hear yourself talk, much less him.

Please just fuck me, Captain, I need your cock! It’s hurried and it’s crude and it’s desperate and it’s exactly what he wants as just another wall crumbles and you fall off your pedestal right into his arms.

He’s barely able to resist the buck of his hips, the need to be inside you, the knowledge that you are soft and velvet and you could be all over his senses just like this.

When did he free his cock? You don’t know, you just know it’s practically salvation when he sinks into you, when he fills you like you’ve been desperate for and Oh sweetness… pours from his lips just as you hiss out something like praise right back at him.

You’re so full and he’s so gentle, at first, like you’re made of crystal in his arms, like the slow shifting of his hips might have you shattering underneath him if he’s not careful. Cradling you, even, sliding your legs around his narrow hips as he leans in and takes a hungry kiss from your wanting, whimpering mouth.

Love this look on you, all wrapped around me, whispered low and slow into your ear, sweetness you have no idea how good you look…

Melt into those compliments, melt into him, because the way he’s holding you is divine and you can feel him so deep in you it’s making your head spin. When did your arms end up around him? When did you start clinging to him like an anchor, start winding your fingers through his hair, start leaving the marks of your nails on his back to the sound of his own needy groaning?

He noses your cheek and leaves a mark of ownership on your neck with hungry lips, knowing you’ll bruise a beautiful flower right over your pulsebeat and continuing the steady assault on your nerves, cunt-first.

Harder. Faster. More.

And oh, sweetness, you do shatter.

You shatter all around him, you shatter into something divine and rapturous, full of him and filled with him and he cums so deep inside you as you do, still fucking you through your joined climax, hips rutting and breath hitching and nearly furious at you for the way his vision whites out too, the way he feels like he can Never get enough and so he hisses that at you like an accusation while his thoughts reorient back to reality, back to smugness, back to the control you took from him while he tried to strip you of yours.

In the end, as he pulls away from you and sinks to the side of you, watching your sweet expression as you return to the reality of your new situation, he is satisfied… thoroughly.

Oh yeah, I think we can make this a working relationship, Counsel.

Chapter Text

So there are benefits to this life.

That’s the first thing you think of as you’re shown into your new office, taking in the sights. It beat having a closet with a single bare bulb overhead like the DA’s office handed you but then again, that’s the perks of private practice for you. Well—

Private practice when you’re working as the King of New York’s personal whore General Counsel. Conflict of interest? Probably, but who was going to tell you it was unethical, the Ethics Commission your owner boss had in his pocket?

No.

This is it.

This is your space, your home, your domain. This is the kingdom you’ve earned, this corner office with its floor-to-ceiling windows and soaring view of the city, this palace of steel and glass and power and all it cost you was letting Captain America mark you his Was it worth it, Counsel?

The hand on your shoulder is heavy and you don’t bother turning your head as he slides it down, over your arm, standing with his chest to your back and looming — a good bit taller than you even in your heels — over your delicate frame. You tell me, Captain, keeping the title now “designated” for him… By him.

Gotta say, sweetness, with a dip of his lips to your shoulder, affectionate as a lover except for the tightening of his grip, the reminder that he could and would impose his strength upon you, I think I’m going to enjoy having you under my thumb…

Just your thumb? You’ll never learn.

You never have to, if you keep him chuckling against your ear, just like that.

And the rest of me. What do you say, Counsel, going to let me christen this office with you?

How could I ever say no?

His arm around your waist could almost be sweet, almost as sweet as the kiss he presses to your neck, almost as sweet as the hum against your skin. Almost.

You know. You know and you can see it, the cold cruelty reflected back at you from those gorgeous windows, the curve of his fingers into your skin, the way he steps in and pushes you forward, pressing you between bulletproof glass and the unyielding stone of his body. How seriously is anyone gonna take you, Counsel, if they all know what you really do around here?

If they don’t already, Captain, they’re blind.

Very.

You’re ready for the looks. Watching, sizing you up, observing. No one goes from enemy to inner circle so fast and you know it. The whispers can stay behind your back but you have ears and eyes and really? What can they do? Tell you off, call you lesser, mock you?

There’s nothing they can say you haven’t said to yourself.

No.

You belong here, whether you like it or not. This is your domain and this is your dungeon, in this office with its perfect view. You belong at this desk, heavy and dark and meant to intimidate. You belong in this space, where power is absolute and absolutely yours. You belong on your knees too, looking up at him sitting at your by his mercy desk chair like it’s his very own throne (and of course it is), with his hand under your chin and his thumb pressed against your lips. Nice of you to get all dressed up and pretty for me, Counsel.

Glare at him.

Go on.

He deserves it.

He’ll just laugh at you, but glare at him anyway, for you have no other weapons to draw. Turn your eyes into daggers and will him dead instead, see if that works.

It won’t, but there’s catharsis in the imagining.

Oh, don’t look so angry, sweetness. I know you enjoy it. Don’t you, dressing up in those tight skirts and this lipstick? You want them wanting you — I’m just the only one who gets to give it to you. My own personal fantasy, giving you what you need.

Whatever he knows of need, you resent that it is yours. The nights you’ll spend held down and turned into mewling softness, the mornings you’ll wake to attend to his demands. You are all too aware of the way he manipulates your body like an instrument, turns all that you are into something strange and unfamiliar and meant for his pleasure. Your pleasure included.

Just like now, as he thumbs your lower lip and plays with the softness of your skin, a faraway look in his eyes, the way he imagines your mouth and the things it can do. Has done.

So glare.

Glare at the wistful smirk on his face, the warmth of his touch the way he coaxes you closer and leans in, You have no idea how good you look on your knees, Counsel.

Don’t say a word. Just glare.

Of course, there’s plenty you want to say, ought to say, would say, but there’s a malice in his eyes and a coldness in yours and this is the dance, the game, the ruse and he may have changed the rules but you are sure-footed and stubborn.

No. Open your mouth further but don’t speak. Let your lips curve into a kiss around the pad of his thumb, let your tongue lap at him so delicately, encourage him to inspect the plushness you offer further, take control of the thing he has made a commodity of and watch him. Watch his eyes darken, watch him shift in his seat and return your glare, watch him struggle to wrench control over you back to his side as you have the audacity to tease.

Am I interrupting?

Attention snaps to the side, to the smug drawl emanating from the door and suddenly Steve Rogers’s hand is no longer at your lips and suddenly he’s turned around and facing the interloper somewhere between furious at the interruption and bright with surprise, What the hell are you doing here?

Got let out early. Your new toy’s doing her job — that her?

Show some respect, Buck. You ought to thank her.

Thank her? She’s the fucking reason I’m—

He stops.

He stops because you, bored of staying on your knees like a good little pet, are now standing, unfolding yourself from submission to take your own command, eyes flickering lazily to the man at the door and ignoring the fury in his gaze.

Technically you’re the reason, Mister Barnes, I’m just the one who made sure people knew. You did your job, whatever the consequences, whatever the hate he flings your way, and that needs to be enough.

He opens his mouth to speak again, attention and accusations on you, finger pointed, and Steve Rogers, your enemy and your captor all at once half-explodes Enough!

The world stops.

Freezes, all eyes shifting slow as glaciers to the center, towards the King on his throne and the proclamations he makes and Steve Rogers, King of New York, looks vaguely like he might commit a murder here and now and you’re a little surprised, aren’t you?

Of course you are.

Enough. Bucky, she’s mine. And you, Counsel. Don’t antagonize him.

You don’t speak in your defense. You know better, you might insist, but that’s quiet shock written all over your face, all over the part of your lips and the quirk of your brow, all over the cross of your arms and the glance between King and Confidant.

Fine. You got orders, Cap? Bucky breaks the silence and you can tell he’s antsy to hear a no, tense as a coiled spring and looking like he might launch into space at any moment, racing to destinations unknown.

Hell no, you just got out. Go home, your girls are waiting for you.

Relief.

And so he does, and so Steve Rogers fixes those icy blues onto you as you make short work of the walk to the door, closing and locking it this time.

When did you get them out?

I told you I would.

Yeah, but when, and how? I thought they were in for fifteen, it’s been just over—

I pulled strings. Made phone calls while you were… prepping my new role. DA’s office isn’t happy about it but it’s better than having a pipe bomb underneath my replacement’s car. You have influence, and the parole board signed off on it just fine.

Why didn’t you tell me you were doing it?

That makes you pause, stock-still at the door. Steady on, girl, watch the pattern of the wood, swirling and dancing, linking in around itself, whirling into the maelstrom of your thoughts as you swallow hard and breathe through your nose to push down the regret. Again.

There’s no going back.

I told you at dinner, two weeks ago. I can get your men out, so I did.

You told me that as part of the offer. I didn’t expect it on your first day here.

He’s standing. You can feel it, the way his voice rises as he does, eyes boring a hole into your shoulder and all you can do is tense, stand just a little taller, a little straighter.

With all due respect, Captain, I do my job. I told you what I planned to do and I did it.

You do your job. That’s what you’re calling it?

I’m holding up my end of the bargain.

And therefore waiting for me to hold up mine.

So glad you haven’t forgotten, Captain.

We’re working on it. You never told me why you wante—

You cut him off before he can finish that, glad the door isn’t reflective so he can’t see the way your eyes become hazy, the way you chew on the inside of your lip, the way cold fury replaces the blood in your veins and looks like it might pour out of you at any time. You don’t need to know that.

You work for me now, Counsel, I have a right to know—

No. You don’t. Turn around. Turn around and face him, hide how surprised you are that he’s walked closer, standing just a foot away from you now. Hide the way it makes you feel to see that furrow in his forehead, the cold-dark in his eyes. Hide how you suddenly want to apologize, want to insist you wanted to make him happy, want to show him loyalty.

Guilt is useless.

It’s all lies, anyway. It’s always lies, those soft looks, those worried frowns, those searching gazes. You have no use for his mock worry, no use for his information-fishing. There’s no need, is there, sweetness, to humanize yourself? Sympathy is for those who deserve it.

Correction, Captain, I work under you, remember? I know my place.

Counsel— it’s a growl and you’re playing a dangerous game but so is he and he has… no idea, what it’s like, does he? No idea what the board really looks like, the spikes scattered across the field, men like him never do.

No. You may engender loyalty in the rest of your Syndicate, but we’re not friends and you don’t need to know about me, don’t need to understand me. I don’t need you pretending you care about what I want or why I want it, and don’t waste your energy because I’m not in the business of wasting time.

Don’t look at him.

Don’t look at him, don’t look at the way his mouth hangs open, don’t look at the way those eyes flicker with pain, don’t look at the way his fingers flex like he wants to hold you it’s all lies, sweetness.

Don’t forget who he is.

Don’t forget what he’s made of you.

That’s it. Set your jaw just like that, meet his eyes just like that, remember who you are and remember what you did.

It hurts, doesn’t it? It hurts all over again, fresh pain spilling from the wounds you tried to patch up almost ten years ago now. It hurts like a sucking chest wound where you’ve ripped out your heart and maybe you have, to bury it somewhere in the woods, just to forget the reasons why.

It hurts.

It hurts and you push past it, push past him, push past the open-mouthed way he stares at you, too frozen to think about anger and too wounded to realize he is.

You really think highly of me, Counsel. An observation, a pain, clothed in sarcasm and thinly veiled in threats and he is behind you again, looking at the door as you look outside, facing escapes and shackled all at once.

I don’t need to think highly of anyone.

When did he move towards you again? When did he get close enough to grab your arm, spin you around, press you into his chest? He holds your throat in a punishing grip, daring you to speak again before he cuts off what little he’s given you. Boring into you, walking you back against the wall and holding you there. One day someone’s gonna knock you off your high horse, Counsel, and I look forward to being the one who does it…

He’s so close. Face-to-face, nostrils flaring, jaw pulsing with tension and all you can do is look back at him. Look back at him and hold his wrist, meet his snarl with yours and try to pry his bruising fingers from your throat before he leaves you with yet more marks to remember him by.

I like you, Counsel, low against your lips, where he swallows whatever pathetic whimpers he lets you make with the sharp drag of teeth on your lower lip, a warning and a promise all at once, But you keep speaking to me like that and I’m gonna take a lot more pleasure in putting you in your place, understand?

As if he wouldn’t already, isn’t that right?

He lets you go with a huff, watching you sink on jellied legs, holding where he did like you might be able to keep the bruises from blooming on your skin if you convince yourself it was your own hand and the satisfaction in his eyes at your wide-eyed helplessness is something cruel to behold.

Enjoy the rest of your day, Counsel. I’ll see you tonight.

Steven Grant Rogers leaves as your phone rings, letting you scramble as he unlocks the door. He doesn’t look behind him, doesn’t see the wide-eyed shock on your face, doesn’t see the name on the caller ID.

He doesn’t hear your voice shake when you whisper out a rasping Hello?

And he doesn’t hear the warm honey pouring from the other line, It’s been a while, Sunshine.

Chapter Text

You met Andy Barber fresh from the ashes of his divorce, escaping the gossip and scandal and pain of his past life only to dive into the gossip and scandal and pain of politics. Senatorial campaign, in need of an aide and a law student desperate to do more for the people than hours in clinics and mock trials. Hungry for something grassroots, angling for the impossible.

A match. Whether made in Heaven or Hell feels irrelevant now, long ago as it was.

It was then. This… is now.

Hey Sunshine, didn’t think you’d be able to make it.

He looks the same. Keeps the same beard. Same hair. It’s uncanny and familiar and safe all at once and you slide into the booth with your purse by your side and feel genuinely smiley for the first time in a long time.

It’s been a while since I heard that name.

Yeah? It’s been a while since I got to use it.

The silence is heavy, unwelcome, unwieldy, a reminder of the space between what was and what is.

How’re you doing? Last I heard you were making a name for yourself taking down the…

He trails off, eyes fixed on the slide of your gaze, the sudden interest in a drink menu you wouldn’t normally touch, the tremor of your lips. A man doesn’t serve as Assistant District Attorney for the many years he has without picking up tells.

Sunshine.

Andy…

It’s a warning, a plea, a… confession, all at once, and all the dogged determination in the world can’t hold against the break in your voice, in your control. You’ve cried more in the past few weeks than you can recall and now here he is, soulful eyes and a worried expression and he’s never hugged you really, but suddenly you might want it just that much more.

Don’t be an idiot.

It’s dangerous, your stress, and you know it.

Dangerous enough to send you into the arms of the next safe thing — this is why you don’t do this, isn’t it, this reaching out bit, but no advocacy group on the planet is going to save you from yourself today.

I saw… I saw you win that case. Pretty brutal, standing up to the Syndicate, and getting what you did. He steamrolls past the way you wince, his thumb on that metaphorical bruise and pressing, the Prosecutor’s dogged determination demanding answers, I have a friend in the office, he was convinced you’d be climbing the ranks.

Every word is a twist of the knife, couched in quiet concern, gentle admonition, a warm hug in a smoky tenor and you want to tell him everything, you want to break down in his arms and tell him every word, every buried piece of you he never learned, everything that’s led you to this.

You don’t.

You know better than to trust him too. No one’s going to take care of you but you so instead you shake your head and wave it off and Decided going into the private sector was the better option — one big win doesn’t really make up for the stress, you know.

Private sector. That’s what you’re calling the SHIELD Syndicate now? C’mon, Sunshine…

Look. It’s the Syndicate’s New York, when he made the offer it was… safer than saying no. It’s a cushy position anyway, and I didn’t want anyth—

He doesn’t believe you. He doesn’t believe you and you’re digging a hole trying to explain your way out of it so you just… shut up, shaking your head, It’s not important. I’m fine. I’m more curious about you — what year is it now, your fourth? What are you doing in New York?

The deflection works, but the look on his face is obvious — you’re not getting out of this so easily. He gives in for now, just for now, for you.

Almost fifth, gearing up for re-election. Had a meeting up here… about the organized crime situation for both states, and I remembered you were in the area.

Oh. You… it’s been a while since we talked, you remembered?

You expect me to forget you, Sunshine?

That stops you in your tracks, or whatever road your mind had been racing on, thoroughly not enjoying the defensive you’ve been on since you met with Steve, constantly under watch and waiting for yet one more shoe to fall on you.

That’s fear, sweetness.

Andy…?

You were the best campaign aide I had — I told you then too, I would have made you Chief of Staff if you’d let me.

It’s a good save. A clever save, and you want to believe it more than anything, want to believe it was all business and no pleasure because the alternative makes your nails bite into the table and want to turn tail before he can say another word and he… sees that panic flicker over your face so keenly it’s almost embarrassing.

You’re not used to this.

You’re not used to the warmth of his eyes when he searches your face for the answers you can’t give voice to. You’re not used to the way he reaches for your hand and rests it over your fingers, curling around your palm like he might actually keep you close and keep you safe and keep you free of the demons you made a part of yourself too.

Sunshine, why does his voice have to be so soft, why does it have to sound like molten honey on your senses, why does he have to say your name like it’s the very definition of the word hope, If you’re not safe…

No. No you’re not, tell him tell him the truth, tell him you’re atoning for the girl you could not protect tell him you aren’t worth it tell him this is your penance tell him you signed a death warrant tell him tell him tell him.

Andy, really. I’m fine. It’s a good job.

It’s a shit lie.

He drops it. Drops it just long enough for a waiter to finally come by, for his hand to leave yours while he talks through the wine menu. Drops it long enough for you to check your phone, realizing with horror that you must have silenced it absentmindedly sometime on your way here.

Ten missed calls.

All from Steve.

And one text, stamped from just five minutes ago.

[SMS] Either you pick up your phone or I pick you up, Counsel.

The next one comes right before your eyes, a picture of a map and a GPS pin. Your location.

You glance up at Andy, still talking to the waiter about the small plates options, feign a smile and Go ahead and choose, you have better taste than me, and return to staring at the picture and the three dots at the bottom of your screen, waiting to see his next message.

[SMS] Make your choice.

The haptic feedback of your keyboard feels like an electric shock with every letter, hurried fingers until you manage to tap out something that won’t immediately put the man in front of you in the crosshairs of the most dangerous organization in New York.

You can’t do that to him. You can’t.

[SMS] I’m at a dinner with a friend.

[SMS] And since I know there’s no emergencies pressing, I’d like my time, thank you.

You have the good sense to set it next to you this time, watching your screen light up with whatever furious response he sends next, glancing over only occasionally every time another one comes through. Don’t let him control you. Don’t let him think you’re at his beck and call.

You’re not.

You’re free, you’re free and you’re going to prove it.

Sunshine? What’s going on?

His voice cuts through the haze of panic like a knife and you swear you don’t mean to jump but you do and there’s no denying what he notices, eyes narrow and lips turned down in a sharp scowl, Sunshine…?

You are not that girl. You cannot be that girl, never again.

Steel. Steel yourself, flash him a smile, take a sip of the ice water left in front of you while you’d been checking your phone, reset yourself. Steady. Steady on.

Don’t let them know.

Nothing, nothing, just the boss — let him know I was busy.

Why is he texting you after hours? The Syndicate can’t be that busy.

He’s too watchful for your own good. Probably just making sure I’m staying out of trouble.

Are you?

Are you calling yourself trouble, Senator?

You like this. You can handle this, the trading of jokes, the crooked way he smiles. His eyes are a little more distant than you remember but you can still see them sparkle softly when he suppresses a laugh, lighting up properly when the joy reflects in them.

Briefly, you wonder when the last time he really laughed was.

By the time dinner is over, his hand, warm and steady, is back on yours as you talk — and for a moment you almost enjoy the way he runs his thumb over your knuckles absently, like he’s making careful appraisal of each one. Could use your skills for the re-election campaign, you know.

Really? You’ve got a gorgeous approval rating, what are you afraid of?

Not having my good luck charm on the staff.

Andy…

I’m dead serious, Sunshine, you ran that ship. You were what, a 2L? Rising 3? You had canvassing down to a science. We need that energy down on the Hill.

The curve of his fingers is a little tighter now, squeezing yours, like proof of his earnestness and oh, you want to keep believing him. You need to keep believing him.

There’s so much in New York I have to get done first. And besides, you know me. I want a life on the bench.

Justice Sunshine, and it sounds absurd when he uses your nickname and it sounds so real when he uses your nickname and in the warm smoke of his voice those contradictions can live together all at once.

That’s the one. Closest you’ll see me to Washington is when I’m appointed to the Supreme Court. It’s a dumb, arrogant, silly joke but it’s the same one you used to make with him over drinks, teasing him about his political goals and making him promise to “go easy on you” at your eventual Senate confirmation hearing.

It’s the one that makes him crack that too-beautiful crooked smile while he takes a sip of his drink — hiding the curve of his lips behind the rim of a heavy glass.

Well. If you ever decide to ditch—

Ever decide to ditch what?

The world moves in slow motion: hearing the low growl from behind you; Andy Barber looking up and rising to his feet, his hand slipping from yours with just the ghost of his comfortable touch to assure you; Steve Rogers coming into view as you turn, flanked by the not-entirely-unfamiliar faces of two of his enforcers — it looked like Wilson and Banner had been selected this evening — and the sudden pressure of knowing you’ve done something terribly, terribly wrong.

You stood me up, Counsel. Steve’s voice is a threat, a half-drawl as you stand up and face him, Andy right behind you, Something wrong with taking my phone calls?

She was busy, the sound of Andy’s voice is a balm to your soul and fuel to Steve’s fire, the muscle in his jaw jumping as he grits his teeth and resists the temptation to throw the first punch — you can see the fingers of his right hand curling into a fist, can’t you? The slow curve, the watching, wondering if you’ll make the right choice now that someone has chosen to try to lead you astray.

And who the fuck are you? If he can’t get you to respond, he’ll get something from the man talking for you, eyes trained on him like he’s debating whether his own frustration will make this interloper turn to nothingness and return you to his arms where you rightfully belong.

Do you? Rightfully belong?

Senator Andy Barber. The title practically knocks the wind out of Steve’s sails and you can see it — he may be the Captain here, King of New York, ruler of his domain but he’s not stupid enough to openly attack a man with connections beyond the Syndicate’s web of influence. It’s a comfort and it’s not, all at once.

The room is still, vibrating with tension, the two men staring daggers at one another and you caught in the middle. I worked on Senator Barber’s campaign when he first ran for election, you manage out in some vain hope it might explain and mollify, only to be thoroughly disappointed — and judging by the way Banner winces, only to dig your grave further.

 We’re talking about this later, Counsel. You’re coming home.

And what gives you the right to give her orders? You really are going to have to look back at Andy and beg him to not make this worse. You really are going to have to let him see your face, see that you’re afraid, sweetness. He’s not going to let you go easy and this should not terrify you as much as it does.

Senator Barber. It’s fine. Something must have come up, turning to face his burning eyes, until his face softens like he’s seeing you for the first time. And is he? Is he seeing how you just need him to let it go, let you go, drop the protectiveness and step back?

He has to, because he does, nodding before he grabs his coat and glances to the host station. If you say so, Sunshine. Take care of yourself. He doesn’t press, not knowing when he’s beat but knowing when you don’t want him to. When you’re not safe.

And Steve Rogers offers you his hand to walk you out.

And just what the hell did you think you were doing!?

Oh, and you control my time off the clock now too?

He dragged you back home.

No. Not to your apartment, that sanctuary away from all this you’d been allowed to keep as part of the “deal.” His home, the bedroom where you signed yourself away, the space he unraveled you and left you tangled in your new life.

He dragged you back home, in the grim silence of the backseat of his car and you waited. Waited for the inevitable explosion, the one prefaced by Wilson’s nervous looks and Banner’s cautious stare.

This explosion, where he rounds in on you, where livid is still too tame a term.

Meeting with a Senator? Ignoring my calls? I told you, you were mine tonight.

And I told you I had plans.

After I told you that you were mine, Counsel.

Okay. That’s true, even if you’re loathe to admit it.

Plans adjust. Andy wanted to—

Oh, Andy now? I thought it was Senator Barber? You’re really familiar with him, aren’t you, Counsel?

Just what the fuck are you implying?

Maybe you need a reminder of who you belong to.

He loves to do this. Wrap his big hand around your throat, remind you just how easily he can impose his power onto you, watch your protests die behind your eyes when you realize how useless words are in the face of his violence.

The furious look in your eyes is something to behold, the way you embed your nails into his wrist to try and drag him off you, all soft snarls and indignant huffs, You fucking asshole…

You’re mine, Counsel, and don’t you forget it. You gave yourself to me, remember?

Like I… like I had much of a choice, breathy, furious, and clawing at him.

Doesn’t matter. You’re mine, and clearly I need to make sure you know it…

Steve—!

Captain, sweetness, Captain, and don’t you forget it.

There’s a moment, when anger becomes transcendental, when it turns into something cold and calculating and prepared, when a plan forms behind his eyes and you watch as he looks down at you, so full of fury and fear all at once and you watch as he leans in so close and you feel his hand slide until he has you by the back of the neck, until his thumb is the thing pressing under your chin to keep your eyes on him, until the heel of his hand is the thing keeping you from shouting at him further. Such a stubborn little bitch…

You can almost see the words forming in his mind, the ones his mouth won’t say, I could be so good to you, but he doesn’t say them, sliding his lips over yours instead and it is… soft. A capturing of your mouth with his, not caring that you protest, only insistent on leaving you breathless and hazy-eyed from each tug of his lips on yours and there stokes the warmth of more than your rage, a different fire rising in your core, unbidden and unwelcome but yours to own and his to play with.

He can sense it, practically feel it, that mad serum racing through his veins and making his nostrils flare as he pulls back and watches you, lets the scent of your perfume fill his senses like a drug he can’t get enough of and, I should hate you too, for this, whispered low and hushed and you barely catch it, don’t you? Barely, but enough, enough to remember it was said just before he pulls you down with him into the depths of his own lust.

And into his lap, it seems, as he drags you down, sitting on the bed with you draped over his lap, an effortless shift in his skillful hands. You can protest, and you do, even daring to try to pull away with a kick of your legs and an indignant, What the hell do you think you’re doing? But you know it’s all futile, useless as he places one heavy hand on your back and lets the other slide over the smooth chiffon of your blouse, tracing a line along your spine with careful, practiced ease.

Would have preferred this with a little more… circumstance, sweetness, but you need to learn a lesson now and drastic times call for drastic measures.

You can turn your head slightly, to look at him, that wild-eyed fury so sweet on your face and you are still a wild creature he needs to tame but he is patient and he can do this for as long as it takes.

But you’re a sight like this, draped over his lap in a pencil skirt and blouse, so put together and proper and now so prone to him, helpless under the appraisal of his hands and the way he takes no time in hiking your skirt up around your waist. Captain! Your protest is met with a low chuckle, especially as he lets his palm curve around the round swell of your ass, before leaving a light swat on the soft flesh, to draw a yelp from your furious mouth.

If that’s all it takes to get you shouting, sweetness, you’re going to hate what comes next, smug and cruel, as you try to hold yourself up enough to look at him, met with his smirk and the simmering fury still bubbling in his eyes. To say you’re in danger still is an understatement, no doubt, and you know it.

I won’t make you count this time, but piss me off again, sweetness, and we’ll just see how much you can take, you hear me?

Oh you loathe him, really and truly loathe him, hissing with anger and embarrassment, so close to twisting in his arms and clawing at him but remembering his size and just how much worse it could get — but then there lies the undercurrent.

The one you loathe too, more than you hated him, that warmth. Seeping into your core, a low heat kindled by the sly softness of his lips on yours and the sure tenor of his voice, low and soothing even as he promised damnation. The one that — just like now — leaves you flushed and writhing while he purrs threats to you, massaging the soft skin and sliding the lace of your panties down to remove all barriers to the sex he owns so surely.

You open your mouth to argue with him but as you do, you feel his hand lift from your flesh and then the resounding SMACK of palm on skin, turning words into nothing but a sharp cry of pain, surprise, and lust. The heat rises just as your body tenses, reacting to the sudden attack on your delicate form, cheeks flushed. Even as your eyes well with tears your sex strives to betray you and — Oh do you like that, sweetness? — damn him for noticing.

Let me go, Captain, the threat is shaky, your voice wavering with something like want and panic all at once, and all it does is draw another laugh as he soothes the stinging mark left on your cheek, gentle as a lover and four times as cruel.

Do you know what I think, sweetness? And another raise of his palm, to strike you once more, listening to the way that cry of pain and surprise turns into a soft, involuntary moan the moment he begins to soothe the ache, I think you need this. Always so uptight, trying to be the head bitch in charge, aren’t you? Just looking for someone to take over, take control, remind you where your place is.

His fingers slip further, more interested in exploring the soft slickness of your sex, listening to your protests die in your throat with every press of his fingers into your plush folds. That’s why I’m here, to keep you in my lap, all fucked and soft, sweetness. Don’t you worry, I’m going to take care of you. Even if I have to teach you just like this.

You should hate the way he talks, hates how he finds your center with effortless ease, like he’s known your body for years. Holding you down in his lap still as he draws mewling moans from you with every curl of his fingers, finding the proof of his accusations in the slick need coating your thighs, soaking his fingers, You’re making such a mess of me, sweetness. Are you going to be good?

Hiss at him. Snarl at him, buck your hips and twist in his arms, push him away. Do something more than what you are now, with red-rimmed eyes and tears staining your face, do more than listen to him talk, feel his cock pressing against you as you lay in his lap, I’m going to ask it one more time, sweetness. Are. You. Going. To. Be. Good?

He punctuates each word of his question with a harsh smack against your ass, leaving little time for you to do more than cry out, until the last spank draws something like a moan from your perfect lips and therein lies your surrender for tonight, that soft mewl of pleasure born of pain and he soothes you again with soft shushes and gentle touches, back to inspecting the renewed slickness of your cunt, back to enjoying that plump tightness wrapped around his fingers and back to trying to control the shift of his own hips and you can feel him, hard against you, needing you as much as he is compelling your body to need him.

Captain… a low, desperate sort of mewl, the squirm of your body less to escape and more to entice and he notices. Notices the way your fingers try to cling to him, notices how you look so very sweet when you’re so very desperate and in some way this is your own game of control, a push and pull and the curl of his fingers is suddenly so much angrier, driving you to the precipice of the fall and you are tumbling, tumbling down into a darkness of want you may never recover from.

Say it again. Tell me you need me, sweetness, tell me you need me and I’ll give you everything, and there’s an edge to the way he says everything, like he might mean it, like he might give you the world if you just gave in and you hate him, sweetness, you hate him but you need the things you hate once in a while and you can’t keep bearing his fury on your body and so you sob out your surrender and whine—

I need you, Captain, please…

And that is enough.

Let him believe you.

Chapter Text

The air is…

Shifted.

Shifted enough that the whole office notices, avoids yours, avoids the glare Steve Rogers fires at them the moment they approach the door, avoids your eye. Shifted enough that you miss the before, the pressure of his presence demanding your attention, the smugness in his endless eyes you denied looking at.

Shifted.

Counsel.

What?

We need to talk.

Is that not what you’ve been avoiding doing all morning, Captain?

You swear you can hear his molar crack in the dead silence, but your eyes never flit upwards from the contract you’re poring through, red pen in hand.

Focus.

It’s a job, this life, and this is a part of it, the presence of him, the pressure of him. It’s a job, and he calls on you to do your duty and you do but no one has ever asked you to be kind and no one has ever asked you to smile as you bear it so you don’t.

It’s a job, this life, and this is a part of it.

You. Are a part of it.

Counsel.

It’s a bark, an order, an annoyance and you shouldn’t let his stubborn fury be the thing that derails you. This is your domain. Your palace of glass and steel, remember? New York buzzes behind you and you surge forward on the tightrope of his affections, teetering dangerously close to his temper and always, always daring him to pull you down.

Try it again.

Fine, with a sigh and a setting down of your papers, You’re closer to the door.

And in your defense, he is, seated on your couch as stiff as a board, scrolling through his phone on occasion and — previously, at least — deftly ignoring your inquiries about the status of his office and why he needs to spend his morning in yours.

He fixes you with a look you do not name and proceeds to stand anyways. The door clicks shut and stays that way — both of you have learned.

Do you still talk to him?

Excuse me?

The Senator. Are. You. Still. In. Contact.

He spreads out every word like an accusation and every word turns you a little colder. You’ve been avoiding this. Avoiding him, distracted by work, the both of you but now you are back in each other’s orbits and this…

This cannot be avoided.

I haven’t spoken to him beyond to tell him I returned home safe that night.

Not. For lack of wanting.

If he’s hurt you, just say the words .

There’s nothing you can say.

It’s been a week. Almost two.

He’s been kind, stayed away, kept his distance but that… that will not last. Only as long as whatever conference has his office busy and then you know what comes next and then you know what comes after.

The bruising may have faded but the memories remain, after all.

They always do.

Steve Rogers is not Andy Barber, is not warm-eyed concern or a soft-voiced invitation, is not trying to save you from the horrors you cannot name, is not to be trusted but Andy Barber is also not Steve Rogers, is not exactly the man you expect, is not the answer to your dilemma, is not the devil you know and you…

Are still testing your wings.

Get up.

Get up and walk away from the prison of your desk, see how far you can get before you shackle yourself to your own ambition. Get. Up.

Blue eyes watch you like he’s calculating the next angle of his attack and technically you know that’s exactly the case but let’s pretend a moment he doesn’t have his claws out and you aren’t trapped in a cage for him to batter.

Delude yourself into the power you think you have, and keep him there, across the room where he cannot show you how effortlessly he strips you of it and how deeply you enjoy it.

Don’t.

You may be in bed with the mob but you are not asleep to his crimes and this is just an interim, a plan, a moment.

You stood me up, Counsel. After we made our deal.

It was a week ago and you ever-so-kindly taught me my lesson — don’t wince as you speak, don’t let him know you remember, don’t let him think you actually learned from his hand, hard against your body.

He hasn’t since, after all.

He says your name.

He says your name and your blood runs cold and you freeze by the coffee machine you keep in your office and you turn. Senator Barber is a friend.

A dangerous friend. I won’t even ask if you know his stance on —

On the Syndicate? Oh I know. I know who he shakes hands with.

Then you know why I’m asking.

Are you loyal?

Are you?

Is it loyalty that keeps you here?

Don’t let your hands shake when you look at him. Don’t let him see the slide of your eyes, the glance outside, the wondering how long before your window would be a portal and that tightrope would snap.

You are not a fool.

This. Is not loyalty.

I keep to my ethical duties, Captain.

You’re sleeping with your boss.

Oh that one makes you laugh, sharp and cruel and you do look at him then, fix your eyes onto him and raise an eyebrow and watch. All that power, all that smugness, wrapped up in one body and how does he contain it, do you know?

I believe the actual term is serving at your pleasure.

It’s back to the game, the dance, the ruse, the steps you take around each other, the blades he digs into your chest the reminders he gives you you are a whore you are a whore you are a whore and you lift your chin up, dare him to look at the bruises his lips leave on your skin and ask him in the silence and what will you do about it.

You could hate him. You do, technically. You hate that you could love him in the early hours of the morning, when his eyes seek you out and soften at the reminder you’re still here. You hate that his invasive presence in your office is a shield as much as it is a virus, a comfort in the silence and you hate most of all that the way he looks at you with that open desire women might normally have just dreamed was possible makes you want to return it.

You hate that he is dangerous. That he has bound you to him like this, chained you to the idea of his warmth and that there is a sick sort of safety in the binding.

You hate that he looks at you now with something like hope, with something like obsession, with something like vulnerability and you hate that it strips you of that cold armor as effortlessly as his hands strip you of your resistance.

And he could hate you too, in the whispers he leaves on your shoulders when he thinks you’re asleep. He could hate that you are soft, that you are sweet on his tongue that you…

Are his.

Could hate that he has thought of nothing else but the very theory of your betrayal and you know none of these things but his eyes are not so inscrutable as he thinks and so—

He twists the knife.

I talked to your Judge, by the way.

You did what?

You heard me. Interesting conversation.

Excuse me?

You really sold yourself to me for a lover’s spat, Counsel? I thought you were better than that — woman of the law and all.

A lover’s spat? That’s what he told you?

Just what would you call it, if not that?

He’s daring you, back to somewhere between smug and angry, as if disappointed you made him waste his time and all you can do is feel your heart sinking, feel yourself back in that place again, the decade-long sting of control over your body, the painful reminder of the girl you once were.

Where is he?

Did you think I’d clean up your dirty laundry for you? I’m not a breakup counselor, and you nee—

You left him alive!? The panic in your voice is so palpable it stops him in his tracks all over again, suspicious and surprised and you step back to reach for something — steady yourself steady yourself steady yourself you are not safe you are not safe you are not safe.

I’m not killing your ex-boyfriend without a good reas—

I was nineteen!

The world tilts, shifts, your knees are buckling, that’s tears in your eyes and you.

Are that girl again.

Too small, too scared, too naive to know better, too easy to mold and break and manipulate and you promised you’d never be her again, you promised you’d get her justice and you promised it wouldn’t be like this over and over again, promised he wouldn’t sink his fangs into you a third time.

What? He sounds smaller. Or is it faraway? You are too busy trying to stand, trying to still the shaking of your hands, the cold chill in your veins, too busy feeling your knees surrendering, too busy sliding to the floor and staring blankly into your memory.

Counsel. What. Did. You. Say. He repeats himself, and then he’s crouching before you, holding your chin in his hand and when did you start having tears on your cheeks for him to wipe away?

I was nineteen, you repeat, blank and broken, not seeing his brow furrow, not seeing the regret flash over his expression, I didn’t want it. I never wanted it.

What are you saying, sweetness? How dare he sound so soft? How dare he sound like he actually cares, when he’s the reason you’re here, on this floor, barely resisting your breakdown yet again?

You know better.

I was nineteen, a third time, I needed a job, something to give me experience, and he — he used me. That was my experience.

He’s starting to understand, but it doesn’t matter to you, not when you’re staring too far into the past, into a sneering face and cruel hands.

(I can ruin you or I can help you, Intern, so you make your choice. You need me.)

It never stops. Not after the first time — but you know that.

But you know that. That’s your knife, the one you twist into his chest and the realization sinks in heavy as an anchor, the thing he’s done.

The thing he’s done to you.

So why wait until now?

I would have waited forever.

You hid the letter. Hid it well enough even he wouldn’t have found it rifling through your things. Hid the threat in those typewritten words and the casual signature swept across the stationary, unaffected.

Men like him never face consequences. Only you, only the women they make use of, the ones they turn into commodities for their enjoyment. Who would care if you’d made it public, if you showed the world the kind of man he was — he was appointed for life, he was friends with the Governor, he was powerful and you were never going to be strong enough.

(You wouldn’t want anyone in the District Attorney’s office knowing just the sorts of things you’re willing to do to get your way. I can still help you be an exceptional lawyer, Intern.)

What are you? Ambition and drive and skill but what does it all mean when it can be reduced to plaything and pet project and whore.

I helped him get appointed. He helped me get into law school. Introduced me to… To Andy Barber, who calls you Sunshine and watches out for you and comes to New York despite having no power in the state just to see you again because he worries, because he cares.

You pay.

And sometimes that payment bounces back.

You pay and you pay and you pay and you struggle but what is the culmination of your strife is it the sight of you finally broken on the floor, is it the moment he’s been waiting for, dragged off your pedestal why couldn’t he have left well enough alone didn’t he know the horse was for your protection and not his pride?

No.

They never do.

They never do, do they, always so wrapped up in themselves and even now he kneels in front of you and wipes your tears but he has no words to say to atone for what he’s done and you know he can never.

I need you to leave.

The words come out without your control.

You know what you are. You are fury made flesh and you will not be manipulated again, not by the pressure of his hands on your face, not by the way he almost hugs you, he lied he lied he lied he lied.

Sweetness…

No. You don’t get to call me that. Not anymore.

You could have tolerated it. You could have accepted it you could have let yourself become the prize he took, owned his defeat by defeating you, you might even have enjoyed it but no.

No.

I held up my end of the bargain.

Chapter Text

It’s a heart attack, the papers say.

Quick. Easy. Painless. A column in an obituary and there he goes. No mystery, nothing so beloved, no demands for justice.

A heart attack.

Asleep in his office poor man, not even in his bed and a lifestyle come to reap its debts and there he goes, lost to the world forever, a cold shell of a reputation, leaves a wife and two sons behind, leaves a legacy of service and friends who will speak at his funeral.

The funeral you will attend. Just. To be sure.

Steve Rogers brings you the paper and flowers and it’s almost sweet the way he stands in your doorway and watches you take one and toss the other — You’re going to be late for your investors’ meeting if you stand there — too bad almost isn’t enough.

Counsel.

I told you I wasn’t in the business of wasting time. Don’t waste your energy.

Steve Rogers walks away.

It was always lies, wasn’t it? Always lies the way he thought he could make you soft with his own, the way he thought he could show you he understood.

The way you almost understood.

Sympathy is for those who deserve it.

And you may be shackled here, trapped by the deal you made but you will never be tied to him again and you will never let him in again and you…

You are stronger than this.

You are more than the woman you were thirteen months ago in the courtroom where you made Steve Rogers face the true power of your will and you stand before him again a firestorm of fury daring him to stick his hand in the flames and see just what you brand him as. Liar liar liar traitor traitor traitor coward coward coward.

One man tries to make his way into your office, talk to you about something, and is pulled back by another and the mutterings around you are the same — dark clouds, yelling matches, wouldn’t touch, wouldn’t ask, Captain’s orders — and you like this, in a sick way.

You like how you’re alone, you like the stares they send your way, all afraid and unnerved, all wondering when his patience will finally snap and you will finally be a memory and you… dare them. To make you just that — a memory.

You will never forget me.

But you? You will erase him from the halls of your affection and make him nothing but a scratched-out marble upon which you once laid wreaths of surrender. You will tear him from your heart and turn the scar he leaves into another memorial to the things you were and could not be again — stronger, this time. Always stronger.

Stronger than the man whose name appears on your caller ID once, twice, thrice and four times, each one swiftly cut off by a tap of your finger before you decide to let the auto-block feature do the work for you.

Steve Rogers walks away.

But never for long, and never when he feels like his chest might cave from the inevitability he has avoided and he loathes you for this. Loathes you for the gnawing at his bones, the regret which pulses out of him by the tension of his jaw and the ice in his glare.

He stands in your doorway again, glaring at your silent form poring over the paperwork you don’t actually need to do, taking a breath.

Sweetness.

Don’t call me that.

Why not?

The look you fix him with is withering enough you can almost see him step back, forced to comply.

Counsel, then. We need to talk.

With all due respect — such as it is — we’ve talked enough.

Counsel—

You’ve learned. You’ve learned to move out of his grasp, learned to sidestep his reaching fingers when he leans forward to grab hold of your arm, learned to make him work for the warmth of your body against his and in that you mean he hasn’t seen you outside the office since  … well.

Well.

You’ve learned.

And as you raise your hand to stop him from continuing to fill your office, you learn something else about yourself — there is courage in having so very little left to lose.

What are you going to do about it, you challenge in the silence of your glare, and he knows he could threaten you with any number of things and he knows you would fix him with that same withering look and he knows you have very few cares left.

I asked you why you wanted him dead, Counsel, you could have told me then—

And what? You would have hopped right to it, in defense of your own personal whore?

If I had known, I—

If you had known what? You wouldn’t have taken the job? You wouldn’t have made the deal you did? You wouldn’t have shoved me into your bed and decided that was payment enough for your inaction? You would have let me go, free to be something other than the cunt who wets your cock?

You have to stop.

You have to stop because the fury is starting to turn into tears and you will not let him see you cry again, not anymore. It’s your jaw turning to teeth-cracking steel this time, your eyes turning hard and hollow, your glare fixed on his and this time he cannot press your pain into soft sheets and soothe you with the lap of his tongue.

Counsel—

Don’t. I don’t want your justifications or your excuses. I held up my end of the bargain and you… all you had to do was kill a man, and you couldn’t even do that. You wanted me all soft and sweet in your lap and all you had to do was kill one man.

He doesn’t respond.

He doesn’t move to defend himself, he doesn’t do any of that because he knows he can’t.

His jaw tenses, the vein in his temple pulsing with rage but it’s the rage of being wrong, of being the one pulled down again and here you are, the most beautifully infuriating woman in his world and here he is, watching you tear him out of your life with the casual finality of one tossing aside a spent cigarette.

Sunshine. Good to see you, come in…

He looks the same. Keeps the same beard. Same perfect hair. Same crease in his brow when he opens the door of his hotel and lets you in. It’s the warm familiarity of the dinner all over again, wrapped in the woodsy sharpness of his cologne as it surrounds you here, in his temporary domain.

Andy. Thank you for—

You can’t even speak for the choke that ripples through you.

Just once, before you close your eyes and stand perfectly still. It’s a collapse, or the beginnings of one, but you aren’t free to let down your guard yet and the tense muscles of your control need you to hold on. Just a little longer.

Just a little longer.

Even if he notices.

Sunshine…?

The slide of his arm over yours is delicate. A guide, come sit down, and you let him. Robotic, while you press down the rising tide of your panic and it is… a moment. The final groans of screeching metal before the crumbling structure rests on the precipice of ruin, one errant feather away from apocalypse.

He touches you again, rests a hand on your shoulder, compels you look up at that warm-eyed concern and drown in the ocean of affection he doesn’t hide this time, so glad to see you as he is. Your name from his lips this time, soft and sweet and then, Talk to me.

What do you say?

What is there to say?

These are the words, Andy Barber.

You should never have come here, should never have let Andy Barber welcome you — poison pouring from the cracks in your armor — should never have put yourself in his arms because the moment you do, it will be the end of you.

Andy, I’m—

He stops you. One hand on your shoulder the other holding your chin and shaking his head, he stops you. Talking is too much and it’s worn all over your face, how tired of words you are. The answers still have no voice but he has no need to hear them to understand.

Doesn’t matter. Not right now — you’re here, and you’re safe here.

You don’t feel safe. But you’ll trust him, just this once.

You can be more than her, you think to yourself. More than the cage you have made out of your own guilt and anger, but there is so much danger in the letting go, in the freeing yourself. Even now, you look into that ocean of endless concern and you wonder just how much of the truth he could take.

I’m sorry, you manage out, remembering the pretense under which you came here in the first place, I know he was your friend.

He was. We went golfing before he… always told him he’d end up keeling over from one.

He has no idea. You try to smile at the joke, try to mirror his and the way he waves away your apologies, and it doesn’t work quite so well.

Sorry, Sunshine. Force of habit — after…

After everything.

Thank you.

It’s… not a comfortable silence, but both of you live in it now, in the lowering of your heads and the sheepish smiles, the understanding of the things you wish you could but cannot say.

What a pair the both of you make.

Are you planning on attending the funeral? His voice breaks the silence with a plaintive inquiry and you… struggle, not to wince.

I think so, if I can get the time off, you can, you know you can, because the man who controls it doesn’t control you, not anymore and you open your mouth to tell him that before you think better of it, before you turn away. Again.

Why do you run?

What compels you to sprint away from the only thing in your life which has made sense thus far — warm eyes, soft hands, the assurance that you are safe — and into the dangerous arms of lies and deceit?

Steve Rogers lied. He lied and he used you and it’s just the same game as the man on the slab miles away and yet you cannot bring yourself to slash at that marble face in the halls of your mind.

You deserve him.

That’s it.

That’s the why, and it strikes you like a poker to the chest, searing hot, branding you liar liar liar traitor traitor traitor coward coward coward.

I should go.

Sunshine?

Breathe. Don’t choke, don’t let him see your heart hammering its plea in your chest don’t let him know what you’ve done or why he can’t know, It’s late, you probably want to actually sleep. I should… Go.

This isn’t you.

This isn’t cold-hearted determination, this isn’t the fire in your veins compelling you to surge forward into the unknown expanses, bolstered by ambition, by passion, by spite.

And where did that get you?

Into the wrong kind of bed, sweetness.

Stand up. Stand up, surge forward on that tightrope and watch it unravel beneath your feet, it is not his affection it is your strength and you are crumbling, crumbling, down down down into the depths, you are falling.

And Andy Barber is holding your hand tighter by the wrist, is pulling you close, is wrapping you in his arms, is standing as the buttress against the collapse of all that you are, were, and would be, is whispering Hey, shh… you’re okay. I’ve got you, you’re safe, and you don’t feel safe, remember? But you’ll trust him, again.

And Andy Barber is broad-shouldered, is wrapped around you, is tucking you into the warmth of his embrace and you are giving in to the things you should not but You’re okay, I’ve got you, Sunshine, I’ve got you and it feels like drowning, it feels like fresh air, it feels like your lungs will never stop burning even as you surface from dark waters.

Andy, I can’t— you try to protest and it falls on deaf ears, it falls on his huff, it falls on the tightening of his arms around you and you cannot run. You don’t want to run.

Instead?

Instead, Andy Barber holds you for what feels like forever and when you pull away it’s to let him wipe away the last of your tears, let him press lips to your forehead. The brush of his whiskers against your skin is enough, a moment of peace, a wake-up call and you blink up at him with eyes rimmed red and his are still that same well of endless warmth and the answers still have no voice but your demons can’t touch you here.

Not in this moment.

That’s my Sunshine, his voice is smoke and honey and you let yourself get lost in it again, the soft laugh of him as he tries to make you smile, lets you forget. The Politician’s careful hand, smoothing it all over.

Not so sunny now, you manage, and he laughs more than you do.

A little rain doesn’t make you any less.

You don’t tell him about the rest of the dark clouds on your horizon.

You don’t tell him of the thunderstorm threatening to strike you both down.

You kiss him instead. Indulge in the warmth of his comfort and press your lips to his, give in to his hands on your waist when they pull you so close the only thing you have to focus on is the softness of his lips. You kiss him and he returns it, gentle and yielding, the faintest sigh of relief breathed into your willing mouth, like completion, like fulfillment.

You kiss him, and it is nothing like you expect.

It is a question, an answer, a request, it is brief and then he pulls back and then he looks at you and then he shakes his head and, I’m taking advantage of you, Sunshine.

He spells it out. Lays it on the table, tells you his fears in six words and you swallow down the irrational rush of hurt before you nod. He can’t. He shouldn’t.

You’re right, I’m sorry, I— hurried, frantic, you have ruined everything you should never have and then he shakes his head and shushes you again and you are quiet.

So full of words. And quiet.

That doesn’t mean I don’t want to, Sunshine. But not tonight. Just stay, here, tonight.

And you do.

Chapter Text

You stayed.

You stayed and now you wake, draped in crisp white cotton and listening to the sound of Andy Barber’s voice drifting from his hotel office, smoke and honey just a wall away. You wake and you remember.

You remember his request, you remember his lips, you remember the way they curved around the sound of your name while you stayed in his arms for just a moment more, so drawn to the safety of him.

You remember Andy Barber offering you one of his shirts, There’s no way you’re sleeping in a suit, Sunshine, and don’t lie to me and tell me you did that when we were campaigning, remember the way you laughed and tried to lie anyway.

I’m taking advantage of you, Sunshine, he told you last night and yet last night you stayed in his bed and he refused to listen to you protest as the living room couch became where he laid his head.

You should get up.

You should get up, you should start your own day, let Andy continue his, push through the rest of what needs to be done and yet…

Yet nothing feels quite as comfortable as this bed and nothing is quite as warm as these sheets and you’ve never felt quite as safe in this room, far from your sanctuary or the sturdy cage of Steve Rogers’s arms.

The door to the room opens and there he is.

Morning, Sunshine, and you can’t see his face but you can hear the smile in his greeting, playful and warm and you feel yourself smiling right back, pushing away the barrier of cloud-white cotton and taking in the sight of him dressed for the day while you…

Well.

The Congressional Baseball Game commemorative t-shirt is soft. The same bright blue color of his eyes. And drapes over you like an invitation the moment he properly catches sight of you in it.

He stays in the doorway, a little stiffer than before.

Good morning, Senator, and do you notice the way he swallows at the sound of his title in your voice, or the way his eyes flash dark for a moment? Do you notice, or do you pretend you don’t? Do you traverse the space between what was and what is and bridge the gap to what might be?

Sleep alright? He’s cautious, watching a deer in the woods ready to bolt and don’t you know he’s unarmed? He just wants to patch your wounds, let you run free and safe and know sanctuary is the shape of his smile.

You’re starting to understand.

Yeah. I did, actually. Thank you, I —

Sunshine, if you act like you’re imposing, I’m going to lose it.

He’s smiling too good-naturedly for that to be a threat, walking towards you too slowly for you to remember to run. The backs of his fingers on your cheek are too soft, too comfortable, and you are too safe.

It can’t last.

I should get back.

You can see his brow furrow, smile fading, eyes darkening. A huff of disapproval and the hand at your cheek holds your shoulder a little tighter, You don’t have to do this, I can —

Andy…

He doesn’t make you shout, not the way Steve does, just fixing you with a searching look instead. Help him understand.

You can’t, is the thing. You can’t and you know it so instead you look up at him and into those warm eyes and you just shake your head, I have to. At least let him know I’m taking time off — that’s professional courtesy, right?

Andy Barber doesn’t usually roll his eyes — he’s a Senator, he’s too professional for that sort of thing, too stiff, too stern — but he knows lies when he sees them and he’s eying you like you might be trying to get one over on him.

It’s not entirely wrong.

His hand holds your cheek in one warm palm and you have to resist the temptation to nuzzle right into it while he looks down at you, Stay until the memorial service.

You know I can’t do that.

You said you’d take time off. Do it — bereavement leave, for all I care, just stay. I need you, Sunshine.

He needs you, he says, and he can’t know the reasons why but it freezes you cold.

Why does he always have to do this? Sound like salvation, smoke and honey and freedom, a shield from all the things you were and cannot be again, clawing at you to drag you back down. You’re drowning in it, your indecision and your fears. Trust one more man to get you out of the mire you’ve trapped yourself in and risk never surfacing again, or struggle against the tide until the end of time, until you finally exhaust yourself and it’s all over?

It’s the same ending, either way, isn’t it?

He can’t be the next safe thing — there is no safety, there was never any, not for you — but you want him to be. You need him to be.

I’ll come with you to the service, you promise, trying to find the middle ground. Everything feels so… so much, all of a sudden, and you’re not enjoying the bubbling anxiety threatening to ruin everything all over again.

Press it down. Tense your jaw and press it down, don’t let him know, he’s done enough.

I’ll come with you to the service, but I mean. I need to get back, right? You’re teasing, keeping it light, trying to see him smile instead of that sharp-eyed concern on his face all over again, I can’t exactly show up to a memorial service in one of your shirts.

You could, you really could, he taunts instead, because of course he does.

You’re used to hunters, used to the hungry look in their eyes, the wandering hands, the searching glances and maybe you shouldn’t be so used to this, the way he steps just that much closer, the way his fingers curl against your hip, the way he looks like he might be able to make himself one with you the moment his lips connect with yours what’s that joke in Othello, the beast with two backs?

He’s not quite beastly, though.

Andy Barber kisses like an invitation, as it turns out. He kisses with one hand to your cheek and the other wrapped around your waist. He kisses with a hunger, lips soft on yours, asking for your surrender and you give it, you wrap your arms around his waist you press yourself right into him and maybe you are one in this moment, in the moment before he pulls back, the barest bit. I want to do this right, spoken soft against your lips, an apology and a confession, I should do this right.

But still, his mouth barely leaves yours. Another kiss instead, lingering, while the hand at your waist slips lower and you should stop him, should tell him this isn’t doing it right, should tell him the truth and see if he’ll do better than the men who’ve come before but…

You don’t.

The ringing of his phone, however, does that for you. You may choose him, you may choose the buzzing heat on your skin, the warmth of his smile and the comfortable softness of his hold on you but his work calls first.

It’s a relief, really, when he pulls back, flashes you something apologetic and nervous, lets you step away and feel your senses returning to you and not him, remembering who you are and what you’ve done and something sickly coils inside of you when you remember.

You’re grateful he doesn’t see.

The discomfort doesn’t fade when he has a staffer drop you off at your apartment, discreet and careful, no one needs to know. You’re wrapped in a hotel-branded robe and still wearing his shirt, I’ll take it back when we get to Boston, Sunshine, still wrapped in the comfortable embrace of his cologne, still thinking about the things he promised you.

The promises you’re sure you’ll break, eventually.

You check your phone and Steve’s called once already and you’re tempted to let him call again and again, just to see if he’ll storm up to your apartment too but the fire in your veins demanding confrontation is…

Dimming.

No.

Not dimming.

It’s something else, something roiling, writhing cold and dark inside of you, a guilt and revelation all at once and don’t forget what you’ve done.

Liar liar liar traitor traitor traitor coward coward coward .

You want to believe him. You want to believe him more than anything, want to believe he’ll actually be the one to take you out of this place, to keep you from the precipice and the open window that feels more and more like your only out and as you try to wash the blood from your hands you wonder just what steps you’ll need to learn to keep dancing this time.

Always to another man’s tune, Sunshine.

I want to do this right, he told you, I should do this right, he told you and you believe him but the things you want to do and should do are rarely ever the things that you do actually do, are they? You wanted to save yourself from men like Steve Rogers by walking into Steve Rogers’s own arms so who is Andy Barber to you if not the same?

He is the devil you don’t know, but his hands are warm and his smile is sweeter and he is safe. He is promises and concerns and warm beds alone because he wouldn’t want to imply, he is want and worry and the press of lips to your forehead just like he gave before you left his hotel room surrounded by staffers and saved from the rare curious eye.

You need this.

You need this and you can’t let anything — not your guilt, not your morals such as they are, not him — stop you. You need this and you need to escape and if this is the hand you’re being offered then you might as well take it.

Steve Rogers shows up somewhere halfway through packing.

Alone.

A bold move, and not the one you’d encourage, but who are you to tell the King of New York how he should travel and with whom? The sickness returns the moment his presence casts its shadow over your apartment, entering with ease and acting as if the copy of your keys he made without your knowledge is nothing for you to protest about.

Counsel, he always sounds about halfway between mocking and hurt these days and you wonder if he’s still the same man who spent nearly a month and a half promising you he’d have you begging for him eventually. You, most definitely, are not.

Captain, and another dress is tucked away, just in case, Can I help you?

… Going somewhere, Counsel? He spits the word this time, a curse, a consolidation of all his hatred, a twist of the knife but it’s you wielding it this time, when you wrap your best black pumps in plastic and tuck them into your day-bag for the time you’ll spend sinking into soft dirt and grass next to the grave of a man you asked to die.

I have a funeral to attend, and you turn around and you pretend he isn’t there when you slip past and pretend you have to consider which black dress you’ll wear and what rings will look best on your fingers when you do.

He holds your arm and holds you back and when you are turned around to look into his eyes they are glittering with something you might call hate and when you swallow the venomous bile that threatens to spill from you in your defense, those eyes sharpen into cold rage, You’re going with him.

Are you jealous? It’s a challenge, while you carefully peel his fingers off your arm, glancing down to see if you’ll need a longer sleeve to cover a bruise and, He knew the deceased.

So you’re going. With the friend of the man you asked me to kill, beca—

Correction, Captain, I’m going with my friend and former mentor, to the funeral of a Judge who died tragically of a heart attack, because you wouldn’t have anything to do with his death, would you?

It’s sickly, saccharine and cloying at your throat, words pouring from you like you practiced them all your life, the smile on your lips hiding the fangs you want to sink into his throat, tear him apart, leave him in the shreds he does you, over and over again.

You’re not innocent. That’s not been your game for years, remember? This life never left room for it, never left you a chance to play coy, never gave you anything but bruises on your body and soul and now you can see just how deep they go, right down to the core of you and so can he, as blood covers the sobbing thing in the center and this is what you made me becomes less of a chant and more of a scream and no that will not be your throat making that noise, not this time not here not now not this time.

You didn’t ask for time off.

I don’t need to, and I won’t. Going to fire me, Captain?

Oh please do, you almost ask him, please fire me, see what that does for you. Do it however you want, set me in the ground, let me go to rot, I dare you to see if I won’t haunt you.

I might, he almost tells you right back, I might, I might break you here and now, I might leave nothing behind for your pretty Senator to find and what would you do then, but be mine all mine.

We had a deal, he says instead.

You broke it first, you remind.

I need to make sure he’s dead.

I gave you the obituary —

You’ve lied to me plenty already. I’m going.

His eyes are storm-dark and abyssal, dragging you down deeper and deeper until you burn yourself in the trenches of his hate and he hisses something low and incomprehensible under his breath.

You’re staying right here, you little bi—

She’s coming with me.

It’s a reversal. Andy Barber stands in the doorway with his hands in his pockets and his eyes trained on the both of you, alone and not alone all at once and you know he’s capable of calling the sound and the fury upon this apartment if Steve Rogers doesn’t leave and thankfully Steve Rogers knows the same.

How much did he hear, do you think, sweetness?

The cross over your threshold is a warning.

A standoff, even, when Steve turns and the apartment thrums with thinly-veiled violence, warning you again that you are… not safe. This is not safety, this is wolves arguing over a carcass and you are not as dead as they think but you’re not about to give them one more reason to tear at you.

Say that one more time, Steve plucks the string, watching the wire start to unravel, both of them walking that fine line before one kills the other.

She’s coming with me, Rogers, they’re going to be at this forever, neither one willing to strike the other and you refuse to bounce between them so this is it. Make your choice. Who do you need?

The hell she is, she—

I am, you interject with a cooler voice than you ever expected to come out of you, Three days. Tomorrow and the weekend.

And then back. Back to your cage of glass and steel, your soaring views of the city and the threat of flying on clipped wings. And all it cost you was everything you had.

If he’s hurt you, just say the words.

That’s the unspoken request, the unspoken fear, the unspoken worry and Andy Barber squeezes your hand, sitting across from you at a too-fancy-for-its-food-quality hotel restaurant, waiting for the waiter to bring his wine while you toy with a steeping bag of peppermint tea.

He brings out the worst in you. Not Andy, no, not warm-eyed worry and gentle fingers, not smoke-and-honey on your senses, not promises to do this right. You should want those things, you should want the way he makes you feel light, the way he draws your smile, the boldness of his fingers at your cheek and the fire under your skin warms instead of burns. No. Him though, Steve Rogers, who won your submission when you refused to grant it to anyone, who sank you to your knees and turned you into a plaything, who haunts your memories even when you are faced with the idea of salvation.

How are you feeling, Sunshine?

Like Hell, like he’s going to drag me back, like if I show up at that grave-site tomorrow hands will reach up from the coffin and pull me down and he’ll win he’ll win he’ll win. Can’t say that. Can’t tell him you’re scared, can’t say the truth, can’t be sure.

Fine, I’m fine, just… you know. Funerals. You know he knows. You never mention it, the tragedy of the before, the things that led him here, that led you to him, but it’s a fine shelter to hide in, the trauma of the dead.

Like Hell. Used to tell Alex I wouldn’t even attend his after…

After the one he never wanted.

You squeeze his hand back this time, both of you still dancing around the truth and pressing your thumbs into the bruises all at once. You don’t have to do this, Andy.

I owe him that much, you know I do.

Don’t tell him, Sunshine. Don’t tell don’t tell don’t don’t don’t.

You nod.

You nod and you smile and you squeeze his hand again before the waiter arrives and you try not to pay attention to the buzz of your phone on the table, Steve Rogers reminding you the discussion isn’t over.

It never is.

Drink your tea. Stay calm.

Stay with me tonight. Andy breaks the silence again and you nearly drop the mug.

What?

I’ll put a staffer in your room to make it look occupied, but I don’t want you alone.

You don’t have to do that, I’ll be fine.

Sunshine, I want to. You’re dealing with the Syndicate and I saw the way he looks at you. If he shows up…

He doesn’t need to say it. You’re a deer on the run and the sights are aimed, fixed on you in the woods. Run run run, don’t let him find you.

You swallow, hard, burying the sick guilt beneath another sip of tea, settling. He’s right. He has to be right, and you… you want to believe it’s concern, want to believe it’s care want to believe it’s all honest and not the memory of fingers sliding along the column of your throat, not the pressure of arms around your waist, not a hold on you and a claim you can never escape.

You want to believe him.

You make your choice.

And in the hotel room, with its two queen beds, you let Andy Barber hold you close. Safe. For once. For now.

Chapter Text

A pillar of the community has fallen, shattered remains laid to rest in pine and silk. Here come the mourners too, arrived to coat themselves in the dust that remains as they lament the broken, leaking roof he never held up with any sort of honesty. And as you enter the too-crowded funeral home, the sound of quiet weeping not enough to drown out the blood pounding in your ears, all you can think is, Embalmers do strange work.

You narrowly avoid the temptation to kick at the rubble, holding your curses behind clenched teeth and another ruby-lipped smile, the knife-dagger of your hate turned towards his soul and you pray for things like fire in lieu of grace, for screams in lieu of hymns, for pain in lieu of peace. Another link in your chains has crumbled, rust all that remains of that sallow, waxen face. There are no tears to shed for the man in the box and you don’t bother to pretend, not prone to hysterics like the wailing law clerk in the back-right of the room, clutching her swollen belly and crumpled into a heap in her boyfriend’s arms.

Not. Anymore.

There he goes, less than a plinth in the marble halls of your memory, left to rot as you approach that box where he lays seemingly asleep but you know.

You know the hateful breath he draws has ended. You know that the peace of his passing means the peace of your living.

It’s another kind of game, a dance, a ruse, an art the way you carefully sidestep the eyes of a widow you’ve never met before and the sons you remember being ten years younger. Men now, both of them, suspicious eyes and searching glances, as if seeking to remember where your razorblade smile and hate-cold eyes exist in their memory.

Andy Barber stands beside you as your guide and shield against the daggers of curiosity and concern, making quiet conversation as he keeps his hand secure to the small of your back. Steady.

Funerals are for the living, you recall someone telling you once, and though the dead remains in his place of dishonor, Andy comes alive as the seeming guest of honor. In some way you’re almost awed by it, catching glimpses of the truth in the twist of his smile and the choice of his words and yet watching how no one around him seems to notice. They see the way he moves the conversation forward, steers eyes away from you and the deceased, away from him and the trust. The practiced politician, burying his pain with… all the ease it requires.

You almost envy him.

You don’t have to do this, he told you in the car, your taxi ride on the way here a tense one as he tried to bring blood back to your clenched fists, knuckles pulsing at every stoplight.

I need to, you countered, not meeting his eyes, solicitous and warning all at once.

You told him.

You told him in the hotel room you stayed in, told him after it became impossible to ignore. That anxious pull at your center, wanting and fearing all at once, knowing what happens if you go and the uncertainty of if you don’t.

You didn’t tell him everything, of course. You know well enough not to do that.

You signed a death warrant. You bloodied your hands. You may not have killed him but you put him in the path of men who did and heart attacks are convenient half-truths for the living to pretend with. Yours is a rotten empire built on lies and fear and though truth bolsters all, the shattering of the veil between you and Andy Barber would bring it all down. You’re sure of it.

So you watch him instead, remembering the things you said, responding to his constant refrain, If he’s hurt you, Sunshine, just say the words, but he never directly asked who he was, did he?

So you made him the man in the box.

Not a lie.

An omission. He did. And he would again, if not for the ties that bound you to a different kind of cage.

You remember other things too. You remember the way he squeezed your hand, the way he pulled you close, the way he held you and you didn’t cry this time, but he shook. Shook with a fury you anticipated and a knowing you didn’t, let his jaw tighten until it pulsed with the force of every bitten-back word, every helpless moment, until his tongue finally managed to promise, I failed you once, I won’t again. Let me help you, Sunshine.

You don’t believe him. You won’t. You can’t.

You’ve been your savior this long, know only you can save yourself, but he is the next safe thing, the next harbor in the storm and you might as well let yourself rest for as long as you can before you start running again.

That doesn’t stop the tension now, in this moment, nor the coiling nervousness leaving sickly guilt in its wake, not exactly banished by a hard swallow or a ten-second count.

Are you alright? Andy Barber’s voice is low against your ear as he guides you to sit, honey-water on your senses, a cool breeze to ground you back and you nod. Alright. You’ll manage.

You always do.

You ruined his life, he justifies everything so well.

You ruined his life, and that feels like the final hammer, the chaff falling away as he immortalizes his hate in cement-grey floors and chain-linked cuffs.

You ruined his life, the only answer he can give when the sky opens its torrent and demands to know why.

Steve Rogers knocks back another glass of whiskey, well aware that he shouldn’t — it’s halfway to empty and he’s sure this particular bottle could mortgage a house — and tries not to pay attention to the gnaw at his gut, uncomfortable with guilt and the things it bears.

You came to him first.

You came to him first, you came to him and you asked him for help and you sank right into his arms like he swore you would the first time you faced him down — in that courtroom you turned into a battlefield, the space you staked your claim. How does he lose even when he wins, wins your submission, wins your body, wins your pleasure?

He doesn’t leave room for love.

Shit like love, well.

That’s the shit that gets him in trouble.

That’s the shit that makes him forget the terms of a contract, makes him start asking questions, makes him start wondering if he’s really got the right to demand your exclusive surrender, make you his to possess and pleasure, all in the name of business.

He knows the answer to all those questions too. That’s the problem. He knows, he knew, he will always know — he doesn’t. He doesn’t, he shouldn’t, he couldn’t, and he did it anyway.

Men like him ought to know better.

One more drink. One more drink and the burn in his throat is somewhere between comfort and penance while he watches the city below, standing in the darkened space of your office, empty of you. Outside the sky rumbles black and grey, paints the city in a dull iron and concrete and he’s almost glad for it.

Almost.

The door to his your office opens and there’s a moment, a flash, a hope that it might be you walking in on heels so sharp he’s occasionally surprised they don’t cut the hardwood floors, might be you with your lips so ready to snipe at him, might be you he can apologize to again and again and again. It will never be enough.

It. It is not you.

It’s Bucky instead, looking… better these days. Better than the man in the orange jumpsuit or the furious-faced felon facing him the day after he found out the deal Steve had made with a certain soon-to-be-former District Attorney.

You ruined his life, Steve thinks to himself again, justifying his hate for the umpteenth time.

But Bucky doesn’t look too ruined now, does he? Not now, as he looks at Steve standing in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows, brooding with a bottle of drink and lets his jaw set hard, holding himself back from whatever cruel remark he thought he could make about the King of New York melancholy over one former flame.

He walks closer instead, lets the heavy wood door slam shut behind him, lets his eyes scan every corner like he’s scouting, like he’s waiting for someone to leap out and throttle him. You’ve been here a while, he points out, a little cautious and a little not, Didn’t check into the house last night. You camp out here?

The answer has to be obvious, doesn’t it?

She’s in Boston, is all Bucky gets, at least for now, as he sips this time, lets metal clatter against glass and then closes his eyes, Gone to the funeral.

Figured. You uh. Send someone after her?

Send someone after her? To do what?

A set of suspicious blue eyes flicker from the reflection in the window over to the former boxer to his left, brow furrowed deeper than before, if that were such a thing. To tail her?

Bucky doesn’t respond.

Not yet.

The tension in the room hangs in the air like a gallows, lever waiting to be pulled before the floor drops out from underneath him, waiting for answers he’s already dreading, even as he anticipates having no idea what they mean. Bucky — having learned to be judicious with his words for once — moves around the room, learning it a moment.

You look like shit, a digression, a change in topic, and far from the kindest thing to say to a man looking like he’s on the precipice of slamming a fist through plate-glass window, but it’s also not the worst thing, and therefore it remains. A streamer. An invitation. A rope ladder meant to pull him from the maelstrom of whatever cloudburst has him under its thumb. Regret.

Is that all you came to say?

No, it’s a simple response, filling the air with its heavy silence and then… one, deep, long-suffering sigh.

He should say something about the way Barnes pokes around the room, opens drawers until he finds… something, the brooding King isn’t actually watching save for what he can see reflected back in the window. He should say something, but he doesn’t. Lets silence sit between them like an oppressive and unwelcome guest, leering at them both.

Daring them to say the obvious.

Daring them to bring down the thunder and the fury.

I’m fine. A lie. I don’t need anyone hovering over me. Another lie.

Petulant.

That’s what he sounds like. Petulant. And judging by the way Bucky snorts, derisive and unamused — or distracted, again, carefully observing his phone for a moment — he sounds it to everyone else in the room.

D’you want me t’say I told you so now or after you’ve finished brooding? He’s merciless. He’s never actually had it in him to be tactful, and Steve’s far from a pretty baker with a mean left hook to keep him distracted.

Are you defending her? He’ll let himself sound surprised, raise one eyebrow as watches his childhood friend stand back, preparing for some onslaught or another.

She came with a contract. You’re the one who fucked it up.

He knows. He knows he made it different. He made it about something else. More than money, more than power, more than control. He made it about the only person he’d met who’d been openly willing to stand against him. Risk life and limb against him. Win against him. Playing cat and mouse, he was always the apex predator and then you stalked into that courtroom, prim and proper, lookin’ right out of a goddamn crime drama in a suit he’s pretty sure you got tailored for that specific occasion.

Not like any prosecutor he ever met. Not an ounce of stress on your face, no furtive glances at your second chair, hopin’ some supervisor would come save you when you fumbled your words. You never fumbled your words.

They were knives. Knives right out of your mouth, cutting away at the veneer of legitimacy he kept over everything he did — just a corporation with its own private security, nothing more and nothing else, so what if people got hurt, they probably needed to in the first place — until you laid it out for the world to see, bare and raw and bleeding truth.

He wanted to see you just like that. Bare. Vulnerable. Seen.

And what did that earn him but obsession and then heartache, clearly? He could have had you. Fucked and soft in his arms, could have asked no questions, could have done as he did and won you.

You could have hated him but you needed him.

You came to him first. You came to him and you sank into his arms and that submission should have been enough but it wasn’t and this is the consequence of getting fucking greedy.

I tried to talk to her.

Before or after? You talked to the target too — you never talk to the target, your own rules.

Do the job. Don’t ask questions. That was the policy, and he.

He doesn’t even do these things. What King does his own dirty work, what King leaves anything but a chain of plausible deniability wherever he goes? Keep his hands clean, keep the fall guys safe, keep him out of trouble. Except now? Now he’s here.

In trouble.

I should—

You’ve done enough, Steve.

That.

Stops him.

Well. Not quite.

The roar is a rush, blood through the ears and glass shattering hard against plate glass, leaving little more than dust for… some poor sod to clean up later, Then what? What else? What else is he supposed to do, as he finally loses the long-held control he’s barely clung to since the moment you walked into his life and upended it. What is he supposed to do? Make amends? How? He barely hears himself — and frankly, he’s not sure Bucky hears him either, so used to tuning out the things Steve says in anger — just a burst of pain pulsing through his whole self, a drumming heartbeat and then.

Exhaustion.

And Bucky Barnes, having heard his best friend, his childhood friend, the stupidest man alive in this moment vent his rage in one barely coherent rush of yelling, does little more than grab the remote to connect his phone to the television hanging from the office wall, meant to be used for presentations.

This one needs no powerpoint.

Just a headline, and then, Someone opened fire at Judge Pierce’s funeral. There’s confirmed casualties. The Senator’s been shot.

Chapter Text

Senator Andy Barber’s Chief of Staff keeps a loaded gun in the glove compartment of every car he drives, a force of habit the Senator is probably grateful for right about now, even in absentia. While he pays for the final tank of gas he’ll need to get you both to where you need to go, you open it up and empty the clip, leave the bullets in the cup-holder save for the two you put back. He doesn’t bother questioning the sight of them when he returns, just glances at you briefly and proceeds to hand you a cup of watery, burnt coffee you almost immediately regret taking a sip of.

You drain the cup before the car’s back on the highway.

The road ahead is a lonely one, just the car’s headlights to cut through the snowy gloom. William “Billy” Russo barely speaks, the only driver half-insane enough to be driving through this particular stretch of the Appalachian Trail this late at night with a snowstorm raging all around the both of you.

You never picked up smoking as a habit, really — too devout then, too late now — but as  the suffocating silence settles in alongside the cold in your bones, you can’t help but crave one. Just one. Just something to quiet the churning anxiety and growing dread in your belly.

You risk a glance over to Billy, take in the pale white of his knuckles deepening as his grip on the wheel shifts, his eyes catching yours when he feels the weight of your gaze on him, You getting tired?

Are you?

Exhaustion feels too far away, adrenaline still holding your eyes open, anxious twitches keeping your muscles uncomfortable in the passenger seat, unable to settle down. Even the shake of your head is too cautious to be definitive, too busy watching. Waiting. Say nothing.

Not long now, he tells you by way of an attempt at comfort, eyes back on the road, Safe house is just a few hours away.

Alaska.

Not the state — though you wouldn’t mind, all things considered. The house Billy pulls up to is… nice, if made gloomy in its snowy isolation. You almost wonder how a Senator’s newly-hired Chief of Staff even manages to have an isolated “safe house” just on the edge of the US-Canada border, with access to what seemed like a completely unmanned and unlicensed border crossing — and then you decide that question isn’t even top fifty on your list of questions you’ve had about your day.

Days, even. Days full of memories of caskets, graveside services, and Senator Andy Barber — bloody and battered — practically tackling you to the ground to remind you why you’re here, pulling up to a wood-and-brick prison rather than your palace of glass and steel.

Domain. Dungeon.

The snow outside is starting to turn into a full-bore blizzard, but the house itself is warm enough to boil your blood, fire crackling in the hearth and Billy handing you a mug of something warm and medically cleared for your consumption, I’ve got good news — he’s awake, he tells you, taking a seat in the armchair across from you with a glass of whiskey in hand, He’ll want to hear from you, make sure you’re safe.

Safe. The word feels all wrong, especially here. Especially now.

You are not safe, you will never be safe, he will find you he will always find you—

A pillar of the community has fallen.

It was a heart attack, the papers said.

This is a massacre, the television blares, traumatized reporter center stage. Here you sit, in the fallout of having been too close, far from escaping unscathed. Billy reads aloud the names of those mourners and sycophants too preoccupied with the performance of grief to notice the cracks in the foundation — tragic, tragic, couldn’t have happened soon enough.

Funerals are for the living, and amidst all this death, you might almost come alive.

Heart attacks, you know, are no more than convenient half-truths for the public to pretend, but this — this lays it all bare, exposes the rotten empire of Judge Alexander Pierce as it all comes crashing down around those who profited the most as his enemies decide to draw blood from his headstone.

And all it almost cost you was Senator Andy Barber

And all you had was Senator Andy Barber

Something rises in you at the thought, a bold of lightning through your chest as you feel yourself surge forward on that unraveling tightrope beneath your feet, teeth grinding together and muscles pulsing with the force of will it takes to keep you steady, tamp down the illness and anguish aching to pour from you the moment you open your mouth you are going to start screaming and you will never stop you will never stop you will never—the sight of Billy Russo’s concerned face blurs into practically nothing as you press down the growing pulse of both panic and pain, your stomach considering the merits of emptying itself entirely.

Are you alright?

He knows the answer to that. He knows what you’re about to say — if you could say anything at all — while you press your lips into a thin line and try not to glare too cruelly at him for daring to ask you something when opening your mouth is an impossible task.

The pulse of your jaw will have  to serve as answer enough.

Still. You manage. Abdomen sore and sour and a line of tears staining your cheeks, half-crumpled back into the couch while hands that are not Andy Barber’s try to hold you up.

You’ll try not to resent Billy for the sin.

Any being mired in politics eventually understands the value of things left unsaid, a fact you have never been more grateful for until now, as the pressure on the couch beside you lifts and you catch sight of Billy Russo’s blurry figure leaving your presence — and returning shortly, not long after you manage to clear your vision, met immediately with a glass of water and a metal straw.

And then the phone rings, leaving you alone again.

Barely secretly, you’re almost glad for the interruption.

How are you feeling?

Like I just woke up from having two bullets fished out of my ribs. Andy Barber’s voice is rough, smoke and gravel tinged with pain and whatever that medical team of his pumped into him to numb it while they sewed him shut. You almost wish you had coils on this damn phone, to wind around your fingers in absentminded anxiety while you press down the waves of stomach-churning guilt you’ve been contending with since you got here — and well before then, too.

It’s a game, a dance, a ruse. You know these steps too well.

I shouldn’t have asked, you manage by way of apology, listening to the strained chuckle on the other side of the line.

Better you asking than anyone else, Sunshine. How are you feeling?

Like Hell, like I can never stop, never escape, like you’ve trapped me in a cage, like the poison inside of me is going to choke me and then I’ll finally be free, free, free—

Comparatively, or just in general?

It’s a game, always. A dance. A ruse. Andy Barber shouldn’t laugh with chunks of his left side gouged out by two bullets you can’t even remember the caliber of — but the tenor of it washing over your ears is enough to set you right.

You will never be okay again.

Give me both, Sunshine. I could use the hope.

Hope. Funny thing to have when you’re laid up in a hospital bed with stitches keeping you together, but you personally — well you’re starting to get it. Just a bit.

Worried about you, mostly. Do you know when they’ll let you out? It could almost sound sweet, the way you make yourself worry — the way Andy believes you when you do — if you felt there was any sweetness left in you at all. You ought to be grateful.

You did this, you did this, you you you you you.

Liar liar liar traitor traitor traitor coward coward coward.

You almost miss it, Andy’s response, recalling just snippets as they break through your thoughts—check for sepsis… high security… not being very accommodating… stay in touch.

To be fair, I don’t think calling outside the hospital is within their protocol, you have it in you to sound like you might be teasing him, enough to feel a ghost of a smile tug at your lips when you hear another — stronger — laugh.

I’ll give them that. If they can give me the option of recovering at home, I might give them more.

You have to laugh at that, just a little.

It can’t last.

Sunshine… There it is, your laughter cut short by the shift in his voice, the smile you’d just begun feeling okay with tugging at the corners of your lips fading into nothing.

Andy, don’t—

No. Listen to me, this doesn’t change anything. I promised you I’d take care of you this time and I still mean it.

You can’t hear yourself for the blood-tide in your ears, waves of warning screaming at you to stop, to shut up, to run run run. You should not have come here. You should not believe him. You can’t trust him. You won’t. You cannot trade one cage for another, not this time.

It’s too late for that.

We’ll talk more when I see you again.

Turns out, that’s not for a while.

Still— Andy Barber keeps his promise.

You don’t mind at first, do you? It makes sense at first, doesn’t it? Billy Russo destroys your old phone before you and he have even left the hospital, erasing all its photos and memories and contact information of law school classmates you stopped reaching out to six months after you graduated, and it makes sense. Can’t be tracked this way. Be found. Be drawn back to that cage of glass and steel high above that city you’d moved to in some vain hope your past would leave you alone in that mess of people, politics, and pain.

Can’t let Steve Rogers know you’re still alive.

Can’t let him know what you’ve stolen from him.

So you don’t mind. You don’t mind the stillness — not even when the snow melts one uncharacteristically warm weekend and the woods around you feel almost devoid of life. You don’t mind the loneliness either, more than resigned to accepting your solitude as sanctions for your sins. You don’t even mind the way Billy dictates your days with careful ease — wait, no, you do mind that.

Don’t you have a Senator to look after? You question him one day, not long after your first silent and uncomfortable drive to a private clinic where you check in under the name Mrs. Barber and meet doctors and nurses whose pseudonyms you won’t bother to remember as they test your vitals and ultrasound your belly and act proud when you lie about how little nausea you’re feeling.

This is how he wants me to do that. He barely looks at you as he responds, practically rehearsed while typing away at his phone and gesturing vaguely to the stone-faced bodyguard who’s become more of a shadow to you than your actual one.

One cage for another.

This is the price.

This is your prison. Your dungeon. The life sentence you’ve won for your work. This cell of wood and brick, of double-paned and bullet-proof windows with roll-down metal shutters and bars pretending to be wrought-iron, of eyes always watching and waiting and reporting.

Andy Barber keeps his promises.

And all it costs you is everything you are.

I should do this right. He’d told you as much. I want to do this right.

You don’t ask him if this is what he defines as right when the ring shows up on your pillow after you return from yet one more heavily guarded visit to the clinic, terrified of the day you can’t hide — and deny — this reminder of Steve Rogers, all his lies and that scratched-out marble plinth in your heart upon which you’d once laid wreaths of surrender. You don’t ask him if this is what he defines as right when Billy hands you a pen and a marriage license backdated to the night you visited Andy Barber in his hotel room and almost told him the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but  the truth so help you God, your witnesses Andy’s Chiefs of Staff and officiant a name you don’t bother to question.

An old law school lecture about marriages conducted in absentia and the lack of validity thereof comes back to haunt you.

Billy Russo waits.

You sign the papers.

Andy Barber shows up six weeks later.

You’ve almost lost track of time.

It is… not a very spirited homecoming. Hardly the sort of thing a Senator who’s just survived a shooting and recovered — especially when so few were privileged enough to do the same — would earn on Capitol Hill. No fanfare, no excited extended family waiting in the wings with cake and confetti to welcome him back. Just a sleek black car winding its lonely way along an isolated drive and — as it rolls to a stop in front of the house — another member of staff rushing to help him out of the back seat.

You should be down there.

You should be waiting for him the way a good wife ought, all smiles and happy kisses and gleeful adoration. Odysseus has returned home, to banish the wolves at your door, free you from this beautiful prison and give you something like hope.

After all, Sunshine — you should be grateful.

You signed a vow, sealed with a ring — in sickness and in health.

You should be down there.

Instead, you remain at your seat by the window, knees drawn up as close to your chest as your slowly swelling belly might allow, watching. Haunting the upstairs bedroom you know you are about to share with the man you are about to call your husband — out loud, at least. In person.

Instead, you watch as Billy Russo steps into the spotlight, greets his employer with enthusiasm you haven’t seen once in the almost two months since your confinement began, haven’t seen once in the almost two months you have been silently glaring at him and his staff — all outstretched hands and a too-broad smile you don’t need to see to know is on his face.

Instead, you watch as Andy Barber looks up towards your window, as if he sees you half-hidden behind the curtain, the ghost of all that you once were a year-and-a-half ago when you managed to stand up against New York’s most dangerous and — briefly, gloriously — won.

You watch the way he frowns with his whole body, familiar with the set of his shoulders and the terrifying purpose in his stride as he steps inside. Ready for battle.

Hello, Sunshine. He looks the same. Kept the same beard. The same perfect hair. The same crease in his brow as he leans against the doorway with his arms crossed over his broad chest, his tongue pressed against his teeth and jaw flexing with either disappointment or displeasure as he watches you. No different than the man who asked you to stay in his hotel room the night you tore Steve Rogers from your heart and made your choice.

The warmth of him is a sanctuary you have begun to resent as he forces the confrontation you have imagined having a thousand times in the last week alone, the honey of his voice too much of an invitation for you to tolerate as he waits. Watches. Far enough away to let you decide if you want to close the distance, a consideration you mull over as you turn away from the window and the nothing and the hate of you, reluctantly meeting his gaze, Andy. Welcome home.

There’s hurt to him. Voice warm and wounded, fresh blood spilling into the air between you, reaching for the familiarity of before. How are you feeling? A question he knows the answer to, one he also knows you will not give voice to.

You prove him right, daring to shake your head at it, I’m fine.

Liar liar liar traitor traitor traitor coward coward coward

I’m not sure you mean that, Sunshine.

Andy… It’s a warning, a plea, a confession. Ask nothing, you want to insist, want  to scream and keep screaming and scream and scream and scream—

Andy Barber closes the distance.

You’ll never be used to this. To the thunder rumble of his voice rolling over you, to warm hands at your waist, to the way your name sounds so sweet on his lips while he lets one hand lift to your cheek and convinces you to look at him with the softest nudge of his fingers, Talk to me.

Let me out let me out let me out.

You shake your head, try to wrench yourself away but suddenly you are weak in more than body — unable, unwilling to pull yourself from the embrace you practically dreamt of sinking into — all your hate and resentment melting under the heat of his gaze. No, it’s—I’m—I’m just going a little stir-crazy, is all.

An apology. A concession. A plea. You are beating your wings against the bars of your cage and Andy Barber just… tightens his hold, tucks you against him, wraps you in the trapper’s net of his embrace and hides you. Tight enough you could almost drown in it, in the cedar and woodsmoke of his cologne, in the drumbeat of his steady heart as he near curls himself around you — sharp contrast to the hummingbird panic in your own chest, sternum cracking from the pressure, I know, I know, and you could almost believe in his apology too, if you could believe in anything at all.

I’m sorry, I—I shouldn’t be so—so what, you ask yourself before you can continue, dare stop yourself from apologizing for all that you shouldn’t have been in the first place.

You are more than this, more than her, she who languishes in this beautiful cell of a half-life she thinks she has earned. You are more than your cage and your broken promises and your guilt. You are—

Tired.

It sinks into your bones as easily as Andy does, so sure of himself and the choice and the life you had no say in him building for you, Don’t be, Sunshine. I can’t imagine this is easy for you.

I wasn’t the one who got shot.

That disarms him, at least, and you have an opportunity to smile as he lets out a laugh, lets you pull back enough to look at him, lets you stand on your own two feet with his hands at your waist again, watching you.

You can see the crinkle at the corner of his eyes, enough to steel you against the constant collapse of all you thought you once were. You never called me, after that, an accusation. A question.

I know. Fucked up of me, he admits it so readily it almost hurts to hear, until you see the flex of his jaw and the way his eyes slide from yours — guilt. You’ve been a lawyer long enough to know what that looks like — no matter how long it’s been since the last time you searched for it.

You wait.

I should have. Figured out some way of reaching you — but the Syndicate has more eyes looking for you than we anticipated. Rogers… Billy didn’t even want me coming out here, said it was too early, but I told him to make it work and so… here we are.

Billy. Your Chief of Staff. He orchestrated this? You fall into it so easily. The viper, the soldier, that arm of justice demanding answer and understanding and suddenly the light of  your interrogation is shining on him.

He can feel it too, the sharpness of your fangs as you consider sinking them into his throat, consider tearing into him and pouring out the venom you’ve built up in your veins. The look on his face is evidence of guilt, and so you wait. Wait for him to beg and plead and justify.

Chief of Staff is his official title. Think of him more as Chief of Security. I hired him after I got the news about Alex— if he notices the way you flinch at the name, he doesn’t comment —he’s been trying to make up for the funeral since.

And this is how. Not a question. But you’ll have your answers nonetheless.

Yes. Not quite. I didn’t—I should have told you, Sunshine. I’m sorry. I didn’t want you to worry more, not with…

Not with the baby. Might as well say it. The baby. The last reminder of Steve Rogers, the proof of all that he’d done to you, all that you’d paid to rid yourself of your pain, the newest shackle of your suffering. The baby.

Andy just ducks his head in the barest of nods, Not good for your health. You’ve got Rogers on the warpath, Sunshine—had to make myself look like the gentleman from Vermont just to get here, and Billy’s still convinced there might be a drone tracking me.

So why now? Why not wait, why not hide you forever, why not seal you away and pretend you never were?

Why do you think? I need you, Sunshine.

That stops you in your tracks, your circuit around the courtroom you’d made of this argument ceasing as you fix your gaze on him properly, Andy…

The ring. The license. Those are real, Sunshine. I’d rather have done it right but it’s not like Rogers gave me much choice — we were running out of time. If he finds out, at any point, he’d…

He trails off. You don’t need him to finish the sentence. Steve Rogers’s hands wrap themselves around your throat again, the heel of his palm at your chin, forcing you to look up, up into the cold steel of his eyes, into the hate of him, the way he made it look like love—no.

Never again.

You want to believe him, more than anything. Want to believe Andy Barber left you alone in silence for nearly two months against his will, want to believe you weren’t trapped in a prison on purpose, want to believe you can still fight back.

You don’t always get what you want — no matter how much you try.

He sees it too, the way you tense, the way your hands fall to his at your waist, the way you wonder at pulling him off you and pulling away and suddenly his fingers are pressing in a little too much, suddenly he’s dragging you in a little too fast and your hummingbird heart is racing again and the blood-tide is in your ears and, Sunshine! Hey, hey, look at me, I’m not going to hurt you. You’re safe, you’re safe— Andy Barber is afraid.

It is the fear you forgive him for.

You don’t remember how you got here, sitting on your bed with Andy Barber holding your hands in his, a man with his heart out of his chest. Listen to me. I’ll do anything to keep you safe. I will. But if you hate this, if you can’t forgive me for this, I’ll—I’ll make something work. Just give me long enough to… He trails off. Watches you. There’s a sheen of hurt in his eyes and it makes your own well up and you could hate him for that too, the same way you could hate him for this, the shackles he’s sentenced you to, for the jury that watches you.

But you don’t, really.

You stand at the cliffside between the devil and the deep blue sea and as you look into the stormcloud eyes so earnestly fixed on you and feel Andy Barber’s fingers squeezing your own with something like hope wrapped in the curl of them, you feel the blood-tide roar past your ears as you take one step into the nothingness and fall.

I signed the papers, Andy, you tell him, choking through sentiment with the simplicity of fact, interrupting the apologies he wants to make, watching his brow first furrow with confusion and then smooth with dawning realization, barreling forward before you can lose your nerve, If I wanted to go back to him — if I wanted there to be a chance he could find his way back to me — I wouldn’t have. I would have just managed alone, would have refused to go with Billy, would have left this house, would—

—would have gotten caught back up in it. Andy finishes speaking for you, his shoulders seeming to fall from the height he didn’t know he’d been holding them at, relief calming the tide of tears that might have drowned you both as he breathes a sigh and just…

Holds you, again. A question. An answer. A relief.

I need you to trust me, Sunshine.

And you do.