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The wishing stones were a strange magical artifact of unknown origin and the product of a long, messily executed mission. Natasha put herself in charge of their containment and by virtue of being the scariest person on a team of demigods and rage monsters, no one fought her on it. They left the stones in her capable hands and allowed her to make the call on what should be done with them.
So it was only Natasha that knew about it when one of the stones went missing.
“JARVIS,” she said, frowning down at the small, metallic chest that should have held four stones but that now only held three. “Lockdown the building as quietly as you can.”
She had just checked on them before dinner and if there was any chance that the perpetrator was still in the building, she didn’t want them getting out or getting spooked.
When JARVIS acknowledged her request, she locked the chest again and then set out to find Steve.
It wasn’t that she didn’t trust the others. It was just that she and Steve had been working together closely for a few years now and he had a finesse to him that Barton didn’t quite possess in close combat. Steve would be able to help her strategize a plan to sweep through Stark Tower quietly--and more importantly, quickly--just in case the stone had already been taken out of the building.
It was late, she realized as she walked through his darkened living room. He was probably already sleeping. She felt bad about waking him, but she thought he’d mind being kept out of the loop more.
“Rogers,” Natasha said as she pushed her way into Steve’s bedroom. “We have a situation. Have you seen -- oh.”
She stopped short.
Behind her, she knew, was the sleek, expansive space of Steve’s apartment in Stark Tower; filled to the brim with the latest gadgets and sturdiest furniture Stark could find for his favorite super-soldier.
The door to Steve’s bedroom, however, was a gateway to a completely different time and place.
She was now in a dilapidated one-room apartment, all gnarled floorboards and sparse, decrepit furniture. Chipped dishes sat on a drying rag beside the sink. An impossibly old radio sat on the kitchen counter and though she somehow knew that it was playing a soft song in the background, she could make out neither the tune nor the words.
The colors here were neutral and muted, faded like a photograph, but undeniably warm - creams and beiges and browns - whereas the colors behind her were cold, detached; blues and grays, icy whites.
Natasha had never been inside Steve’s bedroom but she knew that it wasn’t supposed to look like this. Perhaps the wishing stone wasn't as far from home as she’d feared.
In the middle of the room was Steve but not Steve as she had always known him. It was the Steve of the 1930s, the Steve of before. Small and gauntly thin, wearing clothes far too big for him. He was standing on his toes, fists clenched tightly in the uniform of one Sergeant James Barnes as they shared a fervent, hungry kiss.
A voice came from her right: “He’d just gotten back from basic.”
Big and broad-shouldered, Steve of the 21st century sat in an armchair that was too clean and too new for this setting. His knees were drawn up to his chest, hugging them tightly as he watched the couple in the apartment. Something about the expression on his face made her heartache, but it was his tone that made her step fully into the room and close the door behind her.
Steve hardly noticed at all. He never even spared her a glance.
“He’d been gone for weeks,” he continued, his explanation the only indication that he knew she was there and that he didn’t mind her presence, for whatever reason. “The first time since we met that we’d ever been apart for more than a few days. Felt like a lifetime.”
“Buck,” gasped the smaller version of Steve Rogers. Natasha looked away from her Steve to turn her attention on the couple again.
Barnes had one arm tight around Rogers’ middle, holding him close, and a hand shoved down the back of his pants. Whatever he was doing there - and she had a few good ideas - Rogers loved it.
“You feelin’ okay?” Barnes asked. There was something in the question that made her think he wasn’t talking about what his fingers were doing.
A list of Rogers’ ailments before the serum flitted quickly through her mind and she realized that he must have been sick quite often. Barnes was worried about his health.
“I’m fine,” Rogers said, exasperated, and then made an exultant sound into Barnes’ mouth. “Fuck, fuck. You gotta stop, you gotta--we can’t yet, it’s still--oh god, Bucky.”
“Don’t care,” Barnes hissed, barely above a whisper. “Don’t fuckin’ care, Stevie. Gotta have you. Can I?”
Rogers didn’t answer, just pulled him closer. Their mouths met again in another frantic kiss. Barnes didn’t stop what he was doing.
Natasha tilted her head, curious. Steve swore easily as if he did it often, and that surprised her. She’d never heard him curse before.
“Back then,” Steve said from the armchair, his voice flat and clinical. “You kept your... perversions ‘til after dark. We never did anything but kiss during the day and even that seemed too risky sometimes. This was...it was the first time we fucked while it was still light outside.”
The memory--and that’s what this was, a memory being played out before her like a movie she’d accidentally stepped into--blurred abruptly as if it couldn’t quite remember what came next or perhaps because it didn’t matter. When everything cleared, they weren’t in the apartment’s living room anymore but the bedroom.
There were only three pieces of furniture in here: a single dresser, bedside table, and a bed in the middle of the room that had been pulled away from the wall. Clothes were haphazardly strewn across the floor and though she couldn’t make out the clothing itself--it wasn’t the important part of the memory--she knew it was the clothes she’d seen them wearing just moments before.
Rogers and Barnes were on the bed and naked, trying to actually get somewhere but constantly distracted by each other’s mouth. Barnes knelt between Rogers’ spread thighs, hunched over his small body and looking far larger than he actually was because of it. One trembling arm held him up and the other was between his own legs, guiding himself into Rogers.
He kept his eyes steady on Rogers' form, watching for any signs of discomfort, but he needn't have. Rogers was squirming under him, trying to get closer, get Barnes inside him faster. He arched his back, putting his heels just beneath Barnes' ass, pulling him in.
The sound Rogers made was wounded and euphoric and needy, all at once; the echoes of it were too loud in a quiet that otherwise only held Barnes’ harsh breathing. She had never heard a sound like that before, but more than that, it wasn’t something she thought Steve Rogers was capable of.
It was a kind of abandonment, a sound that took every care in the world away with it. Nothing else mattered at that moment.
“We did it both ways,” Steve said softly and when Natasha looked, she saw that a blush now dusted his cheeks.
She was unsure what it signified; arousal at the scene laid before them, shame as he realized what he was allowing her to see, an embarrassment for what he was about to say. Perhaps all three.
“But I always liked this best. Him on top of me, inside me. I felt safe like that. Whole. Like some vital part of me was missin’ without him and that’s why I was so sick all the time. But back then, I hated how much I needed it. I felt like it was just one more thing wrong with me. Just another thing that needed fixin’. Bad heart, bad lungs...bad need to get fucked senseless.”
He smiled ruefully to himself and rested his chin on his knees, watching the bed. Barnes had started moving properly and despite all the care he’d taken before, he was not at all careful when he fucked. Their coupling was hard and rough and Rogers couldn't seem to get enough.
“This was the one time I didn’t fight him on it,” Steve said, as they watched the bodies on the bed move in familiar tandem. “He knew how much I liked it, always tried to give it to me. I wouldn’t let him most of the time. I fucked him just to prove that I could, that I wanted to. He liked that, too. Never much had a preference either way. Whatever I wanted, that’s what he wanted. It ate at him that what I wanted was to deny myself. But this time...this time I didn’t even try to fight. He’d been gone so long and whatever else happened, I just wanted him to fuck me.”
It didn’t escape her notice that he carefully didn’t say Barnes’ name. On the bed, Rogers didn’t have any such trouble.
“Buck,” he moaned. “More. Please. Fuck, Bucky, please."
He was doing a number on Barnes’ back, red marks marring lightly tanned skin and more appearing as his nails raked hard down Barnes' spine. The harder Rogers scratched, the harder Barnes fucked, and the harder he scratched. It was a vicious cycle but one that they both seemed to enjoy.
“All the guys,” Barnes growled, his nose was pressed into Rogers’ cheek. “They kept talkin’ about their girls. How much they missed ‘em, what they’d do when they got home. Filthy shit. Couldn’t tell them how much I missed you, how I went to bed every night thinkin’ about this. Bein' inside you, hearin' you beg for me. Wrapped a hand around myself but no matter how hard I squeezed, could never get it as fuckin’ tight as you are. Christ, Stevie, Christ.”
Their mouths found each other clumsily and it wasn’t so much a kiss as it was an attempt to share the same air. One of them - she couldn’t figure out who - let out a long groan and then the mood in the room shifted abruptly. In the space of one breath, they went from fucking to making love.
Maybe to them, it was the same thing.
They didn’t stop moving but it was different, slower. Barnes teased him, licked at his parted lips and then kissed the top one softly, groaning as he sank easily into Rogers, dragging his hips up slowly and then doing it again. Long but shallow thrusts that were almost an afterthought, Barnes’ focus more on the kisses he peppered across Rogers’ face and lips.
Folded nearly in half under him, his legs splayed wide, Rogers cupped Barnes’ face in his hands and kept him close; kept their lips touching, brushing softly, his eyes fluttering shut. There was a kind of fulfillment in his expression, a satisfaction already achieved just from this. Just from Barnes moving inside him.
Bad need to get fucked senseless, Steve had said and she saw the truth of it now.
All Rogers cared about was the man on top of him, the cock inside him.
His hand slid down to cup Barnes’ ass and he pulled him closer, deeper, and then gave a little cry into Barnes’ mouth. Barnes stayed close, rolled his hips deep, again and again, and Natasha hadn’t realized there was any composure left to lose until it was gone. Rogers was making little helpless, hitched noises, head thrown back as his hips jerked, grinding upwards into Barnes’ movements. Greedy for more and not being shy about it.
Between them, his cock lay hard and red, the purplish head leaking on his stomach. Precome was smeared across his belly, making him look messy and more debauched than he already was, as if he’d been close for a while. When he went to reach for it, though, Barnes snatched his wrist back and pinned it to the bed.
“No,” he said, commanding. His hips snapped harder into Rogers, finding a new rhythm. Not the frantic pace of before but not slow anymore, either. This was some mixture of both and definitely one chosen to get Steve off, if the determined expression on Barnes’ face was anything to go by. “Just from this. You come like this or you don’t come at all.”
Everything Natasha knew about Steve Rogers said that he didn’t like to be given orders but that wasn’t what she saw now. The words made Rogers go limp under Barnes, blissed out, and the way he looked up at Barnes could only be described as worshipful.
Barnes’ thumb caressed the wrist that was still trapped between his hand and the bed.
“C’mon, baby doll,” he whispered, out of breath and sounding just as worshipful as Rogers looked. “Come for me.”
Natasha knew the second before it happened that it would happen and she averted her gaze, finding that she couldn’t take that moment of privacy away from them. It was only then that she noticed the steady creaking sounds of the bed, a beat the same rhythm as Barnes’ thrusts.
A heartbeat after she looked away, she heard a muffled cry and then a softer noise; a groan that almost seemed like a growl.
The creaking slowed and then stopped altogether.
When she looked back, the two men were a pile of sweaty, lifeless limbs on the bed. Rogers had bitten Barnes’ shoulder to muffle himself and it took him several moments and several quiet, satisfied noises before he pulled his mouth away. He collapsed onto the bed, his body completely boneless, legs hanging loosely around Barnes’ hips as he took in slow, deep breaths.
Steve didn’t say a word and neither did his memory self or James Barnes for several seconds. Finally, Barnes shifted back like he was going to pull away and Rogers let out a ragged noise, his tired limbs tightening around Barnes to keep him close.
I felt safe like that. Whole. Like some vital part of me was missin’ without him.
“Don’t,” Rogers begged, voice hitching like he couldn't breathe over the possibility of Barnes leaving him. "Please don't."
As soon as the words left him, he looked away, ashamed.
I hated how much I needed it.
Barnes thrust once, hard, grinding deep as he muffled Rogers’ moan with a long kiss. He didn’t pull out.
“Missed you,” he said, a confession, when he pulled away just enough for them to breathe. “Missed you so fuckin’ much, Stevie.”
Their noses brushed together, impossibly affectionate, as Rogers confessed back: “Me too.”
Though the words were never exchanged, Natasha heard what they were really saying loud and clear.
I love you.
The memory faded slowly. Their rundown bedroom melted away into Steve’s room in the Tower; just as sparse as the apartment of his memory but with more expensive furnishings. She didn’t have to ask to know which he preferred.
One held James Barnes and the other didn't.
Natasha stood there for several moments, looking at the newly revealed room, and then finally dredged up the necessary bravery to turn and look at Steve. She wished she hadn’t. His expression was devastated and broken, a yearning like she’d never seen before held in his blue eyes as he stared at his empty room.
For the first time, she noticed his fist clenched on the arm of the chair he sat in. Approaching cautiously, she rested a hand lightly over his and knelt beside the chair, staring up at him. He didn't look back but his fingers opened under hers to reveal the missing wishing stone.
Without its magic in use, it was a dull blue color, not entirely dissimilar to the color of Steve’s eyes.
“What did you wish for?” Natasha asked, because it seemed odd that a wishing stone would show a memory.
Steve finally looked at her, his gaze just as lifeless as the stone in his hand.
“I just wanted to know it was real,” he whispered and Natasha had to physically stop herself from flinching.
Her heart broke a little more when he finished his thought.
“I’m the only one left alive now that knows it happened. I'm the only one that remembers.” He paused, glancing down at the stone before looking back at her helplessly. “I just...wanted to make sure it wasn’t a dream.”
Natasha closed his fist around the wishing stone again, making sure to keep eye contact as she did it.
“You’re not the only one who remembers now,” she promised and then hugged him so she wouldn’t have to witness the tears that began to fall.