Actions

Work Header

The Line

Summary:

UPDATES 5-6 TIMES PER WEEK. While she muddles her way through grad school, Darcy is hired by Tony Stark to help deprogram Bucky Barnes now that Steve Rogers has found him and brought him back to Avengers Tower. A few weeks into the project, Steve approaches Darcy and asks if she'd consider having sex with him while Bucky watches them. Steve says they are both attracted to her, and he thinks it will help Bucky become more comfortable with people and sex. Darcy's not sure about that, but she IS a firm believer that when Captain America and his brooding best friend want you to get naked with them, you don't say no. The rape/non-con warning relates to two scenes (neither more than 2 pages) in two chapters in which Bucky reveals some memories of his time with HYDRA to Darcy. It does not relate to the present or the pairing(s).

Notes:

HEY, HEY.
First, dear reader, I have to admit that I’ve never written polyamory or a throuple before. I’m doing my best over here. After writing Darcy/Bucky and Darcy/Steve, I started thinking if one super soldier is good, then two have to be better. Right?

HOW LONG IS THIS? WHOSE PERSPECTIVE ARE WE GETTING? WHEN IN THE MCU TIMELINE DOES IT TAKE PLACE?
It’s 27 chapters and about 160,000 words. The first chapter is from Steve, the last chapter is from Bucky, and everything in between is your girl Darcy. It takes place a couple years after CA: The Winter Soldier. A few months before chapter 1, Steve located Bucky in Romania and brought him back to NYC. With help from the Avengers (especially Tony), they clear Bucky’s name and begin work on deprogramming him.

HOW OFTEN WILL IT BE UPDATED?
Five to six times a week. The entire fic is complete, and my betas have read almost all of it already. I might need to skip a couple days each week if I get behind on editing. However, you should have the entire thing by the end of September.

 

WHAT CAN YOU EXPECT?

  • A 28-year-old Darcy Lewis who is trying to finish grad school but not in love with her life
  • A Steve Rogers who is desperately trying to help his best friend heal and live again
  • A Bucky Barnes who is learning how to be himself again and searching for a way to connect with people
  • Avengers living in Avengers Tower
  • Steve hating sci-fi and fantasy media
  • The benefits of crotchless panties
  • Memories of Bucky’s past rape/sexual trauma
  • Rumors and memes
  • Darcy and Nat terrorizing the waiters of NYC
  • Graphic tees
  • Copious amounts of dirty talk (looking at you, Steve)
  • Bucky being a sci-fi/fantasy nerd
  • Steve and Bucky being sexually attracted to each other as well as to Darcy
  • Discussion of monster romance novels
  • A “Little Miss Rule Breaker” shirt that is not for Darcy (looking at you, Steve)
  • Steve and Bucky lending each other a hand for handjobs
  • Movie nights
  • Lots of sex, but still somehow a slow burn
  • Darcy, amateur hairstylist
  • Caramel oat milk macchiatos
  • Exhibitionist Steven Grant Rogers
  • Internet searches on throuples
  • Princess Bride references

WHAT ABOUT WARNINGS OR TRIGGERING CONTENT?
In this fic, Bucky was subjected to sexual abuse and rape during some of his time with HYDRA. There are two chapters (6 and 14) that have details of this. Specifically, Darcy sees this abuse through Bucky’s eyes while reviewing his memories. Bucky consents to showing these moments to her. I did my best to avoid gratuitous details without softening the emotional impact of those moments. A driver of the narrative is Bucky’s healing as he learns to trust himself and open up to Steve and Darcy. However, there is a page or two in those chapters that may be triggering to some. I’ll remind you when you get there and offer a way to reach out to me for an edited version that removes the content if you would like to read this fic but can’t read the non-con bits.

There is also a great deal of explicit sexual content. More chapters than not include at least one sex scene. Darcy is almost always in the mix during these scenes, but there is sexual attraction between Bucky and Steve. There are also sexual acts (touching, kissing, handjobs, blowjobs) between them. If that is going to bother you, you’ll probably want to skip this fic.

Finally, this involves a romantic and sexual relationship between three people. Each person has a unique relationship with the other two, but they all feel most drawn to moments that involve the three of them. None of them have experience with polyamory and keep thinking of things in terms of the more traditional relationship structures in American culture. They eventually work it out, but there is some amount of awkwardness, self-sacrifice, self-esteem issues, and a touch of jealousy from Darcy. Honest communication happens often, but brains still resist something different even if they all want it.

THANK YOUS!
Thank you to feistygina for urging me to run with this WinterShieldShock idea, being a sounding board, and making what I wrote better. Thank you to baybelletrist for being a sounding board and correcting all my grammar, spelling, and awkward sentence structures like a boss. And thank you to grimeysociety for providing feedback and notes on the fic. And, finally, thank YOU for reading this fic. I’d love to hear what you think as we take this little journey together. Comments are like writer fuel to fill my tank.

Chapter 1: Chapter 1

Chapter Text

 

“Confess your sins to me while you masturbate.” - Miguel (the valley)

 

“You thinking about her, Buck?”

Bucky let his head fall back and clenched his jaw. “It’s your hand on my dick, punk. Why would I be thinking about someone else?”

Steve ran his thumb over the head of Bucky’s cock on the next stroke, making his friend grunt in pleasure. “I see the way you look at her,” he said, watching his own fist as he jerked Bucky off while they sat on the couch in the apartment they shared.

Bucky grunted and flexed his hips up the slightest bit.

“Do you want her?” Steve pressed, squeezing the base of Bucky’s shaft.

“Don’t know who you’re talking about,” Bucky almost growled back.

“Yeah, you do.”

Bucky exhaled a breathy laugh. “You jealous?”

Steve smiled and started moving his hand again, working his fist up and down Bucky’s length. They used to do this during the Howling Commando days, just find a little privacy and give each other a hand. Literally. He knew how Bucky liked it, the perfect pressure and speed that would have him blowing his load within minutes. Bucky knew the same about him; it took them one night three weeks ago to relearn it.

Steve had been relieved after they’d jerked each other off. It was finally something familiar, something of the old Bucky, for Steve to latch onto. The man he was living with didn’t always feel like the friend he’d grown up with in Brooklyn. This man had been through years of torture and abuse, more than Steve could comprehend. Those years had changed Bucky to the point that Steve wasn’t sure he’d ever see the old Buck again. He kept telling himself it was fine.

Sam told him he needed to meet Bucky where he was, not force him to be the old version of himself. Steve was trying to follow that advice, but it was difficult. He missed his friend.

“I’m not jealous,” Steve told him. “She’s a knockout.”

Bucky’s head was tilted back and his eyes were closed. He didn’t reply.

To get a rise out of his friend, Steve said, “Was thinking I should ask her out, show her a good time.”

Bucky’s right hand reached over to grab Steve’s thigh. Steve kept pumping his fist up and down, feeling a sick kind of pleasure that he’d gotten a reaction.

“What do you think?” Steve asked.

“Don’t matter what I think,” Bucky murmured before exhaling a sharp breath and lifting his hips up to chase Steve’s hand.

“Remember when you brought Dorothy Davis over to my place a few weeks before you were deployed?” he asked Bucky.

Bucky huffed out a laugh. “It was her idea, punk. She wanted you to watch.”

“I liked watching,” Steve confessed. “After you left, I jerked off while I thought about the two of you having sex in my bed.”

“Fuck,” Bucky hissed. His grip on Steve’s thigh was bordering on painful as he arched his body and came with a grunt, shooting his load all over his shirt and Steve’s hand.

Steve kept his fingers wrapped around Bucky’s dick while his friend’s labored breathing slowed. After a few quiet moments, Bucky reached back and grabbed the material of his T-shirt between his shoulder blades, pulling the garment over his head and dropping the soiled shirt in Steve’s lap. Steve used it to wipe Bucky’s cum off his hand before laying it over Bucky’s dick.

Just when he’d decided to push himself up off the couch, Bucky reached over and unzipped Steve’s fly. Mimicking Bucky’s posture from before, Steve let his eyes close and his head fall back while Bucky reached inside his pants to pull out Steve’s dick. As was usually the case when he found Bucky like this on the couch, Steve was hard as a rock and desperate for relief.

In an attempt to help, Steve fumbled with the button on his tactical pants while Bucky spit into his right hand. Steve grunted when Bucky started working a fist up and down his dick.

“Seems like you were the one thinking about her, punk.”

“I’m hard for you,” Steve clarified, his cock jumping in Bucky’s firm grip. Besides himself, no one could make him blow his load as fast as Bucky. It was like the other man knew the exact way to stroke Steve’s cock to make him lose his control.

Steve settled back into the cushions on the couch and let Bucky work him over. He also thought about her and the way those black leggings hugged her thighs and ass like a second skin. He thought about what would happen if she was sitting there next to him on the couch, watching Bucky get him off. The shot of adrenaline and desire was overpowering.

“Do you want her?” Steve asked again.

“Steve,” Bucky warned.

“Darcy. Do you want her?”   

Bucky’s grip loosened and the rhythm of his strokes faltered. He recovered quickly. “Doesn’t matter. You know I can’t.”

Steve closed his eyes again and let Bucky finish him off. Instead of trying to hold back his orgasm, Steve embraced it, thinking of watching Bucky and Darcy touching each other in his bed. That mental picture had him grunting as he climaxed.

Bucky wiped his hand off on the shirt and tossed it into Steve’s lap so Steve could clean himself up.

Steve’s mind kept circling back to Dorothy Davis and that night he’d sat in the wooden desk chair in the corner of his bedroom while Dottie had straddled Bucky in Steve’s bed. Steve had watched his friend twice more since then, both times during their Howling Commandos days. He’d liked watching, and Bucky had seemed to like being watched.

“You could take it slow with her,” Steve suggested, looking over at his friend. “You do this with me. You could it with her.”

“You’re different, punk. I’ve known you all my life. You’re the only person I trust.”

“She seems like a good girl.”

“This is enough,” Bucky replied, his tone firm and final.

“What if I ask her to come over for me?” Steve tossed the shirt onto the floor and held his breath after asking the question.

“You can do what you want, punk.” Bucky tucked himself back into his pants.

Steve did the same before saying, “If she’s game, what if you watched this time?”

Bucky’s fingers were pulling the tab of his zipper, and he froze with it halfway up, his eyes on the wall opposite them. “Watch you and her?”

“If she agrees.” Steve held his breath again, waiting for Bucky’s answer.

“You think she would?” Bucky’s tone was cautious, measured.

“Don’t know. Maybe. How much are you comfortable with me telling her about us?”

Bucky looked up at the ceiling as he considered the question. Steve didn’t push his friend. Even considering doing anything like this was progress for Bucky.

Steve had never been attracted to men other than Bucky, and even then he wasn’t sure he’d call what they had a relationship. Buck was his best friend, someone he loved. It only made sense that they’d lend each other a hand sometimes. Bucky hadn’t been willing to slide back into that comfort when he’d moved into Stark’s building with Steve nearly four months ago. Catching him on the couch and jerking each other off only started happening a few weeks back.

Steve wasn’t stupid. He could put two and two together and solve the equation. Five weeks ago, Tony had brought in an assistant, a grad student who had arrived with Thor’s astrophysicist girlfriend, to help with a project to remove Bucky’s conditioning. Her name was Darcy, and Steve couldn’t blame Bucky for looking; he’d looked, too. Darcy had an easy way about her, and she could talk to anyone. She always made Steve feel like a normal person when he caught her upstairs in one of Tony’s labs and asked her about her day. It made sense that she’d make Bucky feel the same way.

Bucky had shared some of what HYDRA had done to him, including forcing him to engage in sex acts under orders on occasion. Steve had spent two weeks tracking down a faction in Poland last month just so he could watch the fear in the face of one of Bucky’s former handlers when Steve pulled his fist back to punch him. That kind of blow would have been fatal, so Steve shifted his fist a few inches to the side and punched a hole through the brick wall. He’d broken several bones in his right hand in the process, but that had been a small price to pay to see the man piss himself in abject fear.

“Buck?” Steve whispered. “How much are you comfortable with me telling her if I ask her about spending some time with us?”

Bucky stood up. As he made his way to his bedroom, he said, “She’s already watching the horror show in my brain four days a week. You can tell her what you think she needs to know.”