Leipzig AU: the choices we make

[nerves_of_ice]

It's a month after Thessaloniki when he slips the unmarked, unstamped postcard in the mail at Sharon Carter's apartment.

(It had taken him the entire month to decide to reach out. He'd spent most of the time burying himself in his self-imposed work and not allowing himself to think about anything other than the mission. Eventually, he'd realized that it wasn't working, and that there was only one way to find out what he now needs to know, even if he can't admit even to himself exactly why he does.)

Of course there's always the chance she'll think it's just an advertisement and ignore it. If she does, he'll try again with something a little more obvious before deciding she's not interested in reconnecting. Still, he thinks she's clever enough to catch it, and to decode the message, which isn't that subtle when it comes down to it: time, place, location.

It takes far less than a minute to pick the lock on the mailbox security panel - two seconds, maybe three, and he's able to pull it open, drop the card on top of her mail, and secure it once more.

Bucky makes his way from her apartment back down the Berlin street quickly and quietly, cap pulled down to hide his face, and disappears into the crowd.

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[from_the_outside]

Sharon shifts up on her hip and curls her hand at his neck as she leans in, guided by his gentle hand. She meets his intent glance with her own, then lets her gaze drop before she softly presses her lips to his, breathing in deep and shaky as she does.

[nerves_of_ice]

He keeps a hard rein on himself, keeps the kiss lingering and sweet, learning her.

It’s been years, years upon years since he’s done anything like this. He doesn’t want to think about how many, isn’t interested in making comparisons, doesn’t want to think about anything but the woman here with him whose breath is as unsteady as his own.

He kisses her until they’re both shivering a little, then tips his forehead against hers.

[from_the_outside]

She’s shaking as he rests his forehead against hers, as she curls against him, her fingers drifting up and through his hair.

“Bucky,” she murmurs. “You’ve been driving me crazy all night.”

[nerves_of_ice]

“Is that a good thing?” he asks, honestly unsure. “You have to tell me, baby. If there’s anything you want, or don’t— anything at all.”

[from_the_outside]

He calls her baby and she shivers all over even as he goes on, astonishing and delighting her in equal amounts. “I want you to call me that again,” she says, and her grin flashes like sunlight on water. She pushes herself up onto her knees to cradle his face and kiss him again.

“A very good thing,” she promises. “So good. I promise.”

[nerves_of_ice]

“Baby,” he murmurs, and kisses her back. Bucky wraps his left arm around her waist and pulls her closer, settling his right hand at her collarbone as he does, then kisses her again.

[from_the_outside]

“Bucky,” she murmurs. “All I want is you.”

She shifts in his arms, pushing up and lifting one knee across his legs before she settles lightly in his lap and kisses him again, her fingers slipping into his hair when it breaks and she looks down at him, her face flushed. “Is this okay?”

[nerves_of_ice]

"God, yes," he groans, leaning up to kiss her again, quick and light, his arm firm and sure around her waist.

"Let me--" He dips his head to press a kiss just over her heart, then looks back up at her with a small, sweet smile. "Will you let me?"

[from_the_outside]

“Let you what?”

But she doesn’t really care, because that smile melts her all the way down to her toes, and she’s pretty damn sure he couldn’t ask her for anything she wouldn’t be willing to give. “Okay,” she says, smiling back at him.

She runs all five fingers of her hand through his hair, luxuriating in the feel of it. “Go ahead.”

[nerves_of_ice]

"Keep kissing you," he explains, as he suits actions to words. Bucky trails a slow line of kisses from her lips back along the line of her jaw, then nips lightly at her earlobe before pressing another kiss to the spot just behind her jaw and beneath her ear.

[from_the_outside]

She shivers and shivers and shivers. “You’d better,” she tells him, breathless, as sensation ripples through her, unceasing. His mouth and his warm breath light every nerve in her body, and she makes a soft wanting sound, tipping her head to give him more room.

“Baby,” she breathes. “I can’t get enough of you.”

[nerves_of_ice]

"That's good," he murmurs, lips moving against her skin, "because we're just getting started. Just know you can stop me with a word, okay? No matter what."

He kisses slowly along the line of her throat, tracing the fast-moving river of her pulse with lips and tongue.

[from_the_outside]

“You too,” she murmurs, shivering wildly in his arms, in his lap. “If you need.”

As much as stopping is the last thing she wants to do. “But I definitely don’t want you to stop.”

Not now. Probably not at all, considering how badly she wants to touch him and hold him and be touched and held in return.

[nerves_of_ice]

He hums against the side of her throat and hooks a finger in the flowing neckline of the deep green blouse that she's wearing, the one that makes his fingers itch to run his hands over her. Gently, he pulls it away from her shoulder and starts to kiss the soft skin revealed when he does.

[from_the_outside]

She gasps softly as his lips press against the curve where her neck meets her shoulder and shudders in his arms, her fingers tightening in his hair. His fingers on her silky blouse makes her smile, remembering her thoughts from earlier in the night.

“If I’d known we were going to go dancing tonight,” she tells him, “I would have worn a dress.”

[nerves_of_ice]

"I wasn't sure we would." He retraces his path to the spot that made her tremble and kisses her there again, deliberately, drawing on her skin with his mouth.

[from_the_outside]

She shivers again, delight cascading through her as he lavishes attention on that sensitive spot. Sharon wraps her arms around his neck and pulls herself closer against him, trembling over and over.

“Next time,” she promises.

[nerves_of_ice]

He drops a string of kisses around her throat like a necklace and finds the matching spot on her other shoulder, teasing it with his tongue and the merest edge of his teeth.

As he does, he strokes his palm down over her sleeve and back up again, slow and deliberate.

"It's a pretty shirt," he tells her. "You didn't need a dress to look lovely."

[from_the_outside]

Sharon huffs a breath of laughter and tips her head the other direction, loose and lazy, enjoying every second of his sweet attention.

“You’re going to turn my head,” she murmurs, smiling.

It’s nice. That he thinks she’s pretty. That he likes the way she looks. That she wasn’t silly for putting a little more thought into what she looked like tonight.

[nerves_of_ice]

"It's the truth," he protests. Bucky raises his head to kiss her mouth once more as he puts his hand on her shoulder and runs it delicately down her side, to her hip, and back again, teasing silken fabric over her curves.

[from_the_outside]

She kisses him back deep and drowning, her hands coming to frame his face.

“You feel so nice,” she says, softly, and lets go of his head to run both hands down over his chest and up again.

[nerves_of_ice]

He makes a low sound and shudders under her touch, his back arching slightly.

"Please," he breathes. "Sharon, please."

[from_the_outside]

“Yes,” she murmurs, and kisses him again before trailing kisses over his cheek, pressing them beneath the angle of his jaw.

“Anything. Anything.”

[nerves_of_ice]

He tilts his head back to make it easy for her to do whatever she wants, enthralled by her touch, her kisses, her soft words.

Bucky brings his left hand around and sets it on her hip, then traces along her back with his right.

[from_the_outside]

She presses gentle kisses along his throat, pausing for a long moment over the spot where his pulse flutters against thin skin. His stubble prickles pleasantly against her lips and she hums contentment as his hands track over her back, as his arm goes around her.

“Bucky,” she breathes, and presses kisses back toward his ear, drunk on the taste and feel of him.