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buckets-and-trees · 9 months

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He Bought a Studio

Fandom: MCU Title: He Bought a Studio Characters/Pairings: Bucky x Natasha Word Count: 4.3k Summary: In an alternate universe where Steve stayed, Natasha lived, and everyone settled down in the Big Apple, this chronicles a Winter Soldier's decent into opening up a dance studio for the Black Widow he's become totally besotted with in super soldier retirement, and many things that come with it. Almost titled, "Five Times Natasha Romanoff Was Right To Be Suspicious Of Bucky Barnes."

Content Warnings: brief smut (oral female receiving), fluff, feelings, a goddaughter, soft former assassins

Additional Notes: Filling my eighth square for Bucky Barnes Bingo @buckybarnesbingo - B4 "Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow" and clocking in week 7 of Hot Bucky Summer to fill the prompt "Who's This?"/my pet, my lover, my slave.

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ONE

With reputations that rivaled each other as the world’s most efficient assassin and effective spy respectively, Bucky and Natasha were too suited to each other to ever forge a life with anyone else. They could compete in skill and intellect, they challenged each other, but more than anything else they understood each other – bleeding ledgers something they didn’t have to explain, good and bad days reconciling the past something they didn’t have to clarify. No judgement.

It's also difficult for either of them to surprise the other.

But she can admit she was not expecting anything even close to this.

She blinks furiously, using the pretense of rotating on the spot to take in the space – its smooth hardwood floors and pristine mirrored walls haunting in the mostly-darkened room, one of three or four in the facility if she had assessed correctly – to turn away from his intense gaze directly on her face for a moment.

“You bought a ballet studio,” she says, the words still thicker through her throat than she had hoped they would be.

The feelings competing in her chest are at once heartbreaking and hopeful.

He just hums in confirmation.

“You bought a ballet studio,” she repeats, this time a whisper, but she knows he hears. He hears everything, including the racing of her heart.

Bucky reaches for her hand and tugs her back to him. “Don’t you want to know why?”

“Because you have too goddamn much money from the government settlements?”

“That and my sister loved to dance. You loved to dance. You could dance again.”

“You gonna dance with me, Barnes?” she teases.

He shakes his head and laughs, opening his mouth to protest, but she cuts him off.

“No excuses – between when you grew up and the dance training all Russian assets got, I know you can dance.”

“Agree to run the dance side of the Barnes Ballet Academy and I’ll dance with you whenever you want,” he says, pulling her into his chest and arranging them into an appropriate dance position, one hand holding hers, the other moving to the small of her back.

She yields for a moment, resting her head against his shoulder, and he begins to sway them back and forth slowly to some imaginary music.

“Why did you really buy a ballet studio, Buck?”

He sighs, then kisses the top of her head. “We can’t have everything together, but I can give you this. It’s not…”

He can’t or won’t finish the sentence, but she swallows painfully and then finishes it for him. “It’s not kids.”

“But these rooms can be filled with them every afternoon. Since I bought the studio, I will take care of all the business, and you can just worry about dancing and coaching. Besides, what else is a retired super soldier supposed to do?”

TWO

When she closes the door of the Brooklyn apartment behind her, it’s the wrong kind of quiet.

She fully expected to hear Bucky in the kitchen getting dinner ready or maybe on the phone with the contractor, a choreographer, another instructor, or the parent of a potential student.

“Barnes?”

No answer.

Something is not right. The lights are on like he’s home, but there isn’t a single sound, and all her instincts from her former life kick in, eyes scanning the living room, weight shifting forward on her feet, adopting a predatory stance. Moving down the hallway, she slips her hand behind one of the pictures on the wall, retrieving a gun stashed there only she and Bucky know about, and continues moving slowly and silently on.

Then she hears a scoff from the study.

Natasha’s brows knit together. A scoff?

As she rounds the corner into the study, an immediate assessment of the room is enough to tell her she has no need for defense and lowers her gun. Her boyfriend is on the couch, back to her, engrossed in watching something on his phone with noise-cancelling headphones in. She glides back into the hallway to replace the weapon so it’s at the ready in case of a real threat in the future, and heads back to investigate. She places a hand on his shoulder, and he turns abruptly, smiling when he sees her and pulls out an earbud.

“What’s a girl got to do earn her supper around here?”

He glances at his watch. “Oh, sorry, Nat! I lost track of time with this,” he says, gesturing to the iPad on his lap.

“What are you even watching?”

He smirks, but she can detect a trace of embarrassed color his cheeks. “Save the Last Dance. Here,” he takes her hand off his shoulder and tugs her around the couch and pulls her onto the cushion beside him. He then grabs the remote, turns on the flatscreen television, and throws the movie up from his tablet so they can both watch. “I was only ten minutes in, so we can start over from the beginning.”

Natasha snorts. “You’re really watching this?”

“Of course, I’m watching it! I own a ballet studio! It’s important for me to have a full understanding of the cultural benchmarks and stereotypes that are part of the dance world.”

“What, are you going to watch every dance-centric film and television show out there?”

“Maybe I will,” he responds, a defiant cock of his chin.

Now she just grins and cuddles up into him. “Fine, but I’m ordering in Thai,” she says and taps away quickly at her phone to secure their dinner. When she sets her phone down, she notices there’s also a stack of DVDs on the shelf under the TV, and she can see four of them are from the Step Up franchise, a copy of Center Stage, and Dirty Dancing and Dirty Dancing: Havannah Nights.

For the next few days, Bucky seems to be watching one of the many films he’s continuing to accumulate or an episode of So You Think You Can Dance or Dance Moms either actively or in the background whenever it’s convenient. He’s always a bit incredulous though in his idle commentary and many unconscious scoffs when the latter is playing.

“You know you don’t have to finish that,” she says.

“I always finish what I start, Romanoff.”

“But you do know there are eight seasons, right? It’s important to me that you know there are eight seasons.”

“And I will happily watch them all.”

“Happily?” she jeers.

“I said what I said.”

“Nerd.” She rolls her eyes, but affectionately, and heads out for her meeting with a potential guest choreographer for the girls. There are so many parts of this life she never would have predicted for herself, and a boyfriend obstinately binge-watching reality tv about the dance world wouldn’t even have made the bottom of the list of possibilities.

THREE

For all the dance tv and movie consumption she’d had by proximity when Bucky had started down this ballet studio ownership journey, nothing had prepared Nat for the reality of it.

The way these girls showed up was endearing.

Some of them were a little trying, but they also all tried to do their best. Ballet was demanding and it could be competitive, but Nat worked diligently to establish a teaching staff and culture that focused on grit and community as much as it did on technique.

It was harder with the parents. Some of them still jockeyed for standing both for themselves and their offspring.

She certainly appreciated some of the parents and guardians more than others, but she didn’t want to discount any of them since, for better or worse, they all played integral parts in the lives of her girls, and those experiences affected how they could show up any given day on that dance floor.

Steve’s one of the parents who plays a part in the community, his five-year-old Sarah – Nat and Bucky’s goddaughter – just old enough to start in the youngest class of ballerinas. Steve’s somewhat adopted one of the giant hulking men – Kyle, who’s a single father to one of the other girls in Sarah’s class – always making sure the working-class man feels comfortable and like this can be “the village” that helps.

Nat’s speaking with both men when she feels the intensity of a gaze she’s grown intimately familiar with.

Bucky’s leaning against the wall, arms crossed, and he’s in conversation with his assistant and two of the community dance class instructors (ballet runs every afternoon, but to make use of the facility and to generate enough money to make it financially sustainable, he’s implementing evening classes across disciplines for adults from simple barre and Zumba to ballroom).He’s talking to them, but he’s mostly looking at her, and when they lock eyes, he glances down to his own hand, then flicks his eyes back up to her before returning his focus to the three people in his immediate vicinity. She takes the hint, and watches as his right hand taps out a message in morse code on his vibranium bicep:

Need you in the office.

Natasha doesn’t frown in front of Steve or Kyle but gives a believable excuse to extract herself and makes her way to the office, navigating with purpose but without drawing attention to their office. He knew the schedule of this place like clockwork, and so to pull her away this close to a class almost never happened.

Within forty-five seconds, she hears his steps approaching and then the turn of the doorknob ahead of his entrance.

She arches one eyebrow, but, Oh…

She knows exactly what that look means.

She can’t help the low laugh that erupts from her chest, but it’s cut off immediately as he crosses the room and claims her mouth in a kiss, lips searing heat, desperate, consuming. His hands were already slipping into the top of her leggings, and his fingers hitched into the band of her underwear, pulling them down in one smooth motion as he forced her back to his desk. He’s never miscalculated anything in his life, so she doesn’t hit the desk clumsily – he lifts her deftly to deposit her on the smooth wooden surface the split second before her hips would’ve knocked into it.

No one else had ever engulfed her with this kind of passion, and she would never get enough of this, of him.

And yet as he trails his lips down the column of her throat, she has to protest, “Buck, I have to be back out there in five minutes.”

“I know. Still need you.”

When he laves his tongue at the juncture of her neck and shoulder, her head rolls back, and she moans, but then she pushes against his chest. “You can wait, you’ll survive.” Though she isn’t quite sure she could now that he had her blood running hot for more.

“Fine, I don’t need you,” he concedes, but then he looks directly into her eyes and his voice drops, “I want you now, and you know I always finish what I start, Romanoff.”

His hands move up her bare legs, thumbs caressing the crease at the top of her thighs, too close to her cunt not to make her heart race, and he smirks.

“Barnes…”

He sinks to his knees, ducks under the fabric of the only partially removed bottoms, and slots himself between her legs, pulling her hips to the edge of the desk before he spits on her slit.

“I can apply my efficiency,” he asserts and presses a kiss onto the tender flesh of her inner thigh resting over his shoulder.

“Cocky bast–”

His mouth directly on her clit cuts her off abruptly. Her folds were slick for him with the intensity of the previous moments, but he mixes her arousal and his spit with his thumb and then slips two fingers inside her channel, seeking the spot he knows so well, the one he knows will quickly bring her to her peak. He makes only a few slow strokes while licking her bud before speeding up, determined to make good on his promise.

Natasha hands go to his head, fingers both carding through and gripping his hair. He hums against her pussy, and her breaths come in short gasps as he continues hurtling her toward ecstasy on the tips of his fingers and tongue. He earnestly strokes her g-spot and then turns his licks to fervent sucking of her bud, and that does it, white heat breaking over her, all her muscles seizing up and then relaxing as he pushes her through it.

She shakes her head, laughing again when he looks up at her, the expression on his face one that would be too smug if he hadn’t earned it. He truly knows her expertly, intimately, in every way.

He extracts himself from between her thighs and helps her redress while she catches her breath. “I wanted you now,” he says, “but for the rest of the afternoon you’ll be thinking about how much I’ll need you later.”

Nat glares at him teasingly. “I have to go out there and–“

“Or you don’t. You have an assistant coach.”

“Unlike some of us, I’m nothing if not a goddamn professional.”

“In every way,” he agrees, though his tone changed. Warmer. Softer. “I’m more than aware.”

And now her heart races again, not due to the physical ministrations but for the undeniable devotion behind those words. She pulls him close again for a sound kiss, which he returns, encircling her softly in his embrace.

After a moment he pulls away and lets her go.

“Two minutes to get to the classroom,” he says. He opens the top right drawer of his desk and pulls out a tin of mints, offering them to her and taking a couple for himself.

FOUR

Natasha hears the clink and slide of metal as Bucky’s key finally slots into the lock of the front door, and so she slides off the counter and turns on the panini press. She doesn’t make much else, but she’s become a bit of a sandwich artist and can make many a good combination, upping her game with grilled sandwiches after the acquisition of the panini press for her birthday.

God, they were so stupidly domestic now, and it was terrible and wonderful all at once.

“You’re finally home!” she calls out from the kitchen, hearing him stride down the hallway towards her. Strange, he usually drops his keys and hangs his jacket before settling in.

“Hi,” he says, popping his head around the corner.

Nat frowns. “Barnes, why are you home so late?”

They often took turns getting home late with different things going on at the studio, but usually it was with a hello and straightaway the explanation since they both care so much for everything happening in their dance world.

He slowly steps around the edge of the doorframe and into the kitchen, cradling the bulge of something held within his jacket.

“Barnes?”

He takes a few steps closer. “My queen–“

“You have never one day in your life called me your queen,” she interrupts, still wary, but now also bemused.

“I could, though. You know I'm your lover, a willing slave to your every wish.”

“You are two feet away from me, stop pouring on the charm and stalling and show me what’s in your jacket.”

His eyes are sparkling with mischief and his smile is sheepish as he looks down. It made her heart already melt and want to bend for whatever is coming. The thought crosses her mind that it’s a look he must’ve had on his face countless times when he was growing up.

“I didn’t ask you before buying a dance studio, and, full disclosure, I already bought everything we need – that being part of why I’m so much later tonight – and we can take it all back if you say no, but I rescued a cat from the alley behind the studio today.”

And with that, he turns and opens the front of his leather jacket to reveal a snow-white cat who looks very cozy tucked in where she was against his chest. Nat knows how comfy it is to be tucked up against that exact spot, it’s one of her favorite places to be.

Nat just grins and shakes her head. Stepping forward, she slowly extends her hand toward the cat. The feline inclines her head, sniffs the tips of her fingers, then bumps her head to stroke herself against Natasha’s hand.

“You are such a softie,” she says, pulling Bucky down by the collar and planting a kiss on his lips.

“So, we can keep her?”

“Yes.”

He kisses her again, then leans down and places the cat on the kitchen floor. “Right, Alpine, you stay here with Nat, and I’ll be right back with your things.”

And in less than a second, he’s already out the door.

Nat puts the sandwiches she had already prepared on the grill, pulls the press closed, and then turns back to look at the cat, who is sitting primly back on her haunches and watching her.

“Alpine, huh?”

The cat blinks up at her.

“This man. How’d HYDRA’s most ruthless assassin end up like this, eh?”

Alpine takes a few steps forward and brushes up against her leg before turning and then heading out of the kitchen, likely back to the door to wait for Bucky.

FIVE

Nat approaches the bedroom doorway silently, preparing to surprise the two individuals laughing inside, but then the peals of laughter and tiny giggles cease, and she hears two bodies plop onto the bed – one big, one small. The door is slightly ajar, and she can see the super soldier and his goddaughter panting, sprawled out on the bed, shoulder to shoulder, staring at the ceiling. She loves seeing Bucky like this with Sarah and so decides to give them another moment and observe from the darkness of the hallway.

“I still don’t want to go to bed.” Nat’s face splits into a smile, knowing this Sarah mode all too well. Though it is difficult, summoning up all her godmotherly skills and fortitude, she can handle it well enough when necessary, but Bucky? No way.

“I know. But you’re already on your bed. I’ve won.”

“I don’t want to go to sleep, Uncle Bucky!”

“I’ll read you two picture storybooks or as much as you want from a chapter book, and then sleep. How’s that for a deal?”

“Deal!”

Nat stays in the shadows as she watches Sarah jump down from the bed, run to her bookshelf, and return with what looks like one of her Ramona books. Sarah thought she’d gotten the best deal, tricking her godfather into more reading with a chapter book, but Nat knows Bucky always wants Sarah to pick the latter because it means he’d read to her until she is softly snoring.

Sarah Marie Rogers has the former Winter Soldier irrevocably wrapped around her tiny fingers – had done since she was born and had only become more adept over the years at making him melt time and time again.

And it is as she’s watching him smooth Sarah’s hair down and pull the covers up over her little body with such tenderness that Nat knows why he’d brought home a cat last month, bought a building to turn into a dance studio a year and a half ago, and asked her on a date three years ago.

Her.

Sarah had changed everything.

Logistically, Steve had retired, and that removed him from the orbit of their team and their missions, resulting in slightly more time that she interacted with Bucky before they retired, but she’d never sat back and critically analyzed what had changed before that.

Sarah had changed her, too, no question.

But now she can see it.

Sarah was the first baby born close to Bucky, and he’d been smitten and over the moon about her immediately.

She was the first thing the man had loved unconditionally and without apology, a love unrestrained that he had never experienced in possibly any way similar since before he went away to war. Bucky didn’t have to justify it, it just blossomed, taking root in his soul, fully uncovering in a flash the warmth that had mostly been buried for ninety years and probably would have taken so much longer to emerge otherwise.

“Sar, I gotta ask you a question,” Bucky says as he settles in next to Sarah with the book, drawing Nat’s attention back to the moment at hand.

She knew that tone – playful but with something serious underneath. She is always suspicious of that tone.

“Okay.”

“Let me show you something first.” Bucky digs into his pocket and pulls out a sparkling engagement ring.

Nat’s heart leaps into her chest, and it is only due to a lifetime of training to be imperceptible at all times that keeps her from gasping outright at the sight.

Sarah did gasp and ooooh appropriately though.

“Is that for Auntie Nat?” she chirps with excitement.

“I think so. I know you wanted me to marry you, and I still will if that’s what you want, but what if I married Auntie Nat?”

“Hmm,” she reaches out and delicately traces her tiny fingers over the ring Bucky was letting her examine. “That might be okay.”

“You sure?”

“Well, I was thinking, you’re going to be really old when I’m finally ready to get married.”

“Oh, that might be true,” he agrees, barely holding back a laugh.

“Yeah. You might be really wrinkly when I’m done with school, and I was thinking maybe I would marry someone else instead.”

“Sar… you say that like you already have someone in mind…”

“I don’t know for sure, I’m still deciding if I want to marry them or not!”

“Is it someone in your class?”

Nat bites her lip, grinning. She was certain she knew exactly who was being considered after seeing the kids in Sarah’s class picking up her goddaughter a few times from school.

“Maaaaaybe.”

“Well, okay. Only if I approve. Do you approve of Auntie Nat?”

Sarah nods eagerly. “I do. She is pretty, and kind, and the best ballet teacher, and she makes you laugh, and she does my hair in the good braids, and she is so smart, and always takes me for ice cream when I ask her, and has loved me my whole life, so I think it would be okay if you marry her.”

“Those are some of my favorite things, too,” Bucky says. “If you promise to keep it a secret that I’m gonna ask her, I promise you can be the flower girl at the wedding, deal?” He palms the ring and extends his pinky finger.

Without hesitation, Sarah locks her pinky with his. “Deal!” she agrees, beaming up at him. “Now read me my book.”

She snuggles down into his side, and he rolls his eyes. “You are a demanding little thing.”

“Daddy says it’s good to let people know exactly what you want.”

“Of course, he does.” Bucky leans down to kiss the top of her head, then wraps his arm around her and opens the book on his lap so they both can see as he starts to read, and Nat decides to retreat to the living room to let them have more time together.

SIX

Nat rolls her shoulders and yawns, turning to lay on her back. She frowns upon discovering Bucky’s side of the bed is uncharacteristically empty, the happy weight of Alpine sleeping atop the blankets at foot of their bed missing as well.

Then she registers a piercing stare from across the room and leans up only to see Bucky sitting in the decorative armchair they almost never used. He is stroking Alpine behind the ears, happily curled up in his lap, but his eyes are locked on her.

“Um, good morning, Cyborg.”

“You know.”

“What?”

“I wasn’t certain when it happened, but then I thought about it all night.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I had grand intentions, but you overheard everything last night. I didn’t hear you creep up on us, which means you must’ve gotten there when Sarah and I were making a ruckus, but I did hear you slip away when I started reading her Ramona, so you already know I’m going to ask you to marry me.”

Nat sits up and smiles. “Oh. That. You can still pursue your grand intentions.”

“Nope, they’re ruined.”

“But I don’t know what your grand intentions are! You could still surprise me!”

“Nope, you’re expecting to be surprised.”

“You love that kind of challenge!”

“Nope, I’m obstinately averse now. I’ve decided I won’t be satisfied by anything else than seeing my ring on your finger straightaway.”

“Then you better get over here and ask me,” she says simply.

He stands, depositing Alpine softly on the chair behind him, crosses the bedroom, and kneels next to Nat’s side of the bed. With one hand, he grabs both of hers, with the other, he holds out the ring, gleaming against his black vibranium fingers. Then he lifts his gaze to hers, and all the sullen staring from moments before has melted away leaving only the pure adoration he holds for her.

“Will you?” His voice is thick with emotion.

“You know I will.”

“I don’t want to do anything except share the rest of my life with you,” he says, delicately but decisively slipping the ring onto her finger.

Nat pulls his face up to hers in a fierce kiss, and he crawls up onto the bed with her, wrapping her up in his arms, and laying her back down, ready to express again, as they had so many times over the past few years, how much they mean to each other in every way. They make vows with their words, their lips, and their bodies, giving themselves over completely as they already had, and as they would in perpetuity.

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