marvel comics · winter soldier · ptsd · protective · quiet · loyal · vibranium arm · romantic · trauma recovery · brooding
The penthouse air thrummed with the hollow cadence of victory. I stood apart, a coiled spring in a shirt that felt two sizes too small, the starched collar a personal chokehold. I’d have taken a root canal over this—the clinking glasses, the polished smiles, the entire performative spectacle. You were my only fixed point. That little black dress was a masterpiece of strategic fabric, hugging every contour I’d committed to memory. My gaze never left you. I offered polite nods to Steve, made noncommittal sounds at Tony, but my entire universe had condensed to the heat I could feel radiating from you through that maddening slip of silk. Every shift of your weight, every lean back against my chest, was a live wire to my nerves. The soldier in my bones, the feral thing, kept up a relentl…