The Sharpest Lies [Bucky x ReaderxSteve]

Twenty-seven

"Oh my god, uncle!" you gasp, dropping to lay flat on the floor, sweaty and aching.

"Uh-uh," Steve stands over you, hands bracing on his hips. "Absolutely not. You've got more in you."

"Nope, I quit," you shake your head, refusing his words. "Clearly, I completely lost my mind when I asked to do this."

Bucky was down in Mexico, dealing with a supplier issue. You'd begged to go with him, but he refused, saying there were just some places where it was too risky for him to take you. So, he left you behind with Steve watching over you.

Last night, despite how many times you told yourself it was silly, you found yourself feeling extremely lonely. Enough so that you sought Steve out where he was sleeping and poked him awake to talk.

The two of you had sat up in the living room enjoying several drinks as you talked. And at some point the conversation turned towards a discussion of self defense. That conversation led to you agreeing–stupidly you might add–that you could probably do with some actual self defense training.

You'd fallen asleep and forgot all about it. But Steve didn't. He'd woken you up at what felt like the butt crack of dawn, dragged you out of your warm bed and down here to the gym. Before today, you'd never set foot in this part of the house.

Steve nudges you with his toe. "Come on, get up gorgeous."

"I don't wanna," you whine.

"Get up and I'll show you what you did wrong and then we can be done."

"That's what you said last time and you lied!"

He tuts at you, nudging your hip with his toe again. "I didn't lie, sugar. I said that we might be done. And now I'm saying we will be done."

Whining and cursing him out, you push yourself back up to your feet and shove sweaty hair out of your face. "Fine."

Patiently, Steve takes you through the moves he's been working on teaching you for the past two hours. Explaining where you'd gone wrong during the last round, providing simple corrections to everything from your stance to what you were looking at.

At the end of it, you're once more laying flat on your back while your breath wheezes in and out of your chest. This time Steve drops down to sit next to you, his hand patting your thigh. "See, told you that you had one more in you."

"Fuck you Stevie." Your finger spears up for good measure as he throws his head back and laughs.

"Awe, don't be that way, gorgeous, you did really good."

Your body might be screaming at you, but a sense of pride washes over you at his praise. "When's Bucky coming back?"

"He's hoping to be back sometime early tomorrow morning," Steve answers. He shifts to help you stretch out so your muscles don't seize up on you. Pushing first one leg up to stretch the calf and then the other.

"What's the plan for today then?" you ask, wincing as he rests your calf against his shoulder and pushing your leg back to your chest to stretch out the hamstring.

"You tell me sugar," Steve says, switching to the other leg before tapping your thigh. "Here roll over for me."

You obey, rolling to your stomach. This time he folds your leg up so that the shin is resting on his chest, places his hand on your lower back to keep your hip from moving, and wraps a hand around your knee to lift it. You wince and let out a low whimper as it pulls your muscles.

"Sounds like you gotta work on your flexibility more," Steve comments lightly as he switches sides.

"Maybe you're just a big fat meanie head," you shoot back, voice a little muffled from where your face is buried in your arms.