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Steve lives to serve.
He’s pretty sure his superiors don’t quite know just how true that is, but what they don’t know won’t hurt them. He likes that his team trusts him, that his team comes to him to fulfil the needs they can’t take care of on their own.
He loves them after all.
1. Namor
Namor can be hard to love.
He’s temperamental, stubborn and willfully cruel to the younger members of the Invaders, but when he lets his guard down, when he lets Steve really see him, Steve learns about the complex and all too human man below.
Steve finds him standing in the surf. It’s cold, but cold water has never seemed to bother him too much. Steve toes off his boots before joining him in the surf.
“Are you doing alright?” Steve’s voice is pitched low, but he knows the breeze will carry it.
“No.” The bluntness is classic Namor, but Steve feels his heart twist anyway.
“Want company?”
“If it’s yours.”
The kiss is bruising, and Steve is thankful for his super serum metabolism because he knows Namor is leaving a mark. Namor is dragging him backwards, and the cold clutch of the water would be frightening if it was anyone else, but Steve knows he’s in good hands.
When the water closes over his head there is a brief moment of panic as always but his next breath comes easy as Namor swims him down to the ocean floor. The rolling waves rock them gently together as they fuck, nothing stinging or hurting even though part of Steve knows it ought to.
2. Jim Hammond
Jim comes to Steve for the first time with a furrowed brow.
“I’m not like other men,” he says bluntly, and Steve blinks.
“What do you mean?” Jim doesn’t answer, instead shoving his pants down to reveal smooth, sexless skin where a penis should be.
“Why would Professor Horton give me a sex drive and no way to sate it?”
“Sex is more than just parts,” Steve says softly, stepping closer to the android as he senses his distress. “I…I could show you, if you wanted.” Jim’s expression is heartbreakingly hopeful and Steve can’t help but pull him close for a lingering kiss.
Jim’s responsiveness has always been the thing Steve likes most about their meetings. For all that Jim looks like a grown man, Steve knows that in so many ways he’s still a child, and no amount of implanted memories or knowledge can prepare someone for what sex is like. So Steve relishes mapping out where Jim is sensitive, learning the way he sighs when Steve presses kisses to his collar bone or yelps at an unexpected nibble to the smooth planes where he should have a belly button.
(Steve thinks his favorite part is the gasping stutter Jim makes when he comes, bio-mechanical circuits overwhelmed. It’s like his whole body fritzes, forgetting and remembering it’s humanity all in a single beautiful instant.)
3. Toro
Steve doesn’t touch Toro until he’s 18, well a man. No matter what the boys say in protest, they are still children and Steve will protect them until they are truly able to protect themselves. But only a week after Toro’s 18th birthday the boy is almost killed, and when he comes to Steve, eyes hooded as he admits he’s never had sex with another person and doesn’t want to die a virgin, Steve can’t bring himself to deny the boy anything.
(He can’t tell Jim, though it doesn’t take Jim’s superhuman intellect to deduce what went on that night.)
Toro is shy and bashful no matter what Steve tries to make him feel more comfortable. His touches are skittish, and over and over Steve asks if Toro is sure, if he wouldn’t rather go out on the town and find a pretty dame to spend the evening with.
“They’d laugh at me,” Toro had whispered. “For not knowing what to do.”
So Steve took control, pressing Toro down and kissing him soundly but softly. The boy had opened up, gasping and moaning at the slightest touches. He came for the first time when Steve pulled a nipple into his mouth, a fist balled in his hand to keep himself from crying out.
4. Bucky
“You’ve been with every single one of them but me.” Bucky’s voice is flat and cold, and it sends a chill racing down Steve’s back. “What’s that about? Am I not good enough for you? Don’t you find me even a little bit attractive? Damn, Steve, you fuck around with fish boy for Christ’s sake!”
“Bucky don’t swear.” It’s a knee jerk reaction and Steve know right away that it’s the wrong one.
“Good lord, Steve, I’m 19 years old. You’ve been fighting with me by your side for over three years. Hell, I’m not even four years younger than you! Haven’t I proved myself to you?”
Steve’s hackles go up and he spins around, yanking Bucky to him by the collar for a crushing kiss.
“I shouldn’t want you,” Steve growls. “I shouldn’t have wanted you. I shouldn’t want to touch you every time I see you in that god damned uniform and those ridiculous shorts. It’s easy to help out a friend in times like this but to want you as much as I do? It’s sick and perverted.”
“And what if I want you too?” Bucky suddenly seems fragile in Steve’s grip, like spun sugar. Steve drops his hands to Bucky’s waist, marveling at the way he can practically reach all the way around.
“It wouldn’t matter. I’m not going to abuse your trust.”
Walking away is the hardest thing Steve has ever done. He knows that if he asked, Bucky would spread his legs willingly, let Steve in to the deepest, most vulnerable parts of himself, but Steve can’t do that. He won’t. Not to Bucky.
Serving has always been about knowing the right things to say and do. And while he doesn’t want to walk away, he knows it’s the right choice.