Chapter Text
now, again: Chris
Chris holds Sebastian’s hand through the entire movie premiere. Holds on a bit more tightly at certain moments. As the Winter Soldier’s put into that chair. As the mouth-guard’s pressed into Bucky’s mouth, beneath Sebastian’s too-compliant lost and broken eyes.
Sebastian squeezes back, fingers firm around his in the air-conditioned cinema dark. I’m here, we’re here, we’re all right. Yes.
Chris had been on set those days, even though the schedule’d given him time off. He knows Sebastian’s not a fan of hospitals, of medical procedures, even movie-magic ones. He’d known then. Sebastian’d told him early on, over morning coffee spiked with chocolate and cream. They’d been discussing plot points and character motivations, on the same literal and metaphorical page as they so often were; those pale aquamarine eyes had glanced down at the script, up at Chris’s face, and a hand had reached for his.
Hospitals, in Communist Romania, in the nineteen-eighties. Not good memories, those. Not good at all.
He’d stood to one side, out of the camera’s eye, and waited. Hadn’t run in to hold Sebastian’s hand between takes—no interference, and he’d not wanted to make anyone think Sebastian couldn’t handle the scenes, and Sebastian manifestly could—but he’d wanted to. And despite the memories, in the end, it’d been Chris who’d had to look away. Who couldn’t watch Sebastian strapped down and brainwashed and tortured.
He’s seen those happy pale eyes in pain. He’s heard the sound of that accent shredded by tears.
Sebastian, holding his hand in the present, squeezes again; Chris glances at him—affirmation, confirmation—and Sebastian picks up their joined hands and touches lips to Chris’s fingertips. With just a hint of tongue, tip slipping out to toy with bare skin.
Chris abruptly finds himself distracted. Powerfully so.
Sebastian grins, Cheshire-kitten pleased with himself, and puts their hands in his lap. Over very evident desire.
Chris swallows a whimper.
Sebastian smiles. And Chris loves him.
On those days of filming, once freed from the chair, Sebastian had reached for him. Had waited until they were back at Chris’s trailer or at the very least around a corner and out of sight, and had put both arms around him, face hidden in Chris’s neck. They’d held each other.
The film is a good one. Powerful, evocative, emotional. Thoroughly plotted politics and a core of love. Chris knows it’s good. Sebastian knows, too. They’d had sheer fun, breathless vertiginous adrenaline-fueled joy, running over rooftops, trading choreographed blocks and blows, dancing on crashed cars.
Chris wants this forever. As the SHIELD helicarriers crumple and crash on the cinema screen, as the presence of Sebastian’s kiss keeps his fingertips and heart warm, he knows that’s true. That joy will permanently be there, scampering through his veins, every time those winter-blue eyes glance his way and smile. Every time Sebastian touches him, or speaks his name.
He wants this forever. It’s that simple.
They’ve not talked about the future, not beyond the context of Marvel films and respective careers. He’s been thinking about it, though. He’s always been that way, aware of potential futures, of all the possible outcomes; that’s where the anxiety lurks, amid too many petrifying ways for it all to go wrong.
Not this time. This will never be wrong. If he asks a certain question and Sebastian says yes, that will be right. If Sebastian says no or asks him to wait, he can do that too. They can do anything, together.
He’s fairly sure Sebastian won’t say no—the eagerness in wide eyes, kneeling at his feet twenty minutes previously to this premiere and also the night before, provides strong support in that direction. He’s not assuming. But he is hoping. He’s hopeful.
Full of hope. With Sebastian. Yes.
The movie ends. Everyone applauds. Chris stands and waves and holds Sebastian’s hand through the barrage of camera-snaps, waved microphones, post-film questions. Together.
The afterparty’s loud and tipsy and flavored with champagne, on Marvel’s dime. Kind of a lot of dimes, Chris muses, and snags two glasses, polishes off one, and then looks at Sebastian, who’s eyeing him interestedly.
“Was one of those intended for me, or are you simply showing off?”
“You can out-drink me, anyway. Which I love, don’t get me wrong, I’ll never forget the look on Robert’s face when you won that one—”
“He should acquire more experience with decent vodka, then.”
“Right,” Chris says, and holds up the second champagne flute, “I actually want you to be sober for this, though. So—”
“For what, precisely?”
“Don’t be impatient. I have plans.”
Sebastian lowers eyelashes, looks up through them, sweetly seductive, innocent and knowing. And he does know, he knows exactly what that look does to Chris; so Chris grins, puts a hand at the small of his back, yanks him close. “Asking me for something, are you? Go on. Ask.”
Sebastian licks lips. Murmurs, “Yes, sir,” and turns Chris’s cock to instant iron, rigid with the need to shove long legs apart and fit himself between them.
He could put Sebastian over his lap, after. Could employ a hand, mock punishment for the interruption, until that pert backside’s red and hot, until Sebastian comes from the spanking alone, sobbing Chris’s name as his climax hits, messy and inevitable and beautiful over Chris’s thighs.
Sebastian gives him that look again. No doubt reading those thoughts. Chris wouldn’t be surprised. “You want me to ask you for my drink? Very well…please, then. If you would like me to have one. Which I assume you do, since you haven’t taken a sip out of it. Oh, sorry, out of character—”
“No, I like it.” He does. He likes Sebastian being himself, dry observant comments and unexpectedly filthy innuendo and steady love beside him in the dark. “I can spank you for it later, if you want. For now, just—be you. I love you.”
“I love you. And that was me, all of it. I like letting you decide…yes or no, what I can have…not all the time, but right now…I like it. So…”
“So,” Chris echoes, “you did ask, that was…good, you’re so good for me, aren’t you,” and watches Sebastian get flustered and pink-cheeked and lovely at the indisputable verbal compliment. He likes that too.
He glances around—no one’s looking their direction right at this second, though that small miracle’s not going to last much longer—and holds Sebastian in place against him. Where they both know that they belong.
He’s still not the best at this role—not exactly experienced, and every so often he has a brief out-of-body panicked instant of oh God are we really am I really what if I hurt him I can’t hurt him!—but he’s getting better. It helps that Sebastian responds with unquestionable joy to every caress, every demonstration of protective command. It helps even more that sometimes the words and the dominance do feel instinctive. Right. Waiting there on his tongue.
He’d thought it earlier, and he thinks it again: he does want this, forever.
There’s still no one looking. Sam Jackson’s bonding with Robert Redford over what sounds like dissections of seventies political thrillers. Anthony Mackie’s descending on the hors d’oeuvres with a decidedly falcon-like glint in his eyes.
Chris grins. And brings the crystal rim of the champagne flute to Sebastian’s lips. “Drink.” Sebastian’s eyes get even more huge and conspiratorially excited in response. And he opens his mouth, while Chris tilts the champagne, not too fast but relentless. Making him keep up; making him swallow, again and again.
Sebastian’s trembling slightly, not with cold, by the time the flute’s empty. Chris lifts it away, sets it without really looking on a nearby table, and lifts his chin, proprietary and gentle. Sebastian’s far enough under to not protest, eyes enormous and sweetly surrendered. Gorgeous, but a bit too fast, too deep, at least in public; Chris considers, sighs, taps fingers over his cheek. “Look at me. I did say sober. Can we get out of here?”
One blink. Two. Returning from the heights. Shyly anticipatory. “Yes? No one’s looking. Car?”
“Absolutely car,” Chris agrees, and tugs him out the door and over to the line of sleek black limos. Sebastian curls up into the seat beside him and kisses him the whole short drive to the hotel, lazy slow explorations of well-known territory. Unhurried and champagne-bright: they’ve got time. Chris untucks Sebastian’s shirt one-handed, fingers dipping below the waist of that lightweight suit. His other hand’s looped around Sebastian’s right wrist, a reminder, not a forceful one. They’ve got an entire future.
Through the hotel lobby, up the elevator, down the hall; only two doors, and there’s their room, oversized bed beaming at them from the center, curtains drawn from that morning when they’d been a shield for all the laughing nakedness. Sebastian had been half-asleep and blissful amid pillows when Chris’d gone to turn on the shower; had wandered soundless and sleepy up behind him, put both arms around him, and left a kiss squarely between his shoulderblades. Chris had felt that kiss everywhere. Head to toe.
He walks Sebastian over to the bed. Peels off all the interfering suit layers along the way. He wants to kiss every inch of that delectable skin.
Sebastian raises eyebrows. “Not at all complaining, but isn’t that my role? Undressing you? Undressing us?”
“Not right now.” He traces an index finger over the left eyebrow. “I love your eyes. And your eyebrows. Have I ever told you that? Because I should have. Like, the day we met.”
“The day we met I was thinking about kissing you.” Sebastian’s hands’re occupied. Flicking open Chris’s pants. “I knew who you were. I’d seen you in other roles. And I kept wondering whether you could see it on my face, how beautiful I thought you were.”
“Beautiful,” Chris says, standing there as Sebastian’s talented hands divest him of clothing, knowing he looks ridiculous wearing only socks and boxers and a broad smile, and not caring in the least, “seriously, we need to get your standards checked, maybe if I’d been showing you my Steve Rogers abs or something, but I had clothes on—”
“And you’re beautiful.” Sebastian blushes, but the words’re sincere. “Your face. Your eyes. The way you look at the world. Your eyelashes.”
“Eyelashes?”
“If you are allowed to compliment my eyebrows, surely I can be permitted to adore your eyelashes.” With a cheeky grin, catching up through the blush: “Sir.”
“Oh,” Chris says, “oh, you are so going to pay for that, I packed the scarves you like, the silky black ones, and I’m going to blindfold you and tie you to this bed and not let you come until you’re begging for my cock—”
“Perfect!”
And Chris, still standing there almost naked and catching Sebastian’s hands as they start to slide down, as Sebastian starts to kneel, says, “Yes.”
Because it is perfect. Everything is. Not always easy, not free of old nightmares and future apprehension. But perfect, anyway.
“I have something to ask you,” he says. “I know we’ve never really talked about—but I can’t not ask you. Right now. So, um, sort of…don’t move? Stay right there, because you’re perfect, and this is perfect, and I have to ask you this, okay?”
now, again: Sebastian
“I have something to ask you,” Chris says, and Sebastian freezes awkwardly midway through sliding to his knees, because his brain’s instantly gone to a certain question and the answer’s yes, wholeheartedly yes, incontrovertibly yes, forever yes.
He stands back up, because Chris is tugging at his hands. The rest of him’s very aroused, and very naked, though at the moment this is taking a backseat to the wedding bells ringing in his head.
No. No, it won’t be that, Chris is right, they’ve never discussed this, they’ve never brought it up, for all he knows Chris is about to suggest a new sex position or offer Sebastian a part in whatever film he ends up directing for his behind-the-camera debut down the line. Those fantasies’re all in Sebastian’s own head, where they should really know their place and refrain from jumping up and down.
Chris is still talking. Something about him being perfect and the moment being perfect and how he shouldn’t move, because, again, perfect.
He opens his mouth. Chris says, “No, I know, you’re probably gonna say no, of course you are, you’re right, but please just let me say it, I just have to say it, please?”
Sebastian closes his mouth again. And, again, does not engage in any kind of mental or physical jumping up and down.
The hotel room’s glowing softly. Decorated in shades of gold. Topaz. Brown. Radiant lamplight and white crisp pillowcases. The hush of the universe hanging overhead. And Chris’s hands tight and hot and nervous around his.
“So,” Chris says, “so, oh God, words. So…um…you know your place. In New York.”
“Yes?”
“And I have a place in Boston. I don’t have a place in New York.”
“Ah…no?”
“Oh, fuck me. What I’m trying to say is, I want us to have a place in New York. And Boston. I want us to have both places. I want to live with you. I want to come home to you. I want to marry you. Oh God, I’ve just said that out loud, and I’m saying it again, I love you, Sebastian Stan, you make me smile and you sing Sinatra to me and you kiss me like—like we’re something amazing. I want to kiss you forever and hold your hand in the dark if you’ll let me and I want to marry you, I love you, will you marry me?”
Sebastian literally can’t answer, words in every single language having tied themselves together into a giant ball of yes!! He tries. He does try.
“That came out all wrong,” Chris says helplessly, “I don’t have a ring, I should’ve—I didn’t even get down on one knee—oh God I’m sorry—”
“Yes!”
“Yes…you want me to…get down on one knee? Okay, yes, absolutely, I can—”
“No,” Sebastian says, laughing, crying, pulling one hand away from Chris’s to swipe over his face, “no, I mean yes, I mean I’m saying yes—da—yes to you, to everything, dumnezeul meu, my God, yes—I don’t need a ring, we can pick them out together—you asked me to marry you while I’m naked!”
“I like you naked.” Chris’s eyes are adorably wide and incredulous and elated. “I love you naked. I love you. You said yes.”
“I said yes.”
“We’re getting married.”
“We are. We’ll be married. Chris—you’ll be my husband.”
“Oh my God.” Chris sounds utterly floored. “I’ll be your husband. You’ll be my husband. Oh, wow.”
“Yes…very much wow. Extremely wow.” Sebastian pauses, laughs, weightless and liberated. And, yes, perfect. Coruscatingly, cascadingly so. “I believe I’ve forgotten how to talk.”
“You sometimes like me making you forget how to talk…” Chris plainly means it to be an innuendo, an invitation, but the words come out wondering and awed. “I could try that now. If you want.”
Sebastian contemplates potential answers for only a split second. “Chris…you do know what word traditional wedding vows include…” At the baffled look, he clarifies demurely, “I can promise to obey you, if you’d like, sir,” and Chris makes the best sound he’s ever heard, someplace between a groan and a growl of desire, and then he’s being tossed onto his back on the bed, Chris landing atop him.
“I love you,” Chris says, looking down at him, eyes serious even as the socks and boxers mysteriously hit the floor, as one hand finds Sebastian’s wrists and tugs them together, as Sebastian’s legs instinctively wrap around that beloved waist. “I love you so fucking much.”
“Te iubesc,” Sebastian says, and tips his head up just enough to land a kiss on Chris’s mouth. “I know.”