Work Text:
There is nothing that makes you regret a hard work-out more than the overwhelming heaviness that lingers in your muscles the morning after. Everything hurts, and the idea of moving, even if it’s just to the kitchen to fix you and Karl something to eat for breakfast, is so unappealing you end up falling right back asleep—
A little while later, you wake to the feel of the mattress shifting; you blink your tired eyes open, blinking several times in quick succession until the still-dark room starts to come into focus. Karl is sitting at the foot of your bed, concern clear on his face as he lays one of his massive hands (sans gloves, so that you can see all of the glorious callouses he’s built up from years of toiling in the factory) on your leg. Karl is always so warm, and you can feel the heat of him through the thin blanket you’d cuddled up with post-workout.
It must be really late, if he’d come looking for you. You feel bad (although, to be fair, Karl is a grown-ass man who’s fully capable of making something to eat if he’s hungry—he doesn’t need you to cook for him, even if you normally do just to make sure he takes a break and actually eats (because you know for a fact that, if you’re not there to remind him to eat, he’ll be buried elbow-deep in a Soldat’s chest when he realizes he hasn’t eaten in three days)). You do feel bad for worrying him, though. Not bad enough to get out of bed and start moving, but still… bad.
“Would that all of us had the luxury of wasting the entire day sleeping.” There’s no real malice in his tone, but you find yourself rolling your eyes all the same. He can’t just come out and say he was worried about you, can he?
No, because that would be like admitting weakness.
“Hmm.” You close your eyes, relaxing back into the mattress. It’s remarkably comfortable, considering the decrepit state of the bedframe. It’s clear he cares far less about his bedroom furniture than his machinery.
“Did you work yourself too hard?” He asks, his fingers flexing around your aching leg. Fuck, that feels kind of good.
“Maybe…” You reach for him, curling your fingers around his wrist. There’s really no debating the fact that he’s stronger than you, and capable of resisting your wiles quite easily—but he lets you guide him up onto the bed next to you and cuddle up into his side.
“Where is the worst of the pain?” He asks, as you tuck your head underneath his chin. Throwing one of your legs up over his waist, you nudge one of his leather-clad hands with your knee. “So very subtle.”
The corner of your mouth quirks up into a little smirk, “I thought so.”
Karl presses his fingers into the sides of your kneecap. He’s a bit heavy-handed, the result of having very little experience working with his actual hands. Why should he have to dirty his hands, when he is the machine and all of the metal in his vicinity has little choice but to bend to his will? But, in this case, being a bit heavy-handed isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Your muscles are tight, and the pressure from Karl’s hand feels absolutely divine. It aches in the very best way, leaving you a puddle of blissed-out goo against his chest.
After a couple more minutes, you feel nothing—other than the firmness of Karl’s leg underneath yours. You’ve just started to drift off again, when Karl stops massaging you leg in favor of rolling you over onto your back. “Whaaa?”
Karl snorts, “Feeling good, princess?” You are, but your pleasure-fogged brain doesn’t quite grasp why he’d pushed you away from him. Is he going back to work already?
Nevertheless, he asked you a question—and so you bob your head sleepily.
“Good.” He sounds so very pleased with himself. You’d roll your eyes, but he’s in a rare, benevolent mood, and you don’t want to disturb the waters.
He rises off of the bed, coming to settle down in-between your slightly parted legs. Taking the leg that he’d been working on in his hand, he carefully bends your knee and presses your thigh back toward your stomach. There’s a little bit of resistance (you’re not the most flexible person in the world, and climbing back into bed immediately after your work-out isn’t doing you any favors), but Karl is not deterred. He’s used to working with temperamental metal, knows that you can only stretch it so far without sacrificing it’s structural integrity… The human body is very similar, only able to be bent so far in any direction without risking injury. With this in mind, Karl works your leg back and forth, easing the tension that’d built up in your hamstring until—
“Take a deep breath for me, now.” One of Karl’s massive hands settles on your waist, just above your hip, and presses down just to the point of causing pain. The other settles on the inside of your thigh, working your leg up and out, “One. Two. Three—”
You take a deep breath and—crack!
Oh, that felt nice.
“Fuck…” That was better than sex. Holy fucking shit. The release is so intense you barely feel it when he lays your leg back down on the bed and moves on to your other side.
Karl works your other leg slowly, beginning with the knee and then moving on to your hamstring. By the time he presses his hands into the curve of your waist and the inside of your thigh, you’re wont to feel anything at all—“Another deep breath.”
Crack!
The release is instantaneous. Karl gently sets your leg down, and you melt into the mattress, feeling more relaxed than ever—at least, in recent memory. It’s surprisingly easy for him to roll your dead weight over so that you’re resting on your stomach (he takes the time to turn your head to the side so that you don’t suffocate in your pillow, which is always appreciated), and once he has you settled, he rolls your loose t-shirt up to your bra-line, bearing your back to his hungering eyes.
Retrieving a bottle of warming oil from your bedside table, he pours a sizeable amount onto the small of your back. His thumbs press into the small of your back—again, he’s a bit heavy-handed, but the pressure feels absolutely divine on your aching muscles—and push up, spreading the oil up and out.
Gods, if you’d known that all it would take to get Karl to give you a massage was to stay in bed for half the day, you would’ve tried it so much sooner. If working as an engineer ever fell through, he definitely had a bright future ahead of him as a massage therapist.
Not that you really wanted to think about him doing this with anyone else.
Except Alcina. Just because his hands would probably ‘slip’ and break her super-sized neck.
He must notice that you’re beginning to drift off, because just as your eyes slip closed, you feel his beard tickling your cheek. “Don’t fight it. Go ahead and sleep; I’ll wake you up when we’re done here.”
“M’kay…” You certainly don’t need to be told twice.
You wake two hours later. You feel infinitely better, perhaps even good enough to consider getting up to make something for dinner… when you realize that Karl is resting alongside you, snoring lightly. He’s got your head tucked underneath his chin, so that you can feel each of his exhalations tickling the hair atop your head.
Unable to hide your smile, you snuggle closer to Karl’s chest and allow your eyes to slide closed once more.
You’d never tell him this—but this, by far, is your favorite part of his massage.