Chapter Text

✪ The War ✪

'Here stands a man...his body tense. His hands, they shake.

Here stands a man with a bullet in his clenched, right hand.'

 — SYML

He doesn't know if they left the mask off and cut the Soldier's suppressants (because Steve knows that he'd been on them, his scent on the bridge had been harshly muted, practically nonexistent) on the assumption that — because Bucky was Omega — of course Steve would have already claimed him.

(Steve hadn't known. He hadn't known Bucky was an Omega because Bucky'd never told him. His best friend had always professed himself to be Beta, and had never given off any scent suggesting otherwise.

And he'd obviously lied on his military transcripts because he'd gotten in, hadn't been 4F'd countless times like Steve had. No, he'd been accepted with ease, and had then proceeded to rise to the rank of sergeant in an astonishingly short amount of time.)

Or maybe Pierce's decision to keep the mask off had been a calculated attempt to elicit and exploit an emotional response.

A gamble that the painfully familiar visage of his best friend's face, coupled with the heady scent of his oncoming heat would hinder Steve's resolve to fight against the Winter Soldier.

Make him hesitate just enough between blows — instinctively reluctant to cause harm to a heat-addled Omega — that the Soldier would have a clear advantage.

And what had it mattered that such an abrupt cessation of suppressants would force the Soldier to endure a crippling, potentially lethal heat?

So long as the mission objective was successfully completed, the Soldier's welfare was evidently of little concern.

Heil Hydra.

Whatever the reasoning behind it, the plan had worked. Though undoubtedly not in the way Hydra had anticipated.

Steve Rogers — the force of pre-rut slamming through his body at the first hint of compatible Omega heat-scent emanating from the Soldier — had ceased fighting the moment it became no longer necessary to his mission parameters.

But by then Captain America had accomplished his objective, bringing down the Helicarriers  

The Soldier had gained the advantage, in the end.

Only to pull Steve from the water, leaving him drenched and unconscious — but alive — on the shore of the Potomac.

Since then, all of Steve's effort has gone into finding the Soldier.

It takes him the better part of a week to finally be released from the hospital, and even then they only let him leave because he’s threatened to go whether they 'allow' it or not, and wouldn't they rather him do it under the guise of civility?

An Alpha going into rut — especially one as strong as he is — is not someone they want to attempt keeping in their non-reinforced hospital room with its paper-thin walls and decidedly lacking array of serum-bypassing sedatives.

So, of course they let him leave.

Sam helps him to get set up in the new residence which Tony‘d undoubtedly pulled multiple strings to get bought and paid for so quickly.

Two-bedroom, 'in case you get any visitors' Tony had texted Steve along with the address, the implication impossible to miss even when presented in the sterile font of the typed message.

There isn't much furniture in the new spaces of the home: He hadn't had a guest room in his former apartment, so this one is nearly empty save for a queen–sized bed and a small chest of drawers, each of which are pushed up against opposing walls.

Whatever he'd previously owned, Tony'd had delivered, and is already tastefully arranged throughout the house.

Steve is grateful because it means he doesn't have to waste time on anything other than preparing the space intended for the rogue Soldier he means to bring in.

He pulls the guest room's sheet-encased mattress from its bed-frame and drags it to rest instead on the floor beneath the window where a compromised former wetwork operative will have to worry less about sight lines and defensibility.

With Sam's help, Steve maneuvers the empty frame into the master bedroom where his own things have been put away, and leans it against a bare wall.

He then grabs every sheet, pillow, and blanket he owns and takes them into the guest room, piling them near the lowered mattress, and setting aside the extra sheets for when the bedclothes will likely need changing in the future.

Sam helps him to stock the refrigerator and pantries, enough for two super–soldiers who will be holed up in the residence for multiple days at least, and Steve is so grateful that Sam doesn't question the decision Steve’d come to over the last few days.

When he'd initially learned from Steve about the suppressant cut that the Winter Soldier had been forced into — is still facing the consequences of alone — Sam had, in that careful way of his, tried to make sure that Steve was fully aware of what he was obviously planning to take on.

"He doesn't know you," Sam had repeated, expression gentle but tone firm.

"Even if he's regained some memory of you — and man I gotta tell you that's a long shot — he won't have any memories of this. If Hydra's been keeping him doped up on suppressants, there's nothing for him to fall back on. No way for him to know what to expect. It'll be completely new for him, and he'll probably be disoriented, probably scared."

Sam had grimaced, then, his words more careful but still tempered by his resolve to do his best to warn his friend.

"If it's not new for him though Steve, then you can bet that all he's got is bad experiences to inform him about what's going to happen.

“If what you've been reading in that file of his is any indication, Hydra did whatever the hell they wanted with and to him. Consent was never anywhere near a consideration. Even if they wiped those memories — that kind of trauma doesn't just disappear.

"So he may not understand why he's reacting negatively. But he'll still be reacting. Add that to the fact that he's definitely feeling all kinds of awful from suppressant withdrawal and the intense pain of a re–awakened heat he's either about to, or is already experiencing...you're looking at the very strong possibility that he's gonna fight you.

“And by that I mean I'd be shocked if he didn't. You sure you want to be the person who triggers those responses in him?"

Steve's brow had been furrowed, mouth drawn tight. The fury of knowing what Hydra had induced in Bucky, before blithely sending him off to forestall Steve's sabotage of the Helicarriers seethed hotly in his chest, surpassed only by a deep ache of sorrow for Bucky having been forced into such a nightmarish predicament.

A fair amount of guilt swirled in his gut as well, knowing what he was planning to do to help the Omega to get through that nightmare.

"Somebody's gonna have to trigger him either way if they're gonna help him and… It's Bucky, Sam."

Steve shrugged helplessly. “I can't...I can't just let him go through this alone. He's hurt and he's probably terrified, and there's no one he can turn to for help."

"There are other Alphas Steve—" Sam had begun before he was silenced by the deep snarl that tore from Steve's throat.

Sam quirked a brow, the corner of his mouth tipping up at Steve's aggressive display. "Okay, well maybe not then," he finished with a smirk.

Steve drew in a slow breath — somewhat embarrassed at his unintentionally revealing response at the thought of another Alpha anywhere near Bucky — before he clenched his hands into tight fists.

"It's not just— I mean. He's enhanced, Sam. It wouldn't be safe for some other—"

He broke off his clumsy attempt to smooth over his emotional overreaction with actual facts, as Sam's eyebrow continued to climb amusedly up his forehead.

Steve cleared his throat, squaring his shoulders and continuing undeterred.

"We have to find him. There's no way I'm letting what's left of Hydra get their hands on him again. I'll help him as best I can when I get him back, and hopefully—"

He swallowed, pressing his eyes shut and letting out a shuddering breath. "Hopefully he won't hate me when it's all over."

Here Sam had rolled his eyes and clamped a hand firmly on Steve's shoulder, an echo of how Bucky would do the same so many years ago.

"I swear man, a guy tries to have a serious conversation and you go all tragic on him. He's not gonna hate you Steve. Don't be so dramatic."

Steve had smiled at him shakily, a small quirk of his lips.

"Thanks, Sam."

Sam had smiled back, a bright flash of white against the dark skin of his face.

Don't mention it. Now let's go find your guy."

They find him three days later in an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of the city.

He hasn't gotten very far, which is not surprising considering the compromised state he's in.

The scent of heat is thick in the air and it hits Steve like a punch to the gut. Sam curses softly, and Steve feels an involuntary swell of arousal rush through him in response to the cloying pheromones.

He parts his lips and breaths through his mouth, dragging the poignant scent over the less sensitive glands at the base of his tongue which keeps the intoxicating scent from completely overwhelming him.

Though he’s still able to taste the heady pheromones.

The suppressants he'd swallowed hours ago help too, but with his metabolism, he knows it's only a matter of time before they burn out of his system.

Bucky is sitting curled up against the far wall, almost completely wedged into the corner, and when he catches sight of Sam and Steve moving cautiously across the filthy floor, he makes a futile effort to scoot back even farther.

His left hand rises to aim a Glock steadily in their direction.

Steve freezes about halfway across the room with Sam slightly behind, and takes stock of the Omega.

His clothing is filthy and has obviously been obtained sometime during the past week, because he's no longer wearing the black leather armor he'd been clothed in on the Helicarrier.

He's still got on his combat boots, but above those he's wearing jeans and a dark–colored jacket that's partially unbuttoned to reveal a second jacket beneath, layered over a black t–shirt. There is a black cap on the floor near his hip.

His hair is dark with sweat, tangled and falling limply across his face, partially obscuring wild blue eyes.

His cheeks are flushed, lips parted as short panting breaths escape, and his body trembles with what Steve suspects are a combination of fever chills, pain, and — he admits reluctantly to himself — probably no small amount of fear.

Despite this, the mechanical arm holding the gun never wavers.

Steve feels a wave of sympathy quickly followed by the strong rush of his Alpha pheromones — relief, love, safety, mine — which barrel forcefully toward Bucky in Steve’s clumsy overzealous attempt to sooth the Omega, and rid him of the more acrid scents of fear and pain pouring copiously from his body.

The Soldier's eyes widen as the Alpha's pheromones slam into him, and the hand holding the gun falters, the metal arm dropping like a stone to the Omega’s  side.

He gasps, instinctively tilting his head back and exposing the pale length of his throat. His spine arches, a low keen spilling from between his lips, and he grinds the back of his skull against the wall behind him as his hips roll once, up into the empty air.

The Omega’s breathing resumes its short pants moments later as his hips come back down to rest against the ground.

His blue eyes, somewhat hazy prior to Steve's emotional onslaught, are now completely dazed; dilated, clouded over, and barely half-open.

The metal hand only loosely clutches at the gun now, and his arm stays pressed against the floor as if it's suddenly too heavy to lift.

Sam huffs, glancing over at Steve with a small grimace.

"Laid it on a little thick there don'cha think?" he grunts, shaking his head a bit as if to cast off whatever effects the surge of pheromones might’ve had on him.

Steve ducks his head sheepishly, running a hand through his blond hair.

"Sorry, Sam," he murmurs wryly, shooting the man an apologetic glance.

"Didn't mean for that to come out so strongly."

"Yeah, well, looks like some good might've come from it anyway," Sam states, tilting his head toward Bucky's lax, sprawled form.

Steve's not entirely sure he agrees.

Though the fear-scent coming from the Omega has lessened significantly, he knows that it's only muted beneath the tranquilizing effects forced upon him by the overly-aggressive onslaught of Steve's stronger Alpha pheromones.

Simply put: Bucky is hormonally drugged — completely overwhelmed — which is the only reason for his apparent placidity.

"C'mon man," Sam intones, obviously sensing Steve’s rising guilt.

"I know that normally pheromone-induced emotional manipulation isn't really the best way to deal with this kind of situation. But, then again, there's really nothing normal about this situation.

“At this point, he's probably the most relaxed you're gonna get him considering all the shit he's been through. Is still going through. So you'd better make the most of it while you can."

Steve takes a steadying breath, nods.

“Yeah.”

The Alpha squares his shoulders, “Okay, yes. I can. I’ll just—“ before he cautiously closes the distance between himself and the Omega slouched against the wall, crouching down in front of him.

Bucky's slitted eyes track his advance, but he makes no movement save for the involuntarily rapid rise and fall of his chest.

Steve carefully draws the pistol away from slack metal fingers, thumbing on the safety and tucking it into the waistband at the small of his back.

"Buck," he murmurs, reaching slowly forward to push dark sweaty strands of hair out of Bucky's eyes, away from his face, "It's me. It’s...it's Steve."

He pauses, gathering his thoughts, eyes holding steady on feverish blues. "I know you're — nervous. That maybe you don't really remember me, but I'm gonna take care of you now. I won't — I'd never — hurt you."

He waits a breath, searching Bucky’s eyes for some sort of reaction, a basic understanding of what he's saying at least, but there's nothing.

Bucky's thousand-yard stare doesn't shift.

He gives no indication that he's even heard Steve's words.

Steve briefly glances back at Sam, gaining a small amount of comfort from the Beta’s steady gaze.

"Okay," he sighs, turning back to Bucky.

"Okay, Buck. Let's get you up. I'm gonna take you somewhere safe. Gonna help you feel better."

Bucky remains where he is and Steve shifts forward, sliding a hand beneath the Omega’s metal forearm, preparing to help lift him from the hard cement floor.

"C'mon Buck, stand up," he murmurs, not entirely sure Bucky will respond at this point.

To his relief though, as soon as the words leave his mouth, the Soldier does respond; pushing off of the floor with his flesh hand and standing on his own.

He sways slightly on his feet but stays upright, head tilted downward so that the dark fall of his hair screens his expressionless face.

"Right," Steve says, rising to stand as well, watching Bucky carefully, "I have — uh. There’s, a car. Outside. Sam's gonna drive us to my place, so. Why don't we..."

He motions awkwardly toward the exit and half-turns, taking a small step toward the door before stopping again because Bucky isn't moving to follow him.

Steve pauses in a moment of puzzled confusion before a suspicion that’s more like a realization cuts sharply through him: Bucky's responded only to Steve's single specifically worded command.

Steve lets out a harsh breath, pushing down his angry despair, not wanting Bucky to pick up on the emotion and become any more anxious — or potentially, volatile.

He reforms his clumsy request into an order that tastes bitter in his mouth:

"Follow me," and Bucky steps forward passively.

The Omega stumbles a bit on the way to Sam's car, the grace he'd shown as the Winter Soldier hampered by pheromone-induced incoherence and — though it doesn't show on his face and he doesn't make any sound to indicate it — what must be intense pain both from the suppressant-withdrawal and his body's attempts to prepare itself to undergo the oncoming crux of his heat.

They make it out of the derelict warehouse to where Sam has already pulled the car around and is waiting patiently, the engine humming softly.

Steve moves a couple of paces ahead of Bucky's shuffling tread, pulling open the door to the back seat, which is overlaid by a thick towel and a soft comforter overtop.

The fabric of the Soldier's pants is dark, making the slick being copiously produced by his heat-governed body less visibly obvious.

But Steve's serum-enhanced nose coupled with his Alpha-heightened senses make it impossible for him to miss the fact that the material is essentially soaked through.

Distantly he's glad for Sam's forethought in bringing the blanket and towel — otherwise the car's seats would likely be ruined by the time they get Bucky back to Steve's place.

Not distant in the least is the powerful surge of lust that rips through Steve — suppressants be damned — as the Omega's movements stir up the potent scent of his slick, causing it to permeate the air and lodge thickly in Steve's nostrils.

Steve swallows, voice coming out rough as he coaxes, "That's good Buck, you're doing great. Come on and lie down back here. Try to make yourself comfortable."

Blue eyes flicker uneasily over Steve's face, the Omega seeming to register the tightness in his voice, but the assessment is extremely brief and Bucky’s gaze slides away again having never made actual eye-contact.

He does as he's told, crawling into the back seat and rolling to his back, face to the ceiling.

The Soldier's hands grip the blanket beneath him but he makes no move to pull it over himself as he bends his knees, curling them into the car so that Steve can shut the door.

His jaw works, grinding his teeth, though whether in pain or agitation is anyone's guess.

Likely it's both, and Steve can't really soothe either with any permanent degree of success until he gets the Omega home.

So he does what he can: shuts the door and slides into the front seat.

Prays that the trip will pass swiftly for everyone involved.

Chapter Text

✪ By Your Side ✪

‘Can I lay by your side, next to you, and make sure you’re alright?

I’ll take care of you.’

— S. Smith

They make it to Steve's place with relative ease, though Steve's got a vice-like grip on the upper thighs of his khakis, trying to breathe through his mouth, and at the same time, resist stealing glances at Bucky's supine form in the back seat every thirty seconds. He's less successful with the latter.

Bucky's still grinding his teeth and Steve feels a surge of sympathy for the muscles of his jaw. The Soldier’s body is wound tight as if he's straining to keep from moving, his dark lashes fluttering as he hisses quiet but rapid breaths through his teeth. Steve releases another measure of calming pheromones into the air — this time in a much more controlled manner — and Bucky's jaw relaxes marginally, his fingers easing their stranglehold on the blankets beneath him.

Sam cracks his window, shooting Steve a dirty look.

They finally reach the house,—and Steve exits the car in record time, opening up the back door and coaxing the pheromone-drunk Omega from the back seat.

He thanks Sam hurriedly, ("Yeah, man, anytime. Now get your ass inside and take care of your guy. And call me sometime goddamnit, so that I can be sure you're still breathing"), and then guides the unsteady Omega up the entryway steps and into the house.

On the drive over, between breathing as shallowly as possible and repeatedly ripping his gaze away from the Omega in the back, Steve had calculated a rough estimate of the passage of Bucky's heat. He figures, though the aching hardness in his pants begs to disagree, that he's got a bit more time before the situation becomes critical and too dangerous — either to the Omega's health or his sanity — to avoid knotting.

He bypasses the hallway that leads to the bedrooms for now, guiding the Omega into the kitchen instead.

Bucky's not completely mindless with the heat quite yet, and Steve intends to make full use of whatever time he's got left to try at least getting some food and water into him. Maybe get him cleaned up a little if they've got the time.

He pulls a glass from the cupboard and fills it from the tap, taking a small sip before moving to pass it to the Soldier he'd left seated at the kitchen table. Blue eyes steadily track Steve's movements.

"Drink."

The Soldier obediently grasps the glass, gulping down the liquid inside in a matter of seconds. Steve takes the glass away and refills it before passing it back and repeating the order which achieves much the same results.

After Steve refills the glass a third time, the Soldier begins to drink at a more moderate pace, and Steve heads to the pantry and starts pulling out cans of condensed soup—really more broth than anything else. He moves quickly, though steadily, and soon there is a small pot of what the tins proclaim to be “rich and hearty” vegetable soup steaming hot and ready to eat.

It’s just in time as Bucky appears to be slowly coming out of the fugue Steve's pheromones had previously thrown him into. His eyes begin to dart around the kitchen before coming to rest with wary consideration on the blond Alpha.

Steve grabs the pot along with a bowl and spoons, and takes them over to the table, sliding into the chair catty–corner to Bucky and placing the pot between them.

He wonders if the Soldier will be wary of consuming food prepared by an unknown Alpha. He’d drunk the water from earlier easily enough. But, Steve thinks, it would be difficult for a person to drug — or poison — the main water supply within the house and avoid the effects themselves. Much easier to tamper with — and avoid — a pot of soup.

He doesn’t know if the Soldier would be afraid to eat. So he removes the possibility of drugs altogether:

He scoops out a decent amount of soup until one of the bowls is nearly full, and picks up a spoon, taking a small sip and swallowing before he places the utensil back into the bowl and pushes both toward the Soldier.

The Soldier watches the process avidly — which makes Steve think he may have been right to do it — shifting his attention to follow the bowl until it rests in front of him. He stares at it hungrily, tension laced tight through his body, but he doesn't otherwise move.

"Eat," Steve says, and he's barely finished the word before Bucky grabs the bowl, gulping the hot soup into his mouth in large slurps, hardly chewing before swallowing it down quickly, despite the temperature.

Steve watches this and thinks despondently that maybe he should give Bucky smaller amounts at a time so that he can temper the rate at which the Soldier can scarf down the food.

The Omega doesn't need to deal with food-reintroduction-related nausea on top of the duress his heat is going to force upon him when it fully ramps up. Hence Steve's decision to feed him soup instead of a more solid food, supersoldier or no.

He’d read from the files Natasha had translated for him about the kind of diet Hydra’s “doctors” had kept the Winter Soldier functioning on. Liquid-based; no solids. The “Asset” had been fed intravenously much of the time, though he was given the occasional calorie-packed smoothie to compensate for when he was assigned particularly active missions.

Now Steve feeds him more slowly, filling the bowl in smaller increments, alternating between eating from the pot himself and feeding Bucky.

The pattern seems to calm the Omega somewhat as he begins to anticipate that his 'turn' will keep following the set rotation. He stops subtly glancing over at the pot, focusing instead on emptying his bowl more slowly.

When the pot is empty, Steve gives the Omega the remaining half of his own glass of water which the Soldier sips at sedately, eyes half-mast, mouth and cheeks flushed with low-grade heat-fever.

When he's finished, Steve takes the empty dishes and stacks them in the sink. He takes a fortifying breath, discretely brushing damp palms over his thighs before he turns around and heads back over to the table.

"Come with me," he says, motioning for the Soldier to follow. Bucky stands obediently and trails him down the hallway to the bathroom.

"Okay," Steve says once Bucky's followed him inside. "I'm gonna help you get cleaned up a bit." The Soldier only watches him, impassive and unmoving, and Steve feels a sharp stab of discomfort. "Could you — uh,” he fumbles before taking a determined breath. “Take off your jackets and t–shirt. Please."

Bucky's hands immediately go to the buttons on his outer jacket and Steve looks away, busying himself with grabbing a washcloth from beneath the sink. He runs the tap lukewarm and passes the cloth beneath the steady stream before swiping it twice over a bar of lightly-scented soap.

He glances up again at the sound of heavy cloth hitting the floor and sees that Bucky's bared himself from the waist up. The Omega’s eyes dart across Steve’s form, cataloguing his body language, watching his hands, betraying his outward passivity.

"Good," Steve commends the other man’s obedience.

Slowly he reaches for Bucky's flesh hand, and when the Soldier makes no attempt to stop him, grasps it, running the wet cloth softly over gun–calloused fingertips before gently making his way up his wrist and over the entirety of his arm, removing a good measure of sweat and grime along the way. The Omega shudders at the contact but remains where he is, tense but docile beneath Steve’s hands, making no attempt to pull away.

It goes much the same with the other arm, and Steve finds himself lulled into being subtly fascinated with the metal appendage. Or perhaps not so subtly, as Bucky seems to pick up on Steve's focus and the plates shift, causing the metal to ripple in a way that commands Steve's attention. All the while the Soldier covertly scrutinizes Steve's reactions.

Steve catches himself after what feels like far too long a time being distracted, though at most it's been a minute or two. He clears his throat, feeling Bucky's gaze, though when he glances up, the Soldier's eyes are focused unwaveringly somewhere over Steve's left shoulder.

Steve runs the cloth under the water again, rinsing it and adding more soap. He drags the cloth over the front of Bucky's torso next, and then his back, making sure to remove as much grime as possible. When he gets to Bucky's hips he falters, reluctant to ask him to remove his jeans. Bucky seems to sense the order coming and raises his hands to the button at the front, slowly working it free from its fastening.

When he receives no counter-instruction from Steve, the Soldier moves with slightly more confidence, tugging down the zipper and pushing the fabric off of his hips, letting the lower half of his clothing drop to the floor.

Steve swallows down a groan as a fresh wave of heat-slick re-scents the air more potent now than it’s been all day, driving a powerful bolt of fresh arousal straight through his brain and down to his cock. Where before he'd been able to push his arousal down to a low simmer, he's brought quite abruptly back to fully hard, aching fiercely with it. He has to take a few calming breaths through his mouth to keep from seizing the Omega, bending him over, and sinking deep into his fevered body right here in the bathroom. So much for the goddamned suppressants, he thinks hazily.

Bucky doesn't seem to be faring much better. While there had seemed to be some sort of lull in the waves of his heat-related symptoms, now they look to be ramping back up, likely triggered by Steve's own surge of aroused pheromones.

The Omega's breathing rate suddenly picks up again, and his muscles go even more taunt, fingers curling into tight fists as a fresh surge of slick dribbles down his thighs. The heat-flush, which had died down somewhat, rises again on his skin, painting itself darkly across his cheeks. His cock is rigid between his thighs, deeply red and leaking a steady glistening trail of pre-cum.

Steve swallows and drops to his knees, quickly running the washcloth down the Omega's legs, getting them as clean as he can in his haste.

Bucky's head tilts back and he stares unseeing at the ceiling, teeth clamped onto his lower lip, chewing on the wet, red flesh. His chest heaves and he makes a quiet, strangled sound in the back of his throat — and Steve knows they're very suddenly out of time.

Steve stands, unceremoniously tossing the cloth into the sink before placing his hands gently on Bucky's shoulders. The Omega shudders full-bodied at the touch, tugging harder at his bottom lip. Steve squeezes gently, running a hand up to cup the Omega's clenched jaw, murmuring, "Bucky, Bucky, it’s okay. I'm going to help you. You'll get through this." And then, as an unpleasant thought suddenly occurs to him, "You don't have to stay silent Bucky. Make as much noise as you need to. Don't hold it back."

The command embedded within the permission seems to break the dam, and Bucky finally vocalizes: a short, high-pitched keen as he pants, the pinnacle of his heat finally sinking its claws into him, ripping through his trembling body.

"What if I get him pregnant?" Steve had wondered aloud to Sam.

He hadn’t been able to help the little thrill that went through him at the idea, though admittedly it had been quickly followed by apprehension and a surge of guilt.

"I can’t say for sure man, but considering the amount of stress his body's experienced the last seventy-plus years, added to what it's undergoing now with suppressant withdrawal...It's highly unlikely. Even counting on the effects of the serum to undo all of that… Surely that would take some time."

Sam had been right, of course. The odds of Bucky being able to conceive at this point are almost nonexistent. Which is a good thing, though Steve can't help the small flutter of disappointment. Which he then feels abruptly ashamed of. Sure Steve has been in love with Bucky for as long as he can remember, but Bucky had never even felt the need to share with Steve his true designation.

How will he feel, when he finally comes back to himself, upon realizing that, not only had Steve taken advantage of him in this helpless state, but also had forced upon him a child?

So it is good that the Omega won’t have to worry about that. Not for a while. At least until his heats settle and he is completely free from the sterilizing effects of long–term suppression. Assuming his version of the serum can fix that. And if it can’t, well, Bucky probably doesn’t even want kids, Steve thinks with a wave of sadness. Had never wanted them. Not when he'd rejected even acknowledging being an Omega.

Steve guides Bucky into the guest room across the hall, a gentle hand against his feverish shoulder, and experiences a wash of gratitude again for Sam’s help in getting things prepared.

The Omega goes where he’s led, but stops as soon as Steve’s hand leaves his shoulder. He sways, trembling in the middle of the room, hands clenching and breaths stuttering out in short, quiet gasps.

Steve’s not doing much better himself, and he pauses to grasp at the tattered shreds of his control, pulling off his t-shirt and pushing down his khakis, kicking them from around his ankles along with his shoes and socks, and leaving them in a heap on the carpet.

He can feel the heat of his own arousal coiled low in his belly, spreading across his chest and making his skin feel hot and prickly. His heart-rate has risen, and he can feel the pulse of it in the stiff aching length of his steadily leaking cock.

He approaches the shaking Omega slowly, cautious about startling him in his addled state, brushing his fingertips lightly across a bare shoulder-blade.

The Omega does indeed startle, twisting his head sharply and taking in Steve’s unclothed state, blue eyes wild behind the sweat-damp tangles of his dark hair. The moment the Alpha’s nudity registers, Bucky is very suddenly across the room, crouched against the far wall, teeth bared in a snarl.

Steve has a moment to think that maybe his divesting was a bit premature before the snarl cuts off sharply and Bucky’s eyes suddenly slip closed. The Omega’s hands reach up to grip tightly at his hair, and a low keen escapes his throat. His body ripples with tension, a wave of heat-ripe slick seeping from his entrance and down his thighs. It scents the air as he pants through it.

“Bucky, hey Buck, look at me,” Steve croons from across the room, crouching down so that he no longer towers over the Soldier. The Omega’s eyes snap open, focusing intently on Steve. “It’s me Buck—it’s Steve, remember?”

The Soldier continues to pant, teeth gritted as another ripple of heat-induced cramps trembles through his body, but his eyes don’t leave Steve’s face.

“I know it hurts, sweetheart,” Steve murmurs, inching closer. Bucky’s eyes widen slightly at the endearment or the approach Steve doesn’t know. “Let me help you. Please, Bucky. I don’t want you to have to hurt anymore.”

The Soldier doesn’t respond, breaking eye contact again as a quiet moan forces its way from between clenched teeth. Steve uses his momentary distraction to creep further forward until he’s close enough to be able to touch the Omega.

Bucky attempts to scramble away, but his movements are clumsy — hindered by painful muscle cramps and, very likely, the surge of his instincts, undoubtedly urging him to move toward the Alpha, rather than away.

He collapses a few feet away, half-slumped against the mattress Steve had pushed into the corner of the room, sides heaving, shuddering with the effort moving has cost him.

Steve feels sick, seeing how fervently Bucky is working to get away from him, and with the knowledge that he’ll have to force the Omega’s submission in order to help him.

Knowing that instinct will kick in — will make it easier for both of them as soon as Steve puts his hands on the Omega, doesn’t ease the guilt, and Steve wants more than anything to be able to choose another option.

There isn’t one.

An Omega’s normal heat without an Alpha is both painful and difficult, but it shouldn’t cause nearly the amount of misery Bucky is currently suffering.

It’s the withdrawal, coupled with the fact that the Soldier has likely gone so long without a proper heat.

His super-soldier biology is rallying from whatever suppressants Hydra had cooked up to combat it. It’s taking its toll now, and Steve’s not sure the Omega will survive without the hormone-leveling pheromones an Alpha’s seed naturally supplies to ease an Omega’s heat.

Bucky keens again, curling in on himself, and Steve steels his resolve. He won’t lose Bucky again. Not after he’s finally gotten him back.

He moves toward the Omega with purpose. Kneeling down and sliding his left arm around the Soldier’s waist, Steve pulls him firmly into the cradle of his own hips. With his other hand he caresses the Omega from the base of his skull down his back in one long, steady stroke.

Bucky burns with fever, body too hot against Steve’s cooler one, and he shudders with the touch, seemingly unable to decide whether to pull away from Steve’s grip or to press back into it.

Steve makes the choice for him, folding himself more tightly around the feverish body and bringing his mouth down to suckle at the juncture of flesh between neck and shoulder — the place where a mating bite would create a silvery scar on a claimed Omega.

Bucky lets out a hoarse cry at the sensation, arching back in Steve’s arms, grinding against the length of the Alpha’s erection where it sits hot and heavy in the crease of his ass. Another wave of fresh slick spills from his body, lubricating Steve’s own leaking cock even further.

Steve groans, bucking his hips unintentionally, the smooth glide of his cock across Bucky’s entrance maddeningly pleasurable. He forces his hips to still, grinding his forehead against the back of Bucky’s neck, panting with the effort.

The Omega whimpers, pushing his hips back into Steve’s, instinctively seeking more friction and Steve slams his free hand down over Bucky’s hip, halting the motion.

“Bucky. Bucky, wait,” he groans, tightening his arm further around the Omega’s writhing body. Bucky sobs, clearly distressed at the cessation of movement, and Steve rips his hand from its tight grip on the Omega’s hip, sliding his fingertips instead down through the slick crease that leads to his opening and pressing firmly against the furled entrance when he reaches it.

The Soldier freezes, going rigid in Steve’s arms at the sensation, muscles so tightly locked that he shivers with minute trembles. He grinds his jaw, the fingers of his right hand twisting in the sheets beneath them.

“S’ok Buck,” Steve murmurs, peppering light kisses over the Omega’s bare shoulder. “S’ok. M’not gonna hurt you. Gonna give you what you need. Make you feel better...” He continues with the soft assurances, all the while pressing steadily into the Omega’s slick entrance with a single firm digit.

Bucky pants against him, sides heaving. His metal hand comes up to grip at Steve’s left arm, still tight around his waist, and he bends forward resting his forehead against the edge of the mattress they’ve scooted up to, instinct driving him to present to the Alpha behind him.

“That’s it Buck,” Steve croons. “That’s good. You’re so good for me.”

Bucky shudders at the praise, pressing ever-so-slightly back against Steve’s finger inside of him, and the Alpha draws back out, settling a second finger up to his opening before pressing steadily back in.

Despite being fully into his heat and literally dripping with slick, Bucky is still relatively tight around Steve’s fingers. Steve’s glad that he’d thought to stretch the Omega first, as the last thing he wants is to cause Bucky any more pain.

With Steve’s steady preparation, Bucky’s body opens up swiftly around his fingers and the Omega is soon grinding back against them, moaning brokenly and clutching tightly at Steve’s arm.

Steve thrusts his fingers smoothly in and out, making sure to stretch Bucky as thoroughly as possible before he draws them away, dragging them firmly across the small bundle of nerves just inside the Omega’s slick channel before he pulls out.

Bucky’s response is immediate.

The Soldier cries out, the loudest he’s been since Steve found him at that warehouse. His body jolts as if he’s been electrocuted, and his cock spurts pre-come forcefully enough for Steve to feel it wet the skin of his forearm where it still encircles Bucky’s waist.

Bucky gulps down broken moans, body glistening with a heavy sheen of sweat, his fever seeming to spike so that he suddenly feels like a furnace up against Steve’s body. He’s mumbling, forehead pressed into the mattress so that the blankets muffle the sounds, but even so, Steve thinks he can pick out the desperate words: “Please, pleasepleaseplease.”

The Omega begs, eyes tightly clenched, and Steve feels his heart crack.

Bucky hasn’t asked him for anything since Steve had found him. Not water when he was clearly dehydrated. Not food when he was distressingly hungry. Even now he works to muffle his pleas, though he has undoubtedly reached the end of his rope, his heat literally burning him from the inside out, essentially killing him.

Steve hastily swipes slick from the inside of the Omega’s thighs, spreading the natural lubricant thickly over his throbbing cock before he shifts forward, pressing his length to Bucky’s searing entrance and pushing inside in one long, steady thrust.

He can’t help but groan at the feeling of Bucky’s hot, slick channel undulating tightly around his cock. His knot begins to swell, already pressing down firmly on that bundle of nerves inside the Omega, and Bucky abruptly shouts. His hips thrust back sharply on Steve’s length, and his body convulses, muscles contracting brutally around Steve’s cock as he comes hard.

Steve rides out the sensation, breathing shakily through his mouth and rolling his hips deep into the Omega as Bucky slumps, whining — still rock-hard and leaking between his thighs.

Steve begins a punishing rhythm, thrusting rapidly into the Omega’s body, pulling his hips back onto his length with firm hands. Bucky moves with him, pushing back onto the hard cock inside him.

It’s not long before Bucky’s internal muscles start quivering around Steve’s length again, and the Alpha knows he’s getting close. The Omega gasps, small hitching cries with each thrust and Steve urges him on.

“That’s it, Bucky, you’re doing so good,” Steve murmurs, releasing one of the Omega’s hips and bringing his hand forward to wrap around the Omega’s throbbing length. He strokes the heated flesh, slick with the Soldier’s earlier release and a steady trickle of fresh pre-cum.

“Ah-hah!” Bucky cries out at the new sensation, open-mouthed and panting. His hands grip tightly at the bedding near his head and he rocks forward into Steve’s grip around his cock.

“Come for me, sweetheart,” Steve encourages gutturally, grinding his knot against Bucky’s prostate and twisting his hand around the slick length in his grip, “Come for me now.”

Bucky wails, muscles clenching tightly around the Alpha knot inside him as his cock spurts his release all over Steve’s hand, splattering over his own chest and belly. Steve strokes him through it, undulating his hips and suckling at the juncture of Bucky’s shoulder, keeping up a steady murmur of encouragement until the Omega goes limp beneath him.

Steve releases Bucky’s softening length, wrapping his arms around the now-pliant Omega and pulls him flush up against his body. He rolls them so that they are fully on top of the mattress, positioning them on their sides, cock still firmly embedded inside the Omega.

Bucky whimpers at the sensation, the Alpha’s knot grinding tight against his prostate. Steve slides a hand down to grip at the back of his knee, pulling the Soldier’s leg up and out, stretching his entrance around Steve’s length and allowing him a better angle as he continues to thrust.

Bucky mewls, cock twitching between his thighs as Steve pounds firmly against his prostate. Steve groans roughly, feeling the beginnings of his own orgasm finally rushing toward him. He shouts when it hits, thrusts turning erratic, arching his back as his release sweeps through him. He spills his seed deep inside the Omega’s body.

Bucky lets out a soft cry of his own, body trembling, cock dribbling sluggishly with the release of a third orgasm as Steve slowly lowers his thigh back to a neutral position. They lie there panting, sweat dampening their skin as Steve’s knot swells to its full girth. Bucky whines, scrabbling weakly at the blankets around them, unable to pull away from the burning stretch that locks them together.

Steve grips the Omega more tightly, unwilling to allow him to hurt himself by attempting to pull free. He moans helplessly, burying his face against the back of Bucky’s neck as another wave of his orgasm crests, coursing through his body, stimulating more seed to spill from his length.

After many long minutes, Bucky slowly calms — likely due to the large amount of sedative-like Alpha pheromones bring pumped into his body via Steve’s cock — and his temperature settles, now only slightly elevated and perfectly safe. Steve groans quietly as orgasm after orgasm continues to flow through him, steadily filling Bucky with his seed.

Finally, after an interminable amount of time, Steve’s knot subsides and his softening cock slips free from Bucky’s placid body. A significant pool of cum spills from the Omega’s entrance, and Steve feels himself flush hotly, even as Bucky remains limp and passive.

Steve starts to rise from the mattress, intending to retrieve a damp cloth from the bathroom, but as he begins to move away, the Soldier’s hand shoots out, gripping his wrist in a startlingly rapid movement.

“Bucky?” Steve queries softly, halting in place.

Bucky doesn’t look at him. Hasn’t moved save for the placement of the warm grip of his fingers wrapped almost gently around Steve’s wrist, but -

his fingers tighten just the barest of a fraction against Steve’s skin, and if Steve hadn’t been focusing on the Soldier with every bit of his attention, he might have easily missed it.

He doesn’t miss it.

It could be instinct. An Omega needs to keep an Alpha’s ability to soothe a painful heat close. But Steve’s hope that it’s Bucky beginning to trust him instead flares bright.

“Okay, Buck,” Steve agrees quietly, slipping back down behind Bucky, wet spot be damned. “M’not going anywhere. Gonna stay right here.”

The Omega lets out a breath, impossibly quiet, his fingers falling away from Steve’s wrist.

The Alpha gathers Bucky’s now comfortably-warm body back against him, and Bucky curls almost imperceptibly into the embrace. His breathing deepens as he drops off into the heavy drowse, induced by the earlier influx of Steve’s Alpha calming-pheromones.

Steve quickly follows, exhaustion sweeping suddenly over him, dragging him down into a dreamless sleep.

Chapter Text

✪ Lost ✪

‘You are not alone, I am there with you.

And we’ll get lost together, ‘till the light comes poring through.’

— M. Buble

Steve’s eyes drag open drowsily. He stares out into the darkness of early morning for a moment, unsure what has woken him. Distantly he registers movement beside him, a restless twisting followed by a low, muffled moan, and all at once he snaps fully awake, alert and aware of the distressed Omega alongside him, all thoughts of sleep forgotten.

His enhanced vision efficiently utilizes the spare amount of moonlight that spills through the window, and he is able to see Bucky  mostly turned onto his stomach, eyes tightly shut and fingers gripping at the covers thoroughly tangled around his agitated form.

Heat pours liberally from his skin, his temperature once again having skyrocketed, and low sounds drag from his throat, all but completely muffled as he presses his face into the bedclothes.

They’ve coupled thrice more in the last thirty-or-so hours since their initial time, and Steve’s been seeing a pattern. Bucky’s temperature levels out after each time Steve’s pheromone-rich seed fills his body at the end of their couplings. The Omega will slip into a stupor, usually sleeping for six to eight hours — about when his temperature spikes again and his body starts slicking up for another dose of Alpha chemicals.

In between drugged sleep and rounds of sex, Steve has worked to keep them both fed and well-hydrated with stomach-friendly foods, electrolyte solutions, and water from the crates he’d previously stacked in the room.

Now it seems the Omega’s body has ramped up again.

Steve rolls toward the panting form beside him, gathering him into his arms.

“Shh, Buck. Shh. I got you. ‘S okay. You’re okay,” the Alpha murmurs.

The Soldier, as always, stiffens initially at Steve’s touch, but after a few moments of rigidity he turns swiftly, latching tightly onto the Alpha and burying his face into the bare skin between neck and shoulder.

One leg slides between Steve’s, and the Omega rolls his hips, grinding the heated stickiness of his length against the muscles of Steve’s upper thigh.

The Omega pants, quiet whimpers slipping from between his lips, hands clutching desperately around Steve’s shoulders.

Steve brings his hands up around Bucky’s ribs and draws a soothing stroke down the Omega’s flanks. His left hand he leaves to firmly grip the sharp jut of a hip. With his right, he traces around the swell of the Omega’s rear, sliding his fingers down the slick cleft to rest against the Omega’s heated entrance.

Bucky tenses at the sensation, muscles strung so tight they tremble, and Steve massages the furled circle of his entrance with slick-covered fingers until the Soldier shudders against him, breathing out a quiet moan into Steve’s neck.

He must be sore, Steve thinks, even as he sinks two fingers easily into the Omega’s body and scissors them apart. He adds a third as Bucky pushes gingerly back against them, undulating his hips in small thrusts.

The Soldier gives a punched-out sound as Steve drags his fingers over his prostate, grinding becoming more frenzied against Steve’s thigh. Steve pulls his fingers away, rolling Bucky beneath him, even as the Omega whimpers at the loss of fullness inside him.

Steve gazes down at the Omega beneath him, taking in flushed cheeks, red, bite-swollen lips and heat-glazed eyes as he presses his erection slowly, steadily inside the Soldier’s slick-wet hole.

Bucky gasps, throwing back his head, sweaty strands of his dark hair clinging to the sides of his face and along the stretched length of his pale throat. His hands cling tightly to Steve’s biceps on either side of him, and he catches his lower lip between pearly teeth, muffling the long moan that escapes as Steve becomes fully seated inside him.

Steve pauses there, deep inside Bucky’s body, and draws his lips softly across the Soldier’s warm cheekbone. All the while Bucky stares past his shoulder with dazed, unfocused eyes.

After what is seemingly too long without movement, the Soldier grunts softly, arching his back and thrusting up against Steve’s length inside him.

Steve takes the hint, rolling his hips against Bucky’s shallow thrusts, steadily increasing the pace and intensity of his movements until the Omega is shuddering into orgasm. He spurts seed over his chest and belly as short, sharp cries spill from between reddened spit-slick lips.

Steve continues to thrust, pulling back on the intensity as Bucky mewls with oversensitivity, and buries his head into the mattress above the Omega’s shoulder. After long minutes of slow half-heated thrusting, Steve begins to pick up the pace again, now chasing his own orgasm with renewed fervor.

Bucky groans with the force of Steve’s movements, rolling his hips in harmony and sliding a leg up around Steve’s waist, pulling him more tightly into himself. The Omega’s re-hardened length slides against Steve’s abdomen, trapped between their undulating bodies, and Steve feels the release of another orgasm spill hot between them, even as his own orgasm crests and he cries out, pumping his hips erratically, once again filling the Omega.

They lie there pressed together for long minutes until Steve eventually rolls them gently back to their sides, his knot keeping their bodies tied. Bucky ends up sprawled halfway over Steve’s chest, face hidden against a bare shoulder, and Steve strokes his hand gently through the tangled sweat-damp hair.

He rolls his hips intermittently, groaning softly in pleasure as his body continues to spill inside the Omega. Bucky becomes more and more lethargic as time passes, body going heavy and still, the heat-fever bleeding from his skin and, eventually, he drops into an enervated doze.

Later, when Steve’s knot has subsided and the barest hint of sunrise begins to spill its light into the room, the Alpha carefully slips from beneath the warm weight of the sleeping Soldier. He grabs one of the bottles of water from the crate in the corner, cracking it open and swallowing down half its contents in a few gulps.

His stomach growls unhappily as he finishes off the water, and he rises from the mattress, overworked muscles aching slightly as he pulls on a pair of dark boxer-briefs and a pale T-shirt. He glances over at the sleeping form left curled in the makeshift bed, but the Omega hasn’t moved, and so Steve quietly makes his way out of the room and down the hall toward the kitchen.

He pauses near the bathroom door, the smell of stale slick reaching his nostrils, and remembers Bucky’s clothing left crumpled on the tile floor near the sink. He grabs it and makes a detour to the laundry room, throwing the garments into the washer and starting the machine before continuing on to the kitchen.

He decides to make eggs — simple, quick, and full of much needed protein — and pulls a full carton from the refrigerator.

There’s the added benefit of the fact that the fare will be easy on Bucky’s stomach, which Steve plans to take advantage of as soon as he finishes feeding himself.

He’s standing at the counter finishing up the remains of his meal when suddenly he feels eyes on him. He glances up to find the Soldier watching him attentively.

Bucky stands completely nude in the shadows at the end of the hall; not quite on the threshold of the living room which precedes the kitchen.

He remains silent. Motionless. Completely unselfconscious with Steve’s eyes upon him. The Alpha swallows thickly.

Bucky’s body is well-muscled but lean, not a spare inch of fat on him, no natural softness anywhere on his form that would normally come with being at a healthy weight. Even so — he’s beautiful , and Steve has to school his expression; breaths carefully even so as not to allow the direction his thoughts have taken to show on his face.

Bucky is also covered with the characteristic evidence of their recent activities. Pale patches of dried semen crust and flake off of his abdomen and chest, and Steve knows there is more along the insides of his thighs. He flushes hotly, his cock twitching with interest inside his briefs.

With a few quick strides, Steve enters the living room and grabs one of the soft throws from off the back of the couch, heading toward the Omega with intent.

As he nears the Soldier, preparing to toss the throw around his naked shoulders, Bucky stiffens, flinching back a step before he seems to catch himself and halts his retreat, eyes darting around nervously before they come to rest on Steve’s hands still clasped around the blanket.

“Easy, Buck,” Steve murmurs, moving more cautiously now. “‘S okay, just gonna give you this.”

Bucky’s breathing has kicked up a notch, and his metal arm recalibrates with tension, but he grits his teeth and doesn’t move as Steve carefully wraps the throw about his shoulders holding the front closed until Bucky eventually wraps a hand around the fabric himself.

Steve backs away as soon as it’s done. Tries not to let the heartbreak show on his face at the obvious fact: Bucky is still afraid of him. Or — at the very least — doesn’t yet trust Steve not to hurt him.

By now, the Alpha had hoped that some memory of their past might have soothed the majority of unease Bucky had felt around him. Or at least knowing that Steve has done his best to take care of the Omega — has tried to not hurt him in any way — might help Bucky to trust him more than he does.

That decades of torture have surpassed any feelings of trust or safety their years of friendship might have afforded the Omega is still a difficult reality for Steve to face.

Steve clears his throat, turning away to wipe surreptitiously at damp eyes as he says, “Come into the kitchen, I made you something to eat,” trying to infuse some measure of lightness into his tone.

He pulls a chair out at the kitchen table as he passes by, motioning for Bucky to sit as he goes to grab a plate and utensils. He piles a small portion of the eggs on the plate and brings it over to the seated Omega. He seats himself adjacent to Bucky, pushing the plate toward him and passing over the fork.

“Eat this slowly , Buck,” he says, as the Soldier grasps the fork with the metal hand. Bucky dips his head, strands of his hair falling to cover his face, and brings a tiny bite up to his mouth.

He eats at a snail’s pace, blue eyes darting up every once in a while, presumably to assess Steve’s temperament.

The Soldier uses his left hand, Steve notes with a sudden sharp clarity. Bucky had been right-handed.

Steve feels a pang of sorrow at this further evidence of change in his best friend, and works automatically to stifle it. As changes go, its minuscule, but all Steve can wonder is what use Hydra would have in changing a person’s natural dominance from flesh to metal.

Some of what he’s thinking must show on his face because Bucky’s steady eating suddenly halts, fork frozen halfway to his mouth, jaw freezing mid-chew.

“Bucky...” Steve starts when the Soldier stays that way, as if he’s too apprehensive to continue eating; falters when he can’t — doesn’t want to — find the words to explain himself.

When Steve fails to continue after a certain amount of time, the Soldier slowly brings the utensil back to the plate, places it down so gently it barely makes a sound, and waits, eyes skittering over Steve’s face before coming to rest in that nowhere-place just over Steve’s left shoulder.

“It’s — Buck it’s nothing, really. I just...” Steve licks his lips, feeling like the lowest scum. “You...you used to be right-handed is all, Bucky. Please, finish eating. It’s not important, really.”

Bucky waits for a moment after Steve has finished speaking, and then slowly, he pulls the metal arm back to his side so that it is mostly hidden beneath the table, and proceeds to pick up the fork with his right hand.

When Steve stays miserably silent, he goes back to finishing what’s left of his eggs — right-handed and just as proficient — and Steve, even less happy, and now feeling guilty at the change, wishes he could go back in time and keep his goddamn hang-ups to himself.

Not much later Bucky finishes his small meal, and once he sets down the fork on the empty plate, Steve hands him a glass of water with instructions to sip it slowly.

Bucky takes it, right-handed, and does.

The blanket slips down to his waist as the Omega drinks and Steve decides that a shower is in order while Bucky is still in this relatively calm, lucid state.

“Come with me,” Steve tells him after he sets the empty glass onto the table.

Bucky stands obediently, the blanket slithering farther down his body before he catches it halfway down his hips, and Steve quickly turns on his heel before he can store any more arousal-inducing images into his brain.

He heads back through the living room and down the hallway toward the bathroom, Bucky an ever-silent presence behind him. He debates for a moment, deliberating between a bath or a shower before he finally settles on a bath for the Omega, the more soothing, hopefully more relaxing option. First, though, he wants to scrub them both down together. He’s not smelling overly fresh himself.

He turns on the shower, adjusting the heat to something comfortably warm, and turns to the Omega hesitating on the room’s threshold.

“C’mere Buck, lets get you cleaned up.”

Steve motions for him to step closer, but he can tell, all of a sudden, that something about the situation has spooked the Soldier.

Bucky drops the blanket and takes a small step forward with what looks like a great amount of effort, feet almost dragging against the tiled flooring before he pauses, jaw clenched, fine tremors running up and down his body. (The fingers of his right hand flutter in agitated motion at his side.)

Steve glances curiously back at the shower, but he can’t see any reason for the Omega’s sudden apprehension. That doesn’t stop him from moving, however, placing his body between Bucky and the running water, and raising his hands to halt the Soldier’s advance.

“Talk to me Buck,” Steve says softly, “What’s going on?”

Bucky straightens into what looks like parade rest, all traces of anxiety abruptly blanking from his expression.

“Maintenance required,” the Soldier rasps out in a quiet voice, “Asset ready to comply.”

It’s the first he’s clearly spoken since Steve brought him home, and the words hit like a punch to the gut. Steve deflates, bringing a shaky hand up to cover suddenly-damp eyes.

“ God , Buck,” he breathes out tremulously. “You don’t have to — I’m not going to — to force you.”

He’s well aware of the empty irony behind the assurance. Bucky won’t believe him. Has demonstrated quite aptly by now that he thinks of Steve as some sort of — of handler .

The Soldier has done little else but docilely respond to Steve’s orders — both stated and implied.

And really, hasn’t the Alpha been more-or-less in control of Bucky since he’d found him in that warehouse?

He’s trying to save the Omega’s life, true enough. But he’s still the one giving the orders; running the show.

And as for not forcing Bucky...he already has forced himself on the Soldier — repeatedly —    heat-desperate and out-of-options though the Omega may have been.

Would Bucky even choose this if he thought he had the freedom of other options?

The ache of guilt settles thick and painful in Steve’s chest.

“I just — I thought you might like to get clean,” Steve explains, still covering his eyes, his voice strained.

He turns away, wiping away any tears before they can fall, and stripping off his T-shirt. “I can — I’ll go first, if you want. It’s safe. I wouldn’t — it doesn’t...hurt.”

He hesitates at his briefs before he pulls them off as well. If he’s going to prove to Bucky that the shower is not meant to hurt, he needs to be just as vulnerable to it as Bucky would be.

The dark thought of how — why — something as simple as a shower would cause anxiety gets pushed away to be untangled at another time. Right now Steve has to stay focused on Bucky. He doesn’t want to miss any other signs of anxiety the Soldier might let slip from beneath that blank façade.

Steve steps under the warm spray, leaving the curtain open so that Bucky can see that there’s nothing Steve is keeping from him. No hidden traps waiting for the Soldier.

The Omega keeps his blue eyes trained intently on the Alpha and Steve pushes away his self-consciousness with determination. “You can share with me if you want,” he says in Bucky’s direction though he doesn’t glance over, not wanting to spook the Soldier who is slowly creeping forward.

After a few moments allowing the water to pour soothingly over his form, Steve reaches for the bar of soap and loofa he keeps tucked into the shower shelf. He soaps up thoroughly, ever aware of Bucky’s presence, blushing slightly as he makes sure to clean all of himself, before allowing the water to wash away the sudsy residue.

At this point, Bucky is quite near and Steve swipes a handful of conditioner through this hair,  part of the routine he wants Bucky to see in hopes that Steve can avoid spooking him if he ever gets to the point of washing the other man’s dark locks.

Bucky reaches out slowly, letting the barest amount of the shower’s spray wet the tips of his metal fingers. Something like surprise flickers rapidly across his face, and he brings his flesh hand up to test the water again.

Steve let’s the corner of his mouth tilt up, guessing at part of the reason for Bucky’s surprise, “No more cold showers for us, huh Buck? We have all the hot water we could ever need.”

Bucky’s eyes dart up, glancing quickly across Steve’s and away again before he seems to steel himself, finally stepping into the shower and resolutely facing Steve, rigid and waiting.

Steve let’s out a slow breath he hadn’t been aware of holding.

It’s a tight fit, but carefully Steve shifts the two of them, hands gently placed atop Bucky’s shoulders until their positions are reversed and Bucky is the one standing beneath the warm fall of water.

Tension seeps gradually from the Soldier’s shoulders and Steve soaps up the loofa again, pressing it gently to Bucky’s flesh shoulder and then — when the Omega doesn’t do more than twitch — carefully working it across his upper torso.

Little by little, Steve works his way over the entire body before him, fully washing away all traces of their couplings and Bucky’s days on the run.

The water rinses away the last of the lather and Steve replaces the loofa on the shelf, pausing to take in the tranquil Omega before him.

“Buck, I’m gonna,” Steve clears his throat, studying Bucky’s calm features. “Uhh, can I? Wash your hair.”

Bucky seems to come back to himself after a moment, straightening slightly, eyes glancing swiftly over Steve’s expression before he dips his head, tilting it minutely toward Steve in what can only be acquiescence, though he stays silent.

“Okay,” Steve murmurs, reaching for the faucet. “Okay, thank you Buck. I’m just gonna fill the tub, so you can sit down. It’ll be easier that way.”

The shower head shuts off as the tub begins to fill, swirling warm water around their feet.

“Go ahead and sit down,” Steve urges, stepping from the tub out onto the bath mat. He grabs a towel, wrapping it loosely about his waist and kneels on the outside of the tub, keeping himself eye-level with the now-seated Omega.

Opening up the cabinet beneath the sink, the Alpha pulls out a couple of different bottles of bath salts and foaming bubbles.

“These are for making bubbles,” he tells the Omega who’s watching him closely. “They’re from Sam.”

Here Steve rolls his eyes, smiling. “Sam is convinced that a good bubble bath will solve most of my problems,” he chuckles. He squeezes the bottle gently and a puff of lavender-scented air wafts into the room. “It smells really good anyway, and it’s lavender which is supposed to help you sleep better.”

He pours a measure of the pearly iridescent liquid into the palm of his hand before he places it beneath the stream of water falling from the faucet. The bath instantly begins to foam up and Steve swishes the last of the soap on his hand into the water.

He grabs a container of bath salts next and shakes it gently.

“Bath salts,” he explains, to the attentive Omega. “Also from Sam. They help with muscle aches.” He pours some into his wet palm and they begin to dissolve slightly, the scent of vanilla mixing with the lavender in the air. “Vanilla scented,” he clarifies redundantly and dumps the handful into the water.

The tub is over halfway full at this point so Steve reaches forward and shuts off the faucet.

“You can relax here for a moment,” he tells the Soldier. “I’m going to go grab us some clothes to change into. I’ll be right back.”

Bucky seems to accept this explanation as passively as he has all the rest and turns slightly away, as if releasing Steve to go and come back.

Steve takes the hint.

When he returns, fully dressed in a white t-shirt and sweatpants, Bucky is seated as before—hasn’t moved at all as much as Steve can tell.

Steve places the extra towel and set of clothing for Bucky on the countertop before he returns to the side of the tub and kneels smoothly.

“Okay Buck,” he says grabbing the shampoo and conditioner and setting them on the ledge nearby. “Gotta get your hair wetter for the shampoo. Can you—uh, I mean. Lean back for me. Please,” he can’t help adding.

The Soldier hesitates almost imperceptibly before he slowly eases back, tilting his head to dip it into the water. His breathing has picked up slightly — nervous, it seems, at the vulnerability of the stretched-out position — and Steve reaches out carefully, sliding a gentle hand beneath Bucky’s head for support. He smooths the other hand over his crown to wet the last of the dark strands just above Bucky’s forehead.

Bucky holds himself tense within Steve’s hands, and after another moment, Steve nudges him slightly to rise back up again.

The shampoo that he pours into his hand fills the air with the scent of citrus and lavender — he really needs to stop letting Sam purchase his toiletries — and something in his hindbrain rumbles with satisfaction at the knowledge that Bucky’s hair will carry the scent of Steve’s shampoo.

Carefully he reaches out, slipping his hands into the Omega’s hair and lathering the tangles.

It takes a couple of turns before the water rinses cleanly from the Soldier’s hair and Steve can start applying the conditioner.

Using the conditioner’s detangling properties to his advantage, Steve gingerly begins to work the knots from Bucky’s hair, running his fingers methodically through the strands.

After long minutes, Bucky’s hair has lost most of the snarls, and Steve is using his fingers more to massage than detangle — delighted to be allowed to touch Bucky without heat-obligatory sex providing the only reason for the contact.

The Soldier has calmed beneath the touch, muscles as relaxed as Steve has seen them outside of the influence of Alpha pheromones. He’s leaning ever so slightly into the press of Steve’s fingers and Steve feels incandescent with the thought that the Omega is starting to trust him even just a little bit.

Eventually the Alpha slowly removes his fingers, reluctant to break the contact. He rinses Bucky’s hair a final time before urging the tranquil Omega out of the water and pulling the plug.

Bucky obediently towels dry before stepping into the clean clothing Steve had brought for him, and then following the Alpha sedately back down the hall to the bedroom.

“To sleep ,” Steve clarifies when the Omega darts a guarded glance at him, his previous ease dissipating slightly.

The Soldier turns back to the mattress, outfitted with clean bedding by Steve while Bucky had been in the bath, and gracefully slides beneath the covers, releasing a barely audible sigh of what the Alpha hopes is contentment.

Steve wavers in the doorway, unsure. Worried about distressing the Omega with his presence when it seems like Bucky is finally starting to relax — if only by increments. He wonders if the Omega has any memory of how they shared a bed for most of their adult lives before the war — and during, when they could get away with it.

What would Bucky think if he knew that Steve still had trouble sleeping alone? That he automatically stayed on one side of the bed, even in his sleep, leaving the other side free for a ghost from his past?

Before Steve can settle on staying with the Omega or slinking away to sleep on the couch, Bucky rolls to one side of the mattress, glancing in Steve’s direction and waiting pointedly for Steve get a clue and stumble, with what is frankly an embarrassing level of gratitude, over to the other side.

“You sure Buck? I mean. This is...is this okay?”

If he’d been in the frame of mind to roll his eyes at Steve, Bucky definitely would have at this point. Instead, he watches steadily as Steve makes himself comfortable, before rolling back over into his previous position. They aren’t touching, but Steve is euphoric anyway.

Bucky’s allowed Steve to sleep beside him. Which means the Omega is gradually becoming more comfortable around him.

Steve is finally beginning to see a light at the end of what he had previously thought to be a tunnel of unending darkness.

More optimistic than he’s been in years, he slips easily into a deep sleep.

When Steve wakes he knows with a sudden, agonizing surety that Bucky is gone.

The space where he’d slept beside Steve is cool, and the potent scent of Omega has dissipated significantly from the air.

Steve wants to weep at the loss, feels the depth of it acutely; a hollow ache that settles heavily beneath his sternum.

Chapter Text

✪ Writing’s on the Wall ✪

‘How do I live, how do I breathe? When you’re not here, I’m suffocating.’

— S. Smith

“The thing is,” Sam says to him a few days later, after Steve has lapped him enough times around the park for him to declare he’s had enough and he’s taken a seat beneath his favorite tree to recover, “With the cocktail of drugs they had him on, there’s no way the heat is out of his system already.”

Steve frowns, taking a swig from his water bottle, and waits for Sam to elaborate.

“Think about it, Steve,” Sam maintains firmly despite Steve’s skepticism. “He’s been suppressed for years . Probably longer than any normal human. And for normal humans it can take months for those hormones to balance out. super-soldier or not, your guy is gonna need your help again.”

Steve grimaces. “Not so sure he’ll come to me now that he has a choice , Sam.”

“ Bullshit, man. He had a choice.”

Steve shrugs, and Sam scowls at his morose expression.

“He’s the goddamn Winter Soldier, Steve. I saw what he did to you when he was convinced you were his enemy. If he’d truly been determined to get away from you, he would have.”

Steve can’t help but remember the warmth of that hesitant grip, keeping him from moving away that first time. The blue of Bucky’s eyes as he’d waited pointedly for Steve to join him on the bed the night before he’d disappeared again.

Something of the emotion those memories evoke must show on his face because Sam inclines his head with a raised brow.

“See, that right there? That means I’m right.”

It’s a few days over a week later when Sam’s conviction bears fruit.

Steve’s been going nearly out of his mind with worry. From the crippling anxiety that he’s ruined any potential relationship he might have begun to rebuild between himself and Bucky, to the gut-wrenching fear that Hydra has somehow recaptured the Omega, the constant agitation of his spiraling thoughts has been running him ragged.

It’s no small shock, then, when Bucky very suddenly reappears.

Steve’s just entered his house, arms full of groceries that he’s been buying religiously over the past couple of weeks, determined to keep the cupboards fully stocked in the event that the wayward Omega decides to return.

He freezes halfway through the door, keys dangling forgotten between his fingers because, Bucky.

The Soldier stands in the early evening shadows darkening the living-room. He’s tense; unmoving save for a fine tremble that shivers through his muscles. His cheeks are flushed, his lips bitten red, but his eyes are sharp as they rest on Steve, alert to the Alpha’s potential movement.

Steve’s skin prickles beneath the scrutiny.

“Hey there, Buck,” he says softly.

The Alpha carefully places his keys in the dish atop the entryway table, and uses his heel to shut the door gently behind him.

Bucky’s eyes dart to the cut-off escape route, his metal arm letting out a barely-audible whine.

Instinctively, Steve releases a measure of calming pheromones into the air, attempting to lessen the bitter scent of unease wafting from the Omega.

Bucky’s chest heaves as the scent reaches him and his lips part damply, lashes fluttering before he seems to force his focus back on the Alpha.

“ Steve ,” the Omega rasps, voice low, rough with disuse. And, god his name . Steve has never been so glad to hear it. To have the confirmation that at least some part of the Soldier knows him.

“I’m here, Buck,” Steve says quietly, heart-rate kicking up a notch at the hope-inducing realization that this is the first time Bucky has spoken to him of his own volition. That the Omega had decided to come back. To Steve .

He carefully lowers the bags to the floor and steps forward, reducing the space between himself and the Soldier with slow, measured movements.

Blue eyes intently track Steve’s approach, but the Soldier remains where he is; doesn’t retreat even when Steve brings a cautious hand up to grip his shoulder. The other hand he raises to gently cup the Omega’s jaw, using the contact to gauge the progression of Bucky’s heat-fever.

After a moment of high-strung tension, Bucky slackens somewhat; leans ever-so-slightly in to the touch.

Steve’s heart thuds solidly in his chest, exhilaration bursting through him at the level of trust his Omega — the Omega, he reminds himself — is showing him.

Bucky, he’s beginning to suspect, is suffering from a significant level of touch-aversion while at the same time being severely touch - starved — a brutal combination.

Especially for an Omega; a designation which inherently depends upon consistent healthy physical contact for their continued wellbeing.

Worse for an Omega in heat — a time during which that need is considerably higher.

Bucky is definitely in heat again. His skin burns with the fever, and Steve can smell the scent of slick strong in the air. He’s also visibly in need of a shower, and so Steve takes him gently by the hand and leads him to the bathroom.

This time Bucky strips without hesitation, and Steve quickly looks away, busying himself with turning on the water and adjusting the temperature to something pleasantly warm.

The Soldier waits until Steve waves a wet hand, “Go ahead, Buck,” before he follows the direction, stepping beneath the warm spray of the shower and tilting his head down to wet his hair.

“So uh...the soap and shampoo and stuff is there for you,” Steve explains keeping his gaze averted. “Use whatever you want. I’m gonna — I’ll get you some clean clothes.”

He stoops to gather up Bucky’s dirty laundry, and when Bucky’s only response is to begin reaching for the soap, beats a hasty retreat from the room.

Bucky wet is bad enough, but skin slippery with soap, and smelling deliciously of heat-slick? Steve shudders, adjusting himself carefully inside his jeans and drawing in deep breaths from the clearer air in the hallway.

After a few calming moments, the Alpha continues down the hall. He throws Bucky’s clothes into the wash and then grabs a clean set, ducking quickly in and out of the bathroom to leave them on the counter, breath halted in his lungs until he’s safely back into the hallway.

Food, he tells himself firmly, trying to push logical thought past the cloying scent of Omega heat. Bucky’s sure to be hungry, who knows when he last ate.

He grabs the groceries left abandoned by the front door and heads for the kitchen to...boil some pasta, he decides. Pasta should be easy on the Omega’s still-recovering stomach.

He’s just throwing the cooked pasta into the pot with its melted butter when he senses more than hears Bucky’s approach. He turns, stirring the pasta absently and freezes—unprepared for the sight of his best friend standing in the kitchen entryway.

His best friend, fresh from the shower : Overlaid with the scent of Steve’s soap, wearing Steve’s clothes and still smelling faintly of heat-slick.

Steve is overcome — helplessly — with a sudden powerful surge of arousal.

The wooden spoon he’d been using to stir snaps loudly in his suddenly too-tight grip.

Bucky flinches at the sharp sound, but after another moment his head tilts slightly, eyes slipping half-shut and nostrils flaring wide as he takes in the heady scent of Steve’s Alpha-arousal.

Bucky’s own arousal spikes in response, and the front of his sweat pants— Steve’s sweat pants—begins to distend noticeably.

The Omega takes a halting step forward and then another, still scenting the air. Excruciatingly slowly he comes closer, pausing fully when he gets within arms reach of the Alpha.

His lips part as he pants softly, but he seems unsure of what to do next, blue eyes darting across Steve’s face, to his hands, over his torso.

Sensing the Omega’s mounting frustration, Steve turns more fully toward the Soldier, dropping the spoon pieces on the counter and spreading his arms.

“S’ok Buck, go ahead. You can...do whatever makes you feel better. Whatever makes you feel good. Okay?”

Hesitantly Bucky reaches out, fingers brushing lightly over Steve’s forearm. When that fails to elicit a negative response from the Alpha, Bucky shuffles further forward, eyes still darting nervously over Steve’s features as he brings both hands up this time, resting them butterfly-soft against Steve’s abdomen. The place — Steve realizes with gentle surprise — where the Winter Soldier’s bullets had pierced his body.

With aching slowness, the Omega tips forward, tucking his face into the warm curve between Steve’s neck and shoulder, scenting. His lashes brush the delicate skin there, heated breaths causing Steve to shiver helplessly in response.

The Omega stays, tense and unmoving, even as Steve gently brings his arms around him, lightly placing warm palms against the Omega’s back and dragging them down in one smooth stroke.

After long moments, the tension begins to slowly drain from Bucky’s frame, and the Soldier’s body sinks more heavily against the Alpha’s, bringing his hips flush against Steve’s, drawing a low hum from the Omega at the sensation.

Steve’s hands tighten reflexively, and Bucky inhales the scent of his rekindling arousal, hips undulating lazily as his body automatically responds.

“ Bucky ,” Steve groans, hands sliding down to grasp the Omegas shifting hips, trying to... something . He’s not really sure, exactly. Wasn’t he planning to...feed Bucky? Pasta. He was going to give him some. He was—

Bucky’s teeth clamp lightly around the mating tendon straining in Steve’s neck, and the deep pleasure of it ignites hot and sharp in the Alpha’s belly. The Alpha growls low in his chest, jerking the Omega’s hips firmly into his own, composure temporarily lost.

Bucky gasps, lips and tongue suckling persistently on that spot, and Steve shoves a hand down the back of the borrowed sweats, slipping two fingers through fever-warm slick and sliding them smoothly into the Omega’s body.

Bucky arches with a punched-out cry, ripping his mouth away from Steve’s throat, hands scrabbling for purchase over the Alpha’s shoulders.

He keens, body shuddering forcefully, as Steve draws the fingers away, adds a third, pushes firmly back inside.

Bucky writhes, panting and whining softly as Steve continues to work his fingers deeper into his body, the Soldier pressing even more heavily against him, gripping tightly at the fabric covering the Alpha’s chest.

Steve flexes his fingers, spreading them apart and slowly adding a fourth, brushing up against that swollen cluster of nerves ...and Bucky shivers apart in his arms, slick passage clenching rhythmically around the digits inside him, the scent of his seed spilling into the air.

The Omega moans, rocking his hips firmly into the Alpha’s, arousal still hard and heavy between his thighs.

“ Sss—teve. Steve, ” the Soldier begs, and Steve drags his fingers from his body, pushing the sweats roughly down his legs and flipping the Omega around to bend over the kitchen table. Bucky’s hands slide over the dark wood, fumbling for purchase and trembling anxiously at the submissiveness of the position, even as he instinctively arches his back and presents.

Steve scents the anxiety and softly hushes the Omega, running a soothing hand up and down his flank before he grips a bare hip, unbuttoning his own jeans with the other hand and releasing his straining erection with a quiet gasp of relief.

The heady scent of his arousal washes more potently into the air combining with the Omega’s, and Bucky mewls, resting his forehead against the cool wood and arching his hips impossibly further.

“Shh,” Steve soothes again, running his erection through the heated slick liberally coating the inside of the Omega’s thighs. “I’m hurryin’ Buck. Not gonna make you wait, gorgeous.”

He guides his length, wet with Bucky’s slick, into the Omega’s body, and slides deep in one smooth thrust.

He begins a quick rhythm, driving into the Soldier sharply, the table creaking lowly beneath their weight.

Bucky whines, coming once more around Steve’s cock as the Alpha continues to drive into him for long minutes, and Steve feels his own release fast approaching. He halts abruptly, pulling free from the Omega’s body and Bucky whimpers, pushing his hips back, searching feverishly for Steve’s length.

Steve wraps an arm around the desperate Omega’s waist, drawing him in close even as the Soldier squirms.

“Shh, Buck, shh,” he soothes. “M’sorry Sweetheart, gonna come soon. Don’t want you to be stuck on this table.”

He maneuvers them through the kitchen, keeping the Omega pressed flush against him. Despite Steve’s murmured assurances, though, Bucky doesn’t seem to be calming.

They’re only halfway through the living-room when Bucky’s apparently had enough, violently tearing himself away.

The Soldier turns, lowering himself into a half-crouch and growl ing at Steve, blue eyes burning behind the damp tendrils of his dark hair.

Steve freezes, hands in the air as Bucky aggressively stalks into his space and roughly pushes the Alpha backward. The blonde gives ground, and Bucky continues propelling him back until Steve’s legs hit the couch and he obediently drops down onto the cushions.

Bucky immediately crawls into the Alphas lap, growls becoming more desperate. He tugs at Steve’s t-shirt, before tearing it off in his frustration and goes to do the same to his own before Steve catches his wrists holding them firmly in one hand.

Bucky snarls, and Steve tugs the last article of the Omega’s clothing gently over his head, down his arms to rest around his captured wrists.

“Don’t want you to hurt yourself, Buck,” Steve explains shakily.

Bucky bares his teeth, grinding harshly down in Steve’s lap, tugging hard at where the Alpha holds his wrists.

“ St—Steve . N-need. I need —“

Steve rises slightly beneath the Omega, tugging off his jeans the rest of the way with his free hand, and Bucky locks his thighs around his bare hips redoubling his efforts to get the Alpha’s cock back inside him.

Steve shudders at the sensation of Bucky’s slick entrance sliding across his length and quickly turns them, falling forward to press the Omega back into the couch cushions, forcing him mostly still beneath his weight.

Bucky whimpers, unease scenting the air along with desperation. A tear trickles from the corner of an eye, and his fever suddenly seems to burn all the hotter.

“ Easy , Buck. Easy,” Steve croons, quickly releasing the Omega’s wrists, allowing the trapped shirt to drop away. He pulls some of his weight off the Soldier, cupping his jaw and gazing steadily into the blue of his eyes.

Bucky’s gaze darts automatically away and his lashes flutter rapidly as he bites down on his lower lip, smothering a sob.

“Look at me Buck. C’mon, sweetheart.”

The Omega forcibly drags his wild gaze back to Steve’s, keeping it there with what looks like considerable effort, brow furrowed with tension.

“That’s it, that’s good. You’re so good for me, beautiful.”

Steve drops a kiss to a flushed cheek. “I’d never hurt you Bucky.”

“Steve... please .” Bucky whines, shifting his hips tentatively, almost as if he’s unsure, now, whether Steve will give him what he needs.

“Yes, Buck. Okay. I’m gonna take you now. I just—I wanted you to be more comfortable that’s all.”

Bucky tilts his head back and shakes it in sharp frustration and Steve knows he’s beyond caring, but Steve cares — would hate for Bucky to have to remain lying across the unforgiving surface of the wooden table in the kitchen while they waited the long minutes it would take for Steve’s knot to subside...

With a steady press of his hips Steve reseats himself inside Bucky’s slick channel, and the Omega cries out brokenly, legs wrapping tightly around the Alpha as Steve sets a punishing rhythm.

The Omega moans roughly, past all ability to restrain himself, and meets Steve thrust for thrust.

Steve feels his orgasm build once again, and comes only moments after Bucky shouts out his third release. The Omega’s body clenches helplessly around the Alpha inside him.

Steve groans deeply, feels his release surge powerfully from his erection, and gathers the Omega up into his arms, rolling them so that Bucky rests atop him, even as Steve’s growing Alpha knot begins to stretch him wide.

Bucky gasps, and Steve feels the Omega’s cock twitch, spilling a small pool of cum onto his belly in response to the knot pressing firmly against his prostate.

The next long minutes pass in a haze of pleasure for Steve. Bucky rests heavier and heavier against him, lethargic and cum-drugged, the fever bleeding from his body, and — eventually — he sleeps.

They couple twice more before Bucky disappears again, heat temporarily banked into submission once more by Steve’s Alpha pheromones.

The pattern continues. Each time his heat ramps back up, the Soldier approaches Steve with wary uncertainty until his hesitance is forced to crumble beneath desperate Omega need.

Steve never asks him where he goes after. Or not to leave again.

Even though each time he disappears tears at Steve’s soul. Leaves fresh, bloody rents that only begin to heal when Bucky returns, and then open anew with each subsequent disappearance.

He doesn’t know why the agony feels so fresh each time. Like Bucky’s died all over again, and Steve is experiencing the loss for the first time over and over.

It sinks into his bones, makes it difficult to fully concentrate on anything else. The team starts to notice. Sam finally asks, did you bond with him? And Steve hadn’t. Would remember something that huge happening. But the question nags at him. Drags him down into guilt. What if something had happened? What if some small connection had locked into place without him — either of them — noticing?

They’re compatible, and god, hadn’t that been something to realize? The understanding had come to him slowly, in the midst of his preparing frantically for the Omega’s sporadic visits: No one has ever affected him the way Bucky does.

It had come to him so slowly, in fact, that when the pieces finally slid together, he’d sat down, hard, in the middle of his kitchen floor. Because his world had always revolved around Bucky. Even as a child he’d chafe at being separated from his best friend for too long — a prominent reason for his always insisting he was, ‘Fine Ma’. I don’t even feel sick,’   even when it was spectacularly obvious that he wasn’t anywhere near the realm of ‘fine’.  

Despite his never having presented Omega, Steve had wanted Bucky. In his arms, by his side, in his bed.

Every part of Steve had wanted every part of Bucky, always.

So wanting him now, even knowing he is Omega, doesn’t feel much different. It’s headier, awash with Omega-rich pheromones that captivate and entice Steve’s Alpha. But underneath biology remains the same effortless devotion Steve has always felt.

Except.

Except now when Bucky vanishes, Steve aches . As if Bucky has died. As if he’s torn out a piece of Steve’s soul and takes it with him when he leaves.

And Steve thinks: compatibility in connection with the frequency and number of couplings they’d undergone in such a short amount of time.

What if? What if...?

“ Did you bond with him?”

And Steve can’t be sure.

Chapter Text

★ Red Balloons ★

‘Back at base, bugs in the software. Flash the message, something’s out there.

(Floating in the summer sky, 99 red balloons go by.)’

— Nena

The Soldier hates the weakness. Would cut it out of himself, if it were possible.

The body is stuck in a series of repetitive patterns, forcing the Soldier to surrender its autonomy again and again.

That the Soldier hasn’t yet been caged by the Alpha handler who so easily commands the body during its moments of excruciating vulnerability, is inconceivable.  

Or it had been.

Until the Soldier realizes, painfully, humiliatingly, that the chains of his imprisonment aren’t nonexistent . They’re simply invisible.

Each time he’d snuck away, believing he was free — finally — the traitorous body revealed that he is still a prisoner to its biology.

It would begin with a low ache, deep in his abdomen. Then chills, coupled with sweating, as if his body can’t decide whether it’s hot or cold until it finally settles on hot—too hot.

Eventually the ache graduates to a deep grinding gnaw that makes it impossible to keep anything down — even small sips of water. The body will shudder and tremor, burning so fiercely that he wishes for the ice.

Even if it means being locked into nothingness.

Anything but the burning.

And that’s where the handler has him.

Crawling back.

Mindless, dripping wet, and desperate.

The Alpha never hurts him. Is always gentle. As if the Soldier needs that. He knows, knows with certainty, that gentleness is only a means to an end. Even if he’s not always quick enough to see the trap waiting for him until he reaches that end.

Each time the Alpha soothes the unbearable heat beneath the Soldier’s skin, the Soldier manages to slip away. The countdown before time inevitably runs out and he has to go crawling back gradually extends, and he manages to stay away longer and longer.

Hope — ever cruel — begins to rise again.

The tether of the Soldier’s leash has further lengthened.

It’s been a solid three weeks free from the cramping up of his guts or the telltale crawling sensation his skin gets before the sweating and the shivering and the trembling begin.

Instead, he gets nightmares.

In the dark, one pre-dawn morning, he wakes with a choked-off cry, rocketing up from his sleeping position and swallowing down horrified gasps.

He’s covered in a thin layer of sweat that has nothing to do with his heat-cycle, and his breath stutters raggedly from between tightly clenched teeth.   

The Asset is not to cry.

‘Strike it again, harder this time.’

It is not to show signs of distress, weakness.

‘How long has it been walking on that broken ankle?’

‘Unclear, sir. It may have broken it over an hour ago, during the explosion. It’s functionality has remained adequate, nonetheless.’

‘Then it can go longer. The mission is of prime concern.’

The Asset is to keep silent.

‘The fuck is it making that noise for?’

‘Put the goddamned muzzle back on it!’

He flinches, ‘always so fucking weak’, before forcibly slowing his breathing and his heart-rate to baseline.

The tremors are not as quick to subside, but they do not significantly impede his functioning.

He fumbles the cap off of one of the plastic water bottles he keeps stored in his recently-obtained backpack, forcibly dragging his thoughts away from the remnant sounds of agonized screams, frantic pleas, and blood-choked gasps that perpetually inundate his dreams.

He focuses instead on the memory of how he’d found the backpack. It had been after the first time he’d fled from the Alpha Captain’s bed. He’d been scrounging in a dumpster for something to quiet the persistent stabbing of what he’s beginning to recognize as hunger . The bag had seemed sturdy enough, its straps unbroken and zippers intact.

There’d been a small tear in the bottom of one corner, large enough for a couple of his fingers to slip through, but nothing he couldn’t fix easily enough. Which he had, a bit later, after pilfering a needle and some thread from the Alpha Captain’s supply.

When he’d finished, the bag had been as good as new.  He’s carried it with him ever since, only stashing it away in random hidden corners of the city when the heat becomes too much to bear, demanding he return to the Alpha.

He sips from the water-bottle clenched between his trembling fingers, and the cool liquid helps to soothe his raw throat a bit.

It does little to dispel the flavors of blood and death that linger beyond the nightmares.

Memories, his mind insists.

His brain is so broken and full of holes, it’s impossible to tell what’s real and what’s been contrived by the never-ending abundance of horrific data being Hydra’s Asset supplied him.

His mind cannot disentangle the flood of information. It cannot give him clarity.

But he knows where he can start to find some.

The Soldier surveils the faux bank for twelve hours before his internal protocol deems it safe enough to enter. It’s late, or early, at approximately 0300 hours, and the darkness provides strategic cover as the Soldier slips inside the building like a shadow, a ghost.

The vault, when he reaches it, is in a state of disarray. Papers are strewn across the floor as if Hydra’s agents had fled with a great deal of haste, and couldn’t be bothered to go back for whatever information had slipped free from various folders.

The computers are riddled with bullet-holes, hard-drives shattered to pieces, and the residual hum of electricity that normally accompanied wherever the Asset was held, is absent.

The barred doors, beyond which stands the chair, stand ajar. The Soldier takes in all these details with a glance, before striding over to the wall of safety-deposit boxes — some of which seem to have been left untouched during Hydra’s frantic scramble to escape.

He jerks them open with the metal hand one at a time, revealing a good amount of cash, a number of fake IDs, and a handgun with a spare clip.

All of this goes into the backpack, save for two of the four IDs which list female monikers and thus make them useless to him.

He re-zips the pack and hoists it onto a shoulder, eyes scanning the room for anything else of value.

Finally, he allows himself to take in the chair.

It’s leather seating is cracked in places making it look squalid and shabby. The design of the seat itself is aberrant, almost outdated, giving it the air of something that hasn’t been used in decades.

He knows better.

Just looking at the chair makes his gut clench and his heart race with residual terror.

The fear is instinctive and reaches deep into his core. Unlike so many of his instinctive reactions though, this fear doesn’t completely lack explanation:

He remembers the last time he was in that chair, only weeks ago.

The smell of burnt flesh, of singed hair, scents the air. Below that are the odors of urine, sweat, panic, fear, and the faintly cloying aroma of Omega heat, just beginning to manifest.

“Fuck, I can’t decide if it smells good or fucking disgusting.”

The sound of laughter rises up around the Soldier.

The head throbs, sharp bursts of light arc behind the eyelids whenever it blinks.

The throat is raw.

“Get it up. Hose it down and prep it. Then bring it back for its mission parameters.”

“Once you hose off that stink, all you’ll smell is the good stuff. ”

More guttural laughter.

The restraints around the Soldier’s arms and ankles retract, and a rough grip in its hair tugs its head up from where it lolls forward.

It swallows down a sound of pain.

The Asset is to keep silent, unless ordered to report.

“Hey, hurry up and get moving! Time to spray off that stench."   

The Asset is to comply, immediately.

The Soldier attempts to stand on shaky legs.

Before it can manage more than a few moments upright, the knees buckle and it folds abruptly forward. The Soldier is caught by rough hands that grip tightly below the shoulders as the handlers firmly drag it down a hallway and into a blindingly white, tile-filled room.

The Soldier is unceremoniously stripped of the only garment it wears, rough tactical pants wet with its urine, before it is pushed to stand on wobbly muscles into the corner of the room nearest the drain, rust-covered and inset within stone flooring.

“Shower time,” one of the handlers grunts, and the Soldier exhales sharply as the body is suddenly accosted by a powerful jet of freezing cold, pressurized water. The flood of water sprays painfully strong from the hose, aimed steadily by the hands of one of the handlers.

The Soldier’s skin pulls tight from the cold, even as the second handler grabs a long-armed brush and begins to systematically scrub down the Soldier’s body.

The painful scrape of the harsh bristles against the skin combines in a brutal medley with the sharp scent of industrial soap that burns in the nostrils.

The shower doesn’t last long — only long enough to rinse away any residue of soap — before the pressure-hose is shut off, and the Soldier stands dripping, shivering and raw-skinned.

The handlers converse between themselves as they each grab cloths and roughly towel the Soldier down.

The conversation goes over the Soldier’s head, as its mind floats blankly between the only memories it has: the fiery pain of lightning passing through the brain, the frozen agony of a “shower”, and the deep, ingrained imperative to obey immediately.

The Soldier is jerked abruptly out of its thoughts by the feeling of calloused hands running over the body.

There’s only one handler in the room now, the other having vanished during the Soldier’s retrospection.

This handler’s eyes rove heatedly over the Soldier’s naked profile as he brings a hand down and roughly grips the flaccid flesh between the Soldier’s thighs.

The Soldier sucks in a breath, eyes widening, and its brow furrows almost imperceptibly as the handler slides his other hand down the cleft between the globes of the Soldier’s rear, stopping to press against the furled muscle there.

The Soldier’s flinches, hips jerking instinctively away from the pressure, but the move only serves to press its flesh deeper into the grip between its thighs, and the handler chuckles unpleasantly.

“You like that, don’t you, Omega slut?”

The Soldier freezes, caught between the unfamiliar sensations that are beginning to course through the body, and a sudden, deep-seated panic. The feeling blooms through the chest, a terrified dread that it doesn’t understand, but knows without uncertainty the cause of which it wants to avoid at any cost.

The mind shrieks, a wordless cry of alarm.

The brain glitches.

Time stutters, and then the second handler is returning, a lascivious grin across his features.

“Hey, stud, save some for Captain America ,” he laughs, tossing a fresh pair of tactical pants at the first handler.

The first handler catches the pants, simultaneously releasing the Soldier and grinning, shrugging ruefully. “Shit, Rodriguez, can you really blame me?”

The second handler huffs, moving the Soldier like a doll as he tugs a black shirt over its head and begins strapping tactical gear onto its pliant form.

“Guess not,” he replies. “Starting to smell really fucking good now.”

They continue to talk around the Soldier as they finish dressing the body, and the Soldier sinks into a disjointed sort of relief.

The brain begins to calm as it realizes that whatever the unknown threat was that had instinctively triggered the Soldier’s terror, it has been suspended.

He jerks sharply out of the memory.

Where before the Soldier had drowned in helpless confusion, fear, and, above all else, the need to obey immediately , now — free from the handlers — there rise up other emotions.

The most powerful is fury. The heat of it pushes to the forefront of his mind, ignites deep and scalding in his chest.

Hatred, cold and calculated, rests potent on his tongue.

And, deep inside, where he doesn't want to admit he even has feelings: shame. Cold, heavy, unyielding.

The Soldier begins to revisit previous mission locations with determined focus, trying to untangle the knotted labyrinth that is his memory, to separate facts from falsehood.

With each new location, the scattered fragments of the Soldier’s shattered mind begin to slowly coalesce into a sort of horrific narrative of the his time as the Asset.

Had he really shot that terrified mother in the head while her young child, strapped into its stroller, watched from only feet away?

‘Mam. Mam-ma?’ The babe whimpers as it watches its mother crumple to the floor, and the Asset’s attention is drawn away from the slowly-cooling body as it registers the distressed sound.

The babe’s eyes are wide, almost startlingly green in comparison to the dark spray of blood splattered across its face from the force of the bullet propelling through the back of its mother’s head.

The Asset assesses its directives: When the mission is complete, the Asset is to return to its handlers.

‘You will initiate an adversary only when it is consistent with the overall strategic objective. Failing that, you are to initiate a tactical withdrawal.’

The babe does not interfere with the Asset’s current mission parameters.

It is too young to form words with any clarity, making it incapable of identifying the Asset.

It poses no threat to Hydra.

The Asset leaves the child strapped into its chair, still whimpering plaintively for its mother.

The Soldier files the memory away.

There are still huge chunks missing. But, where before his mind had been all blank emptiness and instinct, now small flickers — tiny pieces of his past — begin to fill the void.  

And then.

And then one night, half-dozing while he lies on the dusty concrete of an abandoned factory floor, he remembers.

It isn’t much.

The glint of light off of sun-gold hair. Blue eyes that burn with infuriating stubbornness. Bloodied knuckles. A split lip. And the staggering urge to fight for the owner of all those things. To bind himself to that other person, tie a knot of cord ‘round his wrist and theirs, to never leave their side…

It isn’t much.

It’s everything.

There is a hollow ache that resides in the Soldier’s chest.

It’s taken the Soldier a long time to realize that the ache is not physical.

Sometimes it feels real. An acute pain beneath his sternum that he can't help but try to soothe, massaging his flesh hand over the tender spot.

Gradually, as his mind begins to patch itself together, he begins to suspect this ache will only begin to subside if he returns to the Alpha.

‘To  Steve,’ his mind whispers.

The sudden, visceral longing that accompanies that thought sends a bolt of fear shooting through his gut.

He fears the control the Alpha could choose to exert over him once the Soldier is back in his reach. He could easily bend the Soldier to his will, and not only physically. Dominance and coercion are intrinsic to Alpha biology. And Omega biology will unfailingly submit to its influence.

He fears what the Alpha could make him do. Force him to consent to.

He doesn’t want another handler. Doesn’t want to be the Asset anymore. Ever again.

When commanded, the Asset complied. Even when it was afraid, even when it hurt, the Asset’s unfailing obedience was the hard-won product of Hydra’s ruthless conditioning. Obedience at any cost was ingrained into the body and reinforced by decades of ‘corrective modification’.

Memories of that conditioning process furnish his nightmares with disquieting regularity.

The Asset stands, nude, in the middle of a small, sterile room. In its periphery, it can see a large mirror which takes up much of the wall to its left, the side of its body where the arm is missing.

The rest of the walls are blank white.

The floor, also white, is cool and hard beneath its bare feet. The lights above flicker intermittently and the head feels sharp stabs of pain every time they flare bright with uneven surges of electrical current.

The Man in the White Coat stands before the Asset holding out a cylindrical, metal rod.

‘Hold this. Keep still. Do not drop it.’

The Asset grasps the rod. The arm begins to tremble minutely. It has received this order before, it thinks, a faint wisp of thought.

If an order has to be repeated, the Asset must have previously failed to comply.

Failure necessitates swift corrective modification.

Perhaps that is why the body’s ribs ache so fiercely despite the carefully shallow breaths the Asset draws past dry, cracked lips. The pale skin stretched tightly over its muscles is mottled with layers of subcutaneous hematomas. Their myriads of colors are starkly visible in the mirror at the corner of the Asset’s vision.

Corrective modification could explain why the mouth is so dry, that the tongue inside feels thick and swollen. Why the head spins dizzily and the gut cramps on emptiness.

Or maybe this is the state in which the Asset always exists.

It can’t remember if it should be any different.

The Man in the White Coat walks out of the room, shutting the door behind him. There is the hollow click of locks engaging and then the room is silent.

The Asset stands, arm outstretched, body unmoving, save for the nearly imperceptible trembling of the muscles in the arm.

Time passes.

Gradually, the rod begins to cool in its grip, The hand start to ache from the chill, the rod continuing to grow impossibly colder. The fingers begin to stiffen. The ache becomes severe, deep into the bones, traveling up the arm. Eventually, the hand goes numb.

The Asset keeps still. It does not drop the rod.

At length, the rod begins to slowly return to room temperature. The pain in the flesh hand flares back to life as it too begins to return to the body’s standard baseline temperature.

The rod surpasses room temperature and continues to heat. It surpasses the body’s baseline.

The Asset’s heart begins to race, its breathing accelerates. The rod has become searingly hot, metal scorching the flesh. The hand is in agony, feels like it’s on fire, skin melting and blistering around the metal.

The brain begins to malfunction, thoughts spiraling into oblivion. Black spots dance across the vision.

The Asset keeps still. It does not drop the rod.  

The brain shuts down.

The Asset crashes to the floor.

The Alpha isn’t there when the Soldier returns, late one evening.

He finds this disconcerting, and closes his eyes to better focus on that hollow tug beneath his sternum. The Alpha’s absence explains why that hollow feeling hadn’t lessened, even as the Soldier’s travels had continued to bring him ever closer to the Alpha’s residence.

The tug seems to derive from a vaguely northern direction, and the Soldier huffs in annoyance.

He paces back and forth, indecisive.

If he follows the tug, he knows, eventually, he will find the Alpha. But he will be in unknown territory. This place, he knows. Has spent the time to scout out various vantage points to provide him with adequate surveillance. He knows the different routes he can use if he needs to escape quickly, or remain undetected.

If he seeks out the Alpha, he will put himself at a greater disadvantage than if he stays here and waits.

But...there is no telling how long the Alpha will be gone, or how far away he may end up. He knows that the Alpha takes on missions, much like the Asset had.  

What will the Soldier do if — when — his cycle ramps up again?

He knows it’s only a matter of time.

Revisiting some of the places where Hydra had held the Asset had revealed an abundance of details when it came to the Asset’s maintenance protocol. Some of those details had returned to him in the form of memories. But others he’d been able to glean from scattered remnants of the files Hydra had kept on the Asset.

The scientists had kept the Omega heavily dosed with a number of drugs, both stimulants and tranquilizers. Antipsychotics, adrenaline, benzodiazepines.  A host of others that the Soldier still doesn’t fully comprehend the extent of.

And also, suppressants. His Omega nature had been ruthlessly repressed by Hydra’s scientists.

Until it wasn’t.

They’d ceased dosing him very abruptly prior to his last mission.

And even in normal humans, with normal biologies, cessation of long-term suppressants results in a severe hormonal blow-back. There was no way the Soldier, even with — especially with — his enhanced biology, is past all of it.

The tugging beneath his sternum suggests that the Alpha is not overseas. The pain, when the Soldier had crossed the ocean himself — steadfastly chasing down fragments of the Asset's memory — had been much deeper.

A fact which highlights another disadvantage: The Alpha will know he’s coming.

The tug works both ways. If it lessens on the Soldier’s side, it will lesson, similarly, on the Alpha’s.

The Soldier weighs the risks.

The intel he’s managed to gather on the Alpha, coupled with the directionality of the tug in the Soldier’s sternum, supports the idea that there is a high likelihood that the Alpha is currently in Manhattan, where his team’s headquarters is located.

The city’s dense population affords the Soldier with strategic advantages:

If he does need to go to ground, there is the potential of unlimited opportunities to lose himself within the cover of the crowds.

The abundance of tall buildings, with their high rooftops and hundreds of windows, provide multiple locations wherein the Soldier can establish adequate surveillance posts.

Additionally, there is the benefit that a city so large will afford an ample number of obscure places where the Soldier can choose reside undisturbed. Thus far, the Alpha has not chosen to hunt him down. The Soldier thinks this behavior will not alter unexpectedly.

He will decide how and when to approach the Alpha.

First, though, he will find him.

-

Chapter Text

✪ Ready to Lose ✪

‘I’m ready to lose,

Everything but you.

I’m ready to lose everything, but you.

Everything, everything.’

— I. Michaelson

Steve gets called in to help the Avengers deal with the latest megalomaniac attempting to destroy Manhattan.

The man turns out to be surprisingly bright—for the average run-of-the-mill bad guy. Tony complements the fanatic’s robot design as he gleefully obliterates the “Destructo-Bots” with his repulsor blasts.

Steve’s honestly not sure who is enjoying himself more: Tony, as he zooms by blasting the little flying bots to pieces, Clint, who’s keeping a running tally, or the Hulk, who sports a huge grin as he smashes to his heart’s content. Even Natasha seems to be relatively relaxed, a faint smirk on her face as she uses the bots to brush up on target practice.

They wrap up the fight with similar ease. The Hulk’s got the villain du jour gripped in one meaty fist as the man shrieks about his future plans for revenge, face swelling to a vibrant crimson due to his being held upside down by one foot.

The Avengers cuff him, toss him into the back of a police vehicle, and head back to the Tower — all in a day’s work.

The fight is not nearly enough to expend the level of nervous energy Steve’s been sustaining since Bucky last took off, nor is it enough to quiet his agitated brain which focuses with agonizing intensity on every minute fluctuation from the bond -- no matter how Steve tries to ignore it, and the flutter of hope it causes when the tugging suddenly becomes less distant.

The Alpha is in the Avengers’ gym, attempting to outrun the treadmill designed specifically for his enhanced physiology, when he gets a call from Tony’s workshop.

He ignores it the first time.

The second time, Tony opens up a direct line and refuses to tell Steve what he wants until Steve agrees to “turn off the treadmill before you give it a goddamned complex, and get your fine ass down here. I have something for you. Well, JARVIS has something. Me and him together. Our perfect team of perfection. You know what, bring some coffee on your way down, I need a pick-me-up.”

Steve conveniently ‘forgets’ the coffee, his suspicion that the genius’ manic tone means he’s already skipped too many hours of sleep confirmed when he sees the dark circles beneath the Omega engineer’s eyes.

Tony pouts at him for approximately three minutes.

Steve is just about to get up and leave when the engineer finally gets to the point .

“So, ever since the Helicarrier ‘incident’,” Tony begins, “JARVIS has been keeping an eye out for potential Hydra-scented threats.”

Tony clicks through some files on one of the numerous giant computer screens scattered around the workshop, and pulls up a grainy photograph of a dark-haired man — who perfectly matches Bucky’s build and appearance. His features are blocked from the camera’s view, but Steve doesn’t need to see his face to know it’s him.

And not just because the Omega is wearing Steve’s favorite jacket. The same one, in fact, that Steve had debated about leaving behind before traveling to New York. Steve’s felt the painful tugging in his chest lessening each day now for the past week, and this footage just confirms what the bond is already telling him — Bucky is close.

“As you can see,” Tony continues, oblivious to Steve’s thought process, “JARVIS’ scans have picked up some recent sightings of the Winter Murderbot bouncing around the city. This city. He’s here , Cap.”

Steve looks away from the Omega’s unusually serious expression with a tight frown, lips turned downward. “I know,” he admits.

Tony stares at the super-soldier nonplussed.

“You know,” he repeats, slowly. “Right. I mean, of course you know. How the hell is it that you know ?!”

Steve grits his teeth. “I don’t really want to talk about this, Tony,” the Alpha states evenly. “Was there any other information you wanted to pass on?”

He turns to go before even waiting to hear Tony’s answer.

“Woah, woah, woah, Captain Secretive,” Tony says, holding up his hands and stepping in front of Steve, bodily blocking the super-soldier’s path of retreat.

While the Omega is well aware that Steve could push him aside with ridiculous ease, he’s also aware that Steve’s “overachieving sense of honor”— as Tony calls it — along with his protective Alpha instincts would never allow him to do this.

Tony’s takes shameless advantage of these aspects of Steve’s personality.

Normally, Steve finds Tony's pestering to be an endearingly artless display of the Omega’s trust in the fact that the Alpha would never hurt him.

Right now, it’s just aggravating.

“Are we just gonna not talk about the fact that your pet-assassin — who, by the way, tried to kill you — has maybe come back to finish the job?”

“He’s not my—“ Steve takes a steadying breath. “Tony. Bucky saved my life. He pulled me from the Potomac. He’s not going to try to kill me. It wouldn’t even make any sense.”

“Says you,” Tony retorts, flippantly. “I have it on good authority that brainwashed assassins don’t always act rationally . Not when they work for Hydra. Especially then.”

“ Sir ,” JARVIS interrupts.

“Not now, JARVIS” Tony ignores the A.I., “Daddy’s trying to make a point.”

“ The Winter Soldier is currently on the rooftop across the street from the western periphery of this building,” JARVIS reports anyway. “ Given the directionality of his focus, it is highly likely that he is surveying Avengers’ Tower. ”

Tony’s entire demeanor switches instantly from annoying-little-brother, to battle-ready combatant.

“JARVIS, get me my armor,” he snaps. “If the Winter Soldier thinks he can target someone in my tower without retaliation he’s sorely mistaken.”

The armor begins to fly into place, efficiently encasing all but Tony’s head within moments.

“Tony, wait,” Steve objects, raising his hands in an unspoken ‘hold’ gesture. His mind feels suddenly very clear, as if his thoughts have snapped into focus after weeks of being foggy and obscure. His senses are sharp, body more animated now than it’s been in weeks.

“Wait for what ?” Tony exclaims, impatient. “For him to shoot someone? To hell with that!” The armored Omega brushes past the super-soldier, repulsors already powering into standby-mode, when Steve suddenly moves .

Lightning-fast reflexes allow the Alpha to snatch Tony’s wrist, halting the armor’s advancement nearly before it's begun, while serum-enhanced Alpha strength makes it possible for him to keep Tony there.

The sensors in the wrist of the suit sound off integrity warnings as the Alpha growls deep in his throat.

Steve’s voice has dropped a register, the words ripping darkly, wildly, from his throat, “ Don’t you hurt him , Tony. Don’t you dare .”

Tony blinks in frozen shock at the Alpha’s abnormally savage display.

“Well, fuck ,” he says.

They decide to call an official meeting after Tony insists that Steve’s request to just let Bucky alone is ludicrous.

“I am not going to allow the Winter Soldier to just hang out across the street like some creepy stalker, Steve,” he’d groused, firmly after — finally — removing the armor.

Steve’s intention to grant Bucky as much freedom from Avenger supervision as possible, for as long as possible, is officially no longer an option.  

At this point, it’s only fair to let the rest of the team know what is going on and allow them to weigh in on what they feel should be done about it.

Steve reluctantly calls a priority, non-emergency meeting.

If things go south, the Alpha decides, he can always assist Bucky in disappearing. At the very least, he can warn the Omega should the Avengers decide they want him apprehended.

Not that Steve would ever allow it. He’d fight to the death to ensure Bucky’s freedom.  

The Avengers slowly trickle into the tower’s main conference room, settling around the large wooden table where they often discuss the full gambit of Avenger-related affairs from benefit gatherings to battle plans.

The group, in addition to Tony and Steve, is composed of Clint, Natasha, and Bruce.

Thor is temporarily off-world, and Sam — who would normally attend despite his not having yet accepted a place as an official Avenger — is still at work; a recent-hire at one of New York’s finer Veterans Affairs hospitals.

Tony jumps right in, bringing the rest of the team up to date concerning Bucky’s recent whereabouts as he’d earlier relayed to Steve.

Steve reasserts that Bucky isn’t a threat — neither to the Avengers nor to civilians.

“We should still bring him in,” Tony argues. “If he’s not a threat, let him prove it. He’s been privy to decades worth of Hydra’s secrets. If he’s not one of them anymore, he should be perfectly willing to share that information with us. ‘Enemy of my enemy’, right?”

“I don’t think that’s the best idea,” Clint says before Steve can object — with prejudice.

The Omega-archer’s tone is certain as he explains. “He’s not exactly trying to hide from us: he’s the Winter Soldier, if he wanted to remain undetected we’d probably never know he was coming.”

Tony scowls, but in a surprising show of maturity, doesn’t go off on a tangent about JARVIS’s security and defense capabilities, and Clint continues, uninterrupted, “He is being cautious, though. If we try to bring him in, he’ll probably run. And if we corner him, he’s most likely gonna fight, even if he’s not Hydra. It's what I would do,” he discloses, glancing around. “Better to let him approach us, at his own pace,” the Omega advises. “If that is even his intent,” he adds with a shrug.

“What is he a frickin’ cat ?” Tony asks in disbelief.

Clint’s rolls his eyes. “Just giving you some good advice, asshole,” he snarks. “Having had some previous experience as a brainwashed Omega assassin, I’d say I’m pretty qualified to offer a couple of pointers.”

“Clint’s right,” Natasha affirms, and Clint smirks at Tony’s indignant pout.

“The Soldier is in unknown territory, with the possible threat of an oncoming heat hanging over his head. He’s bound to be skittish. Not to mention the fact that in order to get to his Alpha, he’ll have to abandon the relative safety of neutral ground and cross over onto Steve’s turf.“

Steve‘s jaw clenches, and his hopes that Natasha’s choice of phrasing goes unnoticed disappear at the sound of Tony’s sharp gasp.

“‘His Alpha’, the Omega repeats, incredulously. “You said ‘ his Alpha ’, Nat.”

Natasha raises a silent brow, and Tony whirls to face Steve, sitting stiffly in the seat to Tony’s right.

“You’re bonded ?” Tony’s demands, his tone considerably higher.

“Not...exactly,” Steve grits out, shooting a look of frustrated disapproval in Natasha’s direction. The Beta gazes back with faux-innocence worthy of a former Red-Room operative.

“There’s — something between us,” Steve admits with a sigh, shoulders slumping as he finally acknowledges out loud the truth he’s been — painfully — carrying for weeks. “I’m not entirely sure what.”

Bruce and Clint exchange a gaze, neither of them looking particularly surprised.

Tony throws his hands into the air. “Oh my God. I thought he’d dumped you! And that that’s why you’ve been moping around here for weeks—” he points an accusing finger Steve’s way, “—making sad, vaguely patriotic, golden-retriever-eyes at all of us!”

Tony frowns, thoughtfully.

“But now he’s back. Who knew indecisive country-hopping was traumatized-Soldier-speak for ‘ I want to have your super-babies ’?”

“He doesn’t— “ Steve starts through clenched teeth, annoyance spiking again before he’s cut off by Bruce’s mild-mannered, “I’m sure that’s not why he’s here, Tony.”

“Great,” Tony replies, rapid-fire. “Well then, why is he here? He’s been doing fine so far right? Why come back at all?”

Steve smiles humorlessly, “Well, he might be here to take a shot at me after all. I didn’t exactly give him a choice about how to get through his last heat cycle.”

Tony scoffs, dismissively. “Pretty sure that was Hydra , Cap, not you.”

They’ve all seen pieces of the files Hydra kept on the Winter Soldier. Have heard, from Steve small details about the circumstances the scientists had concocted before they’d sent the Omega on his last mission.

“Tony’s right, Steve,” Natasha agrees, and Tony preens, smugly. “That‘s not on you.”

“If it helps,” Clint offers with a small shrug, studiously avoiding eye-contact, “I wouldn’t blame you, Steve. If it were me.” His gaze goes distant. “Didn’t blame Phil. Wasn’t...angry, at him. It wasn’t exactly the same as what your Omega is going through — what happened to me. But,” he meets Steve’s gaze firmly, “I wouldn’t blame you.”

Steve holds the Omega’s gaze, offering a small, sincere smile. “Thank you, Clint. It...helps. To hear you say that.”

Clint quirks his own small smile in response.

”To answer your question, Tony, about why the Soldier has suddenly made a reappearance,” Bruce states, bringing the conversation back on track, “It’s likely that he senses another heat coming, though possibly only subconsciously. Added to the fact that there’s at least a partial bond in place, it’s reasonable that he’d seek Steve out.”

“I don’t want — I’m not going to pressure him,” Steve tells them all. “I won’t force him to come in if he’s not ready. He should be allowed to make that choice for himself.” He glances around, making brief eye-contact with each of his teammates. “I’m asking you all to give him some space. Please . If not for him, do it for me. He’s had enough choices taken from him. He deserves some peace.”

Steve’s gaze ends up back on Tony who sighs dramatically.

“ Okay , okay. You’ve convinced me, Cap. At least for now. How can I say ‘no’ to that face? JARVIS, keep an eye on our resident Murderkitten—”

“ Tony ,” Steve grimaces.

“What?” Tony shoots back, “I’m helping! That’s me, Mr. Helpful. Helping us not to get murdered in our sleep. Or, maybe molested in your case, Captain Irresistible. Who knows?”

“We’ll follow your lead, Steve,” Natasha says, and both Bruce and Clint nod in agreement.

“For now, he’s not a threat,” Nat continues. So we’ll keep our distance, let him decide if and when he wants to approach. If his threat-level becomes dangerous, we’ll respond with appropriate force. That’s fair,” she concludes, regarding Steve pointedly, “for everyone.”

“Thank you,” Steve says, relieved that this arrangement, at least, has been relatively painless to achieve.

Natasha’s right, it is a fair decision. And if, for some reason, the team decides to recategorize Bucky as a threat, Steve will just have to make sure he gets to the Omega before any of his teammates can.

He won’t fail his best friend again.

Steve’s in the communal kitchen a few days later. He’s sharing the breakfast he’d made for Sam after both of them had returned from their customary morning run, when the sounds of Tony’s colorful swearing breaks the calm atmosphere.

“Goddamnit, Bruce I’m fine . There is absolutely no reason for you to have dragged me up here.”

Bruce’s measured tone cuts into the Omega genius’ ranting whine.

“When you’ve burned yourself five times in as many minutes, Tony, it’s time to take a break.”

The two scientists round the corner, and Steve can see where Tony’s hand has been bandaged over what are, presumably, burn wounds. The Omega is scowling petulantly, even as he clutches at the bandaged appendage. His hair falls in greasy clumps over his forehead and his eyes are smudged with the dark circles indicative of sleep deprivation.

Steve can’t help the fond smile that crosses over his face, even as Tony’s swearing gains volume when Bruce bodily blocks him from his automatic beeline toward the coffee machine. Instead, he herds him over to the dining table.

“I’m a grown-ass man Bruce. I don't need a babysitter!”

“Mmm,” Bruce murmurs, unaffected as ever. “Maybe when you stop acting like a baby I”ll believe you. Eat this.”

The Beta scientist slides a plate of eggs over to Tony, along with a fork.

“I hope you don’t mind, Steve. Tony hasn’t eaten or slept in a while. After this he’s going to go down for his nap.”

Steve shakes his head, trying not to grin too hard at the domestic scene in front of him.

“Not at all, Bruce, there’s plenty. Help yourself to some as well, if you like.”

Bruce nods in gratitude. “Think I will. Thank you, Steve.”

Tony grumbles into his eggs, but he’s polishing them off quickly despite the complaining.

When he’s scraped his plate clean, he stands wobbly and totters over to the kitchen sink, dumping the plate inside.

He turns as if to head back to his lab, but Bruce cuts off that disastrous decision lightning-fast.

“Go to bed, Tony. You can play with your toys later.”

Tony lets out an indignant squak, but Bruce continues right over him.

“Don’t make me sic Pepper on you.”

Sam snorts with amusement as Tony’s eyes widen and he reroutes with impressive dexterity, given that the rest of his movements have been completed with the all the agility of a drunk toddler.

“ Okay, I’m going . But not because you threatened my Alpha on me, you tattletale .”

Tony points an unsteady finger at Bruce.  

“It’s because I am a reasonable adult. And as a reasonable adult, I recognize that I need to stop for food breaks and na—sleep. Which is also why I ate the eggs. Not because Steve is some sort of egg leprechaun who makes magically-delicious eggs. Or because he makes clouds of Alpha-y smelling goodness that thankfully have no effect on me because I am already bonded.”

He sways toward Steve with a slightly drunk-looking smile.

“Not that I don't appreciate the effort, Spangles. It’s sweet that you care.”

Steve smiles back, bemused, but doesn’t reply because Tony is already lurching off toward the elevator.

“J’VIS,” he slurs, “penthouse.”

There is the soft ding signaling an awaiting elevator, followed by the gentle woosh of the doors sliding closed and then the ambience of the kitchen returns to its former quiet state.

“JARVIS, please let me know if Tony has any trouble making it to his bed,” Bruce requests, serenely.

“ Sir has managed ,” the A.I. reports only moments later. “ He is fully-clothed, but is already slipping into his sleep cycle .”

Bruce nods in appreciation.

“Thanks, JARVIS.”

“ It is my pleasure, Doctor Banner.”

In the silence that follows, Steve finds himself turning Tony’s words over and over in his brain, prodding at them the way one would a loose tooth.

Finally he asks aloud the thought that’s nagging at him.

“ What was Tony talking about when he said I was giving off a scent? That it doesn’t affect him because he’s already bonded?”

Bruce and Sam exchange a glance before Bruce explains slowly.

“You were giving off calming pheromones, Steve. Trying to soothe Tony’s over-excited behavior. You do it sometimes.  Around all of us, but especially Clint and Tony. It doesn’t affect them because they’re not bonded to you.”

Steve stares at Bruce, baffled. “I’ve been…?” He frowns. “I didn’t even realize.”

“You did it with Barnes, too, remember?” Sam says. “When we found him in that warehouse.” He raises his brows thoughtfully.  “Was a bit surprised by it actually, when you were able to calm him the way you did. I mean, it wasn’t really the time or place to get into it...Guess I just assumed you knew, or had researched it since you woke up.” He grimaces. “I’m really sorry, man. It probably wasn’t widely discussed when you were growing up. If you’d ever heard about it at all.”

Steve remembers Bucky’s dad, how he’d had a special way with Becca when she was a baby.

“I’d seen Bucky’s dad do it,” Steve discloses slowly. “With his baby sister, when she had colic. They called it an Alpha’s ‘calming aspect ’. Said it could be used to assist Omegas during birth and early child-rearing. I never really thought about it much. With Bucky, in the warehouse, it was just...instinct. And then later, when I realized I actually could soothe his anxiety, I just... wanted to help him. I never really thought about why it worked.”

“That’s perfectly understandable, Steve,” Bruce assures the Alpha. “The phenomenon really didn’t become widely researched until about fifteen years ago, and even then, it was only because an Omega made history when she testified against her abusive Alpha bondmate.”

“Officially, they’re called inhibitory pheromones,” Sam says. “The general population just refer to them as ‘calming’ pheromones because, as the name suggests, they can be used by Alphas to calm certain members within their close families.”

Bruce nods in agreement, polishing his glasses with the fabric of his shirt.

“Scientifically speaking,” he adds, mildly, “Those who are susceptible to Alpha calming pheromones only include children who are very young — specifically those within the first few years of their lives, or bonded Omegas who have, for one reason or another, such as pregnancy, developed an emotional deficiency. Because it’s possible for an Alpha to misuse that ability to the Omega’s detriment, however, it is taboo — in some cases, illegal — for an Alpha to use those pheromones on an Omega without that Omega’s explicit consent.”

Steve feels his expression crumble as guilt rises up, thick enough to choke him. He’s been doing that with Tony. And with Clint. They’re not susceptible, he knows now, but Bucky was.

Bucky’s consent has been stolen from him for decades, first by Hydra, and now by Steve himself, someone who claims to love the Omega, who is supposed to be Bucky’s best friend .

“Yours were extreme circumstances, Steve,” Bruce cuts gently into his disparaging thoughts, “You made the best decision you could with what knowledge you had. No one here blames you for that.

“And you already heard Tony’s feelings on the matter.  Clint feels the same way. We all do. You haven’t even realized you’ve been doing it. If you had , maybe we would have said something. But we knew you were just being protective, trying to care for us. It’s nice to know that you feel that way about all of us, Omega or not.”

“Hell, you've even done it with me a few times,” Sam tells Steve. “I never found it offensive. Thought it was a bit weird at first, ‘cause it clearly wouldn't work on me. But I knew it wasn't malicious. Or manipulative. In the case of the Omega who pressed charges, her Alpha had been deliberately using his pheromones to overrule her free will for a number of years. That’s nothing like what you’ve been doing, Steve.”

“Eventually, that Omega was able to escape her Alpha’s influence long enough to get to her family, who called the police.” Bruce picks up the story. “It was a pretty cut-and-dried case, the Alpha was charged with assault, among other things, and sentenced to jail. It was also revolutionary for its time,” Bruce adds. “Not only because the jury was one of the first to rule in favor of an Omega over an Alpha, but also because it brought worldwide attention to an issue that up until then, had been mostly dismissed as an old wives-tale or over-exaggeration by the Omega population.“

“But Bucky and I aren’t — weren’t — bonded,” Steve protests. “Based on what you’ve been saying, my pheromones shouldn’t have worked on him.”

Sam and Bruce share another glance before Bruce clears his throat.

“About that,” the scientist says quietly. “We think that actually you were bonded. Not fully,” he adds, in response to Steve’s bewildered expression, “but, to some extent, yes. Compatible pairs have been known to form what are called ‘promise-bonds’. On a biological level, they’re something like a ‘chemical intent’ to eventually form a mating bond. They usually form when there exists a shared attraction between the two compatible individuals who spend a great deal of time around one another. You see them every once in a while between sweethearts who grew up together.  Even sometimes between pairs who’ve served in the military together.”

Steve massages his forehead, brow furrowed with stress.

“You’re saying,” he states carefully, “that Bucky and I unknowingly formed a bond. But how could we not have known? It seems impossible, to miss something like that.”

“Not necessarily,” Bruce says, “If you weren’t looking for it. If you didn’t even know it could exist. Nowadays, that sort of bond isn’t so unheard of. There are even certain tests, which can detect those chemicals and determine whether that sort of bond has formed.”

“Could be that you did sense it,” Sam remarks, a distant expression of pained affection crossing his features. “Maybe you felt a strong desire to be around him all of the time. You missed him, even when he’d just left, and you were relieved when he was back in your sight.”

He pauses for a moment before he finishes, “And, after he fell, it felt like he’d taken a piece of you with him.”

“Riley,” Steve realizes softly, blue eyes aching with empathetic grief. “I’m so sorry, Sam. I didn’t know it was like that between the two of you.”

Sam shakes his head wistfully, clearing his throat and offering up the tiniest of sad smiles. “Well, unlike with a full bond, mine at least had the benefit of healing with time.”

Steve glances back down at his folded hands. “It was like that,” he confirms. “With me, at least. That’s how I’ve always felt about Bucky, for as long as I can remember. When he fell,” he pauses, takes a deep unsteady breath. “When he fell, it felt like a piece of my soul was ripped out. I couldn’t — I didn’t want to —” he cuts himself off realizing he’d been about to admit too much.  

“When he came back,” he continues, voice controlled, “I felt that piece click back into place. But then after we—” he flushes, clears his throat. “He kept leaving, and each time it felt like he’d died all over again. It wasn’t like that, before . When he went overseas, I was miserable. But it wasn’t like that .”

“That’s evidence that you already had a bond,” Bruce responds. “Sharing his heat only strengthened what was already there.”

Steve covers his eyes with a small moan of dismay. “I’ve trapped him. He’d never even admitted to being Omega before he fell. And now he’s being forced to suffer through countless heats and forced into a bond . How can he possibly come out from this not hating me?”

“Steve,” Sam says, firmly, “this is good news.”

“How the hell —”

“You weren’t listening. We told you; promise-bonds only form when both compatible individuals are interested. You can’t force them. No matter how much you may have loved Bucky all those years ago, if he hadn’t had similar feelings — similar intentions — no bond would have formed. Which means there would have been nothing to strengthen when you helped him through his heat. You would have parted ways without any sort of connection.”

Steve stares at Sam, the barest glimmer of hope fluttering in his chest.  “You mean…”

“Bucky loved you, man. Some part of him wanted you just as much as you wanted him. I told you, Steve,” Sam grins, white teeth flashing, “He’s not gonna hate you.”

In the cool darkness of pre-dawn, Steve flies through the picturesque greenery of Central Park, on his habitual morning run.

Admittedly, it’s earlier than usual — the lights along the pathway haven’t yet begun to blink off with dawn’s approaching light. He’s alone, having been reluctant to wake Sam, who normally would have been happy to have joined him had it been a couple of hours later in the morning.

As it is, Steve had had trouble shutting down his overactive brain which has been circling tirelessly around the fact that Bucky is in the city . Is, from the looks of it, there for him .

Steve needs to be ready for Bucky whenever — if ever — the Omega decides to approach him. He’s got to find a way to convince him to stay. Steve can protect him, can offer him sanctuary, can help him to get back on his feet, whatever the Omega needs. What Steve cannot do, is continue on, day by day, in ignorance.

The uncertainty of not knowing whether the Omega is being taken care of, at least minimally, is almost physically painful. He needs to know that Bucky has access to running water, basic necessities. A warm place to sleep. Regular meals. Somewhere he can call home, even if the idea of that being anywhere other than with Steve makes the Alpha’s soul ache.

He also wants to apologize. For taking advantage of Bucky’s vulnerable state. For deciding for the Omega what to do about his heats. He needs Bucky to know that he never wanted to hurt him. That he’d never actively try to hurt him.

All of these thoughts circle relentlessly through his brain and eventually — hours after climbing into bed — he gives up.

He slides from beneath the covers, glances at the clock, and decides that three AM is just fine for a morning run.

Minutes later he’s jogging down nearly deserted Park Avenue, taking a left on East 60th, and heading into Central Park. He quickens his pace once he’s there, to an unforgiving speed, made easier by the fact that, like the city streets, the park is all but deserted. He doesn’t slow for a long time, not until his mind has begun to quiet, and the tension in his shoulders begins to loosen, such that they no longer feel like he’s sporting shoulders made of granite.

He’s on a cool-down lap, making a lazy circle of the Pond, just coming up on the gentle arch of Gapstow Bridge when he sees him.

He’s standing partially in shadow, facing Steve, directly on the other side of the bridge. Steve continues forward a few paces, but halts when he’s still a couple of yards away from the unmoving form, not wanting to scare him away.

“Bucky.”

The Omega is tense, unmoving. He watches Steve warily, his eyes never quite making direct contact with the Alpha’s. He seems terribly uncertain, as if he’s determined not to go, but he doesn't want to stay either.

After a long, stretched-out moment, Bucky takes a single, halting step forward.

“Steve.”  His voice is rough, raspy with disuse, and it’s the sweetest sound Steve’s heard in weeks.

“Yeah, Buck,” he breathes, reverently. “Do you know me?”

The Omega licks his lips, glances down. “I— I read about you in a museum.”

Steve tries not to let the agony the statement causes show on his face as he sucks in a quiet grief-stricken gasp.

The Omega seems to catch something of the emotion anyway, and he winces minutely before he continues.

“You...You used to wear newspapers, in your shoes.” His voice is muted, and his eyes dart across Steve’s fleetingly, a shock of silvery-blue. “I...thought you were. Smaller.”

Relief sweeps through the Alpha with a heady intensity that makes him want to fold to his knees. Bucky couldn't have read those details in a museum. “I joined the Army,” he replies instead, a small smile curving over his lips.

Bucky seems to relax a bit at the easy rejoinder, and he takes another tiny step forward. “I...I wanted.” He pauses hesitantly, glancing again over Steve’s visage, another quick flash of blue.

Steve waits with bated breath, watches Bucky struggle to force out the words.

“Could. Would you…?”

“Anything, Buck. Anything you need.”

Bucky finally meets his gaze, expression strained and hollowed out. “I’m—tired,” he confesses at last, voice low, as if being weary is something to be ashamed of.

Steve holds out a hand. “Let me help you,” he pleads, earnestly. “You don’t have to be so strong anymore. You don’t have to get by on your own.”

Bucky stares at the hand for a long moment, wide-eyed and uncertain. Finally — finally — he moves to Steve, grasping his outstretched hand with shaky fingers. Steve uses the grip to gently, steadily, draw the Omega forward until Bucky rests tremoringly against him, enclosed within the warm circle of his arms.

“I got you,” Steve murmurs, drawing a hand across the shuddering back. “S’okay, Buck. I got you. I’m with you .”

The Omega shifts, pulling back.

For a moment his gaze is distant, lashes fluttering as he grinds his jaw, one hand twisting in the hem of his jacket. Then,

“Why...” he queries lowly, “do you call me that?”

Steve pauses, brows furrowed in confusion before he realizes, with a feeling of sinking dismay, that the Omega is inquiring about his name.

“Why…‘Bucky’?” Steve asks, just to be sure.

The Soldier nods once, decisively.  

“It’s—” Steve swallows thickly, “It’s your name, Buck. James Buchanan Barnes. But I always called you ‘Bucky’, because of your middle name.” Then, as his brain jumps to a miserable conclusion, “Do you not...want me to call you that? You always hated James. And Jim, Jimmy. But—I can —if you want—”

Bucky cuts the suggestion off with another sharp shake of his head.

“No,” The Omega says, tilting his head slightly, as if trying to catch a distant strain of music. He furrows his brow.

“I meant. Why do you call me that.”

Steve feels an ache bloom deep in his chest.

“You’re still him ,” he scrapes out. “I know you’ve changed, that you’re not exactly the same...but you’re still Bucky. You’ll always be, to me.”

Bucky continues to watch Steve, a shadow of something like pity passing over his features. He doesn’t disagree with Steve out loud, but his expression speaks for him: to him ‘Bucky’ is a stranger at best. At worst, maybe, someone who no longer exists.

But Steve refuses to accept that. He knows it was Bucky who pulled him from the river. And it is Bucky who completes the other half of their bond. A bond which has become even stronger , impossible to deny.

Bucky is standing right in front of him , and Steve will fight to get him to see it .

Something of Steve’s determination must show on his face, because the Omega grimaces slightly.

“It’s...easier,” he tries to explain, likely in response to Steve’s stubborn expression, “Remembering you. I can’t—” he stops. Continues, “Sometimes, when I try to remember him, your ‘Bucky’...the data is...encrypted. I can’t always decode it. When I try, it slips away like smoke.”

He looks away. “It’s easier to remember you,” he repeats. “That data is accessible. It doesn’t. Make me forget.”

Steve frowns, trying to understand. “What do you mean it ‘doesn’t make you forget’? How can remembering make you forget ?”

“ The Asset is not built to remember ,” Bucky replies, tone gone suddenly flat, as if he’s reciting the words. “ It is built to forget .” His eyes are dead, expression blank. It is the face of the Soldier.

Steve hates it.

He moves forward, gently cupping the side of Bucky’s face and tilting his chin until his features are turned upward. The Omega’s eyes remain downcast, though, even as Steve strokes a thumb gently over one sharp cheekbone.

“Please look at me, Buck,” he entreats, softly.

Blue eyes flick upward, solidly meeting Steve’s own.

Steve smiles back, shakily. “There you are,” he murmurs. “I know you may not remember much, but I still see him in you. I still see my Bucky.” He pauses, searching the Omega’s gaze, trying to see if his words are reaching him.

“I’m sorry ,” he apologizes, “If I’ve made you feel like maybe you’re not good enough, because you don’t always remember.  That’s not what I think. You are enough. You just as you are now. I don’t need you to remember. You’re here now, with me. We can make new memories. I...I love you. You’re my best friend. I’ll always love you, no matter what you remember.”

Bucky drops his gaze again, and for a moment,  Steve wonders if he’s said too much, come on too strong for the new fragility of their relationship.

But the Omega doesn’t pull away.

He stays where he is, allows Steve to hold on to him, and just...breathes.

Calmly, patiently, steadily.

As if he could remain here forever, sharing Steve’s space, breathing the same air; the other half of an integral set, steadfast and everlasting.

Later, when the sun has started to shift the sky from midnight blue to a deep periwinkle, Steve leads the pliant Omega though the slowly-waking streets of Manhattan, back to the tower.

The Soldier allows Steve to continue leading him by the hand all the way up to Steve’s floor, and into his oversized apartment.

He obediently changes into a pair of Steve’s pajamas and slides under the covers of a super-soldier-sized bed, eyes already half-lidded with exhaustion. Steve can’t help but wonder when the last time the Omega slept was as he gently strokes the dark hair back from his forehead and murmurs, “Get some sleep, Buck.”

Bucky’s eyes drop closed.

He’s asleep within moments.

—

Chapter Text

★ Sorrow ✪

‘Each brave step forward, I take three steps behind.

It’s mind over matter, matter over mind.’

— Sleeping At Last

The Soldier wakes in an unfamiliar location.

His gaze darts around, cataloging the details of his surroundings.

He is lying in a bed. He is wearing sleepwear that is not his own. The bed is ridiculously soft, the covers feel like silk against his flesh hand.

He has, presumably, been asleep for an indeterminate number of minutes.

The positioning of the sun outside the window suggests no more than two hours have passed, assuming it is the same day the Soldier had allowed the Alpha, StevenGrantRogers, to lead him from the park and into the Avengers headquarters.

This assumption is logical.

The Soldier has not attained more than three hours of uninterrupted sleep since his last copulation session with the Alpha.

There is the sound of a crowd cheering tinnily from somewhere on the other side of the door of the room where he currently resides. Voices murmur, louder than the crowd and more present, somehow. He listens more closely.

One of the voices suddenly cheers, and understanding swims toward him through a small ocean of memory.

‘And Brooklyn pitchers continue, pitching here and there and ‘round and about, giving DiMaggio some of this and some of that, or anything of the same right back again if they can help it.’

It’s game four of the World Series, and Bucky and Steve are glued to their seats, eyes fixed on the radio, listening intently to every word that squeezes out of its tinny little speaker. The radio announcer waits for the play, the crowd a dull roar of sound in the background.

‘Two and one. Two outs,’ the commentator says. ‘The Yankees lead one to nothing, and they are at bat in the third inning with Red Rolfe. Higbe throws...’

There is the faint sound of a ball swooping through the air followed by a sharp crack as it meets the wooden bat.

‘DiMag swings—‘ the crowd roars.  ‘Reese is up with it, throws to second to Coscarart for an easy out on Rolfe, the runner coming down from first...’

The memory is cut off, suddenly, by another muffled cheer from outside the room and the Soldier makes the connection: someone is watching a sports game. Likely on a television set, the modern replacement for its radio counterpart.

The cheering voice does not belong to the Alpha, StevenGrantRogers.

The Soldier sits up.

He is reluctant to leave the relative safety of his current location. However: the windows do not open. There are no other doors leading out.  And, when the Alpha had led him to this room, the Soldier’s brain had been unfocused, and thereby unable to sufficiently record the details necessary to provide adequate situational awareness now.

The Soldier’s training demands that he know where the exits are should a tactical withdrawal become necessary.

The Soldier approaches the bedroom door.

He hesitates, ‘The Asset is to remain where it is stationed, unless instructed otherwise,’ before twisting the handle and stepping soundlessly into the hallway.

The Soldier moves toward the sounds and ends up standing at the threshold of the large recreational space in which the television and its two spectators are located.

They are seated on the couch facing the television, Steve and his companion who’s identity scrapes at the back of the Soldier’s brain.

The Soldier cannot remember how he knows the Beta. The knowledge floats just beyond his mental grasp.

The two do not notice the Soldier at first, one because he is focused on the game, the other because he is grinning down into his lap, scribbling into a notebook.

No. Not scribbling. Drawing . The notebook is a sketchbook, and its owner is filling a page with a graphite-depicted illustration.

The Soldier cannot make out the image being rendered from where he is standing.

Suddenly, the Alpha looks over, catching the Soldier by surprise. The blue of the Alpha’s eyes focuses with piercing intensity on the Soldier, and the Soldier has the irrational urge to retreat back to the empty bedroom.

He crushes the urge ruthlessly. ‘The Asset is not to show weakness.’

After a moment, the intensity in that gaze lessens and ‘the Alpha’ becomes StevenGrantRogers, Steve . “Hey, Buck,” he says gently, dropping his pencil into the fold of his sketchbook. “How did you sleep?”

The Soldier, unsure how to answer the question, turns his gaze instead to assess the Beta sharing the couch with the Alpha.

“Bucky, this is Sam,” Steve says, noticing the directionality of the Soldier’s gaze. “You may not remember—“

But, all at once, the Soldier does .

“Samuel Thomas Wilson. Codename: Falcon,” the Soldier reports. “Former United States Air Force pararescue airman, Fifty-Eight squadron. Current occupation Veterans Affairs counselor. Notable skills include marksmanship, hand-to-hand combat, utilization of EXO-70 flying mechanism. Threat assessment: moderate.”

The Soldier hesitates as the rest of the information trickles in, slotting into place in his memory.  He forces himself to continue. “You had... wings. I. Broke them.”

SamuelThomasWilson stares at him wide-eyed for a moment, before he shakes his head, and his expression rearranges itself into a pleasant, friendly smile.

“Don’t sweat it man,” SamuelThomasWilson remarks. “Thanks to you, I got my own personalized set of wings built by Tony Stark himself. Brand-spanking new.”

The Soldier’s brain stutters over the word Stark , and the scraping feeling returns, only now it’s more like stabbing .

He’s forgotten something about ‘Stark’ . Something important. But his brain is still shattered in places, empty in others, and the Soldier cannot will the fragments into place. Can only wait for them to recover on their own.

“Hey,” Steve is saying. “Hey, Buck. Are you hungry?”

And why does Rogers always feel the need to feed him?

But. The Soldier has not eaten anything in over 32.5 hours.

Since his memories have started to return with increasing regularity, the body has found food consumption and retention problematic.

Often, the Soldier’s eating habits are impeded by the unavoidably distressing agitation that routinely follows certain memory downloads. Afterwards, the Soldier’s hunger has either dissipated, or the stomach has decided to violently reject whatever he’d already managed to consume.  

So. Hungry? Yes. He could eat.

And, the Soldier thinks, gaining further intelligence about the building he’s currently stationed in is, strategically speaking, a tactically sound decision.

The Soldier consents to the offer of a meal with a dip of his head, and Steve’s answering smile in return is effervescent.

The Alpha heads immediately to the kitchen, only to frown in consternation at the contents of his refrigerator. Or the lack, thereof.

SamuelThomasWilson whistles lowly when he gets a look inside for himself, and the Alpha flushes.

“Sorry, Buck,” Steve says sheepishly as he shuts the refrigerator door. “Guess we’ll have to head down to the communal kitchen. There’ll definitely be something for us to eat there.”

“Yeah, well let’s go,” SamuelThomasWilson remarks. “I’m starving. Yelling at block-headed basketball players will do that to a guy.”

Steve ushers them out the main door and into an elevator, and the Soldier camouflages the sharp spike of anxiety that shoots through his chest.

The Soldier is heading to an unknown location. He is unarmed. He does not have intel on exits or potential persons he may come into contact to.

He knows he is in the Avengers’ headquarters, each of whom are enhanced in one way or another. Against one or two, in the right circumstances, fully armed, and with accurate intel, he could potentially come out victorious if a fight ensued. Against all of them, unarmed and with no knowledge of the terrain?  The odds of a victory are miniscule.

The Soldier deliberately slows his breathing, blanking his face into a mask of vacuity. ‘ The Asset does not show fear’. StevenGrantRogers wouldn’t lead him into a trap, would he? The Soldier doesn’t think so. But he’s walked unawares into traps before.

The arm recalibrates, a corporal representation of his tension.

The Alpha Captain shoots him a questioning glance, but the Soldier holds firmly to his blank expression. If he needs to run, better to use the element of surprise. It’s one of the only advantages he may have at this point.

The ‘communal kitchen’ as the Alpha’s named it, is at one end of a vastly large space. The elevator opens at the other end, and the Soldier stiffly follows the Alpha and SamuelThomasWilson past what looks like an entertainment area replete with various seating arrangements, an enormous television set, and what look to be an array of game consoles.

To the left of the entertainment area is a hallway, at the end of which is a washroom.

Further in sits a large, dark-colored dining table, and beyond that lies the kitchen, from which a delicious aroma wafts.

The Soldier’s stomach awakens abruptly, violently cramping with hunger.   

There is another Beta in the kitchen, standing before the stove and stirring at something in a large pot from which the mouth-watering smell seems to come from.

“Bruce!” The Alpha Captain exclaims, approaching the new Beta. “Tell me you made enough for a couple of hungry super-soldiers.”

‘Bruce’ smiles and indicates the other pots on the stovetop. “Of course, Steve. I know how you Avengers get about homemade curry. Help yourselves. Set a place for Tony, too will you? I told JARVIS to shut down the workshop until he comes up and eats some lunch.”

The Alpha grins widely and goes to retrieve retrieve some bowls from the cupboards. “Sam, give me a hand, will you?” he requests, heading over to the table and setting out the dishware.

SamuelThomasWilson rolls his eyes but takes the silverware nonetheless and starts laying it out next to the bowls.

“You must be Bucky,” the new Beta says congenially, and the Soldier darts his gaze back to ‘Bruce’ who has turned slightly to face him.

“God, I’m sorry. Yes,” the Alpha answers, suddenly right beside the Soldier. “Bruce meet my— meet Bucky ,” he stammers, flushing darkly. “My best friend.”

“Good to finally meet you,” the Beta responds, a small smile curving one corner of his mouth. “Please feel free to help yourself to the food. I always make extra.”

Minutes later, the Soldier finds himself seated at the table, a steaming bowl of ‘curry’ placed before him.

“Eat,” the Alpha handler tells him with an earnest smile.

The metal arm recalibrates. The Asset grasps its eating utensil.

The first bite is pleasing upon the tongue. Hot and spicy, a burst of flavor in the Asset’s mouth, making it easy to follow the order. It eats slowly, careful of its unreliable stomach.

Over the course of the meal, other Avengers trickle in, taking up bowls of their own and filling in the places at the table. They glance curiously at the Asset, and the handler seated beside it cheerfully makes introductions, filling the Asset’s bowl when it runs low.

The Asset’s tension ratchets higher with each new addition to the table, and its stomach begins to churn from a combination of anxiety and being overfull.

One addition in particular, causes the Asset’s brain to stutter. The head throbs, a deep, piercing ache. The Asset knows this individual. Its mind refuses to provide the details, but the cool way the other dark-haired Omega regards the Asset confirms that there are details that its mind is lacking.

The handler continues to enthusiastically refill the Asset’s bowl, immersed in the light conversation around him and — perhaps — unaware that the Asset is, as yet, incapable of consuming the same magnitude as the handler, despite the fact that the Asset is similarly enhanced.

The Asset continues to eat.

By the third bowl, the nausea has become impossible to ignore.

By the forth, the Asset is swallowing between bites, forcing the sick down along with the food as it continues to rise back up with steady persistence.

‘If it pukes I’m making it lick it back up again.’

‘You hear that, Soldier? You’d better not puke in here, goddamnit.’

It wants to go away in its head, but there are too many variables that force it to stay sharply present.

It must fight to keep the expression blank, to keep the gagging silent and the breathing steady. Its right hand trembles minutely, and the Asset tightens it into a fist. Its left hand remains steady around the utensil in its grip. Tears spring to its eyes—a reflex from the gagging, ‘ the Asset does not cry,’ —and it ducks its head, struggling to keep them from escaping.

A voice, louder than the others, breaks suddenly into the turmoil of the Asset’s mind.

“Hey man, are you okay?” SamuelThomasWilson regards the Asset, brow furrowed.

The handler turns to the Asset as well, the conversation at the table having abruptly ceased.

Panic-sweat prickles the Asset’s brow at the sudden attention.

It will be punished. Its handler will punish it for causing a disruption at the table.

It raises another spoonful toward its mouth.

The handler shoots out a hand, simultaneously halting the utensil mid-raise and ordering sharply, “Stop eating, Bucky.”

The utensil clatters noisily to the table.

The Asset swallows convulsively. It has ceased being able to control the rapid pace of its breathing. “P-please,” it requests, forcing the words past the tightness in its throat. Knowing, even as it begs, that speaking without permission gives reason for further punishment.

But the punishment for talking, it thinks, will be better than having to clean up if it makes a mess of itself. “M-may I—”

“Yes, of course , Buck.” The handler grants permission immediately, not waiting for the Asset to finish, and the Asset jerks away from the table, rushing for the washroom before it loses the contents of its stomach all over itself and the dining table.

“I fucked up, Sam,” Steve laments later that evening, bent over on the Beta’s couch, head braced in both hands. He’d gone by his floor earlier, to check on Bucky, but the Omega had already disappeared into the guest bedroom by the time Steve had gotten there and he’d felt too guilty to knock on the not-quite closed door and force Bucky to talk about what had happened.

“I could tell that he was nervous, when we went down to the communal kitchen. But he seemed like he was doing okay, despite that. He wasn’t trying to leave. He was eating. And I was just,” he takes a shuddering breath, forcing himself to continue. “I was just so fucking glad he was there...”

“Everyone makes mistakes, Steve,” Sam says, seated in an armchair nearby. “Hell, we all missed it, and we’re— each and every one of us, is trained to notice the small details. Your boy is just ridiculously good at hiding them.”

Steve shakes his head in disagreement, but Sam doesn’t let him voice it out loud.

“I mean it Steve,” the Beta says, leaning forward, dark-brown eyes serious. “I’ve seen a lot of things; during wartime, and working with traumatized vets.” He shakes his head. “I’ve never seen anything like what happened at that table. Barnes has got a handle so tight on his emotions, his physical tells, that seeing through him is gonna be extremely difficult. And he’s had seventy years to practice and perfect those skills.”

“What am I gonna do?” Steve wonders miserably. “What the hell am I gonna do?”

“Take it one day at a time,” Sam answers succinctly. “Or one hour. One minute. And let us, your friends, help you when we can. Don’t let yourself get burned out. Or else you’re both gonna end up in the same place, and neither one of you is gonna be able to provide a stabilizing influence.”

“I just. I don’t understand,” Steve says on a sigh. “Why is this coming out now , all of a sudden? He seemed okay before. Not great, maybe. But not like this. Not...” ‘ broken’ , he doesn’t want to say.

Sam seems to hear him anyway.

“The best explanation,” the Beta explains, “is that it comes down to basic survival.”

Steve frowns. “I’m not sure what you’re getting at, Sam. He’s already survived. He’s safe now. He doesn’t have to be afraid anymore.”

“He’s physically safe, yes,” Sam says. “But this is a matter of his mental state. Think about it, Steve. When you’re in a dangerous situation, when you’re constantly fighting to stay alive, things like staying hyper-vigilant, being wary, always ready to make a quick get-away… those things are literally what keep you breathing. There’s no time in a war-zone for allowing your trauma to surface,  or to process what’s happening around you. That’s why soldiers can come home from war and go back to living their relatively-safe civilian lives, only to end up falling apart weeks, months, sometimes even years later.

“Barnes is out of the war-zone now, Steve. He has room to process more than just the things necessary for keeping himself alive. Believe it or not, it’s a good thing that the effects of his time as a prisoner of HYDRA are starting to surface. It means that, at least on a primal level, his brain feels safe enough to allow that trauma to manifest. And it’s the only way he’s gonna heal. Letting that poison drain out, allowing his mind to release some of the stress of carrying all that trauma around, that’s gonna make his life a whole hell of a lot better in the long run.”

Steve covers his eyes with a hand, forcing his breathing to steady and swallowing back the lump of grief in his throat. What Sam is saying makes perfect sense, and he knows that the Beta is right.

What Bucky has had to survive is—beyond horrific. Steve is beginning to suspect it goes even deeper than what he’s read about in the Hydra files Nat had recovered. Now that Bucky’s apparently feeling ‘safe enough’ to process that trauma, Steve needs to be there for him. He’s already failed his best friend spectacularly by not catching him on the train, by not going back to look for him after he’d fallen. There’s no making up for that. Steve won’t ever forgive himself.

But Bucky needs him again, now . Which means Steve needs to get his act together. He needs to help Bucky, in whatever form that help may take.

“Okay,” he says, resolved. “Okay. I can— I will , do this. If Bucky lets me, I’ll help him however I can.”

“Sounds good, man,” Sam commends. “Just don’t forget to take care of yourself while you’re at it.”

Steve peeks at Sam from between his fingers and sees his friend giving him a pointed look, complete with his trademark raised eyebrow.

“Right,” Steve says, dropping his hand and nodding at the Beta. “Of course. I’ll take care of myself, Sam.”

“Uh-huh,” Sam hums skeptically. “Well, while we’re on the subject… I think it’s only fair if I mention that Barnes has been exhibiting signs of having seizures.”

Steve feels his alarm skyrocket. “ Seizures ? Aren’t those extremely dangerous?”

Sam holds up both hands. “Calm down there, buddy. I don’t think it’s something to get too worked up over, in this case. The kind of seizures I’m talking about are called absence seizures. They usually present in children and can look like someone is simply lost in thought. They don't last long — can be as short as two seconds, even. You probably haven’t even noticed them.”

Steve thinks back, tries to recall ever seeing Bucky get lost in thought. It's hard to tell. Bucky often avoids looking Steve in the eye, and his blank expressions are ironclad.

“The only reason I clocked it is because he exhibits other symptoms,” Sam says, drawing Steve out of his reverie. “It’s not very obvious. Sometimes he grinds his jaw a bit. Or he blinks faster, twists his clothing between his fingers.”

And now that Sam has said it, Steve can recall with sharp clarity seeing Bucky do those things, multiple times.

“What triggers them?” Steve asks, “Are they hurting him?”

Sam shakes his head. “Absence seizures are generally mild. Barnes may not even know he’s having them. They also tend respond well to anti-seizure medication. But...there’s something else you should be aware of.”

Steve braces himself, waiting for the emotional blow.

Sam sees it and grimaces. “I’m sorry, Steve. I’m not happy about dumping this on you all at once, but if you’re gonna help Barnes you need to be aware of as many of the variables that could be affecting his trauma as possible.”

“It’s okay, Sam,” Steve assures his friend. “You’re right. I need to know these things.”

Sam takes a breath before plunging into the explanation.

“When it comes to trauma,” he says, “there are what are known as psychogenic , non-epileptic seizures. That ‘psychogenic’ part means that the seizures are caused by emotional triggers. In other words, they don’t have a physical cause. We can’t know for sure unless we get a brain scan, but if that’s what your boy is experiencing — and from what I’ve seen it’s definitely a possibility — the only way to get them under control is to avoid the emotional stressors triggering them. The good news about these types of seizures, is that they don't need medication, which can probably be tricky to regulate when it comes to dosing super-soldier bodies.”

“I have noticed them,” Steve shares when Sam has finished speaking. “The seizures. I didn’t, really, while he was having them,” he confesses, “But, when you described them... I can remember seeing those symptoms.”

He furrows his brow, focusing on trying to piece together the words to explain.

“They always seemed to hit when he was in a state of extreme stress — when he was anxious, or scared. He looked like he was having one back at the warehouse, when we first found him. When I used the calming pheromones on him though, they seemed to taper off.”

Steve feels himself flush hotly before he continues. “Also, when he’d, uh, when he’d been on my knot, and afterward when my — when it was still in his system…” He feels like his head is going to burst into flames from the embarrassment of discussing something so private, “Bucky was really mellow. He didn’t show any signs of seizures then either.”

“So, then, maybe they do have something to do with stress,” Sam offers, completely composed despite the subject matter, and Steve feels a deep sense of gratitude for that cool composure.

Something snags at his memory, then, and Steve’s quietly voicing the thought even as he’s turning it over in his mind.

“He said it was ‘easier’ to remember me. That trying to remember himself made him forget . I couldn’t make sense of it, at the time. But now… What if that’s one of his triggers? Remembering .”

“Knowing his history,” Sam says grimly, “It’s very likely that any attempts to remember his past resulted in some form of punishment. We know Hydra used the chair to mind-wipe him. That in itself is traumatic enough. But if he ever let on that he was remembering his history — details about previous missions that they didn’t want him to know, maybe, or information about who he was, where he came from… They may have punished him for that in other ways as well.”

“‘ The Asset was built to forget ’,” Steve murmurs, eyes hot with unshed tears. “I think you’re right about that, Sam.”

Sam releases a sharp breath.

“Looks like we’ve got our work cut out for us.”

“Yes,” Steve agrees, heart aching.

God, Buck. What else did they do to you that I don’t know about?

—

Chapter Text

↢ Interlude: Bang, Bang ↣

‘He would always win the fight,

bang, bang…’

— A. Jordan

It’s late. Or early, depending on how you look at it. Clint is exhausted but can’t — doesn’t want to — sleep anymore. He’s jolted awake three times already, plagued by blue-tinged nightmares which he knows were triggered by the macabre demonstration at the dinner table hours ago featuring one traumatized, former Hydra assassin.  

There are a few things that help to settle his agitated brain when he gets like this. One of them involves finding a particularly satisfactory perch.

From the tower’s rooftop, he can enjoy a rare moment of solitude. Can let the near-silence attributable to being in a very high place, soothe his ragged mind.

At an hour this early, he’ll be able to stargaze while he waits for sunrise. Then he can soak in the warm glow of the sun’s splendor as its golden rays paint the morning sky.

Clint steps out onto the roof, already planning where he’ll lie out under the night sky, before he comes to an abrupt halt just as he gets within arms reach of the concrete perimeter bordering the tower’s rooftop.  

“Shit !” he exclaims, scrambling backward with all the grace and finesse of a highly-trained assassin, and almost rolling an ankle on the gravel-covered ground.

Because the goddamned Winter Soldier is lying there, one knee bent, foot flat on the raised perimeter, his metal arm dangling indolently off the side of the building.

The Soldier had turned his head slightly, in order to zero in on the other Omega, which is the only reason Clint had noticed him against the inky darkness of the night sky.

It’s fucking embarrassing. His moniker is Hawkeye for fuck’s sake!

In his defense, there’s never been anyone out here before — especially at this time of night. This is Clint’s spot. Even so, he feels his cheeks flush in mortification.

The Winter Soldier is a legend. Clint’s had a professional crush on the man since the day he first heard the whispered tales about the Ghost assassin’s existence.

So, of course, the first time they officially meet, Clint falls all over himself like a fucking noob.

Natasha would crack a rib laughing if she knew. All without twitching a single facial muscle, of course.

Clint clears his throat, trying to scrape together a measure of composure. “Hey, man. Uhh, howzit going?” What?!

The Winter Soldier doesn’t so much as blink.

Clint huffs, running a hand through his ridiculously tangled bedhead. “Dumb question, I know. Sorry.”

The archer bites the inside of his cheek, scraping the toe of one booted foot across the gravelly ground.

“Guess you’re out here for the same reason as me: can’t sleep.”

This gets the tiniest incline of the Soldier’s head in response, and Clint feels some of the nervous tension bleed from his shoulders at the affirmation.

At least the Soldier doesn’t look like he’s planning to leap up and stab Clint for stumbling into his space. Though his silent appraisal is unnerving .

The Soldier does look exhausted, though.

His face is pale, with dark shadows smudged beneath the vibrant blue of his eyes. The way he holds his body highlights the fact that his frame is tense, and Clint feels a pang of empathetic understanding — Hyper-vigilance is a bitch .

There’s another thing that helps Clint to settle his brain when it gets to be so loud that he can’t sleep.

“Wanna go shoot something?”

The Winter Soldier is fucking terrifying.

Objectively, Clint knows this. But it’s one thing to think something within the safety of one’s head. It’s a whole other thing to witness the reality of it right in front of you.

Which is what he’s doing. What he’s been doing for the past couple of hours, actually.

He and the other Omega had started out at the shooting range, Clint with his bow, and the Soldier with a small array of firearms laid out on a nearby table.

They’d obliterated the heads and torsos of numerous paper silhouette targets for a while, in companionable silence.

Eventually they’d moved on to live-training simulations, and Clint had watched as the Soldier proceed to demolish virtual targets with a degree of speed and deadly accuracy Clint has never seen anyone apart from Natasha come anywhere close to achieving.

Clint is good at what he does. He works and trains with Natasha — former Red Room protege — after all. And his aim is unparalleled. But he’s not enhanced, and will therefore never reach the level of sheer efficacy that the Soldier displays.

The other assassin calculates his potential strategic advantages with lightning speed, always seeming to be a step ahead of the simulation.

Even Clint, who’s done these exercises countless times before, cannot often anticipate, and subsequently account for, the randomization JARVIS will integrate into the drills.

Needless to say, the Soldier blows past all of the Avengers’ previously-recorded simulation records — without even breaking a sweat.

It’s really a very good thing that Clint’s competence kink is content to gain its satisfaction through association with a certain Alpha SHIELD agent, because fuck.

Clint shows the Soldier the readings after his final simulation exercise, pointing out the previous scores along with the new ones the Soldier has just set, and the Omega simply nods, as if he’d expected nothing less.

Clint’s eyebrow threatens to rise so far as to soar completely over his forehead, even as his grin practically splits his face in half.

The Soldier’s expression has eased somewhat, and the tension he’d been carrying earlier seems to have released from his shoulders slightly.

Hell, he’s practically smiling — with his eyes, at least.

It’s not until they’re cleaning and storing away the various pieces of weaponry they’d used that the Soldier suddenly freezes up, tension snapping back into place.

Clint darts a glance at the suddenly high-strung Omega who looks about ready to bolt any second, and raises his hands in a classic ‘no-harm’ gesture. “Woah there, what’s wrong?”

The Soldier shoves the last of his ammunition into the weapons’ safe and takes a nervous step backward, eyes clocking the exit. “Steve .”

Clint buys a clue, locking up the safe with steady, if quicker, movements.

The bond shared between Steve and the Soldier is evidently allowing the Omega to detect the Alpha’s movements to some degree.

“I take it you’re not in the mood to see Captain Helicopter-Mom at the moment,” Clint muses aloud.

The Soldier shakes his head, still eyeing the exit skittishly, and Clint makes a decision.  

“Right. Come with me. Got an idea.”

Captain America can wait a few more hours to fuss over his Omega. Clint knows what it’s like to need a safe place to regroup before he can force himself to endure the presence of an Alpha.

Especially when he’s feeling particularly raw — as the Soldier undoubtedly is right now.

He leads the Soldier over to a ventilation shaft and, with a mischievous grin, pops off the covering panel and climbs up inside.

The Soldier catches on immediately and slides in behind Clint, replacing the panel only moments before the door to the training room swings open and Steve glances inside.

“Bucky?” The Alpha calls from below, and Clint watches as a series of minute expressions cross the Soldier’s face, illuminated by the low light that slips between the slats of the ventilation cover.

Whatever he’s feeling, he doesn’t so much as twitch to give away his position. Steve leaves a few moments later, after glancing around the room, a small furrow between his brows.

Tension seeping from his shoulders once more, the Soldier turns back to Clint, an expression of grim relief across his features, and the archer upticks a corner of his mouth.

“C’mon man. Gonna give you the grand tour of all the best hideaways up here.”

They end up above the gym an hour or so later, perched on one of the large, support beams that stretches across the ceiling.

Down below, Sam and Natasha are practicing throws, which really looks more like Natasha throwing Sam across the mats — repeatedly — while the other Beta tries not to grin in too much obvious enjoyment as he ends up literally flying head over heels.

The Soldier seems to have finally reached a state of equilibrium, which lingers even as Steve predictably shows up in the gym within minutes of his Omega staying still for more than half a minute.  

Clint and the Soldier watch as the Alpha searches the gym with a sweeping focus, a hint of frustration creeping into his expression when he fails to locate his Omega, calmly seated high above him.

“Sam, have you seen Bucky?” Steve asks the Beta when he pauses for a water-break.

Sam takes a deep swallow before he shakes his head, and Natasha darts a lightning-quick glance up and away from the two Omegas perched amidst the ceiling beams.

“Nah, man, sorry. Haven’t seen him,” Sam says, apologetic. “How long has he been missing?”   

Steve runs a hand through his golden hair. “A few hours or so,” the Alpha responds. “I know he’s close. I can feel that much. But I don’t really want to ask JARVIS exactly where he is. Want to give him some privacy, if he’s making himself scarce on purpose.”

Natasha shoots Clint a raised brow but keeps her silence. Clint feels a glow of affection at her willingness to assist his mission to allow the Soldier to choose whether he currently wants to be with his Alpha or not.

Clint’s suspicion that the Soldier merely needed a little time, is confirmed when the Soldier moves, sliding down the cable Clint keeps attached to the strut for that very purpose, and capturing his Alpha’s sudden, undivided attention.

It’s almost uncomfortable, the way Steve looks at his Omega. Like he’s the only source of water within a hundred-mile radius, and Steve’s in the middle of a desert.

“Bucky,” the Alpha exhales, all traces of frustration vanishing. “I was looking for you.”

The Soldier nods, because ‘duh’, and then proceeds to follow, as his Alpha urges him out of the gym.

Just before the door closes, the Soldier looks up and offers Clint the tiniest smile and a nod of gratification.

Clint beams in return.

He thinks he just ended up making a friend out of the Winter Soldier.

Fucking fantastic.

-

Chapter Text

✪ Every Time ✪

‘Every time we say goodbye, 

I die a little. ’

— A. Jordan

Bucky’s avoiding him.

Ever since that disastrous meal in the common room, Steve’s been hard pressed to see the Omega outside of his room.

Steve had felt horrible about what had happened — he still does — and he’d apologized to Bucky the next morning, after finding him in the gym.

The Omega had seemed to accept the apology. Had seemed to understand that Steve hadn’t meant him any harm.

He’d stared over Steve’s left shoulder with a perplexed expression as the Alpha had apologized, as if he couldn’t understand why Steve felt the need to do so, but he’d nodded his assent when Steve had asked,

“Can you forgive me, Buck? I’m so — It won’t happen again. I’m so sorry.”

Since then, though, the Omega has made himself scarce.

Sometimes, when Steve’s lying awake at night, unable to sleep, he hears Bucky leave his room.

In the morning there will be small signs of the Omega’s presence throughout the apartment, if Steve’s looking for them.

The pillows on the couch will have shifted maybe, or the dishes in the cupboard — used and washed and replaced — will have moved marginally.

Food will be missing from the refrigerator, or the cupboards in small increments, and Steve can’t help but wonder if the Omega is eating elsewhere, or if he’s really subsisting on what little he’s taking from the kitchen.

One day, Steve wakes to the realization that Bucky has left the tower completely.

He’s still in the city, and not so far away as to cause discomfort from the bond, but Steve has to force himself not to go after him.

He reminds himself, as he paces restlessly back and forth across the living room floor, that Bucky had been a prisoner of Hydra for decades, is barely beginning to recover from that trauma, and that Steve rushing after him could easily cause the Omega to believe that he’s not allowed to leave.

And, Steve tells himself, Bucky’d survived just fine on his own during the months he’d spent away from Steve after his heat.

“You know it’s probably because your bond is incomplete, why you’re so anxious,” Sam states as Steve sits on the Beta’s couch one afternoon, leg jittering steadily.

Steve turns from the television he hadn’t been paying any attention to, and looks at his friend who tilts his head pointedly at the Alpha’s bouncing knee.

Steve puts a concentrated effort into forcing it still.

“Sorry, Sam,” he says with a grimace. “I feel like I can’t focus on anything else. I worry about him constantly, and can only seem to calm down when he’s in sight.” He sighs in frustration. “And I think he’s been avoiding me.”

“Steve, you gotta give him time,” Sam responds kindly. “He’s gotta acclimate. To not being under Hydra’s control anymore, yes. But also to being around an Alpha with whom he shares a bond. He’s been abused and he’s still wary, probably nervous too. I know you’ve told me that he remembers some of your history together, but there’s no telling how much, and even victims who remember their friends and family members have a hard time regaining the ability to trust.”

“I know,” Steve says. “I get that. I understand that he needs space and time, and I don’t want to end up pushing him away. It’s just...it’s hard. To think he’s afraid of me. I want to fix it. But I know that he has to work through that on his own.”

“Well, you can support him,” Sam offers. “Be there for him, let him know you’re available when he needs you to be. But also, maintain your distance until he comes to you. It’s gotta be his choice. And he’s gotta be sure that you’ll let it be his choice. In the meantime, you can try distracting yourself from that bond-induced anxiety by living your own life. Pick up a hobby, get some exercise. It’ll be easier for him to acclimate to you if you’ve got a good routine going. Let him decide where he wants to fit in to it.”

The Beta reminds Steve to be patient.

“And one more thing,” Sam says seriously. “It may seem pretty obvious, or like it’s self-explanatory but, you should try to tell him, specifically , what it is you want from him. Sometimes it’s hard to get a clear picture of others’ wants and feelings when you’re tangled up in trying to interpret your own. So get rid of the mystery. If you’d like to have lunch with him, tell him. If he does something that makes you feel happy, or sad, even — let him know. That way he’s not in the dark about how his decisions are affecting you.”

It isn’t easy.  

Slowly, though, Steve starts incorporating Sam’s suggestions into action. 

He resumes his regular routine of running in the mornings, often with Sam in tow. Since he rarely catches glimpses of the Omega living with him, Steve  starts leaving little notes around the apartment for Bucky to find.

‘Did you like the apples?’ He places near the fruit bowl. ‘You always used to split the green ones with me, since they’re my favorite. ’

Another states: ‘Sorry if I startled you last night. I couldn’t sleep, so I decided to watch cartoons.’ He adds a tiny caricature of an exhausted looking Captain America zoned out in front of a television while sitting on a giant remote instead of a couch.

The little notes disappear as they’re left, and Steve experiences a tiny flutter of joy each time he sees the empty places where he’d left them.

A little more than a week into his renewed routine, Steve receives a request to take point on a mission.

Maria Hill sends him coordinates and a brief rundown of their objective — which basically comes down to infiltrating a small but active Hydra base, and gathering as much intel as possible before blowing it sky-high. 

Steve is reluctant to take it at first. He doesn’t want to leave Bucky on his own in the tower.

But Maria assures him that he should be in, out, and back home within a couple of days, and as he considers it, he starts to think it might actually do Bucky some good to have the apartment to himself for a little while.

At the very least it will give Steve an opportunity it release some of the pent up rage he keeps simmering just under the surface of his emotions.

Rage which burns hotter every time Bucky inadvertently reveals a new facet of the Hydra-brand trauma he’s experienced.

The evening before he’s set to leave, Bucky’s nowhere to be found. After debating with himself, Steve finally gives in and leaves another note for the Omega.

He leaves out the details of the mission, but assures Bucky that he should be back within the next couple of days.

At the bottom of the page he writes down his cell-phone number, and adds a little doodle of Tiny Cap attempting to give a rousing speech to a team of tiny sleeping Avengers.

It’s late, just past two in the morning when Steve drags himself back to his apartment in the tower a couple of days later.

He collapses with exhaustion in a slow, controlled fall onto the couch in the living room, and tells himself that he’ll head to his room in just a few minutes, after he’s rested for a moment.

He blinks open his eyes what seems like only seconds later, to the soft light of approaching dawn illuminating the room through the floor-to-ceiling windows.

A single, green apple rests gently on his chest.

Steve can’t help the besotted smile that spills over his face as he carefully picks up the fruit.

He sketches a picture of Tiny Cap hauling the apple — bigger than himself — away with an elated grin. Above his head floats a thought bubble with the word “yum!”

Below the sketch he writes, ‘Thank you,’ and ‘I missed you while I was away.’

He leaves the drawing on the couch where he’d been lying, and makes his way to his bedroom, the crisp tart flavor of the perfectly ripe apple spilling into his mouth as he takes the first bite.

Tony calls him down to the workshop later the next evening.

The resident genius is in the middle of repairing part of  the Iron Man armor when Steve arrives, and the deep circles beneath his eyes attest to the fact that, once again, he’s forgone sleep for far too long.

“Your boyfriend killed my parents,” Tony says flatly, after Steve’s stood there for a few moments — for once, getting straight to the point.

He doesn’t look at Steve.

“I mean,” the Omega continues. “I’m pretty sure it was him. The files are pretty specific. Unless they’ve got some other Asset soldier hanging out in the Hydra freezer aisle.”

“No,” Steve confirms, lowly, feeling awful. “Zola hinted at it, back when Nat and I confronted him in one of SHIELD’s old bunkers, that the Winter Soldier was responsible for Howard’s death. I just —  I was hoping—” He stops, shakes his head. “It doesn’t matter what I was hoping. I should have told you.”

“Yes. You should have,” Tony agrees, bluntly. He works on the armor for a few moments in silence, and Steve waits guiltily to hear what else he has to say.

After a minute or so, Tony sighs.

“My father had his fingers in a lot of pies,” he says, a small wrinkle between his brows.

“From what I’ve been reading, it’s possible that some of those pies belonged to Hydra. Whether he knew about it or not...I’m not sure yet. I could probably tell, by looking at your BFF’s murder-arm, whether Howard had some input on its design. And by reading more of those files Nat unearthed.” The frown deepens.

“Though, to be perfectly honest, reading about Hydra’s asset is more than enough fodder for decades worth of nightmares, and I have enough of my own fodder already, thank you very much.”

The Omega wipes his grease-stained hands on an already grease-covered rag, before picking up a gold-colored wrench.

“And also — let’s be honest — Howard wasn’t exactly winning any awards for Father-of-the-Year.”

Finally, the genius glances over at Steve, giving the Alpha a brief glimpse into the turmoil that swirls through the dark eyes, before he turns away again.

“It’s not okay . Okay? I’m not just...gonna forget what… what Barnes did .  My mom —  he killed my mom.”

Tony’s face crumples, and Steve aches to move forward, to offer some comfort, but the Omega’s body language unmistakably warns that that would be a bad idea.  

Tony takes a shuddering breath, pulling himself back together with effort before he confesses,

“But that — what happened before, in the dining room...That was —  terrible and horrifying and a pretty fucking accurate picture of how much control Barnes had over what Hydra made him do.”

The engineer resumes working on the armor, using the wrench to jerk a particularly tight bolt off of its casing.

“Which means,” he continues, tossing the bolt aside, “That I’m not going to throw him — or you, for that matter, I know you’ll follow him wherever he goes — out of my tower.”

Tony swipes his grease-stained hand across his forehead, leaving behind a streak of black. “But. I need some time. I just...gotta process. So don’t go all mopey on me if I don’t throw him a party the next time I see him, okay?” He darts a quick glance over at Steve before he goes back to the armor.   

“And don’t think I’ll forget about that arm. I wanna get a good look at that sucker, because there is no way those Hydra asshat ‘scientists’ were better engineers than me. Which means that I can definitely make some improvements as soon as your boy-toy is ready.”

“Thank you, Tony.” Steve says, soberly. “I’m really sorry you had to find out this way.”

Tony shrugs diplomatically. “I forgive you, Cap,” he says, still leaning over the armor.

Steve grimaces at the nickname, knowing that right now, its usage is Tony's subconscious way of distancing himself from the Alpha. “Okay,” he says. “I’ll just — I’ll go, now.”

Steve turns and heads for the workshop’s door. He’s just on the threshold when Tony speaks again.

“Steve.”

The Alpha glances back. This time Tony is looking straight at him, no longer avoiding his gaze.

“I forgive you,” the Omega emphasizes. “Really.”

And this time, Steve believes him.  Feels some of his guilt begin to fade.

A late summer storm sweeps through the city a few days later.

Outside, the clouded, silvery-grey sky hides the sun, casting the living room in shadow despite the ceiling-high windows allowing for as much light as possible to spill through. Fat droplets of water roll down the windowpane, blurring the image of the city behind the glass.

Inside, Steve has the lamp near the couch turned on, illuminating the room with a warm glow.

He’s been sketching on the couch for about an hour when he suddenly senses eyes on him.

He glances up to find Bucky standing a small distance away, and all thoughts about what he’s been drawing drain from his mind.

He rarely sees Bucky anymore, and he feels, suddenly, as though his lungs are finally getting enough air. As if they can now expand to full capacity after having been crushed beneath the unforgiving pressure of an asthma attack.  

The Omega is damp, as if he’d been caught in the rain, and Steve wonders if he’s been out on the rooftops again.

How long has he been standing there, Steve thinks. And then, on the heels of that thought, ‘He looks tired. Has he been getting enough sleep?’

Incredibly, Bucky remains where he is, unmoving despite Steve’s avid observation. Micro-expressions flit across his face. He’s nervous, maybe. Definitely wary.

Steve swallows, forcing himself to say as calmly as possible, “Hey, Buck. It’s good to see you.”

Bucky shifts, looking down and away. His hand grips the hem of his shirt beneath his dark jacket, but he doesn’t leave. He seems, almost, as if he’s waiting, and Steve makes a cautious decision, hoping fervently that it’s the right one.

Almost painfully, he forces his gaze away from the skittish Omega, picking up his pencil once again and stating lightly, “I was just drawing. But there’s plenty of room over here, if you’d like to join me.” He adds another stroke, randomly to the page. “I’d really like it,” he says, artificially casual, “If you joined me. If you wanted.”  

He leaves it at that, pencil moving instinctively across the page as he waits, barely breathing, for Bucky to make his decision.  

After a long moment, the Omega moves forward, toward Steve, and the Alpha can’t help the jolt of adrenaline that causes his heart to skip as Bucky settles at the base of the couch, near Steve’s feet.

The Omega is not touching Steve, but he’s close enough to touch, if Steve only reached out to try.

The fresh scent of rain mixed in with the sweet aromas of lavender and sage from his shampoo, wafts up from Bucky’s dark hair as he turns, slightly, to gaze out the window, and Steve breathes it in covetously.

He forces himself to return to his artwork, even though it’s almost impossible for him to focus, now. Bucky is so close. And Steve’s heart hammers, and his fingers tremble with the yearning to reach out.

Don’t. He warns himself. Don’t touch him. Don’t scare him away.    

They’ve been like that for some time, Steve sketching half-heartedly with Bucky sitting quietly nearby, when Steve suddenly becomes aware of the lightest of touches against his calf. He glances down, startled, to find that Bucky has ever so gently leaned over to rest against him.

The Omega doesn't remove his gaze from the window, doesn’t give any indication that he’s aware of his positioning, but Steve doesn’t let that discourage him.

Bucky has kept his distance for weeks, shying away from Steve, avoiding any possibility that they could come into contact. This closeness — the fact that he is within touching distance of Steve, is actually touching Steve himself — is not a mistake.

No longer willing hold back in the face of this timid display of trust, Steve slowly reaches down, placing a gentle hand in Bucky’s still-damp hair.

The Omega stiffens at the touch and Steve freezes in place, wondering if he's read the situation wrong. But Bucky doesn’t pull away. He stays, rigid and unmoving, and after a moment, Steve softly begins to run his fingers through the soft waves.

Bucky relaxes so glacially, that at first Steve doesn’t even notice it happening. Suddenly, though, the Omega lets out a soft sigh, and Steve realizes that Bucky has sunk back against his calf, his eyes at half-mast, his breathing deep and steady.

Gradually, the Omega’s eyelids sink lower until, finally, they close altogether, and Steve feels his heart clench in awed gratitude at this further display of trust.

He doesn’t fool himself into thinking that the fight is over. He knows that this is only one step down a long, perilous road.

And Sam had warned him that gaining victory over Bucky’s touch-aversion, not to mention the myriads of other issues the Omega is dealing with, would be an uphill battle. “Bucky will have good days and bad days," the Beta had informed him. “You’re gonna need to be patient.”

Clint, overhearing the conversation, had agreed.

“Some days,” the Omega had said, Even the idea of being touched makes your skin crawl. You’d do just about anything to escape it.” His gaze had been far off, as if he was putting words to a memory.

“Other days, it helps if someone can ease you into it. Give you plenty of warning that the touch is coming, and time to adjust to the idea of it. Or even allow you to initiate it, when you’re ready.”

He’d shrugged then, the distance in his gaze bleeding away. “And then there’s some times when you’re okay with being touched. Usually though, that kind of ‘okay’ comes with a lot of built up trust in the person who’s initiating the contact.” His lips had tilted in a small smile. “You’re probably gonna have to work up to it.”  

Steve had solemnly thanked the Omega for his advice.

The fact that Clint had experienced the kinds of things which made it possible for him to give insight into Bucky’s feelings with such precision was saddening, and Steve was grateful that the archer was willing to share any suggestions related to surviving that sort of trauma.

Now, as he sits stroking Bucky’s hair, the Omega’s sleeping form a solid weight against him, he prays that there will be more frequent ‘good days’ in his future.

-

Chapter Text

★⧗  Ancient Light  ⧗★

Ghosts.

Their voices are resting,

in your bones,

and the river of time.

— A. Brown

He comes across the Widow one evening, hours after midnight with hours yet until sunrise.

The former Soviet-trained assassin is in one of the multiple training rooms that the Soldier has discovered over the course of many sleepless nights spent prowling Avengers Tower, learning all he can about it’s layout, design, and potential weaknesses.

There are very few potential weaknesses.

The Soldier stands in the darkened hallway just outside the open doorway, watching as the Widow moves through an array of shadowboxing exercises, her body flowing gracefully from one motion to the next.

She’s lithe, efficient. Her red hair glints under the bright lighting of the room. The scarlet strands are damp at her temples, revealing that she’s likely running through the drills as a cool-down exercise rather than a warm-up.

Her hair glints again, blood red, and suddenly he’s in a different room.

The air is frigid within the stone walls of the facility’s training room. A young girl practices drills before him, her hair the color of fire, of blood. He watches her movements closely, eyes flicking between her form in front of him and the wall-sized mirror behind her which provides him with a view of her exercises from an additional angle.

“Бедра,”  [Hips,] the Soldier says flatly. “Ваш центр тяжести не прав. Исправьте это.”  [Your center of gravity is wrong. Fix it.]

The girl shifts her weight, continuing through the drills unceasingly.

“Лучше.” 

[Better.]

The girl completes the exercise and drops her arms, shifting into a neutral position. Green eyes flicker up to meet his through the mirror.

The Soldier holds that solemn gaze.

“Снова.” 

[Again.]

The girl begins again.

The Soldier is pulled out of the memory at a sharp movement that is inconsistent with the repetitive motions of the drill the Widow had been running through.

The former Soviet operative had spotted him in the doorway and has turned sharply to face him. Her face is unreadable, expression skillfully blank, but her eyes speak to him. They always had, he remembers suddenly.

Under his training, the little Black Widow had learned to conceal her emotions with exceptional skill. Their handlers had begun to manage her with far more caution after that. Pleased as they were with her ability to become a soulless marionette, they became far more wary of her, and more vigilant with her surveillance.

But she’d always been an open book to him.

And to the Soldier’s surprise, a great degree of her still is.

Right now she‘s, understandably, wary of him. That wariness teeters on the edge of fear, but it hasn’t tipped over yet.

“You’ve improved,"  he commends in Russian, preferring to ease rather than antagonize that wariness.

“Years of practice," she replies, neutrally. Despite the flat intonation though, she can’t help the tiniest spark of satisfaction that flashes through her eyes at the complement.

The Soldier steps over the threshold into the room, and the Widow almost imperceptibly loosens her stance, instinctively readying herself for a fight.

The Soldier halts in response, unwilling to provoke an altercation. Though he doesn’t doubt that he’d be the uncontested winner of such a skirmish, the idea of coming to blows with one of Steve’s teammates — one of Steve’s friends — causes a strong feeling of distaste to settle heavily on the back of his tongue.

He doesn’t scent aggression in the air, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. The Black Widow Ops program had preferred their operatives to be exclusively Betas. They trained the girls from a very early age, but if they manifested as something other than Beta upon reaching puberty, they were removed from the program — permanently.

There was logic in keeping only Betas. The designation was typically more even-keeled than both Alphas and Omegas. They possessed calming pheromones that worked on all designations — an advantage that could be utilized if one was attempting to make another party more inclined to capitulate to certain demands. And they were free from what could be viewed as the biological handicaps of Alpha rut and Omega heat.

Which made them perfect candidates for honeypot missions.

Because, while they did not go into rut or heat, they could certainly douse themselves in the kind of false pheromones to make it appear as if they were.

And they were trained to flawlessly act the part.  

Which meant that they could fool an unsuspecting target into letting down their guard. And then ruthlessly exploit that advantage, all the while maintaining a cool head, and making the kind of calculated decisions that no Alpha or Omega in true rut or heat could ever be relied upon to make.

So the fact that he doesn’t scent aggression doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not there. The Widow could be wearing pheromone-blockers. Or she could be projecting a false sense of calm.

Either way, he stays where he is.

The Widow tilts her head, noting his behavior.  

“Why are you here, Солдат?” she asks bluntly, straight to the point.  

The Soldier flinches slightly at the Russian word, Soldat, the term they’d always called him, and the Widow’s granite expression softens almost imperceptibly.

“What are you doing here, Зима,” she asks again, and the new moniker causes a flood of memory to wash over him.

“Как вас зовут?” 

[What is your name?]

The young girl tilts her head curiously, and the Soldier finds himself startled by the question.

The Soldier has been given the task to methodically assess each of the candidates in the Black Widow program. To train them. To make them indomitable. This child has proven to be one of the few with exceptional potential.

Distantly, he is aware that the children fear him. That the handlers encourage this fear by telling the young girls that the Бугимен, the boogeyman, is not their friend. That his job is to train them. And that if they do not live up to his expectations, he will dispose of them.

The Soldier is unsure if that last part is true. His memories are limited, he cannot be certain if he’s ever been ordered to kill any of the young girls.

But the Soldier also knows that he always follows orders. That the dossiers on the candidates show that there were originally twenty-eight girls, and now there are only twenty. It is very likely that he was ordered to kill the eight who are currently designated only as: “terminated”.

And yet this girl, this child of no more than eight years stands before him, large-eyed but determined, and asks him a question. Speaks to him about a non mission-related subject.

The Soldier gazes down at the girl, her jaw clenched tight to keep its trembling hidden, and feels something shift in his soul. A small corner of his heart cracks and begins to melt.

He hadn’t answered her that day, but she’d eventually come up with a name for him anyway. ‘Зима’, she’d call him. ‘Winter’.

It was this name that would bring him back to her.

While he’d undergo the mind wipes and be put back into the ice for months or years at a time, she’d continued to grow, to excel within the program.

He never remembered her when the handlers would bring him back out to perfect some aspect of her training.

But when they were alone, she’d whisper this name to him, and inevitably, the memory of her would resurface.  That small corner of his heart that had melted for that brave, skinny little eight-year-old girl would again burn warmly. ‘Наташенка,’ he would call her. ‘Natashenka’. Or ‘Наташа’. ‘Natasha’.

Now as he watches her watch him, wary and afraid, but still fighting to keep it hidden, he feels that same warmth wash through him.

“Couldn’t sleep,” the Soldier answers the question, voice low.

-

Natasha sees the moment the memory returns to the Soldier, sees the realization of their shared history flare bright in his blue eyes.

He’d always looked the same whenever he’d finally remember her.

As a child, it had taken her a number of instances to realize that the Winter Soldier, the man charged with the mission of training her and the other girls in the Red Room, was a blank slate each time they met for a new aspect of that training.

He was a brutal taskmaster. Strong, fierce, and deadly. The other girls were terrified of him. They had all been warned that the Soldier would kill them if they were found lacking. He was a monster. He had no soul. He never aged. And he was only waiting for them to fail so that he could tear them apart with the lethal weapon that was his metal arm.

The handlers perpetuated these stories, and the girls whispered about them from the relative safety of their bunks, under cover of darkness. They all knew of girls who hadn’t made the cut. Who had gone missing.

It was easy to believe the stories. Not to mention the fact that the Soldier had dead eyes, was as cold as the ice from whence he came. The handlers kept him that way. Made sure he formed no lasting memories, no connections with any of the children. He didn’t have any feelings toward them. And consequently would have no trouble getting rid of any of them, if he so chose.

But somehow, something about her had stuck in his brain, and each time he was presented to her, blank and unfeeling, she could whisper that name, that magic word, and the Soldier would find his way back.

For a long time, she couldn’t fathom what exactly it was about her that had allowed him to hold onto the sliver of her memory. To burrow it’s way so deeply into his heart.

Then she’d seen pictures of pre-serum Steve Rogers, skinny and light-haired, with a perpetual slant to his jaw and a defiant glint in his eye that said he wasn’t the one to back down from a fight, even if he knew he wouldn’t win.

And she remembered that day when she’d been not even eight years old, skinny and terrified but determined, nevertheless to conquer her fear of the deadly Soldier. The killer. The one they called the boogeyman.

She’d asked him his name — they never called him by a name, but she thought he must have one — and he’d looked at her — actually looked at her, and not through her — with something like muted surprise. Eventually that surprise had turned into affection. He’d been kind to her. Gentle, in the way no one had ever been.

Was it really any surprise that she’d fallen in love with him?

She never told him, and he never treated her any differently. Though sometimes it seemed that he may have suspected the depth of her feelings.

In the end it didn’t matter. He’d disappeared from her life completely by the time she’d hit eighteen. They told her he’d been removed from the project. Terminated. Her heartbreak had served to make her an even more efficient assassin. More ruthless. No longer burdened by soft feelings like love. Love is for children. And she was a child no longer.

The next time she’d seen him had been on a mission in Odessa. It had been impossible to track him down. And then she’d met him again, on a bridge in DC, this time with the addition of one Steve Rogers who’d effortlessly — after years of Natasha attempting to discover the ghost’s identity — identified him as ‘Bucky’, his presumed-dead best friend.

Now she watches him, keeping his distance, doing his best to make himself unthreatening. He looks tired, burdened by every one of his ninety-plus years.

She wants to ask him how much of their history he remembers. If the reason she’d made such an impression on him so many years ago is because she’d reminded him of Steve.

She asks instead, “Nightmares?”

He nods hesitantly, then shrugs. “Or memories.”

“Steve can probably help you with that.”

She’s never been so grateful — as she sees something within the Soldier’s gaze flicker reverently in response to that name — that the love for the Soldier she’d harbored as a girl, overwhelming and deeply profound to her young self, has since faded with time. It would be very inconvenient, for both her and the Soldier, she thinks shrewdly, if that emotional attachment had managed to linger.

Still, she cannot help feeling somewhat protective over the Omega, deadly as he is, as she both sees and identifies with his struggle to find himself in the wake of his liberation from Hydra.

The same man who had treated her so tenderly, had loved her in the best way he knew how, looks at her now with those blue eyes, no longer so carefully obscure. Instead, they are full of torment.

The Soldier drops his gaze from hers, turning his face away as if physically rejecting the idea of accepting Steve’s help, though he says nothing aloud to indicate such an opinion.

“Tell me about him,” he says instead.

Natasha refuses to raise an eyebrow. What could she possibly tell this man that he doesn’t already know?

But then, she thinks as she takes a closer look at the Soldier, maybe he doesn’t know. Though he obviously remembers Steve to some degree, there’s no telling how much of his memory he’s regained.

Days ago, in the dining room, he’d treated Steve like a handler. So maybe he does need an outside point of view.

Natasha sinks into a kneeling quad stretch, continuing her cool-down where she’d left off and, now that she’s no longer holding herself ready for an attack, the Soldier relaxes marginally as well, sliding down to the floor himself, all lethal grace. He takes up a cross-legged position, cheek resting in his metal palm, elbow tucked into the fold of his left knee and watches her passively, waiting for whatever she decides to tell him.

“He’s kind,” she starts with.

It might seem a banal statement, to anyone who’s never met Steve. But the Winter Soldier seems to catch on immediately to what she is saying. Steve is ‘kind’ in the way that the ocean is deep. Profoundly, all-encompassingly. The Alpha embodies kindness. It’s is not, never has been, a front or an act.

And if the Soldier has any doubts, it is a good idea to exorcise them, considering the fact that Steve would hate for the Omega to be unsure of his motives toward him.

There’s no question that the Alpha is in love with the Soldier. It’s supremely obvious. But, as closed off as he’d had to become under Hydra’s control, the Soldier may be oblivious to that sort of emotion. It’s very likely that he’s not yet to a point where he can recognize kindness as existing without a darker provocation.

Natasha had been that way when she’d defected to SHIELD. It had taken her a long time to be able to accept kindness from anyone. Clint’s friendship had been priceless at that time. With him by her side, she’d eventually managed to develop healthier perspectives.

“He’s also extremely loyal,” Natasha says next, moving to stretch her other quad. “He loves hard, and will fight with all that he is to protect those he’s given that loyalty to. He’s fair, and morally driven.”

She shifts into a hurdler stretch.

“And he can be a complete idiot about it sometimes, when he gets it into his head to do the ‘right thing’.”

The Soldier’s lips quirk at her last words, possibly because he remembers how stubborn Steve can be. If kindness is Steve’s foremost quality, stubbornness follows right on its heels. It would be difficult to forget.

“How much do you remember,” Natasha asks, unable to resist, “about Steve?”

The Soldier remains quiet for a long time, seemingly absorbed in the dark weave of the practice mat beneath him. Eventually he says, slowly, almost uncertainly, “I remember that he’s...important. To me. To whatever’s left of the person he grew up with.”

The Soldier’s mouth turns down, his brow furrowed. “He calls me, ‘Bucky’. But. I’m not— I don’t remember who that is. I can’t be that person for him.”

“Have you told him?” Natasha tries to ask the question gently, but she’s unsure if the sentiment comes through. Gentle isn’t typically her strong point.

The Soldier shakes his head, dropping his hand from supporting his cheek to clench his fingers in his lap.

“I’m...afraid?” He stumbles over the word. Takes a breath. Tries to explain. “If he knew, he might. I don’t want him to push me away. I— Whatever piece of 'Bucky' is left...wants him. Wants to...keep him.” His tone raises marginally at the end of the sentence, and he shoots a quick glance Natasha’s way, as if he’s unsure he’d chosen the correct wording.  “But,” the Soldier continues, “he might not...want me anymore. If I tell him.”

He uses the word ‘want’ in the manner of a person referencing an object.

As if he’s a possession Steve might toss aside if it doesn’t work properly.

Natasha doesn’t believe that possibility exists. She’s seen how Steve looks at his Omega.

“Зима,” she says, and this time she’s sure she’s managed a gentle tone, “you should tell him. He won’t reject you.”

Blue eyes flick up to meet hers, and she holds the gaze, her certainty of this truth unwavering.

“He won’t.”

The Soldier drops his gaze again, staring into his lap. But he seems to be considering what Natasha’s told him, nevertheless.

After a long moment, he tilts his head in acquiescence.

“Maybe,” he tells her, falling back into Russian. “Maybe, you are right.”

The Soldier wakes, burning.

The room in which he sleeps is nearly completely dark, save for a few pools of silvery-bright moonlight which spills through the windowpane onto the carpeted floor.

Beneath his body, the sheets are damp, sticky with sweat, while his mouth is almost unbearably dry. His head spins dizzily as he drags himself upright.

His limbs feel abnormally heavy, weighed down with fatigue, and if it weren’t for the terrible dryness rasping through his throat with his every indrawn breath, he’d sink back down onto the mattress and stay there.

He can’t ignore the extreme thirst, though, and so he rolls dizzily to his feet and staggers — uncoordinated and clumsy and so very very weak — down the hallway and into the kitchen.

His limbs tremble unsteadily as he shakily fills a glass from the tap, bringing it up to his mouth and swallowing down the cool water with quick, messy gulps.

He refills the glass, is lifting it to drink again when suddenly, a viscous stab of pain rips through his abdomen.

The Soldier doubles over, instinctively biting into his lower lip to muffle a sharp cry.

The glass slips through his fingers.

It crashes to the floor.

—  

Chapter Text

 ✪ Falling ★

“I’ll be there for you,

As the world falls down.”

— D. Bowie

Steve jerks awake to the distinctive sound of shattering glass.

He lies still, listening carefully to see if any other noise follows, and after a moment, picks out the faintest of distressed whimpers.

He’s on his feet and down the hall before he even registers his intent to move.

The Alpha steps into the kitchen to find Bucky curled into a ball on the floor, surrounded by shards of what looks like a shattered water-glass and a small pool of water.

The Omega is panting harshly, as he grips his abdomen, and doesn’t seem to realize that Steve is there.

“Bucky?” Steve calls quietly.

The Alpha takes a small step toward the Omega, and Bucky jerks his head up, blue eyes wild behind sweat-dampened hair.

“Hey Buck,” Steve murmurs calmly, working to mask his growing alarm, “What happened? What’s wrong?”

He doesn’t move any closer, but that doesn’t seem to make a difference to Bucky, whose gaze begins to dart around the room, visibly searching for an escape route. 

It is, Steve notes with a sinking feeling of dismay, eerily reminiscent of how the Omega had reacted at the onset of his first heat.

Bucky hasn’t tried to move yet  — a fact for which Steve is grateful as the Omega is still surrounded by broken glass. Steve doubts he will even consider trying to avoid it if he attempts to flee.

Unfortunately, it looks as if Bucky is ramping up to do just that, and Steve’s protective Alpha instincts cannot allow the Omega to hurt himself any more than he already is.

“Bucky, don’t move,” he orders, Alpha-command interwoven into his tone. Bucky freezes a mere moment after he’d begun to shift away; trembling and afraid, but completely obedient.

“Sorry Bucky, I’m sorry,” Steve says gently, remorsefully, hating the glimpse of Hydra conditioning unmistakable in the Omega’s fearful compliance. “I just don’t want you to cut yourself on the glass, that’s all. Please don’t be afraid. I’m not gonna hurt you.”

He continues murmuring soft platitudes as he heads toward Bucky’s immobile form, carefully stepping around the scattered shards.

Bucky quietly moans again as Steve gets closer, teeth grinding together as his fingers twitch against his abdomen. His breathing halts, as what looks like a spasm of pain courses through his body, before it resumes again, short and uneven.

Steve kneels down beside the Omega.

This close, he can feel the fever profusely radiating from Bucky’s skin, and wonders worriedly if the Omega’s heat has unexpectedly begun again.

Bucky looks like he’s in heat. His cheeks are flushed, his brow sweaty with fever, and he clutches miserably at his abdomen as what look like severely painful cramps rip through his body.

But there have been no prior indications of an upcoming heat — none of the symptoms that manifest before an actual heat begins to ramp up.

And, strangest of all, the Omega doesn’t carry even the faintest whiff of the distinctive scent of heat-slick.

Bucky releases a particularly agonizing groan of pain and Steve brushes a gentle hand down his back, trying to offer what comfort he can.

Bucky shakes his head, arching away from the touch as he gasps, “Nonono stop. Please, it hurts.”

Steve snatches his hand away, and Bucky sways paradoxically toward the appendage, before he jerks himself away, grinding his jaw again.

“Tell me what to do,” Steve nearly begs. “Please, Bucky. Let me help you.”

“Don’t know,” Bucky responds through clenched teeth. “I don’t know.”

“Let me take you to Medical,” Steve says. “Tony has doctors—“

Bucky flinches violently.

“I’m sorry,” he says, words tumbling frantically over Steve’s request. “I’m sorry, please.  N-no doctors. Please . I-I’ll be quiet. I’ll be good.”

The Omega visibly swallows down his next cry of pain, curling tighter around his belly and squeezing his eyes shut. His accelerated breathing cuts off as the pain crests, and then resumes afterward.

“You’re already good, Bucky,” Steve says quickly, heart aching. “You don’t have to be quiet. I won’t— No doctors. Okay? I swear, Bucky. You hear me?”

Bucky nods, miserably grateful.

“You can’t stay here though, Buck,” Steve urges. “There’s glass and—”

“Can’t ,” Bucky mumbles, sounding exhausted. “Sorry. Can’t move. Too heavy. Sorry.”  

“Let me help you,” Steve says. “I know you don’t want to be touched. I know you don’t like it...”

Bucky shakes his head mutely. Whether in agreement or denial Steve can’t be sure, but he continues anyway,

“I’ll only help you as far as the bed. I won’t touch you anymore than you say is okay, okay? Please Buck.”

Finally, Bucky dips his head in agreement.

“-‘kay,” he slurs. “-‘kay, Stevie.”

Steve immediately scoops him into his arms.

Despite his earlier evasive behavior, when Steve gathers him close, Bucky’s fingers clutch desperately at the front of the Alpha’s shirt, and he tucks his face into the crook of the super-soldier’s neck.

The Omega trembles anxiously within the embrace, but his grip remains tight nonetheless. Steve steps carefully around the broken glass on the floor and heads down the hallway.

He bypasses Bucky’s room — the Omega’s clothing is clammy with sweat, doubtless his sheets are as well — and heads instead to his own, gently laying Bucky onto the dry covers of his bed.

Bucky rolls away immediately, settling onto his side and, in place of Steve’s T-shirt, grips at the sheets below him.

He presses his forehead into the mattress, muffling another groan of pain, and Steve clenches his hands into helpless fists.

“What can I do, Buck?” He asks lowly. “Tell me how to help you.”

“Thirsty,” Bucky responds breathlessly, barely loud enough for Steve’s enhanced hearing to pick up. “Please. ‘M so thirsty.”

Steve heads immediately for the ensuite bathroom, filling the glass he keeps in there.

He’s back at Bucky’s side within moments, brushing the Omega’s shoulder to get his attention.

“Here, Buck. Drink this.”

Bucky shrinks instinctively away from the touch before he seems to register the Alpha’s words, and turns toward him, struggling to sit up so that he can drink.

He grips the glass around Steve’s fingers, his own hands hot with fever, and shivers as the cool liquid slips down his throat.

When the glass is empty, Bucky slumps back down onto the bed and curls listlessly back onto his side.

Steve places the empty glass onto the bedside table.

“JARVIS, lights at fifteen percent, please,” he requests, and a soft glow immediately illuminates the room.

Bucky looks terrible. His face is pale beneath the flush of his fever, his brow creased with pain. Even as his skin remains damp with sweat, he shivers uncontrollably.

His grip on the sheets suddenly tightens, and he arches off the bed with a sharp cry as a particularly severe spasm of pain hits.

“Bucky, please,” Steve begs as the Omega collapses, panting and shaking, back onto the mattress, teeth clamped tight around his bottom lip in a vain attempt to muffle his agonized whimpers. “Please, let me at least call Bruce. He’s not a doctor, not a real one. But he might know what’s wrong . Might know how to help.” 

Bucky doesn’t respond at first, and Steve thinks the Omega is going to refuse again. 

And Steve just — can’t. He can’t watch Bucky continue to suffer like this. If the Omega doesn’t agree to Bruce’s help, Steve doesn’t know what he’s going to do.

Finally though, finally, the Omega gives the tiniest of nods and Steve immediately asks JARVIS to contact Bruce.

“Tell him to hurry.”

It takes approximately five excruciatingly slow minutes for Bruce to meet Steve at the front of his apartment. 

The wait is made even more excruciating by Bucky’s struggling attempts to conceal his suffering — which only appears to be getting worse as the minutes drag by.

When he arrives, Bruce is carrying a nondescript duffle bag which Steve presumes holds various kinds of medical supplies.

After a hurried explanation about why he’d called, the Alpha requests that the Beta leave the duffle in the living room for now. The less the scientist comes across as doctor-like, the better Steve thinks Bucky will be able to handle the Beta’s presence.

“JARVIS gave me a brief rundown of Barnes’ vitals,” Bruce says, getting straight to the point. “Is it okay if I take a look at him?”

“Yes. Please,” Steve says, already leading the Beta down the hallway toward the bedroom.

Bucky is in much the same condition as when Steve had left to go meet Bruce at the door, except for the fact that he is no longer lying down. Instead, he has backed up to the headboard, and he bares his teeth as soon as the Beta crosses the threshold into the room.

A low growl rumbles in his throat, more a warning than a display of aggressive intent, but Bruce stops just inside the doorway anyway.

“Bucky,” Steve says, soothingly. “You remember Bruce. He just wants to help, okay? He’s not going to hurt you. I wouldn’t let him anywhere near you if I thought he’d try.”

Bruce offers a gentle, self-effacing smile. “It’s okay if you don’t trust me yet,” he says kindly. “You don’t really know me very well. But Steve’s right, I only want to help. If it makes you feel better, I’ll stay right here by the door until you tell me I can come closer, okay?”

Bucky doesn’t respond verbally, but as Steve steps forward to get closer to the Omega, thereby placing himself between Bucky and Bruce, the low growl tapers off.

“Bucky,” Bruce begins to address the Omega. “Is it alright if I call you Bucky?”

Bucky’s tense expression doesn’t alter, and he hasn’t met the Beta’s gaze, but eventually, amidst Bruce’s patient silence, he nods.

“Thank you, Bucky,” the Beta acknowledges. “I can see that you’re in a lot of pain right now. From what Steve’s told me, you've been experiencing severe abdominal cramping, along with persistent thirst, and fatigue. He also tells me that you have a high fever. Is there anything else that hurts or is causing discomfort? Or any other symptoms you are  experiencing that I haven't mentioned?”

Bucky grimaces, staring down at the bedsheets. After a moment he nods shortly, and Bruce, sensing the Omega’s reluctance to disclose the information, reminds him gently, “I’m only here to help, Bucky. But it will be a lot easier if I know what you need help with.”

Bucky chews his bottom lip, gaze darting rapidly to Steve and away again before he haltingly admits in a low voice, “It— It doesn’t...hurt...as much…” he glances at Steve again, “When you. Touch me.”

Steve sucks in a sharp breath of astonishment.

If his touch made Bucky hurt less, then why had the Omega recoiled every time Steve had attempted to soothe him?

He doesn’t get the chance to ask for any clarification before Bruce continues the conversation. 

“Okay, that’s important to know. Thank you for telling me. Did this come on suddenly or have you been enduring these symptoms over a period of time?”

“Just tonight,” Bucky responds tightly, avoiding Steve’s searching gaze.

Bruce nods, though Bucky does not glance over to see it.

“Okay, are you, or have you been producing any heat-induced discharge?”

Bucky shakes his head with a quiet, strangled sound, his eyes dropping closed as another wave of cramping overtakes him.

Bruce waits calmly, a serene presence amidst the turmoil, as the spasm passes.

“I’ve seen this before,” the Beta tells them both after the spasm ends and Bucky’s body relaxes marginally, breathing shallow but steady. Bruce doesn’t seem to be alarmed — but then, he’s very good at holding onto his calm in even the most extreme situations, and Steve tries not to wring his hands as he waits for the scientist to explain what’s going on.

“I think Bucky is experiencing what is known as Suspended Heat Syndrome. It affects a lot of Omegas who have undergone a particularly lengthy period suppressing their natural heat cycles, which we know Bucky has. All of the symptoms you both described — fatigue, cramping, fever, thirst, and skin-hunger —  all of them are characteristics of a regular heat cycle. But when they come on all at once, severely, and without the production of lubrication, that sort of manifestation points to SHS.

“While it’s severely uncomfortable, it’s not fatal,” the Beta reassures them, and Steve’s shoulders slump in relief, “and it typically doesn’t produce any lasting ill-effects. There is no cure for it, though, beyond the passage of time.”

Bucky glances sharply at the Beta with an alarmed expression, and Bruce holds up his hands.

“What I mean,” he explains calmly, “is that after undergoing long-term suppression, it can take years for the body to regain its heat-cycle equilibrium. But once you’ve allowed your body to stabilize your heat cycles, the Suspended Heat Syndrome should clear up on its own. In the meantime, a typical period of SHS will generally last for a few hours, give-or-take.

“We can mitigate the symptoms somewhat with pain-killers, rest, and sufficient hydration. But medication — outside of extreme amounts —  doesn’t really work on the fever, and the skin-hunger is really something your Alpha is best suited to help with, and what I would recommend. It would also be helpful," the Beta says delicately, "if you were to make use of Steve's calming pheromones. They can help you to relax, which in turn, can lessen the amount of pain you're in. Only if you want, of course,” the Beta adds, seeing Bucky’s apprehensive expression. “I’m sure Steve would be happy to help. But only if you agree you want that help.”

“Of course I’d help you, Buck,” Steve agrees, softly. “Whatever you need. And if you want your space, all you need to do is ask. I wouldn’t — I won’t force you.”

Bucky doesn’t respond. He stares down at the sheet clutched in his hand, fingers twisting anxiously in the fabric.

Bruce clears his throat in the silence. “I’ll let you two decide what you want to do,” he says. “You don’t need me for that. But if anything gets worse, or the symptoms last for longer than a few more hours, have JARVIS call me.”

Steve walks Bruce back to the apartment entryway and thanks the Beta sincerely for his help.

“It was nothing, Steve, really,” Bruce replies congenially. “I’m glad I could help. Or at least, in this case, let you know what was going on with him. I know Bucky’s nervous, but if you can get him to accept your touch, and — even better — some of your calming pheromones, he’ll be much better off. Those two things will ease his symptoms dramatically, and allow him to rest. And if he can sleep, he'll get through the experience much more smoothly.”

“I’ll try,” Steve says, grimly. “But it’s probably a long shot. Bucky has good days and bad days when it comes to accepting me anywhere near him, and lately he's had more bad than good. He was literally going to crawl through broken glass to get away from me earlier.”

Bruce grimaces. “I’m really sorry to hear that, Steve. It’s got to be tough — I can’t even imagine how tough — working through the amount of trauma he’s suffered. I wish you — both of you — the best of luck, for these next few hours.”

“Thank you, Bruce,” Steve says, placing a warm hand on his friend’s shoulder. “I don’t know what I’d have done without you.”

The Soldier listens half-heartedly as Steve bids the Beta — Bruce — goodbye, from the other room. 

His body succumbs to another agonizing cramp and he curls around himself, pressed against the headboard of Steve’s bed. 

As if the burning heat of his skin, the fierce cramping, and the weakened tremors aren’t awful enough, inside, his mind swirls with turmoil.

He’s afraid.

Once again he’s become a slave to the dysfunctional ruin of his Omega biology.

An Alpha can help him. Steve can help him. Can soothe the oppressive symptoms he’s suffering — blatant evidence of how broken he is.

And a part of the Soldier wants that help. Wants fervently, for Steve to touch him. To make that raw, hungry ache beneath his skin go away.

But the other part of him, the one that screams louder, doesn’t want Steve anywhere near him .

It’s that part of him that sits up and mentally bares its teeth when Steve steps back into the room.

Steve must notice the Soldier’s tension, because he holds up both hands and doesn’t move any closer. “Easy, Buck.”

He’s carrying a bottle of water in one hand, and the Soldier is instantly reminded how thirsty he still is.

Noting the direction of his gaze, Steve slowly extends the bottle. “I brought it for you,” he says, blue eyes earnest. “I know you’re really thirsty.”

The Soldier doesn’t respond, only continues to watch Steve guardedly, and Steve licks his lips, uncertain beneath the scrutiny. “I can— can I? Bring it over to you?”

The Soldier’s parched mouth longs for the water, and slowly, he nods, keeping his eyes locked on Steve’s form as the Alpha steps closer to him.

Steve moves carefully until the outstretched hand holding the bottle is within the Soldier’s reach, then pauses again as the Soldier snatches the bottle away, swallowing half of it down in a few greedy gulps. His stomach protests the influx of so much water in so short a time — his third desperate drink within the last twenty minutes — or else he would finish it off completely.

Instead, he twists the cap back on, nervously watching the Alpha who is so much closer now. Bucky can scent the Alpha, and he smells so good.

He sways, conflicted, toward Steve as another wave of cramping overtakes him, and then back again as it passes.

The pain is still intense, and he’s sunk his teeth into his lower lip once more during the wait for it to be over.

Steve watches with worried eyes, hands lifting and falling again in an aborted movement, as he barely restrains himself from touching the Soldier.

“Let me help you, Buck,” he pleads. “Let me help you get through this. Bruce said I can make it easier on you. Let me at least try.”

The Soldier grits his teeth in frustration.

He wants to.

Deep down, he craves the Alpha’s attention.

But he can’t always force himself to overcome the instinctive, Hydra-conditioned fear. Nor can he completely ignore the fact that surrendering to the Alpha will leave him excruciatingly vulnerable.

“I’m trying,” he confesses miserably. He sways again toward the Alpha and then, just as quickly, jerks himself back. A low, frustrated whine escapes his throat. “I can’t. I can’t.”

Steve watches the Soldier struggle against his own instincts, says quietly, “Are you sure it’s what you want? I need you to be sure, Buck. I need to be sure. Because from what I‘m seeing...it looks like you don’t want anything to do with me. Like you’d rather be anywhere else. And that’s okay. I understand. And I...I won’t— I can’t force you. I already did, once. When you were in heat, I took away your choice.” 

Steve’s face crumbles with remorse. “I hurt you. I know I did. Can see it in the way you barely tolerate being in the same room with me, most days. And I’m sorry. I can never apologize enough. What I did. It’s unforgivable.”

“That’s not,” the Soldier grinds out as another cramp seizes his abdomen. “You didn’t hurt me. Steve—“ he breaks off, hissing through his teeth.

“Maybe not physically,” Steve concedes solemnly, and the Soldier is too miserable to argue with him right now.

“I want it,” he forces himself to say. Chokes back his crippling apprehension. “Steve. I-I want. P-please.”

Steve dips his head, looks to be stealing himself for whatever he plans to say next.

“Okay,” he finally complies, blowing out a sharp breath. “Okay, Buck. I got an idea. I’m gonna— I want to try something. I think it’ll make things easier on you. But you gotta promise me, if you get too scared or...or if you don’t want it anymore, that you’ll tell me to stop, okay? That’s all you gotta say, ‘stop’ and I will. Can you do that? Promise me?”

The Soldier pants harshly, skin aching and feverish, and decides that whatever Steve wants to try can’t be much worse than what he’s going through right now.

Or what he’s survived in the past.

Steve has even offered him a measure of control over the situation, in case the Soldier needs an out. And, while normally, such an offer would ring hollow to him — nobody in the limited flashes of his memories has ever cared to stop before — in his core, he knows, he believes, that Steve doesn’t want to hurt him.

It is that tiny flame of faith that allows him to nod, gasping out between sharp breaths, “Okay. P-promise.”

Steve nods in return, accepting the Soldier’s consent, expression grave. “I promise too. Just say the word, Buck and I’ll stop. I swear it.”

Steve delays for a moment, letting the weight of the words settle. He moves to sit at the foot of the bed, allowing for the whole of the mattress to separate himself and the Soldier. 

Then, all at once, something shifts in his demeanor.

The Alpha straightens. Squares his shoulders.

And says, voice suddenly firm and infused with Command, “Bucky, come here.”

—

Chapter Text

★ Be Still ✪

When darkness comes upon you

And covers you with fear and shame,

Be still and know that I’m with you,

Be still and know I am.

— B. Wysocki

The Soldier’s body jolts.

For just an instant, everything outside his sudden, razor-sharp awareness of the Alpha — his Alpha — fades into the background.

His body automatically uncurls from its tense ball against the headboard, and he crawls obediently forward several paces before his brain suddenly catches up with what he’s doing and he stutters to a halt, barely halfway across the mattress.

Steve sits patiently at the foot of the bed, watching him.

“You don’t have to,” he says, voice a low rumble. His blue gaze is sharp, assessing. “But it’s what I want. You, here.”

The Soldier releases a shivery breath, nervously indecisive, as another cramp rolls through him. It leaves him panting and trembling, weak in his crouched position.

He forces himself to crawl another pace forward and then another, until he is within reach of his Alpha’s hands, large and gentle as they reach to smooth across his shuddering back.

“Good,” his Alpha commends, voice deep with satisfaction, and the Soldier shudders for an entirely different reason as the praise caresses something deep inside him.

His Alpha continues to stroke the Soldier’s trembling form, gently but firmly, and the Soldier has to force himself to stay, sinking down onto his haunches, even as the raw ache beneath his skin gradually begins to calm.

His Alpha keeps the touching limited to the expanse of the Soldier’s back and slowly, glacially, the Soldier feels the tension in his muscles begin to wane.

“Good, Bucky,” his Alpha murmurs again, and the Soldier releases a small breath realizing at the same time that his rapid panting has slowed.

But his skin still carries the heat of fever, and that crawling ache — though somewhat better — still burns raw. He whines, twisting beneath his Alpha’s hands trying to satisfy his skin’s hunger.

His Alpha suddenly removes his hands altogether and the Soldier’s eyes — having slipped closed without him even noticing — snap open. “St-Steve —”

“Shh,” Steve hushes him, that same note of command still in his voice. “Take off your shirt for me.”

The Soldier recoils, eyes widening with reflexive fear, but Steve catches his jaw before he can get any further away.

“Look at me,” he commands. His hold is gentle on the Soldier’s face, a direct contrast to the tempered steel in his voice.

The Soldier drags his gaze up to Steve’s collarbone, then further, to his cheekbone before Hydra conitioning wins out and he stops, unable to force his eyes any higher.

Frustration washes through him, sharp and desperate, because it shouldn’t be so hard for him to comply with his Alpha’s direction. He’s done it before. Even if only briefly, he has managed to meet his Alpha’s gaze.

Now, though, in the midst of everything else, the prospect seems overwhelming. He feels himself retreating back into the Asset’s mindset, and wants to curl away, to hide from the Alpha demanding his attention.

At the same time, he wants to obey. He wants his Alpha to be pleased with him. Wants the warm glow of his Alpha’s approval to wash over him. To sink into his brain and push out all of the conflicting fear that clamors through his mind, clouding his thoughts and tingeing his reactions with wary uncertainty.

“Look at me,” his Alpha repeats, more sternly, and the Soldier feels his breathing speed up, anxiety overtaking him as he fights against his conditioning, fights to give in to his Alpha’s desire.

This time, he meets Steve’s eyes for a split second, cobalt on cerulean, before he jerks his gaze away.  A cold sweat that has absolutely nothing to do with the suspended heat symptoms, breaks out over his skin.

“C’mon Buck,” Steve intones. “Give it to me. I can wait here all night, pal.”

The Soldier hisses out a sharp breath, clenching his teeth.

Finally, after repeated attempts, he locks gazes with his Alpha, body trembling with fight-or-flight adrenaline.

“That’s it,” his Alpha rumbles. “That’s it, gorgeous. Look at you.” He swipes a thumb across the Soldier’s cheekbone. “I’m proud of you, Buck. I know that was hard. But you’re doing so well. You’re so good for me.”

The praise washes through the Soldier, a gentle wave of pleasure soothing some of his anxiety.

“I’m gonna give you some calm now, okay? Help you relax a little. That something you want, sweetheart?”

The Soldier nods jerkily, pressing his chin into the Alpha’s hand still gently cradling his jaw.

The Alpha hums, a deep sonance of satisfaction. “Breathe in for me.”

The Soldier draws in a breath, steady as he can manage, and feels his Alpha’s calming pheromones flood into his system, reaching deep, instantly compelling his taut muscles to relax. The agonizing cramping in his abdomen eases substantially, lessening to a mild discomfort,  barely there at all.

The relief of being able to draw breath near-painlessly to — rest after battling the overwhelming desire to crawl out of his fevered, aching body sweeps through him, and the Soldier feels reflexive tears spring to his eyes, dampening his lashes.

Steve swipes the few escaping tears away, still looking directly into the Soldier’s now-unfocused eyes.

“Okay, Buck? Feeling any better?”

“S’good Stevie...” the Soldier slurs, tongue thick and heavy in his mouth. His eyes flutter closed as he sinks into the formulated calm and allows himself to float there, his mind for once, placid and quiet.

His Alpha releases him gently, allowing him to slump forward, brow pressed languidly against Steve’s t-shirt-covered shoulder.

The Alpha runs a steady hand down his back, allowing the Soldier to rest against him.

Something about the sensation irritates him, faint and easy to ignore, at first, but steadily growing more aggravating.

“M’hot,” he says after a moment, beginning to squirm away. Steve’s hand clamps down firmly on the back of his neck, keeping him in place, and the Soldier swallows down a whimper.

He can feel himself getting more worked-up, skin starting to crawl again.

“St-Steve,” he whines. “It. Hurts. My skin—" 

His Alpha slides a hand up, slipping his fingers through the dark strands of the Soldier’s hair, and cradles his skull, fingers brushing against delicate skin. “Do you want me to stop?” His voice is low, measured, as he lightly drags his nails across the Soldier’s scalp.

The Soldier shivers, realizing suddenly that Steve stopping is the last thing he wants.

“No,” he says fervently. “I want... More, Stevie. Please. I-it hurts. Without you.

The Alpha turns his head, pressing an affectionate kiss against the Soldier’s temple.

“I’ve got you, Buck,” he murmurs, working his other hand beneath the Soldier’s shirt, dragging it up the ridge of his spine in a firm sweep.

The Soldier’s breath catches in his throat and he presses more insistently into the embrace.

“Wait a sec, Buck,” Steve admonishes, tugging at the Soldier’s shirt. “Lemme get this off you.”  

But the Soldier is too desperate to stay still. Every place where the Alpha‘s hands brush his body — skin to skin — leaves behind a trail of cool relief. The contact soothes the hungry itch beneath his skin, and he wants — needs — more.

“Be still,” his Alpha commands when the Soldier’s squirming continues to hinder his efforts.  

The Soldier freezes, instantly compliant, and the Alpha is able to slip the abrasive fabric over his head.

“Good,” the Alpha commends, at last able to run his fingers across the Soldier’s bare skin.

A small groan works its way out of the Soldier’s mouth at the touch, and his Alpha hums in approval.

Slowly, the Alpha inches them down against the mattress until the Soldier is sprawled bonelessly across Steve’s chest, legs entangled, and soaking in the hypnotic sensation of his Alpha’s fingers, bare skin brushing rhythmically against his own.

He breathes deeply for what seems like the first time in hours, head tucked into the crook of his Alpha’s neck, each breath allowing him to imbibe the unique scent that is Steve’s alone.

His skin slowly begins to calm, the raw burn of it cooled in steady increments with each stroke of his Alpha’s hands.

The fatigue he’s been fighting suddenly crashes over him, an overwhelming tidal wave.

“M’tired,” he mumbles, low and sleepy.

Steve brushes a gentle hand through the Soldier’s hair. “Sleep then,” he murmurs. The vibrations of his voice rumble pleasantly through the Soldier’s chest, pressed tight as it is against his Alpha’s own.

“I got you, Buck. Go ahead and sleep.”

The Soldier sleeps.

Steve opens eyes to the soft light of dawn and the unique sensation of eyes upon him. He blinks blurrily and then tilts his head to the side to find Bucky watching him. The Omega drops his gaze before Steve can meet it, the dark fringe of his lashes in gorgeous contrast to the pale complexion of his cheeks.

“Hey, Buck,” Steve murmurs, voice low from sleep. “How’re you feeling?”

The Omega shifts where he lies on his side, but doesn't make any attempt to sit up.

“Better,” he murmurs. “Thank you. For helping me.” He seems strangely subdued, as if he feels guilty about accepting Steve’s help.

“‘Course Bucky,” Steve responds automatically. “You don’t have to thank me. You’re my best friend. I’ll always help you. Whatever you need.”

As reassuring as Steve means to be, going by the Omega’s expression, the words only seem to make Bucky feel even more guilty.

“I don’t— I’m not.”   He shakes his head, eyes still averted. “I’m not him. I’m sorry. I know you want him back. But. I don’t remember. I can’t be him for you. Can’t be what you want.”

Steve’s first instinct is to tell him that he is Bucky. That Steve already has him back, even if he’s not exactly the same as he was. But Steve’s already said it before and it’s apparent that Bucky still doesn’t believe it.

So he says instead, “I don’t care,” which is also true. Bucky is startled enough to break his staring contest with the mattress below them. His gaze darts up to take in Steve’s expression, eyes slightly widened. “I want you,” Steve continues. “Whether you remember or not, whoever you are. That’s who I want.”

Steve reaches out a hand, to touch or to soothe, but Bucky flinches back ever so slightly, and the Alpha drops his hand before it ever reaches him.

“Sorry,” Bucky apologizes miserably. “I’m sorry. You can touch me.”

“I don’t want to,” Steve says, grimly. “Not when you don’t want it. Don’t let me force you, Buck. That’s not right.”

Bucky’s eyes slip closed. “I do want it,” he says quietly. “I— like it. When you touch me. Most of the time, it feels really good.” He darts an endearingly shy glance over Steve’s features, biting his lip nervously before he continues.

“Nobody ever touched me like you do. I— forget sometimes. I expect it to hurt. They. Hurt me. A lot. When I was bad. Or when I didn’t react fast enough, or said the wrong thing.” He pauses, lashes fluttering, fingers twisting in the sheet, and Steve recognizes the symptoms of a seizure for the first time as it’s happening.

Bucky picks up only seconds later, continuing, “Sometimes I didn’t know what I’d done wrong. Why I needed the corrective discipline. It was hard to anticipate when it was coming.”

Steve swallows his fury. Chokes out, bitterly,“I’m sorry, Buck. That’s. I can’t even imagine how horrible that must have been for you.”

Bucky shakes his head. “That’s not why I’m telling you,” he says. “I’m not— I don’t want you to feel...sorry...for me. To feel bad. I’m...I’m trying to make you feel better.”

Steve tries not to show his confusion, because in what way is hearing about Hydra’s callously cruel treatment supposed to make him feel better?

But Bucky explains. “I’m trying to tell you. It’s not about you. It’s—It’s me. I can’t always separate good touch from bad touch. I have to remember that it doesn’t hurt when you touch me. That you’re not trying to hurt me.”

“I never want to hurt you, Bucky. Not ever,” Steve promises.

“I know.” Bucky takes a shaky breath. “I know that. So if you could, maybe just... Give me a second. To acclimate. I can. I like it when you touch me. So. I can remind myself. That it’s okay.”

Steve feels his heart melt at the earnest candor in Bucky’s words.

“Yeah, Buck,” he breathes. “I can do that. Can I— Is it okay if I touch you now?”

Bucky gives a tiny nod, and Steve raises his hand again, gently brushing the Omega’s dark hair  from in front of his eyes.

Bucky lets out a tremulous sigh as tension Steve didn’t realize he’d been carrying releases from the Omega’s body and his eyes slip closed.

“You didn’t hurt me before, either,” Bucky mumbles.

Steve makes an inquiring noise, brushing his fingers through the Omega’s hair, across his scalp, over the back of his neck.

“When I was in heat,” Bucky explains. Steve freezes abruptly, feeling suddenly as if he shouldn’t be so close to the Omega, in his space, touching him at all.  Especially while discussing what Steve had done.

Bucky makes a small sound of protest, scooting slightly forward, tilting his head further into Steve’s unmoving hand, and Steve forces himself to continue the gentle motion.

“Bucky, I forced you—“

“You didn’t hurt me.” Bucky’s eyes flash at him and it’s the first time he’s been so forceful with Steve outside of the influence of heat-induced fervor.

“I was— scared. I didn’t know what was going on — Hydra didn’t let me have heats. I thought I was malfunctioning. I think I was dying, Steve.” He flicks his eyes up, catches Steve’s agonized expression. “I was, wasn’t I.”

Steve nods. “Yeah, Buck,” he affirms, strangled. “You were.”

Bucky flicks his gaze away. “But you were there. You helped me. Gave me food, a shower. Warm water. Not a freezing cold pressure hose. You made the pain go away instead of making it worse. You were... kind. I didn’t understand how you could be kind. Barely even knew what kindness was. So. So stop trying to tell me that what you did was wrong. I don’t...I can’t remember much, about being human. Being normal. I know I’m— broken. But I also know...what you did, it wasn’t hurting me. It wasn’t bad.”

Steve swallows his instinctive desire to protest, and instead remains quiet as he continues to run his fingers through Bucky’s hair, thinking about what the Omega has said.

After a few long moments he surrenders, deciding to accept what Bucky is trying to tell him. Bucky isn’t lying to him. He’s being as honest as he can, trying to make Steve understand things from his perspective.

It would be extremely unkind to tell the Omega that his feelings are wrong. To contradict everything Bucky has professed, just because Steve feels guilty about the way things had happened.

Hasn’t Steve been telling Bucky that he wants him to have his own choices? So why should Steve try to force his own opinion on the Omega? He has no right to dictate how Bucky’s should or shouldn’t feel.

“Thank you, Buck,” Steve relents. “For telling me. I’m so— It’s a relief to know that you don’t feel that I hurt you that way.”

Bucky lets out a breathy sigh, as if he’d been waiting for Steve’s response, and is relieved by what he’s heard.

But then he grumbles, face buried halfway into the space between the mattress and Steve’s shoulder, “Be nice to hear that you don’t feel that way either, punk.”

Steve can’t help the besotted grin that spreads across his face. That’s his Bucky right there, coming through loud and clear.

“I’ll work on it,” he promises, ducking down to press his lips to the crown of his best friend’s head.

They move into the kitchen not long after that, and Steve prepares them a light breakfast, all the while trying to smother the goofy smile that keeps breaking across his face whenever he looks over at Bucky, seated at the island countertop, watching him right back.

Later, Steve goes on his run with Sam. He flies past the other man, full of vibrant energy. The world seems brighter this morning, full of potential, and Steve feels incandescent with the possibilities.

He doesn’t realize he’s been grinning basically non-stop until Sam flat out asks during a short break for water, “Things going well with Barnes?”

Steve doesn’t answer, only cheerfully guzzles down his water before taking off again, leaving Sam swearing behind him and fighting to keep up. But Steve can’t keep the wide grin off for long, even then.

—

Chapter Text

★ Not In That Way ✪

‘ I’d never ask you, ‘cause deep down,

I’m certain I know what you’d say...’

— S. Smith

"Three, t-two, five, five….s-seven, zero…”

Bucky shivers fiercely, teeth chattering as he wearily rattles off his name, rank, and serial number, voice low and horse. The cement of his cell is frigid, unforgiving against his naked flesh.

He’s so tired.

His captors haven’t allowed him to him sleep in days. Even as his body throbs with the pain of his most recent beating, and his belly screams for food, his parched mouth for water, he can barely keep his eyes open. Only the knowledge that closing them will result in his captors continued administration of torture keeps him fighting to stay awake.

“J-James...Buchanan Barnes. Sergeant. Three, two, f-five, five — ”

His repetitive murmuring is suddenly cut off by the sharp grating clang of the metal door beyond his cell being unlocked and then shoved open.

Three guards enter the room beyond his cell, one with a rifle steady in his grip, the other two empty-handed — ready to grab him as soon as they open the door.

Bucky shuffles back as far as he can from the barred entrance of his cramped prison and the men coming for him. It’s extremely difficult, his half-frozen muscles protest the movement, pain shoots through the rest of his body, and the stump of his missing arm throbs as he unconsciously tries to get his left arm to help support his weight.

His feeble attempt at retreat makes no difference to the guards, warmly clothed, well-fed and strong. They stride into his cell reaching for Bucky’s upper arms and hauling him roughly to his feet, bare and unsteady against the cement.

Bucky struggles on principal — he won’t give in to these evil bastards. He’s not going to make it easy for them. He’ll fight as long as he’s able, until the day Steve comes for him.  

The guards holding him tighten their grips around his bruised flesh and the guard with the gun cocks it warningly, but Bucky knows they won’t shoot him.

Not that they haven’t in the past.

But he’s heard pieces of conversations here and there over the last couple of days. The small bits of information that he’s been able to pick up between the torment of sleep deprivation and regular beatings, let him know that they’re planning something new for him today. Something they want him to be relatively unspoilt for.

So they won’t shoot him. Not now, at least.

The guards drag him into the room where the scientists routinely conduct experiments on him.

There are more guards already in the room, along with an array of scientists — more than have been present for any former experiment Bucky has undergone thus far —  and all watching him intently, as if they’ve gathered together specifically to witness whatever is about to happen next.

But Bucky’s eyes slide past the guards, the scientists, the metal table where they strap him down for ‘procedures’, and the various instruments they use to do things like flay strips of skin from his body, or break his bones in a ‘controlled’ manner, or cut into his flesh for ‘surgical exploration’.  

These horrors are well known; unremarkable.

Instead, his eyes latch onto the new contraption sitting on the far side of the room. Just the sight of it, with its manacles and metal appendages that jut out at different angles, makes his stomach clench with fear, his naked skin break out in a cold sweat. He knows, instinctively, that this thing, whatever it is, is meant to undo him.

He fights. Immediately. Instinctively.

Whatever energy lingers in his body bursts from him in an adrenaline-fueled rush.

He jerks free from the guards’ hands, an animal-like roar ripping from his abused throat. His right elbow jams into one of the guards’ solar plexus as he twists away, the heel of the same hand shooting up to slam into the nose of the other guard, breaking it with a satisfying crack, causing the guard to shriek in pain as blood begins to pour down his face.

Other guards rush to subdue him, but it’s the sound of a voice — that voice — that causes him to involuntarily freeze with deeply-ingrained terror.  

“Enough!”

A short, bespeckled man steps into Bucky’s line of sight just as the guards regain their hold on him, forcing him roughly to his knees.  

“Sergeant Barnes,” Arnim Zola says, words heavily accented with German inflection, “While your spirit is admirable, it is, in the end, both unnecessary and counterproductive to what we’re trying to accomplish here.”

Despite the man’s words, he looks inordinately pleased, even as Bucky gathers up the scraps of his courage to glare up at the scientist.

“You are to be the new fist of Hydra, Sergeant,” Zola says, looking down at Bucky with a fond smile.

“No way in fucking hell,” Bucky sneers through clenched teeth.

Zola tilts his head, still with that unnerving smile curving his lips. “You fight so hard against us,” the scientists says, “When all we are trying to do is make you better . We will make you great, a thing of true beauty. You will be unstoppable. Not even Captain America would be able to stand against you. Ahh! I see that name has awoken something inside you. Your eyes have lit up!”

“You’re a fool if you think that I would ever fight against Captain America,” Bucky snarls, fighting to keep the intense longing he feels when he thinks about Steve — his Steve — from showing so openly on his face.

Steve is coming for him, Bucky reminds himself. He would never leave Bucky in the hands of Hydra. No matter that it’s been days, weeks even. Steve would never abandon him. Bucky knows this.

Zola’s smile turns indulgent. “Whether you would or would not is of little matter.” He brings his hands around from where they’ve been resting behind his back, dropping two news articles onto the ground before Bucky’s kneeling form. “Though I suppose we will never find out.”

Zola‘s voice goes distant as Bucky takes in the headlines splayed out across the pages in front of him.

“Rogers Disappears,” reads the first headline. It’s dated only days after the day Bucky fell from the train.

The second headline is dated fairly recently, assuming Bucky’s grip on the amount of time he’s been held prisoner is accurate. It states, “Captain America: A Hero Who Will Never Be Forgotten.”

Beneath the title, a portion of narrative reads, “Captain America has officially been declared dead after multiple failed Stark-funded attempts to retrieve the Captain from the depths of the Arctic Ocean where, weeks ago, the hero purposely crashed his plane in order to prevent the deaths of thousands.”

Bucky hears himself make a broken sound, and then another, louder, rips from his throat, dragged up from his very core. “No," he gasps, voice wrecked. “Nonononono. Steve!”

Grief seizes his heart, a sharp sensation as if it’s suddenly cracked in two, and tears spill freely down his face unchecked, as anguished sobs are rent from his body. “Not Steve,” he pleads. “Not my Stevie.”

“Your grief is strong, mein kreiger, ” Zola states watching Bucky closely, a gleam in his eye. “Indeed it is a great loss. But you do not have to suffer. I can take away your pain. You will not ever have to experience this feeling again.”

Bucky looks up at the scientist, vision blurred with his tears, and realizes with a sudden bolt of clarity that this is it. This is where he gives up. This is the point where he breaks. “Please,” he begs. “Please. Kill me. Make it stop.”

Zola snaps his fingers and the guards pull Bucky to his feet, dragging him unsteadily over to the machine that before, had only filled Bucky with terror. Now though, as they push him down into the seat, he feels empty.

His brain is quiet — done with fighting — as the guards fasten the manacles around his one arm and around his ankles. As they attach electrodes to his temples, and push a rubber bit between his teeth. He sinks pliantly into the seat, tears still streaming steadily from his eyes, even as his expression has gone vacant.  

The scientists who, up until now, have kept their distance, close in around the contraption where Bucky sits, faces enraptured.

“Now, mein kleiner Soldat,” Zola says soothingly, fingers caressing a switch from one of the machines where the electrodes are connected. “Now we shall make all the pain go away. Now is when you begin to become magnificent.”

His fingers flip the switch and the hum of electricity rises to fill the air.

Fire sears into Bucky’s brain.

He screams.

—

The Soldier jerks awake, a scream caught in his throat, unuttered, as he shoves himself upright. His body trembles, skin covered in a cold sweat. A single sob breaks free from his rigid control, escaping his mouth with a sharp burst of sound.

God, he’d forgotten. The pain of losing Steve. The agony of knowing he’d never see him again. That he was gone, completely ripped from his life.

He’d forgotten that. But not anymore.

The grief he’d felt that day, decades ago, stabs fresh and agonizing through the Soldier’s chest.

No.

Not the Soldier.

This grief — he realizes with sudden, sharp clarity — this agony, is his grief. Bucky’s grief.

It is the power of this anguish that succeeded in finally breaking him decades ago, where so many of Hydra’s methods of torture had failed.

Which means he’s not just the Soldier. Some part of him — of Bucky — survived.  A part, he now understands, that Steve has seen all along.

The thought of Steve brings with it another wave of heartache. He clenches his hands into tight fists, fighting to push the overwhelming surge of emotion down into something he can gain some measure of control over.

Steve isn’t dead, he reminds himself. He isn’t dead. He’s right down the hall, sleeping soundly in his bed.

But Bucky can’t find any comfort in the knowledge.  

He struggles with the conflicting urges of whether to let Steve continue sleeping undisturbed, or to wake him.

Wake him and take advantage of his best friend’s current willingness to care for Bucky by wrapping himself into the Alpha’s embrace and staying there for as long as Steve will let him.

In the end he decides to try for something between the two. Silently he slips down the hall and enters Steve’s bedroom.

The Alpha is sleeping soundly. His golden hair glints in a moonbeam that spills, silvery pale across his pillow. He lies on his side, facing Bucky, allowing the Omega to take in his features, relaxed and peaceful in repose.

For a long moment, Bucky simply stands in the room’s entryway, barely two steps across the threshold, and drinks in the sight of his best friend, alive and well, and completely unaware of the shuddering mess of former assassin standing there staring at him.

Bucky struggles to steady his breathing, eventually sinking down until he sits, knees curled to his chest, at eye-level with his sleeping friend.

Errant tears spill from his eyes, and he brings his forearm up to scrub the moisture away every so often until, finally, the grief settles. It sits heavily in his chest, an ache dulled by memory, rather than the raw agony of a fresh wound.

He’s exhausted, drained by the emotional upheaval. Even so, he has no desire to return to his own bed, cold and empty, and certain to lack the comforting susurrus of Steve’s deep, even breathing.

Instead, he scoots closer to Steve’s bed, stopping when he’s within arms-reach of the sleeping Alpha. He’s just moving to rest his head against his forearms, draped across his knees, when Steve’s nostrils suddenly flare and his eyes snap open.

Steve’s gaze, bright blue and piercing, latches instantly onto Bucky and the Omega freezes,  feeling foolish and intrusive.

“Bucky.”

Steve’s voice is deep, gravelly with sleep.

“Sorry,” Bucky apologizes instantly, feeling himself flush under the intensity of that gaze. “I didn’t mean to wake you. I had a— I’m really sorry.”

Steve sighs, sleepily serene, his lashes lowering to half-mast as he reaches out a hand. “C’mere.”

Bucky hesitates, unsure, but Steve’s hand never wavers, his gaze never shifts and Bucky can’t resist sliding his flesh hand into the solid warmth of the Alpha’s grip.

Steve’s fingers close firmly around Bucky’s hand, and he tugs Bucky forward, gently insistent, until Bucky climbs onto the mattress beside him.

With the same gentle insistence, Steve maneuvers Bucky onto his side, sliding up behind him and wrapping him in a warm embrace.

“Sleep,” the Alpha slurs, tucking his forehead into the dip between Bucky’s shoulders, and Bucky relaxes .

His body surrenders easily, and his eyes slide closed as he drifts effortlessly into a dreamless sleep.

Steve stands on the outer perimeter of the training room, watching Bucky in motion.

Lately, little by little, the Omega has been coming out of his shell. Though he still sticks close to Steve, he’s becoming more engaged with the other Avengers every day.

Now, it’s not entirely uncommon to find him attending a movie-night here and there, or slithering through the ventilation shafts with Clint, or — even as he is now — participating in a sparring match.

At present, he’s absorbed in sparring with both Natasha and Clint and Steve finds himself captivated by the way he moves between and around the other two assassins. The former Hydra operative embodies graceful efficiency, combining maximum proficiency with a minimum amount of effort, and Steve aches to capture it on paper.

It’s obvious that the Omega is play-fighting as he engages the two Avengers in a low-intensity skirmish that looks both fun and just-shy of dangerous. Even so, neither Natasha nor Clint has been able to gain the upper hand.

Steve is so absorbed with the beauty of the fight that he doesn’t realize that Tony has come up beside him until the Omega engineer asks, bluntly: “Have you told him yet?”

Steve shoots the genius a questioning glance, noticing that while Tony looks tired, he also — thankfully — seems to be much less conflicted than he’s been the last few times Steve’s seen him.

“Told who, what?”

Tony rolls his eyes. “ Barnes . That you’re in love with him . Obviously.”

Steve feels his heart slam against his chest in sharp alarm as he darts a look over at his best friend. Bucky — fortunately— is still preoccupied with Clint and Natasha, and hadn’t heard what Tony said.

“No,” he says lowly, keeping a watchful eye on his best friend, still worried that he could overhear the conversation. “I haven’t, and I’m not planning to.”

Bucky looks completely focused on what he is doing. Never falters a step, but Steve keeps his voice low regardless; a low murmur, barely above a whisper. “He’s recovering right now, Tony. I don’t want him to have to deal with trying not to hurt my feelings on top of everything else he’s working through.”

Tony shoots Steve an incredulous look. “The hell are you talking about, Steve?” he asks, voice now just as low as Steve’s, but infused with the same level of incredulity despite the lack of volume.

“I’ve never seen you interact with anyone the way you do with Barnes. And he sure as hell doesn’t look at anyone else the way he looks at you. It’s like I’m in a freaking romance novel, whenever the two of you are around. Don’t insult my genius by trying to tell me there’s nothing between you two but friendship.”

Steve hardens his jaw. “There isn’t anything between us besides friendship.”

Tony scoffs. “Right. And Hadrian and Antinous were simply good buddies, too.”

Steve struggles not to scowl. “I don’t understand that reference, but I’d appreciate it if you kept your opinion about whatever you think Bucky and I are or aren’t , to yourself. Bucky’s not...”

Steve falters, dropping his gaze. “He’s never felt that way about me, okay?” he admits softly. “I helped him through his heats, yes. But that’s because it was necessary. He understands that — thank God — isn’t angry about...about what I did.” Steve swipes a hand anxiously through his hair. “But now...he’s trying to piece himself together. To remember who he was, and decide who he wants to be, and I just... I don’t want to push him into something he might agree to for my sake, only for him to realize later that he doesn’t want that — never has — and then feel guilty about it. He’s getting better. But he’s still vulnerable. I’m not going to influence who he’s deciding to become with my own selfishness."

Tony stands unusually quiet in the wake of Steve’s confession, expression solemn. After a moment, though, he pipes back up.

“I still think you’re wrong,” he says. “If you could see the way the two of you are together… But that’s not actually why I came down here. And contrary to popular belief, I can bow out of a disagreement without turning it into a full-blown argument. So, about your murder-lamb’s arm..."

“Tony,” Steve sighs, tiredly.

“ What ?” Tony widens his eyes theatrically, raising his brows, and adopting an innocent expression. “I give nicknames to all the strays I’ve decided to adopt into my life. You already know this about me, Romeo.”

“It’s a horrible nickname,” Steve responds flatly. “Don’t call him that, Tony, it’s awful.”

Tony flaps a hand rolling his eyes. “Fine, fine, I’ll come up with something else, now stop sidetracking me, Fitzwilliam.”

Steve frowns in exasperation, because that reference he understands, but Tony is already chattering on, and Steve knows that the Omega really is trying to be helpful in his roundabout way. Which is more than Steve should expect, given what he knows about the deaths of Howard and Maria Stark.

“I’ve been going over the designs of your boyfr— of Barnes’ prosthetic,” Tony announces, briskly, “and I’m pretty sure I’ve reached the point where I can offer some monumentally superior upgrades to Hydra’s shity tech.” The Omega sniffs dismissively. “Actually, I’m more than ‘pretty sure’. I’m positive. So. Find out if that’s something he wants, and let me know if and when you’re ready to head down to the workshop. From what I’ve seen, I can at least upgrade how he processes sensation. That arm doesn’t offer much in the way of, you know, being human .”

“Thank you, Tony,” Steve says sincerely, reaching out to clasp Tony’s shoulder. “You didn’t have to do this. I know your time is valuable — not to mention the tremendous costs of your engineering expertise. It’s more than generous.”

Tony shrugs uncomfortably. “Sure Cap, what’s mine is yours and all that jazz. Anyway, you might wanna take your hand off my arm. I’m getting some pretty dubious laser eyes from your BFF.”

Steve glances over to see that Bucky’s sparring match has wrapped up, and that the other Omega’s attention is now intently focused on Tony and him.

He can’t read the expression on Bucky’s face. He realizes, with surprise, it’s one he’s never seen before.

When Steve fails to remove his hand quickly enough, Tony pulls out of the super soldiers grasp, taking a small step backward. “Your gratitude is giving me hives, Cap,” he says at a normal volume, no longer lowering his voice for the sake of privacy. “I’ll see you later. Don’t forget to let me know if you wanna come by.”

Tony leaves the training room after that, and with him gone, Bucky approaches slowly —  still with that inscrutable expression on his face, though it’s not as strong now that Tony is gone.

Steve wonders if maybe Tony makes the Omega nervous. Bucky has always kept his distance whenever Tony is around, and Steve knows he feels guilty about the other Omega’s parents. But he’s never seen Bucky react quite this way before.

When Bucky’s crossed the room, he plucks a small hand towel from the stack of clean ones piled on the bench behind where Steve is standing. “Come by for what?” he asks, as he swipes over his face, barely damp with sweat, and then reaches for his water bottle.

“Tony wanted me to talk to you about...something...”

Bucky takes a healthy swallow of his water and Steve trails off, mouth going dry as he watches the Omega’s throat work.

“So talk,” Bucky says, capping his water bottle. This time, Steve recognizes the expression on his friend’s face as wary .

“We should uh...” Steve stumbles, trying to bring his brain back online. What was he going to tell Bucky? “Maybe talk about it. In private?”

“Okay,” Bucky agrees slowly. “Let’s go back to the apartment, then. I need a shower anyway.”

Steve agrees, refusing to dwell on the image the thought of his best friend in the shower conjures.

--

Chapter Text

✪★ Futile Devices ★✪

'And I would say 'I love you'

But saying it out loud

Is hard

So I won't say it at all.

— S. Stevens

“It’s about your arm,” Steve begins tentatively, after Bucky’s done showering.

They’re seated, facing each other, on the living room couch.

Bucky’s hair dries in soft waves about his face, the pleasant aroma of his shampoo wafting through the air.

He doesn’t respond, but his left hand curls in response to Steve’s admission. The plates shift,  metal glinting silvery-gold in the late afternoon light streaming through the large glass windows.

Steve takes a breath, unsure of how Bucky will react to the offer, but completely sure that he deserves the right to choose, either way. “Tony’s been studying the designs, and he’s offered to take a look at it. But only if you want. He thinks he can make some improvements.”

Bucky glances down at his prosthetic.

“Improvements?” He asks quietly. “What does that mean, exactly?

“I’m not entirely sure,” Steve admits. “But I can tell you that Tony is one of the best engineers in the world. If he says he can make the arm work better for you, he definitely can.”

Bucky doesn’t respond right away, and Steve works to reassure his friend. “It’s entirely your choice, Bucky. I hope you know that. Nobody’s gonna do anything you don’t agree to.”

Bucky nods, a small dip of his head that causes the dark strands of his hair to fall across his face. “I...,” he begins tentatively, “Can I...think about it?”  

“‘Course, Buck,” Steve agrees automatically. “Of course you can. Take all the time you need.”

Bucky shoots him a tiny, relieved smile, and that’s the end of the conversation.

Later though, when they’re preparing to go to sleep, Bucky says, “I’ll let him look at it — the arm. Stark can look at it, if he wants to.”

They’re lying side by side on Steve’s bed, something they’ve recently discovered as beneficial for both of them, and as the Alpha tilts his head to measure Bucky’s expression, he is struck, not for the first time, with a sense of pure joy at seeing the Omega resting perfectly relaxed beside him.

Sharing a bed in this century is somewhat of a new experience for them. They’d shared a bed in the past, both in Brooklyn and during the war, but now, as new facets have been introduced into their relationship, the experience is markedly different from what it once was. That their dynamics are clearly manifest — where they weren’t before — plays a large part in engendering that difference.

Despite such changes, though, they’ve come to the realization that they both sleep better when they are together, and so now sleep beside each other whenever they can manage it.

Steve is more than happy to play a part in allowing Bucky the simple comfort of a good night's sleep.

“I’m glad, Buck,” he says, pulling his thoughts back into the conversation. “I think it’s a good idea, to let Tony familiarize himself with your arm. It’ll be good to know that if anything ever goes wrong with it, he’ll be able to help you out.”   

“Yes,” Bucky agrees softly. The conversation lulls, and Steve is just about to close his eyes when Bucky says, tentatively, “Steve?”

Steve turns on his side to face the Omega, hearing the trepidation in his friend’s voice. “What is it, Buck?”

Bucky glances at Steve from the corner of his eye, but doesn’t turn to face him. He stares up at the dark ceiling, biting into his bottom lip.

“Would you...would it be okay if…” He takes a breath and then finishes quietly. “Would you come with me?”

“Yeah, Buck,” Steve agrees, immediately. “I’ll come with you. Was gonna ask if I could anyway.”  

Bucky lets out a soft sigh of relief, finally turning on his side to face Steve. “Thanks, Stevie.”

They head down to the lab the next day. Bucky seems nervous, skittish. And Steve tries to reassure him. Says, as they’re riding down in the elevator, “You don’t have to do this, you know.”

Bucky nods tightly, jaw clenched.

Steve watches the Omega, unsure whether touching him would be welcome at the moment. In the end, he decides to keep his hands to himself, saying instead, “I’m right here, Buck. I’m not going anywhere. And if you change your mind, if you want to leave, we’ll leave. You only have to say the word.”

The elevator doors slide open on the entrance of Tony’s workshop, and Bucky steps resolutely from the car, preventing Steve from saying anything more.

A bare table sits in the middle of the workshop, a chair on either side, and it’s obvious that it’s been cleared for Tony to work on Bucky’s arm. A rolling tray stands next to the table, various tools laid atop its smooth, metallic surface.

Tony, himself, sits farther away, fiddling around with some component or other, glancing over at both super soldiers as they enter. The background music he generally keeps blaring at an obnoxious level is noticeably absent, and Steve gets the feeling that the Omega engineer is less relaxed than his easy posture implies.

“Go ahead and have a seat,” Tony says nonchalantly, waving a careless hand toward the set-up in the middle of the room. “Steve, feel free to grab a chair too, if you wanna sit next to your BFF.“

Steve watches as Bucky strides, tight-lipped, and determined toward the table, seating himself decisively.

The Omega is pale, and a fine sheen of sweat has begun to bead across his forehead, but he stays there, quiet and motionless as Tony approaches.

Steve observes, and a feeling of unease begins to prickle in the back of his mind, even as Tony takes his own seat on the other side of the table and asks Bucky to stretch his metal arm across its surface so that he can take a closer look.

Bucky responds almost mechanically, and Tony picks up a long, narrow tool that looks something like a hand-held metal detector and switches it on.

The tool emits a low hum as it powers up and Bucky flinches at the sound, flesh hand clenching tight around one arm of his chair.

Tony moves the tool carefully in a slow path around Bucky’s metal arm and Steve realizes, as a picture begins to formulate mid-air above the table, that the engineer is taking a scan.

Tony sets the scanner aside once the image is complete, and grabs another tool, something like a power drill but with a much smaller end, capable of loosening the tiniest of screws.

“Gonna open up the arm, now,” he tells Bucky, who remains silent, metal arm immobile, perfectly frozen in the position where Tony had last maneuvered it.

Tony flicks a questioning glance up at Steve, who furrows his brow, but offers a slight nod, unsure of what else to do in the face of Bucky’s obvious discomfort but carry on and get the process over with as quickly as possible.

Tony revs the drill, checking it’s direction of rotation.

The tool emits a high-pitched whirr and that’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

Bucky rears out of his chair, lightening-fast, sending it crashing to the floor. The sound is explosively loud in the relative quiet of the workshop, and Bucky flinches reflexively, freezing mid-retreat, wild-eyed and vibrating with terror.

Tony watches the other Omega, wide-eyed himself, and motionless behind his work table.

Bucky’s chest shudders violently with the force of his jagged breathing. He clenches his metal fist, the silvery plates of the arm whirring as they recalibrate restlessly.

“Bucky.” Steve takes a cautious step toward the  panic-stricken Omega, hands raised, and Bucky zeroes in on the movement. “It’s okay Buck. You’re okay. You’re safe.”

Bucky’s lashes flutter, eyes going distant as his jaw begins to grind, and Steve recognizes the signs of a seizure as it plays out in front of him.

If he wasn’t sure before, now he’s positive that the seizures are triggered by high levels of emotional stress.

He needs to calm Bucky down.

Tony catches Steve’s eye, gesturing to his own neck and wrists — areas of the body where pheromones emanate more strongly than in others — and Steve realizes that the Omega engineer is telling him to use his calming pheromones.

But Bucky and he haven’t really discussed how the Omega feels about Steve using his pheromones on him. And without permission, Steve is loath to use them unless it becomes absolutely necessary.

Instead, Steve shuffles forward a small step, taking reluctant advantage of the fact that Bucky appears to have checked out and is no longer focusing on the Alpha with wary intensity.

“Bucky, hey Buck,” he croons, “C’mon buddy. It’s me. It’s Steve. I’m here. I’m with you.”

Bucky shudders again, but after a long moment his eyes regain some of the focus they’d lost, and he recenters his attention on Steve, responding to the Alpha’s voice.

“S-Steve,” he croaks, voice small.

“That’s right, Bucky. M’right here. S’okay, you’re safe.”

—

Bucky blinks, abruptly returning to himself. The sounds, scents, and colors around him rush suddenly back into his awareness.

“Steve,” Bucky says again, fixing his gaze on the Alpha.

Steve stands only a few steps away, blue eyes worriedly earnest. His hands are halfway risen in the air between them and he looks to be holding himself back with effort. Keeping himself from touching Bucky, from moving any father into his space.

“You with me, pal?”

Bucky takes a shaky breath, running a nervous hand through his hair.

“Yeah,” he rasps. “Yes, I’m—“ He glances over to the chair he’d been sitting on, toppled onto its side, and then at the other Omega, watching him warily from behind the work table where he’d been providing maintenance to the arm.

No. Not maintenance. He’d been trying to improve the arm. To make it better for Bucky. And Bucky had gone and screwed it all up with a goddamned panic attack. “Sorry,” he says both to the engineer and to Steve. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to...“ he snaps his mouth shut, swallows down the words.

Because they don’t need his excuses.

Hydra had no patience for his apologies, and even though he knows — he knows, okay? — that he’s no longer with them, it’s hard to break away from the ingrained conditioning that tells him to ‘shut the fuck up!”

“Bucky, no,” Steve says, predictably. “It wasn’t your fault. You don’t have to apologize.”

Bucky doesn’t respond. Wearily, he drags a hand across his eyes, feeling suddenly exhausted.

“He’s right,” Stark unexpectedly speaks up. “You don’t have to apologize. I should have realized you’d be twitchy. And it might have been helpful if I’d explained what I was planning to do.”

Stark splays his hands in a sort of shrug. “If you wanna come back over here, we can give it another shot. No pressure, though. If you’d rather, we can also schedule this for another day.”

Bucky would rather never come back at all. But the rational side of his brain says that if he doesn’t get past this hurdle now, he might not ever work up the courage to try again.

Another more sinister side of his brain reminds him that he’s responsible for the deaths of Stark’s parents, and that he deserves whatever Stark wants to do to him. It would only be fair, to allow Stark some manner of retribution. Even if the engineer can’t do much, with Steve here watching his every move.

Maybe Bucky should send Steve away.

Just the thought of being alone in Stark’s workshop, surrounded by all his tools, with an omnipotent A.I. at his disposal makes Bucky break into a cold sweat anew.

Almost as if Stark can sense the direction of his thoughts, the other Omega abruptly states, “I feel like, before we get started again — if we get started again — I should tell you that I know about Hydra ordering the hit on my parents.”

Bucky feels the cold weight of dread sink into his stomach.

“That being said,” Stark continues, “I want you to know that I’m not looking for...revenge. Or whatever you might be worried about.” The engineer meets Bucky’s gaze directly, dark eyes serious. “You’re safe here.”

Bucky feels his eyes widen in shock. Because the words are unbelievable. They don’t make sense.

“Anyway, even if I was looking for revenge,” Stark proclaims, ignoring Bucky’s incredulous expression, “I wouldn’t go about it like this. I’d be in the suit, for one thing, and completely upfront about it. Check out the footage from the Mandarin incident if you don’t believe me.

“Anyhow— I’m getting sidetracked. The point is, obviously I’m an engineer. And when I saw the schematics on your arm, I knew I could make it better. It’s kinda my thing, you can ask anybody. I like making things better. But it’s your choice. I won’t do anything unless you want me to.”

Bucky swallows, processing what he’s just been told. Neither Steve nor Stark attempt to interrupt his silent deliberation, and at length, he nods, accepting Stark’s words at face value — no matter how unbelievable they are. “Okay,” he rasps.

Still, he doesn’t sit down.

Instead he offers a confession, wanting to, at the very least, own up to his guilt. Needing to extend to Stark whatever remorse he can drag out from the dark depths of his soul. “I don’t really remember much of the details,” he admits. “About your parents. How they died. But...I’m sorry. There are no words for how much— And I...I understand, if you hate me for it.”

Steve cuts in at that, bull-headedly convinced of Bucky’s innocence. “Buck, it’s not your fault. You didn’t have a choice.”

Bucky jerks his gaze sharply to the Alpha, viciously miserable. “I still did it, Steve. It was my hands that took his parents away.”

“As I said,” Tony interrupts, not allowing the conversation the opportunity to escalate, “I’m not into taking revenge. And if it makes you feel any better, I’ve read the files. I know what Hydra did to you. And Steve’s right. You didn’t have a choice. So, I don’t blame you.”

Bucky turns his attention back to Stark, but finds he can’t hold the engineer’s gaze as moisture floods his eyes. “T-Thank you,” he chokes out, unwilling to argue further, even if he can’t understand how Stark can possibly consider him worthy of forgiveness.

Stark waves a hand. “Sure. Great. Now that we’ve got that settled… Do you want to continue with what we were doing before?”

—

Stark has Bucky resume his former position at the table, metal arm again stretched out across its surface, easy for the engineer to work with.

This time, Stark makes sure to explain what he’s doing, each step along the way. He even — in a surprising display of empathy — switches out the drill for a regular screwdriver.

Bucky isn’t relaxed, but he stays where he is.

He can’t help going inside of himself as the engineer works. Without the harrowing sound of the drill to drag him back up, he slips easily into the quiet place where his mind usually goes during maintenance. He teeters just on the edge of too deep, keeping himself present enough to follow the engineer’s instructions as they come: to tilt the arm this way or that. To make a fist, or flex his fingers.

Finally it’s over, and Stark closes up the plates on the arm. He’s removed a few of the internal components, which he reassures Bucky are not important for its overall functioning.

In actuality, Stark reports, they were hindering some of its functionality.

“It may take a few days for your brain to fully recognize the new complexities I’ve just introduced to the arm’s operating systems and then sync them up with the proper sensations,” the engineer explains. “But you should be able to register more intricate details of how things feel now. It’ll probably start out feeling really intense, since you’re not used to feeling much of anything on that side. But it’ll calm down eventually, as your brain gets accustomed to registering the new sensations.”

“You can also speed up your brain’s ability to stabilize the sensations.” Stark continues, tossing his tools into a carrying case. “You just need to introduce the new tech to as much and as many variants of touch as possible. Different textures, temperatures, and levels of pressure are all things you can expose yourself to. And before you ask,” he shoots a pointed look toward Steve who has just begun to open his mouth, “I didn’t amp up any of the arm’s pain receptors. One of the beautiful things about working with tech rather than biology is that I can choose what aspects of it I want to enhance. Which means that you will still be able to punch through a brick wall without batting an eyelash, you’re welcome.”

“Thank you, Tony,” Steve responds before Bucky can gather the words together. “That’s really amazing. I’m sure I can’t understand half of what you had to do to be able to accomplish it.”

Stark preens under the praise. “Don’t beat yourself up about it, Gilbert Blythe, most of the world’s population is in the same boat. Now get out of my workshop. Give that arm a whirl. You can thank me some more later.”

Steve finds Bucky’s new fascination with touching everything endearing.

At first, the former Soldier had seemed wary about using his newly enhanced metal arm. Had tucked it in close to his body as they’d left Tony’s workshop, stepping into the elevator and ascending to their floor. But shortly after exiting the elevator, Bucky had unconsciously brushed against Steve for the briefest of moments. The metal arm had pressed against Steve’s right side, and Bucky had gasped, eyes widening in amazement.

Since then, Bucky has taken every opportunity to test his arm’s new sensation.

Hours have passed since their return from Tony’s workshop, and evening has darkened the sky beyond the living room windows to a deep indigo.

After dinner, Steve had pulled out his sketchbook and taken up his favorite place on the couch. He’s been attempting to get the likeness of Bucky’s metal arm onto paper. His appreciation of the prosthetic had only increased as he’d watched Tony work with it today, and he’s determined to render the details and intricacies with the accurate precision it deserves.

He’s on his fifth attempt when Bucky joins him, settling down on the other end of the couch and focusing on the television, which Steve’s had running low in the background. There’s a cartoon on about a tiny, sentient trash compactor and Bucky watches the little robot’s clumsy, but charming attempts to learn about Earth and the humans who have long since deserted the planet due to its failed ability to sustain life.  The tiny robot ends up becoming smitten with another robot — newer, sleeker and with a distinctly feminine disposition.

Bucky’s lips are faintly curved into a sweet little smile as he watches the mini trash-compactor get himself into all sorts of trouble while trying to build a relationship with his newfound love.

Steve, sketch nearly forgotten in his lap, watches Bucky . Says, eventually, “You know, Tony’s got some little robots like that.”

Bucky turns from the TV, it’s bright, colorful lights reflecting in the blue of his eyes. “No kidding?”

Steve can’t help but grin at his friend’s obvious interest. “Really. They’re not exactly the same, of course. But they each have personalities of their own and they act similar to WALL-E. Tony’s named them DUM-E, You, and Butterfingers, if you can believe it.”

“Where do they live?” Bucky asks, smile broadening slightly at the absurdity of the names.

“Down in Tony’s workshop, actually. Come to think of it, I’m kinda surprised they weren’t running around when we were down there earlier. Maybe Tony thought they’d get in the way. They’re notorious for getting into trouble.”

Bucky looks thoughtful as he turns back to the TV. “Think he’d let me meet them?”

“I’m sure he would. Tony loves to show off his toys.”

Bucky hums, unconsciously running his metal fingers back and forth across the textured surface of the couch, and Steve’s attention is once again caught by the prosthetic. The colors of the cartoon glint off of the arm’s shiny metallic surface, and Steve itches to run his own fingers along the plates. To learn by touch how the edges fit so perfectly against one another. How they shift, and separate, and fold tightly together.

Bucky glances over, catching him staring, and Steve flushes, glad for whatever meager cover the room’s low lighting may provide.

Bucky immediately notes Steve’s discomfort anyway, furrowing his brow. “What is it?”

Steve glances away. Glances back. Clears his throat. “Can I— uh. Would it be okay if I...touched your arm?”

“What?” Bucky looks slightly incredulous. “I mean, yeah. Yes, it’s fine. You can touch it. Is that what you’re so worked up about?”

The Omega scoots closer, extending his arm along the back of the couch until he’s more conveniently within Steve’s reach.

Still, Steve hesitates. “You sure?”

Bucky rolls his eyes. “ Yes, Stevie. It’s not a big deal. And anyway, I trust you.”

Steve bites his bottom lip against the delighted smile that threatens to break free at Bucky’s words.

“‘Kay,” he says, setting his sketchbook aside.

Heart fluttering against his sternum, he reaches slowly for Bucky’s prosthetic, not wanting to startle the Omega with the depth of his enthusiasm.

Gently he drags his fingers from bicep to wrist, feeling the sleek way the metal plates fit together.

Bucky makes a quiet, strangled noise, and Steve glances up to find the Omega’s eyes fixed intently on his fingers as he lightly encircles the metal wrist.

“Feels good,” Bucky slurs, eyes slipping half-closed. “Didn’t realize it’d feel so good.”

Steve feels his flush deepen, and his heartbeat picks up as he takes in Bucky’s blissful expression.

“Do you want me to stop?” Steve murmurs, even as he slides a thumb up the arm’s inner wrist.

“No,” Bucky groans, eyes slipping fully closed. “S’good. Don’ stop.”

“Okay,” Steve agrees, lacing the fingers of his own left hand with Bucky’s.

He knows that the sensations Bucky is experiencing are not sexual in nature, but he still has to remind himself, as the Omega’s red lips part damply, his breathing becoming slightly heavier.

Steve runs his fingers gently along the bend of the metal elbow, and then tests the edge of a plate against the pressure of a fingernail. There is no give at first, but then Bucky drags in a shuddering breath and the arm oscillates, plates loosening enough so that Steve can shift the panels this way or that, allowing him a peek into the prosthetic’s inner workings.

It’s beautiful, and Steve can’t help but fulfil the impulsive desire to bring their clasped hands up to kiss the metal fingers. Bucky watches through slitted eyes, sighing quietly at the delicate sensation of the kiss. Then he leans back into the couch behind him, dropping his head to rest it along the top cushions, exposing the pale line of his throat.

It takes every bit of Steve’s restraint to keep from pressing his mouth to the steady heartbeat pulsing beneath the sharp line of Bucky’s jaw.

-

Chapter Text

❂ In My Head ★

‘I think of you, I haven’t slept

I think I do but I don’t forget...

And you’re always in my head

You’re always in my head’

—C. Martin

Tony yawns, leaning back in his workbench chair and arching into a long, satisfying stretch.

“JARVIS,” he says, “what time is it?"

“The time is currently 0500 hours, sir,” JARVIS responds promptly. “May I suggest that you get some rest? You have not done so in approximately sixteen-point-five hours.”

Tony yawns again, standing from his chair and reaching for one of the many coffee cups scattered about his workspace.

“Nah,” he says, frowning down into the bottom of the mug where the dried dregs of what could possibly be coffee remains or —  just as possibly — motor oil residue, stick to the porcelain. “Sleep is for slackers. I’ve got a lot more work to do.”

Coffee, though. Coffee is a necessity.

He turns and heads for the workshop doors, gaze brushing briefly over the small pile of mechanical components he’d removed from Barnes’ arm nearly a week ago.

Those fucking components.

After Barnes had accepted Tony’s upgrades on his biomechanical arm and then subsequently left the workshop, Tony had pored over the small parts he’d discovered burrowed within the Hydra-fabricated hardware.

Except, apparently, it wasn’t all fabricated by Hydra.

There were certain elements to the design of those mechanisms, specifically, which had caught and held Tony’s attention as soon as he’d discovered them tucked inside Barnes’ prosthetic.

He’d examined them. Turned them over and over in his hands. Run them under a microscope.

And that’s when he’d found it: The evidence supporting the suspicion Tony’d had all along — that Howard had been involved in the development of the biomechanical prosthetic.

Impossible to make out with just the naked eye, the smallest of etchings were inscribed upon one facet of each component. 

H.S.S.I.

Howard Stark. Stark Industries.

Even after identifying the etchings, Tony might have been able to lie to himself.

He might have been able to tell himself that the letters composing the acronym stood for something else. That his father had been unaware of what the components would be used for. Or, possibly, that Hydra had stolen the tech from Stark Industries.

But he’d still be unable to escape the knowledge that he was, in fact, lying.

Because there were elements about the components that couldn’t have come about by accident. Such as the fact that each of them had been fashioned to be durable enough to withstand the repetitive movements of the metal arm — the arm which itself, was already made from an extremely durable substance.

Not only would the components have had to withstand the strength of that metal, but they would also have had to be strong enough to last for a countless number of years. And they had.

Which means they’d been made with that specific purpose in mind. Howard didn’t like waste — he wouldn’t have made the components from such an expensive material had it not been a necessary feature.

Then there was the undeniable fact that the components were an exact match to their surroundings. There was no evidence that the pieces had been tampered with — that perhaps they had been made for something else and had subsequently needed to be forced to fit within the intricate workings of the metal arm.

Rather, they clicked into and out of place with the simplicity and ease of parts that had been designed to function with the rest of the engineered prosthetic.

And the final nail in the coffin: one of the parts that Tony had removed from the arm had had such a specific function, that there was no denying its intended purpose.

The piece was small. Could fit easily within the palm of Tony’s hand and be completely engulfed by his fingers.

Its size in no way reflected the effect it would have had on the Winter Soldier.

The module connected with certain artificial nerve centers within the prosthetic. When activated,which could be done remotely, a token to the fact that Howard’s engineering skill had reached well beyond his era, the component delivered what would have been an excruciatingly painful burst of electricity, the duration of which could be momentary, or prolonged, depending on the width of the activator’s sadistic streak.

The amount of electricity facilitated by that module was enough to outright kill an ordinary human being. A super-soldier, however, would merely be incapacitated.

Even that factor had been meticulously measured and designed for Barnes’ physiology.

The realization had made Tony sick. Every time he thinks about it, his stomach roils dangerously.

How could Howard have done such a thing?

Tony knows, from history, from the countless stories about Captain America he’d grown up hearing, that Howard and Barnes had been close. At the very least, they’d been acquaintances. Both had shared a determination to keep Steve safe throughout his many Hydra-razing missions.

There is the possibility that Howard hadn’t known the Soldier’s identity. But that doesn’t absolve him of much, if it absolves him of anything.

What had been done to the Soldier, and whatever part Howard had played in it, was still sick. Still heartless and sadistic and any number of other cruel descriptors Tony can come up with.

And hadn’t Howard been a co-founder of SHIELD? Do his actions signify that he’d been Hydra all along? But he couldn’t have been.

If Tony has learned only one thing about Howard,  it was that he’d loved Steve Rogers. Had been loyal to Captain America. Perhaps more to him than to the entirety of SHIELD.

So how had Hydra managed to get his tech? What had led Howard to manufacturing it?

There are so many questions, and not nearly enough answers.

Tony trudges up the stairs, making for the communal kitchen and rubbing at his aching temples.

The answers lie with the dead. And the dead would not give them up.

Conceivably, Tony could ask Barnes.

It’s possible that the former Hydra assassin can shed light on some of the unknown details surrounding Howard’s Hydra association.

But that seems too cruel of a thing to ask, even for Tony, and Tony refuses to put Barnes through that.

If Barnes doesn’t know about Howard’s involvement — and Tony suspects he doesn’t — there’s no need to impart the added burden that learning of Howard’s betrayal would bring.  

It won’t absolve the guilt of having killed the man, Tony doesn’t think. Learning of Obie’s betrayal hadn’t made living with the fact that Tony’d killed the man he’d once considered his friend any easier. He doubts it will do Barnes much good either.

Tony makes a concentrated effort to push away the unhappy thoughts which only  seem to be multiplying in variance and intensity the more he dwells on them. Nothing is being resolved. He’s only making himself feel worse, misery spreading out to encompass more aspects of his life he’d rather forget.

He assembles the correct measurements of ingredients into the coffee pot and starts the machine.

All these gloomy thoughts are making him miss Pepper. Usually she’s the more optimistic of the two of them, her bond transferring soothing emotions whenever he’s feeling especially melancholy.

But Pepper caught a ride with Steve who happened to be taking the Quinjet in the same direction she’d needed to go for a consultation regarding Stark Industries.

Steve himself had had to appear at a meet-and-greet with Hill and possibly the One-Eyed Pirate, who never seemed to be too far away to add his two cents when it came to discussing ‘important’ Avengers business.

He wonders, absently, if Barnes feels just as restless as Tony does with his bonded so far away. True, Tony’s bond is complete, but it still feels uncomfortable to have Pepper halfway across the country.

With his incomplete bond, Barnes has to be feeling Steve’s absence much more acutely.

“JARVIS,” Tony says pulling a fresh mug from the cupboard just as the coffee machine signals its completed cycle, “where’s our resident nonagenarian side B?”  

“If you mean Sergeant Barnes,” JARVIS responds, managing to sound as patiently exasperated as an A.I. of his caliber can, “he is currently in the communal gymnasium, partaking in a treadmill exercise.”

Yeah that sounds about right. Barnes is probably feeling like crawling out of his skin with Steve being so far out of range. A predicament that would make getting a good night’s rest difficult, if not impossible.

Well, Tony’s been wanting to get another look at that arm, anyway. He wants to be sure the upgrades he’d made are functioning properly.

Of course they are. He’s a genius engineer. But Barnes may have some reservations about the new calibrations. Even if he hasn’t yet come to Tony about it. It's entirely possible that he’d want Tony to tweak it a bit more.

There's no time like the present, Tony decides, he might as well check it out now. It’s not like either of them will be getting much sleep for the next few hours anyway.

Bucky flips over in the too-empty bed for what must be near the hundredth time.

He can’t sleep — body restless with an uncomfortable itch under his skin not very unlike the symptoms of SHS he’d experienced over a week ago. He knows that’s not what this is. Or, if it is, it’s not nearly as strong as it was before.

That was fortunate, because he’d done his best to assure Steve that he would be fine for the couple of days the Alpha had said he’d be gone.

Steve had felt guilty. Worried and unsure about leaving Bucky by himself while he took a Quinjet to a confidential location to meet with a former SHIELD agent.

“What if you need m— help? I don’t want you to be alone if something goes wrong. What if those symptoms come back?”

“Steve,” Bucky had said, “I’ll be fine. I’ve been on my own before, remember?”

“Okay, but—”

“Whatever comes up — if something comes up, I’ll deal with it. It can’t be anything worse than what I’ve been through before.”

Steve’s face had twisted, expression tormented, and Bucky had realized, belatedly, that that had been the wrong thing to say.

“There’s no saying anything is gonna happen, Steve,” he’d tried, instead. “And anyway, you said so yourself, you’ll only be gone a couple of days. Stop borrowing trouble. I’ll be fine.”

And, for the most part, he has been.

He eats regularly, even if eating is complicated and akin to picking through a minefield —  never sure what exactly will make him nauseous, or cause him to break out into a cold sweat.  He’s recently discovered that he doesn’t like milk, for some buried, unknown reason.

Point is, he’s been taking care of himself.

Sam had come by to visit the evening of the day Steve left, and even though it was mildly frustrating knowing that Steve had asked the man to check up on him, Bucky had been able to relax enough to enjoy the Beta’s company.

Sam, it turns out, is unassuming and easy to get along with, carrying a quiet tranquility that had made it easy for Bucky to release — to some degree — the high-level tension he near-subconsciously carries around.

They’d watched a movie — something comedic, which Sam had enjoyed, and Bucky had watched with barely half of his attention.

When Sam had gotten up to leave, he’d had nothing to say about Bucky needing to do anything more about caring for himself.

Not that Bucky needed the reassurance.

But Steve would be happy to know that Bucky is perfectly fine, as Sam was likely to report that when the Alpha undoubtedly asked.

One thing, though, that he hasn’t been able to resolve is the fact that he hasn’t managed much more than a cat-nap since Steve had left.

The empty pull on the other side of the incomplete bond Bucky shares with Steve has been making itself frustratingly apparent since Steve had moved so far out of range. It’s a crawling discomfort. An aching itch that tugs at his sternum.

He wonders, absently, if Steve feels the discomfort. Is it the same on both ends? Or is it different for an Alpha than for an Omega?

Steve had never mentioned experiencing discomfort when Bucky had been the one to leave. Is it something that only happens to Omegas? Does it occur because Omegas are meant to be weaker, needy ?

The possibility that this is just another burden attributable to being Omega rankles.

Bucky tosses again on the empty mattress. His eyes travel over to the digital clock, tauntingly displaying the hour. Reminding him that he’s been attempting to fall asleep for hours.

Finally, he sits up.

With a disgruntled sigh, he accepts the fact that he won’t be getting any sleep tonight. At least not while he’s as keyed up as he is right now.

He pushes to his feet and grabs a pair of Steve’s sneakers. They almost fit, only a bit too big, and he doesn’t care. He needs to work off some of this agitation, and that means he’s heading for the gym.

Maybe he can run off some of the restless energy with the help of Steve’s fancy treadmill.

He heads for the door.

It still feels strange — being in places other than the rooms he shares with Steve. It’s not as bad when Steve’s there, or even when he’s with one of the other Avengers. But when he’s alone, he can’t help but feel as if he’s trespassing.

The tower belongs to Stark. Perhaps also to the Avengers.

But not by any stretch of the imagination, is it Bucky’s.

If one is being particularly generous, he might be considered a guest. And when he’s not accompanied by any of the others, he feels more like an intruder.

Steve would, doubtlessly, argue against this way of thinking.

As it stands, Bucky hasn’t yet run into any restrictions. The doors to all of the areas he’s visited so far have opened to him, and the AI hasn’t told him he’s not allowed in one area or another.

So he warily makes his way down to the gym. Heads over to Steve’s treadmill.

He sets what might be considered a punishing pace, though not one that the Soldier couldn’t maintain for at least an hour — with enough determination.

‘What the mind can conceive the body can achieve,’ Hydra had taught. With the right training.

He’s been given the right training.

—

Chapter Text

❂ I Built a Friend ★

‘And we had so much fun together,

We knew we’d be friends forever…’

— Alec B.

When Tony enters the gym he finds Barnes on Steve’s souped-up treadmill, running at a pace that would be unsustainable for a normal man. And, Tony notes with no small amount of awed envy, Barnes hasn't even begun to sweat.

Tony watches Barnes run — sprint? race for his life? — for a few long moments. The Omega genius has no doubt that the former-Hydra wetwork operative has catalogued everything about Tony’s presence, probably even down to the fact that he’s only wearing one sock.

Those crystalline eyes see everything. Even if they haven’t once glanced in Tony’s direction since he’d stepped into the gym.

“Hey,” Tony says, and Barnes instantly shuts off the machine as if he’d been waiting for his cue. Which, knowing him, he probably had. “If you’re not too busy, I wanted to get another look at that arm. Make sure my adjustments are functioning correctly, since it’s been a few days, now.”

“Oh,” Barnes says, avoiding Tony’s gaze and seeming to shrink in on himself.

Tony has no idea how the world’s most feared former assassin does it, but somehow he’s managed to both curb his ‘Deadly As Fuck’ vibe, and at the same time, move Tony to experience all the protective instincts one might feel toward a distressed kitten.

Tony can’t help it, damnit. Barnes just looks so meek and pitiable.

And he’s so freakishly compliant, too. There’s no way he’s going to refuse Tony’s offer, Tony can tell. Those Hydra bastards were truly evil being able to resist those big, sad blue eyes.

“Okay,” Barnes agrees quietly, just as Tony’d predicted. The Omega swallows thickly. “W-workshop?”

Barnes is obviously freaked out by the idea of going into Tony’s workshop, and Tony resists the annoyingly strong urge to backpedal in the face of that nervous stutter. To say he’s changed his mind and instead wrap Barnes in the fuzziest blanket he can find while offering him the largest mug he owns filled to the brim with hot chocolate and tiny marshmallows. It’s probably his Omega nurturing side coming out.

But he’s got a job to do, damnit. That arm needs a check-up — at least one — to ensure that all of Tony’s modifications are working seamlessly.

“I’ll make this as quick as I can,” Tony promises as Barnes settles obediently onto the stool that Tony’d pulled up to the front of his desk. “I may not even have to do anything but scan it. If everything looks good I’ll leave it as it is.”

He hopes the semi-cluttered, non-sterile wooden surface of his desk will make it easier for the Soldier to separate the current experience from any he’d had with Hydra technicians. Steve isn't here to talk his Omega down if he spirals into another panic attack, and Tony considers, belatedly, that maybe he should have waited after all.

‘Too late now,’ he thinks as he begins the scan.

Barnes is silent and still, shifting only the arm, and only when Tony tells him to. Tony glances up, halfway through the scan to find that the other Omega’s eyes have gone vacant, thousand-yard stare fixed on some invisible point over Tony’s shoulder. His breathing is even, and he blinks every so often, but it’s quite clear that — at least mentally —  Elvis has left the building.

Tony hesitates for a moment, but ultimately decides to continue with what he’s doing — with the Soldier’s traumatic history, this is likely as good a situation Tony can hope for, especially without Steve around.

He’s just getting down to the prosthetic’s wrist and fingers when he notices something suddenly moving across his desk. He glances over, and is shocked to find RACR — a tiny prototype robot he’d created one afternoon when he was high on painkillers and had thought that the cleaning robot M-O from that ridiculously sentimental Disney movie would be a great addition to his always-dirty workshop. The bot has uncurled from his cube-like standby mode, and is making a beeline for Barnes’ upturned metal palm.

RACR, who is small enough to fit perfectly atop Barnes’ hand, crawls onto the Soldier’s metal palm and makes a noise Tony’s never heard him make before. It sounds an awful lot like an affectionate trill and Tony’s so shocked he nearly drops the scanner.

The bot’s antics effectively pull Barnes from his dissociative state, and the Soldier’s gaze darts down, eyes widening when he sees RACR settled adoringly on his palm.

Tony’s both dumbfounded and a little annoyed.  Because that bot is a menace.

RACR, with his slowly-developing intelligence — because of course Tony had created him to be a learning AI —  had understood that his purpose was to clean, and initially, had been quite happy to do so. Until the day he’d seemed to come to the frustrating realization that keeping Tony’s workshop clean, with the amount of engineering Tony was always doing, combined with the disastrously “helpful” efforts of DUM-E, Butterfingers, and U,  would be an extremely difficult, nigh, impossible task to complete all by himself.

Once RACR had come to that unappealing conclusion, he’d more or less refused to do his job, had taken up a position on Tony’s desk, and almost never opens up anymore, especially when it’s just Tony around.

RACR loves his older, sibling-like bots though, and will sometimes deign to come out when they are zooming around, causing chaos.

Tony strongly suspects that the tiny bot gets some kind of evil glee from watching the other ‘helper’ bots tear up the place and then refusing to do anything about it. But as Barnes wiggles his metal fingers, the little bot trills again, spinning in a small circle of delight. And just like that, Tony can see that Barnes is hooked, his blue eyes going soft and enamored.

“What. The hell ?” Tony demands of the little bot, setting aside the scanner. “You won’t come out for me, your creator, but you’re all cuddles and love for this virtual stranger?”

RACR ignores him, using his tiny bristly ‘hands’ to clean a nearly-invisible smudge off of Barnes’ metal thumb.

Tony had created the bot to have a number of interchangeable ‘hands’ to clean with, which could alter their form based upon RACR’s preferences. The bot could also exchange his ‘hands’ for other variations which he kept stored in a belly-like compartment. At the moment, his ‘arms’ ended in two round bristly brushes which whirr in speedy circular motions.

“What’s its name?” Barnes asks quietly, pulling Tony from his thoughts.

Tony scowls half-heartedly, studying the virtual scan of Barnes’ arm floating above his desk. “His name is RACR.”

“Racer?”

Tony does not blush. “It’s an acronym,” he mutters reluctantly rubbing a hand across his face as an excuse to hide behind fingers. “I may have been drunk. Or high. I’m not sure. There were a lot of painkillers and antibiotics.”

Barnes smiles in such a way that is almost invisible, the expression is so minute. His eyes are possibly laughing, but Tony’d never be able to prove it.

The engineer clears his throat. “It, uhh. It stands for, ‘Really-Annoying-Cleaner-Robot’”.

RACR bleeps in outrage, his simulated eyes going narrow with indignation, and Barnes grins, his own eyes lighting up as his teeth flash, a bright, gleaming white and Tony blinks, nonplussed.

It’s the first time he’s seen anything resembling joy visibly cross Barnes’ features, and Tony suddenly realizes that Barnes is fucking stunning.

Tony’s very happily bonded, and he loves Pepper more than anything in the world. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have eyes. He can recognize beauty when he sees it, and Barnes is beautiful.

Tony can see now why Steve is so far down the rabbit hole with this one. Hell, if Tony weren’t bonded he might’ve considered going after Barnes himself, Omega nature notwithstanding.

“Well,” he says, pulling himself together, “he seems to like you just fine. I think you should keep him.”

Barnes’ expression momentarily slackens with shock before he stutters out, “I can’t— He’s yours. I couldn’t just—”

Tony snorts. “He’s more yours after two minutes of him meeting you than he’s been mine for the entire year I’ve had him. Besides, he’s lazy. It’s not like he’s being useful.”

RACR buzzes angrily, fixing Tony with another tiny glare as he spins his scrubby hands.

“Don’t give me that,” Tony says. “You never clean anything anymore.” The engineer turns his attention back to Barnes. “Anyway he’s only a prototype, which means he probably has glitches that need ironing out. You can give him more attention than I can, since I’m always so busy, and if he has any kinks that need worked out you can let me know.”

As if. Everything Tony builds is perfect, RACR included. Still, the bot is obviously taken by Barnes and his shiny metal arm. And Barnes can’t hide the fondness he feels for RACR in return.

RACR trills. Barnes melts. It’s a match made in heaven.

“What if,” Barnes says softly, “I hur— d-damage him?” His troubled gaze stays on the little bot, but after a moment, he hesitantly glances up.

“I don’t believe you will,” Tony says seriously, meeting that cerulean gaze. “But I can give you his blueprints, and teach you how to make repairs if he ever needs any. His brain is uploaded into the same system as JARVIS and my other bots. If he gets damaged, it’ll only be his hardware. You can rebuild him good as new.”

Steve’s initial reaction, when JARVIS informs him that Bucky is down in Tony’s workshop, is worry. He turns quickly from dropping his duffle on top his mattress, and heads straight for the elevator that will lead him to the Omegas. His disquiet must be visible, though, because JARVIS assures him that there is no cause for concern.

Steve cuts his speed by more than half, realizing that he was almost running, and continues at a more sedate pace. As he gets closer to the workshop entrance, he can hear Tony chattering away, Bucky’s occasional murmured responses, and the mechanical whirr that is characteristic of Tony’s bots.

So Tony has finally gotten around to introducing Bucky to his little mechanical family members. Steve smiles. Bucky had always been fascinated by robotics and futuristic inventions. He’d loved to drag Steve to the STARK Expo throughout the years, and while Steve’d often had to feign interest as scientific concepts had flown over his head, Bucky, whipcord smart, had absorbed everything he could.

So it’s no surprise, as Steve situates himself just inside the entryway, to see Bucky absorbed in some sort of holographic blueprints, listening with rapt attention as Tony chatters on, and occasionally, tossing a ball for DUM-E, Butterfingers, U, and another tiny robot that Steve has never seen before, to clamor after.  

Steve leans against the doorpost and quietly watches with what he knows is a smitten smile, and after another few minutes have gone by, Tony looks up, finally seeming to notice him.

“It’s creepy to sneak up on people and watch them,” Tony says flatly.

Steve shrugs mildly. “Maybe you should be more observant,” he teases. Though Steve has little doubt that Bucky has been aware of him since he stepped out of the elevator.

Tony gives him an unimpressed look before his expression abruptly transforms into one of hopeful excitement.

“Wait a sec. If you’re home that means Pepper is too.” Tony leans forward. “Tell me Pepper’s home.”

Steve raises a brow and Tony waves an impatient hand. “Nevermind. I can feel that she’s here, thank god; It’s been hell trying to get any sleep around here with her gone.”

The Omega turns to his bots, all clustered around Bucky waiting for him to toss the ball again, and snaps his fingers. “Back to your charging stations, robot menaces, Barnes can set up another playdate with you later.”

The bots visibly deflate but still obediently roll to their home ports. All except for the smallest bot. It can’t be more than six inches tall, maybe three to four inches wide. It wheels around in a small circle at Bucky’s feet.

“And you,” Tony says, pointing at the little robot, “get to go home with your new best friend. I hope you’re more helpful to him than you’ve been for me.”

The little robot chirps, its bristled hands whirring as Bucky reaches down with his metal hand and allows it to roll onto his palm.

“Okay,” Tony claps his hands once. “I’m off to snuggle with my Alpha.” He nods at Bucky. “Have fun with your new buddy. I’ll catch you two later.”

As Tony hurries off, Bucky turns to Steve and holds up his palm. “Tony gave him to me,” he says with quiet awe.

The little bot peers up at a Steve from the protective circle of Bucky’s metal fingers and lets out a low, inquisitive warble.

“This is Steve,” Bucky tells the bot who echos with a mechanical, “—Eeeve,” in response. Bucky’s eyes widen. “You can talk,” he says, dumbfounded.

Steve smiles down at the little bot and says, “It’s nice to meet you. What is your name?”

“RAE” the bot answers firmly in its unique little voice.

“Tony named him RACR,” Bucky explains. “But RAE sounds just as good.”

“Racer?” Steve asks. “Like a car?”

“R-A-C-R,” Bucky corrects. “An unflattering acronym. Tony said he wasn’t functioning at full capacity when he named him.”

“Mmm,” Steve says. “Well RAE sounds fine to me. Can he say your name too?”

Bucky flushes, glancing down at RACR. “I haven’t actually told him my name yet.”

“Oh,” Steve grins. “RAE, meet Bucky.”

“Baa-kee?” RACR repeats.

Bucky’s lips curve with the smallest of smiles. “Yes RAE,” he says, eyes meeting Steve’s own. “My name is Bucky.”

They decide to keep RACR in their kitchen, because it’s somewhere all of them can work together to keep clean, and it won’t come down to being only the little bot’s responsibility. Bucky places the RACR’s charging port on the countertop near the coffee maker, and as soon as the bot gets set down beside it, he zooms across the granite surface of the counter, cleaning and sanitizing every square inch.

Bucky watches the bot zip around with a fond little smile, and Steve watches Bucky with a fond smile of his own.

“I missed you,” he says, quietly.

Bucky darts a glance his way, his muscles going just the slightest bit tense as he responds, “Missed you too.”

Steve feels his smile fade, the happy contentment draining from his blue eyes.

“Well,” he says brittlely, one corner of his mouth tucked up in a humorless smile, “Don’t feel like you have to lie to me, Buck.” He starts to push away from the countertop, to head for the gym maybe — somewhere he can be alone to lick his wounds — but Bucky steps into his space, forcing him to either push the Omega away or stay where he is.

“Steve,” the Omega all but growls. “ Shut up for a minute, okay?” Steve stays, arms crossed, and waits for Bucky to articulate what he’s clearly struggling to put into words.

“I did miss you, you fucking punk. Stop being so touchy.” Bucky glances up to meet Steve's eyes for a moment, expression fierce, and Steve feels his lips part with surprise at how 1940s Bucky the Omega is acting.

Then Bucky drops his gaze, becoming uncomfortable.  “I don't— feel good when you are so far away. I feel…” he shakes his head, terminating whatever he’d thought about saying. “Anyway, that’s what I'm unhappy about, okay?” The Omega turns slightly to the side, so that his shoulder is facing Steve more than his front. It’s an instinctive position, taken by someone attempting to protect their vulnerable center.  “I don’t...know what’s wrong with me.”

“Buck,” Steve fights the urge to reach out and draw Bucky close. Well, closer. “There’s nothing wrong with you. It’s the — we have sort of a partial bond. You know that?”

Bucky nods tersely and Steve continues, unsure whether Bucky resents the bond or the uncomfortable feelings it causes when they’re too far apart.

“I feel it too.”

Bucky’s gaze abruptly locks with his. “What do you feel?” he demands.

Steve glances off to the side for a moment, trying to gather physical descriptors for a feeling that’s not actually physical.

“There’s a sort if tugging sensation,” he begins, raising a hand to rub at his sternum where the uncomfortable feeling manifests the most strongly. “The farther apart we are, the more obvious it is.”

“It hurts,” Bucky says, placing his fingertips gently against the same place on his own torso.

“Yes,” Steve agrees, “It aches like I took a hard hit to the chest. And I get really restless. It’s hard to sit still. My skin feels…”

“Raw,” Bucky finishes, eyebrows drawn in concentration.

Steve nods. “Yeah, Buck. And also, I really, really miss you. That’s about the gist of it.”

Bucky’s shoulders slump in relief. “Yeah, that sounds about right.”

“It’s not so bad now though, right?” Steve asks, just to be sure. “Since we’re not apart anymore.”

“No,” Bucky says. “It’s just at the normal level of me wanting to crawl into your skin.”