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It all started in Riga, when Sam and Bucky found Zemo unconscious on the floor.
Given he'd gotten slammed with a disc of the strongest metal on Earth, it was a damn miracle Zemo's brains weren't on the floor too. Bucky could all too easily imagine gray matter spattered amongst the broken glass and sickly blue puddles of a dead man's serum.
There was nothing they could do other than recover Zemo from his ungraceful sprawl and carry him out of there. So that's what Bucky had done. He'd hoisted the baron over his shoulders like a sack of potatoes and walked the entire way back to the apartment with a heavy silver belt buckle digging into the back of his neck.
What a fucking pain.
At the very least, Zemo had the decency to smell incredible. Whatever made up the blend of scents he was wearing—cologne, aftershave, soap, shampoo—it all meshed with Zemo's body chemistry well, resulting in an enticing aroma that filled Bucky's nose, and that also seemed to take up his entire skull and curl up in there like a purring cat. So while it irritated him to have to hulk along the streets of the city with a bunch of dead weight on his shoulders, getting gawked at by the locals, Bucky had to admit it could have been worse.
Didn't stop him from grousing, though.
"Put him on the sofa," Sam directed, once they were back at Zemo's place.
Bucky's hackles edged up at the instructions. At that point, it was just habit to want to dig his heels in and do the opposite of whatever Sam said. But what else was he gonna do? Leg around with Zemo on his shoulder in perpetuity like a pirate with an annoying parrot?
He marched across the polished floor, left arm braced around the backs of Zemo's knees.
Probably the last thing the baron needed was yet more jostling, so Bucky tried to move conscientiously as he lowered Zemo from a fireman's carry, then shouldered him onto the sofa. Zemo's upper half went where he wanted it to go. But Bucky had to pick up Zemo's limp, dangling legs and drop them onto the sofa, too.
Zemo's head rolled unsettlingly to the edge of the blue couch cushion.
Bucky stared down at him. Not even a bruise. Damn, Zemo was lucky. Maybe they did have a guardian angel. Or maybe it was the opposite and Zemo had made some kind of deal with the devil.
And maybe there were contusions, but they were hidden underneath his hair.
Bucky performed a quick check while he was bent over Zemo like he was, using his flesh hand to feel around for blood or swelling. His fingers prodded through tidy swoops of hair, disturbing them. Zemo's scalp was sort of soft and damp. But it was with sweat, not blood.
There was some swelling, perhaps, on the right.
Zemo's head was hanging off the cushion by the time Bucky had diagnosed this. Bucky nudged it back up.
"Hey. I've gotta make some calls," Sam said from behind him. "Sharon and Joaquin left messages, and I've gotta check in with Sarah. I promised I would. You okay to watch him for a few?"
"Go ahead," Bucky said with a nod.
"Alright. Thanks, man." With that, Sam was heading right back out, saying, "Back in fifteen."
Frowning at his task, Bucky returned his focus to Zemo's slack face.
With Sam's scent fading from his immediate vicinity, he got a fresh snoot full of Zemo's. The baron's aroma was even stronger now that they were inside and the cool breeze rolling in from the Baltic wasn't sweeping away its efflorescence.
The smell was definitely artificial. And heavy. Zemo had been liberally applying some sort of tonic since they'd arrived in Riga.
Bucky couldn't claim to mind. Sometimes perfume bothered him, overwhelmed his already heightened olfactory senses. Especially when it had floral notes. Then his eyes would water and his head would start pounding. But whatever Zemo wore smelled pretty good, in his opinion. Not flowery at all. It more traditionally masculine and old-fashioned. It reminded him of sweet-smelling pipe smoke. Amber liquids in fancy bottles. Body heat in the midst of a cold forest.
Bucky leaned in a little closer to take a purposeful whiff, slow and steady. The pull of air filled his nose with a whole bouquet of aromas. What exactly the notes in Zemo's cologne were, Bucky didn't know, but they made his mouth water like a damn Italian fountain.
So abrupt and heavy was the gush of saliva, in fact, that Bucky had to gulp.
He did, and once again, his hackles stiffened. Gooseflesh followed, further ruffling the back of his neck.
Wait. What the fuck.
What the fuck was that smell?
He sniffed again, obtrusive and loud.
Was that... Zemo? Like—his scent? His real scent?
It couldn't be. Could it? Bucky had smelled Zemo before. On the plane. In the prison in Berlin, from behind a pane of bulletproof glass. Up close, in the Joint Terrorism Task Center, with the old vodka-sweat stink of the Winter Soldier's book in his hands. But Bucky didn't recognize this smell.
Had the baron always had this tinge to him? Had he always smelled... like he needed teeth in him, sinking into his soft and supple flesh? Had he always smelled so gnawable? And had Bucky always been too preoccupied with how annoying the man was to notice this incredible smell?
His line of sight slid helplessly to Zemo's throat. There Bucky could see the faint tremble of Zemo's pulse. Not an hour ago Sam had placed his fingers there and, after a few moments, shaken his head: I can't tell. You try, Buck. So Bucky had jabbed his fingertips there too, and had finally picked up on the slow stagger of Zemo's heartbeat.
Now, just looking at that pulsation of vulnerable flesh, Bucky could tell the beat was a little more regular.
And, dipping low again, Bucky could smell his heartbeat, too: the chug and slip of vital blood through Zemo's veins. He could smell Sam's momentary touch on that pulse point. And he could smell his own scent, too, in a smother over Sam's, as if trying to blot it out.
What Bucky didn't notice was sinking to his knees beside the sofa.
His eyes were fixed on Zemo's neck. At the collar of Zemo's wine red shirt.
More accurately, they were fixed on a sliver of black. A whole rim of black, running all around Zemo's tremoring throat, hiding just behind the turtleneck.
Of course Bucky knew Zemo had been covering his scent on purpose. He'd been dousing himself with cologne not in effort to smell fantastic, but in effort to drown out his pheromones. Bucky had also been aware Zemo was wearing some sort of protective gear under his shirt—he'd felt it, on the plane. His hand had more or less cinched it to Zemo's throat.
He just hadn't cared what it was before now.
Nothing unusual about such gear, especially in this day and age. Alphas and omegas alike dealt with surges in their hormones using a variety of methods. Pills—like the kind Zemo had been forced to take in prison. Shots. Powders, balms, stick-on patches. Some things simply modified scents to be less offensive. (Useful for alphas especially.) Some things halted production of certain hormones entirely. Some things could only try and douse a scent already in wild bloom.
There were all kinds of little helpers. But Bucky felt a dangerous flush, seeing the stark black leather of an omega collar there at Zemo's pale throat.
A collar. Where had Zemo even gotten it? Had Oeznik brought it for him? Or had it been in his storage unit, waiting for untold years in the backseat of a car like his fancy duster and stupid purple mask?
And did it... cover... everything?
No one was there to knock some desperately-needed sense into Bucky. And Zemo wasn't even conscious. So Bucky was free to chase his curiosity, free to snag at Zemo's turtleneck with his vibranium thumb and push it down.
More black leather peeped out at him.
Bucky wasn't exactly a connoisseur. But even he could tell how exquisite it was, this thing around Zemo's neck. Buttery soft and fleece-lined, with tiny, even stitches of gold thread around the circumference.
Other than the glint of that thread, the collar didn't appear ornate. The leather didn't have any intricate designs or letters stamped into it, like some he'd seen. It didn't appear to have any rings or studs.
Bucky's metal thumb slid over the snatch of leather with hungry swipes. He couldn't exactly feel its texture. But he could tell the leather was smooth.
He—he wanted to smell it.
So he did, bending close enough to Zemo for the tip of his nose to brush the collar.
(This was probably where it had actually started, if one considers that had Bucky stopped himself here, nothing that followed ever would have happened.)
Bucky breathed in. He scented the warm leather. The maroon fabric that had been on Zemo's skin since Berlin, and smelled of him. The luxurious fur collar of his coat snuggled all around his neck, greedily harboring a haze of the liberal splashes of whatever elixir it was that Zemo had applied just before they'd left the apartment.
Zemo's hair. And sweat. And the hint of tea still on his breath.
And his scent.
Because that, too, had permeated into the leather, and Bucky could smell it, he swore he could, and he wanted to lick it up, and his tongue was sliding over Zemo's collar before he could control himself. He lapped at both leather and skin, a whine in his throat, then made himself stop. There was no way that lick wouldn't wake Zemo. Zemo's head flopping against Bucky's arm hadn't roused him. And Bucky laying him down hadn't. But the heat of his tongue would...
It hadn't.
Not at all.
Breaths ripping in and out of him hard enough for his lungs and windpipe to go scratchy, Bucky searched the baron's face for even the most scant hint of consciousness: Movement under the tender skin of his eyelids. Reflexive tics of muscle. Tension in his brow.
But there was nothing. Zemo was totally out.
Bucky wasn't sure how many minutes had passed since Sam had stepped outside. Nor was he sure exactly when Sam would be walking back through the front door. He didn't have time to waste.
He shoved his nose in the crook between Zemo's neck and furry lapel and took a deep, head-spinning sniff.
It was Zemo he was smelling. He was certain now. Not just cologne or gunshot residue or cherry blossom tea, but his scent. The thrilling tang of omega pheromones. They could barely compete with the cologne splashed on top—Zemo's body had been prevented from producing them on any meaningful level for many years now. Two days off suppressants and Zemo's body was beginning to do what was natural again. That's what Bucky was smelling.
Not just smelling. Scenting.
And he was only picking up a hint of what Zemo really smelled like, he knew. But the more he zeroed in, the more he could pick up a sour twist of distress in that toothsome smell of omega. Bucky could almost taste it, feel it in the back of his mouth. Not just a scent, but a flavor.
Fuck. It was much more intoxicating than it had any right to be, the smell of an omega in distress. The more Bucky smelled it, whuffling up and down Zemo's covered throat, the more he wanted to smell it, lap it up. The more he wanted to cram his nose in the nearby crevice of Zemo's arm pit and lick it clean. The more he wanted to close his mouth over the flesh of Zemo's shoulder and suck, as if he could possibly drink his scent from the glands he'd totally suffocated under leather.
God, the thing was totally in the way—
Close to literally drooling on Zemo, the corners of lips unnaturally wet, Bucky yanked the baron's shirt from its tuck into his tac pants. He shoved his metal hand beyond the loosened hem. If anyone caught him he'd say he was looking for injuries. But in reality, Bucky had to know how far Zemo's collar came down.
There were all manner of omega collars on the market, made with a broad range of materials. Some only covered the neck. Those offered decent gland coverage and were available right off the shelf, as close to one-size-fits-all as you could get with adjustable belts and buckles. But they easily became dislodged, even when taped or tied down. Much more reliable were the harness-like designs that had straps which ran under the arms or attached to belts with suspenders. No matter the materials used, harnesses tended to be custom pieces. They required fittings and countless small adjustments made by professionals to sit comfortably. Therefore they could be quite a lot more expensive.
This, Bucky discovered in his utter delirium, was the kind Zemo was wearing.
The lowest strap of the harness was easy to feel. Grabbing blatantly, Bucky followed it from one side of Zemo's chest to the other. It felt like it wrapped all the way around his ribs. There was probably a fastening in the back.
Another strap in the center front ran perpendicular from the lowest strap directly up Zemo's sternum, but was halted after a couple of inches by a metal ring. A larger piece was attached to the other side of the ring. It flared out from there like an upside-down triangle, Bucky felt, to cover Zemo's collar bone and the curves of his trapezius muscles. This piece was sturdy and molded to fit contours, reminding Bucky of body armor. And it blocked Zemo's scent glands entirely.
Bucky squirmed against the side of the couch.
If not for the collar, Zemo's omega scent would be lush in the air. It would be humid with pheromones, the windows fogged by his body heat and heady, delicious scent.
Bucky imagined how easy it would be to snag his vibranium fingers around the lowest strap—the weakest point of the collar—and snap it in two. Break the ring holding the securing strap to the upper chest plate. He could drag it up and off of Zemo, then.
Somehow he had enough sense not to do such a thing. But he lacked enough to keep from sniffing Zemo as though doing lines off him in the corner of some dank Low Town night club. He couldn't keep himself from salivating like Pavlov's dogs. Squeezing at that strap around Zemo's ribs. Rubbing his face into Zemo's neck.
The collar prevented Bucky from getting to Zemo's scent glands. Stifled the full spectrum of his scent very effectively. But it didn't cover his pectoral muscles. Really, it concealed everything but those swells. It seemed to be almost the opposite of a brassiere. Zemo's upper chest and glands were covered, but everything else was exposed.
Vibranium raked over a light layer of chest fluff sitting on a slim padding of muscle. In the midst of the bared flesh, there was a puffy little perk that bunched into itself, responsive to Bucky's metal fingertips.
Bucky stiffened against the couch. Not just his cock. That had been full and cumbersome in his jeans since he'd dropped to his knees in the first place. He'd been humping the couch already. It was more like his whole being went rigid.
This ready omega body Zemo had been hiding this entire time... it was ripening for Bucky right under his nose, under the fur-collared coat and black leather. By the second, almost, Zemo's scent was getting stronger, muskier. The baron wasn't even conscious, but his body was responding to Bucky's touch. His nipples sat pebbled under his shirt, and it was evident through the fabric.
Bucky's vision almost splintered into a kaleidoscopic blur as he recalled Zemo just lying there unconscious on the floor, an easy target, smelling of unmated omega. He was fair game for any alpha who might come along and take him. Bucky envisioned, in frighteningly vivid fragments of light and color, Walker creeping closer to Zemo's sprawled form, pathetic jealous alpha stench emanating off him—
And growled.
No. Zemo was his.
Bucky scritched his vibranium fingertips over the tiny perk of nipple, able to feel it tighten further despite the utter lack of any conscious awareness on Zemo's face. Zemo's needy scent seemed to curl around him, as if his body couldn't help but plead for the touch.
Driving his hips into the couch under Zemo's body in helpless thrusts, Bucky pulled at the stiff little nipples all tight and peaked for him. He huffed and licked at Zemo's throat—pinched and plucked under the turtleneck, dragged his teeth over the collar of it, bit down. The air around him thickened exponentially with a sharp spike of hot, fresh scent. Bucky snarled and rutted and exploded.
Come spurted down his left thigh in a hot gush. More and more followed and soaked into his pant leg, and still Bucky fucked at the couch like he was trying to drive his knot into Zemo's body.
Because holy hell. He'd popped a knot. And it was huge. His jeans had become unbearably tight.
Shock nearly had him blacking out. He was knotting?? He—he couldn't remember the last time he'd—
"Ahfuck," he huffed into Zemo's neck, humping like a mad dog. "Fuck. Take it. Z—"
Zemo's name wouldn't even form in his mouth. A hard shudder wracked through Bucky, as if he'd touched a live wire on accident. His cock twitched around heavy spurts even as his eyes stopped taking in any kind of visual information. He hadn't come like this, like his body was trying to eject his fucking soul through his dick, since a time in his life he didn't like remembering.
In fact, Bucky hadn't even known his body was still capable of knotting. He'd lived the last several years accepting that HYDRA had carved any and all vestiges of alpha out of him, permanently. He hadn't had a rut since his escape. Hadn't responded this way to an omega's pheromones in even longer.
Bucky didn't have time to process it, or even to enjoy what was happening for as long as his knot wanted him to. He was in the midst of drooling on Zemo's shoulder, still in a total stupor with his hand up Zemo's shirt and his knot throbbing intensely, when the front door opened.
With zero thought, only an inhuman swiftness and silence, Bucky pulled his arm from Zemo's shirt. He dragged Zemo's coat over his torso, to hopefully hide the ruck of disturbed fabric and the wet soak of his saliva.
He stood and headed towards the bathroom in a strong stride, a bead of guilty sweat rolling down his sideburn and his ruined jeans sticking sloppily to his thigh.
"Dude, what the hell. It reeks in here," he heard Sam say. "What's going on?"
"Zemo's suppressants wore off," Bucky tossed back.
"Aw, crap," Sam muttered. "Just what we needed. Hey—hey, Buck! Where you going?"
"Gotta shower. Got covered in his scent carrying him. It's messing with my nose. I'm not gonna be able to smell danger coming with all this omega throw on me."
"Oh. Okay."
Bucky cut off anything else Sam could have said by slamming the bathroom doors shut between them.
Fuck. He was still monstrously hard. His dick took up enough room in his pants. But his knot. It looked like he was trying to smuggle both a baseball and bat in his pants. The bulge distended his fly so much, it would be a miracle if Sam had totally missed it.
Not seeing anything else he could do, Bucky took a cold shower. He was a mess. His hormones were in an uproar. Some of his senses were overly sharp and others dulled. The overstimulation and cold water and shock of what had just happened all crystallized into a familiar disconnect.
As an alpha, Bucky should have wanted to climb onto Zemo and growl at anyone who came near him, even if it was just Sam. But his mind—the part that was accustomed to being blasted with cold water by handlers after a mission—shut down. His body fell in line, rote. By the time he was done showering, it felt like Bucky had hallucinated the whole encounter. It felt like he should shuffle off, lead by armed agents and scientists in white coats, to the chair, where he would be stripped of what he'd just done.
Bucky balled up his dirty clothes and emerged from the bathroom in naught but a towel.
Zemo was awake.
He was sitting up, albeit crookedly, and was just barely helping Sam hold a damp cloth to the side of his head.
Bucky felt some relief, somewhere in the peripheral distance. The rest of him drew a blank.
"I don't think you should drink," Sam was saying.
"Water, then," Zemo slurred.
"Alright. Water's fine," agreed Sam. "You hang on to this. Got it?"
A grunt from Zemo. He gingerly pressed at the compress as Sam stood. Sam turned for the kitchen, spotting Bucky standing there with empty eyes.
"Make sure he doesn't fall over and bang his fool head again," Sam said, once again issuing an order Bucky did not want to follow. And: "You smell better."
"I gotta get out of here," Bucky said.
"Ain't even gonna get dressed first? And here I thought you didn't like making a scene," Sam joked. "You complained all the way here about people staring. Now you're gonna give 'em a show?"
Bucky tried again. "Gotta take a walk. Clear my head." He lowered his voice till it made his throat sore. "He's all I can smell. Maybe I can find some suppressants somewhere..."
That was just wishful thinking. But this time Sam took him seriously.
"Give me two seconds, Bucky. I'm gonna get Zemo some water. Then you can get some fresh air and get that head clear. Alright?"
Bucky nodded.
"Watch him," repeated Sam. "He's woozy. Just came to."
Clutching at his towel and filthy clothes, Bucky complied, taking a few reluctant steps towards Zemo.
The closer he got, the easier it was to smell: slick, clinging and musky on Zemo's skin, warm like the core of him. Bucky mercilessly choked an insane urge to lunge at Zemo. Knock the man over, rip his pants down, and start licking.
A wary eye peered at him from under the damp edge of a towel.
Bucky said nothing. With his heart galloping and his chest hiking over his hard breaths, he stared with single-minded obsession at Zemo's throat. It was difficult to tell whether he'd left any marks on it because it was so pink and flushed already. But the dark edge of Zemo's omega collar was poking out from the turtleneck encasing it, and that was visibly dented. There were crescents and furrows where Bucky's teeth had scraped over the leather.
Bucky almost knotted again on the spot.
"That smell," Zemo spoke up, gravel in his voice. "Is that you, James?"
There was no denying it. Zemo could probably scent Bucky about as well as Bucky could scent him, even without enhanced senses. He was standing there holding dirty clothes soaked in jizz and alpha pheromones.
"Sorry," he muttered.
Zemo's gaze fell away. Bucky saw his hand steal up to his throat, where his fingers found the edge of his collar and slid uneasily over it.
For a gut-tightening second Bucky thought he had discovered the punctures in the leather. But Zemo just dragged the fabric of his turtleneck over the edge of the band.
He was trying to hide it. His collar. Like Bucky hadn't already seen it, inhaled it. Become intimately acquainted with its straps and curves and hold around Zemo's neck.
Sam rejoined them, carrying a glass of water. Bucky didn't even wait for him to hand it off to Zemo. He sped off towards his room. The sooner he could throw clean clothes on and get the fuck out of the apartment, away from Zemo, the sooner his hormones would settle. Then they could concentrate on the mission. And nobody would ever find out how damn close Bucky had come to sinking his teeth not into Zemo's collar, but into Zemo's throat, to claim him.