Chapter Text
Steve pulls back with bloodied lips and looks, dazed, at the trembling wreck spread out in his lap.
This late into their cycles, Bucky’s the one who’s too far gone for words. Steve was no better until a few hours ago, reduced to possessive growling while Bucky screamed his name and begged and—
His swollen knot throbs weakly, pleasure biting into his gut. His dick feels like it’s about to fall off, as do half his body parts, but they’ve still got at least two more days to fuck through, and Steve knows that it won’t take more than Bucky arching his throat and whining sweetly for his blood to rush south. But that’s a while off and for now, they’re locked together, and Bucky looks half asleep, stuffed full of cock and dripping come and so obviously sated.
A low, pleased rumble escapes him at the view because he did this, he got Bucky fuck-drunk and spent, and the sound elicits a faint, purr-like sound from the semi-conscious man under him.
Steve leans in and licks at the sluggishly bleeding bite mark on Bucky’s throat. Bucky instinctively tilts his head, exposing himself to Steve’s mouth; it’s pleasure and submission both, and something in Steve crows in triumph.
Mine, it says, the stupid, mindless thing.
He has just enough sense, now, to know that’s not quite right; Bucky’s not his and this is a mistake months in the making, but Steve’s still an alpha in rut, clinging to just a sliver of sanity, and he doesn’t stop mouthing at Bucky’s throat, lapping at bruises fresh and healing. Their bond mark is stark against Bucky’s pale skin. Steve kisses it gently, his matching mark warming.
He has a very vague memory of Bucky shoving Steve’s head away from his throat, maybe on the first day. He’s not sure. Ruts and heats tend to be eerily complimentary. Ruts hit hard and taper off; heats start slow and intensify. It always leaves one partner’s head a little clearer.
In theory, at least.
There was nothing like that last time. Steve was lost to it from beginning to end, and he doesn’t remember what Bucky was like. All he has are vague impressions of heat and skin and a deep, gravelly voice.
When this is over, Bucky will say he never wants to see Steve again, and that’s fair, but this time, Steve will at least know what he’s losing. He’s not sure if that’s better or worse.
His knot deflates, a moment of piercing sensation, and Steve slips out in a gush of come. Bucky moans weakly, but he’s also done for the time being, barely even twitching when Steve lays him out on the bed. He’s sprawled in their mess and so’s Steve, but the whole damn bed is drenched in sweat and sex. Steve can barely smell the stench over the combined scent of their pheromones.
Still, he gathers Bucky close, using what’s left of his strength to pull him on top of Steve. He’s a big man, almost as big as Steve, and the heavy weight of him is comforting. Bucky’s eyes flutter open, pinning Steve with a hazy, heavy-lidded gaze. He smiles, faint and sweet. Steve hasn’t seen a smile like that on Bucky’s face before, not even when they fucked the last time, both of them in their right minds for once. He doesn’t think he deserves this smile, but he drinks it in greedily anyway.
He smooths shaking fingers over Bucky’s brow, heart clenching when he rubs his face against Steve’s palm like a great cat.
He falls asleep like that, gently pinned under Bucky’s bulk and surrounded by his sweet scent.
-
He wakes to tight, clenching heat on his cock, a growl already spilling from his lips.
Bucky bottoms out with a throaty cry. He’s sopping wet, dripping even with Steve’s cock plugging him up. And god, he’s desperate, bracing shaky arms on Steve’s chest and throwing himself into a violent pace.
Steve, wide awake and hot all over, tries to be content to just watch—Bucky’s a study in sin, flushed and sweating and writhing madly on Steve’s cock—but his blood’s burning to pin this pretty thing down and take and take and—
Bucky howls when Steve bodily lifts him off his cock, but it breaks into a whimper when Steve flips them over, pressing Bucky’s face into the bed. He’s obscene, the muscles of his arched back taut and gleaming. Steve grabs one soft cheek and spreads him wide, exposing his wet, gaping hole. He doesn’t tease, can’t, and Bucky’s cry is drowned under Steve’s roar when he drives home.
“Impatient,” Steve growls, pulling Bucky’s head up by the hair. “Couldn’t have woken me up?”
Bucky doesn’t reply, of course he doesn’t, breaking into pieces around Steve’s plunging cock, but he reacts to Steve’s voice, keening and baring his throat, and all Steve wants is to eat this boy raw.
He bites deep and blood spills into his mouth, its metallic salt overpowered by the sickly-sweet scent clogging Steve’s nostrils. Bucky screams and tightens around him, his feverish heat burning Steve to the bone. He doubles his pace, slamming into Bucky, over and over and over, and he doesn’t try to rein in his inhuman speed and strength because Bucky can take it, he’s the only one who can take it, and Steve shoves his greedy cock deep and tears into the soft flesh of his nape, and Bucky’s cries fade into soft, incessant keening.
Steve reaches under their joined, writhing bodies and finds Bucky’s cock dripping into the sheets. He pins it to Bucky’s belly, palm cupped over it, but he doesn’t curl his fingers and stroke, doesn’t do anything but hold it there, protective and possessive. Bucky ruts into it and grinds back against Steve, but it’s a clumsy, stuttering rhythm. He jolts with every thrust, and his voice sharpens now and then, rising high like he’s about to break, but he doesn’t, just cries and clenches around Steve. His cock gushes precome, wetting Steve’s hand, and he can almost feel Bucky’s pulse around him, throbbing to their frenzied rhythm.
He pushes his hand more firmly against Bucky’s cock, squeezing it between palm and belly, and Bucky claws at the sheets and throws his head back, and his throat’s just begging Steve to close his jaws over its pale, bruised form.
Bucky mewls when Steve bleeds him, and his muscles ripple with heat.
Sticky wetness drenches Steve’s hand, and he holds Bucky’s cock and fucks him hard through it, white creeping into his vision as he’s sucked violently into that clenching body.
And then it’s over, and Bucky’s hanging limp, ass stretched wide around Steve’s cock and throat trapped in his hungry teeth. Steve licks at the fresh wound, soft and soothing. It’ll heal, it’ll all heal, but Steve’s been biting Bucky bloody since they began, making marks that won’t last but stake a claim all the same.
He licks over their bonding mark, scrapes his teeth over it as gently as he can, and Bucky shudders, whining weakly.
Steve lets him go and straightens. Bucky pillows his head on his arms. He’s still tight around Steve’s cock, soaking him in slick. It drips down his thighs, along his taint, and when Steve follows the trail with a teasing finger, Bucky tightens furiously around his dick.
His balls are a mess too. Steve rolls them in his palm, and the sound Bucky makes is barely human. There’s a plea in it, he thinks.
“I know,” Steve murmurs, though he doubts Bucky’s in a state to register it. “You need more.”
He spreads Bucky’s ass again, shuddering at the sight of him stretched obscenely wide around Steve. He traces a finger around the taut rim. It’s a dark, violent pink, fucked raw. Bucky twitches weakly at the touch but doesn’t make a sound. Maybe that’s been fucked out of him too.
He prods tentatively at it. It doesn’t look like it can fit anything else, but it can; Steve’s lost count of the times they’ve knotted, but Bucky took it all, frantic and greedy, howling as their bodies locked violently together.
Steve coats the finger in Bucky’s own slick and shoves it in.
It fits.
His cock’s a line of pulsing heat, and the swift slide of his own finger along its length is—maddening. He pushes deeper on instinct, burying those last few inches, and Bucky jolts again, shuddering inside and out. It’s a harder fit now, Bucky clamped insanely tight around cock and finger, and Steve has to pry him open wider, pushing in a second finger, then a third, until his gut’s twisted into knots of heat and Bucky’s gasping wordless cries with every breath.
Steve tries, on a mad whim, to fuck him and finger him, but the angle’s awkward and the pressure burns, and he’s at the edge between one, dirty grind and the next, pulling his fingers out in time to thrust deep and shudder, knot popping into place.
Bucky sobs something that might be Steve’s name.
Steve covers him, pushing him down, blanketing his body with his own. It aches where they’re joined, the movement making Steve’s knot tug at Bucky’s abused hole. There’s a weak cry from under him, but Steve can’t tell whether it’s pain or pleasure. State he’s in, there’s probably not much of a difference between the two. Steve croons sweetly into his ear anyway; he’s too tired to whisper sweet nothings, but he tries to be sweet anyway, kissing the shell of Bucky’s ear and the parts of his face he can reach. He noses sweat-drenched hair out of the way and tucks his face into the crook of Bucky’s throat.
He exhibits no discomfort at Steve’s crushing weight, but that’s not saying much. He’s got a fat knot pressed up in him and an alpha pinning him down—of course he’s not complaining.
Mate, corrects a little voice in Steve’s head, a little too pleased for comfort.
It’s just the sex fucking with him—the sex and the scent and the second heartbeat pulsing all through Steve’s veins.
Peggy was different—
He shoves that thought away. She doesn’t deserve to be thought of while Steve’s balls-deep in another. Bucky doesn’t deserve Steve’s ghosts in the bed with them.
And maybe Steve doesn’t deserve it either, that ill-fated collision of the past clawing him up and the future with its teeth in him.
Under him, Bucky shifts, pulling his arms out from under his own body. He reaches back and clumsily pats Steve, half on his face and half in his hair. And he’s purring, a low, gentle sound meant to soothe. Steve’s not sure whether he even knows he’s doing it.
Instinct, maybe—urges older than either of them. Steve’s victim to the same with Bucky’s scent in his throat and searing want flooding his veins. They’re not animals, but they’re not isolated existences, not anymore. S.H.I.E.L.D. made sure of that, and then the two of them went about making it worse, again and again.
It could be worse; Bucky’s a good man, strong and kind, and Steve can think of worse fates than sharing a soul with him for however long.
Or maybe that’s precisely why it could be better.
Bucky purrs louder, and he’s moving now, squirming under Steve, who starts to rise to let him breathe, but Bucky’s fingers tighten in his hair, and Steve realizes, with a piercing pang, that he’s still just trying to comfort Steve, to ease the melancholy that he’s likely dripping all over the place.
“Ssh,” Steve whispers, tucking his face into Bucky’s throat again, lips puckering against the damp skin. “S’slright, sweetheart, I’m alright.”
He wills his body to relax. And it’s playing dirty, but he grinds his hips, shifting his knot inside Bucky’s feverish clutch, and fuck, that’s a double-edged blade—sharp pleasure jolting up his spine—but it works, and Bucky goes limp under him, whining softly.
Steve follows suit, soothed in spite of himself, mostly because Bucky tried.
Christ, he doesn’t want this lucidity, wants the sex-crazed haze back. There was none of this last time; Steve was lost to a rut delayed by seventy years and triggered by a broken bond, and then, when the whole mess of it was over, S.H.I.E.L.D. just gassed him and put him out of his misery.
He has no such luxury this time, and he wonders, morbidly curious, how Bucky felt at the beginning, when he was the one in possession of most of his mental faculties.
Not regretful, Steve hopes. Steve was the one who showed up at the door, but Bucky pulled him in and took him to bed and let Steve devour him—that has to count for something, right?
Bucky stirs again, with intent this time, and his body squeezes tight around Steve, brutally quieting his every thought.
-
A heat’s waning hours are also violently demanding, and Bucky effectively fucks Steve’s brooding out of him. When he’s not feeding fingers and fist and cock to that tight, hungry hole, Steve’s feeding him more literally, with the easy snacks Bucky has stocked the room with.
Plush, pink lips part sweetly for the food, and Bucky’s tongue curls playfully around Steve’s fingers when they withdraw.
That, too, ends up with them tangled in heat, Bucky’s lips wrapped greedily around Steve’s cock, an indulgence that doesn’t last long when both their bodies have other demands.
He takes Bucky on the floor, fucking him through an orgasm and pulling out another amidst pained whimpers and manic writhing, and then Steve comes too, spilling deep in him with a groan. His knot stays dormant despite the pulsing ache of it, but Bucky’s squirming on his cock, clenching madly around Steve’s dick as if trying to milk a knot out of it.
He pulls out before that gripping heat can kill him and quiets Bucky’s complaint with his mouth.
Steve laps at the mess of slick and comes; Bucky’s hole is gaping open from Steve’s cock, and his tongue can’t be enough, but Bucky shoves back into it anyway, shuddering into a fever pitch. Their mingled scent is heavy here, utterly consuming, and Steve’s spent but his gut still tightens, fissures of heat shuddering into his cock. He shoves his face harder against Bucky’s ass, devouring with lips and tongue and a hint of teeth, and Bucky goes wild, his sounds a violent blend of pleasure and frustration.
He still comes, slick gushing out of his trembling hole, making a mess of Steve. He laps it up, ravenous, but Bucky’s sobbing now, pained and needy, and it’s not mere instinct that has Steve raring to give him everything he needs.
Bucky swallows three fingers like it’s nothing, but even as his body opens up, wet and eager, he screams, back arching sharply.
Steve gently shoves him back down with a hand on his nape and keep him there as he works in another finger. That goes in easy too, a snug fit, but when he nudges his thumb against Bucky’s taut rim, Bucky’s metal fingers gouge right into the floorboard.
“Easy,” Steve murmurs, stroking a palm down Bucky’s spine, along the rippling muscles of his back. “I’ll give you what you need.”
If Bucky registers the words, he gives no acknowledgement, but the tone, at least, must get through because the tension drains out of him, bit by bit, with each stroke of Steve’s hand and every hushed, soothing sound he makes.
Bucky still screams when Steve works his fist into him, still shudders and writhes, but his cock’s dripping steadily again and his ass is greedy for something to plug it up, and in the end, Bucky’s panting and spent and sated, clenched tight around the girth of Steve’s fist.
It’s nothing like having him on his cock, his knot, but there’s still a heady appeal to the sight of Bucky hanging off his fist. Steve gives it an experimental twist, and Bucky shivers violently, a broken whine escaping him.
“Ssh,” Steve croons, patting his ass and gripping his hips, tight and grounding. “I’ve got you.”
Bucky settles down and slowly, Steve coaxes him to lie flat on the ground. The floor is not the most comfortable place for this, and its chill bites into their heated flesh; waning cycle aside, Steve still can’t fucking think when Bucky’s got him by the dick. Steve tries, as best as he can with his hand caught in Bucky’s vice grip, to lie down beside him, share some of his warmth.
Bucky turns his head, half-shut eyes peering hazily at Steve. He’s gorgeous in his pleasure, and it’s not a new realization, but Steve’s helplessly mesmerized all the same. Bucky smiles, soft and sweet, and Steve’s heart thumps painfully in his chest.
-
It’s the empty bed that wakes him.
They left each other rarely in the last four days; Steve has vague memories of Bucky leading him to the bathroom and turning the shower on them both. More clearly, he remembers carrying Bucky in there and running a bath, sliding into the hot water to hold him close.
He’ll carry those for a long time.
Peggy accused him, once or twice, of being a romantic, her eyes sparkling and fond. Steve denied it each time, spilling white lies with a smile.
He can’t be thinking of Peggy. It’s not—god, it’s not right.
The shower’s running. Steve picks himself off the bed and ambles to the bathroom, eager and hesitant in equal measure. He’s hard, cock swaying a little awkwardly between his legs, but the urge to drive deep into warm flesh and lock them tight is much milder, barely piercing past the worry that Bucky’s back to his senses and preparing to run away.
Steve won’t blame him. It’s what they have to do. But he dreads the moment all the same.
He opens the bathroom door, and there he is, bare and beautiful. He’s turned away from Steve, both arms braced on the wall as the water sluices down his back. Steve tries not to see an invitation in that stance.
He raps his knuckles on the open door.
Bucky’s body shakes a little, but Steve’s not sure whether he’s laughing. A hand leaves the wall to wave Steve inside. He steps closer, pausing within arm’s reach.
“Bucky?”
He thinks he hears a sigh, buried under the sound of the water.
“Yeah,” he says. “Join in. I won’t bite—well, I do, but you don’t complain much.”
The joke falls a little flat. Steve tries to scrounge up a smile anyway but fails. Still, he steps closer, something in him unclenching as he’s buffeted by Bucky’s warmth and his scent. The water’s pleasantly hot, just for a moment before Bucky turns it off.
“Closer,” Bucky says—no, demands.
Steve snakes an arm around his waist and presses his face into Bucky’s wet hair but keeps his hips tilted carefully away. As if sensing precisely that, Bucky leans back, pushing his body flush to Steve’s. His dick settles snugly between Bucky’s cheeks, and Steve has to lock his muscles tight to stop himself from rutting against him.
“Yeah,” Bucky breathes, head titled back on Steve’s shoulders, eyes closed. “I’m not done yet either. God, I’m tired.”
“Sorry,” Steve chokes out.
Bucky huffs an ugly laugh and reaches behind him, hand squirming between their bodies to grab hold of Steve’s cock. He leads it to his hole, which gives sweet and easy; he’s wet inside, sucking Steve in greedily, and his half-hearted restraint shatters in the face of that slick heat.
He thrusts, burying himself deep. Bucky groans like it hurts.
Steve stills.
Bucky opens with eyes with visible effort. He’s slightly flushed, cheeks dusted a pale pink that makes Steve want to bite them.
“Sensitive,” Bucky rasps. “Starting to feel the last few days, and you’re—god, you’re so big.”
His voice rises in pitch, ending with a breathy gasp, and Steve presses harder into him, trying to crawl even deeper, except he can’t, he’s balls deep already, and all it does is make Bucky cry out and clench violently around him.
“F-fuck, ‘on’t—” Bucky slurs, slumping forward, almost like he’s about to fall, but Steve catches him, pushes him against the wall, and follows him dick-first.
Bucky whimpers, both hands fisted against the tiles. Steve covers with his own, coaxes them open, and links his fingers with trembling flesh and cool metal. Bucky shudders like that hurts too.
For a moment, they stay like that, tangled incomprehensibly together. A second heartbeat thrums in Steve’s blood, pulsing to the beat of his own.
“Let me,” he whispers, kissing the shell of Bucky’s ear. “I’ll be gentle.”
Bucky laughs, the sound rough and so sweet.
“No, you won’t,” he says, turning his head to flash Steve a crooked grin. “But that’s alright.”
Steve has to kiss him. Bucky gasps into it, surprise heavy on his lips, and Steve licks in, deep and dirty, and Bucky shudders against him, around him; he’s a man made to be drowned in, and Steve’s got a habit of plunging deep.
He fucks Bucky like that, their fingers wound tight, their lips wet and hungry, and Bucky cries out with every thrust, soft sounds fluttering in his throat. It’s mingled pain and pleasure, and the vice-like clench of his body is trying to pull Steve in and push him out in equal measure, the demands of the heat warring with the ache of a body used and abused for days on end. Steve’s not much better, his thighs shaking as he ruts into Bucky. He’s hot all over, but it’s a feverish, unpleasant heat, only barely edged out by the building, winding pleasure in his gut.
He’s close but not quite enough. This isn’t enough; Bucky’s tight around his cock and sweet against his mouth, but they’re moving in a slow, aching grind, and Steve needs—
He pulls out suddenly, and Bucky makes a soft, broken cry, tearing free of the kiss to blink big, wounded eyes at Steve. They make Steve want to kiss it all better and eat him alive.
Bucky grunts when his back hits the wall, but when Steve hoists him up, he’s quick to throw his limbs around Steve and cling tightly.
Steve slides back home, and Bucky throws his head back, mouth open on a wordless cry. Steve licks the sound out of his mouth, burying a moan of his own between Bucky’s warm, trembling lips.
“St-Steve, Steve,” Bucky gasps into the kiss, a hushed litany that worms its way under Steve’s skin, setting his blood to boil.
He grips Bucky tighter, pounds into him harder, his tired thighs forgotten in favor of the feverish heat of him. Steve’s name fades into high-pitched cries, until Bucky’s not kissing back so much as mewling into Steve’s mouth, but it’s good, he’s so good, and Steve burning for him, the fire in his veins rising to swallow him whole.
Bucky screams when Steve knots him, clenching all over as his own orgasm sweeps through him. He spills between them, a pretty fucking mess, and Steve laps up the tears that trickle down his cheeks. They burst on his tongue in slivers of salty heat.
They come down slowly, foreheads pressed together. It’s unquestionably intimate, different from the wet twist of his tongue in Bucky’s ass or the way they’re now locked together.
Steve nuzzles in, pressing sweet kisses to Bucky’s nose and cheek. A soft huff answers him.
“We’re trapped,” Bucky says, voice a lovely wreck, “in the goddamn bathroom.”
“No,” Steve says, taking a fortifying breath. “We’re really not.”
Bucky sucks in a sharp breath and clings tighter as Steve pulls away from the wall and starts walking. It’s a little tricky with the floor still wet and the two of them knotted, but concern for Bucky and the miracle running through Steve’s veins form a frighteningly effective combination.
By the time they reach the bed, Bucky’s suspiciously glassy-eyed, and there’s a newfound urgency in Steve’s steps.
He carefully lowers them into bed, stomach muscles going taut. It still pulls at them, a piercing ache where they’re joined. Steve knot meets the clenching resistance of Bucky’s rim and pulses hot.
Bucky gasps almost soundlessly.
Steve braces himself over him, and maybe Bucky reads the intent in his expression or maybe he’s just learned Steve over four days of back-breaking sex because he groans, a soul-deep sound, and whispers a plea that breaks in half when Steve presses his body deep into him.
It’s a dirty grinding motion; they’re stuck together, Bucky’s body as unforgiving as it’s inviting, and Steve’s knot is too big to ease out of his tightly clenched hole. But Bucky’s soaked with come and slick, and there’s just enough give for Steve to grit his teeth and move.
Fingers claw at his shoulder, down his back, and the sharp sting of it has Steve growling and biting and fucking with bodies too tightly tied to have room for it.
“Can’t, please, I c-can’t,” Bucky gasps, nails drawing blood. His ankles are digging into the small of Steve’s back, and his eyes are screwed shut, and he’s beautiful and breaking and Steve’s, just for now, just a little.
“You can,” Steve growls, barely recognizing his voice. Bucky thrashes and groans and tears bloody grooves down Steve’s back, and Steve repays him kind, teeth sinking deep into his chest and neck and shoulder, leaving behind angry imprints that leak red.
This is the last time, Steve’s certain. They’re running on fumes, their cycles almost at an end, and he doesn’t have the slightest clue where they go from here, but he knows they won’t be walking the same road.
This is the last time, and Steve wants to make it count.
Remember this, he doesn’t say, but he bites Bucky’s mouth bloody and makes him scream over the knot tearing him open, pressing hard into the warm places inside of him as if that will make these memories sink through his flesh and settle in his bones.
Remember me, he doesn’t beg because he knows, with damning certainty, that Bucky can’t forget the heart pulsing to the beat of his own even if he wants to.
Steve doesn’t want a bond. He doesn’t want to keep a mate who’s half a stranger.
But he wants the savage simplicity of a soul tangled with his, and he wants the long-lost chance to have known this beautiful boy on his own merits. He can’t have either, and he buries the aches in Bucky’s yielding flesh, pushing and pulling until he arches up against Steve in a violent, screaming climax that pulls Steve right over the edge with him.
-
A brief, silent eternity later, Steve asks, “What now?”
Bucky, clad in a turtleneck that hides his bonding scar and several healing bruises, doesn’t meet Steve’s eyes when he answers.
“Now, I go far, far away.”
It’s a promise. Steve can tell.
He offers one of his own.
“I won’t look for you.”
Bucky almost smiles.
-
The first time—after S.H.I.E.L.D. and his rut and the first, cold shock of the future—Steve threw himself into learning all he could. He read, tried in vain to run himself ragged in the gym, learned to use technology with stumbling steps, and read some more, all the while dodging S.H.I.E.L.D.’s agents.
Then the aliens came and that, at least, was simple.
Steve fights to protect—it’s who he is.
It ended with his mate-but-not’s scent thick in his nostrils and his rut clawing up his insides and days spent calling out for a man he barely knew. Steve didn’t know James ‘Bucky’ Barnes, but his body burned bright for him.
And afterward, striking up unlikely, slightly desperate friendships with Tony and Natasha, he learned to sweep his apartment for little devices unlike anything he ever saw the SSR use, much like most of the future’s technology.
He tried, and mostly succeeded, in thinking of this as his present, not merely the future. He got decent, if not good, at ignoring the warmth of the second scar on his throat, on the other side of Peggy’s cold, dead mark.
He drove around America, saw places he never had, and did things he couldn’t before. He turned away from inviting eyes in bars, and when he told the bolder ones that was taken, he didn’t even sound very bitter.
And then—
Bucky, again and again.
This time, he doesn’t have the luxury of losing himself in this brave new world.
-
He mopes around in the tower. Well, that’s the gist of Tony’s phrasing. Steve doesn’t quite have his knack for colorful language. And he denies it to Tony’s face, but Steve knows he’s not wrong.
How long will it take for the bond to break?
It may have been a year, initially, but since then, they’ve fucked twice, one during their synced cycles, and that won’t help. They knew that. Steve knew that when he let his smaller brain convince him to run to Bucky’s place in Brooklyn, where S.H.I.E.L.D. had placed him like an attractive offering.
Bait, as if he and Steve were pawns in some game.
His blood still boils at the thought of it, but the opportunity to punch Fury in the face isn’t worth the pain of interacting with that rat bastard, so Steve takes to pulverizing the punching bags in Tony’s fancy gym.
When the third one hits the floor, breaking apart, a soft ‘ouch’ comes from behind him.
Steve whips around.
Natasha quirks an elegant eyebrow at him. She’s a brunette today, her hair styled in a spiky bob. Steve’s learned not to ask.
“Natasha,” he greets cautiously because friends or not, caution is always wise with her.
“Steve,” comes the warm answer, which makes Steve feel like a right heel for a second before he sees the amused glint in her eyes. “I don’t think those are a very good match for you. Should I volunteer?”
“To…be my punching bag?”
She snorts.
“No, not my thing, though I know someone who might have.”
She says that with a crooked grin, a challenge tucked into the edges of it. Steve locks his jaw and does not ask. Her smile evens out after a moment, the expression softer; Steve wishes he knew whether to trust it.
“Let’s spar,” she says. “It’ll be good for you. Can’t have those skills getting rusty.”
“Seventy years in the ice didn’t manage,” he points out drily.
“Ah, but why risk it? C’mon, I’m more fun than punching things that won’t punch back.”
That is a compelling argument.
They go a few rounds. Steve wins, but Natasha’s a skilled opponent, with near-absolute control over her body. She contorts in ways that makes Steve wince and lands blows that are sure to bruise. He has to hold back his strength because he can crush bones with little thought, but she still lets him throw himself into it, losing his head to sweetly controlled violence.
Once it’s over by mutual, unspoken understanding, they sprawl out in the mats, pants filling the air.
“You’re like a goddamn tank, Rogers,” Natasha gasps.
“Beat your ass a couple of times and we’re on a last-name basis again?”
She swats at him.
“Fuck you, Steve,” she says sweetly.
Steve laughs. The sound’s unfamiliar, crawling up his throat and spilling from his lips, shaking his whole damn body. It feels like he hasn’t laughed in a long time, which is not true, probably—who even knows.
In the ensuing silence, he can feel Natasha’s stare boring holes into the side of his face but doesn’t turn to look at her.
After a while, she says, “Tony says you’ve been moping.”
“Those his exactly words?”
“Probably not. Pepper told me he said you’re moping.”
“And what does Pepper think?”
“Well, she phrased it more nicely.”
“The future’s full of nosy fucks.”
“Language, Captain, my virgin ears.”
“I saw Clint last week, Natasha. There’s nothing virgin about you.”
She laughs louder than he’s ever heard from her, the sound rough and unpolished. Real, he dares hope.
“I like you, Steve,” she says. “But I still wouldn’t be saying this without permission. Bucky quit S.H.I.E.L.D.”
Steve freezes.
He sits up, heart pounding, but Natasha remains sprawled beside him, staring up at the ceiling like she doesn’t have a care in the world.
“What?” he asks sharply.
She shrugs and though she’s not looking at him, Steve has the sense that she’s cataloguing every one of his reactions.
“He called in to extend his leave of absence. Sort of. It’s complicated. Anyway, Fury was…displeased. And Bucky’s not the kind of guy to lose his temper easily, despite all the”—she waves her hand vaguely—“murder strutting and assassin aesthetic. But when he does, it’s glorious. Quit on the spot. Hill did some damage control, but still, Bucky won’t come back.”
“Fuck.” Steve rubs his hand over his face, fingers digging into his temples. “Fuck, I’m sorry.”
“Whatever did you do?”
He doesn’t answer that. He can practically hear her roll her eyes.
“I’m not saying this so you can mope more, Steve. I’m telling you—well, I’m suggesting nicely that you use it.”
Steve stares at her. She stares back, eyes unusually intense, and he can almost imagine her as her namesake, perched at the center of a sprawling web.
“Use what?” he murmurs, wary of the answer.
She smiles. It’s not a particularly pleasant expression, lending sharp edges to the lovely lines of her face. But it is, Steve thinks, an honest expression, and he likes it a little, just for that.
“You’re a good man,” Natasha tells him, with a gravity the words don’t usually warrant. “S.H.I.E.L.D. isn’t good, Steve. It’s necessary. But it’s not good. Neither am I. Bucky either, though he tries more than most of us.”
Steve sits up because this is not a conversation he wants to have lying in a pool of his own sweat, and Natasha apes him. They end up cross-legged on the mats, facing each other.
“If this is a, uh, shovel talk, then you’re pretty late.”
She narrows her eyes at him.
“Don’t play dumb, Rogers.”
He huffs.
“Don’t beat around the bush, Romanoff. Or are secret agents allergic to telling things plainly?”
“It’s like you haven’t even met Clint.”
They both grin, and Steve’s sure he sees some of the tension leave her shoulders; he just doesn’t know why she’s letting him see it.
“Fine, I’ll be plain,” she says long-sufferingly. “Just this once because it’s important.”
“Duly noted.”
“S.H.I.E.L.D. needs you more than you need them. With Bucky gone, they don’t have a supersoldier in their ranks. Use that.”
For a moment, Steve regrets demanding she be direct. If she kept hinting and prodding, at least he could have remained stubbornly ignorant.
“I’m not joining, S.H.I.E.L.D.”
Natasha frowns.
“Oh, put away that face.”
“What face?”
She waves a hand at him.
“All disappointed and, well, you. I know your issues with them. It’s reasonable. And I’m not telling you to join them.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“Use them,” Natasha stresses, gleaming eyes narrowed at him. “S.H.I.E.L.D. may not be heroes, but they do good work a lot of the time. And you—you’re losing your mind, brooding in this tower without a purpose. Your American road trip bring you any peace, Steve?”
He winces and bites his tongue before he can lash out, but judging by the hard, satisfied look in her eyes, she got the reaction she wanted anyway.
“S.H.I.E.L.D. is half the reason I don’t have any peace,” he says acerbically.
“Bullshit,” she counters, vehement enough that Steve’s startled into silence. “They’ve made you angry. But you were lost well before.”
He leans in; he’s careful about it because they’re both alphas, stinking up the place with sweat and pheromones, but Steve is bigger and stronger, and it’s made him conscious of his power the way that little spitfire didn’t have to be.
She doesn’t flinch even when they’re nose to nose.
“And how,” he asks softly, “would you know that, Natasha?”
“You were my mission.”
And it’s not a surprise, not really. Steve’s not even disappointed in her, no matter what his expression. But the hurt—well, he wasn’t expecting that to sting this much.
He pulls back, but her hands shoot out to grab his face, keeping him uncomfortably close. If he didn’t know better, he’d think she’s about to kiss him, which is mildly horrifying. Unlike Bucky, Natasha is just similar enough to Peggy to probably give Steve an existential crisis.
Thankfully, she doesn’t do anything except hold him there, close enough to see his own reflection in her pupils.
“Were, Steve,” she says quietly. “You’re my friend. And I don’t say that lightly.”
“But you’ve done your fair share of following me around.”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t notice you.”
“Well, duh. You caught the rest. It’s why they sent me. You think the Black Widow doesn’t have better things to do than stalk a low-priority target?”
“I don’t know the Black Widow that well, but I wouldn’t put it past Natasha Romanoff to stalk me for my own good.”
She throws her head back and laughs. Steve straightens up, rubbing the back of his head, pleased despite everything at making her laugh like this.
“It wasn’t for your own good,” she says, grinning widely, eyes all crinkled. “That’s why I stopped. And you’re distracting me, Steve.”
“This seemed a more pleasant thread than you wanting me in S.H.I.E.L.D.”
“Oh, I don’t. You’d set the whole thing on fire at this rate. Work with them, not for them. Sure, the Avengers handle end-of-the-world kind of bullshit, but that doesn’t come around every day.”
“Which we’re grateful for,” he says pointedly and gets a suspiciously angelic smile in response.
“Yes, yes. But you need something to do, noble hero.”
“Doesn’t have to be S.H.I.E.L.D.”
“No, but they’re your best bet. They have intel, resources…and you have leverage.”
“If they’re so desperate, why’d they let Bu—Barnes go?”
Natasha’s kind enough not to acknowledge the slip.
“They didn’t. He just didn’t give them much of a choice. They own him, technically—his arm, especially. You’d be familiar with that.”
It’s not a question. Steve answers anyway, voice dipping into a growl.
“I do.”
She smiles, sharp and toothy.
“It stop you from doing what you had to?”
“Yes.” Honest answer, burns his tongue. “I let it, for a while. And then I couldn’t.”
“He did too,” she says. “And now he can’t. We all have our lines in the sand.”
“Should you be telling me this?”
“It’s for a good cause. He’ll approve.”
“I doubly he’ll approve of me working with S.H.I.E.L.D.”
“No, but he’ll be glad you’re not being a sad sack of shit. His words, not mine.” She smiles when he sees all the questions Steve’s biting back. “Yes, he told me to keep an eye on you. Sounds familiar?”
Is—is he okay?
Why wouldn’t he be?
Yes. Right. I’m glad he’s okay.
He’s had a hundred such conversations with both Natasha and Clint. He can’t not care. It’s nice, though, to know the sentiment is reciprocated somewhat.
“I still think this is a bad idea,” Steve says because S.H.I.E.L.D. is less of a verbal landmine than Bucky Barnes.
“Consider it. It’s all I’m asking.”
Steve gives her a terse nod.
-
He considers it. Three more punching bags die inglorious deaths.
-
“You’ve got some nerve, Rogers.”
Steve blinks placidly at Fury, who seems greatly tempted to reach across the table and strangle him. Behind him, the ever-present Hill looks very tired and supremely unimpressed, though Steve can’t tell whether that’s directed at him, both him and Fury, or life in general.
“Take it or leave it,” Steve says.
“The hell made you think this was a good idea?”
“You,” Steve says, and it’s only half a lie. “If you didn’t want me to think you were desperate, you shouldn’t have pulled all the shit you did.”
If Fury scowls any more, his eyebrows are going to sink through his skull.
“Shit you were pissed about,” Fury points out. “Changed your tune pretty fast. What, Stark Tower not entertaining enough for you?”
“Avengers Tower,” Steve corrects automatically, Tony echoing it in his head. “And that’s none of your concern. Yes or no, Fury—answer’s simple enough.”
“Captain America, a freelance agent,” Fury says, stressing the word like it has personally offended him. “Can you even imagine the shit I’ll get for this, Rogers?”
“Somehow, I can’t see you as the kind of person who cares.”
That pulls the faintest smile out of Hill. Fury just heaves a deep sigh.
“If you do,” Steve says mildly, “you can just say no.”
And there it is, that burning glare.
Steve knows Fury won’t say no; he knew it the moment he put forth his proposal, refused any compromise, and didn’t find himself thrown bodily out of Fury’s office.
-
They issue him an apartment in D.C.
Steve categorically refuses to leave New York. He’s not attached per se. It’s not bad in the tower; the residential floors are quiet and spacious enough that Steve can go days without seeing another soul. Pepper and Bruce are lovely people, and Tony’s grown on him like a particularly stubborn strain of moss.
It's not home, but home’s another place, another time. It’s good though. It’s even better than Brooklyn because there are less ghosts.
His refusal is mostly just spite.
“I am not one of your agents,” he tells Hill after a call where she’s persuasive and demanding in turns. “There’s a goddamn signed contract proving it. Don’t try this shit, Hill.”
Hill sighs, and all of a sudden, she’s calm and when she speaks, her words have none of her earlier fire.
“Who knew Captain America swore so much.”
If anything, she sounds amused. It reminds him a little of Natasha, the way she wears a hundred skins. But where Steve’s fond of Natasha, Hill just gets under his skin.
“Goodbye, Hill,” is all he says, hanging up.
The apartment’s still there, but he stays in New York. And when he has to go to the Triskelion, he stays over and pretends he hasn’t seen his pretty alpha neighbor in the family albums Peggy shows him in some of her more lucid moments.
He finds but doesn’t remove the bugs, but he does call in Natasha for a more thorough sweep; she’s more immersed in this sort of technology than he is, and a part of him just wants her company while they drink and eat amidst careful conversations that leave half the words unsaid.
It's not all bad. Steve has a gaping hollow in his chest and twin scars on his throat, one hot and the other cold. He wants things to punch, and S.H.I.E.L.D. is only too happy to provide.
-
Another rut tears through him, and he spends a week howling for a man he has no right to want.
Steve emerges on the other side of it angrier than ever. For a while, Hill and Fury even stop pushing.
-
He’s in Naples, sprawled in a hotel bed after a solo mission that ended early in painfully anti-climactic fashion, and someone knocks on his door.
Steve’s on his feet in seconds, shield in hand, because it’s a rundown hotel tucked into a corner of the city, and he shouldn’t have visitors. Could be S.H.I.E.L.D., pulling its semi-regular bullshit, or could be worse; maybe he’ll get to work out some frustration after all.
The smell hits him first.
Bucky Barnes’s baby blues blink sweetly at him.