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“Steve.” Bucky’s voice sounds strained even through the comms. “You need to get to me now.”
Steve ducks behind a desk as five Hydra soldiers strafe the room with their guns. “You okay?”
“I’m not hurt. Just… get to me.”
“Cap,” Sam says. “We can clear the way. You really need to get to him. Hydra set a trap for him.”
A cold rage flares up inside Steve at Sam’s words. Time slows down as his mind becomes crystal clear and focused on only one thing. “On my way.” He vaults over the table and smashes into the soldiers sneaking up on his location. He doesn’t hold back. His only objective is to put them down and get to Bucky. When he runs out of the room, the five soldiers are lying on the ground behind him. None of them are getting up again.
Steve follows JARVIS’ directions to the east wing of the Hydra base. When he finally gets eyes on Bucky, he finds him backed into a corner of the room by a group of soldiers. From the way Bucky’s fighting, Steve can tell that he’s toying with the soldiers, letting them come to him so he can dismantle them.
He scans the room for threats and spots Rumlow by the wall near the door. He’s being held upright by another soldier. He’s hunched over, face pale and sweating, but his eyes are locked on Bucky. Steve’s lip curls instinctively as Rumlow’s scent reaches him: an alpha in rut.
Then, Steve picks up the scent of an omega in heat. A warm rich scent of honey vanilla cinnamon. He sucks in a lungful of air. It’s not just any omega. It’s Bucky.
A vicious growl ripples through the air. It takes a second for Steve to realize that the sound is coming from him. He steps forward, driven by the twin urges of getting to Bucky and killing Rumlow. Bucky’s head snaps up and their eyes lock for a second before Bucky snaps the neck of the soldier in front of him.
The soldiers are no threat to Bucky. No, the biggest threat in the room to Bucky is the alpha in rut. Steve leaps forward.
*
“Steve.”
Steve snaps to attention at the sound of Bucky's voice. He’s not sure how it happened, but Rumlow’s on the floor under him, face a bloody, pulpy mess of cuts and bruises. He’s still breathing, but only barely. One more punch and he won’t be, Steve thinks.
“Quit playing,” Bucky says. “You need to get me out of here.”
“Okay.” Steve lowers his fist. His instinct is to eliminate any unbonded alpha in rut near Bucky. He makes himself stand up before he ends up killing Rumlow in cold blood. “Okay.” He steps over the body of the soldier who’d been holding Rumlow up and moves to Bucky’s side, checking him for injuries. Apart from a hectic color to his cheeks, Bucky seems fine.
He hands Steve the shield. “Let’s go.”
“Quinjet’s on the roof,” Tony says. “Get him out of here.”
They’re being treated like a bonded pair, Steve realizes—where one goes, the other goes, too. Which, he supposes, in a way they are. If only platonically.
“You take point,” Bucky rasps. He shoulders his gun.
Steve nods. With Bucky behind him, scent rich and lush with his heat, Steve cares nothing at all about preserving Hydra lives as they fight their way up to the roof. He fights as dirty as he has to and doesn’t hesitate over going for the kill.
When they get to the roof, Tony and Sam are already there waiting. They lay down covering fire while Bucky and Steve sprint to the quinjet and clamber in. Clint nods to them from the pilot seat and takes off. His blessedly neutral beta scent helps to clear Steve’s head a little from the pounding rhythm of protect possess protect possess beating in time to the steady drip of blood off his shield. Just thinking of Rumlow bonding Bucky against his will makes Steve want to jump out of the quinjet to find Rumlow and kill him properly.
Instead, he wraps an arm around Bucky and pulls him close, needing to reassure himself that Bucky’s okay. Bucky goes willingly and leans against his side.
“What happened?” Steve asks.
“Fuck if I know. They sprayed me with something. Made my heat came on just like that.” Bucky snaps his fingers. “Then Rumlow walked in already in rut.” His grin is savage. “I guess they thought I’d be too out of my head to say no.”
“You said no?” Steve guesses. He’s not ashamed to admit that his knees are more than a little weak with relief that Hydra’s plan failed.
“With a punch to the dick.”
Steve laughs and nuzzles Bucky’s temple, drawn in by his scent. “No wonder he couldn’t stand straight.”
“Not a good day for Rumlow. I broke his dick, you broke his face.”
The look Bucky gives him is faintly questioning. Because yeah… his reaction was probably a little extreme. They aren't mates. Had never even helped each other through heats. And Bucky doesn’t even know about the trail of bodies Steve had left behind him on his rampage to get to Bucky.
Steve is still trying to think of a cover for his reaction when Bucky hunches over with a groan. A wave of rich, omega heat-scent curls through the small space. Steve nearly groans as well when Bucky tucks his face into the curve of Steve’s neck to breathe in his alpha scent. Every instinct in his body is screaming at him to mark Bucky with his scent, with his bite, with his seed.
“Hang on.” Steve tugs Bucky closer. “We’re almost home.”
“It’s bad. It’s coming on too fast.”
Steve rubs Bucky’s back. Heat crawls over his skin at the soft whine Bucky makes.
“ETA ten minutes,” Clint calls back to them.
*
They don’t pass a single person on the way to their apartment in the Tower. The hallways are completely deserted. Another sign everyone considers them a bonded pair—no one wants to risk setting off Steve’s protective instincts.
Steve has barely locked the door when Bucky’s already shedding weapons and stripping out of his tac suit. He goes inside his room and closes the door behind him with a click. He doesn’t lock it. It’s a sign of trust which makes Steve’s heart swell.
Steve feels like a toy wound up almost past the breaking point with no way to burn off the potential energy in his body. His instincts are yelling at him to go in and help Bucky. To distract himself, he dumps his blood-and-gore-spattered shield in the bathtub, then picks up the weapons Bucky had left behind him on the way to his bedroom; knives, guns, the odd grenade. Steve piles everything on the coffee table for Bucky to sort out later. He puts Bucky’s tac suit aside for later as well. One of Tony’s people will come by to pick it up since their suits aren't exactly the sort of things that go in washing machines.
Sustenance, Steve thinks. Bucky’s going to need liquid and protein to keep his strength up while he—he—
No. Steve’s not going to think about that.
He gathers up water, chocolate, protein bars, energy drinks. Stops himself from cooking some eggs. He stands outside Bucky’s door with his armful of supplies and vibrates with the need to kick it in. The scent of Bucky’s heat is slowly melting his brain down into a gray goo that’s going to leak out his ears. He nearly drops everything when his enhanced hearing picks up the sound of a soft moan, the wet sounds of Bucky jerking off, the faint buzz of a vibrator.
Moving slowly so he doesn’t topple over the tower of food and drinks in his arms, he puts everything down and backs away from the door before he does something unforgivable. He should… shower. Change. Yes. Do something far, far away from Bucky’s door.
Ten minutes later and he’s right back there again. He can feel a tingling warmth running up and down his spine, and a pleasant throb where his knot will be. Bucky’s heat is triggering his rut even through his suppressant. Christ. He should get out of the apartment altogether but he can’t. He can’t leave Bucky, not when Bucky might need him.
Fifteen minutes later and Bucky’s come twice. The sound of his cries has Steve sweating through his T-shirt. The combined scents of Bucky’s slick and come wrap around Steve, unbreakable as any chain. There’s no way Steve can leave now, so he sits outside Bucky’s door like a pathetic alpha idiot and prepares to wait it out. Jerking off would probably elevate his status to the world’s most pathetic alpha idiot, so he keeps his hands out of his pants. It’s a struggle, but he still has some dignity left. For now.
He’s still there ten minutes later when he scents it—a hint of astringency threading through the lush scent of arousal. Bucky’s in distress… his omega needs him. Steve’s on his feet with one hand on the doorknob before his brain kicks in.
Don ’t be that alpha, Rogers. Don’t go where you’re not invited.
He leans his forehead on the door and takes a deep breath, trying to figure out what’s causing the distress and what he can do to fix it.
“Bucky. Are you okay? Let me help you…”
“Steve…” Bucky’s voice is ragged and raw.
“Tell me what you need, Buck. Please.”
“Something’s wrong. It’s too fast. I can’t—” A groan of frustration cuts off Bucky’s words. “Steve. I need you… I’m sorry. Please… It hurts.”
Every protective alpha instinct he’s been trying to beat back into his hindbrain comes roaring to the forefront. He’s by Bucky’s side before he even registers the conscious decision to move.
“Don’t apologize.” Steve kneels by Bucky’s bed and pushes tangled, sweaty hair off Bucky’s forehead. “Don’t ever apologize.” By sheer force of will, he keeps his eyes locked on Bucky’s, doesn’t let himself register more beyond the fact that Bucky’s naked on the bed, body sheened with sweat. The scent of slick coils around him, heavy and drugging.
“Why do you hurt?” Steve asks. “Where’s the pain?”
“It’s the heat.” Bucky’s already flushed face gets a little redder. “I can’t get ahead of it. It’s coming too fast. I need you—I need you to knot me.”
Everything comes to a dead stop. His heart. His breathing. His mind. Bucky wants him to… wants him to…
“I’m sorry.” Bucky’s voice is soft, burred with guilt. “You’re the only one I trust.”
“Bucky.” He finally gives in to the temptation to bury his face in the crook of Bucky’s neck and breathe in deep. “Didn’t I say don’t apologize?” He whispers the words into Bucky’s skin. “Of course I’ll do it.” He’s always wanted to. Not just knot Bucky, but bond him, mark him so everyone would know that Bucky was his, and he was Bucky’s. So that no one could ever come between them.
“Oh, thank fuck.” Bucky shoves him away and gets up on all fours. “Hurry.”
Steve nearly wrenches his arms out of their sockets pulling off his shirt. His pants and underwear come off to the accompaniment of ripping sounds. He climbs onto the bed behind Bucky and really lets himself look, now that he has permission to.
And not just to look but to touch, too. “God, Bucky.” Steve strokes his hands along Bucky’s back and all the way down the backs of his thighs. The long muscles of Bucky's back flex and shift as Bucky writhes under Steve’s touch. Light gleams off his arm, the plates shifting with a metallic whine. Bucky whimpers as he pushes back into Steve’s hands, dropping his shoulders and arching his back.
Presenting.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, save him. He might not survive this.
Steve slides his hands back up Bucky’s inner thighs, gathering up slick to spread onto his aching cock.
“Please, Steve.” Bucky pushes back. “I need you inside me.”
“Fuck,” Steve whispers. “Okay.” He grips his cock and circles the tip around the swollen, puffy ring of Bucky’s asshole.
Bucky keens and drops his head onto his folded forearms. Electricity crackles up Steve’s spine at the sound. His hips twitch forward and the head of his cock slips into Bucky with hardly any resistance. Fuck fuck fuck. Steve grits his teeth, gathers up the rapidly shredding threads of his control, and slides all the way inside in one long smooth motion.
God, it feels like nothing he’s ever experienced before. It’s not his first time helping an omega through their heat, but it’s his first time with Bucky. It’s his first time with his whole heart, body, and soul engaged in the act. It’s his first time with Bucky’s heat-scent wrapped around him, mingling with his. After today, he doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to bear mingling his scent with anyone else like this again.
When he bottoms out, he can’t hold back his groan. He bends over and buries his nose in Bucky’s neck, filling his lungs with the scent of Bucky—his home, his lodestone. He starts to move, using the sounds Bucky makes to guide him. He wants to make this the most memorable knotting of Bucky’s life so that Bucky will forever crave it, crave him, and keep coming back for more.
At a particularly deep thrust, Bucky’s voice goes high and desperate. There. Steve grinds into him again and again, chasing those sounds. He wraps an arm around Bucky’s chest and pulls him upright in a show of strength. Show him you’re strong, a good protector, a good provider, his instincts whisper. Even though he knows Bucky is more than strong enough to take care of both of them, he’s helpless to resist. He drives into Bucky, hips flexing, pushing more delicious sounds from Bucky. His own breath is ragged as he tries to ignore his building orgasm.
Bucky wraps his arms around Steve's neck and goes almost boneless as he lets Steve set the pace. His head tips back onto Steve's shoulder, baring his throat. Steve presses kisses into the vulnerable curve of it. He scrapes his teeth right where he’d mark Bucky if he could, jaw aching with the need to bite down, and tastes the salt of Bucky’s skin. Bucky sucks in a shuddering breath and tilts his head to side almost like…
No. It’s probably Steve’s sex-addled brain that’s seeing an invitation to bond where there isn’t one. He bites his lip hard enough to draw blood and moves away before he loses all sense of right and wrong and marks Bucky without his consent. He presses kisses along the line of Bucky’s shoulder and tries not to think of the whisper of sound that Steve wanted to believe was his name.
Bucky cries out and grips the arm Steve’s banded across his chest when Steve angles his thrusts just right. Bucky’s grip is so tight there’ll probably be bruises left behind. Good. Steve will wear those marks with pride. Bucky's breathing gets more labored, his cries turn desperate. Steve gathers up some of the slick trickling down his thighs and grips Bucky’s cock.
“Close,” Bucky gasps. “Steve, I’m close.”
“That’s it, Buck,” Steve growls. His slicked-up hand makes a wet, almost obscene, sound as he jerks Bucky off tight and fast. The way Bucky pushes himself back against Steve, the hot clasp of his body around Steve’s cock, the sounds he make—they're all pushing Steve closer and closer to the edge. The base of his cock starts to swell. His knot catches on Bucky’s rim. The feel of it seems to send Bucky into a frenzy—he curses and shoves himself down onto Steve’s cock and grinds his hips in small tight circles.
“Jesus, Buck. You’re gonna make me—”
“Come on, Steve. Yes…”
Every muscle in Steve’s body tenses up. He’s going to fly apart or implode, he’s not sure which. All he knows is that he’ll never be the same again.
“Bucky… Bucky—” He can't hold back his groan as his orgasm crashes into him. He keeps driving into Bucky—short, aborted thrusts as his knot locks into place. Through the roaring in his ears, he hears Bucky shout his name as come spills over Steve’s fingers. Their alpha and omega scents mingle into a rich lush scent of them, a scent that will be stamped on Steve’s soul for as long as he lives.
He cradles Bucky as they ride out the shockwaves of their orgasms. When Bucky’s shudders subside, Steve pulls Bucky with him as he lies down on his side. He presses close to Bucky, his knot locking them together.
The only sound in the room is the sound of their gasping breaths and then that too quiets down. A hazy peace settles over Steve… the peace of an alpha locked to his omega. It was something he never thought he’d have the chance to experience, not when Bucky never showed any interest in him.
He drags his lips across the skin on the back of Bucky’s neck, wanting to cover every inch of Bucky with his scent. Mine, Steve thinks. Contentment wells inside him as he breathes in their mingled scents. He imagines it sinking into his skin, marking him as indelibly as Bucky’s omega bite would.
“Are you okay?” Steve whispers. “Does it still hurt?”
Bucky makes a contented humming sound and nuzzles his face against Steve’s arm. Steve feels about six hundred feet tall. He’s satisfied his omega, and it is the most fulfilling feeling in the world.
When his knot goes down, he’ll bring in the food and drinks he’s got piled outside the door. They’ll both need to replenish themselves before the next wave of Bucky’s heat hits. Just the thought of it makes his cock twitch in anticipation.
Steve’s already planning out the supply run to restock the fridge when the endorphin haze starts to fade and his brain finally comes back online. Bucky isn’t his omega. He isn’t Bucky’s alpha. This is a one-time deal.
“Hey.” Bucky nudges him. “You okay?”
Shit. Bucky can smell his distress. There’s no way to hide it when they’re this close together.
Bucky’s scent goes sharp. “You’re not regretting it, are you?”
“No! Bucky…” His arm tightens around Bucky’s waist. “I would never regret this.”
“Then what’s got you so down all of a sudden?”
He can hear the worry in Bucky’s voice. The tinge of guilt is back.
“Are you okay with this?” Steve asks. “That I had to knot you? I know you didn’t choose this.”
“You’re really asking me this with your dick still stuck in my ass?”
“Bucky…” Steve can’t hold back a scandalized huff of laughter.
“Is this what’s really bothering you? If it is, then you can stop worrying about it. Because I’m okay with it. More than okay. That was the best sex I’ve had in… well… ever.”
“Really?”
“Quit fishing, Rogers.”
Steve exhales and tugs Bucky closer to him.
“Now you wanna tell me what’s really bugging you?”
Steve can’t lie to Bucky—not at a time like this, when they’re locked together and lying skin to skin in a bed that’s carries their mingled scent. “I nearly bonded you against your will,” he blurts out. He squeezes his eyes shut and wants to call the words back. Telling Bucky that when they're literally stuck together for another half an hour seems pretty fucking dumb. Bucky can’t even get away from him if he wants to.
Bucky’s goes completely still for five seconds. They’re the second longest five seconds of Steve’s life. Then, softly, he says, “It wouldn’t have been against my will, Steve.”
Moving carefully so he doesn’t jostle Bucky, Steve props himself up on his elbow and stares down at Bucky. Bucky stares back with his gray eyes clear of any hint of heat haze clouding them. His expression is dead serious.
He’s not joking, Steve realizes. “You want me to bond you?”
“I thought you knew,” Bucky says. “I tried to let you know, back before the war. Hang around the apartment when I was in heat. Hang around the apartment when you were in heat. Offer to help you out. But you never said yes.” He shrugs one shoulder. “I figured you didn’t want me that way.”
“Bucky.” That’s all Steve manages for nearly a minute while his entire world tilts on its axis and everything shifts and reorders itself into a new configuration. “Bucky, I thought you wanted to find me a dame or something. God knows you were always trying to hook me up with someone.”
“Or something,” Bucky says dryly. His expression turns sheepish. “I guess I was scared too. You always avoided me when I was in heat.”
“Well, sure. Just the scent of your heat was enough to make me feel like was gonna have a heart attack. I didn’t wanna die on you and have you blame yourself forever for killing me with sex.”
Bucky gives a startled laugh. “So maybe it’s good we never managed to try anything back then.”
“My heart’s just fine now, though.”
“Boy, is it ever,” Bucky says, as he ogles Steve’s bare chest. His eyes widen as he focuses on something behind Steve. “Did you kick my door in?”
Steve turns to look at the door. It’s hanging drunkenly off one hinge and the doorframe is splintered where the catch is. “I guess…?” He doesn’t actually have a clear memory of how he got to Bucky’s side.
“It wasn’t even locked.”
“You needed me.” Steve flushes. “It was in my way.”
Bucky laughs, low and pleased. Steve buries his nose in the crook of Bucky’s neck. He wants to to wrap himself up in the scent of a happy, contented Bucky and roll around in it.
“Did you mean it?” Bucky whispers. “About wanting to mark me?”
“Yes. God, yes.”
Bucky tilts his head to the side. “Then what’re you waiting for?”
It’s tempting. So tempting. He wants to bite down right now and claim Bucky as his mate. But he doesn’t. Instead, he noses at the exposed skin of Bucky’s neck and breathes in deep.
“Let's take our time,” Steve says. “Let me court you.” He has embarrassingly many fantasies of courting Bucky that he’s been accumulating over a lifetime of dreaming.
“Jesus, Steve. We've only been waiting near on a hundred years.”
But Steve can hear the shy warmth in Bucky's voice that tells him Bucky likes the idea of being courted. “We only get to do this once, Buck. I wanna do right by you.”
“Fine.” Bucky rolls his eyes like it’s the greatest imposition in the world. “Court me.”
Steve snickers as he lies back down and snugs Bucky tight against his chest.
They’ve been lying together for ten minutes when Bucky shifts. Then he shifts again. Steve’s cock twitches as pleasure ripples out from where they're joined. Bucky’s scent is honey dark and sweet with arousal.
Christ, what the fuck was in that spray? Not even half an hour and the next wave of Bucky’s heat is already on him. Not that Steve’s complaining.
“You need something, Buck?”
“Yeah, I do.” Bucky shifts again. “I need you to fuck me, Rogers.”
“And they say romance is dead.”
“Save that for when you court me.”
Steve rolls Bucky onto his front. He takes Bucky's wrists in his hands and extends his arms out until Bucky is stretched out flat on the bed with no leverage to move. Bucky sucks in a shuddering breath and goes pliant as he lets Steve move him into position.
Steve presses down, trapping Bucky’s cock against the mattress. He grinds his hips against Bucky's. The liquid heat of slick bathes Steve’s cock as Bucky curses softly and his scent turns heady and intoxicating.
Placing his lips against Bucky's ear, Steve whispers, “Your wish is my command.”