Work Text:
Everything was disjointed.
Words and places flowed over Steve like water, and always the knowledge that this was real, perhaps not now, but at one point, this was the realest moment of Steve’s life...
The USO tour, his second time trying to preform for bored and frustrated GIs, some younger than him by half a decade. He understood their frustration and mirrored it tenfold.
He wanted Bucky, he wanted to be fighting by his Alphas side, not singing and dancing here. In this god-awful uniform. At the ass-end of nowhere, France.
Going into his second only heat. Not that he knew it at the time. In his defense, he’d only had one heat before, and that one had come on so strongly and so painfully that he had no frame of reference for a normal one. As such, he hadn’t realized what was happening this time around until it was too late. After all, Steve was used to pain, he lived his life in a state of constant aching and wheezing, misery painted his every rattling breath. Of course, he would, naturally, dismiss the aches of a low-grade fever with no thought. That was life for Steve Rogers, after all. No use complaining about a little upset stomach.
That night was a hard one, looking out at all those young kids… Hardened and aching from war and cold and fatigue, all he could see was Bucky. Every face, every man before him transformed one after another into his absent Alpha. He felt the loss keenly that night, an ache in his gut, fighting back whines of longing as he lay on his cot. He could hear giggling from the tents around him, the best looking of the GI’s come to try their luck with the showgirls.
They’d all succeed, no one said it, but that was part of the reason these girls were out here. To act as… stress relievers. No one came to Steve’s tent, obviously (blessedly). He was just a freakishly large Beta who somehow escaped the fight, after all. A pretty boy bouncing in the lap of wartime luxury, a warm bed each night, three meals a day, and no threat of getting his head blown off lingering over his shoulder. The GI’s abhorred him, with good reason.
As Steve lay in the tent, a bit of moonlight came peeping in through a small hole. By the meager light, he pulled Bucky’s latest letter from his breast pocket and read-
“Sweetheart,
Things are well as can be here, I’ve escaped the worst of the illness going around camp. I imagine I’ve got you to thank for my inability to catch even the common cold, I had to be impervious to care for you. We lost two men to the freezing temperatures and wet last week. They weren’t but 20. Thankfully, neither had someone waiting back home. I don’t know if the illness was kinder than an enemy bullet, but what’s done is done.
Have you heard from our mutual friends at all? I got a letter from Charlie a month ago, she says F is somewhere out fighting the Japs. No word on M. I worry about them, especially M. Dangerous habits, that one has.
I hope you’re staying safe and warm. I can’t be there to do it for you anymore, it’s up to you now to watch out for yourself. God help us both, my concern for you will get me killed before the Nazis do.
I hate it out here, I keep trying to tell myself it’s a worthy fight, but I can’t find the motivation to lie to myself most days. I miss you; I miss that little Brooklyn walkup with you in it. I miss you getting all dolled up in your pretty red lipstick. (God you’re beautiful, baby. An absolute knock-out if there ever was one. My little spitfire angel.) I miss those lazy Sunday’s dancing by moonlight, sitting still as I can so you can sketch me. I miss you so much it aches, I feel it in my chest, doll. I feel your absence with every breath I take, every step I tread. Even out here, I reach for you sometimes. I’ll laugh and look about me, expecting to see your face crinkled with a smile, I light up my cigarette and immediately go to hold it away from me, so it doesn’t irritate your breathing. Because you ought to be in the crux of my arm, you ought to be there, so I must move my cigarette away, always thinking of your lungs. (Always thinking of you, my love, my darling.) I lay down in the trenches after my guard shift is over, and despite the cold and mud, I expect to hear your soft breathing at my side, lulling me to sleep. I wake from a nightmare and nearly cry in misery because your hands aren’t there to card through my hair, your lips aren’t by my ear, singing me back to sleep with your Ma’s old Gaelic lullabies.
One day this will be over, darling, I swear it will. And we’ll be home, we’ll be home together again. Sunlight and moonlight and the wireless and the scratch of your pencil on paper, recording our life in sharp graphite lines. Or maybe not graphite. Maybe after this, I’ll get a decent job and I can shower you in gifts. The first thing I’ll buy you is a set of those good colored pencils from that fancy art shop whose window you always stop and stare at. Or a half-decent set of charcoals. You’ll blush and insist you don’t need it, but I know you’ll want it. I want to give it to you, baby doll.
I want to give you everything. I want the world to see how amazing you are, I want the world to see in you what I do. Though maybe not, because if everyone can see how swell you really are, there’ll be no stopping them from snatching you away from me. I try not to be selfish, but it’s just what you do to me, baby. You make me crazy; you make me feel so alive and whole. Complete and blessed by a God I’m not sure if I still believe in. I’m sorry I can’t be there for you right now, I’m sorry they took me away from home, baby doll.
Please be well for me, sweet thing, please be good to yourself while I can’t.
Please, please, above all else, don’t go where I can’t follow. Stay home, stay there, stay my Brooklyn baby. I promise I’ll return to you soon.
Love always,
Your Bucky”
Steve sniffles, hating himself a little. He keeps lying to Bucky, keeps telling him that yes, he’s safe, no, he’s not gotten into any fights, of course, he hasn’t gone anywhere. But how can Steve tell him? These coded messages of adoration are more for Bucky than Steve, how could he possibly break that code to tell his lover the horrible truth?
How could he admit to the way he’s mutilated his body; the body Bucky would spend hours upon hours worshiping? How is Steve to tell Bucky that he’s something entirely different, something so totally, utterly, other, not a proper Omega, barely a Beta, with the twisted body of an Alpha?
So, he lies. He tells Bucky that Brooklyn is lonely without him, he tells Bucky that he’s doing his part at home. These coded messages of a dame to her fella are limiting in the information they can exchange but liberating in the declarations of love they can communicate.
In the dark, Steve wipes his eyes in frustration and lays a gentle kiss on the paper before carefully folding it and storing it back in his breast pocket. The pocket had become heavy with his letters back and forth from Bucky. Each one weighs heavier and heavier on Steve’s mind. He makes a small sound of discomfort as his head suddenly begins to throb.
Steve lets out a small shiver and pulls the thin blanket up his chest further, laying his small aches and fever down to the cold. (He can still get ill, right? Super serum or not, he’s still human.) He tosses and turns for a while; he can hear the sounds of sex from the tent next to him. Marlene, Steve is quickly coming to find, is the loosest of the gals, taking 3 or 4 fellas in a night. Steve curls in on himself as an ache starts in his gut, his cock twitching pathetically, he almost wants to snarl in annoyance at his traitorous body. There’s nothing arousing about this little cot, this cold tent, or this wretched place. But the sounds of sex and thoughts of Bucky harass him, bullying him away from sleep.
Finally, Steve rummages around in the bottom of his kip sack, guiltily, and retrieves the little tube of lipstick he stole from one of the showgirls (Laura, or maybe Lydia? Steve can’t keep them straight).
The red is painfully bright in the moonlight. It always looked darker against Mary-Ann’s lips, Marcus’ caramel skin inevitably peeking through. Hesitantly, Steve sniffs it, feeling foolish. But yet, it smells like wax and metal. It has that same stuffy scent of a heavily trafficked dressing room, just like Mary-Ann’s. It smells like home, if only for a moment. Steve relaxes marginally, he knows he’s imagining it, but he could swear there’s a piano somewhere… a smoky bar… burning liquor.
An adoring Alpha with the most beautiful eyes.
He falls asleep, the bullet of lipstick cradled close to his face, clenched in his palm.
.
..
...
He dreams...
His body feels like it’s on fire, he’s squirming and writhing, his backside slick, his cock hard and leaking. It’s… it’s scary. Everything is dark and, and horrible, it’s so cold. His bed is so hard. He’s terrified, he’s so alone, god he’s so alone….
Then Bucky is there. He doesn’t smell right, but he’s smiling at Steve, so maybe it’s ok. His big, strong, warm Alpha hands begin to paw at Steve’s pants and Steve groans. He’s not in the mood. His head hurts and he’s running a fever, he knows he is. (But if he is, why is Bucky touching him like this? Bucky would never lay a hand on Steve like this if Steve was ill, he’s too much of a damned mother hen.)
For the first time in his life, Steve bats Bucky’s hands away, tired and annoyed with his lover.
But then the hands are back. And Bucky is growling (why would he growl? Bucky never growls at Steve, not his Stevie, not his sweetheart, his Brooklyn baby…) and his hands are big and insistent, and…
And Steve’s pants are around his knees. Steve flails again, twisting away from the grip because Bucky’s smile has gone hard and his scent has gone sour, and, oh god, help, help! Something is in Steve, but it’s not right! The fingers feel wrong and Bucky…
Bucky isn’t there. Bucky is hundreds of miles away. Steve gasps as he awakens, gasping again as the Alpha looming over him forces another finger inside Steve, even though he’s not slick enough yet, the sour scent of heat and fear clouding the tent.
Steve is lost for a moment, caught like a deer in headlights because this is wrong on every level. This hasn’t ever happened before, sex is good, sex is fun, sex is something precious to both Bucky and Steve.
This isn’t that. This is scary and confusing, and the Alpha is so big and smells horrible to Steve’s nose. He almost whines in submission when the Alpha uses his other hand to grab Steve by the back of the neck and force him down.
Then Steve remembers.
He remembers that this isn’t Brooklyn, this isn’t his home, and the Alpha behind him sure as fuck isn’t Bucky.
Which means he’s got no motherfucking right to so much as fucking look at Steve, let alone shove his disgusting fingers inside the blond man.
And he remembers one more thing.
But he remembers it too late. Because he’s already snarling in fury and swinging around, hand wrapping around the Alphas throat, squeezing…
Squeezing-
SQUEEZING -
Then…
crack
Steve gasps in horror as he releases the Alpha and the man drops to the floor, because now Steve remembers what he didn’t before.
Steve remembers he is no longer 5’4” and 100lbs soaking wet. Steve is a Goliath, a giant of a man with the ability to lift three, five, ten times his weight.
And Steve has more than enough strength to snap a man’s neck single-handedly.
The body thuds to the floor, vacant eyes stare up at him accusingly.
Seventy years and some change later, Steve Rogers snaps up in bed, gasping in horror as he looks around his room wildly. Beside him, Bucky still sleeps. With a shaking hand, Steve cups Bucky’s face, assuring himself that the Alpha is very much alive. Bucky, beautiful 21st century Bucky with his stubbled jaw and non-regulation hair, hums in his sleep, nuzzling closer.
“Ya ‘k?” Buck slurs, not really awake, fumbling as he reaches out a hand and pats Steve’s bare chest assuringly.
“I’m fine, bad dream.” Steve croaks. Bucky’s face furrows and he lifts just an inch, whole body leaning into Steve. “I’m just gonna go draw for a bit, sweetheart. Go back to sleep.” Steve hurriedly adds. Bucky hums again, slowly relaxing back.
Nightmares are par for the course, unfortunately, and both men deal with it in their own ways. If they need each other, they’ll wake the other up, but usually, they deal alone. Tea, reading, sketching for Steve, listening to a few quiet songs for Bucky. Usually, once they wake up a bit, they can shake the dream and be back in bed before an hour is out.
Usually.
But as Steve slips out of bed, he knows this isn’t that.
He’s shaking and sweating, he knows he’d reek of despair and misery if his Omega scent wasn’t so faint outside of heat. He’s gasping brokenly once the bedroom door is closed, stumbling into the living room on shaking legs. He sinks down on the couch, staring at his hands in horror, his breathing becoming erratic.
He cries a little. Then he cries a lot, muffling his sobs behind a guilty fist.
After a while, the worst is over, but he still can’t look at his own hands. He can breathe, but he still feels like he’s going to throw up. He can’t think of a thing to do with himself and desperately wishes he was still religious. He wants to confess, he wants absolution.
And yet…
The only one who can absolve him sleeps peacefully a room away.
The only one he can confess to sleeps a few floors up.
They are not the same man.
Steve creeps back into his room and snatches a shirt from the dresser and his phone from the nightstand before carefully closing the door again. As he tugs on the shirt, he realizes it’s a bit too tight and definitely belongs to Bucky. The smell is comforting, though, so he just shrugs as he dials a number, feeling bad about the late hour.
“Ugh,” comes a grunt from the other end of the line.
“Sam?” Steve asks hesitantly. There must be something in his voice because there’s silence for a moment, then the rustle of bedsheets.
“Nightmare?” Sam asks, voice still sleep heavy. Steve’s whole body unwinds because yes and this is why Sam is his friend. Sam understands better than anyone, save Bucky. Sam just gets it. The Omega shit, not so much, but this isn’t Omega shit. This is war shit; this is blood and guts and dirt and grime and horrors beyond compare. And Sam Wilson fucking understands that in a way Tony can’t (well, ok, he probably can, but Steve’s not about to go to him with this).
“Yea. Are you…? can I…?” Steve trails off hopelessly.
“Come on up, Cap. I’ll put some tea on.” Sam says, already Steve can hear him moving about his room, presumably putting enough clothes on to be decent.
“Thank you,” Steve says, relieved, he hangs up after a quick goodbye, shoving his feet into Bucky’s house slippers and tugging his own house robe on. He leaves a note for Buck on the icebox (refrigerator, Steve, it’s called a refrigerator now), on the off chance the Alpha gets up and goes looking for him. On the ride up, Steve sighs and rests his head back against the wall, grateful, yet again, that Sam had forgiven him after Steve revealed his orientation (fuck, status, whatever). It had been rocky at first, but Sam Wilson was, if nothing else, a goddamned, honest to Christ above, saint. Steve smiles for a moment, picturing Sam with his mechanical wings and a halo.
Sam answers before he’s even knocked, ushering him in. The Alpha exudes calming and soothing pheromones, woodsy and gentle to Steve, making the Omega relax the smallest bit. Sam gives him a crooked smile, turning away to make Steve a mug of tea once Steve is sat at his kitchen island.
“What happened?” Sam asks gently, back still turned. This was usual for them, Steve found it almost impossible to look someone in the eye while admitting to his latest nightmare or some long past misdeed. Perhaps that was the Catholic boy in him, still remembering a claustrophobic, anonymous confessional. Father McCleary or McKenzie or whoever else on the other side, hidden from view. Their reaction to Steve’s sins consumed by the dark, allowing Steve to breathe out all his wrongdoings in a sigh of relief.
“This was… something different. I haven’t, ah, I haven’t thought about it in a while.” Steve admits. Sam turns and hands him a mug of tea, immediately turning back around. The illusion of anonymity and isolation allowing Steve a reprieve. “It was… It was the first person I killed.” Steve finishes lamely, slouching over his tea mug, hugging the warm drink. Sam freezes, just for a moment.
“A soldier?” he guesses. Steve shakes his head, nods, then remembers Sam can’t see him.
“Not… not an enemy soldier,” Steve admits, shamefaced. Sam straightens. There is total silence for a moment.
“Can I turn back around?” Sam asks, his voice wary and even. Steve swallows thickly.
“Yea.”
Sam moves carefully, sitting down on the kitchen island stool opposite Steve. He cradles his own mug for a moment and takes a deep breath, steeling himself.
“Ok, ok, so not an enemy soldier. Do you want to tell me what happened?” Steve can’t look up at his friend, instead studying the tea in his mug. Sam takes the hint and both men bow their heads, as if in prayer.
“It was… 1942, I think. Almost 1943. I was still on the USO tour, they dragged us overseas. The boat ride was fucking horrible, I can’t even get sick anymore, but I swear I was seasick the whole damned time. I spent a lot of time thinking about my Ma, how she came over on the boat, how long she must have been stuck on it, how sick she had to have gotten. I was kinda sad I wouldn’t get to see her homeland. She always hated America; always said we’d go back to Ireland one day.”
We, um, we got over there. Of course, none of the GI’s were impressed by me, they were all excited for the dames, ya know? I mean, can’t blame ‘em. They’d been out there without any women around for months.”
The first show was in Britain, that went fine, I rushed through my thing, the gals got on stage, everyone lost their heads. The girls had visitors that evening, that was part of why we were there if I’m honest. Camp was loud that night,” Steve chuckles, shaking his head a little, “Marlene, one of the gals, she always got the most handsome fellas, would tell anyone who listened about her string of boys.”
Anyway, first show went fine. Then we were sent out to France. That, obviously, was a tougher crowd. Those where the front line, you know? Those kids had been… they’d been through the wringer already. You could see it on their faces, they were all haunted and broken. God, they were young.”
If I’m bein’ honest… they all looked like Bucky to me.” Steve confesses in a near whisper, “every boy I looked at, all I could think was “god, Bucks gonna come back like this” and I hated it. I hated him being out there alone. I wanted to be there, I wanted to keep him safe…” Steve trails off, the old familiar ache of losing Bucky a phantom in his chest. He shakes himself out of it and continues.
“Anyways, that night, we stayed in the camp. I got my own tent, but the gals doubled up. It was loud again. I, um, I’d been feelin’ weird all day, but I didn’t think anything of it, ya know? Just, headache, light fever, stomach pains, nothing major, nothing to worry about. But… But that night I just. I don’t know, I don’t…” Steve suddenly becomes choked and fists his hair, “I’d never had a normal heat.” He finally confesses in a quiet voice. Sam sucks in a quick breath, seeing where this was going. Steve covers his eyes in shame, tears prickling behind his lids.
“I thought it was a nightmare. It was Bucky at first, in my dream I mean, and it was fine, but… the, the fingers. They were wrong, it wasn’t… They kept going even though I didn’t feel good, and Bucky would never, you know? Never. And I pushed the hands off, but they just held me down and that’s when I finally woke up for real. Because Buck wouldn’t... he couldn’t, you know? He couldn’t ever touch me like that, even when Hydra had him all fucked up, he couldn’t have done that.” Steve sniffles, rubbing his eyes.
“An’ I thought, “this ain’t Bucky, so he ain’t supposed to be touchin’ me”, you know? And, and…” Steve brakes off in a sob, “I didn’t mean to. I forget sometimes, ya know? I just forget. Even- even now. I’ll go to get something out the cupboard and go up on my toes like I gotta reach, ‘fore I remember I’m all tall ‘n shit, ya know? Or, or I’ll start breathing in the cold and think I’m ‘bout to have an asthma attack. Or forget I can eat something I was allergic to before. I- I just forget, I forget I’m so big now, I forget I ain’t small and sick anymore, I don’t mean to, I jus’ do.”
An’ I forgot, I, I grabbed him 'round the throat and forgot. I thought, I dunno, I dunno Sam. I thought I was small and he was gonna hit me ‘n then just keep hurtin’ me and I got mad and just-“ Steve sobs again, shaking his head, hands fisting in his hair.
“I didn’t mean to,” he whimpers pathetically.
There’s a long moment of silence.
A clock ticked somewhere.
He could hear Sam’s heart beating.
The pipes running.
His own blood pounding in his ears, awaiting judgment.
Sam’s hand slid across the counter, palm up. Steve immediately grabbed it and pressed it against his scent gland, a packmate soothing motion, before clutching Sam’s hand. Careful, oh so careful now, careful like he hadn’t been that night.
“I, um,” Steve sniffles and wipes his nose with the back of his hand, crinkling his face in distaste. Sam’s other hand brandishes a tissue which Steve takes up, mopping away the tears and snot, not letting go of his friends’ other hand.
“I snapped his neck,” Steve finally continued, “Colonel Phillips was there. He was the only one aside from Peggy and Howard who knew what I was. He didn’t even say anything. Just had me carry the body way out of camp, real into the woods. He helped me dig a hole and told me to hide until it was over. I don’t know how, but he stalled the USO tour and covered for my absence. I sat out there by the hole for four days. The rain got real heavy the second day and the loose dirt got washed away, I could see his hand caked in mud. It was so pale.”
When it was done, I came back, got cleaned up and burned my clothes, and just…kept on. My next heat I was with the Howlies in the trenches. They already knew what I was 'cause of… ya know,” Steve flushes, “me and Buck weren’t exactly subtle. Still aren’t, especially now we don’t have to be. So, they knew. And it didn’t matter if the enemy knew, cause we were gonna kill ‘em anyway, ya know? After that one was over, Howard got me something to cover my scent during my heat, make me almost a Beta again.”
Steve finally looks up, his face lined in absolute misery, “I didn’t mean to. I got scared. He was touchin’ me and I got real scared. And angry, I got so angry. I got angry cause he waddn’t Bucky, and only Bucky had ever touched me, and I didn’t want no one but Bucky to ever touch me like that. People tried sometimes, when I was small. Guys, usually, bigger ones who thought I would be soft and naive and easy because I looked so little. They liked that I was so tiny. Someone would start grabbin’ me or trying to rub their scent on me, and I could take ‘em, or at least scare ‘em off, ya know? Once they saw I wasn’t gonna go belly up, most of ‘em laid off. But if someone really wanted to, and if Buck wasn’t there, there woulda been nothin’ I could do to have stopped ‘em.” Steve sniffles and shakes his head, covering his eyes again.
“It was a kid; he was just a kid. He was younger ‘n me. I didn’t mean to, I really didn’t, I just wanted him to stop touching me.”
It was quiet again for a moment and Sam took a deep breath, squeezing Steve’s hand.
“Ok,” he said, taking another breath, Steve could see him mentally bracing himself “ok, that’s a lot to unpack. First off, tell me what bothered you in the dream, him touching you, or his death?”
“Both.” Steve answers automatically, gnawing on his lip nervously. Sam furrows his brow and nods.
“Ok, but what bothered you most?” Steve pulled his hand back, crossing his arms over his chest, chewing his lip and folding in on himself, closing off.
“I… I don’t understand?” Sam looks at him, in that gently piercing way of his, like being skewered by something sweet and warm, a piece of apple pie maybe, or a bit of D-Rations.
“What really scared you Steve, him violating you, or his death?” Steve flinched back.
Sam knew the answer.
Sam always knew.
“Him… him touching me.” Steve finally admits, hanging his head. And there it was, his greatest shame, laid bare for the first time in more than seven decades.
“That upsets you.” Sam points out. Steve nods. “Why?” Sam prods. Steve clinches his jaw, angry with himself.
“He was just a fucking kid, Sam. Jesus, what if, I don’t know…he was out there so long, what if he got fucked in the head, what if he just got lonely? I killed someone’s kid and I’m more upset about my own comfort. That’s not ok!”
“Why is it not ok?”
“Because it shouldn’t matter! He didn’t deserve to die for that!”
“What if someone had done that to Tony?” Sam asks. Steve’s mouth pops open and his eyes go wide in horror at the very idea. “What would matter more to you, him being assaulted, or him killing the person who hurt him?”
“It- It’s different out there.” Steve finally chokes out. Sam frowns deeply.
“Is it? I’ve been out there too, Steve. Consent still matters, it always matters.”
“I’m… I was in heat.” Steve argues weakly.
“And yet Nat’s been around you while you’re in heat, and she’s never laid a finger on you.”
“Nat would never-“ Steve hisses in horror as Sam raises a hand.
“I know, that’s my point, Steve. We’ve all been around you while you’re going into heat or gotten worked up at this point. Thanks for the latter, by the way. I can’t believe you two started in on it during a freakin’ mission. But look, I came in during your last heat cycle and we watched a movie while Bucky was gone. You smelled ripe, and yet I never touched you. Look man, as an Alpha, let me tell you something. Being around an Omega in heat does not tempt our self-control near as much as people think. Once we’ve got the green light and start in on the physical stuff, yea, it’s a bit harder, but not impossible. Has Bucky ever kept going while you’re in heat if you’re uncomfortable?”
Steve didn’t even have to think before shaking his head. There had been moments where he needed to shift or get in a different position, times when he got tired halfway through and wanted to just have Bucky hold him instead, times Bucky had been rearing to go, and Steve had said no because he was hungry or thirsty or just wanted to nest and cuddle instead. Each and every time, even in the middle of sex, Bucky stopped, Bucky got Steve comfortable or did what Steve wanted with no question. Never, not in all their years together, had Bucky kept going when Steve was uncomfortable or hurting. When Steve had an asthma attack the first time Bucky tried to top way back when they were just kids, Bucky didn’t keep going, he stopped and worked Steve through it, completely disregarding his own arousal. Neither of them came that night, but Bucky didn’t complain. Even as they lay in bed, Bucky’s erection tapping against Steve’s hip, he just held Steve and rubbed his aching chest until the blond boy fell asleep. Back when Steve was a shrimp and couldn’t always get it up because he was sick, Bucky never insisted Steve take care of him or pressed the issue. Bucky was always kind and considerate, he always ensured Steve was comfortable and engaged with what was going on. Never did he guilt or push or touch without Steve’s total, enthusiastic consent.
Sam lays a hand on his forearm, smiling gently. “I can’t tell you if that guy deserved to die for what he did, for what he was trying to do. But I think it might be good for you if you replaced yourself with a loved one in that situation. If me, or Bucky, or Tony, or Nat, or even Peggy had been in that situation, if we had accidentally, because it was an accident Steve, killed someone who tried to hurt us that badly, would you blame us?”
“Never,” Steve admits quietly.
“So why is it ok when it’s you?” Sam’s eyes are dark and serious, boring holes into Steve’s soul. Steve slouches back in his seat, trying to imagine it. Trying to imagine if Tony, his sole Omega friend, had been the one being touched or hurt, if Tony had been the one to crush someone to death on accident.
They sip their tea for a while, when it’s half gone and way past cold, Sam speaks up again.
“Does Bucky know?” he asks. Steve shakes his head.
“I didn’t… Back then we were both perfect you know? Or at least Bucky was. He was patient and kind, he loved his little sister and kids and brought kittens in outta the cold. He was an angel. And I was just…” Steve shrugged helplessly, “I was just this scrawny, angry little thing that got into too many fights and had a hurtin’ ego. I didn’t… I couldn’t tell him. I couldn’t admit what I’d done to that guy. I couldn’t. And then out there, it didn’t matter. We were too busy trying not to die, you know? Then, then when we got here…” Steve heaves a sigh, shaking his head.
“You feel like he’s already got a heavy weight on his shoulders, you don’t wanna add to that.” Sam finishes. Steve nods empathetically. Sam looks Steve over for a moment, seeming to choose his words carefully. “Steve, you and Bucky… It’s like… have you ever seen two different trees be planted too close together? They may be separate entities with different needs, but they grow around each other, they grow together until they’re so intertwined that to separate them would be to destroy them. That’s what you and Bucky are.”
Steve gave a rueful smile, “my Ma had an old-world word for it. She called it Anam Cara, soul friends, soul mates.” Sam nods seriously.
“You two share the same space, you exist independent and intertwined with one and other. Where one goes, the other follows. Bucky goes to war, you find a weird-ass way to follow, Bucky goes in the ice, you take a deep dive after him, you manage to survive and wake up seventy years in the future, Bucky manages to find a way to stay alive. Does this make sense? You two don’t just follow each other willingly, you follow each other subconsciously, accidentally, miraculously.”
But, hey, man look at me,” Sam ducks his head, catching Steve’s eye, “that means the two of you share the same burden. You were both changed by super serums, you both unwillingly worked for the very institution you sought to destroy, you both found yourself in an alien place having skipped decades of change. Where you hurt, he hurts, where he hurts, you hurt. You’ve got the same scars, Steve. I think he probably knows this one just as well as you do.”
Steve searches Sam’s face for a moment and finds a trace of grief. “Was it like that for you and Riley?” he finally asks. Sam sits back and scrubs a hand over his face with a huge sigh. When he looks at Steve, it’s with a tired smile.
“Yea. In a way, not to the extreme you two have it but… In our own way. We had the same scars and the same life paths. But he went somewhere I couldn’t follow, no matter how badly I wanted to. He’d kick my ass if I ever dared follow him like that, you know?”
“Bucky and I always knew the other was going to follow when we died.” Steve confesses suddenly, “when I got real, real sick and almost died on him, he was already planning how to follow me after I’d been put to rest properly. He told me once that he always had that plan in the back of his head, he always thought I’d go before him, and he swore to me and my Ma he was gonna follow. Turns out I was no better.”
Sam is quiet for a moment before shrugging, “you stayed alive after you woke up.” The Alpha points out. Steve scoffs.
“I was owned by SHIELD, monitored at every turn. I didn’t have the luxury of death. Not to mention…” Steve sighs heavily, “there was work to do. Crazy aliens and Russian assassins and AIM and the rest of it. I barely had time to breathe, let alone think. Then I made some good friends.” Steve gives Sam a half-smile over the rim of his mug.
Sam lets out a bark laugh before groaning in exhaustion, “well, I’m glad you stuck around, and I know for a fact Bucky owes his life to that. Now, this has been sufficiently horrifying and depressing. How are you feeling?” Sam’s jaw cracks in a mighty yawn, interrupting the last word.
Steve shrugs and thinks for a moment before answering, “ok I guess. I still don’t know if I want to tell Bucky but… this helped. Thank you, Sam. You’re a good friend.”
Both men stand at the same time and Sam bats Steve’s hands away when he goes to collect the mugs and put them in the sink.
“What’re friends for, my man?” Sam gives an easy smile, but it’s tight at the edges, Steve can almost see where the talk of Riley has rubbed Sam raw for the night. Before he goes, Steve squeezes Sam tightly into a packmate hug, pulling Sam up so their scent glands can brush. Immediately Sam relaxes, curling around Steve and nuzzling into his neck with a sigh of relief.
“Thank you,” Sam says lowly, patting Steve on the back before releasing. Steve squeezes him once more for good measure before letting go as well.
“Thank you, Sam. You’re a great man, Riley would be proud of you.” Steve claps Sam on the shoulder with his large hand as Sam tiredly smiles at him. As Steve steps outside the door and onto the waiting elevator, Sam gives a small wave before the door to his apartment snaps shut.
Steve doesn’t sleep that night, but he does draw.
He’s adding the final touches to the sketch on the canvas when he hears Bucky shuffling about out in the kitchen. The coffee pot is clicked on, Bucky yawns. The domesticity makes Steve unwind a little as he sketches the edges along the border of Sam’s painting. He hums to himself mindlessly.
A moment later there’s a small knock on the door of Steve’s studio, set up in the room adjoining the closet room.
“Come in,” Steve calls softly, still not willing to break the tranquility of the morning haze. Bucky cracks open the door and walks into the room. He’s got a mug cupped in his hands as he comes to stand by Steve, admiring the sketch that will soon be a painting.
“Well,” Bucky hums, “I don’t know if Sam’s all that great.” He says in reference to Steve’s sketch. Steve rolls his eyes and looks at Bucky with a smile. Bucky shoots him a small grin, lifting his cup to take a sip, before offering it to Steve, who accepts.
It’s sweet on his tongue, the horrors of last night begin to fade as if it really was 70 years ago, rather than just a few. Steve leans into Bucky from his place atop his stool, resting his head on Bucky’s shoulder.
“Hey,” Buck breathes out quietly, laying a kiss on the crown of Steve’s head. Steve sighs happily.
“Hey.” He responds. It’s quiet for a moment, he laments being so high up in the tower because there’s no chance of hearing birds singing this morning, but he contents himself with the soft “thadum, whoosh, thadum” of Bucky’s blood and heart beating beautifully.
“Wanna talk about it?” Bucky asks. Steve stills for a moment, thinking, before shaking his head.
“Not today, but soon.” He says. He feels Bucky’s hair tickle his cheek when the Alpha nods.
“You know I love you, doll,” Bucky speaks up, it’s a statement, not a question. Steve feels it settle over his shoulders like a warm blanket.
“Love you too, Buck.” Steve sighs out.
Three weeks later, Steve awakens from the same dream. This time, though, the Alpha kept going. Steve was small again, much too small to stop him. A finger became two, three, then an Alpha cock inside him and pain and fear.
Steve gasps awake, crying, so sure it was real. Only as he’s gasping for air, sure he’s about to have an asthma attack, he looks about himself and realizes the truth. Bucky is here, still sleeping, still beautiful in that cracked and scarred 21st century way of his. And Steve is a mammoth of a man.
He wants, for a moment, to be small again.
So, he becomes small again. He grabs Bucky’s arms and snuggles under it, curling into the older man. Bucky groans and blinks awake blearily.
“St’ve?” he slurs. Steve wriggles closer and Bucky takes the hint, finally, both arms wrapping around the Omega. “Ya’ ok baby doll?” he asks, sleep slipping away quickly. Steve thinks for a minute and finally shakes his head. Bucky makes a sound of discontent, pulling Steve tighter. “What’s wrong darlin’?” he asks.
Steve is still for a minute, thinking everything over. “Sam says… Sam says we’ve got matching scars. He says we grow around each other so effortlessly it’s become impossible to tell where one of us ends and the other beings.”
Bucky is silent for a moment, before kissing Steve’s hair, “Well, I guess Chairforce isn’t a total moron.” Which is Bucky’s way of agreeing. Steve is silent for a minute.
“I don’t want you to have this scar.” Steve final admits. Bucky goes still.
“What scar, baby?” Steve shifts uncomfortably, the moonlight peeks through their large bedroom windows.
“You know I never wanted no one but you to touch me, yea? You know I’m yours, I swear I am Buck. Down to my bones, down to my last cell, I belong to you. You know that, right?” Steve asks, almost desperate.
“Oh, baby, of course, baby doll. Of course, and I’m yours too.” Buck breathes, sliding his hand up to cup his palm over Steve’s bond bite, deep indentions where Bucky’s teeth had sunk into his mating gland, sealing them as one.
Steve’s still and quiet for a minute, trying to find his next words, find a way to admit to everything. Finally, he finds the courage to speak.
“Right before I found you, I had a heat, it was only my second heat. We were in France, along the front lines. My heat started and someone… someone found me. He, he caught me while I was asleep. Put his hands on me, his fingers in me.” Bucky makes a pained noise and Steve pulls Bucky tighter, “it didn’t hurt, not really. But it scared me and I…I forgot I was big. You know how I do sometimes, I just forgot,” Steve’s voice is quieter than a whisper, were it not for Bucky’s super hearing, he’d probably be unable to hear Steve, even though the Omega is pressed into his neck. “I killed him, Buck. I didn’t mean to, but I grabbed him and snapped his neck. I didn’t even know his name. Just, he was just some kid. He probably wasn’t even old enough to drink yet.”
Buck heaves out a sigh, “Oh baby. It wasn’t your fault.”
“But it was! I killed him, Bucky! I killed him!” Steve insists, feeling tears pricking at his eyes. Bucky shakes his head.
“You defended yourself. What about all the handlers I killed when they were breaking me, huh? Or the ones I killed when they tried to wipe me again and again and again. What about them? I killed all of them, is it my fault? Should I be held accountable for their deaths?”
“It’s different.” Steve insists, knowing full well he’s lying to himself.
They sit in silence for a long moment, Bucky just rubbing Steve’s back.
After a long moment, Bucky finally says, “They wanted- That is, when I was there, when they had me, they… wanted me to breed with one of the other super soldiers. Wanted to see if the kid would come out strong. They… they only managed to get me up once. They, just, just measured my knot and poked and prodded at me for what felt like hours. It wasn’t painful, not really. Just… humiliating. The, the woman, she was a Beta, I think, maybe. I’m not really sure, actually. But I couldn’t even stay up long enough to get in her, just couldn’t. She wasn’t right, even then, even when I couldn’t remember anything, I knew she wasn’t right.”
There’s silence for a moment. Then, very quietly, Bucky speaks again.
“I killed them, Steve. I sat still while they groped me, then when they put me in there with her and I couldn’t stay hard, I snapped her neck. When they came in to get me, I killed them too. At least 3 or 4 guards, another half dozen scientists and doctors who had been… inspecting me,” Bucky spits the word like a curse. “I killed all of them, every single one who touched me. Do you blame me? Should I hold myself guilty for their deaths?”
“No, but-“ Steve starts.
“It’s no different.” Bucky interrupts him.
Steve chokes back a sob and pulls Bucky in so tightly his bones creaked. They held each other in a stranglehold that would break the bones of any normal man.
“I’m sorry you had to live through that,” Steve mumbles against Bucky’s neck.
“I’m not,” Bucky says immediately. “Sam was right. I don’t wanna go anywhere you aren’t. I don’t wanna be anything you can’t be. I wanna know how to help you carry everything, I wanna know how bad your scars hurt so I can help you heal them. If you’ve gotta hurt, baby doll, then by God, I’ll hurt with you.”
Steve chokes on his next words, shaking with fear of the truth. “I’m not sorry I killed him, I’m not... I’m just-“ Steve searches for the right words to explain himself, “I’m not sorry I killed him, not really. But I’m sorry that I’m not sorry. I- I feel like it shouldn’t have mattered. I feel like it’s not my body, not really, so what’s it matter if someone hurts it like that. It’s… I’m supposed to be bigger than my body. I’m supposed to look past the selfish and always think of the greater good, but not necessarily what’s good for me.”
“So think about the greater good,” Bucky says, “think of what would have happened. He takes you, or maybe you being awake scares him off. Either way, it’s clear he’s capable of that, of hurting someone that badly. What’s to stop him from doing it to someone else, huh? Another soldier, or maybe a civilian, or his own sweetheart after the war. Baby, what if you killing him stopped him from hurting more people that way, huh? What if you kept someone who didn’t even know him yet safe?”
The words crack something inside of Steve. His resolve, maybe, chipping away at his guilt and shame over being hurt in such a way.
Or perhaps, as he’s known all along, it’s the fact that Bucky is the only one worthy of sentencing Steve for his crimes. The only one truly capable of condemning or exonerating him wholly and completely. Does the constitution not guarantee that judgment be passed down by a jury of one’s peers? And is Bucky not Steve’s last and only true equal left walking the earth? Who but Bucky Barnes could absolve him of this sin, forgive him his wrongdoings?
Steve muffles his sob against Bucky’s skin, laying kisses and barely-there thank you’s against his flesh. He falls back asleep warm and safe, loved and treasured. But above all, understood.
The new day dons, they rise together, quietly leaning on each other for comfort, for assurance. The day is full of soft hands and gentle words, lingering kisses and fingers softly untangling hair.
That day, Steve leaves Sam’s painting outside his door.
He paints Sam in a renaissance style with the six wings typical of an archangel, though these wings are mechanical. Sam is wrapped in a robe of blood red, trimmed with gold and silver, a golden halo around his head, his hair longer and looser, streaked through with gunmetal silver. He stands against a fading landscape, the top part a beating desert sun to represent his time in Afghanistan, bleeding until it becomes the grey, wet, trenches of Steve’s own war. Above Sam is another angel, Riley, dressed in white, arms and wings spread, protecting the Alpha. Below Sam is a plethora of wounded veterans. One hand reaches down to softly touch the bowed head of a much smaller Steve (a Steve Sam has never known, the boy who still prayed and attended mass with reverence). Steve kneels in supplication at Sam’s feet. The other hand reaches out, beckoning to the other broken soldiers, a line behind the kind Alpha fading out into the distance. A clerical collar lays high upon his neck, a strip of pure white against dark skin. Underneath, Steve has painted Sam’s honorary title in victory red.
“Father Sam Wilson, Patron Saint of Veterans and PTSD Survivors, Archangel of Lost Super Soldiers”