Chapter Text
The mirror in his bedroom was dirty, with smudged fingerprints all over it. Bucky really ought to clean it, but a glum part of him rationalized that it wasn’t worth it anymore, not with everything that was looming just around the corner, ready to pounce. He straightened the only tie he had, the battered old thing his Dad had given him, and he resolutely didn’t look himself in the eye in the mirror. He hardly ever could these days.
His parents were waiting downstairs with his sisters, and he was already late. But he just didn’t want to go down there, not while he knew what it meant—blowing out twenty-five candles on his cake, indicating that he was now old enough to do what he’d been planning to do for a year now. He sighed.
Tomorrow would be a Monday. And according to the forecast, he’d have to walk through abhorrent amounts of rain to get to the Bonding Registration Office—they had sent the confirmation of his registration date to him exactly two weeks before his birthday, just like Bucky had hoped. He’d be registered in a nationwide match-up program, invented after a steady decline in bonding relationships. People of any designation—alpha, beta, or omega—could register to find a match in the data bank, sparing themselves the drama of searching for their bondmate out in the real world. That was at least the way it was heavily advertised, but Bucky seriously doubted that it was the matchmaking dream factory they made it out to be. He hadn’t applied for a registration because he was somehow dumb and naive enough to think he’d find his soulmate, and maybe even his bondmate, but because he needed to. For his family.
They’d never been rich, but they hadn’t been poor either. It had all gone downhill after the Battle of New York, when the company his Dad worked for lost most of its stock. They’d cut down on payments drastically, and his Dad‘s hair had grayed over the course of a single month. They‘d been barely scraping by as his Ma, a homebody omega, had decided to take on a job too. Bucky had already been old enough by then, as had Becca, his older sister, but the younger Beth had been the one to suffer the most. With no one to pick her up from school anymore, pre-cooked meals and listless lunchboxes by Ma had become her reality. Bucky had been the one trying to take up the slack, knowing how his mother suffered under Beth’s loneliness. He‘d given up his training to become a mechanic and started to work odd jobs at even weirder hours to be at home when Beth was finished with school. He had yet to move out of his parents’ house at age twenty-five.
The thing was, he couldn’t do it forever, and Beth longed for Ma, and Ma longed to be a mom again, so he’d registered—under the loud protest of his parents. They saw right through him and knew the real reason he’d done it: The registration of an omega was heavily funded by the government, unlike the registration of a beta, who didn’t get anything at all—just the love, Bucky thought ironically. Alphas had to pay an astronomical fee to even get registered, since there were just way too many alphas for one omega. Additionally, Bucky would probably have to go live with the alpha, making it one mouth less for his parents to feed.
Bucky felt sick to his stomach thinking about all the ways his mother had scrimped in the previous few weeks just to get him a birthday cake and present. Without a second glance at the mirror, Bucky went out of his tiny room and rushed down the creaky old stairs, jumping around the corner into the small kitchen where his family was waiting.
"Happy birthday!" It echoed through the room, and a smile bloomed across his face despite his sour mood. There were his sisters, with self-made party hats on their heads, and their mother, with a lovely chocolate cake with the twenty-five candles stuck on top. His grin widened even more when he saw his Dad standing next to his Ma, a package in hand. It had been a while since he‘d last gotten a present, other than a big box of candy from the local market.
"Thank you," he said softly, rushing to his sisters and twirling each of them around, even Becca, who rolled her eyes because of her (horribly moody) puberty phase but let him do it nonetheless. Ma hugged him extra-tightly, probably aware that he was already thinking about the things that awaited him the next day.
They almost made it through everyone eating one piece of cake each before the inevitable happened, and his Dad steered the conversation to what would happen the next morning.
"When do you have to be at this office again?" he asked, barely managing to hide the aversion in his voice. "Maybe it’s gonna snow tomorrow."
It had been an unnaturally cold winter that had dragged even into March this year, and there had been a lot of times where Bucky’s sisters had had school-free days because of the snow. They lived a good distance from downtown New York, so the buses and subway hadn’t been able to transport them. His Dad seemed to be implying that maybe Bucky wouldn’t be able to make it because of the weather. Bucky also knew that Dad (and Ma) were silently hoping for this.
"At ten. I think it’s just gonna rain," Bucky answered. He kept his answer carefully neutral; they hadn’t exactly argued about his decision, but there had been some deep-dive discussions for sure. Arguing wasn’t something that was normally done in the Barnes household; they butted heads sometimes, but there’d never been full-blown fights or anything.
Dad looked at Bucky with calculating eyes, maybe trying to find the one soft spot that would make Bucky change his mind. "So you‘re really pulling through with this?" he asked.
"George," his Ma muttered, shooting him a look. "We agreed not to talk about it until the cake was finished."
Bucky didn’t really mind; he’d known his parents wouldn’t let it go so easily. "I’m sure," he said, his voice barely shaking. He pinched Beth‘s side, hoping to get a shriek out of her, and succeeded. "You happy Ma will be home again, huh, pumpkin?" he asked her, a smile growing on his face.
Beth grinned. "Yeah," she answered. She didn’t really know what was going on behind the scenes. Becca seemed to have a hunch, but didn’t exactly understand that Bucky was doing it for money, not for love. She just knew that Ma would quit her job if Bucky found an alpha the next day.
Bucky looked at his parents, a bit pointed. "I am sure," he said, his voice firm and stubborn.
His parents recognized the bullheadedness in the statement and let it go. They’d tried up and down to tell Bucky that sustaining the family financially wasn’t his burden to carry. Make him understand that they didn’t want Bucky to do something his heart wasn’t behind just for other people‘s benefits.
But Bucky didn’t see it as much of a sacrifice. There were downsides, sure. He didn't want to leave Beth and Becca behind, who were as much friends to him as sisters. His parents, who’d always cared for him with such tenderness and love. A home he’d lived in for twenty-five years. He also didn’t think that he’d find true love through the program. But he’d be getting a shit ton of money for a one year contract, and he knew he wouldn’t be thrown into an abusive household. The alpha‘s records got probed way too deeply for that, and the background checks were fine-grained before they’d even get into the data bank. The registration office prided itself on having a ninety-nine percent safety rate.
A year with an alpha he’d find half-attractive because he’d choose the scent sample? Maybe getting some experience in the bedroom, which he was seriously lacking as a bloody virgin? Maybe even a relationship that lasted a year? That honestly sounded good to Bucky. He couldn’t give less of a fuck if he fell in love. He seriously doubted it, in fact.
_______________
The weather had improved so dramatically overnight that it appeared spring had arrived. If Bucky were big on things like signs from above, he’d count it as a good one, and he got to the city with no problem at all. The registration office looked big and intimidating. The floors were marble, and there was just way too much flashy shit standing around and hanging on the walls. Maybe it was stupid of Bucky, but it kind of made him suspicious of the organization. They shouldn’t invest so much money to make a good first impression; they should use it elsewhere to make it accessible to more people. Everyone knew that alphas especially had to pay a shit ton of money to be registered in the scent data bank. Betas had to pay a small fee, too. Omegas were the rarest, making up only about ten percent of society, so they even got money for registering themselves.
He walked up to the front desk, and since he’d already pre-registered via mail, they only had to go over some particulars once more. He signed a bulletproof non-disclosure agreement to ensure that he couldn't reveal any information about the alpha he'd be matched with and that their identities were kept private. He craned his head back and bared his throat unwillingly to give a scent sample so they could give it to the alpha he’d choose later on. Then, the balding beta at the front desk started to explain how the day would go.
First, he’d go in and do a deeper dive into his personality. He’d have to fill out at least as many questionnaires as he had fingers, if the stacks of papers the beta pushed at him were any indication. After that, he’d have a lunch break, where they’d evaluate his answers and try to prepare for the actual alpha-choice part. After lunch, he'd go into the scent sample phase, where he'd smell scent after scent until he—hopefully—found the one he'd wanted to have a year-long contract with.
The questioning phase was a debacle in Bucky’s eyes. He knew that everything he wrote down would be cooked down into a profile they’d give to his alpha, and it made him second-guess every single thing. The sheer volume of questions was also ridiculous, and he hoped that after writing so much, his right hand would recover in a year. He went over everything twice, added more detail, and tried to be honest, but gosh, he felt embarrassed and unsure, a feeling he couldn’t shake even throughout his whole hour of lunch, where he munched on the sandwiches his Ma had packed him, just like back when he’d gone to school with his lunchbox.
After lunch, a dark-skinned, curly-haired woman greeted him with a warm smile, which untangled some of the knots in Bucky’s stomach. He stopped thinking about whether he should’ve answered that one question differently or wishing he hadn’t given that much information in the questionnaire about his personality. Honestly, it didn’t even matter in the end. Bucky knew from the web forums he’d searched that ninety percent of matchmaking was—at least initially—about scent. The alpha he’d be paired with would probably not read the ten pages where he’d rambled on and on about himself, his life, and his family and friends, but rather smell the scent sample they’d taken from him right at the beginning. So, it really was all about this moment, and the nervousness flared right up when he figured that out.
"How did the test go, honey?" the woman asked and gave such a good Winifred impression that Bucky loosened up a bit. They likely hired a person for this job who could make even the most skittish horse feel at ease and at home, and Bucky fell under her spell, too.
"I don’t know, it was... okay?" Bucky hedged, looking up at her carefully and biting his already worn-out bottom lip.
"I'm sure it went well, my dear," she said, placing a warm hand on his back and leading him to a small table with a thick leather book on top. Bucky haltingly sat down and tried to ignore the fact that the woman hovered right over his shoulder. The book looked so out of place—it looked worn, kind of old, and when Bucky opened the cover, he could see that there were pages and pages of tiny chemical flasks, all sealed with corks.
"These are the scent samples of the registered alphas," she explained, confirming what Bucky had already put together. "These are one-time samples, so feel free to keep them open as long as needed."
"Uh-huh," Bucky mumbled, overwhelmed by the sheer volume of samples. If he had to test them all out, he’d doubtlessly still be here the next day. He looked up at her. "Do I just... start at the beginning?" he asked, sounding helpless and unsure.
The woman tried to suppress a laugh and managed only barely. "Oh, no, dear," she said, another giggle escaping her. "Your test results indicate what kind of alpha you need, and I have the page you’re starting at right here." She waved a piece of paper around. "And if that doesn’t cut it, we’ll retake your test and try to find another approach. And only then, if all of that doesn’t help, you’d have to scent the remaining samples."
A thousand worst-case scenarios jumped through his head. He was sure he’d be one of the idiots who wouldn’t find his scent sample in there. He already saw himself, a few hours down the line, half-delirious from a thousand alpha scents and still desperately searching for the one that probably didn’t even exist for him. It was just—he recognized that he wasn’t an unlovable piece of shit, but he was also just an ordinary person with nothing that really stood out. And maybe his sample wouldn’t stand out either.
Bucky cleared his throat. "Does that happen frequently?" he asked, his voice a little weaker than he'd like. "I mean, that people have to look for a long time."
The woman seemed to sense that Bucky was kind of spiraling, so she patted his back reassuringly, and Bucky suddenly longed for his Ma with a ferocity that was probably over the top for a twenty-five-year-old man.
"No," she said calmly. "The standard time is about forty minutes, and many don’t even need that long. You start on page thirty-two and work yourself up."
With that, she left him alone. Even though she was wearing the heaviest scent-blockers Bucky had ever witnessed, he presumably needed to be alone for the whole scenting process. Bucky wondered about the lack of scent around him while he flicked to the mentioned page.
Bucky thumbed open the first little flask with shaking fingers and took a sniff. He almost gagged and struggled to get the cork back on before the scent had the chance to permeate the room. To Bucky, it smelled unnatural, like freshly poured concrete right next to a flowerbed. It didn’t fit. The next few scents weren’t really to his taste either; only scent number six made Bucky pause a bit. But it wasn’t really life-changing, just more pleasant than the others. That wasn’t his scent, so he put that one away, too.
He needed eight more tries before he opened vial number fourteen.
The scent hit Bucky right in the solar plexus like nothing ever had before. Bucky pressed the bottle closer to his nose like an addict and almost let his lungs collapse with the force of his inhale. This scent—it ticked all the boxes and erased every single doubt Bucky had ever had. Because of course they fit, whoever that person was. There was no doubt in Bucky’s mind, only complete sureness. He felt calm. He felt steady. He felt like he’d just hit the lottery, and maybe he had, seeing as this person could make Bucky happy, seeing as this person smelled like home in a bottle.
Bucky even knew exactly what this person smelled like. Before his grandparents had died, Bucky and Becca—Beth had still been too young to come with them, staying with their parents in New York instead—had spent two, sometimes three, weeks of summer vacation on their farm in Indiana, where his Ma originally came from. His father was a true New Yorker, but his mother was a true Indiana native—and proud of it. Bucky remembered spending the weeks at the farm hoping that little chicks would hatch right on time, following ducklings around the pond, and climbing gnarly apple trees with Becca until their knees were scraped raw and their hands were calloused. Bucky loved the farm and everything that came with it.
For that reason, Bucky didn’t mind that there was a lot of work on the farm, too. He spent loads of hours plucking Colorado beetles from the potato plants and mucking the cow stable with flies crawling over his sweaty neck. There had been eggs to collect from the chickens' nests, and he’d cried when the pigs went away to freezer camp, as his gramps had liked to call it. Looking back, that was quite the euphemism for the harsh reality of a farm that was commanded to take and give life at the same time, always.
He remembered one distinct smell in particular, and this scent was bottled up right there, in his right hand. His grandma had always taken Becca’s and Bucky’s help in collecting ripe corn, and freshly harvested corn had that very particular smell that Bucky couldn’t quite describe. Bucky had always smelled it in combination with the earthy smell of the crop fields, and right next to it was his grandpa’s big orchard: cherry trees, apple trees, and peach trees. That sweet, slightly sour smell mixed with the earthy scent of freshly harvested crop fields had always stayed with Bucky, and Bucky had cried over that smell, too, when his grandma died a few years after grandpa and the farm in Indiana had to be sold. He’d never thought that he’d smell that scent again, yet there it was, in the middle of New York, in the middle of a very sterile room, and Bucky leaned his head down and almost had a little cry over it.
He had smelled it again, once, but it had been more distant. And to this day, he was one hundred percent sure it had been his mind playing tricks on him because of some panic-induced trip down memory lane. It had been during the Battle of New York. He'd been at the university that day for the semi-annual open day, just peeking into classrooms and wishing he could be there instead of only doing a mechanic's apprenticeship. He’d been at a lower level on his way home when the aliens had attacked. Bucky had been trapped with perhaps fifty other people, with all exits blocked by the most terrifying creatures Bucky had ever seen.
Said creatures had been gradually closing in on them, trapping them tighter and tighter, and Bucky remembered grabbing the hand of a young girl who appeared to be on the verge of fainting, and Bucky remembered distinctly thinking: This is it, Bucky.This is where it ends. And he’d had a real panic attack about never eating his Ma‘s apple pie again, and he was so sure it was simply wraps, and then he’d smelled what he was smelling now, just fainter and somehow a bit muskier, mixed with something he associated with fear. He’d gotten his happy ending just after the scent: Captain America had jumped right through a window, glass shattering everywhere, and had efficiently eliminated one alien after the other. The smell had stayed with Bucky even though he’d known he’d been saved right that second, until they had been successfully evacuated into the subway by the superhero, who hurried away to the next catastrophe.
With great hesitation and one last sniff, Bucky bottled up the scent again, but it had already crawled its way into his heart, and he didn’t even think twice about stopping his search because this was it. He was as sure of it as he was of the sun setting in the west, so he didn’t even have to contemplate which scent he’d ask for for the personal meeting.
_______________
When Bucky came home, his parents were already waiting for him. Ma was holding a hot chocolate, and Dad was already turning on the heater because they knew Bucky was always cold. Bucky’s mind, honestly, was still reeling from the scent sample he’d taken. His heart was still beating out of his chest, and he couldn’t figure out what to do with it.
"How was it?" Ma asked, immediately handing over the beverage and fussing over the collar of his dress shirt. "Was your collar like this the whole time, James?"
Bucky stepped back, shooting her a look. "Ma," he said firmly. "I assure you that no one gave a single shit about my collar."
Winifred shot him a look right back, always giving as good as she got. "That’s what you think. It’s important to make a good first impression." Fortunately, she stopped fussing with his shirt long enough for Bucky to pull his shoes off. George smiled longsufferingly behind her and shook his head at her. "How did it go?" she tacked on.
Bucky looked down into his mug, at the chocolate sprinkles his Ma always put inside for him, and this little mom gesture made it dawn on him that he’d be moving out soon. Like, real soon. And what he felt guilty about was that he was excited about it. He hadn’t been before he’d taken the scent sample test, but he was now because this scent meant so much. Maybe it was ridiculous to make such a one-eighty turn just because he’d sniffed a fucking vial, but—
Bucky’s bottom lip trembled, and moisture collected at the outer corners of his eyes, ready to spill. He took a shaky sip of the hot chocolate and almost burned his tongue. He sniffed. "It was really good," he confessed to his parents, his throat sticking.
"Oh, bubba, I’m glad," his Ma said with so much honesty in her voice, wrapping a hand around his narrow hips. "That’s great. You were so nervous this morning."
He leaned a bit into her. "I was nervous until I smelled Gramp‘s farm."
"The farm?" Dad asked, eyebrows lifting.
"Absolutely," Bucky emphasized. "It was right there, bottled up, and I know that it sounds crazy, but I’m so sure about this now."
The corners of his Dad‘s mouth twitched, and Bucky knew before he’d even said anything that he’d try to get a smile on Bucky’s face. "So you mean your alpha smells like cow shit?"
Bucky smiled, a snort escaping him. "No. He smells like the corn fields and orchard trees. It was always my favorite smell," he mumbled, embarrassed, even though he was aware his parents knew. He’d droned on and on about that as a child.
His Ma squeezed him tighter, her voice a bit rough as well. "We’re so happy for you, honey. We really are."
He believed everything she said, and it made his heart tighten even more, knowing that he was about to trade one good thing for—hopefully—another good one. His Dad had already given him the talk about the fact that starting his own family was part of life, that they were excited for him, and that they knew he wouldn’t forget about them just because they didn’t eat dinner together every day. Still. Bucky guessed it was normal for it to be a bit of a bittersweet thing.
_______________
Bucky bounced down the steps and ran to the mailbox, as he had done every morning since his Monday at the registration center, hoping to find the test results. It was ridiculous how fast Bucky had changed his mind about this whole matchup thing after he’d gotten a whiff of that scent. All of the lack of excitement, even the dislike of the situation, had gone out the window completely. Now, Bucky was about as excited as a puppy getting a new toy.
Sam would probably shake Bucky’s shoulders until his bones rattled if he knew even half of the things Bucky thought now. Bucky was convinced that a scent like this was a sign, that this person somewhere in the United States was his soulmate and would become Bucky's bondmate, and that the registration office was playing matchmaker in this fateful story. Maybe it seemed silly, and Sam would certainly find it silly, but Bucky kind of felt like he knew. This person, whoever or wherever they were, could make him extremely happy.
That didn’t stop a tidal wave of nerve-wracking anxiety from washing over him and pulling him under when he did find a thick envelope from the registration office that day. He swallowed thickly as he held it in his hand, and he had the sudden, childish urge to stuff it back into the mailbox and act as if he hadn’t received it. Which was absurd—he'd registered on his own volition.
Although it made him feel guilty, he was glad his parents were at work and his sisters at school. Like that, he could sneak the envelope up to his room and close the door behind him, doing it without anyone peeking over his shoulder, no matter how well they meant it or how excited they were for Bucky. He sat down at his desk, which he’d meticulously cleaned for exactly this moment a few days prior. He’d wanted to have space to really spread all of the information out. Inside the big envelope were three smaller ones. One with the contract and payment file he’d receive, one with the information on his alpha, and one with the rules of conduct during the contract.
Maybe it would have been more professional of him to read through the rules and the contract first, but he immediately snatched up the alpha information envelope. He ripped it open and saw a standard profile sheet before his eyes focused on the photo. He did a double take, his eyes bugging out. That was—
"What the fuck? What the actual fuck?" Bucky breathed out, once again glad he was all alone and could curse as much and as loudly as he wanted without getting a slap on the wrist from his Ma.
It was Captain America. If the passport-like picture wasn’t proof enough, the name on top of the profile page clearly indicated Steven Grant Rogers as his assigned alpha. Bucky swallowed drily, his stomach feeling queasy, and went with the most plausible explanation, which was that he’d been pranked. This had to be some sort of weird joke that no one found particularly funny. Maybe it had been Sam or Riley when they’d drank too much wine, but honestly, they would never do something like that to Bucky. Crush his hopes like this. Bucky took the main envelope and checked the return address a second time. It indicated no foul play at all, and Bucky was officially at his wit‘s end.
The realization hit him out of the blue. Back at the Battle of New York, he hadn't spiraled far enough in his panic that his mind had returned to the cornfield smell. It had been the scent of Steve Rogers. Back then, he’d smelled the same—obviously, scents didn’t change; you were born with them—and Bucky had noticed. That also meant that somewhere along the way, the smell of Steve Rogers had always been made for him, and that ignited something inside of Bucky’s chest.
With shaky fingers, he plucked up the first page of Steve Rogers‘ profile and immersed himself in it, muttering curse words all the while. It couldn’t be a prank, Bucky decided once more, and he felt his stomach clench nervously. There was just too much information that wasn’t public knowledge. Sure, someone could have written down Steve Rogers‘ age—27, barring all the years in the ice—and occupation—superhero, it read, and Bucky actually snorted out a nervous laugh at that. But the rest seemed legit. Either his address and floor (21) at Avengers Tower and a second address in Washington, D.C., were a complete shot in the dark and made up, or he’d actually been assigned to Captain America.
The more he read about Steve Rogers, the more hysterical he became. He was, literally speaking, over seventy years old, even though he’d been frozen for most of that period. There was a deeply classified description of the serum procedure, and someone had highlighted with a bright yellow marker the parts about how it had changed him as an alpha. (Not limited to, but including, monthly ruts, infertility without a soulbond in place, and—Bucky's only citing here—a streak of dominance. What the fuck?)
It frightened the shit out of him. Bucky was the most normal person to walk the planet. He had no hidden talents, nothing to pull him out of the norm. There was nothing he really excelled at. Sure, his Ma always told him he’d be a good omega one day. He was loyal, wanted to please, and had a natural inclination towards caring for other people. He loved the weekly meetups with Sam and Riley where he could cook for them, and when they praised his dessert, he felt content deep in his bones.
But what exactly made him a match for Steve Rogers? He flew around the world saving lives and fighting violence—sometimes with violence, sometimes with speeches that made everyone weak in the knees. He seemed to be reckless and spitefully driven to always do the right thing. Steve Rogers seemed intimidating and out of his league, and Bucky had no fucking idea how to make this right.
The thing was, deep down, he knew he wanted to make this right. It was the scent. It was also the fact that Bucky knew Steve Rogers was a good person. He’d saved millions of lives. He donated horrendous amounts of money to charity. He visited sick children in the hospital. All of these things made Steve Rogers deeply attractive to Bucky, and on top of that, Bucky couldn’t deny that he was absolutely gorgeous. Bucky loved his deep blue eyes, framed with ridiculously long eyelashes. His physique was more than a turn-on. Steve Rogers, as an alpha, screamed safety to Bucky's omega instinct. He was strong, big, and apparently very good at handling that machine of a body. Bucky would always be safe with him, and paired with the knowledge that he had already saved Bucky once, it made Bucky at least willing to try, no matter if he was scared shitless or not.
He turned every one of those thoughts over in his head again and again until he was sure he’d go crazy. Then he looked at his alarm clock and realized his parents would be home with Becca and Beth in half an hour. It was selfish; he knew that, but he didn’t want to face them yet. He felt like a grade-A asshole about that, but he decided to flee the scene, so he called Sam. Bucky almost vibrated out of his skin while he waited for Sam to pick up, but he didn’t. Because desperate times called for desperate measures, he called Riley right after.
"Bucky!" Riley picked up, sounding out of breath. The horrifying thought that he’d interrupted them during sex flitted through Bucky’s head.
"Did I interrupt something?" Bucky asked, ready to hang up and leave them to it.
"No, we’re just working in the garden. Spring redo!" Riley exclaimed, slowly catching his breath.
Bucky grinned. "Is that an euphemism?" he teased.
Riley barked out a laugh. "It’s time you got your own boyfriend; your imagination is running way too wild," he shot back, and he could hear Sam laughing in the background. "Let me guess, you’re calling me ‘cause my hubby failed to pick up his phone again."
"Exactly," Bucky said while he could hear Sam griping in the background, "Stop calling me hubby!"
Riley laughed, and Bucky could picture how he’d flipped the bird at Sam. "Alright, what is it?"
Bucky swallowed, the reality of his test results rushing back to the forefront of his mind. "Um, I got my test results, and I’m pretty sure I’m part of some fucking prank," he settled for. "Or I’ve gone mad, one of the two."
Riley shrieked, and Bucky had to hold the phone a bit away from his ear if he didn’t want a clean cut through his eardrum. "Oh my God, finally! Who is it?" Riley asked. He’d been much more ecstatic about Bucky registering than Sam had been. The whole sentence seemed to only slowly bleed through to Riley. "Wait a second," Riley added. "Why the hell would it be a prank?"
Bucky contemplated telling them on the phone, but a part of him was paranoid. Of course he'd tell them; they knew everything about him. Yet there were some ridiculous headcanons in his head about someone bugging his phone and realizing he’d broken the tight-knit NDA. Captain America would most likely have his head—and Bucky was most likely being stupid.
"You won’t believe me if I tell you," he finally said, sounding as dramatic as he felt at the moment. "Can I come over? I promise I’ll even help mow the lawn or something."
Riley snorted. "Only you would think that you mow the lawn in fucking March when it’s been raining for a whole week," he retorted. Bucky could hear Sam barking out a laugh in the background. "But of course you can come over. I’ll even let you have some lunch after the hard garden labor."
They hung up, and Bucky meticulously packed all of the information, stuffing it into his backpack and hurrying to the next bus line to Sam and Riley’s house. When he got there half an hour later, he didn’t even bother with the doorbell, just walking past the door and jumping over their picket fence with no shame at all. This was basically his second home.
Sam and Riley didn’t even bat an eye at it either. Riley immediately jumped forward, basically jumping out of his skin with excitement and curiosity. "Who is it?" he asked, not even wasting their time with a second hello. Bucky was so on board with that and hurriedly pulled his backpack from his shoulders. Sam stepped closer too, also curious.
"You won’t believe it!" Bucky stressed, pulling out the informational binder with Steve Rogers’ profile in it. As he started to pull out the first page, Sam’s hand stopped him.
"Hey, isn’t this confidential?" he asked, lifting his eyebrows. Riley rolled his eyes behind Sam, and Bucky was tempted to follow suit. Sam was always big on confidential agreements, given that he was a therapist at the VA. Of course Bucky was, too; he’d never rat out Steve Rogers or anyone, but these were his closest friends. He needed to tell someone.
"Yeah, but it’s you," Bucky answered, a bit petulant.
"He came here to tell us," Riley added, seemingly impatient to finally get the scoop.
Sam shook his head, laughing. "I’m not saying don’t tell us. I’m saying tell us, and don't shove a confidential record with all the minuscule detail under our noses. Do you want your partner to show all of your deepest secrets to his friend group?"
Bucky grimaced, seeing Sam’s point. He remembered with hot embarrassment all of the details in his questionnaires. He cringed at the thought of the things he'd answered: all the details about his designation, his sex life, how he wanted to spend his heats and ruts... It was embarrassing enough that Steve Rogers now knew all about that without ever meeting up with him. The thought of him giving Bucky’s information away didn’t sit right with him.
"Alright, I’ll tell you," he said meekly, and Sam shot him a smile, as if he had expected Bucky to see his point so quickly. He made a dramatic pause just to tease Riley a bit, who was basically bouncing on the spot, before he said, "It’s Captain America. Steve Rogers."
Riley and Sam stared at him, totally unimpressed. Sam breathed out a small chuckle. "Okay. That joke clearly fell flat," he commented, snorting out another laugh. "I swear to God, Bucky, only you would joke about that."
Bucky opened his mouth, a bit affronted. "Hey, I’m not joking!" he exclaimed, crossing his arms in front of his chest. "I knew you wouldn’t believe it—that’s why I wanted to show you his profile."
There was another pronounced silence where neither Sam nor Riley seemed to know what to say. Riley recovered the quickest. "What the fuck?" he simply said, and that made Bucky laugh. He wasn’t completely certain because this whole fiasco was a bit of a blur, but these had been his first words, too, if he wasn’t mistaken.
"Exactly what I said," Bucky answered, watching Sam’s features go through all of the stages of denial at once. It was actually a bit funny to watch. "Steve Rogers, twenty-seven, lives in Avengers Tower with a second home in Washington, D.C., and is an alpha, enhanced supersoldier, and professional superhero known as Captain America, according to the profile," Bucky read. "Should I keep going?"
Sam opened and closed his mouth a few times like a fish. "I really don’t know what to say to that," he admitted, shaking his head slowly. "I think I’d need to sit down if the garden furniture was already out."
Bucky laughed, genuinely pleased that he'd managed to silence Sam. It was a rare occasion, for sure. "I can help with the furniture," he offered, but was met with another stunned silence. Finally, Sam’s brain seemed to come back online.
"So it’s really the Captain America from 1940-something?" he checked.
"Yes," Bucky answered simply.
"And he’s registered as your alpha?"
"Yes."
"You chose his scent."
Bucky shrugged his shoulders, thinking back to the Battle of New York. Honestly, he’d already chosen back then. "Apparently."
"And he smelled like your favorite place, at your grandparents’ farm in Indiana?" Riley piped in.
"Absolutely," Bucky said, his heart fluttering when he thought of that.
"Wow," Riley mumbled, biting his lip. Bucky had expected Riley to devour the story with the scent; he was always into things like soulmates and such. So he didn’t have the heart to tell him that apparently, his own scent hadn’t been so strong for Steve Rogers in return—otherwise, he would have reacted to it somehow during the battle. He changed the subject instead.
"So tell me, why the fuck would Captain America sign up for an omega?" Bucky asked. "He’s Captain America!"
"And a beautiful hunk of an alpha," Riley said dreamily, and Sam shot him a sour look that was at least half faked, Bucky knew. Sam and Riley were two sides of the same coin. They were so secure in their relationship that it made Bucky’s heart swell and crack at the same time—happy for them and longing for that, too.
"He must have omegas lining up from here to Kentucky," Bucky tacked on. The more he thought about this whole situation, the less it made sense. It didn’t make sense at all, to be exact.
Sam gestured for Bucky to help him lift the patio furniture out of the little garden shed, where it had been stowed away in the winter. Bucky rushed to help, grimacing when he saw that the furniture was made from wood.
"Maybe he doesn’t have the time to date, and that was the easier way," Sam choked out while lifting the table with Bucky. They set it down, and Sam immediately groused, "By the way, we’re the only fucking people in the US with patio furniture made from solid wood. It could have been a cheap rattan, but no."
"But wickerwork is so out of trend," Riley answered, the corners of his mouth twitching with amusement. He turned to Bucky, whose knees were almost buckling under the weight of one of the chairs. "Also, he’s Captain America. He’s probably rich as fuck. Maybe he wants to spare himself dating, and the registration fee is peanuts for him."
"I still wouldn’t do it as that much of a public figure," Bucky argued, shrugging his sore shoulders after he’d set down the last chair.
They moved on to cutting back the hedges, with Sam snipping away with clippers while Bucky raked it up behind him. "Didn’t you say you signed an NDA?" Riley asked.
"Yeah, sure, but I wouldn’t trust that," Bucky answered stubbornly, his rake fighting with a particularly big twig.
Sam grinned. "Of course you wouldn’t. Are you gonna blab?"
"Of course not!" Bucky shot back immediately, scandalized by the thought. "Who the fuck would do that?"
"No omega who has the chance to be shagged silly by showpiece alpha Steve Rogers," Riley giggled, shooting a look at Sam. Bucky’s cheeks were flooded with warmth. It was the truth, but he couldn’t think too much about it without masturbating himself raw until their first meeting.
They fell silent, Riley still giggling amusedly, and Sam noticed Bucky had given up on the garden work; if Bucky had to bet, Sam had hoped Bucky would give up first, so he could follow suit and appear to Riley as the last man standing. Sam grabbed a thick blanket and put it over the damp furniture, and Bucky immediately threw himself on one of the chairs, rolling his head back dramatically.
"I mean, wasn’t he already bonded?" Bucky asked, almost petulantly. Maybe he was searching desperately for ways this wouldn’t work out, for ways he could be re-registered in the data bank, because he was clearly shitting bricks.
"I don’t think so if that wasn’t indicated anywhere," Sam replied, chucking another branch on the pile they were collecting. "It would have been marked in his file."
"It definitely would have been marked," Riley chimed in, snipping at a rambler rose.
Bucky lifted his eyebrows. "Maybe he lied when he filed."
Sam chuckled, shooting him a dry look; he always had Bucky’s number, and he knew exactly how much Bucky was panicking. "I really don’t think so, Bucky."
"But he had his mate, this girl from the SSR," Bucky still insisted, and now he was definitely in petulant child territory. He really should have asked Google before dumping all of this on Sam and Riley. He should have just come over to help with their garden work.
Riley appeared to enjoy playing Mr. Google. One of his guiltiest pleasures was reading all of the gossip rags about the Avengers, and Sam would swear until his dying day that Riley had a thing for Clint Barton. He teased Riley about it incessantly, as if he wasn’t hovering over every news story that included their quinjets. Sam was an adrenaline junkie, which only multiplied if said adrenaline could be found in the air.
"You're talking about Peggy Carter," Riley said sagely, pointing his secateurs at them like a teacher. "There was something going on between them. There are plenty of photos of them together from the forties, but she mated with another alpha in the fifties. But the media was still in a frenzy when he recently visited her in a nursing home. Yet he said again and again in interviews that they were never a thing, but somehow, no one believes him."
Sam sighed, giving up on acting like he was actually doing work and instead sitting down next to Bucky on the patio. "That was in 1940 or something. Everyone has a past. You know, you could just ask him when you meet up tomorrow."
Bucky dramatically crossed his arms in front of his chest, burying his face in his hands. "I can’t just ask him."
"Why?" Riley asked, also abandoning his rose and slumping down on another chair.
"You know how I am. I’m a nervous wreck talking to new people. He’s intimidating. Also…" Bucky hesitated, not wanting to say the wrong thing. To call Rogers a dominant person without ever having met him seemed wrong, yet it was marked specifically in his file. Maybe dominant was the wrong word, but he wasn’t sure what else to call him. "Well, you know, he was listed... concerning his alpha status and how it’s different from normal alphas. It says that he’s dominant."
Sam‘s brows furrowed a bit. "He explicitly stated that?"
"Yes," Bucky mumbled, his cheeks turning a bit crimson. "I really don’t know what to make of it. I don’t want some bullheaded alpha who has the views of 1940."
Sam sighed again; he seemed to be doing that a lot since Bucky had told him that he’d register. "Please make sure that you discuss all boundaries, Bucky. You’re a virgin. You have no idea what you’re in for or what to expect."
"Way to rub it in, dude," Bucky grumbled, but he knew his friend was right. He absolutely had no idea. And he was also aware that it was weird that he’d never fooled around with anyone, but there was nothing he could do to change that.
Riley shook his head quickly. "It’s nothing bad, Bucky. You meet up to talk about all of that. And you can’t forget that he chose you, too. This isn’t a one-way street," he reminded Bucky gently. "I have a feeling about this."
Sam shot Riley a pained look, and Bucky knew what he’d say before he even opened his mouth. "A feeling that fate will lead them down the right path together?" he asked, sounding highly skeptical.
Sam and Riley had this thing going where they basically agreed on everything but the existence of fate. Sam was the realist of the two and thought that if he wanted something, he had to work towards it. That no one but himself and Riley were responsible for them getting together through hard work and dedication. Riley was a hundred percent sure that there was some cosmic alliance that would bring the right people together, and because of that, he’d found Sam. Part of Bucky silently suspected that Riley’s accident had driven him to find such an explanation. Everything happened for a reason, and his accident hadn’t been for nothing. Bucky didn’t know what to make of it; all he knew was that he was very happy that Sam and Riley were both here, safe and sound, and had found each other.
"The smell thing is a fate thing. You can’t tell me otherwise, Debbie Downer," Riley answered flippantly, which made Bucky snort out a very ugly laugh. He didn’t know what to make of the scent either. Fate or not, it felt significant to him.
Sam lifted both of his hands placatingly. "Hey, whatever," he said, grinning fondly at his husband. "Either way, let’s get inside. It’s way too cold to be having this conversation outside."
They went inside, and Bucky was glad that Sam had dropped the conversation. He’d whined about it, he’d talked about it, and he’d voiced his doubts. They’d all know more next Friday after the meeting, and Bucky wanted to distract himself from it now. If he’d continue worrying about it up until the meeting, he’d have gray hair before he’d even arrived at the registration office.