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It’s hard. Living in a century with so much technology, living in a time that doesn’t give a fuck about proper courting. Living with a person that trusts too easy but has friends that don’t know how to trust. Living with memories that aren’t familiar, with gaping holes and glue filled gaps that should really be filled with cement.
But Bucky’s trying, he is, and that’s all that matters.
He found Steve a few months ago, some battle in some city with a name he doesn’t care to remember. Steve and the rest of the Avengers had it covered, they really did, but nobody had Steve’s back covered, and on impulse Bucky- Asset, then- decided it was his job to cover him. So, he did. He shot at robot-esque goons, yelled at Steve when he was being an idiot and basically giving the enemy his shield, then scaled the building he perched himself on down to where Steve was for the long awaited reunion (long awaited, being close to a year after everything got shot to hell).
When he was still the Asset he didn’t know much about Dynamics. He didn’t need to know, it was never something that his HYDRA handlers found important to a mission, so they left it out. And he never asked. Never asked why certain people smelled a certain way, why his handlers made sure to douse him in something that smelled like- what he could now positively say was- bleach before giving him mission coordinates. Soon enough, probably years into his imprisonment if he thinks about it now, he stopped thinking about asking, stopped thinking completely, and let his handlers become his brain.
But when he scaled down that building he smelled something that almost put him to his knees- and in the good way. Throughout all his few months of ‘freedom’, he noticed scents. How his own would get some people to turn their heads, how some scents smelled too sickly sweet and others so offensive the Asset felt himself tense and wanted to growl. Some scents were kinder to his nose, some scents made him feel angry, and when he touched the concrete in front of a very dirty, visibly tired, Steve with a hopeful smile on his face, he noticed Steve’s.
Steve’s scent made him feel both protective and possessive. It smelled like that time he was on a mission, somewhere in Iceland, snow around him, coldness touching every bone in his body, but then the sun peaked out from the horizon. It made him pull his eye away from the scope of his gun, rise up on his knees- giving away his hideout, taking his mind of the mission- and stare at the sun. Steve’s scent slammed him with memories of a small bed with too many springs, a small body with too many bones showing, and the feel of sweat against the palms of his hands. Steve’s scent scared him, it gave the Asset more emotions than he’d ever dealt with before, it threw him off guard, it wasn’t like anyone else’s.
His scent was nothing like the Widow’s- Natasha’s- who was standing behind Steve, hand on her gun, her scent more like their current atmosphere than anything, blending in with their scenery. It wasn’t like The Falcon’s- Sam’s- who smelled more like a bakery that only baked one kind of bread, too bland, too boring. Or even like the Scarlet Witch’s- Wanda’s-, with her glowing hands, that reeked of fields of flowers.
Steve’s scent was pleasant, and it scared the fuck out of him.
Bucky rolls out of bed in one fluid movement. His toes push into the plush, warm carpet of his bedroom floor, arms stretched high over his head. He groans when he brings them behind his back and pops his shoulders, metal arm whirring at the movement.
He can feel how early it is. The apartment quiet, outside still with that blue morning silence, the birds only just starting their chirping. He knows it’s closer to five than it is six, but still, since the first day he moved in here after impulsively shooting at goons, Steve’s awake and moving around in the kitchen.
Bucky dons a thick sweater- this time it’s cable knit and yellow. Steve bought it for him- and exits his room. He knows he should probably go the bathroom, brush the gross taste of morning out of his mouth, and maybe brush his hair, but he can’t be bothered when it means he can sit in front of Steve, with a cup of coffee, in almost silence before the world calls for their attention. Besides, Steve won’t care if his breath stinks or how much his hair resembles a bird’s nest, all Steve cares about is his well being, and that means not caring about the little bits that someone like Natasha would point out or turn him away for.
As expected, there’s a steaming cup of coffee in front of Steve at their little nook table. Steve’s sitting in his own chair, one hand holding his mug and the other with whatever book Steve’s reading this week. His legs are stretched out under the table, bare feet edging into Bucky’s territory, only enough where their presence mingles with Bucky’s own. Like Bucky, Steve’s in a sweater and sleep pants, his hair fluffy like a baby duck.
Bucky takes his seat in front of Steve and brings the mug of coffee to his lips. He takes a sip, humming at the sweetness from both the milk and sugar, inhaling both the coffee’s scent and Steve’s.
He used to be afraid of Steve’s scent, back when he first saw Steve after the Potomac, back when he first moved in, but he’s learned to slow the fear and turn it into something else- something he’s not sure he can have.
Steve’s scent is the main reason he went from Asset, to James, and now Bucky. It gave him back memories, albeit patchy memories, but memories none the less. It was what curled around him when he sat outside of Steve’s room after a particularly bad nightmare, on a night when he heard Steve having his own and he didn’t want to bother Steve or let Steve know that he knows. It’s what keeps him from turning back into the Asset, or at least what he tells himself does. It’s what pushes him to get out of bed and not stay under the covers with his eyes closed while everything he did plays on loop in his mind.
He knows what this is, this attraction to Steve’s scent is. It’s him, an Alpha, wanting Steve, an Omega, to be his mate. It’s what happens when a person wants to become bonded. He’s researched this, had awkward conversations with Natasha when he couldn't remember a thing or two about his own biology because HYDRA made sure to strip that away from him, and he even consulted his therapist about feelings and such.
Of course, his therapist told him to tell Steve about it- Bucky’s decided, after that session, that therapists never give good advice- but he hasn’t, and he won’t tell Steve how he feels. He doesn’t want to tamper with what they have now. This early morning peace, coffee made and waiting for him on mornings when Steve isn’t on a mission, Steve himself sitting in front of him, bare feet sometimes brushing against his own legs. He doesn’t want to mess with how they live, how open they’ve come to be with each other, how much this apartment feels like home, how much Steve feels like home.
So, he’s not going to tell Steve. He’s going to sit here, sipping the coffee Steve made for him, looking out the window at the snow painted city, with Steve in front of him and bare toes occasionally brushing against his leg.
It’s peace and silence and some sort of love that’s not yet tangible yet, and it’s not something Bucky’s going to mess up.
Bucky fucking loves sparring with Steve.
It’s sweaty, it’s rough, it’s exhilarating, it’s the closest thing to sex with Steve that Bucky can get it and he loves it. He can’t get enough of it, and he doesn’t think he ever will.
He can smell Steve’s pheromones, thick in the air, with the rest of their sweat. He can smell Sam and Natasha near the edge of the mat, watching on, but they don’t matter to him right now. All that matters is Steve’s laughter in his ear as he misses a jab into Steve’s side. All that matters is the way Steve’s hopping playfully around him on the mat, his hands fisted in front of his face, sweat making his shirt stick to his abs like he’s a damn Nike model. All that matters is Steve.
Not the way Sam ‘ooo’s when Steve tackles him down on the mat, or the way Natasha yells at him that he can do better. None of that matters to him, not right now.
Bucky gains some leverage on Steve, pushing him up from the mat and down onto the other side, pinning his hands over his head, and it’s like the world slows to a stop.
Steve heaves in deep breaths under him, his hair matted on his forehead with sweat, panting out breaths into Bucky’s face. He can smell Steve’s pheromones, thick and heady in the air, almost choking him with want and need. His Alpha instincts are kicking in, Steve’s barred neck making his mouth water, the position they’re in arousing him, pushing against his sweat pants.
Steve pushes his head back into the mat, presenting his neck to Bucky, and Bucky snaps.
He quickly pushes himself up from the mat, tearing his eyes away from Steve, “I- I need to,” he motions helplessly to the gym doors, “shower,” and quickly walks away from the mat, ignoring Steve’s “Bucky!” in order to leave the gym as quickly as he can.
His feet stick to the floor as he tries to leave the gym, ignoring the fact that Sam and Natasha seemed to have disappeared, or the sound of Steve’s panting. He pushes through the gym doors, grabbing his gym back from where it sits in his cubby, and powers on to the showers. He knows he could go up to the floor Tony has set up for them instead of the communal showers, but he doesn’t want to risk running into Steve and these showers are just as nice as the ones in their apartment.
He lets himself stand under the spray, his hands pressed against the tile wall, holding his body up. He can see his aching cock standing at attention, his knot swelled like he’s a fucking teenager who got a whiff of an Omega before his first rut. He knows he could get off, rub the arousal away and wash it down the drain, but he can’t. Sure, he’s had fantasies of Steve before, when he’s alone and going through a simmered down rut since whatever serum HYDRA gave him took the one day to week long pain away. He’s thought of Steve in less than innocent ways, but he’s never rubbed one off to them. It’s always seemed to wrong, a type of thing that just isn’t done to a friend.
Bucky closes his eyes and blindly turns the knob, making the shower water an unpleasant cold. He shivers under the cold water, his teeth chattering slightly, memories of the cryo flashing behind his eyes until he pushes himself off the wall and gets to cleaning himself off.
By the time he finishes- clean and shiny and no longer horny- the fingers of his real hand and his toes are pruney. He shakes his hair off as he walks out of the communal shower, sandals on his feet, a new pair of sweatpants on his legs, shirt over his shoulder, but pauses when he sees Natasha waiting for him.
He sighs, stuffing his bag back into his cubby, unzipping it to pull out deodorant, “How can I help you, Natasha?” He side eyes her as he swipes on deodorant, watching as she files her nails from where she’s perched atop a shorter row of cubbies.
“I think the question is how can I help you, James.” She puts down her nail file, giving Bucky a split second thought that whatever she’s going to “help” him with is so important it requires 100% of her attention, before she pulls a purple nail polish out of her sweater pocket.
Bucky rolls his eyes and pulls on his shirt, rummaging through his duffel bag for a hoodie, “And what do you think you can help me with?” Some part of him knows what she’s going to say, what she thinks she can help him with.
“Steve,” she says simply, and there it is, he knew it.
He turns to look at her, his mission to find his hoodie momentarily delayed, “I don’t need your help with Steve.”
“Yes,” She flicks her eyes up from her nails, “you do.”
“Natasha-”
“James, listen to me for a minute, okay?”
He leans back against the cubbies and crosses his arms, she’s being patient with him so he might as well be patient with her, “Go on,”
She sets down her nail polish, focusing all her attention on him, “You want Steve,” she starts, “and he wants you, but you’re just too blind and stubborn to see that. You not being with him, and wanting to be with him, is hurting the both when you two could just kiss and get over it.”
“Then why hasn’t Steve said anything?” Because, really, this is a two way street and if Steve wants him as much as Natasha is saying he does then why hasn’t he done something? Out of the two of them Steve’s the one with all his memories, he’s the one that should have this twenty first century courting method down, he’s the one that didn’t get fucked in the head by HYDRA.
Natasha rolls his eyes like it’s the most obvious answer in the world, “He doesn’t want you to feel, obligated, James, imagine if you were in his position.”
Bucky looks down at his sandaled feet, wiggling his toes as he thinks. If he was in Steve’s position he wouldn’t even act like an Alpha around Steve. He wouldn’t be overly protective, he’d slap on as much scent concealing deodorant and cologne as possible, he’d make sure Steve wasn’t affected by any of his Alpha tendencies and wasn’t afraid to want to go looking for an Alpha.
He knows it’s been a long time for Steve, since before he fell, Steve’s told him as such, and he hopes their dynamic- how they live together, work together, do most of everything together- isn’t messing with Steve’s chances of being happy. It’s not that an Omega needs an Alpha to be happy, not in his day and age or society, but he knows being mated makes living easier. He knows that Steve- like him- has some simmered down version of a Heat (in his case, a Rut) but going through that without an Alpha (for him, an Omega) is painful. Steve deserves that happiness and if Bucky needs to move out, maybe go travel somewhere on Stark’s card for him to get that, then he will.
“Maybe I should leave,” Bucky mutters, still looking at his toes.
“Leave?” Natasha asks, caught off guard for once.
Bucky nods, looking up at her where she’s still perched on the cubbies, “Steve deserves happiness, he deserves to have an Alpha, and I’m imposing on that.”
“Did you not hear anything I said, James?” Natasha asks, jumping down from the cubbie, she stands in front of him, a foot shorter but making Bucky want to shrink down out of the rage in her eyes, “Steve wants you. As an Alpha, as his partner on missions, as everything and you’re too blind to see it.”
“He’s just acting that way ‘cause all my Alpha antics went to his head, and me leaving will help him see that.”
“Because every Omega is dumbfounded by any Alpha they see, because I want to bare my throat at you James, and so does Bruce when he’s around you. All of us Omegas get too caught up in your Alpha ’antics’,” she makes air quotes around antics, “to think straight, is that right?”
“I didn’t mean it like that,” he sighs, because he didn’t, “I know you could care less how I smell and Bruce is happy with Betty, but Steve-” Bucky shakes his head and sighs, “Steve isn’t. He loves my scent as much as I love his, he has to go through heats alone because he doesn’t want to find an Alpha and gate mated, he’s being stubborn.”
“Because he’s waiting for you,” she says, taking a step back from Bucky, “how much do you remember?”
Bucky runs a hand through his still damp hair, his fingers getting caught on tangles from where he needs to cut it, “Not much, if I’m being honest.”
She sits down on the bench behind her and sighs, “You know I don’t like tampering with things you haven’t remembered,”
Bucky nods, “I know,” Natasha would never tell him anything, not about HYDRA or the Red Room, not about the past he knows Steve’s told her about.
“But this is important,” she says, more to herself. She looks up at Bucky, her green eyes practically piercing through his soul, “do you remember who you were mated to?”
“Me? I had a mate,” he wants to sit down somewhere, maybe slide to the floor, because he doesn’t remember having a mate. He had a mate before the war, before everything with HYDRA and those fuckers took that memory away from him- probably the most important memory to past him. He left someone behind, back in Brooklyn, when he got drafted into the war front, and he doesn’t remember.
She nods, “There’s a reason why my scent, or Bruce’s, or any other Omega’s scent doesn’t bother you.”
“Because I’m already mated,” he wishes, like with Omegas, there was some marking on his skin for him to know that he was mated. He wishes, like with getting married, he had some tangible piece of evidence that told him he was mated. He wishes he could just fucking remember.
“Now,” she says, getting up from the bench, ”whose scent does affect you?” She pats him on the shoulder, leaving her question hanging in the air, and walks out of the locker room.
Bucky does actually slide down the cubbie this time, pulling his duffle bag down with him. He knows whose scent affects him, whose scent is so prominent and strong, whose scent he wants to bask in like a cat in the sun. He knows. It’s the person who’s probably waiting for him on their shared floor, the person that’s rescued him over and over, the person who makes him coffee in the morning and holds him at night when he has a nightmare. It’s the person who he’s dreamt about, the person who rarely shows up in his newly found memories despite the fact that they’ve been friends since childhood and were apparently mates.
It’s Steve, and because Bucky’s Bucky, he panics.
He quickly pulls off his shower sandals for a pair of socks and sneakers. He pulls on the hoodie he was digging around for earlier, quickly ties his hair up into a bun, and bolts out the locker room doors. He keeps up a brisk walk until he’s outside, cold air biting at his skin, making him shiver because of his still damp hair. The snow’s scraped away from the sidewalks but still falling at a steady pace, but he doesn’t care. He’s been through worse, so he walks. Away from the Avenger’s Tower, away from one of the places he calls home, away from Steve.
New York is nice in the winter. It’s blanketed in white snow, not many people want to brave the harsh weather, and everything seems quieter. It’s peaceful. Sure, there’s still a trickle of tourists milling around, looking at all the sights, paying outrageous prices for a simple hotdog with sauerkraut, but it’s nice and Bucky knows where to go to not have to deal with loud or confused people.
He’s perched atop an old post office, and by old he means there’s still open pigeon cages with random birds nesting in them. He’ll usually come up here with old bread or a bag of birdseed he keeps under the kitchen sink, but after the panic of figuring out Steve’s his mate and he’s Steve’s, he didn’t exactly have time to grab anything to feed the birds.
“Sorry,” Bucky says to the birds as they gather around him, some of them brave enough to hop on his shoulders, “kinda’ going through shit right now but I promise to bring the really good stuff next time,” he rubs one of the bird’s head with his flesh and bone index finger, smiling slightly when it settles itself on his lap.
He doesn’t know how much time passes but the birds stay huddled around him like he’s their own personal heater, the sun eventually sets, and snow starts falling harder. His phone’s been vibrating constantly in his duffle bag but he both doesn’t want to move since all the birds have squatted down and plumped themselves up around him, and because he doesn’t want to talk to Steve just yet.
He needs to rethink every memory through. Every time his brain gave him flashes of pale skin and protruding ribs with sweat rolling down, that wasn’t from Steve having a fever. Every time he remembered sharing a bed with Steve, it wasn’t purely platonic.
Bucky knows why Steve didn’t tell him about their relationship, and he understands, but he wishes someone told him before he and Steve both spent months pining and hurting and craving for the other. He wishes HYDRA didn’t take the memory of becoming Steve’s mate away from him because he knows nothing will match up to that. He wishes for a lot of things, if he’s being honest, but sitting here on an old crate with a bunch of birds around him isn’t going to get anything done.
“Okay,” he says more to himself than the birds, “time to go.” Bucky slowly picks up the bird in his lap and sets it down with the rest of it’s bird family. The other birds, being unsurprisingly intuitive, get up from their spot around him and walk-slash-fly back to their little roosts.
He throws his duffle bag over his shoulder and gets up from the crate, “I promise to bring the good stuff next time,” the birds coo at him, probably trying to get back to sleep and away from the cold. He digs his phone out of the duffle bag and sighs, looking at all the missed calls from Steve, it’s time to face the music.
(And, really, the music isn’t going to be that bad.)
The apartment is dark quiet when Bucky goes in. The TV isn’t on with a sleepy Steve sitting in front of it with his sketchbook in his lap. The kitchen light isn’t on, meaning Steve isn’t making their ‘Goodnight’ coffee or warming up the baked goods Clint gave to them while they were at the Tower. It’s silent, eerily silent with the snow falling quietly outside, and the only reason Bucky knows that Steve’s actually here and not back at the Tower is from the last text Steve sent him hours ago, and the dim light flowing out from underneath the crack in Steve’s door.
Bucky sighs quietly, setting his duffle down by the door, and kicking his shoes off. He stares at his socked feet, taking a moment to compose himself before making his way to Steve’s room, silent steps to match the silence in the house.
He knocks gently on Steve’s door, his other hand on the door knob, “Stevie?” the old nickname slips out of his mouth, but he ignores it.
“You can come in, Buck,” Steve says, and Bucky enters.
Bucky takes a deep breath in through his mouth when he crosses the threshold of wooden hallway to carpet room. The room’s filled with Steve’s scent more than usual, like his scent’s been amped up, like a bottle of cologne broke and was never cleaned from the carpet. He takes a moment, closing his eyes before he does something stupid and sits next to Steve on Steve’s bed. Steve has his legs stretched out over the covers, back resting against his headboard, sketch book resting in his lap, bare toes next to Bucky’s elbow where Bucky seats himself at the very end of the bed. Bucky, gaining some courage, turns on the bed, bringing one knee up to rest more comfortably, resting a hand on Steve’s ankle, “So I remembered something today.”
“That’s great, Buck,” Steve says, his face lighting up like the ball that drops every New Years.
He keeps his eyes on where his hand rests on Steve’s ankle because he’s lying about the remembering part, but Steve doesn’t need to know that Natasha told him this particular memory, “It was an important something, from back then, something you or anybody didn’t tell me.”
Steve stays quiet for a few moments, shifting on the bed nervously, “Oh?”
“Yeah,” Bucky snorts, not out of malice, “oh.”
“And what was that, Buck?”
Bucky looks up at Steve, at his blue eyes and drying-but-still-damp blonde hair, at the strong body he never had physically but always had in heart, at the body he knew intimately before Steve was made into this Adonis, takes in a deep breath, “That we were mates,” and exhales.
Steve’s shocked still for a few moments, his mouth open, before he snaps out of it. He pushes his sketchbook to the unused side of the bed and quickly moves where Bucky’s sitting, taking Bucky’s metal hand in his. “You gotta’ understand why I didn’t tell you,” Steve says, pleads, “I didn’t- I didn’t want to force you into anything you didn’t want to be in, I didn’t want to make it seem like I expected us to go back to how we were- I just wanted you to be happy, Buck-”
Bucky raises his free hand, cutting Steve’s babbling off, “I know, I get it,” he does, he went through it on his walk to the abandoned post office, he thought through the scenario while the pigeons made themselves at home around him, “Would you be happy, though, if we went back to the way we were?”
“Buck,” Steve says, breathless, “that’s something I never thought I’d get back, I’d be the happiest person in the world,” he licks his lips and looks down at where their hands are joined, “It’s all I’ve dreamed of.”
Bucky decides to be brave and presses his forehead to Steve’s, “It’s all I’ve wanted too, Stevie.”
“Yeah?” Steve asks, looking up with a face full of hope.
Bucky rubs his nose against Steve’s, subtle scenting, “Yeah,”
“Well,” Steve blushes, “my heat’s coming soon,”
“Is it now?” Bucky chuckles, loving the blush rising on Steve’s face, loving everything about this, about them.
Steve nods, pressing his nose into Bucky’s.
“Well you won’t be alone this time, never again.” Bucky vows, prays, makes it known to anyone, anything, listening. He’s never leaving Steve again, not on his account or anyone else’s. If they came back together once they can do it again.
“Til’ the end of the line?” Steve asks quietly, stopping the rubbing of their noses to just look down at Bucky’s lips.
“Til’ the end of the line.”