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The apartment is small, dark, and filled with Bucky’s alpha scent.
It’s overwhelming, actually. When they last met, when they fought, his scent had been clean and blank. The suppressants they’d had him on had washed it away, left him barren of anything but gunpowder and antiseptic. It’d made him a soldier more than an alpha, more than a person; even once Steve knew it was Bucky, he hadn’t caught a whiff of him.
It’s been years, long enough that his old scent has crept back in. A little burnt around the edges, that raspberry cocoa Steve’s craved through every heat he’s ever had since he turned sixteen. He’s intimately acquainted with that scent, and it makes him half hard and slick as he breathes in lung fulls of it.
Fuck.
He breathes through his mouth after that. The scent is still there, taunting him, but it’s manageable. As much as he’d love nothing more than to bend over for Bucky, he’s not completely sure it is Bucky. There are definitely pieces of him leftover after what Hydra did to him, but is it enough?
While he waits for Bucky to reappear (fuck, he hopes Bucky shows up; what if he gets skittish when he realizes Steve is there- don’t think about it, relax, it hasn’t happened yet), he pokes around the apartment. Not enough food in the fridge, only one change of clothes, and a ratty mattress on the floor and Steve’s chest aches.
This is what Bucky’s chosen for himself over accepting Steve’s help.
“Guess I’m not over that,” he mutters bitterly to himself as he thumbs through a notebook. There are dozens, so he picks one at random. He’s not sure what he expects, but when a picture of him from a magazine slips out, he’s surprised.
When he bends down to pick it up, he hears a floorboard creak behind him.
His instincts warn him that there’s an attack coming. It’s hard not to tense and reach for a nonexistent weapon. He came in jeans and a t-shirt, no suit, no shield. He’s not looking for a fight, he’s looking for his friend, and he wanted that message to be clear the second Bucky sees him.
So against his better judgement, he casually picks up the fallen picture and turns to face the man he knows is watching him.
“Hey-”
“They coming for me?” Bucky asks. In the dark, it’s hard to tell, but he looks scared. Like a cornered animal.
“No,” Steve rushes to say. “I got a jump on them. It’s just me. We’ve got time.”
“I didn’t do it,” Bucky says. “I don’t do that anymore.”
“I know. Buck-” He takes a step forward.
It’s a mistake. As soon as he takes three steps, he’s hit with Bucky’s scent. If it was bad when he got there and had it secondhand, it’s nothing to how it is now. It makes his legs wobble, makes his head foggy as he sucks in deep breathes of the familiar smell. It takes him back to the 30s, when Bucky’s scent was first blossoming and Steve’d been a quivering mess trying to get over how mouth watering his best friend smelled.
He’s stumbling before he realizes it. When Bucky’s there, arms on him to help guide him gently to the floor instead of having him collapse, it’s even worse. It’s scent and presence and old memories he’d thought he’d buried coming back to attack him.
“The fuck’s wrong with you?” Bucky growls. “You drugged or something?”
He puts a hand on Steve’s forehead. Steve tries to lean into the touch, but Bucky pulls away like he’s been burned.
“Heat,” he says, sniffing at Steve and wrinkling his nose. “There time to get you back?”
Steve shakes his head to try and clear it. He’s not lucid, not all there, and the question takes a moment to parse.
“No,” he says. “Nowhere to go. Drove in on my bike. No hotel, no jet, no backup. Just me.”
He hasn’t had a heat since they pulled him from the ice. It’s not even a consideration anymore, but still he feels like a fool for not planning things out better. He should have at least thought about what might happen if- if-
“Just you,” Bucky repeats and sighs. He looks uncomfortably around his apartment, his own scent now suffused with Steve’s honey and walnut. “What do you want me to do? I got a bed but I don’t have... Omegas don’t come around here, I don’t have any toys to help.”
“I’ll deal with it,” he grits out. The handful of heats he’s had to deal with in his life, and already he can tell this is going to be a bad one. He hobbles over to the mattress, pushing away Bucky’s hands when he tries to help. He can’t handle the touch right now. “Sorry.”
He collapses hard and whines when he scents the pillow. It’s like Bucky’s scent, distilled to its most intense form. It’s fucking heaven, and he buries his face in it and tries to ignore the impulse to start fucking down into the mattress.
“I should...”
Steve looks over his shoulder to see Bucky standing awkwardly at the edge of the mattress, looking down at him with wide eyes.
“You should what?” Steve challenges. It’s not fair to be angry at Bucky, it’s not like he triggered Steve’s heat on purpose, but he’s too achy and needy right now to be generous. “You just gonna watch me?”
“I can keep watch,” Bucky offers, completely misunderstanding. “In the hall. I can...” He swallows hard and looks away. “I could do that, if you want.”
“Don’t be stupid. People are looking for you. You can’t just lurk in the hallway.” He pauses. “Don’t go, though. Don’t runaway.”
Bucky can’t stay here, though. Not smelling like that and talking like he cares about Steve again. As subtly as he can (which probably isn’t subtle at all, given the circumstances), he works a hand underneath him and palms his cock. He needs some relief, anything. Maybe if he comes a couple times, he’ll be able to think clearly and make a plan and keep Bucky safe-
“I used to help you, didn’t I? With your heats, I mean.”
He can’t help it, Steve lets out a sob at that. Of course Bucky helped. They’d been practically mated, and would have been if they could. It didn’t matter that they were best friends and an alpha and an omega, it hadn’t been proper for them both to be men. Thankfully all that bullshit’s mostly over with these days, not that it matters for them; they missed their shot.
Bucky’s on the edges of the mattress now, hovering over him like he wants to touch.
“Shit, what’d I say?”
“You helped,” Steve mutters into the blanket. He half hopes Bucky won’t hear him. “You always helped.”
“Oh.” An agonizingly long pause. “Should I help now...?”
He so desperately wants to say yes.
“You don’t have to.” He shifts his legs, his jeans already damp with slick. “You shouldn’t.”
“Do you want me to?”
Considering he would’ve let the Winter Soldier fuck him raw back when he’d had exactly zero of Bucky’s memories, yes, he wants it so badly. It’s not fair that he’s offering, only vaguely aware of what it’d mean to Steve to have him back even for one heat.
He stays stubbornly silent.
“I can help,” Bucky soothes. He’s behind Steve on the bed now, gently coaxing him out of his jeans. As Steve lifts his hips, his ass grazes Bucky’s hard cock and he just about blacks out. “If you don’t want me to, I won’t. You gotta tell me either way, though.”
“Tell me you remember, and you can help.”
Steve gasps as Bucky pulls him up onto his knees, has him rest against Bucky’s chest as he nuzzles at the back of his neck. He’s still hard against Steve’s ass, and it’s a monumental display of willpower that Steve doesn’t grind back against him.
“I don’t remember everything,” Bucky confesses. Steve sucks in a breath to tell him off, but he quickly adds, “I remember some things though. I remember your first heat lasted nearly two weeks. You were awful sick with it, wouldn’t let me help do more than bring you water and broth. Took a week of me begging before you’d let me fuck you through it.”
He nips at Steve’s neck now, presses his dick harder against him; he shivers.
“I begged for you during my ruts, I remember that. Before they found a strong enough suppressant to get rid of ‘em altogether. I couldn’t have told anyone my own fucking name, but I knew yours.”
“Buck...” he warns, because fuck. That is so heart wrenchingly awful and romantic it’s going to break his resolve.
“Please.” And yeah, that’ll do it. “Please let me help.”
“Okay.” His voice shakes so he tries again. “Okay. Do it.”
In mere seconds, he’s back on the bed with his bare ass in the air. He hears Bucky fumbling with his own pants, and then he’s blissfully behind him, lining up and pushing in.
“Jesus,” Bucky hisses. His grip on Steve’s hips is as bruising as it is comforting. “Fuck, you should’ve gone into heat on the bridge. No way I could’ve walked away from you like this.”
“Shut up,” Steve grunts, even though he’s smiling. This is the Bucky he knows. “You’re the worst. Seventy years, you still don’t got any manners.”
“Sorry.” He doesn’t sound sorry. He starts fucking into Steve, though, slow but urgent. “Tell me when you’re close, yeah?”
I've been close since the second you got back, he thinks. He can't bring himself to say it.
"Just go harder, I'll be done soon."
He regrets it almost immediately. Not because it isn't good (it's so good), but because it takes him back to Brooklyn. Bucky's always been a strong alpha, and for years he could pin Steve down and have his way with him. After the serum, well, he'd still been Steve's alpha but it'd been painfully obvious that Steve could overpower him.
Now their old dynamic is back, with Bucky every bit an alpha capable of keeping Steve in line... and choosing instead to let Steve call the shots.
"Gonna come," he warns before he does, come soaking the blanket and fresh slick dripping out of him.
When Bucky abruptly stops thrusting into him, he whimpers.
"What's wrong?"
He doesn't want to say it. It feels too intimate of a request, but the words come out anyway.
"Aren't you gonna knot me?"
Bucky's dick twitches inside him.
"You want me to?"
"No." The lie burns. "Yes. Please..."
Bucky pulls out and dammit, Steve should've known better. Why would he go and open himself up like that-
Bucky flips him over and slides back in, falling back into a steady rhythm. Those blue eyes, ones Steve has drawn a million times and see every night in his dreams, are staring down at him.
"Kiss me," Steve begs.
It's like electricity when their lips meet. A thousand unsaid and lost promises coming back to the surface despite how deeply Steve tried to bury them. A tear escapes, then another, and then he's crying while the love of his life kisses him like they're the same two people who'd fallen into bed together nearly a century ago.
They're not, but it's a nice fantasy.
And maybe, given enough time, they could be like that again.
Steve comes two more times, once when Bucky's knot catches and again when Bucky gets his hand on him. He's a boneless mess when Bucky finally moans through his own release, his teeth grazing at Steve's pulse point. He has enough sense not to bite down; it's for the best, even if it's disappointing.
"You feeling better?" Bucky asks between kisses to Steve's jaw. He always was affectionate after sex.
"Yeah. Tired, but I'll be fine for a bit." It'd be nice to just enjoy the moment, but now that his head is clear, he can't let it go. "They're coming for you. We gotta get out of here before they get their hands on the same intel I did. It's only a matter of time."
Bucky sighs. Whatever moment they were sharing, it's gone now. Inconvenient, since they'll be knotted together for another hour.
"What you suggesting? That we find your bike and ride off into the sunset together? I didn't set that bomb, but I'm not exactly a saint. I've killed plenty of people-"
"That wasn't you. That was Hyrda."
"Yeah, maybe," Bucky says dubiously. "But it was me, too. People aren't going to let that go. You helping me just hurts you. Thanks for the heads-up, but I think I should go. Alone."
"You always fuck and run, Barnes?"
Bucky flushes. "I was just trying to help-"
"And you did, thanks. But I'm not sure what about this you don't understand. I told you in DC, I'm with you til the end of the line. It's no less true now than it was then. So let me come with you. I can help, too, y'know. I want to help."
Resting his head on Steve’s shoulder, his hair shielded him from view. It didn’t stop Steve from watching the rise and fall of his chest or feeling the way he pulled Steve closer, urging him to wrap his legs more tightly around him.
“It’s not a good idea,” Bucky warns. “I’m not the same. I’m a mess. I know I remember some stuff, but I’ve lost more. I don’t think I’m worth you derailing your whole life and pissing off your friends.”
“You’re right, you’re not the same,” Steve says. He can feel Bucky tense above him. “The Bucky I grew up with wouldn’t have been stupid enough to say he’s not worth it and think I’d believe it.”
Bucky’s head whips up, eyes wide with surprise.
“Did you just call me stupid?”
Steve shrugs. “If the shoe fits.”
“You- Bold words, coming from a guy stuck on my knot.” He jerks his hips forward a few times; Steve’s back arches off the bed because even if he’s exhausted, it feels good. “Now who’s stupid?”
“Then let’s be stupid together. Let me come with you. Let me help you fix this.”
“... Is it weird that I know you’re trying to be romantic right now?” Bucky asks. “Like I can’t remember it, but I know this is textbook Steve Rogers.”
“Then stop trying to talk me out of it.”
Buck groans. He rests his forehead to Steve’s and sighs. “Fine. No promises, but for now... we can stick together.”
“For now? What, you gonna ditch me? Cuz if you are-”
“I’ll try not to. That’s all I can offer right now. Take it or leave it.”
Steve’s thrilled that he’s getting this much, honestly. He was worried he’d have to knock Bucky out and kidnap him for his own good. This, whatever it is, is a much better start.
“Alright,” Steve agrees. He steals a kiss, short and chaste. “We’ll have to go as soon as your knot’s down. I wanna be somewhere safe the next time my heat flares up. Can’t have you bending me over on the side of the road somewhere.”
“Well now I’m tempted.”
“You’re such a jerk.”
Bucky frowns at that. “And you’re a punk.” He says it like the words taste strange to him, like a dish from childhood he’s not sure if he still likes. He smiles slightly and nods; apparently he does. “Definitely a punk.”
“Yeah, I am. Good to have you back, Buck.”