The menu lists each omega's name and the flavor profile of their milk. Steve’s reads:
"Medium-bodied and buttery, with hints of peach and a smooth, almond finish."
Bucky wants a taste
Author's Note: Good News guys! I've found a way around the glitching, so now I'm pretty sure that I can continue repairing all of my links, and you will still be able to access my library here on Tumblr and not just on Ao3.
Pt 1. Flight of Five
Bucky checks the time on his phone again and scowls, cursing quietly in the backseat. Thanks to the useless uber driver he’d snagged, he's nearly twenty minutes late by the time they finally arrive. "Thanks," he grunts unhappily, getting out of the car and thumbing through the app on his phone to give the guy a poor rating.
He's so fucking late.
He pushes in through the establishment's carved wooden doors, worrying about whether or not this is going to ruin his lunch. He's preoccupied by his harried thoughts, so he isn’t prepared for what he finds inside. Bucky’s never been to an omega tea house before. The smell is what hits him first—incense and pheromones—and he stalls in place at the entrance, eyes going wide. “Oh,” he says quietly.
It smells fantastic in here.
He glances around. The interior is divided into rooms with wood and paper, everything sparse and exotic looking. There is soft, alluring music playing in the background, something with strings. Bucky gets a hold of himself and walks over to the hostess stand. There is a middle aged woman standing there, waiting patiently for Bucky to speak. She’s small and fragile, clearly omega, and Bucky feels so odd asking her to do something for him. He’s never seen an omega in a setting like this: out in the world, working at a job, like a real citizen. “Hi,” he says, knowing that she’s waiting for him to initiate. “Ah, I’m meeting some clients here. Pruitt and Kline?”
The woman nods. “Yes sir, your party is right this way if you’d like to follow me.”
Bucky smiles a little at her. She comports herself just like a regular person. “Sure, honey,” he says indulgently, and she blushes and lowers her eyes, pleased. Bucky chuckles.
He gets led to a private room and sees the two men he’s meeting. “Gentlemen,” he is immediately saying as he’s led over to the table. “Sorry to keep you waiting.” He injects confidence into his voice, acting as if the twenty minutes is merely a minor inconvenience. He doesn’t want to make a big deal about it. A man of his stature shouldn’t grovel, not if he wants this lunch to be a success. He takes big strides over to the low table where the other two men are seated and lowers himself to the floor. “This is some place,” he comments. He glances back at the hostess, who is politely backing out of the room. He turns back around. “Do they ah, actually employ them?”
Pruitt barks out a laugh. “What? No.”
Kline smiles too, and Bucky feels stupid for having said it. “Course,” he says.
“They're kept,” Pruitt says. “Houses buy their omegas from the training schools.”
“Oh.” Bucky knows those, of course. His parents had produced an omega child—a girl—when Bucky was five years old. She’d been sent away to her new life shortly after. Bucky had been kind of disappointed, but he’d gotten a beta sister not even two years later. “Course.”
Kline moves the conversation away from Bucky’s stupid blunder and starts talking business, and Bucky falls into easy discussion with the two men. It isn’t too long before Bucky notices another omega has entered the room. This one’s male, and he’s just as delicate and fine-boned as the hostess had been. He’s younger, dressed in a kimono of pale blue and red, delicate flower patterns cascading down the sides. Bucky smiles widely at him. “Well aren’t you lovely.”
The boy smiles with his eyes downcast, tucking his hands further into his lap where he’s kneeling. “Thank you,” he says quietly.
Bucky is charmed. He turns back to his associates. “You fellas ready to order?”
They put their tea orders in and Bucky orders a platter of light finger foods for the table. He watches as the omega listens attentively, then nods and rises to his feet as if he’s on strings.
“So graceful,” Bucky murmurs as he watches the boy leave.
“They’re the best of the best,” Pruitt agrees. “Little works of art. I’m jealous of ‘em.”
“Thought you had one at home?” Kline says.
“Yeah, but tea House omegas are on another level. You think they ever put these on the market?” Pruitt scoffs. “They’re reserved for the pros.”
“Too bad,” Bucky laments. He thinks of the beautiful kimono their server was wearing, imagines the long, tender process it would be to divest him of it. “I’d love to have him.”
“Well, they offer tastings,” Pruitt says. He looks back through the menu, then finds what he’s looking for and points. “Here: House milks.”
Bucky takes the menu that he slides over and reads it for himself.
Can’t decide? Our 2 oz. tasting portions allow you to sample a variety of all the best milks that Blossom House has to offer. Create your own flight of five for $49.99
It lists way more than five options, the omegas’ names and their flavor profiles described next to each. But Bucky makes a face at the price, which isn’t exactly professional of him, but he can’t help it. “That’s steep for just a few sips,” he mutters. He could almost have a whole steak dinner at a chop house for less than that.
It's Kline who chuckles now. “You’ve never had their milk, have you?”
Bucky shakes his head. His parents never spent money on such luxuries when he was growing up, and their frugality had been passed down to Bucky, to an extent. He doesn’t even buy his groceries at the sort of high end market where such milk is available. “Do they have to keep them pregnant for that?” he asks, thinking about the young male who was their server.
“I think so?” Kline says, unsure. “But anyway, it’s amazing. Best thing you’ll ever taste, I swear.”
Bucky kind of doubts that, but he’s curious. The omega assigned to them comes back and once again kneels silently near Bucky, waiting to be acknowledged. “Hey, honey,” Bucky says kindly. “I think we’re going to get the tasting flight.”
The omega looks up and meets Bucky’s eyes, and he’s got the most gorgeous blue eyes Bucky could imagine. They’re striking. “Of course,” he says. “Would you like a selection of our teas, saké, or milks?” The young man seems to color a bit in the apples of his cheeks, at the mention of the latter item.
Bucky smiles. “Milks please.” He looks back down to the menu. “Ah, I’ll try… Helen, Peter, Steve…” he looks over at Kline and Pruitt. “You want to pick one each?”
“If you’re paying,” Pruitt quips. He consults the list and selects the milk of a male, ‘Daniel’. The flavor profile describes it as dense and creamy, due to the omega’s ‘overly plump physique’, with a nutty undertone and finishing notes of vanilla malt. Bucky has to admit, it sounds good.
Kline selects that day's 'special': a rich dessert milk from a mother that gave birth only days ago, and then Bucky looks back to their omega. “Those five, please,” he says, watching the boy takes note. “Why are you blushing, Sweetheart?” Bucky teases, if only to make him do it more.
The boy smiles and averts his eyes, and Bucky wants to grab his chin and force him to look up again. “I’m Steve,” he says, sounding pleased to have been chosen.
Bucky feels a clench of arousal deep in his balls, at that knowledge. “Oh yeah?” he asks. He lets his gaze rove over the boy’s body more carefully, trying to see past the heavy fabric of his kimono if he might be pregnant. He’s disappointed that he can’t tell. Bucky watches as Steve nods shyly.
“Yes, Sir.”
“Well I think I’ve chosen wisely then, Steve. Pretty thing like you must taste awful sweet,” Bucky says, enjoying how the omega squirms happily at the compliment. Steve’s flavor profile had been ‘medium-bodied an buttery, with hints of peach and a smooth, almond finish.’
Bucky hands their menus to Steve, who takes them and bows respectfully, then leaves with their order. Bucky watches him until he’s out of sight. He sighs, wishing he could have more than just a taste. He’d like to ease Steve’s kimono down off his shoulders and see for himself just how tiny his hidden tits are. Drink straight from the source.
Kline clears his throat and brings Bucky’s attention back to their table, and he’s quick to bring up the business merger that they’re there to discuss. “This could make you a rich man, Barnes,” he says, razzing Bucky a bit. “Maybe you’d be able to get yourself one like him.”
Bucky smiles and agrees with his banter, but inside he’s actually disappointed. Because like Pruitt had said: omegas of tea House caliber weren’t exactly available to the public. But Bucky wanted Steve.
When the flight comes out, Bucky is surprised to see that Steve has been replaced by a different server. Another pretty omega, but still a disappointment. The young woman places the tray of five, shot-glass sized cups on their table, then bows her way out of the room.
Bucky feels a little bit excited as he looks over the milks. They’re labeled by the Omegas’ names. They’re all pretty much the same color, variations of white or beige or even a creamy yellow. Some appear thicker than the others. Bucky takes the three that he’d ordered off the tray.
‘Helen’ is a light milk, almost watery. It tastes amazing, however. Bucky’s eyes widen when he’s still got the glass to his lips.
Kline laughs. “Told ya. The best.”
Bucky smiles and takes another, slow sip. It’s almost like melted ice cream. He drinks half the glass, then sets it down. “Wow,” he says. “It must be their pheromones, too, right?” Nothing could just taste that good.
Pruitt is nodding through his own milk mustache. “For sure.”
Bucky eyes ‘Steve’, but he wants to save that one for last. He picks up ‘Peter’ and sniffs it like he would a glass of brandy or wine. It has a predictably sugary smell. When he gets it on his tongue, he’s struck by a strong caramel taste. It’s almost too sweet, for his taste, but not unpleasant.
Bucky’s coming to suspect that no omega’s milk could be unpleasant.
Steve’s milk is the cup that is almost a pale yellow color. It has a thicker consistency that’s closer to heavy cream than it is to normal cow’s milk. Bucky sets the glass to his lips and takes his first sip.
Oh, wow.
‘medium-bodied and buttery, with hints of peach and a smooth, almond finish.’
Yeah, Bucky can definitely taste it. The peach hits him first, extremely faint but almost reminding him a little bit of a creamsicle. It’s got vanilla to it, and it's sweet for sure, but more balanced than 'Peter' had been. There's a pleasant nuttiness like almonds at the finish, just like the menu said. Bucky smiles and takes another big sip, and another.
“I think he’s got a favorite,” Pruitt jokes, watching Bucky down the whole glass. “It’s meant to be savored, you know.”
Bucky blushes and sets the glass back down. He feels bereft now that it’s all gone. He has to force himself to refrain from running his finger around the cup’s inside, collecting what little is left clinging to the glass. Bucky sighs and picks ‘Helen’ back up, taking another sip of that instead. But it’s not the same and he regrets not finishing with the taste of Steve on his tongue. “Wish there was more,” he mumbles. “Awfully small portions for the price.”
“Tell me about it,” Kline says. “My wife refuses to buy it. Says it's a waste of money. Only gets it for fancy Christmas parties and stuff like that.” He smiles nostalgically. “It makes the best eggnog.”
“I’ll bet.” Bucky sighs and leans back in his chair. He doesn’t pick ‘Helen’ or ‘Peter’ up again to finish them, but he does eventually give in and gather up the cream from around ‘Steve’s’ rim, sucking his finger into his mouth. It’s poor table manners but he doesn’t care. That extra little taste of Steve is worth it.
They stay and conclude their business talk over a light lunch of sushi and finger sandwiches, and then bid each other farewell. Bucky is in a very good mood because he is quite certain that this merger is going to go his way. Kline was right: Bucky is going to make some serious money off of it.
Bucky asks the hostess to show him where the restrooms are and thanks her, going in to take a piss. It’s as he’s stepping out, hands only half-dried from washing, that he spots the staircase that’s in the back of the tea House. It’s narrow and leads up into a darkened area that Bucky can’t see. There is a paper screen blocking the top of the stairway, and closer down to where Bucky is, a rope with a sign that reads: ‘Staff only’. Bucky finds himself standing there staring, wondering if that’s where the House omegas’ quarters are. Almost without thinking about it, he reaches out and runs his fingertips over the soft velvet of the rope.
“Sir?” Bucky blinks and pulls his hand back. It’s the hostess. She’s looking politely at him. “That area is off limits to patrons, I’m afraid.”
“Oh, yes. Yes of course I didn’t mean to—” Bucky flushes. “I’m sorry, just curious. I wasn’t going to go up.”
The hostess smiles and bows faintly from the shoulders. “Of course, Sir. Was there anything else I could help you with this afternoon?”
Bucky is about to throw out an automatic ‘no thank you,’ when an impulsive idea occurs to him. “I… actually… yeah.” He glances up the staircase again. “I um, I’d like to speak to your manager. Please.”
The woman’s face falls. “Oh. …Okay.” She looks worried, and Bucky feels like an ass.
“Oh. No, honey. Not to complain or anything. I want to ask a business question is all.” He reaches out and offers her his wrist in the gentlemanly gesture his father had taught him when he was young. She giggles and covers her mouth, then leans in for a cursory sniff. Bucky relaxes at having reassured her. “Is there an Alpha?” he asks. “Or a Beta I can talk to?”
The hostess nods. “Yes of course. Follow me just this way and I’ll show you.”
Bucky waits until her back is turned and she’s walking before he lets himself grin like crazy.
He’s going to get himself a real good taste of ‘Steve’.
Pt 2. A Private Tasting:
The woman who owns the tea house is unlike anyone Bucky’s ever met. She’s small, with flame-red hair and a bone-deep confidence that Bucky’s only ever seen in alphas. Buts she’s not alpha. She’s not… well Bucky’s not sure what she is. She has no scent. Not in the way a beta is mild, or how blockers might muddle a scent down to something vaguely inoffensive and indistinguishable. She simply has no scent.
He stands there in her office, forgetting not to stare as he tries to make sense of her where she sits like a Boss behind her desk.
Her lips quirk. “Mr. Barnes, was it?” There’s something east of Ukraine in her voice.
Bucky blinks, caught out. “Oh. Ah, yeah. Yes.” He steps forward and holds out his hand, which she takes and shakes firmly. Bucky tilts his head, trying to see at her wrist if there’s any faint bulge of a gland, but she pulls her hand back too soon, her jacket sleeve sliding back down and covering the spot. Bucky stares.
“Mm.” The woman—Natasha—sighs like she knows exactly what he’s thinking. She stands up, and even standing she’s still tiny. “Let me save you the trouble,” she says. “Omega, nullified. You understand?”
Bucky doesn’t, for a scant second or two, but then he makes sense of the words and fights not to recoil. He probably winces. Natasha’s face gets a little bit stonier, which is a hint. Bucky gulps. “Um, I’m sorry.” Because what else is he supposed to say to something like that? Bucky’s heard of nullification of course, but it’s rare, and illegal. The USSR had dabbled with it for a heartbeat in the eighties, as he’d learned from a disturbing documentary once in college. “That’s… horrible,” he says, intending it as an apology, perhaps on behalf of whatever alpha or even beta doctor must’ve done it to her. Now he places her accent and makes sense of that, too. “I’m so sorry.”
Not the right thing to say, apparently. Natasha starts picking at her nails, unamused. “Don’t be. It allows me to do this.” She gestures to the room they’re in, her office. “I’m free.”
Bucky is sure he does a better job at containing his facial expression this time. Something tells him that Natasha won’t take kindly to his pity of her. So he squares his shoulders, remembering to get down to business. He just can’t believe he’s going to be doing said business with an omega. …Or former omega. Isn’t she still… technically? Whatever. He can’t unsee her as one, now that he knows. “I um, I had lunch here with colleagues today.”
“Of course,” she says like rote, not looking up from her nails. “I hope you enjoyed yourselves.”
“We did. There was an omega who served us. Steve.”
Natasha’s face does the closest thing yet to a pleasant expression, but she hides it quickly. “Oh. He’s a sweet boy. Very special.”
Bucky’s never met an omega who rearranged their emotions like she does, like a soldier. He instinctively doesn’t like it but reminds himself that he’s not here to save this woman. He’s here for Steve. “I’d like to arrange time with him,” he says, no beating around the bush. “Privately.”
Natasha stills, her predator eyes finally sliding back over. They’re narrowed. “I’m not in the habit of loaning my staff out. I take good care of them and they feel very safe here. You understand?”
Bucky feels his face heat. He knows what she must be worried about. “Of course. But it’s not like that. I don’t mean any harm,” he says, trying to show her through his open posture that he’s being honest. “I’d just like to spend some time with him. He is, as you said, special.”
“You want to fuck him.”
Bucky grinds his teeth at the unnatural manner Natasha has about her. It’s very unsettling. “I would treat him with all the tenderness he deserves, if that happened,” he says, rather than deny it. It’s the right approach, if Natasha’s slightly (very slightly) improved expression is anything to go by. “You have my word,” Bucky says. “He won’t be afraid or hurt at all while he’s with me.”
“Mm.” Natasha is sizing him up, and even that feels brutal. She crosses her arms, and Bucky thinks that he’s going to be denied outright. “Give me some ID,” she finally decides. He grabs his wallet and hands over his state ID. Natasha barely gives it a glance before scanning it into her computer. She watches the screen as Bucky’s information pops up, and she spends time scrutinizing it. “James Barnes,” she says, not looking away from the screen. “Thirty-seven, CEO. Residence in Central Park West.” Her eyebrow arches. “Carnegie Hill?”
Bucky shifts uncomfortably. “I do well for myself, yes.”
“You’ve taken courses in omega care.”
“Well, everyone does,” he says, somehow feeling like he needs to defend that very reasonable action. “To be better for them.”
“Says here you got state bonding approval nearly three years ago.” Her eyes flit back and forth as she speed reads the info, her expression relaxing the more she takes in. Or maybe it’s just Bucky’s wishful thinking. “But you haven’t applied. Still don’t have one of your own?”
“No.” Bucky’s always been so busy with his work. “Wouldn’t have the time to take care of ‘em the way they deserve,” he says. “Figured I’d wait, do it right.”
Natasha looks back to him, and something in her face has softened the barest bit, making Bucky think that he’s said the right things. “…Fine.” Natasha hands Bucky’s card back to him. “If you fuck up at all, I’ll report you to the authorities, make sure you never get your hands on any omega ever again.”
Bucky nods, just barely keeps himself from saying an instinctual “yes ma’am” at her (Christ, what a thing that’d be to say to an omega). But she’s got the air of an alpha to her, and that’s just ten kinds of tragic. “He’ll be in good hands,” Bucky says instead, knowing that a little more reassurance can’t hurt.
Natasha doesn’t respond. She’s filling out an appointment card. “Come back tomorrow. This time. He’ll see you then.”
Bucky raises an eyebrow at the demand of it but manages to keep his mouth shut. He knows a dismissal when he hears one, even if it is coming from someone like her. She’s in charge here, and Bucky expressing his opinion on the wrongness of what’s been done to her won’t help him any. “Thank you,” he murmurs, taking the card when she slides it over. “I look forward to it.”
Natasha’s curt nod isn’t much of a parting gift, but Bucky takes it as his cue to get the hell out of her office.
Bucky’s appointment to see Steve is in the late afternoon. It’s a weekday. Normally Bucky would still be in his office in midtown, but he’s taken a sick day to be able to do this. He’s mildly embarrassed at that fact, that he wanted to have the time to really clean up nice and debate between which of three (or five) outfits to wear. All this trouble just for some omega boy he doesn’t even know. Bucky rubs his face as he approaches the tea House’s front doors. What on earth is he even doing?
The smell inside is once again amazing, and it assaults Bucky’s senses almost more than it had the last time. Bucky wonders how many omegas they have living there, and if any of them are in heat or pregnant. Maybe they enhance it somehow, with aerosolized sprays or a professional odorizing service or something? Doesn’t matter. Bucky waits while a party ahead of him is seated in one of the dining rooms. He smiles and flirts kindly with one of the middle-aged omega hostesses while an escort is arranged for him.
He wonders if this is some sort of mid-life crisis he’s having. He is thirty-seven now. Maybe he should just do what his mother’s always nagging for and get himself “a nice little omega to come home to.” It’s not like he couldn’t. Bucky passes what he knows to be a private House on his commute to work every morning, and there’s a state-run detention center on Forty-First and Dyer. A man of his stature and circumstance would have no problem procuring an omega, if he were so inclined.
Bucky’s always told himself it’s because he doesn’t have the time. He’s not a big spender like that.
But ever since seeing Steve with his dainty kimono and blushing gestures, ever since smelling him, hearing his sweet voice, tasting him; well, he hasn’t been able to get the thought of Steve out of his mind. Bucky’s coming to suspect that he’s due for a rut.
The upstairs level of the tea House smells even sweeter. Bucky follows his escort through the narrow hallways until she stops outside one of the plain shoji doors. She scrapes her fingernails lightly against the paper, then turns and offers Bucky a demure bow. “Enjoy your time, Sir,” she says, then shuffles away.
The door slides open, and Bucky feels his heartbeat pick up as he’s suddenly faced with Steve.
“Good afternoon.” Steve doesn’t look surprised. Likely, he’s been told about this appointment and prepared for it.
Bucky leans on the doorway and tries not to think of other alphas vying for Steve’s time. “Hey Sweetheart,” he says, smiling wide and projecting the dominance that creatures like Steve respond so well to. “I sure am glad I could see you again.”
Steve’s lashes fan out on his cheeks as he keeps his eyes lowered. But he looks pleased, as if he’d squirm if he were any less composed. “Me too, Sir.”
“Call me Bucky, or Alpha if you want. Please.”
Steve’s cheeks color beautifully and he nods. Bucky lets his eyes rake up and down his small body. The omega is dressed more casually, though still in kimono. Bucky doesn’t know if the House omegas ever dress normally. He likes the look of the garments on Steve’s small frame, however. So many delicate layers, like a finely wrapped present. It just makes Bucky think about what all that fabric is concealing, of how long and tender the process of disrobing him would be. A glance over Steve’s shoulder shows tidy but small quarters. “May I come into your den?” he asks.
Steve gives a small nod and backs up into the room. Bucky follows. Steve’s room smells like him, like a proper den, and that makes Bucky happy to think that the omega has a safe little space of his own. It consists of a small sitting area with comfortable, low to the ground living room furniture. There’s a mini fridge and tea kettle tucked up along one wall with some shelving that seems to serve as a kitchenette. Translucent paper screens offer the illusion of privacy for the back of the room, where a messy bed and a wardrobe sit. Barring the nested bed, everything is pristine and vaguely oriental in decoration. “You have a lovely home,” Bucky says, taking a moment to toe off his shoes at the door. He lines them up next to several other pairs of dainty sandals and slippers that he sees, before he goes and sits down on the low couch.
Steve demurs, kneeling near Bucky and saying, “It’s not much. Just what we’re all assigned here.”
“Are you happy with it?” Bucky asks, because he’s curious. He’s thought about it a lot since yesterday actually, wondered whether Steve ever wished he lived in a more domestic situation. “Hm?” Bucky reaches out and touches the light fringe of Steve’s hair. “Do you like working here at the tea House?”
Steve nods and meets Bucky’s eyes for the first time. “Oh, yes. I’m treated very well here. And I have friends. It’s pleasant.”
Bucky smiles and lets his hand trail down. He cups the side of Steve’s face and admires him. “You’re just absolutely lovely,” he murmurs. He’s actually never been so god-awfully attracted to a particular boy or girl. But there’s just something about this one that has him fascinated. “Thank you for letting me come spend more time with you. In private.” Steve seems pleased but shy, as he shivers a little under Bucky’s touch. His scent is receptive. Bucky sits further back into the couch cushions. “Do you know why I wanted to see you in private?” he asks, figuring that he might as well gauge what Steve will be comfortable with.
Steve lowers his eyes again, and Bucky’s coming to see that this is a trained response. Steve shakes his head minutely. “No, Sir.” Bucky makes a tsking sound, and Steve smiles a little and corrects himself. “I mean, Alpha.”
“That’s better. I want you to feel relaxed around me, honey. Think you can do that?”
Steve looks up at him again and winds up nodding, happy. “Yes. Okay.”
“Good boy.”
Steve beams. “Can I make you some tea?” He looks eager to serve Bucky, gesturing to the kitchenette. “I have all kinds.”
Bucky smiles and shakes his head. “That’s not what I was hoping to sample from you today, sweet boy.”
Steve colors, but he doesn’t scent nervous or anything like that. He waits for Bucky to gesture him over to the couch. When he’s near enough, Bucky encourages him to sit crossways on his lap. Steve gasps a little when Bucky pulls him down the last few inches, settling him and holding him at the waist, but he doesn’t protest the treatment. Bucky’s being familiar, sure, but he isn’t groping the poor boy. “You’re so small,” he tells him, their faces very close together, sharing breath. “I like that, you know.”
“I…” Steve licks his lips. “I like how much bigger you are than me, too. Alpha.”
Bucky grins. “We’re well-matched, then, huh?”
Steve nods and tucks his chin down. “Um, what… what was it you wanted to sample, then?” he asks, voice nearly a whisper.
Bucky sighs. He hates to ask it, but he does want to get a sense of what Steve has experienced in his life at the tea House, doesn’t want to scare the poor thing off, of course. “Sweetheart, do you have many patrons like me that want to come up here to your room?”
Steve pauses, then shakes his head. “Not… many.” He peeks up at Bucky as if gauging whether to elaborate. “Natash—I mean, my House mistress—well I think she gets lots of people asking. But mostly she doesn’t let them.” The omega’s lips quirk in a private sort of smile. “She’s very protective of us.”
“That’s good.” Bucky traces his thumb along Steve’s cheek. “Omegas should be protected like the treasures they are.” Steve flushes mightily at that and squirms in place, and Bucky preens at having pleased him. So easy.
“She must really like you,” Steve adds. “I’ve only ever entertained two other Alphas in private before this.”
Bucky’s eyebrows raise. He wasn’t expecting to hear that an audience with Steve was such a rare favor. He hadn’t gotten the impression that Natasha was very impressed with him. Hearing that he’s likely one of only a few that have ever been allowed access to Steve makes him swell with pride. “I see,” he says. Then, keeping his voice soft, he broaches his next question. “Did these other Alphas want to touch you?”
Steve is clearly embarrassed by the question, but he nods his head. “Yes. They, um, they wanted to undress me.”
Something dark and possessive rumbles to life inside Bucky at that knowledge, at the idea of faceless, greedy and ugly people trying to get at this lovely creature that’s sitting in his lap. “Did you let them?” he asks gently, needing to know.
Steve shivers and squirms a little, and Bucky stills him with strong arms at his waist. This seems to calm the omega and he murmurs, “Yes.”
Bucky can’t help feeling disappointed, though he doesn’t want Steve to think he holds any of this against him. He presses a chaste kiss to the omega’s temple. “Did you feel as if you could’ve said ‘no thank you’, if you’d wanted to?”
This question seems to catch Steve off guard. He blinks a few times, then looks oddly at Bucky, as if the idea had never occurred to him. “I… I don’t know,” he says softly. Then, twisting his fingers in his lap, he says, “I’ve always enjoyed the company of alphas. And the two who Natasha did allow to see me in private were so nice when they visited. And I like pleasing alphas, being good for them.”
“As you should. Only natural.”
“So I…” Steve peters off, looking at Bucky as if he needs help. “I didn’t want to say no, but… I suppose… yes. I think I would have felt guilty, if I had.”
Bucky nods, having expected as much. Not that it’s really an omega’s lot to refuse sex, but still, something about such a small and tender omega being in a working position like Steve’s bothers Bucky. Someone like Steve belongs in a house, a real home, tucked away in private with an Alpha who can take proper care of them.
“Are you upset?” Steve asks tentatively. “That I’m not a virgin?”
Bucky scoffs. “No. Of course not.” He cups the back of Steve’s neck and applies pressure to the glands on either side. Steve’s eyes slip halfway closed and he purrs. “You’re perfect just as you are.”
“Thank you, Alpha.”
“Sweetheart,” Bucky says. “I won’t lie to you: I’d like to take your clothes off. I’d like to taste your milk, drink right from your body. I’d like to make love to you, too, but only if you feel like that’s something that’ll make you happy.”
Steve blinks, a little slower and stupider from having his glands stimulated. Bucky hums indulgently and waits him out. “Yeah,” Steve eventually says, sounding vaguely drunk. Bucky eases up the pressure on his neck so the poor thing can think. “Yes,” Steve says again, the fog of Bucky’s Hold lifting a bit. “I’d like that.”
“Yeah?”
Steve looks down again and smiles in his practiced, bashful way. “Yes. I um, I think you’re very handsome, Alpha.” He peeks up and dares to say, “Bucky.”
Bucky’s stomach swoops at hearing this sweet creature utter his name. “Aw, Sugar,” he murmurs. “C’mere.” He wraps his arm around Steve’s waist and hitches him in closer against his chest. He presses their lips together in a long, slow kiss. When they part, Steve’s scent has changed in a tell-tale way. “Is your bottom slicking up already, sweetheart?” Bucky croons, loving the way Steve squirms in response. “And all we’ve done is kiss?”
“I don’t… Alpha I—please, I’m sorry. I can’t help it.” Steve looks positively mortified and Bucky’s heart clenches.
“Aw, no honey, don’t apologize. It’s nice. It lets me know that you like the way I’m treating you.”
Steve’s still flushed but he relaxes a bit in Bucky’s arms. Bucky just wants to eat him up. He hugs Steve to his chest and holds him, rubbing over his back soothingly and kissing the top of his head as he takes a moment to get a hold of himself. Omegas are very, very reactive sexually, so he knows he shouldn’t let it go to his knot that Steve is wet beneath his kimono already. Bucky lets his fingers glide over the silk fabric covering Steve’s slim back, until he comes to his middle. “I’d like to undress you now, Steve,” he says, pulling back enough so that Steve can see his face as he speaks to him. “Will you let me do that? Let me see your sweet body?”
Steve nods shyly, smiling with those blond eyelashes lowered modestly again. Practiced and perfect. “Yes, please Alpha.”
Bucky grips his chin and tips his head up firmly, forcing eye contact from him. “Hey,” he says, careful to make his words stern but not reproachful. “I know you go through a lot of training here, on how to act around Alphas.” Steve’s blue irises are stark as he blinks up at Bucky, surprised. “You’re a very sweet boy and I’m not complaining, trust me,” Bucky reassures him, “but you don’t have to be coy around me. I want to see you blush and squirm when you’re really feeling that way, not because it’s what you’ve been taught to do.” He lets his thumb stroke over the apple of Steve’s cheek as he watches him. “Do you think you can do that for me, Sweetheart?”
Steve is bashful at that, but it’s more natural. It’s obvious nobody’s ever said this to him before, and he’s looking right at Bucky as he agrees. “Okay,” he whispers. “I’ll try. But I am feeling that way around you a lot already, Alpha.”
Bucky smiles. “That’s good. Are you still feeling wet?” he asks, teasing. He can smell that Steve is, and Steve’s instinctual squirm and whine confirms it. “Shh, I told you that makes me happy,” he soothes. He lets his hand trail down Steve’s neck, over the front of his kimono and down until it reaches his wrapped middle. “So many layers,” he murmurs, finding the silk cord with his fingers. It seems like his first obstacle. He takes a hold of the knot and looks up to Steve, the question clear in his eyes. Steve nods, and Bucky pulls.
The belt, which Steve whispers to him is called an obi, comes next. Bucky has Steve stand up in front of him while he takes it off his small body. There are more pieces underneath that Bucky reverently removes. The bulky layers come away from Steve’s middle one by one, and for the first time yet, Bucky is able to ascertain that his little omega is not pregnant. “Huh,” he says, dick half hard in his pants at what he’s doing, but his curiosity also piqued now. He parts the front of Steve’s kimono, revealing the underrobe. He leans forward and kisses Steve’s stomach, then tells him in a hushed voice to take that off. Steve moves slowly, fingers hesitant or perhaps self-conscious, but he obeys. The robe falls to the ground with only a whisper of cloth, pooling at Steve’s feet.
Bucky swallows thickly, feeling heat suffuse him, because he can finally see Steve.
A thin layer is all that’s left, near translucent. Steve’s stomach is flat underneath the cotton, the small shape of his cock mostly hidden by the fabric that’s tied in front, but his breasts are quite noticeable. “I thought they had to breed you all to get the milk,” Bucky murmurs, pulling at Steve to encourage him to climb back onto his lap. He does, but this time he spreads his knees and straddles Bucky’s legs.
“They do,” Steve says, voice a little breathy from being so much more exposed. “But um, I weaned my last over a year ago.”
Bucky’s eyes shoot up and fix on Steve’s face, concerned. “Your last?” he echoes. “But you… how old are you?” How could Steve have possibly been bred multiple times already? Bucky furrows his brow, ready to be upset about it. “Tell me,” he demands.
“I’m twenty-three,” Steve says.
Bucky wasn’t expecting that, but it helps calm him a bit. “Oh. I didn't know,” he says. He’d been imagining Steve bred at an obscenely young age. “How many times have you been pregnant?” he asks, careful with his wording because he doesn’t want to make Steve sad.
But the omega is calm as he tells him, “Twice. I made babies for the Alphas who visited with me. They took them home to live with their families. The last was over a year ago.”
Bucky nods. He knows surrogacy is a common use for omegas, but his heart still gives an instinctual throb at the thought of Steve having to give up his pups. He wonders if Steve was sad, when he had to let them go to their new homes. “And your milk?” he asks. He reaches up and traces one of Steve’s tiny breasts from over the fabric.
Steve sighs and pushes his chest further against the touch. “Pumps. They keep me producing.”
Bucky feels his dick give another pulse as blood rushes low, the thought of Steve with machines latched onto his nipples and pulling away at his tits, making him feel lightheaded for a moment.
“Alpha?” Steve says, and then he moans lightly as Bucky’s aroused scent hits him. He falls forward and pushes his face into Bucky’s neck. “Oh, you smell so good.”
He squirms in Bucky’s lap and Bucky has to grab him at the hips. He chuckles while he tries to get ahold of himself. “Yeah well, I like the idea of seeing you get milked,” he says. He’s fully hard in his pants now. He wonders if Steve can feel it. “You really turned me on there.”
Steve peeks up at him, a small, proud smile on his face. “I did?”
Aw. Bucky nods, enamored with the boy. Either Steve’s still very virginal, or else he’s damned good at faking it. Bucky wonders if the little omega has only ever been fucked the two times it took for him to catch. “Yeah, Sweetheart. Love your tits.”
Steve freezes. “You… oh.” He glances down quickly at himself, but then forces his eyes back up. “They’re um, they’re not very big…”
“You think I can’t see ‘em?” Bucky asks gently, fingers trailing over the collar of the thin underrobe. “Gorgeous boy. Ready to take this off?”
Steve exhales and nods, looking shaky. “Yes, please. You do it?”
“Of course.” Bucky takes his time in removing this one last layer, playing with the fabric between his fingers, savoring it as each centimeter of pale skin is revealed. Steve has sharp little shoulders. There are freckles on his skin that Bucky wants to stop and appreciate and trace with his tongue, but he refrains, needing to see Steve fully.
Once his breasts are bared, Steve shrugs the sleeves off his arms, the robe pooling around his middle where it’s still tied. Bucky grabs his skinny arms and holds them firmly to the sides when Steve tries to cover himself. “No pretend bashfulness,” Bucky chides, but Steve makes a little noise that tells him it’s anything but pretend. “Shh. I like them, honey.”
Again, Steve makes a small noise. He sounds like he doesn’t believe Bucky. “Nobody… um, nobody’s seen ‘em like this,” he whispers. “When I’m producing.”
Bucky’s eyes flick up and he soaks up Steve’s expression; his embarrassment, his insecurity. It’s endearing. “I feel lucky then,” he says. He waits for Steve to stop tugging and squirming, and says, “So sexy, baby. Can I touch? I want to explore you.” Steve nods, his blush travelling down his neck but his scent becoming a little calmer. He’s reassured by Bucky’s enjoyment of his body, which makes Bucky very proud. Carefully, telegraphing his every move, Bucky lets go of Steve’s arms. Steve holds still in place for him. “Good boy,” Bucky praises. He looks down.
Steve’s breasts are very, very tiny; more conical than truly rounded, sticking out sweetly from his chest with nipples so puffy they should be illegal. Bucky feels his mouth water and his dick throb just looking at them. “Oh, honey,” he croons, taking them in his hands. There’s not enough to really cup. He clasps them lightly between his thumbs and fingers instead, rubbing the swollen flesh just the barest bit. Steve inhales sharply and makes a timid sound. Bucky surveys his face. “Does this hurt?” he asks. Steve shakes his head. Emboldened, Bucky works the flesh a little more, rubbing his fingers over the small swells. It almost looks like Steve’s breasts have formed little peaks from being fitted to a milking machine so often. Bucky wonders how big they once were, when he was fresh from whelping. “Feels good?” he checks, though it’s obvious from Steve’s tiny, open mouthed pants and slight rocking motion in his lap that he's enjoying the touches.
“Y-yeah,” Steve says, biting his lip as he watches Bucky touch him. “Really good.”
Bucky smiles. He can’t help but to lean in and request another kiss, and Steve’s lips part obediently. Bucky licks into his mouth once, then pulls away. “Fucking gorgeous,” he growls lowly as he watches how Steve’s breasts roll between his fingers, how his nipples engorge and harden after a few moments of gentle touching. “Oh, just lovely.”
“Alpha,” Steve breathes. “I—oh.” His little body jolts forward In Bucky’s lap, hands grabbing onto Bucky’s shoulders. “Bucky,” he nearly whispers, face hidden against Bucky’s neck as he clings to him. “I’m… it’s really wet.” He says it like he’s confessing a flaw or a mistake, as if Bucky isn’t supposed to go crazy at hearing him admit that to him.
A low, pleased growl is coming from Bucky’s throat, and he runs his hands over Steve’s naked back. So goddamn slim. “Yeah?” he asks, fighting to keep his voice civil. “You slickin’ up on my lap?” Steve whines and nods and squirms, and Bucky grips the back of his neck in a Hold, uses his other hand to feel down where the thin undergarment covers Steve’s ass. Steve goes pliant as a noodle from the Hold and lays against him happily as Bucky’s hand finds the wet patch on his clothing, on Bucky’s slacks now too. “Aw, Sugar,” he murmurs, overcome by the evidence of Steve’s arousal. “You are. You’re soaking right through everything, getting us both wet.”
“M’sorry, Alpha.”
Bucky chuckles, so goddamned turned on by everything about this sweet boy. “No, it’s beautiful. Very natural for you to react to me this way, right?” He waits for Steve’s pleased purr and nod, then says, “I’ll put all this to good use, don’t you worry.” He digs his thumb real good into Steve’s gland one more time, then lets go of him so he can pull the ruined garment from Steve’s waist. He tosses it away and makes the omega sit back a little further in his lap so that he can see him.
Steve is beautiful, looks just as an omega should. His slim legs are spread obscenely over Bucky’s lap where he straddles him, and Bucky runs his hands up and down the tops of his thighs. “So small,” he murmurs, eyes catching on Steve’s little omega cock. It’s mostly soft, despite Steve's arousal, and if he's three inches he's lucky. Bucky suspects he’s trained himself down a bit. The aesthetics are just lovely. Bucky traces the pads of his fingers over it, down the shaft and to the smooth skin behind. Steve has no balls. “You’ve been fixed,” he murmurs, not having feelings about it one way or the other. He wonders if it was something Steve chose.
The omega nods. “For breeding,” he says. “It was safer for the babies.”
Bucky smiles, warmed at the thought of Steve being such a caring mother. “Good, then,” he says, seeing how his praise and acceptance makes Steve relax even further.
"It also makes it so I don't... I don't get very, um, hard," Steve whispers, but he looks brave as he tells Bucky, like he's coming to expect more and more that Bucky will be accepting of him. "But that's okay, right?"
"Oh, baby." Bucky reaches up and takes Steve’s face in both his hands, drawing him in for a long kiss. Steve’s lips part for him when he requests entrance, and Bucky swallows up the shaky breaths and tiny moans that Steve gives as he licks into his mouth again and again. “You're absolutely perfect,” Bucky breathes when they’ve parted and he’s left with an incredibly turned on omega grinding in his lap. “Now, I think we should get more comfortable, how about you?”
Steve blinks at him, stupid for a second as he tries to listen to Bucky’s words. “Oh,” he eventually says. “Yeah. Yes, please.”
Bucky looks towards the back of the room, where he can see Steve’s messy bed through the barrier of paper screens. “Will you show me your nest, Sweetheart?” he asks tenderly, swiping his thumb along Steve’s chin, his flushed bottom lip. Steve gives the most unbearably timid nod and smiles at him, taking his hand in his. Bucky stares at how much smaller those fine-boned fingers are against his own.
“Yeah,” Steve says. “Come on.”
He stands and pulls on Bucky’s hand to move him along, and Bucky feels a little like he’s being urged into bed by an angel.
Pt 3. Straight From the Source:
Back by the bed, Steve flicks his eyes from the messy sheets and blankets up to Bucky, then away again. “It’s messy,” he says, embarrassed.
“Hey, don’t apologize.” Bucky sits on the edge of the bed and the motion makes Steve’s scent emanate up from the covers. For a second he’s left blinking, going a little lightheaded. “It…It’s your nest.”
“Not really,” Steve excuses quietly. “Don’t really need one. Don’t have an alpha, or pups.” Bucky’s heart breaks a little. “Guess I should’a tidied up before—”
“Hey,” Bucky cuts him off, grabbing for Steve’s hand. It’s so tiny and he enfolds it in his own, protective. “You go through heats, don’t you?” Steve blushes at his mention of it, but he nods. Bucky gives his fingers a reassuring squeeze. “Right. So? It’s supposed to be comforting, not ‘tidy’. I’m glad I get to see something like this, just you as you really are. Private.” He offers the omega a winsome smile. “Plus, you know, it also smells amazing back here.”
Steve’s lips twitch, encouraged. “It does?”
“Mmhm. C’mere.” Bucky takes his other hand, pulling him in closer. “It smells like you, and well…” –now it’s Bucky’s turn to fluster a bit for reacting like some virgin exposed to a ripe omega for the first time- “By now you’ve gotta know honey…I really like your scent.” Steve squirms in place, obviously pleased. Bucky’s proud for having made him feel that way. “And your body,” he murmurs. He leans forward and presses a kiss to one of Steve’s nipples. They’re right at the level of his mouth. “Can I?” he says, lips moving against Steve’s skin as he asks. “I want to taste it.”
Steve radiates embarrassment, but Bucky can still smell how he’s slicking up. “Okay,” Steve breathes, eyes glued to Bucky and his mouth so close to the nipple. “If you want.”
Bucky hums, but he wants even more from the little omega. “What do you want?” he asks, rubbing his thumbs in circles against Steve’s palms. “Hm?” He lets his tongue slip out, just briefly, and swipes over the pink tip of Steve’s breast. The omega gasps. “Will you like it?” Bucky reaches up and tweaks at Steve’s other nipple, just barely, holding that sweet peak between his fingertips. “Will it feel good for you?”
It's clearly difficult for Steve to answer. The poor thing is breathing heavier, his scent so aroused and body practically trembling in place as Bucky touches him. But he licks his lips and manages to tell Bucky, “Yes, Alpha. I—”
“Bucky,” Bucky interjects, giving the nipple another little press. “That’s my name, honey. Let me hear you say it.”
“Bucky,” Steve whispers. “Yes.”
“Yes?” Bucky starts to grin. “Hm?”
Steve nods. “Yes. It… it’ll feel good, for me. If you do it.”
Bucky’s grin sharpens. “If I do what? Huh? Let me hear you say it, Sweetness.”
Bless him, Steve blushes and ducks his head, but he does manage to say, “If you… suck me.”
Bucky’s teasing attitude breaks—how could it not, when he’s faced with such a sweet, vulnerable creature?—and he coos, “Aw, Stevie, yes. C’mere.” He backs up on the bed, getting comfortable in the piles of blankets and leaning against the headboard. “Right up here in my lap. There you go. Perfect.”
Having Steve’s lithe, naked form in his lap is perfectly torturous. Bucky has to reach down and readjust himself in his slacks, but doesn’t afford himself more than a squeeze before he’s putting his hands back on Steve. He slides them up and down his ribcage and waist, curling his fingers back into the soft skin above his buttocks. Steve is incredibly slim, near-textbook for a young male omega, but there is a bit of added fat to him in certain places—at his hips and rear, and of course his chest. It turns Bucky on like nothing else, makes him want to grab onto Steve even harder, dig claiming bruises into the soft places that two pregnancies left behind.
It also makes him ache a little, to know that he didn’t get to see that, didn’t get to be part of it. If Steve were his, he would’ve kept Steve right in his nest, in a little room, watched him give birth and nurse and tuck the baby aside so Bucky could breed the next one up into him…
Steve’s aroused little gasp breaks him out of his thoughts, and Bucky realizes that he’s started pulling Steve down against him, using that too harsh grip on his hips to rub the omega’s sex against his own trapped erection. “Ah,” he huffs, cursing himself for getting carried away and being rough. That’s the last thing he wants.
Bucky needs to take his time with this. Needs to take Steve apart so slowly and carefully. This is probably the only time Bucky will ever be allowed to have him like this, after all, so he’s got to make it so good and tender like it should be. He can’t ever let the omega forget their short time together.
“Sorry,” he mutters, easing up his grip on the omega’s hips. He checks for bruising, but there is none. Not yet, anyway. Bucky soothes over the pink marks his fingers left behind, has to imagine that Steve’s creamy skin must bruise incredibly easily. “I don’t want to be rough with you, honey,” he assures. He lets his fingers slide back, dipping into the crack of Steve’s cheeks. He doesn’t have to search far to find the telltale wetness. “Just want to make you feel good, okay?”
Steve nods, and he’s not put off at all by Bucky’s aggressive slip, thank goodness. “Yes,” he whispers. “Bucky, please.”
Bucky hums and lets himself just enjoy the sight of Steve for a long moment, running his hands all over his skin, feeling the shape of him, so different from Bucky’s own body. “God,” he breathes, entranced. He squeezes gently at Steve’s hips, fingers the soft part of his lower belly, reaches up and plays lightly with the little peaks of his breasts, so delicate. “Oh, honey.” Steve fights to stay still under his scrutiny, whining a little and squirming, blood drawing up under his skin in a full-body blush. But it’s not fake, and it’s not entirely lust either. Steve’s honey-sweet scent of arousal and embarrassment are tingeing with something troublesome. Bucky notices his discomfort and he pauses. “Steve?”
“I like it,” Steve hurries to say, his pretty eyes downcast. He gulps when Bucky nudges his chin up and forces him to meet his eyes.
“But?”
“S’just, I haven’t been in front of anybody, since…” He peters off, shrugging and tucking his head again despite Bucky’s efforts. “I look different. I didn’t know if you… if you’d…”
Jesus fucking Christ. Bucky’s heart is breaking and he doesn’t know how he’s not going to wind up kidnapping this little omega home with him.
“I do,” he breathes, can’t speak fast enough to make Steve understand him. “Fuck, honey. You don’t know how hard it is for me right now. I really want to be so gentle with you but it’s hard.” He squeezes his waist meaningfully. “Just want to mess you up so bad, baby. I gotta keep control of myself. Gotta make you feel the way you deserve.” Steve looks so hopeful at that, and Bucky smiles at him even though his heart still aches at the omega’s uncertainty.
Honestly, Bucky can imagine what Steve might’ve looked like as a virgin, seventeen or eighteen and never-yet bred. He’dve been entirely slim, all skin and bones and untouched potential. But Bucky likes him like this: healthy and filled out, ripe. “Yeah,” he says, running his hands up and down Steve’s back, encouraging him to sit up straighter in his lap. It puts the omega’s chest right at the level of Bucky’s face. “Love these tiny little titties,” he murmurs to reassure Steve. He wants the omega to know he finds every part of his body beautiful. “Perfect little mouthful.” He takes the nipple into his mouth and sucks.
Steve’s lips part, a quiet little ‘oh’ escaping him that goes right to Bucky’s knot. Bucky sucks a little more.
Nothing happens at first, but he just keeps sucking, warm and persistent. Untouched, Steve’s nipples are puffy and soft, but under the attention of his mouth he can feel this one stiffening into a firm peak. After a few more minutes of the attention, Steve’s breathing deepens and he makes a soft little sound, and then his milk lets down. The liquid that hits Bucky’s tongue is even better than he remembers from the tasting room. He pulls back after he gets the first taste, wide eyes looking up to Steve. The omega is heavy-lidded, breathing open-mouthed, his entire focus on Bucky. “Oh, baby,” Bucky says, sounding devastated even to his own ears. He dives back in for another taste. This time when he latches on and sucks, Steve moans.
“…fuck.”
“Mmph,” Bucky says, wrapping his arms around Steve to pull him closer. He’s got half of Steve’s tiny tit in his mouth, sucking hard. He swallows another mouthful when it comes, then lets go and simply mouths all over Steve’s chest, his lips wet from the milk. “That’s amazing,” he says, in awe of Steve. He looks up at him, sees how wrecked with arousal Steve looks. “You taste better than anything,” Bucky amazes. “How’s that possible?”
Steve shakes his head, looking lost. “I dunno. I mean, people like it. Alphas.”
“I know.” Bucky doesn’t think this is quite normal though. He literally feels like he could get high just from Steve, from what his body can give him. He’d tasted the other omegas’ milks in the tearoom, after all. It wasn’t like this. And drinking straight from the source? From Steve’s gorgeous little breasts? Bucky shudders and grabs the omega closer to him. “It’s just different. It’s different with you.” He goes in for another taste, this time taking the other one.
Steve’s fingers are suddenly threading into his hair and tugging, pulling Bucky’s face against his chest, keeping him there. “Nn,” Steve whines, hugging onto Bucky and pressing against him, rubbing his slicked bottom against Bucky’s pants. “Alpha, oh, f-feels so nice.”
Bucky pulls off, mouthing wetly at the skin. “Yeah,” he breathes, distracted by the drop of pearly liquid he can see beading on Steve’s other nipple. He reaches up and swipes it away with a finger. “S’no wonder they charge what they do for it,” he muses. “Fucking ambrosia.” Carefully, he takes the tip of Steve’s breast between his fingers and draws them all together, pulling. He gasps when a little spurt of milk trickles out. “Aw, god.” His dick throbs.
Steve makes a noise that’s somewhere between enjoyment and frustration. He starts rubbing himself even more against Bucky’s lap. “Alpha?”
Bucky tears his focus away from Steve’s tits and meets his eyes. The little thing looks pleading, an unhappy pinch between his eyes. “No, hey, hey,” Bucky hurries, abandoning Steve’s chest to cradle his face in both hands. “Anything you want, angel. Anything.” Steve seems to soften at this, though Bucky can tell he’s having a hard time voicing his needs when he’s this worked up. Carefully, Bucky slides one hand to cup the back of his neck. He applies the barest hint of pressure. Steve moans and a fresh wave of slick scents the air. Bucky knows his pants are ruined. “Tell me,” he says, giving him the gentle command of an Alpha to help him speak up for himself. “Tell Alpha what you want now, honey.”
It takes a long few seconds. Steve swallows a few times and licks his lips and clearly has to work to make himself say, “Sex. I want you to m-mount me.”
Bucky praises him instantly, petting all along his back and sides and hugging on him. “That’s so good, sweetheart. You want that? I think it’ll feel so good, won’t it?”
Steve nods, scenting happy and excited. “Please.”
“Yeah,” Bucky says. “How about you help me with my clothes, huh?”
Steve nods readily. Bucky undoes the buttons of his dress shirt and shrugs it off, removing his undershirt as well. He waits for Steve to decide what to do next. The omega bites his lip, hesitating for a moment, before he’s climbing off Bucky’s lap. He scoots off the edge of the bed and tugs on Bucky’s legs to get him to move closer. Bucky chuckles but obeys, moving until his legs are over the side of the bed and Steve is kneeling between them. Bucky props himself up with a hand, smirking as he admires the view. “You can touch me,” he says, only the barest hint of teasing in his voice. Steve is staring at the obvious bulge of his erection beneath his pants. “Go ahead,” he encourages.
Steve’s little mouth purses in determination and he reaches for Bucky’s belt. Bucky feels his dick twitch as he watches. He pushes his hips out a little once Steve gets his fly open, wanting the omega to see how hard he is beneath his underwear. The pants are lost to the floor and Bucky spreads his legs wider, showing off. Steve’s inhale is audible. “What?” Bucky asks, feigning ignorance. He smirks down at Steve. “This okay?”
Steve peeks up at him, his blue eyes filled with surprise. “Wow,” he says.
“I’m not going to do anything that’s gonna hurt you, okay?”
Steve nods silently, still staring between his legs with a bit of trepidation.
Or at least, that’s how Bucky reads it. “Hey.” He cups the side of Steve’s head, fingering the fine blond hairs there. “Talk to me. You think it’s too much?”
Steve shakes his head rapidly. “No. It’s… it’s beautiful.”
Bucky wonders if the boy is being truthful or just flattering him. Sure, he’s big, but he’s an alpha so that’s not uncommon. “Why don’t you go ahead and touch it?” he suggests. Steve licks his lips and carefully places his hand over the bulge of Bucky’s cock. He’s more than halfway hard by now, and Steve’s hand looks tiny touching him. Steve curls his fingers and strokes him from over the fabric. “Oh,” Bucky breathes. “Yeah. Good boy. Take ‘em off now.” Steve pulls his underwear down to his knees and Bucky kicks them off the rest of the way. “There we go.” He waits, eager to see what Steve will do now that he’s completely bared.
The omega stares open mouthed at him and moans quietly, his eyes going a little glassy with lust. Bucky can smell it as a fresh wave of slick is produced, and sure enough when he glances down, he can see the shine of Steve’s arousal coating the inside of his thighs. “You’re dripping, honey,” he murmurs.
Steve whines. He pitches forward and puts his face all over Bucky’s groin, rubbing his cheek against the hair on his lower belly, further down to his pubes. He nuzzles into the crease of his thigh, making small, happy sounds. “Alpha,” he breathes, “You smell so good. Want you. Never wanted it this much. It's just so..." He cuts off, too busy whining and rubbing his face all over everything.
Bucky smiles gently at the display. It’s endearing, how desperate omegas can get for contact like this. He reaches down and places his hand on Steve’s head, carding fingers through his hair. “Play with it,” he instructs. “Have some fun.”
Steve’s eyes flick up, a little self-consciousness creeping in. “I… I haven’t really…” When Bucky raises an eyebrow, Steve colors and huffs. “Well I mean, not… not much.”
“That’s okay.”
“What,” Steve licks his lips. “What do you like?” His hand closes around Bucky’s cock and squeezes lightly, making Bucky grunt.
“Anything you do is gonna feel good for me,” Bucky says. “I promise, sweetheart. Just play around, do what feels natural.”
Steve seems reassured by being given permission to play, and he holds Bucky’s dick still while he bends down and kisses it. He mouths at the tip, just barely putting it in his mouth. Bucky inhales deeply at the heat, forcing himself not to thrust further in. Steve’s lips look obscenely stretched around just half of the head. A few inches would likely overwhelm him. So Bucky watches, balls aching, as Steve explores further.
He mouths at the shaft a little while using his hand to stroke. Bucky’s not circumcised, and he notices how it seems to fascinate Steve. The omega’s little cocklet is cut, so this might be new to him. “Feels so good when you do that,” he tells Steve. “S’different from yours, huh?”
Steve brings his other hand up and traces the folds of skin that gather over the tip. “It’s so soft,” he whispers. “I like it.”
Bucky smiles. “Good.”
“Can I…” Steve starts to ask, but he cuts himself off and lowers his head, taking Bucky back into his mouth. He tongues into the foreskin, traps it between his lips and pulls gently.
Bucky moans. “Oh, honey.”
Steve’s eyes sparkle up at him when he meets his gaze. He tries to take more of Bucky’s cock in his mouth but doesn’t get very far before he’s gagging and pulling off. He coughs and winces, looks guiltily up at Bucky. “Sorry.”
Bucky chuckles and strokes his hair again. “It’s fine. It’s a lot to fit in your little mouth, huh?” Steve nods and Bucky’s dick throbs at how utterly sweet he looks kneeling down between his legs, ready to please. “Try this,” he says. “Suck on the tip and use your hand for the rest. And play with my balls.” Steve obeys right away, eager to make Bucky feel good. He sucks and slurps on the fat head while he strokes him with his hand. “Tighter,” Bucky murmurs, and Steve squeezes. Bucky groans. “Oh, yeah. Just like that. Don’t forget my—”
Steve’s other hand is cupping his sac before Bucky can finish the sentence. Steve rolls his testicles in his hand, squeezing lightly on one and then the other, then giving gentle tugs every few seconds. Bucky’s blood is thrumming hot in his veins, his knot starts to throb in telltale arousal. “Stop,” he whispers, gently pushing Steve off. The omega goes with a little whine. Bucky chuckles. “Don’t want to come yet.” He crawls back onto the bed and sits against the headboard, holding out his hand for Steve to join him. He pulls him to sit in his lap. “Hey gorgeous,” he drawls. “How you feeling?”
Steve seems shaky, but not nervous. His cheeks are flushed pink and he looks… eager. Excited for what’s to come. “M’good,” he says, smiling shyly. “Really want to kiss you.”
Aw. Bucky’s heart squeezes in fondness. “C’mere.” He wraps one arm around Steve’s waist and pulls him in even closer.
Steve squeaks as his little cock comes into contact with Bucky’s abs. “Oh!”
“Mmhm.” Bucky cups Steve’s head, pulls him in and kisses him.
It’s an achingly sweet kiss, slow and languid. Steve parts his lips right away, eager to let Bucky inside. It makes Bucky burn even hotter for him, and he dips carefully into his mouth, tasting. Steve sighs and moans these tiny little sounds as their mouths catch together again and again. He’s exquisite, following Bucky’s lead and responding eagerly to every sensation. He whines a little when Bucky pulls back.
“Shh,” Bucky soothes. “Here.” He reaches down and takes Steve’s tiny cock in hand, giving it little fingertip strokes and pecking a few more kisses onto Steve’s lips. He worms his other hand down between his legs, fingers sliding over his smooth taint and further back. He dips into the slick that he finds there. Fuck, he thinks. His boy is sopping. “So wet, honey,” he murmurs. “This all for me?”
Steve shivers and nods, humping forward into the hand on his cock. “Yeah.”
Bucky lets his fingers glide over Steve’s hole. He rubs circles over it, slowly increasing the pressure. One pops right in when Steve pushes his hips back, and Bucky groans at how hot and wet he is inside. “Shit,” he husks, thinking about how good it’ll feel to get his knot in there. “Open up so easy for me, honey.”
Steve nods, rocking back and forth between Bucky’s two hands. “More,” he whispers.
Bucky slips another finger in, Steve’s cunt sucking him in with hardly any trouble. Omegas don’t really need prep, but Bucky loves to luxuriate in the foreplay of it. “You’re gonna take me so good,” he tells him, voice low with arousal. “Three?” Steve nods, flushed and eager, and Bucky presses another against his rim. It goes in easily, Steve’s body so worked up and wet. Bucky fucks him gently for a few moments, loving the soft sounds of his cunt, the way he rocks back on it so eagerly. “Does this feel good, sweetheart?” he asks.
“Mm, uh-huh,” Steve nods with his eyes closed. There’s a little pinch in his brow as he concentrates so sweetly on his pleasure. “So good,” he whispers. Bucky lines his pinky up and pushes in. He hooks all four fingers inside that tight channel, and Steve keens. “Oh!” He shoves his hips back, rocking desperately. “Oh, oh Bucky. Alpha please—”
Bucky kisses and sucks at his neck. “Yeah?”
“M’gonna come,” Steve says softly, so quiet that Bucky almost misses it. “Alpha,”
“Go on,” Bucky says, encouraging him with another stroke against his velvet soft walls. Steve gasps and jerks in his lap, his ass contracting hard against Bucky’s hand. “Oh, god,” Bucky moans at the pulses of Steve’s climax. It’s so goddamn tight. He’s gonna have his cock in there.
He’s got to knot this boy.
Steve’s half hard little cocklet dribbles a few blurts of watery release, but it’s not much. It’s cute. Once Steve calms down from the orgasm, Bucky pulls his hand out. He rubs over the loosened muscle, sopping wet. “Think your pussy’s ready to take me?” he asks, knowing that it is.
Steve nods and kneels up higher on his knees, shuffling into a better position. Bucky loves how obedient he is, how eager. “Good boy,” he murmurs, taking his cock in hand and guiding it to Steve’s hole. “There you go.” The head catches on the rim, and then Bucky’s sinking in.
And that’s when his world implodes.
For a few seconds as he’s bottoming out, it feels normal—Amazing, like sinking into an omega’s soft cunt should feel, but normal.
But then it changes, and suddenly it’s like Bucky’s never had sex before, like he’s never felt this exquisite level of pleasure. Steve’s scent gets more intense and his sex gets tighter and wetter and better, and Bucky’s vision whites out a little. “Oh, ffuuck,” he grunts, hips jerking despite himself. He grips at Steve’s hips harshly, desperately trying to hold him in place. “Oh honey, fuck. Wait. Waitwaitwait.”
“Alpha.” Steve is moaning, stuffing his face in Bucky’s neck. He’s panting and mouthing at the skin over his scent gland, desperate. His little hips are jerking in place, trying to move against Bucky’s ironclad hold. “F-feels so full. Please, please!”
Bucky has to shut his eyes for a moment, has to fight not to pop his knot right away. He feels like he’s about to come, and as gorgeous and perfect as Steve is, it’s not normal for this to be so hard. “Honey,” he says, voice tight with how he’s trying to keep a hold of himself. “M’sorry baby but I don’t think. I don’t think I can—”
Steve digs his sharp little teeth into Bucky’s neck with an angry whine.
Bucky howls. The scent of blood hits the air and he can’t control it, he just starts to come. Steve squeals and jerks against his knot as it grows and locks them together. His frantic tugging against it only makes the orgasm stronger for Bucky. He’s vaguely aware of grabbing Steve and rolling them over until he’s got the omega covered with his bulk, but that’s about it. He’s completely lost to white hot pleasure as it rolls over him for long, agonizing minutes…
When he comes down from it, he’s still thrusting against Steve’s ass. Steve is crying slow, sluggish tears as he gazes up at him. Bucky gentles the roll of his hips, turning it into a dirty grind. “Oh, baby,” he breathes, shaky and overcome. He holds Steve’s face between his hands, feeling awful for how he’s lost control. “Fuck. Steve, baby. I’m sorry.”
Steve’s shaking his head, grabbing onto Bucky’s wrists and pushing into their tie. “No, no. S’so good, Alpha. Oh.” His eyes slam shut as he thrusts his ass against Bucky, grinding harder onto his knot. “Oh, oh shit,” he whispers, voice catching as he starts to spasm around Bucky’s cock. “I’m—”
That’s when Bucky realizes: Steve has already come multiple times. It’s all over his belly, painted in spurts of clear omega release. It’s in his scent too, a deeper note of sexually satisfied mate hitting Bucky’s nose, soaked into the bedsheets in all that slick. And now his body is rippling in climax again, clenching down on Bucky’s dick in rhythmic pulls, milking him. Bucky watches, open mouthed and amazed, as Steve’s little cock flops and dribbles uselessly against his stomach. “Oh, honey.”
Steve sobs, clinging to him. “Alpha,” he gasps. “Oh, god.”
He’s wrecked, poor thing, and Bucky can only hold him close and kiss all over his face and his hair and shush him as he rides out the pleasure he’s feeling. “S’okay,” he says quietly, trying to soothe the omega even as his slight body starts ramping up for the next orgasm. “It’s okay. Just ride it out, okay? Just let it happen.”
Steve cries and comes again, and Bucky almost feels bad for not being able to make it stop. But they’re still tied and will be until his knot goes down. And given how his body’s reacted to Steve thus far, Bucky’s not sure at all how long it’ll be before that happens. He just keeps holding and petting and hushing Steve, murmuring words of praise and comfort against his sweaty skin. “So beautiful. So good for me, omega. I know, I know.”
Steve is exhausted by the time it really does end. He’s already dozing off when Bucky’s knot goes down, his face pink and puffy from all of his crying.
Bucky tries to be careful as he pulls out. A river of cum and slick follows, making him curse and grit his teeth. A dull ache of arousal swirls in his gut at seeing their combined release leaking out of Steve’s loose, used hole, but he’s completely spent and his dick doesn’t so much as twitch. “Fuck,” he whispers. When he glances up at Steve’s face, the omega is sound asleep, unaware of the world around him. Bucky’s lips twitch in fondness at Steve’s long eyelashes, darker than his blond hair; the dried tear tracks.
Sweet boy. Bucky’s completely wrecked him.
Pt 4. That Geisha Boy:
It’s Bucky who falls asleep for real, though he doesn’t mean to.
He wakes to the sound of a soft sort of scritching, something so quiet that he thinks later that he might not’ve even registered it, if he’d been awake. He opens his eyes slowly, forgetting where he is for a moment. He looks over, sees Steve, and remembers. “Oh.”
The omega is sitting in a papasan chair that all but dwarfs him. He’s got one foot up on the seat, a pad of paper balanced against his leg. His eyes peek up and he smiles at Bucky. “You’re awake.”
The scritching was Steve’s pencil against the paper. Bucky can’t see what he’s writing. He doesn’t really care, can’t tear his eyes away from where Steve’s one shoulder is bared, his thin bedroom robe slipping off. “Yeah,” Bucky says. “How long was—”
“Not long,” Steve says. “Half hour maybe.”
“Jeeze.” Bucky moves in the bed. The blankets are over him, which means Steve probably covered him up. He likes that thought. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Steve mutters, squinting back down at his notebook.
Bucky yawns and sits up. Their combined scents leak up from the soiled sheets as he moves, making his breath catch a little. Fuck, what is it about that? Bucky rubs his eyes like that’ll shake him out of it, or something. He looks back over to Steve. “…You’re literate?” he asks, because sometimes he’s careless with his words when he’s just woken up. Steve’s surprised—and then furrowed—expression makes Bucky regret his words. “Um, I mean—”
“Yes,” Steve snaps. Or at least, it’s the politest his voice could be, before becoming a snap. “I am.”
“Don’t take offense, honey.”
Steve isn’t looking back at him, his eyes fixed on his notepad. “I’m not stupid,” he says.
“I never said that!” Bucky swings his legs out from the covers, heedless of his own nudity. “I don’t think that.”
Steve’s eyes flick to him and then away, unconvinced. He’s got a sour note to him that makes Bucky’s nose twitch. “I know what everyone thinks.”
Bucky chews his lip. “…Omegas are different. Different needs, abilities. Doesn’t mean you’re stupid.” Really, most people say that omegas are simple, if nothing else; their intellects clouded by their overwhelming sex drives and other natural responses. Bucky doesn’t necessarily disagree, but it’s obvious that going on about that now won’t benefit anyone. “I’m glad,” he says, because he wants Steve to like him. “I’m glad they taught you to read.”
Steve looks at him again then, considers him hard. Like he’s giving him another chance, maybe. When he finally speaks, it’s not what Bucky’d been expecting. “I don’t remember my parents.”
Bucky blinks, taken aback. He thinks of the infant sister his parents had turned in to the state when he was five. He feels a little nervous, but he nods at Steve to go ahead. Steve purses his lips.
“When I was twelve? I had my first heat. They separated us. We all took a bunch of assessments and I got picked out with a few others. They told us we were special.”
“You are,” Bucky blurts, unable to help himself. Steve doesn’t smile at him.
“I learned to read and write and play instruments and dance,” Steve says. “Just because they said I was pretty, I got to. Everybody else had to stay behind.” He shrugs. “I don’t know what they got to do.”
Bucky is a little lost for words. This is the longest conversation of substance he’s really ever had with an omega. “You’re not saying you feel guilty about it?” he checks, but Steve shrugs again. Bucky scoots forward on the edge of the mattress. “Baby, you shouldn’t worry. You got picked to do something special, yeah, but those other omegas—I’m sure they’re happy now, too. They all go to homes, you know? Alphas.”
Steve’s eyes flick up. “I know.”
Bucky absolutely hates how sad Steve looks. “Oh, honey.” He holds out his arms. “Please come here.”
Steve sighs heavily but he does obey, coming over and sitting down next to Bucky. Bucky sees the notepad and realizes that Steve was drawing, not writing. “Oh… oh wow.”
Steve’s lips quirk faintly. “Couldn’t resist. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Mind?” Bucky scoffs. “Steve, this is so good!” Steve had been sketching him from over in the chair. He’s captured Bucky’s sleeping form with startling accuracy. “You should’ve told me to hold still if you weren’t finished. I would’ve.”
Steve makes a face and sets the notepad aside. “It’s fine. I got your face done, that’s the important part. And your feet.”
“My feet?”
“I’m always messing up the feet,” Steve says, an adorable hint of frustration to his features. “I wanted to get yours right.”
Aw, Bucky thinks. “Yeah?”
Steve nods. He looks down over the edge of the bed where they’re sitting, ostensibly looking at the naked tops of Bucky’s feet. “You have nice feet. Elegant toes.”
Bucky chuckles, though it’s softer now. He feels that warm affection for Steve creeping up on him again, and he gives into the urge to pull the boy into his arms. They fall back on the bed, Steve half on top of his chest. “You’re special,” Bucky tells him. He moves a hand over the side of Steve’s face, staring in a way that feels very indulgent. He lingers, taking the time to really study him. He traces the curve of his cheek, down to his jaw and then over to the point of his chin, his lips. Steve is staring open-mouthed, watching Bucky watch him. Bucky swallows heavily when too much time has passed. “You know… I can see why they pulled you out of the group back then. But I really wish they hadn’t.”
Steve looks surprised. “Why?”
Bucky smiles sadly. “Because. If you’d just been left behind, I could’a taken you home.” Steve’s breath catches. It’s more a feeling than a sound, Bucky aware of the slight tension going through the omega’s body. “Hey, shh. Sorry,” he soothes. “I’m just running my mouth. Didn’t mean anything by that.”
“You would take me?” Steve asks, almost whispering. He looks shocked. “Home? With you? To… to be yours?”
Bucky both loves and somehow hates the disbelief on Steve’s face. “Why does that surprise you?” he asks softly, hand finally stilling and cupping Steve’s face. “You’re exquisite.”
“Well yeah,” Steve says. “But … but not like something you keep.”
Bucky frowns. “What the hell does that mean?”
Steve huffs in a way that makes Bucky feel like he’s the simple one, and he extricates himself from Bucky, sitting up. His thin bedroom robe is dangerously close to falling off his shoulders entirely, one side of his little chest almost bared. “It’s like famous art,” he explains. “People like to visit museums to see those things. And they say they like it and they stand in long lines to get to appreciate it. But at the end of the day, they leave. They go back to their houses where everything is homey and cozy, where a… a gregarious statue or a moldy old painting wouldn’t fit in right.” Steve looks down and picks at the edge of a sheet, apparently done with his sad comparison. “And we stay here.”
“Please tell me you didn’t just call yourself moldy,” Bucky astounds, scoffing. “I thought you said you liked living here?” Steve shrugs. Bucky is coming to see that this is what the omega does when he doesn’t want to expound upon his feelings. “Steve?” he presses. “Honey? Aren’t you happy here?”
Steve won’t meet his eyes. “I am. It’s all I’ve ever known. I’m good at it.”
Bucky is struck by the urge to make Steve look at him. He pulls the omega back down against his chest and cups the back of his neck. Steve exhales a little shakily when Bucky rubs over the swollen spot where his scent gland is. “You are good at it,” Bucky says. “But sometimes we’re good at things that still aren’t our passion. I’m quick with languages, you know. I speak four. But I really don’t like learning them.”
Steve blinks down at him. He’s more relaxed from the Hold, and it takes him a moment to say, “…What… what languages to you speak?”
Bucky grins. “English, Russian, Romanian and German.”
“Really? How’d you—"
“Shh.” Bucky squeezes a little at Steve’s glands to get his attention. “We’re talking about you, now.”
“Mm, oh-okay.” Steve sort of collapses against him, pushing his face into Bucky’s chest and hugging him.
Bucky chuckles and wraps his arms around Steve. “You’re so sweet.”
“You’re so big n’strong,” Steve mumbles. “I like it.”
“Thank you.”
They both lie there for a few minutes, cuddling. Steve likes to squirm against him just so Bucky will squeeze him tightly, Bucky finds, and before long it’s got his cock taking interest again. He ignores it though, just enjoying the moment of closeness. “Bucky,” Steve eventually whispers, his use of Bucky’s name making something deep in Bucky’s chest twinge.
“Hm?”
“I didn’t mean to bite you like that, when you were inside me.”
Bucky has to squeeze his eyes shut as his cock gives another heavy throb. He inhales deeply through his nose, letting it out slowly. “I know, honey. It’s okay.” Carefully, he reaches up to finger over the spot where he remembers Steve sinking his teeth, and sure enough there is sore, broken skin left behind. “You really nipped me, huh?” Bucky asks. He’s teasing, but Steve whines in distress.
“I’m sorry,” he says, pushing his face against Bucky’s chest. “I didn’t mean to. It just felt so good, and I felt like I was losing control.”
“Shshsh,” Bucky hushes. “It’s fine. I don’t mind it.” He chuckles and pets Steve’s back. “It kinda made me lose control, when you did that.”
Steve peeks up and blinks those wide, wondering eyes at him. “…Because you liked it?” he asks tentatively. And God, but the boy is so wonderfully naïve, it just about undoes Bucky.
“Yeah,” he says. “Because I liked it.” It’s nice, how Steve allows himself to relax then, a hesitant smile slowly spreading over his face. But Bucky can see how the omega has no idea how perfect he was when they were together, how sexy and natural and responsive he’d been. Bucky wants him to know. “You were wonderful,” he praises, kissing Steve’s mouth. He’s got such sweet, lax lips; so soft and giving. “Thank you,” Bucky whispers. “Thank you for letting me have you like that.”
Steve is riveted on him. “You’re welcome.”
Bucky smiles, in love with the boy. He sighs wistfully and reaches to touch the front of Steve’s fringe. “I wish I didn’t have to leave,” he admits.
“I could make us some tea?”
Steve sounds so hopeful, like he’s just as sad about their time together ending as Bucky himself is. It’s a nice thought which Bucky chooses to believe. He pecks a kiss to the top of Steve’s head. “Sure, honey. That sounds real nice.”
Steve hums and nuzzles against his neck one more time, then gets up and goes out to the other part of his room. Bucky hates to let him go, but he does.
Steve provides him with a robe. It’s plain but sized for an alpha’s stature. “I sent your pants out to the laundry,” he admits sheepishly while he’s tying the sash around Bucky’s waist. “They were, um, messy.”
Bucky chuckles and tells him that it’s fine, he’s glad to have an excuse to spend more time together. He plops down onto the sofa and Steve declares that they’ll have some oolong tea. “It’s very nice,” he promises with a sly little grin that makes Bucky want to grab him. “You’ll like it, I promise.”
Bucky has to hold back his impulsive comment that he’d rather suck on Steve’s tits again. The omega is attempting to show off his knowledge and skills and wants to treat Bucky to something nice. Bucky doesn’t want to seem like a mindless letch. Still, he surreptitiously surveys Steve’s room, trying to see if perhaps the milking machine Steve uses is lying around anywhere. Bucky would love to get to see Steve hooked up to it, to see the tiny swells of his breasts sucked into the cups, his pink nipples engorging; weeping sweet, milky pearls into the rhythmic, sucking pressure…
Christ. Bucky clears his throat and shifts in place, waiting until Steve’s back is turned to press the heel of his hand punishingly against his dick, which is fattening up at the things he’s imagining. He tries to redirect his thoughts so that he doesn’t stink up the little room with his scent. He wants to be a gentleman, here. Wants to show Steve that he appreciates his efforts at hospitality.
The little kitchenette along the wall has an electric kettle that Steve turns on. There are various traditional Japanese utensils, a few clay pots and some elaborate little cups that look like their own works of art. Bucky watches the omega move about as he prepares the tea. There are a ridiculous number of steps, it would seem, and Bucky holds his tongue to keep from saying that he’d be fine with some Lipton and a packet of Splenda. Something tells him that wouldn’t be well-received. So instead he watches Steve in the tiny kitchenette and thinks of his own home back in Manhattan.
He’d bought a new place in Carnegie Hill last winter. It’s a rich neighborhood. The condo is bigger than his last, with more space than Bucky alone really needs, even though he hadn’t been thinking of starting a family back when he’d bought it. Or, well… not specifically thinking about it. But he supposes it’d been reserved as a possibility for the future. Bucky’s managed to wrap himself up in work so thoroughly the last ten years, but he supposes he’s a family man at heart. A “one day” kind of guy. He likes kids. He’s taken omega care courses. And his condo has three bedrooms. It has a really nice kitchen that Bucky’s hardly touched.
He refocuses on Steve fixing the tea, watches how fluid and measured his motions are, like a dance. He tries to imagine Steve working like this in his own life, in his kitchen, making him his morning coffee before work. All the cabinets slowly accumulating little clay pots and cloisonne cups. Bucky smiles softly. He likes that image.
“What?” Steve asks, smiling at how Bucky’s smiling. He holds a little clay teapot and tips it to pour into each of their tiny cups. “You’re staring at me.”
Bucky nods. “Yeah. Kind of easy to do.” He’s thinking of Steve, laying in his bed, cooking in his kitchen, nursing his baby. Oh, God, the things that does to Bucky, to imagine the omega all warm and happy like that. Bucky brings his teacup up for a sip and the scent of oolong gets mingled into the fantasy. It would make him so happy, to have Steve to come home to every day. It’d make him feel complete. So the next thing Bucky knows, he’s throwing caution to the wind and blurting out, “Hey, what do you think Ms. Romanoff would do, if I asked to keep you?”
Predictably, Steve absolutely freezes in place. It’s almost comical. Here’s this half-dressed little omega, mouth agape and staring, still holding the teapot aloft. “…What?”
Bucky looks down at his lap and huffs a sort of self-deprecating chuckle. He takes another too-hot sip of the tea. “Yeah, I know. It’s crazy. But humor me. What do you think she’d say? Think she’d kick me out? Ban me from the tea House for life?”
It takes another moment, but eventually the disbelief slips off Steve’s face. “You’re serious,” he says. He sets the teapot down with shaky hands. “I mean, you’re really asking this, aren’t you?” Bucky nods solemnly, and Steve exhales in a great ‘whoosh’. “Fuck.”
Bucky barks out a laugh. He’s hasn’t heard the little omega sound so informal, let alone curse. Steve looks like he’s about to apologize for his language, so Bucky waves a dismissive hand. “No, it’s fine.” Finally, Steve picks up his teacup and blows on the steam. He seems shaky, his eyes losing focus as he thinks. Bucky tips his head to the side as he observes him. “…Steve?” he asks slowly. “You alright?”
“Hm.” Steve is holding the cup to his mouth, running the porcelain edge against his lower lip, back and forth, over and over again. A second later and Steve’s changing scent hits the air—it’s distressed.
“Okay,” Bucky decides. He sets his tea down and gets Steve to do the same, pulls the boy into his lap where he can hold him. He wraps an arm around his waist, a hand around his neck, digs into his glands on either side. It works. Steve shudders and softens against him, a tiny, relieved sigh escaping him as his scent mellows out. “There you go,” Bucky soothes, kissing his cheek. He nuzzles against Steve’s face. Once it’s obvious that Steve can’t or won’t talk while he’s in this firm of a Hold, Bucky releases his neck and asks, “Tell me what you’re thinking, baby. Please?” It takes a moment, but at least while Bucky waits there is no panicked undertone to the omega’s scent. If Steve doesn’t want to belong to him then Bucky doesn’t want to force it. He just needs to know. “Steve?” he whispers.
“Sorry,” Steve says, sounding a bit like he’s just woken up. “I just… I didn’t expect you to say that.”
Bucky hums and pets over him, stroking his sides and his arms. “I don’t want to ever make you do anything you don’t want to,” he reassures. “If you like it here and this is where you want to stay—”
“No,” Steve says, cutting him off almost urgently. He tempers himself and continues more quietly, “I mean, I do like it here. And I’d like to stay. But if I had the chance to go with you, that’s different.”
“Is it?” Bucky asks hopefully. He takes Steve’s hand in his and rubs circles into his palm with a thumb. “Why is it different?”
Steve, bless him, takes a big breath. “Well… If you wanted the same things that I always dreamed of…” He pauses, unsure, and Bucky kisses his head and whispers,
“What?” He doesn’t like the uncertainty that’s coming off Steve. He wants to reassure him if he can. “Please tell me?”
“Well I just, I guess it’s just that I don’t know what you’re… I mean I shouldn’t just assume that you want the same things. Traditional things.” He pulls back enough to look Bucky in the eye. “Um, what would our life be like?”
Oh. Bucky’s heart squeezes in that not quite painful way. “Sweetheart,” he gushes. “It’d be nothing less than you deserve. We’d have a home. A family.” He kisses Steve again, this time right on his soft lips. “I am traditional. Nesting rooms, collars, bond marks?”
Steve eyes are huge. He nods faintly, hanging on Bucky’s every word. “Yeah?”
Bucky pulls Steve into his arms again, squeezing him tightly and burying his face into the boy’s neck. “Yes. I love all that stuff. Baby what did you think I meant when I said I wanted to keep you?” He can feel it as Steve shudders in his arms, and Bucky finds that he doesn’t need to hear Steve’s answer to that question. This is an omega who’s spent his life being told how special and desirable he is, yet never having the proof of it that every omega craves. It makes Bucky want to break something, his eyes burning as he hugs Steve to him. “Sweet boy,” he whispers, speaking right against Steve’s ear. “I’d keep you forever.” A second later and Bucky is awash in happy, happy omega smell. It almost chokes him with how sickeningly sweet it is. “You like that?” he asks.
“Yes,” Steve breathes, sounding amazed. He pulls back and his eyes are huge, looking at Bucky like he’s not real. Or maybe not possible.
“Honey,” Bucky coos, thumbing at Steve’s cheek where a tear has escaped and left a wet trail. “I promise you I mean it. All of it. Christ, I can’t wait until it happens. Can’t wait to have you in my bed and make love to you like you deserve.”
“Oh.” Steve flushes, smiling a little. “Yeah. That was the best sex I’ve ever had.”
He’s completely serious, Bucky realizes. He rolls his eyes. “That’s sad.” He’d royally fucked up their lovemaking and Steve apparently isn’t even aware of it. When Steve whines like he’s insulted, Bucky chuckles and shushes him with a quick kiss. “I meant it was bad on my part, honey. And it’s sad if that’s the benchmark you’ve got for ‘best’. How many times have you even had sex, huh?”
Steve turns his chin up, stubborn. “Three.”
“That’s what I thought.” Bucky flicks him on the nose and promises, “You’re going to be excited when you find out how much better it can be.”
Steve just hums defiantly and snuggles into the crook of Bucky’s neck, whispering, “It was perfect.” And even though Bucky agrees with that sentiment, he doesn’t speak. “You want to ask Natasha for permission to have me?” Steve says.
“I do.”
“What if she says no?” Steve sounds nervous. “What then?”
“I’m sure she won’t agree at first, but I’m going to offer her a lot of money. And I’m gonna tell her I want the two of us tested.” He strokes his fingers through the baby-fine hairs at the side of Steve’s head. “I don’t think this is just run of the mill attraction I’m feeling here, honey.” He uses a grip on Steve’s neck to pull him back and force eye contact, careful not to put too much pressure on the glands, as he wants a straight answer from the omega. “Have you noticed it?”
Steve’s nostrils flare like he’s scenting Bucky. “You think we’re compatible,” he says.
Sharp as a tack, Bucky thinks. At least for an omega. “Maybe,” he murmurs. “Do you know what that means?”
“…Kinda.”
“Tell me.”
“…You could make the police come and take me away,” he says, voice tiny.
Bucky winces. “I doubt it would come to that, but yeah. It means I could take you. Legally it’d be my right.”
Steve looks a little distressed at the possibility of things getting contested, but to his credit, the omega purses his lips and straightens his spine in determination. “I want to go with you. I’ll say so. My opinion counts.”
Not really, Bucky thinks but doesn’t say. His smile feels pinched as he nods and reassures Steve, “It matters to me, honey.”
Steve scowls. “Natasha will care. I’ll tell her.”
“That’s sweet, Steve, but I think I should talk to her alone, first.”
Steve pouts at that, but he doesn’t argue. “You’re not like any Alpha I’ve met before,” he says, looking into Bucky’s eyes with nothing but honesty. He’s so naïve but so earnest. So vulnerable. It melts Bucky’s heart. “I want to be yours.”
Bucky’s stomach flips with joy at hearing those words come from Steve’s lips. “Good,” he says, smiling. “Okay good. So I guess I… I guess I’ll go talk to her.” He’s about to get Steve off his lap, already has his hands on the omega’s waist to lift him up, but Steve reminds him of their tea.
“And your pants,” he points out gently, maybe even trying to hide a smile at Bucky’s expense. “You should probably wait until you have some pants, yeah?”
Bucky looks down at his legs, half-exposed from the thin robe he’s currently wearing. “Oh.” He grins crookedly at Steve, sheepish. “Yeah. Pants. Right.”
Steve nods sagely and reaches for the tea.
The encounter with Romanoff goes about how Bucky is expecting.
“Absolutely not,” is her curt answer. When Bucky brings up the hefty sum he’s willing to pay, she has him escorted off the property (which, okay, is a bit harsher than even Bucky was anticipating).
He googles the phone number for the New York Department of Omega Custodial and Health Services on the cab ride home, and by the time he steps foot back into his apartment, he’s been listening to smooth jazz for fifteen minutes and is “next in que” to speak to a representative.
Natasha turns out to be infuriatingly impossible. Bucky’s glad Steve’s had someone like her to look out for him all these years, but getting around the woman is going to take more than a few placating gestures. Whoever she keeps on staff to answer the phones is very astute, and Bucky is summarily hanged up on or else neatly dismissed at least half a dozen times before he’s able to get the woman herself on the line and agreeing to another in-person meeting.
“Do you have any idea how many times I’ve heard this?” she tells him on that second visit. She’s put out a tea service and invited him to sit with her, but Bucky’s known from the moment he walked in that he isn’t getting Steve today. “How many self-important assholes have made this exact same offer?”
“I’m not an asshole,” he says meekly, trying to make her feel bad for him.
“Almost a dozen,” she snaps, and—okay, that high a number does come as a surprise. “All saying the same things as you.”
“Did you turn them down, or did he?” Bucky asks with an arched brow, which earns him a scoff from Natasha. He reaches forward and holds his fingers poised over one of the powdered tea cakes. “These poisoned?”
“They’re Russian.”
Bucky shrugs, takes it and pops it into his mouth. He stares at her while he takes his sweet time chewing. He swallows. “If your whole schtick is treating them like capable adults—”
“They are capable adults.”
“Right, right.” Bucky cocks his head. “Then why wasn’t he the one to turn the suiters away?” To Bucky’s immense satisfaction, Natasha goes a little tight-lipped at that, no immediate quip ready. Bucky doesn’t give her the chance to compose herself. “You count yourself as one of them, but you look down on them just like everyone else. Why not let Steve make his own choice? If he wants to go with me, he can say so.”
“He can say what his biology is urging him to think,” she snaps, all pretense abandoned. “And he deserves better than that.”
“Now the gloves come off.”
Natasha pushes away from the table and the tea service that was never really on offer. She folds her arms. “I do care about him. I care about all of them. They deserve better than what society has for them. Why do you think I run this House in the first place?” She casts her eyes about the room disdainfully. “You think I care about catering to a bunch of Alphas?” She says ‘Alphas’ like it’s a filthy word. “This is a safe harbor for them.”
For the first time, Bucky feels actual anger curling in his gut. He places his elbows on the table and leans in. “Have you considered that it’s selfish? You could be letting your own opinions keep them from something that might make them very happy.” She scoffs and looks away, and that pisses Bucky off even more. “No, I guess you haven’t then,” he says. “I guess you’d rather just keep him here for the rest of his life, one of your collection of dolls, huh?” When Natasha doesn’t answer Bucky growls, “He wants a family. He wants an Alpha and children. Ones that he actually gets to keep!”
Natasha stands and leaves the little table, carrying her teacup over to her desk, where Bucky knows there’s a panic button that she’ll use to call security. “I think it’s time for you to leave,” she says tightly.
Bucky grits his teeth but he can’t say she’s wrong. Unless he’s going to try to bust upstairs and actually kidnap Steve, there’s nothing more that can be done today. “Fine,” he says, standing and straightening his jacket. “You know you’re only saving me money. Half a mil now or a thirty-dollar processing fee at some lab.” He shrugs. Really, he’d been willing to go up several million more to acquire Steve this way, given that he can’t guarantee what the test results will be. But Bucky sniffs like he’s unconcerned. “It’s your loss.”
Natasha’s eyes narrow. “What are you talking about?”
“I called DOCHS. We’re on the list to get tested for compatibility.”
“That’s a desperate ploy.”
“I think it’ll come back positive.”
“Those tests take time,” Natasha says, and there’s something predatory in her expression that Bucky doesn’t like. She calmly picks up her tea and takes a dainty sip. “Steven is special.”
“…I know he is.”
“He has other options.”
Bucky rolls his eyes, tired of this back and forth. “We can agree to disagree then. I’ll see you soon Ms. Romanoff.” He’s already got his back turned to her when she blindsides him with,
“I’ve delayed making him the offer, of course, but I think it’s about time I do. …He might prefer nullification.”
Bucky whips back around so fast, it’s almost comical. “Nulli—” He feels the blood drain from his face as he realizes that she isn’t joking. “You can’t do that,” he breathes. “It’s illegal.”
“Not in Russia, it’s not.”
“Oh my god,” Bucky whispers. He thinks of Steve—his frail body cut open, his organs removed and his brain toyed with until he doesn’t even resemble himself. Bucky looks at Natasha with wide eyes. “Are you crazy?”
She shrugs, agonizingly calm. “I know a very competent surgeon in Moscow. The choice will be Steven’s, but if he decides he wants it, I can have him on a private plane within the week.”
“No!” Bucky takes a step forward, but halts when he sees Natasha reach for the button on the desk. He grits his teeth and stays where he is. “You can’t!”
“Watch me. He deserves the chance to be normal.”
“He is normal.”
“Please.” Natasha’s eye roll only infuriates him further.
“I won’t let you mutilate him!”
She purses her lips. “It’s freedom, don’t you understand? Freedom from that clouded mindset, from being so helpless. If he has the surgeries, he can actually function in the real world. He can be his own person, do anything he wants to do.”
“Except experience pleasure,” Bucky grits out. “Or bond, or have children. You’d be robbing him of all that!”
Natasha waves her hand like this is a minor consideration. Maybe to her it is. “Do you think heat feels good? Hm? You do, don't you?" She sneers. "Typical. Well you're wrong. It’s pain and suffering. And the ten days out of every thirty they can’t work? Then they’re unemployable, aren't they? A casual touch or gesture compels them into submission. Fog-brained half the damn time?” She shakes her head, eyes burning with indignation. “How is that any kind of life?”
“You say it like it’s a bad thing,” Bucky mourns. “Omegas belong in the home, Ms. Romanoff. With their mates. It’s their nature to enjoy that. It’s beautiful. Something to be treasured, not destroyed.”
“Says you.”
“It’s how it’s supposed to be. It’s natural, for Christ sakes!”
“So is cancer,” she says flatly, like Steve’s designation is just something to be cut out of him. “He’s a smart boy. I’m sure he’ll make the right decision.”
Bucky’s heard enough. He turns for the door, furious. “I’ll be back,” he warns. “Very soon. If you don’t want to lose this tea House and all the omegas you’ve collected, I’d recommend you put that private plane on hold.”
He already knows he has to get the authorities involved. Compatible or not, he can’t let Natasha hurt Steve.
A call to the cops, as it turns out, gives him minimal peace of mind. He’s told that there’s nothing the authorities can do, apart from a routine welfare check. Bucky spends more time on hold with the Department of Omega Custodial and Health Services, becoming very familiar with the smooth jazz tones of their elevator music.
The day after his disastrous meeting with Natasha is a Friday. Bucky calls out from work. He jerks off mindlessly in the shower, dresses in a pair of slacks and a sweater, and chokes down a triple espresso to try and wake himself the hell up. He’d slept like shit the night before, dreaming vivid images of Steve in a recovery suite in Russia, hacked apart and thanking a faceless doctor for fixing him, Natasha looking on with a smile.
“Crazy bitch,” he murmurs as he makes himself a quick breakfast and dials his mother’s number.
“Well you can’t just pick the first one you see,” is Winnie’s disappointing take on it. “You’ve got to shop around, honey. Know your options.”
“Mom,” he huffs. “Did you even listen? I think we’re compatible.”
Winnie just laughs and tells him that he’s spent too many years wrapped up in his work, that she’ll believe it when the test results come in. “And in the meantime I’m going to call that custodial House in Tribeca. You know: the one where the McMillans got their omega from?”
Bucky rolls his eyes. “Mother please don’t do that.”
“It’s a nice place. Private, not one of those state-run dumps. It’ll be good for you. You can go and interview with a few nice boys and girls, get your mind off of this tea House minx—you know they’re trained to make you like them, those geisha-boys.”
“What?!”
Bucky gets grouchy after that, only half-listening to his mother’s words. Winnie has opinions on how Bucky’s spent his adult life thus far, and she rambles on for a good five minutes about marriage and babies and how she doesn’t want him getting involved with a sex worker.
“Goodbye, mother,” he eventually says, hanging up with a vague promise that they’ll do their usual Sunday Brunch. He heaves a huge breath and goes to grab his wallet and keys. He’s got an appointment with a case worker named Wilson, and no intention of being late.
In the interest of avoiding rush hour traffic, Bucky decides to take the subway to the midtown offices of DOCHS. He spends the ride over thinking about what it might mean if Steve hears Natasha’s offer. What if he says he wants to go through with the procedure? Or even if he’s unsure but Natasha manages to talk him into it?
Bucky googles nullification.
It’s basically just what he thought it was, with a little less gore to it than he’d been imagining. Surgical techniques have advanced over the years. They do some portions of it laparoscopically now. Still…
It's removal of the glands—all of them. Sexual organs, too. Hormone therapies. Brain surgery.
Natasha wasn’t lying. People like Steve have been able to do a lot once nullified. There’s a list of notable individuals—scientists and politicians, an actor or two. Even a poet laureate from Iceland. All of them "former" omegas. Most of the people are foreign. The few Americans on the list are marked as deceased, having had the operations back in the twenties and thirties when it was still legal in the US.
Bucky cringes as he reads about how it is still legal in Russia (and a handful of other places). And to his dismay, there’s a whole map entitled: Medical Tourism, full of arrows of varying sizes depicting the influx of international travel for nullification procedures. But the FDA banned nullification in the US in the forties, and the World Security Council condemned the practice not long after. The Catholic church has declared it “anathema to the dignity of the human person.”
Bucky closes the browser on his phone and promises himself he won’t keep reading about it. It’s only going to make him feel sick with worry.
When he gets to the DOCHS building, there’s a semi-crowded lobby full of bored and unhappy faces that makes Bucky very aware he’s in a government welfare office. The receptionist (who barely looks up at him and speaks in a bored voice) tells him to put his name and time of arrival on the clipboard.
“A case worker will be with you soon.”
“This is a little urgent,” Bucky complains, though he does take the clipboard and start writing.
“I’m sure, honey. Have a seat.”
S. Wilson, thankfully, is a bit more attentive. He greets Bucky with a toothy smile and a shockingly good attitude for someone trapped in a fluorescent-lit cubicle. “Hi, I’m Sam. What brings you in to DOCHS today?”
Bucky takes the chair offered to him and explains the situation, relaying what had transpired between himself and Natasha, and how the cops haven’t been proactive. “So I need the compatibility test as soon as possible,” he finishes, trying to gauge by Sam’s expression if he’s going to help or not. “And you’ve got to send somebody to make sure she doesn’t hurt him.”
Sam is already typing away on his computer, his face gone serious since Bucky got to the part of the story that involved nullification. “Definitely,” he says. “I’m going to be your case worker from here on out, Mr. Barnes.”
“You can call me Bucky.”
“Bucky.” Sam’s eyes flick back over to him. “We take this stuff very seriously, Bucky. Don’t worry. I’ll make sure nothing bad happens to Steve.”
-
When the appointment’s over, Bucky shakes Sam’s hand, encouraged by the quick response. They’re going to go to the tea House on Monday together and serve Natasha with a custody order. Sam will take Steve away if he has to. Steve will get his blood tested.
Bucky’s that much closer to getting Steve, and he tries to tell himself that he should be grateful. But he also can’t do anything until Monday, which is a whole two days away. And when he gets home and flops on the couch and sees that he’s got seven texts from his mom:
Mom 10:33 am: We’re booked for interviews at 1 on Sunday. we can go after brunch!
Mom 10:34 am: I want to eat at Cicero’s again they have nice outdoor dining.
Mom 11:07 am: Your sister’s coming. She wants to help you “pick one” lol
Mom 11:11 am: Ugh, nevermind. Becca wants to eat at The Foundry because they have began stuff
Mom 11:11 am: began
Mom 11:11 am: VEGAN
Mom 11:12 am: Jesus Christ. Auto correct.
Bucky knows it’s going to be a long weekend.
Bucky can’t help himself. He’s so worried about Steve and it’s only Saturday. Sam the social worker won’t be able to do anything until Monday. That’s a whole two days, Bucky thinks. A whole two days where Natasha could be putting Steve on a plane bound for Russia and horrible things. Bucky can’t sit still for more than two minutes, let alone two days.
Bucky’s condo doesn’t have much of a view, but it’s only two blocks over from Central Park. He decides he’ll try to burn off some of his nervous energy with a jog, and winds up doing a loop down to Bethesda fountain and back. He slows to a walk once he reaches the reservoir again, catching his breath and just enjoying the familiar sights. But invariably his thoughts turn to Steve.
What will Steve think of their place? He wonders. Will he be excited that they live so close to the park? Has he ever even been to Central Park? Bucky’s seen groups of omegas from some of the nicer facilities out before, doing Tai Chi on the lawns while hawk-eyed beta caregivers kept a close watch.
Maybe Steve would want to sit on the benches by the reservoir and sketch, he thinks. Or one day when they have a family… Bucky imagines the two of them with children, packing a picnic lunch and spreading out a blanket. Steve holding a baby to his chest and smiling from the grass as Bucky chases a toddler around the playground.
His daydreaming gets more and more elaborate as he walks, until eventually he’s out of the park and heading home. There’s a flower shop where he stops and picks through the blossoms absentmindedly. Sending an omega flowers is a very old-fashioned sort of thing to do, but Bucky knows that someone traditionally raised and educated like Steve has been is bound to find the gesture meaningful.
Bucky doesn’t know a damn thing about flowers, but the salesclerk assures him that this is the selection he wants, and he winds up with a bouquet of honeysuckle and red carnations. The former is associated with youthful beauty and fertility, the latter with deep-held affection and the domestic arts. He spends a moment considering whether he might buy something for Natasha as well to try and butter her up, but decides it would be a wasted effort. She’d probably chuck anything Bucky bought her straight in the trash.
He walks to the tea House, his anxieties rising the more he thinks about Natasha’s intentions for Steve. By the time he gets inside, his hands are sweaty around the gathered stems of the flowers.
It’s busy, Saturday’s lunch service in full blast and most of the tea rooms branching off from the reception room seem to be filled with customers. Bucky tries to intimidate the woman they’ve got working the hostess stand, looming over her and speaking in a tone just shy of his Voice. “Don’t give me trouble on this, now. I’ve been here before. You know who I am?” The woman is probably old enough to be his mother, but he treats her like she’s all of fourteen. “Be a good girl and take me to his room, now. I’d go myself but I know you all have rules about that and I want to be respectful.”
The poor hostess gulps, looking nervous to tell him, “I’m s-sorry Sir, but I can’t just let you in without a reservation. I’m not allowed to—”
“Fine.” Bucky snaps, no patience left. “Where’s your Alpha, then? Where’s Romanoff?” He damn well knows she’s not alpha, but figures there’s no point addressing her otherwise. “Well?” He raps his hand rudely on the hostess stand. “I want to see her.”
The hostess shrinks into herself, flustered. “Um,”
“Really, Barnes? Harassing my staff now?” Bucky turns in the direction of Natasha’s voice. She’s standing, arms crossed, over at the base of the staircase which Bucky knows leads to the omegas’ upstairs living quarters. He stalks over to her. “Nice flowers," she drawls. "Who’re they for?” Then she scowls at the state of him. “Did you run here?”
“Where is he?” Bucky grits, ignoring her comment. “I want to see him.” He’s got this horrible feeling niggling in his brain, a fear that won’t be quelled until he can see Steve with his own eyes. Maybe he should’ve gone home and changed out of his jogging clothes first, but Bucky has to make sure Steve’s okay. “I’ve got a social worker coming here on Monday,” he threatens, pointing at Natasha with the bouquet. “If he’s not safe, if he’s not—”
Natasha cuts him off with a groan and a hand held up in the air. “Please, stop.” Her nose is wrinkled as if she’s smelled something foul. Maybe him. “If you stand here fuming much longer, clogging up my dining rooms with piss and pollen, you’ll drive all the business away.”
“What?” Bucky scowls at her. “Where. is. Steve?”
“Go.” Natasha waves up the staircase. “You stink like possessive Alpha. Knothead.”
Bucky growls lowly at the near-slur to his designation, but doesn’t say anything because he’s got a vague feeling that she’s not wrong. He takes a step up the stairs, his hand on the banister. “Just like that?” he asks suspiciously, side eying her. “Why the sudden change of heart?”
“It’s not me,” she says. “Talk to your boy.” She turns her back to him and walks off.
Bucky spares a glance back at the hostess who’s standing nearby, having watched their encounter with wide eyes. He feels a small pang of guilt. “Sorry for the hard time, doll,” he tells her, then whirls and start taking the stairs up two at a time.
His blood is pounding in his ears by the time he gets upstairs and finds the door to Steve’s room. He can smell him so keenly, a combination of panic and need thrumming thorough his veins, making him feel almost outside of himself. He has to make sure Steve’s okay, he just keeps thinking on repeat, instinct-driven as he can smell Steve more and more sharply now. He’s not even thinking of knocking for permission when he gets to the right room, but the paper door slides open before he can wrench it aside.
“Bucky.” Steve looks surprised to see him. His eyes flit between Bucky and the flowers that he’s holding carelessly, forgotten at his side. “You came back.”
Bucky can’t stop himself. He pushes Steve into the room, hands flying to the smaller man’s waist, his shoulders, his face. The bouquet gets dropped to the floor, unimportant as he holds Steve still and looks him over, eyes scanning every clothed inch of the omega, as if he can tell just by looking at him. Steve’s hands fly up and cover his own, holding onto his wrists as Steve urges him with words and sweet sounds.
“—be okay, Alpha. Bucky, Buck it’s really okay. Oh… you with me again? Haha…”
It’s the nervous chuckle that does it. Bucky realizes that he’s been growling and manhandling Steve, illogical in his need to make sure the omega is unharmed. He blinks down at Steve, both relieved and flustered. They’ve moved across the little room and are standing by the couch. “Jesus,” he breathes, coming out of his frenzy. “Oh, Steve.”
Steve smiles up at him. He pats Bucky’s hands where he’s still gripping him. “It’s okay,” he says, and there’s forced levity in his tone. “Why don’t we sit down, huh big guy? Are those flowers for me?”
Bucky realizes just how tightly he’s been holding onto Steve, and he lets him go with a juddery exhale. “Sorry,” he breathes, embarrassment flooding him now that he sees how much he’d overacted. He feels like he’s probably lost time. Steve looks rumpled and flushed now, his tee shirt pushed halfway off one shoulder. Bucky doesn’t remember doing that. He looks away, feeling like an animal. He hears Natasha’s voice from earlier, calling him a knothead. “I… I’m sorry Steve. I didn’t mean to just barge in here and—”
“Hey, hey.” Steve makes a pretty sound in his throat, coaxing. He grabs Bucky by the shoulders and pulls, encouraging him to sink down onto the couch with him. “You seem real worried, Buck. You smell it, too.” He reaches out and takes Bucky’s one hand in both of his. He cradles it and turns it over, brings it up to rub his cheek against it.
Bucky’s pulse quickens at the sight. “You don’t have to—”
“It’s okay,” Steve’s fingers rub the thin skin at Bucky’s inner wrist, and it’s pleasant. Bucky feels the muscles in his neck and shoulders start to unclench. Steve sees it and hums against his wrist. “We’re both okay. Can you tell me why you were so upset?”
Bucky blinks, amazed by the little omega taking care of him like this. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, embarrassed. “I don’t know why I—I shouldn’t have reacted like that I just…” he lets his eyes flick over Steve again—his tiny, unharmed body. He’s dressed normally today, in sweatpants and an overly large tee shirt. “I was worried about you. I have been.” He licks his lips, feeling so foolish now. Nullification is no minor surgery. Even if Steve had somehow undergone the multitude of procedures in the span of two days, he certainly wouldn’t have healed from it yet. Not back up and walking around like normal. Bucky avoids looking at Steve. He spots the dropped bouquet of flowers in the middle of the floor and feels helpless. “I thought… I mean I was worried. That Natasha had convinced you of… something.”
Steve is quiet for a long beat, then says, “The nullification?”
Bucky’s eyes shoot up, alarmed. “She told you?”
“Yes. She explained how it would work and what would happen if I had the procedures. What would be different, or better.”
“Fuck!” Bucky feels the anxiety, the need to stop, to protect, creep up on him again. “Steve, no. It’s not what you think. It’s awful. Please honey, you can’t let her—”
“I’m not,” Steve says, though he raises his voice a bit to get Bucky to hear him. “Bucky, calm down. I swear, I’m not.”
“…Not?” Bucky asks, disbelieving. Because he remembers how Steve had been; how he’d taken offense, how he’d stubbornly stuck out his chin, defended his literacy and insisted he wasn’t stupid. Bucky’s been remembering that fire in Steve’s eyes for the past two days, dreaming of it taking him all the way to a surgical suite in Russia, body hacked and ruined. “You don’t want it?”
Steve shakes his head. “Not at all. And I told her that.” He reaches out and cups Bucky’s face like Bucky’s done so many times to him. “I told her I was sure, and she said okay. So you don’t have to worry. Nat loves me. She’s not going to force me.”
“No?”
“Mm mn.” Steve smiles softly as he shakes his head. “Nothing bad is gonna happen.”
It’s a lot to take in, especially since Bucky’s pretty sure his brain is operating one cylinder above rut right now. He takes a few seconds to just breathe, to take in what Steve is telling him and try to act like a functioning, adult alpha male. “Oh,” he eventually says, “Okay. That’s good. That’s… that’s good, yeah.” He sits back a little, collecting himself. “I was ah, overreacting a little, I guess.” He glances to Steve, but the omega isn’t making fun of him for his outburst. “I’d called the police.”
Steve’s eyebrows raise. “What?”
Bucky nods sheepishly. “And a social worker. He’s coming on Monday actually. To get your blood tested. Was gonna take you away, if you were in danger here.”
Steve makes a noise of discontent. “Bucky, you don’t know Nat. She’s like my big sister. She’s my guardian. She’d never hurt me.”
Bucky’s guts churn as he remembers the callous way Natasha had discussed “fixing” Steve. “I thought she’d talk you into it,” he admits quietly. “The surgeries. I didn’t think she’d let you have a choice.” Omegas were gullible, and he wouldn’t have put it past the woman to use every trick in the book to convince Steve into getting on a plane. “I thought she’d trick you.”
“God, no.” Steve makes a face. “She’d never force me. She just offered.”
Bucky’s calming down now. Steve’s reassurances and his gentle rubbing at Bucky’s wrist is making him feel normal again, not like the panicking knothead that Natasha had accused him of being downstairs. “You didn’t even consider it?” he asks, watching Steve’s face carefully.
The omega winces, looking guilty. “Well… I did. For a moment.”
“Steve,”
“I won’t lie,” he insists, fierce little eyes rising again to meet Bucky head on. “The statistics were hard to take. Reading about null omegas who’re so much… smarter. They’ve gotten to do great things.”
“But Steve,” Bucky implores, desperate. “You don’t understand. The things they do to them. You’d never be able to—” Have babies! his mind supplies frantically. Slick up, feel good, have orgasms, bond, have a mate!
“I looked it up, what they do. And I know I could take the pain. But I’ve read about it and it just… it wouldn’t be worth it.” Steve shakes his head. He releases Bucky’s hand and wraps his arms around himself instead, cradling his middle. “I want to be loved. I want to belong to an Alpha, like the way I felt when I made my babies.” His looks warily up at Bucky. “…The way I felt when I was with you.”
“Shit.” Bucky surges forward and pulls Steve into his lap, hugging him tightly. He covers Steve’s hands with his own, right over his soft belly. “Sweetheart,” he breathes, overtaken with affection for the perfect creature that Steve is. “Oh, you don’t know. Don’t know how happy that makes me, honey. How much I want to give you all that and more.” He’s got so many thoughts and ideas flitting through his head—a loose jumble of plans to take Steve home, breed him up and keep him happy and soft and safe forever. “I will,” he promises him, kissing over top of his hair as if in worship. “I promise you I will.”
Steve shivers in his arms and hums, pressing closer. His face is in Bucky’s neck, his lips right against skin as he whispers, “It’s because of you. I think I would’ve gone through with it, if you hadn’t come here when you did.” Bucky growls lowly to show his displeasure to that, but Steve reassures him by telling him that it’s out of the picture now; he’ll never consider it. “I really do want the things you talked about,” he whispers, intimately confessing. “A family, a bond. P-pleasure.” He sighs against Bucky’s neck. “I want it more than anything else.”
Bucky hums, pleased and happy, and Steve makes a small purr of a noise as he nuzzles even further into Bucky’s hold. And that’s all that happens for a long while, just the two of them holding each other, making noises of reassurance, scenting each other anew. Bucky presses his face against the pale stretch of skin where Steve’s tee shirt has been jerked askew, kisses along his delicate, bony shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he mutters every so often, apologizing for his outburst even though he knows the omega isn’t upset. He’s also apologizing for having left Steve alone, for not having been able to take him home days ago. That’s what Bucky really wants. But he knows there are steps to something like this. Even if he’d been acquiring an omega from a traditional House, he’d still have to wait.
He sits back as he remembers his mother and the dreaded upcoming brunch. “Hey,” he says, giving Steve some space. Steve takes it, blushing heartily and delicately reaching to pull his clothes back into place. “I um, I’m meeting with my mom and sister tomorrow.”
Steve perks up. “Oh? You have a sister?”
“Yeah.” Bucky scratches behind his ear awkwardly. “Uh, actually I’m pretty sure we’ve got an appointment to go to some interviews, at a House.” He leaves it at that, knowing that Steve will understand. Predictably, the omega’s face falls.
“Oh. I—oh. I see.”
“I don’t want to,” Bucky says quickly, hating the look on Steve’s face. “But it’s my mom, and with her the best thing is to just go along with it.” He blows air through his teeth, annoyed. “She thinks I need to meet more people. Thinks I’ve been too isolated, with my career and all.”
Steve, bless him, just nods. “Okay,” he says, voice tiny. "Yeah. Um, that makes sense." He moves like he’ll get up, but Bucky grabs him and tugs him back into his lap.
“No,” he says. “Don’t think that, honey. It’s just a formality so I can convince her I’m not being rash.”
Steve is nodding, not meeting his eyes, and it’s horrible. “Of course, I understand.”
“I don’t think you do.” Bucky grips Steve’s jaw, hard, and forces his head up. He glares at him. “I don’t want anyone else. The only reason I’m telling you about this is because I know I’m not gonna be able to stop myself from coming right back here to see you again, after the appointment.”
Steve’s lips quirk the faintest bit. “Really?”
“Yeah.” Bucky kisses him, quickly and firmly, pulling back after only a second. “So I might have someone else’s scent on me,” he says. “I just want you to be prepared, if that’s the case.”
The insecurity that Bucky hates so much glazes over Steve’s expression again, and he shrugs mildly. “If you meet someone that you really want, I wouldn’t blame you.”
“Hey,” Bucky says sharply, fingers digging into Steve’s jaw as he gives him a warning shake. “No. Stop that.” Steve seals his lips obediently, but Bucky still feels the need to tell him, “I only want you, Steve. You understand that?”
“I guess.”
“Damn you. You really are stubborn, huh?” Steve’s eyes flash up to him, bright blue and not saying no. But there’s the quirk of a smile at the corner of his mouth that makes Bucky feel better. He heaves a sigh. “Alright punk. They’ll come and take your blood on Monday. And you’re not going to fight that, are you?”
“Course not.” Steve climbs off his lap. He stretches, reaching for a candle and a lighter on the table next to the couch. His tee shirt rides up as he stretches, exposing a pale strip of bare skin at his lower belly.
Bucky’s hit with the urge to kiss him there. But Steve lights the wick and sets the candle down, and Bucky is sad to see that strip of skin covered back up. The smell of cinnamon and fall spices soon begins to fill the air as the candle burns, and when Bucky looks more closely he can see that the label reads ‘Pumpkin Pie’. He imagines Steve in his life, keeping their home smelling of baked goods and satisfied omega all the time. “Can’t wait ‘til I can bring you home,” he murmurs. It’ll be so nice. Just another day. “Just have to wait for Monday.”
“The blood test,” Steve says. “What’ll you do if it turns out we’re not compatible?”
“What?” Bucky scoffs. “I’m pretty sure we don’t have to worry about that. I don’t usually go around acting like a growling idiot, you know.” Bucky watches as Steve gets up and rescues the abandoned bouquet from the floor. He flushes as Steve brings it up to his face and smells the clusters of honeysuckle. “Natasha called me a knothead downstairs, said I was stinking up the joint.”
“You probably were.” Steve pulls back from the bouquet with a sly smile. He winks and turns his back to Bucky as he goes to find a vase for the flowers. “After all, why do you think I lit the candle?”
“Haha.” Bucky watches Steve silently as he fixes things, admiring how his little body is swallowed up in the too big loungewear. “No kimono today,” he observes. “Don’t wear ‘em all the time?” He rather likes the look of Steve in regular clothes.
“No. We wear those as part of the House’s branding.” Steve peeks back at him, mouth tipped wryly. “Wasn’t expecting a guest.”
“If we’re not compatible, I’ll still bring you home,” Bucky tells him seriously. “I’ll find a way.” He has to.
Steve makes a sympathetic noise from over the now-arranged flowers. He returns to the couch and folds himself easily back into Bucky’s arms. “Let me come with you, if it comes to that. Let me be in the room when you ask Natasha.”
Bucky grumbles, not liking that idea. He hugs Steve in his lap. “I dunno.”
Steve rubs his face against Bucky’s neck. “She’ll let you have me, if she sees us together. She’ll see it’s what I really want.”
“She thinks she knows what you really want. She wants to neuter you.”
Steve whines and nips him gently. “No. She’ll let me go. Just trust me, Bucky. Deep down, she just wants us all to be happy.”
“And I make you happy?” Bucky asks, eyes closing at the nice way Steve is nuzzling him. He squeezes him tightly in his arms. “You’re sure?”
“Never been more sure of anything,” Steve murmurs, untroubled. “Even though barely know you. I just … know.” He pauses. “… Is that weird?"
“No honey, it’s not.” It’s how Bucky knows that they’re probably compatible. He’d had a friend in college who went through it, and this feels almost exactly how he’d described. Bucky kisses the side of Steve’s head and hugs him tighter, no longer too terribly stressed about waiting until Monday. “Not weird at all.”
Pt 5. Blossom House:
Bucky meets his mom and sister for brunch that Sunday. It’s their weekly ritual and usually Bucky looks forward to it, but with the whole Steve situation, Bucky’s nerves are on edge from having to wait until Monday. Winnie’s insistence on touring “at least one boutique House, James, for Heaven’s sake,” means he’s more dreading brunch than anything else.
The Foundry turns out to be one of those expensive hipster places that Becca always picks. Bucky isn’t very pleased with the menu’s creative choices, but he finds something worth eating. He picks at his plate while they all catch up. “Why do they always feel the need to change Eggs Benedict?” he grumps. They’re seated at a table outside and it’s pleasant, warm enough that Bucky would be able to enjoy the spring weather better if he didn’t have other things on his mind.
Becca teases him about how much he’s scenting and Bucky gets self conscious that maybe he should’ve put a patch on or something that morning. “Shuddup,” he tells her, wondering how bad it really is. Winnie and Becca are betas, they don’t get it.
So they eat their brunch and they catch up on the menial details and happenings in each other’s lives. But the conversation inevitably turns to Bucky’s finding an omega, and then to omegas in general. Just because she loves to stir up shit, Becca mentions how one of her housemates has a gender studies professor who openly advocates for omega civil rights.
“They have civil rights,” Bucky grunts over a bite of his meal.
“Yeah genius. I meant equal civil rights.”
“Equal to what? They can’t take care of themselves.”
“Jolie’s Professor sure thinks so,” Becca says, shit-eating grin on her face.
Bucky snorts and kicks her under the table. “Stoppit.”
“You stoppit.”
“Why do college professors have to be so radical?” Winnie complains. “Communism and all that. They just don’t live in the real world, do they?”
Becca shrugs and sips her mimosa. “Jolie’s whole dissertation is about how omegas should stay in the home.”
“Oh, well now there’s a sensible opinion.”
“She means from birth,” Bucky cuts in dryly. “Don’t you, Becs?”
“Yup.”
Bucky scoffs through a smile. His sister is such a shit stirrer. “And then how would people get their omegas, huh? What would Alpha’s do?”
“The families could decide,” Becca says. “Like us: mom would’ve kept the baby and she and dad would decide who gets her, when she’s grown up.”
Bucky is shaking his head at her with wide eyes before she’s even finished the sentence. Becca realizes her mistake and shuts up. Bucky glances over to their mom, and sure enough, she’s visibly upset. “Mom,” Bucky says,
“Let’s not talk about that anymore, mkay?” Winnie says tightly, forcing a smile at them both; but it's fake and tight and Bucky wants to throw something at Becca. He settles for glaring at her.
“Okay, mom,” Becca says, while Bucky mouths Dumbass! at her.
Winnie sniffs primly and reaches for her water glass, taking several gulps from it before setting it down. “So,” she says, forcing herself to recover. “This geisha boy you’ve met.” Bucky rolls his eyes. “You might as well tell us about him, hm?”
Despite Bucky’s glowing recommendation of Steve, he is unable to sway his mother from the idea of the House tour.
“Well this is an exclusive place and since we have the appointment already,” Winnie argues. “We only got a slot because the McMillan’s referred us! It’d be so rude to them if we didn’t go now.”
Becca supports Winnie, telling Bucky it’s only sensible. “You have to tour at least one place,” she says, shoulder-bumping him as they walk down the sidewalk after brunch. “Old man. Everybody does.”
Bucky understands where they’re coming from, at least. Becca’s right: Everybody does do this. An omega is a lifelong commitment. Anybody looking to start a life with one should want to do tons of research and shopping around before they make their decision. That’s entirely what Bucky had always intended to do, once he got around to it. Once work slowed down and he had the time.
But then Steve had happened, and he’s all Bucky can think about now. He was all Bucky could talk about for most of brunch, telling Becca how sweet he was, convincing Winnie that he wasn’t just some trained ‘geisha-boy’, or whatever. Bucky knows they aren’t convinced. To them, his sudden attachment to an unknown teahouse omega—a professional–probably seems juvenile and impetuous at best, disastrously irresponsible at worst.
Bucky doesn’t know how to make them shut up other than to go along and complete the tour. He’ll meet some omegas, gently turn them all down, then get back to Steve. Tomorrow’s Monday, he keeps reminding himself. He just has to wait until tomorrow and then the social worker will come and get Steve’s blood and do the test and they can be together.
“Now remember, you promised to keep an open mind!” Winnie reminds him cheerfully as they make their way down the sidewalk. “Oh! This is it right here. Ooh it looks nice! See what did I tell you?”
Bucky rolls his eyes where only Becca can see. She’s tagging along on this redundant trip so that she can offer her opinions on whatever omegas they interview with. Bucky isn’t sure if she’s going to help, or just make Winnie’s pushiness worse. With Becca it can go either way. “Please have my back in here,” he mutters at her as they near their destination.
Well, the custodial House where his mom booked the appointment does seem like a quality place, Bucky can’t deny it. Downright chic, actually. It’s in a fashionable corner of Tribeca, in a wide, five story brick building that’s been completely renovated. The fancy sign out front declares the place: ΩBlossom HouseΩ in large, looping script. Everything is custom and modern inside, the first floor arranged to resemble something like a regular house’s living room. It’s very clearly not a state-run institution.
They’re met by the House’s head custodian, a polished beta who introduces herself as the Director. She looks to be in her thirties, but could likely be in her forties, if the amount of botox is anything to go by.
“What are your must-have qualities you’re looking for in a mate?” she asks once they’re all seated in the fake living room. She’s holding her tablet poised to take notes.
“Um,” Bucky feels so incredibly put upon. He tries to think of the things he might’ve asked for, before meeting Steve… “Well, I guess... small,” he says, shrugging in embarrassment because he knows most omegas are small-statured, but… “I like small guys.”
“So we’re looking for a young man, then. No females?” the Director says, and Bucky’s taken by surprise.
“Well, I didn’t mean to say...” He thinks of Steve; of his slim, beautiful body. Bucky can’t imagine wanting anything else at this point. “Yeah,” he mutters. “Just the guys I guess.”
The Director taps her tablet. “Very good. And any other qualities that are very important to you?”
Bucky feels embarrassed as the director, his mom and his sister all stare at him, waiting for him to give an answer. He feels like a dolt. All he can think of is blond hair and blue eyes, chicken-bone shoulders and childbirth-fattened hips and stomach… “Uh, I don’t…” He sighs, regretting not standing up to his mother better. “I don’t know. I’m sorry.”
The Director masks the awkwardness with another big smile. “That’s fine. Why don’t I tell you a little bit about Blossom House and how we operate? Then you can go through our book and pick a few young men you’d like to meet with?”
Bucky tries not to look downright glum. The woman’s only doing her job, after all. “Sure,” he agrees.
The Director starts in on what Bucky can tell is her rehearsed spiel. “Well, Blossom House has been in operation for over sixty years and we pride ourselves on being one of the most elite custodial Houses in New York. Our omegas are carefully selected for superior genetics, then groomed during their time with us for peak beauty and sociability.” She beams, looking between the three of them as if to try and suss out who’s in charge of the decision-making.
The Director leads them through a few common areas of the downstairs, then tells them that the omegas’ rooms are all upstairs, but mostly restricted to visitors. “I have an unoccupied room on the second floor though. You can see how nice their personal quarters are.”
“Oh this is so nice,” Winnie glows, walking about the bedroom unnecessarily. You can see everything well enough from the door. “How lovely! James isn’t this just so lovely?”
“Our dormitories are limited, this isn’t a crowded place. We value quality over quantity,” the Director says proudly, by now caught on that Winnifred is the enthusiastic one.
“That’s so reassuring to hear. How many do you have right now?” Winnie asks, and Bucky stares at the floor, grinding his teeth at her interference as they walk along. She’s dragging this out longer than it has to be. He just wants to be shoved into a room with the omegas and be over with it.
“Oh we never house more than thirty at a time,” the Director is telling Winnie. “Ages eleven to twenty five.”
Bucky’s head shoots up and he stares at the Director. “Eleven?” he says.
“Well of course no one is placed until maturity,” the woman says, looking at Bucky like he’s interrupted her flow. “Federal standard is fourteen, but we keep them between two and four extra years. It makes for a higher quality mate.”
She’s back to the structured pitch, and they return to the living room area where they’d started. The Director invites them to sit and quickly produces a thick binder. She pauses before them, as if doubting at the last moment whether she should hand it to Winnifred, instead of the only alpha in the room. She smiles tightly in the end and hands it over to Bucky. “There you are. These are the profiles of all our eligible boys right now. We have a few who aren’t ready yet, but if you’re not looking for something immediately, I could still give you their profiles to look over. Some alphas prefer to choose early, then have a hand in their grooming, up until eligibility."
Bucky stops where he is in the book and looks up, probably giving the woman a bit of a horrified look. “What?”
The Director straightens her spine, clearly offended by what he’s thinking. “No,” she says curtly. “Nothing sexual, of course.” She purses her lips at Bucky for the mere idea, but Bucky’s not stupid. He knows not all Houses are as well-managed as this one. He’s heard other Alphas talking, bragging. One memorable time at work. He knows some get them younger. It’s bad practice.
Bucky flips the page and sees that each profile includes several pictures, a scent sample, physical details and answers the omegas have given to questions like: What would your ideal placement look like? and do you want many children or just a few? One? Why? Bucky looks at the director again, feeling a little better at the format, at least. “You let them have a say?” he asks, pleased at the possibility. “In who they go to?”
The Director looks uncomfortable as she considers how to answer, and that does dash Bucky’s hopes a bit. “Well,” she hedges, "not a say, so much as we try to match them up well. So it’s not just a question of a transaction, but rather ensuring that each omega goes to a home that is a good fit for them.” She smiles brightly, pushing the limits of her face. “We want our omegas to succeed.”
“I see,” Bucky murmurs, looking down at the profile he’s got open—somebody named Brian. He thinks about what House Natasha might’ve gotten Steve from, how young he’d been then, how the custodians had treated him before he’d worked at the tea House. Bucky feels sad now, that he doesn’t know that about his omega. That he hadn’t thought to ask.
“Now, as you look through your profiles, you’ll see some things remain the same across the board. We provide our omegas the best in medical and custodial care, so everyone is in ideal health, with guaranteed fertility. And, of course, purity. Everyone here receives the highest quality finishing education—"
"Do you teach them to read?" Bucky asks, the words leaving his lips sounding kind rude despite the fact that he hadn't been intending it that way. He was just thinking of Steve, of the indignant fire that'd been in his eyes when Bucky questioned his literacy.
And to her credit, the Director's smile only freezes for a few blinks. By now, Bucky thinks, she must've realized that Bucky's her biggest obstacle here. "Not very much," is her careful answer. "But our finishing program includes everything an omega would need to know to be a flawless host, receptive partner, capable homemaker, and of course: attentive mother.”
All nice things, but Bucky’s about had it with the saccharine sales pitch. He’s felt wrong being here from the very beginning. He just wants to go home and drink until he passes out and can sleep until it’s tomorrow. Randomly, he yanks a few of the profiles out of the binder and shoves them at the director. “These,” he says.
“Um–oh. Okay.” The Director seems surprised, but she takes the profiles and nods. “Alright. So we’ve got… ah. Brian and Jacob. I’ll just go send for them, hm?”
Too late, Bucky wonders why the hell he pulled out more than one. Stupid, he scolds himself. Oh well. Hopefully he’ll be able to get through it quickly.
-
Before he knows it, he’s in a room with an omega that is far too young and eager, by the looks of him. He’s Jacob. They have a little room to themselves, and the House sets it up so that it seems private, but Bucky knows there are hidden cameras somewhere and that, should he make a move to touch the boy more than he’s allowed , the doors will be busting open.
Jacob is a shy, attractive young boy who has dark hair in a stylish undercut and is wearing entirely too much perfume. Bucky’s been told all about him, of course, the Director twittering in Bucky’s ear while they waited for Bucky’s two picks to be brought downstairs.
Jacob plays the piano, likes video games, has a passion for cooking and is currently learning how to bake breads from scratch. He’s fertile and he’s a virgin. He’s only sixteen, but he’s been examined by the house’s doctors and they’ve cleared him for placement. Bucky’s a little upset that he’s expected to seriously consider a sixteen year old, but he also knows that he’s the doofus who yanked the profiles out of the binder without looking first.
He decides not to tell the boy that he flat out isn’t interested, since he’s pretty sure it would crush him. Jacob seems very happy that he’s been selected for an interview that day. He sits next to Bucky on the couch and giggles and talks to him about all his favorite things. He leans in close and–much too forwardly, in Bucky’s opinion–puts a hand on Bucky’s knee. “So what are your plans for when you have your omega?”
Bucky forces himself to sit still and not shirk away. He doesn’t want to hurt the kid’s feelings or make him think he’s undesirable. “Um, I want to start a family,” Bucky hedges, figuring that this much, at least, isn’t a lie. He thinks about it every time he sees Steve’s sweet body.
Jacob beams at him and his cheeks flush with a nice coloring. “Having babies is what I want most in the world. I want to have so many babies with my Alpha!”
Bucky relaxes some, feeling a bit of sympathy for the kid. He’s so eager, it’s plain bad luck that he’s been placed in an interview with someone like Bucky. So Bucky places his hand atop Jacob’s and gives him a pat. “ ‘Course, honey. And I’m sure you will, one day.” He hates to think of someone like Jacob being bred up so young, thinks about when he’d first met Steve and learned of his two pregnancies…
Shyly, Jacob tells him, “I’ve never been with anybody, not even kissing.” He peeks up at Bucky, looking like he expects Bucky to be excited about this. “Does that make you happy, Alpha?”
Bucky forces himself to turn his wince into a smile. Someone should’ve told this kid not to go calling him Alpha without being given permission first. Plus, what’s Bucky supposed to say to that? No? Of course anybody’d be glad to have a virgin. It’s expected. He settles for a gentle smile. “I’m sure whoever you end up with will be very pleased,” he says, and even though he’s tried to phrase it nicely, he can see the light in the boy’s eyes dim a little. The hand gets removed from Bucky’s knee. “Hey,” Bucky says, “I’m sorry, it’s just that I’ve already met someone.”
Jacob nods sullenly, pulling away and crossing his arms like the teenager he really is. “Who is it?” he asks, not meeting Bucky’s eye. He’s scenting over the perfume now—an unpleasant mix of upset omega and gardenias. “Vaughn? Vaughn or Gretchen, I bet.”
Bucky feels so bad. “No, hey.” He gets the kid to at least look at him again. “It’s nobody here. I didn’t even want to be here today but my mom insisted.”
Jacob frowns. “You don’t want an omega?” he guesses.
Bucky’s lips quirk. “I do. And I wasn’t lying when I said somebody’s gonna love having you.” He pats the kid’s shoulder. “I’m just waiting on some results. Compatibility, ya know?”
Jacob’s eyes widen. “Oh. Wow,” he says. This news seems to appease him somewhat, if his scent is anything to go by. He relaxes and gives Bucky a real smile. “That’s awesome though. Um, congratulations I guess.”
Bucky chuckles. “Yeah, we’ll see.”
Jacob gives him a hug goodbye before Bucky knows it’s coming. Bucky hugs back awkwardly until he’s released. “Take care of yourself, honey,” he tells him at the door.
There’s still the second omega lined up, but Bucky comes out from his time with Jacob and tells the Director that he’s not interested anymore. “Sorry,” he apologizes. “I just can’t do this right now.” The Director loses the smile she’s maintained up until now, but recovers after a beat. She follows them all back to the foyer, assuring Bucky that he’s welcome back at Blossom House any time, but Bucky can see how forced it is. She’d been counting on securing a placement today.
Winnie waits until they’re out on the sidewalk again before she confronts Bucky about it, but he tells her to back off. “I can’t, mom. I have zero interest and it just feels wrong. I only want him.”
Becca looks at Bucky like she’s impressed and Winnie clams up and leaves, which is a win in Bucky’s book. She’ll have forgiven him by next week’s brunch, he knows. And hopefully he’ll have an omega by then. The only omega he can stand to consider anymore.
Pt 6. Something You Keep
Bucky is ready and standing alert outside the locked front doors of the tea House by 8:40am the next day. Today’s Monday. Today they get the blood tests. Today he’s going to secure Steve as his. Taking off work again wasn’t even a question. Bucky is so excited.
Well, excited and anxious. He doesn’t know for sure what the tests will yield, or what Natasha will do if Bucky doesn’t have an outright legal claim to Steve. A small, panicky part of his mind even keeps the idea alive that Steve might not even be in the building right now. That somewhere in the past 48 hours, he might’ve somehow been whisked away to Russia to be nullified.
That’s not happening, Bucky has to remind himself. Steve said so. He’s not in danger. Bucky’s just wound up. Still, he is alpha, and his lizard brain won’t be satisfied until he has the omega curled up in a nest in his condo, safe from the world. Just a little longer.
Bucky huffs as he waits. It’s a little nippy out in the mornings still, and he hugs his jacket tightly around himself the whole time he stands outside the doors, cursing the social worker every few minutes for not showing up early as well. This is important.
He spots him from a block away, making his way down the sidewalk with a briefcase in hand and another person at his side.
“Mr. Wilson,” Bucky greats, overeager. “I knocked but they have the doors locked.”
“Sam, please,” the man reminds him. Sam gestures to the man at his side. “This is Mr. Levi, our lab tech. He’ll be taking the draw.”
“Hi.” Bucky affords the man a nod and knocks on the doors again, impatient.
“They know we’re coming.” Sam checks his watch. “Nine on the dot.” Even as he speaks, a figure appears on the other side of the tea House’s glazed doors, unlocking and opening them. It’s Natasha.
“Boys,” she greets them dismissively, her eyes flicking to Bucky. He stares her down, but she seems unsurprised that he’s followed through with his threat. “How can I help you?” Natasha says to Sam.
“Ma’am.” Sam pulls a paper from his briefcase and holds it out. “I’m a social worker for the Department of Omega Custodial and Health Services. We’ve got an order for a blood draw for one of the omegas under your care.”
Natasha twists her lips and takes the paper, not sparing it a glance. She knows who they’re there for, after all. She stares hard at Bucky for a long moment, long enough that it starts to feel like a challenge and Bucky doesn’t know what the hell to do because she’s not alpha and he can’t just–
“Ma’am, you’re legally obligated to give us access to Steven Rogers,” Sam says, authoritative and calm like he’s done this a hundred times before. “I can call for backup, but then the police are involved and that’s a whole lotta paperwork.”
Natasha rolls her eyes and steps back to allow them in. “He’s through here,” she says, turning her back to them and walking away. “In my office.”
Sam and Bucky share a tense look, but then follow her, Levi the lab tech trailing after them.
Steve is the first and only thing Bucky sees once they’re in Natasha’s office. Bucky's whole face splits in a grin when he sees the omega, dressed in Kimono and seated on a little bench. And Steve smiles too, his scent hitting Bucky after a few seconds. He’s happy, but he’s nervous. “It’s okay,” Bucky tells him, going over to sit next to him on the bench. He pulls the omega into his arms and kisses his forehead. “This is the social worker. He’s going to test us.”
Steve nods amicably and bows his head when Sam and Levi introduce themselves. “Nice to meet you.”
Levi starts opening up his medical bag, quietly explaining to Steve what they’ll be doing. Steve nods along and pulls up the sleeve of his kimono helpfully.
Sam calls Bucky over to the other side of the room where Natasha’s standing with him. Bucky is loath to get up and leave Steve for even a second, but even he has to concede that no harm will come to the omega in here. He goes over to Natasha and Sam. Sam says, “I was just explaining the process to Ms. Romanoff. We’ll do a rapid culture here and then the old fashioned way back at the lab.”
“Old fashioned?” Bucky asks, confused.
“The rapid tests are less reliable,” Sam explains. “We tend to get a lot of false negatives. But we use them because it can allow you to take custody sooner, if it comes back positive.”
Bucky has too many emotions and thoughts rushing through his head to make immediate sense of that. “But… what if it’s negative?” he asks, stomach souring at just the thought.
Sam places a comforting hand on his shoulder. “It doesn’t mean it won’t come back compatible in the end. It just means a little bit more waiting. We test at the lab and usually get the results within a few days.”
Bucky gulps and nods, shakily says, “Okay.” God, he can hardly stomach the tension right now, he hates to think what torture it’ll be if he’s forced to wait even longer over a false negative, not knowing if it’s even really false or not. He says a silent prayer for the first test to just say they’re compatible. He needs to have Steve home with him. “H-how long until I can take him,” he asks, “if this uh, if the rapid one’s positive?”
Sam smiles kindly at him. “Right away. You just have to sign the papers.” He lifts his briefcase up. “Then you’re free to go.”
Bucky nods and tries to look grateful, but he’s so keyed up and nervous, he doesn’t think he does a very good job.
Across the room, Levi announces, “Done,” quietly, and Bucky spins around with wide eyes, expecting some glowing test tube or something, proclaiming either their compatibility or Bucky’s doom. But it’s just Levi looking at him kindly and Steve rearranging his sleeve. “Mr. Barnes?” Levi prompts gently, indicating that it’s Bucky’s turn.
“Oh, right.” They have to take his blood too, of course. Bucky flushes, embarrassed, and hurries over. Levi has him sit next to Steve again for the draw, which isn’t more annoying than any other blood test Bucky’s ever endured. He winces at the prick of the needle, facing towards Steve. The omega is laughing silently at him. “What?” he asks.
Steve shakes his head, eyes demurred in that way that’s been ingrained into him. “You look away,” he observes, meaning the needle at Bucky’s arm. Levi is filling up a rubber-stopped vial with his blood. “I always look. I wanna know when the pain’s coming.”
Bucky winces. “Ew. Freak.” He shoulder bumps him gently and Steve huffs a laugh and bumps back. Bucky’s grinning uncontrollably, pride and affection welling up in him so big. He loves making Steve happy, making him laugh.
The both of them are still smiling and ribbing each other quietly, when Bucky looks up and catches Natasha’s eye. She’s staring at him, at his interaction with Steve. She seems thoughtful for once, and Bucky fixes her with a meaningful look and nods at her once. He goes back to letting Steve flirt with him and distract him from the needle in his arm and the test results that are hanging over their heads.
Bucky doesn’t expect rapid to be like, that rapid. It’s hardly two minutes after Levi has cultured their blood together on a little slide and applied a chemical test that he’s announcing to the room, “S’positive.”
Bucky’s bottled up anxiety leaves him so fast, it winds up making him feel halfway sick anyway. He sags in his seat, reaching dumbly for Steve, and Steve is throwing himself into Bucky’s arms because he’s suchagoodomega, giving him something to hold onto and smell. Bucky stuffs his face in the delicate curve of Steve’s neck, inhaling the natural scent that’s beneath all the perfumes and oils and whatever else the House omegas doll themselves up in.
Steve’s kimono rustles as Bucky probably destroys it with wrinkles, but he doesn’t care. He’s rubbing his face against Steve’s neck, nosing and mouthing at the scent gland he can feel under the skin, delicate and ripe. He fights the urge to scrape his teeth there, knowing that thing’sll only get messy if he heads in that direction.
No way in hell is he going to bond the omega in public.
That thought helps him to regain his senses a bit, and he flushes as he realizes that Steve’s now in his lap, and the two of them were just making a lot of, um, private noises. He pulls away from Steve and sees everybody else there. “Uh, sorry,” he mutters, embarrassed.
Steve seems to have gotten a hold of himself too. He climbs off Bucky’s lap and tries to smooth out the creases in his kimono. “Sorry,” he whispers, eyes downcast and hands folded neatly in front of him.
God, Bucky can’t wait to wreck him badly enough that it breaks him out of his stupid tea House gestures.
Natasha sighs and heads to sit behind her desk, pulling up the stack of papers she’s apparently already been handed and started to work her way through. She doesn’t seem surprised at all. Something in Bucky’s chest loosens as he sees her signing her name at the bottom of each page.
She’s signing Steve over to him.
“Congratulations, Mr. Barnes,” Sam says, coming over to shake Bucky’s hand. He looks genuinely happy for them, and Bucky feels friendly towards the guy.
“Thanks.” He glances over to Steve, who smells like he’s absolutely delighted but is somehow managing to wait, obedient and quiet, next to Bucky. Bucky bites his lip. “Um, there’s no chance of a false positive, is there?” He thinks he’ll cry if there is.
“No,” Levi answers. He’s packing up his medical kit. “If the rapid says positive, you’re positive.”
It’s the best moment of Bucky’s life so far.
As it turns out, once Bucky’s lizard brain gets a few cues that Steve is not going to be taken away from him, that Bucky has won, he feels almost like a normal person again. His residual anxiety slips away the more Steve smiles at him, Sam and Levi congratulate him, and Natasha stays out of the way.
Levi still approaches him with a tiny sealed packet. “It’s a generalized anti-anxiety aid that we give most Alphas after they get the news. Especially in uh, in the more contested situations.”
Bucky takes the packet and frowns at it. There’s a single pill inside. “I don’t want to be drugged up,” he tells Levi. “I can’t. I need to take care of him.”
Sam steps in. “This will help you do that." He seems honest as he lowers his voice and admits to Bucky, “It’s just an over the counter aid, nothing prescription. It’ll help keep you from hitting a rut until you’ve got him home and settled.”
Oh. Bucky hadn’t thought of that. “That’s a thing?” he asks.
Sam smirks. “All the time, man.”
Bucky glances back over to Steve, then tries to take stock of himself. He does feel hot and tight and aggressive, now that he thinks about it…
Bucky’s only ever rutted a few times, mostly when he was younger, in his teens and twenties. He looks down at the little packet again. “Might as well,” he mutters, ripping the foil seal open. He tosses the tablet back dry, wincing at the feeling.
Natasha is at her desk, nearing the end of the papers Sam gave her. She initials each page and then signs her name on the final one, handing it all back to Sam. Then she gets up and approaches Steve.
Bucky tenses, not wanting her near him, but the pill hasn’t kicked in yet and Sam stops him with a hand to his shoulder and a quiet admonition of, “Let them say goodbye. They’ve been together a long time.”
Natasha’s lips quirk at Steve and she says something in what sounds like Russian, maybe calling him a pet name. Steve’s face crumples in sadness, his smile still there as he rushes to hug her.
Bucky looks away, conflicted. He’d never thought about what Steve would be leaving behind, or what it would mean to the omega. He tries to focus on the small talk that Sam seems willing to engage him in, and half-hears Natasha telling Steve reassuring, sweet things. Bucky gets the sense that it’s private, that he shouldn’t be there while they say goodbye. He feels calmer and figures the drug must be kicking in.
When it’s all said and done, Natasha escorts everybody out into the foyer and doesn't seem like she hates Bucky at all. “You can take anything from your room that you want,” she tells Steve fondly, repeating the quick Russian nickname that she has for him. Then her eyes narrow and her lips twist. “Except kimono. Those are damn expensive.”
Steve laughs and gives her another hug, though this one is thankfully much shorter, and Bucky can smell that Steve isn’t feeling as bittersweet about it at this point. There’s more excitement to his scent now. Steve returns to his side and Bucky puts a hand at his back, the big bow thing of his kimono getting in the way. “Wanna go get changed?” he asks him.
“Yeah,” Steve says. He seems happy enough to be lost in the moment, glancing dreamily at everybody present before shaking himself and indeed heading for the stairs that lead up to the omegas’ quarters. After a beat, Bucky follows him.
He lets Steve go into his room alone, choosing to stand sentinel outside the paper door instead because he’s pretty sure that watching Steve undress right now would lead to a lengthy delay, no matter what calming drugs he’s been given.
Steve is out sooner than expected, dressed in sneakers, sweatpants, and a hoodie. He looks adorable, and Bucky’s once again struck by how much more real he looks, out of the ridiculous teahouse garb. “Hey,” he smiles, half pulling Steve into his arms. The omega is holding a backpack that is stuffed full. Bucky takes it for him and slings it over his shoulder. “What’s in here?” he jokes, “Not smuggling out one of those priceless kimonos, are you?”
Steve smiles and bumps into him, telling him to ‘shuddup’, and they head back downstairs. “I don’t have many regular clothes,” he admits. “But there’s other stuff in there we can come back and get in boxes I guess.”
Bucky thinks of all the delicate cloisonne tea cups and clay pots. “Sure,” he says, already planning to just pay somebody to do it for them. He’s sure they’ll be too tied up with each other in the next few days to really want to come back and haul boxes. He ruffles Steve’s hair and kisses the top of his head, and they make their way back downstairs.
Natasha and Levi have gone, but Sam is still there. A few of the House’s other omegas have also appeared, eager to say goodbye to their Housemate. Steve hugs everybody and tells them he’ll call—apparently the House has a communal phone they all use at their leisure (and Bucky kind of fumes that he hadn’t known about that. It certainly would’ve made the weekend more bearable if he could’ve been calling Steve ten times a day).
Sam grins at Steve as he returns from saying goodbye to his friends. “All set?”
Bucky nods, Steve taking his hand. Bucky feels very grateful to Sam, almost indebted. “Thank you,” he says, and they shake hands. “Really.”
Sam gives them both a happy nod. “This is one of the good cases. It’s nice to see for a change.”
Bucky pushes away the thought that most of Sam’s work must consist of not so great circumstances, and he accepts the paper that Sam gives him to sign. He reads all of it, wanting to be sure he does everything right. The page has Natasha’s signature on it under the spot for “Relinquishing party,” and Bucky signs on the line for “Transfered Primary Custodian.” He is officially Steve’s legal guardian. His lizard brain, which had been quieting down since he took the pill, finally shuts completely the fuck up. All he feels is happy.
Bucky spent so much time worrying over the weekend, that he didn’t really take any steps in preparation for the possibility that Steve would actually be coming home with him come Monday. Everything has gone So Well that it almost feels fake, like he’ll wake up soon and it’ll still be Saturday or something.
They arrive at the condo and Bucky realizes that he hasn’t done anything for Steve, to make welcoming him into his home—their home–special. Steve precedes him inside and Bucky’s left to shut the door and drop Steve’s backpack. “Um, so this is it,” he says, watching as Steve looks about the main room.
“Wow,” Steve says, walking over to the kitchen area—slowly, as if he’s not sure he’s allowed yet. He runs one of his hands over the large island’s quartz countertop. “Are we rich?” he blurts.
Bucky barks out a laugh. “Yeah I guess so.” He trails after Steve as the omega continues to look around curiously. “I bought this place last year,” Bucky murmurs. He looks around at the same things Steve is observing, silently judging his furniture all of a sudden. Suddenly, it just seems fake to Bucky, like the prop living room at Blossom House. It’s unlived in, he realizes. “I ah, haven’t spent much time decorating the place, to be honest,” he says self consciously, scratching the back of his head as Steve walks into the living room area and touches the wide, flat arm of a velvet chair that Bucky has literally never sat in. Steve looks at him and Bucky feels the need to supply, “My assistant picked out most of this furniture.”
Steve stops looking around, perhaps sensing Bucky’s self-doubt. He comes close and puts his arms around Bucky’s waist and gives him a warm look. “It’s beautiful,” he tells him, tippy-toeing up to place a kiss on Bucky’s mouth. “I feel so lucky. I’m just so glad to be here with you.”
Bucky gets so warm at hearing that, so happy and probably a dopy expression on his face at his omega telling him he likes their home. His lizard brain squirms, drugged but still reacting at something so important as that. He hears a rumble and belatedly realizes that it’s coming from his own chest. It makes him laugh at himself; he almost never purrs. He hugs Steve in against his chest, digging his hands into the soft fabric of Steve’s hoodie and inhaling him. “You’ll make it better,” he tells him, kissing the top of his head and nuzzling into his hair. “Put your scent on everything in here, your touch.”
“Yeah,” Steve murmurs, happy.
“Your papasan chair can go right by the big windows, or wherever you like. It’ll be so much more homey.”
Bucky’s never spent much time in the condo. He’s always at the office or the gym or some fancy restaurant (or teahouse) schmoozing clients. This is his house, but he’s never made it his home. Now that Steve’s here, he knows it’ll be different. He takes Steve by the hand and leads him around, “Here, I’ll give you the official tour.”
The Official Tour doesn’t last very long. Steve’s already seen the large, main living space. The powder room’s boring (Steve likes the side kitchen area though, and tells Bucky it’s called a ‘butler’s pantry’). There’s nothing in the second bedroom, the third only occupied by a desk that Bucky never uses and a treadmill where he does his morning runs. “You could make an art studio in one, if you wanted,” he suggests, and is rewarded by a look from Steve that might as well be heart-eyed.
The tour fizzles out once they reach Bucky’s bedroom and he realizes that he hasn’t made the bed that morning, and there’s clothes hangers on the bed from when he’d dressed so hurriedly, and a half-full can of some shitty energy drink he’d chugged that morning left on the bedside table. “Oh,” he says, embarrassed. “I was in a hurry.”
Steve walks right over to the bed and jumps on it, face-planting into the messy covers. Bucky’s lips quirk as he watches Steve rubbing his face against the bedsheets. “Smells like you,” he says back at Bucky, rolling over and grinning, and Bucky laughs and climbs over him. Steve parts his legs to let Bucky lay over him, his pretty blue eyes watching him so open and fond. He cards his fingers through Bucky’s hair, which is loose today, just tucked behind his ears. “Do you think we’d be so into each other if we weren’t compatible?” he wonders.
“I don’t know,” Bucky says, kissing Steve’s neck while he thinks about it. “Probably not. Don’t care,” he murmurs against Steve’s skin. He finally, finally scrapes his teeth over the ripe spot of Steve’s glands like he’s been aching to, relishing the moan and shove of hips he gets from Steve for it. “Right there,” he murmurs, knowing that Steve knows what he means. “I’ll bite you.”
“N-now?” Steve asks, breathy.
Bucky pulls back, thinking he’ll see worry on Steve’s face, but he doesn’t. The omega just has bright eyes, expectant. Bucky smiles gently at him and gives him a slow kiss. “I dunno,” he says. “Does it feel too soon?”
Steve squirms, then says, “Well, no, but … I didn’t take off my sneakers.”
Bucky doesn’t bite him then. They make out on the bed for a long time, and then Bucky starts to feel very sleepy. Steve hums and cuddles him, tells him it’s probably the pill the tech guy gave him.
Bucky hums, nuzzling against Steve’s soft sweatshirt and agreeing, his eyes closed. He’s got his omega here with him, right in their bed where it’s gonna always smell like them, and Steve’ll have heats and Bucky’ll bond him and make so much love to him. They fall asleep together.
Bucky orders takeout for dinner and they sit together with all the lights off, eating Chinese food in front of the gas fireplace. Bucky’s literally never turned the fireplace on before. Steve had asked him to, and it’s really nice. The flames flickering over both of them are cozy and intimate, and Bucky pulls Steve’s into his arms so they can be close.
He tells Steve about what he does for work, about his mom and Beca, and the omega sister he’d once had when he was five years old. Steve tells him about the House he’d lived at before the teahouse. From the sound of it, Steve didn’t stay in state care very long, because his earliest memories are of a colorful preschool and nannies in a nice place. Bucky’s relieved to hear it, and he kisses Steve in front of the fire and whispers things to him—promises of how he’s going to give him the best life now, how they’ll be happy, they’ll have babies.
He carries him back to the bedroom without stopping to turn the fireplace off.
“Alpha,” Steve sighs, hands moving through Bucky’s hair when he’s sunk down between his legs, sucking him off. “Oh,”
Bucky relishes every sweet sigh and moan he gets out of him. Steve’s soft in his mouth but it’s obvious it feels good for him. He lavishes the omega’s small prick with sucks and kisses for a long while until the smell of his slick is just too much to resist, and then he presses two fingers straight into him. Bucky moans and his dick throbs against the sheets at how easy the tight clutch of Steve’s body takes him in. “You’re amazing,” he breathes against the skin of Steve’s pelvis, kisses his sharp hip bone and fucks his fingers in harder, in and up and…
“Ah! Oh… god…” Steve's legs clamp hard around Bucky’s head as he cries out and starts to come.
And then: slick gushes out of him in a way Bucky’s never seen before. He stares, amazed, watching the wetness get everywhere, feeling it get on him. “Oh, honey,” he breathes, awestruck. “Fuck Steve… you just…you… aw fuck.” He sinks down, shoves his face against it, everything so wet, and jabs his tongue in. Steve just seems to keep coming while Bucky eats him out.
When it’s over he kisses his way back up Steve’s body, smearing his wet cheek on Steve’s soft belly, his tiny breasts. He looks down at him with wide eyes as they both pant against each other.
“What,” Steve says, brow pinching. “What was—”
Bucky laughs, a joyful, amazed sound, and sticks his tongue in Steve’s mouth, kisses him hard, harder, hands gripping his sides and digging in. The kiss ends in a growl and Bucky pulling back to tell him, “Steve, you just squirted all over me!”
Steve blinks wide eyes up at him, shocked. “Wha..? I–I didn’t!” Bucky laughs, and Steve laughs and squirms under him. “No!” He laughs again, beating his little fists against Bucky’s back. “I didn’t!”
“You did!” Bucky grabs him and rolls, flipping them over and putting Steve above him. “Fuck, Steve, baby. That was the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.”
Steve is dying, apparently, laughing and shoving his embarrassed face into Bucky’s neck. He keeps smacking Bucky’s arm and laughing, insisting, “I didn’t! I did not!” They cackle together, grabbing arms and biting and hugging onto each other, and it’s the happiest—the literal fucking happiest–Bucky’s ever been.
They do calm down, slowly, their chests heaving against each other and grins sobering into something so much more tender. Bucky feels time slow a little, feels like he’s looking up at an angel, something he doesn’t deserve. He trails his thumb at the corner of Steve’s eye when a tear leaks out. “What’s this?” he murmurs. Steve’s sweet face pinches, and he suddenly lets out a breath that’s half a sob. Bucky’s heart throbs. “Honey,” he breathes, pulling Steve down against his chest in a tight hug. “What?” he breathes, kissing Steve’s ear. “What is it?”
“Fuck,” Steve sniffles. Bucky’s never heard him curse so much. It’s raw though. It’s real. “M’so happy,” Steve says, more tears in his voice. “Why am I so happy?”
Jesus, God. Bucky clings to him, wraps his arms all the way around his slim back and holds him so tightly against his chest. He’d climb into Steve right now if he could. “Cause we’re here,” he tells him, whispering right in his ear. “We’re right here where we’re supposed to be.”
And then he does something he never thought he’d do. He bites right into Steve’s neck without asking permission.
They talk about it later, in Bucky’s ridiculously large bathtub that he also never uses.
“I don’t know,” Bucky says, still in shock over what he’s done. Or, maybe not that he’s done it, but that he’d done it like that; when they were laughing and crying and he wasn’t even inside Steve when he bit down. “Was it how you wanted?” he asks again, even though Steve’s already told him—”
“–it was perfect.” Steve lolls back against his chest and turns his head to the side, searching for another kiss, which Bucky gives. The omega has his eyes closed when he pulls back. He’s smiling serenely. “It’s like you just knew. Just knew to do it. Right then.” He opens his eyes and Bucky’s heart melts all over again at the way he can feel what Steve’s feeling.
They’ve been bonded for just a little over an hour now.
Steve’s skin had broken under his mouth, and then they’d fucked. After the intensity of the bite it hadn’t been a slow and romantic thing like Bucky always pictured it would be. It’d been fast. Fast and hard and primal, one orgasm more for each of them before they collapsed and stayed that way for who knew how long.
Bucky had known right away that he didn’t have to apologize, didn’t have to say sorry for doing it so suddenly, or without permission or when they weren’t even making love properly. He hadn’t had to apologize because he knew what Steve was feeling as they laid in the sweat and slick–messed sheets.
“It was perfect, wasn’t it?” he says, humming and pulling Steve back more against his chest in the water, nosing over the angry spot on his neck, then sealing his lips over it. There’s the faint taste of blood, but it barely registers to Bucky between Steve’s hitched breath and long sigh, the heave of his belly under Bucky’s hands, and the smell of him.
“I love you,” Bucky whispers, feeling tears forming in his own eyes. He is so emotional right now, he’s never felt like this. Never. He kisses over and over at Steve’s neck, laving at the physical evidence of what he’s done to him. He runs his mouth over the shell of Steve’s ear. “I love you, Steve.”
Steve makes a pitiful whimper, and then the bathwater’s sloshing everywhere as he whirls himself around and straddles Bucky’s lap, kissing him fiercely. Bucky grabs him at the hips and Steve only pulls away long enough to say, “Put it in me, now,” before he seals their mouths together again.
Bucky moans, and does.
Steve’s things get delivered to the apartment. It’s a few boxes, a large papasan chair, and a device that Bucky quickly recognizes as he’s helping Steve to unpack.
“Um, Steve?” he says.
Steve turns around from where he’s standing on a footstool, setting his tea cups and bowls in the kitchen cabinets. His eyes fix on what Bucky’s holding. “Oh.”
Bucky’s lips quirk. He waggles one of the cups of the breast pump in the air. “Ya know, I wondered about this.”
Steve’s cheeks color rapidly. He gets down off the stool and won’t meet Bucky’s eyes as he comes over and takes the device out of Bucky’s hands. “I didn’t need this anymore,” he mutters, putting it back in the box Bucky’d taken it from.
Bucky hums and hugs him from behind. “Why?” he says, “You telling me ‘Steve’ isn’t on the menu anymore?” Steve huffs in front of him, his embarrassment coming through the bond, and Bucky turns him in his arms. “Hey, look at your alpha,” Bucky says softly, and that has Steve looking up at him with a little less reluctance. He twists his lips at Bucky’s obvious enjoyment of the situation.
“You’re makin’ fun of me,” he mumbles.
“No,” Bucky says. He cups Steve’s jaw and guides him into a kiss, careful to make it slow and sweet. He murmurs with their faces close together, “You’re the sweetest thing I ever tasted.” He dips back into Steve’s mouth, giving him his tongue once more. “Tell me you’ll keep it,” he says, coaxing. “So your alpha can always have a taste, if he wants.”
Steve’s arousal wafts off him like a perfume and Bucky basks in it. It’s been days since their bond, and Bucky’s found that his little omega loves it when Bucky calls himself that title, when he reminds Steve of their primal, private roles. “Please,” he says again, even though he can tell he’s already got Steve’s surrender. He dips to kiss at the tender spot on his neck. “I love suckin’ on ‘em, Sweetheart. You know I do.”
Steve moans and basically climbs Bucky like a tree right there in the living room.
Unpacking gets delayed for another few hours.
On Tuesday of the very next week, Bucky comes home from work to find Steve nesting in the walk in closet. He seems to have dragged most of the soft materials they own in with him. “Hey there,” Bucky greets at the closet’s doorway, loosening his tie one handed. He grins knowingly as Steve peeks owlishly out of the pile at him. “Whatcha doing?”
Steve makes an inelegant noise and promptly goes face down, ass up in the nest. “You’re late.”
“M’sore,” Steve says, purring as Bucky spoons behind him and doesn’t stop rubbing the flat of his fingers against Steve’s wet sex. “Mm, Bucky…”
Bucky smiles privately at the arousal that’s still in Steve’s voice, despite his protests. “Oh yeah?” he teases, rolling Steve to his stomach and sinking down the bed, between his legs. He kisses the inside of one creamy thigh, right under the curve of his ass.
Steve makes a wonderful little noise when Bucky parts his cheeks with both hands. “Don’t just stare like that,” he complains into the pillow, “Mm. Stop.”
“Uh huh.” Bucky watches the pink, wet wrinkle of Steve’s asshole clench and twitch. He’s swollen there, open just a little from all the times Bucky’s fucked him since his heat hit yesterday. The master bedroom smells like a brothel, and Bucky’s pretty sure they’ve officially devalued the condo for resale. “You know,” he tells Steve. “My cum’s finally stopped leaking outta you.”
Steve makes an even better noise, outrage and lust warring in his scent. “Bucky!”
Bucky laughs and licks him. “What? It’s true.” He points his tongue and dips in a few times, just barely inside. “Fuck, baby. This pussy is ruined.”
Steve whines, squirming back against his face. “S’not.”
Bucky huffs and keeps his face buried, but slaps one palm down against Steve’s right cheek, squeezing at the end of it. Steve squeals, and Bucky feels his thirty-seven year old dick trying valiantly to get hard again. His lips smack when he pulls back from Steve’s ass. “You know what I think, Steve?” he says.
“Mmph. What?”
Bucky climbs back up his body, pushing Steve’s legs together and straddling them. He sits there and holds his dick and stares while he rubs the head against his mate’s slick bottom. “I think it’s hungry,” he says. “Think I should put a little more in.” Steve moans and Bucky grins. He lays out over Steve, blanketing him with his bulk and letting just enough of his weight come through so Steve can feel really pinned down. “Whaddaya think, honey? Want me to breed you up real good?”
Steve groans like he’s fed up. He turns his head on the pillow, one pinked cheek showing his pleasure as he peeks up at Bucky. “If I’m not pregnant by now, it’s a miracle,” he quips.
Bucky growls and dips down to bite at his shoulder. Possessive, dominant thoughts run through his head as he props on his forearms and rolls his hips down against Steve’s ass. He’s hard again, the head of his cock catching at Steve’s loose rim. But he waits, goading darkly, “Tell me I can.” Steve groans and pushes back, a token struggle which Bucky easily subdues. “Tell me,” he repeats, grinning, because he’s won Steve so many times already but goddamn if he’s not going to do it again right now. “Omega,” he growls.
“Fuck.” Steve squirms against Bucky’s weight. “Do it, Bucky,”
Bucky fucks into him in one, filthy push. Steve gasps while Bucky moans and lets more of his weight come through, pushing Steve down into the mattress. “Fuck, baby, this cunt.”
Steve’s scent gets richer from the filth that Bucky’s taken to spewing during this bout of heat sex. It’s a glorious new experience that Bucky is never going to get tired of. He starts thrusting, and unlike their last round, this time it’s not fast so much as it is hard, and deep. Fuck, if it isn’t the deepest Bucky’s ever been in him. He ruts against Steve’s ass until he feels the clutch of Steve’s orgasm start rippling around his cock. “Y’coming?” he pants, and Steve somehow manages to whine an affirmative as he’s in the midst of climaxing. Bucky grunts, fucking harder for a few, gloriously slickhottight pulls, and then he feels his knot pop. He growls furiously and shoves his hips so hard into Steve that he shoves the poor omega a few inches up the bed. “Fuck!”
He’s just emerging from the haze of his minutes-long orgasm when he feels Steve shoving his hips forward and backward underneath him, tugging on their tie to make himself come again. “Mm,” Bucky hums deeply, digging his face into the bend of Steve’s neck. “Do it, honey.”
Steve keens these sweet, throaty little noises for his last climax of the night, twitching under the domineering weight of his mate. “Oh, god,” he finally breathes into the pillow. “Jesus Christ.”
Bucky murmurs against his neck, “You can just call me Alpha.”
Steve somehow summons the energy to reach backwards and smack him for the stupid line.
Bucky escapes the last gaggle of well-wishers to go search for Steve, whom he hasn’t seen since Natasha and the teaHouse omegas were handing over their presents. He finds him in the butler’s pantry, pouring himself a glass of apple juice. Bucky smiles fondly. His mate’s been craving sugar since week twelve, at least.
“Hey.” He swoops in behind Steve and wraps his arms around him. It’s become more of a reach than it was before. Bucky can’t express how much he loves it. He cradles under the curve of Steve's belly, pulling his shirt up until he feels skin. “Taking a break?”
Steve hums halfway through a big gulp of juice. He sets the glass down and leans back against Bucky with a sigh. “My feet hurt,” he complains dreamily. “S’the party almost over?”
Bucky nuzzles in against his bond mark, thoroughly scarred by now. “Yeah,” he says. “Sam and Riley left a minute ago. Crowd’s thinning out.” Steve purrs. Bucky’s eyes are closed and he sways a little from foot to foot, rocking them in their own private dance. “I think this party tops the one we had when we bonded,” he tells him, proud of his omega, his mate. The mother to his growing pups. “You’ve got a lot of presents.”
Steve chuffs a laugh. “A lotta onesies.”
“A lot of onesies,” Bucky confirms. They’re both so tired. “Come on,” he murmurs against Steve’s neck. “I’ve got a speech planned to get everyone the fuck outta here.” He kisses him. “M’gonna put you to bed, Shamu.”
Steve moans. “I love you.”
“I know.”
Thanks for reading! Please consider giving a reblog if you enjoyed!
Tags: heavy kink, bdsm, sexual exploration, teacher/student, age gap, all the sex you can imagine, Dom/sub, top Steve.
Summary: Bucky's in his last semester of undergrad and fucking the occasional fling every other guy in sight, when he meets Steve Rogers: a super hot professor who is definitely straight and vanilla as fuck. Wrong.
A.N. this story features ASL. Any signed dialog will be formatted like so: 🤏🏼"Bucky Barnes is a gigantic fucking manwhore."
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2. Smutty Fanfiction
Bucky didn’t grow up rich. When it comes to his college, his parents support him as much as they can, but he’s got three sisters that George and Winnie have to worry about too, so there’s still a sizable gap left in tuition after the eight thousand they give him every year.
Bucky works at the campus bookstore, which is a pretty sweet gig. He gets a good discount on his school books, and it’s quiet inside the book store and doesn’t usually get very busy. On days when his manager isn’t there, Bucky’s able to get away with bringing his laptop to work and fooling around on the internet writing smutty fanfiction for an hour or two of his shift.
It’s a standard Sunday shift when Steve Rogers comes in. Bucky’s behind the customer service desk, hunched over his laptop and typing away manically as Clint stocks textbooks on the nearest shelf. 🤏🏼"Whatcha writing?" Clint asks.
Bucky pulls his hands away from the keyboard long enough to sign, 🤏🏼"Destiel, PWP." Clint doesn’t write fanfiction, but thinks it’s hilarious and fascinating that Bucky does. Bucky’s educated him about some of the lingua franca of his fandom.
🤏🏼"No more incest?" he asks.
🤏🏼"It’s Wincest, and no, not right now." Dean and Sam will always be his OTP (because he's fucked up and lives in that garbage pile), but Bucky’s been branching out. He’s dabbled in Destiel ever since his last boyfriend tried - and failed - to make it a roleplaying thing in bed. (That's just fuckin' weird).
He’s back to typing rapidly, eyes fixed solely on his screen as the words flow from his fingers, so he doesn’t see Steve Rogers walk in, or Clint flapping his hands in warning. A voice picks up in front of the customer service desk, “Hello.”
Bucky’s eyes flick up, and—oh. His eyes go wide before he can get a hold of himself. “Steve,” he blurts, and then mentally cringes and corrects, “I mean, Professor Rogers” (Daddy). Steve smiles, looking confused but polite. God, he’s just so damn polite-looking. So big and sweater vest-y and proper. Bucky absolutely wants to wreck him. “Sorry,” Bucky says. “We haven’t met. I just—”
“You’re the guy who’s auditing my class, right?”
Bucky beams. “Yeah. Yeah I am.” Steve noticed him?? He does a mental fist pump. Steve noticed him! “Uh, thanks. For letting me.”
“Of course,” Steve says. “I’m one of the only professors who can’t sign, so …” He reddens, his blush creeping down from his cheeks and into his beard. (Aw.) “Well, it’s just good to know there are hearing students interested in sign. People like me need all the help we can get.”
Oh dear. Bucky’s crush has just gotten worse. Is there such a thing as an incompetency kink? Bucky might have one. “Happy to help,” he says and signs at the same time, which gets him another smile from Steve. “I’m Bucky,” he says, holding out his hand. Steve takes his hand and shakes it. His palm is so large, his fingers thick, his grip solid. Bucky has to swallow as he imagines those hands holding him down, those fingers opening him up. “Um …”
“What are you working on?” Steve asks.
“Ahm, what?”
He nods at Bucky’s open laptop. “Saw you typing up a storm when I walked in. What’re you writing?”
Bucky doesn’t even think about it, he just blurts, “Porn.”
To the side and out of Steve’s sight, Clint scowls from overtop of the bookcases and signs, 🤏🏼"Really?" Bucky ignores him.
Steve’s mouth is opening and closing like a fish. “I ... well that’s, um, something. … Porn?” his voice is squeaky there at the very end, and Bucky wonders if the poor guy has never watched porn.
Hm, a porn virgin. Is that a thing that even exists? Again, Bucky thinks that he wants to wreck him. “Yeah. You know, like fanfiction and stuff?"
"Oh. Um. I think I've heard of that," Steve says, trying to be conversational (God bless him). "Like where you keep the storyline of a movie going, right?"
Bucky snorts. "But with way more fucking thrown in." He shrugs happily. "It's all filth. Guess I should be working on coursework, but, oh well. I'm a grad A procrastinator."
“Oh,” Steve says, apparently not knowing what else to say. Poor guy. Bucky should save him keep teasing him and see how far the blush can go.
“You’re cute," he says.
“Oh. ... Thanks. Why?”
🤏🏼"You are so fucking weird," Clint is signing with emphasis from overtop of the bookshelves.
Bucky snaps his laptop closed. “So, Professor. What can I help you with?” (Besides sucking your cock)
“Oh! I ah, I’m looking for a book.” Steve pulls out his phone and reads off the title and author. He gives a brief description of the book and tells Bucky that he's been looking forward to its release.
It's non-fiction, and Bucky raises an eyebrow. “Reading non-fiction for fun?” he says. “Like, that’s your hobby? Do people even do that anymore?”
Steve coughs, flustered. “Well, I’m not the best at writing porn, so …” he shrugs. “Yeah.”
Bucky smiles widely at Steve’s joke. “Touché, Professor.”
Steve smiles. “You can call me Steve.”
Or Daddy, Bucky thinks. Maybe Sir? He nods. “Okay. Steve.” He moves over to the store’s desktop computer and starts typing in the title and author. “Let’s see if we have that book for you.”
The second that Steve’s out the door, Clint’s over at the desk and telling Bucky he’s a regular weirdo. 🤏🏼"That’s not how normal people initiate a conversation, dude."
Bucky laughs, unconcerned. 🤏🏼"I think he was into it."
Bucky’s eyes widen. Oh no, he hopes not. 🤏🏼"No way," he says. "He meets three of the four gay bench marks."
🤏🏼"Which are?"
He holds his fingers up one by one as he lists: 🤏🏼"Well-dressed, well-groomed, crazy-fit body, gay voice,"
Clint raises an eyebrow. 🤏🏼"Gay voice?"
🤏🏼"I said three out of four."
Clint doesn’t look convinced. 🤏🏼"Whatever," he says. "I bet you he’s straight, and I guarantee he’s not into weird panty shit like you are."
Bucky cackles. 🤏🏼"She told you?!"
The next thing of note happens on a Friday evening.
Bucky meets up with Nat and Clint after his 8:00 pm conversation lab is over. The three of them like to hang out at a place called Luke’s, since it’s a little further from campus and never gets too bogged down with the usual college crowd. It’s a small, hole-in-the-wall sort of place, and they’ve made it their end of the week tradition to grab a drink (or two or six) there and plan something fun for the weekend.
Bucky’s the last to arrive, sliding into their usual booth and sighing at the near-Pavlovian response that comes from being there with Natasha and Clint. The muscles in his neck and back unwind, the tension of a week of classes and studying for exams slipping away with the first sip of beer that meets his lips. It’s the weekend.
He spends the next ten minutes drinking beer and complaining about the incompetent loser that he’s been paired with for Conversational Sign 202. 🤏🏼"I mean it! I think he genuinely doesn’t like me because I’m better looking than he is. Pretty privilege is real, you know!"
Natasha snorts into her beer, and Clint asks, 🤏🏼"Why do you even take that class? You sign with us every day."
🤏🏼"Yeah but our conversations don’t extend very far past the mundane," Bucky points out. "Like sports, or movies, or—"
“Jerking off to Steve’s fine ass?” Natasha says, smirking against the lip of her glass.
Clint of course can’t hear her, so he scowls. “I’m right here,” he says—aloud, to make his point, since his speaking voice isn't the clearest and they all know he hates using it when he doesn't have to.
🤏🏼"She’s making fun of me about Steve," Bucky tells him, pretending to be peeved with a dramatic eyeroll. "It’s a perfectly normal crush."
🤏🏼"Bucky, you wax poetic about the man’s clothing."
🤏🏼"Um, yeah because it's adorable," he insists. "In a dorky way." He smiles dreamily into space. 🤏🏼"I saw him outside the student union building the other day. He didn’t have an interpreter with him and he was trying to talk to a couple of the other professors and like, failing so hard. He was so helpless, like some newly-hatched, sign-language duckling." He imitates the stumbling, stilted sign that Steve had managed to put together.
Clint snickers and concedes, 🤏🏼"Okay, that is kinda cute, but—"
🤏🏼"I know, right?! Sweet little helpless, sweater-vest-wearing, p-i-l-f."
🤏🏼"What's p-i- —"
🤏🏼"Professor I'd like to fuck."
“Oh my god. The two of you, together.” Natasha points at Bucky. “You may not turn my boyfriend gay.”
🤏🏼"You can’t tell me he isn’t the hottest man on campus."
🤏🏼"Sure he is. But you don’t have to convince Clint of it. You, sir, are a little obsessed."
Clint snorts. 🤏🏼"A little? This is all he can talk about." He looks at Bucky. "You need a hobby, dude."
🤏🏼"I have a hobby."
🤏🏼"Masturbating to Steve at all hours of the day is not a hobby."
Bucky sniffs, not at all embarrassed. He does his due diligence; shuts his bedroom door, puts the tv on or plays some music whenever he gets down to it. And one out of two of his roommates is deaf. If Clint still knows about his jerk-off habits, it’s not due to any negligence on Bucky’s part. 🤏🏼"Excuse me if I now get extra horny on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons," he says. "It’s like clockwork for a reason." Those are the days he’s got his two o’clock ancient art history lecture with Natasha. And that class—spent doing nothing but watching Steve talk enthusiastically about French cave paintings and other ancient shit—has basically become an hour and a half-long foreplay session for Bucky to dream up new sexual fantasies before he can hightail it home and jerk off. 🤏🏼"He’s just so, ugh. You know? And tall and blond and, god, he fills out those oxford shirts so well."
🤏🏼"Tell us something we don’t know."
Bucky smirks. 🤏🏼"Well ... I can’t stop thinking about what it’d be like to get beard burn between my legs."
“Ugh.” Clint makes a face and picks up his glass for a long pull of beer. When he’s set it down he tells them, 🤏🏼"Changed my mind. You don’t have to sign for my sake."
Bucky and Natasha laugh at him and change the topic to brainstorming about what they’ll do for fun tomorrow. As long as nobody’s working or studying, Saturdays are when they band together and go out to explore D.C (a city none of them had been to, before college). Clint begins trying to talk Bucky into seeing the national monuments. 🤏🏼"You always say no to my ideas! Come on it’ll be fun. You can do a tour on segues now, segues!"
🤏🏼"Riiight," Natasha says, dragging her sign out into a drawl. "Because that wouldn’t make us look like huge, dorky tourists."
🤏🏼"I don't care about looking dorky," Bucky says, "but it was fifteen freaking degrees out today. They’re even calling for snow on Monday. We can't segue around the city, we'll freeze." (His dick'll fall off and then what use will he be to Steve?)
Natasha twists around towards the bar and signals for Luke—the guy who owns the place. He's the strong but silent type, doesn’t talk much, handles the bar’s security himself, and Nat’s the only one of the three of them who’s brave enough to order him around. She asks him to send them over another round of drinks, and gets a cool nod of acknowledgement in return.
🤏🏼"So," she says when she turns back around in her seat. "Assuming that monuments—and masturbating, Bucky—are off the table, what are we doing tomorrow?"
🤏🏼"We’ve both got opening shift at Books 'n' Beans on Sunday," Clint points out, still grumpy from having his idea for segues shot down. "So whatever it is we do, it can’t run too late."
🤏🏼"Well what am I working with here, Cinderella?"
🤏🏼"Like … midnight?"
Natasha rolls her eyes. "How apropos."
"Eh, home by eleven," Bucky says. He’s not a pretty creature in the morning. Less so, if he hasn’t had a full night’s sleep.
Luke drops off their next round, and Bucky grabs one and glances back towards the front door when it jingles and another cluster of people walk in. They’re laughing, talking and shaking the cold off of themselves. They start taking their coats off, and one of them points out a free table and everyone nods and heads that way. Bucky’s eyes catch on one of the men in the group.
Steve.
Natasha’s in the middle of trying to get Clint on board to go see some sort of avant-garde ballet performance or something. Whatever, Bucky doesn’t care. 🤏🏼"Guys!" he hisses—figuratively hisses, (obviously). He thumps his hands on the table to get their attention. "He’s here!"
🤏🏼"Who’s here?"
My future husband 🤏🏼"Steve," he says. Clint looks over towards the front of the bar and his eyes settle, ostensibly having found Steve and his group. Bucky has to physically fight the urge to twist around in his seat and stare. 🤏🏼"Can you see him? What’s he doing? Who’s he with?"
“Jeez,” Natasha says. “Calm down.”
🤏🏼"He’s with three guys, two girls. I don’t recognize any of them. They’re all like, adults."
Bucky scowls. 🤏🏼"We’re adults."
🤏🏼"Barely, and you only on a technicality," Natasha tells him. "He’s older than you."
🤏🏼"Older’s hot. I’m into older."
🤏🏼"And smarter, and definitely like, cultured and stuff," Clint chimes in. "He’s a tenured professor, for Christ’s sake. That means grad school and like, years of teaching. He has to be at least thirty-five."
🤏🏼"I’m into thirty-five."
🤏🏼"You’re into everything, and he’s out of your league."
Bucky pouts. 🤏🏼"Okay I get it, jeez. He’s in another echelon."
🤏🏼"Like, Mount Olympus," Clint confirms.
Huh. In his head, Bucky pictures the pantheon of Greek gods and goddesses. Steve in a toga. Yum. 🤏🏼"But Zeus and Venus and all those Greek—"
Nat shakes her head. 🤏🏼"Venus is from the Roman—"
🤏🏼"Even they came down to the mortal realm sometimes, didn’t they? To like, interact with people, have a little fun, get a little rapey?"
🤏🏼"Rapey?"
Bucky grins dirtily, and Clint screws up his face.🤏🏼"Ew dude, we do not need to know about any more of your freak-ass weird fetishes."
🤏🏼"Hey! Consentual non-consent is more popular than you'd think!" Bucky snickers. "Don’t be so theatrical."
🤏🏼"Theatrical? You have literally almost suffocated yourself in the process of trying to get off!"
🤏🏼"You act like I’ve put you through so much." (That one time he’d had to call Clint in to extricate him from a self-bondage snafu). "I’m just adventurous. That's all."
🤏🏼"Understatement of the year." Clint grabs his beer back up and his phone vibrates where he’s set it on the table. He reads the text he’s gotten, leaving Bucky free to stare at the group of newcomers Steve without criticism.
He watches wistfully as Steve gets up with three of the people from his group and they head over to the bar’s pool table to start a game. It’s Steve, a blonde chick, a black guy, and a guy with curly dark hair that’s graying at the temples, glasses hooked over the edge of his sweater vest. Hm, Bucky thinks. Maybe they’re all professors? The other people all look closer to Steve's age than Bucky's. He tries to think if he’s ever seen any of them besides Steve on campus …
The black guy puts a quarter in the table to get the balls rolling out, and they pair off into teams. Apparently it’s the two guys against Steve and the blonde girl. He hands a cue to her, smiling as he does. She takes it with a saucy wink, and Bucky swallows thickly as Steve moves in close and does the classic straight man move of crowding up behind her and putting his arms around her to show her how to line up a shot. Bucky scoffs, thinking that if she can’t shoot pool then she’s definitely not worth Steve’s time (a completely-made up criteria, seeing as how Bucky himself has no clue how to play). He’s about to look away, when he sees Steve whisper something in the girl’s ear, and she laughs and turns her head to peck a kiss to his cheek.
Bucky sighs, incredibly put out. “Well shit," he mutters. Nat hears him, but maybe she feels bad for giving him such a hard time already, because she doesn’t say anything. “... Maybe he’s bi?” Bucky says weakly.
“Dare to dream, Honey.”
Clint shoots them both a dirty glare. “Deaf guy here,” he says, indicating himself. 🤏🏼"Use. your. hands."
Bucky snorts. Oh, I plan to 🤏🏼"Sorry, buddy. We will."
That Sunday, Bucky gets home from his shift at the book store and drops his backpack in the hall with a happy sigh. He pushes the little button on the wall by the front door that makes a blue light flash in each of the townhome’s rooms. Natasha originally got the system with a red light for their exterior doorbell, but she added the interior blue button as well to preserve Clint’s sanity. Clint claims it's creepy as hell to just be sitting quietly in the living room and then have somebody walk by when he hadn’t known they were home in the first place. So yeah, the buttons are useful. (Bucky still likes to sneak up on Clint from time to time, just because he’s a shit.)
Nobody’s in the living room or the kitchen as he passes through, but Nat and Clint’s coats are thrown over the back of the couch, so Bucky figures they’re either hanging out in Clint’s room or hers. He hums and goes to grab something from the fridge. Cold Pizza? YES. He slaps two pieces on a plate and turns on his heel, enthused now that he’s got cheese, pepperoni, and his dick to fill up his afternoon. He’ll use the alone time to go to his room and jerk off, he decides with zero shame. It’s not like he doesn’t know exactly what Clint and Nat are probably definitely up to right now.
When Bucky gets to his room and shuts the door, he winces, as he can still kind of hear the faint sounds of his best friends fucking from the next room over. Bucky loves Clint and Nat dearly, he really does, but hearing them go at it is one of the few (very few) things that is not on his kink list. He sets his plate of pizza aside for later and pops in his earbuds.
He lies on his bed and leans back against the pillows, flicking through his music and relaxing into a nice headspace as he tries to pick what he wants to listen to. Hmm, he thinks. What’s good for a leisurely afternoon wank? ... Partition? (Naw, sorry Bey) Muse? Coldplay? Something by Portishead? Bucky’s got his finger poised over Glory Box—Live, when he catches the song at the very bottom of the screen: Nine Inch Nails—Closer.
Ooh, is he in that kind of mood? Bucky lets his eyes slip closed as he pictures the sound of the song and the kind of sex he’d have with Steve (because let’s be honest, he’s totally about to jerk off to Steve) if it were playing in the background. His lips quirk and he feels his cock twitch in his boxers. That'd be a ‘yes’, he decides, taking his body at its word and pushing play.
The heavy opening pulse of Closer starts, and Bucky unceremoniously shoves his pants and underwear down his thighs, kicking them off to land somewhere on the floor. He lets his head flop down into his pillow and sighs happily. This is gonna be good. He hasn’t jerked off in forever two days, so he needs this.
His dick is chubbing up nicely against his thigh by the time the lyrics start:
"You let me violate you -
You let me desecrate you -
You let me penetrate you -
You let me complicate you."
He lets his hand graze over his cock, bumping it with his knuckles as he brings his hand up to rub over his stomach. He rucks up his tee shirt, uses his left hand to touch his chest while the right slips back down to run over his pubic hair, over the crest of his groin. He smiles, lets his eyes slip closed, and just as Trent Reznor is slipping into the bridge, wraps his fingers around his cock and pulls.
“Oh,” he sighs, the barest of sounds escaping his lips. He works his fingers lightly, jacking himself off just at the tip to get fully hard. Then when he’s there, he swipes his thumb to spread the precum around, and it’s wet, and good, and suddenly the urge to just frantically rut up into his fist until he comes hits him like a freight train. He has to grit his teeth to fight off the urge to do so. He thinks of Steve, pictures the other man there with him, over him, fucking him. With the heavy, dirty beat of the song playing, it’s easy to picture it: the two of them naked and tangled together.
It’d be slow, gentle even, but not sweet. No. It’d be the furthest thing from sweet. Steve would push him to his knees, fuck his mouth to the beat of the song. Then he’d haul Bucky up onto the bed, press his face into the mattress and go to town eating his ass.
Bucky’s fingers clench as he thinks about it, his cock pulsing in his grasp. Slowly, he brings his hand down in a long, tight stroke. His lips part and his stomach tightens. He has to open his eyes so that he can look down at himself. The tip of his dick is full and flush now, shiny and pink and desperate-looking as he fists himself. Bucky whimpers. Oh.
Steve wouldn’t speed up, but he wouldn’t let up, either. Not even if Bucky begged. He’d just growl between Bucky’s legs and keep on licking and sucking, making him feel good, giving him fucking beard burn. Doing everything to the beat of that fucking song:
"I want to fuck you like an animal -
I want to feel you from the inside."
Steve would turn him over onto his back. He’d crawl up Bucky’s body like a predator, eyes dark and boring into him. Bucky would only be able to shiver and wait. Steve’s body on top of him, heavy and warm, would press him into the mattress. Maybe he’d kiss Bucky, deep and slow, while he rutted their cocks together.
Bucky’s toes curl as the pleasure in his gut suddenly heightens. He lets go of his cock to back off, not wanting come yet. He rubs over his stomach with his other hand, constantly touching the way that Steve would, almost soothing.
Oh, the dirty things Steve would whisper. Bucky can just hear it: his deep voice murmuring the words into his skin. Some of it would make sense, but some of it would just be filth that he thought up, just nonsensical, unplanned filth. Bucky imagines Steve’s big hands running through his hair, his fingers tightening into a firm hold and pulling Bucky’s head to the side so that he could get his mouth on his neck, whisper even more dirty things against his pulse point. "Gonna get in you," he’d say, just to hear Bucky whimper. "Want to feel your sweet body milking my dick."
And Steve would just slip right into him, wouldn’t he? Bucky thinks as he goes back to touching himself, hand jerking his cock more insistently now, the other rubbing over his inner thigh, behind his balls. Steve would draw back, eyes fixed on Bucky’s face and absolutely boring into him, dark and steady. "You need this, and I’m going to give it to you whether you want it or not," he'd say, then he’d push one of Bucky’s thighs up and get himself slicker, maybe with the lube from Bucky’s bedside drawer—he’d have it close by, Steve’s smart like that. He’d push more slick into Bucky’s hole, stretching him with two fingers, and then three, telling Bucky to "take it" in that low, commanding voice of his.
And when he pushed inside? God, it’d feel so good, so full, so overwhelming. Maybe Bucky would make a sound, crying out or even just a whimper. He’d wrap his legs around Steve, trying to draw him in further for more, more, more. But it’d be no use, because Steve would still be going at that maddening pace, following the song:
"Help me -
Tear down my reason -
Help me -
It's your sex I can smell -
Help me -
You make me perfect -
Help me become somebody else."
Bucky might try reach down, then, try to touch himself like he’s doing right now, to bring himself closer. But he thinks how Steve would growl and catch his wrist, pulling it up and pressing it into the pillow right by his head. "Don’t you fucking cum," he’d say, eyes so dark and serious, almost angry. But it wouldn’t be anger, this thing between them. Oh no. It’d be something so much better. A throbbing, animalistic urge, thick and hot and intimate between their slick bodies. Bucky would whimper, and Steve would reach with his other hand and use it to cover his mouth.
No, Bucky thinks, scrapping that idea, because Steve would want to hear all the desperate, plaintive sounds he’d make. So not his mouth, but his neck. Oh yeah, his neck. Bucky grunts as he thinks of it, dick throbbing in his hand and blurting out precum. Steve’s hand would be so big, wrapped around his throat, so warm and heavy and giving just the shadow of a threat. He’d stick his face right into Bucky’s, their lips a hair’s breadth apart, and he’d say, "You cum when I say you can, not before."
Oh. Bucky has to close his eyes again as he fists himself faster, hand popping roughly off the head of his dick with every pull. The coil of pleasure in his belly is tightening, his hips thrusting up into it without thought, now.
Steve would finally, finally go faster, his hips pumping into Bucky in firm, deep thrusts, balls slapping his ass. By now he’d be close, too, just barely losing some of that fierce control. He’d be panting, breath heavy and louder. Maybe he’d grunt, growl, thrust harder. That alone would get Bucky closer, his body coiling tight in preparation.
He squeezes tighter, twisting his hand on the upstroke now and rubbing the sensitive frenulum. He’s doing everything he can to reach his peak and denying himself nothing. He trembles and looses a moan, long and low.
Steve would like that, he thinks. He’d moan in tandem, fucking Bucky harder, rougher. If he had enough knowledge of Bucky’s body—and he would, because they’d do this all the fucking time—he’d know just how to pull back, grab Bucky under his knee and push his leg up; angle his cock so it’d rub Bucky’s prostate just right on every thrust. "Yeah," he’d encourage darkly, as Bucky got closer and closer. "That’s how you need it, isn’t it? You getting close, Boy?"
Fuck. 'Boy'—with a capital B. Yaas. Bucky digs his skull back into his pillow. On his dick, his hand could not be moving faster.
He’d definitely cry out some sort of sound to let Steve know how desperate he was, by this point. He’d twist and whine, maybe with tears gathering at the edges of his eyes, wanting it so bad by now. Steve would still be panting, giving it to him so steady and good, their skin slapping hard, solid, on every thrust. He’d be completely out of time with the song by now, faster than the beat but still fucking him like an animal.
Oh, he’s so close. So close …
Steve would give him permission to come, but he’d slap Bucky’s hand away when he reached for himself, growl at him to just "Come on my dick," and Bucky would thrash and wail and—and—
"I want to fuck you like an animal -
My whole existence is flawed -
You get me closer to god!"
He clenches, seizing up as he comes hard. White flashes behind his eyelids and he moans gutturally, the wet spurt of his cum hitting him on his chest, his belly, over his fist. He stops stroking and squeezes the head in firm pulses as he comes, and comes, and pretends that it’s Steve who’s made him do it.
“Fuuck,” he breathes, as his body goes boneless all at once, head falling back into the pillow. He relaxes his hold on his dick and presses it gently against his stomach, petting it.
Jesus. He really needs to make this thing with Steve happen.
The song loops back around and plays on repeat. Once, twice, three times before Bucky’s calmed down and stopped twitching, his breathing evened out. With one last, heavy sigh, he flings his hand outwards in the sheets to find his phone. The beat shuts off with a flick of his finger and he tosses it somewhere in the direction of the footboard. “Christ on a stick,” he huffs, then laughs, giddy and so, so relaxed. That had been beyond good. He should try holding off for two days more often, if that’s the kind of intense orgasm that he’d get from it.
He lets himself lie there for a minute, lazy and sort of listening to try and figure out if Clint and Nat are still going at it. He doesn’t hear anything, so if they are, they’ve quieted down. Satisfied by that, he sits up and goes to wipe himself off and fish a pair of pajama pants from his dresser. It’s a lazy Sunday afternoon. He’s jerked off (spectacularly so, thank you very much), now it’s time to eat some pizza and get some work done.
He parks himself at his desk, opens his laptop, and proceeds to open a new Word document. His fingers linger over the keyboard for a long, long minute as he faces the temptation of a sudden, terribly enticing bit of filth he could add to the plot of his latest fic. Ooh, he thinks. That would be so good!
His eyes dart guiltily over to where his ASL in American Culture textbook sits, reminding him of the reflection piece he’s supposed to be writing for next Wednesday …
Whatever, he resolves. It's still Sunday. He's got plenty of time left to work on it later. With that, he picks up a slice of the pizza, takes a huge bite, and sets into typing a new and shameless Mary Sue, casting Dean as a thinly-veiled version of himself, and Castiel as a slightly-more obvious version of Steve.
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Tags: heavy kink, bdsm, sexual exploration, teacher/student, age gap, all the sex you can imagine, Dom/sub, top Steve.
Summary: Bucky's in his last semester of undergrad and fucking the occasional fling every other guy in sight, when he meets Steve Rogers: a super hot professor who is definitely straight and vanilla as fuck. Wrong.
A.N. this story features ASL. Any signed dialog will be formatted like so: 🤏🏼"Bucky Barnes is a gigantic manwhore."
1. Panties
Bucky walks into the lecture hall with Natasha. It’s one of the classrooms in the fine arts building, so as an ASL Interpretation major, he's never been there. He trails behind Nat and seats himself next to her. 🤏🏼"Thanks for lining this up for me," he signs to her.
She shrugs and says out loud, “No problem.”
Natasha’s fluent in sign but she’s not deaf. She only attends Gallaudet because her boyfriend Clint does. Bucky could just speak to her, but he’s made a resolution to sign whenever possible in order to increase his fluency. That’s why he’s sitting in on Natasha’s Art History class, too. He needs to work on expanding his practical vocabulary in relation to the arts. So Natasha has arranged for him to audit her class. The professor is hearing and sign-illiterate, so this is one of the few classes on campus that has to have an interpreter—which is the type of work that Bucky plans to do once he earns his degree. So the plan is that he’ll attend classes with Nat and sit and watch the class interpreter to learn.
("Plan" being the key word, because that's not what winds up happening.)
Bucky gets a little bit completely distracted when the professor walks in. “Oh my god,” he says aloud before he can stop himself. The guy who’s just walked in is hot like burning. He’s tall and broad and so built that it shows right through his sweater vest and khakis. He’s got a beard, and Bucky's mind instantly zeros in on the word "Daddy." Well hello, Professor, he thinks, eyes still glued to the guy. “Nat,” he hisses, and she looks over at him.
🤏🏼"What?"
🤏🏼"That’s the teacher?"
She gives him a weird look. 🤏🏼"Duh," she says. 🤏🏼"Why are we signing?"
🤏🏼"Because he’s hearing and can’t sign, and I’m going to have some very inappropriate things to say about him!"
Natasha rolls her eyes and looks forward at the teacher. 🤏🏼"His name’s Steve," she tells him, because she’s smart enough to know that that’ll be Bucky’s next question. 🤏🏼"Professor Rogers, to you," she emphasizes. 🤏🏼"And no, you cannot have sex with him."
“I beg to differ,” Bucky says.
“Pretty sure there are ethical rules against that,” Natasha murmurs under her breath, because the guy (Steve, Bucky thinks dreamily. He looks like a Steve) is stepping up to the podium to begin the class. The class interpreter is poised just to the side, ready to begin as well.
“Rules, not laws though, right?” Bucky checks, in a near-whisper.
Natasha purses her lips and doesn’t reply, and Bucky spends the rest of the class oogling Professor Steve Rogers and fantasizing about all the dirty things he’d like to do to him. Given that Bucky’s got a kink list about a mile long, it’s not exactly a surprise that by the end of the lecture he’s learned very little new art history-related sign. He has, however, formed a very solid new crush.
The problem with Bucky’s crushes (at least according to Clint and Natasha) is that they tend to linger dominate his every waking thought until he fucks them.
Bucky reaches out and snags a pair of lacy green boyshorts. “What about these?” he asks.
Natasha looks over and makes a face. “No.”
“What?” 🤏🏼"Why not?" he signs once he’s put the panties back🤏🏼"They’ll look good with your hair."
“I only wear black.”
🤏🏼"You’ve got to branch out." Bucky walks over to one of the displays and examines a purple teddy. 🤏🏼"Like this—"
“Black. Only.”
He huffs and heads towards the next section of displays.
They’re at the mall, lingerie shopping for Natasha and Clint’s second anniversary. Natasha’s not the romantic type or the anniversary type, so Bucky knows it means that she really cares about Clint, that she’s bothering to go through the effort of buying special-occasion underwear. Bucky picks through some more of the panties, and even though he’s supposed to be looking for Natasha, he’s kind of looking for himself, too. He picks up a pair of silky white panties and examines them, wonders if they carry them in large ... extra large? He holds the panties up to his crotch and looks down assessingly.
“Um, what are you doing?”
His eyes slide over to Natasha. She’s standing with her hand on her hip, looking amused. Bucky grins. 🤏🏼"You think my junk would fit in these?" he asks.
The face Natasha makes is wonderful. “Depends on the junk,” she says. “You can try them on over your underwear, you know.”
Bucky glances back in the direction of the fitting rooms. 🤏🏼"That’ll get a look from the sales girl."
Natasha snorts and picks up a strappy black thong. “Since when do you care about people looking at you? You’re practically an exhibitionist.”
🤏🏼"Practically?"
She hums. “Exactly.” She picks up another black number to look at.
Making up his mind, Bucky finds a pair of the panties in large and heads off towards the fitting rooms. “Colors, Natasha!” he calls over his shoulder at her. “Live a little!”
The panties are going to be a thing, Bucky decides. They’re definitely getting added to The List.
He puts them on as soon as he gets back to the townhouse that he shares with Nat and Clint. In his room, he gets naked, slips them up his thighs, and arranges his balls and his semi-chubbed dick in the material. It’s a snug fit, but he likes that, likes the way the smooth silk feels against his skin. Bucky looks down at himself, feeling terribly perverted for what he’s doing. He grins.
Hmm, he thinks as he steps in front of the mirror that hangs over the back of his closet. What would Professor Rogers think of these? He reaches down and palms himself through the fabric, admiring the shape of his cock behind the thin material. The bulge is so obvious, pressing through the silk so clearly that he can see the outline of the head. It’s obscene. Sexy as fuck, Bucky thinks. He’s getting hard just looking at himself in the mirror. “Look at you,” he murmurs, voice low as he imagines Steve Rogers standing right behind him, holding Bucky back against his body and whispering in his ear: "Look at you, baby boy" (Steve would totally call him that) "You’re so pretty in your panties. Do you like the way that feels? Hm? Your sweet little cock looks so good all trussed up, so slutty for me."
Bucky groans, wrapping his fingers around his cock from over the underwear and rubbing himself slowly. The fantasy of Steve whispering filthy things to him isn’t new, but this tiny edge of humiliation, of feminization, is. It makes Bucky’s face warm, his body heating in arousal that much more. It’s hot. Looking at himself in the mirror, he whimpers and breathes, “Fuck, Steve.”
He abandons the mirror for his bed, lies down and starts to peel the panties off, planning to jerk off like he always does. But then he gets a wicked idea, pauses, and decides that, yeah, he’ll give himself a different type of orgasm today, work a little harder for it. He gets his Bad Dragon™️ dildo out and squirts some lube onto it. It’s freakishly-shaped, pink and yellow, and it basically looks like, well, like an uncut alien dick. It'd been a gag gift that he'd secretly kept, and Bucky loves it (alien rape fantasies are totally a thing that should be more socially acceptable).
Slicked up, he pulls his panties down in the back and presses the toy against himself. He goes slowly, just teasing his rim for a long time, pressing a little more and a little more, working himself open until his body is relaxed enough to accept it and the head of the toy slips in. He grunts, loving the feeling of that first second of penetration. He imagines having that with Steve, wonders what Steve's cock looks like. Is he circumcised? Big? Fat? Does he shave his balls? Bucky presses the toy in harder, gets it seated a little more, slow, until finally it's all the way in.
What would Steve think? he wonders, as he pulls the panties back up over the toy and grabs one of his pillows and shoves it between his legs. What would he think if he just walked right in the room and found Bucky like this? Trussed up in panties, hard and leaking against the silk, cockhead peeking out over the waistband?
His face burns and he presses the pillow against his crotch, grinds down against it. The pressure pushes the dildo inside of him, like a thrust. He imagines Steve standing there in the middle of the room, shocked but maybe also lust-stricken. He imagines what the guy would look like, frozen on the spot in his khakis and his stupid sweater vest, boner tenting his pants and eyes dark with arousal. God, it’s a pretty image. Bucky humps the pillow and reaches up to pinch one of his nipples. He’d do that, too, he thinks. He’d look Steve straight in the eye and fucking pinch and tease his nipples. He’d moan for him, make pretty sounds to show Steve how slutty he is, how good he feels from touching himself.
“Daddy,” he says aloud, just because he wants to hear the sound of it. He’d say that to Steve. He’d call him Daddy and tell him all about what he was doing: "Got a big alien dick in my ass Daddy. It’s weird and wrong but it feels so good, rubs me just right inside. I’m so hard in my panties but I’m not touching my cock yet. Just want to hump my pillow and come on a dick, like a girl. Want you to watch."
He moans, breath escaping him in a huff as he works the pillow harder between his legs. Oh, he’s got a good rhythm going, he can feel the pleasure coiling low in his belly already. “Fuck,” he whimpers, feeling the thick cock moving in him, its unnatural shape pressing wonderfully against his prostate. Would Steve let him come like this? he wonders. Or would he make him stop right when he gets close? Take away the pillow and pull the fake cock out of his ass, replace it with his own.
Bucky groans as he imagines it: Steve inside him, fucking him, not even asking before he does it, because he knows Bucky’s just a little slut who always wants it. Bucky humps the pillow harder, frantically climbing towards his orgasm. Oh, he’s close, he’s close. It’s all he can think of and he squeezes his eyes shut, rocking down and rubbing the cock over his prostate, again and again, so perfect. He’s gonna shoot all over his panties, fuck yeah, gonna ruin them in a sticky wet mess.
And then he imagines Steve calling him a "Good Boy" and sinking down to lick it all up, and he comes—hard.
Story Masterlist
Masterlist
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Tags: period au, Edwardian era, a/b/o, m/m, anal sex, oral sex, spanking, corporal punishment, domestic discipline, plural marriage
Summary: As Headship to their marriage, it's Steve's responsibility to keep both of his Spouses in line. But like usual, it's Bucky who's gotten in trouble and needs a firmer hand.
Bucky returns to the bench at the edge of the boardwalk where Nora is sitting, waiting for him. He doesn’t fail to notice the way that she rips her gaze away from the beach like she’s been caught looking at something she shouldn’t. That makes him frown a little.
“Thanks,” she says with a smile as he hands her one of the hotdogs and sits down next to her. “I’m starving.”
They sit there on the bench together in companionable silence, enjoying the ocean breeze and eating their lunch. When Nora starts staring off at all of the people who crowd the beach again, Bucky sighs and says, “You could have brought your bathing dress. I told you I wouldn’t mind if you wanted to go in.”
Nora bites her lip longingly as she continues to stare at the bathers on the beach for another moment, but then she tears her gaze away. She smiles at him, shaking her head. She reminds herself that she has no right to feel so forlorn about something as stupid as the beach. It’d been her choice to marry up. “No,” she says to Bucky, smiling so it doesn’t seem like she’s upset about it. “It’d be indecent.”
“Plenty of other women on that beach.”
Nora gives him a look. “None in society.”
Bucky sobers at that, looking at Nora almost apologetically. His wife didn’t used to have to worry about the propriety of so many things. Now that she’s his and Steve’s omega, part of the House Rogers, she has the status and privilege that’s granted to very few, but there are also many more restrictions on her life. Steve’s been gone for over a week on business, but Bucky knows his Headship wouldn’t mind. He says so, pointing out, “Steve wouldn’t care. And there aren’t any reporters around. I’ll grab you a new bathing dress from one of the shops.”
“A waste of money.”
Bucky snorts, because they’re rich as can be. Nora’s the only one in their marriage who ever stops to even think about what anything might cost. Bucky admires her for it. She keeps Steve and him humble, in certain ways. “I’m sure Steve wouldn’t mind,” he says again. “If you really wanted to—”
“Of course he wouldn’t. That’s just the way he is. But he’s already dealt with enough gossip, marrying me. And you have too.” Nora places her hand atop her stomach, idly touching what the smooth lines of her day gown cover up. “And in my condition?” She scoffs a laugh. “Yeah, I don’t think so. Our House doesn’t need one more scandal, which we would have if anyone of note spotted, or god-forbid photographed the Rogers omega frolicking on a public beach.”
Bucky makes a soft sound of protest, even though she’s right. Nora shuts him up by pointing her finger back towards the food vendor. “Now hurry up and get me another. Your unborn spawn is making me very hungry.”
Bucky snorts, but he does get up to go and buy her another hotdog.
Later, when the sun is halfway through setting and the lights of all the boardwalk attractions have come to life, they get ice cream from a stall and stand together by the boardwalk’s edge to eat it. Nora has chosen chocolate—her favorite flavor, but Bucky has always been partial to mint and he finishes his dish a few minutes before his wife does. Once she’s scooped up the very last bit and Bucky throws the trash away, he returns to find her with a smudge of chocolate ice cream on her lower lip and chin. He grins at her, growling playfully and pulling her into his arms. “You don’t fool me for a second, Mrs. Rogers,” he tells her, and she’s smiling too because she knows exactly what she’s doing.
“So?” she asks. “You going to lick it away?”
Bucky hums and leans closer, licking lightly along her bottom lip. She parts her mouth with a soft little sound which makes Bucky smile. He licks the taste of chocolate from her mouth and dips to get it off of where it’s smudged on her chin as well. When he’s done, the taste of chocolate fresh in his mouth, he kisses her for real, sealing their lips and licking into her mouth brazenly enough to make her moan. She giggles and pushes him back. “Bucky!” she chides, though it hardly counts since she’s laughing at the same time. “You’re so inappropriate, kissing me like that in public.”
Bucky just releases her and grins. “You asked for it,” he says. He takes her hand and they start to walk down the boardwalk towards where their driver is waiting with the motor carriage. It’ll be time to get home soon. Bucky’s already imagining getting her into bed and all the wicked things he might do to her, but then Nora squeezes his hand and does a little hop in excitement. She points to where the newly-built roller coaster sits in the near distance.
“Oh Bucky look! The Cyclone.”
Bucky does, indeed, take a look at the thing. It’s large and impressive. The newspapers had written about its grand opening weeks before, but this is the first chance he’s had to see it up close. He nods his head. “It’s impressive,” he says. “Looks real neat.”
“Oh can we please go on it?” Nora asks, nearly whining as she pulls on Bucky’s hand. “I’ve never been on a roller coaster and it looks soo fun!”
She keeps pulling but Bucky holds her fast with his metal fingers. “Hang on, Doll,” he says. “I’m not too sure about the rides.”
Nora’s excitement quickly turns to a pout. “Oh poo! Why not?”
“You’re in delicate condition, Sweetheart. The exertion might not be good for you.”
Nora rolls her eyes as if that’s the most ridiculous thing and she thinks he’s being entirely unreasonable. “It’s just a ride,” she argues. “And my constitution’s been so much better this time around than it was with Gabe.”
Bucky twists his lips. “I dunno,” he says.
“Come on Bucky,” she complains, and her sad expression actually does sway him a bit. And then she goes and says, “There’s so much I don’t get to do anymore. Can’t dress casual, can’t act in the theater, can’t go to the beach and swim in the ocean…”
Bucky winces. His wife had loved her career as a stage actress, back before she’d gotten involved with him and Steve. “Steve might not—”
“Oh don’t you start being all overprotective like him too,” Nora says, poking Bucky in the chest. Her stern face turns into a smug grin. “Besides, Steve’s not here, is he?”
“Well…”
She pulls away, managing to escape Bucky’s grasp and quickly skipping off towards one of the ticket booths. “What Steve doesn’t know won’t hurt him!” she sing-songs back to him.
Bucky sighs in exasperation as he watches his wife pull coins from her purse to purchase them both tickets for the ride. He starts after her with a smirk. His willful omega.
“Oh,” Nora laments miserably, pressing her face into Bucky’s shoulder. “Why did you ever let me do that?!”
Bucky huffs and wraps his arm tighter about her middle, supporting most of her slight weight as they walk along, away from the Cyclone that she’d just had to go on. Bucky himself had quite enjoyed it, but surprise surprise, Nora had gotten sick. She’d tossed her cookies the second they stepped off. “I told you,” he says, making sure to keep his tone light, because even in a nauseated state, he wouldn’t put it past Nora to expend the effort of smacking him. “It was too much. Now you’ll feel ill all evening.” He selfishly thinks about how he won’t get to have his way with her like he’d been looking forward to. And with Steve gone on business still, well. Bucky resigns himself to the fact that it’ll be him and his right hand, tonight.
“Mm,” Nora says, still looking a little green around the gills. “It was worth it.”
It wasn’t, but Bucky just keeps his mouth shut and guides her to the car. Jarvis is waiting there for them and he hurries to open the carriage’s door so that they can climb in. “Straight home, Sir?” he asks
Bucky helps Nora into the car and nods as he himself gets in. “Yes,” he says. “Right home.”
The ride home doesn’t take too long at all, thank goodness. Soon Jarvis is pulling up along the curb just outside the front steps of their brownstone and Bucky is able to help Nora down from the car and inside the house. She sighs in relief when the front doors close and they’re officially back home. It’s later now and the servants have turned all the house’s gas lamps on, illuminating the walls with a soft glow. Bucky kisses the top of Nora’s head soothingly, whispering that they’ll get her up to bed. It’s as he’s doing that, that he catches sight of the travel cases sitting by the bottom of the foyer stairs. His lips curl up. “Look Doll,” he says, indicating them to her. “He’s back early.”
Nora sees this and she makes a soft noise that Bucky knows means she’s pleased. She manages a queasy smile and wonders aloud, “Where is he now?”
Bucky hears quiet chatter coming from the front parlor, though the doors are currently closed. “In here,” he says, guiding her over and sliding one of the doors into the wall, revealing the room. Steve is still dressed professionally, seated on one of the couches and having what looks like a finger of brandy. On the opposing couch sits a man whom Bucky knows is one of the higher-level judges in the city. Steve is a Senator, so they must be discussing business over drinks, Bucky figures. “Sorry,” he says softly with a smile for his husband. “Didn’t know we had a guest. We just got home and wanted to say hello.”
Steve smiles brightly at the sight of them, but some of that brightness fades when he notices the condition that Nora is in. “Nor?” he says, sounding concerned. “What’s wrong?”
Bucky grimaces. “She’s not feeling well.”
“Went on the Cyclone,” Nora mutters, still leaning on Bucky and sounding very regretful. “Shouldn’t have. Ugh.”
Bucky pets her back in sympathy. He has no idea that Steve is going to be mad at him until he looks up and catches his husband’s eye. Steve is glaring. Bucky swallows. Oh, shit. “Excuse me for a moment,” Steve says to the judge, and sets his glass aside to stand and come towards them. He pulls Bucky out of the parlor, Nora following only by habit. Out in the foyer, Steve pushes Bucky up against the wall and gets in his face. “You let her ride on that thing?!” he hisses, and Bucky knows full-well that Steve would be yelling if the judge weren’t in the next room.
Bucky frowns. “She wanted to go on it. Wouldn’t take no for an answer.”
“It’s your job to give no for an answer,” Steve tells him furiously. “Especially when I’m not here.”
“…Steve,” Nora says, quiet and leaning over by the stairs’ banister. “I did ask.”
Steve spares her a look, and it’s much kinder and more tender. “It doesn’t matter Sweetheart. He shouldn’t have allowed it." Nora tips her head down and Steve looks back at Bucky. “Of all the irresponsible things—”
“Oh come on Steve!” Bucky snaps, much louder than he should, given the guest that’s in the next room. The one parlor door is still open. “It’s just a ride. It’s not that big of a deal. You’re overreacting!”
Steve glowers at him and his fingers dig in a little tighter where he’s gripping Bucky’s bicep. “Lower, your, voice,” he hisses. “That’s Judge Whittemore in there and you are speaking to your Headship.”
Bucky just feels incensed at that. They don’t usually act so formally in their marriage, not in private, but Bucky knows full-well he’s not supposed to be acting up like this in front of company, making Steve look like he can’t control his Household. The fact that he can smell Steve, can smell what he well-knows is the beginning scent of his rut cycle, doesn’t help. Bucky sneers and jerks away from his husband’s touch. “Why are you freaking out?” he says, continuing to be loud. “I didn’t do anything wrong. We’re fine!” He waves his hand at Nora, who is looking less ill now and instead just downright embarrassed. “She was way more sick when you knocked her up. Every damned day. This is one time. She’ll be fine by morning.”
This isn’t, apparently, the right thing to say. Steve physically moves Bucky from where he’s kept him by the wall and pushes him towards Nora. “She will,” he agrees darkly. “But the same won’t be said for you.”
Bucky gulps, realizing what that means. His trepidation only lasts for a second before it bleeds back into indignation, though. “Oh, you’re going take it out on me?” he asks; again, loudly.
Steve doesn’t answer that. Instead, he nods tightly at Nora. “Take her up to her room and help her get settled. Then go to my room and wait for me.” Bucky opens his mouth to say something else obnoxious, but Steve cuts him off, pointing at the stairs and saying, “Go.”
Bucky doesn’t dare disobey further. He turns to Nora and feels guilty of how small and embarrassed she looks at the situation. His features relax for her. “Come on, Doll,” he says softly, and takes her upstairs.
In Nora’s room, Bucky shuts the door with a quiet, ‘snick’, turning to face his wife with an apologetic expression. “I’m sorry,” he says.
Nora raises her eyebrow at him. “I’m not the one who’s about to get 'put in their place’.” She makes air quotes around the words that their alpha likes to use when he gets all Headshippy on them. She smirks at Bucky’s resultant scowl and turns around so that her back is facing him. “Help me out of this?” she asks.
Bucky sighs and moves up to do just that. His fingers make quick work of the buttons and laces of her gown and she shimmies out of it so that it puddles at her feet. She kicks it away and Bucky starts in on her corset, untying the knot and then tugging the laces to get them loose. “Grumpy old bastard,” he says as he’s working. “Overacting and getting mad. S’just cause he’s about to go into—”
“I wouldn’t say that to him if I were you,” Nora warns over her shoulder, cutting him off. “Not a good idea.”
Bucky grumbles but can’t really argue that. His fingers continue to work the laces of the corset until they’re loose enough for her to unclasp it at the front. She hands it back to him to put away. Bucky’s not a servant (they have those), but he likes this; taking care of his Omega in small ways. He considers the undergarment, not liking it now that he knows his wife is with child. He’s rolling it up and wrapping the laces around it to set it aside when he says, “Getting about time to give these up again, yeah?”
“Ugh, I suppose,” Nora grumbles. “Pretty soon it’ll be my confinement time and you two will have me cooped up in here every minute of the day, fat as a whale.” She’s in front of her dressing mirror, unpinning her hair as she says it, the length of it falling down her back in a mass of dark curls.
Bucky simply chuckles and walks up behind her, pulling her back against him and regarding them both in the mirror. She’s just in her thin undergarments now, and he palms her breasts through the soft lace of her camisole. “Mm, like that would be so bad,” he says, voice lower. He tips his face into her neck and kisses her right over her scent gland where Steve’s bond mark is. In the mirror, their eyes catch and he says, “I remember how it was before, when you were pregnant with Gabe.”
Nora blushes. “Bucky,”
“Naw, Doll, it was great. Loved having you that way. Your tummy all big and round. You were so needy. S’like you were in heat all the time with how horny you always were, how wet, how good you smelled." Nora groans. Her scent is actually picking up now, clearly aroused by Bucky’s talk. She pushes her bum back against him and Bucky smiles into the skin of her neck. “And god, your tits,” he says, still palming them. “They were so heavy and full at the end.” Nora whines something fierce at that, and just because he can, Bucky puts his lips right to her ear and whispers, “Remember when Steve and I sucked on ‘em at the same time and—”
“Bucky.”
It’s Steve’s voice, distant enough to tell that it’s coming from his room down the hall. Bucky stops talking abruptly and groans, letting his forehead thunk down against Nora’s shoulder. “Ugh,” he says.
Nora pulls away. “You’d better go,” she says. “And thanks for nothing, getting me all worked up like that. Now I’m turned-on and sick to boot. And I’ll have to be in here on my own, after all.”
It’s true, Bucky knows. They all have their own private rooms, even though most nights find all three of them together in Steve’s large bed. They’re a married triad, after all, and both Nora and Bucky prefer to sleep with their Alpha in his scent-soaked bed linens, Nora held snuggly in the middle. But not tonight. Tonight is one of the nights when Nora will need her own room. Because of what is about to transpire between her husbands.
Steve is standing in the bedroom by the tall dresser and the coat rack in the corner when Bucky enters. He’s removed his jacket and tie and is just finishing undoing the cufflinks on his dress shirt. He sets them on the dresser and fixes Bucky with a look that says he’s both angry and disappointed. The disappointed part is worse. Bucky hates that. He shuts the door and skulks into the room, feeling sheepish.
Steve crosses his arms, and he looks especially authoritarian now that he’s rolled his shirtsleeves up, strong forearms bared. “She’s sixteen weeks along, Bucky,” he says, which makes Bucky wince. “And it’s yours. We went to great lengths to make sure it happened that way. I abstained for five months so that you could have that.” Bucky frowns. As the alpha of their marriage, Steve has stronger seed. Bucky knows that. Doesn’t mean Steve has to rub his face in it. But Steve continues, “All that trouble and this is what you do? How you treat your pregnant wife and unborn pup?”
Bucky scowls at his husband’s words, insulted by the insinuation that he’s acted in an unfit way towards their wife. He loves and cares for her every bit as much as Steve does, goddammit. He tightens his lips and says nothing, just staring at the floor obstinately.
Steve doesn’t waver at his silence though. “What do you have to say for yourself?” he demands.
Bucky clenches his jaw. An embarrassed, waspish part of him wants to fight this, wants to fling out some sharp comment about how Steve has no right to act all high and mighty, that he shouldn’t be disciplining him now. That Steve’s only getting on his case because he’s near rut and “just thinking with his knot,” or something else nasty like that. But Bucky forces the impulse down. Just like Nora had warned him in her room, he knows that’s out of bounds. Whether it’s omegas’ heats or alphas’ ruts, going there during an argument is never a good idea, not in their marriage, not unless Bucky wants to get his head bitten off by one or both of his spouses. Bucky’s pressing his lips together so tightly that they’re starting to feel numb.
“I’m waiting,” Steve says, obviously peeved. “You’re only making it worse for yourself by not answering me.”
Bucky’s guts clench extra hard at the tone, because Steve is almost always kind, usually to a fault. And though he’s quite liberal in the way he runs his Household and treats his spouses, he’s never been one to take his duties as Headship lightly, including the use of discipline, when necessary. Needless to say, Bucky’s personality traits tend to earn him far more spankings than Nora’s do. He forces himself to meet Steve’s eyes as he says, “I’m sorry, Sir.” The ‘Sir’ is over the top, and he says it with a modicum of sarcasm. Bucky curses that choice as he sees Steve’s eyes darken further.
“Take off your clothes,” he says. “All of them.”
Bucky obeys, undressing. But when he gets down to just his drawers he pauses and considers whether he might be able to sway his husband with sex. Steve is near rut, after all. Bucky fights back a grin and straightens up. Hopeful that he can escape his punishment, he sidles up to Steve, giving him sweet eyes. Steve seems unimpressed but he does uncross his arms so that Bucky can step closer. Their chests press together and Steve’s arms come around to hold him; one at the nape of his neck and one at his lower back. He looks at Bucky, waiting for what he’ll do.
“Husband,” Bucky says, and he makes his voice low and sweet. He looks at Steve like he needs him and then he leans in for a kiss. When Steve allows it and opens his mouth to Bucky, even kissing back, Bucky thrills, sure that he’s won and that Steve will just forgive him and fuck him senseless instead. Bucky pushes harder into the kiss, licking against Steve’s tongue and grinding his hips forward. He goes to reach down to palm between Steve’s legs, but Steve catches his wrist, pointedly halting the motion. Steve’s hand at the back of his neck combs up into his hair and pulls him back a fraction—gentle but insistent. Bucky’s eyes shoot up and the instant he sees Steve’s face, he knows his attempt at seduction hasn’t worked. Steve’s eyes are calm, not lust-blown or eager. Just calm. Determined.
“Why are we doing this?” Steve asks, still holding Bucky close by his lower back, by the back of his head—softly, almost like he’d do if they really were about to make love. The sweetness somehow makes it worse.
Bucky frowns. “Because apparently you think I’m a terrible beta and father.”
“You know that’s not why. Buck?”
“I was irresponsible with our wife.”
Steve nods. His hands come down and find the waistband of Bucky’s underwear and pull, and Steve sinks down slowly with it as he pulls them all the way down Bucky’s legs. Bucky steps out of them without having to be told and Steve straightens back up. He turns away from Bucky, goes over to the bed and pulls down one of the pillows from the headboard, placing it just so at the edge of the mattress. He returns to Bucky and his firm hand between Bucky’s naked shoulder blades guides him to lean over the spot and settle in. Bucky’s dick and balls press into the pillow, soft and protected, and he turns his face to the side so that he can still see Steve standing there. It’s a comfortable-enough position, but it won’t be for long, he knows. Dread is curling terribly in his gut now. Fuck. For a second there he'd really thought he’d gotten out of this.
“And what else am I doing this for?” Steve asks.
It nearly pains Bucky to answer, “… Backtalk.” It’s an offense Steve would usually let go, but …
“That’s right. Backtalking your Headship is disrespectful in itself. But in front of guests? Let alone my business associates? That’s unacceptable.” He pauses, staring meaningfully at Bucky and Bucky staring back. “How many times do you think I should hit you?”
“With your hand?” Bucky asks, hopeful. But Steve just shakes his head.
“No.”
Bucky whines in distress. “Nora never gets the belt.”
“Please,” Steve scoffs, as if Bucky’s ridiculous for even putting forth the argument. “She’s with child. And even if she weren’t, you’re my Beta, not her. You’re made of tougher stuff than she is. You might have gotten my hand if all you’d done was let her on that deathtrap.”
“It’s a roller coaster, Steve. Dozens of people ride it every day. Just because you have the constitution of a seasick—ah!” He hisses as Steve pinches the back of his neck harshly. He’s looking at Bucky with something between wryness and disapproval.
“You always have to go and compound it, hm? Just don’t know when to shut up. Now, how many do you think you should get?”
Bucky bites his lip. “Fifty?”
Steve smirks, but it isn’t a nice smirk. “You think you’re so smart, huh?”
Bucky tucks his cheek further into the pillow. “Don’t know what you mean.”
“Yes you do. You think what? You’ll aim high and get rewarded for it?” Steve leans down to Bucky’s ear and whispers, “You can have fifty, since that’s what you asked for.” Bucky whimpers and that makes Steve chuckle. “No? Not such a tough guy after all, huh?”
“Steve …”
“Then beg me for thirty,” Steve says quietly, because he knows Bucky was hoping for far less. Thirty will be awful, but Steve says it again: “Beg me, Bucky.” And his Voice, goddammit. It makes Bucky flush so much worse.
“Please, Alpha …”
Steve has stood back up. Bucky can hear the sounds of him removing his belt—the whiff of it through the loops and the clink of the buckle as he folds it in hand. It makes Bucky tremble, hips shifting restlessly against the pillows. “Please what?” Steve asks, voice infuriatingly calm.
“… Please may I have thirty?”
Steve smiles and Bucky hates him for it. He shivers, sliding his clammy hands under the pillow to hold on, because he knows this is going to hurt. He’d acted up downstairs on purpose, and Steve knows it. He won’t go light on him, not for this. “Sweetheart,” Steve says. “You certainly may.”
Bucky has his eyes squeezed shut before the first hit even connects, and when it does he grits his teeth and digs his fingers into the pillow. It hurts, a lot, but he knows that it’ll get so much worse. He’s determined not to make a sound though. He doesn’t want to give Steve the satisfaction …
… Bucky cries out by the tenth stroke of Steve’s belt, unable to keep his sounds to just grunts and whimpers anymore. It hurts goddammit, and it’s not even halfway through yet. Behind him, Steve watches and waits for each time Bucky has to shift his feet back into place because he squirmed or moved out of instinct. With each smack of the belt Bucky tenses, making sounds that he’d be mortified of if he wasn’t so distracted, butt cheeks clenching hard from the flashes of pain.
By the eighteenth stroke Bucky wails and his hands are shooting back to cover his ass in desperation. He gasps in air and opens his eyes. Steve has stopped and is just looking at him calmly, eyebrows raised. “You have five seconds to move your hands or this gets finished with the cane,” he warns.
Bucky’s heart leaps. He glances over to the coat rack where Steve had hung his suit jacket and tie. That’s where the rattan cane always hangs—a menacing reminder to both of Steve’s spouses should they ever really fuck up. Nora’s never even come close to earning it. Bucky’s gotten it only once (very early-on in their marriage, before Nora. Back when he’d hated Steve’s guts and had been willing to do anything to piss him off). Bucky turns his eyes away from the cane. He never wants to experience that again. He whimpers but removes his hands from his ass and slides them back under the pillow, squeezing his eyes shut again.
“Good.” Steve says, sounding a little more kind since Bucky’s obeyed. He takes a moment to step up and run his hand over Bucky’s naked back. Bucky shivers. “Twelve more,” Steve says quietly. “Be good and it’ll be over soon, kay Baby?”
Bucky doesn’t say anything, just pushes his face back into the pillow and nods.
Steve starts back in.
Twelve more hits with the belt takes forever, and Bucky isn’t able to keep himself from crying and writhing and yelling out by the end, but he keeps his hands under the pillow, and eventually it stops. Bucky sobs, heaving in great gulps of air. He’s a mess, but it’s over. The next thing he knows, Steve is sitting on the bed next to him. When Bucky turns his head to the side Steve’s thigh is right next to his face. He blinks tear-filled eyes and continues to cry as Steve runs one of his hands through his hair.
“Shhh,” Steve soothes, reaching down to rub over Bucky’s scent gland to calm him. “Shh, Bucky. Breathe.” When Bucky just keeps crying and shivering, Steve bends and reaches for him, drawing him up to stand and pulling him into the vee of his legs. He runs his hands up and down Bucky’s ribcage, telling him, “Come on, Baby. Do it for me. Deep breath.”
Bucky shudders again but manages to sniffle and still himself enough to take in a deep breath.
“Hold it,” Steve commands, and Bucky does. He blinks down at Steve, his handsome Alpha whom he somehow just wants to crawl up against and be held by now, even though he’s just taken his belt to him. “Let it out,” Steve says, and Bucky exhales in a rush. A great deal of that terrible, overwhelmed feeling seems to leave his body along with his breath, and Bucky collapses forward into Steve’s arms when he holds them out for him.
“Steve,” he murmurs, voice still hoarse and wet from his crying. He rubs his nose against Steve’s neck, taking comfort in his alpha’s scent and his strong arms that are now wrapped around him. “Steve, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
“Shh,” Steve quiets him, petting up his back and into his hair, placing a kiss against his temple. “I know, Baby. I know. You’re good now. You took your punishment so well. M’proud of you.” He holds Bucky tightly for a long time, supporting Bucky’s boneless, still slightly-trembling frame. Bucky’s not exactly small, but Steve just holds him as long as he needs. Eventually, Bucky calms. He sniffs once more and pulls back from Steve. “Hey,” Steve says, tender, thumb wiping away a lingering tear.
“Hey,” Bucky says back. He gives a sad sort of smile. “M’sorry, Alpha.”
Steve shakes his head and kisses him, this time on the mouth. “No more apologizing,” he says. “It’s over.” Bucky nods his head, even though he still feels cowed. After a moment he grows self-conscious about how red and wrecked his face must look, and he tries to pull away and stand back up, intending to go and wash his face in the bathroom or something. But Steve stills him with strong hands. “Where do you think you’re going?” he asks, not unkindly.
Bucky just averts his eyes in embarrassment. “I’m a mess,” he says, gesturing weakly to his face. He sniffles through a sad smile. “Promised myself I wouldn’t cry.”
Steve rumbles in his chest and brings Bucky back into the fold of his arms. “You always do.”
“Because you’re terrible.”
Steve makes a quiet noise of agreement. “Wouldn’t be a punishment if I wasn’t, now would it?”
Bucky can’t disagree. He nods, cheeks flushing. “Yeah.”
“You learn your lesson?” Steve asks, though his tone is still gentle.
It doesn’t matter though, shame floods Bucky again when he remembers why he was being disciplined in the first place. He can’t make himself meet Steve’s eyes as he says, “It was stupid. I was weak. I let her talk me into it and I put her and the baby in danger. She got sick. Could’a lost the baby or…” he trails off, feeling like dirt. “M’gonna be a terrible father.”
Steve growls at that, in that way that only alphas really can. He forcibly lifts Bucky’s chin to make him meet his gaze. “That’s not true,” he tells him, voice firm. “Don’t think that. You’re going to be great. You were wonderful with Gabe when he was born and you’ll be perfect with this one.” He kisses Bucky once more, firm but short. “I was mad Buck. But I’m not anymore. Please don’t do that thing where you run yourself into the ground for a week. That’s half of why we do this in the first place,” Steve nods at where his belt lies, abandoned on the floor. “So that it can be over and done with. I won’t be happy if I see you skulking around the house tomorrow, got it?”
Bucky smiles a little, watery but real. “Yes, Alpha.”
Steve hums. “Good boy.”
Bucky snorts. Steve only calls him that out of habit now. Bucky’s a grown-ass man, no longer the antagonistic eighteen-year-old he’d been when he’d first wed Steve. He looks down at his husband where he sits on the bed. Bucky traces a thumb at the corner of Steve’s eye, where the beginnings of age are just barely starting to show. It only improves him, in Bucky’s opinion, and he has to swallow suddenly as he thinks of how handsome his husband has become. He’s twelve years Bucky’s senior and sure, Steve had been good-looking when they’d first met, but it’s been a decade now and Bucky just thinks Steve keeps getting more and more handsome. He loves him so much. He tells him so, leaning down for another kiss and making it deep this time, working his mouth against Steve’s and slipping his tongue in slowly. He climbs up on the bed so that he’s straddling Steve’s spread legs. It’s nice, because there’s space left for Bucky’s naked ass to rest where nothing will touch it.
Steve groans into the kiss, hands settling at Bucky’s waist and squeezing him there. Bucky runs his hands up and down Steve’s arms, feeling the powerful muscles underneath the fabric of his dress shirt. Steve kisses him filthily and then pulls back, nips his lower lip and bends down to lick over and bite his scent gland. Bucky moans and thrusts his hips forward, rubbing his growing erection over Steve’s slacks. He can feel how Steve is hardening too. “You wanna?” Bucky breathes, as Steve continues his assault on his neck (Bucky is pretty sure he’s trying to leave a bruise there). “Steve?”
Steve hums into his skin and pulls back. When his eyes meet Bucky’s they’re dark again, but not like they’d been downstairs. This time it’s in desire, and Bucky swallows heavily at the look. Bucky can’t scent pheromones as well as Nora or any other omega can, but it’d be impossible not to smell the rush of rut and desire coming off his husband right now. It’s so strong, so heady, that it makes Bucky want to stuff his face in Steve’s neck and never come up for air. “You hit it, Baby?” he asks.
Steve shudders and nods. “Yeah. Think I was close all day.”
“Mmm. Yeah, you were.”
He chuckles and grips Bucky’s waist harder. “You were smart to keep your mouth shut about it while you were being punished. Can’t believe you did.” They both know that Bucky’s a natural smart-ass.
“Nora helped with that,” Bucky says into the grin he’s kissing through to get at Steve’s neck. “Mm, you smell so good Stevie, got me so hard.”
Steve growls a little. On Bucky, his hands slide from his waist down to his ass, where he cups him. It’s gentle, but Bucky hisses all the same, a rough, “Ah,” leaving his lips. Steve’s dark chuckle at it makes Bucky grunt in incense and push back into the grip, proving that he can take whatever touches Steve wants to give. Bucky doesn’t mind a little pain during sex, and with the way that Steve’s just laid into him with his belt, it won’t be hard to achieve it. Bucky considers trying to push his husband onto his back on the bed and straddle him, some naughtily ambitious part of his mind wondering if he could even get Steve to accept such a position while he’s in rut, but instead of doing that, he decides he’ll get down on his knees and make a show of giving his Alpha some appreciation for “taking such good care of him” by “putting him in his place.” The thought nearly makes Bucky snort. Steve’ll eat that shit up now that he’s in rut.
Steve doesn’t seem to want to let him go when Bucky tries to pull backward, but Bucky just meets his eyes and gives him a look, hot and sweet. He licks his lips. “Wanna get on my knees for you, Alpha,” he says. He can see the way Steve’s pupils dilate at the words. Bucky has to force himself not to smirk, as that would ruin it. He just whines in his throat and gives Steve little kitten eyes (a fair impression of Nora, he imagines) and reaches down to cup Steve’s erection through his pants. “May I?” he asks. “You take such good care of me, Stevie. Let me take care of you.”
Steve nods. His hands leave Bucky’s bottom and Bucky climbs off his lap as gracefully as he can manage, given the soreness in his backside. He gets to his knees between Steve’s spread legs and reaches forward to undo his slacks. Steve just sits there and lets him, staring down at him with heavy eyes. Once Bucky’s got Steve’s cock out of his underwear, he doesn’t waste time in getting his mouth on him.
He starts with just the head, placing his mouth over it, sucking gentle pulses against him there as his other hand—his metal one—holds Steve’s balls in his palm. Steve makes a soft sound at the stimulation and when Bucky glances up, he sees that Steve’s got his head tipped back, eyes closed. Bucky hums. He sucks Steve’s cock and rubs his tongue under the head and uses his free hand to play with the loose skin at the base of Steve’s cock, where his knot will grow when he orgasms. It’s still small now, but Bucky knows full-well how good it feels for Steve when he rubs it, wraps his hand around it and squeezes lightly. Steve’s breath stutters up above and he moans from it. “God, Bucky, yeah.”
Bucky smiles around his mouthful. He hums, then pulls off and fingers the tip lightly, pressing and jacking the foreskin over the head just a little bit. Steve has opened his eyes now and is watching him. He looks lazy and rapt at the same time. It makes Bucky smile. He licks his lips and tells him, “Want you to fuck my face.”
Steve shakes his head. “Mm mn. You work a little down there and I’ll pull you up on this bed when I feel like it.”
That makes Bucky moan, heat swirling in his belly and his cock jerking against his thigh. He wants to reach down and touch himself, but knows better. Right now is for Steve. Bucky’s going to make his Baby feel so good. He goes back to it, holding Steve’s balls in his metal hand, pulling lightly just to hear him grunt. He’s gentle in the way he eases Steve’s foreskin down, instinctually pleased when he can see the pink head of him bared. There’s precum beading at the tip and Bucky swipes down to lap it up, the taste mild and salty. It makes Bucky wish that he could take Steve all the way tonight with just his hands and mouth. Steve comes so hard, so much. Like any alpha really, but god does Bucky ever like to see it, to feel it flood his mouth until it runs out and then watch as Steve just keeps coming, shooting all over Bucky’s face, his chest, his own hand. Anywhere he wants, really. It’s no wonder his husband is so good at getting their Omega pregnant. The loads he shoots are epic, beautiful. Bucky knows that tonight, in rut, Steve will want to spend inside his body. It’s kind of a disappointment but not really. Bucky will get to feel it trickle out of his ass for a long time afterwards, which is just as obscene and nice. A reminder of who’s beta he is, of who he belongs to.
As if he could forget.
He’s barely resumed sucking and pulling at Steve’s cock for a moment or two before Steve is winding his fingers into his hair and using it as a handle to pull him up and off. Bucky keeps his hair longer than is the fashion, but Steve loves it because he can tug and guide Bucky with just that one hold and so little effort. Bucky loves it. Now, Steve doesn’t even have to pull him though. He rises obediently, eager to give Steve anything he wants. “Alpha,” he says, voice breathy and a little hoarse from the way he was sucking Steve’s cock there at the end. “How do you want me?”
Steve growls his approval of the question. “Get up here and present for me.”
Bucky’s guts clench in arousal at that command. God, but Steve gets bossy when he’s in rut. “Yes Sir,” he says, though unlike when he’d said it before his punishment, this time there is no sarcasm. Bucky’s just feeling that submissive and eager to please. He unfolds his legs and comes up to climb onto the bed, making sure to roll his back nicely as he crawls down the mattress past Steve. He glances back at him, just for a second, and then he lowers his front; chest and cheek and arms pressed flat to the bed, ass high. Presented. Steve growls louder than before.
The mattress moves as he gets off. Bucky doesn’t look back, but he knows what Steve is doing. He can hear the soft, barely there sounds as Steve takes off his shirt, his pants and underthings. By the time the bed dips again from Steve’s weight coming onto it, Bucky is already desperate to touch himself. He knows he needs to ask permission though. It isn’t always that way—usually isn’t, in fact—but right now? With the kind of sex Steve wants to have and the kind of control he needs to exert to satisfy the urges of his rut? Most definitely. So Bucky whines sweetly and arches his back more, knowing that it makes his ass push back nicely. “Steve,” he says. “Baby, can I touch myself?”
“No,” Steve says straight away. “You’ll wait.”
Bucky whimpers but obeys. He waits in place while Steve just kneels behind him and does the only thing Bucky imagines he could be doing: staring at Bucky’s presented body—his pliant posture, his raised hips, his reddened ass. Bucky startles a little when one of Steve’s large hands finally touches him. It appears on his back, rubbing there for a moment before sliding down, down, past his tailbone and down between the cheeks of his ass. Steve swipes a dry finger over Bucky’s asshole, not pressing, just touching, making it clench and twitch. “Gonna fuck you so good, Sweetheart,” he rumbles, and Bucky makes a soft sound of approval at that.
“Please,” he says.
Steve’s hand leaves him, and the next thing Bucky knows he feels cold wetness hit his backside—slick. It hits him just at the top of his ass, sliding over his hole and farther down to his taint, dripping onto the bedsheets below, because Steve’s a slob and never cares about making things too wet or messy during sex. Steve runs his fingers through it and rubs them over Bucky’s hole, pressing and massaging until he makes Bucky whine for more. He chuckles at the sound and scratches the nails of his free hand over Bucky’s reddened ass at the same time he presses a finger in, crooking it right away to try and find that sweet spot inside.
Bucky hisses at the sting of Steve’s nails where he’s so tender but at the same time he’s pushing back against the intrusion in his body, knowing that he can feel so good if Steve just—oh. His eyes clench shut and he gasps, “yes,” into the sheets. Behind him, Steve makes a pleased sound and scratches his nails against Bucky’s ass again, just because he’s a sonofabitch.
“That feel good baby?” He’s still rubbing his finger over and over that spot, now that he’s found it.
Bucky can only hum and nod his head where he’s not even sure if Steve’s looking. Doesn’t matter though, because the next thing he knows, Steve is pressing a second finger in and the added stretch feels good. Bucky asks again if he can touch himself. When Steve says “no,” right away, Bucky growls. “Please, Steve,” he begs. Because he really wants to. He needs it.
“Mm mn,” Steve repeats. “That’s for me.” He reaches between Bucky’s legs and grabs his dick, drawing it back between his legs and stroking it there with slippery fingers.
Bucky groans in relief. “Oh, fuck Steve. God.”
“I know,” Steve says. “Feels good, huh?”
Bucky makes a downright embarrassing noise of agreement and nods his face into the sheets. He’s hard in Steve’s grasp and the way Steve’s stroking him feels so good that the stretch of a third finger hardly registers. It all just feels good, and Bucky wants more. He wants Steve’s cock. “Please,” he says. “Please, in me.” Steve smacks his ass, and Bucky howls. “Goddammit Steve!”
“In you?” Steve asks, sounding so smug that Bucky can hardly stand it. “But I am in you, Honey.”
Bucky grits his teeth to keep from growling aggressively. Steve won’t like that. “Want your cock in me,” he says, whimpering it so that he can get what he wants. Behind, Steve’s scent is thick like soup, so strong that Bucky knows if Nora were there, she’d practically be knocked out by it. “Steve?”
Steve’s fingers leave him right away, and that’s how Bucky knows he’s not going to have to beg for it any longer. He sighs in relief, fingers relaxing from where they’ve been digging into the sheets and blankets around him. Another long, lewd trail of slick pours down across his hole and Bucky groans. He can hear the sounds of Steve slicking himself up too, and then there’s the heavy, hot slap of his cock hitting his backside. Steve grips his hips and thrusts his cock up and down the cleft of his ass, and the slide is nice but not enough.
Bucky’s eyes squeeze shut at the feel of it, of how badly he wants it. Steve has such a nice cock. If he weren’t about to get fucked, Bucky’d be sad he wasn’t still getting to suck it. “Baby,” he breathes, “Alpha, please put it in me. Need you to fuck me so bad.” He’s laying it on so heavy right now with the talk but he doesn’t even care. He means it at this point. He rubs his ass back against the slide of Steve’s cock, and even though it’s sore and burns because Steve’s a sonofabitch with a belt, it still feels good. Steve grunts and he pulls back, and the next thing Bucky knows Steve’s cockhead is right against his hole. “Yes,” he breathes. And then Steve is pressing into him.
It’s big, every time. Steve knows it and he’s gentle in the way he slides in. He goes slowly, hands smoothing up Bucky’s back the deeper he gets, body curling over Bucky’s until Bucky can feel Steve’s breath by his ear. “Damn,” Steve grunts, hips stilled and flush with Bucky’s backside. “Ugh, Baby, your ass…”
“Is gonna be bruised as fuck tomorrow, so you’d better make this good.” Steve somehow laughs and growls at the same time, and he pulls back and thrusts in. It makes their bodies slap together and it makes Bucky grunt from the pleasure-pain of it. Steve pulls back to kneeling behind him and fucks him steady and slow the way that Bucky likes. It feels great, but Bucky’s back to tangling his fingers viciously in the sheets to keep from reaching underneath himself. “Steve,” he says. “Stevie, can I?” Steve grunts, rut-stupid and definitely not even knowing what Bucky’s talking about. “Can I touch myself?” Bucky says again. He’s going to lose it if Steve says no.
“Go ahead,” he says, and Bucky huffs in relief.
He reaches down and squeezes his dick, and oh, it’s so good. So good to feel his Alpha inside him, big and overwhelming, while Bucky fists himself. “Oh,” he breathes. “Oh yeah.” Behind him, Steve chuckles darkly.
“Yeah? Feel good baby?”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Steve grunts, fucking him just a little faster for a moment before he yanks on Bucky and gets them both on their sides, spooning. Bucky sighs in relief; Steve’s still moving but he doesn’t hit his sore backside as much in this position. He squeezes his fist around his cock a little faster. He can come like this.
They move and they move, and Steve is just glorious in the way he fucks Bucky. It’s animalistic, almost, when Steve’s in rut. And usually they have Nora between the two of them, accommodating Steve and his needs. But right now it’s all Bucky and he isn’t complaining. Steve’s big hands grabbing his thighs and his hips; his strong arms wrapping around his waist; his hot breath against Bucky’s nape and his teeth scraping over his neck and shoulder? It’s wonderful.
Then Steve does something to change the angle of his cock inside Bucky, and he’s rubbing over Bucky’s prostate way more firmly. Bucky groans loudly. “Oh, Baby, that’s perfect. Just like that.” Bucky works his hand faster. Steve just grunts at him, not even answering at this point. That’s how Bucky knows that he’s close, which is good because frankly, Bucky’s right there. He slows his hand on his prick to hold off, just long enough until he feels the bump of Steve’s knot growing outside his hole. Bucky’s body isn’t built to take a knot, and he knows Steve won’t (they really need to do prep for that sort of fun). But if Steve’s popping his knot then Bucky knows he can let go. He goes back to jerking himself frantically. He’s—oh—he’s so close, and the clench of his ass must feel good to Steve because the alpha digs his face into the crook of Bucky’s neck and groans like he’s dying. Steve's tipped into orgasm, Bucky just knows it. He's spilling into Bucky's body and that thought spurs Bucky on further. It doesn’t take but a few more, good pulls on his cock before Bucky’s following right after him.
Eventually they part. Steve flops onto his back and Bucky—very pointedly—flops to his front. He lies there, falling in and out of a light sleep and feeling Steve’s cum trickle out of his ass. It makes the edges of his mouth quirk up and his hips shift in something between discomfort and pleasure. “God,” he huffs, when they’re both awake and their eyes connect.
Steve smiles. “Yeah,” he says. It seems they’ve both settled into the monosyllabic verbal range. Steve rolls closer and his eyes rove all over Bucky’s body. His hands too. They trail through Bucky’s sweaty hair, down the length of his back and then over his ass.
Bucky groans at the feeling. "Ugh."
“Hmph.”
“You suck.” Steve is rubbing lightly over his reddened ass. By tomorrow it’ll be so bruised that Bucky won’t be able to sit. Or at least, he won’t want to. “Hate you,” Bucky grumbles.
“Love you, Beta,” Steve says.
Bucky blows air between his teeth, but does wind up saying, “Love you, Alpha.” Because fuck, he does.
Masterlist
Beta & Omega [prequel, 1.5 years before the events of this story]
Alpha, Beta (& Omega) [prequel, 10 years before the events of this story]
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Rated: Explicit
Pairing: Bucky x Steve
Tags: a/b/o, age gap, past rape, rape recovery, trauma recovery, pregnancy, medical trauma, hurt/comfort, mentions of CSA, religious fundamentalism, first time, gender dysphoria, male omegas having all the bits (peen & vagine)
Summary: After a medical emergency brings him into the ER, Bucky escapes the religious cult he's been raised in. It's up to Steve, nurse practitioner and omega sex & repro specialist, to see him through a medically supervised heat.
Wait! I haven't read an earlier chapter! Story masterlist
10. title here
Summary Here
Over the course of the following week, Bucky makes good use of the purchases from Twig ‘n’ Tuft. He arranges his new things in an obviously good mood, humming happily as he works. A few things get set aside for later use in the closet, but most of his efforts go towards Steve’s bed, changing out the sheets (they’re silkier now) and blankets (puffier), fluffing the pillows (there are a lot more now), and arranging everything just how he likes.
He’s nesting.
Steve stands in the doorway and watches for a bit, heart bursting with emotions that he knows are directly related to the bond. No way could he feel this utterly content and pleased just from watching a simple act of nesting, otherwise. His omega is feeling safe and comfortable in his home. Steve is providing for him and taking care of him, and it’s making Bucky happy. That’s all Steve wants.
“Need any help?” he asks, not surprised when Bucky says no. Omegas like to nest on their own. Steve is sure he’d mess up whatever Bucky’s nonsensical system is and wind up getting his head bitten off. “Okay then,” he says. “I’m gonna get ready for bed, so …” He grabs some pajamas from the dresser and heads in the direction of the bathroom, intending to brush his teeth and change. “You’re sure you want me in here?” he double checks. “I’m more than happy to take the couch again.”
Bucky rolls his eyes at him. “No Steve. That was pathetic. Six-foot man on a five-foot couch. Stop asking or you’re gonna give me a complex. I want you in here with me.”
Steve smiles gently. “Okay, Buck. Okay.” He goes into the bathroom and shuts the door behind himself. When he comes back out and climbs into the now-nested bed, he has a moment of indecision, unsure how close he should be, if Bucky wants his space, or if maybe Steve should try to touch—
Bucky scoots back to spoon directly against him, his back to Steve’s chest and a large pillow hugged in front of himself. “Mmm.”
Cautiously, Steve lets his arm drape over Bucky’s waist. “This okay?” he asks.
“Yeah,” Bucky sighs. He wiggles in place a little, settling. “Steve?”
“Mm?”
“... Thanks.” Bucky’s hand finds Steve’s where it rests just over his waist and gives a small squeeze. “For helping me. For everything. I’m glad I’m here with you.”
Steve’s heart melts into something useless and gooey, and he lets go of whatever awkwardness he’d still been holding onto. He pulls Bucky more securely against him and nuzzles into the back of his hair. “You’re welcome, Honey. I want you here. It’s gonna be okay.”
Bucky hums and cuddles further back against him. Later, once he’s dozed off, he purrs.
The next morning, Steve is still half-asleep when he’s suffused by the scent of happy, pregnant omega. He hums, vaguely aware that he’s surrounded by soft, good things. With his eyes still closed, he pulls the softness closer, smiling and nosing into that inherently pleasant scent. He feels so good, turned on and warm and safe. Mate, he thinks dreamily, rolling his hips once, and then again because it feels so pleasurable. Soft and good omega, mmm …
Steve wakes and his eyes fly open. He freezes in place, mortified as he realizes that he’s been rubbing his morning erection against Bucky’s boxer-clad ass for God only knows how long. “Oh, shit.” He hears Bucky’s low chuckle, but is still horrified at himself. “Sorry!” he hurries, removing his hands. “Sorry, sorry.”
He’s pulling away, but Bucky turns over in the bed and follows after him. He looks barely awake himself, his hair a mess and his eyes opened to puffy slits. He burrows in against Steve’s chest, rubbing his face on his tee shirt. “S’okay,” he mumbles. “You smell good.” He’s silent after that, and a minute later, his quiet snoring lets Steve know that he’s fallen back to sleep.
Steve untenses and allows himself to hold Bucky again—at first hesitantly, and then with more confidence. He lets his head fall back onto the pillow, his nose near Bucky’s hair. He closes his eyes and falls asleep.
The next time he wakes, it’s to Bucky kissing him on the mouth. Steve inhales and pulls back. “Buck, what’re you doing?”
Bucky blinks. “Kissing you.”
Well yeah, Steve wants to say. He feels bad for his lack of reaction when he sees Bucky’s expression begin to shutter.
“Am I not allowed to?” he asks. “Do you … do you not want that with me?”
Steve exhales. “No, Buck. It’s not that. I just don’t want you to feel like—”
“Like I have to,” Bucky says. “I know.” He moves closer, until their chests are touching. “I know you don’t want me to feel forced or … or coerced or whatever. But I don’t.” Carefully, watching Steve’s reactions, he leans in to kiss him again. When their lips meet, Steve’s stomach flutters with nerves. Bucky kisses him gently, and it’s so sweet and tender that it almost aches. Steve forces himself not to wrap his arms around Bucky’s waist again, not to press his leg in between Bucky’s legs and turn into him, push him down into the sheets like he wants to.
But he does kiss back.
They talk about it over breakfast. Steve is in the kitchen making eggs and sausage, and Bucky’s curled up in a corner of the couch with one of his nesting blankets. The tv is set to low volume on a local morning news program. Bucky’s the one who initiates the conversation.
“So, I’m your registered omega now.”
Steve tenses where he’s standing by the stove. “Oh. Yeah. Um …sorry.”
Bucky makes a face. “I’m the one who signed off on it. Why should you be sorry?”
“I dunno,” Steve mumbles. He looks down and focuses on shuffling the sausages around with the spatula he’s holding. Really, there’s a whole lot he’s sorry about. Bucky was a trauma survivor in need of help, and in very short order he’s been impregnated, bonded, and legally bound to an alpha he barely knows. Steve doesn’t know how to explain to Bucky what an injustice that is. “This all just happened so fast,” he says. “I don’t want you to feel like you don’t have choices.”
The tv clicks off, and the next thing Steve knows, Bucky is standing on the other side of the kitchen island, giving him a stern look. “Steve, stop.”
“Stop?” He glances down at the sausages. Stop…cooking?
“Stop feeling guilty about this," Bucky says, crossing his arms and leveling Steve with a look. “It makes me sad and I don’t like it.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.” He nods. “Look, I’ve been given choices out the wazoo, lately. Everybody back at the hospital made it perfectly clear to me that I didn’t have to go with you. But that’s what I wanted. I like you and I trust you, and you’re the father of my baby.”
Steve’s heart stutters in his chest at hearing it said aloud like that. Holy shit, he really is going to be a father, isn’t he? Holy shit, how the hell is he going to do that? He clears his throat and opens his mouth to say something, but Bucky says,
“And we’re bonded, aren’t we?”
“Yeah.” Steve remembers the eggs and hurries to give them a swirl in their pan. “Ah, yeah. We are.”
Bucky nods decisively. “So, I want to be in a relationship with you. A real one, including sex.”
Steve stops, spatula held midair in surprise. “You … what?”
“You, me, living here,” Bucky gestures around the apartment. “I know you’re not going to make me be physical with you, but I want to be.”
Steve’s heart is beating fast inside his chest now. He licks his lips. “Buck, you … you’re a minor. You're eighteen.” That seems like the most obvious problem to him, but Bucky just rolls his eyes.
“Almost nineteen. My birthday’s soon.”
Steve doesn’t know how to break it to him that this doesn’t exactly erase the massive age difference between them. “I’m thirty-one, Honey.” He struggles for what to say next, and of course Bucky mistakes his awkwardness for rejection.
He visibly draws back into himself. “If you don’t like me like that,” he hedges, “or if you aren’t really attracted to me, I wish you’d just say so. I can handle it, but I just need to know what we—”
“No, no. I do. I like you, Buck.” Steve hurriedly covers the pans with their respective lids and flicks both burners off, stepping around the island to pull Bucky into his arms. “And you’re beautiful, Honey. You’ve got to know that.” He hugs him, and Bucky all but melts against him, resting his cheek on Steve’s shoulder. The closeness instantly feels right. Steve can feel the omega relaxing at his words, his scent lightening back to something pleasant. He sighs. All his overthinking things has just left Bucky feeling unwanted, and that couldn’t be further from the truth. “I guess you can tell that I have some hang-ups,” he mutters.
Bucky scoffs. “Yeah. You worry too much.”
Yeah, he does. But Steve shrugs. He can’t help the second guessing and caution that comes so naturally to him at this point. He’s been trained ad-nauseam to be a victim’s advocate, to never take advantage. “I just want to make you happy,” he admits, giving Bucky a gentle squeeze. “I guess I need to start trusting you to be able to tell me how to do that.”
Bucky hums happily. “Yeah. Good.” He pulls back just enough to meet Steve’s eyes, and he smiles. Then, pointedly, he leans in and kisses him. It’s only a brief kiss, more a brush of lips than anything else, but it makes Steve’s skin tingle with pleasure. Bucky pulls back check, “So now I can kiss you any time I want, right?”
Steve forces a smile. “Yeah Buck. You can kiss me.”
Bucky kisses him once more, then lets him go. “And do other stuff,” he says happily, just as Steve is reaching up to grab plates out of the cabinet.
He freezes. “Oh. Um ...”
“Oh come on, Steve. You’ve fucked me six ways to Sunday already!”
Steve busts out in a surprised laugh, but he can feel his face heating at the intense visual memory that hits him: Bucky, in the heat suite, naked and moaning and coming undone. Steve shakes his head and grabs the spatula back up. “Jesus Buck. Come on over here and get your food.”
Bucky obeys with a smirk, and they heap their plates high with scrambled eggs and sausage links and sit at opposite ends of the couch. Their feet tangle in the middle as they eat. Bucky chews thoughtfully for a while and then says, out of the blue and with determination, “I should learn to cook.”
Steve grimaces down at his plate. “That bad, huh?”
“What? Oh, no!” Bucky laughs and eats more sausage. “No, this is great. I was just thinking how I could make you breakfast. Pancakes and stuff. Omelets. I mean, since you probably don’t have time to do it yourself when you have to get to work in the mornings. Right?"
Steve blinks, taken aback. “Wow that’s … that’s really sweet, Buck.” Bucky smiles and looks back down at his plate, and Steve says, “I still have the next few days off from work. We could try to get your school situation figured out, if you want?”
Bucky looks wary of this idea. “I dunno, Steve. I was always homeschooled. I don't …” He shifts uncomfortably. “I don’t know if I’m very smart.”
Steve tuts in disapproval. “Of course you’re smart. Just because you might not know certain facts doesn’t make you unintelligent. Remember what I told you?”
“Yeah I know. Bees pollinate flowers,” Bucky mumbles, his discomfort obvious. He’s still embarrassed about his past.
"Hey," Steve offers gently. He nudges Bucky’s socked foot with his own. “That’s what we’re gonna do. We’ll spend the last few days of my leave figuring out a schedule for you, okay? I’ll help you.” The past few days have gone quickly, eaten up by tv marathons, snuggle sessions, and walks around the neighborhood to familiarize Bucky with the immediate area where Steve lives. “We can map out where your sister’s new place is, where you’re going to go for therapy. I’ll even investigate how you might go about taking the GED, if you want. They have study materials. Shouldn’t be hard to figure out.” He keeps nudging Bucky’s foot with his until he gets a little smile from the kid. “You’ll get a transit pass for the train and the bus. You can be totally independent, scoot all over the city if you want.”
Bucky hums and tucks back into his food, but Steve can tell that he’s pleased by the prospect.
Steve still has the next few days off from work, the tail-end of what is officially titled as his “Registered New Mate Leave.”
Steve is forced to explain to—an understandably confused—Bucky, that even though “mates” really is just a social construct and not a true physical thing, the government in New York still uses the term in some of its policies and legislation. “I know it’s contradictory,” he apologizes, when Bucky first perks up at hearing him say the words ‘mate leave’. “It’s stupid, I know. But the important thing is that I have time off where I can help you get settled, yeah?”
Bucky agrees with a tiny nod (and later, a quietly-murmured: “It’s not stupid. I don’t mind being your mate,” which makes Steve fluster but which Bucky also says quietly enough and standing far away enough that Steve can pretend he didn’t hear him say it).
He buys Bucky a transit card and helps him learn how to use the app for the city bus system and the train on his phone, then they decide to take a practice trip together, riding the orange and then the purple line out to the address in Queens where Rebecca's new apartment complex is.
Steve sits next to Bucky on the train and watches as he spends the ride downloading various apps for things like GrubHub and Candy Crush onto his phone. It’s a little hard for Steve to remember that Bucky grew up in a restrictive and backwards cult, when he’s sitting there witnessing the kid take to the modern world like a fish takes to water.
Rebecca’s apartment is all the way out in Flushing. Steve makes a reference to The Nanny, which Bucky of course doesn’t get, because he didn’t grow up watching 90’s cable TV. So Steve promises to add it to their already massive streaming watchlist.
Rebecca has them stay for lunch, and Steve feels kind of bad when they leave her in her lonely apartment with stark walls and hardly any furniture or possessions. She’s still adjusting to the outside world, the same as Bucky is, and Steve is once again very, very glad that he’s been able to bring Bucky straight into a lived-in home with lots of warm things and Steve himself to help. He’d hate to think of Bucky struggling all on his own.
“We should have her over for dinner sometime,” he offers, when he and Bucky are back in Brooklyn and walking towards the OmCare social services building where Bucky’s scheduled for his afternoon intake and assessment. “Your sister, that is.”
“Ooh, yeah. We could do that?” Bucky looks hopeful. “I could make something.”
“Sure, why not?” They walk inside the building and Steve accompanies Bucky up to the check-in desk. He gives him a little side hug, which Bucky turns into a full-on hug, and then leans up and kisses him. It’s just a quick peck, but it makes Steve flush halfway down his neck.
Bucky smiles when he notices and holds Steve’s hand while they wait in line behind one other person. “You’re nice,” he mumbles.
“It’s your apartment, too. You’re allowed to have guests and go in and out and cook whenever you want. And I’m glad you’ve got your sister, and that she’s got you.” Steve squeezes his hand. “You’ve both overcome something huge. It’s not easy. I’m proud of you.”
Bucky beams and looks like he’ll say something else, but before he can, the receptionist calls him forward and he signs himself in. They take their seats in the waiting room, and before long Bucky is called back by a kind looking beta counselor, who introduces herself as Beatrice—"just Bea is fine"—Collins, and informs Steve that if he plans to stick around for the entire appointment, he’s got quite the wait ahead of him. Steve says he doesn’t mind. His phone has a full charge.
When Bucky comes out of the appointment—three hours later —Steve’s butt is numb from the waiting room chairs, and Bucky’s holding a folder stuffed full of papers. Steve can immediately tell that he’s in a very good mood. He looks ten times brighter than when he'd gone in. “How’d it go?” Steve asks.
“Great!"
"Yeah?"
"Uh huh. My counselor's nice.” Bucky recounts all of the different assessments that Bea had him complete during their session together. “I think she was expecting me to be super screwed up or something,” he jokes. “I don’t know what the heck the hospital told her.”
That you’re a gang rape trauma victim with culture shock and gender dysphoria, Steve thinks, but doesn’t say. He’s been relieved and surprised so far, at how well Bucky’s taken to accepting himself and his body, this bond and the news of an unplanned pregnancy. Steve doesn’t know how that’ll change as the pregnancy progresses, but he’s hopeful that him being there and being accepting of Bucky can help make a positive difference. “Did you get a schedule for therapy?” he asks, when they’re on the bus ride home.
“Mondays and Wednesdays at four,” Bucky says. “There’s a queer youth group that meets after. Bea said she thinks I’ll like it. I told her I’d give it a try.”
Steve blinks in surprise. “Oh. Okay. So ... do you feel like you’re, um, queer?”
Bucky smirks and shakes his head. “No. But I dunno, I might make friends there.”
“Oh yeah. Right, of course.”
His hand migrates to his stomach and he looks down at it. “I still feel really weird about it all. Being pregnant.”
Steve’s heart sinks and he fights not to let it show on his face. “Do you feel like you’re changing your mind? About keeping it?”
Bucky shakes his head but he won’t meet Steve’s eyes. “No, it’s not that. I don’t mean the baby. It’s more about how I’m, like …” He chews his lip as he thinks about it. “How I'm being like this so openly.”
“‘Like this’?”
He nods. “I know people can smell it. And eventually I’ll get big and people’ll see.”
“Yeah.” Steve’s hand creeps over the seat between them, cautious. He personally can’t wait to see Bucky get bigger, but of course he’d never say that. “Is ... that a bad thing?” he asks cautiously.
“No. Not bad. It just makes it so obvious about how I’m, um, you know.” Bucky hesitates for so long that Steve half expects him to throw out an obscene word. “How I'm … omega." He plucks at the front of his sweater, which they bought in the men’s omega clothing section at Target just the other day.
It isn’t much different in style from a typical men’s A/B sweater. Perhaps a bit tighter in the fit—slightly different seams, a more graceful neckline that’s indicative of the gender it’s meant for. Steve thinks it looks good on him, but now he starts to get self conscious and wonders if Bucky truly liked any of the clothes they bought for him the other day. Steve had tried to make it clear that Bucky could pick out anything he wanted. He doesn’t think he’d been the one to steer them in the direction of the men’s O department, rather than men's A/B, but he’ll be damned if he can convince himself of it now.
He opens his mouth to ask, but Bucky’s already speaking, “It wasn’t like that back home. Guys like me were … Well, people knew, of course, but we didn’t talk about it. You hid it, you didn’t go around openly acting all—” he cuts himself off and shakes his head. “Anyways, it’s just weird to be out in public, knowing everybody can tell. Seeing people act like it’s normal.”
Steve frowns and takes his hand. “It is normal, Buck.”
“I know. I know that. It’s just gonna take some getting used to." Bucky twists his lips and grumbles, "Bea says I’ve got ‘dysphoria’.”
“You do,” Steve says solemnly, thinking about how the kid had refused to even consider the men’s O style underwear at Target. They’d purchased a pack of A/B style briefs instead, which Steve had been happy to do for him. “It’s gonna take time,” he agrees kindly. “And that’s okay. It'll get easier, you'll become more comfortable about a lot of stuff. And for the things that don't feel right, well you know you can express your gender any way you want, right? You don't have to force yourself into some box. Not anymore." He gives Bucky's hand a comforting squeeze. "I think the queer group’s a great idea, Buck. You should go.”
Bucky’s scent gradually lightens, and he leans in against Steve’s side, allowing him to wrap an arm around his shoulders and hold him close for the remainder of the bus ride home.
“—and said she thinks I’ll do just fine on the GED,” Bucky tells Steve brightly the next night, when they’re fixing their dinners. “I can study for it online, and take it any time I want. She had this whole indicator test that said my scores were pretty good. Better than what she’s seen from uneducated people in the past.”
“You not uneducated, Buck,” Steve chides. “You were homeschooled.”
“Better than nothing,” Bucky mutters, but says nothing else, and they leave it at that.
They compromise and make little side salads to eat with the frozen dinners that Bucky picked out (the kid has atrocious taste in foods, and Steve has already purchased and paid for overnight shipping on the best prenatal vitamins that money can buy). They settle in to watch a few more episodes of The Nanny, which Bucky has decided that he loves. After that, he picks out a movie to watch, and they sit snuggled on the couch together, some of the new nesting blankets tucked around both of their shoulders.
It becomes apparent that Bucky has taken their previous discussion about physicality to heart. He’s very bold with how close he wants to be with Steve, sitting right up against him as soon as the movie starts and leaning more and more of his weight on him as time goes on. He purrs happily when Steve finally wraps an arm around his shoulders, gives him an affectionate tug against his body, and holds him close. They spend the rest of the movie that way.
By the time the credits roll, Bucky’s hand has been steadily creeping higher up Steve’s thigh for the better part of twenty minutes. They’ve snuggled the entire movie, but Bucky started touching with intent somewhere around the three-quarter mark, and Steve’s done nothing to stop him. He grunts softly when Bucky finally reaches the top of his thigh, and again when he boldly moves his hand and cups the front of his jeans. Steve’s been perked up for a while, and it feels good to finally be touched. “Buck,” he says softly.
Bucky turns into him, putting their faces close together. “Kiss me?” he murmurs, those two quiet words making his lips move in the barest, most enticing way. They look so soft.
Steve’s belly flutters with nerves in a way that it hasn’t done in a long time. Bucky’s so young and sweet, so innocent, and that really gets to Steve more than he wants to admit. He’s never had a virginity kink, but knowing that he’s the only one who’s ever made love to Bucky’s body, the only one who’s ever laid him down in soft spaces and shown him pleasure, God, it makes Steve weak to think about.
It makes him want so much, makes him want to show Bucky every single way there is in the world to feel good. Steve just wants to keep him and teach him and make him happy. And to feel all of that for someone he’s barely known is … It’s a lot. Steve knows they’re bonded, and that he should allow himself a little leeway, allow himself to indulge. Especially since Bucky’s all but in his lap now, having made his wishes crystal clear, lips hovering scant centimeters away from Steve’s own.
Steve closes the distance, pressing their mouths together in a gentle kiss. Bucky is soft, just as devastatingly sweet and soft as he looks, and Steve feels his blood run hotter at the sheer lust that courses through him. Fuck, he thinks despairingly. How is he ever going to control himself with this boy?
Bucky makes a tiny noise of pleasure as soon as they’re kissing, a sound that goes straight to Steve’s cock. He’s so eager, pressing closer, his hand between Steve’s legs molding to the shape of his erection and rubbing. Steve grunts and kisses him harder, and Bucky looses the sweetest little whimper. He abandons all pretense of restraint, turning fully into Steve, climbing into his lap and straddling him. His hands come up to cradle Steve’s face as they make out.
Steve groans at the first, hot swipe of Bucky’s tongue. He opens up to it and follows, his hands curling in hard at Bucky’s waist as they get more and more heated, more urgent. Bucky’s hips start grinding down in tight little circles, and when they break away from the kiss momentarily, Steve's slightly out of breath. “Buck,” he pants, and Bucky nods shakily in response.
“Yeah. Oh God, Steve. You feel so … I just wanna … nngh.”
Jesus, Steve thinks. It doesn’t even take a complete sentence from the boy to make heat pulse harder through his veins. He knows that part of it’s from the bond. Logically, he knows. He can feel Bucky’s arousal like an echo of his own, amplifying everything. His cock is throbbing against the seam of his jeans. Bucky’s been rocking needily against it as they kiss, and Steve can smell the omega’s arousal now, honey-sweet and tempting underneath the layers of his clothes. He’s getting wet.
It calls out to Steve’s instincts, makes him want to grab Bucky and tackle him to the floor, make him feel so good that he cries and comes apart for him within minutes. It’s not like it would be hard to do. Steve knows how an omega's body works, knows that he could have Bucky creaming on his fingers before the movie’s end credits are finished rolling. But he forces himself to hold back, because that’s not what he wants, not really. Not for Bucky’s first time in their home. Their home. Christ.
“Sweetheart,” he gasps, when Bucky switches to sucking on his neck and rubbing forwards instead of down, his clothed little cock grinding against Steve’s abs, giving off these needy little whines as he moves. Fuck, it’s sexy. And he’s got his mouth right over Steve’s glands, bringing blood to the surface of skin that’s still tender and sensitive from the recent bondmark. It’s healed by now, but the skin is still pink and thin, delicate from injury. It wouldn’t take much to get it to break all over again, and Steve feels saliva pool in his mouth as he imagines that the same must be true of Bucky’s mark. He grits his teeth and digs his fingers in hard at Bucky’s waist, trying to control himself. “Oh, Honey … okay wait. Wait wait wait.” He pulls back, panting, and after a moment Bucky does, too. His eyes open and flick over Steve’s face. He’s got such fantastic eyes. Irises that flare into a stormy cobalt, and then gray; his pupils blown huge with desire. Steve is fucking helpless under those eyes.
“Alpha,” Bucky breathes, saying it like it might as well be Steve’s name. “Can we? Please? I want it, I do. Please Steve, please take me back to our room.”
It’s such pretty begging. Steve’s hit hard in that instant by how utterly beautiful Bucky is. His dark lashes and plush lips, the wanting pinch between his brows, and the sweet, aroused, pregnant smell of him. Steve wonders how he ever thought he was going to be able to remain respectable, here. “Yeah?” he asks, pushing his hands under Bucky’s sweater to feel his skin. He digs his fingers into the soft give of his waist and feels him shudder. “You sure?”
Bucky grabs his face to kiss him forcefully, his hips jolting down again as he does. “Yes!” he laughs, kissing Steve hard, shoving his tongue inside his mouth with almost no skill. “Fuck, Steve. Come on. Pleease. You’re my Alpha, aren’t you?” He’s only asking lightheartedly, but Steve’s balls still clench and throb as if he’s been issued a challenge, and his growl still intensifies to something rich and possessive, rolling deep in his chest. Bucky makes a delighted sound at hearing it, and his scent spikes. He clings to Steve and tucks his face in his neck, humping him harder and moaning, “C’mon Alpha. Take me back there and hold me down. Make it feel better. Aren’t I your omega? Don’t you want to breed me up in our nest?”
“Fuck,” Steve says tightly. This kid’s too clever. He figures things out. “Bucky,” he growls.
“Yeah." Bucky drags his teeth over Steve’s bondmark and sucks, hard, on the glands. He releases with a 'pop' and a harshly whispered, “So make me feel good like you’re supposed to,” against the shell of Steve’s ear. And Steve breaks. He shoves up to standing with Bucky hoisted in his arms. The coffee table scrapes loudly across the floor when his shins hit it. Bucky squeaks at the sudden movement and grabs onto him, laughing delightedly. "Steve!"
Steve carries him back to the bedroom. He dumps him on the bed and Bucky scoots back and starts yanking off his clothes with haste. Steve stays standing and undresses, growling at him. “You’re a manipulative little shit, you know that?”
Bucky laughs. “If it gets me what I want," he preens, voice muffled by his tee shirt and sweater twisted halfway over his face.
Steve is naked first, and he helps Bucky by pulling off the briefs that he's trying to kick off his foot, tossing them away with a grin as he crawls over him on the bed. “And what is that, huh?” he asks, settling in the cradle of his hips, pleased when Bucky's legs part instinctively to make a place for him. Finally, their bodies finally pressed fully together, nothing between them anymore. It feels right. Bucky’s eyes are bright and joyful, his cheeks beautifully flushed as Steve settles on his forearms above him. Bucky whines and draws his knees up, humping against Steve's stomach, smearing his slick there. Steve traces the edge of one dark brow with his thumb. “Pretty boy. What do you want so bad, hm?”
“Thought that’d be obvious by now,” Bucky jokes, though some of the bravado has leached from his voice, replaced by a breathiness that betrays his nerves.
Steve glances down between them and sees Bucky’s cocklet, half hard and fattened up against his belly. And lower down, all that slick. It’s mind-bendingly hot, and Steve shoves a hand down between them, smearing through the mess and getting it all over his fingers. “So wet, Sweetheart,” he praises.
Bucky chokes out the prettiest little noise when Steve's fingers graze his soaked lips, and then wrap around his cocklet and start giving it light, coaxing strokes. “S-shit,” he whimpers, shoving up against Steve’s hand. “Ohn, sh-shit, Steve …”
“Mmhm.” Steve kisses him as he strokes, stopping frequently to pull back and watch the pleasure play out over his face. Bucky's little cock is almost fully hard in his hand. Steve looks down between their bodies to watch as he thumbs over the head again and again. He takes gentle hold of his foreskin and uses it to jerk him off right at the tip. The sight of it is enough to make him want to pop a knot. And lower down? Jesus wept, it’s pretty. Bucky’s slick is everywhere and his cunt is pink and swollen, the lips puffy and darkened from arousal. Jesus fucking Christ. Steve's overcome with the need to seal his mouth right over it.
He gets back on his knees, intending to do just that, pulling Bucky where he wants him in the sheets. He pushes Bucky’s knees apart and looks his fill. Bucky starts to whine and squirm at the close attention, but Steve hushes him and plays with his cock some more to distract him. “Shh, Honey. You’re so pretty down here.” He’s staring, can’t help but stare at the gorgeous spread of Bucky’s sex. He trails his fingers over it in the barest ghost of a touch, near reverent in how he plays with this delicate part of him. “Oh, Sweetheart. Look at you, so perfect.”
Bucky’s scent gets even more aroused, but with a growing hint of embarrassment to it that Steve doesn’t like. His nose wrinkles as he scents a twinge of humiliation, and realizes how bothered Bucky is. This isn’t going to be like at the hospital. Bucky no longer has the mental fog or the fevered drive of his heat to guide him through any of this.
Steve looks up and tries to convey what he feels for Bucky through his expression, through the bond that they share. He reaches out and cups his cheek. “What are you thinking, Sweet boy?” he asks sadly, knowingly. Because he can already see it: the self-deprecating thoughts that Bucky's having about his body, about what he’s been told all his life is wrong with it. Steve makes a miserable noise of contention, and Bucky’s lips quiver and his eyes slip closed. He’s shaking his head just the barest bit. Steve whines sadly. “Honey,”
“Nothing,” Bucky whispers, squirming unhappily and pressing his cheek into Steve’s palm. His sad little smile is heart wrenching. “It’s nothing. I’m fine.”
For the first time, Steve wishes that he’d gone in to speak privately with Bucky’s OmCare counselor the other day, so that he could’ve asked questions. Steve’s never been with someone with issues like Bucky has, at least not any longer than a few hectic days spent fucking in a heat suite. His job involves acute care, the during. He’s never been there to deal with the after. Bucky’s so beautiful laid out before him now, but Steve is keenly aware of how fragile he is, too. He doesn’t want to mess this up.
Slowly, he moves his hand from Bucky’s face and fits it around the front of his throat instead. He presses up and in under his jaw, and watches as Bucky’s eyes shoot open again. Steve levels him with a tender look. “Buck,” he tells him gently. “I want to lay down on my stomach, here.” He nods at the bed. “Right here, between your pretty legs.” Bucky swallows thickly beneath his palm, a hurt little pinch forming between his brows. One of his hands has come up to grip onto Steve’s wrist at his throat, but he isn’t pushing him away, and Steve keeps his hand there. “I think you’re so beautiful, Sweetheart. And I want to show you. I want to make you feel good.” Carefully, he leans down over him, so close that their lips brush together. But he keeps his eyes open, and so does Bucky, and he doesn’t kiss him. He stays like that, sharing breath with him and looking right into his eyes as he holds his neck with gentle dominance. … And with his other hand, he reaches down between his legs.
Bucky’s breath catches and trips at the first touch of Steve’s fingers, his face slipping between desire and shame and a whole host of other, vulnerable emotions. “S-steve,” he breathes.
“Mmhm.” He lets the pads of his fingers stroke softly along the lips of Bucky’s cunt, again and again, up and down, just barely touching. He’s soaked. “I want you to tell me,” Steve murmurs, and then he finally does kiss him—just once, just a tiny peck on the lips. Bucky tries to kiss back, but he denies him, maintaining that scant distance between their faces and waiting until Bucky opens his eyes again. Steve smiles. “Tell me, Bucky. Tell me to put my face down between your legs. Tell me to kiss you, to lick you.”
The whine Bucky makes is as bothered as the blush that stains his cheeks. He writhes underneath Steve, and Steve tightens his hand on his neck. He fits his thumb over his bonding glands and presses firmly. “I love every part of your body Buck, and I want you to see that. I want you to see what I see.” He gives him another kiss, and this time speaks directly against Bucky’s mouth. “Now give me permission to eat you out.”
“Fuck,” Bucky whimpers, but the shame in his scent has already peaked and is dissipating. It’s still there, but Steve can feel through the bond how his words have helped. Bucky squirms under him, a new gush of slick pooling around Steve’s fingers right after. “... E-eat me out, Steve.”
“Good boy. Oh, Bucky, Sweetheart,”
“Please … your mouth, your … please.”
Steve growls, more than satisfied. He mashes his mouth down hard on Bucky’s, kissing him fiercely to let him know he’s been so, so good for him. Then he shoves himself down the bed, dragging his cock against the sheets as he goes to get some relief. Bucky’s legs spread apart and Steve coaxes him with gentle murmurs to rest them over his shoulders. “There you go. Just like that, Beautiful.” He kisses the back of one calf as it moves and Bucky settles. He flicks his eyes up to Bucky, who’s staring down at him with parted lips and heavy-lidded eyes.
“Oh, Steve. Are you gonna?”
He moves instead of answering, shoulders pushing under Bucky’s thighs and arms wrapping around, tugging him closer. Bucky squeaks and Steve rumbles in satisfaction. “Goddamn,” he curses, rolling his hips down against the mattress some more. It’s barely a relief. “Baby,” he breathes, staring at Bucky’s pink folds, so wet and delicate, his little hole clenching on nothing. “Baby, you got no idea how good this pussy looks. Fuck.”
Bucky groans at the words, but he doesn’t get much chance to protest further because in the next second Steve is diving in. He seals his mouth over most of Bucky’s entire sex, just because he can, giving a big, indulgent suck and making absolutely filthy noises in the process. He laves the flat of his tongue, wide and firm and focused, up the pink cleft of his cunt, again and again, before setting in to a few moments of truly tongue fucking him—first with tiny little jabs that barely breach him and make him whine high and needy, then a series of longer, deeper pushes, going as far into Bucky’s body as he possibly can. Bucky downright wails after a moment of that, and Steve can hear the frustration in it, can hear how he wants more but doesn’t have the words to ask. That’s alright, though. Steve has given plenty of head in his life, and he knows what male omegas respond to best. He gets himself in gear and does what he knows will have Bucky coming in minutes.
“Jesus Chr-uh—” Bucky grunts, his hips shoving up hard against Steve’s face.
Steve hums around the cocklet in his mouth and tongues the underside, flicking over and over it like he would do to a woman’s clit. He’s got one hand holding Bucky’s hip down, and he uses the other to tease at the wet entrance of his slit, pressing with the tips of two fingers. It’s so tight that, for a long second, it doesn’t feel as if he’ll be able to get in. He hums his mouth on Buck’s cock and pushes harder … and slips in.
Bucky cries out sharply and both of his hands are suddenly in Steve’s hair, pulling him closer. His legs hook over his back, heels digging in. “Fuck, oh fuck, Steve yeah… yeahyeah … that … oh, ohplease, jus’likethat.”
Steve hums happily and curls his fingers, rubbing the right spots, letting his knuckles bump Bucky’s mound while he suckles with purpose at the head of his dick. He’s determined to get at least this first orgasm out of the way before he fucks him.
Bucky’s hands pull his head and his hips shove against Steve’s face as he arches and comes, the sweet, desperate sounds he makes as he reaches his climax music to Steve’s ears. His body contracts rhythmically as he releases, a hot gush of slick between his legs and Steve’s palm. Steve groans with his cocklet still held in his mouth. He pulls off, lifting his head to gaze up Bucky’s body but leaving his fingers buried inside his cunt. Bucky’s head is tossed back in the pillows, panting, his face lax from the trailing bliss of his orgasm.
Steve smiles and strokes his fingers inside a few more times, prolonging it for him as much as he can. When Bucky inhales hugely then sighs, his entire body going boneless, Steve pulls out. He dips down for one more, indulgent taste, then kisses his way back up Bucky’s stomach, up across his chest and neck. Bucky’s waiting for him with half-lidded eyes and a sated smile when he arrives to lie over top of him again. Steve hums, settling between his legs and kissing him lightly. He rocks his hips minutely, moving his cock through all that slick. “Feel good?” he asks, bending down to nose at his neck.
Bucky shivers in his arms and nods. “Mmm. Mmhm.”
Steve’s lips find Bucky’s bondmark and kiss it. “Good,” he murmurs. He flicks his tongue out against the delicate skin of the mark, imagining how good it would feel to bite him now, to sink his teeth in all over again, feel the skin break so tenderly and the blood welling out rich with pheromones, how much the sound of Bucky’s cries would turn him on. I want to claim you again, he thinks. I want you. His chest aches with how badly he wants to say those things, but he forces himself not to.
It’s not his place to scar Bucky up any worse than he already has, not when they aren’t mates. Bucky’s with him until the baby comes, maybe not long after. Steve has to let him have that choice, he can't be selfish and box him in, no matter how badly his instincts might make him want to. He rubs his lips over the bondmark instead, then just his nose, when the urge to bite won’t go away.
Beneath him, Bucky’s hips cant up further, receptive. His knees notch up higher about Steve’s waist. But after a moment of lazy writhing and making little seeking, wanting mewls, he freezes. “Oh. Um … Steve?”
“Mm?” Steve is rubbing his cock through the wet cleft of his sex, ready to be inside his omega, ready to feel that heaven again. He wedges a hand down to line himself up. “You ready, Honey?”
“Wait, no.” Steve pulls back, and Bucky winces in apology. “Ah, maybe I have to pee. Sorry.”
Steve laughs, relieved, and kisses him quickly. He rolls off of him and onto his back. “Don’t apologize. It happens.” He pats him on the hip affectionately and tells him to go. Bucky does, and Steve watches his naked backside as it disappears into the ensuite. He sighs heavily once he’s alone, scrubbing the heels of his hands over his eyes and resisting the urge to touch himself in Bucky’s absence. God, he’d really wanted to bite him again. That’s going to be a problem. He hears the toilet flush, then water running at the sink, then Bucky’s footsteps as he returns. Steve uncovers his face and smiles as Bucky climbs back on the bed. “Better?”
“Mmhm.”
Bucky's a typical omega, in that he responds very well to his orgasms. He’s loose and happy after his first, all the tension and insecurities from before gone for the moment. Steve knows his brain has just dumped a shit-ton of chemicals to tell him that he’s loved and safe and beautiful and cared for. He moves to pull him in close again, intending to get right back between his spread legs like he’d been before, but Bucky stops him with another hesitant,
“Wait.”
Steve pauses, and when Bucky pushes against his shoulder he takes the hint and returns to lying on his back, probably with a quizzical expression on his face. Bucky’s kneeling on the bedcovers beside him, looking shy but eager. Steve’s knot throbs at that look. “Buck?”
Bucky’s eyes rove over his body with interest plain on his face. At his sides, his hands make an aborted gesture towards Steve. “Um. I wanted to try …” He bites his lip, eyes trailing down to Steve’s erection where it lies wet and heavy against his belly, the shine of Bucky’s slick on it catching the room’s light. Bucky visibly trembles and reaches out with his hand again. This time, his fingers brush over the skin of Steve’s hip. He shifts in place on his knees. “Can I …”
“Yes,” Steve breathes, instantly harder just at the thought of Bucky touching him in that way—with his hands, his mouth, it doesn’t matter. Whatever it is that Bucky wants, Steve wants him to have it. The idea of his omega wanting him like this, wanting to explore his body, makes Steve hotter than anything he can imagine. “Anything you want,” he manages to croak out, forcing himself to remain still and let Bucky set the pace. “Go ahead.”
Bucky’s timid for another moment, leaning forward. His hands land lightly on Steve’s chest at first, then drag down, feeling his body. He takes a deep breath and seems to decide on something, his expression growing resolute. He straddles Steve’s thighs and leans forward to touch his chest again, taking more time to explore his pecs, ghost fingers over his nipples. It’s endearing how fascinated he still is. Steve supposes that they didn’t do much of this in the heat suite. Bucky had been too far into his cycle then, too needy and traumatized to even contemplate exploring Steve’s body when what he really needed was an alpha taking care of him. Now though, now he can explore. And the heat in his eyes as they rove Steve’s body shows that he very much wants to.
Steve swallows thickly and watches as his omega becomes familiar with him in this new way. His hands flow over Steve’s abs, fingertips tracing the lines of muscle, and then the hair that starts on his belly. He smooths his hands down over those flat planes, out to his hips, to the tops of his thighs and back up. But his eyes remain glued to Steve’s cock the entire time. It’s fully hard now, darkened in color from his arousal and the knot plumped at the base. Bucky’s eyes flick up once, just to check, and Steve gives him a shaky smile. “Go ahead, Sweetheart.”
Bucky touches his cock, wrapping his hand around the shaft like he’s afraid he’ll hurt Steve. “What should I do?” he whispers, fingers tightening the barest fraction and giving a cautious stroke. “I’ve never …”
Steve’s hips jerk up and he fights to keep himself still. “It’s okay,” he says. “You touch yourself, right? Just do that. It’s the same.”
Bucky’s eyes flick up, and Steve’s surprised to see humor there. Bucky twists his lips wryly. “It’s not the same,” he teases, looking back down pointedly at Steve’s humongous cock, and then his.
Steve chuckles. “Well, general idea.” He reaches down and puts his hand over Bucky’s hand where it’s holding his cock. Bucky inhales sharply and looks at him. Steve nods. “Anything you do is gonna feel so good for me, Buck,” he tells him honestly. “Go ahead. I just want to watch you have fun.” Bucky looks shocked at that for the barest of seconds, but then that look slips away, replaced by eagerness. He looks back down, licks his lips, and starts jerking Steve off in slow, exploring strokes. Steve groans and lets his head flop back into the pillow, closing his eyes after a moment. Bucky’s other hand appears at the top of his thigh. It slides inwards, squeezing the muscle, and Steve groans and spreads his legs a little for him, flexing his pelvis up. “Yeah,” he whispers. “Bucky.” Bucky’s touches grow bolder. He squeezes Steve’s cock harder and starts twisting his hand experimentally on the upstroke. His other hand migrates from Steve’s thigh to his balls, eliciting a grunt from Steve. “Oh,” he breathes, wanting Bucky to hear it in his voice, how good it is. “Honey, yeah. That’s just right.”
Bucky rolls his balls in his palm lightly, and when Steve tells him that he can tug on them a little, he obeys. “Touch my knot,” Steve whispers, when he can feel it swelling further. He moans unexpectedly loudly when Bucky’s hand closes around it though, and he’s opening his eyes and reaching down to grab Bucky’s wrists in alarm. “Nope, nope nope. No more of that,” he pants, wide-eyed.
Bucky laughs, looking proud. “Why not?”
Steve growls and tugs on Bucky's waist, making him fall down on top of him. “You know why not,” he rumbles, then kisses him firmly on the mouth.
It’s possessive, and Bucky moans into it, his hands curling over Steve’s shoulders and hips grinding down against his abs. They part from the kiss and Bucky sits up, his eyes sparkling. “I liked it though,” he says. He rocks down at a different angle, rubbing his cunt on Steve's belly and smearing his slick all over the place. He giggles when Steve groans and grabs his hips to stop him. “What if that’s what I wanted?” he asks. “What if I want to make you cum with my hands? Or my mouth?”
“Fuck.”
“I want to see it,” he says, eyes hot on Steve and his hips rocking lewdly against him. “One day. I wanna see it happen. In my hands. I want to hold it and see it get big.”
Steve really, really has to close his eyes for a second with that one. He bites the inside of his cheek hard enough to hurt. Because he simply cannot with Bucky and his virginal little attempts at dirty talk right now. “You better watch your mouth,” he warns, his voice sounding like he’s swallowed rocks. “Or you will see it.” Bucky’s grin is magnificent, but Steve raises an eyebrow and reminds him, “Alphas only cum once, Sweetheart. Up to you to decide where my knot is, when that happens.”
It’s adorable, how fast Bucky’s eyes widen at that, and then how he frowns and pouts about not getting to have his cake and eat it, too. Steve waits him out patiently, grateful to have a few seconds’ reprieve (and also fairly certain that he knows which way Bucky’s going to steer things).
“Fine,” Bucky eventually says, sighing dramatically as if he’s making the world’s most difficult choice. Steve grins and digs his fingers firmly into the fleshiness of his hips, preparing to flip them back over. But Bucky grunts in protest, and then he puts his hands on Steve's chest and shoves him back down to the bed with an adorable little omega growl. Steve feels his surge of confidence and playful dominance through the bond, and he grins up at him, understanding what he wants. “Yeah?”
Bucky pulls his bottom lip into his mouth and bites it, a little bit of self-consciousness slipping back in, even as he nods. “Uh huh. Can I?”
Steve groans. He sits up and yanks Bucky against him, one hand threaded into his hair just so he can kiss him, hard, one single time. He falls back down to the bed. “Of course you can,” he tells him, grabbing his hips again and kneading his fingers in. “Go on.”
His enthusiastic response seems to wipe away any remaining traces of Bucky’s doubt. The boy's scent is pure again, unpolluted by shame or uncertainty, and he licks his lips and focuses intently on kneeling up, reaching around behind himself for Steve’s cock, and lining it up with his entrance.
Steve helps him along, holding his dick steady at the base so that Bucky can focus on relaxing and taking him inside his body. “Hey,” he whispers, getting Bucky’s attention back on him. “Keep your eyes on me, okay?” Bucky flushes and exhales shakily at the command. He nods, eyes fixed on Steve’s face even as he lowers himself down and they touch. Steve’s cockhead presses, breaches Bucky’s body, and he sees Bucky’s lips part and his brow pinch.
"Oh."
“Just like that,” Steve soothes, petting his flank with one hand, guiding his hip down with the other. Bucky groans quietly as he sinks down and bottoms out, and Steve rewards him with a deep rumble of approval. “Thaat’s it, Honey. Oh, good boy.”
Bucky mewls and falls forward, bracing both hands on Steve’s chest. His eyes are clamped shut tightly and he starts moving, rocking forwards and back, hard and fast. But Steve only lets him have a moment of that frantic grinding before he’s shushing him and coaxing him to sit back, slow down, and open his eyes. “Yeah,” he says, stroking up to his waist and back down in praise. He tugs and pulls his hips, guiding him into the right motions. “Slow and easy. That’s right. Keep those pretty eyes open so Alpha can see, yeah?” Bucky nods, his pleasure-pained face and desperation for Steve's guidance just about the sweetest, most erotic thing Steve’s ever seen. He nods along encouragingly with Bucky. “Good boy. That's it. Look right at me while you make us feel so good.”
Bucky does, sitting back the way that Steve’s positioned him and learning to roll his hips in that slow, luxurious grind that feels absolutely exquisite. He’s able to keep at it that way for a long while, too, before his breathing eventually starts to pick up, getting heavier and faster, his face and chest gorgeously flushed. The wet sounds of all his slick are more intense, and Steve can tell from the scent of him, from the feeling of his cunt tightening and rippling around his dick, that he’s close to his second orgasm. Steve clenches his jaw and digs his heels into the sheets so he can fuck up against Bucky's grinding. He can feel his knot pulsing, about to swell. “Baby,” he grits out. “M’close.”
“Steve.”
“I’m gonna knot you,” he gasps. “Buck, oh, I’m gonna.”
It’s the first time he’s ever not asked it as a question, but he doesn’t have to worry about consent, because Bucky makes it immediately clear that Steve’s knot is exactly what he wants. “Fuck yeah,” he whines, face crumpling and both of his hands shooting forward to brace on Steve’s chest again. He grinds harder, faster, more desperately like he’d done in the beginning, and this time Steve lets him. He curses and wraps his arms around Bucky’s back when the boy collapses onto him. His knot pops, and Bucky wails and comes.
Steve shouts as he starts to come, too, his balls pulling up tight and his focus narrowing down to nothing but the point where their bodies are joined. God, it feels so good, so good, sofuckinggood. His hips rut mindlessly against their tie and he clutches onto Bucky, muffling his moans in the omega’s neck. He gasps and has to force his mouth away from Bucky’s bonding glands at the last second, when he realizes what he’s aiming for. He pants into the top of his shoulder instead as he comes. He loses track of space and time for that first, excruciating minute of his orgasm, and then flows back into himself for the heavenly three or four minutes of languorous pleasure that follow.
Meanwhile, Bucky pants and grinds himself out to at least one more climax, then collapses on Steve’s chest in sweaty exhaustion. "Oh. Oh, god."
Steve moans and wraps his arms fully around Bucky's waist, hugging their bodies tightly together while his balls keep emptying. "Hmmm," he sighs blissfully, eyes closed and nose buried in Bucky's hair. "'Mega."
Bucky whimpers a little and squirms on his knot, repeating his name in a tired, whispered slur, again and again, right against Steve’s left pec: “Steve, Ssteve … mmm, Ssteeve.”
Steve kisses the top of Bucky’s head and hums some more. He thinks he mumbles something in the general vicinity of, “Luv you,” before he drifts off to sleep, his cock still buried deep and his omega’s adoring, sated whispers still ringing in his ears.
Art: @hopelessartgeek
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🎨Art in banner by the incredibly talented @hopelessartgeek, who makes a ton of amazing Stucky art. Check her out! (The piece in the banner, used with permission, was not made for this fic.)
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
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This fic is a gift for TheGirlSleuth (@thegirldetectivesblog) and a fill for @marveltrumpshate.
Endless gratitude to Tenmilestilts and @booksandabeer as well as E_Greer aka @pawpawholler for the Appalachian accent consult. Thanks to @lochnesswriter for the feedback on aroace love confessions (relevant to chapter two). Special shout out to @i-am-a-dragon-dragon and others for the Tumblr asks that helped me with writer's block!
One of the themes of this set of stories is that It Takes a Village and so I suppose it’s fitting that writing this took a village. This feels hopelessly self indulgent and frankly amazes me that anyone besides me cares about it, not gonna lie, but I must be a lucky bastard.
So. Okay.
Chapter 1 Summary:
Hannah Barnes is losing her mind over how fucking attractive and also damn likable Sam Wilson is. Thoughts and prayers appreciated.
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