Chapter Text
Sitting in the van outside the safehouse, Rumlow sighs. He can’t put this off any longer. The events of the past day, the damn mating bite, they’re not going away as much as he wishes they would. He’d scrubbed the heat smell off of both of them as much as he could, tried to get it off the soldier’s gear, and aired the house out. The house doesn’t matter that much, but he felt better for trying. This whole thing isn’t going to be a secret for long, but he can’t stomach walking back into base with such the strong, unmistakable scent of their past day either. He still has some pride left.
He knows they can’t just head back to base like usual, that would be a fucking mess. Not only does he have to report that he’s now an omega, but that he’s also freshly bonded to the Winter fucking Soldier of all things. HYDRA’s number one weapon, their best asset. Bonded. He’s not terribly familiar with mating bonds, since he didn’t think he was even capable of them until, oh, this morning, but even he knows fresh bonds are touchy. A touchy bond combined with a deadly supersoldier alpha who tends to follow instincts over rational thought is a recipe for disaster. If anyone tried to get between them, or was stupid enough to try to separate them when they get back, it would be an absolute bloodbath.
He can feel the thrum of the soldier’s emotions in the back of his head. He’s got the soldier in the back of the van, in his usual seat. He wonders if the strong scent the alpha is giving off is indicative of anything, he’s never smelled it so strongly. The whole van is a piney, spicy cloud and he pretends he doesn’t like it. It seems the soldier is always running on a low level of protectiveness, he can feel it flowing through the bond like a radio turned on low. The soldier is calm otherwise, he has no reason to be worried and Rumlow wants - needs - to keep it that way. He doesn’t want to see what happens if that protective drive is kicked into high gear.
Fuck, this is all such a goddamn mess .
He rubs his face, resigned, and calls Pierce.
“Pierce.”
“Sir,” Rumlow starts, already hating every second of his existence. “There’s been an issue. With the soldier.” How does he inform his boss that he fucked up and got bonded to the weapon of the century?
“I’m sure it can be fixed with the chair,” Pierce says, sounding bored and annoyed at the interruption.
“No, sir, I think it’s something you need to hear about first. In private, with the soldier. It’s…serious. And needs to be handled carefully,” he cringes through the sentence, imagining all the ways this is going to go absolutely horribly for him.
Pierce hums, attention sharpening. “Very well. I’ll have a room isolated for you and the soldier to meet in.”
“Yes sir,” Rumlow responds, hanging up with a sigh of relief. It’s only the first step in this huge clusterfuck, but at least he’s not going to walk straight into a disaster, at least at first. Maybe second. He drops his phone in the cupholder, and scrubs his hands across his face. The stress he’s feeling is starting to echo across the mate bond, and he can hear the soldier getting antsy behind him, shifting his feet where he’s usually completely still.
He forces himself to breathe to calm down, forgetting the way the soldier’s spicy scent permeates the van and ends up twice as relaxed as he expected. Fucking alpha bond bullshit. He can feel the soldier’s concern for him, and tries to project a feeling of reassurance, a feeling that he’s fine and doesn’t need anything. He frowns at himself. Using the bond like that was completely instinctual. He suppresses a shiver, unsure what else in his life is going to get upended by the last 24 hours too. At least the reassurance worked, the soldier has settled back down. The last thing he needs is the soldier getting wound up and blowing through the van to protect him from nothing. He heaves another dramatic sigh, at his stupid decisions, at his whole joke of a day, and starts the van.
They get to the room Pierce directed him to at the base. He would have been able to find the room without Pierce telling him which one, the way he can scent Pierce in the hallway, the way the smell is so much stronger at the door. Pierce is sitting at the table in the room, waiting for them. He looks a little annoyed to be interrupted like this, but he knows Rumlow wouldn’t have called for nothing. He stops in front of the table where Pierce is, the soldier standing a careful two steps back to his left. The door swings shut behind them, enclosing them in a weirdly loaded silence. He stops himself from wrinkling his nose at the weirdly overpowering musk in the room. There’s an almost nauseatingly sweet undertone.
He doesn’t know where to start. “Sir, I…” he hesitates, not sure how to say it. He spent the whole drive back trying to come up with what to say, and got nowhere.
Pierce raises his eyebrows, waiting for him to get his shit together. He holds back a groan, and decides to bite the bullet. There’s no way to make this any less fucked up than it is. He focuses his eyes on the wall behind Pierce and slides into parade rest to report.
“While on the mission, my designation changed, and I ended up bonded to the soldier,” he gets out. What a hell of a sentence, to boil down the absolutely life changing events of the day. God, he hopes that’s enough, he might die if he has to go into detail. He can feel a flush trying to heat his face at the words, at having to face everything he’d rather hide from.
A startled look crosses Pierce’s usually controlled face, he clearly wasn’t expecting to hear any of that. Fair, Rumlow thinks, head light, it happened to him and he can barely handle thinking about it. His head rush of chaotic feelings reaches the soldier, and he can feel the soldier perking up along the bond again, getting concerned about his mate. He feels the soldier shift a little behind him, into a more ready stance. The last thing he needs is the soldier getting defensive over him, especially in front of Pierce, for no apparent reason. He’s not sure where the impulse comes from, but he gets the urge to hide the bond, hide their communication from everyone. He doesn’t understand it, but it seems like a safe plan for now.
“You’re an omega now,” Pierce states, expression back under control.
Rumlow nods curtly, still looking just over Pierce’s shoulder to avoid eye contact. There’s only so much he can handle at once.
“You’re bonded to the soldier. Mate bonded.”
Rumlow nods again, embarrassment surging through him at the blunt statements that encompass an absolutely filthy amount of sex. He never wants to think about sex and Pierce in the same room again.
“Show me,” Pierce orders.
Rumlow unzips his jacket and pulls his shirt to the side, baring the silver mate bite Pierce. He knows the silver shows especially vibrant against his tanned skin. It’s extremely clear what it is, what it means.
Pierce stands to get a closer look at the mark, coming to lean into Rumlow’s space. The waft of his scent makes Rumlow hold his breath, he doesn’t want to breathe whatever that smell is. It clings to his throat, makes him want to scrub his face out. Pierce trails a finger along the mate mark, and Rumlow suppresses a shiver at the touch. It feels weirdly invasive, in a way that just skin being touched doesn’t, but he doesn’t show his reaction outwardly. The soldier reacts to his emotions though, and shifts next to him restlessly. The soldier is going to struggle with invisible enemies, Rumlow thinks suddenly, wanting to laugh at the absurdity. The soldier, trying to defend his mate against the things that make him anxious or wound up and there’s nothing there. He feels an abrupt pang of shame for thinking that, it’s not the soldier’s fault he’s more robot than human. He hopes there won’t be too many conflicts that stress the soldier out with his limited emotional capacity.
The soldier is ignored by Pierce as usual, everyone is used to the soldier fading into the background when not actively on mission. Rumlow can feel the soldier’s disquiet though, through that shared spot in the back of his head. He wonders if the soldier always has these feelings, or if the bond is prompting them. None of it shows on the soldier’s ever stony expression, so it’s impossible to know.
Pierce steps back with one more unsettling stroke of his bond bite. Rumlow relaxes internally as Pierce leans against the table, and lets his shirt and jacket cover up the mark again. The soldier also relaxes as Pierce moves away from his mate. The proximity of another alpha to his newly bonded omega was clearly stressing him out, not to mention actually touching the mark. Rumlow is really fucking glad he made sure to call Pierce first, rather than just letting techs barge in and likely turn the soldier into a one man death squad if they looked at Rumlow funny in his presence.
The calculation in Pierce’s gaze as he looks at Rumlow and the soldier is a little worrying. His eyes narrow, and he steps forward and slaps Rumlow across the face. It’s not a hard hit, doesn’t break skin, but the soldier launches forward and has Rumlow shoved behind him before Rumlow even realizes he’d moved. The soldier has squared up between Pierce and Rumlow, bristling in threat. His fists are clenched and the metal arm is whirring dangerously as he stares Pierce down, who is watching with a very interested expression.
The level of possessiveness and need to protect and something edging on rage that is emanating from the soldier is a little alarming. Rumlow thinks he really needs to look up scents and bonds, because the soldier is putting off such a strong sharp pine scent that it’s taking over the room. Not that he minds, it’s so much better than Pierce’s. Rumlow tries to broadcast his okayness again, it worked once but this is a much more unstable situation. He decides to bank his physical well-being on the bond, and grabs the soldier’s shoulder, tugging him back away from Pierce. Normally, surprising the soldier or grabbing him like this would result in broken limbs at best, but the soldier moves easily for him. He’s stepping back into Rumlow’s space, fists unclenching a little, and some of the tension is leaving his body.
He feels a surprising rush of gratitude and pleasure at the soldier’s defense of him, it’s almost nice to have someone just leap to his defense. He’s not sure there’s ever been someone who did that for him. The bond vibrates a little, like a purr, as the soldier picks up on his positive response. He moves the soldier over a little more, glad the soldier is looking calmer, even if his sharp blue eyes are still promising violence. He’ll take what he can get at this point, and the soldier usually has a resting murder face anyway.
Rumlow is a little worried that Pierce doesn’t realize how much he’s pushed the soldier, content to assume he’s still docile and controlled. He might be, but Rumlow suspects that the bond is introducing a sizable dose of chaos into things. Rumlow thinks with a faint hint of hysteria that he has no idea what the soldier is going to be like now. He doubts he’ll be more tractable.
Pierce sits back in his chair, steepling his fingers. “You truly are bonded to the soldier.”
Rumlow suppresses a derisive snort, like this is something he’d lie about, something he’d choose . Like he’d choose to be an omega, and end up bonded to the Winter Soldier after getting fucked into the mattress for hours. He resolutely shoves that thought away again. Pierce must be trying to figure out if he did this on purpose somehow, if he’s playing some unknown angle. Rumlow almost wishes he was, rather than this being just a cosmic joke of timing.
Pierce hums thoughtfully. “We can still use this. Using your bond, you will be capable of controlling the soldier on a much deeper level than we’ve been able to reach. He was already responsive to you as a handler. This should be simply one more level of control. Keep him docile, do whatever you have to.” He couples that last bit with a knowing look, and Rumlow feels disgust at the insinuation. He’s not surprised Pierce would tell him to fuck the soldier more to keep him under control. Anything for HYDRA, after all, and Pierce has no reason to doubt him.
Rumlow nods, recalling the combat team alphas discussing the idea that omegas could control alphas through the bonds. Those weren’t positive conversations, he does remember that much. The alphas seem to see omegas as all powerful puppeteers through the bonds, controlling helpless alphas against their better judgment, but also as weaklings who can’t do anything for themselves. He’s not looking forward to seeing how those attitudes are directed at him now.
He’d always found those ideas incredibly stupid, but it wasn’t worth picking a fight over at the time. He doesn’t feel like he’s in any particular position of power over the soldier, not more than usual anyway, but maybe he just doesn’t know how to manipulate the bond yet. He’s sure HYDRA will investigate that. He finds the idea of using their bond like that a little revolting, actually. It feels unnatural, something in him rebelling at the very thought. He has no intention of trying to use it that way if he can avoid it. If anything, he feels like the soldier should get at least one thing Hydra doesn’t use against him, though it’s already a little corrupted since he’s bonded to Rumlow of all people.
“Science division will need to examine the bond, and test how you and the soldier react to various factors,” Pierce is saying. “Of course, you won’t be able to remain as STRIKE commander. Justifying that will take some work, but it will be taken care of.”
Rumlow feels a surge of anger and loss run through him at that, and he hopes it’s not showing on his face. It’s one thing to know he couldn’t stay as commander anymore, but an entirely different thing to be so casually dismissed from the position. He nods tightly in response.
“Handling the SHIELD side of this will take even more work,” Pierce muses. He doesn’t look annoyed at least, Rumlow thinks, it would be much worse if Pierce held a grudge against them for this on top of it all. “It’s a problem to deal with later. Right now you’re still technically on mission, so they aren’t expecting you back for a few days. That’s enough time to settle all of…this.”