Chapter Text
So this story sort of niggled at the back of my brain. I decided f* it, I'll give it life. That being said, updates will likely be slow and none will likely be as long as the first chapter. I sort of wanted to make sure the characters meet, but settings gotta set first. \(^.-)/
It's definitely not compliant with canon and I'm definitely pulling at some of my favorite bits and pieces of characters, so there's that. But I hope it shall amuse. Thanks for reading. (^_^)
“What do they want, Stevie?” Bucky asked, clear frustration in his voice. Steve was leaning against the doorframe of the garage attempting to look casual. He raised an eyebrow at Bucky’s question.
“What does who want, Buck?” Steve asked, watching his friend tinker with a motorcycle engine that was sprawled all over the floor.
Bucky straightened up, wiping his grease stained hands on a rag, the black shining brightly on his metallic hand. Bucky’s brow furrowed until he was glaring at the floor. His silence and mood was an answer in its own right.
Steve let out a deep sigh. “How’d you know?”
“You’re wearing your SHIELD boots,” Bucky said, tossing one glance at said boots before fixating on the oil stuck in the crevices of his metal arm. “You only wear them when you’ve been at the office downtown or on a mission, and since I wasn’t called in for an assignment and you were here last night for beers, I know you didn’t go on a solo mission, hence, downtown. So,” Bucky fixed Steve with a hard look, “what do they want?”
Steve nodded in resignation. As though he knew this might be trouble but he hoped it wouldn’t come out this fast. As though he’d wanted to talk around it for a while, which Bucky didn’t doubt. But he wasn’t in the mood to watch Steve play gymnastics to talk around the request they both knew was coming. Bucky might not know what it was about yet, but from the fact that Steve hadn’t changed before coming out to Bucky’s cabin, he was pretty sure it was something that even Steve couldn’t ignore.
“They’ve expressed some concerns…” Steve trailed off under the force of the glare coming from his friend, before clearing his throat and continuing. “Concerns about you … temperment.”
Bucky crossed his arms, as if to ask ‘what’s wrong with my temperament’. As though the nicest thing someone could call the man was ‘standoffish’. Even Steve’s beta, who knew Bucky more than most at SHIELD, called him ‘semi-reformed murderbot’. Not within his hearing, but still, the sentiment stood. Bucky was hard to be around. He knew that. He was reclusive, not an idiot.
“Have I failed to perform in my missions?”
“Buck, that’s not the issue here,” Steve said, pushing himself out of the doorframe to come into the garage. “You’ve been a great -”
“Asset,” Bucky cut him off. He almost regretted deadpanning the word when Steve flinched. Though there had been a lot of forgiveness on the part of SHIELD when they realized they could deprogram the Winter Soldier out of him (for the most part), Bucky wasn’t fool enough to think that meant they actually welcomed him in with open arms.
Sure, SHIELD was a lot less shady than his former bosses. On the right side of history and all that, but he was aware his acceptance there had exactly to do with how much he could be used by the organization for their own purposes. Sure, they gave him leeway, allowed him to live off the compound after two years without any Winter Soldier incidents, even accepted him turning down the occasional mission, but he was still a tool. His freedom was directly linked to his work. SHIELD wasn’t a job for him the way it was for Steve. It was his only way to stay in the world, even if they called him something different.
Steve was still cringing, his discomfort of remembering the past stronger than Bucky’s own. “Buck, please don’t use that word.”
“Sorry Stevie,” he said softly, actually sounding it. He was a jerk at times. It wasn’t Steve’s fault. The man had done all he could to bring him in out of the cold and, for that, Bucky would be more than endlessly grateful and could at least try to accommodate his oldest friend’s discomfort. “I know how uncomfortable that word makes you.”
He grabbed a tattered sweater and threw it on, trying to hide his arm from view. He’d gotten used to his arm, about as used to it as anyone could to a metal appendage with a soviet star branded on it, but Steve … Steve still had issues with the fact that his good ol’ friend Bucky was gone. In his place was some combination of the Winter Soldier and Barnes. One that was less playful, the mirth he’d had before WWII gone. One that was more dangerous, though he hadn’t lashed out in unnecessary violence in quite some time. Though what the Winter Soldier part of his brain told him was ‘necessary violence’ may have bordered a bit too harsh for most people, especially boyscout Steve Rogers. Add to that the testiness that came when too many alphas were on a mission and there’d been enough close call incidents that Bucky really should have seen a talk like this coming sooner.
So if he could put his oldest friend to a bit of comfort by hiding what he now was, pulling on gloves he didn’t need to hide the shine from his left hand, why wouldn’t he?
“What do they want from me?” he asked, not quite looking at Steve.
Steve cleared his throat again, clearly uncomfortable with whatever discussion had happened about Bucky behind closed doors. In the end, he could only manage to get out one word. “Stability.”
“I’m fine, Stevie,” Bucky sighed. The lie felt almost true. “I don’t give into trigger codes anymore. I haven’t disassociated for a long time and…”
“How are you sleeping, Bucky?”
He began to organize the tools on the workbench. “Fine…”
“Don’t lie to me, Bucky,” Steve bit out and there was the barest sour twinge of annoyed alpha drifting in the air.
Bucky ignored it, keeping on his arrangements, even though his flesh fingers felt a little clumsy at Steve’s rising anger. Gut reactions to alphas may have been trained out of him by Hydra, but no alpha enjoyed another one letting off angry pheromones in their space.
“You aren’t fine,” Steve was saying, “You’ve been getting jittery and you put two of SHIELD’s agents into the hospital last month.”
“They were partnered military, not full SHIELD -”
“Just because they weren’t … that’s not the point. The outbursts, the jitteriness, you’ve locked yourself away in this cabin -”
“I’m not locked-”
“- you aren’t integrated into current society.”
Bucky paused at that. There was something about the phrase that didn’t feel natural on Steve’s tongue. It was a phrase he’d heard somewhere before, but he couldn’t quite place it as the silence grew between them. Then, suddenly, horrifyingly, he knew where this conversation was going.
“No,” he said so quietly that if Steve didn’t have super-hearing he wouldn’t have heard it.
“Buck -”
“It’s out of the question, Steve,” Bucky said. He turned to Steve, crossing his arms over his chest, willing his flesh one not to shake, and glared for all he was worth.
“I’m afraid it isn’t,” Steve said gently. Guiltily. As though it wasn’t up to Bucky. Wasn’t up to Steve. As though it had been decided without either of them.
“I say it is,” Bucky ground out, his left fist clenching so hard the creaking metal of it could be heard through the glove.
“Buck, I pulled three favors with Fury to allow me to come talk to you about this before they demand it. This isn’t a suggestion they’re making anymore. A bond would do wonders for your nerves and help get you more acclimated to this century.”
“I’ve acclimatized just fine. I know more about the tech than you do.”
“Because you’ve spent most of your time living off grid and …” Steve threw up frazzled hands. “You haven’t really been living in the world. You just work, spend time with me, and hide out up here. You should be a part of the world.”
“I don’t want a mate.”
“Well, the brass says you need one.”
“Or what?” Bucky glared, voice laced with challenge.
Steve sighed. “Or they put you back in cryo.”
That gave him pause. “You’d let them do that to me?”
Steve shuffled from foot to foot, discomfort and pain radiating off of him. “They made it clear that if I tried to stop them then they’d put me in cryo too.”
Bucky would have called him a liar. Tell him that SHIELD wouldn’t dare put Captain America out of commission, but the way Steve was hunching his shoulders, the pure resignation and defeat that was in his eyes had Bucky floored. “They wouldn’t.”
“Buck, they are serious about this. They think a mate could mellow you out, help you adjust properly. Like it did for me. They are done listening to reasons why you don’t want one,” Steve held up a hand when Bucky had his “interrupting face”. “Unfortunately or fortunately for you, I am the only other person they can try to compare your case with. I was a bit like you, overwhelmed and angry, and I know my case is different than yours, lord I know it’s different, but having a bond really helped me.”
Bucky scoffed. “You got lucky with the mini-Stark.”
Steve winced. “Please don’t call him that. Look, I know Tony was a very lucky coincidence for me. If I hadn’t found him, or rather if he hadn’t inserted himself in my life until I noticed him, then things could have gone badly for me. But Tony has been really good for me. He made me feel like I belonged in the world again.” Don’t you want that? was left unsaid. It was a question they both knew Steve would never ask, afraid to hear the answer.
“Stevie… look man, I’m not you and there aren’t any more Starks flying around, not that I’d want one,” Bucky added in a grumbled undertone to reinforce just how disinterested he was in Tony. He didn’t think Steve would ever dream that Bucky had an interest in the beta, but Steve seemed emotional, and you don’t poke emotional alpha’s about their mates.
“What do you suggest, Steve, a masked ball? Seriously, no one is going to want me with this … thing,” Bucky gave a cursory glance to the metal arm which was barely visible in the small holes of the old sweater. “I’m not going to spend time trying to find some beta who wants a messed up alpha. I got missions to go on. Reports to fill out. Bikes to rebuild. Besides, I don’t know how to date in these modern times. What’s the solution to that?”
Steve scratched the back of his neck sheepishly. “They’ve compiled a list.”
“A list of what?” he asked stupidly, because Steve could not mean what it sounded like he was saying.
“Of people who might be of interest to you. They want you to come look at the portfolios today.”
Bucky stared at him. “That’s rather sudden Stevie.”
“I may have been trying to push it off. Trying to get them to see things your way … But they just don’t think that there is anything as effective as finding a mate for you.”
Bucky ground his teeth together. “How long did they give you to talk to me?”
“The afternoon. If you don’t come in the next few hours Fury is probably going to send someone in.”
“What is Romanoff on route?” he couldn’t help but scoff.
“She’s probably already on her way,” Steve admitted with a small smile. His shoulders sank. “Bucky, just come in and look at the portfolios. Say you need a few days to read through them, then take a few weeks to make the list shorter, buy yourself some time.”
“You want me to try and outsmart Fury to get above this?”
“If this was just coming from Fury then we might have a shot at making him see reason, but this is above Fury’s pay grade. It’s been decided. Bucky please, I didn’t find you after all this time to put you back into cryo and I really don’t want to go into it myself. I haven’t the slightest idea what they would do with Tony or whether or not he’d even survive the freeze. Just come take a look. Please?”
“Stop giving me those puppy dog eyes. Fine, I’ll take a look at them, but I’m not promising I’ll take any of them seriously.”
Steve brightened at that. “That’s all I’m asking, that you take a look. They seem pretty desperate for you to choose someone. We can tell them that you want it to be the right person, they’ll just have to wait. If you show some interest, I’m sure we can give you more time.”
Bucky didn’t reply to that because ‘time’ wasn’t the issue. The issue was that he didn’t want a mate and he was pretty sure no one wanted to be his mate. He was fucked up five ways to Sunday. There was no way any responsible alpha would drag a mate into the trainwreck that was his life and mind. But, Steve had a point, he needed to buy time if he was going to find a way out of this. He could pursue files for a few months.
Try to tamp down any bursts of temper. To hope that if he could temper himself, shove down the flares of him that weren’t the old vision of pre-war Bucky Barnes, that they’d decide he was ‘stable’ enough on his own. Or, he could pull a Tony Stark move, and decide none of them were good enough and ask for another round of candidates until they gave up on finding a match for him.
So, Bucky just grabbed a well worn jacket and a baseball cap as he followed Steve out of the garage. Even though the days of him being in hiding were long gone, Bucky still had the tendency to wear caps low on his brow, eyes darting around in the reflex of cautious surveillance. He reluctantly followed Steve over to the SHIELD issued transport and hopped in.
The drive was mostly silent, with Steve fidgeting and casting the occasional look Bucky’s way, as if to make sure that he hadn’t done a tuck and roll out onto the highway. It was tempting, but Steve would just come looking for him, so Bucky decided it wasn’t worth it.
He didn’t break his silence until they had made their way through the hub of SHIELD and into Steve’s office. Steve went behind his desk and sat, pulling out a key to open the bottom drawer. Bucky didn’t sit as Steve searched, but rather wandered around the office to the bookcase where a picture of Tony and Steve in their tuxes sat.
It was a cute snapshot from after the wedding ceremony that Natasha had taken. Tony looked like a cat that ate a canary, with that smirkish grin and sunglasses on. Steve had a goofy smile of pure joy on his face. Bucky had to admit he’d never seen his friend as happy as when he was around that smug beta. He turned around when he heard a loud thump and walked over to Steve’s desk where a hefty stack of files sat in the middle.
He raised an eyebrow at the pile. “These all for me?”
Steve nodded, swiveling side to side in his chair. “Natasha went through them. The board initially had a lot more than this, but she figured they wouldn’t be as restrictive on screening as you’d like, so she had a look through them. I haven’t. I figured that was something that you wanted to do on your own.”
Bucky appreciated the sentiment. From both Natasha and Steve. Natasha was right, if the board made a selection they were likely thinking of a slightly grumpier version of Steve. Things that would suit their ‘asset’. Natasha knew violence. She knew secrets. She knew fear. A prescreening from her would offer some help…if he actually wanted a mate. Which he didn’t.
He frowned. It would have been better to have a larger stack. Something that would take him even longer to comb through to stave off this process. With great reluctance, he pulled the pile towards himself before flipping open the first folder.
He was greeted by a smiling, gorgeous young woman’s face. He pulled up the sheet to look underneath it. Lists of hobbies, age, status. He shoved it aside and opened the next file. Then the next. A mix of beautiful men and women laid out in tempting snapshots before the list of their details, as if Bucky could be tempted by a pretty face alone.
He glanced down at the pages. He’d never seen files like this before. He knew he had woken up in a different world, and that things weren’t done as they used to be. Hell, he’d heard of this sort of thing being done back in the 40s but only for the super rich. People would scout out matches for them, but that was something only the super elite did.
Though, given his force as an asset, Bucky could finally be on one of those lists. Think of that, Bucky Barnes making it into a ‘someone’. Though he’d rather not be on a list with something like this. He pushed through another few files, barely looking up when Steve’s office phone rang. Steve was having a hushed conversation with a lot of ‘sirs’ in it, as Bucky peaked under the topsheet of each file, and Bucky didn’t doubt someone very high up had requested to know if he’d managed to wrangle Bucky into the office. Steve hung up the phone and began to straighten up his desk around the stack of folders, carefully not touching them.
“Fury is on the way with one of the generals. They want to talk with you. Fury doesn’t sound happy about it. I think he tried to put them off, but they’re pretty determined that you find someone…”
Bucky was still glancing at the files when there was a knock on the door. Fury came in with not one but three generals. They were all in primp military dress, except for Fury who was wearing his typical all black. Bucky took a glance down at his grease stained pants, torn sweater, and worn jacket. Maybe not the best day to dress down.
“Sergeant Barnes, please have a seat,” one of the generals said, even though this wasn’t their office and they had no right to demand anything of him in this space. He was tempted to roll his eyes at these alphas that thought they could command a supersoldier around as though he was a normal sergeant, but he let it go. Instead, Bucky merely looked at him and then glanced back at the files.
“Who put these together?”
“They were compiled by a few of our specialists. Agent Romanoff had a glance at them to look for any security threats and weeded out a few of the candidates. Though, don’t be concerned, she did not put any nominations up.”
Bucky hadn’t been worried about that. Though, if she had been searching for a mate for him, he didn’t doubt she might have a better shot at it then these jagoffs. “How did you find them?”
“There are services for this sort of thing,” the general said with an air of patience that he clearly didn’t actually feel. “There are many who have a hard time finding an appropriate alpha -”
Bucky cut him off, pointing down at the stack. “These are all omegas.”
Steve’s head snapped up at that. He clearly had not been aware of that. Bucky didn’t doubt that Steve was berating himself for not going through the files, even though it would have made Steve uncomfortable, because there was no way in hell that Steve would have given Bucky a single option that was an omega, nevermind a whole stack of them.
The Generals were all nodding, unperturbed, as though that was reasonable. No, not reasonable, desirable. “They are indeed.”
Bucky clenched his jaw. “Any particular reason?”
“Statistically, omegas are more compliant and willing to put up with -” one of the generals stated but Fury cut him off.
“Just read the files, Barnes. Don’t go rejecting them because of their status without an examination of their personalities. If you don’t like any of them we can open it up to more candidates.”
“What are you kidding?” one of the generals broke in, oblivious to any of Fury’s attempts of tact. “I had five specialists combing through files until these were selected. Son, this is the list that was picked with you specifically in mind. You think it was easy to come up with people who were willing to -”
“Don’t call me ‘son’,” Barnes half snarled, taking a step toward the general, aware but not caring at the moment that he was letting more than a small hint of his alpha growl out. “I’m a mite bit older than you and -”
“Enough,” Fury snapped in his booming voice. “Generals, I appreciate the gravity of the situation but let me handle this. Besides, I’m sure you have more important matters to attend to.”
The generals left, somewhat begrudgingly, but there were only three of them and, even if they liked to throw around their metaphorical weight, they weren’t dumb enough to push two super soldier alphas. Especially not when one of them was a second from baring his teeth.
Fury turned to look at the two supersoldiers, looking extremely tired. “Barnes, sit down. Now.”
Bucky sat, more so that he wouldn’t cause issues for Steve than for himself. Fury remained standing, putting a hand over the disheveled stack of papers. “I’m assuming that Steve let you in on what’s going on.”
“More or less,” Bucky grumbled but he saw Steve wince a bit out of the corner of his eye. That didn’t bode well.
Fury rolled his good eye and sat in the chair opposite. “I was afraid of this. I extended Steve’s choice to brief you as a courtesy and because I know you have a bit of a temper on you with authority figures, not that anyone would ever react any differently given what you’ve been through. Now, I’m not here to tell you to pick someone in those files,” Bucky’s shoulders relaxed for five seconds before Fury finished the rest of his thought, “but I am going to tell you to pick someone.”
Bucky opened his mouth to object but Fury held up a hand.
“I get it, you don’t want a mate, but they are dead set on you having one. They’d prefer you to pick someone from these files, someone they’ve vetted, but they don’t really care where your mate comes from. They’ve been at me about this for over a year. They are convinced you need someone. Hell, I don’t entirely disagree with them. You pick anyone that you want and they’ll clear it. Now, Romanoff went through these, she says some of them aren’t quite bad. It’s up to you Barnes. You don’t have to play their game entirely but you have got to pick someone.”
Bucky gritted his teeth, wanting to argue but knowing it would do no good at this point. Fury pushed the stack of files closer to him in encouragement before standing. “Now if you’ll excuse me, Roger’s other half is running around this facility and that means I’m bound to need to put out a fire or two before the day is over. Good day gentlemen.”
Bucky watched him leave. “That’s a strange man.”
“He is,” Steve agreed, “but I believe he’s got your best interest at heart with this one.”
“You didn’t mention they’d been badgering him too.”
“I didn’t think it would do any good. Sorry I didn’t read through these,” Steve said, indicating the files on the desk. “I know how you feel about omegas.”
Bucky let out a groan and closed his eyes as he leaned back in the chair. “‘More compliant’ is how they describe omegas. As if I need to be reminded how helpless omegas are against alphas like us. As if alphas in power positions isn’t hard enough on an omega, nevermind you and me. Last thing I need in my life is some omega preselected for obedience. Are they out of their minds?”
“No,” Steve said grimly. “They are all alphas in power positions and they all picked omegas, besides Fury. They thought I was crazy to pick a beta, especially a headstrong one like Tony. They want people they can control and show off. Things that don’t appeal to either of us. Not that Tony isn’t a show off, but he acts as if I’m the trophy prize partner and not him. Though to be honest I’m pretty certain that I won better than him.”
“I think we’d both disagree with you on that point,” Bucky said.
He liked Tony well enough, especially how happy the man made Steve, but Steve definitely was the catch of the two of them and Tony knew it. The beta was brazen before he was bonded and since he was linked to Steve, the man knew no bounds. And perhaps this was a bad thing because no sooner had Steve calmed Bucky down enough into reading the portfolios than Tony himself burst through the door.
Steve had a smile until he noticed that Tony was gasping for breath and indicating out the open door, saying a bunch of nonsense words attempting to bring together a sentence. Steve rushed around the table and grabbed the beta in his arms getting him into a chair. “Hey, hey, hey, calm down. Tony what is it? Tell me what’s going on.”
Instead of looking directly at Steve he looked at Bucky. “You know how you are always telling me I’m going to get this one into trouble with one of my stupid stunts?”
“And then I call you a punk and you brush it off?” Bucky half-joked, but the comment didn’t cause the dismissive laugh that Tony always threw back. Rather Tony’s eyes seemed even wide, wilder, and leaden dread dropped through Bucky. “What did you do?”
“Bucky!” Steve snapped, not pleased with the amount of annoyed alpha command that had slipped into Bucky’s tone. Even though it was that waft of authority that had Tony getting grip enough to explain himself.
“It isn’t exactly something I did,” he mumbled before turning to his mate. “Steve, you know how I was working on that technology outreach for those who don’t have the same advantages as others.”
“Your beta sciences program to pre-select scholarships? What about it?”
“Well, I had a few of my students come in on occasion to SHIELD, with Fury’s approval of course, and I’ve never had a problem with it before. Not once. I mean, yeah, sometimes it can get a bit shirty between some of the alphas who work here but they are mostly fine and most of them are military so they respect the chain of command, and if they don’t respect the chain of command they respect you and mentioning you pretty much shuts them up…”
“Tony,” Steve said, carting a soothing hand through his beta’s hair before resting it on the shorter man’s shoulder. Tony leaned into it. Took a deep breath to focus and ground himself before continuing, voice sounding slightly less frantic but no less urgent.
“I have a favorite and … I know I should have talked it over with you, but I thought what was the harm in admitting just one. But, you see, now it’s gotten completely out of hand and I need your help because they are saying it’s out of my hands and I need someone a bit more important to pull some weight around. I mean, I’m not military and definitely not an alpha. So you’ve gotta help me! You see, they dragged him out.”
“Who did what? You’ve got to be more specific,” Steve said. He pet Tony’s hair again, seeking to sooth the explosion of distressed beta that was flooding the room. “Take me through it. Slower. Who do they have and who are they?”
Tony worried his lip for a moment, shame washing out of him. His voice was so quiet when he spoke again that if they weren’t super soldiers there would have been now way they could have possibly heard him. “I took an omega into my program. Just one. He was just so inquisitive and I liked him. There isn’t a rule against teaching omegas but I brought him to SHIELD. Only a few times. Nothing had ever gone wrong before. But he uh …”
Something unpleasant was bubbling inside Bucky’s chest. He wanted to berate Tony for his stupidity. It wasn’t that omegas couldn’t be just as smart, just as capable as anyone else, but to bring one without proper permission into an institution like SHIELD was madness. Especially with Tony’s beta distinction not being likely to protect the omega if things went wrong, which they seemed to have done. But he bit his tongue. It wasn’t his place to scold another’s mate, no matter how foolish.
“What did he do?” Steve asked gently, coaxing the information out the best way he knew how, with calming touches and scent coming to encircle Tony.
“Nothing too bad. I mean it was good. He noticed some things were wrong with the calibration of a system. He’s really smart with tech.”
“So, what’s the problem with that?” Bucky asked impatiently, wanting Tony to get to the point. He ignored the glare from Steve. “If he found a glitch, isn't it good that he noticed it?”
“Normally, yeah. If people see something they tell me and if I can, if it won’t cause problems, I let them get the credit for it. But the problem is that this was Hammer tech. Hammer hates me and, worse, he had some of his lackeys around. I try to schedule visits for when he’s not around to see up his connections to the military contacts.”
Steve nodded as though he could see where this was going. “And Hammer took a problem with it and complained to the higher ups. He wouldn’t like an omega being better than him at anything. The man’s nothing if not arrogant. Did he get his military contacts to give the omega a talking to?”
“No,” Tony said. “That’s not the problem. Don’t get me wrong, Hammer wasn’t happy that an omega was pointing out that he was wrong. I thought Hammer would just get ticked but, well, the real issue is that Hammer took a liking to the omega.”
“How is that a -” Steve started, then his face fell. “Oh Tony, tell me you didn’t. Tell me you didn’t let an unbound omega with tech savvy mouth off to a power hungry alpha.”
“It just got out of control so quickly,” Tony said, his voice small. “The brass said since I’m not military I technically have no right to bring anyone into the building at all. That they allow me to do it because you’re my alpha. Hammer says he has rights to claim an unbound omega, especially one who has broken the law. He’s demanding that the omega be released into his care. You see, he doesn’t have any family, so there is no one to take care of him. Can you please just run in there and pull rank and get him out? I promise, I’ll never bring him back here again.”
“You fucking idiot.” It was out of Bucky’s mouth before he could think better of it. Steve growled at him, but it didn’t change the fact that Tony was an idiot. To bring an unbound omega into the base. To flaunt that omega in front of Hammer of all people…
“Where are they?” Steve asked, ever practical when it came time to take action.
They followed Tony down the halls and to a conference room. Bucky wavered at the door, unsure of his role in this and incredibly aware that he was out of uniform, but Tony was behind him and half-pushed him through the door.
The sight that met him was a surprise. It was a full scale court of determination. He’d only seen one before and it hadn’t ended well for the person in the hot seat.
Speaking of which, he glanced at the odd one out. The only omega in the room. He was young, slight, and pretty. Bucky half wondered how he’d managed to convince anyone he was a beta long enough to even get into the building.
To his credit, the omega did not look afraid. If anything he looked defiant. Rotating an irritated glance from the table in front of him, to the officials in suits surrounding the room, and then towards Hammer. Bucky noticed whenever he looked up at Hammer a look of contempt flashed across the omega’s face.
Everyone looked up when the trio entered: two super soldiers and a beta. Bucky caught the omega’s eye for a split second, he gave him a quick once over, a hint of a smile dancing across his features, probably because of how out of place Bucky looked, before he looked back at the general who was droning on.
Bucky tried not to think about the way he was dressed. About how he stood out and, in this circumstance, it was not in a good way. Any authority that he held as reformed Winter Soldier was cut by the grimy clothes. But he was mostly there to observe. It was Steve who would save the day.
Steve, who was already making his way to the front of the room to consult with the generals sitting in the row of judges that were ready to condemn the small omega. Hammer was practically glowering at the intrusion, but there was also a hint of victory in his eyes that concerned Bucky. Anyone who thought they had the right to simply claim an omega because they were unbound and useful greatly concerned Bucky. It might have felt backwards in his day to have so many laws that restricted omegas rights but it also kept them from being poached in this manner. Steve was arguing with the general until their voices raised to the point others in the room could hear them.
“Stand back, Captain Rogers. This matter does not concern you.”
“Of course it does, Tony is the one who -”
“Your beta does not have any legal jurisdiction in this building. Especially not in the military wing, which he should know.”
“But it was -”
“He may have brought the omega into this building but he didn’t register him as such. Furthermore, he had the omega consulting on government equipment. He has no claim on the omega, being already mated to you, and as such, seeing this omega’s conduct, we are able to seek the penalties that we see fit. Is that understood?”
“But sir -”
“Captain Rogers, you can either sit quietly during this meeting or you can be removed?”
You can try, Bucky was tempted to interject, but he bit his tongue. They already thought him ‘unstable’. Arguing with the generals by suggesting he’d fight them would not do any of them any favors. Steve stood more rigidly, displeasure clear on his features.
“I’ll stay, sir,” Steve said.
“Fine, but your mate isn’t military -”
Tony looked furious. “I’m not leaving!”
But Steve gave a nod, refusing to look at his mate, and two agents grabbed a hold of Tony and shoved him out of the back door, locking it behind them. Steve would pay for that later, Bucky had no doubt of that.
“Now, if we could return to the matter at hand,” the general said. Turning back toward the omega. “Do you recognize that you failed to identify your proper status upon entering this facility?”
“I do,” he said and, bless him, there was a hint of defiance in his tone. As though he had every right to be here, just like a beta would. If only the world was fair, Bucky thought. But it wasn’t and the omega was not helping himself by pointing it out.
“And do you also recognize that you allowed Tony Stark-Rogers to register you as a beta when you entered this facility?”
He didn’t answer.
“We’ll take your lack of answer as an affirmative,” the general said.
This wasn’t good. It was one thing for Tony to let him slip in under the radar but for them to both say he was a beta on paper… Technically, that was a crime. A stupid crime, as far as Bucky was concerned, but still a crime. Steve’s face was generally hard to read, but not so much for Bucky. There was some fear there. Some concern for the type of trouble that Tony might have gotten himself into, but also fear for this omega. There was nothing that he’d be able to do, even with his sway as a supersoldier to get the omega out of it. Not with a law so blatantly broken.
“Do you have a degree in technical engineering?”
“No,” he said.
“Do you have a degree of any kind?”
“No,” he gritted out. The question was a stupid one.
If he was a bound omega then maybe, maybe , he could have gotten a degree, but even then, most universities rarely took omega students. None took unbound omegas. They considered it too dangerous. Victim blaming for the times in the past when alphas or betas couldn’t control themselves. Sometimes rich unbound omegas could get tutors, but this one didn’t look rich and that feeling of dread that had begun when Tony had burst into Steve’s office only grew stronger.
There wasn’t much that anyone could do about this to get the omega out of trouble, Bucky knew that. These sorts of situations gave absolute authority to the military. Tony had always been stubbornly reckless. He thought the rules didn’t apply to him, and in most cases, it was true. He had the ability to talk himself out of most things but he often forgot about collateral damage. Not always but often. So he’d seen a bright young omega and wanted to give a finger to the rules as well as provide an opportunity. He just hadn’t taken into account the fact that the omega would be the one paying the price if the deception was caught out.
“Would you like a degree?” the general asked to the surprise of almost everyone in the room.
One of the only people who didn’t seem surprised was the omega himself. He leaned his head back, defiant, placing his hands on the table to rap at it with his finger. Bucky was surprised to see they’d cuffed the man, the metal clinked on the hardwood with each movement.
“Not on his terms,” the omega said, jutting his head in Hammer’s direction, disgust laced through the words. “I think I’ve made that relatively clear.”
Bucky looked to Hammer to see what he meant and upon closer inspection it became evident why this hearing had been called. It wasn’t only because Tony and the omega had lied about his status to get into the facility. No, it was more complicated than that. Hammer was developing a shiner.
Bucky couldn’t help a snort of laughter escape before he got it under control. Everyone in the room turned to look at him. He cleared his throat and glanced in the omega’s direction. A smile of amusement flashed across his face as well. The younger man was pleased with damaging Hammer’s face, that much was clear.
“Sergeant Barnes, are we going to need to ask you to leave?”
Bucky cleared his throat. “No, sir.”
“Mr Parker, are you aware that it is a crime for one of your status to strike an alpha?”
“Yes, I am,” he said.
“Then what possessed you to think that this type of behavior would stand?”
“Well,” he said slowly, mulling over the words, “I didn’t think an alpha would be petty enough to drag me up on charges for something so small as a slight misunderstanding.”
Hammer glared but kept a triumphant smile on his face. Bucky could see where this was going, and he didn’t like it.
Military outfits could be like this, which was one reason why omegas were never allowed to enlist because of problems like this. When an omega broke the boundaries, especially an unbound, there were severe consequences. If there was no suitable alpha to reprimand the omega the law found someone who would be fit to do so. And if someone strong, like Hammer who had contacts, wanted to take this problem off the military’s hands, they would have no problem disposing of the omega to Hammer. After all, he was the one bringing up the charges, and he wanted this omega that the military viewed as a pesky disruption.
Bucky wasn’t sure if the omega fully realized how screwed he was. Or maybe he did, from Hammer’s posture alone. It was clear that the jerk thought he was actually going to get the omega. Bucky could see Steve worrying off in the corner, trying to figure a way out of this. A way to remove the omega from the rule of Hammer, who might educate him, but there would be a price. A steep one, if the hint of lust Hammer couldn’t hide was anything to go by.
The rest of the table had fallen into a slight argument over how to handle the omega. He was an odd case, but he sat there rather resiliently, tapping his fingers against the table. Seeming to pretend that his life wasn’t crashing around him.
Bucky didn’t realize he was moving until his dog tags were in his hand. He rubbed at his reissued tags, his real ones long lost. His gloved thumb slid over the grooves of his name and rank - both Sergeant and the more sinister Winter Soldier.
A thought had come to him. It was stupid. It was a risk. It could get messy. It could get embarrassing. But options were far and few between and, well, he might as well throw one on the table.
The dog tags landed about an inch in front of the omega’s cuffed wrists. He looked at them for a moment perplexed before looking up. Bucky gave him a jerky nod, hoping it was understood, because that was all he felt capable of doing. His mouth had gone dry, waiting for the omega’s reaction.
The young man’s hands slid out, the jangle of his cuffs catching everyone’s attention. He grasped the dog tags, letting the chain rattle against the table as his hands closed hard against the metal. His knuckles turned white as he clung to the dog tags, as if they were a life line, which Bucky supposed they really were.
Part of him had hoped for more of a reaction, but he dismissed the bruised part of his alpha ego and took this white-knuckled clutching of the dog tags as the only answer he was going to get. He opened his mouth to speak but had to swallow again before finding his voice. It was steelier than he would have thought possible under the circumstances.
“Let him go,” Bucky said and the words seemed to echo across the room as everyone froze.
“What?” Hammer asked, turning in his chair to look at what appeared to be a disheveled man near the back of the room. He clearly hadn’t paid attention to Bucky when he’d entered the room with Tony and Steve. And, really, why should Hammer have noticed the man in rough clothes and a baseball cap pulled down low on his forehead. Bucky was dressed as a non-entity, so he couldn’t be surprised when he was treated like one.
Bucky took a step further into the room, pushing the hat back so that everyone could see the sternness on his face clearly. The generals did not look pleased at his interference.
“I said, let him go.” Bucky threw a glance at where the omega’s hands were clutching his dog tags, the general’s eyes followed and widened when it clicked. Bucky adjusted his stance, the challenge evident. The potential for violence hummed through the room and all the military personnel shifted. A shift that seemd imperceptible to the two civilians in the room.
“Everyone out,” the general said. Everyone began to file out of the room, despite Hammer’s objections. “Fine, Mr. Hammer, you can stay if it pleases you.”
The general waited until everyone but himself, Hammer, Steve, and the omega had left the room before speaking again. “Sergeant Barnes, I emptied the room as a courtesy. Are you sure you know what you are doing?”
Hammer was fuming. “What’s happening? Just because this guy says ‘let him go’ you’re preparing to accept this? This omega assaulted me and I have every right to claim him for discipline.”
“Now Mr Hammer -”
“I demand to know what’s going on here!”
“You’re leaving,” Bucky said, a finality in his voice. “And you’re dropping this matter, now.”
“Why would I?” Hammer stood, glaring at Bucky as if the super soldier was nothing. As if he was just some odd spectator in this room, but if Hammer thought he could use his influence here, he was sorely mistaken. From the moment the omega had reached out to claim those tags, Hammer’s opinions had ceased to matter.
Bucky allowed himself a one sided smile, the one that Tony called ‘creepy as fuck’ and even Natasha called ‘disquieting’. It was the sharp smile of danger. He kept his voice neutral as he said, “Because if you don’t drop it, I’ll kill you.”
“Jesus christ!” Hammer looked back at the general. “Are you going to let him threaten me like that? Need I remind you that I’m one of your best contracts.”
“Barnes, Hammer, both of you calm down. I’ll do the talking or I might just throw you all out,” the general snapped. “For the love of god, Hammer, sit down before you get yourself hurt.”
Hammer sat, albeit reluctantly. He was seething and it was leaking out of him in a wave that had the omega shifting in discomfort.
“Mr. Hammer, I regret to inform you that this case will be thrown out of our court. If you want to take it up with his alpha, that is your choice. Though I strongly recommend against that.”
“What? This is absurd. He doesn’t have an alpha.” Hammer stood, slamming his hand on the table.
The general motioned to the visible chain of the dog tags on the table. “He does now. As far as we are concerned this case is closed. We’re giving him into the custody of his alpha, who will see to disciplining the omega for his crimes.”
Hammer looked between Bucky and the omega. It was dawning on him, what that chain meant. What Bucky had offered and the young man had accepted. Disbelieving he said, “You can’t be serious. Do they even know each other?”
“That isn’t your concern.”
Hammer fumed but stormed out. Bucky thought there was the possibility that Hammer didn’t see the matter as quite settled, but he knew when to back down. There was no victory for him here today.
The general waited until Hammer was gone before turning back to Bucky. “Sergeant Barnes, are you serious about this? Because he’s involved in a criminal case and we’d rather not lose Mr Hammer’s business. I have half a mind to call him back and hand the omega over.”
“You told me to pick someone to bond to and I pick him,” Bucky said, his voice even. Which, he considered, was rather impressive given internally he was more than slightly panicked at the implications of what he’d done. “You suggested that I could pick anyone I had interest in, especially if it was an omega.”
“A bit of a headache you’re getting yourself there,” the general said.
“That’s my choice,” Bucky said, crossing his arms over his chest. The general’s eyes drifted to his clenched left fist. The glove might hide the metal beneath, but the general knew it was there and he knew, from reports at the very least, how incredibly deadly Bucky could be when he wanted to.
“Suit yourself,” the general said. “But if you are doing this as a stunt to get him out of trouble then you are sorely mistaken. This bond takes.”
“Understood, sir.”
“Fine,” the general said, dropping the keys to the cuffs by the omega on the way out. Stopping briefly at the door to throw back one final warning. “I’ll give you until the end of the day before making this final. If you do this, it cannot be undone, so you might want to learn his name before you commit yourself.”
Steve was the first to break the deafening silence that fell in the room as soon as the general left. “You’ve got to be out of your mind, Buck.”
“Yeah maybe,” Bucky said, relaxing his stance, even though anxiety was now ripping through his mind. What had he done? He looked over to the omega, who wasn’t looking at either of them. But Bucky couldn’t blame the guy. He didn’t know them.
“The general is not a kidder. If you don’t make this official then he’ll hand him over to Hammer.”
“That’s not going to happen,” Bucky ground out.
“Right,” Steve said, pulling out his phone and going into crisis management mode. “I’ll call Romonav and have her run up the paperwork real quick. If Tony faked your id I’m guessing he has your accurate information,” he said to the omega, who nodded.
“Yes, Mr Stark has all the information you’ll need for bonding papers,” he said, quietly.
Steve nodded. “I’ll - uh - leave you two to get properly introduced before you make it official.”
Bucky muttered a thanks as Steve walked by him. His friend gave him a look of sheer bewilderment at the turn of events for the day. Bucky took a deep breath, wishing he’d stayed home. The one thing he'd assured Steve he didn't want to do this morning he'd just done - willingly and chaotically. To a complete stranger.
Just great. Bucky pinched the bridge of his nose before taking a closer look at the omega. He would have missed without his additional skills, but the young man was shaking slightly, fingers still clutching at the dogtags like a lifeline. While Bucky knew he wasn’t exactly a good alpha to have, he reassured himself that he would at least be better to this omega than Hammer would have been. Small comfort to the omega, of course. From the omega’s perspective, Bucky was an entirely unknown entity. And yet… and yet, he’d accepted those dog tags with almost no hesitation.
Bucky approached slowly, worrying about spooking the younger man. He was aware that he might look like a casually dressed, out of place, idiot in that room full of military personnel, but the omega would not have missed how quickly the other’s quieted down when Bucky made a demand. The fact that he was powerful was a certainty, not a question the omega would have. To say nothing about the sheer bulk of Bucky. Even without being a super soldier, he knew omegas tended to shy away from him.
Keeping that in mind, he pulled out a chair three down from where the omega sat. “I’m James Barnes, but my friends call me Bucky. What’s.. uh.. What’s your name?” He winced on the asking of it. He never wanted a mate. Nevermind an omega mate and now he had one whose name he didn’t even know.
The omega’s lips twitched into a slight smile at the question. “Peter Parker.”
“It’s - uh - good to meet you… I guess..” he trailed off. Ever since he’d been captured in WWII, he’d become a man of few words. Finding it difficult to talk even before he’d had his mind episodically erased. But, even when he rarely spoke, he wasn't generally lost for words. He just didn’t use them much. But here, with this omega that he’d just claimed, he found himself stumbling.
Peter let out a shaky laugh. “Well Mr Barnes, it was one hell of an introduction.”