Chapter Text
Stiles’s brain was pounding as he tried to consider his options. The gunshots may have stopped for the moment, but he had no doubt they'd start up again soon.
He knew that there was no way he could beat these guys—there were just too many of them—but he needed to keep them out of the house long enough to get help for his dad. If he could hold them off long enough for the deputies to get here, maybe his dad would have a chance.
Stiles took a shaky, sobbing breath and tried to focus on something other than the smell of blood that permeated his house. The majority of the pack was away for two weeks doing werewolf-y bonding things that Stiles had no interest in seeing (once was more than enough to scar him for life), and Bucky was dark on some top secret mission somewhere in Europe.
Peter and Chris were, well…if he started thinking about the ways that the two of them had spent a lot of time in the last few months awkwardly wooing him and—
They weren’t here, and he couldn’t afford to think of them right now. He just hoped that they would forgive him for what he was about to do.
The phone was slick in his hand, covered in both his and his dad's blood, but he couldn't leave without calling someone. He needed to tell them before it was too late—
Stiles heard the front door crash open just as Deaton came on the line and he dropped his voice to just loud enough to be heard over the noise.
“I have to let them take me,” Stiles told the vet, speaking over the other man’s customary greeting. “Tell everyone that I love them, and save my dad. Please. You have to bring Peter.”
He hung up without waiting for a reply, hurriedly made sure his dad and his phone were out of sight, and stepped out into the hallway.
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“Come with me. James, please.”
There was something different in her eyes today—a resolve that hadn't been there before. If he'd had the energy, he would have smiled.
He didn't know what had triggered it, but she’d finally decided to run. If anyone could make it, it was her. He also knew that in his current condition, he’d only slow her down.
The look on her face said that she knew it, too.
Her usually hard eyes were bright with tears, and he knew that if he agreed to go with her, she’d do everything in her power to protect him and they'd both be caught. Bucky wanted to reach out and console her, but he barely had the strength to speak, let alone raise his arm.
She gripped his hand, instead, hard enough to bruise. “Promise me you'll find me when you get out of here. I'm not leaving until you promise me you won't give up.”
Bucky looked at the woman he loved like a sister, and hoped that he wasn't making himself a liar when he rasped, “I'll always find you, Claudia.”
Bucky came awake with a jerk that nearly sent him out of his seat and into Steve’s lap, a ball of dread sitting heavily in his stomach. He ignored Tony's amused smirk and Bruce’s curious gaze as he resituated himself and closed his eyes once more, the dream fresh in his mind.
That had been the last time he'd seen Claudia, though it had been her voice, just as much as his memories of Steve, that had helped him hang on to his humanity for as long as he had under the onslaught of his torture.
After his deprogramming as the Winter Soldier, he remembered the promise that he had made and had gone searching for his friend. He hadn't managed to find Claudia, who had passed away some years before, but he had found her son.
Dreams of Claudia inevitably led to thoughts of Stiles, and he couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong.
No matter how hard the two of them had worked to keep each other secret from their respective friends and family members, there was always the risk that one or both of them would be discovered and end up in the hands of HYDRA—a rescued super soldier and the child of the only soldier ever to escape them—and neither one of them wanted their loved ones to have to dwell on that possibility. During their few, clandestine meetings, Bucky had taught Stiles as much as he could about how to defend himself against any operatives he might encounter, and Stiles had taught him how to be human again.
The unfortunate thing about that secrecy was that now, when Bucky desperately wanted to call his nephew, he couldn't do so without raising questions from his friends. Of course, if Stiles was in immediate danger, Bucky might need to ask for the Avengers’ assistance, and he refused to let Stiles die for the sake of his secrets. Unwilling to ignore the uneasy feeling any longer, he reached for his bag.
Swearing lowly under his breath, Bucky searched through his belongings for the private phone he used for only one purpose and started dialing, only to swear much louder when the phone went straight to voicemail.
“Sergeant Barnes? Is everything all right?” Coulson asked.
This particular phone was to be kept on at all times, with the understanding that if the phone wasn't on, it was because Stiles literally couldn't answer the phone and needed help as soon as possible.
The former assassin tossed that phone aside with a frustrated growl—ignoring everyone's stares and Steve’s concerned voice as he tried to ask what was wrong—and reached for his everyday phone instead. Stiles had given him two numbers to use in this situation, and though he hesitated to use either one, his nephew had assured him that they could be trusted. Bucky dialed the first number and waited for the man on the other line to answer.
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The best part about the conciliatory relationship between the police and the supernatural authority of Beacon Hills was that no one tried to stop them when Chris and Peter swept past the deputies guarding the scene and headed straight inside to the Sheriff.
Stiles's father was unconscious, his heartbeat erratic, and Peter trusted Chris to get all of the relevant information from Jordan as his focus narrowed in on the man he was about to bite.
Deaton hadn't explained the situation when he’d called—although he probably hadn't known exactly what the situation was—and Peter was suddenly glad for it, because it wasn't just the Sheriff's blood he could smell, and he couldn't save Stiles's father if his wolf was raging over Stiles.
Peter felt Chris’s hand clasp his shoulder, and he used the touch to ground himself to the task at hand. He would save the Sheriff first, and then he'd hunt down the people who had taken Stiles and make them regret that they had ever set foot in his territory.
Peter could hear Jordan's voice saying something about automatic weapons and fingerprints, and Chris saying something in return, but all the conversations tapered off as Peter leaned over the Sheriff and bit. There was a long, tense silence as everyone waited to see if the bite would take, and Peter wasn't the only one who breathed a sigh of relief when the Sheriff suddenly took a deep breath and his wounds began closing.
The unexpected chirp of Chris’s phone was loud in the hush of the room, and more than one deputy half-heartedly glared at Chris as he stepped outside to take the call. The number was unfamiliar, but Chris had taken enough calls from strangers looking to pass through the territory over the years that he didn't even attempt to identify the number on his screen before he greeted the person on the other line.
“This is Argent.”
“Is Stiles with you?” a brusque, unfamiliar voice asked.
Startled, Chris quickly scanned the surrounding area for possible threats, and found none; but who would know that Stiles was in danger other than the kidnappers themselves? “Who is this?”
“Is Stiles with you?” the man asked again.
Chris could hear multiple voices in the background, but nothing that gave him a clue about the identity of the caller. If this guy thought he was going to intimidate the hunter, however, he was mistaken. “I don’t know who you are, but if you've done anything to him—”
“I’ll be there in sixteen hours,” the voice said flatly, just before the line went dead.
Just under sixteen hours later, the man formerly known as the Winter Soldier was pushing his way past a shocked werewolf and into the alpha’s home, a group of surprisingly shocked superheroes trailing after him.