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-z-
Wolves are smaller now than they used to be.
-x-
The first time he sees Clint shift, he has to do a double take.
“What is it?” Clint asks, hesitating for half-a-second before he continues into the Avengers Lounge.
“Nothing,” Steve answers, looks away; ignoring the way Natasha’s eyes track him.
It’s the first time he notices.
-x-
It’s not that no one shifted in public back in Steve’s day – it’s just they did it quietly. They did it to enjoy a nap in the afternoon sun in the park or on the roof.
Wolves kept a respectful distance from humans; the revelations between the two species still too new, too unstable.
But today, everyone is all jumbled together and Steve has to fight himself whenever he’s out with Tony or Bruce and a shifted civilian wolf comes too close.
Tony had laughed, said: “You know we can protect ourselves, right?”
“I think it’s nice,” Bruce had countered as he smiled up at Steve, “thanks.”
“Um, sure?” Steve answered, frustrated at the off-kilter feeling that was a constant since he’d thawed.
-x-
He’s outside, walking slowly through Central Park. He pushes through the heavy scents and sounds of the city and focuses only on the scent of trees and grass and flowers, listens only to the squirrels and the birds.
He settles under a large oak – one that he and Bucky had come to when it was still young.
He jerks when a pup comes bounding out of the bushes, yapping excitedly as she dances towards him. She’s tossing her head and leaping so that her feet barely touch the ground; it’s that gangly, awkward run all puppies have.
And she’s just so small.
Her brothers and parents manage to catch up – the father and one of the boys are human; they’re all laughing and out of breath.
The mother stills when she sees Steve, caught desperately between wanting to shift and introduce herself and also not wanting to be naked in front of Captain America.
He smiles and nods, says, “She’s fine; she’s adorable.”
The pup’s mother ducks her head and wags her tail, lowering herself to the ground. Steve nods, acknowledging her deferment. Then he turns to the pup, grins wide and coos ridiculous non-sense he knows the team would give him hell for.
-x-
Steve had spent his whole life thinking he was human, despite the way Bucky would shake him and yell, “Steve, you’re not! I can tell! You’re scent isn’t wolf, but it’s something!”
Then after the serum, he told Steve that the scent was stronger now – more potent.
Steve grins, leans forward and says, “I want to show you something, Buck,” and then he grabs Bucky’s hand and leads him into the midnight forests.
-x-
“He’s so small,” Steve scoffs at the wolf onscreen, unable to contain his criticism.
The team had set him down to watch one of Hollywood’s many adaptions of his life – this was supposed to be one of the accurate ones. And it had done well – up until the wolf playing Bucky had shifted.
“That’s Sebastian Stan,” Tony said, whirling on Steve with a righteous fury that blazed hot, “he’s one of the largest wolves they’ve got in Hollywood, if not the largest – and you’re saying he’s small?”
“He’s bigger than I am,” Clint says, leaning around Natasha so he could look at Steve – his features a mix of hurt and curiosity.
“I’m sorry,” Steve says, shrugging, “but Bucky was easily three times bigger than that. And he was only a tier two wolf.”
“Wait, Steve, how big is your wolf?” Tony demands. “I just realized that your file never said – why not?”
Steve looks down and away. He doesn’t say anything as he stands and leaves the room, ignoring the way Tony called his name.
-x-
Despite what he lets his teammates believe, Steve knows how to use the internet. He knows how to tweak certain keywords to get the results he wants from Google, he knows how to navigate Wikipedia.
It’s less than five minutes of searching before he reads: ALL TIER ONE AND TWO WOLVES DRAFTED FOR WAR EFFORT. It was a headline attached to an article from 1969.
Not long later, he finds TIME magazine’s 1975 cover: GONE: what have we done?
The cover photo is grainy and dark. The wolf was covered in dirt and grime and his foreleg was bleeding; he had his head up to the chest of the soldier whose hands were in his fur as he pressed his forehead to the soldier’s chest.
The caption at the bottom of the page reads: The last of the Über-wolves has been killed in action, what this could mean for the wolves at home.
-x-
A picture from the TIME article continues to haunt him, makes his chest heavy.
It’s four photos stitched together – obviously stills from a video – of a wolf, a big one, falling from a helicopter. In the second photo, the shape is indiscernible; in the third, it’s a human; in the fourth, the human is disappearing into the trees.
The description simply said: With the helicopter already over its weight limit and under heavy fire, Lieutenant Tural uses the last of his strength to jump.
He wonders if the Commandos had fought in Vietnamese jungles if they would all have still be so celebrated – he wonders if a picture of Bucky falling would have ended up in TIME, if it would have been called a sacrifice, if they would have said that he jumped.
-x-
There’s a memory-scent on the wind when the Winter Soldier first attacks and Steve curses his mind for choosing now to play its desperate tricks on him.
Then there’s another attack and the Soldier’s muzzle and scent-guard is falling away and it’s all Steve can do to not buckle under everything he feels slamming against him.
“Bucky?” he asks.
And the Soldier’s eyes widen just a fraction and his nostrils flare – he’s stuck, frozen as he stares at Steve, before he shakes himself.
“Who the hell is Bucky?” he demands, begins to stalk forward.
But then Falcon is there and he kicks Bucky away and Natasha’s grenade explodes at his feet, spiriting him away with fire and gun smoke. Then the HYDRA-SHIELD agents press in close; the enemy wolves snarling and they’re only just strong enough to get both Steve and Natasha to their knees.
Steve wants to yell after Bucky, wants to scream for him to just please remember – you know me, just remember. Then Rumlow is slapping cuffs on him and Steve snarls – low and guttural and filled with savage warning.
Rumlow and the other wolves recoil on instinct and before they can move back in – the Winter Soldier has suddenly reappeared.
“Steve?” his voice is thick with his own emotion, that undercurrent of a growl that Bucky had always used when he was vying with the other Commandos for Steve’s attention (even though he knew he always had Steve’s attention).
“Bucky!” Steve shouts, because Rumlow is really pulling at him now, has the cuffs tight and a needle filled with potent wolfs bane already in his neck.
And when the Soldier sees the needle, he roars – his fangs dropping and his eyes burning bright red – and it’s only a blink before the HYRDA-SHEILD agents have all been savaged.
He’s soaked with their blood as he kneels next to Steve, murmuring, “Steve? Steve?” over and over.
The wolfs bane is doing its work, though, so all Steve can do is brush his shaking fingertips against Bucky’s cheek, lips, chin, neck, before he loses himself to darkness.
When he wakes up, Sam tells him that Bucky was re-captured by his handlers.
-x-
The serum did more than change his human body – it woke up something inside him. Something old and long forgotten.
-x-
It’s not long before Bucky remembers. Barely a month of Steve and Sam chasing him before Bucky appears in their shared hotel room, his hands shaking and his eyes wild.
He looks right at Steve. “Oh, little fox,” he says, his voice breaking and his face twisting into something horrible and devastated, “don’t you know you’re not supposed to chase wolves?”
And Steve is out of his bed and surging forward and then he’s got Bucky in his arms and he pulls him backward, until they’re crumpled onto each other on Steve’s mattress.
“I was waiting for the wolf to get his act together,” Steve says when they catch their breath.
-x-
The Achumawi called him Kwahn, the Japanese called him kitsune, and the name the Moche gave him has long since passed to time.
Bucky calls him little fox.
Steve prefers Bucky’s even over all the others whispered reverently. Even if, when he's shifted, Steve’s fox takes up all the sky.
-x-
“And here I thought we were all good friends,” Tony spits, his anger getting the better of him, as Steve starts to walk away for a third time.
“If it makes you feel any better,” Steve says, “Bucky’s the only being alive who’s seen me fully shifted. And that’s only happened once.”
“And you’re gorgeous,” Bucky coos from the doorway, taking the step forward to close the distance between them – pressing a soft kiss to Steve’s chest.
“So are you,” Steve says, smiling as he puts his nose into Bucky’s hair.
-x-
“Promise me,” Bucky says, his voice desperate and whisper-soft as he presses his forehead against Steve’s. “Promise me you’ll never be so careless with your life ever again.”
Steve leans down, presses his nose into Bucky’s neck – ignores the scent of fire and captivity, ignores the new underlying tang of something bitter and dark in Bucky’s blood.
“I promise,” he says. They both know it’s a lie.
-x-
Just before they jump for the train and for Zola, Bucky turns to Steve – grabs his arm.
“Remember your promise,” he says.
This time, Steve nods – makes the promise for real with a quick kiss. In his many lives – those remembered and those forgotten – it’s the one decision he regrets more than anything else. All of those “what if” questions that kept him awake and sobbing late into the night and into the early mornings – they could have all been avoided.
But, if there was ever one wolf that Steve allowed to control him – it was Bucky. And promises demanded by him, were promises to be honored.
-x-
Wolves are smaller than they ever used to be.
And when Steve sees why – he puts his head in his hands and he screams, feeling the ghosts of sharp winds of a mountain’s gale and smelling the ghost scents of a desperate chill of snow and ice. He hears Bucky screaming his name and he can’t help the roar ripping out of his chest.
Only, this time – when he wakes from his nightmare – Bucky is there. Some days, he’s more the Winter Soldier than he is Bucky, but he wears Bucky’s face and he carries a twisted version of Bucky’s scent – and, well, Steve will take it.
-z-
End