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The first time Tony sees Bucky Barnes, it’s through a screen.
It’s the first real lead they’ve had in months, since the flurry of sightings immediately following SHIELD’s collapse. The team had sent Natasha and Clint to check it out. They’re both betas, and Nat’s ability to control the calming pheromones all betas let off gives them an edge over an alpha they suspect is on the verge of going feral.
He’s not on the verge, Tony realizes when he sees Barnes on the screen for the first time. He is feral.
Eyes clearly gone red, clear even through the low saturation of the screen, baring his fangs at Natasha and Clint as they cautiously approach, growling so fiercely that the other people in the market are giving him a wide berth as they peer at him fearfully from under their lashes—Bucky has been pushed past the point of breaking into ferality. It’s not surprising. Their entire world crashing down—literally, in this instance—would be a lot for any alpha to handle, but for one trying to deal with seventy years of brainwashing and amnesia? Yeah, Tony’s not surprised.
There’s something slightly terrifying about it. Alphas going feral is supposed to be a nightmare story, something you tell children about at night to scare them into being good. It’s not supposed to be something you see in a crowded marketplace. And when Tony thinks about how easy it would be for something to go wrong, if they’d sent someone other than Nat or Clint—like Steve who had wanted so badly to be the one to bring his friend in or even Tony with his omega pheromones evolved to tempt alphas into paying attention to him and only him—he shudders.
But—there’s something almost piteous about it too. It’s clear that Bucky is terrified beneath his snarling veneer, clear that he doesn’t fully understand what’s happening, and something in Tony’s heart shifts the same as it had the first time he saw Steve.
Something thrums deep inside him to the tune of mine.
“I can help,” he says.
Beneath him, Steve shifts uneasily, saying, “Tony—”
“I want to,” he interrupts. He turns, Steve’s arm sliding from his stomach to his hip, and rests his head on Steve’s shoulder, watching Nat raise her hands placatingly out of the corner of his eye. “I’ve had six months to get used to—everything. It wasn’t his fault, I know that, and—and you still love him, Steve, I know you do.”
“I love you,” Steve says, which isn’t really much of an argument.
“I know.” He smiles when Steve rolls his eyes at the well-worn response. “But you love him too. And… he feels like you did when we first met.”
He can feel Steve tense, and he tucks his head deeper into the crook of Steve’s neck, purring quietly to force him to calm. He knows his alpha is only worried about his safety. Bucky isn’t the same person he once was and even if Steve still has feelings for him, it’s only instinct to be worried about the omega he’s also in love with. But he doesn’t need to be worried. Tony is more than capable of taking care of himself and his own instincts are screaming that Bucky won’t hurt him, that Bucky is his. Only once Steve is fully relaxed again does he continue, “Please, Steve. I want to help. I want to know him better and I want to know if what I’m feeling about him is real. Let me?”
Steve sighs but Tony feels his lips curve upwards where they’re pressed against his hair. “I don’t let you do anything.”
“And don’t you forget it.”
Bucky is still feral by the time he, Nat, and Clint return to the tower, but it’s tinged now with panic. Tony can smell the sour scent it all the way from where he and the rest of the team are waiting in the kitchen and Bucky’s still outside. He’s not sure if that says something about his strength as an alpha or the depths of his panic, but either way, it’s not good. He glances again at the screen where he can see Natasha trying to calm Bucky down enough to get him to enter the building—the windows blacked out so that Bucky doesn’t panic further at the sight of the team just inside the landing pad—but it’s no dice.
“I’m going out there,” he announces.
It’s meant to just let everyone know that he’s going, but everyone else seems to take it as an invitation to stop him. The noise in the kitchen swings up into an uproar. Even Steve, who knows that he has every intention of helping, has tucked him up against his side, keeping him from taking a single step out of the kitchen.
“He’s dangerous,” Bruce argues once the initial noise has died down a little. It’s telling that Steve doesn’t immediately argue with him the way he normally does when someone says something bad about Bucky.
“We’re all dangerous,” Tony shoots back, ineffectually trying to wriggle his way out of Steve’s arms. “I’m dangerous and biology practically dictates that my orientation is about as dangerous as a bunny rabbit.”
Steve, who has been on the receiving end of Tony’s intense heats, snorts.
“Look,” he continues, “Nat’s not having any luck getting him to calm down enough to come inside and right now I’m really worried he’s going to either steal the Quinjet and take off or jump off the tower and take off. Either option comes with a lot of paperwork that I have to sign so I’d prefer it if he just came inside so why can’t I try? We can’t send another alpha out there, he’ll take that as a sign of aggression, and we can’t send Sam. The last time Bucky met him, he kicked him off a helicarrier. So that means we’re down to me. Sucks that it’s me but I’m our best option.”
“If he hurts you—” Steve begins.
“He won’t,” Tony says softly and turns so he can nose at Steve’s scent glands. “You won’t let him. I know you’ll be right there, ready if something goes wrong.”
Steve clearly still doesn’t want to let him go out there but his arms loosen enough for Tony to slip away. He smiles at the others, hiding his own nerves beneath a façade of self-confidence that he absolutely doesn’t feel. It’s not like any of them are wrong: feral alphas are dangerous, and this one is more dangerous than most. But he’s not wrong either: Bucky is in more danger the longer he stays out there. Hydra is searching for him and it was sheer luck that the Avengers found him first. But he doesn’t know how long that luck will hold, so the quicker they can bring him in out of the cold, the happier he’ll be.
He straightens his shirt and steps outside, ignoring the way the rest of the team trails him to the door. Bucky’s red eyes snap instantly to him. It’s unsettling, a little terrifying, and Tony has to stop himself from reaching for his sunglasses or from jamming his hands in his pockets. Instead, he holds himself loose and open, hands at his side and palms open so Bucky doesn’t think he’s hiding a weapon in his fists.
“Tony, what do you think you’re doing?” Clint murmurs, alerted to his presence by the sound of the door closing. Natasha is still concentrating on Bucky, trying to soothe him. Even from where he’s standing, he can feel her pheromones washing calm over him and he revises his plan to include her. He’s never felt this kind of strength from her before but he’d be an idiot not to use it.
“It’s okay,” he says, keeping his eyes fixed on Bucky, who’s growling lowly now. “Go back inside, Natasha and I have got this.”
“Can’t do that,” Clint says. “Steve would have my head if—”
“Steve’s my backup. He’s right inside. Go inside; I can’t calm Bucky down if he’s worrying about you.”
“But—”
“Please.”
He thinks it’s the please that does it. By now, the team knows that the whole Tony Stark doesn’t use social niceties thing is bullshit but he still spends so much time in the workshop, and so much time teasing the others when he’s not working, that it’s still an indicator that he’s completely serious about something.
Clint doesn’t waste time asking any other questions. He, more than anyone else on the team except for Steve, knows better than to underestimate people and question them when they’re confident. And Tony is about as confident as he can be. There are ways that this can go wrong, absolutely, but they’re running out of options and what he’s about to try is something that’s been scientifically proven to be effective.
He doesn’t watch Clint go, though Bucky does, only to snap his gaze right back to Tony as soon as Tony takes a step forward. He places a hand on Natasha’s shoulder as he passes her, murmurs into her ear too low for even supersoldiers to hear, “Keep up the good work. You’re helping,” and comes to a stop within armlength of Bucky, knowing that Bucky could easily reach out and hurt him if he wanted to.
It seems to throw Bucky off, who blinks at him. Tony smiles at him and reaches up to his neck, loosening the scent blocker just enough to dilute the bonded scent pouring off of him and allow his own to filter in.
Bucky blinks again. “Omega,” he says eventually, voice rusty with disuse.
Tony smiles again. “That’s right.”
“And… Stevie?” Bucky guesses. In that moment, he sounds so young that it makes Tony’s heart break. Bucky had his future stolen away from him just the same as Steve did. He can’t fully regret that because it brought them both to him, but he knows how much pain and healing Steve had had to go through after waking up in this century and he knows what Bucky will still have to do, and he hurts for them.
“Steve’s my alpha,” he says. “Do you remember Steve?”
Bucky hesitates and then slowly nods. The red is slowly starting to recede from his eyes—though Tony isn’t sure that has anything to do with what he’s doing or if it’s just because he’s managing to baffle the alpha—and then Natasha shifts. It’s nothing more than a twitch of her leg but Bucky instantly notices it.
Before Tony realizes it, Bucky has snatched him to him, tucked him behind the mass that makes up Bucky’s body, and is snarling at Natasha, eyes scarlet red again. Just barely, he sees the door start to open and if it does, if the team comes out of it ready to fight, they’ll lose Bucky.
“No!” he shouts, startling Bucky. It’s enough though. The door pauses. Tony can see Steve through the crack, looking terrified, but he isn’t hurt. He’s okay. Bucky hasn’t done anything other than seemingly try to protect him.
He darts in front of Bucky again, wraps his arms around his shoulders, and tugs him down to his neck, tucking his face into the loosened scent blocker so he can inhale both Steve and Tony.
“Settle,” he commands. It’s usually a command an alpha uses for their omega but there’s precedence of omegas using it too. He draws on every ounce of strength he typically reserves for the boardroom and pushes it into his voice, ordering him again when Bucky lets out an answering growl.
It takes a moment but Bucky suddenly melts, going limp and boneless against him. Tony’s only half-expecting it; the alpha’s weight takes him by surprise and they sink to the ground, Bucky taking in huge gasping breaths as he breathes in their combined scents.
“Oh my darling,” Tony whispers, hands coming up to stroke through Bucky’s hair. “It’s okay. You’re okay. You’re safe.”
Without quite meaning to, Bucky ends up moving into the guest room on his and Steve’s floor. Tony means to put Bucky on his own floor but then Bucky spends the afternoon following him docilely around the common areas, as sweet now as he was feral a few hours earlier. The others still seem a little wary but as time passes and it becomes obvious that Tony is in fact doing some good, they start to relax. By the time they’d be heading up to bed, Bucky is stretched out on the couch, head on Tony’s lap and feet tucked under Steve’s legs, as the team watches a movie.
“I think he’s imprinted on you,” Clint observes dryly as he heads for the elevator. “Like a duck.”
Tony doesn’t look up from where he’s carding his fingers through Bucky’s hair but he feels the alpha tense. “That’s okay, darling,” he comments idly. “I’m pretty sure Steve and I imprinted on each other once we started living together too.”
Natasha groans. “Don’t remind me. It was like watching a Disney movie without the singing animals.”
“Disney movie?” Bucky asks, voice muffled by Tony’s thigh.
“I’ll show you,” Tony assures him.
The rest of the team starts slowly filtering out until it’s just the three of them. Tony and Steve exchange a look over Bucky’s head, not needing to communicate with words after the years they’ve spent together. They’re both concerned about where Bucky will sleep tonight. With a quick glance toward Bucky and a tilt of his eyebrows, Steve tells him that he would be more than happy with Bucky staying with them, but he’ll leave the decision up to Tony. No one likes the scent of a distressed omega after all, and the easiest way to end up with a distressed omega is by inviting someone into their space that they don’t want there.
Fortunately, Tony would be more than happy with Bucky there. He hadn’t been joking when he’d said that one look at Bucky and it had felt like they were meant for each other, just as it had felt with Steve—and, he suspected, just as it had felt with Steve and Bucky, even if they’d never made a move.
But he wants the choice to be Bucky’s, so he gently lifts his hands away from Bucky’s hair and asks, “Bucky? Do you want to have your own floor? We’ve got a few extras for when we expand the roster. Or you could stay on our floor, if you’d prefer?”
Bucky doesn’t even hesitate to say, “With you.”
He knows Bucky doesn’t mean it the way he wants, doesn’t mean that he’ll join them in their bed, but maybe… Maybe someday, once Bucky is better (he isn’t so naïve as to think this is the end of it; he only has to look at his own history with backsliding after Afghanistan and Stane and the palladium reactor to know that) and if he and Steve can figure out the right words to invite someone into a triad bond…
Well. Maybe someday.
He wakes up in the middle of the night to Steve gently shaking his shoulder. “Waz wrong?” he mumbles, blearily rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “Did I have a nightmare?”
“No, sweetheart,” Steve whispers, leaning over to kiss his bare shoulder. “Bucky wanted to know if he could join us. Said he was worried about Hydra.” He doesn’t say if Bucky was worried about Hydra taking him away or someone else, Tony or Steve, he notes, but the answer is the same either way.
“’Course he can, long as he’s not a blanket hog.”
He fully expects Bucky to climb in on Steve’s other side. It only makes sense: the two grew up together so of course, Steve would be the middle in this instance. Instead, Steve tugs Tony closer to him so that he’s spooning up behind him, and Bucky crawls under the blankets so that he’s facing Tony, looking more relaxed as soon as his head hits the pillow.
Huh. Maybe there’s something to what Clint was saying about Bucky imprinting on him. He would be more worried, but alphas don’t imprint on someone unless they feel safe with them, unless there’s the beginning stirrings of a mating bond in the back of their mind, even though a full bond takes time, communication, and love to develop. Considering that Tony’s pretty sure he’s imprinted on Bucky the same way, he really isn’t that concerned about Bucky’s feelings.
Still though, he makes a note to sit down and talk with Bucky eventually about how they can’t just rush into this. They’ve all been through too much to immediately strike up a relationship. Bucky isn’t in the right mental state at the moment. And as for Tony, he wants to make sure they’re all on the same page and that Bucky won’t regret this two years down the line. Hell, he’s still uncertain that Steve won’t regret this at some point, so he definitely wants to know that Bucky’s sure of his feelings.
But that’s a problem for tomorrow-Tony, he decides. Tonight, he’s going to snuggle into his alpha’s warmth and enjoy having Bucky close by instead of somewhere out in the world where Tony can’t keep him safe.
The next day is weirder. Not in a bad way! Just—here: when Tony finally drags himself away from the warm spots in the bed that his mates (not his mates; his mate and his mate’s best friend… who might one day be his mate), makes his way into the kitchen, and sleepily grumbles, “Coffee,” there are suddenly two steaming mugs in front of him, one from Steve and one from—someone else. He raises his eyes slowly to where Bucky is watching him with hopeful eyes. That answers that question then.
“Uh, thanks, Snowflake,” he says and takes a cautious sip out of the one Bucky put down. It’s not that he thinks it’s poisoned. It’s just that Bucky has been here for less than twenty-four hours, there’s no way that he know how exacting Tony can be about his coffee, how particular—how—how…
Huh. This is pretty damn perfect actually.
He takes another, larger sip and then looks at where Steve is busy making breakfast for the three of them. Steve watches him with an amused look in his eyes. Tony knows Steve isn’t concerned about someone else preparing his coffee—Bruce has done it plenty of times and whenever Rhodey’s in town, he insists that he’s the only one who can make Tony’s coffee—he’s just enjoying watching the two of them together.
He thinks about the nights he used to wake from a dead sleep to the sound of Steve weeping over Bucky, about the concerns he used to share with Tony that Bucky wouldn’t want to stay with them or would want to leave. He wonders now how much of that was fear that Tony wouldn’t want Bucky to stay because he wouldn’t be able to stomach housing the person Hydra used to kill his parents. Silly alpha, he thinks fondly. As though Tony wouldn’t love anyone Steve loves.
At least that’s a fear he can put to rest.
Gulping down half his coffee in one go, he leans back in his chair and casually says, “Steve, you’re fired. Pack your things and go. I’m keeping this one. His coffee is lightyears ahead of yours.”
Steve bursts out laughing and crosses the kitchen to pull him up and kiss him soundly. Tony purrs into the kiss, answered with a low rumble from Steve and then, so low he almost misses it—another rumble from Bucky. He smiles triumphantly and pulls away with another kiss, hands resting on Steve’s broad chest.
“Better finish up that breakfast, soldier,” he says teasingly. “Got things to do today in the workshop and I need my alpha down there to stand around and look pretty. You too, Bucky Babe,” he calls over his shoulder. “Universe gave me two supersoldiers, be a shame not to take advantage of that.”
He doesn’t know what Bucky looks like but the kitchen suddenly scents like contended alpha, and he knows it’s not Steve’s scent because he knows Steve’s scent as well as he knows his own. He smiles again, nuzzles deeper into Steve’s chest and hums happily.
It’s not perfect yet, he thinks, but soon—soon it will be.
Tony was right that first day—it takes time, months really. Time for Bucky to backslide and Steve to backslide and Tony to back-shimmy because he doesn’t do anything as gauche as slide. It takes months of therapy, days of consultation with the world’s top experts on how to remove the brainwashing and programming from Bucky’s brain, hours of working together in the workshop on Bucky’s arm as Tony comes up with improvement after improvement.
It’s countless bad nights where Bucky wakes up in a nightmare and reaches to strangle Steve—never Tony, never his omega, but always his best friend—and countless bad days afterward trying to convince him to come back to their bed. It’s figuring out how to work around the myriad of triggers all three of them have and sometimes it doesn’t work. Sometimes Bucky doesn’t realize that Tony can’t handle baths anymore. Sometimes Steve doesn’t notice that Bucky’s afraid of heights. Sometimes Tony misses that it’s the anniversary of Bucky falling from the train.
It’s bad sometimes.
But it’s good sometimes too.
It’s figuring out how they curl around each other in bed and waking up warm and rested. It’s feeding each other by hand in the morning when they’re too tired to bother with silverware. It’s cups of coffee and donuts with sprinkles and warm hugs. It’s Bucky resting his head on Tony’s lap and tucking his feet under Steve’s legs during movie nights.
It’s Tony and Steve dancing together around the kitchen island as Bucky cooks, watching them fondly. It’s Bucky crooning old songs from the 40s when Steve’s on a mission and Tony can’t sleep without his alpha. It’s Steve and Bucky spending hours walking the streets of Brooklyn, reminiscing about growing up together.
It’s love, blooming slowly but surely for everyone to see.
And when one night as Tony is changing out of the charcoal suit he’d worn for the board meeting that day and into his pajamas and Bucky stops him with a hoarsely whispered, “Doll,” he smiles and guides Bucky’s hand to his waist.
“It’s okay, darling,” he murmurs. “You can.”
Bucky’s kiss, when it comes, feels like coming home.