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Bucky didn't remember the accident. His last memory of that night was giving Palmer the finger as he left work, juggling a coffee and a stale-as-fuck bagel in the other hand.
It was like someone had redacted his memory with a thick black sharpie: when you tilted the page just right you could see hints of what happened, in thunderstorms, in the pouring rain, in the flash of lightning.
He was hanging there for a long time before they found him, before they got him out, they told him. Sometimes, in his nightmares, he remembered. Remembered being alone in the dark and the rain, feeling his life run out of him, one bloody drop at a time.
The only good thing about the accident was that it had been a Stark Industries semi-trailer that had wiped his car out of existence. Apparently, Stark Industries took this sort of shit seriously. Bucky had been expecting a long drawn out fight, involving lawyers and courts and his past as a ward of the State dredged up to prove it must have been his fault when a huge fucking truck came out of nowhere and crushed his tiny little hatchback, like having been a foster kid could somehow alter the laws of physics.
There'd been none of that. All his medical bills had been covered, everything had been covered, a big chunk of cash dropped in his bank account, and they'd fast tracked him into their fancy new prosthetics program. Which was why he had a shiny metal arm where his left one used to be.
It was fucking surreal sometimes. Missing arm aside, he was better off than he'd ever thought he could be. Most days, he wasn't sure it was worth it.
He'd had to stay close to the labs when they were fitting and refitting his arm, stay close for the surgeries and the implants and learning to use the thing. Growing up in an endless series of group homes and foster homes had left him with a fondness for privacy; living cheek and jowl with what felt like the entire population of New York crammed into various labs had left him craving solitude. So when the Stark Industries technician's cousin's mailman's dog-walker's client's house in the forest (Bucky had lost track of how many layers there were between him and whoever actually owned it) had needed a housesitter, he'd jumped at the chance.
The house was beautiful, nestled in a clearing surrounded by ancient trees stretching to the sky. When he'd gotten out of his pickup he'd been washed in an immediate sense of peace. There was no noise, no people, no one poking at him and asking the same question twelve different ways. No doctors, nurses or techs standing way too close and staring at him like he was some oddity to be unravelled or a distraction from the arm they cared so much about. It was just him and the trees and the birds.
It was thirty minutes into town, his nearest neighbour further away than that, and still wild enough everyone said to carry a rifle when he was out on his own.
Bucky fucking loved it.
No one seemed to care who he was or where he'd come from. No one asked questions about his arm. It got some looks, a few raised eyebrows, and once when he'd been doing his grocery shopping a fucking cool, man, you've got a metal arm! from a pair of local teenagers. He'd given them an ironic salute and they'd grinned at him like he'd made their week.
He'd been expecting gossipy busybodies. While he was pretty sure he was the topic of more than a bit of a gossip after his arrival, as long as they didn't expect him to participate, he realised he didn't care.
He loved it here.
Until he found out some of these people were insane.
He was running around the edge of the lake, head down, the rhythm of his pounding feet dropping him into an almost Zen state. The lake was a relatively populated area, so he wasn't carrying his rifle, which worked for him, because running with it was a pain in the ass.
He had a physical routine he had to stick to, had to keep up with. He needed a certain amount of muscle mass to carry the arm, to balance it, had to keep himself at a certain level of fitness. It was light, lighter than it looked, but it was still a weight of metal hanging off his body, anchored into his bones and nerves and muscles, and he had to keep himself strong enough to carry it.
Relatively populated he'd been expecting; he hadn't been expecting the small crowd which was rapidly getting closer. A small crowd who were watching their dogs bouncing around in the grassy meadow. Someone lifted a hand in greeting, another called, "Bucky, hey."
It was partly politeness, partly curiosity that made him slow to a stop. "Hey," what was this guy's name, mole on his left cheek, looked like it was about to crawl off on its own, that's right, "Frank. What's up?"
Frank gave him a long, assessing stare, which Bucky found odd. Apparently satisfied with whatever he'd found, Frank jerked his head towards where the dogs were playing. "Blue Eyes is back."
Which meant absolutely nothing to Bucky, so he looked over at the dogs. He wasn't a dog expert; had nothing against them, but didn't know much. He knew enough to recognise a couple of labs, a German shepherd; the rest were definitely dog-shaped, but could be anything and...
"What the fuck is that?"
Frank broke into a shit-eating grin. "That's Blue Eyes."
"Frank, that's a fucking wolf." Suddenly he really wanted his rifle.
Bucky might not know anything about dogs but he knew enough to know when something wasn't a dog. And this thing was most definitely not a dog. It looked like it had stepped through a time loop from prehistory. It was huge, at least three feet at the shoulder, maybe more, and it dwarfed the dogs in every way. It moved like a wild thing; Bucky expected it to start ripping out throats any second. Its teeth were fucking huge. But it did have blue eyes, the bluest eyes Bucky had ever seen.
"It's a wolf," he repeated.
Frank busted out laughing and a bunch of the others joined in. Bucky had a feeling the words city-slicker were going through their collective heads. Whatever, it was a fucking wolf and it was right there and their dogs were going to wind up being lunch, he was pretty sure.
"He showed up a couple of years ago. My Brandy ran straight up to him, thought that was it, I was going to lose her. Instead he was polite as could be, started playing with her. Now he shows up from time to time. I think he might be lonely."
They watched the wolf, the huge, golden brown, what-the-hell-it's-a-wolf, play gently with the dogs.
"Don't go spreading it around." Frank's voice was demanding but Bucky wasn't looking at him. Bucky was looking at the wolf, who'd he'd swear was looking back, who'd he'd swear had fixed him with an intense, intent stare. "There's some people in town, they wouldn't like a wolf being this close. So don't you say anything, right?"
Bucky found himself nodding, still looking at the wolf. "I won't say anything."
It wasn't the last time he saw the wolf. He took the lake off his regular running route and just dealt with the annoyance of running with the rifle. There were plenty of places to run in the forest, well-beaten game trails, natural paths created by old creek beds, several places the trees let out into the open air next to the deep ravine, letting him look out over the mountains while he ran.
He got glimpses of the wolf. Mostly in the distance. Had the strange, uncomfortable feeling it was watching him. He wondered if it, like him, lived out here. One time he looked up to see it standing in the trail in front of him, but it was gone between one second and the next.
It should have been worrying. It should have been scary, because he was pretty sure the wolf could take him down long before he even knew it was there. Instead, it felt more like seeing your neighbour. You might not talk to them, you might not know them, but you'd still nod if you saw them when you were collecting the mail.
He was buying groceries when he ran into Frank and his fellow Blue Eyes conspirators. They greeted him as if he were one of them, which he supposed he was. "Haven't seen him for a while," Frank was saying to one of the women.
"He'll be back," she said.
For reasons he didn't examine too closely, Bucky didn't mention that he'd been seeing an awful lot of the wolf. "Does he ever do anything besides come down and play with your dogs?"
"No, that's the only time we see him. I don't think he's much for people," the woman said.
Bucky felt a tug on his sleeve. He looked down to see a small child. "Uh, yes?" He didn't have a lot of experience with kids, where a lot should be read as none.
"He does like people. He saved me once."
"Oh, Katie, don't tell stories," the woman sighed, as if this was an old argument, before re-joining the general conversation. Bucky saw hurt, anger, stubborn determination pass over the kid's face. It looked pretty familiar. He crouched down so he was on her level.
"I wouldn't mind hearing about that," he said, having no idea how to talk to kids.
He must have done okay, because she beamed at him. "I was trying to go out on the lake last winter and he wouldn't let me. He kept getting in front of me and herding me away. I was really mad, but I couldn't get past him. Plus he's really big." Bucky nodded, because this kid would barely come up to the wolf's shoulder. "So I went home. And it turned out the ice wasn't frozen enough and if I'd gone out on it I would have fallen through. I would have died." Her eyes got huge and she sounded way too excited about that for Bucky's peace of mind, but maybe that was normal for kids.
"That was nice of him," he replied.
"You believe me, right?" She was scowling, as if daring him not to believe her. Bucky realised that yeah, he did actually. If he was a kid and he was going to make up a story about being saved by a wolf, he would have gone for something a lot more dramatic than 'it wouldn't let me onto the ice'. It was, as improbable stories went, pretty boring.
"I sure do," he said firmly and nodded. He was rewarded with another beaming smile and he grinned back at her.
"I like your arm," she told him and he ruffled her hair then went to do his grocery shopping.
When he saw the wolf the next day, standing on top of a fallen log a good distance away, he stopped running, turned to face it. "So, I heard you make a habit out of rescuing little girls," he called. "Keeping them from falling into frozen lakes?"
He would have sworn, sworn, the wolf looked embarrassed. His ears definitely twitched and he looked up at the sky before disappearing. Bucky laughed at him and kept running.
What happened next was no one's fault. The trees were responsible, but since they were doing what trees are meant to do they weren't precisely at fault. A tree was meant to grow, to send out roots and runners, to spread through the forest. It was just unfortunate that these trees were located so close to the edge of a drop down into the ravine. It was just unfortunate that the weather and the shape of the ground meant water had undermined the solid strength of the edge.
So it was no one's fault when Bucky, who had run this way so many times before, felt the ground go out from underneath him, sliding away under the irresistible command of gravity and taking him with it. He almost made it to solid ground; he leapt like a cat, felt his ankle twist in a sharp shooting pain, but he fell short. Managed to grab a tree root sticking out of the bank, grasp it tight in hands both metal and flesh, as he watched dirt and rocks and his rifle tumble down into the ravine below.
He was hanging from the root, all his weight dragging down. Down, where his eyes couldn’t help going. It was a hell of a drop. He was pretty sure he could hang on for a long time, his metal arm, his metal fingers, giving him an advantage mere flesh didn't have, but it wouldn't last forever.
And then...
Before he had time to dwell too much on what happened next, arms like steel cables wrapped around him and he looked up into blue eyes and a wide bright smile and a ridiculously attractive face. "Need a hand?"
Bucky blinked. The arms around him were already taking most of his weight, he could barely feel the strain on his arms. But the guy was hanging half over the bank to do it. "How are you not sliding face first over the edge?"
"Got my foot hooked under a tree root. I'm going to pull you up, okay?"
Bucky wasn't really sure how that was going to work, because from what Bucky could see he might not be quite as big as this guy but he wasn't exactly small, was carrying the weight of the arm plus whatever gravity was adding. The guy was waiting patiently and Bucky had the feeling he would keep waiting for Bucky to give him the go ahead, when anyone else would have just dragged Bucky up and damn the consequences. "Okay."
Bucky felt himself lifted up and over the edge of the bank. Not dragged, which he was expecting, but lifted and he found himself half-lying on his rescuer, who'd twisted around to pull him to safety. He'd deny it to his dying day but he might have clung to him, just a little bit, because that had been fucking scary. He felt the guy pat him soothingly on the back and he just breathed deeply for a minute.
Of course, once his heartbeat slowed and he stopped clinging (not that he'd been doing that) he realised something he wasn't exactly sure how he'd missed up to that point. "You're naked."
"Yes I am." He said it with no apologies, no blushing or stammering, as if it was just a fact of the world Bucky was going to have to get used to. It kind of took the wind out of the 'why' Bucky had been getting ready to follow it up with. Normally, Bucky would have no problems sprawling over a ridiculously attractive, ridiculously built naked blond guy, but this was odd, even if he had just rescued Bucky, and he scrambled to his feet.
He would have hit the ground again, his ankle giving out under him, if naked blond guy hadn't caught him, having leapt to his feet after Bucky. "So maybe that wasn't the best idea," he said gently, but there was an underlying breath of sarcasm to the words that perversely made Bucky feel better.
Maybe," Bucky conceded, tentatively testing out the ankle. It was definitely not currently load bearing. The naked blond guy's fingers were wrapped around his arm, his ordinary arm, and he could feel the strength in them. "Have you got a name? I feel like some sort of creeper calling you naked blond guy in my head," he blurted out.
The guy's lips twitched. "Steve."
"Bucky."
"Nice to meet you, Bucky. Though the circumstances could be better."
"I don't know. I was pretty fucking glad to see you," Bucky admitted. The fingers around his arm squeezed gently.
"And I'm glad I was here." They were silent for a minute and Bucky kind of wanted to do the clinging thing again, but he didn't because that would be unacceptable on every possible level. "Okay. You can't walk," Steve said. "Right?"
"I could probably manage..." Bucky trailed off at the look he was being given. It was the most potent combination of disapproval and I'm very disappointed in you he'd ever seen. "No."
"If I offer to carry you, you're going to say no."
Bucky snorted. "We're a couple of miles from my place. I don't think you could carry me that far." The new look he was being given indicated Steve thought otherwise and Bucky couldn't help glancing down at the expanse of muscular chest before him, though he carefully kept his eyes north of the border, because he could be polite. Steve's lips quirked.
"Piggyback."
"That's your solution?"
Steve nodded. Bucky had to admit as solutions went it was reasonable. The only other option was waiting here while Steve went for help and then...what? There was no way to get a vehicle up here and he had a twisted ankle; it was hardly airlift material.
"Okay, but you have to tell me if I get too heavy. Or if you need a break." The whole thing had taken on an air of surreality. Any moment, he expected to wake up in his bed, wondering what the hell he'd eaten to have a weird-ass dream like this.
"Trust me, that won't be a problem. Put your hand on my shoulder?" Bucky did, using it to brace himself as Steve carefully turned and knelt down with his back facing Bucky.
Bucky took a moment, because when the universe puts a perfect piece of art in front of you, you damn well appreciate it. Then, awkward as hell, he wrapped his arms around Steve's shoulders, careful with his metal arm, so it didn't bruise, didn't pinch. Braced against Steve's back, he hooked his injured leg over Steve's hip, felt one strong hand tuck under his knee, and leaned forward, letting Steve take his weight while he swung his other leg into place. Steve put his hand under Bucky's other knee, holding him securely, and rose smoothly to his feet, as if Bucky weighed nothing.
Bucky was very aware that there was an awful lot of very naked Steve that he was currently wrapped around.
Steve covered the ground fast, apparently not bothered by Bucky's weight or by his bare feet on rough ground or by much of anything at all.
"Are you a nudist?" Bucky asked after they'd gone about half a mile.
"I've been all over these woods naked," Steve finally replied, which Bucky couldn't help noticing was not actually an answer.
"That's not as reassuring as you'd probably like it to be."
Steve just snorted a laugh.
After they'd gone a bit further and hit the split in the path, Bucky pointed over Steve's shoulder. "My place is—"
Steve interrupted him. "I know where you live."
Bucky hmmmd thoughtfully in the back of his throat. "So, should I be worried, or…"
He could feel Steve's rumbling laugh vibrate through his entire body. "Don't feel special. I know the forest and your house happens to be in the forest."
"Again, I feel like that's not as reassuring as you'd probably like it to be," he said, with a dry edge of sarcasm and was rewarded with another rumbling laugh.
When they reached Bucky's house, Steve carried him up the stairs and inside, turning to carefully deposit Bucky on the couch. Bucky half expected him to disappear, like some sort of forest spirit. Some sort of nudist forest spirit. Instead, he hovered. "If you're staying, you can put on pants," he said, with an air of finality, and waved a hand at his bedroom door. "Bottom drawer. Sweatpants should fit you."
Steve in sweatpants was much easier to deal with, especially when he wanted to check out Bucky's ankle and retrieve the first aid kit from the bathroom to wrap it. Normally, Bucky would have bristled at someone trying to look after him, especially a stranger, but Steve's manner was gentle and kind, an odd contrast to his size and strength. The way he waited patiently for Bucky to agree to whatever he'd just asked for, with the air of someone who'd wait forever, worked a kind of magic on Bucky.
When Steve left, Bucky had a bandaged ankle, an ice pack, a mug of tea, a plate of toast, a bottle of painkillers, a blanket wrapped around him, an overall sense of contentment and wellbeing and no real idea how any of it had happened.
Bucky made a point of heading into town a few days later. His ankle was fine for ordinary things, though he was being very careful when exercising. There were two bars in town, with a Montague and Capulet sort of rivalry (although given how far they were from anything resembling a city, he admitted that Hatfield and McCoy might be a better analogy), and he'd been encouraged to make the Howling Commandos his watering hole of choice.
Lacking any reason not to, he'd been by a couple of times. The atmosphere was relaxed and friendly, they had decent food, and everyone seemed happy to let him have a drink or two in peace. This time, however, he had an agenda. He grabbed a seat at the bar, glad they weren't too busy, and ordered a beer. When the bartender, who everyone called Dum Dum, slid it across the counter, he said, "Hey, can I ask you a question?"
"As long as it's not about why they call me Dum Dum, you can ask me anything you want," he replied with a grin.
Bucky opened his mouth. Closed it.
"And now that's all you want to ask."
Bucky's eyes narrowed. "That's pretty evil."
"I know. What's your question?"
"Are there any nudist colonies around here?"
For one second, maybe two, Bucky thought he'd found the answer to the mystery of Steve. Dum Dum looked at him and Bucky thought his expression was indicating well, of course there are, what sort of a dumbass question is that?
Judging by the uproarious laughter that escaped after those few seconds, he'd misjudged and it was more of course there aren't, what sort of a dumbass are you?
"Nudist colonies? Why, you looking to spend more time prancing around naked?" Dum Dum was grinning at him. His laughter had attracted attention.
"What's up?" one of the other patrons asked, someone Bucky didn't know.
"Bucky here was asking if we had any nudist colonies in the area."
Now they were all grinning at him. "I had no idea, Barnes. You saying we should make sure we call first if we decide to pay you a visit?"
"I don't know, might be a nice surprise if we didn't," one of the others said, eyebrows wiggling up and down, his grin robbing it of any seriousness.
Bucky's ears went red and there was collective laughter, but there was no meanness in it. They shifted to sit with him at the bar, beckoning Dum Dum to give him another beer. "Why the sudden interest in naked people?"
"Hey, I'll have you know I've always been interested in naked people," Bucky replied, finding himself laughing with them. "Very interested."
His trip to the bar netted him no information about nudist colonies but he'd actually had a good time.
The next morning when he woke up, none the worse for wear since he'd only had two beers, his rifle, the one that had slid down into the ravine, was sitting on his porch.
Bucky saw the wolf all the time after that. Not just for brief flashes. When he went running, he'd sometimes see him pacing him through the trees. Or lying high up on a rock or on a ledge overlooking Bucky's path.
In the interests of learning more about his neighbour, which was pretty much how he was thinking of the wolf, Bucky fired up the internet and did some research. There was a lot of bullshit about wolves on the internet, but that wasn't anything special; there was a lot of bullshit about everything on the internet.
But he learned that the idea of a lone wolf as something admirable and romantic was flat out wrong. Wolves were never supposed to be alone. After that, he started talking to the wolf. Maybe that was strange, but he felt bad for it, if it was so lonely it was hanging out with dogs and hanging around the forest with Bucky. The wolf seemed to respond positively, seemed to appreciate it, spending more time where Bucky could see him.
So that probably made what happened entirely Bucky's fault.
Bucky was sitting on the bottom step, bare feet on the grass, drinking his morning coffee, when he heard a noise. He looked up and saw the wolf step out from beneath the trees. It was the first time he'd ever seen it at his house. It was strange, almost disorientating, to see something so wild, something so inimical to the concept of civilisation, standing so close to his home.
It was watching him. Bucky felt a little electric shiver go up his spine. There was nothing aggressive in its gaze, in the way it was standing. It was just very deliberately watching him.
Without looking away from Bucky, the wolf began to pick his way across the grass towards him. Bucky's heart stopped. His rifle was in the house. He briefly considered running for it. The wolf was walking slowly, moving at an oblique angle, but he was definitely moving towards Bucky. Knowing that he was being incredibly stupid, knowing that this was a wild animal, Bucky stayed where he was.
When it was six feet away, the wolf stopped. Waited.
Bucky felt like he was being asked a question. He'd heard the stories; the locals were full of all the stupid things tourists did around wild animals. If they were lucky, they just lost food or possessions; if they were unlucky they got injured. Sometimes they died. Wild animals were wild animals. Didn't matter how friendly they seemed. They were wild. Bucky knew that. It was why he'd listened when they'd told him to carry a rifle.
The wolf was standing six feet in front of him. His shoulder was almost as high as Bucky's hip. He had jaws that could crush Bucky's spine. He could, quite literally, kill him and there would be nothing Bucky could do to stop it.
Bucky set his coffee mug down on the step.
As if that was an answer, the wolf resumed walking, slower this time, one paw in front of the next, until he was right in front of Bucky. Bucky could feel his breath. The wolf tipped his head, nose pointing to the side. Barely daring to breathe, Bucky reached out to scratch gently behind one ear. The wolf whined, just once, and Bucky jumped as he pressed forward, leaning his body against Bucky's knees.
"Well." Bucky blew out a breath. "Well shit." The wolf looked up at him. "Hi," he said. "I'm pretty sure this is the mother of all bad ideas. But here we are." He kept scratching, brought his metal arm up to help. Smiled a little as the wolf went boneless and lay down on the grass at his feet.
The storm rolled down on the forest in the middle of the night. It brought pounding rain and thunder, drumming its way across the heavens; lightning crackled, illuminating the sky.
Bucky was asleep when the storm arrived, but it didn't matter. Some part of him was still aware, some part of him was still listening.
He didn't remember the accident, except sometimes in thunderstorms, in the pouring rain, in the flash of lightning. Except sometimes in his nightmares.
They were always the same. He was hanging upside down in the dark. The rain was pounding down outside, the thunder rolling overhead, the cruel flash of lightning illuminating the torn space where his arm used to be as his life dripped out of him.
He was alone. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t scream. He couldn’t cry. He was going to die alone, terrified and in agony, and he couldn’t escape. All he could do was hang here in the dark, locked deep in the nightmare.
"Bucky."
His name. Who was saying his name?
Someone was touching him. There were hands on him, on his shoulders, someone was calling his name. He didn't understand what was happening. The nightmare terror spiked and the voice calling his name was low and rumbling and there was warmth all around him that was pushing the terror away.
Bucky came up out of the nightmare with a panicked gasp, eyes wide and wild. He was leaning against someone's chest, their arms were around him. He could feel the strength in them, but their hold was gentle, not trapping him; he scrambled away because he didn't know what was going on and felt around until he could turn on the bedside light.
His eyes met piercing blue ones, ones he'd seen before, and they were filled with worry and guilt. Steve was kneeling at the side of his bed. "I'm sorry," Steve said all in a rush. "I know I shouldn't be here, this is so wrong, coming into your room like this. But you were afraid. You were so afraid. I couldn't—" He abruptly stopped. "It's no excuse. I'm sorry. Tell me to go and I'll go."
Bucky stared at him, trying to figure out what was happening. His nightmare addled brain was no help; it just wanted to hide. His heart was fluttering in his chest, still not sure they were free of the nightmare. "Please don't go." It came out of him like a gasp, like he was a drowning man, and it was only through iron self-control he didn't throw himself at Steve and cling onto him like a sloth. Steve seemed to sense it.
"I won't go. I'll stay," he promised. "Do you want to come back here?"
Without thinking about it too much, Bucky turned off the light and slid back across the bed until he was next to Steve. Steve who was kneeling on the floor next to the bed. "You can't sit there all night."
"Yeah, I can."
Bucky didn't have the energy to argue. "Pants?"
"I'm wearing pants," Steve promised with a low chuckle and opened his arms in invitation. Bucky didn't give himself time to think and just curled into them, pressing his face into Steve's chest. Steve gently, carefully, tucked one arm around him, hand resting against Bucky's back, curved the other around his head, creating a cocoon of warmth. The shredded tatters of the nightmare were dissolving and he was so grateful for it he could have cried.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
He could feel Steve's voice through his chest, a low vibration under his ear. "It's like a memory, of the accident when I lost my arm. All I know is that I'm alone and afraid and waiting to die."
"You're not alone," Steve said, voice gentle and soothing. "I'm right here and you're not alone, you don't have to be afraid, and nothing's going to happen to you."
Bucky fell asleep to the twin sounds of Steve's voice and his heartbeat.
When he woke up the next day, Steve was gone. Bucky would have thought he'd imagined the whole thing except he knew how his nightmare went. He knew how he felt the next day. He definitely hadn't imagined it.
He wondered if he should be angry about it. Steve had come into his house, uninvited. In the middle of the night. But at least he was wearing pants, he thought, with a breath of amusement. Steve, who was way too strong, had decided to come right into Bucky's bedroom. But he'd done it because he'd known Bucky was afraid and had apologised for it, looking guilty as hell.
He couldn’t do it. He tried, he really did try, to find some sort of anger, but it just wasn't there.
It was two days before he saw the wolf again. He appeared in the morning, which was normal. What wasn't normal was the way he was looking at Bucky.
"What's up?" Bucky called, because this was what he did now. Talked to wolves like they could understand him.
The wolf trotted across the yard to where Bucky was sitting on the steps. Bucky had only a second to react when he reached out and grabbed Bucky's right hand in his mouth. Bucky jumped and stared down, heart beating faster. He'd never done anything like that before. He wasn't biting down, was holding Bucky's hand very gently, and he was looking up into Bucky's eyes. Like he wanted Bucky's full attention. Bucky swallowed. "Okay, I'm watching."
He dropped Bucky's hand, backed off a few steps, and...changed.
It wasn't grotesque or noisy. It was smooth and flowing and Bucky couldn't really see anything in between. When it was done, Steve was standing where the wolf had been.
Bucky stared at him.
Steve stared back. He was naked again.
"Oh."
The corner of Steve's mouth pulled up. "Yeah."
"Right." Bucky nodded to himself. "Right. Pants?"
Steve went past him, into the house, and came back wearing sweatpants. "Can I sit?" he asked, indicating the spot on the step next to Bucky.
"Sure."
"I've been wanting to tell you for a while but I wasn't sure how it would go." Steve ran his fingers through his hair and Bucky wondered, completely irrelevantly, how he kept it looking so nice when he was, you know, a wolf. "After the other night, when you told me about your nightmare, I felt like shit keeping it a secret, so." He shrugged.
"You're not afraid I'm going to, I don't know, run off and tell people or decide to try and shoot you or something?" Bucky asked, feeling weirdly calm about the whole thing.
"No, I trust you."
That was unexpected and it kicked off a little spiral of warmth in Bucky's gut. But. But. "You're a werewolf."
"Yeah."
"Really a werewolf?"
"Yeah."
"But...werewolves?"
Steve smirked at him. "There wolf, there, well, house, I guess. It's nice but it's not exactly a castle."
Bucky stared at him. "…I'm having an existential crisis over the fact that werewolves exist and you're quoting Mel Brooks."
"Yeah," he replied, sounding very satisfied with himself.
Bucky nudged him with his shoulder. Hard. "I feel like you're not taking this seriously enough."
"You're taking it seriously enough for the both of us," Steve replied dryly.
"You're kind of an asshole, aren't you?" Bucky said after a minute, feeling oddly pleased by this fact.
Steve's grin was slow and broad, but he didn't deny it. Bucky just shook his head.
It didn't take Bucky long to get over his existential crisis, but he refused to let Steve watch Young Frankenstein, just on general principle. He did let Steve move in, though. He'd never seen anyone so happy to be able to brush their teeth on a regular basis in his life. And shower. And eat cooked food.
"Don't get me wrong, everything tastes good when I'm a wolf, but there were time I'd have killed for a burger."
"Not literally, right?"
Steve rolled his eyes. "Yes, Bucky. I'm going to go on a rampage and start slaughtering people in the hopes of getting a burger."
"Just checking," Bucky said and grinned at him.
"Idiot," Steve huffed, shoving him over on the couch.
The next day, Bucky grilled burgers on the barbecue and Steve spent the entire time hanging off of Bucky's shoulder, like some sort of overgrown blond koala, taking deep breaths and looking as happy as Bucky had ever seen him.
It was late and they were sitting on the porch swing, watching the crescent moon rise over the forest.
"Doesn't it affect you?"
Steve glanced over. "What?"
"The moon. Isn't that like crack for werewolves?"
"Crack for werewolves. Seriously, Bucky?"
"Come on, Steve. Everyone knows that one."
"Yeah, well, there's a lot of things everyone knows that are bullshit." Steve's shoulders were tight, Bucky could see him tensing up, and he frowned.
"Hey." He slid closer to Steve so he could nudge him with his shoulder. "Hey, what's up?"
"Nothing. Sorry, Buck."
"No, come on. I wasn't going for an apology. Something's obviously eating you. You can talk to me if you want." He smiled and nudged him again. "Even if it's about freaky werewolf shit."
Steve laughed at freaky werewolf shit, which was what Bucky had been going for, but his smile faded away. "That's how I ended up here," he said. "Getting away from what everyone knows."
"You want to talk about it?"
Steve turned to look at him, was studying him, searching Bucky's face, for what Bucky wasn't sure, but he looked back, willing to give Steve what he needed. "That depends. Do you want to know how I ended up a werewolf? It's not a very pretty story."
"If you want to tell me, I want to hear it," he said. Steve nodded to himself a few times, then started talking.
"Before I was a werewolf I was about ninety pounds soaking wet and had about a million things wrong with me. It's amazing I made it to as old as I did." Bucky felt his eyebrows call Steve a liar. "Seriously, I had three surgeries when I was kid just to fix my heart alone. There was this guy, he asked me out. In hindsight I was pretty stupid to think he'd have been interested in me, but hey, he was hot and I was stupid. I said yes."
Steve's smile was sad, self-deprecating, and Bucky was angry for the tiny version of Steve he couldn't even imagine with this Steve in front of him. "Hey. Not stupid," he said seriously. "You're pretty amazing and it's got nothing to do with what you look like."
Steve raised an eyebrow at him.
"Yes, you're stupidly attractive, we both know that," Bucky said, rolling his eyes a little, making Steve suppress a smile. "But I'm pretty sure that's not what made you keep a little kid from falling into a lake, or save me from falling into a ravine, or pull me out of a nightmare. That was just you."
"Because sneaking into people's rooms while they're asleep is such a stunning personality trait."
Bucky snorted and tapped Steve on the knee. "That's not what that was about. And I'm glad you did, thanks very much." It was Steve's turn to roll his eyes, but Bucky could see the sadness was gone. Satisfied, he said, "Can't argue with that, can you?"
"You going to let me finish?"
Bucky gestured that he should continue.
"He was a werewolf. He didn't want a date. I think I'm lucky he didn't want a meal. Best I can figure his pack wanted more weak wolves to balance things out. I guess they picked me the way real wolves cut a sick animal out of the herd. We were walking through a park on our date and, it's not really clear, all I can remember is the pain and being bitten. After that, it's a blur. I remember this big old house on the outskirts of town and being hot, feeling like I was going to crawl out of my skin." He fell silent. "I don't think they actually expected me to survive my first shift. I can remember someone saying I was too weak, that the guy had screwed up, to just leave me to die."
Steve's voice was flat and blank in a way very familiar to Bucky; it was the way he talked about the accident. Automatically, he sat up straighter and put his arm around Steve's shoulders. It was like he'd given Steve some sort of permission, because he slumped down lower and tucked himself further under Bucky's arm, wriggling until he was half-lying on his chest. Then he froze. "Is this okay?"
"It's fine, Steve." As if he'd say it wasn't. As if it wouldn't be okay. Steve relaxed at his words.
"They got a hell of a shock when I finally shifted. You've seen me. I'm big even for a werewolf. And when I shifted back, I looked like this."
"That's crazy."
"I know. They didn't know what to do. They weren't happy. They thought they were bringing in this weakling they could push around and they ended up with this me instead."
Bucky couldn't help laughing.
"What?"
"Jesus, Steve, were they stupid? I don’t care what you looked like, I don't think they were ever going to be able to push you around. Okay, it's not like we've been friends our whole lives, but I've known you long enough to know you're not the kind of guy who lets himself be pushed around, even if you were only ninety pounds soaking wet."
"I did used to get into a lot of fights."
Bucky groaned. "Of course you did."
"But not for me," he protested. "I don't like seeing other people get pushed around. I don't like bullies, never have, never will."
Somehow, Bucky wasn't surprised. "Of course you don't," he said, but it was softer and he gave Steve a little squeeze.
"After I turned out like this, I got into a lot more."
"This does not shock me."
"Well, everything about them was bullshit. What was I supposed to do? There was this pecking order from top to bottom, dominant wolves at the top, submissives at the bottom, and god help you if you stepped outside of it. I tried to help one of the lower level wolves." Steve's sarcasm was practically a living thing. "The alpha had beaten the hell out of her for no reason I could see and the shit hit the fan. He told me I was challenging his dominance. By helping her. She had two broken legs and a fractured spine. We heal, but it doesn't mean we don't hurt."
"Of course you had to help her," Bucky said soothingly, patting Steve gently on the shoulder and Steve huffed a little, sounding gratified.
"And they said I couldn't leave, couldn't go anywhere there were people, because I wouldn't be able to control my wolf and I'd hurt someone. Which was ridiculous. There's not two people living in here." Steve touched his chest. "The wolf is me; I can control myself." Steve snorted. "I think they liked having the excuse to lose control and then blame it on something else. It's not their fault, they just 'lost control of their wolf'."
Bucky was kind of delighted that Steve actually made sarcastic air-quotes with his fingers.
"I hit a point I just couldn't take it anymore. I'd try and stand up for the weaker wolves and everyone would get mad: the people I was trying to protect, the people I was trying to protect them from. They seemed to like it just the way it was. Real wolves don't act like that. Real wolves? Their pack is a family, they care for each other, protect each other. That's what we should be, but instead they were just bullies. I couldn't stay and watch," he said, shifting a little closer to Bucky. "When I told them I was leaving, the alpha told me I belonged to the pack, that I had to do what I was told. Told me he'd beat me down until I knew my place. Kill me if he had to. So I put him through a wall and I left. Kept going until I found somewhere there was no sign of any wolves or any werewolves and I've been here ever since."
Bucky was silent for a long time after Steve finished talking. It was a lot to take in. "How long ago?" he finally asked.
"About two and a half years."
"And you've been alone all that time."
"Yeah."
"That's why you started playing with the dogs?"
Steve gave an affirmative shrug.
"And following me around?"
"Yeah. It was nice to have the company."
Bucky's heart broke a little. "You're not alone anymore."
"I know," Steve said and Bucky found himself being hugged very thoroughly. He ran his fingers gently through Steve's hair, watching the way Steve seemed to melt under the touch.
Wolves were pack animals; they touched all the time, Bucky's research had been pretty clear on that. He was starting to figure out it might be the same for werewolves and Steve had been alone for a very long time.
"Steve?"
"Yeah?"
"Is this something you need?" Bucky asked, fingers still running through Steve's hair while he pulled him closer.
He didn't answer right away, but the way he was hugging Bucky was almost answer enough. "It, yeah, it kind of is."
"Okay, we can work with that."
It opened the floodgates. Steve started touching him all the time and it obviously made him incredibly happy, grounded him, settled something in him Bucky hadn't realised was off-kilter.
It was fine. Bucky was happy to give him whatever he needed.
There was just one small problem.
It wasn't that Steve was stupidly attractive. It was that Bucky was finding himself stupidly attracted to him. Not just his body; he was stupidly attracted to all of him.
He felt like that probably wasn't okay.
It wasn't because of the werewolf thing; he was surprisingly fine with that. He felt like it wasn't okay because Steve was definitely touch-starved and had been alone for years, when wolves and people and werewolves (because what was a werewolf but a wolf plus a person) weren't supposed to be alone.
Steve wasn't draping himself all over Bucky because he was attracted to Bucky, he was draping himself all over Bucky because Bucky was his friend (was Bucky maybe his pack? Bucky thought so but didn't really know how to ask). It felt wrong to be enjoying it on another level.
Problem was, certain parts of him didn't seem to have any inhibitions about enjoying it on that other level and were quite happy to make those positive reactions known. Reactions he knew Steve was aware of.
Steve mostly ignored them, for which Bucky was grateful, but he sometimes caught Steve eyeing him thoughtfully and then he felt vaguely guilty.
It was early morning. Bucky had shuffled out into the kitchen to make coffee, was leaning back against the counter, waiting. It was chilly and he was sleepy and when Steve, who never suffered from early morning fogginess, walked over and wrapped his arms around Bucky, pulling him in for a warm, snuggly hug, parts of Bucky were happy to stand up and cheer.
Problem was, it wasn't just his dick; it was his heart as well. Somewhere along the line, without him realising or giving his permission, stupidly attracted to had turned into maybe kind of fallen in love with. He wanted to bury himself in all that warm strength and not come out for an eternity.
He knew Steve felt it, given they were pressed flat against each other. He felt the way Steve was holding him change, felt him go that little bit tense when before he'd been almost boneless. He felt Steve's fingers curl against his back, felt Steve draw in a breath against his hair, and Bucky put both hands on Steve's chest and leaned back. It wasn't fair to Steve, to make him uncomfortable because Bucky's heart and his body were conspiring against him.
Steve opened his mouth to speak but, before he could, Bucky quickly said, "Look, just ignore that, okay?" Steve's mouth snapped shut. "It has a mind of its own some days and you're," he waved one hand at Steve, "you. So let's just ignore it and it'll go away."
Steve eyes were intensely blue and Bucky saw something flit through them, there and gone, before Steve mustered a smile. "Of course, Buck. Whatever you want," he said and stepped away.
Bucky felt cold all over with the loss of contact.
Nothing really changed after that, nothing big. It was just that Steve was a little bit more careful, a little bit more reticent, when he touched. It was enough to make Bucky want to go back in time and undo that morning completely.
"How long will you be gone?"
"Only a few days. They just have to do a check-up on the arm, run some tests, make sure it's still working like it should." Bucky was underplaying how bad the tests were going to be, because they always left him feeling like shit, but he didn't want Steve to worry. "It's all routine, no big deal."
Judging by the look on Steve's face, he was wasting his time. He crossed the room and pulled Bucky into a hug and Bucky burrowed into him. He didn't want to leave, he didn't want to let people poke at his arm and pretend he didn't exist; he just wanted to stay like this forever because his traitor heart was determined to stay stupidly in love with Steve.
He had to go, though. "I'll be back soon," he said, extricating himself from Steve. "Don't do anything stupid while I'm gone."
"How can I? You're taking all the stupid with you."
Bucky grinned at him and left.
He came back, three days later, sore and cranky and not really in any fit state for human or werewolf company. The tests they'd put him through had left him aching down to the bone. The way the techs and the doctors stared and poked and treated him as if he was the arm and not the inconvenient body it was attached to, not a person at all, left him in a foul mood.
Steve took one look at him and walked over to take his bag away, then steered him to sit on the couch. Bucky let him, but he frowned slightly. "What do you need?' Steve asked.
"Painkillers," Bucky replied. "In my bag."
Steve returned shortly with the bottle and a mug of tea, which he set on the table. "Do you want something to eat?"
"Maybe later." He took two pills with the tea, then closed his eyes, waiting for them to kick in. He opened them when he felt a gentle weight settle over his shoulders. Steve was putting a blanket over him, looking very blond and large and concerned. Bucky's eyes narrowed.
"Being warm might help it hurt less," Steve replied to the look, sounding a bit surprised.
"Maybe." Bucky closed his eyes again. He could hear Steve in the kitchen, then the noises stopped. A short time later, Bucky felt gentle fingers carding through his hair. It would have been soothing if he'd been in a mood to be soothed, and part of him wanted to lean into those fingers, into that gentle touch, but it was buried under the weight of everything else. He moved his head away.
There was a very loud silence. He opened his eyes. Steve was looking at him, face expressionless. "What's wrong?"
"I'm not your pack. You don't have to look after me, okay? Stop trying to treat me like I'm some sort of responsibility you have to take care of." Even as he was saying it he could feel a voice in the back of his head saying shut up shut up shut up you fucking idiot but he was tired and angry and in pain and all of those together were loud enough to drown out the voice of reason.
Steve's face went blank, his eyes shuttered. Bucky had never seen him like that. Never. "That's what you think."
He could have fixed it right there. He could have, but he didn't. "Yeah."
Steve's face wasn't expressionless anymore. It was angry. "Fine then." He turned away, opened the front door, and pulled off his clothes, giving Bucky a momentary glimpse of smooth skin and beautifully sculpted muscle. Then there was a wolf standing in the living room. Steve looked at him briefly, out of those same beautiful blue eyes, and then he was gone.
Bucky wanted to run after him. He almost did. But he was pretty sure Steve would be long gone. "Fuck," he said and slid down further into the couch. "You fucking idiot."
Steve didn't come home that night. The next day, Bucky went looking for him. Calling for him through the forest, like he was looking for a lost dog, but you can't find a wolf that doesn't want to be found. Eventually, he gave up and went home.
Steve was sitting on the top of the steps, still a wolf. Bucky looked up at him from the bottom of the steps. "I'm sorry," he said, trying to put how much he meant it into his voice. "I was a fucking idiot."
Steve's tail ticked back and forth, just once, and he shifted. Pulled the clothes on that were sitting where he'd dropped them last night.
"I'm sorry," Bucky said again as he dropped to sit on the couch. He was pretty damn tired after walking through the forest the day after getting back from the tests.
"Yeah, you said that already." Steve was smiling a little, the corner of his mouth pulled up, so Bucky figured it wasn't entirely hopeless. He came to crouch in front of Bucky, resting both hands on Bucky's knees. "You want to tell me what happened?"
"That wasn't covered by the fucking idiot part?"
"Not really, no."
Bucky blew out a breath, not really wanting to talk about it. But Steve deserved to know why Bucky had behaved like a complete ass to him last night. "The people at the lab, it's like they don't even see me. They just see the arm and I'm a problem they have to deal with. It pisses me off. I guess I took that out on you."
Steve's expression softened and he reached up to push Bucky's hair behind his ear. "I can see how that would be rough."
"Doesn't make it okay, though."
Steve shrugged one shoulder, apparently having forgiven him. Bucky was pretty sure he didn't deserve Steve.
"I'm sorry I said I'm not your pack," he said, leaning forward to put his hands over Steve's. "That was shitty and I'm sorry. I know I'm your pack and you said that's what they do, they look after each other. That's what you were trying to do and I was an ungrateful ass. I'll try and do better, okay?"
Steve was staring up at him, with a look on his face like Bucky had done something incredibly stupid. Bucky was starting to wonder if he'd been wrong about being Steve's pack. Maybe he shouldn't have made assumptions. "Am I not your pack? I thought..."
He heard Steve say something under his breath that might have been fuck it and then Steve said, "Tell me if you don't want me to do this." Bucky didn't know what he was talking about. He blinked once as Steve stood, had a moment of worry that he'd offended him by saying he was Steve's pack, that Steve was leaving, except Steve was kneeling carefully on the couch, straddling Bucky's legs, all that gentle strength poised above him, and Bucky could feel the heat radiating from his body. Then Steve's hands were on his face, cradling it gently, waiting, and when Bucky didn't pull away, he kissed him. Bucky's brain whited out with sheer joy but that was okay because his body was quite capable of managing this on its own and Bucky returned the kiss enthusiastically.
"Oh," he managed, coherent sentences completely beyond him, when Steve pulled back, but his metal hand was fisted in the front of Steve's shirt and the other was curled around the back of his neck so he couldn’t pull away too far. Steve was smart; he'd figure it out.
"Yeah," Steve said, smiling down at him. "Wanting to take care of you? It's got nothing to do with you being my pack." He kissed Bucky again. "Although you're that, too. It's because I might be a little bit in love with you."
"Good. That's good," Bucky told him and Steve's hands were on him, his large, warm, beautiful hands, and all of Bucky was very happy.
"You don't care that I'm a…"
"What?"
"Werewolf."
Bucky grinned up at him and pulled Steve's shirt up so he could flatten his hands against his stomach, the metal one slightly cool to the touch. He felt Steve suck in a breath and shiver. "There wolf. There castle."
"...I just told you I'm in love with you and you're quoting Mel Brooks?" he asked incredulously, but his hands didn't stop moving over Bucky.
"Yeah." Bucky laughed at the expression on Steve's face, which was trying to be I'm very disappointed in you but was having difficulty since Bucky had just wrapped his hands in the waistband of his pants.
"You're kind of an asshole," Steve said, sounding affectionate and fond and happy and a little bit breathless.
"Yeah, but I'm your asshole." Bucky pulled his hands away and wrapped them around Steve, metal palm flat against the small of his back, the other curling around his neck and into his hair, holding him tight as he pressed up to kiss him the way he'd been wanting to do for so long. When he pulled away, Steve's eyes were gleaming blue. "And I'm a little bit in love with you, too."