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He wakes up held in someone’s arms. No, he corrects himself. Cradled. The arms aren’t holding him down, aren’t tight and hard. They are cradling him like he is precious, like he might shatter if dropped.
The arms are warm and strong. He is safe here.
He goes back to sleep.
He wakes up with his face pressed against someone’s stomach. He takes a deep breath. Omega scent, round and soft. Familiar.
“Hey, there,” a voice says. The voice is also soft.
He feels very warm and heavy, but he lifts his head, blinks to clear his eyes. The omega is smiling down at him. He knows the omega. The omega--
“You’ve slept for a while,” the omega says. “Breakfast came while you were out. You hungry?”
He remembers. He is in a cell, he was captured, he was caught and drugged and chained. They put him in the cell, and then the omega put himself in the cell, and something about that is wrong. The omega should not be in a cell. The omega is--
“You shouldn’t be here,” he says, and the omega’s face goes blank and shocked, like he’s been sucker-punched. That is wrong, that is very wrong. The omega sits back and takes his warm safe arms away, and that is awful.
“Okay.” The omega’s voice rasps. He smells so, so sad. The omega tries to smile. “I’ll go if you want me to. I’d like to come back later, if that’s okay.”
That is not okay, that is not what he meant. The words aren’t lining up right. His body hurts, aching and stiff, and his head hurts, he can’t think, but he has to get this right. This is important.
“No,” he says, and the omega’s face crumbles for a split second before it hardens into something bleak and exhausted. He is still saying it wrong, why won’t the words come out right?
He grabs the omega’s arms when the omega tries to stand. He rolls them both onto the floor, his body covering the omega’s. He is very careful with the Arm. It can crush bone but he will not do that, he will not hurt the omega, he will not. He puts his palms over the omega’s palms and presses their hands together flat against the floor on either side of the omega’s head. The omega is--
“Steve,” he says, triumphant. The omega is Steve. He knows Steve. They made him forget and they told him Steve was dead and they lied, because Steve is right here.
“Captain Rogers,” the ceiling voice says, “do you require assistance?”
“No, JARVIS, hang on,” Steve says. The horrible blank look is gone. Good. Steve is thinking now, Steve is smart, he’ll figure it out. He’ll help the words come out right. “Bucky, can you tell me what you need?”
Bucky. That’s him, he’s Bucky. He drops his head onto Steve’s shoulder. “Don’t leave.”
Steve shouldn’t be a in a cell but Bucky is selfish, Bucky doesn’t want him to leave. He’s safer with Steve here.
Why? Bucky can’t remember, but he knows it’s true.
“Okay, I won’t.” Steve’s body goes limp. His fingers slot between Bucky’s and curl around the backs of Bucky’s hands. “I won’t leave. Not unless you want me to.”
“No,” Bucky says, stubborn about it.
“Okay,” Steve says patiently. He rubs his chin against the side of Bucky’s head, a comforting nuzzle. “Not going anywhere.”
Steve doesn’t leave. Even after Bucky eventually rolls off of him and goes to get the food trays by the door, Steve sits up but stays on the floor where Bucky left him.
There are two trays, one for him and one for Steve. It’s good because it’s enough food for both of them, but it’s also wrong because the trays are for prisoners and Steve shouldn’t be here but if he leaves then he’ll be gone and Bucky will be alone--
“Easy, Bucky,” Steve says, and Bucky realizes he’s whining, a high thin sound that is making Steve’s forehead creases deeper. “What’s wrong?”
“You shouldn’t be here,” Bucky says, miserable. He crawls into Steve’s lap and locks his arms around Steve’s middle before Steve can get any bright ideas about trying to leave again.
Steve doesn’t get sad this time. He pets Bucky’s hair, and it feels so good.
“You think I shouldn’t be here,” Steve says, slow and calm, “but you don’t want me to go. Is that right?”
“Yes.”
“Why shouldn’t I be here?”
“Not safe.”
“What’s not safe?” Steve waits, but when Bucky doesn’t say anything, he adds, “You think I’m not safe here? Or you’re not safe with me here?”
That question makes Bucky want to scoff. Bucky is safe wherever Steve is, because Steve--
But that can’t be right. It is never safe in a cell. They can get at him anytime they want, when he’s in a cell, and he can’t even fight back or shock and cold water and pain--
“Bucky. Hey, Bucky, look at me.”
Bucky is whining again. He makes himself stop. Steve is looking at him with big sad puppy eyes.
“Let’s eat, okay? It’s hard to think on an empty stomach.”
Bucky’s stomach rumbles agreement, but he doesn’t want to sit up. His right arm is wrapped around Steve’s back and his head is on Steve’s thigh. Something about the closeness, the smell of Steve and the feel of his bare hand stroking Bucky’s head, feels vital. He’s soaking up Steve like a plant drinks in sunlight.
Steve hesitates, then pulls a food tray closer without taking his other hand off of Bucky. “Want to try it this way?”
He holds a salted almond to Bucky’s lips. Bucky takes the almond into his mouth and chews. The food they give him here is always good, never rotten or mealy, but it has never tasted better than it does now, coming from Steve’s steady hand. He swallows the almond and licks stray flecks of salt off Steve’s fingers, which makes Steve’s cheeks go bright pink. It’s a good color, a happy healthy color.
Steve feeds him his whole breakfast (almonds, dates, bread with a swirl of something sweet, slices of tart apple and cubes of mild cheese) in tiny bites. It’s slow enough that Bucky can finish most of the tray without feeling sick. Once he’s full, he ducks the apple slice Steve holds out to him and kisses his wrist instead. Steve’s scent spikes.
“All done?” Steve’s voice is squeakier than usual. It makes Bucky feel smug, like he did something right. He nods his head against Steve’s thigh, and Steve finishes the rest himself.
Bucky finally has to sit up to drink from one of the water bottles. The slosh of water in his belly reminds him that he has to piss, so he gets up to use the toilet, and Steve does the same thing after he’s done. They use the sharp-smelling disinfectant wipes from the packet above the toilet to clean their hands.
They could sit back down on the floor, but the floor is hard and cold. Why have they been sleeping on it when there’s a bed in the corner? There aren’t even pillows on the floor. Unacceptable.
He steers Steve towards the cot instead and nudges him into lying down on it.
“Ooof,” says Steve, as Bucky lands on top of him. Bucky pulls the blankets up all the way over their heads to make a dark cozy space. It’s very warm and Steve’s scent is everywhere, saturating the bed that had only smelled like Bucky before. It’s a big improvement.
“Hi,” Steve says. His face is only an inch away from Bucky’s. He’s getting that spiced honey smell again, but Bucky remembers what happened before and he leaves Steve’s clothes alone this time. Bucky scoots down a few inches and rests his head on Steve’s chest.
“Steve,” Bucky sighs. This is good, lying on top of Steve in a snug blanket tent is very good, but he’s still on edge, because Steve shouldn’t be here, not here in a cell with the door locked from the outside.
He should tell Steve to leave. The thought just makes him cling harder.
“Hey, now, it’s okay.” Steve brings his arms up to circle Bucky. “Can you tell me what’s wrong?”
“You shouldn’t be here.” Bucky rubs his face against Steve’s shirt, trying to make sure Steve will still carry Bucky’s scent once he’s safely out of the cell. That way maybe Steve won’t forget him like Bucky forgot Steve. Bucky hates forgetting. “It’s not safe.”
Steve strokes his hands up and down Bucky’s back, rhythmic and soothing. “What if we both left? We could go to my apartment, it’s just a couple floors away. There’s a lot more space there. We could clean up, and get you a hot meal for once.”
“Captain Rogers,” the ceiling voice interrupts, disapproving, “Sergeant Barnes has not been cleared to leave the holding cell.”
Steve sticks his jaw out in a move Bucky recognizes instinctively. Bucky almost snickers; ceiling voice is in for it now.
“Well, JARVIS, you can tell Tony and Maria and everyone else that I’m not leaving here without Bucky, so they can either upgrade the security on my floor and grant us both access, or get someone down here to deliver a second cot. And some more blankets, and a rug, and a basin for washing up, and a goddamn shower curtain for the toilet--I can draw up a complete list, but Tony might have to build a bigger holding cell to fit it all, so it’s probably easier to just give Bucky access to my apartment.”
There’s an ominous pause. “I shall convey your message, Captain.”
“You do that.” Steve harrumphs, so there, and Bucky hides his smile against Steve’s chest.
“Would that be okay, Buck?” Steve asks. He cranes his neck down to look at Bucky, and Bucky blinks up at him. His whole body feels lazy and slow, pleasantly full of breakfast and drunk on Steve’s scent. “Going to my floor, staying in my apartment instead of here?”
Bucky doesn’t give a shit where they go as long as it isn’t another cell. His awareness of the locked door, the surveillance, the shackles in the corner, is a constant itch at the back of his brain. If Steve goes near the shackles again, Bucky will--he will growl, he will herd Steve away. “No chains?”
Steve’s arms squeeze him a little more firmly. “No, no chains, Bucky. Definitely not.”
Bucky grabs fistfuls of Steve’s shirt in each hand and holds on. “I want a bath.”
“We can make that happen.” The anxious ozone tinge fades from Steve’s scent. He kisses the top of Bucky’s head and Bucky hums in approval. “I have a huge bathtub.”
The ceiling voice clicks before it speaks, like it's clearing its throat. "Sir has asked me to inform you that Sergeant Barnes has been granted provisional access to your floor, pending security upgrades that he will implement immediately, and that if Murderbot 3000 breaks out of your apartment and strangles Sir in his sleep, he will haunt your star-spangled ass until the Second Coming."
"I'm guessing he told you to use those exact words?"
"Indeed. Mr. Wilson also advises you to be careful and asks that you text him when you and Sergeant Barnes are up for receiving visitors."
"Thanks, JARVIS. Did Maria say anything?"
"Nothing I would care to repeat, Captain Rogers."
Steve and the ceiling voice keep talking, discussing logistics and security. Bucky knows he should pay attention, but he’s so tired. He falls asleep listening to Steve’s heartbeat.
“Captain Rogers, your apartment is ready. Your path to the elevator has been cleared of all personnel.”
“Thanks, JARVIS.” A large hand rubbing the small of his back. “Buck, you awake?”
Bucky shakes his head no without picking his face up, rubbing his nose back and forth across Steve’s shirt.
Bucky’s head vibrates with Steve’s silent laughter. “You sure? You missed lunch. We can have something hot upstairs, if you’re ready to wake up.”
That is cheating. Steve is a rotten, sleep-stealing cheater. Something about this is familiar.
He also has a point. Bucky’s head feels wavery and his belly is cramping around nothing. Reluctantly, Bucky opens his eyes and rolls off the cot, landing on the floor with a thump.
“Bucky?” Steve’s face pokes out from over the cot’s edge. “You okay?”
Bucky gives him a sleepy all-clear hand sign and squirms under the cot. This cell doesn’t have any good hiding places, no ventilation grates or loose stones with old mortar he can hide a crust of bread behind, but Bucky has stockpiled food as best he can anyway. He might as well take everything he had stored with him. If they take him away from Steve and put him back in a cell, it might be a different one, and he’d have to start over anyway. At least this way he can share what he has now with Steve.
Bucky digs into the seams between the cot and its frame and pulls out dried apricots, puffed rice cakes, crackers wrapped in crinkly plastic, and other tidbits saved from various meals they’ve given him. He pulls the bottom edge of his shirt up to make a pouch to hold it all. When he wriggles back out from under the cot, the bulge is almost too high to pass under the side of the frame.
Steve is sitting up now, long legs swung over the edge of the cot. “Got everything you need? Can I help you carry any of that?”
Bucky divides his small hoard carefully, giving Steve the bigger portion. Steve gets all of the dried fruit. It’s deep-buried protocol to make sure Steve gets the most nourishing food, and following it now fills Bucky with satisfaction.
“Ready to go?” Steve asks, and waits for Bucky’s nod before he stands and walks towards the door. The lock clicks as it disengages before Steve reaches the handle. Bucky knows there’s nobody outside the door, he knows, he would have heard them approach, but his whole body goes rigid anyway. The door unlocking means the door is going to open, means someone coming inside, and that means--
“Buck, look at me.”
Bucky blinks and focuses on Steve. Steve’s face is only a few inches away. He’s doing the sad puppy eyes again.
“When you’re ready, we’re going to leave this room and go into the hallway. The whole floor has been cleared of people, so it’ll just be us. We’re going to go down the hallway and into an elevator, which will take us up to my floor. But we’re not going anywhere until you’re ready, okay?”
Bucky nods. He takes Steve’s hand--Steve goes very still, but his fingers immediately wrap around Bucky’s--and gently pulls Steve behind him, angling his body so the Arm faces the hallway. Only then does he open the door.
The handle doesn’t shock him. No alarms go off. He pulls the door open fast and lets it hang, listening for any sign of movement in the hallway. The only sounds are Steve’s steady breathing and Bucky’s own heartbeat.
The hallway is empty. Steve walks a step behind, his hand still clasped in Bucky’s, and murmurs directions so Bucky knows where to turn. The elevator doors start to slide open as they approach, and Bucky blocks Steve’s body with his own until the doors are all the way open and he can see that the elevator is empty.
The elevator doors close as soon as they step inside. The sudden feeling of trapped sends a spike of cold panic through his guts and makes his hand clench hard around Steve’s. Too hard, he realizes, maybe hard enough to hurt. Bucky opens his fingers and tries to pull his hand away, but Steve doesn’t let go. Steve’s grip is so careful--cradled, not held--and Bucky is both grateful and ashamed. He wants to drop to his knees and bury his face in Steve’s stomach, but the elevator is moving and he needs to be ready.
The doors open and the tension in Bucky’s body eases. The room in front of them radiates Steve, his scent built up and layered over time so it fills the whole space. It smells like warmth and safety. It smells like--
“I’m going to make us some lunch,” Steve says, stepping past him. He still hasn’t let go of Bucky’s hand, and the gentle tug prompts Bucky to follow him out of the elevator and into the living room. Bucky’s shoulders loosen a little more at the relief of being in a less cramped space. They both drop the food they’re carrying onto the table by the door, pushing aside a stack of mail and a bowl with keys to make room. “How do you feel about instant noodle soup? I’m not much of a cook, but I can manage boiling water.”
“Good,” Bucky says, only half paying attention. His stomach is rumbling, but he needs to explore the new space and see for himself that it’s secure before he can relax enough to eat. Bucky brings Steve’s hand to his lips and kisses his knuckles before letting go and stepping away. Steve is blushing as he goes into the kitchen.
The apartment is open and airy, with large windows and wide hallways. Half of the rooms are dusty and mostly bare. Only the bathroom, living room, kitchen, and one bedroom show signs of use--dirty socks dropped on the floor, dishes forgotten on end tables, toothpaste flecks speckling the bathroom mirror.
By the time Bucky finishes his sweep, Steve has filled two large bowls with steaming broth and tangles of curly noodles. They sit on barstools at the kitchen island to eat. Holding a fork feels awkward, clumsy, but it’s easy enough for Bucky to tip the bowl and shovel noodles into his mouth. Neither of them try to talk until both bowls are empty.
“Better?” Steve asks, setting his fork down.
Bucky hums and licks the rim of his bowl, lapping up the last drops of the salty-savory chicken broth. “Hot,” he says happily.
Steve’s answering smile makes the corners of his eyes crinkle.
Steve wasn’t kidding about his bathtub. It’s enormous, long enough for Bucky to lie down in without bending his knees if he wanted to. He and Steve kneel on the bathmat and watch the tub fill up with water. Steve opens a cabinet, pulls out a basket full of bottles of every color and scent imaginable, and sets it down beside Bucky.
“A friend brought me all this bath stuff. She said it would help me relax, I think she was trying to make a point. Do you want to try any of it? I don’t actually know what a--” Steve squints at the label on a bright pink package. “‘Fizzing glitter bath bomb’ is, but I don’t think it actually explodes.”
Bucky decides not to risk it. He does open a small bottle topped with an eyedropper and shake a few drops out. The smell unfolds as soon as the oil hits the hot water, releasing a cloud of citrus and ginger steam.
“There’s some hair stuff in the other bottles. Shampoo, conditioner. And there’s bar soap in the dish there.”
Bucky knows his memory is shit, but he still recognizes soap when he sees it. He gives Steve a dry look.
“Yeah, sorry.” Steve grimaces and twists his hands together. Bucky bumps his shoulder against Steve’s, and Steve snorts and bumps him back. His hands relax; good.
Bucky pulls his shirt over his head and stands up to push his pants down, kicking them into a corner of the bathroom. Now that the tub is wafting the smell of clean hot water and orange peel, he can tell how badly his clothes stink. He really wants a bath.
“Right,” Steve says. He’s moved to face the hallway, not looking at Bucky while he steps into the tub. “I’ll leave you to it.” Steve starts to pull the bathroom door closed behind him.
“No, open,” Bucky says. He wants to hear Steve if he can’t see him. If there’s a problem and he needs to get to Steve, he doesn’t want a door to slow him down.
“Okay, Buck.” Steve swings the door back open. “I’ll just be down the hallway.”
The bath is wonderful. The hot water stings his hand and feet at first, but the intense warmth also unknots the tense muscles along his spine. He floats unevenly, the Arm pulling the left side of his body down, but every part of him is supported by the water.
Encrusted grime comes loose while he soaks. It sinks to the bottom of the tub when he scrubs, leaving pink-flushed skin behind. He kicks his feet a little just because he can and watches the water swirl around his toes.
It’s been a while since he saw Steve. A little knot of worry is building in his chest. Nothing has happened, he would have heard a struggle, and he can hear Steve moving things in the living room, so he’s okay, he’s fine, but--
“Steve?” Bucky calls.
Steve appears in the doorway in less than seven seconds. “Yeah, Buck?”
“Sing? While I can’t see you?”
Steve’s face scrunches up. “You want me to sing? You used to throw boots at me to get me to stop.”
“Yes.” That way he’ll know if Steve is in trouble, or if his breathing is disrupted. He’ll know that Steve is still there. He’ll know he’s not just sitting in a dark cell imagining a warm safe place that has Steve in it. “Please.”
Steve shakes his head and mutters “you asked for it, pal,” but when he goes back out to the living room, he sings.
Steve starts out hesitant and not quite on key. “It’s not the pale moon that excites me, that thrills and delights me. Oh no-ohhh, it’s just the nearness of you...”
The sound carries well throughout the large rooms. The proof of Steve’s presence is enough to let Bucky relax completely and just float in the water surrounding him. Bucky is naked and unarmed and unalert, but Steve is here. That makes it okay. He runs more hot water into the tub and lets his mind and body drift.
Bucky rinses his hair under the tub faucet three times. By the third time most of the snarls have come out, and the slick white goop in the second bottle makes his hair slippery enough to undo the others. He works both hands through his hair to dig at his scalp, grateful that hair doesn’t catch on the Arm’s metal plates.
The water is murky gray by the time his hair is clean. He turns the shower head on to rinse his body, but he flinches away from the spray, expecting it to be icy cold even when he knows the water is warm. He turns the shower head off and wets a towel under the faucet instead. Scrubbing down with a wet towel is still much nicer than rubbing himself with the disinfectant wipes he’d used in the cell.
When his body is clean and dry, he throws the wet towel over the open door and pulls on the shirt and sweatpants Steve left for him on the counter beside the sink. They wrap him in Steve’s scent, which is almost as good as touching Steve--but not quite, because nothing is as good as touching Steve.
Bucky goes to the living room looking for Steve and finds a blanket fort instead. Pinned-together bedsheets stretch from the back of the couch to two chairs, forming a rough square. There’s a lamp or something in the middle acting as a central pillar to hold the sheets up high. The tent walls are twitching slightly from movement inside.
“The Rockies may crumble, Gibraltar may tumble,” the blanket fort sings. “They’re only made of clay. But our loo-ove, is here to stay-ayyy.”
Bucky drops to his knees to peek under the bottom of a sheet. Steve is sitting cross-legged against the back of the couch, stacking pillows all around the fort’s edges. He looks up at Bucky and smiles. “Are you coming inside, or what?”
Bucky wriggles into the fort on his stomach. The blanket Steve put down to line the fort’s floor is thick and fuzzy, and Bucky rubs his cheek against the fleece, lost in the unaccustomed softness. Steve notices and strokes his hand across the blanket.
“It’s nice, right? I, uh. I don’t like the cold much anymore.” Steve’s expression tightens and Bucky reaches out automatically to touch his knee, offering comfort. Steve stretches his legs out invitingly, and Bucky crawls forward to curl up in between them, mimicking their earlier pose. The carpeted, blanket-lined floor is much cozier than the hard cement cell had been. “First thing I did after I moved in was buy about a dozen blankets.”
“It’s nice.” Bucky lets his eyes drift half-closed. The sheets above them filter the overhead lights, muting them into a soothing amber glow. Steve’s palm settles onto his head and Bucky leans into the touch.
“I’m glad.” Steve runs gentle fingers through his hair, separating and combing through the wet strands. Stray water drops land on Bucky’s face and neck. He must be soaking the leg of Steve’s sweatpants, but Steve doesn’t seem to mind.
“We did this before,” Bucky says. The memory is a fragment, just a scrap of cold toes and giggling and dime paperbacks read aloud under a canopy of worn sheets, but he thinks it’s real. He’s almost sure. “When you were smaller.”
“Yeah,” Steve says, voice thick. His scent fills with sadness and longing and things Bucky can’t identify. “We sure did.”
“It was--” Bucky pauses, digs around in the back of his head until he finds the right word. It’s important. “Safe.” The tent was safe. Or not the tent, but--
Steve’s hands go still. He doesn’t say anything for a while, and when he does talk, he moves his hands to hold the pillows on either side of him, gripping them like he needs the support to stay balanced. “Your dad was a mean drunk. If he was out late, you’d come stay with me and Ma. She’d let us build a fort on the floor like this, as long as we promised not to roughhouse and tear the sheets. And then later, when she was--gone, you and I got a place together. And sometimes if you’d had a rough day, or I’d gotten into a fight or something, you would pull the mattress off the frame and onto the floor, and you’d drape a--a tablecloth or something over a couple chairs, and heap up every pillow we had, and we would--”
Steve stops talking. His fingers are digging deep grooves into the cushions. He slowly releases his grip and smooths the fabric back down.
“You’re right,” he says softly. “It was safe.”
Bucky doesn’t remember all that, but listening to Steve makes the missing piece click into place anyway. Now he can see the whole picture, now he understands. It’s so simple he nearly laughs. “You were there.”
“Yeah, we both were,” Steve says, but he doesn’t understand yet. Bucky rolls up onto his knees and wraps his right hand around the back of Steve’s neck, watching Steve’s eyes widen. He pulls Steve forward and brings their foreheads together.
“It was safe,” Bucky repeats, “because you were there.”
Steve means safety. That’s the way it’s always been, that’s how it works. That’s why Bucky took the chains off of Steve, that’s why Steve got him out of the cell, that’s why Bucky wanted the bathroom door open, that’s why Steve built them a blanket fort. Steve and Bucky keep each other safe.
Bucky is safe with Steve, because Steve won’t let anyone hurt him. And Steve is safe with Bucky, because Bucky will kill any motherfucker who tries to touch him. This certainty settles over him like a blanket, like armor, like the sudden warmth of walking into a room with a lit fireplace in deepest winter. Steve is his, and he’s Steve’s.
Steve is crying again. He slides his hands along Bucky’s sides and links them behind Bucky’s back. “I really missed you, Buck.”
“I got you, Stevie.” Bucky rubs his jaw along Steve’s, marking them both with each other’s scents, staking a mutual claim. Mine to protect. “You’re safe now. I’m home.”