Archive of Our Own

The 21st century, Steve decided, was bizarre.  

In some ways, nothing had really changed: if he wanted, Steve could still spend a whole summer watching baseball; unethical scientists still thought the wider public would thank them for dubious human experimentation; and alphas still spent most of their time and effort on trying to reel in an omega with their elaborate mating rituals.  

In others, Steve had stepped into a whole new world.  Not only had the Dodgers moved to Los Angeles, but the American League didn’t even make the pitchers hit anymore; the UN tried harder to uphold international law than the League of Nations ever had; and there seemed to be no end to the services that existed to help alphas put on an elaborate display to woo an omega.  

“Hey, Soldier,” Natasha said with a leer the night she turned up on his doorstep in Cobble Hill one evening in early June.  She held up a bottle of Scotch.  “Got a couple of glasses?”

Steve stepped back and let her in.  “You have to be okay with watching baseball,” he called from the kitchen as he grabbed a couple of rocks glasses out of the cabinet.  He poked his head back around the doorframe.  “You take ice or water?”

She glanced down at the bottle then read off the card tied around the bottleneck.  “A splash of water will bring out the fruit flavor, especially the pear, but ice will just freeze the profile and ruin the experience.  Tell Steve this is a 21-year-old scotch from the best independent distiller in Scotland.  Enjoy.  Heart.  Tony.”  

She looked up.  “So, yes to water, no to ice.”

Steve nodded and ducked back into his kitchen to fill the glass pitcher he kept on the counter with some of the water from the fancy Berkey water filtration system Tony had bought for him when Steve complained that the tap water in his new apartment tasted like chemicals.

“What channel?” she asked from his living room.

“Not sure.  Tony ‘starred’ it when he set my TV up for me.”

Natasha quirked an eyebrow at him when he came back in with glasses and the pitcher on a little serving tray.  “Tony’s taken a real shine to helping you,” she offered while she changed channels and turned on the soundbar.

“Doesn’t mean anything,” Steve dismissed as Nat plopped down next to him.  

Steve knew what he looked like.  Nature tended to make omegas more delicate.  Visual and physical indications of their desire for the sort of protection and care alphas would offer through the elaborate mating displays of their homes and selves.  Tended.  Steve knew alphas didn’t look at him and say ‘there’s an omega who’d be receptive to my advances.’  

“I’ll never understand these ridiculous mating dances,” Natasha said, rolling her eyes, as a commercial for a local studio promising to ‘teach you the steps to mated happiness’ ended and Alex Rodriguez returned to continue enthusing on-screen about the pitching matchup for the Saturday Night Game of the Week between the Dodgers and the Padres.  

He’d always enjoyed watching Bucky practice the latest dance moves in their living room to the music on the radio then dressing up in his flashiest clothes for an evening out.  He’d been popular with the omegas in their neighborhood; he’d danced for and with Frances Kelly easily ten times during the summer of 1940.  Everyone on their block had said it was only a matter of time until Bucky got an apartment of his own to start outfitting for her.  

He’d never gotten any of that sort of attention.  Undesirable because of his poor health and unattractive because of his bizarrely alpha-like facial structure, Steve had floated through the courting miasma of his age group completely untouched.  He hadn’t really cared at first since his poor health meant his heats came irregularly at best, but once the serum knocked his body into a cycle he could set his watch to, it became a bit lonely to still exist in a valley of undesirability.  

“I guess I won’t either,” he agreed with a shrug.  “No one wanted me when a stiff breeze’d blow me over, and no one wants me now that I look like I don’t need anything from anybody.”  He elbowed Nat gently in the ribs.  “Why don’t you understand?  You’re an alpha.  Isn’t all that kind of your...thing?”

Nat shook her head and whipped out a knife and started cutting through the seal over the cork on the bottle.  “The last test in the Red Room took all that ‘alpha instinct’ Attenborough talks about away.  Burned it right out of us.”

“Oh, Nat, I didn’t--I’m so--”

“Nope,” she cut him off with a quick shake of her head.  “If the next words out of your mouth are ‘I’m sorry,’ I’ll throw this bottle out the window and go home.  That’ll leave you with no one to complain to about the Dodgers leaving Brooklyn.”

Steve smiled and took the double she’d poured him.  “Am I really that predictable?”

“Steve, I’m pretty sure I can quote your rant about how Los Angeles should’ve just waited for an expansion team like grownups from memory.”

“But what about--”

“Yes, the part about them having the Angels too.”

Steve sipped his scotch then leaned his head against her shoulder.  “This is why we’re friends,” he murmured while on-screen Yu Darvish celebrated a 1-2-3 inning by coming off the mound with a few intricate dance steps.  

She looked down at him and jostled her shoulder gently under his head.  “Why?  Because I remember your unceasing outrage at the Dodgers having the effrontery to leave Captain America’s neighborhood?”

He nodded, liking the way her shirt felt under his cheek.  “Being an alpha’s more than just having an eye-catching wardrobe.”

“It’s about presenting the you your omega needs,” she agreed sagely and clinked their glasses together.  

“What if I don’t know what I need?” Steve asked a half inning later.

Natasha ran her hands through his hair, making Steve sink further into the couch.  “Do you know how to let yourself be receptive to an alpha’s advances?”

“Maybe...probably not” Steve mumbled.  He sighed and turned his face into her neck.  “How d’you even do that?”

“I think…” Natasha swirled the last sip of her drink in the glass while the Padres went through a pitching change.  “I think it means being willing to let an alpha put themselves on display for you...letting them put themselves out there.”

Steve nodded slowly, his eyes on the bottle of scotch on the table and his mind on the list of channels on his TV starred just for him. 

~~*~~

“No one lick the suit,” Tony said as the team stepped down from the quinjet onto the snow-covered ground in Siberia.

“Why does Hydra stick its bases at the ass end of nowhere?  And in the snow.” Clint griped.

Steve shrugged.  “I think anyone who’s read Crime and Punishment knows the answer to that.”

“You’re not wrong,” Natasha agreed, pulling gloves on.  She glanced down at Steve’s bare hands.  “How are your hands not icicles?”

“You get used to it,” Steve said dismissively.

“I think the bigger question is why are you not wearing the ones I made for you?” Tony asked.  “You’ll destroy your hands, not to mention what’s left of my poor heart.”

“I busted a seam on the palm last week in training,” Steve admitted, flexing his bare hands.

“Lucky for you, I came prepared.”  A tiny door slid open on the outer thigh of Tony’s armor and he reached in and pulled out a whole new pair.  He held them out with a small smile.  “I integrated the information JARVIS collected from your workouts about the stress and wear patterns your old ones developed.  They’re insulated too.  Keep your fingers toasty and your palms unblistered.  And they’ll last.”

“You’re a regular Casanova, Stark,” Clint said with an eye roll as they started trooping towards the base Natasha’s intel claimed was a former Red Room outpost.

Steve smiled down at the brown leather sized perfectly to his hands.  “This--this is very generous, Tony, thank you.”

“They’re brown too, like the ones you brought home from DC smelling of Potomac.  Those looked so much nicer than those awful red--”

“Focus, lovebirds,” Natasha interrupted.   

“Lovebirds?” Tony repeated, an exaggerated expression of affront on his face.

Steve shook his head.  “You just had to say it,” he muttered at Natasha as she brushed past.

She reached the security pad next to the doors, and after she wiped the snow off the keys, typed in the access code that no one had apparently bothered to change since before the Red Room had gone defunct.  She tossed a look back over her shoulder at them.  “Just because my intel claims this place is abandoned, that doesn’t automatically make it so.”

“Did--did she just admit to not knowing everything?” Tony asked as the blast doors ground open.

Natasha pointed over her shoulder at Steve while she finished checking her sidearms.  “Tell him, Rogers.”

“She just acts like she knows everything,” Steve parrotted with a smile.  

Right behind finding out Hydra had brainwashed Bucky and turned him into...Steve’s brain refused to settle on the word ‘assassin’...right behind that , Natasha admitting she only acted like she knew everything had been the most shocking revelation during his time in DC.  He’d asked how much she faked knowing while she’d helped him pack up the remains of his apartment so he could move home to Brooklyn, but she’d just shrugged and smiled so he let her have the one secret an info dump couldn’t reveal.

Inside, the air smelled stale, and the further they wound down the empty stairs and corridors, the more damp crept into the cold, stagnant air.  The only indication of any sort of habitation was a faint thrum that indicated a large-scale power draw.

At the bottom of the last set of stairs, a  pair of heavy metal doors stopped them.  Steve stepped forward and brushed the dust and cobwebs off the peeling paint on one of the doors.  “What’s…ksp--”

“хранение в холодильнике,” Natasha read.  “It’s cold storage.”

“What needs to be colder than Siberia?” Tony muttered.

“You do realize summer comes to Siberia too, right?”

“Of course.”  Tony nodded. 

Natasha elbowed him in the ribs with a smile.   

“I did!” he insisted.

“What is this?” Steve asked once they’d hauled the heavy doors open and emerged into the room that housed whatever the Russians had wanted kept colder than Siberia in winter.  

Six huge tanks stood around the edges of the room, their cylindrical covers all retracted.  Inside five of them, three men and two women sat strapped to chairs each with a neat bullet hole between their eyes.  They didn’t even look like they’d been awakened before they’d been executed.  The sixth tank stood open like the rest, but instead of another dead body, the chair sat empty, whoever had been encased inside long gone.

Or, perhaps, not so long gone.  Bucky stood in the middle of the room an M249 SAW cradled loosely in his hands.  “I had to do it,” he said, nodding at the body nearest him but refusing to meet Steve’s eye

“I--were they even--”

“I couldn’t ,” he cut Steve off.  “They’re too dangerous.”

Steve reached out for him but let his hand drop without touching Bucky’s arm.  “What about you?  Can you--”

When Bucky finally let Steve see his face, Steve just dropped the shield and ran to embrace his friend.  Bucky looked so tired .

“I wanna come home, Stevie,” he mumbled into the shoulder of Steve’s uniform.

Steve just nodded and held him tighter.  “Okay.  Okay.  Let’s go home.”

~~*~~

Bucky barely spoke for the first few weeks after Steve and his team brought him back from Siberia.  Even after he found his voice, he preferred ghosting around Steve’s brownstone, picking up knicknacks, looking at them, and setting them gently back down, although not always in the same place.  Steve couldn’t decide if this was some sort of compulsion or ritual or what, but since the only harm was Steve’s house being reorganized according to Bucky’s inscrutable decorating scheme, he tried to let it go.

Emphasis on tried.

“Where’s all my pictures?” Steve muttered on a Sunday afternoon nearly three weeks after he’d brought Bucky home.  

He’d been so sure he’d set the small tin folding frame with a picture of his mom and dad on their wedding day on one side and a picture of him and his ma on the other on the mantel next to the picture of the Howlies all together outside Augsburg, but now both seemed to be missing.  His compass, that Tony had had to wrest from the Smithsonian’s archives via legal threat, was still right where he’d put it.

“They’re--”

“Jesus Christ, Buck, you scared me!” Steve cried as he jumped out of his skin at the sound of Bucky’s voice.  

“Sorry.”  Bucky pointed over his shoulder to the reading room Steve had made out of the formal dining room.  “I put ‘em on one of your bookshelves.”  He tried a small smile.  “Keep the sun from fading them.”

“Oh...that’s really nice.  Thanks.”

Bucky shrugged.  “Don’t want you to lose what you’ve got left of your ma.”

“Hey, you know it’s Sunday, right?” Steve asked, realizing it was nearly midday.

“Hydra didn’t fry my brain so bad I can’t remember what day it is, punk.”

Steve rolled his eyes.  “Baseball, jerk.  Sundays mean day games.”

Bucky shuffled where he stood, suddenly nervous.  “I--uh--Natasha’s taking me shopping...she says I gotta ‘get back in the game?’ Whatever that means.”

Steve laughed.  “Means she’s figured out someone to set you up with.”

“Seriously?”  

“You should’a seen her with me,” Steve said with a nod.  ‘Look at how Lillian-in-Accounting can dance.  Have you heard Kristen-from-Statistics’ voice?  That Brock-on-STRIKE sure can rock a DIY.’”

“You know Brock--”

Steve nodded.  “Yeah.  Hydra.”

“He’s an asshole besides,” Bucky said with a scowl.  

“So, what’re you on the lookout for?” Steve asked, elbowing Bucky gently in the ribs.  He didn’t particularly want to get into the fact that Brock had been the alpha Steve had come closest to actually accepting a date from, and clothes had always been a good distractor for Bucky.

Bucky shrugged.  “No idea.  I’m sure Natashenka will tell me, though.”

Steve rolled his eyes.  As long as he’d known Bucky, he’d known exactly who and what he’d wanted, so Steve wasn’t buying this ‘not sure’ act for a second.  It’d always hurt just a bit to know that wasn’t him , but he wanted Bucky to be happy and that was the most important thing.  Always.

“Well, I’ll try to enjoy my game without you then,” Steve said, putting on as much disappointment as he could.

“Call that Stark kid to come watch it with you.  You won’t even notice I’m gone then.”

“I always notice you’re gone,” Steve protested, but he had a point.  Tony could be a good person to call for a distraction; he always had a good story.

“Barnes?” Natasha’s voice made them both turn towards Steve’s kitchen where she leaned against the island smirking at them.  

“How’d you…?”

“Fire escape,” she and Bucky responded together.

She reached out and tapped Bucky’s bicep, making the plates of his arm recalibrate with a soft series of whirring clicks.  “So, you ready?”

Bucky nodded.  “Just need to grab my shoes.”

Natasha leaned over and rested her chin on Steve’s shoulder.  “Should I dress him like Sinatra in Guys and Dolls ?”

Steve rolled his eyes.  “Please don’t.  I don’t think modern omegas are ready for pinstripes to come back as a major courting wardrobe staple.”

“Any suggestions then?”

Steve hummed while he watched Bucky tug on a pair of boots that barely covered his ankles.  Beatle Boots Tony had called them.  The first time he’d willingly gone on a walk with Steve that wasn’t to a therapy appointment, Bucky had spotted them in a shop window, and he’d dragged Steve across the street to look at them.  Something about those boots had marked a turning point for Bucky; he started talking more, smiling more, and even, to Steve’s admittedly untrained eye, even flirting a bit.

“A while ago, he was looking at...Vogue?  I think it was Vogue, and they had a fella--an alpha--in there with a shirt with a...it looked like the kinda tattoos beta bikers like to get.  All black and curved lines that end real sharp.”  He shrugged and smiled softly.  “Bucky’d look good in something bold like that.”

Natasha nodded.  “I think I read that issue.  It had some really good suggestions on ‘taking your fall wardrobe from office to karaoke lounge,’ and with those boots, he’d have a lot of eyes on him.”

Steve laughed.  “Bucky’s got a good voice.  Combine that with his dancing and a flashy wardrobe, and he’ll have omegas lined up around the block.”

“What if--”

Steve sighed and reached over to pat Natasha’s shoulder.  “Please, Nat...don’t.”

“You don’t even know what I was going to say!” she protested.

“I do.”  He shook his head.  “It’s--I’m not the one for him.”

~~*~~

There was, Tony swore, something deeply therapeutic about being able to take raw materials and turn them into something both functional and aesthetically pleasing.

“Sir,” JARVIS’s voice cut in over the music Tony had going in the workshop, pulling Tony out of the haze he’d fallen into while he tried to figure out how to reduce the drag on the suit by yet another fraction.

“What’s up, J?”  Tony asked around the stylus between his teeth.

“Agent Romanoff is with Sergeant Barnes and she is requesting entry.”

“Let ‘em in,” he said as he bookmarked, saved, and closed the Mark XLII.  “Itsy Bitsy.  Comrade Oglivy.  How can I help?”

Natasha shook her head and motioned Bucky into the workshop.  “It’s how we can help you.”

“O...kay?”  Tony turned and leaned back against the drafting projection table he’d been using.

He watched Bucky walk across the room, a quiet smirk lifting the corner of his mouth, and Tony was, once again, surprised by the difference a month could make in a man.  After over a year on the run, when they had finally caught up to Bucky in Siberia and then brought him home, Tony could hardly believe the man slipping quietly around Steve’s house was the same man Steve insisted would go out every time he could spare the money.  

He could see it now, though.  Bucky’s calm, quiet confidence drew his eye unlike any other alpha who’d caught his attention in his younger, wilder days.  He’s still silently grateful to Ty for showing him what to avoid.

“So what can you do for me?” Tony asked, smiling at Bucky. 

“Romanova thinks I’m the key you need,” Bucky said with a smirk.

Tony blinked.  "Key?"  

“The key to Rogers,” Natasha added.

Tony rolled his eyes while he fiddled with the stylus he’d abandoned in the table’s tool tray.  The key to the omega with the world’s most stymieing self-perception would be helpful, but the key to explaining polyamory to two nonagenarians would probably be more useful.  “I know what I’m doing,” he said to the tabletop.

“Do you?”  Bucky asked blithely.  

“I-- yes ?”

“Not really,” Natasha griped before simply walking out the door.  Bucky grinned at her.  Conspiracy.  This was clearly a conspiracy.

Bucky tugged his jacket off and tossed it on one of the chairs in the small seating area then came and leaned next to Tony on the edge of the table right next to him.  “Then why is he still rattling around that brownstone in Brooklyn instead of up here climbing you like a tree?”

“Because...I’m...taking it slow?” Tony tried.

Bucky’s smirk turned into a full-out grin.  “He has no idea you’re courting him, does he?”

“It’s a possibility,” he allowed.

Bucky slipped the stylus out of Tony’s fingers and twirled it easily between his metal fingers.  “So, what d’you want to know?”

Tony shrugged.  “Whatever you think will help.  I’ve been trying to--to show him I’m invested in him since he got defrosted, but--”

Bucky shook his head.  “If you could just show him, don’t you think I’d’ve snatched him up by now?”

“Fair point,” Tony conceded.  “Any ideas?”

“In my experience, there’s three things he cares about: being able to do his job and do it well--”

“The Dodgers abandoning him.”

Bucky laughed.  “Oh, so you’ve met him?”

“Once or twice,” Tony answered with a smile.  

“I get it, though,” Bucky said with a small shrug and a fond smile.  “We used to go to those games any time we could scrape fifty cents together for the bleachers.”

“Hey, JARVIS?” Tony prompted.

“Interleague play has finished for the 2017 season, and the New York Mets and Los Angeles Dodgers will not play one another until September 18-20.”

“Can we--”

“You have already committed yourself to Ms. Potts’ itinerary for both charitable and corporate appearances.  You have engagements on the West Coast and in Asia for the month of September.”

Tony rolled his eyes.  “You’re no fun.  Wait, you said three things.”

“I sure did,” Bucky said.  

“Any interest in sharing?”

Instead of answering right away, Bucky took a sudden and intense interest in his own hands.  Tony watched him think, knowing whatever it was had to be even more intensely personal than Steve’s outrage over the Dodgers.  Tony had eventually figured out Steve would talk about baseball with anyone who would listen, but he would only talk about his feelings about baseball with people he trusted.

“It--It’s hard,” he finally said, tapping the stylus gently against the tabletop.

Tony reached out and stilled Bucky’s hand.  “You don’t have to--”

“No, no,” Bucky shook his head and put the stylus down.  “It’s--Steve deserves to have a whole life.”

Tony nodded.  

“He…”  Bucky spread his hands out on the drafting and simulation table, and smiled when the musculoskeletal and mechanical structures of his hands appeared in the air above them.  He watched the graphics move with his hands when he wiggled his fingers for a moment before he tried again.  “No one looked twice at Steve when we were younger.  No one wanted to serenade him.  No one wanted to dance for or with him or build a nest for him.”  Bucky shook his head.  “Not even me until it was too late.”

“That doesn’t mean you don’t know him.” Tony pressed.

“One of the things he always wanted when his body would try to go into heat was this blanket his ma’d given him.  He said his Mhamó gave it to Sarah when she left for America.  After the serum, he’d actually have heats, but by then he was either on that damn USO tour or on the front with me and the Howlies.”  Bucky sighed.  “I could tell he wished he had that blanket, but he didn’t dare bring it up.”

“Why not?” Tony asked.  “It’s--did something happen to it?”

“Nah,” Bucky shook his head.  “I got the last letter he wrote before he went to Basic a week after he found me in Azzano.  He didn’t want to take it with him...something about looking weak.  After--after everything, your old man offered to store everything from our apartment in his basement so Steve didn’t have to spend money on rent.”

Tony sighed.  “I couldn’t stand the sight of those chests after he died, so when the Smithsonian came knocking…”

“You did what you needed to,” Bucky finished.  “No shame in that.”

Tony groaned and dug a bag of dried apples out of a desk drawer and popped a slice in his mouth.  “I wouldn’t even know who’s got all that anymore,” he admitted around the food in his mouth.  “The Smithsonian might’ve split everything up.  Every history museum in America suddenly wanted a Captain America exhibit when he got defrosted.”

“I believe the blanket Sergeant Barnes is referring to has been catalogued by the Smithsonian and remains a part of their collection of Captain Rogers’ personal effects,” JARVIS said.

Tony shooed Bucky away from the table and gestured to pull up a keyboard.  “Okay, okay.  Start a list, J.”

A table appeared in the air over the desk and Tony started entering information.

“Got it,” Tony finished his notes on Steve’s blanket then turned back to Bucky, eyes bright and expectant.  “What else?”

Bucky shrugged.  “He’s a practical guy at the end of the day.  We had so little before he doesn’t really care about having fancy stuff now.  He really just wants to be...secure.”

“Nothing showy.”  Tony nodded and jotted down a few more ideas then went back and crossed one out.  “How big is too big?” he murmured to himself as he wrote down ‘Dodgers ILP?’

“Don’t move the Dodgers back to Brooklyn,” Bucky said.  

“Oh, I won’t,” Tony waved him off.  “I need them in LA to lure you two out there in case the beach isn’t enough.”

Bucky laughed and pointed at Tony’s last note.  “What d’you call this?”

“Preplanning,” Tony said evasively.  

Bucky shoved at Tony’s shoulder gently.  “All right, then.  Keep your secrets.”

“Who showed you that?” Tony demanded all mock indignation.  

“Wilson.”  Bucky rolled his eyes.  “He’s convinced he’s funny.”

“Kids,” Tony agreed like he was so old.  “Now get out of here.  I have work to do.”

~~*~~

Winter in New York City was much easier, Bucky decided a few months later, now that he and Steve could afford consistent heating.  That was the best part of the 21st century, apart from recognized same-secondary-gender marriage, vaccines, and not being a puppet of an international terrorist organization.  So of course, the heater in Steve’s brownstone decided to completely conk out the week a blizzard blew through and sent the entire city scrambling for warmth.  

“Can we just, I don’t know, swallow our pride and ask Stark to stay at his tower?” Bucky demanded from where he’d buried himself in all of the blankets from the airing cupboard on the couch directly in front of Steve’s tiny space heater.  

Steve sighed.  “You’re in front of the heater.  Under the blankets.  And anyway, I’ve called a fella.  It’ll be fine in a day or two.”

“Could be fine now,” Bucky groused.  He wormed his right hand out of the blankets and tugged his glove off with his teeth then picked his phone up off the coffee table.  

“Please tell me you’re not texting Stark to come rush to the rescue,” Steve said, rolling his eyes.  

“His house is more comfortable than ou--hey!” Bucky grabbed for his phone when Steve snatched it out of his hand and shoved it in his pocket.  

“I don’t need some alpha to come rescue me,” Steve said tiredly.  “There’s a repairman coming the day after tomorrow.  Until then we’ve got coats and blankets and the space heater.”

Bucky rolled his eyes so hard he was amazed they didn’t fall out of his head.  “That’s not at all what I said.”

“Bu--” Steve pulled his own phone out of his pocket.  “Why is Tony calling me ?”

“Search me,” Bucky muttered from inside his blanket nest while Steve spoke to Tony.

Steve hung up after a brief conversation then set his phone down carefully.  “It has been impressed on me that I’m not the only person making decisions in this house.”

“Oh really?” Bucky poked his head out.  “Do tell.”

“That was Tony,” Steve said.  Like that explained everything.  

“Was he calling to gloat about being warm?”

Steve shook his head and scooted closer until Bucky could lean into his side.  “He pointed out that he made sure this place had smart locks up to his standards when I moved in.”

“Okay.”  Bucky didn’t feel especially inclined to make this easy for Mr. Tough-It-Out, so he waited.  He’d heard snatches of Tony’s side of the conversation, so he knew there was more going on here than fancy door locks.

“And--Jesus, Buck, you stick those hands in the freezer?”  Steve tried to squirm away when Bucky sipped his hands under Steve’s shirt, but wrapping his metal arm around Steve’s waist put a quick stop to that.  Steve eventually settled back against him and kept talking.  “He--ooh cold--he reminded me that the repairman has been through every background check he and you and Natasha could put him through.”

“You goin’ somewhere with this?” Bucky muttered from where he’d jammed his nose in the crook of Steve’s neck.  He loved Steve’s natural scent: crisp and clean, what Bucky had always imagined the country smelled like after it rained.  

“He offered to let us come stay with him until the heating’s fixed,” Steve finally blurted out.

Bucky smiled against Steve’s neck.  Here it was.  Practical, not over the top, all they needed was for Steve to let Tony help.  

Summoning every ounce of nonchalance in his body, Bucky offered, “We’ll do whatever you want.”

Steve rolled his eyes.  “Whatever I want, huh?”  

After a minute, where the heater tried to come on and died again after a couple clicks, he sighed.  “I guess we don’t have to freeze.”

“You got a generous heart, punk.”

Steve shoved Bucky off his side.  “Go get your stuff together, jerk.”

By the time they finally made it to the tower, Bucky couldn’t feel his hands or his feet or his face, but all that vanished when they stepped into Tony’s blessedly warm penthouse.

“Capsicle!  Tastee Freeze!” Tony’s voice drew them towards the kitchen where he was fiddling with a plate of, well, Bucky didn’t really know what.  

It looked good, though.  So did Tony in a sweater that looked soft and well-loved.

“What is this?” he asked, stealing a grape then laughing when Tony swatted at his hand.

“Charcuterie,” Tony answered.  He nodded down a hallway off the main rooms.  “Throw your stuff down and come out to the sunroom and I’ll feed you.”

“Sunroom?” Steve murmured as he followed Bucky down the hall Tony had indicated.  A guest room door had been left ajar in invitation, and inside a pair of freshly made beds with soft flannel sheets and tremendously fluffy duvets stood waiting for them.

“Maybe it’s like a balcony?”  Bucky offered as they set their bags down.

“Little cold outside for a balcony,” Steve pointed out easily.  

Back in the kitchen, Tony had put the finishing touches on whatever made a tray of snacks charcuterie.  He tossed his head at the plates and a little stack of silverware sitting on the counter.  “Grab those and we’ll go eat.”

Bucky swooped in and grabbed them.  “Drinks?”

“Already there.”  Tony picked up the actual food and nodded.  “Come on, gentlemen.  Let’s eat, drink, and be warm.”

As it happened, Bucky turned out to be half right about the sunroom; it was a balcony, of sorts.  Tony opened a door to reveal the gentle curve of the south-facing windows of the tower and the snow still falling outside, but the comfort of a fully enclosed room.  A squashy couch and a pair of deep-seated armchairs with fuzzy blankets draped over the arms surrounded a low coffee table.  Several plush pillows lay scattered on the floor to combine with the furniture into a loose circle of seating.  A screen of potted plants divided the seating area off from the rest of the room, creating a much smaller, more intimate space within the larger room.  

Steve stepped past the sofa to the window and practically plastered his nose to the glass so he could watch the snow fall.  The coffee table turned out to be a flameless fire pit with a little ledge for drinks and food all around the edge, so Bucky set the plates down on it.  Tony slid in next to him and set the food down then lit the fire pit.

“So what do you think?” Tony asked, rocking forward on his toes just a bit.

Bucky smiled.  “It’s--I didn’t even know this was a thing.  Or that you had one.”

Tony shrugged, the picture of nonchalance.  “I’ve always had it.  This was just a matter of dragging a couple pieces of furniture around.  Simple.”

“Simple, sure,” Bucky agreed easily.

“It is!” Tony insisted with a laugh.  He gestured towards the serving tray.  “Let me get you some food.”

Bucky nodded, and Tony started piling meat and cheese and crackers onto a plate.  “So what exactly is this?” he asked.

“Delicious.” Tony promised, passing the full plate over.  “It’s fancy and French, but it’s honestly just a way for rich people to justify wanting to snack around on salty meat and cheese and fruit for dinner.”

Bucky smiled at Tony and popped a bite of cheese into his mouth.  “Sounds good to me.”

“Oh it is, trust me,” Tony replied with a wink and a gentle hand on Bucky’s arm.

“Come let me feed you, Bomb Pop,” Tony called to Steve where he was still watching the snow fall past the tower windows.

Steve turned and shook his head.  “I’m not all that hungry, thanks though.”

“When was the last time you ate?” Bucky asked, setting his half-finished plate down.

Steve shot Bucky a glare then shook his head again and offered them both a halfhearted smile.  “I think I’m about out of gas, guys.  I’ll see you tomorrow.”

One he was gone, Tony turned to Bucky.  “Was it something I said?”

Bucky shook his head.  “Steve’s just a prickly pete.”

“You don’t have to spare my delicate feelings,” Tony pointed out as he reached over and grabbed the bottle of wine sitting near the food.  “I can handle rejection.”

Bucky stared at the door Steve had vanished through.  “I don’t--I think...I think this might be my fault.”  Bucky smiled in thanks as Tony passed him a glass of wine.  “You ever notice that Steve looks like an alpha?” he asked, seemingly changing the subject.

“I mean, he’s built like one, sure,” Tony agreed, pouring himself a drink to go with his own plate of food.  

“Nah, not just his build.”  Bucky gestured at his own face.  “He’s got a real alpha lookin’ face.  Always has.”

“Yeah?” Tony dragged the word out, clearly unsure where Bucky was going with this.

“I think,” Bucky sighed.  “I think you’re the first person to want him, looks and all, in a very long time, and I’ve jumped in the middle of that where I don’t belong.”

Tony flopped backwards against the sofa cushions with a groan and threw his hand over his face.  “That self-sacrificing idiot.”

Bucky slid over, right into Tony’s space, with a smile that offered nothing but promise.  “Did you go out courting one super soldier and end up falling for two?”

Tony peeked out from under his hand at Bucky’s smile.  “I might’ve.”

Throwing an arm around his shoulders, Bucky drew Tony into a hug, and Tony collapsed perfectly under his arm.  “Well, lucky for you, you’re gonna get two things you want.”

“How?”

“Well for one, I think you’re adorable, Tony Stark.”

Tony smiled and curled closer.  “Yeah?”

Bucky nodded and squeezed Tony’s shoulders.  “Oh, definitely.”

“What about the other?”

“Well for two,” Bucky’s smile turned into an all-out grin.  “I’m a Steve Rogers expert.”

~~*~~

Steve slid out of bed, careful not to wake Bucky who had only slipped into the room they were sharing in the early hours of the morning, and zipped a sweatshirt over the t-shirt he’d gone to bed in and grabbed his sketchbook and pencils out of his bag.  The very top of Bucky’s head was the only part of him that poked out from under the blankets as he breathed slow and deep in sleep.  The rest of the penthouse lay silent beyond the door, but yesterday’s storm had cleared, leaving a bright, clean, blanketed cityscape below.  

Inside the sunroom, Steve curled up on the couch and tugged one of the blankets over his feet.  He found a blank page and let his hands wander in the bright natural light, sketching in Bucky’s hands curled around a plate like they had been yesterday.  His lips twisted in concentration as he lined in the interlocking plates that allowed Bucky’s fingers to fully articulate.  He started in on Tony’s hand resting against Bucky’s forearm the moment when Tony had collapsed against him laughing crystal clear.   

“One good thing about the 21st century,” He murmured to himself, adding detail to Tony’s hand.  

“What’s that?” 

Steve jumped a mile, his pencil skittering across the page.  “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!  Tony !”

Tony wriggled under the other end of Steve’s blanket, and Steve smiled at the fuzzy socks Tony was wearing when Tony wrapped his feet around Steve’s ankles.  “So what’s good about the 21st century?”  

“Oh, you know,” Steve hedged, adding a little more shadow to Buckys’ hand.  

“If I did, I wouldn’t ask,” Tony needled with a smile.  

Steve closed his sketchbook and held it between his hands.  “Buck...he never really talked about it much...or ever, but…” he trailed off with a shrug.  “I saw the way he dressed and danced.”

“Bi-dynamic?” Tony guessed.

Steve hummed, a noncommittal confirmation.  “It’s nice that he can do...that now.”  

“What about you?” Tony asked.

Steve shrugged and flipped his sketchbook back open to the same page.  He started drawing his own boots, leaving the details unfinished so he could add in some wallflowers growing around his ankles.  “Don’t really think about it.”

Tony rolled his eyes.  “Liar,” he prodded gently.  He poked Steve’s shoulder.  “Natasha could set you up with anyone you want.”

“I don’t think I want an alpha from Natasha,” he said with a laugh.  “She’d set me up with someone who’d sing and dance all around me like that outrageous piano guy Clint showed me on YouTube.”

“Liberace?” Tony asked.

Steve nodded.  “Too much for me.”

Tony settled in more comfortably on the sofa next to Steve and watched him sketch the suggestion of a rock wall around the flowers and behind his boots.  After another moment of silence except for the pencil scratching quietly on the paper, Tony reached out and touched the edge of the page.  “What’s that?”

“Flowers,” Steve murmured idly.

“Well, sure, but which ones?” he asked.

“Just...flowers.”

“Are flowers a thing you like?”

Steve shook his head.  “Not especially.  My Mhamó...my gran...she knew what they all meant...that made-up language society ladies all cared about.”  He switched pages and started doodling the early spring flowers he remembered his mother describing from her bonding with Steve’s dad.  “She made my ma’s bonding bouquet.”

“It’s lovely,” Tony said softly over his shoulder.

Steve smiled sadly down at the page.  “I--I didn’t know her, but…” he sighed.  “The way my mom talked about her.  I’d want an alpha like her.”

“Like…?”

“I don’t need--don’t want an alpha who’s…” he waved his hand, dismissing whatever words he’d been searching for.

“All flash and no substance?” Tony tried.

“Not...quite…” Steve hedged.  He smiled at Tony.  “There’s a place for flash.  It’s...fun to know someone thinks you’re worth showing off for.  But substance means an alpha really knows you and what you want and need.  The substance is what’ll last.”

Tony leaned easily against the arm of the couch and watched Steve until he set his pencil down in the crease of his book.  “Yes?”

“What kind of alpha was your grandma?” Tony asked.

“She was in service,” he murmured, doodling in blooming stems of forsythia as a border around the bouquet of clematis and lily of the valley and English ivy his mom would describe to him with stars in her eyes.   “My ma said she knew what the people around her needed before they knew it themselves.  It made her a good provider, but,” Steve smiled.  “It meant she knew how to make people feel special too.”

“She sounds like an amazing woman,” Tony offered.

“So I was told,” Steve agreed.

Tony inched closer, smiling when Steve let him tangle their legs more tightly together.  “And you never…?”

“Once, I thought B--” he shook his head.  “Turned out I was wrong.”  He met Tony’s eyes, a brittle smile fixed on his face.  “At this point, I can get by on my own.”  He extricated his legs from under the blanket and stood.  “Thanks for letting us stay, Tony,” he said with a squeeze to Tony’s shoulder before he turned and slipped out of the sunroom.

~~*~~

When she’d first started working for him, Pepper would tell Tony on a fairly regular basis that he and DUM-E had the same attention span.  Tony would just smile and tell her she wasn’t wrong then flit off to the next thing, but as he looked at the lists and plans he and Bucky had been working through over the past nine months and seeing all the green on them, he couldn’t help but smile.  

It had started out small enough; Bucky dragged Steve into their living room and told him ‘I need to work on my dance moves if I’m ever gonna get an oma.  Tell me how I’m doing.’  Tony brought Steve into the workshop to fit him for new gloves with electromagnets for the shield in the backs.  The day the lead archivist on the Captain America project called to arrange the release of Steve’s blanket to them, Tony had hung up then he and Bucky had danced around the living room of the penthouse for a good fifteen minutes.

They hadn’t all gone quite to plan, though.  Like the time Tony had turned up on a Wednesday night talking a mile a minute about the wonders of karaoke until Natasha poked her head up over the top of the couch and said ‘that’s awfully intimate, Stark,’ which had stopped him in his tracks.  Or the time Bucky had gone shopping and came home with a brand new wardrobe, but while he was figuring out what to put on to lure Steve out to dinner, Steve had downloaded Fluttr to Bucky’s phone then gone to the boxing gym.  They’d both shown up for game seven of the World Series, hoping Steve would finally get to see his Dodgers win a World Series, but instead watched them lose at home.

Still.  More wins than losses.  Steve had stopped looking quietly crushed every time they all did something together and instead would, on occasion, look more than a bit pleased.

“Sir, I have Mr. Lee, the director of promotions for the Los Angeles Dodgers,” JARVIS interrupted Tony’s consideration of their progress board with the photograph of the man on the phone.

“Stan.  The man. With the promotional plan.” Tony greeted while he slid the phone app sideways on his work surface so it sat below The List and he could pull up the Dodgers’ 2018 schedule with the three dates he and Bucky cared about circled in red and their Brooklyn throwback uniforms.

“Mr...Stank?” Lee hazarded.

Rhodey snorted from his seat in the corner of Tony’s lab.

“Uh, it’s Stark.”

“My PA should’ve become a doctor with his handwriting,” he groused.  “So, Mr. Stark, what can I do for you?”

“Who’s in charge of your uniform selection?” Tony asked.  

Rhodey got up and wandered over, grabbed the stylus out of the tray and scribbled Tony Stank across the Dodgers’ schedule beneath the dates he cared about.  “Never letting that go, by the way,” he whispered.

“We only have three uniforms,” Mr. Lee responded while Tony sneered at Rhodey and pinched his tricep.

“Well since it’s the 60th anniversary of your move out to the West Coast, I was hoping you could be convinced to have a look at your uniforms during one series on your interleague road trip…”

~~*~~

Bucky smiled at Tony when he let him in the front door of their brownstone the morning they had finally gotten settled as The One and eventually found Steve laying on the couch in the library reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks .  Bucky slipped onto the far end of the couch and tugged Steve’s legs back over his lap to wait until Steve came up for air.

“Hey, Buck,” Steve eventually said when he reached the end of a chapter and closed the book on his thumb to hold his place.  His eyes widened when he noticed Tony sitting in the club chair next to the couch.  “I didn’t hear you come in, Tony.”

Tony shrugged.  “I was in the neighborhood.”

Bucky traced his fingers around the knobs of Steve’s ankles, smiling when Steve’s foot twitched, ticklish.  “What’re you doing today?”

“Reading?” Steve tried.  “I mean...did you want to do something?”

“Dodgers’re in town today,” Tony said, too innocent. 

“Hmm,” Steve slid down the couch when Bucky started massaging the instep of his left foot.  

“Feel good?” Bucky asked, then smiled when Steve nodded.  He rubbed Steve’s feet in silence a little longer, huffing a laugh when he dug his thumbs into the ball of Steve’s foot and he moaned.

“What d’you think?” Bucky asked eventually.

Steve cracked an eye open to look at Bucky.  “Bout what?”

“Let’s go to the ballgame,” Bucky suggested.  “Little interleague play?”

“Buck, I don’t want to give my money to the Yankees,” Steve protested, closing his eyes again.

“What if it was my money?” Tony asked

Steve shook his head, eyes still shut.  “You’re a stand-up guy.  I don’t wanna give your money to the Yankees either.”

Tony laughed and reached out to squeeze Steve’s shoulder.  “Would it help if I told you that I’ve donated significantly more than the cost of these tickets to the Dodgers Foundation?”  He reached out and put a vintage-looking Brooklyn Dodgers hat on Steve’s chest.  “Come sit behind home plate and make Yankees fans mad with us?”

Steve opened his eyes, and traced a finger gently over the raised white embroidered B on the deep blue hat.  He hadn’t actually been to a baseball game this century; the devastation of the Dodgers leaving and the absolutely insane price of tickets had combined to make him grouse about going to games like the ‘older fellow’ Tony teased him about being. 

“Are the seats really behind the plate?” Steve asked, a bit of a glint coming into his eyes.

Bucky stood up and unzipped his hoodie, revealing a shirt in that perfect Dodgers’ blue with Mullin’s Dem Bums drawing on it underneath the old, script Brooklyn Steve missed like a limb.  Tony had on a grey shirt with a much more subdued ‘Here’s to you Mr. Robinson’ and a line drawing of Jackie Robinson swinging for the fences.  

“C’mon, punk,” Bucky urged.  “Come take a seat from a Yankees fan.”

“Kershaw’s pitching,” Tony wheedled.

Steve gestured down at his plain white shirt.  “This isn’t exactly--”

“Just go upstairs and change,” Bucky threw Steve’s legs off his lap. 

Upstairs, someone, Steve suspected the stealth assassin who lived down the hall from him, had laid a shirt the same color blue as Bucky’s with the white stylized B in the center on his bed.  He stripped off the shirt he’d been wearing and pulled the new one on, shaking his head; they really had cut off all of the ways he’d say no to an outing like this.  He wished, sometimes, that he could find an alpha who could gently cut off all his excuses like this and who knew he was the kind of asshole who enjoyed silly, harmless needling like this.  

“Rogers!  You get refrozen up there?” Tony’s voice rang up the stairs after him.

Steve raked his fingers through his hair, tugged the hat Tony had given him on, and nodded at himself.  “Baseball.”

“Is everything about baseball different?” he asked when they got out of Tony’s car at the New Yankee Stadium.  

“Did you actually like the old Yankee stadium?” Tony asked as he gently steered Steve with a hand at his waist towards the Legends Club entrance.

“It’s the principle of the thing,” Steve and Bucky said together.  

“Dear God now there’s two of you,” Tony rolled his eyes to the sky as if seeking divine intervention.

“Welcome to Yankee Stadium, Mr. Stark, gentlemen,” the concierge greeted them.  “Have you been guests here before?”

“I have, but these two,” he pointed at Steve and Bucky, “have only ever sat in the bleachers.”

“Well, welcome to premium seating, gentlemen,” she smiled at Steve and Bucky.  “We have restaurant-quality food here for all our fans, non-alcoholic beverages are complimentary, and you’ll have wait service at your seat if you need anything during the game.”

“Beats a shared bag of peanuts and scalding metal in the bleachers,” Bucky said as they made their way down to their seats after they’d eaten and settled into the cushy upholstered seats.  He handed Steve the score sheet and pencil from his seat while Tony got settled on Steve’s other side.

When he realized he was in between them, Steve blinked first at Bucky then at Tony.  “Why am I sitting here?  Don’t you two…”

Tony waved him off.  “Please.  Much easier to show an omega a good time when he’s right where we can show you off.”

“Captain Rogers?” a tall, rangy looking kid still in his batting practice shirt had trotted over and was leaning against the safety net.

Steve got up and went down to the barricade.  “Yes, son?”

The kid flushed, but smiled now that he had Steve’s attention.  “I just...couldIhaveyourautograph,” he blurted.

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” Steve asked with a hint of a smile as the kid handed Steve a ball and a sharpie.

The kid shook his head.  “My--I never would’ve thought to pick up baseball if it wasn’t for you.”

Steve glanced up from signing his name on the ball.  “Oh?”

“Nope.  No omegas on my high school’s team till me.”  He smiled when Steve handed the ball back.  “And, I mean, you were the best--most inspiring part of my US History class in high school.”

The kid squeezed the ball like he was afraid it was going to leap out of his hand.  “Thanks for this.”

“Wait, wait!” Steve called after him as he turned back to the field, and the kid stopped and trotted back over.

“Yeah?”

“What about me?” Steve asked with a laugh.  “I gotta know who I’m cheering for.”

The kid gestured to one of the ball boys for a ball then he took his sharpie back from Steve and scribbled his signature and jersey number on it.  “I can’t--”

“Cody Love, let’s wrap it up!” Justin Turner hollered from the visitors’ dugout.  

“Good luck tonight,” Steve called after him, and the kid turned and waved back as he trotted towards the dugout.

“Who’re you throwin’ us over for, Stevie?” Bucky asked when Steve got back to their seats.

“Uh...Cody Bellinger,” Steve read the kid’s name off the ball he’d signed.

“Rookie with the highest batting average.  Good choice” Tony said with a smile and a wink.  

“Totally why,” Steve said and rolled his eyes as he bent to start filling out the score sheet Bucky had given him, groaning when he had to cross out Brooklyn and replace it with Los Angeles.  He’d never get used to that.  

Tony watched him write, a small smile on his face.  “How’d you learn to do this?”  Bucky snorted.

Steve flicked his eyes up at Bucky.  “You can tell him if you want.”

“He taught himself the summer he spent convalescing after he had rheumatic fever,” Bucky said.  “His shorthand is…”

“Unique,” Steve put in with a smile.  “I’d read a book on the creation of binary signalling when I was first starting to heal.”

“So this kid,” Bucky leaned back and threw his arm around Steve’s shoulder.  “This kid decides he’s going to record hits as ones and outs as zeros on the field.”

Steve shook his head at the memory.  “The first time Bucky saw it he thought I’d relapsed and been having febrile seizures all over the paper.”

“Because it doesn’t make any sense!” Bucky protested with a laugh.

Tony leaned in and bumped their shoulders together on Steve’s other side.  “I get it.  Binary was the first language in computing.  It’s easy.  On.  Off.  Yes.  No.  Safe.  Out.”

Steve pointed at Tony.  “See!  He gets me.  Plus,” he put on his most superior face, “this method lets me keep track of where on the field the hit or out happened without taking up a bunch of room.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Yankee Stadium and today’s matchup between the visiting Los Angeles Dodgers and your New York Yankees,” the PA cut off their conversation.  “Before we present today’s starting lineups, in celebration of 135 years of baseball both in Brooklyn and Los Angeles, the Dodgers will be wearing their ‘throwback’ Brooklyn uniforms…”

Steve whipped around to stare at Tony, who was sitting next to him smirking like butter wouldn’t melt.  “135 years is a really strange anniversary, Tony.”

“Who can fathom the inscrutable corporate mindset,” Tony said, but his face started to crack into a giddy smile.

“Who indeed,” Bucky snarked, but he was smiling too.

Steve, on the other hand, couldn’t tear his eyes away from the sight of his Dodgers coming out of the dugout for introductions in their grey away uniforms with Brooklyn scripted across the chest instead of Los Angeles.  “How did you guys know this would be today?”

“I may have added a little..insurance,” Tony said with a shrug.

Steve laughed.  “Insurance, huh?”

“I mean, it’s possible the STEM program run through the Dodgers foundation has met their yearly budget.”

“Just possible?” Steve asked, glancing out of the corner of his eye at Tony.

Tony shrugged, and his smile turned into full out laughter.  “It was the easiest way to get their promotions manager to put today on the schedule as a throwback uniform day.”

Even though interleague play in an American League ballpark meant Steve had to put up with this designated hitter nonsense, there was an undeniable joy to sitting in the stands, letting Bucky critique his scoring shorthand and letting Tony lean on his arm while he asked Steve to explain the infield fly rule for the tenth time.  

“I just don’t understand why he doesn’t even get a chance,” Tony said partway through the top of the fifth.

“Intentional double play,” Steve reminded him, and gently clunked his pencil on the back of Tony’s hand.

“But--”

Bucky laughed.  “Baseball used to be ruthless, Stark.”

“Really?”

Steve nodded.  “Letting a popup drop for a gimme double play was on the mild end.”

Tony watched Steve record the Dodgers’ last out, the hint of a frown on his face.  “Wish we could’a put up a crooked number,” he muttered.

“Oh what fresh hell is this?” Bucky asked when Bruce Channel’s “Hey Baby” started coming from the PA and the video feed of the crowd got an electric pink heart-shaped frame.

“Kiss cam,” Tony said dismissively.

Bucky’s scowl deepened.  “The what now?”

“Kiss cam,” Tony repeated.  “They aim the camera at couples and they have to kiss.  For applause.  Or something.  It’s silly.  It’s fun.  Alphas love it because they can show off their omega.  Omegas love it because their alpha gets to make a big deal over them in front of thousands of strangers.”

“It’s somethin’ alright,” Bucky muttered.

So, of course, the camera landed squarely on Steve.

Steve blushed bright red and ducked his head.  The only alpha who’d ever tried to kiss him had been Corporal Lorraine, and she’d only been doing it to get a rise out of Peggy.  That singular incident was easy enough to keep to himself since Corporal Lorraine had died the year before SHIELD found him and Peggy didn’t really remember that whole debacle, even on a good day.  But this.  To be outed as unwanted on, of all things, a baseball stadium kiss cam would certainly end up all over the internet by the time they got home.

Twin kisses smacking against each of his cheeks startled Steve out of his spiraling thoughts.  The crowd around them went nuts, howling and wolf whistling as Tony and Bucky sat back, matching expressions of smug satisfaction on their faces.

“I think my face might melt,” Steve muttered.  He could feel his blush creeping down his neck and up to his forehead.

Tony squeezed his arm.  “You look fine to me.”

“Could fry an egg on that face,” Bucky teased and poked Steve’s cheek gently.

Steve swatted his hand away.  “Go poke Tony’s face; the inning’s starting.”

Much to Steve’s relief, most of the fans moved on from the kiss cam rather quickly once the players retook the field.  The handful who kept darting what, they thought, were sneaky glances Steve’s way and kept whispering behind their hands all seemed to be speculating on whether Steve was stepping out with not one but two alphas.

“Oh come on, that was a ball!” Bucky yelled at the umpire in the top of the ninth.  “Does he have eyes, Stevie?”

“Probably blocked by that mask,” Steve answered idly, bubbling in the second strike.  

“You know,” Tony leaned in with the air of a man confiding a great secret, “this could all be solved with--”

“If you say automated strike zone, I’ll ‘accidentally’ let the shield slip the next time we’re in the field,” Steve cut him off.

“It’s the future,” Tony needled.

“Baseball doesn’t need the future,” Bucky countered, shaking his head even as he reached around Steve to swat at Tony.

“Not the way Dem Bums need an insurance run,” Tony offered by way of peace.

Steve huffed a laugh.  “You’re not wrong, Stark.”

“Sportsball,” Tony said with a self-satisfied grin as he leaned back in his seat.

In spite of the Dodgers’ scoreless top of the ninth and Judge’s towering home run in the bottom half of the inning, the Dodgers squeaked out a one-run win thanks to an RBI single from Bellinger in the eighth.  Steve scribbled a note to himself at the bottom of the page, but had to quickly flip his scorecard over when Bucky leaned over to try to peek.

“What’s he doing?” Tony asked.

“Stevie always writes down something that makes each game special.”  Bucky rolled his eyes as they stood to start heading for Tony’s car.  “He won’t ever show ‘em to me, though.”

“Because it’s the unfiltered musings of a young omega’s tender heart,” Steve snarked back at him.  

“Isn’t that what diaries are for?”

“See, Tony gets it!” Bucky cried.

Steve just shook his head.  “Let me have my Regency Omega habit, please and thank you.”

“Captain?” 

Steve turned to find the Dodgers’ manager standing near the gate that separated the stands behind home plate from the field with the young first baseman Bellinger.  

“I--we have something for you,” Bellinger said.  He held out a beautiful, pristine white home jersey, an exact replica of the ones he remembered from all the summer afternoons sitting baking in the cheap bleachers with Bucky.  

Steve stroked a gentle finger across the blue script.  “I--I don’t know what to say.”

“Mr. Stark and Sergeant Barnes came to us looking for a way to bring a little bit of baseball back to Brooklyn for you,” the manager picked up the thread of the story.  “Unfortunately, we could only make it as far as the Bronx, but--”

“But we hope this makes you feel more...at home,” Bellinger finished. 

“Thank you,” Steve said.

Bellinger nodded.  “I’m proud you call yourself a fan.”

When he turned back, Steve took a closer look at the jersey.  The wool blend fabric smelled faintly of dirt and grass, like it had lain on the field until the game had permeated the fabric.  Steve had taken it gently from Bellinger, the first omega to play on his high school team, the rookie with the highest batting average, and now when he unfolded it, the bright red 18 on the left abdomen and the blue 18 on the back were the only nods to the modern game, but that only made it feel like baseball still lived in Brooklyn.

“Steve?  You oka--”

Steve threw his arms around Tony’s neck, his eyes wet and the jersey clutched tightly in his hand where it rested against Tony’s back.  “I can’t-- thank you , Tony,” he whispered into his neck.

Tony’s hands settled gently against Steve’s shoulder blades.  “You--I want this to feel like home for you,” he murmured.

Steve pulled back with a nod and a watery smile, but he kept himself in the circle of Tony’s arms.  “It really does.”

~~*~~

Going into heat normally made Steve grumpy.  Going into heat during a stretch of record-high temperatures in August, however, made Steve insufferable.  He’d stalked around the house for close to a week in nothing but joggers and sleeveless undershirts before abruptly switching to the compression pants and tops he normally wore under his suit.  He’d complained ever since he’d gotten his first heat that his surging hormones made him feel like he was going to fly apart, and the modern marvel of high-tension spandex meant he finally had something that could hold him and make him feel contained.

“I hate this,” Steve moaned as he flopped down on the sofa in the living room.

“There’s a simple solution,” Bucky muttered into the pages of his book.

Steve craned his head back to look at Bucky upside down.  “What was that?”

“I said,” Bucky closed his book on his thumb, “there’s a simple solution.”

Steve shook his head, loving the solidity of the couch cushion under his head, but hating the way the fabric twisted his hair when he moved.  “No.”

“No?” Bucky repeated incredulously.  “How do you figure?”

“I’m not…” Steve rolled over onto his side and curled in on himself.  “Nothing’s simple.”

Bucky rolled his eyes as he stood, but he squeezed Steve’s shoulder and smiled when Steve melted under the pressure.  “If you say so.”

Steve slid into a fitful doze, eventually rolling to face the back of the couch with a soft groan.  He wanted the grounding weight of curling up with another person, not the impersonal clench of his compression gear.  He wanted the softening glow of mutual affection, not the undimmed flame of another heat alone.  But here, lying on the couch Bucky had brought home to him from a flea market, a month into his hundredth year, he didn’t think he was any closer to having either of those things than when he was 25 lying on an army cot gritting his teeth through his first post-serum heat.

“Stevie?” 

His name coupled with Bucky’s gentle fingers through his hair made him moan softly, but he didn’t turn over, afraid to face Bucky’s gentle expression while he told him he was leaving to wait Steve’s heat out with Stark.  

“I’m--” Bucky sighed.  “I’m worried about this heat.  You seem more...on edge...than normal.”

Steve finally rolled over and offered Bucky a halfhearted glare and a single head shake.  “It’s not any worse than normal.”

“Really?” Bucky looked like he didn’t believe him, which was sweet.  

Steve nodded.  “I’m sure you can remember how ornery I used to get.”

Bucky laughed and settled more deeply into the couch, pinning Steve’s legs with his back.  He grinned when Steve sighed and relaxed under his weight.“I remember this wild, scrappy little oma who told Randy Donahue he would need a fully furnished penthouse apartment before he’d even consider sharing his heat with the likes of him.”

“That’s because Randy Donahue was a disgusting alpha with no manners who thought any omega should be thankful when he glanced in their direction.”

Bucky laughed and reached out to pat Steve’s hip.  “I mean, you’re right.”

“Course I’m right,” Steve grumbled, curling deeper into Bucky’s hold.  Bucky just huffed another laugh and squeezed his legs tighter.

“So, uh, does it still take a fully furnished penthouse apartment?” Bucky eventually asked.

“Mmm?” Steve hummed, eyes closed and half asleep.

“To share your heat,” Bucky clarified.

“Too easy,” Steve murmured.  

Bucky pinched his side.  “Wake up and use full sentences, punk.”

“Jerk,” Steve groused, swatting at Bucky’s hand, but he did open his eyes and try to rally his brain out of its pre-heat fog.  “A penthouse’s just stuff.  Anyone can gather up a bunch’a stuff.”

Bucky nodded like that made perfect sense.  “Stuff doesn’t mean an alpha--” 

The opening notes of “Once Upon a December” stopped him mid-sentence, and Bucky jabbed the answer button with a shake of his head down at his phone.  “Stark?”

Steve could only pick up the inflection in Tony’s voice, since Bucky had long ago turned the speaker on his phone down to stop Steve eavesdropping on his calls.  Whatever Tony asked made Bucky mouth ‘idiot’ fondly at Steve while he rolled his eyes towards his phone.

“I’m trying to use tact and finesse, ever heard of ‘em?”  He said.  Tony’s reply made him lift the phone away from his head and stick his tongue out before he brought it back to his ear.  “Yeah, yeah, fine.  You’re probably right anyway.”  He hit end call and tossed his phone down on the space the curve of Steve’s body made on the couch.

“What’d Tony want?” Steve asked, determined to be pleasant even as another pre-heat tremor rolled through him.

“To see if his fully furnished penthouse would be enough to convince you to spend your heat with us.”

Steve blinked at Bucky, sure he had misheard.  “I--aren’t you two…?”

“If you say fonduing, I’m going to slap you then leave,” Bucky said with a hint of teasing in his voice.  

“ Are you two fonduing?” Steve asked, widening his eyes like he didn’t know why Bucky could possibly find fault.

Bucky flicked his ankle, laughing when Steve jerked his foot away.  He let Steve have his retreat for a moment before he reached out and gently tugged his foot back by way of apology.  He circled the jut of Steve’s ankle bones with his fingers while he thought, and the gentle pressure of his fingers lulled Steve back down into the warm, half-awake haze he’d been trying to find when he’d first thrown himself down on the couch.  

“I--we’ve been…”Bucky sighed.  “We sure do talk a lot about you for two people who’re supposed to be dating each other.”

Steve quirked a wry half smile at him.  “I’m just that memorable, I guess.”

“I guess,” Bucky agreed, rolling his eyes.  He squeezed Steve’s foot where it still lay half in his lap.  “We do want to, you know,” he said eventually.

“Hmm?” Steve hummed.  He could feel himself slipping into the last real lull before his actual heat would fully hit.  Laying here, pinned to the couch by Bucky’s back with his hands holding him gently, Steve allowed himself to sink into the sensation of being desired.

“Come spend the week at Tony’s,” Bucky offered.  “Let us take care of you.”

Steve shook his head, even as he longed to say yes; the prospect of only getting Bucky and Tony for a few days instead of forever cut deeper than not having them at all.  “You know I can get by on my own,” he pulled the well-worn denial over himself like a blanket.

Bucky sighed.  “You know what I’m gonna say, right?” 

“The thing is, you don’t have to,” Steve repeated dutifully.

“Because it’s true,” he insisted.

Steve chewed his lip, thinking.  The idea of spending a week not having to self-soothe, not having to merely endure but actually getting relief, sounded terribly tempting.  “I’m only saying yes because you’ve brought me a fully furnished penthouse.”

“It’s no less than you deserve,” Bucky said, grinning widely at Steve’s acceptance.  “I’ll call Tony and tell him to send Happy.”

At the tower, Tony met them at the elevator door with a smile and a kiss on the cheek for Bucky and a light hug for Steve, but then he wrapped his hands around Bucky’s biceps as if he expected an imminent attack.  “Now I know what we talked about, Snowflake, but--”

“I know how you get,” Bucky finished, smiling fondly.

“I kept to the spirit of the law, hand to God,” Tony promised with the insistence of someone who had definitely followed his own intuition.  Grabbing Steve and Bucky each by the hand, he started dragging them towards the master suite, his eyes alight with the excitement of having both of them for a week of sex.

When they got to his suite, Tony dropped Bucky’s hand so he could open the door, but he reeled Steve in tighter, until he could hold Steve against his side.  “Now Bucky said you’ve got inexpensive taste, but, and hear me out, there’s something to be said for the understated elegance overstated money can buy.”

Steve shook his head at Tony’s words, but he let Tony squeeze him a little tighter as he tugged them into the room.  A room Steve could’ve only positively identified as Tony’s now because of its location on the floor plan.  Instead of the sleek, clean, vaguely impersonal decor he’d come to associate with Tony Stark, the entire master suite now resembled the sort of nest Steve had always quietly dreamed an alpha would offer him.  

The blinds had been left open to let the afternoon sun filter in, lighting the bedroom with a hazy, golden glow.  Tony had turned his bed into an inviting retreat complete with enough pillows for all three of them, the kind of duvet Steve would see in the window at Macy’s and imagine using it to build a cave out of with his alpha, and sheets that looked so soft they couldn’t possibly irritate his heat-sensitive skin.  A blanket with a huge knit lay folded over the foot of the bed, and when Steve reached out to touch it, the wool was kitten-soft.  In the half of the room Tony had set up as a small lounge, a fresh fruit sat in bowls on the table and a carafe of chilled water sweated idly in its spot on a coaster in the middle of three glasses.

“I don’t...know what to say,” Steve murmured as he wiggled his toes down into the plush carpet that now covered the sleek dark wood floors.  He let himself pet the soft knit blanket at the foot of the bed again.  It really did feel like the tiny orange tabby Bucky had found behind his family’s building and fed with table scraps until the widowed Mrs. Donatello had taken it in.

“Just say you’ll stay,” Bucky suggested like it was that easy.  

“I--”

“Don’t talk yourself out of what you deserve,” Tony jumped in.  “I know that self-denial was tres chic when you were coming up, but Bucky Bear and I have worked hard to make this place comfortable...to make it someplace you’d want to be.  With us.”

He took Steve’s hand and led him over to the seating area.  “Come, sit, let yourself experience what we’ve got before you decide.”

Steve let Tony tug him down onto the chaise and settle him between his legs.  It was nice the way Tony held him, like he was fragile enough to need it.  

“I know your heat’s not quite here yet,” Tony murmured as he wrapped his legs around Steve’s and squeezed.  “But that’s the point.”  He tugged the blanket draped over the back of the lounge down over their legs.  “We don’t just want to--to hit it and quit it; we want…”

“We want all of you,” Bucky finished with a sheepish smile.

Instead of answering, Steve dropped his eyes and watched his fingers trail over the pattern on the quilt, but he stopped when he recognized the patch of white fabric with the brilliant red cross from his ma’s nursing uniform.  He’d used it after she’d died to replace one of the scraps of fabric his Mhamó had used tore one winter.  He pulled the quilt up tighter over himself and pushed back into Tony’s embrace and reached for Bucky’s hand.  

“You--how did you even…?”

Tony brushed Steve’s bangs off his forehead and placed a kiss where his hand had just been.  “We just want you to be happy,” Tony murmured.  

“Ideally with us,” Bucky added.  

Steve sat back against the chaise and tugged Tony in with one arm while Bucky curled under his other.  “I couldn’t think of anything better.”