--

I was thinking about what would happen if Steve had something like an emergency appendectomy. Like, maybe there’s a few days of discomfort and Steve just thinks it’s indigestion but then the day comes that the pain is excruciating and when they take him to the ER, the doctors start throwing around words like ‘rupture’ and ‘emergency surgery’ and before Bucky can really wrap his head around any of it, they’ve whisked his baby away to locations unknown.

Hours later, when Steve finally comes out of the anesthesia and opens bleary eyes to a Daddy-less room, he keeps asking, “Where is he?”

He’s feeling hurt and vulnerable and very whiny, yes, but he also knows just how worried his Daddy will be. He doesn’t want Daddy worrying about him, he needs Daddy to know that he’s okay.

And Bucky is worried. He’s been a terror the entire time Steve’s been under. Prowling the hallways with a murderous expression and no amount of cajoling from Natalia or Etienne or Danny, who even tries, can get him to calm down. The best they can do is stop him from harassing the poor nurses every five seconds for updates, but even that is a struggle.

They’re the only three there, even though pretty much anyone who’s spent an extended amount of time with Steve wants to be there. They just can’t fit that many people into the waiting room, so it was decided that Natalia, as Bucky’s right hand man, and Etienne, as Steve’s best friend, and Danny, as the designated bodyguard, would be the ones to stay with Bucky and send updates to the others.

When he’s finally let into Steve’s room, the sight before him tightens his chest to the point of pain, stealing his breath. His beautiful, beautiful baby boy, looking so pale and small in a hospital bed, his expression crumpled in dissatisfaction or discomfort or both. Bucky loves him so much, he’s sick with it. He’d burn down the entire hospital, the entire city, if it would wipe that expression off his boy’s face.

“Sweetheart,” he chokes out.

He sits beside Steve on the bed, touching his hand lightly. It’s freezing cold to the touch, something Bucky will not abide, not under any circumstances. He picks up his boy’s hand, gently kissing his fingertips before encasing it completely between his own.

Groggily, Steve blinks up at him. Bucky knows the moment he’s recognized, because that air of dissatisfaction melts away into the softest, sweetest smile he’s ever seen. Seeing it makes Bucky feel like he’s been stabbed in the gut.

He braces an elbow by Steve’s head, leaning down to pepper the gentlest kisses imaginable over his boy’s pale face.

“My sweetheart,” he murmurs to between kisses. “My baby. My precious, precious baby boy.”

Fingers brush along his jaw.

“I’m okay,” Steve mumbles, his words slurring. “‘m okay, Daddy, promise.”

“I know you are, baby,” Bucky says softly. He pulls back, meeting his boy’s sleepy gaze. “You’re not allowed to be anything else, understand? I’m making it a rule.”

Gently, he brushes back Steve’s hair and then cups his face, caressing his cheek.

“You have to be okay, sweetheart. I won’t allow you to be anything else. You can’t leave me, not like this.”

It earns him another achingly sweet smile, his boy soft and rumpled and sleepy but content now that Bucky is there with him.

“Okay, Daddy,” Steve whispers, nodding.

Bucky kisses his nose. “Don’t pacify me, sweetheart. I mean it.”

“I know,” Steve promises.

It isn’t long before he falls asleep again, the medicine still in his system pulling him under. When he wakes up later, Bucky won’t let him so much as hold his own cup. Every time he tries, Bucky pulls it out of his reach.

Steve isn’t even sure why he keeps trying. He likes when Daddy does things for him, but he also likes watching that stubborn, domineering look enter his Daddy’s eye every time Steve clumsily reaches for his drink. He makes a game of it—trying to get the cup out of Daddy’s hand—right up until Daddy finally grabs his wrist and settles his hands atop the blanket.

“Stop,” he says, softly but firmly. “You just had surgery, baby. You’re a very, very helpless boy right now, so be a good boy and let Daddy do it for you.”

It isn’t so much as what Daddy says as how he says it. Steve’s heart squeezes tight.

“Is that what you need, Daddy?” He asks quietly.

Daddy brushes his fingers through his hair, leaning forward to kiss his forehead.

“That’s exactly what I need, sweet boy,” he murmurs. “I had to watch you be in pain and then they took you away from me for hours and cut you open and there was nothing I could do about any of it. You’re going to be a good boy and let me baby you as much as I want to while you recover.”

Steve smiles softly. “Okay, Daddy.”

Through his entire recovery, he’s doted on and babied and pampered relentlessly. He spends most of that recovery cradled against his Daddy’s chest, held in his big, strong arms and smothered in countless kisses. Outside of the doctor’s recommended exercise, his feet don’t even touch the ground. He’s carried everywhere, dressed, handfed every single meal, bathed every night—everything his Daddy usually does for him, it’s amped up by a factor of a thousand, and things Daddy might normally let him do himself, he very sternly forbids. 

Steve need only think about pouting before his Daddy is there to indulge to his every whim and he looks completely at peace the entire time he’s spoiling his baby rotten.

The more Bucky babies him, the more Steve seems to glow with contentment, his gaze bright and warm and loving and stuck on his Daddy. He might be the center of his Daddy’s world, but Bucky is also the center of his.

To Steve’s eternal disappointment, no matter how well he feels, his Daddy won’t play with him until the doctor okays it, but he does successfully pout his way into long, drugging kisses on a nightly basis.

“You take such good care of me, Daddy,” Steve whispers one night, a week into his recovery.

Daddy smiles, kissing him so tenderly that Steve feels it in his toes.

“Always, baby,” he promises. “Now can you be a good boy and go to sleep for me? You need your rest to get better.”

--

Steve is not worried. 

In fact, all things considered, he’s—calm.

A gun jams itself into his back on his way to his next class, rough hands guiding him out of sight where persons unseen can put a bag over his head. 

He isn’t sure what happened to his bodyguard during this process. His normal bodyguard, Danny, has been sick with the flu all week and his replacement is—not Steve’s favorite person. He won’t, Steve decides as he’s stuffed into a trunk, save that one from his Daddy’s wrath. 

The car ride is long but uneventful and when it ends, he’s pulled from the trunk and marched from an outside to an inside. He can hear other people moving around, talking, arguing. He’s slammed roughly into a chair and tied to it, the ropes frayed and too tight. They pinch his skin and rub it raw in seconds.

But as Steve sits there, listening to an unknown number of people move around him, he realizes that he’s not worried. Not as much as he should be.

If someone had asked him even a week ago how he’d react to a kidnapping, this is not what he would’ve imagined at all. He never would’ve thought he could be so calm. He would’ve thought there’d be a fear so great it chattered his teeth and shook his limbs, that he might curl into a ball and cry until he passed out.

Perhaps once, that would’ve happened. No—definitely once, it would’ve happened. But once, the fear had overwhelmed him because he’d never known what safety felt like.

And then there was his Daddy.

His Daddy, who worships him. His Daddy, whose near-daily mantra is: No one hurts my baby boy.

And he is Daddy’s baby boy. He is the one no one can hurt anymore.

They aren’t just words. His Daddy has proven it again and again, has shown that he will not abide any harm coming to him, whether that harm is physical, mental, or emotional. Nothing bad is allowed to touch him anymore; his Daddy has decreed it so.

So, yes, Steve has been kidnapped, and yes, he is scared, but not so much so that it blots out everything else. He’s scared, but he isn’t worried. His Daddy is coming. He knows that with more certainty than he knows his own name.

The only thing he has to do, he realizes, is survive. Daddy will do the rest. Whoever took him, whatever hurt they inflict, his Daddy will take care of it all. His only job is to survive long enough for Daddy to get here.

Someone takes the bag off his head.

Steve finds himself in the living room of a rather quaint-looking farmhouse. At least, he thinks it’s a farmhouse; it’s far too spacious for a house in the city. and that living room is full of people with guns. They’re of varying shapes and sizes, and a variety of ages, with the youngest two being the men standing directly in front of him. They look to be around his own age.

Kids, his Daddy would call them. Steve might be his baby boy, but he’s definitely old enough to know the consequences of his actions, and so are these two.

When one of them sees his face, he flinches hard, pressing the butt of his gun to the side of his head.

“Jesus fuck,” he whispers. “Jesus fuck. What the fuck did you do?”

This sentiment, though not repeated, seems to be shared with at least a handful of his cohorts. It’s interesting to watch the ripple effect, to look into each face and see who recognizes him.

Many don’t. They look at him blankly or tilt their heads curiously, trying to figure out why the young man reacted the way he did over the very sight of Steve; he isn’t, after all, a very intimidating figure.

The ignorance is to be expected, of course. His Daddy keeps him so well protected, so wonderfully sheltered. If Daddy had it his way, no one in his world would ever know about Steve’s existence—he would’ve kept his work and Steve completely separate for the rest of their lives, if he could have. Probably for this exact reason. 

He’d tried his best in the beginning, but Steve couldn’t be parted from his Daddy for too long in those days. Even just an hour or two would feel like his insides were being shredded. Like he was being abandoned for good and left to fend for himself among the wolves.

He doesn’t think that anymore. Here he is, in a den of wolves, and he knows he isn’t abandoned. Far, far from it. The only wolf to truly fear is the one coming to protect him.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” The second young man snaps. “We needed leverage, I got us leverage. I’m not seeing the problem here!”

So, Steve thinks. This is his kidnapper. His Daddy will not be kind to this young man, whether or not he views him as a kid.

“The problem,” says a grizzled voice from the corner, belonging to an older man with a silver beard rolling a toothpick between his lips, “is you use leverage to get what you want, kid, but you have to be alive to enjoy it. When you said you nabbed someone in Barnes’ operation, I didn’t think you’d been this fucking stupid.”

“What are you talking about?” Someone else asks, a young woman with braided hair and gothic makeup. She looks incredulously between the man with the toothpick and the two in front of Steve and then, finally, to Steve himself. “He’s just a kid? He can’t be more than a runner for Barnes, how much leverage could he even be? Does Barnes even know who this kid is?”

Steve doesn’t know whether to frown at the jab toward his age or laugh over her estimation of his importance. She looks around the same age as the young men, maybe a year or two older, which means she’s only a year or two older than him.

Steve clears his throat delicately.

“I don’t work for him, actually,” he tells the woman politely, “but I promise, I’m older than I look.”

His kidnapper sneers.

“Oh, you work for him, alright. On your back.” Like it’s an insult; something to be ashamed of. He looks at the young woman. “This is Barnes’ piece of ass.”

Oh, his Daddy despises that phrase. He hates to hear Steve reduced to such crude, emotionless terms.

“Rumor has it Barnes is fond of him. Fond enough, he’ll bargain for him back. If he’s reasonable, we’ll even give him back unused.”

Someone in the room sucks in a harsh breath. More than someone, even.

Steve doesn’t. Despite himself, despite the situation, Steve—starts to laugh. It’s soft and light, almost a giggle, but it turns every head in the room.

Rumor has it. 

Fond.

Un. Used.

It isn’t funny, not really, but it also very much is. Steve’s shoulders shake as his head falls back to meet his kidnapper’s furious gaze.

“Oh, my Daddy is going to kill you,” he says with relish, smiling up at him, “and then he’s going to fuck me in your blood.”

“Oh,” the young woman says, blinking. “Damn.”

“The fuck did you just say, you little shit—”

“No, no, no—”

The second young man shields Steve from his lunging kidnapper frantically, but not fast enough to prevent the backhand that snaps his head to the side.

That fearful part of his brain—the part of him that’s triggered when someone is violent with him—starts to rise up, take over, but he doesn’t let it. He can’t. There’s no friendly face in this room, no one to protect him if he lets himself fall apart. Once upon a time, he didn’t have that choice. He couldn’t control it or overcome it, but he can now. Thanks to his Daddy, he has the strength.

Squeezing his eyes closed, he takes in a deep, harsh breath, stuffing it back down. He can fall apart later—will fall apart later in the safety of his Daddy’s arms—but not now. Now, he has to be strong. He has to survive. That’s his job.

Steve spits blood onto the ground and finally looks back up. The young woman is in his kidnappers face now, slapping his arms and shoulders as he cowers away. There’s a gun in his hand, but he hasn’t thought to use it to ward her off.

“His sub?” The young woman is shouting, Steve’s words apparently having finally penetrated, the dots finally connected. “You kidnapped his submissive? Have you lost your fucking mind?”

“Not just his sub,” Steve says. His voice is soft, but the woman still whirls to look at him. “I’m his partner, too. He loves me very, very much and I can promise you, he already knows I’m missing. He probably already knows where I am and he’s on his way here right now.”

It’s impossible to know that, but somehow, he’s never been more sure of anything in his life. Somehow, some way, he can feel it, like a living thing in his chest. 

His Daddy knows he’s in danger. He’s on his way. He’s near.

“Don’t lie,” his kidnapper sneers. “Your routine doesn’t have you back at his house for hours.”

“Our house,” Steve corrects. “And it doesn’t matter. He’ll know. He checks in with me throughout the day. If he texts me and I don’t text him back, he’ll know something is wrong.”

“Controlling bastard, ain’t he?”

For the first time since he was grabbed, Steve feels something: anger. Real, white-hot anger flaring big and bright inside him. He glares furiously.

They can say whatever they want about him—do whatever they want to him—he doesn’t care about that. That isn’t his anger to hold; that’s his Daddy’s score to settle. But he’ll hear nothing bad about his Daddy, ever. Not about the man who saved him, healed him. The man that loves him so deeply, so fiercely, that not even Steve’s demons can doubt it anymore.

“Don’t ever talk about him that way,” he snarls, his venom surprising even him. “He’s protective, and only as much as I need him to be. Which is why if any of you hurt me, he’s going to kill you. If any of you stand by and let someone else hurt me, he’s going to kill you. The only way out of this is for you to call him right now and tell him that you didn’t know. Tell him that I’m okay, this was all a mistake, and that you’re letting me go.”

“That’s exactly what we’re going to do,” the young woman says. “I’m not dying because of your stupidity, Benji.”

She nudges the second young man, and he nods frantically, the two of them kneeling in unison beside the chair, one at his feet and the other at his back to untie him. The sound of a gun cocking makes them freeze—it isn’t Benji.

It’s another man, one who’s stayed silent so far.

“We’re definitely not doing that,” he says calmly, shotgun pointed at them. “If what the kid is saying is true, letting him go is the wrong move. We can trade his safety for ours.”

“That’s the wrong move,” someone else says. “Were you even listening?”

The room devolves into chaos, hackles and guns rising on all sides, everyone arguing on what to do. Steve takes note of the ones who want to set him free and those who don’t; unfortunately for them, most of the group is against his freedom. But even those who want to keep him can’t agree on how to best to use him. 

They’re a very divided group, this bunch, and so busy arguing that no one notices the front door silently swinging open or the shadows slipping through.

Steve’s heart soars. His Daddy is here.

He looks at the two still kneeling beside him.

“Stay next to me,” he tells them. “I’ll keep you safe.”

They glance at each other and then at him, utterly confused, but only for a moment. Within seconds, his Daddy’s men descend upon the room. 

His kidnappers fall laughably easy. They’re a small, ragtag group and already divided. There’s no trust among them, no loyalty. Unlike his Daddy’s organization in every way, where loyalty and trust are key to their growth and survival.

Danny, of all people, strides through the chaos toward Steve with a murderous look trained on the two still near him.

“Danny,” Steve says sweetly, stopping him. “They tried to help me.”

Danny pauses, visibly recalibrating. He nods, tucking away his gun and instead pulling out a knife.

“Alright, kid,” he says, his voice uncharacteristically hoarse. “I’ll let him know. Out of the way, you two.”

They scramble out of the way, letting Danny cut away Steve’s bindings. Steve watches him with a frown.

“What are you doing here?” He asks. “You’re still sick.”

And he is. His skin is still sickly pale, his red-rimmed eyes sunken and bruised, and his lips are chapped. He looks haggard, exhausted. Even just this much activity has sapped the energy from him.

“Worry about yourself, kid,” Danny says dryly. “I’m out a few days and you get kidnapped? What’s that about?”

Steve smiles. “Maybe I just missed you. Did you ever think about that?”

“That’s enough outta you.” Danny snorts, cutting the last of the ropes away. “Your Daddy’s not gonna find your flirting cute today, you’re liable to get me killed.”

“Oh,” says a deceptively calm voice at the door, “someone is definitely going to die today.”

Just the sound of his voice warms Steve instantly, from the top of his head all the way down to the tips of his toes. It’s an instant, swelling, tingling kind of warmth that leaves Steve breathless. He looks up, his heart stuttering in his chest when he finally, finally sees his Daddy.

Daddy walks in, surveying the room. His captors have all fallen, held at gunpoint while someone ties them up and their weapons are collected. Daddy looks at each of them, cataloging every face that took his boy. They all flinch when his gaze falls to them. They know theirs is a short, bleak future.

Finally, Daddy turns to him. He starts at the top of Steve’s head, looking him over at a glacial pace, his gaze lingering on Steve’s stinging cheek, his lips, his wrists, his ankles. Every mark he sees makes the storm brewing in his eyes grow darker. 

He kneels in front of Steve, taking his wrists between large, warm hands and kissing the marks there.

“Are you alright, sweetheart?” Daddy asks gently, his thumb caressing along the fine bone in Steve’s wrist.

“I am now, Daddy,” Steve promises.

Daddy kisses his wrists again, turning them over this time to get every inch of the rope marks. Without looking up, he asks, “Is that blood I see on your lip, baby?”

“Yes, Daddy.”

Daddy hums, so very deceptively calm. 

“Tell me what happened,” he orders. “Start at the beginning.”

Steve doesn’t know what makes him do it, but before he obeys, he stands, slipping out of his Daddy’s grasp. Walking across the room to where Benji is held at gunpoint, Steve kneels down in front of him with all the grace of a boy who likes to spend a lot of time on his knees. 

Benji glares back at him mutinously, but Steve sees it—the glimmer of apprehension in his eyes. His gaze jumps over Steve’s shoulder just before a large hand rests atop Steve’s head, stroking his hair.

“Baby?” Daddy prompts.

Steve smiles sweetly, looking right into Benji’s eyes.

“He took me from school between classes,” he recounts obediently, never looking away. “I don’t know what they wanted from you, Daddy, but they needed leverage. The others didn’t know it would be me until we got here. Some of them tried to tell him it was a bad idea. But Benji said I was good leverage. He said I was the piece of ass you were fond of and you’d bargain to get me back.”

The man holding a gun to Benji’s head grimaces. They all know how much his Daddy hates that particular turn of phrase.

What Steve does next is cruel. He knows it’s cruel. He knows before he does it that it will be the single cruelest thing he’s ever done. He shouldn’t, but Benji—well, Benji insulted his Daddy. He still has to answer for that.

Still holding Benji’s gaze, Steve says, “He said if you were reasonable, Daddy, he’d even give me back unused.”

The room stops breathing. The hand in his hair freezes. Somewhere close, Danny swears under his breath. Daddy’s men look at each other uneasily, shifting their weight. The one standing behind Benji is so dumbfounded, he actually lowers his gun.

Rage so black, so potent, it should have its own name rolls off his Daddy in thick, suffocating waves. Steve feels it like an actual, tangible thing pushing against his back, but rather than frighten him, it calms him. That rage settles over him like a comforting blanket, bringing with it a sense of absolute peace.

That rage will never touch him—this, he knows better than his own name. It’s for him. It protects him.

“Is that so?” Daddy asks, his voice a soft, delicate thing.

Whatever Benji sees on his Daddy’s face breaks him. Gone is the mutiny in his eyes, the arrogance, the cocksure way he’d been acting since he pressed a gun into Steve’s back. 

“No,” he bursts out, shaking his head too quickly, “no, no, no—I didn’t—I didn’t mean it, I didn’t mean any of it, I didn’t mean it, I swear—”

Daddy takes a single step around Steve, pulling a gun from underneath his jacket and shoving it between Benji’s lips.

“Don’t lie, kid,” Daddy says, his voice still soft, still so deceptively calm. “Lying will get your tongue cut out. You meant it when you had the power. Now that the power’s been taken away from you, you want it to be different. But truthfully, it doesn’t matter if you meant it. What matters is you said it. The words are violence on their own and I think you know that.”

Benji sobs around the barrel, looking up at Daddy with his wide, frightened eyes, the tears spilling over. Steve can’t quite tell anymore if he’s shaking his head or just shaking.

Daddy squats down to his eye level.

“Is he the one that put that mark on your cheek, baby?” Daddy asks without looking at Steve. “Is he the one that made you bleed?”

“Yes, Daddy. When he said it, I told him you were going to kill him and he hit me.”

Daddy hums, nodding to himself as he looks Benji over. Benji trembles, shaking his head, trying to talk around the gun but there’s no way to make out a single word.

Daddy shushes him softly.

“Do you know what’s made me the man I am today?” He murmurs to Benji. He leans close, like he’s sharing a secret. “Information, kid. You can never put too much importance on it. I’ve never made a single move until I have all the facts. Until I know for sure that what I’ve been told is fact. Your problem—well, you seem to have two of them from where I’m sitting. The first is that you didn’t check your sources. You didn’t verify. Because if you did, kid? You would’ve known better. The most precious thing in my life, the most priceless fucking thing I own, and you put a gun on it? Called it a piece of ass? Hit it, spilled its blood, threatened to fucking—”

Daddy snarls, gritting his teeth, unable to finish the sentence. He’s so enraged, he trembles with it.

He shoves the gun deeper, gagging Benji on it, pulling back the hammer so slowly that every tiny click is heard in the silence. Leaning in close, his voice drops to a low, menacing rumble that sends shivers up and down Steve’s spine when he says, “You would’ve fucking known better.”

Benji sobs so hard he keeps gagging, squeezing his eyes closed. Daddy lets him live in the terror—wondering when the shot will come, when it’ll be over—for long, agonizing seconds before he releases the hammer again.

“You also would’ve known that you’d never get off that easy,” he comments, moving the gun side to side, shaking Benji’s head like he’s reprimanding him. “Which brings us to your second problem: I think you have a habit of pissing off the wrong people, kid. Who you talked to is of no concern to me right now—you’ll give me that name before you die and I think we both know that—but whoever it was, you must’ve pissed ‘em off something fierce. That’s very specific wording you used, calling him a piece of ass.”

He finally pulls the gun back, tapping the barrel against Benji’s lips with each word as he says, “Wording that everyone knows I hate.”

He slips the gun back inside when Benji tries to speak.

“Someone gave it to you on purpose,” Daddy continues, “because they knew we’d end up here. The most interesting part, though, isn’t that they set you up. It’s that I know about it. There’s no hiding that you hit my baby. I see the mark on his cheek, he wouldn’t have been able to give you the mercy of telling me later. But he didn’t have to tell me the other things, not right away. I love my baby, but he’s too fucking sweet. He tries to show mercy where I have none. 

“And yet, there’s no mercy for you tonight, kid. He went out of his way to take it away from you. He made sure to sit right here in front of you when he told me, to watch the hope leave your eyes when you realized just how fucked you truly are. Which begs the fucking question: what the fuck else did you do to my baby to make him do that? What could be worse than what I already know?”

Daddy pulls the gun from his lips again, shoving it under his chin. “Tell me. I want to hear you say it. I’m your God today, kid. Confess your sins before you die.”

“Nothing,” Benji sobs quietly. “N-Nothing, that was it, I swear—I don’t know—nothing—”

Daddy hums, considering. He stands, never taking his eyes from Benji.

“I don’t believe you. But don’t worry, I have some tools that I think will help loosen your tongue. Danny, stay with him.”

He doesn’t mean Benji. Danny’s job would never be anything but Steve.

Daddy is halfway to the door when Danny asks, “Boss? What about the ones who helped him?”

Daddy stops, looking back, his gaze going right to Steve. Steve nods obediently.

“Some of them wanted to give me back as soon as they saw me, Daddy,” he says. “Some of them even tried, but the others put guns on them. I know which ones, I kept track.”

“Of course you did, baby.”

Daddy smiles approvingly, before letting his gaze sweep the rest of the room.

“If you were going to do the right thing, you live,” he says to those bound and kneeling. “If you weren’t, you can sit tight. I’ll get to you. Point them out for the men, sweetheart, we’ll let them go. But let me make this clear to everyone: if I see you near him again, you won’t be shown the same mercy twice. And whatever little job you were planning? It dies today. Stay away from what’s mine if you value your life.”

As Daddy gathers his tools and the men obediently release those that helped, Danny squats down beside Steve.

“You gonna tell me what he did?” He asks, nodding to Benji.

Steve likes Danny. In fact, he likes Danny a lot. He probably would’ve told him, friends that they are, if not for the desperate way Benji looks at him. He wants the answer, too, so that he can save himself the agony he knows is coming.

Steve shakes his head. “Not yet,” he says simply.

The agony does come. Steve watches a safe distance away from the blood spatter, sitting neatly on a table with Danny at his shoulder. 

His Daddy carves into Benji’s body, making him recount the day again and again and again. Somehow, Benji always forgets that one moment—the one comment that damned him. It was so irrelevant, and Steve’s anger toward it so insignificant to him, that even as he reaches for new details each time, he doesn’t recall it.

The price for insulting his Daddy is a very specific amount of pain. Steve doesn’t know precisely what that amount is, but he knows the moment it’s reached. Something in him relaxes, the anger finally melting away.

Poor Benji, he thinks, has suffered enough.

Finally, as he watches Benji struggle to breathe and his Daddy stand back to survey his work, Steve gives the mercy he once denied:

“He insulted you, Daddy.”

Daddy looks up, and the entire room looks with him.

There is a monster that lives inside his Daddy, one that enjoys the blood and gore, enjoys being the god of someone’s suffering. It's a special monster, though, one that only ever seems to make an appearance when Steve is in danger. The monster looks back at him now, dead-eyed and calm, drenched in blood, the knives in his hands still dripping with it.

He should be frightening, but Steve could never be frightened. Not of his Daddy. Not ever.

“What’s that, baby?” Daddy asks, tilting his head, abandoning his task to sidle closer.

“That’s why I did it,” Steve confesses. “Because he insulted you. I told him that you checked on me throughout the day and he called you a controlling bastard. So I told you all the bad things he said, knowing what would happen, because he needed to pay for that.”

Daddy stops in front of him, resting his bloody hands on either side of Steve’s hips. He kisses the corner of Steve’s lips.

“Baby,” he murmurs. “I don’t give a fuck what some moronic little shit says about me.”

Steve frowns delicately, grabbing the open collar of his Daddy’s bloodied shirt to keep him close.

“But I do,” he says plainly. “I love you, Daddy. I hate hearing people say bad things about you. It hurts me.”

He settles a palm on his Daddy’s cheek, leaning up for a kiss.

“No one gets away with hurting your baby, Daddy,” he whispers. “That’s what you said. If no gets to hurt your baby, that means no one gets to insult my Daddy. Ever. I don't like it.”

The look Daddy gives him then is so soft and achingly tender, full of love, devotion, desire. Daddy cups his face, kissing his lips lightly.

“There aren’t fucking words for how much I love you, baby boy,” he murmurs, and then kisses him again, more deeply this time. It’s a slow, sensual kiss that belongs in their lovemaking and not in the middle of a crowded crime scene, but neither of them care. 

“I told him you would fuck me in his blood, Daddy,” Steve whispers when their lips part.

Daddy smiles, kissing his nose sweetly.

--

One thing I think about a lot is Steve developing a kink for being desired.

Like, he’s never thought of himself as desirable. He’s never felt desirable or beautiful or wanted, none of it. Depending on the ‘verse, he’s been actively told/shown the opposite over and over again throughout his life.

And then he meets Bucky and that all changes. For a long while, it’s too hard to believe that even Bucky finds him desirable. This handsome, virile man, the pinnacle of Alpha perfection, wants him? Lusts after him? The discarded, unwanted skinny little Omega runt? It’s almost laughable.

But eventually, his Daddy’s devoted love and attention make it less so. Eventually, he starts to not only believe that Bucky wants him, but believe all the things Bucky says about him. He starts to feel it. With his Daddy, he feels beautiful, sensual, desirable, wanted.

And that’s what he starts to notice: somehow, some way, it isn’t just his Daddy. Others look at him like that, too.

It’s a heady thing, the idea that anyone could desire him, but the combination that gets him the hottest is when it’s an older male Alpha Dom. He’s so fucking weak for it, the heavy, dominating musk of arousal, seeing the rigid outline of a hard cock so big and thick that it can’t be hidden, knowing that he’s the cause.

Sometimes, when Daddy wants to especially spoil him, he holds a gathering, every guest meticulously vetted. 

A room full of older men, all of them Alphas, all of them Doms, and Steve the only boy among them. Every eye in the room on him, their heavy, wanting gazes crawling along his body, pheromones heavy in the air. 

Oh, Steve is the prettiest fucking boy, then.

Steve, an indecent little skirt swishing around his creamy thighs, flitting among a small crowd of older men handpicked to make him feel innocent and little and good. 

At the start of the night, he’s a gorgeously coy, shy, flirty boy. He makes no secret of how badly he wants their attention, their eyes on him—these handsome, dominating men—but there’s no need for him to worry. From the moment his Daddy guides him into the room, he has these men. Every ounce of their attention. Every drop of their lust. After all, the whole point of this night is his pleasure. There’s no point in inviting someone who doesn’t desire him.

Daddy kisses the top of his head. 

“Go play, baby,” he murmurs, urging him forward. “I’ll be watching and they already know the rules. You just enjoy yourself.”

The moment Steve steps among the crowd of Alphas, he’s instantly overwhelmed. Each and every one of them towers over him, their bodies deliciously big and broad, each one exuding such power that his insides quiver. Just being in their presence makes him feel so little and young and helpless.

Every Alpha in the room has an indulgent smile ready for him and every one of them speaks to him with the same gently domineering tone his Daddy uses—the one that somehow conveys with every word that Steve is a boy. A young pup. It makes him feel so little inside, he’s dizzy with it.

He’s so bashful under their attention, blushing so beautifully and unable to look any of them in the eye. Sometimes, he grows so flustered he can’t stand still anymore, his hips swaying as he bites his lip and giggles.

The whole room is enchanted by him. They might be his weakness, but he is theirs, too. A delicate, feminine boy, breathtakingly gorgeous, bashful and eager to please.

This dainty little creature that blushes so hard under their attention, exuding such innocence as he giggles and flirts when his scent is anything but innocent. That indecent little skirt teasing the tops of his thighs, showing off shapely legs and smooth, creamy thighs and just the hint of his pert little ass when he moves just right.

Not a single one of them could stop themselves from hardening even if they wanted to. Faced with such a boy, their bodies’ reaction is utterly outside their control.

Their already-dominating scents growing thicker with arousal, pheromones filling the air. It’s no time at all before the room reeks of sex and want and hunger.

The pheromones make Steve drunk, dragging him deeper into the headspace he loves. He stumbles among the small crowd on shaky legs, feeling so good that his whole body visibly trembles, his head swimming. His skin is hot and tight, prickling with his pleasure. His cock is painfully hard, his little hole so wet that his panties are soaked with it.

He wants to be mounted. He wants to lay down and cry—to show them all how helpless he is, how good it feels. He wants to open his thighs and let an Alpha between them. He wants a heavy, dominating weight on top of him, smothering him. He wants to be fucked mercilessly until he’s knotted. 

They all know it. They can see it in the inviting curve of his body. They can smell it in his scent. He wants, and they want, too. 

Every single one of them is panting shamelessly for it, the chance to mount the gorgeous, submissive pup among them. The chance to well and truly play with this delicate, innocent boy.

But none of them will, because it’s all a game. One that they all agreed to before this night—to tease the boy and be teased in return.

There’s only one Alpha among them allowed between those perfect, creamy thighs, only one knot in the room that will know the bliss of that hot, tight little body. If the rest of them are very, very lucky, the most they’ll be allowed is the privilege of watching that Alpha mount the pup—of seeing the boy’s need finally fulfilled.

Maybe there’s one particular Alpha in the room, he’s one of the oldest, if not the oldest Alpha there. Older than Steve by maybe, what…fifteen? Twenty years? Maybe he was Bucky’s mentor when Bucky was a wet-behind-the-ears Dom—the man who showed him how to be a proper Daddy. 

Bucky knows what makes Steve the weakest, and he knows exactly what this Alpha will do to his boy. This Alpha will be his baby’s favorite.

There are laugh lines around the Alpha’s eyes and mouth, his dark hair streaked generously with silver—his head, his trimmed beard, the chest hair peeking out from his flannel shirt. 

He’s a ruggedly handsome, beefy, salt-of-the-earth sort of man—the kind of man that you can look at and tell that every ounce of his strength came from hard work and manual labor, not the gym—and he’s deliciously large. Barrel-chested with thick arms, his thighs the size of tree trunks, huge, meaty hands with worn callouses and scarred knuckles.

Sitting in a chair near the edge of the room, he exudes calm confidence, as if this is a normal gathering of acquaintances, nevermind the prominent bulge snaking along the inner thigh of his worn jeans. His arms are folded casually, patiently waiting for Steve to make it to his side of the room. 

The moment Steve first notices the hot, rugged, older Alpha watching him, his body pulses so hot, he thinks he might come. He looks away, his cheeks heating. A second later, he can’t help but sneak another peek.

A little whimper escapes him when he sees the small, knowing smile twisting those full lips. He looks away again, feeling more shy under this man’s attention than any others, his insides hot and quivering. Even from afar, Steve knows: in a room full of dominant Alphas, this man is the most dominant. 

Just a glimpse of that large, rugged Alpha from across the crowded room, and Steve has the overwhelming urge to show the man his belly. To submit to him, utterly and completely. It’s what a man like that demands and what a boy like Steve craves to do.

On the third glance, his gaze drops to the man’s lap. He’s been doing it all night, sneaking little peeks at each Alpha’s hard cock. He can smell their arousal, sure, but it isn’t enough. He wants—needs—to see it, the physical proof of their lust for him. Most of the men present are wearing dark clothes, their hardened cocks visible but not blatant. Little more than shadows, imprints, in the dim light of the room. 

This Alpha is more than blatant. He’s obscene. His jeans are old, worn thin, faded into a light, almost white, blue. They’re so tight on his big thighs that nothing is hidden, the fabric molded perfectly around a large, thick cock. Steve swears he can almost see its veins throbbing beneath the cloth. A dark, wet spot spreads from where the cockhead rests.

He gasps softly, tearing his gaze away, his chest heaving as he stares wide-eyed at the group of Alphas in front of him. He’d been so flustered under their attention only a minute ago, but now that attention feels like a reprieve. It’s almost too much, the way the rugged Alpha makes him feel. With so many large, dominating men around him, lusting after him, drowning him in pheromones, and then to see him.

The Alphas in front of him are saying something, but Steve can’t hear them over the blood rushing in his ear, the heat throbbing in his body. He blinks, and he sees nothing but that obscene bulge in light jeans.

Helplessly, he looks back at the rugged Alpha. The Alpha still has that knowing little smile on his lips. He lifts a single finger and crooks it. This is a man confident that he will be obeyed.

He’s right. A man this dominant, Steve doesn’t just want to obey him. He needs to. 

The moment the Alpha crooks that finger, he feels an answering tug in his belly. His body moves of its own volition, obeying out of the purest, basest instinct borne to him. He stops just outside the Alpha’s spread thighs, folding his hands behind his back to stop himself from fidgeting under that heavy gaze. 

This close, the Alpha’s dominating presence is too much for him. It demands total, complete submission and Steve—who delights in pleasing older men, who’s submissive to the very marrow of his bones, and who already desperately wants to show this man his belly—has no defenses against it. In this Alpha’s presence, he can’t even lift his head to look the man in his handsome face, let alone his eyes. 

Keeping head bowed in deference, he tilts his head just so to expose his collared throat, showing obedience and submission not just as a boy, but as an Omega. More than anything, he wants this man to look at him and deem him worthy. To find him pleasing.

He needn’t have worried. If this man is his ultimate weakness in a room full of them, Steve is his in return—the Alpha shares Bucky’s tastes exactly. To him, Steve is a boy pulled out of his most carnal fantasies, and even then, those fantasies pale in comparison to the perfection before him, shy and blushing and still desperate for his attention. 

“Hi,” Steve whispers, bashful.

The Alpha smiles softly, already utterly enchanted. Oh, to have the privilege of coaxing a boy so innocent and beautiful into his lap, to slip his cock underneath that short little skirt and make this perfect boy gasp and moan. There’d be no greater pleasure than his knot in this pup and this Alpha knows it.

“Hi, gorgeous,” he murmurs.

The Alpha’s voice is soft and warm and deep, just the hint of a rumble in it. It’s the perfect voice, Steve thinks dazedly, to whisper filthy, filthy things into a boy’s ear. 

His lowered head puts his gaze right on the obscene bulge along the Alpha’s inner thigh. Once his gaze catches on it, he can’t look away again. He bites his lip to stop a shameless, hungry little whine, his cock pulsing precome until he’s surprised that there isn’t a wet spot staining his skirt.

The Alpha hums, the sounds so low it almost sounds like a groan. Steve’s skin prickles under that heavy, lingering gaze. 

The way the man looks at him, it reminds Steve of the way Daddy looks at him—like it’s his right to do so. Like Steve is a possession, an object for his pleasure. Perhaps he shouldn’t like it so much, being looked at in such a way, but he does. 

It makes him feel good. It makes him feel desirable.

“Aren’t you just the most precious little thing,” the Alpha murmurs softly. “Where on earth did your Daddy find such a perfect, perfect boy?”

Steve doesn’t know how to answer that, but he must not be expected to, because after a second, the Alpha asks him warmly, “Are you having a good time tonight, pup?”

There’s no stopping Steve’s whine this time. Not when he can do nothing but stare at that obscene, fat bulge, not when the Alpha coos at him and calls him perfect and pup in that deep, rumbling voice. Steve whimpers, feeling so little that all he wants to do is cry for this man—to show him that he’s right, that Steve is a pup, little and utterly helpless, and it feels so, so good.

“Yes, Alpha,” he answers meekly, and even to his own ears, he sounds small and young. Every inch the boy he’s been called.

“Do you feel good?”

Deliriously so, under this Alpha’s attention. But what Steve says is another soft, obedient, “Yes, Alpha.”

The Alpha sits forward on the edge of his seat, spreading his legs wider, showing off more of that mouthwatering bulge.

“What’s the matter, pup?” He asks, all gentle sympathy. “You don’t want to talk to me?”

Steve makes a broken little noise.

“I do,” he promises desperately. At that moment, there’s no greater fear than the idea that the Alpha will look away from him, stop talking to him, dismiss him. Losing this Alpha’s attention will feel like the greatest failure of his life.

The Alpha ducks his head, trying to catch Steve’s eye. 

“Then why won’t you look at me, pup?” He asks. His hand drops casually to his thigh. “Or does something else have your attention? Is that it, hm? Have you seen something you like, precious boy?”

Steve whimpers, his cheeks heating as he realizes he’s been caught. He should look away now, should tear his gaze away and apologize, but he can’t. He’s only a boy, after all. He can’t help it.

“Yes, Alpha,” he admits without ever lifting his gaze.

He can feel the Alpha radiating amusement, and it only serves to drive him deeper into pleasure. To make him feel even more like the boy he is. 

The tips of the Alpha’s deliciously thick fingers tease along the length of his bulge.

“Is it this, pup?” The Alpha coos in a whisper. “Do you like cock, is that it?”

Somewhere in the room, Bucky laughs softly.

“You have no idea,” he murmurs, low enough that only the Alphas can hear him. His runt of a boy, with his dulled senses, won’t catch it and that’s just fine by him. His baby boy has found his surprise and Bucky doesn’t want to distract him from playing with it.

In front of the Alpha, Steve’s face burns as he admits, “Yes, Alpha.”

“How much, pup? How much does a gorgeous little thing like you like cock?”

At first, Steve is at a loss. He has no idea how to describe the depth of his own cravings, how to tell the Alpha that every time he sees his Daddy’s cock, there’s a bone-deep need to have it inside him. That he’d do anything to touch it, taste it, play with it, have it in him. That if Daddy makes him look for too long without allowing him to do just that, he gets so needy inside that all he can do is sit there and cry. 

How does he explain that sometimes, he gets so hungry, needs the weight of it on his tongue, filling his mouth, choking him so good, needs to suck on it like a greedy little boy and yet he needs just as badly for Daddy to mount him and the fact that he can’t have both at the same time is a source of eternal torment to him?

He doesn’t know how to say any of that, and yet the thought of ignoring the Alpha’s question makes him sick. He wants very badly to be found good and obedient by this man. Just as he’s about to grow upset, Steve thinks about how his Daddy would soothe him in a moment like this, and suddenly, he knows just what to say.

Shyly, he whispers, “Daddy lets me nurse when I’ve been good or—or when I’m upset. It, um. It makes me feel better, Alpha. When it’s in my mouth.”

The Alpha groans softly, and he isn’t the only one. The others have gathered to watch and listen, and Steve’s admission has them shifting restlessly, the pheromones in the air growing thicker. 

For once, Steve hardly notices. He notices almost nothing outside this Alpha and his dominating presence, his heavy sunwarmed-leather scent, his own thick pheromones.

“Is that so?” The Alpha coos. “What else, pup? Take your time.”

Steve does, thinking hard, desperate to please this man. 

Finally, he says, “Sometimes Daddy makes me choose, Alpha. Between—between coming and having it.”

“Have you ever chosen to come, boy? Even once?”

Steve shakes his head.

“Why not, pup?”

“It doesn’t feel as good,” he answers truthfully. 

An orgasm without Daddy inside him is an empty one, muted and unfulfilling. All it does it make him need his Daddy even more. He doesn’t know true satisfaction until he comes with Daddy in his mouth or on top of him, in his needy little hole—anything else is just a tease.

This earns another smattering of groans. 

“What do you like about it so much, pup?” The Alpha asks. “Hm? What is it about a cock that makes you feel so good?”

“It’s so big,” Steve blurts out, and even he doesn’t know if he’s talking about his Daddy’s or the Alpha’s or in general, but either way, it’s true.

He is forever a boy in love with a big cock.

A big cock brings into sharp focus how small his own is, and in turn, makes him feel small. A big cock is a heavy cock, and he loves the weight of it. Loves cradling its heft in his palm, loves feeling that weight on his tongue, loves the girth of it between his lips, loves suckling on it messily, greedily, until there’s drool dripping from his chin and his jaw aches and his lips are sore and even then, he won’t stop. Can’t stop, not unless Daddy makes him, and if he did, Steve wouldn’t be able to stop himself from crying until he was allowed to have it again. It’s tantamount to torture, putting a hard cock in his mouth and not letting him keep it until it comes. Until he can taste a man’s pleasure, breathe in the heavy musk of his satisfaction, feel that fat cock soften between his lips. 

Most of all, he loves how a big cock hurts just right when he’s mounted. He’s a tiny little thing, a runt of an Omega, and a well-endowed Alpha like his Daddy makes him ache so good every time. It makes him feel perfectly, deliciously small. There’s nothing in the world as good as having a big, heavy body on top of him, forcing his thighs apart, being kissed and coaxed and cooed at while a fat cock hurts his tight little hole and all he can do is claw weakly at his Daddy’s hips as he cries and cries and cries. 

He loves knowing that no matter how wet he is or gentle his Daddy is, it still aches. He loves knowing that he can’t speed Daddy up or slow him down—he loves, loves, loves when he tries and Daddy ignores him, when Daddy proves again and again and again that Steve is a helpless, weak boy underneath him, little and small, that all he can do is lay there and take it and cry while Daddy fucks him however he likes. 

Every part of it drives home that Daddy is strong and he isn’t, that Daddy is big and he is little, that Daddy is a man, and Steve? Steve is just a boy. It’s what he craves, that feeling, that reminder. It’s what he needs. And when he gets it, it makes him delirious. His little hole gets so wet and he cries so hard and he can’t help but show Daddy just how much of a boy he is, coming on himself just the way a boy should, without a touch to his little cock.

It’s pleasure in its purest form and it all starts with a thick, fat cock.

The Alpha laughs softly. “You like a big cock that much, pup?”

“Yes, Alpha.”

The Alpha hums thoughtfully.

“I do have a very big cock,” he says after a moment, “and you haven’t been able to take your eyes off it since you spotted it. Should I take it out for you, pup? Would you like to see more of it?”

Steve’s breath catches.

Could he?

The thought excites him so much, he tears his gaze away from the Alpha’s obscene bulge to look at his face for the first time.

“Really?” He asks, hopeful, earnest. And then, remembering his manners, he adds hastily, “May I, Alpha? Will you? Please?”

The Alpha smiles softly. 

“So polite,” the Alpha murmurs, his approval clear enough to make Steve whine in response. “Your Daddy taught you well. Of course, sweetheart. I’d love nothing more than to take out my cock for such an adorable little pup.”

The Alpha untucks his flannel shirt, idly unbuttoning it as he looks Steve over again. When it hangs open, Steve barely has time to appreciate the hairy, burly chest and soft belly revealed to him before the Alpha’s hands drop to his belt. The room is frozen, the only sound now the quiet clink of a buckle unbuckling and Steve’s labored, excited breath.

The Alpha pulls out his cock, letting it hang out of his open jeans, hard and heavy and on display.

“There you go, sweet boy,” the Alpha croons. “Is that what you wanted to see?”

Steve whimpers plaintively, his knees trembling.

“Yes,” he breathes out, unable to tear his gaze away from the cock displayed for him. “Yes, Alpha. Thank you.”

He licks his lips hungrily.

“Oh, look at you,” the Alpha coos in sympathy. “You really are such a cockhungry little boy, aren’t you? You poor little thing, have they been teasing you all night? Making you survive on scraps? I won’t do that to you, sweetheart. Not to a sweet little thing like you. You look as much as you want. I want you to. I want you to see what you’ve done to me. Go on, pup, look.”

Steve couldn’t stop himself if he tried. The Alpha is right; in hindsight, those little peeks he’s been sneaking all night were nothing but scraps, and this? This is a feast set before a starving boy.

God, it’s so big. Alphas are always, always so big, every single thing about them. Their heavy scents and huge bodies and thick cocks. They’re so dominating and immense that Steve can only feel young and helpless and little in response. 

This Alpha’s cock is just as perfect as his Daddy’s—a long, fat, meaty cock, every inch of it deliciously hard, rigid and throbbing, the plump head flushed and dripping. 

“For me, Alpha?” He whispers shakily.

“For you,” the Alpha promises. “Since the moment you walked in the room, sweetheart. Your Daddy knows exactly how much I love a sweet, innocent pup. He knew what a boy like you would do to me. Do you see it, pup? Do you see how much I’m aching for you?”

The Alpha’s heavy-lidded gaze is dark and hungry on him as he touches the base of his cock, where his knot his half-swollen.

“Every time I scent your wet little hole, my knot pulses for you, pup. It wants inside you so badly.”

His knot. 

Normally, a knot doesn’t start to swell unless an Alpha is about to come and usually only with a partner. It’s only when the Alpha is particularly aroused—by a compatible partner, and usually for an extended period of time—that a knot will swell without any direct stimulation. This Alpha’s knot is a testament to his desire for Steve. It’s a statement.

This Alpha wants him. Wants him so fucking badly, his body is trying to tie them together before they’ve ever even touched. That sort of carnal hunger can’t be exaggerated or faked.

Steve whimpers, his groin hot and tight and pulsing, the prickling heat spilling down into his thighs. The pleasure is so sharp, so exquisite, he could come from that knowledge alone.

This is what he loves so much about being desired. These men—these large, dominant men—crave him. They’d do anything for the chance to touch him. They might make him feel young and little and helpless, they might fluster him and make him feel shy and innocent, but they also make him feel powerful.

Being desired like this makes him feel powerful.

Another shudder rolls through Steve.

“Alpha,” he whimpers. 

The little hole in question gets slicker and in response, the pheromones in the room grow heavier. The Alpha’s cock jerks underneath his gaze, precome dripping from the tip. The Alpha spreads his legs wider, letting Steve watch. Letting him see the effect he’s having.

“I’m not alone, either,” the Alpha rumbles. “Every man in this room has a knot already swollen and aching for you, sweet boy, and if they don’t, they should leave. They don’t deserve to watch you prance around in that short little skirt, blushing so prettily and looking at us with those big, innocent eyes while your scent begs for filth. A boy as pretty as you should get what he wants, and this is what you want, isn’t it, pup? You want to be a little cocktease, don’t you, gorgeous? You want to make every cock in this room hard for you and then leave us aching.”

Steve blushes, caught.

“Is it bad?” He whispers, his shoulders hunching. The arousal in his scent dampening as he looks at the gathered Alphas. “Will you be mad at me?”

It feels good, being so desired. To—as the Alpha put it—prance around while they lust after him. But he doesn’t want to make them angry. He doesn’t want them to feel jilted. No matter what, he’s still a boy desperate to please. He can’t stand the thought that these Alphas might resent him by the end of the night. Especially not this big, rugged man, so handsome, so effortlessly commanding, dominating. The idea that this man might be displeased with him by the end of the night is too terrible a thought to bear. 

Somewhere in the room, Bucky stands. He’s left his boy to enjoy himself, watching closely to make sure his rules are followed by the other Alphas, and so far they have been. But if anyone upsets his pup, there will be hell to pay.

“No,” the Alpha promises, so warm and comforting that every worry Steve has instantly melts away. “No, sweetheart, don’t think that. You’re such a beautiful, beautiful boy. This is your right. This is what a beautiful boy does. You tease. You make men like me hard. You make us want things we can’t have. You can’t help it, pup, we know that. You’re just a boy, you’re just doing what boys do. We know. Let us make you feel good, beautiful. Be a pretty little boy for us and make us hard for you. We’ll thank you for the privilege.”

It isn’t just the Alpha’s words that put him at ease; it’s the murmur of agreement that ripples through the room.

Steve beams, so happy he’s glowing with it, wriggling and breathless, his scent blooming. The Alpha’s cock jerks again, his knot growing thicker as the Alpha groans softly.

“God, look at you,” he whispers, his heavy-lidded gaze traveling along Steve’s body again. “You really are the most beautiful boy I’ve ever seen.”

Steve blushes again, lowering his gaze shyly. Only for a moment, though, before he’s helplessly drawn back to the fat cock on display for him. He whimpers.

“Alpha?”

“What is it, pup?”

Steve bites his lip, his blush deepening as he peeks at the Alpha through his lashes.

“Will you touch it for me?” He whispers. “I want to watch you touch it. Please?”

The Alpha rumbles deep in his chest again, reaching down to fondle his knot.

“Would that make you feel good, pup? Watching me touch the cock that you teased? Knowing I’ll only be dreaming of mounting you while I ease the ache you caused? Would you like to see me come when you’re the thought in my head?”

“Yes,” Steve answers, breathless. “Yes, Alpha. Please?”

The Alpha hums in consideration, tilting his head.

“Does that seem fair to you, sweet boy?” He asks gently. “I’ve already made you feel good. I showed you my cock, showed you how swollen my knot is for you, told you what a pretty little boy you are. I’m letting you tease my cock without making you do anything about it. Don’t you think you should make me feel good before you ask for something else? Isn’t that what a good little boy would do?”

Steve whimpers, his knees almost giving out. God, that tone. That gentle, cooing reprimand, the way he’s guided to what the Alpha wants. This man makes him feel so, so good.

“How?” He begs. “How? I—anything, Alpha. Please, I want—please, please, anything, please—”

“Anything?” The Alpha repeats, smiling.

“Anything.”

“Take your clothes off, beautiful.”

Steve’s breath catches, a wave of blistering heat rippling through him so intensely that his vision momentarily blurs. He whimpers, goosebumps rising on his skin. 

No one except his Daddy has ever asked this of him. It feels illicit, like he’s been the naughtiest boy just from hearing the command. The very idea of undressing for another man—a half-naked man at that, his fat cock hard and exposed—it’s so—it’s so—

“Alpha?” He asks meekly, sounding younger than he has all night. 

He doesn’t know what he’s asking or what this feeling inside him is, doesn’t know if he loves it or hates it. The only thing he knows is the way his body trembles, the way he already feels exposed.

He doesn’t know, but the Alpha seems to.

“Hey, hey,” he soothes, soft and warm. “You’re alright, pup. Everything’s okay. Your Daddy’s right there. He’s been watching us this whole time. See?”

The Alpha nods over Steve’s shoulder, encouraging Steve to look. When he does, he sees his Daddy standing at the edge of the crowd of Alphas, watching him like a hawk. The very sight of him eases a tension Steve didn’t even know was inside him.

“Are you okay, baby?” Daddy asks gently. “Do you need me?”

Steve doesn’t answer right away. He looks from his Daddy to the Alpha and back again. 

In a small, hesitant voice, he asks, “Am I being bad, Daddy?”

Daddy’s expression melts into something achingly tender.

“Of course not, baby,” he promises. “What was Daddy’s rule for tonight?”

“No touching,” Steve answers obediently.

“That’s right.” Daddy smiles gently. “Have you touched him, baby? Has he touched you?”

“No, Daddy.”

“Then you’re not doing anything wrong, sweetheart,” Daddy says. “Tonight is about making you feel good. Do you feel good, baby?”

Steve glances at the Alpha again, blushing.

“He makes me feel really good, Daddy,” he admits in a whisper.

Daddy’s smile is knowing now, smug. “I thought he might.” 

Steve bites his lip. 

“He wants my clothes off, Daddy,” he whispers, questioning. 

“I heard,” Daddy says, a little dryly, his gaze flicking over Steve’s shoulder to the Alpha before returning again. “That’s up to you, baby. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. You do whatever makes you feel good, sweetheart, and not a single thing else. But if you want to, I’ll be right here watching. I won’t let anyone hurt you.”

“Promise?”

“I promise,” Daddy answers, his voice gone low and serious. “There isn’t a force on this earth that could make me leave you in this room alone, baby.”

Slowly, Steve turns back at the Alpha.

“See?” The Alpha says, smiling warmly. “Everything’s okay, sweet boy. You’re safe, I promise. I would never do anything to hurt you, not in any way, and your Daddy would never let me. All I want is for us to feel good together. I just want to play with you a little bit, and I think you might want to play with me, too. Am I right, pup? Would you like to play with me as long as we follow your Daddy’s rules?”

Steve nods shyly. “Yes, Alpha,” he whispers.

“I’m going to tell you what I think,” the Alpha says gently, “and you tell me if I’m wrong. I think that your Daddy gave you a room full of men to tease tonight. Men that he handpicked to make you feel good. And do you know what I’ve noticed, pup? We aren’t just Alphas. We aren’t just Doms. Everyone in this room is bigger than you, we’re stronger than you, and we’re a lot older than you. I think you like the way that makes you feel, and it makes you feel…what, pup? Young? Vulnerable? Helpless?”

Steve whimpers softly, nodding again. “Yes, Alpha.”

“Is that why your little hole is so wet? Do we make you feel all those things, gorgeous? Are you a weak, helpless, vulnerable little pup?”

Another little whimper, another obedient nod. The Alpha gives him another of those soft, warm smiles.

“Imagine,” he whispers, leaning forward like he’s sharing a secret, “how young and helpless you’ll feel when you aren’t just the only boy in a room full of men—you’re the only one without any clothes on. Your Daddy didn’t just pick men that you would like, pup. He picked men that would like you, too. Imagine being on display for all these lustful men, knowing you’re everything they’ve ever wanted. The boy they dream about at night when they’re cold and lonely and aching for a pup to mount. Not a single one of them would able to tear their eyes away from you. They’ll hunger for you so badly, you’ll be able to taste it.”

“What about you, Alpha?” Steve whispers shyly, peeking at the Alpha coyly from beneath his lashes, the sweetest little blush on his cheeks. “Will you want me that bad, too?”

The Alpha groans softly.

“Of course, pup,” he breathes. “I already do so, so much. You want to watch me touch myself, don’t you? Let me look at you, pup, and I won’t be able to help it. You’re my dream, too, make no mistake. Show yourself off to me, gorgeous. I’ll have no choice but to touch my cock and imagine what it would be like to put it inside such a beautiful, beautiful boy. Just the thought of mounting you will make me come. And you’ll get to watch it all, sweet boy. All these men looking at you, making you feel so little, while you get to watch me come for you. Because of you.”

He glances down at his cock, long and fat and heavy between his legs. It’s flushed so deeply it’s nearly purple, and Steve would swear it’s bigger now than when the Alpha first took it out. The Alpha is so hard, rigid and visibly throbbing. The sight of it makes Steve whine and pant softly, his mouth dry and empty and so, so hungry. He wants Daddy to come put him on his knees and fill his mouth, but he also doesn’t want to stop playing with this Alpha.

“You’ve teased me until it hurts, pup,” the Alpha tells him softly. “You’re such a gorgeous, innocent boy and your wet little hole smells so fucking good. Be a good little pup and help me make it better, hm? We can make each other feel so, so good and we never even have to touch. Do you want that, pup? Do you want to be a good little boy and help me feel good?”

The Alpha’s warm, low voice, his cajoling tone, is hypnotic. Having this big, dominating man coo at him so softly, gently coaxing him, it’s too much. It’s too good. 

Steve’s head is empty, swimming, the heat inside him overwhelming. He whimpers plaintively, the sound as little and helpless as he feels when an older, dominating man talks to him like this. Slick drips down his thigh, his panties soaked through, his little hole so aching wet that he wants to start crying until he’s mounted.

God, he wants to be mounted. Wants to be talked to just like this—in that gentle, cajoling tone, cooed at and coaxed like the boy he is—while a big, heavy body is on top of him, while a thick, fat cock hurts him so good. 

God, he just wants. He wants Daddy to play with him but he also wants everything the Alpha promised. He wants to stand before this crowd of men in nothing but his Daddy’s collar, wants to feel as little and exposed and helpless as ever while he breathes in their lust. He wants to watch this Alpha—this big, powerful, dominating older man—touch himself to the sight of Steve’s bare body, wants to watch him covet Steve and come from it.

“Please,” he begs. “Please, Alpha. Please?”

The Alpha smiles, fond and warm.

“Take off your clothes, pup,” he whispers. “Take them off and let’s feel good together.”

Steve nods shakily, reaching up to remove his shirt. 

The shift in the room is palpable. The promise of his naked body makes the other Alphas restless with anticipation, the pheromones thickening until Steve’s knees nearly buckle under the weight of so much want. He fumbles through removing his clothes, trembling so badly that sometimes he can’t keep hold. It takes far longer than it should, but finally, he steps out of his panties and skirt, his clothes littering the floor, every part of him bare and displayed for the room.

“Oh, pup,” the Alpha breathes, awed, his gaze almost dreamy as he drags it from the top of Steve’s head all the way down to his toes. “Oh, look at you.”

He doesn’t look away, doesn’t even blink, as he spits into his hand and wraps it hand around his throbbing cock. 

He isn’t the only one. Steve is distantly aware of the other Alphas, the sounds and scents coming from behind him. This Alpha isn’t the only one with his cock out anymore—he can hear the rustle of clothes, the lowering of zippers, soft groans and heavy, panting breaths, the crude slap of skin on skin. He can smell the heavy musk of precome and arousal no longer muted by clothing.

More than anything, he can feel half a dozen eyes on his naked body, so heavy and focused that it feels like a physical touch. He’s alone, a wide berth given to him as they watch and look, but he feels utterly surrounded. Bodies pressing in on him from all sides, the heavy presence of so many dominating men, big hands crawling over his calves and thighs and hips, their heavy weight curving his bare shoulders and bowing his neck, gliding down his arms and along his spine, teasing his ass. They want him so much, every single one of them. They want him enough that they’re touching him, pleasuring him, without ever laying a finger on him—the Alpha in front of him most of all.

This Alpha’s heavy gaze touches his parted, trembling lips, his slender throat, his collarbone, laving at his peaked nipples, softly kissing his belly, and then descending upon his stunted little cock like a merciless, hot mouth.

The longer the Alpha looks, the heavier his breathing becomes. The grip on his cock is firm but his strokes are slow, almost leisurely, one hand gliding along his fat length at a torturous pace while the other fondles his knot. 

Savoring it, Steve realizes dazedly. Savoring him.

“Mmmm,” the Alpha rumbles, his pleasure so palpable he almost looks drugged. “Such a soft, small boy. Fuck, you look like such a pampered little thing. Are you, pup? Does your Daddy spoil you rotten?”

Steve makes a soft little noise, nodding obediently.

“Good,” the Alpha breathes. “That’s good, pup. He wouldn’t deserve you if he didn’t. A boy like you should be pampered. God, you should be the most spoiled little thing there ever was. You’re so beautiful. Such a gorgeous, gorgeous little pup.”

For a while, there is nothing but the sound of heavy, panting breaths, deep grunts of pleasure, the slap of skin and skin, every man in the room—save for Bucky, who will get his pleasure from this boy in other ways—touching themselves to the sight before them.

Steve whimpers helplessly, tears welling in his eyes. The Alpha was right. He’s never felt so vulnerable as he does right now, a boy stripped bare among lecherous men, their eyes touching him everywhere.

Helplessly, he starts to cry.

He stands there, allowing himself to be looked at, his little cock hot and hard and hurting—and he cries. He cries and cries and cries. Hot, fat tears spilling down his cheeks, near-soundless sobs clawing their way out of his throat, his head bowed and his shoulders hunched, shaking, feeling so good that he can’t contain it anymore. 

All of these men looking at him, wanting him, touching themselves to the sight of him. He can’t take much more. The hot, tight pressure in his groin builds and builds, his thighs wet with his arousal, his excited little cock jutting out eagerly, hard and pulsing and flushed a deep, deep red that stands out in stark contrast against his pale skin. 

Any second now, the heat in him will finally boil over, and he’ll come like the pup they call him. Like the boy he is inside.

He hears a deep voice groan, “Oh, fuck,” just before the scent of come hits the air. 

His tears bring more of them to orgasm, the room filling with soft, satisfied groans and the scent of release. In minutes, the Alpha before him is the only one that hasn’t come. It’s torture, seeing that fat cock still hard and wanting, the Alpha’s need unfulfilled. Steve craves to make this man come nearly as badly as he’d crave to make his Daddy come—it’s the orgasm he craved the most among them all, and the one he’s still being denied.

He needs to make him come.

Sniffling, Steve finds his Daddy again. He’s standing closer before now that his boy is crying. 

“Can I give him a present, Daddy?” Steve asks in a soft, small voice.

Daddy smiles gently. “Do you want to thank him for making you feel so good, baby? That’s fine. Go on, I won’t stop you.”

Unsteadily, Steve bends down and retrieves his discarded panties. He holds them out to the Alpha.

“Come,” he begs softly, plainly. “Please come, Alpha. I—I want to watch. Please?”

For the first time all night, the Alpha loses his calm. Snarling softly, he lets go of his knot and snatches the panties from between Steve’s fingers, cramming them against his nose to breathe in deep. Uncaring of his audience, he rubs the material over his face, smothering himself in the scent of Steve’s arousal. 

His gaze is a ravenous, covetous thing as it sweeps along Steve’s bare body again. His mouth finds the wet spot soaked with Steve’s slick. His hand picks up speed. He grunts deeply, his tongue snaking out to lave at the damp cloth crudely and then more gently, his tongue twisting and teasing, stretching the fabric as it thrusts against the panties in a steady rhythm.

Eating him out, Steve realizes. The Alpha is imagining eating him out, tasting his slick right at its source.

“Alpha,” he cries plaintively.

The Alpha gives a long, torturous groan, his eyes rolling as he stuffs the panties into his mouth greedily and reaches down to squeeze his knot. He starts to come. Steve barely has a moment to enjoy the sight of this big, powerful man coming for him—because of him—before his own orgasm takes hold.

--

Like, maybe it’s early on in their relationship—very early on, in the first few weeks/months. Steve is still painfully timid and so reliant on his Daddy that everyone worries he might be too reliant.

To Steve, Bucky is the embodiment of safety. His presence is the crux of Steve’s sanity some days, the only solid foundation he has. He absolutely hates being separated from him—even being a room away feels like too much, when Bucky’s eyes on him feel like a shield against anything that would harm him. Steve has to be able to see his Daddy, touch him, scent him.

While everyone thinks it’s good that Steve has any sense of safety with them, they also want him to be able to function when his Alpha isn’t in the room.

They make a plan to take Steve out of the house for an hour or two while Bucky is in a meeting, mostly because Bucky hates having his pup out of his sight almost as much as Steve hates being out of his sight. It’s best that Bucky is occupied while they get Steve out and about, otherwise he’ll be impossible to deal with.

Bucky hates the idea from the very beginning, but he doesn’t argue. He is always very, very aware of the power and influence he has over Steve. Even taking their sex life out of the equation, he is older, he’s an Alpha, and Steve views him as his rescuer—but most importantly, he’s the first person that made Steve feel safe.

Steve latched onto him from the very beginning. From the moment they met, he’s looked to Bucky for approval in everything he does before he dares dream of doing it, and that hasn’t gone away in their time together. 

His baby boy won’t take a single step if he thinks Bucky would disapprove of it. He craves to please his Alpha—his Daddy—too badly. It isn’t a want for him, it’s a bone-deep need. Something fundamental and vital to his psychological well-being.

Bucky can’t do anything about that inherent power imbalance. If he were a better man, it would’ve stopped him from ever touching Steve in the first place. But his baby boy wanted him, badly, and Bucky is just enough of a bastard to take the gift being offered to him, no matter all the reasons why he shouldn’t. The only thing he can do now is try to maintain a very delicate balancing act wherein he only ever uses his power and influence to help his baby flourish. 

He lives his life by one truth and one truth only: he cannot hurt his Omega. Not now, not ever. He’d never recover from it.

So, even though Bucky hates the idea of his vulnerable little pup out in the world without him—even though he privately thinks that Steve isn’t ready for something like this—Bucky doesn’t veto it. He understands that perhaps he’s too close to the situation. That perhaps his perception is colored by the way Steve is always at his most vulnerable when he’s with Bucky.

Steve does not want to go. He does not want to be out in the world without his Daddy. He doesn’t feel safe in the world without his Daddy.

He doesn’t voice this. Such a fuss has been made about his dependency that he’s started to worry that Daddy might agree with everyone else. This is Daddy’s pack. He’s known them for far longer than he’s known Steve; he trusts them with everything he has. With his very life. He trusts their word. Their counsel. Steve has seen it wit his own eyes.  

If they keep saying that Steve has been made wrong—that he should act and think and want and be different than he is—how long will it be until Daddy listens? Until he agrees?

How long will it be until Daddy starts to think of Steve and all his neediness as an annoyance? Worse yet: what if he already does?

Is he tired of having to make so many decisions for Steve? Of the way Steve craves not just his dominance in bed, but for Daddy to bathe him and dress him and feed him? Pick out his clothes and choose what he eats? Does he wish that Steve would do more things for himself? Make more decisions on his own instead of asking his Daddy to take charge?

Is he tired of the way Steve follows him from room to room? Of the way Steve needs to curl up in his lap, bury his face in Daddy’s neck and forget the world for a while? Of the way Steve needs his touch, how sometimes it’s the only thing that helps Steve feel like he’s actually in his body and not about to shake right out of it?

Is he tired of the way he keeps finds Steve hiding away in his nest, scared and vulnerable even though there’s no reason to be? Even though nothing happened, no one hurt him, but his chest is tight and he can’t stop trembling and he needs to be held close and told that he’s safe? That everything will be okay?

Even if Bucky hasn’t started to resent those things yet, how long will it be until he does? How long, Steve wonders, will Daddy put up with those annoyances once he notices them—how long will he suffer Steve’s endless neediness—before he finally sends Steve away? To another place, another pack, without his Daddy’s scent and touch, his attention, his dominating presence?

Steve wouldn’t survive it. It feels dramatic to think, but he knows it to be true. He won’t survive without his Daddy. No one has ever made him feel the way Daddy does; loved, cared for, protected, safe. 

He knows, without a doubt, that no one else ever will again. 

If Daddy were to send him away—give up on him—Steve would wither away to nothing.

He has to do better. Be better. He can’t let the others convince Daddy that he’s been made wrong. He can’t let Daddy get so fed up that he doesn’t want to keep him anymore.

So, Steve agrees to the plan, even if the last place he ever wants to be is away from his Daddy. Maybe even because the last place he ever wants to be is away from his Daddy.

It’s a mistake.

Half an hour into his meeting, Bucky feels it: a vice around his soul, cold and sharp and tight, like ice is squeezing the life out of his insides.

He and Steve are not officially mated. His bite does not adorn that beautiful, delicate neck. Not yet, anyways. Bucky has known since before their first kiss that he belongs, heart and soul, to the shy, dainty little Omega who watches him with hungry blue eyes and lights up so beautifully at the slightest crumb of his attention. 

He just needs Steve to be sure, too. He needs Steve to choose him instead of thinking he has no other option.

Despite that—despite knowing it shouldn’t be possible—Bucky has no doubt about what this feeling is.

His baby boy is in distress.

Bucky stands so abruptly, his chair falls over. The room goes silent, the scent of nerves spiking in the air as everyone eyes to him warily.

“My mate,” he bites out, barely able to breathe. He glances at Natalia and then at his guests. “My mate, I have to—”

“Of course,” one of the men says, the others nodding along. “We can reschedule?”

“Yes.” Bucky grits his teeth, nodding. “With Natalia.”

He means to apologize, but he can’t seem to muster the words before he storms from the room. The only thought in his head is of his boy. He rips his phone out of his pocket and nearly breaks the screen dialing out.

“So, um,” Etienne answers a moment later, uncharacteristically nervous. “Funny story—”

Bucky snarls. “Is he hurt?”

“No,” Etienne promises in a rush. “No, nothing like that. He just started having a panic attack. Or an anxiety attack? Is there a difference? Anyway, he just sort of, um…shut down? He won’t talk to us or let us touch him. We’re on our way back now.”

“You have ten minutes to get him back here, Etienne. Now give him the phone.”

“Ten minutes? It takes—”

“Give him the phone.”

There’s a huff and words lost under rustling as the phone exchanges hands. It’s quiet for so long, Bucky thinks that he’s accidentally been hung up on. But then he finally catches it: 

A barely perceptible exhale, slow but unsteady. A pause. A careful, shallow, equally unsteady inhale. Rinse, repeat.

Bucky’s heart sinks. He recognizes that breathing pattern.

When Steve first came to them, he was a ball of fear and nerves. Every waking moment was a minefield for him, but he seemed to fare no better in sleep. He flinched at everything: sudden movements, loud noises, when anyone spoke to him directly. He avoided eye contact at all costs, keeping his head down and his gaze lowered to the floor whenever he could. He held himself so rigidly that he trembled, his knuckles white and his muscles tensed as if poised to run. At times, it seemed to Bucky he was wound so tight might snap himself in half.

It was in his scent, too, of course, but the thing that struck Bucky hardest was his breathing. Steve was quiet—often still as a statue, until someone called on him and brought him to life, and just as silent—right down to his breath. He’d developed a very deliberate way of breathing, one that favored shallow sips of air that caused almost no sound at all and very slow, calculated exhales that were just as quiet.

Someone had made him so afraid, he didn’t even want to breathe too loudly. Perhaps several someones. 

It had taken a lot of work to reduce that fear. Steve still had plenty of bad days—days where any loud sound made him flinch, where the concept of a world outside the comfort of Bucky’s arms was too big for him—but he’d at least stopped reverting back to that measured breathing on those days. He had bad days, but he allowed himself to exist on the bad days now, instead of trying to disappear completely.

It was a subtle change, but enough that Bucky counted it as real progress.

Hearing that deliberate breathing now, Bucky knows exactly what it means for Steve’s mental state, and it isn’t anything good.

“Baby?” He asks, soft and gentle. “Is that you, sweetheart? Are you there?”

Because he’s straining so hard to hear his boy—and only because of that—Bucky catches a nearly imperceptible hitch in his breath.

“I’m here, sweet boy,” he murmurs. “I’m right here. Everything’s going to be okay, I promise. They’re bringing you back to me right now. I just need you to hang on until they can get you here. Can you do that for me, pup?”

For a long, agonizing minute, he doesn’t get an answer. And then, so quiet it can’t even be called a whisper, he hears, “Yes,” on a slow, measured exhale.

He closes his eyes, trying to steady himself.

“Good boy,” he praises softly. “You’re such a good, good boy. Stay on the phone with me, baby. Don’t hang up. I need to hear you until I can get my hands on you again, okay?”

Obediently, Steve stays on the phone. He doesn’t speak for most of the call and he never strays from that careful, measured breathing. Hearing it makes Bucky feel like his soul is being sliced in two. 

The pain of having to stand there and listen to his pup in such distress without being able to hold him is so visceral, he’s sick with it.

“God, baby,” he breathes out harshly, just as he sees the car coming through the gate. “I’m not letting you out of my sight for the rest of the fucking week. The rest of the month, even. You’ll be lucky if I even let you out of my lap. Daddy’s going to smother you until you’re sick of me.”

The car has barely pulled to a stop before Bucky yanks the door open. The scent is worse than he remembers, so thick and acrid it almost brings him to his knees.

Steve has a floral scent. Sometimes, when he’s particularly happy, there are notes of citrus, and when he’s aroused, it deepens into something heavier, spicy. But for the most part, it is as delicate and sweet as the boy himself. When he’s scared, his scent decays—it’s all overripe fruit and rotting flowers, barren, dead, earth. That’s what Bucky smells now, what rolls out of the car in suffocating waves. 

In the back seat, Steve sits rigid and unmoving, staring off into space blankly. The only clue to his distress is the bobbing of his throat, the slight tremor skating along his spine.

Bucky squats in the open door, reaching for the phone Steve still has pressed to his ear. He keeps his movements slow, making sure Steve sees the progress, because if he has to watch his baby flinch away from him, he might never recover. Steve allows the phone to slip from his hand and Bucky, seeing Etienne in his periphery, tosses it to him carelessly. 

He likes Etienne, he does. Etienne is a good friend to Steve—protective and encouraging in equal measure, adventurous in a way that someone like Steve probably needs. But seeing his boy like this, breathing in his acrid scent and knowing who all is responsible for it, Bucky is not inclined to be particularly kind to any of them right now.

“Sweetheart,” he whispers, cupping Steve’s cheek, caressing it with his thumb. “Can you look at me?”

Steve doesn’t move until Bucky nudges his chin, but he obediently allows his face to be turned. He’s so far in his own head that he doesn’t seem to recognize Bucky at first. Blankly, he blinks once, twice. 

Bucky reaches up to brush back his hair, turning his wrist so that Steve can scent him. 

“Come back to me, baby,” he says softly. “You did it. You got to me, I’m here now. Everything’s going to be okay. Come back to me now, let me take care of you.”

Bucky isn’t sure if it’s the words or his scent, but it works. Between one blink and the next, recognition finally seeps in. Steve gasps for breath, his body jerking, as if he’d been drowning and has finally broken the surface. 

The next second, his face crumples, a dry sob clawing its way out of his throat. He tries to throw himself into Bucky’s arms, but the seatbelt prevents him. Being held back only makes him wild. He makes a wounded, animal noise, throwing himself against the seatbelt again and again as he reaches for Bucky. His nails catch Bucky’s neck and hold, digging in so tightly, it feels like they draw blood.

“Easy, baby,” Bucky soothes, reaching in to undo the seatbelt. “Easy now, let me help you. Everything’s okay, I’m here. I’m here, baby, c’mere now.”

As soon as the seatbelt goes slack, Steve launches himself into Bucky’s arms. Bucky only just manages to grab onto the door to keep himself upright as his boy slams into him, clawing his way closer until they’re flush against each other, Steve’s entire body wrapped around him. His boy clings so hard that Bucky can barely breathe, but he doesn’t care. He stands, wrapping both arms around Steve to hug him back just as tightly, relieved beyond words that he can finally hold his pup, comfort him properly.

“I’ve got you, baby,” he murmurs. He pets Steve’s hair, kissing his neck, his ear, his temple—every inch of skin his lips can reach. “Daddy’s got you now. You did so good. I’m so proud of you, sweetheart. You’re okay now, I’ve got you.”

Steve shudders. A moment later, Bucky feels it: hot tears soaking into his neck. He closes his eyes to steady himself, holding his boy a little tighter.

“I’m here, baby,” he whispers again. “I’ve got you.”

He doesn’t wait for anyone else to get out of the car. He doesn’t want platitudes or half-assed excuses—he’ll deal with them later. Right now his first priority—his only priority—is the boy in his arms.

He turns and walks back into the house, heading straight for their bedroom. He passes several people along the way, but they all give him a wide berth, not a single one brave enough to waylay him. Not with Steve in his arms, the acrid scent of his distress clinging to him.

Inside their bedroom, Bucky locks the door the door behind him. It’s done entirely for his boy’s benefit. No one will bother them for the rest of the day—no one, except perhaps Natalia, would be brave enough and Natalia won’t simply because she knows better.

But Steve is distressed and vulnerable and not thinking clearly; he needs the finality of that sound, the lock clicking into place, to understand that they won’t be interrupted. To understand that he has his Daddy’s undivided attention.

Bucky kisses his ear, running fingers through his hair.

“Look at me, baby,” Bucky says softly. “Let me see you.”

It’s clear Steve would like to do anything but put space between them, but he would do anything—literally anything—to please Bucky. Reluctantly, he leans back. 

His cheeks are ruddy and tearstained, his lashes wet and more tears swimming in his eyes. Every time he blinks, a new one breaks loose and rolls down his cheek. His nose is red, his parted lips raw and trembling.

Bucky cups his face, running his thumb along his pup’s warm, damp cheek. He’s a bastard and he knows it, because even like this, he thinks Steve is breathtaking. The most beautiful boy he’s ever seen. His only wish is that those were tears of pleasure staining those pretty cheeks instead of ones borne of turmoil.

“You are so beautiful,” Bucky murmurs, kissing the bridge of Steve’s nose. “My beautiful, gorgeous little pup.”

Steve shivers in his arms, whimpering softly as he clutches at Bucky’s face.

“Daddy,” he chokes out. “Daddy, Daddy—”

“Shhh, I’ve got you,” Bucky promises. He kisses Steve again, this time on his cheek. “I’m going to take care of you now, baby, but I need to know: do you want to feel better or do you want to feel good?”

It’s an important distinction, but one Steve will understand. A code they’ve developed over months of helping him work through his bad days. 

Bucky sees the true answer in Steve’s glimmering blue eyes, but it isn’t the answer he gets. The answer he gets makes his blood run cold.

Because with a deep, shuddering breath, his baby boy looks away from him and whispers brokenly, “I don’t deserve it, Daddy.”

Alarm bells begin to ring in Bucky’s head. This is deeper than just a bad afternoon out. There’s more going on here than a failed attempt at separation, he just doesn’t know what yet. He will be finding out, though.

Shifting Steve’s weight to one arm, Bucky grips his chin between his fingers.

“Look at me, baby,” he says again, more firmly this time. Obediently, Steve does, and the turmoil Bucky sees in his eyes almost brings him to his knees. “We’ll circle back to why you think that, don’t think we won’t. But let’s get one thing clear, sweetheart: you don’t get to decide what my baby deserves. I decide that. I decide what you deserve and when you deserve it and just how much of it you deserve. The only thing you get to do is answer the questions I ask and take what I give you like a good little boy, do you understand?”

Steve’s shoulders relax just a fraction. Obediently, he nods. 

“Yes, Daddy,” he whispers.

“Good. Now I asked you a question, baby. Do you want to feel better or do you want to feel good?”

His bottom lip trembles, fresh tears welling in his eyes.

“I don’t know,” he admits, and that at least is the truth. That is the answer Bucky had been expecting.

“Okay, sweetheart.” Bucky pets Steve’s hair, kissing his forehead. “Here’s what we’ll do. Daddy’s going to make you feel better and if you want more than that, all you have to do is say so, okay? You just say the word and Daddy will make you feel so fucking good. Does that sound alright to you, baby?”

Steve nods. “Yes, Daddy.”

“Let’s start with a bath, hm? How does that sound, sweetheart?”

Steve’s breath hitches, a little shiver going through him. Bucky smiles. His baby so does love to be bathed.

“Yes,” he murmurs, bringing Steve for a light, shallow kiss. “A bath sounds perfect, doesn’t it? C’mon, gorgeous. Let Daddy take care of his baby.”

It takes him longer than it should to actually get them into the bath, merely because he refuses to put Steve down long enough to achieve that goal any faster. His baby boy wants to be held and even if Bucky didn’t feel a similar urge to keep him close, he would rather die than make Steve go without what he needs while he’s in this state. 

So instead, he keeps his baby in his arms, Steve’s face tucked into his neck, as he gathers what they need, as he draws the bath, even as they undress. The process is awkward at times, but he doesn’t care. He’d rather suffer through awkwardness than torture them both with separation.

Finally, they sink into the steaming water together. 

Bucky holds Steve close as they settle, one strong arm around his waist and a hand on the back of his neck, rubbing soothing circles into his skin.

“There we go,” he murmurs. “That’s better, isn’t it, baby?”

He kisses Steve’s forehead before tucking him under his chin. He caresses the shell of Steve’s ear, bestowing another kiss to the top of his head.

“Now, we don’t have to talk about the bad stuff right this second if you don’t want to, but we do have to talk about it eventually. So which would you rather: do you want to feel better first and talk about it later or do you want to talk about it now and then we don’t have to think about it for the rest of the night? Or do you want Daddy to choose for you?”

Steve doesn’t answer right away, not that Bucky thought he would. He always gives a question like this the weight and thought it deserves, never one to rush a decision lest he end up making the wrong one. As he thinks it over, he traces invisible patterns into Bucky’s chest. 

His scent isn’t quite as potent as it was when Bucky opened the car door, but it’s still heavy with the decayed scent of fear. Bucky aches to banish it completely, but until Steve makes a decision, all he can do is hold him close and rock him gently until Steve decides what he wants. 

When Steve finally speaks, it’s the very last thing in the world Bucky expects to hear.

In a quiet, subdued voice, the center of his entire universe asks, “Are you going to send me away, Daddy?”

Bucky stops breathing.

“What?” He chokes out, so shocked that his mind has gone blank.

He couldn’t have heard right. He didn’t hear right, there’s no way—

“I couldn’t do it,” Steve whispers, oblivious to the devastation his question has wrought. He sniffles quietly. “I tried, but I just couldn’t—”

He lifts his head. His big blue eyes glisten with unshed tears, his bottom lip quivering.

“I’m sorry, Daddy,” he says. “I’m really, really sorry. I’ll do better. I’ll–I’ll try harder, I promise. Just please don’t send me away. I don’t want to go, Daddy, please, please, don’t make me go. I’ll do anything, I’ll—”

Bucky can’t listen to any more of this. He cups Steve’s face, kissing him so gently it barely feels like a kiss at all.

“Hush,” he murmurs, caressing his boy’s cheeks. He kisses Steve again, just as lightly as before. “Hush, baby. That’s not going to happen, you hear me? Not ever. You put that out of your head right now.”

He was born into a life of crime. It’s the only thing he’s ever known. His entire life, he’s had to contend with far too many battles, some at far too young an age. He’s been stabbed, shot, tortured. Nothing—nothing—has ever hurt as much as hearing his baby beg, Please don’t send me away.

As hearing, I don’t want to go, Daddy. Please don’t make me go.

His very soul feels like it’s been cleaved in two. Just a few words and he’s bleeding out, the wound messy and gaping and fatal.

On the heels of the hollow cold sweeping through his chest comes a swelling, blistering anger.

Who the fuck said you’d be sent away? 

But no, he can’t ask—not like that. Steve would think Bucky’s fury is toward him. 

Bucky takes a slow breath to rein himself in. 

Gently, he reminds himself. Always gently with his baby. 

Steve is a gorgeously delicate creature. Born an Omega and a runt, he’s the smallest of their kind. Short and slim, fine-boned with soft, fae-like features. He has scars—both internal and external—from the horror he’s been through, but they do nothing to detract from his beauty. 

He is, simply put, otherworldly. So beautiful that sometimes, it hurts to look at him. Sometimes, Bucky looks at his baby boy, and he can’t breathe from how stunning he is. Steve is—fucking ethereal, even on his worst days. Even on the worst day, when Bucky found him feverish, malnourished, and abused. 

He’s a delicate creature, but there is no part of him more delicate than his emotional state. He simply hasn’t gained enough confidence with them yet. But Bucky sees the beginnings of it sometimes, the little spark that will one day grow into a flame. There is hope, they just have to give him time.

Right now, however, the wrong word from anyone still makes him flinch and cower. The wrong word from Bucky—even just the wrong tone—would destroy him completely. It would be as detrimental to him as a rough, tight grip on finely blown glass. He would crumble. He would crumble so completely, Bucky doesn’t know if he’d be able to put him back together again.

He will never, ever take that risk.

Careful to keep his voice soft and even, Bucky murmurs, “I need you to tell me where you got that idea from, sweetheart. Did someone tell you that you’d be sent away if you couldn’t spend time away from me?”

Silently, Steve shakes his head. 

Bucky lets his gaze roam over his boy’s face, trying to unravel the puzzle that is Steve’s thought process. Steve finds it difficult to talk about the hard things sometimes. They’ve found ways around it, but times like this, Bucky wishes he could see inside his baby’s head and truly understand what’s going on in there. 

“Did someone make you feel that way?”

His heart stutters when this time, he receives a single, hesitant nod. He’s a fearless man in nearly every aspect of his life, but he isn’t ashamed to admit that he’s terrified of the answer to the next question he has to ask. It may just kill him.

“Was it me, baby?” He asks quietly. “Did I make you feel that way?”

Steve shakes his head and Bucky is swamped with a relief so profound it makes him sick. He murmurs, “Good, good,” as he peppers soft kisses over his boy’s face. His precious baby. Bucky can’t ever be the one to hurt him.

But it wasn’t him, that means someone else has been going around making his baby doubt his place.

Bucky frowns. “Who was it, baby? Who made you feel like this?”

Steve looks down to where his hands rest on Bucky’s chest. 

Bucky is covered in a thick layer of dark hair from his neck down. His baby boy loves the feel of it. Loves to rub himself against Bucky’s bare chest, to feel the hair teasing his cheek, his sensitive nipples, his little cock. It makes him go so beautifully, wonderfully hazy. Makes him whimper and whine until Bucky is helpless to do anything but play with him.

But he also loves to run his fingers through it. He does that now, rubbing his palms along Bucky’s chest, sinking his fingers into the thick, damp tufts of hair—a self-soothing gesture.

“I need you too much, Daddy,” Steve whispers finally, and he sounds so sad, so apologetic about it, that Bucky’s heart clenches. “I can’t help it. You make me feel safe. You don’t make me guess and you’re never disappointed in me and you never make me feel like I’ve done something wrong. But they don’t like it. And you…you trust them. You listen to them. What if—what if they say—”

His breath hitches. He can’t even say it. But he doesn’t need to. Bucky thinks he understands. In fact, he thinks he finally understand a lot more than he did before, but he’ll focus on those subtler insights later. 

“The pack wants you to be independent,” Bucky summarises, running a hand over his head. “And you think that if you can’t do that, they’ll tell me the best thing for you is to send you somewhere else. To another place, another pack. Anywhere that doesn’t have the Alpha you’re using as a crutch. And you think I’ll listen.”

Something dawns on him, then.

“Is that the only reason you agreed to this, baby? You were afraid to be sent away if you refused?”

Steve shrugs, tilting his head in a way that’s somehow a nod and a headshake all at once.

“I didn’t want you to agree with them,” he whispers, his fingers curling against Bucky’s chest. “I didn’t—I didn’t want you to start hating it, too. I need you so much, Daddy. I didn’t want you to get tired of me.”

And finally, Bucky understands all of it. All the missing pieces.

“That’s why you said you didn’t deserve my help,” he murmurs. “It wasn’t just that you had to come home so early. It was that you couldn’t do what they wanted you to do and if you couldn’t do it, you thought I wouldn’t want you anymore. For you, this was a test, and you failed it.”

Steve doesn’t answer, but the way he hunches in on himself is answer enough. 

Bucky gathers him close again, the warm water sloshing around them. He lifts Steve’s chin and takes his mouth in a deep, aching kiss.

“Look at me, baby,” he murmurs. Only when Steve blinks up at him does he continue. “You’re wrong. About all of it. You don’t have to be anything but exactly who and what you are. You’ve been through something unimaginable, sweetheart, and it left you with a lot of deep wounds. Those wounds are going to take time to heal. It won’t happen overnight, no matter how much you or anyone else wants that to happen. You’re dealing with it the only way you know how. Maybe hiding behind me for a little while is hurting you, maybe it’s helping you, I don’t know. But what I do know is that forcing yourself so far out of your comfort zone before you’re ready isn’t going to heal those wounds any faster, baby. It’s only going to make them deeper.”

He kisses Steve again lightly.

“You won’t do that again, do you understand?” He says gently. “I won’t allow you to hurt yourself, sweetheart. Especially not just to make me or anyone else happy.”

“But—”

Bucky lays a gentle finger over Steve’s lips.

“No buts,” he murmurs. “Because, sweetheart? I need you to listen to this part very, very closely. There is nothing—nothing—that you or anyone else could ever say or do that would ever make me send you away. I don’t care who suggests it. I don’t care what their reason is. I won’t allow it. As far as I’m concerned, your place is right here. Right here. In my lap, in my arms, forever. I’ve told you already and I’ll say it as many times as you need to hear it: the only way you’re ever getting away from me is if you walk away. I’m keeping you for as long as you let me, baby. You’re mine. My boy, my pup, my Omega, my mate. I never, ever want you to doubt that.”

Steve stares at him.

“M-Mate?” He whispers shakily.

Buck smiles softly, kissing the bridge of his nose. 

“Mate,” he repeats. 

He’s never said it to Steve before. He didn’t want to his baby to feel pressured or shackled by his feelings. But he also won’t sit here and let Steve doubt his place. Won’t let him think there’s a universe in which Bucky would want him anywhere but by his side.

“But—but you haven’t—”

Steve doesn’t complete that thought, but he doesn’t have to. Helplessly, Bucky’s gaze falls to the spot on his neck where the mating bite will go. One day, when the timing is right, he’ll mount his pup and when his knot swells, he’ll sink his sharpened teeth right there. He’ll bind their souls and mix their scents in a way that only a very powerful witch will ever be able to undo. 

He’s dreamt of it, their mating. Imagined looking at his gorgeous little mate and seeing the prominent scar of his bite on that pretty, delicate neck. 

Leaning down, Bucky gently kisses the place it will go.

“No,” he agrees quietly. “Not yet, baby. I want you to be sure. When I bite you, I want it there until the day you die. I want you to want it there for that long, too. I can’t stand the thought of you waking up one morning and hating the sight of it. I never want you to think I pushed you into it or that I did it before you were ready. I can wait, sweetheart. It doesn’t make you any less mine.”

He doesn’t say that—for him, at least—the bite will be little more than a formality at this point. He felt Steve’s panic before anyone could tell him that something was wrong. Whether or not it should be possible, it happened. He knows what that means: his soul is already bound to this shy, beautiful, achingly sweet boy. He wouldn’t have it any other way.

The promise visibly settles over Steve. His shoulders relax, a light blush dusting his cheekbones. He lets his hands fall into the warm bath water. A second later, his fingers crawl out of the water and up Bucky’s chest, like he just can’t help himself. He has to touch his Daddy.

“You care about me a lot,” he whispers shyly, a soft, pleased smile curving his lips. He glances at Bucky through his lashes and then away again, too bashful to hold his gaze.

“No.” Bucky nudges his chin up, forcing him to look. “No, sweetheart. I don’t just care about you. I love you.”

This, too, is a first. No, he never wanted Steve to feel shackled by Bucky’s feelings for him, but it’s dawning on him that perhaps his boy wants to be shackled. That Bucky’s feelings for him are like the collar that he normally wears around his neck or the cage that Bucky is slowly training him to keep on his cock—these things, they’re reassurances for his boy. Proof of ownership. A promise that he will be kept and cared for. 

The truth of Bucky’s feelings would be another layer of that. Another reassurance. By keeping them from Steve, he’s held back a level of security that his baby craves. 

In trying not to hurt Steve, Bucky has instead hurt him.

It’s only a guess, but Bucky knows he’s right when—upon hearing those three simple words—Steve’s scent blooms. Gone is the decay of his distress, the last dregs of it washed away completely by the budding peony scent of pure happiness. He glows with it.

“You do?” Steve whispers breathlessly. Even though the declaration comes on the heels of Bucky’s intent to mate, he still looks bowled over by it. 

Bucky cups his face, dotting gentle kisses over his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose before finally dipping down to his mouth.

“More than anything,” he murmurs. “You’re my first thought every morning and the last thing I think about every night. From the moment I laid eyes on you, you’ve been in my head, baby, and I haven’t been able to get you out again, not even for a second. Not even when I told myself I should. Now that I have you, the only thing I care about is making you happy. You are the most important thing in my world. I never want you to doubt that, either.”

Steve’s breath hitches. His heartbeat picks up speed again, but this time, it isn’t panic that quickens it. Not by a long shot. Lithe fingers crawl up Bucky’s chest and neck, stopping only when they reach his lips. Steve’s heavy-lidded gaze flicks between Bucky’s and his mouth.

“Say it again, Daddy,” he whispers. “Please?”

Bucky smiles softly, kissing the fingertips resting against his lips.

“I love you, baby,” he says obediently.

Between them, Steve’s cock hardens instantly. He trembles, his breath comes in short, unsteady pants. His little hole is already getting wet; Bucky can smell it. His scent warms, the peony note of his happiness giving way to the deeper, spicier tones of his arousal. There’s an edge to it—not distress, but nerves.

Steve licks his lips. He opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. 

With a soft whine, he buries his face in Bucky’s neck, shuddering. Several long seconds pass, and then finally, soft as a breath, so quiet it’s almost unheard even in the stillness of the bathroom, Bucky catches it:

“I love you, too, Daddy.”

Bucky knew. Of course he did. But still—knowing it and hearing it are two different things. Hearing it and knowing how brave his baby had to be to say it? It’s almost too much to bear.

Gently, Bucky tilts Steve’s chin up, capturing his mouth in a slow kiss. He snakes an arm around his waist to haul him closer, cupping the back of his head to keep him right where Bucky wants him. The water sloshes around them at the sudden movement, but Bucky pays it no mind. 

He doesn’t care if he makes a mess, all he cares about is the boy in his arms. The lithe body against his broad chest, soft, wet skin underneath his calloused hands. Plush lips that open for him so easily, long fingers that scramble for purchase on his arms, his shoulders. The helpless jerk of slim hips, rubbing a stunted little cock against his belly. The hot, needy little whimpers as he gently fucks his boy’s mouth. The hunger that matches his own. 

The instant, total submission.

It’s a heady thing, that submission. Steve is a naturally submissive boy, every single inch of him. He craves domination like a drug, aches to be owned totally and completely. He aches just as much for that ownership to mean that he’ll be taken care of. He wants it all so badly that all it takes is a single look or touch or word and he melts. Goes wonderfully pliant, putty in Bucky’s hands to be shaped and molded anew. 

The more submissive he is, the more Bucky craves to dominate him. His baby speaks to his every instinct, calls to him like a siren; he’s helpless to do anything but answer. It isn’t just the Dom in him. Steve satisfies his every hunger, every desire, man and Dom and Alpha alike.

“I love you,” he murmurs again between kisses. “Love you so much, baby. My beautiful, sweet boy. My precious little pup. Daddy loves you so fucking much. You’re such a good boy. My perfect, perfect boy.” 

Steve shudders, his little cock throbbing eagerly against Bucky’s stomach.

“Daddy,” he whimpers, his voice is so light and sweet that Bucky has to hold him a little tighter. “Daddy. Daddy.”

He has no defenses against Bucky’s praise. He never has. Just a hint of it turns him into a mess—starry-eyed and shy, blushing all over, his cock instantly hard, his little hole aching and wet, just like now. If Bucky praises him mercilessly enough, he’ll come without a touch.

He knows. He tested it out. Laid his baby out in his nest one night, tied his wrists above his head to stop him from trying to touch himself, and bruised his mouth with kisses between an endless stream of praise. He didn’t stop until, with a shudder and a weak little sob, his baby boy came all over his belly without the first touch.

Steve needs praise the way he needs to be dominated, and Bucky is more than happy to spoil him rotten with both.

He kisses Steve again shallowly.

“What is it, baby?” He coos gently, brushing fingers through his baby’s hair, bestowing another soft kiss. “What does my baby boy need?”

Steve whimpers, his hips twitching, rubbing his cock against the hair on Bucky’s stomach again.

“Wanna feel good, Daddy,” he whispers shyly, a beautiful blush blooming on his cheeks.

“Do you now?” Bucky smiles, kissing him shallowly. “You want play with Daddy, baby? Want Daddy to make you feel nice and little?”

Steve whines softly as he nods.

“I can certainly do that, gorgeous boy.” 

Bucky kisses him again, reaching beneath the water to take his own aching cock in hand. He guides himself to his boy’s hole, gently rubbing his cockhead against the warm, wet rim. With the lightest pressure, his tip slips inside, but as soon as it’s in, Bucky pulls out again. 

Steve’s soft, shallow gasp of, “Daddy,” goes straight to his knot.

Bucky groans, kissing the corner of his mouth. He teases them both with light, gentle touches, slowly guiding the head of his cock around his baby’s rim, up and down his crease, and then back again.

“I still need to give you a bath, baby,” He says quietly, pushing his tip in again, just a little deeper this time, letting it linger a second longer, before he pulls out again. “Do you remember what I taught you, hm? Do you remember how good little boys take a bath with Daddy?”

Steve makes a little noise, looking at Bucky with a hazy, pleading gaze.

“Yes, Daddy,” he whispers, and it ends with a soft, plaintive cry when Bucky sinks the tip of his cock into him again. His euphoria gives way to devastation when Bucky pulls out again. He claws at Bucky’s shoulders as he pants desperately, his nails leaving scores in their wake. “No, please—Daddy—Daddy, please.”

“Is that what you want, baby? You want to be a good little boy while Daddy washes you?”

“Please, please—”

Bucky kisses him again, groaning as he teases them with another gentle push, another moment of bliss, before pulling out again. 

“Daddy wants it, too, sweetheart,” he murmurs, his breath coming harder, heavier, gusting against his baby’s parted lips. The hot ache in his groin spills down into his thighs, his body pulsing with how much he wants the boy in his arms. “Want to see you sitting nice and pretty in my lap. You’re so fucking gorgeous with Daddy’s cock in you, baby, so fucking perfect. But if I give it to you, you have to do something for me.”

Steve whines, his breath hitching when Bucky’s cock nudges against his hole again. 

“Daddy’s going to put his cock in you,” Bucky says softly, petting his baby’s hair, kissing the corner of his mouth, his cheek, his jaw, “and when I do, baby, you’re gonna show me that you deserve it. Only boys get to sit on Daddy’s cock, isn’t that right? I want you to show me that’s what you are. You’re going to come like a pup or Daddy’s going to take his cock out again. Can you do that for me, baby? Can you show Daddy what you are?”

Steve nods obediently. “Yes, Daddy,” he breathes, and Bucky can hear the yearning, the hunger for it, in his voice. He wants.

Bucky pulls him into a languid, filthy kiss as he pushes inside his baby boy. With gentle, easy thrusts, he slowly opens Steve with his cock, sinking a little deeper each time. Halfway in, their kiss isn’t a kiss anymore, just a meeting of open, panting mouths, the brief, teasing brush of seeking tongues, his baby boy’s ragged cries as his little hole is stretched to aching.

“Where are you?” Bucky croons breathlessly. He nips at Steve’s bottom lip, reluctantly dragging himself away from that tempting mouth to suck a mark into Steve’s jaw. “Where’s my baby boy, hm? Give him to me, sweetheart. Give me my baby. Daddy wants to play so bad, but I need a boy to play with. Show me what you are. Show me. Come.”

Taking hold of Steve’s hips, he thrusts up roughly, seating himself fully inside his baby boy.   Steve buries his face in Bucky’s shoulder, biting down to muffle a helpless cry as he spurts between them.

Bucky holds him close, rocking his baby gently through it as he pets his hair.

“There you are,” he coos gently. It earns him a hot little noise, his baby’s hole tightening on his cock as another spurt hits his belly. Bucky holds him tighter, kissing his forehead. “There’s my baby. You’re so, so good, sweetheart. Such a good little boy. Daddy’s going to take such good care of you.”

And with all the reverence a boy so perfect deserves, he does. 

He takes his time with it, bestowing soft praise and even softer kisses as he washes his baby from head to toe. After, he gives himself only the most cursory wash, more interested in gathering his boy close again.

They linger in the bath long after they’re both clean, letting their hands wander as they exchange deep, languid kisses that shift from tender to filthy and back again. Bucky’s cock pulses inside his baby with the need to fuck and play, his knot already half-swollen and aching for attention, but for now, he ignores it. He’s too interested in the soft, lithe body under his big hands, the boy whimpering his name so sweetly between kisses.

The longer it goes on, the more Steve becomes a dead weight against his chest, the pleasure overwhelming him until he’s held up only by Bucky’s hands. 

Bucky groans, kissing him harder, deeper. God, how he loves this. Loves to have a limp boy on his cock, whimpering so sweetly, shivering in pleasure. He knows that his baby loves it, too, that Steve craves to warm his Daddy’s cock for as long and as often as Bucky will let him.

Because Bucky loves to spoil him—and because it’s far, far too easy to lose himself in the bliss of such a pliant boy—he lets it go on for longer than he should. By the time he realizes how long they’ve lingered, the water is far too cold for his baby boy.

Steve cries when Bucky pulls out of him, and he doesn’t stop. He tries to be quiet at first—fat, silent tears rolling down his cheeks as he’s guided out of the bath and dried off—but the longer he’s made to go with an empty little hole, the less he can hold in his heartbreak. No amount of coaxing or cooing or reassurance calms him, but that doesn’t stop Bucky from bestowing all three.

Bucky’s house is—opulent, he’s willing to admit that. He’s a rich bastard with a mansion, and he’s not willing to apologize for it. The master bedroom has two large walk-in closets, nearly rooms unto themselves. In the early days, Steve could often be found hiding in the smaller of the two, nestled in a corner where he could be surrounded by Bucky’s scent. After a while, it was cleared out and repurposed into a nest room.

His baby’s nest takes up most of the space, a sea of the softest pillows and blankets Bucky could get his hands on, a few pieces of Bucky’s clothing hidden among them to make sure his scent is always present. A few fairy lights hang on the ceiling, just enough to give the room a dim, intimate glow when the door is closed. A small fridge is tucked away in one corner, where Bucky keeps drinks and a few light snacks for when Bucky wants to indulge his desire to feed the beautiful boy warming his knot. A TV is mounted on the wall for the days when Steve can’t bear to leave his nest at all, so that he isn’t left trapped with his own thoughts. The shelves near the top of the closet house some of their favorite, most used sex toys. 

All in all, it’s the perfect nest for a submissive little Omega to lose hours in.

Bucky barely gets the door open and a collar around his baby’s neck before Steve dives into it desperately. He falls to his knees, crawling into the heart of it before he collapses, his chest heaving with soft, needy little sobs. The scent of his desire hangs so heavily in the air, Bucky can almost taste the spice of it on his tongue. His baby is so wet, Bucky can see his slick arousal smearing along the crease of his ass, that gorgeous, hard little cock jutting out from between his thighs. His porcelain skin is flushed, warm and pink, his lithe body an inviting curve. He looks so soft and small and vulnerable, and Bucky is so fucking hard, it hurts.

He takes himself in hand, stroking his cock slowly, firmly, as he stands in the doorway and watches his baby boy just lay there and cry helplessly. It’s almost too much, the pleasure of it. That scent of desire in the air, the room quiet save for his heavy, panting breath and his baby’s soft cries, the pulsing ache in his cock, knowing what’s to come. God, how he loves this. 

He indulges for only a minute, letting the anticipation of what’s to come sizzle underneath his skin, before he finally steps forward and closes the door behind him, clicking this lock into place, too. Another layer between them and the rest of the world, another promise that they won’t be disturbed. They’ll be here for as long as his baby needs.

Bucky steps into the nest on shaky legs, lowering himself to kneel over Steve’s crying form. His head is already clouded with lust, a tight, hungry knot in his gut. His hands tremble with desire as he slides them up pale, smooth thighs, guiding his baby boy until his back.

Steve goes easily, his legs falling open shamelessly to let his Daddy between them. Bucky’s cock throbs. He wants this boy so much, he’s near-feral with it. 

“I know,” he coos shakily, rubbing soothing circles along his baby’s inner thighs. “I know, baby. My poor, poor baby. Daddy knows.” 

Molten heat pools deep in his groin. There’s nothing in the world like this, nothing that feels as good. The feral hunger gnawing at his insides, his cock hard and pulsing, getting to coo and coax and soothe, treat his baby like the boy he is as Bucky guides his cock to where they both want it.

“My poor baby,” Bucky coos again, leaning down to steal a shallow, teasing kiss. “It hurts without Daddy inside you, doesn’t it? Your poor little hole’s so lonely without Daddy’s cock to play with. I know, baby, Daddy knows. My poor, poor baby. Let Daddy make it better now. Shhhh, hush now. Daddy’s gonna make it all better.”

His breath catches on a deep, rumbling groan as he sinks into tight, wet heat. 

He rocks his hips gently, easing himself in bit by bit. With each inch he gets, Steve calms a little more. He’s a breathtaking sight beneath Bucky, his thighs splayed wide, flushed and limp, tears staining his cheeks and more swimming in his eyes, his lips wet and cherry red and trembling. The sweetest little whimpers in his throat, so quiet they must be unconscious, like his baby just can’t help it. Those big blue eyes watch Bucky unblinkingly, already so open and vulnerable and innocent even though Bucky’s barely played with him at all.

Bucky’s so in love with him, he almost can’t stand it.

“God, baby,” he murmurs, leaning down for a long, languid kiss. “You are so fucking beautiful. You make Daddy feel so, so good.”

Steve’s face crumples, fresh tears spilling down his cheeks.

“Daddy,” he chokes out. “P-Please, Daddy—”

His little cock is rigid against his belly, smearing precome with every gentle thrust. At the praise, it jerks hard in a very telling way. Bucky glances at it with a knowing smile.

“Are you gonna show Daddy what you are again?” He coos softly. “Go on, baby, it’s okay. Daddy knows you can’t help it. Go on, sweet boy. Show Daddy how little you are.”

His permission has barely been granted before Steve spurts against his belly with a helpless little sob.

Hours later, Bucky lays propped against a few pillows at the edge of the nest. His body is pleasantly sore, covered in a mixture of sweat, come, and tears, a number of fresh markings from their lovemaking. There’s a limp, shivering boy sobbing quietly against his chest, his knot swollen in that boy’s sore, aching little hole. 

Every instinct Bucky has hums in deep, primal satisfaction; every part of him has been tended to, every need has been met. He’s a man who got the chance to tumble his partner for a few hours. He’s an Alpha with a sated mate on his knot. He’s a Daddy with an innocent, vulnerable boy crying in his arms that he can baby mercilessly. 

He’s in heaven. 

From both experience and the prominent scent of peonies in the air, Bucky knows they both are. As much as Bucky loves this, craves it, his baby does just as much. Hungers for it just as badly. Bucky needs to be a Daddy with an innocent, vulnerable boy crying in his arms, and Steve needs to be that innocent, crying boy, wrapped up safe and warm in Daddy’s embrace, doted on and babied. 

Bucky drags a blanket over his boy’s shivering form, rubbing his back before wrapping Steve up in his arms. He nuzzles against his boy’s soft, sweat-dampened hair, kissing his forehead.

“I’ve got you,” he murmurs. “Daddy’s got you, baby. You did so good. You were such a good, good boy. I’m so proud of you, sweetheart. Such a perfect boy for Daddy.”

Steve only cries harder. His hands snake around Bucky’s middle, holding him tightly, his face pressed into the hair on Bucky’s chest. His shoulders shake as he sobs helplessly.

Bucky pets his hair.

“My poor baby,” he coos gently. “What can Daddy do, hm? What does my baby boy need?”

Steve doesn’t answer. He can’t. He’s so mired in pleasure that words are beyond him; they have been for a while.

Bucky thinks he tries. He feels trembling lips open against his chest, mouthing at him as if Steve is trying to speak. But then his baby boy shifts just a little, tilting his head, and suddenly, his warm breath is right over Bucky’s nipple. With a hot, needy little whimper, Steve latches on and starts to suckle.

He blinks up at Bucky, a hesitancy in his hazy gaze, as if he thinks he’ll be made to stop. As if he thinks Bucky would—could deny him anything while he’s in this state. 

Bucky loves to spoil his boy, it’s true. It’s what Steve deserves, he thinks, after all he’s been through. But there will never be a more spoiled boy than his baby when he’s in this state—when he’s been taken apart and yet to be put back together, when he’s been stripped of every defense, made innocent and so very, very vulnerable. In this state, Steve could ask for an empire, and Bucky would deliver it without question.

This isn’t the way his boy was taught to nurse. It isn’t even the way that would bring him the most pleasure—of that, Bucky is certain. His baby craves a cock in his mouth far too much to prefer this. But with Bucky’s knot still swollen inside him, it’s what he can get, and it’s clearly what he needs. The more he suckles, the more he calms, his body going beautifully, wonderfully lax in Bucky’s arms. The shivering starts to subside, his tears slowing.

“My poor baby,” Bucky coos again, so soft it’s barely a whisper. He runs his fingers through Steve’s hair. “Of course. A crying pup needs to nurse, but Daddy can’t keep his knot out of you. What’s a poor, needy boy to do? Go on, baby, you can nurse like this. That’s it, make yourself feel good. That’s all Daddy wants, sweet boy. I just want my baby to feel good.”

Steve makes a soft little noise. He stares at Bucky unblinkingly, hanging on his every word. The adoration in his eyes borders on genuine worship. He suckles hungrily, his mouth eager and ravenous on Bucky’s chest, but the longer he’s allowed to nurse, the more he settles into it. His suckling turns from the hard and frantic pull of a boy starved to the slow, lazy suckling of pure indulgence.

He moans softly, his gaze growing heavy-lidded, but it never, ever wavers. Through it all, he never stops looking at his Daddy. The sight of Bucky is just as important to him as the nursing itself, as Bucky’s soft words of praise. It keeps him grounded and feeling good.

Bucky stares right back, cooing softly, so fucking enamored by the boy in his arms, he’s breathless with it. He always is when Steve nurses. There’s not a sight as beautiful or as humbling as seeing his baby boy so vulnerable and yet so content. 

Leaning down, Bucky brushes a soft kiss to his forehead.

“Look at you,” he murmurs, running his knuckles over Steve’s cheek. He kisses Steve again, because he can’t help it, because his baby is perfect and Bucky wants to dote on him mercilessly. “In my wildest dreams, I never could’ve come up with anything as perfect as you, baby. My beautiful, sweet boy. Daddy loves you so, so much.”

Steve whimpers softly, the adoration in his eyes only growing. He suckles a little harder.

Bucky smiles. There’s something to be said for letting his baby nurse like this—for being able to hold his boy in his arms, to rub his back and bestow soft kisses and rock him gently. It’s a different kind of intimacy. Not more or less; just different.

He’ll have to coax his baby into his lap for this more often, he thinks.

He lets his boy suckle until his nipple is too sensitive to bear it any longer, and then he shifts Steve in his lap, guiding him to the other one. His boy’s mouth is empty for mere seconds, but the way Steve cries makes it seem like he was made to go without for days. As soon as he feels Bucky’s peaked nipple brush his lips, he latches on with a hungry little moan and starts to suckle, his fingers tangling in Bucky’s chest hair to keep him close. His eyelids droop almost immediately, the tension draining out of him.

Bucky smiles softly, tracing the lines of his boy’s face as his baby soothes his hunger.

“Rest now, sweet boy,” he murmurs. “Daddy wants to watch you nurse yourself to sleep. I’ll put you to bed all nice and snug and warm and then Daddy is going to go have a little chat with the people that upset my baby. Close your eyes now. That’s it, sweetheart. That’s my good boy. Such a good, good boy.”

Steve makes a soft little noise, his eyes slipping closed obediently. He’s so content that the scent of peonies nearly overpowers the heavy, lingering scent of sex in the air. Within minutes, he’s asleep, no doubt exhausted after hours of play. It takes several minutes longer for his mouth to stop moving, his perfect boy nursing even in sleep.

Bucky watches him for even longer, unable to help it.

Eventually, he’s watched his baby sleep for so long that he can feel the first tendrils of hunger unfurling inside him again, a low heat simmering in his belly. A brief fantasy flares to life in his mind of fucking the sleeping boy in his arms. He could roll them over and put his baby underneath him, the way he likes, or he do it just like this, holding his baby boy against his chest. He’d be so, so gentle, moving inside his boy slowly, easily, so as not to wake him. And if his baby boy started to cry in his sleep, Bucky would just guide him to nurse again.

It’s a heady image—his innocent boy, limp against his chest, nursing in his sleep while Daddy uses his perfect, tight little hole. Bucky would make a game of it, he thinks. How long could he make it last before his baby wakes up? Could he make his perfect boy come in his sleep before that happened?

Steve would love that. He so does love to wake up with Daddy inside him. God, the way he’d cry when he woke up and realized he’d come in his sleep. What a needy, needy boy Bucky would have on his hands, then.

He closes his eyes, biting back a groan as the fantasy unfurls in his mind. His cock starts to stiffen.

Before he can fall into it too deeply, he reluctantly eases his cock out of his boy. 

Extracting himself from Steve’s hold is a long, arduous with a lot of stops and starts. Bucky has to pull out a little at a time, letting Steve get used to the loss bit by bit, or he’ll wake up in the wrong kind of tears. Even with as much care as Bucky takes, though, as soon as his boy is left empty, he still starts crying in his sleep. 

Bucky coos at him gently, soothing him with soft praise and even softer touches, and when that doesn’t quite work, he guides Steve back to his chest. Given something to nurse on, his boy settles into sleep once more. Only when his mouth goes still does Bucky move again.

He finds his phone, sending out a summons, and while he gives them time to gather, he tucks in his sleeping boy as promised. Wiping him down with a warm cloth, sliding a plug into his used little hole, gently easing his cock cage into place. He takes out the scarcely used leather cuffs that match Steve’s collar. Bucky hardly ever uses them; they look pretty on his boy’s delicate wrists, but the moment he finds himself denied the sweet scent there or his mouth denied the taste of his skin, he has to get rid of them.

But tonight—tonight, he thinks, they’re needed. The security of complete and total ownership, that’s what he’s giving his boy. When Steve wakes up, he won’t have a moment’s doubt that he is owned. He’ll feel the evidence of Bucky’s ownership everywhere—his neck, his wrists, his cock, his hole. He’ll know that his body belongs to someone else. To his Daddy.

Finally, Bucky tucks Steve’s beloved Teddy between his arms and then wraps his baby in a thick, warm blanket. 

He looks so peaceful, so content, that Bucky goes back to that fantasy—holding this perfect, sleeping boy in his arms, rocking inside him so gently that he never wakes up. He wishes, more than anything, that he could crawl under the blankets with his baby and indulge.

But no, he can’t. Not right now. He’s not normally opposed to hedonistic indulgence, but he’ll never put his own selfish wants above Steve’s care. 

He kisses Steve’s hair.

“Love you, my sweet boy,” he murmurs, before finally leaving his boy to rest.

Someone—several someones, in fact—upset his baby boy. They made him doubt his place. Bucky might have made him feel better, but that isn’t where a Daddy’s job ends. 

--

Just imagine Steve in his playroom, dressed up pretty and passing the time coloring or reading a book. Just relaxing while Daddy does grown up things like dishes—things that Steve isn’t allowed to do, because he’s just a boy. His Daddy’s spoiled baby. He’s too delicate for that kind of work.

In the beginning, he would think he had to help. He’d get anxious and upset over the thought of not helping, would think Daddy be displeased, wouldn’t want him anymore if he didn’t pull his weight. But now he knows—the way to please Daddy, to make him happy, is the exact opposite. 

Daddy’s pleasure comes from catering to his every need, his very whim. Daddy wants him spoiled, helpless, dependent. All things that Steve wants to be, too, because it means someone loves him for who he is rather than what he does. He doesn’t need to break himself into pieces, overextend or exhaust himself, for Daddy to want him around.

So now, he doesn’t. Now he passes the time doing things he likes, laying on the floor with his coloring book or an actual book laid out in front of him, his feet kicked up in the air, rocking them back and forth. 

Daddy finds him like that. A boy in his element, contentment rolling off him in waves, his eyes bright and happy, if a little tired. He was kept up late, after all. It was their first night in the cabin, and both of them are always a little insatiable that first night, the high of uninterrupted playtime a heady aphrodisiac to them both.

It’s just the two of them, no one else around for miles. No other responsibilities to distract or take away Daddy’s attention. Nothing to stop them and so they don’t stop, not for hours.

Steve wouldn’t trade those hours—his Daddy’s desperate need for him—for anything in the world. He hasn’t been able to stop yawning all morning, but it’s more than worth it in his eyes.

Daddy finds him like that eventually, playing in his room, yawning softly, subconsciously rubbing at his eyes.

Bucky looks at the clock. He decided, privately, some time ago that Steve’s naptime is eleven o’clock. They usually have a late breakfast at the cabin, so his baby won’t be hungry for a while, and eleven is when the exhaustion really starts to hit.

It’s almost eleven now.

He squats down besides his baby, running his fingers through Steve’s hair. Steve looks up at him immediately, relaxed and happy and practically glowing with it.

It takes Bucky’s breath away to see, no matter how often he sees it. Steve has blossomed under his care, settled into his own skin. He’s so fucking content now and seeing him glow like this, knowing the hurt, anxiety-riddled boy that came to him, it humbles Bucky every time.

He did this. He made this beautiful, perfect boy looks so happy.

“Hi, baby,” he says softly, because his boy needs it when he’s like this, and because Bucky would rather cut off a limb than hurt him. 

Steve blushes under his attention, because he’s never quite gotten used to his Daddy’s attention, no matter how often he gets it. 

“Hi, Daddy,” he whispers back shyly.

“Are you having fun, my sweet boy?”

Steve smiles, nodding, his shyness growing. He can’t seem to look Bucky in the eye anymore, but that isn’t unusual. In this headspace, his baby is naturally bashful, so fucking shy until the haze of pleasure blots out everything but his need for more.

“What have you been doing while Daddy was busy, hm?”

His blush goes from a fetching pink to an even more alluring red. Now, he can’t seem to even look at Bucky’s face.

“I drew you a picture, Daddy,” he confesses. He peeks at Bucky from the corner of his eye.

“Oh?” Bucky asks, an overwhelming warmth tightening his chest. His boy is never far from his mind; it’s nice to know that he’s never far from Steve’s, either. “Do you want to show it to Daddy or work on it some more?”

Steve thinks about it. Bucky waits patiently, petting his hair as he lets his baby decide. Some decisions, few that they are, he won’t make for Steve and any decision about his art is at the top of that short list.

Finally, Steve wordlessly flips the page and looks up at him.

Soft, delicate pencil strokes form the shape of a large, muscular figure cradling a smaller, slimmer one in his lap. The small figure has a collar around his throat and there’s a necklace in the shape of a key resting against the larger figure’s chest, a replica of the one currently hanging around Bucky’s neck. Their faces are tilted toward each other, a line here and there to give the impression of eyes, a nose, a softly smiling mouth.

The sketch is little more than an impression, but it conveys a quiet intimacy that has Bucky’s heart thumping harder. 

“Baby,” he breathes out. “That’s beautiful.”

Steve’s breath audibly hitches, a vulnerability in his gaze that Bucky doesn’t see often anymore unless his baby is crying his way to an orgasm. He’s so sensitive about his art, and especially Bucky’s opinion of his art.

“Really?” He asks shyly.

“Really,” Bucky promises, kissing his temple. “You’re such a talented boy, sweetheart. Daddy’s so proud of you.”

There’s that glow again, Steve’s face shining as he grins up at him. It falters only when Steve’s jaw cracks in a yawn.

Bucky looks at the clock again. 11:01am. 

Almost to the minute.

He smiles to himself.

“When you think you’re done with it, we’ll take it home and Daddy will frame it,” he says softly. “But for now, I need you to put your things away like a good little boy. Can you do that for me, baby?”

Like Bucky knew he would, Steve smiles and nods.

“Yes, Daddy,” he says obediently, and rises onto his knees to gather his things. 

Bucky could help, and sometimes he does, but this time, he just watches his baby obey him. When Steve is done, he falls into his Daddy’s arms, allowing himself to be cradled in a way eerily reminiscent of the picture he’d drawn—but then, his boy drew it for a reason.

Bucky gathers him close, kissing him sweetly.

“Good boy,” he coos, brushing back Steve’s hair. “Such a good, obedient boy. My perfect baby.”

He kisses Steve’s forehead, his cheeks, his eyelids before shifting his weight and standing, his baby still held secure in his arms.

“And now,” he says softly, “it’s time for good little boys to take a nap. Do you want your bed or Daddy’s, baby?”

Steve shivers, his vision growing hazy.

“Here, Daddy,” he whispers. “Please?”

Bucky had a feeling that would be his answer. His baby so does love his playroom with its soft pink tones and its canopy bed, the curtains feeling like yet another layer between them and the world beyond. 

He gets Steve situated under the covers, moving him far enough down that when the time comes, Bucky can sit at his head.

For now, he squats beside the bed, resting his chin on his crossed arms as he looks at his cozy boy. 

“Where’s Teddy, baby?”

Steve yawns again, his eyes already drooping now that he’s in bed again.

“He wanted to spend time with Daddy Bear,” he answers. 

Bucky glances over his shoulder at the dresser, where the oversized stuffed animal known as Daddy Bear has a much smaller bear tucked underneath his arm.

“I see,” he says, with an indulgent smile. “Do you want Teddy for your nap, baby, or should we let him stay with Daddy Bear?”

The pout Steve turns on him then is devastating, his baby boy sleepy and pleading in a way that has Bucky ready to burn the world down if only to satisfy him.

“Can they both come, Daddy?” He asks softly, like the request is a hardship. Like there’s a universe in which Bucky would deny him. “I want Teddy, but I don’t think they should be apart.”

Bucky drags his knuckles across Steve’s soft cheek, and when that doesn’t dispel the ache in his chest, he leans forward to press gentle kisses across his face again.

I decided that Bucky is a doctor in this universe—mostly because fellow silver fox Dr Jack Abbott showed off his big muscly arms and titties in last week’s episode of The Pitt and that needs to be commemorated somehow—but I can’t decide if I want him to be an ER doctor like Dr Daddy Jack Abbott or something like a surgeon. Either way, for Future Reasons, he has to work in a hospital.

Also, he probably has an evil, gold-digging ex that said a lot of hateful things to him when he left, which is why Bucky can’t see that Steve is actually interested in him.

He’s a confident man in almost every other way, but that relationship did a number on him.

He doesn’t go to the club very often; he’s been a member long enough to know all the players and none of the available boys there want what he wants to give. He rules his domain at work with an iron fist, but when he goes home at the end of the day, he doesn’t want to be the same way with his boy. He wants to dote and coax and tease, he wants to be gentle and sweet.

He can be stern if he needs to, but mostly he just wants a boy to spoil. The boys at his club, they crave a stricter hand than he wants to give. 

But he’ll pop in occasionally, just sit and watch and socialize, because even just being there feels better than being in his huge, empty house all alone.

And then one night, he walks into the club, and there’s an angel sitting at the bar, giggling contagiously with a group of other subs. He’s fucking breathtaking, tousled blonde hair and glimmering blue eyes, tantalizingly red lips that shine with gloss, a cherubic face and porcelain skin, wearing a little skirt that falls over his creamy thighs in the most distracting way.

Bucky falls instantly, embarrassingly in love with the boy. 

“Close your mouth,” one of the other Daddies says, sidling up next to him, “you’ll catch flies.”

Bucky swallows roughly. “Who is that?”

“A friend of Etienne’s from school, apparently,” the Daddy says. “He’s joining our club. Used to go to one across town.”

Bucky thinks he knows the one. He’s gone a time or two, but this club was closer to home and the hospital, so it became his spot.

“God, he’s beautiful,” Bucky breathes, unable to look away.

The Daddy sighs mournfully. “Oh, to be twenty years younger.”

It pops the rosy haze that’s settled over Bucky. He remembers, very suddenly, who he is. Just how fucking old he is, and how young that boy is. 

The boy looks painfully young, but a school friend of Etienne’s would probably put him in his early to mid-20s, which is still far, far too young for Bucky to be watching him with heat swirling low in his gut. But even more importantly, it means that perfect, angelic creature would never want a man like him—aged, wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, his hair more silver than brown these days. He keeps himself as fit as he can, but there’s a comfortable soft layer of fat over his belly that he can’t get rid of anymore, no matter how hard he works out.  

A boy like that—gorgeous enough to have his pick of any partner he wanted, with his whole life ahead of him—would never even look twice at him.

Etienne, because he is a brat, through and through, and has a sixth sense on how to cause as much turmoil for a Dom as possible—even one that isn’t his own—takes it upon himself to introduce his new friend to everyone at the club that night.

“And this,” he says, flouncing up to Bucky just an hour or two later, pulling his friend along behind him by the wrist, “is Daddy James. He hardly comes to the club anymore, because he doesn’t love us. Daddy James, this is my best friend, Steve.”

“No one calls me James, Etienne,” Bucky corrects, exasperated, even as he tries not to stare too long at the angel in front of him. At Steve. His angel’s name is Steve. “I don’t even know how you found out about that.”

“I have my ways.” Etienne preens. “But you should definitely go by Daddy James, it’s a very refined name and you are a refined Daddy. ‘Daddy Bucky’ is not refined.”

“I like it,” Steve pipes up, and oh, his voice is the sweetest thing Bucky’s ever heard. “It sounds playful.”

He’s even prettier up close, all rosy cheeks and long lashes, a slim little thing that only comes up to Bucky’s shoulder. God, how perfectly this boy would fit in his arms.

Steve looks up at Bucky, his blue eyes coy and sparkling with mischief, tilting his head and swaying oh-so-innocently as he asks, “Are you a playful Daddy?”

Bucky’s mouth goes dry. What he wouldn’t give to show this lithe, beautiful boy just how playful he can be.

“Ugh, no,” Etienne says, scrunching up his nose, before Bucky can even begin to figure out how to answer that question. “Doms are always boring, even the Daddies. They all have their stupid rules, none of them know how to have fun.”

Bucky raises an eyebrow. “I’ll be sure to let your Sir know you think that.”

Something sparks in Etienne’s eyes, like he’s gotten exactly what he wanted. Idly, Bucky wonders just how many comments he’s dropped tonight, hoping to earn himself a punishment. He wonders if that’s all this is, this little meet-and-greet of his, just a new way to amuse himself and rile up his Dom.

What a deviant little thing.

“Be sure you do that,” Etienne says primly, taking Steve’s wrist again. “C’mon, Stevie, there’s more people to meet.”

That night in the shower, despite his very best efforts not to, Bucky touches his aching, pulsing cock to thoughts of a beautiful, angelic boy he has no business wanting.

Fantasies of how the night could have gone differently if only that boy were his. Backing him into a dark corner of the club, trapping that lean, lithe body against a wall, shushing him, telling him they have to be very, very quiet, as he unzips his pants, taking his cock out and slipping it underneath that tiny, tiny little skirt. 

That boy in the shower with him now, giving him that sweet smile before he drops to his knees and wraps those tantalizing lips around Bucky’s cock.

What it would be like to see that sweet, angelic face twisted in tormented pleasure, what it would look like crumpled and tearstained. What it sounds when he cries for his Daddy.

It’s those last thoughts that make him come in long, agonizing waves, fucking his fist with a desperation he hasn’t felt in years. That gorgeous face flushed red, tears of pleasure glistening in his blue eyes as he looks up at Bucky and sobs, “Daddy.”

He’s ashamed of himself afterward—ashamed to be lusting after a boy so young, so thoroughly out of his league and his reach—but it also doesn’t stop him from returning to the club more frequently.

He can’t seem to help it, no matter how hard he tries. He just seems to end up there, standing at the entrance, blinking and confused, wondering how he got there in the first place. And then, well—he’s already there, isn’t he? He might as well go in.

Through these frequent trips, he learns that Steve is a wonderfully coy, playful, flirty boy that thrills at having a Daddy’s attention. He loves to flirt with anyone, it seems, but when it’s a Daddy, he comes alive.

He seeks it out shamelessly, throwing himself among the socializing Daddies night after night to soak up their attention like a lamb offering himself up to a pack of wolves. He jokes and smiles and laughs and flirts with them all, which is why Bucky never takes it to heart when it’s his turn, no matter how hard or fast said heart pounds.

Despite his flirtations, to Bucky’s knowledge, he hasn’t played with any of them.

In fact, besides socialize, the most Bucky ever sees him do at the club is one very, very memorable occasion, near to the club’s closing time and far past the time Bucky should’ve gone home, but he kept telling himself just one more look. Just one more glimpse of the boy he can never have.

And then he sees them: a tangle of lithe limbs on the couch.

Etienne hovers over Steve, his trim waist cradled between soft, creamy thighs, their hips moving together in a slow, erotic grind as they exchange long, lazy kisses. Every time they pull back to take a breath, they grin at each other, giggling softly. Just two boys having fun, feeling good together, but they have the attention of everyone left in the club.

Bucky did not need to see this. He did not need to know what Steve looks like flushed with pleasure, what his lips look like after long, deep, wet kisses. And yet he here is, witnessing it, a reluctant but lecherous voyeur, his cock lengthening against his thigh. He can’t look away, no matter how much he knows he should.

Steve lifts his head from the couch, his delicate, pink tongue snaking out to coyly lick Etienne’s top lip. Bucky’s cock fucking pulses.

He turns on his heel, walking out before he does something stupid like kneel beside the couch and take that tongue for his own.

He comes that night to the image of a delicate pink tongue teasing the tip of his cock.

What Bucky doesn’t know is that Steve throws himself among the Daddies night after night just to be close to him. That yes, Steve might like attention—okay, he might really like attention, especially from a Daddy—but the only thing he’s doing while he’s smiling and laughing and flirting with the rest of them is trying to put himself in Bucky’s line of sight. 

The rest of the Daddies catch on pretty quickly. Steve is a lot of things, but he isn’t subtle. While he’s smiling and laughing with them, he keeps sneaking little peeks at one man in particular. Every time he sees that man’s attention on him, his blush turns scarlet.

And when Bucky’s head is turned, his attention taken up by something else, oh, the hunger in that boy’s eyes. The way he chews on his lip, perusing Bucky’s body, undressing him with his eyes so blatantly that everyone witnessing it gets hot under the collar.

“Apparently,” one of the older Daddies mutters to another, early on, “we don’t need to be twenty years younger.”

The other Daddy snorts. “Should we tell him?” He asks, nodding at Bucky.

“No, let’s not spoil the surprise. That tenacious little thing is going to get what he wants, and Bucky deserves to be chased a little, after—”

The Daddy grimaces. “After,” he agrees, and they leave it at that.

The problem, they find, is that Bucky has no idea he’s being chased. No matter what Steve does, no matter how unsubtle he is. The flirting and compliments and little teasing touches, and still, Bucky doesn’t seem to realize that any of it is serious.

It doesn’t stop him from being a lovesick fool, though. 

Steve’s an aspiring artist and has only just recently gotten up the nerve to start posting his works online. Etienne is the one to give out the link, since Steve is too shy to do it himself, but it still makes its way back to Bucky.

The next time they see Steve, he’s bouncing with excitement—he sold his first piece through his new website.

As they watch him gush, one of the Daddies clears his throat, leaning close to Bucky and muttering, “So if I went into your house right now, which room would it be in?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Bucky says without ever taking his eyes off his angel, teeming with happiness.

“Yeah, I might believe you,” the Daddy replies, “except you have the look of a Daddy that just made his boy very, very happy. Which wouldn’t be a problem if you just made him your boy.”

“Will you just let me have this?”

It goes on for months. Bucky, panting desperately after the prettiest boy he’s ever seen and ashamed he can’t seem to stop, trying not to let it show and when that fails, at least making it clear that he knows he doesn’t stand a chance. And poor Steve, trying to figure out why nothing he does seems to work.

“Are you sure he likes guys?” He asks Etienne one night in their apartment, wanting his Daddy and feeling very whiny that he’s being denied.

“I’m very sure,” says Etienne, as patiently as he can for someone who’s had this conversation a dozen times already. “His last relationship was a guy.”

Steve looks down at himself critically. He isn’t ugly, he knows that. He’s a very respectable looking person, he just happens to be vertically challenged, a little skinny, and maybe a little too soft. Maybe a little too soft on purpose, because he likes the way it feels.

“Am I too femme?” He asks, frowning as he picks at the flowery pink satin shorts he has on. That would be a shame; he really likes his soft body and pretty clothes. “Does he like his boys more masculine? I don’t wanna be muscly and boring.”

There’s something so enticing about wearing small, delicate, feminine things. About feeling small and delicate in a big, strong Daddy’s arms. He shivers, unable to stop himself from wondering what it would feel like to feel so delicate and soft and little in Daddy Bucky’s arms.

A strong arm wraps around his shoulders, pulling him out of that thought.

“Then don’t be,” Danny, their third roommate, says. “Don’t change yourself for some man. If he can’t see how amazing you are, that’s on him.”

Steve practically purrs at the touch, wriggling in Danny’s arms until he can press himself right up against Danny’s muscular chest.

“You think I’m amazing?” He asks breathlessly, rocking his hips a little.

Danny’s eyes sparkle. “Behave,” he says simply, reaching under Steve’s little shorts to pinch his bare ass, hard.

Steve lets out a squeal that makes Etienne laugh. 

With a soft, pitiful whine, Steve flops against Danny’s chest, tucking himself underneath his chin. His reward for his obedience is a soft to kiss to the forehead and a hand in his hair.

It’s hard to explain his relationship with his roommates to other people. Etienne is the boy he met at freshman orientation in college, who looked so flamboyant and pretty that Steve had stars in his eyes the whole afternoon. They met Danny-the-upperclassman weeks later at a mixer and through a comedy of errors the likes of which only Etienne and Steve could achieve, eventually stumbled their way into the knowledge that Danny was in fact a Dom.

Etienne opened Steve’s eyes to the wonders of being a pretty, feminine boy, but Danny is the one to open both of their eyes to the world of kink. He took them under his wing rather than let them fumble through it themselves or accidentally find someone who might hurt them. Their kinks didn’t align, but they were attracted to each other, so he patiently explored each new thing they were curious about until both Etienne and Steve were armed with the knowledge of exactly what got them off. 

They’ve had sex, the three of them together, many, many times and while they don’t really do that anymore—not unless Steve and Etienne are sleepy and horny and want to make out and rub off on each other—it’s impossible to lose the intimate knowledge they have of each other’s bodies. 

It’s also hard when Steve really, really likes making out with his roommates, and they love him enough to indulge him. He had a very lonely childhood devoid of touch and now, he’s a hopelessly tactile creature. He doesn’t just want it, he craves it like a drug. He needs to be touched and cuddled and loved on, and thankfully, he’s found at least two people in this world who will give it to him without reservation.

“Oh, Daddy Bucky knows how amazing he is,” Etienne chimes in, once Steve is settled against Danny’s chest. “Steve could crush him beneath his dainty little heel and that man would say thank you. Steve could tell him to lick his boots and Daddy Bucky would do it, no hesitation, just for the chance to touch him.”

“He would not,” Steve says, blushing.

“He so would. The way he looks at you when you’re walking around the club violates public indecency laws, I’m sure of it.”

“If that was true, he’d show more interest, wouldn’t he? He’d flirt back. He’d touch me back when I touch him.” Steve whines softly. “I want him to touch me so bad.”

Danny watches him flop onto his back dramatically, his dark eyes glittering with amusement.

“Why do you want this guy so badly? Are there no other available Daddies at the new club?”

“Oh, there are plenty,” Etienne snorts. “And almost all of them would kill at the chance to take Steve into one of the playrooms. But our finicky little mister over there took one look at Daddy Bucky the night they met and decided that was the Daddy for him.”

“Ugh, you don’t understand,” Steve cries, sitting up. “Neither of you do. He’s like boy catnip. He’s so big and beefy and hairy all over and there’s all that silver in it and his belly is soft and his hands are so big, I wanna cry just thinking about it, and he has that whole buttoned-up Daddy thing going on that tells you he’s going to be so filthy in bed, and he has such a big dick, I just know it—”

“There is absolutely no way you can know that,” Danny interrupts, laughing.

“I so can,” Steve insists.

“Well,” Etienne adds at nearly the same time, “I have heard rumors…”

Steve whines again, knowing he’s being dramatic but unable to help it. 

“I knew it. He has a big dick and I wanna play with it. Make him let me play with it.”

He adds this last part to Danny, pouting as he rubs their thighs together. When that doesn’t feel like enough, he helplessly rocks their hips together, leaning up to nibble at his jaw.

Danny looks down at him with that same fond amusement, like Steve is a favored pet doing something particularly cute.

“You are so horny tonight,” he comments.

Steve make another pitiful noise, nodding. “I want my Daddy, but he won’t play with me. I wanna sit on his massive dick and cry until I can’t come anymore.”

Okay, well, Daddy Bucky isn’t actually his Daddy and Steve knows he shouldn’t claim him that way. It’s just hard. Steve wants him so much he aches with it sometimes and somewhere along the way, he’s grown possessive even though he knows he shouldn’t be. He hates when other boys even look at him at the club anymore, and God, the way jealousy tears at his insides when they actually talk to him.

Daddy Bucky hasn’t ever played with a boy at the club, not as long as Steve’s been there, but he lives in fear of the day it will happen. Because it will happen one day, he knows it will. Daddy Bucky is a single man, after all, and so attractive it’s insane. He’s well within his rights to play with whoever he wants and however often he wants. 

One day, some lucky boy will catch his eye and Daddy Bucky will take him into one of the playrooms—or, in Steve’s worse imaginings, home—and Steve will forever be left to wonder what that boy has that he doesn’t.

“You’re such a little freak,” Etienne taunts.

Steve glares. “Shut up, Etienne, I’ve seen the stuff you let Sir use on you!”

“Boys,” Danny chides calmly. “No kinkshaming.” 

He touches Steve’s chin, turning his attention away from Etienne.

“Have you asked him to play with you?” He asks patiently, once Steve’s eyes are on him again.

Steve squirms, admitting in a small voice, “No. What if he doesn’t like assertive boys?”

Danny raises an imperious eyebrow.

“What if he does? What if he thinks you don’t want to play with him because you haven’t asked? What if your kinks don’t align? What if you’re actually completely sexually incompatible—”

Steve gasps, scandalized by the very notion. “Impossible.”

“—you won’t know anything until you actually talk to him,” Danny finishes, ignoring Steve’s interruption. “You have to actually talk, Steve, not just be cute and flirty and make eyes at him. Tell him what you want. You know better. I taught you better.”

“Don’t be logical, Danny!”

“Steve.”

“I know, okay?” Steve sighs softly. “It’s just—what if he says no? At least right now, I can dream. If I ask and it turns out I’m right and he’s not interested, then that’s it. Or worse, he’ll laugh with his friends that some stupid kid thought he ever stood a chance.”

Etienne snorts. “That is never gonna happen, trust me on that.”

Danny shakes his head, leaning down to kiss the bridge of his nose.

“You are so silly sometimes,” he murmurs. “I’ve seen you bring a whole room of men to their metaphorical knees and know you’re doing it. You know exactly how cute you are and yet the second you think you’re being rejected, you come up with the craziest scenarios.”

“Don’t laugh at me.” Steve pouts, wrapping his arms around Danny’s neck. “And don’t call me cute.”

“No?”

“No. I’m sad, Danny. Tell me I’m pretty and kiss me until I feel better.”

“Oh,” Etienne says, finally bounding over, “me too! Don’t leave me out!”

Whatever kind of doctor Bucky is, he’s in the ER one night—maybe for his shift, maybe he’s a surgeon called down for some sort of assistance—when he turns around and his heart drops.

Seconds before a nurse leaving a room pulls a privacy curtain closed, he catches a glimpse of a hunched figure with a lithe body and tousled blonde hair peeking out from underneath a beanie. It shouldn’t be enough for Bucky to know, but he does. Before he even registers the thought to move, he’s standing outside the curtain.. 

“Steve?” He asks softly.

On the other side, he hears a soft hitching breath, a sniffle.

“Da—um. B-Bucky?”

“Can I come in?”

“Yes.”

The sight on the other side of the curtain breaks his fucking heart. 

Steve is a vibrant soul, glowing and full of life, always energetic, coy, playful. But not today. Today, he’s hunched and shivering, his blue eyes shimmering with unshed tears. He looks so small and lost, hunched on the hospital bed covered in a smattering of small scrapes and bruises.

“Oh,” Steve says meekly, a tear slipping down his cheek as he blinks. “Hi.”

“Christ,” Bucky breathes out.

He pulls a stool to the edge of the bed, sitting down hard. He has one rule for himself when it comes to the angel he can never have: never touch him. Touching him would lead to madness. He isn’t strong enough to stop Steve from touching him, but he can’t reciprocate because if he started, he knows he’d never be able to stop.

That rule means nothing now. He can’t see his little angel in pain—see that lost, hurt, vulnerable look in his eyes—and not touch him. 

But—professionally. He can’t stop himself from touching, but he has to keep it professional. He has to at least try.

“C’mere, sweetheart,” he murmurs, scooting close. “Lemme take a look at you. What happened?”

He cups Steve’s face in his hands, turning his head from side to side to examine him. Slowly, he lets his hands move down, palpating gently and watching carefully for his reactions. 

“Um.” He swallows, his throat working underneath Bucky’s fingers. He sniffles, trying to gather himself even as more tears fall. “I, um. I was—I was in the middle of the crosswalk and some…idiot wasn’t going to stop. They didn’t h-hit me, but I—I tripped getting out of the way. Y-You’re a doctor?”

Bucky smiles softly, his hands sliding down to Steve’s thin shoulders. He squeezes gently, allowing himself a single soft sweep of his thumb over Steve collarbone.

“I am,” he answers softly. He forces himself to move on; he can’t linger in any one place. Can’t focus too long on this beautiful, lithe body and what it feels like underneath his hands. “Did you hit your head when you fell?”

“Yes,” Steve whispers. He touches the side of his hair, behind and above the ear. “H-Here.”

Gently, Bucky removes his beanie. “Did you lose consciousness?”

“No,” Steve answers, obediently turning his head when he’s guided. “No passing out, no dizziness, no confusion. J-Just a headache.”

His breath hitches softly when Bucky’s hand cups his neck to tilt his head toward the light. Bucky swallows roughly, telling himself not to read into it. Of course his breath is unsteady—he’s been through a lot in the past couple of hours, overwhelmed, shaken up and crying. It has nothing to do with him.

Steve’s hair is dark and matted with dried blood, but not as much as Bucky would’ve expected from a head wound.

“Did you Google that,” Bucky asks, parting the hair to see his scalp, “or have they examined you already?”

“B-both.”

The wound is small, no stitches required. It’s already been cleaned, confirming that it has, indeed, already been looked at.

That should put his mind at ease, but it doesn’t. He needs to check for himself. Just to be sure.

Bucky turns Steve’s head back toward him, grabbing his pen light. 

“I’m going to shine a light in your eyes. It’s going to be bright, but it’ll only be for a second.”

Steve allows it, obediently submitting to a second examination for no other reason than because Bucky wants to give it. As Bucky tucks the pen light back into his pocket, satisfied by his pupillary reaction, he has the distinct, tortuous pleasure of watching a lithe hand rub along the swell of his chest.

“You look really handsome in your white coat,” Steve says, his voice uncharacteristically meek. He sniffles softly. “I can’t believe I get to see you like this and I’m not even in the right frame of mind to enjoy it.”

Bucky catches his hand, flattening it against him.

“No flirting, you little minx,” he admonishes. “I’m trying to make sure you’re okay.”

“It’s not flirting, I’m giving you a compliment.” Steve tries to give him a playful little smile, but it’s tremulous at best. A few more tears slip down his cheeks. Watching them fall makes Bucky feel like he’s being stabbed. “Aren’t you going to give me one back? Tell me I look so pretty all bruised up and crying?”

It’s the tears that make him say it. Those fucking tears, and that vulnerable look in Steve’s eyes, shredding every ounce of his self-control.

“Sweetheart, I have no doubt you’d look fucking ethereal covered in the right kind of bruises with the right kind of tears, but not these.”

Bucky reaches up, unable to stop himself from gently wiping them away as he whispers, “These are enough to break a Daddy’s heart.” 

Steve’s breath hitches. “Ethereal? You think I’d be….ethereal?”

I think you already are, Bucky thinks helplessly, but he can’t say that. He’s already said too much. The last thing he wants is to make Steve uncomfortable.

He clears his throat, pulling his hands away.

“Any Daddy would,” he says mechanically.

“Oh.”

Steve’s shoulders slump, his gaze now downcast. It’s the first time since Bucky walked in that Steve hasn’t looked at him and the loss leaves him feeling cold.

Bucky looks around the room, casting for something to say. Belatedly, he realizes that there’s nothing chaotic and colorful enough to suggest Etienne’s presence. 

He frowns.

“How long have you been here?”

Steve shrugs, not looking up as he whispers, “Couple of hours. They did a bunch of tests, I’m just waiting on the results so I can go home.”

“Then where is Etienne?”

He sniffles, scrubbing away a few fresh tears.

“I didn’t call him,” he admits quietly.

“Why not?”

“It’s play night with his Sir. He likes to pamper himself beforehand. I just…didn’t want to interrupt.”

Bucky frowns. “This is the kind of thing he would want to be interrupted for. You were hurt. He’d want to be here for you.”

Another deceptively careless shrug, another agonizing minute of Steve avoiding his gaze.

“It’s just some scrapes and bruises. I…I should be able to handle that on my own, right?”

He’s trying so hard to act like what happened to him is no big deal, that it didn’t scare him, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. He hasn’t stopped crying the entire time Bucky’s been with him, and though he seems a little less lost, that air of fragility hasn’t yet dissipated. He’s shaken. Just some scrapes and bruises or not, he shouldn’t be alone.

Gently, Bucky touches his chin, lifting it back up. Relief floods him when Steve lets himself be guided, those blue eyes finally on him again. God, he looks so vulnerable. So hurt.

“It’s okay if you can’t,” Bucky whispers, caressing his chin. “You don’t have to do this on your own, you can—”

The privacy curtain is pulled back. Steve flinches at the sudden noise, hunching in on himself further.

The doctor on the other side pauses at the sight of Bucky, her sharp gaze taking in the scene with keen interest. 

Bucky winces. Of all the doctors, it had to be her. Dr. Natalia Romanov misses nothing.

“Dr. Barnes,” she says, raising a thin, delicate brow. “I wasn’t aware your expertise was needed on this case.”

“It isn’t,” Bucky replies, sitting back. “I was just checking on a friend.”

“A friend,” Dr. Romanov repeats. She looks between them. “Right.”

Bucky clears his throat. “I’ll leave you to it, shall I?”

He stands, but before he can move any further, Steve makes a loud, panicked noise, scrambling to grab his hand.

“No, don’t leave,” he begs. His gaze is pleading as he looks up at Bucky, fresh tears brewing. “Please don’t leave.”

Despite every part of him knowing it’s a bad idea, Bucky cups Steve’s face again.

“Give me your phone,” he murmurs, caressing his cheek. “I’ll call Etienne while you speak to Dr. Romanov. You’re in good hands, I promise.”

Steve sighs, rubbing his cheek against Bucky’s palm like a particularly needy kitten as he reluctantly reaches for his phone.

“You’ll come back?” He asks morosely.

“I’ll come back,” Bucky promises. “I have to return your phone, at least.”

He squeezes Steve’s cheek, giving it one last caress before he pulls away.

“I’ll be right back.”

Bucky is too busy ignoring Romanov’s intense gaze to notice the blue eyes that follow him out. In a small alcove away from the hustle and bustle, he calls Etienne. It is, perhaps, the bizarre and most frustrating phone call of his life.

Etienne reacts as expected at first—horrified at what happened, annoyed he wasn’t called, worried about his best friend. But the very moment Bucky mentions that Steve shouldn’t be left alone, there is a very long pause and then his tone…shifts.

“Oh,” he says haltingly. “Well, he can’t come back here.”

Bucky blinks, pulling the phone away from his ear to stare at it for a second. “Why the hell not?”

“Our apartment’s being fumigated.”

“The apartment you’re taking a bath in right now?” 

Because he can very clearly hear the splash of water every time Etienne moves.

“Oh, right,” Etienne says, unrepentant. “What I meant to say is that a pipe burst right above his bedroom and his bed is tragically ruined. There’s nowhere for him to convalesce. Trust me, the couch should not be slept on.”

“What about your bed?”

“Forget about the beds,” Etienne sighs dramatically. “Aliens are attacking downtown right now! I can see the battle from my bathroom window. Traffic must be a nightmare, there’s just no way to get to him tonight.”

“Etienne.” Bucky pinches the bridge to his nose, a headache coming on the likes of which only Etienne could ever inspire. “What are you doing?”

“Oh, I thought it was obvious,” Etienne replies brightly. “He’s going home with you, Doctor Daddy. It’s just about how hard you fight it.”

“You don’t even know what time my shift ends, Etienne, he could be here for hours.”

“What time does your shift end?”

Reluctantly, Bucky admits, “Now.”

“Then it’s settled! Take our little gumdrop home with you, since you’re so very worried about him. You’re a doctor, after all, who could take better care of him than you?”

Bucky wants to. God, does he want to. He’d love nothing more than to wrap his little angel up in a warm blanket and cuddle with him all night long, to touch and kiss and coo soft praise until that air of fragility has dissipated. But he doesn’t have that right. He’ll never have that right.

“That would be inappropriate,” Bucky says, “and very ill-advised. And I don’t think he would like it. I think I made him uncomfortable earlier.”

A peal of laughter echoes through the phone. “In his pants, maybe.”

“Etienne.”

“Oh, boo.” He gives another long, dramatic sigh. “Well, if there’s no convincing you, I suppose I can see if Danny can leave work early and go get him. It can’t be me, you know, Steve and I just feed off each other. We’ll both be crying in no time. But Danny, he’ll wrap Steve up in those big strong arms of his and give him the TLC he needs if you won’t do it.”

Bucky twitches at the name. He saw it in Steve’s most recent calls, of course. Besides Etienne, this mysterious Danny is the person Steve calls the most.

He tells himself not to ask—that it’s just feeding right into Etienne’s hand—but he cannot hold the question in.

“Who’s Danny?”

“Our roommate,” Etienne answers sweetly. In a conspiratorial whisper, he adds, “And a Dom. Not a Daddy, sadly, so not quite the whole package for our gumdrop, but don’t you worry, Doctor Daddy, he knows just what Stevie likes. He’ll be able to take care of him just. right.”

For one terrible, gut-wrenching moment, Bucky imagines it. The muscular, attractive, appropriate young man that would walk into the hospital to get his little angel. Having to watch Steve throw himself in that man’s arms, search out comfort and reassurance from someone else and readily find it. Watching them leave and knowing that it’ll be that man taking care of his angel, that Steve will submit himself to that man’s care.

It shouldn’t matter. No matter what, Steve will never look twice at him. Will never want him the way Bucky hopelessly, desperately wants him.

But it does matter. It does.

Bucky lets out a long breath. “Why are you doing this, Etienne?”

“Believe it or not, I’m trying to help.” In this, at least, he sounds sincere. “I’ll admit, the jealousy angle was a gamble. You’re kind of a martyr about him, but you also haven’t had to watch him be with anyone else, so I rolled the dice. Did it work?”

Bucky doesn’t answer. Can’t answer. Because the truth is: it is working, but he’s trying hard not to let it. He has to be reasonable here. What good will come from this?

But his silence must be telling, because Etienne presses his advantage:

“What’ll be, Doctor Daddy? Time’s a’wasting. Do I send Danny in as the white knight for our little damsel in distress or are you gonna give in and do what we both know you want to do, anyway?”

“It’s not about what I want. It’s about what he needs.”

“Aw, what a good Daddy,” Etienne coos. “Luckily, that’s exactly what he needs. But if you’re so concerned, give him the phone. I’ll make sure.”

As Bucky walks back toward Steve’s room, he says, “The next time I see your Sir, I’m going to have a chat with him about your penchant for manipulation.”

“Promises, promises.”

The problem, Bucky finds, with giving Steve his phone back and then giving him privacy to talk to his best friend, is that it also gives Natalia the opportunity to corner him.

“Should I ask?”

“I would really rather you didn’t.”

Natalia hums, looking him over.

“For now,” she concedes. “Be careful, James. We don’t need another situation on our hands.”

With that, she walks away. He watches her go with a wince. 

Situation. It’s what she likes to call his last relationship; the one that began the long, lonely dry spell he hasn’t been able to get himself out of. She never dignifies the man who’s responsible for it by saying his name.

A few minutes later, Steve peeks around the curtain. He doesn’t have to say anything. Bucky can tell just by the blush on his cheeks: