Chapter Text
exit the harlot and the landlord
His arms hurt like shit. He keeps swinging from where he’s hanging and his shoulders feel like they’re about to dislocate. The space around him is so musty he keeps choking on the air, but it might the chloroform in his system. Dr. Madini told him that the dust and mildew he smells in the dark aren’t really there, they’re vivid flashbacks. His mouth tastes like blood. That’s not a hallucination.
Steve knows that he’s going to die. Garrett and Ward and the eight or ten other men they have with them have as good as promised him that. He’s going to die, but if he stops fighting, they might let Peter and May live.
“You’re gonna pay for Jay’s finger,” Ward keeps hissing in his ear.
Steve has realized by then that the breathing on the back of his neck is not a hallucination, either, because Ward is always standing just behind him, just to breathe on him.
“I’m gonna cut off every one of your fingers and toes, bitch,” Ward promises him.
Steve sways in the motion of whatever is rattling the space he’s hung in. His head pounds from the repeated dosing of chloroform and he’s limp. His fingers are numb. Bucky told him a long time ago to speak up if his fingers ever even got tingly, but he doubts that Garrett and Ward will let him down to get the blood back in his fingers.
“You did this to yourself,” Ward says to him. “If you just hadn’t bit the hand that feeds you, Stevie.”
Steve once told Garrett everything his foster father did to him. He’d been drunk and Garrett had kept giving him booze until he’d spilled the whole story. Steve had trusted him once. Now Ward is quoting Steve’s foster father and Steve is blindfolded in a lightless space, with two other lives dependent on him no longer fighting.
“You’re a lot sweeter when you shut your mouth,” Ward whispers to him. “It’s a shame we have to do this to you to get you to learn.”
Steve knows he’s going to die. He just wishes Garrett would get on with it already.
There’s an abrupt jolt in the space and Steve swings violently back and forth, hitting Ward once before he moves out of the way. Steve’s face and throat are so numb from the chloroform, he can’t even scream when his shoulders finally pop.
“Home sweet home,” Garrett announces. “Get him down.”
Hands grab him. Steve can’t feel them exactly, but they’re only lifting him off the hook. Steve manages a weak whimper when his shoulders snap again and he can only hope they weren’t truly dislocated.
“Grab the girls,” Garrett says, speaking of Peter and May. “We’ll toss them out of the way until we’re done with him.”
Steve is dragged away from the hook they’d hung him on by his arms. His feet dangle uselessly under him. The people dragging him abruptly swing him forward, his body lifts from the ground, and the hands leave his arms.
Steve still can’t scream. For one moment, for one terrible moment, he is weightless. The moment drags on as gravity seems to forget him, but innate terror grips Steve’s chest; he hasn’t forgotten gravity.
Then he hits another body and is dropped onto the ground.
“You could’ve dropped him yourself,” a man complains.
“Nah,” another man says, “more fun to throw him.”
“Don’t break him yet,” Garrett’s voice called. “Inside.”
Hands grab his wrists and his feet. He’s lifted off the ground partially, but his ass dragged along the ground, which is covered in gravel. Rocks get into his clothes and scrape his skin; a particularly sharp one sends a piercing pain somewhere along his back, he’s too sluggish to be able to tell.
“Aw, fuck, he’s getting blood everywhere,” someone complains.
“Just don’t get it on your skin,” another person warns, “he’s probably got a thousand STDs.”
“Probably got AIDs,” the first person grumbles.
Steve doesn’t have AIDs, his last round of tests after leaving Brass Fang nearly seven months ago just came back and he has a clean bill of health. He and Bucky were talking about no longer using condoms.
Thinking of Bucky abruptly brings to the forefront of his mind all the lies Steve’s told him lately. That he would be fine while Bucky was in Brazil. That he could take care of himself. That there was nothing for Bucky to worry about. And the worst yet, the lie by omission – Steve hasn’t told Bucky he loves him. He’s been in love probably since November, since that awful morning he’d woken up in subdrop and Bucky had rushed to leave everything just to comfort him. He’s been lying to himself that it was too soon, that he couldn’t spring something like that on Bucky, for almost seven months and now he won’t ever tell Bucky.
The last time he’d spoken to Bucky, he’d held back the truth. Steve thinks he’s crying, but he can’t feel his face.
He’s tossed bodily onto hardwood floors. He rolls and hits a wall, then the blindfold is ripped off his eyes and he’s faced with a floral pink wallpaper.
“Home sweet home!” Garrett calls behind him while Steve struggles vainly to get away from his mother’s wallpaper. “Isn’t it fitting that in the same place your mother died because of your selfishness, you’ll die because of the same?”
Steve’s tongue is numb, his jaw is numb, everything is numb except his shoulders, which scream in pain. Garrett grabs his hair and hauls him off the ground, putting him on his knees to face the room.
“Look at this,” Garrett says, “nobody’s touched this place in years! You own all this and you never once came back to take care of your mother’s things! What kind of son does that?”
Steve’s eyes are definitely watering now if they weren’t before. His scalp is on fire from Garrett holding him up, but the pain isn’t what makes his eyes fill.
“Look,” Garrett insists, throwing him onto the floor in the center of the room; he hits the ground with a heavy thump and a dull ache radiates through his entire body. “This place is a mess,” Garret says. “Her photos are all over the place, her clothes are still hanging up, her bed isn’t even made! Do you realize how hurt she would be if she knew you’d just left all this to the moths?”
Steve can’t answer him, but he’s sure Garrett did that on purpose. Garrett kneels next to him and looks down at him with such pity.
“Oh, Steve,” he sighs. “You really are still a child deep inside, aren’t you? You couldn’t handle how your life had driven your mother’s health into the ground, so you did nothing at all.”
Steve does his best to shake his head. That’s not true, he thinks. It hadn’t been his fault his mother died, cancer got everybody regardless of how much life and energy they spent on their ill children. It's not his fault that he never managed to grow up and couldn't handle coming back to the place where he'd watched his mother deteriorate. It's not his fault he finds solace in rejecting the kind of maturity he'd been forced into after his mother got sick, it's not his fault she died, it's not his fault he can't grow up, it's not his fault he killed his mother –
“Your mother made so many sacrifices for you,” Garrett tuts, “and this is how you repay her?”
He gestures to the room at large. Steve tries his damnedest to shake his head, his vision blurring at the edges from the tears in his eyes.
“You know, I think you need some time to think about this,” Garrett announces. He grabs Steve’s hair again and starts dragging him from the room.
Steve can’t even claw feebly at Garrett’s knuckles in his hair, he can barely even whimper. Garrett drags him out of his mother’s bedroom and through the sitting room, through into the kitchen, then yanks open the door to the basement.
Steve tries to fight. Garrett drags him down the stairs and drops him onto the damp concrete floor.
“You just need some time by yourself,” Garrett says firmly, pulling the blindfold from his pocket.
Steve tries to whimper more, but it’s fruitless. Garrett pulls the tight black cloth over his head and bunches it up over his eyes.
“You’ll have the rats and the roaches to keep you company,” Garrett promises him. “And maybe later I’ll send Ward down here to remind you of what you’ve done.”
Steve quakes as the cold from the damp concrete seeps into his already numb body. There isn’t a shred of light in the room. The basement is small, barely a cellar. He hears Garrett’s footsteps thudding on the stairs, then the door slamming shut.
Steve tries to scream. It comes out as a hoarse breath.
The basement reeks of mold. Steve hated this cellar even while he was living above it, before his foster father and before Garrett regularly blindfolding him to let him think about where he’d gone wrong, and Garrett had already reminded him of why. Steve can hear the distant squeak of rats and imagines they’re already nearing to see what fresh meat had landed in their abandoned, moist hell for the first time in almost eight years.
Something crawls over his ankle, something too light with too many legs and too long antennae. Steve tries again to scream, tries to lift himself up off the damp ground, but his body shakes and collapses. Something twice as wet and warm bursts under his knee and he sobs silently. He should have known Garrett would do something like this, he should have known that Garrett wouldn’t have let his betrayal go unpunished. Garrett had once locked him in the cellar of his house for three days because Steve had tried to keep more than his share of his earnings. It had only been twenty dollars and he’d kept it by accident, but Garrett had refused to believe him. He should have known Garrett wouldn’t let his turning on the hand that fed him go unnoticed.
The darkness presses in on him. Steve can’t breathe for how thickly the air smells of mold and age. The rats get brave like the roaches and he can hear their claws while he can only feel it when a cockroach crawls over his body. The clothes his kidnappers had dressed him in are paper thin, probably picked out by Garrett just for this purpose. The chloroform weighs heavily on his system, and Steve realizes that this is how he is going to die. He’s going to die here.
The chloroform in his system is slowly going to paralyze his lungs and stop his heart and he’ll die in his dead mother’s damp cellar, with rats and roaches already curiously sniffing his body to see if he would make a good meal.
Steve manages to cry out when a rat bites his finger. It runs away squeaking, but just as quickly, another one climbs his hips and starts licking the blood on his back from the gravel. He tries again to make noise, but it’s a feeble sound and doesn’t deter the rat any. Another one joins it, then another, then they get brave again and try biting him. He swears one draws blood. At least the rats are keeping away the roaches. The roaches won’t get to crawl over him again until the rats are done.
The rats start shrieking abruptly and someone hauls Steve off the damp floor. He sobs weakly again and tries to fight, tries to go dead weight and let the rats keep eating him alive, but whoever it is pins his hands and pulls him farther away from the floor. Steve tries to dig his nails into their hands, but his strength is gone.
The blindfold is ripped off of him. Steve winces against the sudden light, then a hand is cupping his cheek tenderly.
“Have you learned your lesson?” Garrett asks him kindly.
“Just kill me,” Steve whispers hoarsely.
Garrett sighs. “I guess you haven’t,” he says, then jams the blindfold back on him.
Steve hits the concrete floor hard. He feels something somewhere crack. Maybe it was his skull. He hopes to God it’s his skull. The roaches come back. One crawls over his face and he can’t even shake it off, the chloroform has sapped all his strength. His lungs are struggling to inflate, now. The rats return and resume biting at his fingers and toes, and Steve guesses they’ll have gnawed them off before Ward can come and cut them off one at a time.
He knows two things for sure. He is going to die here in his mother’s basement without having ever told Bucky the full truth, but he will not let Garrett win. Steve will die from the chloroform stopping his lungs and heart, he will slowly suffocate with a room full of mildew-laden air to fill his failing lungs, but he will die without giving Garrett any satisfaction.
He does not regret giving Bucky the gun Brass Fang had intended to end him with. He does not regret telling Bucky that Garret coerced him into selling his body before he turned eighteen. He does not regret a damn thing. He had seven months of more joy with Bucky than he’d had in his entire life before that. Bucky is the best thing to ever happen to him and Steve will not regret it.
Steve will suffocate and be eaten by the rats already nibbling at his limbs before he gives Garrett what he wants.
This time, Steve hears the footsteps on the stairs. He can barely breathe now. The footsteps come at a run, the rats shriek and scatter, and Garrett grabs him with more haste than before; he’s scooped up rather than lifted by the hair, arms curling under his legs and back.
“You are not allowed to die!” he hears. “You’re not allowed to die here, Steve!”
Steve, despite his lungs barely inflating, forces out a laugh. He’s done it. He’s won. Garrett carries him up the stairs and he’s dropped onto something relatively soft.
“I need you to give us some room, sir,” he hears distantly.
“The blindfold – Get the blindfold off him –”
“Sir, can you hear me?”
“Where the fuck is he? No, fuck that, where is he!”
“His pupils aren’t responding. He’s not breathing.”
Steve’s won.
“Steve! Steve, sweetheart, you gotta hold on, you can’t die on me, baby you can’t die, just hold on –”
“Sir, I have to perform CPR, back up, now!”
“Stevie, you can’t leave me! C’mon, I can’t lose you!”
“They were feeding him chloroform the whole time they had him –”
“He needs a hospital –”
“Steve, dragă, please –”
He won.
“– his heart is failing –”
“– leg is badly infected, we may have to amputate –”
“– replace the aortic and pulmonary valves –”
“– can keep him on life support –”
“– we don’t know how long he’ll be asleep –”
“– you can’t stay here all the time, Barnes –”
“– there isn’t a lot of knowledge on chloroform overdoses like this –”
“– the infections have been eradicated, at least –”
“– there’s a possibility that he won’t wake –”
“– he isn’t fighting anymore –”
“– consider letting him pass…”
“He’s not going to wake up, Bucky…”
Steve has won.
There is a slight squeaking somewhere. His mouth is open but isn’t dry. His jaw feels comfortably sore and there’s pressure on his tongue going down his throat. It’s hard and unyielding, so the first thing he registers is that it’s not Bucky’s dick and that makes him sad.
Steve opens his eyes and blinks at a white tiled ceiling. A fan hangs in the room and is the source of the squeaking. He blinks slowly, trying to figure out where he is, when a voice speaks.
“On your left.”
Steve tips his head to the left. The police captain, Sam Wilson, smiles kindly at him from a chair at his bedside. Steve sees an IV stand and complicated machines that blur in the edges of his vision. He nods to Sam, then shuts his eyes again.
“– I can’t explain it –”
“– he looked right at me, Barnes –”
“– it might simply be a miracle –”
“– he doesn’t need the ventilator anymore but we’ll keep him on oxygen –”
“– brain activity is picking up –”
“You were right. He’s a fighter.”
The unyielding pressure down his throat is gone when he next blinks his eyes open. Steve can feel a tube wrapped around his face, the IV in his arm, hear the machines beeping as he shakily inhales and exhales on his own power. He tips his head to the left and Captain Wilson is gone. He looks to the right instead and there’s a man sitting at his bedside staring at the ground.
The man sits slumped in his chair with his hands clasped under his chin, his elbows leaning on his knees. Steve blinks at him. His suit is wrinkled and there are lines in his forehead. His hair is neatly trimmed short and his face is fully bearded now. The silver streaks at his temple have gotten wider. Steve blinks at him.
“Buck?” he mumbles hoarsely.
Bucky jerks upright; he stares at Steve, his mouth hanging open.
“Di’ you grow a sadness beard?” Steve asks faintly.
Bucky surges out of his chair and kisses him. Steve smiles under Bucky’s lips, but the beard tickles him and he ends up giggling. Bucky pulls back but only an inch, rubbing the tips of their noses together in a distinctly tender gesture. Steve reaches up and touches his beard, his hands limp.
“I thought you weren’t gonna wake up,” Bucky says. His voice cracks and his hands frame Steve’s face. Bucky kisses him again, on the forehead this time, and Steve lifts a hand to touch Bucky’s significantly shorter hair, too. The beard and the short hair are so strange to see.
“Wha’ did ya do to y’r hair?” he asks. “‘S short.”
“I grew a sadness beard and Natasha said I looked like a hobo,” Bucky confesses with a tearful smile. “She made me get a haircut.”
“I don’ like it,” Steve decides. “Beard tickles.”
Bucky laughs and kisses him again. Steve giggles as Bucky’s beard tickles his nose but he weakly curls a fist in Bucky’s shirt, trying to hold him in place. His hands feel very heavy and his fingers are clumsy, like Steve’s been sleeping for too long and his body’s still catching up with the idea of being awake.
“I thought you were gone, dragă,” Bucky says, pressing their lips together again and again. “I thought I’d lost you.”
“I won,” Steve mumbles.
“Yeah, you won, baby,” Bucky promises in a thick voice. “Garrett is dead, so are the guys that took you. I had ‘em lined up and shot – It was too good for them –”
“He was tryna teach me a lesson,” Steve says.
Steve stops there, feeling tired. Bucky’s looking at him like he’s witnessing a miracle, but Steve’s blinking hard, trying to fight off sudden fatigue. His eyes are getting heavy again and Steve isn’t dead –
Oh, shit, he isn’t dead.
“Buck,” Steve gasps, gripping Bucky’s shirt harder, “I gotta –”
“Shh, don’t use up your strength, honey,” Bucky tells him.
“I gotta tell you –” Steve struggles to say.
“Tell me what, sweet Omega?” Bucky asks.
“I love you,” Steve blurts it out.
Bucky’s face splits in another smile, his eyes glittering from tears unshed. He looks like he’s witnessing a miracle.
“I’m sorry I never said –” Steve adds in a hasty, croaking voice.
“Shh, it’s alright,” Bucky breaks in gently. He kisses Steve’s forehead, then his cheeks, his nose, and his lips again. “It’s alright, dragă, I love you, too.”
“I shou–should’a said sooner,” Steve says, his voice cracking. “I knew it but I – but I – I thought it was too soon –”
“It’s okay,” Bucky tells him, “I didn’t want to push you. Te iubesc, sweetheart, I love you.”
Steve blinks at him, his mouth opens uselessly.
“Te iubesc, dragă mea,” Bucky murmurs again.
“That –” Steve starts. “You – You’ve been saying that for months –”
“It’s why I wouldn’t tell you what it meant,” Bucky confesses. “I had to say but I didn’t want to push you to say anything until you were ready.”
“You’ve been saying it for months,” Steve repeats hoarsely.
“I know,” Bucky says gently. He starts petting Steve’s hair, his hands truly tender. “I love you, sweetheart, I love you.”
Steve swallows the lump in his throat. “I love you,” he pushes out. “I’m sorry.”
“No, what are you sorry for, sweetheart?” Bucky coos. “Don’t be sorry, dragoste, none of this was your fault –”
“I’m sorry,” Steve repeats harder, then chokes on a sob and Bucky kisses him again before pressing their cheeks together and burying his face in Steve’s pillow. “Na–Natasha told me to run an’ I d–didn’t listen. Garrett only wan’ned t’ teach me a lesson, ‘cause I bit the hand that fed me –”
“Don’t you say that,” Bucky interrupts, lifting his face and pressing their foreheads together. “Don’t you believe what that man told you. It’s not your fault, Fang was never trying to help you, honey –”
“I bit the hand that fed me,” Steve sobs out. “‘S all they kept saying! Garrett – He t–told everybody what my foster father said t’a me an’ –”
“It is not your fault,” Bucky insists firmly, “sweetheart, it’s gaslighting, remember? You remember Dr. Madini tellin’ you what gaslighting is?”
Steve chokes on an inhale and nods. Then there’s clattering and Steve lets out an involuntary yelp as the door flies open; he grabs Bucky and clings to him as nurses and a woman in a white coat rush in –
“Everybody calm down!” Bucky says quickly, holding out a hand to the rush of medical professionals. “Slow down!”
The doctor raises her hands. She approaches more slowly.
“Good afternoon,” she says. “Can you tell me what your name is?”
“Steve Rogers,” Steve answers faintly, hiccupping.
“Can you tell me who the most recent president is?” the doctor asks.
“Bernie Sanders,” Steve mumbles. “Why –”
“She’s checking your memory,” Bucky murmurs to him, taking his hands and squeezing them. “You’ve been asleep for a long time, honey.”
“How do you feel?” the doctor asks him, nearing and pulling one of the monitors to face her more properly.
“Okay,” Steve says quietly. “I guess.”
“Can you wiggle your toes for me?” a nurse asks, pulling the blanket off his feet.
Steve shifts one of his toes.
“Both big toes?” the nurse asks, gently squeezing his toes with gloved fingers. “Did you feel that?”
“Yeah,” Steve says. “How – How long was I out?”
Bucky grips his hands. “Seven months,” he says.
“Oh,” Steve whispers. He looks at Bucky, whose face is totally serious. “Shit,” Steve whispers again.
“Can you wiggle your little toes for me?” the nurse asks.
Steve wiggles all of his toes. They must be checking for nerve damage.
“What’s the last thing you remember?” the doctor asks him, turning to face him.
Steve blinks, his gaze slipping away from her.
“Honey?” Bucky prompts.
“There were –” Steve starts, then swallows hard. “Rats. Cockroaches.”
The doctor nods. “What else do you remember?”
Steve opens his mouth, then glances at Bucky; Bucky starts petting his hair again.
“It was you,” Steve mumbles. “The last time someone came downstairs, it was you.”
“Yeah, it was me,” Bucky answers gently.
“Can you tell me the whole story of what happened?” the doctor asks him kindly.
Steve swallows again. His mouth is dry.
“Can I have some water?” he asks very quietly.
“I’ll get you some,” a nurse says, backing out of the room.
“You can take your time, sweetheart,” Bucky tells him.
“There’s no rush,” the doctor promises.
Steve gives a nod. He waits until the nurse returns with a cup of ice water and a straw, and Bucky takes it from her to hold for him. Steve tries to lift an arm to guide the straw into his mouth, but his left arm is incredibly weak and he only manages to lift it a few inches.
“Your muscles likely atrophied during the coma,” the doctor tells him and Steve makes a face. “Some simple physical therapy will help you regain your strength.”
“Here,” Bucky says gently, steadying the straw for him.
Steve reluctantly lets Bucky guide the straw into his mouth. He sucks on it for a second, then gets tired and pulls away. He feels like shit.
“Can you tell me what happened?” the doctor prompts.
“Do I have to?” Steve mutters.
“It will help us determine how extensive the brain damage you may have endured after the chloroform overdose is,” the doctor says.
Steve glances between her and Bucky. “Brain damage?”
“The chloroform did a number on you,” Bucky tells him. “And – And the rats, they were biting you when I found you, you got some real bad infections.”
“How bad?” Steve asks, his chest tightening. A machine nearby starts beeping rapidly as his heartbeat picks up, then, strangely, his heart cuts into a steadier rhythm.
“The pacemaker works,” the doctor remarks.
“Pacemaker?” Steve repeats dumbly. His chest continues to tighten but his heartbeat doesn’t spike – He does start to struggle to breathe, his lungs seize up in his chest –
“Inhaler,” the doctor snaps.
A nurse rushes a complicated inhaler over and the doctor bends to help him put it in his mouth. Steve hasn’t had to use an inhaler since he was in middle school, but he remembers what to do despite the doctor coaching him. He sucks down the medicine, foul as it is, and his breathing eases.
“Your asthma has gotten dramatically worse,” the doctor tells him. “You had to be put on an intubator for most of the time you were in the coma.”
“I grew out of my asthma,” Steve says weakly.
“The chloroform overdose likely brought it back,” the doctor says gently.
Steve looks at Bucky with wide eyes. “Wh–what happened to me?”
Bucky picks up his hand and strokes the back of it gently. “You nearly had total organ failure. They gave you a pacemaker. Your liver’s damaged; they were able to save it, but you might end up diabetic later in life. They had to take out your gallbladder because it was at risk of leaking. Your aortic and pulmonary valves had to be replaced. Your heart –”
Bucky breaks off, looking choked up. Steve doesn’t believe him.
“Your heart stopped four times before they induced a coma,” Bucky says. “At one point, you died for about three minutes.”
Steve blinks at him. He doesn’t believe it.
“It’s a miracle your brain didn’t fail,” the doctor says. “But at this point, there’s no reason you can’t make a full recovery.”
“You mentioned infections,” Steve mumbles. He looks at the doctor. “How bad?”
The doctor sighs and sets her hands on her hips, looking down his body. “Your left leg took the brunt of it, but we managed to avoid a full amputation.”
“A full amputation?” Steve demands.
“We had to remove some necrotic flesh,” the doctor admits.
Steve struggles to sit up. Bucky puts his hands on his shoulders and pushes him back down.
“Don’t strain yourself,” he says.
“There’s a remote –” the doctor says, handing it to him.
Steve fumbles with it and tries to press the button to lift the back of the bed. His fingers are too weak.
Bucky takes it from him and presses the button for him. Steve lets his hands fall against the bed, looking at the blanket covering his legs with disgust. When he’s sitting up, he shifts the blanket off of himself – and it’s a miracle he’s strong enough to do that – to reveal his legs.
His right leg looks fine. His left leg is a matchstick beyond the knee.
“We can transplant some of the muscle from your right leg into the left,” the doctor tells him. “But we couldn’t do anything that wasn’t explicitly to save your life without your consent.”
Steve gives a nod. He likes that. He doesn’t know how he feels about having a pacemaker installed in his body or one having replaced heart valve let alone two without his consent.
“And again, physical therapy can allow you to function perfectly normally,” the doctor points out.
Steve looks longer at his legs. There’s a long scar up his left calf, but covering his legs are other, smaller scars. He lifts his hands and sees them covering his hands and arms.
“Those are from the rats,” Bucky says quietly. “Their teeth.”
Steve nods.
“When can I go home?” Steve asks carefully.
“We want to keep you for a while longer to make sure your body can handle the stress of being awake,” the doctor says. “I have a nutritional expert on staff that’s going to come speak with you about how to introduce solid foods to your diet, for now, you’re on an IV drip and I hope soon we can start a liquid diet. And I’d like you to start your PT here.”
“When can I go home?” Steve repeats.
“A few weeks,” the doctor says. “A month, no more.”
Steve looks at Bucky. Bucky squeezes his hand.
“I’m gonna stay with you,” he promises. “I’m not gonna leave.”
“Your therapist would like to come and speak with you while you’re in the hospital,” the doctor says then. Steve glances at her, then just looks at his mutilated left leg. “We’ll sit down and discuss how to manage your health from now on a little later,” she continues.
The nurse pulls the blanket back over his feet. Steve waits for all the hospital staff to leave before looking at Bucky. He forces a smile.
“I been a vegetable for seven months, huh?” he says.
“Technically you were catatonic,” Bucky answers.
Steve’s gaze slips away from him. He looks at his body. There’s an IV inserted into the back of his left hand. There are electrodes taped to his chest. The oxygen tube wrapped over his face. An oxygen monitor is clipped to one of his left fingers. He touches his chest, wondering if he could feel the pacemaker in his body. He can't.
“Seven months,” Steve mutters.
Bucky reaches up and brushes a hand through his hair. Steve’s nose stings and he sniffs hard.
“I’m so glad you’re awake,” Bucky says carefully. “Before you woke up last week, the doctors were sure you weren’t gonna wake up at all.”
“Why’d you let ‘em do all this shit to me if you thought I wasn’t gonna wake up?” Steve asks.
Bucky tucks hair behind his ear and cups Steve’s face. Steve doesn’t look at him. After a minute, Bucky lets go, only to tap a finger under his chin.
Steve blinks slowly at his knees, then sighs and meets Bucky’s gaze.
“They did all that stuff right away,” Bucky tells him. “To save your life, you would have died without any of it. They induced the coma in order to keep you stable while they saved you, but then you didn’t wake up. And you still weren’t waking up, and they said you might not wake up at all –”
“Why’d you stay?” Steve blurts out.
Bucky gets up from his chair and frames Steve’s head in his hands to kiss his hair. Then he gently lifts Steve’s body from the bed, shifts him to the side and Bucky folds himself onto the bed next to Steve. Bucky wraps his arms around him and Steve, mindful of all the wires and the IV, curls into his side.
“I love you, Steve,” Bucky says quietly. “I know you have trouble believing people when they say that, so I’ll keep reminding you. I couldn’t not stay, dragă.”
Steve buries his face in Bucky’s shirt, feeling emotion rising in his throat. He swallows the urge to cry and just stays there, hiding in his Alpha’s embrace.
“They had to take you off heat suppressants,” Bucky says into his ear. “The doctor’s not sure if you’ll be able to take hormonal birth control anymore.”
“Get an IUD,” Steve mumbles.
Bucky nods. “Doc said that might work. But they had to wait until you woke up.”
Steve sucks in a breath, then carefully lets it back out. He shifts so his face isn’t hidden in Bucky’s chest anymore.
“Are you still gonna stay?” Steve asks hesitantly. “I – I’m not –”
“I’m gonna stay,” Bucky says before he can even finish. “I’m with you ‘til the end of the line, punk.”
Steve nods tiredly. He fumbles with the hem of the blanket for a second, then Bucky carefully gets under the blanket himself and pulls it higher. Steve rests his cheek on Bucky’s chest and shuts his eyes.
“Am I allowed to sleep?” he asks.
“They’re gonna wake you up every hour,” Bucky answers.
“Nap,” Steve decides.
Bucky is on his right side and Steve doesn’t want to move the hand with the IV in it more than he needs to, so he simply lays against Bucky’s side. Bucky kisses his hair and Steve nudges his cheek absently against Bucky’s shirt.
“I love you,” he mumbles.
“I love you, too,” Bucky answers.
*
Steve grits his teeth and forces his leg to take his weight. His arms tremble as he holds onto the bars on either side of him. His left leg shakes violently as Steve puts weight on it, then it buckles.
“Whoa, now!” Elise calls out, catching him under the arms as he falls. “Take your time, Steve.”
“It’s been nine months,” Steve spits out, pulling himself up with his arms and putting his weight on his right leg instead. “I’ve taken enough time!”
“These things can take longer than that,” Elise tells him gently. “You’ve gotten really far in the past nine months, too, no wheelchair anymore, you can walk just fine with a cane –”
“I’d like to be able to walk on my own,” Steve answers sharply. He gets his breath back, his lungs rattling in his chest, then waves Elise away. “I can do it,” he insists.
Elise takes a step back, close enough to catch him if his leg gives out again. She folds her hands in front of her and nods to him.
Steve takes a deep breath and steps forward with his left leg. Again, it quakes under his weight, what little he has, but he takes the step forward with his right leg a little quicker this time.
“Woohoo!” Elise cheers, clapping for him.
“You don’t gotta celebrate every step I take,” Steve grumbles.
“Yeah, I do!” Elise claims, stepping closer and to the end of the bars he’s holding onto to hold out his cane to him. “Every step is a victory, Steve!”
Steve gives her a small smile. Elise grins.
“One more step,” she says, “then we’ll rest your leg and give your shoulders heat and STEM.”
Steve nods, grateful she’s noticed that his shoulders are paining him without him having to say so. He takes another steadying breath, then picks up his left foot and bends his knee to lift it forward. He winces a little as his knee sticks, but he gets his foot down and takes another breath before trying to put weight on it.
“I saw that,” Elise says. “I think we’ll try another cortisone shot next time.”
Steve doesn’t argue. He transfers his weight onto his left leg slowly, then steps forward with his right foot. Elise cheers again.
“You’re doing great!” she encourages him, holding out his cane. “I’m so proud of you!”
“Thanks,” Steve mumbles. He leans his left arm on the bars to slip his hand through the forearm support on the cane, which is more of a crutch, then grips the handle and gets his bearings. He lets go of the bars and leans heavily on the cane to step forward with his left leg.
Elise puts a hand on the small of his back and holds an arm out in case he needs the extra support, but Steve hasn’t needed to walk with both crutches in a month. She walks him to a padded table and helps him sit before propping his cane against the table for him. Steve lets his head fall against the raised part of the table and exhales heavily.
“Tough work?” Bucky asks.
Steve waves a hand in his direction. “I’m considering taking Stark up on his offer to make me a robot leg.”
“Robot leg supports,” Bucky corrects.
Steve waves a hand again. Bucky leans over and kisses Steve’s cheek, his beard tickling him and Steve waves him off, giggling because of the tickling that he's still not used to. Bucky kisses him a second time before dropping back into his chair, smiling to himself. Steve sticks his tongue out at Bucky.
“You realize now I get to spank you when we get home,” Bucky says in a private tone.
Steve grins. “I know,” he answers.
“Here we are,” Elise says, pulling up the STEM machine with two heavy heated pads wrapped in towels over her arm. “How’s your back been doing lately?”
“Ugh,” Steve says.
“I can work on it after you’ve had your STEM,” Elise offers. “Have you been doing your exercises at home?”
“That jerk won’t let me skip ‘em,” Steve complains, jabbing a thumb at Bucky.
“Well, then he’s doing his job,” Elise tells him while Bucky laughs.
Steve rolls his eyes. Elise has him lean forward so she can attach electrodes to his shoulders and upper back, then lay the heat over his neck and back. He lets his head rest on the raised flat of the table while Elise turns on the machine. He tells her when it’s strong enough and she pulls up a stool to massage the soreness out of his leg before putting heat on it.
She leaves Steve alone with Bucky in the private rehab room and Steve looks over to his right absently, finding Bucky working on his tablet.
“Hey,” he says.
Bucky looks up and smiles. “Hi,” he answers.
“Will you tie me up when we get home?” Steve asks.
“Sure,” Bucky says, reaching over and taking his hand. “Do you wanna watch a documentary?”
Steve nods. Bucky lifts his hand and kisses the back of it, then continues to hold it while he resumes working.
Elise returns when the timer for his STEM session starts beeping, unhooking him from the machine and putting down the lifted portion of the table. Steve lies flat on his stomach and she pushes back his shirt to work the knots out of his lower back around his scoliosis, then lays more heat over his back and lets him sit for another twenty minutes. Steve falls asleep.
After, Lance meets them in the main lobby of the hospital. Steve leans on his cane and has his hand gripping Bucky’s arm, but Luke has the car right outside and he doesn’t have to walk far. Bucky helps him into the car and Steve lays down on the bench to put his head in Bucky’s lap as Luke drives them home.
“You need me to carry you upstairs?” Bucky asks.
Steve shakes his head. “I can do it,” he mumbles.
“I know you can,” Bucky answers, “but it’s been a long day and you’re tired, dragă. Do you need me to carry you?”
Steve pouts. Bucky doesn’t fall for it.
“Fine,” Steve grumbles.
Bucky kisses his forehead. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?” he prompts.
Steve ignores that question. “Are you working tomorrow?” he asks instead.
“Tomorrow’s Saturday,” Bucky says gently.
Steve gives him a look. “Like that’s stopped you before,” he says dryly.
Bucky laughs gently and shakes his head. “No, I’m not working.”
“Good,” Steve answers, reaching up and patting Bucky’s cheek absently. “The doctor says I should be nesting soon.”
“Then I won’t be working if you need me,” Bucky reminds him.
Steve yawns. “‘M only nesting, ‘s not pre-heat.”
“You’ll still want me around,” Bucky says.
“Natasha can sit with me when you need to be somewhere,” Steve mumbles.
“That’s a good compromise,” Bucky agrees and Steve shifts on the bench to press his face into Bucky’s stomach.
Steve hasn’t had a nesting period or a heat since high school when he first began birth control, but since he can’t take hormonal birth control anymore, he’s had to have an IUD implanted. The IUD doesn’t stop heats, only prevents pregnancy. Steve’s glad he has Bucky, because facing a heat on his own for the first time in ten or so years is a daunting prospect. His body has slowly recovered from his coma and the damage the chloroform did, that his hormones have taken this long to start a fresh cycle. Steve is glad he has Bucky, because he fully trusts his Alpha to take good care of him while he’s in heat.
He falls asleep again in the car and doesn’t even wake up when Bucky carries him upstairs. He wakes up on the couch, snuggled into Bucky’s chest, with a quiet film about the Great Barrier Reef playing on the TV.
“Should go there sometime,” Steve mumbles into Bucky’s chest.
“How about our anniversary?” Bucky suggests.
“A good plan,” Steve says. He snuggles closer. “I think this is nesting,” he says.
Bucky kisses his hair. “Do you still want me to tie you up and spank you?”
“Yeah,” Steve says happily. "Spank me later, cuddle me now."
Bucky chuckles and helps him sit up, then picks him up and carries him upstairs. Bucky undresses him, weaves a harness out of silk ropes over his torso, and then carries him back downstairs.
They resume snuggling on the sofa. Steve falls asleep again.
*
“Stop pouting,” Bucky tells Steve as they head towards baggage claims.
“I will pout until you let me out of this wheelchair,” Steve answers firmly. “I can walk!”
“Yes, but you don’t have to,” Bucky says, leaning down to peck his cheek.
Steve continues pouting in the wheelchair. Bucky is the one pushing it, at least. Steve had hoped he’d be allowed to walk once they set down in Sydney, but no, he’s still confined to the wheelchair, and Bucky’s brought theirs from home so they’ll have it the whole week they’re there. Bucky had better not try to make Steve use it once they leave the airport.
“I can walk,” Steve grumbles under his breath while Luke and Lance go to collect their bags.
“I know, honey,” Bucky replies, rubbing his knuckles against the back of Steve’s neck. “It’s just until we get to the hotel.”
“Look on the bright side,” Clint remarks to Steve, “you’re not dead.”
Steve looks at Clint and blinks at him. “That’s a very bleak bright side,” he says.
“He’s a very bleak Alpha,” Natasha sighs. “I think it’s because he was raised by monkeys.”
“I was raised by circus clowns!” Clint defends himself.
Natasha, Bucky, and Steve look at him.
“That’s not better, is it?” Clint says.
“That’s worse,” Steve tells him.
“I was raised by the circus as a whole,” Clint elaborates.
“What lead to you being raised in the circus?” Steve asks, thoroughly confused.
“Uh, they found me?” Clint says, shrugging.
“Like The Jungle Book? ” Bucky questions.
Natasha sighs and covers her eyes with a hand. “The hotel has mini-bars, right?”
“I don’t know,” Bucky says with a shrug. “Neither me or Steve can drink alcohol, I didn’t check.”
“I miss champagne,” Steve sighs.
“I bought alcohol-free champagne,” Bucky adds.
“Yay!” Steve says, lifting his hands in jubilation.
Bucky grins down at him, then ducks and kisses him. Steve grins against his lips and Bucky sweeps a hand over his jaw before straightening.
“I’m not looking forward to having to be security on your honeymoon,” Natasha says.
Steve colors. Bucky laughs.
“All good, boss,” Hunter calls, he and Luke nearing with a trolley laden with their suitcases.
“Let’s go, then,” Bucky says, pushing Steve’s wheelchair forward.
“Are we gonna go to the Sydney Opera House?” Steve asks, looking up at Bucky.
“Of course,” Bucky says.
“When?”
“Tomorrow,” Bucky tells him.
Steve sits back in his wheelchair. The sunlight makes him squint for a minute while airport employees bring up their rental cars, but by the time Bucky helps him into the car the two of them would be using during the week, his eyes have managed to adjust. They take a long time to respond to light ever since the chloroform. He has sunglasses somewhere, but he keeps misplacing them
Bucky gets in on the other side and holds out Steve’s sunglasses. Steve grins at him and puts them on.
“Happy anniversary, dragoste,” Bucky tells him.
“Happy anniversary, Daddy,” Steve answers.
Bucky rolls his eyes. Steve leans on his shoulder and smiles to himself as they drive to the hotel.
“When are we gonna go snorkeling?” he asks.
“Wednesday,” Bucky says.
“Mmkay,” Steve says. “Did you bring anything from the closet?”
“One or two things,” Bucky replies.
Steve smiles again. “I love you.”
Bucky picks up his hand and kisses the back of it. “I love you, too, sweet Omega.”
At the hotel after dinner at a fancy restaurant, they lie in bed. Something dumb plays on the TV that neither of them pays attention to. Steve is curled into Bucky’s side and they are lazily kissing.
“I love you,” Bucky murmurs to him.
Steve grins. “I love you, too,” he is happy to say back.
Bucky swings a leg over him to cover Steve's body, but instead of putting his weight on Steve's hips and kissing him, Bucky picks something up from the nightstand and holds it between them. Steve takes the slim diamond ring from him and blinks at it.
“Marry me,” Bucky says.
Steve pulls him into a kiss. “Sure,” he says against his lips. Bucky laughs.