Chapter Text
“A dragon caught in thunderclouds is no longer the same one that once lived in the pond.”
Fan Xuan Ling, History of the Qin Dynasty
Phase Nine
Throughout his long and tiresome life, the Dragon never neglected the duties he had laid upon himself. He looked straight into the eyes of human pettiness, baseness, treachery; he judged and punished alone. He never took pleasure in it, yet he never once wished to avoid the work.
But today, as he reads the investigative reports, the evidence, the recordings of witness interrogations, he keeps catching himself drifting, unwilling to immerse himself in the details. Especially since human crimes of such magnitude that required his personal attention were, despite their scale, rarely inventive. He usually reached a verdict quickly.
And yet, he knows full well: it is not boredom that makes him hurry through his tasks, but the longing to return home. To his prisoner. To his mesmerizing, living toy.
Alas, the Dragon cannot deny it: there was a reason he had made laws forbidding anyone in power from having a family. One who hurries home, distracted by thoughts of loved ones, is unlikely to give himself wholly to his work and to the problems of others.
As for the Dragon himself — there is no authority above him but his own sense of duty. But that voice is silent now. Which means he can continue pooling the wool over the eyes of his enemies and return to Not-Bucky all the sooner.
He is not sure how much time they still have before his foes reveal themselves with a reckless move — and before he can wring every possible pleasure, and impossible one, from Not-Bucky’s body, only to return again to his bitter solitude and widower’s grief. But while he still has the chance to share a bed with his would-be assassin, Steve only wants to be beside him. To listen to his foolish chatter, to eat together, to run, to wrestle, to bathe, to fall asleep and wake up at his side. And to have sex, at least in the limited ways that would not fatally harm him.
Finishing his work nearly three hours earlier than usual, Steve rises from his desk and heads for his waiting jet. He is going home. He wants to see Not-Bucky.
But at first glance, he cannot find him anywhere in the vast emptiness of his chambers.
Instead, his eyes are immediately caught by the most ridiculous structure he has ever seen.
According to his orders, Not-Bucky had indeed been brought a carpet, as well as a sofa where they could sit together if Steve wanted him to read aloud again. The sofa is placed along one long side of the rug. The carpet, however, lays draped in a wave over its backrest, forming behind it a wide triangular tunnel.
Steve crouches and peers inside.
Of course, Not-Bucky is there. Lying on his stomach, propped on his elbows, reading.
“Hey,” he smiles, lifting his eyes from the book. “You’re early. Missed me?”
“You could say that,” Steve replies. “And I see you haven’t wasted your time. You built yourself a carpet lodge.”
“It’s warm in here,” Not-Bucky shrugs, then shifts aside and beckons. “Come in. There’s room for two men.”
Steve pinches the bridge of his nose and huffs ironically, yet a moment later he is already sliding feet first into the silly carpet lodge.
Inside it is cramped, stuffy, and indeed much warmer than outside. As Steve settles, he repeatedly bumps Not-Bucky with a knee or an elbow, only to hear him gasp in delight and nudge back without malice.
Finally, they stretch out along each other’s side, hip to hip, shoulder to shoulder. The makeshift burrow smells of wool and Not-Bucky’s skin. Steve closes his eyes and breathes deep. Perhaps he should be angry, instead of letting this god’s fool drag him into his odd games, but…
Steve has a perfect memory. And damn it, even if he wanted, he could not forget how Bucky used to build forts from chairs and blankets. They crawled inside together, imagining themselves pioneers… or fearless soldiers at war.
“You okay, Steve?” Not-Bucky whispers, as if secrecy is mandatory here, and peers anxiously into his face. When Steve merely nods in silence, he adds: “I borrowed a few more books from you. One of them feels familiar. Like I’ve read it before. I don't know when it was, but I’m reading and I already know what will happen next. Want me to read to you? It’s funny.”
“What book?” Steve asks, also lowering his voice.
Not-Bucky glances at the cover.
“The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.” He grins. “Don’t worry, I checked — it’s not an edition from the early 1900s. But it’s really good. Even if it’s not sci-fi. I can start from the beginning if you’d like.”
“No need. I know the plot. It’s a world classic,” Steve replies. “Just keep going from the moment you stopped at.” He watches the delight sparkling in Not-Bucky’s gray eyes, and he cannot bring himself to ruin it.
On the contrary — he wants to share it with him.
Steve rolls onto his side, rests his head on a bent arm, and simply watches Not-Bucky read with absorption.
This time Steve is in far better control of himself. Even though this, too, is a book Bucky loved.
It’s even worse: Bucky had read exactly this book to Steve many times, when Steve lay sick month after month, almost every fall and winter, when he was too weak for school, barely able to eat or walk, coughing endlessly in sweat-soaked sheets, hovering between life and death. Bucky came to him, helped with schoolwork if Steve felt strong enough, or just read when he doesn’t.
Steve remembers drowning in that crushing weakness, in half-sleep, half-delirium, but surfacing again and again to Bucky’s voice. He read no worse than the radio actors, shifting his tone for each character, howling like the wind, clopping like horses.
Not-Bucky does none of that, of course, but he reads vividly, with obvious joy each time he recognizes a scene. And he licks his lips the same way…
Silently, Steve presses his face into the crook of his arm, because his chest is aching unbearably. He doesn’t want Not-Bucky to see. He doesn’t want him to stop reading.
But of course, Not-Bucky notices.
“Steve, what’s wrong? Shit, are you crying? Hey, I can’t be reading that badly. Come on, say anything.”
“Anything,” Steve exhales, hearing his voice betray him through tears. “Ignore it. It’s fine. Keep reading. I’m not mad. It’s fine.”
A large hand suddenly touches the back of his neck, strokes his spine. Again and again.
“Tell me,” Not-Bucky urges softly, nudging his shoulder with his forehead. “You know I’m a grave. Your secrets will die with me.”
“I don’t know about being a grave, but you sure are an expert in gallows humor,” Steve snorts hoarsely. Then he admits: “I was a lousy friend to Bucky. I was a loner as a kid. Didn’t get along with other children. A white crow. My stance on life and my character didn’t match the limits of my body. I was always fighting, and always beaten. Not exactly a path to popularity.” He smiles faintly at the memory. “When Bucky first came to me, told his name and asked mine, I thought it was some cruel prank. I didn’t know him personally, but he was well dressed, neatly combed. You could tell his family wasn’t starving. And he was cheerful, confident, and bold. The kind everyone liked. I didn’t want his friendship, even tried to provoke a fight. But he wouldn’t bite. He kept talking to me, again and again, and I kept pushing him away. I didn’t trust him. I only believed when the older boys were beating me and he stepped in. We both got thrashed, and then he caught hell from his mother too — but from that day, he was my friend for life.”
Steve looks him in the eye. Not-Bucky doesn’t look away, so he continues:
“I had no one besides him and my mother. Then my mom died, and only he was left. And damn, he was too good for me. I knew him since grade school, he was always the reliable one. I loved him. Loved him and was madly jealous. I wanted to claim him as mine, and at the same time I saw how social, handsome, charming he was. I had no right to him. It drove me crazy. And he seemed to tease me, always the center of attention, popular with girls and guys alike. He could’ve had anyone, but he kept coming back to me. And I kept pushing him away. Coldly, cruelly. Even… after we grew close. I couldn’t believe he was serious about it. Only later I realized. He let me do whatever I wanted with him. And I was so afraid it doesn’t mean much to him, I was so sure that one day he’d fly off to someone else and rip my heart out, that I stayed cold, made it clear I cared more about politics and the world fate. I was a bad friend. And a bad lover. I screwed up a thousand times with him, long before he fell.”
“But you told him later, right?” Not-Bucky asks in Bucky’s very voice.
And Steve snaps. He pushes him flat, pinning him down with his weight.
“Shut up.”
“But—”
“Just shut up. Not a word. Don’t say anything.” Steve covers his mouth with his hand. But the compassion shining in his eyes only makes it worse. He buries his face in Not-Bucky’s shoulder, tears streaming freely. “I was a bad friend. A bad lover. I never deserved him. So why was it not me who died, why him? He was always the hero. My hero. And I treated him like shit. Though I loved him more than life itself.” Steve swallows hard and clings tighter.
In response to his breakdown, Not-Bucky carefully wraps both arms around him, steady and strong. It’s obvious that he wants to say something, to argue, but he restrains himself. He simply holds him, letting Steve weep his pain and guilt against his chest.
He is so reliable, so endlessly patient.
Steve feels both comfort and torment in such closeness.
When the trembling finally subsides, he realizes Not-Bucky is humming faintly, without opening his mouth, as though breathing out some old, old melody. Steve knows it.
My Bonnie lies over the ocean
My Bonnie lies over the sea
My Bonnie lies over the ocean
Oh, bring back my Bonnie to me
Last night as I lay on my pillow
Last night as I lay on my bed
Last night as I lay on my pillow
I dreamt that my Bonnie was dead
Oh blow the winds o’er the ocean
And blow the winds o’er the sea
Oh blow the winds o’er the ocean
And bring back my Bonnie to me
The tune cuts him like a knife. He pushes himself up, growling low into Not-Bucky’s face. But Not-Bucky doesn’t flinch. Instead, he lifts a hand to Steve’s cheek. His eyes are full of sorrow. They should not be.
Nearly a century ago, in one of Bucky’s blanket forts, they had quarreled over something stupid, and Steve had tried to start a fight right there. But Bucky simply let himself be shoved onto his back, lying pliant beneath him. Steve couldn’t strike him. And so, Steve… kissed him. Harshly, angrily, roughly. As was fitting for a smug tease who surely couldn’t be serious. But Bucky had answered with all of himself, opening like a flower, devouring Steve with sweetness, with the intoxicating rightness of it.
It was a pleasure Steve had never known before.
Now Not-Bucky doesn’t reciprocate. He freezes, his body becomes tense. His lips part obediently, but Steve might as well be kissing stone.
He pulls back almost at once, then he sees fear in Not-Bucky’s eyes.
“I’m not Bucky,” he whispers.
“I know,” Steve answers.
“Then why?” Not-Bucky curls in on himself, looks away. “Why kiss me?”
“A whim,” Steve shrugs. “I wanted to.”
“You couldn’t have wanted that,” Not-Bucky accuses, as if catching him on a lie. “No one kisses me. I’m not made for this.”
“Shut up,” Steve cuts him off, leaning close again. “I decide what I want.”
And once more their mouths meet. Not-Bucky whimpers but doesn’t turn away. At first he is stiff, unyielding, but as Steve gentles the kiss, softens the pressure, Not-Bucky’s lips slowly answer. He is tentative, uncertain, but willing.
The warmth of his breath, the trembling surrender — Steve feels drunk on it. He doesn’t care about anything else, not the past or the present, not what will come after. Only this moment matters.
Only this kiss.
When he finally tries to pull away, Not-Bucky’s arms lock tight around his neck, holding him there. Not-Bucky leans in after him, and the kiss turns at once more desperate, more obscene — deeper, hotter. His groin floods with a familiar heat, and he could tell Not-Bucky to drop his pants, fumble open his own belt, and fuck him hard between the thighs. But that isn’t what Steve wants.
He wants to keep kissing.
He wants to take from Not-Bucky’s mouth everything he never managed to take from Bucky.
To finish, to make up for it. To drink him in, to drown in him.
And to be gentle. The way he never was — never thought he should be, never had the time to be — with Bucky. Always angry, jealous, grabbing fast, taking what he could before it was gone. And then… it was gone.
Steve lets go of Not-Bucky’s lips only when he realizes the man is crying silently.
“Jesus, Steve,” Not-Bucky murmurs, lips swollen and reddened from the kisses. “You loved him so damn much. I’m sorry, Steve. That kind of love… It's a miracle. He was so lucky.”
Steve shakes his head and buries his face in the stubbled line of Not-Bucky’s throat.
“No. You don’t know. Back at Kreuzberg — he recognized me right away. High on drugs, half-dead, and not for a second did he doubt it was me. He knew me instantly. Later… when I fucked him there in the woods, he kept whispering about how huge I’d gotten. Touched me like he couldn’t believe it, but still — he loved me without a second thought. He began to get used to my new body. And Christ, Not-Bucky, I was drunk on it. Flirting with Carter right in front of him, strutting like some damn peacock. Making him watch, like payback for all the times I’d been jealous. And I never…” Steve swallows, voice dropping “I never told him that he was still the only one I wanted. Should’ve told him every damn day. I felt immortal back then. Couldn’t imagine losing him. And he gave me everything he could. Hell, he probably didn’t even want that much sex. He was always struggling to take me. I know that it hurt him. But the possibility of me turning to Carter scared him more. And the worst part is I actually thought about it. I wondered what might come of it. Christ, he was the only one I loved. Why was I such an idiot? Why didn’t I see how much pain he was in? Why was I so vain, so cold?”
“Steve, Steve.” Not-Bucky’s mismatched hands stroke him, equally soft, and Steve exhales raggedly against his neck. “You’re all wound up right now. No one can’t live like this. It’s too hard.” His hands rub shoulders, back. “Have mercy on yourself. Let go. Just now, at least. Relax, Steve. Your body is like a stone. Your muscles must be cramping.”
A warm palm presses at the back of his neck. Steve feels it like a thousand sharp needles piercing his skin — pleasure so sharp, so undeserved, it’s almost indistinguishable from pain. Then the hand slides up to the back of his head, smoothing his hair. Not-Bucky’s cheek rests against his crown. Barely thinking, he murmurs:
“If you can’t relax, it hurts worse. Believe me. It’s so much easier if you do.”
“I don’t want it to be ‘easier,’” Steve growls, arching into the touch with greedy need. “I don’t need ‘easier’ way. Call things what they are. I would never let myself be raped.”
Not-Bucky’s hands flinch, retreat — and Steve regrets it instantly. But they come back, stroking where his body aches for it most. And it feels as wrong as the memories of Bucky panting against his shoulder, or muffling his own cries into a pillow back in the war. Yielding, when he could have said no. Giving his body away like a tool to feed Steve’s monstrous appetite. While he still could.
His Bucky hadn’t wanted to come back from the war. His Bucky had welcomed death before he could become the third wheel… the unwanted one.
He never lived to know it wasn’t like that at all.
Steve — stupid, vain peacock — never told him.
The thought crushes his chest. His whole body shakes with grief, disgust, self-loathing. And layered on top — the unbearable pleasure of Not-Bucky’s hand stroking his nape.
He barely hears him whispering:
“If you let me grab a manual on massage, I’d work out your shoulders. This is insane, Steve. Your muscles are fucked. Like, full-on disaster. Or we could watch a video course together if you don’t trust me. So we could practice with each other. Who else is gonna unknot us?”
Against his will, Steve realizes he’s smiling.
“Cunning bastard,” he mutters, wiping his face with his hand as he lifts his head. “You know how to circle around and get exactly what you want.”
Not-Bucky grins up at him, smoothing both hands along Steve’s jaw and cheeks before saying:
“Let’s roll out the carpet. Food’s coming soon. Tonight it’s Finnish salmon soup.”
“What’s that?” Steve asks, baffled — he never cares about the names of dishes he ate.
“It’s a soup, as it’s called. It’s creamy, with red fish and little cubes of potato and carrot. Tastes amazing. I asked for it. It’s my favorite.”
“Looks like you’re making good use of your position.”
Not-Bucky shrugs easily, already climbing out of their den.
“It would be a sin not to take advantage of being the dragon’s favorite while it lasts,” he says. He stands, stretches and adds slyly: “Good thing I didn’t ask for garlic.”
“What do you mean?” Steve rises beside him, grabbing a corner of the carpet.
“Well, you know…” Not-Bucky circles his fort, takes the other side of the rug, eyes down, admitting shyly: “Maybe you’ll want to kiss me again.”
“That was an accident,” Steve answers firmly. “Let’s do it on three. One, two, three.”
Together they flip the heavy carpet, letting it roll across the floor under its own weight. Deep burgundy and brown shades spread like fallen autumn leaves, mashed with some white details catching the eye like patches of melting snow that survived the night but not the sun.
Steve regretted that he’d given the command for the rug without checking the design first.
“I was hoping for green too,” Not-Bucky says with real disappointment, picking up a book and carefully setting it on the shelf.
Later, before dinner, in the bathroom, Steve presses close behind him as he washes his hands. He wraps an arm across his chest and rubs his lips and nose against the nape of his neck, the very spot that drove him wild when touched. Not-Bucky exhales, shaky, unsettled.
“Steve, what are you doing? You said that was an accident.”
“I’m doing what I want,” Steve says stubbornly, lips brushing through his hair. “Accidents can happen twice.”
“Please don’t do this to me,” Not-Bucky begs, gripping the sink, arching his back as if Steve could take him right there. “Make up your mind. I don’t know what to expect from you. You scare me.”
“Don’t start,” Steve warns. “And don’t give me sob stories about how you can’t believe I kissed you. I don’t tolerate being guilt-tripped.”
“That ‘sob story’ is my life, goddamn it,” Not-Bucky snaps, shoving back against him, glaring hotly. “Don’t worry, I wasn’t gonna cry on you. What would I even regret, huh? Tell me.” He throws his arms wide over his body. “No past, no future. I live moment to moment. Done. Let’s eat.” At the door he adds darkly: “Tomorrow I’ll ask for garlic soup. The stronger, the better.”
Steve watches his broad back and feels a weight in his chest. He only wanted not to give false hope.
And still he feels like a bastard.
The dragon knows full well he’s being unfair. And he’s running out of excuses.
Antiphase Nine
Not-Bucky lies on his side, watching the sharp profile of the sleeping Dragon, and he can’t fall asleep.
To start with, he’s angry at Steve, which is ridiculous. Steve couldn’t care less if he’s angry, happy, or scared out of his mind.
The Dragon has his own problems, real ones, and Not-Bucky has been trained all his life for anything but offering therapy to tyrants and despots.
What he was trained to do was kill them.
Not-Bucky frowns.
He could do it right now — press a pillow to Steve’s face, throw his weight on top, hold on until the body beneath him stops fighting and finally goes still.
After all, Steve is an “eighty-level target,” and if Not-Bucky completes his mission and returns… What will he get then? Maybe praise. Maybe punishment. Either way, a reset, and then the cryo.
He has no right to want or not want that ending.
But he doesn’t want it.
He likes, absurdly, to think that his failure on the bridge stripped him of any right to go back to his former masters. Whatever the High Exestimater imagines about some secret hidden mission, Not-Bucky was never briefed about it. He prefers to believe they just gave up on him. Wrote him off.
And besides, he doesn’t want to kill Steve. Even when Steve acts like a pig.
He doesn’t want to kill anyone. And he likes that Steve isn’t retraining him for violence.
He likes that Steve doesn’t ask for anything at all — except sex.
And what’s called sex? Aside from the one blowjob Not-Bucky offered himself, Steve’s had him only in wild fantasies. In reality, they’ve barely gone further than awkward teenagers fumbling under each other’s clothes.
Not-Bucky snorts into the pillow to hide a smile.
And Steve kissed him.
Even if that kiss wasn’t meant for him but for the Bucky living in Steve’s memory, Not-Bucky is grateful. Grateful for a few long minutes of tenderness, enough to forgive much worse than sharp words thrown at him later.
In silence, he touches his lips. They no longer buzz with that aching aftertaste, but if he presses, he can summon it back.
Eyes closed, he tries to fall asleep with that thought. So when he has to cross the icy desert again — and he surely will — at least his lips will carry the memory of being kissed long and hungry.
Sleep doesn’t come. Half-dreaming, his mind swarms with images. The burrow in the carpet shifts into a cold trench, then into a fort of pillows and chairs draped with blankets.
Steve shifts too: a young man in a fire-smelling leather jacket over a gaudy circus costume; a sullen boy in clothes too big, with bruised fists and a broken nose; a skinny pale kid with furious eyes and a wild temper.
The skinny pale kid kisses him in that pillow fort, bites his lips, forces his tongue into his mouth, demanding submission.
Not-Bucky knows this never happened. He’s inventing details, fueled by Steve’s earlier story.
Because he wants to be Bucky.
He wants it to be the man Steve rescued in Kreuzberg. He wants to be the one who drew Captain Rogers from Carter’s side. The one who was riding Steve’s huge cock while she fumed with jealousy.
He wants to be the one Steve loved.
But the thoughts twist and blur, and Not-Bucky knows the tall blond man who shoves a mouthguard into his mouth before every reset isn’t Steve.
He winces at the ache building in his skull. He tries to push the man away, but the images stay — snatches of phrases, touches, cruel and tender both.
Nausea rises. Real fear follows.
And then comes the little bald old man with trembling hands. Confident fingers that cut into him. A coward’s smile that freezes Not-Bucky with terror.
Steve. Help me, Steve.
But Steve sleeps, and Not-Bucky doesn’t anymore. Drenched in cold sweat, he remembers — victims, handlers, resets, transports, killings, freeze, beatings, rapes. The voice of the graying handler, growing younger with each old memory, looking more and more like Steve. Even while he’s tightening the noose when he fucked Winter Soldier until he came choking, only to punish him after — for the very thing the man wanted.
Not-Bucky doesn’t want to think about him. He hopes, like so many others in those hazy memories, that man is dead.
Dead like the vicious old doctor. Dead like the major with the grabbing hands. Dead like the colonel who sneered as if Not-Bucky had slept with his daughter. Dead like another commander, reckless, addicted to danger, whom Not-Bucky once shielded on suicidal missions in ruined forests. He fucked Not-Bucky too, hard and rough, but back then they both wanted it.
And before him, another. Long ago.
It was some deep-cover mission. Not-Bucky was still young then. His handler was young too, thin and angry, always dissatisfied. And… he looked like Steve too. Not-Bucky barely remembers him, but he’s sure even his name was Steve too.
The pain in his head sharpens.
He slips from the bed, silent, and goes to the bathroom — pissing, drinking from the tap.
Then he goes behind the shelves, where he’s hidden his equipment: three machines set up out of sight so they don’t spoil the Dragon’s chambers. He adds weight for the challenge, reclines, grips the handles, presses.
Simple work, honest exertion. It clears the mind.
And the truth is — he hasn’t lived this safe, this well, in a long time. Fed, clothed, almost pampered. The cruel monster, who tortures all the world, treats him better than people ever did.
And despite everything, he likes the Dragon.
Yes — even this madman, in love with his dead Bucky, first sobbing in his arms, then spitting ugly words — Steve gets under his skin.
If Not-Bucky were younger, dumber, he’d already be in love. He’d ride him, fuck himself open on him, die and be done.
The thought makes him laugh silently. Still, one thing sticks.
What kind of sex would it be, that even Not-Bucky wouldn’t survive it?
The urge to crawl back, shake Steve awake, and ask the size of his cock in dragon form is so strong he almost gives in. Instead, he works out until his body hums with exhaustion. Then he takes a shower, and finally, drained, he returns to the Dragon’s bed — Steve still is asleep, undisturbed by all his wanderings.
As sleep takes him at last, Not-Bucky knows: once he slips under, he’ll walk the snow again. He doesn’t want it. But he isn’t afraid.
Day after day, night after night, he inched closer to spring.