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"I'll go do that then," Bucky says. It doesn't take long to run the water nice and hot and get the jets turned on and once he has, he comes back to the bed to get Natasha up and out.

"If you'll put your arms around my neck, I'll carry you in. No need for you to exert yourself right now. You need to relax until the food gets here, all right? I'm going to be all right for a little while."

This is important too, taking care of her, and he needs to do it as much as he needs the sex.

Natasha obligingly let Bucky carry her into the bathroom, the steam rising from the bath making her shiver lightly. She shuddered, however, when he lowered her into the hot water, but from bliss, not any sort of discomfort. The hot, swirling water felt heavenly on her skin, and the heat immediately began to seep into her achy muscles.

"Spasibo, malyshka," the redhead murmured with a slight smile, sliding down to rest her head against the back of the tub. Her eyes closed, but she spoke again, asking, "What did you order?" And please don't kill the delivery kid, either.

The pet name soothes him even more and Bucky smiles. It's soft, to be sure, but it comes to him naturally and easy. When she asks what he ordered he's happy to tell her everything he'd ordered off the Chinese menu he'd found in her kitchen.

"I had them send a lot since I have to eat a lot and I haven't really been eating enough," Bucky admits. "Stark wasn't starving me or anything, nothing like that, but I'm just used to not being able to have things and it's hard to trust it. Right now, though, I'm burning through everything I have and then some because of my rut."

He reaches out and draws the fingers of his right hand along the curve of her cheek. God, her skin is soft. "I'll let you eat first when it gets here. I don't have a bank account but I had some cash from when I was in Romania and Stark exchanged it for me. I'll handle dinner for us."

"That's fine," Natasha told him drowsily. "I know how much you super soldiers can pack away." Her lips crimped briefly. "If there are any leftovers, I'll be surprised." The touch on her cheek fluttered her lashes, and the small Omega didn't see any problem with leaning her head towards it, soaking up the tender affection just as she was the heat from the hot water.

"But you don't have to cater to me, James," she said then, lifting her head and meeting his gaze squarely. "We'll eat together, da?" Another gentle smile. "Like friends do." If he wanted to buy dinner, she wasn't going to protest, although the rest of their groceries she intended to put on her Stark MasterCard.

"Now, shoo. Let me bathe and get dressed, and the food should be here by then."

Bucky leaves even though he doesn't want to and when the food comes, the scent of the Alpha who delivers it makes him territorial and he snarls at him a little. The kid isn't more than sixteen, though, and when Bucky shoves money into his hands, he apologizes.

"My Omega," he grits out and the kid nods quickly. "I understand, man, I can tell. Have a good night."

He hadn't killed the guy, so there's that, and he lays out the food for them on actual plates instead of them eating out of cartons. He wants to go back to the bathroom and help Natasha bathe and dress but she'd asked for him to wait outside so he is.

Training and habit seldom allowed her to linger in too much comfort, and the soothing bath was no exception. That, and the fact that there was a semi-stable, unbonded Alpha prowling the rest of her apartment. Natasha bathed quickly, not too surprised that her hips, ribs, and even the side of her right breast bore dark marks, testament to Barnes' eagerness.

But that was all right; she didn't blame him. And she'd had worse, after all.

Wrapping in a soft terrycloth robe after toweling off, she wrapped a small towel around her wet curls and padded barefoot to the kitchen, having not bothered with anything beneath the wrap. No point, really. But the food had arrived, and smelled heavenly, prompting a small grumble from the vicinity of her stomach. In the kitchen, she spied Barnes...not quite guarding their delivery order, but almost.

He'd served them both on plates, she noted, smiling softly as she stepped around the bar to kiss his grizzled cheek, an appreciative affection. "Spasibo," Natasha told him quietly. "For serving us up. We can eat at the table," the small two-seater near the large bay window, "or on the couch, wherever's more comfortable for you."

Bucky takes a few moments and decides he can be closer to her if they're on the couch versus two separate chairs and nods that way. "The couch, I think. I tore up all my furniture back in Stark's comfortable prison so it'd be nice to sit on something soft."

He says it drily, almost as if it's a joke, but it really isn't. It was a comfortable prison. He couldn't go anywhere even if he was being kept well and he'd felt completely caged in when the rut hit.

"How bad did I bruise you up? Do I need to look at it?"

Natasha shrugged. "Not too bad." Picking up her plate, she padded over to the couch, folding a leg beneath her as she sat and settled. "I've had worse," she added with a shrug. The food was still nicely warm, thankfully, and the redhead dug in with relish. "Mmmm, their chicken fried rice is the best."

She didn't want him fretting about hurting her, especially when it wasn't necessary. She'd volunteered for this task, after all. "C'mon," she encouraged, patting the cushion beside her. "Come sit down with me and eat."

It feels so normal and domestic to do this, to sit and share a meal with a woman the way he had a thousand times over before he went to Europe for the war. Bucky guesses that if things had gone the way they were supposed to, he'd have done his time and come home a minor celebrity from having been one of the Howling Commandoes and gotten married to a sweet Omega and had a houseful of kids.

None of that happened for him, though, and he has to make do with what he has now which is a meal with someone who is willing to be his friend and willing to help him through this when others wanted to just lock him up.

"Please tell me they're not going to make you check in with them to be sure I didn't tear you limb from limb or something? I feel like I'm a werewolf or something, the way they act. I've been kept in a really comfortable prison as soon as I was found and I gotta say, it's better than HYDRA but it's not really living either."

The thought of Bucky Barnes being a werewolf made Natasha snort a small involuntary laugh, but she had to concede him the point. "No, no, nothing like that. I told Steve and Tony that I was a grown-up, and could handle myself just fine. They tried to argue, but I ignored them." This last said with a small shrug as she ate another bite of sesame chicken.

Swallowing, Natasha went on, "But I understand their concern, too. At the same time, I know what you're going through." She pushed broccoli around on her plate, then said, "...when I first joined SHIELD, it was pretty much the same for me. I was the outsider, the defecting Russian spy." An eyebrow went up as she glanced over at Bucky. "Barton actually had a kill order for me, did you know that? But, thankfully, he made a different call and recruited me. And it took a while for everyone else to 'warm up', so to speak, so I know how you feel."

She shifted over and leaned her shoulder against his. "Just hang in there, malyshka. It'll get easier, eventually."

"Malyshka," Bucky repeats, his own Russian as good as Natasha's. He has to laugh softly because no one has pet named him in ninety years and while it's novel, it feels really good to be special to someone even if Natasha doesn't even mean it that seriously. He's getting attached and he knows it but he needs to deflect it.

"That's sweet. I haven't been anyone's baby in a long time. Don't get too attached, though, because Stark will haul me right out of here as soon as my rut is over because I gotta go back to prison."

Bucky eats a few bites and takes a swig of water before saying anything else. "It would be nice if I could stay here, though. It would...be a little more free. I know I can't just skip town but I would at least have more than one room and not have to pace around all day."

Natasha had to concede the idea, but she gave a small shrug in response. "Don't count on it. Tony Stark's not God. He doesn't call all of the shots just yet." Especially when it came to Natasha Romanoff. The Black Widow was a force to be reckoned with, and she didn't have Stark's admittedly-camouflaged morals. Or ethics.

"If you do well enough here, I can probably keep you here, provided you want to stay." The small redhead swallowed another bite of chicken, then a slow sip of water. "Steve would advocate it, and Wilson, too." Despite what Barnes might think, the rest of the team did have his best interests at heart.

Just...letting the past go was difficult, for some.

"He's not your enemy," Natasha told Bucky quietly, about Stark. "He's just..." she sighed, giving a small shake of her head. "...complicated."

"I killed his parents. Not too complicated," Bucky says. He pushes his food around on his plate and tries to figure out what to say after that. There's not much. His bloody history as the Winter Soldier is well known and feared and everyone knows he can be just as dangerous in rut as he'd been then. He can at least control his own mind during rut, though, and couldn't as the soldier.

"He hates me and he should. I think he's scared of me, too, and everyone should be. I have a bomb in my head and it needs to be disarmed. Until it is, I'm a danger to everyone except my omega and I've never been mated so there's not one to talk me out of my programming. HYDRA tried a few times, you know? They wanted to breed me. Didn't work. I just kept getting more unstable every time they tried. So they eventually stopped trying and just popped me on ice whenever I had a cycle. This is the first one I've had in a long time."

He exhales and looks over at Natasha directly. "But if they let me, I would stay here. It's better here than it is there. I feel a little less like a prisoner."

"You're not a prisoner," Natasha informed him firmly, shifting on the couch so she could face him directly. "You've been exonerated by the United States government for extenuating circumstances, so legally, you're a free man." Granted... "Granted, with a metric ton of PTSD, and yes, you need help, and therapy, and a lot of time to rehabilitate, but..."

She trailed off, assimilating everything.

"--let's just see how the week goes, da? We can't fix anything else until we get you through your rut. So, no more talk about the past or the future, okay. Let's just focus on the now." She took his plate, placed it with hers, and put both on the coffee table, then turned back to the despairing Alpha and cradled his face in her hands.

"Just focus on me, da?" A soft kiss, sweet. "I'm here, and I'm not leaving." Another kiss, gentle as the first. "I'll be with you, James. Promise."

"I wanna protect you right now," Bucky admits. "My hormones are swinging to protective right now and I wanna keep you close and make sure you're okay. I know I'll need to fuck you later but right now it's just...the other side of it, you know?"

The kiss is soft, though, and sweet, and Bucky revels in it for a moment before they pull away. She's gonna be with him. This gonna be okay.

"Can I do that?"

"Of course you can," she granted, rubbing her nose with his. "I...have no idea how you even can - there aren't any threats here." An eyebrow quirked. "But if you wanna, I dunno, brush my hair or something, I won't say no."

Natasha instinctively offered him her throat, guiding his head to the pulsing gland just above her pulse. "Scent me," she invited. "That'll definitely help." And the sensation of his nose and lips against her skin was a thrilling sensation, she'd discovered.

Bucky does want to scent her so when she offers her throat, he leans in and presses his lips and nose against her and inhales the scent of her and instantly feels better. The scent of oranges and dark chocolate suffuses him and just makes him feel like everything is going to be all right, at least for a little while. It's sexy to him, too, but more comforting right now.

"I'll brush your hair," he whispers against her neck. "And brush your hair. And build you a nest so you have a safe place away from me when I'm really all over the place. I'll take care of you, Natasha."

She noticed that his own sharper scent began to soften, and Natasha simply held still and let him soothe himself with her smell. She threaded a small hand through Bucky's shaggy hair, running her fingernails lightly across his scalp as he whispered, prompting her acquiescing smile.

"That sounds good," she told him, gentle teeth grazing across the top of his earlobe. "But I don't think I'll need a fort to keep you out, malyshka." Her soft laugh feathered between them. "I'm not afraid of you, James. So you don't have to worry about me, da?"

"Everyone else is," he murmurs. "You're the only one who doesn't think I have a bomb in my head about to go off at any moment. You...it feels nice to be trusted. At least as much as you do with your body."

Trust goes in a lot of ways and maybe she doesn't trust him to have her back in a fight or to have a key to her place or anything like that but she trusts him during his rut and that's big enough for him.

"I could love you so easily, Natasha. I'm sure you know that, right? That rut makes me just wanna bond?"

"I know," she admitted. And she did. But. "But, it's smarter not to get attached right now. You still have a lot to work through, and I'm...well," her smile turned a little crooked. "I'm damaged goods anyway." And besides, all of this was just his rut talking.

"That's just your hormones talking," she reassured him, still petting. "Who knows, your next rut, you'll probably find some sweet little Omega from Brooklyn and settle down in a brownstone and picket fence." The idyllic dream.

"Not good enough for a girl like that," Bucky admits. "I've got a lot of blood on my hands, Natasha, and a sweet little omega like that needs a good guy, not someone like me." He leans into her touch, craving it. He knows it's his hormones causing this but it feels good anyway.

"You're not damaged, Natasha. No more than I am. We're the perfect kind of fit. No one else would understand me, you know? But I know it's my hormones doing all the talking right now. I'll be more logical later and not be throwing myself on you. I'm sorry."

Natasha shrugged. "You never know." She wasn't going to let him dwell, damnit. "People can be forgiving, James, if you give them a chance." It felt strange, advocating that humanity was decent, but someone had to help bring the man out of the Dark Ages. IE HYDRA.

"Stop apologizing," she chided him again. "I know where all this is coming from, so just let it flow on by, da? Let's put up the leftovers, then, I dunno, watch a movie or something? You can fix us a nest in the bedroom, and we'll cuddle until we fall asleep. Sound good?"

"I know where it's coming from. Rejection just hurts, even imagined rejection. I'll put the food up. You sit there. I know you're capable of helping but I need to do this stuff right now or I won't keep calm and you probably don't want another round of before."

Maybe if he can keep doing the soft, protective things, he won't need sex again. It's a stupid hope because no one can stop the sex drive of an Alpha in full rut but he thinks he can at least try. He gathers up the containers and puts them away in the fridge before taking their plates and loading the dishwasher. When he's done, he offers a hand to Natasha.

"All right. Show me your nesting stuff. If you don't have any, I'm going to have to improvise."

Natasha remained on the couch as asked, casually finger-combing her still-damp curls until Bucky was done in the kitchen. She took the offered hand without qualm, heading down the small hallway to the bedroom once more.

"There are blankets and extra pillows in the closet," she informed him, shrugging out of her bathrobe and slipping into a thin chemise and soft short-shorts. Perfect for snuggling and sleeping. "I...well, I haven't really been in heat for a good while," decades, really, "but that stuff would suffice. And maybe some snacks, bottled water, that sort of thing."

"I'll get you set up," Bucky says. This is what he needs to do right now and he's gonna do it even if it's more to make him feel better than to help Natasha since she's not in heat right now. He finds himself wishing she was, though. She smells sweet enough but he wants the overpowering scent of her in his nose, the cloying way it lingers when an omega is in heat. God. It would be amazing.

"I bet you smell so good in heat," Bucky says and then he immediately wants to take it back. Jesus. He should not have said that. Maybe he can just chalk it up to Alpha hormones.

"I'd bury my fucking face in you." Yup. Hormones. He busies himself with getting snacks and setting up the blankets and pillows for them and then gets Natasha. "Come on, I've got it set up."

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