Baby Mine: Road to my Heart 2 (Pre-Serum Alpha!Steve and Omega!Bucky)

Six

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!"

Stunned, Bucky stood at the entrance to the private event room, wide-eyed. Sure, Bucky knew that Steve had planned a small, intimate birthday dinner for him, but he was still pleasantly surprised to find that people actually cared. Experiencing Steve's friends' kindness in regards to himself, gave Bucky that warm fuzzy feeling of belonging. Something that, for so long, Bucky wasn't sure he'd ever feel again.

"Thank you," Bucky smiled, getting a little teary-eyed thanks to the leftover hormones from being pregnant.

"If you cry," the man who was on a fast track to becoming Bucky's best friend, T'Challa, warned, "I'll cry."

"Well, we wouldn't want that, now would we?" Bucky playfully questioned as he sniffled. When the fashionable black alpha opened his arms, offering a hug, Bucky eagerly accepted.

"No, we would not," Steve's colleague and best friend, Sam, piped up, just to the right of his mate.

Turning his head to look at the overzealous beta, Bucky joked, "Aw, why not? We could all cry."

"Look, it's your party and you can cry if you want to," Sam good-humoredly argued, "But I don't want to partake."

T'Challa pulled away from Bucky and smirked, "That's only because you cried after watching --"

"That's not something that needs to be broadcast --" Sam interrupted.

"-- Brothers in Arms for the umpteenth time --"

"-- Whoever doesn't cry at that masterpiece," Sam confirmed, "Is soulless."

"I have heard it's a rather moving film," an accented male voice spoke up from behind Bucky.

Turning, Bucky gazed upon a petite, elderly white man with balding white hair and circle wire-framed glasses. Bucky's jaw dropped as he recognized the original artist for Striped Crusader, Dr. Abraham Erskine.

"You must be James," the friendly alpha approached.

Bucky's eyes widened because Dr. Abraham Erskine knows who I am! And although Bucky knew that he should say something -- anything, really -- he couldn't. He wasn't even able to take the man's hand when he offered it in greeting.

From beside him, Steve's smile faltered and he took a concerned step closer to his mate while looking up at him, "Buck?"

"Is he alright?" Dr. Erskine asked, glancing worriedly at Steve with his hand still extended to Bucky.

"I think you broke him," a soft, British voice mused from behind Dr. Erskine.

Gaze shifting, Bucky spotted the first omega that had made a name as a writer in the comic book world. Ms. Margaret Carter stood there in a stunning red dress with her graying brown hair curled to perfection. When the corner of her vibrant red lips ticked up in an attractive smirk, Bucky's legs gave out on him.

"Buck? Bucky? James?!" Steve questioned, scent-marking his face with his wrist. The panic added a bitterness to his scent, but that relaxing-on-the-grass-beneath-an-apple-tree was still comforting.

Eyes fluttering open, the first thing that Bucky saw was Steve's face hovering close to his own. Steve's eyes were wide in concern and his breathing was shaky as he evaluated his mate. Pushing the loose brown strands from Bucky's braid away from his face.

"Are you okay?" Steve asked, still soothingly stroking Bucky's face.

"Yeah," Bucky weakly confirmed, pushing himself up to his elbows.