Chapter Text
Steve
The noise of the wild town behind him was briefly canceled by the whistle of the approaching train. Steve gripped the package in his left hand just a little too tight and feared he had torn brown paper that had cost him an extra three cents, but a quick glance down showed him it was still intact. The icy blue ribbon, almost grey, that had caught his eye at the mercantile was still neatly tied as well.
Winter was not the season for flowers, but Steve could not greet Margaret, Peggy as she had insisted in her last letter, without a welcome gift. She certainly should have something waiting for her after agreeing to come all the way from New York to marry Steve sight unseen and begin a life on the Kansas prairie.
The hiss of the train coming to a jerky stop broke Steve out of his thoughts and he straightened up to his full alpha height, just over six feet, smoothing down the front of his three piece wool suit. It was navy, hand made by the tailor in town, and Steve thought it made him look pretty smart. A stiff breeze caused Steve the need to run his fingers through his shaggy light brown hair, an attempt to keep himself presentable for his mail order bride. He had even gone to the barber to have his neck shaved, just trimming his beard, opting to keep it for the cold winter in Kansas.
He headed towards the platform, where the conductor was helping passengers down the steps and trunks were being unloaded. Steve looked for Peggy, his soon to be omega mate, his wife, but did not see any women with auburn curls. That’s how Peggy said she’d find him, by seeking her auburn curls.
There were people greeting each other in what appeared to be reunions of sort, and some people got off on their own and made their way to the area where all the belongings were being placed by ant-likely workers scurrying with trunks and bags. Steve wasn’t the only one waiting, and now that the commotion of the train had stilled, he could smell the eagerness of many of those waiting along with him.
Out of the corner of his eye he caught an older gentleman standing expectantly, though from the look of him, not someone Steve would want to find on the platform as he exited the train. There was something about him that just didn’t sit right and Steve thought he caught a whiff of arousal from his direction, but with the weather the way it was it was hard to pinpoint where any scents originated.
Watching eagerly as passengers disembarked, straining to look through the crowd this way and that for his first glimpse of his forever mate, Steve began to get nervous. Not that nerves were anything new for him, still he hated not being in control of his feelings. Little by little, the traffic of the platform disbursed and still no Peggy. Even the alpha that gave Steve a creepy feeling had found the person he was waiting for, a tall, broad, handsome fella in a gray suit not unlike the one Steve wore. Curiosity got the best of him as the two met, though they did not greet as if they knew each other. Business perhaps, Steve thought as he turned his attention back to the train.
When no more passengers stepped through the narrow passage of the train doors, Steve looked around, thinking he must have missed Peggy. Great, first meeting and Steve did not get it right. She would take him for the unsophisticated alpha that he was. He turned in a slow circle, to no avail. No stray travelers looked for him. When his eyes found the train again, Steve saw a conductor approaching him.
“Are you Rogers? Mr. Steve Rogers?” the man asked briskly.
“Yes?” Steve answered, knowing even to himself that it sounded more like an additional question than the answer of an alpha.
The man stuck out his hand, which contained a letter that looked very similar to the ones Steve had been receiving all fall and winter from Peggy.
“This is for you. I was told you’d be waiting here for a passenger and I was to give you this from her,” and as soon as the last word left his mouth, the man turned back to the train and began to check tickets for the new passengers who had begun to make their way from town towards the train.
The parchment packet had the ruby red seal that Steve recognized immediately. It was from Peggy, Miss Margaret Carter, formally, and it was indeed addressed to Steven Rogers. Steve could smell the worry pouring off himself and ripped open the seal. His eyes scanned words of apology and regret, but more importantly of a change of mind due to an old love returning to the city. She wasn’t coming.
Steve was stunned.
The letters. The months and months of letters. It had taken so many painstaking attempts just to find Peggy through the Matrimonial News, and then to woo her, to get to know her through paper and pen alone, and then the agonizing wait for her to say yes. How was this happening? What was he supposed to do now? His thoughts raced back to his first homesteading attempt. The one at which he had failed miserably, alone in the wilds of Montana.
No, he could not attempt this alone again. It almost killed him the first time.
Steve had no idea how long he stood there on the platform, clutching the letter from Peggy in one fist, and his gift for her in the other. He was numb, though he wasn’t sure if it was the rejection, the memories of his time alone in Montana, or the bitter cold blowing around him, causing the feeling. Maybe a combination of the three.
Once again, it was the train that broke him from his solitary thoughts.
Steve jumped as the whistle sounded for the train to leave the station. He half wanted to jump on himself and head back east from where he had come after the war had worn him down to a shell of an alpha.
It was the realization that there was nothing for him to go back to that made him lift one foot at a time to walk back to his room at the hotel. Once there, Steve looked around at his meager belongings and came to the sobering conclusion that not only was there nothing for him in the east, there was nothing in the west, either, or anywhere for that matter.
Steve was still alone, wanting to start a new life, and aching for someone to share it with.
Bucky
Despite the winter chill in the air, Bucky was beginning to regret having worn a suit of wool. He was hotter than blue blazes and he was pretty sure it wasn’t necessarily the temperature on the train. Bucky was buzzing with nerves as he prepared to meet his potential alpha mate, Alexander Pierce.
After his time in the war, Bucky found himself drifting with no real direction, lacking a focus. He was an omega and though he had managed to conceal that in order to fight for the union, he was ready to re-embrace his omega life. Never the typical omega in build or temperament, his situation was made more difficult when he came home to find himself without a family. Grieving and alone, he turned to Matrimonial News for a fresh start in the west.
Now Bucky found himself disembarking the train, worry ratcheting up with each step he took towards a crowd that held the alpha that may very well become his mate. Please, please let them be a decent sort, kept replaying over and over in his head.
Nothing could not have been further from the truth. Alexander Pierce looked and smelled like trouble from the first instant they met. The lecherous way his eyes raked up and down Bucky’s person, darkening, made Bucky’s skin crawl. He offered Bucky his hand and the grip was like a fish held too long at the market. Affronted by the alpha’s acrid, unpleasant scent, which Bucky was sure partially consisted of arousal, he knew there was no way they would ever be compatible. Not that Bucky thought that mattered one iota to Pierce, who continued to leer at him like a piece of meat.
Still, Bucky had promised to consider the offer, and he intended his due diligence in the arrangement. Bucky was not destitute, just lonely. He could manage if this did not work out, but he was currently uncomfortable with Pierce leading him from the train platform to search for his trunk. As they passed through the crowd, Bucky’s eye caught a tall handsome alpha in a navy suit who looked as nervous as Bucky felt. If only he’d been Alexander Pierce instead of the worm of the man Bucky was temporarily beholden to.
Bucky tried desperately to give Pierce a chance, but the way he was greeted by others in the town only confirmed what Bucky was thinking in his head. Pierce was not a man of good standing. He was already flashing Bucky around like his omega, walking him up and down the plank sidewalks like some sort of declaration and taking him to the local restaurant where Bucky attempted to choke down food, all the while thinking about how to end their relationship before it even began.
When they arrived at the hotel at dusk, it was clear that Pierce was not the alpha he had promised to be and that Bucky was correct in his initial judgment of the man. Bucky had been promised his own accommodations, and yet here he stood at the doorway of what was clearly Pierce’s own room, expectations clear, though unspoken.
Bucky put his foot down. He may have been an omega, but he was not a man to be taken advantage of and he was prepared to stand up for himself. He could certainly fend off this weasel of an alpha if needed.
It would end here and now, Bucky just hoped Pierce would not make a scene and Bucky really hoped he could find a room of his own. He’d have to find where Pierce had his trunk sent. He didn’t have much for personal belongings, but what he had were his and he wanted them.
“Mr. Pierce, this is not what we negotiated.”
“Negotiated, James? I’m surprised by your choice of words. We aren’t entering a business agreement, we are about to become mates.”
“Actually, that is exactly what we were doing. I answered an ad to be a mail order mate, but by no means are we romantically involved yet, nor will be at any point. The fact that you dismissed all the arrangements we made in advance that were to guard my comfort and my reputation lead me to believe that you flat out lied to me.”
“Now there, James, don’t get yourself all upset. Don’t tell me that you came all the way to the Kansas Territory because you were as pure as the driven snow,” Pierce chuckled in a way that made Bucky’s flesh goosebump and not pleasantly.
Bucky bristled and set his countenance to his full height and breadth. “You know what? We’re done here. You just tell me where I can find my belongings and consider our arrangement null before it ever came to fruition.”
He realized he had raised his voice when Pierce countered gruffly. “Who do you think you are talking to, omega ?”
Bucky saw where this was going and he prepared mentally for the fight. He was alone in the middle of nowhere, in a town that didn’t exactly seem unmated omega friendly. He needed to make himself as large and as intimidating as possible. He did his best to sound confident despite the fact that he was feeling less and less sure as this progressed. “Apparently, I am speaking to a less than honorable alpha who lured an unmated omega into a wild territory, with the intent to take advantage of him.”
Pierce bellowed, “I did nothing of the sort. Get in this room and fulfill your end of the bargain. We can work this out in the morning.” He grabbed Bucky, catching him off guard and soon the two were in a tousle as Bucky fought to free himself from Pierce’s grasp without making a bigger scene in the tiny hallway of the hotel.
“Get your filthy hands off me!” Bucky shouted. It didn’t take much to break his hold, but Bucky was becoming increasingly aware that he was billowing out anger and now underlying fear and apprehension in his scent. It would not take long before any alpha within fifty feet would be aware of him and his current situation. He doubted that any of those alphas would be much more upstanding than Pierce.
Bucky truly felt out of control and in danger for the first time since he had begun his travels.
Unable to call for help or to know what to take as his next step, he put space between himself and Pierce with a final statement. “Don’t put your hands on me again and tell me where my trunk is. We are done.”
Pierce walked toward Bucky, backing him down the narrow hall and that was when Bucky had realized his mistake. Piece was between him and the only exit from his current position. He could get away from Pierce, but it would draw unwanted attention from anyone in the rooms behind the long hall of closed doorways.
It would take some time for Bucky to rid himself of the filth from Pierce’s scent and tone of voice. “Seems as though you made an error in judgment, James. Most of the men staying here are headed west to search for gold or find a homestead. I’m sure we can all figure out how to help you see your choice was a little premature. I don’t think anyone is going to come to your rescue at this point.”
Between the two of them, a door whipped open and someone stepped into the hallway. Alpha. The scent was immediate and concerned. “Is everything okay out here, gentlemen?”
It took Bucky a few seconds for it to register that it was the alpha from the train station, the navy suit. His one large and confident stature seemed somewhat shrunken. His face looked forlorn, almost sad, not like he had any intention of what Pierce had said, though Bucky was sure he had heard them argue. He would take his chances with this guy if it bought him time to get away from Pierce.
“No, It is not okay. This alpha is aggressive and has misrepresented himself to me through the ad he placed in Matrimonial News.”
That seemed to get the alpha’s dander up and before Pierce could defend himself, the tall handsome man drew himself to an aggressive alpha stance, keeping Pierce at a distance. “Is that right? Well there seems to be a lot of that happening today.”
Bucky had no clue what the alpha was talking about, but he was grateful to have the man between himself and Pierce. The alpha looked from Pierce to the open door of his room and nearly growled.
“This may only be a territory, but it doesn’t mean we throw away all conventions of decency. I heard your discussion, and this man wants his belongings and he clearly doesn’t want what you have to offer. Alpha to alpha? You need to walk away.”
“Or what?” Pierce sneered.
The alpha’s hands formed into tight fists, though they remained at his side as he shot back. “Or you can deal with me and the sheriff. I am sure he would want to know what almost happened here tonight.”
Pierce seemed to realize that it was now two against one and he gave up. “Nevermind, who wants an omega who looks and acts like you anyway, James. No wonder you needed to answer an ad to find a mate. Undesirable, unappealing-”
“That’s enough shit coming out of your mouth,” the handsome, and still unidentified alpha warned. “Go on, get going to whatever rock you crawled out from under.”
Pierce turned on his heels and Bucky heard the door to his room slam shut.
Then there were just the two of them and Bucky wasn’t quite sure what to do next.