The Fortress Palace of Newyark, ruled by house Stark for hundreds of years, was a marvel of stonework engineering and architectural beauty. Since it was first constructed, the castle has never fallen nor has it ever been taken over by hostile forces. An impenetrable and ancient work of art.
Besides the composite of the castle itself, it’s heavily fortified under the current king, Anthony Stark. His souless marvels, the walking metal automatons fueled by science and magic of the kings own design, patrol the castle grounds at all times. Both inside and out. They are made of a specialized alloy that can only be mined in the kingdom. Stronger than steel. Sending any would-be assailant to their deaths with cold efficiency.
Then, the widower king entered into a shocking and controversial marriage to his long time most prized and personal knight, Steven Rogers. Though most assumed it to be some sort of cold arrangement at the start, those rumors were quickly proved false. The love the two men shared was obvious, and too pure to fake. With King Steven Stark now ruling alongside his husband, the human militia of their kingdom became twice as formidable nearly overnight. His training regiments were efficient in growing muscle and skill, helping soldiers to retain what they’ve learned better, and master weapons and hand to hand faster.
King Anthony Starks weapons and technology were the highest grade in all the lands. Kingdoms and settlements and ambitious groups the realms over have been trying to play catch up to the genius king. Where infiltration and thieving of plans may have been almost possible before, with the changes since the marriage of the kings, the fortress is impenetrable.
Thus, without question, Newyark is the most powerful and established kingdom in the realm. Hydra, a pseudo kingdom of shadow with subjects and agents spread through every realm, desires nothing more then to destabilize the grand kingdom and take control.
The death of the beloved prince Peter would do just that.
To enact their sinister designs, the snake heads of Hydra send their very best to get the job done. Their Winter Soldier. A man of myth and blood without a single prior mission failure. A left arm made of metal designed and crafted from stolen Stark automaton tech. Trained and groomed from childhood. Proficient in nearly every type of weapon combat, and can speak most languages native to the realm. He knows failure is simply not an option.
It never has been and never will be.
Infiltrating the city that surrounds the castle is no issue at all for the assassin. However, getting inside said castle proves to be the hardest challenge. Thankfully, such a challenge was to be expected. Bucky, as only he calls himself since his handlers in Hydra only refer to him by his moniker, tries six different paths of entry before finally succeeding. By the time he breaches the walls, the sun had already risen, the residents of the fortress awake and moving about their day.
The assassin knew his next best step would be to find a quiet and secret place to camp out until night fall. Hydra was unable to give him any form of map of the inside of the fortress, so it was far too risky to chance moving about during the daylight hours. On his way to find such a place to hide out inside, Bucky has the misfortune of running into one of the kings metal men. It’s unlike any opponent he has ever faced. It’s clunky and slower than most human combatants, but it hits far harder and is difficult to damage in turn. Buckys only strategy is to use his left arm, the prosthetic made of similar metal, and the only part of him that can truly tank the automatons superhuman punches.
He manages to disarm and shut down the machine, but not without taking some damage in return. While he can’t feel it, he knows his left arm not moving as fluidly as it should. It’s dented and mangled enough in the forearm that the inner wiring and macheniery are partially exposed. A few sparks light up the inner cavity for a few seconds.
Damn it.
An assassin of his caliber does not scramble. Bucky merely gathers up the sparking human-shaped scrap pile and rushes to look for a place to hide it. Once stowed away in a closet-like room filled with dust and cobwebs in a nearby hallway, Bucky exits to realize he has no idea where in the castle he is anymore. Before trying to find a place to stash the metal corpse, Bucky was vaguely aware that he was somewhere near the kitchens based on the delicious scents wafting through the halls. Now though? After his mad scramble to cover up evidence, he is back to being very lost.
He is left with the rather pathetic option of checking various doors and peeking down hallways and corners to find his way around. Bucky needs to locate the princes chambers and find a place to hide until night fall and every second he’s not hiding he’s in incredible danger of being caught. Kings Anthony and Steven have a history of publicly executing any attempted assailants that managed to survive until capture.
The best case scenario for Bucky would be to find prince Peters room and there be a place to hide within it. A closet or a wardrobe of sorts. The worst case scenario would be to run into the prince before then.
Which is exactly what happens.
“Oh, hey!”
There he was. Prince Peter Stark of Newyark. Dressed down from the opulent garb of a prince in the public eye and in a simple cotton tunic and breeches. Comfortable clothes for a day in safety, a day at home. Lithe yet undoubtedly strong, shorter than his fathers, looking at Bucky with a small glob of grease smeared on his jaw and without a care in the world as he looked back down at his work station. Not to mention his smile. A wide, bright thing that reaches his eyes. A handsome young man, a prince, smiling at him?
“You must be one of the new guards! Dad mentioned he’d brought on a few more. There have been whisperings of an assassination attempt against my family, but we’re not sure exactly which of us is the potential target. Dad and papa are always so sure that it’s me. Younger and vulnerable and all that, but I wish they’d think about keeping themselves as safe too, you know?”
Bucky blinked, keeping his face blank while the young man rambled.
“I mentioned to my dad how I had some new ideas for the regiment armor, and some special insignia designs for papas personal unit, and he approved, so I’m here doing some tweaking. Are you-?”
The prince looked back at him then, eyes narrowing and then widening. “You have a metal arm!?” He peeled away from he desk and swiftly approached, hunching over and grabbing Buckys cold, lifeless limb.“That is incredible! I had heard of these sorts of armored prosthetics being made, but I’ve never seen one myself!” Peter began running his fingers up and down the ornate metal plates and hinges with awed reverence. “Wow! This must be one of my fathers prototypes! You’re really lucky to have this since he claims they’re not ready to start production for the public and- Oh, wait, it’s damaged.”
Yes. I broke it on my way in here to kill you.
“Hm…” The prince mutters, examining the damage more closely. “I think I can fix it. Come here.” Peter grabs Buckys metal hand and gently tugs him along, the assassin too stunned to do anything else but follow.
The prince scrounges through various drawers and boxes on his workshop desk until he procures whatever tools he thinks he needs. All the shapes and bits mean nothing to Bucky. His handlers are the ones to do the usual maintenance and repair on his prosthetic.
“Sit!” Peter smiles, patting the seat of the wooden stool next to his hip. Bucky wordlessly obliges, extending his arm out to rest on the desk while Peter begins his work.
The silence is filled with nothing but the sound of metal on metal, the soft ‘tinks’ and ‘clanks’ of the princes repairing. Eventually, Bucky manages to get his tongue unstuck and his train of thought to start chugging along again. If only a little bit.
“Do you usually do this?”
“Do what?” Peter replied, eyes fixed on the arm. “Help people? Yes.”
“Well- No I mean-“ You’re a top Hydra assassin, get it together. “Do you always get this close to strangers? You don’t know me. What if I’m here to kill you?”
“Are you?” He asks with only the briefest of glances up at Buckys face. Smiling again. A soft, small thing. “If you are an assassin, you’re a pretty terrible one since we’ve been alone in this room and I’m still alive.”
“Maybe I’ve just been caught off guard by the naive kindness of the prince.”
The young man honest to god giggles. “Then you’d be an even worse assassin.”
“I suppose I would be.”
Bucky lets Peter finish his work in silence, a loss for further words. The prince babbles a bit about the mechanical workings of the arm and what he’s doing to fix it, but Bucky zones it out. He’s stuck staring at the young man while thoughts rush around in his head.
What would it be like, to actually be a guard here? To have people who sparred with him that weren’t trying to kill him? If he damaged his arm again, would someone working here fix it? Would prince Peter be the one to do it? Would he get to see that same happy smile directed his way every day? When was the last time anyone smiled at him at all? Spoke to him kindly?
“Did you hear me?”
Bucky blinked, the sound of the room finally rushing back in. “What?” He replied lamely.
The prince gave him a patient grin. “I said it’s all done. Good as new, if not better, if I do say so myself.” He gives a proud little chuckle and the assassin immediately wanted to hear it again.
“Oh.” He stood up straight, lifting and flexing the metal limb. The prince wasn’t lying. It was perfectly patched up and he even had a bit more fluidity in his movement than he had before. “That’s incredible work, kid.”
“Heh, thank you. I just really take after my dad that way I guess.”
“Thank you…your highness.” Bucky remembers to tack on the end.
“You’re welcome, sir…?”
“James.” He replied swiftly. No one in Hydra knew he called himself by a nickname, so it was reflex to give his birth name when asked. “But- you can call me Bucky, if you’d like.”
“Bucky.” Peter smiled, and the assassins heart did a weird thing in his chest. Stress related, maybe? “Well, it was nice to meet you Bucky. Do come back if your arm ever starts acting up again, okay? I’d love to get my hands back on you.” The young man’s face turned a bright red. “I-I mean get my hands back on your arm! To work on it! It’s a cool arm. N-Not that you’re not cool! I mean, you have this really nice rugged loner type about you that I like. I mean-! I just-“ Peter sighed, his greasy hands going up to cover his face. “Forget I said any of that.”
Wordlessly, Bucky grabbed a clean rag from off one of the princes work stations before stepping up close to him. Peter lowered his hands, meekly meeting Buckys gaze with an embarrassed blush.
The assassin curled his metal fingers beneath the princes chin, tilting his head upwards. He used his other hand with the rag to gently wipe the blackened grease off his cheeks.
“As you wish, your highness.”
Bucky made a hasty retreat after that, feeling as if he might suffocate for some reason. At the same time, however, he longed to be back in that room. Back wherever the precious, kind prince would be.
***
The window was open. Bucky watched as the sheet curtain inside the chambers fluttered in the cool, night breeze. There was no light to be seen. Not a single flicker of a solitary candle. The stonework of this specific side wall was fairly easy to climb, and the window was large enough that the assassins bulky frame could silently slip through.
“I know what you’re going to say.”
Bucky freezes, eyes catching on a familiar figure made up of shades of dark blue in the moonlight.
“I should lock my windows.’ I do lock them. They stay locked all the time at night, all over the castle, but I knew you’d come back and I didn’t want my fathers to have to deal with replacing the window you’d have to break through. I actually just decided not to even risk it and opened it for you. Less chance of you falling while trying to get the window open too.”
All the assassin did was blink.
The prince strikes a match he had in his hand and lights a tall candle sitting on the desk. He then reaches next to it and holds up a larger piece from Buckys arm that he had removed all those hours ago. “This is a special titanium alloy that’s about ten percent steel. You can tell by the small speckles in the sheets after it’s been melted down. It’s only mined from the lands of Syberia, which we know is where the estimated headquarters of Hydra is. The design of the arm is similar to my fathers automatons, but slightly outdated, since we know there was an attempted theft of one from an outskirt patrol at one point a year or so ago. The attackers only managed to rip off an arm before back up arrived and they fled.”
Peter fiddled with the metal for a moment before setting in back down, looking back at the assassin in his window without a single hint of fear and it’s driving Bucky crazy.
“I also know all of the knights assigned to the castle, papa demanded it, and I also read a list of the names of the new regiment, and yours wasn’t on it.”
Bucky was slow to respond. “Am I to expect guards outside of your doors about to burst in at any moment?”
“No.” The prince stated plainly. “I havnt told anyone.”
“For such a smart kid, that’s pretty dumb.”
“I don’t think so. I’m still alive aren’t I? Why am I still alive?”
“…I don’t know.”
Silence passes.
“Would you like to come in? I just don’t see being crouched in the windowsill as very comfortable.”
For reasons unknown, Bucky accepts the invitation. He feels lost. Without directive or a mission. He can’t organize his mind. Yet, he feels. Feeling, it’s an odd thing. He lives his life from his brain and doesn’t know when he first shut down his heart. He had thought it was ripped out of him when Hydra extracted him off the streets as a kid. Now it’s… feeling things, and the assassin can’t sparse what, or why.
The only thing he knows in this moment, is that he really doesn’t want to kill Peter.
“Are you hungry? Jarvis usually doesn’t like me having food in my chambers after supper but the cook, Mr Delmar, he usually sneaks in a few snacks. He baked today, so he made sure to save me a few sweets. I need to make sure I thank him tomorrow.” Peter steps away from the desk to a small table next to an unlit fireplace. He grabs a silver tray with a plate on top and carrys it over to his large, four poster bed fit for a prince and taking a seat.
“Come.” Peter smiles, patting the space next to him. “Sit. Uh- please? I only have the one desk chair and the bed is more comfortable…”
It’s easier than any order Hydra has given him, sitting next to the handsome young prince simply because he asked Bucky to. He watches as Peter grabs the first confectionary treat off the plate and extends it out towards him.
“Uh…” Peter stammers after a few moments of Bucky not moving. “It’s not poisoned, I promise!” He quickly takes a bite and swallows. “See?”
“That wasn’t wh-“ Bucky shakes his head with a sigh, taking the treat from Peter and taking a bite for himself. If he just so happened to bite almost exactly where the prince did, no one says anything about it.
“My dad tried making these once.” Peter grins. “He’s really good with machines, but a truly terrible cook. Not that he ever needed to do it much with an entire cooking staff but, sometimes we’d be in the kitchen to spend time together. He’d try to cook, burn everything, and we’d just snack on some fruit from the cupboard instead.”
The young prince laughs at the memory. “My papa, now he can cook. His mother taught him when he was young, and he’s really good at it. Dad will occasionally tease him, tell him he should have been his personal castle chef instead of his knight. Sometimes we’ll give the cooking staff the night off and have a family night in the kitchen. Papa has banned dad from helping him. No matter how hard he tries he always ends up making some sort of mess of the meal. Drives my papa mad, but they love each other still. No matter what.”
Bucky only notices his sweet roll is gone once there’s a lull in Peters reminiscing. He had been rather absorbed into his tellings of the kings, of his his family. Of how…loving and…normal it all seemed.
The kings would be devastated beyond reckoning if anything happened to their son. Bucky thought to himself. I…would be devastated.
He’s lost in that train of thought until he notices something getting closer to his face. The assassin flinches away from the princes hand, watching his face fall into a frown.
“Do you…always expect a cruel touch?”
The words spring free before Bucky can catch them. “I’ve…I’ve never had reason to expect a kind one.”
The sadness and pity on Peters face is almost too much to look at, but the prince quickly shoves the look away. It’s replaced with one of determination and…fondness? Peter slowly extends his hand again, keeping almost intense eye contact while tucking a small section of long hair behind Buckys ear. His fingers linger, then start to wander, moving through the assassins tresses slowly and softly.
Bucky deflates, shoulders sagging, giving a shaky exhale as he closes his eyes. A sign of trust. Surrender. Vulnerability.
The princes fingers feel like heaven in his hair. Gently scratching his scalp and brushing through his hair in a slow, rhythmic pattern. Bucky imagines it must be how a house cat feels while being pet. He understands the appeal.
After a few moments or minutes or hours or however long, Peters fingers move on. The warm pads brush down the side of his face and along his stubbled jaw.
“You’re really pretty…” It’s spoken so quietly Bucky doesn’t think he wasn’t supposed to hear it, and even so, he wouldn’t know what to say. He’s oddly content to sit there with the princes fingers caressing his face. Across his brows, the edge of his ears, down his nose. Bucky doesn’t realize how relaxed he’s gotten until Peters hand cups his chin to keep his head upright.
“-cky?”
“Mm?”
He thinks he hears the prince chuckle. He doesn’t know, he just feels so tired…
Buckys boots come off, then the holsters for his weapons and his belt and jacket until he’s left in his cotton undershirt and breeches. The next time he opens his eyes it’s to look out at a dark room from a horizontal angle. A comforter has been draped across him and there’s a shuffling at his back.
Peter kisses his cheek, softly and sweetly with those warm, soft lips of his.
“I hope you stay…” Is whispered in his ear before the assassin finds himself being spooned. Bucky doesn’t know what’s happening, but he knows that as he begins to fall asleep, he’s never felt more at peace.