fossilised | werewolves

werewolves

Pumpkin Spice.

It hits the shelves the moment the temperature dips below eighty, before the summer officially ends and the leaves give hint at changing color. It's become an American way of life. Lattes might claim it to be proof of their success and staying power but it's expanded into hand soap and e-cigarettes now. You can't find anything, really, that hasn't been pumpkin spiced these days. Pumpkin pie is too humble to try and reclaim it anyway, and has quietly retreated to Thanksgiving where it waits to mark the end of the most beloved season in New York among straight white girls.

Steve Rogers, while neither straight nor a girl, has whole heartedly embraced the trend and the moment Starbucks announced that it had come back out for a Limited Time Only, Steve had rummaged in his sock drawer for a gift card he was sure had money left on it and stood in line with the masses to claim his holy grail.

It's a comfort. It's a promise that there's going to be something else to look forward to in the coming months when holidays rear their ugly and beautiful heads to remind you that your family is dead and most of the kids you lived with in foster care and group homes have disappeared out of your life. It makes Steve's day and he's already day dreaming about boots and puffy vests the moment he takes his first, iced sip. Steve isn't really a day dreamer, but his head can get stuck in the clouds on the best days and distraction comes easily in a city where you're never and always alone at the same time.

There's charcoal under his nails and a moment of joy in his heart from the iced latte he grasps so fiercely the day he sees Bucky across the street. He'd know him anywhere, even with that long fringe of hair he hasn't seen since before he went off to basic training. The light to cross the street between them is red but Steve ignores the risks. There are two lanes each direction, and all four are packed with yellow cabs and black Uber cars. No one can go fast enough to do him any damage.

The latte gets dropped along the way and Steve doesn't care. It's been over a year and a half since he's seen Bucky. It's been six months since he last heard anything from him actually. He hadn't even gotten a birthday card this year.

"Buck!" Steve is just a skinny guy, five foot four, maybe 100 pounds if he's got art supplies and an easel on him. He has fallen arches and a heart arrhythmia, but they aren't keeping him from shimmying between cars and nearly getting run over. He's out of breath when he makes it across the street and though he's lost his drink, he needs to bend over and cup his hands on his knees to steady himself anyway so it all works out. "Hey." It's smooth and followed by a smile. Something bright and cheery and all too Steve Rogers hopped up on artificial sugar and flavorings.

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With a huff, Steve tilts his head at an angle Bucky is probably the most familiar with. It’s Steve’s usual ‘I smell bullshit’ stance, and the upturn of his lips probably give that away. His smile is soft, though, and never falters even when Bruce takes his blood. “You smell sour. Not body odor sour or sick sour. Just— You’re not human.” He doesn’t know why he’s put it that way but it’s slipped out already and he can’t just take it back. It feels right on his tongue anyway. Bruce Banner isn’t human. Or not entirely so.

That should scare him, but it doesn’t. It makes him want to puff up his chest, stand, and try to fight for dominance. He doesn’t, he still had his faculties about him, but his posture’s shifted towards Bruce. Knowing, sure, but annoyingly smug too.

“I’ve always thought that there’s got to be aliens here. The universe is too big... I just didn’t think I’d meet one.”

"I'm not an alien."

Bruce didn't look offended, more a mixture of resigned and curious. This was like a canine instinct, and the way that Steve had smelled Tony when they entered the apartment and the knowledge he had been bitten by a strange dog was only adding to this. Why not? If someone could get some powers by being bitten by a radioactive spider, or so said his research so far, then why not a dog?

"I'm pretty much human, mostly. And I don't intend you any harm, so you can relax, it wouldn't be a good idea for us to get into a fight. Nor is my condition of any relevance here, so why don't we focus on you?"

He recognised that stance, the need for dominance. He'd seen it before, though usually just from macho types who wanted to be seen as the biggest and baddest around.

"I think we need to see if we can get hold of the dog that bit you."

“I had my the first of my rabies shots.” Steve doesn’t mean to be defensive, especially because he knows that rabies doesn’t present like this. He does try to relax, sitting back in Bucky’s couch. There’s a whole lot of comfort here and he sinks into that calming scent.

Blue eyes flick towards the kitchen. An unfamiliar laugh is coming from around the corner and he doesn’t like it. It’s the first real hint that something is wrong. He’s being far more possessive of Bucky than he ought to be and it makes his shoulders drop.

A sigh escapes Steve’s lips. “How are we supposed to track down a giant dog in Brooklyn?”

Leave it to Tony to make an appearance right there, causing Steve to tense again. “You know who I am, right?”

Bruce glanced over when Tony came back in and snapped off the gloves to dispose of. He didn't technically need them himself, he couldn't get infections, but it was still good practise when doing anything medical.

"If this dog is somehow unnatural, I think that I should probably assist in bringing it in."

Not an offer made lightly.

Bucky, stood just behind Tony, kept his eyes on Steve. He was tense and generally unhappy, worried about Steve and stressed by all of this shit going on in his life when he had just wanted a quiet time.

"It's rabies?"

Bucky’s worry is detectable, which only leaves Steve even more on edge. He gets up quickly, the muscles he never had before rippling under the skin of his abdomen, biceps flexing as his fingers curl into fists. “Don’t think so. Pal,” Steve says gravely, feeling his jaw muscles clench.

“Told you. He’s a werewolf,” Tony replies easily, one hand in his pocket as he heads to the door. “Banner, we don’t need to issue a code Green. Pretty sure I can handle a supernatural doggy.” Tony also thinks he can handle his alcohol addiction too, so take that for what it is.

“I’m not— Even if what bit me did this I don’t think...” Steve looks uncomfortable and shifts to slink around the table and stand beside Bucky. He’s somewhat taller than before. Whatever’s happening to him seems to be speeding up.

It's strange to see Steve almost of a height with him, and it makes his breath feel like it keeps getting arrested in his lungs. He wants this to be a good thing for Steve, that this health continues, because god knows there's nobody who deserves a miracle quite like Steve Rogers.

But he doesn't think that. Nothing comes without a price, and what if this doesn't stop? What if it keeps going until Steve is gigantic and misshapen? Or if it overloads his body and kills him like a fever burning through his veins?

"Right. Dog. I'll help."

Probably a bad idea, but he has to do something to help.

Tony’s first reaction is to deny everyone. He doesn’t need the help. It’s not something necessary for him. A few satellite images and a tactical capture, test and release somewhere harmless is easy for a guy like him. These people all seemed hellbent on staying with him, though, and as much as it makes him roll his eyes, Tony finally agrees to it.

“You’ve got a spare room I could set up in?” Tony asks, pulling the laptop out of his shoulder bag. He needs to recode some satellites to track big, lumbering dogs in Brooklyn. His Shareholders are gonna love that.

Once Tony has gone off to do his work, Steve sits back down across from where Bruce is packing some of his own things up. “Do you think you can stop it? What’s happening to me? Maybe reverse it?”

Steve is okay with his body the way it’s always been. This one is better, but this one feels so wrong.

Bucky doesn't exactly have a spare room that he can devote to Tony's research, he lives in a tiny little one bedroom apartment that his pension cheque just covers, so he'll just have to make do with Bucky's bedroom while the rest of them stay in the pokey little living room.

He takes up a position behind Steve at his right shoulder, almost like a bodyguard. Bruce notices that, but he chooses not to say anything, as long as they don't team up against him then he's pleased that they have each other.

The doctor sighs and shakes his head. "I wouldn't want to say, I don't know. Perhaps there would be a way to reverse it, but there's no way of knowing currently. Unfortunately, sometimes changes are permanent."

That’s a particular thought and Steve assumes it’s because of whatever Bruce himself is. He’s growing restless and tired at the same time, though, leaning slightly back towards Bucky. It used to be easy for the other to be a leaning post for him. It used to be very easy for him to just recline back on his heels and have Bucky take the brunt of his weight. This time, however, he can actually feel his friend stumble and Steve isn’t sure if that’s because of who he is now and might always be later, or if Bucky just doesn’t want to be touched.

In all of this, he had stupidly, momentarily forgotten that Bucky is suffering from war, from his imprisonment, and from every day life after torture. He turns to look over his shoulder when Tony pokes his head out of the door and barks for Bruce’s help.

Thank god for that. Steve is having trouble with his scent. The whole thing is just so off to him, clouding Bucky’s far more pleasing smell. The moment the doctor leaves, Steve sits down hard on the couch.

“I have a bad feeling about this, Buck, but we have to get that dog off the street if this is what a bite can do. I don’t feel right anymore.”

And he’s terrified.

"It'll be okay, Steve."

Bucky doesn't know if that's true, he's seen too many bad endings happen for people that he cares about to believe that just because he wishes hard enough that Steve will be fine. But he needs to keep saying it, keep trying to believe it, for his own sake as much as for Steve. Because if he thinks about losing Steve, he might just break in a way that he can't be put back together again.

"We'll find the dog and we'll work out what it gave you, and then we can work on an antidote. You just need to keep calm and tell us if anything changes, even if it's something little."

Like feeling hotter, or a bit dizzy, or-- anything. Anything that could be an early warning sign for bad things to come.

"I swear, Steve, I ain't giving up, so you shouldn't either."

Steve replies with a snort, smirking. “I ain’t giving up neither.” Just who do you think you’re talking to, Buck? Steve Rogers is like the Black Knight. He’d he down all of his limbs and still threaten to bite and bleed on his attacker. Tenacity might as well be his middle name instead of Grant.

There’s an uncomfortable silence that follows, during which time Steve scratches his arm and alternates between stretching out and curling up on the couch.

His body is just uncomfortable. It’s more uncomfortable the closer Bucky gets. God forbid his friend join him on the sofa. Steve might resort to some odd sniffing behavior, worse than he’d done with Tony.

Tony smells fine. Bucky?

Bucky smells like a feast.

"Good, just needed to be sure. If you said anything else then I'd really know something was wrong with you."

He tried to offer a tiny smile, but he was too stressed with everything that had been going on and stretched to his limits in dealing with everyone without freaking out, that it came out more like a grimace than a smile.

"You hungry? Maybe you should try and eat something and get some rest, I'm not sure there's much else we can do before we catch this dog."

Though god only knew where they were going to put the poor beast, especially if it was violent and infected.

Hungry? God yes, Steve’s hungry. He’s hungry enough that his mouth constantly feels wet, like he’s on saliva overload. To prove it, he even swallows, though his eyes avert themselves away from Bucky.

“I could eat.” He's just not sure if he’s hungry for food... or something else. It’s not like he’s a paragon of virtue, but it’s also not like he’s got a hundred guys breaking down his door to be with him. Steve has not had much luck with that. Not even with the guys that don’t look like the stereotypical, fitness obsessed gym rats he’s more or less attracted to. It’s probably not fair to lust over guys with good muscle definition when he doesn’t have any muscles to define but—

But, well, now he does. His eyes dart to the door.

“Maybe I’m not safe to be around,” he says, but it’s with a level of distraction. His right knee bops as he bounces the ball of his foot on the ground. “I’d really hate myself if I hurt you.”

"You could never hurt me, Steve."

He has to believe that.

No matter how big Steve gets, or what madness is going on in his hormones or brain, there's no way Steve could hurt him. Because if Steve could be a potential threat then he knows that he'll lose all grip on the paranoia that he's been struggling to fight back since he returned home and everyone from then on will be a subject of suspicion.

"You're just on edge because we don't know what's happening. That makes sense, but you've gotta remember that you're still you, and there's no way in hell that you'd ever be not safe around me. Now what do you want to eat? I don't-- I don't got much, but you can order in if you want."

“I’ll... I’ll go out and get something. I’ve been mooching off of you for days now.” Bucky is and has always been entirely too generous. He doesn’t want to take advantage of the other man, but he knows he has, many times. That, and he really needs to be away from Buck, for just a little bit. “I’ll get a few pizzas from that place down the block. You stay here. I’ll uh... can I borrow your boots?”

Steve isn’t even sure if he’ll fit in them. He can barely fit in Bucky’s loose hoodies and sweats. He’s taller than his friend, wider than his friend, and it’s a huge problem.

He can’t afford new clothes and he isn’t even sure if he has a job anymore if he’s been AWOL for so long.

Steve musses up his own hair, which sticks up flatteringly in all directions. “Pepperoni and extra cheese.”

Bucky would have to be blind to not notice the way that Steve has become more conventionally attractive, but he had thought his best friend beautiful back with the curved spine and the ribs that stuck out everywhere, so he felt a pang of mild sorrow that things were changing so quickly.

"I don't think you should be going out now."

He wouldn't move to physically stop Steve, but he still thought it was important to raise objections.

"We don't know if whatever this is, is contagious. We don't know if you're safe in yourself, or if you might collapse or-- or if you're safe around other people either. You should stay here until we know what we're dealing with."

This whole thing is frustratingly similar to the moments leading up to his coming out to Bucky. He’d been so sure that their friendship would end, that everything would change, and that Bucky would realize that Steve had been as in love with him as a fourteen year old kid could be in love with anyone at that age. Most of that’s dispersed because Steve, ever practical, isn’t going to hold a flame for the straightest guy he knows when they have such a rich relationship already to go on. It had never been an issue before but all of it is starting to have a startlingly horrible effect upon him now.

It’s like something is walking across his hormones. Something that’s whispering that exerting his dominance in this situation would be an excellent idea and that Bucky would be yielding if he tries it.

“If it was contagious, you’d be eight feet tall right now, with romance novel hair shimmering down your back. One trip to the store isn’t going to infect anyone with my gigantism.” Probably. Steve is usually reckless but never at the expense of others.

And anyway, he needs to go out. He needs to be in a place with different smells.

It’s only a few minutes after the door shuts to the hallway that Tony pokes his head back out of the bedroom. “Barnes, where’s Fido? We’ve got something interesting here.”

It wasn't like Steve to be so reckless. With his own health, sure, but he had often refused to go out when he had a bad cold so that he didn't infect anyone else around him, but here he was saying that he would be fine taking a possibly unknown pathogen just casually out into the population.

Bucky frowned, half concern and half squaring himself up ready to argue his case, when Tony suddenly appeared in the doorway, which meant that Tony got the full brunt of his scowl.

"His name is Steve, Tony. I like you, but if I think you're disrespecting my friends, I'll still whip your ass."

It was a shorter response than he intended it to be, but he was so on edge. If he were in his right mind then he might realise how weird it was that Steve hadn't noticed the signs of him in distressed, his fingers clenched into a fist, a slight tremble to his frame, the way his muscles have gone rigid.

“Hey. I didn’t call him Kibble N Bits,” is about the only apology that Bucky is going to get. He doesn’t understand how people can be so bent out of shape about each other. He truly doesn’t. That’s usually a sticking point with his assistant too. She gets mad at him when he blanks out on why she cares so much.

Either way, that’s not a conversation for now.

“Our dear Doctor not-a-Doctor here,” he continues our of respect for Bruce’s constant insistence that he isn’t that kind of doctor, “has found some interesting DNA in with your friend’s. Probably best he isn’t running around without ID tags.”

Bucky clenched his jaw and took a deep breath in, willing himself not to lose his temper over something so stupid. He knows that Tony doesn't mean any harm with his dumb nicknames, he knows that there's no need to get bent out of shape, it's just because everything else is already wearing on his last nerve.

Thankfully, Bruce stepped in to take over the explanation, before Tony could alienate everyone in a room as seemed to be his particular talent.

"I'm afraid that that's true, there's canine DNA mixed with yours in a way that we've never seen before. It doesn't seem to be actively harmful, your vitals all read steady and strong, but we need to get hold of the original dog even more urgently than ever."

“And I’ve got that covered. It’s less about tracking the dog down to actually getting hold of it.” Tony spins around his laptop so that Bucky can see without getting any closer. “It’s all over the place and moving fast. I don’t know how it could have gotten out of Brooklyn already but it’s in New Jersey now.” Nothing good other than the Sopranos ever came out of New Jersey. “So ... how about you stay here until your bestie comes home. Banner and I will handle tracking down the Original.”

So he might be getting his metaphors mixed up but hey, if vampires can go back to being people once the guy that made them is dead why can’t it be the same for not so hairy werewolves?

“We’ll have to switch to the air. You okay in a flying tin can?”

Bruce snorted and looked a little incredulous at Tony's suggestion. He was grateful most of the time that his odd friend didn't treat him with the same fear and kid gloves that anyone else who knew his true identity did. But sometimes it went just a little bit far in the other direction, he was still a danger.

"Possibly not the best idea. I can follow in the car, you get visual from the air."

Bucky scrubbed his hand through his hair looking really uncomfortable.

"If this dog is, uh-- different, are we gonna be able to keep it securely in my apartment?"

It's not like his place is built for rabid animals.

“I don’t think you want it in your apartment. We’ll bring it to my dad’s house. Know your way around Long Island?” Tony is just going to spit an address at Bucky so either he makes sure to memorize it or write it down. Tony’s already packing up, extolling how cars are much more dangerous than aircraft, and will be out of the apartment in roughly two shakes.

He’s left behind that arm and the neural stimulator for Bucky because he never had any intention of doing more than dropping it off. He really wants to help the guy calibrate it but he has a feeling Bucky will be calling him in the near future to mess with it. At the very least.

For now, they have a dog to catch. And Bucky has a friend to wait for. Thankfully, he won’t be waiting too long. It doesn’t take more then twenty minute to run down the street for pizza.

Bucky was pretty mad at Steve for sneaking out to get pizza while Bucky was defending him to Tony, after he specifically told his friend not to go in case there was a risk to either himself or the people around him. But he didn't want to argue yet, he didn't want to risk a big blow out and Steve walking out.

So he settled on just shortly telling Steve they had to go to Long Island, to this particular house, and nothing much more.

It would be Bruce and Tony who had the more interesting time of it. With the instruments at their disposal, and Bruce's instinct for another predator, it would only take a short amount of time to locate the giant wolf in New Jersey. They cornered it down an alleyway, and Bruce realised as he looked at it that this was-- it couldn't be an earth wolf, it was almost three times the size.

And that was when the wolf spoke to them.

"So, I smell my kin on you. The mortal did not die. Surprising."

Tony is about ready to have a giggle fit the moment the dog opens his mouth and though he is wearing the Iron Man armor, the way it moves is almost fanglish. Given how much of a caraciture of himself that he sometimes is, Tony wouldn’t even been embarrassed to see himself like this. Bruce, however, might. “You talk!”

Sometimes there’s nothing to do about a situation except to do so and Tony ignores the irony about the self proclaimed smartest man in the world having to do so.

“First of all, amazing. Second of all, weird way to be a werewolf. He’s only sprouting muscles and a correct spinal lineation. Where’s the fur and claws?”

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Sorry for the delay

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