bucky & sam: prince

[unclesam]

Prince

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[pamyat]

This whole thing is pretty fucked.

There are celebrations tonight marking the end of a nearly five-year war between the nation of his birth and a nearby aggressor. A war that continued for almost three years longer than necessary because the opposing monarch, a man named John Walker, refused to issue a ceasefire once negotiations for peace began.

Now, Bucky realizes he's not inclined to think well of the foreign king. Thanks to the war Bucky knows the names of many people who didn't survive; he has an arm made of metal, powered by magic, and heavy as hell after losing his own in the war. He knows what it is to be inside a war camp and hear his compatriots tortured and killed.

War is terrible.

But there are are circumstances, he tells himself, that are beyond the pale here.

All of them surround the young prince.

He's of age, Prince Samuel, but only barely. He has one more heat to survive before he's to be actually wed to Walker, which... well. Bucky wouldn't be pleased with it even if he hadn't noticed Walker's hand on the young prince's thigh throughout the dinner, and how the latter drank only a sparkling tonic and water instead of wine, and barely touched his food, occasionally drawing up short and looking vaguely ill as Walker's arm moved and the king's smile grew more lascivious.

Or if he hadn't overhead King Walker tell one of his own courtiers that he'd refused to honor a ceasefire until the prince was delivered to his bed, age be damned.

"The younger, the better," Walker had said, laughing and toasting with his own countrymen.

Now. Does Bucky think he can put a stop to any of this? No. He's not Their Majesties the King and Queen, or a courtier in his own right. He's barely a landowner. He was a soldier in the king's army who lost an arm (and did some things he'd rather not discuss, heroic or otherwise) and now he's a guard in the palace who owns his parents' tiny farm and charges the current occupants of that land a bottle of wine and a small wheel of cheese per year in rent. He's not expected to have an opinion on or possess any control over the politicking of kings and queens.

Which begs the question of why he's gone to seek out the prince in the hedge maze at all.

He could tell himself that it's to ensure the prince's safety, something which he is honor and oath bound to do. Except the prince is as safe as possible for the next three months. Other than inappropriate touching at a banquet table, Walker won't have unfettered access to Prince Samuel until the latter is sent to him.

It's not as though he could kidnap the Prince and take him somewhere else. There's nowhere else to go, really, and Bucky has had enough brushes with execution for one lifetime. Besides Walker would start the war again in a heartbeat.

But. The Prince should know. That someone else has seen this. That his people care for him.

It's a flimsy excuse to track the Prince down when he obviously wishes to be alone, even in his head, but Bucky thinks of his sister and how he'd done everything he could to prepare her for the possible violence of an interested alpha before she was married off while he was away. He's worried that no one has spoken the Prince thusly. That he's marrying for the well-being of his people with no consideration or preparation for his own.

No omega's first time should be with a man like Walker. At the very least one should know what they're getting into with him.

So Bucky tracks the Prince through the hedge maze. Finds him in the shade of a small shrine, gazing into the middle distance. He bows, keeps his eyes on the grass. "Your Majesty."

How is he going to even start this conversation? 'I noticed Walker touching you at dinner'? Inappropriate beyond the general inappropriateness of the topic. But then Bucky looks up and the Prince seems incredibly focused on him, in a way which feels... odd.

Except Bucky, in full regalia, followed him into the hedge maze and addressed him.

So. Okay. Maybe not that odd?

Still, he feels slightly unnerved by the weight of the young prince's gaze. "You did not eat very much at the dinner. Are you well?"