I LIIIIVEEEE- I've been craving Family ABO fics again, (though that was specifically for BnH ANYWAY-) so- it's been forever home you all are still here and enjoying everything!

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Holly finds herself waking up, once again surrounded by the scent of woodsmoke and apples. It would be getting old, except she never feels more rested then she does when she wakes surrounded in Buck's scent. This time Buck is sitting in the bed beside her, back against the headboard and his weapons either strapped on or in easy reach.

"Hey, Buck."

She yawns around the greeting stretching out carefully and digging her toes into the blankets around her. His scent is becoming more common to wake to in the morning as he always settles in beside her before they sleep.

It's the best sleep Holly has had since before the war. He doesn't always stop the nightmares, but Buck's presence does cut them down by a wide margin.

"Holly." Buck greets her with a warm tone and then leans down over the side of the bed, lifting a tray from the floor with a covered plate of food. "I made breakfast."

Holly smiles with pleasure, shifting her weight and pushing herself up into a sitting position before she takes the tray and the offered food with a chirped, "Thank you!" and a soft purr.

They took turns making the meals and always helped with hair in the morning. It soothes them both to help provide for and groom their packmates. So it was routine that Holly shifted, providing her back to Buck, and humming around the fork full of food in her mouth when Buck began to brush Holly's copper-fire curls.

When she finished the food she set the plate and the tray aside and just relaxed into the subtle and gentle pull and tug of Bucky braiding her hair back out of her face, and then twisting it into a bun.

Holly could never get the bun to stay when she tried to do that unless she cheated with magic. Buck always managed it.

When he was done, she leaned down to set the tray on the floor, and the twisted around to take the brush and set to work on Buck's hair. It was always gratifying to watch the tension bleed out of her Alpha as she pulled the brush through his hair to gently detangle it. She spent a few minutes just running her finger through it as she shifted between style choices, and relished in the soft purr she could feel vibrating from her Alpha's chest.

Holly eventually just pulled his hair back form his face and tied it into a tail, deciding to forgo the man-bun Buck liked to pull his hair into since he'd already put her hair into a bun of her own.

Once she had finished, she settled next to him, tucking herself closely against his body. He was warm and smelled pleasantly of apples with hints of cherries. For a few moments, everything was still and silent and they basked in one another's company.

Holly was close to drifting- not asleep, but not quite aware- when Buck's steady purr quieted and then stopped. She opened her eyes- wasn't quite sure when she had closed them- and tilted her head up to look at blue eyes that were already staring down at her. "What is it?"

For a moment, it looks like Buck isn't going to answer, and then he does, soft and low and steady, picking and choosing his words carefully.

"You said…" A pause, a slight hesitation. "You said that you didn't have a Sentinel to help anchor you. when you used your abilities as a Guide."

Holly sat up, twisting so she had a more direct line of sight on Buck as she answered him. "I don't, no. No Sentinel wanted to bond with me, when I was on a warfront, their leader, and so prone to danger. When I was a Guide who had learned to weaponize my abilities in pain and fire, and the dying around me." Her eyes tightened at the remembered pain.

How much it had hurt to claw her way back to herself every time she'd been forced to use her abilities in such a way without an anchor to guide her home. Forced to extend past her limits and then return to herself. How on some days, when the dead outnumbered the living, and she had to be the one to to go out and make the enemy run, when she forced them to flee in terror, or brought them to their knees with pain- some days Holly hadn't wanted to claw her way back to her own mind. The memories of Sentinels flinching away from her, because they knew what she could do with her abilities, what they had seen her do. The way none would meet her eyes when it was brought up that she might do better with a Sentinel of her own. She was their leader, and they trusted her to lead them, but they still feared what she could do. What she had been forced to learn to survive against wizards with decades of experience over herself.

Her pack would have offered, had they been able, she knew. But most had already found their Fated Match, and were unable to act as her Sentinel, and the ones that hadn't were Guides themselves and unable to be the anchor to pull her back. Still, on some days it had only been her pack and their bonds to one another that had called her home anyway.

A low growl interrupts her thoughts and she blinks when she finds herself gathered in strong arms and pulled tightly to her Alpha's chest. When she looks up at him, Buck looks very much like he wants to fight somebody. She presses her smile into his chest and nuzzles against him at the sign of his anger on her behalf. She remains relaxed in Buck's lap for a few moments before he manages to get his growling under control. He pushes her back lightly, his hands remaining on her shoulders as he meets her eyes.

His voice is strong, unwavering and entirely certain when he offers her himself.

"Would you allow me to bond with you as your Sentinel? I may not be your Fated, but I would be willing to anchor you whenever and wherever you needed me."

And oh, oh Holly loves him then, just a little. She loves him, for what he offers to her, that he had seen her weaponise her ability and listened to her tell him, and still he offers. She can scent no lie or hesitation on him- he means it.

He is entirely serious when he offers her himself as a Sentinel to guide her home and anchor her when she has to extend herself outwards.

Batair huffs in the way he does when he's pleased. Holly always thought it would be a purr, if Batair had ended up a large cat.

Holly leans up, wrapping her arms around him and nuzzling into his neck even as she purrs so loudly her own ears ring with it. She melts against him, going pliant and utterly pleased. "If you'll have me," she agrees speaking into his neck "I would love for you to be my Sentinel."

Bucky bends his head, nuzzling hard against her, and then pressing a kiss to her forehead, natural as breathing when he speaks "Good."

He pulls back, hands loose around her wrists as he pulls her to the floor. She goes willingly, settling across from his form. Their knees touch and his hold shifts until they've clasped hands. He's looking at her, eyes warm and soft and a smile curling at the edges of his lips.

Holly smiles back, wide and happy and trusting, as pleased as anything.

Even knowing she is about to pull her barriers down, about to bare her mind and emotions to Buck, she doesn't hesitate. She trusts him. With everything in her- with this. With a permanent bond, with the ability to influence her through that bond, to pull her back when she has to be a fighter, when she has to extend past her limits. She trusts that Buck would not let her drift.

And it is amazing to her that he trusts her with it too. That despite the damage she knows had been done to him by HYDRA, he trusts her in his mind to establish the bond. That he trusts her with the sort of bond that will allow her gifts to work on him so much easier if she should choose. It was with awe that she had chosen to establish his bond to her first. If he was going to allow her that close to his mind when he had been hurt so badly before, she would open her mind to him first, allow him to know she would never hurt him as he had been hurt before.

She settles into a more comfortable position and keeps her eyes open and on his, as she slowly begins to pull her Occlumency shields down. She can feel him there, on the edges where she had allowed him. With every barrier that fell before him, Buck reached out a little more. He was slow and careful as she bared herself to him. He never rushed, always paused and gave her a chance to stop him. He was gentle in a way none who had gotten past her shields had ever been.

She can feel the spikes in his emotions every time he comes across the areas of her psyche that had been hurt, and every time he finds them, he soothes over them with his presence. Wraps every wound and scar up in a sense of protection, in a promise that should anyone get past her shields they would find Buck there to fight them off. He is not yet aware of what had caused the wounds, and yet it doesn't stop him as he brushes his presence against them as gently and carefully as he can.

And then Holly reaches that part of every Guide, the core of her, that sits in the heart of her shields. The one she will have to open up to Buck to establish the bond. Buck is there in her mind, more present than he has ever been, and Holly has never been so sure of her choice.

She begins to pull open that last barrier.

Buck doesn't move. This is her core, her very self, and she is opening it to him, so that the bond can be made. She can feel how awed he is, and she smiles to herself even as she keeps pulling the layers of protection away. That he doesn't rush her, or crowd at her as she opens only makes her more certain. This was her Alpha and soon to be her Sentinel. She had made a wonderful choice.

She exhales a little shakily as the last barrier falls. She is open and vulnerable to Buck, and it is a little nerve racking even though she trusts him. And Buck- bless him- can sense it.

So he doesn't move. He comes closer, but he waits, right there on the edge. He doesn't touch, or take advantage of her. He is still and radiating protection-safety-conviction-patience and Holly adores him for it.

When she settles, that initial nervousness fading, that is when Buck moves forward. He stays slow and steady and sure, and allows her every chance to stop him if she so wishes.

Holly doesn't.

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Buck feels breathless. And reverent. And so protective he's brimming with it. His chest is tight with the mess of emotion and she is so very beautiful. She has allowed him into herself, opened her mind, and she's just as gorgeous inside as she is outside.

Even the wounds he finds in her, as she opens herself for Buck to establish his link, add to everything that is Holly. He makes sure to press his presence against the wounds, soothing and gentle as he follows the presence that is Holly deeper into her own mind.

He nearly quivers with astonishment that she would let him, let the Winter Soldier, into her mind.

He has been trained to take people apart, physically yes, but also mentally. Taught exactly how to attack weaknesses and thoughts to make a person pull themselves apart, taught to use others' emotions against them, to press the buttons that will cause mistakes-

And she hadn't hesitated to allow him into her head, allow him a front row seat to her emotions, allow a bond.

So if Buck- and Winter who feels like a single touch may shatter him, he's so very pleased and protective over this woman- can do nothing but follow her in- well. They will cherish her, and they will go as slowly as needed.

And still each barrier falls before them, they are allowed further into her very self. They can feel that flash of nervous jitters and they still together, at the edges of her core, but not touching. Not until they feel her nerves fade and her trust swell.

Only then do they reach forward, slow and steady and ready to stop at the slightest hint from Holly.

She doesn't stop them.

And Winter and Bucky are one and the same as they reach forward together.

He can feel the bond opening on his half, and oh.

Oh!

It is a punch to the solar plexus, air wheezing past his lips, eyes open and awestruck as she slots into place. A missing piece, a perfect fit, another half. His mind blanks. Everything stills, everything is shut out but her, for once he doesn't think about threats or entryways, doesn't remember the automatic list he makes of the various ways and things he can use to cause death in the people in a room.

Instead, Buck is stuck, frozen and blank and astonished, utterly beyond words at what he has just discovered.

She can't feel it yet, doesn't know, as Buck- Winter and Bucky- now does.

She's theirs.

A Fated Match.

His-their- Fated Match. He can feel it, and his hands quiver in her own for an instant before they firm.

When it is her turn, and Winter and Bucky have pulled themselves out of her mind, it's as easy as breathing to return the favor. They can feel her as they lower the automatic protections in place around their mind. They can feel her wonder, and how careful she is as she presses into the opening Buck is offering to her.

She soothes over the scars in their mind, and they can feel that she is aware of Bucky and Winter both, still separate for all that they are more integrated than they have ever been. She brushes against the both of them, just as welcoming and pleased to see the one of them as she is to see the other.

It calms something in Winter and Bucky both to see- to feel- that it really doesn't matter to her. That she appreciates and welcomes both of them equally. That to her- to Holly- they are simply 'Buck', her Alpha, her Sentinel, her pack.

And when she reaches the very core of him, the part that Bucky and Winter both had acted to shield under so many layers of protection while in HYDRA's care, she stops. She allows them both the choice and chance to say 'no' just as they had offered to her.

And much as she had done- they do not take it, welcoming her entirely.