Work Text:
Sam sighs, watching as Bucky lowers himself carefully onto the couch next to him. Their last mission was rough on both of them, and things don’t seem to have gotten better since they got back to Delacroix. Well, for Sam they’re starting to get better. He’s enjoying the break from people trying to kill him and from yet more terrorists trying to make their point in all the wrong ways and harming innocent people. He’s taking time to reconnect with the people he loves, reminding himself that he’s a brother and an uncle and a friend before he’s Cap, drinking good beer and eating good homecooked food.
But Bucky... he’s another story. He’s had a few sleepless nights. Even supersoldiers can’t go without sleep forever and there are dark circles under his eyes, like smudges of ink against his pale skin. He’s being plagued by nightmares when he does manage to catch a few minutes sleep, jerking awake again with a gasp every time he drops off and looking around to see if anyone noticed.
Bucky thought Sam was dead back there on that mission - he knows that from the frantic way Bucky grabbed at his shoulders when Sam dropped down to land next to him, a little scorched around the edges but alive. The way the tears were tracking down Bucky’s smoke-stained cheeks. The way he yanked Sam into a tight hug and just held on, his whole body shaking while Sam rubbed a hand up and down his back and murmured soft words. A few times a day he catches Bucky staring at him as if to make sure he’s still there.
But he’s obviously safe now; they both are. Yet Bucky’s spent the last few days hollow-eyed and rigid with anxiety, exhausted, skulking around the house almost silently, moving stiffly from some injury that he won’t let Sam take a look at, and he’s barely said ten words the whole time.
When Bucky hisses softly as he reaches to switch on the TV, Sam’s had enough.
“Alright, Bucky, you’ve got one chance to tell me what’s the matter with you or I’m gonna get Sarah here and she will get it out of you.”
Bucky looks at him with wide, innocent eyes. “Nothing.”
“Alright, you asked for it.” Sam moves to stand up.
“No! Okay, fine, you can look, but you’ll see nothing.”
It’s the most words he’s said in the last few days. It wasn’t just the physical injury Sam was asking about, but he’ll take what he can get. He edges closer. “Can I?”
Bucky shrugs. Makes a pained face. Pulls up his shirt to show... exactly nothing, like he said.
Sam gives him his best unimpressed look. “What gives, Bucky?”
“When you were... when I thought you’d... I wanted to get you out, alright? It was all I could think about.” Bucky clenches his jaw.
“Bucky. What did you do.”
“When that door came down between us and the building went up in flames, I might have, um... tried to break the door down.”
“With your body? Oh, tell me you didn’t do something stupid like try to punch a reinforced metal door open.”
“I used the metal arm. I’m not stupid,” Bucky growls, so yes, the idiot did try to do exactly that.
“The metal arm which is attached to the rest of your body,” Sam says, his eyes travelling to Bucky’s shoulder. The one that still causes him pain a lot of the time from whatever Hydra messed around with in there. Pain that he definitely makes worse when he does things with no regard for himself.
“Yeah,” he shrugs with one arm, pulling his shirt back down. “It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine. You don’t have to say everything’s fine all the time!”
Bucky looks at his knees, his jaw clenched, sullen. Sometimes this guy acts more like sixteen than a hundred-and-six.
Sam sighs. “You want some ice for it? Or something warm?”
“No I don’t want some goddamn ice. You nearly died, Sam. I thought... when I couldn’t get to you I thought you’d died. Do you know what that’s like?” Bucky snaps.
Oh, he didn’t just say that. Anger flashes through Sam and he turns slightly to look Bucky straight in the face. “Yeah, as a matter of fact, I do.”
Bucky at least looks ashamed as he realises what he said, his cheeks flushing, looking up at Sam through lowered lashes. “’Course you do. Sorry.”
Sam nods an acknowledgement, taking a few deep breaths, letting his heart rate come down again. Willing the thoughts of Riley gently into the background where the sorrow laps at him in gentle waves rather than crashing over him.“But I didn’t die. I’m right here. So what’s the problem?”
“I...” Bucky shakes his head and starts to stand up. He puts too much weight on his arm and sits back down with a huff.
“I thought you were gone. That I’d let it happen,” he says through gritted teeth, clutching the couch cushion so tightly that he might tear it. “I can’t... can’t let it happen,” he mutters, swiping roughly at his eyes with his sleeve. So there it is. He’s been tense and slinking around, sleepless, for the past few days because he’s apparently terrified that Sam’s going to die on one of their missions.
“Good to know you think so highly of my ability,” Sam mutters.
“You and your family... your friends... you’re the only ones who really give a damn what happens to me. And your family - if I couldn’t keep you safe...”
“Would still love you,” Sam says firmly, because it’s true. Bucky’s just slotted right in like he was always a part of their lives, and while Sam never imagined allowing an irritating centenarian ex-assassin into his home, now he can’t imagine being without Bucky’s company. The boys want him to read to them at night. Sarah and Bucky have late night talks over the dishes. All the neighbours call around to ask for Bucky when they need a hand with moving something, and he loves the attention. “And they would understand that you did all you could, because you do. Besides, I can take care of myself, y’know. I seem to remember beating plenty of Hydra asses wearing jeans and a t-shirt.”
That gets a weak smile out of Bucky. “Well, I never said you were smart.”
Sam lets him get away with it. This time.
“Y’know, after Steve left,” Bucky begins, picking at a thread on the couch cushion. He stops.
“What about it?” Sam prompts when he doesn’t say anything else for a good ten seconds.
“I guess I just thought I’d never... never have anything like that again, you know? There was no one left who knew me. I may have been pardoned but a lot of people still hated the sight of me. I was fine with that. Hell, for a while back there I still hated the sight of me.” He laughs softly.
Sam drops his chin, pressing his lips together. That’s not funny like Bucky seems to think it is.
“Do you know he left me once before? The last night before I shipped out for England. I was just a dumb kid, naive as hell. Excited to be going, and scared to death of getting there. We were taking a couple of girls dancing after the Stark Expo to keep our minds off of it, and the little punk skipped out on me to try enlisting again.” He smiles at the memory.
Sam knows how desperate Steve had been to do his part, to make a difference, to make people see him for who he was inside, rather than seeing what he couldn’t do. Steve was single-minded when it came to doing the right thing. But sometimes the right thing’s not so clear cut, Sam knows, and leaving your best friend, scared, on the last night before maybe never seeing him again sounds... well, like something Sam wouldn’t do is all.
He reaches out to gently slap Bucky’s arm instead of saying that. “You used to dance?”
“Oh yeah. The Jive, the Lindy Hop. The Charleston. I knew all of ‘em, spent the night in a dance hall whenever I could.”
“Man, you’re so old.” Sam laughs at the affronted look on his face. “You ever think of taking it up again?”
“Nah. Where would I go? Most people don’t do that stuff anymore. Have to find a ballroom, or a class or something, and somehow I don’t see people lining up to be my dance partner.”
“I guess,” Sam says. He feels like he needs to use this knowledge somehow, but he needs to think on it.
Bucky scrubs the last traces of tears from his eyes and Sam sighs and holds out the arm closest to Bucky. “Come on, come here.”
Bucky sighs too but he shifts toward Sam, leaning in and letting him give the hug. “We’re okay,” Bucky says, his breaths shaky.
“Yeah, we are.”
Sam sits with an arm around Bucky’s shoulders, both of them watching some Hallmark movie on the TV without really paying attention, and after a while he realises Bucky’s breaths have deepened and evened out, and he’s leaning more heavily against Sam. He’s finally fallen asleep with his head on Sam’s shoulder. A wave of protectiveness washes over him for this moron who would have beaten walls down with his own body if it meant he could get through to help Sam.
***
Bucky wakes from his nap feeling warm and relaxed, and maybe slightly shamefaced for shutting Sam out for the past few days. He’s still getting used to this whole ‘having people care about him’ thing. He knows where he is straight away from the lingering delicious scent in the air - hopefully Sam left some of that lunch for him. He lies still for a few minutes and just enjoys it, lulled by the comfort of the soft blanket against his cheek - the one Sam must have thrown over him. It’s warm enough that he doesn’t need a blanket but the gesture still makes something stir inside his chest. He didn’t have a nightmare, and he must have slept for several solid hours. The afternoon sun’s streaming in through the windows and the house is quiet - Sarah will still be at work, the boys in school, and Sam... somewhere.
He reaches for his phone and laughs to himself. He needs to change his lock code again. Sam’s changed his wallpaper to a grinning selfie, again.
He has a text from Sam letting him know that he’s out buying groceries. Text me if you want anything, it says, unless it’s that nasty frozen pineapple pizza you like. And then another text a few minutes after: JK.
There’s another notification at the top of the screen and he swipes down idly then taps it, curious.
Sam’s downloaded some sort of music app for him. He’s been threatening to do that for a while, every time Bucky whines that it’s hard to get decent vinyl these days. Sam can say what he likes but they do not sound the same today. There’s a playlist on there called ‘Sam Vibes’, full of soul songs with a heavy sprinkling of Marvin Gaye, and that makes him smile.
But there’s another one, titled ‘Bucky Shincracker’. He snorts. Sam’s obviously been listening to his slang, or using Google. Either way, he was quite the ducky shincracker back in the day, thank you very much. He scans the familiar song names and taps on one.
He shifts to sit upright. Surprise tears are suddenly pooling in his eyes as Glenn Miller’s band fills the room with the first notes of In the Mood, the song that used to make him want to get up and dance every time since he first heard it.
Now he’s glad everyone’s out of the house as he just sinks into the familiar sounds that take him back to the time before he was alone, before he was a weapon, before he was an unwilling soldier. Back to when he was little more than a kid, hanging with his best friend, making up for what they lacked in money with laughter and good company.
Out at the dance halls he used to swing dance to these tunes after work, before he went to war. He’d take Steve as often as he could convince him to come, and he could always find a couple of cute girls to make up a four. No one does those dances in places like that any more. They dance in nightclubs to the kind of stuff he heard at Sharon’s party in Madripoor, when he floated through the crowd of jostling, vibrating people, wondering how he was supposed to blend in with that.
Even the Macarena is out of fashion now, although the Winter Soldier never did the Macarena back in the 90s. He’s sure he saw it somewhere, but his mind shies away from the image of the Soldier strutting through a party, ignoring the screams, focused on eliminating the target... No. Best not to go there.
But the popular dances that kids do now don’t seem to have proper names, unless you count the Gangnam Style that the boys found on Youtube and keep trying to show him, and he will never do that one no matter how much they plead. Well... maybe. Maybe one day, if they insist.
He stands up, rolling his stiff left shoulder cautiously. It already feels a little better after a proper sleep. He stands there in front of the couch, feeling awkward, looking around to make sure he really is alone in the house, although he knows he is. He starts snapping his fingers in time with the tune, quietly at first, then harder.
He danced like this that last night before he shipped out, holding both of those girls by one hand each so they could all dance as a three, but underneath his bright smile he’d been jittery and nervous and forgetting the steps. He’d stepped on Connie’s toes once, and he never did that. The girls had giggled their way through the night anyway, and both kissed him on the cheek when he walked them home.
He remembers being a little kid, lounging on the floor of Steve’s apartment in the evenings while Steve’s mom showed a tiny Steve how to dance with his feet on top of hers. He and Steve had practiced the steps together afterwards, collapsing into giggles as Sarah Rogers smiled and shook her head at them.
He remembers dancing at home.
His Ma’s cooking dinner while he shows a young teenage Becca some moves to go with a tune playing on the wireless.
“Slow down, Bucky, I can’t see what you’re doing with your feet,” she complains, huffing.
“Okay, c’mere,” he waves her towards him. “Put your feet on mine.”
“Won’t I hurt you?” she asks, holding onto his arms cautiously.
“Nah, kid, you’re light as a feather. Come on.”
She steps onto his feet and he leads her around the cramped living room. He bangs his elbow against a cabinet and Becca falls off his feet and onto a chair, laughing, as he swears and rubs his arm.
“Language, Bucky!” his mom calls from the kitchen.
“Sorry, Ma.” He winks at Becca, and she winks back.
Hydra stole this from him. Just one more piece of him that they took away. They took his dancing ability and his fast boxer’s feet and they took it all for themselves; they made him take all that graceful movement that used to bring him joy and turn it to violence. He’s shaking, his fingernails digging into his palm, and it takes him a moment to realise that it’s with anger. Well, he’s getting it all back for himself, starting right now.
It starts with him just tapping his feet along to the music, snapping his fingers again, in the old familiar patterns.
He tries a couple of triple-steps, just small ones at first. Then the rock steps. Can he remember the pattern of steps for the Charleston? He tries the forward and back, using his arms, adding some flair as he gets into the swing of it. Ha. A wide jump. Then the more complicated footwork and kicks as his confidence grows and he realises that yes, he does remember, or at least his feet do. He’s having... fun. And the fact that it’s taken him time to identify that feeling means he probably needs more of it.
The only thing missing is the other dancers, the pleasure of being in perfect sync with the other people around, feet all making the same rhythm on a hardwood dance floor...
And then he hears the giggling. So quiet, and he knows that they think he doesn’t hear, but he has super soldier hearing. He stops moving, dropping his hands to his sides, looking around for them, and it’s ridiculous that after all this time and all he’s seen, he hasn’t lost the ability to blush. There - Cass and AJ are peering through the window with matching grins on their faces, giggling. They turn to look behind them at... Sam, who’s also grinning. Now he feels dumb. He steps over to his phone and shuts the sound off.
“Hey, Bucky,” Sarah calls, striding in and placing her bag down. She gives him a sympathetic look, and that kind of feels worse than being laughed at. She’s so smart and determined and beautiful, and now she thinks he’s an idiot too. He suspects she knew it before, but he’s probably just confirmed it to her.
“We weren’t laughing at you, man,” Sam says from behind an armload of groceries as he follows her in. His nephews are bounding alongside him dragging their school rucksacks.
Huh. He stares at Sam in silent agony, his stomach twisting with embarrassment.
“We weren’t,” Sam insists. “It’s just nice to see you enjoying something. You had the biggest smile on your face. You should do it more often. Smile, that is. Tones down your resting murder face.”
“Yeah, Uncle Bucky!” Cass agrees. “You looked like this!” He grins widely, showing all his teeth.
Bucky musters up a tiny imitation of that smile for the kid, then turns to Sam. “I’m going for a walk.”
He stalks down the woodland trail, hands stuffed in the pockets of his hoodie. Stupid, he’s stupid, to think he could still do this stuff, or to think he could get that piece of the past back. It’s not the good old days any more. That stuff’s got no place in the modern world, a lot like him. No wonder they laughed.
He registers the feet coming up behind him before he sees them. Three sets of them; one with long, even strides, two quick and light. He could easily outrun them, he could put miles between them before they even knew he was gone, but he doesn’t.
“Wait up, Bucky!” Sam strides up behind him. “Why do you think I put that music on there for you? You sounded like you enjoyed dancing, like you wanted to take it up again. Why would I want to help you do that if I was just gonna laugh at you?”
“And it looked so cool!” Cass calls.
AJ’s shorter legs struggle to keep up as Bucky continues stalking ahead. “Uncle Bucky,” he whines plaintively.
Bucky slows, turns back. Because he’s not a monster.
“Will you show us how?” AJ asks, catching his breath and kicking his feet forward and back in a fair impression of the Charleston.
Bucky breathes in. Blows the breath out slowly as he looks at the family that’s followed him out here. They look back at him. Cass is fiddling with the hem of his t-shirt. AJ pushes his glasses up his nose, blinking up at him. There’s nothing but sincerity in Sam’s warm brown eyes, except maybe for a hint of concern, and now he feels even more foolish. He leans down in front of AJ, hands on his knees, smiling for real this time. “Only if you’ll teach me the Gangnam Style.”
Cass and AJ whoop and each grab him by the hand, running back to the house so that now he has to hustle to keep up.
“Oh, I need my camera for this,” Sam says as he jogs after them.
“It’s about time,” Sarah grumbles as they all pile back into the house. “Come on, you guys, these groceries need to be put away.”
Bucky smiles and starts unloading a bag. He pulls out pizza bases, vegetables, tomato sauce and mozzarella. They’re making pizzas for dinner, then, a Friday treat for the kids. He has a reputation to maintain but when he gets to spend a Friday night at the Wilson house it’s a treat for him too.
Sam’s emptying another bag and he slides out two bottles of wine and a can of something, which he slides over to Bucky. “For your pizza,” he says, smirking.
Bucky spins it around. It’s a can of pineapple chunks. He can’t stop the grin that spreads across his face.
After their dinner’s settled, Sam moves the breakable furniture to the sides while Cass and AJ jump about. Sarah settles into the couch with a glass of wine as Sam swipes Bucky’s phone straight out of his pocket, unlocking it with practiced ease and starting up the swing playlist. Bucky’s really got to change that passcode.
“I am looking forward to this,” Sarah smirks, taking a sip. “Sammy’s got two left feet.”
“I’m not doing it,” he protests. “Just the kids. And I do not have two left feet.”
“We’ll see about that,” Sarah grins at Bucky. He winks back at her. If he has to do this, so does Sam, even if he doesn’t know it yet.
The boy stand opposite him and pick up every move he shows them, with the ease of movement that children have, and then they put them all together with enthusiasm as Bucky stands back, arms folded, and nods in satisfaction.
“Your turn,” he grabs Sam by the arm and pulls him off the arm of the couch. Sam scrambles to put his wine glass down and Bucky figures there’s enough of that wine inside Sam now that he might actually do this.
Well. Sarah wasn’t kidding about the two left feet. She watches them as Sam accidentally kicks Bucky in the shin for the third time, and that is not what shincracker is supposed to mean, and then she shakes her head. “Come on, Bucky, I’ll show him.” And she joins them, mirroring Bucky’s moves easily.
Then it’s the boys’ turn to teach. A Sarah mellowed by two glasses of red wine turns a blind eye to the lyrics as she watches from the couch.
“Join in, Sarah?” Bucky asks as the boys start prodding him into position.
“Uh-uh. No way,” she says, shaking her head. “I’m fine right here.”
“Sam?” he asks hopefully.
“You got yourself into this, man,” he says, picking up his wine glass again. “Get to work.”
Five minutes later Sam’s doubled over, hands on his knees, choking with laughter as Bucky mimics the boys’ dancing. Bucky grins at him and jumps harder to get a bigger laugh, waving his imaginary rope around his head, as Sam wheezes for air.
The shadows of the people he loved, his Ma, Becca, Steve and the friends he danced with, they mingle with the living, loving family around him. The past and present merge to make a Bucky that’s happy, here and now.