Chapter Text
It had been a shit day. There was no point denying it.
Nothing had even gone wrong – it had gone the opposite of wrong, really. Sam was alive, Bucky was alive, and the men that Sam could only describe as Literal Sky Pirates were being loaded into a plane by some Con Air ladies with the darkest sunglasses he'd ever seen.
Somehow, every hit felt harder today, every joint stiffer than usual. Sam had been sleeping like shit lately, but he was particularly restless today. He fought fine, but he couldn’t deny his movements were a bit sloppy and graceless; it certainly didn’t help that the same thing seemed to be happening to Bucky. God, they were getting old.
He watches Bucky work his left shoulder, absentmindedly massaging where vibranium met scar tissue. Based on the pained look on Bucky’s face, it doesn’t make much of a difference. Sam tried not to feel a bit sick at the prospect of Bucky suffering so much that it managed to crack through the Super-Soldier of it all. It's why Sam has been trying to convince him to take a break for ages now, but, despite the promises of tropical paradise or mountain views, Bucky refuses every time.
“Hey,” one of the agents says, as she latches a jet door shut, “need a lift?”
Bucky and Sam glance at each other, world-weary and bruised. Bucky turns her offer away with an uncommitted wave of his hand.
“I think I may just. Sit,” Bucky says. “Go ahead, we’ll figure something else out.”
How do they always, always manage to be on the same page?
Madame Con-Air lowers her sunglasses to peer at Bucky distastefully.
"I thought the Winter Soldier didn't get tired," she says, sounding almost smug, and then she's gone.
Sam scoffs, "the hell did you do to her?"
He looks over at Bucky, but Bucky's looking at the ground, jaw working.
"Don't do that," Sam says, pointing an accusing finger.
Bucky gives him a Look.
"Do what?"
"The whole, should've, could've, would've bullshit. You did good, Bucky. You always do good. Ignore her."
Bucky shrugs, and Sam knows he hasn't gotten through to him. Sam wants to say that maybe if he took it easy every once in a while he would do better on the field, but Bucky's already dynamite on the ground. Sam wants him to take it easy, because, well, Bucky deserves it.
Sam watches the plane lift off as he collapses to the ground. It’s a good place to rest, all things considered. Sam wasn’t sure where exactly they were, and he didn’t care to check at the moment. He groans as he lowers himself to stretch out in the grass, content to just let the sun shine on his face. Bucky stays sitting, one knee propped as he pulls up a handful of grass and lets it drop unceremoniously back to the ground. Sam huffs out a laugh.
“You feel as dead as I do right now?” He asks, squinting at Bucky through the sunlight. Though Bucky’s hair is short, the sweet spring air still danced by and ruffled it up nicely. It’s moments like these, when he has the chance to look freely, that he’s most aware of how much of his life he’s shared with Bucky.
He sees it in the gentle wrinkles around Bucky’s eyes that become more pronounced when he smiles. He sees it in the laugh lines that Sam wishes he could trace with his tongue. He sees it in the way Bucky looks at him like he’s the least surprising thing in the world, like Sam is the only person he could imagine fighting by his side, like Sam letting Bucky practically live in his apartment is something that’s been happening for six years rather than six months.
Like it would be weird for Sam to not be in his life at all. It didn’t used to be that way.
It’s moments like this when he really starts to think about planting some roots. Or, at least, starts to pretend that planting roots is even an option for him anymore.
“I feel more dead than you do right now,” Bucky counters, and Sam rolls his eyes and huffs out a laugh.
“Whatever, man. Everything’s a competition with you, know that? Fuckin’ everything.”
“You asked, I answered.”
“I asked, you pissed me off.”
Bucky laughs a little, running his metal hand over one of hundreds of purple blooms that cover the field. They’re wildflowers, luckily, or else Sam would have felt a lot worse when he ripped up an entire patch of them during a particularly hard landing.
“Where are we?” Bucky asks, analyzing the small flower, tracing one finger over a petal.
“Virginia, probably. Maryland, if we’re unlucky.”
“Where in Virginia? Far?”
“Did you not hear the part where I wasn’t even sure which state we’re in?”
“I hate fighting in DC. Too easy to cross state lines. Gets me all… confused.” Bucky said.
“Eh. We needed to get out of the city anyway.”
“Yeah,” was all Bucky had to say in response. He sounds wistful, and uneager to get up anytime soon.
“You good?” Sam asks, pushing himself up onto his elbows.
“I’m good.” Bucky said, “Just tired. Haven’t been sleeping well.”
Sam shakes his head, “C’mon, it’s more than that.”
“Oh? You sound sure of yourself.” Bucky says, and now he is standing up, slowly, even though Sam knows he didn’t want to about thirty seconds ago. He lets Bucky help him back up, and tries not to sigh at how warm his hand feels in Bucky’s.
“I just mean, you aren’t just tired because you aren’t sleeping well- you haven’t slept well since nineteen forty-wheneverthefuck. You’re tired because–” Sam hesitates for half a second, worried he’s overstepping, and then gets the fuck over it because if he doesn’t overstep a little, who will?
“You’re tired because you’re a dick to yourself.”
Bucky’s eyes, which had trailed back to the field of flowers, snap back to Sam's and then narrow.
“No, Samuel, I’m pretty sure it’s because I get, like, 45 minutes of sleep a night. And that’s on the good nights. I appreciate your theory, though.” He responds without heat, like he’s more confused than indignant.
“I’m right, Bucky, you know I’m right. When did you last do something that you wanted to do? Really think about it.”
Bucky opens his mouth and then closes it. Sam holds out his hands in a ‘there you have it’ motion.
“That’s what I–”
“When I last came to see you. And your family. In Louisiana.”
And Sam… doesn’t know what to do with that.
“Bucky, buddy, that was forever ago.”
Bucky’s mouth twists. “You asked, I answered.”
“I asked, you pissed me off.”
“How is that a bad answer? You invited me, and I dropped everything because I wanted to be there. So, there you go.”
Sam wants to melt, just a little.
“God, Bucky, I’m pissed because what I’m hearing is that you haven’t done something nice for yourself in nearly a year. No wonder you’re so goddamn grumpy.”
“I’m grumpy because my best friend is also my worst enemy. I mean, Sam, I do things for myself all the time. I get myself coffee, I spend time with you, I yell at college kids,” he says that last part with a self-satisfied grin.
Sam wants to marry Bucky Barnes.
“No, that’s some bullshit. You only ever drink coffee black from a shitty machine, when everyone knows you like coffee best when it’s seven dollars and so sweet it tastes like syrup. Because you won’t just let yourself enjoy your fucking coffee, Bucky. And I’m glad you like spending time with me, because ditto, but you would be right here even if you hated my guts, because that’s the kind of man you are.” Maybe Sam is getting a bit too heated. He redirects to safer territory.
“And, dude, you yell at college kids because you refuse to get yourself a bougie apartment with actual security. Your oldest neighbor is twenty-two.”
“I’m my own security.”
“Just think about what I’m saying, Buck. I shouldn’t be more worried about you than you are, but I will be if I have to. You cling onto this fucked-up habit of neglecting yourself, but you aren’t stupid, you have to know things aren’t going to change that way. I can tell you’re unhappy, and it’s pretty damn hard to watch. Pisses me off a bit, if I’m honest, because you could be happy. You could be so happy. Sometimes I think you do this shit on purpose because you’re scared of getting better.”
Bucky’s face shuts like a door.
Fuck. Sam really should have planned this little speech beforehand, but the thing is, Sam means all of it. He knows Bucky is frozen, too comfortable in his pain to allow himself to indulge. But he doesn’t want Bucky to feel bad about that, not for one second, because Sam gets it, is the thing. He really, really gets it. Yet here he is, allowing Bucky to think that Sam isn’t immensely proud of him. Allowing Bucky to think that he hasn’t made enough progress, that he hasn’t been doing the hard shit.
“Thanks for the psychoanalysis, buddy,” Bucky spits, and starts trudging towards the little road nearly half a mile from them.
“Where are you going?” Sam asks, trailing after him when he really should be saying that didn’t come out how I meant it. Bucky, please know that I couldn’t think more highly of you if I tried. You’re a wonder of the goddamn world, and I love you so much. I just wish you saw yourself how I saw you. I just wish you would let yourself rest. Please just let yourself rest.
“Home.” He responds, voice steely and unfamiliar.
“Dude, at least let me order you a car. You don’t know where you’re going, and I swear I will pay you a thousand bucks if you remembered to bring your phone this time.” Sam should be apologizing by now. Why can’t he say anything?
“I can walk.” Bucky’s tone is ice cold, and Sam knows better than to push.
Bucky walks away, and Sam watches as he inexplicably drops down to one knee for a second, hand reaching out towards a cluster of those little purple flowers, before seemingly thinking better of it and standing back up abruptly. Sam wants to scream. So he does, just a little.
“Take the fucking flowers, Bucky, I swear to god–”
Bucky stomps on the cluster and disappears into the setting sun.
-
(Of course, Bucky finds an idling town car on the abandoned road, looking too sleek and rumbling too loudly for this sleepy area. Bucky blinks once, twice, and then sighs, his shoulders drooping. Sam would order him a car. He almost walks anyway, just to be petty, but Sam’s voice is in his head as always.
You could be so happy.
He gets in the fucking car. He drinks the fancy water. He lets himself drift off.
He lets Sam care about him in this passive-aggressive, detached, utterly charming way.
But he’s not happy about any of it. He’s not.)
–
Sam could cry when he lands on the roof of his apartment building, drops down the hatch, and drags himself through his front door – only to find Bucky right there, on Sam’s couch, fast asleep with his shoes still on. He’s still sitting up, but his head is tipped back and slumped to one side, and Sam is enthralled by how Bucky’s jawline softens in his sleep.
Bucky had said he was going home. And he’s here.
Sam almost tries to move Bucky into a more comfortable position, but he hates the thought of waking him up (and not out of fear of Bucky’s sharp reflexes).
Sam wishes he could wake him up with his mouth, kiss along his jaw, and nip at his ear. He wishes he could show Bucky just how sorry he was for his impulsive words. He wishes he could show Bucky a sliver of the peaceful life they could build together.
Sam wishes, and Bucky wants, and yet. And yet.
Sam sighs, tosses something gently onto the coffee table, and goes to his room, where his footsteps seem to echo louder, the creaks in the floor stinging Sam’s ears.
He doesn’t sleep.
–
When Bucky wakes up, it takes him a second to remember where he is. He sees Sam’s abandoned shield by the front door, and he flushes, thinking about what he must’ve thought when he saw Bucky on his couch.
It’s just that when he acquiesced and got into that little black car, and the driver had asked where he should go...
He couldn’t remember his address. He couldn’t have picked his address out of a line-up, and his memory was impeccable.
But he remembered Sam’s.
And Bucky could have walked to his apartment from Sam’s own. Easily. But he was so tired, and his apartment was so sterile and dark and lonely.
Walking into Sam’s one-bedroom was so warm and familiar and Sam.
So now here he was, on Sam's couch, waiting to face him. He wasn’t mad at Sam for what he had said. A little sad, maybe, but not mad.
No, he was mad at Sam for being right.
Bucky wants nothing more than to let himself lean into his guilt and fear, curl up on the couch, and pretend he doesn’t exist.
But, alas. Bucky is distracted. Distracted by the bundle of purple fucking wildflowers resting atop one of Sam’s battered paperbacks.
The bouquet is messy and plentiful and Sam used a fucking blade of grass to tie the whole thing together.
“Good morning.”
Bucky whirls around to face him, hoping Sam wouldn’t be able to see any redness in his eyes.
“Good morning.”
Sam smiles, and Bucky can see the relief on his face, which does something cruel to Bucky’s heart.
“What are these for?” Bucky manages, gesturing to the flowers as he gets up to grab a mug from the kitchen cabinet, mostly so he doesn’t have to look Sam in the eye.
“I wanted you to have something you wanted,” is all Sam says for a long time. The silence is loud, and there’s a buzzing in Bucky’s ears as he fills the mug with water and adds his flowers.
“Here,” Sam removes the mug from Bucky’s grasp gently, and sets it on the middle of the coffee table, “Just for now, I mean. You can take it back to your place when you leave, liven it up a little.”
Bucky droops a bit and nods; he doesn't want to take it home. It belongs here. He belongs here. They both settle onto the couch, even though it’s obvious that neither of them knows what to say, what to do.
“Bucky, I’m sorry,” Sam says quietly, his tone measured and serious. Bucky shakes his head, deflecting.
“No, no, it’s fine.”
Sam opens his mouth like he’s about to say the first thing that comes to mind, and then remembers how they got here in the first place. He takes a deep breath before trying again.
“Bucky, you gotta let me say this. Just… wait until I’m finished before you say anything.”
Bucky nods, but can’t look Sam in the eye.
“Sometimes it’s hard to look at you,” Sam says, and Bucky makes a face but lets him continue.
“The more time we spend together, the easier it is to cut through your bullshit. And now, it feels like I know you better than anyone. So it can be hard to look at you because I see right through you. You’re tired, Bucky, and sometimes you look... so sad. And if I’m honest, it does piss me off, because it’s not fucking fair, Bucky. It’s not fair that you still have to carry so much,” Sam sighs, scrubbing a hand over his face.
“And then I see you choose the uncomfortable plastic chair when we’re out at dinner, even when I go to sit there first. I see you buy the generic Cheerios, which I know you don’t like as much. I see you angle your body away when you catch a girl looking at you across the bar.”
Bucky shakes his head, wanting to laugh about just how wrong Sam is (about that last point, at least).
“I didn’t mean for what I said yesterday to make me sound like a total dick, is what I think I’m trying to say, and I’m sorry. I just wish you could remember how good life can be. And that doesn’t mean I don’t see how hard you’ve been working, you know? It doesn’t mean that I can’t see how much progress you’ve made. I’m so proud of you. I just wonder what would happen if you let yourself want a little more.”
–
Bucky is quiet for a while, and Sam shifts awkwardly.
“I’m done now. So feel free to respond whenever.”
Bucky stares at his flowers pensively.
“Why did you bring the flowers here?” He asks, quietly, with the undertone that sounds angry, but Sam knows it's really just him being confused.
“I told you, you deserve pretty things. Good things. Good people.”
“I don’t know how,” Bucky murmurs, feeling a bit hot in all his leather, “I don’t know how to want anymore.” Sam just nods.
“I didn’t either,” He says, dropping a hand onto Bucky’s shoulder and squeezing once before releasing, “I know it's different, but after Riley, I thought I had walked away from the wings for good. And that sucked, dude, because I loved flying more than anything. I never really talk about that. After Riley, flying was just something else that had been taken from me.”
“Sam…”
“You should have seen me. I must’ve lost 30 pounds in those first few months. My family would send me food, and I would just let it sit in the fridge until I couldn’t avoid throwing it out any longer. I couldn’t get into bed because I knew Riley wouldn’t be there. So I slept on the couch even though the springs dug into my back. Sarah tried to get me out of the house, but I couldn’t go anywhere familiar. Every once in a while, I would go to some dirty bar and go home with the first guy who looked my way. It didn’t matter to me. I didn’t care if they were rude, or old, or pushy. Afterwards, I would just walk around the city until morning because I couldn’t bear to go back to an empty apartment. Then I would be sick for a week afterwards, with guilt and self-loathing.”
The thing is, Bucky knows that Sam and Riley weren’t just friends. To hear Sam say it aloud, however, is an entirely different thing. Despite all of his losses, Bucky can’t imagine losing someone he was in love with, and who loved him in return. God knows Sam deserved the kind of love they had clearly shared. Bucky refuses, however, to let himself think any more about it.
“What changed?” He asks because he can’t pretend he isn’t desperately curious.
“Therapy, mostly. It helped me realize that the reason I couldn’t move on is because it felt like I was betraying Riley, minimizing how much he meant to me. Sarah helped, too, mostly because she wouldn’t leave me the fuck alone. We started with the small stuff. Morning runs, reading, stuff I knew I used to like. And then it was visiting home once a month, moving apartments, getting a comfortable fucking couch. I took it at my own pace. I didn’t push myself to date, and it took me nearly a year to reach out to Riley’s parents,” Sam looks up at Bucky then, and smirks a little.
“One thing I couldn’t get past was the flying. I couldn’t bring myself to do it, not for a long time. But I wanted to. So, so badly. I wanted to fly and remember how it felt to be up there with him, and I wanted to remember what it felt like it be a hero. You know who helped me get past that?” Sam asks, and Bucky rolls his eyes.
“You never stopped being a hero, Sam. And I know it was Steve who got you back out into the field. I was there, you know?”
Sam smiles, “No. It was you, and you know it, dumbass.”
Bucky starts. “What?”
“I mean, in your own fucked-up way, but yeah. You were a challenge, and you woke me up, Bucky. I’m not ever gonna forget that.”
Bucky is not certain that the sentence is purely heterosexual, but what does he know? The world is changing every day, after all.
“Can you show me?” He blurts out so he doesn’t say something much worse. Sam’s brows furrow.
“Show you what?”
Bucky fidgets.
“I guess– show me how to want things again.”
–
Sam’s throat is so dry it’s painful. His first instinct is to push him down into the couch and get his mouth all over Bucky, but he can’t want him right now; he has to push that aside. He tries his best to swallow and nods.
“Yes. Give me 15 seconds.” He says, and then scrambles off the couch to rifle through the contents of his junk drawer. He’s back on the couch in 13 ½ seconds.
“Here,” He says, thrusting a small notebook and pen into Bucky’s hands. Bucky sits there like he’s never encountered the concept of writing
“What.” Bucky says, and it’s in that stupid way, neither a statement nor a question.
Sam motions to the notebook.
“Number the top of the page one through three, and then do it again on the bottom.” He instructs, settling into this familiar role. Bucky does as he asks, and Sam finds even his handwriting charming, all slanted and soft.
“Okay, now, the top is three things you want right now.”
Bucky rubs at his tired eyes. “And the bottom?”
“Three things you want, in general. Anything you’d like.” Sam says gently. Buck scrunches his nose a bit.
“And then what?”
“We’ll make it happen. No matter what.”
Bucky looks at Sam for a long time, and Sam suddenly finds his idea incredibly stupid. He feels his face heat with embarrassment, and thanks every god that Bucky can’t tell.
Sam looks down at the rug he had chosen with Sarah. He wondered if Bucky liked the rug. It shouldn’t matter, but he almost asks anyway, if only just to get off their current topic.
When Sam looks back up, he’s alone on the couch, and he watches Bucky close and lock the bathroom door, without either of them saying a word.
–
Sam was going to die. In theory, he should be able to remind himself that he didn’t do anything wrong. It was a Bucky thing. Sometimes he got so quiet, went so far into his head. Sam should know that Bucky isn’t mad or annoyed or uncomfortable.
In reality, all Sam knows is that he’s going to die, here on this couch, of pure embarrassment.
He doesn’t know what to do. He cleans up a little, putting his gear away in the front closet. There’s no noise coming from the bathroom, no water running. Sam sits on the couch and stands back up five seconds later. He cleans a little more.
He’s wiping the kitchen island when Bucky emerges from the bathroom, and Sam knows him well enough by now to know Bucky’s about to pretend like that wasn’t weird.
He drops the notebook onto the counter, and it lands with a slap. When Sam just looks at it blankly for a second, Bucky rolls his eyes and nudges it forward. Sam picks it up and inspects the blocky letters scrawled across the page, wishing he had his reading glasses.
Now
- Shower
- Good Food
- Star War
Sam laughs a little breathlessly.
“Bucky, I know you know it’s Star Wars. You aren’t cute.”
“I’m cute,” he grumbles, like it’s ridiculous to imply otherwise. Sam bites his tongue.
“We can make this happen, Buck, easily.” He says, trying to sound encouraging in a casual way. He wonders how long it took Bucky to put pencil to paper for something as basic as 'shower'.
“We don’t actually have to–“ Bucky starts.
“Yes, we do. Did you think it was going to be as easy as making a list?”
“That’s all you told me to do!” Bucky said, holding his hands out in a gesture of ‘what else did you expect?’ He’s blushing, and Sam sees the hidden signs of overwhelm in his eyes.
“You can shower first. Let me get you some clothes,” Sam says, taking charge. Bucky hovers awkwardly as Sam collects his softest towel and tries not to overthink the clothes he picks out. He puts everything in a folded pile on the corner of the bathroom counter. When he turns around, Bucky is right behind him, and Sam curses his ability to sneak up on him even when nobody else can.
Bucky’s face is still streaked with dirt from last night’s fight. He must be so uncomfortable, Sam thinks. Whereas Sam was squeaky clean and still in his pajamas, Bucky looked like he had just gotten off the world’s longest flight, and he’d had a middle seat.
“So, uh, the stuff is all in there. The shampoo isn’t as fancy as what you use–”
“Not much need for it here, huh?”
Sam ignores this.
“–and there’s lotion under the sink.”
Bucky raises an eyebrow.
“Lotion?”
“Yes, Bucky, lotion. Don’t do that thing where you make me feel like the freak here.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever used lotion.”
“…”
“Does sunscreen count?”
“Get in the shower. Use the lotion. Don’t talk to me for 20 minutes.”
Sam slams the door a little on his way out, drowning out Bucky’s snort of laughter. Unfortunately, he’s turning on his heel pretty much immediately to ask Bucky what he wants for lunch. This, unsurprisingly, is like pulling teeth, full of “you decide” and “doesn’t matter to me”.
Luckily, Sam found success in presenting him with two options, which allowed them to decide on takeout from the Thai place just a stone’s throw down the street. He ran out to pick up their order, still pajama-clad, not caring a bit about what people were thinking about Captain America at the moment.
He tried not to focus on why taking care of Bucky and teaching Bucky to take care of himself was so important. Sam had been as close with Steve in many regards, but Sam never wanted to buy him lunch or give him his pajamas.
He did not have the urge to ask Steve to stay in his apartment and never leave.
But hey, he hadn't been in love with Steve.
When he gets back, Bucky is sitting hunched over the coffee table. He’s engaged in a fascinating ritual of picking up the pencil, touching it to the paper, and putting it back down. Sam watches him do this at least 12 times as he unpacks the food.
Bucky is wearing Sam’s USAF sweatpants and a t-shirt he had gotten for free at a 10k he’d run earlier that year. Suddenly, Sam was wishing he had overthought the clothes he’d picked out, because Bucky looked like he belonged in this apartment, belonged to Sam.
“I got your usual,” He said to distract himself, bringing the food over to the table. Bucky blinked up at him.
“How do you know my usual?”
“From watching you order it about thirty times.”
“But, still. How do you remember?”
Sam sighs.
“Look, Bucky, I don’t know if anyone has clued you in yet, but you know we’re best friends, right?” Though they’ve said it before, plenty of times, Bucky always looks a little stunned, a daze in his eyes that wasn’t there a second ago.
“Yeah,” Bucky murmurs, jotting something down, “best friends.”
Sam brings the mugs over and finally, unable to think of any other ways to stall, he sits.
“Are you… did you finish…”
Instead of answering (or even allowing Sam to finish his sentence), Bucky once again nudges the notebook his way.
Later
- Ocean
- Dancing
- Rollercoasters
Sam’s heart lurches; he’s so fond of Bucky it physically hurts.
“Okay, then.” He says, a simple acknowledgement. Bucky nods, stiff, and shoves his mouth full of pad see ew.
They put on a Star War. Bucky passes out again, and as Sam watches the rise and fall of his chest, he starts to plan.