He really, sincerely hadn’t wanted to. He’d taken three quick looks at the file Steve was hunched over, two years ago in those raw days after shit went down in DC, and made an executive call. Put up a boundary. Because Steve was gonna drown in it. Steve had that wide-eyed, earnest heartache of an Americorps volunteer on their first day out. Well, maybe first month. Guy’s not entirely hopeless, he’s spent years on the battlefield, but this Winter Soldier business is some next-level shit. And Sam’s not arrogant enough to pretend that he wouldn’t be a compromised, empathy-bleeding wreck if it had been—his friend.
But it wasn’t. Bucky was a photograph in a history book and a black shadow ripping his wing off, and Sam went and sat cross-legged in the close-shorn grass in front of Riley’s grave for hours, and then gave his life to looking for a guy he didn’t even properly know because it was the right thing to do. Can take the guy out of the PJs but can’t take the PJ out of the guy, or something.
So Sam helped. But Sam didn’t dig. Sam didn’t read the files. Sam has absolutely no delusions about what bullshit could’ve been committed in seventy years by a bunch of white guys who say things like order only comes through pain, but it wouldn’t do any of them any good if he lost himself in it. Not his own stupid ass, especially once he gave up his token protests and joined the super-friends full-time. Not Steve, who so desperately needed somebody to balance him, anchor him.
Not, he realized the moment Redwing scanned that dingy flat in Romania, Bucky himself. Two years alone on the run, and yeah, sure, there wasn’t a bedframe, there were three different go-bags hidden behind the woodwork, butcher paper over the windows. But there were also a few crackle-spined cookbooks, jars of flour and sugar, an old-fashioned laundry board like an outsized cheese grater in a bucket. Books of history, books of notes, the four most popular and by consequence shittiest biographies of Captain America with pages ripped out. A half-used bar of soap by the sink with enough caked-up white under it to show that he’d been there for a while. Dude was putting himself back together. Last thing he needed was some stranger coddling him, that was downright insulting.
And he was an obnoxious little shit who owed Sam a steering wheel.
So Sam acted like not a damn thing had ever happened to him, and if the faint undercurrent of relief Bucky showed around him even as they bickered in that microscopic punch-buggy warmed some corner of Sam’s heart, well, that wasn’t particularly relevant. There was Steve and the mission, and then there was the Raft, and then Wakanda, and then scuttling around on the run while T’Challa’s scientists painstakingly reprogrammed Bucky’s brain, which was all well and good, but still. On the run. Steve wouldn’t leave Bucky and Sam wouldn’t leave Steve, so there they all were in a whole different dingy flat in the Dominican Republic, three outsized twitchy men who count all the exits the moment they wake up.
Sam couldn’t help but notice that Bucky was twitchy in whole different ways. Sam couldn’t help but notice that Bucky never wore less than two shirts at all times, even in the vacationland heat. Sam couldn’t help but notice the painfully circumscribed space between two lifelong friends and, he’d suspected, once-lovers. Sam couldn’t help but notice that Bucky doesn’t exactly protest being touched, but he tenses, he has to breathe a little deeper, his eyes go half-mast like he’s focusing very hard on being okay, even as he leans into it a hair’s breadth like a starving beast.
Sam also couldn’t help but notice that Bucky liked cooking, could get around like a pro one-handed, had an utterly disarming smile, picked out melodies on the counter sometimes like it was a keyboard, moved like a dancer in the rare moments when he didn’t move like a soldier or a wounded animal, treated stray cats and dogs like gods descended amongst humanity, binge-watched cheesy science fiction shows, liked to pick sickening insights about world politics and dirty jokes in French out of the ravaged corners of his mind, was kind in tiny and helpless and understated ways, put everyone else first, carved out tiny slices of agency for himself whenever he could, and managed his shit with painful, grim dedication. Which was all very nice. More than nice. So Sam kept holding his boundaries, rationing his kindness, and burying his face in Steve’s tits when he needed to shake off the Raft and Rhodes falling like a rag doll and everything else, because being Bucky’s asshole friend was fun, and good for him, and worth holding himself on the edge of that whirlpool of trauma and hard-earned affection.
Which was all to say, in a very roundabout way, that when the two goons dragging Sam kicking and writhing down the hallway stand him to a halt, slam him to his knees, tighten their grips on his painfully cuffed arms, and pull the heavy black bag off his head, the first thing he sees after the sear of sudden light isn’t particularly surprising. Hits him like a chill stone sinking in his gut, but doesn’t surprise him. Bucky, also on his knees, stripped naked, littered with bruises and blood. Two burly men are holding his single arm, fingers digging into his flesh, and he sags off it a little, hair hanging in sweaty strings across his face, mouth slack. There’s a heavy, electronic-looking collar locked around his neck, and the skin under it is red, and Sam really doesn’t like the look of that.
But the last nail in the coffin is the weary resignation in Bucky’s eyes. The sort of look you see in twenty-year field doctors and retail workers on Christmas Eve. The sort of look that says, yup, it’s Tuesday, and I stopped being able to notice that Tuesday sucked years ago. And Sam wishes he was shocked, but well, he’d already started to wonder.
And that look drains along with the blood from Bucky’s face as he focuses on Sam. “No,” he whispers on one ragged gasp as his metal stump twitches. “Fuck,” like he’s actually scared. “Not Sam,” like this isn’t Tuesday anymore, like he—
Like he cares.
Which will probably make this worse.
Steve and the rest will be here soon enough, Sam tells himself firmly. He can handle this. He’s gonna have to handle this.
“What’s a guy like you doing in a place like this,” Sam mutters. “They don’t even have anything good on tap.”
And, god bless him, Bucky makes a cracked noise that’s almost a laugh. “Staring at your ugly mug, apparently.”
After Every Hit... [1/?]
He really, sincerely hadn’t wanted to. He’d taken three quick looks at the file Steve was hunched over, two years ago in those raw days after shit went down in DC, and made an executive call. Put up a boundary. Because Steve was gonna drown in it. Steve had that wide-eyed, earnest heartache of an Americorps volunteer on their first day out. Well, maybe first month. Guy’s not entirely hopeless, he’s spent years on the battlefield, but this Winter Soldier business is some next-level shit. And Sam’s not arrogant enough to pretend that he wouldn’t be a compromised, empathy-bleeding wreck if it had been—his friend.
But it wasn’t. Bucky was a photograph in a history book and a black shadow ripping his wing off, and Sam went and sat cross-legged in the close-shorn grass in front of Riley’s grave for hours, and then gave his life to looking for a guy he didn’t even properly know because it was the right thing to do. Can take the guy out of the PJs but can’t take the PJ out of the guy, or something.
So Sam helped. But Sam didn’t dig. Sam didn’t read the files. Sam has absolutely no delusions about what bullshit could’ve been committed in seventy years by a bunch of white guys who say things like order only comes through pain, but it wouldn’t do any of them any good if he lost himself in it. Not his own stupid ass, especially once he gave up his token protests and joined the super-friends full-time. Not Steve, who so desperately needed somebody to balance him, anchor him.
Not, he realized the moment Redwing scanned that dingy flat in Romania, Bucky himself. Two years alone on the run, and yeah, sure, there wasn’t a bedframe, there were three different go-bags hidden behind the woodwork, butcher paper over the windows. But there were also a few crackle-spined cookbooks, jars of flour and sugar, an old-fashioned laundry board like an outsized cheese grater in a bucket. Books of history, books of notes, the four most popular and by consequence shittiest biographies of Captain America with pages ripped out. A half-used bar of soap by the sink with enough caked-up white under it to show that he’d been there for a while. Dude was putting himself back together. Last thing he needed was some stranger coddling him, that was downright insulting.
And he was an obnoxious little shit who owed Sam a steering wheel.
So Sam acted like not a damn thing had ever happened to him, and if the faint undercurrent of relief Bucky showed around him even as they bickered in that microscopic punch-buggy warmed some corner of Sam’s heart, well, that wasn’t particularly relevant. There was Steve and the mission, and then there was the Raft, and then Wakanda, and then scuttling around on the run while T’Challa’s scientists painstakingly reprogrammed Bucky’s brain, which was all well and good, but still. On the run. Steve wouldn’t leave Bucky and Sam wouldn’t leave Steve, so there they all were in a whole different dingy flat in the Dominican Republic, three outsized twitchy men who count all the exits the moment they wake up.
Sam couldn’t help but notice that Bucky was twitchy in whole different ways. Sam couldn’t help but notice that Bucky never wore less than two shirts at all times, even in the vacationland heat. Sam couldn’t help but notice the painfully circumscribed space between two lifelong friends and, he’d suspected, once-lovers. Sam couldn’t help but notice that Bucky doesn’t exactly protest being touched, but he tenses, he has to breathe a little deeper, his eyes go half-mast like he’s focusing very hard on being okay, even as he leans into it a hair’s breadth like a starving beast.
Sam also couldn’t help but notice that Bucky liked cooking, could get around like a pro one-handed, had an utterly disarming smile, picked out melodies on the counter sometimes like it was a keyboard, moved like a dancer in the rare moments when he didn’t move like a soldier or a wounded animal, treated stray cats and dogs like gods descended amongst humanity, binge-watched cheesy science fiction shows, liked to pick sickening insights about world politics and dirty jokes in French out of the ravaged corners of his mind, was kind in tiny and helpless and understated ways, put everyone else first, carved out tiny slices of agency for himself whenever he could, and managed his shit with painful, grim dedication. Which was all very nice. More than nice. So Sam kept holding his boundaries, rationing his kindness, and burying his face in Steve’s tits when he needed to shake off the Raft and Rhodes falling like a rag doll and everything else, because being Bucky’s asshole friend was fun, and good for him, and worth holding himself on the edge of that whirlpool of trauma and hard-earned affection.
Which was all to say, in a very roundabout way, that when the two goons dragging Sam kicking and writhing down the hallway stand him to a halt, slam him to his knees, tighten their grips on his painfully cuffed arms, and pull the heavy black bag off his head, the first thing he sees after the sear of sudden light isn’t particularly surprising. Hits him like a chill stone sinking in his gut, but doesn’t surprise him. Bucky, also on his knees, stripped naked, littered with bruises and blood. Two burly men are holding his single arm, fingers digging into his flesh, and he sags off it a little, hair hanging in sweaty strings across his face, mouth slack. There’s a heavy, electronic-looking collar locked around his neck, and the skin under it is red, and Sam really doesn’t like the look of that.
But the last nail in the coffin is the weary resignation in Bucky’s eyes. The sort of look you see in twenty-year field doctors and retail workers on Christmas Eve. The sort of look that says, yup, it’s Tuesday, and I stopped being able to notice that Tuesday sucked years ago. And Sam wishes he was shocked, but well, he’d already started to wonder.
And that look drains along with the blood from Bucky’s face as he focuses on Sam. “No,” he whispers on one ragged gasp as his metal stump twitches. “Fuck,” like he’s actually scared. “Not Sam,” like this isn’t Tuesday anymore, like he—
Like he cares.
Which will probably make this worse.
Steve and the rest will be here soon enough, Sam tells himself firmly. He can handle this. He’s gonna have to handle this.
“What’s a guy like you doing in a place like this,” Sam mutters. “They don’t even have anything good on tap.”
And, god bless him, Bucky makes a cracked noise that’s almost a laugh. “Staring at your ugly mug, apparently.”