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i.
“Hey”, he says, lamely, the first time he encounters Bucky awake in Wakanda. Sam has been there for a couple days but he hasn’t left his room for long yet. There was an uneasiness in the group before they separated after the Raft, like they were now beginning to grasp the full consequences of how everything was handled. They have all left but Sam, well, he has not really anything to do; for now, he will stay with Steve.
He has found Bucky just outside the lab, where Sam is because, really, this fucking building is huge and he has been wandering for some time now. Not that he would admit it. Bucky still has the lost puppy look he has when he is not in full assassin mode, but just a little less, like he has finally found some ground under his feet. The metal arm is nowhere to be seen and Sam tries his best not to look at the empty space. He is used to it, working on his field, but fearing that Bucky probably would take it the wrong way, he prefers to be on the safe side.
To be fair, he doesn’t know so much about Bucky. He doesn’t really know if he is the defensive type or he just doesn’t care after everything he has lived through. Sam is here, in the end, because of Steve. He is an outlaw, now, because of that; but the thing is that he doesn’t know where he stands with him. There was an attempt to kill Sam, and then an awkward rescue, an even more awkward road trip and a fight with a fifteen year-old kid are not a good place to start a friendship, he thinks.
Also, there was the whole full assassin mode stuff. But now, finally, it can be different. By the time Steve freed them from the Raft, the last tests made to Bucky after the treatment say that he finally has been ridden of the conditioning, which is really a relieve.
“Where is Steve?”, Bucky asks, voice raw. He even sounds different, more confidence in his tone, his look.
Sam shrugs. “Dunno”. Ignores the way Bucky moves his head to the side, so puppy-like it hurts all over. How were you before, he wants to ask, how were you before all this hell, but says, “Do you know where I can find some place to have a run around here?”.
“You think they let me out much?”. Raised brow, playful eyes. That, Sam can work with.
“Wanna look for it? I can babysit, Barnes, if you are worried about—”
“Fuck you”, he says, but he is smiling. “Let’s get out this place”.
ii.
They leave Wakanda and travel through Europe and end up in Maastricht, in a place that Natasha assures it’s impossible to track. “Maybe Tony could”, she says, voice small, “but he doesn’t seem on a rush about it”. Sam doesn’t say anything at that, but the frown and guilt in Steve’s face is enough for him to know that Steve himself is the one going to deal with Stark.
The apartment it’s big and clean enough, there is a room for each one and a living room with a big TV. Steve comes and go, unable to leave behind his pathological need of being busy, and sometimes is Sam who goes with him, and sometimes is Bucky, and sometimes both. They investigate places and surges of energy that T’challa sends to them from Wakanda, because they feel, in a way, that something bigger than them is in the making.
At first, when they have to share the place between the two of them is weird, but they try to make some routines. They go running some mornings, as they started in Wakanda. Bucky could wipe the floor with him just as much as Steve, and he does, but sometimes just runs almost at his pace, just before or behind him. Sam looks at him, not even breaking a sweat, his little bun.
“I need a cut”, he says, watching himself on the mirror, brushing his hair with his fingers. The bathroom is still filled with steam from Sam’s shower.
“I can recommend you my hairdresser”, and Sam opens a drawer and shows him the electric trimmer he uses.
Bucky snickers.
“Ha, fucking ha. Do you know how I would look after using that?”
(Sam thinks “fucking pretty, because that’s a face that nothing would look bad on”, but says “well, the offer still stands.”, and Bucky throws him the first thing that finds, which is, ironically, a hairbrush.)
Sam cooks and Bucky washes the dishes and a weird domesticity is reached before Sam can even think about it. He didn’t know Bucky could be like this, could touch the small of his back while navigating through the small kitchen, how he laughs when some joke catches him by surprise, with his whole body.
And what a body. Sam hasn’t been with a man for so long he had already forgotten how it was to be attracted to one; the yearning when he starts exercising and all Sam can think is I want to climb that as a fucking koala.
Bucky coughs and Sam realizes he was staring, again, he says, “I’m gonna…” and runs away from Bucky's laugh, to the kitchen.
iii.
Steve is almost always angry on that scary way of his, all tense jaw and body taut as a bow. He tells Sam one night that Stark has called him, and Sam doesn’t ask how, or why would Steve give Stark his number. It seems that he has noticed the same surge of energy that they had, and is worried. He wants to talk about this in person.
“Well, I’m not going to sign those”, Steve says, and Sam gets it, you know, but this isn’t the best way. “Well”, he answers to the unspoken question, “I’m sure you two would find a way; but for that you should, actually, talk, you know?”.
Steve nods militarily, face scrunched up as if it had eaten a lemon.
It won’t be fast, so Sam adapts and try to enjoy some things about a very crappy situation. He buys a Play Station and some game for the days Bucky is in a Bad Place. He mostly remembers everything nowadays but sometimes, Sam can see, he is on thin strings, glassy eyes and lost expression. Games give them something entertain restless hands. Or it would be just Sam playing and Bucky on his side, freezing feet touching his thigh. They like to point out inaccuracies in war games and guns and places they have been too. It’s surprisingly nice.
Once, Bucky watches as Steve went to bed after watching TV (Bucky and him don’t have such a public face, so their faces went mostly unadvertised but Steve’s is all over the news and the gossip shows) and he puts a finger on his own mouth while saying shhh to Sam, and takes out from the fridge beers that weren’t there before.
Is not that he can’t drink, but they are still in such a delicate spot that he doesn’t feel like it most of the days. But he misses having a cold beer in the sofa.
“When did you—” but Bucky shushes, stronger, and Sam ends up whispering. “Ok, ok, I don’t care, just gimme one.”
Bucky offers him a bottle. “Shit,” Sam curses, as he looks for something to open the cap with. Bucky smiles and opens it with a smooth movement of his metal hand, “That’s useful”, and Bucky’s only response is a fast wink that leaves him thinking, shit, he is pretty, stomach turning in a not-at-all unpleasant way.
They end up drinking them all, even if Bucky just can’t get drunk and is Sam the only one that feels buzzy afterwards and has a hungover the next day.
iv.
November in Maastricht is absolutely cold and Bucky grows restless, touches his shoulder all the time. Sam asks him, over the rim of his cup of coffee.
“How is the arm?”
Bucky grunts something like “what?”, but doesn’t meet his eyes, so Sam doesn’t press it. Later, he leaves the house and comes back with a bottle and puts it in Bucky’s hand. He frowns, and drops a little on his fingers. Raise a brow showing the oily texture to Sam.
“What? No date before? Not even a kiss?”
“Asshole. That saved my life after the first falls while parachuting. Believe me”. He waits a second an adds, “is the extra weight, isn’t it? Not the junctures”.
Bucky looks at him, bites his lip and says, voice small, “Yeah,” and then “thank you”. Sam is expecting him to go at least to the bathroom but starts regretting all the life choices that had led him here when Bucky takes out his shirt and takes a generous amount of the ointment in his fingers, starts spreading on his shoulder and between the limit of the skin and the metal. He doesn’t reach all the way back, so he looks at Sam and asks, sheepishly, for “a little help?”.
Sam can feel the sweat going down his back even with the cold, and nods, “yeah, sure”. He tries not to think about anything at all as he puts it on his back and extends it. “Jesus, Wilson, those fingers”, he says, and Sam feels brave, and on the edge, and horny, and says, as low as he can, “what, Barnes, you like it?” and oh, it’s all worth it when he sees his face, too close to him, pupils blown and mouth opened just enough that he can see the pink of his tongue behind his teeth.
Sam is almost moving towards him but Bucky starts, suddenly, and says “Steve”, and then Sam panics, “Steve?” and Bucky panics as well. “No, I mean, Steve is coming home like, right now. I can hear him on the stairs.”
Oh, fuck.
Steve finds them sitting in the sofa, and it seems both so staged and nonchalant at the same time that he watches them with his burrow frown suspiciously.
They say “what?” at the same time, and Sam curses, and then laughs.
v.
Steve finally starts negotiations with Stark and Sam has an ongoing bet with Natasha about who is the first that is going to try to kill the other, but Stark would not talk to any other, so Sam just doesn’t ask. Once they are not even able to meet properly because something Steve is carrying causes interferences and Stark doesn’t trust his own shadow after all that has happened. When Steve comes back, angry and frustrated, Sam doesn’t know what to say that could help. Sam is not specially a fan, but he doesn’t forget that Stark almost lost a friend; even if they are the ones running from the law. He can understand his motives
Bucky doesn’t talk about it, closes into himself the moment Steve or Sam comment on it, and there is always a tension with Steve, the guilt that surrounds it all, even if Steve swears to Sam that was not about him.
But it was a little, wasn’t it? Sam thinks Steve did the right thing but also that he could have managed it a little better, and Stark too, of course. They had a responsibility and didn’t act like it. And he gets the fear about it but Bucky should have had a fair trial, and not this, to be honest. This is not a trial, nor a forgiveness, and is not Tony he needs it from: Bucky needs to forgive himself.
And how is he going to do it here, hidden, alone? How is he going to feel less guilty watching another year of his life for nothing?
vi.
They keep drinking some nights, after a trying day or a boring one or when the town they are in starts to feel too small. They talk about the past and about the future and sometimes, late in the night, Bucky talks about New York and how much he liked it. His eyes brighten up and Sam is having a hard time pretending he doesn’t like him.
“Steve, oh my god, you wouldn’t believe him. He had exactly the same guts but he was. So small, so scrawny and sick all the time, fuck, and I had to be always on his tail stopping him from getting killed.” and the laugh turns bitter when he ends, “and look at me now”.
Sam does.
“Now what, come on. This is temporary.”
Bucky realizes he has said just too much; and hasn’t got the excuse of alcohol for it.
“Yeah. Look, I’m tired, just… “, says, makes a gesture with his hand that could be anything and Sam tries to take it and stop him from getting up. He doesn’t know exactly what he is going to do, at first, he wants to assure him that it is temporary, that there is something good expecting them after all this.
“You know” he says, “you deserve more than this… running away.”
Bucky shrugs, says, “You think so?” in that self-deprecating joke tone Sams hates a little and Sam thinks, enough.
Maybe is the beer and maybe is watching him talk about the past, at least for a minute, without remorse. Maybe is that face he makes sometimes with him, soft and hopeful, but Sam thinks again, enough, fuck this, and whispers, “yeah, I fucking do”, and pulls his arm, takes him from the neck and kisses him. There is a sound, low in Bucky’s throat, half surprise, half moan, and Sam drinks it, kisses it whole, tastes his lips and his tongue and the roof of his mouth. Bucky pants and turns to him, he tries to talk, Sam whines when he tries to get away, so obviously now is Bucky who kisses him, bites his lip.
Bucky smiles and is able to separate himself for a second.
Sam begs, “Please, don’t say ‘Steve’”, and Bucky fucking loses it, laughing while Sam nuzzles against his neck.
“No, no room for him here, but, my place or your place?”, Bucky bites his lips, “if you want to”, and he’s offering him a way out like it wasn’t Sam who initiated this, and is unable to take his hands from his waist even for a second.
“Your place is fine”, answers.
Just like that: time that can be minutes or can be hours, kissing in a too small bed for two grown men, Sam tasting the salt of the sweat from Bucky's neck, kissing his collarbones, scratching the nipple in the way down with his teeth and smiling as he hears the moan leaving Bucky's mouth, “Wilson”, he says, “Sam, fuck”, and he soothes is with his tongue, goes down, down, lets out a sigh as he touches the V shape of his hips, “these are going to be the death of me”, Sam whispers and Bucky laughs, Sam palms his cock, hard already, through the sweatpants and he is laughing no more when he takes it out.
“No undies, Barnes?”, he tuts and gives himself a second to look at him. He is too pretty for his own good and specially too pretty for Sam’s good; Sam sighs, opens his mouth and enjoys how Bucky is trying hard not to move his hips.
He winks at him and licks from the bottom to the top. Bucky doesn’t answer, and later he is too busy cursing at the ceiling by the time he takes it between his lips and tastes the tip with the tongue, and Sam let’s himself relearn how was to do this. Bucky is moaning unapologetically the whole time, and Sam is not going to forget those sounds he is making any time soon. He just talks, and whines, and touches the nape of his neck and doesn’t stop until he comes into his mouth, much later, with three fingers inside his ass and words already reduced to swearing and Sam’s name.
Just like that, and the bed is small and they almost can’t fit and it’s somehow exactly what they need. Sam makes the motion to just finish himself but Bucky says, “just gimme a minute, promise”, and Sam swallows almost dry because, come one, that cannot be possible; they aren’t so young anymore, but he lies there between his legs and over his stomach. Bucky scratches softly his short hair, and Sam closes his eyes, moves his head until he finds the best spots. Soon, Bucky moves his hand under Sam’s chin and makes him rise a little, gives him A Look that makes him so hard so fast again he fears he is coming on the spot, and spreads his legs, invitation clear as the sun.
Sam moves up until he is on top of him, saying, “so you’re already up for round two? What’s the deal?” but it’s a tricky question because he is already thumbing his hole, still hot and wet with lube from before. “The serum”, Bucky pants, “helps”. Sam hums while he puts on the condom Bucky takes out from the drawer and stores that information away because talking about the serum is always a double-edged knife.
Just like that, back to each other, Bucky kissing him all the way as he pushes inside him, stopping only when he asks “is it ok?”; Bucky kissing back and panting his name and spreading his legs, saying “it’s perfect, sweetheart, come on, gimme everything you got”.
Sam is so close to coming so fast, fucking Bucky into the mattress with all the force he can gather, grunting from the bottom of his throat, Bucky clinging to him like he is clinging himself to life, “I’m so fucking close, can’t you feel it?”, and Sam can actually feel when he comes because of the pressure on his dick and that sells it, he is spilling inside Bucky, that the only word that can remember, Bucky, Bucky, Bucky.
vii.
Sam wakes up in a bed that’s not his, half his body still on top of Bucky. It's not morning yet, but soon it is going to be and Sam doesn’t want to be here when Steve arrives, and that could be any minute now.
Sam takes Bucky's arm from around him and puts it on the bed. Of course, Bucky wakes up when Sam sits up. He has just put on the underwear and the T-shirt when he talks.
“Hi”, Bucky says.
“Hi, yourself. Didn’t want to wake you up.”
Bucky shrugs. “Enhanced hearing. It’s actually very difficult to sneak up on me”.
“Yeah? You hear me?” Bucky nods, smiles playfully, touches him lightly in the back and says “If I try, I can hear you almost all the time”.
“That’s… a little creepy.”
Bucky laughs. “Yeah, I know. But I can not hear you, too. I would go mad if I heard everything every waking moment”.
They stay there for a minute, and them Sam gets up.
“I’m gonna try and sleep a little more.”
Bucky nods, expression blank, and Sam just. He doesn’t know what is this going to be, but he just isn’t going to let it be some awkward post-fuck friendship. He is not ready to lose whatever it is they are building. So he crouches for a second and kisses him, just a dry peck on the lips. “See you in the morning”.
Bucky smiles, “See you”, and Sam leaves the room, closes the door and supports himself for a second there, trying to calm down his stupid, stupid heart.
vii.
Steve comes home with Natasha after a couple of months and says, “Pack it up, we’re going home”, and Natasha adds “maybe not home, but at least the same country, just give Stark some more time and he’ll be able to improve the deal”.
“I can’t go, just yet, though. It a little different for me”.
“What the fuck”, says Sam, anger raising ,”he didn’t try to—”.
“No, To—Stark tried. It’s just a little more time, and he’ll make it. There is something going to happen, and if he cannot make me come home legally he’ll try another way but. Not yet.”
“I’m not coming”. Bucky’s voice surprises him. “What am I gonna do there—” without you, he doesn’t finish, but they all get it anyway.
Sam and Natasha look at each other, and he says, “Hey, would you like to have a coffee?”, and she nods. They leave Steve and Bucky in the small living room, and try not to eavesdrop.
“I get it, in a way of course. I really don’t want to leave Steve, but I would really like to be back, for some time”.
“Steve is going to be OK. And he will come home, it’s just… And he is worried about Bucky, you know. He should be, well, he shouldn’t be here, like this”.
“I know. I know.”
Natasha looks at him, confused for a second, because there is a yearning in his voice that wasn’t there before.
Sam doesn’t bother on clearing anything up.
Later, after everyone has gone to bed, Bucky is at his door.
“Hey”, he says.
Sam pats the side of his bed. “Come here”.
Bucky sits next to him, and doesn’t talk. On the dim light, he cannot almost see his face, hidden by the shadows.
They haven’t talked about this, about the thing they share some nights or mornings or, to be honest, whenever they have more than five minutes alone. Sometimes is a quick blowjob from Bucky just as he is out the shower, sometimes is hours of fooling around in the sofa until they are both breathless and pink and somehow happy. Sometimes they spend the night together in a too-small-bed, and Sam always kisses him before going to his own one. It’s not something fixed, it just… works.
The excuses worked just fine for the first times (too much time together, the tension of the run finally giving space to something else, the need to reassure Bucky that he is Bucky, that he’s OK) but they run out fast, because the thing is so much simpler than that.
Sam likes being around Bucky. Sam likes Bucky. And maybe he is not ready to tell him, but goddamned him if he is not going to try something his gut tells him that could be so good.
“You know”, Sam begins, because he knows it can be hard to ask for it, “if you want, even a little, to leave this godforsaken icy fucking town, you wouldn’t be alone. Even without Steve.”
Bucky is still, his soft breathing the only thing that is heard in the room for a minute.
“I don’t want to be…”.
“Whatever you’re thinking, it won’t be like that. I want you to come with me. I told you already, you deserve something better that this.”
Bucky looks at him, in that moment, and the intensity of his gaze is overwhelming.
“To be honest, I’m not really sure I deserve it”, he says, and it’s suddenly clear that he is talking about more than going back to the US. Sam thinks fuck and he’s talking about me, and something inside him rises in front of this, a protectiveness he hasn’t felt in a long time.
“Fuck that. I am sure. I am”, he says, fiercer than he wanted. Bucky keeps looking at him and doesn’t answer back, but he lies on the bed.
“Do you mind if I stay here tonight?”, and it’s close to talk about it, and Sam know they should, sometime, but not tonight.
“Yeah, I’d babysit you anytime, babe.”
“Asshole”, the usual response, but there is no bite and is difficult to take Bucky seriously with his back glued to Sam’s chest, his soft hair splayed on his pillow and making his nose tickle.
Sam puts his arm around his waist, because if they are doing the whole spooning thing, they are going to do it right.
viii.
It’s been a couple of days since Natasha’s visit. Steve is in Berlin, talking with Wanda and Vision about the news, and Bucky and him have been something close to on hold since that night.
They are now in the living room, playing some FIFA since none of them is on the mood for war.
Bucky takes a sip from Sam’s beer.
“Come on, there is only this one left and you don’t even get drunk.”, but Bucky just shrugs and takes another one. ”I hate you, you know that?”
Bucky says, “Yeah”, and looks at him; Sam can only watch him side eye.”Yeah”, he repeats, “let’s go back home, Wilson”.
A wave of warmness and of something he has yet to name, rushes through his whole body. He looks at him and smiles so much he is sure he is looking stupid. Bucky is smiling, too, but he has already turn his face to the TV.
Suddenly, screams from the game, because—
“You scored a goal while I was not looking, oh my God, I have never seen a worse cheater”, he says, offended, while he tries to hide the smile.
“Well they don’t called me a ghost for nothing, you know? Distraction techniques, baby.”
Distraction techniques, his ass. He is going to kill him.
“I am going to kill you”.
“Yeah, I’d want to see you try.”
He pushes him to the side with his shoulder and, in the way back, they stay like that, touching thighs an shoulder and arms; sometimes, Bucky looks at him out of the corner of his eye, a little wary.
Sam tries very hard not to look at him, not to smile, not to kiss him, and fails spectacularly on the three of them.