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It’s been a while since Bucky saw anything this messed up.
Power looks to be out, but from somewhere down at the far end of the abandoned lab, electric-blue light casts long, flickering shadows. Glass tanks line both walls, and inside them are dead people. Or things that used to be people, anyway. A woman who’s clear, veined quartz from the shoulders up, lips drawn back in crystalline agony. A guy whose arm ends in an appendage that takes a second for Bucky’s eyes to make sense of it—a gun, but formed of flesh and bone, blood oozing from the barrel. Organic and inorganic matter blurring together into something that’s hard to look at.
Bucky takes a step back from the glass and rolls his left shoulder, a quick, involuntary gesture. “You seeing this?”
“Yeah.” Sam is down at the far end of the lab. Bucky can just about see his shadow move in the eerie blue glow. “Jesus.”
“Don’t think Jesus had anything to do with it.”
“No, I mean—there’s somebody in here.” A noise cuts across Sam’s words: a low, juddering whomp-whomp like something coming to life. The blue glow intensifies. “A kid.”
“I’m coming.” Bucky sprints toward the sound as it deepens, the floor shaking beneath his feet. The building is on the edge of a ravine at least a hundred feet deep, because of fucking course it is, and it’ll be just their luck if the place turns out not to be stable.
He rounds another one of those glass tanks, not pausing to see what’s inside, and finds Sam crouched over some contraption at the far end of the lab. There are wires, and tanks of fluid, and something sparking brokenly. It’s where the blue light is coming from, and the noise. And at the centre of it, the kid, maybe nine or ten years old, ashen-faced but blinking lethargically.
Sam pulls out wires, rips off restraints, finally gets the kid free from there. He gathers her up in his arms so carefully, like she’s spun glass. Turns to leave.
The building groans. A crack opens up between them, splitting the floor like a crooked grin.
Sam’s eyes dart to the gap, then to Bucky. “Take her!” he calls. “I’m gonna try and deactivate this thing.”
Bucky catches the kid easily—she weighs next to nothing—but doesn’t move. “This place is gonna collapse, you don’t have time.”
“I can fly, remember?” Sam says. “And we don’t know what the hell else this thing could do if we let it blow. Get her out of here, go!”
Bucky can’t exactly hang around here with an injured kid in his arms, so he does as he’s told and runs for the exit, resolving to yell at Sam good later. Taking up the shield doesn’t mean he has to do the riskiest possible thing every time, dammit, and it’s a damn good thing Bucky’s immune to heart attacks and high blood pressure and all the other stuff that comes with getting scared shitless on a regular basis, that’s all.
Another groan. There’s a heartbeat of silence. A sound like the world splitting apart.
Bucky’s almost at the exit, the kid’s terrified face buried in his shoulder, and he should run faster but he can’t help himself. He freezes, looks back as if drawn to a magnet.
Everything is a series of fractured images. The crack in the floor yawning wider as half the lab falls away. A flare of light. And Sam, falling, blue fire sparking along the length of his wings as he tumbles into the ravine, the white blades of vibranium frozen uselessly in mid-air.
Someone is yelling Sam’s name. Bucky realises a moment later that it’s him.
His feet move of their own accord. Somehow, he gets them out of there, sets the kid down safe on the ground, away from the edge of the ravine.
The strength goes out of him. He stumbles to his knees, peering down into the dark and the swirling dust. Somewhere down there, that ghostly blue light is still flickering. His mind’s eye throws up images of Sam lying in the rubble, limbs twisted, big brown eyes glazed and sightless. He blinks them away. Maybe if he jumps down there right now—
There’s movement in the darkness. A flash of incomprehensible white, blinking once, twice, and rising out of the shadows.
Sam.
Bucky’s brain takes a minute to make sense of it. The suit is ruined, hanging in tatters off Sam’s back, but the wings are intact, carrying him up to safety with strong, sure strokes.
But they sound different—like the wind, or maybe the sails of a ship, nothing metallic. They shine different, too, with the organic oilslick iridescence of living things. White feathers so bright they almost glow in the dark.
Sam hovers in the air above them for a moment, and all Bucky can do is gape up at him. There’s a severity to his beauty in moments like this, and the way the blue light plays over his cheekbones makes him look unearthly, fucking biblical. Like he might be about to lay down some heavenly wrath or perform a miracle with the wave of his hand.
Then he touches down in front of Bucky in a shaky crouch, steadying himself with one hand flat on the ground. “What. The hell. Just happened?” he says, and he’s just Sam again, safe and whole and wobbling slightly on his feet.
Bucky pulls him into a one-armed hug. “You scared the shit out of me, that’s what happened.”
“Watch your mouth,” Sam chides him, “there are kids around,” but he leans into the hug anyway, lets Bucky take his weight and holds on for a long moment.
They don’t head home right away. They hand the kid over to the local police, who have her parents on the way as they speak, and after that they fill in everybody who needs to know on the creepy lab situation. By the time they’re done, it’s late in the evening. Sam claims he needs a couple hours’ respite before he has to explain the whole sprouting-actual-wings thing to Sarah and the boys; Bucky sees the exhausted tremor in his shoulders and agrees.
But sometime in the early hours, he wakes to a rustle like the wind out on the shared balcony of their hotel rooms. Sam is leaning out over the edge, elbows on the railing, head bowed. The long primary feathers at his wingtips tighten up momentarily at the sound of the door opening and relax again as he recognises Bucky’s tread.
A greedy little part of Bucky is always glad when he gets to see this—not Captain America, with a wisecrack or an inspiring speech for every situation, but Sam, soft-eyed and tired and, despite the literal angel wings, terribly human.
“Couldn’t sleep either, huh?” Sam says, without turning to look at him.
Bucky slides in beside him at the railing so their shoulders bump. “I was out for most of a century. I’m making up for lost time.” He glances sideways at Sam. “You okay?”
Sam shrugs, making his feathers shiver like leaves in the wind. “Couldn’t get comfortable. Some reason, they don’t design beds with these in mind.”
“We could get you a perch?” Bucky suggests.
“Asshole,” Sam says, without heat, but then he goes quiet, eyes front, the bow of his lips still and solemn in thought.
Bucky swallows. “I get it, you know,” he says, quietly. “You didn’t ask for this. It’s not fair.”
“No, it’s not.” Sam exhales. “I keep thinking I’m gonna be able to retract them, and then I remember I can’t, and it’s like—” He gives a hollow little laugh. “It’s messed up.”
“They figure out what caused it yet? What that lab was even for?”
“Nah. But someone snapped a picture of us on our way back here, so.” A tight smile that doesn’t reach Sam’s eyes. “Already had three calls off researchers wondering if I could possibly spare an hour to stop by for some tests.”
Bucky winces inwardly. “You can say no,” he offers.
“Yeah,” Sam says. “Haven’t decided yet. Do I wanna be a lab rat, or do I wanna be stuck like—” He waves a hand vaguely backward. “—whatever this is?”
There isn’t much Bucky can say to that. Nothing that’s gonna make it better, anyway. Instead, he lays his hand on Sam’s bare shoulder, pinky finger almost brushing the base of his wing, feeling a little of the tension drain from Sam’s muscles at the touch. Sam leans fractionally closer to him, and when Bucky glances up, he sees the leading edge of one wing extended above him in a protective arch.
Sam follows his gaze, and then his eyes widen and he ducks his head. “Yeah, plus they kinda have a mind of their own. So, that’s gonna be fun.”
Bucky watches his face for a second and decides it’s best to keep things light. “Christmas is gonna be a nightmare,” he says. “Think of all the pageants you’re gonna have to turn down.”
Sam shakes his head. “Man, I don’t know if I should laugh or cry.” He frowns, rolls his shoulders and makes a face. “Ow.”
This close, Bucky can see that some of the feathers are sitting out of place. Probably got ruffled up while Sam was trying to get some sleep, and they’d be difficult to get at without some serious contortionism. His right hand drifts up almost of its own accord, smoothing a misaligned feather into place. It’s sleek beneath his hand—not as soft as fur, but satisfying to touch. The wings shiver all over in response, and it takes him a second to notice that Sam has gone very still.
“Was that weird?” Bucky asks.
He can’t always tell. Whether something’s actually weird, whether Sam’s just saying it is, because joking about it somehow makes it okay that they spend all their free time together, that he sleeps better on Sam’s couch than he ever has in his own bed, that they’re always side-by-side, laying hands on each other easy as breathing. There’s something there, he knows it, something bright and breakable in the space between them. Sometimes he wants to touch it so much it hurts, but. Breakable.
Sam shakes his head. “They’re kinda sensitive is all.”
“Shit.” Bucky snatches his hand back, remembering the first painful slash of sensation through newly-attached nerves. That isn’t something Sam should ever have to feel. “Did I hurt you?”
The set of Sam’s shoulders is tense, and Bucky doesn’t dare touch him again, the flicker of incipient guilt freezing him where he stands.
Sam breathes in deeply, lets it out with deliberate slowness. “Not that kind of sensitive.” It sounds a little like a confession.
Bucky stares at Sam, at the sharp silhouette of his profile against the city lights, long lashes fluttering as he blinks a couple times and turns to look Bucky in the eyes. There’s something soft and wary in his face. An invitation, maybe, rare and startlingly vulnerable.
“I didn’t say you had to stop,” he says.
Why now? Is it that everything today has been so messed-up a little more strangeness feels like no big deal? Or is Sam just too tired to keep his careful distance right now, to pretend the fragile thing between them isn’t what it is?
Does it even matter? Sam is asking for something, or offering something, and there’s no way Bucky is capable of saying no to either.
He reaches up with his right hand again, the balcony railing digging into his back as he smooths another ruffled feather back into place. This time, he’s listening out for the catch in Sam’s breath as he does it, glances sideways to catch the way Sam’s head tips back on an exhale and his lips part, some of the tension seeming to melt away from him. Something tightens in Bucky’s chest, and he’s suddenly, protectively aware that they’re in the open air out here—up above street-level, sure, but there are still windows all around them. Probably idiots out there with camera drones who know Captain America’s in the city, or maybe caught a glimpse of that picture somebody snapped earlier, and would cream their jeans at the chance of a photograph of their own.
Bucky lays his hand over Sam’s on the railing, threads their fingers together for a moment before tugging him away. “Wanna take this indoors?”
The wings shudder, stretch themselves wider for a moment, as if in anticipation of having to cram themselves through the balcony door. Bucky’s been so focused on Sam, on the flash of emotions across his face, that he hasn’t stopped to think about the sheer size of them before now. At full stretch, they’d reach almost from end to end of the balcony. They say a swan can break a man’s arm—how much more power must there be in a set of wings that can lift a full-grown man into the air?
Sam's fingers tighten briefly around his own. "Yeah," he says, and ducks through the doorway, angling himself to avoid bumping the frame. He's moving with such careful slowness, the complete opposite of his usual lightning-sharp grace.
The hotel room is lit only by one bedside lamp, and in the darkness the feathers seem to glow even brighter. Bucky's fingers twitch, both hands wanting to dive in and touch again.
Instead, he glances around at the furniture. "So, where do you wanna do this?"
Sam shrugs, pads over to the bed. His feet are bare, sweatpants low around his hips. Bucky tries not to stare at the jut of his hipbones, the cut of his abs, and think about pressing his mouth there. Then he wonders if maybe he's allowed to think about that, now. He still isn't a hundred percent on what this is.
"I guess if I sit here--" Sam breaks off, shaking his head, a pinch of frustration between his brows. "Nah, that won't work. They’ll get all caught up on the mattress." That simmering undercurrent of tension is back in his voice, and Bucky wonders how much of this evening he's spent trying to fit around a room built for the body he had this morning, bumping up against new obstacles and hard edges.
He moves up beside Sam, lays his left hand on Sam's shoulder, carefully not touching the wings yet. "You can just lay down," he says. "I won't take it the wrong way, if you don't..."
Bucky trails off, and Sam says nothing for a moment, but stands there looking down at the rumpled sheets. They're a mess. He wasn't kidding about not being able to get comfortable.
"Yeah. And what if I do?" Sam glances up at last. Jesus, his eyes, shining in the dim room, the dark sweep of his lashes. There's nothing but sincerity in them, and Bucky feels like his heart might burst.
"Then I guess I'll take it the right way," he offers, not exactly teasing. Something in Sam's posture relaxes, muscles loosening under Bucky's hand, and he leans closer. Their noses bump, Bucky swallows a snort of laughter, not sure if it would be welcome right now, and then they're kissing, slow and sweet.
In Bucky's head, when he's let himself imagine it, this has always been some adrenaline-fueled, wall-slamming post-mission thing, fear and relief boiling over. The reality's so different, so unbearably gentle. He lays the palm of his right hand against Sam's face, thumb stroking along his cheekbone, and Sam leans fractionally into the touch, eyes slipping shut, like he's soaking up all the comfort he'd never ask for in the light of day.
It's better than anything he's imagined, even if it's also kind of terrifying that he's the one Sam's leaning on.
Sam sucks on his lower lip for a second before breaking the kiss. He crawls forward onto the mattress, arranging himself face-down with a small sigh, head pillowed on his folded arms. Bucky toes off his shoes before he sinks down beside Sam, folding his legs up under him so that his thigh rests against Sam's hip.
Up close, even in the dim light, he can see that there are more colours in the feathers than just white. There's shiny, iridescent grey shading almost into blue, a little warm reddish-brown buried in there, too. Part of him wants badly to bury his fingers in among the feathers, but he figures that would probably be too much to start with. Sam deals with his too much pretty good most of the time, but— not right now.
Instead, he finds one crooked feather and smooths the ruffled barbs into place with his right hand, fingertips steady while he listens to Sam's breathing, the small hitch and the way he breathes out slowly before he says, "You can use both hands."
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, man, c’mon, you’re not gonna break ‘em.”
Bucky hesitates a moment even still. It isn’t like he doesn’t have fine motor control—the arm’s good for things other than punching—but this is more intimate than most of the touching they do. Than any of the touching Bucky’s done in the last eighty years or so, unless you count killing, which he tries not to.
But he smooths the next feather into place with both hands, a soft metallic shushing sound as the barbs slide through his vibranium fingers, and Sam groans, “Yeah, that’s it.”
He cuts himself off right after, though, like it’s costing him to admit anything that came out of this fucked-up situation feels good. It’s kind of sad, and Bucky figures that if he can do anything, he can help Sam forget about it for a while.
So he gets a rhythm going, stroking crooked feathers back into place with firm but gentle touches, letting his hands linger a couple seconds longer than he needs to as he smooths them down. Sam seems to relax by inches as he works, the muscles of his back less taut, words of encouragement slipping out with a little more ease. “Just there. Shit, that feels…”
Sam trails off. “Good?” Bucky suggests, fingertips sliding down the length of one of those blue-grey feathers, unable to tear his eyes away from its shine in the dark room.
“Yeah,” Sam admits, low-voiced. “Good.” He stretches out the wing Bucky’s working on, moves it down a fraction so that Bucky can see his face, the way he bites his lower lip, eyes fluttering closed at another touch. Holy fuck, that does things to him. He’s hyper-aware of that small point of contact where his thigh is pressed against Sam’s hip, of the way Sam is just barely moving, rolling his hips against the bedsheets in the tiniest of movements.
By the time he finishes working on the wing closest to him, Bucky’s hard as a rock. Sam must be, too, from the low, wrecked sounds he lets out each time Bucky touches him. Bucky can pretty much hear his heart hammering out of his chest.
He leans forward to kiss Sam’s shoulder, then the place where the smaller, fluffier feathers give way to skin, and Sam tilts his head back so they can kiss again, breathless and full of need.
“’S kind of hard for me to reach the other one from here,” Bucky says, when they break apart. “It okay if I—”
Sam doesn’t let him finish. “Yeah, whatever, it’s okay, just don’t fucking stop.”
So he moves to straddle the backs of Sam’s thighs, and his dick is practically rubbing up against Sam’s unfairly perfect ass. It’s ridiculous that they’re still dressed, but Sam said don’t fucking stop and Bucky can’t not do as he’s told when Sam says it like that, Jesus Christ. He goes back to what he was doing, smoothing crooked feathers into place, rocking forward with Sam’s movements a little as he does it. There’s no way Sam can’t feel how hard he is, but then Sam’s moving to meet him, hips shoving back hard and shameless, and Bucky has to take a few deep breaths and think about John Walker for a minute because otherwise it’s all gonna be over right this second.
His hands have gone still and slack, fingertips nestled in among the feathers, and he gets back to work with an effort, smoothing down the last few crooked feathers, And then, because Sam doesn’t seem to have any kind of a problem with it, he just touches them, running his palms down the sweep of the wings, stroking the long, graceful primaries right down to their tips. That earns him a moan of “Holy shit,” and so he does it again, and, curious, buries his fingers deep in among the feathers.
Sam practically fucking levitates off the bed, hips stuttering, gasping out something that might be Bucky’s name or might be another litany of curse words or might be nothing at all before he goes quiet for a long moment.
This might be the first time Bucky’s actually seen him lost for words.
Before he has time to feel smug about it, though, Sam is back, reaching for him and lifting one wing off the bed in an invitation, dragging him down into a hard kiss. Bucky goes with it, lets Sam take control, dizzy with the taste of his lips and the insistent press of his tongue and the strangeness of being suddenly covered by one of those huge, powerful wings.
It’s only when they break apart, breathless, that he gets out, “Can’t believe I made you come without even getting a look at your dick.”
Sam shakes his head, snorts with laughter. Looks more like himself than he has since the lab. “Unfair advantages, man. Don’t think I won’t get you back.” That sounds like the promise of a next time, and however messed-up this whole thing started, Bucky knows he’s grinning all over his face.
“Feel free to start anytime,” he says. “You can definitely look at my dick, though. I mean, I’d prefer it if you didn’t just look, but…”
Sam groans. “Shut up,” he says, and kisses Bucky again so he doesn’t have any choice but to obey.
He does as he’s asked, though, shoves Bucky’s sweatpants down out the way and wrapping a hand around his aching cock, brushing his thumb over the head so that Bucky’s hips thrust forward into his grip of their own volition. Bucky gasps into Sam’s mouth, his left hand fisted in the sheets as Sam jerks him off in quick, firm strokes. They don’t stop kissing the whole time, and when Bucky comes it’s with Sam swallowing his moan, white feathers fluttering before his eyes.
They sprawl together afterwards. The bedsheets are crumpled up somewhere near their feet, but one of Sam’s wings is stretched out over Bucky, covering him like a blanket, Sam’s head resting on his shoulder.
He’s quiet again, now. Bucky kisses his forehead. “You okay?”
Sam shifts, blinks his eyes open, offers him a small smile. “I will be,” he says. “Pretty sure I definitely can’t let any researchers get their hands on these things now, though. Least not until I get this whole situation under control.”
“Mmm,” Bucky agrees. “That could be real embarrassing for you.”
“Nah, I lost the ability to be embarrassed around the same time I started hanging out with you.”
“Can tell you’re feeling better. I help you discover all kind of exciting new erogenous zones and you start insulting me. Nature is healing.”
Sam snorts a laugh against his shoulder, but apparently he’s too tired to think of another comeback, because all he manages is a mumbled, “Fuck you.”
Bucky runs his knuckles up the underside of the wing, feeling the feathers shiver in response. “Maybe next time.”
Then he kicks himself for saying it, because that’s a hell of an assumption. Maybe Sam won’t want to remember this in the morning.
But Sam’s arm tightens around his waist. “Hold you to that,” he murmurs sleepily, and a few moments later he’s snoring softly in Bucky’s arms.
He’s still gonna have to deal with explaining this to his family tomorrow, and with everybody wanting an even bigger piece of him than they already do. Maybe even with the wings being permanent, if nobody can figure out how this happened. None of that has gone away, and it’s gonna be a lot.
He looks peaceful now, though, face open and slack in sleep. So maybe they’ve gotten one good thing out of this whole mess.
Bucky closes his eyes, and falls asleep to the rustling of feathers.