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Sam finds out by accident, but when he does, he can’t say he’s really shocked. Not that it’s obvious, exactly—he thinks that maybe his inner supply of shock is just gone, like fighting secret government Nazis and nearly dying a few times tapped him out. Shock isn’t something he really feels anymore.
Which isn’t to say that he doesn’t feel surprised. He is human, after all.
Steve wants to go charging out after the Soldier immediately, just throw down everything and run, damn the consequences, but Sam knows better than to let him. He may be a supersoldier, but he’s human, too, and he needs at least a few weeks to lay low and get his wind back. When Sam asked him when they started, he wasn’t really asking; he was telling him that they would start, it was going to happen, but not until they had time to recover from everything that went down. At Sam’s house, thank you very much, because Steve’s apartment is still basically a pile of rubble.
Steve didn’t argue when Sam eventually laid it out like that, which, when he thinks about it, is telling in itself. Steve argues with everyone.
There are a few other little tells, as well. How eager he is to do things for Sam. How he waits for Sam’s explicit invitation before sitting down at the breakfast table. That bashful little duck and smile when he gets a compliment, whether it’s from a cashier at the grocery store shyly flirting or Sam himself, thanking him for some chore or other he’s done around the house. (And he does too many of those, but Sam figures that if it makes him happy to do it, he may as well let him.) None of them would mean anything on their own, but added all together, they make… something.
But really, Sam isn’t sure he’s seeing what he’s seeing until the morning he makes cinnamon rolls.
When he left the service all those years back, he’d spent a few months puttering around, trying to put himself back together and figure out the shape his life was going to take. One of the ways he’d tried to do it was by signing up for whatever courses the local rec centre offered, figuring that if he tried on a bunch of different hats he’d eventually find one that fit. Calligraphy had been a bust, and he still can’t think of that stand-up comedy workshop without wincing, but the baking class had been a surprising success. Cinnamon rolls had been the first thing he’d learned, and he still makes them when the occasion calls for it.
He’s just taking them out of the oven when Steve comes bouncing in, sweat-soaked and panting a little from his morning run. “Hey,” Sam calls, sliding the tray onto the counter. “You actually sound out of breath, man, you go a few states over or what?”
Steve doesn’t even answer, just makes a beeline for the kitchen counter. “Are those cinnamon rolls?” he asks, eyes wide. His white shirt is clinging to him, the sleeves rolled up over the curve of his biceps. Sam allows himself a quick once-over. Just one. “Did you make them?”
“Yes, I did,” Sam confirms, grinning at the look on Steve’s face. He gets hungrier than most people, especially right after a run, and Sam can only imagine how good these must smell to him. “From scratch, even, no Pillsbury involved.”
He wonders for a second if Steve will get that reference. Did Pillsbury exist in the forties?
“Can I have one?” Steve turns those big blue eyes on Sam, practically begging, like a puppy. But he’s a sneaky son of a bitch, and even as he’s making that ridiculous face his hand is creeping slowly towards the tray, ready to snatch one up as soon as he thinks Sam is sufficiently distracted.
His fingers twitch, another little tell, but for once Sam is faster than he is. He grabs Steve’s hand as soon as it starts to move, holding it firmly in place.
“Don’t,” he says, equally firm. “I just took them out of the oven. You’ll burn yourself.”
Steve blinks. He seems almost frozen, his eyes darting from Sam’s hand to his face and back again. He could easily shake his grip off, Sam knows; the fact that he doesn’t, that he’s standing there letting it happen, makes Sam take a mental step back and reevaluate the situation.
Okay, so: he and Steve, in the kitchen. Him holding Steve’s hand—not just holding, but holding it in place, telling him no, commanding him, even. Steve’s breath hitching in his chest, his pupils dilating as he looks at Sam. There’s a moment where he thinks this is some PTSD thing—does Steve get flashbacks?—but then he puts two and two together, and feels like an idiot for not getting it sooner.
Steve’s into it. Duh.
There’s a blush rising on Steve’s cheeks, like he can feel Sam figuring it out, like he’s going from hell yeah to embarrassed, and that is not something Sam will allow. Dude’s been through enough He lets go of Steve’s hand, deliberately casual, and says in the same easy-but-firm voice, “Go to the den and wait. I’ve still gotta glaze these.”
Still pink, Steve nods quickly, averting his gaze, and turns. But because he’s Steve and therefore kind of a shit, he calls over his shoulder, “A real friend would have made cream cheese icing.”
Sam snorts. “Don’t push it,” he replies.
***
If Sam had told his younger self that this would be his life in his early thirties he would never have believed it. He’s never been one of those people who got into the whole Captain America thing—he found it weird, like people who got really into stamp collecting or bird watching. That opinion would only intensify after New York, when it became clear to everyone that Steve Rogers hadn’t just disappeared under the ice forever, that he was somehow still alive.
But still, he knew who he was. His younger self would never have believed that he would even meet Steve Rogers, let alone suddenly be sharing a house and a tray of cinnamon rolls with him. Or anything else.
Obviously Sam finds Steve attractive. It was something he registered when they first met, the initial shock of holy shit, that’s Captain America quickly followed by holy shit, he’s really hot. He thought at first that the feeling was mutual, had felt, or thought he’d felt, an electric something between them as they talked. In the normal course of things this would have ended in something. But things had happened, and they had to deal with them, and Sam had very consciously decided not to follow up on that feeling, at least for now. Steve has enough going on, and besides, he hasn’t made anything that could be considered even somewhat close to a move. Sam wonders sometimes if maybe he imagined the whole thing, if that electricity was all one-sided, but every now and again their hands will brush or their eyes will meet unexpectedly and he’ll feel it again, a little hot rush that makes him lose track of their conversation and grin goofily at nothing. He’s seen it happen to Steve, too, looked up at odd moments and noticed him gazing at him with a wistful little smile.
They haven’t talked about it. Hell, for all Sam knows Steve hasn’t even acknowledged it to himself yet—he’s from another era, after all, and Catholic to boot. He figures there’s time enough for that later, after things settle down, and he’s not about to push Steve into anything.
This, though… Sam keeps going back to the way Steve’s eyes had flicked from his face to his hand, the tight curl of his fingers. This is something they need to talk about.
They don’t, not for a few days. Not all of that is deliberate—they’re spending time buying supplies for the road, gathering intel from Hill and Fury and Natasha, trying to plot a logical course for the Great Bucky Barnes Hunt of 2014. With all that going on, it just doesn’t seem fair to bring it up. Not until something else happens that Sam can reference specifically.
Which, oddly enough, doesn’t take much time.
They’re on the road one day, running some errand or other. Sam is driving—it’s his car, and although they switch off sometimes, Steve drives exactly how you’d expect a guy who picked up the skill on the fly during World War II to drive. It’s early in the morning and the light’s a little dim, visibility less than perfect. He’s still quick to flinch after everything that went down, like he was just after Riley died and everything in the road was some kind of hazard, so when he sees something dashing across the road he doesn’t even stop to think that maybe, given the odds, it’s a squirrel. He just slams on the breaks, throwing an arm across Steve’s chest to press him back into his seat.
It’s a squirrel. It sits at the side of the road, staring up at him with little black button eyes, and Sam swears he hears it snicker.
“Goddammit,” he mutters, annoyed with himself. He hasn’t had a moment like that in a while, and it’s just another testament to how badly Hydra shook him up, made him a little less stable than he’d like to be. He turns to make sure Steve’s alright, and of course he is, he’s sitting straight in his seat with his eyes locked on Sam’s arm, which is still pushing him back. Pinning him, if you want to look at it that way.
Sam withdraws slowly—Steve’s got that look in his eyes again, a hazy dreaminess that makes Sam half afraid that he’ll fall if he moves his arm too quickly. The air in the car is still, quiet, a little too warm.
“So,” he says slowly. He makes sure to keep his voice even, his eyes fixed on the road ahead. “There’s something we need to talk about, huh?”
When Steve doesn’t answer he shoots him a look out of the corner of his eye, just to make sure he hasn’t fainted or something. His expression is almost comical, a strange mixture of embarrassment, defiance, and fear.
“We don’t have to,” Steve says. It sounds like he’s forcing the words out through his teeth. “I know it’s—this doesn’t have to be anything. I mean, I don’t expect-“
Sam cuts him off with a sharp huff of a laugh and turns in his seat. “Man,” he replies, letting himself sound as exasperated as he feels, “who says I don’t want it to be something?”
And there it is—that little half smile, the duck of the head. Sam loves that.
However, Sam also remembers how awful it is to have to talk about serious emotional bullshit in a car, because you can’t escape from it. He starts the car again.
“Here’s what’s going to happen,” he tells him, letting that firm edge creep back into his voice. “We’re going to go home. I’m going to make a pot of coffee and put a movie on in the background so we both have something to look at if we get too embarrassed. And then we’re going to talk about this. Got it?”
He’s worried for a second that he didn’t get the voice right, but the haze hasn’t left Steve’s eyes, and when he nods in assent his expression has changed. A little fearful, still, but now there’s hope there too.
***
“It’s just something I’ve always felt,” Steve says.
(There were other things before that—the ride home, coffee, Steve’s continued blush—but this was where it really started.)
“I remember there was a game of cops and robbers once,” Steve continues. He is staring determinedly into his coffee cup. “I was maybe seven years old. I was still weak back then, and small, but it wasn’t as obvious because everyone else was little too. I could still join in sometimes, though oftener than not I’d get winded and have to stop. I was a cop, and this boy from my class was a robber. I don’t even remember his name now. He was a little bigger than me, dark hair, a nice smile.” He glances at Sam, a quick flick of the eyes. “I guess I have a type. Anyway, he caught me, and he tied me to the flagpole with a skipping rope. I didn’t even really try to get away, I was too excited that I was actually part of the game. He wasn’t rough about it the way some kids would have been. I remember watching him loop the rope around me, the way he tied the knots. It was… I was fascinated, and I didn’t really know why. They weren’t very good knots, and I think he knew it, because when he was done he leaned in and whispered, ‘stay there.’ And…” Steve shrugs. “That was it. I liked it. But I didn’t know what it was, really. I mean, I never wanted anybody to be in charge of me, ever. Except…”
“Except when you did?” Sam suggests gently when it becomes clear that Steve isn’t going to finish the sentence. He smiles, or grimaces, it’s hard to tell.
“It’s not everybody,” he says. “Not most people. But if I like someone, I want them to… to be the boss of me. Sometimes.” The blush on his face deepens. “Which, uh, I guess is implicit in this whole thing. I like you.”
“But I’m not the first person you’ve wanted this with,” Sam hazards. It’s a guess, but when Steve nods his mind goes immediately to the Winter Soldier. The guy’s practically walking around in high class fetish gear, for God’s sake.
“Peggy,” Steve replies. “Agent Carter. We didn’t really talk about it much, but she knew. And she felt the same way, but in the other direction. We-” He swallows. It strikes Sam anew how hard this is for him to talk about, how brave he is for doing it. “We never really got far with it. With anything, really. I mean, we kissed a few times, but it never went much beyond that. But we had this- this sort of game, where she would give me orders and I’d carry them out. Just stupid little things, like she’d tell me to get her things, or do little errands for her.” He clears his throat, fidgeting. “She, uh, tied me up once. That was… it was nice.” He looks at Sam full on then, his expression anxious. “We kept it quiet, though. I mean, she already had a hard enough time as a woman. If people thought she was making nice with one of the soldiers, she would either have gotten dismissed or people would have thought she was, you know, open for business.”
Sam wants to laugh at the ridiculous turn of phrase, but he’s pretty sure that laughing at Steve right now will send him straight to hell. “Okay,” he says instead. “So dominance and restraint, is that it? Or do you have a pain thing too?”
Steve shakes his head. “Not really. Mostly it’s just… sometimes I’m not really sure what’s best for me, you know?”
Sam does know. He knows damn well. “And you want somebody to be sure for you,” he says.
Steve nods. “And to make me do what’s best for me. If I’m not doing it.”
Sam draws in a deep breath and thinks for a second, taking a sip of coffee to buy himself some time.
This is several billion dollars above his pay grade, he knows that intellectually. It’s not just that he and Steve only met a while ago, or that they’ve never so much as kissed, or that they’re about to depart on an epic road trip in search of his brainwashed assassin best friend, although these are all true. It’s that this whole thing—being in control of someone, telling them what to do—isn’t something he’s ever considered for himself. He knows that people are into it (he’d had a friend in college who ran a weekly BDSM social club), and he can even see the appeal. But actually doing it have never so much as crossed his mind.
But when he met Steve, he knew above all else that he’d be a friend. No, not even a friend—a comrade. He wants to help him if he can, and if this is what Steve needs, if this is going to make him feel settled and calm… why not?
And, alright, so maybe a part of him is remembering that look in Steve’s eyes, and feeling pretty okay about having been the cause of it, and wanting to see it again.
“Okay,” he says finally, setting his cup down on the coffee table. “We’re gonna start slow, okay? I’ve never done anything like this before, so you’ll have to bear with me if I don’t immediately tie you to a flag pole.”
Steve shakes his head. “Sam,” he says, “I can’t let you do this.”
Sam raises his eyebrows. “Oh, so it’s let now, is it?” he asks. “And here I thought I was the one who was gonna be giving permission around here.”
He uses the tone he used before, deliberately making his voice low and smoky, and is honestly kind of delighted to see the effect it has on Steve, who actually twitches. “I just mean,” Steve says, and he’s almost wringing his hands now, “that I don’t want you to feel obligated-”
Sam sighs, cutting him off. He plucks Steve’s coffee cup from his hands, puts it on the table, and takes a light, firm hold of his face. He can feel the heat suffusing his skin, sees him swallow hard.
“Listen to me,” he says. “I’m not in the service anymore, Steve—I don’t have to follow any orders but the ones I choose to follow. I’m choosing this, okay? Yeah, it’s unfamiliar, I might be a little uncomfortable at first, but so what? I want to give you what you need.” His thumbs move slightly, smoothing over the light, faint stubble over Steve’s jaw. His ridiculous lashes flutter, like he wants to just close his eyes and feel nothing but that touch. “I’m pretty sure you’ve figured this out by now,” Sam continues, softer now, “but I like you too. And this—this isn’t exactly a chore for me.”
Steve forces his eyes open, pupils so dilated they nearly drown out the blue. “Are you sure?” he asks, his voice hoarse.
Oh, fuck it, Sam thinks, and leans forward and catches his mouth with his own.
It’s a brief kiss, one with intention behind it, meant to say “I’m sure” and “I want to” and “I want you” all at once. Steve’s mouth is warm, and he returns the kiss both eagerly and a little clumsily, his hands coming up to clutch at Sam’s biceps. A little too hard, truth be told—Sam is going to have bruises tomorrow.
Sam is the one to pull away, a little more breathless than he strictly ought to be. He’s not the only one—Steve’s chest is heaving, and he’s got a big dumb smile spreading across his face.
“We’ll go slow,” Sam says. He’s still stroking the sides of Steve’s face, just because it feels nice to do it. “One day at a time.”
***
They do take it slow—probably a little slower than Steve would really like, if he’s being honest with himself, but Sam’s been doing a lot of reading on the subject (and even contacted that old friend from college to ask for advice, being very careful not to mention the whole and-by-the-way-my-sub-is-Captain-America thing) and it is totally normal for the person giving the orders to have boundaries and limits, too, so that’s alright.
At first he just restricts it to the odd command. He’ll ask Steve to get him something from the kitchen, reminding himself to frame it as an order and not a request. Or he’ll intercept him on the stairs after getting dressed, taking his arm and shaking his head.
“Not that shirt,” he’ll say. “The blue one.” Or the red one, or the green one, whatever. The point isn’t the shirt, it’s the way Steve breathes a little faster after he tells him to change it, how bright his eyes are when he returns wearing the right one.
He makes sure to ask about them all beforehand, checking to see if they’re okay, and checking in after to make sure he liked them as much as he thought he would. A few things don’t work out—food restriction doesn’t really work for him, for example, because he’s so big—but most of the things they try leave Steve with that dazed, happy look on his face.
It’s sexy, Sam can’t deny that. It’s not something he ever thought he’d want, but now he finds himself relishing those moments when his voice drops a little and he can see Steve’s response run through him like a shiver.
It gets a little harder to do once they’re actually on the road. There aren’t that many commands Sam can actually issue when he’s driving and Steve’s in the passenger seat, other than things like “don’t eat all my jelly beans, Rogers.” And when they’re in the field, sneaking into Hydra outposts and investigating safe houses, searching for traces of the Soldier, Steve is still in charge. Sam is fine with that. Their thing can’t interfere with their actual purpose.
It’s only at night that they can really get into it. Mostly they end up camping out wherever they stop for the night, but every now and again Steve will spring for a room—the credit cards he got from SHIELD are all still valid. Then it’s a little easier for Sam to drop back into that role, direct Steve until he sees the tension that’s been building all day leave his shoulders.
That’s what he likes about it more than anything, he realizes, how easy it is for him to take the burden off of him, give him control of himself again by taking it away.
***
There’s one day that’s particularly bad.
They’ve had over a week of dead leads, empty building, false stops and starts. They think they’re finally getting out of their rut—Nat’s sent them a set of coordinates where someone allegedly saw a man with a metal arm, walking through the parking lot of an abandoned warehouse. They find the warehouse, but it’s no Hydra base, and the man from the reports turns out to be a drifter with a standard transhumeral prosthesis. By the time they get back in the car Steve looks like he’s about to cry or break something, or both.
Sam makes the call himself. Without saying a word, he pulls off the highway and into the parking lot of the nearest drive-in motel. Switching off the engine, he turns to look at Steve.
“Stay here,” he says, and Steve does. Sam gets them a room—one with two doubles, because that’s what they’ve been getting so far and tonight is not the right time to broach the whole “sharing a bed” subject—and unloads their gear himself. It’s not until the room is ready that he comes back to get Steve, walking him in through the door with a hand on the back of his neck.
Steve takes a step inside and stops, blinking. Their bags are arranged neatly by the wall, there’s a chocolate mint on each pillow, and Sam has left a coil of thin white rope on the bed by the window.
“Now, you let me know if this isn’t something you can handle right now,” Sam orders. His hand is still on the back of Steve’s neck; he squeezes gently, feeling Steve shudder in response. “But after the day we just had, I think you might need this.”
Steve turns to look at him, opening his mouth, but no sound comes out. The look he gives Sam is a mixture of surprise and excitement and deep, deep thankfulness. Sam grins, pleased that his instincts were right. He pulls Steve down to him, kisses him, then pushes him gently away. “Clothes off,” he orders. “And on the bed.”
It’s kind of funny how quickly Steve moves. He strips in seconds flat, army-folding his clothes and leaving them in a neat pile on the other bed. Sam hasn’t seen him naked before, and he is glad that he has permission now to admire the view, the broad back and shoulders, the movement of muscles under skin, the glisten of sweat and the tight, spare curve of his ass. He watches as Steve arranges himself on his back, his arms stretched over his head. His eyes are already closed. It’s like looking at a statue, something classical, a god in repose.
Sam steps up to the bed, hoping he’ll remember how to do this without stopping for a quick Google refresher course. His nerves are jangling a little bit, and he has to stop for a second, breathe deep, collect himself. He places a hand on Steve’s chest, pressing down gently and feeling the breath hitch.
“I know you can probably break out of this,” he murmurs, picking up Steve’s right hand. He places it gently against the post of the headboard, looping the rope around it tight enough that he’ll feel restrained, but not so tight that he loses feeling in his wrists. “But you won’t, will you?”
Steve shakes his head. “No, sir,” he murmurs back, his voice dreamy and far away.
That takes Sam aback a little. They haven’t talked about titles yet, and the ‘sir’ is unexpected. Not unpleasant, though. He checks his knots carefully, making sure they’re solid enough to withstand a bit of tugging, then crosses the room to tie his other hand. Steve’s arms are limp; he doesn’t resist at all.
The end result doesn’t exactly look like the pictures Sam’s seen, but Steve himself is a work of art: eyes tight shut, lashes fanned against his cheeks, his mouth slightly parted in a wondering smile. His back is arched a little bit, and he’s hard, his cock flushed and full with blood. Sam wants to touch him, wants to take him in his mouth while he’s tied to the headboard and listen to him shudder and cry and fall apart, but he won’t. Not yet.
They still haven’t done anything more than kiss, all this time, and Sam’s fine with that. It’ll happen eventually. When Steve’s ready.
He leans over him, his lips hovering just close enough to the skin that Steve will be able to feel the shape of his words, and whispers, “Good boy.”
Steve shudders all over at that, his eyes half opening, then closing again.
Sam’s done enough research to know that you shouldn’t keep anyone tied up for too long. He gives Steve fifteen minutes, fascinated by the way he settles into himself, breathing like he’s in a trance. When Sam undoes the knots he looks surprised, like he forgot that being untied was a possibility, like the whole world has been reduced to his wrists against the bedpost. Sam rubs him for a few minutes, making sure the blood is flowing back into his fingers. When he’s done he steps back again, recoiling the rope and placing it on top of the pile of Steve’s clothes.
“Get up,” Sam says. His voice is soft but it’s a command, and Steve obeys, moving slow and graceful like he’s underwater. Sam takes him by the hand and leads him, unresisting, into the bathroom.
The bath he’d drawn had been scalding hot before, so it should be just right now, warm enough to make the skin prickle but not enough to hurt. He eases Steve in over the side, helping him settle back against the ceramic. Steve relaxes into the water, boneless and content as a cat in the sun.
“You good?” Sam asks. Steve sure seems good—seems better than—but it never hurts to check.
Steve hums in assent, his eyes closed again. His skin is flushed pink from the heat of the bath. “So good,” he says, syrupy-slow. “So, so good, Sam.”
Sam smiles, leaning forward to brush the damp hair off his forehead. “Lie back,” he says, and Steve obeys immediately, not asking why, anticipating nothing. It’s Zen, Sam thinks—he’s completely in the moment, he is the moment. He dips a washcloth into the water, beginning to rub away the day’s dirt and grime.
“I’m sorry about today,” he tells him as he cleans him off. “I know it was frustrating. And I know we’re gonna have a lot more days like it before we find the Soldier. But I’ll be here to help you through it, alright, man? Any way I can. Anything you need.”
Steve’s eyes open all the way, and he looks at Sam like he’s never seen anything better, like he’s everything. Slowly, still moving with that underwater grace, he reaches out to take Sam’s hand and presses a kiss to his knuckles.
“I know,” he says, and does it again. “I know, I know, I know.”