Chapter Text
Sam has a very solid plan for his life after laying JJ to rest.
The plan includes recovery. It includes relocating and getting back on his own feet as soon as Sarah and Cassius have the restaurant up and running. It includes getting his certification as a Peer Specialist and practicing full time at VA, helping folks like himself, those who came back displaced and heartbroken, find some kind of rest. Some resemblance of purpose.
And for a good, long while, he does precisely that. He goes to therapy and eventually gets cleared to pursue peer support. Then, reluctantly and with a tearful goodbye, he leaves Louisiana behind and moves up to DC, gets a nice enough place in a good neighborhood, and it's not all that terrifying being on his own. He keeps up his morning runs, only now it's around the National Mall and not the lake. He finally lands a job at the VA center with his own group and a discussion topic for each week.
He still can't really talk about JJ, doesn't bring him up in sessions, and the nightmares don't exactly stop. Instead, they become less frightening, less real, and more absurd. He dreams of a wedding near the water where JJ is buried. He dreams of kids and a snowy white cat. It's simple things like holding JJ's hand; the entire dream is only of their fingers intertwined, and he's content with that.
Sarah says those ain't nightmares. But she's not there when he wakes up alone with his own hands clasped together instead.
And that's fine. He knew it would never be easy; he knew there'd be no getting over it and moving on. But, the ghost of JJ clings to him. He is wherever Sam goes, in every bird he sees soaring, in every tall, blue-eyed stranger he meets.
But he's got a plan.
At least he had one until he met Steve Rogers and the goddamn Black Widow in the flesh on one of his routine morning runs. Then the plan is chaos. The plan is hanging on by a thread. The plan includes kidnapping a state official and directly violating government orders.
It includes one of the most prolific assassins in world history extracting and disposing of Sam's steering wheel mid-drive and totaling his semi-new sedan with him, Captain America and the Widow still inside.
A day later, Sam's still having vivid flashes of that gloved hand yanking it out and leaving him clutching nothing but air. He still sees the ominous figure in all black standing amidst the speeding cars just waiting for them—his face and body covered in black tact gear from head to toe. He knew where they were, who they were, and how to kill them. He was so precise, so deliberate, and it made a chill shoot down Sam's spine looking at him. Leaves his stomach in a knot, thinking about it now.
Sam thought that was pretty rough. He started questioning a whole lot of his choices, but that still wasn't the worst part. Somehow being flung across the freeway from a totaled car and then shot at with a rocket launcher was not the worst the situation could get.
Somehow, by a dumb stroke of luck, a cruel twist of fate, and a sequence of utter impossibilities, James Barnes comes back from the dead.
Sam only saw the back of his head, he probably couldn't point the guy out in a lineup if he had to, but Steve's sure it's him. Steve's adamant that the murderous Soviet assassin is his dead best friend. Steve calls him Bucky. He says the guy survived falling off that train all those years ago and mumbles something about Hydra experimentation.
Steve's a mess about it, understandably so, and Sam gets the long lip and the anger, but goddamn, what he wouldn't give to have JJ back. Even for a second, even for the brief moment that Steve did before Barnes had taken off into the shadows again.
He spends way too much time thinking about it. Barnes had obviously been held captive for most of his life, been tortured beyond imagination to be capable of doing the things he's doing, and the situation is too complicated to comprehend. Still, there's got to be a silver lining here.
They've got a second chance no one ever gets. Even if Steve was never in love with Barnes, even if things were never like that, he gets him back. They get each other back.
And maybe Sam needs to stop thinking about it. Maybe he needs to stop reasoning about why and how and what's fair and what isn't because they're on the brink of another war.
After their chat with Fury, he finds Steve standing on the bridge, looking down at the murky ravine below.
"He's gonna be there, you know," Sam says and comes to stand beside him.
"I know."
"Look. Whoever he used to be… the guy he is now… I don't think he's the kind you save. He's the kind you stop."
Steve's jaw tightens. "I don't know if I can do that."
"Well, he might not give you a choice. He doesn't know you."
"He will," Steve says stubbornly and looks at Sam as if that's the one thing keeping him tethered to this earth—this absolute certainty that Barnes will come around.
Sam would hold onto that hope too. He would. If it were JJ, he'd cut down whoever stood in his way. He'd fight the world, too, topple the entire US government to get him back.
But this is the Winter Soldier, and Sam's still kind of miffed about his car and nearly being murdered.
He shuts up about it, though, thinks Steve knows what he's doing, and Sam's right behind him all the way, so when Captain America robs the goddamn Smithsonian and steals his own uniform, Sam doesn't bat an eye. Instead, he drives the getaway car.
And when he puts on his old EXO-7 suit, he doesn't bat an eye either, even though, for a swift second, he expects to smell JJ on the collar, on the sleeves, but there's only an old smokey leather smell. He refuses to think it's from that night, from the RPGs. It can't be. God, it can't be.
His phone rings before he even lingers on that, and Steve, Hill, and Natasha are geared up and heading off to stop the helicarriers from launching. Sam jogs along with his phone pinched between his ear and shoulder while slipping his gloves on.
"Sarah," he says. "I was gonna call you."
"So now you're a superhero?" She says. She must have seen him on the goddamn news because there's a tinge of worry in her voice.
"I'm not a superhero." But he's gearing up, and the wings are on his back, and he's running after Steven goddamn Rogers through a wooded back road, about to hijack a few warships. He's something.
And he'd thought strapping on his old wings again would take a toll on him, but his blood is coursing with adrenaline. He's focused and excited and getting a little winded because Steve doesn't play when it comes to hauling ass.
But God, Sam hadn't felt alive in years. Not since JJ died.
He's missed the hot rush of flying, missed feeling this competent and doing what no one else around him could. Nothing will ever compensate for the bliss of soaring at top speed alongside JJ, but this comes pretty close. The sky's always been theirs. This is just like going home, even if it is to an empty house.
"Sarah, look—"
"Don't 'Sarah, look' me. What's going on, Sam?"
Steve glances at him and laughs. This asshole. Sam forgets he's got that serum in his ears too.
"Cap needed help, alright. This ain't a big deal, Sarah, I swear."
"And is 'Cap' bringing you back home in one piece? Is 'Cap' gon' keep you from getting shot at? I thought you left this stuff behind, Sam."
"Sarah. I'll come home. I swear I'll come home."
"He'll come home, ma'am," Steve confirms and gives Sam a wink. "I'll make sure of it."
Sarah's quiet for a beat. "Was that him?"
"Yeah."
He can practically hear her rolling her eyes but knows she's smiling too. " Ma'am. Okay, well, you better. And I am not joking."
"Sarah, I gotta go."
"I know. I love you, Samuel Thomas Wilson. You be careful."
"Love you too, Sarah Geor—"
"Don't you dare!"
Sam laughs before he hangs up. "Alright," he says, catching Steve's eye and grinning. "Want a lift?"
Then he grabs Captain America around the waist and takes flight, and lets the rest of his solid plan go entirely to shit.
The new plan is to get three little key cards into a slot before Hydra synchronizes their ships and murders a whole bunch of people. Simple enough.
After making a heartwarming speech, Steve's on his way to lock carrier A. Sam teases him about it while he heads to carrier B. He expected to run into complications, and he does, but he handles it, kicks some ass too, and that rush of flying and fighting and being fucking good at it builds and builds.
The shots hit close, and for a split second, he's back in Bakhmala again, being caged in against a rock wall with nowhere to go and JJ just too far out of reach on the other side. But he forces his thoughts away from there, from that God awful night, and this time he out-flies the missiles.
He wipes out the entire flight crew on carrier B and flies faster than their fighter jets can go while Hill gives them a countdown through the comms. They don't have long.
"Alpha lock," Steve confirms.
"Falcon?" Hill says. "Where are you now?"
A shot explodes beside Sam, and he drops a few meters to escape the blast. "Had to take a detour!"
He ducks and dives and zips into a narrow little space they can't reach. Then, he swoops low and close to the carrier's belly and lets the missiles collide with the ship instead.
And when he escapes and darts into the open air again, he lets out a loud whoop of absolute adrenaline.
"I'm in!" He slots the key card into the motherboard and gets going. "Bravo lock," Sam says.
"Charlie carrier's 45 degrees off the port bow," Hill says. They're cutting it close now, and Sam's blood's starting to pump with nervous energy just as Steve taps in.
"Hey, Sam?" Steve calls over the comms. "I'm gonna need a ride!" And he doesn't wait for Sam to get to him. Instead, he just goddamn launches himself off a carrier and free falls until Sam finally grabs him just in time and hauls him up.
Steve's still making a crack about the breakfast Sam cooked him when he's suddenly and violently drop-kicked off the carrier again.
"Steve!"
Sam's about to take flight and get him, but he's yanked by his wing pack and thrown back onto the platform.
And the Winter Soldier, masked and decked out in all black, comes straight for him.
But Sam's been waiting for it since this asshole ripped the wheel out of his car and left him to crash. Sam's been waiting to get his own back, so he swings first.
The soldier blocks it, but Sam goes low instead and gets him in the gut, then on the jaw as he buckles.
But the guy's fast as hell and knocks Sam down with a wickedly hard left hook. He lifts his foot, about to crush Sam's skull under it, but Sam rolls sideways and sweeps his legs. The soldier hits the ground with a hefty thud but bounces back up in the same breath.
Sam mirrors him, and they wait crouched in front of each other. Sam tries, but he can't see anything beyond those pitch-black goggles, can't even see him breathe beneath the heavy tact gear. There's only long hair and a frown between his eyes, and… Sam blinks. He takes another look. There's a red scar on his temple, raw and angry like a fresh burn.
Sam frowns, he knows he shouldn't be getting distracted, but his mind's reeling at a thousand miles a minute. And the soldier takes advantage of it.
He shoots up, kicks Sam across the face, then grabs him and hits him again. Sam takes a second to gather his fucking wits because it stings, it goddamn hurts, and there's a warm stream of blood trickling down his lip now, but he springs back and ducks when the soldier swings again.
When he stands, he shoots his wings out, rises, and with a grin, he says, "Keep up now!"
He pulls his legs up and kicks. The soldier barrels backward into a concrete barrier. He bounces off it but doesn't stay down. He never stays down no matter the impact, but Sam's more than ready to go again.
But then the soldier looks up at Sam in the air and shakes his head like it hurts, flinches like the sun's shining straight into his eyes. He takes some kind of weapon from his back pocket, then steps forward and points it at Sam, but he falters again when he lays eyes on him.
This time he hits his temple with the heel of his hand as if he's trying to rattle the gears of an old motor back into place.
Sam flaps the wings once more and draws his guns as he lowers himself to the ground.
The soldier looks at Sam again and lets out a rough guttural growl before storming at Sam, ready to tackle. But Sam doesn't wait for it; he twists his body and uses the momentum to smack the soldier with one wing.
It hits hard. Not hard enough to knock him down, but it does crack his goggles and snap his mask off, and Sam's feeling real satisfied with that, getting ready to shoot when the soldier furiously yanks the broken goggles off his eyes.
And then Sam's the one knocked on his ass.
Because before him stands JJ Winters.
His nose is bleeding, and his hair is long, and he's bigger than Sam remembers, but Sam would know those blue eyes anywhere, that beautifully clenched jaw. And he's breathing and blinking and staring at Sam with a tangible bewilderedness that cuts Sam right open.
Sam hears only static. He opens his mouth to speak, but nothing comes out; he can't think of a single thing, a single explanation that would make this make sense. He watched this man die. He watched him fall, he watched him burn.
Sam takes his goggles off too, and the man before him blinks. Once twice, three times, and the frown deepens.
The soldier's—JJ's—chest heaves, but he's not trying to attack Sam anymore. Instead, they're just standing there, their worlds simultaneously imploding with the realization.
"JJ?" Sam finally says, but his voice is rough and barely working, on the cusp of breaking completely. "Baby?"
JJ shakes his head and closes his eyes. "No."
"It's you—"
"No," he growls and launches forward, tackling Sam to the ground. Above them, news helicopters whir in every direction. "It's not!"
"JJ," Sam says, feeling his throat closing up, his heart thudding irreparably fast. He tries to stop JJ. "They took you, didn't they? That night—you didn't—" And Sam didn't go looking for him. He feels sick.
JJ sneers and grabs Sam's chest, lifts him, and hits him. "I'm not—" he says and hits him again. "I'm not… JJ Wint—" But he flinches, and his eyes shut tightly, his fist hovering in the air. Sam didn't say his last name. He knows his name. Deep down, he knows who he is. He knows who Sam is. Who they were.
"Yeah, you are," Sam says with a hitching sob, a gasp of relief, and absolute terror. This can't be possible. His face is pulsing with pain, his one eye swelling shut. "I love you. I'd know." And he smiles, huffs out an exhausted laugh of disbelief. "And you know me too; you loved me back. You know you do, baby."
A tear rolls from the corner of his eye, and JJ stares at it, his pupils swelling as it tracks the movement. A gust of wind sweeps his hair away from his face, and oh God, it really is him. It's the love of Sam's life, back from the dead like a sweet, sweet ghost and still so far out of Sam's reach.
JJ grunts again, frustrated, shakes himself out of it, and with one deadly, swift motion, he unbuckles Sam's chest harness, flips Sam over, and takes the wings right off his back.
He puts them on with fingers that know the way, know the motions, as if he's strapped them on a hundred times before—because he has—and shoots them outward. The tips glint in the harsh midday sun like they did that first day they ever took flight.
Sam slowly scrambles to his knees. "Wait! No Wait!" he screams over the chaos and JJ turns to him. He pulls the leather glove off his left hand. And if Sam had any doubts, the flash of silver metal settles it all.
JJ reaches out and slides a finger along Sam's bleeding jaw.
"Don't run from me," Sam says. "You know me." He leans forward into the slight touch and doesn't care how improbable all of this is. He wants to fall into JJ's embrace, wants to inhale and smell him again, wants that part of himself that died with JJ to come back to life. "Please."
But JJ's hand drops away.
And then he shoots into the sky with Sam's wings and flies far away.
Sam watches, grounded, as he goes, engulfed in his total absence once again.
The Asset's brain is on fire.
He's soaring through the sky with wings he doesn't own but absolutely know how to use, while a headache stings sharp and deep through his temple. When he puts his fingers on the skin there, he feels a coarse scar. He remembers the winged man's eyes fixed on it.
But that wasn't just some man with wings. That was someone. Someone important. Can't remember his name or where or how long ago, but he feels it in his bones, in the fiber of his heart. Every last vein and nerve and pulse point inside him knows that man. He knows this feeling in his chest the way he knows the back of his hand. He has felt it before, and it comes back to him now in waves and flashes and blurry images.
But if he closes his eyes, he sees the man smiling. He sees him flying, sees him undressing in a dimly lit tent, his skin bathed in yellow light. He sees him singing in a bar, laughing on the back of a pickup truck in the moonlight. He sees his mouth parted and gasping against a wet shower wall. He sees his lips buried in the man's neck, sees them moving together, and the man's fingers making dents in his skin as he holds on, feels it even.
He sees a dark starless sky lit up by explosions, sees the man frightened and screaming, and hears himself calling out the name he doesn't remember, and it makes his gut lurch with a sudden memory of falling. But it's twisted visions of the desert, then snow, then desert again.
He sees it, though, and he knows. He knows that he was JJ Winters in one of his hundred lives, and JJ Winters loved this man. He loves this man.
They stole it from him just like they do his memories— time and time again. They ripped it from the Asset's hands and made him forget he ever had it. How many tries did it take, he thinks, and it still didn't stick.
They killed JJ Winters, but they couldn't keep him down.
"Soldier, report back. Confirm your position."
Today, he's going to make them pay for it.
"About a mile south of the Triskelion," he tells Rollins. "Proceeding to the rendezvous point."
Two STRIKE team members and a black van await him on the ground. Rollins and Piper. He lands and retracts the wings, somehow knowing to arch his back, so it doesn't pinch.
Rollins gives the wings a disinterested frown. "The gig's blown. We gotta move," he says, opening the van's door for the Asset to get into his usual spot, but the Asset doesn't move.
He swallows, and his fist curls at his side. "Who’s the man with the wings?"
Rollins glances at Piper beside him, then back at the Asset. "Some rookie." He rattles the door, cocks his head to it. "Get in."
"I know him too."
"Jesus. Get in, will you?"
"Who is he?"
Piper unholsters his gun and passes an edgy look at the Asset, then Rollins.
"Christ, you don't know him! Some fuckin' guy, what's it matter?"
"No," the Asset says calmly. "I do. I know him."
Then just as Rollins raises his gun, the Asset smacks it out of his hand, grabs it, and shoots him.
As the blood splatters across his face, he turns and shoots Piper too.
They're dead in the middle of the road and bleeding from their heads—something he thinks he's done a few times himself—and above, the three helicarriers crash and plummet into the Potomac.
And the Asset is free.
So he runs.
"I believe in fate," Natasha says. She hands Sam an ice pack from her freezer, and he places it against his swollen eye. She returns to suturing Steve's cheek. "I even believe in star-crossed lovers, but this—" She looks from Sam to Steve. "This is something else."
"Yeah, we know." Steve's face is pinched as she works the needle through his skin.
"Same guy, same fate, you two meeting all those years later. The universe had her heart set on this one, boys."
"Are we sure, though?" Sam asks, shifting the ice pack to his jaw. "James Barnes—Bucky—is JJ?" Because this is so unreal, this is so completely impossible, yet here they all are. If he believes in this fate that Natasha's talking about, then it's not just him and JJ. It's Steve and Sam. It's Bucky and Steve. All of them intertwined by one cord.
Sam would dig out a photo to be sure he's not hallucinating, that the man on the carrier was JJ, but it was all wiped from existence the moment JJ died. So all he has are his memories.
"It was Bucky," Steve says and then slides a brown folder over to Sam. It's written in Russian. Sam puts the ice pack down, opens it, and instantly regrets it. There's a photo of JJ asleep in a chamber of ice, eerily still and pale with a burn mark on his temple.
Sam sucks in a breath, shuts the file, and pinches the bridge of his nose so that he doesn't start sobbing his eyes out at the Black Widow's dining room table.
He feels a small, warm hand on his shoulder. "Hey," Natasha says. "You okay?"
Sam raises his head, sniffs, and looks away. "Yeah." But Natasha puts her arms around him anyway, and a moment after that, Steve does too.
"Look," Natasha says and peels a photo away from the corner of the file. "This one's better."
It's a smaller photo: Sergeant James Barnes, fresh-faced and in uniform, dashing and young. It looks more like JJ did when they first met, easier to digest than the one of JJ beaten and frozen.
Sam keeps that one. Stares at it all night, even after Steve and Natasha have gone to bed. He wonders if JJ has gone back to Hydra, if he ran right back into captivity or if he’s out there alone, wandering the streets as confused and lost as Sam's feeling.
Wonders if JJ's body's sore too, if it's longing for Sam too. Wonders how much he remembers. Does it all replay like a movie in his head? Does he know Sam's name now? Did he realize?
He doesn't wonder for long.
Shortly after two that morning, Natasha bursts into Sam's room, her phone in her hand, its glow lighting up her sleepy face and wild hair, and Steve a huge shadow behind her.
"He's been spotted on a security cam I'm tracking," she says, and Sam's up and pulling on his shoes almost before she's done speaking.
"DC Metro. He just stepped onto the concourse. The train departs in 17 minutes. Take my car."
"Okay, yeah," he stares at her, blinks, breathing hard and way too fast now. "I'm going."
She nods. "Yeah, bring him home."
And then Sam's leaping over the back of her couch and zipping out the front door. Within seconds he's speeding down the freeway and on his way to the station. The street lights pass in smudged streaks, the other cars move way too slow for his liking, and his heart is hammering in his chest.
He parks and skids into the station with only a minute to spare and sees JJ standing on the platform with a backpack and a hat, his long hair curling around its edge as the train approaches.
"JJ!" Sam shouts. "Bucky!"
If he hears Sam, he doesn't show it.
The train stops, JJ gets on, and the doors shut, and by the time Sam has finally broken through the crowd of people, he is gone again.
"Oh God," Sam says, fighting off tears, resting breathless with his back against a pillar. "Oh, for fuck sake." He's got no choice but to go back home now. And home it is. He can't face Nat and Steve right now. If he does, he's afraid he might lose any last shred of composure he's holding onto. He'd rather be in his own bed for that, rather down his own whiskey and cry himself to sleep where no one can bear witness.
He drives home, dazed and heavy with tiredness like cement has settled in each of his limbs, and it drags him under. His home is a good few miles away from Nat's safe house in the city, and the drive feels infinite and hopeless because somewhere below the city, a train is speeding down the tracks and carrying JJ away to God-knows-where.
Sam finally pulls up to his driveway, locks Natasha's car, and walks around to his door.
But there's a man on his front step, peeking in through his lounge window.
He's got a backpack and a hat on, holding a piece of paper in his hand.
At the sound of Sam’s feet on the gravel the man stills, then turns around slowly. Sam sucks in a breath through his nose, only just keeping his chin from wobbling out of control.
JJ looks down at the paper in his hands and clears his throat.
"Samuel Thomas Wilson," he says. "6th Street, South East, Stanton Park." Then he takes the cap off his head, and his long hair falls loose. A tear trickles down Sam's cheek. "Found that in a DC veteran database." Then he looks up. "But I knew you. Long before that, I knew you, Sam."
Sam nods, and the sound of JJ saying his name again breaks the dams. He drops his head and can't help it, he cries, and it's a lot, and it's terrible, and his chest aches with it, and his shoulders shake, and it feels like a mile-long trench being carved open inside him.
"I'm sorry," JJ says, and the next moment his arms are around Sam, and he holds him close. "I'm sorry, sweetheart. I'm here now, alright? I remember now."
"Oh God," Sam breathes, pressing his face into JJ's collar and inhaling, clutching onto him. "Jesus, I've missed you, I've missed you so much." He inhales again; he draws JJ's scent deep into his lungs with every gasp for breath. Metal and sweat and him.
Then, JJ leans back, cups the back of Sam's head, brings him closer, gently and carefully, and kisses him.
They fit together just as perfectly as they always have, just as Sam remembers, exactly like he'd been dreaming. JJ still tastes the same. His mouth's still so soft, and his body just as solid.
"Come inside?" Sam asks him quietly, breathless and resting his forehead against JJ's. "Come home. Don't leave me again."
So much time has passed, years they'll never get back, and they can't afford to lose much more. Sam wants him close. He never wants to feel such roaring emptiness again. He wants JJ near him, next to him, inside him, and in his bed until there is no more room for anything else.
And he gets his wish.
Inside, he's about to offer JJ coffee, maybe cook them something to eat, but JJ's suddenly behind him, his hands slipping around Sam's waist, mouth open against his neck.
Sam shudders. He trembles all over. He missed this like hell, thought he'd never feel it again, so he turns to face JJ, slides his fingers up to JJ's neck, and into his long hair. It's new, different from the military cut Sam remembers, but it's still him; he is still so eager for Sam's touch that he leans into it, chases it.
JJ's eyes close as he exhales, pulling Sam even closer. His fingers curl into Sam's shirt.
"You remember this?" Sam asks. He doesn't know what he'll do if the answer is no.
But JJ's hands slip down Sam's back, over his belt, and into the pockets of his jeans, and he squeezes.
He ducks his face into Sam's neck and plants a kiss below the pulse point there. Sam groans and feels it course through his body, and JJ says. "I remember this." Then he opens his mouth, and it's all warm tongue and soft lips, making Sam shudder. It's making him ache for more.
JJ rocks against him then, and Sam grabs on, rocks back, closes his eyes, and for a moment, it's 2007, and they're just two young soldiers heatedly making out behind the camp walls. For a moment, when JJ puts his lips back on Sam's and kisses him, he's never known that grief, never known what missing JJ felt like.
Because he's here, he's more than alive in Sam's arms, and they're doing what they used to do oh so well.
Because JJ's undoing Sam's belt buckle and slipping his hand inside like no time has passed at all, and they're alone in their little tent in the yellow lamplight glow. Muscle memory and pure instinct.
"I remember this, too," JJ whispers, undoing his own fly and pressing them together, then slowly working his hand over them. He gasps. "God, I remember this, Sam."
Sam kisses him again, pulls away only to shrug his t-shirt off, and it makes JJ stare and touch like he's missed this too. Sam grabs JJ's shirt next, yanks it over his head, and sweeps his hands down JJ's arms, over the metal ridges, and up to his neck again. Brings him back and kisses him some more.
JJ pushes Sam's jeans down, drags him over to the couch, and pulls Sam into his lap. Naked as the day he was born. His hands roam Sam's body—his thighs, chest, and back—drinking him in from top to bottom, and then he lifts Sam's hips with a look in his eyes that can only be memories flooding back.
Sam fumbles around in the end table drawer for a bottle of lube he’d stashed there. JJ takes it without question and does what he needs to do, what he’s always done so goddamn well to get them comfortable.
Then he takes himself in hand and guides Sam's body down on him, and Sam goes easily, feels himself opening and accepting, and grabs onto JJ's shoulders to steady himself as he slides down.
"Oh fuck—" He curls his hand into JJ's hair and tugs his head back. "Fuck," he breathes, shivering with it, and JJ's fingers dig into Sam's skin. He feels every last desperate clutch of his hands. Then, with his lips a fraction away from JJ's, he says. "And this? You remember this?"
JJ just nods, his face pinched with pleasure as Sam starts moving. And he doesn't hold back, doesn't take it slow. There's no slow anymore, nothing to wait for any more, only time to make up for. He's got long nights of missing this man to forget. Days spent empty and alone to put behind them.
So Sam fucks him, gets his fill of what had been taken from him, rides it out fast and hard, and JJ takes what Sam's giving, grabs Sam's waist, holds him still, then gives it right back. And Sam feels him finish, knows he does because he can see it on JJ's face, but they don't stop. JJ keeps him there, slams Sam down on him until he's gasping from it until his eyes are blown wide in his head, and he's looking at Sam like the universe is imploding around him.
"This," JJ says breathlessly, sweating just like Sam, pushing his hair out of his eyes. "I remember all of this. You. Most of all, I remember you. I missed you even when I didn't know it."
Sam's heart clenches; it feels like it's pumping way offbeat. His chin twitches downward, and he thinks, Jesus, don't cry now, don't ruin this, but he swallows. "Yeah? You know me? Tell me you know me." He knows the answer, knows that the expression on JJ's face can't be anything else. Still, he wants to hear it again.
For the first time since they started, JJ slows Sam's movements down to just a lazy ripple and takes Sam's face into his hands.
"Your sister's name is Sarah. You have a boat in Delacroix, Louisiana. I know you, Sam Wilson."
At that, Sam thinks of the wooden cross they had made for JJ. He thinks of JJ's grave near the water, surrounded by long green grass in the shade of the willow tree, and how many times he'd laid flowers there for him.
Tears well up in his eyes, and that same horribly tight feeling envelops his chest like it's done so many times before with no hope of relief until now.
"Hey," JJ says. "You don't gotta cry, sweetheart."
Sam shakes his head, traces his finger over the outline of JJ's lips, and looks at his beautiful face.
"I buried you," he breathes, short of choking on a sob, cheeks wet now. "I buried you, baby."
"No," JJ says resolutely. He brings Sam closer, kisses him hard, tears and all, then pulls away. "No, you didn't. You could never. I'd find my way back to you every time."
With an easy motion, JJ flips them, gets Sam on his back, and slides in deeper. He kisses Sam, starts rocking back and forth, then slips his hand between them.
"I love you, James Barnes," Sam says.
But JJ shakes his head slowly and finally gives Sam that lazy, lopsided grin. He shifts his hips just an inch, reminding Sam that they’re still very much in the middle of something.
Sam smiles back at him, wide and uncontrollable, as he corrects himself. "JJ Winters."
"I love you. So bad," JJ says, then kisses him. "Always have."
And one last tear slips down Sam's cheek because JJ Winters has come home from the war.
Finally. For good this time.
This is exactly where he'd like to be laid to rest, JJ thinks.
It's quiet here, the lapping water is calming, and the Louisiana sun soaks his body in warmth.
But JJ's not bleeding on a steel morgue table about to be cremated or lying in a twisted, burning heap on the desert ground. He's not unconscious in the snow and praying for help to come.
He might be standing by JJ Winters' graveside, but he's alive.
His hand is tightly entwined with Sam's, their bodies not even a shadow away from the other.
"I came out here so often, sat here way too long after I buried you." Sam looks at him; his mouth corner twitches, but the smile is sad. "Until nightfall sometimes. Sarah had to come get me for dinner." He inhales deeply. "Sat here missing you. I missed you when I moved away. Missed you in my sleep. Guess we gotta take it down now, huh?" His hand squeezes around JJ's.
"No," JJ says. Then he takes out a pen he brought from the house and kneels. He uncaps it and writes a note just above the space where his name is carved into the wood.
'Resurrected by S.W.'
He digs his metal fingers into the wet soil and pulls out the dog tags Sam had buried there, rinses them off in the lake, and stands again. He hangs them around his neck and turns to Sam.
"Alright," Sam says softly, smiles up at him, and curls his fingers around the tags. "Yeah. Fair enough."
"Y'all are missing out on this party!" Sam's sister calls out and waves at them through the restaurant's window. The music's loud, and inside, people are dancing and singing along to the song. "G's pulling out those old moves!"
"Dance with me?" Sam says, already tugging him that way.
And they dance the whole night away. It makes JJ think of that night in the karaoke bar, how beautiful Sam had looked, and how he made the Asset smile. And just when his heart gets heavy with all the time they've lost, all the time they could have spent being that happy, Sarah grabs him by the hand and spins him onto the floor.
His body remembers swinging girls around on a dance floor a very long time ago, so he swings her too, making her laugh at the top of her voice. It makes Sam's eyes glow bright from where he's watching at the bar with a smile on his face.
Cassius, Sam's brother-in-law, grabs Sam and dances with him, twirls him and laughs, and spins him out and back in, easy like they've done this before.
Later JJ's helping Sarah gather empty bottles while Gideon, Cassius, and Sam have their arms around each other and sing drunkenly loud to Sam Cooke. And finally, when everyone's tired, all danced out and sung hoarse, a slower song comes on. JJ goes over to Sam, takes him onto the floor and into his arms, starts swaying slowly to the music, and breathes Sam in.
"How come you don't swing me around like you swing my sister, huh?" Sam says into his ear, and JJ laughs softly.
"Because you're heavy."
"Ain't what you said last night, though."
JJ snorts and leans back. "Jesus, fuck," he mumbles. "Sam!"
"Yeah?" Sam says, smirking. "Kiss me."
He does, for a long while, and he doesn't care who's watching.
And the best part is, there's no halo waiting to take it from him, so he gets to keep this. He gets to wake up next to Sam every morning for the rest of his life and remember every blissful second of what they did the night before.
He gets to keep Sam this time.