Chapter Text
Bucky didn't like being hurt. It made him feel like a sick dog, wearing one of those cones around their necks. Blindsighted. Hydra hadn’t liked it, not at all. It was treated as a protocol to be dealt with, begrudgingly, and he’d face the consequences for it.
So now, having Sam help him into the passenger seat of his truck, it was jarring. Sam had gone out and bought him some clothes for him to wear on the ride home, a gray sweatshirt and black pants, much looser than what he usually wore. Maybe he didn’t want to aggravate his stitches, or he just thought he was still as bulky as Steve was.
It was.. comfortable, which of course made him nervous.
Bucky lowered himself down to the seat with a slight wince, laying back with a sigh and closing his eyes. He heard a car door opening and closing to his left, could feel Sam's eyes on him. They sat there both breathing in tandem for a moment.
“I can cut your hair for you, if you want. When we get home.” Sam spoke softly, and if Bucky didn’t know better he’d half expect to feel a hand threading through his hair. But there was no hand, so Bucky opened his eyes. The way Sam said ‘home’ so easily like that tempted him to think of a feeling he hadn’t dared chased since the 20s, that forbidden fruit. Something he’d wedged between his rib bones so hard and with so much fear that it had actually molded into his very skeleton. He wondered if during the many surgeries he’d had before, if anyone had seen it. Turned it over in their gloved hands and stuffed it right back in, even harder than before.
He wondered if Sam had ever known. He could never tell how well he hid things from people, he could never hide anything from Steve. He had no reason to believe that Steve knew, but he knew he did.
He knew it was legal now, at least logically. No one told his gut that yet. A lot of things were different now, he didn’t know if he’d ever get over the knee-jerk reactions.
“Yeah- I think- I’d like that. Need’a shave too.” he ran a hand over his stubble, rough the way it used to get, during the long months training in Siberia.
Sam twisted the car keys in, starting the heater. Warm air filled the tension. Not ‘tension’, it wasn't bad, something different.
“I don't know if I can go on missions with you anymore, man,” Sam said, a sudden topic change.
Bucky's breath hitched, a spark of pain in his chest.
“It's not- did Steve tell you about..-?”
“Steve didn't tell me a lot about you, Sam. Most of it I gathered myself. He told me you were stupid for helping him-”
Sam huffed.
“-and that.. if i couldn't.. if i didn't trust anyone, that I could trust you.”
Sam smiled somberly at that. “Yeah? And do you?”
More than anyone on Earth , he thought. And im stupid for it.
A breath. “I do.” And how could he say otherwise? He’d hated it at first, Steve telling him who to trust, as if he was just being tossed to be another person’s sidekick. As if he was property to be sold and gifted, which he was at one point. Now he almost wanted to be that, wanted to be Sam’s in a way he didn’t think would ever happen. He missed protection.
“I had a- you know I was in the army.”
“I do. Flying for the military in a bird costume.”
“Ha-ha. Never heard that one before. Anyway, I wasn't the only one who-.. who was on that assignment.”
“Riley,” Bucky breathed out, making Sam's mouth dry up.
“How do you-”
“When you and Steve were looking for me, I read about him in that museum. I was trying to find any loose threads I could about who I was, I was terrified you or Steve would find me, put me in prison.”
“We weren't going to-”
“I know. But I'd just found out I'd been killing for the Nazis for decades, and how do you defend that? Justify that? Ugh- anyway- I did my research on you. Tried to avoid places you or Steve had been before. I saw that name- ‘Riley’ , figured you must've been close. I forgot about it until now.”
He remembered turning those files over in his hands, those pictures, trying to imagine that relationship. Trying to remember how friendship felt. He'd people-watch, on top of his surveillance of his surroundings. Stare at kids—and creep out their moms—wondering what he looked like when he was that age. Wonder just how long it's been since he was that age.
“Then you know he's–”
“Yeah. I'm sorry, Sam.”
“It's– I don't want that again.” Sam turned off the car, the heating turning off with it, making it a little easier to breathe. If made the car quieter.
Part of Bucky, that same sliver tucked in his rib bones, wondered if Riley was more than Sam was saying. If it ever had the chance to be more.
“Want what?”
“To see that. Know my best friend was dead.”
Bucky gazed over the armrest at Sam's shiny eyes, his other features stone still. Bucky could recognize that expression as if it was a mirror in front of him.
“I won't.”
“You can't promise that.”
“Sam– I couldn't if I wanted to.” He smiled slightly.
“That's not as reassuring as you think it is.” Sam sniffled. “Why do you never text me when you go back to New York?”
“Do you want me to be honest?”
“Yes.”
“I can't let myself talk to anyone when I'm not looking them in the eye. Cuz then I'll tell the truth.”
Sam's eyes were big and brown and sad. He could never face them with who he was. In Romania he was scared for Steve to find him, in case he was a bad person. So he found out himself, found out he was. Then he hid.
He remembers when he first remembered he was gay, in a nightmare. Snuck right in along with the memories of killing ruthlessly, of his autonomy being violated. Those lingering looks he stole somehow felt on par.
“What's so bad about the truth?”
“What's not?”
Sam turned to look at the dashboard, both of them absentmindedly realizing they'd been sitting in the hospital parking lot for 20 minutes.
“You can be happy, Buck.”
“Doesn't it just hurt worse then?”
“If you lose it, yeah. You don't have to lose it.”
“What if I don't have that choice?”
“You will, if it's me.”
Bucky wanted to cry, or scream, or hit something. “It is you,” he said simply, calmly.
If it was a different world, maybe if Sam wasn't so scared, and if Bucky had been born a few decades later, they'd kiss right now. Bucky would lean over the armrest and wrap an arm around him. Instead, Sam started the car again and began the drive to the airport.
It took them 2 more months before they kissed, after several awkward conversations and subtlety that wasn't received. They were on the docks in Delacroix, Bucky's scars were fully healed, even if Sam could still picture the bloody scrapes on his cheek as if it was yesterday. Even if it took days for Sarah to convince Bucky that he was not allowed to do chores while he was injured. Even if the nightmares didn't go away.
He didn't go back to New York.