Chapter Text
Sam Wilson thinks he is funny. He is wrong, of course, but the damage has been done.
You cringe as you hear Bucky yell obscenities from the next room over, where Sam has glued Bucky's coffee mug to the breakfast table.
"I was gone two minutes! Two!" he bellows from the kitchen. Something crashes in the distance. It's followed by, "God damn it, Wilson. My fruit salad, too??"
Sam bursts into the lounge, cackling to himself, scrolling through what are probably pictures of Bucky five seconds away from murdering somebody.
There are general noises of disgruntlement before Bucky pops his head through the door and squints at Sam. "You're a dead man." He shakes his fork at him for emphasis.
"Oh no, not again! I just paid off my life insurance!" Sam snickers from beside you on the couch.
You sigh and take an extra-long sip from your coffee cup.
Sam Wilson is one of your best friends.
You would argue that out of all the Avengers, except maybe your boyfriend, Sam is the kindest, humblest, and most trustworthy person you have ever had the pleasure to meet. He'll give you the shirt off his back without asking. He's that nice.
He is also a little shit.
"Do you have a death wish?" you ask him for the twelfth time that afternoon, trying to yell over the crowd of people in the market. It's been only one week since the glue incident, and there is new trouble brewing.
"What?" Sam yells back, struggling to hear you over the pile of Winter Soldier merchandise in his arms. Pillows, toys, even underwear - the market is a real treasure trove of Avengers merch, and Sam has a new idea for a prank.
"I said, do you have a death wish?"
You spot a t-shirt with a picture of Bucky with black tactical paint on his face and 'raccoon eyes, my beloved' written underneath, and silently add it to your basket. The market really has something for everyone, you think.
"This is going to be so great, trust me!"
You shake your head but assist Sam in trying to haggle the price with a merchant over a bootleg "Hydralicious" shampoo where Bucky's luscious hair is the main selling point. You could swear even his smile is photoshopped. It's great.
You know why Sam is doing all this, of course. That's why you can't be too angry. It's his way of including Bucky in the shenanigans the Avengers get up to outside of work.
Bucky is still uncomfortable joining the team dinners, and he never looks Tony in the eye when he's being spoken to. But every time he calls Sam a bird-brain, Tony high-fives him, and every time Sam gets Bucky to chase him around the tower with at least one knife in each hand and one between his teeth, the whole team cheers them on and places bets on which of Sam's appendages Bucky will break first for posting a side-by-side picture of Bucky and Grumpy Cat on Instagram.
The answer is none because you stopped the near-homicide by declaring the Grumpy Cat very, very cute and "Shut Up, Sam." Bucky walked proud that day.
It's not like Bucky doesn't know. That's why he plays along, playing up his outrage to near-ridiculous levels. Serious deadly HYDRA assassin, who? He once spent an entire day moving all of Sam's furniture two inches to the left so he'll run into it when he gets back from the mission.
That's just how the both of them are. Raunchy, rude, and rambunctious.
Men, you think to yourself.
But you still let Sam carry your heavy shopping bags as he talks your ear off about the cupcake shop that does Avenger design on their orders. It's clear that he loves the team very much, Bucky included. And you adore Sam for it.
Sam is the best.
"Sam is the worst."
Bucky shreds another bedcover with the Winter Soldier insignia. He just got back from a mission only to find the whole tower decked out like Christmas came early, and Bucky had just been instated as Saint Nicholas.
"Don't be so hard on him, Barnes. I think it adds a certain something to the living areas," Natasha chips in carefully.
Clint is biting down on his lips hard and looking up to heaven for strength.
"It's sure nice how many new blankets Sam got us, considering, you know, winter is coming," Tony keeps an overtly serious face, but he is full of shit as well.
You feel Steve next to you about to lose his cool and break out in laughter, so you punch him in the stomach repeatedly with your fist.
No one break, no one break, you silently beg. If there is even so much as a giggle coming from any of them, Bucky might actually do it. He might actually murder poor Sam.
Speaking of which, "Anyone got any lube? My latex Winter Soldier Arm just came in the mail!" Sam finally shows himself and joins the group. "Oh hey, Barnes? Are you back already?"
A deep sigh comes from the man, broken and tired.
"God, why me?" Bucky says to the sky and slumps down slowly on the nearest chair in defeat.
Except —
— Phffrrrrrr-t!
A long fart echoes around the room that is so very silent. You could hear a pin drop. You do actually hear Sam's blood drain from his face and flow to his legs, getting ready to run very, very fast.
Bucky silently reaches and tugs a whoopee cushion from beneath him. He breathes sharply when he sees the whoopee cushion has his face in the center.
And then he laughs. He laughs so hard his face gets red. The others join in tentatively but then relax as the laughs get louder.
Bucky raises and claps both of his arms around Sam's shoulders. "I had no idea you liked my face so much! This is so great!"
Sam laughs nervously, and Bucky smiles at him.
Then his grin takes on a different, almost sinister quality, and the grip around Sam's shoulder tightens.
"Seeing how that's the last thing you'll ever see," Bucky growls dangerously, his voice dropping threateningly low.
The space between Bucky's arms is a Sam-shaped cloud as the revered winged superhero sprints far away from almost certain death.
"Come back, Sammy-boy," Bucky croons in a sing-song voice, picking up a baseball bat that has a caricature drawing of Winter Soldier smiling so wide his jaw is about to drop off. Bucky taps the bat against his hand a couple of times before slowly making his way to where Sam disappeared off to, saying, "You have to choose which picture of me you prefer… On your tombstone!"
He leaves, and it is just you, a couple of Avengers, and about a hundred faces of Bucky staring back at you in the living room.
"So…," Natasha drawls. "You think we'll ever see Sam again?"
You answer with a sigh. "We better. Sam promised to teach me how to work our brand new Winter Soldier toaster."
There are faint screams from somewhere in the tower, but you all decide to mind your business and storm the kitchen for something to eat.
Two days later Bucky stomps his way through the hallway, scaring the bejesus out of S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel, who stick themselves against the walls like flies until he passes them by.
"Sam!!" he roars, his voice reverberating through the entire building.
You hear him through the open conference door. "Are you okay, baby?" you yell back.
He stops in the doorway, chest rising and falling like an angry bull who is about to beat the absolute shit out of some pompous matador who, frankly, has it coming.
"I'm actually going to kill him," he breathes through his teeth. "I'm actually going to kill that stupid Bird Boy, then revive him, then kill him again so I can make meat patties and force them down the throat of every single Falcon fan there is."
"That's- " You look up from his chest to his face. "Descriptive." Your face strains from trying not to laugh. You last five seconds before a squeaky balloon sound escapes your throat, and you press both of your hands against your mouth as Bucky's eyes zero in on you.
"You think this is funny?"
You think you're going to die. But then, what a way to go - the last thing you're going to see on this earth is Bucky's freshly dyed eyebrows that look like pink caterpillars on his face, and his patchy beard.
Wait, hold on. The patches look like, they really look like-.
"- Hearts! He shaved hearts in your beard!" You can no longer stand it and throw your head back in laughter.
Bucky holds on to the pretense of anger for a second longer, but it melts away when your laughs turn into giggles until you're smiling at him while wiping tears from your eyes.
"He did a Valentine's Day special on you, didn't he?"
One corner of Bucky's lips tugs upwards. "I look like a real loverboy, don't I?"
"Is that why I have such a 'heart'-on for you?"
Bucky is laughing at this point as well, trying to capture you in his arms to give you kisses for every heart currently on his face. You squirm and protest half-heartedly, citing workplace PDA rules and what-if-someone-comes-in. But in the end, his persistence wins against your poor attempt at keeping it professional in your workplace.
And that is how Bucky gets back at Sam, who comes into the conference room not even two minutes later, rubbing his hands, ready to see the grand finale of his prank. But - oh, the horror - the sight of the two of you dry-humping on Sam's designated chair traumatizes him for life and makes him rethink pranks for the foreseeable future.
As if that wasn't bad enough, you grab both of Bucky's butt cheeks and sigh wistfully, "I love you from the bottom of my heart!"
Sam physically recoils like a snake and fucks right out of the room.
Bucky has been promising to kill him for a while, but this is the tipping point, and for the first time in his life, Sam is actually begging for the sweet release of death. And for a bucket of bleach for his poor eyes.