Work Text:
Can we add soulmate timers with a twist? It counts down to when you meet the person that you’re going to fall in love with.
As usual, people tend to keep their timers covered. Bucky has to, his timers has straight zeroes listed in addition to a timer that implies that he’ll meet his soulmate really young. It makes him feel as if he must be broken or something. Just as well though, because Steve has an exact match on his arm.
When Bucky loses his arm, it’s assumed that he’s lost his timer as well. It doesn’t matter of course, considering that his public soulmate, Steve, is dead too.
Sam has the distinct pleasure of having a stupidly long time for his two soulmates (as if the wait for one wasn’t weird enough). After a while, he admits to feeling jaded enough to decide that it doesn’t matter who his soulmate is, he’ll fall in love with whoever he wants.
Until he meets Steve and one of his timers go off because...okay, yeah, he was kind of (sort of, okay seriously, maybe a lot) worth the wait.
But there’s still another one that he doesn’t really think about. And it’s months later; after Hydra, after the fall of SHIELD, after finally bringing James Barnes home. Things are so busy that he doesn’t even think about how close the other timer is to the end.
But then one day, Sam is hanging out with Barnes on his own and he (totally unintentionally) says something that makes Barnes laugh for the first time since the fall, his face lighting up as he relaxes and jokes back (albeit more shyly). And Sam thinks that the guy is actually kind of lovely this way and then there’s beeping going off in his head randomly, because his timer’s gone off. Which is weird because they’re the only ones in the room.
It takes him longer than he’d like to admit to realize that his timer went off because he finally met the person he was to fall in love with. Not “Bucky” from the 30s or the Winter Soldier, but Barnes, the guy that’s sort of in between.
Bucky (and Steve), on the other hand, already knew Sam was the one and figured that they were already on the same page and dating. Just, you know, taking things slow out of respect for Bucky trying to get used to being happy again.
A very long, awkward conversation ensues when Sam musters up the courage to actually ask Bucky out. Natasha records the entire thing with wide eyes and a (alarmingly wider) grin without even bothering to pretend to try and be subtle about it.