Work Text:
"On your left!" Sam Wilson turned to look at the guy passing him on his morning run. It was Steve Rogers, one of his fellow Americans, blasting through Olympic Village like some kind of track star. Sam pushed himself harder as the figure skater passed him, but he couldn’t keep up and slowed down as Steve rounded the corner ahead of him, vanishing out of sight. Steve passed him again on his second lap around the outside of their hotel. "On your left!" Sam tried not to curse at him. He didn’t even try to speed up to catch him this time. Steve passed him again as he started his fourth lap. "Don’t say it!" Sam shouted when he heard the other man’s feet behind him. "On your left!" Steve answered cheerfully. Sam groaned and tried again to keep up, but eventually had to throw in the towel.
Once he’d finished his run, Sam sat down under one of the trees to catch his breath. He knew he should probably just go inside and get ready for breakfast, since the sun was starting to come up. But then, as much as he loved his teammates, there was only so long he could spend with them without feeling pressured to be either more relaxed (and more inclined to party it up now that they were at the Village and away from the cameras) or more serious (because they wanted to win gold, didn’t they?). So he let himself just lean back against the tree and breathe for a while instead.
Steve Rogers finished - Sam didn’t even know how many laps. More than Sam had done, anyway. He walked up to Sam, smirking. ”Need a medic?”
Sam groaned, resting his head back against the tree. ”I need a new set of lungs. Dude, how many laps did you just do? You’re not even winded. You going out for the track team in the Summer Games or something?”
Steve shrugged. ”Nah, just got a late start. Trying to make up for it by going a little faster.”
Sam laughed. ”Ah. Well in that case, you should be ashamed of yourself. You should take another lap.” He flicked his head to the side, then back to Steve. ”Did you just take it? I’m gonna assume you just took it.”
Steve laughed, head thrown back, and the laughter rippled visibly through his stomach muscles, which his skin-tight underarmor did nothing to disguise. Sam tried not to feel awkward about the 6-pack he wasn’t keeping under his own gray training sweatshirt. Steve looked like a mannequin, or maybe one of those life-sized models they kept in anatomy classrooms to show how all the muscles went together. Sam just looked like a pretty average guy. Or, at least, pretty average for an athlete.
"Dude, help me up," Sam said after a moment, trying not to think too hard about the other guy’s abs.
Steve grabbed his hand and hauled him effortlessly up to his feet. He introduced himself “Hi, I’m Sam Wilson.”
"Steve Rogers,” the skater answered.
"Yeah, I know who you are." Sam answered. Steve had about an inch and a half on Sam, and his shoulders looked even broader now that Sam wasn’t looking up at him. Sam whistled. "Didn’t realize you were so tall, though. I thought figure skaters were supposed to be the little guys.” Sam was far from the biggest guy on the hockey team, so he was used to being towered over. But most of his teammates were built like bricks and Steve wasn’t. He was somehow both broad and slender at once, more of a triangle than a square, and Sam wasn’t sure how to feel about that.
Steve’s face suddenly closed off. ”I used to be. But not anymore.”
Sam nodded. ”I got a cousin like that. Tiniest guy in his class until the year we turned 19, and then he hit that last growth spurt like he’d been saving up for it his whole life.”
Steve looked levelly at him, said, “It wasn’t like that for me,” and then walked off. Sam almost stopped him, but something in the other man’s manner told him not to. Steve’s shoulders looked stiff, and Sam wondered what he’d done wrong.
***
The next time he saw Steve Rogers, the figure skater was sitting in the stands at the hockey practice rink, back leaned up against the wall. He had a sketchbook on his knees and was drawing in it like he was lost to the world. Sam almost left him to it, but then he heard some of the other guys snickering about how Steve probably had a crush on somebody. It turned into a string of how-gay-is-figure-skating jokes, and Sam didn’t have any patience for that kind of crap. He climbed up into the stands to talk to Steve until the coach showed up.
Rogers had clearly come from some kind of in-costume practice, because what little Sam could see under the collar of the zipped-up brown leather jacket was blue and white and glittery. Sam wasn’t sure what the costume’s pants were like, because Steve had pulled a pair of sweatpants on over them. Sweatpants with cargo pockets, which somehow seemed very Steve, though he couldn’t say why since he hadn’t even known the guy for a whole day yet. He was wearing a ridiculous-looking pair of loose sneakers in a bright blue that screamed “endorsement deal” and that definitely weren’t the ones he’d been running in this morning.
"Hey man, isn’t your training rink on the other side of the complex?" Sam asked.
Steve looked up at him, shrugging. ”Yeah. Not my time to practice, though. Figured one private, American-booked place is as good as the next if I’m not on the ice anyway.” He bit his lip. ”And anyway, I kind of wanted to apologize for being short with you this morning.”
Sam smiled, trying to seem encouraging. ”It’s alright. We all have off days or… whatever.” He sat down on the bench behind Steve and looked over his shoulder at the sketchbook. Steve was drawing the background now, a circus scene, but what he’d already drawn was a monkey on a unicycle, riding across a tightrope. It had a set of skates in its right hand and an umbrella in its left and its big smile seemed completely fake. It was also wearing some kind of costume with - Sam whistled. ”Dude, I heard you were debuting a new costume for the Olympics, but they don’t really have you in stars and stripes, do they?”
Steve tipped his head back against the wall, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment before opening them again. ”Worse,” he said, zipping open his jacket to reveal the top part of his costume, “Glitter stars and stripes.” There was some kind of fabric visible through the holes in the sequins, but Sam wasn’t sure what it was, and it looked like it might be a separate layer beneath a full shirt made entirely of sequins. The top half was blue, with a white star across the middle of Steve’s chest, and the bottom half was all wide red and white stripes.
Sam whistled. ”Those go all the way down?”
Steve rolled his eyes. ”Nah. I got lucky. The sequins stop at the waist. Not sure they’d have gotten me into it if they didn’t.”
Steve’s hands flittered toward the zipper on the jacket, but then he seemed to change his mind and left it hanging open instead. The sequin shirt was almost as skintight as his underarmor had been this morning, but the sequins kept it from showing off his muscles in quite so much definition. The lights overhead reflected off of Steve’s chest and made little lights dance across Sam’s arms and shirt with each of Steve’s breaths. Steve had to feel like there was a spotlight shining on him at all times.
"That’s still rough, man," Sam said, "And not very subtle."
Steve laughed. ”Yeah, subtlety’s not really my agent’s strong suit. But hey, no pressure, right? Just gotta go out there in a giant American flag and try not to screw it up.”
Sam groaned. ”And aren’t you skating to a patriotic medley or something?”
Steve laughed. ”Like I said - subtlety’s not really my agent’s strong suit. But at least he let me back stuff off on the costume for the short program. I think I’d die if I had to go out like this both times.”
Sam wasn’t sure what to say, but his coach arrived before he could figure it out.
By the time Sam could glance into the stands again to find Steve, he’d zipped the jacket back up and put down the sketchbook to watch practice. When Sam caught his eye, the figure skater glanced down and blushed, like he hadn’t meant to get caught looking.
***
They went running together the next morning, Steve slowing down to run beside him this time. It turned out they both liked running outside better than on a treadmill even at the best of times, and that they were both avoiding the hotel’s gym on purpose because it was too loud and crowded.
It also turned out that Steve was single, which Sam tried not to get too excited about. He looked sad talking about his ex-girlfriend Peggy, a boxer he’d met at the gym near his house, and he said he still loved her. He also said he’d screwed up and iced her out when his mom died. They’d grown apart while he wasn’t talking to her and now that he was doing better, they couldn’t quite make it work. She’d moved on. She’d waited on him for a good long while, but then she’d found somebody else. He said he was glad she was happy. He didn’t sound glad. Sam nudged him in the side and challenged him to a race. The way Steve smiled at the end made losing totally worth it.
***
It wasn’t until the 3rd day of the Games that Sam really saw the media storm that surrounded Steve when he left the Olympic Village. The monkey on the highwire suddenly made more sense. Sam ducked his head and stayed out of the way. No need to cause more trouble to his new friend.
***
That night, Sam googled Steve for the first time. He’d known a bit about his fellow Olympian, but most of it had been pretty stock stuff. Figure skater, 23 years old, had burst suddenly onto the scene 3 years ago and won both the US and World Championships ever since, generally considered a safe bet for a medal, and everyone figured it was going to be gold. Now he was seeing a totally different side of the other man. Steve had been sickly as a child, with a mile-long list of ailments. But they’d all gone away 4 years ago, when he’d grown something like 7 inches in a month and a half and his heart and respiratory problems had vanished. No one knew why or how, but since they couldn’t prove it had been drugs and his tests all came back clean now, he was allowed to compete.
Sam also read about Steve’s mom’s death the previous year. She’d been a nurse and she’d gone down fighting, and as sad as Steve still seemed to be about shutting Peggy Carter out in the aftermath, Sam wasn’t sure he could blame the guy. It was hard becoming an orphan no matter how old you were. A smaller article said his best friend had died in a skiing accident the same year. No wonder he’d been closed off. It must have been a lot to deal with.
Steve’s life seemed to be run by a PR agent and a coach, now, and there were almost more interviews with them than there were with Steve. Dancing monkey, indeed. Sam pursed his lips at the computer, trying not to let it piss him off. Steve deserved better than getting squashed into the life somebody else wanted for him. But Sam wasn’t sure he could do anything about it.
***
Sam sat in on Steve’s next practice. He’d expected to just sit in the corner and be mostly ignored, like Steve had at the hockey practice the other day. Instead, a vaguely unpleasant man in a suit with an American flag pin on the lapel came over to tell him to leave, and he only got to stay because Steve shouted into the stands that he should. For the rest of the practice, the guy in the suit, probably Steve’s agent, glared periodically at Sam until he felt like he maybe should have left after all.
But then Steve did a full run-through of his long program, directing all his gestures at Sam, and he was glad he’d stayed. Steve was strong and fast and breathtaking. Sam wasn’t sure what exact emotions Steve was trying to get out as he skated to the steady rhythms of a string of marches, but whatever they were, they were strong and fierce and they almost hurt to watch. Sam cheered like it was a real performance, even though he had meant to stay quiet and out of the way.
***
Steve’s short program was his worst of the season. Sam missed it, because it was at the same time as one of his hockey games, but he watched it on TV once he got back to the hotel. Steve’s jumps were flawless and every step in the footwork sequence was timed perfectly. But he was dead behind the eyes, glaring out at the world, and his body seemed to be going through the motions without his brain. His technical scores were high, but the artistic ones… not so much as they could have been. He looked completely different from the man Sam had seen in practice yesterday. Sam didn’t understand it.
Steve came in fourth after the short program and wouldn’t talk to anybody. They’d traded phone numbers once they’d realized their morning runs were becoming a thing, but he didn’t even answer Sam’s texts. He also missed their usual morning run the next day. Sam texted him again, starting to feel worried, but there was still no answer.
***
When there was a knock on Sam’s door in the middle of the night before Steve’s long program, he assumed it was someone looking for his roommate, Mike. But then he realized Mike wasn’t home. Mike had been one of the hardest partiers on the team since they got here, which Sam wasn’t really happy about. And now whoever was looking for him had woken Sam up and forced him out of bed. He tried not to glare as he opened the door, but he wasn’t sure he’d succeeded.
Steve Rogers was standing on his doorstep, soaked to the skin and with dripping wet hair sticking to his forehead. It was raining outside, and apparently Steve had been out in it. ”Hey,” he said, looking shaken.
"Hey," Sam answered, not sure what else to say. He could feel his face softening. He hoped Steve hadn’t noticed his initial annoyance.
"Can I - I mean… Are you alone? Can I… it’s just, I don’t have anybody to talk to."
Steve was usually so confident. Sam didn’t like seeing him this way. But he also didn’t like the idea of leaving him in the hallway for everyone else to see this way. ”Yeah, of course!” he said, “Come on in. ’Cause I mean… there’s not nobody you can talk to.”
He knew that sentence was weird and awkward, but apparently Steve understood, because his face broke into a smile. It was, admittedly, a somewhat weak one, but it was better than him sitting there looking like a sad half-drowned puppy.
Steve walked in and sat down on the side of Sam’s bed, running a hand through his wet hair. ”Thanks, man. And sorry. I just… I don’t know what happened in the short program, and now I’ve got to go out there and do the long program tomorrow night and everybody’s mad at me already and I just… What if I screw it up? I’m wearing the American flag. They’ll never forgive me.”
Sam didn’t know what to say. He almost sat across from Steve on Mike’s bed, but then changed his mind and sat down next to Steve instead, hoping the motion would give him a little time to think.
Steve didn’t let him say anything. ”Sorry man, I… I don’t mean to dump all that on you. You can… I mean, just ignore me, it’s fine.”
Sam laughed. ”I’m not gonna ignore you, dude. It’s fine. And anyway, I’m gonna be a Sports Psychiatrist someday, so it’s really fine.”
Steve turned to look at him, one eyebrow raised. ”Really? I didn’t know that.”
Sam nodded. ”Yeah. I mean, there’s still a long way to go. I’m graduating college this year with a pre-med psych degree and I took some sports-related classes on top of the hockey thing, but… you know, still applying to med school, and then there’s the psych residency after that. And, I mean, I’m not really looking forward to another 8 years of schooling but I just… My dad’s a minister, and he’s certified as a counselor and I’ve seen how much that part of his job helps people, even people who aren’t ready for all that church stuff yet. And I always thought that was what I wanted to do, but then I got better at hockey and I started looking at all those top-notch athletes and thinking they’re not gonna want to go into my dad’s old church down the road. They’re not down on their luck and they’re not that desperate, but that doesn’t mean they don’t need help, it just means they’re gonna look for it someplace they don’t think will judge them. So I’m doing sports psychiatry.”
He suddenly realized that had been quite the wall of words, but Steve didn’t seem to mind. Actually, he looked a little less shaky than he had when he came in. ”That’s great, Sam,” he answered quietly.
He sounded sad, and Sam almost said something, but Steve could read his face and grabbed his arm to stop him.
"No, Sam, I mean it," he said, voice stronger now, "I think that’s great. I’m glad you’re gonna help people. I don’t even know what I want to do next week, much less 8 years from now."
Sam did the math in his head, “Well, I mean, you’ll still only be 31. It would be pushing it, sure, but you might even be here again!”
Steve shuddered - actually shuddered! - and Sam suddenly realized he’d been reading this whole thing wrong. ”Yeah, but I’m not sure I want to be.” Steve answered.
"Oh," Sam said, "So you’re thinking about getting out."
Steve leaned forward to prop his elbows on his knees and ran his hand through his hair again. ”Yeah. I guess. Maybe. But then I’m not.”
Sam leaned back onto his elbows, thinking for a moment. ”Well, I mean… do you still like doing it?”
Steve turned to look over his shoulder at him, faking a smile that vanished again almost immediately, then looked back down at the ground. ”I don’t know anymore.”
Sam raised an eyebrow. ”Not even about the skating itself?”
Steve shook his head. ”Not even about the skating itself. It just hasn’t been the same, since…” he didn’t say since what, but Sam could fill in the blanks. Since his mom died, since Bucky died, since he and Peggy broke up, since a lot of things.
"So why are you still doing it, then? Is this whole Olympics thing just finishing what you started, or did you still want to be here?"
"Yes." Steve answered, before immediately following it with a "No." He leaned back onto his elbows beside Sam and sighed. "I don’t know. I mean, this was - is what I was supposed to be doing, I guess. But it doesn’t feel like I thought it would feel. I remember wanting to represent America, wanting to make everybody proud, wanting to get that medal, but I’m not sure what the point of wanting it is anymore. Am I supposed to be winning this for America, or is it just for Nike and Ralph Lauren and Smuckers grape jelly? And, I dunno, maybe I’ll just keep doing it. It’s got structure, and I know what to expect, and I’ve got my coach and everybody, which is probably better than being alone, but… I don’t know anymore, Sam. I don’t know about anything anymore. I just show up where they tell me to show up and do what they tell me to do, and I don’t know anything about it anymore. I don’t even know why I’m doing it.”
That was a lot. Sam felt like he needed to say something, but he was still processing it all, even as Steve turned to look at him and met his eyes and started blushing. Steve opened his mouth, and Sam could feel another apology coming, so he just said the first thing he could think of to cut Steve off. ”So, yeah, maybe do something else. You could do whatever you want to do. What makes you happy?”
Steve sighed. ”I don’t know that anymore, either.”
"That’s rough, dude."
"Yeah."
Sam wished he were better trained for this moment. ”Well,” he asked, trying to sound reasonable, “When was the last time you were happy? Or… I guess that was probably before-” he waved his hand because he wasn’t sure what should go after before. ”But when was the last time you were happy since then?”
Steve slid off of his elbows and onto his back, putting his hands over his face. ”The day before yesterday.”
Sam nudged Steve’s elbow with his own. ”So that’s not too bad then, is it? What happened the day before yesterday?”
Steve kept covering his face. ”You came to practice.” His face was covered, but his ears were turning red. Sam felt himself starting to blush a little bit, too.
"Oh."
"It was nice. That you did that." Steve said quietly.
Sam wasn’t sure exactly what Steve meant by that. But he needed to say something, so he did. ”Well, that’s the problem solved, then. I’ll just have to come to your long program.”
Steve uncovered his face and looked up at him, hopefully. ”Really?”
Sam shrugged. ”Sure. I mean, I’m sure I can find a way to get tickets.”
Suddenly, Steve groaned, putting his hand over his face again. ”No, Sam, you can’t come. You’ve got a game. I remember, ‘cause I was gonna get tickets for the next time you guys played, but it’s right when the long programs start. I’ll be in the last group, but you still won’t be out in time.”
Sam hadn’t thought about that. He should have. Of course he should have. But Steve, sprawled out on the bed next to him, looked completely miserable, and he heard himself talking before he could really get a handle on his mouth. ”You’ll be in the last group. I’ll find a way to make it.”
"No," Steve said, rolling up off the bed and onto his feet in a sudden, swift motion that reminded Sam of just how strong Steve was. "Don’t worry about me," he said, not meeting Sam’s eyes as Sam clambered up behind him, feeling a thousand times more awkward than the figure skater. "I’ll be alright. I should just get some sleep before tomorrow." He turned to look at Sam, holding his eyes for a moment before looking away again. "Thanks for the offer, though. It means a lot. And thanks for… you know, chilling me out or whatever."
As Steve let himself out, Sam tried to figure out how he was going to get to Steve’s competition in time. He’d just have to hope the game didn’t go into overtime. And he’d have to figure out how to get tickets to get into the building.
***
Steve didn’t show up for their run the next morning. But someone else did instead, a petite red-haired woman Sam recognized as one of the American snowboarders. Natasha Romanov. She had been born in Russia, but she was an American citizen, now, and she was competing for America. He’d seen an interview with her the other day, while he was watching coverage of the stuff he’d missed.
"Sam Wilson, right?" she asked.
He nodded. ”Umm… Yeah?”
"Steve won’t give this to you," she said, shoving a ticket at him, "But he should. He and I are only barely friends, but I know he wants you to come. So come."
Sam took the ticket. ”I’ve got a game. I don’t know if I can make it.”
Natasha looked him straight in the eye, totally unintimidated by him. ”Find a way. He’s a good guy, and he hasn’t got a lot of people he cares about in his life. When you’re down to me for friends, you’re really scraping the bottom of the barrel.”
Sam tucked the ticket into the pocket of his basketball shorts. ”I’m sure you’re not that bad.”
Natasha turned on her heel and walked away. ”Just find a way, Wilson. If I gotta deal with a gloomy Steve Rogers every time we run into each other at the sports agency for the next four years, I’m gonna hurt somebody.”
***
Sam did find a way. He stashed the ticket in his gym bag and kept an eye on the clock, and when the game ran into overtime, he kept checking the time, over and over. One of his teammates scored. The game was over. They’d won. They were going to the semi-finals. He took his skates off so that he could move on normal ground, then nearly ran out the door, grabbing his bag out of the locker room to catch the bus without even bothering to put his skates away. They dangled around his neck, and he tried not to think too hard about the fact that he was about to be barefoot on a shuttle full of strangers. He’d forgotten his shoes in his locker, but didn’t want to go back for them.
He didn’t have his shoes, but he had his ticket, and when the ticket guy told him he had to wear shoes to go in, he stuck the blade guards on his skates and laced them back on. It was good enough. He was teetering on them like a middle school girl in her first pair of heels, but it was good enough. Steve was the last skater of the night. The next to last guy was on now.
Now that he was looking at the ticket, he realized that it wasn’t just a ticket, it was a pass to go down into the rink-side floor area. Sam whistled. ”What did you do, Romanov?” he wondered. Nobody got these. Not even the skaters’ parents. But it was fine. It was good. It was maybe even better this way.
He came up behind Steve’s agent just as Steve was stepping onto the ice. The man said “You can’t be here,” but Sam ignored him, shoving past him to lean on the wall that separated him from the ice. ”Go Steve!” he shouted, hoping his voice would carry. It did, and Steve turned quickly around, his eyes meeting Sam’s almost immediately and his face breaking into a smile as bright as the sequins on his chest. Sam gave him a thumb’s up.
When Steve’s music started, it was like the man had caught on fire. It was the best performance of the night. It might have been the best performance of the Olympics. Steve looked at the judges like he was performing for them, but then glanced over his shoulder just once at Sam and it was enough to make Sam’s knees go wobbly underneath him. He couldn’t even pretend it was because he was still standing on his skates.
By the end, the crowd was going wild, even the parts of it that shouldn’t be cheering so hard for the end of a big orchestral version of “Yankee Doodle Boy.” Steve acknowledged the crowd at length, but kept glancing over his shoulder at Sam, too, until the hockey player was sure he must be blushing.
Steve stepped off the ice and flung his arms around Sam’s hockey-padded shoulders in a brief, ecstatic hug before he put his skate guards on and got whisked away to the kiss-and-cry bench, where Sam was actually not allowed to go.
When his scores were announced, they were a new personal best. Steve buried his face in his hands, and Sam started doing math in his head. He’d read the leaderboard when he was putting his skates back on at the entrance. He knew what Steve needed to get to win. He figured it out a second before it was announced officially. Steve Rogers had just won the gold.
At the second announcement, Steve uncovered his face, beaming, and turned to wave at the crowd. He didn’t look like he’d been crying, just like he’d been too floored by emotions to try to express them, before, and he’d figured it out now. Sam was reminded, for a moment, of the dancing monkey, but then Steve met his eyes and he knew the smile was genuine this time. It stayed genuine as he turned to the crowd a second time. Steve was happy. The sad drowned puppy who had shown up outside his room last night was gone. Sam was smiling so hard his cheeks hurt.
As the silver and bronze medalists made their way out and the flags were passed around for the medalists to take their victory lap on the ice, Steve came over to Sam. It was still deafeningly loud, and he almost had to shout for Sam to hear him. ”I’m so glad you came, man! I didn’t think you’d make it!”
Sam laughed, shouting back, “Dude, when a guy in a sparkly American flag costume asks you to do something, you gotta help him out. There’s no better reason to hustle.”
Steve laughed, “Yeah, I figured you’d had to bust it to get here. You’re still in uniform and everything!”
Sam nodded. ”And my skates. But it’s ok, Romanov got me a pass to get in.”
Steve looked down at Sam’s feet, surprised. ”Wow, you were in a hurry!”
Sam grinned. ”Well, you know, I couldn’t miss the performance of a century, could I?”
Steve grabbed his hand, suddenly, a flash of nervousness running across his face for a moment before he shouted, “Yeah, well, if you’d missed it, it wouldn’t have beenthe performance of a century, anyway.”
Sam blushed again, wrapping his fingers around Steve’s and wondering if it was supposed to be real hand-holding or if Steve had just grabbed his hand for emphasis. But then the silver medalist was coming up behind Steve and Steve was letting go of his hand and going out on the ice.
Steve made it around the ice once, American flag held high over his head and fluttering behind him, and he was supposed to keep going into a second lap, but he stopped, instead. ”Sam, come on!” he said, reaching a hand out toward him.
Sam’s heart skipped a beat. ”Dude, I don’t think I’m allowed!” he shouted back.
Steve waved for him, “Dude, I don’t think I care!”
Sam laughed, and in a moment of bravery, he went for it, pushing past Steve’s shocked coach and slipping off his skate guards. Steve had skated toward him the moment he came over to the entrance, and before Sam knew it, the figure skater had a hand in his and was pulling him onto the ice. ”Take the other side of the flag!”
Sam followed directions, but he felt a little weird about it. ”I’m surprised they’re not sending security,” he commented, “I’m not even in this sport!”
Steve squeezed his hand, and this time Sam was sure that this was supposed to be hand-holding. ”Yeah, but I wouldn’t have won without you, Sam!”
Sam squeezed Steve’s hand back, ready to tell Steve he’d have been great on his own, too, but the figure skater didn’t let him say it.
"I was sitting backstage, and I knew I couldn’t do it. I knew it. I couldn’t do it, and I didn’t even want to try, really. But then there you were. And all of a sudden, I could. ’Cause I needed to. Or maybe just wanted to, I dunno, but - if I hadn’t had you to skate for, I’d never have done it. Never.”
Sam had no words. So he didn’t say any. He just focused on trying to stay on his feet with all these people watching and half an American flag in his right hand and his heart fluttering inside his chest like a teenager falling in love for the first time.
They made it around the ice, and started Steve’s third lap, Sam’s second. Just like when they were running. ”Hey, Steve,” he said, finding words again for the first time since Steve had given him credit for inspiring his medal, “Look how we’re skating. You’re-“
"On your left!" Steve finished delightedly, in unison with Sam.
Then Sam was leaning over and kissing Steve and he didn’t know where it had come from, but it didn’t matter, because Steve had twisted around and was kissing him back, his left hand wrapping around Sam’s face even with the American flag still held in it. Flashbulbs were going off everywhere, but they felt more like fireworks, like they were celebrating the moment.
They pulled apart, and the flashes kept going. ”Dang,” Sam groaned, “Guess I’m gonna have to get used to being a dancing monkey, huh?”
Steve laughed, pulling him in for another kiss. When they pulled apart, he said, “Yeah, sorry about that. You don’t have to do it, you know. We could… I dunno, say it was a fit of… uh, something. The emotions of the moment.”
Sam laughed, “Yeah, but then I’d not be going out with you, and we’re definitely not doing that. I can get used to dancing monkey.”
"You can?" Steve asked.
"When do we start?"
Steve laughed. ”We’ll have to get off the ice at some point. But I think the circus can wait for one more kiss.”
Sam grinned, taking Steve up on the offer. The circus was going to have to wait. Because this moment was still for them. And it was a darned good moment.