Chapter Text
“Are you entirely sure you’ve thought this through, Clint?” Sam asked carefully, in a tone of voice that translated to ‘I’m entirely sure you haven’t thought this through, Clint.’
“Yeah,” Clint said cheerfully. “It’s gonna be fun.”
“Listen, don’t be offended by this, because I mean it in the best possible way, I really do, but to be perfectly honest, this is the kind of plan that Steve would come up with. No offense.”
“I’m telling Tasha you said that,” Clint said, flopping over sideways and hooking his legs over the back of the couch so his head dangled towards the floor.
“Tell her,” Sam retorted. “It’s still true.”
“And what exactly is your objection?”
“You want to know my objections to your brilliant plan?”
“Yep.”
“Your plan to secretly track down and capture Bucky, without letting Steve know what’s going on, and give him to Steve as a Christmas present?”
“Mm-hm.”
“Well.” Sam sighed. “I could point out that the last time we saw him, he kicked Natasha’s and Steve’s asses, along with about a hundred S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, and blew up a significant chunk of DC. I could also note that he’s basically a human ghost, and the final word in counterintelligence, and nearly impossible to track, and that we haven’t had a single solid lead on his whereabouts since the helicarrier battle. But I’m kinda tired and more than a little hung over, so I’m gonna go for the low-hanging fruit here and point out that Christmas was, in fact, yesterday.”
“That’s a matter of perspective,” Clint argued.
“It’s really not,” Sam insisted. “I mean, dude, the calendar is right there on the wall.”
“Haven’t you ever heard of the Twelve Days of Christmas? If the Wise Men can show up almost two weeks late to the party, then so can we. Besides, Christmas isn’t a date, it’s, like, a state of mind.”
Sam sighed again, and leaned back in his armchair. “So when do you think Christmas ends, then?”
“May, usually,” Clint said cheerfully.
Sam stared at him, deadpan. “Maybe in the Barton-Romanoff household, but out here in the real world, you’re pushing it if you try to stretch Christmas out past New Year’s.”
“Just the Romanoff household, actually. I’m planning to take her name if she ever stops dragging her feet and pops the question.”
“Don’t change the subject, man. The point is that you’re going to have a hell of a time explaining to Steve why he’s opening a Christmas present in May. So unless you plan on taking a full year to find Bucky—or worse, finding him and then hiding him somewhere until next Christmas, which I want to go on record as saying I am strongly against—you’ve got, like, a week tops before shit gets weird. Assuming you can even find him, which, again, is really unlikely.”
“Don’t be such a downer.” Clint rolled his eyes. “Where’s your Christmas spirit? It’s the time of miracles, y’know.”
Sam buried his face in his hands. “Why do you do this, Sam?” he mumbled under his breath. “Why do you surround yourself with spies and superheroes and genetically modified soldiers, all you get is stress and headaches and dangerously high blood pressure, why do you get yourself into these things…”
Out loud, he asked, “Do we at least have a plan?”
Clint passed him a slip of paper. Sam read it over. Then read it again. Then stared at Clint for a minute, then read it again.
“You can’t be serious.”
Clint grinned like a maniac.
***
“Why do I let you talk me into these things?” Sam moaned, tugging at his scarf to cover an exposed spot on his neck. Natasha smiled and slipped her arm through his, pulling it close.
“Because I’m adorable and because I could kill you with my pinky finger,” she said sweetly. “Keep your eyes open, he’s here somewhere.”
“How reliable is your intel, exactly?” Sam asked hesitantly.
She glared at him from the corner of her eye. “I don’t go on wild goose chases, flyboy. He’ll be here.”
“I’m not doubting you,” Sam hurried to add. “It’s just… ‘here’ is a high school marching band performance.”
“It’s not marching band, it’s drumline,” Natasha said distractedly, scanning the crowd.
“Oh, well, in that case,” he muttered wearily to himself. Natasha heard him and laughed.
“It’s not as weird as it sounds. The high school he and Steve went to together closed years ago; this is the one that now covers the school district where they lived. Odds are he’s retracing his past, trying to figure out what’s real.”
“That…almost makes sense,” Sam admitted. He looked around warily, trying to catch a glimpse of a now-familiar face. The football bleachers were packed with parents, all attention focused on the line of a dozen percussionists beating out intricate rhythms on their instruments and marking precise patterns with their feet.
They had only been searching for about fifteen minutes when Clint’s voice came through their earpieces. “Got him. Southeast corner, lurking by the concession stand. I’m gonna circle in from outside, you two take the inside and we’ll try and surprise him.”
“Man, this is a bad idea,” Sam muttered under his breath to Natasha as they wormed their way through the crowd. “The dude is dangerous, especially if we back him into a corner. Shouldn’t we be trying to evacuate people first?”
“And spook him?” Natasha shook her head. “He’s in an isolated part of the stadium, shouldn’t be anyone to get caught in the crossfire. If there is crossfire. Remember, he’s trying to disappear; he doesn’t want to draw attention to himself, especially official attention. As long as he thinks there’s a chance he can get out quietly, he won’t do anything that’ll cause a scene. There he is!”
She pulled Sam into a shadow, and they stared out from it across the empty space. Bucky made a forlorn figure standing there alone, hood drawn up over his face and hands shoved in his pockets, watching the drummers play, motionless as a statue.
Natasha murmured into her comm. “Clint, are you in position?”
His whispered ‘ready’ came back, just as quiet. She nodded grimly to Sam.
“On my mark. Three, two, one…mark!”
She threw herself out of the shadow, Sam sweeping in her wake. Bucky was caught off guard for an instant, but recovered just as quickly. He was moving more stiffly than before and favoring his left side, but with Natasha holding back to avoid any serious injury, they were still evenly matched, trading sweeps and blows with neither gaining the upper hand.
Sam waited, tensed, until he saw Bucky throw Natasha back off-balance and turn to make a run for it. Springing forward, he threw himself at Bucky, intending to rugby-tackle him to the ground. But instead, Bucky twisted sideways and rolled Sam over his hip, pinning him to the ground. Their faces only inches apart, Sam caught a brief glimpse of confusion and anger before Bucky was gone, sprinting off into the darkness.
Wincing, Sam accepted Natasha’s outstretched hand gratefully, letting her haul him to his feet. The sounds of a brief scuffle died out, and were replaced by a dejected Clint trudging up to them, one hand over what looked like a very promising black eye.
“So, back to the drawing board?” Sam said with false heartiness after a moment, trying to lighten the mood.
Natasha shook her head. She looked up at him and smiled. The gleam in her eye sent a shiver down Sam’s spine. “How long do you think it’ll take him to find it?” she asked Clint, who grinned back.
“I’d say not until he gets back to his base,” Clint replied. “We won’t have time to set up an ambush, but he won’t have time to conceal where he’s going next.”
“And now we just run him to ground,” Natasha concluded. A lightbulb went on in Sam’s head.
“You planted a tracking device on him,” he sighed, rubbing his face with one hand.
“Well, yeah, I mean that was the plan,” Clint said, staring at him in confusion. “Did you—did Natasha not tell you the plan?”
“No, Natasha did not tell me the plan,” Sam said pointedly, glaring at her.
She smirked at him, completely unrepentant. “This was funnier,” she shrugged.
“Why do you do this to yourself, Sam,” he muttered under his breath. “These people are crazy.”
Clint patted him on the shoulder sympathetically. “I wanna watch the rest of the show,” he announced. Natasha followed him down the bleachers, Sam trailing after them.
“Aren’t we gonna follow him?”
“No point,” Natasha called over her shoulder. “We won’t be able to stop him unless we can get ahead of him, and we won’t be able to track him any further than his current safehouse tonight anyway. We’ll get there first thing in the morning tomorrow and see what we can find out. Don’t worry, it’s only a matter of time now.”
They stood shoulder-to-shoulder, watching the twelve drummers play through their finale. Sam felt a strong arm wrap back around his.
“Don’t be such a sourpuss,” Natasha murmured. “Just imagine the look on Steve’s face.”
“It’s been way too long since I’ve seen him really smile,” Sam agreed. “If we can really pull this off…”
“Well, if there was ever a time of year for a hail mary, it’s Christmas,” she said, leaning into his shoulder.