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“Sam,” Bucky says at the other end of the line, “Sam, I-”
Sam’s just woken up, sleep in his eyes still and mind fuzzy, but he sharpens quickly at the sound of Bucky’s voice.
“Sam, I’m losing my mind,” Bucky’s voice losing itself in sobs.
And that’s how Bucky ends up in front of Sam’s house the next day. Sam thinks some time near the sea and out of the busy streets of New York will do him some good. Sam’s town is perched just right by the ocean down south of Louisiana, where gulls sing and salt mixes with the air. It’s where Sam grew up and it’s the town he reminisces on the daily when he’s at work being the Falcon.
Sam ushers Bucky in, grabbing his bag from him and welcoming him into the guest room.
“There, I even cleaned it for you,” he says.
“I didn’t know you were capable of that.”
Sam chuckles. “I like my space spotless, so I thought-” he waves around the room. Bucky smiles.
“It’s perfect, thank you.”
“Uhuh.”
It’s not that Bucky is going crazy in that he’s falling back into the Winter Soldier, no, not quite. But he’s been forgetting things. And, again, you’d think that would be a good thing. But, he’s not forgetting some of the atrocious things he’s committed, the people he’s murdered, the trauma he’s caused people. His nightmares are still present and quite vivid, he remembers it all. What’s been confusing him is more recent things; where did he put his phone, what did he eat last night, what day it is, what year is he in…the one that scared him the most, though, is when he couldn’t recognize his therapists’ name when she called him for missing his appointment. And, then, he couldn’t recall what the name of one of his friends from the war, which had set him to dig through his personal belongings-the small pile that laid in the corner of his studio-and then frantically search the internet. It’s then he had called Sam for help.
Sam thinks it’s the trauma he’s gone through, the nightmares, and losing Steve.
“It happens a lot with ex-military when they go through something traumatic,” he tells him the next evening, as they’re sipping beer in front of the tv.
“You’ve been through a lot, Bucky.” His voice is soft and soothing to Bucky, so he thinks he’ll be alright. It’s going to be alright.
Bucky still has nightmares. Sometimes they are faded, distant, muted. Sometimes they are vivid, vibrant, and loud. He sees himself kill and torture innocent lives. He sees himself be tortured, his soul murdered. Veins injected, the words shouted, prosthetic arm armored, he feels himself choke the life out of countless of people. His ears ring at the screams, his eyes blinded by all the blood.
He wakes in a scream, his body drenched in sweat, his whole body trembling. Sam is already there, holding him by the shoulders.
“Bucky,” he says, “Hey, hey, hey,” his voice quiet. Soothing. Bucky is breathless, his mind in overdrive. He kicks his legs out of the covers. Sam sits next to him, his arms still holding him still, firm but gentle. Safe. And Bucky breaks. He’s not sure when’s the last time he’s cried, less so in front of someone. It’s embarrassing, really. He’s usually so tough and cutthroat, Steve was the emotional one. But, he can’t keep it all inside, and Steve is gone. He’ll be sure to pretend this never happened in the morrow, anyways. He quickly wipes his tears and thanks Sam for his concern, he will be just fine. But Sam isn’t really buying it. He knows Bucky will mellow over it all night and not get a single drop of sleep.
“Come get something to drink at least,” Sam says.
He pours him a tall glass of water and walks back to Bucky who’s sat down on the couch. He’s turned on something on the television. Some cartoon show plays, and it helps Bucky think of something else. Sam plops down next to him, and Bucky takes the glass and finishes it in quick gulps.
“Thanks,” he says. Sam nods, watching him.
They sit quietly and watch the cartoon. Sleep threatens Sam’s eyelids but he fights it relentlessly, unwilling to dose off when Bucky is still awake. If Bucky notices Sam’s quick head tilts, he doesn’t mention it.
Bucky eventually lets his head fall on Sam’s shoulder and that’s the end of Sam’s battle against sleep, and he lets himself drown in sweet darkness.
When Bucky wakes up, he’s on the couch. It takes him a few seconds to recall what happened; the nightmares, the quickest break down ever known to man, the couch, Sam’s shoulder. He thinks Sam must’ve gone back to bed and let him finish his night on the couch. He doesn’t mind, it is a comfortable couch.
“You drooled on my shirt, man,” Sam says, toing the pan of scrambled eggs as Bucky enters.
“I can…wash it?” Bucky hesitates, unsure of how to progress through this. Did Sam not go back to his own bed? Sam simply waves him off and offers him a plate of eggs.
“Here, eat.”
They go to Sam’s boat most days. Sam’s been thinking of selling it and put his house on the market to move somewhere else. He’s thinking he should go back to work, do something, serve. He tells himself it’s not because he’s lonely, definitely not, it’s because the world still needs heroes. Or something.
The boat needs a lot of fixing, and Bucky is surprisingly helpful when he wants to be. They work until late afternoon, removing parts, fixing engines, painting walls, changing batteries, cleaning, and washing floors. It’s busywork, and perfect for Bucky to shut his brain off for a few hours and focus on the tasks at hand. It’s easy, repetitive, and rhythmic. Sam doesn’t think too much of Bucky’s hands on his hips when he needs to take over the lever to squeeze a pipe shut. He certainly doesn’t notice his heart skip a beat when Bucky keeps doing it. Bucky is just so damn touchy. It’s to a point that Sam seeks him out so he can feel his hands on him again. He tells himself it’s because he actually needs help, and it’s not his fault Bucky is tactile, it just so happens that’s a thing he does. He’s not about to tell a man how to live his life. And Bucky doesn’t seem to catch on, so Sam continues.
Sam watches him, taking note of any behavior changes, any potential sign that could escalate into something ugly. But Bucky goes on without a scratch and without forgetting a single thing, and they end the day with bellies full of shrimp at Sam’s favorite bistro.
“Steve would’ve liked it here,” Bucky says one day. Steve would’ve spent his time by the water drawing birds and fishermen, Bucky thinks. Sam nods, watchful, searching for something in Bucky’s eyes that seems to only exist in bursts; love. Not necessarily love for a person, but love for life.
It’s been hard for Bucky since Steve took the stones back in time and failed to come back. It had felt like a betrayal. I’m with you until the end of the line. It kind of felt like a sick joke at that point, and if Bucky wasn’t good enough for Steve to come back and live out his days with him, then there really wasn’t a point to anything. His days slowly wasted trying to make amends with those he had wronged while also refusing to speak to his therapist of his turmoil. Because it simply did not matter.
But, Sam had kept on texting him well after Steve’s funeral. And Bucky wasn’t exactly sure why, but he didn’t mind it too much-not that he would ever admit that. He didn’t care, sure, but he still didn’t mind if his co-worker needed to process his loss in a different way. People grieve differently, after all. Bucky just wasn’t sure if he, himself, was grieving or slowly decomposing.
The thing with the couch happens almost every night. Bucky wakes from a nightmare, Sam’s already there, how is he so fast? And they move to the couch. They put the same cartoon on, and dose off to sleep. They start getting more comfortable; Sam half-lays down, because it’s his damn couch alright and he can sit however he may like, Bucky thinks, but then when Bucky lets sleep take over him, he slowly falls on Sam’s chest. Sam pretends he doesn’t have a choice but stay there. So he props his legs up on the couch and lets Bucky rest on him. If he leaves he might wake Bucky, and that’s about the last thing he wants.
Bucky thinks of saying something, like, you don’t have to. He’s always dealt with his nightmares alone, and he feels bad waking his friend up. So he brings earbuds one day, and Sam just frowns at him.
“I-” Bucky starts, and Sam simply arches his brows higher up, “Just that-” he waves vaguely towards his own room and points behind the couch. “I thought maybe-” Sam grabs the earbuds from Bucky’s hands and puts them straight in the trash, and that’s that.
It’s been over a month and the boat is like anew, and ready to be sold. Sam just needs to paint over the name of the boat. He sits there, brush in hand, paint dripping. It just doesn’t feel right. Selling the boat, that is. It’s a nice fishing boat. They could go crabbing, harvest shrimp in season, or settle for some finfish. They could sell the meat to the markets on Sundays. It could do them some good to be regular people for a while. So, Sam puts down the paintbrush.
“Well?” Bucky asks.
“Nah, man. I can’t do it,” he sighs and looks up at him. “Want to go fishing?” And Bucky’s smiles is almost as bright as the sun, and Sam needs to look away before it blinds him.
They go fishing early mornings. They crab more often than not, and sometimes they hit the water to simply watch the sunrise. It’s nice and peaceful. They’re able to breathe. Seabirds sometimes interrupt their silence and it feels like a song, one both Sam and Bucky do not mind. Silence can be deafening. It’s why Bucky had gotten used to falling asleep to the television still running when he was still back in New York, otherwise he’d start hearing the words. Longing. Rusted. Seventeen… A pair of gulls fly over them, strident in their calls. There’s nothing quite like a wild animal grounding you back to Earth.
They eventually hit the water whenever they feel like it. Which is pretty often; as it turns out, being no one in the middle of nowhere does some good to the brain. They crack beers open and let themselves be rocked by the waves.
“We fought Thanos,” Bucky says one evening, beer in hand, the sun slowly falling into the horizon.
And it’s the funniest shit Sam has heard in a while. He bursts out laughing, bending down and grabbing his stomach, and Bucky starts cackling.
“And we fucked up,” Sam responds, out of breath, teary-eyed. And they both go roaring. “We-we didn’t exist for a solid five years.” He lets out a strident laugh and Bucky’s laughing so hard he goes mute.
“Steve-Steve died an old man,” Bucky barely manages to get the words out. They’re hysterically laughing. “He-he always-he always told me,” Bucky makes quotation marks with his fingers, “until the end of the line.” He frowns, “Bitch, where?”
And Sam’s rib cage is about to burst. They laugh and laugh until their lungs combust and they’re gapping for air. Bucky is pretty sure he hasn’t laughed this hard in decades. Probably since he fell from the train all those years ago.
By the time they dock the boat, it’s midnight and stars illuminate the skies. Bucky thinks Sam is a little bit like the stars; he shines bright when Bucky grows dark. He’s like the light Bucky needed all along so he could see and navigate his shadowed world. He had thought Steve was enough, but Steve always had war on his mind. His soul constantly searching for battle.
Bucky has fought enough in his life, he thinks. Maybe it wasn’t Steve he had needed all along.
Bucky starts noticing things. He learns the way Sam likes his coffee and his toast, black and golden, and he makes a point of having it ready when Sam gets back from his run. He ignores the way his stomach warms and twists when Sam smiles and thanks him, squeezing his shoulder. He catches the way Sam’s arms flex as he pulls ropes to haul cages up into the boat. Bucky gives himself a second before stepping in to help, unconsciously putting his hands on Sam’s hips to move him over. He sees how Sam’s smile is a little wider when he talks to Bucky, and how quickly it falls when someone interrupts them. He sees his eyes shine when he mentions Riley and his past in the Air Force. He notices how his mind works and tries to puzzle things together when he holds the shield. Bucky can’t stop himself from staring when he wields and throws it. He also starts falling asleep on Sam’s chest, instead of unconsciously falling on him, and it’s then he feels Sam’s arms wrap themselves around him.
He starts thinking that he will be okay without Steve. He has Sam now.
They sell their crab and shrimp at the Sunday market. Their stand flows with people, not because they recognize the Falcon and the Winter Soldier, but because they know Sam. And Bucky is impressed at how many people are connected to him through some sort of story. Someone, a beautiful woman, recounts to Bucky that, as children, Sam’s mother would store extra food in his backpacks to feed other kids, like herself. And now, when Sam visits, he goes out of his way to knock at people’s doors to deliver groceries. Bucky turns to see Sam chatting away with an old lady, and it’s like he’s seeing him for the first time; selfless, good, a heart as big as the sun. Ever since he got his brain back, he had decided he would protect the good in this world. He decides in that moment protecting Sam is kind of the same thing.
Some quietly nod at Sam, and he tells Bucky later that when he worked with post-traumatic stress ex-military, he had set up shop here. And so, Sam safely held many people’s secrets, those that people usually silence to their families. Bucky thinks he would be comfortable letting Sam into his head, into his nightmares, and perhaps if he shared them with him, they would slowly go away. But, he doesn’t want to be a burden to Sam. He’d rather know him happy and unaware of the horrors Bucky has seen and done.
Sam still watches Bucky. He’s always on his mind, and he tells himself it’s just to make sure Bucky’s not having another episode, and if he is, he can step in and help. He’s relieved that Bucky is letting himself be a human being and even flirt with a few clients at the market. It makes him chuckle. Sam doesn’t realize Bucky glances at him from the corner of his eye, and that he turns to him when Sam looks away.
Bucky wakes up and he’s against someone. As in, his face is directly touching someone else’s skin. He opens his eyes and realizes he is fully nested inside Sam’s neck who has an arm around him, deeply asleep. Time slows down in Sam’s arms. And he fits in them nicely, too. It’s comfortable, peaceful, and he doesn’t feel so lonely. Bucky thinks maybe this is why he hadn’t gotten a single drop of sleep back in New York, he was simply missing Sam in his life. He had forgotten there was goodness in this world, still.
The boat’s engine stops working one morning. They’re in the middle of the bay, floating with the waves watching the sunrise. It’s inconvenient, but not urgent. They have all day to fix it if need be. Worst case, one of Sam’s friends come to rescue them.
Sam’s down there, meddling in all the wires and parts, trying to figure out the problem. He’s got a lever to pull up a hood, but it keeps falling as he tries to get his hands in there. Bucky goes down to help. He props his metal arm against the lever and holds it there. Sam glances at him, his mouth quirking on one side. But the stuck proper engine part is stubborn, Sam gets frustrated and starts forcefully pulling on it. Bucky bends the lever so it stays in place, and gently grabs Sam’s arm, taking over. It’s a small space inside the boat, and they’re standing close. Bucky is right behind Sam, chest touching his back. He dislodges the dark metal part in one quick movement. And the engine goes roaring. Sam turns around to thank him, but instead, he sees Bucky looking at him, and Sam’s mind goes blank. Bucky would like to kiss Sam now. So he does. He closes the space between them and softly rests his lips against Sam’s. Sam’s eyes open in surprise. It takes him a second to adjust to what’s happening, his whole body overtaken by a warm feeling. He kisses him back, putting a hand on his cheek. He feels his rugged beard against him, his metal arm resting on his neck. Kissing Bucky doesn’t feel like what one would think kissing a super-soldier would be like. He’s surprisingly soft and tender in his movements, as if unsure, worried of being too rough. When they pull apart Sam already misses Bucky’s lips.
“So like did you break my boat's engine just to do that or-” Sam starts, smirking.
“Shut up,” Bucky gently pushes him and laughs. Sam giggles, and grabs him by the waist to pull him in once more. Bucky thinks he could get used to this.
They abandon the couch. It’s served its purpose. Bucky simply joins Sam’s bedroom at night now. He still gets nightmares; he knows they won’t ever fully go away. But he gets them less, and once Sam pulls him back into his arms, he dreams of boats and sunrises.