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Bucky’s phone lights up silently from its place on the kitchen counter. Bucky sees the brightness bloom behind his closed eyelids even with the hall light on. It’s dark enough, the middle of the night most likely. He’d be worried about Sam texting him so late if he didn’t do it every two days for the last however many weeks.
Of course Sam knew Bucky wasn’t sleeping. The man didn’t seem to care much that Bucky was still trying though.
He doesn’t get up and check the notification. He lays there stubbornly and refuses to open his eyes until the sun begins to peak in through the windows.
Then he checks it. Then he ignores it.
He doesn’t want to ignore it, which is exactly why he does. He doesn’t want to be alone, which is exactly why he is.
And Sam is Sam.
He’s the last person who Bucky should be around right now.
At first it was because going out to lunch with Sam felt like extra therapy, like a chore, like an interrogation, a job interview for something he was vastly underqualified for.
Now it’s because going out to lunch with Sam doesn’t feel like that at all.
Sam is…
Too much like Steve, but not enough like Steve for Bucky not to feel the way he does, if that makes any goddamn sense.
It doesn’t. Why would it? Nothing in Bucky’s life makes sense.
Bucky checks his list like he does too many times a day to really want to think about, sighs when it remains unchanged from the last time he looked, and starts his day.
Not that he does much with it.
He feels lazy and bored, stir crazy just like his shrink says he will, isolated like he is, just like Sam says too, but Bucky can’t bring himself to cross this next name off his list, and he can’t leave New York until he does.
Sam texts Bucky twice more that day, which is unusual. Goes beyond the cursory check ins he’s been dealing Bucky for the last few months.
Bucky wonders if Sam might also be lonely, but then he shakes the thoughts away. Sam’s not lonely. He has his family in DC, he still has friends, a job, he visits Steve still.
Bucky doesn’t.
Bucky can’t even think about Steve without feeling like the air is gone from his lungs all of a sudden. Like the big blond punched him right in the chest, and really he might as well have for all Bucky saw it coming.
He’d wonder if Sam felt the same way, but Bucky actually knows that it’s true. It’s the one thing they managed to talk about that touched on feelings and that didn’t make Bucky shut down completely.
Mostly because Sam did the talking.
Bucky hates how good it feels to know he’s not alone in that. Hates how glad he is that Sam suffers with him. It’s why he stays away from Sam now.
Sam is good, the personification of America good, even according to Steve. Sam’s bright too, he smiles and it’s real and it’s contagious and that has nothing to do with Bucky’s feelings and everything to do with Sam being one of those people who light up the room. Sam is a hero. He’d be a hero even without the wings, even without the military. Sam would find a way to be a hero in any world, in any reality. He’d be a doctor or something. Save babies. He’s that kind of good.
He’s good and he cares which is why Bucky needs to stay away from him. He’s smart too. Too goddamn smart for his own good, really. One of these days he’s going to get in too deep trying to help Bucky out of this hole he’s been tossed in and they’re both going to be stuck.
Bucky’s head isn’t a safe place for anyone, fuck, not even his therapist deserves to have to listen to the things in Bucky’s head, and Sam? Sam likes to try his goddamn best to get into Bucky’s head and he just cannot let that happen.
Sam likes to show up unannounced at Bucky’s door, too.
“You weren’t answering my texts,” he says.
“I never answer your texts,” Bucky replies, not moving to let Sam inside, but the other man shoulders past him anyway. Bucky rolls his eyes and lets the door shut behind them.
Sam smirks, “But you read them,” he says.
Bucky shrugs, “Yeah, I guess. Make sure you’re not dying somewhere,” he says, going to the kitchen.
Sam’s eyes don’t linger on the neat pile of blankets in the corner of the room.
“You think I’d text you if I was dying?” Sam asks, and Bucky can tell he’s joking. Sam is a jovial person. He’s… playful. Bucky likes that about Sam, most of the time.
Bucky is not a playful person.
“No”.
“I’m not really looking for a sidekick,” Sam says.
Bucky rolls his eyes where Sam can’t see him, “Sure,” he says, getting a beer from the fridge and sliding it across the counter to him.
He tries not to think about why he keeps it on hand when he can’t get drunk. Hopes to god Sam doesn’t think too hard about it.
Sam has the audacity to look surprised, and then confused, and then says nothing but a nod of thanks. Bucky can’t tell if it’s a good thing or not, that Sam doesn’t know how much Bucky fucking thinks about him, all the damn time.
“Why are you here?” Bucky asks curtly.
Sam makes that smile that always comes with bad news, “Steve wants to see you,” he says.
Bucky can’t suppress the groan and eye roll then.
“Is this supposed to be an intervention then?” he spits.
Sam shakes his head though, looking earnest but not surprised by Bucky’s tone, “No, I’m just the messenger. Steve can’t… can’t make the drive,” he says, and he’s frowning, looking sad and that makes something in Bucky’s chest tighten painfully.
Steve can’t make the four hour drive to New York from DC and Bucky feels gutted at the thought of Steve now all over again.
He wants to say something about it, about Steve, and it’s nothing good, but Sam already looks broken by it, so he just fucking nods and goes to pack his shit.
“Well that was easy,” Sam says with a little huff of laughter that doesn’t sound anything like Sam.
He wants to say it was Sam’s broken hearted expression, or that he’s only going so he can reel Steve out for making Sam look like that, but he says nothing instead.
They rock-paper-scissors on who drives, and when Sam wins with paper, he doesn’t have to cover Bucky’s hand with his own, but he does, and it really shows Bucky just how bad this school-boy crush has gotten that his heart flutters in his chest at the contact.
“How is he?” Bucky asks when they’re an hour out from Steve’s place.
Sam looks at him out of the corner of his eye, “Worried about you,” he answers.
“That’s not what I meant,” Bucky retorts.
Sam’s face loses some of its brightness, “I know,” he says softly.
Bucky closes his eyes to the rush of anger he feels. On Sam’s behalf… but also on his own.
He doesn’t mean to fight with Steve no matter what he’s feeling, no matter whose behalf. He doesn’t really hold this against Steve, it just… hurts. It’s the weirdest kind of grief, so opposite to the grief he feels for the loved ones whose lives and deaths he missed. He’s grieving Steve even as he’s looking at him, even as he’s hugging him, gentle, so gentle because he’s frail now, again, and it’s all these parallels and it’s nothing he can be prepared for so he should just stop trying.
Sam honest to god, waits in the car, rather than face this.
Bucky’s glad for it, even if it means he has to deal with Steve alone.
“You can’t be alone forever, Buck,” Steve says and he doesn’t even sound like Steve, except that he does .
Bucky rolls his eyes at Steve, “What do you expect me to do, Steve?” he asks.
“You shouldn’t be ignoring Sam, you two need each other,” Steve replies.
It’s probably the mention of Sam, but Bucky finds himself snapping at Steve then, “Don’t act like you know what’s best for me after you just left out of nowhere!”. He feels something like indignation rise and fall, then taking a deep breath, “Sorry, I just…” he apologizes softer, “I don’t want to hear it, Steve,” he says.
It was just... how dare Steve try and tell Bucky who, or what he needs in his life after he left like he did? Left both Bucky and Sam in the wake of the end of the world to just figure it out alone. Bucky might be isolating himself from people, but fuck if Steve didn’t do it first.
He abruptly realises how childish that line of thought is and lets the anger dissipate, for the time being.
Steve is quiet for too long. Long enough Bucky gets suspicious because Steve so rarely thinks before he acts, before he speaks. Not when he knows he’s right, like he is now.
“If not because it’s what you need, then because it’s what he needs, Buck,” Steve says, “Please”.
Bucky shakes his head, feeling a lump form in his throat, “I’m not…” he tried, “I’m the last person he needs hanging around,” he says.
“Seems like he might want you though,” Steve says easily, and Bucky looks up sharply, too sharply.
Steve inclines his head in silent question, then smirks.
“No,” Bucky says, “No, get that out of your head right now, Rogers,” Bucky says seriously, “I don’t-- it’s not like that,” he denies, too loud, too fast.
Steve has that knowing look in his eye still when he agrees to drop it. When he tells Bucky to scram. When he sees Sam waiting outside for Bucky and they exchange a friendly wave.
Bucky doesn’t even feel bad when he hopes Steve’s degrading mind forgets that entire interaction. Well, he feels only a little bad.
“How’d it go?” Sam asks.
Bucky shrugs, “He said you missed me,” he replies, goading.
Sam looks at him for a moment before he starts the car, “You know,” he says, “I couldn’t actually tell if you were lying that time”.
Bucky’s heart does that stupid flutter again.
“Can you usually?”
“Every time, Barnes,” Sam answers, smirking.
Bucky glances at Sam out of the corner of his eye. “Good to know,” he says. He’ll need to get better at it if he’s going to be hanging around now.