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“Alright, we better get this brief started. We’re getting close,” Sam said, waving Bucky and Torres over from where they were standing at the front of the Royal Talon Fighter. Bucky had to tap Torres on the shoulder and physically steer the young wide-eyed pilot away from the wonders of Wakandan air-craft controls. They joined Sam at the sand-table where he was studying a mountainous map. Shuri stood behind him, bent sideways to access a portion of the wing pack that had been damaged in their last encounter with Hydra agents. Her tools buzzed and crackled as she worked.
“T’Challa is already on the ground at the Hydra base,” Sam explained. “The Dora Milaje were able to track the stolen vibranium to this compound halfway up the mountain, but we don’t know what this new Hydra cell is using it for or when they might move it. The plan is— Oww!” Sam flinched as Shuri’s tool sparked.
“Ey!” She snapped. “Stop moving.”
“I wouldn’t move if you didn’t shock me,” he shot back.
“I only shocked you because you moved.” Bucky couldn’t help but smile a little at the indigent expression on Shuri’s face. It reminded him of his sister Rebecca sticking him with pins when she hemmed his shirts. God she was a terrible seamstress, he thought with a familiar bittersweet ache.
“Look… just…” Sam huffed and struggled with the clasps of the wing pack.
“Takes too long!” Shuri slapped Sam’s hands away. “Give me the whole jacket.”
“Fine!” Sam switched to finding the hidden seams of the vibranium weave and peeling the armor off his torso. Bucky’s mouth went dry when the white and blue suit fell away, revealing the broad bare expanse of Sam’s chest. Sam shuddered, probably feeling the cold current of the Talon’s air-conditioning down his back. Against his will, Bucky’s eyes followed the ripple of muscles under Sam’s skin, from his neck to his narrow hips.
“It would have only taken a minute,” Shuri’s voice snapped Bucky from the inappropriate direction his staring was going. He felt a warm rush of shame crawling through him for all but ogling Captain America. The Wakandan Princess rolled her eyes as she took the wing pack to a table at the back of the ship, already enthralled in her work.
“I get shocked enough by the bad-guys,” Sam grumbled, crossing his arms over his chest in a way that made his shoulders look somehow more sculpted. Bucky reminded himself to breath past the uncomfortable urge to swallow that was tightening his throat.
He tried to focus on the building layout Sam was showing them on the sand-table but that put Sam’s waist directly in his eyeline. Bucky found his mind conjuring up what the v shape of Sam’s hips would look like beyond the top of his pants instead of where enemy guard posts were and their intended approach vectors. Sam leaned forward, one hand on the edge of the table and the other reaching out to point at the opposite side. Bucky drew in a sharp breath inadvertently imagining himself laid out on the table under Sam— how it would put them almost chest to chest and… To his increasing mortification Bucky felt a pulse of heat and growing pressure in his pants.
Focus! Focus, Barnes! He admonished himself and looked down at his feet, grinding his teeth and crossing his arms to dig vibranium fingers into his flesh arm. The slightly painful pressure was grounding… a little.
“You got that, Buck?” Sam asked, finishing his explanation.
“Yep!” Bucky lied, looking up and forcing a tight smile for his partner— co-worker!... his very shirtless, muscular, torturously attractive co-worker! He met Sam’s eyes over the sand-table, which was a Mistake (with a capital M). Of course Sam couldn’t just be half-naked and shiny with perspiration from pre-mission adrenaline. He had to also stare Bucky down with the searching earnest expression of concern that made Bucky want to writhe uncomfortably and melt into a puddle all at once.
“I got it,” Bucky assured Sam and quickly turned away.
Having Sam out of his eyeline was an interminable relief, but the image of shirtless Sam was still burned into Bucky’s eyeballs like a flash grenade. He set about checking all his knives and body armor just to give his hands something to do.
“You almost done with that, Princess?”
“Hold your rhinos,” Shuri shot back at Sam with stress in her voice; the repairs were obviously not going well.
“Can I lend a hand, hold that panel steady for you?” Torres offered, his voice retreating to the back of the craft.
“Thank you, Lieutenant.”
Bucky smiled to himself. He could have predicted that Torres’ genuine boyish sincerity would quickly win Shuri over. If he played his cards right he could probably get his own set of vibranium wings out of her soon enough.
“Hey,” Sam’s voice at Bucky’s side made him jump. Bucky glanced sidelong before quickly averting his eyes again from all the bare skin right beside him.
“Hey.” His greeting came out more tense than he had hoped.
“You good?” Sam asked softly. The husky whisper was doing simultaneously wonderful and absolutely terrible things to Bucky.
“Yeah.”
“I know this is Hydra, and you’ve got history with—”
“I’m good,” Bucky cut over Sam quickly, because that was definitely not the problem. He had no reservations about taking out these new-age Nazi’s. Though he would rather go back into cryo than admit what was eating at him, he needed Sam to know that wasn’t the issue. “Really, Sam. I’m fine.”
“Alright,” Sam said, though he didn’t sound totally convinced. Bucky let out the breath he was holding gratefully.
“That’s it,” Shuri said. “You were very helpful, Lieutenant. Thank you.”
“My pleasure, ma’am—Princess— I mean…”
“Shuri is fine.”
“Right,” Torres said softly and swug his hands at his sides awkwardly as Shuri walked away with the wing pack and jacket of Sam’s suit.
“Ready to go,” she said handing it over to the Captain.
“Just in time,” Okoye informed them from the pilot’s seat. “We are only a minute out.”
“Cuttin’ it close,” Sam grumbled as he swung the pack onto his back, lifting one arm in the process and giving Bucky an unobstructed view of his side from hip to shoulder to his raised bent elbow. Bucky almost choked on his own spit. He quickly turned back to watching the dark clouds outside racing past as they descended.
Shuri came up beside him scrolling through menus on her kimoyo beads faster than he could read Xhosa. Behind him Torres opened the side hatch and the cabin filled with the rushing sound of wind. Sam was already beside his protege doing his ‘protective-mentor’ last minute flight check on the new Falcon’s wings. Shuri reached up to Bucky’s comms before he could pull away and there was a click in his ear.
“What are you doing?” He asked.
“I’m adding you to my private comms,” Shuri told Bucky in a hushed voice, a sly smirk on her face, tapping her own in-ear receiver, “so I can bring you up to speed. You missed the entire briefing, didn’t you?”
Bucky shot her a pained look that wordlessly said ‘help me’, and Shuri giggled.
“Entering the first drop zone…” Okoye called from the pilot seat, “now!” Sam and Joaquin jumped out of the open hatch followed shortly by the snapping sounds of opening wings catching the air.
“So where are you taking the Captain on your first date?” Shuri teased.
“No!” Bucky insisted, marching towards the hatch to wait for his cue. “There is no date— there isn’t going to be a date.”
“My brother knows many nice restaurants in New York,” she said, grinning. “I’m sure he would get you a reservation.”
“Not happening.” Bucky shook his head and forced himself to take deep breaths.
“Second zone…” Okoye called back to him.
“Nice hotels too!” Shuri added, wiggling her eyebrows at him.
“No!” Bucky warned her with a pointed finger at her face.
“Now!” Okoye said.
“Shuri,” Bucky was halfway to pleading now, “Do not say anything to—”
“Go!” Shuri urged him with a shooing motion. Bucky grit his teeth and threw her one last glare before leaping out of the plane. Her laughter followed him into the open air over the comms channel.
Focus! Focus, Barnes! He admonished himself yet again. You’ve got a job to do. And if ever there was something that could distract him from the incarnation of temptation that was Sam Wilson it was ruining some Nazis’ day.
A little over two hours later Bucky was feeling sore and yet more relaxed as the adrenaline of battle was wearing off. All the Hydra agents who were still breathing were in hand-cuffs, the authorities were on their way, the base was cleared, and all the stolen vibranium was accounted for. Sam and Torres were doing a last aerial sweep to check for any stragglers who might have escaped into the nearby woods.
Bucky fell into step with T’Challa on their way to the Talon Fighter.
“Thank you for your assistance tonight, Sergeant Barnes,” the King said.
“Of course, any time,” Bucky said, and he meant it. After everything the Wakandans had done for him— what T’Challa personally had done for him— he would always think of Wakanda as his second home. He would die (and in a way already had died) fighting for Wakanda. If it involved fighting Hydra too, that was an added bonus.
This time it also meant fighting beside Sam, watching Sam’s back from the ground. That was something Bucky would never pass up. Thinking of Sam his mind strayed back to what Shuri had said before the mission. With the worst of his anxious energy worked out by strenuous physical activity and the post mission rush of endorphins her proposal didn’t seem quite so terrifying. (Though that still left it pretty scary.)
“So… you… um… know any good restaurants in New York?” Bucky asked, wincing at his own painfully awkward voice.
“A few, yes,” T’Challa said, getting a sly smile that was all too familiar. “But most of my experience of the city has been business related.” T’Challa paused before adding. “Although… There is one place that Nakia quite likes. The food is very good, and it is… discreet.”
“Yeah?”
“Planning something, Sergeant?”
“Maybe,” Bucky scratched the back of his neck.
“Hmm.” T’Challa nodded, looking far too amused. “Give me the time and day; they will have a private table prepared for you. I think Captain Wilson will appreciate Nakia’s good taste in venues.”
“T-thank yo— wait! How did you— How does everyone know?”
Shuri cut in over the comm in his ear: “The better question is how does Sam not know?”
T’Challa laughed along with his sister, and Bucky put his head in his hands with a groan, thinking: why are all my friends like this? But maybe T’Challa would help him plan a date that wouldn’t end in complete disaster so, at least there were benefits.