Chapter Text
i.
Scott and Hope’s wedding is the first big post-blip event, and therefore, it is a complete blowout. They have invited all of the Avengers who were at the battle against Thanos; Earth-bound and from space.
(“Do you even know how hard it was to find Captain Marvel’s address?” Scott said, on one of his random phone calls with Sam. Honestly, Sam doesn’t know why he keeps answering the phone. “I had to call Nick Fury, and ask him. And he made me fill out a bunch of paperwork, like - it just kept coming. I think he was just trying to make me leave. All of that and he got out this little pager, pressed a button, and he was like-” Lang lowered his voice comically low, to what Sam thinks is supposed to be his Nick Fury impression, “-You can go now.” He switched back to his normal tone, “Like, ugh, what is that supposed to mean? Will she even be there? Should I count on her coming? Does she need a plus one? What if she brings an alien? Anyways, what was the question?”
“How was your last mission?”)
So, when Sam went to check his mail 2 months ago, and he was met with a tiny card that simply read, throw me, he already knew what it was. He idly tossed the card in the air, and it became a regular sized card. (And, Sam isn’t an expert, but it honestly just kind of felt like a waste of cool science. If you could even waste science.)
Save the Date! It read on the front. It had all of the normal with joyous hearts wedding invitation bullshit, but on the back, written in Sharpie, it said, To: Sam Wilson and James Buchanan Barnes. Which Sam figured was Polite-Hope-Code for, Sam, bring Bucky.
And, honestly, Sam was pretty sure it would have been easier to find Bucky’s address than Thor’s. Or King fucking T’Challa. He didn’t really know why he and Bucky got one singular invite. But whatever. Sam liked Hope. And if Hope, for God knows what reason, wanted Bucky Barnes at her wedding, Bucky Barnes was going to be at her wedding.
Fast forward two months, and here Sam is. He has given himself a five minute break from being passed around as a dance partner to rehydrate and recharge. So, here he sits, at a table in some fancy hotel in San Francisco, watching from across the room as Morgan Stark dangle from Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes’ vibranium arm as he carries a conversation with Pepper Potts. It had been a tooth and nail fight to get him here, but it was worth it, to see the look on his face as he realizes how much these people trust and like him.
“Captain America!” The newly wedded Hope Lang-Pym drops down in the seat next to him. She is glowing. And more than a little tipsy. “Cap! Why aren’t you dancing?”
Sam grins and slides her his unopened bottle of water, which she takes gratefully. “I’m taking a five minute break! Super fast! Gotta recharge.”
Hope raises an eyebrow at him. “You recharge by making googly eyes at your sidekick?”
Sam feels his stupid face heat up and betray his stupid mind.
Sam might also be more than a little tipsy, but sue him! It’s an open bar and he’s a part of the wedding party that gets paid hotel rooms. He’s Captain freakin’ America! He can afford to let loose.
He points at Hope accusingly. “He is not my sidekick. He is my partner.”
“Why is that the part you felt the need to correct, Mr. Wilson?”
And, oh fuck. Maybe he should have addressed the googly eyes part first. For some reason, he does a dumb little salute. “Just making sure he doesn’t drop Baby Stark on her head, is all.”
Thankfully, Hope spares him. “Yeah, totally. That makes complete sense.”
“You having fun?” Sam asks, thankful for the opportunity to change the subject.
He hears Bucky throwing his head back with laughter from all the way across the room. He hears it over the music and the people and the dancing. Sam turns to look in time to catch the tail end of that laugh, where his head is tipped back and his nose is scrunched up. He seems to be laughing at Morgan, who reaches out to boop his nose, which somehow makes it scrunch up even more. Sam finds himself smiling softly. It used to be a rare gem to see a Bucky Laugh like that, but they come more and more freely everyday. It’s the kind of laugh that makes him appear brighter than the goddamn sun, they make you feel like you are the funniest person to walk the face of the planet. And, currently, it’s out in the open, directed at a five year old with Tony Stark’s eyes.
When he turns his head back around to face hope, she is staring at him with nothing but amusement. “I’m having a ball, Cap. This has been the happiest day of my life.” The best part is, Sam knows she is not being sarcastic in the least. “Why don’t you go ask that partner of yours for a dance?”
Thankfully, he doesn’t have to answer, because Bucky somehow made it all the way across the room, and he slides into the open seat behind Sam. In the process, he drapes his arm over the back of Sam’s chair and steals Sam’s half empty drink. A grin slowly crosses his face as he sees the look Sam shoots him. “Hope, you look. Gorgeous.”
And, holy fuck. The Winter Soldier is drunk.
“What the fuck did you drink that can actually get to you?” Sam twists in his seat to face Bucky, which means he turns into the arm that Bucky has draped around him.
James Buchanan Barnes giggles. “Thor brought some stuff from Asgard.”
“You can get drunk on alcohol from Asgard?”
“Sam, baby, the god of thunder gets drunk on alcohol from Asgard. I am just a human with… crack juice in my veins.”
“Baby?” Hope leans forward to rest her chin in her hand and raises her eyebrows, looking like she finds all of this very, very funny.
“Crack juice?” Sam questions.
But Bucky is far past the point of listening. He continues sipping Sam’s drink, which is made of regular human alcohol, thank you very much, Bucky is literally just being a dick by taking it. And, yeah, Bucky’s nicknames slip out sometimes, but Sam figures that’s probably just a side effect of having your brain repeatedly fried and being older than dirt. There are worse things that could be happening. “Anyways, come on.”
He stands up, a little wobbly, and offers Sam his hand. “Come on where, you little cyborg?” He asks.
The way Bucky is grinning makes his eyes crinkle up a little bit. Right now, he looks the way he does in those pictures in the Smithsonian. The ones hanging on Sam’s fridge in his apartment, after he’d purchased a book about the Howling Commandos (as a joke, he swears) and cut out all of the pictures of Bucky. He looks happy, and young. And, sure, maybe Bucky is physically only, like 35, but there’s something distinctly old about the way he normally carries himself. But, right now, with his hand outstretched to Sam, drunk on space liquor from the God of Thunder, at a superhero wedding in San Francisco, Bucky looks carefree.
“You gonna dance with me, Cap?”
“Yeah, Cap, you gonna dance with him?” Hope raises another beer (where did she even get that) as she grins at Sam, like she’s really caught him now.
It is her wedding day, and Sam loves Hope.
He raises his middle finger at her discreetly, anyways.
Bucky gets tired of waiting on Sam, and eventually just pulls him up. Sam goes willingly, but he wouldn’t have to. Bucky is very, very strong. Even when he is about a drink from blacking out. Which is where Sam assumes he’s at right now, because sober Bucky would never take Sam’s hand and pull him into a crowded dance floor.
Sober Sam would probably never pull Bucky closer and let him sway them around.
He’s Captain Freakin’ America, sue him. Whatever.
Sam can barely hear the music over the loud sounds of people around him, but he can’t find it in himself to care when Bucky drops his head onto his shoulder.
Sam likes drunk Bucky.
Drunk-Bucky squeezes Sam’s hand, which is still intertwined with his. “Hey, Sam?”
Sam bends his head to look at him, “Yeah, Buck?”
“Thanks for making me come.”
“Of course,” Sam laughs. “It’s you and me, man. Where I go, you go.”
“Where you go, I go,” Bucky echos.
Even though Scott and Hope’s wedding was a pretty high profile event (again - the king of fucking Wakanda is here), it was made adamantly clear that this was a press-free zone. No reporters, no cameras, no interviews.
(Sam believes Hope’s actual words were, “If we see someone without an invitation, we will sic Wanda Maximoff on you.” And also, “We will send trespassers into the quantum realm and shut the portal forever.”)
Despite that, there’s the telltale click and flash of a camera - a polaroid. Like, one that might be older than Bucky.
It’s not the press - it’s Hope. Again.
“Don’t you have something better to be doing on your wedding day, Miss Lang-Pym?” Sam asks with an easy smile. Bucky doesn’t move his head from his shoulder, and they keep swaying to no particular beat.
“Ex-cuse me, Captain Wilson, that is sacred, and for later!”
She’s shaking the picture that she pulled from the camera, and she holds it out for him. “This is for you, Cap. keep it, so we can look back in a few years when I can say I told you so.”
Sam doesn’t dignify that with a response, but he does take the picture and tuck it into his pocket.
And, if the picture (of him, grinning down at Bucky in his arms, surrounded by twinkling lights and his closest friends) makes it into his wallet, sue him.
He’s Captain Freakin’ America. Whatever.