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Maybe it was the music, the soft classical melodious piano that echoed mutedly from unseen corners of the high dark ceiling. It was reminiscent of elevator music and the inherent awkwardness of sharing confined space with strangers.
Or it was the wait staff; all standing stiff backed like marionette dolls in matching black tuxedos like caricatures in an old film. They might not recognize Bucky but they definitely recognized Sam and promptly stopped making any and all eye contact.
Possibly it was Sam’s tie, which felt too tight and ill fitting no matter how many times he adjusted it. Still he found himself reaching for the knot again and hoping it would finally sit right. No such luck.
It couldn’t be Bucky.
Oddly Bucky was on his very best behavior: polite, agreeable, cleaned up and sitting properly in his chair, not even slouching, making a concerted effort not to glare at everyone who approached their table. Bucky looked great in his suit too. The charcoal gray color of it made his eyes look stormy in a way that definitely worked for Sam. Bucky was even clean shaven and wearing cologne if Sam’s nose didn’t deceive him. So, no, Bucky was not the problem— couldn’t be the problem, right?
Honestly, there shouldn’t be a problem.
Everything was, empirically, going perfectly. Bucky picked Sam up from the hotel in a cab, they got to the restaurant in plenty of time for their reservation (because there’s no such thing as on time, only early or late), the wine the waiter suggested was a perfectly balanced mix of fruit and tannins, the complimentary horderves were tasty, the sweeping curtains and warm wooden partitioning walls gave every white-linen-swathed table a sense of privacy…
Nothing should be wrong. But...
As the silence stretched over the artful centerpiece between Bucky and Sam, it became clearer and clearer that something definitely was.
Bzzzzt!
Sam’s phone vibrated in his pocket softly. Bucky, super-hearing freak that he was, of course noticed.
“Do you mind if I…?” Sam started to ask.
“Go ahead,” Bucky was already offering.
“Thanks,” Sam forced a brief smile. “Just might be Shuri and the boys.”
“‘Course,” Bucky agreed, a wrinkle deepening between his eyebrows.
“It’s, uh, Torres,” Sam said, checking the long, somewhat rambling message. “Updates on the Flag Smashers organizing on the west coast. Just let me make sure it’s nothing time sensitive.” Sam skimmed the text as quickly as he could, feeling heat gathering on the back of his neck with each second. He knew Bucky was the last person to begrudge him checking intel, but it wasn’t good ‘date etiquette’ to let work interrupt. Still it was a brief and welcome distraction from the rising tension at the table. At the same time he felt relief, Sam felt increasingly guilty for enjoying the moment of distraction. The guilt built as the seconds passed like drying paint.
Bzzzt!
A message notification dropped down from the top of his phone screen:
Buckaroo: This is weird.
Sam tapped the notification open without hesitation and had already typed out “ No it’s fine” when another message from Bucky arrived:
Bzzzt!
Buckaroo: Don’t be polite. It is.
Sam frowned at the screen, angry that Bucky had predicted his response and simultaneously disturbed because he had been in the middle of typing a response instead of just looking up at his dinner partner to tell him to stop texting across the table like a weirdo. His first reaction had been to avoid voicing any acknowledgement of the accusation like it was an elephant in the room. He couldn’t even deny anything was weird now. It was.
A sinking sensation of failure lodged in Sam’s gut, like his mixture of anxiety and awkwardness was precipitating into regrets and disappointment within his chest.
Bzzzt!
Buckaroo: I know a good pizza place around the corner.
Sam blinked at the message, feeling a little bubble of hope rise through the tight feeling in his chest. Pizza wasn’t an end to their evening just… a change of course maybe? But shouldn’t they stick it out? Soldier through with the original plan?
Sam looked up at the two waiters standing like statues a measured polite distance away and the other smartly dressed patrons he could catch glimpses of in their equally secluded alcoves. More than one diner turned away quickly when his gaze passed over them. Sam took a deep breath, trying to check in with himself, sort out what the jumble of twisted feelings in his stomach were. His legs were restless, there was a nagging feeling of being watched on the back of his neck and a deep aversion to meeting Bucky’s gaze across the table. He was not comfortable in this place and any escape sounded wonderful. Sam swallowed and hit a commonly used emoji before sending the message to Bucky.
A large thumbs up appeared in the chat.
“Waiter!” Sam held out a hand and met the gaze of one smartly dressed attendant. “Something urgent came up and we have to go, I’m really sorry.”
“Not a worry. Was everything to your liking? If you have any complaints I can…” The waiter went on, hurrying to be sure the guests weren’t leaving due to some offense. Now that Sam had a promise of escape, he found himself struggling to reply politely rather than bolting out the gold handled double doors like the building was on fire.
Bucky wasn’t lying about the pizza place. They walked at a brisk pace for a block and a half before stopping at a dingy hole in the wall shop with half its signage in cyrilic characters and the other half in italian. Bucky didn’t pause before entering.
A middle aged balding white man with a beard lowered a newspaper and looked up from behind the register as they entered. There were a few teenagers at one of the two tables who didn’t even glance up and no one at the bar seating.
The cashier greeted Bucky in russian, looking both him and Sam up and down with clear surprise.
“How you say in English, eh? Struck out?” He asked Bucky with a grin.
“Something like that,” Bucky muttered, hands in his pockets. Something about the disgruntled tone put Sam at ease. Bucky finally sounded more like himself than he had all night. “Usual order, Alex— you ok with Pepperoni?” Sam nodded. ”—and, um,...”
“The VIP room? Always, my friend.” The man behind the counter, Alex, smiled and rang up the order without even needing to look at the register. Bucky paid cash. A few minutes later a gray haired woman with beads of sweat on her brow came to the pick up counter with a steaming cardboard pizza box and a bright smile for Bucky.
She rattled off a question in quick italian which Bucky answered in the same language, one corner of his mouth quirking up crookedly.
“This way,” Bucky said, still grinning lopsidedly, and ushered Sam down the hallway at the back past the bathrooms to a ‘Staff Only’ door. It led into a dirty stairwell that switched back up and up to the rooftop. Between the air conditioning unit and vents there was a small patio up there and a mismatched group of lawn furniture that honestly looked cleaner than the seating downstairs.
“It’s not fancy,” Bucky said, flicking a switch just inside the door that turned on a few jerry rigged light bulbs hanging from poles around the table. “But it is private.”
“Private is good,” Sam said with a sigh, sitting heavily in the nearest plastic chair. He reached up to finally loosen his tie and undo the top button of his shirt.
Bucky took his seat and opened the pizza between them. He wordlessly tipped it towards Sam to take the first slice.
For a long minute there was only the sounds of chewing and the busy New York streets echoing up and around them. The summer sun was just sinking beyond the tallest buildings leaving them a dim but comfortable atmosphere. Sam let tension he hadn’t realized he was holding relax out of his shoulders and enjoyed the familiar taste of New York pizza.
“Well,” Sam said, reaching for a second slice, “this is not how I saw this evening going.”
“Believe it or not,” Bucky wiped his hand on a napkin after polishing off his own second in record time, “this is actually going better than my last date.”
“Oh so this was a date, cause you never actually said—”
“Shut up!” Bucky kicked the leg of Sam’s chair lightly. “You knew. Shuri showed me your texts.”
“Traitor. And furthermore, what date went worse than that? We didn’t even get to the main course.” Sam raised an eyebrow, “Wasn’t your last date in 1943? I was led to believe you had game back then.”
“I did, with dames— dames I had no interest in. And,” Bucky looked affronted, “I’ve dated since the 40s, thank you. I’m 106, not dead.”
“Alright, you can’t say that and not tell. What happened? Did you spill your drink on him or forget to bring flowers?”
“I brought flowers,” Bucky said, narrowing his eyes, “but apparently that’s ‘old fashioned’ now so I don’t think it won me any points.”
“Is that why I didn’t get flowers?” Sam teased. It would have fit the tone of the date to be honest: fancy suits, fancy restaurant, fancy flowers… but here they were eating pizza on a sooty rooftop. Sam was trying hard not to let that taste like defeat.
“Did you want flowers?” Bucky asked, a little too genuinely.
“Maybe I did!” Sam played up his response and gave an exaggerated shrug. “You’ll never know now.”
“I figured it would make it weird—” Bucky looked away. “...or weird er .”
“It wasn’t that wei— OK! It was weird. Last time I got this dressed up it was for the Smithsonian dedication. Then tonight, with all the stares and the not stares, and the whole place … it just felt…” Sam trailed off, looking down at the pizza then out at the light reflecting off the windows of buildings across the street, anywhere but at Bucky. “I’m not used to all the attention that comes with the shield and the title yet. Even when I was Falcon it wasn’t like this.”
“Yeah. I don’t think I’m cut out for that fancy stuff.”
“You’re still dodging the question,” Sam said, trying to steer the conversation out of dangerous waters again.
“It’s really more sad than funny.”
“Can’t be worse than my last date.”
“Wanna bet?” Bucky shot back glibly with a humorless curve to his lips.
“Winner gets the last slice,” Sam motioned at the pizza and tipped his chin up at Bucky in challenge.
Bucky side-eyed him for a moment in silence, chewing on his third slice… or was it his fourth? Man could put away pizza at a dizzying pace that was for sure.
“Fine,” Bucky agreed. “Why not? You asked for it. Yori set us up, Yori Nakajima.” Sam’s eyebrows raised when the name struck a chord in his memory. Last time he’d heard it Zemo nearly got choked out in his own private jet.
“Yeah,” Bucky caught Sam’s expression and nodded with his lips pursed in a non-smile, “he’s one from my list. We get— we used to get sushi on Wednesdays at this place, Izi’s. He asked the waitress on a date for me. I didn’t want to turn her down once she agreed, so...” Sam frowned harder hearing ‘her’. The date already sounded doomed on multiple fronts. Bucky plowed right on with his story.
“I brought flowers. We had beers, played a board game. She told me I sounded like her dad. It wasn’t going great— not a lot to talk about when trying to avoid the whole ‘brainwashed assassin for 70 years’ thing. Then she started talking about how it was nice I was making friends with Yori, how hard it was after his son died, how the worst part was not knowing why he was killed or who….” Bucky looked down at his lap and wrung his mismatched hands together. “Yeah. So, I just, um… walked out. I went all the way to Yori’s place, even knocked on the door. I froze up and… I made some excuse instead of telling him the truth.”
“You told him eventually,” Sam reminded Bucky softly.
“Yeah. I did,” Bucky said in an exhale. Sam leaned forward to put a hand on Bucky’s right arm, and Bucky looked up with a bitter sweet smile, stormy eyes shining. He cleared his throat and pulled back, reaching for another slice of pizza before saying in a forcefully light tone:
“Told you. More sad than funny. Bet you can’t beat that, though.”
“I don’t know,” Sam chewed his own pizza for a minute, meeting Bucky’s gaze. “My last date was— including the Blip— Shit! 10 years ago.”
“No way!”
“Five years dead,” Sam counted off, “Two years on the run— not a lot of dates happening in safehouses— two years before that working with the Avengers— that didn’t leave a lot of time for a personal life— and, well, the year before that… I wasn’t sure I was ready for a repeat event.”
“That bad?”
“She was a friend of a friend from the music club I used to go to in DC.”
“At least you’re actually interested in women, so you got that over my date.”
“Man, did I interrupt your story?” Sam admonished with no real heat in his accusation.
Bucky held his metal hand up in surrender and stuffed nearly half a slice into his mouth all at once. Sam took a moment to grimace at the poor manners before he went on with his sorry tale.
“You’re not wrong: she was my type of woman too, but it was never gonna work. I was having a bad day already, nightmares and just ghosts in my head, and something— maybe it was a noise from the restaurant kitchen or a burning smell— I don’t know, but it set me off. I had a panic attack— a bad one. Next thing I know some EMT is talking me through breathing exercises. My date thought I was having a stroke or something and called an ambulance. She’s freakin’ out and the restaurant staff is in chaos. I managed to explain, and get things calmed down. She punched my shoulder and said ‘I thought there was something actually wrong’.” Sam paused for a moment to let the bitter wash of remembered pain and anger fade again.
“I held it together long enough to get her a cab. I didn’t want to think about it too much, so I changed into the running gear I had in my car and went for a jog, just to keep my mind off things. I kinda forgot I’d barely eaten all day— nerves kill my appetite. Few miles in, my blood sugar dropped, and I passed out right there on the sidewalk. Another runner thankfully saw me, and…
“Well, my date ended with two 911 calls, an ambulance ride, an ER bill, and a mild concussion.”
Sam looked up to meet Bucky’s shocked expression. Wordlessly the other man slid the pizza box and the last remaining slice across the table. Sam picked up his prize, folding it in half and biting off the end. He hummed in appreciation loudly.
“Victory!”
Bucky huffed a short laugh and shook his head.
“You know this isn’t usual first date conversation, right?” Sam informed him.
“What are we gonna talk about, Sam? Our families? Mine are all dead and I’ve met yours. Our jobs?” Bucky gave him an unamused look. “Our non-existent social lives courtesy of years on the run from the government followed by years dead courtesy of Thanos?”
“Yeah, ok. Good point. We’ve got most of the usual bases covered. Enough depressing talk though. We went over worst dates, what about best?”
“Best I’ve been on?” Bucky asked, looking daunted by the question already.
“No, like, your dream date. What would be the perfect date?”
“Why? You need help planning one?”
“Nah, I got my perfect date planned out to a T.”
“You do not. Tell me then.”
“I asked first.”
Bucky looked up and away into the purpling sky. “I don’t know. What even counts as a date these days?”
“Nah, don’t pull that. If you’re not sure it’s a date, it’s not your perfect date. Easy part first, where would it be, anywhere in the world. I know you’ve seen a lot of it, I followed you across half of it.”
“I don’t know. Everywhere just…” Bucky shrugged and snagged another of the plastic chairs, propping his feet up on it and folding his hands over his stomach. “After a while it all kinda looks the same. Anyway most places don’t look the way I remember them anymore.”
Sam raised an eyebrow at Bucky in an expression that said, ‘don’t pull that BS with me’.
“Ok,” Bucky relented, “Somewhere peaceful.” A loud siren went up from below them, the sound warped from echoing off buildings and dropping in pitch as the vehicle turned to speed away. “And quiet,” Bucky added with a grimace.
“So, not New York.”
“Yeah, I guess. No big cities, somewhere secluded, on a mountain or an island maybe.”
“Just you and him doing what? Do not say laying in bed all day. Gotta be more to it than that.”
“Well I hope there’s some of that. But, no, not all day. Maybe just exploring— I used to take these long walks when I was in Wakanda. I had a good trail around the lake by the farm they lent me. It was nice… peaceful, just trees and water and animals and sky.”
“And bugs.”
“Coulda done with fewer bugs, won’t lie.”
“Sounds nice, Buck,” Sam said, grinning. Bucky huffed and shifted self-consciously.
“I know,” he said. “Boring. No guns involved, no explosions, probably not even knives.”
“Hey, I’m being serious,” Sam assured, tapping Bucky’s leg lightly with the back of his hand admonishingly. “That sounds nice.” He could actually imagine it, Bucky walking in the Wakandan forest in the loose breezy clothes Wakandan’s favored, shoulders relaxed, vibranium arm on full display, and sun making him squint in the way that scrunched up his whole face. It took Sam a second to realize he was just transposing Bucky from when he visited Louisiana into his memories of Wakanda.
“Your turn,” Bucky in the present brought Sam out of his thoughts. “Amaze me with your grand plans for the perfect Sam Wilson Date.”
“Well,” Sam said, folding one arm across his chest and propping the other on it to hold his chin, “first of all, there would be flowers.”
“So you did want flowers!” Bucky snapped his fingers and tried to look upset through his lopsided grin. Sam rolled his eyes mostly for dramatic effect.
“There’s this park I used to run through in DC, right beside the Potomac. I always thought it would be a great place for a picnic, you know. Just…” Sam trailed off as realization dawned on him, thinking of the open lawn and pathways where tourists and joggers strolled by constantly.
“What?” Bucky asked when Sam didn’t go on, his head cocked to the side and that crease in his brow threatening to return.
“Just thinking… I’d probably get swamped with people if I went there now… or just stared at,” Sam repressed a shudder thinking of the diner guests who turned away so quickly when he scanned the room.
“Hey,” Bucky held his hand up, palm out in a ‘stop’ gesture. “These are ‘dream dates’. No bugs on my long nature hike, no staring weirdos in your.”
Maybe one ‘staring weirdo’, Sam couldn’t help amending in his head as he imagined Bucky sitting on a picnic blanket in the grass in the gentle sunshine.
“Yeah,” Sam said, clearing his throat, “it would be a fall afternoon— after the summer humidity broke but before it got too chilly. I’d get donuts from this really good Korean bakery down in NOVA, maybe some peaches or cherries too, and good coffee, like hipster gourmet ‘I spent too much money for this pour over’ coffee. Maybe go to the movies after, catch an early show— something light hearted and funny. Then a few cocktails at a nice bar— I’d found this one place that could make a good sazerac…” Sam trailed off again thinking of all the empty shops they had walked past on just on their way to pizza place, casualties of the Blip. “I wonder if that place is still there,” He muttered before shaking off the gloomy thought. “After that, well,” Sam shrugged, “it would depend on the conversation and the chemistry where it went from there.”
“You have the hotel picked out already, don’t you? Rose petals on the sheets and champagne on ice?”
“Nah, no hotel. I’d take them back to my place— or I would have, my old place, the one I had before I got sucked into all this Avengers nonsense. Maybe it’s not a luxury hotel but I promise I make better pancakes than any room service.” Sam sighed, tipping his head back to look for stars he knew he wouldn’t see. “I guess my plan’s a bit outdated. I don’t live in DC anymore and the Blip changed so much, lot of business closed.”
“A lot of them are coming back though,” Bucky noted. “Just since I moved to Brooklyn I’ve seen a lot of vacant storefronts opening up again. Reminds me of the 30’s— business coming out of the Depression, replacing the ones that hadn’t.”
“That sounded down right hopeful. Who are you and what did you do with the grump I was supposed to go on a date with?”
“I can be upbeat sometimes,” Bucky protested.
Sam laughed and Bucky grinned. Conversation flowed easily between them for a while once the pizza was gone. The italian woman, Felicia (Bucky introduced her), came up a while later with complimentary cinnamon puff pastry desserts and a bottle of sweet wine. It was fully dark and just before midnight when Sam realized he should be heading back to the hotel.
“Let me take you somewhere first,” Bucky said as they descended the stairs. “I promise it’ll be fast.” He threw a small nervous smile over his shoulder, his lip just slipping out from between his teeth and bright eyes hopeful. And Sam couldn’t say no to an expression like that. It was another few blocks to where Bucky was leading him but the night air was crisp and it was a pleasant walk. The dark city streets probably should have been intimidating, Sam realized but it was hard to imagine anything scarier than Bucky coming out of a dark alleyway.
“What is this?” Sam asked when Bucky stopped at the gated side entrance of a large old building with grated windows.
“The Community Center. I help out here when I can— you know, carry heavy things and help old ladies cross the road,” Bucky explained while he fiddled with the lock and something that definitely wasn’t a key. “Dr. Raynor suggested it.” There was a click and the gate swung inward with a soft squeak.
“Did you just pick the lock?” Sam asked.
“What?” Bucky attempted to lie while slipping something back into his pocket. “No. I have a key.”
“A universal key, huh?” Sam teased as he passed Bucky. “I’m gonna pretend I didn’t see that just this once, but we better not get arrested.”
“Relax,” Bucky rolled his eyes and led Sam in, past an asphalt basketball court and towards a row of smaller buildings. Sam couldn’t quite make out their shapes in the gloom but Bucky seemed to know exactly where he was going, opening a specific door and ushering Sam into the dark interior. The air within was moist and warm, filled with the smell of wet earth and water. A fan was running somewhere inside generating a gentle white noise.
“What is this? A greenhouse?” Sam asked.
“I’ll get the lights,” Bucky turned Sam by his shoulders and gave him a soft push forward. “Keep walking.”
“Keep walking?” Sam shuffled a few feet, trying to feel out for any obstructions in the deep shadows. “It’s dark as shit in here, Buck. I can’t see a damn thing.”
“Well, I can see fine. You’re clear, just keep going a little farther.”
“Not all of us have super-sight, you know!”
“Super-sight?” Bucky laughed, “That might be your dumbest one yet.”
“ Excuse me, I’m focusing on not tripping over a rake and dying in this...” With a soft snap and a dull buzz the room lit up with a wash of warm gold light thrown from strings of small incandescent bulbs suspended along the glass walls. Sam’s breath caught in his chest.
The bright interior against the darkness turned the glass walls into mirrors reflecting back the glistening vibrant garden around him. There were tall bushes with fist sized plumes of pink and red roses, tall stalks of bursting orange and yellow irises, blankets of little blue, purple and white flowers that Sam had no names for and creeping green spilling out of buckets and off of tables everywhere. All of it was dusted with drops of water that caught sparks of the warm lights surrounding Sam in a glittering infinitely reflected garden.
“You said you wanted flowers,” Bucky said softly from just behind Sam’s shoulder. Sam jumped a little, too distracted by the sight to hear the other man approach, and turned around. Bucky fumbled his hands awkwardly into the pockets of his gray slacks, looking down at the floor. In the warm light there was no gloom to hide the pink tinge rising on his cheeks.
The date hadn’t gone the way they planned, but somehow it was right for them, for Sam and Bucky. When had their relationship been normal or anything Sam could have expected? But it had always turned out well in the end, moved them slowly but surely to right where they were standing, right where they were going...
Sam stepped closer, toe to toe with Bucky.
“Buck,” his voice came out as a whisper and those stormy gray eyes lifted from under long lashes to meet his, “Can I kiss you?”
Bucky’s lips parted, and his eyes flickered down to Sam’s mouth. He leaned down, head tilting and Sam leaned up to meet him half-way. It was fumbling and awkward like a first kiss should be, two sets of lips yet to work out a shared language of touch. But it was sweet and exhilarating in its novelty. They found their rhythm quickly, the kiss deepening as Sam pushed up on the balls of his feet and Bucky’s hands slipped out of his pockets to hold Sam’s waist. Sam reached up for Bucky’s jaw, fingers sliding up into the edges of his short hair. Sam held on for something to ground him as the kiss broke, finding Bucky’s collar, and they gasped for breath. Then Bucky’s lips were back on his, insistent and blazingly warm.
Their kisses stopped feeling like those on a first date where they cautiously toed the boundaries of physical touch, and started to feel like the fourth or fifth date when those boundaries felt like paper thin walls waiting too long to be torn down. Sam’s fingers found their way into the short bristling hair at the nape of Bucky’s neck. Hard vibranium fingers pushed through the slippery fabric of Sam’s jacket against the small of his back. Sam wanted to touch, wanted to explore Bucky’s jawline with his teeth, hold Bucky’s shoulders— flesh and vibranium— between his hands, push Bucky against the long rough wood tables between potted plants, and squeeze out the air between them till they couldn’t get any closer. He wanted Bucky’s breath hot against his skin, the smell of sweat mixing with wet earth around him, wanted those stormy eyes meeting his reflecting the sparkling garden and clouded with lust; he wanted all of it.
“Sam,” Bucky gasped, barely louder than a sigh when Sam pulled away. And, damn , it nearly made Sam dive back in to taste his name on those lips.
“W-we… we should…” Sam stuttered for words.
“Wait,” Bucky finished breathlessly and nodded slightly with his forehead pressed against Sam’s, slightly damp and blazingly warm.
“Yeah. I want… I do, but...”
“Too soon.”
“Too soon,” Sam agreed. “And… not here…”
“Wrong place,” Bucky’s hands that were still on Sam’s waist tightened, pulling Sam an inch closer contrarily, pressing them together lightly— not tightly enough, not close enough. Bucky dropped his head so his temple was pressed to Sam’s and breathed out a forceful sigh. The warm stirring air across his neck was shiver inducing. Sam wrapped his arms around Bucky’s wide shoulders and closed his eyes, soaking up the feeling, the solidity of his partner.
Tipping his head back he looked up at the fuzzy reflection of them in the glass of the ceiling, reduced to gray and blue blurs, and the green and gold haze of the garden around them.
“It’s lovely. It… really is, Buck,” Sam blinked back liquid pooling in his eyes. “Just, you really deserve… not a dirty floor, like, at least a bed. Maybe we can do that next time.”
Bucky chuckled at that and pushed Sam away gently. He met Sam’s gaze with a hesitant smile.
“I get a ‘next time’?”
“I mean, I’d like that,” Sam said, feeling his heart beating in his ears.
“Ok,” Bucky’s smile split a little wider across his face. “Shuri did buy me a very nice bed just for you. It’d be a shame to let that go to waste.” Sam scrunched up his face, and Bucky added thoughtfully, “That sounded weirder out loud than I intended.”
“Yeah.” Sam stepped back half a pace, still holding Bucky’s shoulders. “That’s weird. Shuri bought you what?”
“She basically furnished and decorated my whole apartment after arranging our date so I’d have somewhere to take you after dinner,” Bucky admitted.
“Oh, God.” Sam looked up at the roof of the greenhouse. “At this rate she’s going to plan our goddamn wedding.”
Bucky laughed, clear and uninhibited. He let his hands fall off of Sam’s waist and stepped away, but he caught Sam’s left hand in his warm right palm, twining their fingers together. Sam didn’t even bother lying to himself that it didn’t make his heart stutter.
They left the greenhouse hand in hand, only letting them drop by unspoken agreement when they reached the gate to the street. They waited in the nearby pool of streetlamp light for Sam’s cab. It pulled up across the way a few minutes later.
“Umm… Thanks, for,” Bucky scuffed his foot against the pavement “… you know… I had fun.”
“Me too,” Sam agreed, trying to will away the nervous fluttering that was back in his stomach. “Much better than my last first date.”
“Low bar.”
“Yeah, pretty low,” Sam agreed but somehow still couldn’t force his feet to move away.
“Right.” The corner of Bucky’s mouth quirked up on one side.
“Still up for taking AJ and Cass to Ellis Island tomorrow?”
“Yeah, yeah, ‘course. Guess I’ll see you then.”
“See you then.”
Bucky met Sam’s gaze and they each took an aborted half step closer, before thinking better of it; this new physical side of their relationship was still too new, too fragile, too private for a public street. Sam ducked his head, cheeks burning and lips tingling with a phantom touch. He turned away with one last furtive smile and jogged across the street towards his waiting cab.
When Sam looked back, Bucky was watching him go, leaning against the lamp pole. He looked a perfect picture in his suit and the harsh overhead lighting giving him a chiseled black and white look, like a figure out of an old noir movie— and really given his age it was fitting. Bucky waved a single swing of his hand as the cab drove off. Sam leaned back in his seat head against the headrest replaying the kiss in the flowering greenhouse. The date definitely did not go as planned, but Sam wouldn’t change a moment of it, not one moment.
Bzzzt!
Halfway to the hotel Sam’s phone buzzed in his pocket and he dug it out. There was a new text message.
Tech Princess: Glad it went well. ;) See you soon.
Sam: How do you already know?
Tech Princess: Bucky beat you to thanking me.
Sam: You are not subtle.
Sam: Thank you. It did go well.
Tech Princess: You love birds are on your own from here.