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Riley appeared late one evening.
Sam stood in the hallway connecting the bedroom to the living room and watched Bucky laugh so hard he nearly fell off the couch as Riley insisted, “No, no, it’s true.”
“Barnes…” Sam said, though he couldn’t pull his eyes from the dimple in Riley’s cheek, the scar on his eyebrow, the close crop of his hair.
“Oh, hey, Sammy, I didn’t know you were home,” Bucky said as he pushed himself back onto the couch. He threw his arm over the back of the couch so it rested behind Riley. Casual. Intimate. Normal. “Riley swung by.”
“I see that,” Sam agreed. Riley threw him a grin and it was… Wrong. That grin was all wrong. It was cocky and sure. It matched the strong slope of his jaw, the handsome features that defined all of Riley’s physicality but never his personality. Riley looked like a million bucks but he never acted like it. He never threw a lazy two finger salute at Sam, never leaned into someone’s arm the way he was leaning back into Bucky’s, never spread his legs like any space was his God-given right.
“Hey, Sammy,” Riley repeated. And it was wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
Sam slowly walked into the living room, sat on the chair catty-corner to the couch, and watched Bucky knock the back of his hand into Riley’s chest. “You know how he is just after he wakes up. Anyway, what were you saying about the way Sam and Sarah tried to smoke out Thanksgiving dinner the other year?”
It was a real story. The second to last Thanksgiving Sam and Riley had, Sam had accidentally caught an oven-mitt on a pot and dragged it over the burner. They’d had to open all the windows, turn on all the fans they could find, and vacate the house. It took hours to get the smoke out. They’d eaten outside. It had been… It had been a really good evening.
“Yeah, Sarah caught a towel in the oven door or something. We ended up going to a neighbor’s house.”
Sam jumped up and very much so tried not to pace as he crossed back to the hallway. “Buck, could we…” He nodded towards the bedroom.
Riley wolf whistled and dug his elbow into Bucky’s ribs. Bucky laughed and pushed Riley away like they’d known each other all their life. “Should I leave?”
“Nah,” Bucky said before Sam could say ‘please.’ “He probably just wants to dress me down about wearing his hoodie again and not washing it.”
This was all wrong. Sam had laid awake night after night when Steve had realized that Bucky was alive and imagined what it would be like to get Riley back. But his story wasn’t Steve’s. And Riley wasn’t Bucky. Riley was… They’d found… Jesus, Sam knew Riley was dead and not coming back. But his imagination had wandered and he’d thought about waking up and finding Riley next to him and this… This was wrong. Sam wanted to carve his heart out of his chest if it’d make the ache less, but this wasn’t Riley. It wasn’t his daydreams. It wasn’t a fantasy.
Riley kicked one of Bucky’s boots and Bucky kicked his shin back. It was all Sam had ever wanted and it was a nightmare.
Quickly, he ducked back into the bedroom and shut the door after Bucky. “What the hell is going on?” he asked in an angry, hurt hiss.
“What are you talking about?” Bucky asked. Then his mouth twisted. “You don’t think we’re fooling around or nothin’ right? I thought we already did this when I thought you two were foolin’ around.”
“No! Bucky, what the fuck are you playing at? What are you doing? Is this some kind of...some kind of bullshit with BARF or something?”
Bucky looked bewildered. “What are you talking about, Wilson? Are you concussed?”
“Riley’s dead,” Sam finally said. The words were still like knives in his throat after all these years.
“Riley is right outside. Have you lost it?”
“Riley’s been dead longer than I’ve known you.”
“Sam, you introduced me to Riley way back in 2014. You sent him after me after I figured out you were following me in Algeria.”
“You were never in Algeria! What the fuck are you talking about?”
Maybe Sam was losing it. Had the last decade been a dream? Had he been concussed or in a coma and lived an entire other life and forgot about this one?
Then he thought about the way Riley smirked more than grinned and the set to his shoulders and how he hadn’t swooped Sam into a hug, no matter how recently they’d seen each other. This wasn’t a fucking dream. That wasn’t Riley.
Sam reached up to hold Bucky’s face in both his hands. Bucky glanced at his arms for a second before those blue eyes met Sam’s. “Sammy, you’re scaring me,” he said and brought his hands up to Sam’s wrists.
“Something is happening,” he said with as much authority as he could put into his voice, despite not knowing what the hell it was that was happening. “This isn’t real. That isn’t Riley.”
“I’m gonna call someone. Banner or Cho, someone . Someone needs to scan your head.”
“Barnes, listen to me. Riley was shot down during a night mission in 2013. A year before I met Steve. A year before you broke free from HYDRA. I’m the one who was on your tail all those years. It was me, by myself, unless Steve could wrangle himself free. But I never caught up to you. We didn’t see each other again until Zemo framed you for the UN bombing and Steve and I had to save your dumb ass from half the world. And then you tried to kill me again and then we spent 17 hours in a car together and that’s when we got to know each other. It was 2016 before we even really spoke eye to eye.”
“Bombing? What are you talking about? You’re talking about things that never happened, Sam. Me and you, we’ve been living here for years. You--”
“Everything alright?” Riley asked, appearing in the doorway. He leaned a shoulder against the jamb and crossed an ankle over his other. “Sorry, didn’t mean to pry. It’s just the door was open and you know you’ve got that commanding voice, huh? Just like your daddy at his pulpit.”
“You never heard my dad preach,” Sam said. And he’d definitely shut the door. He pushed Bucky behind him and squared his shoulders. “Who the hell are you?”
Riley frowned and it wasn’t half as wounded-puppy as it should have been. Saying no to Riley, arguing with him, yelling at him, disagreeing with him was sure to lead someone to the guilt trip of their life and Riley didn’t even need to say anything. He’d just duck his head and pout out his lip just a little bit and blink those big, dumb, dark eyes up at them and the argument/disagreement/no was over as quickly as it’d begun.
These eyes were not that.
“Sammy, you’ve known me almost all your life. What are you talking about?”
“I knew him almost all my life. So I know you’re not him.”
“Oh Sammy,” Riley sighed and crossed his arms over his chest. “We were gonna make it nice for you. You weren’t even gonna notice, if you’d have just bought into the fantasy.”
“Buck,” Sam said softly, keeping a hand on Bucky’s hip as he slowly stepped back towards the window. He didn’t have the jetpack at hand, but he never stayed higher than a second story. If he needed to jump, he’d survive it, especially if he put Bucky under him. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”
Bucky’s metal fingers curled around Sam’s wrist and Sam started to turn his hand over in the hold to grab onto Bucky’s until he stepped back into Bucky’s chest. “Probably not, handsome.”
“Man, I went to bat for this,” Riley said, an indignant whine coming to his voice. “I told them you’d take better to positive reinforcement. You’re not like your partner . You’re not enhanced. We can’t fry your brain out of your ears. I really thought we could trick you into a wipe. But,” Riley shrugged, “I guess not. Put him down, shock him again.”
Bucky pulled Sam back into a chair that didn’t exist in their bedroom and cuffs came over his wrists. Bucky snatched flesh and blood fingers away from both of them at the last moment.
Sam blinked roughly and shook his head. “What the fuck’s happening?”
“Come on, we know you’re the pretty one, but you’ve gotta be the smart one too. We’ve seen Barnes. Not a master strategist,” Riley said as he picked up a drill.
“More of a blunt tool,” Bucky agreed. But he was suddenly not Bucky. Close, in that he was broad and had dark hair and had the same shape to his thighs that Bucky had. But it was like an illusion or a mask had fallen away. Clearly, this man was not Bucky.
Sam blinked and shook his head again and Riley shimmered away too, one last longing look shot at Sam before it was just another tall, blond man. He was young. Younger than Riley had been when he’d died, younger than Bucky still looked, far younger than Sam felt most days.
“Who are you?” he asked.
“You can keep calling me Riley. I like the sound of his name. And I’m sure the nostalgia will help ease your transition,” the man answered. He passed a syringe over to his partner and Sam strained away from the man’s hands but couldn’t get out of the cuffs.
“You’re not gonna lure Barnes back like this. Even if he comes, it’ll be with a death wish, not a bargain.”
Not-Bucky snorted and Not-Riley quirked that wrong grin. “Why the hell would we want the Winter Soldier? Guy was a fucking animal on the good days. We’re well past needing soldiers. What we need is a Captain.”
“Fuck you,” Sam spat.
“Hold still,” Not-Riley responded and stepped forward with the drill.
Sam woke up looking at Riley and almost smiled until he realized his dimple was in the wrong cheek.
Sam woke up in Bucky’s arms and said a code word that went unanswered.
Sam woke up to kisses on his neck that zinged over a soft spot everyone knew to avoid on his back.
Sam woke up and it was wrong.
It was wrong.
It was wrong.
It was wrong.
Sam came to in a Helicarrier. He couldn’t see out of one eye and the same side of his head throbbed. Shit, all his head throbbed. Screamed. It felt like someone had run an emulsifier through his brains.
Bucky was dripping blood on the floor of the plane, not looking at Sam. Sam’s vision was blurry at best and he couldn’t exactly count out the sunshine freckles that had cropped up along Bucky’s cheeks and neck after a few summers in Louisiana. He couldn’t make sure scars were where they belonged. He couldn’t compare eye color to the Pantone Swatches he made in his mind when he couldn’t sleep.
But he knew that thousand mile stare. He knew the blatant disregard for the fact that Bucky was seriously bleeding from the head. He knew the impatient, irregular bounce of his leg, as if the energy was bursting out of him in jerks that broke containment.
This one was Bucky.
“Hey,” Sam rasped out.
“I’m not supposed to talk to you,” Bucky said. “And you shouldn’t be talking at all.”
“Where’s Redwing?” he asked.
“Shut the fuck up about your stupid bird,” Bucky snapped.
Bucky. Through and through.
“Why aren’t you supposed to be talking to me?”
“It’ll...it’ll fuck up your head. They said that they--” Bucky choked off and suddenly turned to vomit in a bin that was probably there for that exact reason. Bucky wiped his hand over his mouth and went back to staring at the ground. “They said they were fucking with your head. Using me to hurt you.”
Sam shook his head. “You didn’t hurt me. Not really.”
“Sam…” Bucky breathed and finally tore his eyes from the floor. “I’ve been through it too. I know what it’s like.”
Sam shook his head again. “If you shouldn’t be talking to me, why are you here?”
Bucky looked away again. “Because I can’t not see you right now. Or ever again.”
“You’re not looking at me.”
“I don’t want to look at you! I just need to see you.”
Sam tried to roll his eyes and then groaned in agony. He jerked his hands up to his face, but they got stopped halfway. The cuffs around his wrists sent a new wave of panic through him and he began to thrash wildly in the stretcher bed he was tied down in.
In a split second, Bucky was by his side, holding his metal hand gingerly over Sam’s eyes, not quite resting on Sam’s skin. “Don’t look at me,” he ordered. “I’m gonna undo your hands, but you can’t touch your face or your head. Hey, are you listening to me?”
It was Bucky. It was Bucky. It was Bucky. They hadn’t ever got his commanding tone right, never had the right cadence of words, never put emphasis on the right part of the sentence. They never thought the right things were important for Bucky.
Sam stopped thrashing.
Bucky undid the cuffs.
“Don’t touch your head,” he repeated and slowly removed his hand from Sam’s eyes.
Sam lasted all of 90 seconds before he looked at Bucky. Still blurry. Still mostly right.
“I wanted it to be real,” he finally said softly and now it was his turn to look away from his partner. “I wanted it to be real so badly I almost let myself believe it.”
Bucky swallowed and Sam swore he could actually hear it. “I know,” he said softly. “I’ve seen what it could do to people back at the dawn of the computer age. I can’t imagine how real it is now.”
“Riley was there. And you were there. And you were so happy. You got along just how I wanted. How could they possibly know that’s what I wanted most in life?”
“I’m sorry,” Bucky said softly as he reached over to rub his thumb over Sam’s wrist. Sam was pretty certain he was so high up because there was a shit ton of gauze wrapped around a probable break in his wrist, but he wasn’t really feeling anything.
“You didn’t do it,” Sam muttered. Still, the tears came and he stared at rivets and divots as he tried to blink them away. “I should be apologizing. I would’ve left you. Just like-- Just like--” He swallowed thickly and when he shut his eyes, the tears fell along his eyelashes.
“Hey, no. No, fuck that. Sam,” Bucky breathed. He moved over to Sam’s side of the helicarrier, almost sitting on the bed, kind of hovering over it. “They fucked with your head. And they were...they were torturing you, Sam. Of course you wanted your best friends back. Of course you wanted us together with you. I can’t tell you how many years I musta spent in my own head, thinking of anything, daydreaming anything to make up for what was happening to me.
“ Sam ,” he repeated emphatically. “You broke free. You didn’t fall for it. You came back and you’re still you. Shit, Sammy, you broke one of thems’s nose at one point. And damn well, too. There was blood all over him before I even got there.”
Sam let out a shocked, wet laugh.
“You did good. And no one is blaming you. No one would blame you even if you had given in. I wouldn’t have. You came after me, remember? I woulda followed you to the ends of the Earth no matter what happened to get you back, without complaint.”
“You woulda complained,” Sam corrected.
“Okay, I woulda complained, but I wouldn’t’ve blamed you, not ever. I wish I could tell you to look at me,” Bucky said, cradling the back of Sam’s head in his hand. “But I want you to know that you’re here. You’re okay. We’re gonna get you patched up and then I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure you’re really okay.”
Sam nodded and sniffled. He wasn’t sure what he believed yet. He wasn’t sure what was wrong with his head that he couldn’t touch his face. He wasn’t even really, really sure this was real. But it felt real.
“Buck,” he said finally. “When’s the last time we went dancing?” he asked.
“You ain’t never let me take you dancing,” Bucky said. And anxiety loosened in Sam’s stomach. They always fell for that question.
“And what’re you always takin’ from my closet?”
Bucky rolled his eyes. “Jesus, not this stupid jacket thing again. Leather jackets all look the same. I’d take Danvers’ if she ever left it near mine. And...yours smells good.”
“You think you woulda been jealous of Riley if he was around.”
Bucky smoothed his thumb in an arc over Sam’s hair. “Damn straight. We’d fight like wet cats the whole time we were together. I mean, I’d want you to be happy, but shit, you’d better decide you’d be happier with me if he was around.”
Sam let out a breath and nodded. “Can I sleep?”
“If you want to,” Bucky said. “I can get a sedative.”
“No, it’s okay. I’m just gonna--”
Sam woke up and it was fine.