Work Text:
"You know you still haven't told me why this is such a big deal, right?"
Bucky opened his eyes just enough the see his partner looking down at him, a slightly bemused expression on his face. Then he closed them again, enjoying the feeling of the warm June sun on his face and the sand beneath his bare feet.
Sam had come up from Delacroix late the previous week to clear his mind. His mind seemed pretty well cleared at this point, but he also didn't seem to be in any hurry to leave, and after discovering over coffee that Bucky was inexplicably deciding to spend his third day in less than a week treking down to Coney Island, he'd decided to join.
To Bucky's relief, no one had asked them for a selfie during the train ride down - they usually didn't when it was just him, on the grounds that most people didn't look up from their phones long enough to notice him at all and most of the others were more interested in a quiet fucking ride than a scene because Bucky Barnes was on the F train, but he hadn't been sure that would still hold true when Captain America was there, too.
A few people had definitely taken their picture from across the car, but thankfully, the classic New York 'don't fucking talk to random people on the train unless it's a quick fuck-these-delays-and-can-they-please-decide-whether-it's-a-track-malfunction-or-a-fire' had held firm.
"It's June 17," Bucky said, completely aware that it was exceedingly unlikely that anyone could have guessed why it was significant to him.
"Buck, help me out." Sam sounded a little exasperated. "I googled it last night, and the only thing I found was yesterday being the 140th anniversary of a roller coaster opening here."
Bucky wriggled his toes in the sand again. He'd never really been a beach person, exactly, but being there just then was gratifying in a way that cut deeper than than just 'the beach.' "June 17 is when they officially declared the 1916 polio outbreak here."
His eyes were still closed, but he felt Sam give up on sitting and fall back to lay on the sand next to him. "You're fucking kidding me. You've been coming down here because of something that happened in 1916?"
"Hey, I told you to find friends your own age - this one's on you."
"Seems like a lot of work for a downgrade, though." Bucky finally opened his eyes again and found a broad smile on Sam's face, and he immediately felt a matching smile spread across his, despite what was indisputably a depressing subject. "Come on - so, polio?"
"Oh. Well, it hit Brooklyn hard in 1916, and after that, polio was just a thing - my parents never let us do shit like go to the beach in the summer because they were afraid we'd catch it. If I complained, they'd just say 'James Buchanan Barnes, if it could happen to the governor, it could happen to anyone.'" He glanced over at Sam; his smile was still there, but he was studying Bucky intently. "Roosevelt, I mean. By the time he was president, they didn't have to say it anymore - I was old enough to get that Steve's health was a fucking mess and I needed to be careful if I didn't want my best friend to end up dead."
"Why didn't you just say that rather than being mysterious about it?"
"I wasn't trying to be mysterious, I was just taking a walk!" He didn't even have to look at Sam again to know he was rolling his eyes. "Look, I'm just not used to anyone noticing what I'm doing when I'm home, okay? When we're just hanging out without Captain America shit going on, we're usually down at your place."
Sam didn't respond, and after a moment, Bucky turned to look at him. There was a small crease in Sam's forehead as he followed the clouds in the sky. "That's true, isn't it?"
"I'm not complaining, I'm just saying that's why."
Sam rolled onto his side and propped himself up on his elbow. "Okay, but do you want me to come up here more? You haven't really brought it up, so I just assumed you wanted your own space when it wasn't superhero shit."
"I don't. Not from you, anyway." After a moment, he added, "Sorry - I guess I probably should've said that before."
"Probably," Sam said dryly. The sun was getting high enough in the sky that Bucky was starting to feel uncomfortably warm, so he rolled onto his stomach. After a moment, Sam reached over and started to brush his fingers across the back of Bucky's head. "Told you you'd get sand in your hair."
"Well, it's better than polio."
"Good point. Sand in your hair is better than polio." His tone hadn't changed, and Bucky closed his eyes as Sam slid his hand down to brush the sand off the back of his neck, too. "At any rate, I can start coming up here more. I like New York, you know - you just had to ask."
"Something I'm historically great at doing," Bucky deadpanned. "And I'm not in New York, I'm in Brooklyn."
"I know. Believe me, I know." He laughed at the look on Bucky's face and added, "Send me that picture you took of our feet in the sand - I want to post it on instagram with a comment about polio."
Bucky reached down and fumbled to get his phone out of his pocket. "Send it to yourself." Sam opened his mouth, and he added, "The password's the day we met - and don't fucking start about the steering wheel and shit, I know it didn't go well, it's just a day I could remember."
He heard Sam enter in the code, and after a moment, he said, "Not where my mind went."