Chapter Text
“Sam, mail!” Sarah called, throwing the letter down on the breakfast table. Sam snatched it up as he walked past her, heading for the coffee pot. “You need your own damn house. You're a grown man, why is your mail coming to your sister's house?”
Sam shrugged, “dunno, I have a PO box.” He poured himself a cup of coffee and leaned against the counter, sipping it, before he looked at the letter.
He frowned. It was from Bucky?
“What the hell, old man,” Sam whispered, shaking his head as he set his coffee down and tore the letter open. “I’m coming to New York tomorrow.”
What slipped out as Sam tipped the envelope over made him freeze. Bucky’s dog tags. Bucky never took off his dog tags. He pulled the letter out with shaking hands.
Sam,
I can’t do this anymore. I’m sorry.
I love you,
B
“ Shit ,” Sam hissed, running out of the room and up the stairs. “Shit,” he whispered again, grabbing his phone off his nightstand, almost dropping it. He took a breath, steadying himself enough to find Bucky’s name and hit the call button.
‘The number you have dialed is no longer in service-”
“No,” Sam could feel the tears on his cheeks, but he didn’t bother to wipe them away. He hung up and tried to call again.
‘The number you have dialed-”
“No!”
The phone wasn’t in his hands anymore, it was on the floor. So was he. Sam pushed his face into his hands.
“Sam?” Sarah called, “Sam! What’s going on?”
Sarah was beside him. A hand on his shoulder.
“Sam?”
“It’s Bucky, Sarah. Bucky’s gone.”
--
Sam took a flight out to New York that night, only 15 hours before his original flight was planned.
He found what he was expecting. An empty apartment. The same furniture that the government had given Bucky, but nothing else.
Bucky’s clothes were gone. The mismatched kitchen-ware he’d been collecting was gone. The throw-pillows on the couch he’d bought with Sam. The old StarkShuffle Sam had given him, full of music, was gone too.
Bucky’d always hated having anyone else clean up after him.
Everything in this apartment that Bucky had worked for. Everything that had brought it to life, that had shown Bucky coming back to life… stripped away.
Bucky was gone.
Sam slammed the door on his way out.
--
Sam had never thought to ask for the Wakandan’s contact information, and now he was deeply regretting that. How the fuck was Sam supposed to tell the only other people that cared about Bucky that Bucky was missing. Presumed de-
Missing.
Sam took in a shaky breath and tried calling the next number of the chain of numbers he’d try to call.
He was a bit annoyed that Captain America had to work this hard to get into contact with these people.
When the person answered, Sam tried to explain the situation, but he didn’t get far.
“Sam Wilson? Captain America?”
Sam sat up, finally .
“Yes, that’s me.”
“You dare try to contact us? After what you did?”
“Um-” He’d forgotten they were still mad about Zemo. “Look, it’s not about me, it’s about Bucky-”
“Do not speak to us about Bucky Barnes.”
“Please, Ayo would want to know-”
“Do not call this number again.”
Shit.
--
After a week, when it was clear that Bucky was not playing some sort of sick joke, Sam let the government know that Bucky was missing.
No one really cared.
He was pretty sure some people were relieved the Winter Soldier was out of their hands.
Sam couldn’t stand being around it. He booked the next flight back to Louisiana.
--
“I’m just so mad at him,” Sam said, Bucky’s tags dangling between his fingers. “He knew- he knew about my abandonment shit. He knew about my parents, and my brother, and Riley. How could he-” Sam’s voice broke and he closed his eyes, clenching his hands around the tags.
“You’ve been through a lot, Sam,” his therapist, Preet, said across from him gently. “It’s understandable to be angry right now.”
Sam scoffed, sitting back and rubbing the tears away with the back of his hand. “But if I’m mad, then I feel guilty, cause who the hell else is going to mourn the bastard the way he deserves? No one. It was just me. I was all he had.”
“You can be mad at him and mourn him at the same time.”
Sam looked away. It didn’t feel right.
“Have you thought about getting closure? Having a ceremony to say goodbye?”
Sam snorted, “who would come?”
“It doesn’t matter, it could just be you.”
He sniffed, “I’ll think about it.”
“Good. And Sam, please remember that Bucky’s disappearance, or death, is not on you. That man had been through more than we know, it was not your job to save him.”
“I know.” Sam said, even as his heart ached.
He thought he had saved him though. That was the whole problem.
--
Sam stood in the ocean, the water splashing against his knees. Sarah and the boys were behind him on the sand. They’d had a fire tonight, on the beach, for Bucky.
A final goodbye.
And now Sam stood in the water, holding a fucking white lilly and feeling like an idiot.
“You’d tell me I was being stupid right now,” Sam said, laughing down at the flower. “Maybe I am. But what else was I supposed to do, Buck? There was no body…”
Sam cleared his throat, looking up at the waves.
“I know last time I saw you, we- we had,” Sam closed his eyes. “And I just want you to know, it’s okay. I know we both felt the same. I loved you, and you loved me. Our time was just… short. It’s okay.” He dropped the flower into the water, watched as it floated away. “I hope wherever you are now, man, you’ve finally found some peace.”
--
Four months after Sam got Bucky’s letter, he put the suit back on.
“Oh, thank God,” Torres said as soon as Sam walked onto the plane at the pickup site.
Sam smirked, “miss me?”
“Yeah. They had me working with weird people when you were gone.”
Sam sat down beside him, “who?”
“Have you heard of Sharon Carter? She’s scary.”
Sam laughed, “that she is.”
“And Walker , who I thought was like, in prison?”
Sam shrugged, “did he cause you any trouble?”
“No, he was just annoying. Talked a lot. Asked about you sometimes. I mostly put my headphones on and ignored him.”
Sam snorted, then reached over and hit Torres’ arm. “I’m back now. You don’t gotta worry about those two anymore.”
Torres grinned, starting to click all the buttons to start the plane. “Like I said, thank God .”
--
Their mission went well. As did the next one, and the next one.
Pretty soon, it had been 6 months since Bucky, and Sam’s life was pretty much back to normal.
He had to rent a hotel room, instead of crashing at Bucky’s, whenever he was in New York now. He didn’t have anyone to help look at apartments in New Orleans. He wore Bucky’s tags every day. But he was fine. He was getting better.
And then he had to go to Wakanda.
--
Sam wasn’t entirely sure what the mission was. Something about resurging Flagsmashers, or Flagsmashers teaming up with some violent gang in Africa - Sharon wasn’t all that big on the details.
All he knew was one moment he was chasing after damn teenagers in Sudan, swooping low over their jeep to get them to stop, and the next - the fucking Dora Milaje were knocking the jeep off the road, and knocking Sam out of the sky in the process.
The last thing he remembered was blurry faces and spears glaring down at him.
--
Sam woke up on a padded table. His head hurt, but not as badly as he thought it would. He looked around with a frown, and realized he was in Shuri’s lab. He’d only been in here once before, when Bucky let him tag along for arm repairs.
Fuck. Sam closed his eyes, letting his head drop back onto the table. Now that he was here, he was going to have to tell him about Bucky.
And he’d thought chasing Flagsmashers around Sudan had been hard.
Sam sat up slowly. Nothing seemed to be injured, but that was probably because Shuri had already worked her magic on him.
He was in a set of loose fitting clothes, all black with little patterns of elephants on the hem. Sam made his way across the lab floor, taking in the machines and lasers wiring around him.
He wished he could take in the magic of Wakanda without this ball of anxiety in his chest.
He finally found a door and pushed through. There, leaning over a desk, was Shuri. Sam put on the most polite smile he could muster.
“Princess Shuri.”
Shuri sprang up, “Sam,” she said, looking surprised. “You’re up sooner than I thought you would be.”
“Yeah, your magic healing does the trick every ti-” Sam froze halfway across the room.
Sitting across the table from Shuri, and looking just as stricken as Sam felt, sat Bucky.
Sam could hear ringing in his ears. He didn’t know what to do with this. He didn’t even know if this was real, or if he was still on that bed in the other room, dreaming all of this up.
Or fuck, maybe he’d died in Sudan.
“Sorry, I’ll…” Bucky stood up, ducking his head. “I’ll leave.”
“What?” That got Sam moving again, rushing toward Bucky before Bucky could get out the door. “Man, what the fuck, have you been here this whole time?!”
He grabbed Bucky’s arm, and Bucky let him. His face was still ducked down.
“You won’t have to see me again. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“Make sure- make sure I’m okay?” Sam didn’t know what was happening. His hands were shaking, his eyes were blurry from tears, and now he was throwing his head back and letting out a dark and twisted laugh. “Bucky, I am so fucking far from okay.”
“I’m sorry,” Bucky whispered, curling into himself.
Sam let go of his arm, ran a hand over his face. “Don’t- stop saying your sorry. Just tell me- just fucking- just tell me why?” Sam’s voice was shaking, and there were tears on his cheeks now. Fuck he was a mess.
But he needed to know. He needed to know why he’d mourned a man who was standing whole in front of him.
But Bucky just frowned, “I don’t understand. Why what?”
Sam shook his head, what was so hard to understand? “Why are you here? Why did you leave like that?”
Bucky shifted, “because you told me to.”
“No I fucking did not .”
“You did . You were mad at me, like you’re mad at me now. You don’t want me near you.”
“Mad? Mad?!” Sam laughed bitterly, clawing at the metal that was always hidden under his shirt. “Well sorry for getting a little upset when I thought you were dead !”
He threw the tags at Bucky, who caught them easily, and stared down at them in shock.
“Where did you get these?”
Sam threw his hands up, “you sent them to me!”
Suddenly there was a hand on his chest, and Sheri was pushing herself between them. Sam hadn’t even realized how close they had gotten.
“Boys, I think we have a lot to talk about.”