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The gala was a necessary evil in the eyes of Bucky, he is fully aware he has to show face at events like this now that congressmen is attached to his name. So he grits his teeth and bares through most of the showing and talking and more talking about mostly mundane topics. But every so often he will find himself enjoying the moment, the swarm of people all mingling and laughing, chatting and catching up. He was taken back to a simpler time in his life before everything went to shit. Those moments though never last as long as he would like.
Tonight however the moment is dragging itself out, Steve is to his left and Sam to his right. They are bickering across him about something unimportant and for the better part of an hour he doesn’t feel 100 and something but 20 something out with his friends being young.
“No no all i'm saying is that the wings are so much more useful in a zombie apocalypse then the shield.” Sam countered, drink wishing in his hand. He looks good tonight, a well tailored navy suit hugging all the right places. Bucky had to catch himself more than once when his eye lingered slightly too long on his legs. He truly is only a man when it comes to Sam Wilson's thighs.
He really does try and keep it subtle but by the way Steve is stifling his grin every time he catches Bucky's too long glances, he can tell it's getting a little obvious.
“Sam, come on the shield is the obvious choice. No tech to rely on and it's indestructible.” Steve adds in that charming way he uses when trying to convince someone. With the pondering look on Sam’s face it seems to have done the trick, but knowing Sam as well as Bucky and Steve do he will never say Steve is right.
“You both are wrong, the arm,” Bucky says, lifting his medal hand, “Is the only correct answer.”
“Absolutely not.”
“What? No!”
Both of them say in unison, Bucky smiles and just as the two of them were about to get into it Delaware’s congresswoman, Diana Pierce, approaches them.
“Good evening gentlemen,” she greets kindly then locks eyes with Sam, “I was hoping to pull you for a word Captain?”
Sam straightens and smiles kindly, ”Absolutely congresswoman,” he loops his arms with hers. She is young and gorgeous, Bucky notes her long brown hair and striking green eyes, her lips painted a neutral pink. She is a little shorter than Sam in her heels and if word is right she is kind and funny. A few have even called her a breath of fresh air in the congregation hall. All of this to say it unsettles Bucky when he sees how close they walk away and how Sam laughs something real at whatever she had said.
“Is this glare supposed to be subtle,” Steve leans in to say a stupid knowing grin pulls at his lips. “Because if you could shoot lasers out your eyes she would be long gone there buddy.”
Bucky pulls his eyes away from the pair and turns his glare on Steve and his dumb all knowing smirk, “Shut up there is no glare.” But as the words leave his mouth his eyes are back on the two only a few tables away talking awfully close. “Are they leaning into each other?” He asks not to take his eyes off them.
The laugh that answers him is mean, not really but Bucky still thinks this is no laughing matter. “Come on, Buck lets get a drink and talk with that donor who wants to sponsor VA help.”
And just like that Steve grabs his shoulders and guides him to the bar. Alcohol does absolutely nothing for them but whiskey is warm going down so they both order singles of whatever is on the shelf.
It isn’t long till they are interpreted by a young man looking at Steve with stars in his eyes. He stumbles over his words asking if he could get a quote for his paper on his stance with veteran aid and mental health care. And Steve being Steve smiles and nods, looking back at Bucky with a look asking if he will be alright by himself for a few minutes. Just a slight nod gives him the okay. Steve and him have communicated with looks since before the serum and the warmth of familiarity isn’t from the whiskey.
So like he has done so many times before he fades into the background. His back against the wall and he watches, takes in the music and people. On days where the walls of his apartment are too tight he likes to go out to a park bench made out to a man who sat and watched just like Bucky.
His therapist tells him to do an exercise, to make up stories of the strangers he sees walking the path around the park, he thought, still thinks it's stupid, yet he finds himself imagining the lives of strangers.
He does it now, to the guest of the gala, a man who is checking his watch. Bucky imagines he wants to get home, throw on whoever is playing that night and not care if his Rolex matches the gold on his cufflinks. As he stands and stares his eyes find their way back to Sam and the Delaware congresswoman still in deep conversation, all smiles and shaking shoulders. The ugly feeling of jealousy curls in his gut distracting him for too long.
He registers the smell first, the musky floral scent that hides hints of vanilla, an old familiar aroma that makes his heart race for all the wrong reasons. Before he can register anything else there is a hand on his elbow that slides up his arm to grip his bicep. Buckys feels his body still and stiffens like a statue, frozen in a time far from this very room.
Jannett Love comes slowly into view, she’s older now, bags under her cold blue eyes and crows feet accompanying them. Bucky knew her long before she held the titles and position she does now. He remembers the blood on his hands from killing her competition, burning the files apon files of evidence proving Jannett was connected and funded by the shadiest of shady people. He also remembers what happened after the fact.
“Why isn’t it fun to see an old friend, Congressman Barnes,” She smiles and Bucky can’t move he can barely feel himself suck in a deep pull of air. “You remember me don't you? I know it's been a few decades but I haven’t changed that much have I ?”
The nails laying still on his bicep dig deeply into his arm not enough to hurt, never to hurt but to make him remember. Remember the nights she claimed her reward for a victory thrust upon her by his hands.
She bares her teeth with an all knowing smile, “Well soldier it was nice to see you again,” She leans in close, Bucky feels his breath halt but not before getting a lung full of her perfume. “Oh how I’ve missed you.” With a kiss to his check she was gone. Filtered swiftly back into the crowd of the now sea of too many people.
The nausea hit him first and hard, the lump in his throat was blocking his airway, he couldn’t breath. He needed to get out of here, melting into the shadows he found a bathroom, a blessedly empty bathroom. Quickly locking the door and dropping down to the toilet everything he had eaten that night now sat in the bowl in front of him. His heart was beating too fast and all he could smell was her and the nights he would rip his own skin off to forget were running on a movie reel through his mind.
Nothing felt real, he can’t tell how long he sat on the bathroom floor in a suit that cost more then his parents' first home. His breathing has mellowed out but the bathroom he knows he’s in feels like it's underwater. The motion of the waves and sun distorts his vision. His heart is still racing, he can feel the heavy thuds against his ribs as he tries to wash her hands away.
Jannett was a regular to reach out to Hydra, she came from money her father was an oil man in the UK. She wanted to show she could be more successful than he ever was, but she wasn’t able to do that without the help of Bucky, the blood she had paid for was never enough to satisfy her hunger.
No she always needed more, Jannett would smile and hand the money over but never without her eyes raking over Bucky in the way a woman like her did who has never heard the word, no, spoken to her. He was the perfect soldier, did what he was told, when he was told, how he was told. She wasn't the first and far from the last yet she stuck out in Bucky’s mind. The brutality of a woman who knew she was able to do whatever she wanted to the most powerful weapon in human hands.
So many times.
Knocking loud loud knocking shook him from his stupor, and all at once Bucky felt the shaking and shallow breaths and the rolling of his stomach. He scrambled back to the toilet to throw up bile and saliva shaking through sobs, he hadn’t known he was crying.
The knocking now pounding on the door was insistent, voices filtered in and out as all his weight was held up by the cool porcelain beneath him. The voices now making sense begging to let them in.
Sam begging to let him in, Oh Sam.
It went quiet again, for however long, Bucky couldn’t tell you, before the handle was broken off and the door slowly swung open.
Sam came into his sight between one blink and the next, not touching him but his mouth moving around words Bucky couldn’t hear through the ringing in his ears.
The pressure of a hand on his shoulder seemed to do the trick and in one movement to the next Steve was beneath him, metal hand wrapped around his throat in a vice grip. Before Bucky could comprehend what was going on a body slammed into him throwing him off Steve and into the wall.
Like someone pulled the plug, the water drained and the bathroom came completely into focus his brain finally caught up to his thoughts, “Oh god Steve im- im sorry,” Bucky sat back to the wall, breath coming fast and hard, heart racing as he looked at Steve. His neck was red but he didn’t look mad or hurt now he looked worried. Sam even worse, the way his hands were out stretched like he was approaching a scared animal and trying not to get bit.
“Buck,” Sam’s voice was low and kind, his eyes looked so so worried.
“She wasn’t supposed to be here, I saw the list, I knew what I was walking into, I knew it! I prepared, Sam,” A sob ripped out of him, “So this wouldn’t happen!” He thinks he’s yelling through the sobs.
“Okay I know Buck I got you the list of attendees and plus ones remember,” Sam comes closer, “we went over it together, the names and wives and the background checks?”
All Bucky could do was nod pulling his knees in close.
“Bucky who?” Not Sam but Steve asked, he was now across from Bucky, sitting rigid with his back on the opposite wall.
The question was innocent, who made him feel like his skin was crawling and his stomach was filled with a thousand bugs fighting to get out.
Bucky couldn’t say her name, he felt sick again, tears sprung to his eyes as he looked at the ceiling, the subway tiled ceiling.
Sam was deliberate in his movements, slow and loud enough for Bucky to anticipate when he sat next to him close enough to feel but not touch.
He let his head fall to the side and met Sam’s deep brown eyes, “I never wanted to do it,” It came out quiet just above a whisper.
“Do what?” Bucky was bathed in shame, drencech in its heavy weight, it was familiar. But this, looking the guy he cared about so much and admitted to the literal nightmare his reality was, held a new suffocating kind of weight.
“I never wanted any of them, I was their reward,” He couldn’t meet the now heavy gaze of either of them. “The world's most dangerous weapon under their hands, merciless.”
“Bucky…” Steve sounded sad.
The silence hung in the air for a moment then another, before Sam bent to meet his eyes again with deliberate and slow movements giving Bucky plenty of time to pull away, to get out, to say no. But Bucky would never be scared of Sam’s warm touch, his inviting arms, strong, solid arms. Bucky fell into the embrace, the warmth that enveloped him and lips pressed to his temple, a comfort like someone sliding some of the weight along their shoulders for a while. He could rest as his chest was ripped open, the foreign feeling of safety and comfort settled deep in his bones.
Time passed, irrelevant while he hid in Sam’s neck, breathing in his clean woodsy scent and felt the solid nature of his embrace surrounding him. The heaving sobs slowed and the shaking subsided to the functional amount before he turned and met Steve's gaze. Blue eyes red rimmed and shoulders sagged in exhaustion.
“How long have we been in this bathroom?” Bucky asked in a halfhearted way to lighten the mood.
“About a two hours ish,” Sam stated, dropping one arm to check his watch but keeping Bucky close with the one around his shoulders.
“My ass is so numb,” that gets a grin from Steve who knows that’s probably not true, being a fellow super soldier and all.
Sam shakes in a chuckle and starts to move getting up, helping Bucky also to his feet. Steve can’t resist pulling Bucky into a bone crushing hug, “I love you buddy.” Steve whispers, tears pool in Bucky’s eyes.
“Love you too buddy,” He squeezes before pulling away.
Sam is by his side in an instant, “Where’s the handle?” Bucky asks, pointing at the handless door.
”Oh well someone wasn’t answering, and we didn’t want to kick the door down and cause a big scene, soooo handle it was.” Sam smiled, pulling the door open letting Steve walk out first, lightly guiding Bucky by a hand on the small of his back. They don’t turn back towards the party, no they are heading to the end of the hall in the opposite direction. Where they turn to a set of doors that have a fluorescent exit sign just above it. Just outside the door sits Sam’s truck, lifted and obnoxious.
“Did you tell my-,” Bucky was cut off by Sam opening the passenger door.
“Yes everything is taken care of, you left early with the stomach bug.” His gratitude for Sam and Steve just keeps thumping on his chest because when did they do this, he must have been crying a lot longer than he expected.
The truck is warm, with the heated seats and the warm air blowing out of the vents and Bucky had never loved automatic start so much. In the side mirror he could see Steve and Sam speaking quietly, the adrenaline from the past however long has run out and all that’s left is the deep exhaustion. He watches them hug for a long moment before Steve walks off most likely to his car and Sam to the drivers side.
They don't speak as Sam drives off, the music is soft and slow, Bucky watches the street lights pass and knows he doesn’t want to be alone tonight. He can still smell the lingering scent of her perfume and has never craved a shower this bad in his life.
They pull up to Bucky's DC apartment and Sam doesn’t pull up to the front, no, he goes to park in the basement garage.
He must have sensed Bucky's surprise, “Really you think i'm going to leave you of all people alone after tonight?”
He rolls his eyes but is thankful for Sam Wilson and his ability to read him. They head up the elevator to Bucky's loft, the one Sam insisted he help furnish and who was Bucky to say no to him. This place felt like his, it was kind of plain but it was uniquely him with the pictures of him and Steve and Sam and Sam’s nephews and the summer in Louisiana. Nothing that reminded him of the monsters in his closet, and shadows, and the ones under his bed. No, it was slowly home.
As Sam kicked off his shoes at the door and hung his coat, slipping his tie over his head, Bucky felt the puzzle piece slide into place, because Sam was his home.
“Let’s get you showered and to bed,” pushing him up the stairs to the en-suite. Sam was about to shut the door and panic filled Bucky's chest, he could not be alone right now. Nails sunk into his arm as he pushed the door open in a panic.
Sam started wide eyed, “I don't want to be alone right now.”
His eyes softened and Bucky had never felt so understood. Sam shut the door behind himself as he joined Bucky in the bathroom, but as the implication of what Bucky was about to do settled an awkward tension rose.
Until Sam took both hands and covered his eyes, turning around, “I promise I'm not looking.” The smirk was evident in his voice.
“What? Think I don't want you to?” The words flew out before his brain could stop himself from being a total idiot.
Sam chuckled but the redness of his ears made Bucky's already red face flame and quickly undress and get into the boiling hot shower. The water was hot and he felt himself settle knowing Sam was keeping the ghost away, and fully aware of how silly it sounded even in his own head. Bucky trusts all of four people in his life and one of them is dead. Sam, Steve, and his therapist hold all of Bucky's trust on their shoulders. Maybe that’s what compels him in the quiet of the bathroom to confess.
“Jannett Love,” He starts. “She was raised by one of the richest men in the UK, a big oil guy over there across the pond. She had never heard the word no. So when her father cut her off from her party life to push her into the family business. She got angry.
”Vengeful, wanted to outdo her father tenfold to embarrass him in a way. She knew she wouldn’t be able to do what he did on her own so she looked for Hydra help. Clean out her bad name and throughout the years her competitors.” Bucky took a deep breath; this was somehow easier with the flimsy curtain between them and the boiling hot water vapor clearing his lungs.
“She was ruthless, hungry. And with every kill, burned building she was never satisfied. She was spoiled and entitled,” He paused fighting the tears back breathing through the biting phantom pain of nails digging into him. “I was her reward to herself for moving up the ladder, another career ending scandal taken care of. She wasn't the only one, who saw me as nothing but a vessel as a peg in their ladder of success.” He could hear how bitter he sounded and the rage he kept down snarls. “I was pawned off over and over, to these people. I never wanted any of them and they don't get sleepless nights and and and…” Bucky heaves a sob staring up at the white ceiling of his shower, “God Sam, I'm so tired.” Throughout it all, those words feel the heaviest leaving his mouth.
The bathroom is stifled in a dead silence just the cooling water hitting Bucky's back, he starts to wonder if he went too far, confessed too much, made Sam uncomfortable. He turns the water off, hands shaking slightly. He tugs the towel into the shower with him and in the quiet he hears the smallest muffled hiccups of crying.
“Sam?” Bucky calls freezing behind the curtain towel wrapped around his waist.
“I'm sorry James.” It’s said with such a sad tone, no pity, Sam has said he would never pity him but he feels for him his shame, his grief, his sadness. Sam feels them because he cares so deeply and so fully for the people he allows into his life and Bucky is one of the lucky few who gets to feel that love.
”Me too.” He slides the curtain open and Sam is sitting on the floor back to Bucky, eyes covered. There are pajamas on the counter and he must have missed when Sam grabbed them from his dresser. He changes quickly and lightly kicks Sam’s shin to uncover his eyes.
“Ow metal man,” Sam gives him a sad smile as he gets up from the floor already in his own pajamas that have been left here since his last visit.
“Oh please, that did not hurt. You baby.” Bucky says, rolling his eyes, a smile tugging at his lips. They bump shoulders as they brush their teeth side by side, Bucky feels lighter like maybe he will get an ounce of sleep tonight.
They rinse and make their way to the bedroom, where Bucky goes to get the spare blankets for the guest bedroom but as he is half way there he hears Sam slide into his bed. “Either I sleep here or I'm going on the floor but neither of us are going to be able to sleep if we can’t hear or see each other.” He says it so definite that Bucky has no argument and slides into the other side of the bed facing Sam.
Bathed in the dark he’s not the world's most dangerous weapon and Sam’s not Captain America. No, they are just two damaged people who care too deeply for each other to take that final leap, that final step into the free fall of something they both want.
Bucky grips Sam hand in the dark interlocking their fingers and feels the ghosts slip just far enough away he can close his eyes and think of deep breaths and lips pressed to temples.