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Ever since Sam had chosen to pick up the mantle of Captain America and had brought down the Flag Smashers with Bucky at his side — ever since he had challenged America’s entire view of Captain America, of the shield, of everything, expecting afterward to be met with vitriol from everyone, but instead being met with a pat on the back and a smile from the surly ex-assassin that he had grown unexpectedly fond of — the two had, really, become more of partners than just a couple of guys.
They had been going on missions together near-weekly, in the months since then. They usually wound up finishing them off by relaxing together in the home that they shared in DC, because Sam had taken one look at Bucky’s bare-walled New York City apartment that didn’t even have a fucking bed and basically said, deadpan, “You’re moving in with me”, and Bucky hadn’t argued, only complained half-heartedly as he had thrown everything he owned into the smallest box Sam could find at Home Depot that still hadn’t been small enough.
The two of them were almost always successful, whenever they went out on a mission. Technically, they were government-sanctioned, but they did it their way, not based on anyone else’s whims.
Just because the government told them where to go and what to do didn’t mean that they really ever followed the latter. And anyway, since John Walker, most of the public tended to favor people who were working not as a job, but as real people who wanted to do good, and that was what Sam and Bucky were, even if Bucky would object to it to save face. And it usually worked out for them.
But the mission they’d done that day had been a tough one. They’d succeeded in the end, but not without some damage both ways.
They had both taken hits fighting androids (“The Big Three — I told you so”, Sam had snarked at Bucky when they had gotten ambushed, before getting nailed in the face with a metal fist that surprisingly had not been his partner’s, but instead had been a robot’s, made by some average dickhead Tony Stark wannabe), and though Sam had resigned himself to the Quinjet’s First-Aid kit and its ice pack pressed to his face on their flight back home, Bucky was being a stubborn ass. Like usual.
During the fight, he had gotten — well, pummeled was probably the best word for it.
The androids had blindsided them, too many at once, and they had almost all gone for Bucky. He had mostly fended them off, especially with Sam’s help after his head had stopped ringing, but he had been swarmed. Sam hadn’t seen exactly where or when he had gotten hurt, but he was. Sam could tell.
Presently, he was sitting across from Sam, silent, staring off into space somewhere over the other man’s shoulder.
The concerning thing that Sam had picked up on was not the silence or the staring; those were normal. The concerning thing was that Bucky was hunched over himself, vibranium hand pressed gingerly against his middle — and Sam had been a pararescue for long enough to know what that meant.
Unfortunately, he had also known Bucky long enough to know that with Bucky, it was never that easy.
But he had to try. He always did.
“Buck.” Sam knew he wouldn’t get a real answer. He asked anyway. “You okay, man?”
Predictably, Bucky straightened up, stiffening his shoulders and glaring as he so often did. “I’m fine,” he responded, just as stiffly.
Sam rolled his eyes with a sigh. Stubborn idiot.
“You’re not,” he said, more sharply than intended. “Let me see,” he added, softer, even though he knew Bucky wouldn’t. “Where are you hurt?”
Bucky glared. “I’m not.”
Sam sighed again. “You and Steve, exactly the same,” he muttered, and Bucky’s left eye twitched.
They both went silent after that; Sam knew he wasn’t winning the argument right now, what with Bucky so stubbornly glaring and keeping his mouth pursed tightly shut in a grimace. But he would win it later. He almost always did, and lately more often than not.
Bucky trusted him now, or was beginning to, and he was also beginning to let people — well, just Sam, really — want to help him. Even if Sam knew that he still wasn’t, and maybe never would be, fully able to understand why anyone wanted to.
It wasn’t long before they were dropped off at the DC air base, Torres waving them goodbye from the cockpit. Sam gently brushed his shoulder against Bucky’s as they made their way off the jet and to where Sam’s car was parked in the spot reserved for Captain America, silently urging him to lean on him. Bucky did, just a little, and Sam could feel him trembling, almost enough to be unnoticeable, but not when he was this close.
He opened the passenger door for Bucky, who only grumbled a little in protest (“I have a vibranium arm, I think I can open a car door, Sam,”). It was his lack of any real vitriol that made Sam’s stomach twist with concern.
As he drove the two of them home, he kept the jazz radio turned down low, and drove slower than he usually would, minding the unfixed potholes in the road so he didn’t jostle Bucky at his side, who had hunched back of himself again, hands wrapped around his middle, head tilted back and mouth a tight-lined grimace.
When they pulled up to their home, Bucky did not give any protest at all when Sam opened the car door for him and encouraged him to lean on his shoulder, walking them both up the front steps and inside.
Bucky’s lack of complaining was concerning, but more so was his breathing, ragged and rough, and his eyes, drooping as he slumped against Sam, who led him inside, helping him over to the couch. He would have collapsed there, if not for Sam lowering him gently, easing him down with careful hands.
“Do you want a minute, Buck?” He asked quietly. He knew by now not to panic when Bucky got into this near-catatonic state. He knew that Bucky’s exhaustion spells after getting injured were the serum coursing through his veins with renewed vigor, doing what it could to help him. He knew that he wasn’t dying, like Sam had thought in a panic the first time Bucky had slumped against a wall after a fight, boneless.
But that still didn’t make it any better to see.
Bucky, pale as a sheet, head lolling against the arm of the couch; eyes hollow as he opened them to look up at Sam for a moment, hands weakly clasped over his middle. He looked so unlike the stony, stubbornly closed-off man he usually was — and so very unlike the Winter Soldier who Sam had first met.
Bucky let out a long breath, a little shudder going through him as he stretched out along the length of the couch. “Yeah,” he rasped out roughly, and Sam nodded.
“I’ll be back,” he said, reaching a hand down to squeeze Bucky’s shoulder gently. Bucky closed his eyes.
“I know,” he whispered.
That, at least, was something.
Sam let him be for a little while as he got out of his suit and put it into safekeeping before stepping into the shower to take a breather, and to wash the grime and blood from his face.
As the hot water scalded his skin in the best way, he thought about the man lying in their shared living room, sighing into the steam of the shower.
He knew that Bucky hated letting other people see him in pain (and that that, to some extent, was from his Hydra training of not being allowed to be in pain, which was an entirely different can of worms, and somehow one and the same).
He also knew that their relationship as partners had grown to a point where they could be more vulnerable around each other; where Bucky didn’t clam up as tightly as he would have before when probed about his injuries, and where, with a little coaxing, he would let himself feel. Where Sam, to some extent, was the same way, even if he had an easier time with it.
But it was — it was a balance. It was a tightrope that they were both perched on side-by-side, on nights like these.
It was delicate; easily broken. Not to say that Bucky was those things, but Bucky was a person who had had a hard time with just about everything, to put it lightly. Especially with people, and especially with pain, and especially with the combination of those things.
Sam was just doing his best to not hurt him any more than he had been hurt, but also to help him heal. — in general, and in times like this. Times when he was in pain; times when, even if the serum would heal him in hardly any time at all, he still had the pain to deal with in the meantime, even if he would deny it with vehemence.
As he finished his shower and dried off, Sam stared at himself in the mirror. His face was a little bruised, but not badly, from where he had gotten hit; the ice on the jet had helped, and it wasn’t swollen too badly.
He wished Bucky had done the same, the stubborn bastard — but Sam knew from experience that even if he had offered, Bucky would’ve denied it. It was easier to get him to admit to being hurt, when it was just the two of them in their home, and he was too tired to push him away anymore.
Taking a breath, Sam threw on some sweats and a T-shirt before walking back out into the main room, wincing at the sight that greeted him.
Bucky had sat up, and was hunched over himself, just as he had done on the jet. His eyes were squeezed shut with pain. His vibranium arm wrapped around his middle, and his breathing was so loud and choppy that Sam could hear it from the doorway of the bathroom from all the way down the hall.
“Come on, man,” he said, and Bucky jerked a little in surprise, face contorting at the motion. Sam grimaced guiltily, sighing and walking over, sitting down on the couch beside him.
“You’re clearly in pain,” he added, softer.
Bucky didn’t look at him. His voice was tired as he replied, “What do you want me to say, Sam?”
“Nothing. I just want you to care enough about yourself to let me help you, Buck,” Sam responded, working to keep his voice gentle even though he wanted to snap at him — wanted to reason sharply with him that they had done this tightrope dance before, that they both knew how it ended, and couldn’t Bucky just jump to letting him help him, even if he always kept that help at a distance? — but of course, it was never that easy, and Bucky just scoffed.
“Whatever.”
Sam closed his eyes and counted to ten. When he opened them, it was to Bucky looking at him from the corner of his eye, expression unreadable.
Sam sighed again. He tended to do that a lot, when dealing with his partner. That was what he got, he thought wearily, for caring too much.
“Just — let me see,” he said softly. “Okay?
Bucky’s expression contorted, his lips trembling on a breath. Finally, he turned his face away, and spoke in a defeated, exhausted voice.
“They hit me a little hard, is all.”
With the half-assed admission, he lifted up his black shirt, and Sam sucked in a breath of dismay.
Bucky’s side was all but purple, splotched with dark bruises and blood bubbling under the surface of his pale skin. His lower ribs were swollen, at least one or two broken, if not more. His hands, both flesh and metal, were trembling as he held up his shirt.
“Shit, Buck,” Sam muttered, more to himself. He stood, then.
“Take your shirt off,” he ordered, “I’m gonna get you an ice pack, okay? Least I can do.”
Christ, it looked like someone had used him as a punching bag — not that it was all that surprising, the androids had been built with an insanely heavy metal, which was why it had been hard to take them down. Sam was lucky he hadn’t taken more than a hit to the face; if he’d been pummeled like Bucky had, he was sure he’d be completely down for the count.
“Fine,” Bucky grunted sullenly, doing as he was told before leaning back with a heavy breath, squeezing his shirt in his hands so tightly Sam thought it might rip.
Sam slipped quickly in and out of the adjacent kitchen, grabbing an ice pack from the freezer (they had many always at the ready; it came with the line of work) and wrapping it in a towel before approaching Bucky with caution.
He sat back down beside him on the couch and, gently, carefully, pressed it against the bruises. Bucky hissed, jolting a little and fisting at the edge of the couch — but nothing more.
That was a surprise, Sam thought privately; usually, by this point of Sam actually trying to help, he would snatch the ice or bandages or ointment or whatever it was from Sam and do it himself.
But now, all he did was shake a little, eyes still squeezed shut, jaw clenched — and allow Sam to do it for him.
“Sorry, man,” Sam said softly, trying to keep both the relief that Bucky was actually letting him help and the guilt at putting him through pain from his voice. The latter was easier to ignore.
“S’ fine,” Bucky muttered. He almost seemed to smirk, though it might’ve been a grimace as he lifted his gaze up to meet Sam’s, eyes filled with exhaustion. “Been through worse.”
Sam winced. “Still,” was all he said. He wondered if, going through all of the things that had been worse, if anyone had ever taken care of Bucky like this, with something as simple as an ice pack and a gentle presence.
He thought that the answer was almost definitely no.
Absentmindedly, his eyes roved over Bucky’s exposed torso. There were pockmarked scars all over his chest, surrounding the dog tags lying over his heart; bullet and stab wounds, old ugly gashes. Those were pale, faded with age. The ones near the port of his arm were the worst. His shoulder was marred with what looked like aged scratches, as if he had clawed desperately at the metal there where it melded into flesh, and as if the area had undergone extensive ‘repair’.
It was all awful. It made Sam’s stomach overturn with horror, with disgust — with sickened pity.
He had seen it all before, he knew he had; but not like this. Bucky had never let him get this close for this long.
“Quit it,” Bucky snapped suddenly, snapping Sam from his stupor. Bucky’s hands twitched, as if he wanted to snatch the ice pack from Sam, who realized with a start that he’d been staring.
“Sorry.” He straightened back up, fixing his hand that had been drifting to gently press back against the bruising, watching Bucky’s chest shudder with a trembling breath as he spoke.
“Thought I was the one with a staring problem.”
“What can I say?” Sam tried to keep his voice light. “You’ve got a nice figure.”
That got Bucky to laugh. It was a short, barking thing that made Sam grin, even if it was cut short with a wince of pain from Bucky, whose gaze darted down to his side, where Sam was gently — tenderly, really, but that word felt uncomfortably too close to being intimate — easing the swelling of his ribs down.
“You don’t have to do this, you know.” Bucky’s voice was suddenly quiet. “I can’t really get hurt, with the serum, and . . . everything.”
“You’re hurt right now,” Sam pointed out, something dangerously close to fondness on the edge of the exasperation in his tone. “Even if it heals fast, even if it’s harder for you to get hurt — you are hurt, and I want to help, okay?”
Bucky scoffed. “Why?” He challenged. It came out more shakily than Sam thought he had intended for it to.
Sam shrugged, trying to lighten the mood somewhat. Maybe get Bucky to laugh again. “I like helping — even your sorry ass,” he said simply. Bucky didn’t laugh, but a little bit of tension eased from him, at least.
“Besides,” Sam added, more seriously, “when was the last time someone helped you, huh? You sure as shit never let me.” Except for right now, he thought privately, and wondered why Bucky had chosen tonight to let him. He supposed that, knowing Bucky, there hadn’t been much thought into it at all; he had just felt, for once, comfortable enough to do it. The thought was a nice one, and Sam nearly smiled.
Bucky’s gaze had turned faraway. “Wakanda,” he said softly, and then, softer: “Steve.”
Sam nodded. He did not ask, what about before then?, because the angry scars around the port of Bucky’s arm was enough of an indication of that, and because he was already close to breaking the delicate balance that they had, and he didn’t want to push it.
“I wanna help you, man,” he repeated instead. “Okay?”
Bucky’s eyes flitted towards him, then away again. He relaxed a little more. “Okay.”
“Good.” Sam sighed, then, drawing back and looking down at the injuries with scrutiny. He had never gotten close enough to see the full extent of any of the hits Bucky had taken before; it made his stomach twist. He knew that if he had gotten the shit beaten out of him like that — well, he’d at least gone to a doctor before going to mope on the couch.
“I think your ribs are broken, Buck,” he said, lifting his gaze back up to meet Bucky’s. Bucky frowned.
“It’s fine.”
“It’s really not,” Sam said. “Are you sure you don’t want to —,”
“They can’t do anything for me,” Bucky snapped, predicting what Sam was going to say before the words had even left his mouth. “I’ll heal.”
“I know that,” Sam argued. “But we should just make sure that those robots didn’t really fuck you up, we don’t know enough about them, they could’ve caused lasting damage and —,”
“They didn’t, Sam! Okay? Nothing leaves lasting damage!” Bucky recoiled from his touch, pushing himself away and wrapping his arms around himself. He glared angrily, blue eyes seeming to spark. “And I am not going to a doctor. Okay? I’ll fight you, Sam, and I’ll kick your ass, you know I will.”
Sam could tell that Bucky meant it — and he could tell he really meant it when he snarled out, voice grating and furious, “No one’s touching me.”
“Okay. Okay,” Sam soothed, already regretting his words. It was easy to forget that Bucky was telling the truth; that nothing would leave lasting damage. Bucky pretended he was fine so often that when he actually was, or was actually going to be, Sam could hardly tell. He should’ve known better, though; Bucky did heal, and though his concerns about not knowing enough about the androids was valid, it was a little too early to declare that they were suddenly a kryptonite against the super soldier serum.
All the same, Sam couldn’t help but feel a little bit good about himself — because Bucky had let him touch him. Had let him care for him, when he would refuse it from anyone else.
He wasn’t now, though; their balance was cracked. Sam sighed, regretful.
“Just — take the ice pack, man.”
Bucky did, albeit begrudgingly, pressing it back against his side that was still dark with bruises; at least the swelling seemed to have gone down, somewhat.
Sam let him adjust for a few minutes, thinking to himself for a long moment before finally voicing the question that he always wanted to ask whenever Bucky got hurt like this, but had never had the opportunity to. He knew that he was walking a delicate balance on the tightrope of their relationship, but he thought that if he didn’t start to walk it now, he never would.
“Why didn’t you tell me when you got hurt, Buck?”
“It —,” Bucky’s breath hitched a little.
“It didn’t matter,” he muttered after a moment, shifting uncomfortably. “Doesn’t matter.”
“It does, though,” Sam pressed. “We’re partners. If you get hurt, I wanna know.”
Bucky scoffed again. His voice was more biting as he grit out, “Why?”
“Because.” Sam’s voice was calm. “It’s important to me.” You’re important to me, he thought, but that seemed like too much, right now, especially when the simple five words he had spoken made something ugly contort over Bucky’s face.
“Never was before,” he said, low and angry. Not angry at him, Sam knew; but rather, towards himself. Whether that was for letting himself say it at all, or for letting himself accept help in the first place, or for both, or for neither and something else entirely — Sam didn’t know. But he sure as shit wasn’t gonna stand for it.
“Yeah, and I’m not Hydra.”
His tone was sharp, and Bucky flinched a little. Sam felt almost guilty, but not quite, because Bucky needed to hear this.
“Look — listen, Buck. We’re partners,” he emphasized. “I care about you. I want to know when you’re hurt so I can help you — in the field, and out of it, so I can cover for you, so I can be there, so I can help.” Sam lifted his chin and challenged him, “Would you have taken care of it at all if I didn’t tell you to?”
Bucky shrugged. “It heals on its own,” he said simply, and Sam had to take several deep breaths before speaking again.
“But it still hurts,” is all he managed, “and I want to help it to not.”
“Whatever,” Bucky said again.
He didn’t say anything else, and so Sam just sighed quietly, easing back against the couch and kicking up the footrest — slowly, so as to not jostle Bucky beside him. Bucky eyed him, and then cleared his throat.
“Can you . . . get mine?”
And — and it was something so simple. It was so simple.
But it was Bucky. It was Bucky, asking for help.
So, no, it wasn’t. It wasn’t simple.
It was everything.
It was also — if Sam knew Bucky — a test. So rather than make a big deal out of it, even though it was, Sam just nodded, and patted Bucky’s shoulder gently as he stood.
“‘Course, man.”
He walked around, pulled the lever on the side of the couch to make the footrest go up and bracing a hand against it to ease it up slowly, and then walked back to sit down himself, but not before grabbing a couple of chilled beers from the fridge. He opened them both easily, then handed one to Bucky, clinking them together. It was simple, and yet — everything.
“Thanks,” Bucky said quietly, and Sam nodded.
“No problem.”
Easing back beside his partner, Sam picked up the remote and flicked through the live channels, settling on The Office and putting the volume on low in case Bucky had a headache. He kept his eye on the man beside him, making sure that Bucky kept the ice pack pressed into his side as he drank his beer with his flesh hand, vibranium one braced against his stomach.
As Sam watched from the corner of his eye, Bucky let out a deep sigh, then tipped his head back, closing his eyes. It didn’t take long for him to drift off, head lolling to one side and breaths smoothing out, expression going lax as the angry lines in his forehead disappeared.
Sam gently reached out a hand and placed it on top of Bucky’s, moving the slipping ice back up to press carefully against the bruises. They were starting to disappear already, the swelling going down much faster than it should even with the soothing ice — Bucky was right, Sam knew, that he healed incredibly, thanks to the serum. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t still feel pain — pain that Sam could help alleviate, if Bucky would only let him.
He was glad that, for once, he had — and hoped that he hadn’t fucked it up too much to the point that Bucky wouldn’t do it again.
After a while, Sam took the ice pack — which had mostly melted, by that point, wet with condensation — off of him, washing it off in the sink before placing it back in the freezer. He got a blanket from the hall closet and lay it over Bucky’s bare chest.
Sam’s eyes lingered, briefly, on the scars marring Bucky’s left shoulder. Faded and pale they were, but no less agonizingly real, the desperate marks such a stark contrast to the more clean scars from knives or bullets pockmarked over the rest of his torso.
It sent a shiver through Sam, disgust and anger and grief for Bucky burning him from the inside out. Hydra, Sam was sure, had never allowed anyone to care for the Winter Soldier’s wounds to be taken care of — or if they were, it was surely not gently, or with care for his pain. Especially given that they had caused most of them, whether directly or indirectly.
Sam knew that that was why Bucky was so closed-off about everything. About vulnerability — especially when he was hurt, when he was in pain. The scars covering his body were enough of a physical representation of why, not to mention the whole-ass metal arm.
He had never been allowed to be in pain. Showing vulnerability just meant more of that pain. Why would Bucky ever want to put himself in that position?
And so then, how incredible was it? That he had allowed Sam to handle him gently? That he had allowed the cooling, soothing ice to be pressed into his side, even though Sam knew he had thought it to be a ridiculous thing? That he had shown that vulnerability? That he had let himself be taken care of?
It was something so rare, and Sam knew it. Something so delicate.
But he knew how to handle things that broke easy.
You just had to be gentle.
Sam sat back down on the couch next to Bucky, loosely fixing his gaze back onto the muted TV, the captions blurred to his eyes; he wasn’t really paying attention. He especially wasn’t paying attention when, at his side, Bucky twitched — and wound up with his head on Sam’s shoulder, breathing slow and even, body leaning against the other man’s with the kind of peace that was so rare for him even (especially, really) in sleep, but that came from the not-so-simple, oh-so-delicate action of letting himself be cared for.
And as Sam, too, drifted off, it was with a smile on his face, and the distinct feeling that he had done good.
When he woke up the next morning, it was to the smell of bacon and eggs.
Sam sat up on the couch, bleary-eyed at the sunlight streaming in through the windows. He registered that the same blanket he had laid over Bucky the night before was now draped over himself instead, and the memories of that night came back to him in a rush of good feeling.
He stood, folding the blanket and putting it on the top of the couch as he looked to see Bucky, back turned to him, in the living room-adjacent kitchen, standing over the stove and humming to himself. Bucky’s short, dark hair was damp, as if he had recently showered; he was wearing black pants and a loose white shirt, his dog tags dangling around his neck as he handled the pan in one hand and a spatula in the other.
He looked okay, and Sam knew that he was; he always was. It usually took only a night’s rest for the serum to take care of everything. Sam wasn’t reproachful about it, even though his own face still felt sore; he was glad. He didn’t want his partner to be in pain. Bucky had certainly had enough of it for several lifetimes over. He deserved a morning’s peace.
“Mornin’, Buck,” Sam said, after he decided that his staring was getting creepy. He made his way into the kitchen as Bucky turned around, giving Sam a nod and a small smile.
“I’m making breakfast,” Bucky said, matter-of-factly. Sam smiled back at him.
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“Yeah, well.” Bucky shrugged, scraping at the eggs in the pan somewhat sheepishly. “I wanted to.”
Sam’s smile turned to a smirk at his own words being used against him, and he leaned against the counter, studying Bucky’s face.
“How are you feeling?” He asked, softer.
“I’m — good,” Bucky said, and Sam knew him well enough to know that he was telling the truth. “Got up a couple hours ago. Went for a walk. I saw some birds.” His smile grew a little at that. “Took a shower.” He cleared his throat semi-awkwardly, and halfway-lifted his shirt, displaying his side. “The bruises are, uh, gone. Ribs are good, too.”
“I figured,” Sam said dryly, regarding the smooth, pale skin with satisfaction. “Super-soldier, and all.”
Bucky nodded, letting his shirt drop without even a wince. “Thanks for — last night,” he muttered, keeping his gaze averted. “They really did hit me hard.” He lifted his head, then, squinting at Sam with scrutiny, gesturing at his face with his flesh hand. “Are you okay?”
“I’m sure it looks worse than it is,” Sam said, probing his bruised cheek gingerly. Bucky huffed.
“So you’re allowed to care when I’m hurt, but not the other way ‘round, huh?”
“That’s not —,” Sam began, but realized from the grin playing at Bucky’s lips that he was kidding.
“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up,” he snarked, rolling his eyes with a small smile of his own. “Really, though,” he added after a moment, more seriously, “I am okay. Hurts a little, but it’s not bad. I’ll ice it later, promise; you can stare at me the whole time, if you want.”
“Good,” Bucky said forcefully. He put together Sam’s plate, then his own, setting them down at their small table and sitting down. Sam did the same, looking appreciatively at the plates of breakfast, then at the cups of orange juice that had already been poured.
“Thank you,” he said earnestly. “I appreciate it, man.”
Bucky looked down, almost shy. “Yeah, well, you’re shit at cooking,” he quipped, and Sam groaned.
“One time, Bucky. One time I set off the smoke alarms, and you don’t let me live it down.”
Bucky laughed. It was a wonderful sound, Sam thought, and he was glad to hear it. He was especially glad to be the reason for it.
They both ate their breakfast, throwing biting comments back and forth for their own amusement. Bucky was good at cooking, though, he really was, and it didn’t take them long for both of them to finish.
“Does this mean every time you get hurt on the field you’ll make me breakfast?” Sam speculated as he stood to clean his empty plate, downing the rest of his orange juice and taking the cup to the sink, too. “‘Cause if that’s how it is, I’ll start punching you myself.”
“Please.” Bucky rolled his eyes, coming to stand next to him, bumping their shoulders together lightly. “I’d kick your ass.”
“In your dreams, Buck.” They both grinned at each other, and Sam thought Bucky might’ve been slightly red in the face when he looked away.
“Might go for a run,” Sam proposed between them, after a few moments. “I know you walked already, but wanna come?”
“As long as you ice your face afterwards,” Bucky grumped, but he was still smiling. Sam huffed.
“Now I see why you felt so bothered about my worrying,” he teased. “Surprised to see you being the anxious one for once.”
Bucky rolled his eyes, and clapped Sam on the shoulder. “What can I say?” He commented. “Some jackass told me it’s good to help people when they need it. Who knew?”
Sam laughed, genuine and soft. “Sounds like a smart guy," he mused.
He had only been joking, but beside him, Bucky's smile seemed to seep into his eyes, gaze lighting up, expression softening.
“He is,” he said earnestly.
They had a moment — one of those soft, delicate ones, walking the tightrope together, or maybe they were dancing on a rooftop.
It was nice. It felt like something real. Something good.
And then Bucky, exasperatingly, broke it by adding, “He can’t keep up with me when we run, though.”
Sam raised both eyebrows, laughing and crossing his arms over his chest. “Oh, is that a challenge?”
Bucky smirked at him. “I think it is.”
“Alright then, old man.”
And of course, Bucky would beat him — but it would be worth it, Sam thought, to see him smiling, and laughing, and being happy, after seven decades, seventy years, of that being an impossibility. It would be worth it, because it meant that Sam really had done good the night before, even if he was sure he had made mistakes; he had helped (because he was sure if he hadn't, he would have the lingering taste of plain Cheerios and instant coffee instead of handmade breakfast in his mouth).
And it would be worth it, because it would only make whatever thing that the two of them had stronger. Less easy to break, in the long run, because things would get hard, there would be moments of tension — of heavy weights, weighing on them both. Of their friendship, of their partnership.
But Sam had helped, and Bucky had let himself be helped. And they were still okay; still laughing, and smiling, and shooting jabs back and forth, as if that vulnerability was normal — and maybe, it was starting to be, and so even if Bucky's gloating did make Sam want to throw him back to the androids, it was damn worth it.