Chapter Text
Sam hated losing. He always had, but it was a distinct feeling he knew like the back of his hand, that he could recognise with his eyes closed, and it was all Sarah’s fault.
She was still staring at him, one eyebrow raised in an obvious show of expectation while Sam slumped in his chair across from her and clenched his teeth. The gold coin sat on the table surface between them with its tails side up, also staring at him in some sort of blatant mockery. It wasn’t as if he could flip it over the second she looked away; she had already seen it.
“So,” he tried. “That was a practise run, right?”
Sarah scoffed. “Sam, there aren’t practise runs when it comes to flipping a coin. You clearly lost.”
Sam glared at the coin again for good measure.
“So,” Sarah said, “Now you know what you have to do.”
Her brother crossed his arms over his chest. “Nah.”
“Nah? Seriously? You’ve gotta uphold your end of the bargain, Sam.”
“This wasn’t a bargain, it was a bet.”
Sarah crossed her arms too. “Even better. Look, you’ve been staying here since the Flag-Smashers deal and your promotion to the Stars and Stripes. It’s been over a month since your friend came over for our family barbecue, and you haven’t even contacted each other yet. What’s with that, Sam? I thought you two made up.”
“We did,” Sam told her. “That doesn’t mean we have to get all buddy-buddy and ‘Cap’s best friend’ for the media.”
“Sam.”
“I’m not going to stay with him, Sarah.”
Sarah sent him a wide eyed smirk, and he held up a hand to silence her before she could even begin to say anything else.
“And I’m not- No. No, that’s not happening.”
She shrugged and picked up the coin to examine it. “I’m just saying… if you don’t, then I will.”
“Sarah. No.”
“I mean, Cass and AJ wouldn’t mind.” She held up both hands and gestured the weighing of options. “Uncle Bucky… Dad… ‘Bucky’ in the context of a stepdad-“
“Nah, no way are you dating him. Not in a million years.”
“Sam!” She laughed and dropped her hands to her lap. “He’s nearly a hundred and seven years old, and he hasn’t had a love life since the 1940s. The guy deserves a break from this whole ‘lone wolf’ persona. He’s probably holed up in his living room as we speak.”
“I don’t know, Sis.” Sam pushed back in his chair and got to his feet. “He’s finally experiencing real freedom since he fell off that train all those years ago and became the Winter Soldier. Don’t you think he should have some time alone to figure out what that means for him?”
Sarah sighed. She fixed him with that serious look that only sisters knew how to do. Being the recipient of such a gaze was enough to make any sibling tuck their tail and snap to attention like some sort of soldier under command.
Now, even as Sam sat at the wheel of his car, headed onwards to exactly where he had refused to go, her words echoed in his head.
“Figure out what freedom means to him? Really? He’s been ‘figuring it out’ since he saved Steve from the helicarrier and made his first personal decision to stray from Hydra. It’s been years since then, Sam. He’s been on the run, spent time in Wakanda, gotten his programming removed, he got a new arm… and then he spent another five years away from the world, only to come back to it still being seen as a worldwide threat. He has no idea what freedom feels like. What relaxing and living really feels like, Sam. If anything, having someone around to help him find that flow of freedom and sense of self… that’s what he needs. He needs someone constant. A partner, a roommate. Sam, he needs a friend.”
The asshole with the vibranium arm lived in Brooklyn, apparently. It took exactly three seconds of scrolling through their text message chat to find where he had sent his address, since they really never talked. Scrolling through the entirety of their chat history would take him half a minute tops. Not that he had timed it. Sam wasn’t that petty.
He parked his car outside the apartment building and got out to stop and wait for a minute. He stood with his hands on his hips, feet shoulder width apart, just glaring up at the rising windows in wait of something spectacular. God knows that Bucky couldn’t go a damn day without getting himself into some sort of unnecessary tousle, so maybe he would throw a guy out of a window. Maybe he would punch through a wall, or maybe he would jump from the roof and land on the sidewalk unscathed like the indestructible ass that he was.
Any day now.
Nope, no sign of chaos. Sam heaved a sigh, shoved his hands in his pockets, and trudged on inside.
Floor 12, unit 8. He sauntered into the elevator and punched the keys for one and two. Slowly, he rose through the levels of the building, until a cheery ‘ding’ sounded out as it came to a stop. He had called Bucky three times already, but to no avail. If he didn’t want any warning for Sam showing up on his doorstep, then so be it. Serves him right for ghosting everyone again.
The apartment complex wasn’t anything fancy; just your average New York red brick building with fire escape ladders running along the outside and black metal balcony railings for every unit there was. The halls inside were brick too, just painted over with white. The floors were made of old wooden planks, long since stained with so many different varieties of dirt and paint, no matter how many times they were mopped the history still stayed.
Sam walked carefully down the hall, taking note of each number on each door until he reached it. 12-8, nailed onto the door in metal numbers for him to see. This was it. The famed residence of the former Winter Soldier.
Now all he had to do was convince the guy to let him stay.
Sam raised a fist, then paused with it held aloft. He sighed and rapped his knuckles on the door.
Silence.
Sam huffed out a slightly more aggressive sigh and knocked again.
More silence. That couldn’t be good.
“Bucky?” Sam drilled a couple more knocks onto the wood. “Hey, open up. We need to talk. It’s nothing serious, I just…”
Seriously, this silence was carrying on far too long. Silence was never a good thing when it came to people like him and Bucky Barnes. No response to the door could mean that the owner of the residence was either unconscious, being held captive inside, or had fled in the aftermath of a fight. Random government officials snuck into superheroes’ houses all the time. Nick Fury had done it to Steve, for sure. It was really becoming an issue worth bringing up in court.
What if, inside, Bucky was sprawled out on the floor? What if he was drugged or bleeding out? What if, the reason for the complete radio silence these past couple of weeks was because he had been reprogrammed with different trigger words? Was the Winter Soldier back?
“Hey, stranger.”
Sam swivelled in place. He was met with an old man clad in tartans and a worn down waistcoat standing beside him in the hallway. He held a full laundry basket in his arms, topped with a couple of library books and his wallet.
“That’s brave to carry your money around like that,” Sam pointed out. “Anyone could just grab that.”
The man raised his eyebrows. “Will you?”
Sam shook his head immediately.
“Then I’m safe,” the man told him with a smile. “Besides, no one dangerous lives in this building anyway.”
No one dangerous? Sam supposed it was nice, for once, that Bucky was considered harmless by the people around him. Maybe they had never seen the metal arm, or maybe they just didn’t care.
“Can I ask what you’re doing outside James’ apartment?” The man asked him. He placed his laundry basket on the floor and began to fish around in his coat pockets for his keys.
“James?” Sam repeated, at a loss, before it clicked. “Oh. Yeah, James. I never really call him that.”
This earned him a wide shit-eating grin. It wasn’t exactly something you would expect to see on an old man’s face. Then again, Bucky was the oldest man Sam knew, and a shit-eating grin was pretty much his default expression.
“I meant to visit him, but he’s not answering the door.”
“Ah, I see. My, you looked real worried when I saw you first.” The man gave a soft smile. “James doesn’t deal into any trouble. No need to fret.”
There it was, the most hilarious statement Sam had ever heard. ‘Bucky’ and ‘no trouble’ didn’t exactly mix into a cohesive picture. Still, Sam nodded and smiled back.
“Right. I’m sorry. He’s probably just sleeping.”
The old man turned his key in place and the door clicked as it unlocked. “Nah, you’re good. I saw him leave earlier, so he’s gotta be out still. Give it a half hour or so.”
“Thank you,” Sam called after him.
The man stopped once he was just inside his apartment, and he turned to send Sam a curt salute and a determined smile. “Good to see you, Captain America.” He waved and closed the door. “Ciao.”
Sam tried to call Bucky again after that. One more time, just in case he bothered to pick up, or just in case he was aware how to answer his phone at all. Again, no response, so Sam had no choice but to wait.
He ventured back down to the street to grab his belongings; a suitcase and his shield. Then he came back up just as the heavy clouds overhead had begun to scatter raindrops over the buildings of New York and threaten thunder. Sam slid his back down the wall next to Bucky’s door and twirled a pen in his fingers to keep himself busy. All he could hear was the sweet cacophony of dimmed voices in the apartments around him, and all their pattering of feet and dishes and music mixed into one. Outside, the rain grew to a heavy shower, beating down on the roof and rushing down the window glass on each end of the hallway. It was all like some sort of magical oasis, sealed away from the world. No wonder, he had chosen this place. A former soldier must find so much peace in a building like this. Sam knew this best.
It must have been over an hour once the footsteps of heavy boots thumped their way up the stairs. Of course, he was too dramatic to use the elevator. As he rounded the corner, his shadow stretched along the floor in a tall and lanky figure. Then he waited, stopped in his tracks.
Sam raised his head to see him.
Bucky was soaked to the bone. The storm must have caught him on his way back from a grocery run, because he was holding a small plastic bag and dressed in jeans and his dumb combat boots that he only ever switched out with those heeled Chelseas. His hair, longer than when Sam last saw him, stuck to his damp face in locks of sleek dark brown. He had his windbreaker zipped all the way up, but he was clutching at his belly with his metal hand, where a significant bulge showed under the jacket.
Bucky stared at Sam. He swallowed a lump in his throat.
Sam coughed to clear the silence. “What- um… What are hiding in there?”
“What are you doing here?” Bucky countered immediately. He marched right up to Sam, dropped his bag of groceries, and shoved his key into his door. The lump under his jacket squirmed, and his metallic fingers shifted to support the weight.
“I lost a bet,” Sam admitted.
Bucky scoffed.
“I know, I know,” Sam allowed. “Sarah said I should check up on you. See how you’re doing, you know?”
The other man turned the key in place. “Well, you did a great job. I’m in one piece, aren’t I?” The key clicked, so he pulled it out, and then opened the door. “You can go now. Tell Sarah I said hi.”
“Buck.” Sam shot to his feet, just in time to grab his friend’s arm with a strong grip. It didn’t matter really; if his super-serum boosted ass wanted to, he could rip right away from Sam and shut him out. by some miracle though, Bucky waited.
“What.”
Well, his bad attitude certainly didn’t.
“I lost a bet,” Sam said again, then cursed himself because he had immediately made it sound bad. “I mean, Sarah really wanted me to check up on you.”
Bucky yet again rearranged the squirming lump under his jacket. “Yeah, you said that already.”
Sam set his jaw tight. He let go of the man’s arm and made a stiff gesture to his suitcase in the means to make a point, and Bucky followed his hand. He lingered too long on the circular shield case beside it though, and his eyes widened in alarm.
Metal fingers closed tighter around whatever he was hiding. “What’s wrong?”
“What do you mean?” Sam asked.
“You’ve got your shield, Sam. What’s wrong? Is someone after you?”
Sam blinked, a little stunned. No, he wasn’t being chased. No, nothing at all was wrong, but Bucky was… actually worried. Hey, that felt nice.
Sam smiled, a gentle and tired smirk. “Nah, Buck.” He patted the leather case. “I just like having it with me. Plus, I…”
Bucky waited, silent.
“I needed a place to crash.”
“There it is,” Bucky huffed. “The catch of checking up on me is you barging into my apartment.”
Sam narrowed his eyes. “A ‘catch’ always comes with a good thing, so that means you think me checking up on you is good.”
“Don’t read into it, Wilson.”
“I needed a place to crash; I figured your place was good for crashing-“
“That’s all I ever do, so yeah.”
The mystery package beneath Bucky’s jacket wriggled around, making him tighten his grip even further. He must have underestimated his strength, because the figure flinched and kicked and let out a weak little ‘meow’.
Sam and Bucky froze.
Now, Sam was only just catching on to the strands of white fur scattered all over the other man’s clothes, and the thin scratch clawed across his human hand.
He stared at Sam with wide eyes, seemingly guilty, and let out a defeated huff. Bucky shrugged and set his jaw.
“I couldn’t just leave her, Sam. She was all alone.” He reached up and began to unzip his windbreaker, just enough for two white triangular ears to poke out the top. “It was cold, and no one was looking for her… I found her in the streets.”
The kitten shuffled her snowy head up and out of the jacket, where she stared out at Sam with cold blue eyes. Strangely, the colour was exactly the same as those belonging to the man who had taken her.
“She’s got your eyes,” Sam said with a smirk. He felt compelled to reach out and scratch behind her ears, but refrained from doing so. “So, you stole a cat.”
Bucky’s face contorted. “I didn’t steal a cat! She was left in a box in an alleyway.”
“Okay,” Sam allowed. “So, you took a free cat. What now?”
“I’ve got food for her,” Bucky said with a gesture to his grocery bag, “and cat litter and worming pills and she can sleep on one of my blankets-“
“Okay, okay,” Sam cut in. “I get it. You’ve got this.” He sighed and stole another look at the kitten, who locked eyes with him and held him there with an unsettling intensity. You would think that a kitten left out in the rain would be covered in dirt and lose her ivory shine, but the water must have washed away the grime. Bucky must have already made some effort of cleaning her up. No doubt though, her paws were definitely leaving muddy marks on his shirt. A good wash cycle would surely get them out.
“It’s late,” Bucky sighed, and Sam blinked as he broke from his thoughts. The other man was opening the door to his apartment and shuffling inside. “You can stay.” He flicked on the light switch and disappeared around a corner.
It took Sam a moment to process what had been said, but as soon as the cogs clicked into place he was scurrying to gather his things and hurrying inside as if the verdict might change if he wasn’t fast enough.
“What changed your mind?”
“The cat’s put me in a good mood,” Bucky called back. There was a scuffling of plastic as he set his bag down on the kitchen counter. “But get in here quickly before I change my-“ He stopped, seeing as Sam was already closing the door behind himself. “Mind. Well, that was quick.”
“Can’t say no to a roof over my head.”
“Don’t you literally have a house?”
“Gotta stay here, Buck. Sister’s orders.”
Bucky nodded gravely. “What Sarah wants…”
“Sarah gets.”
The so-called ‘home’ of James Buchanan Barnes was an empty canvas left mainly untouched. The man may as well have moved in with nothing but the clothes on his back. In the living room was a singular couch topped with two folded blankets and three cushions, a TV, and a random chair missing its matching table. The walls were bare, and the pile of boxes in the corner untouched. There was a bedroom beyond an ajar door, but from what Sam could see there was no bed. Bucky was living with nothing, from what he could see. It was like the conflict of the Sokovia Accords all over again. He may as well have still been on the run.
Sam carefully reclined into the couch. “Is this… everything?”
“It’s all I have,” Bucky told him. “And it’s all I need.”
Sam nodded, but his face was set into a deep frown, brows knitted with concern. He wrung his hands in his lap and watched Bucky move about.
Bucky was comfortable enough in his environment, as one should be in their own apartment. He paced around his kitchen with the kitten gently held within his windbreaker. Every so often, she would poke her head out again and watch his hands as he worked. He fetched a can of food and tore off the lid in one clean swipe, then stuck in a spoon to break up the contents; easier eating for tiny kitten teeth. He then set down the can on the floor and sat himself next to it.
The zipper came down all the way with the help of his vibranium hand, but the kitten was lifted out slowly with his human fingers. Her legs and belly were soaked and brown with mud. He cradled her easily in just the palm of his hand.
Bucky made a slow effort of setting her down on the wooden floor. She stalled for a moment, unsure and shaky, until he lightly tapped the edge of the tin. To this, she padded over and gave it a sniff. The kitten ran her tongue over her teeth and eagerly tucked in.
“There you go,” Bucky told her in a low voice. He ran a finger down the length of the kitten’s back. “You must’ve been starving.”
Sam watched all of this with, well, an embarrassing amount of focus. There was just something really interesting about the former ‘deadly assassin’ handling a small animal with such care and love. Endearing was a word that might pop up, right before it was squashed down because that is certainly not a word to describe Bucky.
Unless he was endearing in a stupid way.
What was Sam thinking about again?
Either way, it didn’t matter. He leaned over the arm of the couch and rested his chin on one hand, all casual like. “So…”
Bucky raised an eyebrow before he even looked Sam’s way. “So?”
“I have two questions.”
“Go ahead.”
“Number one.” Sam held up a finger to mark it off, then pointed that same finger at the little white kitten. “What are you gonna call her?”
This question actually seemed to stump Bucky. He stopped, blinked, then stared at the cat like she had grown a second tail.
“Good question.”
Sam smiled. “Thank you.”
“Uhh…” Bucky gestured uselessly with his hand. “Well, she’s white.”
“So are you.”
The other man sent Sam a pointed glare, but it was clearly laced with amusement. Sucker.
“She’s got white fur,” he tried again, and Sam carefully refrained from pointing out how he was stating the obvious. “She has blue eyes and, um… Well, I found her in the cold, I guess.”
“Where are you going with this?”
“Alpine!” Bucky clapped his hands in triumph, which made the kitten jump. He immediately scooped down to stroke her back in apology. “Sorry, sweetie. ‘Didn’t mean to scare you.”
Alpine, newly named, stretched her neck to boop her head into Bucky’s metal palm. This elicited a warm smile from her new owner. A sweet smile, the kind he rarely showed.
“Alpine,” Sam repeated. “Alpine Barnes. It has a nice ring to it.”
“Shut up,” Bucky scolded.
“I mean it,” Sam said.
Alpine returned to her food, tail up in the air as what Sam was sure was a sign she was happy. He didn’t know cat language all that well. He was more of a dog person, honestly, but who knows how much he would pick up or how long he would be staying here? If Sarah had her way, it would be forever.
“So, question number two?” Bucky prodded.
Sam stole another look down the hallway, at the emptiness, and scoffed. “I think I already know the answer.”
“Doesn’t mean I don’t wanna hear the question.”
“So, you have a bed, right?” Sam asked him. “In your bedroom? For sleeping?”
No, of course he didn’t. Bucky’s mouth opened and closed, unsure, before he gave a quiet scoff and stared at the floor.
Sam frowned. “It doesn’t matter if you don’t. Really. I was just wondering…”
“…Where you’re going to sleep tonight?” Bucky offered. He pointed a metallic finger at the pile of blankets and cushions. “I usually-“ He stopped himself and cleared his throat. “I mean, you can sleep on the couch. That’s free for taking.”
Sam cast glances back and forth between the apartment owner and the only thing in the room comfortable enough to sleep on. “What- No, I can’t just take your couch. I just got here.”
Bucky shook his head. “Nah, you’re crashing. Couches are for crashing, and that’s what you’re doing.” He shrugged. “No better place to crash than a couch.”
To be perfectly honest, he did have a point, and in addition to that, who was Sam to deny a nice couch for sleeping on? He gave a curt and final nod, and Bucky sniffed and grabbed a cushion and a blanket. He gestured tiredly to the rest.
“Have at it.”
“Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.”
Bucky made it halfway back to the kitchen before he stopped and turned to stare at Sam. Sam looked up from his rearranging of cushions to stare at him too.
“Yes?”
Bucky frowned, clearly uncomfortable. “I’m gonna shower, because…” He ran his fingers through his wet hair, annoyingly aesthetic in the way he did so. “Can you keep an eye on Alpine while I’m in there?”
“Well-“
“Payment for staying here,” Bucky cut in.
Sam sighed. “Yeah, that’s fair. Go on, then.”
“Thanks.” With that, he disappeared through the bathroom door and left Sam alone with the random alleyway cat.
Alpine, having finished her meal of trout and whatever else cats like to eat, licked her lips— do cats have lips?— and sat to stare at Sam from across the apartment. Like father like daughter, Sam supposed as he met her eyes and held her there, immediately locking himself into competition with a cat. She gave way in seconds, clearly not understanding the game, and sent him a lazy blink.
Sam wasn’t sure what that was cat language for.
Wait.
What was he doing again?
Right. Keeping an eye on Alpine. Technically, having a staring contest with her was the most effective way of keeping an eye on her; both eyes, in fact. Probably not the most efficient, if he was being honest.
The shower turned on. A steady rush of water sounded out from the next room, and Sam pointedly cleared his throat.
Alpine then decided to begin her process of coating her own fur in the most aggressive licks she could manage. One could say it was quite worrying how harshly she raked her tongue over her belly. Sam half expected her to take her coat clean off with how she was going. He watched her, on the edge of his seat, but in some miracle she was actually managing in removing some of the grime.
It was almost as if she knew what she was doing.
Instinct and all.
Time passed in effective ways. Sam found himself so focused on the little kitten that he was blinking himself back to the moment once Bucky came back all clean. Not many words were exchanged between them. Sam asked to use the shower, Bucky nodded in a curt way, and Sam took his leave to the bathroom.
When he returned, the room was already dark. As for the apartment’s owner, the poor man must have been exhausted. Sam found him passed out on the floor, head cushioned by a pillow and his body draped with a thin blanket. He was also, notably, shirtless. Not that it mattered. This must have been how he always slept, and Sam would never argue with a worn down soldier’s sleeping habits. He certainly hadn’t messed with Steve’s; Bucky was no place to start.
Still, it was worthy to note that Bucky was shirtless.
Seriously, not that it mattered.
Sam cleared his throat and climbed onto the couch, feeling strange and guilty all at once. Alpine had curled up in a corner long before he had entered the room. She seemed fine.
He made himself comfortable, rolled onto his back, and stared at the hazy ceiling as if he were reading a novel. Nothing about this felt normal. Everything about this felt right.
Bucky didn’t snore. He didn’t make a sound. He may as well have been dead.
It was all Sam could do to crane his neck to the side and watch as best he could through the darkness, the rise and fall of the other man’s chest.
How comforting it is, to watch the act of breathing. It was a simple thing, a comfort and a reassurance.
Sam fell asleep to the rhythm in minutes.