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Sam wasn’t proud to admit it, but the house and garden that once belonged to his parents, Paul and Darlene, had been neglected ever since they passed - a few years before the Blip.
When asked by a neighbor why the Wilson family no longer maintained the property - What a shame! Such a beautiful house left to decay! Your father repainted the walls but look at that blue paint peeling off! And the big magnolia tree in the back... What a waste... - Sam would always say the same thing, in a tone he hoped sounded casual:
"We’ll take care of it next spring! You’ll see - as soon as we get the family business back on its feet, Sarah and I will have the whole place looking new again in no time, Mrs. Dugas!"
And even if he wanted to sound convinced, he knew perfectly well that lack of time was just an excuse. No matter how many justifications he came up with - the Sokovia Accords, saving the world, restoring the family boat, hunting super soldiers with his colleague-partner-friendish-or-something-in-between - Sam knew the truth.
The real reason he hadn’t walked through the front door of his childhood home was grief.
No matter how much time passed, walking past it always left a lump in his throat that was impossible to lighten. The house remained haunted by a heavy silence, filled with a constant absence.
It wasn't the same with the family boat, not as intense. He had been able to create new memories with Sarah, his nephews and even Bucky, on deck. The house, on the other hand, had remained a sort of taboo with Sarah. They hadn't really talked about it until a few weeks ago when they promised each other to finally start bringing the house back to life.
This is how Sam found himself one May afternoon: mowing the lawn, trimming the hedges, watering the plants, and pulling weeds in the garden where he’d grown up.
But he knew that, once again, he was only delaying the moment when he’d have to step through the front door and face the inside.
The distant sound of a car pulling into the street, then a door slamming, made him look up, a smile already forming on his face. He wiped the dirt from his hands before heading to the front of the house.
Sarah was standing there, one hand on her hip, the other shading her eyes from the sun.
"I thought you'd never get here! I could’ve fallen off the ladder and had plenty of time to hobble to the emergency room by the time you showed up!"
Sam might have exaggerated -maybe a little too dramatically - his smile widening into a broad grin. His sister had, after all, promised to help with the big clean-up… but had conveniently failed to mention she’d be an hour and a half late.
"You’ve got dirt in your teeth, Samuel" ,Sarah replied without missing a beat, her amused expression showing no sympathy for her brother’s obvious distress.
Although Sam shot her a glare, followed by an exclamation along the lines of “How dare you,” he still checked his teeth in the reflection of his phone while Sarah stepped back, trying to hold in a laugh.
It was easy for them to slip back into their usual bickering, especially at times like this. Their voices grew quieter as they climbed the steps to the door, giving way to a growing sense of apprehension.
After a moment’s hesitation, Sarah placed her hand on the sun-warmed handle, her grip tense, holding her breath.
The door creaked gently as she pushed it open.
Sam breathed in deeply, and suddenly the smell of home hit him, sending a rush of memories flooding back that made him stop in his tracks.
The commercials on the radio that Dad used to turn on while making coffee in the morning
Sarah’s screams at the neighbor’s dog
Mom changing the station because she hated the commercials
Legos scattered around the living room
him and his sister running to grab the drying laundry they’d forgotten in the garden now catching the rain...
He didn’t know whether his eyes were stinging from sheer emotion or from the dust. Avoiding Sarah’s gaze, he turned away, pretending to pick up some cleaning products to wipe his eyes.
If Sarah noticed, she said nothing. Or perhaps she too had wet eyes. There are times, after all, when words fail to make the heart speak.
In a gentle silence of mutual understanding, they began opening windows, sweeping, dusting frames, cushions, and shelves. Slowly, the hesitancy of those first moments faded, giving way to a new, somewhat vulnerable assurance as they rediscovered their marks in this place frozen in time. Their voices returned, and the discussions resurfaced, this time filled with "Remember when..."
While cleaning the buffet, Sarah burst out laughing when she found a picture of Sam’s first day at high school. He was proudly wearing a green shirt far too tight for him, with a painfully straight collar.
And maybe Sam snatched the photo out of her hands.
Maybe Sarah chased after him, cackling, "At least let me take a picture of it, Samuel Thomas Wilson!"
Maybe Sam sneakily hid the polaroid under a couch cushion, with Sarah close behind.
And maybe then, at that moment, their ghosts from the past - still too small to reach the bathroom sink - ran with them.
Evening fell quickly, the sun's golden rays streaming through the stained windows, casting shades of blue, pink, green, and violet across the wooden floor.
Sam and Sarah were sipping a fresh glass of water on the sofa when the sound of a motorcycle echoed in the driveway. By now, that sound had become all too familiar to Sam, and he couldn't hold back a warm smile, rolling his eyes at the knowing look Sarah gave him.
"Did you call for backup to clean the house?" Sam asked, in a tone he hoped sounded casual, though it didn’t fool Sarah.
"A super soldier can always come in handy for moving furniture," she replied with an amused tone, pretending not to notice how Sam suddenly seemed rather flustered.
Just then, three brief knocks came at the door.
Sam got up to answer it - perhaps a little more eagerly than expected. It’s perfectly normal to be excited to see a friend you haven’t seen in three weeks and four days... isn’t it? Not that Sam had been counting obviously.
He pulled the door open and Sam found himself face to face with Bucky and- oh my god the leather jacket looks so good on him, and he's got that smirk lighting up his face again, those creases in the corner of his eyes and... since when does Sam even feel that way about his co-worker-
"So who's got a staring problem now, huh?" Bucky said in an amused tone, raising an eyebrow and pulling Sam out of his thoughts.
Sam immediately pulled himself together, though not without feeling his face flush.
"Don't get cocky or you'll be sleeping on the doorstep tonight," he replied, before adding with a sincere smile, "Good to see you again, Buck." He patted him warmly on the shoulder, fighting all the invisible forces urging his hand to linger.
As the older man took off his shoes, Sarah joined them, not sparing Sam a teasing glance.
"Bucky, how have you been? Thank you for answering my call!" she said warmly, taking his jacket and hanging it on the coat rack.
"You called. I wouldn't miss an opportunity to be of service to the Wilson family."
Sam definitely rolled his eyes at his charming tone.
"How are Cass and AJ?"
"As lively as ever. They're always asking when Uncle Bucky's coming back to stay. You're practically part of the family now," she replied with a smile that was far too wide - which Sam didn't feel augured well. And rightly so, as she immediately added,
"I'll leave you to it. I've got to pick up Cass and AJ from a friend's house. And Bucky, of course you're welcome to sleep over - I'll see you two later!"
The sound of the door slamming behind Sarah echoed, before Sam could even utter a word.
Because naturally, Cass and AJ were not spending the afternoon at a friend's house.
So Sam and Bucky found themselves face to face.
“Sarah told me you needed my help with the house?” Bucky asked, as if nothing had happened.
"Don't bother, it's already late and we've made good progress," Sam said, opening the freshly cleaned fridge. "Want a beer?" he offered, noticing a few old cans left over.
"Why not, if they haven't gone out of date," Bucky replied with a shrug, settling onto the couch. "How's the housework been so far? Well... you know, Sarah told me about the history of the house and stuff."
Sam came back to his side, handed him one of the two cans, then sat down and opened his own, his eyebrows furrowed. He took a sip, thinking about his answer.
"Oh, comme-ci comme-ça. You know how it goes."
He didn’t know why, but a tight knot in his throat stopped him from saying more. Instead, he focused on the cool metal in his hand, suddenly fascinated by the tiny, unreadable print on the side of the can.
Yeast, carbon dioxide, citric acid, ascorbic acid, PVPP, Calcium sulfate, residual sugars (glucose, malto-
"To be honest, I don't know."
That stopped Sam in his focused reading. He looked up and saw Bucky biting the inside of his cheek, passing his open can from one hand to the other.
"I don't know what it's like, rediscovering a place so full of... you know, memories, photographs. I've..."
Sam listened closely, eyes fixed on the older man's face. Bucky's voice was hesitant - enough to catch Sam off guard.
"I only regained my consciousness and memories when everything was already gone. The house I grew up in back in Brooklyn's been replaced by an apartment building. Sometimes I barely recognize the streets. All I’ve got are Steve’s sketchbooks and a small pile of letters kept in the Smithsonian."
He paused, his gaze drifting into the distance.
"It feels like all my memories are slipping through my fingers. I try to remember, but... I can’t even recall what my bedroom looked like."
Another pause. Then, quieter:
"I don’t even know why I’m telling you this."
He gave an unconvincing chuckle.
The vulnerability in Bucky's voice stirred something deep inside Sam. Although they’d grown closer since teaming up and taking on the mantle of Captain America, moments of such raw honesty were still rare.
Perhaps that’s why Sam’s hand hesitated before resting on Bucky’s shoulder for a few moments, a quiet gesture of comfort. His voice was just as tentative as he replied in a hushed tone, withdrawing his hand:
"Selfishly, I didn’t want to come back here. I wanted to forget. To pretend nothing had happened, telling myself my parents were still home, waiting for me to come back for dinner in the evening. It sounds silly, I... For a long time, I couldn’t face seeing Sarah again. I threw myself into adventures with Steve, but the truth is, I’m a coward. I’m only good at running away from the truth. Everything looks the same, but, you know, nothing really is, and..."
Sam’s gaze drifted over the wall decorations and settled on a vase filled with shells that he and Sarah had collected on the seashore with their mother. The image weighed heavily on his heart. These empty shells, abandoned by their hosts and now dusty and lifeless, resonated with him more than he cared to admit. He took another sip of beer, the bitterness failing to ease the tightness in his throat.
"...It’s scary," Bucky finished quietly, their understanding mutual.
The silence that followed was less awkward than restful. The last rays of golden light crossed the room, illuminating the dust still floating in the air - dust that had escaped the afternoon’s frenetic cleaning. A breeze sneaked through the window, making a chime ring before caressing Sam’s face like a reassuring hand. The alcohol had relaxed his muscles, and now he gazed at Bucky, who had leaned his head against the backrest, eyes closed. The sun painted his face in shades of yellow and orange. Sam’s gaze lingered on the delicate shadows cast by his eyelashes, nose, cheekbones, mouth, and chin. Last year, he’d never thought he would see Bucky so at peace, and perhaps that affected him even more than the leather jacket the former soldier had worn earlier.
Bucky must have felt Sam’s eyes on him, because he slowly opened his eyelids to meet his gaze and held it. It didn’t feel like one of their staring contests but something more intimate.
Sam felt his heart skip a beat. In this moment of private ambiguity, he allowed himself to cherish a naive hope that Bucky might also be into men, that he might put his hand on Sam’s knee. Sam would then turn to face him, and Bucky would lean forward to close the gap between them and -
Instead, Bucky frowned, his hand finding something under a cushion before pulling out a crooked polaroid. Sam’s apprehension rose as he recognized the photograph perfectly.
“Samuel, why is there a picture of a thin, nerdy version of you in an absolutely atrocious green shirt?” Bucky asked slowly, a smile growing on his unfairly perfect face. Sam let out a startled high-pitched squeal that he would later deny entirely, trying to retrieve the photo from Bucky’s hands. Obviously, Bucky tenaciously held it out for him, now laughing out loud.
The stars were beginning to appear in the sky when they stopped fighting, or more accurately, when Bucky took pity on Sam’s distress and returned the photo to him. He watched the younger man put it back in its original place on the sideboard, unable to stop smiling.
When he sat back down, Bucky spoke again in a slightly hoarse voice, probably unaccustomed to laughing so much:
"Where did the photo even come from, anyway?"
"It’s a picture of my first day of high school. I wanted to impress my crush by putting on a shirt, you know, looking all serious and neat and stuff..." Sam began to recount, smiling fondly at the memory of the image where his cheeks still held a bit of baby fat.
"Let me guess, she fell head over heels for you," Bucky answered with a smirk.
"Oh, I don’t know if the shirt did the trick, but he did end up asking me to prom, so..." Sam paused slightly, waiting for any reaction from Bucky, any prejudice that might have lingered from the ’40s. However, Bucky’s smile only widened, a glint in his eye that Sam dared not overanalyze, for fear of giving himself false hope.
"Do you have any other stories to tell?" Bucky offered softly. A few seconds passed.
"Do you want to take a look at my bedroom?" Sam replied, perhaps a little impulsively.
Bucky raised an eyebrow.
"Wh-"
"Not like that, just-" Sam sighed exaggeratedly. "Follow me." He stood up, finishing the last drop of his beer before placing it back on the coffee table. He climbed the stairs, turning back to Bucky who followed close behind, raising a threatening finger. "But you have no right to criticize the decor, Barnes."
"No promises, Wilson," he chirped back.
Sam pushed open the door at the end of the corridor. Night was beginning to fall, the last glimmers of daylight dimly lighting the room. Bucky stepped inside, his gaze taking in the room: a desk still in disarray, CDs scattered on the floor, a wardrobe covered with stickers, a few posters of seabirds and Star Wars movies, and a single bed with children's Captain America sheets.
"- Already patriotic from an early age, huh? You could have asked Steve to sign your your bed covers, I'm sure he would've shed a tear" Sam rolled his eyes - he couldn't count the number of times he'd done it when he was with Bucky, but he sincerely thought he might have sore eyes tomorrow morning - and almost missed the tender look Bucky gave the photographs above his desk, before leaning in to take a closer look.
Sam felt his heart skip a beat again.
"It's even better than the high school picture. Were you letting your hair grow? And oh, you played guitar!"
Sam joined him, looking at the photos with nostalgia.
"Bass, actually," Sam said. "The guy I told you about - Nicholas - I would’ve followed him to the other side of the world. So I picked up an instrument to join his band."
"You were really crazy about this guy. Your parents… were they okay with it?" Sam looked at him thoughtfully. "You know, two guys together."
"Yeah, they were pretty cool. I never really came out or anything, but when I brought Nicholas home, it was pretty obvious. I always considered myself lucky. There were a few insults in high school, but just the usual immature teenage talk. It must’ve been different in the '40s, right?"
Very subtle, Wilson - like he was hoping Bucky would take the bait.
Bucky just let out an evasive sound, opening then closing his mouth. His frown was even more noticeable than usual, to the point where Sam could bet that the creases between his eyebrows couldn't get any deeper.
"It wasn’t the best time. There were already gay bars in New York, but most of them got shut down around the World's Fair - you know, for the sake of reputation. As long as you hid, you didn’t get spit on." Bucky breathed in, then sighed. His gaze met Sam's, before continuing.
“That's what I was doing, I guess.” Selfishly, Sam felt his heart quicken. “I'm attracted to women too, so it wasn't really complicated. But the day my dad caught me with a guy, that was... yeah not the greatest moment of my life. Fortunately, I was drafted into the army soon after, so I was able to avoid awkward family dinners," Bucky finishes, with a tone that tries to be lighter, but fell flat again.
Meanwhile, the two men had sat down on the edge of the bed. Sam's hand brushed Bucky's vibranium one, before squeezing it tentatively and reassuringly. The metal was suprisingly warm. The contact surely encouraged Bucky, as he went on, his eyebrows softening.
“I was really taken aback when I arrived at Delacroix, to see such welcoming people. You and Sarah made me part of your family and I'm constantly grateful for that. I could have just stayed at the hotel for two nights and left, but you offered me a place to stay, and now your nephews call me ‘Uncle Bucky’, I… I don't know how I got so lucky" His eyes were moist, and in that moment, gazing into them, Sam understood the urgency that had driven Steve to move heaven and earth for two years to save that man. Sam swore he would do anything to make Bucky smile, for each of his laughs warmed the heart more deeply than the Louisiana sun ever could.
“Buck...” Sam murmured weakly. “I should be the one saying that. After the Blip, I locked myself away. I had hardly anyone left. Steve, Natasha and Tony were gone. I was drowning in work. The shield haunted me. I stopped answering Sarah's calls. And... maybe at that point, leaving with you on the mission changed something in me, I-“
he paused, drawing a breath.
"I want you to be there for my nephews, Buck - to be the cool uncle, to wipe the dishes while I wash them, to help Sarah choose the color of the new carpet she’s buying, and to have your toothbrush next to mine, then to bicker because I used yours by mistake."
The delicate chime hanging in the window tinkled softly as Sam’s words floated through the air. His heart raced, and he hoped the super soldier serum didn’t come with heightened hearing because he’d be particularly embarrassed at how desperate he was for Bucky.
But maybe it wouldn't have been so bad, since Bucky's flesh hand left his lap to rest on the nape of Sam's neck. At that moment, the world fell silent, and he could no longer hear the irregular beating of his heart or the chimes. He closed his eyes at the last second, feeling Bucky's lips brush against his own. A shiver ran down his spine. With great tenderness, Sam's hands came to cradle Bucky's face. They started moving their lips delicately, tentatively, their warm breaths mingling. Soon, their movements became more assured, pursuing an ever more intense pleasure, lying back in the twin bed. Sam lost all sense of time, feeling his partner's trembling but burning hands caress his hips. Sam couldn't tell if they'd been kissing for two minutes or fifteen, but his head wouldn't stop spinning.
They parted, breathless, looking at each other with a newfound adoration.
“Making out in my teenage bed, I didn't think I'd ever do that again,” Sam murmured into the crook of Bucky's neck, who laughed softly, his hands still shaking.
Maybe it was the excitement or the rush of his heartbeat, but as he opened his mouth again, he couldn't help whispering:
“we should move in together."
Bucky turned his head sharply, eyes wide and dilated.
"Wh- are you serious?"
Sam looked back at him with equal surprise, taken aback by his own impulsiveness. Yet he couldn’t help feeling more certain than ever about his suggestion. He stammered:
"In Louisiana, near Delacroix. Not far from Sarah’s, maybe. A little house, with a garden. I have an apartment in D.C., but that’s just for work. But I know you don’t like the heat, and you’ve got your place in Brooklyn, where you grew up, and I’d understand if you’d rather-"
Bucky cut him off with a peck on the lips.
"That would be perfect Sam", he whispered, before adding teasingly:
"Even though I'm surprised you'd decide to move in with me when we just had our first kiss."
“Better late than never," replied Sam, with a beaming smile.
Bucky twisted toward the ceiling and let out a soft exclamation of surprise that made Sam raise his head.
"Are those phosphorescent stars?"
As night fell, a strangely green, artificial galaxy spread across the ceiling above them. Sam could hear Bucky’s radiant smile as he added, "Samuel… that’s cute."
Sam felt himself blushing, contemplating the false stars reflected in his partner's eyes.
"I was afraid of the dark back then. So my mom and I recreated constellations.
Surprisingly, when he thought back to his mother, his throat no longer tightened. He smiled nostalgically, holding Bucky's hand.
“Which one?”
Sam raised his arm, pointing in the direction of the various geometric shapes.
"There’s the Big Bear, right there. To its left, the Little Bear. If you look north -to the left - you’ve got the whale and the fish. To the south, you’ve got Hercules. And we’ve also got the eagle to the southeast - it’s kind of a rhombus with a tail."
"And in the middle?"
"Orion. My favorite."
"What does it stand for?"
"He’s a giant hunter, from Greek mythology. The four stars in rectangles represent his upraised arms and legs. You can also see his head. The three stars aligned in the center are his belt. And above his left arm is his sword."
“And what about the arc in his right hand?" murmured Bucky.
"His shield," replied Sam, unable to hide the smile in his voice.
"It looks good on him."
"Yeah?"
Bucky let out a small hum of acknowledgment, making Sam’s head spin. He avoided Sam’s gaze, his face flushed - missing the unmasked adoration on Sam’s face.
Sam couldn’t wait to wake up beside him every morning.
Bucky finally turned back to the younger man, whispering,
“Should we get a cat?”
And how can Sam possibly refuse when Bucky looks at him with such pleading and honest eyes?