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As he’s waiting in line at McDonald’s, Sam gets a text from his buddy Rudolpho from the VA. Rudy wants to know where the hell he’s been and Sam’s face screws up with fresh indignation at this whole goddamn situation and texts back.
Don’t make friends w/ heroes. Pain in the ass. I’m good thx. Overseas. Long story I can’t tell rn.
He follows it with three angry-faced emotes to drive home his point.
Rudy texts back: Eh you’re not THAT big a pain in the ass.
Sam chuckles at that. Good ole Rudy. He texts back a thumbs up.
Sam taps his foot and tries to decide on the worst part of being Captain America’s buddy. Not getting pop culture references is up there. His embarrassing excitement when he does get one is definitely on the list. Sam doesn’t mind the lack of knowledge music-wise. He loves schooling people on music. It’s not the intimidation factor even though, Christ, walking beside the guy in public is an exercise in the strength of one’s self-image. The stubbornness. The stubbornness is top three for sure. Maybe number one.
“The hell am I doing here,” Sam mutters.
Dumb question.
Sam knows exactly why he’s here and it’s most definitely the #1 worst thing about being Captain America’s buddy.
The goddamn loyalty he instills in you.
And when Sam decides to be loyal to you, well, you’d better have a Hulk-sized crowbar if you’re thinking of breaking it up.
It’s fucking irritating as all get out.
And now there are two of them.
Steve’s waiting in the car with Barnes. He’s a bit of mother hen with his friend, especially after the whole rampage and the newspapers shoes thing and Steve’s damn puppy face over said newspaper shoes thing, and Sam isn’t so much surprised at that as at how comfortable the two already are with each other. Sam’s still got a couple guys he’s known since way back but he’s not sure that if one got himself killed in action then showed his head a million years later all “oops Al-Qaeda turned me into a super-soldier against my will and I almost murdered you” that they would be chill this quickly.
He hopes so though.
Not that everything in the bug is dandy. James “Bucky” Barnes is mentally in the red for sure and doing his damndest to put a good face up for Cap. But Sam has seen this kinda thing before. He figures the best thing he can do is treat Bucky just the way he would any new friend of a friend making his life this difficult: with casual hostility. And hey, if Bucky breaks bad again or starts to freak out, then he’ll deal. He squelches his suspicion and his worry that Bucky will break bad. Cap trusts the guy and Sam trusts Cap. If nothing else, Steve is the CO here and when the CO gives an order...
“Just get me six grilled chicken sandwiches and two orders of fries and four salads and a Coke,” Steve had said, handing him a card. Bucky was dead asleep in the backseat, looking like a big dog stuck in too tiny of a kennel. “The same for Bucky, I guess. And a couple chocolate shakes. And a hot fudge sundae for Buck. And whatever you want. I’ll come in and help you in a minute, I gotta make a call.”
Sam had just stared at him.
“We eat a lot,” Steve said, shrugging.
“Right.”
Of course Captain America goes to McDonald’s in Germany. It would be downright unpatriotic not to.
The cashier looks a little winded by the time Sam is done ordering and impulsively he says, “Hey, I’ll also take a Happy Meal with nuggets. And uh…with the apple juice and a Go-GURT and fries.”
It’s a weird impulse and Sam’s not even sure if he means it as an insult or a gesture.
Somehow it feels right.
By the time the food comes, Steve has joined him. Whenever Cap walks into a room full of civilians everybody seems to stand up a little straighter, even when they don’t appear to recognize him. Sam notices this even if Steve doesn’t. They chit chat but Steve’s eyes are fixed outside on the car.
“Does he seem alright to you?” Steve says.
“Other than turning killer soldat on us? Very alright,” Sam says. “Which doesn’t mean he is. But yeah he seems that way.”
“He’s been on his own for a while,” Steve says. “Appeared to have been functioning okay. …Wish he’d come to me though.”
“I would guess he felt a little weird about giving you a call,” Sam says wryly as they start grabbing their bags of food from the counter. “Who knows? Maybe he was spending that time getting up the nerve.”
“Hmm.” Steve is filling a bag with ketchup packets.
“Don’t take it personal, Cap,” Sam says sternly, filling their soda cups. “He had to do what made sense to him. You did break through about seventy years of HYDRA programming on his brain just by saying hello.”
“Right right. I know.”
Back in the bug, Bucky wakes up at the smell of the food and he eyes the small mountain of sustenance he’s given with shrewd curiosity. He looks pretty happy about the ice cream but he frowns at the Happy Meal when Sam hands it to him.
“What the hell is that?” Bucky says.
“It’s a Happy Meal.”
Bucky takes a look inside the colorful carton and casts a wary gaze on Sam. “It looks like it’s for kiddies.”
“It’s a Happy Meal, man,” Sam says. “Get happy.”
Steve raises an eyebrow at him and Sam just shrugs.
By the time Sam has the ketchup just the way he likes it on his Quarter Pounder, Steve and Bucky have already plowed through their chicken sandwiches. Bucky’s starting on the fries. He appears to be having a religious experience.
“I’m not convinced this is real food,” Bucky says with his mouth full. “But I like it.”
“It’s not real food,” Steve says, twisting around to look at Bucky in the back, as he pokes at a salad. “The flavor of the french fries? They make that in a laboratory . White coats and beakers and everything.”
“Get outta town.”
“I’m serious. I mean...I guess they made pop in a lab in our day.”
“But this is supposed to be a potato,” Bucky says, emphasizing his point by waving a fry around. “Wait, is it a potato?”
“God knows.”
“Seriously,” Sam says. “This is like when I visit my Great Uncle Milton at the home.” He affects an old man voice while ripping into another packet of ketchup. “Why in my day, you could go to the picture show for a quarter!”
“ Two for a quarter,” Bucky says. “I’d pay at the front and sneak Stevie in through the back.”
“Captain America sneaking into the movies?” Sam says, smirking. “No wonder the U.N. is on your back.” Steve snorts a laugh at that one.
“Or it wouldn’t cost anything at all,” Steve says. “Sometimes Bucky would chat up a girl and she’d sneak us both in. We saw King Kong that way. It was playing with a Laurel and Hardy picture, one of the long ones.”
“ Sons of the Desert ,” Bucky supplies.
“I watched a few of the shorts on YouTube a while ago. They really hold up.”
Sam wants to be annoyed but his heart is inordinately warmed. It’s a problem.
Bucky’s chuckling into sundae. “I loved Laurel and Hardy.”
After Steve has sufficiently gorged himself and thrown out the trash, they get back on the road. Sam sits back in his seat and tries not to think about the next fight or what it will mean or what happens if Bucky gets triggered again. In the rearview mirror he watches Bucky go for the Happy Meal, which he has apparently saved for last. He’s approaching it as if about to dissemble a ticking bomb.
“Is this...is this yogurt in a tube?” Bucky holds up the offending food object, horrified.
“Yep,” Sam says.
“Is it made for cosmonauts?”
“Astronauts.”
“Right. I don’t think I’m ready for the yogurt in a tube… Wait. What’re these?”
“Chicken McNuggets. Put some sweet and sour sauce on em’.”
“They’re good,” Steve assures him.
“You say so.”
Bucky’s inhaling his Happy Meal when he says with some excitement, “Hey, there’s a toy in here.”
“Yeah,” says Sam, “they always come with toys.”
“What is it?” Steve says.
“It’s eh…” Sam watches him in the rearview. Bucky’s biting his lip, his face screwed up in serious contemplation at whatever the toy is. “It’s a green...pig?”
“A green pig?” Steve says.
Sam has to bite down hard on his tongue not to crack up.
Keep it together, Wilson.
“It’s a green pig wearing a cowboy hat?” Bucky says. A soft whirring sounds and for a second Sam thinks it’s the arm doing something it’s not supposed to do, but it’s the toy. “Heh. When you press its tail, his little lasso spins around.”
Sam watches Bucky study the cowboy pig as he makes the lasso spin around over and over. “It’s from Angry Birds,” Sam says. “There’s a movie coming out.”
“Angry Birds,” Bucky repeats. “Steve?”
“No idea,” Steve says, shaking his head.
“Oh come on!” Sam explodes. “I explained that one! It’s a game on the phone. Here, I’ll show you, Barnes.” He twists around in his seat and digs out his phone, unlocking it and bringing up Angry Birds (which he generally plays only when no one can see what he’s doing and only when he’s completely desperate for a distraction). Barnes seems equal parts dumbfounded and intrigued. “Swipe with your finger...right? You slingshot the birds and take down the pigs? And there’s boxes of TNT, see? And you have to strategize sometimes to like knock rocks to the next thing and some of the birds are bombs...right?”
Bucky’s response is: “Huh.”
Sam helps him not win one round and leaves the phone with him, turning back around in his seat. Steve Rogers is looking at him like Sam’s just adopted an orphan, which...too real.
“Shut up,” Sam says, crossing his arms.
I’m not friends with the former HYDRA assassin , Sam says to himself. I’m friends with a friend of the former HYDRA assassin.
Casual hostility .
“I had a slingshot as a kid,” Bucky says as he swipes the screen- the goofy cry of the birds ringing out.
“Of course you did,” Sam says.
“I made it,” Bucky says. “My ma had this inner tube she’d take to the beach when we’d go and she kept patching it up til it was finally shot to hell so I cut out a band of rubber. Finding a good Y stick took forever though.”
“Pssht, I remember that,” Steve says. “You carried that thing around for ages. And one day Marco Felici was beating the pulp out of me and you caught him in the eye with a walnut from twenty yards.”
Bucky titters from the back and says, “Twenty-five.”
“Snipers and their egos,” Steve says shaking his head.
“Heh, Barton’s like that,” Sam says.
Bucky’s becomes focussed on his game and Sam rests in the easy silence for a while. They’re driving through a wooded area now and idly Sam thinks he’d like to fly around the Black Forest someday and also wonders how he’ll get his wings fixed if something happens to them now that they’re apparently rogue and probably aren’t going to have Stark’s resources any time soon…
There’s a soft thump from the backseat. Steve frowns at the rearview mirror. “Is he okay? Bucky?”
Sam turns to look over his shoulder and take stock. Bucky’s got the thousand-yard stare going and the phone has dropped from his hands which sit on his knees still seemingly grasping. Sam sees him tremble and his breath is short. Sam waves a hand in front of Bucky’s eyes. Nothing. But he looks fucking terrified.
“Barnes? James Barnes? Uh, Bucky?” Is there a name he’d respond better to? Soldat maybe, but Sam needs to get him out of wherever he’s gone and calling him Soldat probably won’t help. “Sergeant Barnes,” Sam says firmly, and Bucky twitches at that. “You with me, Sergeant Barnes?”
“What should I do?” Steve says, eyes only half on the road.
“I got this,” Sam says. “But pull over if you can. Are we good on time?”
“Yeah.”
Sam unbuckles his belt and grabs some ice out of his soda cup. He turns around in his seat and takes Bucky’s right hand, pressing the ice into his palm and folding the fingers over it. “You feel the ice?”
Bucky stirs and nods slightly. “You’re with your friend Steve and I in the car. You’re in the car with us and it’s 2016. We’re in Germany. Right? And you’re safe us, okay?”
Bucky swallows, trying to breathe, and Steve pulls the car over. It’s probably good they’re in a somewhat deserted spot in a peaceful area.
“I want you to hold this ice in your hand,” Sam says. He leans over and rolls down the window so the cool wind will blow in. Music would be good. He picks his phone up off the floor and puts on his Pandora soul station. “Do you hear that music?”
Bucky nods.
Steve’s watching over the back of his seat, attempting not to look panicked and not wholly succeeding.
“See your friend Steve right here?”
Bucky squints as if through a fog and Steve smiles weakly. “Keep your eyes on your friend Steve. And hold that ice. You’re gonna be alright. We’re just gonna sit here a minute and listen to that music.”
It takes a little while for Bucky to really come back but eventually they’re all chatting again, if quietly, just about inane things like weather, and everyone pretends Bucky wasn’t just flashing back to something terrible.
“I’m alright,” Bucky mutters. “Except my hand is cold.”
“I don’t know if this is the time,” Steve says, he’s turned back around in his seat and he’s clearly trying to hide that he’s fighting tears, his eyes rimmed red. “But uh… Buck, you don’t have to fight. If it’s not good for you. This thing with Tony and… You know I’m always gonna protect you-”
“Can I talk to you outside for a minute?” Bucky says. “I want to get some air.”
It’s clear Sam’s not included in this conversation and that’s cool. He can take a minute himself. He has to get out so Bucky can crawl from the backseat and Sam breathes the air. Germany smells different. He’d backpacked around Europe years ago and the sense memory makes him crave a beer. He watches Cap and Barnes wander a little ways into the woods, stopping to stand under a tree, still in sight.
“I’m taking a bubble bath after this,” Sam says to nobody, getting back in the front seat. Where this bath will take place is anyone’s guess. He’s been staying at the compound upstate and since that was Howard Stark’s place, he’s guessing there’s an eviction coming. “And I may get some fish. I’ve always wanted tropical fish. The blue and yellow ones. Like Dory. Like motherfuckin’ Dory .”
Steve and Bucky are talking, huddled close, which Sam guesses is some old war habit. They talk so long Sam checks his phone for the time more than once. It would be nice if they could put this Zemo guy out of commission and maybe (if a miracle happens) work things out with Tony before the next century. Steve and Bucky were looking serious for a while but now they’re smiling and then Bucky laughs and grabs Steve arm and Steve just looks at him like…
“Hooooly shit,” Sam murmurs.
Then they hug and there it is. Sam’s sure of it. It’s not just because they hug, of course. It’s just they way they linger and the way Steve’s hand is on the back of Bucky’s head all protective like “this head is too important, this head is everything, nothing must happen to this head again ever”, until they finally break apart as secret things are said and Steve squeezes Bucky’s shoulder before heading back to the car, wiping his eyes, leaving Bucky to, presumably, get his shit together before they head out again. It’s probably the conversation they would have had in Bucharest if they hadn’t been busted in on.
“We good?” Sam says.
“Yeah...” Steve sighs, relaxing in his seat, facing the road. “He…he said he needs to fight this fight because he needs to stand up for himself. And he said that besides that, it’s not like when he was the Winter Soldier because it’s a fair fight. He said he likes fighting a fair fight he believes in.” Sam’s sure a mountain of other things were also said that are none of his business. But he’s not above wanting to get a little more of the scoop sometime. Steve’s got that sappy look on his face again.
“Maaaaan,” Sam says, shaking his head. “We gotta lot to talk about when we get back, Rogers.”
“You mean after I figure out how I can possibly make all this up to you?”
“Hey, we’re a team,” Sam points out. “Having said that, you’re booked for every VA event for the next five years at least.”
“Ha. I’m alright with that,” Steve says. “You were right by the way. He’s been getting up his nerve to find me all this time.”
Bucky gets back in the car. He looks good again. Sam guesses that embrace with Steve must have been pretty intense, since it was seventy years coming.
They’re a few minutes out when Bucky quietly says, “Hey, Sam.” Sam looks back him. Bucky’s got the puppy face and he’s fidgeting with his cowboy pig. Sam’s seen some naked vulnerability in his day but this one’s a biggie alright. “I just wanted to say thanks. Ya know.”
Sam’s just about to go serious and soft and male bonding and then he remembers that for as much stigma as there still is for vets coming back and wanting help, this guy comes from a day when your CO’s best advice was “everybody gets shellshock, kid, stop whinin’” and sent you back to the front.
Sam decides to cut the guy a break.
Maybe Bucky needs a regular guy around to give him some shit.
Not that Bucky Barnes is his friend.
Bucky Barnes is a friend of a friend.
“Don’t go thinkin’ we’re friends now, Barnes,” Sam says.”I haven’t forgotten about that wing, you know. Took me a week to fix.”
Steve looks mildly alarmed, but Bucky seems to seriously contemplate this and finally says, “You should protect your flank more then. I mean if you’re gonna flutter around like that.”
The surge of genuine indignation is real.
“Flutter!” Sam says. “Did… Steve, did he he just say I flutter ?”
“No no,” Barnes says, all casual like, his McDonald’s straw now between his teeth as he talks around it. “It’s real cute. It’s a strategy. I’d guess one out of ten opponents are so surprised they’re fighting a mechanical birdy they just up and drop their weapons.”
“Unbelievable. Un believable.” Sam scowls over his shoulder.
“Hey, you’re the one who calls himself Falcon then plays a game called Angry Birds .”
“This guy.”
As an exclamation point he pulls the lever under his seat and pushes back so that Bucky is further squished.
“I’ll teach you few moves sometime, if you want,” Bucky says.
I am not Bucky Barnes’ friend , Sam thinks resolutely. ...On the other hand he’d be amazing at paintball and no one else will go…
“Your friend’s a real jerk,” Sam says to Steve.
“I know,” Steve says, grinning over at him. “All my friends are jerks.”