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He’s been pacing back and forth in his cell to stave off the ever present feeling of claustrophobia that threatens to creep in. Sam has only been in here for a few days, but it’s enough to make him antsy, and it’s better than the thoughts he’s been having as of late, especially since he’s been thrown in a cell with no end date in sight. When he hears the rush of the automated doors open, he’s jogging from one corner to the next, and he stops immediately. It’s stupidly petty, but he knows it’s probably Ross or his cronies again; there’s nothing he has to say that he hasn’t already said. So he turns his back and stares balefully at the wall, his arms folded tightly over his chest.
“So I hear you’ve been stuck in a cage. Don’t suppose you want your wings back?”
Heart jumping in his throat, he turns around slowly and sees Steve and his ridiculous Dorito body emerging from the shadows. Sam gives him a slow appreciative look up and down, just to see Steve flush prettily, but it grows even more appreciative once he sees that there’s a bulging duffel bag slung over Steve’s shoulder.
“Those better be gifts, Santa Claus,” Sam says, and Steve gives him that wry sunny grin on his face, his bright blue eyes shining with mirth, and Sam shoots back a giant smile of his own.
“Looks like you’ve been in a hell of fight,” he notes, scanning all the half-healed bruises and the cuts. His own black eye twinges in sympathy.
Steve shrugs. “Still got time to save your ass,” he says, and Sam laughs harder than he has in days.
After swinging the bag down, Steve motions at him to stand back. He tries hitting a few keys, and when that doesn’t work, he punches the keypad and rips some wires out before the door slides open part way. In the distance, an alarm begins blaring. Steve shoves the glass out of the way, pulling Sam through and the feeling of the walls closing in over his head already begins to diminish as he carefully stretches. For a brief moment, Steve rests a warm hand on the back of his neck and Sam is able to ignore the ache down his side. Then they get to work on the other Avengers’ cells.
When they approach Wanda’s cell first, she stands up wobbly and her hair flutters back to reveal the magic-inhibiting collar that they leashed her with when they all arrived. The expression on Steve’s face quickly turns into anger and he opens his mouth, ready to blow. She shakes her head.
“Now is not the time,” she says, her eyes darting from Steve’s face to the crumpled security guards laying in a trail behind them. The red lights flash in warning, an eerie glow oscillating over them. Steve grits his teeth and nods. Gingerly, he carefully takes the collar and snaps it in two, dropping it in her outstretched hand before he moves to Barton’s cell beside her. Out of the corner of his eye, Sam watches Wanda drop the collar and crush it under her heel with a steely look, her cheeks already warm again with a healthy flush that had drained when she had been leashed. She looks at her hands and tests out a few red sparks, before raising her head and smiling at them.
Barton is deceptively relaxed, leaning against the jamb of the cell and waiting for his turn. Scott has his face pressed to the glass in the cell beyond Barton’s with no regard for how ridiculous he looks. Before Steve could punch out the mechanisms on their doors, Wanda sends bursts of red at them with a flicker of her hands. The doors slide open easily, and they both turn to look at her as Scott immediately jumps out and cheers.
Wanda shrugs. “Seemed easier.”
There’s shouting down the hallway, and Steve unzips the duffel bag slung over his shoulder and hands out their armor like Christmas come early.
“Aww, bow.” Barton looks almost reverent when his bow and arrows are pressed into his hands. He slings it over his shoulder and salutes sloppily. Sam wants to laugh, but he’s tempted to coo when Steve gives him his wings. Scott’s already rubbing his face over his Ant-man suit.
“Suit up,” Steve says, and they all grin back at him.
--
Once they reach the quinjet, Barton jumps into the pilot seat and flicks up levers to get it going. Wanda keeps guard at the hatch, her hands sparking red as she keeps a force field up against the bullets. When the quinjet finally heads toward the open mouth of the hangar, Sam slams the hatch switch and pulls her back before she falls out.
“Strap yourselves in, kids,” Barton yells as Wanda dives into the closest seat. Sam and Steve brace themselves as the quinjet hits turbulence and Scott curses loudly. There’s a shudder as something scrapes against the hull with an earsplitting screech, and Sam swears he could feel his teeth rattle in his skull.
“Fuck, Barton,” Scott says, looking green. “Tell me you can fly this thing straight.”
“No—promises,” Barton grits out through his teeth, jerking the controls to the right. A patter of bullets hits the side of the quinjet; Wanda’s knuckles whiten where she grips the arms of her seat, her eyes wide and focused where they could hear something akin to battering rams starting to pound their door. The jet rolls on its side and Sam slides against the arm of Steve’s seat; he hisses louder than he’d like, now suffering another bruise on top of some pretty banged up ribs.
Steve looks concerned, but before he can say anything, the quinjet shudders violently once more before the shouting dies out. Beyond the cockpit Sam can see the night sky, fogged over by some wispy purple clouds. Barton whistles appreciatively before he eases the controls back and takes them into the cover of the clouds.
“Welcome aboard to Runaway Airlines. Any suggestions where a gang of escaped convicts can go for spring break?” Barton calls out.
“Wakanda,” Steve says. “King T’Challa is taking us in.”
Sam can feel his jaw hanging, and from the way they all crane their heads at Steve, he’s not the only one. Barton shrugs and codes in the coordinates. “Hot and sweaty it is,” he says.
When they get some distance away from the Raft, they start to relax. Barton calls Wanda into the cockpit to teach her what he calls the basics of piloting, with Scott hovering over their shoulders in the cockpit. Sam leans back in his seat, feeling the low hum of the engines through an ache that has yet to cease. There’s a long silence, and he’s been in that cell for days. All he’s done is think.
He pulls the wings towards him, wanting something to do with his hands before he starts a conversation about whatever this thing they’ve been doing, a conversation they should’ve had since Barnes popped up back in their lives.
“Decided to leave the shield today?” Sam starts, deceptively casual as he checks his wings over. He looks up when Steve doesn’t reply, and frowns at the way Steve seems to fold into himself. But it doesn’t last; Steve shakes it off, some crumpled emotion sliding off his face, and he shrugs, just as painfully casual.
“Didn’t seem like a good fit anymore,” he says cryptically. He changes the subject abruptly, his gaze dropping to Sam’s chest. He looks concerned. “How are those ribs of yours?”
Sam pokes his ribs gingerly, winces, and huffs. “Not bad, all things considered. Tell your friend Stark he needs to watch it with his repulsors next time, though.”
Steve’s face falls at the mention of Stark, and Sam’s smile falls with it. “Didn’t go well, I take it,” he says carefully, watching Steve’s face. With no little relief, he decides to shelf the conversation for later. He asks, “Is Barnes okay? Is Stark? Want to talk about it?”
“Bucky’s in Wakanda,” Steve says, and then stops. He drops his head. “I don’t know if Tony and I will be.”
Sam studies the half-healed injuries, then compares it with Barnes in Wakanda, and starts to put the story together. He slowly puts the wings down. “Let me guess. Stark found out about Barnes.”
The misery on Steve’s face was answer enough.
And Stark said he was going as a friend. “Dammit, Steve.” He rubs his face, scratching at his stubble. He reconsiders what he’s about to say, says fuck it, and goes for it anyway.
“Look, I’ve said it before and I’ve said it again,” Sam says, sitting back to watch Steve’s reaction. “When it comes to Barnes, I’m not sure you’re at your best. You do your whole razing down entire cities thing for him, and man.” At Steve’s sharp look, his hands come up defensively. “Hey, I get it. That boy is yours. He’ll always be your baby. Whatever. I’m not saying Stark should’ve gone for the throat or whatever he probably did to Bucky, but I think he probably should’ve been owed a chance to learn it gently.”
“You’re right,” Steve says finally. He stares straight ahead, lost. “Sometimes I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing.”
The look on Steve’s face is equal parts confusion, regret and shame, although the confusion is probably at the R&B references. He always knew there was some decade he’d forgotten to teach him about. Sam sighs and slides down in his seat, wincing as he presses on some hitherto unknown bruises. He leans on Steve’s shoulder, knocking him out of his reverie of regret.
“You’re alive. Barnes still kicking? Stark?” At Steve’s nod, he continues. “Then there’s still time to get it all right.”
Steve gives him one of those shaky smiles, the uncertain kind that he wears more often than not. Sam can sense a brooding session coming from a mile away, and he has to hold back a massive yawn. It’s a long way to Wakanda, and he gets the feeling this will take a while. And, a little voice says, this might be the last time you get to do this. So he settles in, puts his head down. Steve’s giant muscles are hard, even without the armored uniform, but he’ll make do.
“Dude, I am keeping you as a pillow,” he says. “Think that should be your ‘got out of jail’ gift to me, what do you think?”
--
The first thing Sam registers about Wakanda is that it’s sweltering, a humid oppressive heat that’s unlike anything he’s experienced. Stepping out of the quinjet into the hangar is like moving into a lush sauna, heavy with the smell of tropical foliage and rain. It’s the edge of monsoon season and, despite a recent deluge that drips off the curves of the impressively beautiful buildings, lit up by the pink of impending dawn, Sam can feel his prison garb stick to his skin unpleasantly.
They’re greeted by a contingent of Wakandan royal guards. The brief sojourn through the hallways reveal small glimpses of labs; so, not the royal palace, Sam thinks curiously. They’re given the quickest tour; wherever they are, the utmost care is given to its keep. Sam notes the large garden at the center at odds with the slick modernism of the facility, supposedly a recreational greenhouse kept by the botanists who work here. It’s just as verdant and wild as a rainforest, carefully contained in a dome that opens up into the air.
Next they’re guided through the common areas; the recreational rooms and cafeteria are given particular emphasis, but it isn’t long before Scott begins to fidget. Wanda shifts in her ill-fitting shoes every time they come to a standstill, trying to hide her discomfort. They all look dead on their feet, although Barton is the best at hiding it.
Before long they’re separated: Steve to a debrief with T’Challa, and the rest of them to their quarters. Once alone, Sam slumps into a plush bed, rubbing his face tiredly. He considers passing out, staring out as the sunlight climbs up the tasteful tapestries that decorate his walls. But the artificial cool air chills him before long, and he drags himself into an overdue shower.
The warm water stings in some of the fresher cuts, but it soothes the ache from his muscles that a few days in a metal cell hasn’t done much to ease. Before long he smells less like days-old sweat and more like the warm amber soap they left for him.
When he emerges, he dumps the prison garb in the wastebasket without a second thought. Then he sets out to explore.
--
He’s trying to find his way back to the cafeteria when he spots a familiar blond head and a broad set of shoulders in the garden. Steve’s a Greek statue, staring off into the distance with his shoulders set painfully tense. Sam pauses, considers that bowed head in a sea of green, and then steps off the marble onto the stone path.
Immediately the cool air is replaced by a more bearable version of the humidity outside, and a sprinkler gently sprays his arm as he passes by closed yellow blossoms the size of his head. He pushes a canopy of giant ferns away and sees him in full profile, a heavy quiescence weighing in the small clearing. There’s a sad twist to his mouth, a clench set into his jaw that belies the kind of conversation this was going to be.
He quietly steps up next to Steve, brushing his shoulder. He looks out at all the towering flowers, dotted with dew. Waits for it.
There’s a shuddering breath, and Steve’s shoulders shake, and Sam thinks he’s been waiting for this for a while now.
“Bucky’s going back under, indefinitely,” Steve finally says hoarsely, his eyes now fixed on the ground. “He says he can’t risk something like this happening again.”
Sam feels a punch of horror crawling up his throat. He sucks in a breath and considers his next words. Wordlessly, he faces Steve and pulls him in against his shoulder, cradling his head. Steve stiffens against him, but slowly he buries his head in the nook between his neck and shoulder and clings to him, heavy against his chest.
Sam holds him up as best as he’s able. He ignores the hot dampness spreading on his shoulder, and barely notices that he’s murmuring the same nonsense his mother uses when he’s upset; he runs platitudes through his head, deems them all useless and cloying. He sighs and holds on, rubbing soothing circles on Steve’s back.
When their shared heat becomes too much, Steve lifts his head, his eyes red-rimmed and his lashes wet. Before he can step away, Sam keeps his arms around Steve and presses a dry kiss against Steve’s hair. “I’m sorry it has to be him,” he says truthfully. “That is a shitty situation piled on top of a pretty shitty life, and it shouldn’t be him. And it shouldn’t be you dealing with it, either,” he adds. He pauses. “How long?”
Steve stays leaning against him. This close, Sam can see the way the corners of his mouth turn down and the way he swallows before he answers. “As long as it takes for them to find a way to fix what HYDRA did to him.”
Which could be never, Sam thinks, and his heart drops. He tugs Steve closer and tucks his head back into his shoulder. Steve goes without resisting.
“When is he going back into the ice?” Sam asks quietly. He’s still rubbing soothing circles in Steve’s back.
“King T’Challa has his scientists setting up the cryochamber now,” Steve says lowly, his breath skating hot across his collarbone. He squeezes his eyes shut, sorrow carving lines in his face. “He says it won’t be as barbaric.” There’s a bitter huff of a laugh.
“At least he’ll be here,” Sam says finally. He looks up at the skylight, absentmindedly noting the way the now painfully bright blue sky echoes the color of Steve’s eyes. “You’ll be with him. He won’t be alone. Like I said, you have time.”
And with resignation, Sam thinks he’s the one who won’t have time. Whatever this thing he has had with Steve, it can’t compete with Bucky. He doesn’t want to and he doesn’t want to try. He closes his eyes at that thought, forces the sadness down. Worse, he couldn’t hate Steve for it. He sighs, presses another kiss on top of Steve’s head. Just for himself. He’s just going to have to make it work.
They stand together for a while, even as the sweat begins to gather and trickle down Sam’s chest from their heat and the rising humidity. Over Steve’s head he watches the flowers creep open and turn towards the sun. He can hear other voices in the garden, but no one comes to disturb them in their tiny sanctuary among the flora.
Finally, Steve opens his eyes, the flutter of his lashes brushing sweetly against Sam’s neck. “Well,” Steve mumbles and clears his throat, flushing bright red. Sam laughs and lets him pull away.
“Alright, alright. I know how you usually work these things out, Rogers,” he says. “I know I saw a gym around here.”
Before they leave the garden, Steve stops him, a gentle grip around his wrist. He’s still pink around the ears, but his gaze holds steady. “Sam. Thank you.”
Sam turns his palm over and takes his hand. “Always, man.”
--
He’s balancing a tray of a dish called kinche, fruit, and Turkish coffee as he pushes the door to his room open with his foot. He sets the tray on the table. He figures he’ll eat, catch up on world news—he plucks at his shirt and makes a face at how sweaty he is again—maybe switch shirts. He pulls his shirt off, grimaces at how dark the contusions on his side are coupled with the persistent ache of his ribs, and makes a note to head towards medical for painkillers after a meal and a nap. It probably doesn’t help that he spent the better part of the morning competing against a super soldier.
It’s not until he’s sipping on his coffee while flipping through the Wakandan Times that he happens to look up and sees Barnes lurking against the other wall.
He doesn’t shriek, per se. But he comes pretty close.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” he pants, definitely not clutching his heart. “I get that you have the whole super spy assassin shtick, but we need to get you a bell or something.”
Barnes has the audacity to smirk at him, then drops into the other chair at his table and steals his coffee. Sam scowls and lounges over the table, trying to steal it back with little success. When Barnes shifts back in his chair, the mug held protectively close to his chest, Sam finally notices the missing metal arm. There’s a leather band over the socket, like a sad oversized eye patch.
Slowly he sits back and he takes in Barnes. Like Steve, he looks like he’s been in one hell of a fight; he looks less tired and more worn down to the bone. He ignores Sam, even steals the newspaper straight out of his hand. Barnes flips through the paper, heedless of the silence.
That’s fine. Sam’s patient—and hungry.
He pulls the tray closer, casting a suspicious eye at Barnes, who keeps his head buried, and starts eating. The kinche goes down easily, and by the time he’s peeling his orange, Barnes has his mug and the paper down. Waiting.
Sam nods at the missing arm. “That Stark’s doing?”
Barnes nods and steals an orange slice. This time, Sam lets it go; he’s cataloguing all the dark bruises on Barnes’s face, wants to hiss at all the injuries that were clearly inflicted by a friend. Still, he keeps waiting for Barnes to start. But Barnes stays quiet, doesn’t quite meet his eyes, and unlike Steve, he’s just as good as waiting as Sam.
Finally, Sam leans forward and gently pulls the newspaper away. “You want a hug and a kiss too? Because I’m starting to think I should start charging.”
The way Barnes sits still is almost unnerving. Sam keeps his eyes level, keeps them on Barnes’s dark stare. Then Barnes relaxes incrementally, his shoulders coming down.
“Steve’s an idiot,” he says. Sam raises an eyebrow. Of all the things he thought Barnes would start with, this wasn’t it.
“Not that I disagree, but what?”
Barnes shifts in his seat, looks away from him. “He needs someone to pull him out of fires when he jumps into them like he always does.”
And that used to be you, Sam thinks, and then. A spark of anger starts burning low in his stomach. “Oh, so that’s what this is. You seriously trying to pull some macho ‘don’t hurt my boyfriend or I’ll kill you’ thing with me? Now?”
Barnes turns that intense glare on him, and then his eyes drop down to the mass of purple on his ribs. Sam barely restrains himself from covering it up with his hand.
“Don’t let him drag you into fires you can’t get out of either,” he says, and pushes the coffee over. Sam takes it, makes a face at how lukewarm it is already. It’s a cover for how long it’s taking for Sam to discover what Barnes is trying to get at. He drums his fingers on the table, unwilling to keep the pissed expression off his face. But before he could ask, Barnes keeps talking.
“Whatever Steve thinks, I can’t be the guy he had,” Barnes says, his mouth quirked in a sad smile. “You were right. I can’t trust myself to stay lucid, let alone to have his back.”
“Are you seriously trying to tell me to take your place-” Bucky cuts him off with a look. Sam shoots him a pissy look right back.
“You know,” Bucky says after a brief pause. “Sometimes I wonder if Steve just wants someone here with him. Another stranger to the twenty first century.”
Sam sucks in a deep breath, sets the mug down. There are days he wonders that too, but he doesn’t really have the insight to comment on the depths of loneliness Steve probably suffers on a daily basis. “I think he wants his best friend back. He loves you like no one else, man.”
Bucky smiles at him, the first genuine smile he’s seen. “I know. But he has you. And I’m not the only one he loves.”
Sam sits there gaping, while Bucky gets up and steals the newspaper before clapping a hand on his shoulder. He looks up, but Bucky isn’t looking at him anymore.
“Steve needs to know there are people who can anchor him when I can’t. Take care of yourself, Wilson.”
The door clicks and Sam twists in his chair to see an empty room. He lets out the breath he didn’t know he was holding and makes an angry snort. This is bullshit, he thinks angrily, some kind of weird cybertronic teenaged drama he didn’t sign up for. There’s a headache brewing in his temples, and Sam prepares himself for a long day.
--
Tracking down Steve or Bucky when they’re brooding isn’t easy.
For one thing, the facility is large; certain parts of the campus are crowded during the day, swarmed by Wakandan scientists and researchers who guard their work zealously; Sam figures the likelihood that either of them are in there are low; even if they were, he wouldn’t be allowed in. For another, there are parts of the facility that contain endless amounts of unused rooms, and they could be in any one of them.
By twilight Sam’s given up; he’s eaten his dinner alone in one of the libraries, unable to find the other Avengers either, and he’s headed towards his own room when he hears hushed voices that sound familiar. He pauses outside his door, before he recognizes the timber of Steve’s voice and pushes the door open.
Sitting at his table, Steve has his head bowed while Barnes stands by the window, looking out over the rainforest. Their eyes are red-rimmed when they both turn as he enters, clearly in the middle of some emotionally draining conversation he wasn’t supposed to be privy to. Sam immediately puts his hands up, feeling invasive.
“Okay.” Sam feels his eyebrows try to climb his hairline. Why his bedroom, of all places? “Should I leave?”
Barnes shoots a look at Steve, who looks right back. When they don’t say anything, Sam stifles a snort. He thought it’d be like this when Barnes came back for good, but he didn’t think it’d be this soon. He heaves a sigh and turns to leave; Sam figures he can find some other lodging for the night. He can probably share with Scott, if he had to.
“Wait,” Steve says quietly, and Sam stops, frowning. “Sam, please. Will you—can you stay?”
He turns around. Steve has those sad eyes turned at him, intense in their weight. Sam can’t help but look at Bucky, who has the same intensity in his stare—and it’s directed at him. He opens his mouth, considers the words about to come out of his mouth, and instead says, dumbly, “What about Bucky?”
Steve comes up and wraps his arms around Sam’s waist, tilts his chin and presses a chaste kiss on the corner of Sam’s mouth. Sam breaks the kiss, eyes wide, and brings his hands up, burying them into Steve’s soft hair. Over his head, Sam cranes his neck to look for Bucky, who—isn’t by the window, but behind him instead. Bucky has his hand over Steve’s, and Sam can feel the heat of their hands searing through his shirt.
There’s a mouth by his ear, and Bucky says lowly, “I’m not the only one he loves. He needs you too. You need him.”
There’s a soft kiss on his neck, the press of hot lips on his collarbone. Sam thinks about it once, maybe twice, before he brings Bucky close for a kiss.
Later, right before he drops off to sleep, he’ll think wryly to himself, this really wasn’t what they had in mind in therapy training.
--
Sam wakes up to find Bucky already sitting up beside him. He blinks blearily, too comfortable to reach up and rub the sleep from his eyes. There’s fog clinging to the window, and from this angle, he can only see the faint outline of Bucky cast against the grey morning. Behind him, he can feel Steve’s slow and steady breathing against his shoulder, still asleep.
Carefully he reaches out, aware of Steve’s arm loosely looped around his waist and leery of spooking Bucky. He gets far enough to caress the top of his fist, and tries not to flinch when Bucky swivels his head. There’s resignation on his face, and something like longing too.
“Don’t brood like that, man. S’too early.” He yawns, and Steve shifts closer in his sleep, his nose pressed against his neck. It’s almost too warm under the covers, but then the thought of Bucky going back into the freezer chills him to the core. He pins a stare on Bucky, who really should be back beside him anyway.
He turns his head to check on Steve, and is greeted by an intense gaze aimed at Bucky. Trapped between two of the most stubborn asses in the world, he thinks, and sighs. Sam leans over and curls his hand over Bucky’s fist, gently loosening their grip from the sheets. Behind him, Steve’s arm tightens minutely around his waist.
From this angle, he can’t do more than tug at Bucky’s fingers but he can frown at him, raise his brows until Bucky gives in and slides back to his side, careful not to nudge his ribs. With Bucky nestled into his chest, he’s sandwiched between two furnaces. He feels Steve move closer, and where he has his hand cradled around Bucky’s wrist, Steve intertwines his fingers with theirs.
“You smell good,” Bucky mumbles into his chest. He has one eye open, staring somewhere over his shoulder, and if Sam turns his head, he’s sure he’ll see Steve staring right back at Bucky.
Sam shuts his eyes, laughs. “Thanks.”
It’s the morning of the deep freeze and they have a few more hours before Bucky goes under. Sam wishes he could think of it as anything but a scheduled death.
--
Sam steps out of the lab, lets Steve and Bucky have a moment to breathe. He leans against the wall, tries not to think about how he needs some breathing room himself. This whole week has just been escalating on top of escalating—
“A little above your payroll, isn’t it?” Barton asks out of nowhere, and Sam really thought he was used to the sneak attacks by now but Jesus. He glares, but it never fazes Barton, so he drops it.
“You’ve all been scarce lately,” he says, and it’s true, he hasn’t seen the others since they’ve arrived. Barton shrugs, and peeks into the lab.
“We can’t all stay in Wakanda forever. Huh,” he says, before coming to stand next to Sam. “So Popsicle 1 and Popsicle 2 are finally breaking up the stand.”
Sam snorts. “Not how I thought this whole thing was going to end, to be honest with you.”
“Better you than me,” Barton says, inspecting his nails. “Wanted to see how you were holding up, but guess you were busy last night.”
Sam flushes, throws him a dirty look, but Barton takes it with ease, waggling his brows. “Guess team morale isn’t going to take as big of a hit as I thought it was, is it?”
“Shut the hell up. Don’t you have babysitting duty?” Sam says, and shoves him. “You’re leaving Wakanda?”
“Nat called. It’s why I came over.” Barton gives him an unusually serious look. “You sure you know what you’re doing?”
Sam doesn’t deny the trickle of apprehension, but he’s had Steve’s back for two years and counting. Bucky changes nothing; if he thinks about it, really thinks about it, the two of them were part and parcel of each other long before he ever came into the picture. He smiles, and Barton looks slightly more appeased.
The lab door opens and one of the lab technicians gestures at him to come back in. When he looks over, Barton is gone.
Bucky is already facing the cryochamber when Sam walks up. It looks a lot less monstrous than the ones HYDRA stored him in: smoother, rounder. Sam wants to laugh. It almost looks friendlier, despite being the glass coffin that’s about to put a man to sleep.
Before Bucky steps in, he reaches out for Sam. His gaze slides from Sam’s face to Steve’s, and Sam recalls their conversation in his room in what seemed like days ago. He nods a silent promise, clears his throat, and clutches his hand for a long second. Then Bucky finally stands back, and the glass door slides down between him and the lab.
Sam steps back, nearly stumbles, but Steve steadies him by taking the same hand Bucky grabbed. For a moment Steve hovers uncertainly over his wrist. Sam looks up to see Steve, his jaw set tight, eyes set on the cryochamber.
There is a hiss of gas. Bucky watches them through the glass for a long moment, his expression unreadable. Then he tilts his head back, his chest rising once, twice, and then.
“He’s going to be okay,” Sam says with as much conviction as he can muster. Steve grips his hand and Sam presses back just as hard. He gazes at the way the frost casts blue light upon Bucky’s still face, who just closed his eyes for what could be the last time. “We’re not going to let anything happen to him. We won’t.”