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The stupid lock on Bucky's apartment door. It was always clunky. You had to put your key in and wiggle it for a couple of seconds before it would unlock the door.
"It's like an old lady. Don't rush it. Be gentle."
Bucky always joked.
"Don't rush it. Don't rush it," Sam murmurs while trying to unlock the door with one hand. When the key finally turns, he exhales deeply, like he'd been holding his breath the whole time.
He closes the door softly behind him and sets his things down on the dresser in the little hallway space.
It's quiet inside today.
When he turns to step inside properly, he almost tumbles over the white, furry cat that quietly pads between his legs.
"Woah, careful," he murmurs and takes his jacket off. "Give me a second, sweet girl."
While he's carefully draping his black suit jacket over a hanger, Alpine is spreading her white fur all over his pant legs. She's purring loudly, like a little motorboat.
"Okay, okay," he chuckles softly and swoops her up into his arms with one hand while loosening his black tie with the other. "I got you."
Sam presses a soft kiss to the top of her head and breathes in her scent. There's no reason for it, really, but she always smelled faintly of vanilla.
Or maybe he was just imagining it.
"You hungry, mmh?" he asks softly, making his way to the kitchen.
Her bowl of kibble is still half full. So is her water. Only the wet food is empty.
"You're so spoiled," Sam murmurs and sets her down carefully.
Alpine starts munching on the kibble, softly purring while crunching her way through it.
"Bucky made sure you wouldn't starve, didn't he?" He crouches down next to her and pets her in long, slow strokes. "But you're a picky eater. Always waiting for the good stuff. Can't say I blame ya."
He chuckles quietly before sighing and standing back up.
Even her litter box is basically spotless, not a single piece of litter out of place.
Sam turns around and sees the fridge. It's covered in pictures, notes, and postcards, everything held up by fridge magnets Sam always insisted on bringing home from missions and vacations.
With a huff, he grabs one of the pictures from the fridge and looks at it. It's from their last vacation, when they went to the Scottish Highlands. Sam insisted on hiking up any and everything that crossed their path. A nice couple took that picture of them on top of Ben Chonzie. It had rained the whole way up, but the moment they reached the highest point, the sun broke through the clouds.
Sam runs his fingers over the picture before putting it back in its place with the Highland cow magnet. It's been a while since their last trip. Over a year now, as Sam notices the date printed in the corner.
"Let's see what we've got here..." he murmurs and opens the fridge.
The inside is rather bleak.
About twelve little pouches of cat food for Alpine, a jar of pickles, some sandwich cheese, an opened carton of milk that's still half full, and four different mustards.
Whenever Sam asked Bucky about the mustard, he used to just shrug and tell him about different applications and spice levels and all that. Like it was the most mundane thing ever.
Slowly, he closes the fridge again.
He spots a note in the top right corner, pinned to it with a croissant-shaped magnet from Paris. It's Bucky's familiar scrawl.
Grocery List:
Bread
Turkey slices
Lettuce
Mac 'n' Cheese cups
The word lettuce is scribbled through, the only vegetable on the list.
"The diet of a five-year-old..." Sam murmurs softly.
He used to beg Bucky to cook with him.
"Just because you've got that serum in your system doesn't mean you don't need to hit your proteins, Buck," Sam teased him all the time.
Bucky pretended to sulk, but in the end he always folded, helping cut vegetables and stirring every pot that needed stirring.
It dawns on Sam that they haven't really cooked together in quite a while.
Alpine swishes through his legs out of the kitchen and into the living room. She curls up on the sofa, right where Bucky's butt has dented the cushion, and starts licking her paws clean.
"Oh, so you are allowed to sit there?" Sam chuckles and follows her into the living room.
There's a mug on the coffee table, a small TV, and a bookshelf with Bucky's edition of The Hobbit. Sam got it for him two Christmases ago.
He strolls farther into the room and walks up to the bookshelf. There's a record player tucked between the hardbacks.
Sam thinks back to the many times they used to dance in the living room when the world around them was already asleep. Warm light and the sound of Marvin Gaye filling the apartment.
He wipes his fingers over the thick layer of dust covering it now.
"Jeez... you haven't played any Marvin in a while, huh?"
The dust floats through the air and makes Sam sneeze loudly.
Startled by the sudden noise, Alpine flees from the sofa and darts toward the hallway.
"Sorry, damn!" Sam chuckles and turns to open a window.
On the windowsill he spots a packet of cigarettes and a lighter.
"I thought you quit..." he murmurs and checks the packet.
It still has five left inside.
With a sigh, he pockets the whole thing.
"Nah, no more," he whispers quietly to himself.
He turns to head back and look for where Alpine went when he nearly stumbles over Bucky's boots. They're right next to the window, laces untied and almost hastily abandoned right there.
"What?" Sam murmurs and crouches down to get them. "Boots in the living room? Wha-"
He picks them up and turns them in his hands. There's a lump in his throat suddenly.
"I'm just really tired today, Sam."
Bucky's voice echoes in his head. Sam hadn't thought much of it. Everyone gets tired, and Bucky... well, he wasn't getting any younger.
But seeing the boots now just standing there, so far off the usual military precision Buck normally went about everything with.
“God Buck…” Sam whispers a little shakily. “I thought you were just tired from your day. I didn’t think…”
Sam shakes the thought and puts the boots back down.
Later, I'll put them away later, he thinks to himself.
That's when he spots it.
The mug on the coffee table.
The one that reads "Proud father of a fluffy furbaby."
The one that Sam got him.
His mug.
Bucky's mug.
Standing there, almost like it was frozen in time.
Shakily, Sam steps closer.
The coffee inside the mug had stained the porcelain. There was still a thin layer of cold coffee at the bottom of it. Bucky drank out of that mug every day. He wouldn't just let it sit dirty in the living room.
Suddenly, the lump in his throat gets impossibly bigger.
He reaches out, wanting to clean it, but then stops.
He set it down there.
He made that coffee.
He sat down to drink it.
He-
Sam quickly wipes at his eyes to stop the thought spiral.
For a moment, his mind is overflowing with all the little messages Bucky had been sending, with or without meaning to. The dirty mug left on the coffee table maybe being the loudest one.
"Alpine?" Sam clears his throat. "Where did you go, baby?"
A soft meow echoes from the hallway.
Sam turns and spots her on the dresser, right on top of the things he placed there after unlocking the door.
"There you are," he says gently and walks up to her.
He tears up when he sees her curled up on the fabric he brought with him.
"Is it comfy?" he whispers, blinking away tears.
"Does it still smell like your papa?"
He strokes her fur slowly, scratching behind her ear.
She blinks lazily at him.
Almost as if she was agreeing.
"I guess it does, huh?"
Sam fights with his tears.
"It's all we got left," he chokes out and buries his head next to her on the perfectly folded triangular shape of an American flag.