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They should both be used to this multiverse nonsense at this point, but when Sam and Bucky turn from the room full of…interesting characters they just met and are faced with Steve fucking Rogers, they’re both a bit floored. Sam’s stomach does something he can’t recognize, a twist of longing, hope, happiness and dread. He’d never expected to see Steve again. And judging by Bucky stiffening next to him, he can tell Bucky wasn’t braced for this either. How could they be? Steve has been gone for years, a bitter goodbye that they both tried not to think too hard about. A hole left in both of their lives that they’ve ignored and instead filled with each other.
Sam doesn’t know what to say. Bucky is silent next to him as well. Sam wants to take Bucky’s hand, make sure he’s alright. He wants to ask Steve a million questions. He wants Thor to shut up about multiversal threats for two fucking minutes so he can gather his scattered and racing thoughts. Steve eyes them both, something unrecognizable in his eyes, even as he speaks to Thor and gets the rundown of the newest world-ending tragedy that’s on the horizon, but Sam is barely listening.
Once Thor shuts up Sam’s brain goes back online, if even just slightly. The first thing he finds spilling out of his mouth once everyone else starts discussing plans and Steve is just staring at them both again is-
“So how's Bucky in your timeline?” Sam asks.
Honestly, Sam isn’t surprised that’s the first thing he thought of. On harder nights when Bucky was a shivering, broken, hurt mass in Sam’s arms he fantasied about the timeline Steve went back to, where he rescued Bucky so much earlier and the man got to live as himself for longer than this one, where his life was stripped away by abuse and horror for so long. Before all the traumas compounded and scattered the man they both love into a million pieces that they had to collect.
Steve freezes, a look of…something, crossing his features.
“You got him out, right?” Sam says, a bit of a smile on his lips, “How's he doing? I'm sure he's happy to have been rescued a bit earlier, even if he has to be back in the fifties with that terrible food you guys had back then-”
“Sam. I-” Steve stops, eyes darting between Sam and everyone else in the room even as the others don’t notice. Steve stops, looking uncomfortable. Sam pauses, looking at him expectantly. The silence stretches. Bucky shifts uncomfortably. He hasn’t said a word, Sam notices. Why isn’t Bucky saying anything? Why isn’t Steve saying anything?
Sam blinks, smile fading as the silence breaches awkward territory.
Bucky finally speaks, tearing tired eyes from Steve and glancing at Sam.
"Sam..." His blue eyes have gone all sad and puppy eyed, which immediately sets Sam on edge. He looks back at Steve, his heart starting to pound.
“Steve?” Sam says, horror dawning on him, “You…saved Bucky, right?”
The silence stretches on until Steve breaks it.
Steve sighs, wringing his hands a bit, “Peggy got pregnant and I had to be there for her. I promised not to go running all over the globe when she -”
Steve continues rambling, but Sam barely hears it. His mind reels to a stop.
Huh? Wait.
“So you went back all that way, and you didn't save him?” Sam says slowly, temper unwinding in indignant disbelief. That can't be right. He must mean something else…
“It's just that-"
Sam is not a super soldier, but when he rushes Steve in a rage and knocks him to the floor, the former Captain America hits the ground - hard. Blue eyes look up at him in confusion that crosses into something like resignation - but Sam doesn't stop. He can’t. He feels like he’s barely in control.
His fist is suddenly slamming into Steve's face and a small, more rational part of him wants to stop and talk this out - but the outrage takes him over. He's screaming something he can't fully remember, but it’s something like ‘how could you, he's probably being tortured right now you fucking-’
This isn't how Sam wanted this to go. He didn't want to spiral and lose his mind in front of all these new people he has to save the world with. This is all wrong. He’s making a terrible first impression.
The rage is equal parts confusion. He never thought that those words would leave Steve's mouth. Too busy to go save Bucky?
This can't be Steve. It's an imposter, clearly.
He feels hands grabbing at him, and he distantly hears John and Bucky behind him calling his name, but he doesn't stop.
Steve's a fucking super soldier (if this is even Steve), he'll heal and he'll be okay.
And also fuck him.
This can't be Steve. Not their Steve. Not his Steve. Not Bucky’s Steve.
Steve for his part doesn't fight back, just lets Sam pummel him in a rage Sam doesn't recognize from himself.
Sam doesn't do rage. Sam talks it out. Sam negotiates and compromises and tries to see all sides…
And…and…
Fuck that-
He hears the commotion behind him, but he is so focused on the imposter under him and his own angered thoughts that he barely pays it a modicum of attention.
Crack. Steve’s been bleeding for a few hits now, his hands up in surrender, trying to speak and say something through the blows. Sam doesn’t care. It’s probably another fucking excuse.
There is no excuse that absolves him of this.
Crack.
Bucky’s voice cuts through.
“Sam, it's okay. You're gonna hurt yourself-”
For once in his life, Sam pays Bucky no mind.
Bucky and John scramble to grab him, but Sam dodges their hands and continues his assault, seeing red.
And maybe Bucky can avert his eyes and ignore the hurt that comes with the fact that Steve was too busy playing ‘happy heterosexual married man with a white picket fence, wife and a baby’ but Sam can't. He spent the last few years holding both himself and Bucky together after they'd essentially been abandoned by this man. The man who went back in time, left them both and didn't even bother to save the one person Steve and Sam both cherished from the cruelty that scarred Bucky so thoroughly that Sam spent so many nights soothing him from nightmares and wiping his tears when the memories became too much. It's incomprehensible.
In the end it takes three super soldiers to pull Sam off, and Alexei pushes him back into Bucky's arms while John steps between them and Steve, looking startled a bit out of his depth, arms outstretched and trying to keep Sam from jumping him again.
Bucky clutches at Sam's shoulders, trying to turn him to look at Bucky and talking in that tone he gets when Sam is distressed and can't be talked out of it. Sam has no idea what he's saying. He's so angry he can barely see straight.
When Sam sneers at the bloody facsimile of Steve Rogers on the ground he barely recognizes his voice.
“You're not him. Steve wouldn't forget about him. I’m going to find out who you really are and handle you accordingly.” Sam spits, turning on his heel, grabbing Bucky’s arm and tearing him away from ‘Not Steve'.
Sam tugs them both down the hallway, fuming. He can barely breathe. Can barely see. He’s so angry. He hasn’t been this angry in so long. When Riley died he was just so saddened he couldn’t function. When his parents died he was hysterically depressed. When Karli threatened his sister he was pissed off.
This is the type of rage that makes Sam want to forget who he is and go back in there and finish the job. Get rid of whatever imposter back there that's wearing Steve’s face. He only finally can hear past his own blood rushing in his ears when Bucky takes his other hand and stops Sam’s furious march down the hallway. The haze clears a bit when he hears Bucky's voice.
“Sam, it’s okay-”
“Don't make excuses for him!” Sam says, “Just because you don't think you're worth being saved doesn't mean it's true! He should have saved you, first thing! He should have tried!”
“I…I know, Sam. I just - maybe…”
“Bucky!” Sam cries, indignant. He can’t listen to Bucky defend this.
“I'm just saying. If…he saved me sooner I'd start aging and by the time you were born…we'd be so out of sync, age-wise…”
“You can't be serious.” Sam chokes, “You're excusing him because if you're in captivity longer there's a chance in another universe that version of you could maybe meet that version of me?”
Bucky looks a bit sheepish for a moment before he does a half-shrug and goes, “Well…yeah, maybe. Is that a bad thing?”
“That's insane!” Sam groans, head in his hands, “Bucky, that doesn't make it okay! A relationship with me isn’t worth you being tortured for decades-”
“But it makes it better. A little” Bucky says, squeezing his hands, “There's a chance that in that timeline I get out around the same time and I still get to spend some time with you. I think that's worth it.”
“Buck…”
“I’m hurt. I am. But it’s no one's job to save me, Sam.” Bucky says, giving him that small, sad smile that Sam hates to see on his face, “And hopefully, that timeline somehow works out like this one. And I get to stay with you.”
Sam doesn’t know what’s going on with him today, but looking at that half-broken smile on Bucky's face makes his eyes water and the tears spill over. Bucky was such a sentimental, self hating idiot.
Sam kisses him. He can’t help it.