Chapter Text
It’s been about a month since the flagsmashers situation, and Sam and Bucky have had a lot going on since then. Sam has been focused on rebuilding the Avengers, and his first course of action was to move to New York. The plan at first was to crash Bucky’s place for a few weeks until he finds his own apartment. What neither of them had anticipated was that within the first week of living together was that Bucky would decide to commit to learning how to cook and Sam would be the victim of his culinary experiments, they would start bickering at the grocery store, buy furniture and paint together to make Bucky’s apartment more homey, have endless movie marathons, and sleep in the same bed.
On the first night, Bucky had insisted that Sam takes the bedroom because Bucky doesn’t sleep that well anyways. At that point Bucky hadn’t owned a couch yet so the other option was the floor. Bucky came out of their staring contest as the winner and Sam had to take the bed. Sam tossed and turned on the bed for hours and couldn’t bring himself to sleep. As time went by, he could feel his chest tighten. It’s as if he was having nightmares while awake. He decided to end the misery of trying to sleep and got up for a late night shower instead. Afterwards, he headed to the kitchen with the intention of stealing a snack, only to find Bucky in the kitchen. He is standing by the stove, making hot chocolate for Sam to provide him any sort of comfort. That night they spent it on the floor together with their backs against the wall, talking until they fell asleep. Sam’s head resting on Bucky’s shoulder, and Bucky’s head on top of Sam’s.
On the second night, they decide that they really do have to sleep because they could get called on a mission any minute and they have to be well-rested for it. They came to the conclusion that they were able to sleep around each other, so both of them slept on the floor next to each other and it was the best sleep either of them had in ages. From the third night forward, they decided to share the bedroom until Sam got an apartment of his own. Which never happened. Sam never moved out and neither of them brought it up. Now they live together in a tiny one-bedroom newly painted, newly furnished NYC apartment and Sam ‘not good at sharing anything’ Wilson is sharing everything in his life with Bucky. His toothpaste, his clothes, his bed; there is hardly anything in that apartment that belongs to only one of them.
Sam’s next step in rebuilding the avengers was to get in contact with Carol Danvers and every time he and Bucky are in Delacroix visiting their family they pass by her to meet up and discuss avengers work. Weeks pass by and Sam’s hard work as Captain America begins to pay off. He’s become loved by almost everyone, no one has filled the world with hope as much as him.
Bucky has been hard at work as well, dividing his time between helping Sam out on the field and working on his mental well-being. As much as Sam and Bucky tease each other, they’ve vocalised how proud they are of each other. They’ve been happy. A loving home and a partner is a luxury neither of them ever believed was possible for them to have, even platonically. They’ve been too focused on their respective responsibilities and goals and quietly helping each other with it and at the current chapter of their lives, that is all they really need.
Sam comes home one day from avengers tower about an hour after Bucky had left, and is welcomed with the smell of burnt dinner and the sound of Bucky cursing. Sam is forcing himself to hold back his laugh but cannot for the life of him get rid of the grin taking over his face. He bites his bottom lip as if it makes the smile any less obvious.
“So what did my personal chef burn today?” Sam teases.
“Shut up, Samuel,” Bucky says “Or I’ll shove this burnt chicken down your throat.”
“Yeah yeah very threatening,” Sam replies “Lets go eat at that sushi place you like.”
Bucky takes a step towards the door to follow Sam and then looks back at the dinner he obliterated “You know, I’m pretty sure even Gordon Ramsey burns dinner every once in a while”.
“Yes, Buck. I’m sure that Gordon Ramsey burns dinner sometimes. And if it makes you feel any better, I’d always choose to eat something you made over any of his pretentious meals,” Sam says. He finds it a bit cute that Bucky is so determined to improve his cooking skills. They make their way to the sushi place and bicker the whole way there about the thumb war they had on their way back from their last mission. Sam is insisting that Bucky was cheating and Bucky swore that Sam’s middle finger was tickling his palm. Kamala had called them 5 year-olds and Riri told them to get a room.
After they'd ordered their dinner they had moved on to a different argument, one that Sam was winning. Technically speaking, Sam almost always wins their arguments because Sam is always right, and Sam knows that Bucky believes that even if he would never explicitly admit it.
“I’m gonna go to the bathroom,” Bucky announces with an attitude after losing the fifth argument today and Sam just lets out a victory laugh.
During the whole argument, Sam could feel his phone vibrating. He knew it wasn’t an emergency because his Cap hotline has a different sound, so he ignored it until he won the argument with Bucky. He startles when he opens his phone and finds dozens of notifications. He got a message from the secretary of state’s office asking him to contact them immediately, a link from Rhodey with a text that says “This is bad, Sam”, and a couple of messages from Joaquin that Sam doesn’t really understand; the only message he was able to fully comprehend from Joaquin was “Is Bucky okay?”
“You know, I was thinking of buying a cook book or something. The internet makes recipes too confusing. I swear it's like they never even get to the point,” Bucky says once he returns from the bathroom. Sam is too overwhelmed by the messages that he doesn’t even respond. “You okay?” Bucky asks when it takes Sam too long to respond.
Before Sam replies to Bucky, he opens the link Rhodey sent and the horror falls on his face.
‘Fuck. fuck fuck fuck. This can’t be happening right now. It has to be fake’. Sam looks back at Bucky and finds him still waiting for an answer. While attempting to form words, Sam realizes that the whole restaurant is staring at them. He can hear families whispering to each other. Mumbled “the winter soldier is here” and “we’re not safe here” echoed through the crowd.
“We have to get outta here,” Sam says abruptly as he’s getting up.
“Sam what’s going on?” Bucky says as he follows Sam.
“I’ll explain later, let's just go,” urges Sam.
Sam is trying not to spiral over the whole thing as they leave. Bucky can’t suffer the consequences of this. He didn’t have a choice. His mind unhelpfully provides him with the awful things the government will likely do to Bucky. Sam can feel his heart drop in an instant when an image of Bucky being taken away or locked up conjures his mind.
“Sam, you're freaking me out. Can you please just tell me what’s going on?” Bucky says, interrupting Sam’s train of terrible thoughts. Sam stops walking so he can face Bucky. The pavement they’re currently standing in is somewhat empty, so a private conversation is a luxury they own in this time and space. Sam steps closer to Bucky and feels his chest tighten as he tries to get the words out. He can see Bucky. Can look into his blue eyes. Can feel the warmth coming off his skin. Can breathe his air. Can touch his hand if he wanted to. All of these are simple things that Sam is scared to death will be taken away from him soon. Sam takes a deep breath before he answers all of Bucky’s confusion.
“There has been footage of you leaked. Very graphic footage. Of your time as the winter soldier. Where you assassinate JFK. And now there is a huge controversy out there about you. About the level of freedom you should have, about whether or not you should be trusted,” Sam watches Bucky’s face as he takes it all in. Sam almost wishes he could cup his face between his hands and make him feel better. What the fuck? Where the hell did that thought come from? Anyway, he wishes he could make this stupid situation Bucky is stuck in go away. He doesn’t deserve it anyway when he worked for months to get his pardon and earn the government’s trust back.
“The police will probably be waiting for us at home huh?” Bucky finally gets words out.
Sam swallows at his throat. “Yeah. Probably.”
“Let’s just go home then. Trying to avoid them will only make things worse,” says Bucky.
Sam does not want to go home. He does not want to leave Bucky to the police and is fully ready to use all his authority as Captain America to prevent them from taking him away. Unfortunately when they do get home the officers are not willing to negotiate, claiming that they have a warrant to take Bucky in for interrogation and that if Sam would like to speak with someone, he can only do that at the station. And Sam does indeed do that. He makes every call he possibly can make to every authoritative figure he has ever been introduced to. He makes a very convincing argument with the head police about how Bucky has spent 8 months making amends to earn the government’s trust and that one assassination of a prominent figure in American politics should not erase the fact that he is pardoned from everything he did against his will during his time as the winter soldier. Even so, the final agreement is that Bucky will get interrogated for a couple of hours and then be allowed to leave. Sam demanded that they allow a lawyer to be present with Bucky during his interrogation, but they insisted against it.
After hours and hours of what Sam assumes is gruesome questioning about Bucky’s winter soldier days and a detailed description of what hydra put him through before and after the assassination, Bucky is finally let go from the police station. They arrive at their apartment at around 3 am, and Sam can see nothing in Bucky’s eyes but sad emptiness.
“I’m sorry they put you through all of this,” Sam says to Bucky once they make it home. Bucky doesn’t answer.
“Is there anything I can do?” asks Sam.
“You’ve already done everything you could do,” Bucky finally manages “You didn’t have to stay all night there with me.”
“Hey I wanted to” Sam reassures. Bucky just heads to their bedroom and Sam follows. They sleep on the same bed like they always do. Bucky on the right and Sam on the left. A couple of minutes pass where they’re laying in bed, staring at the ceiling and Sam can tell from the sound of Bucky’s breaths that he is still awake.
Sam sighs. “Is it okay if I hold you?” he prompts.
“Yeah. Yeah I’d like that a lot actually,” Bucky says.
Sam moves closer and wraps one arm around Bucky’s waist and the other around Bucky’s shoulders.
“This okay?” Sam asks.
“Yeah. It's great.” Bucky is frozen for a few moments and then Sam can feel him move his head closer to Sam’s, their foreheads touching. Bucky takes a deep breath and lets the tension of the day leave his body. Sam holds Bucky tighter, and both of them feel like the air is easier to breathe once they’re in each other’s arms.