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Bucky woke up to the smell of coffee.
Not the burnt, bitter smudge he was accustomed to making for himself. (Cause he often decided coffee was energy, and as long as he had energy, he didn’t need comfort.) Not instant coffee that Steve used to drink, or something grabbed from a gas station at six in the morning.
Real coffee.
And eggs.
For a few seconds, Bucky laid on the couch, just taking in the aroma.
The sunlight coming through the curtains was warm against his face. It hit his eyes in the perfect angle it had every other morning, slowly covering them until his face was warm enough to pry them open. Somewhere in the kitchen, a pan hissed softly against a stove. There was the quiet clink of a mug being set down afterwards.
He blinked at the unfamiliar ceiling for a moment, before it all came rushing back again, as it did every other morning.
Sarah’s house.
Right.
He’d fallen asleep on the couch sometime after midnight. He remembered talking with Sam, some stupid mission report. Or maybe it was about Torres. He remembered Sarah had left a few hours earlier, with the two boys, talking about some overnight school field trip at an aquarium. Sarah offered one of the boy’s bed to him in their absence. Bucky insisted the couch was fine.
Apparently, at some point after all that, he had lost the fight with his own exhaustion.
He pushed himself up right, counting his surroundings.
His hair was a mess, shirt wrinkled. His metal arm made a mechanical sound as he shifted to adjust himself upwards.
He looked down at himself, then at the door leading to the kitchen. The smell of coffee called to him.
Bucky followed it.
He stopped at the kitchen entrance, watching silently as Sam danced around the stove, muttering nonsense to himself. He was barefoot.
Actually, he was wearing an old T-shirt and sweatpants, which is what Bucky should have probably noticed first. This all meant he hadn’t gone on his morning run. One hand help a spatula while another reached for something behind the stove. His (bare) feet reached for something beside the stove.
Bucky hadn’t realized they reached the comfortability to ditch the socks around the house. He thought this over for a minute as he glanced down at his own ratty ones. Ones he still wore.
There was something deeply unfair about seeing Sam like this. Very… domestic. To put it lightly.
“Morning,” Sam said without turning around. Bucky’s heart stumbled.
“Morning,” He grumbled back, the sleep still clogging his throat.
“Sleep okay?” He asked without turning back.
“Yeah.”
“Good.”
Sam glanced over his shoulder then, looking Bucky up and down.
“Coffee?” He turned back to his task, waving the spatula beside him.
Bucky nodded, like Sam could still see him.
“Already poured,” Sam said, like he really could.
Bucky turned, and there it was. A mug sitting at the kitchen table. He walked over, stumbled more like.
He plopped on the bench with a huff, wrapping his non metal hand around the coffee and bringing it to his face to take a deep breath. It was warm. He took a long gulp. Exactly how he liked it.
One sugar, as little as possible milk. Bucky stared into the swirl of coffee in his mug. Sam hummed as he continued his task, not even looking at him.
“You got a real staring problem to have begun staring down even your coffee now,” Sam mused.
“Maybe,” Bucky entertained, looking up at him instead then.
“Maybe.”
Bucky took another sip. Perfect. Of course it was. Everything about this morning was suddenly too much of that.
Just to interrupt that thought, Sam placed a plate infront of him. Eggs, toast, nothing serious.
“Sarah and the kids will be back around noon,” Sam explained. “She’s taking them to that little market thing. They’ll probably be gone for longer.”
“Oh.” Bucky sighed.
“Figured you could use some food,” He shrugged, sitting across from him.
Bucky looked up at him, head tilted down at his plate still. Sam smiled patiently.
“What?” Sam asked finally, after Bucky had spent a little too long looking again.
“Nothing.”
Sam raised an eyebrow, and Bucky looked down, picking up his fork.
He took a slow bite, then stopped mid chew, entire body freezing.
The eggs were cooked perfectly. Not just good, like, perfect. The exact way Bucky liked them. The way he hadn’t realized he’d been hoping someone would make them for him until this exact second. His throat tightened as he swallowed, and he quickly took another gulp of eggs.
His eyes began to burn.
Oh.
Oh, no.
Bucky set his fork down, suddenly too overwhelmed. Sam noticed immediately, looking up in concern from his own plate.
“You okay, man?” Sam asked, placing his fork down and looking worried. Bucky nodded, opened his mouth to reply, then snapped it shut again quickly.
“Yeah,” He managed, voice cracking on the syllable.
Sam wrung his hands together nervously then, unsure. “Buck.”
“I’m fine,” he insisted, picking his own fork up again with a shaky hand and blinking quickly.
“You’re crying,” Sam insisted. Bucky jolted, not even realizing he had been.
“I know,” he insisted anyway.
Sam stood then, coming to crowd around his side of the table. Bucky dropped the fork with a clatter this time, covering his face with his hands childishly.
This was ridiculous. He had survived a lot worse than some eggs.
“Bucky,” Sam begun, sighing.
“I love you,” Bucky interrupted.
Silence for a long moment.
Bucky’s hands slowly fell from his face, looking up at Sam through teary lashes. Sam was staring at him, his face unreadable.
Somehow saying the words made everything else come rushing in behind in. The coffee, eggs, the way Sam always made room for him in his life. The way Bucky had began to carve a space for himself in Sarah’s house, the way Sam messaged him updates when he was away.
Bucky laughed once, shakily. “Jesus, Sam.”
Sam’s expression softened.
“Yeah?”
“I love you,” Bucky insisted.
Sam nodded. “I heard you the first time.”
“I don’t know when it happened,” Bucky continued anyways, desperate to explain himself.
Sam smiled goofily, “Probably before you knew.”
Bucky stared at him, not for the first or last time, and it clicked in his head all at once.
“You knew?” He asked, taking in Sam’s easy going demeanor.
Sam gave him a look then. “Bucky.”
“What?”
He laughed, shaking his head in disbelief. “You really thought I didn’t know?”
Bucky’s brow furrowed, shaking his head. Sam leaned against the table, giving Bucky a meaningful once over.
“You’ve been following me around like a lost puppy since that airport,” Sam teased. Bucky’s face flushed.
“I have not.”
“You have.”
“I was being supportive,” He insisted, heat rising throughout his entire core.
Sam laughed harder, really leaning against the table then, “You once drove forty minutes because I mentioned I was having a bad day!”
Bucky leveled Sam with a look. “You were having a bad day.”
“You brought me COFFEE.”
“You like coffee!”
“It was a latte! You hate lattes!”
Bucky opened his mouth to retort, then snapped it shut again. Sam smiled, patient.
“And the way you look at me, Buck,” Sam sighed, all grins.
Bucky grimaced. “I do not.”
“You do.”
There was no teasing in Sam’s voice anymore. All soft emotions instead. Bucky looked down at his plate.
“So…” Bucky started, unsure.
“So?”
“You love me too?”
Sam’s smiled disappeared, a look of hurt flashing across his face that made Bucky cringe back for a moment.
“Yeah, Buck,” Sam sighed, like the idea of him thinking otherwise was a genuine personal offense.
Bucky looked up at him again, bit his lip. “How long?”
Sam breathed out a laugh, then shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Sam.”
He threw his hands up, grinning again, “A while!”
Bucky huffed, crossing his arms. “How long is a while?”
“Long enough that I thought we’d already had this conversation.”
Bucky furrowed his brows. “What conversation?”
“The one where we both know!” Sam insisted, waving his hand between the two of them like it were obvious.
Bucky stared him down for a moment. Sam just shrugged.
“I thought that was the deal.”
Bucky sighed now, more confused than before. “What deal?”
“That we weren’t going to say it!” Sam huffed, throwing his arms up.
Bucky’s chest tightened, and his face dropped for a moment.
“Why?”
Sam took him in again, thinking his answer over carefully as he rolled his head in thought.
He took a deep breath in, then a quick huff of release and shrugged. “I thought you weren’t ready,” Sam admitted.
The words landed more gently than Bucky thought they would have. Somehow that made it hurt anyways. Sam looked towards the window, tapping his finger impatiently against the table he still leaned on.
“You spent your whole like having people tell you what you were supposed to feel, man. What you were supposed to do. I wasn’t going to, I don’t know, be another person doing that,” Sam explained, refusing eye contact.
Bucky swallowed loudly. “So you just… waited?”
Sam nodded, “I figured you’d tell me when you wanted to.”
“And if I never did?”
Sam smiled, meeting his eye again. “Then I’d still be here, man. I don’t know.”
Bucky took his face in for a long moment, saw the tension in his tight expression. Then he snorted, bringing a hand up to wipe his still soggy eyes.
“You’re an idiot,” Bucky goaded, sniffling.
Sam broke out in a grin, nodding, “Yeah.”
“I love you,” Bucky insisted, again.
“I know.”
Bucky shook his head. “No. I mean…”
He stood, closing the small distance between them, stopping just short of touch. Sam looked startled for a moment.
“I love you,” He insisted.
Sam’s face softened. “I love you too, buddy.”
For a minute, neither of them moved, just took in the moment. Bucky basked in the warmth of sunlight on his skin, before reaching out to grab Sam’s hand.
Sam took it, and their fingers intertwined, then squeezed.
“Can we,” Bucky paused, thinking over his words, “Can we do something about that?”
Sam snorted, tilting his head in challenge. “About what?”
“The waiting.”
Sam bit his lip, mock thinking it over, then nodded eventually.
“I guess.”