The thing is.
The thing is, Sam had never really thought about what would happen once they found the Winter Soldier. Sure, he’d thought about it in vague terms, about how to get this man the help he needed while keeping him from hurting anyone, Steve in particular. But he’d anticipated years of searching by side of this man, his closest living friend, maybe something just a little different than that. He’d thought (hoped) that, for a time, he’d have Steve all to himself.
He had assumed that this man would be destroyed.
He had assumed that this man wouldn’t be Bucky anymore.
He was wrong.
-
“Sam, they found him. They found Bucky. They have orders to shoot on sight.” Steve is strong, so strong, but he has that vulnerable look in his eye that makes Sam ache. That look is Sam’s, and maybe Natasha’s, but right now it isn’t for either of them, even if he’s the one seeing it.
“Maybe you should sit this one out, Steve. You’re too close to the situation,” Sam cautions.
“They have orders to shoot on sight,” Steve repeats, and Sam knows that there’s no fighting on this one.
-
The thing is, Sam would follow Steve anywhere.
It’s because he’s not always certain that Steve won’t leave him behind.
-
He hears the reunion over his comm, urges Steve to make a decision when he’s busy being frozen in the past, frozen in the man right in front of him.
Sam hears his choice, and he follows without question. He doesn’t think he could do otherwise, at this point.
-
Sam does not like Bucky. He’s been trying his best to give him the benefit of the doubt, to keep his own bias and resentment out of it, but.
Steve adores this man, and Sam is sure that he doesn’t deserve it. (No one does, not really.)
They’re so natural together. Natural the way Sam and Steve are. Maybe more so. Natural the way white boys are together, the way that black boys have to compress and edit themselves to be, lest they make somebody uncomfortable.
Steve has never treated him differently for his race, has never been anything but civil and pleasant and beautiful, but Sam can’t help but think it.
He’s been burned too many times for him to do anything else.
-
Sam dated around a bit, in college. He saw gay white men stick to themselves, or use a black man like he was something exotic and raunchy, but never really someone real. Even in the Air Force, black men tended to stick to themselves, to avoid officers that were as uniformly white as the sheets on their bunks.
It’s a defense mechanism, one that Sam still needs in these snowy fields of superheroism.
He loves that he’s never needed it around Steve, but one can never be too careful.
-
There’s an awkward moment, getting into the car. Both Sam and Bucky go for shotgun, easy as breathing, and stop short when they notice the other doing the same.
Bucky’s eyes drop, and he steps back. “After you.”
Sam knows that he should let him have this, this semblance of normalcy at Steve’s side, but. Sam has been at Steve’s right for such a relatively short period of time, and he’s loathe to give it up quite yet.
“We can’t have people seeing you. It’ll be easier to hide your face in the back,” he offers, and Bucky nods, taking the olive branch for what it is.
-
They both watch Steve with Sharon. Something twists in Sam’s chest when they smile at each other.
“Can you move your seat up?”
“No,” Sam says darkly, too tired and annoyed to keep playing nice. Bucky sighs, slides left, without anything to obstruct his view out the windshield.
Outside the car, Sharon and Steve kiss, their heads clashing shades of blond. Sam thinks, uncharitably, that they don’t make a visually pleasing pair.
He hears metal creaking in the back seat, even as the upholstery squeaks in his fists, and they generously pretend not to notice the other when Steve looks at them, pleased and almost smug, for their approval.
-
Even if they do dislike each other, even if they do point out each other’s flaws, he can’t help but notice that he and Bucky make a good team.
-
Sam does the unthinkable.
He tells Steve to leave him behind, to fly off with Bucky and let them take the fall.
He tries to pretend that his heart isn’t breaking with every foot further the jet goes.
-
Jail in the ocean is boring, even if he does get to antagonize Stark. Sam can only hope that, for once, he’ll do the right fucking thing.
-
When Steve comes to break him out, Sam realizes that he only ever leaves him behind when he can circle back around and do it again, just to annoy him.
He’d mind more if he was smiling so hard he could burst.
-
On your left.
-
Bucky is frozen again, and he can tell that Steve’s torn up about it, but.
Sam is glad that Bucky can’t hurt them again. Glad that Steve can stop worrying about him long enough to let Sam worry about him, instead.
It’s never been a question of who Steve will leave behind. It’s a question of who he’ll let ahead.
Sam can wait. He’s faster than Steve thinks.
-
On your right.