Joaquín feels Sam's hands on his back, rubbing the cold gel into his skin. He's trying to stay quiet, but Barnes is stitching up his thigh, and he's teetering on some weird edge between pain and relief.
"Relax your shoulders," Sam tells him softly, and his voice raises hairs in Joaquín's arms. "You're too tense. It'll hurt you more."
"Just thinking about the mission," Joaquín says, through gritted teeth, and it's a complete lie.
He’s stripped down to his underwear, sitting on the kitchen table of the safe house. The soft light of the early morning shines on Barnes’s hair, his hands steady as he works on the stitches.
Joaquín covers the front of his underwear, tries to get his mind off Sam and Barnes's caring touch.
He looks at the cut on Barnes's face, and his thoughts wander into the various ways the mission could’ve gone wrong. It makes his breath go shallow.
“Breathe,” Sam says, noticing the tension rising in Joaquín’s body. “Buck, try not to hurt him.”
“He’s not,” Torres interrupts quickly. Even if he was, he just wants to get this over with as quickly as possible.
Barnes nods, and silently finishes the stitch. Sam lets go of him and Joaquín almost whimpers, but quickly pulls himself together. He knew that joining Sam on his missions wouldn’t help his growing crush, but he hadn’t expected just how desperate it’d make him feel. Maybe he just needs to - okay , maybe he shouldn’t think about this while Barnes is on his knees, between his legs, near his thighs.
Sam never told him that he and Barnes were dating. Not that he had to tell him anything, but also, not that he had to tell him. It was obvious, as soon as anyone set eyes on the both of them, how in love they were with each other. Joaquín would never be able to break into their little bubble even if he tried. Which was why he didn't try.
Barnes would say anything stupid and Sam would look at him with an expression of loving annoyance. Barnes knew exactly what to get Sam for breakfast. Sam was the only one who seemed to be able to calm down Barnes. Joaquín would see Barnes fall asleep on the floor and in the morning magically wake up next to Sam. Sam mindlessly massaged Barnes’s hand when they were resting. Barnes laid his head on Sam’s lap when he was tired.
He watches Sam cook dinner in the cramped kitchen of the new safe house. He's not sure if it even is dinnertime - he's lost all sense of time lately.
Bucky is dancing behind him, humming an old song, swaying his hips and grabbing his waist, nuzzling Sam’s neck. He looks like he could fall asleep just like that, his head resting on Sam's shoulders.
Joaquín is sitting on a chair, far away, cleaning the grime off his face with some saline and a cotton pad. He’s unconsciously swaying his head to the same rhythm of Barnes’s hips, and his eyelids are heavy. The only one out of them who seems to have any energy left from the long day of fighting and travelling is Sam, who is trying to swat away Barnes’s hand whenever he reaches for the food in the pan.
Sam turns his face to Joaquín, gently smiling at him, says “dinner’s almost ready, hang in there”, and goes back to cooking. Barnes kisses Sam’s neck. Joaquín watches and tries to be okay with the fact that he’ll never have a chance with Sam.
(It’s fine, because Sam is happy with Barnes, and that’s what matters. Sam doesn’t owe him anything, and Joaquín is sure he’ll get over his crush quickly. He’s done this plenty of times before, he can survive another heartbreak.)
(It just hurts knowing he never stood a chance.)
(But it’s okay, because Sam is happy, and that’s all Joaquín wants.)
“Joaquín,” Sam tells him gently.
Except that Joaquín doesn’t register that Sam is actually talking to him, because sleep is still heavy in his eyelids and the room is pitch black and Sam’s voice is soft enough that it sounds like a dream.
(And he has been dreaming of Sam lately, and he’ll admit it if Sam asks him).
“Hm,” Joaquín replies, stirring.
He feels a hand settle on his shoulder, and without thinking he reaches for it. It’s warm, and soft, and Joaquín brings it towards his face.
“Joaquín,” Sam says again, his voice sounding more solid now, with a weird distortion, and it jolts Joaquín awake.
“Captain,” Joaquín says, immediately sitting up and letting go of Sam. His heart is pounding in his chest and he hopes Sam never mentions this.
“Just Sam,” he replies, his voice back to dream-like, sweet, like thick honey. “Sorry to wake you up, but we have to go.”
Joaquín feels Sam's hand still cupping his cheek, and touches his hand gently to let him know. Clearly Sam is also struggling to stay awake.
Sam clears his throat, retreats his hand. “We have to go,” he repeats, and Joaquín hears him step away.
“Ouch.”
“Stop complaining. It’s literally the tiniest cut ever,” Sam tells Barnes. He’s helping him disinfect a wound. They spend a lot of time doing this. Seems to be an Avenger’s hobby. “Do you want to compare this to when that guy stuck a knife between Torres’s ribs?”
The days have all been blurring together lately. Injury after injury, month after month. A mission had gone particularly bad and Joaquín had ended up getting stabbed. If Barnes hadn't intervened quickly, things could have gone awry very fast.
He no longer has nightmares about getting attacked, but the first few days had been rough. He'd never told Sam and Barnes about them, he didn't want to bother them. They had their own nightmares to deal with.
“It felt like I was dying,” Torres says, nodding as he looks through his phone to find a good playlist. The safe houses were getting too quiet for him so he’d bought a portable speaker when they had managed to get some time off. And by time off he meant that he had gone down to a local store after walking away from an explosion, and gave money covered in blood to the cashier.
But, you know, sometimes that’s just how it is. All that mattered was that he’d gotten his speaker, and now he could introduce the stubborn Barnes to the art that was reggaeton music. Barnes hadn’t asked him for music, he’d actually said something like “if you do that I’ll use your wingpack for target practice”, but he said it with his smile that meant he was kidding. At least, Joaquín hoped that was what it meant. He couldn't read Barnes yet. Maybe he should ask Sam.
“You were dying,” Barnes tells him. “It’s honestly lucky that we-” his voice seems to crack, and Barnes clears his throat. He steels his facial expression. “Try not to get stabbed again.”
“That’s usually my goal,” Joaquín says, and he looks up from his phone when he feels like Barnes’s gaze has been set on him for too long.
Barnes looks away, and Joaquín notices his hand balled up in a fist, slightly trembling, his jaw tense. It shouldn’t be from pain, since Sam was done taking care of him. Sam, too, is watching Joaquín, an intensity behind his eyes that Joaquín doesn't recognize.
He decides to make nothing of it. It's for the best.
They have a day off.
It’s hard taking a day off because there’s always things to do, people to help, crime to fight, and whatever else a superhero would say. Joaquín wouldn’t know, because he isn’t a superhero. He's just some guy, doing his best. Even if the whole world sees him as an Avenger, he can't manage to see himself as one. He's not an Avenger, he's just Joaquín. How could these two things ever coexist?
Sam, Joaquín thinks, is a true superhero. He's a hero in every sense of the word, and he’s unstoppable with his new suit. Sam never needed the suit to be unstoppable, he had always been a force of nature, but the suit helped him move more freely, gave him new confidence. He's restless, caring, and seems to have a never ending pool of hope. He's what Joaquín wishes he could be.
Barnes, on the other hand, is strongly convinced he isn’t a hero, and hates the word. But every day the supersoldier wakes up ready to fight. He doesn't get tired. He doesn't give up. He keeps fighting, he keeps marching on, believing not only that he can, but that he will make the world a better place. Joaquín wishes he could have his resilience, his level headedness even in the most dire situations. Joaquín knows he can trust Barnes with his life, and there's only a handful of people he can say that about. He wishes Barnes could trust him in the same way. He's a hero, even if he denies it.
But Joaquín.
Some days he wakes up and he doesn't want to fight. Some days he wakes up and doesn't want to get out of bed, his body aching from the constant exercise. Some nights, after particularly gruesome and grueling missions, he loses hope. Sam trusted him with his wings, and he doesn't want to question Sam's judgment, but Joaquín feels that maybe Sam has placed too much faith in him.
He isn’t a hero. He's just Joaquín. And some days he wakes up without wanting to be a hero - he just wants to hide, and sleep, and never think about heroes again.
And on those days Sam and Bucky drag him out of bed and place a mug of coffee in front of him and tell him about the day’s plans, carrying on with the missions without even entertaining the doubts forming in Joaquín's mind. Instead, they tell him that they believe in him, they tell him he's doing a great job.
And Joaquín believes them, because he trusts them, but, and this is where he always gets stuck, believing in them means that he has to believe in himself.
Today, Sam and Barnes took one look at Joaquín, looked at each other, and said “we’re taking the day off.”
Joaquín protests. “But the mission-”
“Wouldn’t advance much today, anyway,” Barnes tells him.
“You need to rest,” Sam completes.
Joaquín tries to fight them - a day off, so close to the end of the mission? What if they jeopardize everything now? He's fine, he doesn't need a day off. They shouldn't stop just because he's tired.
Sam and Barnes reply by throwing some clothes at his face, dragging him out the door, and making him stand under the sun. They spend the entirety of the day outside.
These missions have taken them all over the world, waking up in different cities every other day. The days blur together and all locations end up feeling the same. It's hard to stop to smell the flowers when you're chasing down wanted terrorists.
But today, he doesn't need Sam to tell him they're in Spain - the sounds of people speaking his mother tongue are enough to wake him up. Even with the differences between his Spanish and theirs, listening to the language still feels like home.
He didn't know how much he was craving a sense of familiarity.
He walks through the cobbled streets with buildings painted in warm tones, and lets his skin soak up the sun.
Sam grabs Joaquín's hand, at first just to drag him to different stores and cafés, and after a while he just stops letting go of it. It feels so easy, so normal, that Joaquín has to constantly remind himself he isn’t Sam’s boyfriend. Sam's touch makes his skin tingle and his lungs stop working. He spends the whole day out of breath.
Barnes trails behind them, wearing some sunglasses and enjoying the weather. He's looking at Joaquín like he has something to tell him, but then never really does. He just smiles, looks off somewhere, and steals glances at Joaquín when he thinks he isn't noticing.
They stop in every place that looks like it might have good food, and by the end of the day Joaquín isn't sure they've even eaten a proper meal. But he's warm, and bouncing with energy, and in the right mood to do things he'll regret. He won't, because he's still got some self control in him, but it's taking all his energy to keep his impulsivity in check.
On two separate occasions he refrains himself from stealing a kiss from Sam. When Barnes glances at him, he feels like glancing back.
Joaquín isn't sure yet of how he feels about Barnes. It felt like Barnes was still, after all this time, trying to keep Joaquín at a distance. Like he pulled away from Joaquín whenever it felt like they could become closer.
(Sometimes, when Joaquín thought about Sam for way too long, Barnes would appear in his thoughts, and Joaquín wouldn't push it away. He didn't know what to make of it).
Today, after an entire day outside, Joaquín found Barnes was exactly like a sunflower - he opened up with the sun.
“You can always talk to us, you know?” Barnes says, as Sam wanders off into a store. Joaquín had stayed behind, waiting for Barnes, making sure he wouldn’t get lost.
Joaquín laughs. “Sometimes you give me this murderous look, and I’m not so sure about that,” he says, and it’s supposed to be a light-hearted jab, but it must’ve come out wrong because Barnes stops.
“I- “, Barnes starts, but Torres is already trying to apologize. “It’s not on purpose.”
“It was just a joke,” Joaquín says, swallowing dryly, looking down. Fuck, he’s already ruined this. Barnes had been trying to speak to him the whole day, and he's managed to ruin it one sentence in.
“Yeah. I can be somewhat,” Barnes pauses, looking for the right word, “cold, sometimes. You and Sam have a certain way of radiating light so easily. I’m not like that,” Barnes says. He looks at Joaquín, almost reaches out his hand but then stops himself. “But I do care,” Barnes says, then laughs to himself, shakes his head almost sadly, “maybe more than you think. But I care.”
Joaquín opens his mouth, and no words come out.
“So does he,” Barnes says, pointing with his head towards Sam, who seems to be delighting the shopkeeper with his almost fluent spanish. “You can count on us.”
“Yeah,” Joaquín nods, “thanks. I know.”
"We care about you."
He studies Barnes's face for a moment. His cold blue eyes a contrast to Sam's warm honey tones. His sharpened edges, his rare smile, how he stands like he's always ready for a fight, his untrusting nature. And yet, Joaquín gets what Sam sees in Barnes. He gets why they’re such a good match. Barnes wraps an arm around Joaquín, bringing him closer to his chest, and Joaquín feels safe. He wishes all days were as easy as this one. He wishes all days could be spent in the sun.
It’s late afternoon and Joaquín and Sam are in a stolen car while Barnes does a recon at a location. It’s mostly boring, because in truth Barnes can handle himself no matter the situation, so Sam and Joaquín just wait for him to come back.
“How have you been holding up?” Sam asks Torres, turning to him. “You look slightly less tired.”
Joaquín leans against the car door, rests his head on the window. “I have no idea what day it is,” he replies earnestly. “Or month. I think I still know what year it is, though.”
Sam laughs. “Do you?”
“I won’t bet on it,” Joaquín replies, and smiles.
The sun is making the car heat up, which isn’t helping Joaquín stay awake.
“Yeah,” Sam nods, and Joaquín only now notices the way Sam always maintains eye contact when talking to him. “I know what that’s like. When I was on the run with Steve, some days I had no idea where I had just woken up.”
“I’m still not sure where we are,” Joaquín replies. “Somewhere in Europe?” he offers, and they both laugh. “It’s been a couple of days since we left Spain, I think.”
Joaquín shakes his head, and continues. “I don’t know. It's been rough."
Sam watches him with an understanding expression.
"You make this look so easy," Joaquín says, "but how do you know that you’re made for this?"
“You don’t,” Sam says. He points at the shield in the backseat. “Every day I have to prove to myself that I’m worthy of this. When I lifted it for the first time, everyone had opinions,” he pulls the shield towards him, inspects it, his reflection showing on the shield. “I’m not blonde, I’m not white, and that made people uncomfortable. I’m not Steve, and I’m not trying to be Steve, and that angered people. But I don’t have to prove to them who I am,” Sam says. “I don’t owe anything to anyone. My only commitment is to myself.”
Sam leans against the door, faces Joaquín, smiles gently. “How do you know that you’re made for this? You don’t, no one’s born to do this. You just trust yourself, and you keep doing the best you can.”
Joaquín closes his eyes, lets his face get too warm.
“What if your best isn’t good enough?” Joaquín asks. He's trying to stay calm but his breath is shaky. “Sometimes I feel like I’m useless to this team. You and Barnes can do this alone, you don't need me."
Sam shifts, his expression going serious. “Your best is always good enough,” he says, “you do what you can, but we all have our limits. Your best doesn’t mean that you have to fight until you’re coughing up blood. I can’t keep up with Bucky in a fight, even if I give it my all.”
“It’s true, you can’t,” they hear Barnes say on the comms.
Sam rolls his eyes. “Good of you to join in.”
“I was just listening to the podcast,” Barnes says. “You’re good with speeches, you know.”
“I’m surprised you know what a podcast is.”
“Joaquín explained it to me the other day. I keep up with the youths.”
“I’m going to shut down this comm,” Sam tells him.
Joaquín’s had forgotten Barnes could hear them, and now he's hoping the car spontaneously combusts.
“I’ll shut up,” Barnes says, “but please don’t shut this down. It’s my favorite self-help podcast.”
Sam ignores the comment, and looks to Joaquín again. “I can’t keep up with him in a fight, but I can outsmart him with my eyes closed, and that’s where my strengths lie. You just have to find your strength.”
“Hey, now wait-”
“Shutting you down,” Sam says, and shuts off his comm, motions for Joaquín to do the same.
“He’s an idiot. I’ll turn these back on in a second,” he says, and moves towards Joaquín, places a hand on Joaquín’s leg.
Joaquín keeps his eyes on Sam.
“You know you can always tell me anything, right?”
Joaquín nods, but doesn’t reply, there's a lump in his throat. Part of him tells him that Sam's lying, that he's just trying to spare his feelings. The other part gently reminds him that Sam wouldn't lie to him.
“You’re not useless. You’re doing your best. It is good enough. You’re good enough. Stop doubting yourself. If we didn't want you on the team, we wouldn't have invited you to come along."
Sam grabs his comm. “Now let’s turn these back on before that asshole gets himself killed.”
So, like, this totally sucks, but he’s gotten himself kidnapped. Not that he did it on purpose, but he still feels guilty about it.
He doesn't remember much besides getting hit in the head in the middle of a fight. Now he's tasting blood in his mouth and sitting on a very uncomfortable floor.
He hears unfamiliar voices in the room, and opens his eyes slightly, hoping that no one notices that he's awake. A quick glance is enough to tell him he's in some sort of warehouse, and a check-in with his body tells him his hands are tied above his head, stuck to something on the wall. His feet are tied too, but they didn't gag him.
If he remembers the mission brief correctly, these guys are low-level terrorists, and weren't particularly well trained. They took off his comms, and his phone is on a table not too far away from him. They probably shut it down, so Joaquín doesn't know what's the last location that Sam and Barnes have of him. Which means that for now, his best bet is to save himself.
He tries to move his hands, but the knot is tied too tight and the rope cuts into his wrists every time he attempts to move.
His captors are facing away from him, and Joaquín decides it's time to let them know he's awake. He's talked himself out of stickier situations before, and that’s what he’s about to attempt now.
"You guys didn't cut off one of my ears, right?" he says, and the men jump in surprise. "Or like, a finger, or a toe, or anything like that?"
He looks them up and down when they turn, trying to gather as much information as he can about them as quickly as possible.
One of the men is older, has a mean face on, not amused at Joaquín's quip. He holds his gun like he's ready to shoot at any moment, but he's restraining himself. Clearly he thinks it's a great idea to have kidnapped someone who was fighting alongside Captain America. Which means he has no idea what he's doing.
The other one is younger, almost baby-faced. By the petrified expression on his face, he'd rather be anywhere but here. Why he's partaking in this, Joaquín has no idea, but something inside him tells him he needs to get this kid out of here.
Maybe he can get the kid to help him.
"You know," Joaquín says, "you've got me here all tied up, and we barely even know each other."
The older man snarls at him. All bark, no bite. Joaquín's not afraid of him, but the kid is. "My name's Joaquín, and yours is-"
"Stop talking," the older one says, pointing his gun at Joaquín. Joaquín ignores it.
The warehouse is dark, and looks abandoned. Joaquín wonders if this isn’t where they were supposed to be.
"Hey kid, did you tie these knots?" Joaquín asks, turning to the kid. He looks barely old enough to drive, definitely not old enough to drink. The kid swallows dryly, looks at his colleague, but doesn't reply. "They're really good," Joaquín smiles at him, "were you a boy scout?"
Complimenting your captors is a great way to get out of bad situations.
"I told you to stop talking," the older one says, and steps towards Joaquín, waving his gun around.
Damn, Joaquín thinks, at least shoot at the ceiling or something, let him know he's got bullets in that gun.
The kid flinches when the older man moves. He looks at the kid's wrists, notices burn marks on them. A bruise on his face that's too faded to be from today's fight. Sure, it could be from previous fights, but by the distance the kid is trying to keep from the older man-
"Does your colleague here hit you?" Joaquín asks the kid, his head pointing at the man.
The older man moves quickly, placing his gun underneath Joaquín's chin.
Joaquín doesn't move his eyes away from the kid.
"Pull the trigger," he says, eyes on the kid. This is moving faster than he wanted it to, and he doesn’t want to put him in danger, but it’s the best time to go for it.
The kid blinks, brings his hand to his gun. "Go on," he looks at the older man now, smiles. The man pushes the gun further, until it's hard to breathe.
He hopes the kid is a good shot.
"Shoot me," he tells the older man, and a gun goes off. The older man screams and Joaquín hits him with his head, and the man cries out in pain and loses balance, the gun falling on the ground.
The kid kicks the gun away, and Joaquín tells him "you're doing great," and tells him, "get his knife."
The kid kicks the older man as Joaquín struggles to untie himself. He can hear footsteps outside.
"Quick," he says, and after some struggle the kid manages to get the knife out of the man and slices the almost undone knot off Joaquín.
Joaquín's wrists are bleeding, but he doesn't have time to worry because the older man has the kid in a headlock and three men just barged into the door.
With his feet tied, Joaquín rolls himself on the floor, barely missing a bullet flying. He grabs the gun that had been kicked away and shoots the three men, hears them fall on the ground. He's always been a good shot, but thankfully luck is on his side today.
He points the gun at the older man, but he's got no clear shot. They're moving too much, and Joaquín can't guarantee he won't hit the kid instead. The man is under the kid, arm wrapped around the kid's neck, his other hand trying to grab the knife.
"Let go," Joaquín tells the kid, and lunges himself into the fight, leaving the gun on the floor.
The kid scrunches his face, but does as told. The knife leaves his hand and Joaquín grabs it just in time, sticks it into the older man's leg. The man yells as Joaquín pulls it out.
The kid falls on the floor, next to Joaquín.
Joaquín runs the knife through the rope tied on his legs, gets up, his knees hurting from the stiff position he'd been in, and grabs the kid, pulling him up with one arm.
"Keep an eye on him," Joaquín tells him, and pushes him aside as the kid still tries to find his balance. He grabs the gun, the knife still in his other hand, and before the kid can reply, Joaquín runs toward the door, tackling another man who was coming in, gun pointed right at him.
They fall to the ground and Joaquín sticks the knife on the man's arm, straddles him and takes away his gun. He shoots at two other men in the warehouse and gets up, looks around looking for more people.
Sam had a strict no killing policy, and Barnes had a "I don't kill but if I kick someone down a building and they die it's gravity's fault" policy. Joaquín had trained in the army and his first instinct is shooting to kill, so he isn't used to being careful with his enemies. Here, he aimed for the head and he's not stopping to check if they're still breathing. He'll let the guilt eat him up later.
He goes back to the room where he'd been locked in, and the kid is still there, holding on to a gun and looking two seconds away from a panic attack.
"Good to see you still breathing," Joaquín says, running to grab his phone, but still keeping an eye on the door. "You alright?"
The kid nods, and Joaquín puts a hand on his shoulder, breathes in deeply and the kid mirrors him.
"I'll get you out of here in a second, but I just need to know: are there any more people in this place?" Joaquín asks.
The kid shakes his head. "I think that's all of them," he says, still struggling to catch his breath. "This isn't an actual location. But they thought that since we had you, they could ambush Captain America and the other angry guy, and bring you all to the boss."
Joaquín turns on his phone. "Do you know where you were supposed to go?"
The kid nods, and Joaquín hands him his phone. "Ignore the notifications, just write here the location. Is that my wing pack over there?"
He doesn't wait for the kid to answer, and makes a run for his wingpack. He walks through the door, grabs his gear that was sitting outside on a table. He looks around, but everyone is on the ground, and no one else has showed up. That must’ve been all of them. He puts his wingpack and the rest of his gear on. The older man in the other room hasn’t moved again. He might’ve lost consciousness.
The blood on his face is starting to dry, and he's not sure that it's his. He takes a deep breath, then gives the kid a thumbs up, tells him he can come out.
"Let's get you out of here," Joaquín says. Then, "don't look at the floor, just at me."
The kid follows him outside, hands him the phone.
"You okay, kid?" Joaquín asks, checking him for injuries.
The kid nods again, then hesitates, then says, "thanks for helping me."
"Don't mention it," Joaquín says "all that matters is that you're safe. Do you have anywhere to go back to?"
The kid shakes his head. Joaquín figured. "I'll drop you off at a military base. I've got some buddies there who'll help you out, alright? We'll get you sorted. I just need to make a call first."
The kid takes a deep breath, and Joaquín types Sam's number on his phone.
The call is picked up right away.
"Mom, dad, can you come pick me up?" Joaquín says into the phone, and he can hear Sam sigh of relief on the other side of the line. "There's kids drinking alcohol at this party."
“Still up?” Barnes asks him.
Joaquín sighs, sits up on the couch. He’s not surprised to see Barnes awake; sometimes he hears him go for a run at 3a.m. He’s still not actually sure if Barnes needs to sleep or not.
“Thinking about today,” Joaquín replies. There’s not much light in the living room, but he can see Barnes’s silhouette move around the room.
Thanks to the tip from the kid, they’d managed to bring down the operation. It didn’t mean that their mission was over, but it meant that their work in this location was done. Sam had told them they’d regroup tomorrow, figure out what their next steps would be.
“Anything in particular?” Barnes asks, and Joaquín knows exactly where he’s trying to get at. He supposes Barnes thinks he’s remorseful about the bloodbath that happened in the warehouse, and he is, in a way. He doesn’t enjoy killing people. They’d called an ambulance to the place and had gotten the hell out of there. Sam didn’t tell Joaquín what state the guys at the warehouse had been found in, so Joaquín could only assume they’d died. Joaquín had hated seeing the look on Sam’s eyes as he came to his rescue and Joaquín told him what he did. That’s what Joaquín couldn’t get out of his head.
But that was his training, and either he’d shoot them or they’d shoot the kid, and there wasn’t much he could do about it. Barnes knew what that was like - more than once during missions had some of their opponents not survived a fight.
Barnes reads through Joaquín’s silence. “Sam isn’t disappointed in you, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Are you?”
Barnes sighs, and sits next to him on the couch. Even this close, it’s hard to see more than Barnes’s silhouette, so Joaquín lets Barnes’s voice guide him. “You know, I told Steve once that I didn’t think I was worth saving. He and Sam spent so much of their time trying to find me, and trying to help me, and I- I couldn’t see why. After all I’ve done, it’s hard to imagine Sam wanting me here alongside him.”
He takes a breath.
“But when people choose you, when they choose to help you, you don’t get to tell them that they’ve made the wrong choice. If you care about them - and I know you care about Sam, Joaquín, I’ve seen the way you look at him, and it’s the same way I look at him -” Joaquín chokes, and Barnes continues, “and they care about you, you need to let them care about you. Sam chose you for a reason. He knows who you are, he knew that this was what would happen. You were captured, and you needed to get away. Sam probably would’ve been more careful, and I probably would’ve made more of a mess. Feel guilty for what you did, sure, train so you can get out of these situations in other ways, sure, but don’t sit here wondering if you’ve disappointed Sam. Ultimately, and I need you to understand this, Torres, he trusts you, and you can’t live seeking his approval.”
Joaquín shakes his head, and Barnes places a hand on his knee. “I’ve seen you in missions, and you keep doing this thing where you’re about to do something, pause halfway through it, then look to Sam for approval, and if he’s not available you look to me. I want you to stop doing that, I want you to trust yourself. We’ve given you wings so you can fly, not so you can just hover around a cage.”
Joaquín places his hand on top of Barnes’s, grips it. Here’s something that hadn’t occurred to him: that Barnes could be watching him with the same attention that Joaquín watched him.
His feelings for Sam had always been obvious from the start, as soon as he laid eyes on him he knew he was in love. Everyone loved Sam Wilson, everyone who met him would inevitably fall in love with him.
But his relationship with Barnes had always been confusing, a mix between tenderness and coldness that only Barnes knew how to do. Was it possible that he’d overlooked his own feelings for Barnes? Had Barnes kept his distance on purpose? Had he noticed that too?
His heart beats hard against his chest, his ears, his head, and he feels dizzy. But wasn’t this too messy? Falling for both of them? Wasn’t that greedy of him? Wanting Sam was already too much to ask, but wanting Barnes too?
“Breathe,” Barnes tells him, settling a hand on Joaquín’s chest. “You’re not breathing. Breathe.”
Oh, God, he’s going to die.
“‘Quín?” Barnes asks, his voice soft, hidden away in the darkness, a whisper in a dream.
Joaquín’s trying to not throw up. He can’t find the words to ask what he wants to ask. He just grips Barnes’s hand, and Barnes hasn’t pulled away yet.
“You knew?” Joaquín asks, his voice almost failing him. He’s still trying to hold himself together.
Barnes - Bucky - laughs. “You’re going to have to be more specific than that,” Bucky says, and Joaquín shakes his head.
He can’t say anything else. His mouth refuses to open. He’s stuck in place, the world spinning around him, Bucky’s voice keeping him tethered.
“About you being in love with Sam? It was obvious from the moment we met,” Bucky says.
He’s going to die.
“Breathe,” Bucky tells him, hand still on his chest. “It’s fine.”
Bucky isn’t even mad that Joaquín is in love with his boyfriend. He’s not even concerned.
“Does he-” Joaquín asks, and doesn’t finish.
“You’ll have to ask him that,” Bucky replies. “I don’t speak for him. I can only speak of my own feelings.”
And Joaquín wants to ask him everything now. But instead-
“Can I kiss you?” he asks Bucky, and he doesn’t know where he’s found the courage to ask this.
“You can,” Bucky says, hand still on Joaquín’s chest, feeling his heartbeat. “But I’m going to have to tell Sam.”
Sure. Whatever. He’s about to fuck everything up, Sam will find out eventually. He might as well just make a mess already.
Joaquín moves his hand up Bucky’s thigh, and melts into the kiss. Bucky keeps his hand on Joaquín’s chest, and Joaquín climbs onto his legs, straddles him, kisses him deeper, grabs Bucky’s hair. Bucky laughs into the kiss, hovers his lips over Joaquín’s. “You’re hungry.”
“I want to bite your neck,” Joaquín replies, gently sinking his teeth into Bucky’s lips.
Bucky hums, and pulls away when Joaquín lets go of him. He runs his hands over Joaquín’s back, and then holds his hips in place, and watches Joaquín through the darkness.
“That’s enough for today,” he says, and ruffles Joaquín’s hair.
Then he hesitates, says “just-”, and kisses Joaquín again, his lips parting, letting Joaquín’s tongue in. He stops the kiss as quickly as he started it, and shakes his head.
“Self-indulgence,” he tells him, still grabbing Joaquín. “Sorry.”
Joaquín wants to roll his hips, sit up further, but he decides against it.
“That’s enough,” Bucky repeats, this time to himself. “I’m going to take a cold shower,” he says, and nudges Joaquín to move away. Joaquín sits down on the couch again, eyes set on Bucky.
Bucky grabs his chin, studies his face, smiles gently, and gets up. “You should talk to Sam,” he says, and takes a step back, let’s go of Joaquín. “I’m not saying you have to. But you should.”
“Wait,” Joaquín says, grabbing his hand. “Did I- What- Are you actually going to tell Sam? About this?”
“Well, I’m going to shower first, but yes, I am,” Barnes tells him. “I’m also actually going to shower, if you’re wondering about that.”
“No, it’s-” Joaquín hesitates. “I’m going to talk to him.”
“You don’t have to,” Bucky says.
“But I’m going to. Just don’t tell him before I talk to him? Okay?”
“Whatever you want, Joaquín,” Bucky says, and heads towards the bathroom. “See you in the morning. Try to sleep.”
“Thanks,” he says, and shifts uncomfortably on the couch. He wants more, so much more. He wants everything he shouldn’t even want. “This is weird.”
“I’ve fought aliens before. If anything, this is familiar,” Bucky replies. “It’s only weird if you let it. Get some sleep.”
"Sam?"
He's been stalling all morning. Sam had passed him his mug of coffee and Joaquín spent most of his time talking about how he missed café con leche, blabbering on about how it's such a simple thing that he enjoys and then never remembers to make it. Talking about how sometimes the obvious things aren't obvious at all, not to him, at least.
Sam had sipped his coffee slowly, patiently listening to Joaquín, annoyance never crossing his face. Patience. Joaquín was impulsive, Joaquín talked too much, and Sam was always so patient with him, so calm.
"Yes?"
It's hard talking about this. He knows that once he opens his mouth, everything will change. Or will it? If he tells Sam how he feels, and Sam doesn't feel the same way, won't everything just stay the same between them?
And what about the kiss? Will he freak out when he finds out about it? Or was it as obvious to him as it has been to Bucky?
"Joaquín?"
Bucky is sitting on the couch, scrolling through the news on his phone.
Sam is staring at Joaquín across the table, coffee in hand.
Joaquín takes a sip, lets the coffee warm him up.
"Do you," Joaquín hesitates, looks at his mug, "do you think it's possible to love more than one person?"
Sam's shoulders relax, his face opens up. "I think that love - any kind of love - is an infinite resource, and different people use it up differently."
"If you're talking about romantic love," Sam continues, "and you're asking about me, specifically, then yes, it's possible for me to fall in love with more than one person."
Sam knew this was coming. Sam knew.
"How do you know?" Joaquín asks, shifting around in his chair. No position is comfortable. His clothes are strangling him. "Has it happened before?"
"Perhaps, the better question is, is it happening now?" Sam says.
Joaquín swallows dryly.
"Is that what you wanted to ask?"
Joaquín nods. "Yes."
"Do you want me to answer the question? Or do you want to tell me why you're asking it?"
"I think I'm falling in love with you," Joaquín says, and he reminds himself to breathe. "And with Bucky. And I feel guilty, I feel like I'm asking for too much, and I don't want to ruin anything between us."
"The only way for you to ruin things between us by confessing how you feel is if you don't respect my own feelings afterwards," Sam says, "confessing isn't asking for permission. Which is to say: so far you haven't ruined anything."
"Joaquín, I'm not too good at lying, and I'm too old to try to hide my feelings. I love you, and I love him, and these two facts coexist peacefully in my mind, have been for a while."
A while. For how long? And how can Sam say it just like that. Like it's easy.
Sam reaches across the table, sets his fingertips in front of Joaquín's.
Joaquín feels like there's not enough oxygen in the room, no matter how much he tries he's still out of breath. His skin burns.
"I don't want to ruin your relationship with Bucky."
"Well, if I've understood correctly, by the way he talks about you when you're not around," Sam says, and Bucky yells out a non-threatening "hey, that's private!", "I don't think Bucky has a problem with you being in love with him. But also, I'm dating Bucky, and he's dating me, but we don't own each other. He knows that if I love someone else, it doesn't mean that I've stopped loving him. It just means that I've found more space in my life. Sometimes it's all about the space in your life, like a home in your chest. Sometimes there's only room for one person, and that's okay. And sometimes you have a spacious home, and there's room for plenty of people, and that's also fine. I'm in a committed relationship with him, and we talk to each other, and we set boundaries, and he knows what my commitment to him means. And if I tell him there's room for one more, he trusts me that it's true. You're not ruining anything."
"Is it a good time to tell you that I kissed Bucky?"
Sam is so calm and Joaquín feels like he's being pulled away in a tornado, clinging on to his life with everything he's got.
Sam laughs, and looks over to Bucky. He extends his hand further, now placing his fingers gently on top of Joaquín's.
"I figured you did," Sam says, "but thank you for telling me."
Sam looks at Bucky again, and laughs at something he does. Joaquín decides to turn, and watches Bucky slowly bring his palms together in the air, over and over again.
"Are you trying to tell us to kiss?" Sam asks, smiling open mouthed, and Joaquín falls in love all over again. "You can speak, you know."
"Didn't want to ruin the mood," Bucky replies.
Sam intertwines his fingers with Joaquín's.
"He's all the way across the table," Sam tells Bucky.
Joaquín rolls his eyes as Sam pouts, pretending to be doomed. Joaquín moves away his mug, and Sam's, and, with non-existent wings, leaps onto the table, into Sam's arms, kisses him, earnestly, hungrily, wanting.
Sam laughs, pulls Joaquín from the table to his lap. Joaquín crosses his legs behind Sam's back, peppering his face with kisses, and Sam grabs the back of Joaquín's thighs, gets up, walks towards the couch with Joaquín clinging to him.
Bucky moves towards the end of the couch, and Sam lays Joaquín down on the couch. He smiles at Joaquín, something mischievous in his smile, and straddles him between his knees. He kisses Bucky, grabbing the back of his neck, and then Bucky bends towards Joaquín, his face appearing upside down to him.
"I told you to talk to him," Bucky says, and gives Joaquín a quick kiss. He turns to Sam. "We're going to need a bigger bed from now on."