Every time Bucky smiles, he feels a cold knife plunge into his chest. It feels wrong on his lips. It feels like someone else’s smile being transferred to him without permission. He can’t help his mind from spiraling each time it happens involuntarily— I don’t deserve this, I don’t deserve this, I definitely do not deserve this shit.
Usually it isn’t an issue. It’s not like he smiles on a daily basis, and sometimes he goes weeks without smiling only to let one slightly grace his lips at a particularly cute cat sleeping in a spot where the sun hits warm concrete.
It’s just that, since spending more and more time with one Sam Wilson, it’s like his lips have betrayed him. He finds himself smiling at the most random shit: chuckling when Sam trips, smiling when Sam helps Sarah cook in the kitchen, smiling while he plays video games with Sam’s nephews and they make fun of such an “old man” being “so bad” at the game. It’s so domestic, almost disgustingly so. It makes his skin crawl in resistance to this fact.
Because of all the people in the world who deserves domesticity, it certainly isn’t Bucky Barnes.
He hears Steve’s voice try to disagree, and even Stark scoffs in his mind. Natasha also sits in the back of his mind like a stone—they were never close, but they were starting to become real friends. He never got to say goodbye to her, or Stark. They deserved domesticity. They deserved to live the life he seems to be currently living, yet here he is, stealing the happiness that should have been theirs—
“Dude, you gonna eat that?”
Bucky’s eyes snap out of their trance, rising to meet Sam’s own. He had been staring down at his plate of food: rice, broccoli, and grilled fish. It smells delicious. His mouth salivates and he wills his stomach not to growl as he pushes the plate away from him and towards the man across from him at the kitchen table.
“Nah, you can have it. I’m not too hungry.”
He walks out of the door, throwing a “going for a walk” over his shoulder as it closes behind him. He doesn’t miss Sam’s concerned eyes, or the way his mouth forms around the word wait and his eyebrows furrow. He doesn’t miss it, he just decides to ignore it. After all, he doesn’t deserve having people worry over him.
But as much as he knows he doesn’t deserve all of this kindness, he doesn’t want to leave. The idea of going back to his empty apartment with minimal furniture and a TV that mocks him, fills him with dread. He could go on a road trip, but he has no car and driving for hours, alone with his thoughts, would not be the best idea. He could travel elsewhere, but being alone in another country sounds just as miserable as being alone in his apartment.
And then there’s the issue of Sam. Bucky may be oblivious, but during his time in the military, he had a lot of downtime. Between training and actual combat, there were periods in which he could do nothing else besides read the shitty romance novels his fellow soldiers had brought with them.
“Read this one, Barnes,” one guy, Dale had said. He had handed him a rough looking copy of a book called Passion Intertwined, a blonde woman in the arms of a strong looking man. He had read it out of pure boredom. It must have repeated heartbeats quickening, dark whispers in ears, and various other lusty phrases a thousand times. “Dale,” he had laughed, handing back the book. “That was a horrible book.”
(He had watched Dale get shot and killed a few weeks later. His life went to shit soon after that.)
But Bucky still recalled all of the clichés, the heartbeats and sweaty palms. The way Cindy (the woman in the novel) felt ever so safe in the arms of her lover. Back then, he had thought it was all bullshit. Romance was something that burned bright, and died out after a few weeks. Romance wasn’t that big of an influence on people outside of novels.
Bullshit.
Romance had crept up on him. Not only that, it had evaded being defined for months; it wasn’t until Bucky had shot up on Sam’s couch in a cold sweat after having a dream where he and Sam had held hands on a date, for god’s sake. When Sam had rushed over for moral support, Bucky said it had been a dream about Tony. He had said it without thinking, and felt his heart remember Tony’s death just as Sam’s eyes did. Sam had hugged him, and his heart had exploded in a feeling that would soon rise every time he looked at the other man. Cindy had been right: romance would make you do stupid things.
“You’ve been in that cyborg mind of yours more than usual.” Sam spoke from the kitchen as he poured pancake mix onto a pan, hearing the nice sizzling sound come from it. Bucky was sat at the table, quickly realized he had said nothing in the past half hour.
“Sorry, just tired.”
“Dreams?”
“...yeah.” Dreams of you, Bucky wanted to say. They had been plaguing him periodically for weeks. “Dreams of having pancaked fifteen minutes ago.”
“Hey!” Sam whipped around from his place at the stove to throw him a joking glare. “You can’t rush perfection.”
“Sarah’s pancaked are perfection, yours on the other hand...” Bucky tried to hide his growing grin behind his mug of coffee as he sipped at it.
“Well, too bad her and the boys decided to go on a shopping date without us. You could use new clothes.”
“What’s wrong with my sweater?” Bucky asked, glancing down at his chest. It was a nice sweater. Blue and soft and maybe a little big and...oh fuck.
“Well the fact that it’s mine is one issue,” Sam started, smiling at the embarrassed blush that starts creeping onto Bucky’s cheeks. “Also the fact that it’s the second time you’ve worn it this week.”
“It’s a nice sweater.”
“I know. That’s why I bought it, dude.”
Sam finishes the pancakes and places them on two plates, carrying them to the table. He goes back to get the syrup and honey—and of course, the whipped cream and chopped bananas.
“So?”
“What.”
“You wanna talk about the dreams?”
“No.” Bucky proceeds to stuff a large bite of pancake into his mouth in an attempt to move along the conversation. Change it.
“Fine. I’ll tell you about mine.”
Bucky rolls his eyes. Here we go again.
“I had a dream this white dude, good friend of mine, refuses to talk to me about what’s troubling him,” this is different from the usual “talk” that Sam gives him. “I can tell he’s going through it, it’s pretty obvious from his eye circles and hours he spends staring at nothing and saying less. I worry about him.”
Bucky clears his throat. Sips his coffee. It’s almost out. Sam goes to refill it.
“Weird dream.”
“Hmm.”
They eat in relative silence until Bucky breaks.
“I’m burdening you—”
“No, you’re not.”
“—by staying with you. It’s been more than a month since we finished a mission. I’m just too much of a coward to go back to my place, but that doesn’t mean I should bring you down with all my shit.”
Sam listens, arms crossed. He reaches over and places a hand on Bucky’s own that had slammed down on the table during his rant.
“Is it so bad to admit that I enjoy you being here? That I want you to stay? Because if I didn’t, knowing me, do you honestly think I would be letting you stay here, making pancakes for you and refilling your coffee?”
Bucky shakes his head, putting it in his other hand with a scowl. Stop, stop, stop. I don’t deserve this.
“You think you’re burdening me, but you’re not. Not at all, Buck.”
Bucky thinks he knows where this is going. Because while it was difficult to admit to himself that he had feelings, it was quite easy to pick up on Sam’s. The man was no spy. One of Bucky’s notebooks had scribbled lists of the things that Sam had done for Bucky that could, maybe, perhaps, hypothetically speaking be non-platonic.
- getting his favorite cookies for him only hours after Bucky reached a breaking point and lost it over the fact that the box was empty
- putting his arm around Bucky during a horror movie, even though Sam was way more scared than Bucky ever would be
- the hushed whispers he had overheard between Sarah and Sam: “just tell him, you idiot!” “absolutely not, Sarah, drop it. the man does not need this right now.” (this could have been about many things, but the way Sarah had muttered “pining idiots” sounded like something)
- every time Sam introduced him as his “partner,” it was like his voice held something longing
It was a long list, with Bucky’s handwriting getting more and more messy along the way. It was indisputable, and he had still never let himself think about it too much. As if Sam would ever want someone as undeserving as him.
“Now finish your pancakes, or I’ll eat them myself.”
Sam retracted his hand and went back to eating his own meal.
Oh, Bucky thinks. I guess I didn’t know where this was going
Eventually, because they are who they are, there comes a mission.
And eventually, because they are who they are, one of them gets hurt.
This time, it’s Sam. Usually, it’s him. The ratio in which he gets hurt is concerning for outsiders—a super soldier should under no circumstances be getting hurt as much as he does. It was as if he went running into knives and bullets, using his body as a shield as if there was no way it would create consequences. It was as if he wanted to get hurt. No Sam, he always said when the man asked him, I just didn’t see them coming.
But now, Sam’s head in his lap with his eyes closed and blood trickling out of his mouth, he understands why Sam always looked at him with desperate eyes each time he had gotten hurt. Eyes that begged him to be careful, be more cautious. Now, Bucky finds himself unable to stop shaking, even when Rhodey swoops in from elsewhere and picks Sam off of the ground and back to wherever the nearest hospital was. His hands shake and shake and his eyes keep crying. And he can’t stop whimpering, seeing the image of Sam getting shot over and over again in his head, and beating himself up over the fact that he wasn’t fast enough.
He wasn’t even the one that took him to safety.
By the time he gets to the hospital, he’s told that his partner is out of surgery and stable, and Bucky almost breaks the stems of the flowers he had bought around the corners in sheer relief.
“He’s a bit delirious from pain medication, but you should be able to talk to him, the doctor says with a polite smile. He thanks her and walks in to see Sam WIlson in all his glory, looking much smaller in the hospital bed than Bucky knows he is. Not that he looks. Who is he kidding, he has blatantly stared at Sam’s muscles many, many times.
“Bucky?” Sam calls out in a soft voice that has him crossing the room in an instant. Something overtakes his body as he leans in to place a kiss on Sam’s forehead, placing the flowers on his bedside table.
“How are you feeling?”
“Like shit, but better now that you’re here,” Sam grins as Bucky blushes. “I fucking love when you blush like that.”
“I’m not blushing.”
“You can’t hide it white boy, it’s so cute...sweet, even. Makes me all giddy.” Oh. Ohhhh so Sam really is delirious. Bucky literally cannot stop his face from heating up. He is not sweet.
“I’m not sweet.”
“No I get it, you’re tough and strong and nothing gets to you.”
“Well, that’s not true,” Bucky starts, sitting heavily on the chair beside the bed. “Since I’m the reason you’re in here.”
There’s a silence for a minute, as if Sam is collecting his thoughts before he talks. He lifts the hospital blankets up to his chin—adorable—and furrows his eyebrows in concentration.
“You know how many times I’ve been in that seat?”
Bucky holds himself back from rolling his eyes. Of course he’s going to turn this situation into a lecture. Of course.
“Yeah I—”
“No. You don’t.” Sam glares at him. “I have to sit there, knowing that you want to be laying in front of me, hurting. You think you hide it oh so well, but you don’t. It’s so obvious when you run up to guys with knives as if you’re made of steel. So I know you hate yourself right now, not because I was hurt but because it wasn’t you instead.”
“You’re right,” Bucky spits out angrily. Frustrated. “So what?”
“So did it ever fucking occur to you that neither of us should get hurt?”
They sit in silence for a while, and he knows the sleeping meds are beginning to kick in when Sam starts to mumble and burrow deeper into the blankets like a kid after a tough day. Bucky doesn’t really know what to say to his observation. Sure, it’s not a default that one of them would get hurt, but he was hoping it would always be him—and if that was selfish of him, if that hurt Sam, he would simply have to live with it. Cause there was no way he would allow this to happen more than it needed to.
Bucky rises up from his chair to hold Sam’s hand, whispering a good night before turning around to leave.
“Bye, love you...”
He stops. Halts in his tracks. All motion, including his heart probably, stop at his words.
“...what?”
He hears Sam shift behind him, propping himself up to his elbows.
“I love you.” He looks both delirious and exhausted, but his words are firm and his eyes bore into Bucky’s.
“Oh.”
“...aren’t you gonna say it back? Cause baby, if you think you’re fooling anyone with the way you oggle at my back muscles any time we work out—”
“OKAY, okay,” an embarrassed laugh erupts from his chest as he waves his hands for Sam to stop. Maybe his spying days didn’t translate into hiding romantic feelings. “Can you just...tell me that when you aren’t on pain meds? Please?”
Sam rolls his eyes and puts his head back on the pillow: “Fine.”
Right before Bucky leaves, he makes sure. “You promise?”
“Yes, Bucky Barnes, I promise to express my undying, sappy, mushy disgusting feelings for you tomorrow. Bring coffee.”
The coffee line takes 20 minutes, and Bucky is buzzing in anticipation. He tries not to be—after all, isn’t this what he said he didn’t want to hear for the past couple of months? Isn’t this what he was absolutely terrified of? And yes, it was terrifying. It made his brain spiral between positive and negative scenarios all night that he couldn’t sleep for even a minute. He was surprised that he wasn’t threatening the barista to speedrun the disgustingly sweet coffee that Sam always ordered no matter the place.
He practically runs to Sam’s hospital room, pushing open the door with two coffee cups in hand. Sam is sitting up, a book in hand; Rhodey probably brought it for him to read. Sam’s hand shot up, palm facing up, waiting for the coffee cup to be placed in his hand. Oh fuck, what if he forgot? What if Bucky had to live with thinking Sam really didn’t love him?
He puts the coffee in Sam’s hand and yelps when his other hand goes to Bucky’s neck. He’s drawn forward until their foreheads are touching and Sam’s pretty brown eyes connect with his own.
“I love you. Do you believe me now?”
Bucky closes the distance. It’s soft, and loving and something that Bucky never would have imagined to deserve until now. It was like that romance novel decades ago, the way butterflies swarmed in his chest when he had read about the kisses and the romance, except now it was him being loved, cared for. It was almost overwhelming; but Bucky found that he wanted to be overwhelmed if it was by Sam Wilson.
“I love you too.”
Sam’s smile was brilliant and shining and pierced through Bucky’s chest like a beam of light. This was enough. This, he thought, was bliss.