Chapter 3
Sam and Bucky left the lab, reeling from the smaller, Spider-Man and the metalbending JFK murdering father of Peter Maximoff. When the two of them were in the car to head back to the airport, Sam shifted awkwardly.
“I have a confession to make.” He said a little guilty.
Bucky looked at him curiously, “What do you mean?”
“I actually knew what the kid was talking about when he told you that you looked like Sebastian Stan.” Sam admitted.
Bucky blinked, “Then who is he?”
“He’s an actor and he really looks like you. He was in Black Swan, Once Upon a Time, and a few other things.” Sam explained.
“And why do you recognize him?” Bucky demanded.
Sam hesitated before lying, “I’m a big fan of Once and I Googled him.”
Ignoring Bucky’s raised eyebrow, Sam stared at the road in front of him as he thought about how he really knew Sebastian Stan. It had been a very awkward situation with lots of yelling, facial recognition, and pepper spray.
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It was directly after the disaster that was Project Insight. After Steve, Sam and Nat had healed up, they had begun searching for the Winter Soldier. However, both Steve and Nat had been called away on Avengers business, leaving only Sam to react if the facial recognition found Bucky. When the system had pinged right away with a match in plain sight in New York, Sam had been very surprised. It seemed that Bucky had been hiding in plain sight by doing completely normal things.
Sam decided that he would try to approach Bucky out in the open so that there would be less of a chance of Bucky killing him with witnesses around. Sam had let Steve know what was going on, but not Nat because he didn’t have any way to contact her. Sam traveled to New York and very quickly found Bucky, which was a little concerning and led Sam to believe that this was a trap.
Sam approached Bucky from behind on the street and used some of the basic espionage skills that Nat had taught him and snuck up on him.
Sam laughed and wrapped an arm around Bucky like he was an old friend and whispered in his ear, “Walk with me.”
Bucky straightened up and for some reason Sam could see fear in Bucky’s face as Sam steered them into an alley. Sam was even more surprised at the tone in his voice when Bucky began talking.
“Look, I don’t know what you want, but you can have my money and whatever else you want.” Bucky said in a placating voice while raising his hands in surrender, “Please just don’t kill me.”
Sam blinked in surprise, “Wait, what? Do you think I’m robbing you?”
Bucky raised an eyebrow, “I mean you randomly grabbed me off the street and into a random obscured alley, there’s only a couple of options of what you’re doing.”
Sam’s mouth dropped open, “What?! No! I’m not going to do that! I’m more concerned about what you are going to do to me! You’re the trained assassin!”
Bucky recoiled, “What the fuck? No! I’m an actor! Even if I was a trained assassin, who the hell are you to be going after one?”
Sam blinked in surprise, “I’m the Falcon. And even if you are an actor, who are you?”
The guy, who Sam was assuming at this point was probably not Bucky, sighed and ran his fingers through his hair, “I’m Sebastian Stan, I was in Black Swan and Once Upon a Time. I knew I needed better branding and so do you. I’ve never even heard of the Falcon.”
Sam sighed, “Yeah, well it’s a recent development. Ever since the thing in D.C. I’ve been running with Captain America.”
Sebastian squinted his eyes, “So, who did you think I was some Hydra assassin?”
Sam ran his hand over his face, “Yeah, you’re practically a carbon copy of the Winter Soldier.”
Sebastian's eyes widened in understanding, “That makes like fifty different weird interactions makes sense.”
Sam nodded, “Well, I’m glad to help. Sorry about the whole making you think your life was endangered thing.”
Sebastian snickered, “I will be billing the Avengers the cost for my heart attack,”
Sam was about to walk away when Steve jumped and crashed down from probably the fire escape and right in front of Sebastian. Sebastian screamed and pulled something out of his pocket and sprayed Steve directly in the eyes with it. Steve yelled in the pain, his face turning red and his eyes screwed shut.
In spite of the obvious pain, Steve grabbed Sebastian's shoulders and yelled, “YOU ARE BUCKY BARNES AND I’M WITH YOU ‘TIL THE END OF THE LINE!”
“WHO THE FUCKING HELL IS BUCKY???!!!” Sebastian screamed trying to rip himself out of Steve’s grasp.
Steve looked like he would start crying from emotions rather than pepper spray at that comment before Sam stepped in.
“Cap, it was a mistake. This guy just looks like Bucky. He’s actually just an actor named Sebastian Stan.” Sam said, waving between the two of them, “Sebastian, this is Steve Rogers.”
“OH MY GOD!!!” Sebastian screamed, “I JUST PEPPER SPRAYED CAPTAIN AMERICA!!!”
Steve was still trying to wipe his streaming eyes, and it was clear that his healing factor was kicking in.
Steve looked Sam dead in the eyes, while his were still red and said, “We take this to our grave.”
Sam nodded in agreement, “Nat would never let us hear the end of it.”
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Bucky scoffed, “I don’t believe you. You hardly sit still long enough for Sara to make dinner. You couldn’t get that invested in a show.”
Sam rolled his eyes trying to deflect, “Yeah, well at least I’m not the one who got pepper sprayed.”
An evil grin spread across Bucky’s face, “Sam, who got pepper sprayed? It was Steve wasn’t it? You only really hung around him. C’mon you have to tell me.”
Sam's eyes slid to the side, “It’s classified.”
“No it isn’t! Tell me what happened!” Bucky demanded.
“No.”