Chapter 1
Bucky didn't bother checking to see if Sam was home before popping the kitchen window open with a knife and climbing into the first floor apartment. They hadn't had plans, per se, but they were going on a mission soon, and Bucky considered himself in the camp of no longer needing to announce his presence to Sam before arriving. Besides, he knew how to get into the place even if Sam wasn't home, something that drove Sam insane and brought Bucky a great deal of amusement. He usually used the window, and he was pretty sure that Sam had to have figured that out by now, and if he hadn't fixed the faulty catch that allowed Bucky to slip it open from the outside...well, then that was as good as giving Bucky a key.
As it turned out, Sam wasn't home. Bucky scanned the place quickly to make sure, then returned to the kitchen to raid Sam's fridge and wait for his partner - slash - teammate -slash...undefined to return.
Bucky was pulling open the fridge when he saw a note stuck under one of Sam's magnets. It was dated for this evening, in Sam's dreadful handwriting that Bucky had finally learned to decipher. It said "Lillian - six - Fratelli's."
Bucky reflexively slammed the door, grabbing the note. It didn't say anything else, but Bucky hadn't been an assassin/spy for eighty-odd years for nothing, and he was pretty damn sure he could solve this little mystery.
Sam was on a date. With "Lillian," whoever the hell she was. At Fratelli's, which was one of Sam's favorite restaurants.
Bucky was willing to bet that whoever this Lillian person was, she didn't know what Sam's favorite restaurants were. He growled, crumpling the note up and hurling it towards Sam's sink. He heard the quiet plink as it landed, the Super Soldier enhancements guiding Bucky's aim even when he wasn't trying.
Bucky stood in front of the refrigerator for a minute or two, trying to work out what the thick, churning feeling in his stomach was, why his throat felt tight and it was suddenly hard to get a good breath in. It wasn't anger, although he could feel that too. Anger was an easy one to pick out, at least for Bucky, at least after the past eighty years.
But even though he knew he was angry, he wasn't really sure why. Definitely...definitely the date. The thought of Sam sitting in some stupid restaurant with stupid "Lillian" was making Bucky want to drive his metal arm straight through the refrigerator door.
Still, a little part of him that wasn't taken up with trying not to throw up was telling him that he wasn't being entirely fair. He and Sam weren't dating, not...not exactly. Bucky had thought they were heading that way, these past few months, when he let himself think about it at all. Sam made him feel safe, and funny, and smart, and he laughed when Bucky was a dick for no reason, and he liked sushi and Looney Toons and Bucky. Bucky liked him too (he thought), and he'd been searching for every ounce of that flirty soldier from the thirties that was left, and Sam seemed to like that. But almost more importantly, Sam seemed to like him even when Bucky wasn't charming, even when Bucky was awkward or confused or just downright rude.
But now, Sam was on a date with someone else. Bucky didn't even know if he wanted to be on a date with Sam, but he sure as hell didn't want Sam on a date with someone who wasn't Bucky. That was utterly ridiculous.
Bucky glowered at Sam's counter, fixating on a mug sitting beside the sink. Sam had gotten it from a hot dog stand near his apartment, and Bucky had always hated it. It had a cartoon hot dog mascot on the front, which Bucky found off-putting, but Sam thought was funny.
Impulsively, Bucky reached out and shoved the mug off the counter. It fell to the floor, shattering. The hot dog's eyes stared vacantly up at him from one of the largest intact shards.
"Oops," Bucky said flatly to the empty kitchen.
He felt marginally better after smashing the mug. Bucky sometimes forgot, but he really did like smashing things. Especially things that belonged to other people. Especially things that belonged to other people who were out on dates with Lillian.
He wondered if Sam had any more mugs that he could smash. He opened Sam's cupboard and started rummaging around for something else that he could throw. Then he realized that it was pretty rude to break into someone's house and smash all the things they had to drink out of. That probably wouldn't make Sam want to date him very much. Not that Bucky cared. Not now that Sam was out on a date with Lillian.
Bucky wandered back into the living room. It was nearly 8:30, so unless the date had taken an unexpected turn, Sam would probably be arriving back at the apartment pretty soon. Then, Bucky would be able to give him a piece of his mind. Or...or something.
Bucky settled into the living room to wait. It wasn't too long before he heard the sound of the key in the lock. It sounded unsteady, fumbling, and Bucky wondered for a moment if Sam was drunk. The thought of Sam getting drinks with some strange girl was somehow worse than the idea of him just going out with her.
Bucky dropped into one of Sam's armchairs, legs draped over the arm, facing away from the door. He crossed his arms over his chest. He wondered if this would make him look too much like a petulant child, and then decided it didn't matter. Sam probably deserved it.
The door opened, and Bucky could hear Sam's footsteps. He wasn't sure if Sam had seen him - Bucky had kept the lights dim.
"How was your date?" Bucky asked without turning around.
"B-Bucky?" Sam asked shakily.
"That bad, huh?" Bucky snarled.
Bucky was debating just getting up and walking into the kitchen without even continuing this conversation when he suddenly heard a small gasp, followed by a crash. Bucky turned and nearly flew out of the seat - Sam was on the ground, limbs splayed out at awkward angles. At first, Bucky had a hard time conceptualizing what he was seeing. Why would Sam have fallen?
And then, he saw the blood.
In an instant, Bucky was kneeling by Sam's side. All the anger from a minute ago was forgotten, replaced by a horrible, numbing fear. Sam was facedown, but his shoulder was dark with a spreading bloodstain, and there was blood on the floor beneath him.
"Guess it really didn't go well?" Bucky said breathlessly, turning Sam over with hands that always got steadier in a crisis. "She must have hated you. That...oh god…."
There was a very obvious bullet wound in Sam's shoulder. It wasn't the worst Bucky had ever seen, but that wasn't saying much. It was bleeding freely, and Sam's skin was waxy and pale. His glassy eyes managed to focus on Bucky, and Bucky could read not only pain but genuine fear in them.
"I didn't know you made this bad of a first impression, Sam," Bucky said, as his hands ghosted over the wound. He knew the date comments had probably stopped being funny a long time ago, if they ever had been, and he didn't know why now, even in the middle of a crisis, he seemed completely unable to stop thinking about the failed date.
But Sam, to his credit, chuckled slightly. That was why Bucky liked him. Or...that wasn't….
"I'm calling 911," Bucky said. He wasn't about to risk Captain America's life by messing around in a bullet wound without actual medical professionals involved, and he knew Sam needed help as quickly as possible.
"No!" Sam said immediately - the first words he had spoken since collapsing. "No. They...I think they're still out there…."
"Who's still out there?" Bucky asked, freezing. He whipped around, searching for anything out of place (anything aside from Sam bleeding on the floor, that is). He was seconds away from moving to secure the apartment when Sam's groan snapped him back. He had to stabilize Sam and figure out what the hell was going on before anything else. For all he knew, leaving Sam alone was the moment whoever-it-was was waiting for.
"I need a good look at this," Bucky informed Sam. Carefully, he began unbuttoning Sam's shirt, pulling it open to reveal blood-soaked skin. Sam breathed in sharply as Bucky's fingers brushed his chest, and Bucky winced. "Sorry."
Sam shook his head. "'S...okay."
Bucky thought Sam had recovered himself enough, and he paused before pulling Sam's unbuttoned shirt off his shoulder. He needed to get the full story, he needed to know what he was up against. "Sam, what happened?"
Sam moaned again, the pain in his shoulder spiking and mixing with the swooping feeling in his gut as Bucky's hand pressed against his chest. Apparently, he couldn't keep himself together around Bucky even with a bullet wound in the shoulder to distract him.
"Sam?" Bucky repeated, and the pressure of his touch lessened, became gentle. Sam felt anger swell and join the tangle of emotion. He was mad at Bucky and at himself, and he wouldn't have been in this situation in the first place if not for Bucky, and he shouldn't be allowed to touch Sam like that, or at least not to make him feel the way he did. "What happened?"
What had happened was simple. After a solid two months of flirtiness, back-and-forth, and something Sam had thought was genuine emotional connection, Sam had asked Bucky on a dinner date. Instead of getting the shy smile he'd hoped for, Sam had gotten Bucky starting a fight about pizza versus sushi, and they'd ended up at entirely separate restaurants. Sam got the message. Bucky wasn't interested, at least not as much as Sam thought he was. Maybe he needed more time, or maybe he just wanted to keep Sam on the hook, or maybe Sam had somehow managed to misread every look, word, and touch for the past several months.
Sam had scheduled a date with Lillian (friend of a friend) just a few days after the sushi-pizza fiasco. He was desperately hoping that what he mostly wanted was romance, not specifically romance with Bucky. The date had gone well enough - Lillian was pretty, smart, and uncomplicated. There wasn't anything wrong with her, except for the fact that she wasn't Bucky.
They'd parted ways after the date, and Sam had walked home, knowing that he was doomed. He was in love - no, no, he wasn't going to go that far even with a bullet in his shoulder, he was...mildly infatuated with a confusing, emotionally-stunted cyborg Super Soldier who didn't feel the same way. It was a bad night even before the bullet wound.
Sam had been in the alleyway right behind his apartment when someone appeared at the far end of the alley, pistol shaking in their hands.
"My wife is dead because of you," the man had said, and Sam threw himself to the side, falling backwards instead as the bullet punched into his shoulder. The man ran off into the distance, and Sam had struggled to stay conscious as the grime from the alley mixed with his blood. He'd managed to get up and stumble the last few feet to his apartment, probably to call Bucky, because god help him that was still his best option. He hadn't expected Bucky to be there, especially not lounging in his armchair radiating fury. Was that a good sign? Maybe he did care. Maybe Sam had lost too much blood.
Sam decided that probably, Bucky just meant "what happened" in the sense of why he had a bullet wound in his shoulder.
"Guy shot me in the alley," Sam managed. "Some kind of revenge thing, I think. Didn't...didn't see his face."
Bucky's hand suddenly pressed much harder into Sam's shoulder, and Sam gasped. It felt like his bones were grinding together, and for a split second, dark spots danced in front of his eyes.
"Did he get away?" Bucky growled.
"Ah-"
Thankfully, Bucky seemed to realize his hands had lost their gentleness, and he removed some of the pressure from Sam's shoulder. The dark spots retreated.
"Did he get away?" Bucky repeated sternly.
Sam tried to think back - it had all happened so fast. He knew the man had left, but where he'd gone, Sam had no idea. Sam though - or rather he hoped - that the man assumed he had killed Sam. After all, he had shot Sam at nearly point blank range, and Sam had instantly gone down. Someone else probably really would have killed Sam - this man just happened to be a terrible shot.
"Got away," Sam managed. It was already getting hard to get his thoughts to come out of his mouth, and he knew that was a bad sign.
"Do you know where he went?" Bucky asked.
Sam shook his head.
"Gonna need to get the bleeding stopped," Bucky muttered to himself. "Then I'll need to track him down, make sure he-"
Sam let out a strangled gasp as Bucky's metal hand dug into his shoulder again. This time, Sam thought it was intentional - Bucky was trying to put enough pressure on the wound to get the bleeding stopped. But that didn't mean it didn't hurt.
"It's starting to slow," Bucky said after a minute. "I need to lock your apartment down. You know you have a faulty window catch, right? The last thing you need right now is a second bullet wound."
Sam nodded. The world was starting to swim around him, and he was getting less and less sure of what was happening. Faulty window catch? Did Bucky mean the one he used to break into the apartment?
"So you'll need to put pressure on this," Bucky said. "Just for a few minutes, and I'll be right back."
Bucky grabbed Sam's hand in his, and guided it to the wound. Sam gasped again, for more reasons than one. He tried to press down, but he was alarmingly weak, and the blood was making everything slippery.
"It's just for a minute," Bucky murmured. Was that...concern in his voice? "I'll be right back."
Sam let his eyes drift closed as he heard the sound of footsteps retreating. Everything felt so surreal. Only a half hour ago, he'd been on a date with a girl, laughing and sharing appetizers and wondering if things really didn't feel right or if it was just that his expectations were too high. And now he was lying on the floor of his apartment, and he couldn't get the bleeding to stop, and Bucky was here. Things had taken a very strange turn. They usually did, with Bucky.
Sam's eyes were still closed when metal fingers brushed against his flesh ones. He snapped back to awareness, wondering how Bucky could have possibly already returned. Or maybe it had been awhile, and Sam was just beginning to feel the blood loss.
Sam opened his eyes and blinked at Bucky in confusion. "Where...whaa?"
Bucky looked down at the newly materialized gunbelt slung over his shoulder and the knives Sam could see peeking out from his waistband.
"I prepped for this," Bucky said, awfully matter-of-fact for a man who'd apparently hidden a small arsenal in somebody else's apartment. "Couldn't fix the window, but...I'd like to see him try to come after you again."
"Where?" Sam mumbled, confused even around the agony.
"Oh, you'd never have found them," Bucky told him dismissively, then frowned. The concern (if that's what it was) was back in those big blue eyes of his, and he knelt back down beside Sam.
"The bleeding hasn't stopped," he muttered. Sam realized, too late, that he wasn't even really trying to apply pressure anymore, just letting blood ooze through his fingers.
Bucky reached up under the gunbelt and peeled off his shirt, leaving the gun in its place. Sam's breath caught in his throat, and he tried to tell himself that it was just because of the pain. It wasn't because Bucky was now kneeling next to him, now bare-chested, shirt balled up in one hand with the other on his chest.
"Here," Bucky said gently, in a tone Sam wasn't sure he'd known Bucky had in him. He took Sam's hand again, pressing the shirt into it. Then, he moved Sam's hand to his shoulder, pressing his hand on Sam's and pushing them both against the bullet wound.
It hurt, bad. Sam choked on a gasp of pain, and it was probably his imagination, but he thought he felt Bucky's fingers squeeze his. Then Bucky took his hand away, and Sam gritted his teeth as he resisted the urge to sigh with disappointment. There was seriously something wrong with him. His own blood was making his fingers slick and sticky, and all he was thinking about was sort of almost holding hands with Bucky as he bled out onto the floor.
"I need to check to make sure there's an exit wound," Bucky said apologetically, still in that same halfway tender voice that Sam was having trouble believing existed. Sam nodded, the movement making him so dizzy that he wasn't expecting it when Bucky's hands slipped under his back, lifting him up.
Sam choked off a whimper, and he felt Bucky freeze. "You okay?"
"Mmm-hmm," Sam mumbled, doing his best to tighten his grip on his shoulder. He felt Bucky's hands reposition themselves slightly, and slowly, Bucky lifted him into a sitting position. Sam tried to stay upright and aware, he really did, but the movement on top of the blood loss and the pain was making him sick and spinny, and he found himself buried face-down in Bucky's bare shoulder.
"That's okay," Bucky said soothingly, adjusting Sam slightly so he was more comfortable. Sam didn't think he'd ever seen Bucky this gentle - he didn't know the guy had had it in him. Although he supposed one of the things he'd always liked about Bucky was how many different sides there were to him.
Sam had been thinking a lot about Bucky's bare chest lately. He'd even daydreamed about touching it, but not...not like this. This was the closest he'd ever been to Bucky, close enough that he could smell Bucky's soap, and it was because he was shot. This was not at all how Sam had pictured things going.
Sam felt Bucky's hands ghosting over his back. "The exit wound looks clean," Bucky said. "And the bleeding's mostly stopped. I just want to clean this out, and then I'll bandage it. Do you have any Hydrogen Peroxide?"
"Yeah," Sam mumbled. "Bathroom cabinet. But they don't recommend you use that to clean out wounds anymore…."
Bucky clearly wasn't listening. He eased Sam back to the floor, and then Sam heard his retreating footsteps. With Bucky briefly gone, Sam didn't need to be tough anymore and he momentarily allowed the pain to really wash over him. God, bullet wounds hurt. Bucky had probably been shot so many times he'd forgotten, if he could even feel that sort of pain. But Sam was struggling to stay conscious, and starting to feel like a bit of an idiot for protesting so hard on the hospital. He'd be dead if the guy came back for him, yeah, but he'd be just as dead if he bled out on the floor.
Was the guy even really coming back to finish the job? That was hard to answer, since Sam really wasn't too clear on why he'd shot him in the first place. The man had said that Sam had killed his wife, but since Sam didn't tend to go around murdering people, he could only assume it was either an accident or a mistake. There was a whole coalition of people who hated the Avengers, not for bringing everyone back, but for bringing them back in the way they had. There had been thousands of casualties in the immediate aftermath of the Blip - people who had been on boats when they'd been snapped away returning only to drown in the ocean, people materializing in the middle of the street only to be hit by cars, people falling out of the sky if they'd been snapped off an airplane.
These deaths were of course not the Avengers fault, and they certainly weren't Sam's fault - he'd been dead during the Blip, and brought back to life himself. But as Captain America, he was one of the most public and high-profile Avengers, and he supposed it made sense that the blame for a lot of things would fall directly onto his shoulders.
Still, as much as Sam could understand where the guy might be coming from, he was still desperately glad to have an overprotective ex-assassin watching out for him, just in case. Sam supposed that it was nice to know that whatever was really going on between him and Bucky, at least he could rely on the Super Soldier for something like this.