april showers
On the first night after Sam returns to Washington, DC, the rain comes. And Sam knows, when the rain comes, spring is not far behind.
Sitting on his couch in the living room, he watches droplets break light against the opposite wall, streetlamp yellow flowing over pictures and posters in streams. It’s odd to be alone in his apartment after three months in his childhood home. The rooms feel empty. Cold. Sam has to remind himself, he liked living here, once.
Returning to the District was supposed to represent order in chaos, a return to normalcy. Sam feels stupid.
He should have known that’s impossible.
But spring is coming.
Sam leans back and lets his head fall against the wall. Spring is coming, and the city will warm over, till the entire Basin turns green, and the air thickens to humid. He’s not looking forward to it, if he’s honest. Hot weather suits him fine, but the in-between, the mulchy, misty spring. Sam’s not overly fond of spring, as a rule.
Perhaps the only worthwhile thing about the season are the cherry blossoms. He smiles at the memory of taking AJ and Cass to see them when they were younger. People don’t get tired of cherry blossoms, as much as they try. Full-petaled and snow-pink, trailing over the water at sunset. Year after year, reliably beautiful. No one really gets tired of that.
The rain drips against the roof. Somewhere in the night, a siren blares.
Sam’s Cap now, and the whole thing has not set in.
He waits, to feel completely like Cap, to own the moniker fully, but the moment just hovers. It never drops. Sitting in his apartment, takeout strewn around the coffee table, he wonders if such a moment even exists. Sam thought he could will it to happen, by repeating the phrase, doing the job. Playing the part. Turns out, it’s sort of an internal thing.
Which he can do.
Sam can wait to feel like he is supposed to feel. That’s what he did in the Air Force, and that’s what he did as the Falcon. Both times, eventually, there was a moment where he became the person others needed him to be. With Cap, it’s different. There’s succession, history.
Which is worse, Sam thinks now, than starting out with nothing.
Although, there is Bucky. Who has apparently made it his life’s mission to be available whenever Captain America reemerges. And Sam cannot deny there is something comforting about his steady, solemn commitment to Sam, which he sometimes catches radiating from the cyborg like an aftershock.
He thinks about spring, and Bucky. Bucky standing in the doorway to their kitchen, twisting a greasy rag around his hand, looking starved for home. Bucky working up a rusty part on their boat, raising his eyes to Sam, telegraphing the unspoken question. Firstly, what should he do with the bad part, and secondly, what should he do with himself. Stay. Not stay. Stay forever.
Even now, without Bucky crowding and confusing him, Sam can’t reason out answers either way.
To distract himself, he pulls out his phone and looks up more information about the bloom schedule for the cherry blossoms. Peak bloom is close, only two days away. He thinks about taking a run by the Basin in three days, and the clusters of blossomed-out people, standing beauty-struck in the shade. It pains him a little that Sarah’s so busy. Sam fidgets with his phone, wondering if he should dial her up, invite them all down. Make a weekend of it.
And yet.
There’s a part of him that knows, he can’t cling to them for everything. He has to find a way to carry this that does not involve leaning on his baby sister for support, and pretending that he can offer much more than an extra hand around the house.
Sam opens up his contacts and thumbs through the startlingly short list of names. Some old VA friends. Rhodey. Satellite Avengers he probably would never call, save in the case of an alien invasion. Bucky’s number is in there, of course, marked Bucky Barnes, like Sam had not been attempting to track his movements across the world for two whole years. It’s comically casual, how Bucky occupies one of these contact cards, like he’s an acquaintance, or a work friend. When he isn’t that, will never be that. They’d abandoned all possibility of having a well-adjusted relationship after they’d attempted to kill each other.
There’s an intimacy to a homicidally antagonistic relationship Sam doesn’t exactly share with most people. Sam supposes that’s probably for the best.
Should he text Bucky?
And say what.
He opens a chat window and stares at it, feeling uncoordinated, like one of his boosters is failing. It’s been five years of void, one year of trying to work things out, and less than a week of being Captain America. Sam’s not really been afforded any time to practice the art of small talk.
And besides, Bucky terrifies him. Not because he’s ex-HYDRA, or chemically enhanced, but because every single emotion he feels telegraphs immediately across his face. Maybe Sam was a similar way once, but not anymore. That’s all reserved for the right people, when he feels safe. People like Riley, and Sarah, and his nephews. People who deserve to see that part of him.
Which is the problem with Bucky. Bucky thinks, why hide. Hiding is what the Winter Soldier did, and when Bucky hides, he is the same. If the world punishes him for that openness, so be it.
That’s broken logic, Sam’s been trying to tell him. Bucky doesn’t seem to pick up on it.
Sam scrolls upwards into the abyss of unanswered text messages between them, months of song recommendations, flight observations, and probing questions. All of them, without response. Then, their latest conversation, where Sam had given Bucky directions for meeting him in New York. Days later, a short exchange about when Bucky should fly down.
After, more silence.
What’s his excuse? For bothering Bucky at one in the morning, more or less about nothing. He’s lonely, but that’s not a comfortable idea, especially after he’s spent such a long time convincing himself that he doesn’t actually need anyone, least of all Bucky.
No, Sam corrects himself, everyone needs someone.
Sam may be rusty, but he hasn’t totally forgotten the stuff he used to preach. He’s not so skilled at self-application but then, could a nurse realistically perform their own tracheotomy?
He needs an excuse, still. A hook.
His brain only spits back, cherry blossoms.
Which will go over well, Sam imagines. Something as frivolous as flowers in the springtime. Defensively, he adds, it’s not frivolous. No point in playing it down. He’s excited, if only because they’re a sign that things can be okay again. The cherry blossoms and tourists and sticky children will arrive in DC again, and all those people walking in a lazy loop around the Basin will be okay, and the bloom’s inevitable fade only means that it will someday return.
Back to him, back to the city, like the shield arcing through the air, always returning.
Sam types into the blank space, hey, come down to DC this weekend. peak bloom.
He stares at it.
It’s just a text message, and yet it feels more significant than that, as weighty as Bucky’s glance on the boat. Stay. Not stay. Stay forever.
Sam wills himself to stop overthinking things and hits send.
Well.
He drops his phone on the couch and walks to his bedroom, falls into it, and sleeps without much effort.
~~~
When Sam checks his phone again in the morning, he’s a little surprised to see three messages from Bucky. The first is, what is peak bloom? The second, are you okay? And the third, should I come today or tomorrow?
Like Sam predicted, spring is not far behind.
Outside, the sky is defiantly blue, and the soapy smell of rain on asphalt lingers in the air. The trees on his street are returning to their summer gloss.
Sam writes back, cherry blossoms in DC, you ever seen them? amazing. and i’m fine, just wanted to see you. come today, if you want.
Are they doing this now?
Dropping in and out of each other’s lives, like it doesn’t mean anything (or everything)? Moving on the same timeline, in the same direction?
Sam tries not to think about things in such drastic terms. Nothing odd about friends spending time together, and certainly nothing odd about one needing it more than the other. One always does, he figures. Sometimes it will be you. And sometimes it will be the friend.
Sam’s phone buzzes in his hand, and he reads, i’ll be at union in four hours.
His mouth goes dry at the thought of Bucky waiting for him in a crowded train station, looking for him. It’s too ordinary.
He feels like he’s been anticipating this, forever. Sam feels calm, shopping for groceries, tidying his apartment. Wondering which blankets to put over the couch, a place where Bucky apparently needs to be, in order for Sam to feel sane.
While he’s driving to Union Station, he wonders what exactly is the intended result of this, other than him feeling less sorry for himself when there’s no one around. He drums his fingers on the steering wheel, taps them against his lips. Not nervous. Eager, he realizes. Wanting to see him. Even though it’s barely been two months, and this level of urgency is probably unwarranted.
Take it easy, take it easy…
Sam pulls the car into the pick-up lane and cranes his neck around to look for Bucky, and there he is, with that same black getaway bag over his shoulder and an irate expression. Sam waves his hand out the window, and Bucky notices and starts towards him.
When he gets in the car, there’s a moment where Sam is positive this has all been one colossal error.
Then Bucky says, “What the hell did you need me for?” and smiles, tired and lightly confused, and Sam smiles back.
Springtime, it’s coming.