Chapter 5
Bucky is alive.
That is the mantra Sam is repeating in his head as his body ambles over towards Bucky’s head and crouches to the floor. He is not dead. That is not an option Sam will entertain for even a second. Bucky has fallen hundreds of feet into rock hard ice, had his mind erased, reset, and molded a million times over, and turned into dust, and lived through all of it. He’s stayed alive, despite the world. He has to still be alive.
Repeating his mental chanting of the fact of Bucky’s life, Sam presses two fingers to Bucky’s jugular. A pulse beats back against the pressure, weak and off-kilter, but there. A gasp of breath erupts out of Sam.
“Oh, I-oh, thank God,” he exclaims as his hands find purchase on Bucky’s body, solid and alive. The sensation brings a moan spilling out of Bucky’s mouth. Sam’s eyes search for consciousness, “Bucky?”
“Didn’t . . . didn’t work. The serum . . . serum won’t let me go,” Bucky slogs out as his eyes open for brief moments between words before falling shut again. Sam’s hand on his shoulder clamps down tight, as if to tether Bucky to the material world further. He won’t let him go, either.
“What didn’t work?” Sam asks, steadying the shake in his voice. Bucky pinches his brows together and shakes his head. Sam tries again, “C’mon, hey, what did you do that didn’t work?”
“Pills. To be dead,” Bucky admits, and even if Sam knew, could tell what had happened as soon as he saw Bucky on the floor, the confirmation plunges into his chest and infects him. Bucky’s chin flicks feebly towards the counter, where a large bottle of extra strength Tylenol sits. It’s half emptied.
“Hurts,” Bucky groans, his arms circling around his stomach. Sam smoothes a thumb over Bucky’s cheek, damp with sweat. His vibranium hand kneads against his right side where his liver sits. It’s probably shutting down, as much as his body can shut down. Sam’s breath trembles as he holds Bucky’s face between his hands. Bucky tries to focus on him, but his eyes glaze and his head lulls. He’s fading.
“I’ll be right back, okay? Just have to-just wait, okay?”
Sam rises up. He doesn’t want to be in this moment, the moment where Bucky twists and rolls on the floor, the moment where Bucky had wanted to die. So, he does what he knows and plans. Getting his phone and calling 911 is all he needs to put his thoughts to.
Bucky has spluttered out drips of vomit when Sam gets back, holding a ringing phone. Sam reacts automatically, grabbing a tissue and wiping it across Bucky’s mouth. It’s good, honestly, that any of what he has put in himself is coming out, but thrashing distress comes over Sam, still, at the vile way Bucky’s sick sticks to his face.
“911, what’s your emergency?” A flat, female voice asks in Sam’s ear. Sam pulls the thoroughly soiled tissue away from Bucky as he answers.
“My boyfriend overdosed on Tylenol,” he says, already reaching for the bottle and speed reading the label, “He took somewhere around 15000 mg, I think.”
“I have noted that. Please give me your address and we will-”
15000 mg. Sam’s breath keeps catching around that number. He had done the math quickly, the amount of the bottle missing calculated with the pill size, so he could be utterly wrong. No matter if he’s off, it’s nearly half the bottle Bucky took. And, yeah, he has the serum; it’s probably why he’s even still alive, but, God, Sam doesn’t know if it will be enough. The reality of actually losing Bucky kicks on and Sam lets his mind turn to it. He can’t breathe, can’t move, can only feel the thick coating of pain as his chest threatens to cave in. The dispatcher gives him a time estimate he can’t track and he clicks the phone off. It crashes from his hand to down between him and Bucky. Oh, God, Bucky.
Sam collapses forward and clings onto Bucky’s barely moving body. Sobs tumble out of him and all his methods of avoidance, of focusing on the task at hand and persistently not thinking about it, stop working. If Bucky doesn’t make it through, Sam won’t either. He will give up the shield, the wings, and any hope he has in himself to bring good to the world. He can’t lose the love of his life a second time.
“Please, God, please, please,” he tremors. He’s begging Bucky, begging God, begging any power there is to stop this. It’s a beg to even Zola and HYDRA, that the way they transmuted Bucky will save him, for it to this once take away pain instead of bring it.
“Sam . . .'' Bucky exhales. Sam’s tears sputter and break to hear his voice. He grabs at Bucky’s hand, the flesh one with a pulse he can track. Bucky can’t grab back with any force, but his fingers can make a loose circle around Sam’s palm. Sam rests his pinky on Bucky’s wrist. One beat, and then another after a moment, fighting up through the vein. Sam tracks them mentaly, the length of the pauses and the strength of each. Each one, however meak, says Bucky is with him still.
Sam only releases Bucky’s hand when he hears the pounding at the door. He lets the EMTS in and they rush down the hall when he points them in the direction of the bathroom. Sam follows and watches as multiple sets of hands descend onto Bucky. A tall, stone faced man turns his head to him
“How long ago did he ingest these pills?”
“I don’t know,” Sam says, and viscerally hates not having an answer. He wants to have every answer for this, but he has none. None, “I found him fifteen minutes ago, I don’t . . .”
“Two . . . two hours,” Bucky works out. It’s another slam to Sam’s gut, the time Bucky dealt with this alone. He swipes at fast-rolling tears.
“Let’s get him to the ambulance and see if they can take him at Bridgepoint,” another EMT orders. They put Bucky on a stretcher, making him look even more frail, and get him out the door and up into the ambulance. Sam takes the fold out seat next to Bucky’s head, strapping in as he runs a hand through Bucky’s hair.
“Sorry, Sam, sorry, but I had . . .” Bucky tries, though his head slips back down onto the stretcher and he can’t finish. Sam shakes his head. Bucky’s going to live, he’s decided, but if something happens, if this is their last exchange-which it won’t be, it can’t, no, no, that won’t happen- Sam won’t have it be Bucky having to apologize.
“Bucky, listen to me, okay?” A whine escapes Bucky’s lips but he pushes a nod. Sam steadies to speak, “You-you’re the fucking love of my life. You have worked so hard to be where you are. You deserve to be happy, you deserve to love yourself again, you deserve to live and-fuck, Bucky, you need to live! We are gonna grow old together and I’m gonna fucking marry you, okay? I’m gonna dance that goddamn lindy hop to your forties music and I’m gonna kiss you goodnight till I’m a hundred and you’re a million. We are going to live the lives we’ve earned. I’m going to love you forever and you have to . . . have to be . . .”
“Sam,” Bucky croaks, his face having become red and wet with burning tears, and Sam wishes he didn’t have to sound like that, like he doesn’t think they will get there. They will. Sam has decided it. They will.
With both of them still whimpering, weak messes, an EMT pushes between them and inserts an IV into Bucky’s flesh arm. Sam catches how she clocks the vibranium one.
“He’s a super soldier, so he’ll need higher dosages,” Sam provides, though it has to be obvious. There are not many people with Wakandan-made metal arms out there. She nods as she goes to string up the drip. Though, she hesitates and stares at Sam, up and down his body.
“You’re Cap-”
“I know who I am,” Sam spits, his right hand trembling furiously against his knee, “and I’m not the one who matters right now. He is.”
He juts an aggressive finger to Bucky with a huff. The EMT opens her mouth to say more, but closes it at the snarl on Sam’s lips. She attends to Bucky, more than diligent now, and Sam leans onto his knees to watch that everything is done right. He will marry this man. They will live their whole lives together. He won’t lose this love. Sam affirms all of this in his mind. He will not doubt its truth, not unless he absolutely must.
They are separated too quickly once they reach the hospital. Sam is allowed to stay as Bucky’s blood is drawn but is escorted out of the room when the pumping of his stomach is deemed too graphic for Sam to watch. Sam wants to argue that he’s seen much more graphic, so many times over, but, more than that, he wants to hear Bucky is okay as soon as possible. So, he takes the path of least resistance and leaves when he is told to do so.
With awful, stale coffee gripped in his right hand and his phone held in his left, Sam plummets down onto a chair in the ER waiting area and, well, waits.
If he never has to sit in a waiting room without Bucky again, it will be too soon.
The need to talk to someone comes in heavy after a half hour of hearing nothing, even if he knows it’s a breach of Bucky’s privacy. But, he’s twitching from locked up nerves and too much coffee alike, and spilling his pain to someone through his phone seems the only good use for his hands. He opens up his messages to Sarah and writes, with no context:
Bucky broke
She responds within the minute, the words ‘what happened’ followed by a long line of question marks. Sam doesn't reply. This is Bucky’s information to share- Sam knows Bucky will be around to make the decision to share it if he wants- and, besides that, the idea of having to type out an explanation or, even worse, have a phone call with his sister exhausts him. It’s a real jerk move, Sam’s aware, to text Sarah that and then not answer. But, Sam thinks that he should be allowed some jerk moves, right now. He has just cause.
“Excuse me?” A doctor has appeared by Sam’s side without him realizing. He stands to face the man, a nervous jolt racing through his heart.
“Is he okay?” he asks automatically. The doctor sighs.
“Well, he is stable.”
Sam explodes with relief. He had known that Bucky would pull through, had willed it into existence, but, still, the rush of joy that comes from hearing it is enough to bring tears to his eyes.
“Mr. Barnes’s blood tests are showing a safe level of toxicity after the emptying of his stomach and we’ve given him acetylcysteine, which will prevent further liver damage. But . . .” The doctor’s face falls into sternness as he pauses. Sam waits for whatever bad news he’s about to get and is sure he can handle it. As long as Bucky is still with him, in this plane of existence, he can handle most anything, “he won’t be leaving for some time. We need to have him psychiatrically evaluated to see if he’s a threat to himself or others before we can even consider releasing him.”
Sam’s face drops. It’s standard practice, whether someone’s a former assassin or not, to have a mental evaluation after a suicide attempt. It’s also standard that, if that evaluation goes poorly, they could place Bucky under a seventy-two hour hold in a psych ward. Bucky’s been cycled through enough cells and prisons and had enough freedoms ripped from him for a million lifetimes, and Sam will fight tooth and nail to keep him out of another lock-up.
“No, I can take care of him. I can stay with him twenty-four hours a day and monitor him. I have training in-”
“Mr. Wilson, I’m sorry, but this is not up for debate. Mr. Barnes requested that his personal therapist do the evaluation and we’ve been willing to allow that. We need reasonable assurance he’s not going to hurt himself again, or go hurt anyone else.”
Sam tugs his lips into his mouth to hide a snarl as the doctor’s opinion on Bucky becomes abundantly clear. His teeth push up into his lips, hard enough to leave marks, and he shakes his head with a huff.
“Dr. Raynor has been called and should be here fairly soon. Before that, though, we . . . um, we need you to have him remove his metal prosthesis, for his and our staff’s safety,” the doctor says, stumbling. Sam’s mouth falls open and his eyes boggle at him.
“Are you fucking kidding me? His goddamn arm?” he barks. The scattered people in the waiting room look at them, some with their phones up. Captain America yelling at some poor doctor will be splattered across the internet soon, inevitably, but Sam doesn’t give a shit. This is actually heinous. The doctor turns his face away and will no longer meet Sam’s eyes.
“It’s a weapon. Either he removes it or we will have to put restraints on him. We figured he would respond better to you than us, so-”
“Yeah, okay, what the fuck ever. I’ll do it,” Sam interjects, tossing his arms up. He will allow, under no circumstances, for Bucky to be tied down to the bed, so, he guesses he’ll pick the lesser of two evils and ask Bucky to remove a body part, “Jesus. He’s just had his stomach pumped. He couldn’t be a threat if he wanted to.”
If the doctor has a response to Sam’s bitter mumblings, Sam doesn’t stick around to hear it. He’s pushing off through the halls to find Bucky.
Anger tenses his muscles as Sam searches, shoulders pulling up to his neck and fingers permanently clenched. He’s always seen the way the world looks at Bucky. Hell, before he got to know the guy, he’d looked at him the same way; volatile, dangerous, and one nudge away from his kill switch being flipped right back on. All these doctors and nurses and EMTs, the people meant to care for Bucky, see him like that. They see him as the Winter Soldier, because they don’t know better. And Sam may get it, from an outside, removed perspective, but, up close, having Bucky in his life and his bed and his heart every day, he wants to grab those people who see Bucky as a threat, as something to be caged and kept away from the public, and tell them every way Bucky has worked to be better. He wants to tell them that Bucky wrestles with his nephews and lets them win and gives up his seat on the bus for old ladies and laughs so beautifully, the type of laugh that can only come from someone who is well and truly good, through to his soul. It doesn’t matter though. They wouldn’t hear him if he did.
When Sam pulls the curtain from around Bucky’s bed, though, and sees heavy lidded, red, watering, but open eyes that find him with desperate urgency, he doesn’t care about what anyone is thinking. All he can do is stare.
“Sam,” Bucky squeaks, his voice scraped up and torn. Sam sucks up a gulp of air. His mind is buzzing, but there’s nothing to say. He moves in large strides to Bucky’s bed, falls onto it, and brings Bucky’s body as snug to him as it can be. Bucky gasps at the contact before he sniffles and shakes under Sam’s arms. Sam has his face in Bucky’s hair, practically drenching it with tears. It’s monumental to hold him, after not knowing if he would ever be able to again. It’s monumental to have Bucky hold him back.
“I was hurting so much. I wanted it to end, but-fuck, I’m so sorry. I-I don’t know why I . . . I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t have, but, I felt like-'' Bucky tells Sam between thick tears. Sam’s careful hands land on either side of his face and guide him to look at him. Sam’s breath catches. Bucky’s eyes are so blue. The world would have been a sick, dull place without that blue in it.
“Don’t worry about apologies. You’re here. God, Bucky, you’re still here. I love you so much.”
Sam’s bottom lip drops as he continues to stare at Bucky and hold his heavy head up. He wants to kiss him and remind himself that Bucky is physical and present, but his mouth is cracked, quivering, and looks sensitive to the touch. Sam decides to kiss everywhere else instead, pressing his lips against Bucky’s temple, the tip of his nose, on each cheek, the line of his jaw.
“I-I don’t want to be dead. I just want it to stop being so bad,” Bucky whispers into the air he and Sam share, their foreheads resting on each other. Sam’s hand rubs across his heated skin and sighs shakily.
“I know,” Sam says, because nothing else can be said, and because he does, he really does. The full weight of Bucky pounds onto Sam’s chest as he crumbles down into whimpers of tears. Sam takes it, steadying himself to handle it. Bucky’s holding so tight around him, an anchoring for them both, and he can feel Bucky’s fingers touch on his back, flesh and metal. It reminds Sam, horribly, of the task he was sent back here with. With his thumb rubbing at Bucky’s hairline and his eyes falling shut, Sam starts.
“So, um, and this is such bullshit, Buck, I’m fucking pissed, but. They . . . the doctors say you have to take off your arm,”
A small ‘huh’ creeps out of Bucky’s wrecked throat and his eyes tilt up, looking confused and glassy, and biting indignation surges up again in Sam.
“The idiot staff here says it’s a weapon. It’s not. I know it’s not. You wouldn’t-it’s so stupid. I’m sorry. It’s not right,” Sam explains. Bucky's face goes even more morose, which Sam didn’t think could happen, as his mouth hangs open loosely and his brows pull up into each other, making pitiful wrinkles in the skin there.
“Oh. Guess that makes sense.”
“No,” Sam insists, now that he’s seen how absolutely devastated the request has made Bucky. Sam feels like he’s just pressed the knife of the day deeper into his gut, “you shouldn’t have to do it. I’ll pull some rank with whoever’s in charge. They can’t do this to you. I’ll-”
“Sam,” falls out of Bucky’s mouth. He shakes his head, dripping with exhaustion, “it’s fine. Don’t make a fuss over it.”
With a sigh, Bucky raises his right hand to his shoulder. He clicks a detailed pattern against it and, as he grits in a breath through his teeth at the shock of the disconnection, the whole arm thuds down between them.
Sam looks at it, then at Bucky, who seems exposed and small with a part of him gone. Or, maybe, he’s looked like that the whole day and Sam has only fully realized it now. Sam bites down on his lip and glances to the arm again. He had told Sarah that he was worried Bucky would break into a million pieces. Well, here he sits with an actual piece of Bucky, disconnected from the man himself, and he has no idea how to handle the reality of it. He’s almost glad Dr. Raynor comes in and takes some of his thoughts away from it.
“James. It’s good to see you,” she says as she stands at the end of the bed with a genuine, heartfelt joy to see him in her sad smile. An unsaid alive lingers in the air after the sentence.
“It’s good to see anyone,” Bucky says back, swallowing roughly and wincing after he does, rubbing at his throat. Sam drags a hand along the back of his neck and lets the fingers stay there after he does. Dr. Raynor puts her eyes on him.
“Sam, I’m sorry, but you’ll have to leave.”
Sam and Bucky both startle at this. Sam stands abruptly and Bucky’s hand links onto his as he does.
“I don’t understand. I’m not going to-”
“Look, I know, it sucks. But, according to hospital policy, James has to answer my questions alone. You being in here could affect his responses,” Dr. Raynor says.
Sam has the start of countless angry rebuttals on his tongue and raring to go, but, when thinks about it, what can he really do? Fight through the hospital staff to change a rule they have set for every case like this? Delay taking Bucky home even more? He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. At least Bucky will be with Dr. Raynor, who sees him as him, and not a looming peril.
“If that’s what we have to do . . . I guess,” Sam turns his head to Bucky, “Are you okay with that?”
Bucky shrugs.
“Like you said, it’s what we have to do. Here.” He lifts up the severed metal arm and holds it out to Sam, looking down at his sheets. Sam slowly takes it, though he can’t shake the oddness of doing so. It’s heavy, probably somewhere around forty pounds, but it must feel like nothing on Bucky’s shoulder. The heft of it presses down on Sam’s hands. It feels wrong to be holding a part of Bucky without Bucky alongside it. Bucky gives him a quick, hopelessly weak smile and Dr. Raynor nods at him, which must mean it’s time for him to leave.
“I, um. Have the hospital call me when I need to come back?” Sam says, because he doesn’t think he can sit in the waiting room anymore. He needs to leave this place, even for half an hour.
“Of course,” Dr. Raynor promises as she sits herself in a chair across from Bucky and pulls a notepad from her purse, the notepad where she will write if Bucky will be stolen away from him or not. The power it holds is too immense. Sam stares at it for a second before he turns down the hall and leaves, vibranium arm held under his own flesh and bone one.
In his car, Sam sets the arm upright in the passenger seat. Briefly, he wonders if he should strap it in and doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry at the ridiculousness of it. They happen at the same time, a brief fit of garbled sounds, before he shakes it off and decides to sink into his utter lack of control. What will happen will happen. He can take it as it comes.
He drives with the windows cracked and no destination. It isn’t until he finds himself rolling past the Smithsonian that he realizes where he’s going.
The Captain America installation is a permanent one, taking up most of the third floor of the Air and Space museum, and is always good for wandering. Sam finds a thick jacket, hat, and sunglasses in his back seat before he goes in, because getting clocked is easy in an exhibit about Captain America and not something he’s up for right now.
It takes a few minutes of meandering, even stopping and staring with a mix of fondness and heartache at a picture of an exuberant young “James Buchanan Barnes'' early on in his enlistment, before Sam figures out why he’s come here. Standing in front of the Howling Commandos display, with Steve front and center, his words come flooding out.
“Hey, Steve,” Sam whispers. It is one of the dumber things he’s done, talking to a faceless mannequin costumed in Steve’s clothing like it’s one of his best friends, but it’s the level he’s at right now, “Your boy’s in a bad way. Or, I guess, not your boy anymore.”
Bucky’s been annoyingly vague on what the situation was with him and Steve. The story he’s given Sam has basically been, ‘we did some more than friends stuff, we’re from the forties, we didn’t talk about it’. Sam admits there’s a nugget of jealousy there for him, or, if not jealousy, just tiredness from having to be compared to Steve in yet another faction of his life. Bucky doesn’t compare them, though. He’s told Sam that enough times he should have it wired in by now. And Sam has loved before, too. He’s had a whole other love of his life. It doesn’t actually matter to him how Bucky loved Steve. How he and Bucky love each other now is all that’s important. Sam smirks to himself and rolls his eyes at mannequin Steve.
“Our boy’s in a bad way. How does that sound?” Sam asks, and makes a personal choice that Steve approves. He searches the white fabric that covers this Steve's face for anything of his old friend and comes up short. Steve’s left them both. For reasons Sam can respect, but, still, he left them. He doesn’t exist here in this dressed up doll. But, Sam is sure he does exist somewhere, and he hopes he’s listening.
“I don’t know what you’d be doin’ if you were here. I don’t know what you would’ve thought of us even trying to have that kid to begin with. But I know you loved Bucky just as much as I do, and you would have wanted to help him get through this. You’re not here to do that anymore, but I’m really hoping you can put some good energy out there for us. Use whatever Steve Rogers magic you got and let Buck get better, okay? That’s all I’m asking for.”
The mannequin continues to be a mannequin and says nothing. Sam drags a hand across his forehead and snorts.
“This is so stupid,” he mutters to himself. It is stupid, very much so, but, he has to admit, damn cathartic, too. He flicks his eyes back to the imitation Steve one last time, “Alright, well, thanks, Steve. See ya ‘round soon.”
“I’m not putting him on a psychiatric hold,” Dr. Raynor greets Sam when he returns, before even a hello. He is so thankful to her for that, “He’s, in my opinion, not actively suicidal. What he needs now is to be in his own home. And, you two need to talk. That is my professional recommendation.”
“Thank you,” Sam says from deep in his chest, hearty and emotional. Dr. Raynor gives him the slightest hint of a smile, “and, also, in your professional opinion, do you think he will . . . actually talk to me about what he’s going through?”
Dr. Raynor gives him a knowing tilt of her head.
“I think he’s definitely willing, if what he’s told me is to be believed. But, right now, he’s probably asleep. He was near passing out when I left the room.”
Sam nods. He looks at her again and is actually overwhelmed by how grateful he is to her.
“Can I give you a hug?” he asks. Dr. Raynor’s eyes go wide and a small spurt of laughter comes out of her.
“I’m not overly fond of the practice, but I’ll allow it.”
Sam hugs her. He’s restrained, because he’s not going to bear hug a woman that is barely his acquaintance, but he feels their shared care for Bucky does allow for a certain level of intimacy.
“Alright. I’m gonna go sit with him. Thanks again, Doc!” Sam calls, already heading down the hall before he’s done speaking. Dr. Raynor gives him a small wave goodbye.
Bucky is dead asleep when Sam gets to him, overworked face ground into a stiff-looking pillow and brows furrowed even in sleep. Sam rubs at the stressed skin until it relaxes and then sighs his head down onto the bed.
“Steve says hi,” he murmurs. He slips his hand into Bucky’s remaining one and watches the rise and fall of his chest.
The hospital keeps Bucky for overnight observation, which is annoying but still better than seventy-two hours apart. Bucky sleeps for the rest of his stay and Sam does, too, eventually, with the top half of his body bent over onto Bucky’s bed.
The first thing Bucky does upon his release is rush to Sam’s car, snap his arm back on, and whir it around violently.
“What exactly does that do?” Sam asks out of actual curiosity. Bucky shrugs and does another small rotation before he settles into the passenger seat.
“It’s an old habit.”
It makes Sam chuckle, despite the weight of all that sits on him right now, and it actually feels okay to laugh. Which makes no sense, because he was just at one of the lowest points of his life; he almost lost Bucky and he should not be laughing. And they are still low, yes, but for the first time in a long time, it feels like they’ve managed to take a step or two up.
“I am officially ready to talk about what happened,” Bucky announces, meekly and with his eyes shut, as he slumps down on the couch. Sam keeps quiet, smiles lightly, and rests his hand on top of Bucky’s. Bucky takes in a large gulp of breath, holds it, and blows it out before he speaks.
“It’s really hard not to blame myself.”
Sam wants to tell Bucky again that it’s not his fault. The words are practically jumping out of his throat. He holds himself back, though, because he’s finally realized that’s not what Bucky needs to hear. He simply nods.
“It felt like I had this one thing I could do that was good. I could take care of myself and eat all the right foods and shit so that the baby would be okay. That was my one job, to get them into this world healthy, and then I could say I did something that made up for at least some of the bad. When I . . . I lost them, I had fucked up that job and I knew that I-I wasn’t good, because I couldn’t . . . my body couldn’t . . .” Bucky stops, tears falling onto his knees. Sam scoots over and pulls him onto his chest.
“Hey, you can slow down if you need to. Take your time. I’m here.”
“God, I fucking hate HYDRA,” Bucky hisses, minutes later. Sam clutches onto him tighter.
“Right there with you,” he says slowly against Bucky’s scalp. Bucky moves to sit forward and Sam releases his hold. His hands go raking through his too long hair and he grimaces, hot breath pumping out of him.
“Even after they’re gone, they still take and take and take from me. I hate them for fucking up my body so bad it couldn’t take care of our kid. I hate them for all the guys they let knock me up and damage me. I hate them for putting the fucking baby-making parts in me in the first place and letting me hope that I-that we could have-” a choke of a sob cuts off Bucky’s rant. His head tumbles down into his open palms and he trembles against them. He shivers when Sam runs a hand down his spine, but doesn’t tell him to stop.
“I need to . . . not talk for a while,” Bucky mutters, “can you go instead?”
Sam’s hand freezes on Bucky’s back and stumbles a ‘yeah’ back. He wants this, he reminds himself, to be able to let any of what he’s been holding in out, but actually doing it is terrifying. He gulps and chooses his first words carefully.
“I, um, I still think about being a dad to them. Pretty much all the time. They . . .” he pauses, the image of his lost daughter filling up his head, and it feels too much to say. But, he supposes, this is what this conversation is about, saying what has been too much for too long, “they were a girl in my head. That’s what I picture when I think about it. Our little girl.”
“That’s lovely,” Bucky says in a hush, a gentle significance to his tone. His tears have slowed to a near halt, so Sam goes on in this vein.
“She would have had the best hair, and she would have smiled like you but talked like me. And I bet you would’ve tried to get her to like forties music so you’d have someone to listen to Glenn Miller with you.”
Bucky laughs wetly as his head rises up. He looks at Sam, not hiding his wobbling lip or red, puffed eyes. It makes Sam well up.
“Yeah, I think I would’ve. It would have annoyed the shit out of you, huh?” Bucky smiles, sad but there.
“Oh, well, I would’ve gotten you back and taught her all the internet slang you don’t know,” Sam replies. Bucky shakes his head and rams his shoulder against Sam’s.
“I know what a me-me is, Samuel,” he simmers. Sam huffs and takes a second to pat under his dripping eyes.
“It’s pronounced meme, you old fart.”
They stare at each other with raised brows before Bucky chuckles first. They laugh, and then they cry, and then Bucky sobs, Sam holds him, and they laugh some more, and then they cry while they laugh. For all of it, Sam is so, so, indescribably, immeasurably happy that Bucky is here, alive, to do it.
“I think I’m always going to hurt, a little,” Bucky confesses, quietly, one leg over Sam’s lap and a few fingers pressed against his collar bone, “Losing them, in my body, feels like a pain that always stays.”
“I know. Losing someone, it never really stops feeling awful. But, you know, it means you remember them, too,” Sam says, playing with the strands of hair that hang at the nape of Bucky’s neck.
“I want to remember them, Sam, please. Don’t let me forget, God, I need to remember every-”
“You will. I-I’m gonna keep her with me forever, I promise you that,” Sam whispers, and is hit with another bout of tears. He has to help them keep her, in any way he can, It is crucial. He has to tell Bucky everything he already kept, “I-God, Bucky, I should have told you this but I still have the ultrasound picture, and-and all the photos of your bump on my phone. I hope that’s okay. I couldn’t . . . I can’t let them go.”
Bucky takes in a breath and lets it fill his chest for a long moment, staring ahead. Sam is buzzing with nerves and already grieving the loss of their one moment of connection, but Bucky releases his breath in a slow stream and turns to Sam with a calmness over him.
“I’d like to look at both of those things sometime. Not tonight, or maybe for a while. One day, though,” Bucky says. Sam’s mouth slips open, slowly becoming a smile as he hums ‘of course’ Bucky’s way. One day is a beautiful day to imagine.
They wrap up in each other in bed that night, in a way that they haven’t maybe ever, and exchange small, barely there kisses back and forth.
“Can I talk to Sarah about today?” Sam asks. Bucky’s fingers tap against Sam’s chest for a second before he answers.
“Yeah,” he says with a certain, stoic face, “I don’t want to hide all my shit from family anymore.”
Sam practically combusts with warmth. They are family. Even with what they’ve lost, they are still family. And that is about the best thought Sam has had in over a month.
When his phone dings with a message from Maria Hill at five in the morning about some mysterious character of possibly non-human origins they need his help with, family is what Sam is still thinking about. So, he puts Hill on the back-burner for a minute and finally texts Sarah back.
Hi. Sorry I’m the worst brother. Will explain everything ASAP, but, was wondering if Buck and I could come stay with you for a possibly extended amount of time? We need a break