Chapter 6
“How the hell did you get two damn months off?” Bucky asks, when Sam first proposes their trip to Delacroix.
“I didn’t have to get any time off. I’m freelance. If I want to take my man back home for two months, I can do that without anybody’s permission,” Sam tells him, which is mostly true. He is technically not working for any specific party, despite what Fury and Hill or the US government would like to believe, and basically makes his own schedule. So, while he did have to send Torres over detailed reports of every case he’s got ongoing and email Hill a politely worded but persistent ‘leave me alone for the time being’ message, yes, he can take time off when he wants. Bucky rolls his eyes and mouths an elongated ‘okay’. Sam smiles back at him.
“So, you wanna go?”
“Yeah, I guess,” Bucky mutters, a grin creeping up on his features.
They’re on a plane to Louis Armstrong International two days later.
Sarah comes by herself to pick them up, the boys in the middle of their school day, and finds them in baggage claim with a smile pushing up into her cheeks.
“Hey, Sar-” Bucky is promptly cut off by Sarah slamming him with a hug, tight and unrelenting enough to press a puff of air out of his chest. She knows all the details of what they’ve been through now, after a phone call while Bucky was with Dr. Raynor, where Sam had managed to lay it out and both him and Sarah had cried.
She pulls back, clapping her hands down onto Bucky’s shoulders as she tilts soft eyes to Sam.
“Good to see you two. Been too long,” Sarah says. One of her hands falls to her side, but the other stays on Bucky’s shoulder and gives it a firm squeeze, “Specially you.”
Bucky flushes as his mouth pulls up into something between touched and embarrassed.
“Thanks,” he mumbles. Sarah sighs and takes the hand away, a gentle, unsaid care in her expression, before she’s turning to Sam and telling him exactly what chores he’ll be doing to cover his stay. Sam laughs and lets her walk them out to her car, Bucky a silent presence a few feet behind them. It’s hard for him to have anyone know enough about his problems to care for him, as Sam has learned from experience. But, Bucky knows, Sam is mostly sure, that he needs this; people like Sarah. They both do. It’s just a little complicated.
The first week of the stay is the hardest part. It’s made of reminders, constant and aggressive, of what Bucky and Sam don’t have. In all he sees; Cass calling out for Sarah’s help with his homework, AJ curling close under her arm when they watch movies after dinner, Sarah waking each of them up every morning with packed lunches and zipping up backpacks, Sam can’t help but picture how him and Bucky could have done it, too. Neither of them talk much about it as Bucky’s teasing is present but reserved with the boys and Sam buries himself in busy work around the house, but they both feel it; the tug of what could have been. It tightens its hold when Sarah’s neighbor comes by, a baby just barely six months sitting on her hip, and asks to borrow their toolbox. She stands in the doorway, right where Bucky can see her. He’s up the stairs and in Sam’s room before Sam can even leave the kitchen.
Bucky shakes as Sam holds him, mumbling the words ‘I can’t’ on a loop that becomes more whispered with each repetition. Sam kisses his scalp and tells him he knows. The first week is hard.
“Will we be seeing our favorite white boy today?” Sarah asks on mornings when Sam comes down haggard and Bucky-less to breakfast. The nightmares don’t come every night, and they come aggressively intense less often. But, some nights, in the muggy dark of Sam’s childhood bedroom, Bucky wakes up sobbing and unreachable and can say nothing but ‘i’m sorry’ for hours. Mornings after that tend to mean no breakfast. So, Sam will shrug to Sarah’s question and sigh a broken sound.
“That’s okay,” she reassures as she slides him a cup of coffee, heavy on the cream. Sam sips it, closes his eyes, and listens to her buzzing around him with things to be done, hoping Bucky will make it out of bed by lunch.
He spends those days running around the property until his lungs burn and cursing himself for ever thinking this would help. He questions how he thought that dropping him and Bucky in amongst family and children and the life they had thought they would be having would make things better instead of pushing them both back down into their pit of awfulness. But, when Bucky makes it down for dinner, without fail, to sit next to Cass and listen to him talk about school, Sam forgets those worries. The first week is hard, but things get better every day.
Sam rises up early on the ninth day of their visit to ru , around six, after what he thought was one of their better days. Bucky had managed breakfast, lunch, dinner, and more, cleaning dishes with Sarah and watching the entirety of the new Disney flick the boys are into with Cass and AJ flanking either side of him. Which is why waking up with no Bucky in sight feels both surprising and alarming. Yanking himself into running shorts and whatever shirt he had tossed on the floor most recently, he bolts down the stairs two steps at a time.
Sarah’s down there when he reaches the bottom with her half-awake eyes and a cup of coffee held just under her nose. The boys should be up in the next half hour, blinking back sleep as they spoon cereal into their mouths, and Sam would damn well like to find Bucky by then.
“Hey, have you seen-” Sam starts, edging on frantic.
“He came down a little while ago and went out to the end of the pier,” Sarah hums back and takes a sip, sighing.
“Did he seem okay?” Sam asks. Sarah smiles, tired and sympathetic, and gives him a small nod.
“He said good morning, asked if I wanted help getting breakfast ready, did his whole gentleman act. Seemed alright.”
“Good. That’s good,” Sam mutters as some of his anxiety fades, “I’m gonna-”
“Yeah, I know what you gotta do,” Sarah says, already shooing him off. Sam shakes his head at her. He’s well aware his protectiveness has gone past what is necessary, but he sort of can’t help it.
Bucky sits at the end of the wooden pier that stretches off from Sarah’s yard. Sam can see the small speck of him from the doorway, back hunched and legs swung over the edge. Safe, fine, maybe even peaceful. Sam takes wide steps to him, which Bucky seems to notice once he’s halfway down. With a twitch of his arm, he tosses something abruptly into the water in front of him. Sam quirks a brow as Bucky turns to him.
“Morning,” Bucky jolts.
“The people that own this pier don’t take kindly to littering,” Sam says with a grin, stepping into Bucky’s space. Hit with the scent of dirty-sweet tobacco, it becomes abundantly clear what Bucky had just thrown off the pier, “Oh. Well, that’s not exactly the healthiest breakfast.”
“Sorry, shit, I know it’s-”
“A pretty nasty habit,” Sam finishes for Bucky. It’s also a hard habit to quit, especially for someone thrust forward from a time when cigarettes were pushed by magazines and doctors alike. The only reason Bucky ever stopped was Sam’s no smoking policy for his apartment. Though, it’s early, Bucky’s had a rough week, a rough month, and this is not their apartment. So, Sam shrugs, sits down next to Bucky, and decides they should both be allowed indulgences. It’s not like it’ll hurt him; his lungs are probably super-serumly protected like the rest of him, “but, go ahead. At least you took it outside. Sarah hates smokers.”
Bucky looks over at Sam with wide, uncertain eyes, something to his expression that asks ‘are you sure?’ Sam nods and Bucky cautiously lifts his thigh, revealing a slightly compressed box of Malabros. He slips one out, cups his hand to light it against the wind, and blows his drag out up and away from Sam.
“Why does Sarah hate smokers?”
“Had an ex-boyfriend who was on a pack a day routine with Camels. Mickey, or Ricky, or somethin’. He was a real dick. I almost had to beat him up like, five times,” Sam explains. Bucky chuckles and smoke spills from him with it.
“Knowing you, I’m sure you wanted to beat up all her boyfriends just for existing,” he says, tossing Sam over a lazy smirk. Sam rolls his eyes.
“Well. Maybe.”
“I know I shouldn’t be doing this,” Bucky sighs. He stares at the cigarette as he clutches it out in front of him between his thumb and forefinger and Sam does, too, watching how the end sizzles in wait, “It just . . . it doesn’t even affect me, really, anymore, but it still relaxes me to do it. Having the whole process of it to focus on sort of distracts when my mind’s going too fast.”
“Is your mind going too fast?” Sam checks, searching Bucky for whatever he’s got spinning in his head. His brow scrunches up as he puts the cigarette back up to his lips and sucks down, saying nothing. Sam waits, taking deep breaths full of salt, earth, and smoke.
“Stark. He had a kid, right?” Bucky mumbles at his knees.
“Yeah. Morgan,” Sam supplies.
“Is she, um. She’s good, yeah? Someone taking care of her?” Bucky asks. Sam nods. According to what he’s heard from Rhodey, Morgan’s doing great, all things considered, and just about ready to finish first grade. He asks about her sometimes, when they talk, about her, and Pepper, and even Peter, who Rhodey shakes his head over when he does. It’s Sam’s own, odd way of doing right by Tony, who, despite all their shit, he is forever thankful to.
“Yeah. Pepper’s great with her. Pepper, she’s Tony’s-”
“I know. Yeah,” Bucky says. He’s grinding his thumb rough against the divot of his chin and drawing down smoke deep and intense. The weight of whatever he’s trying to say is heavy enough Sam feels like he can see it. Bucky lets all the smoke he’s holding in syphon out a small opening at the corner of his mouth and frowns, “I worry about everyone’s kids now. It’s so stupid, because it’s not like I was ever a . . . But, I don’t know. That’s a new thing for me. Being concerned for the children of our super-friends.”
“I think that’s sweet,” Sam says, even if it makes Bucky snort and roll his eyes, “No, really, I do.”
It’s an endearing confession, and comforting, too, because Sam has felt the same way since Bucky had gotten pregnant. Before that, too. That’s why he’d done pararescue, why he’d worked in therapy after; everybody’s somebody’s kid, and they all deserve to be cared about because of that. It’s only grown after their almost-parenthood.
“Yeah, it’s really sweet that I’m over here fretting over the spawn of that little insect fucker, Scott. Not to mention Clint’s whole brood,” Bucky spits, though Sam can feel a hint of warmth and the drops of yearning when talks about the various kids of their former teammates.
“Cassie. That’s Scott’s daughter,” Sam provides, because he knows all this well. He keeps up on these people, his ‘super-friends’, as Bucky called them, with tiny check-ins when he can, though he’s not sure why. A comfort of familiarity amongst so much new, he guesses. Cassie’s recently been offered a full ride to UCLA’s engineering program, “And Clint needs a damn brood. He’s got fifteen acres and cows.”
“I’m not judging! If anything, a brood sounds nice,” Bucky counters back, laughing. It’s a rough, unstable laugh, one meant to hide. It tugs at Sam’s insides and makes him want to scream out that, if Bucky wants it, he’ll give him a brood. He’ll give bushels of kids running under foot, with the white picket fence and school lunches to be packed. God, he’d do anything to give Bucky that. He almost says this outloud, getting dangerously close, words sitting heavy on his tongue, but he can’t let them out. It’s still too soon. Sometimes it feels like it will always be too soon to think of any family but the one they almost had. He lets the moment pass as Bucky stands, flicks the last bits of dying ash off his cigarette, and runs his fingers through greasy strands of hair.
“I’m thinking I need a trim. Do you know any barbers around here?” Bucky asks, his cocky grin thoroughly plastered back on. Sam sighs as he pushes himself up and claps a hand to Bucky’s back.
“Yes. Jesus, finally. You’ve been lookin’ downright mangy,” Sam taunts. Bucky kicks at him, nose scrunched.
“Shut up.”
Sam wraps an arm around Bucky’s shoulders, even as he struggles against it half-heartedly, and leads him back to the house, trying to be grateful for the small victory of Bucky wanting to cut his hair rather than getting stuck on the words he didn’t say.
Old Louie’s barber shop is filled with the same charged chatter it was when Sam was sixteen, even if the patrons have changed, the type of sound that wraps itself around them as soon as he and Bucky push in through the door, bell jingling above them.
“Well, hell if it ain’t Captain America in my daddy’s shop!” is the first thing Sam can make out from the onslaught of noise. It’s Will, Louie’s son and near owner of the shop now that Louie himself is in his late seventies. He takes hold of Sam’s hand and slams their chests together, “How long you been in town?”
“Round a week,” Sam says, to which Will tosses his hands out angrily, “Sorry, sorry, I know. Should’ve come by sooner.”
“Ah, you here now. It’s all good. You need a touch up or something? Ramone’s got a chair open.”
“No, not for me,” Sam turns around to Bucky, who lingers just behind him, hands clasped at his waist like he’s about to be yelled at. Sam chuckles and yanks him forward, “My buddy, Bucky, needs the works. Trim, shave, powerwashin’, maybe.”
“Hey, c’mon,” Bucky mutters, a nervous attempt at a smile on his face as Will laughs.
“We’ll get him set up,” Will assures. He extends his hand to Bucky, “Nice to meet you, by the way. I’m Will. Sammy-boy and I went through school together.”
Will’s eyes turn to Sam, patting between his shoulders a little too affectionately, which Bucky catches with a quirk of his brow. Will also happens to be the first guy Sam ever kissed, under the bleachers and after track practice during his senior year, but Bucky doesn’t need to know that, so Sam hurries introductions with a jittery smile.
“Alright, so, Imma take him over to Ramone. That’s good? Yeah? Yeah, okay, thanks, Will,” Sam rushes, nudging Bucky to the chair in the back left while Will delivers him a knowing grin and crossed arms.
“Uh-huh. Good to see you, Sammy.”
When Bucky, as Ramone goes to get his razor and clippers, mentions that Will sure calls him ‘Sammy’ an awful lot, Sam laughs in a way that he’s sure is telling. Bucky rolls his eyes.
Will, who has always had a knack at catching onto situations pretty quickly, cools on the ‘Sammy’s and the touching as he sits with them through Bucky’s haircut. He’s still embarrassing Sam half to death with the worst stories, ones Sam’s forbidden even Sarah to tell Bucky about. But, Bucky is grinning so bright and Sam will take the mortification for that.
“And after Missy had told everybody, Sam could not get a girl to even look at him for the rest of middle school, I swear,” Will says, finishing up the horrendous tale of Sam’s first trip to second base, which unfortunately involves its fair share of bra clasp mishandling and public humiliation. Bucky’s eyes flick from Will to Sam, a taunt in his raised brow. Sam huffs at him.
“You almost done with him, Ramone? I wanna try to escape here with my final scraps of dignity.”
Ramone rolls his eyes towards Sam as he completes the last sweep of the razor down Bucky’s jaw.
“I’m finishing up, yeah, but I think Will’s got your dignity pretty well and good destroyed.”
“I’d agree with that assessment, Ramone,” Bucky says, flashing his teeth at Sam, and then all three of them are laughing at his expense. Sam groans, for show, but if Bucky keeps laughing like that, so full and real the way Sam began to worry he’d never hear again, it will be hard to do anything but smile.
Ramone wipes a wet towel across Bucky’s face and combs up his hair once more before he pulls the black cape from around his neck and steps back.
“Oh, wow,” Bucky says in a hush as he leans forward to examine himself in the mirror. His hand runs gently along his hairline, down to his clean-shaven chin, and back up to circle around an ear. A small wave of relief and pleasure seems to hit him as he stares at the reflection, one Sam can spot as it happens in himself. With the excess hair and beard, the one that had been grown and nurtured in their sorrow and depression, fed on by Bucky’s apathy for life after their loss, now finally gone, a lot more than the hair itself has been shaved off. Maybe that’s why neither Sam or Bucky can stop staring.
Sam tips generously for the cut, which Will makes a show of refusing until Louie stumbles out from the back and yells at him to ‘take the Captain’s money, boy’, and thanks both him and Ramone, for more than they could ever know.
Running his fingers through his short, fresh hair as they walk out, Bucky turns his bemused grin onto Sam. Sam eyes him right back.
“What?”
“You and that Will guy totally used to hook up,” Bucky gleams. Blood rushes too fast to Sam’s head.
“No, we didn’t. That’s-you’re being-I don’t know what the hell you're thinking, but-” Bucky stops in the middle of the sidewalk and trains narrowed eyes on Sam, which puts a stop to his word drabble, “Okay, I . . . sort of, yeah. I was trying to be subtle ‘bout it!”
“Oh, sweetheart,” Bucky says, moving close enough to Sam to make his skin go hot, “I was queer in the forties. I can read subtle. Trust me.”
“Are you upset?” Sam asks and Bucky chuckles, walking ahead.
“That you were with another guy in high school? Sam, c’mon, no. God, you’re ridiculous.”
Sam lingers, watching Bucky walk, watching the way he keeps playing with his new hair, watching the swing to his hips, and remembers that they used to be this happy. He remembers they can get there again. He rushes up to keep pace with Bucky and takes hold of his hand.
“And you look hot when you don’t have the hair of a wet rat,” he says, to rile Bucky enough to kiss him. He gets his wish, even if it’s beyond chaste and lasts less than a second, because Bucky still gets nervous kissing in public. As he pulls away, Sam touches the neat, buzzed hair at the nape of his neck; clean, defined, a new start.
Bucky, with his nice hair and smooth face, spends that evening teaching the Wilson siblings how to swing dance.
“Good!” he praises as he spins Sarah out across the section of the living room floor that has been cleared of its furniture, his feet performing insanely fast and intricate movements. He’s got In The Mood by Glenn Miller playing out of Sam’s speaker and is flushed with either joy or exercetion, “Alright, now, when I step like this, kick your leg up for me.”
“Excuse me?” Sarah says, halting with questioning eyes.
“What are you making my mom do?” Cass squawks from where he watches on the couch. Bucky laughs and tosses his hands up in defeat.
“Okay, it’s a no on the leg kick. I get it. Let’s get back to the coaster step we’d got goin’,” Bucky concedes. His hands come back to holding Sarah and he eases them into the move; Bucky’s right foot forward, Sarah’s back, followed by a spin, and then it starts again. It’s a little hypnotizing for Sam to watch. Bucky’s confidence in each footfall and turn is captivating by itself, but it’s the warmth underneath his cheeks and the comfort with which he holds Sarah and guides her along, the comfort of family, that really gets Sam. Bucky’s gaze wanders over to Sam and he smirks at his transfixed expression. Sam huffs and turns away.
“I hope you’re catching on, Samuel. I expect you to have Sarah’s part ready to go tomorrow.”
“Why do you assume you’re gonna be leading, huh?” Sam fires back. Bucky glints a grin at him, flirtatious and smug, and Sam feels he’s seeing a Bucky he’s never known, the one from Steve’s old stories, who could say hi to a girl and get a date in the same breath, too cocksure for his own good, rambunctious as sin. It’s a goddamn wonder to witness.
“Sugar, I always lead,” Bucky tells him with a wink. Sam tilts his head away with an aggravated click of his tongue. Bucky’s damn lucky they’re surrounded by his immediate family, or else Sam would be pouncing on him where he stands. And, for the first time in a while, Sam even thinks Bucky could pounce right back.
They fall into comfortable routines as they near the end of their first month of the visit. There’s usually a sink that’s leaking or a chair with a wobbly leg that needs fixing for Sam to work on and use to make up for being a burden on Sarah. The boys are in their last days of school, so there’s a lot of projects and final assignments that Sam and Bucky can help with; Sam takes math and science, Bucky takes history and english. In the days, bright and lazy and endless, while Sarah works, the boys are at school, and Sam tinkers, Bucky’s taken to sneaking cigarettes and reading The Lord of the Rings in a lounge chair on the front porch. He’s around halfway through The Two Towers when they find themselves firmly situated in June, reading from lunch through till when Sarah asks him to set the table for dinner most days.
“Look, boys,” Sam gestures to Bucky on a blistering evening as he, Cass, and AJ come to retrieve Bucky from his book. Bucky has quite the set up going; a standing fan on his left, cord hanging out an open window, a battery operated one on his right that’s set to high and blasted at his chest, and a paper plate with which he fans his face. The hot flashes have remained long after the hormones and the pregnancy have gone, probably a permanent facet of Bucky at this point. Sam finds it adorably humanizing even if it frustrates Bucky to no end, “the prince sits on his throne.”
Bucky drops his open book onto his chest and tosses his head up to look at Sam before he serves him a particularly direct middle finger. After which, he looks at Cass and AJ and immediately lowers it, a terrified expression crossing his face as he pulls off his sunglasses and very quickly loses all his gumption.
“Oh shi-shoot. Please don’t tell your mom I flipped you off.”
Cass and AJ exchange a look full of giggles and run off, already yelling for Sarah. Bucky groans as he throws his head back and Sam takes up the lounger next to him.
“Fuckin’ hell,” Bucky mutters, his eyes lingering on the doorway.
“Ah, don’t worry. You know Sarah won’t get mad at you. She never gets mad at you,” Sam reassures. Bucky stares at the door for another second. After Sarah doesn’t come running out to whoop Bucky’s ass, he knocks his sunglasses back down.
“That’s because I’m a gentleman and don’t give her reasons to be mad at me,” he says as he sighs back against his chair, “Dinner ready?”
“Almost. But you can probably get a few more pages in,” Sam says. Bucky nods, lifting the book up and narrowing his eyes at it. His face goes serious and determined as he reads, his bottom lip held between his teeth. Sam loves him desperately. Leaning forward, he presses a kiss to Bucky’s slightly damp forehead and lingers, skin against skin.
“I wanna talk to you about somethin’,'' Bucky mumbles. Sam pulls back an inch and gives a quick ‘yeah’, hairs twitching up at the back of his neck. Bucky dog-ears the page he’s on and sets his book on his thighs, which Sam is sure is indicative of something serious. It’s a long moment of Bucky clenching and unclenching his fingers around the arms of his chair before he speaks, not looking at Sam.
“So, Sarah was telling me last night about this lady she knows, a mom of one of AJ’s friends, and she-she, uh, had a . . . miscarriage, too. And it helped her, I guess, to give the kid a name. So I was thinking, if you wanted to . . . I don’t know, it’s probably dumb, but, maybe it could be good to-”
“Yes,” Sam spurts, letting too much of everything he’s feeling come out with his words and startling Bucky into silence. But, holy God, yes, does Sam want that. He wants so badly to give the image in his mind-formed, full, and unforgettable-a name. It’s the answer to the question that’s been in his subconscious for this whole thing; how do they grieve who they couldn’t even meet, couldn’t snuggle close to them and whisper their love to. A name, that small but powerful significance of having something to tie to all his swirling thoughts, feels like the way to pay respects he’s been searching for. Sam smiles, shaky, “sorry, yeah, that’d be-Bucky, shit, that would be fucking amazing.”
Bucky’s cheeks go red and he blinks harsh and fast, though Sam can see the wetness he tries to hide clinging to his lashes. He wraps his palm around his chin, taking in a long, deep breath.
“I don’t have anything specific picked out yet. Just an idea,” Bucky mumbles, shyly. Sam clasps each of Bucky’s hands in his own and kisses them each, flesh then metal, with the same fierce devotion.
“We can think about it. We’re gonna find something perfect. I know it,” Sam says in a hush. Bucky nods, before he sighs his hands away and wipes vehemently at any possible signs of tears, standing.
“Let’s see if Sarah needs any help,” he insists, tucking away the moment and pushing on in a way Sam wishes he wouldn’t. Sam pulls himself up with Bucky’s arm as leverage and pulls close to whisper to him.
“I love you so much.” And he really does. He probably always will, probably did before he even knew, probably does even more than ever now. Bucky gives him that beautiful, side leaning smile and kisses him so slow.
The next morning, Sam is woken up by a surprising cold pressed to his forehead in the midst of his overly warm room. Slowly easing his eyes open, he finds it to be Bucky’s vibranium fingers brushing at his hairline. He squints, since when in the hell is Bucky up before him?
“Why are you-”
“Cass and AJ asked last night if I’d drive them to school cause it’s their last day. Sarah and I are gonna make cookies for their classes before we go,” Bucky informs. Sam releases a long ‘hmm’ sound, vaguely remembering Bucky mentioning this last night and still in the fog of half-awakeness. Suddenly upset, he scowls.
“Why didn’t they ask me?” he huffs and Bucky has the audacity to laugh in his face.
“Cause I’m way cooler than you. Go back to sleep.”
“Fuck the hell off, Barnes,” Sam groans, and falls right back asleep. He wakes up an hour or two later with the first stirrings of a plan.
“Are you working from home today?” Sam asks Sarah over oatmeal and coffee. She nods at him, brow quirked, “Okay, cool. Can I have the car for the day?”
“What you need the car for?” Sarah fires right back, as easy to a fight with him as she was when they were kids. Sam presses his palms against the bar counter he eats at and smirks, ready to play.
“Taking Bucky out. Why you care so much?”
“Cause it’s my car. And I’m gonna need to know where exactly you’re taking him out to, for the whole day, in my car,” Sarah says with her stare set in a way just like their momma’s that makes Sam’s back go rigid on instinct alone. He shakes his head and shrugs.
“New Orleans, okay? He’s never been and I thought it’d be nice,” he tells her, “Is that gonna be good with you?”
“Well,” Sarah starts, resting back against a counter and taking a long sip from her mug. Her smile is pleased as punch as she takes it away, “Only if you’re planning on taking him to Pascal’s for dinner. And, you get him the crab cakes.”
“Sarah. Obviously I’m taking him to Pascal’s. I know how to romance someone,” Sam snarks. Sarah eyes him, probably compiling a list of all the times in his adolescence he most certainly did not know how to romance someone, but she luckily keeps it to herself.
“Okay. You can have the car. I need it back tomorrow morning, though,” Sarah states and Sam grins his thanks. She sets her mug down and moves to stand behind him, resting her chin on one of his shoulders, “He’s been looking better, Sam. Every day, he’s looking a little happier.”
“I know,” Sam says, grabs onto her hand hanging by his side, and squeezes tight.
“You are, too,” Sarah whispers. Sam lets his eyes shut for a moment, smelling the air and taking comfort in the well-known weight of Sarah against his back. Opening them, he says, again,
“I know.”
He’s making calls until Bucky gets home from dropping the boys off. He even pulls rank with Pascal’s to get them a table on such short notice, something he is absolutely fine to use his ‘Cap’ status for. By the time the car is pulling up across the grass and Bucky is coming through the door, hanging up Sarah’s keys, Sam’s got the whole day planned.
“Put on your sexy clothes. I’m takin’ you out,” Sam tells Bucky, hands firm on either side of his hips. Bucky snorts and screws up his face at him.
“Sexy clothes?”
“I said what I said,” Sam states, to which Bucky mutters a quiet ‘oh my God’ and pushes him off.
“Well, Jesus, Sam, give me a minute, then. I have to go figure out which of my clothes are the sexy ones. Shit,” Bucky laughs as he takes the first step of the stairs. Stopping on the third step, he turns and catches Sam with a kiss, a little hot for eight in the morning, but Sam’s not complaining, “I’ll try my best.”
Bucky ends up in jeans that may be a size too small and a worn leather jacket, which, by Sam’s estimates, are certainly his sexy clothes.
Sam presents Bucky with a day of what he hopes balances tourist attractions and local favorites; beignets at Cafe du Monde, which bring a ‘holy shit’ spilling from Bucky’s lips the second after his first bite, a streetcar through Uptown, art and music up and down Jackson Square. Sam gets spotted and stopped way more often than he’d like for the entirety, though Bucky just laughs and holds the phone for pictures when it’s handed to him.
They end up at the best table in the place, candle lit and private, when they get to Pascal’s Manale, a table Sam had assured through promising a signed photo post-haste for their celebrity picture wall. As soon as he can flag a waiter, he places an order for the crab cakes and the most expensive bottle of wine he can find on the menu.
“If you’re trying to get me drunk, Wilson, I’m sorry to say your efforts are in vain,” Bucky says after his eyes go wide at the price tag their waiter gives them. Sam smirks.
“Oh, no, see, you misunderstood. I’m tryin’ to get myself drunk,” he informs with a wink, “but fancy drunk. Fine dining drunk.”
“You’re ridiculous,” Bucky says with a shake of his head as he opens the menu. Sam pushes it back down.
“Nuh-uh. I’m ordering for you. We are getting the gumbo, the barbeque shrimp, and the chicken bordelaise. Creamed spinach and fried eggplant on the side. No fighting me on that.”
Bucky’s mouth starts to open, Sam can practically see the quip waiting on his tongue, but nothing comes of it as his eyes lock on something over Sam’s head, a very slight, barely noticeable tremble to his lip. Sam forgets all manners and whips his head unabashedly to look. It’s obvious immediately what Bucky’s stuck on.
Being sat at the table diagonal from them is a pregnant woman. Actually, not just pregnant, but extremely pregnant. She looks like she could pop out the baby if she sneezed hard enough, that’s how pregnant she is, as she holds the underside of her rotund stomach and her husband comes alongside her to help her sit, supporting her back.
It feels obscene, even if it's not at all. It’s perfectly normal for a pregnant person and their beaming partner to get a nice meal before they become parents. Maybe it’s just all they’ve been through that’s making Sam feel like the couple shouldn’t be allowed to be out in public while this aggressively happy.
He wonders, not for the first time, if it’s better that something went wrong for Bucky earlier on rather than as far along as this woman is. He can’t bear to think how much more the loss could have stung and compounded if they’d had a nearly full nine months of anticipation. At the same time, though, a part of Sam wishes Bucky could have gotten this far. Or, at least, far enough to feel a kick, or know the gender, or have his bump stretch further out so that Sam could have held it heartily in both hands. More time with them. That’s what he wants. Even if it hurts, he would do anything for just a bit more time with them.
Sam’s already making a plan when he turns back around to Bucky. He’s figuring out if he can sneak them both out before the wine even arrives, the fastest driving route home, the damage control he can do to let this not destroy their progress. But, Bucky, always ready to surprise him, shakes the shock off his face and puts on a smile.
“Sorry, you were saying you wanted the gumbo?” he says, too brightly, too fast.
“Buck,” Sam eases, his brows in worried knots.
“I’m fine,” Bucky shoots back, hands tight on the table. If they weren’t in a crowded restaurant, Sam would move right next to Bucky’s seat, grab those tight hands, and make Bucky actually talk to him. But, they’re in public, and he won’t make a scene. Bucky gulps, lifting a hand to scratch at his neck as he looks at the ground, “so, is that gumbo, uh, spicy or something, cause I’m not good with-”
“God, you fuckin’ white boy. I’ll ask for mild,” Sam groans and Bucky presses out a laugh. Under the table, he works his foot between Bucky’s and taps the toe of his shoe against Bucky’s heel. Bucky returns a small clack back. He’s okay. They’re okay. Sam will settle for mild gumbo.
Dinner ends with Sam a little more wine drunk than he meant to be and a free slice of key lime pie for ‘our captain’, as the owner says, that Bucky eats most of. Sam complains, for the game of it, but seeing Bucky eat again with any joy is immensely heartening.
Bucky drives, obviously, because this is Sarah’s car and neither of them want it returned with a single scratch on it. Sam is buzzed, off the day and the wine, which is probably why he tells Bucky that they are not going home, not just yet, and directs him to a club up on St. Charles Avenue.
“I’m not much for clubbing,” Bucky tells him a touch nervously.
“You’ll like it,” Sam assures, even though he’s not entirely sure that’s true. The club he’s taking Bucky to, if it’s the same as he remembers it from his college days, is usually blaringly loud, packed, and playing music that didn’t come out eighty years ago. But, Sam has been missing the press of Bucky’s body against his own painfully and wants more than anything to be chest to chest, hip to hip, under the flashing lights. Bucky mumbles a ‘yeah, sure’ and takes the turn where Sam tells him.
The club is as intense as Sam recollects. He feels out of place, at first, because the crowd is young, as young as he was when he’d drive here with all the frat guys on weekends, and maybe this place has moved on from him. He considers leaving as he turns to where Bucky leans on the bar, awaiting their drink orders and surely more uncomfortable than Sam. When he does, though, a pink light is casting over the exposed skin on Bucky’s neck, highlighting the slight gleam of sweat and his vein pulsing, and the words out of his mouth are not a request to go home.
“Let’s dance.”
“I don’t know,” Bucky says automatically, swallowing down hard and playing with his hands, “I don’t know this music.”
“It’s okay; I do. I’ll lead you through it,” Sam rushes with absolute determination not to give up on this. Bucky’s smirk creases into his cheek.
“I lead, Wilson,” he grumbles, “but, okay.”
Sam, after they both knock back the Tequila shots he got them, takes Bucky with eager hands and even more eager words through the throng of people to an open spot on the dance floor. A Donna Summer song with a techy sounding beat is playing that Sam knows Bucky has never heard, so he starts them slow, Bucky’s hands in his as he brings their bodies a little bit closer with each breathy word of the song. It takes a whole minute to get them how Sam wants them, with his thumbs hooked into Bucky’s belt loops and hardly a gap for air between them. Sam’s half hard, already, which would be embarrassing if he couldn’t feel the twitch of Bucky’s member at his hipbone. He grinds his belt against the spot, in time with the music, and Bucky shivers, full body, from his lips to his legs. A little breathless, Sam repeats the action almost immediately, leaving them both tingling.
“Sam,” Bucky huffs from low in his throat, “Sam, people are looking at you. Are you sure you want . . . someone could take a picture, I don’t-”
Sam forces himself to look up and away from Bucky’s face. Sure enough, there are gawkers; giggly college girls and whispering men alike staring. A sense of well-known dread goosebumps up his spine for a second, dread to be caught. Not to be caught with Bucky, because their relationship has been public knowledge since a few weeks after it began; he had to have a whole press conference about it. No, it’s Sam’s unadulterated lust that makes him want to sliver away from any peeping eyes. His raw, base desire to finally have Bucky’s body again is intense and his own, not something he wants shared across every platform online. Though, with a huff, he can’t seem to be able to take his hands off Bucky’s body.
“Outside,” he grunts, firm on the matter. Bucky’s smile turns from anxious to devious in less than a second.
“Oh, fuckin’ yes.”
The first thing Sam does once they get precisely one step out the back door of the club is push Bucky flat against the brick of the alley wall and launch onto his mouth. The sound of the club’s music is a muffled presence around them, loud enough that Sam can make out vague words through the door. Fallin’ free, fallin’ free, fallin’ free the lyrics say, and Sam is. This is the exhilaration of the moment just before he spreads his wings, the seconds of unsureness, the limbo of not knowing when this high will end and not caring to know. It’s unreal to have Bucky like this again, impossible and holy at the same time it is untamed, and Sam has to keep nipping at Bucky’s lips to make sure it’s real.
“Sam, need you closer, fuck, please, just-” Bucky’s hands crawl with a delirious urgency up Sam’s back, his fingertips digging almost too deep into the thick muscle of Sam’s shoulders. But Sam won’t stop him, won’t say a single word against anything Bucky’s doing, especially not as he lurches forward, chin pressing against Sam’s collarbone and hot breath huffing out of him. Bucky drags his tongue from the hollow of Sam’s neck to right under his ear, firm and hungry. Sam shivers.
“Want you so bad,” he growls, low, and Bucky practically whines to it. Sam is so lost in the sound, combined with the heat of Bucky’s skin and the sugary scent of beignets that has stuck on them all day, that he doesn’t process at first what’s happening as Bucky drops to his knees in front of him. Exultant and foggy headed, he doesn’t stop Bucky even when he does clue in, allowing his belt to be unbuckled and yanked at without complaint. Once his zipper is undone, though, Sam finally comes back to himself and remembers they are in a literal alley, ten feet from a dumpster and exposed to both the elements and anyone who decides to leave the club out the back door.
“Bucky,” he grits. Bucky persistently doesn’t look up, instead grinding the heel of his palm over Sam’s cock through his underwear. Sam jitters, mutters a breathy curse up to the sky, and reminds himself he’s not about to have his first sexual encounter with Bucky in over two months somewhere that reeks of stale vomit. So, he repeats, “Bucky. You’re not gonna suck me off in an alley.”
“Why not?” Bucky asks, acting infuriatingly unaware as he pushes out his lips. He’s fucking pouting, and Sam doesn’t know what he did to deserve such a beautiful jackass. Sam tugs back as much as he can with Bucky holding either side of his hips.
“Cause people piss here. Probably right where you're kneeling. Stand up.”
Bucky stares up at him with heavy eyelids, and full lips he runs his tongue over, which is almost quite but, fortunately, not enough to get Sam to change his mind. With a groan, Bucky rises, gliding his hand over Sam’s stiff member as he does, slow and thorough. Sam wants to throttle him at the same time his heart swells with thankfulness and relief, rushing relief that Bucky can even be this playful.
“Fuckin’ chicken,” Bucky smirks, before he turns on his heels and yanks the keys from his back pocket, “C’mon, now. I’m gonna take you somewhere I can suck you off.”
Sam lingers, watching, for a tiny moment. The swing of Bucky’s body as he walks, the confidence in his sturdy footfalls, the proud, sort of smug way he pulls his jacket around himself, are all nourishment to Sam’s recently starved optimism. If Bucky can walk around like that again, then the world must really have the potential to be as bright as Sam sees it. Sam jogs up to Bucky, swinging an arm around his shoulders and nudging his nose into his hair.
“You better drive goddamn fast,” he murmurs, and Bucky laughs, gloriously.
Sam really doesn't know how they get home. The forty-five minute drive from New Orleans to Sarah’s house is somehow both painfully long and one blurry second, filled with the two of them grabbing hard at each other’s thighs, Bucky cursing at red lights, and laughing at nothing in particular. It’s deja vu to being a teenager when they get through the swinging screen door, Sam giggling and Bucky shushing him as they carefully step around creaky floorboards so as to not wake the whole house. And, by the time they are up the stairs and in Sam’s bedroom with the door locked, Bucky is more than ready to make good on that offer to suck him off..
Bucky’s sloppy as hell when it comes to giving head. Sam remembers when he first discovered that; coming down post mission at a sketchy looking and smelling motel in the middle of Montana, Bucky had slobbered on his dick like a fucking dog. Sam had been surprised, though, looking back, he doesn’t know why. It follows that Bucky would be as unhinged sucking cock as he is anywhere else.
Bucky leans back off Sam for a second, spit coating over his reddened lips, and Sam takes it to fall back against the desk Bucky has him cornered at and breathes.
“M’ not lettin’ you come like this.” Bucky announces, matter of fact. Sam tips his head forward and grins as he combs through Bucky’s hair.
“Oh, you’re not?”
“Nope,” Bucky tells him, a pop to the word, “We’re gonna fuck. And then, I’ll let you come.”
Bucky stands, a solid and intense presence even with ruffled up hair and messed face, and ruts his still annoyingly jean-covered dick against Sam’s raw, exposed one. He starts working Sam’s t-shirt over his head as Sam undoes his belt.
“Alright, I’m fucking you tonight, pal,” Bucky mutters as his hand slips around to knead into Sam’s ass. Sam pulls his head around so he can look Bucky in the eye.
“What? Why?” Sam asks. He’s not opposed to Bucky fucking him, really, it’s just different. Bucky has rarely topped him, outside of a handful of times when they first got together and had some unspoken challenge between the two of them to have sex as many ways as possible. Bucky stares at him blankly, blinking a few times, before an abrupt, forced laugh spits out of him.
“I kinda got the problem of getting knocked up the other way around.”
Oh. Oh God, Sam is an idiot. He takes in a shaky breath, apologies ready to flow right out of him when he releases it, because of course Bucky’s nervous, of course that’s something they have to think about now, something Sam’s always got to remember, something he has to protect Bucky from. But, Bucky isn’t freezing up like Sam. He keeps on pressing his lips across the width of Sam’s chest like nothing’s amiss.
“Calm down, hon. It’s fine. All the blood’s in your john. You forgot,” Bucky hums onto Sam’s skin. Sam relaxes to the touch and Bucky’s assurances. It’s not weird unless he makes it weird, he reminds, and he really doesn’t want to make it weird. So, he keeps undressing Bucky with wandering, grabby hands, and, when Bucky’s wide palms slide under his thighs, lets himself be lifted up onto his desk and fingered by Bucky’s lube-slicked fingers until he’s crying out.
“Jesus,” Bucky hisses, taking his metal palm up to cover Sam’s mouth, “Forgot how loud you can be. There’s other people in this house, you know?”
Sam rolls his eyes, and brings Bucky’s fingers into his mouth, sucking at them. They taste metallic as can be and Bucky can’t even feel them, but Sam’s high on his own arousal and that has always made him act like a fool. Bucky chuckles at him and lets him continue with his stupidity as he curves and scissors open inside Sam.
“You ready for me?” Bucky asks, breathy and deep, and Sam nods with a big swing of his head. Running his lubed fingers across his cock, Bucky lines himself up and eases the tip into Sam, barely. Sam whines from the pain and the need for more.
“I’m good. Give it to me, I can take it, ugh, God, I . . .” Sam begs, and he might just be remembering how much he actually loves to be fucked.
“Okay, sweetheart,” Bucky says, and thrusts himself in deeper. Sam holds in his lips not to moan ridiculously loud. Bucky smirks at him, something eager and devilish on his lips that Sam has missed more than any other part of sex, except for maybe Bucky’s cock, “Bet I can fuck you better than that Will guy.”
Sam may be woozy on pleasure, but not woozy enough to miss teasing Bucky on that.
“Oh, my God. I fucking knew it. I knew you were a jealous little shit, oh Lord,” Sam laughs as Bucky goes red.
“Yeah,” Bucky mutters, and slams himself into Sam harder than he’s expecting; a retaliation, “Well.”
“Don’t worry. No one’s fuckin’ me but you, baby boy,” Sam eases, his hand curving around to clutch into the hair at the back of Bucky’s head. It’s the first time since the miscarriage Sam’s used the ‘baby’ pet name, or any variation of it. He only catches he’s said it once it’s been out there for a few seconds. But, again, Bucky doesn’t still or pull out of Sam and back away in shock or have the complete breakdown he would have had a month ago. It’s progress; it’s changing; it’s moving on but not forgetting, Sam thinks, as Bucky pounds into him with a pleased grin on his face.
Bucky comes so hard in him that Sam still feels like it's dripping from him a shower and tooth brushing later. He’s full on wine and food and come and joy when they settle into bed; Bucky on his chest, LSU banner in his line of sight, a picture of him and Sarah at five and seven respectively on the bookshelf in the corner. And, it’s insane, if Sam really stops and thinks hard enough about it that Bucky, the ex-assassin, metal-armed, man out of time can coexist with his life so well. It makes no sense, but it works. They have always been impossible, in the best of ways.
Bucky’s shaking him awake at some insane hour, the sky outside the murky gray it becomes just before the sun rises, and Sam realizes with a jolt that his face is wet with fresh tears.
“Buck, baby, what’s-”
“I’m okay. Nothing bad,” Bucky whispers, easing Sam back to the bed after he had thrown himself up, “I just-I had this dream and, it’s-I’m thinking . . . Lada.”
Sam squints his eyes and grapples for understanding before it dawns on him like a soft wave lapping the shore. It’s a name for their little girl. He can’t help the sad, touched smile that comes across his face.
“It’s a Russian goddess. Goddess of beauty,” Bucky whispers, breath catching, and Sam can’t stand not touching him anymore. He pulls across the bed and wraps Bucky up in his arms, mumbling ‘yes’ as many times as he can between kisses.
Lada, he thinks. Lada, he says, outloud, and Bucky sniffles a smile. Lada, he etches into his very being.
The second to last night of Sam and Bucky’s extended stay at Sarah’s is AJ’s eighth birthday. They all drive up to a kid’s science museum in Marrero that’s got stuff like exhibits on dinosaurs and the water cycle and tons of interactive games that AJ adores and Cass scoffs at, in all his ten year old wisdom. Sarah and Sam work half the night on a large crawfish boil with all of AJ’s favorite sides while Bucky keeps the kids entertained through roughhousing. They eat on a paper tablecloth in the backyard that can be thrown away when it’s covered in butter and shells and the adults let Cass and AJ dominate the conversation as it turns from next year's teachers to boys they don’t like at school to video games. Bucky pipes in with the occasional comments like, ‘who are the smash brothers’ and ‘what’s a minecraft’ and the kids laugh like it's the funniest thing that they ever heard. Upon AJ’s request, the night ends with ice cream sundaes, a movie marathon, and a slumber party in the living room, no girls (meaning Sarah) allowed.
“You sure you don’t mind? I can make ‘em sleep up in their own rooms,” Sarah offers as Sam works on the sundae bar set up. He scoffs.
“Mind it? I’m loving it! I’m still glad they didn’t kick me out, too, and make it just a Bucky party,” he says as a wide smile spreads across Sarah’s face.
“Okay, if you say so. I know they’re real excited bout this,” Sarah grins, before she sighs and shakes her head, “and if they get . . . how they can get, just wake me up and I’ll tell them to knock it off.”
“I don’t know, Sarah. They were pretty serious about the ‘no girls allowed’ rule. Seems pretty risky to break that trust,” Sam smirks, faking a wince when she slaps his arm.
“Well, no complaining when they start wrestling each other and you have to break it up. Have fun with that,” Sarah tells him as she crosses behind him to the door, patting his back as she does. She stops for a moment and leans to whisper, “By the way, you seemed to be having quite the time last night. Think the gators could hear you out in the swamp.”
“Sarah, Jesus,” Sam mutters, fighting a grin.
“Lord, it was like you in high school all over again! I was bout to be like Momma and run in with a bucket of cold water to stop you two,” she continues, even as Sam dips his head low.
“Oh, God. Lina didn’t talk to me for months after that,” he cringes.
“Hopefully my boys will keep you guys from any more shenanigans tonight, is all I can say on that,” Sarah finishes, tossing her hands up as Sam buries his face in his palms.
“Goodnight,” he pushes, thoroughly over this conversation. Sarah kisses the top of his head, practically cackling as she walks off.
They watch Jurassic Park with their rapidly melting sundaes, because the museum has got AJ on a dino kick, and Sam and Bucky take the couch, Bucky with his legs stretched out and feet on Sam’s lap, while the boys dive into the endless pillows and blankets they’ve stacked on the floor.
“Uncle Bucky?” AJ asks with a yawn as the movie reaches its mid-way point. Bucky sits up with the same surprised and prideful smile he gets every time ‘uncle’ precedes his name.
“Yeah?”
“Do you have to take your arm off at the airport?”
“AJ!” Cass hisses, looking mortified. Sam and Bucky are laughing their asses off.
“I got a special permit for it,” Bucky shoots back, which is not true at all, but AJ nods insightfully and returns to his movie as if it makes perfect sense. Bucky shrugs at Sam when he stares, looking pleased and peaceful, and Sam thinks he could melt along with his sundae.
They’re all four drifting a bit by the time the credits roll, though the boys especially, with AJ having been out for the past twenty minutes, an unwiped smear of fudge on his upper lip, and Cass opening his eyes for the briefest of moments, as if to prove he can stay up late better than his brother. Sam is blinking at the list of cast names when Bucky’s foot nudges hard against his side.
“I wanna talk to you in the kitchen,” Bucky whispers and smiles lightly when Sam’s brows furrow, “Stop freaking out every time I say that.”
They stand cautiously, side stepping around their sleeping nephews. Sam catches, out of the corner of his eye, how Bucky sweeps his hand gently across AJ’s head as he crosses by him, small, familiar, and loving. It warms a deep, parental part of himself that he’s afraid to touch.
“So, what is it?” Sam asks when they get to the kitchen and all Bucky does is press himself stoically against the counter without a word. Bucky gives a low sigh.
“I want this for us. I want to have our own kids in the living room.”
“I know,” Sam says as his heart breaks. He’s been feeling it all night, all of these past two months, actually. It’s incredible and recharging to be here with his family; he knows it’s made Bucky feel a million times better, but, still, it ignites that specific itch to be a dad, the one that hurts so deeply, “I know. I want it, too.”
Bucky worries with his hands, which is a giveaway he’s unsure of what he’s about to say. A bubbling sense of anxiety churns in Sam that Bucky’s about to tell him, no matter what they want, they can never have it. It’s a recurring fear of his.
“I want us to try to have it again,” is what Bucky says instead, and Sam goddamn soars.
He’s already planning what they can do to be safer this time around. Maybe a better diet for Bucky, or they could move somewhere that has less air pollution, or they could try meditation to eliminate stress. Sam will do whatever it takes. If Bucky has to be on bed rest from conception to birth, he’ll take nine months off of being Captain America and take care of him. If they have to track Sam’s sperm count and pay a bunch of money to figure out the viability of Bucky’s eggs, he’ll switch from briefs to boxers and take out a loan. He wants it with all he’s got.
“Baby, of course. We can talk to your doctors when we get home and figure-”
“No,” Bucky interjects, suddenly embarrassed, hiding his face in shadow, “I can’t have . . . not in my body, ever again. Sam, I’m sorry, if that’s what you want, but, losing Lada was fucking brutal, and I can never do that again. Any other way, okay? But not through me. I can’t.”
“Okay,” Sam says and steps around the island that divides them to hold Bucky’s hand as tears creep down his face, “I’m sorry. It’s okay. Hey, look at me. You don’t have to do that.”
“Any other way you want, Sam. I don’t care. I just wanna be a dad,” Bucky whispers, running a thumb along the back of Sam’s palm, “Adoption or fostering, a surrogate, whatever you want to do. Hell, if you wanna go out and find a beautiful dame to knock up, that’s cool with me.”
“Buck,” Sam chides, laughing a little despite the situation. Bucky breezes a chuckle.
“Or, we could both go find some lovely ladies. I’m not opposed to that.”
Sam shakes his head, calls Bucky an idiot, and leans their foreheads together with a sigh.
“We will figure it out. We’re gonna be dads, some way, somehow. I promise you that. I want to spend the rest of my entire life being a dad with you,” Sam says. Bucky’s eyes open and he smirks.
“Was that a proposal, Samuel?”
“Not unless you want it to be. But, if you’re game, I’m game,” Sam replies with a shrug, like his stomach is not doing goddamn backflips after he just told Bucky he wanted to spend his entire life with him.
“I’m sorry, but if you want me to marry you, you’re going to have to do better than a half-baked proposal in your sister’s kitchen at 11:45 in the evening. I’m wearing goddamn ice cream cone patterned pajama shorts right now. I’m not agreeing to anything under these conditions,” Bucky says, full of snark, and Sam shoves at him with a groan. Though, that was sort of a yes, or at least a conditional yes.
“I’ll figure out something better for you, I guess, you high-strung motherfucker,” Sam says and Bucky grins up to the ceiling, too pleased with himself.
“Okay, so the whole . . . having a kid thing was the first part of what I wanted to talk about, but-” he starts.
“There’s more?” Sam questions, a little tiredly.
“This one is less dramatic, I think,” Bucky informs, “I just wanted to tell you, when we get home, I’m not going to do any more missions or anything. I’m officially retired from that part of my life.”
“Oh,” Sam says, surprised for only half a second before the decision seems obvious. Bucky has had to have a gun strapped to his side from 1941 onwards. He’s earned rest, more than most other people Sam knows. And, thinking back on it, maybe it’s been coming to this for a while. Bucky’s only been going out on missions that make him nervous about Sam’s well-being for the better part of a year. He obviously stopped while he was pregnant, but Sam had assumed he’d pick it up again at some point after. Though, this makes much more sense. It, actually, makes Sam feel good. With a smile, he asks, “So, what’ll you do with yourself then? Cause stinking up the apartment and eating junk food all day ain’t an option.”
Bucky screws up his face at that and shakes his head.
“First of all, I have never stunk anything up in my life. And, second, I don’t know yet. I used to work as a mechanic part-time when I was a teenager to help my folks with rent. So, that’s an option. Or I could work at a library. I like reading and shit. I really don’t know. The world’s my oyster. Maybe I’ll get a cat.”
“I hate cats,” Sam says, automatically, his face dropping. Bucky smiles nice and big, his eyes crinkling, as he pats a hand on Sam’s shoulder.
“Yeah, I know you do,” he hums, before moving past Sam to the door, “Let’s go check on the boys. For all we know, they’ve desecrated the entire living room in our absence.”
“If they did, I’m blaming it all on you,” Sam tells him with an accusatory point of his finger. Bucky rolls his eyes.
“As if Sarah would believe that.”
The living room, when they come back into it, is unchanged, with two boys asleep on the floor and appearing uncharacteristically peaceful. Sam and Bucky, however, are changed for the better by far.