Chapter Text
If Bucky was honest with himself, he’d known from the first just stay here that it would only be a matter of time until the less than stable parts of him caused some kind of a disruption.
“Got the couch all dressed up for you again,” Sam had said after the cookout wound down and the remaining guests were gathered in conjoined clean up. “Even sprung for a bigger blanket, this time.”
Bucky had stood on the docks with a black trash bag, watching the kids race to and from him to see who could put the most number of blue party cups into the waiting opening before they ran out of ammo. The breeze around him had carried the chill of dusk, but all he’d been able to really feel was the emotion that filled him, like a subtler partner to joy. He’d shrugged with put-upon nonchalance. “I guess we’re a little passed ‘buy me dinner first.’”
Sam had stepped in close with a half-smile, helping himself to dumping in his own armful of trash into Bucky’s load before lightly smacking him on the arm and moving on to the next table. “After three plates and two helpings of pie, maybe.”
Bucky’d thought he’d been fine, resting on his back on the couch in the Wilson family’s living room, listening to the quiet rustling as the rest of the house’s occupants readied themselves for bed. Needing to be the last person asleep in the general area was a long ingrained habit, but even the sense of wary alertness that normally occupied the action wasn’t present except as a vague background thrum.
And like the people of Delacroix, the couch was nice. It felt broken in beneath his back, nothing like the pristinely new armchair back in his Brooklyn apartment. The one he hadn’t ever bothered to use beyond pulling the cushion onto the floor to keep him company, grasping at the faint echoes of a time when he’d had friends and family and a place in the world.
There was nothing faint about the echoes here. The living room was filled with trinkets and knick knacks, like the pictures on the walls of grinning faces and the colorful woven baskets on the shelves beneath the TV, drawings done by the kids and the new speakers on either side of said TV that Sam had gone on and on and on about while he and Sarah had shown Bucky to the couch.
“See, set up like this makes the most out of rounding out the sonic balance in the available space. It angles the waves perfectly.”
“Bro, I really don’t think Bucky cares about any of that stuff.”
“He’s got supersoldier eardrums. He’ll appreciate it more than any of us. Right?”
“Uh…”
“Sam, let the poor man get some rest.”
Even in the absence of anyone else, the living room looked as lived-in as it felt, with lingering hints of fresh-baked buttery pecan pies combining with the marsh-tinged air. Comforting.
Bucky’s own head was, more often than not, a completely different story. If it had been a house it would have been haunted: the floors flooded up to the knee with blood and tar, walls either crumbling to dust or turned to rigid metal and calcified stone. Every inch of it would have creaked and cracked underfoot. Some parts would have screeched.
His brain had healed from decades of having its limbic system shocked into oblivion, and the triggers that had once controlled him were long gone, but that didn’t change the fact that all of that had still happened.
He didn’t want to forget, but remembering was hell. It made him what he was now - an amalgamation of several disjointed parts, including and especially the not so nice ones, the parts disturbing, violent, and shattered, and those that were just trying their damndest to find a place where they could - if nothing else - pretend that they weren’t.
Considering that, it had probably been selfish of him to so readily make himself at home in his partner’s family house. He’d justified it to himself by figuring that Sam had known it, too. Otherwise, the emphasis on the kindness and acceptance of the community around the Wilsons wouldn’t have required such an enthusiastic explanation. Even though he’d done his best to hide it, Sam had seen enough of the ugly parts of Bucky in their shared history and their more recent missions together to know at least some of what he was risking.
Which wasn’t nearly as much nowadays as it might have been before Sam had accepted the shield. Bucky’s internal compass, which had been floundering in a mad, jerky spin since his pardon, was now rigidly fixed. The whole discordant package - you gotta stop looking to other people to tell you who you are - coming together to at least agree on one thing. One person.
He wanted this. Whether or not he really deserved it or could even be trusted with it, he wanted to fall asleep exhausted and content on the Wilson family couch with the memory of the kids’ laughter and Sarah’s smile and the feeling of Sam’s firm and affectionate grip on the back of his neck. It felt like...warmth. After six months of trying with uncertain hands to form even brittle connections in a world where he just didn’t fit anywhere, it felt a little like the ease that had been coming out of cryo in Wakanda after decades of experiencing HYDRA’s brutally expedient waking procedures.
It felt like something he’d never thought he’d get back after watching Steve fade into another dimension and time, and the shield relinquished to gather dust.
He’d wanted it the very first time he’d come to Delacroix, too. Even not knowing the feelings, the honest to god happiness that it would lead to, he hadn’t wanted to check into some hotel to spend the night as he’d spent every night before the mission with Sam - alone. But he also hadn’t wanted to presume, or make it completely obvious that he was sliding something a lot more fragile than a vibranium wingsuit Sam’s way. A mission was one thing - intruding on Sam’s life, his family...another step completely.
Sam had more than met him halfway. Was still reaching out and meeting him, despite everything Bucky had said and done.
And it was good. Amazing. For that yawning pit that he’d been carrying in his chest, for the part of him that had forgotten how to hope, however dimly, for anything higher than the mercy of not having the last faded crumbs of what he had to live for completely lost.
After the first sleepover had gone so well, and Bucky had found himself still able to exist around the things he’d done and the things that had happened to him, he’d started to prematurely let himself lose a little of his worry.
Too prematurely.
The last audible movement filtered out from Sarah’s room in a gentle creak of her bed. Left with nothing but the nearby sounds of the marsh, a chorus of chirping crickets, Bucky began absently counting down towards his own descent into sleep.
His brain didn’t care how his day had gone, or the fact that when he finally closed his eyes it was with a quiet elation and the memories of nothing but a dozen smiling faces around him. The only thing it was interested in, even after the joyful ease of the Delacroix cookout, was taking advantage of his unconsciousness to drag him through a greatest hits compilation of his nightmares.
He had a few new memories to contend with in that regard, and some smaller ones alongside them that needled him with their own little blossoms of insidious guilt. Sending Walker in too early to interrupt Sam and Karli. Letting Zemo escape. Provoking Ayo into revealing the vibranium prosthetic’s failsafe. Letting Karli distract him at the GRC. Every mistake and poor choice and more, categorized, acknowledged, and put on the shelf next to dozens upon dozens upon dozens.
And then there was Madripoor.
Madripoor had the distinguished honor of not only being extremely recent - a memory like wet paint, the unpleasant thoughts attached leaving spreading stains at every figurative touch - but a complete showcase of the Winter Soldier’s abilities: espionage, combat, and...the other thing.
“He will do anything you want.”
If Bucky had a hard time acknowledging and working through his own issues when it came to all the pain and suffering and death he’d caused over the century, this particular class of Winter Soldier obedience was like an impenetrable vibranium door. He always heard the howling on the other side, but there was no key or tool to get it open to even begin to enable him to fix what was contained behind it.
If he even deserved to have it fixed.
It wasn’t even general public knowledge, like the rest of his history. Zemo had known about it, but Zemo knew every fucking thing there was to know about HYDRA.
Literally.
Selby had known, too, thanks to the Winter Soldier’s reputation within Madripoor’s enclosed, chaotic ecosystem.
Small consolation that a lot of what went on in Madripoor’s lawless nation didn’t tend to get off the island, because when his brain was done looping him through images and sensations of guns firing, knives flying, and bones crunching, it firmly stuck him right back there.
There was nothing vague about this scene; everything came along so vividly that he could smell the sting of acid in the air.
Bar patrons flying, the rush of blood hot in his veins, sickness and satisfaction coiling in his stomach.
Zemo’s gloved hand stroking his face while he schooled himself into blankness in the face of Selby’s growing excitement.
Sam’s expression - brow creased, horror in his gaze - as Bucky was forced to his knees. Bucky had made himself make eye contact, had let his helplessness fall back and his rage come to the forefront, because Sam had to understand full stop that he couldn’t interfere.
All snapshots. Quick, driving jolts of emotion, before his nightmares slowed and took their time with the main event.
Two days of hell. Two days of groping hands and batons and worse.
There was a particular mindfuck in the fact that he’d effectively done it all to himself, this time. He’d had the choice (he didn’t, they’d needed to know); he could have backed out (he couldn’t have, they had to stop more of the serum from getting out).
He’d kept up his mask, followed orders, and let them use him however they wanted.
And god, had they been ready to use him. Whether from self-preservation, or sheer pure lack of interest, Selby hadn’t asked him to service her personally, but she’d ordered him worked almost the entire time she’d been awake. Even during the moments her attention had been fully on her business, she’d had her guards keep at him in the same way Bucky left his TV on to keep him company at his apartment back in Brooklyn. They’d used a variety of devices and toys, but Selby had quickly found that none of them made him respond quite as intensely as the bite of electricity.
So they’d leaned into that. They’d put something between his teeth, at the beginning of the second day - a wide ring of metal, rigid and uncompromising, meant to keep him from accidentally biting so they could drag the shock batons over him while they fucked his mouth. He’d bitten down so hard against it, again and again, that he’d dislocated his own jaw.
When it had been almost over, Selby had thought it would be funny if she’d given him his freedom to return to his handler thirty minutes earlier than the designated loan end time. “Go on then, Soldier. Tell Zemo you performed impeccably. And give Smiling Tiger my regards.”
His clothes had been dumped in a pile beside him, next to a bloody smear on the mirrored floor.
The Winter Soldier would have ignored the order, waited staunchly until the clock ran out, then dutifully dragged whatever was left of himself back to his handlers. Bucky had wanted nothing more than to call it, break that rule and run to nurse his wounds and grind back down the shrieking in his head. But he’d been fucked so thoroughly he knew he’d barely be able to walk, couldn’t even move without agony, his genitals red and raw, the rest of him covered in bruises and burns and fluids.
More than that, he had been just…so fucking tired, feeling more than ever that he was in a losing race to find a way out of a past that would always overcome him, and he just needed to give up, give in, and realize he would always live there.
”What you did back then, it wasn’t you. You didn’t have a choice.”
”If he was wrong about you, then he was wrong about me.”
His own will, his own agenda, and he’d still circled back. If Sam hadn’t been there to reel him in, maybe things would have been worse.
So he’d stayed collapsed on the floor, surrounded by the smell of copper and sex mixed with Madripoor’s fumes and the post-coital cigarettes of Selby’s men, until gloved fingers at his face urged him to lift his head, sending a bright jolt of agony rocking through him. Deal’s not done, his pain-frayed mind had thought as he’d pushed a small, quivering part of himself deeper as the shrieking came back to the forefront. But it hadn’t been one of Selby’s guards returning to taunt him for that extra twenty minutes they had yet to wring out.
It had been Sharon.
“Oh, Bucky,” she had breathed, and then put her hand against his face and pushed.
Bucky woke up with a noise somewhere halfway between a grunt and a gasp, arching up to try and escape the echoes of pain chasing him down. He fell back against something too soft, heart pounding so hard and painfully in his chest that for a moment he hysterically wondered if the Wakandans had gone in and replaced that with vibranium, too.
Through his panting breaths he realized that the air he was breathing in was vaguely brackish instead of acrid, and that more than anything jarred him back tentatively into the present.
He was still in the Wilson family home in Delacroix. It was the middle of the night; shadows played over the walls between the light of the moon streaming through the window’s translucent curtains.
His face ached, but it was just because he’d been grinding his teeth in his sleep, not because the bone had just been slammed back into place.
Nausea rushed up. He only just managed to work his bile back; it burned his esophagus on its way down to his stomach. He ran his trembling right hand over his chin and stubble in a rough movement, the lack of drool and blood cementing his current position into better reality.
He let his hand flop back down onto his heaving chest. “Shit,” he said, half in lingering awfulness, half in relief, attempting to begin the crapshoot routine of telling the sense memories of fear, pain, and grasping hands to fuck off so he could go back to pretending he even halfway had it together.
Before he could start, he noticed a shifting shape in his periphery.
If he’d still been raw and not known where he was, it might have jolted him up into a more extreme defense mode. Instead he felt the pang of startlement add to the massive ache of his anxious stomach and kept himself still, to assess instead of react. He squinted his eyes, and in the soft glow of the moon and the kitchen appliances he could make out curling fingers around the wall leading to the hallway.
He licked his lips; his voice came out hoarse. “AJ?”
The kid leaned around the wall, looking torn between wanting to be there and not thinking he was allowed to be there. He seemed to decide a second later, coming into the room with clunky steps.
“I heard you making noise,” AJ said.
Bucky grimaced, nothing making him feel more dirty and out of place than the innocence of this kid stumbling in on the heels of his mental murder-rape slideshow. He was sure he was a sight, still trying to catch his breath, skin covered with a sheen of fear-sweat.
“I was just dreaming.” He waved AJ off, glad he at least had plenty of practice at putting on a blank face while his own head was tearing him to shreds. “Don’t worry about me. You can go back to bed.”
AJ just stood there awkwardly in the dark in his pajamas, making no move to retreat. “I don’t think I’ll be able to,” he said honestly.
Bucky stared at AJ, then glanced down at the white outline of the roaring T-Rex skeleton adorning the front of his shirt. He let his gaze slowly settle back on the ceiling, feeling a little like all that was left of his own body was nothing but dry and chalky bones.
“Yeah,” he said, taking in a breath as the guilt crowded in. “Well that makes two of us.” He pushed himself up into a sitting position, swinging his legs over the edge of the couch before wearily hunching over his knees. “I’m sorry.”
AJ shrugged. “It’s okay. There’s no school on Saturday.” He moved over towards the TV, turning it on and adding an additional source of light to the living room. He grabbed something off the cabinet below it - when he got closer Bucky realized it was a console controller.
“Your mom said no video games after bedtime,” Bucky said, eyes slanted in suspicion. He might have been a little loose on the law-abiding rules imposed on him but there was no way in hell he was going to actively insult Sarah by encouraging her own kids to disobey her.
“It’s not for me,” AJ said easily, handing the controller to Bucky as he sat down next to him, bouncing on the couch cushions with a small but encouraging grin. “She never said you couldn’t play.”
Bucky shook his head with a half smile, surprise melting into appreciation at the pointed loophole. He stared down at the XBox controller cradled in his grip, swallowing down against the lingering sour taste in his mouth. “I have no idea how to work this,” he said.
AJ practically jumped him in excitement, shouldering close. Bucky’s emotions decided to give him another zap of unpleasantness - like the parts of him that were tainted would somehow show through his skin at the proximity, enough horror to cross that line of tolerance and force the Wilsons to revoke his fledgling standing invitation.
AJ’s hands had stopped to hover in place, cautious at Bucky’s lack of matching excitement. “I can teach you,” he said, still eager.
He’s just a kid, Bucky viciously directed towards the remains of his stubborn agitation. They finally took the hint, reluctantly settling into the background.
He lifted his thumbs from the surface of the controller. AJ took the signal to start avidly going over the buttons.
----------
“You want some cherry blossom tea?”
“No, you go ahead.”
Bucky stalked away from Zemo, so fucking furious he could feel his teeth itch. Sam was right; threatening him wasn’t going to get them anywhere. It wouldn’t even make Bucky feel better, just like breaking Zemo’s cup against the tiled columns hadn’t made him feel better.
Bucky couldn’t even be surprised that Zemo was trying to pull this. Zemo didn’t have a lot of options, with Bucky and Sam and now the Wakandans circling him. They all knew how this was going to end.
But Bucky’s face was still aching from Madripoor, and it had been more than just rage that had driven him to stand instead of staying slumped on that fancy couch. Pain and the Winter Soldier had their hands inseparably linked, and the reminder from that was too fresh for him not to consider giving in to the urge to allow that darker part of himself to be let loose. Zemo was lucky that Sam had been around.
Bucky had been luckier. Even if he wasn’t exactly happy about it.
He stood over the kitchen sink, washing the smell of salt and plum vinegar off of his hands. It was quiet except for the trickle of running water and the low murmur of Sam’s voice as he took a call on the opposite side of the room.
It didn’t stay that quiet for nearly long enough.
Bucky saw Zemo approach him in his periphery. His steps were way too confident for someone who’d been a wrong word away from getting choked out by a supersoldier in his own apartment. “James-”
Bucky twisted the faucet off and snapped his hand out to grab for a dishcloth, wiping his hands dry. His voice came out low and rough. “You really don’t wanna keep trying to talk to me.”
Zemo looked over his shoulder, like he was checking if Sam would be in hearing range in case Bucky lost it on him after all. He knew now how easy it would be for Sam to talk him down.
He was right. The satisfaction Bucky would get from taking anything out on Zemo wouldn’t be worth the upset of his partnership with Sam or the mission they were trying to accomplish. Just the reminder Zemo had given him with that pointed glance across the room had Bucky bitterly shoving down any urge for retribution. He felt his body language change, the urge to lash out leaving him as he turned away. If Sam wanted Bucky to deal nonviolently with Zemo, he would deal nonviolently with Zemo.
Zemo spoke, cautious but emboldened by Bucky’s surrender. “I would greatly recommend against ever returning to Madripoor,” he said, like he was distributing invaluable knowledge to a close confidant. “The nature of your celebrity there will not have improved with our latest visit. To reestablish the status quo your presence once held would require extremely violent methods.” He sighed. “I did have plans in place to allow for such a readjustment while we were on the island. I regret that Carter’s interference prevented it.”
Bucky felt his face twitch, sending a sharp twinge through his still-healing jaw. He tossed the dishcloth haphazardly onto the counter. “I wasn’t planning on going back.”
“No. Perhaps not.” There was a pause. “What occurred with Selby-”
Bucky straightened like a shot, turning back to Zemo and nearly completing a mindless movement towards him before he could force himself to abort the action. He sucked in a breath, looking towards where Sam was still across the room, distracted by his phone and unaware of the near reignition of their confrontation.
He rounded a glare on Zemo. “If this all isn’t leading to you turning over whatever goddamn secrets you’re hiding…”
Zemo swallowed, his eyes flickering down for a moment. “It was...a slight miscalculation on my part,” he finished, looking back up to unwaveringly meet Bucky’s eyes.
Bucky stared back, hard and long, his anger simmering hot like Zemo’s fucking tea. “I figured that.” He backed off a step. “S’the only reason I stopped Sam from bashing your head in back in High Town.”
Zemo looked startled.
Bucky didn’t really care what he thought about that reveal. He turned his back and reached for one of the bottles on the counter, pulling it in close, desperately needing at least the sense memory of what drinking would have done for him once upon a time. He grabbed a glass from the cupboard, not bothering with ice as he filled it. He kept the bottle on hand as he quickly downed a three finger pour before immediately helping himself to a second drink. Then he gave himself a moment to just breathe, savoring the burn in his nostrils and throat as he stared at the wall.
Zemo didn’t try to get any closer, but he wasn’t done talking. He was never done talking. “I knew you would recover from it, and at the time of our negotiations I had believed the damage would be minimal. Some discomfort. Nothing as...thorough as what actually occurred. Your dedication to the job was truly admirable. Our achievement in eradicating the potential for further creation of the serum would not have come to fruition without it.”
Dedication. Right.
There was a longer silence as Bucky seriously considered breaking his glass against the cupboards. And maybe the entire bottle.
Then Zemo spoke again. “But I do extend my apologies.”
Bucky lowered his drink with a clang on the counter, nearly splintering the glass in his fist. He blinked and took one breath, then another. When he finally turned his head, Zemo was already closing the doors to the bathroom behind him.
—--------
Sam was usually the first one up in the house.
It was a long ingrained habit not dissuaded by the kind of life he’d lived pre and post getting snapped into dust. No matter where he was, or what he was doing, he slept light, then got up to start whatever needed work.
Back at the Delacroix house that meant putting on a pot of coffee, then checking his messages, the news, and the weather forecast. There was usually a sense of quiet, in both him and his surroundings, as he worked while attempting to keep it down enough that he wouldn’t disturb anyone else. Sarah’s days could be a lot longer than his, so he wanted to make sure he respected her chance for rest.
Usually it was fine if he kept to the main floor of the house. It’d be a different situation with Bucky conked out in the living room in his line of sight, but if there was anything Sam’d learned during the last time the ex-Winter Soldier had shacked up on his couch, it was that when he wasn’t being especially harassed by the demons of his own past, Bucky could sleep pretty damn deep.
Back during their whirlwind international tour to track down the Flag Smashers, Bucky had most of his time awake. He didn’t use extraneous movement when they weren’t in the active parts of the mission, conserving his energy, and Sam had figured maybe that had been enough for him to recharge. He wore sullen and quiet the same way he insisted on wearing about fifteen layers of clothes.
Things had been different when Sam had been on the run with Steve; Steve could go all out, for days at a time, but he didn’t act like he was allergic to sleep when there was a slow moment. Sam had just figured that this was going to be another situation where one supersoldier would always differ unpleasantly from the other. But then they’d tried to fix the boat together, and the next day Bucky hadn’t so much as stirred when Sam had undergone his morning routine just feet away from him.
Sam had peeked in on him, maybe a few too many times, but there’d been a sense of awe at having the chance to see that normally embittered face with some vague sense of peace on it. It had been gone as soon as Bucky had come down to help Sam with the boat, a quiet and obedient helping hand.
Sam had almost thought there’d been something there. When Bucky relaxed, went back to his snarky self, again flirting with Sarah - and saying hello absolutely was flirting when he said it like that, no question - it had felt a little like the moment had passed. But it came back, later, when they had thrown the shield around together.
Bucky had apologized, and opened up, and Sam had given back. They’d split on mutual, friendly terms, coming together again during Karli’s attack on the GRC.
And that little thing they hadn’t talked about beyond Sharon’s guest room in Madripoor hadn’t even come up. Hadn’t seemed like it had needed to, what with all the other shit that had been thrown at them, and the way Bucky could joke and smile with his whole face after they’d taken that bittersweet win. Bucky initiated every touch, generous with his affection, and when Sam started to reciprocate, that smile didn’t wane.
It had sent Sam’s heart fluttering like he was a goddamn teenager.
But as soon as he’d opened his eyes from a restful night to the hints of civil twilight - even slept in a bit today, damn - he could hear that familiar low, irritated grumble of a voice coming up from the first floor. Seemed like that deep, comforting sleep hadn’t happened for Bucky this time around.
AJ was with him, though, and it sounded like everything was okay. So Sam took the time to shower and change before he headed down, switching on the hall lights as he went, listening in on the conversation.
“Okay, well - where the hell did the boat go?” Bucky grouched. “Why am I in the water?”
AJ spoke hurriedly. “You put it in your inventory while you were riding it!”
“Why is that a thing that happens?”
Sam’s eldest nephew let out a few stifled breaths of laughter. “You just dropped it! And you’re almost out of oxygen!”
Sam came around the corner to the frankly absurd view of an ex-super-assassin, blanket draped over his lower half, scowling in frustration and carefully working the buttons of the controller in his hands while AJ, hand clamped over his mouth, was rolling against the couch in stitches like it was the greatest thing he’d ever witnessed.
Sam’s mouth twitched into a smile, sorry that Sarah was missing this but happy that AJ had the respect to at least keep it down. “What are you doing?”
Bucky looked up towards Sam with that patented look of unimpressed and well-saturated supersoldier discontent. “Drowning, apparently.” A grunting groaning noise came from the TV, and Bucky’s nostrils flared around a sigh as he set the controller down on the coffee table.
“You just need more practice,” AJ said, still breathless from his giggles.
“I don’t think Bucky can keep up with your hours of experience,” Sam said, jerking his chin in indication. “Why don’t you wash up and get dressed before your mom finds out you’ve been partying all night?”
“Okay, Uncle Sam,” AJ said, hopping up to go do as he was told.
Sam walked further into the room, glancing at the death screen on the television proclaiming the end of Bucky’s character by - yep - drowning.
He looked over as Bucky reached for the light switch behind the couch and then pulled the blanket off his lap and tucked it to the side. Sam took a moment to stare at the soft charcoal lounge pants Bucky had taken the time to pack, thinking about how at one point in time he might have thought them incongruous to the person wearing them. It was almost like they were a visual representation of that softness that Sam was starting to get hints of buried beneath that dark, scowly exterior.
Speaking of which - said dark scowly exterior was currently going strong, visually represented in of itself in creases forming lines of shadow on Bucky’s brow.
Sam folded his arms, jerking his chin. “How long have you been up?”
Bucky looked up at Sam, then away, shaking his head. “I got a few hours of sleep. Don’t blame AJ,” he said, as if it was belatedly coming to him what it might look like. “I woke him up, not the other way around. He just wanted to help.”
Maybe supersoldier vitality did mean Bucky could run on fumes for a while before getting dragged down, but the longer Sam looked at him, the more he could see the additional signs of exhaustion and unhappiness on his face: the sallowness, the lines of tension, and the way his expression was trying to do about forty five things without settling on any of them. All good signals that there was something especially bad going on in that brooding dome.
He tinged his voice with casualness. “Your flight’s early this afternoon, huh?”
“Yeah,” Bucky said, a little too tightly, as that unhappiness somehow managed to dial it up another notch. He didn’t say anything else in elaboration.
Extra especially bad then, if Bucky was going back to this level of shutdown.
Looked like it was time to extend that offered hand a little more obviously. “If you need to talk about it,” he started.
“About what,” Bucky asked sharply, cutting him off as his face gave another spasm. “The five hundred and forty sixth mental trauma of the century?”
Sam sighed; now that he wasn’t completely closing himself off from Sam, Bucky spent a lot more time veering between not wanting to talk about stuff at all and just dumping his hurts out onto the ground between them.
Bucky blinked, then blinked again, as if just realizing what he’d said. “I shouldn’t talk about this in your home.” He got off the couch in a stiff, jerky movement, heading for his bag to grab a change of clothes, picking up his boots where they were sitting against the door.
“Shouldn’t isn’t really the word,” Sam said carefully, still trying to edge his way through the somber cloud hanging around those broad shoulders. “But if you don’t want to-”
“I don’t want to,” Bucky said, turning back, face more flat and expressionless than Sam had seen in a while.
Okay. Sam could take the hint. Even if it stung.
Bucky watched him with a low level thread of tension in his face and body, before he cast his gaze down, that hard stare turned into dark eyelashes settling on his cheeks. He pushed his tongue against his lower lip. “Outside,” he said, sounding a bit like the word was torn from his gut. But when he looked back up, his eyes were softer, if apprehensive. “After I shower.”
Sam acknowledged the give with a respectful nod, not bothering to hide his relief. “You can use mine,” he said, and Bucky gave him a sharp nod in return, then headed up like it was an escape.
Bad day, then. Lord knew Sam had enough of those himself. He almost regretted sending AJ away and depriving Bucky of his distraction. He looked at the death screen on the TV again, reaching down and powering it off before he started tidying up the couch.
----------
Bucky was a dimly colored shadow against the orange horizon when Sam came out to the docks with a couple of fragrant and steaming coffees. He wasn’t sure what he’d get when he got closer to offer the drink, and was a bit surprised to see that shield over Bucky hadn’t been completely reset in their time apart. He looked tired, contemplative, and nervous as hell, standing in the wind in nothing but jeans and a short-sleeved shirt.
“Thanks,” Bucky said, taking the offered mug and not drinking it, apparently deciding that staring out at the local ducks as they paddled their way across the water while giving his jaw muscles a full workout was the top priority.
“Was it another mark?” Sam eventually asked, because he was getting the sense that even though he’d asked for it and wasn’t backing out, Bucky wasn’t going to start this on his own.
Bucky schooled his face, taking a sip of his coffee like he wished it was something a lot stronger. “It was Madripoor.”
Oh. Shit.
Bucky’s I shouldn’t talk about this in your home suddenly took on a whole different kind of terrible meaning.
Maybe Sam should have brought out a couple of beers instead.
Bucky stared at Sam out of the corner of his eye, clearly checking for his response, dog tags shining orange against his chest. “Still wanna talk about it?” He said it like it was a challenge. He said it with the tone of someone who’d been bogged down by trauma after trauma after trauma and thought the fact that there was always more was going to push people away.
Whether or not Sam wanted to talk about it wasn’t why he’d given Bucky the offer, and that fact still stood, even if bringing that specific situation up at all was sending his own emotions into a guilt-horror spiral. Bucky mostly snapping back to his hale and hearty self within a matter of days after it had happened hadn’t softened the awfulness of it in the least.
“As a friend? I want whatever you think you need to tell me. As a counselor? It might be more to your benefit to get some additional sources of help. I’m guessing this kind of stuff didn’t come up in any of Dr. Raynor’s sessions.”
Bucky shook his head, looking back out at the marsh. “It’s not like it was anything compared to the assassinations.” His voice was still coming out casual but there was a pinch to his eyes that hadn’t been there, his lips clamping a little too tightly together.
Sam could practically see the bricks in Bucky’s hands, ready to erect that wall at a word. “You don’t need to play it off to me, man. You know there are people out there that are qualified to help you. And they’d want to help you. Just like I do.”
Bucky went quiet, his little finger curling and uncurling against the surface of the mug. He flicked blue eyes up nervously, throat jumping in a convulsive gulp. “Did you watch?”
Sam sighed, frowning deeply before he engaged in his own staring contest with the wind waves. “No,” he admitted, like it was something shameful. Maybe it shouldn’t have been, but that entire situation had been hellishly complicated when it came to Bucky’s own autonomy - the fighting as much as the two days that came after. He made himself look back at Bucky and withstand the intensity of that unwavering steel as it bored into him. “I thought...I told myself it was for your dignity, but I didn’t think I could watch any of it without risking it all to get you out.”
Bucky watched Sam for a moment longer, then seemed to come to some conclusion in his head. The tense set to his shoulders loosened a little, and he nodded, his gaze lowering. “Good,” he said, and to Sam’s surprise he sounded genuine. He also sounded very, very relieved. “Because if you had, I was about to suggest that you go to therapy.”
That was almost a joke. Sam was torn between feeling a little horrified that it was something Bucky could snark about so soon after being tormented by it, then thought that realistically, there probably weren’t many moments in his life where Bucky wasn’t being tormented by something. He was building new memories now, good ones, but that didn’t change the fact that most of the ones he’d compiled in all his years of living were of a whole lot of misery.
“I actually already booked my appointment,” Sam revealed. When Bucky gave him a look of surprise he shrugged. “It’s not just for that, to be clear.” He looked Bucky in those blue eyes dead on again. “And if I had to do it again, I wouldn’t just sit back, even if there was a chance it would get me killed.”
Bucky nodded, not looking overjoyed but seeming to take the answer for what it was. He gave a low huff an exhale, the vaguest ghost of a laugh. “You know, Zemo actually apologized to me for that whole situation.”
Sam folded his arms, resting his mug over the crook of his elbow. “Didn’t he apologize to you for Berlin, too?”
“Yeah,” Bucky said.
“Seems like he apologized a lot.”
“There wasn’t any other way,” Bucky said, and now he was looking at Sam with something glittering in his eyes, at odds with the fierce insistence in his voice. “If there was, don’t you think I would have taken it? Zemo was right, we didn’t have any other bargaining chips. We would have been too slow to stop Karli from spreading the serum. It would have been worse.”
He was talking like he was trying to convince Sam of the words, to preserve any good judgment he could. Like Sam was going to look down on him for any of that shit if he didn’t. “It happened,” Sam allowed, even if what he really wanted then was to grab Bucky by the shoulders and shake some damn self worth into him. “I really wish it hadn’t. But it did.”
That glittering became more pronounced; Bucky blinked rapidly to force it away. His tone went dull and dark. “Well, at this point, even I’m starting to wonder if it was worth it.” He turned back to the marsh, his shoulders and head slouching like he was thinking of sinking through the dock. “Still not the worst thing that haunts me.”
“Believe it or not, that doesn’t need to be a competition,” Sam said, even if he could tell clear as day that Bucky was trying to make light of how much he was hurting. “The only difference is going to be the work you put to it.”
Bucky sniffed and nodded again. He took another gulp of coffee, squinting out at the rising sun. “Guess I’ll start looking up some therapists.” He sounded more resigned than anything. “Was kind of hoping I’d reached some kind of finish line on that.”
Sam raised his eyebrows. “After less than a year of healing for ninety of hell? In our line of work?”
“I’m a supersoldier,” Bucky said, almost petulantly. “Everything should be easier for me.”
“That why I walked in on you accidentally killing yourself in Minecraft?”
Bucky rolled his eyes, before going still with something like hesitance. He stared down at the coffee in his half-full mug. “AJ told me his birthday’s coming up.”
“In about a month, yeah,” Sam said.
“He asked if I could come.”
“And you’re asking me for permission? AJ gets to invite whoever he wants to his birthday parties, man; that’s a rule. We don’t run out of food, even for dudes that take about four times the portions of a normal human being.”
“That’s an exaggeration,” Bucky said flatly. He looked sidelong at Sam. “You guys have a lot of parties.”
“Hell yeah we do,” Sam said. “Just show up with a gift - anything, big or small.” He reached out, settling his hand against the back of Bucky’s neck, the chill of the early morning wind chased from his palm as he rested it against smooth, warm skin. It felt right. “We’ll be happy to have you.”
And now that smile was almost back - more fragile than before but still white, bright, and lighting up Bucky’s whole face better than the rising sun. It made Sam’s chest ache - made him want to do something more than just a friendly touch.
He thought maybe he was getting used to that feeling. But that just pressed home how much he wanted to see if he could steer things in another direction and do more than just drop hints.
For now, he just slid his hand down to pat Bucky on the back. “You good?”
Bucky sucked in a breath, eyebrows softening like he wanted to make another joke. It faded fast as his forehead creased again, the silence stretching and the mug lowering as he got caught up in his own brain.
“I don’t know,” he eventually said quietly, blinking hard like by doing it he could blink right out whatever he was feeling. He swallowed and looked towards Sam. “How about you?”
Sam pursed his lips. Even if he’d coaxed Bucky to open up, this back and forth of honesty was still something he hadn’t completely gotten used to with this particular dynamic.
But with the way Bucky could seem somehow so damn cautious now, the hints of uncertainty coming out through his round, shimmering eyes...Sam felt a little more like he could let go of some of his pride around him. Wanted to. “Like I said, I’ve got some therapy of my own on the horizon.”
Bucky nodded, looking a little saddened by the answer. “Sorry I haven’t been much help,” he said wryly, again with that too strained to be a genuine joke feel.
Sam patted him again. “You can help by making my nephew’s day when you come back around in a few weeks.”
For a moment he worried at the response he’d get to that - whether or not Bucky was going to think better of his visits now that this kind of mental break had turned into a grim reality.
But with no denial or hesitation, Bucky just answered, “Will do, Cap.”
Sam grinned, elbowing him in the bicep before he turned back to the house. “Come on, come and help me with breakfast before you head out.”
And the next time Bucky came around, if things were good, maybe he’d muster up the nerve to raise his flirt game after all.