Chapter Text
Sam knew he was in trouble the moment Bucky came back to himself.
Bucky had glanced up at Steve through the mess of his hair and said, "Your mom's name was Sarah. You used to wear newspapers in your shoes."
And then, while Steve had been busy struggling with the lump in his throat and trying not to cry, Bucky had turned to Sam and...winked. Not even just winked. He had actually swept a thorough look down and then slowly back up the length of Sam's body, and then winked at him.
Sam's immediate reaction had been an indignant snort, but if anyone had pressed him he wouldn't have been able to say if that snort was directed at Bucky or himself. This was a man who had tried to kill him multiple times and ripped his wing out the last time they'd met. He should not have been trying to make Sam's stomach flutter. Sam's stomach should not have been fluttering.
That was about five weeks ago, and Bucky has not let up with the looks since then.
"We should take the next exit and check into the motel there," Steve says, startling Sam out of his intense scrutiny of Bucky's pretending-to-be-asleep form in the rearview mirror.
Sam jumps, jerking the steering wheel almost imperceptibly. The average human wouldn't have noticed the subtle split-second swaying of the car before Sam righted it. Unfortunately for him, the only average human in this car is Sam.
Bucky's eyes snap open, and make contact with Sam's through the mirror. Sam hurriedly looks away.
"Are you okay?" Steve asks, earnest and concerned.
"Hmm?" Sam resolutely keeps his eyes on the road, grips the wheel tighter.
"You've been driving for a long time. You must be tired," Steve elaborates. "Next exit, locally owned motel so far below the radar that they don't even have credit card service. Sharon says they might not even have running water, which I hope is just her idea of a funny joke. Let's crash there and get you some sleep."
"Sure, sounds good," Sam replies. He concentrates very, very hard on sounding completely normal.
He possibly does a bad job at that, because the next look Steve shoots him is extra concerned. He doesn't know what look Bucky might possibly be giving him because he refuses to check.
Steve thinks Sam is being hypervigilant, and Sam lets him think that because it's not like he's wrong. Sam is jumpy, his skin too tight and his ears listening for dangers that aren't even there. Voluntarily re-entering a country where he's a wanted man, being pursued by not one but multiple deadly organizations with advanced weapons of mass destruction will do that to a guy. But Steve thinks Sam is just being hypervigilant, rather than hypervigilant and also toeing the edges of a mental breakdown over his sexual attraction to the Winter Soldier, and Sam isn't going to disabuse him of that notion.
At the motel, Sam checks in on his own, because seeing the three of them together is like begging to get recognized.
"You go ahead," Sam says, tossing Steve the keys to their room. "I'll get our bags. I just want to get some air for a bit." He leans on the trunk of the car they rented under a different name and takes in a few deep breaths to demonstrate.
Bucky follows Steve through the motel door, probably to go do some intensely thorough perimeter checks, and Sam's calm deep breathing changes into something more genuine.
Sam doesn't know how long he stands there letting his mind go blank. He opens the trunk and then he kind of goes vacant. Some unspecified amount of time passes and suddenly Bucky's voice is so close to him that it practically comes from inside his head.
"Penny for your thoughts?"
"Jesus fucking Christ!" Sam curses, nearly slamming the back of his skull into the lifted trunk door. "Warn a guy, will you?"
Bucky shows his teeth in what one might technically classify as a grin if it weren't so dangerous. "Sorry," he says, not sounding even a little bit sorry. "You were out here for so long I thought the bags might have eaten you. Need any help with them?"
Sam hauls their three duffels out of the trunk with one hand just to prove a point.
Bucky gives him another one of those predatory not-grins and reaches up to close the trunk for him. The way he stretches makes the hem of his shirt ride up just enough to show a sliver of skin at his hip.
They're two steps from the door of their room when Bucky lays a hand on the small of Sam's back and says, "Seriously though, are you okay?"
"I'm great," Sam says, opening the door and shuffling inside as quickly as he can. "Just need a hot shower and some shut-eye." And a chance to forget all about the way his skin tingles where Bucky touched him through his shirt, he doesn't add out loud.
Steve looks up at their entrance and immediately goes to grab two bags from Sam. He and Bucky exchange an inscrutable look over Sam's shoulder. He can feel it.
He calls dibs on the shower, which no one fights him for, and he forces himself to take it as quickly as possible to stop himself from giving into the temptation of wallowing under the spray of hot water. Or touching himself.
The thing about Steve is that he is genuinely, without guile or self-interest, such a good friend. And slowly, more and more with each passing day, Sam can see that Bucky probably is too. He feels awful about worrying them, but the alternative is worse.
He steps out of the shower and dries himself efficiently, pulling on an old t-shirt and a pair of boxers before going back into the room. "Well, I'm gonna turn in," he says to Steve, who's frowning at something on his phone, and to Bucky, who's cleaning his guns.
There's an extra cot in the two-person room, provided by the motel so they could charge them for a room that sleeps three. Sam wants to volunteer to take the cot since he's the smallest out of them and would probably be the least uncomfortable, but he has a feeling that would just start another round of silently concerned meaningful eye contact behind his back, so he falls face-first into the bed farthest from the door instead. He buries his face into a pillow that smells faintly of bleach, and closes his eyes.
He falls asleep firmly telling himself that 1) they're on the run and trying to start anything would be spectacularly stupid timing, 2) Bucky was literally kept as a brainwashed killing machine for seventy years and wasn't allowed to have any thoughts or desires of his own, and he has every right to work through his trauma by exploring his new freedom without some creep drooling all over him, 3) it would therefore be perverted of Sam to fantasize about him in a remotely sexual way, 4) hence, because he does fantasize, he is a pervert who should, 5) control himself.
But Sam is only a mortal man, with all the weaknesses of man. The next morning, over a late breakfast after putting some distance between themselves and their last known location, while Steve and Bucky laugh and tease each other over an ancient high school memory Bucky's mind has allowed him to unearth, Sam interjects by saying, "You were definitely hot as a high schooler."
Bucky pauses, fork halfway to his mouth, the remnants of laughter still lingering about his face. "Come again?"
Sam feels his face heat up. Steve looks very, perhaps overly, interested in the answer.
"Oh, god, um, I just meant. Your yearbook photo was in our history textbook. I always thought you were very attractive in it." Please stop talking, Sam's brain begs Sam's mouth. He clicks his teeth shut.
If he had to pick two words for it, Sam would describe Bucky's answering smile as 'downright predatory.'
Sam is fucked.
Steve, who's normally so good about sparing Sam from embarrassment, doesn't seem to notice his discomfort at all and just says, "I agree, he really was a looker back in the day. Broke all the hearts before I even had the chance to ask anyone out. It's a real shame he's aged so badly."
"Hey, watch who you're calling ugly, punk," Bucky says back, keeping up with the patter, but his eyes stay on Sam.
Sam takes an overly large gulp of his coffee and prays to a god he doesn't believe in that either it'll burn his tongue off or he'll choke on it and die.
Unfortunately for him, neither of those things happens. They finish breakfast and then they're back on the road. He tries like hell to make sure the subject doesn't get brought up again, which isn't actually that difficult because the next few days pass in a frenzied blur. Steve gets identified when they bring in their rental car to trade for a different one, and Sam and Bucky have to put on Oscar-worthy performances pretending they don't know him while he runs off. He manages to shake his tails and they meet up again in a small town several hundred miles over without further incident, and then narrowly avoid running into Hydra agents in that sleepy town thanks to a tip from Sharon that just barely reaches them in the nick of time.
Nothing bad has actually happened. It's just a series of close calls and near-misses, the potential for something awful without any follow through. They're back on the road without anything like violence at all, but it still leaves Sam keyed up on adrenaline and jittery. His brain won't stop turning over what could have happened if they had just been a little too early to rendezvous with Steve or a little too late to get Sharon's call, if Stark's people had somehow traced that one call on their burner phone before they ditched it or if the nice lady at the car rental place had recognized all three of them instead of just one.
("Bucky is innocent," Steve had said to him back in Wakanda, before they rented their first car with a fake credit card. It had taken T'Challa less than a week to figure out how to deprogram the Winter Soldier, and even less time to come up with a working dupe of Bucky's metal arm. If Sam weren't already totally stupid for someone else, he could see himself blowing T'Challa. "There's evidence out there that can exonerate him. They kept records. Bucky is sure there are backups that'll prove what they did."
"Okay," Sam said. His duffle was already half packed, and he was hurriedly tossing toiletries into a bag. They could obviously just buy soap once they were on the road, but he figured the more they could avoid places with closed circuit cameras like drug store counters, the better.
"We have to find it before Hydra destroys it all. And we're technically persons of interest right now, so it's going to look suspicious as soon as we re-enter the States."
"Why are you telling me things I already know, Steve?"
Steve laid a hand on Sam's wrist, stopping his frantic rummaging through the medicine cabinet. "I owe you this explanation. I don't want you to ruin your life before you realize what you signed up for. You should know that Bucky's plan—"
"Actually," Sam interrupted, "it's better if I don't know all the details. I'll have less to lie about under oath if I get caught."
Steve swallowed, adam's apple bobbing while his lips thinned out into a hard line. "That's a good point," he had said, and he'd looked like someone was currently kicking his puppy or his stomach or something, so Sam took pity on him and said,
"Don't worry, we probably won't get caught," even though both of them knew that wasn't true.
It took Sam no time at all to finish packing, and then that was it. He had made his decision and from that point on there was no going back.)
He's so far in his own head that he doesn't even notice Bucky has been stepping up his flirting, or whatever one might call whatever the hell he's doing. It must have been a gradual escalation; Sam is like the proverbial frog in a pot of water being heated up so slowly that he doesn’t jump out before it's boiling. Once he starts paying attention again, it's like Bucky is suddenly all over him. He's always standing or sitting closer than Sam expects, his breath ghosting over Sam's skin. His hands are solicitous, always at the ready to help Sam with a door, a bag, a map, a key, or if there's nothing to help with then they're on Sam, on his shoulder or his back or his hip.
It makes it harder and harder to remember why his inexplicable infatuation with Bucky is A Bad Idea. Sam mentally rehearses the reasons, which he has condensed into a few concise bullet points: bad timing, brainwashed prisoner of war, don't be selfish, don't be a pervert. He goes over them like a mantra, over and over until it's basically reduced to "bad selfish pervert," which is not a thing he loves telling himself but on the plus side it does help keep the inopportune boners at bay.
Their supply of cash runs low and Steve is still on high alert after their recent close call, so he decides he should make a withdrawal from one of his myriad of anonymous accounts from a different town, just in case.
Sam and Bucky eat lunch in the restaurant attached to the hotel, in full view of numerous eyewitnesses and therefore establishing an alibi.
They get a booth but Bucky slides in next to him instead of across from the table. His broad shoulders press right up against Sam's.
"It's nice to finally have some time alone together," Bucky says, reaching to take a few fries off Sam's plate.
Sam pushes it closer to Bucky so he doesn't have to stick his whole arm directly into Sam's space. He keeps doing it anyway.
"Sure, yeah," Sam says. He tries not to noticeably squirm away from Bucky or, like, towards him. Bad selfish pervert, bad selfish pervert.
"Is there any particular reason your heart's beating twice as fast as normal?" Bucky asks, tone conversational but volume low, like he's whispering directly into Sam's ear.
"You can hear my heartbeat?" It's creepy, but it's also genuinely interesting, and possibly incriminating as well.
Done with his fries, Bucky shrugs lazily and drops his hand onto the napkin on Sam's lap. He wipes the salt off his fingers and then leaves his hand there above Sam's knee. "Do I make your nervous?"
"No. Yes. Not for the reasons you're thinking."
"What reasons do you think I'm thinking?"
"I know you're not going to kill me in my sleep or anything. Not anymore. Now that you're, you know, yourself. I just..."
Bucky hums at him to go on, squeezes his knee encouragingly.
"I just don't want to be a bad selfish pervert about this," Sam blurts out. It's more truth than he meant to drop. He can tell that Bucky is taken aback by it, even if his face is as stone cold imperturbable as always. One eyebrow subtly rises briefly.
"A bad selfish pervert about what?"
"About wanting you," Sam confesses, because Bucky is so close and his voice is so low, his lips practically touching Sam's ear, his hand kneading his knee, and he barely even has to say it out loud. He can just whisper it, practically mouth it silently, and Bucky can hear him, can hear his heartbeat too apparently.
"Well that's dumb," Bucky says. "Because I've been wanting you too, and I haven't felt even a little bit bad about it."
"That's different. You're allowed. You've been—they kept you prisoner for so long, Bucky."
"Is that the problem?"
Sam doesn't want Bucky to get the impression that he means he thinks Bucky is damaged goods, so he changes tack. "No, I mean, there's also the fact that you're practically Steve's brother. Steve's my friend. He's probably my best friend. And you're his brother. Best friend's brother is off limits."
"Oh my god," Bucky says, like it physically hurts him to not be openly laughing at Sam. "We're not teenagers, Wilson. And if anybody's the forbidden little sister in this relationship, it would be Steve, so don't worry about it."
"I said brother," Sam protests weakly.
"Uh huh," Bucky says, leaning in even closer to Sam's face.
"Speak of the devil," Sam says, turning away. Through big bay window at the front of the restaurant, Steve can be seen approaching from the parking lot.
Bucky backs away to a much more civilized distance. Steve flashes them a thumbs up through the window and that's their cue to pay the bill and check out of the hotel.
They don't get a chance to finish the conversation they started because Steve is constantly with them for the next couple of days. The air hangs weird and tense between them, so fraught with restlessness that Steve has to have noticed. Surely a blind man would notice. Even a dead man would notice. But he says nothing, keeps acting like everything is normal, so Sam and Bucky do a bad job of acting like it too.
After a few nights on the road, taking shifts driving while the other two sleep, they finally settle in a campground that they're pretty sure no Hydra operatives and no Stark spy drones are likely to discover, or at least as sure as they can get.
"No offense or anything, but I need to get away from you guys for a minute or I'm going to go insane," Sam says, stretching his legs. He looks back at the car he just exited and cannot believe that he's spent a good nine-tenths of the past several days packed in that tin can with two other people. "I'm going for a run by myself. I'll stay close and keep this phone on," he says, grabbing one of their burners. "I'll check back in at 1900 hours or before."
Steve looks uneasy, but he says, "Sure thing. We'll get our sleeping bags set up here. Watch your back."
Bucky doesn't say anything, but he takes Sam's phone and does something to it before handing it back.
Sam takes off at an easy pace, following the paths through the woods and intending to keep his promise to stay close. He's in comfortable enough clothing but not quite running gear—it's really more to clear his head than it is for exercise. His feet aren't used to being on the ground so much, now that he's had a taste of the sky again. His wings are safely stashed in their trunk, but a guy flying around with a jetpack is the opposite of inconspicuous so he hasn't used them in a while; and unless world peace unexpectedly descends upon them, he can't even look forward to the next chance he'll get to break them out because it'll probably be some horrible life or death situation.
He tries to shake these maudlin thoughts out of his head, reminding himself that the whole point of going for a run was to feel less antsy, not dwell on things. He forces himself to focus on the present moment and not worry about anything else. Nothing else exists but the pounding of his feet against the packed dirt trail, the calls of nightjars and other crepuscular critters in the trees, the feeling of the air cooling as the sun goes down. He gets into a rhythm and almost manages to forget everything when a dark form ambushes him.
His fried nerves scream out at him and he automatically drops into a defensive stance, striking out at about groin height to divert his attacker. A metal hand knocks his strike to the side and then Bucky's voice says, "It's me, it's just me."
"Jesus, Barnes, what part of 'I'm going on a run by myself' did you have trouble understanding?" Sam pants, his heart thudding out of his ribcage. "You need to stop jumping out at me or I'm going to knock your teeth out one day."
Bucky looks amused, which doesn't do much for Sam's ego or for his sense of personal safety as far as being able to defend himself from surprise Hydra assailants.
"Sorry," Bucky says, sounding like he's never sincerely apologized for anything before in his life, "I didn't mean to startle you. You were getting kind of far from the campsite, I wanted to check on you."
"You bugged my phone, didn't you?"
"I bugged your phone," Bucky agrees.
Sam sighs. This is the first time they've been alone together since their last big talk. He can't say he's totally surprised that Bucky waited until he was deep in the woods and far away from Steve to corner him. He looks around for a good place to sit down and finds a log that looks more or less dry and perches on the end not completely covered in fungus. "Alright big guy, lay it on me."
Bucky looks like he doesn't know whether to sit next to Sam or stand towering over him, and fidgets for a while before settling on standing next to him, looking out into the darkening woods in the same direction Sam is facing, vaguely non-confrontational but still hella tall. He's the one who hunted Sam down, but now he seems unsure of what to say first. He clears his throat. "I probably owe you an apology."
Sam blinks. Not exactly the opening he was expecting, but okay. "For all the times you tried to kill me, for when you fucked up my first set of wings, for waking me with your snoring most nights, or for nearly giving me a heart attack just now?"
"None of those," Bucky says, elbowing the side of Sam's head lightly. Sam head butts him back. "I know you had a job and a house back in DC. You wouldn't be here if it weren't for Steve, and Steve wouldn't be here if it weren't for me."
"I mean, I don't know. Even if it weren't for you, there'd still be this whole unlawful imprisonment thing, and the unconstitutional governmental oversight of every citizen who's ever put on a fancy costume and picked a funny nickname. I might still be running around out here involving myself. My momma always said I don't have a lick of common sense."
Bucky snorts.
"But that's not what you wanted to get me alone to talk about, is it?"
They're silent for long enough that the birds start calling again. Eventually, Bucky works up the nerve to say, "We've established that you're into me. And I'm into you. So I don't understand why we're still dancing around each other."
Oh boy. And here Sam thought Bucky would beat around the bush some more.
"If my whole past is too complicated to deal with, you should just tell me and I'll back off. I get it. You don't have to try to let me down easy. But if it makes a difference you should know that they didn't rape me. They threatened it sometimes, but they never actually did it—not that I can remember anyway, I guess I could still be missing some memories, but I'm saying I don't have any mental trauma about sex specifically, so if that's what's been holding you back...I mean. Don't hold back on my account."
Sam puts his hands over his face and thinks very seriously about wailing into the night. With his luck, Steve's supersoldier enhanced hearing would pick it up and the only way this conversation could get more awkward would be if Steve joined in. He feels Bucky's hand come to rest on the back of his neck. His hand is so large that it feels like his palm spans his entire nape.
"Are you mad? Did I say something wrong?"
"No, I'm not mad." Sam laughs helplessly. "At least not at you. I just—I hadn't thought about it, and now I might be kind of mad at myself for not thinking they could've done that to you. I've been holding back because I don't want to take advantage of you. You were a prisoner for so long, there's a whole wide world out there for you to explore, the first available guy you see shouldn't get to call dibs on you. Especially when it didn't even occur to that guy to ask if Hydra, you know, assaulted you."
Bucky's hand on his neck tightens minutely. Sam does not stop covering his face. "Come on, are you serious right now? You're seriously feeling guilty over your failure to imagine all the things that didn't happen to me."
"That could've happened to you!"
"No wonder you and Steve are friends. You're ridiculous." With that, Bucky pulls Sam's head up and tips it back so that he's looking straight up, throat bared into the night air. Bucky leans down and kisses him.
His long dark hair falls over their faces like a curtain. Sam has kissed his fair share of people, but he can't remember if he's ever done it at this angle before, although it's difficult to remember anything at all right now. It's strange, in a novel rather than a bad way, and Bucky's plush mouth is softer than he expected. He isn't rough, which is another thing Sam for some reason expected, but he takes control with an assured ease, like he's trying to convince Sam that this is exactly what he wants. Sam makes a ragged, desperate sound low in his chest, and when they pull away to catch their breaths, Sam takes the opportunity to stand up so he can be face-to-face with Bucky. He pushes him up against the nearest tree, and Bucky's muscles bunch under Sam's hands, a reminder that he's merely allowing Sam to move him around.
They make out against the tree until Sam begins to feel lightheaded, and would have kept going if Sam's phone didn't start buzzing in his pocket.
Bucky starts to make a "is that your phone or are you just happy to see me" joke and Sam claps his hand over his mouth, stopping him.
"I set a ten minute warning alarm so I can get back to the campground on time—" Sam yanks his hand away when Bucky licks his palm, making a face. He wipes it on Bucky's hoodie. "You're disgusting. We gotta start heading back before Steve throws a fit."
They jog back and make it there well before Steve starts to worry, and he smiles at both of them, guileless and pure as apple pie. Sam automatically starts to feel guilty, despite the fact that according to Bucky they're both grown men capable of consent.
"How was your run?" Steve asks.
Bucky says nothing, poker-faced, so Sam follows his lead and says, "It was fine. Good. Glad I got some time away from you guys, no offense. I feel a lot less like I'm going to fidget out of my skin now."
"For the record, I was glad you finally gave me some time on my own too," Steve says. "I was sick and tired of seeing your face every time I turned."
"Yeah right," Sam scoffs. "You missed me so much, it's actually kind of sad because I was only gone for like half an hour. How embarrassing for you."
Steve laughs, and they continue to rib each other as they turn in for the night, with even Bucky occasionally chiming in.
It's been a while since Sam has slept on the ground outside, and even with the high quality sleeping bags they have, Sam's bones let him know that he's older than he used to be. Luckily, they only have to do it for one night.
Steve gets a long message from Sharon that makes Bucky and Sam share a knowing look and then proceed to tease Steve mercilessly. Steve flips them the bird, one finger each, and says, "Would you be serious for two seconds, this is actually important intel."
"Is 'important intel' twenty-first century slang for dirty talk?" Bucky asks in a perfect deadpan.
Steve casts him an exasperated glare and looks to Sam for help.
"Come on Barnes, didn't you hear the man? It's serious business. Go on, Steve, tell us what Sharon sexted you."
Steve groans and tells them to pack their bags, refusing to relay the message as punishment for their mockery. He takes the wheel and starts driving without telling them where they're headed, and it takes two solid hours of non-stop badgering before he finally gives in and lets them know that the lead they've been following has run dry and they need to interrupt their steady west-ward progression to divert north. True to their previous agreement, Steve keeps some of the details from Sam, only telling him enough so that he knows they're going to stay in a hotel on the outskirts of Coldwater, Michigan. He assumes that Steve fills Bucky in on the rest while they go on a secret reconnaissance mission and leave Sam to scope out the hotel.
He runs a background check on everyone on the staff of the three-star inn with the limited technology that T'Challa was able to sneak them before they had to drop off the radar. He scans the air for drones, sweeps their rooms for bugs, and manually clears all of their possible exit routes. It takes him a while to be so thorough, but whatever Steve and Bucky are out doing takes even longer, and so Sam retires to his single room to take a long overdue shower.
He's just washing the suds off his skin, clean for the first time in days, when he hears a door opening. He leaves the shower running but steps out soundlessly, reaching for the gun he left out on the counter just in case.
"Stand down, soldier," Bucky calls out.
Sam relaxes and nudges open the bathroom door with his foot. "How'd you know I was about to shoot your face off?"
"You aren't stupid." Bucky pushes his way in and closes the door again behind his back.
It's suddenly a very, very small room. And Sam is very, very wet and naked. "Where's Steve?" he asks, throat dry.
"Sent him off to get food and report everything we learned to the Carter girl. He'll be gone for at least another hour."
Sam swallows. Bucky's arms come up to bracket Sam, one on either side of the counter, penning him in. He smells faintly of some kind of accelerant, like diesel or something.
"I should, um," Sam says, uncocking his pistol and then leaning over to put it far out of reach.
"Good thinking."
Sam looks up and can't remember feeling this small in a very long time. Bucky's presence is a solid bulk surrounding him, his face as inscrutably blank as always, and yet none of it sets off any of the danger signals in Sam's brain. He feels vulnerable but not threatened, like he's holding himself open and inviting someone in.
"Can I kiss you?" Bucky asks, and it's such a simple request that Sam breaks his own heart a little by thinking about how long he wasn't allowed to ask for anything, until now. He nods silently, and Bucky pushes forward, crowding him into the faux granite counter and pressing their lips together.
Like the last time they kissed, Bucky goes for exactly what he wants, firm and unself-conscious. He lets Sam's tongue into his mouth but when he decides he's had enough, he gives it a gentle nip. Sam can't help moaning at that, his dick twitching to attention. Bucky presses his knee between Sam's thighs, and the rough denim against his damp skin feels like a million small pricks of electricity.
Bucky keeps rocking into Sam's hardening cock while he kisses him, until Sam is practically riding his leg like some horny teenager. He pulls away with a ragged gasp and says, "Stop, I don’t want to come on your jeans."
Bucky stops, but only steps back enough to put maybe a hairsbreadth between them.
"Are we doing this?" Sam asks.
"Do you want to?"
"Yeah, shit, yeah, just let me—" Sam wriggles within Bucky's grasp, getting enough room to reach into his shaving bag to find the little tube of KY jelly he keeps in there. He has no condoms but thanks to an embarrassing conversation with Steve (well, embarrassing for Steve, delightful for Sam) he knows that supersoldiers can't carry STIs. He turns around to face the counter, bending over.
"Do you wanna do the honours or should I?" Sam asks over his shoulder, holding up the lube.
"You do it, I'll watch," Bucky says, and it sounds so hot that Sam's hips involuntarily thrust forward.
He quickly smears some lube onto the fingers of his right hand and reaches behind himself, applying it all around his hole first before dipping one finger in, then two. He can't get them too deep from this angle, but he makes up for that by using a lot of lube, really making sure everything is nice and slippery.
Sam sneaks a look at Bucky and sees him watching intently, like he's memorizing what Sam's fingers are doing. He's still fully dressed, visible erection tenting the zipper of his jeans. It sends a shiver of anticipation down Sam's spine. If he felt deliciously vulnerable before, it's heightened tenfold—he's completely naked, splayed wide before Bucky, while Bucky could walk straight outside right now and still look perfectly normal, obvious hard-on notwithstanding. He has a flashback to a butterfly exhibit he saw once at the Smithsonian. That's what he feels like right now: his wings held open by pins for the pleasure of his onlooker.
"Okay, I'm ready," he tells Bucky, and god, when did his voice get so raspy?
Bucky unbuttons his fly and pulls his pants down along with his underwear, just enough for his cock to spring free. He takes the lube from Sam and squeezes a generous amount onto his length. Sam makes a mental note to buy a bigger tube from now on. He reaches back to help Bucky spread it around, squeezing, running his thumb up the thick vein on the underside of his cock. Bucky groans, jerking forward, his cock jutting into the cleft of Sam's ass. He squeezes more lube onto himself and for a while they go at it like that, Bucky's cock sliding up and down Sam's crack, and Sam thinks he could probably come like this, eventually, with Bucky nudging the sensitive skin behind his balls on every stroke, if this is all Bucky wants to do.
Apparently it isn't what Bucky's thinking, because after a few more thrusts he pulls back and takes hold of his dick with his hand, feeding it into Sam's hole. There's so much lube that it slides right in, no friction but plenty of pressure. Sam breathes in and out deeply, unclenching all of his muscles. It's been a while since he's done this but he still remembers how to bear down, how to accept the intrusion and just feel.
Bucky is making the most incredible sounds, deep and low and gruff, and his hands grip Sam's hips just this side of too hard. He doesn't try to push all the way in right away, stops about halfway to let Sam adjust before pulling out, opening him up with a series of shallow thrusts.
Sam uses one hand to brace himself so he doesn't smash face first into the slightly chipped off-white sink, and with the other hand he pulls at his own cock, trying to keep time with Bucky. He tells him when he's ready for more, for Bucky to go a little harder, and Bucky gives it to him in earnest.
Sam's trying not to make too much noise because Steve could theoretically walk in at any moment, but that thought just makes him even harder, and he bites down on his forearm in an attempt to muffle himself. Bucky's length drives in and out of him relentlessly, and his wet hand scrabbles on the counter, slips, he almost face-plants and then Bucky's left arm is there around his chest, holding him up. Bucky uses it to pull him back onto his cock, and Sam can't help it anymore, he's coming and he can't do it quietly, cries out as he spills all over his stomach.
Bucky isn't done yet, fucking Sam through his aftershocks, riding him out. Sam is over-sensitized, he can feel Bucky all over, like Bucky isn't just inside his ass but inside all of him, everywhere. His skin feels like it's buzzing and his softening penis bounces against his thigh with Bucky's movements. Every time Bucky's cock brushes against his prostate, it feels like a wash of static comes over him, tingles from his head to his toes. He moans helplessly.
He knows Bucky is getting close when his breathing gets quicker and quicker, the panting in his ear building to a crescendo that finally ends with three quick, jerky thrusts, burying himself to the hilt and then pulsating, pumping his seed into Sam.
They sort of just hold onto each other and breathe as their singing nerves come back down to the earth. The bathroom mirror has fogged up so completely that Sam can't see their reflections.
Bucky pulls out, and Sam gingerly straightens up. His back complains loudly in the form of creaks and cracks, and he grimaces, rolling his shoulders back and swinging his arms to get feeling back into them. There are bruises on his hips and across the front of Sam's chest, where Bucky's metal fingertips dug into his skin.
"Did I hurt you?" Bucky asks quietly.
"I kind of ache all over," Sam says truthfully, "but I already did before all of...that. It's more the spending all day cramped in a car and sleeping outside and constantly running for my life, not the great sex. Which, I have to emphasize, was great."
Bucky looks relieved, or about as relieved as his face is capable of looking. "I haven't fucked anybody since they juiced up my body. I didn't know if it would be too much. I tried to practice so I wouldn't hurt you."
"...Practice?"
"On a grapefruit," Bucky clarifies. "I wanted to make sure my dick wouldn't punch through your insides."
Sam almost ruptures something trying not to laugh at the absurdity of Bucky boning a grapefruit, then gives up and laughs a lot.
"Oh shut the fuck up," Bucky says. "I was trying to be considerate."
"No, I appreciate it, trust me, I do," Sam says, wiping tears from his eyes, "I just. A grapefruit. A grapefruit!"
"Speaking of things we appreciate," Bucky growls, and Sam tries to get his mirth under control because it sounds like Bucky is going to articulate his desires for the second time this hour, and he really should be more supportive, "Can we not tell Steve about this? Just for now?"
It's not exactly the most romantic you could say to someone after you've just fucked their brains out, but Sam feels strongly that everything they do should be on Bucky's terms. He's the one who hasn't been allowed to choose anything for the past few decades. He gets to call the shots. "Sure, yeah, no problem," he says, trying to keep his voice light.
"Not because I'm embarrassed or anything," Bucky rushes to reassure him. "Just because I know Steve, and he's going to hear wedding bells as soon as he finds out, and we should figure out what we want and where we're going with this before he gets his hopes up too high, you know?"
"Yeah, no, that makes sense," Sam says. He remembers the list of reasons he made about why this is a bad idea. He's still naked, and Bucky is still practically fully dressed. He wishes he could put his pants on or at least wrap a towel around himself, but there's warm jizz dripping down the back of his leg and he needs another shower.
"Thanks for understanding," Bucky says, and then he kisses Sam again and Sam knows he's in trouble for real because he reflexively melts into it, like his body already thinks Bucky is his to keep.
Bucky strips his jacket off, his hoodie and his shirt, toes off his shoes and socks and lets his pants drop all the way to pool on the floor. He helps Sam step over the edge of the bathtub when his legs are too sore and he holds Sam up through his whole shower. He even helps him scrub his back.
They're dressed and in their separate rooms long before Steve returns.