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In hindsight, they should’ve waited for backup.
No matter what Sarah says, brows raised and voice hushed and every part of her love-soaked, so much Sam drowns in it, a childhood spent swimming be damned, the recklessness was always in him. Written in his code. Flowing freely in his veins, too much for his own good. The shield. It amplifies it, that’s all. Sam’s always been an impulsive dumbass.
It’s laughable, really, because Barnes is usually on Sam’s case, all the time. About his planning. Or. Lack thereof. About diving into fights, fists-first, and raised, and ready. Always ready to kick justice into anyone who thinks is above it.
Except.
It’s been a while, since they’ve done. This. Carrying the shield means a weight heavier than just. Metal. Means responsibility, and being in the public eye, and. Bowing his head, and biting the inside of his cheek, and nodding. Means complying. Means keeping up appearances. Captain America doesn’t do offline, and going rogue, and covert bad-guy-punching operations.
Well. This Captain America, at least.
Steve could get away with a lot. Sam hasn’t. Earned that. Not yet.
And, god. He misses it. He. He missed. This. Getting here first, before all the official suits swarm in and ruin the whole thing. Throwing one look at the place, an abandoned warehouse, empty and there for the taking. Barnes at his side, combat suit on, smirking like he’s been missing this as much as Sam has. Smirking like he knows. Rolling his eyes at Sam’s whispered backup’s on the way, wanna—?
Like it wasn’t a question. Like. It’s never been.
Leaving Sam reeling, unsteady and unmoored and fucked up in ways he doesn’t ever, ever wanna think about, when he tilted his head towards the empty, empty space, waiting for Sam to make the decision. Waiting for Sam to take the plunge. Leaving Sam dizzy, when he nodded, and said, around a smile that wasn’t a smirk, around a smile as real as bullets flying, ‘Right behind you, Cap.’
He missed it, Sam really, really did. Diving, fists raised and still unblooded. It’s a rush he can’t ever shake off. Hopes he won’t.
Except.
In hindsight, they should’ve seen it coming.
An empty space is never empty. Nothing’s ever that easy.
So now they’re crouched behind a machine barely big enough to take every bullet instead of them. Sam counted fifteen, maybe twenty guys in masks he’s never seen before. Chances are, won’t ever see again. Barnes is frozen still next to him, head peeking around the machine to gauge the damage they’re bound to take. Left arm flexing and unflexing in a way Sam’s almost entirely certain he knows exactly what it means.
Almost entirely certain he hates it.
‘What?’ He doesn’t even bother lowering his voice. This isn’t hide-and-seek. They’re spotted. It’s a matter of time. ‘Bucky. What’re you thinking?’
‘Twenty-three,’ Barnes replies, eyes still locked on the field before him. Sam knows he’s playing out every possible scenario. Coming up with carnage every single time. There’s no getting out of this. ‘No snipers. All on the ground. They’re carrying handguns.’ He lets out a laugh, twisted and wrong. Moribund. ‘Fuck’s sake, just plain, ordinary handguns. Fuck.’
Sam’s left watching the back of his head, shaking in a silent laugh. Left contemplating all the ways this can. Could go right. All the way they could turn it around. Help—help is on the way. Way too fucking far. They’re closing up on them—
‘Bucky,’ he says, frantic, because there’s only one way this ends, and Sam hates it. Hates it.
Barnes turns to him, then, face stone-set. Determined. The look in his eyes says he knows exactly how much Sam’s going to hate this. ‘You need,’ he cuts off, closes his eyes for a moment. Licks his lips, death-dry and winter-white. ‘You need to stay. Right here.’
Sam’s grabbing for his arm before he’s remotely done saying the dumbest shit Sam’s ever heard. Snarling, ‘That’s not fucking happening,’ at his face before he’s realizing it. Decides it’s absolutely, one-hundred percent called for.
There’s a battlefield ready to implode on them. The deep inhale Barnes sucks in is the only thing Sam can hear. They’re both down to their last.
‘This,’ Barnes is saying, left arm, black, metal, lethal, lifted in the air between them like a sick reminder, ‘can stop bullets.’
Sam presses a thumb in the middle of his dumb, empty forehead. Nothing behind it to destroy, anyway. ‘This can’t.’
Bullets are raining down on them, and Barnes. Barnes smiles at Sam, soft-edged, crinkly-eyed.
‘I’m good at staying alive,’ he says, ‘been excelling at it for a hundred years, now.’
Sam’s fingers are still gripping him tight, tight, tight. Not letting go. ‘No,’ he says, head shaking, vision swimming with black spots, with bullets. With last breaths. ‘Bucky. No.’
The smile falters, for a second, and Barnes’ eyes slip lower, and Sam doesn’t get it. He doesn’t, until Barnes is breathing, ‘Fuck it,’ and Sam feels it on his lips, almost, and then.
There’s no almost, not anymore. There’s nothing else, other than a pair of lips on his. Just the slightest pressure, feather-light. A fairytale kinda kiss, to wake the princess up.
Sam was right about those lips. Rough and coarse and dried to hell on his, and Sam. Sam’s dizzy with it. This fairytale kiss, bullet-rushed and gruff, and soft, and scraping at something inside him, aching. Running out of time with it.
He’ll get a chapstick, he decides, his mouth still on Barnes’, his fingers still holding on. Tight, tight, tight. The moment this is over, he’ll get a chapstick, berry-scented and butter-smooth and—
‘Stay here,’ Barnes breathes, still on his lips. Pulling back. Pleading. Deadly, and then he’s—
Sam watches him push away, get up, disappear around the stupid machine barely keeping them alive. Watches him go.
There’s no one to hear him, when he mutters, ‘Not fucking happening,’ and no one to hold him back, this time, from running into battle. Fists raised and shield heavy and twenty-three targets away from walking out of this alive.
Twenty-three targets away from licking chapstick off dry lips.
In hindsight, Sam should’ve seen it coming.
They’re down to six, because they really are unstoppable, the two of them. Metal arm and metal shield and. Them, together. Unstoppable, and still.
There’s a shout, and Sam doesn’t register its familiarity, until it’s way, way too late. He doesn’t trace its source, until they’re down to one, and Barnes isn’t there to steal the glory right out of Sam’s hands. Hand-and-shield. Whatever.
Barnes isn’t there. Barnes is—he’s—
The shield knocks against the back of the last guy’s head, standing over a body on the ground, right before his finger pulls the trigger. Sam hates killing. Won’t ever. Ever get used to it.
He’d gladly turn this guy’s head into a pulp, over, and over, and over. Wouldn’t even need the shield. His fists’d do just fine.
Barnes is. He’s on the ground, in all black, and Sam can still see red blooming over his right side. Spilling, running, flowing out of him, concrete-grey turning red, turning dark, turning bloody.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, Sam registers falling on it, concrete scraping against his knee caps, blood soaking the fabric. He wants to scoop it all up with that stupid shield, shove it back inside Barnes’ veins, drop by drop.
Barnes is sat up on his elbows, laughs when Sam meets the harsh ground. Gives him a chuckle, then winces his way through Sam’s name, coming breathless, and raspy, and wrong out of his lips.
Sam knows his name, and how it’s meant to sound like. He knows what those lips feel like against his, too.
‘Was that for me?’ he asks, nodding down at the blood, a red waterfall, spilling out.
‘You were distracted,’ Barnes shrugs, and Sam is right there to catch him when his elbows finally, finally give out. ‘Had to make do.’
He’s looking up at Sam, head cradled in Sam’s right hand, eyes soft, and cloudy, and. Bright. Dimming.
‘Can’t believe you ate a bullet for me,’ Sam laughs, this side of deranged, ‘you’re such a fuckin’ cliché, man.’
‘What, kissing you right before going all white knight for you wasn’t enough to establish that?’
Sam hears himself saying, ‘Don’t fucking talk, asshole,’ because Barnes is wasting breaths he can’t afford to, and help is on the way, and that. That’s still too fucking far, ‘You ever heard of lip balm? Your lips are dry as hell.’
Barnes, the stubborn asshole, keeps talking, keeps smiling. Keeps. Fucking breathing, wasting it for Sam, says, ‘What I’m hearing is you liked it,’ voice pitching lower on every word, ‘and want a repeat performance.’
‘You need to stay fucking alive for that, asshole,’ Sam’s saying, almost as breathless, almost as condemned, ‘’m not swapping spit with your corpse.’
Barnes chuckles, and then winces, and then.
‘Sam,’ he says, ‘it’s okay. It’s okay.’
His eyelashes flutter, once, twice, and Sam isn’t looking into ice anymore. Sam’s left staring at all the blood, deep red and spilling out and. Wrong, all wrong, and praying that help is on the way.
In hindsight, he should’ve known.
He comes to with warm fingers flexing, entwined with his, and a coughy sort of exhale, and.
‘On your left,’ the asshole next to him says, hoarsely, like it’s five years ago and they don’t know any better than to put each other in danger.
Which. Well.
Sam says, ‘Fuck you, man,’ and lets out the breath he’s been holding for the last four days.
What he gets for his troubles is a scrunched-up nose. And a smile, Colgate-white and shining under the flickering hospital neon. ‘Give it a couple days,’ Barnes says, scowling down at himself. The fallen hero. IV-hooked, wires drip-drip-dripping life into him.
Sam briefly contemplates ripping out every single one of them. That’ll show him.
‘How long—’
‘Four days.’
‘Oh,’ Barnes leans closer, face scrunching up even more. ‘Yeah, I can smell that.’
Sam’s been. He’s been nailed here, in this chair. The world’s most uncomfortable hospital chair. Holding that asshole’s hand. Muttering prayers he forgot years and missions and many dead people ago. Breathing. Vowing to breathe for both of them.
He lets go of the hand still in his.
‘You don’t do that,’ he says, eyes on the machine to his right. On that green line. Drawing mountains, climbing up, diving down. Each mountain a heartbeat. Almost. Lost. ‘You don’t ever do that, ever again.’
‘Sam—’
‘Wasn’t a question.’ He snaps his head up, then. Stares at the fucking idiot next to him, kept to life by tubes. A hole on his side. Bullet-shaped. With Sam’s name on it. ‘I’m telling you, Bucky. Not asking. This isn’t happening again. Ever.’
The absolute asshole shrugs, eyes, soft. Smiling. Resigned. ‘Just gonna end up breaking it if I make you a promise, man. The world—’ He stops to lick at his lips, over and over and over. Four days later, and Sam still owes him that chapstick.
There’s a slit on the left corner of his top lip. Sam wants to press his thumb on it, on that blood-red cut. Stem the flow, and keep the pressure on, until all the blood’s back where it’s meant to be. Until all the wounds have healed.
He settles for taking the one flesh hand Barnes can spare back in his. Squeezing, once.
‘The world needs Captain America,’ the asshole says, ‘the world needs. You.’
Sam blinks at him. Tries, and fails, to guess how that must feel. A hundred years of war. A hundred years of being considered expendable.
His vision goes blind-white. He shuts his eyes, and a thumb brushes over his knuckles, and.
Sam wants to burn the whole world to the ground. Starting with this fucking chair, probably.
‘I need you,’ he seethes, and doesn’t let the sharp intake of breath, or the machine, beeping faster behind him, steal his courage. Fuck the shield and everything it stands for. This. This is a moment of extreme bravery, or foolishness, or. Both. ‘I need you, so you. You don’t pull that shit, ever again.’ The idiot’s still blinking at him, infuriatingly speechless, so Sam tugs at their hands. ‘Bucky. That clear?’
The asshole tries to hide the grin spreading over his stupid, woodchip-dry lips, by. Lowering his head. Like he hasn’t been looking at Sam, exactly like this, for months. Like he hasn’t spent every single day fucking with Sam’s mind.
‘You know,’ he starts, voice way too teasing for a man knocking on death’s door four infernal days ago, ‘I can’t actually die, right? I’m practically indestructible.’
‘Remember that the next time you’re bleeding out in my arms, asshole.’
Barnes laughs, laughs, coarse and raspy and. Alive. He nods at the cursed chair. ‘That looks comfortable.’
‘Yeah, well,’ Sam scowls, every muscle on his back, and neck, and fucking. Arms protesting, ‘not like I had a choice.’
There’s a moment of absolute stillness. Of absolute silence.
Then the idiot, the absolute idiot, he. Scoots over. Lifts one corner of the hospital blanket, mint-colored. Hideous. Raises an eyebrow in invitation. In challenge.
Sam knows him. It’s both.
It’s a stupid idea. The bed’s barely big enough for one beefed-up supersoldier. There’s no way they can both—
He heaves a sigh, and climbs in bed with his very own domesticated assassin. Lets his head fall against a pillow for the first time in days.
When he looks up, Barnes is grinning at him.
‘What?’
The grin grows wide, wide, wider. ‘Nothin’,’ the asshole says, Brooklyn-raised and destined to fuck up Sam’s life with it, ‘just. You have a crush on me. ‘s embarrassing.’
It’s going great, so far. His plan. Sam’s life is sufficiently fucked.
‘Stops being a crush when you act on it, dumbass,’ he says, rearranging the blankets around them. No way in hell is he letting the Siberian husky hog them.
Despite it all, through IV tubes and hospital gowns and matted hair, the asshole manages to look smug.
‘Riddle me this, Sammy, when exactly did you act on it? ‘Cause last I remember, I kissed you, and then I almost died for you, and—’
Sam doesn’t get to hear the rest of it, sadly. It sounded fascinating, but he thinks it’s safe to assume the. The actual whine the world’s deadliest assassin feeds him when Sam shoves his tongue past the idiot’s lips is more interesting.
He sighs a moan, low and rumbly, breathless, right into Sam’s mouth, and the machine beeps faster, and.
Yeah. Way more interesting.
In hindsight, he should’ve guessed.
Someone clears his throat next to him, and Sam opens his eyes to register a woman with a clipboard and a tight ponytail, all very official-looking, and a nurse trying and failing, miserably, to hide his laugh on his scrubs, and.
When Sam tries to sit up, he finds out it’s impossible.
He’s held down by arms, one slightly more human than the other, and a pair of legs, and. A face, pressed right under his jaw, breath tickling him on every exhale.
Sam registers all of that, in that order, trapped under. A deadly assassin. Who is very stubbornly, very suspiciously clinging to sleep. Almost as tight as he’s clinging onto Sam.
The woman clears her throat, again, and Sam realizes he’s spent the last thirty seconds staring down at the absolute idiot lying almost entirely on top of him. Sam also realizes there’s a word to describe the smile on his face, and two witnesses to it.
He wonders what the government’s policy on memory wiping is.
It’s fine. He’s spent the last four days on a chair designed to ruin every single individual muscle of the human body. He can chalk it up to that.
‘You know, sir, it’s been a long day,’ the woman’s saying, ‘and we’re all tired. The report can wait.’
She turns around, with that nurse Sam’s probably gonna have fired on her heels, and. Blissfully, blissfully, walks away.
Sam’s pinching the idiot’s uninjured side the moment the door closes quietly behind them. ‘They’re gone, asshole. Stop playing dead.’
He also presses a kiss at the top of that asshole’s head. To soothe the pain. Whatever.
‘Ow,’ the five-year-old in Sam’s arms whines, lips leaving a trail of kisses up Sam’s throat, ‘who’s playing, Sammy? Stop being ungrateful,’ he says, kisses the corner of Sam’s mouth, ‘go back to sleep.’
In hindsight, Sam decides, eyes growing heavier, body held down by sleep, by two arms and a body, lethal and familiar and safe, he should’ve seen this coming a long, long time ago.