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Sam’s momma had four tattoos down her spine. He’d been four the first time he saw them, and had been struck by the fact that their number matched his age, because when you’re four, the entire world revolves around you.
The one at the top, just between her shoulderblades, was less a tattoo and more of a shapeless smear of black, barely visible against her smooth, dark skin. He found out later that’d been a boy she’d known in college, a firebrand and a rebel who’d stood up for others at every opportunity, marched in every protest, signed every petition, linked arms at every rally. He’d died when a tear gas cannister went off right in his face and he’d choked on it, seized up and died before help had arrived.
The next one down was a pretty flower, a petunia, and that one was for Miz Charlene, who lived down the street and had been Momma’s bestest friend since they’d been tots. A few years later, Sam would wonder why Miz Charlene’s flower wasn’t at the top of Momma’s spine since she’d known Miz Charlene first, and Momma had just smiled in that slow way of hers and said that there was more to a soul tattoo than loving someone, and that she hadn’t needed Miz Charlene’s flower until after that first tattoo had burned out.
The third was a dog, or maybe a wolf, and Sam didn’t know whose that was. He wasn’t sure if Daddy knew, either, but he did somehow know that it wasn’t to be talked about. Not with Momma and Daddy, anyway, and it wasn’t until the week before he left for Basic that Nanna had told him that it’d been a man Momma had dated for a couple of years before she’d met Sam’s daddy -- Momma’s graceful willow branch had never formed on his spine, and he’d up and disappeared a couple of weeks after his tattoo had shown up on Momma, because he was a coward who couldn't handle knowing that Momma was going to love him forever. At least, that's what Nanna said, and Sam had no reason to doubt her.
After that was Sam’s daddy’s tattoo, a perching falcon. He’d seen Daddy come up behind Momma in the kitchen as she washed the dishes or peeled potatoes, and lean down to kiss the middle of her back, and seeing the position of his mark on Momma’s spine made that bit of contortion a lot more logical.
So Sam figured he was already predisposed to love easily and wholly and often, and if it meant some of them would break his heart, well, he trusted that the others would help hold it together.
Riley’s oak leaf was his first. It formed three weeks into the insanely intense training for the EXO-FALCON project, when Riley’s face was the first thing he saw in the grey pre-dawn light and the last thing he saw early the next morning when they were finally allowed to collapse into their bunks after twenty-odd hours on the move. Sam thought at first that he’d misadjusted the vent port on the top of the pack so it was aimed into his neck from the searing burn of its appearance. Maybe it was the sleep deprivation, but when Sam finally figured it out, he’d damn near collapsed with hysterical laughter. He showed it to Riley in the showers, and Riley had started laughing, too, and turned around to show Sam the spread-winged falcon at the top of his own spine, still puffy and red around the edges with newness.
The burn of a forming tattoo was nothing to the pain of a tattoo burning itself out after your bondmate died, it turned out.
Sam had never been meant to be alone, though, and slowly, he began to find himself getting back out into the world. He was easing into a real life -- exercising again and trying to eat right, healing (if never filling) the hole in his heart by leading group sessions at the VA. He called Momma every few days to reassure her that he was getting better, and sometimes he even meant it. And then Captain America happened.
He’d be lying if he said he didn’t entertain the thought of Steve’s mark on his spine (what was it, even? A bald eagle? A bull to match that stubbornness?) but that was a fantasy from the start, and Sam knew it.
Steve Rogers was a man worth following, and he turned out to be a damned good friend, when he wasn’t blowing shit up and dragging Sam’s ass straight through the explosions, but he wasn’t a guy that Sam could really love. Little too prone to thinking with his fists, and lord, the drama. Sam and Natasha had an ongoing text conversation about Steve’s melodramatic tendencies. So far, she was up on points, but that was only because she’d been around Steve more.
(Sam regularly texted the Black Widow to complain about Captain America. What the hell even was his life?)
But then they finally caught up with Barnes, and Sam was glad he didn’t have any soulbonds, because it was a full time job and then some just to keep Barnes putting one foot in front of the other. The guy was weighed down with regret and guilt and pain and all kinds of self-esteem issues.
Steve’s approach to helping Bucky was to just stare at him with soulful longing, or occasionally try to prod Bucky into remembering something that had happened eighty years ago, and Sam could practically see the way that just kept piling up the remorse and guilt. He saw the way Bucky fought to hide each and every negative emotion behind a mask of calm, if not precisely cheer.
That shit wasn’t healthy. Sam decided that the best way to combat Steve’s damn puppy eyes was to be an utter shit to Bucky. It gave the man something to be annoyed at, harmlessly. Bleed off a little of that suppressed anger and frustration and anguish. Mere drops from the several buckets-full Bucky was carrying around, but every little bit, right?
Sam had no illusions that Bucky hadn’t figured it out right off the bat, because of course Bucky knew what Sam was doing. Steve had no clue, though. He was forever giving them both these earnest speeches about how they should Try to Get Along (you could hear the capital letters). It never occurred to Steve to notice that, however much they bickered and bitched, they were always at each other’s sides, that Sam went easier on Bucky after a rough night, that Bucky was the one to prod Sam into getting out of bed and dressed and eating when it was Sam who’d spent the night fighting ghosts.
The first time he caught Bucky’s eyes actively rolling at Steve’s drama, Sam had cackled like a laying hen. He found an excuse to get Bucky a phone and into the bitch-chat with Natasha. And damn, but he should’ve done that sooner, ‘cause Bucky had all the dirt on Steve from back in the day. Turns out Rogers was even more prone to melodrama back when he was a tiny little ball of indignant rage.
Sam wasn’t all that surprised, six or eight months along, when he felt the burn of a new tattoo coming in underneath the scorch mark that was all that was left of Riley’s. He checked the mirror the next day, when it’d had time to settle, and looked at Bucky’s pine branch there for a long time, letting himself feel the whole maelstrom of emotion that came with it.
Bucky kissing him, though, that came as a bit of a shock.
Sam’s soaring falcon looked real nice on Bucky’s spine, too, right underneath Steve’s, which turned out to be a cat. (“He says it’s a panther,” Bucky told him, “but I’m pretty sure it’s a feral alley cat.” Sam had cracked up every time he’d looked at Steve for three days afterward. Sam couldn’t venture a guess of his own; the cat was deformed with scar tissue from where the Russians had tried to cut it out of Bucky’s skin.)
They continued to be assholes to each other most of the time, though, so it took Steve a good month to figure out what was going on. It took them a full half hour to text Natasha about the speech he gave them when he finally did catch a clue. It was great.
***
Sam would be lying if he said he didn’t have mixed feelings about moving to New York and living in the Tower. Everyone knew about Stark’s parents and the Winter Soldier, and it was one of the things that continued to weigh heavily on Bucky’s mind. None of the Winter Soldier’s other targets had been people he’d known before.
But New York was where the Avengers were, and it was where Steve needed to be, and where Steve went, there went Bucky and Sam.
Stark wasn’t too happy about the arrangement, himself, at first, but Sam could see the man was trying to put it behind him, to accept that Bucky hadn’t had a choice about the things he’d done. Focusing on Hydra, who’d been behind it, was at least something they had in common.
Still, the first time Stark invited Bucky down to the workshop to help fix a problem with his arm, Sam tagged along. (“Let him say his piece,” Bucky said. “If it’ll help clear the air, I’ll take it.” Sam had nodded but privately drawn lines in the proverbial sand: there was healthy expression of anger, and then there was outright abuse, and Sam wasn’t gonna tolerate any of the latter.)
But Stark had been the consummate professional. He’d encouraged questions, checked Bucky’s comfort levels at every step, and after reviewing the scans, offered to teach Sam how to do the repair instead.
Sam wondered if Steve had gotten to Stark first with one of those Try to Get Along speeches, because Sam had seen the way Stark treated Dr. Banner, brusque and incautious, and Stark and Banner were friends.
Whatever the cause, Sam was glad Stark had decided to play nice. After that, a lot of the tension in the Tower evaporated. Bucky even started talking to Stark a little, hanging out with him when Sam was otherwise occupied. Sam was glad for that -- if it weren’t for the conflict caused by the Winter Soldier, Bucky and Tony would be a lot alike: mouthy, sarcastic assholes with soft, squishy centers and a penchant for shouldering far more than their share of guilt, though that last was an entirely too common trait in this place.
But it wasn’t until they’d been in the Tower for nearly a year that Sam found Bucky in their room, shivering through a panic attack, and when Sam went to comfort him, Bucky flinched away, which he’d never done before.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean... Sam, I’m sorry,” Bucky gasped.
“Slow down, Buck; what the hell?”
Bucky didn’t meet Sam’s eyes as he dragged his shirt up and turned so Sam could see--
--a new tattoo under his own, a coil of vines studded with thorns and flowers, still fresh-formed and red around the edges. Sam touched it, gently. “Who-- Tony.”
Bucky let his shirt fall back into place and nodded miserably. “You mad?”
Sam blew out a breath. “Surprised,” he admitted. “Didn’t know you two were getting so close.” Bucky still wasn’t meeting his eyes. “Guessing this ain’t a platonic bond like Steve's, either, or you wouldn’t be acting like such a dumbass about it.”
That got him a brief glare, at least, before he looked down again, which was all the answer Sam needed.
“Uh-huh. What’d he say, when you showed him?”
Bucky shot him another glare. “I didn’t show him! What kind of chump do you take me for?”
Sam’s eyebrows climbed. “You got his mark and didn’t tell him? That’s cold, man.”
“The hell am I supposed to say?” Bucky demanded, which was a damn sight more reassuring than him being all freaked out and panicking. “F. Y. I., I’m toting an unrequited romantic bondmark for you, even though I’m already bonded to Sam?”
“You’re being stupider than usual, which I have to say, takes some doing,” Sam said, crossing his arms. “What makes you think it’s unrequited?”
Bucky’s glare got darker. “How the fuck could it not be? And even if--” he continued overriding Sam’s argument, “even if he’s marked for me, too, then what the hell good would that do? I’m with you, you dumbass.”
Sam rolled his eyes hard enough he thought he’d strained something. “Don’t you get all Rogers-drama on me. We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. For now, come on.” He tugged on Bucky’s arm until Bucky reluctantly got up and followed him.
Tony looked up sharply when Sam pulled Bucky into the workshop, his eyes darting from Sam to Bucky restlessly even as he jumped out of his chair to come greet them. “Hey! You okay, there, Buckaroo? The way you lit out of here earlier, I was worried.”
“Fine,” Bucky mumbled. “I’m fine.”
“He was startled, is all,” Sam said to Tony, then nudged Bucky, hard. “Go on. Don’t make me smack you upside the head. You don’t have enough brain cells to rattle as it is.”
Bucky glanced quickly at Tony, who was still looking back and forth between them, his brow furrowing with worry. “You don’t have to, to say anything,” Bucky said to the design on Tony’s t-shirt. “I know it’s. It’s weird and awkward and--”
Sam shoved Bucky again and received a glare for his trouble, but it had the desired effect.
Bucky huffed, then turned around, stripping his shirt off as he did.
Tony’s eyes went first to Bucky’s shoulder, the idiot, at the join of metal to flesh. Sam could practically see him cataloguing Bucky’s scars and checking the movement of the metal plates. A good few seconds passed before, frowning at the obvious lack of anything unusual about Bucky’s shoulder, that Tony spotted the tattoo.
His eyes went wide and his hand covered his mouth as if he was trying to stop himself from saying something dumb. “Son of a bitch,” he whispered into his palm.
Bucky flinched, just the way he had when Sam had touched him earlier.
Tony turned his gaze on Sam, then. Assessing. “You seem very calm.”
Sam flashed his best startin’ somethin’ grin, because if anyone appreciated Sam's brand of assholery anywhere near as much as Bucky did, it was Tony. “Any particular reason I shouldn’t be?”
“Well,” Tony said. He looked at Bucky, back still turned, head down, shoulders hunched, and then looked back at Sam. “If that’s not enough for you, there’s this.” He twisted and pulled up the back of his own shirt just enough to show Bucky’s pine between his shoulderblades.
It wasn’t new, like Bucky’s; it had been on Tony’s skin long enough to have healed -- at least a week. Probably longer.
Sam elbowed Bucky. “Unrequited, my beautiful ass,” he muttered.
Bucky blinked owlishly, then turned. When he saw Tony’s back, his eyes went so round they looked like they might fall out of his head.
Tony pulled his shirt back down and faced them again. “So that’s all the cards on the table, then,” he said. “You still look very calm,” he told Sam.
“Still haven’t seen anything to get excited about,” Sam shot back.
Tony pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. “That’s... good, I guess. I mean, it’s good. Trust is a thing, I’m glad you trust him. Not that I would do that, I wouldn’t, but y’know, I know I have this reputation so I wouldn’t be surprised if--”
“Tony,” Sam groaned, “take a breath, man.” Why couldn’t he get away from overdramatic white boys? It was a curse. “Look, I don’t know you that well, really, but your mark is on Bucky, so maybe we should hang out more.”
Tony stared at him as if he’d suddenly started speaking Martian. Sam could practically see a blinking DOES NOT COMPUTE flashing behind Tony’s eyes. And from the corner of his eye, he could feel Bucky looking at him, too, that narrow-eyed “what the fuck cockamamie bullshit are you planning now” look that was usually reserved for Steve’s more hare-brained schemes.
“That is... not what I thought you’d say,” Tony said after a long pause. He glanced at Bucky for confirmation, but Bucky was still giving Sam that Look.
Sam shrugged. “Bucky’s got your mark, Tony. And he’s had damn good taste up to this point.” Bucky finally gave over the suspicious glare in favor of an exaggerated eye-roll, and Sam had to fight off a grin. “I figure there’s got to be something to you worth getting to know. Couldn’t hurt for you to know me a little better, either. At worst, we come up with a plan to keep our boy here from having to rip out half his heart. At best, well... Who knows?”
“You’re talking about polyamory,” Tony said flatly. He waved his hand, drawing invisible lines between himself and Bucky, and between Bucky and Sam. “A V-shaped arrangement.”
Sam shrugged. “For starters, sure. I’m not opposed to the possibility of renegotiation, after a while.”
Bucky took two steps back and held up his hands as if framing a scene, Sam and Tony together. “Damn.” He whistled. "That'd be something to see."
Sam snorted. “Don’t make me smack you,” he threatened.
“I’d like to see you try,” Bucky threw back.
“It seems a little early to jump into the kinky stuff,” Tony said mildly. When Sam looked, he was not bothering to suppress a smirk, and the way it made his eyes light up... Yeah, Sam could work with that.
Bucky deflated a little. “You sure about this, Sam? I’m...” He glanced at Tony, looked back at Sam. “If it’s going to make you unhappy...” He bit his lip uncertainly.
“I’m taking out my phone right now,” Sam said, “and I’m gonna text Natasha: Dumb boy gets offered everything he wants, tries to turn it down because he’s dumb.”
“Sam...”
“My momma had four ‘marks,” Sam said. “Not all of ‘em brought her joy, but she always said to me, Sammy, you get a shot at happiness, you take that shot. I ain’t gonna foul your shot, Buck.” He pointed at Tony. “Go kiss your boy, and then let’s go get some lunch. All three of us.”
Sam would be lying if he said he didn’t feel any jealousy at all, watching his soulmate kiss someone else. But he had to admit it was kind of hot, too, watching the way Bucky melted into it and knowing first-hand what it felt like to have that in his arms, seeing the way Tony's breath hitched and caught and knowing what that felt like, too. And even if Sam didn’t know the man well, he’d been with the Avengers long enough to know Tony Stark was one of the good ones.
Who knew? Maybe he’d end up with another mark, himself, one of these days.