Chapter Text
This time, when he wakes up, it’s to the soft hum of a clarinet leading a chorus of trumpets, a double bass bringing up the rear.
“Glenn Miller,” he places, easily. “Blue Rain.”
“Man, this stuff is old,” Sam says next to his head. “But you don’t like Marvin Gaye, so…”
“I like Marvin Gaye,” he retreads that argument, no heat behind it. He blinks his eyes open to a clinical ceiling, a hospital room lit by the mellow glow of a low, dusky sun. He turns his head to make out Sam in a chair by his side. The other man is in civilian clothes this time, a grey t-shirt, a clean white bandage dashed across his cheek to match the one wrapped around his hand.
Hey Sam.
Sam’s fiddling with a phone that’s hooked up to a Bluetooth speaker on a far cabinet. He sets it down on a nearby table, gives Bucky an easy smile. “Hey. How you feeling?”
Bucky closes his eyes, does the internal inventory he’s done after a thousand fights. All he comes up with is a deep body ache, a distant pounding in his bones, warning of something worse. When he tries to pull that thread it’s like reaching into a black room, fingers brushing against indistinct objects, unable to get purchase. A groan escapes his lips.
Then a cool palm slips over his forehead. “Huh,” he mutters.
“Yeah,” Sam says. “Kinda what I figured. Docs said you wouldn’t be feeling too hot. You lost a lot of blood, man, even for a super soldier. And that shoulder got infected. What you get for running all over and under a mall with an open gunshot wound. You’ve got a fever, but the meds are bringing it down.”
Ah. That explains the fuzziness, the way his skin is prickling, feels too tight for his bones. That dull, hazy throbbing in his shoulder. He got shot. Had to drag himself onward anyways because…why? Oh. “Those people, in the mall…they make it out okay?”
Sam snorts. “Yeah, Buck, they did.” A thumb slides down to sooth away the crease in Bucky’s brow. “You’re the one we’re all kinda worried about.”
Bucky rests there for a bit, until the question niggling the back of his mind becomes impossible to ignore. “Sam?”
“Yeah?”
“Why…why are you being so nice to me?”
Sam’s thumb stops moving. His hand stays where it is. “Jesus, Bucky. Let’s recap. You rescued a bunch of hostages and got shot for it in a fucking mall, which you were only in because I asked you to go there, and when I got there some dick was about to put a bullet in your brain. Then the fucking building collapsed on us, and then you almost killed yourself getting me out, then you got grabbed and beat up by a bunch of terrorists who almost killed you, again. And then, then, I finally found you, got you out of there, and you almost fucking bled out in my arms.” A shaky inhale, a rough exhale. “You scared the shit out of me, Bucky.”
“Oh,” Bucky says after a long moment. “Sorry.”
A genuine laugh from Sam this time. “Yeah, asshole. You should be sorry.” Bucky frowns, considering. “What?”
“I did find the shoes.”
“I’m sure you did.”
“Mantra Orange. Size seven,” Bucky adds.
“Probably buried under a few tons of rubble, now,” Sam notes ruefully. “Hell of an explosion they set off.”
Bucky’s breath catches. “Plastique. In the tunnels. She said…said they set a trap for you.”
“She? The woman down there? Yeah, they tried to get the jump on me. Would have, too, if I hadn’t got the signal from Redwing right before the explosives went off. Got the wings up just in time. Thank God for vibranium, right?”
“The shield,” Bucky rasps. “The shield.” He starts to lever himself up. “They had your shield…they said…they said…just rubble…and you were—”
“Bucky,” Sam interrupts. “I’m okay.” He presses Bucky back into the bed. “See? Right here in the flesh.”
Bucky pants. “Yea…yeah. But the shield.” He swallows. “It was covered in blood.”
Sam works his mouth. “Yeah, that was…man, that was your blood.”
“Ah.” He licks dry lips. “Well how…how did you get out?”
Sam sighs. “We don’t have to talk about this right n—”
“How?” he hisses.
“Like I said, Redwing pinged me about the explosives. Ones behind me went off first. Had to go forward. Knocked the hatch open with the shield, but I didn’t have a chance to catch it before I had to get out of there. Assholes must have picked it up after the explosion.”
“You didn’t go back for it?”
Sam stares. “I was a little fucking busy looking for you, Bucky.”
Bucky blinks. “Oh. Okay.”
“Alright,” Sam says, squeezing Bucky’s good shoulder. “Now why don’t you just take it easy and—”
“How’d you find me?”
Sam frowns. Bucky glares. “Fine,” Sam capitulates. “Had a clearer signal from Redwing, once I was out in the open. He picked up some gunfire. You know, when they were trying to shoot you? Again? I followed that.” He lets out another breath. “Seriously, Bucky, you need to get some—"
“That woman, Camille,” Bucky persists. “She said they were LAF.”
Sam grinds his teeth before answering. “She was right about one thing, then. Looks like there was a whole cell of them in there. GRC went in after we got out, mopped up what was left.” He shakes his head. “They blew up their own people, man.”
Bucky’s tongue works against a parched throat. “Yeah. She was…she was a little nuts, Sam.”
“No shit. She’s gonna be needing some serious dental work now, too.”
“I think…I think she wanted to sell me. To the highest bidder. Or restore the Winter Soldier programming.”
Sam’s fingers twitch. “Well. That sure as fuck wasn’t going to happen.”
“She was happy when I thought…when she thought you were dead. She…she said it would be good advertising. Said…said she was gonna take the shield. Said she—"
“Enough,” Sam snaps. He continues, softer, “Hey, enough about all that now, alright? We can worry about the after-action later. You look beat, man.”
He is beat, languor threatening to pull him under again. He scans the rest of the space to fight it back. “Never been in a hospital room before,” he comments.
Sam lifts a brow. “Seriously?”
Bucky thinks harder. “Not as a patient, at least.” He tries to shrug, regrets it when his shoulder complains with a dull thud.
“Don’t do that,” Sam warns, too late. “Hydra didn’t have hospitals?”
He almost shrugs again, brain blitzed by fever and painkillers. Sam shifts his hand to Bucky’s bandaged shoulder to keep him still with an exasperated exhale. “Maybe they did. For the higher ups. Not for…whatever. Soldiers. Weapons. Me.” Eyes glazed by memory, he misses Sam’s frown. “Sent me down to one of the labs anytime I needed to be patched up.” He takes in the soft blanket on his bed, the flat screen TV on the far wall. “Not as nice as this. They…they would…”
“Bucky,” Sam cautions.
“Don’t think they were big on morphine, you know. Or anything else like that. They’d just put me in the chair, stick a mouth guard between my teeth if I was lucky…”
“Bucky,” Sam presses.
“Then they, then they’d…” his eye traces the IV cord from his arm to the bag, the machines whirling behind it. The fever daze connects two lines, decades apart.
He didn’t know what they put in him, before they clamped that metal around his head, never asked, never could ask, shrieked when it all started, tore scream after scream from his raw throat.
“Bucky!” A hand tugs his head away from the recollection, tilts his face up until it’s Sam’s devastated expression he sees above him. “Bucky, hey. Stay with me, here, okay?”
He blinks, shudders. Wheezes and tethers himself to Sam’s palm against his cheek. “Yeah. Yeah. Sorry.”
Sam shakes his head. “No, man, you don’t have to be…look, you’re here. Now.” A frown flits across his features. “Back in the tunnel there, too, for a minute, you were…” His nostrils flare. “Anyways. It doesn’t matter. You’re here, okay? Got it?”
“Got it.”
“Good.” Sam lets his own eyes close for a minute. “Man, you…you’re gonna give me a heart attack by the time I turn fifty. I’m too old for this shit. You have got to stop doing this to me.”
“I’ll try,” Bucky offers.
Sam opens his eyes, smirks. “No, you won’t.” They share a small smile before it flies from Sam’s face. “Hey. Bucky. I am not going to let any…well, anything else like that happen to you, okay?”
Bucky’s brow creases again. “Getting shot?”
Sam sighs. “Yeah, can’t exactly make that promise. I mean…Hydra, all that. Zemo. Shit. Selling you. It’s not going to happen again. I won’t let it.”
“What?” Bucky asks.
Sam grimaces. “It’s…back in that tunnel, when you were…I don’t know, somewhere else. You said…some things. About not wanting to go back there. Not wanting them to get you again. And they won’t, okay? I won’t let them.”
Bucky blinks to clear his eyes. “I…okay.”
Sam nods, firm. “Okay.”
“Sam, it’s…that’s not your responsibility.”
Sam scoffs. “Yeah, well, that’s where you’re wrong. Shield comes with a lot of responsibilities. And apparently one of them is to save your ass. Like, all the time. Kind of a tradition, now.”
Bucky’s turn for a snort. “Sure, man. Admit it, you like having me around.”
“Like is not the word I would use, Bucky,” Sam counters.
Bucky grins, finally lets his gritty eyes droop closed. “Sure.”
“Sure,” Sam repeats, and Bucky can hear the smile. “Now, would you can it and get some rest so I can get a break here? Maybe listen to some music that’s not older than dirt?”
“It’s good,” Bucky mutters. The first mournful notes of Moonlight Serenade come on. “You like it too,” he mumbles.
Sam’s hand on his head again. “Fine. I like it too. Now for fuck’s sake, go to sleep, Bucky.”
Bucky works his vibranium arm up, drapes his fingers over Sam’s other hand, resting on his chest. “Sure,” he sighs, once more, before he glides under.
Bucky’s outside the Wilson house a few days later, sitting in the shade of an ancient live oak. A soft breeze from the water ruffles the leaves, dapples the sunshine around him. He’s in the comfiest lawn chair the Wilsons own, with unmistakable instructions from Sarah and Sam to keep his ass there for every situation short of a bathroom break or a nuclear disaster.
Sarah says it’s a smaller birthday party for A.J. than the one they initially planned, just a few family friends. Based on the train of people that come streaming through the house and the backyard, Bucky concludes the Wilsons may not know what the definition of “a few friends” is.
It’s like he’s in a reception line, sometimes. The men drop by with a bump to his unwounded shoulder, or a clasp of his forearm, say it’s good to see him, glad he’s here, hell of a thing he did up there in Baton Rouge.
The women linger longer. The older ones stoop down to drop a kiss on his cheek around the bruises. The younger ones coo over his sling-bound arm and ask if he wants more potato salad or fried okra. He laps it up like a parched dog while Sam shakes his head in the background, disgusted.
The crowd has thinned a bit by the time Sam drags over his own chair and plops down next to Bucky. He shoves a plate laden with cornbread and boudin into Bucky’s lap. Bucky quirks a brow.
“Sarah says you aren’t eating enough,” Sam offers.
“How much am I supposed to eat?”
“More. And I’m under strict guidance from Mrs. Jackson,” Sam pitches his voice higher, “to sit there until that boy’s finished every bite.”
“You might be here a while.”
Sam reaches over to break off a piece of cornbread. “I got time,” he counters, crumbs tumbling onto his shirt. He brushes them off with his bandaged hand.
Bucky’s eyes linger on the white dressing. “How’s the hand?”
Sam holds it in front of his face, considering. “Not too bad. Just a few burns, coming out of that situation, I can’t complain.”
Bucky steals a glance at the healing cut on Sam’s cheek. He picks at the remaining cornbread. “Yeah.”
“I know that look. What is it?”
He frowns. “It’s…I was thinking, while I was down there. When they brought the shield, and I thought you were…”
“No,” Sam says. “Uh-uh. Don’t you fucking start.”
“I didn’t even—”
“Nope. None of that puppy dog I-almost-got-my-friend-killed bullshit.”
“But—”
“No. Because if you get that, I get it like seven times as much. You wanna put that on me?” Sam quirks a brow.
“I…” Bucky sighs. Sam shoots him a look. “Fine. No.” He sucks at a tooth. “You’re a jerk.”
Sam laughs. “I’ve been called worse. By you, in fact. But I’ll take it.” His smile fades. “You know, I didn’t think I was gonna get there in time, when that guy was about to shoot you. And then, after the explosion, when I was tearing through the parking garage, looking for you…”
“I thought we weren’t starting with this?”
“You aren’t starting with this. Give me a moment, though, okay?”
Bucky opens his mouth to retort, snaps it shut at the expression on Sam’s face. “Okay.”
“I should have been in there, buying the shoes. It was my responsibility. I shouldn’t be putting that on other people.”
“What,” Bucky asks, “so you could have gotten shot, too? No offense, Sam, but I prefer to do that on my own.”
“I should have been there. I should have been there for you. I should have been there for,” he waves at the house, “A.J., too. Instead, I was all wrapped up in this Cap stuff, thinking I have to do everything and take every meeting, and not taking time for the things that matter.” Sam rubs a hand over his face. “I should have been there.”
Bucky stares down at his food, nudges a few crumbs into the greasy puddle in the center of the plate. He clears his throat. “Hey, Sam.“ Sam doesn’t lift his eyes from the patchy grass. Bucky nudges Sam’s foot with his own until Sam’s gaze meets his. “You were there when I really needed you, though.”
“Yeah.” Sam takes another chunk of cornbread off Bucky’s plate. He chews it slowly, studying Bucky. “I guess I was.”
“But next time,” Bucky sighs, “next time, they have this thing called Amazon. Ever heard of it?”
Another smile, all Sam. “Yeah. Sounds like a plan.” He taps Bucky’s foot back. “Now eat your damn food, man, or I’ll never hear the end of it from Mrs. Jackson.”
Bucky nibbles at the plate for a bit, closes his eyes a few times to enjoy the chittering of distant conversation and the breeze sighing through the trees. He must doze off for a little while, because when he opens his eyes the sun is setting, the plate in his lap is gone, and Sam and Sarah are cleaning up the tables.
He tips his head back to watch the leaves sway against a dusky sky, until he hears the pad of Sam’s shoes on the dirt stop next to him.
“Ready to go in?” Sam asks. Bucky nods. Sam reaches down to help him to his feet. Bucky leans against him when he’s upright a moment longer than he needs. For Sam’s sake. Really.
He blinks drowsily while Sam guides him to the house. A.J. and Cass have come out to help clean up, and he watches them for a moment. A.J. trots to the trash bin, white shoes a signal flare in the coming gloaming. Bucky stares.
“Bucky?” Sam asks.
Bucky looks closer. White sneakers, check. High tops, check. A jaunty swish in…no.
“Sam,” he growls.
“Yes?” Sam replies nervously.
“Those are green.”
“Technically, they’re Pine Green.”
“Sam,” he snarls.
Sam rubs his free hand over the back of his head. “Yeah, so. Turns out orange is Cass’s favorite color. A.J.’s is green. My bad.”
“I am,” Bucky declares, “going to kill you.”
Sam hums. “Well, I think I’ll be alright ‘til that shoulder heals up. Stiff breeze could take you down right now, man.”
Bucky plants his feet against Sam’s hand on his back pushing him forward. Turns his head. Glares. Sam smiles, all perfect teeth and warm eyes crinkled at the corners. Asshole. “Fine,” Bucky relents. “But after that. Dead.”
“Dead,” Sam agrees. “But do you think you could wait ‘til after next month? That’s Cass’s birthday, and I wouldn’t want to miss it.”
“Of course,” Bucky concurs. “After that, though.”
Sam nods, then grimaces. “Oh, but the month after that is Sarah’s birthday, so…”
Bucky sighs. “I hate you.”
Sam rests an arm lightly around Bucky’s shoulders. “Hey man, when’s your birthday?”
Bucky jabs his good elbow into Sam’s side, just hard enough to draw out a little grunt. “Never.”
“Come on,” Sam smiles. “I’ll get you something real nice.” He looks down at Bucky’s feet. “You could use some new shoes, you know.”
Bucky groans, utterly defeated, and lets Sam pull him out of the Louisiana night into the warm glow of the Wilson house.
“Fine. But only if they come in black.”