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When Sam gets back to their table, he finds it down a number of people. “Hey, where are...” he starts to ask, craning his head around to see if he can spot them. He does see Thor and Jimmy out on the dance floor, but Bucky and Sarah are definitely nowhere to be seen.
“Oh, hey,” Scott says, as though he’s just now spotting Sam, even though Sam is standing right beside him. Scott’s definitely had too much to drink. “Thought you went home with Joaquín.”
Sam frowns a little. “Nah, I was just getting him in a cab.” He guesses he was gone for a while, Torres so chatty and stumbly, and needing a detour to the bathroom. Sam should have known the kid wouldn’t be able to handle his liquor and would be an even more puppy-like version of himself when drunk.
“Where are Sarah and Bucky?” Sam asks. He turns to Sharon, the only sober-looking one at the table, though he’s sure Hope is mostly there too; she has to be when she’s pretty much baby-sitting her over-excitable boyfriend. No wonder Scott and Torres get along so well.
Sharon looks up from her phone, gazes questionably at Sam as if absorbing what he’s said, so it’s Hope who answers him. “I think they headed back to your place.” Sam really frowns now. Something unpleasant swirls in his gut. Why did they go without him? Hope must take in his expression because she says, “They left just after you did. Barnes looked for you.”
“I told him you’d left with Joaquín,” Scott says, pride clear in his voice. Sam laughs a little at that; Scott is wasted and proud of relaying incorrect information. Sam shoots Sharon and Hope a look, trying to convey his half-amusement half-confusion at this insistence that Scott thought he took Torres home.
Why he would have needed to, Sam’s not sure. Yeah, Joaquín was drunk, but not so bad that he couldn’t get himself into his apartment and into bed. He’d been mostly okay on his feet even while dancing with Sam, though he’d have been better if he had skipped his last round of shots with Scott and Thor. When he’d stumbled against Sam during that last dance and stayed leaning against his chest, not quite able to get himself upright without Sam’s guiding hands, that was when Sam had thought the best course of action was to get him a bottle of water and get him in a cab. But if Sam would have allowed Torres go alone to the cab line, the kid would have let everyone skip in front of him and he’d have been waiting out there for hours.
So, Sam had dragged a more than slightly reluctant Joaquín back to the table to collect his jacket, daring to leave him with Scott for a moment while Sam waded through dancers to the bar to procure some water. On their way out, Torres had decided he needed the bathroom, so they’d struggled there and then, in true drunk fashion, he had taken far longer than normal to take a piss. When Sam had eventually gone in to get him, he’d found him standing chatting to a similarly drunk guy by the sinks.
Then Joaquín had been distracted on coming out of the bathroom by the song playing, wanting to go for one more dance. Sam’d managed to convince him against this and had shepherded him to the exit, where they paused inside the door so Sam could put on his own coat and then wrestle Torres into his, before they finally exited the club into the chill of the night.
The cab line had been long, and Sam was very glad he had accompanied Joaquín to it because, even with Sam there, he still permitted three separate groups to cut in front of him, one of them so large a party they’d split into two cabs, so really it was four cuts. Sam was relieved to finally place Torres in the back of a cab, not before the kid had hugged him twice and thanked Sam for inviting him profusely, sounding so grateful, and as though he thought the others would have left him out and Sam’d had to fight in full Captain America mode for his inclusion, when actually it had been Bucky who had told Sam to remember to text Torres.
Sam and Bucky’s apartment is close enough to make the walk home reasonable, and Sam figures that’s what Sarah and Bucky must have done, before he didn’t see them in the line for a cab. Joaquín would have probably let them cut in if they’d been there. They’ll likely be back home by now; according to Sam’s watch he’s been playing Joaquín’s minder for at least forty minutes, and the apartment is only about a half hour away.
“I guess I’ll get going too, then,” Sam says.
“What?” says Scott. “You’re going to go back to yours?” He looks faintly horrified.
“Yes, should I not?” Sam asks slowly.
Scott wrinkles his nose. “Well, it’s your sister, man.”
Sam’s stomach drops. “What?” It’s his turn to say it, harsh and shocked. Maybe he shouldn’t be surprised. He’s had the thought before but pushed it away. He has seen Bucky flirt with Sarah, and Sarah not exactly spurn his advances — quite the opposite, in fact. It’s not like he thought Bucky had taken Sam warning him off seriously, but Sam hadn’t taken the flirting seriously, either. Hadn’t wanted to.
“Awkward,” Scott says, and then laughs, a mix of grossed-out and amused. Scott just thinks that for Sam this is the horror of realizing your best friend might be going to sleep with your sister. Not the pain of your best friend, who you are secretly in love with, taking your sister back to the apartment you share with him to sleep with her. The former wouldn’t really be a laughing matter for Sam, but maybe he could work up to it after properly threatening Bucky and mercilessly teasing Sarah. But the latter, not so much.
Hope shushes Scott and shakes her head at Sam, an apology for her well-meaning but sometimes tone-deaf boyfriend.
Sam looks to Sharon again and finds her staring back at him, with focus now, assessing. Damn, she can probably read the hurt all over him, can tell it’s not brotherly outrage, instead an insidious jealousy. Sam really, really does not need her to figure out how he feels for Bucky. If she doesn’t already know, that is. She is Sharon after all.
Sam shrugs at Scott, who’s still chuckling, despite the stern look Hope has him fixed with. “Well, I need my bed, so I guess I’ll have to brave it,” he says, trying for joking and succeeding in stiff. Then he thinks about how he’s been on the couch this weekend so Sarah can have his bedroom. The only way he’s actually getting in his bed is if Sarah is in Bucky’s, and he has never wanted to be relegated to the couch so much in all his life.
“Good luck,” Scott says and raises his cocktail glass in a toast of such gusto that he slops at least a third of the liquid all over his hand and wrist. Hope swears and reaches for a stack of napkins.
“Nice to see you, Sam,” she says, waving at him with the wad, before she sets about blotting Scott dry.
Sharon is still watching Sam, puzzling him out, when he turns back to her. He wants to run from her gaze, but that would be the equivalent of him standing up on the table in front of her and shouting I am in love with Bucky Barnes so loud it could be heard over whatever pounding bass dance track is on. So instead, he tries to play it cool, be normal, and says, “See you next week?”
She nods. “I’ll be in HQ at least a couple of afternoons.”
“See you then, then. Say goodbye to the others for me, yeah?” Thor and Jimmy are still out on the dance floor, but Sam has no idea where Darcy and Monica have got to. Sharon nods and he turns to go.
“Sam,” she says.
He turns back. “Yeah?”
She looks at him for a moment, then shakes her head, just a little. “Never mind,” she says, smiles with a hint of teeth, a glint in her eyes. It’s kind of terrifying.
“Okay,” Sam says, but he doesn’t move.
“Have a good night.” She waves at him, waves him away, before turning to throw some extra paper towels to Hope.
Sam’s not going to get anything out of her if she doesn’t want him to, so he leaves, but dwells on her non-words as he retraces the steps he took to get Torres outside, though skipping the long detour to the bathroom. He wonders what she picked up on tonight that he didn’t see. Apparently, Scott, as drunk as he is, saw something between Bucky and Sarah that Sam missed. Sam can only imagine what Sharon’s sharp eyes and keen ears have discerned.
Sam sticks his hands deep in his pockets against the cold night air and tries to decide if he’s walking home fast or slow. It’s late and he’s tired now, enough that he’d go straight home to sleep, or he would if he was sure that he isn’t going to walk into something he never wants to overhear or, Christ, please, no, witness. Something that he never wants to even happen, whether he’s there to know about it or not.
He compromises and sets a middling pace. He stops at a 24-hour bodega to get a coffee: decaf, because, if he really is going home to Bucky and Sarah hooking up, he doesn’t need to add to the things keeping him awake. It’s pretty terrible, bitter and burnt, but it’s warm, especially nice for his hands, and comforting somehow.
When he thinks about it, Bucky had seemed a little off tonight, but Sam had put that down to him still not being a hundred percent okay with big crowds and lots of noise. Plus, Thor is a lot and Scott is a lot and Darcy is a lot and, actually, Joaquín is kind of a lot too. The only thing that could have made the group more exuberant would have been if Parker was over twenty-one, so thank god that kid really is a kid.
Sam had been happy that Sarah had managed to get Bucky up to dance. Torres had asked and Bucky had brushed him off, but he’d accepted when Sarah requested. It was so nice to see, not because it was a glimpse of the James Buchanan Barnes — charismatic, heartthrob — written about in all the textbooks, but because it was seeing Bucky as he is now having fun, looking happy, almost carefree, as he had spun Sarah around and laughed at the weird, eclectic mix of music on offer.
Now in Sam’s memory the events of the evening slant at new angles. He sees how Sarah had touched Bucky’s wrist when asking him to come and dance, and how Bucky’d gone with her, palm at the small of her back, guiding her through the crowd. Bucky’s hand on Sarah’s waist as they danced a kind of jive to an entirely jive-inappropriate beat. The way they had slumped against one another when they took a break at the bar. Sam hadn’t taken much notice then, but he’s doing so retroactively. And that’s just the things that he saw.
He was out on the dance floor a lot more than Bucky, and though Sarah had danced with Sam and with Hope and with Joaquín, she was with Bucky more than Sam was. How much did he miss when he was dancing with Joaquín, getting drinks with Scott, joking with Thor? Sharon was at the table most of the night, so she will have seen everything that Sam didn’t, and then some. Maybe that’s what she was holding back.
Sam reaches his building. His and Bucky’s building. He looks up at it, like he’s going to be able to tell from the facade what Sarah and Bucky are doing in there, as if their apartment isn’t too high up to see in the windows, and on the other side of the building anyway.
Sam’s a generous person, he likes to think, and he reckons most people would agree. He would give almost anything for his sister to be happy. And the same for Bucky. He doesn’t think he can give this. It was a slow-dawning thing, realizing that he’s in love with Bucky. It was odd enough to one day decide that the guy who once kicked him off a helicarrier, after removing half of his ability remain airborne, was actually okay. Then it progressed from finding Bucky’s grumpy silences super frustrating, to also kind of endearing, and then to really learning about each other and discovering that, wow, Bucky is sort of his friend, and a good one. And, as time passed, maybe his best one.
When they moved in together, it introduced whole new levels of irritation. But also more time for snarky, fun banter, often over who’s turn it is to do the dishes or vacuum the rug. More opportunities for soft mornings, when Bucky brews coffee and brings Sam a cup while he’s still in bed, having a day off from his usual early-morning run, or Sam makes them French toast while Bucky sits on the counter, keeping him company and getting in the way. And for shared sleepless nights, where nightmares are weathered together, the couch getting more use than their beds, while the TV tells the story of who woke up screaming: cartoons if it was Bucky, bad 80s movies if it was Sam, and nature documentaries if it was them both.
Picturing the scenario where he loses that, where Bucky and Sarah get together and Bucky leaves to go live with her, and he’s Sam sort of brother-in-law, maybe eventually for real, and Sam only sees him on visits and holidays, and he’s off-limits in the strongest possible terms — that hurts. That hurts Sam more than he would have thought.
He takes a moment to lean one hand against the cool, rough brick of the building, drop his head and just breathe. There’s no point angsting over something that might never happen. Even if Sarah and Bucky do hook up — are hooking up right now — that doesn’t mean it will lead to anything, to something serious. But then, Sam doesn’t genuinely expect him and Bucky to maintain what they have now forever, does he?
He hasn’t given it much thought. Maybe, subconsciously, he hadn’t wanted to think about it, about the inevitability of Bucky moving out some day. Certainly not of the scenario in which it happened because Bucky had met someone and was choosing to live with them instead. To build a life with them instead.
Sam looks at the front door, at the intercom beside it. Briefly contemplates pretending he has forgotten his keys and ringing to be let in, to make sure he interrupts whatever might be happening. Dismisses that idea — he’s not going to be an asshole about this.
He does check his phone though, just to see if there is anything there. He kind of would have thought Bucky might have let him know that he and Sarah were leaving, but Bucky didn’t and he still hasn’t sent anything. Sam’s screen only displays a poorly typed message from Joaquín confirming that he is home safe and in bed with a huge glass of water, like Sam had instructed him. When Sam opens the chat, he sees that the message is accompanied by photographic proof of said glass of water on what must be Torres’s nightstand, the image grainy from the low light of his room.
Sam slips his phone back into his pocket, pulls out his keys instead, and makes himself go in and face whatever this is going to be. He won’t lie, he’s more apprehensive than he has been about some missions.
Their building has an elevator. Sam likes to tell Bucky that it’s a pro over Bucky’s old place, which was an eight-story walk-up, with Bucky’s unit the smallest on the top floor. Bucky never takes the elevator when he’s alone, and Sam guesses it’s because he doesn’t like the enclosed space, but he will if he’s riding it with Sam. Sam always takes the elevator, he does enough exercise, enough training, without having to add extra flights of stairs in, but he nearly doesn’t tonight, almost heads for the stairwell. Then he gives himself a shake; he’s gotta quit stalling and just go for it. He presses the call button, and the doors slide open. He gets in.
The assent to their floor is fast, too quick for Sam’s liking. And the elevator is too near to their place; he’s at their apartment door in mere moments. He pauses there, holds his breath, and listens. There’re no notable sounds to be heard, from their place or in general, only the usual low signs of life: the hum of the corridor’s heating unit, the faint gurgle of a pipe, the occasional rumble of passing late-night traffic on the streets outside. That doesn’t mean nothing is happening though. Another advantage of their apartment is that it’s pretty well soundproofed. That might again be something that Bucky disagrees with him on: Bucky wanting to be able to hear everything going on around him clearly.
Sam tries hard not to think about what sounds he might have expected to hear, what noises the soundproofing might be filtering out, the ones that might be all too obvious once he’s inside their place. In truth, he’s thought about the kinds of sounds Bucky might make before, but in none of those musings was his sister ever involved. Sam feels actually nauseous.
Bracing himself for whatever he is going to find, he slips the key into the lock and opens the door.
So attuned for noise, the first thing he notes is the sound of the TV, muffled through the closed door to the living room. The hallway lamp is off, like no one is expected to be arriving, like Sam wasn’t going to be coming home, but there is low light bleeding through the cracks around the door. Looking down the hall, both his and Bucky’s bedroom doors are open and there are no lights on inside.
Hoping that Bucky and Sarah wouldn’t be so risqué as to fuck on the couch — on Sam and Bucky’s couch — and that whatever show is playing is something which is occupying them and not something they have been distracted from by each other, Sam steps forward, turns the knob, and opens the living room door.
He is greeted by the sight of Bucky and Sarah on the couch.
Sam can’t help but be instantly relieved that they are both clothed and sitting upright. Most of the tension bleeds out of him at once, and it’s only its absence that makes it plain how strong it was before. Sam, who is Captain America — who has faced the Winter Solider, half of the Avengers, Thanos — was terrified of what he might find.
They are touching, though, and looking mighty cosy. They’ve changed out of the clothes they wore to the bar: Sarah into a pair of pajamas, complete with fluffy socks, and Bucky into sweatpants and what Sam knows — and with the revelations he is having tonight over how deep his feelings go, shouldn’t be so surprised to find he does — is Bucky’s favorite henley, the soft, faded-maroon one that’s so well-worn it’s not fit to be seen out of the house, and which used to belong to Sam. They both have their feet up on the coffee table and are sitting close, shoulders resting against each other. There’s a blanket stretched lengthwise over both their laps and in the small dip between Bucky’s thigh and Sarah’s a tub of ice-cream is nestled.
Sam thinks they have a spoon each, thank fuck.
And then he thinks wait, what the hell? Why are they sharing ice cream at 1 am?
His brain follows that up with it’s pathetic that you care about this so much.
Sarah lifts the TV remote and mutes the sound. “Hey, bro.” She’s giving him a weird look. Kind of confused, maybe a tiny bit amused. Bucky appears almost shocked. It’s an odd contrast with how comfortable he looks, bundled up beside Sarah in the low, warm light of the table lamps.
Sam tries and fails to read the room. He doesn’t think he has interrupted anything, but the response he is getting is certainly not normal. Why is does it seem like Bucky and Sarah are surprised to see him in his own living room? Surprised is better than unhappy to see him, though, and surely they would have been disappointed at his return had either of them been going to try something on with the other.
“Hey,” Sam replies, looking between the two of them.
“So, you’re home,” Sarah says, and digs a spoonful of ice cream out of the tub.
Sam’s brow furrows. “Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”
Sarah sticks her spoon in her mouth, and then talks round it, something she would absolutely scold AJ and Cass for if they tried it. “Scott said you’d gone home with Joaquín.”
Sam shakes his head. This again? “Nah,” he says and moves forward into the room. Starts to take his jacket off. “I only stepped out to put him in a cab. Took ages to wrangle his drunk-ass though, and then the line was long.”
Bucky is staring at him. Nothing new there, except it’s less of his usual solid, assessing stare, the one he directs at the world in general, or the lighter, though no less intense to be fixed with, version that Sam seems to get now — at least when Bucky’s not pissed off about something — and more a wide-eyed look.
Sarah smiles as she spoons out some more ice cream, huffs an amused sigh through her nose.
Sam’s nonplussed. Even if he had taken Joaquín home, that would only have delayed him getting to the apartment by about thirty minutes; he’d just have taken the cab right home from outside Torres’s. Maybe forty-five tops, if he had asked the driver to wait and gone inside with Torres to make sure he managed to get his door open, to pour the glass of water for him, and to set out some painkillers for his inevitable hangover. Joaquín might be young, but not even someone as spry as him can drink that much and come out unscathed the next day. Sam’s weighing up the relative likelihood of receiving half-hourly updates from Joaquín in the morning — although, that’s optimistic, maybe the early afternoon — on how truly terrible he is feeling, coupled with whining about how could Sam let him take so many shots, or radio silence, as the light of his phone screen is too much to take with the headache he’ll have. Right now, the possibilities are tied in Sam’s mind.
Sam sits down in the armchair that usually gets zero use, as he and Bucky normally share the couch. He perches on the edge of the seat cushion and folds forward to reach down and untie his shoes. “You think I’d be a while?” he asks. He supposes if they thought he was going to accompany Torres and come straight home from his place that could explain why they left the bar without him, if there really is nothing going on here.
Sarah smiles, but it has a too-amused edge. It’s closer to a smirk. “Yeah, thought you’d be a long while. Scott made it sound like we wouldn’t be seeing you till the morning after.”
It takes Sam an excessively long moment to grasp her meaning. He frowns at her in confusion until she raises her brows, pointedly. And then he gets it.
“Oh,” Sam says, stupefied. And then, forcefully, “Oh, no. God no.”
Damn it. Of course. That’s exactly the way Scott had said it to him, why didn’t he pick up on that? Scott thought Sam was going home with Torres. Not that Sam was making sure he got home.
Sam’s whole face scrunches in distaste. He supposes, yeah, Joaquín is an attractive guy, and he’s smart and fun. But he’s also basically a child compared to Sam and, just, so much like a baby animal. They might work together often and hang out sometimes, and they certainly did a lot of dancing with each other tonight, but Sam can’t see him that way. “Definitely not,” Sam says. “He’s practically a kid.”
Bucky no longer looks so wide-eyed. His brow furrows. “He’s twenty-eight, isn’t he?” he asks, skeptical.
“Yeah, as I said, practically a kid.”
Bucky still looks unsure, but Sarah laughs. “So that’s a hard pass, then?” she says, tilts her head to the side, eyes full of far too much hilarity over this.
“There was nothing to pass on,” Sam says, insistent. “But yeah, that’s a no.”
Sarah reaches a hand over and pats at Bucky’s leg, turns her head to smile at him a little. Bucky turns to her and gives her an almost sheepish look. She only grins wider at him in return.
Is Sam still missing something here?
Bucky and Sarah at least no longer seem confused by his presence. But Sarah is definitely on something; she’s got that manic I’ve-got-dirt-on-you-and-I’m-going-to-hold-it-over-you-as-leverage energy to her all of a sudden. It’s enough to give Sam fear-sweats. Sarah can be real trouble when she wants to be.
Sarah shifts her grin over to Sam. It quietens into an assessing look. Makes Sam want to squirm. He gets up to take his shoes to the rack by the door, a moment of reprieve. A moment to try and properly relax. It doesn’t at all seem like Sam is interrupting what Scott thought between Bucky and Sarah. Maybe Scott was as mistaken about that as he was about Joaquín and Sam.
When Sam renters the living room and sits back in the armchair, trying to get comfortable this time — and failing, it really is a garbage armchair — Sarah’s eating another spoon of ice cream, and she and Bucky’s eyes are on the still-silent TV.
Sam turns to see what they’ve been watching. It takes a second to place it but, at once, the whole scenario he’s walked into makes both more and less sense.
Sam’s seen this movie a few times, always with Sarah, or because of her at least. It’s her go-to romantic comedy for when she’s heartsick. When her middle school crush asked another girl to the dance, she watched it and aggressively scribbled every instance of Mrs Sarah Landry out of her diary; when her favorite actor got married, she watched it and ripped up all her posters of him; when she and her first boyfriend broke up, she watched it and sobbed until she ran out of tears; and when her high school boyfriend cheated on her with one of her friends she watched it, and only it, for about four days straight while she ignored every call from her newly ex-boyfriend and ex-friend. And those are just the occasions Sam was there to witness.
This movie, especially when coupled with the ice cream and the blankets, screams Sarah being all broken hearted. But Sam hasn’t heard anything about her dating someone, hasn’t seen any evidence of a boyfriend when he’s been in Delacroix. And she has probably grown out of throwing a pity party for herself whenever a celebrity she likes is taken off the market, since she’s no longer thirteen.
“What’s with this?” Sam questions, jerks his thumb at the TV.
“What’s with what?” she asks, and Sam is sure she’s playing dumb.
He shoots her a look. “What‘s with your sappy film and the Ben & Jerry’s?”
She shrugs. “Nothing, just felt like it.”
Sam narrows his eyes at her. That’s absolutely a lie. “That’s bullshit. You only ever watch this when you’re heartbroken.”
“Really?” Sarah says, and raises a single brow this time.
Sam thinks, yes, really. Opens his mouth to say as much. Except...
No. Not really. Sam also saw this once when Sarah was totally fine. Sam, on the other hand, had just been dumped by his first high school girlfriend, and Sarah had insisted that watching it would make him feel better. That was completely incorrect, but if anyone asks Sam will swear it was true, because the alternative is admitting that, actually, the movie had made him sob into a throw cushion.
So, if Sarah isn’t the one who is heartsick...
Sam’s gaze skips over to Bucky.
Their eyes catch for a second, before Bucky looks back to the TV.
Is it possible Sarah has put this on in an attempt to comfort, not herself but, Bucky?
It seems impossible. Ludicrous. The idea of Bucky Barnes watching a rom com and pining over someone — and who? — is just... Sam can’t get his head around it.
Bucky makes no sign that he notices Sam’s continued gaze, simply keeps watching the TV. Which means he is avoiding looking at Sam, because he sure as shit knows that Sam is looking at him. Sam tries Sarah instead. Gives her his best, what the fuck? expression, hopes to silently ask for some communication on what the hell is going on. But she only gives him another smirky smile and pats Bucky’s leg again.
“Okay, boys,” she says, and pushes herself to her feet, using Bucky’s knee as leverage. “I’m going to bed.” She drapes the portion of the blanket that was over her legs on the couch and picks up the now-listing ice cream tub and sets it in Bucky’s lap. He cradles it in his left hand and looks up at her. If it didn’t make absolutely no sense, Sam would say Bucky looks worried, scared almost, his mouth a flat line and tension around his eyes.
Then his expression shifts closer to alarmed. Sarah hasn’t said anything, not aloud at least, but from the angle Sam can’t see her face. When she turns around to face him, she just looks as she did — still too know-it-all for Sam’s liking — but she must have done something to elicit that response from Bucky.
She pats Sam on the head as she passes and he twists around, swats her away with a, “Get off.”
“Night Sam, Bucky,” she says.
“Goodnight Sarah,” Bucky says, a little strained, quiet.
Sarah turns back and smiles at him, kinder than the near-feral grin that she levels at Sam before she pulls the lounge door shut behind her.
Sam lets himself study Bucky again. He’s clutching the ice cream tub in both hands now, and his eyes are fixed on the still muted television, as if the movie is the most fascinating piece of media he has ever seen. And it could be, with how much Bucky has missed out on, is still catching up on, except for the fact that Sam can feel the discomfort coming off him in waves. Bucky knows that Sam knows that Sarah has put this on for some reason.
Sam clears his throat, unnecessarily. Bucky’s gaze darts over to him, then away. “So,” Sam says, “You and Sarah both thought I’d left with Joaquín. Like, with him?”
Bucky’s jaw ticks. He slides his right hand from the ice cream tub, wipes the condensation off on the blanket, then returns his palm to the tub’s side. “That’s, uh, how Lang made it sound,” he says, still uncomfortable, even in what should be a kind of funny conversation at Sam’s expense.
“And you didn’t like that?” Sam says slowly, questioningly, trying to puzzle this out.
Bucky’s face shifts in alarm. It’s momentary, he gets it under control, masked, a second later, but Sam saw it. So, it is this that has upset Bucky and gotten Sarah to put this ridiculous movie on. But that means— that means that Bucky is interested in Joaquín, Sam realizes. It’s a kick in the teeth, to first think that Bucky was into Sarah, to have the relief of finding out Scott really is as full of shit as Sam sometimes thinks, but then to find it doesn’t matter; Bucky is still into someone, someone who’s not Sam.
That must be why Bucky defended Torres’s age, when Sam said he was a kid, because if there’s an age-gap between him and Sam, there’s an age-gulf between him and Bucky.
Bucky is still looking at the TV, still sitting very stiff, tense. Sam exhales through his nose, gets up and goes to take Sarah’s seat at Bucky’s side. He can do this. He can talk to Bucky about Bucky’s feelings for another man, can be a good friend and clear the air and ensure Bucky knows that nothing happened between Sam and Torres tonight, or any other time, that Bucky’s path is clear.
Sam picks up the remote from the coffee table. “Are you actually watching this, or can I turn it off?” He flops down on the cushion beside Bucky, bounces slightly.
Bucky turns away from the TV, in Sam’s direction, but his gaze settles on approximately Sam’s right ear, rather than his eyes. He shrugs. “We were watching it, but I’m a bit lost now.”
Sam presses the power button, turns the TV off. Almost immediately wishes he hadn’t, because now he needs to say something. “So,” he repeats. “You like Joaquín?”
Bucky’s brow furrows so deep the sides of the wrinkle touch. “What?”
“You were upset — jealous, I guess — when you thought I went home with him,” Sam says, and Bucky’s cheeks flush pink near instantaneously. So that’s a yes.
But Bucky shakes his head, makes a spluttering sound that might be a no.
“Buck,” Sam says, “I know the scenarios in which Sarah employs this film. All too well, actually.”
Bucky shakes his head again. Says, “I wasn’t— I wasn’t jealous. Of you. I don’t like Torres. Not like that.”
It’s Sam’s turn to frown. If Bucky’s telling him the truth — and it doesn’t seem like he’s lying — then what’s going on? He’s still bright pink, getting closer and closer to fuchsia by the second.
But, now that Sam takes a second look at his hypothesis, he remembers that Bucky turned Joaquín down when he asked Bucky to dance with him, and why would Bucky do that if he liked him?
It isn’t just Bucky, though. Sarah has been downright weird. Why would she put this film on if Bucky wasn’t sad over Torres? And why was she all pleased, reassuring pats to Bucky, when Sam got home, if not because it was clear that Sam hadn’t gotten up to anything with Torres? And why was she so smug before she went to bed, so wink-wink nudge-nudge—
Oh.
What an idiot Sam has been.
“You don’t like Torres like that,” Sam says, slow, careful, eyes fixed on Bucky.
Bucky shakes his head, still avoiding eye contact.
“But you were jealous about something,” Sam continues, not a question.
Bucky ducks his head but doesn’t try to deny it.
“Hey.” Sam turns on the couch to fully face him. “Did you know that me and Joaquín weren’t the only ones Scott thought had gone home together?”
Bucky looks up at that, wrinkles his nose in confusion. It’s unbearably adorable.
“Yep,” Sam confirms. “He was horrified when I reappeared and told him I was coming back here, because he thought you and Sarah had bounced to hook up.” It’s funny to Sam now, the amusement coloring his tone. Strange how so much can change in such a short span of time.
Bucky looks even more confused. He opens his mouth to say something. Closes it again.
“Yeah,” Sam says. “But actually, I believed him.”
“Sam,” says Bucky, serious. “We didn’t. There’s nothing going on.”
“I know,” Sam tells him. “At least, I did when I got here. But the whole way home I was dreading what I might be walking in to. Miserable over it. Jealous.”
Bucky’s expression, which had been looking increasingly apologetic — even though he didn’t do anything — flickers with Sam’s last word, turning guarded. But his eyes are hopeful.
“Sam,” he says. Stops.
Sam reaches out and takes the ice cream tub out of Bucky’s hands, sets it on the coffee table, then slides his palms against Bucky’s — right one cold and clammy skin, left one slightly chilled metal — holds on.
“I hate the idea of you being with someone, Buck,” Sam confesses. “Someone who isn’t me.”
“Sam,” Bucky says, and his expression relaxes into something like relief, wonder, and he leans forward, presses his lips to Sam’s.
Sam kisses back, elation zipping through him. He takes one hand from Bucky’s to cup his jaw, press as close as he can. Bucky tilts his head to the side, and then their faces are slotting even closer.
The kiss is closed-mouthed and tender to start, but when Bucky takes his other hand from Sam’s, lifts it to Sam’s neck, Sam shivers at how cold it still is. Bucky pulls away, only the scantest bit, mutters, “Sorry.”
Sam laughs, quietly, and when Bucky presses back in, his mouth is still open and the kiss turns wet and deep. Bucky tastes sweet from the ice cream. His hand slides round to the back of Sam’s neck, the other arm finding his waist.
They kiss and kiss and Bucky tugs Sam closer and closer, like he can’t have him near enough, can’t get enough, and the feeling is so mutual it isn’t even funny. Bucky pulls Sam into him with the arm around his waist and Sam tips forward, lets Bucky lie back and bring Sam down with him, sprawled in his lap, on top of him. Bucky’s tongue is in Sam’s mouth and his vibranium hand slips up under his shirt, pressed into the bare skin at the small of Sam’s back. Sam pushes his fingers into Bucky’s hair, means to be gentle, but catches on a tangle, and Bucky groans, more pleasure than pain and shifts underneath Sam, their hips sliding together, and, okay, they’re both at least half hard.
Sam pulls out of the kiss, even if it’s the last thing he wants to do. But Sarah is visiting, and though he is much more okay with the idea of Bucky fucking him, rather than her, on the couch, it probably isn’t great host behavior to have sex in your living room where your guest could easily walk in on you.
Carding his fingers through the spot of hair, soothing, Sam says, “It’s late — we should probably get some sleep.”
Bucky looks like he's too happy to be disappointed by this, presses a kiss to the side of Sam’s mouth, starts to sit up. Sam moves back to let him, stays seated on the couch as Bucky pushes to his feet, hesitates to get up. The couch was his bed last night. He looks over at where the spare comforter and a pillow are stacked on top of the footstool in the corner, which is used exclusively as a surface, since the coffee table is the perfect height for feet.
Bucky must track his gaze because he holds out a hand to Sam, says, “Well, come on, are we going to bed or not?” He’s trying for cheeky, Sam thinks, but he sounds too giddy to pull it off.
Sam smiles up at him, takes his hand and lets Bucky pull him to his feet.
It’s not until they’re already in Bucky’s room that Sam recalls the ice cream, abandoned on the coffee table. “Shit,” he says, “We didn’t put your ice cream in the freezer.”
But Bucky only shrugs, presses close to Sam. “Doesn’t matter. It was melted already. Besides, I don’t need it anymore, I’ve got you.”