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Bucky finds Sam leaning up against the dark wood of the restaurant bar, flirting with the executive chef.
She’s probably closer to Bucky’s age than Sam’s, and she’s been married to the same woman since Obergefell v. Hodges, but Sam has her in stitches as he goes into over-the-top detail about how good his meal was.
“—and then the second bite, that was like a choir of baby angels singing in my stomach—”
Bucky slides up behind Sam’s back and signals to the bartender.
“—look, Chef Michelle.” Sam is winding up for the big finish. “I’ve had a lot of meals in this town, and you and I both know the food in New Orleans is the best, right? But what you did here? Tonight? On my table? In my mouth? That was better than the best.”
“‘In my mouth?’” Bucky pulls a face for the bartender.
She just grins and shakes her head. “What you want, baby?”
“Abita, thanks.” He looks over as the chef does a little namaste and goes back to the kitchen, and Sam turns back to the bar, startled, but not surprised at Bucky’s presence.
“Man, I need to put a damn bell on you.” But Sam’s grinning in that way that Bucky can’t help smile back at, and he reels Bucky in for a hug. “Welcome back, White Wolf.”
“So dinner was good?” Bucky takes a hard pull at his beer bottle.
“Yeah, and she’s bringing you a plate in a minute.”
------
Bucky is starving, and it’s not until he’s halfway through his insanely good meal that he even looks up at Sam, who’s been telling a surprisingly entertaining story about taking Cass and AJ fishing out off Grand Isle.
Sam’s just at the happy drunk stage, and he’s fucking sparkling at Bucky — warm smile, sitting just this side of too-close in the booth, sipping a cognac and licking his bottom lip in that way that suggests what he really wants is a cigar.
And Bucky, well Bucky is loving it. These days, it’s increasingly rare that Sam can get all loose-limbed on cocktails and good food; much less put away the shield for a night and relax into being the Louisiana boy he’ll always be.
They sit there for an hour or more, talking, drinking, and Sam greets friends and strangers with the same effusive warmth. Bucky ends up squeezed in the middle of the booth with Sam, thigh to thigh, flanked on either side by various Samfriends and a girl who keeps pressing into Bucky’s arm.
Either Sam notices, or he’s just ready to move, but he proposes the group head down the street to a club. Bucky, to be polite, helps the girl down the stairs out of the restaurant, but Sam grabs his metal arm and pulls him aside. “We’ll catch up to y’all,” he promises as he leads Bucky down a side street.
It’s a little cooler than it was earlier, and Bucky takes in the fresh air, trying to figure out why his heart is racing.
“That was a lot,” Sam leans against the column of a darkened carriage house.
Bucky exhales. “Yeah. Was I—”
“Nah, man, you were cool. I just thought it was maybe too much for someone who’s been away from all this for as long as you have.”
“Golden City nightlife is pretty hoppin’, I’ll have you know.”
“‘Hoppin’’?” Sam smiles that warm smile. “Let me find out you were two-steppin’ with the Dora Milaje, old man. To the club, then.”
“This is nice too,” Bucky rushes out. “A little bit of quiet.”
“Yeah.” Sam looks like he wants to say something else.
“What is it, birdy?” Bucky grins.
“Don’t call me that.” But it’s all light, no heat. “How was Wakanda, actually?”
“You miss me or something?”
Sam pushes off the column, with a small grin. “Yeah—yeah, I missed you.”
Bucky takes a step up toward Sam, and now he’s looking at Sam and he’s close enough to smell Sam’s spicy cologne, with a hint of clean sweat and laundry detergent and underneath, something as indelible and specific to Sam as a fingerprint. “Me too.”
And, well. Now they’re just looking at each other.
This is the line they keep walking up to, until the warning signs flash and one of them breaks, usually Sam, sometimes Bucky. But Sam doesn’t move back tonight. His eyes seem to be searching Bucky’s face, until they settle somewhere around Bucky’s mouth.
On the flight from Wakanda, Bucky had resolved not to move away the next time, and he doesn’t. He’d also resolved not to let Sam turn away before they could see what this was. So he reaches for Sam’s forearm, pulls. Sam comes easily, and their lips are a breath away from touching. Bucky stifles a slightly hysterical laugh at Sam letting him get this close this time, and then, because he can’t stand not doing it for another second, presses his mouth to Sam’s.
Sam freezes just long enough that Bucky’s halfway to a total freakout, but then Sam suddenly grabs Bucky’s shirt and pulls him flush, kissing back with soft lips and and warm mouth.
Bucky shouldn’t be surprised that Sam is an excellent kisser, all pressure and heat with sweet little nips. Sam pulls back just slightly for a second or two, licking his bottom lip like he’s tasting Bucky there, before pressing in again and sliding the tip of his tongue along Bucky’s bottom lip. Bucky matches him, and the kiss gets very deep, very fast. Sam tastes like cognac and a hint of the savory meal they ate, but mostly he tastes like Sam.
Unfortunately, they’re only slightly hidden in the alley they’re standing in and while no one’s going to look twice at two men necking on a Friday night in the French Quarter, they might if they realize it’s Cap and Bucky. And besides, Sam’s a little toasted, and Bucky wants a fully sober Sam for their first...whatever this is. So he pulls back regretfully, running his hand over the back of Sam’s head before resting it on his cheek.
Sam turns his face into Bucky’s palm, breathing hard. “That was—”
“That was a long time coming.” And if Bucky sounds smug, well, he fucking should, considering he has this gorgeous man basically coming apart at the seams.
“—a bad idea.” Sam says at the same time, while looking absolutely wrecked.
Bucky feels his face fall. “Sam, that was amazing—”
“Buck, no.” Sam steps back, leans back against the column again. “I mean, yes. But you’re my—” he stops. Starts again. “You’re my best friend, you have my back, we work together, man.”
“So what?” Bucky feels a defensiveness rising that he can’t stop. “You want me. You want this .”
“I want a lot of things.” Sam sighs. “Can’t have all of ‘em.”
“You can have this, Sam.” Bucky steps right back into Sam’s space and tries not to notice Sam stepping back. And okay, Bucky’s panicking a little, maybe. “Me. You already have me in every way that matters. What difference does this make?”
“Making out with the Winter Soldier is just a bonus add-on to the total package, then?” Sam laughs, a little bitterly.
And that hurts enough that Bucky deflates, backs off, and turns away to face the street. “Right.”
“Buck—”
“I don’t think I’ll go out to the club after all.” Bucky straightens. “But have fun. See you back at the house.”
Sam sighs again. “Okay. See you.”
Bucky doesn’t watch Sam walk away. He just stands there for a while, breathing.
----------
They have a house in New Orleans. Technically, Bucky has a house in New Orleans. He’d looked in Delacroix, but decided that being close to the airport was better flexibility, and Sarah and the boys were only a 40-minute drive. Bucky found a Katrina-era fixer-upper on the edge of the French Quarter that he bought for a song with his army backpay once the previous owner finally conceded it was a money pit. After getting the foundation fixed for almost what the house cost, he and Sam had spent the last few months sanding and finishing the floors, fixing the roof, replacing the drywall, and installing a kitchen and bathrooms with materials they got at-cost from some distant Wilson cousins who only charged them 1.5x for the labor. It’s now basically ready to paint and furnish, but at some point Sam had basically moved in, and they’d been arguing over colors before Bucky went to Wakanda for a week, and then the week had turned into a month.
Bucky showers, angry, and tries to remember what his new therapist said about anger. (“It’s often a secondary emotion. It usually accompanies something else — fear, shame, sadness.”) It’s too late to call her, so he’s just going to have to therapize himself. And when he eventually lies in his bed, considering the evening, he recounts the feelings he had upon landing at the airport.
(He’d dropped his shit off at the house and showered, but almost cut himself shaving in his rush to get to Sam at the restaurant. Thank god for super soldier skin. In his mind had been a rush of words that mostly added up to: Sam. And when he saw Sam leaning against that fucking bar, doing a bit, he’d wanted nothing more than to come up behind him and wrap his arms around his shoulder, tuck his nose into Sam’s neck, and breathe him in, the way he only sometimes lets himself during a hug. But Bucky’d settled for the more chill entrance, even though every atom in his body wanted Sam, Sam, Sam, Sam. And when they’d sat together in the booth, he was at least half as responsible for how close they were, but he wanted the proximity. And Bucky can recognize that he’s pretty much always had a weakness for a pretty face, and that historically, his head’s been easily turned, but it’s like since the first day he saw Sam Wilson he hasn’t been able to look away. And if wanting something you can’t have—and to keep on wanting it anyway—isn’t shame-inducing, he doesn’t know what is.)
So now here he is, in his bedroom, that’s empty of basically everything but a wrought iron bed that came with the place and a plain pine nightstand with an IKEA lamp on it. He really needs to fucking paint.
He knows Sam won’t have texted, but he picks up his phone anyway, and writes, “I’m sorry. I just care so much about you.” Then he deletes the second line and replaces it with “I think I love you” and then deletes all of it and writes: “I’m not sorry,” which is really what he means. Presses send, puts his phone on silent and sets it facedown on the floor and tries to fall asleep.
----------
A few minutes, or hours later, he hears Sam come into the house. Bucky’s always been a light sleeper, and Sam ain’t exactly stealthy on a good day. His baseline energy is: “I’m here, baby, now what’re we gon’ do about it?”
Bucky listens as Sam climbs the stairs with a slow tread, and hears him go to the bathroom to take a leak, then wash his hands; he listens for the sound of Sam trundling down to his own bedroom. But he stops at Bucky’s door.
There’s a light tap, and Sam, in a voice so quiet that only someone with Bucky’s hearing could decipher it: “Buck, you up?”
Bucky clears his throat. “Yeah. Come in.”
Sam opens the door and he looks just devastating in the blue moonlight. He lost his buttondown shirt somewhere, and he leans agains the door frame in a beater and jeans.
“What are you doing up? It’s late.” Sam sounds uncharacteristically sober for a man who was out on Bourbon Street til 1 a.m.
“You move like an elephant.”
“Not my fault you have super hearing.”
“What d’you want, Sam?”
Sam moves deeper into the room, hovering over Bucky. “Can I get in?”
Bucky blinks, then scoots over and flips back the quilt. “No street clothes.”
“You sound like my mama,” Sam mutters as he shucks his jeans, and after a half second of hesitation, his shirt.
“She did something right. Sarah came out great .”
Sam laughs silently, sliding into the bed beside Bucky. He flops back against the headboard, looking up at the ceiling.
Bucky slides down onto his back, and looks up too. “How was the club?”
“Eh.” Sam half shrugs. “I ended up walking around for a while instead. Stopped a mugging.”
“The people’s champion.” And if there’s a little bitterness in his own voice, Bucky’s not going to address it.
And apparently, neither is Sam. Instead, he reaches for the vibranium hand that’s resting on Bucky’s stomach and lifts it until the back of the hand is on Sam’s chest. The sensitivity is — it’s almost too good. He’d asked one of Shuri’s scientists to adjust it down when he first landed in Wakanda, but found that his brain had gotten used to how strong the input in that arm was, and within a day he had her set it back. Bucky knows Sam knows this, because Bucky had texted him about it.
“How does this feel?” Sam asks, his fingertips skating over the metal palm, running over each finger, one by one.
“Intense.” Which is an understatement.
Sam shifts onto his side, facing Bucky, and cups Bucky’s metal hand with his own left hand. “I did miss you.”
“So kiss me,” Bucky says, very seriously, turning his head so he can look at Sam, and laces their fingers together.
Sam leans up, resting on his right side, and brings his mouth close to Bucky’s. “I’m not sure anything’s changed from a couple of hours ago.”
“Then why are you in my bed, Sam.”
“It was closer.”
Bucky pulls at Sam’s shirt. “Shut up.” And he wills Sam to lean down, to kiss him.
Sam does. Tentative, soft, sweeter than earlier, maybe because they’re both sober now and know that the thing they’re doing isn’t an open question, it’s an answer to something that’s been building for months, maybe years.
“Your mouth, goddamn—” It feels like Sam’s kissing him with his whole body, half resting on Bucky, hand roaming up Bucky’s side. Sam noses into the space below Bucky’s ear, sucking kisses onto it, whispering, “You have no idea how hard it was for me to stop.”
Bucky can’t help but shiver at the feeling, and angles so Sam’s thigh is pressed right up against his hardening cock. “You shouldn’t have stopped. You didn’t want to.”
Sam shudders as Bucky’s hands slide over his back. “No, no I didn’t. Doesn’t mean this should happen.”
Bucky pulls back from where he’s kissing at Sam’s throat to look Sam in the eyes. “No offense, but it is happening, sweetheart.”
Sam looks down at him, eyes dark, mouth wet. “You look so fucking good.” He ruts up against Bucky, slow and deliberate. “You always look so fucking good. In those shirts and — and pants.”
Bucky pushes back, and smirks. “Shirts...pants. Talk dirty to me, why don’t you?”
Sam laughs quietly. “You know what I mean. Tight in all the right places. All the wrong ones, too.” He puts one hand on Bucky’s hip and they can both feel the slow slide of their hardness against each other, through two thin pairs of boxers. Bucky’s pretty sure he’s leaking pre-come at this point.
He bites Sam’s bottom lip, and Sam hisses. “You want to see where I’m tight, Sammy?” He reaches down to cup Sam’s stiff cock. “Want to feel it?”
“What are you asking, Buck.” Sam pushes himself into Bucky’s hand, and Bucky has no complaints, except that he really really needs more.
“Want you to fuck me, obviously,” Bucky breathes, and he gives up the pretense and slides his hand into the waistband of Sam’s shorts, and circles his hand around Sam’s cock, which is long and uncut like men were in Bucky’s day, and it’s thick at the base and an extremely pleasant handful. He lets muscle memory take over.
“Asshole.” And Sam captures Bucky’s mouth in a crushing kiss.
Bucky gasps, and pulls Sam’s hand down to the curve of his ass. “That’s where you start, yes.” Sam’s fingers squeeze him, and Bucky arches back into his hand.
“Fine, fuck. Roll over, get these off.” Sam plucks at the elastic of Bucky’s boxers, and then gets out of bed to pull his own off.
Bucky was a soldier, and he can take orders, but he’s only on his stomach for a second before Sam is draped over his back, pushing his wet cockhead between Bucky’s thighs.
Sam thrusts a couple of times, and moans. “Can I just—”
“Anything, sweetheart. You can fucking anything .” He’s reaching behind himself to pat encouragements into Sam’s skin.
Sam keeps fucking into the space between his thighs, and Bucky wants to make it good, so he tightens his legs and lets Sam use him like this. “I just need to get off and then we can—yes, fuck, Buck.” Sam groans, and Bucky’s finding out that when Sam wants to talk dirty he can really talk dirty. “You were made for this weren’t you?”
“I—I,” Bucky’s mind is whiting out, at the slick slide that’s so good but is also just a tease.
“All this time—” Sam grunts, not finishing his sentence. His mouth settles on Bucky’s shoulder, sucking hard as he thrusts.
“Sam…” Bucky’s got his face in one elbow and the metal hand is gripping the headboard and he feels it twist under his fingers.
“Yeah, yes. Been thinking about doing this for a long time.”
Bucky moans, brokenly, and then Sam is coming, hot and wet and the slide feels so good Bucky might just be able to rut into the sheets to get off too.
Sam’s panting as he rolls off of Bucky.
Bucky is rock hard, but he has just enough presence of mind to turn his face to look at Sam, and whisper: “A long time, huh?”
Sam looks right back at him, no dissembling for the first time in a long time. “Too long.” And then he leans over to run a hand down Bucky’s sweaty back. “Let me make it good for you now.”
Bucky turns his face back into the pillow, nodding, because he feels overstimulated but aching with want, and honestly, he feels like fucking crying over all of it.
“Do you have something?”
“Drawer.” But Sam is already digging around in the drawer next to the bed.
Eventually he pulls out a condom and a bottle of lube. “Ah ha. We are going to talk about this lube selection tomorrow though.”
Bucky’s so turned on he can’t even laugh. “Sam, please. Need you to fuck me. Like now. Like yesterday.” Like, three to eight years ago.
“I’m gonna, baby,” Sam murmurs. “And because you made it so good for me, I’m gonna take my time with you.”
Sam doesn’t say anything more, but Bucky hears the cap flip open and the slightly rude sound of lube squirting onto fingers, and then Sam’s hand is right there, rubbing gently at his hole. Bucky shudders again, involuntarily.
“Shh.” Sam smears the lube over Bucky softly, as Bucky relaxes, pushes into his touch. “That good?”
“More.”
“Yeah—okay.” One fingertip presses in, inexorably, and Sam hums. “Been a while, huh? Bear down.”
Bucky lets his body relax into this, tries to remember what this is like in practice. There had only been a couple of encounters during the war, and maybe some others as the soldier. Post Blip, he’s kept it to anonymous blow jobs. But his body seems to know what to do, and soon enough Sam has two fingers pressed inside of him, and every time he pushes back onto Sam’s hand, his cock gets some excellent friction from the sheets.
“I almost want to take you apart just like this.” Sam’s voice is low, and his free hand is smoothing over Bucky’s back. “Spend an hour or two touching you, licking you open.”
Bucky whimpers, fucks himself onto Sam’s hand. This is going so much better than he could have imagined.
“You’re almost ready, baby. You want me inside you?”
“Please, Sam.”
“When you ask so nicely.”
And suddenly the fingers are gone, and Sam is rolling Bucky over onto his back. “Want to see you when I do this, if this is what we’re doing,” he whispers. And the blunt, heavy edge is pressed right up against Bucky’s wet hole.
“Sam, I—”
“You look so pretty like this. I’m gonna fuck you up, baby.” Sam takes himself in hand and pushes in, slow, steady, looking down at Bucky all the while.
Bucky can’t handle it, he feels like a raw nerve. He squeezes his eyes shut.
“Nuh uh,” Sam says, tapping lightly at Bucky’s cheek with the back of his free hand, and Bucky opens his eyes. “You wanted this. You’re gonna look at me while you take this dick,” and he rolls his hips at the same time.
That mouth. Bucky clenches around Sam, and he can’t help but retort: “Yeah, yeah I’m gonna.”
Sam grins, sharp, and kisses Bucky hard, and then he snaps his hips and sets a slow, steady pace. “Take it for me, baby. Show me what you’ve been wanting all this time.”
“You.” Bucky gasps at the way Sam is filling him. “Since—since Europe. Haven’t been able to stop looking at you since then, Sammy.”
Sam moans, but he doesn’t look away. “Yeah?” His pace stutters, then he picks up speed. “You wanted this dick back then? I could have given it to you then? Back when we hated each other?”
Bucky’s practically sobbing. “You have no idea how much I didn’t hate you. You could have had me in Germany or Austria or fucking Prague that night after my birthday.” That was the first night that they’d gone out together without Steve, and Bucky had actually been tipsy off of whatever super-soldier-compromising space booze Thor had tossed into Natasha’s monthly care package.
“I almost—” Sam punctuates every other word with a thrust or a kiss, “—I almost mauled you that night back at the safe house. I was so angry about being on the run, but you looked so fucking good. Like you’d get on your knees for me, open that pretty red mouth, if I pointed at the carpet.”
Bucky doesn’t have words right now, his body is roiling like an ocean. “Woulda,” he slurs.
“Think this dick is where it belongs, though, baby.” Sam delivers an especially hard thrust. “Where it belongs. You’re so fucking tight, Buck. I’m not gonna last.”
“Come then. You’re not gonna break me. Do it.”
“Yeah—” Sam starts pushing harder. “Yeah, I think I wanna try though.” His words blur into moans and he’s pushing Bucky so hard, it’s all Bucky can do to hold on, and listen, and fucking feel. “Bucky, fuck, baby, take it, take me.”
Bucky is dying, maybe. He’s never had a partner let go like this, not holding back at all, practically folding him in half. He moans and gets his hand between them so he can stroke himself.
“Give it to me, Sam. You know I need it. Want me to beg for it? Come on, come in me.” He whimpers as Sam grips the junction of his shoulder with one hand, thumb digging into the hollow at the base of his throat, other hand on Bucky’s hip, squeezing tight enough that it hurts. “Mess me up, sweetheart. Make sure I feel every inch of that cock tomorrow.”
And that seems to do it for Sam, who delivers one final thrust and holds Bucky in place with both hands, dropping his head to Bucky’s chest, moaning while his cock pulses inside of Bucky. “Take it, take it, take it, take me,” he’s chanting.
“Please, please, pleasepleasepleaseplease .” And Bucky’s hand is flying over his own cock until he’s spurting between them, jerking and moaning.
They lie there for a long minute, panting into each other’s necks. Bucky thinks he hears himself whimpering a little with the aftershocks.
Finally Sam pulls out and they both wince. Sam flops onto his back. “Mary mother of god, fuck.”
“I don’t think that’s how you’re supposed to use that.” And Bucky hears his words slurring, he’s so absolutely fucked out.
Sam huffs a laugh, “I don’t think I was supposed to do what I just did.”
“And yet.”
Sam relaxes as Bucky reaches for him. “You’re not a cuddler, are you?”
“Hate to break it to you.” And Bucky pulls and tugs and arranges Sam in his arms, and Sam goes easily, until he’s exactly where Bucky wants him. Bucky ghosts his lips over the shell of Sam’s ear. “Yes.”
“We’re going for a run tomorrow.”
“Didn’t get enough of a workout tonight?”
------
It’s easy in the morning. They do run, and then they get chicory coffee and beignets at a cafe down the road, and they don’t talk about the night before, even though Bucky is fairly sure he’s glowing with how good he feels.
Sam, however, is only interested in talking activities. Paint buying, fishing lessons, math lessons, putting in raised garden beds at Sarah’s, he’s got a list a mile long. Not to mention the UN summit in two weeks, where if there isn’t fighting they’d both be shocked.
They’re looking at paint chips at the hardware store when Sam asks about Wakanda again.
Bucky sighs. “It was hard.”
Sam holds up two identical swatches of white paint. “Hard how?”
Bucky makes a face until Sam puts the chips down. “Shuri pretty much avoided me. The queen as well, after the first night when I went to them, to apologize about Zemo.”
"How’d they take the apology?”
“They were more gracious than I deserved.”
“Good of them.”
And Bucky’s reminded of how annoyed Sam had been with the whole jailbreak thing. “I know.”
“What did Ayo say?” Sam moves around him and the shopping cart, and Bucky’s pretty sure those are Sam’s fingertips brushing across his lower back.
“Ayo is extremely good at the silent treatment, turns out.” Bucky shakes his head at some colors Sam points to. “She ignored me for a week and a half until I showed up at the Dora Milaje palace gym and let them all basically kick my ass for an hour.” Bucky looks at Butter and Saffron and holds them up for Sam. “Then she helped me up and let me apologize.”
“Neither.” Sam takes the samples out of Bucky’s hand. They move toward the greens. “Did she accept it?
“She did. But I — I realize now that letting Zemo out really hurt them,” Bucky said. “Everything I have right now is because of the kindness of Wakanda and Shuri and Ayo. Disabling my arm was really just a reminder of where it came from. Where I come from.”
“Hurts can heal if you do the work.” Sam says. “I’m not gonna say your decision to free Zemo was the right one, but it ended up getting us where we needed to go.”
Bucky nods. “That’s about the most Ayo was willing to concede.”
“How’d you leave things?” Sam’s got colors called Cedar Mountains and Newport Green in each hand.
“Not terrible.” He points at Cedar Mountains and Sam puts the swatch in the cart. “I spoke with Shuri and the queen again before I left. It was—better.”
“Must’ve been if Shuri gave you a ride back here.”
“The embassy in Oakland is finally coming together.”
Sam plucks a few more blues and greens and sticks them in the cart. “Let’s just get samples of all of these.”
“Samples are $4.95 each, Sam!”
“Bucky.” Sam’s laughing.
“Sam,” Bucky says, incredibly seriously. “In 1941, I could have gotten a dinner for four at Delmonico’s for $4.95. Pheasant under glass. Wine. Some kind of flaky tart. And a show.”
“And now you can get one paint sample. So what?”
Sam’s truly giggling now, and they’re that couple on a date in the hardware store, and Bucky reaches for Sam and pulls him in, and they kiss, light and sweet and easy as a sip of lemonade in the summer.
When Bucky pulls back, he’s braced for panic in Sam’s eyes, but all he sees is uncomplicated affection. So he leans in again for one more soft kiss, then murmurs, “If you’re gonna insist on all these sad greens, then I’m getting Bermuda Pink for the downstairs bathroom.”
Sam hums. “Fine. But we’re putting in brass fixtures.”
“Fine.” And Bucky can’t help it, he kisses Sam’s cheek.
----------
They’re in Sam’s truck, on their way down to Delacroix, with a bunch of 2x4s and bags of soil in the back, when Bucky decides to raise it.
“What’s your problem with my lube selection?”
Sam, to his credit, does not swerve off the road. But his hands tighten on the steering wheel in a way that Bucky both notices and appreciates.
Sam coughs. “Beg pardon?”
Bucky sinks deeper into his seat, lets his hand coast on the air outside the window. “You said that you wanted to discuss my lubes right before you fucked me.”
“Bucky.”
“That was last night, to be clear.”
“Buck.”
“Last night, when we fucked.”
“I was there, yes.”
“So, lube.”
Sam clears his throat. “There were a lot, is all.”
“Ah.” Bucky reaches for Sam’s free hand. And despite him being a piece of work, Sam squeezes back. “Well, first, when I came back, I didn’t realize there was more available than vaseline.”
Sam looks over at him, outrage palpable. “Vaseline is not—”
“In Europe, there was olive oil, of course. And when you were desperate, spit did the trick.”
Sam stares hard at the road.
“So when I learned that there had been all these modern advances in slick over the last 100 years, I had to check ‘em out.”
“Bucky, there were like 20 bottles in that drawer.”
Bucky smiles over at Sam, who’s finally looking back at him. “Which is how we’re going to figure out our favorites.”
“Is that so?”
“I haven’t even opened half of them.”
------
They work on Sarah’s garden until the sun sets, putting in the raised beds, filling them with soil. Sarah’s got a whole spread for them in the kitchen — shrimp etouffee, rice, salad, mac and cheese, French bread, and more and more.
Bucky plays a game with the boys, one his own mom and sister used to play with him to eat when he was little. It involves sectioning each plate into a battlefield and taking it quadrant by quadrant. Sarah just watches, bemused, sipping a beer.
Eventually, dinner is over, and Sam and Bucky do the dishes while Sarah watches them.
“So, you two.” Sarah’s leaning up against the door frame.
“Us two what,” Sam mutters, putting leftovers in the fridge.
“Is this finally happening?” She’s raising a glass of bourbon to her lips.
Bucky, at the sink, flashes her a grin that he hopes says it all.
“Sarah,” Sam warns.
“All I’m saying is, you two have been pining for a long ass time. Maybe if you get some you’ll get outta my hair.”
“It’s happening,” Bucky says with more confidence than he feels, putting the last dish in the dish drain, before stripping off his gloves. He sidles up to Sam. “Right, sweetheart?” And he leans in for a kiss that Sam melts into.
Sarah beams at them. “Finally!”
--------
Bucky drives them back to New Orleans.
“You still scared?” He asks, scanning the road for the kind of creatures that like to creep out late at night.
Sam sighs. “Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re—” Sam reaches for Bucky’s thigh. “You’re not just some—some bonus that comes along with the shield.”
“Is that what—” Bucky sneaks a glance at Sam. “I know.”
Sam leans back on headrest, turns his face to Bucky so Bucky can feel his burning look. “I just want it to be clear that just because my identity and your identity are all twisted up together because of ‘Cap’n’Bucky’ and the Steve of it all—and just because I want you, that I’ve been wanting you—that we don’t have to be together.”
Bucky nods, short and sharp and says, “If you’re scared of blurring lines, well, we live in the blurred spaces, doll.”
Sam snorts. “Doll?”
“Have you seen your face?” And Bucky looks over at Sam briefly. “Have you seen you ?”
Sam laughs, then goes quiet in that way Bucky knows means: wait.
After a while, after more mile markers passing them and countless night bugs flashing through the headlights, Sam speaks.
“You were the absolute best fucking thing I’d ever seen when Steve and I found you. It didn’t matter how you hurt me, you were power and grace and relentless and — and a worthy adversary, and watching Steve let you hurt him, it made me feel like there was something there about you I needed to know.”
Bucky puts his hand on Sam’s hand.
“And when you came around, really came around to our side, I couldn’t help but see you as a gap between Steve and the real world. A bridge. Unlike Steve, for example, you had lived through at least some of the eighties.”
“The music was real loud, I remember.”
“And then after a while, we were partners.”
“A couple of guys.”
“Coworkers with a mutual friend.”
Neither of them say anything for a while, and Bucky watches the mile markers tick by.
Sam sighs, squeezing Bucky’s thigh. “I just want to make sure you feel like you have a choice in this thing. Everything up to now has just felt inevitable, you know? And I will never get last night out of my head. But you have an escape route.”
“For how long?”
Sam blinks at him.
“I mean, how long will you be waiting for me to look for the door?” Bucky smiles, trying to project reassurance at Sam. “Because I’m all in this, sweetheart, and I don’t want to worry about you worrying about me. So you need to tell me when you’ll be sure I’m sure.”
“I hate that I understood that.” Sam takes a deep breath. “Okay, if that’s how it is, you have until we get back to the house to pull that ripcord, baby.”
Bucky hits the gas, and Sam just laughs.