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The sky bleeds red.
Not a poetic red - no, literal crimson rain soaks into the dry earth, hissing like acid on the cracked stones of what was once fertile ground.
Sam stands alone before the altar, his clothing stained with dirt and dust and fingers curled tight around the ancient dagger entrusted to him. His people watch from a distance with faces hollowed by famine and fear, their eyes wide with a hope that can only be described as desperate.
Sam tells himself he doesn’t believe in gods.
He doesn’t… not until the earth cracks open like a yawning mouth, not until the dead begin to walk, not until the sun dims and blood fills the streets.
And now here he is… offering himself to the last name whispered in old, forbidden prayers.
The god of death and war. God of the Icy Veil, the Last Breath.
The Winter’s Soldier.
Sam translates the text himself from the ruins under the city. He’s mostly sure it says: Offer heart, body, and blood, and he shall rise to defend what is given.
The dagger trembles in his hand. Not from fear, exactly. He’s far beyond fear, but this is the last play he has left. If this is the only way he can save them all, then so be it. He has nothing left anyway.
The altar looms ahead, carved out of pale stone and humming with a power older than memory. There is one name carved the deepest: Iacomus Bucarion Barneus – the last of the old gods, the one they used to pray to in wartime, back when praying meant bleeding and the earth could be avenged.
There’s none of them left now. Only this one.
“I hope you’re still listening, big guy,” Sam says quietly, finally stepping forward. He glances back once at the crowd of people gathered behind him. His people. “Because I’m not asking for myself. I’m askin’ for them.”
He presses the blade to his palm and squeezes against the sting. His blood drips down and spills across the altar. “Winter’s Solider,” he says, his voice steady and low. “I offer myself. My blood, my heart, my life. Protect them. Avenge them.”
For a long beat, there is only silence and Sam thinks horribly that he’s failed. But then the earth groans and the sky splits open. The altar drinks deep.
And a god rises.
Sam stumbles back as the stone altar cracks like bone. Golden smoke and shadow curl upwards into the shape of a man - tall, broad, dark hair and cloaked in a midnight-black shroud. His left arm shimmers like something metallic with runes shifting and crawling beneath the surface.
His eyes open, blue and burning and… strangely vacant.
“You called,” the god says, his voice like steel and thunder, then the blue glow fades from his eyes and something else takes its place. Something... almost human. His gaze sweeps over Sam. “You invoked my name.”
Sam takes another cautious step back. The smoke is still thick and curling around the god and unease flickers in Sam’s gut. “Yeah. That was me.”
The god - Iacomus – steps down. The air warps around him and Sam’s knees almost buckle under the sheer weight of presence.
“Help us,” Sam grits his teeth and turns his hands palm up. He glances behind him at what’s left of his town. “Save my people.”
The god looks at him, impassive. A long moment passes and the unease in Sam’s gut churns deeper. Behind him, the gasps and cries of the small crowd watching fade into a confused murmur. He looks up at the ancient god again, jaw tight. “Any time now,” Sam mutters under his breath.
Iacomus doesn’t move. Sam is determined not to cave under this stare. “I invoked the rite,” Sam tries again, a bit of anger and frustration leaking into his voice. His hand at his side clenches into a fist. “You have to obey.”
It’s another long moment before Iacomus responds.
“You offered blood and life for protection,” Iacomus rumbles. His expression is unreadable. “But you did not understand the sacrament.”
Sam’s breath catches. “…What?”
“You didn’t offer yourself as a sacrifice,” Iacomus says, blue eyes intent now. Sam feels the god’s stare down to his bones. He’s trapped in it.
“You offered yourself as a bride.”
There is one, long, horrible beat of silence.
“I what?”
Iacomus’s voice is like gravel. “You pledged a bond. A vow. A union sealed in flame. We are bound now, Samuel of the Winged Flame. I am ready to comply.”
“Wait, those weren’t wedding vows!” Sam protests. “There ain’t no ‘to have and to hold’ in that translation!”
The god’s expression doesn’t change. It remains fiercely stoic but a trace of confusion laces his tone. “You gave me your heart.”
“I gave you a metaphor, man!”
Iacomus tilts his head. “Blood, body, and heart given freely. We are bound.”
Sam glances at the text on the altar. One smudged glyph. One poorly transcribed line.
“Oh, come on,” he hisses. “It was one mistranslation!” He drags his hand down his face. “This is not how I thought dying for my people would go.”
To his credit, the god does save the village.
With terrifying precision.
He incinerates the plague-spawn. He calls storms from empty skies to wash the land clean, breaking the drought and flushing dried blood from the riverbeds. He burns the undead where they stand, ash falling like snow in his wake.
But then… he stays.
He builds nothing elaborate. Just a flat slab of dark stone beside Sam’s house, worn down by his weight and the weather, a throne only by function. But every day he sits there.
Watching. Waiting. Silent.
Iacomus Bucarion Barneus - the god of war and blood, breaker of nations, destroyer of death - is now a still figure by the porch, a shadow folded in on itself.
No one quite knows what to do with him.
Not the village elders, not the priest, who still won’t step outside alone, and certainly not the fishermen, who have started leaving whole baskets of salted fish at the docks in offerings. Sam isn’t sure if they’re trying to gain favour or avoid generational curses.
And Sam himself… He’s still trying to figure out what it means to eat breakfast while a god sits outside his kitchen window.
The god doesn’t speak unless spoken to but he hunts without being asked and leaves the meat cleaned by Sam’s door at night. He rests nearby like a silent sentinel, hands folded in his lap, gaze unmoving. There’s no aggression in him, but Sam can tell the restraint is heavy, like every breath is something he's holding back.
“You don’t have to stay,” Sam says one night, arms crossed as he watches distant lightning flicker over the mountains. “The deal was liberation for my people, not... this.” He gestures vaguely toward the carved obsidian seat next to his house. “Not… this freaky magoo style hovering.”
“We are bound,” the god replies quietly. “It is expected.”
Sam turns to study him for a moment - this ancient being cloaked in silence and power, standing barefoot in the dirt like he belongs there. This man, this god, who has seemingly attached himself to him. Sam doesn’t know what to do with it.
“That name they carved on the altar,” he says slowly. Carefully. “Iacomus Bucarion Barneus... It’s a lot.”
The god inclines his head but doesn’t answer.
“Is it the only one you’ve ever had?” Sam asks. “Did you have another name before? When you were... human?”
The question lingers in the air and the god’s brow furrows, just slightly. He doesn’t respond right away. His eyes shift to the horizon, like he’s searching backward through fog.
“I don’t remember much of that time,” he admits. “It was... long ago.”
“But you did have one? You did, right?” Sam presses, voice low but insistent. “I mean, you had friends, right? A life. What did they call you?”
The god goes still like the question reaches far deeper than he expected. He tilts his head, eyes narrowing slightly as if straining to hear something only the past remembers.
Then, so rough and quiet it’s barely a whisper:
“Bucky.”
The name leaves his mouth like a prayer, a memory resurrected. The expression in the god’s eyes is haunted and laced with a pain that isn’t physical, as though the memories he searched for have cracked him open.
Something in Sam pauses in recognition. Understanding. He nods slowly and smiles. “Alright then, Bucky,” Sam starts. “If you’re staying... I guess we better figure out what that means.”
The god doesn’t smile, but his gaze lingers on Sam, slower, softer. There’s a faint tilt of his head, almost bemused. His voice is deliberate when it comes.
“It means we are joined. Wedded.”
Sam stiffens. “No. No, it does not.”
“It does,” Bucky replies calmly. “You offered union, blood, and vow beneath the old stars. You carry my mark. That is marriage, by my rites.”
“Okay- hold up. I was out here trying to stop a war, not plan a honeymoon. You’re telling me that counted as a wedding?”
“You called me with purpose. You bound yourself to me with name and flame. You spoke the vow freely.”
“It was a summoning, not a proposal!”
“Ancient magic does not misinterpret intention.”
Sam stares at him like he’s lost his mind. “You can’t just decide we’re married because I lit some candles and chanted your resume.”
“Then why do you wear my mark?”
Sam looks down. The brand, an abstract swirl of feathers and flame and a crimson star, had appeared over his heart the morning after the summoning. It’s warm to the touch and pulses slightly when the god draws too near. Sam had almost forgotten it in the days the since this god wrecked his vengeance and saved his people.
Sam sighs, defeated. “Damn it.”
The days turn into weeks.
Iacomus - Bucky, as he now prefers to be called, is not what Sam expects. He is powerful, yes. Unsettling in his silent staring. Terrifying when provoked.
But he hunts without fanfare and leaves the meat cleaned and ready on the townsfolks doorsteps throughout the village. He repairs the broken fence around the schoolhouse without being asked. He watches the village from the edge of the water, and no one dares speak Sam’s name with disrespect in his presence.
He rarely smiles.
But sometimes, when the wind rises, Sam catches him turning his face toward it like he’s listening for something lost. And sometimes, in the quiet moments when their eyes meet across a fire or a bustling marketplace, Bucky looks at him like Sam is the first light he's seen in a thousand years.
Sam doesn’t trust easily. He’s learned not to. And yet… He starts to like him.
He catches himself watching too long when Bucky walks by, feels a tight warmth in his chest when Bucky murmurs something about his nightmares and then stays silent and steadfast, until the sky lightens.
The village kids adore him – this ancient god carved from obsidian stone and flesh. They clamber over his shoulders, hang off his arms, and laugh like he isn’t a divine weapon wrapped in a human frame. And Bucky… softens. His still face folds into something gentle, something almost human.
And Sam starts to wonder if protection doesn’t always have to come with chains. Maybe sometimes, being kept safe doesn’t mean being claimed. Maybe sometimes, it can mean being chosen – and when his sister Sarah comes to him with a solution, Sam doesn’t know what to do with it.
It’s a month later and late at night when Sam goes back to where it all started.
He climbs the steps of the old stone temple again, now just a ruined, shattered monument to the moment he accidentally got divine-married but brought salvation to his people because of it.
Bucky is already there standing beneath the stars.
“You know, you could’ve picked a less dramatic entrance,” Sam says conversationally, eyeing the rubble. The altar is shattered beyond recognition now, the temple not much better.
Bucky doesn’t look at him but his voice is low, almost amused. Less a deity and more human now. “You summoned a god. Don’t pretend you didn’t enjoy the drama.”
Sam snorts to himself, rubbing the back of his neck. “Yeah, well, it was you or certain death for me and everyone I know and love. Not exactly a choice, man.”
The silence that follows isn’t uncomfortable, but it settles heavy between them with weighty with things unsaid. Sam glances over, just once, and his voice is quieter when it comes. “Still, I’m glad it was you.”
Bucky’s shoulders soften then. His expression seems almost soft as he turns to face Sam. Steel blue eyes study him, searching for what Sam can’t say and when Bucky doesn’t speak, Sam steps closer.
“You told me to meet you here. Why?”
Bucky’s face doesn’t shift but there’s a kind of gentleness in his tone. Almost sorrowful. There’s a crease between his brows like he’s been thinking too hard. Bucky places a hand on Sam’s chest, right above the mark. His expression is almost sorrowful.
“You didn’t ask for this.”
It’s a statement that has Sam looking around at the ruined temple with an amused quirk of his lips. “Uh, yeah I did. The whole summoning? The rite? Saving my people? I definitely asked for all of this.”
He pauses, looking over the man in front of him. And in this moment, under the sprinkle of stars and wrapped in the salt tinted breeze off the ocean, he is more man than god, and somehow, his steady, divine tinted presence has started to become one Sam isn’t sure he ever wants to live without.
Sam steps a little closer, his voice casual but edged with something else as he cover’s Bucky’s hand with his own. “Sure, I’m not great with commitment,” he tells Bucky with a half shrug and a half smile. “But I’ve learned there are worse things than an immortal husband with a death glare.”
The joke hangs in the air between them, thin armour for something he doesn’t quite know how to say and Sam finds himself exhaling as he drops his hands. He doesn’t look at Bucky when he adds quietly, “I’ve gotten used to having you around.”
Bucky lowers his hand but doesn’t move away. He’s close enough that Sam can see the deepening crease in his brow. He’s listening.
“The silence doesn’t feel as heavy when you’re in it,” Sam continues. “The world feels less haunted. I sleep better. And the kids don’t climb all over just anyone, you know.”
Bucky tilts his head, gaze steady and unreadable. His eyes track Sam like he’s memorizing him but there’s something softer in them Sam has been glimpsing more of lately.
“You know I would let you go,” Bucky tells him, solemn. “If you asked.”
That’s the truth of it and Sam knows enough of the old ways to know this too. That gods, real gods, don’t cling. They wait. They sleep. And if they awaken and are turned away, they return to the dust and shadow that birthed them.
He’s known this for weeks, since Sarah had shown up on his doorstep with the old tattered book she found in the ruins, and yet Sam has never spoken the words.
It’s beyond him. He can’t, not when he catches himself listening for the sound of Bucky’s footsteps on the porch. Not when warmth curls beneath his skin at the god’s presence or when the mark on his chest hums in time with something he doesn’t fully understand.
Not even when it scared him, that closeness. That pull.
He doesn’t know when it happened or when the shift occurred. When the strange became familiar. When this became something he didn’t want to lose.
It must have been gradual – just a slow unfurling like spring finally waking after endless winter.
“I know,” Sam says, his voice quiet but certain as their eyes meet. “I don’t want to send you back to whatever dark you came from, so I’m not askin’.”
He exhales out a breath, something soft and close to a laugh as his fingers brush the mark over his heart. He feels lighter now with the decision made, the words voiced out loud. “Guess I’ll have to figure out what kind of wedding gift you get a god.”
The curve on Bucky’s lips starts slow, like dawn creeping in at the edges of a long night. It doesn’t reach his eyes right away but when it does, there’s something sweet and desperate in it. His gaze is intense in the way it searches Sam’s.
“You’ll let me stay?” he whispers. “As your husband?”
Sam swallows, unexpected emotion catching like static in his throat as the walls around this god’s heart are stripped away. It’s like watching him emerge all over again but this time, there’s something that hints at the human he once in the curve of his smile.
Sam offers Bucky his hands and Bucky stares at them. Then, carefully, like the moment might break if he moves too fast, he places his hands in Sam’s gently. One is heavier than the other and a shiver runs through Sam like a ripple as ancient power is pulled tight then eased.
Sam swallows. No take backs now.
He nods and rubs his thumbs over the backs of Bucky’s hands. He imagines building a life with this old god, showing him how to live.
“Yeah,” he croaks out softly. “Yeah, I got you, Buck.”
That night, alone in the shadows of Sam’s bedroom, it starts with a kiss.
Not a collision, not a conquest, but something softer. Reverent, like a blessing given freely.
Sam tilts Bucky’s face toward his with two fingers beneath his jaw. His thumb brushes the edge of Bucky’s mouth, already parted slightly, his breath quick and uncertain. There’s a weight in the air that might be Bucky’s godlike power but Sam suspects is just the swelling of his own heart. He doesn’t know when his chest cracked open to let Bucky in – it happened in increments, in slow, small ways.
“This okay?” Sam asks, his voice low and rough with held back need. He tries to keep them grounded. Always grounded.
Bucky nods, not regal or detached but unexpectedly eager. “Yes. Please.”
Sam kisses him again, slower this time, coaxing and tasting. His tongue slips along Bucky’s lower lip, and when Bucky opens for him with a sound like something breaking apart quietly, Sam feels heat twist low in his belly.
Bucky’s hands hover, uncertain. He’s not shaking - gods don’t shake - but he looks like he’s never been told he can.
Sam takes Bucky’s hands gently and places them at his waist, then covers them with his own. “Touch me,” he says. “You’re allowed.”
So Bucky does. Like a man starved for warmth and contact but afraid to burn by accident. He touches with both hands, one pale, the other obsidian, and Sam doesn’t flinch. He invites more. He allows Bucky to learn him by feel, one inch at a time.
Sam’s shirt comes off first. Slowly. Bucky takes in every inch of bare dark skin like it’s something sacred and wholly unfamiliar.
“You are so beautiful,” Bucky says, barely above a whisper and coated in wonder.
Sam’s mouth lifts into something soft. “Yeah? You’re not so bad yourself. C’mon. Let me see you.”
There’s hesitation, old and silent and something that might be shame etched into habit, but Bucky finally obeys. He shrugs out of his jacket, then pulls his shirt over his head. Firelight plays over the scars scattered across his chest, ancient wounds and battle-earned, some soft with age, others angry and raised. His dark arm stays still at first, half-tucked behind him.
Sam steps closer, slow and unhurried. His fingers brush over Bucky’s collarbone, then down the hard edge of his arm. Not afraid or cautious, just... curious.
“You don’t have to keep that back, you know,” Sam says quietly. “Not with me.”
Bucky’s breath hitches. “I.. I don’t- I-“ He pauses to swallow, then steel blue eyes bore into Sam’s with an almost terrifying intensity. “I am afraid,” he whispers hoarsely. “Of hurting you.”
It’s a fair concern. The power thrumming under Bucky’s skin is a beat Sam has long gotten used to. Like a song he’s learned the lyrics to. Sam only strokes Bucky’s stubbled cheek in reassurance. He’s not brushing it off, but meeting Bucky’s worry head-on. “You won’t. I’m not that easy to break.”
Then he leans in to press a kiss over Bucky’s chest, right where his heart would be. Flesh and warmth. No magic, no ritual, just truth.
“You couldn’t hurt me, Buck. Not ever. I know that.”
And that… that is the crack that opens everything.
Bucky exhales, shaky and long, like he’s letting go of something he's carried for far too long. They move to the bed, falling back and sinking into the sheets, wrapped in firelight and desire, and a closeness that feels like home. Bucky kisses Sam like he’s learning how, like this is new. And it is. This is want, not command. This is choice.
Sam allows him to explore. Allows him reach and with it, each press of Bucky’s lips grows bolder. Hungrier. He tastes everything - Sam’s jaw, his throat, the place behind his ear that makes Sam shiver and when a moan slips out of Sam’s mouth, Bucky pulls back just long enough to look at him. He drinks him in with a gaze that’s somewhere between awe and disbelief.
“You’re real,” Bucky says, voice breaking on the words like he’s not sure they’ll hold, like speaking them might undo the moment.
Sam brushes his knuckles along Bucky’s jaw. The touch is steady and warm and certain in a way Bucky seizes on.
“So are you,” Sam says firmly. “Don’t let nobody tell you otherwise.”
They come together in another kiss and Sam eases Bucky down against the sheets. His hands are sure as stone but as gentle as a breath. This is something sacred, Sam knows. He’s laying down more than a god-turned-man. He’s laying down every scar, every century of silence and telling Bucky: this is where you rest now.
He straddles Bucky’s hips, palms flat against his chest. Their skin is warm where it touches, their heat building just from proximity. He kisses down Bucky’s neck, over the scarred plane of his chest, down the soft stretch of skin beneath his ribs. It’s worship in reverse.
And Bucky touches him too, his hands roaming with reverence. He explores Sam’s body with the kind of care that comes from lifetimes of restraint. Bucky doesn’t ask for more, but Sam gives it to him anyway simply because he wants to. Because Bucky is holding himself together too tightly, and Sam wants to see him fall apart in something other than war.
Their movements are slow and languid, their bodies pressed tight as they learn the rhythm of each other - the slide of skin, the catch of breath, the hitch in Bucky’s voice when Sam touches him just right.
Gasps melt into groans and names turn into prayers and when Sam pushes inside him, Bucky gasps and goes still. Not from pain, but from astonishment.
He clutches at Sam’s shoulders with both hands, one hot and soft, the other cold and smooth, and he doesn’t close his eyes for a second. He watches, his eyes blown wide in pools of blue, almost disbelieving as though if he looks away, it will vanish. Like he’s trying to memorize every detail in case he wakes up cold and alone again, as he has for lifetimes.
The thought hits Sam like a blow. He cups Bucky’s face, thumbs brushing along the edge of his cheekbone. Sam keeps his voice low and steady as Bucky’s eyelids start to droop on a sigh. “Hey. Look at me.”
Bucky’s eyes blink open again. He’s lost in the sensations of his own body, something wild building behind his eyes searching for a lifeline. Sam angles his hips, just to hear Bucky’s breath hitch and the moan tumble from his mouth.
“You’re right here with me,” Sam says, firm but soft as he coaxes Bucky back. “I’m not going anywhere.”
And that’s enough. Bucky breathes, and when he catches Sam’s gaze again, his eyes are clear.
“With me, baby?” Sam whispers roughly and Bucky’s hand squeezes against Sam’s hip in acknowledgement.
“With you,” he whispers back and then he’s arching into Sam’s touch, breathing ragged, fingers grasping like Sam is the last solid thing left in the universe. Every movement between them builds - tighter, deeper until Bucky is murmuring his name, a litany of Sam and please and don’t stop.
When Bucky comes, it’s with a sharp, gasping sound. His whole body goes taut, then trembles with release, and Sam follows just after, mouth buried in the curve of Bucky’s neck, panting against sweat-slick skin.
They lie tangled together on the sheets, heat still simmering in the spaces where their bodies touch.
“You good?” Sam asks softly, brushing damp hair from Bucky’s forehead.
Bucky looks at him, something flickering in those ancient eyes. He’s not a god right now. Not exactly.
“This feels like something sacred.”
Sam huffs a small laugh and kisses the corner of Bucky’s mouth. “That’s ‘cause it is.”
He falls asleep like that, all warm and wrapped up in Bucky’s arms, guarded by the fire and the sea and a god who no longer sleeps alone.
Morning breaks slow over the village, the light soft and golden as it filters through gauzy curtains that flutter in the salt breeze.
Sam wakes to warmth.
Not the kind from blankets or firelight, but from the solid weight of another body pressed against his back. There’s an arm slung low around his waist and warm breath ghosting over his shoulder.
Bucky.
The name comes to him hazy, like a secret whispered against his skin.
He turns his head and finds him there, face tucked into the curve of Sam’s neck. His hair, thick and dark and tangled from sleep, falls over his cheek and the pillow in wild disarray. It softens him. Makes him look younger. Infinitely human.
But then there’s the arm – a shimmering, rune-etched thing, draped over Sam’s hip like a silent vow. There’s no tension in his grip. Just presence, steady and grounding.
Sam shifts onto his back slowly, careful not to disturb the moment. The blanket slides down his chest, revealing skin still marked from the night before - scratches from hard fingertips, ghosted bruises from too-careful hands. He’s sore but he’s okay with that.
Bucky stirs at the movement, lashes fluttering open. His eyes, startling and pale in the morning light, lock onto Sam’s, and the expression that blooms across his face is… indescribable.
“Hey,” Sam says, voice still rough with sleep.
Bucky’s voice comes quiet. “You're here.”
“You’re surprised?”
“I’ve slept for centuries,” Bucky murmurs, eyes tracing over him like he’s afraid to blink and lose it. “I thought I would always wake alone.”
He stretches, slow and easy, one arm curling behind his head. The blanket slips low on his waist and light spills in through the window to catch on his skin. The contrast between them is stark - Sam’s skin, rich and warm and sun-burnished, tangled against Bucky’s pale chest, scattered with old scars and fresh memory. Where they touch, it feels like balance, like shadow and flame.
Sam follows Bucky’s gaze, then quirks an eyebrow. “You gonna keep staring at me like that?”
“Yes,” Bucky says without shame.
“Well, damn. Usually you gotta buy a guy breakfast first.”
Bucky’s expression shifts, cautious. “I can hunt.”
Sam groans lightly, rubbing a hand at his eyes. “Please don’t bring me something still twitching.”
“No promises,” Bucky says, but his voice is warm. Teasing. Sam opens his eyes to squint at him.
“Are you tryin’ to be funny?”
Bucky doesn’t answer, his gaze raking over Sam’s body again. There’s a long moment of almost silence. Just outside the window there is the rustle of leaves and the subtle creak of wood settling.
Bucky speaks again, quieter this time. Intense. “You look different in the daylight.”
Sam raises an eyebrow. “That a good thing or a bad thing?”
“A dangerous thing,” Bucky answers. He reaches out and trails them down Sam’s chest. “Like I might start wanting more.”
Sam catches that hand, holds it against his sternum. His heart beats strong beneath their joined palms.
“You can want,” he says. “That’s not a sin.”
Bucky nods slowly, like the words take a minute to sink in. “I forgot what it’s like to be allowed to.”
They lie like that a while longer, tangled up in morning light and quiet ache. There’s no rush. No storm. Just warmth and breathing and slow, languid kisses, until eventually, Sam groans and sits up reluctantly.
“Okay, husband. We gotta get dressed before Sarah kicks down my door and finds you naked in my bed.”
Bucky cocks his head. “You fear her?”
“I respect her,” Sam says firmly. “And I fear her a little bit.”
Bucky watches him move, admiring the easy strength in Sam’s bare back, the long lines of his arms, the smoothness of his skin kissed by firelight and sunlight both. His own body is pale beside it, etched with old wars and newer need. But together, they don’t clash.
They fit.
When Sam looks over his shoulder and smirks, Bucky is already moving to follow. No armour, no shadow, just a man who’s learning how to stay.
The scent of coffee hits before Sam even steps into the kitchen - which is weird, because he hasn’t made any.
He rounds the corner in loose sweatpants and still damp from his shower, and finds Bucky standing at the stove, bare chested, hair tied back with a strip of linen, and very carefully burning a pan of eggs.
Sam stops dead in the doorway.
“...You’re cooking.”
Bucky looks over his shoulder. “You said ‘breakfast.’ I assumed it was part of the ritual.”
“Right. Because burnt eggs are the cornerstone of modern devotion.”
“I hunted a turkey,” Bucky adds helpfully. “It’s outside.”
Sam sucks in a deep breath and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Please don’t bring it in here.”
Before Bucky can reply, the front door creaks open and Sam tenses. “Aw, hell-”
“Morning,” Sarah calls. “Y’all decent?”
“No!”
But she’s already coming inside before he can stop her, eyebrows raised, keys jangling - and with his nephews AJ and Cass trailing behind her.
Cass beelines for the table. “What’s that smell?”
“Regret,” Sam mutters.
“Eggs,” Bucky replies proudly.
Sarah walks in and stops short at the sight of Bucky - shirtless, scarred, and radiant in the way a centuries old god just is, holding a spatula like a weapon of mass destruction. Her eyes narrow and Sam intercepts her with a wide, deeply fake smile.
“Hey, Sarah! Look at you, up so early.”
She pins him with a look. Her gaze flicks to Bucky, then to Sam, then back. He knows she’s recalling his laments about the ritual, it's unexpected results and his wishes for freedom. “Uh huh.”
AJ plops into a chair. “Did you guys sleep in the same bed?”
“Nope,” Sam lies but Bucky nods solemnly and if Sam didn’t know better, he would swear there was a glint in the old god’s eye.
“We shared body heat," Bucky says. "It was efficient.”
Sam closes his eyes. “Man…”
Sarah raises her eyebrows. “Efficient, huh?”
“Temperature regulation,” Bucky adds, as if that clears anything up. “I run warm.”
“I bet you do,” Sarah answers, deadpan. Sam sighs.
“Okay. Everybody out of the kitchen.”
“I heard turkey,” AJ yells. “I wanna see the turkey!”
Cass is already at the door. Sam puts a hand on Bucky’s chest and starts steering him toward the hallway.
“Shirt. Now,” Sam mutters. “I’m serious. I got my sister and her kids out there, and you’re out here burnin’ eggs like it’s ‘Iron Chef: Divine Intervention.’ I can’t have that.”
Bucky looks mildly confused. “I thought- Last night you said I was yours-”
Sam stares at him. “Yeah, but maybe don’t say that part in front of my nephews.”
Bucky nods with a furrowed brow then disappears without another word.
When Sam turns around, Sarah’s leaning against the counter. Her expression is unreadable. Her voice is quieter now, more thoughtful than teasing.
“So,” she says, “just to recap. Your ancient murder husband spent the night, made you breakfast, and now you’re acting like that’s a problem?”
Sam doesn’t answer. Because the truth is - it’s not. It’s not a problem. It’s terrifying.
AJ pops back inside. “THE TURKEY IS HUGE.”
Cass adds, “Can we keep it?”
Bucky reappears, dressed and shrugging. “It’s already dead.”
The kids shriek but mercifully drag Bucky outside with them. Sam flops into a chair. “I need a full do-over. Whole damn life. Start to finish.”
Sarah hums and pours him a cup of coffee and places it in front of him without comment. Then, after a long beat, she casually says, “You know… if you’re gonna be married, you might as well let him cook.”
“He burnt the eggs,” Sam grumbles but there's zero heat or complaint in it. He looks up and they peer out the window to where Bucky stands with his obsidian arm outstretched, two kids hanging from it and a dead turkey at his feet.
Sarah’s voice is soft. “He’s trying.”
“Yeah,” he says finally. His chest aches with an affection he's not sure he can contain. “I know.”
The sun dips low and it sets the sky ablaze in copper and fire.
The village is quiet now. The kids are down by the shore skipping stones and Sarah has gone home with a knowing smirk and a basket full of slightly charred turkey meat.
Sam leans against the doorframe of the house, arms crossed, watching Bucky tend to the fire pit. He’s crouched low, feeding the flames with too much focus, as if he doesn’t realize he’s being watched. His long hair is still half-tied back, loose strands curling against his cheeks, catching the light.
The shadows stretch long across the yard and it’s warm. Peaceful. But Sam’s heart is troubled.
He walks forward slowly. Bucky senses him, straightens, but doesn’t move away when Sam comes close.
“About earlier,” Sam starts.
Bucky glances at him. “The turkey?”
Sam huffs a small smile. “No. Breakfast. What you said.” Sam pauses. It’s been replaying in his mind all day, louder now without the distractions of his family or the township folk wandering in to say hello. It beats like a drum on the inside of his brain and in his heart and right down to his bones in a way he didn’t expect. He looks at Bucky, steady. “'You’re mine.'”
Bucky grows very still. “Did that upset you?”
Sam shakes his head, a half-smile tugging at his mouth. “Nah. That’s the thing - it didn’t.” He glances down, fingers absently rubbing at the hem of his shirt like he’s trying to hold onto something solid. “But it scared me anyway.”
Bucky rises to his full height, expression unreadable. “Because it’s true?”
“Because I wanted it to be,” Sam says quietly. “And I wasn’t ready to admit that.”
Bucky steps close, slow and careful. His presence still feels like standing at the edge of a storm sometimes. Not dangerous, just… vast.
“I am too,” Bucky admits, voice raw. “I don’t know how to do this. I know how to kill for someone. How to protect. But this…”
He gestures between them, not quite helpless, but searching. “I have never been a husband.”
Sam swallows thickly, taking in Bucky’s soft gaze and remembering the way they came together the night before – Bucky surrendering under him, giving up all the deepest parts of himself. “You’re doing okay so far.”
Bucky frowns. “You’re being kind.”
“I’m bein’ honest.”
They’re inches apart now, breath shared. Sam reaches out, fingers brushing Bucky’s chest just above his heart where the brand that matches his own glows faintly beneath the material of his thin shirt.
“This thing between us, it might have started with a mistake. A blood vow I didn’t mean to bind us with. But it’s not a mistake anymore, Buck.”
Bucky’s breath catches. “No?”
Sam shakes his head, lips shifting upwards. “No.”
“I didn’t ask for any of this,” Sam says. “Now I can’t imagine letting you go.”
“You won’t have to,” Bucky whispers. “Not in this lifetime.”
Sam cups Bucky’s face and the old god leans into it like it’s the only thing holding him together. It hits Sam with an aching wave of sorrow for what’s coming.
“Bucky,” he murmurs, and Bucky’s eyes drift closed in a slow blink like he’s memorizing the moment. Maybe he is. Maybe he’s cataloguing every beat of Sam’s heart, every breath he takes, because one day, he won’t have it anymore.
“Buck, I need you to understand something,” Sam starts, his voice soft but unflinching. “I’m human. I’m gonna grow old. I’m gonna change… and one day, I’ll die.”
Bucky closes his eyes again. Sam gives him a moment, too choked up himself imagining a time when Bucky might mourn him.
“I know,” Bucky eventually whispers.
Sam’s heart squeezes so tightly in his chest he almost can’t get the words out. “Then why stay?”
“Because it’s you,” Bucky says, opening his eyes. They shimmer, the fire in his eyes isn’t divine, it’s grief. Anticipated grief. The kind that buries itself deep because it already knows it’ll have to burn. “You called me. You offered your heart. And for the first time in all my years, someone offered me something without fear. Without control.”
He leans forward until their foreheads touch. “I was once changed, then worshiped. Feared. Then forgotten. But never... loved. Not like this.” His voice shakes. “I know it was not your intention when you summoned me in the ritual but... But I would still do it again. I would still bind myself to you a thousand times.”
Sam can barely breathe.
Bucky’s hand moves to Sam’s chest, over his heart. “Because a few years in your light is worth more than a thousand years in the dark.”
“Bucky…”
“I don’t want eternity if you’re not in it,” Bucky says, softer now. “But I’ll carry it. I’ve carried worse. I’ll carry you with me.”
Sam’s throat tightens. His fingers slide into Bucky’s hair, anchoring him there.
“I love you, Bucky, but I can’t promise forever,” Sam says, voice thick.
Bucky presses their foreheads tighter together. There’s a desperate fierceness in his grip like Sam is going to fade away and Bucky won’t allow it. “Then promise me now. I’ll take every breath you give me. Every heartbeat.”
Sam does. He pulls Bucky into a kiss that’s deeper than the night before, desperate but full of understanding, of weight. Full of the knowledge that even if this ends someday in grief... it was worth it.
When they part, Bucky still looks shaken. In awe. “You love me,” he says, like he’s still trying to believe it.
Sam smiles against his lips. “I do. I do, which means I’ve got your back. Always.”
The months that follow are golden.
Sam wakes to the smell of coffee, not burnt or scorched by divine mishandling, but actual coffee, because Bucky learned. He learned how to use the kettle, how to mix the right amount of sugar into Sam’s mug. How to kiss him good morning with slow hands and a smile that feels like sunrise.
The god of war now gardens. Gardens.
AJ caught him humming while weeding the tomato patch.
Cass told the village that Bucky is his favourite uncle, and no one even argues anymore.
Bucky is... happy.
And Sam, despite himself, lets the last pieces of fear slip away. They share meals, stories, quiet kisses by the fire. Bucky curls around him at night, protective but never possessive and always with that look like Sam’s the only thing anchoring him to the earth.
They build a life. A small one. A good one.
But there are nights in the silence, when Sam is asleep, when the wind stirs through the dark and the fire dies to embers, Bucky slips outside… and stares up at the sky.
There are still sacred places left. Still whispers in the stones. Still creatures older than him who remember what it means to give up.
And Bucky searches. He trades old knowledge for older pain, sacrifices pieces of himself: a blade forged in starlight, a bone from his first body, a dream he’s never spoken aloud. All to make room. To make a path. To become less.
To become his.
Because Sam will grow old, and Bucky knows he cannot bear to outlive him.
So he smiles. Brings home wildflowers, builds furniture with callused hands and every time Sam laughs, Bucky aches with love so fierce it nearly splits him open.
He counts days not in years, but in moments.
He learns how to live like a mortal… and quietly begins the slow, terrible work of becoming one.
Sam isn’t stupid. He notices the subtle changes. At first, it’s just that Bucky stays out a little later after the markets close, saying he’s helping reinforce the docks. Or that he gets up earlier, claiming he can’t sleep once the sun starts to rise.
Sam tells himself he believes him. Why wouldn’t he?
They’re still in sync. Still lovers, still partners, still tangled in each other every night with whispered words and heat and skin on skin. Bucky still wraps himself around Sam in the early hours like Sam’s breath steadies him.
But something has changed.
Sam starts to notice the way Bucky’s eyes drift sometimes, not out of boredom, but like he’s listening for something only he can hear, and when Sam finds him once, just before dawn, barefoot in the sand and speaking low into the air like a prayer, Bucky turns with a smile too calm, too carefully placed.
“Bad dream,” Bucky says, walking back. “Needed the ocean.”
Sam doesn’t push. Not yet. But he watches.
And he sees it. Bucky holds him tighter during the night, like Sam might slip through his fingers. He sees Bucky stare at their marriage mark one evening, tracing the glow beneath Sam’s skin as if memorizing the shape of it.
“You okay?” Sam asks, their legs tangled on the sofa as firelight licks up the walls.
Bucky looks up, eyes softer than they’ve ever been. “I am.”
Sam lifts an eyebrow. “You sure? You’ve been out of your head the last few nights.”
“I’m just thinking,” Bucky says.
“About?”
Bucky leans forward and kisses him. It’s deep. Lingering. It almost feels disturbingly final, but just as Sam is about to push him away to demand an answer, Bucky murmurs, “About how lucky I am.”
He pulls Sam in and kisses him like he’s starving then. It’s sudden, rough-edged, and urgent - not their usual quiet slide into each other, not the way they’ve built their nights around tenderness. This is Bucky trying to drown the question before it can surface again.
And, afraid of the answer, Sam lets it happen.
Because Bucky touches him like a man trying to memorize every inch. Like he’s burning the shape of Sam’s body into memory with every kiss, every roll of his hips, every low groan whispered against Sam’s throat.
They fall into bed with sheets tangled around their legs, gasping into each other’s mouths with sweat slicking their skin. Bucky presses Sam down like gravity, moving slow and deep, his obsidian hand braced beside Sam’s head, his other gripping Sam’s waist tight like he’s trying to fuse them together. Sam wraps his arms around Bucky’s back and moans when Bucky mouths at the curve of his neck. It’s desperate and almost reverent.
“Say you’re mine,” Bucky breathes, voice hoarse, teeth dragging over skin.
Sam does. Over and over. Hands in his hair, breath shattering, whispering “I’m yours, I’m yours, I’m yours.”
Sam knows what it is - deflection wrapped in devotion, and Sam, still dazed from the closeness, from the way Bucky made him feel like the centre of the universe, lets it slide - For now, because the next night is the same. Sam reaches out, and Bucky uses his body like a shield.
There’s nothing cold in the way Bucky loves him. If anything, he’s more attentive than ever. His kisses linger and his hands move slower. He’s almost tender to a fault, like Sam might fracture if he isn’t careful and he draws patterns on Sam’s skin after, like he’s writing something he’ll never say out loud.
The years pass, and time begins to show its teeth.
The changes come slowly- a little stiffness in Sam’s knees, longer exhale when he stands. That first gray hair at his temple that Sarah teases him about and Sam laughs and brushes off.
But Bucky… Bucky stares.
It hits him hard the first time Sam falls asleep in the chair by the hearth, reading glasses sliding down his nose, a book slipping from his lap. There’s a line at the corner of Sam’s mouth he hasn’t seen before. A deepening of time, not sorrow.
It’s beautiful. It’s natural.
And it terrifies him.
Because Bucky still looks the same. He still moves like water, still breathes without strain. Still wakes without ache - But Sam… Sam is aging.
Bucky kisses him that night like a man possessed. Touches him like he’s trying to brand the feel of him into memory. Sam lets him, chuckles softly and murmurs, “What’s gotten into you?”
Bucky doesn’t answer, because he can’t give it voice.
I saw time reach for you today, and I broke apart.
For the first time in decades, Bucky willingly goes back to war.
He picks up his search with a renewed energy. It starts with old magic - Books he hasn’t opened in centuries, contacts buried beneath the rubble of forgotten temples. Whispers passed through shadowed forests.
He learns the path. What it will cost.
But he says nothing, because Sam would invariably stop him. Would say it’s not worth it. Would take his hand and say “I don’t need you to change. I just need you to stay.”
And Bucky can’t bear to say “I will, until you’re gone.”
So he waits for a night that Sam sleeps deep, curled beside him in that slow, warm sprawl he only falls into when he feels completely safe, and Bucky kisses his forehead, folds his jacket at the foot of the bed.
And walks out into the dark.
The next morning, Sam wakes alone.
The sheets are cold beside him. The mark over his heart is quiet - too quiet, like a lullaby cut off mid-note.
He sits up slowly, dread spreading like ice in his gut.
The house is still and silent too. No kettle boiling on the stove, no steady weight of presence in the next room. No boots by the door. No war god glancing over his shoulder, pretending not to hover.
Just… silence.
Sam throws on whatever is closest and stumbles outside, bare feet hitting the dew-wet earth as he heads for the altar. His heart pounds, his knees ache and his breathe doesn’t come as easily in his lungs. He tells himself maybe it’s nothing. Maybe Bucky has just gone hunting. Maybe he needed air. Space. A moment.
But Sam knows. He somewhere deep in his bones… he knows.
The shattered altar stands waiting, quiet and ancient as ever, half-shrouded in mist. The townsfolk never bothered to rebuild it. Why bother, when their god walked among them. Sam stares at it like it might answer him now, like it might spit his husband back out if he just said the right thing.
But when he finally speaks into the early morning light, it isn’t a prayer. It’s a demand.
“You don’t get to do this.” His voice echoes across the clearing, ragged and rough. “You don’t get to leave without a word. Without… without me.”
His wrinkled hands shake as they curl into fists at his sides.
“I didn’t ask for you, but I chose you. And you said that mattered. You said we were bound. You said you’d stay.”
The air doesn’t stir. No god answers. No mark flares to life.
It’s just silence, and something in that silence breaks him.
The weight of it all crashes in at once, sharp and suffocating. It’s the not-knowing, the ache of abandonment. The sting of trust, handed over carefully only to be met with absence. Sam drops to his knees in front of the altar, his breath hitching painfully as fury gives way to something worse.
Something hollow.
“I didn’t summon you for this. I didn’t choose you just to be left behind.”
He swallows hard, blinking fast.
“And yeah, maybe I wasn’t ready at first. Maybe I was scared. But I was here. I stayed and you promised.” He stares at the altar like it might crack under the weight of everything he’s holding.
“So where the hell are you, Bucky?”
The days after Bucky leaves bleed into one another.
Sam doesn’t remember what he eats. He doesn’t remember sleeping. Just the hollow ache in his chest, the quiet pain of routine without rhythm. The way his hand still reaches to pour two mugs of coffee before he remembers… He is alone.
And it festers.
Because if Bucky needed space, he could have said so. If something was wrong, Sam would have fixed it. That’s what you do when you love someone - you fight for them. You don’t vanish without a damn word.
So one night, when the stars are high and sharp overhead, Sam straps on boots and walks. The air is cold, a coastal wind thick with salt and distance.
He climbs the worn path up the hill where the altar sit, a ring of stone and shadow where all of this began. The wind rustles the grasses, but everything else is still. Waiting. Still empty.
Sam stops before the ancient slab, breath visible in the night air. The place feels... hollow. Dead quiet, like it knows its god is gone. Sam stares at the altar, heart pounding.
“It’s been weeks now, and I’m not here to beg,” he says, voice low, steady. The kind of calm he only gets when everything inside is breaking. He steps forward to place a hand flat on the cool stone. He closes his eyes for a moment, trying to fight through the aching in his throat. “I don’t know if you can still hear me, or if you’re even you anymore, wherever the hell you went. But I’m talkin’ anyway.”
The stars don’t answer. The altar doesn’t hum.
“Because I can’t keep pretending this is okay. I’m mad as hell, Buck. You left me. You left—and not just me. The kids. The garden. The damn chickens.”
His throat tightens further but he pushes through it.
“I know you think whatever this is between us - it’s not enough. Maybe you still think I deserve better. Maybe you’re out there trying to fix something no one asked you to fix. But we were happy. And you took that away from us.”
He presses both palms to the altar now and closes his eyes.
“I don’t need forever,” Sam whispers. “I just need you.”
The wind kicks up, dry and sharp and Sam’s voice rises, cracking open.
“So if you can hear me - if any part of you remembers this place, remembers me – then come back. Not as a god. Not as some immortal martyr trying to rewrite fate. Just... come back and be my husband. Come home-”
His fingers curl against the stone and he waits.
And waits.
But the sky remains silent and the altar remains cold.
Eventually, Sam drops his head and lets out a shaking breath. His chest heaves once, twice - but no tears fall. He’s past that. He’s emptied out.
He sinks to the ground and stays there a long time, forehead resting on the stone, alone with only an echo of what was.
It happens at dusk.
The sky is heavy with rain that won’t fall and thick clouds draped over the horizon like old cloth. Sam stands on the porch, one hand curled around a mug that had gone cold hours ago.
It’s been weeks. Weeks since his last useless plea at the altar. Weeks since the ache sharpened into something quieter, lonelier. Weeks since Sam stopped hoping for footsteps on the path.
The house has settled into its absence.
The bed stays cold on one side. The tools stay untouched. The wildflowers Bucky used to pick have withered in the jar on the table, stems dry and curling in on themselves.
And Sam just feels old and tired.
So when he sees the figure at the edge of the tree line, he thinks he’s dreaming. It’s just a shape at first. Broad-shouldered and moving slowly. Limping and head down, but the moment Sam straightens, the moment he squints through the dying light and sees him-
The mug drops.
He’s off the porch and running with old knees before he even realizes it.
“BUCKY!”
The figure looks up.
And it’s him.
Not the god. Not the glowing-eyed protector. Just Bucky, with a new scar over one eye, silver in his long hair and a void where his obsidian arm once existed. There’s a hoarseness in his voice that wasn’t there before.
Sam sees it immediately and it cuts through all the lingering anger and fear and relief that boiled inside him. He touches Bucky’s face like he’s afraid it’ll vanish. “You look…”
“Older?” Bucky croaks, a tired smile tugging at his mouth.
“Human,” Sam croaks out.
Bucky nods.
“I couldn’t do it,” he says, and his voice cracks on the edges. He begs Sam for forgiveness with his imploring gaze. “I couldn’t watch you fade while I stayed frozen.”
Sam’s jaw tightens, hurt flashing across his face like a storm he doesn’t have the strength to hold back. “You should’ve told me. We were supposed to be a team, Buck.”
“You would have stopped me.”
“Damn right I would’ve,” Sam snaps, voice cracking. “Not because I didn’t want you to do it. Because I wanted to choose it with you.”
Bucky takes his hand and presses it to his chest. His heartbeat is slow and steady but-
“Mortal,” he says quietly, like a confession. “Messy. Breakable.”
Sam’s expression softens, but only just. His throat works around the lump rising there. His fingers grip at Bucky’s tattered shirt. “Mine.”
He pulls Bucky in, gripping the back of his neck like an anchor, and kisses him.
Time does not spare them.
Sam’s hair goes silver, then soft white. His laugh lines deepen. His pace slows. Some mornings take longer now, and his knees crack when he sits down too fast. He grumbles about it, but never for long, not with Bucky there to chuckle and smile with him.
And Bucky… He changes too.
Not all at once. The magic that made him godly has been scraped out slowly, painfully, like peeling bark from a tree. But it's gone. His strength doesn’t stretch as far anymore and his bones ache in the cold. His back stiffens if he doesn’t sleep right.
He loves it.
Every sore muscle, every slow morning. Every new crease in Sam’s skin matched by one of his own – it’s all proof they’re walking the same path now.
The grandkids visit in the summers - Sarah’s line, not theirs, but they never cared much about blood.
They teach the kids how to fish. How to cook. How to laugh.
And every night, they lie in the same bed, just two old men with scarred hands and a thousand shared memories between them. Sam with creases beside his eyes from years of sun and smiling. Bucky with a freckle Sam swears wasn’t there before, but loves like it belongs to him.
One night, deep into their quiet forever, Sam wakes just before dawn. The light is soft and warm, golden where it slips across the sheets. Bucky is already awake, lying beside him and watching the sunlight move across Sam’s face.
“You’re staring,” Sam grumbles.
“You’ve got a dimple on your left cheek I never noticed before.”
Sam huffs a rough laugh. “You’ve had sixty years to notice it, Buck.”
Bucky hums, reaching for him. “Still finding new things every day.”
Sam opens his eyes, slow. They’re older now, a little cloudier, but they’re still sharp, still his. “You regret it?” he asks after a long beat. “Becoming human again?”
Bucky doesn’t answer immediately. He takes Sam’s hand, brings it to his lips and presses a kiss to his knuckles.
“Not once,” he says honestly. “Sam, you gave me a life.”
Sam smiles, tired but content as he leans against Bucky. “We gave each other one.”
One winter evening, Sam falls asleep in the chair by the fire.
His glasses sit askew on his face and an open book lies against his chest. His mouth is parted just slightly in sleep, and his brow is furrowed like he’s still halfway through a conversation.
Bucky watches him for a long time, just thinking.
He’s thinner now. Slower, but still so bright and full of warmth, still everything Bucky gave up forever for.
Bucky pads over and kneels beside the chair. He gently removes the book and lifts Sam’s glasses away from his face then presses a kiss to his temple.
“Still here,” he whispers. “Still mine.”
Sam stirs, blinks awake. He sees Bucky and smiles in spite of himself.
“You were always too damn good at sneaking up on me,” he rasps.
“You never minded.”
“Still don’t.”
He lifts a weathered hand and rests it against Bucky’s cheek.
There are tears in Bucky’s eyes before he realizes they’re there.
“I thought I’d be afraid,” he says softly. “Of the end. Of this.”
Sam’s brow creases. “You’re not?”
Bucky shakes his head. “I’m not afraid of the end,” he says. “I’m just afraid of wasting any more time.”
Sam tugs him in, and they rest like that, forehead to forehead, the fire crackling beside them.
Two men, scarred and softened, grown old not because they were cursed or divine or chosen, but because they chose each other, and when the fire burns low, and in their bed when sleep pulls them down again, they fall easily.
Together, exactly as they promised.